Clara. Is your Majesty not well?
The King. Quite well! It is only--. Now, then!
Full fed with early flattery and pride, His sated soul was wearied all too young; Honour and kingly pomp seemed naught to him But whimsies from the people"s folly sprung.
From such pretence he fled to what was real-- Fair women"s arms, laughter and love and pleasure, All the mad joy of life; whate"er he craved, He found was given him in double measure.
Whate"er he craved--until one day a maiden To whom he whispered, like a drunken sot, "I"d give my life to make thee mine, my sweeting!"
Turned from him silently and answered not.
He sought by every means to win her to him; But when his love with cold _contempt_ was met, It was as if a judgment had been spoken Upon his life, and doom thereon were set.
His boon companions left him; in his castles None seemed to be awake but he alone, Racked with remorse, enshrouded in the darkness Of dull despair, yet longing to atone.
Then through the darkness she appeared! and humbly, Emboldend by her gentleness of mien, He sued once more: "If only thou wouldst listen!
If still "twere not too late--"
(His emotion overcomes him, and he stops suddenly, gets up, and walks away from CLARA. She gets up, as he comes back to her.) Excuse me! I had no intention of making a scene. But it made me think of--. (Breaks of again overcome by emotion, and moves a little way from her. There is a pause as he collects himself before returning to her.) As you can hear, Miss Ernst, it is nothing much of a poem--not written by a real poet, that is to say; a real poet would have exalted his theme, but this is a commonplace--
Clara. Has your Majesty anything more to say to me? (A pause.)
The King. If I have anything more to say to any one, it is to you.
Clara. I beg your pardon.
The King. No, it is I should beg yours. But I am sure you do not wish me to lie to you.
Clara (turning her head away). No.
The King. You have no confidence in me. (Control, his emotion.) Will you ever, I wonder, come to under stand that the only thing I crave for now is--one person"s confidence!
Clara. Any one who speaks as your Majesty has done to-day surely craves for more than that.
The King. More than that, yes; but, first of all, one person"s confidence.
Clara (turning away). I don"t understand--
The King (interrupting her, with emotion). Your life has not been as empty and artificial as mine.
Clara. But surely you have your task here to fill it with?
The King. I remember reading once about the way a rock was undermined, and the mine filled with gunpowder with an electric wire leading to it. Just a slight pressure on a little b.u.t.ton and the great rock was shattered into a thousand pieces. And in the same way everything is ready here; but the little pressure--to cause the explosion--is what I am waiting for!
Clara. The metaphor is a little forced.
The King. And yet it came into my mind as unconsciously as you broke off that twig just now. If I do not get what I lack, nothing can be accomplished--there can be no explosion! I shall abandon the whole thing and let myself go under.
Clara. Go under?
The King. Well, not like the hero of a sensational novel--not straight to the bottom like a stone--but like a dreamer carried off by pixies in a wood, with one name ever upon my lips! And the world would have to look after itself.
Clara. But that is sheer recklessness.
The King. I know it is; but I am reckless. I stake everything upon one throw! (A pause.)
Clara. Heaven send you may win.
The King. At least I am daring enough to hope that I may--and there are moments when I almost feel certain of victory!
Clara (embarra.s.sed). It is a lovely morning--
The King.--for the time of year; yes. And it is lovelier here than it is anywhere else!
Clara. I cannot really understand a course of action which implies a want of all sense of responsibility--
The King. Every one has their own point of view. A scheme of life, to satisfy me, must have its greatest happiness hidden away at its core; in my case that would be to have a house of my own--all to myself, like any other citizen--from which I should go away to my work, and come back to as to a safe refuge. That is the b.u.t.ton on the electric wire, do you understand? It is the little pressure on it that I am waiting for. (A pause.)
Clara. Have you read my father"s book, _Democratic Monarchy_?
The King. Yes.
Clara. He wrote it when I was a child; and so I may say that I grew up amongst ideas like--like those I have heard from you to-day. All the friends that came to our house used to talk to me about it.
The King. Then no doubt you heard the crown prince talked about, too!
Clara. I think I heard his name oftener mentioned at home than any one"s. I believe the book was written expressly for you.
The King. I can feel that when I read it. If only I had been allowed to read it in those days! Do you remember how in it your father maintains, too, that all reform depends on the beating down of the hedge that surrounds royalty?--on a king"s becoming, as he says, "wedded to his people" in the fullest sense of the word, not irregularly or surrept.i.tiously? No king can share his people"s thoughts if he lives apart from them in a great palace, married to a foreign princess. There is no national spirit behind a complicated court life of outlandish ceremonial.
Clara (turning away her head). You should have heard how vehemently my father used to a.s.sert those ideas.
The King. And yet he abandoned them.
Clara. Became a republican, you mean?
The King. Yes.
Clara. He was so disappointed. (A pause.)
The King. I sometimes wonder every one isn"t a republican! It must come to that in the end; I can see that. If only royalties nowadays thought seriously enough about it to realise it!
Clara. It is made so difficult for them by those who surround them.
The King. Yes, you see, that is another reason why any such reform must begin at home. Do you think that a king, who went every day to his work from a home that was in every respect like that of one of his people, could fail in the long run?
Clara. There are so many different kinds of homes.
The King. I mean a home that holds love instead of subservience--comfort instead of ceremony-truth instead of flattery; a home where--ah, well, I need not teach a woman what a home means.