No More Learning

There was a sound of marching boots outside. The steel
door opened with a clang. A young officer, a trim black-uni-
formed figure who seemed to glitter all over with polished
leather, and whose pale, straight-featured face was like a
wax mask, stepped smartly through the doorway. He mo-
tioned to the guards outside to 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 movements from
side to side, as though having some idea that there was an-
other door to go out of, and then began to wander up and
down the cell. He had not yet noticed Winston's presence.



1984



His troubled eyes were gazing at the wall about a metre
above the level of Winston's head. He was shoeless; large,
dirty toes were sticking out of the holes in his socks. He
was 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
nervous movements.

Winston roused himself a little from his lethargy. He
must speak to Ampleforth, and risk the yell from the tele-
screen. It was even conceivable that Ampleforth was the
bearer of the razor blade.

Ampleforth,' he said.

There was no yell from the telescreen. Ampleforth
paused, 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 awkwardly on 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 pressed his temples for
a moment, as though trying to remember something.

'These things happen,' he began vaguely. 'I have 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 allowed the word 'God' to
remain at the end of a line. I could not help it! ' he added al-



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most 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 en-
tire language? For days I had racked my brains. There WAS
no other rhyme. '

The expression on his face changed. The annoyance
passed 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
scrubby hair.

'Has it ever occurred to you,' he said, 'that the whole his-
tory of English poetry has been determined by the fact that
the English language lacks rhymes? '

No, that particular thought had never occurred to Win-
ston. 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 hardly thought
about it. They arrested me — it could be two days ago — per-
haps three. ' His eyes flitted round the walls, as though he
half expected to find a window somewhere. 'There is no dif-
ference between night and day in this place. I do not see
how one can calculate the time. '

They talked desultorily for some minutes, then, without
apparent reason, a yell from the telescreen bade them be
silent. Winston sat quietly, his hands crossed. Ampleforth,
too large to sit in comfort on the narrow bench, fidgeted
from side to side, clasping his lank hands first round one
knee, then round the other. The telescreen barked at him to



1984



keep still. Time passed. Twenty minutes, an hour — it was
difficult to judge. Once more there was a sound of boots
outside. Winston's entrails contracted. Soon, very soon,
perhaps in five minutes, perhaps now, the tramp of boots
would mean that his own turn had come.

The door opened. The cold-faced young officer stepped
into the cell. With a brief movement of the hand he indi-
cated Ampleforth.

'Room 101,' he said.

Ampleforth marched clumsily out between the guards,
his face vaguely perturbed, but uncomprehending.

What seemed like a long time passed. The pain in Win-
ston's belly had revived. His mind sagged round and round
on the same trick, like a ball 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; the razor 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 power-
ful smell of cold sweat. 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 there was
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 apparent
that they were trembling. His eyes had a wide-open, staring
look, as though he could not prevent himself from gazing at

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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 incredulous horror that such a word
could be applied to himself. He paused opposite Winston
and began eagerly appealing to him: 'You don't think they'll
shoot me, do you, old chap? They don't shoot you if you
haven't actually done anything — only thoughts, which you
can't help? I know they give you a fair hearing. Oh, I trust
them for that! They'll know my record, won't they? 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't you 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 with a servile glance
at the telescreen. 'You don't think the Party would arrest
an innocent man, do you? ' His frog-like face grew calm-
er, and even took on a slightly sanctimonious expression.
'Thoughtcrime is a dreadful thing, old man,' he said senten-
tiously 'It's insidious. It can get hold of you without your
even knowing it. Do you know how it got hold of me? In my
sleep! Yes, that's a fact. There I was, working away, trying to
do my bit — never knew I had any bad stuff in my mind at all.
And then I started talking in my sleep. Do you know what
they heard me saying? '



1984



He sank his voice, like someone who is obliged for medi-
cal 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 me before it went any further. Do you know
what I'm going to say to them when I go up before the tribu-
nal? 'Thank you,' I'm going to say, 'thank you for saving me
before it was too late. "

'Who denounced you? ' said Winston.

'It was my little daughter,' said Parsons with a sort of
doleful pride. 'She listened at the keyhole. Heard what I
was saying, and nipped off to the patrols the very next day.
Pretty smart for a nipper of seven, eh? I don't bear her any
grudge for it. In fact I'm proud of her. It shows I brought her
up in the right spirit, anyway'

He made a few more jerky movements up and down,
several times, casting a longing glance at the lavatory pan.
Then he suddenly ripped down his shorts.

