还有几件事我必须在信中说明。 第一件是关于我的破产。前些日子听说了，现在你家人要出钱偿还你父亲已经太迟了，并且是非法的，而我还得再这样受苦受难好长一段时日。老实说，这消息令我大失所望。 我很伤心，因为法庭命令，我所有帐目都得上交破产管理人，没有他的许可，哪怕出一本书都不行。我不能与剧院经理签合同，就是演出个剧本，收据都得转给你父亲还有其他几个债权人。我想就是你现在也会承认，让你父亲把我搞成破产，以此来使他丢分难堪，这计谋并非如你想像的那样会是大获全胜的高招。至少对我不是这样。要把我弄得一贫如洗，本来首先应该考虑的是我感情的痛苦和羞辱，而非你的幽默感，不管那有多么刻薄、多么出人意表。事实上，任由我被判破产，就像催我打最初那场官司一样，你这真是正中你父亲下怀，正是他求之不得的。要是他单枪匹马的，那从一开始就成不了气候[160a]。而你——尽管本意不想为虎作伥——却从来都是他的主要同盟军。
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I am told by More Adey in his letter that last summer you really did express on more than one occasion you desire to repay me “a little of what I spent” on you. As I said to him in my answer, unfortunately I spent on you my art, my life, my name, my place in history[161a], and if your family had all the marvellous things in the world at their command, or what the world holds as marvellous, genius, beauty, wealth, high position and the like, and laid them all at my feet, it would not repay me for one tithe of the smallest things that have been taken from me, or one tear of the least tears that I have shed. However, of course everything one does has to be paid for. Even to the Bankrupt it is so. You seem to be under the impression that Bankruptcy is a convenient means by which a man can avoid paying his debts, a “score off his creditors” in fact. It is quite the other way. It is the method by which a man’s creditors “score off” him, if we are to continue your favourite phrase, and by which the Law by the confiscation of all his property forces him to pay every one of his debts, and if he fails to do so leaves him as penniless as the commonest mendicant who stands in an archway, or creeps down a road, holding out his hand for the alms for which, in England at any rate, he is afraid to ask. The Law has taken from me not merely all that I have, my books, furniture, pictures, my copyright in my published works, my copyright in my plays, everything in fact from The Happy Prince and Lady Windermere’s Fan down to the stair carpets and door-scraper of my house, but also all that I am ever going to have. My interest in my marriage-settlement, for instance, was sold. Fortunately I was able to buy it in through my friends. Otherwise, in case my wife died, my two children during my lifetime would be as penniless as myself. My interest in our Irish estate, entailed on me by my own father, will I suppose have to go next. I feel very bitterly about its being sold, but I must submit.
听穆尔?艾迪在信中说，去年夏天你当真不止一次表示过，有意偿还我在你身上“花的一些钱”。我在给他的回信中说，不幸的是我在你身上花掉的是我的艺术、我的生命、我的名声、我的历史地位[161a]，而你的家庭即使占尽天下宝物，或世人视之为宝的东西，才华、美貌、财富、地位，等等，全拿出来摆在我跟前，也还不清我被拿去的万分之一，补不了我流的泪中最小的一滴。然而，人做的每一件事当然都要偿付的。甚至破了产也一样。你似乎觉得，有谁想要欠债不还，破产是快捷方式一条，实在是让“债权人丢分”的事。事实却是另一回事。这是让他的债权人使他“丢分”的办法，如果还用你喜欢的这个话说；而且判了破产，法庭通过没收他的一切财产，逼得他是有债必还，要是仍然还不清，就叫他身无分文，穷得像最卑贱的叫化子，或在拱道里站着，或在路上爬着，伸手要着那至少在英国他还羞于开口乞讨的施舍。法庭拿去的，不单是我所有的一切：书籍、家具、图画、所出版的书的版权、剧本的版权，说实在的是上至《快乐王子》和《温德米尔夫人的扇子》，下至楼梯的地毯和门前的擦鞋垫，无一剩下；就连我今后会得到的什么，也全都不能幸免。比如我在婚姻财产契约中的份额，也变卖了。幸好我能通过朋友又买了回来。否则的话，我妻子万一去世，我那两个孩子在我有生之年也会像我一样穷得一文不名。我家在爱尔兰的庄园，里头我父亲传给我的份额，猜想下次就该卖这个了。这让我非常痛心，可也只能认了。
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Your father’s seven hundred pence—or pounds is it?—stand in the way, and must be refunded. Even when I am stripped of all have, and am ever to have, and am granted a discharge as a hopeless Insolvent, I have still got to pay my debts. The Savoy dinners—the clear turtle-soup, the luscious ortolans wrapped in their crinkled Sicilian vine-leaves, the heavy amber-coloured, indeed almost amber-scented champagne—Dagonet 1880, I think, was your favourite wine?