1984 | Page 7

hands. It was apparent that she was uttering a
prayer. At this moment the entire group of people broke into a deep, slow, rhyth-
mical chant of 'B-B! ... B-B!' | over and over again, very slowly, with a long
pause between the rst 'B' and the second-a heavy, murmurous sound, some-
how curiously savage, in the background of which one seemed to hear the stamp
of naked feet and the throbbing of tom-toms. For perhaps as much as thirty
seconds they kept it up. It was a refrain that was often heard in moments of
overwhelming emotion. Partly it was a sort of hymn to the wisdom and ma jesty
of Big Brother, but still more it was an act of self-hypnosis, a deliberate drown-
ing of consciousness by means of rhythmic noise. Winston's entrails seemed to
grow cold. In the Two Minutes Hate he could not help sharing in the general
delirium, but this sub-human chanting of 'B-B! ... B-B!' always lled him with
horror. Of course he chanted with the rest: it was impossible to do otherwise.
To dissemble your feelings, to control your face, to do what everyone else was
doing, was an instinctive reaction. But there was a space of a couple of seconds
during which the expression of his eyes might conceivably have betrayed him.
And it was exactly at this moment that the signi cant thing happened | if,
indeed, it did happen. Momentarily he caught O'Brien's eye. O'Brien had stood up. He had taken
o his spectacles and was in the act of resettling them on his nose with his
characteristic gesture. But there was a fraction of a second when their eyes
met, and for as long as it took to happen Winston knew | yes, he knew! |
that O'Brien was thinking the same thing as himself. An unmistakable message
had passed. It was as though their two minds had opened and the thoughts were
owing from one into the other through their eyes. 'I am with you,' O'Brien
seemed to be saying to him. 'I know precisely what you are feeling. I know all
about your contempt, your hatred, your disgust. But don't worry, I am on your
side!' And then the
ash of intelligence was gone, and O'Brien's face was as
inscrutable as everybody else's. That was all, and he was already uncertain whether it had happened. Such
incidents never had any sequel. All that they did was to keep alive in him
the belief, or hope, that others besides himself were the enemies of the Party.
Perhaps the rumours of vast underground conspiracies were true after all |
perhaps the Brotherhood really existed! It was impossible, in spite of the endless
arrests and confessions and executions, to be sure that the Brotherhood was
not simply a myth. Some days he believed in it, some days not. There was no
evidence, only
eeting glimpses that might mean anything or nothing: snatches
of overheard conversation, faint scribbles on lavatory walls | once, even, when
two strangers met, a small movement of the hand which had looked as though
it might be a signal of recognition. It was all guesswork: very likely he had
imagined everything. He had gone back to his cubicle without looking at O'Brien
again. The idea of following up their momentary contact hardly crossed his
mind. It would have been inconceivably dangerous even if he had known how to
set about doing it. For a second, two seconds, they had exchanged an equivocal
9

glance, and that was the end of the story. But even that was a memorable event,
in the locked loneliness in which one had to live. Winston roused himself and sat up straighter. He let out a belch. The gin
was rising from his stomach. His eyes re-focused on the page. He discovered that while he sat helplessly
musing he had also been writing, as though by automatic action. And it was
no longer the same cramped, awkward handwriting as before. His pen had slid
voluptuously over the smooth paper, printing in large neat capitals DOWN WITH BIG BROTHER
DOWN WITH BIG BROTHER
DOWN WITH BIG BROTHER
DOWN WITH BIG BROTHER
DOWN WITH BIG BROTHER
over and over again, lling half a page.
He could not help feeling a twinge of panic. It was absurd, since the writing
of those particular words was not more dangerous than the initial act of opening
the diary, but for a moment he was tempted to tear out the spoiled pages and
abandon the enterprise altogether. He did not do so, however, because he knew that it was useless. Whether
he wrote DOWN WITH BIG BROTHER, or whether he refrained from writing
it, made no dierence. Whether he went on with the diary, or whether he did
not go on with it, made no dierence. The Thought Police would get him just
the same. He had committed | would still have committed, even if he had
never set pen to paper | the essential crime that contained all others in itself.
Thoughtcrime, they called it. Thoughtcrime was not a thing that could be
concealed for ever. You might dodge successfully for