klar.txt

It was a bright cold day in April, and the clocks were striking thirteen. Winston
Smith, his chin nuzzled into his breast in an effort to escape the vile wind, slipped
quickly through the glass doors of Victory Mansions, though not quickly enough to
prevent a swirl of gritty dust from entering along with him.

The hallway smelt of boiled cabbage and old rag mats. At one end of it a coloured
poster, too large for indoor display, had been tacked to the wall. It depicted simply
an enormous face, more than a metre wide: the face of a man of about forty-five,
with a heavy black moustache and ruggedly handsome features. Winston made for
the stairs. It was no use trying the lift. Even at the best of times it was seldom
working, and at present the electric current was cut off during daylight hours. It was
part of the economy drive in preparation for Hate Week. The flat was seven flights
up, and Winston, who was thirty-nine and had a varicose ulcer above his right ankle,
went slowly, resting several times on the way. On each landing, opposite the lift-
shaft, the poster with the enormous face gazed from the wall. It was one of those
pictures, which are so contrived that the eyes follow you about when you move. BIG
BROTHER IS WATCHING YOU, the caption beneath it ran.

Inside the flat a fruity voice was reading out a list of figures which had something to
do with the production of pig-iron. The voice came from an oblong metal plaque
like a dulled mirror which formed part of the surface of the right-hand wall. Winston
turned a switch and the voice sank somewhat, though the words were still
distinguishable. The instrument (the telescreen, it was called) could be dimmed, but
there was no way of shutting it off completely. He moved over to the window: a
smallish, frail figure, the meagreness of his body merely emphasized by the blue
overalls which were the uniform of the party. His hair was very fair, his face
naturally sanguine, his skin roughened by coarse soap and blunt razor blades and the
cold of the winter that had just ended.