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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of Master Olof, by August Strindberg
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: Master Olof
+       A Drama in Five Acts
+
+Author: August Strindberg
+
+Release Date: January, 2005 [EBook #7363]
+Posting Date: August 7, 2009
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ASCII
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK MASTER OLOF ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Nicole Apostola
+
+
+
+
+
+MASTER OLOF
+
+A DRAMA IN FIVE ACTS
+
+
+By August Strindberg
+
+
+
+
+INTRODUCTION
+
+The original prose version of Master Olof, which is here presented for
+the first time in English form, was written between June 8 and August
+8, 1872, while Strindberg, then only twenty-three years old, was living
+with two friends on one of the numerous little islands that lie between
+Stockholm and the open sea.
+
+Up to that time he had produced half-a-dozen plays, one of which had
+been performed at the Royal Theatre of Stockholm and had won him the
+good-will and financial support of King Carl XV. Thus he had been able
+to return to the University of Upsala, whence he had been driven a year
+earlier by poverty as well as by spiritual revolt. During his second
+term of study at the old university Strindberg wrote some plays that
+he subsequently destroyed. In the same period he not only conceived the
+idea later developed in Master Olof, but he also acquired the historical
+data underlying the play and actually began to put it into dialogue.
+
+During that same winter of 1871-72 he read extensively, although his
+reading probably had slight reference to the university curriculum. The
+two works that seem to have taken the lion's share of his attention were
+Goethe's youthful drama Goetz von Berlichingen and Buckle's History of
+Civilization in England. Both impressed him deeply, and both became in
+his mind logically connected with an external event which, perhaps, had
+touched his supersensitive soul more keenly than anything else: an event
+concerning which he says in the third volume of The Bondwoman's Son,
+that "he had just discovered that the men of the Paris Commune merely
+put into action what Buckle preached."
+
+Such were the main influences at work on his mind when, early in
+1872, his royal protector died, and Strindberg found himself once more
+dependent on his own resources. To continue at the university was out
+of the question, and he seems to have taken his final departure from it
+without the least feeling of regret. Unwise as he may have been in other
+respects, he was wise enough to realize that, whatever his goal, the
+road to it must be of his own making. Returning to Stockholm, he groped
+around for a while as he had done a year earlier, what he even tried to
+eke out a living as the editor of a trade journal. Yet the seeds sown
+within him during the previous winter were sprouting. An irresistible
+impulse urged him to continue the work of Buckle. History and philosophy
+were the ultimate ends tempting his mind, but first of all he was
+impelled to express himself in terms of concrete life, and the way had
+been shown him by Goethe. Moved by Goethe's example, he felt himself
+obliged to break through the stifling forms of classical drama.
+"No verse, no eloquence, no unity of place," was the resolution he
+formulated straightway. [Note: See again The Bondwoman's Son, vol. iii:
+In the Red Room.]
+
+Having armed himself with a liberal supply of writing-paper, he joined
+his two friends in the little island of Kymmendoe. Of money he had so
+little that, but for the generosity of one of his friends, he would have
+had to leave the island in the autumn without settling the small debt
+he owed for board and lodging. Yet those months were happy indeed--above
+all because he felt himself moved by an inspiration more authentic than
+he had ever before experienced. Thus page was added to page, and act to
+act, until at last, in the surprisingly brief time of two months, the
+whole play was ready--mighty in bulk and spirit, as became the true
+firstling of a young Titan.
+
+Strindberg had first meant to name his play "What Is Truth?" For a while
+he did call it "The Renegade," but in the end he thought both titles
+smacked too much of tendency and decided instead, with reasoned
+conventionalism, to use the title of Master Olof after its central
+figure, the Luther of Sweden.
+
+From a dramatic point of view it would have been hard to pick a more
+promising period than the one he had chosen as a setting for his play.
+The early reign of Gustaf Vasa, the founder of modern Sweden, was marked
+by three parallel conflicts of equal intensity and interest: between
+Swedish and Danish nationalism; between Catholicism and Protestantism;
+and, finally, between feudalism and a monarchism based more or less on
+the consent of the governed. Its background was the long struggle for
+independent national existence in which the country had become involved
+by its voluntary federation with Denmark and Norway about the end of the
+fourteenth century. That Struggle--made necessary by the insistence of
+one sovereign after another on regarding Sweden as a Danish province
+rather than as an autonomous part of a united Scandinavia--had reached a
+sort of climax, a final moment of utter blackness just before the dawn,
+when, at Stockholm in 1520, the Danish king, known ever afterward as
+Christian the Tyrant, commanded the arbitrary execution of about eighty
+of Sweden's most representative men.
+
+Until within a few months of that event, named by the horror-stricken
+people "the blood-bath of Stockholm," the young Gustaf Eriksson Vasa had
+been a prisoner in Denmark, sent there as a hostage of Swedish loyalty.
+Having obtained his freedom by flight, he made his way to the inland
+province of Dalecarlia, where most of the previous movements on behalf
+of national liberty had originated, and having cleared the country of
+foreign invaders, chiefly by the help of an aroused peasantry that had
+never known the yoke of serfdom, he was elected king at a Riksdag held
+in the little city of Straengnaes, not far from Stockholm, in 1523.
+
+Straengnaes was a cathedral city and had for several years previous been
+notorious for the Lutheran leanings of its clergy. After the death of
+its bishop as one of the victims of King; Christian, its temporary head
+had been the archdeacon, the ambitious and learned Lars Andersson--or
+Laurentius Andreae, as, in accordance with the Latinizing tendency
+of the time, he was more frequently named. One of its canons was Olof
+Pedersson--also known as Olaus Petri, and more commonly as Master Olof
+(Master being the vernacular for Magister, which was the equivalent
+of our modern Doctor)--who, during two years spent in studies at the
+University of Wittenberg, had been in personal contact with Luther, and
+who had become fired with an aspiration to carry the Reformation into
+his native country. By recent historians Master Olof has been described
+as of a "naively humble nature," rather melancholy in temperament,
+but endowed with a gift for irony, and capable of fiery outbursts when
+deeply stirred. At Straengnaes he had been preaching the new faith more
+openly and more effectively than any one else, and he had found a pupil
+as well as a protector in the temporary head of the diocese.
+
+Immediately after his election, the new King called Lars Andersson from
+Straengnaes to become his first chancellor. Later on, he pressed Olof,
+too, into his service, making him Secretary to the City Corporation
+of Stockholm--which meant that Olof practically became the chief
+civil administrator of the capital, having to act as both clerk and
+magistrate, while at the same time he was continuing his reformatory
+propaganda as one of the preachers in the city's principal edifice,
+officially named after St. Nicolaus, but commonly spoken of as
+Greatchurch. As if this were not sufficient for one man, he plunged also
+into a feverish literary activity, doing most of the work on the Swedish
+translations of the New and Old Testaments, and paving the way for the
+new faith by a series of vigorous polemical writings, the style of which
+proclaims him the founder of modern Swedish prose. Centuries passed
+before the effective simplicity and homely picturesqueness of his style
+were surpassed. He became, furthermore, Sweden's first dramatist. The
+Comedy of Tobit, from which Strindberg uses a few passages in slightly
+modernized form at the beginning of his play, is now generally
+recognized as an authentic product of Olof's pen, although it was not
+written until a much later period.
+
+Strindberg's drama starts at Straengnaes, at the very moment when Olof has
+been goaded into open revolt against the abuses of the Church, and when
+he is saved from the consequences of that revolt only by the unexpected
+arrival of King Gustaf and his own appointment as City Secretary. From
+the slightly strained, but not improbable, coincidence of that start
+to the striking climax of the last act, the play follows, on the whole,
+pretty closely the actual course of events recorded in history. To
+understand this course, with its gradually intensified conflict between
+the King and Olof, it is above all necessary to bear in mind that the
+former regarded the Reformation principally as a means toward that
+political reorganization and material upbuilding of the country which
+formed his main task; while to Olof the religious reconstruction assumed
+supreme importance. This fundamental divergence of purpose is clearly
+indicated and effectively used by Strindberg, and we have reason to
+believe that he has pictured not only Gustaf Vasa and Master Olof, but
+also the other historical characters, in close accordance with what
+history has to tell us about them. Among the chief figures there is only
+one--Gert the Printer--who is not known to history, and one--the wife of
+Olof--who is so little known that the playwright has been at liberty to
+create it almost wholly out of his own imagination.
+
+At the juncture represented by the initial scenes of the play, Olof was
+in reality thirty-one years old, but he is made to appear still younger.
+The King should be, and is, about twenty-seven, while Lars Andersson is
+about fifty-four, and Bishop Brask about seventy. Gert must be thought a
+man of about sixty, while Christine must be about twenty. The action
+of the play lasts from 1524 to 1540, but Strindberg has contracted the
+general perspective, so to speak, giving us the impression that the
+entire action takes place within a couple of years. I have tried to work
+out a complete chronology, and think it fairly safe to date the several
+parts of the play as follows:
+
+The first act takes place on Whitsun Eve, 1524, which means that the
+exact date must fall between May 10 and June 13 of that year, and
+probably about June 1.
+
+The first scene of the second act occurs in the early evening of a
+Saturday in the summer--probably in June--of 1524. The second scene is
+fixed at midnight of the same day, and the third scene on the following
+morning, which, in view of the fact that Olof is to preach, we may
+assume to be a Sunday.
+
+The first scene of the third act seems to take place four days later,
+but Olof was not married until February, 1525,--to "Christine, a maiden
+of good family,"--and it was only during the winter of 1526-27 that the
+Church reformers were given free rein by the King, and Olof himself was
+despatched to the University of Upsala for the purpose of challenging
+Peder Galle, the noted Catholic theologian, to a joint discussion. This
+was also the time when the first Swedish version of the New Testament
+was completed by Olof and Lars Andersson--an event referred to in the
+scene in question.
+
+The exact date of the second scene of the third act is St. John's
+Eve, or June 24, 1527, at which time occurred the important Riksdag at
+Vesteras, where the King broke the final resistance of the nobility and
+the Catholic clergy by threatening to abdicate. The debate between Olof
+and Peder Galle took place at the Riksdag, Galle having evaded it as
+long as he could.
+
+The date of the fourth act is very uncertain, but it seems safe to place
+it in the summer of 1539, when Stockholm was ravaged by an epidemic of a
+virulent disease known as "the English sweat."
+
+The first scene of the fifth act is laid on New Year's Eve, 1539, when
+Olof and Lars Andersson were arrested and charged with high treason for
+not having informed the proper authorities of a plot against the King's
+life. This plot was an old story, having been exposed and punished
+in 1536. Their defence was that they had learned of it through secret
+confession, which they as ministers had no right to reveal. The trial
+took only two days, and on January 2, 1540, both were sentenced to
+death.
+
+The second scene of the final act must be laid in the spring of 1540, as
+the ceremony of confirmation has generally taken place about Easter ever
+since the Swedish church became Lutheran.
+
+While, in the main, Strindberg made the events of his play accord
+with what was accepted as historical fact when he wrote, there are
+anachronisms and inaccuracies to be noted, although to none of them
+can be attached much importance. When, in the first and second acts, he
+represents the Anabaptist leaders, Rink and Knipperdollink, as then
+in Stockholm and actually introduces one of them on the stage, he has
+merely availed himself of a legend which had been accepted as truth
+for centuries, and which has been exploded only by recent historical
+research. We know now that Rink and Knipperdollink could never have been
+in Sweden, but we know also that a German lay preacher named Melchior
+Hofman appeared at Stockholm about the time indicated in the play, and
+that, in 1529, another such preacher, named Tilemann, made Olof himself
+the object of his fierce invectives. These instances serve, in fact, to
+prove how skilfully Strindberg handled his historical material. He is
+never rigid as to fact, but as a rule he is accurate in spirit. Another
+instance of this kind is found in the references in the first act to the
+use of Swedish for purposes of worship. It is recorded--and by himself,
+I think--that Olof once asked his mother whether she really understood
+the Latin prayers, since she was so very fond of them. She answered:
+"No, I don't understand them, but when I hear them I pray devoutly to
+God that they may please Him, which I don't doubt they do."
+
+On the other hand, what maybe regarded as rather an awkward slip is
+found in the first scene of the fifth act, where Gert cries exultantly
+to Olof: "You don't know that Thomas Muenster has established a new
+spiritual kingdom at Muehlhausen." The name of the great Anabaptist
+"prophet" was Thomas Muenzer, and the place where he established his
+brief reign was Muenster. Strindberg's habit was to fill his head with
+the facts to be used, and then to rely on his memory. Marvellous as his
+memory was, it sometimes deceived him, and checking off names or dates
+seems to have been utterly beyond him. Thus it is quite probable that
+the passage in question represents an unconscious error. At the same
+time it is barely possible that the mistake may have been purposely laid
+in the mouth of a fanatic, from whom exactness of statement could hardly
+be expected. Thus, in the first act, Gert remarks that "Luther is
+dead." We understand, of course, that this expression is metaphorical,
+signifying that Luther has done all that can be expected of him, but it
+is nevertheless characteristically ambiguous.
+
+The second scene of the third act is apparently laid in Olof's house
+at Stockholm, although the location of the building is not definitely
+indicated. We find him waiting for a messenger who is to announce the
+results of the Riksdag then in session. But the Riksdag was held at
+Vesteras, and we know that Olof was one of two delegates sent by the
+burghers and the peasants to the King, whom they implored "on their
+knees and with tears" to withdraw his abdication. The Courtier's
+reference to Olof's debate with Galle renders it still more uncertain
+whether we are in Stockholm or in Vesteras. The Courtier also informs
+Olof of his appointment as pastor of Greatchurch, the facts being that
+Olof was not ordained until 1539 and received his appointment a year
+after the events described in the last act of the play. In the metrical
+version, Strindberg makes his most radical departure from the historical
+course of events by letting Luther's marriage precede and influence
+that of Olof, although in reality Olof's anticipated that of Luther by
+several months.
+
+The complaints of the Man from Smaland in the first scene of the second
+act could scarcely have been warranted in 1524, when that act takes
+place. The hold of the young King was far too precarious at that
+early date to permit any regulations of the kind referred to. The
+establishment of a maximum price on oxen does not seem to have occurred
+until 1532, and a prohibition against the shooting of deer by the
+peasants was actually issued in 1538, both measures helping to provoke
+the widespread uprising that broke out in Smaland in 1541. It was named
+the "Dacke feud" after its principal leader, the peasant-chieftain
+Nils Dacke, to whom the Sexton refers in the second scene of the last
+act--also a little prematurely.
+
+Whether these be conscious or unconscious anachronisms, they matter very
+little when the general accuracy of the play is considered. From the
+moment the Danes had been driven out of the country, one of the most
+serious problems confronting the King was the financial chaos into which
+the country had fallen, and his efforts, first of all to raise enough
+means for ordinary administrative purposes, and secondly to reorganize
+trade and agriculture, brought him almost immediately into conflict with
+the peasants, who, during the long struggle for national independence,
+had become accustomed to do pretty much as they pleased. The utterances
+of the Man from Smaland are typical of the sentiments that prevailed
+among the peasants throughout the country, not least when he speaks of
+the King's intention to "take away their priests and friars," for
+the majority of the Swedish people were at that time still intensely
+Catholic, and remained so to a large extent long after the Reformation
+officially had placed Sweden among Protestant countries.
+
+Much more serious than any liberties taken with dates or facts, I deem
+certain linguistic anachronisms, of which Strindberg not rarely becomes
+guilty. Thus, for instance, he makes the King ask Bishop Brask: "What
+kind of phenomenon is this?" The phrase is palpably out of place, and
+yet it has been used so deliberately that nothing was left for me to
+do but to translate it literally. The truth is that Strindberg was not
+striving to reproduce the actual language of the Period--a language of
+which we get a glimpse in the quotations from The Comedy of Tobit. Here
+and there he used archaic expressions (which I have sometimes reproduced
+and sometimes disregarded, as the exigencies of the new medium happened
+to require). At other times he did not hesitate to employ modern
+colloquialisms (most of which have been "toned down"). He did not regard
+local color or historical atmosphere as a supreme desideratum. He wanted
+to express certain ideas, and he wanted to bring home the essential
+humanity of historical figures which, through the operations of
+legendary history, had assumed a strange, unhuman aspect. The methods
+he employed for these purposes have since been made familiar to the
+English-speaking public by the historical plays of Bernard Shaw and the
+short stories and novels of Anatole France.
+
+In his eagerness, however, to express what was burning for utterance in
+his own breast, the second purpose was sometimes lost sight of; and at
+such times Strindberg hesitated as little to pass the bounds imposed
+by an historical period as to break through the much more important
+limitations of class and personal antecedents. Thus, for example,
+the remarks of Olof's mother are at one moment characterized by the
+simplicity to be expected from the aged widow of a small city tradesman
+in the early part of the sixteenth century, while in the next--under
+the pressure of the author's passion for personal expression--they
+grow improbably sophisticated. Yet each figure, when seen in proper
+perspective, appears correctly drawn and strikingly consistent with
+the part assigned to it in the play. In his very indifference to minor
+accuracies, Strindberg sometimes approaches more closely to the larger
+truth than men more scrupulous in regard to details. How true he can be
+in his delineation of a given type is perhaps best shown by the figure
+of Gert. The world's literature holds few portrayals of the anarchistic
+temperament that can vie with it in psychological exactness, and it is
+as true to-day as it was in 1524 or in 1872.
+
+This verisimilitude on a universal rather than a specific plane assumes
+still greater significance if we consider it in the light of what
+Strindberg has told us about his purpose with the main characters of his
+first great play. As I have already said, those characters were meant
+to be both mouthpieces of the author and revived historical figures, but
+they were also meant--and primarily, I suspect--to be something else:
+embodiments of the contradictory phases of a single individual, namely
+the author himself.
+
+"The author meant to hide his own self behind the historical
+characters," Strindberg tells us, apropos of this very play. [Note: In
+one of his biographical novels, The Bondwoman's Son, vol. iii: In
+the Red Room.] "As an idealist he was to be represented by Olof; as a
+realist by Gustaf; and as a communist by Gert." Farther on in the same
+work, he continues his revelation as follows: "The King and his shadow,
+the shrewd Constable, represented himself [the author] as he wished to
+be; Gert, as he was in moments of aroused passion; and Olof, as, after
+years of self-scrutiny, he had come to know himself: ambitious and
+weak-willed; unscrupulous when something was at stake, and yielding
+at other times; possessed of great self-confidence, mixed with a deep
+melancholy; balanced and irrational; hard and gentle."
