Gerardo. I will let you know a week from now. I will play your opera through. Let me take it along.
Dühring. I am too old for that, Mr. Gerardo. Long before a week, as measured by your chronology, has elapsed, I shall lie beneath the sod. I've been put off that way too often. (Bringing down his fist on the piano.) Hie Rhodus! Hie salta! It's five years ago now that I called on the manager of the Royal Theatre, Count Zedlitz: "What have you got for me, my dearest professor?" "An opera, your Excellency." "Indeed, you have written a new opera? Splendid!" "Your Excellency, I have not written a new opera. It's an old opera. I wrote it thirteen years ago."—It wasn't this one here, it was my Maria de Medicis.—"But why don't you let us have it then? Why, we are just hunting for new works. We simply cannot shuffle through any longer, turning the old ones over and over. My secretary is traveling from one theatre to another, without finding anything, and you, who live right here, withhold your production from us in proud disdain of the common crowd!" "Your Excellency," I replied, "I am not withholding anything from anybody. Heaven is my witness. I submitted this opera to your predecessor, Count Tornow, thirteen years ago and had to go to his office myself three years later to get it back. Nobody had as much as looked at it." "Now just leave it here, my dear professor. A week from now at the latest you'll have our answer." And in saying this he pulls the score from under my arm and claps it into the lowest drawer and that's where it is lying today! That's where it is lying today, Sir! But what would I do, child that I am in spite of my white hair, but go home and tell my Gretchen: they need a new opera here at our theatre. Mine is practically accepted now! A year later death took her away from me,—and she was the one friend left who had been with me when I began to work on it. (Sobs and dries his tears.)
Gerardo. Sir, I cannot but feel the deepest sympathy for you ...
Dühring. That's where it is lying today.
Gerardo. May be you actually are a child in spite of your white hair. I must confess I doubt if I can help you.
Dühring (in violent rage). So you can endure the sight of an old man dragging himself along beside you on the same path on which your victorious flight carries you to the sun! Who knows but tomorrow you will lie on your knees before me and boast of knowing me, and today you see in the agonized groan of a creative artist nothing but a sad mistake and you cannot wring from your greed of gold the half hour it would take to rid me of the chains that are crushing me.
Gerardo. Sit down and play, sir! Come!
Dühring (sits down at the piano, opens his score, and strikes two chords). No, that's not the way it reads. I have to get back into it first. (Strikes three chords, then turns several leaves.) That is the overture; I won't detain you with it.—Now here comes the first scene ... (Strikes two chords.) Here you stand at the deathbed of your father. Just a moment until I get my bearings ...
Gerardo. Perhaps all you say is quite true. But at any rate you misjudge my position.
Dühring (plays a confused orchestration and sings in a deep grating voice).