登陆注册
5453800000022

第22章 PART THREE(5)

All the while,with one part of his mind,he wondered how soon they would shoot him."Everything depends on yourself,"O'Brien had said;but he knew that there was no conscious act by which he could bring it nearer.It might be ten minutes hence,or ten years. They might keep him for years in solitary confinement;they might send him to a labor camp; they might release him for a while,as they sometimes did.It was perfectly possible that before he was shot the whole drama of his arrest and interrogation would be enac-ted all over again.The one certain thing was that death never came at an expected moment.The tradition—the unspoken tradition:somehow you knew it,though you never heard it said—was that they shot you from behind, always in the back of the head,without warning,as you walked down a corridor from cell to cell.

One day—but"one day"was not the right expression;just as probably it was in the middle of the night:once—he fell into a strange,blissful reverie.He was walking down the corridor,waiting for the bullet.He knew that it was coming in another moment.Eve-rything was settled,smoothed out,reconciled.There were no more doubts,no more arguments,no more pain,no more fear.His body was healthy and strong.He walked easily,with a joy of movement and with a feeling of walking in sunlight.He was not any longer in the narrow white corridors of the Ministry of Love; he was in the enormous sunlit passage,a kilometer wide,down which he had seemed to walk in the delirium induced by drugs.He was in the Golden Country,following the foot-track across the old rabbit cropped pasture.He could feel the short springy turf under his feet and the gentle sunshine on his face.At the edge of the field were the elm trees,faintly stirring,and somewhere beyond that was the stream where the dace lay in the green pools under the willows.

Suddenly he started up with a shock of horror.The sweat broke out on his backbone.He had heard himself cry aloud:

"Julia!Julia!Julia,my love!Julia!"

For a moment he had had an overwhelming hallucination of her presence.She had seemed to be not merely with him,but inside him. It was as though she had got into the texture of his skin.In that mo-ment he had loved her far more than he had ever done when they were together and free.Also he knew that somewhere or other she was still alive and needed his help.

He lay back on the bed and tried to compose himself.What had he done? How many years had he added to his servitude by that moment of weakness?

In another moment he would hear the tramp of boots outside. They could not let such an outburst go unpunished.They would know now,if they had not known before,that he was breaking the agreement he had made with them.He obeyed the Party,but he still hated the Party.In the old days he had hidden a heretical mind be-neath an appearance of conformity.Now he had retreated a step fur-ther:in the mind he had surrendered,but he had hoped to keep the inner heart inviolate.He knew that he was in the wrong,but he pre-ferred to be in the wrong.They would understand that—O'Brien would understand it.It was all confessed in that single foolish cry.

He would have to start all over again.It might take years.He ran a hand over his face,trying to familiarize himself with the new shape.There were deep furrows in the cheeks,the cheekbones felt sharp,the nose flattened.Besides,since last seeing himself in the glass he had been given a complete new set of teeth.It was not easy to preserve inscrutability when you did not know what your face looked like.In any case,mere control of the features was not e-nough.For the first time he perceived that if you want to keep a secret you must also hide it from yourself.You must know all the while that it is there,but until it is needed you must never let it emerge into your consciousness in any shape that could be given a name.From now on-wards he must not only think right;he must feel right,dream right.And all the while he must keep his hatred locked up inside him like a ball of matter which was part of himself and yet unconnected with the rest of him,a kind of cyst.

One day they would decide to shoot him.You could not tell when it would happen,but a few seconds beforehand it should be possible to guess.It was always from behind,walking down a corri-dor.Ten seconds would be enough.In that time the world inside him could turn over.And then suddenly,without a word uttered,without a check in his step,without the changing of a line in his face—sud-denly the camouflage would be down and bang! would go the bat-teries of his hatred.Hatred would fill him like an enormous roaring flame.And almost in the same instant bang! would go the bullet, too late,or too early.They would have blown his brain to pieces be-fore they could reclaim it.The heretical thought would be unpun-ished,unrepented,out of their reach for ever.They would have blown a hole in their own perfection.To die hating them,that was freedom.

