weeping -- and in the end it was not with pain or
fear, only with penitence. By the time we had finished with them they were
only the shells of men. There was nothing left in them except sorrow for
what they had done, and love of Big Brother. It was touching to see how
they loved him. They begged to be shot quickly, so that they could die
while their minds were still clean.'
His voice had grown almost dreamy. The exaltation, the lunatic
enthusiasm, was still in his face. He is not pretending, thought Winston,
he is not a hypocrite, he believes every word he says. What most oppressed
him was the consciousness of his own intellectual inferiority. He watched
the heavy yet graceful form strolling to and fro, in and out of the range
of his vision. O'Brien was a being in all ways larger than himself. There
was no idea that he had ever had, or could have, that O'Brien had not long
ago known, examined, and rejected. His mind contained Winston's mind. But
in that case how could it be true that O'Brien was mad? It must be he,
Winston, who was mad. O'Brien halted and looked dow

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