我是完完全全的身无分文，实实在在的无家可归[69a]。可世界上还有比这更惨的呢。实话告诉你，与其心怀对你或世人的怨恨出这监狱，我还不如高高兴兴地挨家挨户要饭去[69b]。如果从大户人家要不到，从穷人家里也会要到一点的。东西很多的人常常贪婪成性，自己没什么的人总是与人分享。只要心中存有爱，我不介意夏天里在凉气袭人的草地上过夜，冬天里在干草堆边、在大谷仓下避寒[69c]。身外之物对我似乎是毫无意义了。你看，我的自为主义已经达到一种多么强烈的地步，或者更应该说是正在达到这种地步，因为路途还远着呢，而 “我行走的地方布满荆棘”。
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Of course I know that to ask for alms on the highway is not to be my lot, and that if ever I lie in the cool grass at night-time it will be to write sonnets to the Moon. When I go out of prison, Robbie will be waiting for me on the other side of the big iron-studded gate, and he is the symbol not merely of his own affection, but of the affection of many others besides. I believe I am to have enough to live on for about eighteen months at any rate, so that, if I may not write beautiful books, I may at least read beautiful books, and what joy can be greater? After that, I hope to be able to recreate my creative faculty. But were things different: had I not a friend left in the world: were there not a single house open to me even in pity: had I to accept the wallet and ragged cloak of sheer penury: still as long as I remained free from all resentment, hardness, and scorn, I would be able to face life with much more calm and confidence than I would were my body in purple and fine linen, and the soul within it sick with hate. And I shall really have no difficulty in forgiving you. But to make it a pleasure for me you must feel that you want it. When you really want it you will find it waiting for you.
当然我知道自己命中不会到大路边乞讨，如果当真躺在了冰凉的草地上过夜，那也是要给月亮写商籁诗。 出狱那天罗比会在大铁门的那边等我的，而他所象征的，不止是他一个人的关爱，还有其他好多人的呢。相信有一年半的时间我不管怎样还是不会饿肚子的。这样的话，即使没写出好书来，至少也可以读些好书。还有比这更令人愉快的事吗？之后我希望能重整我的创作能力。可要是事与愿违：要是在这世界上变得无亲无故，千家万户也无人同情无人接纳，我唯有破衣遮身沿门托钵；即使这样，只要胸不存块垒，不为怨恨和鄙夷所困，我便能满怀信心，泰然直面人生，远胜过锦缎加身，裹着一个为仇恨所苦的灵魂。要我宽恕你，真的是一点也不难。但要我因为宽恕你而快乐，首先你必须感到需要我的宽恕。当你真的想要时，会发现它在等着你。
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I need not say that my task does not end there. It would be comparatively easy if it did. There is much more before me. I have hills far steeper to climb, valleys much darker to pass through. And I have to get it all out of myself. Neither Religion, Morality, nor Reason can help me at all.
不用说，我得做的并非就这些，要只有这些就比较好办了。 该做的事还多着呢。有陡得多的山要攀登，有深得多的幽谷要穿越。而一切都必须出自我内心。宗教、道德、道理，没有一样能帮得上忙。
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Morality does not help me. I am a born antinomian. I am one of those who are made for exceptions, not for laws. But while I see that there is nothing wrong in what one does, I see that there is something wrong in what one becomes. It is well to have learned that.
