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In 1933, Eric Blair published his first book, "Down and Out In Paris and London", but the name on the cover was not Blair, but George Orwell, a pseudonym.
1933年，艾瑞克·布萊爾出版了第一本書，《巴黎倫敦落魄記》，但封面上的名字不是布萊爾，而是他的筆名喬治·奧威爾。
There was no name more royal than the name of the king, George, and Orwell, a river in Suffolk, connected him to the English landscape.
沒有什么名字比國王的“喬治”高貴了，奧威爾是薩?？丝さ囊粭l河，把他和英國風景聯系在一塊。
But the landscape through which George Orwell would travel was not that of hedgerows and haystacks, but gutters and gasworks.
但喬治·奧威爾觀看的景色不是籬笆群和干草垛，而是貧民窟和煤氣廠。
In the years of the slump, Orwell and Churchill were on opposite sides of the barricades.
在那段不景氣的日子里，奧威爾和丘吉爾立場對立。
Orwell had declared war on the empire, Churchill was obsessed with defending it to the last.
喬治·奧威爾對帝國口誅筆伐，丘吉爾則一心捍衛帝國。
Our myth was that the British Empire was founded on the playing fields of Eton.
我們常說，大不列顛帝國在伊頓公學的運動場上建立。
But Orwell had been on the playing fields of Eton and he knew better. He knew that the British Empire was founded on fields of coal.
但奧威爾曾行走在這片運動場上，他看得更為清楚。他知道大英帝國是建立在煤礦上的。
The Germans and the Americans could fool around with chemicals and electricals, but our bedrock was coke and nutty slag.
德國人和美國人可以靠化學和電力耀武揚威，而我們的根基則是焦炭和礦渣。
But then, in the Thirties, that bedrock caved in. Export demand collapsed, mines were shut, whole towns coughed and died.
但在三十年代，這個根基倒塌了。出口需求驟降，煤礦紛紛倒閉，城鎮居民患上咳嗽，甚至死亡。
This is what British history, the grandiose epic of the empire had finally come to, from the Jarrow of the Venerable Bede to the Jarrow of the hunger marchers.
這就是英國史，史詩般恢弘詩篇的最終歸宿，從賈羅鎮可敬的比德淪落到了賈羅鎮饑餓的游行者。
Never had the country been so bitterly divided.
英國經歷了前所未有的惡性分化。
In the south, they built model villages with miniature collieries, miniature farms and miniature plough teams coming over the hill.
在南方，人們制作了城鎮模型，里面有微型煤礦，微型農場和在山上犁田的微雕農民。
In Wales, Scotland and the north of England, that hill would have been a slagheap, and it wouldn't have been a ploughboy, but desperate scramblers searching for coal waste with their bare hands.
在威爾士，蘇格蘭和英格蘭北部，有的只有礦渣堆，這里沒有犁田的農民，只有歇斯底里的人們在地上徒手翻找煤渣。
Orwell, who cherished the countryside with an unsentimental, almost feral, passion, now headed for this underworld, the dark shadow on the lungs of Britain.
奧威爾鐘愛鄉村，他的熱愛是理性的，有時近乎陰郁，現在他向著底層世界，這個英國的痼疾出發了。
When his publisher asked him to write a book on life in the industrial north, Orwell grabbed the chance and set out on the road to Wigan pier.
他的出版商要求他寫一本描述北方工業生活的書，奧威爾抓住機會，向威根碼頭出發。
What he found was a town broken by Depression, coated in grime which befouled everything.
他看到籠罩在大蕭條陰影下的城鎮，破敗潦倒，到處臟亂不堪。
Black thumbprints on the bread his landlord cut him, a second skin of soot when he went down the pit.
地主發給他的面包上有黑指印，當他走下礦井，就立刻裹上了厚厚一層煤灰。
And if being unemployed in Wigan was hell, being employed was purgatory.
如果說在威根，失業像是地獄，那么工作就是煉獄。
Get up at 3.45 in the morning, crawl half-naked through four-foot-high passages, sometimes for miles as far, Orwell said, as from London Bridge to Oxford Circus.
早晨3:45就得起床，半裸著身子在1.2米高的通道爬行，有時要爬上幾英里，奧威爾說，這相當于從英國橋爬到牛津廣場。
When he wasn't down the pits, Orwell was here in Wigan Public Library.
他不下礦井的時候，就到這來，威根公共圖書館。
Here's his name in the visitors' book, E. A. Blair, 72 Warrington Lane, Wigan.
訪客簿上有他的名字，E.A.布萊爾，威根沃靈頓巷72號。
He was doing research on the miners' battle to make ends meet. Wages, rents and prices.
他要調查礦工如何掙扎著維持生計。薪水，房租，物價。
