LESSON 108

DESTRUCTION OF THE CARNATIC

卡那提克的毁灭

Edmund Burke, 1730-1797, one of the most able and brilliant of England’s essayists, orators, and statesmen, was born in Dublin, and was the son of an able lawyer. He graduated at Trinity College, Dublin, in 1748. As a student, he was distinguished for ability and industry. From 1750 to 1766 he was in London writing for periodicals, publishing books, or serving as private secretary. His work on “The Sublime and Beautiful” appeared in 1756. From 1766 to 1794 he was a member of Parliament, representing at different times different constituencies. On the first day of his appearance in the House of Commons he made a successful speech. “In the three principal questions which excited his interest, and called forth the most splendid displays of his eloquence—the contest with the American Colonies, the impeachment of Warren Hastings, and the French Revolution—we see displayed a philanthropy the most pure, illustrated by a genius the most resplendent.” Mr. Burke’s foresight, uprightness, integrity, learning, magnanimity, and eloquence made him one of the most conspicuous men of his time; and his writings stand among the noblest contributions to English literature.

When at length Hyder Ali found that he had to do with men who either would sign no convention, or whom no treaty and no signature could bind, and who were the determined enemies of human intercourse itself, he decreed to make the country possessed by these incorrigible and predestinated criminals a memorable example to mankind. He resolved, in the gloomy recesses of a mind capacious of such things, to leave the whole Carnatic an everlasting monument of vengeance, and to put perpetual desolation as a barrier between him and those against whom the faith which holds the moral elements of the world together was no protection.

He became at length so confident of his force, so collected in his might, that he made no secret whatsoever of his dreadful resolution. Having terminated his disputes with every enemy and every rival, who buried their mutual animosities in their common detestation against the creditors of the Nabob of Arcot, he drew from every quarter whatever a savage ferocity could add to his new rudiments in the arts of destruction; and compounding all the materials of fury, havoc, and desolation into one black cloud, he hung for a while on the declivities of the mountains.

Whilst the authors of all these evils were idly and stupidly gazing on this menacing meteor which blackened all their horizon, it suddenly burst, and poured down the whole of its contents upon the plains of the Carnatic.

Then ensued a scene of woe, the like of which no eye had seen, no heart conceived, and which no tongue can adequately tell. All the horrors of war before known or heard of, were mercy to that new havoc. A storm of universal fire blasted every field, consumed every house, destroyed every temple. The miserable inhabitants, flying from their flaming villages, in part were slaughtered; others, without regard to sex, to age, to the respect of rank, or sacredness of function,—fathers torn from children, husbands from wives, enveloped in a whirlwind of cavalry, and, amidst the goading spears of drivers, and the trampling of pursuing horses,—were swept into captivity, in an unknown and hostile land.

Those who were able to evade this tempest, fled to the walled cities; but escaping from fire, sword, and exile, they fell into the jaws of famine.

The alms of the settlement of Madras, in this dreadful exigency, were certainly liberal, and all was done by charity that private charity could do; but it was a people in beggary; it was a nation which stretched out its hands for food.

For months together these creatures of sufferance, whose very excess and luxury in their most plenteous days had fallen short of the allowance of our austerest fasts, silent, patient, resigned, without sedition or disturbance, almost without complaint, perished by a hundred a day in the streets of Madras; every day seventy at least laid their bodies in the streets, or on the glacis of Tanjore, and expired of famine in the granary of India.

I was going to wake your justice toward this unhappy part of our fellow-citizens, by bringing before you some of the circumstances of this plague of hunger. Of all the calamities which beset and waylay the life of man, this comes the nearest to our heart, and is that wherein the proudest of us all feels himself to be nothing more than he is.

But I find myself unable to manage it with decorum. These details are of a species of horror so nauseous and disgusting; they are so degrading to the sufferers and to the hearers; they are so humiliating to human nature itself, that, on better thoughts, I find it more advisable to throw a pall over this hideous object, and to leave it to your general conceptions.

For eighteen months, without intermission, this destruction raged from the gates of Madras to the gates of Tanjore; and so completely did these masters in their art, Hyder Ali, and his more ferocious son, absolve themselves of their impious vow, that when the British armies traversed, as they did, the Carnatic, for hundreds of miles in all directions, through the whole line of their march they did not see one man—not one woman—not one child—not one four-footed beast of any description whatever! One dead, uniform silence reigned over the whole region.

