He was starting up from the plank bed in the
half-certainty that he hadheard OBriens voice. The man sat down on the bench at a
little distance from Winston. OBrien was looking down at him speculatively. OBrien
was a person who could be talked to.
He was tryingto count them, he could not remember
why.
We shall squeeze you empty, and then we shall fill
you with ourselves.
If it had been possible he would have cowered
deeper intothe bed.
You are afraid, said OBrien, watching his face,
that in another momentsomething is going to break. Do you realize that there are
onlytwelve rhymes to rod in the entire language? Parsons gave Winston a glance in
which there was neither interest norsurprise, but only misery. Things will happen to
you from which youcould not recover, if you lived a thousand years.
Do not imagine that you will save yourself,
Winston, however completelyyou surrender to us.
The sweat had sprung out all over Winstons
body.
He was a commonplace, mean-looking manwho might
have been an engineer or technician of some kind.
You know perfectly well what is the matter with
you. There were six prisonersin the cell, men and women.
You would not make the act of submission which is
theprice of sanity. But how can you stop people remembering things? We do not merely
destroy our enemies, we change them.
If he could have been certain that OBrien was
lying, itwould not have seemed to matter.
OBrien had sat down beside the bed, so that his
face was almost on alevel with Winstons. Winston wasalone, and had been alone for
hours.
The shock of the sight had driven allcaution out of
him. We shall crush you down to the point fromwhich there is no coming back. He had
set up a wordlesshowling, like an animal.
He is not pretending, thought Winston, he is not
ahypocrite, he believes every word he says. I took part in their interrogation
myself. But what wasstartling was the emaciation of his face.
His troubled eyes were gazing at the wall about a
metre abovethe level of Winstons head. You have read of the religious persecutions
of the past.
I told you, said OBrien, that if we met again it
would be here.
This time Winston was startled into
self-forgetfulness. The force of it seemed almost to knock him clear of the floor.