Part One, Chapter 1: A Cold Day in April第一部第 1 章：四月寒冷的一天

On a cold April day, Winston Smith, a thin thirty-nine-year-old man, comes home to his shabby flat in Victory Mansions in London, the chief city of Airstrip One, a province of the superstate Oceania. Posters of a face with a heavy black moustache, Big Brother, stare from every wall, and in every room a telescreen both broadcasts Party messages and watches and listens to the people. Under this constant surveillance, no one can tell when the Thought Police are paying attention. Winston works at the Ministry of Truth; the other great ministries are the Ministry of Peace, which runs the war, the Ministry of Love, which keeps order, and the Ministry of Plenty. Sitting in a corner his telescreen cannot see, he opens a beautiful old notebook he secretly bought in a junk shop and begins a diary, an act that could be punished by death or forced labour. He remembers that morning's Two Minutes Hate, when office workers screamed at the face of Emmanuel Goldstein, the Party's great enemy. Two people caught his attention there: a dark-haired young woman from the Fiction Department, whom he dislikes and suspects of being a spy, and O'Brien, a powerful Inner Party member. For a moment, O'Brien's eyes seemed to tell Winston that he shared his secret doubts. Almost without noticing, Winston fills half a page with words against Big Brother. He knows he has already committed thoughtcrime. Then someone knocks at his door.在四月一個寒冷的日子，三十九歲、身材瘦弱的溫斯頓·史密斯回到他位於倫敦「勝利大廈」的破舊公寓。倫敦是「第一空降場」的主要城市，而第一空降場是超級大國「大洋國」的一個省。每面牆上都貼著一張留著濃密黑鬍子的臉，也就是「老大哥」的海報，雙眼緊盯著人看；每個房間裡都有一台電幕，既播放黨的訊息，也同時看著、聽著屋裡的人。在這種無所不在的監視下，沒有人知道思想警察什麼時候在注意自己。溫斯頓在真理部工作；其他的大部會還有負責打仗的和平部、負責維持秩序的友愛部，以及富足部。他坐在電幕看不到的角落，打開一本他偷偷在舊貨店買來、非常漂亮的舊筆記本，開始寫日記，而這件事可能被判死刑或強迫勞動。他想起當天早上的「兩分鐘仇恨」：辦公室員工對著黨的頭號敵人艾曼紐·果德斯坦的臉尖叫。那時有兩個人引起他的注意：一位小說司的黑髮年輕女子，他討厭她，還懷疑她是間諜；另一位是位高權重的核心黨員歐布萊恩。有那麼一瞬間，歐布萊恩的眼神似乎在告訴溫斯頓，他也有同樣的秘密懷疑。溫斯頓幾乎沒察覺，就在半頁紙上寫滿了反對老大哥的字句。他知道自己已經犯下了思想罪。就在這時，有人敲他的門。

The novel is told in the third person but stays very close to Winston, so we share his fears and secret thoughts. The very first sentence mixes an ordinary spring day with a strange detail about the time, warning readers that this world looks familiar but is wrong. Orwell builds the setting through concrete details: boiled cabbage, broken lifts, cheap gin, and posters everywhere.這部小說以第三人稱敘述，但緊貼著溫斯頓的視角，讓我們感受他的恐懼與秘密想法。第一句就把一個普通的春日和一個關於時間的怪異細節放在一起，提醒讀者：這個世界看起來熟悉，卻已經不對勁了。歐威爾用具體的細節建立場景：煮高麗菜的味道、壞掉的電梯、廉價的琴酒，以及到處都是的海報。