no diving signs for pools

1984 by george orwellpart iii chapter : 1 he did not know where he was. presumably hewas in the ministry of love, but there was no way of making certain. he was in a high-ceilingedwindowless cell with walls of glittering white porcelain. concealed lamps flooded it withcold light, and there was a low, steady humming sound which he supposed had something to dowith the air supply. a bench, or shelf, just wide enough to sit on ran round the wall,broken only by the door and, at the end opposite the door, a lavatory pan with no wooden seat.there were four telescreens, one in each wall. there was a dull aching in his belly. it hadbeen there ever since they had bundled him

into the closed van and driven him away. buthe was also hungry, with a gnawing, unwholesome kind of hunger. it might be twenty-four hourssince he had eaten, it might be thirty-six. he still did not know, probably never wouldknow, whether it had been morning or evening when they arrested him. since he was arrestedhe had not been fed. he sat as still as he could on the narrowbench, with his hands crossed on his knee. he had already learned to sit still. if youmade unexpected movements they yelled at you from the telescreen. but the craving for foodwas growing upon him. what he longed for above all was a piece of bread. he had an idea thatthere were a few breadcrumbs in the pocket of his overalls. it was even possible — hethought this because from time to time something

seemed to tickle his leg — that there mightbe a sizeable bit of crust there. in the end the temptation to find out overcame his fear;he slipped a hand into his pocket. 'smith!' yelled a voice from the telescreen.'6079 smith w! hands out of pockets in the cells!' he sat still again, his hands crossed on hisknee. before being brought here he had been taken to another place which must have beenan ordinary prison or a temporary lock-up used by the patrols. he did not know how longhe had been there; some hours at any rate; with no clocks and no daylight it was hardto gauge the time. it was a noisy, evil-smelling place. they had put him into a cell similarto the one he was now in, but filthily dirty

and at all times crowded by ten or fifteenpeople. the majority of them were common criminals, but there were a few political prisoners amongthem. he had sat silent against the wall, jostled by dirty bodies, too preoccupied byfear and the pain in his belly to take much interest in his surroundings, but still noticingthe astonishing difference in demeanour between the party prisoners and the others. the partyprisoners were always silent and terrified, but the ordinary criminals seemed to carenothing for anybody. they yelled insults at the guards, fought back fiercely when theirbelongings were impounded, wrote obscene words on the floor, ate smuggled food which theyproduced from mysterious hiding-places in their clothes, and even shouted down the telescreenwhen it tried to restore order. on the other

hand some of them seemed to be on good termswith the guards, called them by nicknames, and tried to wheedle cigarettes through thespyhole in the door. the guards, too, treated the common criminals with a certain forbearance,even when they had to handle them roughly. there was much talk about the forced-labourcamps to which most of the prisoners expected to be sent. it was 'all right' in the camps,he gathered, so long as you had good contacts and knew the ropes. there was bribery, favouritism,and racketeering of every kind, there was homosexuality and prostitution, there waseven illicit alcohol distilled from potatoes. the positions of trust were given only tothe common criminals, especially the gangsters and the murderers, who formed a sort of aristocracy.all the dirty jobs were done by the politicals.

there was a constant come-and-go of prisonersof every description: drug-peddlers, thieves, bandits, black-marketeers, drunks, prostitutes.some of the drunks were so violent that the other prisoners had to combine to suppressthem. an enormous wreck of a woman, aged about sixty, with great tumbling breasts and thickcoils of white hair which had come down in her struggles, was carried in, kicking andshouting, by four guards, who had hold of her one at each corner. they wrenched offthe boots with which she had been trying to kick them, and dumped her down across winston'slap, almost breaking his thigh-bones. the woman hoisted herself upright and followedthem out with a yell of 'f— bastards!' then, noticing that she was sitting on somethinguneven, she slid off winston's knees on to

the bench. 'beg pardon, dearie,' she said. 'i wouldn't'a sat on you, only the buggers put me there. they dono 'ow to treat a lady, do they?' shepaused, patted her breast, and belched. 'pardon,' she said, 'i ain't meself, quite.' she leant forward and vomited copiously onthe floor. 'thass better,' she said, leaning back withclosed eyes. 'never keep it down, thass what i say. get it up while it's fresh on yourstomach, like.' she revived, turned to have another look atwinston and seemed immediately to take a fancy to him. she put a vast arm round his shoulderand drew him towards her, breathing beer and

vomit into his face. 'wass your name, dearie?' she said. 'smith,' said winston. 'smith?' said the woman. 'thass funny. myname's smith too. why,' she added sentimentally, 'i might be your mother!' she might, thought winston, be his mother.she was about the right age and physique, and it was probable that people changed somewhatafter twenty years in a forced-labour camp. no one else had spoken to him. to a surprisingextent the ordinary criminals ignored the party prisoners. 'the polits,' they calledthem, with a sort of uninterested contempt.

the party prisoners seemed terrified of speakingto anybody, and above all of speaking to one another. only once, when two party members,both women, were pressed close together on the bench, he overheard amid the din of voicesa few hurriedly-whispered words; and in particular a reference to something called 'room one-oh-one',which he did not understand. it might be two or three hours ago that theyhad brought him here. the dull pain in his belly never went away, but sometimes it grewbetter and sometimes worse, and his thoughts expanded or contracted accordingly. when itgrew worse he thought only of the pain itself, and of his desire for food. when it grew better,panic took hold of him. there were moments when he foresaw the things that would happento him with such actuality that his heart

galloped and his breath stopped. he felt thesmash of truncheons on his elbows and iron-shod boots on his shins; he saw himself grovellingon the floor, screaming for mercy through broken teeth. he hardly thought of julia.he could not fix his mind on her. he loved her and would not betray her; but that wasonly a fact, known as he knew the rules of arithmetic. he felt no love for her, and hehardly even wondered what was happening to her. he thought oftener of o'brien, with aflickering hope. o'brien might know that he had been arrested. the brotherhood, he hadsaid, never tried to save its members. but there was the razor blade; they would sendthe razor blade if they could. there would be perhaps five seconds before the guard couldrush into the cell. the blade would bite into

him with a sort of burning coldness, and eventhe fingers that held it would be cut to the bone. everything came back to his sick body,which shrank trembling from the smallest pain. he was not certain that he would use the razorblade even if he got the chance. it was more natural to exist from moment to moment, acceptinganother ten minutes" life even with the certainty that there was torture at the end of it. sometimes he tried to calculate the numberof porcelain bricks in the walls of the cell. it should have been easy, but he always lostcount at some point or another. more often he wondered where he was, and what time ofday it was. at one moment he felt certain that it was broad daylight outside, and atthe next equally certain that it was pitch

darkness. in this place, he knew instinctively,the lights would never be turned out. it was the place with no darkness: he saw now whyo'brien had seemed to recognize the allusion. in the ministry of love there were no windows.his cell might be at the heart of the building or against its outer wall; it might be tenfloors below ground, or thirty above it. he moved himself mentally from place to place,and tried to determine by the feeling of his body whether he was perched high in the airor buried deep underground. there was a sound of marching boots outside.the steel door opened with a clang. a young officer, a trim black-uniformed figure whoseemed to glitter all over with polished leather, and whose pale, straight-featured face waslike a wax mask, stepped smartly through the

doorway. he motioned to the guards outsideto bring in the prisoner they were leading. the poet ampleforth shambled into the cell.the door clanged shut again. ampleforth made one or two uncertain movementsfrom side to side, as though having some idea that there was another door to go out of,and then began to wander up and down the cell. he had not yet noticed winston's presence.his troubled eyes were gazing at the wall about a metre above the level of winston'shead. he was shoeless; large, dirty toes were sticking out of the holes in his socks. hewas also several days away from a shave. a scrubby beard covered his face to the cheekbones,giving him an air of ruffianism that went oddly with his large weak frame and nervousmovements.

winston roused hirnself a little from hislethargy. he must speak to ampleforth, and risk the yell from the telescreen. it waseven conceivable that ampleforth was the bearer of the razor blade. 'ampleforth,' he said. there was no yell from the telescreen. ampleforthpaused, mildly startled. his eyes focused themselves slowly on winston. 'ah, smith!' he said. 'you too!' 'what are you in for?' 'to tell you the truth —.' he sat down awkwardlyon the bench opposite winston. 'there is only

one offence, is there not?' he said. 'and have you committed it?' 'apparently i have.' he put a hand to his forehead and pressedhis temples for a moment, as though trying to remember something. 'these things happen,' he began vaguely. 'ihave been able to recall one instance — a possible instance. it was an indiscretion,undoubtedly. we were producing a definitive edition of the poems of kipling. i allowedthe word "god" to remain at the end of a line. i could not help it!' he added almost indignantly,raising his face to look at winston. 'it was

impossible to change the line. the rhyme was"rod". do you realize that there are only twelve rhymes to "rod" in the entire language?for days i had racked my brains. there was no other rhyme.' the expression on his face changed. the annoyancepassed out of it and for a moment he looked almost pleased. a sort of intellectual warmth,the joy of the pedant who has found out some useless fact, shone through the dirt and scrubbyhair. 'has it ever occurred to you,' he said, 'thatthe whole history of english poetry has been determined by the fact that the english languagelacks rhymes?' no, that particular thought had never occurredto winston. nor, in the circumstances, did

it strike him as very important or interesting. 'do you know what time of day it is?' he said. ampleforth looked startled again. 'i had hardlythought about it. they arrested me — it could be two days ago — perhaps three.'his eyes flitted round the walls, as though he half expected to find a window somewhere.'there is no difference between night and day in this place. i do not see how one cancalculate the time.' they talked desultorily for some minutes,then, without apparent reason, a yell from the telescreen bade them be silent. winstonsat quietly, his hands crossed. ampleforth, too large to sit in comfort on the narrowbench, fidgeted from side to side, clasping

his lank hands first round one knee, thenround the other. the telescreen barked at him to keep still. time passed. twenty minutes,an hour — it was difficult to judge. once more there was a sound of boots outside. winston'sentrails contracted. soon, very soon, perhaps in five minutes, perhaps now, the tramp ofboots would mean that his own turn had come. the door opened. the cold-faced young officerstepped into the cell. with a brief movement of the hand he indicated ampleforth. 'room 101,' he said. ampleforth marched clumsily out between theguards, his face vaguely perturbed, but uncomprehending. what seemed like a long time passed. the painin winston's belly had revived. his mind sagged

round and round on the same trick, like aball falling again and again into the same series of slots. he had only six thoughts.the pain in his belly; a piece of bread; the blood and the screaming; o'brien; julia; therazor blade. there was another spasm in his entrails, the heavy boots were approaching.as the door opened, the wave of air that it created brought in a powerful smell of coldsweat. parsons walked into the cell. he was wearing khaki shorts and a sports-shirt. this time winston was startled into self-forgetfulness. 'you here!' he said. parsons gave winston a glance in which therewas neither interest nor surprise, but only

misery. he began walking jerkily up and down,evidently unable to keep still. each time he straightened his pudgy knees it was apparentthat they were trembling. his eyes had a wide-open, staring look, as though he could not preventhimself from gazing at something in the middle distance. 'what are you in for?' said winston. 'thoughtcrime!' said parsons, almost blubbering.the tone of his voice implied at once a complete admission of his guilt and a sort of increduloushorror that such a word could be applied to himself. he paused opposite winston and beganeagerly appealing to him: 'you don't think they'll shoot me, do you, old chap? they don'tshoot you if you haven't actually done anything

— only thoughts, which you can't help? iknow they give you a fair hearing. oh, i trust them for that! they'll know my record, won'tthey? you know what kind of chap i was. not a bad chap in my way. not brainy, of course,but keen. i tried to do my best for the party, didn't i? i'll get off with five years, don'tyou think? or even ten years? a chap like me could make himself pretty useful in a labour-camp.they wouldn't shoot me for going off the rails just once?' 'are you guilty?' said winston. 'of course i'm guilty!' cried parsons witha servile glance at the telescreen. 'you don't think the party would arrest an innocent man,do you?' his frog-like face grew calmer, and

even took on a slightly sanctimonious expression.'thoughtcrime is a dreadful thing, old man,' he said sententiously. 'it's insidious. itcan get hold of you without your even knowing it. do you know how it got hold of me? inmy sleep! yes, that's a fact. there i was, working away, trying to do my bit — neverknew i had any bad stuff in my mind at all. and then i started talking in my sleep. doyou know what they heard me saying?' he sank his voice, like someone who is obligedfor medical reasons to utter an obscenity. '"down with big brother!" yes, i said that!said it over and over again, it seems. between you and me, old man, i'm glad they got mebefore it went any further. do you know what i'm going to say to them when i go up beforethe tribunal? "thank you," i'm going to say,

"thank you for saving me before it was toolate."' 'who denounced you?' said winston. 'it was my little daughter,' said parsonswith a sort of doleful pride. 'she listened at the keyhole. heard what i was saying, andnipped off to the patrols the very next day. pretty smart for a nipper of seven, eh? idon't bear her any grudge for it. in fact i'm proud of her. it shows i brought her upin the right spirit, anyway.' he made a few more jerky movements up anddown, several times, casting a longing glance at the lavatory pan. then he suddenly rippeddown his shorts. 'excuse me, old man,' he said. 'i can't helpit. it's the waiting.'

