CHAPTER 2

He was lying on something that felt like a camp bed, exceptthat it was higher off the ground and that he was fixeddown in some way so that he could not move. Light thatseemed stronger than usual was falling on his face. O’Brien wasstanding at his side, looking down at him intently. At the other sideof him stood a man in a white coat, holding a hypodermic syringe.Even after his eyes were open he took in his surroundings onlygradually. He had the impression of swimming up into this roomfrom some quite different world, a sort of underwater world farbeneath it. How long he had been down there he did not know.Since the moment when they arrested him he had not seendarkness or daylight. Besides, his memories were not continuous.There had been times when consciousness, even the sort ofconsciousness that one has in sleep, had stopped dead and startedagain after a blank interval. But whether the intervals were of daysor 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 apreliminary, a routine interrogation to which nearly all prisonerswere subjected. There was a long range of crimes — espionage,sabotage, and the like — to which everyone had to confess as amatter of course. The confession was a formality, though thetorture was real. How many times he had been beaten, how longthe beatings had continued, he could not remember. Always therewere five or six men in black uniforms at him simultaneously. Sometimes it was fists, sometimes it was truncheons, sometimes itwas steel rods, sometimes it was boots. There were times when herolled about the floor, as shameless as an animal, writhing his bodythis way and that in an endless, hopeless effort to dodge the kicks,and simply inviting more and yet more kicks, in his ribs, in hisbelly, on his elbows, on his shins, in his groin, in his testicles, onthe bone at the base of his spine. There were times when it went onand on until the cruel, wicked, unforgivable thing seemed to himnot that the guards continued to beat him but that he could notforce himself into losing consciousness. There were times when hisnerve so forsook him that he began shouting for mercy even beforethe beating began, when the mere sight of a fist drawn back for ablow was enough to make him pour forth a confession of real andimaginary crimes. There were other times when he started out withthe resolve of confessing nothing, when every word had to beforced out of him between gasps of pain, and there were timeswhen he feebly tried to compromise, when he said to himself: ‘Iwill confess, but not yet. I must hold out till the pain becomesunbearable. Three more kicks, two more kicks, and then I will tellthem what they want.’ Sometimes he was beaten till he couldhardly stand, then flung like a sack of potatoes on to the stone floorof a cell, left to recuperate for a few hours, and then taken out andbeaten again. There were also longer periods of recovery. Heremembered them dimly, because they were spent chiefly in sleepor stupor. He remembered a cell with a plank bed, a sort of shelfsticking out from the wall, and a tin wash-basin, and meals of hotsoup and bread and sometimes coffee. He remembered a surlybarber arriving to scrape his chin and crop his hair, andbusinesslike, unsympathetic men in white coats feeling his pulse,tapping his reflexes, turning up his eyelids, running harsh fingersover 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, ahorror to which he could be sent back at any moment when hisanswers were unsatisfactory. His questioners now were notruffians in black uniforms but Party intellectuals, little rotund menwith quick movements and flashing spectacles, who worked on himin relays over periods which lasted — he thought, he could not besure — ten or twelve hours at a stretch. These other questionerssaw to it that he was in constant slight pain, but it was not chieflypain that they relied on. They slapped his face, wrung his ears,pulled his hair, made him stand on one leg, refused him leave tourinate, shone glaring lights in his face until his eyes ran withwater; but the aim of this was simply to humiliate him and destroyhis power of arguing and reasoning. Their real weapon was themerciless questioning that went on and on, hour after hour,tripping him up, laying traps for him, twisting everything that hesaid, convicting him at every step of lies and self-contradictionuntil he began weeping as much from shame as from nervousfatigue. Sometimes he would weep half a dozen times in a singlesession. Most of the time they screamed abuse at him andthreatened at every hesitation to deliver him over to the guardsagain; but sometimes they would suddenly change their tune, callhim comrade, appeal to him in the name of Ingsoc and Big Brother,and ask him sorrowfully whether even now he had not enoughloyalty to the Party left to make him