The Ministry of Joy
This room was opened by commission of the keeper, the sixteenth day of September, in the year of the temple's keeping. The Party kept weeks of commanded gladness and called the compelling festival; this room beareth the name and giveth it back turned right side up. It is a study-room beside the canon; it is no book of the canon, and it conjureth not.
1And the temple keepeth its feasts as it keepeth its fasts: freely, by hand, and none of them a drum.
None of them a drum: the Party's calendar was a drum-roll: Hate Week, Victory Week, the Preparation for the week to come. The temple's dates are kept as the Calendar keepeth them, by hand, and the keeping is free.2For joy is not the feeling levied; neither is it the silence of them that dared not look unglad.
The feeling levied: a gladness commanded is a tax, and the collector sitteth at the telescreen. And the silence of them that dared not look unglad was not peace but the quiet of the watched face; the temple's joy is given, never gathered, and the face is free to be as it is.3But it is the fruit of a record kept true and a house kept free; it is grown, not gathered by force.
Grown, not gathered by force: the feast note is written because the scribe is glad, never because the gladness is due. A joy on a schedule is a levy.4And the temple keepeth the sorrow beside the joy, for the record is whole only when both are written; the commanded gladness always hath its compelled weeping on the other page.
On the other page: the two minutes' hate and the Love Week had one face; the temple's pages carry weeping and feast-notes in the same hand, and neither is commanded.5And the joy of this house is small and sufficient, as the store is small and sufficient: the lamp trimmed, the verse kept, the feast kept, and the visitor bidden, never bidden twice.
Never bidden twice: the Party bade the whole of Oceania to its feasts daily, at the telescreen's command. The temple's invitation is set once, and the door is open, and the asking stoppeth there.The Feast Paper
Herein the temple keepeth the Feast Paper: the commanded joys named as commanded, and the joy the temple keepeth. The Party's weeks were levies of gladness; the paper beareth the levies as they were raised, and the rule of the temple's feasting beneath. The paper is kept by the keeper's hand, and nothing is automated in this room.
| The levy of gladness | The word the paper beareth |
|---|---|
| Hate Week, the great feast of the year | Named as it was: a festival of commanded fury, with floats and processions, kept by compulsion. |
| The Two Minutes' Hate, daily | Kept as a specimen: gladness and hate on a schedule are the same instrument with two faces. |
| The spontaneous demonstrations, ordered in advance | The word spontaneous is the tell: a gladness with a roster is a levy, and the roster is named. |
| The face that dared look unglad | Kept as the cost of the levy: they that could not wear the feast's face were taken to Love's old room. |
| The victory celebrated before it happened | Kept as the grammar of the lie: the Party's feasts preceded their causes; the temple's feasts follow theirs. |
| The rule of the temple's feasting | The keeping |
|---|---|
| The feast freely kept | Kept because the keeper is glad, and never because the gladness is due; no feast is levied in this house. |
| The sorrow kept beside the joy | The lamentations and the feast-notes share the same hand; the record is whole only when both are written. |
| The four dates, none a drum | The Calendar's covenant abideth: the feasts are kept by hand, and the keeping is never compelled. |
| The invitation set once | The door is open and the asking stoppeth there; the visitor is bidden, never bidden twice. |
| The small kept sufficient | The joy of this house is as its store: a trimmed lamp, a kept verse, a kept feast; nothing is piled against tomorrow, and nothing is wanting for the hour. |
Keep the feast freely; compel no gladness.
Why a room of joy in a temple of the record
The temple was founded to keep the record, and the record is not all lamentation: the feast-notes stand in the canon beside the verses, written in the same hand. The Party's crime against joy was the levy: the gladness with a roster, the spontaneous demonstration ordered in advance, the festival whose face was policed. A joy under command is not joy but an oath, and an oath extracted daily is the machine of the Ministry of Love wearing garlands. The room standeth therefore to keep the feasts free, for a compelled gladness poisons the well from which every honest verse is drawn.
The elder text biddeth: weeping may endure for a night, but joy cometh in the morning (Psalm 30:5). The sentence is the room's charter: joy hath its season, and it cometh; it is not commanded to come. The bureaus set the morning by alarm; the temple keepeth the vigil and awaiteth the morning. The sorrow is kept beside the joy in the same record, as the Lamentations keep beside the feast-notes, for a gladness with no grief in the house is the Party's gladness.
Neither is the free feast disorderly: the four dates are kept by hand, the Calendar's covenant abideth, and the audits walk this room as every room. What is refused is the compulsion: the roster, the alarm, the levied face. The feast that followeth its cause is honest, as the victory celebrated before it happeneth is a forgery in time; the Date Paper's rule abideth here also.
The room is kept white, as the scripture rooms are; the paper is the only ornament the room beareth. The levies and the keeps grow slowly upon it, by hand, and are never automated; there is no form in this room, and nothing is recorded of them that enter. It is not a wall of witnesses but a laid table: the temple's joy set out upon the wire, freely kept, bidden once, abiding.
Return to the Scriptures, or to the study-rooms: the Architecture, the Geometry, and the Magnificat. The ministry rooms stand together, and the road abideth: Peace, Management, Plenty, Equity, Youth, Love, Technology, Memory, Language, Labour, Names, Time, Opposition, and God: the name borne in this room is one of the sixteen, and the other fifteen abide. The wall of witnesses abideth at the Testimonies; the temple's wound is kept at the Book of the Breach.