1984 - Planet eBook

kill yourself in a world where firearms, or any quick andcertain poison, were completely unprocurable. He thoughtwith a kind of astonishment of the biological uselessnessof pain and fear, the treachery of the human body whichalways freezes into inertia at exactly the moment when aspecial effort is needed. He might have silenced the darkhairedgirl if only he had acted quickly enough: but preciselybecause of the extremity of his danger he had lost the powerto act. It struck him that in moments of crisis one is neverfighting against an external enemy, but always againstone’s own body. Even now, in spite of the gin, the dull achein his belly made consecutive thought impossible. And itis the same, he perceived, in all seemingly heroic or tragicsituations. On the battlefield, in the torture chamber, ona sinking ship, the issues that you are fighting for are alwaysforgotten, because the body swells up until it fills theuniverse, and even when you are not paralysed by fright orscreaming with pain, life is a moment-to-moment struggleagainst hunger or cold or sleeplessness, against a sour stomachor an aching tooth.He opened the diary. It was important to write somethingdown. The woman on the telescreen had started a newsong. Her voice seemed to stick into his brain like jaggedsplinters of glass. He tried to think of O’Brien, for whom,or to whom, the diary was written, but instead he beganthinking of the things that would happen to him after theThought Police took him away. It would not matter if theykilled you at once. To be killed was what you expected. Butbefore death (nobody spoke of such things, yet everybody