also brave and courageous, for you have dared what nobody before you
has dared; you have twice on the same evening interceded for one
condemned and one fallen into disgrace. The fortunate, and those
favored by me, have always had many friends, but I have never yet
seen that the unfortunate and the exiled have also found friends.
You are different from these miserable, cringing courtiers;
different from this deceitful and trembling crowd, that with
chattering teeth fall down and worship me as their god and lord;
different from these pitiful, good-for-nothing mortals, who call
themselves my people, and who allow me to yoke them up, because they
are like the ox, which is obedient and serviceable, only because he
is so stupid as not to know his own might and strength. Ah, believe
me, Kate, I would be a milder and more merciful king, if the people
were not such an utterly stupid and contemptible thing; a dog, which
is so much the more submissive and gentle the more vou maltreat him.
You, Kate, you are different, and I am glad of it. You know, I have
forever banished Elizabeth from my court and from my heart, and
still you intercede for her. That is noble of you, and I love you
for it, and grant you your request. And that you may see how I love
and trust you, I will now reveal to you a secret: I have long since
wished to have Elizabeth with me, but I was ashamed, even to myself,
of this weakness. I have long yearned once again to look into my
daughter's large deep eyes, to be a kind and tender father to her,
and make some amends to her for the wrong I perhaps may have done to
her mother. For sometimes, in sleepless nights, Anne's beautiful
face comes up before me and gazes at me with mournful, mild look,
and my whole heart shudders before it. But I could not confess this
to anybody, for then they might say that I repented what I had done.
A king must be infallible, like God himself, and never, through
regret or desire to compensate, confess that he is a weak, erring