The King. The only real friend that dated from my happier days--you, Harald, had been sent to the right about; you were a republican. It was while I was in despair over that loss that I fell really in love for the first time--with your sister, Harald. Banishment, again. What then? Why, then the craving that every healthy youth feels--the desire for love--was turned into dissolute channels. (Drinks.) Gran. I understand, well enough. The King. Well, put all those things together. That was what my life was--until just lately. Because lately something happened, my dear friends. And now you must help me! Because, to make a long story short, either I mean to be the chief official in my country in a peaceful, citizenlike, genuine way, or--as God is above me--I will no longer be king! (Gets up, and the others do so.) Koll. Ah, we have got it at last! The King. Do you think I don't know that our republican friend there spoke what is every thoughtful man's verdict upon me? (They are silent.) But how could I possibly undertake my task, as long as I believed everything to be make-believe and falsehood, without exception? Now I know the root of the falsehood! It is in our institutions; he was quite right. And one kind of falsehood begets another. You cannot imagine how ludicrous it appeared to me--who up till then had led such a sinful, miserable existence--when I saw honourable men pretending that I was a being of some superior mould! I! (Walks up and down, then stops.) It is the state--our institutions--that demand this falsehood both on their part and on mine. And that for the security and happiness of the country! (Moves about restlessly.) From the time I became crown prince they kept from me everything that might have instilled truth into me--friendship, love, religion, a vocation--for my vocation is quite another one; and it was all done in the name of my country! And now that I am king, they take away all responsibility from me as well--all responsibility for my own acts--the system demands it! Instead of an individual, what sort of a contemptible creature do they make of me! The kingly power, too?--that is in the hands of the people's representatives and the government. I don't complain of that; but what I do complain of is that they should pretend that _I_ have it, and that everything should be done in _my_ name; that I should be the recipient of petitions, cheers, acclamations, obeisances--as if the whole power and responsibility were centred in _my_ person! In me--from whom, in the interests of all, they have taken away everything! Is that not a pitiful and ludicrous falsehood? And, to make it credible, they endow me into the bargain with a halo of sanctity! "The King is sacred;" "Our Most Gracious Sovereign," "Your Majesty!" It becomes almost blasphemous! Gran. Quite true.