Chapter 8 (4)

The centuries of capitalism were held to have produced nothing of any value. Se sostuvo que los siglos de capitalismo no produjeron nada de valor. One could not learn history from architecture any more than one could learn it from books. No se puede aprender historia de la arquitectura como tampoco se puede aprender de los libros. З архітектури не можна навчитися історії так само, як і з книжок. Statues, inscriptions, memorial stones, the names of streets — anything that might throw light upon the past had been systematically altered.

‘I never knew it had been a church,' he said.

‘There's a lot of them left, really,' said the old man, ‘though they've been put to other uses. —En realidad, quedan muchos —dijo el anciano—, aunque se les ha dado otros usos. — Насправді їх залишилося багато, — сказав старий, — хоча їх використали для інших цілей. Now, how did that rhyme go? Ahora, ¿cómo fue esa rima? Ah! I've got it! ¡Lo tengo!

“Oranges and lemons, say the bells of St Clement's,

You owe me three farthings, say the bells of St Martin's ——”

there, now, that's as far as I can get. A farthing, that was a small copper coin, looked something like a cent.'

‘Where was St Martin's?' said Winston.

‘St Martin's? That's still standing. Eso sigue en pie. It's in Victory Square, alongside the picture gallery. Está en Victory Square, junto a la galería de imágenes. A building with a kind of a triangular porch and pillars in front, and a big flight of steps.' Un edificio con una especie de porche triangular y pilares en el frente, y un gran tramo de escaleras. Будівля зі схожим на трикутний ґанок і колонами попереду та великим маршем».

Winston knew the place well. Winston conocía bien el lugar. It was a museum used for propaganda displays of various kinds — scale models of rocket bombs and Floating Fortresses, waxwork tableaux illustrating enemy atrocities, and the like. Era un museo utilizado para exhibiciones de propaganda de varios tipos: modelos a escala de bombas cohete y fortalezas flotantes, cuadros de cera que ilustran las atrocidades enemigas y cosas por el estilo.

‘St Martin's-in-the-Fields it used to be called,' supplemented the old man, ‘though I don't recollect any fields anywhere in those parts.' 'St Martin's-in-the-Fields solía llamarse', complementó el anciano, 'aunque no recuerdo ningún campo en ninguna parte de esas partes'. — Раніше це називалося Сен-Мартін-ін-те-Філдс, — доповнив старий, — хоча я не пригадую жодного поля в тих краях.

Winston did not buy the picture. It would have been an even more incongruous possession than the glass paperweight, and impossible to carry home, unless it were taken out of its frame. But he lingered for some minutes more, talking to the old man, whose name, he discovered, was not Weeks — as one might have gathered from the inscription over the shop-front — but Charrington. Але він затримався ще на кілька хвилин, розмовляючи зі старим, чиє ім’я, як він виявив, було не Вікс — як можна було зрозуміти з напису над вітриною — а Черрінгтон. Mr Charrington, it seemed, was a widower aged sixty-three and had inhabited this shop for thirty years. Throughout that time he had been intending to alter the name over the window, but had never quite got to the point of doing it. Durante todo ese tiempo había tenido la intención de alterar el nombre sobre la ventana, pero nunca llegó al punto de hacerlo. All the while that they were talking the half-remembered rhyme kept running through Winston's head. Oranges and lemons say the bells of St Clement's, You owe me three farthings, say the bells of St Martin's! It was curious, but when you said it to yourself you had the illusion of actually hearing bells, the bells of a lost London that still existed somewhere or other, disguised and forgotten. From one ghostly steeple after another he seemed to hear them pealing forth. De un campanario fantasmal tras otro le pareció oírlos repicar. Він, здавалося, чув, як вони виривалися з одного примарного шпиля за іншим. Yet so far as he could remember he had never in real life heard church bells ringing.

He got away from Mr Charrington and went down the stairs alone, so as not to let the old man see him reconnoitring the street before stepping out of the door. He had already made up his mind that after a suitable interval — a month, say — he would take the risk of visiting the shop again. It was perhaps not more dangerous than shirking an evening at the Centre. The serious piece of folly had been to come back here in the first place, after buying the diary and without knowing whether the proprietor of the shop could be trusted. However ——!

