第299页 Part I Chapter 2

 红旗下的蛋
洗脑从娃娃抓起
这章写的Winton到邻居家修水管、遇到熊孩纸的经历，以及日记到底为谁而记的思考。
来敲门的是Winston隔壁的Parsons太太，而不是令人色变的Thought Police，她来找Winston帮忙修堵塞的管道——奥威尔借此时机又描绘了底层生活的不堪、及官僚体制的低效。关于“太太”这样的称呼，奥威尔注释道——
(“Mrs” was a word somewhat discountenanced by the Party—you were supposed to call everyone “comrade”—but with some women one used it instinctively.)
George Orwell. 1984 (Kindle 位置 299-300). Plume. 
邻居老王（Parsons)不在，给人印象深刻的是他的一双儿女。老王被设计为这样一个角色：不会质疑只讲奉献、对于党国保持稳定意义重大(稳定因素)、甚至胜过Thought Police(维稳力量)。老湿由老王这个角色，联想到的是一贯只投赞成票申大妈，和使用U型锁的行家里手、爱国青年蔡洋的合体。
Parsons was Winston’s fellow-employee at the Ministry of Truth. He was a fattish but active man of paralysing stupidity, a mass of imbecile enthusiasms—one of those completely unquestioning, devoted drudges on whom, more even than on the Thought Police, the stability of the Party depended.
老王的儿女是蓝短裤灰衬衫和红领巾的Spies（红小兵？）——
Both of them were dressed in the blue shorts, grey shirts, and red neckerchiefs which were the uniform of the Spies.
他们把Winston视作假想敌，满腔仇恨，高喊口号，兄唱妹随——
“You’re a traitor!” yelled the boy. “You’re a thought-criminal! You’re a Eurasian spy! I’ll shoot you, I’ll vaporize you, I’ll send you to the salt mines!”
小屁孩们格外吵闹的原因竟然是没人带他们去看每月一场绞刑的行刑盛典——
 “They’re disappointed because they couldn’t go to see the hanging, that’s what it is. I’m too busy to take them. and Tom won’t be back from work in time.”
奥威尔在这里刻画的活脱脱就是两颗“红旗下的蛋”。他们将在一两年变成父母叛党行径的监视者——
Another year, two years, and they would be watching her night and day for symptoms of unorthodoxy.
他们热爱一切和党有关的标志物及活动，对同志像春天般温暖，对敌人(外国人、叛徒、破坏分子、思想犯)像寒冬般无情——
they adored the Party and everything connected with it. The songs, the processions, the banners, the hiking, the drilling with dummy rifles, the yelling of slogans, the worship of Big Brother—it was all a sort of glorious game to them. All their ferocity was turned outwards, against the enemies of the State, against foreigners, traitors, saboteurs, thought-criminals.
熊孩纸的觉悟甚至让上一辈为之胆寒——
 It was almost normal for people over thirty to be frightened of their own children. And with good reason, for hardly a week passed in which “The Times” did not carry a paragraph describing how some eavesdropping little sneak—“child hero” was the phrase generally used—had overheard some compromising remark and denounced its parents to the Thought Police.
他们举报父母不当言论的告密行为使他们荣膺“少年英雄”称号。奥威尔在1948年写这本书的时候，是从前苏联、纳粹德国、西班牙内战经历获取的灵感，还是在对东方某新生政权做大胆的预言？
周遭是Parsons那样的忠诚党棍，更别提还有满腔热血的小告密者环伺，早就开始怀疑人生的Winston感觉孤立无援——
He was alone. The past was dead, the future was unimaginable. What certainty had he that a single human creature now living was on his side? And what way of knowing that the dominion of the Party would not endure for ever?
George Orwell. 1984 (Kindle 位置 392-394). Plume. 
winston开始记日记时，就存在“for whom he was writing the diary”的疑问——
For the future, for the past—for an age that might be imaginary. And in front of him there lay not death but annihilation. The diary would be reduced to ashes and himself to vapour. Only the Thought Police would read what he had written, before they wiped it out of existence and out of memory. How could you make appeal to the future when not a trace of you, not even an anonymous word scribbled on a piece of paper, could physically survive?
George Orwell. 1984 (Kindle 位置 404-407). Plume. 
唯一让他感到支持的力量，来自七年前的一个梦，梦中，有人对路过的Winston说：
“We shall meet in the place where there is no darkness.”
（George Orwell. 1984 (Kindle 位置 369-370). Plume. ）
奥威尔强调这是句人话——
It was said very quietly, almost casually—a statement, not a command.
George Orwell. 1984 (Kindle位置370). Plume. Winston确定这声音来自O'Brien——他们在两分钟仇恨仪式上有过眼神的交流，但在梦里他们已经是多年老友了。虽然感觉自己像一个出来说真话的孤魂野鬼，但关键不在于被听见，而在于维持人类的理智得以传承——
He was a lonely ghost uttering a truth that nobody would ever hear. But so long as he uttered it, in some obscure way the continuity was not broken. It was not by making yourself heard but by staying sane that you carried on the human heritage.
George Orwell. 1984 (Kindle 位置 409-411). Plume. 
Winston毅然决然在日记本上写下如下字句：
To the future or to the past, to a time when thought is free, when men are different from one another and do not live alone—to a time when truth exists and what is done cannot be undone: From the age of uniformity, from the age of solitude, from the age of Big Brother, from the age of doublethink—greetings!
George Orwell. 1984 (Kindle 位置 412-414). Plume. 
Thoughtcrime does not entail death: thoughtcrime IS death.
George Orwell. 1984 (Kindle位置417). Plume.