NINETEEN EIGHTY-FOUR S EXTRACT- GEORGE ORWELL

Do you remember ", he went on, writing in your diary, Freedom is the freedom to say that two plus two make four? Yes ", said Winston. O'Brien held up his left hand, its back towards Winston, with the thumb hidden and the four fingers extended. How many fingers am I holding up, Winston? Four. And if the party says that it is not four but five - then how many? Four. The word ended in a gasp of pain. The needle of the dial had shot up to fifty-five. The sweat had sprung out all over Winston's body. The air tore into his lungs and issued again in deep groans which even by clenching his teeth he could not stop. O'Brien watched him, the four fingers still extended. He drew back the lever. This time the pain was only slightly eased. How many fingers, Winston? Four. The needle went up to sixty. How many fingers, Winston? Four! Four! What else can I say? Four! " The needle must have risen again, but he did not look at it. The heavy, stern face and the four fingers filled his vision. The fingers stood up before his eyes like pillars, enormous, blurry, and seeming to vibrate, but unmistakably four. How many fingers, Winston? Four! Stop it, stop it! How can you go on? Four! Four! " How many fingers, Winston? Five! Five! Five! " No, Winston that is no use. You are lying. You still think there are four. How many fingers, please?" Four! Five! Four! Anything you like. Only stop it, stop the pain! " Abruptly he was sitting up with O'Brien's arm round his shoulders. He had perhaps lost consciousness for a few seconds. The bonds that had held his body down were loosened. He felt very cold, he was shaking uncontrollably, his teeth were chattering, the tears were rolling down his cheeks. For a moment he clung to O'Brien like a baby, curiously comforted by the heavy arm round his shoulders. He had the feeling that O'Brien was his protector, that the pain was something that came from outside, from some other source, and that it was O'Brien who would save him from it. You are a slow learner, Winston ", said O'Brien gently. How can I help it? He blubbered. How can I help seeing what is in front of my eyes? Two and two are four. " Sometimes, Winston. Sometimes they are five. Sometimes they are three. Sometimes they are all of them at once. You must try harder. It is not easy to become sane. " He laid Winston down on the bed. The grip of his limbs tightened again, but the pain had ebbed away and the trembling had stopped, leaving him merely weak and cold. O'Brien motioned with his head to the man in the white coat, who had stood immobile throughout the proceedings. The man in the white coat bent down and looked closely into Winston's eyes, felt his pulse, laid an ear against his chest, tapped here and there, then he nodded to O'Brien. Again ", said O'Brien.

The pain flowed into Winston's body. The needle must be at seventy, seventy-five. He had shut his eyes this time. He knew that the fingers were still there, and still four. All that mattered was somehow to stay alive until the spasm was over. He had ceased to notice whether he was crying out or not. The pain lessened again. He opened his eyes. O'Brien had drawn back the lever. How many fingers, Winston? Four. I suppose there are four. I would see five if I could. I am trying to see five. " Which do you wish: to persuade me that you see five, or really to see them? Really to see them. " Again ", said O'Brien. Perhaps the needle was eighty - ninety. Winston could not intermittently remember why the pain was happening. Behind his screwed-up eyelids a forest of fingers seemed to be moving in a sort of dance, weaving in and out, disappearing behind one another and reappearing again. He was trying to count them, he could not remember why. He knew only that it was impossible to count them, and that this was somehow due to the mysterious identity between five and four. The pain died down again. When he opened his eyes it was to find that he was still seeing the same thing. Innumerable fingers, like moving trees, were still streaming past in either direction, crossing and recrossing. He shut his eyes again. How many fingers am I holding up, Winston? I don't know. I don't know. You will kill me if you do that again. Four, five, six - in all honesty I don't know." Better ", said O'Brien. TRADUZIONE Ti ricordi, continu, scrivendo nel tuo diario, La libert la libert di dire che due pi due fanno quattro? S, disse Winston. O'Brien alz la mano sinistra, la sua schiena verso Winston, con il pollice nascosto e le quattro dita estese. Quante dita le sto mostrando, Winston? Quattro. E se il partito dice che non sono quattro ma cinque - poi quante sono? Quattro. La parola fin in un rantolo di dolore. L'ago del quadrante era balzato a 55. Il sudore era uscito fuori da tutto il corpo di Winston. L'aria lacer nei polmoni e usc di nuovo in gemiti profondi che anche stringendo i denti non riusciva a fermare. O'Brien lo guard, le quattro dita ancora estese. Tir indietro la leva. Questa volta il dolore era solo leggermente attenuato. Quante dita, Winston? Quattro. L'ago sal a sessanta. Quante dita, Winston? Quattro! Quattro! Che altro posso dire? Quattro! L'ago deve essere salito di nuovo, ma non lo guard. Il pesante, severo viso e le quattro dita occupavano la sua visione. Le dita si alzarono in piedi davanti ai suoi occhi come pilastri, enormi, sfocate, e sembravano vibrare, ma inconfondibilmente quattro. Quante dita, Winston? Quattro! Smettila, smettila! Come puoi andare avanti? Quattro! Quattro! Quante dita, Winston?

