''Anything that we are capable of,' said Winston.
O'Brien had turned himself a little in his chair so that
he was facing Winston. He almost ignored Julia, seeming to take
it for granted that Winston could speak for her. For a moment
the lids flitted down over his eyes. He began asking his
questions in a low, expressionless voice, as though this were a
routine, a sort of catechism, most of whose answers were known
to him already.
'You are prepared to give your lives?'
'Yes.'
'You are prepared to commit murder?'
'Yes.'
'To commit acts of sabotage which may cause the death of
hundreds of innocent people?'
'Yes.'
'To betray your country to foreign powers?'
'Yes.'
'You are prepared to cheat, to forge, to blackmail, to
corrupt the minds of children, to distribute habit-forming
drugs, to encourage prostitution, to disseminate venereal
diseases -- to do anything which is likely to cause
demoralization and weaken the power of the Party?'
'Yes.'
'If, for example, it would somehow serve our interests to
throw sulphuric acid in a child's face -- are you prepared to
do that?'
'Yes.'
'You are prepared to lose your identity and live out the
rest of your life as a waiter or a dock-worker?'
'Yes.'
'You are prepared to commit suicide, if and when we order
you to do so?'
'Yes.'
'You are prepared, the two of you, to separate and never
see one another again?'
'No!' broke in Julia.
It appeared to Winston that a long time passed before he
answered. For a moment he seemed even to have been deprived of
the power of speech. His tongue worked soundlessly, forming the
opening syllables first of one word, then of the other, over
and over again. Until he had said it, he did not know which
word he was going to say. 'No,' he said finally.
'You did well to tell me,' said O'Brien. 'It is necessary
for us to know everything.'
He turned himself toward Julia and added in a voice with
somewhat more expression in it:
'Do you understand that even if he survives, it may be as
a different person? We may be obliged to give him a new
identity. His face, his movements, the shape of his hands, the
colour of his hair -- even his voice would be different. And
you yourself might have become a different person. Our surgeons
can alter people beyond recognition. Sometimes it is necessary.
Sometimes we even amputate a limb.'
Winston could not help snatching another sidelong glance
at Martin's Mongolian face. There were no scars that he could
see. Julia had turned a shade paler, so that her freckles were
showing, but she faced O'Brien boldly. She murmured something
that seemed to be assent.
'Good. Then that is settled.'
There was a silver box of cigarettes on the table. With a
rather absent-minded air O'Brien pushed them towards the
others, took one himself, then stood up and began to pace
slowly to and fro, as though he could think better standing.
They were very good cigarettes, very thick and well-packed,
with an unfamiliar silkiness in the paper. O'Brien looked at
his wrist-watch again.
'You had better go back to your Pantry, Martin,' he said.
'I shall switch on in a quarter of an hour. Take a good look at
these comrades' faces before you go. You will be seeing them
again. I may not.
Exactly as they had done at the front door, the little
man's dark eyes flickered over their faces. There was not a
trace of friendliness in his manner. He was memorizing their
appearance, but he felt no interest in them, or appeared to
feel none. It occurred to Winston that a synthetic face was
perhaps incapable of changing its expression. Without speaking
or giving any kind of salutation, Martin went out, closing the
door silently behind him. O'Brien was strolling up and down,
one hand in the pocket of his black overalls, the other holding
his cigarette.
'You understand,' he said, 'that you will be fighting in
the dark. You will always be in the dark. You will receive
orders and you will obey them, without knowing why. Later I
shall send you a book from which you will learn the true nature
of the society we live in, and the strategy by which we shall
destroy it. When you have read the book, you will be full
members of the Brotherhood. But between the general aims that
we are fighting for and the immedi ate tasks of the moment, you
will never know anything. I tell you that the Brotherhood
exists, but I cannot tell you whether it numbers a hundred
members, or ten million. From your personal knowledge you will
never be able to say that it numbers even as many as a dozen.
You will have three or four contacts, who will be renewed from
time to time as they disappear. As this was your first contact,
it will be preserved. When you receive orders, they will come
from me. If we find it necessary to communicate with you, it
will be through Martin. When you are finally caught, you will
confess. That is unavoidable. But you will have very little to
confess, other than your own actions. You will not be able to
betray more than a handful of unimportant people. Probably you
will not even betray me. By that time I may be dead, or I shall
have become a different person, with a different face.'
He continued to move to and fro over the soft carpet. In
spite of the bulkiness of his body there was a remarkable grace
in his movements. It came out even in the gesture with which he
thrust a hand into his pocket, or manipulated a cigarette. More
even than of strength, he gave an impression of confidence and
of an understanding tinged by irony. However much in earnest he
might be, he had nothing of the single-mindedness that belongs
to a fanatic. When he spoke of murder, suicide, venereal
disease, amputated limbs, and altered faces, it was with a
faint air of persiflage. 'This is unavoidable,' his voice
seemed to say; 'this is what we have got to do, unflinchingly.
