【www.gbppp.com--经典美文】
[January-March 1897]H.M. Prison, Reading雷丁监狱1897 年1-3 月
0.1
Dear Bosie,
After long and fruitless waiting I have determined to write to you myself, as much for your sake as for mine, as I would not like to think that I had passed through two long years of imprisonment without ever having received a single line from you, or any news or message even, except such as gave me pain.
1.2
Our ill-fated and most lamentable friendship has ended in ruin and public infamy for me, yet the memory of our ancient affection is often with me[2b], and the thought that loathing, bitterness and contempt should for ever take that place in my heart once held by love is very sad to me and you yourself will, I think, feel in your heart that to write to me as I lie in the loneliness of prison-life is better than to publish my letters without my permission or to dedicate poems to me unasked, though the world will know nothing of whatever words of grief or passion, of remorse or indifference you may choose to send as your answer or your appeal[2d].
2.3
I have no doubt that in this letter in which I have to write of your life and of mine, of the past and of the future, of sweet things changed to bitterness and of bitter things that may be turned into joy, there will be much that will wound your vanity to the quick. If it prove so, read the letter over and over again till it kills your vanity. If you find in it something of which you feel that you are unjustly accused, remember that one should be thankful that there is any fault of which one can be unjustly accused. If there be in it one single passage that brings tears to your eyes, weep as we weep in prison where the day no less than the night is set apart for tears. It is the only thing that can save you. If you go complaining to your mother, as you did with reference to the scorn of you I displayed in my letter to Robbie, so that she may flatter and soothe you back into self-complacency or conceit, you will be completely lost. If you find one false excuse for yourself, you will soon find a hundred, and be just what you were before.
Do you still say, as you said to Robbie in your answer, that I “attribute unworthy motives” to you? Ah! you had no motives in life. You had appetites merely. A motive is an intellectual aim. That you were “very young” when our friendship began? Your defect was not that you knew so little about life, but that you knew so much. The morning dawn of boyhood with its delicate bloom, its clear pure light, its joy of innocence and expectation you had left far behind. With very swift and running feet you had passed from Romance to Realism. The gutter and the things that live in it had begun to fascinate you. That was the origin of the trouble in which you sought my aid, and I, so unwisely according to the wisdom of this world, out of pity and kindness gave it to you.
You must read this letter right through, though each word may become to you as the fire or knife of the surgeon that makes the delicate flesh burn or bleed. Remember that the fool in the eyes of the gods and the fool in the eyes of man are very different. One who is entirely ignorant of the modes of Art in its revolution or the moods of thought in its progress, of the pomp of the Latin line or the richer music of the vowelled Greek, of Tuscan sculpture or Elizabethan song may yet be full of the very sweetest wisdom. The real fool, such as the gods mock or mar, is he who does not know himself. I was such a one too long. You have been such a one too long. Be so no More. Do not be afraid. The supreme vice is shallowness. Everything that is realized is right.
Remember also that whatever is misery to you to read, is still greater misery to me to set down. To you the Unseen Powers have been very good.They have permitted you to see the strange and tragic shapes of Life as one sees shadows in a crystal. The head of Medusa that turns living men to stone,[3.2] you have been allowed to look at in a mirror merely. You yourself have walked free among the flowers. From me the beautiful world of colour and motion has been taken away.
3.4
I will begin by telling you that I blame myself terribly. As I sit here in this dark cell in convict clothes, a disgraced and ruined man, I blame myself. In the perturbed and fitful nights of anguish, in the long monotonous days of pain, it is myself I blame. I blame myself for allowing an unintellectual friendship, a friendship whose primary aim was not the creation and contemplation of beautiful things, to entirely dominate my life.
From the very first there was too wide a gap between us. You had been idle at your school, worse than idle at your university.[4c] You did not realise that an artist, and especially such an artist as I am, one, that is to say, the quality of whose work depends on the intensification of personality, requires for the development of his art the companionship of ideas, and intellectual atmosphere, quiet, peace, and solitude.
You admired my work when it was finished: you enjoyed the brilliant successes of my first nights, and the brilliant banquets that followed them you were proud, and quite naturally so, of being the intimate friend of an artist so distinguished, but you could not understand the conditions requisite for the production of artistic work. I am not speaking in phrases of rhetorical exaggeration but in terms of absolute truth to actual fact when I remind you that during the whole time we were together I never wrote one single line[4f]. Whether at Torquay, Goring, London, Florence or elsewhere, my life, as long as you were by my side, was entirely sterile and uncreative[4g]. And with but few intervals you were,I regret to say, by my side always.
4.5
I remember, for instance, in September ’93, to select merely one instance out of many, taking a set of chambers, purely in order to work undisturbed, as I had broken my contract with John Hare for whom I had promised to write a play, and who was pressing me on the subject. During the first week you kept away.We had, not unnaturally indeed, differed on the question of the artistic value of your translation of Salome, so you contented yourself with sending me foolish letters on the subject. In that week I wrote and completed in every detail, as it was ultimately performed, the first act of An Ideal Husband. The second week you returned and my work practically had to be given up. I arrived at St James’s Place every morning at 11.30, in order to have the opportunity of thinking and writing without the interruptions inseparable from my own household, quiet and peaceful as that household was. But the attempt was vain. At twelve o'clock you drove up, and stayed smoking cigarettes and chattering till 1.30, when I had to take you out to luncheon at the Café Royal or the Berkeley. Luncheon with its liqueurs lasted usually till 3.30. For an hour you retired to White’s. At tea-time you appeared again, and stayed till it was time to dress for dinner. You dined with me either at the Savoy or at Tite Street. We did not separate as a rule till after midnight, as supper at Willis’s had to wind up the entrancing day. That was my life for those three months, every single day, except during the four days when you went abroad.
