1984
by George Orwell
Part II Chapter VII
He thought for a little while. 'Has it ever occurred to you,' he said,
'that the best thing for us to do would be simply to walk out of here before it's too late,
and never see each other again?' 'Yes, dear, it has occurred to me, several times.
But I'm not going to do it, all the same.' 'We've been lucky,' he said 'but it can't last
much longer. You're young. You look normal and innocent. If you keep clear of people like me,
you might stay alive for another fifty years.' 'No. I've thought it all out.
What you do, I'm going to do. And don't be too downhearted. I'm rather good at staying alive.'
'We may be together for another six months--a year--there's no knowing.
At the end we're certain to be apart. Do you realize how utterly alone we shall be?
When once they get hold of us there will be nothing, literally nothing, that either of
us can do for the other. If I confess, they'll shoot you, and if I refuse to confess, they'll
shoot you just the same. Nothing that I can do or say, or stop myself from saying, will put off your
death for as much as five minutes. Neither of us will even know whether the other is alive or dead.
We shall be utterly without power of any kind. The one thing that matters is that
we shouldn't betray one another, although even that can't make the slightest difference.'
'If you mean confessing,' she said, 'we shall do that, right enough.
Everybody always confesses. You can't help it. They torture you.'
'I don't mean confessing. Confession is not betrayal. What you say or do doesn't matter:
only feelings matter. If they could make me stop loving you--that would be the real betrayal.'
She thought it over. 'They can't do that,' she said finally. 'It's the one thing they can't do.
They can make you say anything--ANYTHING--but they can't make you believe it.
They can't get inside you.' 'No,' he said a little more hopefully,
'no; that's quite true. They can't get inside you. If you can FEEL that staying human is worth while,
even when it can't have any result whatever, you've beaten them.'
He thought of the telescreen with its never-sleeping ear.
They could spy upon you night and day, but if you kept your head you could still outwit them.
With all their cleverness they had never mastered the secret of finding out what
another human being was thinking. Perhaps that was less true when you were actually in their hands.
One did not know what happened inside the Ministry of Love, but it was possible to guess:
tortures, drugs, delicate instruments that registered your nervous reactions,
gradual wearing-down by sleeplessness and solitude and persistent questioning.
Facts, at any rate, could not be kept hidden. They could be tracked down by enquiry, they could
be squeezed out of you by torture. But if the object was not to stay alive but to stay human,
what difference did it ultimately make? They could not alter your feelings:
for that matter you could not alter them yourself, even if you wanted to. They could
lay bare in the utmost detail everything that you had done or said or thought; but the inner heart,
whose workings were mysterious even to yourself, remained impregnable.