He shut his eyes.It was more difficult than accepting an intel-lectual discipline.It was a question of degrading himself,mutilating himself.He had got to plunge into the filthiest of filth.What was the most horrible,sickening thing of all? He thought of Big Brother. The enormous face (because of constantly seeing it on posters he always thought of it as being a meter wide),with its heavy black moustache and the eyes that followed you to and fro,seemed to float into his mind of its own accord.What were his true feelings to-ward Big Brother?

There was a heavy tramp of boots in the passage.The steel door swung open with a clang.O'Brien walked into the cell.Behind him were the waxen-faced officer and the black-uniformed guards.

"Get up,"said O'Brien."Come here."

Winston stood opposite him.O'Brien took Winston's shoul-ders between his strong hands and looked at him closely.

"You have had thoughts of deceiving me,"he said."That was stupid.Stand up straighter.Look me in the face."

He paused,and went on in a gentler tone:

"You are improving.Intellectually there is very little wrong with you.It is only emotionally that you have failed to make pro-gress.Tell me,Winston—and remember,no lies;you know that I am always able to detect a lie—tell me,what are your true feelings toward Big Brother?"

"I hate him."

"You hate him.Good.Then the time has come for you to take the last step.You must love Big Brother.It is not enough to obey him; you must love him."

He released Winston with a little push toward the guards.

"Room 101,"he said.

Chapter 5

A t each stage of his imprisonment he had known,or seemedto know,whereabouts he was in the windowless building.Possibly there were slight differences in the air pressure.The cells where the guards had beaten him were below ground lev-el.The room where he had been interrogated by O'Brien was high up near the roof.This place was many meters underground,as deep down as it was possible to go.

It was bigger than most of the cells he had been in.But he hardly noticed his surroundings.All he noticed was that there were two small tables straight in front of him,each covered with green baize.One was only a meter or two from him;the other was further away,near the door.He was strapped upright in a chair,so tightly that he could move nothing,not even his head.A sort of pad gripped his head from behind,forcing him to look straight in front of him.

For a moment he was alone;then the door opened and O'Brien came in.

"You asked me once,"said O'Brien,"what was in Room 101.I told you that you knew the answer already.Everyone knows it.The thing that is in Room 101 is the worst thing in the world."

The door opened again.A guard came in,carrying something made of wire,a box or basket of some kind.He set it down on the further table.Because of the position in which O'Brien was stand-ing.Winston could not see what the thing was.

"The worst thing in the world,"said O'Brien,"varies from in-dividual to individual.It may be burial alive,or death by fire,or by drowning,or by impalement,or fifty other deaths.There are cases where it is some quite trivial thing,not even fatal."

He had moved a little to one side,so that Winston had a better view of the thing on the table.It was an oblong wire cage with a handle on top for carrying it by.Fixed to the front of it was some-thing that looked like a fencing mask,with the concave side out-wards.Although it was three or four meters away from him;he could see that the cage was divided lengthways into two compart-ments,and that there was some kind of creature in each.They were rats.

"In your case,"said O'Brien,"the worst thing in the world happens to be rats."

A sort of premonitory tremor,a fear of he was not certain what,had passed through Winston as soon as he caught his first glimpse of the cage.But at this moment the meaning of the mask like attachment in front of it suddenly sank into him.His bowels seemed to turn to water.

"You can't do that!"he cried out in a high cracked voice."You couldn't,you couldn't! It's impossible."

"Do you remember,"said O'Brien,"the moment of panic that used to occur in your dreams? There was a wall of blackness in front of you,and a roaring sound in your ears.There was something terrible on the other side of the wall.You knew that you knew what it was,but you dared not drag it into the open.It was the rats that were on the other side of the wall."

"O'Brien!"said Winston,making an effort to control his voice."You know this is not necessary.What is it that you want me to do?"

O'Brien made no direct answer.When he spoke it was in the schoolmasterish manner that he sometimes affected.He looked thoughtfully into the distance,as though he were addressing an au-dience somewhere behind Winston's back.

"By itself,"he said,"pain is not always enough.There are oc-casions when a human being will stand out against pain,even to the point of death.But for everyone there is something unendurable—something that cannot be contemplated.Courage and cowardice are not involved.If you are falling from a height it is not cowardly to clutch at a rope.If you have come up from deep water it is not cow-ardly to fill your lungs with air.It is merely an instinct which cannot be destroyed.It is the same with the rats.For you,they are unendur-able.They are a form of pressure that you cannot withstand,even if you wish to.You will do what is required of you."

