You believe
that reality is something objective, external, existing in its
own right.
that reality is something objective, external, existing in its
own right.
Orwell - 1984
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. His
body was held down at every essential point. Even the back
308 1984
of his head was gripped in some manner. O'Brien was look-
ing down at him gravely and rather sadly. His face, seen
from below, looked coarse and worn, with pouches under
the eyes and tired lines from nose to chin. He was older
than Winston had thought him; he was perhaps forty-eight
or fifty. Under his hand there was a dial with a lever on top
and figures running round the face.
'I told you,' said O'Brien, 'that if we met again it would
be here. '
'Yes,' said Winston.
Without any warning except a slight movement of
O'Brien's hand, a wave of pain flooded his body. It was a
frightening pain, because he could not see what was hap-
pening, and he had the feeling that some mortal injury was
being done to him. He did not know whether the thing was
really happening, or whether the effect was electrically pro-
duced; 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 his forehead, the worst of all was
the fear that his backbone was about to snap. He set his
teeth and breathed hard through his nose, trying to keep
silent as long as possible.
'You are afraid,' said O'Brien, watching his face, 'that in
another moment something is going to break. Your especial
fear is that it will be your backbone. You have a vivid mental
picture of the vertebrae snapping apart and the spinal fluid
dripping out of them. That is what you are thinking, is it
not, Winston? '
Winston did not answer. O'Brien drew back the lever on
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the dial. The wave of pain receded almost as quickly as it
had come.
'That was forty,' said O'Brien. 'You can see that the num-
bers on this dial run up to a hundred. Will you please
remember, throughout our conversation, that I have it in
my power to inflict pain on you at any moment and to what-
ever 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. Do you
understand that? '
'Yes,' said Winston.
O'Brien's manner became less severe. He resettled his
spectacles thoughtfully, and took a pace or two up and
down. When he spoke his voice was gentle and patient. He
had the air of a doctor, a teacher, even a priest, anxious to
explain and persuade rather than to punish.
'I am taking trouble with you, Winston,' he said, 'because
you are worth trouble. You know perfectly well what is the
matter with you. You have known it for years, though you
have fought against the knowledge. You are mentally de-
ranged. You suffer from a defective memory. You are unable
to remember real events and you persuade yourself that you
remember other events which never happened. Fortunately
it is curable. You have never cured yourself of it, because
you did not choose to. There was 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 will take an example. At this moment,
which power is Oceania at war with? '
1984
'When I was arrested, Oceania was at war with Eastasia. '
'With Eastasia. Good. And Oceania has always been at
war with Eastasia, has it not? '
Winston drew in his breath. He opened his mouth to
speak and then did not speak. He could not take his eyes
away from the dial.
"The truth, please, Winston. YOUR truth. Tell me what
you think you remember. '
'I remember that until only a week before I was arrested,
we were not at war with Eastasia at all. We were in alliance
with them. The war was against Eurasia. That had lasted for
four years. Before that '
O'Brien stopped him with a movement of the hand.
'Another example,' he said. 'Some years ago you had a
very serious delusion indeed. You believed that three men,
three one-time Party members named Jones, Aaronson,
and Rutherford — men who were executed for treachery
and sabotage after making the fullest possible confession —
were not guilty of the crimes they were charged with. You
believed that you had seen unmistakable documentary evi-
dence proving that their confessions were false. There was
a certain photograph about which you had a hallucination.
You believed that you had actually held it in your hands. It
was a photograph something like this. '
An oblong slip of newspaper had appeared between
O'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. It
was another copy of the photograph of Jones, Aaronson,
FreeeBooksatPlaneteBook. com 311
and Rutherford at the party function in New York, which
he had chanced upon eleven years ago and promptly de-
stroyed. For only an 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 of his body free. It was impossible to move so
much as a centimetre in any direction. For the moment he
had even forgotten the dial. All he wanted was to hold the
photograph in his fingers again, or at least to see it.
'It exists! ' he cried.
'No,' said O'Brien.
He stepped across the room. There was a memory hole
in the opposite wall. O'Brien lifted the grating. Unseen, the
frail slip of paper was whirling away on the current of warm
air; it was vanishing in a flash of flame. O'Brien turned 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 exists in memory. I re-
member 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 was lying, it would not have seemed to matter.