But this is not what we shall be doing when life is worth
living again.' A wave of admiration, almost of worship, flowed
out from Winston towards O'Brien. For the moment he had
forgotten the shadowy figure of Goldstein. When you looked at
O'Brien's powerful shoulders and his blunt-featured face, so
ugly and yet so civilized, it was impossible to believe that he
could be defeated. There was no stratagem that he was not equal
to, no danger that he could not foresee. Even Julia seemed to
be impressed. She had let her cigarette go out and was
listening intently. O'Brien went on:
'You will have heard rumours of the existence of the
Brotherhood. No doubt you have formed your own picture of it.
You have imagined, probably, a huge underworld of conspirators,
meeting secretly in cellars, scribbling messages on walls,
recognizing one another by codewords or by special movements of
the hand. Nothing of the kind exists. The members of the
Brotherhood have no way of recognizing one another, and it is
impossible for any one member to be aware of the identity of
more than a few others. Goldstein himself, if he fell into the
hands of the Thought Police, could not give them a complete
list of members, or any information that would lead them to a
complete list. No such list exists. The Brotherhood cannot be
wiped out because it is not an organization in the ordinary
sense. Nothing holds it together except an idea which is
indestructible. You will never have anything to sustain you,
except the idea. You will get no comradeship and no
encouragement. When finally you are caught, you will get no
help. We never help our members. At most, when it is absolutely
necessary that someone should be silenced, we are occasionally
able to smuggle a razor blade into a prisoner's cell. You will
have to get used to living without results and without hope.
You will work for a while, you will be caught, you will
confess, and then you will die. Those are the only results that
you will ever see. There is no possibility that any perceptible
change will happen within our own lifetime. We are the dead.
Our only true life is in the future. We shall take part in it
as handfuls of dust and splinters of bone. But how far away
that future may be, there is no knowing. It might be a thousand
years. At present nothing is possible except to extend the area
of sanity little by little. We cannot act collectively. We can
only spread our knowledge outwards from individual to
individual, generation after generation. In the face of the
Thought Police there is no other way.'
He halted and looked for the third time at his wrist-
watch.
'It is almost time for you to leave, comrade,' he said to
Julia. 'Wait. The decanter is still half full.'
He filled the glasses and raised his own glass by the
stem.
'What shall it be this time?' he said, still with the same
faint suggestion of irony. 'To the confusion of the Thought
Police? To the death of Big Brother? To humanity? To the
future?'
'To the past,' said Winston.
'The past is more important,' agreed O'Brien gravely.
They emptied their glasses, and a moment later Julia stood
up to go. O'Brien took a small box from the top of a cabinet
and handed her a flat white tablet which he told her to place
on her tongue. It was important, he said, not to go out
smelling of wine: the lift attendants were very observant. As
soon as the door had shut behind her he appeared to forget her
existence. He took another pace or two up and down, then
stopped.
'There are details to be settled,' he said. 'I assume that
you have a hiding-place of some kind?'
Winston explained about the room over Mr Charrington's
shop.
'That will do for the moment. Later we will arrange
something else for you. It is important to change one's
hiding-place frequently. Meanwhile I shall send you a copy of
the book' -- even O'Brien, Winston noticed, seemed to
pronounce the words as though they were in italics-
'Goldstein's book, you understand, as soon as possible. It may
be some days before I can get hold of one. There are not many
in existence, as you can imagine. The Thought Police hunt them
down and destroy them almost as fast as we can produce them. It
makes very little difference. The book is indestructible. If
the last copy were gone, we could reproduce it almost word for
word. Do you carry a brief-case to work with you?' he added.
'As a rule, yes.'
'What is it like?'
'Black, very shabby. With two straps.'
'Black, two straps, very shabby -- good. One day in the
fairly near future-I cannot give a date -- one of the messages
among your morning's work will contain a misprinted word, and
you will have to ask for a repeat. On the following day you
will go to work without your brief-case. At some time during
the day, in the street, a man will touch you on the arm and say
"I think you have dropped your brief-case." The one he gives
you will contain a copy of Goldstein's book. You will return it
within fourteen days.'
They were silent for a moment.
'There are a couple of minutes before you need go,' said
O'Brien. 'We shall meet again -- if we do meet again-'
Winston looked up at him. 'In the place where there is no
darkness?' he said hesitantly.
O'Brien nodded without appearance of surprise. 'In the
place where there is no darkness,' he said, as though he had
recognized the allusion. 'And in the meantime, is there
anything that you wish to say before you leave? Any message?
Any question?.'
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