Two Revisions

One thing I will say for Senator, from a distance of more than 40 years, is that he was scary smart.

“We con ourselves as a matter of course; I suspect because to see our true selves would be equivalent to seeing the head of Medusa.”

He had pegged it correctly right out of the gate; Ms Curry would have been impressed.

She would have had a couple of criticisms, though. The first would have been modest.

“‘We *con* ourselves as a matter of course? Isn’t that a bit harsh? How about changing it to ‘We *kid* ourselves as a matter of course?’”

Technically that is speculation on my part, but not really. I knew Inez—that was her first name—for years after I graduated from high school, and for a little while even attended church with her. She helped me to craft my first published articles and—to quote the Acknowledgements section of my first book, which explained why she was one of three teachers to whom the book was dedicated, “for years thereafter read a number of my other manuscripts with a practiced, discerning eye.” So I’d bet real money she would have leveled that criticism and made that suggestion.

I would also lay odds that she would have gone after Senator about “the head of Medusa” as well. It was a lazy choice of phrase, bordering on a cliché. But in that instance she would not have suggested a replacement. She would have told Senator to go away and come up with one himself.

It’s interesting to contemplate whether Senator would have arrived at my own choice for a replacement. It’s possible: Senator had read George Orwell’s “Nineteen Eighty-four” a couple of years before. But I doubt it….

Winston lay silent. His breast rose and fell a little faster. He still had not answered the question that had come into his mind the first. He had got to ask it, and yet it was as though his tongue would not utter it. There was a trace of amusement in O’Brien’s face. Even his spectacles seemed to wear an ironical gleam. He knows, thought Winston suddenly, he knows what I am going to ask! At the thought the words burst out of him:

“What is in Room 101?"

The expression on O’Brien’s face did not change. He answered drily:

“You know what is in Room 101, Winston. Everyone knows what is in Room 101.”

***

“You asked me once,” said O’Brien, “what was in Room 101. I told you that you knew already. Everyone knows it. The thing that is in Room 101 is the worst thing in the world.”

In the aftermath of the suicide attempt there would be brief speculation concerning what motivated it, but the speculation quickly subsided because everyone, Senator included, not only wanted to drop the matter but, insofar as possible, to re-conceptualize it so that it was not, when one considered things carefully, a suicide attempt at all.

But of course it was a suicide attempt. And as to the reason, it was really quite simple.

Senator knew what was in Room 101, and to avoid it he merely had to go to sleep.