But it was perfectly possible that O'Brien had really forgot-
ten the photograph. And if so, then already he would have
forgotten his denial of remembering it, and forgotten the
act of forgetting. How could one be sure that it was simple
trickery? Perhaps that lunatic dislocation in the mind could
1984
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 promising child.
"There is a Party slogan dealing with the control 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 obedient-
"Who controls the present controls the past," said
O'Brien, nodding his head with slow approval. 'Is it your
opinion, Winston, that the past has real existence? '
Again the feeling of helplessness descended upon Win-
ston. 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 answer he be-
lieved to be the true one.
O'Brien smiled faintly. 'You are no metaphysician, Win-
ston,' 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 somewhere or
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
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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 invol-
untary. It is outside oneself. How can you control memory?
You have not controlled mine! '
O'Brien's manner grew stern again. He laid his hand on
the dial.
'On the contrary' he said, 'YOU have not controlled it.
That is what has brought you here. You are here because
you have failed in humility, in self-discipline. You would
not make the act of submission which is the price of san-
ity You preferred to be a lunatic, a minority of one. Only
the disciplined mind can 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 everyone else sees the same
thing as you. But I tell you, Winston, that reality is not ex-
ternal. Reality exists in the human mind, and nowhere else.
Not in the individual mind, which can make mistakes, and
in any case soon perishes: only in the mind of the Party,
which is collective and immortal. Whatever the Party holds
to be the truth, is truth. It is impossible to see reality except
by looking through the eyes of the Party. That is the fact
that you have got to relearn, Winston. It needs an act of self-
destruction, an effort of the will. You must humble yourself
before you can become sane. '
He paused for a few moments, as though to allow what
1984
he had been saying to sink in.
'Do you remember,' he went on, 'writing in your dia-
ry, 'Freedom is the freedom to say that two plus two make
four'? '
'Yes,' said Winston.
O'Brien held up his left hand, its back towards Winston,
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 four but five — then
how many? '
'Four. '
The word ended in a gasp of pain. The needle of 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 his teeth he could
not stop. O'Brien watched him, the four fingers still ex-
tended. He drew back the lever. This time the pain was only
slightly eased.
'How many fingers, Winston? '
'Four. '
The needle went up to sixty.
'How many fingers, Winston? '
'Four! Four! What else can I say? Four! '
The needle must have risen again, but he did not look at
it. The heavy, stern face and the four fingers filled his vision.
The fingers stood up before his eyes like pillars, enormous,
blurry, and seeming to vibrate, but unmistakably four.
'How many fingers, Winston? '
FreeeBooksatPlaneteBook. com 315
'Four! Stop it, stop it! How can you go on? Four! Four! '
'How many fingers, Winston? '
'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. Only stop it, stop
the pain! '
Abruptly he was sitting up with O'Brien's arm round his
shoulders. He had perhaps lost consciousness for a few sec-
onds. The bonds that 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 clung to O'Brien like a baby, curiously com-
forted by the heavy arm round his shoulders. He had the
feeling that O'Brien was his protector, that the pain was
something that came from outside, from some other source,
and that it was O'Brien who would save him from it.
'You are a slow learner, Winston,' said O'Brien gently.
'How can I help it? ' he blubbered. 'How can I help seeing
what is in front of my eyes? Two and two are four. '
Sometimes, Winston. Sometimes they are five. Some-
times 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 grip of 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 white
coat, who had stood immobile throughout the proceedings.
The man in the white coat bent down and looked closely
316 1984
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 needle must be
at seventy, seventy-five. He had shut his eyes this time. He
knew that the fingers were still there, and still four. All that
mattered was somehow to stay alive until the spasm was
over. He had ceased to notice whether he was crying out or
not. The pain lessened again. He opened his eyes. O'Brien
had drawn back the lever.
'How many fingers, Winston? '
'Four. I suppose there are four. I would see five if I could.
I am trying to see five. '
'Which do you wish: to persuade me that you see five, or
really to see them? '
'Really to see them. '
Again,' said O'Brien.
Perhaps the needle was eighty — ninety. Winston could
not intermittently remember why the pain was happening.
