第2章

神是奇怪的。他们不但借助我们的恶来惩罚我们，也利用我们内心的美好、善良、慈悲、关爱，来毁灭我们[24a]。要不是因为对你及你家人的怜悯和感情，我现在也不会在这人所不齿的地方哭泣[24b]。

Of course I discern in all our relations, not Destiny merely, but Doom Doom that walks always swiftly, because she goes to the shedding of blood[25a]. Through your father you[25b] come of a race, marriage with whom is horrible, friendship fatal, and that lays violent hands either on its own life or on the lives of others. In every little circumstance in which the ways of our lives met in every point of great, or seemingly trivial import in which you came to me for pleasure or for help in the small chances, the slight accidents that look, in their relation to life, to be no more than the dust that dances in a beam, or the leaf that flutters from a tree, Ruin followed, like the echo of a bitter cry, or the shadow that hunts with the beast of prey[25c]. Our friendship really begins with your begging me in a most pathetic and charming letter to assist you in a position appalling to anyone, doubly so to a young man at Oxford I do so, and ultimately through your using my name as your friend with Sir George Lewis, I begin to lose his esteem and friendship, a friendship of fifteen years standing. When I was deprived of his advice and help and regard I was deprived of the one great safeguard of my life.

当然，你我所有的交往，我看不光是命中注定，而且是在劫难逃：劫数从来是急急难逃，因为她疾步所向的，是血光之地[25a]。因为你父亲的缘故，你[25b]所出身的这个家系，与之联姻是可怕的，与之交谊是致命的；其凶残的手，要么自戮，要么杀人。在每一个小小的场合当你我命途相交，在每一个或至关紧要或像是无关紧要的时刻，你来我处寻乐或者求助，在那些不起眼的机缘和不足道的偶然之中——对生活而言，它们像是浮沉于光影中的纤尘、飘落于树荫下的枯叶——在这些时候，毁灭都尾随左右，像哀号的回声，像猛兽扑食的阴影[25c]。我们的友谊真正是始自你的一封可怜又可爱的信，求我在危急之中助你一把。你当时的境况任谁都会吓坏的，对一个就读于牛津的年轻人更是倍加可怕。我帮了你，并且最终由于你对乔治刘易斯勋爵用了我的名字称作你的朋友，我开始失去这位十五年老朋友的尊重和友谊。得不到他的忠告、帮助和关心，我生命中便失去了这一大保障。

You send me a very nice poem,[26.1] of the undergraduate school of verse, for my approval I reply by a letter of fantastic literary conceits I compare you to Hylas, or Hyacinth, Jonquil or Narcisse,[26.2] or someone whom the great god of Poetry favoured, and honoured with his love[26a]. The letter is like a passage from one of Shakespeares sonnets, transposed to a minor key[26b]. It can only be understood by those who have read the Symposium of Plato, or caught the spirit of a certain grave mood made beautiful for us in Greek marbles. It was, let me say frankly, the sort of letter I would, in a happy if wilful moment, have written to any graceful young man of either University who had sent me a poem of his own making, certain that he would have sufficient wit or culture to interpret rightly its fantastic phrases. Look at the history of that letter It passes from you into the hands of a loathsome companion from him to a gang of blackmailers copies of it are sent about London to my friends, and to the manager of the theatre where my work is being performed every construction but the right one is put on it[26c] Society is thrilled with the absurd rumours that I have had to pay a huge sum of money for having written an infamous letter to you this forms the basis of your fathers worst attack I produce the original letter myself in Court to show what it really is it is denounced by your fathers Counsel as a revolting and insidious attempt to corrupt Innocence ultimately it forms part of a criminal charge the Crown takes it up the Judge sums up on it with little learning and much morality I go to prison for it at last. That is the result of writing you a charming letter[26d].

你送过来一首很好的诗，给本科生诗社的，要我审核，我在回信中兴之所至地作了一些文学上俏皮诙谐的比附，把你比作海拉斯、海尔辛托斯、琼奎伊尔或纳西斯，或者受到伟大的诗神宠爱、眷顾和礼遇[26a]的哪个人。那信听着就像一首莎士比亚商籁诗中的一段，被转为小调式似的[26b]。只有那些读过柏拉图的《会饮篇》，或者对希腊雕像优美地为我们传达出来的某种凝重情调得其神韵的人，才能理解信中的意思。让我坦白地说吧，这样的信，在我心情愉快、如果说是随心所欲的时候，要是两所中随便哪所大学的任何一位风雅的年轻人送我一首自己写的诗的话，我都会写给他的；确信他会有足够的才智，或教养，来正确阐释信中兴笔所至的那些话。看看那封信是怎样辗转流传的吧！先是从你传到了你一个缺德的同伴手中，从他再传到一伙敲诈之徒那里，弄成许多份在伦敦到处传流，寄给了我的朋友，还寄给了我的作品正在上演的剧院的经理：人们众说纷纭，可就是没有一个解释切中信的原意[26c]。社会为各种荒唐的谣言撩得耳热心跳：说是我因为写了一封不光彩的信给你而不得不付出一笔巨款。而你父亲又据此进行最为恶毒的攻击：我自己在法庭出示原信，说明真相，却被你父亲的辩护律师指为意在暗中败坏纯真心灵的邪恶企图，最终列为刑事罪状的一部分。刑事庭接受了这一指控，法官对此的总结陈词道学多而见识少：我到底还是因为这个进了监狱。情辞并茂地给你写了一封信，却落得个如此收场[26d]。

While I am staying with you at Salisbury you are terribly alarmed at a threatening communication from a former companion of yours you beg me to see the writer and help you I do so the result is Ruin to me[27a]. I am forced to take everything you have done on my own shoulders and answer for it. When, having failed to take your degree, you have to go down from Oxford, you telegraph to me in London to beg me to come to you. I do so at once[27b] you ask me to take you to Goring, as you did not like, under the circumstances, to go home at Goring you see a house that charms you I take it for you the result from every point of view is Ruin to me[27c]. One day you come to me and ask me, as a personal favour to you, to write something for an Oxford undergraduate magazine, about to be started by some friend of yours, whom I had never heard of in all my life, and knew nothing at all about. To please you — what did I not do always to please you I sent him a page of paradoxes destined originally for the Saturday Review. A few months later I find myself standing in the dock of the Old Bailey on account of the character of the magazine. It forms part of the Crown charge against me. I am called upon to defend your friends prose and your own verse. The former I cannot palliate the latter I, loyal to the bitter extreme, to your youthful literature as to your youthful life, do very strongly defend[27d], and will not hear of your being a writer of indecencies. But I go to prison, all the same, for your friends undergraduate magazine, And “the Love that dares not tell its name.” At Christmas I give you a “very pretty present,” as you described it in your letter of thanks, on which I knew you had set your heart, worth some 40 or 50 at most. When the crash of my life comes, and I am ruined, the bailiff who seizes my library, and has it sold, does so to pay for the “very pretty present.” It was for that the execution was put into my house. At the ultimate and terrible moment when I am taunted, and spurred-on by your taunts, to take an action against your father and have him arrested, the last straw to which I clutch in my wretched efforts to escape is the terrible expense. I tell the solicitor in your presence that I have no funds, that I cannot possibly afford the appalling costs, that I have no money at my disposal. What I said was, as you know, perfectly true. On that fatal Friday instead of being in Humphreyss office weakly consenting to my own ruin, I would have been happy and free in France, away from you and your father, unconscious of his loathsome card, and indifferent to your letters, if I had been able to leave the Avondale Hotel[27e]. But the hotel people absolutely refused to allow me to go. You had been staying with me for ten days indeed you had ultimately, to my great and, you will admit, rightful indignation, brought a companion of yours to stay with me also my bill for the ten days was nearly 140. The proprietor said he could not allow my luggage to be removed from the hotel till I had paid the account in full. That is what kept me in London. Had it not been for the hotel bill I would have gone to Paris on Thursday morning.

当我在索尔兹伯里同你在一起时，你被一封过去的一个同伴写的恐吓信吓坏了，求我去见那个写信人帮你说说。我去了。其结果是我遭殃[27a]，被迫负起你所作所为的全部责任。当你没拿到学位，不得不从牛津下来，这时你打电报到伦敦，求我过来一下。我二话没说就去了[27b]：你要我带你去戈灵，因为在那种情况下你不想回家。在戈灵你看上一处房子，我为你租了下来，其结果不管怎么看对我又是一场灾难[27c]。有一天你来找我，以个人名义求我帮忙，给一份牛津本科生杂志写点东西，该杂志即将由你的哪个朋友出版发行，此人我从未听说，也丝毫不知道他的背景。为了让你高兴—— 为了让你高兴我什么没做过 ——我把原来要给《周六评论》的一页悖语寄给了他。几个月后就发现自己因为该杂志的性质而站在了伦敦中央刑事法院的被告席上。这又成了刑事庭指控我的一部分罪状。我被传去为你朋友的文章和你本人的诗辩护。对前者我无从辩解；至于后者，出于对你羽毛未丰的文学和年轻气盛的生命恪守不渝的忠诚，我苦辩力辩到底[27d]，绝不承认你会写出有伤风化的文字。可到头来我照样进了监狱，就因为你朋友的本科生杂志和那首《不敢说出自己名字的爱》。在圣诞节时我给你一份用你在致谢信中的话说是“非常漂亮的礼物”，我知道你本来就看上它了，那礼物最多大约值四五十英镑。等到我遭了难，破了产，法警封了我的藏书，要卖了来抵买那份“非常漂亮的礼物”所欠的钱。正因为此庭令是在我家执行的。在那可怕的最后关头，我被你抢白，被你的抢白所激，对你父亲采取行动，申请将他逮捕了，在我万般无奈之中能抓住让我脱身的最后一根稻草，就是那可怕的费用。我当着你的面告诉过律师，我没钱，付不起那吓人的费用，我手头一点钱也没有。我所说的，你晓得，句句是实话。在那个致命的星期五，如果我能从阿汶代尔旅馆脱身的话，本可以不用在汉弗雷斯的办事处有气无力地同意宣告破产，而是逍遥自在地呆在法国，远离你和你父亲，他那令人恶心的明信片可以不管，你的来信也可以不理[27e]。可是旅馆的人绝对不让我走。你同我在那里住了十天，后来竟带了你的一个友伴来与我同住，这令我大为生气，你会承认我生气是有道理的。那十天的旅馆费用差不多是140英镑，旅馆说要是不把账付清，就不让我把行李提走。这就把我困在伦敦了。要不是这笔账，我早就在星期四去了巴黎。27

