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For generations, the province of Awadh in northern India had supplied the British Army with its best sepoys, in return for which they got to go back home and swagger about in the gardens of Lucknow, its principal city.
幾代以來，印度北部的阿瓦德省都向英國軍隊提供最精良的士兵，作為回報，他們可以回家在首府勒克瑙的花園夸夸其談。
Then, in 1856, their special stasus disappeared when Awadh was annexed.
而到了1856年，他們的特權不復存在，因為阿瓦德被吞并了。
Why? Because the new Trevelyanite civil service decided that the province was badly administered.
為什么？因為屈威廉的新行政部門認為這個省管理不善。
The sepoys joined a long queue of people tax collectors, local judges, palace courtesans all bitter that a perfectly workable regime had been demolished by the British in the name of officiousness.
這些士兵和收稅人員、地方法官和宮女一樣都憤憤不平，這個一切正常的行省竟被好事的英國人給廢除了。
Lucknow, once one of the most easygoing places for Europeans and Indians to mix -- at cockfights, for instance -- had become a segregated city.
勒克瑙曾是歐洲人和印度人相處最融洽的地方，比如大家會一起斗雞，可后來就成了種族隔離的城市。
The tight-laced British huddled together in their military cantonment and in the buildings scattered through the 37 acres of the Residency, complete with churches, clubs and banquet hall.
嚴肅矜持的英國人聚集在軍營和1.5萬平方米的居民區里，這個居民區里分散著住宅樓，還配有教堂、俱樂部和宴會廳。
They were about to pay the price for this distance. Their over-reliance on the new information technology had fatally separated them from the word on the street.
他們很快就會為這種隔離付出代價。他們對新興信息技術的過度依賴使他們與街頭的消息完全隔絕。
The sahibs, of course, said they'd built this cordon sanitaire for the memsahibs, who'd come out to India in record numbers.
當然，這些身份尊貴的人們說要在他們太太的居所周圍設立防疫警戒線，當時來印的歐洲人家眷數量眾多。
Have to keep the ladies away from the dirt, the squalor, the disease and the frightful morals of the natives, don't you know.
得把這些嬌貴的太太們跟印度的骯臟、疾病和道德敗壞的當地人隔開，不是嗎？
The memsahibs at Lucknow were about to get a taste of the real India with a vengeance.
這些勒克瑙的太太們很快就會在一次報復中體驗到真正的印度。
Take Katherine Bartrum, for example, 23 years old, just married to an army surgeon, living in a hill station 80 miles away from Lucknow.
比如說凱瑟琳·巴特魯姆，當年23歲，剛剛嫁給一位軍醫，住在離勒克瑙80英里外的小山丘上。
There, with her new baby, Kate lived the usual bungalow life, waited on, hand and foot, by servants.
她和她的新生兒一起過著愜意的生活，從頭到腳都有仆人服侍。
In early June, 1857, Kate and her husband, Robert, would have heard the incredible news that sepoys had marched to Delhi and persuaded the old king, the last of the Mughals, Bahadur Shah,
1857年6月初，凱特和他的丈夫羅伯特聽到了一個令人難以置信的消息，印度士兵已經前往德里并說服了老國王巴哈都爾·沙，莫臥兒的最后一代國王，
to issue proclamations, calling on the faithful to rise against the Feringhees, the detestable foreigners.
發布公告，號召忠義之士向那些可惡的外邦人，即歐洲人，發動起義。
European Delhi burned, its desperate survivors retreating up this hill to the ridge at the north-east end of the city.
德里的歐洲聚居區被付之一炬，走投無路的幸存者逃到了這個位于德里東北部山脈的山丘上。
What started as a mutiny of soldiers built like wildfire into an immense rebellion of peasants and townspeople, right through the mid-Ganges Valley, the prosperous heart of India.
軍人的暴亂如燎原之火，繼而引發了農民和市民的叛亂，蔓延到了整個恒河中部河谷，印度繁榮的中心地帶。
Lucknow would not escape the flames. Rumour fed disobedience, even up at the Bartrum bungalow.
勒克瑙也難逃一劫。謠言滋生了違抗，連巴特魯姆的避暑山莊也不例外。
With brutal speed, the world Kate must have thought would never change, that daily routine of sweepers, punkah-wallahs, grooms, cooks, gardeners, now began to crumble under her slippered feet.
這個凱特認為不會出現波動的小天地，這個每天只有家長里短的生活瑣事的世界，轉眼間就在眼前崩塌。
All our servants have deserted us, and now our trials have begun in earnest.
所有仆人都棄我們而去，我們只能自己處理那些瑣事。
From morning till night, we can get no food cooked and we have not the means of doing it for ourselves. How we are to manage, I cannot tell.
從早到晚，沒人給我們做飯，我們自己也不會做。該怎么辦，我不知道。
For many nights, we have not dared to close our eyes. I keep a sword under the pillow and dear R has his pistol ready to start up at the slightest sound.
很多夜晚，我們都不敢合眼。我在枕頭下藏了一把劍，親愛的羅伯特也槍不離手，一有動靜就能起身應對。
Their isolation marked them as sitting ducks. Their only chance lay in somehow getting through to the stronghold at Lucknow.
他們孤立無援，只能坐以待斃。唯一的希望就是越過防疫線進入勒克瑙的中心地區。
When Robert was called to his regiment, Kate made her way by elephant through hostile country to the domes and minarets of Awadh's golden city.
當時羅伯特正好被兵團招去，凱特騎著大象穿行在這個充滿敵意的國家，來到尖塔和穹頂林立的阿瓦德金色之都。