—all have still to be paid for[162a]. The suppers at Willis’s, the special cuvee of Perrier—Jouet reserved always for us, the wonderful pates procured directly from Strasburg, the marvellous fine champagne served always at the bottom of great bell-shaped glasses that its bouquet might be the better savoured by the true epicures of what was really exquisite in life—these cannot be left unpaid, as bad debts of a dishonest client. Even the dainty sleeve-links—four heart-shaped moon stones of silver mist, girdled by alternate ruby and diamond for their setting—that I designed, and had made at Henry Lewis’s as a special little present to you, to celebrate the success of my second comedy—these even—though I believe you sold them for a song a few months afterwards —have to be paid for. I cannot leave the jeweller out of pocket for the presents I gave you, no matter what you did with them. So, even if I get my discharge, you see I have still my debts to pay.
你父亲的那七百便士——或者是英镑？——就这么堵着路，非还不可。 即使我所有的、将有的，统统被剥夺殆尽，作为一个落魄的破产者放了出去，欠的债还是得还。萨瓦伊的餐餐酒食——清爽的海龟汤，皱皱地裹在西西里葡萄叶中的美味蒿雀，那色重如琥珀、说真的几乎是香醇如琥珀的香槟——1 8 8 0年的“达贡聂”，我想，是不是你最喜欢的佳酿？——笔笔帐还都得还呢[162a]。在威利斯吃的夜宵，总是为咱们备着的佩里埃－儒埃特酿葡萄酒，直接从法国斯特拉斯堡买来的美味馅饼，还有那令人心旷神怡的上等白兰地，总是在钟形大杯的杯底斟上那么一点，好让那酒香给能够领略生活之美味雅趣的真正美食家品尝——这些总不能不还，像不老实的顾客留下的坏帐吧。即使那副精致的袖纽——四颗心形银辉月亮石，周围红宝石和钻石相间，镶成一圈——我自己设计，在亨利?刘易斯珠宝行里定做，为庆祝我第二个喜剧成功而特别送你的小小礼物——即使是这个——虽然我知道你几个月后便把它贱价卖了——我也得还。不能因为送你礼物而叫珠宝店赔钱，不管你把这礼物怎样了。所以，你看我就是放出去了，还有债要还呢。
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And what is true of a bankrupt is true of everyone else in life. For every single thing that is done someone has to pay. Even you yourself—with all your desire for absolute freedom from all duties, your insistence on having everything supplied to you by others, your attempts to reject any claim on your affection, or regard, or gratitude—even you will have some day to reflect seriously on what you have done, and try, however unavailingly, to make some attempt at atonement. The fact that you will not be able really to do so will be part of your punishment. You can’t wash your hands of all responsibility, and propose with a shrug or a smile to pass on to a new friend and a freshly spread feast[163a]. You can’t treat all that you have brought upon me as a sentimental reminiscence to be served up occasionally with the cigarettes and liqueurs, a picturesque background to a modem life of pleasure like an old tapestry hung in a common inn[163b]. It may for the moment have the charm of a new sauce or a fresh vintage, but the scraps of a banquet grow stale, and the dregs of a bottle are bitter. Either today, or tomorrow, or some day you have got to realise it. Otherwise you may die without having done so, and then what a mean, starved, unimaginative life you would have had. In my letter to More I have suggested one point of view from which you had better approach the subject as soon as possible. He will tell you what it is. To understand you will have to cultivate your imagination[163c]. Remember that imagination is the quality that enables one to see things and people in their real as in their ideal relations. If you cannot realise it by yourself talk to others on the subject. I have had to look at my past face to face. Look at your past face to face. Sit down quietly and consider it. The supreme vice is shallowness. Whatever is realised is right[163d]. Talk to you brother about it. Indeed the proper person to talk to is Percy. Let him read this letter, and know all the circumstances of our friendship. When things are clearly put before him, no judgment is better. Had we told him the truth, what a lot would have been saved to me of suffering and disgrace! You remember I proposed to do so, the night you arrived in London from Algiers. You absolutely refused. So when he came in after dinner we had to play the comedy of your father being an insane man subject to absurd and unaccountable delusions. It was a capital comedy while it lasted, none the less so because Percy took it all quite seriously. Unfortunately it ended in a very revolting manner. The subject on which I write now is one of its results, and if it be a trouble to you, pray do not forget that it is the deepest of my humiliations, and one I must go through[163e]. I have no option. You have none either.
