評論
打印
Not everyone in the little company settlements, like nearby Madras, was biting his nails at the idea of an Indian war.
但東印度公司的分部中，例如位于馬德拉斯的這一家，并非所有人都對印度的戰爭感到不安。
There was one young man, who'd been sweating it out as a company clerk, for whom the drum roll of battle was an irresistible serenade.
有一位年輕人，當時還是東印度公司一名小職員，對他來說，戰爭的誘惑令人垂涎三尺。
Robert Clive, like the East India Company itself, you might say, was never really cut out for business, at least, not legit business.
羅伯特·克萊夫，同東印度公司一樣，并沒有精明的商業頭腦，至少不適合做合法生意。
In Market Drayton, where he'd grown up, the Shropshire lad ran an extortion racket, threatening local shopkeepers with his own gang of toughs unless they coughed up.
在他的故鄉什羅普郡的馬凱德雷頓，他當年從事的是敲詐的勾當，帶著一伙暴徒對當地的店主敲詐勒索。
Exported to Madras, Clive lived the life of a bachelor clerk, scribbling, sweating, drinking, fornicating, and making the whole thing bearable only with pipes of opium.
被送往馬德拉斯后，他從事著職員的工作，每天渾渾噩噩，酗酒嫖娼，只能依靠吸食鴉片來打發時光。
Scenting that powerful old aroma of money and fame, Clive made a career change, and he took British India with him.
克萊夫嗅到了金錢與名望的氣味并決定改變行當，就此開啟了英屬印度的歷史。
In the war that erupted between rival French- and British-supported Nawabs, Clive turned a diversion into the main event.
在親法和親英的納瓦布正打得不可開交之時，克萊夫就此登上歷史舞臺。
While both main armies were off on a long siege at the mountain city of Trichinopoly, Clive took a handful of men and stormed the capital of the pro-French prince.
正當雙方的主要兵力在山城蒂魯吉拉帕利僵持不下時，克萊夫率領一個小分隊攻入了親法王子所在的都城。
He then held out for six long weeks against everything thrown at it. The effort fatally weakened the enemy and the British client Nawab took power.
并于接下來的六個星期堅守陣地。此舉重挫了對手，親英的納瓦布掌握了大權。
The French gamble in south India was a busted flush. Clive had just broke the bank.
法國在印度南部的冒險之舉打開了缺口。克萊夫順勢將之徹底摧毀。
Suddenly, the rest of India woke up to the fact that it was no longer dealing with a feeble little merchant fledgling. What it had got was a cuckoo in the nest.
印度舉國上下猛然醒悟，他們要對付的已經不是那個當年的商業小國了。而是一個巨大的隱患。
Up the coast to the north, the young impulsive Nawab of Bengal, Siraj-ud-Daulah, decided to do something about this threat.
在北部海岸，年輕氣盛的孟加拉納瓦布，西拉杰·烏德·達烏拉，決定對此威脅采取行動。
In 1756, he attacked the British settlement that had been established at the mouth of the Hooghly River since 1690, Calcutta.
1756年，他襲擊了英國的據點，該據點自1690年起就建立在胡格利河口，名為加爾各答。
Most of its residents made it out of the town in time.
據點的大多數居民得以及時撤離。
The rest, 100 or so, found themselves imprisoned in a 20-foot-square cell, with no food or water and virtually no air, in the height of the Indian summer.
其余的一百余人被囚禁于二十平方米的牢房中，沒有水、沒有食物、幾乎沒有空氣、在印度盛夏的酷暑中。
Few came out alive, and the Black Hole of Calcutta now entered British history's lexicon of infamy.
幾乎無人生還，加爾各答的黑洞現已成為英國歷史上的慘案之一。
One of the survivors, John Zephaniah Holwell, wrote a book about the Black Hole on his way back from India to England.
其中一名生還者，約翰·西番亞·霍爾維爾，在其從印度回英格蘭的路上寫了一本關于黑洞的書。
When it was published, in 1758, it became an instant best seller.
這本書于1758年出版時，瞬間成為暢銷書。
Now, Holwell exaggerated the number of those who suffocated on that hot night, multiplying them by about three, from around 40 to 120.
霍爾維爾夸大了在那個酷熱的夏夜窒息而亡的人數，他把罹難人數夸大了約兩倍，將40余人說成是120余人。
I don't think he was simply kicking up the number for the sack of sensationalism. He was making a point.
我并不認為他這樣夸大其詞僅僅是為了嘩眾取寵。他是想向世人表達一個觀點。
And the point was that a regime that could do that, that was so cruel, so inhuman, scarcely deserved the name of a government at all, in fact, scarcely deserved to survive.
那就是，如此喪心病狂、冷酷無情、慘無人道的政權，簡直不配擁有政府的權力，這種政府早該覆滅了。
