1984 Orwell Pierre Mercoeur opera in progress

1984 – George Orwell: an opera in progress
Winston’s remembrance
for baritone and classical guitar
by Pierre Mercoeur – copyright
Registered SACEM February 2022

If in the novel 1984, the main thesis has been well understood
and commented, another thesis seemed to have been ignored, even
though, in that world famous novel, Orwell did make it clear the following:
love is impossible, true love between two human beings is impossible in
a totalitarian state… for sooner or later one will have to betrayed one’s
partner in order to avoid torture, prison… in order to save one’s life.
This is what is going to destroy Winston and Julia’s relationship: their
mutual betrayal.
Transposed in today’s society…
In the context of a commodity fetishism, dictatorship of
consumption… consumption of one’s fellow human beings, of one’s
partner up to exhaustion, ultimately self-consumption…
Likewise, love is impossible, true love is impossible between two human
beings in a society totally devoted to consumerism; a society in which to
be is to have; a society in which one is constantly and strongly advised to
consider in one’s partner, first and foremost, the opportunities that he or
she may offer in terms of financial and materiel assets: career and
wealth.
Bearing in mind that, as time passes… one will have to secure those
assets in order to remain “attractive”, not to say “competitive”, strong is
the probability of one’s partner deciding to put an end to the relationship;
a relationship that no longer offers security, opportunities and wealth.
There, one may talk of “betrayal”.

***
The words of the so-called “Winston’s remembrance” (sung
monologue) are Orwell’s; the composer has simply replaced the
following personal pronouns “he, she, they – Winston, Julia, both of
them” (pronouns used by the narrator in the novel) by “I, You, We –
Winston’s narrative of his relationship with Julia.
1 – Winston and Julia: first encounter
2 – Their passionate relationship
3 – Their arrest
4 – Their reunification
5 – The failure of their reunification
______________

1
“I remember, our corner table. The chesnut tree café ; it would
be warm in there, for sure ! But, I made off in the opposite direction. I
could no longer distinguish you.”

I Winston remember our first encounter… You already knew my name…
How did you find out ? I still know not. I expect you were better than I at
finding out things…
I wish you’d told me what you thought of me… as I knew that you did not
feel any temptation to lie.
Yet, I first mistrusted you, for I imagined that you had something to do
with the thought Police.

I thought you were a party member, pure in word and deed. I thought
that if you had a quarter of a chance you would denounce me as a
thought-criminal and get me killed off.
And then you laughed delightedly for you took it as a tribute to the
excellence of your disguise. You said you were good at games, that you
were a troop-leader in the Spies. You said you always carry one end of a
banner in the processions. You always Iook cheerful and you never shirk
anything. Always yell with the crowd… You said that it was the only way
to be safe.
I remember…
There is still that memory moving round the edges of my consciousness,
something strongly felt but not reducible to definite shape, like an object
seen out of the corner of one’s eye. I push it away, aware only that it is
the memory of some action which I would have liked to undo but could
not.
“You are very young” I said to you, “much younger than I am. What could
you see to attract you in a man like me?”
For my part, it was something in your face. I thought I’d take a chance.
I remember … The sunlight was still hot on our faces. I looked out into
the field beyond, and underwent a curious, slow shock : I knew it by
sight. Surely somewhere nearby, but out of sight, there must be a stream
! It’s the Golden Country. A landscape I’ve seen sometimes in a dream.
We had left the clearing and were wandering with our arms round each
other’s waists whenever it was wide enough to walk two abreast. Your
waist in the bend of my arm was soft and warm ; your body seemed to
melt into mine. Our mouths clung together; it was quite different from the
hard kisses we had exchanged earlier…
When we moved our faces apart again… both of us sighed deeply.
Today, I can still hear that sigh of yours…
We were both breathing fast. You said : “Not here ! Come back to the
hide-out. It’s safer.”
We were sitting side by side on the dusty floor. I pulled you closer
against me. Your head rested on my shoulder. I then thought : “She was