+
+Finally, he gives us this illuminating exposition of his own views on
+the moral validity of the main characters, thus disposing once for all
+of the one-sided interpretations made by persons anxious to use this
+or that aspect of the play in support of their own political or social
+idiosyncrasies: "All the chief characters are, relatively speaking, in
+the right. The Constable, from the standpoint of his own day, is right
+in asking Olof to keep calm and go on preaching; Olof is right in
+admitting that he had gone too far; the scholar, Vilhelm, is right when,
+in the name of youth, he demands the evolution of a new truth; and Gert
+is right in calling Olof a renegade. The individual must always become
+a renegade--forced by the necessity of natural laws; by fatigue; by
+inability to develop indefinitely, as the brain ceases to grow about the
+age of forty-five; and by the claims of actual life, which demand that
+even a reformer must live as man, mate, head of a family, and
+citizen. But those who crave that the individual continue his progress
+indefinitely are the shortsighted--particularly those who think that the
+cause must perish because the individual deserts it.... It is an open
+question, for that matter, whether Olof did not have a better chance to
+advance his cause from the pulpit of the reformed Greatchurch than he
+would have had in low-class taverns."
+
+These passages were written by Strindberg fourteen years after the
+completion of the play to which they refer. We have other evidence,
+however, that, while he might have seen things more clearly in
+retrospect, he had not been lured by the lapse of time into placing his
+characters in a light different from that in which they were conceived.
+On the list of characters forming part of the original handwritten
+manuscript of the first version of Master Olof, now preserved in the
+Public Library of Gothenburg, Sweden, the author has jotted down certain
+very significant notes opposite the more important names. Thus he has
+written opposite the name of the King: "To accomplish something in this
+world, one has to risk morality and conscience;" opposite the name
+of Olof: "He who strives to realize an idea develops greatness of
+personality--he accomplishes good by his personal example, but he is
+doomed to perish;" opposite that of Bishop Brask: "There is movement in
+whatever exists--whatever stands still must be crushed;" and opposite
+that of Gert: "He who wills more than his reason can grasp must go mad."
+
+Such was the play with which the young Strindberg returned to the
+Swedish capital in the fall of 1872; and let us remember in this
+connection, that up to the time in question no dramatic work of similar
+importance had ever been produced in Sweden. Its completion was more
+epoch-making for Sweden than that of Brand was for Norway in 1865--since
+the coming of Ibsen's first really great play was heralded by earlier
+works leading up to it, while Master Olof appeared where nobody had any
+reason to expect it. This very fact militated against its success, of
+course; it was too unexpected, and also too startlingly original, both
+in spirit and in form.
+
+At the time there was only one stage in Sweden where such a work could
+be produced--the Royal Theatre at Stockholm. To the officials of this
+state--supported institution Strindberg submitted his work--hopefully,
+as we know from his own statement. It was scornfully and ignominiously
+rejected, the main criticism being that a serious historical drama
+in prose was unthinkable. I shall make no comment whatever on that
+judgment, having in mind how several years later Edmund Gosse bewailed
+the failure of Ibsen to give a metrical form to his Emperor and
+Galilean.
+
+Strindberg's next effort concerned publication. In this respect he
+was equally unsuccessful, although as a rule it has never been very
+difficult in Sweden to find a publisher for any work of reasonable
+merit. But the play was not only too original, it was too dangerously
+radical for a country where a truly modern form of representative
+government had not been achieved until seven years earlier. Strindberg
+was at first stunned by this failure. He seriously contemplated
+giving up writing altogether. When he had recovered somewhat, he seems
+reluctantly to have faced the possibility that the fault might be found
+in the play and not in the public.
+
+So he set about to re-write it--and he did so not only once but
+repeatedly, producing in all six versions that differ more or less from
+one another. At first he clung to the prose form. Gradually he began to
+introduce verse, until finally, in 1877 or 1878, he completed an almost
+new play, where the metrical form predominated without being used
+exclusively. This version was actually published in 1878. Originally, an
+epilogue was appended to it, but this was dropped from all but a small
+part of the first edition. It is supposed to take place a number of
+years later than the fifth act, and shows Olof with his two sons
+outside the city walls of Stockholm, where they witness a miracle-play
+introducing God as the principle of darkness and Lucifer as the
+overthrown but never conquered principle of light. The bitter
+generalizations of this afterthought explain Sufficiently why it
+was excluded. To the later Strindberg--the man who wrote Advent, for
+instance--it must have seemed one of his most unforgivable offences.
+
+Although Strindberg's main object in working over his play undoubtedly
+was to obtain its production, the metrical version was not put on the
+stage until 1890, when, however, it was performed at the Royal Theatre,
+toward which its author had looked so longingly and so vainly eighteen
+years earlier. The prose version, on the other hand, was produced as
+early as 1881, at the New Theatre in Stockholm, but was not published
+until the same year, when it appeared in book form grouped with a number
+of other writings from Strindberg's earliest period.
+
+Of the five unprinted versions connecting the original prose drama
+of 1872 with the final metrical form of 1878, more or less complete
+manuscripts have been preserved, and these are now being examined in
+detail by the Swedish literary historian, Professor Karl Warburg. A
+summary analysis by Dr. John Landquist is appended to the second
+volume of the definitive edition of Strindberg's complete works (Albert
+Bonnier, Stockholm), where the epilogue to the metrical version is also
+reprinted after so many years of oblivion.
+
+"Of all the manuscripts preceding the final metrical version," says Dr.
+Landquist, "the original one, written when Strindberg was twenty-three,
+is the masterpiece. There everything is consistent; there the dialogue
+has a power and an incisiveness to which it does not attain in any of
+the unprinted manuscripts. On the contrary, these seem more youthful
+than the original, producing at times an impression of immaturity and
+uncertainty on the part of the author. Even when some isolated phrase
+strikes one as fortunate, it does not tend to strengthen the drama as
+a whole. The later versions lack that sense of inner unity and that
+audacious touch which lend fascination and power to the original
+manuscript.
+
+"Not until we reach the first metrical version (of 1876) does the full
+power of the playwright begin to reassert itself in such fashion that
+out of his untiring labors at last springs a new work, the mood of which
+differs essentially from that of the first prose version. These two
+versions--the first and the final--are the results of diametrically
+opposed methods of work. The first was written with a certainty and
+swiftness of inspiration that raised the young poet far above the
+productive powers generally characteristic of his years. The subsequent
+modifications prove merely how futile are the efforts of reason to
+improve what intuition has inspired. But gradually it seems to have
+dawned on the poet that he was about to evolve a wholly new work--that
+what he had come to aim at was quite distinct from what he had been
+aiming at in the beginning, and from that moment his artistic reasoning
+carried him onward until at last a new inspiration brought the work to
+its completion."
+
+Concerning the final metrical version, I can give only a few outstanding
+and rather superficial facts, hoping that I may some time have the
+opportunity of presenting it entire to the American public. Like the
+prose version, it has five acts, but these are not subdivided into
+scenes. It is briefer, more concentrated both in spirit and in form,
+and may be said to display a greater unity of purpose. It is more human,
+too, and less titanic. The change shows itself strikingly in a figure
+like that of Marten, who in the metrical version has become softened
+into an unconscionable but rather lovable rapscallion. The last remark
+but one made by Marten when driven from Dame Christine's deathbed by
+Olof is: "Talk to your mother, son--the two of you have so much to
+forgive each other."
+
+In strength and passion and daring, on the other hand, the final version
+falls far short of the original one, and the very fact that it is more
+logical, more carefully reasoned, tends at times to render it less
+psychologically true. Each version has its own merits and its own
+faults, and in their appeal they are so radically different that
+a choice between them must always remain meaningless except on
+temperamental grounds. At one point, however--and an important one at
+that--the metrical version seems to me the happier by far.
+
+That cry of "renegade," which, echoing from the dim recesses of the
+church, makes the prose version end on a note of perplexing irony, may
+be theatrically effective, but it can hardly be called logical. Gert has
+been disposed of. His sudden return out of the clutches of the soldiers
+is inexplicable and unwarranted. Worse still, he has only a short
+while previous been urging Olof to live on for his work. If Olof be
+a renegade, he is so upon the advice of Gert himself, and to call the
+concession made by Olof for the saving of his own life far-reaching
+enough to explain Gert's sudden change of attitude approaches
+dangerously near to quibbling. In the metrical version, on the other
+hand, the same cry of "renegade" is quite logically and suitably
+wrung from the lips of Vilhelm, the scholar who is still dreaming of
+uncompromised ideals. But it is not the final word. This comes from
+Olof, and takes the form of a brief apostrophe to the fleeing Vilhelm,
+which I think ranks with the finest passages produced by Strindberg.
+Apologetically, I offer this English version of it as a fitting close to
+my Introduction:
+
+ Olof. Oh, what a word! But though it shook the air,
+      These columns did not stir, nor fell the dome,
+      And I stand calm upon this lonely shore,
+      Where I was dropped by the receding waves--
+      For, after all, I am ashore. And now
+      A last "good luck upon the road" I send
+      To speed the daring sailor who will give
+      No ear to one that just has come to grief.
+      With sails hauled close, steer for the open sea
+      And for the far-off goal your soul desires!
+      Ere long you must fall off like all the rest,
+      Although a star your guiding landmark be
+      For in due time the stars themselves must fall!
+
+EDWIN BJORKMAN MAY 15, 1915
+
+
+
+
+MASTER OLOF
+
+
+DRAMATIS PERSONAE
+
+   OLOF PEDERSSON (Olaus Petri), generally known as MASTER OLOF.
+   GERT THE PRINTER.
+   GUSTAF ERIKSSON VASA, King of Sweden.
+   HANS BRASK, Bishop of Linkoeping.
+   MANS SOMMAR, Bishop of Straengnaes.
+   LARS SIGGESON, Lord High Constable.
+   LARS ANDERSSON (Laurentius Andreae), Lord High Chancellor.
+   LARS PEDERSSON (Laurentius Petri), brother of Master Olof.
+   HANS WINDRANK, a Master Mariner.
+   A Man from Smaland.
+   A German.
+   A Dane.
+   MARTEN and NILS, Black Friars.
+   A Tavern-keeper.
+   A Burier.
+   First Scholar.
+   Second Scholar.
+   The Sexton at St. Nicolaus (or Greatchurch).
+   A Servant of the Palace.
+   An Overseer.
+   A Townsman.
+   A Courtier.
+   DAME CHRISTINE, Olof's mother.
+   CHRISTINE, daughter of Gert the Printer.
+   A Harlot.
+   A Woman.
+   The Sexton's Wife.
+   The Abbess of St. Clara.
+   Headsman, Townsfolk, Laborers, etc.
+
+ACT I: At Straengnaes.
+
+ACTS II, III, IV, AND V: At Stockholm.
+
+
+
+
+ACT I
+
+(A Cloister opening upon a Convent Close planted with groups of trees.
+The convent church forms the right side of the quadrangle. A brick wall
+runs along the rear. Fruit trees in blossom appear above the wall.
+Olof is seated on a stone bench. Before him stand two scholars, who are
+reading their respective parts out of "The Comedy of Tobit.")
+
+First Scholar.
+
+     Now have our enemies trapped us full well.
+     Woe unto us, poor children of Israel!
+
+Second Scholar.
+
+     Yea, brother, good cause you have to make such plaint!
+     Now certes we have come upon days of great lament--
+     Our land is taken away, and so's our increase,
+     And ne'er we may look for any help or surcease.
+     It must be, as long I have both dreamt and said,
+     That the promise to Abram has been long mislaid.
+
+[Enter Lars Andersson.]
+
+Lars Andersson. What are you doing?
+
+Olof. I am playing.
+
+Lars. Playing--you?
+
+Olof. I am playing a little comedy about the children of Israel and the
+Babylonian captivity.
+
+Lars. Have you nothing better to do? Bigger work is waiting for you.
+
+Olof. I am too young.
+
+Lars. Do not say you are too young.
+
+Olof. No, for there are plenty of others who say it.
+
+Lars (takes out a roll of paper, which he opens; for a while he stands
+looking at Olof; then he begins to read) "Then the word of the Lord
+came unto Jeremiah: 'Before I formed thee in the belly I knew thee;
+and before thou camest forth out of the womb I sanctified thee, and I
+ordained thee a prophet unto the nations.'
+
+"Then said Jeremiah: 'Ah, Lord God! behold, I cannot speak, for I am a
+child.'
+
+"But the Lord said: 'Say not, I am a child; for thou shalt go to all
+that I shall send thee, and whatsoever I command thee thou shalt speak.
+For, behold, I have made thee this day a defenced city, and an iron
+pillar, and brazen walls against the whole land, against the kings of
+Judah, against the princes thereof, against the priests thereof, and
+against the people of the land. And they shall fight against thee; but
+they shall not prevail against thee; for I am with thee,' saith the
+Lord, 'to deliver thee.'"
+
+Olof (leaping to his feet). Did the Lord say that?
+
+Lars. "Thou therefore gird up thy loins and arise, and speak unto them
+all that I command thee."
+
+Olof. Why do not you go?
+
+Lars. I am too old.
+
+Olof. You are afraid!
+
+Lars. I am, for I have not the strength; but you have--and now may the
+Lord give you the faith also.
+
+Olof. Oh, once I did have the flame of faith, and it burned wondrously,
+but the monkish gang smothered it with their holy water when they were
+trying to read the devil out of my body.
+
+Lars. That was a fire of straw which had to flicker out; but now
+the Lord will light you a fire of logs by which the offspring of the
+Philistines shall be consumed. Do you know your own will, Olof?
+
+Olof. No, but I feel myself choking when I think of these poor
+people who yearn for salvation. They are crying for water--for living
+water--but there is no one who can give it to them.
+
+Lars. Tear down the crumbling old house first, you can do that. Then the
+Lord Himself will build them a new one.
+
+Olof. Then they will be without a roof over their heads for a time.
+
+Lars. They will at least get fresh air.
+
+Olof. But to rob a whole nation of its faith--they will despair.
+
+Lars. Yes, they will despair.
+
+Olof. But they will decry me, and revile me, and drag me before the
+elders.
+
+Lars. Are you afraid?
+
+Olof. No--but the offence--
+
+Lars. You were born to give offence, Olof; you were born to smite. The
+Lord will heal.
+
+Olof. I can feel the pull of the current; I am still clinging to the
+sluice-gate, but if I let go, I shall be swept away.
+
+Lars. Let go! There are more than enough who hold back.
+
+Olof. Reach out your hand to me, Lars, if I get too far into the
+whirlpool.
+
+Lars. That is not in my power, and into the whirlpool you must go, even
+if it be to perish.
+
+Olof. What storms you have raised in my soul! A moment ago I sat here
+and played in the shadow of the trees, and it was Whitsun Eve, and it
+was spring, and all was peace. And now--how can the trees be still, and
+why is there no darkness in the sky? Put your hand on my forehead,
+feel the blood surging! Do not abandon me, Lars! I see an angel coming
+towards me with a cup--she is walking across the evening sky--her path
+is blood-red, and in her hand she is carrying a cross--No, it is more
+than I avail! I will return to my peaceful valley. Let others fight; I
+will look on--No, I will follow in their wake and heal the wounded and
+whisper words of peace into the ears of the dying--Peace!--No, I want to
+fight with the rest, but in the last ranks--Why should I lead?
+
+Lars. Because you are the boldest.
+
+Olof. Not the strongest?
+
+Lars. The strong will come after you: and the strongest of all is by
+your side; it is He who summons you to battle.
+
+Olof. Help me, O Lord! I go.
+
+Lars. Amen!
+
+Olof. And will you come with me?
+
+Lars. You must go alone--with God!
+
+Olof. Why do you turn back?
+
+Lars. I was not born to be a warrior: your armorer is all that I can
+be. Your weapon is the pure Word of God, and with that you must arm
+the people. For the doors to the popish armory have been broken open at
+last, and hereafter every one calling himself a man must fight for the
+freedom of his own spirit.
+
+Olof. But where is the enemy? I am burning for battle, yet see no one to
+fight against.
+
+Lars. No need to summon them; they will come! Farewell! You may begin
+whenever you are ready, and may God be with you!
+
+Olof. Don't go. I have much more to talk with you about.
+
+Lars. Here comes the vanguard now--to arms!
+
+[Exit Lars.]
+
+(A crowd of townsmen with their women and children pass across the stage
+to the church door at the right. They stop in front of it, bare their
+heads, and make the sign of the cross.)
+
+Gert the Printer (disguised as a townsman). It's Whitsun Eve, and nobody
+has rung the vesper bell--that's very strange.
+
+A Townsman. The church door is closed. Maybe the priest is sick.
+
+Gert. Or not yet out of bed.
+
+Townsman. What do you mean?
+
+Gert. Only that he might be sick abed.
+
+Townsman. But there are a lot of acolytes, and one of them might be
+saying a mass for us in his place.
+
+Gert. They are probably too busy.
+
+Townsman. With what?
+
+Gert. That's hard to tell.
+
+Townsman. Take care, my good man! You seem to have a leaning towards
+Lutherism. Bishop Hans of Linkoeping is here, and so's the King.
+
+Gert. Is Brask in town?
+
+Townsman. Indeed he is. But I suppose we had better try the church door
+to see if it be really closed.
+
+Gert (runs up the steps and beats the church door with his fist).The
+house of God is closed this Whitsun Eve. The reverend clergy will grant
+no audience with the Lord to-day, and so the worshipful commonalty will
+have to go home and go to bed without any mass. Look here, good folk!
+Here you have a door--mere wood, of course, but that matters little, as
+it is lined with copper. Just take a look at this door! If I say that
+the Lord is living within--this being His house; and if I say that the
+bishop's diaconus, or secretarius, or canonicus, or some other fellow
+ending in 'us'--for it's only these clerical gentlemen that end in 'us';
+and if I say that some fellow of that kind has the key hanging on a nail
+in his bedroom: then I don't mean to say that he has locked up the Lord
+and put the key on a nail in his bedroom: but all I mean to say is
+that we can't get in, and that there will be no divine service for its
+to-night--for us who have toiled six days making shoes and coats--who
+have spent the whole week brewing and baking and butchering for the
+reverend clergy in order that the said clergy might have strength enough
+on the seventh day to celebrate divine service for its. Of course, I am
+not at all saying this in reproach of the right reverend members of this
+Chapter; for they, too, are nothing but human beings, you know, and it
+was only the Lord who could stand working six days and be satisfied with
+resting on the seventh.
+
+Townsman. You're blaspheming God, master townsman!
