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And it was inevitable. In every relation of life with others one has to find some moyen de vivre.[11.1] In your case, one had either to give up to you or to give you up[11a]. There was no other alternative. Through deep if misplaced affection for you: through great pity for your defects of temper and temperament: through my own proverbial good-nature and Celtic laziness: through an artistic aversion to coarse scenes and ugly words: through that incapacity to bear resentment of any kind which at that time characterised me[11b]: through my dislike of seeing life made bitter and uncomely by what to me, with my eyes really fixed on other things, seemed to be mere trifles too petty for more than a moment’s thought or interest — through these reasons, simple as they may sound, I gave up to you always. As a natural result, your claims, your efforts at domination, your exactions grew more and more unreasonable. Your meanest motive, your lowest appetite, your most common passion, became to you laws by which the lives of others were to be guided always, and to which, if necessary, they were to be without scruple sacrificed[11c]. Knowing that by making a scene you could always have your way, it was but natural that you should proceed, almost unconsciously I have no doubt, to every excess of vulgar violence. At the end you did not know to what goal you were hurrying, or with what aim in view[11d]. Having made your own of my genius, my will power, and my fortune, you required, in the blindness of an inexhaustible greed, my entire existence. You took it. At the one supremely and tragically critical moment of all my life, just before my lamentable step of beginning my absurd action[11e], on the one side there was your father attacking me with hideous cards left at my club, on the other side there was you attacking me with no less loathsome letters. The letter I received from you on the morning of the day I let you take me down to the Police Court to apply for the ridiculous warrant for your father’s arrest was one of the worst you ever wrote, and for the most shameful reason. Between you both I lost my head. My judgment forsook me. Terror took its place[11f]. I saw no possible escape, I may say frankly, from either of you. Blindly I staggered as an ox into the shambles. I had made a gigantic psychological error. I had always thought that my giving up to you in small things meant nothing: that when a great moment arrived I could reassert my will-power in its natural superiority. It was not so[11g]. At the great moment my will-power completely failed me. In life there is really no small or great thing. All things are of equal value and of equal size[11h]. My habit — due to indifference chiefly at first — of giving up to you in everything had become insensibly a real part of my nature. Without my knowing it, it had stereotyped my temperament to one permanent and fatal mood[11i]. That is why, in the subtle epilogue to the first edition of his essays, Pater says that “Failure is to form habits.”[11.2] When he said it the dull Oxford people thought the phrase a mere wilful inversion of the somewhat wearisome text of Aristotelian Ethics, but there is a wonderful, a terrible truth hidden in it. I had allowed you to sap my strength of character, and to me the formation of a habit had proved to be not Failure merely but Ruin[11j]. Ethically you had been even still more destructive to me than you had been artistically.而这又是无可避免的。生活里，每一种人际关系都要找着某种相处之道。与你的相处之道是，要么全听你的要么全不理你[11a]，毫无选择余地。出于对你深挚的如果说是错爱了的感情，出于对你禀性上的缺点深切的怜悯，出于我那有口皆碑的好心肠和凯尔特人的懒散，出于一种艺术气质上对粗鲁的言语行为的反感，出于我当时对任何事物都能逆来顺受的性格特征[11b]，出于我不喜欢看到生活因为在我看来是不屑一顾的小事（我眼里真正所看的是另外一些事）而变得苦涩不堪的脾气——出于这种种看似简单的理由，我事事全听你的。自然而然的，你的要求、你对我的操控和逼迫，就越来越蛮横了。你最卑鄙的动机、最下作的欲望、最平庸的喜怒哀乐，在你看来成了法律，别人的生活总要任其摆布，如有必要就得二话不说地作出牺牲[11c]。知道大吵大闹一番你就能得逞，那么无所不用其极地动粗撒野，就是很自然的事了；我毫不怀疑你这么做几乎是无意识的。最终你不知道自己急急所向的是什么目标，或者心目中到底有什么目的[11d]。在尽情利用了我的天赋、我的意志力、我的钱财之后，贪得无厌的心蒙住了你的眼睛，竟要占据我的整个生活。你得逞了。在我整个生命最为关键也最具悲剧性的那个时刻，正是我要采取那可悲的步骤开始那可笑的行动之前[11e]，一边有你父亲在我俱乐部留下一些明信片恶语中伤我，另一边有你用同样令人恶心的信攻击我。在让你带着到警察局，可笑地去申请拘捕令将你父亲逮捕的那天早晨，我收到的那封信，是你所写的最恶毒的一封，而且是出于最可耻的理由。对你们两人，我不知如何是好。判断力不见了，代之而来的是恐惧[11f]。老实说，在你们的夹攻下，我欲逃无路，盲目地跌跌撞撞，如一条牛被拉向屠宰场。我对自己心理的估计大错特错了。我总以为小事上对你迁就没什么，大事临头时我会重拾意志力，理所当然地重归主宰地位。情形并非这样[11g]。大事临头时我的意志力全垮了。生活中说真的是分不出大事小事的。凡事大小轻重都一样[11h]。主要是由于最初的无动于衷，让那凡事听你的习惯很没有理性地成了我性格的一部分。不知不觉地，这成了我禀性的模式，成了一种永久的、致命的心态[11i]。这就是为什么佩特会在他的散文集第一版那言辞微妙的跋中说道：“失败就在于形成习惯。”当他说这话时，牛津的那些死脑筋们还以为，这话不过是故意将亚里士多德有些乏味的《伦理学》文字颠倒过来说罢了。可是话中隐含了一条绝妙的、可怕的真理。我允许你榨取我的性格力量，而对我来说，习惯的形成到头来不止是失败，而是身败名裂[11j]。你在道德伦理上对我的破坏更甚于在艺术上。
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