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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]。
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