+
+Gert. Well, He can't hear it when the door is closed.
+
+A Woman. Jesu Maria! He's an Antichrist!
+
+Gert (beating at the door). Do you hear how hollow it sounds?--It is
+writ in the Bible that once upon a time the veil before the Holiest of
+Holies was rent in twain, and it must be true--but nothing is said in
+the Bible about the clerical gentlemen having sewed the veil together
+again, which, of course, is no reason why it shouldn't have been done.
+
+(The crowd makes a rush at Gert; the children begin to cry.)
+
+Townsman. Out on you, Luther! For that's what you are. We have sinned,
+and for that reason the Lord has closed His house. Can't you hear that
+the very children cry out at the sight of you, unclean spirit that you
+are?
+
+Gert. Naturally, when you step on their toes, my dear friends--
+
+Woman. Don't go near him! He has a devil!
+
+Townsman. Down with him! Down with him!
+
+Gert. Don't touch me, for here I am under the protection of the Lord.
+
+Townsman. The Lord will not protect the angel that was cast out.
+
+Gert. If the Lord won't, the Holy Church will, and I am now within her
+consecrated walls.
+
+Townsman. Get him away from the church wall!
+
+Gert. If you don't fear God, you must at least fear the ban of the Holy
+Father.
+
+Woman. Drag him away from that door! It is his unclean spirit that has
+cast a spell on the church.
+
+Townsman. That's it! The Lord won't open His church to the Devil.
+
+(The crowd is rushing at Gert again, when the Bishop's Secretary enters,
+preceded by a verger, who calls upon the people to attend.)
+
+Secretary (reading). "Whereas our cathedral city has failed in the
+payment of its tithes to this See, and whereas it continues refractory
+in regard to such payments, the Chapter has deemed it necessary, in
+accordance with its vested rights and the sanction granted by the Holy
+Curia, to close the doors of the church and to discontinue all masses
+and sacrifices until the aforesaid dereliction shall have been
+duly remedied; failure to observe which shall be at the risk of our
+displeasure. Datum vigilia assumptionis Mariae. Chapter of Straengnaes."
+[Exit.]
+
+Gert. What do you say to that, good folk?
+
+Townsman. No mass on Whitsun Eve? That's a shame!
+
+Gert. Take care! Say nothing evil of the priests; maybe they're not to
+blame.
+
+Townsman. Who is to blame, then?
+
+Gert. The Church! That invisible and omnipotent something! It is the
+Church, you see, that has closed the church. (The crowd gives evidence
+of disapproval.)
+
+Olof (who in the meantime has come forward, seizes a rope hanging
+from the bell tower, and begins to ring vespers). If your worship be
+seriously meant, I'll say mass for you.
+
+Townsman. Many thanks, Master Olof, but are you aware of what that may
+lead to?
+
+Olof. Let us fear the Lord more than men! (The crowd kneels.) Dear
+friends! Brothers and sisters in Christ Jesus! As we are now come
+together here--
+
+Townsman. Master Olof--
+
+Olof. What is it?
+
+Townsman. We want a real mass, and not any new inventions of men.
+
+Gert. It has to be in Latin, my dear Master Olof, or we can't understand
+what you say.
+
+Townsman. It has to be in the sacred tongue--or anybody might say mass.
+
+Olof. And so you shall! Everyone for himself, with God!
+
+Crowd. A Luther! A Luther! Antichrist!
+
+Townsman. Well, well, Master Olof, have you, too, so young and zealous,
+become tainted by the German devil? I am an old man, who has seen much
+of the world, and I mean well by you--Turn back while you are still
+young!--Do as we ask you and give us the old mass.
+
+Olof. No, there must be an end to that mummery. Ye shall pray in spirit
+and in truth, and not in words ye do not understand.
+
+Townsman. Don't you think, my young friend, that the Lord understands
+Latin?
+
+Gert. But Swedish He doesn't understand at all!
+
+Townsman. Master Olof, are you going to let the people depart from you
+without a word to edify them? Can't you see how they are yearning for
+their God? Make a sacrifice of your own sinful will, and don't let the
+people go from you like sheep that have no shepherd.
+
+Olof. You call my will sinful?
+
+Townsman. You are a hard man!
+
+Olof. Say not so! Do you know what the ringing of this bell will cost
+me?
+
+Townsman. Your vanity.
+
+Gert. And your peace! For it was the alarum bell that rang in the
+battle. Hey-ho, this is the start! Soon the bells of Stockholm will
+respond, and then the blood of Hus, and of Ziska, and of all the
+thousands of peasants will be on the heads of the princes and the
+papists.
+
+Woman. Woe unto us! What is he raving about?
+
+Townsman. Do you know this man, Master Olof?
+
+Olof. No.
+
+Gert. Yes, Olof, you know me. Deny me not! Are you afraid of these
+miserable creatures who do not want their own welfare--and who have
+never heard the word "freedom"?
+
+Olof. What is your name?
+
+Gert. If I told, you would all tremble. Yet you must tremble in order
+that you may wake out of your sleep. I am named the angel that was
+cast out and that is to come again ten thousand times; I am named the
+liberator that came too early; I am named Satan because I love you more
+than my own life; I have been named Luther; I have been named Hus. Now I
+am named Anabaptist!
+
+Crowd (shrink back and begin to cross themselves). Anabaptist!
+
+Gert (removing his disguise and revealing himself as much older than he
+had seemed). Do you know me now, Olof?
+
+Olof. Father Gert!
+
+Townsman. He calls him father!
+
+Crowd (drawing back from Olof and Gert). Anabaptist! Anabaptist!
+
+Woman. Don't you see, it's he who was put under the ban--
+
+Townsman. Gert the Printer--the bishop's printer--
+
+Another Townsman. The man who printed Luther!
+
+Woman. Woe unto us and to our city! Woe to our priests when they bear
+company with Antichrist!
+
+Townsman. He denies the holy baptism!
+
+Woman. He denies God. (The crowd disperses.)
+
+Olof. That was dangerous talk, Father Gert.
+
+Gert. You really think it was dangerous, Olof? Bless you for those
+words!
+
+Olof. Dangerous for you, I mean.
+
+Gert. Not for any one else?
+
+Olof. Let us hope not.
+
+Gert. You have known Luther?
+
+Olof. Indeed, I have! And now I want to carry out his work in my own
+country.
+
+Gert. Is that all?
+
+Olof. What do you mean?
+
+Gert. It is not enough! Luther is dead. He made a beginning, we have to
+go on.
+
+Olof. Whither do you want to lead me?
+
+Gert. Far, Olof, very far!
+
+Olof. I am afraid of you, Father Gert.
+
+Gert. Yes, and will be more so; for I shall take you up on a high
+mountain, and from there you shall overlook the whole world. You see,
+Olof, it is now Whitsuntide; it was at this time the Holy Ghost came
+down and filled the Apostles--nay, all humanity. The spirit of the Lord
+has descended upon me. I feel it, and for that reason they shut me up
+like one demented. But now I am free again, and now I shall speak the
+word; for now, Olof, we are standing on the mountain. Behold the people
+crawling on their knees before those two men seated on their thrones.
+The taller holds two keys in one hand and a thunderbolt in the other.
+That is the Pope. Now he hurls his thunderbolt, and a thousand souls
+pass into perdition, while the rest kiss his foot and sing Gloria
+Deo--but he who is seated on the throne turns about and smiles. Now
+behold his companion. He has a sword and at sceptre. Bow down before
+the sceptre, lest the sword smite you. When he knits his brows all the
+people tremble. (He turns toward the man on the other throne, and both
+smile.) They are two pillars of Baal. Then is heard a sound out of
+heaven as of a host muttering. "Who is grumbling?" exclaims the Pope,
+shaking his thunderbolt. "Who is muttering?"--and the Emperor shakes
+his sword. Nobody answers, but still there is grumbling in the air, and
+roaring, and a cry of "Think!" The Pope cowers, and the Emperor, turning
+pale, demands: "Who was it that cried 'Think'? Bring him here, and I
+will take his life!" The Pope shouts: "Bring him here, and I will take
+his soul!" The cry came out of heaven, and was uttered by no one. But
+still the sound of it rises; a storm wind springs up; it sweeps over the
+Alps and goes roaring across Fichtelgebirge; it stirs up the Baltic and
+echoes from the shores, and the cry is repeated a thousand times all
+over the world: "Freedom, freedom!" The Pope throws his keys into the
+sea, and the Emperor sheathes his sword, for against that cry they
+avail nothing.--Oh, Olof, you wish to smite the Pope, but you forget the
+Emperor--the Emperor, who is killing his people without counting them
+because they dare to sigh when he tramples on their chests. You want to
+smite the Pope at Rome, but, like Luther, you want to give them a new
+pope in Holy Writ. Listen! Listen! Bind not the spirits with any fetters
+whatsoever! Forget not the great Whitsunday! Forget not your great goal:
+spiritual life and spiritual freedom! Listen not to the cry of death:
+"And behold, it is all good!" For then the millennium, the kingdom of
+liberty, will never arrive--and it is that which is now beginning. (Olof
+remains silent.) Does it make you dizzy?
+
+Olof. You go too far, Gert.
+
+Gert. The day shall come when they will call me papist. Aim at the sky,
+and you will hit the forest line ahead of you.
+
+Olof. Turn back, Gert! You'll bring disaster on yourself and on the
+realm. Can't you see how the country is still shivering with the
+wound-fever caused by the last war? And you wish to sow the seeds of
+civil war. It is a godless deed!
+
+Gert. No, the knife is in the flesh now. Cut away, and the body may be
+saved.
+
+Olof. I'll denounce you as a traitor to your country.
+
+Gert. You had better not, seeing that to-day you have offended the
+Church beyond repair. Besides--
+
+Olof. Speak out, Gert. Just now you look like Satan himself!
+
+Gert. You shall have my secret: deal with it to suit yourself. The
+King leaves for Malmoe to-day, and the day after to-morrow, perchance,
+Stockholm may be in open revolt.
+
+Olof. What are you talking about?
+
+Gert. Do you know Rink and Knipperdollink?
+
+Olof (alarmed). The Anabaptists!
+
+Gert. Yes. What's so startling in that? They are nothing but a couple
+of lubberly tradesmen. A furrier and a grocer, who deny the use of
+baptizing unconscious children, and who are simple-minded enough to
+oppose the forcing of irrational creatures into deliberate perjury.
+
+Olof. That is not all.
+
+Gert. What is it, then?
+
+Olof. They are possessed.
+
+Gert. Of the spirit, yes. It is the storm wind that is crying through
+them. Beware, if you get into its path!
+
+Olof. This must be stopped. I am going to the King.
+
+Gert. We should be friends, Olof. Your mother is living in Stockholm,
+isn't she?
+
+Olof. You know it, then?
+
+Gert. Do you know that my daughter Christine is with your mother?
+
+Olof. Christine?
+
+Gert. Yes, for the present. If we win, your mother will be protected
+for my daughter's sake; and if the Catholics win, my daughter will
+be protected for your mother's sake. You are a little concerned about
+Christine, are you not?
+
+Olof. Gert, Gert, what made you so wise?
+
+Gert. The madhouse.
+
+Olof. Go away from me! You'll lead me into disaster.
+
+Gert. Yes, if you call it a disaster to be robbed of all earthly
+happiness, to be dragged into prison, to suffer poverty, to be scorned
+and reviled fur the sake of truth. If so, you are not worthy of such a
+splendid disaster. I thought you would understand me, I counted on your
+help, for in you the fire is still burning, but I see that the world is
+tempting you. Well, follow the stream and be happy!
+
+Olof. How could a man make over the age in which he is living?
+
+Gert. That's what Luther has done.
+
+Olof. How can one man check a stream?
+
+Gert. Guide it, you fool--for we are the stream. The old are stagnant
+mudpools, you don't need to check them, but don't let them rot away or
+dry up; give them an outlet, and they'll flow with the stream, too.
+
+Olof. Yes, I understand you! You have bred a thought in my soul, but
+that thought must be strangled in its birth, or it will kill me.
+
+Gert. Believe me, you will be a Daniel, and you will speak the truth
+unto princes, and they will conspire to take your life; but the Lord
+will protect you.--Now I can safely leave, for I see lightnings flash
+from your eyes and tongues of fire flickering over your head. (As he is
+leaving.) There comes the Lord of Flies: don't let him defile your pure
+soul also.
+
+Olof. Jesus help me!
+
+[Enter Bishop Brask and Bishop Sommar. Sommar approaches Olof, while
+Brask remains behind, studying the surroundings.]
+
+Sommar. Who rang vespers, Canonicus?
+
+Olof (calmly but firmly). I did.
+
+Sommar. Didn't you know the order?
+
+Olof. I was aware of the prohibition.
+
+Sommar. And you dared to defy it?
+
+Olof. Yes, when the people were let go like sheep without a shepherd, I
+wanted to keep them together.
+
+Sommar. You seem to be finding fault with our actions. That's impudence
+indeed.
+
+Olof. Truth is always impudent.
+
+Sommar. I believe, young man, that you want to play the part of an
+apostle of truth. It will bring you no thanks.
+
+Olof. All I ask is ingratitude.
+
+Sommar. Save your truths. They don't retain their value in the market
+very long.
+
+Olof (impetuously). That's advice worthy of the Father of
+Lies!--(Mildly.) I ask your pardon!
+
+Sommar. Do you know to whom you are talking?
+
+Olof (heatedly). To servus servi servorum Mans Sommar!
+
+Brask (stepping forward). Who is this man?
+
+Sommar. One of the attendants in the church.
+
+Brask. What's his name?
+
+Sommar. Olof Pedersson, alias Olaus Petri.
+
+Brask (staring hard at Olof). So you are Master Olof? (Olof bows
+and looks fixedly at Brask.) I like you. Would you care to become my
+secretary?
+
+Olof. Many thanks, Your Grace, but I have no recommendations.
+
+Brask. What have you to say, Bishop Mans?
+
+Sommar. He is said to have found much favor with Dr. Luther.
+
+Brask. So I've heard. Nothing but youthful spirits. We'll train him.
+
+Olof. I fear it is too late!
+
+Brask. A sapling can be bent.
+
+Sommar. It is not wise to raise vipers, Your Grace. Our canonicus here
+has strong leanings toward heresy, and to-day he has dared to defy our
+orders.
+
+Brask. Is that so?
+
+Sommar. On fully legal grounds we have proclaimed an interdict, and this
+man has ventured to say mass--worse than that, he has said a Lutheran
+mass, and thus stirred up the people.
+
+Brask. Take care, young man! Don't you know that the ban will fall on
+anybody who proclaims Luther?
+
+Olof. I know it, but I fear no other god than God.
+
+Brask. Consider your words. I mean well by you, and you repel me.
+
+Olof. You want to purchase my ability for the doctoring of your sick
+cause, and I am shameless enough not to sell myself.
+
+Brask. By Saint George, I think you are out of your senses!
+
+Olof. If so, don't give me the same treatment as Gert the Printer. You
+put him in a madhouse, and it made him too wise, I fear.
+
+Brask (to Bishop Sommar). Do you know Gert?
+
+Sommar. No, Your Grace.
+
+Brask. He's a lunatic who used my press to print Lutheran writings in
+place of the anti-Lutheran stuff I put into his hands. Moreover, he was
+dreaming of the Apocalypse and the Millennium. (To Olof.) Have you seen
+him?
+
+Olof. He was here awhile ago, and you can expect but little good of him.
+
+Brask. Is he at large?
+
+Olof. He'll be in Stockholm soon, and from there you'll hear of him, I
+think. Take care, my Lord Bishop!
+
+Brask. Ho, there is nothing to fear yet.
+
+Olof. The Anabaptists are in Stockholm.
+
+Brask. What do you say?
+
+Olof. The Anabaptists are in Stockholm!
+
+Brask. The Anabaptists?
+
+[Enter Gustaf Vasa suddenly.]
+
+Gustaf. What's up? The city is in a tumult, the people are marching
+through the streets crying for the mass. What's the meaning of all this?
+
+Brask. Mischief, Your Highness.
+
+Gustaf. Bishop Mans!
+
+Sommar. The city has failed to pay its tithes.
+
+Gustaf. And for that reason you refuse to hold divine service? 'Sdeath!
+
+Brask. Your Highness ought to remember--
+
+Gustaf. Answer me, Bishop Malls!
+
+Sommar. Your Highness ought to remember that matters like these, which
+fall within the jurisdiction of the Church--
+
+Gustaf. I command you to attend to your duties!
+
+Brask. The Bishops of Sweden take no orders except from their superiors,
+the Pope and the Canon Law.
+
+Gustaf (checked). I know, but if the Pope cannot always keep an eye on
+them?
+
+Brask. That's our concern.
+
+Gustaf (flares up, but controls himself at once). Your Grace is right.
+It will remain your concern.
+
+Brask. To change the subject--Stockholm is about to rise in rebellion.
+
+Gustaf. Who says so?
+
+Sommar. Our canonicus here.
+
+Gustaf. Your schoolmaster? Where is he? Oh, is it you? What's your name?
+
+Olof. Olof Pedersson.
+
+Gustaf. Master Olof! They tell the you are a heretic, and that you are
+scheming against Holy Church! That's a perilous venture!
+
+Brask. This very day he has dropped his mask by daring to show open
+defiance of the Chapter's prohibition against services, and for that
+reason we demand that Your Highness consent to have him duly punished.
+
+Gustaf. That's a matter for the Chapter and does not concern me. (To
+Olof.) But what was that you had to say about a rebellion at Stockholm?
+
+Olof. The Anabaptists!
+
+Gustaf. Is that all?
+
+Brask. Does not Your Highness know how those madmen have been carrying
+on in Germany? We suggest that Your Highness return to the city in
+person with your armed force.
+
+Gustaf. That's a matter in which I suit myself!
+
+Brask. But civil war--
+
+Gustaf. That's _my_ concern! (To Olof.) Olof, I appoint you to the
+clerkship of our court-house at Stockholm. Get over there at once. Speak
+to the people. I put my trust in you!
+
+Brask. For the country's sake I ask Your Highness to consider the
+futility of wasting speech on madmen.
+
+Gustaf. Souls are not controlled by swords. Bear that in mind, Your
+Lordships.
+
+Brask. The Church has never--
+
+Gustaf. Nor by keys! (To Olof.) Go to my chancellor, and he will give
+you your appointment.
+
+Brask. You had better wait a moment, canonicus.
+
+Gustaf. Our secretary will not put your orders ahead of mine.
