1984-bilingue

George Orwell 1 9 8 4
it is abuse, applied to someone you agree with, it
is praise.'
Unquestionably Syme will be vaporized, Winston
thought again. He thought it with a kind of
sadness, although well knowing that Syme
despised him and slightly disliked him, and was
fully capable of denouncing him as a thoughtcriminal
if he saw any reason for doing so. There
was something subtly wrong with Syme. There
was something that he lacked: discretion,
aloofness, a sort of saving stupidity. You could
not say that he was unorthodox. He believed in
the principles of Ingsoc, he venerated Big
Brother, he rejoiced over victories, he hated
heretics, not merely with sincerity but with a sort
of restless zeal, an up-to-dateness of information,
which the ordinary Party member did not
approach. Yet a faint air of disreputability always
clung to him. He said things that would have
been better unsaid, he had read too many books,
he frequented the Chestnut Tree Cafe, haunt of
painters and musicians. There was no law, not
even an unwritten law, against frequenting the
Chestnut Tree Cafe, yet the place was somehow
ill-omened. The old, discredited leaders of the
Party had been used to gather there before they
were finally purged. Goldstein himself, it was
said, had sometimes been seen there, years and
decades ago. Syme's fate was not difficult to
foresee. And yet it was a fact that if Syme
grasped, even for three seconds, the nature of his,
Winston's, secret opinions, he would betray him
instantly to the Thought Police. So would
anybody else, for that matter: but Syme more
than most. Zeal was not enough. Orthodoxy was
unconsciousness.
contradictorios. Aplicada a un contrario, es un
insulto; aplicada a alguien con quien estés de
acuerdo, es un elogio.
No cabía duda, volvió a pensar Winston, a Syme lo
vaporizarían. Lo pensó con cierta tristeza aunque
sabía perfectamente que Syme lo despreciaba y era
muy capaz de denunciarle como culpable mental.
Había algo de sutilmente malo en Syme. Algo le
faltaba: discreción, prudencia, algo así como
estupidez salvadora. No podía decirse que no fuera
ortodoxo. Creía en los principios del Ingsoc,
veneraba al Gran Hermano, se alegraba de las
victorias y odiaba a los herejes, no sólo sinceramente,
sino con inquieto celo hallándose al día hasta un
grado que no solía alcanzar el miembro ordinario del
Partido. Sin embargo, se cernía sobre él un vago aire
de sospecha. Decía cosas que debía callar, leía
demasiados libros, frecuentaba el Café del Nogal,
guarida de pintores y músicos. No había ley que
prohibiera la frecuentación del Café del Nogal. Sin
embargo, era sitio de mal agüero. Los antiguos y
desacreditados jefes del Partido se habían reunido allí
antes de ser «purgados» definitivamente. Se decía
que al mismo Goldstein lo habían visto allí algunas
veces hacía años o décadas. Por tanto, el destino de
Syme no era difícil de predecir. Pero, por otra parte,
era indudable que si aquel hombre olía sólo por tres
segundos las opiniones secretas de Winston, lo
denunciaría inmediatamente a la Policía del
Pensamiento. Por supuesto, cualquier otro lo haría;
Syme se daría más prisa. Pero no bastaba con el celo.
La ortodoxia era la inconsciencia.
Syme looked up. 'Here comes Parsons,' he said. Syme levantó la vista:
— Aquí viene Parsons —dijo.
Something in the tone of his voice seemed to add,
'that bloody fool'. Parsons, Winston's fellowtenant
at Victory Mansions, was in fact threading
his way across the room—a tubby, middle-sized
man with fair hair and a froglike face. At thirtyfive
he was already putting on rolls of fat at neck
Algo en el tono de su voz parecía añadir, «ese
idiota». Parsons, vecino de Winston en las Casas de
la Victoria, se abría paso efectivamente por la
atestada cantina. Era un individuo de mediana
estatura con cabello rubio y cara de rana. A los
treinta y cinco años tenía ya una buena cantidad de
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