When I told the solicitor I had no money to face the gigantic expense, you interposed at once. You said that your own family would be only too delighted to pay all the necessary costs that your father had been an incubus to them all that they had often discussed the possibility of getting him put into a lunatic asylum so as to keep him out of the way that he was a daily source of annoyance and distress to your mother and to everyone else that if I would only come forward to have him shut up I would be regarded by the family as their champion and their benefactor and that your mothers rich relations themselves would look on it as a real delight to be allowed to pay all costs and expenses that might be incurred in any such effort. The solicitor closed at once, and I was hurried to the Police Court. I had no excuse left for not going. I was forced into it. Of course your family dont pay the costs, and, when I am made bankrupt, it is by your father, and for the costs — the meagre balance of them — some 700. At the present moment my wife, estranged from me over the important question of whether I should have 3 or 3. 10 a week to live on, is preparing a divorce suit, for which, of course, entirely new evidence and an entirely new trial, to be followed perhaps by more serious proceedings, will be necessary. I, naturally, know nothing of the details. I merely know the name of the witness on whose evidence my wifes solicitors rely. It is your own Oxford servant, whom at your special request I took into my service for our summer at Goring.

当我告诉律师我没钱支付这巨额费用时，你马上提出，说你自己家里将很乐意支付所有的费用，说你父亲是你们大家的祸害，你们常常商量是不是把他送疯人院了事，说你父亲成天弄得你母亲还有别的人不得安生，如果我能为你们出头，让他就范，那全家人就会把我当作英雄和恩人，而你母亲有钱的亲戚朋友会因为允许他们代为偿付此举的一切费用而满心欢喜。律师当即拍板，我就被催着去了治安法庭。你这么一说我就没有理由不去了。我被迫卷了进去。当然，你家并未支付那些费用，我是被你父亲，为那些费用，弄得破了产——为了区区的700英镑。我妻子，因为我每周生活费应该是3英镑还是3英镑10先令这一重大问题而同我反目，目前正准备提出离婚。这一来，当然又得是完全另一套的证据，另一场的审判，接着可能是更为严重的官司。其中细节我自然是不得而知，只知道证人的名字，我妻子的律师所倚重的就是他的证词。他就是你本人在牛津的仆人，因你特别请求，我们在戈灵度夏时雇用了他。

But, indeed, I need not go on further with more instances of the strange Doom you seem to have brought on me in all things big or little. It makes me feel sometimes as if you yourself had been merely a puppet worked by some secret and unseen hand to bring terrible events to a terrible issue. But puppets themselves have passions. They will bring a new plot into what they are presenting, and twist the ordered issue of vicissitude to suit some whim or appetite of their own[29a]. To be entirely free, and at the same time entirely dominated by law, is the eternal paradox of human life that we realise at every moment and this, I often think, is the only explanation possible of your nature, if indeed for the profound and terrible mysteries of a human soul there is any explanation at all, except one that makes the mystery more marvellous still[29b].

但是，我确实用不着再举更多的例子来说明了，不管是大事小事，你好像都给我带来莫名其妙的厄运。这使我有时觉得你本人似乎不过是为哪只神秘的、看不见的手所操纵的傀儡，来把一个可怕的局面弄得更加不可收拾。但是傀儡们自己也并非无情无欲。他们也会让要他们表演的东西平添曲折，心血来潮便把人间炎凉兴衰的前因后果扭曲，以遂他们的哪个心愿[29a]。要全然的自由，同时又要全然地受制于律法，这是我们时时感受到的人生永恒的吊诡；而这一点，我常常想，只能是你性情的唯一可能的解释，如果说对人性那深邃可怕的神秘，除了越说越神之外，的确能有什么解释的话[29b]。

Of course you had your illusions, lived in them indeed, and through their shifting mists and coloured veils saw all things changed[30a]. You thought, I remember quite well, that your devoting yourself to me, to the entire exclusion of your family and family life, was a proof of your wonderful appreciation of me, and your great affection. No doubt to you it seemed so. But recollect that with me was luxury, high living, unlimited pleasure, money without stint. Your family life bored you. The “cold cheap wine of Salisbury,” to use a phrase of your own making, was distasteful to you. On my side, and along with my intellectual attractions, were the fleshpots of Egypt. When you could not find me to be with, the companions whom you chose as substitutes were not flattering.

当然，你有你的幻想，说实在是生活在这些幻想中。透过那游移的薄雾、有色的薄纱，一切全看走样了[30a]。我记得很清楚，你以为一心一意与我相伴，将你的家庭和家庭生活置之度外，便证明了你对我美妙的欣赏和深厚的情谊。在你看来无疑是如此。但是追忆当时，与我相伴便是奢侈，便是高雅生活，便是无限的欢娱、不尽的金钱。你的家庭生活使你腻烦。用句你自己的话说，“索尔兹伯里那廉价的冷酒”败你的兴。在我这边，除了我心智上的魅力外还有口腹声色之乐。当你找不到我作伴时，退而求其次的人选就令人不敢恭维了。

You thought again that in sending a lawyers letter to your father to say that, rather than sever your eternal[31a] friendship with me, you would give up the allowance of 250 a year which, with I believe deductions for your Oxford debts, he was then making you, you were realising the very chivalry of friendship, touching the noblest note of self-denial[31b]. But your surrender of your little allowance did not mean that you were ready to give up even one of your most superfluous luxuries, or most unnecessary extravagances. On the contrary. Your appetite for luxurious living was never so keen. My expenses for eight days in Paris for myself, you, and your Italian servant were nearly 150 Paillard alone absorbing 85. At the rate at which you wished to live, your entire income for a whole year, if you had taken your meals alone, and been especially economical in your selection of the cheaper form of pleasures, would hardly have lasted you for three weeks. The fact that in what was merely a pretence of bravado you had surrendered your allowance, such as it was, gave you at last a plausible reason for your claim to live at my expense, or what you thought a plausible reason and on many occasions you seriously availed yourself of it, and gave the very fullest expression to it and the continued drain, principally of course on me, but also to a certain extent, I know, on your mother, was never so distressing, because in my case at any rate, never so completely unaccompanied by the smallest word of thanks, or sense of limit[31c].

你还以为，给你父亲送去一份律师信，说是与其斩断同我那地久天长的[31a]友谊，你宁愿放弃一年250英镑的津贴——我相信这是扣掉你在牛津的欠债后他当时给你的款子——这么做体现了为朋友甘愿受苦的肝胆义气[31b]。但是放弃那小小的年金，并不意味着你愿意放弃哪怕一种穷奢极欲的享乐，或是哪一样最不需要的挥霍。恰恰相反。你对奢侈生活的追求是前所未有的强烈。同你和你的意大利仆人在巴黎，我八天的开销是150英镑：光是在帕拉德就花了85英镑。照你所希望的这样生活开销下去，就是你一个人吃饭，同时在消遣玩乐方面也特别地节约从事，选比较便宜的，你整年的所有进项也供不了三个星期。你放弃年金不过是虚张声势，而如此一来造成的事实，却让你至少是名正言顺地来靠我的钱过活，或者你认为是名正言顺：在许多时候你是认认真真觉得自己名正言顺，并且表现得淋漓尽致。如此不断地掏钱，当然主要掏的是我的钱，但我知道也令你母亲破了些财，从来没有这样令人心烦过，因为在我这儿，无论怎么说，从来就没听过起码是小小的一声道谢，或是见过一点适可而止的表示[31c]。

You thought again that in attacking your own father with dreadful letters, abusive telegrams, and insulting postcards you were really fighting your mothers battles, coming forward as her champion, and avenging the no doubt terrible wrongs and sufferings of her married life. It was quite an illusion on your part one of your worst indeed. The way for you to have avenged your mothers wrongs on your father, if you considered it part of a sons duty to do so, was by being a better son to your mother than you had been[32a] by not making her afraid to speak to you on serious things by not signing bills the payment of which devolved on her by being gentler to her, and not bringing sorrow into her days. Your brother Francis made great amends to her for what she had suffered, by his sweetness and goodness to her through the brief years of his flower-like life. You should have taken him as your model. You were wrong even in fancying that it would have been an absolute delight and joy to your mother if you had managed through me to get your father put into prison. I feel sure you were wrong. And if you want to know what a woman really feels when her husband, and the father of her children, is in prison dress, in a prison cell, write to my wife and ask her. She will tell you.

