Gerardo, Your confidence compels me to be candid. I cannot imagine how I could use my influence with any benefit to you.
Dühring. In other words you mean to tell me that it is antiquated music.
Gerardo. I would much rather call it modern music.
Dühring. Or modern music. Pardon my slip of the tongue, Mr. Gerardo. It's what will happen when one gets old. You see, one manager will write me: We cannot use your opera, it is antiquated music—and another writes: We cannot use it because it is modern music. In plain language both mean the same: We don't want any opera of yours, because as a composer you don't count.
Gerardo. I am a Wagner singer, Sir, I am no critic. If you want to see your opera performed, you had better apply to those who are paid for knowing what is good and what is bad. My judgment in such matters, don't doubt that for a moment, Sir, counts the less, the more I am recognized and esteemed as a singer.
Dühring. My dear Mr. Gerardo, you may rest assured, I don't believe in your judgment either. What do I care for your judgment! I think I know what to expect of a tenor. I am playing this opera to you to make you say: I'll sing your Hermann! I'll sing your Hermann!
Gerardo. It won't avail you anything. I must do what I am asked to do; I am bound by my contracts. You can afford to stand down in the street for a week. A day more or less makes no difference to you. But if I do not leave here by the next train, my prospects in this world are ruined. May be, in another world they will engage singers who break their contracts! My chains are drawn more tightly than the harness of a carriage horse. If anybody, even an absolute stranger, asks me for material assistance lie will find I have an open hand, although the sacrifice of happiness my calling exacts of me is not paid for with five hundred thousand francs a year. But if you ask of me the slightest assertion of personal liberty, you are expecting too much of a slave such as I am. I can not sing your Hermann as long as you don't count as a composer.
Dühring. Please, Sir, let me continue. It will give you a desire for the part.
Gerardo. If you but knew, Sir, how often I have a desire for things which I must deny myself and how often I must assume burdens for which I have not the least desire! I have absolutely no choice in the matter. You have been a free man all your life. How can you complain of not being in the market? Why don't you go and put yourself in the market?
Dühring. Oh, the haggling—the shouting—the meanness you meet with! I have tried it a hundred times.