For us there is only one season, the season of sorrow. The very sun and moon seem taken from us. Outside, the day may be blue and gold, but the light that creeps down through the thickly-muffled glass of the small iron-barred window beneath which one sits is grey and niggard. It is always twilight5 in one’s cell, as it is always twilight in one’s heart. And in the sphere of thought, no less than in the sphere of time, motion is no more. The thing that you personally have long ago forgotten, or can easily forget, is happening to me now, and will happen to me again to-morrow. Remember this, and you will be able to understand a little of why I am writing, and in this manner writing. . . .
A week later, I am transferred here. Three more months go over and my mother dies. No one knew how deeply I loved and honoured her. Her death was terrible to me; but I, once a lord of language, have no words in which to express my anguish6 and my shame. She and my father had bequeathed me a name they had made noble and honoured, not merely in literature, art, archaeology7, and science, but in the public history of my own country, in its evolution as a nation. I had disgraced that name eternally. I had made it a low by-word among low people. I had dragged it through the very mire9. I had given it to brutes10 that they might make it brutal11, and to fools that they might turn it into a synonym12 for folly13. What I suffered then, and still suffer, is not for pen to write or paper to record. My wife, always kind and gentle to me, rather than that I should hear the news from indifferent lips, travelled, ill as she was, all the way from Genoa to England to break to me herself the tidings of so irreparable, so irremediable, a loss. Messages of sympathy reached me from all who had still affection for me. Even people who had not known me personally, hearing that a new sorrow had broken into my life, wrote to ask that some expression of their condolence should be conveyed to me. . . .
Three months go over. The calendar of my daily conduct and labour that hangs on the outside of my cell door, with my name and sentence written upon it, tells me that it is May. . . .
Prosperity, pleasure and success, may be rough of grain and common in fibre, but sorrow is the most sensitive of all created things. There is nothing that stirs in the whole world of thought to which sorrow does not vibrate in terrible and exquisite14 pulsation15. The thin beaten-out leaf of tremulous gold that chronicles the direction of forces the eye cannot see is in comparison coarse. It is a wound that bleeds when any hand but that of love touches it, and even then must bleed again, though not in pain.
Where there is sorrow there is holy ground. Some day people will realise what that means. They will know nothing of life till they do,—and natures like his can realise it. When I was brought down from my prison to the Court of Bankruptcy16, between two policemen,—waited in the long dreary17 corridor that, before the whole crowd, whom an action so sweet and simple hushed into silence, he might gravely raise his hat to me, as, handcuffed and with bowed head, I passed him by. Men have gone to heaven for smaller things than that. It was in this spirit, and with this mode of love, that the saints knelt down to wash the feet of the poor, or stooped to kiss the leper on the cheek. I have never said one single word to him about what he did. I do not know to the present moment whether he is aware that I was even conscious of his action. It is not a thing for which one can render formal thanks in formal words. I store it in the treasure-house of my heart. I keep it there as a secret debt that I am glad to think I can never possibly repay. It is embalmed18 and kept sweet by the myrrh and cassia of many tears. When wisdom has been profitless to me, philosophy barren, and the proverbs and phrases of those who have sought to give me consolation19 as dust and ashes in my mouth, the memory of that little, lovely, silent act of love has unsealed for me all the wells of pity: made the desert blossom like a rose, and brought me out of the bitterness of lonely exile into harmony with the wounded, broken, and great heart of the world. When people are able to understand, not merely how beautiful ---’s action was, but why it meant so much to me, and always will mean so much, then, perhaps, they will realise how and in what spirit they should approach me. . . .
The poor are wise, more charitable, more kind, more sensitive than we are. In their eyes prison is a tragedy in a man’s life, a misfortune, a casuality, something that calls for sympathy in others. They speak of one who is in prison as of one who is ‘in trouble’ simply. It is the phrase they always use, and the expression has the perfect wisdom of love in it. With people of our own rank it is different. With us, prison makes a man a pariah20. I, and such as I am, have hardly any right to air and sun. Our presence taints21 the pleasures of others. We are unwelcome when we reappear. To revisit the glimpses of the moon is not for us. Our very children are taken away. Those lovely links with humanity are broken. We are doomed22 to be solitary23, while our sons still live. We are denied the one thing that might heal us and keep us, that might bring balm to the bruised24 heart, and peace to the soul in pain. . . .
