Clara (interrupting him). And you are not even man enough to be ashamed
of yourself!

The King. Yes, you may say what you please to me!

Clara. I have nothing more to say to you. I have said what I have to
say. (Turns to go.)

The King. No, don't go! You have not even heard me yet. You don't even
know what I want to beg of you!

Clara. My dishonour.

The King (vehemently). You misunderstand me utterly! If you had only
read a single one of my letters you would have known that there is
standing before you a man whom you have humbled. Ah, don't look so
incredulous! It is true, if there is any truth in anything. You don't
believe me? (Despairingly.) How am I to--! A man who has risked your
contempt for more than a year, and has been faithful to you without even
being allowed to see you or exchange a word with you--who has had no
thought for anything or any one else--is not likely to be doing that out
of mere idleness of heart! Do you not believe that, either?

Clara. No.

The King. Well, then, there must surely be some general truths that you,
as Ernst's daughter, cannot refuse to believe! Let me ask you if you can
understand how a man becomes what I was at the time when I repeatedly
insulted you. You must know, from your father's books, in what an
unnatural atmosphere a king is brought up, the soul-destroying sense of
self-importance which all his surroundings foster, until, even in
his dreams, he thinks himself something more than human; the doubtful
channels into which his thoughts are forced, while any virtues that he
has are trumpeted abroad, and his vices glossed over with tactful and
humorous tolerance. Don't you think that a young king, full of eager
life, as I was, may plead something in excuse of himself that no other
man can?

Clara. Yes, I admit that.

The King. Then you must admit that the very position he has to assume as
a constitutional monarch is an acted lie. Think what a king's vocation
is; _can_ a vocation of that sort be hereditary? Can the finest and
noblest vocation in the world be that?

Clara. No!

The King. Then suppose that he realises that himself; suppose that the
young king is conscious, however dimly and partially, of the lie he is
living--and suppose that, to escape from it, he rushes into a life of
pleasure. Is it not conceivable that he may have some good in him, for
all that? And then suppose that one morning, after a night of revelling,
the sun shines into his room; and he