Yes, he thought again, he would come back. Sí, pensó de nuevo, volvería. He would buy further scraps of beautiful rubbish. Compraría más trozos de hermosa basura. Він купив би ще шматки красивого сміття. He would buy the engraving of St Clement Danes, take it out of its frame, and carry it home concealed under the jacket of his overalls. He would drag the rest of that poem out of Mr Charrington's memory. Even the lunatic project of renting the room upstairs flashed momentarily through his mind again. For perhaps five seconds exaltation made him careless, and he stepped out on to the pavement without so much as a preliminary glance through the window. Durante unos cinco segundos, la exaltación lo dejó descuidado, y salió a la acera sin siquiera una mirada preliminar a través de la ventana. He had even started humming to an improvised tune

Oranges and lemons, say the bells of St Clement's,

You owe me three farthings, say the ——

Suddenly his heart seemed to turn to ice and his bowels to water. De repente, su corazón pareció convertirse en hielo y sus entrañas en agua. A figure in blue overalls was coming down the pavement, not ten metres away. It was the girl from the Fiction Department, the girl with dark hair. The light was failing, but there was no difficulty in recognizing her. She looked him straight in the face, then walked quickly on as though she had not seen him. Ella lo miró directamente a la cara, luego siguió caminando rápidamente como si no lo hubiera visto.

For a few seconds Winston was too paralysed to move. Then he turned to the right and walked heavily away, not noticing for the moment that he was going in the wrong direction. At any rate, one question was settled. De todos modos, se resolvió una cuestión. There was no doubting any longer that the girl was spying on him. Ya no había dudas de que la chica lo estaba espiando. She must have followed him here, because it was not credible that by pure chance she should have happened to be walking on the same evening up the same obscure backstreet, kilometres distant from any quarter where Party members lived. It was too great a coincidence. Fue una coincidencia demasiado grande. To był zbyt wielki zbieg okoliczności. Whether she was really an agent of the Thought Police, or simply an amateur spy actuated by officiousness, hardly mattered. It was enough that she was watching him. Probably she had seen him go into the pub as well.

It was an effort to walk. Fue un esfuerzo caminar. The lump of glass in his pocket banged against his thigh at each step, and he was half minded to take it out and throw it away. The worst thing was the pain in his belly. For a couple of minutes he had the feeling that he would die if he did not reach a lavatory soon. But there would be no public lavatories in a quarter like this. Pero no habría baños públicos en un barrio como este. Then the spasm passed, leaving a dull ache behind.

The street was a blind alley. Winston halted, stood for several seconds wondering vaguely what to do, then turned round and began to retrace his steps. As he turned it occurred to him that the girl had only passed him three minutes ago and that by running he could probably catch up with her. He could keep on her track till they were in some quiet place, and then smash her skull in with a cobblestone. Podía seguir su pista hasta que estuvieran en algún lugar tranquilo y luego aplastarle el cráneo con un adoquín. The piece of glass in his pocket would be heavy enough for the job. El trozo de vidrio en su bolsillo sería lo suficientemente pesado para el trabajo. But he abandoned the idea immediately, because even the thought of making any physical effort was unbearable. He could not run, he could not strike a blow. No podía correr, no podía dar un golpe. Він не міг бігти, він не міг завдати удару. Besides, she was young and lusty and would defend herself. He thought also of hurrying to the Community Centre and staying there till the place closed, so as to establish a partial alibi for the evening. But that too was impossible. A deadly lassitude had taken hold of him. Una lasitud mortal se había apoderado de él. All he wanted was to get home quickly and then sit down and be quiet.

It was after twenty-two hours when he got back to the flat. Минуло двадцять дві години, коли він повернувся до квартири. The lights would be switched off at the main at twenty-three thirty. Las luces se apagarían en la principal a las veintitrés y media. He went into the kitchen and swallowed nearly a teacupful of Victory Gin. Then he went to the table in the alcove, sat down, and took the diary out of the drawer. But he did not open it at once. From the telescreen a brassy female voice was squalling a patriotic song. He sat staring at the marbled cover of the book, trying without success to shut the voice out of his consciousness. Se sentó mirando la cubierta de mármol del libro, tratando sin éxito de apagar la voz de su conciencia.