I then, of course, had to go over to Calais to fetch you back. For one of my nature and temperament it was a position at once grotesque and tragic.
5.6
You surely must realise that now ? You must see now that your incapacity of being alone: your nature so exigent in its persistent claim on the attention and time of others: your lack of any power of sustained intellectual concentration: the unfortunate accident — for I like to think it was no more — that you had not yet been able to acquire the “Oxford temper” in intellectual matters, never, I mean, been one who could play gracefully with ideas but had arrived at violence of opinion merely — that all these things, combined with the fact that your desires and interests were in Life not in Art, were as destructive to your own progress in culture as they were to my work as an artist[6a] ? When I compare my friendship with you to my friendship with such still younger men as John Gray and Pierre Lou?s[6.1] I feel ashamed. My real life,my higher life was with them and such as they.
亲爱的波西：
经过长久的、毫无结果的等待之后，我决定还是由我写信给你，为了我也为了你。因为我不想看到自己在漫长的两年囚禁中，除了使我痛心的传闻外，连你的一行书信，甚至一点消息或口信都没收到。
我们之间坎坷不幸、令人痛心疾首的友谊，已经以我的身败名裂而告结束。但是，那段久远的情意却常在记忆中伴随着我，而一想到自己心中那曾经盛着爱的地方，就要永远让憎恨和苦涩、轻蔑和屈辱所占据，我就会感到深深的悲哀。你自己心中，我想，将会感到，当我孤独地卧在铁窗内服刑时，给我写信要胜过未经许可发表我的书信、或者自作主张地为我献诗；虽然这样世人将一点也不知道毫无疑问这封信中所写的关于你还有我的生活，关于过去和将来，关于美好变成苦痛以及苦痛或可成为欢乐，个中很有一些东西会深深伤到你的虚荣心的。果真如此的话，那就一遍又一遍地把信重读吧，直到它将你的虚荣心除灭。假如发现信中有什么你觉得是把你冤枉了，记住应该感谢世上竟还有什么错失，可以使人因此受到指责而蒙受冤屈。假如信中有哪怕是一段话使泪花蒙上你的眼睛，那就哭吧，像我们在狱中这样地哭吧。在这儿，白天同黑夜一样，是留给眼泪的。只有这个能救你了。假如你跑到你母亲跟前告状，就像那次告我在给罗比的信中嘲弄你那样，让她来疼你哄你，哄得你又飘飘然得意忘形起来，那你就全完了。假如你为自己找了一个虚假的借口，过不久便会找到一百个，那也就同过去的你毫无二致了。
你是不是还像在给罗比的回信中那样，说我“把卑劣的动机归咎”于你？啊！你的生活中可没有动机。你只有欲念而已。动机是理性的目标。说是在你我的友谊开始时你年纪还“很小”?你的毛病不是少不更事，而是对生活懂得太多。少男岁月如晨曦初露，如鲜花初绽，可那纯洁清澈的光辉，那纯真向往的欢乐，已被你远远抛于脑后了。你脚步飞快的，早已从“浪漫”跑到了“现实”，迷上了这儿的阴沟以及生活在里边的东西。这就是你当初为什么会惹上麻烦，向我求助的；而我，以这个世界的眼光看是不明不智的，却出于怜悯和善意出手相助。
你一定要把这封信通读，虽然信中的一词一语会让你觉得像外科医生的刀与火，叫细嫩的肌肤灼痛流血。记住，诸神眼里的傻瓜和世人眼里的傻瓜是大不一样的。艺术变革的种种方式或思想演进的种种状态、拉丁诗的华彩或元音化的希腊语那更丰富的抑扬顿挫、意大利托斯卡纳式的雕塑、伊丽莎白时代的歌调，对这些一个人可以全然不知，但却仍然充满最美妙的智慧。真正的傻瓜，诸神用来取乐或取笑的傻瓜，是那些没有自知之明的人[3f]。这样的傻瓜，我曾经当得太久了，你也已经当得太久了。别再当下去了。别害怕。恶大莫过于浮浅。无论什么，领悟了就是。同样记住，不管什么，你要是读着痛苦，那我使它形诸笔墨就更加痛苦。那些无形的力量待你是非常好的。它们让你目睹生活的种种怪异悲惨的形态﹐就像在水晶球中看幻影一样。蛇发女怪美杜莎，她那颗能把活人变成顽石的头颅，允许你只要
在镜中看就行。你自己在鲜花中了然无事地走了，而我呢，多姿多彩来去自由的美好世界已经被剥夺了。
你的所为，不管你选择怎样充满悲哀或激情、悔恨或冷漠的言辞来回应或者叫屈。 一开头我要告诉你我拼命地怪自己。坐在这黑牢里，囚衣蔽体，身败名裂，我怪我自己。暗夜里辗转反侧，苦痛中忽睡忽醒，白日里枯坐牢底，忧心惨切，我怪的是自己[4b]。怪自己让一段毫无心智的友情，一段其根本目的不在创造和思考美好事物的友情，完完全全左右了自己的生活。
