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“So you saw our Romeo and Juliet,” he said. “Fancy that. You must have been kids.”
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“We weren’t. We were both in college at the time.”
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‘About Rafe’s age. I should imagine,” he said. “Wouldn’t you call him a kid?”
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● Fancy that：同上文的Imagine一样，是一种自言自语。
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● must have been：“从现在的立场，猜度过去的事情”所用的动词形式。
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● kids：小孩子。
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● I should imagine和Wouldn’t you两个虚拟式动词，都是比较客气而不武断的说法。
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● call him a kid：大学生还算是小孩子，其人显然有点倚老卖老。
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“…We played Romeo and Juliet thirty consecutive weeks at the Morosco,” he was saying, “and then took it on the road for another whole season. You can imagine the bang it gave me when we played Pueblo, Colorado. After the American tour, there was a three months’ run at the Haymarket in London. I’m telling you, I was never so sick of anything in my life as I was of Romeo when we finally quit. Bored stiff.”
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“Bored? But you couldn’t have been! I can’t believe it, Mr. Douglas?”
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● he was saying：只听他在那里滔滔不绝地说。
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● thirty consecutive weeks：连续演三十个星期（莎翁名剧重演，卖座如此持久不衰，在纽约百老汇也很难得）。Morosco：百老汇的戏院名。上文说Alice和Smith是在“兰心”戏院看的戏，“兰心”戏院想是在纽约州Rochester，那时候戏班已经出发巡回表演了。
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● took it on the road：各处巡回公演。road有一个特别意义，专指戏班跑码头而言。请参照上文road company。
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● bang：美俚，突然而来的或强烈的欢欣、兴奋。他自己是十六岁的时候，看见了戏班子在那里演出，而决心献身戏剧的，现在自己的戏班也在那里演出了，当然兴奋异常。played：play作及物动词用，这种用法比较特别。根据The American College Dictionary，此字的解释是：（戏班）在（某地）公演，（to give performance in, as a theatrical company does），该字典并举了一个例子：
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to play the larger cities（在大城市公演）
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这里We played Pueblo, Colorado用地名做played的宾语，意义亦不难了解了。
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● run：连续演出。the Haymarket：伦敦剧院名；该戏院有悠久的历史，1705年落成，首任经理为William Congreve，在英国文学史上是有它的地位的。
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● sick of：厌倦。as I was of=as I was sick of。so sick连后面的as。quit：这个字是quit的过去形式（用quitted亦可）。各处巡回演出之后，他对于罗密欧这个角色厌烦到了极点了。
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● Bored stiff：恐怕是I was bored stiff的省略。stiff当是subjective complement，形容主语。bored：厌烦（到使人要命的程度）。
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“Sorry to disillusion you, Mrs. Harvey, but I was thoroughly bored by that time. Forcing myself, putting it on, faking. But then, art is nothing if it’s not make-believe. You build a performance out of artifice and tricks, and then you bring into play whatever skills you have, to make it true, convincing, or if you will, realistic.” He laughed, that pleasant, hearty laugh. “The world of art is different from the actual, the facts. As for the artist himself—or the actor or writer or whatever—well, the less said about him, perhaps, the better.”
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● disillusion you：使你的迷梦幻灭。
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● Forcing等三个字是现在分词呢？还是动名词？句子没有做完，很难下判断。假如是现在分词，那么这三个字可以说是形容上一句的主语I的。假如是动名词，那么这三个字前面大约省了What I had been doing was…这几个字。Forcing myself：强迫自己（做戏背台词）。putting it on：装做像煞有介事。（putting on是假装，it大约是指演戏那一套，所指较泛）。faking：伪造伪装。所作所为，无非如此，怎不叫人厌倦呢？
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● make-believe：上文已有解释。“可是艺术就是以假作真，假如艺术不是如此，艺术根本就一无所有了。”
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● artifice：人工，技巧。tricks：手法。演戏就是利用种种技巧手法（从种种技巧手法里面，建立你的演技）。bring into play是个成语，解作“发挥作用”。play在这里并不作“戏”解。artifice和tricks是演戏的基本条件，此外演员各人有不同的演技才能，你就把你所有的技能全拿出来，使你的表情（it=your performance）宛然像真的一般使人见了信服；或者你喜欢用这种字眼（or if you will），我们可以说你的表情可以更“现实化”（realistic）。（这里的“你”，当然是泛指，并不是指听话的人。）
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● 这许多话无非要表示，演戏虽然是作假，但是“假”里面还有道理。
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