+
+Brask. The rights of the Church must be assured first of all. Olof
+Pedersson--
+
+Gustaf (correcting him). Secretary--
+
+Brask. Secretary Olof Pedersson cannot leave this city until the Chapter
+has pronounced its verdict.
+
+Gustaf. The Chapter must try the case before it can pronounce a verdict.
+
+Brask. That's our concern.
+
+Gustaf. It is not your concern, Bishop Brask. The Bishop of Linkoeping
+cannot sit in judgment on a canonicus at Straengnaes. Speak for yourself,
+Bishop Sommar.
+
+Sommar. After what has just occurred--h'm!
+
+Brask. All further arguments would seem superfluous.
+
+Gustaf. You had better be silent, Bishop Brask, or leave us, as I am
+talking privately to Bishop Sommar--privately!--Well, speak up, Bishop
+Mans!
+
+Sommar. I cannot see but--that--as His Grace, the Bishop of Linkoeping--
+
+Gustaf. We are talking of Master Olof now. Your Lordships will have to
+postpone the trial. Be kind enough to leave us.
+
+[Exeunt Bishops.]
+
+Gustaf (to Olof). Will you be my man?
+
+Olof. Your Highness' secretary?
+
+Gustaf. No, my right hand--on the condition that for the present the
+left hand shall not know what the right is doing. Go to Stockholm.
+
+Olof. The Chapter will demand my surrender and ban me.
+
+Gustaf. Before they get to that point you may fall back on me, but until
+then--stand on your own feet as far as you can.
+
+Olof. What is Your Highness' will?
+
+Gustaf. Talk to those fanatics in Stockholm.
+
+Olof. And then?
+
+Gustaf. Oh, that's a long way off. I don't dare to think so far
+yet.--Let them preach. It can't hurt those sottish spirits to hear a
+new word, even if it be not all true. But there must be no violence; for
+then the sword will join in the game. Farewell, Olof! [Exit.]
+
+Olof (alone). So the Emperor won't be friends with the Pope!
+
+(The two scholars, who have been waiting among the trees in the
+background, come forward.)
+
+First Scholar. Shall we go on with the play, Master Olof?
+
+Olof. No, children, there will be no more playing.
+
+First Scholar. Are you going to leave us, Master Olof?
+
+Olof. Yes, and probably forever.
+
+First Scholar. Can't you stay over Whitsuntide, so that we can perform
+our comedy?
+
+Second Scholar. And so that I can play the Angel Gabriel?
+
+First Scholar. Please do as we ask you, Master Olof! You are the only
+one who has been nice to us and spared us those terrible fasts.
+
+Second Scholar. Oh, don't go away from us, Master Olof!
+
+Olof. You don't know what you are asking, children. The day will come
+when you shall thank the Lord that I did go away from you.--Oh, no,
+I hope such a day will never come!--But let us make our leave-taking
+brief. Good-bye, Nils! Good-bye, Vilhelm!
+
+(He embraces them, and they kiss his hand. In the meantime Lars
+Andersson has entered and is watching the group closely.)
+
+First Scholar. Won't you ever come back, Master Olof?
+
+Lars (coming forward). Are you ready to start now?
+
+Olof (to the scholars). No, I shall never come back.
+
+Scholars (as they go out). Good-bye, Master Olof, and don't forget us!
+(Olof stands looking after them.)
+
+Lars. I have seen the King.
+
+Olof (absent-mindedly). Have you?
+
+Lars. Do you know what he said?
+
+Olof. No.
+
+Lars. "I have got a harrier to raise the game; now it remains to be seen
+whether he will come back when I whistle for him!"
+
+Olof. Look at them--playing there among the graves, and picking flowers,
+and singing the songs of Whitsuntide.
+
+Lars (taking hold of Olof's arm). Child!
+
+Olof (with a start). What did you say?
+
+Lars. I thought you had laid your hand so firmly on the plough handle
+to-day that there could be no question of looking back. (Olof waves his
+hand to the scholars.) Are you still dreaming?
+
+Olof. It was the last bright morning dream that passed away from me.
+Pardon me--I am awake now!
+
+[Exeunt toward the right. Then they are nearly out, Olof turns for a
+last look at the scholars. These have disappeared in the meantime, and
+in their place appear the two Black Friars, Marten and Nils. On seeing
+them, Olof utters a startled cry and puts one hand to his forehead. Lars
+drags him out.]
+
+
+
+
+ACT II
+
+SCENE 1
+
+(A Room in the Foundation Wall of the Church of St. Nicolaus at
+Stockholm (generally known as Greatchurch), used as a beer-shop. A bar
+full of pots and mugs occupies the background. To the right of the bar
+stands a table, back of which appears an iron door. Two disguised friars
+(Marten and Nils) are seated at this table drinking beer. The other
+tables are surrounded by German mercenaries, peasants, and sailors.
+The door to the street is at the right. A fiddler is seated on top of
+a barrel. The soldiers are throwing dice. All are drunk and noisy. Hans
+Windrank, a man from Smaland, a German tradesman, and a Dane are seated
+together at one of the tables.)
+
+German (to the Dane). So you defend a bloodthirsty brute like Christian?
+
+Dane. Oh, mercy, he's human, isn't he?
+
+German. Not, he's a monster! A bloodthirsty brute! A treacherous,
+cowardly Dane!
+
+Dane. Zounds! But you'd better not talk of blood. Do you remember the
+massacre on Kaeppling Island, when the Germans--
+
+Windrank. Listen to me, good Sirs! Let's be friends now, and have some
+fun, and I'll tell you about Americky.
+
+German. Are you going to blame us of Luebeck for what the Germans did?
+
+Dane. Oh, mercy, I was talking of the Germans only--
+
+Windrank. Listen, good Sirs, what's the use of quarrelling? (To the
+Tavern-keeper.) Four noggins of gin! Now let's be calm and agreeable,
+and I'll tell you of Americky. (They are served.)
+
+German (sipping). A noble drink! Think of it, good Sirs, how everything
+is advancing. To-day the grain is growing in the field--
+
+Windrank. And to-morrow it's made into wine. I wonder who first found
+out how it's done?
+
+German. Beg your pardon, but that's a German invention. I call it
+invention, because you discover Americky.
+
+Windrank. And the Germans never make any discoveries?
+
+German. 'Sdeath!
+
+Windrank. Now, now! You're no German, you said.
+
+Dane (to the German). Can you tell the who invented the story that the
+Swedes got their present king from the Germans? (General laughter.)
+
+German. It was we of Luebeck what gave Sweden a liberator when she was on
+the verge of ruin.
+
+Windrank. Here's to the King!
+
+Dane. Here's to Luebeck!
+
+German (flattered). Really I don't know how to--
+
+Windrank. Why, you aren't the King!
+
+German. Beg your pardon, but it was my Danish brother's--
+
+Dane. How can you be of Luebeck when you are a citizen of Stockholm?
+
+Windrank (to the Man from Smaland). Why won't our silent brother drink
+at all?
+
+Man from Smaland. I'll drink your corn-juice, but when it comes to the
+King's health, I do like this! (He crushes the tin cup and throws it on
+the floor.)
+
+Windrank (groping with one hand for his sheath knife.) You won't drink
+the King's health?
+
+Man from Smaland. I've been drinking the cup he offered me so long that
+I don't care to drink his health any longer.
+
+Windrank. 'Sblood!
+
+German (eagerly). Hush, hush! Let's hear what he's got to say.
+
+Dane (in the same way). Mercy, yes!
+
+A Man from Smaland. The Lord help me when I get home again!
+
+Windrank (sentimentally). What is it, my dear man? Why do you look so
+sad? Do you need money? Look here, now! (He pulls out his purse.) I've
+half my wages left. What's the matter with you?
+
+Man from Smaland. Don't let us talk about it. More gin! Gin here! I've
+money, too. Do you see? Gold! (The liquor is served). It isn't mine, but
+I'll spend it on drink to the last farthing, and you'll please help me.
+
+Windrank. And yet it isn't your money--how can you do that?
+
+German. Who's wronged you, my dear fellow? I can see that you have fared
+badly.
+
+A Man from Smaland I am ruined! You see, I got two hundred oxen on
+trust, and when I came to Stockholm the King's agent took charge of
+the whole business, and he said I couldn't sell them for more than he
+allowed. It's the King that fixes the price on oxen--it's the King that
+has ruined me.
+
+German. You don't say!
+
+Man from Smaland. Oh, I know a lot more. He means to take the
+priests and the monks away from us in order to give everything to the
+gentlefolk.
+
+Dane. To the gentlefolk?
+
+Man from Smaland. Exactly! I wish King Christian--God bless him!--had
+cut off a few more heads.
+
+Windrank. Well, is the King like that? I thought he had those noble
+fellows by the ear.
+
+Man from Smaland. He? No, he lets them be born with the right to cut
+oak on my ground, if I had any. For I did have a patch of land once, you
+see, but then came a lord who said that my great-grandmother had taken
+it all in loan from his great-grandfather, and so there was an end to
+that story.
+
+German. Why, is the King like that? I would never have believed it.
+
+Man from Smaland. Indeed he is! Those high-born brats run around with
+their guns in our woods and pick off the deer out of sheer mischief, but
+if one of us peasants were dying from hunger and took a shot at one of
+the beasts--well, then he wouldn't have to starve to death, for they'd
+hang him--but not to an oak--Lord, no! That would be a shame for such
+a royal tree. No, just to an ordinary pine. The pine, you see, has no
+crown, and that's why it isn't royal--and that's why the old song says:
+
+            The peasants we hanged in lines
+            From the tops of the tallest pities.
+
+It has nothing to say about crowns, mind you.
+
+German. But the pine carries its head high just the same, and its back
+is straight.
+
+Man from Smaland. Drink, good Sirs! You're right welcome to 't. It's a
+blessed drink. If only I didn't have wife and children at home! Oh, my,
+my, my! But that's all one! Oh, I know a lot more, but I know how to
+keep it to myself, too.
+
+Windrank. What do you know?
+
+German. Maybe it's something diverting?
+
+Man from Smaland. You see--if you counted all the pines of Smaland, I
+think you'd find a whole lot more of them than of oaks.
+
+German. You think so?
+
+Windrank. I don't like you to talk badly of the King. I don't know what
+he is doing or saying, and it isn't my business either, but I know he
+takes good care of the shipping trade. Yes, it's he who has put ships
+on the Spanish trade, and who has made me a skipper, and so I've got no
+fault to find with him.
+
+German. He has done it out of sheer deviltry, just to hurt the trade of
+Luebeck--of Luebeck, to which he owes such a great debt!
+
+Man from Smaland. Well, he'll get what he deserves! A steer doesn't lose
+his horns when you make an ox of him. Many thanks for your company. Now
+I've got to go.
+
+German. Oh, no! Just one more noggin--and then we can talk a little
+more.
+
+Man from Smaland. No, thanks, though I'm sure it's good of you, but
+that's all I dare take, for otherwise I fear this will end badly. I've
+wife and children at home, you see, and now I'm going home--to tell them
+we're ruined--no--I don't dare to--I'm much obliged, Mr. German--let's
+drink some more.
+
+German. That's right! (They drink.)
+
+Man from Smaland (emptying his cup and jumping up). Oh, damn the bitter
+stuff! [Exit, staggering.]
+
+German (to the Dane). O Lord--when that fellow wakes up!
+
+(The Dane nods assent. The noise has been steadily increasing. The
+fiddler is playing. Then the organ begins to play in the church.)
+
+Windrank. It's strange, I think, that the King lets them have a
+drinkshop in the church wall.
+
+German. Does it hurt your conscience, skipper? The King doesn't know it,
+you see.
+
+Windrank. But they don't go together, the organ music and the singing in
+here. I've always been a God-fearing man, ever since I was at home.
+
+German (ironically). Happy the man brought up in that way! You had a
+mother--
+
+Windrank (moved). Yes--yes!
+
+German. Who tucked you up nights and taught you to say: "Now I lay me
+down to sleep."
+
+Windrank. That's it!
+
+German. And a fine woman she was!
+
+Windrank (on whom the drink is beginning to show its effect.) Oh, if you
+only knew!
+
+German. The Lord has heard her prayers. You're weeping. So you must be a
+good man.
+
+Dane. Dear me!
+
+German. If your mother could only see you now--with those tears in your
+eyes!
+
+Windrank. Oh, I know I'm a poor miserable sinner--I know it! But I tell
+you--I've got a heart, damn it! Just let a poor wretch come and tell me
+he is hungry, and I'll take off my own shirt and give it to him.
+
+German. How about another drink?
+
+Windrank. No, I don't think so.
+
+(Several blows are struck on the iron door from the outside, causing
+general excitement.)
+
+Windrank. God-a-mercy!
+
+German. Don't get scared. That's not the gate of heaven.
+
+Windrank. I'll never drink another drop--I vow and swear!
+
+German (to the Dane). What a blessed drink gin must be, seeing it can
+move a rogue like that to sentimentality--nay, even to thoughts of
+sobriety.
+
+Dane. You're right. There is nothing like it.
+
+German. It opens the heart wide and closes the head. Which means that it
+makes good people of us, for those are called good, you know, who have
+much heart and little head.
+
+Dane. I'd go still farther. Gin makes us religious. For it kills reason,
+and reason is the rock that keeps religion from entering our hearts.
+
+German. Most holy is gin! Strange that--
+
+Dane. You need say no more!
+
+(More blows are struck on the iron door.)
+
+Windrank (who has fallen asleep, is awakened by the blows). Help! I die!
+
+German. What a pity to lose such a sweet soul!
+
+(The door is pushed open so that the table at which Marten and Nils are
+seated is upset together with the mugs and cups on it. A woman wearing
+a red and black skirt, with a nun's veil thrown over her head, comes
+running into the room. For a moment Gert can be seen in the doorway
+behind her, but the door is immediately closed again.)
+
+Harlot (with a startled glance at her surroundings). Save me! The people
+want to kill me!
+
+A German Mercenary. A harlot under a nun's veil! Ha-ha-ha! (General
+laughter.)
+
+Marten (making the sign of the cross). A harlot! Who dares to bring her
+into this respectable company? Master taverner, take her out of here, or
+she'll hurt the good name of the place and the sanctity of the church.
+
+Harlot. Will nobody here save me? (In the meantime the tavern-keeper has
+seized her by the arm to lead her into the street.) Don't give me into
+the hands of that furious mob! I wanted to steal into the Lord's house
+that I might share in His grace--I wanted to start a new life--but the
+monks drove me out and set the people on me--until Father Gert came and
+saved me.
+
+Marten. You can hear for yourselves. She has polluted the Lord's temple.
+She wants to hide the garment of shame beneath the veil of sanctity.
+
+German. And there isn't enough of the veil.
+
+Marten (approaching the woman to tear the veil from her face). Off with
+the mask, and let your abomination be seen by all! (He draws back when
+he catches sight of her face.)
+
+Harlot. So it's you, Marten--you murderer!
+
+German. Old chums!
+
+Marten. That's a shameless lie! I never have seen her before. I am
+Brother Marten, of the Dominicans, and Brother Nils here can be my
+witness.
+
+Nils (intoxicated). I can testify--that Brother Marten has never seen
+this woman.
+
+Harlot. And yet it was you, Nils, who showed me Marten's letter of
+absolution when I was driven out of the convent and he was permitted to
+stay.
+
+Nils. Yes--come to think of it!
+
+Marten (in a rage, pulling Nils by the sleeve). You're lying--you, too!
+Can't you see he is drunk?
+
+German. My dear folks, I can testify that the reverend brother is drunk,
+and that's why he is lying!
+
+Crowd (with signs of disgust). A drunken priest!
+
+German. Well, booze is absolution for lying. Isn't that so, Father
+Marten?
+
+Tavern-keeper. Really, I can't let my house be the meeting-place for
+any kind of disturbance. If this goes on, I'll lose my customers and
+get hauled before the Chapter. Won't you please take away that miserable
+creature who's causing all this noise?
+
+Marten. Take her out, or I'll have you all banned! Don't you know that
+we are now within the consecrated walls of the church, although the
+Chapter allows this outhouse to be used for the material refreshment of
+travellers?
+
+German. Surely this room is holy, good folk, and surely the Lord doth
+dwell here.
+
+(The crowd begins to drag the Harlot toward the street door.)
+
+Harlot. Jesus Christ, help me!
+
+[Enter Olof. He appears in the door, and pushes through the crowd until
+he reaches the Harlot, whose hand he takes so that he can pull her away
+from the drunken men about her.]
+
+Olof. Answer me--who is this woman?
+
+Marten. She's no woman.
+
+Olof. What do you mean?
+
+Marten. She is no man either, although she's disguised.
+
+Olof. "She," you say--and yet not a woman?
+
+Marten. She's a harlot.
+
+Olof (shocked, drops the woman's hand). A harlot!
+
+German. Don't let go of her, Master Olof, or she'll run away.
+
+Olof. Why are you laying hands on her? What is her crime?
+
+German. Going to church.
+
+Olof. I see! (He looks around.)
+
+Marten. What are you looking for?
+
+Olof (catching sight of Marten). A priest!
+
+Marten. I am a Black Friar.
+
+Olof. Yes, I guessed that much. So it's you who have incited the people
+against her?
+
+Marten. I am protecting the church from foulness and trying to keep it
+free of vice. She is a banned woman, who has been trafficking with her
+own body, which should be a temple of the Lord. (The woman kneels before
+Olof.)
+
+Olof (taking her by the hand). But I, Dominican, dare to take her hand
+and match her against you. She has sold her body, you say--how many
+souls have you bought?--I am also a priest--Nay, I am a man, for I
+am not presumptuous enough to put a lock on God's own house, and as
+a sinful human creature I hold out my hand to my fellow-creature, who
+cannot be pure either. Let him who is without sin step forward and cast
+the first stone.--Step forward, Brother Marten, you angel of light, who
+have donned the black garments of innocence and shaved your hair so
+that no one may see how you have grown gray in sin! Or have you no stone
+ready, perhaps? Alas for you, then! What have you done with those
+you were to hand the people when they were crying for bread? Have you
+already given them all away?--Step forward, you highly respectable
+citizen. (To Windrank, who is asleep on the floor.) You, who are
+sleeping the sleep of a brute, why don't you wake up and fling your
+knife at her?--Do you see how he is blushing? Can it be from shame at
+the bad company you have brought him into, or from carnal desire? (The
+crowd mutters disapprovingly.) You are muttering! Is that because you
+are ashamed of my words or of yourselves? Why don't you cast the stones?