生活中，破了产的是这样，没破产的个个也是这样。不管做了什么，到头来每一样总得偿还的。即使你本人也不例外——不管你怎样想着要绝对的自由，一点不受责任的约束，硬要别人为你提供一切，而要你报以关爱、尊敬或感激时又想统统回绝——即使你这样，有一天也会认真反思自己干下的事，而想要作出某种补偿，尽管到那时已是多么的于事无补。欠下了而无法偿还，这将是你的部分惩罚。你无法脱卸自己的责任，耸耸肩，或笑一笑，说要去再找一个朋友，再找一桌新开的酒席[163a]。你不能把给我造成的一切当作一种怀旧的幽思，偶尔端出来就着香烟和美酒品尝一番，也不能拿这一切作为一种画面背景，为一种现代的享乐生活作陪衬，有如廉价小旅店墙上的旧挂毯[163b]。一时之间可能有换一种酱料或开一瓶新酒的新鲜感，但宴罢的剩菜会走味，瓶底的残酒是苦的。要么今天，要么明天，要么总有一天，你一定得领悟的。要不你就是至死不悟了，可那样的话你的生命又变得多么委琐、惨白、没有想象力啊。在给穆尔的信中我提出一个观点，建议你最好以此来探讨这一问题，越快越好。他会告诉你是个什么观点。要明白个中道理你得好好培养想象力[163c]。记住想象是使人得以既从其理想关系也从其真实关系来理解世事和世人的能力。假如你一个人领悟不了，就找人谈谈。我已不得不与自己的过去直面相对过了。你也与自己的过去直面相视一下吧。静静地坐下来想想。恶大莫过于浮浅。无论什么，领悟了就是[163d]。跟你兄长谈谈吧。你该找的人的确就是珀西了。把这封信给他看，让他知道你我友谊的来龙去脉。事情清清楚楚摆出来后，那他的判断比谁都正确。要是我们早对他道出实情，那会免去我多少的痛苦和羞辱！你记得我提出过，那天晚上你刚从阿尔及尔回到伦敦。可你一口拒绝了。这样等他晚餐过后进来，我们只能演了一幕喜剧，说是你父亲疯了，脑子里尽是些荒唐可笑、子虚乌有的妄想幻象。只要不点破这可是个上好的喜剧，一点也不因为珀西很是拿它当真而有所失色。不幸的是收场太令人嫌恶了。我现在写的事情就是它的后果之一，假如这给你造成麻烦，请别忘了它给我带来了最为深重的耻辱，无从逃避的耻辱[163e]。我没有别的选择。你也没有。
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The second thing about which I have to speak to you is with regard to the conditions, circumstances, and place of our meeting when my term of imprisonment is over. From extracts from your letter to Robbie written in the early summer of last year I understand that you have sealed up in two packages my letters and my presents to you—such at least as remain of either—and are anxious to hand them personally to me. It is, of course, necessary that they should be given up. You did not understand why I wrote beautiful letters to you, any more than you understood why I gave you beautiful presents. You failed to see that the former were not meant to be published, any more than the later were meant to be pawned. Besides, they belong to a side of life that is long over, to a friendship that somehow you were unable to appreciate at its proper value. You must look back with wonder now to the days when you had my entire life in your hands. I too look back to them with wonder, and with other, with far different, emotions[164a].
