A needle slid into Winston's arm.Almost in the same instant 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 intelli-gent,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 lunacy,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 spo-ken,there was a place where they could meet and talk.O'Brien was looking down at him with an expression which suggested 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?"
"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 extraordinar-ily,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,Winston,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 in-terested in the overt act:the thought is all we care about.We do not merely destroy our enemies;we change them.Do you understand what I mean by that?"
He was bending over Winston.His face looked enormous be-cause of its nearness,and hideously ugly because it was seen from below.Moreover it was filled with a sort of exaltation,a lunatic in-tensity.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 persecu-tions of the past.In the Middle Ages there was the Inquisition.It was a failure.It set out to eradicate heresy,and ended by perpetua-ting 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 totalitar-ians,as they were called.There were the German Nazis and the Russian Communists.The Russians 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 digni-ty.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 shelte-ring 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 a-gain,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 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 mo-mentary 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 destroy you utterly,so that nothing that you say or do can make the smal-lest difference—in that case,why do we go to the trouble of interro-gating you first? That is what you were thinking,was it not?"
"Yes,"said Winston.
O'Brien smiled slightly."You are a flaw in the pattern,Win-ston.You are a stain that must be wiped out.Did I not tell you just now that we are different from the persecutors of the past? We are not content with negative obedience,nor even with the most abj ect submission.When finally you surrender to us,it must be of your own free will.We do not destroy the heretic because he resists us;so long as he resists us we never destroy him.We convert him,we cap-ture his inner mind,we reshape 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 before we kill him.It is intolerable to us that an erroneous thought should ex-ist anywhere in the world,however secret and powerless it may be. Even in the instant of death we cannot 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 carry rebellion locked up in his skull as he walked down the passage waiting for the bullet.But we 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 it was not with pain or fear,only with penitence.By the time we had finished with them they were only the shells of men.There was nothing left in them except sorrow for what they had done,and love of Big Broth-er.It was touching to see how they loved him.They begged to be 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 Win-ston; he is not a hypocrite; he believes every word he says.What most oppressed him was the consciousness of his own intellectual inferiority.He watched the heavy yet graceful form strolling to and fro,in and out of the range of his vision.O'Brien was a being in all ways larger than himself.There was no idea that he had ever had,or could have,that O'Brien had not long ago known,examined,and rej ected.His mind contained Winston's mind.But in that case how could it be true that O'Brien was mad? It must be he,Winston, who was mad.O'Brien halted 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 is ever spared.And even if we chose to let you live out the natural term of your life,still you would never escape from us.What hap-pens to you here is forever.Understand that in advance.We shall crush you down to the point from which there is no coming back. Things will happen to you from which you could not recover,if you lived a thousand years.Never again 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 white coat.Winston was aware of some heavy piece of apparatus being pushed into place behind his head.O'Brien had sat down beside the bed,so that his face was almost on a level with Winston's.
"Three thousand,"he said,speaking over Winston's head 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 kind of pain.O'Brien laid a hand reassuringly,almost kindly, on his.
"This time it will not hurt,"he said."Keep your 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.Win-ston was not hurt,only prostrated.Although he had already been ly-ing on his back when the thing happened,he had a curious feeling that he had been knocked into that position.A terrific painless blow had flattened him out.Also something had happened inside his head. As his eyes regained their focus he remembered who he was,and where he was,and recognized the face that was gazing into his own;but somewhere or other there was a large patch of emptiness,as though a piece had been taken out of his brain.
"It will not last,"said O'Brien."Look me in the eyes.What country is Oceania at war with?"
Winston thought.He knew what was meant by Oceania,and that he himself was a citizen of Oceania.He also remembered Eura-sia and Eastasia;but who was at war with whom he did not know.In fact he had not been aware that there was any war.
"I don't remember."
"Oceania is at war with Eastasia.Do you remember that now?"
"Yes."
