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no scars that he could see. Julia had turned a shade paler, so that her freckles were showing, but she
faced O'Brien boldly. She murmured something that seemed to be assent.
"Good. Then that is settled."
There was a silver box of cigarettes on the table. With a rather absent-minded air O'Brien pushed
them toward the others, took one himself, then stood up and began to pace slowly to and fro, as though
he could think better standing. They were very good cigarettes, very thick and well-packed, with an
unfamiliar silkiness in the paper. O'Brien looked at his wristwatch again.
"You had better go back to your pantry, Martin," he said. "I shall switch on in a quarter of an hour.
Take a good look at these comrades' faces before you go. You will be seeing them again. I may not."
Exactly as they had done at the front door, the little man's dark eyes flickered over their faces.
There was not a trace of friendliness in his manner. He was memorizing their appearance, but he felt
no interest in them, or appeared to feel none. It occurred to Winston that a synthetic face was perhaps
incapable of changing its expression. Without speaking or giving any kind of salutation, Martin went
out, closing the door silently behind him. O'Brien was strolling up and down, one hand in the pocket
of his black overalls, the other holding his cigarette.
"You understand," he said, "that you will be fighting in the dark. You will always be in the dark.
You will receive orders and you will obey them, without knowing why. Later I shall send you a book
from which you will learn the true nature of the society we live in, and the strategy by which we shall
destroy it. When you have read the book, you will be full members of the Brotherhood. But between
the general aims that we are fighting for, and the immediate tasks of the moment, you will never know
anything. I tell you that the Brotherhood exists, but I cannot tell you whether it numbers a hundred
members, or ten million. From your personal knowledge you will never be able to say that it numbers
even as many as a dozen. You will have three or four contacts, who will be renewed from time to
time as they disappear. As this was your first contact, it will be preserved. When you receive orders,
they will come from me. If we find it necessary to communicate with you, it will be through Martin.
When you are finally caught, you will confess. That is unavoidable. But you will have very little to
confess, other than your own actions. You will not be able to betray more than a handful of
unimportant people. Probably you will not even betray me. By that time I may be dead, or I shall have
become a different person, with a different face."
He continued to move to and fro over the soft carpet. In spite of the bulkiness of his body there was
a remarkable grace in his movements. It came out even in the gesture with which he thrust a hand into
his pocket, or manipulated a cigarette. More even than of strength, he gave an impression of
confidence and of an understanding tinged by irony. However much in earnest he might be, he had
nothing of the single-mindedness that belongs to a fanatic. When he spoke of murder, suicide, venereal
disease, amputated limbs, and altered faces, it was with a faint air of persiflage. "This is
unavoidable," his voice seemed to say; "this is what we have got to do, unflinchingly. But this is not
what we shall be doing when life is worth living again." A wave of admiration, almost of worship,
flowed out from Winston toward O'Brien. For the moment he had forgotten the shadowy figure of