×

Usamos cookies para ayudar a mejorar LingQ. Al visitar este sitio, aceptas nuestras politicas de cookie.


image

1984 by George Orwell, Chapter 7 (1)

Chapter 7 (1)

If there is hope,' wrote Winston, ‘it lies in the proles.'

If there was hope, it MUST lie in the proles, because only there in those swarming disregarded masses, 85 per cent of the population of Oceania, could the force to destroy the Party ever be generated. The Party could not be overthrown from within. Its enemies, if it had any enemies, had no way of coming together or even of identifying one another. Even if the legendary Brotherhood existed, as just possibly it might, it was inconceivable that its members could ever assemble in larger numbers than twos and threes. Rebellion meant a look in the eyes, an inflexion of the voice, at the most, an occasional whispered word. But the proles, if only they could somehow become conscious of their own strength. would have no need to conspire. They needed only to rise up and shake themselves like a horse shaking off flies. If they chose they could blow the Party to pieces tomorrow morning. Surely sooner or later it must occur to them to do it? And yet ——!

He remembered how once he had been walking down a crowded street when a tremendous shout of hundreds of voices women's voices — had burst from a side-street a little way ahead. It was a great formidable cry of anger and despair, a deep, loud ‘Oh-o- o-o-oh!' that went humming on like the reverberation of a bell. His heart had leapt. It's started! he had thought. A riot! The proles are breaking loose at last! When he had reached the spot it was to see a mob of two or three hundred women crowding round the stalls of a street market, with faces as tragic as though they had been the doomed passengers on a sinking ship. But at this moment the general despair broke down into a multitude of individual quarrels. It appeared that one of the stalls had been selling tin saucepans. They were wretched, flimsy things, but cooking-pots of any kind were always difficult to get. Now the supply had unexpectedly given out. The successful women, bumped and jostled by the rest, were trying to make off with their saucepans while dozens of others clamoured round the stall, accusing the stall-keeper of favouritism and of having more saucepans somewhere in reserve. There was a fresh outburst of yells. Two bloated women, one of them with her hair coming down, had got hold of the same saucepan and were trying to tear it out of one another's hands. For a moment they were both tugging, and then the handle came off. Winston watched them disgustedly. And yet, just for a moment, what almost frightening power had sounded in that cry from only a few hundred throats! Why was it that they could never shout like that about anything that mattered?

He wrote:

Until they become couscious they will never rebel, and until after they have rebelled they cannot become conscious.

That, he reflected, might almost have been a transcription from one of the Party textbooks. The Party claimed, of course, to have liberated the proles from bondage. Before the Revolution they had been hideously oppressed by the capitalists, they had been starved and flogged, women had been forced to work in the coal mines (women still did work in the coal mines, as a matter of fact), children had been sold into the factories at the age of six. But simultaneously, true to the Principles of doublethink, the Party taught that the proles were natural inferiors who must be kept in subjection, like animals, by the application of a few simple rules. In reality very little was known about the proles. It was not necessary to know much. So long as they continued to work and breed, their other activities were without importance. Left to themselves, like cattle turned loose upon the plains of Argentina, they had reverted to a style of life that appeared to be natural to them, a sort of ancestral pattern. They were born, they grew up in the gutters, they went to work at twelve, they passed through a brief blossoming- period of beauty and sexual desire, they married at twenty, they were middle-aged at thirty, they died, for the most part, at sixty. Heavy physical work, the care of home and children, petty quarrels with neighbours, films, football, beer, and above all, gambling, filled up the horizon of their minds. To keep them in control was not difficult. A few agents of the Thought Police moved always among them, spreading false rumours and marking down and eliminating the few individuals who were judged capable of becoming dangerous; but no attempt was made to indoctrinate them with the ideology of the Party. It was not desirable that the proles should have strong political feelings. All that was required of them was a primitive patriotism which could be appealed to whenever it was necessary to make them accept longer working- hours or shorter rations. And even when they became discontented, as they sometimes did, their discontent led nowhere, because being without general ideas, they could only focus it on petty specific grievances. The larger evils invariably escaped their notice. The great majority of proles did not even have telescreens in their homes. Even the civil police interfered with them very little. There was a vast amount of criminality in London, a whole world-within-a-world of thieves, bandits, prostitutes, drug- peddlers, and racketeers of every description; but since it all happened among the proles themselves, it was of no importance.

