It was not the man’s brain that wasspeaking, it was his larynx. The stuff that was coming out of himconsisted of words, but it was not speech in the true sense: it was a noise uttered in unconsciousness, like the quacking of a duck.Syme had fallen silent for a moment, and with the handle ofhis spoon was tracing patterns in the puddle of stew. The voicefrom the other table quacked rapidly on, easily audible in spite ofthe surrounding din.‘There is a word in Newspeak,’ said Syme, ‘I don’t knowwhether you know it: DUCKSPEAK, to quack like a duck. It is oneof those interesting words that have two contradictory meanings.Applied to an opponent, it is abuse, applied to someone you agreewith, it is praise.’Unquestionably Syme will be vaporized, Winston thoughtagain. He thought it with a kind of sadness, although well knowingthat Syme despised him and slightly disliked him, and was fullycapable of denouncing him as a thought-criminal if he saw anyreason for doing so. There was something subtly wrong with Syme.There was something that he lacked: discretion, aloofness, a sort ofsaving stupidity. You could not say that he was unorthodox. Hebelieved in the principles of Ingsoc, he venerated Big Brother, herejoiced over victories, he hated heretics, not merely with sinceritybut with a sort of restless zeal, an up-to-dateness of information,which the ordinary Party member did not approach. Yet a faint airof disreputability always clung to him. He said things that wouldhave been better unsaid, he had read too many books, hefrequented the Chestnut Tree Cafe, haunt of painters andmusicians. There was no law, not even an unwritten law, againstfrequenting the Chestnut Tree Cafe, yet the place was somehow illomened. The old, discredited leaders of the Party had been used togather there before they were finally purged. Goldstein himself, itwas said, had sometimes been seen there, years and decades ago.Syme’s fate was not difficult to foresee. And yet it was a fact that if Syme grasped, even for three seconds, the nature of his, Winston’s,secret opinions, he would betray him instantly to the ThoughtPolice. So would anybody else, for that matter: but Syme more thanmost. Zeal was not enough. Orthodoxy was unconsciousness.Syme looked up. ‘Here comes Parsons,’ he said.Something in the tone of his voice seemed to add, ‘that bloodyfool’. Parsons, Winston’s fellow-tenant at Victory Mansions, was infact threading his way across the room — a tubby, middle-sizedman with fair hair and a froglike face. At thirty-five he was alreadyputting on rolls of fat at neck and waistline, but his movementswere brisk and boyish. His whole appearance was that of a littleboy grown large, so much so that although he was wearing theregulation overalls, it was almost impossible not to think of him asbeing dressed in the blue shorts, grey shirt, and red neckerchief ofthe Spies. In visualizing him one saw always a picture of dimpledknees and sleeves rolled back from pudgy forearms. Parsons did,indeed, invariably revert to shorts when a community hike or anyother physical activity gave him an excuse for doing so. He greetedthem both with a cheery ‘Hullo, hullo!’ and sat down at the table,giving off an intense smell of sweat. Beads of moisture stood outall over his pink face. His powers of sweating were extraordinary.At the Community Centre you could always tell when he had beenplaying table-tennis by the dampness of the bat handle. Syme hadproduced a strip of paper on which there was a long column ofwords, and was studying it with an ink-pencil between his fingers.‘Look at him working away in the lunch hour,’ said Parsons,nudging Winston. ‘Keenness, eh? What’s that you’ve got there, oldboy? Something a bit too brainy for me, I expect. Smith, old boy, I’lltell you why I’m chasing you. It’s that sub you forgot to give me.’‘Which sub is that?’ said Winston, automatically feeling for money. About a quarter of one’s salary had to be earmarked forvoluntary subscriptions, which were so numerous that it wasdifficult to keep track of them.‘For Hate Week. You know — the house-by-house fund. I’mtreasurer for our block. We’re making an all-out effort — going toput on a tremendous show. I tell you, it won’t be my fault if oldVictory Mansions doesn’t have the biggest outfit of flags in thewhole street. Two dollars you promised me.’Winston found and handed over two creased and filthy notes,which Parsons entered in a small notebook, in the neathandwriting of the illiterate.‘By the way, old boy,’ he said. ‘I hear that little beggar of minelet fly at you with his catapult yesterday. I gave him a gooddressing-down for it. In fact I told him I’d take the catapult away ifhe does it again.’‘I think he was a little upset at not going to the execution,’ saidWinston.‘Ah, well — what I mean to say, shows the right spirit, doesn’tit? Mischievous little beggars they are, both of them, but talk aboutkeenness! All they think about is the Spies, and the war, of course.D’you know what that little girl of mine did last Saturday, when hertroop was on a hike out Berkhamsted way? She got two other girlsto go with her, slipped off from the hike, and spent the wholeafternoon following a strange man. They kept on his tail for twohours, right through the woods, and then, when they got intoAmersham, handed him over to the patrols.’