---
title: "Nineteen Eighty-Four"
author: "George Orwell"
languages: [en]
shelf: "Literature"
section: 19 of 25
url: https://scriptura.si/works/orwell-nineteen-eighty-four-fp20120511/19/
cite: "George Orwell, Nineteen Eighty-Four, section 19. Scriptura (scriptura.si), https://scriptura.si/works/orwell-nineteen-eighty-four-fp20120511/19/"
---

# Nineteen Eighty-Four

*George Orwell*

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> Title: 1984 [Nineteen Eighty-Four]
Date of first publication: 1949
Author: Eric Arthur Blair (as George Orwell) (1903-1950)
Date first posted: May 17, 2012
Date last updated: June 26, 2026
Faded Page eBook #20120511

> This eBook was produced by: David T. Jones, Mary Meehan, Al Haines
& the online Distributed Proofreaders Canada team at http://www.pgdpcanada.net

> NINETEEN EIGHTY-FOUR

> A NOVEL BY

> George Orwell

> SECKER & WARBURG                         LONDON

> S. J. REGINALD SAUNDERS & CO. LTD.      TORONTO

> COPYRIGHT, CANADA, 1949
    S. J. REGINALD SAUNDERS AND COMPANY LIMITED

> _All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce
    this book or portions thereof in any form._

> _first Canadian edition_

> PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
    BY THE HADDON CRAFTSMEN, SCRANTON, PA.

> *       *       *       *       *

> _Books by George Orwell_

> NINETEEN EIGHTY-FOUR
    ANIMAL FARM
    DICKENS, DALI AND OTHERS
    COMING UP FOR AIR
    BURMESE DAYS
    DOWN AND OUT IN PARIS AND LONDON
    HOMAGE TO CATALONIA
    THE ROAD TO WIGAN PIER

> [The end of _1984 [Nineteen Eighty-Four]_ by Eric Arthur Blair (as George Orwell)]

## 19. THREE

Source: https://scriptura.si/works/orwell-nineteen-eighty-four-fp20120511/19/ · cite a paragraph as https://scriptura.si/works/orwell-nineteen-eighty-four-fp20120511/19/#p-N

[¶0] He did not know where he was. Presumably he was in the Ministry of Love;
but there was no way of making certain.

[¶1] He was in a high-ceilinged windowless cell with walls of glittering
white porcelain. Concealed lamps flooded it with cold light, and there
was a low, steady humming sound which he supposed had something to do
with the air supply. A bench, or shelf, just wide enough to sit on ran
round the wall, broken only by the door and, at the end opposite the
door, a lavatory pan with no wooden seat. There were four telescreens,
one in each wall.

[¶2] There was a dull aching in his belly. It had been there ever since they
had bundled him into the closed van and driven him away. But he was also
hungry, with a gnawing, unwholesome kind of hunger. It might be
twenty-four hours since he had eaten, it might be thirty-six. He still
did not know, probably never would know, whether it had been morning or
evening when they arrested him. Since he was arrested he had not been
fed.

[¶3] He sat as still as he could on the narrow bench, with his hands crossed
on his knee. He had already learned to sit still. If you made unexpected
movements they yelled at you from the telescreen. But the craving for
food was growing upon him. What he longed for above all was a piece of
bread. He had an idea that there were a few breadcrumbs in the pocket of
his overalls. It was even possible--he thought this because from time to
time something seemed to tickle his leg--that there might be a sizable
bit of crust there. In the end the temptation to find out overcame his
fear; he slipped a hand into his pocket.

[¶4] "Smith!" yelled a voice from the telescreen. "6079 Smith W! Hands out of
pockets in the cells!"