道德帮不了忙。我生来就是个离经叛道的人，是个标新立异、而非循规蹈矩的人。但是我看到一个人错不在于他做什么﹐而在于他成为怎样一个人。好在明白了这一点。
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Religion does not help me. The faith that others give to what is unseen, I give to what one can touch, and look at. My Gods dwell in temples made with hands, and within the circle of actual experience is my creed made perfect and complete: too complete it may be, for like many or all of those who have placed their Heaven in this earth, I have found in it not merely the beauty of Heaven, but the horror of Hell also. When I think about Religion at all, I feel as if I would like to found an order for those who cannot believe: the Confraternity of the Fatherless one might call it, where on an altar, on which no taper burned, a priest, in whose heart peace had no dwelling, might celebrate with unblessed bread and a chalice empty of wine. Everything to be true must become a religion. And agnosticism should have its ritual no less than faith. It has sown its martyrs, it should reap its saints, and praise God daily for having hidden Himself from man. But whether it be faith or agnosticism, it must be nothing external to me. Its symbols must be of my own creating. Only that is spiritual which makes its own form. If I may not find its secret within myself, I shall never find it. If I have not got it already, it will never come to me.
宗教帮不了忙。别人信那看不见的，我信摸得着看得到的。我的神他们住在用手建造的庙宇中，我的教义在实际经验的范围内达到了完美与完满的境界，可能太完满了，因为就像很多或所有那些把他们的天堂放在这世上的人，我不但在这世上发现了天堂的美好，也发现了地狱的可怕。要是真还考虑到了宗教，我便觉得想为那些无法信神的人创立一个教团，也许就称为“无父者兄弟会”吧。在这里，有一座圣坛，上面没点蜡烛，有一个神甫，心中不存平安，可以用没受过祝福的面包和不斟酒的圣杯主持圣餐。不管什么，要成为真实，就必须变成宗教。不可知论同信仰一样，也要有它的仪式。它撒下它的殉道者之种，应该结成了圣人之果，它应该天天赞颂，感谢上帝他躲着不让人看见。但不管是信仰还是不可知，都绝不能是外在于我的东西。它的教义必须由我亲自创立。只有创造自己形式的才是属灵的。假使我不能在自己内心发现它的真意，那就永远也发现不了。假使我不是已然找着了它，就永远也找不着了。
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Reason does not help me. It tells me that the laws under which I am convicted are wrong and unjust laws, and the system under which I have suffered a wrong and unjust system. But, somehow, I have got to make both of these things just and right to me. And exactly as in Art one is only concerned with what a particular thing is at a particular moment to oneself, so it is also in the ethical evolution of one’s character. I have got to make everything that has happened to me good for me. The plank-bed, the loathsome food, the hard ropes shredded into oakum till one’s fingertips grow dull with pain,[74.1] the menial offices with which each day begins and finishes, the harsh orders that routine seems to necessitate, the dreadful dress that makes sorrow grotesque to look at, the silence, the solitude, the shame—each and all of these things I have to transform into a spiritual experience. There is not a single degradation of the body which I must not try and make into a spiritualising of the soul.
道理帮不了忙。讲道理那就等于说，定我罪的法律是错误、是不公正的法律，让我受苦的制度是错误、是不公正的制度。但是，我总得设法使这两样东西显得对我既公正又公平。正如在艺术中，人只关心一个特定的事物在一个特定的瞬间对自己来说是什么；在人性格的道德进化中也一样。我必须使发生在我身上的一切对自己有益。硬板床、恶劣的食物、磨得人手指尖又痛又麻的扯麻絮的硬绳子、从早到晚奴隶般的劳作、似乎是出于常规需要而发出的呵斥命令、使悲哀显得怪异的丑陋衣服、静默、孤单、屈辱——这一切的一切，我都得转化为属灵的精神体验。对肉体的每一丁点降格，我都必须设法变成灵魂的精神升华。
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I want to get to the point when I shall be able to say, quite simply and without affectation, that the two great turning-points of my life were when my father sent me to Oxford, and when society sent me to prison. I will not say that is the best thing that could have happened to me, for that phrase would savour of too great bitterness towards myself. I would sooner say, or hear it said of me, that I was so typical a child of my age that in my perversity, and for that perversity’s sake, I turned the good things of my life to evil, and the evil things of my life to good. What is said, however, by myself or by others matters little. The important thing, the thing that lies before me, the thing that I have to do, if the brief remainder of my days is not to be maimed, marred, and incomplete, is to absorb into my nature all that has been done to me, to make it part of me, to accept it without complaint, fear, or reluctance. The supreme vice is shallowness. Whatever is realised is right.
