you
during seven years will be played out over and over again generation after
generation, always in subtler forms. Always we shall have the heretic here
at our mercy, screaming with pain, broken up, contemptible -- and in the
end utterly penitent, saved from himself, crawling to our feet of his own
accord. That is the world that we are preparing, Winston. A world of
victory after victory, triumph after triumph after triumph: an endless
pressing, pressing, pressing upon the nerve of power. You are beginning, I
can see, to realize what that world will be like. But in the end you will
do more than understand it. You will accept it, welcome it, become part of
it.'
Winston had recovered himself sufficiently to speak. 'You can't!' he
said weakly.
'What do you mean by that remark, Winston?'
'You could not create such a world as you have just described. It is a
dream. It is impossible.'
'Why?'
'It is impossible to found a civilization on fear and hatred and
cruelty. It would never endure.'
'Why not?'
'It would have no vitality. It would disintegrate. It would commit
suicide.'
'Nonsense. You are under the impression that hatred is more exhausting
than love. Why should it be? And if it were, what difference would that
make? Suppose that we choose to wear ourselves out fas
.
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