Behind his screwed-up eyelids a forest of fingers seemed to
be moving in a sort of dance, weaving in and out, disap-
pearing behind one another and reappearing again. He was
trying to count them, he could not remember why. He knew
only that it was impossible to count them, and that this was
somehow due to the mysterious identity between five and
four. The pain died down again. When he opened his eyes
it was to find that he was still seeing the same thing. In-
numerable fingers, like moving trees, were still streaming
past in either direction, crossing and recrossing. He shut
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his eyes again.
'How many fingers am I holding up, Winston? '
'I don't know. I don't know. You will kill me 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 in the same in-
stant a blissful, healing warmth spread all through his body.
The pain was already half-forgotten. He opened his eyes
and looked up gratefully at O'Brien. At sight of the heavy,
lined face, so ugly and so intelligent, his heart seemed to
turn over. If he could have moved he would have stretched
out a hand and laid it on O'Brien's arm. He had never loved
him 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'Brien was a person who could be talked
to. Perhaps one did not want to be loved so much as to be
understood. O'Brien had tortured him to the edge of luna-
cy, and in a little while, it was certain, he would send him
to his death. It made no difference. In some sense that went
deeper than friendship, they were intimates: somewhere or
other, although the actual words might never be spoken,
there was a place where they could meet and talk. O'Brien
was looking down at him with an expression which suggest-
ed that the same thought might be in his own mind. 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 Ministry of Love. '
'Do you know how long you have been here? '
318 1984
'I don't know. Days, weeks, months — I think it is
months. '
'And why do you imagine that we bring people to this
place? '
'To make them confess. '
'No, that is not the reason. Try again. '
'To punish them. '
'No! ' exclaimed O'Brien. His voice had changed extraor-
dinarily, and his face had suddenly become both stern and
animated. 'No! Not merely to extract your confession, not to
punish you. Shall I tell you why we have brought you here?
To cure you! To make you sane! Will you understand, Win-
ston, that no one whom we bring to this place ever leaves
our hands uncured? We are not interested in those stupid
crimes that you have committed. The Party is not interested
in the overt act: the thought is all we care about. We do not
merely destroy our enemies, we change them. Do you un-
derstand what I mean by that? '
He was bending over Winston. His face looked enormous
because of its nearness, and hideously ugly because it was
seen from below. Moreover it was filled with a sort of exal-
tation, a lunatic intensity. Again Winston's heart shrank. If
it had been possible he would have cowered deeper into the
bed. He felt certain that O'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 is that in this place
there are no martyrdoms. You have read of the religious
FreeeBooksatPlaneteBook. com 319
persecutions of the past. In the Middle Ages there was the
Inquisition. It was a failure. It set out 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 enemies in the open, and killed
them while they were still unrepentant: in fact, it killed
them because they were unrepentant. Men were dying be-
cause they would not abandon their true beliefs. Naturally
all the glory belonged to the victim and all the shame to the
Inquisitor who burned him. Later, in the twentieth century,
there were the totalitarians, as they were called. There were
the German Nazis and the Russian Communists. The Rus-
sians persecuted heresy more cruelly than the Inquisition
had done. And they imagined that they had learned from
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 to destroy
their dignity. They wore them down by torture and solitude
until they were despicable, cringing wretches, confessing
whatever was put into their mouths, covering themselves
with abuse, accusing and sheltering behind one another,
whimpering for mercy. And yet after only a few years the
same thing had happened over again. The dead men had
become martyrs 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
do not make mistakes of that kind. All the confessions that
are uttered here are true. We make them true. And above
all we do not allow the dead to rise up against us. You must
1984
stop imagining that posterity will vindicate you, Winston.
Posterity will never hear of you. You will be lifted clean out
from the stream of history. We shall turn you into gas and
pour you into the stratosphere. Nothing will remain of you,
not a name in a register, not a memory in a living brain. You
will be annihilated in the past as well as in the future. You
will never have existed. '
Then why bother to torture me? thought Winston, with a
momentary bitterness. O'Brien checked his step as though
Winston had uttered the thought aloud. His large ugly face
came nearer, with the eyes a little narrowed.
'You are thinking,' he said, 'that since we intend to de-
stroy 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 you were
thinking, was it not? '
'Yes,' said Winston.