"But what is it,what is it? How can I do it if I don't know what it is?"

O'Brien picked up the cage and brought it across to the nearer table.He set it down carefully on the baize cloth.Winston could hear the blood singing in his ears.He had the feeling of sitting in utter loneliness.He was in the middle of a great empty plain,a flat desert drenched with sunlight,across which all sounds came to him out of immense distances.Yet the cage with the rats was not two meters a-way from him.They were enormous rats.They were at the age when a rat's muzzle grows blunt and fierce and his fur brown instead of grey.

"The rat,"said O'Brien,still addressing his invisible audi-ence,"although a rodent,is carnivorous.You are aware of that.You will have heard of the things that happen in the poor quarters of this town.In some streets a woman dare not leave her baby alone in the house,even for five minutes.The rats are certain to attack it. Within quite a small time they will strip it to the bones.They also attack sick or dying people.They show astonishing intelligence in knowing when a human being is helpless."

There was an outburst of squeals from the cage.It seemed to reach Winston from far away.The rats were fighting;they were try-ing to get at each other through the partition.He heard also a deep groan of despair.That,too,seemed to come from outside himself.

O'Brien picked up the cage,and,as he did so,pressed some-thing in it.There was a sharp click.Winston made a frantic effort to tear himself loose from the chair.It was hopeless:every part of him, even his head,was held immovably.O'Brien moved the cage nearer. It was less than a meter from Winston's face.

"I have pressed the first lever,"said O'Brien."You understand the construction of this cage.The mask will fit over your head,leav-ing no exit.When I press this other lever,the door of the cage will slide up.These starving brutes will shoot out of it like bullets.Have you ever seen a rat leap through the air? They will leap onto your face and bore straight into it.Sometimes they attack the eyes first. Sometimes they burrow through the cheeks and devour the tongue."

The cage was nearer;it was closing in.Winston heard a succes-sion of shrill cries which appeared to be occurring in the air above his head.But he fought furiously against his panic.To think,to think,even with a split second left—to think was the only hope.Suddenly the foul musty odor of the brutes struck his nostrils. There was a violent convulsion of nausea inside him,and he almost lost consciousness.Everything had gone black.For an instant he was insane,a screaming animal.Yet he came out of the blackness clutc-hing an idea.There was one and only one way to save himself.He must interpose another human being,the body of another human being,between himself and the rats.

The circle of the mask was large enough now to shut out the vision of anything else.The wire door was a couple of hand-spans from his face.The rats knew what was coming now.One of them was leaping up and down; the other,an old scaly grandfather of the sewers,stood up,with his pink hands against the bars,and fiercely sniffed the air.Winston could see the whiskers and the yellow teeth. Again the black panic took hold of him.He was blind,helpless, mindless.

"It was a common punishment in Imperial China,"said O' Brien as didactically as ever.

The mask was closing on his face.The wire brushed his cheek. And then—no,it was not relief,only hope,a tiny fragment of hope. Too late,perhaps too late.But he had suddenly understood that in the whole world there was just one person to whom he could trans-fer his punishment—one body that he could thrust between himself and the rats.And he was shouting frantically,over and over:

"Do it to Julia! Do it to Julia! Not me! Julia! I don't care what you do to her.Tear her face off,strip her to the bones.Not me! Julia! Not me!"

He was falling backwards,into enormous depths,away from the rats.He was still strapped in the chair,but he had fallen through the floor,through the walls of the building,through the earth,through the oceans,through the atmosphere,into outer space,into the gulfs between the stars—always away,away,away from the rats.He was light-years distant,but O'Brien was still standing at his side.There was still the cold touch of wire against his cheek.But through the darkness that enveloped him he heard another metallic click,and knew that the cage door had clicked shut and not open.

Chapter 6

T he Chestnut Tree was almost empty.A ray of sunlightslanting through a window fell yellow on dusty tabletops.Itwas the lonely hour of fifteen.A tinny music trickled fromthe telescreens.

