# Part 3 Chapter 3 - George Orwell - Nineteen Eighty-Four

An episode of [George Orwell - 1984](https://invisiblenetwork.ai/podcast/1795219843), 8 Feb 2025, 26 min.

Audio: https://dts.podtrac.com/redirect.mp3/api.spreaker.com/download/episode/64271019/part_3_chapter_3_george_orwell_nineteen_eighty_four.mp3



## Transcript

[0:00] Speaker 1: Section twenty one of nineteen eighty four by George Orwell.
[0:04] Speaker 1: This s Leagamas recording may be freely distributed and adapted
[0:07] Speaker 1: for any purpose. Part three, Chapter three. There are three
[0:14] Speaker 1: stages in your reintegration, said O'Brien. There is learning, there
[0:18] Speaker 1: is understanding, and there is acceptance. It is time for
[0:22] Speaker 1: you to enter upon the second stage. As always, Winston
[0:27] Speaker 1: was lying flat on his back, but if late his
[0:29] Speaker 1: bonds were looser. They still held him to the bed,
[0:33] Speaker 1: but he could move his knees a little, and could
[0:34] Speaker 1: turn his head from side to side and raise his
[0:36] Speaker 1: arms from the elbow. The dial also had grown to
[0:40] Speaker 1: be less of a terror. He could evade its pangs
[0:42] Speaker 1: if he was quick witted enough. It was chiefly when
[0:45] Speaker 1: he showed stupidity that O'Brien pulled the lever. Sometimes they
[0:49] Speaker 1: got through a whole session without use of the dial.
[0:52] Speaker 1: He could not remember how many sessions there had been.
[0:54] Speaker 1: The whole process seemed to stretch out over a long
[0:57] Speaker 1: indefinite time, weeks possibly, and the intervals between the sessions
[1:02] Speaker 1: might sometimes have been days, sometimes only an hour or two.
[1:06] Speaker 1: As you lie there, said O'Brien, you have often wondered
[1:09] Speaker 1: you have even asked me why the ministry of love
[1:11] Speaker 1: should expend so much time and trouble on you. And
[1:15] Speaker 1: when you were free, you have puzzled by what was
[1:17] Speaker 1: essentially the same question. You could grasp the mechanics of
[1:20] Speaker 1: the society you lived in, but not its underlying motives.
[1:24] Speaker 1: Do you remember writing in your diary? I understand how
[1:27] Speaker 1: I do not understand why it was when you thought
[1:31] Speaker 1: about why that you doubted your own sanity. You have
[1:34] Speaker 1: read the book Colstein's book, or parts of it, at least,
[1:37] Speaker 1: did it tell you anything that you did not know already?
[1:41] Speaker 1: You have read it, said Winston, I wrote it. That
[1:45] Speaker 1: is to say, I collaborated in writing it. No book
[1:48] Speaker 1: is produced individually, as you know. Is it true what
[1:52] Speaker 1: it says as description? Yes? The program it sets forth
[1:56] Speaker 1: is nonsense, the secret accumulation of knowledge, a gradual spread
[2:00] Speaker 1: of enlightenment, ultimately a proletarian rebellion, the overthrow of the party.
[2:05] Speaker 1: You foresaw yourself that that was what it would say.
[2:08] Speaker 1: It is all nonsense. The proletarians will never revolt, not
[2:12] Speaker 1: in a thousand years or a million. They cannot. I
[2:15] Speaker 1: do not have to tell you the reason. You know
[2:16] Speaker 1: it already. If you have ever cherished any dreams of
[2:19] Speaker 1: violent insurrection, you must abandon them. There is no way
[2:23] Speaker 1: in which the Party can be overthrown. The rule of
[2:26] Speaker 1: the Party is forever. Make that the starting point of
[2:29] Speaker 1: your thoughts. He came closer to the bed. Forever, he repeated,
[2:35] Speaker 1: And now let us get back to the question of
[2:37] Speaker 1: how and why. You understand well enough how the Party
[2:41] Speaker 1: maintains itself in power. Now tell me why we cling
[2:44] Speaker 1: to power. What is our motive? Why should we want power?
