"1984 by George Orwell, Part 3, Chapter 1" He did not know where he was. Presumably, he was in the Ministry of Love, but there was no way of making certain. He was in a high-sealing, windless cell with walls of glittering white porcelain. Concealed lambs flooded it with cold light, and there was a low, steady humming sound which he supposed had something to do with the air supply. A bench or shelf, just white enough to sit on, ran round the wall, broken only by the door and, at the end opposite the door, a lavatory pan with no wooden seat. There were four telescreens, one in each wall. There was a dull aching in his belly. It had been there ever since he had bundled him into the closed van and driven him away. But he was also hungry, with a knowing and wholesome kind of hunger. It might be twenty-four hours since he had eaten. It might be thirty-six. He still did not know, probably never would know, whether it had been morning or evening when they arrested him. Since he was arrested, he had not been fed. He said as still as he could on a narrow bench, with his hands crossed on his knee. He had already learned to sit still. If you made unexpected movements, they yelled at you from a tennis-free. But the craving for food was growing upon him. What he longed for about all was a piece of bread. He had an idea that there were a few breadcrumbs in the pocket of his overalls. It was even possible, he thought, this because from time to time something seemed to tickle his leg. Yet there might be his sizeable bit of crust there. In the end, the temptation to find out overcame his fear. He slipped the hand into his pocket. "Smith!" yelled the voice from the tennis-free. "6079 Smith W. Hands out of pockets in the cells." He sat still again. His hands crossed on his knee. Before being brought here, he had been taken to another place which must have been an ordinary prison or a temporary lock-up used by patrols. He did not know how long he had been there. Some hours at any rate. With no clocks and no daylight, it was hard to gorge the time. It was a noisy, evil smelling place. They had put him into a cell similar to the one he was now in, but filthily dirty and at all times crowded by ten or fifteen people. The majority of them were common criminals, but there were a few political prisoners among them. He had sat silent against the wall, jostled by dirty bodies, too preoccupied by fear and the pain in his belly to take much interest in his surroundings, but still noticing the astonishing difference in demeanor between the party prisoners and the others. The party prisoners were always silent and terrified, but the ordinary criminals seemed to care nothing for anybody. They yelled insults at the guards, fought back fiercely when their belongings were impounded, wrote obscene words on the floor, ate smuggled food which they produced from mysterious hiding places in their clothes, and even shouted down the telescreen where they tried to restore order. On the other hand, some of them seemed to be on good terms with the guards, caught them by nicknames, and tried to weed those cigarettes through the spy hole in the door. The guards, too, cheated the common criminals with a certain forbearance even when they had to handle them roughly. There was much talk about the forced labor camps to which most prisoners expected to be sent. It was all right in the camps, he gathered, so long as she had good contacts and knew the ropes. There was bribery, favoritism, and racketeering of every kind. There was homosexuality in prostitution. There was even illicit alcohol distilled from potatoes. The positions of trust were given only to the common criminals, especially the gangsters and murderers who formed a sort of aristocracy. All the dirty jobs were done by the politicals. There was a constant come and go of prisoners of every description, drug peddlers, thieves, bandits, black marketeers, drugs, prostitutes. Some of the drugs were so violent that the other prisoners had to combine to suppress them. An enormous wreck of a woman aged about 60 with great tumbling breasts and thick coils of white hair which had come down in her struggles was carried in, kicking and shouting by four guards who had hold of her one at each corner. They arranged off the roots with which she had been trying to kick them and dumped her down across Winston's leg, almost breaking his thigh once. The woman hoisted herself upright and followed them out with a yell of "F" bastards, then noticing that she was sitting on something uneven. She slid off Winston's knees on the bench. "Back pardon, dearie," she said, "I wouldn't have said on you. Only the bucks could be there. They don't know to treat a lady, do they?" she paused, added her breast and vouched. "Pardon," she said, eyeing herself quite. She went forward and formatted copiously on the floor. "That's better," she said, leaning back with closed eyes. "Never keep down, that's what they say. Get it up while it's fresh in your stomach like." She revived, turned to have another look at Winston and seemed immediately to take a fancy turn. She put a fast arm around his shoulder and