1984 - Planet eBook

It was a perfect conversion, a textbook case.’‘You tortured her?’O’Brien left this unanswered. ‘Next question,’ he said.‘Does Big Brother exist?’‘Of course he exists. The Party exists. Big Brother is theembodiment of the Party.’‘Does he exist in the same way as I exist?’‘You do not exist,’ said O’Brien.Once again the sense of helplessness assailed him. Heknew, or he could imagine, the arguments which provedhis own nonexistence; but they were nonsense, they wereonly a play on words. Did not the statement, ‘You do not exist’,contain a logical absurdity? But what use was it to sayso? His mind shrivelled as he thought of the unanswerable,mad arguments with which O’Brien would demolish him.‘I think I exist,’ he said wearily. ‘I am conscious of myown identity. I was born and I shall die. I have arms andlegs. I occupy a particular point in space. No other solidobject can occupy the same point simultaneously. In thatsense, does Big Brother exist?’‘It is of no importance. He exists.’‘Will Big Brother ever die?’‘Of course not. How could he die? Next question.’‘Does the Brotherhood exist?’‘That, Winston, you will never know. If we choose to setyou free when we have finished with you, and if you live tobe ninety years old, still you will never learn whether theanswer to that question is Yes or No. As long as you live itwill be an unsolved riddle in your mind.’