he plumped his large posterior into the lavatorypan. winston covered his face with his hands. 'smith!' yelled the voice from the telescreen.'6079 smith w! uncover your face. no faces covered in the cells.' winston uncovered his face. parsons used thelavatory, loudly and abundantly. it then turned out that the plug was defective and the cellstank abominably for hours afterwards. parsons was removed. more prisoners came andwent, mysteriously. one, a woman, was consigned to 'room 101', and, winston noticed, seemedto shrivel and turn a different colour when she heard the words. a time came when, ifit had been morning when he was brought here, it would be afternoon; or if it had been afternoon,then it would be midnight. there were six

prisoners in the cell, men and women. allsat very still. opposite winston there sat a man with a chinless, toothy face exactlylike that of some large, harmless rodent. his fat, mottled cheeks were so pouched atthe bottom that it was difficult not to believe that he had little stores of food tucked awaythere. his pale-grey eyes flitted timorously from face to face and turned quickly awayagain when he caught anyone's eye. the door opened, and another prisoner wasbrought in whose appearance sent a momentary chill through winston. he was a commonplace,mean-looking man who might have been an engineer or technician of some kind. but what was startlingwas the emaciation of his face. it was like a skull. because of its thinness the mouthand eyes looked disproportionately large,

and the eyes seemed filled with a murderous,unappeasable hatred of somebody or something. the man sat down on the bench at a littledistance from winston. winston did not look at him again, but the tormented, skull-likeface was as vivid in his mind as though it had been straight in front of his eyes. suddenlyhe realized what was the matter. the man was dying of starvation. the same thought seemedto occur almost simultaneously to everyone in the cell. there was a very faint stirringall the way round the bench. the eyes of the chinless man kept flitting towards the skull-facedman, then turning guiltily away, then being dragged back by an irresistible attraction.presently he began to fidget on his seat. at last he stood up, waddled clumsily acrossthe cell, dug down into the pocket of his

overalls, and, with an abashed air, held outa grimy piece of bread to the skull-faced man. there was a furious, deafening roar from thetelescreen. the chinless man jumped in his tracks. the skull-faced man had quickly thrusthis hands behind his back, as though demonstrating to all the world that he refused the gift. 'bumstead!' roared the voice. '2713 bumsteadj! let fall that piece of bread!' the chinless man dropped the piece of breadon the floor. 'remain standing where you are,' said thevoice. 'face the door. make no movement.' the chinless man obeyed. his large pouchycheeks were quivering uncontrollably. the

door clanged open. as the young officer enteredand stepped aside, there emerged from behind him a short stumpy guard with enormous armsand shoulders. he took his stand opposite the chinless man, and then, at a signal fromthe officer, let free a frightful blow, with all the weight of his body behind it, fullin the chinless man's mouth. the force of it seemed almost to knock him clear of thefloor. his body was flung across the cell and fetched up against the base of the lavatoryseat. for a moment he lay as though stunned, with dark blood oozing from his mouth andnose. a very faint whimpering or squeaking, which seemed unconscious, came out of him.then he rolled over and raised himself unsteadily on hands and knees. amid a stream of bloodand saliva, the two halves of a dental plate

fell out of his mouth. the prisoners sat very still, their handscrossed on their knees. the chinless man climbed back into his place. down one side of hisface the flesh was darkening. his mouth had swollen into a shapeless cherry-coloured masswith a black hole in the middle of it. from time to time a little blood dripped onto the breast of his overalls. his grey eyes still flitted from face to face, more guiltilythan ever, as though he were trying to discover how much the others despised him for his humiliation. the door opened. with a small gesture theofficer indicated the skull-faced man. there was a gasp and a flurry at winston'sside. the man had actually flung himself on

his knees on the floor, with his hand claspedtogether. 'comrade! officer!' he cried. 'you don't haveto take me to that place! haven't i told you everything already? what else is it you wantto know? there's nothing i wouldn't confess, nothing! just tell me what it is and i'llconfess straight off. write it down and i'll sign it — anything! not room 101!' 'room 101,' said the officer. the man's face, already very pale, turneda colour winston would not have believed possible. it was definitely, unmistakably, a shade ofgreen. 'do anything to me!' he yelled. 'you've beenstarving me for weeks. finish it off and let

me die. shoot me. hang me. sentence me totwenty-five years. is there somebody else you want me to give away? just say who itis and i'll tell you anything you want. i don't care who it is or what you do to them.i've got a wife and three children. the biggest of them isn't six years old. you can takethe whole lot of them and cut their throats in front of my eyes, and i'll stand by andwatch it. but not room 101!' the man looked frantically round at the otherprisoners, as though with some idea that he could put another victim in his own place.his eyes settled on the smashed face of the chinless man. he flung out a lean arm. 'that's the one you ought to be taking, notme!' he shouted. 'you didn't hear what he

was saying after they bashed his face. giveme a chance and i'll tell you every word of it. he's the one that's against the party,not me.' the guards stepped forward. the man's voice rose to a shriek. 'you didn't hear him!'he repeated. 'something went wrong with the telescreen. he's the one you want. take him,not me!' the two sturdy guards had stooped to takehim by the arms. but just at this moment he flung himself across the floor of the celland grabbed one of the iron legs that supported the bench. he had set up a wordless howling,like an animal. the guards took hold of him to wrench him loose, but he clung on withastonishing strength. for perhaps twenty seconds they were hauling at him. the prisoners satquiet, their hands crossed on their knees,

looking straight in front of them. the howlingstopped; the man had no breath left for anything except hanging on. then there was a differentkind of cry. a kick from a guard's boot had broken the fingers of one of his hands. theydragged him to his feet. the man was led out, walking unsteadily, withhead sunken, nursing his crushed hand, all the fight had gone out of him. a long time passed. if it had been midnightwhen the skull-faced man was taken away, it was morning: if morning, it was afternoon.winston was alone, and had been alone for hours. the pain of sitting on the narrow benchwas such that often he got up and walked about, unreproved by the telescreen. the piece ofbread still lay where the chinless man had

dropped it. at the beginning it needed a hardeffort not to look at it, but presently hunger gave way to thirst. his mouth was sticky andevil-tasting. the humming sound and the unvarying white light induced a sort of faintness, anempty feeling inside his head. he would get up because the ache in his bones was no longerbearable, and then would sit down again almost at once because he was too dizzy to make sureof staying on his feet. whenever his physical sensations were a little under control theterror returned. sometimes with a fading hope he thought of o'brien and the razor blade.it was thinkable that the razor blade might arrive concealed in his food, if he were everfed. more dimly he thought of julia. somewhere or other she was suffering perhaps far worsethan he. she might be screaming with pain

at this moment. he thought: 'if i could savejulia by doubling my own pain, would i do it? yes, i would.' but that was merely anintellectual decision, taken because he knew that he ought to take it. he did not feelit. in this place you could not feel anything, except pain and foreknowledge of pain. besides,was it possible, when you were actually suffering it, to wish for any reason that your own painshould increase? but that question was not answerable yet. the boots were approaching again. the dooropened. o'brien came in. winston started to his feet. the shock ofthe sight had driven all caution out of him. for the first time in many years he forgotthe presence of the telescreen.

'they've got you too!' he cried. 'they got me a long time ago,' said o'brienwith a mild, almost regretful irony. he stepped aside. from behind him there emerged a broad-chestedguard with a long black truncheon in his hand. 'you know this, winston,' said o'brien. 'don'tdeceive yourself. you did know it — you have always known it.' yes, he saw now, he had always known it. butthere was no time to think of that. all he had eyes for was the truncheon in the guard'shand. it might fall anywhere; on the crown, on the tip of the ear, on the upper arm, onthe elbow— the elbow! he had slumped to his knees, almostparalysed, clasping the stricken elbow with

his other hand. everything had exploded intoyellow light. inconceivable, inconceivable that one blow could cause such pain! the lightcleared and he could see the other two looking down at him. the guard was laughing at hiscontortions. one question at any rate was answered. never, for any reason on earth,could you wish for an increase of pain. of pain you could wish only one thing: that itshould stop. nothing in the world was so bad as physical pain. in the face of pain thereare no heroes, no heroes, he thought over and over as he writhed on the floor, clutchinguselessly at his disabled left arm. chapter : 2 he was lying on something that felt like acamp bed, except that it was higher off the

ground and that he was fixed down in someway so that he could not move. light that seemed stronger than usual was falling onhis face. o'brien was standing at his side, looking down at him intently. at the otherside of him stood a man in a white coat, holding a hypodermic syringe. even after his eyes were open he took in hissurroundings only gradually. he had the impression of swimming up into this room from some quitedifferent world, a sort of underwater world far beneath it. how long he had been downthere he did not know. since the moment when they arrested him he had not seen darknessor daylight. besides, his memories were not continuous. there had been times when consciousness,even the sort of consciousness that one has

in sleep, had stopped dead and started againafter a blank interval. but whether the intervals were of days or weeks or only seconds, therewas no way of knowing. with that first blow on the elbow the nightmarehad started. later he was to realize that all that then happened was merely a preliminary,a routine interrogation to which nearly all prisoners were subjected. there was a longrange of crimes — espionage, sabotage, and the like — to which everyone had to confessas a matter of course. the confession was a formality, though the torture was real.how many times he had been beaten, how long the beatings had continued, he could not remember.always there were five or six men in black uniforms at him simultaneously. sometimesit was fists, sometimes it was truncheons,

sometimes it was steel rods, sometimes itwas boots. there were times when he rolled about the floor, as shameless as an animal,writhing his body this way and that in an endless, hopeless effort to dodge the kicks,and simply inviting more and yet more kicks, in his ribs, in his belly, on his elbows,on his shins, in his groin, in his testicles, on the bone at the base of his spine. therewere times when it went on and on until the cruel, wicked, unforgivable thing seemed tohim not that the guards continued to beat him but that he could not force hirnself intolosing consciousness. there were times when his nerve so forsook him that he began shoutingfor mercy even before the beating began, when the mere sight of a fist drawn back for ablow was enough to make him pour forth a confession

of real and imaginary crimes. there were othertimes when he started out with the resolve of confessing nothing, when every word hadto be forced out of him between gasps of pain, and there were times when he feebly triedto compromise, when he said to himself: 'i will confess, but not yet. i must hold outtill the pain becomes unbearable. three more kicks, two more kicks, and then i will tellthem what they want.' sometimes he was beaten till he could hardly stand, then flung likea sack of potatoes on to the stone floor of a cell, left to recuperate for a few hours,and then taken out and beaten again. there were also longer periods of recovery. he rememberedthem dimly, because they were spent chiefly in sleep or stupor. he remembered a cell witha plank bed, a sort of shelf sticking out

from the wall, and a tin wash-basin, and mealsof hot soup and bread and sometimes coffee. he remembered a surly barber arriving to scrapehis chin and crop his hair, and businesslike, unsympathetic men in white coats feeling hispulse, tapping his reflexes, turning up his eyelids, running harsh fingers over him insearch for broken bones, and shooting needles into his arm to make him sleep. the beatings grew less frequent, and becamemainly a threat, a horror to which he could be sent back at any moment when his answerswere unsatisfactory. his questioners now were not ruffians in black uniforms but party intellectuals,little rotund men with quick movements and flashing spectacles, who worked on him inrelays over periods which lasted — he thought,

he could not be sure — ten or twelve hoursat a stretch. these other questioners saw to it that he was in constant slight pain,but it was not chiefly pain that they relied on. they slapped his face, wrung his ears.pulled his hair, made him stand on one leg, refused him leave to urinate, shone glaringlights in his face until his eyes ran with water; but the aim of this was simply to humiliatehim and destroy his power of arguing and reasoning. their real weapon was the merciless questioningthat went on and on, hour after hour, tripping him up, laying traps for him, twisting everythingthat he said, convicting him at every step of lies and self-contradiction until he beganweeping as much from shame as from nervous fatigue sometimes he would weep half a dozentimes in a single session. most of the time

they screamed abuse at him and threatenedat every hesitation to deliver him over to the guards again; but sometimes they wouldsuddenly change their tune, call him comrade, appeal to him in the name of ingsoc and bigbrother, and ask him sorrowfully whether even now he had not enough loyalty to the partyleft to make him wish to undo the evil he had done. when his nerves were in rags afterhours of questioning, even this appeal could reduce him to snivelling tears. in the endthe nagging voices broke him down more completely than the boots and fists of the guards. hebecame simply a mouth that uttered, a hand that signed, whatever was demanded of him.his sole concern was to find out what they wanted him to confess, and then confess itquickly, before the bullying started anew.

