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December 25th 07, 09:36 PM
down, down
into the green waters which in another moment must hide them from sight for
ever. He was out in the light and air while they were being sucked down to
death, and they were down there because he was up here. He knew it and they
knew it, and he could see the knowledge in their faces. There was no
reproach either in their faces or in their hearts, only the knowledge that
they must die in order that he might remain alive, and that this was part
of the unavoidable order of things.
He could not remember what had happened, but he knew in his dream that
in some way the lives of his mother and his sister had been sacrificed to
his own. It was one of those dreams which, while retaining the
characteristic dream scenery, are a continuation of one's intellectual
life, and in which one becomes aware of facts and ideas which still seem
new and valuable after one is awake. The thing that now suddenly struck
Winston was that his mother's death, nearly thirty years ago, had been
tragic and sorrowful in a way that was no longer possible. Tragedy, he
perceived, belonged to the ancient time, to a time when there was still
privacy, love, and friendship, and when the members of a family stood by
one another without needing to know the reason. His mother's memory tore at
his heart because she had died loving him, when he was too young and
selfish to love her in return, and because somehow, he did not remember
how, she had sacrificed herself to a conception of loyalty that was private
and unalterable. Such things, he saw, could not happen today. Today there
were fear, hatred, and pain, but no dignity of emotion, no deep or complex
sorrows. All this he seemed to see in the large eyes of his mother and his
sister, looking up at him through the green water, hundreds of fathoms
into the green waters which in another moment must hide them from sight for
ever. He was out in the light and air while they were being sucked down to
death, and they were down there because he was up here. He knew it and they
knew it, and he could see the knowledge in their faces. There was no
reproach either in their faces or in their hearts, only the knowledge that
they must die in order that he might remain alive, and that this was part
of the unavoidable order of things.
He could not remember what had happened, but he knew in his dream that
in some way the lives of his mother and his sister had been sacrificed to
his own. It was one of those dreams which, while retaining the
characteristic dream scenery, are a continuation of one's intellectual
life, and in which one becomes aware of facts and ideas which still seem
new and valuable after one is awake. The thing that now suddenly struck
Winston was that his mother's death, nearly thirty years ago, had been
tragic and sorrowful in a way that was no longer possible. Tragedy, he
perceived, belonged to the ancient time, to a time when there was still
privacy, love, and friendship, and when the members of a family stood by
one another without needing to know the reason. His mother's memory tore at
his heart because she had died loving him, when he was too young and
selfish to love her in return, and because somehow, he did not remember
how, she had sacrificed herself to a conception of loyalty that was private
and unalterable. Such things, he saw, could not happen today. Today there
were fear, hatred, and pain, but no dignity of emotion, no deep or complex
sorrows. All this he seemed to see in the large eyes of his mother and his
sister, looking up at him through the green water, hundreds of fathoms