very young ; she still expected something from life. But I know that we
can’t win.”
You kissed me almost violently, and a moment you disappeared into the
wood. Even then I had not found out your name nor your address. It
made no difference, for it was inconceivable that we could ever meet
indoors or exchange any kind of written communication.
Almost as swiftly as I had imagined it, you had torn your clothes off. Your
body gleamed white in the sun. I knelt down before you and took your
hands in mine.
With whom have you done this before ? With those swine of party
members ? How many of them ? No, don’t answer ! Listen : the more
men you’ve had, the more I love you. I hate purity, I hate goodness! I
don’t want any virtue to exist anywhere. I want everyone to be corrupt.
You flung yourself into my arms. Your answer was : “I ought to suit you,
dear. I’m corrupt to the bones.”
I remember the sun seemed to have grown hotter. I woke first. The
young, strong body of yours, now helpless, awoke in me a protecting
feeling. Our embrace had been a battle, the climax a victory. Was it a
blow against the Party ? Was it a sort of a political act ?
One could not have pure love for no emotion is pure ; everything is
mixed up with fear and hatred.
I remember…
As soon as you woke up, your demeanor had changed. You became
alert, put your clothes on and began arranging the details of the journey
home. To me, it seemed natural to leave this to you for you obviously
had a practical cunning which I, Winston, lacked ; you seemed also to
have an exhaustive knowledge of the countryside round London.
You said :“Never go home the same way as you went out”. You would
leave first ; I was to wait half an hour.
As it happened, we never went back to the clearing in the wood. During
the month of May there was only one further occasion on which we
actually succeeded in making love. That was the belfry of a ruinous
church in an almost deserted country where an atomic bomb had fallen
thirty years ago.

It was a street in one of the poorer quarters, where there was an open
market which was generally crowded and noisy. You would be hanging
about among the stalls.
If the coast was clear you would blow your nose ; otherwise I was to walk
past without recognition.
As we drifted down the crowded pavements, not quite abreast and never
looking at one another, we carried on a curious, intermittent conversation
; suddenly nipped into silence by the approach of a Party uniform or the
proximity of a screen… then taken up again minutes later in the middle of
a sentence, cut short as we parted at the agreed spot, then continued
almost without introduction on the following day.
You appeared to be quite used to this kind of conversation ; you were
also surprisingly adept at speaking without moving your lips.
I remember…
You were twenty-six years old. You had no memories of anything before
the age of eight ; the only person you had ever known who talked
frequently of Revolution was a grand-father. You had had your first loveaffair when you were sixteen, with a Party member of sixty who
committed suicide to avoid arrest.
“And a good job too !” you said… for… had he not committed suicide,
they’d have had your name out of him when he confessed.
You hated the party that robbed you of your pleasures. You never used
newspeak words ; of the party, you talked with hatred which made me
feel uneasy.
We did not discuss the possibility of getting married. It was too remote to
be worth thinking about. It was hopeless even as a daydream.
Yet, unlike me, you had grasped the meaning of the Party’s sexual
doctrine. It was not merely that the sex instinct created a world of its own
which was outside the Party’s control and which therefore had to be
destroyed. No ! What was more important was that sexual privation
induced hysteria, which was desirable because it could be transformed
into war-fever and leader-worship.
As for children… they were systematically turned against their parents
and taught to spy on them and report their deviations.

Every record has been destroyed or falsified, every book has been
rewritten, every picture has been repainted. Every street has been
renamed, every date has been altered. History has stopped. Nothing
exists except an endless present in which the Party is always right.
Julia ! I remember…
You would not accept it as a law of nature that the individual is always
defeated. Although you realized that we were doomed… that sooner or
later the Thought Police would catch us and kill us.
With another part of your mind you believed that it was possible to
construct a secret world in which you could live as you chose. All you
needed was luck and cunning and boldness.
You did not understand as I did that there was no such thing as
happiness, that the only victory lay in the far future, long after death.
“We are the dead” I said. Obviously we shall put it off as long as we can.
But it makes very little difference. So long as human beings stay human,
death and life are the same thing.
Where are you Julia ? Where are you now ?
If you love someone and have nothing else to give, you still give love.
Yes, this is you, now, this is your hand, you are real, alive you are ! Your
body is pouring some of its youth and vigour into mine.
Do you remember the Chestnut Tree Cafe, our corner table. It was warm
in there, for sure ! And Mr Charrington’s shop ! The shabby little room !
Do you remember… you were coming at nineteen-thirty.
Do you remember the song unknow to us :
It was only an hopeless fancy. It passed like an April day,
But a look an’ a word an’ the dreams they stirred!
They have stolen my heart away!