你还以为，写信拍电报寄明信片去咒骂侮辱自己的父亲，你这是在替你母亲出头，为她打抱不平，为她在婚后所受的无疑是可怕的屈辱和痛苦报仇。这真是你的一大幻想，真是你最糟糕的一个幻想。要为你母亲所受的苦找你父亲报仇，假如你认为这是做儿子的部分责任，那就得改弦更张[32a]，做个好儿子；就不要弄得她不敢同你谈重大的事情；就不要签些账单到头来都算到她头上；就要更好地待她，别让她的日子雪上加霜。你的兄长弗兰西斯，在他短短的如花般的生命中，就以他的温良随和大大减轻了你母亲的痛苦。你应该以他为楷模才是。你以为要是假我之手让你父亲入狱，对你母亲会是天大的喜事，哪怕是这样想当然也是错的。我的确感到你错了。如果你想知道，一个女人，看着自己的丈夫、自己孩子的父亲身着囚衣，陷于囚牢，到底会有什么感觉，那就写信给我妻子问问她吧。她会告诉你的。

I also had my illusions. I thought life was going to be a brilliant comedy, and that you were to be one of many graceful figures in it. I found it to be a revolting and repellent tragedy, and that the sinister occasion of the great catastrophe[33a], sinister in its concentration of aim and intensity of narrowed will-power, was yourself, stripped of that mask of joy and pleasure by which you, no less than I, had been deceived and led astray.

我呢，也有我的幻想。我以为生活会是一出绝妙的喜剧，而你会是剧中一个风雅备至的人物。后来却发现它原来是一个令人反感、令人恶心的悲剧。而带来大灾难的险恶祸端[33a]，其险其恶在于苦心孤诣、志在必得，就是剥去了欢娱和喜乐面具的你本人。那面具不但骗了我，也骗了你误入歧途。

You can now understand — can you not—a little of what I am suffering. Some paper, the Pall Mall Gazette I think, describing the dress-rehearsal of one of my plays, spoke of you as following me about like my shadow the memory of our friendship is the shadow that walks with me here that seems never to leave me that wakes me up at night to tell me the same story over and over till its wearisome iteration makes all sleep abandon me till dawn[34a] at dawn it begins again it follows me into the prison-yard and makes me talk to myself as I tramp round each detail that accompanied each dreadful moment I am forced to recall there is nothing that happened in those ill-starred years that I cannot recreate in that chamber of the brain which is set apart for grief or for despair every strained note of your voice, every twitch and gesture of your nervous hands, every bitter word, every poisonous phrase[34b] comes back to me I remember the street or river down which we passed, the wall or woodland that surrounded us, at what figure on the dial stood the hands of the clock, which way went the wings of the wind, the shape and colour of the moon. 对我正蒙受的痛苦，你现在应该明白一二了吧——难道还能不明白吗？有份报纸，我想是《泼尔穆尔报》吧，报道了我一出戏的彩排，说你像影子似的跟随着我：对你我友谊的回忆，就是在这里随我左右的影子，像是永不分离似的——深夜里唤我醒来，一遍又一遍地说着同一个故事，直磨得人睡意全无，醒到天明[34a]；天明时分又开始了，跟着我到牢房外的院子里，害得我一边步履沉重地走着一边喃喃自语——我被迫回想着每一个痛苦时刻的每一点细节，在那些个倒霉的年头里发生的事，没有哪一件我不能在那留给悲伤和绝望的脑室里再造重演：你每一点不自然的话音、每一个紧张兮兮的手势、每一句冷言恶语[34b]，都涌上了心头；我记着我们到过的街道和河流，四周的墙壁和树林，时钟的针正指着哪一点，风正吹向哪一面，月色月影又是什么模样。

There is, I know, one answer to all that I have said to you, and that is that you loved me that all through those two and a half years during which the Fates were weaving into one scarlet pattern[35a] the threads of our divided lives you really loved me. Yes I know you did. No matter what your conduct to me was I always felt that at heart you really did love me. Though I saw quite clearly that my position in the world of Art, the interest my personality had always excited, my money, the luxury in which I lived, the thousand and one things that went to make up a life so charmingly, so wonderfully improbable as mine was, were, each and all of them, elements that fascinated you and made you cling to me yet besides all this there was something more, some strange attraction for you you loved me far better than you loved anybody else. But you, like myself, have had a terrible tragedy in your life, though one of an entirely opposite character to mine. Do you want to learn what it was It was this. In you Hate was always stronger than Love. Your hatred of your father was of such stature that it entirely outstripped, o'erthrew, and overshadowed[35b] your love of me. There was no struggle between them at all, or but little[35c] of such dimensions was your Hatred and of such monstrous growth. You did not realise that there is no room for both passions in the same soul. They cannot live together in that fair carven house[35d]. Love is fed by the imagination, by which we become wiser than we know, better than we feel, nobler than we are by which we can see Life as a whole[35e] by which, and by which alone, we can understand others in their real as in their ideal relations[35f]. Only what is fine, and finely conceived, can feed Love. But anything will feed Hate[35g]. There was not a glass of champagne you drank, not a rich dish you ate of in all those years, that did not feed your Hate and make it fat. So to gratify it, you gambled with my life, as you gambled with my money, carelessly, recklessly, indifferent to the consequence. If you lost, the loss would not, you fancied, be yours. If you won, yours, you knew, would be the exultation, and the advantages of victory[35h]. 我知道，对我所说的这一切，是有一句话可以回答的。那就是你爱我：在那两年半里，命运将我们两个互不相干的生命丝丝缕缕编成了一个血红的图案[35a]，你的确真心爱过我。没错，这我知道。不管你那时对我的举止态度怎样，我总觉得在你心中是真爱我的。虽然我看得也很清楚，我在艺术界的地位和人格的魅力、我的金钱和生活的豪华，那使我的生活变得非常人所及的美妙与迷人的方方面面，每一样都让你心醉神迷，对我紧跟不舍。然而在这一切之外，还有某种东西，某种对你的奇怪的吸引力：你爱我远胜过爱别的什么人。但是你，同我一样，生活中也有过可怕的悲剧，虽然二者之悲，完全不同。想知道这是什么吗？这就是，你的心中恨总是比爱强烈。你对你父亲的仇恨是如此之强烈，完全超过了、压倒了、掩盖住了[35b]对我的爱。你的爱恨之间根本就没有过孰是孰非的斗争，要有也很少[35c]：你仇恨之深之大，是如此的面面俱到、张牙舞爪。你并未意识到，一个灵魂是无法同时容纳这两种感情的。在那所精雕细刻出来的华屋中它们无法共处一室[35d]。爱是用想象力滋养的，这使我们比自己知道的更聪慧，比自我感觉的更良好，比本来的为人更高尚；这使我们能将生活看作一个整体[35e]；只要这样、只有这样，我们才能以现实也以理想的关系看待理解他人[35f]。惟有精美的、精美于思的，才能供养爱。但不管什么都供养得了恨[35g]。在所有那些年里，你喝的每一杯香槟，吃的每一盘佳肴，没有哪一样不能用来养你的仇恨，使它发胖膨胀。为了满足你的仇恨之需，你拿我的生命下赌，一如你拿我的金钱下赌，漫不经心、满不在乎，不管后果如何。要是你输了，输的，你心想，也不是你的；要是你赢了，赢的，你明白，将是胜者的狂欢和赢家的实惠[35h]。

