Orwell, George — Nineteen eighty-four [124]

Years ago – how long was it? Seven years it must be – he had dreamed that he was walking through a pitch-dark room. And someone sitting to one side of him had said as he passed: ‘We shall meet in the place where there is no darkness.’ It was said very quietly, almost casually – a statement, not a command. He had walked on without pausing. What was curious was that at the time, in the dream, the words had not made much impression on him. It was only later and by degrees that they had seemed to take on significance. — Orwell, George, Nineteen eighty-four, 124

Note

The dream motif and its phrase ‘We shall meet in the place where there is no darkness’ — set against endless surveillance — is a counter-image to the telescreen’s omnipresent light. Worth keeping for the quality of the prose: the delayed significance, the memory being retroactively reconstructed (‘later and by degrees’).