In all questions of morals they were allowed to follow their ancestral code. The sexual puritanism of the Party was not imposed upon them. Promiscuity went unpunished, divorce was permitted. For that matter, even religious worship would have been permitted if the proles had shown any sign of needing or wanting it. They were beneath suspicion. As the Party slogan put it: ‘Proles and animals are free.'

Winston reached down and cautiously scratched his varicose ulcer. It had begun itching again. The thing you invariably came back to was the impossibility of knowing what life before the Revolution had really been like. He took out of the drawer a copy of a children's history textbook which he had borrowed from Mrs Parsons, and began copying a passage into the diary:

In the old days (it ran), before the glorious Revolution, London was not the beautiful city that we know today. It was a dark, dirty, miserable place where hardly anybody had euough to eat and where hundreds and thousauds of poor people had no boots on their feet and not even a roof to sleep under. Children no older than you had to work twelve hours a day for cruel masters who flogged them with whips if they worked too slowly and fed them on nothing but stale breadcrusts aud water. But iu among all this terrible poverty there were just a few great big beautiful houses that were lived in by rich men who had as many as thirty servauts to look after them. These rich men were called capitalists. They were fat, ugly men with wicked faces, like the one in the picture on the opposite page. You can see that he is dressed in a long black coat which was called a frock coat, and a queer, shiny hat shaped like a stovepipe, which was called a top hat. This was the uniform of the capitalists, and no one else was allowed to wear it. The capitalists owned everything in the world, and everyone else was their slave. They owned all the land, all the houses, all the factories, and all the money. If anyone disobeyed them they could throw them into prison, or they could take his job away and starve him to death. When any ordinary person spoke to a capitalist he had to cringe and bow to him, and take off his cap aud address him as ‘Sir'. The chief of all the capitalists was called the King, and ——

But he knew the rest of the catalogue. There would be mention of the bishops in their lawn sleeves, the judges in their ermine robes, the pillory, the stocks, the treadmill, the cat-o'-nine tails, the Lord Mayor's Banquet, and the practice of kissing the Pope's toe. There was also something called the JUS PRIMAE NOCTIS, which would probably not be mentioned in a textbook for children. It was the law by which every capitalist had the right to sleep with any woman working in one of his factories.

How could you tell how much of it was lies? It MIGHT be true that the average human being was better off now than he had been before the Revolution. The only evidence to the contrary was the mute protest in your own bones, the instinctive feeling that the conditions you lived in were intolerable and that at some other time they must have been different. It struck him that the truly characteristic thing about modern life was not its cruelty and insecurity, but simply its bareness, its dinginess, its listlessness. Life, if you looked about you, bore no resemblance not only to the lies that streamed out of the telescreens, but even to the ideals that the Party was trying to achieve. Great areas of it, even for a Party member, were neutral and non-political, a matter of slogging through dreary jobs, fighting for a place on the Tube, darning a worn-out sock, cadging a saccharine tablet, saving a cigarette end. The ideal set up by the Party was something huge, terrible, and glittering — a world of steel and concrete, of monstrous machines and terrifying weapons — a nation of warriors and fanatics, marching forward in perfect unity, all thinking the same thoughts and shouting the same slogans, perpetually working, fighting, triumphing, persecuting — three hundred million people all with the same face. The reality was decaying, dingy cities where underfed people shuffled to and fro in leaky shoes, in patched-up nineteenth-century houses that smelt always of cabbage and bad lavatories. He seemed to see a vision of London, vast and ruinous, city of a million dustbins, and mixed up with it was a picture of Mrs Parsons, a woman with lined face and wispy hair, fiddling helplessly with a blocked waste-pipe.

He reached down and scratched his ankle again. Day and night the telescreens bruised your ears with statistics proving that people today had more food, more clothes, better houses, better recreations — that they lived longer, worked shorter hours, were bigger, healthier, stronger, happier, more intelligent, better educated, than the people of fifty years ago. Not a word of it could ever be proved or disproved. The Party claimed, for example, that today 40 per cent of adult proles were literate: before the Revolution, it was said, the number had only been 15 per cent. The Party claimed that the infant mortality rate was now only 160 per thousand, whereas before the Revolution it had been 300 — and so it went on. It was like a single equation with two unknowns. It might very well be that literally every word in the history books, even the things that one accepted without question, was pure fantasy. For all he knew there might never have been any such law as the JUS PRIMAE NOCTIS, or any such creature as a capitalist, or any such garment as a top hat.