drew him towards her, breathing beer and form it into his face. "What's your name, dearie?" she said. "Smith," said Winston. "Smith," said the woman. "That's funny. My name's Smith, too. Why?" she added sentimentally. "I might be your mother," she might thought Winston, be his mother. She was about the right age and physique, and it was probable that people changed somewhat after 20 years in the forced labor camp. No one else had spoken to him. To a surprising extent, the ordinary criminals ignored the party prisoners. The pollets, they called them, with a sort of uninterested content. The party prisoners seemed terrified of speaking to anybody, and above all, of speaking to one another. Only once, when two party members, both women, were pressed close together on the bench, he overheard amid the den of voices a few hurriedly whispered words, and in particular, a reference to something called Room 101, which he did not understand. It might be two or three hours ago that they had brought him here. The dull pain in his belly never went away, but sometimes it grew better and sometimes worse, and his thoughts expanded or contracted accordingly. When it grew worse, he thought only of the pain itself and of his desire for food. When it grew better, panic took hold of him. There were moments when he foresaw the things that would happen to him with such actuality that his heart galloped and his breath stopped. He felt the smash of trunchins on his elbows and iron-shot boots on the shins. He saw himself brovling on the floor, screaming for mercy through a broken teeth. He hardly thought of Julian. He could not fix his mind on him. He loved her and would not betray him, but that was only a fact, known as he knew the rules of arithmetic. He felt no love for him, and he hardly even wondered what was happening to him. He thought often of O'Brien with a flickering hope. O'Brien might know that he had been arrested. The brotherhood, he had said, never tried to save its members, but there was the razor blade. They would send the razor blade if they could. There would be perhaps five seconds before the guard could rush into the cell. The blade would bite into him with a sort of burning coldness, and even the fingers that held it would be cut to the bone. Everything came back to his sick body, which shrank trembling from the smallest pain. He was not certain that he would use the razor blade even if he got the chance. It was more natural to exist from moment to moment, accepting another 10 minutes' life, even with the certainty that there was torture in the enemy. Sometimes he tried to calculate the number of porcelain bricks in the walls of the cell. It should have been easy, but he always lost count at some point or another. More often he wondered where he was, and what time of day it was. At one moment he felt certain that it was brought daylight outside, and at the next equally certain that it was pitched out of this. In this place, he knew instinctively the lights would never be turned out. It was the place with no darkness. He saw now why O'Brien had seemed to recognize the illusion. In the Ministry of Love, there were no windows. His cell might be at the heart of the building or against his outer wall. It might be ten floors below ground, or 30 above it. He moved himself mentally from place to place, and tried to determine by the feeling of his body whether he was perched high in the air or buried deep underground. There was a sound of marching boots outside. The steel door opened with a clamp. A young officer, a trimmed black uniformed figure who seemed to glitter all over the polished leather, and whose pale, straight featured face was like the wax months, stepped smartly through the door. Emotion to the guards outside to bring in the prisoner, they were leading. The poet Empleforth shambled into the cell. The door clanged shut again. Empleforth made one or two uncertain movements from side to side, as though having some idea that there was another door to go out of, and then began to wander up and down the cell. He had not yet noticed Winston's presence. His troubled eyes were gazing at the wall about a meter above the level of Winston's head. He was shootous, large, dirty toes were sticking out of the holes of his socks. He was also several days away from a shave. A scrubby beard covered his face to the cheekbones, giving him an air of ruffianism that were oddly with his large wheat frame and nervous movements. Winston roused himself a little from his allergy. He must speak to Empleforth, and risked a yell from the telescreen. It was even conceivable that Empleforth was the bearer of the razor blade. Empleforth, he said, there were no yell from the telescreen. Empleforth paused, mildly startled. His eyes focused himself slowly on Winston. "Ah, Smith," he said, "you too. What are you in for?" To tell you the truth, he sat down awkwardly on the bench opposite Winston. "There is only one offence. Is there not?" he said. "And have you committed it?" Apparently I have. He put a hand to his forehead and pressed his temples for a moment, as though trying to remember something. "These