on. They slapped his face, wrung his
ears. pulled his hair, made him stand on one leg, refused him leave to
urinate, shone glaring lights in his face until his eyes ran with water;
but the aim of this was simply to humiliate him and destroy his power of
arguing and reasoning. Their real weapon was the merciless questioning that
went on and on, hour after hour, tripping him up, laying traps for him,
twisting everything that he said, convicting him at every step of lies and
self-contradiction until he began weeping as much from shame as from
nervous fatigue Sometimes he would weep half a dozen times in a single
session. Most of the time they screamed abuse at him and threatened at
every hesitation to deliver him over to the guards again; but sometimes
they would suddenly change their tune, call him comrade, appeal to him in
the name of Ingsoc and Big Brother, and ask him sorrowfully whether even
now he had not enough loyalty to the Party left to make him wish to undo
the evil he had done. When his nerves were in rags after hours of
questioning, even this appeal could reduce him to snivelling tears. In the
end the nagging voices broke him down more completely than the boots and