CHRISTINE and REGINALD go out to the left.
While OLAVUS is reading the letter, a hard knock is heard at the right-hand door.
OLAVUS. Come!
The knock is repeated. OLAVUS goes to the door and opens it. The KING enters, wearing his big hat and his cloak, which he throws of.
OLAVUS. The King!
KING. [Very excited] Yes, but for how long? Do you know who Dacke is?—A farm labourer who has killed a bailiff; a common thief and incendiary, who is now writing to me with a demand of answer. I am to take pen in hand and open correspondence with a scamp like him! Do you know that he has crossed the Kolmord Forests and stands with one foot in West Gothia and the other in East Gothia?—Who is back of him? The Emperor, the Elector Frederick of the Palatinate, Magnus Haraldsson, the runaway Bishop of Skara, the Duke of Mecklenburg. The Emperor wishes to put the children of Christian the Tyrant back on the throne.[3] But what troubles me more than anything else is to find the Luebeckians and Herman Israel on the same side—my old friend Herman! I ask you how it can be possible. And who has done this to me? Who?—Have you not a word to say?
OLAVUS. What can I say, and what—may I say?
KING. Don't be hard on me, Olof, and don't be vengeful, I am nothing but an unfortunate human creature who has had to drink humiliation like water, and I come to you as my spiritual guide. I am in despair because I fear that the Lord has deserted me for ever.—What an infernal notion of mine that was to take the head of the Dalecarlians just now, when I am in such need of them! Do you think that deed was displeasing to the Lord? But if I have sinned like David, you must be my Nathan.
OLAVUS. I have lost the power of prophecy, and I am not the right man to inflict punishment.
KING. Console me, then, Olof.
OLAVUS. I cannot, because only those who repent can accept consolation.