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the impression that it is a virtue. Now we will take an example. At this moment, which power is Oceania at
war with?
 When I was arrested, Oceania was at war with Eastasia.
 With Eastasia. Good. And Oceania has always been at war with Eastasia, has it not?
Winston drew in his breath. He opened his mouth to speak and then did not speak. He could not take his
eyes away from the dial.
 The truth, please, Winston. Your truth. Tell me what you think you remember.
 I remember that until only a week before I was arrested, we were not at war with Eastasia at all. We
were in alliance with them. The war was against Eurasia. That had lasted for four years. Before that 
O Brien stopped him with a movement of the hand.
 Another example, he said.  Some years ago you had a very serious delusion indeed. You believed that
three men, three onetime Party members named Jones, Aaronson, and Rutherford men who were executed
for treachery and sabotage after making the fullest possible confession were not guilty of the crimes they
were charged with. You believed that you had seen unmistakable documentary evidence proving that their
confessions were false. There was a certain photograph about which you had a hallucination. You believed
that you had actually held it in your hands. It was a photograph something like this.
An oblong slip of newspaper had appeared between O Brien s fingers. For perhaps five seconds it was
within the angle of Winston s vision. It was a photograph, and there was no question of its identity. It was
the photograph. It was another copy of the photograph of Jones, Aaronson, and Rutherford at the party
function in New York, which he had chanced upon eleven years ago and promptly destroyed. For only an
instant it was before his eyes, then it was out of sight again. But he had seen it, unquestionably he had seen
it! He made a desperate, agonizing effort to wrench the top half of his body free. It was impossible to move
so much as a centimetre in any direction. For the moment he had even forgotten the dial. All he wanted was
to hold the photograph in his fingers again, or at least to see it.
 It exists! he cried.
 No, said O Brien.
He stepped across the room. There was a memory hole in the opposite wall. O Brien lifted the grating.
Unseen, the frail slip of paper was whirling away on the current of warm air; it was vanishing in a flash of
flame. O Brien turned away from the wall.
 Ashes, he said.  Not even identifiable ashes. Dust. It does not exist. It never existed.
 But it did exist! It does exist! It exists in memory. I remember it. You remember it.
 I do not remember it, said O Brien.
Winston s heart sank. That was doublethink. He had a feeling of deadly helplessness. If he could have
been certain that O Brien was lying, it would not have seemed to matter. But it was perfectly possible that
O Brien had really forgotten the photograph. And if so, then already he would have forgotten his denial of
remembering it, and forgotten the act of forgetting. How could one be sure that it was simple trickery?
Perhaps that lunatic dislocation in the mind could really happen: that was the thought that defeated him.
O Brien was looking down at him speculatively. More than ever he had the air of a teacher taking pains
with a wayward but promising child.
 There is a Party slogan dealing with the control of the past, he said.  Repeat it, if you please.
 Who controls the past controls the future: who controls the present controls the past, repeated Winston
obediently.
 Who controls the present controls the past, said O Brien, nodding his head with slow approval.  Is it
your opinion, Winston, that the past has real existence?
Again the feeling of helplessness descended upon Winston. His eyes flitted towards the dial. He not
only did not know whether  yes or  no was the answer that would save him from pain; he did not even
know which answer he believed to be the true one.
O Brien smiled faintly.  You are no metaphysician, Winston, he said.  Until this moment you had
never considered what is meant by existence. I will put it more precisely. Does the past exist concretely, in [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]

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