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Of the appalling results of my friendship with you I don’t speak at present[7a]. I am thinking merely of its quality while it lasted. It was intellectually degrading to me[7b]. You had the rudiments of an artistic temperament in its germ. But I met you either too late or too soon, I don’t know which. When you were away I was all right. The moment, in the early December of the year to which I have been alluding, I had succeeded in inducing your mother to send you out of England, I collected again the torn and ravelled web of my imagination[7c], got my life back into my own hands, and not merely finished the three remaining acts of An Ideal Husband, but conceived and had almost completed two other plays of a completely different type, the Florentine Tragedy and La Sainte Courtisane,[7.1] when suddenly, unbidden, unwelcome, and under circumstances fatal to my happiness you returned[7d]. The two works left then imperfect I was unable to take up again. The mood that created them I could never recover[7e]. You now, having yourself published a volume of verse, will be able to recognise the truth of everything I have said here. Whether you can or not it remains as a hideous truth in the very heart of our friendship. While you were with me you were the absolute ruin of my Art, and in allowing you to stand persistently between Art and myself I give to myself shame and blame in the fullest degree[7f]. You couldn’t know, you couldn’t understand, you couldn’t appreciate[7g]. I had no right to expect it of you at all. Your interests were merely in your meals and moods. Your desires were simply for amusements, for ordinary or less ordinary pleasures[7h]. They were what your temperament needed, or thought it needed for the moment. I should have forbidden you my house and my chambers except when I specially invited you[7i]. I blame myself without reserve for my weakness. It was merely weakness. One half-hour with Art was always more to me than a cycle with you. Nothing really at any period of my life was ever of the smallest importance to me compared with Art. But in the case of an artist, weakness is nothing less than a crime, when it is a weakness that paralyses the imagination.
同你的友谊所导致的恶果暂且不说[7a]。我只是在考虑那段友谊的内在质量。对于我那是心智上的堕落[7b]。你具有一种艺术气质初露时的萌芽迹象。但是我同你相遇，要么太迟要么太早了，我也说不清楚。你不在时我一切都好。那个时候，也就是我一直在说的那年十二月初，我劝得你母亲把你送出英国后，就重新拾起、再度编织我那支离破碎的想象之网[7c]，生活也重归自己掌握，不但完成了《理想丈夫》剩下的三幕，还构思并几乎完成了另外两个完全不同的剧本，《佛罗伦萨悲剧》和《圣妓》。而这时，突然之间，不召自来，不请自到，在我的幸福生死攸关的情形下，你回来了[7d]。那两部作品有待完稿，而我却无法再提笔了。创作它们的那份心境永远也无法失而复得了[7e]。你本人现在已有一本诗集出版，会承认我说的全是真话。不管你承不承认，这都是你我友谊的核心里一段不堪回首的真事。你同我在一起时便绝对是我艺术的克星，而竟然允许你执拗地隔在我和艺术之间，对此我羞愧难当，咎责难辞[7f]。回想起来，你无法知道，你无法理解，你无法体谅[7g]。而我一点也无权指望你能做到这些。你的兴趣所在，不外乎餐饭和喜怒。你的欲望所寄，不过是寻欢作乐，不过是平平庸庸或等而下之的消遣享福而已[7h]。这些是你禀性的需要，或认为是它一时的需要。我本来应该将你拒之门外，非特别邀请不得登门[7i]。我毫无保留地责怪自己的软弱。除了软弱还是软弱。半小时的与艺术相处，对于我总是胜过一整天地同你厮混。在我生命的任何时期，对我来说任何东西只要与艺术相比，便无足轻重了。但就一个艺术家而言，如果软弱使想象力瘫痪，那软弱就不亚于犯罪。
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