Everything faded into mist. The past was erased, the erasure was forgotten, the lie became truth. Just once in his life he had possessed — AFTER the event: that was what counted — concrete, unmistakable evidence of an act of falsification. He had held it between his fingers for as long as thirty seconds. In 1973, it must have been — at any rate, it was at about the time when he and Katharine had parted.

Chapter 7 (1) Розділ 7 (1)

If there is hope,' wrote Winston, ‘it lies in the proles.' Si hay esperanza ", escribió Winston," está en los proles ". Якщо є надія, — писав Вінстон, — вона полягає в пролах.

If there was hope, it MUST lie in the proles, because only there in those swarming disregarded masses, 85 per cent of Si había esperanza, DEBE estar en los proles, porque sólo allí, en esas masas abrumadoras y desatendidas, el 85 por ciento de Якщо була надія, то вона ПОВИННА полягати в пролах, тому що тільки там, у цих зневажених масах, що роїться, 85 відсотків the population of Oceania, could the force to destroy the Party ever be generated. la población de Oceanía, podría llegar a generarse la fuerza para destruir al Partido. населення Океанії, чи може колись виникнути сила для знищення Партії. The Party could not be overthrown from within. Партію неможливо було повалити зсередини. Its enemies, if it had any enemies, had no way of coming together or even of identifying one another. Його вороги, якщо у нього були вороги, не мали можливості об’єднатися чи навіть ідентифікувати один одного. Even if the legendary Brotherhood existed, as just possibly it might, it was inconceivable that its members could ever assemble in larger numbers than twos and threes. Incluso si existiera la legendaria Hermandad, como posiblemente podría hacerlo, era inconcebible que sus miembros pudieran reunirse en un número mayor que dos o tres. Навіть якби легендарне Братство існувало, як це можливо, було б неможливо уявити, щоб його члени коли-небудь могли зібратися у більшій кількості, ніж двоє чи троє. Rebellion meant a look in the eyes, an inflexion of the voice, at the most, an occasional whispered word. Повстання означало погляд в очі, згинання голосу, щонайбільше, час від часу прошепотіле слово. But the proles, if only they could somehow become conscious of their own strength. Але пролі, якби тільки вони могли якось усвідомити власну силу. would have no need to conspire. не було б потреби змовлятися. They needed only to rise up and shake themselves like a horse shaking off flies. Їм потрібно було тільки підвестися і струснути, як кінь, що стряхує мух. If they chose they could blow the Party to pieces tomorrow morning. Si quisieran, podrían hacer pedazos al Partido mañana por la mañana. Якби вони забажали, то могли б рознести партію на шматки завтра вранці. Surely sooner or later it must occur to them to do it? ¿Seguro que tarde o temprano se les debe ocurrir hacerlo? Невже рано чи пізно їм прийде в голову це зробити? And yet ——!

