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English to Spanish: An excerpt from Nineteen Eighty-Four, by George Orwell General field: Art/Literary Detailed field: Poetry & Literature
Source text - English It was a bright cold day in April, and the clocks were striking thirteen. Winston Smith, his chin nuzzled into his breast in an effort to escape the vile wind, slipped quickly through the glass doors of Victory Mansions, though not quickly enough to prevent a swirl of gritty dust from entering along with him.
The hallway smelt of boiled cabbage and old rag mats. At one end of it a coloured poster, too large for indoor display, had been tacked to the wall. It depicted simply an enormous face, more than a metre wide: the face of a man of about forty-five, with a heavy black moustache and ruggedly handsome features. Winston made for the stairs. It was no use trying the lift. Even at the best of times it was seldom working, and at present the electric current was cut off during daylight hours. It was part of the economy drive in preparation for Hate Week. The flat was seven flights up, and Winston, who was thirty-nine and had a varicose ulcer above his right ankle, went slowly, resting several times on the way. On each landing, opposite the lift-shaft, the poster with the enormous face gazed from the wall. It was one of those pictures which are so contrived that the eyes follow you about when you move. BIG BROTHER IS WATCHING YOU, the caption beneath it ran.
Inside the flat a fruity voice was reading out a list of figures which had something to do with the production of pig-iron. The voice came from an oblong metal plaque like a dulled mirror which formed part of the surface of the right-hand wall. Winston turned a switch and the voice sank somewhat, though the words were still distinguishable. The instrument (the telescreen, it was called) could be dimmed, but there was no way of shutting it off completely. He moved over to the window: a smallish, frail figure, the meagreness of his body merely emphasized by the blue overalls which were the uniform of the party. His hair was very fair, his face naturally sanguine, his skin roughened by coarse soap and blunt razor blades and the cold of the winter that had just ended.
Outside, even through the shut window-pane, the world looked cold. Down in the street little eddies of wind were whirling dust and torn paper into spirals, and though the sun was shining and the sky a harsh blue, there seemed to be no colour in anything, except the posters that were plastered everywhere. The black-moustachio’d face gazed down from every commanding corner. There was one on the house-front immediately opposite. BIG BROTHER IS WATCHING YOU, the caption said, while the dark eyes looked deep into Winston’s own. Down at street level another poster, torn at one corner, flapped fitfully in the wind, alternately covering and uncovering the single word INGSOC. In the far distance a helicopter skimmed down between the roofs, hovered for an instant like a bluebottle, and darted away again with a curving flight. It was the police patrol, snooping into people’s windows. The patrols did not matter, however. Only the Thought Police mattered.
Behind Winston’s back the voice from the telescreen was still babbling away about pig-iron and the overfulfilment of the Ninth Three-Year Plan. The telescreen received and transmitted simultaneously. Any sound that Winston made, above the level of a very low whisper, would be picked up by it, moreover, so long as he remained within the field of vision which the metal plaque commanded, he could be seen as well as heard. There was of course no way of knowing whether you were being watched at any given moment. How often, or on what system, the Thought Police plugged in on any individual wire was guesswork. It was even conceivable that they watched everybody all the time. But at any rate they could plug in your wire whenever they wanted to. You had to live — did live, from habit that became instinct — in the assumption that every sound you made was overheard, and, except in darkness, every movement scrutinized.
Winston kept his back turned to the telescreen. It was safer; though, as he well knew, even a back can be revealing. A kilometre away the Ministry of Truth, his place of work, towered vast and white above the grimy landscape. This, he thought with a sort of vague distaste — this was London, chief city of Airstrip One, itself the third most populous of the provinces of Oceania. He tried to squeeze out some childhood memory that should tell him whether London had always been quite like this. Were there always these vistas of rotting nineteenth-century houses, their sides shored up with baulks of timber, their windows patched with cardboard and their roofs with corrugated iron, their crazy garden walls sagging in all directions? And the bombed sites where the plaster dust swirled in the air and the willow-herb straggled over the heaps of rubble; and the places where the bombs had cleared a larger patch and there had sprung up sordid colonies of wooden dwellings like chicken-houses? But it was no use, he could not remember: nothing remained of his childhood except a series of bright-lit tableaux occurring against no background and mostly unintelligible.
