Clara. For many, many years!
The King. I am not really I, nor you you. The monarch was bewitched long ago. He was turned into a wild beast who gave reign to his passion by night and slept by day. And now the maiden of humble degree has become a woman and freed him from the spells.
Clara. Really! Ah, you are so clever at inventing things to cheat my fears away from me. And you always succeed. But after all, you know, I have no strength and no courage; I am so weak.
The King. You have more strength than I!—more than any one I have ever known.
Clara. No, don't say that; but—you may be sure of this!—if I did not feel that I had some strength I would never try to throw in my lot with yours.
The King. I will explain to you what you are! Some people are tremendously more spiritual, more delicately constituted than others; and they are a hundred times more sensitive. And they fancy that is weakness. But it is just they who draw their strength from deeper sources, through a thousand imperceptible channels. You will often find them with heads erect and valiant when others have gone under; they merely bend before the storm, with supple strength, when others break under it. You are like that!
Clara. You are very ingenious when you start explaining me!
The King. Well, listen to this! At the time when I was behaving so badly to you, your terror, every time I approached you, was so piteous that it was always before my eyes and rang in my ears like a cry of agony from a wounded heart. It is true! It filled me with terror, too. Do you call that weakness, to feel things so intensely that another person is influenced by your feelings against his will?
Clara. No.
The King. And then, when I found you again—the way you listened to me—