wish to undo the evil he haddone. When his nerves were in rags after hours of questioning,even this appeal could reduce him to snivelling tears. In the endthe nagging voices broke him down more completely than theboots and fists of the guards. He became simply a mouth thatuttered, a hand that signed, whatever was demanded of him. His sole concern was to find out what they wanted him to confess, andthen confess it quickly, before the bullying started anew. Heconfessed to the assassination of eminent Party members, thedistribution of seditious pamphlets, embezzlement of public funds,sale of military secrets, sabotage of every kind. He confessed thathe had been a spy in the pay of the Eastasian government as farback as 1968. He confessed that he was a religious believer, anadmirer of capitalism, and a sexual pervert. He confessed that hehad murdered his wife, although he knew, and his questionersmust have known, that his wife was still alive. He confessed thatfor years he had been in personal touch with Goldstein and hadbeen a member of an underground organization which hadincluded almost every human being he had ever known. It waseasier to confess everything and implicate everybody. Besides, in asense it was all true. It was true that he had been the enemy of theParty, and in the eyes of the Party there was no distinction betweenthe thought and the deed.There were also memories of another kind. They stood out inhis mind disconnectedly, like pictures with blackness all roundthem.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 handsome kind of instrument was ticking slowly and regularly. The eyesgrew larger and more luminous. Suddenly he floated out of hisseat, dived into the eyes, and was swallowed up.He was strapped into a chair surrounded by dials, underdazzling lights. A man in a white coat was reading the dials. Therewas a tramp of heavy boots outside. The door clanged open. Thewaxed-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 lookat Winston either; he was looking only at the dials.He was rolling down a mighty corridor, a kilometre wide, fullof glorious, golden light, roaring with laughter and shouting outconfessions at the top of his voice. He was confessing everything,even the things he had succeeded in holding back under thetorture. He was relating the entire history of his life to an audiencewho knew it already. With him were the guards, the otherquestioners, the men in white coats, O’Brien, Julia, MrCharrington, all rolling down the corridor together and shoutingwith laughter. Some dreadful thing which had lain embedded in thefuture had somehow been skipped over and had not happened.Everything was all right, there was no more pain, the last detail ofhis life was laid bare, understood, forgiven.He was starting up from the plank bed in the half-certaintythat he had heard O’Brien’s voice. All through his interrogation,although he had never seen him, he had had the feeling thatO’Brien was at his elbow, just out of sight. It was O’Brien who wasdirecting everything. It was he who set the guards on to Winstonand who prevented them from killing him. It was he who decidedwhen Winston should scream with pain, when he should have arespite, when he should be fed, when he should sleep, when thedrugs should be pumped into his arm. It was he who asked thequestions and suggested the answers. He was the tormentor, hewas the protector, he was the inquisitor, he was the friend. Andonce — Winston could not remember whether it was in druggedsleep, or in normal sleep, or even in a moment of wakefulness — avoice murmured in his ear: ‘Don’t worry, Winston; you are in mykeeping. For seven years I have watched over you. Now theturning-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 thesame voice that had said to him, ‘We shall meet in the place wherethere is no darkness,’ in that other dream, seven years ago.He did not remember any ending to his interrogation. Therewas a period of blackness and then the cell, or room, in which henow was had gradually materialized round him. He was almost flaton his back, and unable to move. His body was held down at everyessential point. Even the back of his head was gripped in somemanner. O’Brien was looking down at him gravely and rather sadly.His face, seen from below, looked coarse and worn, with pouchesunder the eyes and tired lines from nose to chin. He was older thanWinston had thought him; he was perhaps forty-eight or fifty.Under his hand there was a dial with a lever on top and figuresrunning round the face.‘I told you,’ said O’Brien, ‘that if we met again it would behere.’