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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, ‘You do not ex-
ist’, contain a logical absurdity? But what use was it to say
so? His mind shrivelled as he thought of the unanswerable,
mad arguments with which O’Brien would demolish him.
‘I think I exist,’ he said wearily. ‘I am conscious of my
own identity. I was born and I shall die. I have arms and
legs. I occupy a particular point in space. No other solid
object can occupy the same point simultaneously. In that
sense, does Big Brother exist?’
‘It is of no importance. He exists.’
‘Will Big Brother ever die?’
‘Of course not. How could he die? Next question.’
‘Does the Brotherhood exist?’
‘That, Winston, you will never know. If we choose to set
you free when we have finished with you, and if you live to
be ninety years old, still you will never learn whether the
answer to that question is Yes or No. As long as you live it
will be an unsolved riddle in your mind.’