| 3a 1901 CONDITIONS FOR MARRIAGE
> download Word-Doc MAHLER My dearest Alma, my soul, my life! I'm coming to you with a somewhat heavy heart today for I know I have to hurt you and yet I can't do otherwise. ALMA What is it, Gustav? MAHLER Before I say anything, let me ask you this: what do you expect of our relationship? ALMA What am I to expect? ? I want to be what you want me to become, what you need. MAHLER What else? ALMA I'm sure that you want me - and that you will help me - to develop my personality. MAHLER What do you understand by “personality”? Do you already consider yourself a personality? ALMA Of course. MAHLER That is? ALMA I'm a composer, you see. I want to express myself through my music. My best friends encouraged me to follow my calling as a composer: Max Burckhard, the director of the Burgtheater, Alex Zemlinsky, my music teacher … MAHLER They did, did they! ALMA Yes! They are convinced I should pursue my career. Burckhard brought me closer to Nietzsche, he believes in me as an individual, and Zemlinsky finds my music superior, and - well - extremely interesting. MAHLER Alma, you are the sweetest and most attractive young creature that I've ever met. But the sort of personality you have in mind, you can only acquire after long experience of struggle and suffering, and as a result of a deeply rooted dispositions. Such a personality is rare. You are too young and inexperienced, Almschi, to already be the sort of person who's found a rational basis for her existence everything inside you is still… unformed, unexpressed, and undeveloped. ALMA What am I to you then? Nothing but a toy?! MAHLER No. Of course not. What you are to me, what you could perhaps become for me - is the dearest and most sublime object of my life. The loyal and courageous companion who understands and supports me, my stronghold invulnerable to enemies from within and without, my peace, my heaven in which I can constantly immerse myself, find myself again, and rebuild myself - what it is that you can be to me is so unutterably exalted and beautiful, so much, and so great, in a word: my wife. ALMA I do want to be your wife! I don't see any contradiction in that. MAHLER If you honestly want to be my wife, you have to forget all those Burckhards, Zemlinskys, or whatever their names are . Forget what they told you. Those people know nothing about true personality. Because they are not personalities themselves. Each one of them has his own peculiarity: an eccentric address, illegible handwriting or some other quirk, and they defend these traits to their last breath to avoid becoming superficial. But they have no soul. These sort of people are full of contempt, and their hearts are burned to ashes. That's why they hang on to you, to your youth, your energy. They just want to be refreshed by it. They flatter and mislead you, only to destroy you in the end. ALMA But they love my music! MAHLER Don't believe a word they say to you. ALMA Why not? MAHLER Because you are beautiful, Alma. You're very beautiful and very attractive to men. That makes them flatter you for anything you do. Just imagine if you were ugly. What would they say? You've become - and however harsh it may sound - you've become what these people think they see in you and wish to see in you. ALMA You don't believe in my music? MAHLER I'll come to your music in a minute. ALMA We may have different ideas, we don't have to agree on everything. MAHLER Ideas? By no means! My Alma-child, we should agree on the love in our hearts, but what does that have to do with ideas? Alma, what are your ideas? Schopenhauer's chapter on women, the whole deceitful and viciously shameless immorality of Nietzsche' idea of a Master-race, the turbid meanderings of Maeterlinck's drunken mind which you had the temerity to set to music? These are not your ideas, thank God! ALMA Maybe we shouldn't live together. MAHLER What do you mean by that? ALMA I mean we could rent separate flats, and see one another whenever we wanted . We don't even have to marry. We can be lovers, and friends. MAHLER Alma, I'm not talking about »renting flats«. I'm talking about living together our whole life. ALMA But what if I want to write? MAHLER Write? Write what? ALMA My music. I want to write music too: songs, operas, symphonies. It's all in my head already. Chamber music, oratories... And you'll certainly want to go on writing yours, won't you? we can't do it all at the same time, can we? So I think we should have separate flats, so that when I want to compose I can go to my flat, and… MAHLER Excuse me, please, excuse me, but it's absolutely imperative that we understand one another clearly now, before we say another word. I am sorry, but I have to defend my music from you. You have enough courage to set your music against mine, but the fact of the matter is that you don't really know my music, and in any case you don't yet understand it, you're not capable of comprehending it yet! You won't think me vain, will you, Alma, but how do you picture the married life of a husband and wife who are both composers? Can you imagine a household of two composers? Have you any idea how ridiculous and degrading for both of us such a peculiarly competitive relationship would inevitably become? I experienced this kind of thing before, first-hand, with my brother. And he's dead, Alma! He's dead. I want you to be my wife, not my colleague! ALMA You're not asking me to give up my music? MAHLER I Most certainly am. That's exactly what I'm asking you to do. What would happen if you were attending to your household duties or taking care of something I needed, and you just happened to be “in the mood” and decided you would rather compose? Please don't misunderstand me and start imagining that I think of my wife only as a diversion; on the contrary. I'll prove it to you: let me ask you this: would it be possible for you, from now on, to regard my music as yours? - I will come back to your music later. - I'll repeat my question: would it be possible for you to regard my music as yours? ALMA Consider your music as if it were mine?! MAHLER Yes. I have to know. ALMA But my music is so different from yours. How can you compare… MAHLER Yes or no? ALMA But… Do you actually know what you're demanding of me? You ask me to give up the thing that brings me my greatest pleasure and happiness. When you demand that I give up my work, you're demanding that I give up my self/soul. MAHLER Your »work«? What sort of work is that? Composing? For your own pleasure or to enrich the heritage of Mankind?! From now on you will have a true profession:: to make me happy. ALMA And what about my happiness? MAHLER That will be my job. . I'll make you happy. I promise. I'm quite aware that in order to make me happy you have to be happy too. ALMA So who should start first to make the other one happy? MAHLER This is not a joke, Alma. ALMA You are asking a great deal. MAHLER Yes, I'm asking a great deal, a very great deal - and I do so because I know what I have to give and will give in exchange. ALMA I don't know if I can do it. Whether I'm strong enough, you know. I'm... my heart has stopped beating. I feel as if, you've ripped my heart from my chest. Give up my music? Give away the thing I've ve always lived for? I'm bewildered. I need to think it over. - Why can't the two of us just live happily together? MAHLER “Live happily together”? Alma! I don't want our relationship to degenerate into a passing flirtation. Before we talk to each other again, things must be absolutely clear between us. You've got to know what I desire and expect from you, what I can offer you, and what I need you to be to me. Therefore be absolutely merciless in trusting me with everything you have to say to me. It would be better to separate now than to go on deluding ourselves. I know myself. It would end up a catastrophe for both of us. - Now, think it all over carefully, and give me your verdict tomorrow. | 