‘What did they do that for?’ said Winston, somewhat takenaback. Parsons went on triumphantly:‘My kid made sure he was some kind of enemy agent — mighthave been dropped by parachute, for instance. But here’s the point, old boy. What do you think put her on to him in the first place? Shespotted he was wearing a funny kind of shoes — said she’d neverseen anyone wearing shoes like that before. So the chances were hewas a foreigner. Pretty smart for a nipper of seven, eh?’‘What happened to the man?’ said Winston.‘Ah, that I couldn’t say, of course. But I wouldn’t be altogethersurprised if ——’ Parsons made the motion of aiming a rifle, andclicked his tongue for the explosion.‘Good,’ said Syme abstractedly, without looking up from hisstrip of paper.‘Of course we can’t afford to take chances,’ agreed Winstondutifully.‘What I mean to say, there is a war on,’ said Parsons.As though in confirmation of this, a trumpet call floated fromthe telescreen just above their heads. However, it was not theproclamation of a military victory this time, but merely anannouncement from the Ministry of Plenty.‘Comrades!’ cried an eager youthful voice. ‘Attention,comrades! We have glorious news for you. We have won the battlefor production! Returns now completed of the output of all classesof consumption goods show that the standard of living has risen byno less than 20 per cent over the past year. All over Oceania thismorning there were irrepressible spontaneous demonstrationswhen workers marched out of factories and offices and paradedthrough the streets with banners voicing their gratitude to BigBrother for the new, happy life which his wise leadership hasbestowed upon us. Here are some of the completed figures.Foodstuffs ——’The phrase ‘our new, happy life’ recurred several times. It had been a favourite of late with the Ministry of Plenty. Parsons, hisattention caught by the trumpet call, sat listening with a sort ofgaping solemnity, a sort of edified boredom. He could not followthe figures, but he was aware that they were in some way a causefor satisfaction. He had lugged out a huge and filthy pipe whichwas already half full of charred tobacco. With the tobacco ration at100 grammes a week it was seldom possible to fill a pipe to the top.Winston was smoking a Victory Cigarette which he held carefullyhorizontal. The new ration did not start till tomorrow and he hadonly four cigarettes left. For the moment he had shut his ears tothe remoter noises and was listening to the stuff that streamed outof the telescreen. It appeared that there had even beendemonstrations to thank Big Brother for raising the chocolateration to twenty grammes a week. And only yesterday, he reflected,it had been announced that the ration was to be REDUCED totwenty grammes a week. Was it possible that they could swallowthat, after only twenty-four hours? Yes, they swallowed it. Parsonsswallowed it easily, with the stupidity of an animal. The eyelesscreature at the other table swallowed it fanatically, passionately,with a furious desire to track down, denounce, and vaporize anyonewho should suggest that last week the ration had been thirtygrammes. Syme, too — in some more complex way, involvingdoublethink, Syme swallowed it. Was he, then, ALONE in thepossession of a memory?The fabulous statistics continued to pour out of the telescreen.As compared with last year there was more food, more clothes,more houses, more furniture, more cooking-pots, more fuel, moreships, more helicopters, more books, more babies — more ofeverything except disease, crime, and insanity. Year by year andminute by minute, everybody and everything was whizzing rapidly upwards. As Syme had done earlier Winston had taken up hisspoon and was dabbling in the pale-coloured gravy that dribbledacross the table, drawing a long streak of it out into a pattern. Hemeditated resentfully on the physical texture of life. Had it alwaysbeen like this? Had food always tasted like this? He looked roundthe canteen. A low-ceilinged, crowded room, its walls grimy fromthe contact of innumerable bodies; battered metal tables andchairs, placed so close together that you sat with elbows touching;bent spoons, dented trays, coarse white mugs; all surfaces greasy,grime in every crack; and a sourish, composite smell of bad gin andbad coffee and metallic stew and dirty clothes. Always in yourstomach and in your skin there was a sort of protest, a feeling thatyou had been cheated of something that you had a right to. It wastrue that he had no memories of anything greatly different. In anytime that he could accurately remember, there had never beenquite enough to eat, one had never had socks or underclothes thatwere not full of holes, furniture had always been battered andrickety, rooms underheated, tube trains crowded, houses falling topieces, bread dark-coloured, tea a rarity, coffee filthy-tasting,cigarettes insufficient — nothing cheap and plentiful exceptsynthetic gin. And though, of course, it grew worse as one’s bodyaged, was it not a sign that this was NOT the natural order ofthings, if one’s heart sickened at the discomfort and dirt andscarcity, the interminable winters, the stickiness of one’s socks, thelifts that never worked, the cold water, the gritty soap, thecigarettes that came to pieces, the food with its strange evil tastes?Why should one feel it to be intolerable unless one had some kindof ancestral memory that things had once been different?He looked round the canteen again. Nearly everyone was ugly,and would still have been ugly even if dressed otherwise than in the uniform blue overalls. On the far side of the room, sitting at atable alone, a small, curiously beetle-like man was drinking a cupof coffee, his little eyes darting suspicious glances from side toside. How easy it was, thought Winston, if you did not look aboutyou, to believe that the physical type set up by the Party as an ideal— tall muscular youths and deep-bosomed maidens, blond-haired,vital, sunburnt, carefree — existed and even predominated.Actually, so far as he could judge, the majority of people in AirstripOne were small, dark, and ill-favoured. It was curious how thatbeetle-like type proliferated in the Ministries: little dumpy men,growing stout very early in life, with short legs, swift scuttlingmovements, and fat inscrutable faces with very small eyes. It wasthe type that seemed to flourish best under the dominion of theParty.The announcement from the Ministry of Plenty ended onanother trumpet call and gave way to tinny music. Parsons, stirredto vague enthusiasm by the bombardment of figures, took his pipeout of his mouth.