'Excuse me, old man,' he said. T can't help it. It's the wait-
ing. '

He plumped his large posterior into the lavatory pan.
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 the lavatory,
loudly and abundantly. It then turned out that the plug was
defective and the cell stank abominably for hours after-
wards.

Parsons was removed. More prisoners came and went,



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mysteriously. One, a woman, was consigned to 'Room 101',
and, Winston noticed, seemed to shrivel and turn a differ-
ent colour when she heard the words. A time came when, if
it had been morning when he was brought here, it would be
afternoon; or if it had been afternoon, then it would be mid-
night. There were six prisoners in the cell, men and women.
All sat very still. Opposite Winston there sat a man with a
chinless, toothy face exactly like that of some large, harm-
less rodent. His fat, mottled cheeks were so pouched at the
bottom that it was difficult not to believe that he had little
stores of food tucked away there. His pale-grey eyes flitted
timorously from face to face and turned quickly away again
when he caught anyone's eye.

The door opened, and another prisoner was brought in
whose appearance sent a momentary chill through Win-
ston. He was a commonplace, mean-looking man who
might have been an engineer or technician of some kind.
But what was startling was the emaciation of his face. It
was like a skull. Because of its thinness the mouth and 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 little distance from
Winston. Winston did not look at him again, but the tor-
mented, skull-like face was as vivid in his mind as though
it had been straight in front of his eyes. Suddenly he real-
ized what was the matter. The man was dying of starvation.
The same thought seemed to occur almost simultaneously
to everyone in the cell. There was a very faint stirring all

296 1984



the way round the bench. The eyes of the chinless man kept
flitting towards the skull-faced man, 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 across the cell, dug down into the pocket
of his overalls, and, with an abashed air, held out a grimy
piece of bread to the skull-faced man.

There was a furious, deafening roar from the telescreen.
The chinless man jumped in his tracks. The skull-faced man
had quickly thrust his hands behind his back, as though
demonstrating to all the world that he refused the gift.

'Bumstead! ' roared the voice. '2713 Bumstead J. ! Let fall
that piece of bread! '

The chinless man dropped the piece of bread on the
floor.

'Remain standing where you are,' said the voice. 'Face the
door. Make no movement. '

The chinless man obeyed. His large pouchy cheeks were
quivering uncontrollably. The door clanged open. As the
young officer entered and stepped aside, there emerged
from behind him a short stumpy guard with enormous
arms and shoulders. He took his stand opposite the chin-
less man, and then, at a signal from the officer, let free a
frightful blow, with all the weight of his body behind it, full
in the chinless man's mouth. The force of it seemed almost
to knock him clear of the floor. His body was flung across
the cell and fetched up against the base of the lavatory seat.
For a moment he lay as though stunned, with dark blood
oozing from his mouth and nose. A very faint whimper-



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ing 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 blood and saliva, the
two halves of a dental plate fell out of his mouth.

The prisoners sat very still, their hands crossed on their
knees. The chinless man climbed back into his place. Down
one side of his face the flesh was darkening.
His mouth had
swollen into a shapeless cherry- coloured mass with a black
hole in the middle of it.

From time to time a little blood dripped on to the breast
of his overalls. His grey eyes still flitted from face to face,
more guiltily than ever, as though he were trying to discov-
er how much the others despised him for his humiliation.

The door opened. With a small gesture the officer indi-
cated the skull-faced man.

'Room 101,' he said.

There was a gasp and a flurry at Winston's side. The man
had actually flung himself on his knees on the floor, with
his hand clasped together.

'Comrade! Officer! ' he cried. 'You don't have to take me to
that place! Haven't I told you everything already? What else
is it you want to know? There's nothing I wouldn't confess,
nothing! Just tell me what it is and I'll confess 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, turned a colour Win-
ston would not have believed possible. It was definitely,
unmistakably, a shade of green.

'Do anything to me! ' he yelled. 'You've been starving me

298 1984



for weeks. Finish it off and let me die. Shoot me. Hang me.
Sentence me to twenty-five years. Is there somebody else
you want me to give away? Just say who it is 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 take the whole lot of them and
cut their throats in front of my eyes, and I'll stand by and
watch it. But not Room 101! '

'Room 101,' said the officer.

The man looked frantically round at the other prisoners,
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, not me! ' he shout-
ed. 'You didn't hear what he was saying after they bashed
his face. Give me 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 take him by the
arms. But just at this moment he flung himself across the
floor of the cell and grabbed one of the iron legs that sup-
ported 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 with astonishing strength. For perhaps
twenty seconds they were hauling at him. The prisoners sat
quiet, their hands crossed on their knees, looking straight
in front of them. The howling stopped; the man had no



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breath left for anything except hanging on. Then there was
a different kind of cry. A kick from a guard's boot had bro-
ken the fingers of one of his hands. They dragged him to
his feet.