2

”Folly, folly !” My heart kept saying ; suicidal folly ! For, of all the crimes
that a Party member could commit, this one was the least possible to
conceal !
Folly, folly ! I thought again. It was inconceivable that we could frequent
this place for more than a few weeks without being caught.
It was curious how that predestined horror moved in and out of one’s
consciousness.
The temptation of having a hiding-place that was truly our own had been
too much for both of us. The room over Mr Charrington’s shop, was
paradise. As soon as we arrived we would make love with sweating
bodies.
The process of life had ceased to be intolerable now that we had a
secure hiding-place, almost a home.
The room was a world, a pocket of the past… dear past… cherished.
There were times when we had the illusion not only of safety but of
permanence. Getting there was difficult and dangerous… but the room
itself was sanctuary.
Often we gave ourselves up to daydreams of escape. We would
disappear, alter ourselves out of recognition, get jobs in a factory and live
out our lives undetected.
It was all nonsense, as we both knew. In reality there was no escape.
Only one plan was practicable : suicide.
During the month that I had known you the nature of my desire had
changed. The feeling of your skin got inside me, into the air all round.
You had become a physical necessity.
I remember…
We took it for granted that everyone secretly hated the Party and would
break the rules if he thought it safe to do so.
Sometimes, we talked of engaging in active rebellion against the Party,
but with no notion of how to take the first step.

You were far more acute than me, and far less susceptible to Party
propaganda. Even though you were ready to accept the official
mythology, simply because the difference between truth and falsehood
did not seem important to you.
At the end we’re certain to be apart. Utterly alone.
Once they get hold of us there will be nothing, literally nothing, that either
of us can do for the other. If I confess, they’ll shoot you, and if I refuse to
confess, they’ll shoot you just the same. Neither of us will even know
whether the other is alive or dead.
The one thing that matters is that we shouldn’t betray one another. I
don’t mean confessing ; everybody always confesses. One can’t help it.
They torture you.
Confession is not betrayal. No ! What you say or do doesn’t matter ! If
they could make me stop loving you, that would be the real betrayal.
Although one may think it’s the one thing they can’t do. No ! They can’t
get inside you. If you can feel that staying human is worthwhile…then
you’ve beaten them.
“Don’t be too downhearted. I’m rather good at staying alive !” You said.
I thought for a little while that the best thing for us to do would be simply
to walk out of here before it’s too late, and never see each other again.
We’ve been lucky so far but it can’t last much longer.
Do you remember the thrush that sang to us ? The birds sang. All round
the world, in London and New York, in the streets of Paris and Berlin, in
the villages of the endless Russian plain.
We can share in that future if you keep alive the mind as they kept alive
the body, and passed on the secret doctrine that two plus two make four
and not five… four… and not five…
And then…