[¶5] He sat still again, his hands crossed on his knee. Before being brought
here he had been taken to another place which must have been an ordinary
prison or a temporary lock-up used by the patrols. He did not know how
long he had been there; some hours, at any rate; with no clocks and no
daylight it was hard to gauge the time. It was a noisy, evil-smelling
place. They had put him into a cell similar to the one he was now in,
but filthily dirty and at all times crowded by ten or fifteen people.
The majority of them were common criminals, but there were a few
political prisoners among them. He had sat silent against the wall,
jostled by dirty bodies, too preoccupied by fear and the pain in his
belly to take much interest in his surroundings, but still noticing the
astonishing difference in demeanor between the Party prisoners and the
others. The Party prisoners were always silent and terrified, but the
ordinary criminals seemed to care nothing for anybody. They yelled
insults at the guards, fought back fiercely when their belongings were
impounded, wrote obscene words on the floor, ate smuggled food which
they produced from mysterious hiding places in their clothes, and even
shouted down the telescreen when it tried to restore order. On the other
hand, some of them seemed to be on good terms with the guards, called
them by nicknames, and tried to wheedle cigarettes through the spy-hole
in the door. The guards, too, treated the common criminals with a
certain forbearance, even when they had to handle them roughly. There
was much talk about the forced-labor camps to which most of the
prisoners expected to be sent. It was "all right" in the camps, he
gathered, so long as you had good contacts and knew the ropes. There
were bribery, favoritism, and racketeering of every kind, there were
homosexuality and prostitution, there was even illicit alcohol distilled
from potatoes. The positions of trust were given only to the common
criminals, especially the gangsters and the murderers, who formed a sort
of aristocracy. All the dirty jobs were done by the politicals.

[¶6] There was a constant come-and-go of prisoners of every description: drug
peddlers, thieves, bandits, black marketeers, drunks, prostitutes. Some
of the drunks were so violent that the other prisoners had to combine
to suppress them. An enormous wreck of a woman, aged about sixty, with
great tumbling breasts and thick coils of white hair which had come down
in her struggles, was carried in, kicking and shouting, by four guards
who had hold of her one at each corner. They wrenched off the boots with
which she had been trying to kick them, and dumped her down across
Winston's lap, almost breaking his thighbones. The woman hoisted herself
upright and followed them out with a yell of "F---- bastards!" Then,
noticing that she was sitting on something uneven, she slid off
Winston's knees onto the bench.

[¶7] "Beg pardon, dearie," she said. "I wouldn't 'a sat on you, only the
buggers put me there. They dono 'ow to treat a lady, do they?" She
paused, patted her breast, and belched. "Pardon," she said, "I ain't
meself, quite."

[¶8] She leant forward and vomited copiously on the floor.

[¶9] "Thass better," she said, leaning back with closed eyes. "Never keep it
down, thass what I say. Get it up while it's fresh on your stomach,
like."

[¶10] She revived, turned to have another look at Winston, and seemed
immediately to take a fancy to him. She put a vast arm round his
shoulder and drew him toward her, breathing beer and vomit into his
face.

[¶11] "Wass your name, dearie?" she said.

[¶12] "Smith," said Winston.

[¶13] "Smith?" said the woman. "Thass funny. My name's Smith too. Why," she
added sentimentally, "I might be your mother!"

[¶14] She might, thought Winston, be his mother. She was about the right age
and physique, and it was probable that people changed somewhat after
twenty years in a forced-labor camp.

[¶15] No one else had spoken to him. To a surprising extent the ordinary
criminals ignored the Party prisoners. "The pol_its_," they called them,
with a sort of uninterested contempt. The Party prisoners seemed
terrified of speaking to anybody, and above all of speaking to one
another. Only once, when two Party members, both women, were pressed
close together on the bench, he overheard amid the din of voices a few
hurriedly whispered words; and in particular a reference to something
called "room one-oh-one," which he did not understand.

[¶16] It might be two or three hours ago that they had brought him here. The
dull pain in his belly never went away, but sometimes it grew better and
sometimes worse, and his thoughts expanded or contracted accordingly.
When it grew worse he thought only of the pain itself, and of his desire
for food. When it grew better, panic took hold of him. There were
moments when he foresaw the things that would happen to him with such
actuality that his heart galloped and his breath stopped. He felt the
smash of truncheons on his elbows and iron-shod boots on his shins; he
saw himself groveling on the floor, screaming for mercy through broken
teeth. He hardly thought of Julia. He could not fix his mind on her. He
loved her and would not betray her; but that was only a fact, known as
he knew the rules of arithmetic. He felt no love for her, and he hardly
even wondered what was happening to her. He thought oftener of O'Brien,
with a flickering hope. O'Brien must know that he had been arrested. The
Brotherhood, he had said, never tried to save its members. But there was
the razor blade; they would send the razor blade if they could. There
would be perhaps five seconds before the guards could rush into the
cell. The blade would bite into him with a sort of burning coldness, and
even the fingers that held it would be cut to the bone. Everything came
back to his sick body, which shrank trembling from the smallest pain. He
was not certain that he would use the razor blade even if he got the
chance. It was more natural to exist from moment to moment, accepting
another ten minutes' life even with the certainty that there was torture
at the end of it.