he confessed to the assassination of eminentparty members, the distribution of seditious pamphlets, embezzlement of public funds, saleof military secrets, sabotage of every kind. he confessed that he had been a spy in thepay of the eastasian government as far back as 1968. he confessed that he was a religiousbeliever, an admirer of capitalism, and a sexual pervert. he confessed that he had murderedhis wife, although he knew, and his questioners must have known, that his wife was still alive.he confessed that for years he had been in personal touch with goldstein and had beena member of an underground organization which had included almost every human being he hadever known. it was easier to confess everything and implicate everybody. besides, in a senseit was all true. it was true that he had been

the enemy of the party, and in the eyes ofthe party there was no distinction between the thought and the deed. there were also memories of another kind.they stood out in his mind disconnectedly, like pictures with blackness all round them. he was in a cell which might have been eitherdark or light, because he could see nothing except a pair of eyes. near at hand some kindof instrument was ticking slowly and regularly. the eyes grew larger and more luminous. suddenlyhe floated out of his seat, dived into the eyes, and was swallowed up. he was strapped into a chair surrounded bydials, under dazzling lights. a man in a white

coat was reading the dials. there was a trampof heavy boots outside. the door clanged open. the waxed-faced officer marched in, followedby two guards. the man in the white coat did not turn round.he did not look at winston either; he was looking only at the dials. he was rolling down a mighty corridor, a kilometrewide, full of glorious, golden light, roaring with laughter and shouting out confessionsat the top of his voice. he was confessing everything, even the things he had succeededin holding back under the torture. he was relating the entire history of his life toan audience who knew it already. with him were the guards, the other questioners, themen in white coats, o'brien, julia, mr charrington,

all rolling down the corridor together andshouting with laughter. some dreadful thing which had lain embedded in the future hadsomehow been skipped over and had not happened. everything was all right, there was no morepain, the last detail of his life was laid bare, understood, forgiven. he was starting up from the plank bed in thehalf-certainty that he had heard o'brien's voice. all through his interrogation, althoughhe had never seen him, he had had the feeling that o'brien was at his elbow, just out ofsight. it was o'brien who was directing everything. it was he who set the guards on to winstonand who prevented them from killing him. it was he who decided when winston should screamwith pain, when he should have a respite,

when he should be fed, when he should sleep,when the drugs should be pumped into his arm. it was he who asked the questions and suggestedthe answers. he was the tormentor, he was the protector, he was the inquisitor, he wasthe friend. and once — winston could not remember whether it was in drugged sleep,or in normal sleep, or even in a moment of wakefulness — a voice murmured in his ear:'don't worry, winston; you are in my keeping. for seven years i have watched over you. nowthe turning-point has come. i shall save you, i shall make you perfect.' he was not surewhether it was o'brien's voice; but it was the same voice that had said to him, 'we shallmeet in the place where there is no darkness,' in that other dream, seven years ago.

he did not remember any ending to his interrogation.there was a period of blackness and then the cell, or room, in which he now was had graduallymaterialized round him. he was almost flat on his back, and unable to move. his bodywas held down at every essential point. even the back of his head was gripped in some manner.o'brien was looking down at him gravely and rather sadly. his face, seen from below, lookedcoarse and worn, with pouches under the eyes and tired lines from nose to chin. he wasolder than winston had thought him; he was perhaps forty-eight or fifty. under his handthere was a dial with a lever on top and figures running round the face. 'i told you,' said o'brien, 'that if we metagain it would be here.'

'yes,' said winston. without any warning except a slight movementof o'brien's hand, a wave of pain flooded his body. it was a frightening pain, becausehe could not see what was happening, and he had the feeling that some mortal injury wasbeing done to him. he did not know whether the thing was really happening, or whetherthe effect was electrically produced; but his body was being wrenched out of shape,the joints were being slowly torn apart. although the pain had brought the sweat out on hisforehead, the worst of all was the fear that his backbone was about to snap. he set histeeth and breathed hard through his nose, trying to keep silent as long as possible.

'you are afraid,' said o'brien, watching hisface, 'that in another moment something is going to break. your especial fear is thatit will be your backbone. you have a vivid mental picture of the vertebrae snapping apartand the spinal fluid dripping out of them. that is what you are thinking, is it not,winston?' winston did not answer. o'brien drew backthe lever on the dial. the wave of pain receded almost as quickly as it had come. 'that was forty,' said o'brien. 'you can seethat the numbers on this dial run up to a hundred. will you please remember, throughoutour conversation, that i have it in my power to inflict pain on you at any moment and towhatever degree i choose? if you tell me any

lies, or attempt to prevaricate in any way,or even fall below your usual level of intelligence, you will cry out with pain, instantly. doyou understand that?' o'brien's manner became less severe. he resettledhis spectacles thoughtfully, and took a pace or two up and down. when he spoke his voicewas gentle and patient. he had the air of a doctor, a teacher, even a priest, anxiousto explain and persuade rather than to punish. 'i am taking trouble with you, winston,' hesaid, 'because you are worth trouble. you know perfectly well what is the matter withyou. you have known it for years, though you have fought against the knowledge. you arementally deranged. you suffer from a defective memory. you are unable to remember real eventsand you persuade yourself that you remember

other events which never happened. fortunatelyit is curable. you have never cured yourself of it, because you did not choose to. therewas a small effort of the will that you were not ready to make. even now, i am well aware,you are clinging to your disease under the impression that it is a virtue. now we willtake an example. at this moment, which power is oceania at war with?' 'when i was arrested, oceania was at war witheastasia.' 'with eastasia. good. and oceania has alwaysbeen at war with eastasia, has it not?' winston drew in his breath. he opened hismouth to speak and then did not speak. he could not take his eyes away from the dial.

'the truth, please, winston. your truth. tellme what you think you remember.' 'i remember that until only a week beforei was arrested, we were not at war with eastasia at all. we were in alliance with them. thewar was against eurasia. that had lasted for four years. before that—' o'brien stopped him with a movement of thehand. 'another example,' he said. 'some years agoyou had a very serious delusion indeed. you believed that three men, three one-time partymembers named jones, aaronson, and rutherford men who were executed for treachery and sabotageafter making the fullest possible confession — were not guilty of the crimes they werecharged with. you believed that you had seen

unmistakable documentary evidence provingthat their confessions were false. there was a certain photograph about which you had ahallucination. you believed that you had actually held it in your hands. it was a photographsomething like this.' an oblong slip of newspaper had appeared betweeno'brien's fingers. for perhaps five seconds it was within the angle of winston's vision.it was a photograph, and there was no question of its identity. it was the photograph. itwas another copy of the photograph of jones, aaronson, and rutherford at the party functionin new york, which he had chanced upon eleven years ago and promptly destroyed. for onlyan instant it was before his eyes, then it was out of sight again. but he had seen it,unquestionably he had seen it! he made a desperate,

agonizing effort to wrench the top half ofhis body free. it was impossible to move so much as a centimetre in any direction. forthe moment he had even forgotten the dial. all he wanted was to hold the photograph inhis fingers again, or at least to see it. 'it exists!' he cried. 'no,' said o'brien. he stepped across the room. there was a memoryhole in the opposite wall. o'brien lifted the grating. unseen, the frail slip of paperwas whirling away on the current of warm air; it was vanishing in a flash of flame. o'brienturned away from the wall. 'ashes,' he said. 'not even identifiable ashes.dust. it does not exist. it never existed.'

'but it did exist! it does exist! it existsin memory. i remember it. you remember it.' 'i do not remember it,' said o'brien. winston's heart sank. that was doublethink.he had a feeling of deadly helplessness. if he could have been certain that o'brien waslying, it would not have seemed to matter. but it was perfectly possible that o'brienhad really forgotten the photograph. and if so, then already he would have forgotten hisdenial of remembering it, and forgotten the act of forgetting. how could one be sure thatit was simple trickery? perhaps that lunatic dislocation in the mind could really happen:that was the thought that defeated him. o'brien was looking down at him speculatively.more than ever he had the air of a teacher

taking pains with a wayward but promisingchild. 'there is a party slogan dealing with thecontrol of the past,' he said. 'repeat it, if you please.' '"who controls the past controls the future:who controls the present controls the past,"' repeated winston obediently. "'who controls the present controls the past,"'said o'brien, nodding his head with slow approval. 'is it your opinion, winston, that the pasthas real existence?' again the feeling of helplessness descendedupon winston. his eyes flitted towards the dial. he not only did not know whether 'yes'or 'no' was the answer that would save him

from pain; he did not even know which answerhe believed to be the true one. o'brien smiled faintly. 'you are no metaphysician,winston,' he said. 'until this moment you had never considered what is meant by existence.i will put it more precisely. does the past exist concretely, in space? is there somewhereor other a place, a world of solid objects, where the past is still happening?' 'no.' 'then where does the past exist, if at all?' 'in records. it is written down.' 'in records. and—?'

'in the mind. in human memories.' 'in memory. very well, then. we, the party,control all records, and we control all memories. then we control the past, do we not?' 'but how can you stop people remembering things?'cried winston again momentarily forgetting the dial. 'it is involuntary. it is outsideoneself. how can you control memory? you have not controlled mine!' o'brien's manner grew stern again. he laidhis hand on the dial. 'on the contrary,' he said, 'you have notcontrolled it. that is what has brought you here. you are here because you have failedin humility, in self-discipline. you would

not make the act of submission which is theprice of sanity. you preferred to be a lunatic, a minority of one. only the disciplined mindcan see reality, winston. you believe that reality is something objective, external,existing in its own right. you also believe that the nature of reality is self-evident.when you delude yourself into thinking that you see something, you assume that everyoneelse sees the same thing as you. but i tell you, winston, that reality is not external.reality exists in the human mind, and nowhere else. not in the individual mind, which canmake mistakes, and in any case soon perishes: only in the mind of the party, which is collectiveand immortal. whatever the party holds to be the truth, is truth. it is impossible tosee reality except by looking through the

eyes of the party. that is the fact that youhave got to relearn, winston. it needs an act of self-destruction, an effort of thewill. you must humble yourself before you can become sane.' he paused for a few moments, as though toallow what he had been saying to sink in. 'do you remember,' he went on, 'writing inyour diary, "freedom is the freedom to say that two plus two make four"?' o'brien held up his left hand, its back towardswinston, with the thumb hidden and the four fingers extended. 'how many fingers am i holding up, winston?'

'four.' 'and if the party says that it is not fourbut five — then how many?' the word ended in a gasp of pain. the needleof the dial had shot up to fifty-five. the sweat had sprung out all over winston's body.the air tore into his lungs and issued again in deep groans which even by clenching histeeth he could not stop. o'brien watched him, the four fingers still extended. he drew backthe lever. this time the pain was only slightly eased. 'how many fingers, winston?' the needle went up to sixty.

'four! four! what else can i say? four!' the needle must have risen again, but he didnot look at it. the heavy, stern face and the four fingers filled his vision. the fingersstood up before his eyes like pillars, enormous, blurry, and seeming to vibrate, but unmistakablyfour. 'four! stop it, stop it! how can you go on?four! four!' 'five! five! five!' 'no, winston, that is no use. you are lying.you still think there are four. how many fingers, please?' 'four! five! four! anything you like. onlystop it, stop the pain!'

abruptly he was sitting up with o'brien'sarm round his shoulders. he had perhaps lost consciousness for a few seconds. the bondsthat had held his body down were loosened. he felt very cold, he was shaking uncontrollably,his teeth were chattering, the tears were rolling down his cheeks. for a moment he clungto o'brien like a baby, curiously comforted by the heavy arm round his shoulders. he hadthe feeling that o'brien was his protector, that the pain was something that came fromoutside, from some other source, and that it was o'brien who would save him from it. 'you are a slow learner, winston,' said o'briengently. 'how can i help it?' he blubbered. 'how cani help seeing what is in front of my eyes?

two and two are four.' 'sometimes, winston. sometimes they are five.sometimes they are three. sometimes they are all of them at once. you must try harder.it is not easy to become sane.' he laid winston down on the bed. the gripof his limbs tightened again, but the pain had ebbed away and the trembling had stopped,leaving him merely weak and cold. o'brien motioned with his head to the man in the whitecoat, who had stood immobile throughout the proceedings. the man in the white coat bentdown and looked closely into winston's eyes, felt his pulse, laid an ear against his chest,tapped here and there, then he nodded to o'brien. 'again,' said o'brien.

the pain flowed into winston's body. the needlemust be at seventy, seventy-five. he had shut his eyes this time. he knew that the fingerswere still there, and still four. all that mattered was somehow to stay alive until thespasm was over. he had ceased to notice whether he was crying out or not. the pain lessenedagain. he opened his eyes. o'brien had drawn back the lever. 'four. i suppose there are four. i would seefive if i could. i am trying to see five.' 'which do you wish: to persuade me that yousee five, or really to see them?' 'really to see them.' perhaps the needle was eighty — ninety.winston could not intermittently remember

why the pain was happening. behind his screwed-upeyelids a forest of fingers seemed to be moving in a sort of dance, weaving in and out, disappearingbehind one another and reappearing again. he was trying to count them, he could notremember why. he knew only that it was impossible to count them, and that this was somehow dueto the mysterious identity between five and four. the pain died down again. when he openedhis eyes it was to find that he was still seeing the same thing. innumerable fingers,like moving trees, were still streaming past in either direction, crossing and recrossing.he shut his eyes again. 'i don't know. i don't know. you will killme if you do that again. four, five, six — in all honesty i don't know.'

'better,' said o'brien. a needle slid into winston's arm. almost inthe same instant a blissful, healing warmth spread all through his body. the pain wasalready half-forgotten. he opened his eyes and looked up gratefully at o'brien. at sightof the heavy, lined face, so ugly and so intelligent, his heart seemed to turn over. if he couldhave moved he would have stretched out a hand and laid it on o'brien arm. he had never lovedhim so deeply as at this moment, and not merely because he had stopped the pain. the old feeling,that at bottom it did not matter whether o'brien was a friend or an enemy, had come back. o'brienwas a person who could be talked to. perhaps one did not want to be loved so much as tobe understood. o'brien had tortured him to

the edge of lunacy, and in a little while,it was certain, he would send him to his death. it made no difference. in some sense thatwent deeper than friendship, they were intimates: somewhere or other, although the actual wordsmight never be spoken, there was a place where they could meet and talk. o'brien was lookingdown at him with an expression which suggested that the same thought might be in his ownmind. when he spoke it was in an easy, conversational tone. 'do you know where you are, winston?' he said. 'i don't know. i can guess. in the ministryof love.' 'do you know how long you have been here?'

