Chapter 9（6）
The war, therefore, if we judge it by the standards of previous wars, is merely an imposture. It is like the battles between certain ruminant animals whose horns are set at such an angle that they are incapable of hurting one another. But though it is unreal it is not meaningless. It eats up the surplus of consumable goods, and it helps to preserve the special mental atmosphere that a hierarchical society needs. War, it will be seen, is now a purely internal affair. In the past, the ruling groups of all countries, although they might recognize their common interest and therefore limit the destructiveness of war, did fight against one another, and the victor always plundered the vanquished. In our own day they are not fighting against one another at all. The war is waged by each ruling group against its own subjects, and the object of the war is not to make or prevent conquests of territory, but to keep the structure of society intact. The very word 'war', therefore, has become misleading. It would probably be accurate to say that by becoming continuous war has ceased to exist. The peculiar pressure that it exerted on human beings between the Neolithic Age and the early twentieth century has disappeared and been replaced by something quite different. The effect would be much the same if the three super-states, instead of fighting one another, should agree to live in perpetual peace, each inviolate within its own boundaries. For in that case each would still be a self-contained universe, freed for ever from the sobering influence of external danger. A peace that was truly permanent would be the same as a permanent war. This—although the vast majority of Party members understand it only in a shallower sense—is the inner meaning of the Party slogan: WAR IS PEACE.
因此，按以前的戰爭標準來看，現在的戰爭完全是假的。這好象是兩頭反當動物，頭上的角所頂的角度都不會使對方受傷。但是，儘管戰爭不是真的，卻不是沒有意義的。它耗盡了剩餘消費品，這就能夠保持等級社會所需要的特殊心理氣氛。下文就要說到，戰爭現在純粹成了內政。過去各國的統治集團可能認識到共同利益，因此對戰爭的毀滅性雖然加以限制，但還是互相廝殺的，戰勝國總是掠奪戰敗國。而在我們的時代里，他們互相根本不廝殺了。戰爭是由一國統治集團對自己的老百姓進行的，戰爭的目的不是征服別國領土或保衛本國領土，戰爭的目的是保持社會結構不受破壞。因此，「戰爭」一詞已名不符實。如果說戰爭由於持續不斷已不復存在，此話可能屬實。人類在新石器時代到二十世紀初期之間受到的這種特殊壓力，現在已經消失，而由一種完全不同的東西所取代。如果三個超級國家互相不打仗，而同意永遠和平相處，互不侵犯對方的疆界，效果大概相同。因為在那樣情況下，每一國家仍是一個自給自足的天地，永遠不會受到外來危險的震動。因此真正永久的和平同永久的戰爭一樣。這就是黨的口號「戰爭即和平」的內在含義，不過大多數黨員對此了解是很膚淺的。
Winston stopped reading for a moment. Somewhere in remote distance a rocket bomb thundered. The blissful feeling of being alone with the forbidden book, in a room with no telescreen, had not worn off. Solitude and safety were physical sensations, mixed up somehow with the tiredness of his body, the softness of the chair, the touch of the faint breeze from the window that played upon his cheek. The book fascinated him, or more exactly it reassured him. In a sense it told him nothing that was new, but that was part of the attraction. It said what he would have said, if it had been possible for him to set his scattered thoughts in order. It was the product of a mind similar to his own, but enormously more powerful, more systematic, less fear-ridden. The best books, he perceived, are those that tell you what you know already. He had just turned back to Chapter I when he heard Julia's footstep on the stair and started out of his chair to meet her. She dumped her brown tool-bag on the floor and flung herself into his arms. It was more than a week since they had seen one another.
溫斯頓暫停一下，沒有繼續讀下去。遠處不知什麼地方爆發了一顆火箭彈。在一間沒有電幕的屋子裡一個人關起門來讀禁書的世外桃源之感還沒有消失。他的與眾隔絕和安全的感覺里，還有點身體的乏意、沙發的軟意、窗外吹進來的微風吻著他的面頰的癢意。這本書使他神往，或者更確切地說，使他感到安心。應該說，它並沒有告訴他什麼新的東西，但這卻是吸引他的一部分原因。它說出了他要說的話，如果他能夠把他的零碎思想整理出來的話，他也會這麼說的。寫這本書的人的頭腦同他的頭腦一樣，只是比他要有力得多，系統得多，無畏得多。他覺得，最好的書，是把你已經知道的東西告訴你的書。他剛把書翻回到第一章就聽到裘莉亞在樓梯上的腳步聲，他站起來去迎接她。她把棕色的工具袋往地上一撂，投入了他的懷抱。他們距上次見面已有一個星期了。
'I've got THE BOOK,' he said as they disentangled themselves.
「我搞到那本書了，」他們擁抱了一會後鬆開時，他告訴她。
'Oh, you』've got it? Good,' she said without much interest, and almost immediately knelt down beside the oil stove to make the coffee.
「哦，你搞到了嗎？那很好，」她沒有太多興趣地說，馬上蹲在煤油爐旁邊做起咖啡來。
They did not return to the subject until they had been in bed for half an hour. The evening was just cool enough to make it worth while to pull up the counterpane. From below came the familiar sound of singing and the scrape of boots on the flagstones. The brawny red-armed woman whom Winston had seen there on his first visit was almost a fixture in the yard. There seemed to be no hour of daylight when she was not marching to and fro between the washtub and the line, alternately gagging herself with clothes pegs and breaking forth into lusty song. Julia had settled down on her side and seemed to be already on the point of falling asleep. He reached out for the book, which was lying on the floor, and sat up against the bedhead.
