Winston uncovered his face. Parsons used the
lavatory,
loudly and abundantly. It then turned out that the plug was
defective and the cell stank abominably for hours afterwards.
Parsons was removed. More prisoners came and went,
mysteriously. One, a woman, was consigned to 'Room 101', and,
Winston noticed, seemed to shrivel and turn a different colour
when she heard the words. A time came when, if it had been
morning when he was brought here, it would be afternoon; or if
it had been afternoon, then it would be midnight. There were
six prisoners in the cell, men and women. All sat very still.
Opposite Winston there sat a man with a chinless, toothy face
exactly like that of some large, harmless rodent. His fat,
mottled cheeks were so pouched at the bottom that it was
difficult not to believe that he had little stores of food
tucked away there. His pale-grey eyes flitted timorously from
face to face and turned quickly away again when he caught
anyone's eye.
The door opened, and another prisoner was brought in whose
appearance sent a momentary chill through Winston. He was a
commonplace, mean-looking man who might have been an engineer
or technician of some kind. But what was startling was the
emaciation of his face. It was like a skull. Because of its
thinness the mouth and eyes looked disproportionately large,
and the eyes seemed filled with a murderous, unappeasable
hatred of somebody or something.
The man sat down on the bench at a little distance from
Winston. Winston did not look at him again, but the tormented,
skull-like face was as vivid in his mind as though it had been
straight in front of his eyes. Suddenly he realized what was
the matter. The man was dying of starvation. The same thought
seemed to occur almost simultaneously to everyone in the cell.
There was a very faint stirring all the way round the bench.
The eyes of the chinless man kept flitting towards the
skull-faced man, then turning guiltily away, then being dragged
back by an irresistible attraction. Presently he began to
fidget on his seat. At last he stood up, waddled clumsily
across the cell, dug down into the pocket of his overalls, and,
with an abashed air, held out a grimy piece of bread to the
skull- faced man.
There was a furious, deafening roar from the telescreen.
The chinless man jumped in his tracks. The skull-faced man had
quickly thrust his hands behind his back, as though
demonstrating to all the world that he refused the gift.
'Bumstead!' roared the voice. '2713 Bumstead J.! Let fall
that piece of bread!'
The chinless man dropped the piece of bread on the floor.
'Remain standing where you are,' said the voice. 'Face the
door. Make no movement.'
The chinless man obeyed. His large pouchy cheeks were
quivering uncontrollably. The door clanged open. As the young
officer entered and stepped aside, there emerged from behind
him a short stumpy guard with enormous arms and shoulders. He
took his stand opposite the chinless man, and then, at a signal
from the officer, let free a frightful blow, with all the
weight of his body behind it, full in the chinless man's mouth.
The force of it seemed almost to knock him clear of the floor.
His body was flung across the cell and fetched up against the
base of the lavatory seat. For a moment he lay as though
stunned, with dark blood oozing from his mouth and nose. A very
faint whimpering or squeaking, which seemed unconscious, came
out of him. Then he rolled over and raised himself unsteadily
on hands and knees. Amid a stream of blood and saliva, the two
halves of a dental plate fell out of his mouth.
The prisoners sat very still, their hands crossed on their
knees. The chinless man climbed back into his place. Down one
side of his face the flesh was darkening. His mouth had swollen
into a shapeless cherry-coloured mass with a black hole in the
middle of it.
From time to time a little blood dripped on to the breast
of his overalls. His grey eyes still flitted from face to face,
more guiltily than ever, as though he were trying to discover
how much the others despised him for his humiliation.
The door opened. With a small gesture the officer
indicated the skull-faced man.
'Room 101,' he said.
There was a gasp and a flurry at Winston's side. The man
had actually flung himself on his knees on the floor, with his
hand clasped together.
'Comrade! Officer!' he cried. 'You don't have to take me
to that place! Haven't I told you everything already? What else
is it you want to know? There's nothing I wouldn't confess,
nothing! Just tell me what it is and I'll confess straight off.
Write it down and I'll sign it -- anything! Not room 101 !'
'Room 101,' said the officer.
The man's face, already very pale, turned a colour Winston
would not have believed possible. It was definitely,
unmistakably, a shade of green.
'Do anything to me!' he yelled. 'You've been starving me
for weeks. Finish it off and let me die. Shoot me. Hang me.
Sentence me to twenty-five years. Is there somebody else you
want me to give away? Just say who it is and I'll tell you
anything you want. I don't care who it is or what you do to
them. I've got a wife and three children. The biggest of them
isn't six years old. You can take the whole lot of them and cut
their throats in front of my eyes, and I'll stand by and watch
it. But not Room 101!'
'Room 101,' said the officer.