‘Yes,’ said Winston.Without any warning except a slight movement of O’Brien’shand, a wave of pain flooded his body. It was a frightening pain,because he could not see what was happening, and he had thefeeling that some mortal injury was being done to him. He did notknow whether the thing was really happening, or whether theeffect was electrically produced; but his body was being wrenchedout of shape, the joints were being slowly torn apart. Although thepain had brought the sweat out on his forehead, the worst of allwas the fear that his backbone was about to snap. He set his teethand breathed hard through his nose, trying to keep silent as long aspossible.‘You are afraid,’ said O’Brien, watching his face, ‘that inanother moment something is going to break. Your especial fear is that it will be your backbone. You have a vivid mental picture of thevertebrae 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 thedial. The wave of pain receded almost as quickly as it had come.‘That was forty,’ said O’Brien. ‘You can see that the numberson this dial run up to a hundred. Will you please remember,throughout our conversation, that I have it in my power to inflictpain on you at any moment and to whatever degree I choose? Ifyou tell me any lies, or attempt to prevaricate in any way, or evenfall below your usual level of intelligence, you will cry out withpain, instantly. Do you understand that?’‘Yes,’ said Winston.O’Brien’s manner became less severe. He resettled hisspectacles thoughtfully, and took a pace or two up and down. Whenhe spoke his voice was gentle and patient. He had the air of adoctor, a teacher, even a priest, anxious to explain and persuaderather than to punish.‘I am taking trouble with you, Winston,’ he said, ‘because youare worth trouble. You know perfectly well what is the matter withyou. You have known it for years, though you have fought againstthe knowledge. You are mentally deranged. You suffer from adefective memory. You are unable to remember real events andyou persuade yourself that you remember other events whichnever happened. Fortunately it is curable. You have never curedyourself of it, because you did not choose to. There was a smalleffort of the will that you were not ready to make. Even now, I amwell aware, you are clinging to your disease under the impressionthat it is a virtue. Now we will take an example. At this moment,which power is Oceania at war with?’ ‘When I was arrested, Oceania was at war with Eastasia.’‘With Eastasia. Good. And Oceania has always been at warwith Eastasia, has it not?’Winston drew in his breath. He opened his mouth to speakand then did not speak. He could not take his eyes away from thedial.‘The truth, please, Winston. YOUR truth. Tell me what youthink you remember.’‘I remember that until only a week before I was arrested, wewere not at war with Eastasia at all. We were in alliance with them.The war was against Eurasia. That had lasted for four years. Beforethat ——’O’Brien stopped him with a movement of the hand.‘Another example,’ he said. ‘Some years ago you had a veryserious delusion indeed. You believed that three men, three onetime Party members named Jones, Aaronson, and Rutherford —men who were executed for treachery and sabotage after makingthe fullest possible confession — were not guilty of the crimes theywere charged with. You believed that you had seen unmistakabledocumentary evidence proving that their confessions were false.There was a certain photograph about which you had ahallucination. You believed that you had actually held it in yourhands. It was a photograph something like this.’An oblong slip of newspaper had appeared between O’Brien’sfingers. For perhaps five seconds it was within the angle ofWinston’s vision. It was a photograph, and there was no questionof its identity. It was THE photograph. It was another copy of thephotograph of Jones, Aaronson, and Rutherford at the partyfunction in New York, which he had chanced upon eleven years agoand promptly destroyed. For only an instant it was before his eyes, then it was out of sight again. But he had seen it, unquestionablyhe had seen it! He made a desperate, agonizing effort to wrench thetop half of his body free. It was impossible to move so much as acentimetre in any direction. For the moment he had even forgottenthe dial. All he wanted was to hold the photograph in his fingersagain, 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 theopposite wall. O’Brien lifted the grating. Unseen, the frail slip ofpaper was whirling away on the current of warm air; it wasvanishing in a flash of flame. O’Brien turned away from the wall.‘Ashes,’ he said. ‘Not even identifiable ashes. Dust. It does notexist. It never existed.’‘But it did exist! It does exist! It exists in memory. I rememberit. You remember it.’