[¶17] Sometimes he tried to calculate the number of porcelain bricks in the
walls of the cell. It should have been easy, but he always lost count at
some point or another. More often he wondered where he was, and what
time of day it was. At one moment he felt certain that it was broad
daylight outside, and at the next equally certain that it was pitch
darkness. In this place, he knew instinctively, the lights would never
be turned out. It was the place with no darkness: he saw now why O'Brien
had seemed to recognize the allusion. In the Ministry of Love there were
no windows. His cell might be at the heart of the building or against
its outer wall; it might be ten floors below ground, or thirty above it.
He moved himself mentally from place to place, and tried to determine by
the feeling of his body whether he was perched high in the air or buried
deep underground.

[¶18] There was a sound of marching boots outside. The steel door opened with
a clang. A young officer, a trim black-uniformed figure who seemed to
glitter all over with polished leather and whose pale, straight-featured
face was like a wax mask, stepped smartly through the doorway. He
motioned to the guards outside to bring in the prisoner they were
leading. The poet Ampleforth shambled into the cell. The door clanged
shut again.

[¶19] Ampleforth made one or two uncertain movements from side to side, as
though having some idea that there was another door to go out of, and
then began to wander up and down the cell. He had not yet noticed
Winston's presence. His troubled eyes were gazing at the wall about a
meter above the level of Winston's head. He was shoeless; large, dirty
toes were sticking out of the holes in his socks. He was also several
days away from a shave. A scrubby beard covered his face to the
cheekbones, giving him an air of ruffianism that went oddly with his
large weak frame and nervous movements.

[¶20] Winston roused himself a little from his lethargy. He must speak to
Ampleforth, and risk the yell from the telescreen. It was even
conceivable that Ampleforth was the bearer of the razor blade.

[¶21] "Ampleforth," he said.

[¶22] There was no yell from the telescreen. Ampleforth paused, mildly
startled. His eyes focused themselves slowly on Winston.

[¶23] "Ah, Smith!" he said. "You, too!"

[¶24] "What are you in for?"

[¶25] "To tell you the truth--" He sat down awkwardly on the bench opposite
Winston. "There is only one offense, is there not?" he said.

[¶26] "And have you committed it?"

[¶27] "Apparently I have."

[¶28] He put a hand to his forehead and pressed his temples for a moment, as
though trying to remember something.

[¶29] "These things happen," he began vaguely. "I have been able to recall one
instance--a possible instance. It was an indiscretion, undoubtedly. We
were producing a definitive edition of the poems of Kipling. I allowed
the word 'God' to remain at the end of a line. I could not help it!" he
added almost indignantly, raising his face to look at Winston. "It was
impossible to change the line. The rhyme was 'rod.' Do you realize that
there are only twelve rhymes to 'rod' in the entire language? For days I
had racked my brains. There _was_ no other rhyme."

[¶30] The expression on his face changed. The annoyance passed out of it and
for a moment he looked almost pleased. A sort of intellectual warmth,
the joy of the pedant who has found out some useless fact, shone through
the dirt and scrubby hair.

[¶31] "Has it ever occurred to you," he said, "that the whole history of
English poetry has been determined by the fact that the English language
lacks rhymes?"

[¶32] No, that particular thought had never occurred to Winston. Nor, in the
circumstances, did it strike him as very important or interesting.

[¶33] "Do you know what time of day it is?" he said.

[¶34] Ampleforth looked startled again. "I had hardly thought about it. They
arrested me--it could be two days ago--perhaps three." His eyes flitted
round the walls, as though he half expected to find a window somewhere.
"There is no difference between night and day in this place. I do not
see how one can calculate the time."

[¶35] They talked desultorily for some minutes, then, without apparent reason,
a yell from the telescreen bade them be silent. Winston sat quietly, his
hands crossed. Ampleforth, too large to sit in comfort on the narrow
bench, fidgeted from side to side, clasping his lank hands first round
one knee, then round the other. The telescreen barked at him to keep
still. Time passed. Twenty minutes, an hour--it was difficult to judge.
Once more there was a sound of boots outside. Winston's entrails
contracted. Soon, very soon, perhaps in five minutes, perhaps now, the
tramp of boots would mean that his own turn had come.