'i don't know. days, weeks, months — i thinkit is months.' 'and why do you imagine that we bring peopleto this place?' 'to make them confess.' 'no, that is not the reason. try again.' 'to punish them.' 'no!' exclaimed o'brien. his voice had changedextraordinarily, and his face had suddenly become both stern and animated. 'no! not merelyto extract your confession, not to punish you. shall i tell you why we have broughtyou here? to cure you! to make you sane! will you understand, winston, that no one whomwe bring to this place ever leaves our hands

uncured? we are not interested in those stupidcrimes that you have committed. the party is not interested in the overt act: the thoughtis all we care about. we do not merely destroy our enemies, we change them. do you understandwhat i mean by that?' he was bending over winston. his face lookedenormous because of its nearness, and hideously ugly because it was seen from below. moreoverit was filled with a sort of exaltation, a lunatic intensity. again winston's heart shrank.if it had been possible he would have cowered deeper into the bed. he felt certain thato'brien was about to twist the dial out of sheer wantonness. at this moment, however,o'brien turned away. he took a pace or two up and down. then he continued less vehemently:

'the first thing for you to understand isthat in this place there are no martyrdoms. you have read of the religious persecutionsof the past. in the middle ages there was the inquisitlon. it was a failure. it setout to eradicate heresy, and ended by perpetuating it. for every heretic it burned at the stake,thousands of others rose up. why was that? because the inquisition killed its enemiesin the open, and killed them while they were still unrepentant: in fact, it killed thembecause they were unrepentant. men were dying because they would not abandon their truebeliefs. naturally all the glory belonged to the victim and all the shame to the inquisitorwho burned him. later, in the twentieth century, there were the totalitarians, as they werecalled. there were the german nazis and the

russian communists. the russians persecutedheresy more cruelly than the inquisition had done. and they imagined that they had learnedfrom the mistakes of the past; they knew, at any rate, that one must not make martyrs.before they exposed their victims to public trial, they deliberately set themselves todestroy their dignity. they wore them down by torture and solitude until they were despicable,cringing wretches, confessing whatever was put into their mouths, covering themselveswith abuse, accusing and sheltering behind one another, whimpering for mercy. and yetafter only a few years the same thing had happened over again. the dead men had becomemartyrs and their degradation was forgotten. once again, why was it? in the first place,because the confessions that they had made

were obviously extorted and untrue. we donot make mistakes of that kind. all the confessions that are uttered here are true. we make themtrue. and above all we do not allow the dead to rise up against us. you must stop imaginingthat posterity will vindicate you, winston. posterity will never hear of you. you willbe lifted clean out from the stream of history. we shall turn you into gas and pour you intothe stratosphere. nothing will remain of you, not a name in a register, not a memory ina living brain. you will be annihilated in the past as well as in the future. you willnever have existed.' then why bother to torture me? thought winston,with a momentary bitterness. o'brien checked his step as though winston had uttered thethought aloud. his large ugly face came nearer,

with the eyes a little narrowed. 'you are thinking,' he said, 'that since weintend to destroy you utterly, so that nothing that you say or do can make the smallest difference— in that case, why do we go to the trouble of interrogating you first? that is what youwere thinking, was it not?' o'brien smiled slightly. 'you are a flaw inthe pattern, winston. you are a stain that must be wiped out. did i not tell you justnow that we are different from the persecutors of the past? we are not content with negativeobedience, nor even with the most abject submission. when finally you surrender to us, it mustbe of your own free will. we do not destroy the heretic because he resists us: so longas he resists us we never destroy him. we

convert him, we capture his inner mind, wereshape him. we burn all evil and all illusion out of him; we bring him over to our side,not in appearance, but genuinely, heart and soul. we make him one of ourselves beforewe kill him. it is intolerable to us that an erroneous thought should exist anywherein the world, however secret and powerless it may be. even in the instant of death wecannot permit any deviation. in the old days the heretic walked to the stake still a heretic,proclaiming his heresy, exulting in it. even the victim of the russian purges could carryrebellion locked up in his skull as he walked down the passage waiting for the bullet. butwe make the brain perfect before we blow it out. the command of the old despotisms was"thou shalt not". the command of the totalitarians

was "thou shalt". our command is "thou art".no one whom we bring to this place ever stands out against us. everyone is washed clean.even those three miserable traitors in whose innocence you once believed — jones, aaronson,and rutherford — in the end we broke them down. i took part in their interrogation myself.i saw them gradually worn down, whimpering, grovelling, weeping — and in the end itwas not with pain or fear, only with penitence. by the time we had finished with them theywere only the shells of men. there was nothing left in them except sorrow for what they haddone, and love of big brother. it was touching to see how they loved him. they begged tobe shot quickly, so that they could die while their minds were still clean.'

his voice had grown almost dreamy. the exaltation,the lunatic enthusiasm, was still in his face. he is not pretending, thought winston, heis not a hypocrite, he believes every word he says. what most oppressed him was the consciousnessof his own intellectual inferiority. he watched the heavy yet graceful form strolling to andfro, in and out of the range of his vision. o'brien was a being in all ways larger thanhimself. there was no idea that he had ever had, or could have, that o'brien had not longago known, examined, and rejected. his mind contained winston's mind. but in that casehow could it be true that o'brien was mad? it must be he, winston, who was mad. o'brienhalted and looked down at him. his voice had grown stern again.

'do not imagine that you will save yourself,winston, however completely you surrender to us. no one who has once gone astray isever spared. and even if we chose to let you live out the natural term of your life, stillyou would never escape from us. what happens to you here is for ever. understand that inadvance. we shall crush you down to the point from which there is no coming back. thingswill happen to you from which you could not recover, if you lived a thousand years. neveragain will you be capable of ordinary human feeling. everything will be dead inside you.never again will you be capable of love, or friendship, or joy of living, or laughter,or curiosity, or courage, or integrity. you will be hollow. we shall squeeze you empty,and then we shall fill you with ourselves.'

he paused and signed to the man in the whitecoat. winston was aware of some heavy piece of apparatus being pushed into place behindhis head. o'brien had sat down beside the bed, so that his face was almost on a levelwith winston's. 'three thousand,' he said, speaking over winston'shead to the man in the white coat. two soft pads, which felt slightly moist,clamped themselves against winston's temples. he quailed. there was pain coming, a new kindof pain. o'brien laid a hand reassuringly, almost kindly, on his. 'this time it will not hurt,' he said. 'keepyour eyes fixed on mine.' at this moment there was a devastating explosion,or what seemed like an explosion, though it

was not certain whether there was any noise.there was undoubtedly a blinding flash of light. winston was not hurt, only prostrated.although he had already been lying on his back when the thing happened, he had a curiousfeeling that he had been knocked into that position. a terrific painless blow had flattenedhim out. also something had happened inside his head. as his eyes regained their focushe remembered who he was, and where he was, and recognized the face that was gazing intohis own; but somewhere or other there was a large patch of emptiness, as though a piecehad been taken out of his brain. 'it will not last,' said o'brien. 'look mein the eyes. what country is oceania at war with?'

winston thought. he knew what was meant byoceania and that he himself was a citizen of oceania. he also remembered eurasia andeastasia; but who was at war with whom he did not know. in fact he had not been awarethat there was any war. 'i don't remember.' 'oceania is at war with eastasia. do you rememberthat now?' 'yes.' 'oceania has always been at war with eastasia.since the beginning of your life, since the beginning of the party, since the beginningof history, the war has continued without a break, always the same war. do you rememberthat?'

'eleven years ago you created a legend aboutthree men who had been condemned to death for treachery. you pretended that you hadseen a piece of paper which proved them innocent. no such piece of paper ever existed. you inventedit, and later you grew to believe in it. you remember now the very moment at which youfirst invented it. do you remember that?' 'just now i held up the fingers of my handto you. you saw five fingers. do you remember that?' o'brien held up the fingers of his left hand,with the thumb concealed. 'there are five fingers there. do you seefive fingers?' and he did see them, for a fleeting instant,before the scenery of his mind changed. he

saw five fingers, and there was no deformity.then everything was normal again, and the old fear, the hatred, and the bewildermentcame crowding back again. but there had been a moment — he did not know how long, thirtyseconds, perhaps — of luminous certainty, when each new suggestion of o'brien's hadfilled up a patch of emptiness and become absolute truth, and when two and two couldhave been three as easily as five, if that were what was needed. it had faded but beforeo'brien had dropped his hand; but though he could not recapture it, he could rememberit, as one remembers a vivid experience at some period of one's life when one was ineffect a different person. 'you see now,' said o'brien, 'that it is atany rate possible.'

o'brien stood up with a satisfied air. overto his left winston saw the man in the white coat break an ampoule and draw back the plungerof a syringe. o'brien turned to winston with a smile. in almost the old manner he resettledhis spectacles on his nose. 'do you remember writing in your diary,' hesaid, 'that it did not matter whether i was a friend or an enemy, since i was at leasta person who understood you and could be talked to? you were right. i enjoy talking to you.your mind appeals to me. it resembles my own mind except that you happen to be insane.before we bring the session to an end you can ask me a few questions, if you choose.' 'any question i like?'

'anything.' he saw that winston's eyes wereupon the dial. 'it is switched off. what is your first question?' 'what have you done with julia?' said winston. o'brien smiled again. 'she betrayed you, winston.immediately-unreservedly. i have seldom seen anyone come over to us so promptly. you wouldhardly recognize her if you saw her. all her rebelliousness, her deceit, her folly, herdirty-mindedness — everything has been burned out of her. it was a perfect conversion, atextbook case.' 'you tortured her?' o'brien left this unanswered. 'next question,'he said.

'does big brother exist?' 'of course he exists. the party exists. bigbrother is the embodiment of the party.' 'does he exist in the same way as i exist?' 'you do not exist,' said o'brien. once again the sense of helplessness assailedhim. he knew, or he could imagine, the arguments which proved his own nonexistence; but theywere nonsense, they were only a play on words. did not the statement, 'you do not exist',contain a logical absurdity? but what use was it to say so? his mind shrivelled as hethought of the unanswerable, mad arguments with which o'brien would demolish him.

'i think i exist,' he said wearily. 'i amconscious of my own identity. i was born and i shall die. i have arms and legs. i occupya particular point in space. no other solid object can occupy the same point simultaneously.in that sense, does big brother exist?' 'it is of no importance. he exists.' 'will big brother ever die?' 'of course not. how could he die? next question.' 'does the brotherhood exist?' 'that, winston, you will never know. if wechoose to set you free when we have finished with you, and if you live to be ninety yearsold, still you will never learn whether the

answer to that question is yes or no. as longas you live it will be an unsolved riddle in your mind.' winston lay silent. his breast rose and fella little faster. he still had not asked the question that had come into his mind the first.he had got to ask it, and yet it was as though his tongue would not utter it. there was atrace of amusement in o'brien's face. even his spectacles seemed to wear an ironicalgleam. he knows, thought winston suddenly, he knows what i am going to ask! at the thoughtthe words burst out of him: 'what is in room 101?' the expression on o'brien's face did not change.he answered drily:

'you know what is in room 101, winston. everyoneknows what is in room 101.' he raised a finger to the man in the whitecoat. evidently the session was at an end. a needle jerked into winston's arm. he sankalmost instantly into deep sleep. chapter : 3 'there are three stages in your reintegration,'said o'brien. 'there is learning, there is understanding, and there is acceptance. itis time for you to enter upon the second stage.' as always, winston was lying flat on his back.but of late his bonds were looser. they still held him to the bed, but he could move hisknees a little and could turn his head from side to side and raise his arms from the elbow.the dial, also, had grown to be less of a

terror. he could evade its pangs if he wasquick-witted enough: it was chiefly when he showed stupidity that o'brien pulled the lever.sometimes they got through a whole session without use of the dial. he could not rememberhow many sessions there had been. the whole process seemed to stretch out over a long,indefinite time — weeks, possibly — and the intervals between the sessions might sometimeshave been days, sometimes only an hour or two. 'as you lie there,' said o'brien, 'you haveoften wondered — you have even asked me — why the ministry of love should expendso much time and trouble on you. and when you were free you were puzzled by what wasessentially the same question. you could grasp

the mechanics of the society you lived in,but not its underlying motives. do you remember writing in your diary, "i understand how:i do not understand why"? it was when you thought about "why" that you doubted yourown sanity. you have read the book, goldstein's book, or parts of it, at least. did it tellyou anything that you did not know already?' 'you have read it?' said winston. 'i wrote it. that is to say, i collaboratedin writing it. no book is produced individually, as you know.' 'is it true, what it says?' 'a description, yes. the programme it setsforth is nonsense. the secret accumulation

of knowledge — a gradual spread of enlightenment— ultimately a proletarian rebellion — the overthrow of the party. you foresaw yourselfthat that was what it would say. it is all nonsense. the proletarians will never revolt,not in a thousand years or a million. they cannot. i do not have to tell you the reason:you know it already. if you have ever cherished any dreams of violent insurrection, you mustabandon them. there is no way in which the party can be overthrown. the rule of the partyis for ever. make that the starting-point of your thoughts.' he came closer to the bed. 'for ever!' herepeated. 'and now let us get back to the question of "how" and "why". you understandwell enough how the party maintains itself

in power. now tell me why we cling to power.what is our motive? why should we want power? go on, speak,' he added as winston remainedsilent. nevertheless winston did not speak for anothermoment or two. a feeling of weariness had overwhelmed him. the faint, mad gleam of enthusiasmhad come back into o'brien's face. he knew in advance what o'brien would say. that theparty did not seek power for its own ends, but only for the good of the majority. thatit sought power because men in the mass were frail cowardly creatures who could not endureliberty or face the truth, and must be ruled over and systematically deceived by otherswho were stronger than themselves. that the choice for mankind lay between freedom andhappiness, and that, for the great bulk of

mankind, happiness was better. that the partywas the eternal guardian of the weak, a dedicated sect doing evil that good might come, sacrificingits own happiness to that of others. the terrible thing, thought winston, the terrible thingwas that when o'brien said this he would believe it. you could see it in his face. o'brienknew everything. a thousand times better than winston he knew what the world was reallylike, in what degradation the mass of human beings lived and by what lies and barbaritiesthe party kept them there. he had understood it all, weighed it all, and it made no difference:all was justified by the ultimate purpose. what can you do, thought winston, againstthe lunatic who is more intelligent than yourself, who gives your arguments a fair hearing andthen simply persists in his lunacy?

