Winston Smith, his chin nuzzled into his breast in an effort to
escape the vile wind, slipped quickly through the glass doors of Victory
Mansions . At one end of it a coloured poster, too large
for indoor display, had been tacked to the wall . It was
part of the economy drive in preparation for Hate Week . The
flat was seven flights up, and Winston went slowly, resting several times
on the way .

Winston turned a switch and the voice sank somewhat, though the words
were still distinguishable . The instrument (the telescreen, it was called) could
be dimmed, but there was no way of shutting it off completely
. He moved over to the window: a smallish, frail figure, the
meagreness of his body merely emphasized by the blue overalls which were
the uniform of the party . Outside, even through the shut window-pane,
the world looked cold .

There was no way of knowing whether you were being watched at
any given moment . How often, or on what system, the Thought
Police plugged in on any individual wire was guesswork . You had
to live, from habit that became instinct--in the assumption that every sound
you made was overheard, and, except in darkness, every movement scrutinized .

The Ministry of Truth--Minitrue, in Newspeak, was the official language of Oceania
. It was an enormous pyramidal structure of glittering white concrete, soaring
up, terrace after terrace, 300 metres into the air . From where
Winston stood it was just possible to read, picked out on its
white face in elegant lettering .