希望能达到那个境界，使我能够说，简简单单、自自然然地说，我人生有两大转折点：一是父亲送我进牛津，一是社会送我进监狱。 我不说这对我是最好不过的事，因为那样的话我听着太苦涩了。我更愿意说，或者听人们说，我是这个时代的产儿，太典型了，以致于因为我的乖张变态，为了我的乖张变态，把自己生命中好的变成恶的，恶的变成好的。然而，自己怎么说，别人怎么说，都无关紧要。重要的事，迫在眉睫的事，我不得不做的事，好让自己在剩下无多的日子里不致凋零残缺，便是将加诸于我的一切尽皆吸收进自己的心性，使之成为我的一部分。既来则安，无怨无惧，也不耿耿于怀。恶大莫过于浮浅。无论什么，领悟了就是。
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When first I was put into prison some people advised me to try and forget who I was. It was ruinous advice[76a]. It is only by realising what I am that I have found comfort of any kind. Now I am advised by others to try on my release to forget that I have ever been in a prison at all. I know that would be equally fatal[76b]. It would mean that I would be always haunted by an intolerable sense of disgrace, and that those things that are meant as much for me as for anyone else—the beauty of the sun and the moon, the pageant of the seasons, the music of daybreak and the silence of great nights, the rain falling through the leaves, or the dew creeping over the grass and making it silver—would be tainted for me, and lose their healing power and their power of communicating joy[76c]. To reject one’s own experiences is to arrest one’s own development. To deny one’s own experiences is to put a lie into the lips of one’s own life. It is no less than a denial of the Soul. For just as the body absorbs things of all kinds, things common and unclean no less than those that the priest or a vision has cleansed, and converts them into swiftness or strength, into the play of beautiful muscles and the moulding of fair flesh, into the curves and colours of the hair, the lips, the eye[76d]: so the Soul, in its turn, has its nutritive functions also, and can transform into noble moods of thought, and passions of high import, what in itself is base, cruel, and degrading: nay more, may find in these its most august modes of assertion, and can often reveal itself most perfectly through what was intended to desecrate or destroy.
刚进监狱时，有些人劝我忘掉自己是谁。 要听了这话就完了[76a]。只有领悟了自己是什么人，我心中才有安宁可言。现在又有些人劝我一出狱就忘掉自己曾经坐过牢。我知道要听了这话也会同样要命的[76b]。这意味着一种不可容忍的耻辱之感将永远紧追我不舍，这意味着那些我跟旁人一样钟爱的事物——日月之美、四季之盛、黎明的音乐、长夜的静谧、绿叶间滴落的雨点、悄悄爬上草地把它缀成银光一片的露珠——这一切在我眼里都将蒙上污渍，失去它们疗治心灵的能力，失去它们传达欢乐的能力[76c]。抵讳自己的经历就是遏止自己的发展。抵赖自己的经历就是让自己的生命口吐谎言。这无异于排斥灵魂。因为就像我们的肉体什么都吸收，既吸收经牧师或圣灵的显现净化过的东西，也吸收世俗不洁的东西，林林总总，都化为力气和速度，化为肌肉优美的动作，化为悦目的皮肤，化为头发、嘴唇、眼睛的线条与色泽[76d]；灵魂同样的，也有它摄取营养的功能，能把本来是下作的、残忍的、堕落的东西，化为高尚的思想和高雅的情怀。不止如此，灵魂还能在这些东西中找到最尊严的方式来伸张自己，也能经常通过本来意在亵渎、毁灭的东西来把自己最完美地彰显出来。
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The fact of my having been the common prisoner of a common gaol I must frankly accept, and, curious as it may seem to you, one of the things I shall have to teach myself is not to be ashamed of it. I must accept it as a punishment, and if one is ashamed of having been punished, one might just as well never have been punished at all. Of course there are many things of which I was convicted that I had not done, but then there are many things of which I was convicted that I had done, and a still greater number of things in my life for which I never was indicted at all. And as for what I have said in this letter, that the gods are strange, and punish us for what is good and humane in us as much as for what is evil and perverse[77a], I must accept the fact that one is punished for the good as well as for the evil that one does. I have no doubt that it is quite right one should be. It helps one, or should help one, to realise both[77b], and not to be too conceited about either. And if I then am not ashamed of my punishment, as I hope not to be, I shall be able to think, and walk, and live with freedom.