things happen," he began vaguely. "I have been able to call one instance, a possible instance. It was an indiscretion, undoubtedly. We were producing a definitive edition of the poems of Kipling. I allowed the word 'God' to remain at the end of a line. I could not help it." He added almost indignantly, raising his face to look at Winston. It was impossible to change the line. The rhyme was 'rod.' Do you realize that there are only 12 rhymes to 'rod' in the entire language? For days I had wrecked my brains. There was no other rhyme. The expression on his face changed. The annoyance passed out of it, and for a moment he looked almost pleased. A sort of intellectual warmth, the joy of the patterned, who has found out some useless fact, shone through the dirt and scrubby hair. "As it ever occurred to you," he said, "that the whole history of English poetry has been determined by the fact that the English language lacks rhymes." No, that particular thought had never occurred to Winston, nor in the circumstances did it strike him as very important or interesting. "Do you know what time of day it is?" he said. And before it looked startled again. I had hardly thought about it. They arrested me. It could be two days ago, perhaps three. His eyes flitted round the walls, as though he half expected to find a window somewhere. There is no difference between night and day in this place. I do not see how one can calculate the time. They talked desulturally for some minutes, then without apparent reason, a yell from the telescreen bathed them be silent. Winston sat quietly, his hands crossed, and before too large to sit in comfort on the narrow bench, fidgeted from side to side, collapsing his blank hands, first round one knee, then round the other. The telescreen barbed at him to keep still. Time passed, twenty minutes, and now it was difficult to judge. Once more there was a sound of boots outside. Winston's and trail contracted. Soon, very soon, perhaps in five minutes, perhaps now, the tramp of boots would mean that his own turn had come. The door opened. The coat-faced young officer stepped into the cell. With a brief movement of the hand he indicated ample form. "Room 101," he said, ample forth march clumsily out between the guards, his face vaguely perturbed, but uncomprehending. What seemed like a long time passed, to pain in Winston's belly had revived. His mind sagged round and round on the same trick, like a ball falling again and again into the same series of slots. He had only six thoughts, the pain in his belly, the piece of bread, the blood and the screaming, O'Brien, Julia, the racer blade. There was another spasm in his entrails. The heavy boots were approaching. As the door opened, the wave of air that he created brought in a powerful smell of coat sweat. Parsons walked into the cell. He was wearing khaki shorts and the sports shoe. This time Winston was startled into self-forgetfulness. "You hear," he said. Parsons gave Winston a glance in which there was neither interest nor a surprise, but only misery. He began walking jerkly up and down, evidently unable to keep still. Each time he straightened his pudgy needs, it was apparent that they were trembling. His eyes had a wide open staring look as though he could not prevent himself from gazing at something in the middle distance. "What are you in for?" said Winston. "Thought crime," said Parsons, almost blubbering. The tone of his voice implied at once a complete admission of his guilt and a sort of incredulous horror that such a word could be applied to himself. He paused opposite Winston and began eagerly appealing to him. "You don't think they'll shoot me, do you, old chap? They don't shoot you if you haven't actually done anything. Only thoughts in which you can't help. I know they give you a fair hearing. Oh, I trust them for that. They'll know my record, won't they? You know what kind of chat I was. Not a bad chap in my way. Not brainy, of course, but keen. I tried to do my best for the party, didn't I? I'll get off with five years, don't you think? Or even ten years? A chap like me could make himself pretty useful in the labor cap. They won't shoot me for going off the rails just once. "Are you guilty?" said Winston. "Of course I'm guilty, pride Parsons with a servile glance at the tennis-screen. You don't think the party would arrest an innocent man, do you? His frog-like face grew calmer, and even took on a slightly sanctimonious expression. Thought-crime's a dreadful thing, old man," he said, "sententiously. It is insidious. It can get hold of you without your even knowing it. Do you know how it got hold of me? In my sleep, yes, that's a fact. There I was, working away, trying to do my bit. Never knew I had any bad stuff in my mind at all. And then I started talking in my sleep. Do you know what they heard me saying?" he sank his voice, like someone who is obliged for medical reasons to utter an obscenity. "Down with Big Brother," yes, I sent that, said it over and over again, it seems. "Between you and me, old man, I'm glad they got me before I'd went any further. Do you know what I'm going to say to them