从一开始，你我之间的鸿沟就太大了。你在中学就懒散度日，更甚于在大学时期。你并没有意识到，一个艺术家，尤其是像我这样的艺术家，也就是说，作品的质量靠的是加强个性的艺术家，其艺术的发展要求思想的默契，心智的氛围，安详悠静的独处。
我的作品完成后你会钦佩赞赏：首演之夜辉煌的成功，随之而来辉煌的宴会，都让你高兴。你感到骄傲，这很自然，自己会是这么一位大艺术家的亲密朋友，但你无法理解艺术作品得以产生的那些必备条件。我不夸大其词，而是绝对实事求是地要你知道，在我们相处的那个时候，我一行东西都没写。无论是在托基、戈灵、伦敦、佛罗伦萨，还是其它地方，只要你在身旁，我就才思枯竭，灵感全无，而除了那么几次以外，我很遗憾地说，你总是呆在我身旁。
比如，就举许多例子中的一个吧，记得是在1893 年9 月，我在圣詹姆斯旅馆租了一套房间，这完全是为了能不受干扰地写作，因为我答应过约翰·赫尔写个剧本却完不成合约，他正催着要稿呢。第一个星期你没来找我。我们就你的《莎乐美》译文的艺术价值意见不合，这的确并不奇怪。因此你就退而给我写些愚蠢的信纠缠这件事。那个星期我完成了《理想丈夫》的第一幕，所有的细节都写好了，同最终的演出本一样。可第二个星期你回来了，我简直就无法再动笔了。每天上午十一点半我就来到旅馆，为的是有机会想想写写，省得在自己家里，尽管那个家够安宁平静的，仍不可避免地会受到打搅。可是这份心思白费了。十二点你就驾着车来了，呆着抽烟聊天直到一点半，到那时我只好带你去皇家咖啡座或伯克莱用午餐。午餐加上甜酒，一顿通常吃到三点半。你到怀特俱乐部歇了一个钟头，等下午茶时分又出现了，一呆就呆到更衣用正餐的时候。你同我用餐，要么在萨瓦伊酒店要么在泰特街。照例我们要等到半夜过后才分手，因为在威利斯菜馆吃过夜宵后这销魂的一天不收也得收了。这就是我在那三个月过的生活，天天如此，除了你出国的四天外。
当然我过后不得不到加来去把你接回国。具有我这样心地禀性的人，那情形既荒诞又具悲剧性。
现在肯定你必得意识到这一点吧？你一个人是呆不住的：你的天性是这样迫切执拗地要求别人关心你，花时间陪你；还要看到你缺乏将心智持续地全神贯注的能力：不幸的偶然——说它偶然，因为我希望已不再如此——即你那时还无法养成在探索智性事物方面的“牛津气质”，我的意思是，你这个人从来就不能优雅地玩味各种意念，只会提提暴烈的门户之见——这一切，加上你的各种欲望和兴趣是在生活而不在艺术，两相巧合，对于你本人性灵教养的长进，跟对于我作为艺术家的创作工作，具有同样的破坏性。你现在必得明白这一点吧？把同你的友谊，跟同像约翰·格雷和皮埃尔·路易斯这样还要年轻的人的友谊相比时，我感到羞愧。我真正的生活，更高层次的生活，是同他们和像他们这样的人在一起的时候。【TBC】
《自深深处》试读：
There was no struggle between them at all, or but little; there is no room for both passions in the same soul. They cannot live together in that fair carven house. Love is fed by the imagination, by which we become wiser than we know, better than we feel, nobler than we are: by which we can see Life as a whole: by which, and by which alone, we can understand others in their real as in their ideal relations. Only what is fine, and finely conceived, can feed Love. But anything will feed Hate.
Hate blinds people. Love can read the writing on the remotest star, but Hate so blinded you that you could see no further than the narrow, walled-in, and already lust-withered garden of your common desires. The fatal errors of life are not due to man’s being unreasonable: an unreasonable moment may be one’s finest moment. They are due to man’s being logical. There is a wide difference. My Art was to me, the great primal note by which I had revealed, first myself to myself, and then myself to the world; the real passion of my life; the love to which all other loves were as marsh water to red wine, or the glow-worm of the marsh to the magic mirror of the moon.