Winston sat in his usual corner,gazing into an empty glass. Now and again he glanced up at a vast face which eyed him from the opposite wall.BIG BROTHER IS WATCHING YOU,the cap-tion said.Unbidden,a waiter came and filled his glass up with Vic-tory Gin,shaking into it a few drops from another bottle with a quill through the cork.It was saccharine flavored with cloves,the speciality of the café.

Winston was listening to the telescreen.At present only music was coming out of it,but there was a possibility that at any moment there might be a special bulletin from the Ministry of Peace.The news from the African front was disquieting in the extreme.On and off he had been worrying about it all day.A Eurasian army(Oceania was at war with Eurasia;Oceania had always been at war with Eur-asia) was moving southward at terrifying speed.The mid-day bulle-tin had not mentioned any definite area,but it was probable that al-ready the mouth of the Congo was a battlefield.Brazzaville and Leopoldville were in danger.One did not have to look at the map to see what it meant.It was not merely a question of losing Central Af-rica;for the first time in the whole war,the territory of Oceania it-self was menaced.

A violent emotion,not fear exactly but a sort of undifferentiat-ed excitement,flared up in him,then faded again.He stopped think-ing about the war.In these days he could never fix his mind on any one subject for more than a few moments at a time.He picked up his glass and drained it at a gulp.As always,it made him shudder and even retch slightly.The stuff was horrible.The cloves and sac-charine,themselves disgusting enough in their sickly way,could not disguise the flat oily smell;and what was worst of all was that the smell of gin,which dwelt with him night and day,was inextricably mixed up in his mind with the smell of those—

同类推荐
  • 英语常用短语大全集

    英语常用短语大全集

    创想外语研发团队编著的《英语常用短语大全集》不是要讲述英语短语高深的语法,也不是对其进行深入细致的研究,而是从学习、记忆和运用的目的出发,让学习者能准确记忆每一个短语,能准确运用每一短语,这就是编写本书的初衷。本书精选日常学习生活中常见的短语,剔除了那些比较生僻的内容,在一定程度上减轻了学习者的负担,而且更具有针对性。
  • Ulysses

    Ulysses

    本书为公版书,为不受著作权法限制的作家、艺术家及其它人士发布的作品,供广大读者阅读交流。
  • 风格的要素:汉英对照

    风格的要素:汉英对照

    《风格的要素》是作者在1918年完成的,从那时起本书就成为英文写作方面的经典必读书,几乎每个美国人人手一册。《风格的要素》中确立的精确无暇的英文写作规则,对提高美国大、中学生的英文写作起了不可估量的作用。这是一本薄薄的小书,1918午由纽约一家出版社出版。此书短小精悍,容量巨大,涵盖了母语为英语的人写作和语法上常出的错误,也清晰地解释了一些语法书中很难找到的语言现象。
  • 大学英语四级阅读技巧

    大学英语四级阅读技巧

    全书共涉及以下五个方面的内容:阅读理解概述、阅读理解解题技巧、四级阅读题型模式、历年阅读理解真题详解、全真预测试题。书中比较系统地介绍了阅读方法、技巧,帮助广大考生提高阅读能力,掌握临场解题技法,在进一步提高考生的应试能力的同时更能使其语言的综合能力稳步提升。
  • 世界上最美的情诗

    世界上最美的情诗

    《世界上最美的情诗》从诗歌宝库中精选了百余篇具有代表性的篇章,所选篇目皆出自于名家之手,它们语言优美,意境深邃,篇篇可谓人类文明的共同财富。同时在本书内容的选择上也力求广泛,它们或讴歌大自然,或吟咏爱情,或感叹人生,可谓包罗人生的方方面面。
热门推荐
  • 黄帝内经选讲(精装)

    黄帝内经选讲(精装)

    本书稿是作者学习《黄帝内经》一书的部分心得的总结。作者结合现代人生活中遇到的各种困惑,将《黄帝内经》中相关的语录做了深入浅出的阐释,全面涵养一个人的灵魂、修养、品味、境界、见识,可以全面提高一个人的洞察力、理解力、判断力、忍耐力和处置力。作者通过通俗的语言,以讲座的方式呈现,语言生动,说理明晰,让读者轻松了解《黄帝内经》的真正内涵,同时把古人的思想与智慧应用在当下的生活和工作中。
  • 穿越火线之绝世战队

