Newsgroup: it.scienza.ambiente
Titolo: Re: Auf zum nächsten Ausflug

did work in the coal
mines,  as a matter  of fact), children had been sold into the factories at
the  age of six. But simultaneously, true to the Principles of doublethink,
the Party taught that the proles were natural inferiors who must be kept in
subjection,  like  animals, by  the application  of a  few simple rules. In
reality  very  little was known  about the proles.  It was not necessary to
know  much. So  long  as they  continued  to work  and  breed, their  other
activities  were without importance. Left to themselves, like cattle turned
loose  upon the  plains of Argentina, they  had reverted to a style of life
that appeared to be natural to them, a sort of ancestral pattern. They were
born, they grew up in the gutters, they went to work at twelve, they passed
through a brief blossoming-period of beauty and sexual desire, they married
at  twenty, they  were middle-aged at thirty, they died, for the most part,
at  sixty. Heavy  physical  work,  the care  of  home  and children,  petty
quarrels  with neighbours,  films, football, beer, and above all, gambling,
filled  up  the horizon  of their  minds. To  keep them  in control was not
difficult.  A  few agents  of the  Thought Police  moved always among them,
spreading   false  rumours   and  marking  down  and  eliminating  the  few
individuals  who were  judged capable of becoming dangerous; but no attempt
was  made to  indoctrinate them with the  ideology of the Party. It was not
desirable  that th

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
Spanking Stories 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
dan

which  proved them innocent. No such piece of paper ever existed.
You  invented it, and later you grew to believe in it. You remember now the
very moment at which you first invented it. Do you remember that?'
     'Yes.'
     'Just  now I  held up  the fingers  of my  hand to  you. You  saw five
fingers. Do you remember that?'
     'Yes.'
     O'Brien  held  up  the  fingers  of his  left  hand,  with  the  thumb
concealed.
     'There are five fingers there. Do you see five fingers?'
     'Yes.'
     And he did see them, for a fleeting instant, before the scenery of his
mind  changed. He  saw  five  fingers, and  there  was  no deformity.  Then
everything  was  normal again,  and  the  old  fear,  the hatred,  and  the
bewilderment  came  crowding back again. But  there had been a moment -- he
did  not  know how long, thirty  seconds, perhaps -- of luminous certainty,
when  each  new suggestion of O'Brien's  had filled up a patch of emptiness
and  become absolute  truth, and when two  and two could have been three as
easily  as  five, if  that were  what was  needed. It  had faded but before
O'Brien  had  dropped his  hand; but  though he could  not recapture it, he
could  remember 

vaguely suspect. The old man had
grown  noticeably  more cheerful after  receiving the four dollars. Winston
realized that he would have accepted three or even two.
     'There's another room upstairs that you might care to take a look at,'
he  said. 'There's not much in it. Just a few pieces. We'll do with a light
if we're going upstairs.'
     He  lit another lamp,  and, with bowed back, led the way slowly up the
steep  and worn stairs  and along a tiny passage, into a room which did not
give  on the  street but  looked out  on  a cobbled  yard and  a forest  of
chimney-pots.  Winston noticed  that the  furniture was  still arranged  as
though  the room were  meant to be lived in. There was a strip of carpet on
the  floor, a picture or two on the walls, and a deep, slatternly arm-chair
drawn  up to the fireplace. An old-fashioned glass clock with a twelve-hour
face  was ticking  away on the mantelpiece. Under the window, and occupying
nearly  a quarter of  the room, was an enormous bed with the mattre