The Ministry of Truth — Minitrue, in Newspeak— was startlingly different from any other object in sight. It was an enormous pyramidal structure of glittering white concrete, soaring up, terrace after terrace, 300 metres into the air. From where Winston stood it was just possible to read, picked out on its white face in elegant lettering, the three slogans of the Party:
WAR IS PEACE
FREEDOM IS SLAVERY
IGNORANCE IS STRENGTH
The Ministry of Truth contained, it was said, three thousand rooms above ground level, and corresponding ramifications below. Scattered about London there were just three other buildings of similar appearance and size. So completely did they dwarf the surrounding architecture that from the roof of Victory Mansions you could see all four of them simultaneously. They were the homes of the four Ministries between which the entire apparatus of government was divided. The Ministry of Truth, which concerned itself with news, entertainment, education, and the fine arts. The Ministry of Peace, which concerned itself with war. The Ministry of Love, which maintained law and order. And the Ministry of Plenty, which was responsible for economic affairs. Their names, in Newspeak: Minitrue, Minipax, Miniluv, and Miniplenty.
The Ministry of Love was the really frightening one. There were no windows in it at all. Winston had never been inside the Ministry of Love, nor within half a kilometre of it. It was a place impossible to enter except on official business, and then only by penetrating through a maze of barbed-wire entanglements, steel doors, and hidden machine-gun nests. Even the streets leading up to its outer barriers were roamed by gorilla-faced guards in black uniforms, armed with jointed truncheons.
Winston turned round abruptly. He had set his features into the expression of quiet optimism which it was advisable to wear when facing the telescreen. He crossed the room into the tiny kitchen. By leaving the Ministry at this time of day he had sacrificed his lunch in the canteen, and he was aware that there was no food in the kitchen except a hunk of dark-coloured bread which had got to be saved for tomorrow’s breakfast. He took down from the shelf a bottle of colourless liquid with a plain white label marked VICTORY GIN. It gave off a sickly, oily smell, as of Chinese rice-spirit. Winston poured out nearly a teacupful, nerved himself for a shock, and gulped it down like a dose of medicine.
Instantly his face turned scarlet and the water ran out of his eyes. The stuff was like nitric acid, and moreover, in swallowing it one had the sensation of being hit on the back of the head with a rubber club. The next moment, however, the burning in his belly died down and the world began to look more cheerful. He took a cigarette from a crumpled packet marked VICTORY CIGARETTES and incautiously held it upright, whereupon the tobacco fell out on to the floor. With the next he was more successful. He went back to the living-room and sat down at a small table that stood to the left of the telescreen. From the table drawer he took out a penholder, a bottle of ink, and a thick, quarto-sized blank book with a red back and a marbled cover.
For some reason the telescreen in the living-room was in an unusual position. Instead of being placed, as was normal, in the end wall, where it could command the whole room, it was in the longer wall, opposite the window. To one side of it there was a shallow alcove in which Winston was now sitting, and which, when the flats were built, had probably been intended to hold bookshelves. By sitting in the alcove, and keeping well back, Winston was able to remain outside the range of the telescreen, so far as sight went. He could be heard, of course, but so long as he stayed in his present position he could not be seen. It was partly the unusual geography of the room that had suggested to him the thing that he was now about to do.
But it had also been suggested by the book that he had just taken out of the drawer. It was a peculiarly beautiful book. Its smooth creamy paper, a little yellowed by age, was of a kind that had not been manufactured for at least forty years past. He could guess, however, that the book was much older than that. He had seen it lying in the window of a frowsy little junk-shop in a slummy quarter of the town (just what quarter he did not now remember) and had been stricken immediately by an overwhelming desire to possess it. Party members were supposed not to go into ordinary shops (‘dealing on the free market’, it was called), but the rule was not strictly kept, because there were various things, such as shoelaces and razor blades, which it was impossible to get hold of in any other way. He had given a quick glance up and down the street and then had slipped inside and bought the book for two dollars fifty. At the time he was not conscious of wanting it for any particular purpose. He had carried it guiltily home in his briefcase. Even with nothing written in it, it was a compromising possession.
The thing that he was about to do was to open a diary. This was not illegal (nothing was illegal, since there were no longer any laws), but if detected it was reasonably certain that it would be punished by death, or at least by twenty-five years in a forced-labour camp. Winston fitted a nib into the penholder and sucked it to get the grease off. The pen was an archaic instrument, seldom used even for signatures, and he had procured one, furtively and with some difficulty, simply because of a feeling that the beautiful creamy paper deserved to be written on with a real nib instead of being scratched with an ink-pencil. Actually he was not used to writing by hand. Apart from very short notes, it was usual to dictate everything into the speak-write which was of course impossible for his present purpose. He dipped the pen into the ink and then faltered for just a second. A tremor had gone through his bowels. To mark the paper was the decisive act. In small clumsy letters he wrote:
April 4th, 1984.
