But these were details. It was the over-all impression that was wrong. He was losing not only the excitement of the premiereafter all, that couldn’t last at the same pitch all eveningbut also his very interest in what was coming from the stage and the pit. He was gradually tiring; his baton arm becoming heavier; as the second act mounted to what should have been an impassioned outpouring of shining tone, he was so bored as to wish he could go back to his desk to work on that song.
Then the act was over; only one more to go. He scarcely heard the applause. The twenty minutes’ rest in his dressing room was just barely enough to give him the necessary strength.
And suddenly, in the middle of the last act, he understood.
There was nothing new about the music. It was the old Strauss all over againbut weaker, more dilute than ever.
Compared with the output of composers like Krafft, it doubt-less sounded like a masterpiece to this audience. But he knew.
The resolutions, the determination to abandon the old clich~s and mannerisms, the decision to say something new they had all come to nothing against the force of habit. Being brought to life again meant bringing to life as well all those deeply graven reflexes of his style. He had only to pick up his pen and they overpowered him with easy automatism, no more under his control than the jerk of a finger away from a flame.
His eyes filled; his body was young, but he was an old man, an old man. Another thirty-five years of this? Never.
He had said all this before, centuries before. Nearly a half century condemned to saying it all over again, in a weaker and still weaker voice, aware that even this debased century would come to recognize in him only the burnt husk of greatness?no; never, never.