回到宿舍，岑越崎给自己泡了杯菊花茶，静静地坐了一会。
魏呈此时正风风火火地打着游戏，敲击声又急又重，砸在键盘上，时不时伴随着几句字正腔圆的国骂。
“嘿，孙子！敢偷袭？看我轰不死你！”
另外一个舍友李熙阳正半靠在床上，抱着手机和对面的姑娘亲亲热热地讲着情话，宝贝儿心肝不要钱般输出着。
岑越崎蹙眉，无可奈何地掐了掐眉心，反思自己的决策失误。
他预料到宿舍的学习氛围会不太理想，现在看来还是保守了。
搬了个小板凳，他决定去吹吹楼道的风，清醒一下。
楼道尽头的窗台半开着，夜风裹挟着凉意拂过他的发梢。岑越崎再次打开文件，逐字逐行地读着。
距任务结束倒计时还有：
16小时47分12秒。
The splitting of the intelligence which the Party requires of its members, and which is more easily achieved in an atmosphere of war, is now almost universal, but the higher up the ranks one goes, the more marked it becomes.
It is precisely in the Inner Party that war hysteria and hatred of the enemy are strongest.
In his capacity as an administrator（行政官）, it is often necessary for a member of the Inner Party to know that this or that item of war news is untruthful, and he may often be aware that the entire war is spurious（假的） and is either not happening or is being waged for purposes quite other than the declared ones: but such knowledge is easily neutralized by the technique of doublethink.
Meanwhile no Inner Party member wavers for an instant in his mystical （神秘主义）belief that the war is real, and that it is bound to end victoriously, with Oceania the undisputed（无可争辩的） master of the entire world. All members of the Inner Party believe in this coming conquest（征服） as an article of faith.
It is to be achieved either by gradually acquiring more and more territory and so building up an overwhelming preponderance（优势） of power, or by the discovery of some new and unanswerable weapon.
The search for new weapons continues unceasingly, and is one of the very few remaining activities in which the inventive or speculative （思维性的）type of mind can find any outlet（出口）.
In Oceania at the present day, Science, in the old sense, has almost ceased to exist.
In Newspeak there is no word for'Science'.
The empirical （经验主义的）method of thought, on which all the scientific achievements of the past were founded, is opposed to the most fundamental principles of Ingsoc.
And even technological progress only happens when its products can in some way be used for the diminution（削弱） of human liberty.
In all the useful arts the world is either standing still or going backwards.
The fields are cultivated with horse-ploughs（马） while books are written by machinery.
But in matters of vital importance-meaning, in effect, war and police espionage-the empirical approach is still encouraged, or at least tolerated.
The two aims of the Party are to conquer the whole surface of the earth and to extinguish（消灭） once and for all the possibility of independent thought.
There are therefore two great problems which the Party is concerned to solve.
One is how to discover, against his will, what another human being is thinking, and the other is how to kill several hundred million people in a few seconds without giving warning beforehand.
In so far as scientific research still continues, this is its subject matter.
The scientist of today is either a mixture of psychologist and inquisitor（审讯者）, studying with real ordinary minuteness the meaning of facial expressions, gestures, and tones of voice, and testing the truth-producing effects of drugs, shock therapy（休克疗法）, hypnosis（催眠）, and physical torture（折磨）; or he is chemist, physicist, or biologist concerned only with such branches of his special subject as are relevant to the taking（夺取） of life.
In the vast laboratories of the Ministry of Peace, and in the experimental stations hidden in the Brazilian forests, or in the Australian desert, or on lost islands of the Antarctic, the teams of experts are indefatigably（不知疲倦的） at work.
Some are concerned simply with planning the logistics （后勤）of future wars; others devise larger and larger rocket bombs, more and more powerful explosives, and more and more impenetrable （坚硬的）armour-plating（装甲）; others search for new and deadlier gases, or for soluble（可溶的） poisons capable of being produced in such quantities as to destroy the vegetation （植被） of whole continents（大陆）, or for breeds of disease germs immunized （免疫的）against all possible antibodies（抗体）; others strive to produce a vehicle that shall bore its way under the soil like a submarine under the water, or an aeroplane as independent of its base as a sailing-ship; others explore even remoter possibilities such as focusing the sun's rays through lenses suspended thousands of kilometres away in space, or producing artificial earthquakes and tidal waves by tapping the heat at the earth's centre.
But none of these projects ever comes anywhere near realization, and none of the three super-states ever gains a significant lead on the others.
What is more remarkable is that all three powers already possess, in the atomic bomb, a weapon far more powerf- ul than any that their present researches are likely to discover.