Hate blinds people. You were not aware of that. Love can read the writing on the remotest star[36a], but Hate so blinded you that you could see no further than the narrow, walled-in, and already lust-withered garden of your common desires. Your terrible lack of imagination, the one really fatal defect of your character, was entirely the result of the Hate that lived in you. Subtly, silently, and in secret, Hate gnawed at your nature, as the lichen bites at the root of some sallow plant, till you grew to see nothing but the most meagre interests and the most petty aims. That faculty in you which Love would have fostered, Hate poisoned and paralysed. When your father first began to attack me it was as your private friend, and in a private letter to you. As soon as I had read the letter, with its obscene threats and coarse violences, I saw at once that a terrible danger was looming on the horizon of my troubled days I told you I would not be the catspaw between you both in your ancient hatred of each other that I in London was naturally much bigger game for him than a Secretary for Foreign affairs at Homburg[36b][36.1] that it would be unfair to me to place me even for a moment in such a position and that I had something better to do with my life than to have scenes with a man drunken, dclass, and half-witted as he was. You could not be made to see this. Hate blinded you. You insisted that the quarrel had really nothing to do with me that you would not allow your father to dictate to you in your private friendships that it would be most unfair of me to interfere. You had already, before you saw me on the subject, sent your father a foolish and vulgar telegram, as your answer. That of course committed you to a foolish and vulgar course of action to follow. The fatal errors of life are not due to mans being unreasonable an unreasonable moment may be ones finest moment. They are due to mans being logical. There is a wide difference. That telegram conditioned the whole of your subsequent relations with your father, and consequently the whole of my life. And the grotesque thing about it is that it was a telegram of which the commonest street-boy would have been ashamed. From pert telegrams to priggish lawyers letters was a natural progress and the result of your lawyers letters to your father was, of course, to urge him on still further. You left him no option but to go on. You forced it on him as a point of honour, or of dishonour rather, that your appeal should have the more effect. So the next time he attacks me, no longer in a private letter and as your private friend, but in public and as a public man. I have to expel him from my house. He goes from restaurant to restaurant looking for me, in order to insult me before the whole world, and in such a manner that if I retaliated I would be ruined, and if I did not retaliate I would be ruined also. Then surely was the time when you should have come forward, and said that you would not expose me to such hideous attacks, such infamous persecution, on your account, but would, readily and at once, resign any claim you had to my friendship[36c] You feel that now, I suppose. But it never even occurred to you then. Hate blinded you. All you could think of (besides of course writing to him insulting letters and telegrams) was to buy a ridiculous pistol that goes off in the Berkeley, under circumstances that create a worse scandal than ever came to your ears. Indeed the idea of your being the object of a terrible quarrel between your father and a man of my position seemed to delight you. It, I suppose very naturally, pleased your vanity, and flattered your self-importance. That your father might have had your body, which did not interest me, and left me your soul, which did not interest him, would have been to you a distressing solution of the question. You scented the chance of a public scandal and flew to it. The prospect of a battle in which you would be safe delighted you. I never remember you in higher spirits than you were for the rest of that season. Your only disappointment seemed to be that nothing actually happened, and that no further meeting or fracas had taken place between us. You consoled yourself by sending him telegrams of such a character that at last the wretched man wrote to you and said that he had given orders to his servants that no telegram was to be brought to him under any pretence whatsoever. That did not daunt you. You saw the immense opportunities afforded by the open postcard, and availed yourself of them to the full. You hounded him on in the chase still more. I do not suppose he would ever really have given it up. Family instincts were strong in him. His hatred of you was just as persistent as your hatred of him, and I was the stalking-horse for both of you, and a mode of attack as well as a mode of shelter[36d]. His very passion for notoriety was not merely individual but racial[36e]. Still, if his interest had flagged for a moment your letters and postcards would soon have quickened it to its ancient flame. They did so. And he naturally went on further still. Having assailed me as a private gentleman and in private, as a public man and in public, he ultimately determines to make his final and great attack on me as an artist, and in the place where my Art is being represented. He secures by fraud a seat for the first night of one of my plays, and contrives a plot to interrupt the performance, to make a foul speech about me to the audience, to insult my actors, to throw offensive or indecent missiles at me when I am called before the curtain at the close, utterly in some hideous way to ruin me through my work. By the merest chance, in the brief and accidental sincerity of a more than usually intoxicated mood[36f], he boasts of his intention before others. Information is given to the police, and he is kept out of the theatre. You had your chance then. Then was your opportunity. Dont you realise now that you should have seen it, and come forward and said that you would not have my Art, at any rate, ruined for your sake You knew what my Art was to me, the great primal note by which I had revealed, first myself to myself, and then myself to the world the real passion of my life the love to which all other loves were as marsh water to red wine, or the glow-worm of the marsh to the magic mirror of the moon. Dont you understand now that your lack of imagination was the one really fatal defect of your character What you had to do was quite simple, and quite clear before you, but Hate had blinded you, and you could see nothing. I could not apologise to you father for his having insulted me and persecuted me in the most loathsome manner for nearly nine months. I could not get rid of you out of my life. I had tried it again and again. I had gone so far as actually leaving England and going abroad in the hope of escaping from you. It had all been of no use. You were the only person who could have done anything. The key of the situation rested entirely with yourself. It was the one great opportunity you had of making some slight return to me for all the love and affection and kindness and generosity and care I had shown you. Had you appreciated me even at a tenth of my value as an artist you would have done so. But Hate blinded you. The faculty “by which, and by which alone, we can understand others in their real as in their ideal relations” was dead in you. You thought simply of how to get your father into prison. To see him “in the dock,” as you used to say that was your one idea. The phrase became one of the many scies of your daily conversation. One heard it at every meal. Well, you had your desire gratified. Hate granted you every single thing you wished for [36g]. It was an indulgent Master to you. It is so, indeed, to all who serve it [36h]. For two days you sat on a high seat with the Sheriffs, and feasted your eyes with the spectacle of your father standing in the dock of the Central Criminal Court. And on the third day I took his place. What had occurred In your hideous game of hate together, you had both thrown dice for my soul, and you happened to have lost. That was all[36i].

恨使人视而不见。这你并未认识到。爱读得出最遥远的星辰上写的是什么[36a]；恨却蒙蔽了你的双眼，使目光所及，不过是你那个窄狭的、被高墙所围堵、因放纵而枯萎的伧俗欲念的小园子。你想象力缺乏得可怕，这是你性格上唯一真正致命的缺点，而这又是你心中的仇恨造成的。不知不觉地、悄悄地、暗暗地，仇恨啃咬着你的人性，就像苔藓咬住植物的根使之萎黄，到后来眼里装的便只有最琐屑的利益和最卑下的目的。你那本来可以通过爱来扶植的才智，已经被仇恨毒化而萎蔫了。当你父亲第一次中伤我时，是在给你的一封私信中，是把我当作你的一个私人朋友的。一读到那信，看到那下流的威胁和粗鲁的暴虐，我马上就明白，在我并不平安的日子里，潜伏着一个可怕的危险。我告诉过你，你们父子反目成仇由来已久，我可不想成为你们厮杀中的卒子。我还说，我人在伦敦，对他来说逮住了耍起自然要比在霍姆堡的外交大臣过瘾得多[36b]；把我卷进去，哪怕是一会儿，对我都是不公平的；而且我不值得把生命花去同这么一个终日醉酒、潦倒落魄、半疯不癫的人吵架，丢人现眼。可就是无法让你明白。仇恨蒙住了你眼睛。你一口咬定争吵真的与我无关，说你不会让你父亲左右你的私人交往，说我如果出面干涉就太不公平了。在你来见我商量这事之前，就已经给你父亲发了一封粗俗愚蠢的电报作为回复。踏出这一步，当然就令你非得沿着这粗俗愚蠢的道路走下去不可了。生活中致命的错误，其原因不在于人的不可理喻。一个不可理喻的时刻可以是一个人的最佳时刻。错误的原因乃是人的讲求逻辑。二者之间，相去甚远。那封电报制约了其后你与你父亲的整个关系，结果也制约了我的整个生活。而此事的蹊跷之处是那样一封电报就连街边的毛头小子看了也会觉得脸红。从唐突的电报到趾高气扬的律师信，这是个自然的演进过程。给你父亲的那些律师信，结果当然是刺激他变本加厉。你逼得他有进无退，没有选择。你迫使他把这事看成是名誉、或者更可以说是耻辱所系的关键，以求更大的效应。这样他下一次攻击我时便不是在私人信中，也不当我是你的私人朋友，而是在公共场合，当我是一个公共人士了。我只好把他从我家赶出去。他一家挨一家餐馆地找我，想要在大庭广众下污辱我，其行径之恶劣，我如果反击便会身败名裂，不反击照样会身败名裂。在这时，肯定是到了你本人应该出面的关头了，说不会让我为了你而面对如此恶毒的中伤、如此无耻的迫害，你愿意当即放弃同我的任何交往。不是吗？[36c]你现在觉得该这样做了吧，我想。可当时你心中这念头连闪都没闪过。仇恨蒙住了你眼睛。你心中所能想的（当然，除了给你父亲写信拍电报侮辱他）只是买一把荒唐的手枪，结果在伯克莱放了一枪，造成的丑闻，比你的耳朵所能听到的还要难听。的确，想到自己成了你父亲和一个处在我这种地位的人之间大吵大闹的中心，似乎让你很高兴。这念头，我非常自然地认为，是满足了你的虚荣心，使你更自觉了不起。你的身体，这我不感兴趣，可以留给你父亲，你的灵魂，这他不感兴趣，可以留给我。问题要是这样解决，会叫你很不高兴的。你嗅到了当众闹个大丑闻的机会，就赶紧抓住不放。想到要打一场了，而你却会安然无恙，你挺高兴的。就我记得，在那个季节你后来从没那么兴高采烈过。唯一让你失望的似乎是到底没闹出什么事来，我们两人也没再打过照面吵过架。你便以给他拍电报来打发，那样的电文到头来弄得这可怜的家伙只好给你写信，说是已经命令仆人不管什么电报，怎样伪装，一律不得送到他眼前。这难不倒你。你看到这是明信片大派用场的时候了，便大张旗鼓地写起来，对他更是穷追不舍。我不认为他真的会善罢甘休。他身上的家族本能真是太强烈了。你们相互间的仇恨，一样的不可消弭；而我则成了你们的冤大头，既是矛，又是盾[36d]。他渴望招风惹事扬名，这恰恰不只是个性使然，而是出自家族的禀性[36e]。话说回来，他的兴趣要是有哪个时候低落下去，你的信和明信片很快又会煽起他心中那经年累月的邪火。是这样的。而他自然也就更越走越远了。作为私交在私底下中伤了我，作为公众人士在大庭广众攻击了我，他最终决心来个决定性的重拳出击，在我的艺术作品上演之处，把我作为艺术家来进行攻击。在我的一个戏剧的首演之夜，他弄假骗到一个座位，阴谋打断演出，当着观众的面恶语中伤我，污辱我的演员，要在谢幕前人们唤我到台前时无礼下流地用东西扔我，完全是要居心叵测地借我的作品使我名声扫地。纯粹是出于偶然，他难得地酒后吐真言[36f]，在人前吹嘘了几句他的意图。消息传给了警察，他被拒于戏院之外。那时你的机会来了。那就是你的机会。难道你现在还不明白吗，你本该看到这个机会，走出来说，你无论如何不会让我的艺术因为你的缘故而毁于一旦？你知道我的艺术对我意味着什么，它是宏大的首要的意旨，使我得以向自己，而后向世界，展现我自己它是我生命的真实的激情它是爱。拿别的爱同这种爱相比，就像拿泥水比醇酒，拿沼泽地里的萤火虫比长空里的皓月。难道你现在还不明白吗，缺乏想象力就是你性格上真正致命的缺点？你本该做的事并不难，也很清楚地摆在面前，但是仇恨蒙蔽了你的眼睛，使你什么也看不到。你父亲在几近九个月的时间里用最龌龊卑劣的手段污辱迫害我，我不能为此向他道歉。我无法把你从我的生活中甩掉。我再三努力，不惜离开英国到海外，希望能躲开你。可一点也没用。你是唯一一个什么事都做得出来的人。