'Room 101,' said the officer.

The man was led out, walking unsteadily, with head
sunken, nursing his crushed hand, all the fight had gone
out of him.

A long time passed. If it had been midnight when the
skull-faced man was taken away, it was morning: if morn-
ing, it was afternoon. Winston was alone, and had been
alone for hours. The pain of sitting on the narrow bench
was such that often he got up and walked about, unreproved
by the telescreen. The piece of bread still lay where the chin-
less man had dropped it. At the beginning it needed a hard
effort not to look at it, but presently hunger gave way to
thirst. His mouth was sticky and evil-tasting. The hum-
ming sound and the unvarying white light induced a sort
of faintness, an empty feeling inside his head. He would get
up because the ache in his bones was no longer bearable,
and then would sit down again almost at once because he
was too dizzy to make sure of staying on his feet. Whenever
his physical sensations were a little under control the ter-
ror 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 ever
fed. More dimly he thought of Julia. Somewhere or other
she was suffering perhaps far worse than he. She might be
screaming with pain at this moment. He thought: 'If I could



1984



save Julia by doubling my own pain, would I do it? Yes, I
would. ' But that was merely an intellectual decision, taken
because he knew that he ought to take it. He did not feel it.
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 pain should increase? But that question was not an-
swerable yet.

The boots were approaching again. The door opened.
O'Brien came in.

Winston started to his feet. The shock of the sight had
driven all caution out of him. For the first time in many
years he forgot the presence of the telescreen.

"They've got you too! ' he cried.

'They got me a long time ago,' said O'Brien with a mild,
almost regretful irony. He stepped aside. From behind him
there emerged a broad-chested guard with a long black
truncheon in his hand.

'You know this, Winston,' said O'Brien. 'Don't deceive
yourself. You did know it — you have always known it. '

Yes, he saw now, he had always known it. But there was no
time to think of that. All he had eyes for was the truncheon
in the guard's hand. It might fall anywhere; on the crown,
on the tip of the ear, on the upper arm, on the elbow

The elbow! He had slumped to his knees, almost para-
lysed, clasping the stricken elbow with his other hand.
Everything had exploded into yellow light. Inconceivable,
inconceivable that one blow could cause such pain! The
light cleared and he could see the other two looking down



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at him. The guard was laughing at his contortions. 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 it should stop. Nothing
in the world was so bad as physical pain. In the face of pain
there are no heroes, no heroes, he thought over and over as
he writhed on the floor, clutching uselessly at his disabled
left arm.



1984



Chapter 2



He was lying on something that felt like a camp bed, ex-
cept that it was higher off the ground and that he was
fixed down in some way so that he could not move. Light
that seemed stronger than usual was falling on his face.
O'Brien was standing at his side, looking down at him in-
tently. At the other side of him stood a man in a white coat,
holding a hypodermic syringe.

Even after his eyes were open he took in his surround-
ings only gradually. He had the impression of swimming up
into this room from some quite different world, a sort of un-
derwater world far beneath it. How long he had been down
there he did not know. Since the moment when they arrest-
ed him he had not seen darkness or 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 again after a blank
interval. But whether the intervals were of days or weeks or
only seconds, there was no way of knowing.

With that first blow on the elbow the nightmare had
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 long range
of crimes — espionage, sabotage, and the like — to which ev-
eryone had to confess as a matter of course. The confession

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was a formality, though the torture was real. How many
times he had been beaten, how long the beatings had con-
tinued, he could not remember. Always there were five or
six men in black uniforms at him simultaneously. Some-
times it was fists, sometimes it was truncheons, sometimes
it was steel rods, sometimes it was 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. There were times when it went on and on un-
til the cruel, wicked, unforgivable thing seemed to him not
that the guards continued to beat him but that he could not
force himself into losing consciousness. There were times
when his nerve so forsook him that he began shouting for
mercy even before the beating began, when the mere sight
of a fist drawn back for a blow was enough to make him
pour forth a confession of real and imaginary crimes. There
were other times when he started out with the resolve of
confessing nothing, when every word had to be forced out
of him between gasps of pain, and there were times when he
feebly tried to compromise, when he said to himself: T will
confess, but not yet. I must hold out till the pain becomes
unbearable. Three more kicks, two more kicks, and then I
will tell them what they want. ' Sometimes he was beaten till
he could hardly stand, then flung like a 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



1984



periods of recovery. He remembered them dimly, because
they were spent chiefly in sleep or stupor. He remembered
a cell with a plank bed, a sort of shelf sticking out from the
wall, and a tin wash-basin, and meals of hot soup and bread
and sometimes coffee. He remembered a surly barber arriv-
ing to scrape his chin and crop his hair, and businesslike,
unsympathetic men in white coats feeling his pulse, tapping
his reflexes, turning up his eyelids, running harsh fingers
over him in search for broken bones, and shooting needles
into his arm to make him sleep.

