Ted Mittelstaedt
December 25th 07, 06:43 PM
be
contemplated. Courage and cowardice are not involved. If you are falling
from a height it is not cowardly to clutch at a rope. If you have come up
from deep water it is not cowardly to fill your lungs with air. It is
merely an instinct which cannot be destroyed. It is the same with the rats.
For you, they are unendurable. They are a form of pressure that you cannot
withstand. even if you wished to. You will do what is required of you.
'But what is it, what is it? How can I do it if I don't know what it
is?'
O'Brien picked up the cage and brought it across to the nearer table.
He set it down carefully on the baize cloth. Winston could hear the blood
singing in his ears. He had the feeling of sitting in utter loneliness. He
was in the middle of a great empty plain, a flat desert drenched with
sunlight, across which all sounds came to him out of immense distances. Yet
the cage with the rats was not two metres away from him. They were enormous
rats. They were at the age when a rat's muzzle grows blunt and fierce and
his fur brown instead of grey.
'The rat,' said O'Brien, still addressing his invisib
contemplated. Courage and cowardice are not involved. If you are falling
from a height it is not cowardly to clutch at a rope. If you have come up
from deep water it is not cowardly to fill your lungs with air. It is
merely an instinct which cannot be destroyed. It is the same with the rats.
For you, they are unendurable. They are a form of pressure that you cannot
withstand. even if you wished to. You will do what is required of you.
'But what is it, what is it? How can I do it if I don't know what it
is?'
O'Brien picked up the cage and brought it across to the nearer table.
He set it down carefully on the baize cloth. Winston could hear the blood
singing in his ears. He had the feeling of sitting in utter loneliness. He
was in the middle of a great empty plain, a flat desert drenched with
sunlight, across which all sounds came to him out of immense distances. Yet
the cage with the rats was not two metres away from him. They were enormous
rats. They were at the age when a rat's muzzle grows blunt and fierce and
his fur brown instead of grey.
'The rat,' said O'Brien, still addressing his invisib