Translation - Spanish Era un despejado y frío día de abril, los relojes marcaban las trece. Winston Smith, con la barbilla clavada en el pecho en un intento de resguardarse del odioso viento, se deslizó rápidamente entre las puertas de cristal de las Mansiones de la Victoria, aunque no lo suficientemente rápido para evitar que un remolino de polvo arenoso entrara con él.
El vestíbulo olía a col hervida y alfombras viejas. Clavado en la pared del fondo había un cartel en color, demasiado grande para el interior. Representaba nada más que un enorme rostro de más de un metro de ancho; la cara de un hombre de unos cuarenta y cinco años con un gran bigote negro y unas hermosas y duras facciones. Winston se dirigió hacia las escaleras. Intentar subir en el ascensor era inútil. Rara vez funcionaba, incluso en el mejor de los casos, y en esos días se cortaba la corriente eléctrica durante el horario diurno como parte de los recortes previos a la Semana del Odio. Era un séptimo piso, así que Winston, que tenía treinta y nueve años y una úlcera varicosa encima del tobillo derecho, se tomó su tiempo y descansó varias veces por el camino. En cada rellano, frente a la puerta del ascensor, el cartel del enorme rostro lo miraba fijamente desde la pared. Era una de esas imágenes que parecen diseñadas para que los ojos te sigan cuando te mueves. Abajo se leía el texto: EL HERMANO MAYOR TE VIGILA.
En el interior del piso una voz amanerada recitaba una serie de números que tenían algo que ver con la producción de lingotes de hierro. La voz salía de una placa ovalada de metal, una especie de espejo opaco integrado en la pared situada a la derecha. Winston giró el regulador y la voz bajó de volumen, aunque las palabras seguían distinguiéndose. El dispositivo, llamado telepantalla, se podía regular, pero no había manera de apagarlo completamente. Winston se dirigió hacia la ventana: su mono azul, el uniforme del Partido, realzaba la delgadez de su pequeña y frágil figura. Tenía el cabello muy rubio y la cara sanguínea. Su piel estaba áspera por culpa del jabón basto, una cuchilla de afeitar desafilada y el frío de un invierno que acababa de terminar.
En el exterior el mundo parecía frío, incluso a través del ventanal cerrado. Calle abajo, pequeños remolinos de viento arrastraban polvo y trozos de papel formando espirales. Aunque el sol brillaba y el cielo lucía un azul intenso, nada parecía tener color, excepto los carteles que lo cubrían todo. El señor del bigote negro miraba desde cada esquina. Había uno en la fachada de la casa de enfrente. EL HERMANO MAYOR TE VIGILA, se podía leer al pie, mientras los oscuros ojos miraban fijamente a los de Winston. Debajo de ese cartel, en la planta baja, había otro con una esquina rasgada que el viento hacía ondear de forma irregular, revelando a intervalos la palabra SOCING. A lo lejos, un helicóptero volaba entre los tejados. Se detuvo en el aire un instante, como un moscardón, y se lanzó de nuevo trazando una curva. Era una patrulla de la policía que husmeaba en las ventanas de la gente. Sin embargo, las patrullas no eran el problema, sino la Policía del Pensamiento.
Detrás de Winston la voz de la telepantalla seguía balbuceando datos sobre los lingotes de hierro y el cumplimiento del Noveno Plan Trienal. La telepantalla recibía y transmitía al mismo tiempo. Captaba cualquier sonido que hiciera Winston por encima de un susurro muy bajo. Además, también podían verlo siempre que permaneciera dentro del campo de visión de la placa metálica. Por supuesto, no tenía forma de saber en qué momento estaba siendo observado. El sistema que empleaba la Policía del Pensamiento para conectar con cualquier hogar y la frecuencia con la que lo hacían no eran más que conjeturas. Era incluso concebible que vigilasen a todo el mundo a la vez. De lo que no había ninguna duda era de que podían conectar con cualquiera cuando quisieran. Uno tenía que vivir, por llamar de alguna forma a esa costumbre que se convirtió en instinto, dando por hecho que cada sonido que hiciese sería escuchado por alguien; que cada movimiento, excepto en la oscuridad, sería analizado.