3

I remember an iron voice : “You are the dead ! Dead… dead…dead…
dead you are !”
From the wall, a picture had fallen to the floor uncovering a screen.
We sprang apart. We could do nothing except stand gazing into one
another’s eyes. To run for life, to get out of the house before it was too
late.
Unthinkable to disobey the iron voice : “Stand back to back. Clasp your
hands behind your heads. Do not touch one another !”
Julia ! –
I remember… that I could feel your body shaking. Or perhaps it was
merely the shaking of my own body. My knees were beyond my control.
There was a sound of trampling boots below, inside the house and
outside. The yard was full of men and then a confusion of angry shouts
which ended in a yell of pain.
The room was full of solid men in black uniforms, with truncheons in their
hands.
I remember : one thing alone mattered; to keep still and not give them an
excuse to hit me !
A violent kick nearly flung me off my balance. One of the men had
smashed his fist into your solar plexus. You were fighting for breath.
I dared not turn my head but sometimes your livid face came within the
angle of my vision.
Then two of the men carried you out of the room like a sack.
Julia, that was the last I saw of you.
Mr Charrington came into the room. The owner of the shop, our hiding
place above. But something had changed in his appearance. His
cockney accent had disappeared; Mr Charrington was still wearing his
old velvet jacket. But his hair, which had been almost white, had turned
black. He was not wearing his spectacles. It was the alert, cold face of a
man of about thirty-five. It occurred to me for that he was looking like a
member of the Thought Police.

You betrayed me. So they said. Under torture, immediately,
unreservedly. A perfect conversion, a textbook case. They had seldom
seen anyone come over to them so promptly.
You betrayed me ; I betrayed you Julia ! for what was there that they had
not screwed out of us under the torture? You had told them everything
you knew about me and I about you : habits, character; the most trivial
details ; everything, all that we had said to each other ; our vague
plottings against the Party.
But… then… Julia ! should I be able to recognize you if we were to meet
again ?
Rebelliousness, deceit… everything has been burned out of you. So they
said.
I betrayed you Julia. And yet I’ve not stopped loving you. My feelings had
remained the same. In the sense in which I intended the word
“confession”… I then did not betray you Julia. No, I did not.
But what about you my love ? Do tell me !
Where are you Julia! Where are you now ? You are not merely with me
but inside me. You go into the texture of my skin. And now I love you far
more than I had ever done when we were together and free.

4
Several months passed.
I’ve seen you ; it was by chance that we had met. It was in the Park, on a
vile, biting day in March. When the earth was like iron and all the grass
seemed dead.
There was no danger in it. I knew that the party now took almost no
interest in our doings. I was hurrying along with frozen hands and
watering eyes when I saw you. At once it struck me that she had
changed in some ill-defined way.

We almost passed one another without a sign. Then I turned and
followed you. I knew that there was no danger, nobody would take any
interest in us.
You did not speak. You walked away as though trying to get rid of me.
You halted. I put my arm round your waist. You made no response ; you
did not even try to disengage yourself. In your face, there was a long
scar, partly hidden by your hair, across your forehead and temple.
I did not attempt to kiss you nor did we speak. As we walked back, you
looked directly at me for the first time. It was only a momentary glance,
full of contempt.

5
We sat down on two iron chairs. And then, you said Julia, baldly : “I
betrayed you, Winston ! Yes ! betrayed you”.
Then, you went on : “They threaten you with something you can’t stand
up to, can’t even think about. And then you shout at them : don’t do it to
me, do it to somebody else ! Do it to Winston, not to me !” … for you
think there’s no other way of saving yourself.
You want it to happen to the other person. You don’t merely say it, you
wish it. All you care about is yourself : “Winston, I wished that you and
not me should be delivered over to the torturers. I did not give a damn
what you’d suffer ! After that, you don’t feel the same towards the other
person any longer !”
I too betrayed you…Julia ! And yet, I had not stopped loving you. I
betrayed you…Julia ! And yet, my feelings had remained the same.
“No, it’s impossible ! After that no one can’t feel the same any longer. It’s
impossible !” So you said.
I remember… there did not seem to be anything more to say. It became
embarrassing to sit there in silence. Besides, it was too cold to keep still.
You said something about catching your Tube and stood up to go.

I followed you irresolutely for a little distance but suddenly the cold
seemed unbearable.
I was overwhelmed by a desire to get back to the Chestnut Tree Cafe. I
Remember our corner table. It would be warm in there, for sure ! But, I
made off in the opposite direction. I could no longer distinguish you.
And then… I heard a voice : “ Under the spreading chestnut tree I sold
you and you sold me. Under the spreading chestnut tree I sold you and
you sold me.”