# Part 3 Chapter 4 - George Orwell - Nineteen Eighty-Four

An episode of [George Orwell - 1984](https://invisiblenetwork.ai/podcast/1795219843), 8 Feb 2025, 16 min.

Audio: https://dts.podtrac.com/redirect.mp3/api.spreaker.com/download/episode/64271020/part_3_chapter_4_george_orwell_nineteen_eighty_four.mp3



## Transcript

[0:00] Speaker 1: Section twenty two of nineteen eighty four by George Orwell.
[0:04] Speaker 1: This legamous recording may be freely distributed and adapted for
[0:08] Speaker 1: any purpose. Part three, Chapter four. He was much better.
[0:16] Speaker 1: He was growing fatter and stronger every day, if it
[0:18] Speaker 1: was proper to speak of days. The white light and
[0:22] Speaker 1: the humming sound were the same as ever, but the
[0:24] Speaker 1: cell was a little more comfortable than the others he
[0:26] Speaker 1: had been in. There was a pillow and a mattress
[0:29] Speaker 1: on the plank bed, and a stool to sit on.
[0:32] Speaker 1: They had given him a bath, and they allowed him
[0:34] Speaker 1: to wash himself fairly frequently in a tin basin. They
[0:37] Speaker 1: even gave him warm water to wash with. They had
[0:40] Speaker 1: given him new underclothes and a clean suit of overalls.
[0:43] Speaker 1: They had dressed his varicus ulsa with soothing ointment. They
[0:46] Speaker 1: had pulled out the remnants of his teeth and given
[0:48] Speaker 1: him a new set of dentures. Weeks or months must
[0:52] Speaker 1: have passed. It would have been possible now to keep
[0:55] Speaker 1: count of the passage of time, if he had felt
[0:58] Speaker 1: any interest in doing so. Since he was being fed
[1:00] Speaker 1: at what appeared to be regular intervals, he was getting
[1:04] Speaker 1: he judged three meals in the twenty four hours. Sometimes
[1:07] Speaker 1: he wondered dimly whether he was getting them by night
[1:10] Speaker 1: or by day. The food was surprisingly good, with meat
[1:13] Speaker 1: at every third meal. Once there was even a packet
[1:16] Speaker 1: of cigarettes. He had no matches, but the never speaking
[1:20] Speaker 1: guard who brought his food would give him a light.
[1:23] Speaker 1: The first time he tried to smoke, it made him sick,
[1:25] Speaker 1: but he persevered and spun the packet out for a
[1:28] Speaker 1: long time, smoking half a cigarette after each meal. They
[1:33] Speaker 1: had given him a white slate with a stump of
[1:35] Speaker 1: pencil tied to the corner. At first, he made no
[1:38] Speaker 1: use of it. Even when he was awake, he was
[1:40] Speaker 1: completely torpid. Often he would lie from one meal to
[1:44] Speaker 1: the next, almost without stirring, sometimes asleep, sometimes waking into
[1:48] Speaker 1: vague reveries in which it was too much trouble to
[1:50] Speaker 1: open his eyes. He had long grown used to sleeping
[1:53] Speaker 1: with a strong light on his face. It seemed to
[1:56] Speaker 1: make no difference, except that one's dreams were more coherent
[2:00] Speaker 1: a great deal all through this time, and there were
[2:02] Speaker 1: always happy dreams. He was in the golden country, or
[2:06] Speaker 1: he was sitting among enormous, glorious sunlit ruins with his mother,
[2:09] Speaker 1: with Julia, with O'Brien, not doing anything, merely sitting in
[2:13] Speaker 1: the sun talking of peaceful things. Such thoughts as he
[2:17] Speaker 1: had when he was awake, were mostly about his dreams.
[2:20] Speaker 1: He seemed to have lost the power of intellectual effort.
[2:23] Speaker 1: Now that the stimulus of pain had been removed, he
[2:26] Speaker 1: was not bored. He had no desire for conversation or distraction.
[2:30] Speaker 1: Merely to be alone, not to be beaten or questioned.
[2:33] Speaker 1: To have enough to eat, and to be clean all
[2:35] Speaker 1: over was completely satisfying. By degrees, he came to spend
[2:40] Speaker 1: less time in sleep, but he still felt no impulse
[2:43] Speaker 1: to get off the bed. All he cared for was
[2:45] Speaker 1: to lie quiet and feel the strength gathering in his body.