'you are ruling over us for our own good,'he said feebly. 'you believe that human beings are not fit to govern themselves, and therefore—' he started and almost cried out. a pang ofpain had shot through his body. o'brien had pushed the lever of the dial up to thirty-five. 'that was stupid, winston, stupid!' he said.'you should know better than to say a thing like that.' he pulled the lever back and continued: 'now i will tell you the answer to my question.it is this. the party seeks power entirely for its own sake. we are not interested inthe good of others; we are interested solely

in power. not wealth or luxury or long lifeor happiness: only power, pure power. what pure power means you will understand presently.we are different from all the oligarchies of the past, in that we know what we are doing.all the others, even those who resembled ourselves, were cowards and hypocrites. the german nazisand the russian communists came very close to us in their methods, but they never hadthe courage to recognize their own motives. they pretended, perhaps they even believed,that they had seized power unwillingly and for a limited time, and that just round thecorner there lay a paradise where human beings would be free and equal. we are not like that.we know that no one ever seizes power with the intention of relinquishing it. power isnot a means, it is an end. one does not establish

a dictatorship in order to safeguard a revolution;one makes the revolution in order to establish the dictatorship. the object of persecutionis persecution. the object of torture is torture. the object of power is power. now do you beginto understand me?' winston was struck, as he had been struckbefore, by the tiredness of o'brien's face. it was strong and fleshy and brutal, it wasfull of intelligence and a sort of controlled passion before which he felt himself helpless;but it was tired. there were pouches under the eyes, the skin sagged from the cheekbones.o'brien leaned over him, deliberately bringing the worn face nearer. 'you are thinking,' he said, 'that my faceis old and tired. you are thinking that i

talk of power, and yet i am not even ableto prevent the decay of my own body. can you not understand, winston, that the individualis only a cell? the weariness of the cell is the vigour of the organism. do you diewhen you cut your fingernails?' he turned away from the bed and began strollingup and down again, one hand in his pocket. 'we are the priests of power,' he said. 'godis power. but at present power is only a word so far as you are concerned. it is time foryou to gather some idea of what power means. the first thing you must realize is that poweris collective. the individual only has power in so far as he ceases to be an individual.you know the party slogan: "freedom is slavery". has it ever occurred to you that it is reversible?slavery is freedom. alone — free — the

human being is always defeated. it must beso, because every human being is doomed to die, which is the greatest of all failures.but if he can make complete, utter submission, if he can escape from his identity, if hecan merge himself in the party so that he is the party, then he is all-powerful andimmortal. the second thing for you to realize is that power is power over human beings.over the body but, above all, over the mind. power over matter — external reality, asyou would call it — is not important. already our control over matter is absolute.' for a moment winston ignored the dial. hemade a violent effort to raise himself into a sitting position, and merely succeeded inwrenching his body painfully.

'but how can you control matter?' he burstout. 'you don't even control the climate or the law of gravity. and there are disease,pain, death—' o'brien silenced him by a movement of hishand. 'we control matter because we control the mind. reality is inside the skull. youwill learn by degrees, winston. there is nothing that we could not do. invisibility, levitation— anything. i could float off this floor like a soap bubble if i wish to. i do notwish to, because the party does not wish it. you must get rid of those nineteenth-centuryideas about the laws of nature. we make the laws of nature.' 'but you do not! you are not even mastersof this planet. what about eurasia and eastasia?

you have not conquered them yet.' 'unimportant. we shall conquer them when itsuits us. and if we did not, what difference would it make? we can shut them out of existence.oceania is the world.' 'but the world itself is only a speck of dust.and man is tiny helpless! how long has he been in existence? for millions of years theearth was uninhabited.' 'nonsense. the earth is as old as we are,no older. how could it be older? nothing exists except through human consciousness.' 'but the rocks are full of the bones of extinctanimals — mammoths and mastodons and enormous reptiles which lived here long before manwas ever heard of.'

'have you ever seen those bones, winston?of course not. nineteenth-century biologists invented them. before man there was nothing.after man, if he could come to an end, there would be nothing. outside man there is nothing.' 'but the whole universe is outside us. lookat the stars! some of them are a million light-years away. they are out of our reach for ever.' 'what are the stars?' said o'brien indifferently.'they are bits of fire a few kilometres away. we could reach them if we wanted to. or wecould blot them out. the earth is the centre of the universe. the sun and the stars goround it.' winston made another convulsive movement.this time he did not say anything. o'brien

continued as though answering a spoken objection: 'for certain purposes, of course, that isnot true. when we navigate the ocean, or when we predict an eclipse, we often find it convenientto assume that the earth goes round the sun and that the stars are millions upon millionsof kilometres away. but what of it? do you suppose it is beyond us to produce a dualsystem of astronomy? the stars can be near or distant, according as we need them. doyou suppose our mathematicians are unequal to that? have you forgotten doublethink?' winston shrank back upon the bed. whateverhe said, the swift answer crushed him like a bludgeon. and yet he knew, he knew, thathe was in the right. the belief that nothing

exists outside your own mind — surely theremust be some way of demonstrating that it was false? had it not been exposed long agoas a fallacy? there was even a name for it, which he had forgotten. a faint smile twitchedthe corners of o'brien's mouth as he looked down at him. 'i told you, winston,' he said, 'that metaphysicsis not your strong point. the word you are trying to think of is solipsism. but you aremistaken. this is not solipsism. collective solipsism, if you like. but that is a differentthing: in fact, the opposite thing. all this is a digression,' he added in a differenttone. 'the real power, the power we have to fight for night and day, is not power overthings, but over men.' he paused, and for

a moment assumed again his air of a schoolmasterquestioning a promising pupil: 'how does one man assert his power over another, winston?' winston thought. 'by making him suffer,' hesaid. 'exactly. by making him suffer. obedienceis not enough. unless he is suffering, how can you be sure that he is obeying your willand not his own? power is in inflicting pain and humiliation. power is in tearing humanminds to pieces and putting them together again in new shapes of your own choosing.do you begin to see, then, what kind of world we are creating? it is the exact oppositeof the stupid hedonistic utopias that the old reformers imagined. a world of fear andtreachery is torment, a world of trampling

and being trampled upon, a world which willgrow not less but more merciless as it refines itself. progress in our world will be progresstowards more pain. the old civilizations claimed that they were founded on love or justice.ours is founded upon hatred. in our world there will be no emotions except fear, rage,triumph, and self-abasement. everything else we shall destroy — everything. already weare breaking down the habits of thought which have survived from before the revolution.we have cut the links between child and parent, and between man and man, and between man andwoman. no one dares trust a wife or a child or a friend any longer. but in the futurethere will be no wives and no friends. children will be taken from their mothers at birth,as one takes eggs from a hen. the sex instinct

will be eradicated. procreation will be anannual formality like the renewal of a ration card. we shall abolish the orgasm. our neurologistsare at work upon it now. there will be no loyalty, except loyalty towards the party.there will be no love, except the love of big brother. there will be no laughter, exceptthe laugh of triumph over a defeated enemy. there will be no art, no literature, no science.when we are omnipotent we shall have no more need of science. there will be no distinctionbetween beauty and ugliness. there will be no curiosity, no enjoyment of the processof life. all competing pleasures will be destroyed. but always — do not forget this, winston— always there will be the intoxication of power, constantly increasing and constantlygrowing subtler. always, at every moment,

there will be the thrill of victory, the sensationof trampling on an enemy who is helpless. if you want a picture of the future, imaginea boot stamping on a human face — for ever.' he paused as though he expected winston tospeak. winston had tried to shrink back into the surface of the bed again. he could notsay anything. his heart seemed to be frozen. o'brien went on: 'and remember that it is for ever. the facewill always be there to be stamped upon. the heretic, the enemy of society, will alwaysbe there, so that he can be defeated and humiliated over again. everything that you have undergonesince you have been in our hands — all that will continue, and worse. the espionage, thebetrayals, the arrests, the tortures, the

executions, the disappearances will nevercease. it will be a world of terror as much as a world of triumph. the more the partyis powerful, the less it will be tolerant: the weaker the opposition, the tighter thedespotism. goldstein and his heresies will live for ever. every day, at every moment,they will be defeated, discredited, ridiculed, spat upon and yet they will always survive.this drama that i have played out with you during seven years will be played out overand over again generation after generation, always in subtler forms. always we shall havethe heretic here at our mercy, screaming with pain, broken up, contemptible — and in theend utterly penitent, saved from himself, crawling to our feet of his own accord. thatis the world that we are preparing, winston.

a world of victory after victory, triumphafter triumph after triumph: an endless pressing, pressing, pressing upon the nerve of power.you are beginning, i can see, to realize what that world will be like. but in the end youwill do more than understand it. you will accept it, welcome it, become part of it.' winston had recovered himself sufficientlyto speak. 'you can't!' he said weakly. 'what do you mean by that remark, winston?' 'you could not create such a world as youhave just described. it is a dream. it is impossible.' 'why?'

'it is impossible to found a civilizationon fear and hatred and cruelty. it would never endure.' 'why not?' 'it would have no vitality. it would disintegrate.it would commit suicide.' 'nonsense. you are under the impression thathatred is more exhausting than love. why should it be? and if it were, what difference wouldthat make? suppose that we choose to wear ourselves out faster. suppose that we quickenthe tempo of human life till men are senile at thirty. still what difference would itmake? can you not understand that the death of the individual is not death? the partyis immortal.'

as usual, the voice had battered winston intohelplessness. moreover he was in dread that if he persisted in his disagreement o'brienwould twist the dial again. and yet he could not keep silent. feebly, without arguments,with nothing to support him except his inarticulate horror of what o'brien had said, he returnedto the attack. 'i don't know — i don't care. somehow youwill fail. something will defeat you. life will defeat you.' 'we control life, winston, at all its levels.you are imagining that there is something called human nature which will be outragedby what we do and will turn against us. but we create human nature. men are infinitelymalleable. or perhaps you have returned to

your old idea that the proletarians or theslaves will arise and overthrow us. put it out of your mind. they are helpless, likethe animals. humanity is the party. the others are outside — irrelevant.' 'i don't care. in the end they will beat you.sooner or later they will see you for what you are, and then they will tear you to pieces.' 'do you see any evidence that that is happening?or any reason why it should?' 'no. i believe it. i know that you will fail.there is something in the universe — i don't know, some spirit, some principle — thatyou will never overcome.' 'do you believe in god, winston?'

'then what is it, this principle that willdefeat us?' 'i don't know. the spirit of man.' 'and do you consider yourself a man?.' 'if you are a man, winston, you are the lastman. your kind is extinct; we are the inheritors. do you understand that you are alone? youare outside history, you are non-existent.' his manner changed and he said more harshly:'and you consider yourself morally superior to us, with our lies and our cruelty?' 'yes, i consider myself superior.' o'brien did not speak. two other voices werespeaking. after a moment winston recognized

one of them as his own. it was a sound-trackof the conversation he had had with o'brien, on the night when he had enrolled himselfin the brotherhood. he heard himself promising to lie, to steal, to forge, to murder, toencourage drug-taking and prostitution, to disseminate venereal diseases, to throw vitriolin a child's face. o'brien made a small impatient gesture, as though to say that the demonstrationwas hardly worth making. then he turned a switch and the voices stopped. 'get up from that bed,' he said. the bonds had loosened themselves. winstonlowered himself to the floor and stood up unsteadily.