I must say to myself that I ruined myself, and that nobody great or small can be ruined except by his own hand. I am quite ready to say so. I am trying to say so, though they may not think it at the present moment. This pitiless indictment25 I bring without pity against myself. Terrible as was what the world did to me, what I did to myself was far more terrible still.
I was a man who stood in symbolic26 relations to the art and culture of my age. I had realised this for myself at the very dawn of my manhood, and had forced my age to realise it afterwards. Few men hold such a position in their own lifetime, and have it so acknowledged. It is usually discerned, if discerned at all, by the historian, or the critic, long after both the man and his age have passed away. With me it was different. I felt it myself, and made others feel it. Byron was a symbolic figure, but his relations were to the passion of his age and its weariness of passion. Mine were to something more noble, more permanent, of more vital issue, of larger scope.
The gods had given me almost everything. But I let myself be lured27 into long spells of senseless and sensual ease. I amused myself with being a flaneur, a dandy, a man of fashion. I surrounded myself with the smaller natures and the meaner minds. I became the spendthrift of my own genius, and to waste an eternal youth gave me a curious joy. Tired of being on the heights, I deliberately28 went to the depths in the search for new sensation. What the paradox29 was to me in the sphere of thought, perversity30 became to me in the sphere of passion. Desire, at the end, was a malady31, or a madness, or both. I grew careless of the lives of others. I took pleasure where it pleased me, and passed on. I forgot that every little action of the common day makes or unmakes character, and that therefore what one has done in the secret chamber32 one has some day to cry aloud on the housetop. I ceased to be lord over myself. I was no longer the captain of my soul, and did not know it. I allowed pleasure to dominate me. I ended in horrible disgrace. There is only one thing for me now, absolute humility33.
I have lain in prison for nearly two years. Out of my nature has come wild despair; an abandonment to grief that was piteous even to look at; terrible and impotent rage; bitterness and scorn; anguish that wept aloud; misery34 that could find no voice; sorrow that was dumb. I have passed through every possible mood of suffering. Better than Wordsworth himself I know what Wordsworth meant when he said—
‘Suffering is permanent, obscure, and dark
But while there were times when I rejoiced in the idea that my sufferings were to be endless, I could not bear them to be without meaning. Now I find hidden somewhere away in my nature something that tells me that nothing in the whole world is meaningless, and suffering least of all. That something hidden away in my nature, like a treasure in a field, is Humility.
It is the last thing left in me, and the best: the ultimate discovery at which I have arrived, the starting-point for a fresh development. It has come to me right out of myself, so I know that it has come at the proper time. It could not have come before, nor later. Had any one told me of it, I would have rejected it. Had it been brought to me, I would have refused it. As I found it, I want to keep it. I must do so. It is the one thing that has in it the elements of life, of a new life, Vita Nuova for me. Of all things it is the strangest. One cannot acquire it, except by surrendering everything that one has. It is only when one has lost all things, that one knows that one possesses it.
Now I have realised that it is in me, I see quite clearly what I ought to do; in fact, must do. And when I use such a phrase as that, I need not say that I am not alluding36 to any external sanction or command. I admit none. I am far more of an individualist than I ever was. Nothing seems to me of the smallest value except what one gets out of oneself. My nature is seeking a fresh mode of self-realisation. That is all I am concerned with. And the first thing that I have got to do is to free myself from any possible bitterness of feeling against the world.
I am completely penniless, and absolutely homeless. Yet there are worse things in the world than that. I am quite candid37 when I say that rather than go out from this prison with bitterness in my heart against the world, I would gladly and readily beg my bread from door to door. If I got nothing from the house of the rich I would get something at the house of the poor. Those who have much are often greedy; those who have little always share. I would not a bit mind sleeping in the cool grass in summer, and when winter came on sheltering myself by the warm close-thatched rick, or under the penthouse of a great barn, provided I had love in my heart. The external things of life seem to me now of no importance at all. You can see to what intensity38 of individualism I have arrived—or am arriving rather, for the journey is long, and ‘where I walk there are thorns.’