[2:49] Speaker 1: He would finger himself here and there, trying to make
[2:52] Speaker 1: sure that it was not an illusion that his muscles
[2:54] Speaker 1: were growing round her and his skin torter. Finally, it
[2:58] Speaker 1: was established beyond a doubt that he was growing owing fatter.
[3:01] Speaker 1: His thighs were now definitely thicker than his knees. After that,
[3:05] Speaker 1: reluctantly at first, he began exercising himself regularly. In a
[3:09] Speaker 1: little while, he could walk three kilometers measured by pacing
[3:12] Speaker 1: the cell, and his bowed shoulders were growing straighter. He
[3:16] Speaker 1: attempted more elaborate exercises, and was astonished and humiliated to
[3:20] Speaker 1: find what things he could not do. He could not
[3:23] Speaker 1: move out of a walk, He could not hold his
[3:25] Speaker 1: stool out at arm's length. He could not stand on
[3:28] Speaker 1: one leg without falling over. He squatted down on his
[3:31] Speaker 1: heels and found that, with agonizing pains in thigh and calf,
[3:34] Speaker 1: he could just lift himself to a standing position. He
[3:38] Speaker 1: lay flat on his belly and tried to lift his
[3:40] Speaker 1: weight by his hands. It was hopeless. He could not
[3:43] Speaker 1: raise himself a centimeter. But after a few more days,
[3:46] Speaker 1: a few more meal times, even that feat was accomplished.
[3:50] Speaker 1: A time came when he could do it six times running.
[3:53] Speaker 1: He began to grow actually proud of his body, and
[3:56] Speaker 1: to cherish an intermittent belief that his face also was
[3:58] Speaker 1: growing back to all. Only when he chanced to put
[4:02] Speaker 1: his hand on his bald scalp did he remember the
[4:04] Speaker 1: seemed ruined face that had looked back at him out
[4:06] Speaker 1: of the mirror. His mind grew more active. He sat
[4:11] Speaker 1: down on the plank, bed his back against the wall
[4:14] Speaker 1: and the slate on his knees, and set to work.
[4:16] Speaker 1: Deliberately at the task of re educating himself. He had
[4:21] Speaker 1: capitulated that was agreed in reality. As he saw now,
[4:25] Speaker 1: he had been ready to capitulate long before. He had
[4:28] Speaker 1: taken the decision, from the moment when he was inside
[4:31] Speaker 1: the Ministry of Love and Yes, even during those minutes
[4:34] Speaker 1: when he and Julia had stood helpless while the iron
[4:37] Speaker 1: voice from the telescreen told them what to do, he
[4:40] Speaker 1: had grasped the frivolity, the shallowness of his attempt to
[4:43] Speaker 1: set himself up against the power of the Party. He
[4:46] Speaker 1: knew now that for seven years the thought police had
[4:49] Speaker 1: watched him like a beetle under a magnifying glass. There
[4:52] Speaker 1: was no physical act, no words spoken aloud that they
[4:55] Speaker 1: had not noticed, no train of thought that they had
[4:58] Speaker 1: not been able to infer, even the speck of whitish
[5:02] Speaker 1: dust on the cover of his diary they had carefully replaced.
[5:05] Speaker 1: They had played sound tracks to him, showed him photographs.
[5:09] Speaker 1: Some of them were photographs of Julia and himself. Yes,
[5:12] Speaker 1: even he could not fight against the party any longer. Besides,
[5:17] Speaker 1: the Party was in the right, It must be so.
[5:20] Speaker 1: How could the immortal collective brain be mistaken by what
[5:24] Speaker 1: external standard. Could you check its judgments? Sanity was statistical.
[5:28] Speaker 1: It was merely a question of learning to think as
[5:30] Speaker 1: they thought. Only the pencil felt thick and awkward in
[5:36] Speaker 1: his fingers. He began to write down the thoughts that
[5:39] Speaker 1: came into his head. He wrote, first, in large, clumsy capitals,
[5:44] Speaker 1: freedom is slavery. Then, almost without a pause, he wrote,
[5:48] Speaker 1: beneath it two and two make five. But then there
[5:53] Speaker 1: came a sort of check his mind, as though shying
[5:55] Speaker 1: away from something seemed unable to concentrate. He knew that
[5:59] Speaker 1: he knew what came now, but for the moment he
[6:01] Speaker 1: could not recall it. When he did recall it, it
[6:03] Speaker 1: was only by consciously reasoning out what it must be.