Although the Party, according to its habit, claims the invention for itself, atomic bombs first appeared as early as the nineteen-forties, and were first used on a large scale about ten years later.
At that time some hundreds of bombs were dropped on industrial centres, chiefly in European Russia, Western Europe, and North America.
The effect was to convince the ruling（统治） groups of all countries that a few more atomic bombs would mean the end of organized society, and hence of their own power.
Thereafter, although no formal agreement was ever made or hinted at, no more bombs were dropped.
All three powers merely continue to produce atomic bombs and store （储存）them up against the decisive opportunity which they all believe will come sooner or later.
And meanwhile the art of war has remained（保持） almost stationary（停滞） for thirty or forty years.
Helicopters are more used than they were formerly, bombing planes have been largely superseded（取代） by self-propelled projectiles, and the fragile（脆弱的） movable battleship （战舰）has given way to the almost unsinkable Floating Fortress; but otherwise there has been little development.
The tank, the submarine, the torpedo, the machine gun, even the rifle and the hand grenade are still in use.
And in spite of the endless slaughters reported in the Press and on the telescreens, the desperate battles of earlier wars, in which hundreds of thousands or even millions of men were often killed in a few weeks, have never been repeated.
None of the three super-states ever attempts any manoeuvre（策略） which involves the risk of serious defeat.
When any large operation is undertaken, it is usually a surprise attack against an ally（同盟国）.
The strategy that all three powers are following, or pretend to themselves that they are following, is the same.
The plan is, by a combination of fighting, bargaining, and well-timed strokes of treachery（背叛）, to acquire a ring of bases completely encircling one or other of the rival states, and then to sign a pact of friendship with that rival（对手） and remain on peaceful terms for so many years as to lull （平息）suspicion to sleep.
During this time rockets loaded with atomic bombs can be assembled （装配）at all the strategic spots（战略要地）; fnally they will all be fired simultaneously（同时的）, with effects so devastating as to make retaliation impossible.
It will then be time to sign a pact of friendship with the remaining world-power, in preparation for another attack.
This scheme（计划）, it is hardly necessary to say, is a mere daydream, impossible of realization.
Moreover, no fighting ever occurs except in the disputed areas round the Equator and the Pole: no invasion（侵略） of enemy territory is ever undertaken.
This explains the fact that in some places the frontiers between the superstates （超级大国）are arbitrary（任意的）.
Eurasia, for example, could easily conquer the British Isles, which are geographically part of Europe, or on the other hand it would be possible for Oceania to push its frontiers to the Rhine or even to the Vistula.
But this would violate（违反） the principle, followed on all sides though never formulated, of cultural integrity（完整）.
If Oceania were to conquer the areas that used once to be known as France and Germany, it would be necessary either to exterminate（根除） the inhabitants, a task of great physical difficulty, or to assimilate（同化） a population of about a hundred million people, who, so far as technical development goes, are roughly on the Oceanic level. The problem is the same for all three super-states.
It is absolutely necessary to their structure that there should be no contact with foreigners, except, to a limited extent, with war prisoners and coloured slaves.
Even the official ally of the moment is always regarded with the darkest suspicion.
War prisoners apart, the average citizen of Oceania never sets eyes on a citizen of either Eurasia or Eastasia, and he is forbidden the knowledge of foreign languages.
If he were allowed contact with foreigners he would discover that they are creatures（生物） similar to himself and that most of what he has been told about them is lies.
The sealed（封闭的） world in which he lives would be broken, and the fear, hatred, and self-righteousness on which his morale（士气） depends might evaporate（蒸发）.
It is therefore realized on all sides that however often Persia, or Egypt, or Java, or Ceylon may change hands, the main frontiers must never be crossed by anything except bombs.
Under this lies a fact never mentioned aloud, but tacitly （沉默的）understood and acted upon: namely, that the conditions of life in all three super-states are very much the same.
In Oceania the prevailing（流行的） philosophy is called Ingsoc, in Eurasia it is called Neo-Bolshevism, and in Eastasia it is called by a Chinese name usually translated as Death-Worship, but perhaps better rendered as Obliteration（删除） of the Self.
The citizen of Oceania is not allowed to know anything of the tenets of the other two philosophies, but he is taught to execrate them as barbarous （野蛮的）outrages（暴行） upon morality and common sense.（常识）
Actually the three philosophies are barely distinguishable, and the social systems which they support are not distinguishable at all.
Everywhere there is the same pyramidal structure, the same worship of semi-divine leader, the same economy existing by and for continuous warfare.
It follows that the three super-states not only cannot conquer one another, but would gain no advantage by doing so.
