评论
打印
Not everyone in the little company settlements, like nearby Madras, was biting his nails at the idea of an Indian war.
但东印度公司的分部中，例如位于马德拉斯的这一家，并非所有人都对印度的战争感到不安。
There was one young man, who'd been sweating it out as a company clerk, for whom the drum roll of battle was an irresistible serenade.
有一位年轻人，当时还是东印度公司一名小职员，对他来说，战争的诱惑令人垂涎三尺。
Robert Clive, like the East India Company itself, you might say, was never really cut out for business, at least, not legit business.
罗伯特·克莱夫，同东印度公司一样，并没有精明的商业头脑，至少不适合做合法生意。
In Market Drayton, where he'd grown up, the Shropshire lad ran an extortion racket, threatening local shopkeepers with his own gang of toughs unless they coughed up.
在他的故乡什罗普郡的马凯德雷顿，他当年从事的是敲诈的勾当，带着一伙暴徒对当地的店主敲诈勒索。
Exported to Madras, Clive lived the life of a bachelor clerk, scribbling, sweating, drinking, fornicating, and making the whole thing bearable only with pipes of opium.
被送往马德拉斯后，他从事着职员的工作，每天浑浑噩噩，酗酒嫖娼，只能依靠吸食鸦片来打发时光。
Scenting that powerful old aroma of money and fame, Clive made a career change, and he took British India with him.
克莱夫嗅到了金钱与名望的气味并决定改变行当，就此开启了英属印度的历史。
In the war that erupted between rival French- and British-supported Nawabs, Clive turned a diversion into the main event.
在亲法和亲英的纳瓦布正打得不可开交之时，克莱夫就此登上历史舞台。
While both main armies were off on a long siege at the mountain city of Trichinopoly, Clive took a handful of men and stormed the capital of the pro-French prince.
正当双方的主要兵力在山城蒂鲁吉拉帕利僵持不下时，克莱夫率领一个小分队攻入了亲法王子所在的都城。
He then held out for six long weeks against everything thrown at it. The effort fatally weakened the enemy and the British client Nawab took power.
并于接下来的六个星期坚守阵地。此举重挫了对手，亲英的纳瓦布掌握了大权。
The French gamble in south India was a busted flush. Clive had just broke the bank.
法国在印度南部的冒险之举打开了缺口。克莱夫顺势将之彻底摧毁。
Suddenly, the rest of India woke up to the fact that it was no longer dealing with a feeble little merchant fledgling. What it had got was a cuckoo in the nest.
印度举国上下猛然醒悟，他们要对付的已经不是那个当年的商业小国了。而是一个巨大的隐患。
Up the coast to the north, the young impulsive Nawab of Bengal, Siraj-ud-Daulah, decided to do something about this threat.
在北部海岸，年轻气盛的孟加拉纳瓦布，西拉杰·乌德·达乌拉，决定对此威胁采取行动。
In 1756, he attacked the British settlement that had been established at the mouth of the Hooghly River since 1690, Calcutta.
1756年，他袭击了英国的据点，该据点自1690年起就建立在胡格利河口，名为加尔各答。
Most of its residents made it out of the town in time.
据点的大多数居民得以及时撤离。
The rest, 100 or so, found themselves imprisoned in a 20-foot-square cell, with no food or water and virtually no air, in the height of the Indian summer.
其余的一百余人被囚禁于二十平方米的牢房中，没有水、没有食物、几乎没有空气、在印度盛夏的酷暑中。
Few came out alive, and the Black Hole of Calcutta now entered British history's lexicon of infamy.
几乎无人生还，加尔各答的黑洞现已成为英国历史上的惨案之一。
One of the survivors, John Zephaniah Holwell, wrote a book about the Black Hole on his way back from India to England.
其中一名生还者，约翰·西番亚·霍尔维尔，在其从印度回英格兰的路上写了一本关于黑洞的书。
When it was published, in 1758, it became an instant best seller.
这本书于1758年出版时，瞬间成为畅销书。
Now, Holwell exaggerated the number of those who suffocated on that hot night, multiplying them by about three, from around 40 to 120.
霍尔维尔夸大了在那个酷热的夏夜窒息而亡的人数，他把罹难人数夸大了约两倍，将40余人说成是120余人。
I don't think he was simply kicking up the number for the sack of sensationalism. He was making a point.
我并不认为他这样夸大其词仅仅是为了哗众取宠。他是想向世人表达一个观点。
And the point was that a regime that could do that, that was so cruel, so inhuman, scarcely deserved the name of a government at all, in fact, scarcely deserved to survive.
那就是，如此丧心病狂、冷酷无情、惨无人道的政权，简直不配拥有政府的权力，这种政府早该覆灭了。
