1984 - Planet eBook

an erroneous thought should exist anywhere in the world,however secret and powerless it may be. Even in the instantof death we cannot permit any deviation. In the old days theheretic walked to the stake still a heretic, proclaiming hisheresy, exulting in it. Even the victim of the Russian purgescould carry rebellion locked up in his skull as he walkeddown the passage waiting for the bullet. But we make thebrain perfect before we blow it out. The command of the olddespotisms was ‘Thou shalt not”. The command of the totalitarianswas ‘Thou shalt”. Our command is ‘THOU ART”.No one whom we bring to this place ever stands out againstus. Everyone is washed clean. Even those three miserabletraitors in whose innocence you once believed—Jones, Aaronson,and Rutherford—in the end we broke them down. Itook part in their interrogation myself. I saw them graduallyworn down, whimpering, grovelling, weeping—and inthe end it was not with pain or fear, only with penitence.By the time we had finished with them they were only theshells of men. There was nothing left in them except sorrowfor what they had done, and love of Big Brother. It wastouching to see how they loved him. They begged to be shotquickly, so that they could die while their minds were stillclean.’His voice had grown almost dreamy. The exaltation, thelunatic enthusiasm, was still in his face. He is not pretending,thought Winston, he is not a hypocrite, he believesevery word he says. What most oppressed him was the consciousnessof his own intellectual inferiority. He watchedthe heavy yet graceful form strolling to and fro, in and out