Winston siguió dándole la espalda a la telepantalla. Así era más seguro; sin embargo, como él bien sabía, incluso una espalda podía ser reveladora. A un kilómetro de allí, el Ministerio de la Verdad, su lugar de trabajo, se elevaba blanco e inmenso sobre el lúgubre paisaje. «Esto es Londres», pensó con una vaga aversión; la ciudad principal de la Franja Aérea Uno, la tercera provincia más poblada de Oceanía. Se estrujó la memoria en busca de algún recuerdo de su infancia que le dijera si Londres había sido siempre así. ¿Había tenido siempre estas vistas de casas desvencijadas del siglo XIX con refuerzos de madera a los lados, ventanas tapadas con cartones, techos de chapa ondulada y tapias inclinadas para todos lados en el jardín? ¿Esos lugares bombardeados donde el polvo de yeso se arremolinaba en el aire y las adelfas se dispersaban sobre las pilas de escombros? ¿Y esas áreas más grandes despejadas por las bombas donde habían surgido sórdidas colonias de casas de madera que parecían gallineros? Pero era inútil, no podía recordarlo: de su infancia no le quedaba más que una serie de luminosas escenas fuera de contexto y, en su mayoría, ininteligibles.
El Ministerio de la Verdad —en neolengua, Miniverdad— era sorprendentemente distinto a cualquier otra cosa a la vista. Era una enorme estructura piramidal de reluciente cemento blanco que, una terraza tras otra, se alzaba hasta los trescientos metros. Desde donde se encontraba Winston se podían leer, en una elegante rotulación sobre la blanca fachada, los tres eslóganes del Partido:
LA GUERRA ES LA PAZ
LA LIBERTAD ES LA ESCLAVITUD
LA IGNORANCIA ES LA FUERZA
Se decía que el Ministerio de la Verdad tenía tres mil habitaciones sobre el nivel del suelo, con sus correspondientes ramificaciones subterráneas. Repartidos por Londres había otros tres edificios de tamaño y aspecto similares. Eclipsaban de tal manera la arquitectura de los alrededores que desde el tejado de las Mansiones de la Victoria se podían ver los cuatro a la vez. Eran las sedes de los cuatro ministerios entre los cuales se dividía todo el sistema gubernamental. El Ministerio de la Verdad se ocupaba de las noticias, los espectáculos, la educación y las bellas artes; el Ministerio de la Paz se encargaba de los asuntos de guerra; el Ministerio del Amor se ocupaba de mantener la ley y el orden; y el Ministerio de la Abundancia era el responsable de los asuntos económicos. Sus nombres en neolengua eran: Miniverdad, Minipaz, Miniamor y Miniabundancia.
El Ministerio del Amor era el más inquietante. No tenía ni una sola ventana. Winston nunca había estado dentro, ni siquiera a medio kilómetro del mismo. El acceso era imposible, a no ser que se tratara de un asunto oficial. En ese caso, había que atravesar un laberinto de alambre de espino, puertas de acero y nidos de ametralladoras ocultos. Incluso las calles que conducían a sus barreras externas eran patrulladas por guardias con cara de bruto, uniforme negro y porra articulada.
Winston se volvió bruscamente. Su rostro había adoptado la expresión de tranquilo optimismo que convenía mostrarle a la telepantalla. Cruzó la habitación en dirección a su diminuta cocina. Había sacrificado su almuerzo en el comedor del Ministerio al haberse ido a esa hora del día. Sabía que no tenía comida en la cocina, a excepción de un trozo de pan oscuro que tenía que guardar para el desayuno del día siguiente. Winston alcanzó del estante una botella de un líquido incoloro. Tenía una sencilla etiqueta blanca que decía: GINEBRA DE LA VICTORIA. Despedía un olor empalagoso y grasiento, similar al del licor de arroz chino. Se sirvió poco menos de una taza de té, reunió el valor suficiente y se lo tragó de golpe como si fuese un medicamento.
