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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.
凡是能弄到手的錢，他花起來像位印度王公。他的某出歌劇可能要上演了，僅憑這么一點指望，他一下子就欠下了十倍于預期版稅的賬單。沒有人搞得清楚——肯定他自己也弄不清——他欠過多少錢?？晌覀兇_實知道，一位為他出錢最多的捐助人曾給他六千元，幫助償還他在某市被催得最緊的債款。一年后，又得給他一萬六千元，使他在另一城市安頓下來，并免遭因無力償還債務而鋃鐺人獄之災。
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.
他在其他方面同樣無所顧忌。他一生中曾與之發生過關系的女人有長長一串。他的發妻與他度過了二十個年頭，對他用情不專一再忍受，一再原諒。他第二個太太原是對他最敬慕的、最忠實的友人之妻，他從摯友之手奪走了她。甚至在他勸說這位太太離開她第一個丈夫之際，他已在給朋友寫信，詢問能否介紹位闊婦人——有財產就行——為了她的金錢他愿娶她作妻子。
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.
他在別的私人交往中也極端自私。他對朋友有無好感完全要看他們對他是否絕對忠誠，或者要看他們在經濟上或藝術上對他是否有用。一旦他們有什么地方讓他失望——連謝絕赴宴之類區區小事也不例外——或者不如以前有用了，他便不假思索地同他們斷絕來往。他在遲暮之年，只剩下一個朋友，就連這個朋友也是在中年時才認識的。
