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(单词翻译:双击或拖选)
Chapter 5
At each stage of his imprisonment1 he had known, or seemed to know, whereabouts he was in the windowless building. Possibly there were slight differences in the air pressure. The cells where the guards had beaten him were below ground level. The room where he had been interrogated2 by O’Brien was high up near the roof. This place was many metres underground, as deep down as it was possible to go.
It was bigger than most of the cells he had been in. But he hardly noticed his surroundings. All he noticed was that there were two small tables straight in front of him, each covered with green baize. One was only a metre or two from him, the other was further away, near the door. He was strapped3 upright in a chair, so tightly that he could move nothing, not even his head. A sort of pad gripped his head from behind, forcing him to look straight in front of him.
For a moment he was alone, then the door opened and O’Brien came in.
‘You asked me once,’ said O’Brien, ‘what was in Room 101. I told you that you knew the answer already. Everyone knows it. The thing that is in Room 101 is the worst thing in the world.’
The door opened again. A guard came in, carrying something made of wire, a box or basket of some kind. He set it down on the further table. Because of the position in which O’Brien was standing4. Winston could not see what the thing was.
‘The worst thing in the world,’ said O’Brien, ‘varies from individual to individual. It may be burial alive, or death by fire, or by drowning, or by impalement5, or fifty other deaths. There are cases where it is some quite trivial thing, not even fatal.’
He had moved a little to one side, so that Winston had a better view of the thing on the table. It was an oblong wire cage with a handle on top for carrying it by. Fixed6 to the front of it was something that looked like a fencing mask, with the concave side outwards7. Although it was three or four metres away from him, he could see that the cage was divided lengthways into two compartments8, and that there was some kind of creature in each. They were rats.
‘In your case,’ said O’Brien, ‘the worst thing in the world happens to be rats.’
A sort of premonitory tremor9, a fear of he was not certain what, had passed through Winston as soon as he caught his first glimpse of the cage. But at this moment the meaning of the mask-like attachment10 in front of it suddenly sank into him. His bowels11 seemed to turn to water.
‘You can’t do that!’ he cried out in a high cracked voice. ‘You couldn’t, you couldn’t! It’s impossible.’
‘Do you remember,’ said O’Brien, ‘the moment of panic that used to occur in your dreams? There was a wall of blackness in front of you, and a roaring sound in your ears. There was something terrible on the other side of the wall. You knew that you knew what it was, but you dared not drag it into the open. It was the rats that were on the other side of the wall.’
‘O’Brien!’ said Winston, making an effort to control his voice. ‘You know this is not necessary. What is it that you want me to do?’
O’Brien made no direct answer. When he spoke12 it was in the schoolmasterish manner that he sometimes affected13. He looked thoughtfully into the distance, as though he were addressing an audience somewhere behind Winston’s back.
‘By itself,’ he said, ‘pain is not always enough. There are occasions when a human being will stand out against pain, even to the point of death. But for everyone there is something unendurable — something that cannot be contemplated14. Courage and cowardice15 are not involved. If you are falling from a height it is not cowardly to clutch at a rope. If you have come up from deep water it is not cowardly to fill your lungs with air. It is merely an instinct which cannot be destroyed. It is the same with the rats. For you, they are unendurable. They are a form of pressure that you cannot withstand, even if you wished to. You will do what is required of you.’
‘But what is it, what is it? How can I do it if I don’t know what it is?’
O’Brien picked up the cage and brought it across to the nearer table. He set it down carefully on the baize cloth. Winston could hear the blood singing in his ears. He had the feeling of sitting in utter loneliness. He was in the middle of a great empty plain, a flat desert drenched16 with sunlight, across which all sounds came to him out of immense distances. Yet the cage with the rats was not two metres away from him. They were enormous rats. They were at the age when a rat’s muzzle17 grows blunt and fierce and his fur brown instead of grey.
‘The rat,’ said O’Brien, still addressing his invisible audience, ‘although a rodent18, is carnivorous. You are aware of that. You will have heard of the things that happen in the poor quarters of this town. In some streets a woman dare not leave her baby alone in the house, even for five minutes. The rats are certain to attack it. Within quite a small time they will strip it to the bones. They also attack sick or dying people. They show astonishing intelligence in knowing when a human being is helpless.’
There was an outburst of squeals19 from the cage. It seemed to reach Winston from far away. The rats were fighting; they were trying to get at each other through the partition. He heard also a deep groan20 of despair. That, too, seemed to come from outside himself.
O’Brien picked up the cage, and, as he did so, pressed something in it. There was a sharp click. Winston made a frantic21 effort to tear himself loose from the chair. It was hopeless; every part of him, even his head, was held immovably. O’Brien moved the cage nearer. It was less than a metre from Winston’s face.
‘I have pressed the first lever,’ said O’Brien. ‘You understand the construction of this cage. The mask will fit over your head, leaving no exit. When I press this other lever, the door of the cage will slide up. These starving brutes22 will shoot out of it like bullets. Have you ever seen a rat leap through the air? They will leap on to your face and bore straight into it. Sometimes they attack the eyes first. Sometimes they burrow23 through the cheeks and devour24 the tongue.’
