登陆注册
5257900000073

第73章 英文(42)

Julia was twenty-six years old. She lived in a hostel with thirty other girls (“Always in the stink of women! How I hate women!” she said parenthetically), and she worked, as he had guessed, on the novel-writing machines in the Fiction Department. She enjoyed her work, which consisted chiefly in running and servicing a powerful but tricky electric motor. She was “not clever”, but was fond of using her hands and felt at home with machinery. She could describe the whole process of composing a novel, from the general directive issued by the Planning Committee down to the final touching-up by the Rewrite Squad. But she was not interested in the finished product. She “didn’t much care for reading,” she said. Books were just a commodity that had to be produced, like jam or bootlaces.She had no memories of anything before the early sixties and the only person she had ever known who talked frequently of the days before the Revolution was a grandfather who had disappeared when she was eight. At school she had been captain of the hockey team and had won the gymnastics trophy two years running. She had been a troop-leader in the Spies and a branch secretary in the Youth League before joining the Junior Anti-Sex League. She had always borne an excellent character. She had even (an infallible mark of good reputation) been picked out to work in Pornosec, the sub-section of the Fiction Department which turned out cheap pornography for distribution among the proles. It was nicknamed Muck House by the people who worked in it, she remarked. There she had remained for a year, helping to produce booklets in sealed packets with titles like or One Night in a Girls.

School, to be bought furtively by proletarian youths who were under the impression that they were buying something illegal.

“What are these books like?” said Winston curiously.

“Oh, ghastly rubbish. They’re boring, really. They only have six plots, but they swap them round a bit. Of course I was only on the kaleidoscopes. I was never in the Rewrite Squad. I’m not literary, dear — not even enough for that.”

He learned with astonishment that all the workers in Pornosec, except the heads of the departments, were girls. The theory was that men, whose sex instincts were less controllable than those of women, were in greater danger of being corrupted by the filth they handled.

“They don’t even like having married women there,” she added. Girls are always supposed to be so pure. Here’s one who isn’t, anyway.

She had had her first love-affair when she was sixteen, with a Party member of sixty who later committed suicide to avoid arrest. “And a good job too,” said Julia, “otherwise they’d have had my name out of him when he confessed.” Since then there had been various others. Life as she saw it was quite simple. You wanted a good time; “they”, meaning the Party, wanted to stop you having it; you broke the rules as best you could. She seemed to think it just as natural that “they” should want to rob you of your pleasures as that you should want to avoid being caught. She hated the Party, and said so in the crudest words, but she made no general criticism of it. Except where it touched upon her own life she had no interest in Party doctrine. He noticed that she never used Newspeak words except the ones that had passed into everyday use. She had never heard of the Brotherhood, and refused to believe in its existence. Any kind of organized revolt against the Party, which was bound to be a failure, struck her as stupid. The clever thing was to break the rules and stay alive all the same. He wondered vaguely how many others like her there might be in the younger generation people who had grown up in the world of the Revolution, knowing nothing else, accepting the Party as something unalterable, like the sky, not rebelling against its authority but simply evading it, as a rabbit dodges a dog.

They did not discuss the possibility of getting married. It was too remote to be worth thinking about. No imaginable committee would ever sanction such a marriage even if Katharine, Winston’s wife, could somehow have been got rid of. It was hopeless even as a daydream.

“What was she like, your wife?” said Julia.

“She was — do you know the Newspeak word goodthinkful? Meaning naturally orthodox, incapable of thinking a bad thought?”

“No, I didn’t know the word, but I know the kind of person, right enough.”

He began telling her the story of his married life, but curiously enough she appeared to know the essential parts of it already. She described to him, almost as though she had seen or felt it, the stiffening of Katharine’s body as soon as he touched her, the way in which she still seemed to be pushing him from her with all her strength, even when her arms were clasped tightly round him. With Julia he felt no difficulty in talking about such things: Katharine, in any case, had long ceased to be a painful memory and became merely a distasteful one.

“I could have stood it if it hadn’t been for one thing,” he said. He told her about the frigid little ceremony that Katharine had forced him to go through on the same night every week. “She hated it, but nothing would make her stop doing it. She used to call it — but you’ll never guess.”

“Our duty to the Party,” said Julia promptly.

“How did you know that?”

“I’ve been at school too, dear. Sex talks once a month for the over-sixteens. And in the Youth Movement. They rub it into you for years. I dare say it works in a lot of cases. But of course you can never tell; people are such hypocrites.”

She began to enlarge upon the subject. With Julia, everything came back to her own sexuality. As soon as this was touched upon in any way she was capable of great acuteness. Unlike Winston, she had grasped the inner meaning of the Party’s sexual puritanism. It was not merely that the sex instinct created a world of its own which was outside the Party’s control and which therefore had to be destroyed if possible. What was more important was that sexual privation induced hysteria, which was desirable because it could be transformed into war-fever and leader-worship. The way she put it was:

同类推荐
  • 沉香

    沉香

    "故事发生在二十世纪三十年代的上海滩,主人公“我”与三个家庭地位、性格、职业截然不同的女性产生了剪不断理还乱的爱情纠葛。他与她之间,只想要一份纯真的爱情,却因世俗、门第的偏见,人“鬼”殊途!他与她之间,只因缘分的注定,却叹造化弄人,嬉笑过后梦一场!他与她之间,只因儿时一次无意间的牵手,却是爱恨情仇一念间......围绕着这条情感主线,还描写了许多小人物的生活故事。例如,灵姐姐、红姐姐、大姐、二姐的婚姻;又例如三姐与何哥,父亲与母亲,戏子与小姐那凄美的爱情故事;再如“我”与大哥、李俊的友谊等等,反映出了人性的善恶美丑以及作者对亲情、友情、爱情的独特诠释。
  • 共生

