After the thing is done, no evidenceever
remains.
Very much so, said Winston, immediately seeing
where this tended. You had better go back to your Pantry, Martin, he
said.
In general terms, what are you prepared to
do?
Something inthe gesture told him that his sister
was dying. Youre only a rebel from the waist downwards, he told her. What
washappening was only the working-out of a process that had started yearsago. He
stopped, turned aside and pressed a switch on the wall.
Until he had said it, he did notknow which word he
was going to say. Curiously enough,this did not strike her as an impossibly rash
thing to do. Julia rolled sleepilyagainst him, murmuring something that might have
been Whats the matter?
To knowthat it was there, inviolate, was almost the
same as being in it. But if thesame thing happened today, I should keep it. If you
mean confessing, she said, we shall do that, right enough.
Do you know, he said, that until this moment I
believed I had murderedmy mother?
Theywere governed by private loyalties which they
did not question. His name has slipped my memory for the moment.
For perhaps twentyseconds he sat without stirring.
There was only one meaning that the episode could possibly have. You were lifted
clean out of the stream of history.
We may be obliged to give him a new identity. If
you keep clear of people like me, youmight stay alive for another fifty
years.
The last step was something that wouldhappen in the
Ministry of Love.
For what evidence had he in reality that OBrien was
anykind of political conspirator?
To knowthat it was there, inviolate, was almost the
same as being in it. You will understand that I must start by asking you certain
questions.
Julia rolled sleepilyagainst him, murmuring
something that might have been Whats the matter?
With his characteristic gesture OBrien resettled
hisspectacles on his nose. It seemed to him quite possible that he had simply made
astupid mistake. He thought of the telescreen with its never-sleeping
ear.
This was an idea that had literally never
occurredto him. I was talking recently to a friend of yours who is certainly
anexpert. Her largeshapely body seemed to relapse naturally into stillness.