"To alleviate both poverty and misery if they are undeserved," said the king softly.
She approached him quickly, and made a movement as if she would offer him her hand. "My wretchedness is undeserved," she said, "but not even a king can alleviate it."
"Let me, at least, attempt to do so. In what can I assist you?"
She shook her head sadly. "If King Frederick, the son of Frederick William the First, does not know, then I do not."
"You are poor, perhaps in want?"
"I do not know—it is possible," she said absently; "how can I among so many pains and torments distinguish between despair and anguish, and want and privation?"
"You have children?"
"Yes," she said, shuddering, "I have children, and they suffer from hunger; that I know, for they often pray to me for bread, when I have none to give them."
"Why does not their father take care of them; perhaps he is not living?"
"He lives, but not for us. He is wiser than I, and forgets his grief in drink, while I nourish the gnawing viper at my heart."