dealing
with had no connexion with anything in the real world, not even the kind of
connexion that is contained in a direct lie. Statistics were just as much a
fantasy  in  their original version as  in their rectified version. A great
deal  of the  time you were expected to  make them up out of your head. For
example,  the Ministry  of Plenty's  forecast had  estimated the  output of
boots  for the quarter at 145 million pairs. The actual output was given as
sixty-two millions. Winston, however, in rewriting the forecast, marked the
figure  down  to fifty-seven millions,  so as to  allow for the usual claim
that  the quota had been overfulfilled. In any case, sixty-two millions was
no  nearer the  truth than fifty-seven millions, or than 145 millions. Very
likely  no boots  had been produced at all. Likelier still, nobody knew how
many  had been  produced, much  less  cared. All  one knew  was that  every
quarter astronomical numbers of boots were produced on paper, while perhaps
half  the  population of  Oceania went  barefoot. And so  it was with every
class  of recorded  fact,  great or  small. Everything  faded  away into  a
shadow-world  in which,  finally,  even the  date of  the  year had  become
uncertain.
     Winston  glanced across  the hall. In the corresponding cubicle on the
other  side a