He remembered how once he had been walking down a crowded street when a tremendous shout of hundreds of voices women's voices — had burst from a side-street a little way ahead. Recordó cómo una vez había estado caminando por una calle concurrida cuando un tremendo grito de cientos de voces, voces de mujeres, brotó de una calle lateral un poco más adelante. Він згадав, як одного разу він йшов людною вулицею, коли з провулку трохи попереду пролунав страшний крик сотень голосів, жіночих голосів. It was a great formidable cry of anger and despair, a deep, loud ‘Oh-o- o-o-oh!' Це був великий грізний крик гніву й розпачу, глибоке, гучне «О-о-о-о-о!» that went humming on like the reverberation of a bell. que seguía tarareando como la reverberación de una campana. що гуло, як дзвін. His heart had leapt. Його серце підскочило. It's started! he had thought. A riot! Бунт! The proles are breaking loose at last! ¡Los proles se están soltando por fin! Проли нарешті звільняються! When he had reached the spot it was to see a mob of two or three hundred women crowding round the stalls of a street market, with faces as tragic as though they had been the doomed passengers on a sinking ship. Cuando llegó al lugar vio una multitud de doscientas o trescientas mujeres apiñándose alrededor de los puestos de un mercado callejero, con rostros tan trágicos como si hubieran sido los pasajeros condenados en un barco que se hundía. Коли він дійшов до місця, то побачив натовп із двох-трьох сотень жінок, що юрмилися біля ятків вуличного ринку з такими трагічними обличчями, ніби вони були приреченими пасажирками корабля, що тонув. But at this moment the general despair broke down into a multitude of individual quarrels. Pero en este momento la desesperación general se transformó en una multitud de disputas individuales. Але в цю мить загальний відчай розпався на безліч індивідуальних сварок. It appeared that one of the stalls had been selling tin saucepans. Parecía que uno de los puestos vendía cacerolas de hojalata. Виявилося, що на одному з кіосків продавали жерстяні каструлі. They were wretched, flimsy things, but cooking-pots of any kind were always difficult to get. Eran cosas miserables y endebles, pero siempre era difícil conseguir cacerolas de cualquier tipo. Це були жалюгідні, тендітні речі, але будь-які каструлі завжди було важко дістати. Now the supply had unexpectedly given out. Ahora el suministro se había agotado inesperadamente. Тепер запаси несподівано закінчилися. The successful women, bumped and jostled by the rest, were trying to make off with their saucepans while dozens of others clamoured round the stall, accusing the stall-keeper of favouritism and of having more saucepans somewhere in reserve. Las mujeres triunfantes, golpeadas y empujadas por el resto, intentaban escaparse con sus cacerolas mientras decenas más gritaban alrededor del puesto, acusando al tendero de favoritismo y de tener más cacerolas en reserva. Успішні жінки, яких решта штовхала й штовхала, намагалися втекти зі своїми каструлями, тоді як десятки інших шуміли навколо кіоску, звинувачуючи власника кіоску у фаворитизмі та в тому, що десь у запасі є ще каструлі. There was a fresh outburst of yells. Знову пролунав спалах криків. Two bloated women, one of them with her hair coming down, had got hold of the same saucepan and were trying to tear it out of one another's hands. Дві роздуті жінки, одна з яких з розпущеним волоссям, схопилися за одну каструлю і намагалися вирвати її одна в одної. For a moment they were both tugging, and then the handle came off. Якусь мить вони обоє смикали, а потім ручка відірвалася. Winston watched them disgustedly. Вінстон з огидою дивився на них. And yet, just for a moment, what almost frightening power had sounded in that cry from only a few hundred throats! І все ж, на мить, яка майже страхітлива сила пролунала в цьому крику лише з кількох сотень горла! Why was it that they could never shout like that about anything that mattered? ¿Por qué nunca pudieron gritar así sobre algo que importara? Чому вони ніколи не могли так кричати про щось важливе?

He wrote:

Until they become couscious they will never rebel, and until after they have rebelled they cannot become conscious. Uutil se vuelven codiciosos, siempre se rebelarán, aud uutil después de que se hayan rebelado, pueden volverse codiciosos. Поки вони не стануть свідомими, вони завжди бунтуватимуть, а коли вони повстатимуть, вони не стануть свідомими.

