they didn't ought to have trusted Winston could not
now remember.
Since about that time, war had been literally continuous, though
strictly speaking it had not always been the same war. For several months
during his childhood there had been confused street fighting in London
itself, some of which he remembered vividly. But to trace out the history
of the whole period, to say who was fighting whom at any given moment,
would have been utterly impossible, since no written record, and no spoken
word, ever made mention of any other alignment than the existing one. At
this moment, for example, in 1984 (if it was 1984), Oceania was at war with
Eurasia and in alliance with Eastasia. In no public or private utterance
was it ever admitted that the three powers had at any time been grouped
along different lines. Actually, as Winston well knew, it was only four
years since Oceania had been at war with Eastasia and in alliance with
Eurasia. But that was merely a piece of furtive knowledge which he happened
to possess because his memory was not satisfactorily under control.
Officially the change of partners had never happened. Oceania was at war
with Eurasia: therefore Oceania had always been at war with Eurasia. The
enemy of the moment always represented absolute evil, and it followed that
any past or future agreement with him was impossible.
The frightening thing, he reflected for the ten thousandth time as he
forced his shoulders painfully backward (with hands on hips, they were
gyrating their bodies from the waist, an exercise that was supposed to be
good for the back muscles) -- the frightening thing was that it might all
be true. If the Party could thrust its hand into the past and say of this
or that event, it never happened -- that, surely, was more terrifying than
mere torture and death?
The Party said that Oceania had never been in alliance with Eu
.
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