Ah! had you been in prison—I will not say through any fault of mine, for that would be a thought too terrible for me to bear—but through fault of your own, error of your own, faith in some unworthy friend, slip in sensual mire, trust misapplied, or love ill-bestowed, or none, or all of these —do you think that I would have allowed you to eat your heart away in darkness and solitude without trying in some way, however slight, to help you to bear the bitter burden of your disgrace? Do you think that I would not have let you know that if you suffered, I was suffering too: that if you wept, there were tears in my eyes also: and that if you lay in the house of bondage and were despised of men, I out of my very griefs had built a house in which to dwell until your coming, a treasury in which all that men had denied to you would be laid up for your healing, one hundredfold in increase? If bitter necessity, or prudence, to me more bitter still, had prevented my being near you, and robbed me of the joy of your presence, though seen through prison-bars and in a shape of shame, I would have written to you in season and out of season in the hope that some mere phrase, some single word, some broken echo even of Love might reach you. If you had refused to receive my letters, I would have written none the less, so that you should have known that at any rate there were always letters waiting for you. Many have done so to me. Every three months people write to me, or propose to write to me
Their letters and communications are kept. They will be handed to me when I go out of prison. I know that they are there. I know the names of the people who have written them. I know that they are full of sympathy, and affection, and kindness. That is sufficient for me. I need to know no more. Your silence has been horrible. Nor has it been a silence of weeks and months merely, but of years; of years even as they have to count them who, like yourself, live swiftly in happiness, and can hardly catch the gilt feet of the days as they dance by, and are out of brea
th in the chase after pleasure. It is a silence without excuse; a silence without palliation. I knew you had feet of clay. Who knew it better? When I wrote, among my aphorisms, that it was simply the feet of clay that made the gold of the image precious, it was of you I was thinking. But it is no gold image with clay feet that you have made of yourself. Out of the very dust of the common highway that the hooves of horned things pash into mire you have moulded your perfect semblance for me to look at, so that, whatever my secret desire might have been, it would be impossible for me now to have for you any feeling other than that of contempt and scorn, for myself my feeling other than that of contempt and scorn either. And setting aside all other reasons, your indifference, your worldly wisdom, your callousness, your prudence, whatever you may choose to call it, has been made doubly bitter to me by the peculiar circumstances that either accompanied or followed my fall. I want to get to the point when I shall be able to say, quite simply and without affectation, that the two great turning-points of my life were when my father sent me to Oxford, and when society sent me to prison. I will not say that is the best thing that could have happened to me, for that phrase would savour of too great bitterness towards myself. I would sooner say, or hear it said of me, that I was so typical a child of my age that in my perversity, and for that perversity’s sake, I turned the good things of my life to evil, and the evil things of my life to good. What is said, however, by myself or by others matters little. The important thing, the thing that lies before me, the thing that I have to do, if the brief remainder of my days is not to be maimed, marred, and incomplete, is to absorb into my nature all that has been done to me, to make it part of me, to accept it without complaint, fear, or reluctance. The supreme vice is shallowness. Whatever is realised is right.
Still, in the very fact that people will recognise me wherever I go, and know all about my life, as far as its follies go, I can discern something good for me. It will force on me the necessity of again asserting myself as an artist, and as soon as I possibly can. If I can produce even one more beautiful work of art I shall be able to rob malice of its venom, and cowardice of its sneer, and to pluck out the tongue of scorn by the roots. And if life be, as it surely is, a problem to me, I am no less a problem to Life. People must adopt some attitude towards me, and so pass judgment both on themselves and me. I need not say I am not talking of particular individuals. The only people I would care to be with now are artists and people who have suffered: those who know what Beauty is, and those who know what Sorrow is: nobody else interests me. Nor am I making my demands on Life. In all that I have said I am simply concerned with my own mental attitude towards life as a whole: and I feel that not to be ashamed of having been punished is one of the first points I must attain to, for the sake of my own perfection, and because I am so imperfect.
Behind Joy and Laughter there may be a temperament, coarse, hard and callous. But behind Sorrow there is always Sorrow. Pain, unlike Pleasure, wears no mask. Truth in Art is not any correspondence between the essential idea and the accidental existence; it is not the resemblance of shape to shadow, or of the form mirrored in the crystal to the form itself: it is no Echo coming from a hollow hill, any m
ore than it is the well of silver water in the valley that shows the Moon to the Moon and Narcissus to Narcissus. Truth in Art is the unity of a thing with itself: the outward rendered expressive of the inward: the soul made incarnate: the body instinct with spirit. For this reason there is no truth comparable to Sorrow. There are times when Sorrow seems to me to be the only truth. Other things may be illusions of the eye or the appetite, made to blind the one and cloy the other, but out of Sorrow have the worlds been built, and at the birth of a child or a star there is pain.
To each of us different fates have been meted out. Freedom, pleasure, amusements, a life of ease have been your lot, and you are not worthy of it. My lot has been one of public infamy, of long imprisonment, of misery, of Ruin, of disgrace, and I am not worthy of it either窶馬ot yet, at any rate. I remember I used to say that I thought I could bear a real tragedy if it came to me with purple pall and a mask of noble sorrow, but that the dreadful thing about modernity was that it put Tragedy into the raiment of Comedy, so that the great realities seemed commonplace or grotesque or lacking in style. It is quite true about modernity. It has probably always been true about actual life. It is said that all martyrdoms seemed mean to the looker-on. The nineteenth century is no exception to the general rule.
Everything about my tragedy has been hideous, mean, repellent, lacking in style. Our very dress makes us grotesques. We are the zanies of sorrow. We are clowns whose hearts are broken. We are specially designed to appeal to the sense of humour. On November 13th 1895 I was brought down here from London. From two o''clock till half-past two on that day I had to stand on the centre platform of Clapham Junction in convict dress and handcuffed, for the world to look at. I had been taken out of the Hospital Ward without a moment’s notice being given to me. Of all possible objects I was the most grotesque. When people saw me they laughed. Each train as it came up swelled the audience. Nothing could exceed their amusement. That was of course before they knew who I was. As soon as they had been informed, they laughed still more. For half an hour I stood there in the grey November rain surrounded by a jeering mob. For a year after that was done to me I wept every day at the same hour and for the same space of time. That is not such a tragic thing as possibly it sounds to you. To those who are in prison, tears are a part of every day’s experience. A day in prison on which one does not weep is a day on which one’s heart is hard, not a day on which one’s heart is happy. I have told you this account of the mode of my being conveyed here simply that you should realise how hard it has been for me to get anything out of my punishment but bitterness and despair. I have however to do it, and now and then I have moments of submission and acceptance. All the spring may be hidden in a single bud, and the low ground-nest of the lark may hold the joy that is to herald the feet of many rose-red dawns, and so perhaps whatever beauty of life still remains to me is contained in some moment of surrender, abasement and humiliation. I can, at any rate, merely proceed on the lines of my own development, and by accepting all that has happened to me make myself worthy of it.