+Oh, you haven't any. Well, open that door. Summon the people outside and
+hand this woman over to them. If you don't think fifty men have power
+enough to tear her to pieces, you maybe sure that five hundred women
+will avail. Well? You are silent?--Rise up, woman! You have been
+acquitted. Go and sin no more. But don't show yourself to the priests,
+for they will deliver you up to the women!
+
+Marten (who has tried to interrupt Olof several times, but has been held
+back by the German, now displays a document). This man, to whom you have
+been listening, is a heretic, as you may have heard from his talk,
+and he has also been t excommunicated. Here you can see! Read for
+yourselves! (He takes one of the candles from the nearest table and
+throws it on the floor.) "As this candle, that we here cast out, is
+extinguished, so shall be extinguished all his happiness and weal and
+whatsoever good may come to him from God!"
+
+Crowd (draws back, making the sign of the cross, so that Olof is left
+alone with the Harlot in the middle of the room). Anathema!
+
+Marten (to the Harlot). There you can hear how much Master Olof's
+absolution avails you.
+
+Olof (who has been taken aback for a moment). Do you still dare to
+trust my word, woman? Are you not afraid of me? Can you not hear the
+lightnings of the ban hissing around our heads? Why don't you join
+these twenty righteous ones who still remain within the refuge of Holy
+Church?--Answer me! Do you think the Lord has cast me out as these have
+done?
+
+Harlot. No!
+
+Olof (seizing the letter of excommunication). Well, then! The great
+bishop of the small city of Linkoeping has sold my soul to Satan for the
+term of my life--for farther than that his power does not reach--and he
+has done so because I bade the people seek their Lord when they had been
+prohibited from doing so! Here is the contract! As the Church, by that
+contract, has bound me to hell, so I set myself free from it (he tears
+the letter to pieces)--and from the ban of the Church, too! So help me
+God! Amen!
+
+Crowd (howling). Anathema!
+
+Marten. Down with him! At him! He is banned!
+
+Olof (placing himself in front of the Harlot). Do you hear the devils
+yelling for their victim?--Dare not to touch me!
+
+Marten. At him! Down with him!
+
+[Just as one of the mercenaries raises his weapon to strike, the
+iron door in the rear is flung open, and the Anabaptists, headed by
+Knipperdollink, come rushing in, uttering wild cries. They carry broken
+crucifixes and images of saints as well as torn vestments. All those in
+the room before are forced toward the street door.]
+
+Knipperdollink (as he pushes back the iron door and enters ahead of
+the rest). Come here, folk--here's another sanctum!--What's this? A
+drinkshop in the temple!--Look ye! Look ye--the abomination has gone so
+far that the tabernacle itself is being polluted. But I will cleanse it
+with fire. Set fire to the church and prepare a stake for the saints!
+
+Olof (stepping forward). Consider what you propose to do!
+
+Knipperdollink. Are you afraid that the beer kegs will burst from the
+heat, you Belial? Are you the popish tapster who thought it not robbery
+to build vice a chapel in the very wall of the church?
+
+Olof. I am the Secretary of the Court-House, and I command you in the
+name of the King to keep order!
+
+Knipperdollink. So you are the man whom the King has sent here to make
+war on our sacred cause? Onward, onward, ye men of God, and seize him
+first of all! Afterwards we'll cleanse the temple of the Lord from
+idolatry.
+
+Marten. Go at him, good folk, for he's a heretic and under the ban!
+
+Knipperdollink. A heretic? You are not one of the papists, then?
+
+Olof. Since they have banned me, I can no longer be of the Church.
+
+Knipperdollink. Then you are on our side? (Olof remains silent.) Answer:
+are you with us or against us?
+
+Marten. He's Olof Pedersson, the man that was sent here by the King.
+
+Knipperdollink. Are you Olof Pedersson?
+
+Olof. I am.
+
+Knipperdollink. But a heretic?
+
+Olof. I pride myself on being one.
+
+Knipperdollink. And yet take service with the King?
+
+Olof. Yes!
+
+(The Anabaptists raise an outcry and surround Olof.)
+
+[Enter Gert quickly through the door in the rear.]
+
+Gert. Hold! What are you doing?
+
+Knipperdollink. Gert!--Who is this man?
+
+Gert. One of our own. Let him go, friends! Over there you see the
+emissaries of the Devil!
+
+(He points to Marten and Nils, who flee through the street door, closely
+pursued by the Anabaptists. At the door Gert stops and turns toward
+Olof. The Harlot is crouching in a corner of the room. Windrank is still
+sleeping under one of the tables. Olof is standing in the middle of the
+floor, sunk in deep thought.)
+
+Gert (exhausted, throws himself on a bench). It's heavy work, Olof.
+
+Olof. What have you been doing?
+
+Gert. Oh, a little house-cleaning, to begin with.
+
+Olof. For which you will pay dearly.
+
+Gert. So far we have the upper hand. The whole city has been roused.
+Rink is at work in St. George's Chapel. Tell me, has the King sent you
+to oppose us?
+
+Olof. He has.
+
+Gert. That was a most sensible thing to do!
+
+Olof. To-morrow I am to preach from the new pulpit.
+
+Gert. Do you call this fulfilling your royal mission? Here you are,
+still standing with your arms folded.
+
+Olof. Come to church to-morrow with your brethren.
+
+Gert. Is it going to be an archipapal sermon?
+
+Olof. I have been put under the ban to-day.
+
+Gert (jumps up and puts his arms around Olof). God bless you, Olof! That
+is indeed the baptism of new birth!
+
+Olof. I don't understand you yet. Why do you carry on like wild beasts?
+You seem to be outraging all that is held sacred.
+
+Gert (picking up the broken image of a saint). Do you call this fellow
+holy? A St. Nicolaus, I think. Can it be possible, then, that Jesus
+Christ has come down and lived among us to no purpose, as we are still
+worshipping logs of wood? Can this be a god, which I can break to
+pieces? See!
+
+Olof. But he is sacred to the people.
+
+Gert. So was the golden calf, and so was Zeus; so were Thor and Odin,
+too. And yet they were struck down. (Catches sight of the Harlot.) Who's
+that woman? Oh, the one I tried to save by sending her in here. Tell me
+one thing, Olof. Have you been bought by the King?
+
+Olof. Leave me, Gert! I hate you!
+
+Gert. Who's that pig asleep over there?
+
+Olof. When I face you, I seem to shrink. Leave me! I want to do my own
+work, and not yours.
+
+Gert. Listen!
+
+Olof. You are trying to confuse my fate with your own.
+
+Gert. Listen!
+
+Olof. You have surrounded me with an invisible net. You have proclaimed
+me an Anabaptist. How am I going to face the King?
+
+Gert. Which king?
+
+Olof. King Gustaf!
+
+Gert. Oh, that one!--Well, good-bye, then, Olof.--So you're going to
+preach to-morrow?--Why doesn't that woman go her way?--Good-bye! [Exit.]
+
+Olof. Is that man running errands for God or for Satan?
+
+Harlot (approaches Olof and kneels before him). Let me thank you!
+
+Olof. Give thanks for God alone for having saved your soul, and don't
+think that all your sins have been expiated to-day. Try to find strength
+to live a life that will always be cursed. God has forgiven you--your
+fellow-men will never do so! (He takes her by the hand and leads her to
+the street door.)
+
+[Enter Marten through the doorway in the rear, followed by Olof's Mother
+and Christine, the daughter of Gert.]
+
+Marten. We're in the wrong place, I fear.
+
+Mother (outraged at seeing Olof and the Harlot together). Olof, Olof!
+
+Christine. Who is that woman? She looks so unhappy.
+
+Marten. Let us get away from this den of iniquity!
+
+Olof (turning and running toward the iron door, which is closed in his
+face by Marten). Mother! Mother!
+
+                            [He runs out through the other door.]
+
+     (The stage is darkened.)
+
+
+SCENE 2
+
+(The Same Room. The door to the church is opened cautiously, and The
+Sexton, who is also the organ-blower, enters warily. He carries a
+lantern and is followed by his Wife.)
+
+Sexton. Catherine dear, will you hold the lantern a moment while I put
+on the padlock?
+
+Wife. First we must have a look at all this wretchedness, Bengt dear.
+Never could I have believed that the public-house was so near to us.
+It's perfectly dreadful! Look--whole barrels full of beer!
+
+Sexton. And gin, too. Don't you smell it? It will give me a headache if
+I stay much longer.
+
+Wife. Lord have mercy, what a sinful life they must have lived in here!
+
+Sexton. Catherine dear!
+
+Wife. Yes, dear.
+
+Sexton. Do you know I am not feeling quite well. This place is so damp
+and cold.
+
+Wife. Perhaps we had better go home?
+
+Sexton. Oh, I think I must sit down and rest on the bench here.
+
+Wife. You shouldn't sit down in all this dampness and cold. Let us get
+back into the church.
+
+Sexton. No, I think it was still colder out there.
+
+Wife. You haven't a fever, have you?
+
+Sexton. I almost think I have--I'm so hot.
+
+Wife. Maybe you want something to drink?
+
+Sexton. That wouldn't be a bad thing, perhaps.
+
+Wife. I'll see if there is any water around.
+
+Sexton. Don't think you'll find any in this kind of a hole.
+
+Wife. But you can't drink beer if you have a fever.
+
+Sexton. Do you know, I think the fever has passed away. Now I'm feeling
+cold.
+
+Wife. I'll see if I can't find some small beer.
+
+Sexton. It has to be pretty strong, I think, if it's to do any good.
+There's a keg of Rostock No. 4 over there--marked A. W., don't you see?
+
+Wife (searching). I can't find it. Here's an Amsterdam No. 3.
+
+Sexton. Can't you see--up there on the fourth shelf at the right? (His
+wife continues to look.) The tap is lying to the left of it, right by
+the funnel.
+
+Wife. I don't think it's there.
+
+Sexton. Just as if I didn't know!
+
+Wife. Yes, here it is.
+
+(The Sexton gets up to help his wile and accidentally steps on
+Windrank.)
+
+Windrank (waking up). Mercy! Jesu Christ! St. Peter and St. Paul!
+Ferdinand and Isabella, and St. George and the Dragon, and all the rest!
+And ires dire glories in excellence, and deuces tecum vademecum Christ
+Jesu, and birds of a feather, and now I lay me down to sleep, and
+a child is born for you to keep--Amen! Amen!--Who's stepping on my
+windbag?
+
+Sexton (frightened). Will you please tell me whether you are a man or a
+ghost?
+
+Windrank. Man most of the time, but just now I'm a beast.
+
+Sexton. What kind of a man, if I may ask?
+
+Windrank. A shipman--which is nor reason why you should blow all the
+wind out of me.
+
+Sexton. But that's my business, you know--I blow the bellows of the big
+organ.
+
+Windrank. So it was the organ-blower who honored me--
+
+Sexton. The sexton, to put it right; but I also keep an old-clothes shop
+in the church wall.
+
+Windrank. So you're organ-blower, sexton, and shopkeeper--
+
+Sexton. In one person--without confusion or transformation--
+
+Windrank. That's a most respectable trinity.
+
+Sexton. Such things should not be made fun of!
+
+Windrank. Oh, my, my! I'm drowning! Help!
+
+Sexton. Lord, what is it?
+
+Windrank. There's a whole river coming--Ugh!
+
+Sexton. Catherine dear! Where are you, my angel? (He runs to look for
+her.) Jesu, but you must have scared my wife out of her wits. She has
+run away from the keg--and taken the tap along! Get up--up with you, and
+let us leave this godless hole!
+
+Windrank. No, my dear fellow, I'm in my element now, so I think I'll
+stay.
+
+Sexton. Goodness, the clock is striking twelve, and the ghosts will be
+coming!
+
+Windrank (jumping to his feet). That's a different story! (The Sexton
+guides Windrank toward the door.) Listen, sexton--I'm beginning to have
+strong doubts about the trinity.
+
+Sexton. Well, I declare!
+
+Windrank. It's your trinity I'm thinking of.
+
+Sexton. What do you mean, master skipper?
+
+Windrank. I think there must be four of you, after all.
+
+Sexton. Four--of whom?
+
+Windrank. How about the tapster? Shouldn't he be counted, too?
+
+Sexton. Hush, man! That's only nights.
+
+(Both stumble over the broken image of St. Nicolaus and fall down.)
+
+Windrank. Mercy! Ghosts! Jesu Maria, help!
+
+Sexton (rising and picking up the image). Well, if that isn't enough to
+make your hair stand on end! Here's St. Nicolaus broken all to pieces
+and swimming in the beer. It has come to a fine pass when divine
+things are defiled like that--I don't think the world will last much
+longer--when such things can be done in the dry tree--
+
+Windrank (having recovered). In the wet one, you mean.
+
+Sexton. Keep still, blasphemer! St. Nicolaus is my patron saint. I was
+born on his day.
+
+Windrank. That's probably why both of you like beer.
+
+Sexton. Yes, it's in the fashion now to be heretical!
+
+Windrank. It's in the air, I think, for otherwise I'm a most God-fearing
+man. But never mind, I'll have St. Nicolaus glued together for you.
+
+Sexton (calling into the church). Catherine!
+
+Windrank. Hush, hush, man! You'll make the ghosts appear!
+
+Sexton. A plague on your tongue! [Exeunt.]
+
+
+SCENE 3
+
+(The Sacristy of the Church of St. Nicolaus. There is a door leading to
+the church, and another, smaller one, leading to the pulpit. The walls
+are hung with chasubles and surplices. Priedieus and a few small chests
+are standing about. The sunlight is pouring in through a window. The
+church bells are heard ringing. Through the wall at the left can be
+heard a constant murmuring. The Sexton and his Wife enter, stop near the
+door, and pray silently.)
+
+Sexton. That's enough! Now, Catherine dear, you'd better hurry up and do
+some dusting.
+
+Wife. Oh, there's no special occasion. It's nobody but that Master Olof
+who's going to preach to-day. Really, I can't see why the Chapter allows
+it.
+
+Sexton. Because he's got permission from the King, you see.
+
+Wife. Well, well!
+
+Sexton. And then he has had a sort of basket built out from the
+wall--nothing but new-fangled tricks! It's all on account of that man
+Luther.
+
+Wife. I suppose we'll have the same kind of trouble that we had
+yesterday. I thought they were going to pull the whole church down.
+
+Sexton (carrying a glass of water up to the pulpit). I'm sure the poor
+fellow will need something to wet his whistle to-day.
+
+Wife. Well, I shouldn't bother, if I were you.
+
+Sexton (speaking from the pulpit). Catherine--here he comes!
+
+Wife. Goodness gracious, and the sermon bell hasn't rung yet! Well, I
+suppose they won't ring it for a fellow like him.
+
+[Enter Olof, looking serious and solemn. He crosses to one of the
+prie-dieus and kneels on it. The Sexton comes down from the pulpit and
+takes from the wall a surplice which he holds out to Olof.]
+
+Olof (rising). The peace of the Lord be with you!
+
+[The Wife curtseys and leaves the room. The Sexton holds out the
+vestment again.]
+
+Olof. Leave it hanging!
+
+Sexton. Don't you want any robe?
+
+Olof. No.
+
+Sexton. But it's always used. And the handkerchief?
+
+Olof. Never mind.
+
+Sexton. Well, I declare!
+
+Olof. Will you please leave me alone, my friend?
+
+Sexton. You want me to get out? But as a rule, I--
+
+Olof. Do me the favor, please!
+
+Sexton. Oh, well! Of course! But first I want to tell you that you'll
+find the missal to the right of you as you get up, and I have put in
+a stick so you'll know where to open it, and there is a glass of water
+beside the book. And you mustn't forget to turn the hour-glass, or it
+may chance you'll keep it up a little too long--
+
+Olof. Don't worry! There will be plenty of people to tell me when to
+quit.
+
+Sexton. Mercy, yes--beg your pardon! But you see, we've got our own
+customs here.
+
+Olof. Tell me, what is that depressing murmur we hear?
+
+Sexton. It's some pious brother saying prayers for a poor soul. [Exit.]
+
+Olof. "Thou therefore gird up thy loins and arise, and speak unto them
+all that I command thee."--God help me! (He drops on his knees at a
+prie-dieu; there he finds a note, which he reads.) "Don't preach to-day;
+your life is in danger."--The Tempter himself wrote that! (He tears the
+note to pieces.)
+
+[Enter Olof's Mother.]
+
+Mother. You are straying from the right path, my son.
+
+Olof. Who knows?
+
+Mother. I know! But as your mother I reach out my hand to you. Turn
+back!
+
+Olof. Where would you lead me?
+
+Mother. To godliness and virtue.
+
+Olof. If godliness and virtue are vested in papal decrees, then I fear
+it is too late.
+
+Mother. It isn't only a question of what you teach, but of how you live.
+
+Olof. I know you are thinking of my company last night, but I am too
+proud to answer you. Nor do I think it would do any good.
+
+Mother. Oh, that I should be thus rewarded for the sacrifice I made when
+I let you go out into the world and study!
+
+Olof. By heaven, your sacrifice shall not be wasted! It is you, mother,
+I have to thank for this day when at last I can stand forth with a free
+countenance and speak the words of truth.
+
+Mother. How can _you_ talk of truth, you who have made yourself a
+prophet of lies?
+
+Olof. Those are hard words, mother!
+
+Mother. Or perhaps I and my forbears have lived and worshipped and died
+in a lie?
+
+Olof. It wasn't a lie, but it has become one. When you were young,
+mother, you were right, and when I grow old--well, perhaps I may find
+myself in the wrong. One cannot keep apace with the times.
+
+Mother. I don't understand!
+
+Olof. This is my one sorrow--the greatest one of my life: that all I
+do and say with the purest purpose must appear to you a crime and
+sacrilege.
+
+Mother. I know what you mean to do, Olof--I know what error you have
+fallen into--and I cannot hope to persuade you out of it, for you know
+so much more than I do, and I am sure that the Lord will put you on the
+right path again--but I ask you to take care of your own life, so that
+you won't plunge headlong into perdition! Don't risk your life!
+
+Olof. What do you mean? They won't kill me in the pulpit, will they?
+
+Mother. Haven't you heard that Bishop Brask wants the Pope to introduce
+the law that sends all heretics to the stake?
+
+Olof. The inquisition?
+
+Mother. Yes, that's what they call it.
+
+Olof. Leave me, mother! To-day I must stand up and preach.
+
+Mother. You shall not do it.
+
+Olof. Nothing can prevent me.