The beatings grew less frequent, and became mainly a
threat, a horror to which he could be sent back at any mo-
ment when his answers were unsatisfactory. His questioners
now were not ruffians in black uniforms but Party intellec-
tuals, little rotund men with quick movements and flashing
spectacles, who worked on him in relays over periods which
lasted — he thought, he could not be sure — ten or twelve
hours at 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 glaring lights in his face until his eyes ran
with water; but the aim of this was simply to humiliate him
and destroy his power of arguing and reasoning. Their real
weapon was the merciless questioning that went on and on,
hour after hour, tripping him up, laying traps for him, twist-
ing everything that he said, convicting him at every step of
lies and self-contradiction until he began weeping as much
from shame as from nervous fatigue. Sometimes he would



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weep half a dozen times in a single session. Most of the time
they screamed abuse at him and threatened at every hesita-
tion to deliver him over to the guards again; but sometimes
they would suddenly change their tune, call him comrade,
appeal to him in the name of Ingsoc and Big Brother, and
ask him sorrowfully whether even now he had not enough
loyalty to the Party left to make him wish to undo the evil
he had done. When his nerves were in rags after hours of
questioning, even this appeal could reduce him to snivel-
ling tears. In the end the nagging voices broke him down
more completely than the boots and fists of the guards. He
became 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
it quickly, before the bullying started anew. He confessed
to the assassination of eminent Party members, the dis-
tribution of seditious pamphlets, embezzlement of public
funds, sale of military secrets, sabotage of every kind. He
confessed that he had been a spy in the pay of the Easta-
sian government as far back as 1968. He confessed that he
was a religious believer, an admirer of capitalism, and a sex-
ual pervert. He confessed that he had murdered his 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 been
a member of an underground organization which had in-
cluded almost every human being he had ever known. It
was easier to confess everything and implicate everybody.
Besides, in a sense it was all true. It was true that he had

306 1984



been the enemy of the Party, and in the eyes of the 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 black-
ness all round them.

He was in a cell which might have been either dark or
light, because he could see nothing except a pair of eyes.
Near at hand some kind of instrument was ticking slow-
ly and regularly. The eyes grew larger and more luminous.
Suddenly he floated out of his seat, dived into the eyes, and
was swallowed up.

He was strapped into a chair surrounded by dials, under
dazzling lights. A man in a white coat was reading the dials.
There was a tramp of heavy boots outside. The door clanged
open. The waxed-faced officer marched in, followed by two
guards.

'Room 101,' said the officer.

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 kilometre
wide, full of glorious, golden light, roaring with laughter
and shouting out confessions at the top of his voice. He was
confessing everything, even the things he had succeeded
in holding back under the torture. He was relating the en-
tire history of his life to an audience who knew it already.
With him were the guards, the other questioners, the men
in white coats, O'Brien, Julia, Mr Charrington, all rolling
down the corridor together and shouting with laughter.
Some dreadful thing which had lain embedded in the fu-



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ture had somehow been skipped over and had not happened.
Everything was all right, there was no more pain, the last
detail of his life was laid bare, understood, forgiven.

He was starting up from the plank bed in the half-cer-
tainty that he had heard O'Brien's voice. All through his
interrogation, although he had never seen him, he had had
the feeling that O'Brien was at his elbow, just out of sight. It
was O'Brien who was directing everything. It was he who
set the guards on to Winston and who prevented them from
killing him. It was he who decided when Winston should
scream with 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 ques-
tions and suggested the answers. He was the tormentor, he
was the protector, he was the inquisitor, he was the 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 wor-
ry, Winston; you are in my keeping. For seven years I have
watched over you. Now the turning-point has come. I shall
save you, I shall make you perfect. ' He was not sure whether
it was O'Brien's voice; but it was the same voice that had
said to him, 'We shall meet 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 gradually materialized round him.
He was almost flat on his back, and unable to move.