The man looked frantically round at the other prisoners,
as though with some idea that he could put another victim in
his own place. His eyes settled on the smashed face of the
chinless man. He flung out a lean arm.
'That's the one you ought to be taking, not me!' he
shouted. 'You didn't hear what he was saying after they bashed
his face. Give me a chance and I'll tell you every word of it.
He's the one that's against the Party, not me.' The
guards stepped forward. The man's voice rose to a shriek. 'You
didn't hear him!' he repeated. 'Something went wrong with the
telescreen. He's the one you want. Take him, not me!'
The two sturdy guards had stooped to take him by the arms.
But just at this moment he flung himself across the floor of
the cell and grabbed one of the iron legs that supported the
bench. He had set up a wordless howling, like an animal. The
guards took hold of him to wrench him loose, but he clung on
with astonishing strength. For perhaps twenty seconds they were
hauling at him. The prisoners sat quiet, their hands crossed on
their knees, looking straight in front of them. The howling
stopped; the man had no breath left for anything except hanging
on. Then there was a different kind of cry. A kick from a
guard's boot had broken the fingers of one of his hands. They
dragged him to his feet.
'Room 101,' said the officer.
The man was led out, walking unsteadily, with head sunken,
nursing his crushed hand, all the fight had gone out of him.
A long time passed. If it had been midnight when the
skull-faced man was taken away, it was morning: if morning, it
was afternoon. Winston was alone, and had been alone for hours.
The pain of sitting on the narrow bench was such that often he
got up and walked about, unreproved by the telescreen. The
piece of bread still lay where the chinless man had dropped it.
At the beginning it needed a hard effort not to look at it, but
presently hunger gave way to thirst. His mouth was sticky and
evil-tasting. The humming sound and the unvarying white light
induced a sort of faintness, an empty feeling inside his head.
He would get up because the ache in his bones was no longer
bearable, and then would sit down again almost at once because
he was too dizzy to make sure of staying on his feet. Whenever
his physical sensations were a little under control the terror
returned. Sometimes with a fading hope he thought of O'Brien
and the razor blade. It was thinkable that the razor blade
might arrive concealed in his food, if he were ever fed. More
dimly he thought of Julia. Somewhere or other she was suffering
perhaps far worse than he. She might be screaming with pain at
this moment. He thought: 'If I could save Julia by doubling my
own pain, would I do it? Yes, I would.' But that was merely an
intellectual decision, taken because he knew that he ought to
take it. He did not feel it. In this place you could not feel
anything, except pain and foreknowledge of pain. Besides, was
it possible, when you were actually suffering it, to wish for
any reason that your own pain should increase? But that
question was not answerable yet.
The boots were approaching again. The door opened. O'Brien
came in.
Winston started to his feet. The shock of the sight had
driven all caution out of him. For the first time in many years
he forgot the presence of the telescreen.
'They've got you too!' he cried.
'They got me a long time ago,' said O'Brien with a mild,
almost regretful irony. He stepped aside. from behind him there
emerged a broad-chested guard with a long black truncheon in
his hand.
'You know him, Winston,' said O'Brien. 'Don't deceive
yourself. You did know it -- you have always known it.'
Yes, he saw now, he had always known it. But there was no
time to think of that. All he had eyes for was the truncheon in
the guard's hand. It might fall anywhere; on the crown, on the
tip of the ear, on the upper arm, on the elbow-
The elbow! He had slumped to his knees, almost paralysed,
clasping the stricken elbow with his other hand. Everything had
exploded into yellow light. Inconceivable, inconceivable that
one blow could cause such pain! The light cleared and he could
see the other two looking down at him. The guard was laughing
at his contortions. One question at any rate was answered.
Never, for any reason on earth, could you wish for an increase
of pain. Of pain you could wish only one thing: that it should
stop. Nothing in the world was so bad as physical pain. In the
face of pain there are no heroes, no heroes, he thought over
and over as he writhed on the floor, clutching uselessly at his
disabled left arm.
x x x
He was lying on something that felt like a camp bed,
except that it was higher off the ground and that he was fixed
down in some way so that he could not move. Light that seemed
stronger than usual was falling on his face. O'Brien was
standing at his side, looking down at him intently. At the
other side of him stood a man in a white coat, holding a
hypodermic syringe.
Even after his eyes were open he took in his surroundings
only gradually. He had the impression of swimming up into this
room from some quite different world, a sort of underwater
world far beneath it. How long he had been down there he did
not know. Since the moment when they arrested him he had not
seen darkness or daylight. Besides, his memories were not
continuous. There had been times when consciousness, even the
sort of consciousness that one has in sleep, had stopped dead
and started again after a blank interval. But whether the
intervals were of days or weeks or only seconds, there was no
way of knowing.'
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