91
This new life,[91.1] as through my love of Dante I like sometimes to call it, is, of course, no new life at all, but simply the continuance, by means of development, and evolution, of my former life. I remember when I was at Oxford saying to one of my friends—as we were strolling round Magdalen’s narrow bird-haunted walks one morning in the June before I took my degree—that I wanted to eat of the fruit of all the trees in the garden of the world, and that I was going out into the world with that passion in my soul[91a]. And so, indeed, I went out, and so I lived. My only mistake was that I confined myself so exclusively to the trees of what seemed to me the sun gilt side of the garden, and shunned the other side for its shadow and its gloom. Failure, disgrace, poverty, sorrow, despair, suffering, tears even, the broken words that come from the lips of pain, remorse that makes one walk in thorns[91b], conscience that condemns, self-abasement that punishes, the misery that puts ashes on its head[91.2], the anguish that chooses sackcloth for its raiment and into its own drink puts gall—all these were things of which I was afraid. And as I had determined to know nothing of them, I was forced to taste each one of them in turn, to feed on them, to have for a season, indeed, no other food at all. I don’t regret for a single moment having lived for pleasure. I did it to the full, as one should do everything that one does to the full[91c]. There was no pleasure I did not experience. I threw the pearl of my soul into a cup of wine. I went down the primrose path to the sound of flutes. I lived on honeycomb. But to have continued the same life would have been wrong because it would have been limiting. I had to pass on. The other half of the garden had its secrets for me also.
这新生，由于热爱但丁我有时喜欢这么叫它，当然了，绝不是新的生活，它不过是我以往的生活通过发展和进化的延续罢了。记得在牛津时同一个朋友说过——那是个六月的早晨，在我拿到学位之前我们正沿着莫德林学院那些莺歌燕舞的小路散着步——说我要尝遍世界这个园子里每棵树结的果，说我要心怀这份激情走出校门踏进世界[91a]。的的确确，我是这样地走出校门，这样地生活了。我犯的唯一错误，是把自己局限在那些以为是长在园子向阳一面的树当中，避开另一边的幽幽暗影。失败、羞辱、穷困、悲哀、绝望、艰难、甚至眼泪、从痛苦的嘴唇断断续续冒出来的话语、令人如行荆丛[91b]的悔恨、良心的谴责、最终要受惩罚的自轻自贱、柴灰蒙头的悲愁、披麻布饮苦胆的悲情——这一切都是我所害怕的。正因为决心不过问这些，后来才被迫一样一样轮番将它们尝遍，被迫以它们为食，真的，有几个月别的什么也吃不上。我一点也不后悔曾经为享乐而活过。我尽情活了个痛快，就像人不管什么都要做个痛快[91c]。什么快乐都经历过了。我把灵魂的明珠投进杯中的酒里。我踏着长笛的乐音行在享乐之路上。我过着蜜糖般的日子。但如果继续过着同样的生活就不对了，因为这会限制心性的发展。我只有往前走，园子的另一半同样也有它的秘密留给我。
91