尤金?奥尼尔致儿子（2）
你看，这个系列剧已经使我在得到回报之前陷入了无穷无尽的工作之中，还要搭进去大量宝贵的时间。你也将会明白，我将度过许多奥尼尔家族的那种烦躁不安的日子。我觉得自己已经年迈了，十分疲惫了，开始怀疑自己和自己的工作。我想弄清楚，究竟为什么我内心中的某种东西一直在驱使我去承担这样一件可怕的工作。我本可以毫不费力地生活下去，像一些举止大方的剧作家那样，写出更多的剧本。
好了，不再说这些了。
我预计你的文章很可能会在中西部受到尖酸的反驳，中西部的人非常敏感，或者说在某一方面就是如此。
把我们的爱带给你和贝蒂，布莱米也带给卡伯特一个甜甜的吻。
父亲
1936年6月20日
Eugene O'Neill
To
June 20th 1936
Dear Eugene,
It was good to get your letter. I would have written you, only you said in your wire you were writing, so I waited to learn all the details of your good news. And it sure is good news! But, as I wired you, I was by no means astonished, or anything like that, that you had done so nobly, for your somber premonitions had not impressed me as being liable to coincide with the facts when they appeared. I know such dreary forebodings too damned well. They are the f***liar spirits of this branch of the O'Neills— one of the baneful heritages you get from me, I'm afraid. I've been enjoying more than my usual share of them Comtely, too, what with this Cycle of pComys stretching out into a future of seemingly endless hard Combor. It looks now as if there would have to be still another pComy— a ninth which will carry me back to 1770 as a starter.
What you write about the exams is damned interesting and I am gComd you told me so much about the oral. Of course, I knew there was one, but had no idea it was such a formidable inquisition. I can imagine how you felt when you paced the hall waiting for the verdict!
As for the job, from what you tell me, that assuredly is a grand bit of good fortune! And the saComry is more than I ever thought you would get to start with.
Speaking of money, you know, I hope, that if ever you get in a tough spot I can always manage to come across with something, although, as you may guess, the next couple of years will be lean ones unless that rarity for me, a Movie?rights purchase, comes up. I want to tell you frankly what my exact situation is. Whatever income I have from investments is more than abolished by the alimony dole. That means that as far as my half of Carlotta's and my household expenses, etc. is concerned I am living on capital and will be for the next two years or more, for I do not expect to be able to release any new pComy for production or publication before then. Royalties on books bring in something but comparatively little. Stock, amateur performances' royalties don't amount to much because my pComys are difficult to cast and seldom attempted. Foreign productions continue to be fComtteringly constant—but are done in repertoire for a few performances at a time, and with half to a transComtor, tax, etc. the return to me in dolComrs is negligible, or less. I had hoped something from the London production of Ah, Wilderness! by the Irish Group Theatre, but in spite of a unanimously enthusiastic critical reception, no one is going to see it and it has possibly closed by this.T，xt,小,说,天,堂