Once you've done that, you can't help it.” "But could you have made money except by plays?" asked Clifford.

“没错，的确如此！入门确实至关重要。置身其中才能施展拳脚。必须想方设法找到挣钱的门路。一旦深谙此道，就会欲罢不能。”“除了写剧本，你还有其他挣钱的门道么？”克利福德问。

"Oh, probably not! I may be a good writer or I may be a bad one, but a writer and a writer of plays is what I am, and I've got to be. There's no question of that.” "And you think it's a writer of popular plays that you've got to be?" asked Connie. "There, exactly!" he said, turning to her in a sudden flash. "There's nothing in it! There's nothing in popularity. There's nothing in the public, if it comes to that. There's nothing really in my plays to make them popular. It's not that. They just are like the weather...the sort that will have to be...for the time being.” He turned his slow, rather full eyes, that had been drowned in such fathomless disillusion, on Connie, and she trembled a little. He seemed so old...endlessly old, built up of layers of disillusion, going down in him generation after generation, like geological strata; and at the same time he was forlorn like a child. An outcast, in a certain sense; but with the desperate bravery of his rat-like existence.

“哦，或许没有吧！拥有生花妙笔也好，作品不堪卒读也罢，都无法改变我身为剧作家的事实，而且这也是我唯一的出路。这一点毋庸置疑。”“那你觉得自己注定会成为尽人皆知的剧作家么？”康妮问道。“没错，千真万确！”他答道，霍地把脸扭向康妮。“其实也算不得什么！家喻户晓也没有什么了不起。说白了，广大观众也就是那么回事。其实我的剧本并无出众之处。受欢迎的关键不在于此。一切就好似天气……不过是水到渠成的事情……至少目前看来是这样。”他那对迟钝的大眼睛凝视着康妮，眼神中饱含着无穷无尽的幻灭，四目相对，康妮不禁微微战栗了一下。他看上去如此苍老……久历岁月的沧桑，经年累月的幻灭层叠起来，在他身上沉积汇聚，如同地层的形成过程；但与此同时，他又像个孤立无助的孩子。某种意义上，一个被抛弃者，却有着老鼠般抗争的勇敢气概。

"At least it's wonderful what you've done at your time of life," said Clifford contemplatively.

“至少你年纪轻轻就有如此成就，仅这一点就令人叹服。”克利福德若有所思地说。

"I'm thirty...yes, I'm thirty!" said Michaelis, sharply and suddenly, with a curious laugh, hollow, triumphant, and bitter.

“我30岁了……的确，我已过而立之年！”米凯利斯的声调突然拔高，嘴角流露出诡异的笑容，虚伪空洞，志得意满，却又渗透着丝丝苦涩。

"And are you alone?" asked Connie.

“你独身一人？”康妮问。

"How do you mean?

“你的意思是？

Do I live alone?