56
56
I have spoken to you at length on this point in order that you should grasp its full bearings, and understand why I wrote at once to Robbie in terms of such scorn and contempt of you, and absolutely prohibited the dedication, and desired that the words I had written of you should be copied out carefully and sent to you. I felt that at last the time had come when you should be made to see, to recognise, to realise a little of what you had done[56a]. Blindness may be carried so far that it becomes grotesque, and an unimaginative nature, if something be not done to rouse it, will become petrified into absolute insensibility, so that while the body may eat, and drink, and have its pleasures, the soul, whose house it is, may, like the soul of Branca d'Oria in Dante, be dead absolutely.[56.1] My letter seems to have arrived not a moment too soon. It fell on you, as far as I can judge, like a thunderbolt[56b]. You describe yourself, in your answer to Robbie, as being “deprived of all power of thought and expression.” Indeed, apparently, you can think of nothing better than to write to your mother to complain. Of course, she, with that blindness to your real good that has been her ill-starred fortune and yours, gives you every comfort she can think of, and lulls you back, I suppose, into your former unhappy, unworthy condition; while as far as I am concerned, she lets my friends know that she is “very much annoyed” at the severity of my remarks about you. Indeed it is not merely to my friends that she conveys her sentiments of annoyance, but also to those — a very much larger number, I need hardly remind you—who are not my friends: and I am informed now, and through channels very kindly-disposed to you and yours, that in consequence of this a great deal of the sympathy that, by reason of my distinguished genius and terrible sufferings, had been gradually but surely growing up for me, has been entirely taken away. People say “Ah! he first tried to get the kind father put into prison and failed: now he turns round and blames the innocent son for his failure. How right we were to despise him! How worthy of contempt he is!” It seems to me that, when my name is mentioned in your mother’s presence, if she has no word of sorrow or regret for her share — no slight one — in the ruin of my house, it would be more seemly if she remained silent. And as for you—don’t you think now that, instead of writing to her to complain, it would have been better for you, in every way, to have written to me directly, and to have had the courage to say to me whatever you had or fancied you had to say ? It is nearly a year ago now since I wrote that letter. You cannot have remained during that entire time “deprived of all power of thought and expression.” Why did you not write to me? You saw by my letter how deeply wounded, how outraged I was by your whole conduct. More than that: you saw your entire friendship with me set before you, at last, in its true light, and by a mode not to be mistaken. Often in old days I had told you that you were ruining my life. You had always laughed. When Edwin Levy[56.2] at the very beginning of our friendship, seeing your manner of putting me forward to bear the brunt, and annoyance, and expense even of that unfortunate Oxford mishap of yours, if we must so term it, in reference to which his advice and help had been sought, warned me for the space of a whole hour against knowing you, you laughed, as at Bracknell I described to you my long and impressive interview with him. When I told you how even that unfortunate young man who ultimately stood beside me in the Dock had warned me more than once that you would prove far more fatal in bringing me to utter destruction than any even of the common lads whom I was foolish enough to know, you laughed, though not with such sense of amusement. When my more prudent or less well-disposed friends either warned me or left me, on account of my friendship with you, you laughed with scorn. You laughed immoderately when, on the occasion of your father writing his first abusive letter to you about me, I told you that I knew I would be the mere cats paw of your dreadful quarrel and come to some evil between you. But every single thing had happened as I had said it would happen, as far as the result goes. You had no excuse for not seeing how all things had come to pass. Why did you not write to me? Was it cowardice? Was it callousness? What was it? The fact that I was outraged with you, and had expressed my sense of the outrage, was all the more reason for writing. If you thought my letter just, you should have written. If you thought it in the smallest point unjust, you should have written. I waited for a letter. I felt sure that at last you would see that, if old affection, much-protested love, the thousand acts of ill-requited kindness I had showered on you, the thousand unpaid debts of gratitude you owed me — that if all these were nothing to you, mere duty itself, most barren of all bonds between man and man, should have made you write[56c]. You cannot say that you seriously thought I was obliged to receive none but business communications from members of my family. You knew perfectly well that every twelve weeks, Robbie was writing to me a little budget of literary news. Nothing can be more charming than his letters, in their wit, their clever concentrated criticism, their light touch: they are real letters: they are like a person talking to one: they have the quality of a French causerie intime: and his delicate modes of deference to me, appealing at one time to my judgment, at another to my sense of humour, at another to my instinct for beauty or to my culture[56d], and reminding me in a hundred subtle ways that once I was to many an arbiter of style in Art, the supreme arbiter to some, he shows how he has the tact of love as well as the tact of literature. His letters have been the little messengers between me and that beautiful unreal world of Art where once I was King, and would have remained King, indeed, had I not let myself be lured into the imperfect world of coarse uncompleted passions, of appetite without distinction, desire without limit, and formless greed. Yet, when all is said, surely you might have been able to understand, or conceive, at any rate, in you own mind, that, even on the ordinary grounds of mere psychological curiosity, it would have been more interesting to me to hear from you than to learn that Alfred Austin[56.3] was trying to bring out a volume of poems, or that Street[56.4] was writing dramatic criticisms for the Daily Chronicle, or that by one who cannot speak a panegyric without stammering Mrs Meynell[56.5] had been pronounced to be the new Sibyl of Style.