[6:07] Speaker 1: It did not come of its own accord. He wrote,
[6:10] Speaker 1: God is power. He accepted everything. The past was alterable.
[6:15] Speaker 1: The past never had been altered. Oceania was at war
[6:18] Speaker 1: with East Asia. Oceania had always been at war with Eastasia. Jones, Ernson,
[6:24] Speaker 1: and Rutherford were guilty of the crimes they were charged with.
[6:27] Speaker 1: He had never seen the photograph that disproved their guilt.
[6:30] Speaker 1: It had never existed. He had invented it. He remembered
[6:34] Speaker 1: remembering contrary things, but those were false memories, products of
[6:38] Speaker 1: self deception. How easy it all was, only surrender and
[6:43] Speaker 1: everything else followed. It was like swimming against a current
[6:46] Speaker 1: that swept you backwards, however hard you struggled, and then
[6:48] Speaker 1: suddenly deciding to turn round and go with the current
[6:51] Speaker 1: instead of opposing it. Nothing had changed except your own attitude.
[6:56] Speaker 1: The predestined thing happened in any case. He hardly knew
[6:59] Speaker 1: why he had ever rebelled. Everything was easy, except anything
[7:05] Speaker 1: could be true. The so called laws of nature were nonsense.
[7:09] Speaker 1: The law of gravity was nonsense. If I wished O'Brien
[7:12] Speaker 1: had said, I could float off this floor like a
[7:14] Speaker 1: soap bubble. Winston worked it out. If he thinks he
[7:18] Speaker 1: floats off the floor, and if I simultaneously think I
[7:21] Speaker 1: see him do it, then the thing happens suddenly, like
[7:24] Speaker 1: a lump of submerged wreckage breaking the surface of water.
[7:27] Speaker 1: The thought burst into his mind. It doesn't really happen,
[7:31] Speaker 1: we imagine it. It is hallucination. He pushed the thought
[7:35] Speaker 1: under instantly. The fallacy was obvious. It presupposed that somewhere
[7:39] Speaker 1: or other, outside oneself, there was a real world where
[7:42] Speaker 1: real things happened. But how could there be such a world.
[7:46] Speaker 1: What knowledge have we of anything save through our own minds.
[7:49] Speaker 1: All happenings are in the mind. Whatever happens in all
[7:52] Speaker 1: minds truly happens. He had no difficulty in disposing of
[7:57] Speaker 1: the fallacy, and he was in no danger of succumbing
[8:00] Speaker 1: to it. He realized, nevertheless, that it ought never to
[8:03] Speaker 1: have occurred to him. The mind should develop a blind
[8:06] Speaker 1: spot whenever a dangerous thought presented itself. The process should
[8:10] Speaker 1: be automatic, instinctive. Crime stop, they called it in news speak.
[8:16] Speaker 1: He set to work to exercise himself in crime stop.
[8:20] Speaker 1: He presented himself with propositions the party says the earth
[8:23] Speaker 1: is flat, the party says that ice is heavier than water,
[8:26] Speaker 1: and trained himself in not seeing or not understanding the
[8:29] Speaker 1: arguments that contradicted them. It was not easy. It needed
[8:34] Speaker 1: great powers of reasoning and improvisation. The arithmetical problems raised,
[8:38] Speaker 1: for instance, by such a statement as two and two
[8:41] Speaker 1: make five were beyond his intellectual grasp. It needed also
[8:45] Speaker 1: a sort of athleticism of mind, an ability at one
[8:48] Speaker 1: moment to make the most delicate use of logic, and
[8:51] Speaker 1: at the next to be unconscious of the crudest logical errors.
[8:55] Speaker 1: Stupidity was as necessary as intelligence and as difficult to attain.