'you are the last man,' said o'brien. 'youare the guardian of the human spirit. you shall see yourself as you are. take off yourclothes.' winston undid the bit of string that heldhis overalls together. the zip fastener had long since been wrenched out of them. he couldnot remember whether at any time since his arrest he had taken off all his clothes atone time. beneath the overalls his body was looped with filthy yellowish rags, just recognizableas the remnants of underclothes. as he slid them to the ground he saw that there was athree-sided mirror at the far end of the room. he approached it, then stopped short. an involuntarycry had broken out of him. 'go on,' said o'brien. 'stand between thewings of the mirror. you shall see the side

view as well.' he had stopped because he was frightened.a bowed, grey-coloured, skeleton-like thing was coming towards him. its actual appearancewas frightening, and not merely the fact that he knew it to be himself. he moved closerto the glass. the creature's face seemed to be protruded, because of its bent carriage.a forlorn, jailbird's face with a nobby forehead running back into a bald scalp, a crookednose, and battered-looking cheekbones above which his eyes were fierce and watchful. thecheeks were seamed, the mouth had a drawn-in look. certainly it was his own face, but itseemed to him that it had changed more than he had changed inside. the emotions it registeredwould be different from the ones he felt.

he had gone partially bald. for the firstmoment he had thought that he had gone grey as well, but it was only the scalp that wasgrey. except for his hands and a circle of his face, his body was grey all over withancient, ingrained dirt. here and there under the dirt there were the red scars of wounds,and near the ankle the varicose ulcer was an inflamed mass with flakes of skin peelingoff it. but the truly frightening thing was the emaciation of his body. the barrel ofthe ribs was as narrow as that of a skeleton: the legs had shrunk so that the knees werethicker than the thighs. he saw now what o'brien had meant about seeing the side view. thecurvature of the spine was astonishing. the thin shoulders were hunched forward so asto make a cavity of the chest, the scraggy

neck seemed to be bending double under theweight of the skull. at a guess he would have said that it was the body of a man of sixty,suffering from some malignant disease. 'you have thought sometimes,' said o'brien,'that my face — the face of a member of the inner party — looks old and worn. whatdo you think of your own face?' he seized winston's shoulder and spun himround so that he was facing him. 'look at the condition you are in!' he said.'look at this filthy grime all over your body. look at the dirt between your toes. look atthat disgusting running sore on your leg. do you know that you stink like a goat? probablyyou have ceased to notice it. look at your emaciation. do you see? i can make my thumband forefinger meet round your bicep. i could

snap your neck like a carrot. do you knowthat you have lost twenty-five kilograms since you have been in our hands? even your hairis coming out in handfuls. look!' he plucked at winston's head and brought away a tuftof hair. 'open your mouth. nine, ten, eleven teeth left. how many had you when you cameto us? and the few you have left are dropping out of your head. look here!' he seized one of winston's remaining frontteeth between his powerful thumb and forefinger. a twinge of pain shot through winston's jaw.o'brien had wrenched the loose tooth out by the roots. he tossed it across the cell. 'you are rotting away,' he said; 'you arefalling to pieces. what are you? a bag of

filth. now turn around and look into thatmirror again. do you see that thing facing you? that is the last man. if you are human,that is humanity. now put your clothes on again.' winston began to dress himself with slow stiffmovements. until now he had not seemed to notice how thin and weak he was. only onethought stirred in his mind: that he must have been in this place longer than he hadimagined. then suddenly as he fixed the miserable rags round himself a feeling of pity for hisruined body overcame him. before he knew what he was doing he had collapsed on to a smallstool that stood beside the bed and burst into tears. he was aware of his ugliness,his gracelessness, a bundle of bones in filthy

underclothes sitting weeping in the harshwhite light: but he could not stop himself. o'brien laid a hand on his shoulder, almostkindly. 'it will not last for ever,' he said. 'youcan escape from it whenever you choose. everything depends on yourself.' 'you did it!' sobbed winston. 'you reducedme to this state.' 'no, winston, you reduced yourself to it.this is what you accepted when you set yourself up against the party. it was all containedin that first act. nothing has happened that you did not foresee.' he paused, and then went on:

'we have beaten you, winston. we have brokenyou up. you have seen what your body is like. your mind is in the same state. i do not thinkthere can be much pride left in you. you have been kicked and flogged and insulted, youhave screamed with pain, you have rolled on the floor in your own blood and vomit. youhave whimpered for mercy, you have betrayed everybody and everything. can you think ofa single degradation that has not happened to you?' winston had stopped weeping, though the tearswere still oozing out of his eyes. he looked up at o'brien. 'i have not betrayed julia,' he said.

o'brien looked down at him thoughtfully. 'no,'he said; 'no; that is perfectly true. you have not betrayed julia.' the peculiar reverence for o'brien, whichnothing seemed able to destroy, flooded winston's heart again. how intelligent, he thought,how intelligent! never did o'brien fail to understand what was said to him. anyone elseon earth would have answered promptly that he had betrayed julia. for what was therethat they had not screwed out of him under the torture? he had told them everything heknew about her, her habits, her character, her past life; he had confessed in the mosttrivial detail everything that had happened at their meetings, all that he had said toher and she to him, their black-market meals,

their adulteries, their vague plottings againstthe party — everything. and yet, in the sense in which he intended the word, he hadnot betrayed her. he had not stopped loving her; his feelings towards her had remainedthe same. o'brien had seen what he meant without the need for explanation. 'tell me,' he said, 'how soon will they shootme?' 'it might be a long time,' said o'brien. 'youare a difficult case. but don't give up hope. everyone is cured sooner or later. in theend we shall shoot you.' chapter : 4 he was much better. he was growing fatterand stronger every day, if it was proper to

speak of days. the white light and the humming sound werethe same as ever, but the cell was a little more comfortable than the others he had beenin. there was a pillow and a mattress on the plank bed, and a stool to sit on. they hadgiven him a bath, and they allowed him to wash himself fairly frequently in a tin basin.they even gave him warm water to wash with. they had given him new underclothes and aclean suit of overalls. they had dressed his varicose ulcer with soothing ointment. theyhad pulled out the remnants of his teeth and given him a new set of dentures. weeks or months must have passed. it wouldhave been possible now to keep count of the

passage of time, if he had felt any interestin doing so, since he was being fed at what appeared to be regular intervals. he was getting,he judged, three meals in the twenty-four hours; sometimes he wondered dimly whetherhe was getting them by night or by day. the food was surprisingly good, with meat at everythird meal. once there was even a packet of cigarettes. he had no matches, but the never-speakingguard who brought his food would give him a light. the first time he tried to smokeit made him sick, but he persevered, and spun the packet out for a long time, smoking halfa cigarette after each meal. they had given him a white slate with a stumpof pencil tied to the corner. at first he made no use of it. even when he was awakehe was completely torpid. often he would lie

from one meal to the next almost without stirring,sometimes asleep, sometimes waking into vague reveries in which it was too much troubleto open his eyes. he had long grown used to sleeping with a strong light on his face.it seemed to make no difference, except that one's dreams were more coherent. he dreameda great deal all through this time, and they were always happy dreams. he was in the goldencountry, or he was sitting among enormous glorious, sunlit ruins, with his mother, withjulia, with o'brien — not doing anything, merely sitting in the sun, talking of peacefulthings. such thoughts as he had when he was awake were mostly about his dreams. he seemedto have lost the power of intellectual effort, now that the stimulus of pain had been removed.he was not bored, he had no desire for conversation

or distraction. merely to be alone, not tobe beaten or questioned, to have enough to eat, and to be clean all over, was completelysatisfying. by degrees he came to spend less time in sleep,but he still felt no impulse to get off the bed. all he cared for was to lie quiet andfeel the strength gathering in his body. he would finger himself here and there, tryingto make sure that it was not an illusion that his muscles were growing rounder and his skintauter. finally it was established beyond a doubt that he was growing fatter; his thighswere now definitely thicker than his knees. after that, reluctantly at first, he beganexercising himself regularly. in a little while he could walk three kilometres, measuredby pacing the cell, and his bowed shoulders

were growing straighter. he attempted moreelaborate exercises, and was astonished and humiliated to find what things he could notdo. he could not move out of a walk, he could not hold his stool out at arm's length, hecould not stand on one leg without falling over. he squatted down on his heels, and foundthat with agonizing pains in thigh and calf he could just lift himself to a standing position.he lay flat on his belly and tried to lift his weight by his hands. it was hopeless,he could not raise himself a centimetre. but after a few more days — a few more mealtimes— even that feat was accomplished. a time came when he could do it six times running.he began to grow actually proud of his body, and to cherish an intermittent belief thathis face also was growing back to normal.

only when he chanced to put his hand on hisbald scalp did he remember the seamed, ruined face that had looked back at him out of themirror. his mind grew more active. he sat down onthe plank bed, his back against the wall and the slate on his knees, and set to work deliberatelyat the task of re-educating himself. he had capitulated, that was agreed. in reality,as he saw now, he had been ready to capitulate long before he had taken the decision. fromthe moment when he was inside the ministry of love — and yes, even during those minuteswhen he and julia had stood helpless while the iron voice from the telescreen told themwhat to do — he had grasped the frivolity, the shallowness of his attempt to set himselfup against the power of the party. he knew

now that for seven years the thought policehad watched him like a beetle under a magnifying glass. there was no physical act, no wordspoken aloud, that they had not noticed, no train of thought that they had not been ableto infer. even the speck of whitish dust on the cover of his diary they had carefullyreplaced. they had played sound-tracks to him, shown him photographs. some of them werephotographs of julia and himself. yes, even... he could not fight against the party any longer.besides, the party was in the right. it must be so; how could the immortal, collectivebrain be mistaken? by what external standard could you check its judgements? sanity wasstatistical. it was merely a question of learning to think as they thought. only—!

the pencil felt thick and awkward in his fingers.he began to write down the thoughts that came into his head. he wrote first in large clumsycapitals: freedom is slavery then almost without a pause he wrote beneathit: two and two make five but then there came a sort of check. his mind,as though shying away from something, seemed unable to concentrate. he knew that he knewwhat came next, but for the moment he could not recall it. when he did recall it, it wasonly by consciously reasoning out what it must be: it did not come of its own accord.he wrote:

god is power he accepted everything. the past was alterable.the past never had been altered. oceania was at war with eastasia. oceania had always beenat war with eastasia. jones, aaronson, and rutherford were guilty of the crimes theywere charged with. he had never seen the photograph that disproved their guilt. it had never existed,he had invented it. he remembered remembering contrary things, but those were false memories,products of self-deception. how easy it all was! only surrender, and everything else followed.it was like swimming against a current that swept you backwards however hard you struggled,and then suddenly deciding to turn round and go with the current instead of opposing it.nothing had changed except your own attitude:

the predestined thing happened in any case.he hardly knew why he had ever rebelled. everything was easy, except—! anything could be true. the so-called lawsof nature were nonsense. the law of gravity was nonsense. 'if i wished,' o'brien had said,'i could float off this floor like a soap bubble.' winston worked it out. 'if he thinkshe floats off the floor, and if i simultaneously think i see him do it, then the thing happens.'suddenly, like a lump of submerged wreckage breaking the surface of water, the thoughtburst into his mind: 'it doesn't really happen. we imagine it. it is hallucination.' he pushedthe thought under instantly. the fallacy was obvious. it presupposed that somewhere orother, outside oneself, there was a 'real'

world where 'real' things happened. but howcould there be such a world? what knowledge have we of anything, save through our ownminds? all happenings are in the mind. whatever happens in all minds, truly happens. he had no difficulty in disposing of the fallacy,and he was in no danger of succumbing to it. he realized, nevertheless, that it ought neverto have occurred to him. the mind should develop a blind spot whenever a dangerous thoughtpresented itself. the process should be automatic, instinctive. crimestop, they called it innewspeak. he set to work to exercise himself in crimestop.he presented himself with propositions — 'the party says the earth is flat', 'the partysays that ice is heavier than water' — and

trained himself in not seeing or not understandingthe arguments that contradicted them. it was not easy. it needed great powers of reasoningand improvisation. the arithmetical problems raised, for instance, by such a statementas 'two and two make five' were beyond his intellectual grasp. it needed also a sortof athleticism of mind, an ability at one moment to make the most delicate use of logicand at the next to be unconscious of the crudest logical errors. stupidity was as necessaryas intelligence, and as difficult to attain. all the while, with one part of his mind,he wondered how soon they would shoot him. 'everything depends on yourself,' o'brienhad said; but he knew that there was no conscious act by which he could bring it nearer. itmight be ten minutes hence, or ten years.

they might keep him for years in solitaryconfinement, they might send him to a labour-camp, they might release him for a while, as theysometimes did. it was perfectly possible that before he was shot the whole drama of hisarrest and interrogation would be enacted all over again. the one certain thing wasthat death never came at an expected moment. the tradition — the unspoken tradition:somehow you knew it, though you never heard it said — was that they shot you from behind;always in the back of the head, without warning, as you walked down a corridor from cell tocell. one day — but 'one day' was not the rightexpression; just as probably it was in the middle of the night: once — he fell intoa strange, blissful reverie. he was walking

down the corridor, waiting for the bullet.he knew that it was coming in another moment. everything was settled, smoothed out, reconciled.there were no more doubts, no more arguments, no more pain, no more fear. his body was healthyand strong. he walked easily, with a joy of movement and with a feeling of walking insunlight. he was not any longer in the narrow white corridors in the ministry of love, hewas in the enormous sunlit passage, a kilometre wide, down which he had seemed to walk inthe delirium induced by drugs. he was in the golden country, following the foot-track acrossthe old rabbit-cropped pasture. he could feel the short springy turf under his feet andthe gentle sunshine on his face. at the edge of the field were the elm trees, faintly stirring,and somewhere beyond that was the stream where

the dace lay in the green pools under thewillows. suddenly he started up with a shock of horror.the sweat broke out on his backbone. he had heard himself cry aloud: 'julia! julia! julia, my love! julia!' for a moment he had had an overwhelming hallucinationof her presence. she had seemed to be not merely with him, but inside him. it was asthough she had got into the texture of his skin. in that moment he had loved her farmore than he had ever done when they were together and free. also he knew that somewhereor other she was still alive and needed his help.

