'Another example,' he said. 'Some years ago you had a very
serious 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 making the
fullest possible confession -- were not guilty of the crimes
they were charged with. You believed that you had seen
unmistakable documentary evidence 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, and
Rutherford at the party function in New York, which he had
chanced upon eleven years ago and promptly destroyed. 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
remember 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 forgotten 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 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 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 did not 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 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
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
involuntary. 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
sanity. 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
external. 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 he
had been 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,
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 extended. 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?'
'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 seconds.
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 comforted 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. Sometimes
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 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, disappearing 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. Innumerable fingers, like moving trees, were still
streaming past in either direction, crossing and recrossing. He
shut 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
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 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 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 it 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
spoken, 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.
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