我不过是一所普通监狱里的一名普通囚犯，这一点我必须老老实实地接受；尽管你也许会觉得奇怪，我要教会自己的事有一件就是，别因此而羞愧。我必须接受这是一个惩罚；假如因为受到惩罚而羞愧，那惩罚受了就跟从来没受过一样。当然，有许多事我没干却被定罪，但也有许多事是我干的因而获罪，还有更多的事我干了却从未被告发过。我在这封信中说了，神是奇怪的，他们惩罚我们，不但因为我们的恶行和堕落变态，也因为我们的美好与善良[77a]。就这一点，我必须接受的事实是，一个人受惩罚，不但因为他作的恶，也因为他行的善。我不怀疑，人这样受罚很有道理。这有助于、或者说应该是有助于对一己之善恶的领悟[77b]，不会因为其中的哪一样而自满自负。假使我这样，就能像自己所希望的那样，不会对受惩罚感到羞愧，那我就能自由地思考、行走、生活了。
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Many men on their release carry their prison along with them into the air, hide it as a secret disgrace in their hearts, and at length like poor poisoned things creep into some hole and die. It is wretched that they should have to do so, and it is wrong, terribly wrong, of Society that it should force them to do so[78a]. Society takes upon itself the right to inflict appalling punishments on the individual, but it also has the supreme vice of shallowness, and fails to realise what it has done. When the man’s punishment is over, it leaves him to himself: that is to say it abandons him at the very moment when its highest duty towards him begins[78b]. It is really ashamed of its own actions, and shuns those whom it has punished, as people shun a creditor whose debt they cannot pay, or one on whom they have inflicted an irreparable, an irredeemable wrong[78c]. I claim on my side that if I realise what I have suffered, Society should realise what it has inflicted on me: and that there should be no bitterness or hate on either side.
不少人出狱后还带着他们的囚牢踏入外面的天地，当作耻辱秘密地藏在心底，最终就像一头头什么东西中了毒似的，可怜兮兮地爬进哪个洞里死了。 他们落到这步田地真是可悲，而社会把他们逼成这样，很不应该，太不应该了[78a]。社会自认有权对个人施以令人发指的惩罚，可它也表现了浮浅这一大恶，领悟不到自己干下了什么事。当那个人受过惩罚之后，社会就撇下他不管了，也就是说把他抛弃了，而这时，社会对那个人所负的最责无旁贷的义务才刚开始呢[78b]。社会真的是愧对自己的行为，避而不敢面对它惩罚过的人，就像有人欠了债还不起就躲起来，或者给人造成了不可挽回、无可补救的损害后就逃之夭夭[78c]。我从我这方面要求，如果我领悟了自己所受的苦，那社会也该领悟它对我所施的惩罚，于是双方就不得再胸怀芥蒂、心存仇恨了。
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Of course I know that from one point of view things will be made more difficult for me than for others; must indeed, by the very nature of the case, be made so. The poor thieves and outcasts who are imprisoned here with me are in many respects more fortunate than I am. The little way in grey city or green field that saw their sin is small[79a]: to find those who know nothing of what they have done they need go no further than a bird might fly between the twilight before dawn and dawn itself: but for me “the world is shrivelled to a handsbreadth[79b],” [79.1] and everywhere I turn my name is written on the rocks in lead. For I have come, not from obscurity into the momentary notoriety of crime, but from a sort of eternity of fame to a sort of eternity of infamy[79c], and sometimes seem to myself to have shown, if indeed it required showing, that between the famous and the infamous there is but one step, if so much as one.