he lay back on the bed and tried to composehimself. what had he done? how many years had he added to his servitude by that momentof weakness? in another moment he would hear the trampof boots outside. they could not let such an outburst go unpunished. they would knownow, if they had not known before, that he was breaking the agreement he had made withthem. he obeyed the party, but he still hated the party. in the old days he had hidden aheretical mind beneath an appearance of conformity. now he had retreated a step further: in themind he had surrendered, but he had hoped to keep the inner heart inviolate. he knewthat he was in the wrong, but he preferred to be in the wrong. they would understandthat — o'brien would understand it. it was

all confessed in that single foolish cry. he would have to start all over again. itmight take years. he ran a hand over his face, trying to familiarize himself with the newshape. there were deep furrows in the cheeks, the cheekbones felt sharp, the nose flattened.besides, since last seeing himself in the glass he had been given a complete new setof teeth. it was not easy to preserve inscrutability when you did not know what your face lookedlike. in any case, mere control of the features was not enough. for the first time he perceivedthat if you want to keep a secret you must also hide it from yourself. you must knowall the while that it is there, but until it is needed you must never let it emergeinto your consciousness in any shape that

could be given a name. from now onwards hemust not only think right; he must feel right, dream right. and all the while he must keephis hatred locked up inside him like a ball of matter which was part of himself and yetunconnected with the rest of him, a kind of cyst. one day they would decide to shoot him. youcould not tell when it would happen, but a few seconds beforehand it should be possibleto guess. it was always from behind, walking down a corridor. ten seconds would be enough.in that time the world inside him could turn over. and then suddenly, without a word uttered,without a check in his step, without the changing of a line in his face — suddenly the camouflagewould be down and bang! would go the batteries

of his hatred. hatred would fill him likean enormous roaring flame. and almost in the same instant bang! would go the bullet, toolate, or too early. they would have blown his brain to pieces before they could reclaimit. the heretical thought would be unpunished, unrepented, out of their reach for ever. theywould have blown a hole in their own perfection. to die hating them, that was freedom. he shut his eyes. it was more difficult thanaccepting an intellectual discipline. it was a question of degrading himself, mutilatinghimself. he had got to plunge into the filthiest of filth. what was the most horrible, sickeningthing of all? he thought of big brother. the enormous face (because of constantly seeingit on posters he always thought of it as being

a metre wide), with its heavy black moustacheand the eyes that followed you to and fro, seemed to float into his mind of its own accord.what were his true feelings towards big brother? there was a heavy tramp of boots in the passage.the steel door swung open with a clang. o'brien walked into the cell. behind him were thewaxen-faced officer and the black-uniformed guards. 'get up,' said o'brien. 'come here.' winston stood opposite him. o'brien took winston'sshoulders between his strong hands and looked at him closely. 'you have had thoughts of deceiving me,' hesaid. 'that was stupid. stand up straighter.

look me in the face.' he paused, and went on in a gentler tone: 'you are improving. intellectually there isvery little wrong with you. it is only emotionally that you have failed to make progress. tellme, winston — and remember, no lies: you know that i am always able to detect a lie— tell me, what are your true feelings towards big brother?' 'i hate him.' 'you hate him. good. then the time has comefor you to take the last step. you must love big brother. it is not enough to obey him:you must love him.'

he released winston with a little push towardsthe guards. chapter : 5 at each stage of his imprisonment he had known,or seemed to know, whereabouts he was in the windowless building. possibly there were slightdifferences in the air pressure. the cells where the guards had beaten him were belowground level. the room where he had been interrogated by o'brien was high up near the roof. thisplace was many metres underground, as deep down as it was possible to go. it was bigger than most of the cells he hadbeen in. but he hardly noticed his surroundings. all he noticed was that there were two smalltables straight in front of him, each covered

with green baize. one was only a metre ortwo from him, the other was further away, near the door. he was strapped upright ina chair, so tightly that he could move nothing, not even his head. a sort of pad gripped hishead from behind, forcing him to look straight in front of him. for a moment he was alone, then the door openedand o'brien came in. 'you asked me once,' said o'brien, 'what wasin room 101. i told you that you knew the answer already. everyone knows it. the thingthat is in room 101 is the worst thing in the world.' the door opened again. a guard came in, carryingsomething made of wire, a box or basket of

some kind. he set it down on the further table.because of the position in which o'brien was standing. winston could not see what the thingwas. 'the worst thing in the world,' said o'brien,'varies from individual to individual. it may be burial alive, or death by fire, orby drowning, or by impalement, or fifty other deaths. there are cases where it is some quitetrivial thing, not even fatal.' he had moved a little to one side, so thatwinston had a better view of the thing on the table. it was an oblong wire cage witha handle on top for carrying it by. fixed to the front of it was something that lookedlike a fencing mask, with the concave side outwards. although it was three or four metresaway from him, he could see that the cage

was divided lengthways into two compartments,and that there was some kind of creature in each. they were rats. 'in your case,' said o'brien, 'the worst thingin the world happens to be rats.' a sort of premonitory tremor, a fear of hewas not certain what, had passed through winston as soon as he caught his first glimpse ofthe cage. but at this moment the meaning of the mask-like attachment in front of it suddenlysank into him. his bowels seemed to turn to water. 'you can't do that!' he cried out in a highcracked voice. 'you couldn't, you couldn't! it's impossible.'

'do you remember,' said o'brien, 'the momentof panic that used to occur in your dreams? there was a wall of blackness in front ofyou, and a roaring sound in your ears. there was something terrible on the other side ofthe wall. you knew that you knew what it was, but you dared not drag it into the open. itwas the rats that were on the other side of the wall.' 'o'brien!' said winston, making an effortto control his voice. 'you know this is not necessary. what is it that you want me todo?' o'brien made no direct answer. when he spokeit was in the schoolmasterish manner that he sometimes affected. he looked thoughtfullyinto the distance, as though he were addressing

an audience somewhere behind winston's back. 'by itself,' he said, 'pain is not alwaysenough. there are occasions when a human being will stand out against pain, even to the pointof death. but for everyone there is something unendurable — something that cannot be contemplated.courage and cowardice are not involved. if you are falling from a height it is not cowardlyto clutch at a rope. if you have come up from deep water it is not cowardly to fill yourlungs with air. it is merely an instinct which cannot be destroyed. it is the same with therats. for you, they are unendurable. they are a form of pressure that you cannot withstand.even if you wished to. you will do what is required of you.

'but what is it, what is it? how can i doit if i don't know what it is?' o'brien picked up the cage and brought itacross to the nearer table. he set it down carefully on the baize cloth. winston couldhear the blood singing in his ears. he had the feeling of sitting in utter loneliness.he was in the middle of a great empty plain, a flat desert drenched with sunlight, acrosswhich all sounds came to him out of immense distances. yet the cage with the rats wasnot two metres away from him. they were enormous rats. they were at the age when a rat's muzzlegrows blunt and fierce and his fur brown instead of grey. 'the rat,' said o'brien, still addressinghis invisible audience, 'although a rodent,

is carnivorous. you are aware of that. youwill have heard of the things that happen in the poor quarters of this town. in somestreets a woman dare not leave her baby alone in the house, even for five minutes. the ratsare certain to attack it. within quite a small time they will strip it to the bones. theyalso attack sick or dying people. they show astonishing intelligence in knowing when ahuman being is helpless.' there was an outburst of squeals from thecage. it seemed to reach winston from far away. the rats were fighting; they were tryingto get at each other through the partition. he heard also a deep groan of despair. that,too, seemed to come from outside himself. o'brien picked up the cage, and, as he didso, pressed something in it. there was a sharp

click. winston made a frantic effort to tearhimself loose from the chair. it was hopeless; every part of him, even his head, was heldimmovably. o'brien moved the cage nearer. it was less than a metre from winston's face. 'i have pressed the first lever,' said o'brien.'you understand the construction of this cage. the mask will fit over your head, leavingno exit. when i press this other lever, the door of the cage will slide up. these starvingbrutes will shoot out of it like bullets. have you ever seen a rat leap through theair? they will leap on to your face and bore straight into it. sometimes they attack theeyes first. sometimes they burrow through the cheeks and devour the tongue.'

the cage was nearer; it was closing in. winstonheard a succession of shrill cries which appeared to be occurring in the air above his head.but he fought furiously against his panic. to think, to think, even with a split secondleft — to think was the only hope. suddenly the foul musty odour of the brutes struckhis nostrils. there was a violent convulsion of nausea inside him, and he almost lost consciousness.everything had gone black. for an instant he was insane, a screaming animal. yet hecame out of the blackness clutching an idea. there was one and only one way to save himself.he must interpose another human being, the body of another human being, between himselfand the rats. the circle of the mask was large enough nowto shut out the vision of anything else. the

wire door was a couple of hand-spans fromhis face. the rats knew what was coming now. one of them was leaping up and down, the other,an old scaly grandfather of the sewers, stood up, with his pink hands against the bars,and fiercely sniffed the air. winston could see the whiskers and the yellow teeth. againthe black panic took hold of him. he was blind, helpless, mindless. 'it was a common punishment in imperial china,'said o'brien as didactically as ever. the mask was closing on his face. the wirebrushed his cheek. and then — no, it was not relief, only hope, a tiny fragment ofhope. too late, perhaps too late. but he had suddenly understood that in the whole worldthere was just one person to whom he could

transfer his punishment — one body thathe could thrust between himself and the rats. and he was shouting frantically, over andover. 'do it to julia! do it to julia! not me! julia!i don't care what you do to her. tear her face off, strip her to the bones. not me!julia! not me!' he was falling backwards, into enormous depths,away from the rats. he was still strapped in the chair, but he had fallen through thefloor, through the walls of the building, through the earth, through the oceans, throughthe atmosphere, into outer space, into the gulfs between the stars — always away, away,away from the rats. he was light years distant, but o'brien was still standing at his side.there was still the cold touch of wire against

his cheek. but through the darkness that envelopedhim he heard another metallic click, and knew that the cage door had clicked shut and notopen. chapter : 6 the chestnut tree was almost empty. a rayof sunlight slanting through a window fell on dusty table-tops. it was the lonely hourof fifteen. a tinny music trickled from the telescreens. winston sat in his usual corner, gazing intoan empty glass. now and again he glanced up at a vast face which eyed him from the oppositewall. big brother is watching you the caption said. unbidden, a waiter came and filled hisglass up with victory gin, shaking into it

a few drops from another bottle with a quillthrough the cork. it was saccharine flavoured with cloves, the speciality of the cafã©. winston was listening to the telescreen. atpresent only music was coming out of it, but there was a possibility that at any momentthere might be a special bulletin from the ministry of peace. the news from the africanfront was disquieting in the extreme. on and off he had been worrying about it all day.a eurasian army (oceania was at war with eurasia: oceania had always been at war with eurasia)was moving southward at terrifying speed. the mid-day bulletin had not mentioned anydefinite area, but it was probable that already the mouth of the congo was a battlefield.brazzaville and leopoldville were in danger.

one did not have to look at the map to seewhat it meant. it was not merely a question of losing central africa: for the first timein the whole war, the territory of oceania itself was menaced. a violent emotion, not fear exactly but asort of undifferentiated excitement, flared up in him, then faded again. he stopped thinkingabout the war. in these days he could never fix his mind on any one subject for more thana few moments at a time. he picked up his glass and drained it at a gulp. as always,the gin made him shudder and even retch slightly. the stuff was horrible. the cloves and saccharine,themselves disgusting enough in their sickly way, could not disguise the flat oily smell;and what was worst of all was that the smell

of gin, which dwelt with him night and day,was inextricably mixed up in his mind with the smell of those— he never named them, even in his thoughts,and so far as it was possible he never visualized them. they were something that he was half-awareof, hovering close to his face, a smell that clung to his nostrils. as the gin rose inhim he belched through purple lips. he had grown fatter since they released him, andhad regained his old colour — indeed, more than regained it. his features had thickened,the skin on nose and cheekbones was coarsely red, even the bald scalp was too deep a pink.a waiter, again unbidden, brought the chessboard and the current issue of the times, with thepage turned down at the chess problem. then,

seeing that winston's glass was empty, hebrought the gin bottle and filled it. there was no need to give orders. they knew hishabits. the chessboard was always waiting for him, his corner table was always reserved;even when the place was full he had it to himself, since nobody cared to be seen sittingtoo close to him. he never even bothered to count his drinks. at irregular intervals theypresented him with a dirty slip of paper which they said was the bill, but he had the impressionthat they always undercharged him. it would have made no difference if it had been theother way about. he had always plenty of money nowadays. he even had a job, a sinecure, morehighly-paid than his old job had been. the music from the telescreen stopped anda voice took over. winston raised his head

to listen. no bulletins from the front, however.it was merely a brief announcement from the ministry of plenty. in the preceding quarter,it appeared, the tenth three-year plan's quota for bootlaces had been overfulfilled by 98per cent. he examined the chess problem and set outthe pieces. it was a tricky ending, involving a couple of knights. 'white to play and matein two moves.' winston looked up at the portrait of big brother. white always mates, he thoughtwith a sort of cloudy mysticism. always, without exception, it is so arranged. in no chessproblem since the beginning of the world has black ever won. did it not symbolize the eternal,unvarying triumph of good over evil? the huge face gazed back at him, full of calm power.white always mates.

