Orwell, George — Nineteen eighty-four [1083]

Ten seconds would be enough. In that time the world inside him could turn over. And then suddenly, without a word uttered, without a check in his step, without the changing of a line in his face – suddenly the camouflage would be down and bang! would go the batteries of his hatred. Hatred would fill him like an enormous roaring flame. And almost in the same instant bang! would go the bullet, too late, or too early. They would have blown his brain to pieces before they could reclaim it. The heretical thought would be unpunished, unrepented, out of their reach for ever. They would have blown a hole in their own perfection. To die hating them, that was freedom. — Orwell, George, Nineteen eighty-four, 1083

Note

The fantasy of the final ten seconds before the bullet — hatred discharging just before death so the system cannot reclaim the thought — is Winston’s last assertion of interior freedom. ‘They would have blown a hole in their own perfection’ is the most pointed statement yet that his inner life is a genuine threat to the totalizing system.