That, he reflected, might almost have been a transcription from one of the Party textbooks. Eso, reflexionó, casi podría haber sido una transcripción de uno de los libros de texto del Partido. Це, подумав він, могло бути майже переписом з одного з партійних підручників. The Party claimed, of course, to have liberated the proles from bondage. Партія, звичайно, стверджувала, що звільнила пролів від рабства. Before the Revolution they had been hideously oppressed by the capitalists, they had been starved and flogged, women had been forced to work in the coal mines (women still did work in the coal mines, as a matter of fact), children had been sold into the factories at the age of six. До революції їх жахливо гнобили капіталісти, їх морили голодом і батогами, жінок примушували працювати на вугільних шахтах (насправді жінки все ще працювали на вугільних шахтах), дітей продавали на фабрику у віці шести років. But simultaneously, true to the Principles of doublethink, the Party taught that the proles were natural inferiors who must be kept in subjection, like animals, by the application of a few simple rules. Pero al mismo tiempo, fiel a los Principios del doble pensamiento, el Partido enseñó que los proles eran inferiores naturales que debían mantenerse en sujeción, como los animales, mediante la aplicación de unas pocas reglas simples. Але водночас, вірна принципам подвійного мислення, партія вчила, що пролі були природними нижчими людьми, яких треба тримати в покорі, як тварин, дотримуючись кількох простих правил. In reality very little was known about the proles. En realidad, se sabía muy poco sobre los proles. Насправді про пролів було відомо дуже мало. It was not necessary to know much. So long as they continued to work and breed, their other activities were without importance. Поки вони продовжували працювати й розмножуватися, інші види діяльності не мали значення. Left to themselves, like cattle turned loose upon the plains of Argentina, they had reverted to a style of life that appeared to be natural to them, a sort of ancestral pattern. Dejados a sí mismos, como ganado suelto en los llanos de Argentina, habían vuelto a un estilo de vida que les parecía natural, una especie de patrón ancestral. Залишені самі собою, як худоба, випущена на аргентинські рівнини, вони повернулися до стилю життя, який здавався їм природним, свого роду зразком предків. They were born, they grew up in the gutters, they went to work at twelve, they passed through a brief blossoming- period of beauty and sexual desire, they married at twenty, they were middle-aged at thirty, they died, for the most part, at sixty. Вони народилися, вони виросли в жолобах, вони пішли на роботу в дванадцять, вони пройшли через короткий період розквіту краси та сексуального бажання, вони одружилися в двадцять, вони були середнього віку в тридцять, вони померли, для більшість, на шістдесят. Heavy physical work, the care of home and children, petty quarrels with neighbours, films, football, beer, and above all, gambling, filled up the horizon of their minds. Важка фізична праця, турбота про дім і дітей, дрібні сварки з сусідами, фільми, футбол, пиво, а насамперед азартні ігри заполонили їхній обрій. To keep them in control was not difficult. Тримати їх під контролем було не важко. A few agents of the Thought Police moved always among them, spreading false rumours and marking down and eliminating the few individuals who were judged capable of becoming dangerous; but no attempt was made to indoctrinate them with the ideology of the Party. Algunos agentes de la Policía del Pensamiento se movían siempre entre ellos, difundiendo rumores falsos y marcando y eliminando a los pocos individuos que se juzgaban capaces de volverse peligrosos; pero no se intentó adoctrinarlos con la ideología del Partido. Кілька агентів Поліції Думок постійно переміщалися серед них, поширюючи неправдиві чутки та відзначаючи та знищуючи кількох осіб, які, як вважалося, могли стати небезпечними; але не було зроблено спроб прищепити їм ідеологію партії. It was not desirable that the proles should have strong political feelings. No era deseable que los proles tuvieran fuertes sentimientos políticos. Не було бажано, щоб пролі мали сильні політичні почуття. All that was required of them was a primitive patriotism which could be appealed to whenever it was necessary to make them accept longer working- hours or shorter rations. Lo único que se les exige es un patriotismo primitivo al que se puede apelar siempre que sea necesario para que acepten jornadas laborales más largas o raciones más reducidas. Усе, що від них вимагалося, — це первісний патріотизм, до якого можна було звертатися щоразу, коли потрібно було змусити їх прийняти довший робочий день або менший пайок. And even when they became discontented, as they sometimes did, their discontent led nowhere, because being without general ideas, they could only focus it on petty specific grievances. І навіть коли вони ставали незадоволеними, як це іноді траплялося, їхнє невдоволення ні до чого не привело, тому що, не маючи загальних ідей, вони могли зосередити його лише на дрібних конкретних образах. The larger evils invariably escaped their notice. Los males mayores, invariablemente, pasaban desapercibidos. Більше зло незмінно вислизало від їхньої уваги. The great majority of proles did not even have telescreens in their homes. Переважна більшість пролів навіть не мали вдома телеекранів. Even the civil police interfered with them very little. Навіть цивільна поліція їм дуже мало заважала. There was a vast amount of criminality in London, a whole world-within-a-world of thieves, bandits, prostitutes, drug- peddlers, and racketeers of every description; but since it all happened among the proles themselves, it was of no importance. Había una gran cantidad de delincuencia en Londres, todo un mundo dentro de un mundo de ladrones, bandidos, prostitutas, traficantes de drogas y chantajistas de todo tipo; pero como todo sucedió entre los propios proles, no tenía importancia. У Лондоні була величезна кількість злочинності, цілий світ у світі злодіїв, бандитів, повій, торговців наркотиками та рекетирів усіх видів; але оскільки все це сталося серед самих пролів, це не мало значення.

