It is; WHY should human equality be averted?
Supposing that the mechanics of the process have been rightly described, what is the motive for this huge, accurately planned effort to freeze history at a particular moment of time?
Here we reach the central secret.
As we have seen. the mystique of the Party, and above all of the Inner Party, depends upon DOUBLETHINK But deeper than this lies the original motive, the never-questioned instinct that first led to the seizure of power and brought DOUBLETHINK, the Thought Police, continuous warfare, and all the other necessary paraphernalia into existence afterwards.
This motive really consists...
Winston became aware of silence, as one becomes aware of a new sound.
It seemed to him that Julia had been very still for some time past.
She was lying on her side, naked from the waist upwards, with her cheek pillowed on her hand and one dark lock tumbling across her eyes.
Her breast rose and fell slowly and regularly.
'Julia.'
No answer.
'Julia, are you awake?'
No answer.
She was asleep.
He shut the book, put it carefully on the floor, lay down, and pulled the coverlet over both of them.
He had still, he reflected, not learned the ultimate secret.
He understood HOW; he did not understand WHY.
Chapter I, like Chapter III, had not actually told him anything that he did not know, it had merely systematized the knowledge that he possessed already.
But after reading it he knew better than before that he was not mad.
Being in a minority, even a minority of one, did not make you mad.
There was truth and there was untruth, and if you clung to the truth even against the whole world, you were not mad.
A yellow beam from the sinking sun slanted in through the window and fell across the pillow.
He shut his eyes.
The sun on his face and the girl's smooth body touching his own gave him a strong, sleepy, confident feeling.
He was safe, everything was all right.
He fell asleep murmuring
'Sanity is not statistical,' with the feeling that this remark contained in it a profound wisdom.
*****
When he woke it was with the sensation of having slept for a long time, but a glance at the old-fashioned clock told him that it was only twenty-thirty.
He lay dozing for a while; then the usual deep-lunged singing struck up from the yard below:
'It was only an 'opeless fancy, It passed like an Ipril dye, But a look an' a word an' the dreams they stirred They 'ave stolen my 'eart awye!'
The drivelling song seemed to have kept its popularity.
You still heard it all over the place.
It had outlived the Hate Song.
Julia woke at the sound, stretched herself luxuriously, and got out of bed.
'I'm hungry,' she said.
'Let's make some more coffee. Damn! The stove's gone out and the water's cold.' She picked the stove up and shook it. 'There's no oil in it.'
'We can get some from old Charrington, I expect.'
'The funny thing is I made sure it was full.
I'm going to put my clothes on,' she added.
'It seems to have got colder.'
Winston also got up and dressed himself.
The indefatigable voice sang on:
'They sye that time 'eals all things, They sye you can always forget; But the smiles an' the tears acrorss the years They twist my 'eart-strings yet!'
As he fastened the belt of his overalls he strolled across to the window.
The sun must have gone down behind the houses; it was not shining into the yard any longer.
The flagstones were wet as though they had just been washed, and he had the feeling that the sky had been washed too, so fresh and pale was the blue between the chimney-pots.
Tirelessly the woman marched to and fro, corking and uncorking herself, singing and falling silent, and pegging out more diapers, and more and yet more.
He wondered whether she took in washing for a living or was merely the slave of twenty or thirty grandchildren.
Julia had come across to his side; together they gazed down with a sort of fascination at the sturdy figure below.