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The second piece of news followed shortly afterwards. Your father’s solicitors had appeared in the prison, and served me personally with a Bankruptcy notice, for a paltry ￡700, the amount of their taxed costs. I was adjudged a public insolvent, and ordered to be produced in Court. I felt most strongly, and feel still, and will revert to the subject again, that these costs should have been paid by your family. You had taken personally on yourself the responsibility of stating that your family would do so. It was that which had made the solicitor take up the case in the way he did. You were absolutely responsible. Even irrespective of your engagement on your family’s behalf you should have felt that as you had brought the whole ruin on me, the least that could have been done was to spare me the additional ignominy of bankruptcy for an absolutely contemptible sum of money, less than half of what I spent on you in three brief summer months at Goring. Of that, however, no more here. I did through the solicitor’s clerk, I fully admit, receive a message from you on the subject, or at any rate in connection with the occasion. The day he came to receive my depositions and statements, he leant across the table — the prison warder being present — and having consulted a piece of paper which he pulled from his pocket, said to me in a low voice: “Prince Fleur-de-Lys[44.1] wishes to be remembered to you.” I stared at him. He repeated the message again. I did not know what he meant. “The gentleman is abroad at present,” he added mysteriously. It all flashed across me, and I remember that, for the first and last time in my entire prison-life, I laughed. In that laugh was all the scorn of all the world. Prince Fleur-de-Lys! I saw — and subsequent events showed me that I rightly saw — that nothing that had happened had made you realise a single thing[44a]. You were in your own eyes still the graceful prince of a trivial comedy, not the sombre figure of a tragic show. All that had occurred was but as a feather for the cap that gilds a narrow head, a flower to pink the doublet that hides a heart that Hate, and Hate alone, can warm, that Love, and Love alone, finds cold. Prince Fleur-de-Lys! You were, no doubt, quite right to communicate with me under an assumed name. I myself, at that time, had no name at all. In the great prison where I was then incarcerated I was merely the figure and letter of a little cell in a long gallery, one of a thousand lifeless numbers, as of a thousand lifeless lives[44b]. But surely there were many real names in real history which would have suited you much better, and by which I would have had no difficulty at all in recognising you at once? I did not look for you behind the spangles of a tinsel vizard only suitable for an amusing masquerade. Ah! had your soul been, as for its own perfection even it should have been, wounded with sorrow, bowed with remorse, and humble with grief, such was not the disguise it would have chosen beneath whose shadow to seek entrance to the House of Pain! The great things of life are what they seem to be, and for that reason, strange as it may sound to you, are often difficult to interpret. But the little things of life are symbols. We receive our bitter lessons most easily through them[44c]. Your seemingly casual choice of a feigned name was, and will remain, symbolic. It reveals you.
第二则消息很快就来了。你父亲的律师在监狱里露面，当面递送了一份破产通知，就为了区区的七百镑，他们报的费用数额。我被判为公开破产，必须出庭。我强烈认为，现在仍这样认为，等下还会重提此事，这些费用该由你家支付。你曾以个人担保，明言你家会支付的。就因你这么说了，律师才承接这个案子的。你绝对应该负责。即使不因为你代表你们家所作的承诺，你也应该感到，既然你已弄得我身败名裂，那至少也该让我免于这雪上加霜的破产之耻吧，何况是因为这根本不足挂齿的一点钱，还不到短短的三个月夏天里我在戈灵为你花的一半呢。关于这一点，在这里暂且不多说了。我完全承认，从律师楼的职员那里收到过你关于这件事的口信，怎么说也是同这事有关联的口信。他来取我的证言和声明的那天，从桌那边探过身来——看守当时在场——从衣袋里拿出一张字条看了看，低声对我说：“百合花王子向你问好。” 我瞪着眼睛看他。他又把话重复了一遍。我不知道他说的是什么。“那位先生目前在国外，”他神秘地补了一句。我恍然大悟，记得在我的囚徒生活中，那是第一次也是最后一次笑了。天下所有鄙夷尽在那一笑中了。百合花王子！我看到了——而以后的事情说明我没看错——所发生的这一切，丝毫没让你有一丁点的领悟[44a]。你在自己眼里仍然是一出小喜剧中风度翩翩的王子，而非一出悲剧演出中忧郁伤心的人物。所发生的一切，只不过是帽子上的一根羽饰，装点着一个气度狭隘的脑袋，只不过是别在马甲上的一朵花，遮掩着一颗仇恨，只有仇恨，才能温暖的心。那颗心中，爱，只有爱，会觉得寒冷。百合花王子！你用个假名同我联系，当然是无可厚非的事。我自己呢，在那时，什么名字也没有。在当时被囚禁的那个大监狱里，我不过是在长长的一条走廊里，一间小小的单人牢房门上的数字和字母罢了，千百个无生命的号码中的一个，千百条没生活的生命中的一条[44b]。但是在真实的历史中肯定有许多真实的名字吧，对你会更合适得多，用了我也会不费力地一下就认出你来？我并未在那些只适用于化装舞会上取乐的光怪陆离的假面后寻找你。啊！要是你的灵魂因为哀愁而伤痛，因为愧悔而谦卑，因为悲苦而沉重——为求其灵修臻于完美甚至应该这样的——那就不会选择这么一个伪装，想躲在这么一个暗影中潜入这悲苦之地！生活中的大事是因为它们显得大，因为这一点，虽然你听着可能觉得奇怪，大事往往难以阐释。但是生活中的小事却是象征。我们最容易通过小事吸取人生的惨痛教训[44c]。你似乎是不经意地选择了一个假名，这件事当时是、并将依然是具有象征性的。它把你揭穿了。
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