Orwell, George — Nineteen eighty-four [257]

Unfortunately he could not remember whether she had already been at that table when he arrived, or had come there after-wards. But yesterday, at any rate, during the Two Minutes Hate, she had sat immediately behind him when there was no apparent need to do so. Quite likely her real object had been to listen to him and make sure whether he was shouting loudly enough. — Orwell, George, Nineteen eighty-four, 257

Note

The paranoia is registered through unnavigable uncertainty — ‘he could not remember’ — showing how surveillance corrodes even the basic reliability of one’s own perception and recollection of spatial arrangement.