当然，我知道以某个观点看，事情对我要比对其他人更困难；从案情的性质看，肯定要更困难的。同我关在一起的那些个苦命的盗贼流浪汉，在好多方面都要比我幸运。不管是在灰色的城市还是在绿色的乡村，他们犯罪毕竟是在小街小巷小地方[79a]；要找个人们对他们干下的事毫不知情的去处，简直用不着走出小鸟在破晓与黎明之间能飞过的距离。但是对于我， “世界缩得只有巴掌大[[79b]”，不管去哪儿，都看到铅铸石雕般地写着我的名字。因为我不是从藉藉无闻跃入一时的罪名昭彰，而是从一种永恒的荣耀跌进一种永恒的耻辱[79c]。我自己有时觉得这似乎说明了，如果真还用得着说明，名闻遐迩与臭名昭著不过是一步之遥，要是真还有一步远的话。
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Still, in the very fact that people will recognise me wherever I go, and know all about my life, as far as its follies go, I can discern something good for me[80a]. It will force on me the necessity of again asserting myself as an artist, and as soon as I possibly can. If I can produce even one more beautiful work of art I shall be able to rob malice of its venom, and cowardice of its sneer, and to pluck out the tongue of scorn by the roots[80b]. And if life be, as it surely is, a problem to me, I am no less a problem to Life. People must adopt some attitude towards me, and so pass judgment both on themselves and me. I need not say I am not talking of particular individuals. The only people I would care to be with now are artists and people who have suffered: those who know what Beauty is, and those who know what Sorrow is: nobody else interests me. Nor am I making my demands on Life. In all that I have said I am simply concerned with my own mental attitude towards life as a whole: and I feel that not to be ashamed of having been punished is one of the first points I must attain to, for the sake of my own perfection, and because I am so imperfect. 就我的名字传播所及，到哪儿人们都认得出我来，就我干的蠢事传扬所及，谁都对我的生平了如指掌。 但即使这样，我仍然能从中看到对我好的一面[80a]。这将迫使我需要再次彰显我的艺术家身份，而且是越快越好。只消再出哪怕是一部好作品，我就能挡掉恶意攻击者的明枪，胆小鬼嘲讽的暗箭，把侮蔑的舌头连根拔掉[80b]。如果生活还要令我为难，目前肯定是这样，那我同样要叫生活为难。人们必须对我采取某种态度，因此既对他们自己也对我作出判断。不用说我指的不是特定的个人。我有心与之相处的人现在只有艺术家以及受过苦的人：那些知道美是什么的人，那些知道悲怆是什么的人。其他人我一概不感兴趣。我也不会对生活提出任何要求。说的这一切，谈的无非是关于自己对整个生活的心理态度；而我觉得，不因为受过惩罚而羞愧，是必须首先达到的境界之一，为了我自己能臻于完美，也因为我是如此的不完美。
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Then I must learn how to be happy. Once I knew it, or thought I knew it, by instinct. It was always springtime once in my heart. My temperament was akin to joy. I filled my life to the very brim with pleasure, as one might fill a cup to the very brim with wine. Now I am approaching life from a completely new standpoint, and even to conceive happiness is often extremely difficult for me. I remember during my first term at Oxford reading in Pater’s Renaissance[81.1]—that book which has had such a strange influence over my life—how Dante places low in the Inferno those who wilfully live in sadness, and going to the College Library and turning to the passage in the Divine Comedy where beneath the dreary marsh lie those who were “sullen in the sweet air,” saying for ever through their sighs:
