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As regards your letter to me in answer to this, it may be as long or as short as you choose. Address the envelope to “The Governor, H.M. Prison, Reading.” Inside, in another, and an open envelope, place your own letter to me: if your paper is very thin do not write on both sides, as it makes it hard for others to read[172a]. I have written to you with perfect freedom. You can write to me with the same. What I must know from you is why you have never made any attempt to write to me, since the August of the year before last, more especially after, in the May of last year, eleven months ago now, you knew, and admitted to others that you knew, how you had made me suffer, and how I realised it. I waited month after month to hear from you. Even if I had not been waiting but had shut the doors against you, you should have remembered that no one can possibly shut the doors against Love for ever. The unjust judge in the Gospels[172.1] rises up at length to give a just decision because Justice comes knocking daily at his door; and at night-time the friend, in whose heart there is no real friendship, yields at length to his friend “because of his importunity.”[172.2] There is no prison in any world into which Love cannot force an entrance[172b]. If you did not understand that, you did not understand anything about Love at all. Then, let me know all about your article on me for the Mercure de France. I know something of it. You had better quote from it. It is set up in type. Also, let me know the exact terms of your Dedication of your poems. If it is in prose, quote the prose; if in verse, quote the verse. I have no doubt that there will be beauty in it. Write to me with full frankness about yourself: about you life: your friends: your occupations: your books. Tell me about your volume and its reception. Whatever you have to say for yourself, say it without fear. Don’t write what you don’t mean: that is all. If anything in your letter is false or counterfeit I shall detect it by the ring at once. It is not for nothing, or to no purpose, that in my lifelong cult of literature I have made myself
Miser of sound and syllable, no less
Than Midas of his coinage[172c].[172.3]
Remember also that I have yet to know you. Perhaps we have yet to know each other.
至于你对这封信的回复，或长或短随你定。信封可写上“雷丁监狱狱长收”。里面再套个信封，别封上，用来放你给我的信。如果信纸薄，就别两面写，否则别人不好读[172a]。我给你写信毫无顾忌，你同样也可以这样给我写信。我必须从你那里知道的是，自从前年八月到现在，你为什么都不想法给我写封信。特别是后来，去年五月，距今是十一个月了，你知道了，也向别人承认你知道，自己让我吃了多少苦，而我也多么清楚这一点。我一个月又一个月地等着你的信。即便我不在等你的信，而是将你拒于门外，你也该记得，谁大概都无法永远将爱拒于门外的。福音书中那个不义的法官终究要起来作出公义的判决，就因为公义天天来敲他的门；还有那个心中没有真正友谊的人，夜间不肯起身帮朋友，可最后还是 “因他情词迫切的直求”而起来了。任何一个世界的任何一座囚牢，爱都能破门而入[172b]。这个你要是不明白，那就一点也不理解爱了。然后，把你给《法兰西信使》写有关我的文章一事，统统说来我听。我知道一些。你最好从文章中引出来我听。这是排版铅印了的东西了。而且，告诉我有关你的诗集上题献的原话到底是怎么写的。是散文体，就引那散文；是诗体，就引那诗句。我不怀疑其中有美好的东西。老老实实把你的事情写给我：你的生活、你的朋友、你的职业、你的书。告诉我关于你的集子及外界的反应。你要替自己说什么话，不要怕尽管说。别写言不由衷的话，就这一点。你信中要有什么假的、装的，那语气马上就逃不过我眼睛。我并非瞎忙，并非空忙，一辈子崇拜文学让自己都到了一词一语分毫必究的地步：
埋头盯着音节语气，尤如
迈达斯盯着他的金币[172c]。
也别忘了我还得再认识你。也许我们相互还得再认识呢。
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