第二件我要同你说的事，是关于我刑满出狱后同你见面的条件、细节安排和地点。从你去年初夏给罗比的那封信的片断中，我知道你已经把我给你的信件和礼物分成两包——至少是残存的那些——封好了急着要亲手交还给我。当然，是得物归原主了。你理解不了我为什么给你写那些美妙的书信，一如你理解不了我为什么送给你那些美妙的礼物。你不懂，信不是让你拿去发表的，一如礼物不是让你拿去典当的。况且它们属于生活中早已成旧事的一个方面，属于一段你就是看不到其真正价值的友情。你现在必定是心怀惊异地回首当初的日子，那时你手中操着我的整个生活。我也回首那些个日子，心中怀着惊异，也怀着别的、大大不同的各种感情[164a]。
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I am to be released, if all goes well with me, towards the end of May, and hope to go at once to some little seaside village abroad with Robbie and More Adey. The sea, as Euripides says in one of his plays about Iphigenia, washes away the stains and wounds of the world. Θ?λασσα κλ?ζει π?ντα τ’ανθρ?πων κακ?.[165.1]
我就要出狱了，如果诸事顺利的话，在五月底吧，希望能马上同罗比和穆尔?艾迪一道去国外找个滨海的小村子住下。大海，就像欧里庇得斯在一个写伊芙琴尼亚的剧中说的，会洗去世界的污垢和创伤。
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I hope to be at least a month with my friends, and to gain, in their healthful and affectionate company, peace, and balance, and a less troubled heart, and a sweeter mood[166a]. I have a strange longing for the great simple primeval things, such as the Sea, to me no less of a mother than the Earth. It seems to me that we all look at Nature too much, and live with her too little. I discern great sanity in the Greek attitude. They never chattered about sunsets, or discussed whether the shadows on the grass were really mauve or not. But they saw that the sea was for the swimmer, and the sand for the feet of the runner. They loved the trees for the shadow that they cast, and the forest for its silence at noon[166b]. The vineyard-dresser wreathed his hair with ivy that he might keep off the rays of the sun as he stooped over the young shoots[166c], and for the artist and the athlete, the two types that Greece gave us, they plaited into garlands the leaves of the bitter laurel[166.1] and of the wild parsley which else had been of no service to man.
我希望至少同朋友们呆上一个月，在他们有益于身心和充满关爱的陪伴下，重获安宁与平和，去掉一些烦恼，让心情变得更舒畅[166a]。我有一种奇怪的向往，要接近伟大的、单纯的、远古的东西，比如大海，跟大地一样，这些同是我的母亲。对自然，我觉得我们似乎都远观过甚，而与之相处又太少。 我从希腊人的态度中悟出了大智大慧。他们从来不为夕阳西下而喋喋不休，也不讨论草上的影子是否真是紫红色的。但他们看到了，大海是给人游泳的，沙地是给人奔跑的。他们喜欢树因为它撒下了绿荫，他们喜欢树林因为它午间的幽静[166b]。剪修葡萄园的人用长春藤编成发冠，好在他弓身照料幼苗时遮挡日晒[166c]，而艺术家和运动员，对这两类我们得之于希腊的人，他们献上用苦涩的桂叶和野欧芹编成的桂冠，要不这两样东西对人类就没别的用处了。
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We call ourselves a utilitarian age, and we do not know the uses of any single thing. We have forgotten that Water can cleanse, and Fire purify[167a], and that the Earth is mother to us all. As a consequence our Art is of the Moon and plays with shadows, while Greek art is of the Sun and deals directly with things[167b]. I feel sure that in elemental forces there is purification, and I want to go back to them and live in their presence[167c]. Of course, to one so modern as I am, enfant de mon siecle, merely to look at the world will be always lovely. I tremble with pleasure when I think that on the very day of my leaving prison both the laburnum and the lilac will be blooming in the