"Oceania has always been at war with Eastasia.Since the begin-ning of your life,since the beginning of the Party,since the begin-ning of history,the war has continued without a break,always the same war.Do you remember that?"
"Yes."
"Eleven years ago you created a legend about three men who had been condemned to death for treachery.You pretended that you had seen a piece of paper which proved them innocent.No such piece of paper ever existed.You invented it,and later you grew to believe in it.You remember now the very moment at which you first inven-ted it.Do you remember that?"
"Yes."
"Just now I held up the fingers of my hand to you.You saw five fingers.Do you remember that?"
"Yes."
O'Brien held up the fingers of his left hand,with the thumb concealed.
"There are five fingers there.Do you see five fingers?"
"Yes."
And he did see them,for a fleeting instant,before the scenery of his mind changed.He saw five fingers,and there was no deformi-ty.Then everything was normal again,and the old fear,the hatred, and the bewilderment came crowding back again.But there had been a moment—he did not know how long,thirty seconds,perhaps—of luminous certainty,when each new suggestion of O'Brien's had filled up a patch of emptiness and become absolute truth,and when two and two could have been three as easily as five,if that were what was needed.It had faded but before O'Brien had dropped his hand;but though he could not recapture it,he could remember it,as one remembers a vivid experience at some period of one's life when one was in effect a different person.
"You see now,"said O'Brien,"that it is at any rate possible."
"Yes,"said Winston.
O'Brien stood up with a satisfied air.Over to his left Winston saw the man in the white coat break an ampoule and draw back the plunger of a syringe.O'Brien turned to Winston with a smile.In al-most the old manner he resettled his spectacles on his nose.
"Do you remember writing in your diary,"he said,"that it did not matter whether I was a friend or an enemy,since I was at least a 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 were upon 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.Immediate-ly—unreservedly.I have seldom seen anyone come over to us so promptly.You would hardly recognize her if you saw her.All her re-belliousness,her deceit,her folly,her dirty-mindedness—everything has been burned out of her.It was a perfect conversion,a textbook case."
"You tortured her."
O'Brien left this unanswered."Next question,"he said.
"Does Big Brother exist?"
"Of course he exists.The Party exists.Big Brother is the em-bodiment 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 assailed him.He knew,or he could imagine,the arguments which proved his own nonexist-ence;but they were 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 shriveled as he thought of the unanswerable,mad arguments with which O'Brien would de-molish him.
"I think I exist,"he said wearily."I am conscious of my own identity.I was born, and I shall die.I have arms and legs.I occupy a particular point in space.No other solid obj ect 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 we choose to set you free when we have finished with you,and if you live to be ninety years old,still you will never learn whether the answer to that question is Yes or No.As long as you live, it will be an unsolved riddle in your mind."
Winston lay silent.His breast rose and fell a 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 a trace of amusement in O'Brien's face.Even his spectacles seemed to wear an ironical gleam.He knows,thought Winston suddenly,he knows what I am going to ask! At the thought the 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.Everyone knows what is in Room 101."
He raised a finger to the man in the white coat.Evidently the session was at an end.A needle jerked into Winston's arm.He sank almost instantly into deep sleep.
Chapter 3
"T here a"re three stages in your reintegration,"said O'Brien.There is learning,there is understanding,and thereis acceptance.It is 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 his knees 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 was quick-witted enough; it was chiefly when he showed stupidity that O'Brien pulled the le-ver.Sometimes they got through a whole session without use of the dial.He could not remember how 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 sometimes have been days,sometimes only an hour or two.
"As you lie there,"said O'Brien,"you have often wondered—you have even asked me—why the Ministry of Love should expend so much time and trouble on you.And when you were free you were puzzled by what was essentially the same question.You could grasp the mechanics of the society you lived in,but not its underlying mo-tives.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 your own sanity.You have read the book,Gold-stein's book,or parts of it,at least.Did it tell you anything that you did not know already?"
"You have read it?"said Winston.
"I wrote it.That is to say,I collaborated in writing it.No book is produced individually,as you know."