[2:48] Speaker 1: Go on, speak, he added, as Winston remained silent. Nevertheless,
[2:54] Speaker 1: Winston did not speak for another moment or two. A
[2:57] Speaker 1: feeling of weariness had overwhelmed him. The kin mad gleam
[3:00] Speaker 1: of enthusiasm had come back into O'Brien's face. He knew
[3:04] Speaker 1: in advance what O'Brien would say, that the Party did
[3:07] Speaker 1: not seek power for its own ends, but only for
[3:09] Speaker 1: the good of the majority. That it sought power because
[3:12] Speaker 1: men in the mass were frail, cowardly creatures who could
[3:14] Speaker 1: not endure liberty or face the truth, and must be
[3:17] Speaker 1: ruled over and systematically deceived by others who were stronger
[3:20] Speaker 1: than themselves. That the choice for mankind lay between freedom
[3:24] Speaker 1: and happiness, and that for the great bulk of mankind,
[3:26] Speaker 1: happiness was better. That the Party was the eternal guardian
[3:30] Speaker 1: of the week, a dedicated sect doing evil that good
[3:33] Speaker 1: might come, sacrificing its own happiness to that of others.
[3:36] Speaker 1: The terrible thing, thought Winston. The terrible thing was that
[3:39] Speaker 1: when O'Brien said this, he would believe it. You could
[3:42] Speaker 1: see it in his face. O'Brien knew everything a thousand
[3:46] Speaker 1: times better than Winston. He knew what the world was
[3:48] Speaker 1: really like, in what degradation the mass of human beings lived,
[3:52] Speaker 1: and by what lies and barbarities the Party kept them there.
[3:55] Speaker 1: He had understood it all, weighed it all, and it
[3:58] Speaker 1: made no difference. All was justified by the ultimate purpose.
[4:02] Speaker 1: What can you do, thought Winston, against the lunatic who
[4:05] Speaker 1: is more intelligent than yourself, who gives your arguments a
[4:08] Speaker 1: fair hearing, and then simply persists in his lunacy. You
[4:11] Speaker 1: were ruling over us for our own good, he said, feebly.
[4:14] Speaker 1: You believe that human beings are not fit to govern themselves.
[4:17] Speaker 1: And therefore he started and almost cried out. A pang
[4:21] Speaker 1: of pain had shot through his body. O'Brien had pushed
[4:23] Speaker 1: the lever of the dial up to thirty five. That
[4:27] Speaker 1: was stupid, Winston, stupid, He said, you should know better
[4:31] Speaker 1: than to say a thing like that. He pulled the
[4:33] Speaker 1: lever back and continued, Now, I will tell you the
[4:37] Speaker 1: answer to my question. It is this, the party seeks
[4:40] Speaker 1: power entirely for its own sake. We are not interested
[4:43] Speaker 1: in the good of others. We are interested solely in power.
[4:47] Speaker 1: Not wealth or luxury, or long life or happiness. Only power,
[4:51] Speaker 1: pure power. What pure power means you will understand presently.
[4:56] Speaker 1: We are different from all the oligarchies of the past
[4:58] Speaker 1: in that we know what we are doing. All the others,
[5:02] Speaker 1: even those who resembled ourselves, were cowards and hypocrites. The
[5:06] Speaker 1: German Nazis and the Russian Communists came very close to
[5:08] Speaker 1: us in their methods, but they never had the courage
[5:11] Speaker 1: to recognize their own motives. They pretended, perhaps they even believed,
[5:15] Speaker 1: that they had seized power unwillingly and for a limited time,
[5:19] Speaker 1: and that just round the corner they lay a paradise
[5:21] Speaker 1: where human beings would be free and equal. We are
[5:24] Speaker 1: not like that. We know that no one ever seizes
[5:27] Speaker 1: power with the intention of relinquishing it. Power is not
[5:30] Speaker 1: a means, It is an end. One does not establish
[5:34] Speaker 1: a dictatorship in order to safeguard a revolution. One makes
[5:37] Speaker 1: the revolution in order to establish the dictatorship. The object
[5:40] Speaker 1: of persecution is persecution. The object of torture is torture.
[5:45] Speaker 1: The object of power is power. Now do you begin
[5:48] Speaker 1: to understand me? Winston was struck, as he had been
[5:53] Speaker 1: struck before, by the tiredness of O'Brien's face. It was
[5:56] Speaker 1: strong and fleshy and brutal. It was full of intelligence
[5:59] Speaker 1: and a sort of controlled passion before which he felt
[6:01] Speaker 1: himself helpless. But it was tired. There were partures under
[6:06] Speaker 1: the eyes, the skin sagged from the cheek bones. O'Brien
[6:09] Speaker 1: leaned over him, deliberately, bringing the worn face nearer. You
[6:14] Speaker 1: are thinking, he said, that my face is old and tired.
[6:17] Speaker 1: You are thinking that I talk of power, and yet
[6:19] Speaker 1: I am not even able to prevent the decay of
[6:21] Speaker 1: my own body. Can you not understand, Winston, that the
[6:24] Speaker 1: individual is only a cell. The weariness of the cell
[6:27] Speaker 1: is the vigor of the organism. Do you die when
[6:29] Speaker 1: you cut your finger nails? He turned away from the
[6:33] Speaker 1: bed and began strolling up and down again, one hand
[6:35] Speaker 1: in his pocket. We are the priests of power, he said,
[6:39] Speaker 1: God is power. But at present, power is only a word.
[6:42] Speaker 1: So far as you are concerned, it is time for
[6:45] Speaker 1: you to gather some idea of what power means. The
[6:48] Speaker 1: first thing you must realize is that power is collective.
[6:51] Speaker 1: The individual only has power in so far as he
[6:53] Speaker 1: ceases to be an individual. You know the party slogan,
[6:56] Speaker 1: freedom is slavery. Has it ever occurred to you that
[6:59] Speaker 1: it is reversible? Slavery is freedom alone free. The human
[7:05] Speaker 1: being is always defeated. It must be so, because every
[7:08] Speaker 1: human being is doomed to die, which is the greatest
[7:11] Speaker 1: of all failures. But if he can make complete, utter submission,
[7:15] Speaker 1: if he can escape from his identity, if he can
[7:17] Speaker 1: merge himself in the party so that he is the party,
[7:20] Speaker 1: then he is all powerful and immortal. The second thing
[7:23] Speaker 1: for you to realize is that power is power over
[7:26] Speaker 1: human beings, over the body, but above all, over the mind.
[7:30] Speaker 1: Power over matter, external reality as you would call it,
[7:33] Speaker 1: is not important. Already, our control over matter is absolute.
[7:38] Speaker 1: For a moment, Winston ignored the dial. He made a
[7:41] Speaker 1: violent effort to raise himself into a sitting position, and
[7:43] Speaker 1: merely succeeded in wrenching his body painfully. But how can
[7:47] Speaker 1: you control matter? He burst out. You don't even control
[7:50] Speaker 1: the climate or the law of gravity, and there are disease, pain, death.
[7:55] Speaker 1: O'Bryan silenced him by a movement of his hand. We
[7:58] Speaker 1: control matter because we control the mind. Reality is inside
[8:02] Speaker 1: the skull. You will learn by degrees Winston. There is
[8:05] Speaker 1: nothing that we could not do invisibility, levitation, anything. I
[8:10] Speaker 1: could float off this floor like a soap bubble if
[8:12] Speaker 1: I wish to. I do not wish to, because the
[8:14] Speaker 1: party does not wish it. You must get rid of
[8:17] Speaker 1: those nineteenth century ideas about the laws of nature. We
[8:20] Speaker 1: make the laws of nature, but you do not. You
[8:24] Speaker 1: are not even masters of this planet. What about Eurasia
[8:27] Speaker 1: and East Asia? You have not conquered them yet, unimportant.
[8:32] Speaker 1: We shall conquer them when it suits us. And if
[8:34] Speaker 1: we did not, what difference would it make. We can
[8:36] Speaker 1: shut them out of existence. Oceania is the world, But
[8:40] Speaker 1: the world itself is only a speck of dust, and
[8:43] Speaker 1: man is tiny, helpless. How long has he been in existence?
[8:47] Speaker 1: For millions of years the earth was uninhabited. Nonsense. The
[8:52] Speaker 1: earth is as old as we are. No older. How
[8:54] Speaker 1: could it be older? Nothing exists except through human consciousness.
[8:59] Speaker 1: But the rock are full of the bones of extinct animals,
[9:02] Speaker 1: mammoths and mastodons, and enormous reptiles, which lived here long
[9:05] Speaker 1: before man was ever heard of. Have you ever seen
[9:09] Speaker 1: those bones, Winston? Of course not. Nineteenth century biologists invented
[9:14] Speaker 1: them before man. There was nothing after man. If he
[9:18] Speaker 1: could come to an end, there would be nothing outside man.
[9:21] Speaker 1: There is nothing, but the whole universe is outside us.
[9:25] Speaker 1: Look at the stars. Some of them are a million
[9:28] Speaker 1: light years away. They are out of our reach forever.
[9:33] Speaker 1: What are the stars, said O'Brien indifferently. They are bits
[9:36] Speaker 1: of fire a few kilometers away. We could reach them
[9:38] Speaker 1: if we wanted to, or we could blot them out.
[9:42] Speaker 1: The Earth is the center of the universe. The Sun
[9:44] Speaker 1: and the stars go round it. Winston made another convulsive movement.
[9:50] Speaker 1: This time he did not say anything. O'Brien continued, as
[9:53] Speaker 1: though answering a spoken objection. For certain purposes, of course,
[9:58] Speaker 1: that is not true. When we knowavigate the ocean, or
[10:00] Speaker 1: when we predict an eclipse, we often find it convenient
[10:03] Speaker 1: to assume that the Earth goes round to the Sun
[10:05] Speaker 1: and that the stars are millions upon millions of kilometers away.
[10:09] Speaker 1: But what of it? Do you suppose it is beyond
[10:11] Speaker 1: us to produce a dual system of astronomy? The stars
[10:14] Speaker 1: can be near or distant according as we need them.
[10:17] Speaker 1: Do you suppose our mathematicians are unequal to that? Have
[10:20] Speaker 1: you forgotten? Double think? Winston shrank back upon the bed.
[10:25] Speaker 1: Whatever he said, the swift answer crushed him like a bludgeon.
[10:29] Speaker 1: And yet he knew, he knew that he was in
[10:31] Speaker 1: the right. The belief that nothing exists outside your own mind.
[10:36] Speaker 1: Surely there must be some way of demonstrating that it
[10:38] Speaker 1: was false, had it not been exposed long ago as
[10:41] Speaker 1: a fallacy. There was even a name for it, which
[10:44] Speaker 1: he had forgotten. A faint smile twitched to the corners
[10:47] Speaker 1: of O'Brien's mouth as he looked down at him. I
[10:51] Speaker 1: told you, Winston, He said, that metaphysics is not your
[10:54] Speaker 1: strong point. The word you are trying to think of
[10:56] Speaker 1: his solypsism. But you are mistaken. This is not so olypsism,
[11:01] Speaker 1: collective solypsism, if you like. But that is a different thing,
[11:04] Speaker 1: in fact, the opposite thing. All this is a digression,
[11:08] Speaker 1: he added, in a different tone. The real power, the
[11:10] Speaker 1: power we have to fight for night and day, is
[11:13] Speaker 1: not power over things, but over men. He paused, and
[11:16] Speaker 1: for a moment assumed again his air of a schoolmaster
[11:19] Speaker 1: questioning a promising pupil. How does one man assert his
[11:23] Speaker 1: power over another Winston? Winston thought, by making him suffer,
[11:28] Speaker 1: he said, exactly, by making him suffer. Obedience is not
[11:33] Speaker 1: enough unless he is suffering. How can you be sure
[11:36] Speaker 1: that he is obeying your will and not his own.
[11:39] Speaker 1: Power is in inflicting pain and humiliation. Power is in
[11:43] Speaker 1: tearing human minds to pieces and putting them together again
[11:45] Speaker 1: in new shapes of your own choosing. Do you begin
[11:48] Speaker 1: to see, then, what kind of world we are creating?
[11:51] Speaker 1: It is the exact opposite of the stupid, hedonistic utopias
[11:54] Speaker 1: that the old reformers imagined. A world of fear and
[11:57] Speaker 1: treachery and torment, a world of trampling and being trampled upon,
[12:01] Speaker 1: A world which will grow not less but more merciless
[12:04] Speaker 1: as it refines itself. Progress in our world will be
[12:07] Speaker 1: progressed towards more pain. The old civilizations claimed that they
[12:11] Speaker 1: were founded on love or justice. Ours is founded upon hatred.
[12:16] Speaker 1: In our world there will be no emotions except fear, rage, triumph,
[12:19] Speaker 1: and self abasement. Everything else we shall destroy everything. Already
[12:25] Speaker 1: we are breaking down the habits of thought which have
[12:27] Speaker 1: survived from before the revolution. We have cut the links
[12:30] Speaker 1: between child and parent, and between man and man, and
[12:33] Speaker 1: between man and woman. No one dares trust a wife,
[12:36] Speaker 1: or a child, or a friend any longer. But in
[12:39] Speaker 1: the future there will be no wives and no friends.
[12:42] Speaker 1: Children will be taken from their mothers at birth, as
[12:44] Speaker 1: one takes eggs from a hen. The sex instinct will
[12:47] Speaker 1: be eradicated. Procreation will be an annual formality, like the
[12:51] Speaker 1: renewal of the ration card. We shall abolish the orgasm.
[12:54] Speaker 1: Our neurologists are at work upon it now. There will
[12:57] Speaker 1: be no loyalty except loyalty towards the part. There will
[13:01] Speaker 1: be no love except the love of big brother. There
[13:03] Speaker 1: will be no laughter except the laugh of triumph over
[13:06] Speaker 1: a defeated enemy. There will be no art, no literature,
[13:09] Speaker 1: no science. When we are omnipotent, we shall have no
[13:12] Speaker 1: more need of science. There will be no distinction between
[13:15] Speaker 1: beauty and ugliness. There will be no curiosity, no enjoyment
[13:19] Speaker 1: of the process of life. All competing pleasures will be destroyed.
[13:23] Speaker 1: But always do not forget this, Winston. Always there will
[13:27] Speaker 1: be the intoxication of power, constantly increasing and constantly growing subtler. Always,
[13:32] Speaker 1: at every moment, there will be the thrill of victory,
[13:35] Speaker 1: the sensation of trampling on an enemy who is helpless.
[13:38] Speaker 1: If you want a picture of the future, imagine a
[13:40] Speaker 1: boot stamping on a human face. Forever. He paused, as
[13:45] Speaker 1: though he expected Winston to speak. Winston had tried to
[13:48] Speaker 1: shrink back into the surface of the bed again. He
[13:51] Speaker 1: could not say anything. His heart seemed to be frozen.
[13:55] Speaker 1: O'Brien went on, and remember that it is forever. The
[13:59] Speaker 1: face will always be there to be stamped upon the heretic,
[14:02] Speaker 1: the enemy of society will always be there so that
[14:05] Speaker 1: he can be defeated and humiliated over again. Everything that
[14:09] Speaker 1: you have undergone since you have been in our hands,
[14:12] Speaker 1: all that will continue and worse. The espionage, the betrayals,
[14:15] Speaker 1: the arrests, the tortures, the executions, the disappearances will never cease.
[14:20] Speaker 1: It will be a world of terror as much as
[14:22] Speaker 1: a world of triumph. The more the party is powerful,
[14:25] Speaker 1: the less it will be tolerant. The weaker the opposition,
[14:28] Speaker 1: the tighter. The despotism. Goldstein and his heresies will live forever.
[14:32] Speaker 1: Every day, at every moment, they will be defeated, discredited, ridiculed,
[14:36] Speaker 1: spat upon, and yet they will always survive. This drama
[14:40] Speaker 1: that I have played out with you during seven years
[14:42] Speaker 1: will be played out over and over again, generation after generation,
[14:45] Speaker 1: always in subtler forms. Always we shall have the heretic
[14:49] Speaker 1: here at our mercies, screaming with pain, broken up, contemptible,
[14:53] Speaker 1: and in the end utterly penitent, saved from himself, crawling
[14:56] Speaker 1: to our feet of his own accord. That is the
[14:59] Speaker 1: world that we a preparing, Winston, A world of victory
[15:02] Speaker 1: after victory, triumph after triumph after triumph, an endless pressing, pressing,
[15:07] Speaker 1: pressing upon the nerve of power you are beginning. I
[15:11] Speaker 1: can see to realize what the world will be like.
[15:14] Speaker 1: But in the end you will do more than understand it.
[15:16] Speaker 1: You will accept it, welcome it, become part of it.
[15:20] Speaker 1: Winston had recovered himself sufficiently to speak. You can't, he said, weakly,
[15:26] Speaker 1: What do you mean by that remark? Winston? You could
[15:29] Speaker 1: not create such a world as you have just described.
[15:32] Speaker 1: It is a dream. It is impossible. Why it is impossible?
[15:37] Speaker 1: To found a civilization on fear and hatred and cruelty.
[15:40] Speaker 1: It would never endure. Why not, It would have no vitality,
[15:45] Speaker 1: it would disintegrate, it would commit suicide. Nonsense. You are
[15:50] Speaker 1: under the impression that hatred is more exhausting than love.
[15:53] Speaker 1: Why should it be, And if it were, what difference
[15:56] Speaker 1: would that make? Suppose that we choose to wear ourselves
[15:59] Speaker 1: out fast, Suppose that we quicken the tempo of human
[16:02] Speaker 1: life till men are senile at thirty still, what difference
[16:05] Speaker 1: would it make? Can you not understand that the death
[16:08] Speaker 1: of the individual is not death, The party is immortal?
[16:12] Speaker 1: As usual? The voice had batted Winston into helplessness. Moreover,
[16:16] Speaker 1: he was in dread that if he persisted in his disagreement,
[16:19] Speaker 1: O'Brien would twist the dial again. And yet he could
[16:22] Speaker 1: not keep silent, feebly, without arguments, With nothing to support
[16:25] Speaker 1: him except his inarticulate horror of what O'Brien had said,
[16:28] Speaker 1: he returned to the attack. I don't know, I don't care.
[16:32] Speaker 1: Somehow you will fail. Something will defeat you, Life will
[16:36] Speaker 1: defeat you. We control life, Winston at all its levels.
[16:41] Speaker 1: You are imagining that there is something called human nature
[16:44] Speaker 1: which will be outraged by what we do and will
[16:46] Speaker 1: turn against us. But we create human nature. Men are
[16:50] Speaker 1: infinitely malleable. Or perhaps you have returned to your old
[16:53] Speaker 1: idea that the proletarians or the slaves will arise and
[16:56] Speaker 1: overthrow us. Put it out of your mind. Their help,
[17:00] Speaker 1: like the animals, humanity is the party. The others are outside, irrelevant.
[17:06] Speaker 1: I don't care. In the end, they will beat you
[17:09] Speaker 1: sooner or later. They will see you for what you are,
[17:11] Speaker 1: and then they will tear you to pieces. Do you
[17:15] Speaker 1: see any evidence that that is happening or any reason
[17:18] Speaker 1: why it should? No? I believe it. I know that
[17:22] Speaker 1: you will fail. There is something in the universe. I
[17:25] Speaker 1: don't know, some spirit, some principle that you will never overcome.
[17:30] Speaker 1: Do you believe in God, Winston? No? Then what is
[17:35] Speaker 1: it this principle that will defeat us? I don't know
[17:38] Speaker 1: the spirit of man. And do you consider yourself a man? Yes?
[17:44] Speaker 1: If you are a man, Winston, you are the last man.
[17:47] Speaker 1: Your kind is extinct. We are the inheritors. Do you
[17:51] Speaker 1: understand that you are alone? You are outside history, you
[17:54] Speaker 1: are non existent. His manner changed, and he said more harshly,
[17:59] Speaker 1: And you consider your self morally superior to us, with
[18:01] Speaker 1: our lives and our cruelty. Yes, I consider myself superior.
[18:08] Speaker 1: O'Brien did not speak. Two other voices were speaking. After
[18:12] Speaker 1: a moment, Winston recognized one of them as his own.
[18:15] Speaker 1: It was a sound track of the conversation he had
[18:17] Speaker 1: had with O'Brien on the night when he had enrolled
[18:20] Speaker 1: himself in the brotherhood. He heard himself promising to lie,
[18:23] Speaker 1: to steal, to forge, to murder, to encourage drug taking
[18:27] Speaker 1: and prostitution, to disseminate venereal diseases, to throw vitriol in
[18:31] Speaker 1: a child's face. O'Brien made a small, impatient gesture, as
[18:36] Speaker 1: though to say that the demonstration was hardly worth making.
[18:39] Speaker 1: Then he turned a switch and the voices stopped. Get
[18:43] Speaker 1: up from that bed, he said. The bonds had loosened themselves.
[18:48] Speaker 1: Winston lowered himself to the floor and stood up unsteadily.
[18:52] Speaker 1: You are the last man, said O'Brien. You are the
[18:55] Speaker 1: guardian of the human spirit. You shall see yourself as
[18:58] Speaker 1: you are take off your clothes. Winston undid the bit
[19:03] Speaker 1: of string that held his overalls together. The zip fastener
[19:06] Speaker 1: had long since been wrenched out of them. He could
[19:09] Speaker 1: not remember whether at any time since his arrest he
[19:11] Speaker 1: had taken off all his clothes at one time. Beneath
[19:15] Speaker 1: the overalls, his body was looped with filthy, yellowish rags,
[19:18] Speaker 1: just recognizable as the remnants of underclothes. As he slid
[19:22] Speaker 1: them to the ground, he saw that there was a
[19:24] Speaker 1: three sided mirror at the far end of the room.
[19:26] Speaker 1: He approached it, then stopped short. An involuntary cry had
[19:30] Speaker 1: broken out of him. Go on, said O'Brien. Stand between
[19:35] Speaker 1: the wings of the mirror. You shall see the side
[19:37] Speaker 1: view as well. He had stopped because he was frightened.
[19:41] Speaker 1: A bowed, gray colored skeleton like thing was coming towards him.
[19:47] Speaker 1: Its actual appearance was frightening, and not merely the fact
[19:50] Speaker 1: that he knew it to be himself. He moved closer
[19:53] Speaker 1: to the glass. The creature's face seemed to be protruded
[19:56] Speaker 1: because of its bent carriage, the forlorn jailbird's face, with
[20:00] Speaker 1: the knobby forehead running back into a bald scalp, a
[20:02] Speaker 1: crooked nose, and battered looking cheek bones, above which his
[20:06] Speaker 1: eyes were fierce and watchful. The cheeks were seamed, the
[20:10] Speaker 1: mouth had a drawn in look. Certainly, it was his
[20:13] Speaker 1: own face, but it seemed to him that it had
[20:15] Speaker 1: changed more than he had changed. Inside. The emotions it
[20:19] Speaker 1: registered would be different from the ones he felt. He
[20:22] Speaker 1: had gone partially bald. For the first moment, he had
[20:25] Speaker 1: thought that he had gone gray as well, But it
[20:26] Speaker 1: was only the scalp that was gray, except for his
[20:29] Speaker 1: hands and a circle of his face. His body was
[20:32] Speaker 1: gray all over, with ancient ingrained dirt. Here and there
[20:36] Speaker 1: under the dirt there were the red scars of wounds,
[20:38] Speaker 1: and near the ankle the varicus alsa was an inflamed mass,
[20:41] Speaker 1: with flakes of skin peeling off it. But the truly
[20:44] Speaker 1: frightening thing was the emaciation of his body. The barrel
[20:48] Speaker 1: of the ribs was as narrow as that of a skeleton.
[20:51] Speaker 1: The legs had shrunk so that the knees were thicker
[20:53] Speaker 1: than the thighs. He saw now what O'Brien had meant
[20:56] Speaker 1: about seeing the side view. The curvature of the spine
[20:59] Speaker 1: was astonishing. The thin shoulders were hunched forward so as
[21:02] Speaker 1: to make a cavity of the chest. The scraggy neck
[21:05] Speaker 1: seemed to be bending double under the weight of the skull.
[21:08] Speaker 1: But I guess he would have said that it was
[21:10] Speaker 1: the body of a man of sixty suffering from some
[21:12] Speaker 1: malignant disease. You have thought, sometimes, said O'Brien, that my face,
[21:18] Speaker 1: the face of a member of the Inner party, looks
[21:20] Speaker 1: old and worn. What do you think of your own face?
[21:24] Speaker 1: He seized Winston's shoulder and spun him round so that
[21:27] Speaker 1: he was facing him. Look at the condition you were in,
[21:30] Speaker 1: he said. Look at this filthy grime all over your body.
[21:33] Speaker 1: Look at the dirt between your toes. Look at that
[21:35] Speaker 1: disgusting running sore on your leg. Do you know that
[21:38] Speaker 1: you stink like a goat? Probably you have ceased to
[21:41] Speaker 1: notice it. Look at your emaciation. Do you see I
[21:45] Speaker 1: can make my thumb and forefinger meat round your bicep.
[21:49] Speaker 1: I could snap your neck like a carrot. Do you
[21:51] Speaker 1: know that you have lost twenty five kilograms since you
[21:54] Speaker 1: have been in our hands? Even your hair is coming
[21:57] Speaker 1: out in handfuls. Look, he plucked at Winceton's head and
[22:00] Speaker 1: brought away a tuft of hair. Open your mouth, nine
[22:05] Speaker 1: ten eleven teeth left? How many had you when you
[22:08] Speaker 1: came to us? And the few you have left? A
[22:10] Speaker 1: dropping out of your head? Look here, he seized one
[22:13] Speaker 1: of Winston's remaining front teeth between his powerful thumb and forefinger.
[22:17] Speaker 1: A twinge of pain shot through Winston's jaw. O'Brien had
[22:20] Speaker 1: wrenched the loose tooth out by the roots. He tossed
[22:23] Speaker 1: it across the cell. You are rotting away, he said,
[22:26] Speaker 1: You are falling to pieces. What are you? A bag
[22:29] Speaker 1: of filth? Now turn around and look into that mirror again.