+
+Mother. I have prayed to God that He would touch your heart--I'll tell
+you, but you mustn't speak of it to anybody. I am weak with age, and I
+couldn't trust my own knees, so I went to see a servant of the Lord and
+asked him, who is nearer to God, to say some prayers for your soul. He
+refused because you are under the ban. Oh, it's dreadful! May the
+Lord forgive me my sin! I bribed the pure conscience of that man with
+gold--with the Devil's own gold--just to save you!
+
+Olof. Mother, what do I hear? It can't be possible!
+
+Mother (takes Olof by the hand and leads him over to the left, close to
+the wall). Listen! Do you hear? He is praying for you now in the chapel
+next to this room.
+
+Olof. So that was the murmur I heard! Who is he?
+
+Mother. You know him--Brother Marten, of the Dominicans--
+
+Olof. You get Satan to say prayers for me!--Forgive me, mother--I thank
+you for your good intention, but--
+
+Mother (on her knees, weeping). Olof! Olof!
+
+Olof. Don't ask me! A mother's plea might tempt the angels of heaven to
+recant!--Now the hymn is ended: I must go! The people are waiting.
+
+Mother. You'll send me into my grave, Olof!
+
+Olof (passionately). The Lord will resurrect you! (Kissing her hand.)
+Don't talk to me any more--I don't know what I am saying!
+
+Mother. Listen! Listen! The people are muttering!
+
+Olof. I'm coming! I'm coming! He who protected Daniel in the lions' den
+will also protect me!
+
+(Olof ascends the stairs leading to the pulpit. Throughout the ensuing
+scenes a man's voice can be heard speaking with great power, but no
+words can be distinguished. After a while mutterings are heard, which
+change into loud cries.)
+
+[Enter Christine.]
+
+Christine. Mother, did you see him?
+
+Mother. Are you here, child? I asked you to stay at home!
+
+Christine. Why shouldn't I visit the house of the Lord? There is
+something you hide from me!
+
+Mother. Go home, Christine!
+
+Christine. May I not hear Olof preach? It's the word of God, isn't it,
+mother? (The Mother remains silent.) You don't answer? What does it
+mean? Hasn't Olof permission to preach? Why do the people out there look
+so mysterious? They were muttering when I came.
+
+Mother. Don't ask me! Go home and thank God for your ignorance!
+
+Christine. Am I a child, then, since nobody dares to tell me--
+
+Mother. Your soul is still pure, and nobody must defile it. What place
+is there for you in the battle?
+
+Christine. Battle? I thought so!
+
+Mother. Yes, here the battle rages, and so you must get out of the way.
+You know our lot when the men go to war.
+
+Christine. But let me first know what it is all about. Not to know
+anything at all makes me so unhappy. I see nothing but a dreadful
+darkness, and shadows that are moving about--Give me light, so that I
+may see clearly! Perhaps I know these ghostly shallows?
+
+Mother. You will shudder when you see who they are.
+
+Christine. It is better to shudder than to be tormented by this horrible
+calm.
+
+Mother. Don't pray for the cloud to flash forth lightning: it may
+destroy you!
+
+Christine. You frighten me! But tell me the truth--I must know--or I
+shall ask some one else.
+
+Mother. Are you firm in your decision to withdraw within the sacred
+walls of the convent?
+
+Christine. My father wishes it.
+
+Mother. You hesitate? (Christine does not answer.) There is some tie
+that holds you back.
+
+Christine. You know?
+
+Mother. I know, and tell you to break it!
+
+Christine. It will soon be impossible.
+
+Mother. I will save you, child, for you can still be saved. I will offer
+the Lord the greatest sacrifice of all if a single soul can be saved
+from perdition--my son!
+
+Christine. Olof?
+
+Mother. He's lost, I tell you, and I, his mother, have to tell you so!
+
+Christine. Lost?
+
+Mother. He is a prophet of lies. The Devil has taken possession of his
+soul.
+
+Christine (passionately). It isn't true!
+
+Mother. God grant that you are right!
+
+Christine. Why--why haven't you told me this before?--But, of course,
+it's a lie! (She goes to the door leading into the church and pushes
+it ajar.) Look at him, mother--there he is! Can that be an evil spirit
+speaking out of his mouth? Can that be a hellish flame burning in
+his eyes? Can lies be told with trembling lips? Does darkness shed
+light--can't you see the halo about his head? You are wrong! I feel
+it within me! I don't know what he preaches--I don't know what he
+denies--but he is right! He is right, and the Lord is with him!
+
+Mother. You don't know the world, my child. You don't know the tricks of
+the Devil. Beware! (She pulls Christine away from the door.) You mustn't
+listen to him. There is no strength in your soul, and he's the apostle
+of Antichrist!
+
+Christine. Who is Antichrist?
+
+Mother. He is a Luther!
+
+Christine. You have never told me who Luther is, but if Olof is his
+apostle, then Luther must be a great man.
+
+Mother. Luther is possessed of the Devil!
+
+Christine. Why didn't you tell me before? Now I can't believe you!
+
+Mother. I am telling you now--Alas, I wanted to save you from the
+world's wickedness, and so I kept you in ignorance--
+
+Christine. I don't believe you! Let me go! I must see him--I must listen
+to him--for he doesn't talk like the rest.
+
+Mother. Jesus, my Saviour! Are you, too, possessed by the unclean
+spirit?
+
+Christine (at the door). "Bind not the souls," he said--did you hear?
+"You are free, for the Lord has set you free." See how the people
+shudder at his words--now they rise up--they mutter. "You want no
+freedom--woe unto you! For that is the sin against the Holy Ghost!"
+
+[Enter Sexton.]
+
+Sexton. I don't think it's well for you to stay here any longer, my good
+ladies. The people are getting restless. This will never end well for
+Master Olof.
+
+Mother. Jesu Maria! What are you saying?
+
+Christine. Fear not! The spirit of the Lord is with him!
+
+Sexton. Well, I don't know about that, but he's a wonder at preaching.
+Old sinner that I am, I couldn't keep from crying where I was sitting in
+the organ-loft. I don't understand how it can be possible for a heretic
+and an Antichrist to talk like that. That man Luther, I must say,
+I--(Cries are heard from the church.) There, there! Now something
+dreadful is going to happen again! And to think that the King should be
+gone just now!
+
+Mother. Let us get away from here. If the Lord is with him, they can
+do him no harm. If it be the Devil--then Thy will be done, O Lord--but
+forgive him!
+
+(Cries are heard outside. Exeunt the Mother, Christine, and the Sexton.
+For a few moments the stage stands empty and Olof's voice is heard more
+clearly than before. It is interrupted by cries and the rattling of
+stones thrown at the pulpit. Christine returns alone, locks the door on
+the inside, and falls on her knees at a prie-dieu. A number of violent
+blows are directed against the door from without, while the tumult in
+the church continues to increase. Then silence is restored, as Olof
+descends from the pulpit. His forehead is bleeding and he wears a
+haggard look.)
+
+Olof (dropping into a chair without perceiving Christine). In vain! They
+will not! I take the fetters from the prisoner, and he hits me. I tell
+him he is free, and he doesn't believe me. Is that word "free" so big,
+then, that it can't be contained in a human brain? Oh, that I had one at
+least who believed--but to be alone--a fool whom no one understands--
+
+Christine (coming forward). I believe in you, Olof!
+
+Olof. Christine!
+
+Christine. _You_ are right!
+
+Olof. How do you know?
+
+Christine. I can't tell, but I believe it. I have been listening to you.
+
+Olof. And you do not curse me?
+
+Christine. You are preaching the word of God, are you not?
+
+Olof. I am!
+
+Christine. Why have we not been told these things before? Or why have
+they been told us in a language that we do not understand?
+
+Olof. Who has put those words into your mouth, girl?
+
+Christine. Who? I haven't thought of asking.
+
+Olof. Your father?
+
+Christine. He wants me to enter a convent.
+
+Olof. Has it come to that? And what is your own wish?
+
+Christine (catching sight of Olof's bleeding forehead). They have hurt
+you, Olof! For heaven's sake, let me help you!
+
+Olof (sitting down again). Have I unsettled your faith, Christine?
+
+Christine (takes the handkerchief, tears it into strips, and begins
+to dress Olof's wounds while speaking). My faith? I don't understand
+you.--Tell me, who is Luther?
+
+Olof. I mustn't tell you.
+
+Christine. Always the same answer! From my father, from your mother, and
+from yourself. Are you timid about telling me the truth, or is the truth
+really dangerous?
+
+Olof. Truth is dangerous. Can't you see? (He points to his forehead.)
+
+Christine. So you want me to be shut up in a convent cell to live a
+lifeless life in ignorance? (Olof does not reply.) You want me to weep
+away my life and my youth, and to keep on saying those endlessly long
+prayers until my soul is put to sleep? No--I won't do it, for now I am
+awake. All around me they are fighting, and suffering, and despairing.
+I have seen it, but I was to have no share in it. I was not even to look
+on, or to know the purpose of the fighting. You wanted me to be sunk in
+bestial slumber. But don't you believe me possessed of a soul, then--a
+soul that cannot be satisfied by bread or by dry prayers put into my
+mouth by others? "Bind not the spirits," you said. Oh, if you could only
+know how that word pierced me! Daylight came, and those wild cries out
+there sounded like the singing of birds in the morning--
+
+Olof. You are a woman, Christine, and not born to fight!
+
+Christine. But in the name of God, let me suffer, then! Only not be
+asleep! Don't you see that the Lord has awakened me in spite of all? You
+have never dared to tell me who Antichrist was. You have never dared
+to tell me who Luther was, and when your mother called you a Luther, I
+blessed Luther. If he be a heretic or a believer, I don't know, and
+I don't care; for no one--whether it be Luther, or the Pope, or
+Antichrist-can satisfy my immortal soul when I have no faith in the
+eternal God.
+
+Olof. Will you follow me into the battle, Christine? For you can sustain
+me, and you only!
+
+Christine. Now I am able to answer you with a frank "yes," for I know
+my own will--and I can do so without asking father first, for I am free.
+Oh, I am free!
+
+Olof. And do you know what is in store for you?
+
+Christine. I know! You will not have to shatter my mocking dreams--they
+are already gone. But you may be sure that I, too, have been dreaming of
+a knight who was to lay a kingdom at my feet and talk to me of flowers
+and love--Olof, I want to be your wife! Here is my hand! But this much
+I must tell you: that you never have been the knight of my dreams, and
+that I thank God he never came. For then he had also gone--as a dream.
+
+Olof. Christine, you want to be mine--and I will make you happy. For
+when I suffered sorrow and temptation, you were always in my mind--and
+now you shall be at my side! You were the maiden of my dreams, kept
+captive in a tower by the stern castellan--and now you are mine!
+
+Christine. Beware of dreams, Olof!
+
+(Blows are heard on the door from outside.)
+
+Olof. Who is that?
+
+Voice (outside). Gert.
+
+Olof. What will he say? My promise--
+
+Christine. Are you afraid? Shall I open?
+
+(Olof opens the door.)
+
+[Enter Gert.]
+
+Gert (starting at the sight of his daughter and Olof). Christine?--You
+have broken your promise, Olof!
+
+Olof. I have not.
+
+Gert. You lie! You have stolen my child, my one solace.
+
+Christine. Olof is not lying.
+
+Gert. You have been to church, Christine?
+
+Christine. I have heard what you didn't want me to hear.
+
+Gert. O Lord, this only joy Thou hast begrudged me!
+
+Olof. The stream that you wanted to set free takes its victims where it
+can.
+
+Gert. You have robbed me of her, of my child!
+
+Olof. Give her to me, Father Gert!
+
+Gert. Never!
+
+Olof. Is she not free?
+
+Gert. She is my child.
+
+Olof. Are you not preaching freedom? She is mine! The Lord has given her
+to me, and you cannot take her away.
+
+Gert. You are--thank God--a priest.
+
+Olof and Christine. A priest!
+
+Gert. And as such you cannot marry.
+
+Olof. And if I do?
+
+Gert. You would dare?
+
+Olof. I would.
+
+Gert. Do you want a man who is under the ban, Christine?
+
+Christine. I don't know what that means.
+
+Olof. There you see, Gert, there you see!
+
+Gert. Thy punishment is harsh, O Lord!
+
+Olof. The truth is for all.
+
+Gert. Your love is greater than mine, which was nothing but selfishness.
+God bless you! Now I stand alone! (He embraces them.) There, now! Go
+home, Christine, and set their minds at rest. I want to speak to Olof.
+(Exit Christine.) Now you belong to me.
+
+Olof. What do you mean?
+
+Gert. Kinsman!--You got my letter?
+
+Olof. It was you who advised me not to preach?
+
+Gert. Quite the contrary, although I expressed myself somewhat
+strangely.
+
+Olof. I don't understand.
+
+Gert. No--no! You are still too young, and so you need a providence. To
+a man like you one says "Let be" when one wants him to do something.
+
+Olof. Why were you and your followers not in church?
+
+Gert. None but the sick need doctors. We were busy elsewhere. You have
+done a good piece of work to-day, and I see that you have got your
+reward for it. I have set you free to-day, Olof.
+
+Olof. _You_ have?
+
+Gert. The King commanded you to quiet the rebellious, and what have you
+been doing?
+
+Olof. Now I begin to understand you, Father Gert.
+
+Gert. I am delighted! Yes, you have aroused even the calmest.
+
+Olof. So I have.
+
+Gert. What do you think the King will say to that?
+
+Olof. I shall have to face it.
+
+Gert. Good!
+
+Olof. The King will approve my actions, for he wants a reformation,
+although he does not yet dare to start one himself.
+
+Gert. You idiot!
+
+Olof. I see that you want to set me against my lawful sovereign.
+
+Gert. Tell me, how many masters do you think you can serve? (Olof makes
+no reply.) The King is here.
+
+Olof. What do you say?
+
+Gert. The King has just returned.
+
+Olof. And the Anabaptists?
+
+Gert. Locked up, of course.
+
+Olof. And you stand here so calmly?
+
+Gert. I am old now. Once I used to rage like you, but it only tired me
+out. Rink and Knipperdollink have served as my outposts. They had to
+fall, that's plain; now my work begins.
+
+(Drum-beats are heard from the street.)
+
+Olof. What is that?
+
+Gert. The royal drums that keep the captives company to prison. Come
+here and see!
+
+Olof (mounting one of the benches and looking out of the window). What
+do I see? Women and children are dragged along by the soldiers!
+
+Gert. Well, they have been throwing stones at the King's guard. Do you
+think such things can be allowed?
+
+Olof. But are madmen and sick people to be put into prison?
+
+Gert. There are two kinds of madmen. One kind is sent to the hospital
+and treated with pills and cold baths. Those of the other kind have
+their heads cut off. It is a radical treatment, but then, for a fact,
+they are rather dangerous.
+
+Olof. I'll go to the King. He cannot wish such dreadful things to
+happen.
+
+Gert. Take care of your head, Olof!
+
+Olof. Take care of your own, Father Gert!
+
+Gert. No danger in my case, for I have a warrant for the asylum.
+
+Olof. I cannot bear to see these things. I am going to the King, even if
+it cost my life. (He goes toward the door.)
+
+Gert. This is a matter not to be settled by the King. You should appeal
+to the law.
+
+Olof. The King is the law!
+
+Gert. Unfortunately!--If the horse knew his own strength, he would never
+be mad enough, as he is now, to bear the yoke. But when once in a while
+he gets his reason back and runs away from his oppressors, then they
+call him mad--Let us pray the Lord to give these poor creatures their
+reason back!
+
+
+
+
+ACT III
+
+SCENE 1
+
+(A Hall in the Royal Palace at Stockholm. In the background is a gallery
+which can be partitioned off by curtains. In elderly servant of the
+palace is pacing back and forth in the gallery.)
+
+Enter Olof.
+
+Olof. Is the King receiving to-day?
+
+Servant. Yes.
+
+Olof. Can you tell me why I have been kept waiting here in vain four
+days at a stretch?
+
+Servant. No, heavens, I know nothing at all.
+
+Olof. It seems strange that I have not been admitted.
+
+Servant. What is it about?
+
+Olof. That's none of your concern!
+
+Servant. Of course not! I understand that, but I thought I might be able
+to give some information, perhaps.
+
+Olof. Have you charge of the King's audiences?
+
+Servant. Oh, heavens, no! But you see, when a man hears as much as I do,
+he knows a little of everything. (Pause.)
+
+Olof. Do you think I shall have to wait long? (The servant pretends not
+to hear.) Do you know if the King is coming soon?
+
+Servant (with his back turned to Olof). What?
+
+Olof. Do you know to whom you are talking?
+
+Servant. No, I don't.
+
+Olof. I am the King's Secretary.
+
+Servant. Oh, mercy, are you Master Olof? I knew your father, Peter the
+Smith, for I am also from Oerebro.
+
+Olof. Well, can't you be civil in spite of that?
+
+Servant. Well, well! That's what happens when one gets on a little in
+this world--then one's humble parents are forgotten.
+
+Olof. It is possible that my father actually honored you with his
+acquaintance, but I doubt that he put you in a parent's place to me when
+he died.
+
+Servant. Well, well! I declare! It must be hard on Dame Christine! [Exit
+to the left.]
+
+[Olof is left alone for a while. Then Lars Siggesson, the Lord High
+Constable, enters from the right.]
+
+Constable (throwing his cloak to Olof without looking at him). Will the
+King be here soon?
+
+Olof (catching the cloak and throwing it on the floor). I do not know!
+
+Constable. Bring me a chair.
+
+Olof. That's not my office.
+
+Constable. I am not familiar with the instructions of the doorkeeper.
+
+Olof. I am no doorkeeper!
+
+Constable. I don't care what you are, and I don't carry with me a list
+of the menials, but you will have to be civil! (Olof remains silent.)
+Well, what about it? I think the Devil has got into you!
+
+Olof. Pardon me, but it is no part of my duty as secretary to wait on
+anybody.
+
+Constable. What? Oh, Master Olof! Why, first you sit at the door playing
+lackey, and then you drop the mask and step forth as the Lord Himself!
+And I took you to be a proud man. (He picks up his cloak and places it
+on a bench.)
+
+Olof. My Lord Constable!
+
+Constable. But, no, you are only a vain upstart! Please step forward and
+be seated, Mr. Secretary.
+
+[He points Olof to a seat and goes out into one of the side-rooms.]
+
+[Olof sits down. A young Courtier enters through the gallery and salutes
+Olof.]
+
+Courtier. Good morning, Secretary! Is nobody here yet? Well, how is
+everything in Stockholm? I have just arrived from Malmoe.