    共生

    伊南和伊洛是一对亲姐妹,她们被父亲抛弃多年,仅靠母亲艰难维持生计。她们因为母亲的意外离世而生活无着,又因父亲的被杀而一夜成为巨额遗产的继承人。她们成绩优秀、聪明过人,却必须小心隐藏起身上的疤痕。她们一体共生,却像两只刺猬,即便是相爱,也不懂得如何靠近。她们有充分的不在场证据,但是为什么刑警乔安南总觉得不对劲呢?现实永远比你想象中残酷,案情永远比你想象中复杂,人物永远比你想象中纠结……这个故事的结局可能是你无法承受的,你如果翻开,就必须要接受。
  • 山水走笔

    山水走笔

    《山水走笔》:这是一部游记作品集,分为山水情怀、漫步贵州、畅游余庆、异域风情共四部分,作者在领略大美河山的同时,还不忘与历史、自然、朋友进行对话。
  • 燃烧的马

    燃烧的马

    本书是温亚军的短篇小说集,收录了《燃烧的马》、《驮水的日子》、《硬雪》、《游牧部族》等三十一篇佳作。其中《驮水的日子》还获得了第三届鲁迅文学奖。
  • 伤魂

    伤魂

    龚合国是“我”在新兵连认识的铁哥们。一次,“我”为新兵们请命,得罪了班长。起初,龚合国还跟“我”一条心,不久却“变节”了,二人的情义也至此决裂。很多年后,战友沈从武偶然联系上了“我”,他说龚合国早就转业到地方政府机关工作,不过现在人已废了。更让“我”想不到的是,龚合国竟然在他的家乡上演了一出堪称惊世醒人的活报剧,他独创的“频道论”至今仍被大家津津乐道,而他和他所在的小城里的官员们有一天忽然懵懵懂懂地去“集体自首”,更是荒诞离奇……小说充满了黑色幽默,发人深省。
热门推荐
  • 艾瑞纳星空

    艾瑞纳星空

    欢迎来到名为艾瑞纳的异世界,穿越者们!想要力量无穷,妹子如云,独霸天下?可惜你来错地方了。这里有崇尚科学的乌托邦,有以保护世界为己任的教会,强盛但内部不和的帝国,黑暗中蛰伏渴望复仇的魔族......多方角力下,一场大动乱即将席卷整个世界,穿越者们又将在乱世中何去何从?大世界,小人物。性格迥异的穿越者们再这样的异世界中会有怎么样的机遇?又会遭遇怎么样的残酷命运?
  • 鬼界驿站

    鬼界驿站

    我,只是一只普通的鬼,一次偶然,成为了鬼差,负责抓捕逃亡人间的鬼,然后,将它们带到一个地方,这个地方,就叫做:鬼界驿站!
  • 焚天仙魔记

    焚天仙魔记

    命运定数,绝对不从!天欲降服,我欲焚天!
  • HP爱你胜过爱自己

    HP爱你胜过爱自己

    (女主自创,非穿越CP斯内普)说好的青梅竹马两小无猜呢?老娘信了你的邪!我家竹马不是竹马是木马QAQ我在你身边呢,你看我啊,看我啊!再不看我,小心我不要你了,去偷人!
  • 妖媚三公主的复仇

    妖媚三公主的复仇

    三位公主各自的母亲被父亲害死,又因各自的父亲,后母还有他们的孩子陷害,装死才逃离了家,后来被世界第一集团的老爷爷救了,再次回到中国后,开始了她们的复仇之路。。。
  • 首席秘书升职记

    首席秘书升职记

    雪飘落大地,傲雪凌霜的梅花还在那里含苞待放。这一世的轮回似乎都在你的一笑一颦中。就只想和你一直这样走到雪鬓霜鬟。记忆中一直鲜明的你我,是否还记得曾经的约定。你好,我来赴这一辈子的约了。
  • 云山志

    云山志

    六岁那年,方禹和师父上了云山,修仙修人,匆匆别红尘。谁想世人皆道神仙好,神仙不知几烦恼。
  • 带个女神闯游戏

    带个女神闯游戏

    美轮美奂的梦幻以及不可思议的奇迹每一个都是遥不可及的,当两者结合碰撞在一起,会迸发出怎样无与伦比的火花?——MG公司制作游戏《梦幻奇迹》.本对游戏不感兴趣的李明,在受不了妹妹的撒娇央求下无奈戴上了《梦幻奇迹》的游戏头盔,一个波澜壮阔、不可名状的世界呈现在眼前,他发现,原来生活还可以这般多姿多彩。当长着长长尖尖耳朵的精灵族少女张着纯真好奇的大眼睛望着他时,李明伸出手想要触摸她那白里透红的俏脸,随后又缩了回去,脸红心跳着,有些疑惑:“这还是游戏么?为什么我会有种调戏懵懂无知清纯少女的感觉?”《带个女神闯游戏》又名《梦幻奇迹》,再名《祝福这美好世界》.
  • 炼之不破不立

    炼之不破不立

    不就是九兽玦吗?等我全部收复,就算不能炼气照样能够变强!!!我会让他们知道,我聂凌焱是如何成长的!
  • 繁花落尽,沐奕何处

    繁花落尽,沐奕何处

    十年之梦终成真,小粉丝终于嫁给自己的偶像,就当杨沐沐以为自己可以和安奕就这样幸福的生活到老的时候,一场突如其来的疾病改变了一切,为了爱,杨沐沐不得不再次做出抉择。