[22:32] Speaker 1: Do you see that thing facing you? That is the
[22:35] Speaker 1: last man? If you are human, that is humanity. Now
[22:39] Speaker 1: put your clothes on again. Winston began to dress himself
[22:42] Speaker 1: with slow, stiff movements. Until now he had not seemed
[22:46] Speaker 1: to notice how thin and weak he was. Only one
[22:49] Speaker 1: thought stirred in his mind that he must have been
[22:51] Speaker 1: in this place longer than he had imagined. Then, suddenly,
[22:54] Speaker 1: as he fixed the miserable rags round himself, a feeling
[22:58] Speaker 1: of pity for his ruined body overcame him. Before he
[23:01] Speaker 1: knew what he was doing, he had collapsed on to
[23:03] Speaker 1: a small stool that stood beside the bed and burst
[23:05] Speaker 1: into tears. He was aware of his ugliness, his gracelessness,
[23:09] Speaker 1: A bundle of bones in filthy underclothes, sitting weeping in
[23:12] Speaker 1: the harsh white light, but he could not stop himself.
[23:16] Speaker 1: O'Brien laid a hand on his shoulder, almost kindly. It
[23:20] Speaker 1: will not last forever, he said. You can escape from
[23:22] Speaker 1: it whenever you choose. Everything depends on yourself. You did it,
[23:27] Speaker 1: sobbed Winston. You reduced me to this state. No, Winston,
[23:31] Speaker 1: you reduced yourself to it. This is what you accepted
[23:34] Speaker 1: when you set yourself up against the party. It was
[23:36] Speaker 1: all contained in that first act. Nothing has happened that
[23:39] Speaker 1: you did not foresee. He paused, and then went on,
[23:44] Speaker 1: We have beaten you, Winston, We have broken you up.
[23:47] Speaker 1: You have seen what your body is like. Your mind
[23:49] Speaker 1: is in the same state. I do not think that
[23:51] Speaker 1: there can be much pride left in you. You have
[23:54] Speaker 1: been kicked and flogged and insulted. You have screamed with pain.
[23:57] Speaker 1: You have rolled on the floor in your own blood
[23:59] Speaker 1: and vomit. You have whimpered for mercy. You have betrayed
[24:02] Speaker 1: everybody and everything. Can you think of a single degradation
[24:05] Speaker 1: that has not happened to you? Winston had stopped weeping,
[24:09] Speaker 1: though the tears were still losing out of his eyes.
[24:11] Speaker 1: He looked up at O'Brien. I have not betrayed Julia,
[24:15] Speaker 1: he said. O'Brien looked down at him thoughtfully. No, he said, No,
[24:21] Speaker 1: that is perfectly true. You have not betrayed Julia. The
[24:26] Speaker 1: peculiar reverence for O'Brien, which nothing seemed able to destroy,
[24:29] Speaker 1: flooded Winston's heart again. How intelligent, he thought, How intelligent.
[24:34] Speaker 1: Never did O'Brien fail to understand what was said to him.
[24:38] Speaker 1: Any One else on earth would have answered promptly that
[24:40] Speaker 1: he had betrayed Julia. For what was there that they
[24:43] Speaker 1: had not screwed out of him under that torture. He
[24:46] Speaker 1: had told them everything he knew about her, her habits,
[24:49] Speaker 1: her character, her past life. He had confessed in the
[24:52] Speaker 1: most trivial detail, everything that had happened at their meetings,
[24:55] Speaker 1: all that he had said to her, and she to him.
[24:58] Speaker 1: Their black market meals, there are dul their vague plottings
[25:01] Speaker 1: against the party. Everything. And yet in the sense in
[25:05] Speaker 1: which he intended the word, he had not betrayed her.
[25:08] Speaker 1: He had not stopped loving her. His feelings towards her
[25:11] Speaker 1: had remained the same. O'Brien had seen what he meant,
[25:14] Speaker 1: without the need for explanation. Tell me, he said, how
[25:18] Speaker 1: soon will they shoot me. It might be a long time,
[25:22] Speaker 1: said O'Brien. You are a difficult case, but don't give up.
[25:25] Speaker 1: Hope every one is cured, sooner or later. In the end,
[25:28] Speaker 1: we shall shoot you. End of Section twenty one.

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