when I go up before the tribunal? "Thank you," I'm going to say. "Thank you for saving me before it was too late to you." "Who denounced you?" said Winston. "It was my little daughter," said Parsons with a sort of doubtful pride. "She listened at the keyhole, heard what I was saying, and nipped off to the patrols the very next day. Pretty smart for a nipper of seven, I don't bear her any grudge for her. In fact, I'm proud of her. It shows I brought her up in the right spirit, anyway. He made a few more jerky movements up and down several times, casting the longing glance at the laboratory pan. Then he suddenly ripped down his shorts. "Excuse me, old man," he said. "I can't help it. It's the waiting." He plumbed his large posterior in the laboratory pan. Winston covered his face with his hands. "Smith," yelled the foils from a tennis ring. "6079 Smith W. Uncover your face. No faces covered in the cells." Winston uncovered his face. Parsons used the laboratory, loudly and abundantly. It then turned out that the plug was defective and the cells stank abominably for hours afterwards. Parsons was removed. More prisoners came and went mysteriously. One a woman was consigned to room 101. Winston noticed seemed to shrivel and turn a different color 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, two-feet 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 gray eyes flitted timberously 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 common place, 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, unappeasible 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 staring all the way around the bench. The eyes of a 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 up a grimy piece of bread to the skull-faced man. There was a furious, deafening roar from the tennis wheel. 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 to give. Bumsteed roared the voice, 2-7-1-3, Bumsteed J, let fall that piece of bread. The chinless man dropped a 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 instead the side, 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, that freed 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 fashioned up against the base of the lavatory seat. For a moment he lay his toes 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 rode over and raced 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 prisoner 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 tripped onto 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 of instant sight. The man had actually flung himself on his knees on the floor, with his hand claps together. "Convert, officer," he cried. "You don't have to take him to that place." Every night told you everything already, "What else is it you want to know? There's nothing I would 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," sent the officer. The man's face, already very pale, turned to colour Winston would not have believed possible. It was definitely unmistakably a shape 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 25 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," set 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 the 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 guard stepped forward. The man's voice rose to a street. "You didn't hear him," he repeated. Something went wrong with Telesquine. "He's the one you want. Take him, not me." The two sturdy guards had stooped and taken by the arms. But just at this moment he flung himself across the floor of the cell and grabbed one of the ironed legs that supported the bench. He had set up a wordless howling like an animal. The guards took hold of him and wrench him loose, but he clung on with astonishing strength. For perhaps twenty seconds they were howling at him. The prisoners set quiet. The hands crossed on their knees, looked 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 pride. 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 let out, walking unsteadily. With head sunken, nursing his crushed hand, all the fight had gone out of him. A long time passed. 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 a narrow bench was such that often he got up and walked about and reproved by the tennis-cream. The piece of bread still laid 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 egg in his bum 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. It 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 Telesary. "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 this, 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. He might fall anyway, on the crown, on the tip of the ear, on the upper arm, on the elbow. The elbow, he had slummed to his knees, almost paralyzed, clasping the stricken elbow with his elbow. Everything had exploded into the other mat, 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, a nerve, 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 arrived on the floor, clutching uselessly at his disabled left arms. Forbearance. Forbearance. Now, patient self-control, restraint, and tolerance. Timorously. Timorously. Ever. A way that is nervous and without confidence.
