1984. Адаптированная книга для чтения на английском языке. Уровень B1

Do you know what that little girl of mine did last Saturday on a hike? She made two other girls to go with her and spent the whole afternoon following a strange man. They followed him for two hours, right through the woods, and then reported him to the patrolsВ».

В«What did they do that for?В» said Winston, surprised. Parsons continued:

«My kid made sure he was some kind of enemy spy – might have used a parachute, for instance. But here's the point, old boy. Why do you think she followed? She saw that he was wearing a funny kind of shoes – said she'd never seen anyone wearing shoes like that before.

So the chances were he was a foreigner. Pretty smart for a child of seven, eh?В»

В«What happened to the man?В» said Winston.

«Ah, I don't know, of course. But I guess…» Parsons made the motion of aiming a rifle, and clicked his tongue for the explosion.

В«GoodВ», said Syme without looking up from his strip of paper.

В«Of course we can't riskВ», agreed Winston.

В«What I mean to say, there is a war onВ», said Parsons.

At this very moment they heard a trumpet call from the telescreen just above their heads. However, it was not news of a military victory this time, but a message from the Ministry of Plenty.

В«Comrades!В» cried a youthful voice. В«Attention, comrades! We have great news for you. We have won the battle for production! The standard of living has risen by 20 percent over the past year. All over Oceania this morning there were demonstrations when workers came out of factories and offices and went through the streets with banners to express their gratitude to Big Brother for our new, happy life.

Here are some of the figures…»

The voice repeated the phrase В«our new, happy lifeВ» several times. The Ministry of Plenty had been using it quite a lot lately. Parsons was listening to the message. He didn't understand the figures, but he knew that they were in some way a reason to be happy. He had taken out a big dirty pipe which was already half full of tobacco.

You couldn't fill a pipe to the top with the tobacco ration at 100 grammes a week. Winston was smoking a Victory Cigarette which he held carefully. The new ration did not start till tomorrow and he had only four cigarettes left. For the moment he ignored the noises in the canteen and was listening to the message from the telescreen. There had even been demonstrations to thank Big Brother, because he had raised the chocolate ration to twenty grammes a week.