How you imagine things! To do that he would have to be more than the weak earthworm he is. No cruelty can keep pace with my callousness. Do you know, he has shed tears of compassion here without having heard the least complaint from me! Who could so degenerate as not to be thankful when his better self finds unexpected recognition!——He could not help begrudging me the joy of seeing you again, my child. But the cowardly anxiety which springs from his calling is responsible for that. The poor man is so jealous of the ridiculous little authority vested in him by his bunch of keys that the kindness he has shown me to-day makes him afraid of becoming entirely superfluous. But didn't you suffer need in order to buy the good will of this rascal?
ALMA.
Speak not of me, Father. Time is passing and I don't know how I can help you!
THE KING.
Really, I don't know either! Were I an abler man, my fate might perhaps seem more pitiable to me. Poor as I am, I only tremble at the moment when those iron doors shall protect me no longer, when those barred windows shall prevent them reaching me, when I shall stand again among people with whom I have no mutual understanding and from whose activities I am excluded more than ever by the sentence of the law.——If you only knew how painlessly this solitude heals the gaping wounds of the soul. The judge thought he was adding to my punishment when he sentenced me to solitary confinement. How deeply I have thanked him that I do not have to live here in association with other men!
ALMA.
(Bursting into tears.) Lord God in Heaven! Then you don't want to see me here again!
THE KING.
(Caressingly.) I repay your sacrifice with discontent and ill humor. Thoughts become heavy and sluggish when a man continues talking to himself day in and day out.——Only this I ask of you; when freedom is restored to me, leave me to my fate—not forever, only until I show myself worthy of your greatness of soul.
ALMA.