GERARDO. The composers whom I know go about it just the other way. They slap their operas on paper the best way they know and keep their strength for bringing about a performance. DUeHRING. They are a type of composer I don't envy. GERARDO. They would reciprocate that feeling, Sir. These people do count. One must be _something_. Name me a single famous man who did not _count_! If one is not a composer, one is something else, that's all, and there's no need of being unhappy about it, either. I was something else myself before I became a Wagner singer--something, my efficiency at which nobody could doubt, and with which I was entirely satisfied. It is not for _us_ to say what we are intended for in this world. If it were, any Tom, Dick, or Harry might come along! Do you know what I was before they discovered me? I was a paperhanger's apprentice. Do you know what that is like! (Indicating by gesture.) I put paper on walls--with paste. I don't conceal my humble origin from anybody. Now just imagine, that as a paperhanger I should have taken it into my head to become a Wagner singer! Do you know what they would have done to me? DUeHRING. They would have sent you to the madhouse. [Illustration: LEO TOLSTOY] _Permission Albert Langen, Munich_ FROM OLAF GULBRANSSON'S "FAMOUS CONTEMPORARIES" GERARDO. Exactly, and rightly so. Whoever is dissatisfied with what he is will not get anywhere as long as he lives. A healthy man does that at which he is successful; if he fails, he chooses another calling. You spoke of the judgment of your friends. It does not take much to obtain expressions of approbation and admiration which do not cost those anything who utter them. Since my fifteenth year I have been paid for every labor I've performed and should have considered it a disgrace to be compelled to do something for nothing. Fifty years of fruitless struggling! Can anybody be so stubborn as not to have that convince him of the impossibility of his dreams! What did you get out of your life? You have sinfully wasted it! I have never striven for anything out of the ordinary; but, Sir, I can assure you of one thing: that since my earliest childhood days I have never had enough time left to stand out in the street for a whole week. And if I were to think that in my old days I might be compelled to do that very thing--Sir, I am speaking only for myself now--but I cannot imagine how I could still muster the courage to look people in the face. DUeHRING. What? With such an opera in your hands! Remember, I am not doing it for my own sake; I am doing it for art's sake. GERARDO. You overestimate art. Let me tell you that art is something quite different from what people make themselves believe about it. DUeHRING. I know nothing higher on earth!