gardens[167d], and that I shall see the wind stir into restless beauty the swaying gold of the one, and make the other toss the pale purple of its plumes so that all the air shall be Arabia for me[167e]. Linnaeus[167.1] fell on his knees and wept for joy when he saw for the first time the long heath of some English upland made yellow with the tawny aromatic blossoms of the common furze, and I know that for me, to whom flowers are part of desire, there are tears waiting in the petals of some rose[167f]. It has always been so with me from my boyhood. There is not a single colour hidden away in the chalice of a flower, or the curve of a shell, to which, by some subtle sympathy with the very soul of things, my nature does not answer[167g]. Like Gautier I have always been one of those pour qui le monde visible existe.[167.2]
我们称我们的时代为注重实用的时代，可没有一样东西的用途弄得明白。 我们已经忘了，水可以洗濯洁净，火可以精炼提纯[167a]，大地是每个人的母亲。其结果是，我们的艺术关注的是月亮，玩的是影子，而古希腊的艺术关注的是太阳，处理的是实体[167b]。我确实感到自然力中蕴含着净化，我想回返它们当中，在苍茫天地间生活[167c]。当然，像我这般现代的人，如此一个“时代的产儿”，只要看看世界就总觉得可爱。想到出狱的当天，花园中将是金链花和丁香花争相怒放的时候，我便高兴得发抖[167d]。我将看到，风过处，一边流金溢彩风姿摇荡，另一边则舞动簇簇淡紫，为我在空中撒满清香[167e]。植物学家林耐双膝跪地，喜极而泣，是因为他第一次看到石南丛生的英格兰高地，当这不起眼的植物开满飘香的黄花时，变成了金灿灿的一片。对于我，花就是向往的一部分，我知道，有眼泪正等在哪朵玫瑰的花瓣间呢[167f] 。从我孩提时代就总是这样的。在花冠中、在贝壳的曲线上藏着的每一点色泽，我的心性因为对万物灵魂的某种微妙同情，都会与之呼应[167g]。就像戈蒂耶，我向来都是那么一个“眼目所见之世界为其存在”的人。
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Still, I am conscious now that behind all this Beauty, satisfying though it be, there is some Spirit hidden of which the painted forms and shapes are but modes of manifestation, and it is with this Spirit that I desire to become in harmony[168a]. I have grown tired of the articulate utterances of men and things. The Mystical in Art, the Mystical in Life, the Mystical in Nature—this is what I am looking for, and in the great symphonies of Music, in the initiation of Sorrow, in the depths of the Sea I may find it. It is absolutely necessary for me to find it somewhere.
而且，我现在意识到了，在这所有美的背后，尽管已美得使人满足了，还藏匿着某种精神。 而这精神，画笔勾勒的形形色色不过是其表露的方式而已。正是这精神，我想与之达到和谐的境界[168a]。关于人和事，说出来的一切已让我厌烦。艺术之奥妙、生命之奥妙、自然之奥妙——这就是我在找寻的。在伟大的交响曲中，在悲怆的启蒙中，在大海的深处，我可能寻得。我绝对有必要在什么地方把它找到。
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All trials are trials for one’s life, just as all sentences are sentences of death, and three times have I been tried[169a]. The first time I left the box to be arrested, the second time to be led back to the House of Detention, the third time to pass into a prison for two years. Society, as we have constituted it, will have no place for me, has none to offer[169b]; but Nature, whose sweet rains fall on unjust and just alike, will have clefts in the rocks where I may hide, and secret valleys in whose silence I may weep undisturbed. She will hang the night with stars so that I may walk abroad in the darkness without stumbling, and send the wind over my footprints so that none may track me to my hurt[169c]: she will cleanse me in great waters, and with bitter herbs make me whole.
