1984-bilingue

George Orwell 1 9 8 4
bone at the base of his spine. There were times
when it went on and on until the cruel, wicked,
unforgivable thing seemed to him not that the
guards continued to beat him but that he could not
force himself into losing consciousness. There were
times when his nerve so forsook him that he began
shouting for mercy even before the beating began,
when the mere sight of a fist drawn back for a blow
was enough to make him pour forth a confession of
real and imaginary crimes. There were other times
when he started out with the resolve of confessing
nothing, when every word had to be forced out of
him between gasps of pain, and there were times
when he feebly tried to compromise, when he said
to himself: ‘I will confess, but not yet. I must hold
out till the pain becomes unbearable. Three more
kicks, two more kicks, and then I will tell them
what they want.’ Sometimes he was beaten till he
could hardly stand, then flung like a sack of
potatoes on to the stone floor of a cell, left to
recuperate for a few hours, and then taken out and
beaten again. There were also longer periods of
recovery. He remembered them dimly, because
they were spent chiefly in sleep or stupor. He
remembered a cell with a plank bed, a sort of shelf
sticking out from the wall, and a tin wash-basin,
and meals of hot soup and bread and sometimes
coffee. He remembered a surly barber arriving to
scrape his chin and crop his hair, and businesslike,
unsympathetic men in white coats feeling his pulse,
tapping his reflexes, turning up his eyelids, running
harsh fingers over him in search for broken bones,
and shooting needles into his arm to make him
sleep.
The beatings grew less frequent, and became
mainly a threat, a horror to which he could be sent
back at any moment when his answers were
unsatisfactory. His questioners now were not
ruffians in black uniforms but Party intellectuals,
little rotund men with quick movements and
flashing spectacles, who worked on him in relays
over periods which lasted—he thought, he could
not be sure—ten or twelve hours at a stretch. These
other questioners saw to it that he was in constant
slight pain, but it was not chiefly pain that they
relied on. They slapped his face, wrung his ears,
pulled his hair, made him stand on one leg, refused
him leave to urinate, shone glaring lights in his face
until his eyes ran with water; but the aim of this
273
costillas, en el vientre, en los codos, en las
espinillas, en los testículos y en la base de la
columna vertebral. A veces gritaba pidiendo
misericordia incluso antes de que empezaran a
pegarle y bastaba con que un puño hiciera el
movimiento de retroceso precursor del golpe para
que confesara todos los delitos, verdaderos o
imaginarios, de que le acusaban. Otras veces,
cuando se decidía a no contestar nada, tenían que
sacarle las palabras entre alaridos de dolor y en
otras ocasiones se decía a sí mismo, dispuesto a
transigir: «Confesaré, pero todavía no. Tengo que
resistir hasta que el dolor sea insoportable. Tres
golpes más, dos golpes más y les diré lo que
quieran». Cuando te golpeaban hasta dejarlo tirado
como un saco de patatas en el suelo de piedra para
que recobrara alguna energía, al cabo de varias
horas volvían a buscarlo y le pegaban otra vez.
También había períodos más largos de descanso.
Los recordaba confusamente porque los pasaba
adormilado o con el conocimiento casi perdido. Se
acordaba de que un barbero había ido a afeitarle la
barba al rape y algunos hombres de actitud
profesional, con batas blancas, le tomaban el pulso,
le observaban sus movimientos reflejos, le
levantaban los párpados y le recorrían el cuerpo
con dedos rudos en busca de huesos rotos o le
ponían inyecciones en el brazo para hacerle
dormir.
Las palizas se hicieron menos frecuentes y
quedaron reducidas casi únicamente a amenazas, a
anunciarle un horror al que le enviarían en cuanto
sus respuestas no fueran satisfactorias. Los que le
interrogaban no eran ya rufianes con uniformes
negros, sino intelectuales del Partido, hombrecillos
regordetes con movimientos rápidos y gafas
brillantes que se relevaban para «trabajarlo» en
turnos que duraban — no estaba seguro — diez o
doce horas. Estos otros interrogadores procuraban
que se hallase sometido a un dolor leve, pero
constante, aunque ellos no se basaban en el dolor
para hacerle confesar. Le daban bofetadas, le
retorcían las orejas, le tiraban del pelo, le hacían
sostenerse en una sola pierna, le negaban el