With the inconsiderable exceptions of the narrow vicinage of some few forts, I wish to be understood as speaking literally;—I mean to produce to you more than three witnesses, who will support this assertion in its full extent. That hurricane of war passed through every part of the central provinces of the Carnatic. Six or seven districts to the north and to the south (and these not wholly untouched) escaped the general ravage.

【中文阅读】

当最终海德•阿里发现他不得不与这些人打交道，他们要么不在协议上签字，要么协议和签名不在一起，决心与人类交往惯例为敌时，他颁布命令使这个国家归这些无可救药和注定的罪犯所有，对人类来讲无疑是一个值得铭记的先例。他暗下决心，留给卡那提克一个永恒的报复纪念，将永远的荒凉作为他和那些坚信这个世界道德因素无需保护的人之间的屏障。

他对自己的力量抱有坚定的信心，对自己的威力如此镇定自若，以至于不论自己那可怕的决心是什么，他都不会保守这个秘密。结束了与每个敌人和每个对手的争论，这些人将他们相互之间的敌意都埋进在他们反对艾尔科特的地方长官的同仇敌忾里了，他从能为他的毁灭艺术增添新的基础的任何残暴行径汲取灵感，将所有暴怒、大破坏和荒凉的原材料组合到一块乌云里，他暂时在高山的斜坡上坚守。

正当所有这些罪恶的始作俑者慵懒和愚蠢地盯着这个能令他们视野所及陷于黑暗之中的险恶流星时，它突然爆裂了，里面的污秽全都洒在卡那提克的原野上。

接下来发生灾难的一幕，没有谁愿意看到，没有哪颗心能觉察到。也没有哪个人能恰当地描述出来。之前所知或听说过的所有战争恐怖场面，对于这场新的大破坏而言都是幸运的。雷电引起的扑天大火席卷每一块田野，每一幢房屋都夷为平地，每一间寺庙都毁于一旦。凄惨的居民，从他们冒着火舌的村庄飞奔出来。除了一部分葬身火海外，其他人，不论男女老幼还是所属的社会阶层以及担任的神职——父亲为死去的孩子嚎啕，丈夫为死去的妻子落泪，骑兵队一阵风地包围过来，在驭手驱赶牲口的尖棒和狂奔的马踩踏下——都被囚禁起来，进入未知和敌对的土地。

那些能逃脱这场风暴的人，跑到有城墙的城市里。可是，虽然侥幸逃脱了大火，刀剑和流亡，他们还是落入饥饿的魔爪。

接下来的几个月里，这些忍耐力很强的人，这些在物质最充足的日子里过度消耗和奢靡的人，如今陷入连我们最简单的果腹之物也匮乏的境地，他们依然平静有耐心，放弃最基本的欲念，没有群起叛乱和骚动，几乎没有抱怨，在马德拉斯的大街上就这样过了一百天，然后自消自亡。每天至少有七十人陈尸街头，抑或在南印度丹柔里的缓冲地带，在这个号称印度粮仓的地方活活饿死。

我之所以将这个陷于饥饿瘟疫的情境呈给你们，意在唤醒你对与我们同为英王子民的这些生活得不快乐的人公正对待。困扰和拦截人们生活之路的所有灾难，正在迫近我们内心，我们最引以为傲的就是感同身受。

但是，我发现自己无法从容得体地应付。这些都是令人作呕和厌恶的恐怖物种的细节；对遭受苦难的人和听者而言，这些细节如此令人不堪，对人类本性而言又是如此令人蒙羞。往好处想，对这个隐蔽的目标心生厌倦，将其划归到一般的观念更为明智。

在没有中断的十八个月里，这场浩劫从马德拉斯的大门口一直肆虐到丹柔里的大门口，而这些老爷们悠游自在，全然不理。海德•阿里和他那更为凶残的儿子，以他们毫无虔诚可言的誓言为自己开脱。当英国军队行至此地时，卡那提克方圆数百英里竟然不见一个男人——不见一个妇人——不见一个孩子——连四条腿的野兽都不见踪影！一个人死了，整个卡那提克都要举哀。

几个城堡附近狭窄的区域，也有无足轻重的例外。我希望我的这一说法能被理解为如实描述，重要的是要有三位以上的目击者，他们所观察到的能为这一断言提供佐证。战争飓风席卷卡那提克中央地区的每个角落。北面和南面有六七个地区（这些并非全都远不可及）逃脱了这场范围很广的破坏。