“Changed, yes, everything is changed.”
“This is just like a theatre, like a play, as if we were acting.”
“Yes, as if we were acting. But we are not acting. Let us go up and sit in the gallery.”
They ascended the steps to the top ring of desks and looked down to the tiny platform and the white curtain. She sat fondling his hands, leaning against him.
“Have you ever acted—you would do it so well?”
“Why do you say that? Am I at all histrionic?”
“Does that mean insincere? O no. But you are the person one expects to be able to do anything.”
“Nonsense! I’ve never acted. I suppose I could. It isn’t difficult, you haven’t to be clever, only courageous. I should think it very easy to be only an ordinary actor, but I’m wrong, no doubt. I thought it was easy to write—to write a play—until I tried. I once engaged myself to write a little play for some students to act. I had never done such a thing before and like other idiots I thought I hadn’t ever done it simply because I hadn’t ever wanted to. Heavens, how harassed I was and how ashamed! I could not do it, I got no further than the author’s speech.”
“Well that was something. Tell me it.”
“It’s nothing to do with the play. It’s what the author says to the audience when the play is finished.”