(Soothingly.) Beloved father, you remain a king, no matter what you must do in this world.
THE KING.
In your loving heart, yes! And, therefore, your father, with loving despotism, opposes your life's happiness by crowding out of your heart that longing for a man which must be awakening in you at your age. Your father's egotistical folly has lost you rank and property, now it deprives you of the highest rights of life—those which the creatures of the wilderness share with mankind and which may make existence in a hut, as well as on a throne, a gift of the gods! What madness made me test my strength against the flood of the San Margherita brook, instead of invading Umbria by war, setting the city on fire at its four corners and snatching the crown with my own hands from the glowing ruins!——But that was only the continuation of past folly!
ALMA.
(Weeping.) Heaven have mercy on my foolish soul! How was it possible for me so to grieve you!
THE KING.
In misfortune people hurt each other without knowledge or desire, just as truly as in happiness each one brings joy to the other unwittingly. Do not make him who is judged suffer for it. You must go, my child; I hear the workmen shouting and tramping about upstairs.
ALMA.
(Kissing him.) Tomorrow morning early! (Exit.)
(The King takes up his work. Then the three journeymen come in, and, sitting down on separate tables on the other side of the room, prepare for work.)