Do not be afraid of the past. If people tell you that it is irrevocable, do not believe them. The past, the present and the future are but one moment in the sight of God, in whose sight we should try to live. Time and space, succession and extension, are merely accidental conditions of Thought. The Imagination can transcend them, and move in a free sphere of ideal existences. Things, also, are in their essence what we choose to make them. A thing is, according to the mode in which one looks at i. “Where others,” says Blake, “see but the Dawn coming over the hill, I see the sons of God shouting for joy.” What seemed to the world and to myself my future I lost irretrievably when I let myself be taunted into taking the action against your father: had, I dare say, lost it really long before that. What lies before me is my past. I have got to make myself look on that with different eyes, to make the world look on it with different eyes, to make God look on it with different eyes. This I cannot do by ignoring it, or slighting it, or praising it, or denying it. It is only to be done by fully accepting it as an inevitable part of the evolution of my life and character: by bowing my head to everything that I have suffered. How far I am away from the true temper of soul, this letter in its changing, uncertain moods, its scorn and bitterness, its aspirations and its failure to realise those aspirations, shows you quite clearly. But do not forget in what a terrible school I am sitting at my task. And incomplete, imperfect, as I am, yet from me you may have still much to gain. You came to me to learn the Pleasure of Life and the Pleasure of Art. Perhaps I am chosen to teach you something much more wonderful, the meaning of Sorrow, and its beauty.
华丽的撕裂
2008-05-12 11:36:13 来自: 赛非【自深深处】
自深深处的评论
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很难想像2008就这样来了，静静地，却又伴随某种轰轰烈烈。这些日子过得太快。如不翻查日历，大抵不会知道今夕何年；若不挪步窗前，必不会知晓日升月落。活在当下是很好的自我抚慰。因着过去的一切多半不再真实，不再强烈，一如挥发干净却未丢弃的精致香水瓶，美则美矣，成了无关疼痒的摆设。存在，是一种习惯。而在许多习惯艰难铸成后，一次偶然便被全盘粉碎，随后另一种全新的生活便迅速成型。人生不会那样写意，在每一次转折处留一个换气口。