    穿越火线之绝世战队

    八个性格迥异的年轻人在游戏中相识、相知。当他们创下世界二连冠的辉煌时,一款新的,闻名于世界的游戏向他们敞开了大门。他们,还依然能创下属于他们,属于国家的辉煌吗?
  • 构建和谐社区:理论与实践

    构建和谐社区:理论与实践

    中国城市社区发展缓慢的原因,就不言自明了。改变这个状况,不仅要加大社区理论与实践的宣传,还要从政策上加以引导,更要从法律上给予确立,使社区建设服务在法律上成为公民的基本权利与义务,作为官员的基本义务与权利。选举任命的“公仆官员”首先要得到居住地社区中共党员和社区居民认可,要有群众基础。否则,没有本社区群众基础的“公仆官员”,怎么能说他是为人民服务呢?怎么能说是群众的代表呢?立足社区、面向社会,以人为本,服务民众,构建社会和谐,这就是我们基本的社区观,也是本书的基本思想。
  • 异界的朱丽欧与罗密叶

    异界的朱丽欧与罗密叶

    异界大陆,人族勇者王子伪装性别扮作公主,魔族公主则伪装性别扮为王子。性别的错位、种族的差异、立场的转换。身份迥然不同的他们却即将缔结婚约完成象征和平的重要联姻!事态究竟为什么会变成这样呢?王子与公主的联姻又究竟是会一帆风顺还是充满坎坷呢?没有人知道,不过就算前途捉摸不定两人亦无所畏惧。“呐,芙娜,如果你对今后这注定曲折的未来感到害怕,现在退缩还来得及哦?”“可别小瞧了一国之主的我哦?齐格在哪里我就在哪里,不论是什么困难险阻我们都会一起将它跨越!”异界的朱丽欧与罗密叶,王子公主的故事物语即将展开。
  • 致我们单纯的小美好

    致我们单纯的小美好

    同名电视剧11月9日腾讯视频独家播出,胡一天、沈月、王梓薇等人主演!高冷医生和呆萌设计师温馨、浪漫、暖萌的恋爱日常,他负责耍耍酷,吐吐槽,她负责卖卖萌,斗斗嘴。笑点太密集,根本停不下。他们欢乐暖萌的初恋故事让读者不禁大呼“我又相信爱情了”。
  • 蛊经

    蛊经

    我自于苗家、蛊婆仙娘裔;一本蛊经传、是非皆生起。
  • 力绝神途

    力绝神途

    神秘女子,崖洞托孤,少年昊天一身洪荒之力,只身闯荡大千世界,揭秘身世的同时,一步步打开一个全新的世界。
  • 万宇混沌决

    万宇混沌决

    跳脱三界之外,不在五行中,走过的一路路,是冥冥中的定数?还是源自自身的变数?当凛冬的风吹醒了我的梦境,我看见了你们看不见的世界。
  • 管理管到位就这几招

    管理管到位就这几招

    本书既是为刚走上管理岗位的年轻一代而写,也是为在管理实践中迷茫的资深人士而作。希望通过对管理过程的阐述,帮助他们实现管理管到位的理想境界。因而本书选择的是一个实践性更强的过程框架——PDCA循环的过程框架。PDCA循环成名于全面质量管理领域,但在现代管理活动中,早已运用到了各个不同的领域,产生了丰富而实用的成果,成为了一个通用模型。笔者认为,从PDCA循环开始系统地理解管理和实践管理,是培养年轻一代卓越管理者的有益途径,可以使他们较快进入管理的角色,抓住管理的关键,在周而复始的管理活动中持续改善绩效,从而为企业乃至整个社会的运行效率,作出有力的贡献。
  • 绝世武仙

    绝世武仙

    无尽星域,武道衰落,仙道为尊,以仙入道!少年罗真,仙武同修,自渺小的天阳元星走出,独战群仙,披荆斩棘,成就无尽星域武仙之位!“吾之征途,斩群仙,霸星域,争仙路!”