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!