On the contrary, so long as（只要） they remain in conflict they prop （支撑）one another up, like three sheaves（捆） of corn.
And, as usual, the ruling groups of all three powers are simultaneously （同时的）aware and unaware of what they are doing.
Their lives are dedicated to （致力于）world conquest, but they also know that it is necessary that the war should continue everlastingly and without victory.
Meanwhile the fact that there is no danger of conquest makes possible the denial of reality which is the special feature of Ingsoc and its rival systems of thought.
Here it is necessary to repeat what has been said earlier, that by becoming continuous war has fundamentally changed its character.
In past ages, a war, almost by definition, was something that sooner or later came to an end, usually in unmistaka- ble victory or defeat.
In the past, also, war was one of the main instruments（工具） by which human societies were kept in touch with physical reality.
All rulers in all ages have tried to impose a false view of the world upon their followers, but they could not afford to encourage any illusion（幻觉） that tended to impair military efficiency.
So long as defeat meant the loss of independence, or some other result generally held to be undesirable（不良的）, the precautions（防范） against defeat had to be serious.
Physical facts could not be ignored.
In philosophy, or religion, or ethics（宗教）, or politics, two and two might make five, but when one was designing a gun or an aeroplane they had to make four.
Inefficient nations were always conquered sooner or later, and the struggle for efficiency was inimical（有害的） to illusions.
Moreover, to be efficient it was necessary to be able to learn from the past, which meant having a fairly accurate idea of what had happened in the past.
Newspapers and history books were, of course, always coloured and biased（偏见的）, but falsification（歪曲） of the kind that is practised today would have been impossible.
War was a sure safeguard of sanity（理智）, and so far as the ruling classes were concerned it was probably the most important of all safeguards.
While wars could be won or lost, no ruling class could be completely irresponsible. But when war becomes literally continuous, it also ceases（停止） to be dangerous.
When war is continuous there is no such thing as military（军事） necessity.
Technical progress can cease and the most palpable（明显的） facts can be denied or disregarded.
As we have seen, researches that could be called scientific are still carried out for the purposes of war, but they are essentially（本质上） a kind of daydreaming, and their failure to show results is not important.
Efficiency, even military efficiency, is no longer needed. Nothing is efficient in Oceania except the Thought Police.
Since each of the three super-states is unconquerable（不可征服的）, each is in effect a separate universe（宇宙） within which almost any perversion （反常）of thought can be safely practised.
Reality only exerts its pressure through the needs of everyday life--the need to eat and drink, to get shelter and clothing, to avoid swallowing poison or stepping out of top-storey windows, and the like.
Between life and death, and between physical pleasure（快乐） and physical pain, there is still a distinction, but that is all.
Cut off from contact with the outer world, and with the past, the citizen of Oceania is like a man in interstellar （星际）space, who has no way of knowing which direction is up and which is down.
The rulers of such a state are absolute, as the Pharaohs or the Caesars could not be.
They are obliged （必须的）to prevent their followers from starving to death in numbers large enough to be inconvenient, and they are obliged to remain at the same low level of military technique as their rivals; but once that minimum is achieved, they can twist reality into whatever shape they choose.
The war, therefore, if we judge it by the standards of previous（以前的） wars, is merely an imposture（骗局）.
It is like the battles between certain ruminant（沉思的） animals whose horns are set at such an angle that they are incapale of hurting one another.
But though it is unreal it is not meaningless.
It eats up the surplus of consumable（消费品） goods, and it helps to preserve the special mental atmosphere that a hierarchical（等级） 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 （开始）by each ruling group against its own subjects（臣民）, and the object of the war is not to make or prevent conquests（征服） 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 （特殊的）pressure that it exerted （外露的）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 （永久的）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（冷静） 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.
【当前任务进度为100%，准确率检测中……】
岑越崎顿时捏了把汗，他不确定近日的高强度学习是否奏效。
就像终日行走于黑夜的赶路人，不知道自己走了多远，也不知道还有多久才能抵达终点。
【检测完毕，翻译准确率为78%】
【恭喜宿主在12h内完成本次任务，奖励随后派发】
岑越崎长舒一口气。幸好，不算太差。
424也格外感动，没想到基础如此薄弱的宿主竟然表现不凡，深感欣慰。
要是424有实体，他大概恨不能上前排排岑越崎的肩膀。
“啊啊啊啊宿主，我就知道我当初没有看走眼！”
岑越崎弯唇，不知可否，或许只是运气呢。
英文文段摘自《一九八四》
作者有话说
显示所有文的作话
第6章 War is peace （下）
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