“Willingly. Schoenlein is a man well born and well bred, who feels his profession is a disgrace.”
“A disgrace!”
“Very absurd, is it not? but that is his feeling. At the same time, just as the opium-eater, knowing the degradation of his vice, cannot resist its fascination—so this actor, with an intense feeling of what he regards as the sinfulness of the stage, cannot resist its fascination.”
“You astonish me!”
“He is an austere man—what you English would call a puritan—who looks upon the stage as the theatre of vice, and yet cannot quit it because it is the theatre of his triumphs!”
“But how came he to be an actor!”
“Why, thrown upon the stage when the stage seemed the only means of livelihood open to him—forced on it by necessity, success has chained him there. I have heard him say that every time he performs it is with the conviction that he is performing for the last time. But the fascination still continues—his heart is still greedy of applause—his mind still eager for its accustomed emotions. He goes on the stage sad, struggling, and repentant; to leave it with throbbing pulses and a wild-beating heart. He accepts no engagement, he only plays by the night. He has from time to time made vigorous efforts to quit the stage, but at the end of a fortnight he invariably returns. He once set out for Italy, thinking that if away from Germany he should be able to wean himself from the theatre; but he got no farther than Vienna, and there played for twenty nights.”
“But don’t you think there must be a great deal of humbug in all this?”
“Not a bit.”
“Do you really believe in his scruples?”