ISRAEL. Nothing but a treaty providing for mutual friendship and mutual trade. That's all!
KING. And that I will never sign! I know all about Luebeck's friendship as well as its trade. Talk of something else!
ISRAEL. I have nothing else to talk of. Why don't you believe me?
KING. Because you lie!
ISRAEL. Because you are unfortunate enough to think that I lie, you will never know the truth.
KING. Yes, unfortunate, indeed—as unfortunate as a man can be, for I have not a single friend.
ISRAEL. It hurts me to hear you talk like that, Gustav, and—and it makes me sad to see that your greatness and your exalted office have brought you so little true happiness. I shall say nothing more about gratitude, because the idea of it is too vague in human minds, but I have loved you like a son ever since that hour when the Lord of Hosts put your fate in my hands. I have followed your brilliant course as if it had been my own. I have joyed over your successes, and I have sorrowed over your sorrows.... Frequently my duties toward my own people have kept me from lending you a helping hand. Frequently, too, your own hardness has stood between us. But now, when I behold you so deeply crushed, and when you have treated me with a confidence that I may well call filial, I shall forget for a moment that I am your enemy—which I must be as a man of Luebeck, while as Herman Israel I am your friend. I shall forget that I am a merchant, and—[Pause] I hope that I may never regret it—[Pause] and—and.... Do you know John Andersson?
KING. I don't.
ISRAEL. But I do, and I know Anders Persson and Mons Nilsson, too! They called on me yesterday, and—to-morrow the southern provinces will rise in rebellion!
KING. So that's what was coming? Oh! Who is John Andersson?