要解决这局面全在于你了。你要想报答我的话，那就是大好机会，来稍稍回报一下我对你所有的爱、友情、善意、慷慨和关心。要是你对我作为艺术家的价值能欣赏十分之一，就会这么做了。但是仇恨蒙蔽了你的眼睛。那个 “只要这样、只有这样，我们才能以现实也以理想的关系看待理解他人”的才智，在你心中已经死了。你念念不忘的只是怎样把你父亲关进监狱。用你的话说，要 “看他站在被告席上”，你一心想的就这个。这成了天天挂在嘴边的一句话，每次吃饭都听你说。好啦，你的愿望实现了。不管你要什么，仇恨都一一给了你[36g]，它是个对你疼爱有加的主人。确实的，谁伺候它，它就对谁疼爱有加[36h]。两天里，你同法警一起高坐堂上，一饱眼福地看着你父亲站在中央刑事法庭的被告席上。第三天他的位子由我接替。这是怎么回事？在你们险恶的仇恨之赌中，两人都下注要我的灵魂，可你刚好输了。如此而已[36i]。

36.2

You see that I have to write your life to you, and you have to realise it. We have known each other now for more than four years. Half of the time we have been together the other half I have had to spend in prison as the result of our friendship. Where you will receive this letter, if indeed it ever reaches you, I dont know. Rome, Naples, Paris, Venice, some beautiful city on sea or river, I have no doubt, holds you. You are surrounded, if not with all the useless luxury you had with me, at any rate with everything that is pleasurable to eye, ear, and taste[37a]. Life is quite lovely to you. And yet, if you are wise, and wish to find Life much lovelier still, and in a different manner, you will let the reading of this terrible letter — for such I know it is — prove to you as important a crisis and turning-point of your life as the writing of it is to me. Your pale face used to flush easily with wine or pleasure. If, as you read what is here written, it from time to time becomes scorched, as though by a furnace-blast, with shame, it will be all the better for you[37b]. The supreme vice is shallowness[37c]. Whatever is realised is right.

你看到我不得不把你的生活写出来给你，而你非得领悟它不可。我们到现在认识已有四年多了。有一半的时间我们在一起；而另一半我得因为我们的友谊而在牢中度过。你会在什么地方收到这封信，如果这信当真到了你手上，我不知道。罗马，那不勒斯，巴黎，威尼斯，我不怀疑，会是在你驻足的哪个美丽的滨海或沿河城市。包围着你的，即使不全是同我在一起时的那种无用的奢侈，怎么说样样也是令眼耳口腹欢愉[37a]的东西。生活对你是很可爱的。然而，如果你聪明，并希望找到更可爱得多而且是另一种方式的生活的话，你会让读这封可怕的信——我知道是很可怕的——成为你生活中一个重要的突变和转折点，就像我写这封信那样。想当时，酒和欢娱很容易就上了你那苍白的脸。假如读着这信上所写的，会不时地使羞愧像炉火中爆出的火花那样让你脸上发烧，那对你就更好了[37b]。恶大莫过于浮浅[37c]。无论什么，领悟了就是。

I have now got as far as the House of Detention, have I not After a night passed in the Police Cells I am sent there in the van. You were most attentive and kind. Almost every afternoon, if not actually every afternoon till you go abroad, you took the trouble to drive up to Holloway to see me. You also wrote very sweet and nice letters. But that it was not your father but you who had put me into prison, that from beginning to end you were the responsible person, that it was through you, for you, and by you that I was there, never for one instant dawned upon you. Even the spectacle of me behind the bars of a wooden cage could not quicken that dead unimaginative nature. You had the sympathy and the sentimentality of the spectator of a rather pathetic play[38a]. That you were the true author of the hideous tragedy did not occur to you. I saw that you realised nothing of what you had done. I did not desire to be the one to tell you what your own heart should have told you, what it indeed would have told you if you had not let Hate harden it and make it insensate. Everything must come to one out of ones own nature. There is no use in telling a person a thing that they dont feel and cant understand. If I write to you now as I do it is because your own silence and conduct during my long imprisonment have made it necessary. Besides, as things had turned out, the blow had fallen upon me alone. That was a source of pleasure to me. I was content for many reasons to suffer, though there was always to my eyes, as I watched you, something not a little contemptible in your complete and wilful blindness. I remember your producing with absolute pride a letter you had published in one of the halfpenny newspapers about me. It was a very prudent, temperate, indeed commonplace production. You appealed to the “English sense of fair play,” or something very dreary of that kind, on behalf of “a man who was down.” It was the sort of letter you might have written had a painful charge been brought against some respectable person with whom personally you had been quite unacquainted. But you thought it a wonderful letter. You looked on it as a proof of almost quixotic chivalry. I am aware that you wrote other letters to other newspapers that they did not publish. But then they were simply to say that you hated your father. Nobody cared if you did or not. Hate, you have yet to learn, is, intellectually considered, the Eternal Negation. Considered from the point of view of the emotions it is a form of Atrophy, and kills everything but itself[38b]. To write to the papers to say that one hates someone else is as if one, were to write to the papers to say that one had some secret and shameful malady the fact that the man you hated was your own father, and that the feeling was thoroughly reciprocated, did not make your Hate noble or fine in any way. If it showed anything it was simply that it was an hereditary disease. 我现在讲到拘留所了，是不是？在警察局关了一夜后，用车就把我送到那里了。你对我很关心很好。几乎每天下午，如果不是真的每天下午的话，都不辞辛苦地驾着车来荷洛威看我，直到你出国。你还写信来，说些很好听的话。可是，让我进监狱的不是你父亲而是你，此事从头到尾都该你负责，是由你起的事，为了你的缘故，被你所害，我才身陷此地：这一点，你从来就没明白过。甚至是看到我被锁在木制囚笼中，也无法唤醒你那死去的、没有想象力的心性。作为一出颇有点令人伤心的戏剧的观众，你看了同情动情[38a]，但却没想到自己便是这一出骇人听闻的悲剧的真正作者。看得出你一点也没领悟到自己干下了什么事。我不想扮演这个角色，来告诉你本该由你自己的心告诉你的事。的确，你要是没让自己的心因为仇恨而变硬变麻木的话，它是会告诉你的。凡事都得出自一个人自己心性的领悟。要是他感觉不到或理解不了，那跟他说也没用。我之所以这么写信跟你说，如果这有必要的话，那是因为你在我漫长的囚禁期间的行为，你的沉默。而且，事情闹到头，打击全落到我一个人身上。这倒是令我高兴的一件事。有许多理由让我甘心受苦，虽然看你时，你那份被仇恨蒙蔽而彻底的顽梗的麻木，在我眼里总觉得很有些可鄙。记得你曾得意非常地掏出一封你在一家半便士报纸上发表的关于我的信。那是一篇非常四平八稳、不痛不痒，的确是很平庸的文字。你为一个 “被击倒的人”说话，呼吁 “英国人的公平意识”，或者诸如此类无聊的东西。像这种信，如果一个可尊敬的人士惨遭指控，你即使不认识他也可能会写的。可你觉得这封信写得很好，把它看作几乎是堂吉诃德式的骑士精神的证明。我知道你还写了别的信到别的报纸，他们没发表就是。但那时他们只不过说是你恨你父亲罢了。没人管你恨不恨的。仇恨，你还不知道呢，以心智论是永恒的否定，以感情论是萎缩退化的一种形式，它消灭一切，除了自己[38b]。写给报纸说恨某个人，就像写给报纸说自己有什么秘密的、羞于启齿的痼疾似的。你恨的人是自己的父亲，而且完全是相互的仇恨，这无论如何不会使你的仇恨显得高尚或美好。如果说其中显示了什么的话，那就是，这仇恨是个遗传病。

I remember again, when an execution was put into my house, and my books and furniture were seized and advertised to be sold, and Bankruptcy was impending, I naturally wrote to tell you about it. I did not mention that it was to pay for some gifts of mine to you that the bailiffs had entered the home where you had so often dined. I thought, rightly or wrongly, that such news might pain you a little. I merely told you the bare facts[39a]. I thought it proper that you should know them[39b]. You wrote back from Boulogne in a strain of almost lyrical exultation. You said that you knew your father was “hard up for money,” and had been obliged to raise 1500 for the expenses of the trial, and that my going bankrupt was really a “splendid score” off him, as he would not then be able to get any of his costs out of me Do you realise now what Hate blinding a person is[39c] Do you recognise now that when I described it as an Atrophy destructive of everything but itself, I was scientifically describing a real psychological fact That all my charming things were to be sold my Burne-Jones drawings my Whistler drawings my Monticelli my Simeon Solomons my china my Library with its collection of presentation volumes from almost every poet of my time, from Hugo to Whitman, from Swinburne to. Mallarme, from Morris to Verlaine with its beautifully bound editions of my fathers and mothers works its wonderful array of college and school prizes, its editions de luxe, and the like was absolutely nothing to you. You said it was a great bore that was all. What you really saw in it was the possibility that your father might ultimately lose a few hundred pounds, and that paltry consideration filled you with ecstatic joy[39d]. As for the costs of the trial, you may be interested to know that your father openly said in the Orleans Club that if it had cost him 20,000 he would have considered the money thoroughly well spent, he had extracted such enjoyment, and delight, and triumph out of it all. The fact that he was able not merely to put me into prison for two years, but to take me out for an afternoon and make me a public bankrupt was an extra-refinement of pleasure that he had not expected. It was the crowning-point[39e] of my humiliation, and of his complete and perfect victory. Had your father had no claim for his costs on me, you, I know perfectly well, would, as far as words go, at any rate have been most sympathetic about the entire loss of my library, a loss irreparable to a man of letters, the one of all my material losses the most distressing to me. You might even, remembering the sums of money I had lavishly spent on you and how you had lived on me for years, have taken the trouble to buy in some of my books for me. The best all went for less than 150 about as much as I would spend on you in an ordinary week. But the mean small pleasure of thinking that your father was going to be a few pence out of pocket made you forget all about trying to make me a little return, so slight, so easy, so inexpensive, so obvious, and so enormously welcome to me, had you brought it about. Am I right in saying that Hate blinds people Do you see it now If you dont, try to see it[39f].

