the first moment he had thought that
he had gone grey as well, but it was only the scalp that was grey. Except
for his hands and a circle of his face, his body was grey all over with
ancient, ingrained dirt. Here and there under the dirt there were the red
scars of wounds, and near the ankle the varicose ulcer was an inflamed mass
with flakes of skin peeling off it. But the truly frightening thing was the
emaciation of his body. The barrel of the ribs was as narrow as that of a
skeleton: the legs had shrunk so that the knees were thicker than the
thighs. He saw now what O'Brien had meant about seeing the side view. The
curvature of the spine was astonishing. The thin shoulders were hunched
forward so as to make a cavity of the chest, the scraggy neck seemed to be
bending double under the weight of the skull. At a guess he would have said
that it was the body of a man of sixty, suffering from some malignant
disease.
'You have thought sometimes,' said O'Brien, 'that my face -- the face
of a member of the Inner Party -- looks old and worn. What do you think of
your own face?'
He seized Winston's shoulder and spun him round so that he was facing
him.
'Look at the condition you are in!' he said. 'Look at this filthy
grime all over your body. Look at the dirt between your toes. Look at that
disgusting running