O'Brien smiled slightly.
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. His
body was held down at every essential point. Even the back
308 1984
of his head was gripped in some manner. O'Brien was look-
ing down at him gravely and rather sadly. His face, seen
from below, looked coarse and worn, with pouches under
the eyes and tired lines from nose to chin. He was older
than Winston had thought him; he was perhaps forty-eight
or fifty. Under his hand there was a dial with a lever on top
and figures running round the face.
'I told you,' said O'Brien, 'that if we met again it would
be here. '
'Yes,' said Winston.
Without any warning except a slight movement of
O'Brien's hand, a wave of pain flooded his body. It was a
frightening pain, because he could not see what was hap-
pening, and he had the feeling that some mortal injury was
being done to him. He did not know whether the thing was
really happening, or whether the effect was electrically pro-
duced; 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 his forehead, the worst of all was
the fear that his backbone was about to snap. He set his
teeth and breathed hard through his nose, trying to keep
silent as long as possible.
'You are afraid,' said O'Brien, watching his face, 'that in
another moment something is going to break. Your especial
fear is that it will be your backbone. You have a vivid mental
picture of the vertebrae snapping apart and the spinal fluid
dripping out of them. That is what you are thinking, is it
not, Winston? '
Winston did not answer. O'Brien drew back the lever on
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the dial. The wave of pain receded almost as quickly as it
had come.
'That was forty,' said O'Brien. 'You can see that the num-
bers on this dial run up to a hundred. Will you please
remember, throughout our conversation, that I have it in
my power to inflict pain on you at any moment and to what-
ever 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. Do you
understand that? '
'Yes,' said Winston.
O'Brien's manner became less severe. He resettled his
spectacles thoughtfully, and took a pace or two up and
down. When he spoke his voice was gentle and patient. He
had the air of a doctor, a teacher, even a priest, anxious to
explain and persuade rather than to punish.
'I am taking trouble with you, Winston,' he said, 'because
you are worth trouble. You know perfectly well what is the
matter with you. You have known it for years, though you
have fought against the knowledge. You are mentally de-
ranged. You suffer from a defective memory. You are unable
to remember real events and you persuade yourself that you
remember other events which never happened. Fortunately
it is curable. You have never cured yourself of it, because
you did not choose to. There was 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 will take an example. At this moment,
which power is Oceania at war with? '
1984
'When I was arrested, Oceania was at war with Eastasia. '
'With Eastasia. Good. And Oceania has always been at
war with Eastasia, has it not? '
Winston drew in his breath. He opened his mouth to
speak and then did not speak. He could not take his eyes
away from the dial.
"The truth, please, Winston. YOUR truth. Tell me what
you think you remember. '
'I remember that until only a week before I was arrested,
we were not at war with Eastasia at all. We were in alliance
with them. The war was against Eurasia. That had lasted for
four years. Before that '
O'Brien stopped him with a movement of the hand.
'Another example,' he said. 'Some years ago you had a
very serious delusion indeed. You believed that three men,
three one-time Party members named Jones, Aaronson,
and Rutherford — men who were executed for treachery
and sabotage after making the fullest possible confession —
were not guilty of the crimes they were charged with. You
believed that you had seen unmistakable documentary evi-
dence proving that their confessions were false. There was
a certain photograph about which you had a hallucination.
You believed that you had actually held it in your hands. It
was a photograph something like this. '
An oblong slip of newspaper had appeared between
O'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. It
was another copy of the photograph of Jones, Aaronson,
FreeeBooksatPlaneteBook. com 311
and Rutherford at the party function in New York, which
he had chanced upon eleven years ago and promptly de-
stroyed. For only an 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 of his body free. It was impossible to move so
much as a centimetre in any direction. For the moment he
had even forgotten the dial. All he wanted was to hold the
photograph in his fingers again, or at least to see it.
'It exists! ' he cried.
'No,' said O'Brien.
He stepped across the room. There was a memory hole
in the opposite wall. O'Brien lifted the grating. Unseen, the
frail slip of paper was whirling away on the current of warm
air; it was vanishing in a flash of flame. O'Brien turned 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 exists in memory. I re-
member 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 was lying, it would not have seemed to matter.