+
+Olof. Oh, everything is going wrong here.
+
+Courtier. So I have heard. The mob has been muttering as usual whenever
+the King's back is turned. And then there are those fool priests!--I beg
+your pardon, Secretary, but, of course, you are a freethinker?
+
+Olof. I don't quite understand.
+
+Courtier. Don't mind me, please. You see, I have been educated in Paris.
+Francis the First--O Saint-Sauveur!--that's a man who has extreme views.
+Do you know what he told me at a bal masque during the last carnival?
+(Olof remains silent.) "Monsieur," he said, "la religion est morte, est
+morte," he said. Which didn't keep him from attending mass.
+
+Olof. Is that so?
+
+Courtier. Do you know what he replied when I asked him why he did
+so?--"Poetry! Poetry!" he said. Oh, he is divine!
+
+Olof. What did you answer?
+
+Courtier. "Your Majesty," I said--in French, of course--"fortunate the
+land that has a king who can look so far beyond the narrow horizon
+of his own time that he perceives what the spirit of the age demands,
+without trying to urge the masses to embrace that higher view of life
+for which they will not be ready for many centuries to come!" Wasn't
+that pretty clever?
+
+Olof. Oh, yes, but I think it must have lost a great deal in being
+translated. Things of that kind should be spoken in French.
+
+Courtier (preoccupied). You are quite right.--Tell me--your _fortune_
+ought to be assured--you are so far in advance of your time?
+
+Olof. I fear I shall not get very far. My education was neglected,
+unfortunately--I studied in Germany, as you may know--and the Germans
+are not beyond religion yet.
+
+Courtier. Indeed, indeed! Can you tell me why they are making such a
+hubbub about that Reformation down there in Germany? Luther is a man of
+enlightenment--I know it--I believe it--but why shouldn't he keep it to
+himself, or at least not waste any sparks of light on the brutish herd
+to which they can be nothing but so many pearls thrown to the swine.
+If you let your eye survey the time we are living in--if you make some
+effort to follow the great currents of thought--then you will easily
+perceive the cause of that disturbed equilibrium which is now making
+itself felt in all the great civilized countries; I am not talking of
+Sweden, of course, which is not a civilized country. Can you name
+the centre of gravity--that centre which cannot be disturbed without
+everything going to pieces--the instability of which tends to upset
+everything? The name of it is--the nobility. The nobility is the
+thinking principle. The feudal system is falling--and that means the
+world. Erudition is in decay. Civilization is dying. Yes, indeed--You
+don't believe that? But if you have any historical outlook at all, you
+can see that it is so. The nobility started the Crusades. The nobility
+has done this and that and everything. Why is Germany being torn to
+pieces? Because the peasantry has risen against the nobility, thus
+cutting off its own head. Why is France safe--la France? Because France
+is one with the nobility, and the nobility is one with France--because
+those two ideas are identical, inseparable. And why, I ask again, is
+Sweden at present shaken to its nethermost foundations? Because the
+nobility has been crushed. Christian the Second was a man of genius. He
+knew how to conquer a country. He didn't cut off a leg or an arm--nay,
+he cut off the head. Well, then! Sweden must be saved, and the King
+knows how. The nobility is to be restored, and the Church is to be
+crushed. What do you say to that?
+
+Olof (rising). Nothing! (Pause.) You are a freethinker?
+
+Courtier. Of course!
+
+Olof. You don't believe, then, that Balaam's ass could talk?
+
+Courtier. Gracious, no!
+
+Olof. But I do.
+
+Courtier. Really?
+
+[Enter Lars Andersson.]
+
+Lars Andersson. The peace of the Lord be with you, Olof.
+
+Olof (embracing him). Well met, Lars!
+
+Courtier. Populace! [Exit.]
+
+Lars. Well, how do you like living here?
+
+Olof. It's so close!
+
+Lars. Somewhat!
+
+Olof. And no room overhead.
+
+Lars. That's why they find it so hard to keep their backs straight.
+
+Olof. In ten minutes I have become so much of a courtier that I know how
+to be silent when an ass is talking.
+
+Lars. There is no harm in that.
+
+Olof. What does the King think?
+
+Lars. He doesn't tell.
+
+(A number of people have begun to gather in the hall.)
+
+Olof. How does he look?
+
+Lars. Like an interrogation point followed by several exclamation marks.
+
+[Enter Bishop Brask. All give way before him. The Lord High Constable,
+who has returned in the meantime, goes to meet him and exchanges
+greetings with him. Olof salutes the Bishop, who looks surprised.]
+
+Brask (to the Constable). Is this a place for the clerks?
+
+Constable. It ought not to be, but our King is so very gracious.
+
+Brask. Condescending, you mean?
+
+Constable. Exactly.
+
+Brask. The audience is well attended to-day.
+
+Constable. Mostly formal calls occasioned by the happy return of His
+Highness.
+
+Brask. It is a pleasure, my Lord Constable, to offer His Highness our
+sincere felicitations on the happy solution of this question.
+
+Constable. It is indeed courteous in Your Grace to incur the trouble of
+such a long journey--especially at Your Grace's advanced age.
+
+Brask. Unfortunately, my health is not always to be depended upon.
+
+Constable. Is Your Grace not enjoying good health? It is hard to feel
+one's strength failing, particularly for one who occupies such an
+exalted and responsible position.
+
+Brask. You look very well, my Lord Constable.
+
+Constable. Yes, thank God! (Pause.)
+
+Brask (seating himself). Don't you think there is a draught here, my
+Lord?
+
+Constable. It seems so. Perhaps we might order the doors to be closed?
+
+Brask. No, thank you, that will not be necessary. (Pause.)
+
+Constable. The King is long in coming.
+
+Brask. Yes.
+
+Constable. Perhaps you won't find it worth your while to wait for him.
+
+Brask. Perhaps not!
+
+Constable. With your permission, I will send word to Your Grace's
+servants.
+
+Brask. As I have waited so long, I think I shall wait a little longer.
+(Pause.)
+
+Servant. His Highness!
+
+[Enter Gustaf.]
+
+Gustaf. I bid you welcome, gentlemen. (He takes a seat at a table.) If
+you will please step out into the antechamber, I will receive you one at
+a time. (All retire except Bishop Brask.) Our Lord Constable will stay.
+
+Brask. Your Highness!
+
+Gustaf (raising his voice). Sir Lars! (Brask goes out, the Constable
+remaining; pause.) Speak! What am I to do?
+
+Constable. Your Highness, the State has lost its prop, and therefore it
+is toppling over; the State has an enemy that has grown too strong for
+it. Restore the prop, which is the nobility, and crush the enemy, which
+is the Church!
+
+Gustaf. I dare not!
+
+Constable. You must, Your Highness!
+
+Gustaf. What's that?
+
+Constable. First of all: Brask is in correspondence with the Pope
+to have the inquisition established here. Luebeck is insisting on her
+shameless demands and threatens war. The treasury is empty. There is
+rebellion in every nook and corner of the country--
+
+Gustaf. That's enough! But I have the people with me.
+
+Constable. I beg your pardon--you have not. There are the Dalecarlians,
+for instance--a spoiled lot, always disputing with those of Luebeck about
+the honor of having bestowed a king on Sweden. They are ready to rebel
+on the slightest occasion, and they are coming forward with demands like
+these: "There shall be no outlandish customs used, with slittered and
+motley colored clothes, such as have of late been brought into the
+King's court."
+
+Gustaf. 'Sdeath!
+
+Constable. "Whosoever eats meat on Fridays or Saturdays shall be burned
+at the stake or otherwise made away with." And furthermore, "There
+shall be no new faith or Lutheran teachings foisted upon us." What a
+treacherous, impudent people!
+
+Gustaf. And yet there was a time when they showed themselves to be men.
+
+Constable. Well, what wonder if they carried water when their house was
+afire? How many times have they broken troth and faith? But they have
+so often heard themselves lauded that they have come to give the name of
+"old Swedish honesty" to their own brute arrogance.
+
+Gustaf. You belong to the nobility!
+
+Constable. Yes, and it is my conviction that the peasant has played out
+his part--the part of a crude force needed to drive away the enemy
+by sheer strength of arm. Crush the Church, Your Highness, for it is
+keeping the people in fetters. Seize the gold of the Church and pay the
+country's debt--and give back to the reduced nobility what the Church
+has obtained from it by dupery.
+
+Gustaf. Call in Brask.
+
+Constable. Your Highness!
+
+Gustaf. Call Bishop Brask! [Exit the Constable.]
+
+[Enter Bishop Brask.]
+
+Gustaf. Speak, Your Grace!
+
+Brask. I wish to offer our congratulations on--
+
+Gustaf. I thank Your Grace! And what more?
+
+Brask. There have been complaints from several districts, I am sorry
+to say, about unpaid loans of silver exacted from the churches by Your
+Highness.
+
+Gustaf. Which you now are trying to recover. Are all the chalices
+actually needed for communion?
+
+Brask. They are.
+
+Gustaf Let them use pewter mugs, then.
+
+Brask. Your Highness!
+
+Gustaf. Anything more?
+
+Brask. What is worse than anything else--all this heresy!
+
+Gustaf. No concern of mine! I am not the Pope.
+
+Brask. I have to warn Your Highness that the Church must look out for
+her own rights, even if doing so should bring her into conflict--
+
+Gustaf. With whom?
+
+Brask. With the State.
+
+Gustaf. Your Church can go to the devil! There, I have said it!
+
+Brask. I knew it.
+
+Gustaf. And you were only waiting for me to say so?
+
+Brask. Exactly.
+
+Gustaf. Take care! You travel with a following of two hundred men, and
+you eat from silver, when the people are living on bark.
+
+Brask. Your Highness takes too narrow a view of the matter.
+
+Gustaf. Have you heard of Luther? You are a well-informed man. What kind
+of a phenomenon is he? What have you to say of the movements that are
+now spreading throughout Europe?
+
+Brask. Progress backward! Luther is merely destined to serve as a
+purging fire for what is ancient, descended from untold ages and well
+tried, so that it may be cleansed and by the struggle urged on to
+greater victories.
+
+Gustaf. I care nothing for your learned arguments.
+
+Brask. But Your Highness is extending protection to criminals and
+interfering with the privileges of the Church; for the Church has been
+grievously wronged by Master Olof.
+
+Gustaf. Well, put him under the ban.
+
+Brask. It has been done, and yet he remains in the service of Your
+Highness.
+
+Gustaf. What more do you want done to him? Tell me? (Pause.)
+
+Brask. Furthermore, he has gone so far as to marry secretly in violation
+of the Canon Law.
+
+Gustaf. Is that so? That's quick action.
+
+Brask. It doesn't concern Your Highness? Good and well! But if he stirs
+up the people?
+
+Gustaf. Then I'll step in. Anything more?
+
+Brask (after a pause). I ask you for heaven's sake not to plunge the
+country into disaster again. It is not yet ripe for a new faith. We are
+but reeds in the wind and can be bent--but when it comes to the faith,
+or the Church--never!
+
+Gustaf (holding out his hand to the Bishop). Maybe you are right! But
+let us be enemies rather than false friends, Bishop Hans!
+
+Brask. Be it so! But do not do what you will regret. Every stone you
+tear out of the Church will be thrown at you by the people.
+
+Gustaf. Don't force me to extremes, Your Grace, for then we shall have
+the same horrible spectacle here as in Germany. For the last time: are
+you willing to make concessions if the welfare of the country is at
+stake?
+
+Brask. The Church--
+
+Gustaf. The Church comes first--very well! Good-bye!
+
+[Exit Brask. Reenter the Constable.]
+
+Gustaf. The Bishop has confirmed your statement, and that was what I
+wanted him to do. Now we shall need stone-masons who know how to tear
+down. The walls will be left, the cross may stay on the roof and the
+bell in the tower, but I will clear out the vaults. One must begin at
+the bottom!
+
+Constable. The people will think you are taking away their faith. They
+will have to be educated.
+
+Gustaf. We'll send Master Olof to preach to them.
+
+Constable. Master Olof is a dangerous man.
+
+Gustaf. But needed just now.
+
+Constable. He has carried on like the Anabaptists instead of opposing
+them.
+
+Gustaf. I know. We'll get to that later on. Send him in.
+
+Constable. Lars the Chancellor would be a better man.
+
+Gustaf. Bring them both in.
+
+Constable. Or Olof's brother, Lars Pedersson.
+
+Gustaf. No good yet. He is too soft for fighting, but his time will
+come, too. [Exit Constable.]
+
+The Constable returns with Master Olof and Lars Andersson.
+
+Gustaf (to the Chancellor). Do you want to help me, Lars?
+
+Lars. You are thinking of the Church?
+
+Gustaf. Yes, it will have to be torn down.
+
+Lars. I am not the man for that. Your Majesty had better ask Master
+Olof.
+
+Gustaf. You won't, then?
+
+Lars. I can't! But I have a weapon for you. (He hands the new
+translation of the Bible to the King.)
+
+Gustaf. Holy Writ! A good weapon, indeed! Will you wield it, Olof?
+
+Olof. With the help of God--yes!
+
+Gustaf (to Olof, after having signalled to Lars to leave). Have you
+calmed down yet, Olof? (Olof does not answer). I gave you four days to
+think it over. How have you been carrying out your task?
+
+Olof (impetuously). I have spoken to the people--
+
+Gustaf. Still in a fever! And you mean to defend those madmen named
+Anabaptists?
+
+Olof (bravely). I do!
+
+Gustaf. Steady!--You have married in a hurry?
+
+Olof. I have.
+
+Gustaf. You are under the ban?
+
+Olof. I am.
+
+Gustaf. And still as brave as ever! If you were sent to the gallows as a
+rebel with the rest, what would you say then?
+
+Olof. I should regret not being permitted to finish my task, but I
+should thank the Lord for having been allowed to do what I have done.
+
+Gustaf. That's good! Would you dare to go up to that old owl's-nest
+Upsala and tell its learned men that the Pope is not God and that he has
+nothing to do with Sweden?
+
+Olof. Only that?
+
+Gustaf. Will you tell them that the only word of God is the Bible?
+
+Olof. Must that be all?
+
+Gustaf. You are not to mention the name of Luther!
+
+Olof (after some hesitation). Then I will not go.
+
+Gustaf. Would you rather go to your death?
+
+Olof. No, but I know that my sovereign needs me.
+
+Gustaf. It isn't noble to take advantage of my misfortune, Olof. Well,
+say anything; you please, but you will have to pardon me if I take back
+a part of it afterwards.
+
+Olof. Truth isn't sold by the yard.
+
+Gustaf. 'Sdeath! (Changing tone.) Well, suit yourself!
+
+Olof (kneeling). Then I may say all that is in my mind?
+
+Gustaf. You may.
+
+Olof. Then, if I can only throw a single spark of doubt into the soul of
+this sleeping people, my life will not have been wasted.--It is to be a
+reformation, then?
+
+Gustaf (after a pause). Yes. (Pause.)
+
+Olof (timidly). And what is to become of the Anabaptists?
+
+Gustaf. Need you ask? They must die.
+
+Olof. Will Your Highness permit me one more question?
+
+Gustaf. Tell me: what do those madmen want?
+
+Olof. The sad thing is that they do not know it themselves, and if I
+were to tell you--
+
+Gustaf. Speak out!
+
+[Gert enters quickly, pretending to be insane.]
+
+Gustaf. Who are you to dare intrude here?
+
+Gert. I want most humbly to beseech Your Highness to attest the
+correctness of this document.
+
+Gustaf. Wait till you are called.
+
+Gert. Of course, I should like to, but the guards won't wait for me. I
+escaped from prison, you see, because my place wasn't there.
+
+Gustaf. Are you one of those Anabaptists?
+
+Gert. Yes, I happened to get mixed up with them, but here I have a
+certificate proving that I belong to the asylum, the third department
+for incurables, cell number seven.
+
+Gustaf (to Olof). Send word to the guard.
+
+Gert. That isn't necessary, for I want nothing but justice, and it's
+something the guard doesn't handle.
+
+Gustaf (looking hard at Gert). I suppose you have had a share in those
+outrages in the city churches?
+
+Gert. Of course, I have! No sane person could behave so madly. We wanted
+only to make a few minor alterations in the style. They seemed too low
+in the ceiling.
+
+Gustaf. What do you really want?
+
+Gert. Oh, we want a great deal, although we haven't got through with
+one-half of it yet. Yes, we want so many things and we want them so
+quickly, that our reason cannot keep pace with them, and that's why it
+has been lagging behind a little. Yes, we wish among other things to
+change the furnishings a little in the churches, and to remove the
+windows because the air seems so musty. Yes, and there is a lot more we
+want, but that will have to wait for a while.
+
+Gustaf (to Olof). That's a perilous disease--for anything else it cannot
+be.
+
+Olof. Who knows?
+
+Gustaf. Now I am tired. You'll have a fortnight in which to get ready.
+Your hand that you will help me!
+
+Olof. I will do my part.
+
+Gustaf. Give orders to have Rink and Knipperdollink sent to Malmoe.
+
+Olof. And then?
+
+Gustaf. They'll have a chance to escape. That fool over there you can
+send back to the asylum. Farewell! [Exit.]
+
+Gert (shaking his clenched fist after Gustaf). Well, are we going?
+
+Olof. Where?
+
+Gert. Home. (Olof remains silent.) You don't wish to send your
+father-in-law to the madhouse, do you, Olof?
+
+Olof. You ask me what I wish--How about my duty?
+
+Gert. Is there no duty above the royal command?
+
+Olof. Are you beginning again?
+
+Gert. What will Christine say if you put her father among madmen?
+
+Olof. Tempt me not!
+
+Gert. Do you see how difficult it is to serve the King? (Olof does not
+answer.) I won't make you unhappy, my poor boy. Here's balm for your
+conscience. (He takes out a document.)
+
+Olof. What is it?
+
+Gert. A certificate of health. You see, it is necessary to be a madman
+among sane people, and sane among mad men.
+
+Olof. How did you get it?
+
+Gert. Don't you think I deserve it?
+
+Olof. I can't tell.
+
+Gert. True enough: you don't yet dare.
+
+[Enter Servant.]
+
+Servant. Will you please go your way. They 're about to sweep.
+
+Gert. Perhaps the place has to be aired, too?
+
+Servant. Yes, indeed!
+
+Gert. Don't forget to open the windows.
+
+Servant. No, you may be sure, and it's needed, too, for we are not
+accustomed to this kind of company.
+
+Gert. Look here, old man--I carry a greeting from your father.
+
+Servant. Oh, you do?
