Do you remember that?'
'Yes.'
'Just now I held up the fingers of my hand to you.
You saw five fingers.
Do you remember that?'
'Yes.'
O'Brien held up the fingers of his left hand, with the thumb concealed.
'There are five fingers there.
Do you see five fingers?'
'Yes.'
And he did see them, for a fleeting instant, before the scenery of his mind changed.
He saw five fingers, and there was no deformity.
Then everything was normal again, and the old fear, the hatred, and the bewilderment came crowding back again.
But there had been a moment--he did not know how long, thirty seconds, perhaps--of luminous certainty, when each new suggestion of O'Brien's had filled up a patch of emptiness and become absolute truth, and when two and two could have been three as easily as five, if that were what was needed.
It had faded but before O'Brien had dropped his hand; but though he could not recapture it, he could remember it, as one remembers a vivid experience at some period of one's life when one was in effect a different person.
'You see now,' said O'Brien, 'that it is at any rate possible.'
'Yes,' said Winston.
O'Brien stood up with a satisfied air.
Over to his left Winston saw the man in the white coat break an ampoule and draw back the plunger of a syringe.
O'Brien turned to Winston with a smile.
In almost the old manner he resettled his spectacles on his nose.
'Do you remember writing in your diary,' he said, 'that it did not matter whether I was a friend or an enemy, since I was at least a person who understood you and could be talked to?
You were right.
I enjoy talking to you.
Your mind appeals to me.
It resembles my own mind except that you happen to be insane.
Before we bring the session to an end you can ask me a few questions, if you choose.'
'Any question I like?'
'Anything.' He saw that Winston's eyes were upon the dial. 'It is switched off.
What is your first question?'
'What have you done with Julia?' said Winston.
O'Brien smiled again.
'She betrayed you, Winston.
Immediately--unreservedly.
I have seldom seen anyone come over to us so promptly.
You would hardly recognize her if you saw her.
All her rebelliousness, her deceit, her folly, her dirty-mindedness--everything has been burned out of her.
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 the embodiment 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.
He knew, or he could imagine, the arguments which proved his own nonexistence; but they were nonsense, they were only a play on words.
Did not the statement,