我又记起来了，当要在我家执行破产令时，我的书和家具查封了登广告出售，破产在即，我自然写了信告诉你。我没说是因为要偿还我给你买礼物的款项，法警才进入这所你曾如此经常地在这儿进餐的房子。我想，不管想对了还是想错了，这消息也许会让你不好受一下。我只是把事情如实告诉你[39a]，觉得这些事理应让你知道[39b]。你从布伦回了一封信，听那口气高兴得简直像写抒情诗似的。说是你知道你父亲“缺钱”，不得已筹措了1500镑的诉讼费，我这一破产，真是让他 “大失一分”，因为没法从我这儿拿到一点诉讼费了！你现在明白了吗，仇恨可以把人蒙蔽到什么地步[39c]？你现在看出了吗，当我说仇恨是一种破坏性的萎缩，它除了本身，会破坏一切时，我是在科学地描述一个真确的心理事实？我所有的好东西都要卖掉了：伯恩琼斯的画、韦斯勒的画、蒙蒂塞利的画、西米恩所罗门的画、各种瓷器，还有我的藏书，里头有当今世界几乎每一位诗人作品的赠阅本：从雨果到惠特曼、从斯温伯恩到马拉美、从莫里斯到魏尔伦，还有我父母著作装订精美的版本，还有从小学到大学历次的奖章奖品，还有各式豪华版书籍等等。这一切在你眼里一钱不值。你说这无聊透了，就这样。你从中真正看到的，是你父亲最终可能要破财几百英镑，这鸡毛蒜皮的破费就让你乐不可支的[39d]。至于说诉讼费，你也许有兴致听听，你父亲曾在奥利安斯俱乐部公开说过，如果花上个20000英镑他会觉得太值得了，闹了一场，痛痛快快、高高兴兴来了个大获全胜。他不但让我在监狱里蹲了两年，还有一个下午让我当众出丑，宣布破产，这倒是他始料不及的锦上添花。我的羞辱，他的得意，莫过于此[39e]。如果不是你父亲要将诉讼费转嫁于我的话，那我心里再明白不过了，起码就口里说的听来，你无论如何会对我痛失所有藏书而深表同情的。对一个文学家来说，这是无可挽回的损失，在所有物质损失中，这是最令我心疼的。记起这些年我是怎样大把大把地在你身上花钱，供你养你，你甚至可能会出点力为我买回一些书来。那些书最好的以不到150英镑全卖了：差不多是我平常一周内为你花的钱。可是一想到要从你父亲兜里掏出几个便士了，这琐屑卑微的快感令你忘记了去为我做出一点回报，一点小小的回报，这样的轻而易举、不花大钱，却又会这样的有目共睹，令我求之不得。我说仇恨蒙蔽了人的眼睛错了吗？你现在看到了吗？要是还没有，就瞪大眼睛看吧[39f]。

How clearly I saw it then, as now, I need not tell you. But I said to myself “At all costs I must keep Love in my heart. If I go into prison without Love what will become of my Soul” The letters I wrote to you at that time from Holloway were my efforts to keep Love as the dominant note of my own nature. I could if I had chosen have torn you to pieces with bitter reproaches[40a]. I could have rent you with maledictions. I could have held up a mirror to you, and shown you such an image of yourself that you would not have recognised it as your own till you found it mimicking back your gestures of horror, and then you would have known whose shape it was, and hated it and yourself for ever. More than that indeed. The sins of another were being placed to my account. Had I so chosen, I could on either trial have saved myself at his expense, not from shame indeed but from imprisonment. Had I cared to show that the Crown witnesses—the three most important — had been carefully coached by your father and his solicitors, not in reticences merely, but in assertions, in the absolute transference, deliberate, plotted, and rehearsed, of the actions and doings of someone else on to me[40b], I could have had each one of them dismissed from the box by the Judge, more summarily[40c] than even wretched perjured Atkins was.[40.1] I could have walked out of Court with my tongue in my cheek, and my hands in my pockets, a free man[40d]. The strongest pressure was put upon me to do so. I was earnestly advised, begged, entreated to do so by people whose sole interest was my welfare, and the welfare of my house[40e]. But I refused. I did not choose to do so. I have never regretted my decision for a single moment, even in the most bitter periods of my imprisonment. Such a course of action would have been beneath me. Sins of the flesh are nothing. They are maladies for physicians to cure, if they should be cured[40f]. Sins of the soul alone are shameful. To have secured my acquittal by such means would have been a life-long torture to me. But do you really think that you were worthy of the love I was showing you then, or that for a single moment I thought you were Do you really think that at any period in our friendship you were worthy of the love I showed you, or that for a single moment I thought you were I knew you were not. But Love does not traffic in a marketplace, nor use a hucksters scales. Its joy, like the joy of the intellect, is to feel itself alive[40g]. The aim of Love is to love no more, and no less[40h]. You were my enemy such an enemy as no man ever had. I had given you my life, and to gratify the lowest and most contemptible of all human passions, Hatred and Vanity and Greed, you had thrown it away. In less than three years you had entirely ruined me from every point of view. For my own sake there was nothing for me to do but to love you. I knew, if I allowed myself to hate you, that in the dry desert of existence over which I had to travel, and am travelling still, every rock would lose its shadow, every palm tree be withered, every well of water prove poisoned at its source. Are you beginning now to understand a little Is your imagination wakening from the long lethargy in which it has lain You know already what Hate is. Is it beginning to dawn on you what Love is, and what is the nature of Love It is not too late for you to learn, though to teach it to you I may have had to go to a convicts cell.

我当时，如同现在一样看得有多清楚，就不必跟你说了。但我对自己说：“不管怎样，我必须心中存着爱。要是不带着爱进监狱，那我的灵魂该怎么办？”那时从荷洛威给你写了那些信，就是努力要存住爱，让它成为我自己心性的主旨。要是我真想这么做的话，本可以将你痛骂得体无完肤[40a]，本可以用诅咒鞭挞你。我本可以擎起一面镜子，让你看到那样一副你自己都认不出来的嘴脸，看到它在学你那可怕的样子时，才知道那就是你，于是对它、对你自己，一恨到底。还不止于此呢。另一个人的罪孽正算在我的帐上。如果我想这么做的话，本来可以在两场中的哪一场审讯里把那个人推出来而免自己一难，当然不是免于羞辱了，而是免于牢狱之苦。如果我高兴的话，大可以披露原告证人——最重要的那三个——是经过你父亲和他的律师们精心调教过的，不止是如何以守为攻，更是如何以攻为守，处心积虑地、诡计多端地经过排练预演，绝对要把另一个人的所作所为安到我头上[40b]。我本可以使法官当堂把他们一个个赶出证人席的，甚至比裁定那个作假证的卑鄙的阿特金斯更为即决[40c]。我本可以风凉话挂在嘴边，两只手插在兜里，无罪一身轻地走出法庭的[40d]。要我这么做的压力太大了。有人真心地劝我、央求我、哀求我这么做，他们唯一关心的是我的祸福，是我家门的存亡[40e]。但我拒绝了。我不想这么做。对这个决定我从来没有后悔过，即便在监牢里那些最痛苦的时候。那样的举动我不屑为之。肉体之罪算不了什么。如果该治的话，也是留给医生诊治的疾患[40f]。只有灵魂之罪才是可耻的。假使通过这种手段使自己获判无罪，对于我将是永生的折磨。但是你真的就认为自己配得上我那时对你表示的爱吗？真的就认为我有哪一刻觉得你配得上吗？你真的就认为在我们的友谊之中，有哪一段时期你配得上我对你表示的爱吗？真的就认为我有哪一刻觉得你配得上吗？我知道你配不上的。但爱不在市场上交易，也不用小贩的秤来称量。爱的欢乐，一如心智的欢乐，在于感受自身的存活[40g]。爱的目的是去爱，不多，也不少[40h]。你是我的敌人，从来没有谁有过像这样的敌人。我曾把自己的生命给了你，然而为了满足一己私欲，那人情人性中最低下最可鄙的欲望——仇恨、虚荣还有贪婪——你把它丢弃了。在不到三年时间里，你把我完完全全给毁了。为了我自己的缘故，我别无选择，唯有爱你。我知道，假如让自己恨你的话，那在“活着”这一片我过去要、现在仍然在跋涉的沙漠之中，每一块岩石都将失去它的荫影，每一株棕榈都会枯萎，每一眼清泉都将从源头变为毒水。你现在是不是开始明白一些了？你的想象力是不是在从它那漫长的昏睡中苏醒过来？你已经知道恨是什么个样子了。你是不是也开始悟出爱是什么个样子，爱的本质又是什么呢？你要学还不太晚，虽然为了教你，我可能非得这么坐牢不可。

After my terrible sentence, when the prison-dress was on me, and the prison-house closed, I sat amidst the ruins of my wonderful life, crushed by anguish, bewildered with terror, dazed through pain[41a]. But I would not hate you. Every day I said to myself, “ I must keep Love in my heart today, else how shall I live through the day.” I reminded myself that you meant no evil, to me at any rate[41b] I set myself to think that you had but drawn a bow at a venture, and that the arrow had pierced a King between the joints of the harness.[41.1] To have weighed you against the smallest of my sorrows, the meanest of my losses, would have been, I felt, unfair. I determined I would regard you as one suffering too. I forced myself to believe that at last the scales had fallen from your long-blinded eyes. I used to fancy, and with pain, what your horror must have been when you contemplated your terrible handiwork. There were times, even in those dark days, the darkest of all my life, when I actually longed to console you. So sure was I that at last you had realised what you had done.

