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What money he could lay his hands on he spent like an Indian rajah. The mere prospect of a performance of one of his operas was enough to set him to running up bills amounting toten times the amount of his prospective royalties. No one will ever know — certainly he never knew—how much money he owed. We do know that his greatest benefactor gave him $6,000 to pay the most pressing of his debts in one city, and a year later had to give him$16,000 to enable him to live in another city without being thrown into jail for debt.
凡是能弄到手的钱，他花起来像位印度王公。他的某出歌剧可能要上演了，仅凭这么一点指望，他一下子就欠下了十倍于预期版税的账单。没有人搞得清楚——肯定他自己也弄不清——他欠过多少钱。可我们确实知道，一位为他出钱最多的捐助人曾给他六千元，帮助偿还他在某市被催得最紧的债款。一年后，又得给他一万六千元，使他在另一城市安顿下来，并免遭因无力偿还债务而锒铛人狱之灾。
He was equally unscrupulous in other ways. An endless procession of women marched through his life. His first wife spent twenty years enduring and forgiving his infidelities. His second wife had been the wife of his most devoted friend and admirer, from whom he stole her.And even while he was trying to persuade her to leave her first husband he was writing to a friend to inquire whether he could suggest some wealthy woman — any wealthy woman — whom he could marry for her money.
他在其他方面同样无所顾忌。他一生中曾与之发生过关系的女人有长长一串。他的发妻与他度过了二十个年头，对他用情不专一再忍受，一再原谅。他第二个太太原是对他最敬慕的、最忠实的友人之妻，他从挚友之手夺走了她。甚至在他劝说这位太太离开她第一个丈夫之际，他已在给朋友写信，询问能否介绍位阔妇人——有财产就行——为了她的金钱他愿娶她作妻子。
He was completely selfish in his other personal relationships. His liking for his friends was measured solely by the completeness of their devotion to him, or by their usefulness to him, whether financial or artistic. The minute they failed him -- even by so much as refusing a dinner invitation -- or began to lessen in usefulness, he cast them off without a second thought. At the end of his life he had exactly one friend left whom he had known even in middle age.
他在别的私人交往中也极端自私。他对朋友有无好感完全要看他们对他是否绝对忠诚，或者要看他们在经济上或艺术上对他是否有用。一旦他们有什么地方让他失望——连谢绝赴宴之类区区小事也不例外——或者不如以前有用了，他便不假思索地同他们断绝来往。他在迟暮之年，只剩下一个朋友，就连这个朋友也是在中年时才认识的。