这一点我已经详细地对你说了，以便你对它能充分了解，从而理解我为什么会当即写信给罗比，提到你时口气是那么鄙夷不屑，并绝对禁止你的题献，而且希望能把我说你的这些话细心抄出来寄给你。 我感到终于是时候了，得让你对自己干下的事有所了解，有所认识，有所领悟[56a]。蒙蔽之深会变成怪异；而一份没有想象力的心性，如果不去唤醒的话，会变成石头般的冥顽不灵。如此一来，肉体可以吃可以喝可以享乐，而以肉体为寓的灵魂，会像但丁笔下布兰卡?德奥里亚的灵魂那样，永无复活之日了。我的信你似乎收到得正是时候。就我判断，那些话对你像是五雷轰顶[56b]。在给罗比的回信中你自己说了，“失去了所有思想和表达的能力”。的确，看那样子你除了写信给你母亲告状外，想不出更好的什么了。她本来就因为看不到怎样才是真的对你好而铸成了自己和你的不幸，这下当然是想方设法安慰你，我想是把你又哄回了早先那种不肖也不中用的样子。至于我这头呢，她告诉我的朋友，说我这样对你严词贬责使她“非常的不高兴”。的确，她不但把这不高兴跟我朋友说了，还跟别人——我几乎不用提醒你了，是更多得多的人——说了，这些人并非我的朋友。而现在，我已通过那些同你和你家相交甚厚的渠道听说了，本来由于我的过人才华以及所受的非人折磨，人们对我的同情在渐渐不断地增加，但是出了这件事，这同情已荡然无存。人们说：“呵！他早先想把那慈祥的父亲弄进监狱不成，现在又转过来把这失败怪罪到那无辜的儿子头上。真是活该被咱们看不起！多么不识抬举的人！” 在我看来，当有人在你母亲面前提到我的名字时，假如她对自己在我的家破人散中所应负的那份责任——不小的一份呢——没什么悲伤和遗憾之词可说的话，那也请她保持沉默为好。至于你——难道你现在还想不通吗，当时要是不写信向她告状，而是直接写给我，有那个勇气把你要说或认为要说的话统统说出来，这样做不管从哪方面看对你都更好吗？我写那封信到现在快一年了。你不可能在这期间一直“失去所有思想和表达的能力”吧。为什么不写信给我呢？从我的信中你看到你所做的一切对我的伤害有多深，令我有多生气。还不止如此呢；你看到，你同我的友谊，前前后后巨细无遗地摆在了眼前，终于本色毕露，毫不含糊。过去我常常说，你这样要把我毁了。你听了总是一笑。在你我交往之初，爱德文?列维看到当你在牛津不幸落难时——如果我们非把它称为落难不可的话——是怎样把我推出去为你担忧受过、出面甚至出钱；在我就这事向他请教求助时，他花了整整一个小时规劝我不要同你认识来往。在布莱克奈尔我跟你讲了同他的那次令人难忘的长谈，你听了一笑。我曾告诉你，即使那个最终和我一起站在被告席上的不幸的年轻人，也都不止一次地警告过我，说你将来会比任何人，甚至比我傻乎乎认识的那些普通男孩，都要致命得多，终将置我于身败名裂的死地。你听了一笑，虽然这次没觉得那么好玩。当我那些为人更谨慎或者相交不甚厚的朋友，因为我同你的友谊，要么对我忠言相劝要么离我而去，你知道后不屑地一笑。当你父亲第一次在给你的信中咒骂我时，我告诉过你，我知道自己不过是你父子交恶中的卒子而已，最终是遭殃。你听了狂然大笑。但结果是，我说了要发生的事，大大小小无不全发生了。你没有理由说不知道这一切的始末曲直。为什么你不给我写信？是怯懦吗？是无动于衷吗？是什么呢？我对你发脾气，在信中发了脾气，这更应该是你写信的理由啊。如果认为我信中说的有理，你应该写了信来。如果认为我说的有一点点的不合理，你应该写了信来。我等着一封信。我确实感到，你终究会明白的，如果旧日的感情、那世人颇不以为然的爱、我千百次向你表示的善而不得善报的盛意、你千百次欠我的尚未回报的人情，倘若这一切你认为是不值一提的话，那么光是履行义务，这人与人之间最无情意可言的契约关系，也该使你动笔了[56c]。你不至于当真认为，我除了家人的事务信函外，不让收到任何东西了吧。你非常清楚地知道，每隔十二星期罗比都写信给我，说一点文坛消息。再没有什么比他的信更令人如沐春风了：那份机智，那些精辟的批评，那轻巧的笔触——这才真叫写信，就像在跟人谈天，很有法国人称之为“密友闲聊”的况味。他把对我的敬服表现得含蓄优雅，一会儿诉诸我的理性判断，一会儿投合我的幽默感，一会儿与我的审美直觉呼应，一会儿与我的文化修养合拍[56d]，处处微妙地让我记起自己曾经在许多人眼里是品评艺术风格的一方盟主，对一些人来说是最高盟主。他既显示了自己文学的策略，也显示了他爱的策略。他的信是我与那个美丽的非现实的艺术世界之间的小小信使，在那个世界里我曾经尊贵为王。的确，本来会继续为王的，只是我让自己受诱惑，掉进了一个不完美的世界，掉进了粗鄙而不圆满的激情、正邪不辨的嗜好、没有止境的欲望、散漫无定的贪婪之中。然而，该说的都说了之后，肯定你自己心中怎么也会理解，也会想得到，即使是基于好奇这一普普通通的心理，我也很想收到你的消息，胜过听到艾尔弗列德?奥斯汀要出一本诗集，斯特利特在给《每日纪事》写剧评，或者是由一个读一篇颂词也要口吃的人宣称梅纳尔太太为新一位掌管风格的女判官等诸如此类的新闻。
56