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It was in the noonday shadows of Bangalore, that history became Churchill's personal religion, the Muse that fired everything he did, his politics, his speech making, his battle cry.
在班加羅爾的某個正午，歷史成了丘吉爾的信仰，化身繆斯女神的歷史激發了他的政治才華、演講能力、戰場上的吶喊。
Reading it, writing it, making it, were all inseparable in the personality that was unfolding ardent, impetuous, impassioned.
讀歷史、寫歷史、創造歷史，都與他的性格緊密相關，是他熱情沖動、充滿激情性格的延伸。
And it was in the empire that Winston began to write. Books, letters, dispatches to newspapers. And what stories.
溫斯頓在帝國土地上開始創作。寫書，寫信，寫報道。還寫故事。
It helped, of course, that he was socially shameless and physically fearless. There he was, a fleshy five foot seven, spinning a ripping yarn.
當然這源于他社交上無恥，行動上無畏。于是成就了他，這個矮胖男人，執筆創造歷史。
He knew how to make the headlines and he knew how to milk them. But Winston was never just gung-ho for Winston.
他懂得如何上頭條，也懂得如何利用它們。但他不是為了自己忙碌。
All his life he believed in the greatness and goodness of the British Empire.
他一生堅信大英帝國偉大而又仁慈。
But he knew next to nothing about what made that empire really tick -- money.
但他不知道所謂帝國都是用錢堆出來的。
For while Churchill was humming the chorus of "The Road to Mandalay", Richard Blair, George Orwell's father, was actually on it, cashing in on tea, teak, and not least, narcotics.
有段時間丘吉爾一直哼著《曼德勒之路》，理查德·布萊爾，喬治·奧威爾的父親就在那里，通過茶葉和柚木，特別是毒品賺錢。
Blair worked for the Opium Department of the Raj.
布萊爾在英治印度的鴉片局工作。
His job was to supervise the production of poppies and their export to Shanghai, ensuring on behalf of the empire that the Chinese habit would never knowingly go under-stocked.
他的工作是監管罌粟的生產和對上海的出口，為了帝國，中國人的這種嗜好必須延續下去。
In 1903, Richard's wife, Ida, gave birth to a son, Eric. Only later would he be known as George Orwell.
1903年，理查德的妻子艾達生下兒子艾瑞克。正是后來聞名世界的喬治·奧威爾。
A year later, Ida moved Eric and his older sister back to England, while Richard stayed behind in Burma.
一年后，艾達帶著艾瑞克和他姐姐回到英格蘭，而理查德留在緬甸。
Home was 17 Vicarage Road, Henley-on-Thames. Nostalgic, middle-class, suburban.
他們家住泰晤士河畔亨利鎮，維卡拉格路17號。坐落于市郊的中產階級古宅。
Winston Churchill may have been in the top drawer of the ruling class and Eric Blair at the bottom, but they were connected by the obligatory rite of passage for all small boys destined to govern the empire, exile to boarding school.
在統治階級中，溫斯頓·丘吉爾位于頂端而艾瑞克·布萊爾位于最底層，但統帥帝國的偉人們往往有著相同的兒時經歷，被丟進寄宿學校。
Soon after I arrived at St Cyprian's, I began wetting my bed. Nowadays, I believe bed-wetting in such circumstances is taken for granted.
一進圣塞浦路斯學校，我就開始尿床。現在來看，在那種情況下，尿床是可以理解的。
It is a normal reaction in children who've been removed from their homes to a strange place.
這是一個孩子到陌生地方后再正常不過的反應。
In those days, however, it was looked on as a disgusting crime which the child committed on purpose and for which the proper cure was a beating.
然而在當時，尿床被認為是小孩故意犯下的惡心罪行，相應的懲罰就是一頓打。
Night after night, I prayed with a fervour never previously attained in my prayers, "Please, God, do not let me wet my bed. Please, God, do not let me wet my bed."
每晚我都帶著空前的虔誠，誠心地祈禱著，“請求上帝，保佑我不尿床。請求上帝，保佑我不尿床。”
St Cyprian's may not have been quite the sadistic Home Counties gulag that George Orwell described nearly 40 years on, but there's no doubt that it was his apprenticeship in contempt for the rituals of empire.
圣塞浦路斯學校也許不是四十年后喬治·奧威爾筆下的英式古拉格，但無疑他的學生生涯使得他十分憎惡國內的禮教。
History lessons he wrote off as meaningless conditioning.
他把歷史課比作無意義的體能訓練。
Orgies of dates, with the keener boys leaping up and down in their places in their eagerness to shout out the right answers.
課堂就像狂歡，一群精力旺盛的男孩上躥下跳，急切地想吼出正確答案。
And at the same time, not feeling the faintest interest in the meaning of the mysterious events they were naming.
但與此同時卻對那些他們口中的神奇事件本身毫無興趣。
The torments, the canings, the pewter bowls with yesterday's porridge caked to the rim, the morning plunge into a slimy swimming bath,
折磨，鞭刑，錫碗中盛著凝固的隔夜粥，早上跳進滿是泥垢的洗澡池，
left Eric with a lifelong horror of dirt and a burning hatred of the fake service ethos for which small boys were supposed to suffer all these baptisms.
給艾瑞克留下對污穢一生的陰影，所謂男孩必須遭受磨難的洗禮，這類虛偽的口號他更是厭惡至極。
If you were rich, all these ordeals were a trial by fire, a kind of admission card to the ruling class.
對有錢人來說，這些折磨都是試煉，是進入統治階級的通行證。
But Eric was not rich. He was not part of the upper class. He got the canings without the promise of the perks.
但艾瑞克并不富裕。也并非上流社會的一員。他除了遭到鞭打外毫無收獲。
His weapon against them was an air of bloody-minded indifference, and when he came here to Eton, he refined that insouciance into an art form.
他用殘酷冷漠的神情來回敬他們，當他來到伊頓公學后，他將這種漠不關心升華為一種藝術形式。
If Blair was made bugler for the cadets, he'd show up with his badge askew.
布萊爾為軍校做喇叭手的時候，總會戴著歪歪扭扭的徽章出現。
If Blair would recite poetry, it was going to be Stevenson's "Suicide Club". Better still, he'd just stand there, sardonic and silent.
布萊爾朗誦詩歌時，簡直是史蒂文森的《自殺俱樂部》。甚至，他只是站在那兒，默默地冷笑。
