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But at the time I wrote to you I felt that for both our sakes it would be a good thing, a proper thing, a right thing not to accept the account your father had put forward through his Counsel for .the edification of a Philistine world, and that is why I asked you to think out and write something that would be nearer the truth[48a]. It would at least have been better for you than scribbling to the French papers about the domestic life of your parents. What did the French care whether or not your parents had led a happy domestic life? One cannot conceive a subject more entirely uninteresting to them. What did interest them was how an artist of my distinction, one who by the school and movement of which he was the incarnation had exercised a marked influence on the direction of French thought, could, having led such a life, have brought such an action. Had you proposed for your article to publish the letters, endless I fear in number, in which I had spoken to you of the ruin you were bringing on my life, of the madness of moods of rage that you were allowing to master you to your own hurt as well as to mine, and of my desire, nay, my determination to end a friendship so fatal to me in every way, I could have understood it, though I would not have allowed such letters to be published: when your father’s Counsel desiring to catch me in a contradiction suddenly produced in Court a letter of mine, written to you in March ‘93, in which I stated that, rather than endure a repetition of the hideous scenes you seemed to take such a terrible pleasure in making, I would readily consent to be “blackmailed by every renter in London,” it was a very real grief to me that that side of my friendship with you should incidentally be revealed to the common gaze: but that you should have been so slow to see, so lacking in all sensitiveness, and so dull in apprehension of what is rare, delicate and beautiful, as to propose yourself to publish the letters in which, and through which, I was trying to keep alive the very spirit and soul of Love, that it might dwell in my body through the long years of that body’s humiliation — this was, and still is to me, a source of the very deepest pain, the most poignant disappointment. Why you did so, I fear I know but too well. If Hate blinded your eyes, Vanity sewed your eyelids together with threads of iron. The faculty “by which, and by which alone, one can understand others in their real as in their ideal relations,” your narrow egotism had blunted, and long disuse had made of no avail. The imagination was as much in prison as I was. Vanity had barred up the windows, and the name of the warder was Hate[48b].
可是在给你写那信时，我觉得为了你也为了我，不接受你父亲通过辩护律师提出的旨在教化庸人俗世的说词，这样是正确的、正当的、应该的。这就是为什么我要你构思写些东西以正一点视听[48a]。对于你，至少也比胡乱给法国报纸写些你父母的家庭生活要好。你父母过去的家庭生活快乐与否，法国人会理睬吗？再也想不出对他们来说比这更无聊的话题了。确实会让他们感兴趣的是，一个像我这么出名的艺术家，一个通过以其为化身的流派和运动而对法国的思潮有过显著影响的艺术家，怎么会过这种生活，而后又去打这样一场官司。我给你写了恐怕有数不清的信，说你是怎样在把我拖向毁灭；说你是怎样放纵自己的喜怒无常，为狂暴的脾气所左右，害我也害己；说我是怎样有心，不，是决心要断绝这完全会置我于死地的友谊。假如你为你的文章而要发表的是我的这些信，那我会理解的，虽然不会允许它们发表的。当你父亲的辩护律师想抓我的把柄时，突然在法庭上出示我的一封信，那是在1 8 9 3年3月写给你的，信中说你既然这么喜欢大吵大闹，那我与其再忍受一轮这可怕的场面，还不如就此“让全伦敦的房客来敲诈”。你我友谊的这一面没想到就公诸于众了，这真的使我非常伤心。但是，对这珍贵的、微妙的、美好的一切，你却如此的不聪不敏、不痛不痒，迟迟不能发现与欣赏，竟至于自己提出要发表这些信件；须知正是在这些信件、通过这些信件，我想保有爱的神与魂，使之存活在我的肉体中，熬过那副肉体蒙受屈辱的漫长岁月而不死。——这曾经是、现在仍然是令我最悲最痛，最最失望的心结。你为什么要这么做，恐怕我是太清楚了。如果仇恨蒙蔽了你的眼睛，那虚荣便是用铁丝把你的眼皮缝在一起了。那种“通过它，只有通过它，才能既以其理想关系也以其真实关系来理解他人”的才能，被你狭隘的利己之心磨钝了，而长久的荒废又使它不复可用了。你的想象力同我的人一样，囚禁在监牢里。虚荣是铁条封住了窗口，看守的名字叫仇恨[48b]。
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