Of course I know that to ask alms on the highway is not to be my lot, and that if ever I lie in the cool grass at night-time it will be to write sonnets39 to the moon. When I go out of prison, R--- will be waiting for me on the other side of the big iron-studded gate, and he is the symbol, not merely of his own affection, but of the affection of many others besides. I believe I am to have enough to live on for about eighteen months at any rate, so that if I may not write beautiful books, I may at least read beautiful books; and what joy can be greater? After that, I hope to be able to recreate my creative faculty40.
But were things different: had I not a friend left in the world; were there not a single house open to me in pity; had I to accept the wallet and ragged8 cloak of sheer penury41: as long as I am free from all resentment42, hardness and scorn, I would be able to face the life with much more calm and confidence than I would were my body in purple and fine linen43, and the soul within me sick with hate.
And I really shall have no difficulty. When you really want love you will find it waiting for you.
I need not say that my task does not end there. It would be comparatively easy if it did. There is much more before me. I have hills far steeper to climb, valleys much darker to pass through. And I have to get it all out of myself. Neither religion, morality, nor reason can help me at all.
Morality does not help me. I am a born antinomian. I am one of those who are made for exceptions, not for laws. But while I see that there is nothing wrong in what one does, I see that there is something wrong in what one becomes. It is well to have learned that.
Religion does not help me. The faith that others give to what is unseen, I give to what one can touch, and look at. My gods dwell in temples made with hands; and within the circle of actual experience is my creed44 made perfect and complete: too complete, it may be, for like many or all of those who have placed their heaven in this earth, I have found in it not merely the beauty of heaven, but the horror of hell also. When I think about religion at all, I feel as if I would like to found an order for those who cannot believe: the Confraternity of the Faithless, one might call it, where on an altar, on which no taper45 burned, a priest, in whose heart peace had no dwelling46, might celebrate with unblessed bread and a chalice47 empty of wine. Every thing to be true must become a religion. And agnosticism should have its ritual no less than faith. It has sown its martyrs48, it should reap its saints, and praise God daily for having hidden Himself from man. But whether it be faith or agnosticism, it must be nothing external to me. Its symbols must be of my own creating. Only that is spiritual which makes its own form. If I may not find its secret within myself, I shall never find it: if I have not got it already, it will never come to me.
Reason does not help me. It tells me that the laws under which I am convicted are wrong and unjust laws, and the system under which I have suffered a wrong and unjust system. But, somehow, I have got to make both of these things just and right to me. And exactly as in Art one is only concerned with what a particular thing is at a particular moment to oneself, so it is also in the ethical49 evolution of one’s character. I have got to make everything that has happened to me good for me. The plank50 bed, the loathsome51 food, the hard ropes shredded52 into oakum till one’s finger-tips grow dull with pain, the menial offices with which each day begins and finishes, the harsh orders that routine seems to necessitate53, the dreadful dress that makes sorrow grotesque54 to look at, the silence, the solitude55, the shame—each and all of these things I have to transform into a spiritual experience. There is not a single degradation56 of the body which I must not try and make into a spiritualising of the soul.
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 in my life were when my father sent me to Oxford57, and when society sent me to prison. I will not say that prison 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, marred58, 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 reluctance59. The supreme60 vice61 is shallowness. Whatever is realised is right.
When first I was put into prison some people advised me to try and forget who I was. It was ruinous advice. It is only by realising what I am that I have found comfort of any kind. Now I am advised by others to try on my release to forget that I have ever been in a prison at all. I know that would be equally fatal. It would mean that I would always be haunted by an intolerable sense of disgrace, and that those things that are meant for me as much as for anybody else—the beauty of the sun and moon, the pageant62 of the seasons, the music of daybreak and the silence of great nights, the rain falling through the leaves, or the dew creeping over the grass and making it silver—would all be tainted63 for me, and lose their healing power, and their power of communicating joy. To regret one’s own experiences is to arrest one’s own development. To deny one’s own experiences is to put a lie into the lips of one’s own life. It is no less than a denial of the soul.
