zen--from which I should go away to my work, and come back
to as to a safe refuge. That is the button 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
surreptitiously? 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 assert 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.

Clara. We make them what they are.

The King. Surely; but they are especially what women make them. (A
pause.)

Clara. The sun is quite strong now.

The King. But it can scarcely pierce through the screen of