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For Disraeli and the Tories, the goal was more empire, not less.
對迪斯雷利和托利黨來說，他們的目標是多為帝國考慮。
Now what India needed was an extravaganza to celebrate her new dominion, and who better to organise one than the noble, though irredeemably bad poet, the Earl of Lytton?
現在印度需要的是一場宣告統治權的華麗盛典，誰能比利頓伯爵更勝任這任務呢，雖說他是個無可救藥的詩人。
Lytton's India would be a new old India, a combination of tigers and peddlers, holy men and native princes, bejewelled, feudal and loyal,
利頓的印度將是舊模式下的新印度，老虎盤踞，小販盛行，有高尚的人，也有本地的王子，他們坐擁珠寶，世襲罔替，忠心不二，
the Queen Empress promising to protect the ancient usages and customs of India.
印度女皇陛下承諾將維持印度古老的傳統和習俗。
The bond would be sealed at a durbar, a great assembly, camped on the most sacred site of the Raj, Delhi Ridge, where the British had precariously held out during the mutiny,
并在一個宏偉的集會地簽訂了協議，那就是印度王權的圣地，德利嶺，英軍曾在這里膽戰心驚地對抗暴動，
and which, along with Lucknow, had become a place of pilgrimage in the 20 years since.
此后二十多年，這里和勒克瑙一樣，成為了朝拜的場所。
Spectacle would wipe out the memory of slaughter.
壯麗的景象令人們忘卻了腥風血雨。
0n New Year's Day, 1877, thousands watched Lytton step onto a dais, its banners designed by Rudyard Kipling's father,
1877年的新年之夜，上萬人目睹利頓登上講臺，臺上的標志由魯德亞德·吉卜林的父親設計，
and receive, on behalf of the Empress, the homage of 300 Indian noblemen, the Nizams and Gaekwars and Maharajahs.
利頓代表女皇接受了三百名印度貴族的效忠，包括尼扎姆、蓋克沃爾等土邦統治者。
The show had to be sufficiently over the top if it was to impress them with the stupendous invincibility of the Raj.
為充分彰顯英國不可逾越的統治權，給印度民眾留下深刻印象，這場表演必須極盡奢華。
As Lytton put it: The further east you go, the greater becomes the importance of a bit of bunting.
正如利頓所說，越往東走，就越有大張旗鼓的必要。
The banquet, the most expensive in British history, went on for a week.
這場英國有史以來耗費最高的盛宴持續了一星期。
During that week, thousands of the Queen Empress's subjects in Madras and Mysore starved to death. No reason, Lytton thought, to let it spoil the party.
在此期間，在馬德拉斯和邁索爾，無數女皇陛下的人民活活餓死。利頓覺得沒必要讓這事掃興。
The monsoon had failed in south India.
印度南部沒有迎來季風，
Lytton's council knew that the situation might get desperate, but though they were supposed to be the new kind of "Benevolent" Ruler, when it came to action, they stuck to the old rules.
利頓的顧問團知道災情可能會糟糕到極點，雖說他們聲稱要成為全新的"仁慈"領袖，但遇到實際情況，卻還是老規矩。
Once again, there would be no interference in the grain markets.
糧食市場仍舊沒有得到干預。
Once again, famine relief works were overwhelmed, prompting Lytton's enforcer, Sir Richard Temple, playing the part Trevelyan had played earlier in Ireland, to introduce the distance test,
饑荒賑災的工作又一次迫在眉睫，這促使利頓的執行官理查德·坦普爵士，重演了屈威廉在愛爾蘭的戲碼，引入"距離測試"，
which insisted that starving applicants travel at least ten miles to dormitory camps in order to sign on for hard labour.
堅持讓饑餓的申請者走上至少十英里的路到宿營地，只為簽訂一份勞工合同。
The task of saving life, irrespective of cost, is one which it is beyond our power to undertake.
這條不計代價的救亡之路完全超出了我們的承受能力。
The embarrassment of debt and the weight of taxation would soon be more fatal than the famine itself.
債務和稅收帶來的拮據和重負很快就要比饑荒更致命了。
What made the scale of suffering so obscene was that it happened during a time of grain surplus in other parts of India.
這場災難之所以罪孽深重是因為災難發生時，印度其他地方的糧食居然十分充裕。
So fanatically devoted to the iron law of the market was the government, that it refused to liberate those supplies for fear that it would artificially bring down prices.
政府如此盲目地信奉市場經濟的鐵律，以至于拒絕讓糧食供應自由化，唯恐這會導致糧食價格人為下滑。
So common sense not to mention common humanity was sacrificed to the fetish of the market, and millions were abandoned to perish.
對市場的盲從使政府拋棄了常識，遑論人權，數百萬人的生命遭到踐踏。
Five million died in 1877 of starvation and cholera.
1877年，五百萬人死于饑荒和霍亂。
Horrified missionaries would use relatively portable cameras to record sights that otherwise no one in Britain might believe.
驚駭的傳教士用較為輕便的照相機記錄這些場景，否則在英國沒有人會相信。
They saw peasants drop dead in front of troops guarding stockpiles of rice and grain.
他們看到農民活活餓死在軍隊把守的成堆糧食前。
Florence Nightingale, moved to indignation by reports of the famine, called it "A hideous record of human suffering and destruction the world has never seen before".
弗洛倫斯·南丁格爾看到有關饑荒的報道后，義憤填膺地稱之為“人類歷史上聞所未聞的苦難和毀滅的可怕記錄。”