[9:01] Speaker 1: All the while, with one part of his mind, he
[9:03] Speaker 1: wondered how soon they would shoot him. Everything depends on yourself,
[9:07] Speaker 1: O'Brien had said, But he knew that there was no
[9:10] Speaker 1: conscious act by which he could bring it nearer. It
[9:13] Speaker 1: might be ten minutes, hence, or ten years. They might
[9:16] Speaker 1: keep him for years in solitary confinement. They might send
[9:19] Speaker 1: him to a labor camp. They might release him for
[9:21] Speaker 1: a while, as they sometimes did. It was perfectly possible
[9:25] Speaker 1: that before he was shot, the whole drama of his
[9:27] Speaker 1: arrest and interrogation would be enacted all over again. The
[9:30] Speaker 1: one certain thing was that death never came at an
[9:32] Speaker 1: expected moment. The tradition, the unspoken tradition, somehow you knew it,
[9:38] Speaker 1: though you never heard it said, was that they shot
[9:40] Speaker 1: you from behind, always in the back of the head,
[9:43] Speaker 1: without warning, as you walked down a corridor from cell
[9:46] Speaker 1: to cell. One day. But one day was not the
[9:50] Speaker 1: right expression, Just as probably it was in the middle
[9:53] Speaker 1: of the night once he fell into a strange, blissful reverie.
[9:58] Speaker 1: He was walking down the corridor, waiting for the bullet.
[10:01] Speaker 1: He knew that it was coming. In another moment, everything
[10:04] Speaker 1: was settled, smooth out, reconciled. There were no more doubts,
[10:08] Speaker 1: no more arguments, no more pain, no more fear. His
[10:11] Speaker 1: body was healthy and strong. He walked easily, with the
[10:14] Speaker 1: joy of movement and with the feeling of walking in sunlight.
[10:17] Speaker 1: He was not any longer in the narrow, white corridors
[10:20] Speaker 1: in the ministry of love. He was in the enormous
[10:22] Speaker 1: sunlit passage a kilometer wide down which he had seemed
[10:26] Speaker 1: to walk in the delirium induced by drugs. He was
[10:29] Speaker 1: in the golden country, following the foot track across the
[10:32] Speaker 1: old rabbit cropped pasture. He could feel the short, springy
[10:35] Speaker 1: turf under his feet and the gentle sunshine on his face.
[10:39] Speaker 1: At the edge of the field were the elm trees
[10:41] Speaker 1: faintly stirring, and some way beyond that was the stream
[10:44] Speaker 1: where the days lay in the green pools under the willows.
[10:48] Speaker 1: Suddenly he started up with a shock of horror. The
[10:50] Speaker 1: sweat broke out on his backbone. He had heard himself
[10:54] Speaker 1: cry aloud, Julia, Julia, Julia, my love, Julia. For a
[11:01] Speaker 1: moment he had had an overwhelming hallucination of her presence.
[11:05] Speaker 1: She had seemed to be not merely with him, but
[11:08] Speaker 1: inside him. It was as though she had got into
[11:11] Speaker 1: the texture of his skin. In that moment, he had
[11:14] Speaker 1: loved her far more than he had ever done when
[11:16] Speaker 1: they were together and free. Also, he knew that somewhere
[11:19] Speaker 1: or other she was still alive and needed his help.
[11:23] Speaker 1: He lay back on the bed and tried to compose himself.
[11:26] Speaker 1: What had he done? How many years had he added
[11:29] Speaker 1: to his servitude by that moment of weakness. In another moment,
[11:33] Speaker 1: he would hear the tramp of boots outside. They could
[11:37] Speaker 1: not let such an outburst go unpunished. They would know
[11:40] Speaker 1: now if they had not known before, that he was
[11:42] Speaker 1: breaking the agreement he had made with them. He obeyed
[11:45] Speaker 1: the party, but he still hated the party. In the
[11:48] Speaker 1: old days, he had hidden a heretical mind beneath an
[11:51] Speaker 1: appearance of conformity. Now he had retreated a step further.
[11:55] Speaker 1: In the mind. He had surrendered, but he had hoped
[11:58] Speaker 1: to keep the inner heart inviolate. He knew that he
[12:01] Speaker 1: was in the wrong, but he preferred to be in
[12:03] Speaker 1: the wrong. They would understand that. O'Brien would understand it.
[12:08] Speaker 1: It was all confessed in that single foolish cry. He
[12:12] Speaker 1: would have to start all over again. It might take years.