[¶36] The door opened. The cold-faced young officer stepped into the cell.
With a brief movement of the hand he indicated Ampleforth.

[¶37] "Room 101," he said.

[¶38] Ampleforth marched clumsily out between the guards, his face vaguely
perturbed, but uncomprehending.

[¶39] What seemed like a long time passed. The pain in Winston's belly had
revived. His mind sagged round and round on the same track, like a ball
falling again and again into the same series of slots. He had only six
thoughts. The pain in his belly; a piece of bread; the blood and the
screaming; O'Brien; Julia; the razor blade. There was another spasm in
his entrails; the heavy boots were approaching. As the door opened, the
wave of air that it created brought in a powerful smell of cold sweat.
Parsons walked into the cell. He was wearing khaki shorts and a sports
shirt.

[¶40] This time Winston was startled into self-forgetfulness.

[¶41] "_You_ here!" he said.

[¶42] Parsons gave Winston a glance in which there was neither interest nor
surprise, but only misery. He began walking jerkily up and down,
evidently unable to keep still. Each time he straightened his pudgy
knees it was apparent that they were trembling. His eyes had a
wide-open, staring look, as though he could not prevent himself from
gazing at something in the middle distance.

[¶43] "What are you in for?" said Winston.

[¶44] "Thoughtcrime!" said Parsons, almost blubbering. The tone of his voice
implied at once a complete admission of his guilt and a sort of
incredulous horror that such a word could be applied to himself. He
paused opposite Winston and began eagerly appealing to him: "You don't
think they'll shoot me, do you, old chap? They don't shoot you if you
haven't actually done anything--only thoughts, which you can't help? I
know they give you a fair hearing. Oh, I trust them for that! They'll
know my record, won't they? _You_ know what kind of a chap I was. Not a
bad chap in my way. Not brainy, of course, but keen. I tried to do my
best for the Party, didn't I? I'll get off with five years, don't you
think? Or even ten years? A chap like me could make himself pretty
useful in a labor camp. They wouldn't shoot me for going off the rails
just once?"

[¶45] "Are you guilty?" said Winston.

[¶46] "Of course I'm guilty!" cried Parsons with a servile glance at the
telescreen. "You don't think the Party would arrest an innocent man, do
you?" His froglike face grew calmer, and even took on a slightly
sanctimonious expression. "Thoughtcrime is a dreadful thing, old man,"
he said sententiously. "It's insidious. It can get hold of you without
your even knowing it. Do you know how it got hold of me? In my sleep!
Yes, that's a fact. There I was, working away, trying to do my
bit--never knew I had any bad stuff in my mind at all. And then I
started talking in my sleep. Do you know what they heard me saying?"

[¶47] He sank his voice, like someone who is obliged for medical reasons to
utter an obscenity.

[¶48] "'Down with Big Brother!' Yes, I said that! Said it over and over again,
it seems. Between you and me, old man, I'm glad they got me before it
went any further. Do you know what I'm going to say to them when I go up
before the tribunal? 'Thank you,' I'm going to say, 'thank you for
saving me before it was too late.'"

[¶49] "Who denounced you?" said Winston.

[¶50] "It was my little daughter," said Parsons with a sort of doleful pride.
"She listened at the keyhole. Heard what I was saying, and nipped off to
the patrols the very next day. Pretty smart for a nipper of seven, eh? I
don't bear her any grudge for it. In fact I'm proud of her. It shows I
brought her up in the right spirit, anyway."

[¶51] He made a few more jerky movements up and down, several times casting a
longing glance at the lavatory pan. Then he suddenly ripped down his
shorts.

[¶52] "Excuse me, old man," he said. "I can't help it. It's the waiting."

[¶53] He plumped his large posteriors onto the lavatory pan. Winston covered
his face with his hands.

[¶54] "Smith!" yelled the voice from the telescreen. "6079 Smith W! Uncover
your face. No faces covered in the cells."

[¶55] Winston uncovered his face. Parsons used the lavatory, loudly and
abundantly. It then turned out that the plug was defective, and the cell
stank abominably for hours afterwards.

