Duhring. Half an hour.... Oh, then, let me play to you your big aria at the end of the first act. [He attempts to sit down on the piano bench. Gerardo restrains him.]
Gerardo. Now, frankly, my dear sir ... I am a singer; I am not a critic. If you wish to have your opera produced, address yourself to those gentlemen who are paid to know what is good and what is not. People scorn and ignore my opinions in such matters as completely as they appreciate and admire my singing.
Duhring. My dear Maestro, you may take it from me that I myself attach no importance whatever to your judgment. What do I care about your opinions? I know you tenors; I would like to play my score for you so that you could say: "I would like to sing the rôle of Hermann."
Gerardo. If you only knew how many things I would like to do and which I have to renounce, and how many things I must do for which I do not care in the least! Half a million a year does not repay me for the many joys of life which I must sacrifice for the sake of my profession. I am not a free man. But you were a free man all your life. Why didn't you go to the market-place and cry your wares?
Duhring. Oh, the vulgarity of it.... I have tried it a hundred times. I am a composer, Maestro, and nothing more.
Gerardo. By which you mean that you have exhausted all your strength in the writing of your operas and kept none of it to secure their production.
Duhring. That is true.
Gerardo. The composers I know reverse the process. They get their operas written somehow and then spend all their strength in an effort to get them produced.
Duhring. That is the type of artist I despise.
Gerardo. Well, I despise the type of man that wastes his life in useless endeavor. What have you done in those fifty years of struggle, for yourself or for the world? Fifty years of useless struggle! That should convince the worst blockhead of the impracticability of his dreams. What have you done with your life? You have wasted it shamefully. If I had wasted my life as you have wasted yours—of course I am only speaking for myself—I don't think I should have the courage to look any one in the face.