The cage was nearer; it was closing in. Winston heard a succession of shrill25 cries which appeared to be occurring in the air above his head. But he fought furiously against his panic. To think, to think, even with a split second left — to think was the only hope. Suddenly the foul26 musty odour of the brutes struck his nostrils27. There was a violent convulsion of nausea28 inside him, and he almost lost consciousness. Everything had gone black. For an instant he was insane, a screaming animal. Yet he came out of the blackness clutching an idea. There was one and only one way to save himself. He must interpose another human being, the BODY of another human being, between himself and the rats.
The circle of the mask was large enough now to shut out the vision of anything else. The wire door was a couple of hand-spans from his face. The rats knew what was coming now. One of them was leaping up and down, the other, an old scaly29 grandfather of the sewers30, stood up, with his pink hands against the bars, and fiercely sniffed31 the air. Winston could see the whiskers and the yellow teeth. Again the black panic took hold of him. He was blind, helpless, mindless.
‘It was a common punishment in Imperial China,’ said O’Brien as didactically as ever.
The mask was closing on his face. The wire brushed his cheek. And then — no, it was not relief, only hope, a tiny fragment of hope. Too late, perhaps too late. But he had suddenly understood that in the whole world there was just ONE person to whom he could transfer his punishment — ONE body that he could thrust between himself and the rats. And he was shouting frantically32, over and over.
‘Do it to Julia! Do it to Julia! Not me! Julia! I don’t care what you do to her. Tear her face off, strip her to the bones. Not me! Julia! Not me!’
He was falling backwards33, into enormous depths, away from the rats. He was still strapped in the chair, but he had fallen through the floor, through the walls of the building, through the earth, through the oceans, through the atmosphere, into outer space, into the gulfs between the stars — always away, away, away from the rats. He was light years distant, but O’Brien was still standing at his side. There was still the cold touch of wire against his cheek. But through the darkness that enveloped34 him he heard another metallic35 click, and knew that the cage door had clicked shut and not open.
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1
imprisonment
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| n.关押，监禁，坐牢 | |
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2
interrogated
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| v.询问( interrogate的过去式和过去分词 )；审问；（在计算机或其他机器上）查询 | |
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3
strapped
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| adj.用皮带捆住的，用皮带装饰的；身无分文的；缺钱；手头紧v.用皮带捆扎(strap的过去式和过去分词)；用皮带抽打；包扎；给…打绷带 | |
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standing
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| n.持续，地位；adj.永久的，不动的，直立的，不流动的 | |
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impalement
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| 刺穿，刺刑，围住 | |
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fixed
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| adj.固定的，不变的，准备好的；(计算机)固定的 | |
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7
outwards
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| adj.外面的，公开的，向外的；adv.向外；n.外形 | |
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8
compartments
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| n.间隔( compartment的名词复数 )；（列车车厢的）隔间；（家具或设备等的）分隔间；隔层 | |
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9
tremor
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| n.震动，颤动，战栗，兴奋，地震 | |
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attachment
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| n.附属物，附件；依恋；依附 | |
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bowels
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| n.肠，内脏，内部；肠( bowel的名词复数 )；内部，最深处 | |
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12
spoke
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| n.（车轮的）辐条；轮辐；破坏某人的计划；阻挠某人的行动 v.讲，谈（speak的过去式）；说；演说；从某种观点来说 | |
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13
affected
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| adj.不自然的，假装的 | |
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14
contemplated
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| adj. 预期的 动词contemplate的过去分词形式 | |
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cowardice
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| n.胆小，怯懦 | |
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16
drenched
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| adj.湿透的；充满的v.使湿透( drench的过去式和过去分词 )；在某人（某物）上大量使用（某液体） | |
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17
muzzle
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| n.鼻口部；口套；枪(炮)口；vt.使缄默 | |
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18
rodent
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| n.啮齿动物；adj.啮齿目的 | |
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19
squeals
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| n.长而尖锐的叫声( squeal的名词复数 )v.长声尖叫，用长而尖锐的声音说( squeal的第三人称单数 ) | |
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20
groan
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| vi./n.呻吟，抱怨；(发出)呻吟般的声音 | |
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21
frantic
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| adj.狂乱的，错乱的，激昂的 | |
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22
brutes
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| 兽( brute的名词复数 )； 畜生； 残酷无情的人； 兽性 | |
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23
burrow
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| vt.挖掘(洞穴)；钻进；vi.挖洞；翻寻；n.地洞 | |
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24
devour
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| v.吞没；贪婪地注视或谛听，贪读；使着迷 | |
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shrill
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| adj.尖声的；刺耳的；v尖叫 | |
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foul
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| adj.污秽的；邪恶的；v.弄脏；妨害；犯规；n.犯规 | |
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27
nostrils
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| 鼻孔( nostril的名词复数 ) | |
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28
nausea
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| n.作呕，恶心；极端的憎恶(或厌恶) | |
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29
scaly
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| adj.鱼鳞状的；干燥粗糙的 | |
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30
sewers
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| n.阴沟，污水管，下水道( sewer的名词复数 ) | |
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31
sniffed
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| v.以鼻吸气，嗅，闻( sniff的过去式和过去分词 )；抽鼻子（尤指哭泣、患感冒等时出声地用鼻子吸气）；抱怨，不以为然地说 | |
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32
frantically
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| ad.发狂地, 发疯地 | |
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33
backwards
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| adv.往回地，向原处，倒，相反，前后倒置地 | |
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34
enveloped
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| v.包围，笼罩，包住( envelop的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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35
metallic
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| adj.金属的；金属制的；含金属的；产金属的；像金属的 | |
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