For just as the body absorbs things of all kinds, things common and unclean no less than those that the priest or a vision has cleansed64, and converts them into swiftness or strength, into the play of beautiful muscles and the moulding of fair flesh, into the curves and colours of the hair, the lips, the eye; so the soul in its turn has its nutritive functions also, and can transform into noble moods of thought and passions of high import what in itself is base, cruel and degrading; nay65, more, may find in these its most august modes of assertion, and can often reveal itself most perfectly66 through what was intended to desecrate67 or destroy.
The fact of my having been the common prisoner of a common gaol68 I must frankly69 accept, and, curious as it may seem, one of the things I shall have to teach myself is not to be ashamed of it. I must accept it as a punishment, and if one is ashamed of having been punished, one might just as well never have been punished at all. Of course there are many things of which I was convicted that I had not done, but then there are many things of which I was convicted that I had done, and a still greater number of things in my life for which I was never indicted70 at all. And as the gods are strange, and punish us for what is good and humane71 in us as much as for what is evil and perverse72, I must accept the fact that one is punished for the good as well as for the evil that one does. I have no doubt that it is quite right one should be. It helps one, or should help one, to realise both, and not to be too conceited73 about either. And if I then am not ashamed of my punishment, as I hope not to be, I shall be able to think, and walk, and live with freedom.
Many men on their release carry their prison about with them into the air, and hide it as a secret disgrace in their hearts, and at length, like poor poisoned things, creep into some hole and die. It is wretched that they should have to do so, and it is wrong, terribly wrong, of society that it should force them to do so. Society takes upon itself the right to inflict74 appalling75 punishment on the individual, but it also has the supreme vice of shallowness, and fails to realise what it has done. When the man’s punishment is over, it leaves him to himself; that is to say, it abandons him at the very moment when its highest duty towards him begins. It is really ashamed of its own actions, and shuns77 those whom it has punished, as people shun76 a creditor78 whose debt they cannot pay, or one on whom they have inflicted79 an irreparable, an irremediable wrong. I can claim on my side that if I realise what I have suffered, society should realise what it has inflicted on me; and that there should be no bitterness or hate on either side.
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1
revolves
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| v.（使）旋转( revolve的第三人称单数 )；细想 | |
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inflexible
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| adj.不可改变的，不受影响的，不屈服的 | |
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reapers
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| n.收割者，收获者( reaper的名词复数 )；收割机 | |
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orchard
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| n.果园，果园里的全部果树，(美俚)棒球场 | |
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twilight
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| n.暮光，黄昏；暮年，晚期，衰落时期 | |
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anguish
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| n.(尤指心灵上的)极度痛苦，烦恼 | |
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archaeology
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| n.考古学 | |
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ragged
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| adj.衣衫褴褛的，粗糙的，刺耳的 | |
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mire
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| n.泥沼，泥泞；v.使...陷于泥泞，使...陷入困境 | |
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brutes
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| 兽( brute的名词复数 )； 畜生； 残酷无情的人； 兽性 | |
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brutal
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| adj.残忍的，野蛮的，不讲理的 | |
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synonym
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| n.同义词，换喻词 | |
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folly
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| n.愚笨，愚蠢，蠢事，蠢行，傻话 | |
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exquisite
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| adj.精美的；敏锐的；剧烈的，感觉强烈的 | |
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pulsation
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| n.脉搏，悸动，脉动；搏动性 | |
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bankruptcy
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| n.破产；无偿付能力 | |
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dreary
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| adj.令人沮丧的，沉闷的，单调乏味的 | |
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embalmed
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| adj.用防腐药物保存（尸体）的v.保存（尸体）不腐( embalm的过去式和过去分词 )；使不被遗忘；使充满香气 | |
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consolation
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| n.安慰，慰问 | |
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pariah
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| n.被社会抛弃者 | |
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taints
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| n.变质( taint的名词复数 )；污染；玷污；丑陋或腐败的迹象v.使变质( taint的第三人称单数 )；使污染；败坏；被污染，腐坏，败坏 | |
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doomed
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| 命定的 | |
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solitary
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| adj.孤独的，独立的，荒凉的；n.隐士 | |
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bruised
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| [医]青肿的，瘀紫的 | |
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indictment
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| n.起诉；诉状 | |
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symbolic
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| adj.象征性的，符号的，象征主义的 | |
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lured
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| 吸引，引诱（lure的过去式与过去分词形式） | |
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deliberately
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| adv.审慎地；蓄意地；故意地 | |
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paradox
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| n.似乎矛盾却正确的说法；自相矛盾的人(物) | |
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perversity
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| n.任性；刚愎自用 | |
