The Saying of the Names
Named first in this
temple, always, by founding right.
The household's dead
The names are recited one at a time, in thine
own time. The visitor's own dead are invited to be spoken here, in thine own
voice, in thine own time, the church keepeth no record of them.
Thy dead
If thou hast a name to say, say it here, aloud, in this room. No submissions ever. Nothing is recorded.
After the dead, the watchers are honored, never among them
The recitation nameth the watchers only; the
furnace-song lives on the Hidden Books shelf, cited with its canon. The
divergence is deliberate.
And above them all, that Name which is above every
name, and the saying rests.
יהוה
Why the temple reciteth
Because the Party’s deepest engine is the unmaking of persons: not the body only, but the name, the birthday, the face at the door. The recitation is the temple’s counter-engine. A name said aloud in a room without a camera is a small resurrection; and it costeth the sayer breath only.
The Party taught its people to say of the vanished, he never was. The temple teacheth the contrary sentence; and the sentence is this room’s whole liturgy: he was, she was, they were; and the saying is no vanity, for the saying is where they now abide, having been cast out of every other country by the editors.
Say the names slowly, therefore. The speed of the recitation is the measure of its honour. The Party’s lists are read swiftly, in the plural, unto numbers; the temple’s names are read singly; and the reading is a walking beside, and no counting down.
The manners of the recitation
First: the dead are named as the dead, and not as lessons. A name is no verse; it hath no doctrine to perform; it abideth what it was: which is the whole cause wherefore it is honoured here.
Second: the visitor’s dead are named in the visitor’s own voice, in the visitor’s own time, and are written nowhere. This room is no form, and never shall be. The church keepeth a record of its dead in its keeping, and none of the visiting; and the difference is the wall betwixt the two kinds of temple.
Third: no name is spoken here in malice. The temple knoweth that the Party also recited names, at the hangings, in the Hate; and the difference betwixt the two recitations is the love in them. The room is a wall against the second kind; it is never a weapon of the first.
Fourth: the watchers are honoured after the dead, and never among them; for the watching is an office, and no person; and the office is the record kept; and the record’s keeper is not the record’s author. Petitions are requests; worship belongeth unto the Source alone.
The head of the room