[_Enter GRANDFATHER and a band of people_]
FIRST CITIZEN. Grandfather, I cannot help saying—yes, and repeating it five hundred times—that our King is a perfect fraud.
GRANDFATHER. Why only five hundred times? There is no need to practise such heroic self-control—you can say it five thousand times if that adds to your pleasure.
SECOND CITIZEN. But you cannot keep up a dead lie forever.
GRANDFATHER. It has made me alive, my friend.
THIRD CITIZEN. We shall proclaim to the whole world that our King is a lie, the merest and emptiest shadow!
FIRST CITIZEN. We shall all shout from our housetops that we have no King—let him do whatever he likes if he exists.
SECOND CITIZEN. My son died untimely at twenty-five of raging fever in seven days. Could such a calamity befall me under the rule of a virtuous King?
GRANDFATHER. But you still have got two sons left: while I have lost all my five children one after another.
GRANDFATHER. What then? Shall I lose my King too because I have lost my children? Don’t take me for such a big fool as that.
FIRST CITIZEN. It is a fine thing to argue whether there is a King or not when one is simply starving for want of food! Will the King save us?
GRANDFATHER. Brother, you are right. But why not find the King who owns all the food? You certainly will not find by your wailings at home.
SECOND CITIZEN. Look at the justice of our King! That Bhadrasen—you know what a touching sight he is when he is speaking of his King—the sentimental idiot! He is reduced to such a state of penury that even the bats that infest his house find it a too uncomfortable place.
GRANDFATHER. Why, look at me! I am toiling and slaving night and day for my King, but I have not yet received so much as a brass farthing for my pains.
THIRD CITIZEN. Now, what do you think of that?
GRANDFATHER. What should I think? Does any one reward his friends? Go, my friends, and say if you like that our King exists nowhere. That is also a part of our ceremony in celebrating this festival.
[_Turret of the Royal Palace. SUDARSHANA and her friend ROHINI_]
SUDARSHANA. You may make mistakes, Rohini, but I cannot be mistaken: am I not the Queen? That, of course, must be my King.
ROHINI. He who has conferred such high honour upon you cannot be long in showing himself to you.