自深深处——王尔德致波西的信（十）
作者：奥斯卡·王尔德
作者简介及相关背景介绍请参阅：
自深深处——王尔德致波西的信（十）
Our friendship really begins with your begging me in a most pathetic and charming letter to assist you in a position appalling to anyone, doubly so to a young man at Oxford: I do so.
You send me a very nice poem, of the undergraduate school of verse. I reply by a letter of fantastic literary conceits like a passage from one of Shakespeare's sonnets, transposed to a minor key. It can only be understood by those who have read the Symposium of Plato. It was, let me say frankly, the sort of letter I would write to any graceful young man of either University who had sent me a poem of his own making, certain that he would have sufficient wit or culture to interpret rightly its fantastic phrases.
我们的友谊，其实是始于你的一封极其可怜而又可爱的信，求我在你危难之际帮你一把。你当时的那种情形对任何人，尤其是对一个就读于牛津大学的年轻人来说，倍加可怕：于是我帮了你。
你寄给我一首很好的诗，来自本科学院诗集。在回信中，我用了些巧妙的文学意象，就像是引自莎士比亚十四行诗中的一段，被转为了小调似的。只有那些读过柏拉图的《会饮篇》（见注释）的人，才能真正理解其中内涵。那信，坦白地说，我可能会写过任何一位高雅的青年，无论他来自哪所大学，要是他寄给我一首他自己写的诗的话。当然，他必须有足够的才智或文学修养，能正确地理解信中那些奇妙的段落。
自深深处——王尔德致波西的信（十）
Look at the history of that letter!
It passes from you into the hands of a loath some companion: from him to a gang of blackmailers: copies of it are sent about London to my friends, and to the manager of the theater where my work is being performed: every construction but the right one is put on it.
This forms the basis of your father's worst attack. I produce the original myself in Court to show what it really is: it is denounced by your father's Counsel as a revolting and insidious attempt to corrupt innocence: it forms part of a criminal charge. The Judge sums up on it with little learning and much morality. I go to prison for it. That is the result of writing you a charming letter.
看看那封信是如何流转的吧！先是经你传到了你的一个不太讨人喜欢的同伴手里，又通过他传到一个敲诈团伙的恶棍那里，各种副本在伦敦到处散播，有的寄给了我的朋友，还有的到了正上演我作品的剧院经理处，人们添油加醋，却没有一个是真的。
这封信成了你父亲对我进行最恶毒攻击的基础：我自己在法庭出示原信，说明真相，却被你父亲的辩护律师指为，这是一个令人厌恶的，意在腐化纯真青年的阴险企图，而构成了刑事指控一个组成部分。法官更多的是出于道义而并非学识，做出了结案陈词。我因此而进了监狱。这就是我词情并茂地给你写了那封信的下场。
自深深处——王尔德致波西的信（十）
But, I need not go on with instances of the stange Doom you seem to brought on me in all things big or little. Of course you had your illusions, lived in them indeed. You thought, that your devoting yourself to me, to the entire exclusion of your family, was a proof of your wonderful appreciation of me.
You thought that in sending a lawyer's letter to your father to say that, rather than sever your eternal friendship with me, you would give up the allowance of that making you, you were realising the very chivalry of friendship. But your surrender of your little allowance did not mean that you were ready to give up even one of your most super fluousluxuries, or was merely a pretence of bravado gave you a plausible reason to live at my expense.
You thought again that in attacking your own father with dreadful letters, abusive telegrams, and insulting postcards you were fighting your mother's battles, avenging the no doubt terrible wrongs and sufferings of her married life.
