HINZE.

Such a pair of lovers is good for something in the world after all; they have fallen plump into the poetical again down there and the stamping has ceased.  There’s no game to be caught.

(A rabbit creeps into the bag; he rushes over and draws the strings over him.)

Look here, good friend!  A kind of game that is a cousin of mine, so to speak; yes, that’s the way with the world nowadays, relatives against relatives, brother against brother; if one wants to get through the world oneself, one must push others out of the way.

(He takes the rabbit out of the bag and puts it into the knapsack.)

Hold!  Hold!—­truly I must take care not to devour the game myself.  I must just tie up the knapsack quickly only to be able to restrain my passion.  Fie! for shame, Hinze!  Is it not the duty of the nobleman to sacrifice himself and his desires to the happiness of his brother creatures?  That’s the reason why we live, and whoever cannot do that—­oh, it were better for him if he had never been born!

(He is on the point of withdrawing; violent applause and shouting of “Encore;” he has to repeat the last beautiful passage, then he bows respectfully and goes of with the rabbit.)

FISCHER.

Oh, what a noble man!

MUeLLER.

What a beautifully human state of mind!

SCHLOSS.

One can still be benefited by things like this, but when I see such nonsense I should like to smash it with a single blow.

LEUTNER.

I began to feel quite sad too—­the nightingale—­the lovers—­the last tirade—­why the play has some really beautiful passages after all!

Hall in the palace

Large company.  The KING. The PRINCESS. Prince NATHANIEL. The COOK (in gala costume)

KING (sitting on throne).

Over here, cook; now is the time to speak
and answer; I want to examine the matter myself.

COOK (falls on his knees).

May it please your majesty to express
your commands for your highness’s most faithful servant?

KING.

One cannot expend too much effort, my friends, in keeping a king—­on whose shoulders lies the well-being of a whole country and that of innumerable subjects—­always in good humor.  For if he falls into a bad humor, he very easily becomes a tyrant, a monster; for good humor encourages cheerfulness, and cheerfulness, according to the observations of all philosophers, makes man good; whereas melancholy, on the other hand, is to be considered a vice for the very reason that it encourages all the vices.  Whose duty is it, I now ask, in whose power does it so lie, to preserve the good spirits of the monarch, so much as in the hands of a cook?  Are not rabbits very innocent animals?  My favorite dish—­by means of these animals I could succeed in never becoming tired of making my country happy—­and these rabbits he lets me do without!  Sucking pigs and sucking pigs daily.  Rascal, I am disgusted with this at last!