1984-bilingue

George Orwell 1 9 8 4
unquestionably have torn them to pieces—at just
this moment it had been announced that Oceania
was not after all at war with Eurasia. Oceania was
at war with Eastasia. Eurasia was an ally.
There was, of course, no admission that any
change had taken place. Merely it became known,
with extreme suddenness and everywhere at once,
that Eastasia and not Eurasia was the enemy.
Winston was taking part in a demonstration in one
of the central London squares at the moment when
it happened. It was night, and the white faces and
the scarlet banners were luridly floodlit. The
square was packed with several thousand people,
including a block of about a thousand
schoolchildren in the uniform of the Spies. On a
scarlet-draped platform an orator of the Inner
Party, a small lean man with disproportionately
long arms and a large bald skull over which a few
lank locks straggled, was haranguing the crowd. A
little Rumpelstiltskin figure, contorted with hatred,
he gripped the neck of the microphone with one
hand while the other, enormous at the end of a
bony arm, clawed the air menacingly above his
head. His voice, made metallic by the amplifiers,
boomed forth an endless catalogue of atrocities,
massacres, deportations, lootings, rapings, torture
of prisoners, bombing of civilians, lying
propaganda, unjust aggressions, broken treaties. It
was almost impossible to listen to him without
being first convinced and then maddened. At every
few moments the fury of the crowd boiled over
and the voice of the speaker was drowned by a
wild beast-like roaring that rose uncontrollably
from thousands of throats. The most savage yells
of all came from the schoolchildren. The speech
had been proceeding for perhaps twenty minutes
when a messenger hurried on to the platform and a
scrap of paper was slipped into the speaker's hand.
He unrolled and read it without pausing in his
speech. Nothing altered in his voice or manner, or
in the content of what he was saying, but suddenly
the names were different. Without words said, a
wave of understanding rippled through the crowd.
Oceania was at war with Eastasia! The next
moment there was a tremendous commotion. The
banners and posters with which the square was
decorated were all wrong! Quite half of them had
the wrong faces on them. It was sabotage! The
agents of Goldstein had been at work! There was a
212
precisamente se había anunciado que Oceanía no
estaba en guerra con Eurasia. Oceanía luchaba
ahora contra Asia Oriental. Eurasia era aliada.
Desde luego, no se reconoció que se hubiera
producido ningún engaño. Sencillamente, se hizo
saber del modo más repentino y en todas partes al
mismo tiempo que el enemigo no era Eurasia, sino
Asia Oriental. Winston tomaba parte en una
manifestación que se celebraba en una de las plazas
centrales de Londres en el momento del cambiazo.
Era de noche y todo estaba cegadoramente
iluminado con focos. En la plaza había varios
millares de personas, incluyendo mil niños de las
escuelas con el uniforme de los Espías. En una
plataforma forrada de trapos rojos, un orador del
Partido Interior, un hombre delgaducho y bajito con
unos brazos desproporcionadamente largos y un
cráneo grande y calvo con unos cuantos mechones
sueltos atravesados sobre él, arengaba a la multitud.
La pequeña figura, retorcida de odio, se agarraba al
micrófono con una mano mientras que con la otra,
enorme, al final de un brazo huesudo, daba
zarpazos amenazadores por encima de su cabeza.
Su voz, que los altavoces hacían metálica, soltaba
una interminable sarta de atrocidades, matanzas en
masa, deportaciones, saqueos, violaciones, torturas
de prisioneros, bombardeos de poblaciones civiles,
agresiones injustas, propaganda mentirosa y
tratados incumplidos. Era casi imposible escucharle
sin convencerse primero y luego volverse loco. A
cada momento, la furia de la multitud hervía
inconteniblemente y la voz del orador era ahogada
por una salvaje y bestial gritería que brotaba
incontrolablemente de millares de gargantas. Los
chillidos más salvajes eran los de los niños de las
escuelas. El discurso duraba ya unos veinte minutos
cuando un mensajero subió apresuradamente a la
plataforma y le entregó a aquel hombre un papelito.
Él lo desenrolló y lo leyó sin dejar de hablar. Nada
se alteró en su voz ni en su gesto, ni siquiera en el
contenido de lo que decía. Pero, de pronto, los
nombres eran diferentes. Sin necesidad de
comunicárselo por palabras, una oleada de
comprensión agitó a la multitud. ¡Oceanía estaba en
guerra con Asia Oriental! Pero, inmediatamente, se
produjo una tremenda conmoción. Las banderas,
los carteles que decoraban la plaza estaban todos
equivocados. Aquellos no eran los rostros del