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Along with these things, I had things that were different. I let myself be lured 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 deliberately went to the depths in the search for new sensations. What the paradox was to me in the sphere of thought, perversity became to me in the sphere of passion. Desire, at the end, was a malady, or a madness, or both[65a]. 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 chamber one has some day to cry aloud on the housetops. I ceased to be Lord over myself. I was no longer the Captain of my Soul,[65.1] and did not know it. I allowed you to dominate me, and your father to frighten me. I ended in horrible disgrace. There is only one thing for me now, absolute Humility: just as there is only one thing for you, absolute Humility also. You had better come down into the dust and learn it beside me.
除了这些，我还有不同的一些东西。我让自己受诱惑，糊里糊涂地掉进声色的放浪而不能自拔，以作为一个纨绔子弟、花花公子、风流人物自快，让身边围着一些不成器的小人。挥霍自己的才华，把一个永恒的青春抛掷，让我莫名其妙地觉得快活。在高峰顶上呆腻了，便成心下到谷底，寻求新的刺激。在思想范畴中我视作似非而是的悖论，在激情领域中成了乖张变态的情欲。欲望，到头来，是一种痼疾，或是一种疯狂，或两者都是[65a]。对别人的生死我变得漠不关心，只要自己高兴就快活一下，过后便掉头走了。我忘了，日常生活中每一个细小的行为都能培养或者败坏品格，因此，一个人在暗室里干的事，总有一天要在房顶上叫嚷出去的。我不再主宰自己，不再执掌自己的灵魂，也不认识它了。我让你支配我、让你的父亲吓唬我，终于弄得脸面丢尽。对于我，只剩下一样东西了：绝对的谦卑；对于你，同样只剩下一样东西了：也是绝对的谦卑。你最好还是下来，在屈辱中与我一道学这功课。
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