但是我没有必要列出所有或大或小的事情，来作为你带给我的这奇特命运的例证。当然，你有你的幻想，并深陷其中。你认为你完全背叛了你的家庭，把你自己奉献给我，就是你对我有美好情感的明证。你认为在发给你父亲的律师函中说这些，并不是想断绝你我之间的永恒友情，你将放弃在这桩诉讼案中所获得的补偿，以体现你出于友情的翩翩骑士风度。但是你放弃你那点补偿，并不意味着你真的准备放弃，你的哪怕是其中一项奢华享受，这不过是一个狡猾的借口，给了你一个要依靠我的钱来生活的冠冕堂皇的理由。
你还认为，用那些令人厌恶的信件、充满谩骂性言词的电报和侮辱性语言的明信片来攻击你的亲生父亲，是为你母亲而复仇的战斗，是为她在她的婚姻生活中所遭受到的，无疑是可怕的不幸与折磨的报复。
自深深处——王尔德致波西的信（十）
It was an illusion, one of your worst.
The way for you to avenged your mother's wrongs was by being a better son to your mother: by not making her afraid to speak to you, by not signing bills the payment of which devolved on her; by being gentler to her, and not bringing sorrow into her days.
I also had my illusions. I thought life was going to be a brilliant comedy, and that you were to be one of many graceful figures in it.
The Pall Mall Gazette, describing the dress-rehearsal of one of my plays, spoke of you as following me about like a shadow.
The memory of our friendship is the shadow that walks with me here, it follows me into the prison-yard and makes me talk to myself as I tramp around; each detail each dreadful moment I am forced to recall: every strained note of your voice, every twitch of your nervous hands, every bitter word, every poisonous phrase.
There is, I know, one answer to all that I have said. You 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.
这是一种幻想，是你最糟糕的幻想之一。
你以为，你为报复你母亲的不幸而选择这样的方式，是一个你母亲的好儿子的作为：是要让她不再害怕对你诉说一切，是让她可以不必再签收那些转嫁给她的账单，是对她更加温柔以待，是让她今后的日子不再悲伤。
我也有我的幻想，我以为生活将会是一个光辉灿烂的喜剧，而你是那剧中众多美好角色中的一个。蓓尔美尔街报刊登了一则关于我的一部戏彩排的报道，说你与我如影随形。而关于我们友情的回忆，也如同我的影子一样在这里，它随我进入监狱，使我在四处漂泊中常常自言自语。我强迫自己去回忆我们交往的每一个细节，每一个危机时刻，你紧张时声音的每一次颤抖，你焦虑时双手的每一次痉挛，每一个尖酸的用词，每一段恶毒的言语。
但我知道，只有一个答案，可以解释我上述的所有情形。那就是：你爱我。是的，我知道你爱我。无论你怎样对待我，我依然能从内心深处感受到，你是真的爱我……
———未完待续
（真念一思译）
自深深处——王尔德致波西的信（十）
注释：
《会饮篇》是古希腊哲学家柏拉图的一篇对话式作品，于公元前385年左右写成，是一段关于对爱的本质的作品，以演讲和对话的形式写成，被学者们普遍认为《会饮篇》是柏拉图最伟大的两篇对话之一。篇中描写悲剧家阿伽松为了庆祝自己的剧本获奖，邀请了几位朋友到家中会饮、交谈。参加者有修辞学家斐德罗、喜剧家阿里斯托芬、哲学家苏格拉底等人。整篇对话主要由六篇对爱神厄洛斯的颂辞组成。文章中，柏拉图想讨论的是一种超越性和时间的爱情，想找出爱情的本质是什么，但最终没有得到确切的答案。但看柏拉图的文章是就要有这样的准备——讲的很有道理，却不一定是你想要的答案，当然这也是其思想的美丽之处，没有现成的答案，真正的答案需要自己去思考。
（图片就注释文字来自网络，向原作者致敬致谢！）
庐阳第一怪为图配诗：
穿波天池撒云网，凡种俗类不入舱。
但凭真念遨霄宇，不教一思堕沧桑。
———\ 一丝怪念组合🤩🤗
（感谢庐阳第一怪配诗鼓励支持！）
自深深处——王尔德致波西的信（十）
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