trials of traitors and thought-
criminals who made abject confession of their crimes and were afterwards
executed, were special show-pieces not occurring oftener than once in a
couple of years. More commonly, people who had incurred the displeasure of
the Party simply disappeared and were never heard of again. One never had
the smallest clue as to what had happened to them. In some cases they might
not even be dead. Perhaps thirty people personally known to Winston, not
counting his parents, had disappeared at one time or another.
Winston stroked his nose gently with a paper-clip. In the cubicle
across the way Comrade Tillotson was still crouching secretively over his
speakwrite. He raised his head for a moment: again the hostile spectacle-
flash. Winston wondered whether Comrade Tillotson was engaged on the same
job as himself. It was perfectly possible. So tricky a piece of work would
never be entrusted to a single person: on the other hand, to turn it over
to a committee would be to admit openly that an act of fabrication was
taking place. Very likely as many as a dozen people were now working away
on rival versions of what Big Brother had actually said. And presently some
master brain in the Inner Party would select this version or that, would
re-edit it and set in motion the complex processes of cross-referencing
that would be required, and then the chosen lie would pass into the
permanent records and become truth.
Winston did not know why Withers had been disgraced. Perhaps it was
for corruption or incompetence. Perhaps Big Brother was merely getting rid
of a too-popular subordinate. Perhaps Withers or someone close to him had
been suspected of heretical tendencies. Or perhaps -- what was likeliest of
all -- the thing had simply happened because purges and vaporizations were
a necessary part of the mechani