在我那可怕的刑判下来后，当囚衣披上身、牢房关上门之后，我坐在自己灿烂生活的废墟中，痛苦使我肝胆俱裂，恐惧使我不知所措，疼痛又令我眼冒金星[41a]。但我不会恨你的。每天我都对自己说：“今天我必须把爱留存心间，否则这一天怎么过？”我提醒自己说你是不怀恶意的，不管怎样，对我是不怀恶意的[41b]。我要自己认为，你不过是贸然张弓，是箭镞射中了一个国王，穿进他铠甲的连接处。要是连我忧伤中之最轻者、损失中之最小者都拿出来同你计较，我觉得，是不公平的。我决心把你也看作是患难者，强迫自己相信，那长久蒙蔽你眼睛的阴翳终于消解了。我曾常常不无心痛地悬想，当你思量自己一手造成的可怕后果时，会是多么的惊惧。即使在那黑暗的日子里，那些我一生中最黑暗的日子里，也有些时候我当真渴望能去安慰你，那样确信你终于领悟到了自己的所作所为。

It did not occur to me then that you could have the supreme vice, shallowness. Indeed, it was a real grief to me when I had to let you know that I was obliged to reserve for family business my first opportunity of receiving a letter but my brother-in-law had written to me to say that if I would only write once to my wife she would, for my own sake and for our childrens sake, take no action for divorce. I felt my duty was to do so. Setting aside other reasons, I could not bear the idea of being separated from Cyril, that beautiful, loving, loveable child of mine, my friend of all friends, my companion beyond all companions, one single hair of whose little golden head should have been dearer and of more value to me than, I will not merely say you from top to toe, but the entire chrysolite of the whole world[42a].[42.1] was so indeed to me always, though I failed to understand it till too late.

我那时没想到，你会有这一大恶——浮浅。我当时真的很伤心，但又不得不告诉你，第一次让我收信的机会，因为只能收一封，只好留给有关我家事的信。我妻子的兄弟来信说，只要我给她写一次信，她就会因为我和我们孩子的缘故，不兴讼离婚。我感到有责任这样做。其它理由不说，一想到要同西里尔分开我就受不了。我那漂亮、会疼人又招人疼的孩子，我所有朋友中的朋友、我一切伙伴中的伙伴，他那小小脑袋满头金发中的一根，对我来说都比，不用说从头到脚的你了，都比普天下的宝石[42a]还宝贵——确实一直都是这样的，只是等我明白时已太晚了。

Two weeks after your application, I get news of you. Robert Sherard, that bravest and most chivalrous of all brilliant beings, comes to see me, and amongst other things tells me that in that ridiculous Mercure de France [43.1], with its absurd affectation of being the true centre of literary corruption, you are about to publish an article on me with specimens of my letters. He asks me if it really was by my wish. I was greatly taken aback, and much annoyed, and gave orders that the thing was to be stopped at once. You had left my letters lying about for blackmailing companions to steal[43a], for hotel servants to pilfer, for housemaids to sell. That was simply your careless want of appreciation of what I had written to you. But that you should seriously propose to publish selections from the balance was almost incredible to me. And which of my letters were they I could get no information. That was my first news of you. It displeased me.

在你申请后两周，我得到了你的消息。罗伯特舍拉德，这位最勇敢最侠义的好人，前来看我，除了别的事外，也告诉我那份荒唐的《法兰西信使》，及其作为文学腐败的真正中心是如何扭捏作态，说你就要在上面发表一篇文章谈我的事，还要附上我的一些信件。他问我是否真的希望这么做。我听了大吃一惊，非常恼火，命令这事马上停止。你曾经把我的信四处乱放，让你那一伙人偷了来敲诈[43a]，让旅馆的仆人窃取，让家里的佣人出卖。那不过是你对我写给你的信掉以轻心，无法欣赏罢了。而你竟然认真提出把剩下的信选出来发表，这几乎使我不敢相信。你会选些什么信呢？我无从知道。这是我得到的关于你的第一则消息。它让我很不愉快。

The second piece of news followed shortly afterwards. Your fathers solicitors had appeared in the prison, and served me personally with a Bankruptcy notice, for a paltry 700, the amount of their taxed costs. I was adjudged a public insolvent, and ordered to be produced in Court. I felt most strongly, and feel still, and will revert to the subject again, that these costs should have been paid by your family. You had taken personally on yourself the responsibility of stating that your family would do so. It was that which had made the solicitor take up the case in the way he did. You were absolutely responsible. Even irrespective of your engagement on your familys behalf you should have felt that as you had brought the whole ruin on me, the least that could have been done was to spare me the additional ignominy of bankruptcy for an absolutely contemptible sum of money, less than half of what I spent on you in three brief summer months at Goring. Of that, however, no more here. I did through the solicitors clerk, I fully admit, receive a message from you on the subject, or at any rate in connection with the occasion. The day he came to receive my depositions and statements, he leant across the table — the prison warder being present — and having consulted a piece of paper which he pulled from his pocket, said to me in a low voice “Prince Fleur-de-Lys[44.1] wishes to be remembered to you.” I stared at him. He repeated the message again. I did not know what he meant. “The gentleman is abroad at present,” he added mysteriously. It all flashed across me, and I remember that, for the first and last time in my entire prison-life, I laughed. In that laugh was all the scorn of all the world. Prince Fleur-de-Lys I saw — and subsequent events showed me that I rightly saw — that nothing that had happened had made you realise a single thing[44a]. You were in your own eyes still the graceful prince of a trivial comedy, not the sombre figure of a tragic show. All that had occurred was but as a feather for the cap that gilds a narrow head, a flower to pink the doublet that hides a heart that Hate, and Hate alone, can warm, that Love, and Love alone, finds cold. Prince Fleur-de-Lys You were, no doubt, quite right to communicate with me under an assumed name. I myself, at that time, had no name at all. In the great prison where I was then incarcerated I was merely the figure and letter of a little cell in a long gallery, one of a thousand lifeless numbers, as of a thousand lifeless lives[44b]. But surely there were many real names in real history which would have suited you much better, and by which I would have had no difficulty at all in recognising you at once I did not look for you behind the spangles of a tinsel vizard only suitable for an amusing masquerade. Ah had your soul been, as for its own perfection even it should have been, wounded with sorrow, bowed with remorse, and humble with grief, such was not the disguise it would have chosen beneath whose shadow to seek entrance to the House of Pain The great things of life are what they seem to be, and for that reason, strange as it may sound to you, are often difficult to interpret. But the little things of life are symbols. We receive our bitter lessons most easily through them[44c]. Your seemingly casual choice of a feigned name was, and will remain, symbolic. It reveals you.

第二则消息很快就来了。你父亲的律师在监狱里露面，当面递送了一份破产通知，就为了区区的七百镑，他们报的费用数额。我被判为公开破产，必须出庭。我强烈认为，现在仍这样认为，等下还会重提此事，这些费用该由你家支付。你曾以个人担保，明言你家会支付的。就因你这么说了，律师才承接这个案子的。你绝对应该负责。即使不因为你代表你们家所作的承诺，你也应该感到，既然你已弄得我身败名裂，那至少也该让我免于这雪上加霜的破产之耻吧，何况是因为这根本不足挂齿的一点钱，还不到短短的三个月夏天里我在戈灵为你花的一半呢。关于这一点，在这里暂且不多说了。我完全承认，从律师楼的职员那里收到过你关于这件事的口信，怎么说也是同这事有关联的口信。他来取我的证言和声明的那天，从桌那边探过身来——看守当时在场——从衣袋里拿出一张字条看了看，低声对我说：“百合花王子向你问好。” 我瞪着眼睛看他。他又把话重复了一遍。我不知道他说的是什么。“那位先生目前在国外，”他神秘地补了一句。我恍然大悟，记得在我的囚徒生活中，那是第一次也是最后一次笑了。天下所有鄙夷尽在那一笑中了。百合花王子！我看到了——而以后的事情说明我没看错——所发生的这一切，丝毫没让你有一丁点的领悟[44a]。你在自己眼里仍然是一出小喜剧中风度翩翩的王子，而非一出悲剧演出中忧郁伤心的人物。所发生的一切，只不过是帽子上的一根羽饰，装点着一个气度狭隘的脑袋，只不过是别在马甲上的一朵花，遮掩着一颗仇恨，只有仇恨，才能温暖的心。那颗心中，爱，只有爱，会觉得寒冷。百合花王子！你用个假名同我联系，当然是无可厚非的事。我自己呢，在那时，什么名字也没有。在当时被囚禁的那个大监狱里，我不过是在长长的一条走廊里，一间小小的单人牢房门上的数字和字母罢了，千百个无生命的号码中的一个，千百条没生活的生命中的一条[44b]。但是在真实的历史中肯定有许多真实的名字吧，对你会更合适得多，用了我也会不费力地一下就认出你来？我并未在那些只适用于化装舞会上取乐的光怪陆离的假面后寻找你。啊！要是你的灵魂因为哀愁而伤痛，因为愧悔而谦卑，因为悲苦而沉重——为求其灵修臻于完美甚至应该这样的——那就不会选择这么一个伪装，想躲在这么一个暗影中潜入这悲苦之地！生活中的大事是因为它们显得大，因为这一点，虽然你听着可能觉得奇怪，大事往往难以阐释。但是生活中的小事却是象征。我们最容易通过小事吸取人生的惨痛教训[44c]。你似乎是不经意地选择了一个假名，这件事当时是、并将依然是具有象征性的。它把你揭穿了。

