King. May the word choke thee! As a reward of victory? Oh, stands it so with you, my lords? Do you stare at me? What means the scorn that lurks in your eyes? Have I been here too long? Do you already rue your act?
Chancellor. We rue it not, my King!
King. Say yes, say yes! Why so much pains with one who lay in the dust, whom you so mercifully raised up that everyone might value me as he chose, not as he must? Was it that I should fawn upon you, stroke and caress and flatter you, and die, instead of that one death I owed you, a thousand daily deaths?
Chancellor. Thou hast seen no hatred in us. A reflection of thine own feeling has deluded thee.
Cölestin. And if thou hast heard the word guilt, it was but thus: let me be guilty with thee! [Queen nods gratefully to him.]
King. Very fine! Quite beautiful! Accept my thanks! Hans! Come here and tell me what thou sayest to all this.
Hans Lorbass [comes forward boldly]. Lord Chancellor and Lord House Marshal, you nobles, councillors, and wise men all, who let yourselves be plagued with doubts like flea-bites,--if you permit it I will say one thing to you: between sin and punishment, between right and wrong, between hate and love, and good and bad, between sand and sea, and swamp and stone, between flesh of women and dead men's bones, between desire and possession, between field and furrow,--he goes, a man of men, straight through,--looking to neither right nor left!
King [with a smile of satisfaction]. Good words, for which we shall reward him. Yes, if you all thought with him, then I might bravely, out of the fulness of-- Enough! We each do what befits us and what it was decreed that we should do. We can no more. Time came upon us undesired and unasked,--even to-day. Each of us drags listlessly our weight of humanity unto the grave. Farewell my lords.... Lay by your letters. I will prove, as it stands I will-- Yes, and give your wisdom air, my dear friends, for it grows musty! [Cölestin, the Chancellor, and the other nobles go out.] Hans, stay!
King. Well, my wife?
Queen. Thou lookest at me so earnestly.