Al instante su cara enrojeció y se le saltaron las lágrimas. Eso era como ácido nítrico. Además, al tragarlo le provocó la sensación de recibir un golpe en la nuca con una porra de goma. Sin embargo, el ardor de estómago se le alivió enseguida, y el mundo comenzó a parecerle más alegre. Winston sacó un cigarrillo de un paquete arrugado en el que se podía leer: CIGARRILLOS DE LA VICTORIA. Sin darse cuenta, puso el pitillo en posición vertical y se salió todo el tabaco, que acabó en el suelo. Tuvo más suerte con el siguiente. Volvió a la sala de estar y se sentó delante de una mesita situada a la izquierda de la telepantalla. De su cajón sacó un portaplumas, un tintero y un grueso cuaderno en blanco. Tenía la contracubierta roja, y la cubierta imitaba el aspecto del mármol.
Por alguna razón, la posición de la telepantalla en la sala de estar era poco usual. En vez de estar colocada, como era normal, en la pared del fondo, desde donde podría controlar toda la habitación, se encontraba en la pared más larga, frente a la ventana. A un lado de la telepantalla había un pequeño hueco donde Winston se había sentado, cuyo propósito inicial al construir los pisos habría sido el de una estantería. Al sentarse en ese hueco lo más pegado posible a la pared, Winston se quedaba fuera del campo de visión de la telepantalla. Naturalmente, aún podían escucharlo, pero mientras no se moviese de ahí no podrían verlo. La inusual disposición de la sala de estar le dio, en parte, la idea de hacer lo que estaba a punto de hacer.
El cuaderno que acababa de sacar del cajón era la otra cosa que le había dado la idea. Era un libro especialmente bonito. Su papel suave y liso estaba un poco descolorido por el paso de los años; habían pasado al menos cuarenta desde que ese tipo de papel se fabricó por última vez. Sin embargo, Winston suponía que ese cuaderno era mucho más antiguo. Lo descubrió en el escaparate de una descuidada tienda de trastos de segunda mano de un barrio bajo —no recordaba cuál— y sintió un repentino e incontenible deseo de poseerlo. Se suponía que los miembros del Partido no debían entrar en tiendas normales. A eso se le llamaba 'traficar en el mercado libre', pero la norma no se cumplía a rajatabla, ya que había varias cosas que era imposible conseguir de otra manera, como cordones de zapatos y cuchillas de afeitar. Winston echó un rápido vistazo calle arriba y abajo y luego entró rápidamente para comprar el cuaderno por dos dólares cincuenta. En aquel momento no sabía realmente para qué lo quería. Se lo llevó a casa en su maletín acompañado de un sentimiento de culpabilidad. Incluso con sus páginas en blanco, se trataba de una posesión comprometedora.
Lo que estaba a punto de hacer con él era empezar un diario. Eso no era ilegal —nada lo era, ya que las leyes habían dejado de existir—, pero si se lo descubrieran, con bastante seguridad lo condenarían a muerte, o al menos a veinticinco años en un campo de trabajos forzados. Winston colocó un plumín en el portaplumas y lo chupó para quitarle la grasa. La pluma era una herramienta arcaica que casi nunca se utilizaba, ni siquiera para firmar. Él había conseguido la suya de forma clandestina y con cierta dificultad, simplemente porque tuvo la sensación de que ese hermoso y suave papel merecía ser escrito con una pluma de verdad en lugar de ser arañado con un bolígrafo. De hecho, no acostumbraba a escribir a mano. Sin contar algunas pequeñas anotaciones, lo habitual era dictárselo todo al escritófono, que era totalmente impensable para lo que se disponía a hacer. Mojó la pluma en la tinta y vaciló durante un segundo. Le sonaron las tripas. Marcar el papel era el acto decisivo. Con una caligrafía pequeña y desmañada escribió:
4 de abril de 1984.
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Bachelor's degree - Universidad de Alcalá
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Years of experience: 8. Registered at ProZ.com: Apr 2017.
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Alejandro, 30. Born and raised in Almería, Spain. Graduate in Modern Languages and Translation from the University of Alcalá. In my academic training I have learned technical, scientific, economic and legal translation. I have been working for Enboca Audiovisual S.L.L. for two years doing audiovisual translation.
I have experience with CAT tools like Wordfast or SDL Trados. For captioning I use Jubler or Youtube Video Manager. I have experience with suites as Microsoft Office, Apache OpenOffice and iWork, especially with word processors and spreadsheets. I can also use image and video editors like GIMP 2, Adobe Photoshop and Adobe Premiere if necessary.
I am passionate about translating, proofreading, transcribing and quality control. Clients' satisfaction is my primary goal.
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