Six weeks later a third piece of news arrives. I am called out of the Hospital Ward, where I was lying wretchedly ill, to receive a special message from you through the Governor of the Prison. He reads me out a letter you had addressed to him in which you stated that you proposed to publish an article “on the case of Mr Oscar Wilde,” in the Mercure de France (“a magazine,” you added for some extraordinary reason, “corresponding to our English Fortnightly Review”) and were anxious to obtain my permission to publish extracts and selections from — what letters The letters I had written to you from Holloway Prison The letters that should have been to you things sacred and secret beyond anything in the whole world[45a] [45b] These actually were the letters you proposed to publish for the jaded decadent to wonder at[45b], for the greedy feuilletoniste to chronicle[45b], for the little lions of the Quartier Latin to gape and mouth at[45b] Had there been nothing in your own heart to cry out against so vulgar a sacrilege you might at least have remembered the sonnet he wrote who saw with such sorrow and scorn the letters of John Keats sold by public auction in London and have understood at last the real meaning[45b] of my lines

I think they love not Art

Who break the crystal of a poets heart[45c]

That small and sickly eyes may glare or gloat.[45.1]

For what was your article to show That I had been too fond of you The Paris gamin was quite aware of the fact. They all read the newspapers, and most of them write for them. That I was a man of genius The French understood that, and the peculiar quality of my genius, much better than you did, or could have been expected to do. That along with genius goes often a curious perversity of passion and desire Admirable[45d] but the subject belongs to Lombroso[45e] rather than to you. Besides, the pathological phenomenon in question is also found amongst those who have not genius. That in your war of hate with your father I was at once shield and weapon to each of you Nay more, that in that hideous hunt for my life, that took place when the war was over, he never could have reached me had not your nets been already about my feet[45f] Quite true[45g] but I am told that Henri Baur had already done it extremely well.[45.2] Besides, to corroborate his view, had such been your intention, you did not require to publish my letters at any rate those written from Holloway Prison.

六周之后又来了第三则消息。我从病重躺卧的医院病房被叫了出来，去听一则你通过监狱长传给我的口信。他读出一封你写给他的信，信中说你提出要发表一篇《奥斯卡王尔德一案》的文章，发在《法兰西信使》上（该“杂志”，你出于某种特殊原因补充说， “相当于我们英国的《双周评论》”），很想得到我的许可发表一些信的摘要或选段——哪些信？是我从荷洛威监狱给你写的那些信！那些信本该是你在这整个世界上最弥足珍贵、最秘不可宣的东西[45a] [45b]！这些就是你提出要发表的信，让那些饱食终日的颓废派们看了称奇[45b]，供那些贪得无厌的专栏作家们搜集猎奇[45b]，叫《拉丁季刊》的小名流们目瞪口呆、乱说一气[45b]。如果你自己心中没有什么会疾呼反对如此下流的亵渎之举，那至少也该记得那个人在伦敦看到约翰济慈的信在公开拍卖，悲伤与鄙夷之余写下的那首商籁诗，而最终能理解我诗句的真意[45b]：

……我看他们对艺术并不钟情

打碎了一位诗人水晶般的心灵[45c]

一任那些委琐的小眼睛虎视眈眈。

你的文章想要搬出些什么来呢？说我太喜欢你了？这一点巴黎的浪子知道得很清楚。他们都看报，其中大多也给报社写东西。说我是个天才？这一点法国人明白，还有我天才的独到之处，他们比你所了解的，或者人们可能希望你会了解的，要明白得多。说天才常常伴随着情感和欲望上莫名的乖张变态？佩服佩服[45d]，但这课题是隆布洛索的专长[45e]，不是你的。况且，这一病理现象也见于没有天才的人群。说在你和你父亲仇恨的争战中，你们各自都拿我既当盾又当矛？还有呢，说在你们的争战结束后对我的那场追魂夺命的恶毒攻击中，要不是你的网撒到了我脚边，他是根本逮不着我的[45f]？这倒不假[45g]，但有人告诉我亨利波厄已经著文把这一点说得再清楚不过了。而且，要证实他的观点，如果这是你的目的，那也用不着发表我的信，怎么说也用不着发表在荷洛威监狱里写的信。

Will you say, in answer to my questions, that in one of my Holloway letters I had myself asked you to try, as far as you were able, to set me a little right with some small portion of the world Certainly, I did so. Remember how and why I am here, at this very moment. Do you think I am here on account of my relations with the witnesses on my trial My relations, real or supposed, with people of that kind were matters of no interest to either the Government or Society. They knew nothing of them, and cared less. I am here for having tried to put your father into prison. My attempt failed of course. My own Counsel threw up their briefs. Your father completely turned the tables[46a] on me, and had me in prison, has me there still. That is why there is contempt felt for me. That is why people despise me. That is why I have to serve out every day, every hour, every minute of my dreadful imprisonment. That is why my petitions have been refused[46b].

为了回答我的这些问题，你会不会说，我自己在荷洛威监狱里写的一封信中，要你尽可能在小小一部分世人面前还我一些清白？没错，我是说了。记住我为什么此时此刻会在这里。你认为我在这里是因为同那些原告证人的关系吗？我同那种人的关系，不管是真的还是猜的，政府和社会都不感兴趣。这些人他们根本不知道，更不会去注意。我在这里，是因为本想把你父亲关进监狱。当然我失败了。我的辩护律师撒手认输了。你父亲反败为胜[46a]，把我给关进了监狱，还关着呢。这就是为什么我被人看不起。这就是为什么人们鄙视我。这就是为什么我得一天一天、一小时一小时、一分钟一分钟地服完这可怕的徒刑。这就是为什么我要求提前释放的请愿书都被拒绝了[46b]。46

You were the only person who, and without in any way exposing yourself to scorn or danger or blame[47a], could have given another colour to the whole affair have put the matter in a different light have shown to a certain degree how things really stood. I would not of course have expected, nor indeed wished you to have stated how and for what purpose you had sought my assistance in your trouble at Oxford or how, and for what purpose, if you had a purpose at all, you had practically never left my side for nearly three years. My incessant attempts to break off a friendship that was so ruinous to me as an artist, as a man of position, as a member of society even, need not have been chronicled with the accuracy with which they have been set down here[47b]. Nor would I have desired you to have described the scenes you used to make with such almost monotonous recurrence nor to have reprinted your wonderful series of telegrams to me with their strange mixture of romance and finance[47c] nor to have quoted from your letters the more revolting or heartless passages, as I have been forced to do. Still, I thought it would have been good, as well for you as for me, if you had made some protest against your fathers version of our friendship, one no less grotesque than venomous, and as absurd in its reference to you as it was dishonouring in its reference to me. That version has now actually passed into serious history it is quoted, believed, and chronicled the preacher has taken it for his text, and the moralist for his barren theme and I who appealed to all the ages have had to accept my verdict from one who is an ape and a buffoon. I have said, and with some bitterness, I admit, in this letter that such was the irony of things that your father would live to be the hero of a Sunday-school tract that you would rank with the infant Samuel and that my place would be between Gilles de Retz and the Marquis de Sade.[47.1] I dare say it is best so. I have no desire to complain. One of the many lessons that one learns in prison is that things are what they are, and will be what they will be. Nor have I any doubt but that the leper of mediaevalism, and the author of Justine, will prove better company than Sandford and Merton.[47.2]

你本来是唯一的一个人，能在丝毫不必蒙羞冒险受辱[47a]的情况下，改变局面，令整个事件改观，在某种程度上反映出真相来的。我当然不期望、确实也不希望你和盘托出你当初是怎样、以及为了什么目的在牛津碰到麻烦后找上我求助的；或者，你是怎样、以及为了什么目的——如果你还真有什么目的的话——将近三年来简直是寸步不离我左右。这段交情对于我，作为一名艺术家、一个有地位的人，甚至是社会的一员，具有偌大的毁灭性；我屡屡要摆脱这交情，个中的始末曲直，本不用像现在这样细算流水帐的[47b]。我也不会要你把那些三天两头你几乎是必闹无疑的场面描述一遍；不会要你把打给我的那一连串绝妙的电报，那一派奇怪地交织着谈情和说钱的文字[47c]，重印出来；也不会要你像我曾经被迫所做的那样，从你的信中摘引那些更是不堪入耳、无情无义的段落。但我仍然认为，你要是能就你父亲的话提出抗议，那于我于你都是有好处的。你父亲对我们友谊的说词，既怪且毒，说到你时是那么荒唐可笑，说到我时又是那么血口喷人。这种说词现在竟然已加载正史：有人引证，有人相信，有人编纂；讲道者以此撰写他的布道文，卫道者以此作为他道德文章的主题。而我呢，曾经令老老少少心动的我呢，却要接受一个笨蛋小丑的判决。我承认，在这封信里，我曾不无苦涩地说过，事情的讽刺在于你父亲有生之年将成为主日学校小册子里头的英雄，你将与少年塞缪尔并列，而我将与雷斯和萨德侯爵为伍。我敢说这再好不过了。我无意抱怨。人在狱中学到了好多，其中之一就是：天下事，是怎样就怎样，该怎样会怎样。我也毫不怀疑，中世纪的麻风病人和《朱斯蒂娜》的作者将比《桑佛德与默顿》更好作伴。