"Is it true,what it says?"
"As deion,yes.The program it sets forth is nonsense.The secret accumulation of knowledge—a gradual spread of enlighten-ment—ultimately a proletarian rebellion—the overthrow of the Party.You foresaw yourself that 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 in-surrection,you must abandon them.There is no way in which the Party can be overthrown.The rule of the Party is forever.Make that the starting point of your thoughts."
He came closer to the bed."Forever!"he repeated."And now let us get back to the question of'how' and'why.'You understand well 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 remained silent.
Nevertheless Winston did not speak for another moment or two.A feeling of weariness had overwhelmed him.The faint,mad gleam of enthusiasm had come back into O'Brien's face.He knew in advance what O'Brien would say:that the Party did not seek power for its own ends,but only for the good of the majority.That it sought power because men in the mass were frail,cowardly crea tures who could not endure liberty or face the truth,and must be ruled over and systematically deceived by others who were stronger than themselves.That the choice for mankind lay between freedom and happiness,and that,for the great bulk of mankind,happiness was better.That the party was the eternal guardian of the weak,a dedicated sect doing evil that good might come,sacrificing its own happiness to that of others.The terrible thing,thought Winston,the terrible thing was that when O'Brien said this he would believe it. You could see it in his face.O'Brien knew everything.A thousand times better than Winston, he knew what the world was really like,in what degradation the mass of human beings lived and by what lies and barbarities the Party kept them there.He had under-stood it all,weighed it all,and it made no difference:all was justi-fied by the ultimate purpose.What can you do,thought Winston,a-gainst the lunatic who is more intelligent than yourself,who gives your arguments a fair hearing and then simply persists in his luna-cy?
"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 of pain 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 in the good of others;we are interested solely in power.Not wealth or luxury or long life or 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 Nazis and the Russian Communists came very close to us in their methods,but they never had the cour-age to recognize their own motives.They pretended,perhaps they even believed,that they had seized power unwillingly and for a lim-ited time,and that just round the corner 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 relinquis-hing it.Power is not a means; it is an end.One does not establish a dictatorship in order to safeguard a revolution;one makes the revo-lution in order to establish the dictatorship.The obj ect of persecu-tion is persecution.The obj ect of torture is torture.The obj ect of power is power.Now do you begin to understand me?"
Winston was struck,as he had been struck before,by the tired-ness of O'Brien's face.It was strong and fleshy and brutal,it was full 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 face is old and tired.You are thinking that I talk of power,and yet I am not even able to pre-vent the decay of my own body.Can you not understand,Winston, that the individual is only a cell? The weariness of the cell is the vigor of the organism.Do you die when you cut your fingernails?"
He turned away from the bed and began strolling up and down again,one hand in his pocket.
"We are the priests of power,"he said."God is power.But at present power is only a word so far as you are concerned.It is time for you to gather some idea of what power means.The first thing you must realize is that power is 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 al-ways defeated.It must be so,because every human being is doomed to die,which is the greatest of all failures.But if he can make com-plete,utter submission,if he can escape from his identity,if he can merge himself in the Party so that he is the Party,then he is all-powerful and immortal.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,as you would call it—is not important.Already our control over matter is abso-lute."
For a moment Winston ignored the dial.He made a violent ef-fort to raise himself into a sitting position,and merely succeeded in wrenching his body painfully.
"But how can you control matter?"he burst out."You don't even control the climate or the law of gravity.And there are dis-ease,pain,death—"
O'Brien silenced him by a movement of his hand."We control matter because we control the mind.Reality is inside the skull.You will 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 not wish to,because the Party does not wish it.You must get rid of those nineteenth-century ideas about the laws of Nature.We make the laws of nature."
"But you do not!You are not even masters of this planet.What about Eurasia and Eastasia? You have not conquered them yet."
"Unimportant.We shall conquer them when it suits 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 the earth 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 extinct animals—mam-moths and mastodons and enormous reptiles which lived here long before man was ever heard of."