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malady
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| n.病，疾病(通常做比喻) | |
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chamber
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| n.房间，寝室；会议厅；议院；会所 | |
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humility
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| n.谦逊，谦恭 | |
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misery
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| n.痛苦，苦恼，苦难；悲惨的境遇，贫苦 | |
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infinity
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| n.无限，无穷，大量 | |
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alluding
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| 提及，暗指( allude的现在分词 ) | |
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candid
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| adj.公正的，正直的；坦率的 | |
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intensity
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| n.强烈，剧烈；强度；烈度 | |
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sonnets
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| n.十四行诗( sonnet的名词复数 ) | |
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faculty
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| n.才能；学院，系；(学院或系的)全体教学人员 | |
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penury
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| n.贫穷，拮据 | |
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resentment
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| n.怨愤，忿恨 | |
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linen
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| n.亚麻布，亚麻线，亚麻制品；adj.亚麻布制的，亚麻的 | |
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creed
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| n.信条；信念，纲领 | |
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taper
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| n.小蜡烛，尖细，渐弱；adj.尖细的；v.逐渐变小 | |
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dwelling
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| n.住宅，住所，寓所 | |
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chalice
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| n.圣餐杯；金杯毒酒 | |
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48
martyrs
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| n.martyr的复数形式；烈士( martyr的名词复数 )；殉道者；殉教者；乞怜者（向人诉苦以博取同情） | |
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ethical
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| adj.伦理的，道德的，合乎道德的 | |
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plank
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| n.板条，木板，政策要点，政纲条目 | |
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loathsome
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| adj.讨厌的，令人厌恶的 | |
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52
shredded
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| shred的过去式和过去分词 | |
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necessitate
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| v.使成为必要，需要 | |
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grotesque
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| adj.怪诞的，丑陋的；n.怪诞的图案，怪人（物） | |
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solitude
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| n. 孤独; 独居,荒僻之地,幽静的地方 | |
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56
degradation
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| n.降级；低落；退化；陵削；降解；衰变 | |
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Oxford
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| n.牛津（英国城市） | |
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marred
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| adj. 被损毁, 污损的 | |
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reluctance
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| n.厌恶，讨厌，勉强，不情愿 | |
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supreme
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| adj.极度的，最重要的；至高的，最高的 | |
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vice
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| n.坏事；恶习；[pl.]台钳，老虎钳；adj.副的 | |
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pageant
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| n.壮观的游行；露天历史剧 | |
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tainted
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| adj.腐坏的；污染的；沾污的；感染的v.使变质( taint的过去式和过去分词 )；使污染；败坏；被污染，腐坏，败坏 | |
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cleansed
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| 弄干净，清洗( cleanse的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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nay
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| adv.不；n.反对票，投反对票者 | |
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perfectly
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| adv.完美地，无可非议地，彻底地 | |
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desecrate
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| v.供俗用，亵渎，污辱 | |
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gaol
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| n.(jail)监狱；(不加冠词)监禁；vt.使…坐牢 | |
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frankly
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| adv.坦白地，直率地；坦率地说 | |
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indicted
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| 控告，起诉( indict的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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humane
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| adj.人道的，富有同情心的 | |
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perverse
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| adj.刚愎的；坚持错误的，行为反常的 | |
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conceited
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| adj.自负的，骄傲自满的 | |
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inflict
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| vt.(on)把…强加给，使遭受，使承担 | |
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appalling
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| adj.骇人听闻的，令人震惊的，可怕的 | |
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shun
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| vt.避开，回避，避免 | |
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shuns
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| v.避开，回避，避免( shun的第三人称单数 ) | |
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creditor
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| n.债仅人，债主，贷方 | |
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inflicted
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| 把…强加给，使承受，遭受( inflict的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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