[¶56] Parsons was removed. More prisoners came and went mysteriously. One, a
woman, was consigned to "Room 101," and, Winston noticed, seemed to
shrivel and turn a different color when she heard the words. A time came
when, if it had been morning when he was brought here, it would be
afternoon; or if it had been afternoon, then it would be midnight. There
were six prisoners in the cell, men and women. All sat very still.
Opposite Winston there sat a man with a chinless, toothy face exactly
like that of some large, harmless rodent. His fat, mottled cheeks were
so pouched at the bottom that it was difficult not to believe that he
had little stores of food tucked away there. His pale-gray eyes flitted
timorously from face to face, and turned quickly away again when he
caught anyone's eye.

[¶57] The door opened, and another prisoner was brought in whose appearance
sent a momentary chill through Winston. He was a commonplace,
mean-looking man who might have been an engineer or technician of some
kind. But what was startling was the emaciation of his face. It was like
a skull. Because of its thinness the mouth and eyes looked
disproportionately large, and the eyes seemed filled with a murderous,
unappeasable hatred of somebody or something.

[¶58] The man sat down on the bench at a little distance from Winston. Winston
did not look at him again, but the tormented, skull-like face was as
vivid in his mind as though it had been straight in front of his eyes.
Suddenly he realized what was the matter. The man was dying of
starvation. The same thought seemed to occur almost simultaneously to
everyone in the cell. There was a very faint stirring all the way round
the bench. The eyes of the chinless man kept flitting toward the
skull-faced man, then turning guiltily away, then being dragged back by
an irresistible attraction. Presently he began to fidget on his seat. At
last he stood up, waddled clumsily across the cell, dug down into the
pocket of his overalls, and, with an abashed air, held out a grimy piece
of bread to the skull-faced man.

[¶59] There was a furious, deafening roar from the telescreen. The chinless
man jumped in his tracks. The skull-faced man had quickly thrust his
hands behind his back, as though demonstrating to all the world that he
refused the gift.

[¶60] "Bumstead!" roared the voice. "2713 Bumstead J! Let fall that piece of
bread."

[¶61] The chinless man dropped the piece of bread on the floor.

[¶62] "Remain standing where you are," said the voice. "Face the door. Make no
movement."

[¶63] The chinless man obeyed. His large pouchy cheeks were quivering
uncontrollably. The door clanged open. As the young officer entered and
stepped aside, there emerged from behind him a short stumpy guard with
enormous arms and shoulders. He took his stand opposite the chinless
man, and then, at a signal from the officer, let free a frightful blow,
with all the weight of his body behind it, full in the chinless man's
mouth. The force of it seemed almost to knock him clear of the floor.
His body was flung across the cell and fetched up against the base of
the lavatory seat. For a moment he lay as though stunned, with dark
blood oozing from his mouth and nose. A very faint whimpering or
squeaking, which seemed unconscious, came out of him. Then he rolled
over and raised himself unsteadily on hands and knees. Amid a stream of
blood and saliva, the two halves of a dental plate fell out of his
mouth.

[¶64] The prisoners sat very still, their hands crossed on their knees. The
chinless man climbed back into his place. Down one side of his face the
flesh was darkening. His mouth had swollen into a shapeless
cherry-colored mass with a black hole in the middle of it. From time to
time a little blood dripped onto the breast of his overalls. His gray
eyes still flitted from face to face, more guiltily than ever, as though
he were trying to discover how much the others despised him for his
humiliation.

[¶65] The door opened. With a small gesture the officer indicated the
skull-faced man.

[¶66] "Room 101," he said.

[¶67] There was a gasp and a flurry at Winston's side. The man had actually
flung himself on his knees on the floor, with his hands clasped
together.

[¶68] "Comrade! Officer!" he cried. "You don't have to take me to that place!
Haven't I told you everything already? What else is it you want to know?
There's nothing I wouldn't confess, nothing! Just tell me what it is and
I'll confess it straight off. Write it down and I'll sign it--anything!
Not room 101!"

[¶69] "Room 101," said the officer.

[¶70] The man's face, already very pale, turned a color Winston would not have
believed possible. It was definitely, unmistakably, a shade of green.

[¶71] "Do anything to me!" he yelled. "You've been starving me for weeks.
Finish it off and let me die. Shoot me. Hang me. Sentence me to
twenty-five years. Is there somebody else you want me to give away? Just
say who it is and I'll tell you anything you want. I don't care who it
is or what you do to them. I've got a wife and three children. The
biggest of them isn't six years old. You can take the whole lot of them
and cut their throats in front of my eyes, and I'll stand by and watch
it. But not room 101!"