Cinque! Cinque! Cinque! No, Winston, questo non utile. Stai mentendo. Pensi ancora che siano quattro. Quante dita, per favore? Quattro! Cinque! Quattro! Qualsiasi che ti piace. Solo fermalo, ferma il dolore! Improvvisamente stava seduto con un braccio di O'Brien intorno alle spalle. Forse aveva perso conoscenza per qualche secondo. Le corde che avevano tenuto il suo corpo verso il basso sono state allentate. Sentiva molto freddo, tremava incontrollabilmente, batteva i denti, le lacrime rotolavano gi per le guance. Per un momento si aggrapp a O'Brien come un bambino, curiosamente confortato dal pesante braccio intorno alle spalle. Aveva la sensazione che O'Brien fosse il suo protettore, che il dolore fosse qualcosa che veniva da fuori, da qualche altra fonte, e che era O'Brien che lo avrebbe salvato da esso. Tu sei un allievo lento, Winston, disse O'Brien dolcemente. Come posso farne a meno? piagnucolava. 'Come posso fare a meno di vedere ci che davanti ai miei occhi? Due pi due fa quattro. ' Qualche volta, Winston. A volte sono cinque. A volte sono tre. A volte sono tutti in una volta. Devi sforzarti. Non facile diventare sani di mente. Egli adagi Winston sul letto. La presa delle sue membra strette di nuovo, ma il dolore si era attenuato e il tremore si era fermato, lasciandolo solo debole e freddo. O'Brien fece un cenno con la testa per l'uomo in camice bianco, che era rimasto immobile per tutto il procedimento. L'uomo in camice bianco si chin e guard attentamente negli occhi di Winston, tast il polso, pos un orecchio contro il suo petto, picchiett qua e l, poi diede un cenno a O'Brien. Ancora una volta, disse O'Brien. Il dolore scorreva nel corpo di Winston. L'ago deve essere a 70, 75. Aveva chiuso gli occhi questa volta. Sapeva che le dita erano ancora l, e ancora quattro. Tutto quello che importava era in un modo o nellaltro rimanere in vita fino a quando lo spasmo era finito. Aveva smesso di notare se piangeva o no. Il dolore diminu di nuovo. Apr gli occhi. O'Brien aveva tirato indietro la leva. Quante dita, Winston? Quattro. Suppongo che siano quattro. Vorrei vedere cinque se potessi. Sto cercando di vedere cinque. Che desideri: convincermi che tu vedi cinque, o di vederli veramente? Di vederli per davvero. Ancora una volta, disse O'Brien. Forse l'ago era 80-90. Winston poteva solo saltuariamente ricordare perch del dolore che stava accadendo. Dietro le sue scombussolate palpebre, una foresta di dita sembrava muoversi in una sorta di danza, intrufolandosi dentro e fuori, scomparendo dietro un altro e riapparendo di nuovo. Stava cercando di contarli, non riusciva a ricordare perch. Sapeva solo che era impossibile contarle, e che questo fosse in qualche modo dovuto alla misteriosa identit tra cinque a quattro. Il dolore si plac di nuovo. Quando riapr gli occhi, era per scoprire che stava ancora vedendo la stessa cosa. Innumerevoli dita, come gli alberi in movimento, stavano ancora in oltrepassando in entrambe le direzioni, attraversando e riattraversando. Chiuse gli occhi di nuovo. Quante dita le sto mostrando, Winston? Non lo so. Non lo so. Mi ucciderai se lo farai di nuovo. Quattro, cinque, sei - in tutta onest non lo so. Meglio disse O'Brien.

COMMENTARY For an indeterminate amount of time, Winston has been tortured, first with frequent and vicious beatings, then with extensive interrogations. He has confessed all manner of impossible crimes and implicated everybody he knows. In this extract Winston is in a room with O'Brien, strapped to a bed. O'Brien is in control of some sort of pain-generating device which will play a part in the current interrogation. O'Brien begins by telling Winston that he is insane because he does not have control of his memory, and that he recalls false events. They talk about the nature of the past and reality; O'Brien tells Winston that reality exists only in the mind of the Party, and that Winston has got to make an effort to destroy himself in order to become "sane." He then asks Winston if he recalls writing in his diary that "Freedom is the freedom to say that 2 + 2 =4," and this touches off a whole round of torture. O'Brien holds up four fingers and asks Winston how many there are, if the Party says there are five. Winston, for a long while, can only see four, and suffers increasing levels of pain for it. O'Brien does not accept Winston merely saying that he sees five; he has to actually believe it. At last, Winston's senses are so dazed by pain that he is no longer sure how many fingers there are. It's possible for the Party to get inside him and make him believe its truth. We are given the description through Winston's memories, and his memories are both dreamlike and discontinuous, we can tell that his links to reality are being weakened. He is, again, anchored to a physical reality by pain that it is also the means of weaning him from his mental perception of reality. The very process is a contradiction. O'Brien himself embodies a highly puzzling contradiction. He is both a stern disciplinarian and a protector. His tone towards Winston vacillates between an almost tender gentleness, the patient persistence of a mentor, and the sternness of a stormy. When he relieves Winston's physical pain, he feels an instinctual love for O'Brien as though he were his father; but Winston knows that O'Brien is also the administrator of the pain. Eerily, O'Brien seems a mix of the medieval Inquisitor and the modern man of science, using advanced technology to "treat" his "patient," yet echoing the medieval practice of torturing those deemed mentally insane. O'Brien's own intellect must be highly honed in order to doublethink, in order to believe what his own senses tell him to be false; yet his methods and what he believes are primeval and brutally inhuman. O'Brien's godlike persona is given added aura by the fact that he seems to know what is on Winston's mind: knowing what he is feeling and what he wants to ask. Yet this power hints horrifyingly at the possibility that Winston and Julia were wrong to assume that the Party is unable to penetrate a person's mind.