But it was perfectly possible that O'Brien had really forgot-
ten the photograph. And if so, then already he would have
forgotten his denial of remembering it, and forgotten the
act of forgetting. How could one be sure that it was simple
trickery? Perhaps that lunatic dislocation in the mind could
1984
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 promising child.
"There is a Party slogan dealing with the control 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 obedient-
"Who controls the present controls the past," said
O'Brien, nodding his head with slow approval. 'Is it your
opinion, Winston, that the past has real existence? '
Again the feeling of helplessness descended upon Win-
ston. 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 answer he be-
lieved to be the true one.
O'Brien smiled faintly. 'You are no metaphysician, Win-
ston,' 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 somewhere or
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
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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 invol-
untary. It is outside oneself. How can you control memory?
You have not controlled mine! '
O'Brien's manner grew stern again. He laid his hand on
the dial.
'On the contrary' he said, 'YOU have not controlled it.
That is what has brought you here. You are here because
you have failed in humility, in self-discipline. You would
not make the act of submission which is the price of san-
ity You preferred to be a lunatic, a minority of one. Only
the disciplined mind can 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 everyone else sees the same
thing as you. But I tell you, Winston, that reality is not ex-
ternal. Reality exists in the human mind, and nowhere else.
Not in the individual mind, which can make mistakes, and
in any case soon perishes: only in the mind of the Party,
which is collective and immortal. Whatever the Party holds
to be the truth, is truth. It is impossible to see reality except
by looking through the eyes of the Party. That is the fact
that you have got to relearn, Winston. It needs an act of self-
destruction, an effort of the will. You must humble yourself
before you can become sane. '
He paused for a few moments, as though to allow what
1984
he had been saying to sink in.
'Do you remember,' he went on, 'writing in your dia-
ry, 'Freedom is the freedom to say that two plus two make
four'? '
'Yes,' said Winston.
O'Brien held up his left hand, its back towards Winston,
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 four but five — then
how many? '
'Four. '
The word ended in a gasp of pain. The needle of 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 his teeth he could
not stop. O'Brien watched him, the four fingers still ex-
tended. He drew back the lever. This time the pain was only
slightly eased.
'How many fingers, Winston? '
'Four. '
The needle went up to sixty.
'How many fingers, Winston? '
'Four! Four! What else can I say? Four! '
The needle must have risen again, but he did not look at
it. The heavy, stern face and the four fingers filled his vision.
The fingers stood up before his eyes like pillars, enormous,
blurry, and seeming to vibrate, but unmistakably four.
'How many fingers, Winston? '
FreeeBooksatPlaneteBook. com 315
'Four! Stop it, stop it! How can you go on? Four! Four! '
'How many fingers, Winston? '
'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. Only stop it, stop
the pain! '
Abruptly he was sitting up with O'Brien's arm round his
shoulders. He had perhaps lost consciousness for a few sec-
onds. The bonds that 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 clung to O'Brien like a baby, curiously com-
forted by the heavy arm round his shoulders. He had the
feeling that O'Brien was his protector, that the pain was
something that came from outside, from some other source,
and that it was O'Brien who would save him from it.
'You are a slow learner, Winston,' said O'Brien gently.
'How can I help it? ' he blubbered. 'How can I help seeing
what is in front of my eyes? Two and two are four. '
Sometimes, Winston. Sometimes they are five. Some-
times 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 grip of 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 white
coat, who had stood immobile throughout the proceedings.
The man in the white coat bent down and looked closely
316 1984
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 needle must be
at seventy, seventy-five. He had shut his eyes this time. He
knew that the fingers were still there, and still four. All that
mattered was somehow to stay alive until the spasm was
over. He had ceased to notice whether he was crying out or
not. The pain lessened again. He opened his eyes. O'Brien
had drawn back the lever.
'How many fingers, Winston? '
'Four. I suppose there are four. I would see five if I could.
I am trying to see five. '
'Which do you wish: to persuade me that you see five, or
really to see them? '
'Really to see them. '
Again,' said O'Brien.
Perhaps the needle was eighty — ninety. Winston could
not intermittently remember why the pain was happening.