连续数晚一遍遍地读王尔德的DE PROFUNDIS。细细咀嚼一个艺术家一个多世纪前自人生巅峰坠落的纠结心绪。来自铁窗里的呐喊。翻阅他如何从艺术家的阴柔走向宗教美学的彻悟。两年多的狱中苦役，生无可恋，死亦难求。在监狱的最后的三个月，他断断续续地给道格拉斯（波西）写信，寄一份不知何时才能传达对方，不知对方会否拆封，会否读得懂的情。细数他们的第一次相识，在牛津的日子，甜蜜与争吵，对波西一次次的原谅与忍让，企图逃离，却再难彼此分开。王尔德曾笃信自己在家庭与波西之间的取舍，一如对自己才华的自信。波西，这个莽撞闯进他生活的美少年，理应无法倾斜事业、家庭、荣誉的天平。他的艺术需要源源不断的爱的润泽，美的润泽，这些他永远索求无尽，波西带来的是一个源泉，他的青春让他看到自己的衰老。他的喜怒无常，若即若离，举手投足都教他迷惑。有人说他滥情，因为他执著地倡导艺术的绝对纯净，孤芳自赏着自己唯美主义和浪漫主义的气质，在每一件年轻美好的事物上眷恋留情，浑然不觉旁人的目光。
和波西在一起不短不长的两年半时间，从风光无限到锒铛入狱。至今的点点滴滴汇于一张张对开的蓝色监狱用纸上，感情无法收放自如，写下的无法涂抹，辨认得出情绪轨迹。萌生出的恨与爱无从粉饰，囹圄中寻找不到容身的屏障，在被社会剥夺得体无完肤的时候，他所剩的不过是个破碎的丑陋面具，无论曾经怎样金碧辉煌，斑斓夺目。骤然间身败名裂，于铁窗内咀嚼悲怆与怨愤，唯其如此，当仇恨化作甘霖，悲怆中找到圣洁之境，他才能对恨爱两种情感的微妙有了切骨体悟。
扯下布满金箔的外衣，看清自己的肉身和心灵，那样虚无渺小。曾拥有的种种华丽，如今都成为一种惩罚。明知真心与忠诚难以力挽狂澜，只是意难平。回忆过去种种，追思永远失去的宝藏－－名誉，地位，财富，妻儿，挚友……难免捶胸顿足，义愤填膺。然而，他始终未曾说过后悔，纵然百般懊恼，万般苦痛。那个才华横溢的翩翩才子一去不返。曾经的王尔德尘封在久远的艺术中，犹如那尊一度辉煌闪耀的快乐王子塑像，旦夕之间土崩瓦解，快乐与悲伤一同幻灭，徒留一地碎裂的华丽。
他在给波西的信中诸多埋怨与颓丧，终究没有后悔自己付出的爱——对艺术，妻儿，罗比，怀有真诚的，纯洁的，高贵的，绅士的爱；而对波西，却是狂热的，沉迷至癫狂的欲望，一如对一件艺术珍品的不可自拔，爱之深恨之切，几次决意远离却终究未能跳脱。他在信中历数自己与波西的短暂分合，结果都是不惜一切代价地留他在自己身边，哪怕背负起整个世纪的罪与罚。爱之强烈而盲目，令这位史上最具智慧的英国人，自觉自愿地泥足深陷下去，放弃前半生所有丰硕温和的所得，这个用唯美艺术颠倒众生的自负的王子，甘愿从此成为那朵恶之花瓣上的一滴露珠。“碰上你，对我是危险的，而在那个特定时候碰上你，对我则成了致命，因为在你生命所处的那个时候，所作所为不过是撒种入土罢了，而我生命所处的，却正是一切都在收成归仓的季节。”这场致命的邂逅为王尔德的后半生变了调。
在那次震惊于世（惊世骇俗抑或臭名昭著）的审判中，王尔德在法庭上执着而自负地表述自己的艺术理念，言辞激昂。为着那不为世人所容的爱，他让法庭变成为彰显个人魅力的露台。孰料这场为爱与艺术的庄严申辩最终变奏为一场无稽的闹剧，又一次重蹈先行者的悲哀，艺术家小丑般地任人指指点点，嗤笑戏弄。喧哗过后，惨淡收场。
“我的人生有两大转折点：一是父亲送我进牛津，一是社会送我进监狱。”王尔德在狱中不无唏嘘地为其一生划下两道折线。一道载着他登上花团锦簇的坦途，一道却在他生命的巅峰，骤然堕入幽暗的无底深渊。于耻辱中幸存，注定经历了一次灵与肉的洗礼。
肉身的堕落成就了精神的涅槃。自王子的宝座上失足，于铁窗里的明暗交错中起身，放下高傲身段，将缺失的苦楚一一补全。借一张小小的信纸承载心底的爱与痛，愤慨与悲怆，一切归于平静。回忆每个众叛亲离的日子，痛失一切最爱的人与事，被层层剥开在大庭广众前展示，付出的所有没人补偿，失去的一切无法挽留。他最终没有在屈辱中死去，而是囚首垢面，泥足金身地活下来。借一张小小的信纸承载心底的爱与痛，愤慨与悲怆。才华销蚀，情感褪去，心神归于平静。在狱中的最后几个月，他在信中的语气平和中透出感激，分辨不出爱恨。狱中岁月即告完结，他对自己说“
不要惧怕过去，假如人们说过去的事
无可挽回，你别信。”只想给自己觅一处安乐居，避开尘俗、前事。
这是一封历时太久的情信，以致写信人渐渐忘却初衷，让它越来越趋近于记录其本人心路历程的日记。或许不再只是期待收信人的回应，而成为智者的一次心灵自救，百无聊赖中的一个支点，艺术才华的一次释放，直至成为一种习惯，填塞整整三年来隔绝、冷落、空虚的牢狱生涯。
自深深处
2006-01-28 23:45:03 来自: 恒殊 (努力学习拉丁语！)
Wilde / 王尔德的评论
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很久以前写的了，贴一下~
自深深处——影片《Wilde》及其它
/Yomi
神是奇怪的。他们不但借助我们的恶来惩罚我们，也利用我们内心的美好、善良、慈悲、关爱，来毁灭我们。奥斯卡·王尔德（Oscar Wilde，1954-1900），这位19世纪英国、乃至世界的美学大师，剧作家，诗人，他的一生已成为了这句话的注脚。
影片以1882年王尔德到美国讲学作为开场，按时间顺序再现了这位美学大师的生平，他的家庭，妻子和儿子；他的情人；他事业辉煌的高潮；以及他的审判，他的身败名裂。叙述中巧妙的穿插了王尔德多部作品片段，如《温德米尔夫人的扇子》、《不可儿戏》两部戏剧的上演，对话中谈到的《道连·格雷的画像》、《莎乐美》，以及伴随影片叙述一直闪现的童话故事《自私的巨人》。
