Gerardo. I haven't the time left ...
Dühring. You haven't the time left! How about me! You are thirty. You have attained success in your art. You can continue following your bent through the whole long life that still is before you. I will ask you to listen only to your own part in my opera. You promised to do so when you came to town.
Gerardo. It's to no purpose, Sir. I am not my own master ...
Dühring. Please, Mr. Gerardo! Please, please! Look at me, here's an old man lying before you on his knees who has known only one thing in life: his art. I know what you would reply to me, you, a young man who has been carried aloft on the wings of angels, one might say. "If you would have the goddess of Fortune find you, don't hunt for her." Do you imagine, when one has cherished but a single hope for fifty years, one could possibly have overlooked any means whatsoever within human reach, to attain that hope? First one turns cynical and then serious again. tries to get there by scheming, one is once more a light hearted child, and again an earnest seeker after one's artistic ideals—not for ambition's sake, not for conviction's sake, but simply because one cannot help it, because it's a curse which has been laid on one by a cruel omnipotence to which the life-long agony of its creature is a pleasing offering! A pleasing offering, I say, for we whom art enthralls rebel against our lot as little as does the slave of a woman against his seductress, as little as does the dog against his master who whips him.
Gerardo (in despair). I am powerless ...
Dühring. Let me tell you, my dear Sir, the tyrants of antiquity who, as you know, would have their slaves tortured to death just for a pleasant pastime, they were mere children, they were harmless innocent little angels as compared with that divine providence which thought it was creating those tyrants in its own image.
Gerardo. While I quite comprehend you ...
Dühring (while Gerardo vainly tries several times to interrupt him; he follows Gerardo through the room and repeatedly blocks his attempt to reach the door). You do not comprehend me. You cannot comprehend me. How could you have had the time to comprehend me! Fifty years of fruitless labor, Sir, that is more than you can comprehend, if one has been a favorite child of fortune like you. But I'll try to make you realize it approximately, at least. You see, I am too old to take my own life. The proper time to do that is at twenty-five, and I have missed my opportunity. I must live out my life now, my hand has grown too unsteady. But would you know what an old man like me will do! You ask me how I got in here. You have put your valet on guard at the hotel entrance. I did not try to slip by him, I've known for fifty years what he will tell me: the gentleman is not in. But with my score here I stood at the corner of the building for two hours in the rain until he went up for a moment. Then I followed him, and while you were speaking to him in here, I concealed myself on the staircase—I need not tell you where. And then, when he had gone down again, I entered here. That's what a man of my years will do to reach one who might be his grandson. Please, Sir, please, let not this moment be without result for me even though it cost you a day, even though it cost you a whole week. It will be to your advantage as well as mine. A week ago, when you came to town on your starring tour, you promised me to let me play my opera to you; and since that time I've called every day. You either were rehearsing or had lady visitors. And now you are about to depart, which would mean that an old man like me in vain spent a whole week standing around in the street! And all it would cost you is a single word: "I will sing your Hermann." Then my opera will be performed. Then you will thank God for my intrusiveness, for—you sing "Siegfried," you sing "Florestan"—but you haven't in your repertory a more grateful part, one more adapted to a singer of your resources than that of "Hermann." Then with loud acclaim they will draw me out of my obscurity, and perhaps I'll have the opportunity of giving to the world at least a part of what I might have given, if it had not cast me out like a leper. But the great material gain resulting from my long struggle will not be mine, you alone will ...
Gerardo (having given up the attempt to stop his visitor, leans on the mantle piece of the fireplace. While drumming on the marble slab with his right hand, something behind the screen seems to excite his curiosity. He investigates, then suddenly reaches out and draws a piano teacher forward, dressed in gray. Holding her by the collar, with outstretched arm, he thus leads her forward in front of the piano and out through the centre door. Having locked the door, to Dühring). Please, don't let this interrupt you!
Dühring. You see, there are performed ten new operas every year which become impossible after the second night, and every ten years a good one which lives. Now this opera of mine is a good one, it is well adapted for the stage, it is sure to be a financial success. If you let me, I'll show you letters from Liszt, from Wagner, from Rubinstein, in which these men look up to me as to a superior being. And why has it remained unperformed to the present day? Because I don't stand in the public market-place. I tell you, it's like what will happen to a young girl who for three years has been the reigning beauty at all dancing parties, but has forgotten to become engaged. One has to give way to another generation. Besides you know our court theatres. They are fortresses, I can assure you, compared with which the armor-plate of Metz and Rastadt is the merest tin. They would rather dig out ten corpses than admit a single living composer. And it's in getting over these ramparts that I ask you to lend me a hand. You are inside at thirty, I am outside at seventy. It would cost you just a word to let me in, while I am vainly battering my head against stone and steel. That's why I have come to you (very passionately) and if you are not absolutely inhuman, if your success has not killed off in you the very last trace of sympathy with striving fellow-artists, you cannot refuse my request.