[¶72] "Room 101," said the officer.

[¶73] The man looked frantically round at the other prisoners, as though with
some idea that he could put another victim in his own place. His eyes
settled on the smashed face of the chinless man. He flung out a lean
arm.

[¶74] "That's the one you ought to be taking, not me!" he shouted. "You didn't
hear what he was saying after they bashed his face. Give me a chance and
I'll tell you every word of it. _He's_ the one that's against the Party,
not me." The guards stepped forward. The man's voice rose to a shriek.
"You didn't hear him!" he repeated. "Something went wrong with the
telescreen. _He's_ the one you want. Take him, not me!"

[¶75] The two sturdy guards had stooped to take him by the arms. But just at
this moment he flung himself across the floor of the cell and grabbed
one of the iron legs that supported the bench. He had set up a wordless
howling, like an animal. The guards took hold of him to wrench him
loose, but he clung on with astonishing strength. For perhaps twenty
seconds they were hauling at him. The prisoners sat quiet, their hands
crossed on their knees, looking straight in front of them. The howling
stopped; the man had no breath left for anything except hanging on. Then
there was a different kind of cry. A kick from a guard's boot had broken
the fingers of one of his hands. They dragged him to his feet.

[¶76] "Room 101," said the officer.

[¶77] The man was led out, walking unsteadily, with head sunken, nursing his
crushed hand, all the fight gone out of him.

[¶78] A long time passed. If it had been midnight when the skull-faced man
was taken away, it was morning; if morning, it was afternoon. Winston
was alone, and had been alone for hours. The pain of sitting on the
narrow bench was such that often he got up and walked about, unreproved
by the telescreen. The piece of bread still lay where the chinless man
had dropped it. At the beginning it needed a hard effort not to look at
it, but presently hunger gave way to thirst. His mouth was sticky and
evil-tasting. The humming sound and the unvarying white light induced a
sort of faintness, an empty feeling inside his head. He would get up
because the ache in his bones was no longer bearable, and then would sit
down again almost at once because he was too dizzy to make sure of
staying on his feet. Whenever his physical sensations were a little
under control the terror returned. Sometimes with a fading hope he
thought of O'Brien and the razor blade. It was thinkable that the razor
blade might arrive concealed in his food, if he were ever fed. More
dimly he thought of Julia. Somewhere or other she was suffering, perhaps
far worse than he. She might be screaming with pain at this moment. He
thought: "If I could save Julia by doubling my own pain, would I do it?
Yes, I would." But that was merely an intellectual decision, taken
because he knew that he ought to take it. He did not feel it. In this
place you could not feel anything, except pain and the foreknowledge of
pain. Besides, was it possible, when you were actually suffering it, to
wish for any reason whatever that your own pain should increase? But
that question was not answerable yet.

[¶79] The boots were approaching again. The door opened. O'Brien came in.

[¶80] Winston started to his feet. The shock of the sight had driven all
caution out of him. For the first time in many years he forgot the
presence of the telescreen.

[¶81] "They've got you too!" he cried.

[¶82] "They got me a long time ago," said O'Brien with a mild, almost
regretful irony. He stepped aside. From behind him there emerged a
broad-chested guard with a long black truncheon in his hand.

[¶83] "You knew this, Winston," said O'Brien. "Don't deceive yourself. You did
know it--you have always known it."

[¶84] Yes, he saw now, he had always known it. But there was no time to think
of that. All he had eyes for was the truncheon in the guard's hand. It
might fall anywhere: on the crown, on the tip of the ear, on the upper
arm, on the elbow--

[¶85] The elbow! He had slumped to his knees, almost paralyzed, clasping the
stricken elbow with his other hand. Everything had exploded into yellow
light. Inconceivable, inconceivable that one blow could cause such pain!
The light cleared and he could see the other two looking down at him.
The guard was laughing at his contortions. One question at any rate was
answered. Never, for any reason on earth, could you wish for an increase
of pain. Of pain you could wish only one thing: that it should stop.
Nothing in the world was so bad as physical pain. In the face of pain
there are no heroes, no heroes, he thought over and over as he writhed
on the floor, clutching uselessly at his disabled left arm.