你应该认识我姑妈！她这个人才可爱呢！这也就是说，她的可爱并不像我们平时所说的那种可爱。她和蔼可亲，有自己的一种滑稽味儿。如果一个人想聊聊闲天、开开什么人的玩笑，那么她就可以成为谈笑的资料。她可以成为戏里的角色；这是因为她只是为戏院和与戏院有关的一切而活着的缘故。她是一个非常有身份的人。但是经纪人法布——我把他念作佛拉布——却说她是一个“戏迷”。 “戏院就是我的学校，”我说，“是我的知识的源泉。我在这儿重新温习《圣经》的历史：摩西啦，约瑟和他的弟兄们啦，都成了歌剧！我在戏院里学到世界史、地理和关于人类的知识！我从法国戲中知道了巴黎的生活——很不正经，但是非常有趣！我为《李格堡家庭》这出戲流了不知多少眼泪：想想看，一个丈夫为了使他的妻子得到她的年轻的爱人，居然喝酒喝得醉死了！” 我知道每出戲、每一场情节、每一个要出场或已经出过场的人物。我只是为那演戲的九个月而活着。夏天是没有戲上演的——这段时间使我变得衰老。晚间の戲如果能演到半夜以后，那就等于是把我的生命延长。我不像别人那样说：“春天来了，鹳鸟来了！”或者：“报上說草莓已经上市了！”相反，对于秋天的到来，我总喜欢說：“你沒有看到戲院開始賣票了嗎？戲快要上演了呀！”

在我看来，一幢房子是否有价值，完全要看它离戏院的地理位置而定。当我不得不从戏院后边的一个小巷子迁到一条比较远一点的大街上，住进一幢对面没有街坊的地方去的时候，我真是难过极了。

“我的窗子就应该是我的包厢！”你不能老是在家里坐着想自己的事情呀。你应该看看人。不过现在的情况，就好像是我住在老远的地方似的。如果I want to see people, I have to climb up the sink in the kitchen. Only then can I see the neighbor on the other side. When I was still living in my small alley, I could directly see into a shop that sold cotton goods and only need to walk three hundred steps to get to the theater. Now I have to walk three thousand big steps.”

My aunt sometimes also gets sick. But no matter how uncomfortable she feels, she will never miss a show. Her doctor prescribes her some medicine for her feet and tells her to apply it at night before bed. She follows the doctor's advice but still goes by car to the theater with her medicated feet sitting there watching plays.

If she were to die while sitting there, that would be a happy death for her.

多瓦尔生 is also said to have died in a theater – she calls this "a happy death."

In heaven without theaters is unimaginable for me. We won't go into heaven anyway but we can imagine that past deceased male and female actors are continuing their careers there.

My aunt has installed a private telephone line from her room straight through to the theater. During coffee time every day, she receives an "electric telegram" from Mr Westphalen of stage equipment department - whoever gives orders about setting or removing scenery or raising or lowering curtains.

She gets information about each play's simple summary from him.

She calls Shakespeare's Tempest "A detestable work because its scenery is too complicated and starts with water!" meaning that stormy sea scene on stage is too prominent.

On contrary if same indoor set doesn't change at all across five acts then she thinks script written very cleverly & complete as quiet play because it doesn't require any scenery automatically performs itself.

In ancient times - i.e., my aunt means 30+ years ago -she & Westphalen were young men working together in stage equipment department already; he was already hers one 'benefactor'. At that time city had only one unique big theatre; during late shows many customers always sat among backdrops on roof seats; every backstage carpenter could freely handle two seats; these seats were often filled with guests who were either generals' wives or councilors' ladies