In all questions of morals they were allowed to follow their ancestral code. У всіх питаннях моралі їм дозволялося слідувати своєму родовому кодексу. The sexual puritanism of the Party was not imposed upon them. Сексуальне пуританство партії не було нав'язане їм. Promiscuity went unpunished, divorce was permitted. Проміскуїтет залишався безкарним, розлучення було дозволено. For that matter, even religious worship would have been permitted if the proles had shown any sign of needing or wanting it. Якщо на те пішло, навіть релігійне поклоніння було б дозволено, якби проли виявляли будь-які ознаки потреби чи бажання цього. They were beneath suspicion. Estaban bajo sospecha. Вони були поза підозрою. As the Party slogan put it: ‘Proles and animals are free.' Як було сказано в партійному гаслі: «Проли і тварини вільні».

Winston reached down and cautiously scratched his varicose ulcer. Вінстон опустився й обережно почухав варикозну виразку. It had begun itching again. Знову почався свербіж. The thing you invariably came back to was the impossibility of knowing what life before the Revolution had really been like. Lo que invariablemente volvía a recordar era la imposibilidad de saber cómo había sido realmente la vida antes de la Revolución. Те, до чого ви незмінно поверталися, це неможливість знати, яким насправді було життя до революції. He took out of the drawer a copy of a children's history textbook which he had borrowed from Mrs Parsons, and began copying a passage into the diary: Він дістав із шухляди примірник дитячого підручника історії, який позичив у місіс Парсонс, і почав копіювати уривок із щоденника:

In the old days (it ran), before the glorious Revolution, London was not the beautiful city that we know today. У старі часи (це було), до славетної Революції, Лоуду був прекрасним містом, яким ми живемо сьогодні. It was a dark, dirty, miserable place where hardly anybody had euough to eat and where hundreds and thousauds of poor people had no boots on their feet and not even a roof to sleep under. Це було темне, брудне, жалюгідне місце, де навряд чи нікому було достатньо їсти, а також де сотні і тисячі бідних людей мали чоботи або ноги і не мали даху, щоб краще спати. Children no older than you had to work twelve hours a day for cruel masters who flogged them with whips if they worked too slowly and fed them on nothing but stale breadcrusts aud water. Діти, старші, ви повинні були працювати по дванадцять годин на день для жорстоких господарів, які били їх батогами, якщо вони працювали надто повільно, і годували їх ou othiug, але черствими сухарями або водою. But iu among all this terrible poverty there were just a few great big beautiful houses that were lived in by rich men who had as many as thirty servauts to look after them. Але серед усієї цієї жахливої бідності було лише кілька великих, великих красивих будинків, у яких жили багаті люди, які мали до тридцяти слуг, щоб за ними доглядати. These rich men were called capitalists. Цих багатих меу називали капіталістами. They were fat, ugly men with wicked faces, like the one in the picture on the opposite page. Вони були товстими, потворними, з лихими обличчями, як на фото на протилежній сторінці. You can see that he is dressed in a long black coat which was called a frock coat, and a queer, shiny hat shaped like a stovepipe, which was called a top hat. Ви бачите, що він одягнений у довге чорне пальто, яке називали сюртуком, і дивний капелюх шиї у формі пічкової труби, який називали циліндром. This was the uniform of the capitalists, and no one else was allowed to wear it. Це була уніформа капіталістів, а іншим дозволялося її носити. The capitalists owned everything in the world, and everyone else was their slave. Капіталісти були зобов’язані всьому світу, а всі інші були їхніми рабами. They owned all the land, all the houses, all the factories, and all the money. Їм завдячували всі слави, всі будинки, всі фабрики, всі миші. If anyone disobeyed them they could throw them into prison, or they could  take his job away and starve him to death. Якщо ви їм не підкоряєтеся, вони можуть кинути їх у в'язницю, або вони можуть забрати його роботу і заморити голодною смертю. When any ordinary person spoke to a capitalist he had to cringe and bow to him, and take off his cap aud address him as ‘Sir'. Коли звичайний чоловік розмовляв з капіталістом, йому доводилося хрипнути або вклонитися йому, зняти шапку або звертатися до нього «пане». The chief of all the capitalists was called the King, and —— Вождя всіх капіталістів звали Кіуг, aud ——