Behind his screwed-up eyelids a forest of fingers seemed to
be moving in a sort of dance, weaving in and out, disap-
pearing behind one another and reappearing again. He was
trying to count them, he could not remember why. He knew
only that it was impossible to count them, and that this was
somehow due to the mysterious identity between five and
four. The pain died down again. When he opened his eyes
it was to find that he was still seeing the same thing. In-
numerable fingers, like moving trees, were still streaming
past in either direction, crossing and recrossing. He shut
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his eyes again.
'How many fingers am I holding up, Winston? '
'I don't know. I don't know. You will kill me 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 in the same in-
stant a blissful, healing warmth spread all through his body.
The pain was already half-forgotten. He opened his eyes
and looked up gratefully at O'Brien. At sight of the heavy,
lined face, so ugly and so intelligent, his heart seemed to
turn over. If he could have moved he would have stretched
out a hand and laid it on O'Brien's arm. He had never loved
him 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'Brien was a person who could be talked
to. Perhaps one did not want to be loved so much as to be
understood. O'Brien had tortured him to the edge of luna-
cy, and in a little while, it was certain, he would send him
to his death. It made no difference. In some sense that went
deeper than friendship, they were intimates: somewhere or
other, although the actual words might never be spoken,
there was a place where they could meet and talk. O'Brien
was looking down at him with an expression which suggest-
ed that the same thought might be in his own mind. 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 Ministry of Love. '
'Do you know how long you have been here? '
318 1984
'I don't know. Days, weeks, months — I think it is
months. '
'And why do you imagine that we bring people to this
place? '
'To make them confess. '
'No, that is not the reason. Try again. '
'To punish them. '
'No! ' exclaimed O'Brien. His voice had changed extraor-
dinarily, and his face had suddenly become both stern and
animated. 'No! Not merely to extract your confession, not to
punish you. Shall I tell you why we have brought you here?
To cure you! To make you sane! Will you understand, Win-
ston, that no one whom we bring to this place ever leaves
our hands uncured? We are not interested in those stupid
crimes that you have committed. The Party is not interested
in the overt act: the thought is all we care about. We do not
merely destroy our enemies, we change them. Do you un-
derstand what I mean by that? '
He was bending over Winston. His face looked enormous
because of its nearness, and hideously ugly because it was
seen from below. Moreover it was filled with a sort of exal-
tation, a lunatic intensity. Again Winston's heart shrank. If
it had been possible he would have cowered deeper into the
bed. He felt certain that O'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 is that in this place
there are no martyrdoms. You have read of the religious
FreeeBooksatPlaneteBook. com 319
persecutions of the past. In the Middle Ages there was the
Inquisition. It was a failure. It set out 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 enemies in the open, and killed
them while they were still unrepentant: in fact, it killed
them because they were unrepentant. Men were dying be-
cause they would not abandon their true beliefs. Naturally
all the glory belonged to the victim and all the shame to the
Inquisitor who burned him. Later, in the twentieth century,
there were the totalitarians, as they were called. There were
the German Nazis and the Russian Communists. The Rus-
sians persecuted heresy more cruelly than the Inquisition
had done. And they imagined that they had learned from
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 to destroy
their dignity. They wore them down by torture and solitude
until they were despicable, cringing wretches, confessing
whatever was put into their mouths, covering themselves
with abuse, accusing and sheltering behind one another,
whimpering for mercy. And yet after only a few years the
same thing had happened over again. The dead men had
become martyrs 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
do not make mistakes of that kind. All the confessions that
are uttered here are true. We make them true. And above
all we do not allow the dead to rise up against us. You must
1984
stop imagining that posterity will vindicate you, Winston.
Posterity will never hear of you. You will be lifted clean out
from the stream of history. We shall turn you into gas and
pour you into the stratosphere. Nothing will remain of you,
not a name in a register, not a memory in a living brain. You
will be annihilated in the past as well as in the future. You
will never have existed. '
Then why bother to torture me? thought Winston, with a
momentary bitterness. O'Brien checked his step as though
Winston had uttered the thought aloud. His large ugly face
came nearer, with the eyes a little narrowed.
'You are thinking,' he said, 'that since we intend to de-
stroy 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 you were
thinking, was it not? '
'Yes,' said Winston.
O'Brien smiled slightly.