It was at night that they came for you, always at night. Era de noche que venían a buscarte, siempre de noche. The proper thing was to kill yourself before they got you. Undoubtedly some people did so. Indudablemente, algunas personas lo hicieron. Many of the disappearances were actually suicides. Багато зі зникнень насправді були самогубствами. But it needed desperate courage to kill yourself in a world where firearms, or any quick and certain poison, were completely unprocurable. Але потрібна була відчайдушна мужність, щоб убити себе у світі, де вогнепальну зброю чи будь-яку швидкодіючу та надійну отруту було абсолютно неможливо придбати. He thought with a kind of astonishment of the biological uselessness of pain and fear, the treachery of the human body which always freezes into inertia at exactly the moment when a special effort is needed. Він з якимось подивом думав про біологічну непотрібність болю й страху, про підступність людського тіла, яке завжди завмирає в інерції саме в ту мить, коли потрібно докласти особливих зусиль. He might have silenced the dark-haired girl if only he had acted quickly enough: but precisely because of the extremity of his danger he had lost the power to act. Він міг би змусити темноволосу дівчину замовкнути, якби діяв достатньо швидко: але саме через крайню небезпеку він втратив силу діяти. It struck him that in moments of crisis one is never fighting against an external enemy, but always against one's own body. Le sorprendió que en momentos de crisis uno nunca esté luchando contra un enemigo externo, sino siempre contra el propio cuerpo. Even now, in spite of the gin, the dull ache in his belly made consecutive thought impossible. Incluso ahora, a pesar de la ginebra, el dolor sordo en su vientre hacía imposible pensar de forma consecutiva. And it is the same, he perceived, in all seemingly heroic or tragic situations. Y es lo mismo, percibió, en todas las situaciones aparentemente heroicas o trágicas. І так само, як він відчував, у всіх, здавалося б, героїчних чи трагічних ситуаціях. On the battlefield, in the torture chamber, on a sinking ship, the issues that you are fighting for are always forgotten, because the body swells up until it fills the universe, and even when you are not paralysed by fright or screaming with pain, life is a moment-to-moment struggle against hunger or cold or sleeplessness, against a sour stomach or an aching tooth. На полі бою, в камері тортур, на тонучому кораблі завжди забуваються проблеми, за які ви боретеся, тому що тіло розбухає, поки не заповнить всесвіт, і навіть коли ви не паралізовані від страху і не кричите від болю, Життя — це миттєва боротьба з голодом, чи холодом, чи безсонням, з кислим шлунком чи хворим зубом.

He opened the diary. It was important to write something down. The woman on the telescreen had started a new song. Her voice seemed to stick into his brain like jagged splinters of glass. He tried to think of O'Brien, for whom, or to whom, the diary was written, but instead he began thinking of the things that would happen to him after the Thought Police took him away. It would not matter if they killed you at once. No importaría si te mataran de una vez. To be killed was what you expected. Ser asesinado era lo que esperabas. But before death (nobody spoke of such things, yet everybody knew of them) there was the routine of confession that had to be gone through: the grovelling on the floor and screaming for mercy, the crack of broken bones, the smashed teeth and bloody clots of hair. Pero antes de la muerte (nadie hablaba de esas cosas, pero todo el mundo las conocía) estaba la rutina de la confesión por la que había que pasar: el arrastrarse por el suelo y gritar pidiendo piedad, el crujido de huesos rotos, los dientes aplastados y la sangre coágulos de cabello.

Why did you have to endure it, since the end was always the same? ¿Por qué tuviste que soportarlo, ya que el final siempre era el mismo? Why was it not possible to cut a few days or weeks out of your life? ¿Por qué no fue posible eliminar algunos días o semanas de su vida? Nobody ever escaped detection, and nobody ever failed to confess. Ніхто ніколи не уникав розкриття, і ніхто ніколи не зміг зізнатися. When once you had succumbed to thoughtcrime it was certain that by a given date you would be dead. Коли одного разу ви піддалися мислезлочину, було певно, що до певної дати ви помрете. Why then did that horror, which altered nothing, have to lie embedded in future time? Entonces, ¿por qué ese horror, que no alteraba nada, tenía que estar incrustado en el tiempo futuro? Чому ж тоді той жах, який нічого не змінив, мав лежати в майбутньому часі?

He tried with a little more success than before to summon up the image of O'Brien. ‘We shall meet in the place where there is no darkness,' O'Brien had said to him. He knew what it meant, or thought he knew. The place where there is no darkness was the imagined future, which one would never see, but which, by foreknowledge, one could mystically share in. El lugar donde no hay oscuridad era el futuro imaginado, que uno nunca vería, pero que, por conocimiento previo, uno podría compartir místicamente. But with the voice from the telescreen nagging at his ears he could not follow the train of thought further. Pero con la voz de la telepantalla molestando a sus oídos, no pudo seguir el hilo de sus pensamientos. He put a cigarette in his mouth. Half the tobacco promptly fell out on to his tongue, a bitter dust which was difficult to spit out again. Половина тютюну миттєво висипалася йому на язик — гіркий пил, який важко було знову виплюнути. The face of Big Brother swam into his mind, displacing that of O'Brien. Just as he had done a few days earlier, he slid a coin out of his pocket and looked at it. Як і кілька днів тому, він витягнув із кишені монету й подивився на неї. The face gazed up at him, heavy, calm, protecting: but what kind of smile was hidden beneath the dark moustache? Like a leaden knell the words came back at him: Como una campana de plomo, las palabras regresaron a él: Як свинцевий дзвін, до нього повернулися слова:

WAR IS PEACE

FREEDOM IS SLAVERY

IGNORANCE IS STRENGTH IGNORANCIA ES FUERZA