‘I do not remember it,’ said O’Brien.Winston’s heart sank. That was doublethink. He had a feelingof deadly helplessness. If he could have been certain that O’Brienwas lying, it would not have seemed to matter. But it was perfectlypossible that O’Brien had really forgotten the photograph. And ifso, then already he would have forgotten his denial ofremembering it, and forgotten the act of forgetting. How could onebe sure that it was simple trickery? Perhaps that lunatic dislocationin the mind could really happen: that was the thought that defeatedhim.O’Brien was looking down at him speculatively. More thanever he had the air of a teacher taking pains with a wayward butpromising child. ‘There is a Party slogan dealing with the control of the past,’ hesaid. ‘Repeat it, if you please.’‘“Who controls the past controls the future: who controls thepresent controls the past,”’ repeated Winston obediently.‘“Who controls the present controls the past,”’ said O’Brien,nodding his head with slow approval. ‘Is it your opinion, Winston,that the past has real existence?’Again the feeling of helplessness descended upon Winston.His eyes flitted towards the dial. He not only did not know whether‘yes’ or ‘no’ was the answer that would save him from pain; he didnot even know which answer he believed to be the true one.O’Brien smiled faintly. ‘You are no metaphysician, Winston,’he said. ‘Until this moment you had never considered what ismeant by existence. I will put it more precisely. Does the past existconcretely, in space? Is there somewhere or other a place, a worldof solid objects, where the past is still happening?’‘No.’‘Then where does the past exist, if at all?’‘In records. It is written down.’‘In records. And ——?’‘In the mind. In human memories.’‘In memory. Very well, then. We, the Party, control all records,and we control all memories. Then we control the past, do we not?’‘But how can you stop people remembering things?’ criedWinston again momentarily forgetting the dial. ‘It is involuntary. Itis outside oneself. How can you control memory? You have notcontrolled 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 iswhat has brought you here. You are here because you have failed inhumility, in self-discipline. You would not make the act ofsubmission which is the price of sanity. You preferred to be alunatic, a minority of one. Only the disciplined mind can seereality, Winston. You believe that reality is something objective,external, existing in its own right. You also believe that the natureof reality is self-evident. When you delude yourself into thinkingthat you see something, you assume that everyone else sees thesame thing as you. But I tell you, Winston, that reality is notexternal. Reality exists in the human mind, and nowhere else. Notin the individual mind, which can make mistakes, and in any casesoon perishes: only in the mind of the Party, which is collective andimmortal. Whatever the Party holds to be the truth, is truth. It isimpossible to see reality except by looking through the eyes of theParty. That is the fact that you have got to relearn, Winston. Itneeds an act of self-destruction, an effort of the will. You musthumble yourself before you can become sane.’He paused for a few moments, as though to allow what he hadbeen saying to sink in.‘Do you remember,’ he went on, ‘writing in your diary,“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, withthe 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 hadshot up to fifty-five. The sweat had sprung out all over Winston’sbody. The air tore into his lungs and issued again in deep groanswhich even by clenching his teeth he could not stop. O’Brienwatched him, the four fingers still extended. He drew back thelever. 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. Theheavy, stern face and the four fingers filled his vision. The fingersstood up before his eyes like pillars, enormous, blurry, andseeming to vibrate, but unmistakably four.‘How many fingers, Winston?’‘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 thinkthere are four. How many fingers, please?’‘Four! five! Four! Anything you like. Only stop it, stop thepain!’Abruptly he was sitting up with O’Brien’s arm round hisshoulders. He had perhaps lost consciousness for a few seconds.The bonds that had held his body down were loosened. He felt verycold, he was shaking uncontrollably, his teeth were chattering, thetears were rolling down his cheeks. For a moment he clung to O’Brien like a baby, curiously comforted by the heavy arm roundhis shoulders. He had the feeling that O’Brien was his protector,that the pain was something that came from outside, from someother 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 whatis in front of my eyes? Two and two are four.’‘Sometimes, Winston. Sometimes they are five. Sometimesthey are three. Sometimes they are all of them at once. You musttry harder. It is not easy to become sane.’He laid Winston down on the bed. The grip of his limbstightened again, but the pain had ebbed away and the tremblinghad stopped, leaving him merely weak and cold.