the voice from the telescreen paused and addedin a different and much graver tone: 'you are warned to stand by for an important announcementat fifteen-thirty. fifteen-thirty! this is news of the highest importance. take carenot to miss it. fifteen-thirty!' the tinking music struck up again. winston's heart stirred. that was the bulletinfrom the front; instinct told him that it was bad news that was coming. all day, withlittle spurts of excitement, the thought of a smashing defeat in africa had been in andout of his mind. he seemed actually to see the eurasian army swarming across the never-brokenfrontier and pouring down into the tip of africa like a column of ants. why had it notbeen possible to outflank them in some way?

the outline of the west african coast stoodout vividly in his mind. he picked up the white knight and moved it across the board.there was the proper spot. even while he saw the black horde racing southward he saw anotherforce, mysteriously assembled, suddenly planted in their rear, cutting their comunicationsby land and sea. he felt that by willing it he was bringing that other force into existence.but it was necessary to act quickly. if they could get control of the whole of africa,if they had airfields and submarine bases at the cape, it would cut oceania in two.it might mean anything: defeat, breakdown, the redivision of the world, the destructionof the party! he drew a deep breath. an extraordinary medley of feeling — but it was not a medley,exactly; rather it was successive layers of

feeling, in which one could not say whichlayer was undermost — struggled inside him. the spasm passed. he put the white knightback in its place, but for the moment he could not settle down to serious study of the chessproblem. his thoughts wandered again. almost unconsciously he traced with his finger inthe dust on the table: 2 + 2 = 5 'they can't get inside you,' she had said.but they could get inside you. 'what happens to you here is for ever,' o'brien had said.that was a true word. there were things, your own acts, from which you could never recover.something was killed in your breast: burnt out, cauterized out.

he had seen her; he had even spoken to her.there was no danger in it. he knew as though instinctively that they now took almost nointerest in his doings. he could have arranged to meet her a second time if either of themhad wanted to. actually it was by chance that they had met. it was in the park, on a vile,biting day in march, when the earth was like iron and all the grass seemed dead and therewas not a bud anywhere except a few crocuses which had pushed themselves up to be dismemberedby the wind. he was hurrying along with frozen hands and watering eyes when he saw her notten metres away from him. it struck him at once that she had changed in some ill-definedway. they almost passed one another without a sign, then he turned and followed her, notvery eagerly. he knew that there was no danger,

nobody would take any interest in him. shedid not speak. she walked obliquely away across the grass as though trying to get rid of him,then seemed to resign herself to having him at her side. presently they were in amonga clump of ragged leafless shrubs, useless either for concealment or as protection fromthe wind. they halted. it was vilely cold. the wind whistled through the twigs and frettedthe occasional, dirty-looking crocuses. he put his arm round her waist. there was no telescreen, but there must behidden microphones: besides, they could be seen. it did not matter, nothing mattered.they could have lain down on the ground and done that if they had wanted to. his fleshfroze with horror at the thought of it. she

made no response whatever to the clasp ofhis arm; she did not even try to disengage herself. he knew now what had changed in her.her face was sallower, and there was a long scar, partly hidden by the hair, across herforehead and temple; but that was not the change. it was that her waist had grown thicker,and, in a surprising way, had stiffened. he remembered how once, after the explosion ofa rocket bomb, he had helped to drag a corpse out of some ruins, and had been astonishednot only by the incredible weight of the thing, but by its rigidity and awkwardness to handle,which made it seem more like stone than flesh. her body felt like that. it occurred to himthat the texture of her skin would be quite different from what it had once been.

he did not attempt to kiss her, nor did theyspeak. as they walked back across the grass, she looked directly at him for the first time.it was only a momentary glance, full of contempt and dislike. he wondered whether it was adislike that came purely out of the past or whether it was inspired also by his bloatedface and the water that the wind kept squeezing from his eyes. they sat down on two iron chairs,side by side but not too close together. he saw that she was about to speak. she movedher clumsy shoe a few centimetres and deliberately crushed a twig. her feet seemed to have grownbroader, he noticed. 'i betrayed you,' she said baldly. 'i betrayed you,' he said.

she gave him another quick look of dislike. 'sometimes,' she said, 'they threaten youwith something something you can't stand up to, can't even think about. and then you say,"don't do it to me, do it to somebody else, do it to so-and-so." and perhaps you mightpretend, afterwards, that it was only a trick and that you just said it to make them stopand didn't really mean it. but that isn't true. at the time when it happens you do meanit. you think there's no other way of saving yourself, and you're quite ready to save yourselfthat way. you want it to happen to the other person. you don't give a damn what they suffer.all you care about is yourself.' 'all you care about is yourself,' he echoed.

'and after that, you don't feel the same towardsthe other person any longer.' 'no,' he said, 'you don't feel the same.' there did not seem to be anything more tosay. the wind plastered their thin overalls against their bodies. almost at once it becameembarrassing to sit there in silence: besides, it was too cold to keep still. she said somethingabout catching her tube and stood up to go. 'we must meet again,' he said. 'yes,' she said, 'we must meet again.' he followed irresolutely for a little distance,half a pace behind her. they did not speak again. she did not actually try to shake himoff, but walked at just such a speed as to

prevent his keeping abreast of her. he hadmade up his mind that he would accompany her as far as the tube station, but suddenly thisprocess of trailing along in the cold seemed pointless and unbearable. he was overwhelmedby a desire not so much to get away from julia as to get back to the chestnut tree cafã©,which had never seemed so attractive as at this moment. he had a nostalgic vision ofhis corner table, with the newspaper and the chessboard and the ever-flowing gin. aboveall, it would be warm in there. the next moment, not altogether by accident, he allowed himselfto become separated from her by a small knot of people. he made a halfhearted attempt tocatch up, then slowed down, turned, and made off in the opposite direction. when he hadgone fifty metres he looked back. the street

was not crowded, but already he could notdistinguish her. any one of a dozen hurrying figures might have been hers. perhaps herthickened, stiffened body was no longer recognizable from behind. 'at the time when it happens,' she had said,'you do mean it.' he had meant it. he had not merely said it, he had wished it. he hadwished that she and not he should be delivered over to the— something changed in the music that trickledfrom the telescreen. a cracked and jeering note, a yellow note, came into it. and then— perhaps it was not happening, perhaps it was only a memory taking on the semblanceof sound — a voice was singing:

under the spreading chestnut treei sold you and you sold me — the tears welled up in his eyes. a passingwaiter noticed that his glass was empty and came back with the gin bottle. he took up his glass and sniffed at it. thestuff grew not less but more horrible with every mouthful he drank. but it had becomethe element he swam in. it was his life, his death, and his resurrection. it was gin thatsank him into stupor every night, and gin that revived him every morning. when he woke,seldom before eleven hundred, with gummed-up eyelids and fiery mouth and a back that seemedto be broken, it would have been impossible even to rise from the horizontal if it hadnot been for the bottle and teacup placed

beside the bed overnight. through the middayhours he sat with glazed face, the bottle handy, listening to the telescreen. from fifteento closing-time he was a fixture in the chestnut tree. no one cared what he did any longer,no whistle woke him, no telescreen admonished him. occasionally, perhaps twice a week, hewent to a dusty, forgotten-looking office in the ministry of truth and did a littlework, or what was called work. he had been appointed to a sub-committee of a sub-committeewhich had sprouted from one of the innumerable committees dealing with minor difficultiesthat arose in the compilation of the eleventh edition of the newspeak dictionary. they wereengaged in producing something called an interim report, but what it was that they were reportingon he had never definitely found out. it was

something to do with the question of whethercommas should be placed inside brackets, or outside. there were four others on the committee,all of them persons similar to himself. there were days when they assembled and then promptlydispersed again, frankly admitting to one another that there was not really anythingto be done. but there were other days when they settled down to their work almost eagerly,making a tremendous show of entering up their minutes and drafting long memoranda whichwere never finished — when the argument as to what they were supposedly arguing aboutgrew extraordinarily involved and abstruse, with subtle haggling over definitions, enormousdigressions, quarrels — threats, even, to appeal to higher authority. and then suddenlythe life would go out of them and they would

sit round the table looking at one anotherwith extinct eyes, like ghosts fading at cock-crow. the telescreen was silent for a moment. winstonraised his head again. the bulletin! but no, they were merely changing the music. he hadthe map of africa behind his eyelids. the movement of the armies was a diagram: a blackarrow tearing vertically southward, and a white arrow horizontally eastward, acrossthe tail of the first. as though for reassurance he looked up at the imperturbable face inthe portrait. was it conceivable that the second arrow did not even exist? his interest flagged again. he drank anothermouthful of gin, picked up the white knight and made a tentative move. check. but it wasevidently not the right move, because—

uncalled, a memory floated into his mind.he saw a candle-lit room with a vast white-counterpaned bed, and himself, a boy of nine or ten, sittingon the floor, shaking a dice-box, and laughing excitedly. his mother was sitting oppositehim and also laughing. it must have been about a month before shedisappeared. it was a moment of reconciliation, when the nagging hunger in his belly was forgottenand his earlier affection for her had temporarily revived. he remembered the day well, a pelting,drenching day when the water streamed down the window-pane and the light indoors wastoo dull to read by. the boredom of the two children in the dark, cramped bedroom becameunbearable. winston whined and grizzled, made futile demands for food, fretted about theroom pulling everything out of place and kicking

the wainscoting until the neighbours bangedon the wall, while the younger child wailed intermittently. in the end his mother said,'now be good, and i'il buy you a toy. a lovely toy — you'll love it'; and then she hadgone out in the rain, to a little general shop which was still sporadically open nearby,and came back with a cardboard box containing an outfit of snakes and ladders. he couldstill remember the smell of the damp cardboard. it was a miserable outfit. the board was crackedand the tiny wooden dice were so ill-cut that they would hardly lie on their sides. winstonlooked at the thing sulkily and without interest. but then his mother lit a piece of candleand they sat down on the floor to play. soon he was wildly excited and shouting with laughteras the tiddly-winks climbed hopefully up the

ladders and then came slithering down thesnakes again, almost to the starting-point. they played eight games, winning four each.his tiny sister, too young to understand what the game was about, had sat propped up againsta bolster, laughing because the others were laughing. for a whole afternoon they had allbeen happy together, as in his earlier childhood. he pushed the picture out of his mind. itwas a false memory. he was troubled by false memories occasionally. they did not matterso long as one knew them for what they were. some things had happened, others had not happened.he turned back to the chessboard and picked up the white knight again. almost in the sameinstant it dropped on to the board with a clatter. he had started as though a pin hadrun into him.

a shrill trumpet-call had pierced the air.it was the bulletin! victory! it always meant victory when a trumpet-call preceded the news.a sort of electric drill ran through the cafã©. even the waiters had started and pricked uptheir ears. the trumpet-call had let loose an enormousvolume of noise. already an excited voice was gabbling from the telescreen, but evenas it started it was almost drowned by a roar of cheering from outside. the news had runround the streets like magic. he could hear just enough of what was issuing from the telescreento realize that it had all happened, as he had foreseen; a vast seaborne armada had secretlyassembled a sudden blow in the enemy's rear, the white arrow tearing across the tail ofthe black. fragments of triumphant phrases

pushed themselves through the din: 'vast strategicmanoeuvre — perfect co-ordination — utter rout — half a million prisoners — completedemoralization — control of the whole of africa — bring the war within measurabledistance of its end victory — greatest victory in human history — victory, victory, victory!' under the table winston's feet made convulsivemovements. he had not stirred from his seat, but in his mind he was running, swiftly running,he was with the crowds outside, cheering himself deaf. he looked up again at the portrait ofbig brother. the colossus that bestrode the world! the rock against which the hordes ofasia dashed themselves in vain! he thought how ten minutes ago — yes, only ten minutes— there had still been equivocation in his

heart as he wondered whether the news fromthe front would be of victory or defeat. ah, it was more than a eurasian army that hadperished! much had changed in him since that first day in the ministry of love, but thefinal, indispensable, healing change had never happened, until this moment. the voice from the telescreen was still pouringforth its tale of prisoners and booty and slaughter, but the shouting outside had dieddown a little. the waiters were turning back to their work. one of them approached withthe gin bottle. winston, sitting in a blissful dream, paid no attention as his glass wasfilled up. he was not running or cheering any longer. he was back in the ministry oflove, with everything forgiven, his soul white

as snow. he was in the public dock, confessingeverything, implicating everybody. he was walking down the white-tiled corridor, withthe feeling of walking in sunlight, and an armed guard at his back. the longhoped-forbullet was entering his brain. he gazed up at the enormous face. forty yearsit had taken him to learn what kind of smile was hidden beneath the dark moustache. o cruel,needless misunderstanding! o stubborn, self-willed exile from the loving breast! two gin-scentedtears trickled down the sides of his nose. but it was all right, everything was all right,the struggle was finished. he had won the victory over himself. he loved big brother.