DUeHRING (plays a confused orchestration and sings in a deep grating
voice).

Alas, now death has come to the castle
As it is raging in our huts.
It moweth down both great and small ...

(Interrupting himself.) No, that's the chorus. I had thought of playing
it to you because it's very good. Now comes your turn. (Resumes the
accompaniment and sings hoarsely:)

My life unto this fateful hour
Was dim and gray like the breaking morn.
Tortured by demons, I roamed about.
My eye is tearless!
Oh let me kiss once more thy hoary hair!

(Interrupting himself.) Well? (Since GERARDO does not answer, with
violent irritation.) These anaemic, threadbare, plodding, would-be
geniuses who are puffing themselves up today! Whose technique is so
sublime, it makes them sterile, impotent at twenty! Meistersingers,
philistines, that's what they are, whether they are starving or
basking in the public favor. Fellows that go to the cookbook rather
than to nature to satisfy their hunger. They think, indeed, they've
learned her secret--naivete! Ha--ha!--Tastes like plated brass!--They
make art their starting-point rather than life! Write music for
musicians rather than for yearning mankind! Blind, benighted
ephemerons! Senile youths whom the sun of Wagner has dried and
shriveled up! (Seizing GERARDO'S arm violently.) To judge a man's
creative genius, do you know where I take hold of him first?

GERARDO (stepping back). Well?

DUeHRING (putting his right hand around his own left wrist and feeling
his pulse). This is where I take hold of him first of all. Do you see,
right here! And if he hasn't anything here--please, let me go on
playing. (Turning more leaves.) I won't go through the whole monologue.
We shouldn't have the time anyway. Now here, scene three, end of the
first act. That's where the farm laborer's child, who had grown up with
you in the castle, suddenly enters. Now listen--after you have taken
leave of your highly revered mother. (Rapidly reading the text:) Demon,
who art thou? May one enter? (To GERARDO.) Those words are hers, you
understand. (Continues reading.) Barbette! Yes, it is I. Is your father
dead? There he lies! (Plays and sings in the highest falsetto.)

Full often did he stroke my curls.
Wherever he met me he was kind to me.
Alas, this is death.
His eyes are closed ...

(Interrupting himself, looking at GERARDO with self-assurance.) Now
is