“You’re always away.” 西里尔的无心之言让父亲的笑容凝住。王尔德很爱他的两个儿子，入狱后也曾明确表示，最大的痛苦是不能再与孩子们见面。然而作为一个父亲，他是失职的。当波西挽着他的手漫步在牛津校园，我们看到的是窗边听着妈妈念童话的孩子——然而画面一转——那个趴在椅子上的寂寞少年，原来他才是长大的西里尔，窗边的孩子竟是当年襁褓中的维维安。“You will come back and finish the story?” “Of course I will.” 但是很多年已经过去了，他终于没有履行他的诺言。
读王尔德的童话是在很小的时候，当时印象最深的是《夜莺与玫瑰》。那是一种凄凉失落之至的美感，久久不能释怀。而《自私的巨人》，我记得它是在我看的那本童话书的最后一页，“那天下午孩子们跑进花园，他们看见巨人躺在那棵树下，已经死了，全身覆盖着白花。”不管是《快乐王子》还是《渔夫和他的灵魂》，王尔德的童话，和他的很多作品一样，灵魂是凌驾于肉体之上的，艺术优于生活，一旦挣脱则美丽依旧。但其中始终贯穿着淡淡的哀伤，凄迷而悠远，占据了全部的想象。
如果说王尔德的家庭生活可以用《自私的巨人》来概括，他与艾尔弗瑞·道格拉斯（Lord Alfred Douglas）的感情也许可以算是《Salomé》，一个因我行我素导致的悲剧。王尔德所处的时代是维多利亚，一个顽固、充满偏见且极为注重传统礼教的时期。英国实是世界上最最虚伪的国度，在当时，伦敦的报纸大骂巴黎的开放与所谓的不道德。而王尔德以一个爱尔兰人的身份在伦敦公然挑战传统道德规范，与小道格拉斯双双出入上流社会、文学圈子和伦敦各剧场、饭店和咖啡馆，不能不引起社会各界对他的愤怒。
早在结识小道格拉斯之前，在美国讲学时为宣传唯美主义，他华丽的的天鹅绒外套和马裤已经被人们视为“奇装异服”，他成为了讽刺漫画中的主角。特别是在当英国政府禁止《Salomé》在英国演出，王尔德曾愤怒的表示他要放弃英国国籍。这更引起了社会各界对他的不满。所以当1895年审判开始，他由戏剧陡然升起的名誉因“有伤风化罪”而一落千丈，人们的态度立刻由逢迎谄媚变成了毫不留情的鄙视和侮辱。历史上从没有一个作家的声名像他一样大起大落，由人间到天堂，再一个不稳就此栽入地狱，万劫不复。
王尔德初识小道格拉斯是在1891年，时《道连·格雷的画像》（The Picture of Dorian Gray）刚刚出版。影片中把时间改在了《温德米尔夫人的扇子》（Lady Windermere’s Fan）首演的晚上，即1892年2月。当时的波西21岁，王尔德37岁。
王尔德极其惧怕丑陋的东西，维维安在传记中写道，王尔德讨厌魏尔伦的一个极重要的原因就是这位著名诗人实在长的太丑了（笑）。所以当他看到波西，一个如希腊雕像般的美男子，有着阿多尼斯的美貌，何况他还善于写十四行诗。王尔德立刻喜欢上了这个年轻人。
他爱波西，并因为波西的家庭而纵容他，给他无微不至的关怀和爱。正像他和罗比等人在观看《无足轻重的女人》彩排时所说：“Bosie’s a child, he needs love.”无论波西做出多么无礼甚至可怕的举动，他始终原谅他。从另一方面来说，深深为希腊文化所着迷的王尔德，并不认为他们之间的感情有什么不妥——“它是美的，是优雅的，是最为崇高的感情。只要年长者拥有才智，而青年又拥有生命的欢欣与希望，它就不断地在年长者和青年间存在着。” 王尔德认为这是一种Greek Love，是柏拉图式的精神恋爱（Platonic Love），是高尚的。
命运将两个互不相干的生命丝丝缕缕编成了一个血红的图案，尽管从《狱中书》（De Profundis）中看到，王尔德恩恩怨怨的诉说这段时期的不快乐，诉说他心智的堕落，把一切罪责都推到小道格拉斯身上，但也许，那时他们真的相爱。然而波西太不成熟，他对父亲的恨远远大于他的爱。恨蒙蔽了他的双眼，
使目光所及，不过是他那狭窄的、被高墙围堵、因放纵而枯萎的怆俗欲念的小园子。他永远也不明白，爱的目的便是去爱，不多，也不少。他把王尔德对他无比珍贵的爱，廉价的拿来和父亲做仇恨的赌注，可惜他刚好输了。输掉了一位大艺术家的灵魂，输掉了王尔德的一切。
影片中出演波西一角的是裘德·洛（Jude Law），他用精湛的演技和近乎完美的古典气质成功诠释了小道格拉斯的所有特点——虚荣、肤浅、不成熟和反复无常，而凌驾于这些之上，最重要的——就像现实中波西的自我形容——百合花王子，当时只是在嘲笑他的浅薄，这是我读《狱中书》时对这个称号的唯一印象。然而Jude，尤其在片尾的最后一幕，那个笑容浮现的刹那，纯洁、美丽，Lily Prince是我所能想到的唯一描述。那是不折不扣的——Charming。对Jude，我无可挑剔，这个波西实在太精彩了，以至，在看到他对剧中王尔德的不敬和背叛，心里会痛，仿佛Wilde再一次跌入悲怆。那是我的偶像，我的信仰，我不能忍受他的痛苦和他所受的侮辱。
可以查到波西送给王尔德的照片，的确是很漂亮，但Jude比他有过之而无不及。而出演王尔德的史蒂芬·弗赖（Stephen Fry），除了演员之外，据说还是位很有名的作家。但可惜的是，他出演这部片子时已经40岁，而且他还属于是非常显老的那一型。所以尽管并没有明显的漏洞，那种属于不老之心的飞扬神采和只属于王尔德的、完全嘲讽一切的自信，他表现的远远不够。最重要的是，他实在是——没有我偶像帅呀！（笑）王尔德生前留下了大量的照片，张张都可以证明，偶像的魅力是无穷的！尤其在他年轻的时候，他“身材高大，深棕色头发长垂至肩……脸上完全没有颜色……蓝眼带着一点绿，而且又亮又锐利……”Wilde当初是极有魅力的一个人，不单指他在语言交流上的天才。
