Nineteen Eighty-Four - George Orwell [48]
The old man brightened suddenly.
‘Top ’ats!’ he said. ‘Funny you should mention ’em. The same thing come into my ’ead only yesterday, I dono why. I was jest thinking, I ain’t seen a top ’at in years. Gorn right out, they ’ave. The last time I wore one was at my sister-in-law’s funeral. And that was – well, I couldn’t give you the date, but it must’a been fifty year ago. Of course it was only ’ired for the occasion, you understand.’
‘It isn’t very important about the top hats,’ said Winston patiently. ‘The point is, these capitalists – they and a few lawyers and priests and so forth who lived on them – were the lords of the earth. Everything existed for their benefit. You – the ordinary people, the workers – were their slaves. They could do what they liked with you. They could ship you off to Canada like cattle. They could sleep with your daughters if they chose. They could order you to be flogged with something called a cat o’ nine tails. You had to take your cap off when you passed them. Every capitalist went about with a gang of lackeys who –’
The old man brightened again.
‘Lackeys!’ he said. ‘Now there’s a word I ain’t ’eard since ever so long. Lackeys! That reg’lar takes me back, that does. I recollect – oh, donkey’s years ago – I used to sometimes go to ’Yde Park of a Sunday afternoon to ’ear the blokes making speeches. Salvation Army, Roman Catholics, Jews, Indians – all sorts, there was. And there was one bloke – well, I couldn’t give you ’is name, but a real powerful speaker, ’e was. ’E didn’t ’alf give it ’em! “Lackeys!” ’e says, “Lackeys of the bourgeoisie! Flunkies of the ruling class!” Parasites – that was another of them. And ’yenas –’e def’nitely called ’em ’yenas. Of course ’e was referring to the Labour Party, you understand.’
Winston had the feeling that they were talking at cross-purposes.
‘What I really wanted to know was this,’ he said. ‘Do you feel that you have more freedom now than you had in those days? Are you treated more like a human being? In the old days, the rich people, the people at the top –’
‘The ’Ouse of Lords,’ put in the old man reminiscently.
‘The House of Lords, if you like. What I am asking is, were these people able to treat you as an inferior, simply because they were rich and you were poor? Is it a fact, for instance, that you had to call them “Sir” and take off your cap when you passed them?’
The old man appeared to think deeply. He drank off about a quarter of his beer before answering.
‘Yes,’ he said. ‘They liked you to touch your cap to ’em. It showed respect, like. I didn’t agree with it, myself, but I done it often enough. Had to, as you might say.’
‘And was it usual – I’m only quoting what I’ve read in history books – was it usual for these people and their servants to push you off the pavement into the gutter?’
‘One of ’em pushed me once,’ said the old man. ‘I recollect it as if it was yesterday. It was Boat Race night – terrible rowdy they used to get on Boat Race night – and I bumps into a young bloke on Shaftesbury Avenue. Quite the gent, ’e was – dress shirt, top ’at, black overcoat. ’E was kind of zig-zagging across the pavement, and I bumps into ’im accidental-like. ’E says, “Why can’t you look where you’re going?” ’e says. I says, “Ju think you’ve bought the bleeding pavement?” ’E says, “I’ll twist your bloody ’ead off if you get fresh with me.” I says, “You’re drunk. I’ll give you in charge in ’alf a minute,” I says. An’ if you’ll believe me, ’e puts ’is ’and on my chest and gives me a shove as pretty near sent me under the wheels of a bus. Well, I was young in them days, and I was going to ’ave fetched ’im one, only –’
A sense of helplessness took hold of Winston. The old man’s memory was nothing but a rubbish-heap of details. One could question him all day without getting any real information. The Party histories might still be true, after a fashion: they might even be completely true. He made a last attempt.
‘Perhaps I have not made myself clear,’ he said. ‘What I’m trying to say is this. You have been alive a very long time; you lived half your life before the Revolution. In 1925, for instance, you were already grown up. Would you say, from what you can remember, that life in 1925 was better than it is now, or worse? If you could choose, would you prefer to live then or now?