他們上了床半小時後才又回到了這個話題。夜晚很涼爽，得把床罩揭起來蓋上身子。下面傳來了聽熟了的歌聲和鞋子在地上來回的咔嚓聲。溫斯頓第一次見到的那個胳臂通紅的結實的女人，幾乎成了院子裡必不可少的構成部分。白天裡，不論什麼時候，她總是在洗衣盆和晾衣繩之間來回，嘴裡不是咬著晾衣夾子就是唱著情歌。裘莉亞躺在一邊，快要睡著了。他伸手把撂在地上的書拾起來，靠著床頭坐起來。
'We must read it,' he said. 'You too. All members of the Brotherhood have to read it.'
「我們一定要讀一讀，」他說。「你也要讀。兄弟會的所有會員都要讀。」
'You read it,' she said with her eyes shut. 'Read it aloud. That's the best way. Then you can explain it to me as you go.
「你讀吧，」她閉著眼睛說，「大聲讀。這樣最好。你一邊讀可以一邊向我解釋。」
The clock's hands said six, meaning eighteen. They had three or four hours ahead of them. He propped the book against his knees and began reading:
時鐘指在六點，那就是說十八點。他們還有三、四個小時。他把書放在膝上，開始讀起來：
Chapter I Ignorance is Strength
第一章 無知即力量
Throughout recorded time, and probably since the end of the Neolithic Age, there have been three kinds of people in the world, the High, the Middle, and the Low. They have been subdivided in many ways, they have borne countless different names, and their relative numbers, as well as their attitude towards one another, have varied from age to age: but the essential structure of society has never altered. Even after enormous upheavals and seemingly irrevocable changes, the same pattern has always reasserted itself, just as a gyroscope will always return to equilibnum, however far it is pushed one way or the other.
有史以來，大概自從新石器時代結束以來，世上就有三種人，即上等人、中等人、下等人。他們又再進一步分為好幾種，有各種各樣不同的名字，他們的相對人數和他們的相互態度因時代而異；但是社會的基本結構不變。即使在發生了大動盪和似乎無法挽回的變化以後，總又恢復原來的格局，好象陀螺儀總會恢復平衡一樣，不管你把它朝哪個方向推著轉。
'Julia, are you awake?' said Winston.
「裘莉亞，你沒睡著吧？」溫斯頓問。
'Yes, my love, I'm listening. Go on. It's marvellous.'
「沒睡著，親愛的，我聽著。念下去吧。真精采。」
He continued reading:
他繼續念道：
The aims of these three groups are entirely irreconcilable. The aim of the High is to remain where they are. The aim of the Middle is to change places with the High. The aim of the Low, when they have an aim—for it is an abiding characteristic of the Low that they are too much crushed by drudgery to be more than intermittently conscious of anything outside their daily lives—is to abolish all distinctions and create a society in which all men shall be equal. Thus throughout history a struggle which is the same in its main outlines recurs over and over again. For long periods the High seem to be securely in power, but sooner or later there always comes a moment when they lose either their belief in themselves or their capacity to govern efficiently, or both. They are then overthrown by the Middle, who enlist the Low on their side by pretending to them that they are fighting for liberty and justice. As soon as they have reached their objective, the Middle thrust the Low back into their old position of servitude, and themselves become the High. Presently a new Middle group splits off from one of the other groups, or from both of them, and the struggle begins over again. Of the three groups, only the Low are never even temporarily successful in achieving their aims. It would be an exaggeration to say that throughout history there has been no progress of a material kind. Even today, in a period of decline, the average human being is physically better off than he was a few centuries ago. But no advance in wealth, no softening of manners, no reform or revolution has ever brought human equality a millimetre nearer. From the point of view of the Low, no historic change has ever meant much more than a change in the name of their masters.
這三種人的目標是完全不可調和的。上等人的目標是要保持他們的地位。中等人的目標是要同高等人交換地位。下等人的特點始終是，他們勞苦之餘無暇旁顧，偶而才顧到日常生活以外的事，因此他們如果有目標的話，無非是取消一切差別，建立一個人人平等的社會。這樣，在歷史上始終存在著一場一而再再而三發生的鬥爭，其大致輪廓相同。在很長時期里，上等人的權力似乎頗為鞏固，但遲早總有這樣一個時候，他們對自已喪失了信心，或者對他們進行有效統治的能力喪失了信心，或者對兩者都喪失了信心。他們就被中等人所推翻，因為中等人標榜自己為自由和正義而奮鬥，把下等人爭取到自己一邊來。中等人一旦達到目的就把下等人重又推回到原來的被奴役地位，自己變成了上等人。不久，其他兩等人中有一等人，或者兩等人都分裂出一批新的中等人來，這場鬥爭就周而復始。三等人中只有下等人從來沒有實現過自己的目標，哪怕是暫時實現自己的目標。若說整個歷史從來沒有物質方面的進步，那不免言之過甚。即使在今天這個衰亡時期，一般人在物質上也要比幾百年前好一些。但是不論財富的增長，或態度的緩和，或改革和革命，都沒有使人類接近平等一步。從下等人的觀點來看，歷史若有變化，大不了是主子名字改變而已。