1984 - Planet eBook

with no reasons given. One could assume that Withers andhis associates were now in disgrace, but there had been noreport of the matter in the Press or on the telescreen. Thatwas to be expected, since it was unusual for political offendersto be put on trial or even publicly denounced. The greatpurges involving thousands of people, with public trials oftraitors and thought-criminals who made abject confessionof their crimes and were afterwards executed, were specialshow-pieces not occurring oftener than once in a couple ofyears. More commonly, people who had incurred the displeasureof the Party simply disappeared and were neverheard of again. One never had the smallest clue as to whathad happened to them. In some cases they might not evenbe dead. Perhaps thirty people personally known to Winston,not counting his parents, had disappeared at one timeor another.Winston stroked his nose gently with a paper-clip. In thecubicle across the way Comrade Tillotson was still crouchingsecretively over his speakwrite. He raised his head fora moment: again the hostile spectacle-flash. Winston wonderedwhether Comrade Tillotson was engaged on the samejob as himself. It was perfectly possible. So tricky a piece ofwork would never be entrusted to a single person: on theother hand, to turn it over to a committee would be to admitopenly that an act of fabrication was taking place. Verylikely as many as a dozen people were now working awayon rival versions of what Big Brother had actually said. Andpresently some master brain in the Inner Party would selectthis version or that, would re-edit it and set in motion