Page 214 - Animal Farm and 1984

“You can turn it off!” he said.
“Yes,” said O’Brien, “we can turn it off. We have that privilege.”
He was opposite them now. His solid form towered over the pair of them,
and the expression on his face was still indecipherable. He was waiting, somewhat sternly, for Winston to speak, but about what? Even now it was quite conceivable that he was simply a busy man wondering irritably why he had been interrupted. Nobody spoke. After the stopping of the telescreen the room seemed deadly silent. The seconds marched past, enormous. With difficulty Winston continued to keep his eyes fixed on O’Brien’s. Then suddenly the grim face broke down into what might have been the beginnings of a smile. With his characteristic gesture O’Brien resettled his spectacles on his nose.
“Shall I say it, or will you?” he said.
“I will say it,” said Winston promptly. “That thing is really turned off?” “Yes, everything is turned off. We are alone.”
“We have come here because—”
He paused, realizing for the first time the vagueness of his own motives.
Since he did not in fact know what kind of help he ex pected from O’Brien, it was not easy to say why he had come here. He went on, conscious that what he was saying must sound both feeble and pretentious:
“We believe that there is some kind of conspiracy, some kind of secret organization working against the Party, and that you are involved in it. We want to join it and work for it. We are enemies of the Party. We disbelieve in the principles of Ingsoc. We are thought-criminals. We are also adulterers. I tell you this because we want to put ourselves at your mercy. If you want us to incriminate ourselves in any other way, we are ready.”
He stopped and glanced over his shoulder, with the feeling that the door had opened. Sure enough, the little yellow-faced servant had come in without knocking. Winston saw that he was carrying a tray with a decanter and glasses.
“Martin is one of us,” said O’Brien impassively. “Bring the drinks over here, Martin. Put them on the round table. Have we enough chairs? Then we may as well sit down and talk in comfort. Bring a chair for yourself, Martin. This is business. You can stop being a servant for the next ten minutes.”
The little man sat down, quite at his ease, and yet still with a servantlike air, the air of a valet enjoying a privilege. Winston regarded him out of the corner of his eye. It struck him that the man’s whole life was playing a part,