Orwell, George — Nineteen eighty-four [459]

‘I hated the sight of you,’ he said. ‘I wanted to rape you and then murder you afterwards. Two weeks ago I thought seriously of smashing your head in with a cobblestone. If you really want to know, I imagined that you had something to do with the Thought Police.’ … The girl laughed delightedly, evidently taking this as a tribute to the excellence of her disguise. — Orwell, George, Nineteen eighty-four, 459

Note

Winston confesses the full violence of his misreading, and Julia’s delight reframes hatred as evidence of her successful performance. Their honesty about the paranoid hatred they started from becomes the ground of intimacy — the relationship enters through the admission of its own impossible origin.