[12:15] Speaker 1: He ran a hand over his face, trying to familiarize
[12:18] Speaker 1: himself with the new shape. There were deep furrows in
[12:21] Speaker 1: the cheeks, the cheek bones felt sharp, the nose flattened. Besides,
[12:25] Speaker 1: since last seeing himself in the glass, he had been
[12:27] Speaker 1: given a complete new set of teeth. It was not
[12:31] Speaker 1: easy to preserve inscrutability when you did not know what
[12:33] Speaker 1: your face looked like. In any case, mere control of
[12:36] Speaker 1: the features was not enough. For the first time, he
[12:39] Speaker 1: perceived that if you want to keep a secret, you
[12:41] Speaker 1: must also hide it from yourself. You must know all
[12:44] Speaker 1: the while that it is there, but until it is needed,
[12:46] Speaker 1: you must never let it emerge into your consciousness in
[12:49] Speaker 1: any shape that could be given a name. From now onwards,
[12:52] Speaker 1: he must not only think right, he must feel right,
[12:55] Speaker 1: dream right, and all the while he must keep his
[12:58] Speaker 1: hatred locked up inside him, like a ball of matter
[13:01] Speaker 1: which was part of himself and yet unconnected with the
[13:03] Speaker 1: rest of him, a kind of cyst. One day they
[13:08] Speaker 1: would decide to shoot him. You could not tell when
[13:10] Speaker 1: it would happen, but a few seconds beforehand it should
[13:12] Speaker 1: be possible to guess. It was always from behind, walking
[13:16] Speaker 1: down a corridor. Ten seconds would be enough. In that time,
[13:20] Speaker 1: the world inside him could turn over, and then suddenly,
[13:23] Speaker 1: without a word, uttered, without a check in his step,
[13:26] Speaker 1: without the changing of a line in his face. Suddenly
[13:29] Speaker 1: the camouflage would be down and bang would go the
[13:32] Speaker 1: batteries of his hatred. Hatred would feel him like an enormous,
[13:36] Speaker 1: roaring flame, and almost in the same instant, bang would
[13:39] Speaker 1: go the bullet too late or too early, they would
[13:42] Speaker 1: have blown his brain to pieces before they could reclaim it.
[13:45] Speaker 1: The heretical thought would be unpunished, unrepented, out of their
[13:48] Speaker 1: reach forever. They would have blown a hole in their
[13:51] Speaker 1: own perfection. To die hating them, that was freedom. He
[13:56] Speaker 1: shut his eyes. It was more difficult than accepting an
[13:59] Speaker 1: inter eelectual discipline. It was a question of degrading himself,
[14:03] Speaker 1: mutilating himself. He had got to plunge into the filthiest
[14:07] Speaker 1: of filth. What was the most horrible, sickening thing of all?
[14:11] Speaker 1: He thought of big Brother the enormous face, because of
[14:14] Speaker 1: constantly seeing it on posters. He always thought of it
[14:17] Speaker 1: as being a meter wide, with its heavy black mustache
[14:20] Speaker 1: and the eyes that followed you to and fro seemed
[14:22] Speaker 1: to float into his mind of its own accord. What
[14:25] Speaker 1: were his true feelings towards Big brother? There was a
[14:30] Speaker 1: heavy tramp of boots in the passage. The steel door
[14:33] Speaker 1: swung open with a clang. O'Brien walked into the cell
[14:36] Speaker 1: behind him with the waxen faced officer and the black
[14:39] Speaker 1: uniformed guards. Get up, said O'Brien, come here. Winston stood
[14:45] Speaker 1: opposite him. O'Brien took Winston's shoulders between his strong hands
[14:49] Speaker 1: and looked at him closely. You have had thoughts of
[14:52] Speaker 1: deceiving me, he said. That was stupid. Stand up straighter,
[14:56] Speaker 1: look me in the face. He paused, and went on,
[14:59] Speaker 1: and a gentle lertone. You are improving intellectually. There is
[15:05] Speaker 1: very little wrong with you. It is only emotionally that
[15:07] Speaker 1: you have failed to make progress. Tell me, Winston, and
[15:11] Speaker 1: remember no lies. You know that I am always able
[15:14] Speaker 1: to detect a lie. Tell me what are you true
[15:17] Speaker 1: feelings towards Big Brother? I hate him? You hate him? Good?
[15:24] Speaker 1: Then the time has come for you to take the
[15:26] Speaker 1: last step. You must love big Brother. It is not
[15:29] Speaker 1: enough to obey him. You must love him. He released
[15:34] Speaker 1: Winston with a little push towards the guards room. One
[15:37] Speaker 1: O one, he said. End of Section twenty two

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