But he knew the rest of the catalogue. Але він знав решту каталогу. There would be mention of the bishops in their lawn sleeves, the judges in their ermine robes, the pillory, the stocks, the treadmill, the cat-o'-nine tails, the Lord Mayor's Banquet, and the practice of kissing the Pope's toe. Згадували б єпископів у батистових рукавах, суддів у горностаєвих мантіях, позорний стовп, колоди, бігову доріжку, кота з дев’ятьма хвостами, бенкет лорда-мера та звичай цілувати палець на нозі Папи. . There was also something called the JUS PRIMAE NOCTIS, which would probably not be mentioned in a textbook for children. Було також щось під назвою JUS PRIMAE NOCTIS, про що, ймовірно, не згадувалося б у підручниках для дітей. It was the law by which every capitalist had the right to sleep with any woman working in one of his factories. Це був закон, за яким кожен капіталіст мав право спати з будь-якою жінкою, яка працювала на одній із його фабрик.

How could you tell how much of it was lies? ¿Cómo puedes saber cuánto son mentiras? Як ви могли сказати, скільки в цьому було брехні? It MIGHT be true that the average human being was better off now than he had been before the Revolution. PODRÍA ser cierto que el ser humano promedio estaba mejor ahora que antes de la Revolución. МОЖЕ бути правдою, що середній людині зараз було краще, ніж до революції. The only evidence to the contrary was the mute protest in your own bones, the instinctive feeling that the conditions you lived in were intolerable and that at some other time they must have been different. Єдиним доказом протилежного був німий протест у твоїх власних кістках, інстинктивне відчуття, що умови, в яких ти жив, були нестерпними і що в якийсь інший час вони мали бути іншими. It struck him that the truly characteristic thing about modern life was not its cruelty and insecurity, but simply its bareness, its dinginess, its listlessness. Le sorprendió que lo verdaderamente característico de la vida moderna no fuera su crueldad e inseguridad, sino simplemente su desnudez, su lúgubre, su apatía. Його вразило, що справді характерною рисою сучасного життя є не його жорстокість і незахищеність, а просто його оголеність, скудність, млявість. Life, if you looked about you, bore no resemblance not only to the lies that streamed out of the telescreens, but even to the ideals that the Party was trying to achieve. La vida, si mirabas a tu alrededor, no se parecía no solo a las mentiras que salían de las telepantallas, sino incluso a los ideales que el Partido intentaba alcanzar. Життя, якщо оглянутися навколо себе, мало схоже не лише на брехню, що линула з телеекранів, але навіть на ідеали, яких намагалася досягти партія. Great areas of it, even for a Party member, were neutral and non-political, a matter of slogging through dreary jobs, fighting for a place on the Tube, darning a worn-out sock, cadging a saccharine tablet, saving a cigarette end. Grandes áreas, incluso para un miembro del Partido, eran neutrales y apolíticas, una cuestión de trabajar penosamente en trabajos tristes, luchar por un lugar en el metro, zurcir un calcetín gastado, tragar una tableta de sacarina, salvar una colilla de cigarrillo. . Велика частина його діяльності, навіть для члена партії, була нейтральною й неполітичною, це була справа клопоту на нудній роботі, боротьби за місце в метро, штопання поношеної шкарпетки, виманювання таблетки сахарину, збереження недопалка. . The ideal set up by the Party was something huge, terrible, and glittering — a world of steel and concrete, of monstrous machines and terrifying weapons — a nation of warriors and fanatics, marching forward in perfect unity, all thinking the same thoughts and shouting the same slogans, perpetually working, fighting, triumphing, persecuting — three hundred million people all with the same face. Ідеалом, створеним Партією, було щось величезне, жахливе та блискуче — світ зі сталі й бетону, жахливих машин і жахливої зброї — нація воїнів і фанатиків, що крокували вперед у ідеальній єдності, усі думали однаково й кричали. ті самі гасла, які постійно діють, борються, торжествують, переслідують — триста мільйонів людей з однаковими обличчями. The reality was decaying, dingy cities where underfed people shuffled to and fro in leaky shoes, in patched-up nineteenth-century houses that smelt always of cabbage and bad lavatories. Реальність була занепадом, брудними містами, де недогодовані люди снували туди-сюди в дірявих черевиках, у залатаних будинках дев’ятнадцятого століття, де завжди пахло капустою та поганими туалетами. He seemed to see a vision of London, vast and ruinous, city of a million dustbins, and mixed up with it was a picture of Mrs Parsons, a woman with lined face and wispy hair, fiddling helplessly with a blocked waste-pipe. Le pareció tener una visión de Londres, vasta y ruinosa, la ciudad de un millón de cubos de basura, y mezclada con ella había una imagen de la señora Parsons, una mujer de rostro arrugado y cabello ralo, jugueteando impotente con una tubería de desagüe bloqueada. Здавалося, що він бачив у видінні Лондон, величезний і зруйнований, місто з мільйонами сміттєвих баків, і до нього змішувалося зображення місіс Парсонс, жінки з виморщеним обличчям і кучерявим волоссям, яка безпорадно возилася із забитою стічної трубою.

