[Vorlonagent]

O'Brien was looking down at
him gravely and rather sadly. His face, seen from below, looked coarse and
worn, with pouches under the eyes and tired lines from nose to chin. He was
older than Winston had thought him; he was perhaps forty-eight or fifty.
Under his hand there was a dial with a lever on top and figures running
round the face.
'I told you,' said O'Brien, 'that if we met again it would be here.'
'Yes,' said Winston.
Without any warning except a slight movement of O'Brien's hand, a wave
of pain flooded his body. It was a frightening pain, because he could not
see what was happening, and he had the feeling that some mortal injury was
being done to him. He did not know whether the thing was really happening,
or whether the effect was electrically produced; but his body was being
wrenched out of shape, the joints were being slowly torn apart. Although
the pain had brought the sweat out on his forehead, the worst of all was
the fear that his backbone was about to snap. He set his teeth and breathed
hard through his nose, trying to keep silent as long as possible.
'You are afraid,' said O'Brien, watching his face, 'that in another
moment something is going to break. Your especial fear is that it will be
your backbone. You have a vivid mental picture of the vertebrae snapping
apart and the spinal fluid dripping out of them. That is what you are
thinking, is it not, Winston?'
Winston did not answer. O'Brien drew back the lever on the dial. The
wave of pain receded almost as quickly as it had come.
'That was forty,' said O'Brien. 'You can see that the numbers on this
dial run up to a hundred. Will you please remember, throughout our
conversation, that I have it in my power to