‘The Ministry of Plenty’s certainly done a good job this year,’he said with a knowing shake of his head. ‘By the way, Smith oldboy, I suppose you haven’t got any razor blades you can let mehave?’‘Not one,’ said Winston. ‘I’ve been using the same blade for sixweeks myself.’‘Ah, well — just thought I’d ask you, old boy.’‘Sorry,’ said Winston.The quacking voice from the next table, temporarily silencedduring the Ministry’s announcement, had started up again, as loudas ever. For some reason Winston suddenly found himself thinkingof Mrs Parsons, with her wispy hair and the dust in the creases of her face. Within two years those children would be denouncing herto the Thought Police. Mrs Parsons would be vaporized. Symewould be vaporized. Winston would be vaporized. O’Brien would bevaporized. Parsons, on the other hand, would never be vaporized.The eyeless creature with the quacking voice would never bevaporized. The little beetle-like men who scuttle so nimbly throughthe labyrinthine corridors of Ministries they, too, would never bevaporized. And the girl with dark hair, the girl from the FictionDepartment — she would never be vaporized either. It seemed tohim that he knew instinctively who would survive and who wouldperish: though just what it was that made for survival, it was noteasy to say.At this moment he was dragged out of his reverie with aviolent jerk. The girl at the next table had turned partly round andwas looking at him. It was the girl with dark hair. She was lookingat him in a sidelong way, but with curious intensity. The instantshe caught his eye she looked away again.The sweat started out on Winston’s backbone. A horrible pangof terror went through him. It was gone almost at once, but it left asort of nagging uneasiness behind. Why was she watching him?Why did she keep following him about? Unfortunately he could notremember whether she had already been at the table when hearrived, or had come there afterwards. But yesterday, at any rate,during the Two Minutes Hate, she had sat immediately behind himwhen there was no apparent need to do so. Quite likely her realobject had been to listen to him and make sure whether he wasshouting loudly enough.His earlier thought returned to him: probably she was notactually a member of the Thought Police, but then it was preciselythe amateur spy who was the greatest danger of all. He did not know how long she had been looking at him, but perhaps for asmuch as five minutes, and it was possible that his features had notbeen perfectly under control. It was terribly dangerous to let yourthoughts wander when you were in any public place or withinrange of a telescreen. The smallest thing could give you away. Anervous tic, an unconscious look of anxiety, a habit of muttering toyourself — anything that carried with it the suggestion ofabnormality, of having something to hide. In any case, to wear animproper expression on your face (to look incredulous when avictory was announced, for example) was itself a punishableoffence. There was even a word for it in Newspeak: FACECRIME, itwas called.The girl had turned her back on him again. Perhaps after allshe was not really following him about, perhaps it was coincidencethat she had sat so close to him two days running. His cigarette hadgone out, and he laid it carefully on the edge of the table. He wouldfinish smoking it after work, if he could keep the tobacco in it.Quite likely the person at the next table was a spy of the ThoughtPolice, and quite likely he would be in the cellars of the Ministry ofLove within three days, but a cigarette end must not be wasted.Syme had folded up his strip of paper and stowed it away in hispocket. Parsons had begun talking again.‘Did I ever tell you, old boy,’ he said, chuckling round the stemof his pipe, ‘about the time when those two nippers of mine set fireto the old market-woman’s skirt because they saw her wrapping upsausages in a poster of B.B.? Sneaked up behind her and set fire toit with a box of matches. Burned her quite badly, I believe. Littlebeggars, eh? But keen as mustard! That’s a first-rate training theygive them in the Spies nowadays — better than in my day, even.What d’you think’s the latest thing they’ve served them out with? Ear trumpets for listening through keyholes! My little girl broughtone home the other night — tried it out on our sitting-room door,and reckoned she could hear twice as much as with her ear to thehole. Of course it’s only a toy, mind you. Still, gives ’em the rightidea, eh?’At this moment the telescreen let out a piercing whistle. It wasthe signal to return to work. All three men sprang to their feet tojoin in the struggle round the lifts, and the remaining tobacco fellout of Winston’s cigarette.