He reached down and scratched his ankle again. Se inclinó y volvió a rascarse el tobillo. Він опустився й знову почухав щиколотку. Day and night the telescreens bruised your ears with statistics proving that people today  had  more  food,  more  clothes,  better  houses,  better recreations — that they lived longer, worked shorter hours, were bigger,  healthier,  stronger,  happier,  more  intelligent,  better educated, than the people of fifty years ago. Удень і вночі телеекрани різали ваші вуха статистичними даними, які доводять, що люди сьогодні мають більше їжі, більше одягу, кращі будинки, кращий відпочинок — що вони живуть довше, працюють менше, вони більші, здоровіші, сильніші, щасливіші, розумніші, краще освічені. , ніж люди п’ятдесят років тому. Not a word of it could ever be proved or disproved. No se pudo probar ni refutar una sola palabra. Жодне слово з цього не можна довести чи спростувати. The Party claimed, for example, that today  40  per  cent  of  adult  proles  were  literate:  before  the Revolution, it was said, the number had only been 15 per cent. Партія стверджувала, наприклад, що сьогодні 40 відсотків дорослих пролів є письменними: до революції, кажуть, було лише 15 відсотків. The Party claimed that the infant mortality rate was now only 160 per thousand, whereas before the Revolution it had been 300 — and so it went on. El Partido afirmó que la tasa de mortalidad infantil era ahora de sólo 160 por mil, mientras que antes de la Revolución era de 300, y así continuó. Партія стверджувала, що зараз дитяча смертність становить лише 160 на тисячу, тоді як до революції вона була 300 — і так продовжувалося. It was like a single equation with two unknowns. Era como una sola ecuación con dos incógnitas. Це було як одне рівняння з двома невідомими. It might very well be that literally every word in the history books, even the things that one accepted without question, was pure fantasy. For all he knew there might never have been any such law as the JUS PRIMAE NOCTIS, or any such creature as a capitalist, or any such garment as a top hat. Por lo que él sabía, nunca podría haber existido una ley como el JUS PRIMAE NOCTIS, ni una criatura como un capitalista, ni una prenda como un sombrero de copa. Наскільки він знав, можливо, ніколи не існувало такого закону, як JUS PRIMAE NOCTIS, чи жодної такої істоти, як капіталіст, чи будь-якого такого одягу, як циліндр.

Everything faded into mist. Все розпливлося в тумані. The past was erased, the erasure was forgotten, the lie became truth. Минуле стерлося, стирання забулося, брехня стала правдою. Just once in his life he had possessed — AFTER the event: that was what counted — concrete, unmistakable evidence of an act of falsification. Sólo una vez en su vida había poseído - DESPUÉS del hecho: eso era lo que contaba - evidencia concreta e inconfundible de un acto de falsificación. Тільки раз у своєму житті він володів — ПІСЛЯ події: це було важливим — конкретний, безпомилковий доказ акту фальсифікації. He had held it between his fingers for as long as thirty seconds. Lo había sostenido entre los dedos durante treinta segundos. Він тримав його між пальцями аж тридцять секунд. In 1973, it must have been — at any rate, it was at about the time when he and Katharine had parted. У 1973 році, мабуть, — у всякому разі, приблизно в той час, коли вони з Кетрін розлучилися.