手中《The Plays of Oscar Wilde》的封面是William Powell Frith1881年的作品《皇家学院的预展》（The Private View of the Royal Academy），画中的主要人物就是王尔德。这本书收录了王尔德全部的戏剧作品，从早期的《薇拉》（Vera,1880），为赚稿费赶制的《帕杜亚公爵夫人》（The Duchess of Padua,1883）（这两部戏剧都未在伦敦公演），到他的五部成名戏剧：《莎乐美》（Salomé）、《温德米尔夫人的扇子》（Lady Windermere’s Fan,1892）、《无足轻重的女人》（A Woman of No Importance,1893）、《理想丈夫》（An Ideal Husband,1895）和《不可儿戏》（The Importance of Being Earnest,1895），以及最后两部未完成的遗作《圣妓》（La Sainte Courtisane）和《佛罗伦萨悲剧》（A Florentine Tragedy）。后者是用素体诗（blank verse）写就的剧本。这两部短剧的创作时间大概是在《理想丈夫》之后，即1894年底。王尔德在他的《狱中书》所说，因为此时波西的不召自来，他的创作灵感和心境已经消失殆尽。两部短剧就此成为了永久的遗憾。
国内的翻译作品，有以上那五部戏剧，童话、诗和小说。版本很多，译者均不同，其间差距很大。正像读过田汉的《莎乐美》译本，我才发现人民文学出版的那本有着漂亮封面的《王尔德作品集》实在是垃圾。译者居然把《不可儿戏》中的主角Ernest（取earnest谐音）音译成什么“哦拿实的”，实在让人大跌眼镜。相比之下，余光中在1983年译本中的“任真”（取认真谐音）实在要高明的多了。不过在那个版本里，译者在前言和后记中所表露出的一个所谓学者的做作与自以为是我却不敢苟同。
以往和朋友谈起王尔德，只要一提这个名字，对方总是会停下来，用故作平静的眼神看着我，静默片刻，清晰的说：“他同性恋”。仿佛盖棺定论，简单扼要。
我已经无法忍受，正如王尔德在《狱中书》上所说，最可怕的一点是，它已经把悲剧裹上了喜剧的外衣。“我们变成了悲怆的小丑，肝肠寸断的小丑，被特别装扮摆弄，来逗引人们的幽默感”。那些伟大的著作，以及奥林匹斯山众神赋予他的一切：才华、地位、金钱和荣耀，在一百年前的那一天，在不公正的法官宣判的那一刻，似乎都不再重要。人们的嘲笑，如《不可儿戏》圣瓦伦丁节首演一般的热烈，成为人们茶余饭后的笑柄，并延续至今。
英国在1861年终于废除了同性恋者的死刑，可难道我们就该因此而庆幸？柴科夫斯基同样因“有伤风化罪”而被折磨至死，难道我们就可以说王尔德比他幸运？二年的牢狱苦役已足够摧毁一位艺术家的一切，特别是，当他的心已被悲怆充满；当他除了懊悔和自责外什么也不能做；当他失去了母亲；当他的妻子和儿子被迫离他而去；当他爱护备至的波西在法庭上当证不证，亲手把他推入地狱，然后在两年里没有为他写过片言只语，甚至没有口信，什么，都没有。
“所有的天才都是同性恋。”曾有人下过这个惊世骇俗的结论。现代艺术家甚至以此自傲。但对王尔德来说，因为1895年的公开审判，他同性恋的声名甚至盖过了他的文名。无知的人们已经把这点作为他区别于其他作家的标签，甚至是他唯一的特征。这对他实在太残酷。奥斯卡·王尔德，就像一百年前在他对美国海关所说，他只有他的天才需要申报，也惟有这一点，值得为人们记住。
（2002-7-11）
附注：奥斯卡·王尔德生平年表
原载Peter Raby编《剑桥文学指南》王尔德卷
The Cambridge Companion to Oscar Wilde
1854
10月16日，在爱尔兰都柏林魏斯兰街（Westland Road）21号，眼科和耳外科医生——威廉·王尔德（William Wilde）和夫人——珍·法兰西丝卡·艾吉（Jane Francesca Elgee，曾用笔名Speranza）的第二子，奥斯卡·芬葛·欧佛雷泰·威尔斯·王尔德（Oscar Fingal O’Flahertie Wills Wilde）诞生。
1855
王尔德一家搬到都柏林梅瑞翁广场（Merrion Square）1号。
世界上最伟大的一百部非虚构作品，你读了几部？
环境(1/2)
《寂静的春天》(1962)，蕾切尔·卡森
《盖娅的复仇》*(1979)，
詹姆斯·拉夫洛克
回忆录(8/11)
《忏悔录》(1782)，让-雅克·卢梭
《美国奴隶道格拉斯自述》(1845)，
弗雷德里克·道格拉斯
《狱中记》(《自深深处》，1905)，
奥斯卡·王尔德
《智慧七柱》(1922)，TE·劳伦斯
《甘地自传：我体验真理的故事》
(1927)，圣雄甘地
《向加泰罗尼亚致敬 》(1938)，
乔治·奥威尔
《安妮日记》(1947)，安妮·弗兰克
《说吧，记忆》(1951)，
弗拉基米尔·纳博科夫
《死了的人》*(1971)，沃莱·索因卡
［尼日利亚内战期间
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