(_Bursting into tears._) Lord God in Heaven! Then you don't want to see me here again!
(_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.
Oh nevermore! Do not ask me ever to leave you! It is impossible that the future should be as bad as the past!
Melancholy has mastered you in this gloom. Your proud heart is almost ready to break. Nothing can be read in your face of the quiet peace you pretend to feel.
I have not seen my face for a year, but I can imagine how ugly it has grown. How my looks must wound your feelings!
But you know my imperturbable nature. And now you come in, the only thing to make my happiness complete. It is only to reward you richly and splendidly that I would become a king again.
I hear the jailer! Tell me how I can lighten your sufferings!
(_Sinks down on the stool exhausted, half to himself_:) What do I lack? How frightful this prison would become if the pleasures of life were admitted here! How can I desire here a beautiful woman, where I cannot even conjure up a recollection of beauty! My couch there is shut during the day. There is no other resting-place, and I lie down there at night as weary as if I had ploughed an acre. And in the morning the clanging bell wakes me from dreams more serene than those I dreamed as a child. (_As the door is opened._) When you see me again, my child, you will hear no more complaints. You shall feel as happy with me as if you were outside in your sunny world. Farewell!
Farewell, Father! (_She leaves the cell. The door clangs behind her._)
A whole long year vet!----(_He goes toward the wall._) I will just count the marks again and see how many remain to be rubbed out.
(_Enter the King, Princess Alma, with her father's lute on her back, and a circus rider._)
Have we much further to go, brother, before we come to the place where the beggars' fair is to be held?
We shall be there by midnight, at the latest. The real fair does not begin until then. This must be the first time you have made this pilgrimage to the gallows?