評論
打印
As Orwell pottered about his mini-farm, Churchill restlessly stalked the grounds of his ruinously expensive mansion in Kent, brooding like Orwell on the ugliness of dictatorship.
正當奧威爾在他的迷你農場里徘徊，丘吉爾在他位于肯特極盡奢華的宅邸里不停地踱步，和奧威爾一樣專注于丑陋的獨裁主義。
For years now, Churchill had been thought of by his own party as a posturing has-been, embarrassingly devoted to lost causes like keeping India out of the hands of the Indians.
多年來，丘吉爾被所在的保守黨視為故作姿態的過氣人物，不合時宜地投身于注定失敗的事業，比如讓印度人遠離印度事務。
So instead of politics, Churchill turned back to writing.
所以丘吉爾撇開政治，開始寫作。
And as he wrote -- thousands of pages on his ancestor, the Duke of Marlborough, thousands more on "The History of the English Speaking Peoples",
他寫下許多有關他的祖先，馬爾伯勒公爵的事跡，更多的是有關"講英語的人的歷史"，
keeping company with the vanished generations who faced invasion before -- so Churchill's convictions about what had to be done now hardened.
經歷過入侵戰爭的先人成了他的伙伴，因此丘吉爾越發確定有些事亟待解決。
First, the Little Englanders, stuck in their dream world of hunts and gymkhanas, had to wake up to the fact that, like it or not, Britain would share Europe's fate.
首先，在打獵和體育競技的世界里，無法自拔的英格蘭人們必須清醒地面對一個事實，無論他們是否樂意，英國將與歐洲共命運。
There are those who say, "Let us ignore the continent of Europe, leave it with its hatreds and its armaments, to stew in its own juice, to fight out its own quarrels."
有人是這么說的，“不要理會歐洲大陸，讓他們仇恨和爭斗去吧，讓他們自生自滅，打個你死我活。”
Now there would be much to be said for this plan if only we could unfasten the British islands from their rock foundations and could tow them 3,000 miles across the Atlantic Ocean.
這個計劃還有很多值得一說的地方，除非我們讓英國群島與歐洲大陸分離，并將它們拖拽上四萬八千公里跨越大西洋。
Well, I have not yet heard of any way in which this could be done.
我迄今從沒聽說過有任何方式能實現這個設想。
Churchill reserved his greatest contempt for the appeasers, men like Neville Chamberlain,
丘吉爾對內維爾·張伯倫等綏靖者極為蔑視，
who seriously imagined that Hitler and the Nazis were reasonable men with reasonable grievances about the way Germany had been treated after the last war, and who would stop at reasonable demands.
這些人由衷認為希特勒和納粹黨人是有理智的人，他們只是因為上次戰后德國的處境而產生了合理的不滿情緒，他們的欲望也會止于合理的需求。
The appeasers, Churchill thought, were like men who imagined you could satisfy a ravenous wolf by throwing it a sheep or two, in the hope that when it got to you, it would be full.
丘吉爾認為，綏靖主義者們像是喂狼人，以為用一兩頭羊就能滿足貪婪的惡狼，并期望等狼到跟前時已經飽食滿腹。
In 1938, Hitler, who had already annexed Austria, threatened war if he didn't get a slice of Czechoslovakia.
1938年，已經吞并了奧地利的希特勒，以戰爭要挾，勒索捷克斯洛伐克的土地。
Neville Chamberlain, the new Prime Minister, ran to Munich and served it up.
新任首相內維爾·張伯倫趕到慕尼黑，滿足了他的需求。
I had another talk with the German Chancellor, Herr Hitler, and here is the paper which bears his name upon it as well as mine.
我與德國總理希特勒先生又一次進行了會談，在這張紙上不僅簽有他的名字，還有我的。
For Churchill, this was not just an act of cowardice, but the deepest stain on our long history, the most shameful vindication of Hitler's assumption that democracies were, by definition, spineless.
對丘吉爾而言，這不僅是懦夫行徑，還是我們漫長歷史中最大的污點，希特勒曾宣稱民主是懦弱的代名詞，而這就是令人羞愧的鐵證。
All is over. Silent, mournful, abandoned, broken, Czechoslovakia recedes into the darkness.
一切都結束了。靜默、悲慟、背棄、破滅，捷克斯洛伐克滑向黑暗的深淵。
We have passed an awful milestone in our history, when the whole equilibrium of Europe has been deranged and that the terrible words have for the time being been pronounced against the western democracies, "Thou art weighed in the balance and found wanting".
當整個歐洲的平衡都被打破，而那可怕的古語，汝將置于天秤之上，汝將被判貧乏，在此刻被用以反對民主時，我們經歷了歷史上一個糟糕的時刻。
When, in spite of the promises he'd made at Munich, Hitler went ahead and occupied Prague, Chamberlain took it personally, realising that he and the country had been royally had.
當希特勒無視他在慕尼黑的承諾，進軍并占領布拉格的時候，張伯倫終于明白自己和英國被人算計了。