+
+Gert. Perhaps you never knew him?
+
+Servant. Why, certainly!
+
+Gert. Do you know what he said?
+
+Servant. No.
+
+Gert. Wet the broom, he said, or you'll get the dust all over yourself.
+
+Servant. I don't understand.
+
+Gert. Well, that's your only excuse.
+
+[Exeunt Gert and Olof.]
+
+Servant. Rabble!
+
+
+SCENE 2
+
+(Olof's Study. There are windows in the background, through which the
+sun is shining into the room. Trees are visible outside. Christine is
+standing at one of the windows, watering her flowers. While doing so
+she is prattling to some birds in a cage. Olof is seated at a table,
+writing. With an impatient mien he looks up and across the room to
+Christine as if he wished her to keep quiet. This happens several times,
+until at last Christine knocks down one of the flower pots, when Olof
+taps the floor lightly with his foot.)
+
+Christine. Oh, my poor little flower! Look, Olof, four buds were broken
+off.
+
+Olof. Yes, I see.
+
+Christine. No, you don't. You must come over here.
+
+Olof. My dear, I haven't time.
+
+Christine. You haven't looked at the starlings which I bought for you
+this morning. Don't you think they sing sweetly?
+
+Olof. Rather.
+
+Christine. Rather?
+
+Olof. It's hard for me to work when they are screaming like that.
+
+Christine. They are not screaming, Olof, but you seem to be more fond of
+a night bird that does scream. Tell me, what is the meaning of the owl
+that appears on your signet ring?
+
+Olof. The owl is an ancient symbol of wisdom.
+
+Christine. I think that's stupid! Wise people don't love the darkness.
+
+Olof. The wise man hates the darkness and the night, but his keen eye
+turns night into day.
+
+Christine. Why are you always right, Olof? Can you tell me?
+
+Olof. Because I know it pleases you, my dear, to let me be in the right.
+
+Christine. Now, you are right again.--What is that you are writing?
+
+Olof. I am translating.
+
+Christine. Read a little of it to me.
+
+Olof. I don't think you could understand it.
+
+Christine. Why shouldn't I? Is it not in Swedish?
+
+Olof. Yes, but it is too abstract for you.
+
+Christine. Abstract? What does that mean?
+
+Olof. You wouldn't understand if I told you, but if you don't understand
+what I read to you, then you understand what is meant by "abstract."
+
+Christine (picking up a piece of half-finished embroidery). Go on and
+read while I work at this.
+
+Olof. Listen carefully, then, and forgive me if you find it tedious.
+
+Christine. I shall understand because I want to.
+
+Olof (reading). "Matter when considered separate from form is something
+wholly without predictability, indeterminable and indistinguishable.
+For nothing can originate out of pure non-being, but only out of the
+non-being of reality, which is synonymous with being as a possibility.
+Being in its possibility is no more non-being than is reality. For that
+reason every existence is a realized possibility. Thus matter is to
+Aristotle a much more positive substratum than to Plato, who declares it
+to be pure non-being. And thereby it becomes plain how Aristotle could
+conceive of matter in its opposition to form as a positive negativity."
+
+Christine (throwing aside her work). Stop! Why is it that I cannot
+understand that? Have I not the same mental faculties as you? I am
+ashamed, Olof, because you have such a poor creature of a wife that she
+cannot understand what you say. No, I will stick to my embroidery,
+I will clean and dust your study, I will at least learn to read your
+wishes in your eyes. I may become your slave, but never, never shall I
+be able to understand you. Oh, Olof, I am not worthy of you! Why did
+you make me your wife? You must have over-valued me in a moment of
+intoxication. Now you will regret it, and we shall both be unhappy.
+
+Olof. Christine! Don't take it like that, dear! Come and sit here by me.
+(He picks up the embroidery.) Will you believe me if I tell you that I
+couldn't possibly do a thing like this? Never in my life could I do it.
+Are you not then cleverer than I, and am I not the lesser of us two?
+
+Christine. But why can't you do it?
+
+Olof. For the same reason that you couldn't understand me a moment ago:
+I haven't learned how. And perhaps you will feel happy once more if I
+tell you that you can learn to understand this book--which, by the by,
+is not identical with me--while on the other hand, I could never learn
+to do your work.
+
+Christine. Why couldn't you?
+
+Olof. Because I am not built that way and don't want to do it.
+
+Christine. But if you wanted to?
+
+Olof. Well, there, my dear, you have my weak point. I could never want
+to do it. Believe me, you are stronger than I, for you have power over
+your own will, but I have not.
+
+Christine. Do you think I could learn to understand that book of yours?
+
+Olof. I am convinced of it. But you must not.
+
+Christine. Am I still to be kept in ignorance?
+
+Olof. No, no--understand me right! The moment you understood what I
+understand, you would cease to think of me as--
+
+Christine. A god--
+
+Olof. Let it go at that! But believe me, you would lose what now puts
+you above me--the power to control your own will--and then you would be
+less than I, and I could not respect you. Do you see? It stakes us happy
+to overvalue each other; let us keep that illusion.
+
+Christine. Now I don't understand you at all, but I must trust you,
+Olof. You are right!
+
+Olof. Please leave me alone, Christine--I beg you!
+
+Christine. Do I disturb you?
+
+Olof. There are some very serious thoughts that occupy me. You know,
+I expect something decisive to happen today. The King has abdicated
+because the people would not do what he desired. To-day I shall either
+reach my goal or have to start the fight all over again.
+
+Christine. May I not be happy to-day, Olof--on Midsummer Eve?
+
+Olof. Why should you be so very happy to-day?
+
+Christine. Why should I not--since I have been set free from slavery and
+have become your wife?
+
+Olof. Can you forgive me that my happiness is a little more sober
+because it has cost me--a mother?
+
+Christine. I know, and I feel it very deeply. But when your mother
+learns of our marriage, she will forgive you and put her curse on me.
+Whose burden will then be the heavier? However, it doesn't matter,
+because it's borne for your sake. And this much I know: that terrible
+struggles are awaiting you; that daring thoughts are growing in your
+mind; and that I can never share your struggle, never help you with
+advice, never defend you against those that vilify you--but still I must
+look on, and through it all I must go on living in my own little world,
+employing myself with petty things which you do not appreciate, but
+would miss if they were not attended to. Olof, I cannot weep with you,
+so you must help me to make you smile with me. Come down from those
+heights which I cannot attain. Leave your battles on the hilltops
+and return some time to our home. As I cannot ascend to you, you must
+descend to me for a moment. Forgive me, Olof, if I talk childishly! I
+know that you are a man sent by the Lord, and I have felt the blessing
+with which your words are fraught. But you are more than that--you are
+a man, and you are my husband--or at least ought to be. You won't fall
+from your exalted place if you put aside your solemn speech now and then
+and let the clouds pass from your forehead. You are not too great, are
+you, to look at a flower or listen to a bird? I put the flowers on your
+table, Olof, in order that they might rest your eyes--and you ordered
+the maid to take them out because they gave you a headache. I tried to
+cheer the lonely silence of your work by bringing the birds--whose
+song you call screaming. I asked you to come to dinner a while ago--you
+hadn't time. I wanted to talk to you--you hadn't time. You despise this
+little corner of reality--and yet that is what you have set aside for
+me. You don't want to lift me up to you--but try at least not to push
+me further down. I will take away everything that might disturb your
+thoughts. You shall have peace from me--and from my rubbish! (She throws
+the flowers out of the window, picks up the birdcage, and starts to
+leave.)
+
+Olof. Christine, dear child, forgive me! You don't understand me!
+
+Christine. Always the same: "You don't understand me!" Oh, I know now
+what it means. In that moment in the sacristy I matured so completely
+that I reached my second childhood at once!
+
+Olof. I'll look at your birds and prattle with your flowers, dear heart.
+
+Christine (putting aside the bird-cage). No, the time for prattle
+is gone by--from now on we shall be serious. You need not fear my
+boisterous happiness. It was only put on for your sake, and as it
+doesn't suit your sombre calling, I'll--(She bursts into tears.)
+
+Olof (putting his arms around her and kissing her.) Christine!
+Christine! You are right! Please pardon me!
+
+Christine. You gave me an unlucky gift, Olof, when you gave me freedom,
+for I don't know what to do with it. I must have some one to obey!
+
+Olof. And so you shall, but don't let us talk of it any more. Let us eat
+now--in fact, I feel quite hungry.
+
+Christine (pleased). Do you really know how to be hungry? (At that
+moment she looks out of the window and makes a gesture of dismay.) Go
+on, Olof, and I'll be with you in a moment. I only want to get things in
+a little better order in here.
+
+Olof (as he goes out). Don't let me wait so long for you as you have had
+to wait for me.
+
+(Christine folds her hands as if praying and takes up a position
+indicating that she is waiting far somebody about to enter from the
+street. Pause.)
+
+[Enter Olof's Mother. She passes Christine without looking at her.]
+
+Mother. Is Master Olof at home?
+
+Christine (who has started to meet her in a friendly way, is taken aback
+for a moment; then she answers in the same tone). No, but if you care to
+be seated, he will be here soon.
+
+Mother. Thank you! (She seats herself. Pause.) Bring me a glass of
+water. (Christine waits on her.) Now you can leave me.
+
+Christine. It is my housewifely duty to bear you company.
+
+Mother. I didn't know that the housekeeper of a priest could call
+herself a housewife.
+
+Christine. I am the wife of Olof with the sanction of the Lord. Don't
+you know that we are married?
+
+Mother. You are a harlot--that's what I know!
+
+Christine. That word I do not understand.
+
+Mother. You are the same kind of woman as she with whom Master Olof was
+talking that evening in the beer-shop.
+
+Christine. The one that looked so unhappy? Yes, I don't feel very happy.
+
+Mother. Of course not! Take yourself out of my sight! Your presence
+shames me!
+
+Christine (on her knees). For the sake of your son, don't heap abuse on
+me!
+
+Mother. With a mother's authority I command you to leave my son's house,
+the threshold of which you have defiled.
+
+Christine. As a housewife I open my door to whom I may choose to
+receive. I should have closed it to you, had I been able to guess what
+language you would use.
+
+Mother. Big words, indeed! I command you to leave!
+
+Christine. With what right do you force yourself into this house in
+order to drive me out of my own home? You have borne a son, and raised
+him--that was your duty, your mission, and you may thank your God for
+being permitted to fill that mission so well, which is a good fortune
+not granted to everybody. Now you have reached the edge of the grave.
+Why not resign yourself before the end comes? Or have you raised your
+son so poorly that he is still a child and needs your guidance? If you
+want gratitude, come and look for it, but not in this way. Or do you
+think it is the destiny of a child to sacrifice its own life merely to
+show you gratitude? His mission is calling: "Go!" And you cry to him:
+"Come to me, you ingrate!" Is he to go astray--is he to waste his
+powers, that belong to his country, to mankind--merely for the
+satisfaction of your private little selfishness? Or do you imagine
+that the fact of having borne and raised him does even entitle you to
+gratitude? Did not your life's mission and destiny lie in that? Should
+you not thank the Lord for being given such a high mission? Or did you
+do it only that you might spend the rest of your life clamoring for
+gratitude? Don't you see that by using that word "gratitude" you tear
+down all that you have built up before? And what makes you presume that
+you have rights over me? Is marriage to mean a mortgaging of my
+free will to anybody whom nature has made the mother or father of my
+husband--who unfortunately could not exist without either? You are not
+_my_ mother. My troth was not pledged to you when I took Olof as my
+husband. And I have sufficient respect for my husband not to permit
+anybody to insult him, even if it be his own mother. That's why I have
+spoken as I have!
+
+Mother. Alas, such are the fruits borne by the teachings of my son!
+
+Christine. If you choose to revile your son, it had better be in his
+presence. (She goes to the door and calls.) Olof!
+
+Mother. Such guile already!
+
+Christine. Already? It's nothing new, I think, although I didn't know I
+had it until it was needed.
+
+[Enter Olof.]
+
+Olof. Mother! I am right glad to see you!
+
+Mother. Thanks, my son--and good-bye!
+
+Olof. Are you going? What does that mean? I wish to talk to you.
+
+Mother. No need! She has said all there is to say. You will not have to
+show me the door.
+
+Olof. In God's name, mother, what are you saying? Christine, what does
+this mean?
+
+Mother (about to leave). Good-bye, Olof! This is more than I can ever
+forgive you!
+
+Olof (trying to hold her back). Stay and explain, at least!
+
+Mother. It was not worthy of you! To send her to tell me that you owe me
+nothing and need me no more! Oh, that was cruel! [Exit.]
+
+Olof. What did you say, Christine?
+
+Christine. I don't remember, because there were so many things which I
+had never dared to think, but which I must have dreamt while father kept
+me still enslaved.
+
+Olof. I don't know you any more, Christine.
+
+Christine. No, I begin to feel a little lost myself.
+
+Olof. Were you unkind to mother?
+
+Christine. I suppose I was. Does it seem to you that I have grown hard,
+Olof?
+
+Olof. Did you show her the door?
+
+Christine. Forgive me, Olof! I was not kind to her.
+
+Olof. For my sake you might have made your words a little milder. Why
+didn't you call me at once?
+
+Christine. I wished to see if I had the strength to take care of myself.
+Olof, would you sacrifice me to your mother, if she demanded it?
+
+Olof. I cannot answer such a question offhand.
+
+Christine. I'll do it in your place. It pleases you to submit willingly
+to your mother's will and wish because you are strong--and I, on the
+other hand, feel hurt by doing so, for I am weak. I will never do it!
+
+Olof. Not if I ask you?
+
+Christine. That's more than you can ask. Or would you have me hate
+her?--Tell me, Olof, what is meant by a "harlot"?
+
+Olof. You ask such strange questions.
+
+Christine. Will you please answer me?
+
+Olof. Will you forgive me if I don't?
+
+Christine. Always this unending silence! Do you not yet dare to tell me
+all? Am I to be a child forever? Then you had better put me in a nursery
+and talk baby-talk to me.
+
+Olof. It means an unfortunate woman.
+
+Christine. No, it means something more than that.
+
+Olof. Has anybody dared to use that word to you?
+
+Christine (after a pause). No.
+
+Olof. Now you are not telling the truth, Christine.
+
+Christine. I know I lie! Oh, since yesterday I have grown very wicked!
+
+Olof. You are hiding something that happened yesterday!
+
+Christine. I am--I thought that I could keep it to myself, but it has
+grown too much for me.
+
+Olof. Speak--I beg you!
+
+Christine. But you mustn't call me silly! A crowd of people pursued me
+all the way to our door and called after me that horrible word which I
+don't understand. People do not laugh at an unfortunate woman--
+
+Olof. Yes, dear, that's just what they do.
+
+Christine. I didn't understand their words, but their actions were plain
+enough to make me wicked!
+
+Olof. And yet you were so kind to me! Forgive me if I have been hard to
+you!--It is a name given by brute force to its own victims. Sooner
+or later, you'll learn more about it, but never dare to defend an
+"unfortunate woman"--for then they will throw mud at you! (A messenger
+enters and hands him a letter.) At last! (After a glance at the letter.)
+You read it to me, Christine! It is from your lips I want to hear the
+glad tidings.
+
+Christine (reading). "Young man, you have conquered! I, your enemy,
+desire to be the first to tell you so, and I address myself to you
+without any sense of humiliation because, in speaking for the new faith,
+you have wielded no weapons but those of the spirit. Whether you be
+right, I cannot tell, but I think you have deserved a piece of advice
+from an older man: stop here, for your enemies are gone! Do not wage war
+on creatures made of air, for that will lame your arm and you will die
+of dry rot. Do not put your trust in princes--is another piece of advice
+given you by a once powerful man who has now to step aside and leave to
+the Lord to settle what is to become of his prostrated Church. Johannes
+Brask." (Speaking.) You have conquered!
+
+Olof (joyfully). I thank Thee, Lord, for this hour. (Pause.) No, it
+scares me, Christine! This fortune is too great. I am too young to have
+reached the goal already. To have no more to do--oh, what a frightful
+thought! No further fighting--that would be death!
+
+Christine. Oh, rest a moment, and be happy that it is over.
+
+Olof. Can there be an end to anything? An end to such a beginning? No,
+no!--Oh, that I could begin it all anew! It wasn't the victory I wanted,
+but the fight!
+
+Christine. Olof, do not tempt the Lord! I have a feeling that much
+remains undone--very much, indeed!
+
+[Enter Courtier.]
+
+Courtier. Good-day to you, Secretary! And pleasant news! [Exit
+Christine.]
+
+Olof. Be welcome! Some of it I have heard already.
+
+Courtier. Thanks for your splendid answering of that stupid Galle. You
+went after him like a man. A little too fiercely, perhaps--not quite so
+much fire, you know! And a little venom doesn't hurt.
+
+Olof. You have news from the King?
+
+Courtier. Yes, and you shall have a brief summary of the conditions
+agreed on: First, mutual support for the resistance and punishment of
+all rebellions.
+
+Olof. Go on, if you please.
+
+Courtier. Second, the King shall have the right to take possession of
+the palaces and fortified places of the bishops, as well as to fix their
+incomes--
+
+Olof. Third--
+
+Courtier. Now comes the best of all--the principal point of the whole
+undertaking: Third, the nobility shall have the right to claim whatever
+of its properties and inheritances have fallen to churches and cloisters
+since the revision by King Carl Knutsson in 1454--
+
+Olof. And fourth?
+
+Courtier. Provided the heir can get twelve men under oath to attest his
+right of inheritance at the assizes. (He folds the document from which
+he has been reading.)
+
+Olof. Have you finished?
+
+Courtier. Yes. Isn't that pretty good?
+
+Olof. Nothing more?
+
+Courtier. Oh, there are a few minor points of no special importance.
+
+Olof. Let me hear them.
+
+Courtier (reading again). There is a fifth point about the right of
+preachers to preach the word of God, but, of course, they have had that
+all the time.
+
+Olof. Nothing more?
+
+Courtier. Yes, then comes the ordinance: a register is to be established
+showing the amount of tithes collected by all bishops, chapters, and
+canons, and the King shall have the right to prescribe--
+
+Olof. Oh, that's neither here nor there!
+
+Courtier.--how much of those may be retained, and how much shall
+be surrendered to him for the use of the Crown; furthermore, all
+Appointments to spiritual offices--and this ought to interest you--to
+spiritual offices, minor as well as major, can hereafter be made only
+with the sanction of the King, so that--
+
+Olof. Will you please read me the point dealing with the faith--
+
+Courtier. The faith--there is nothing about it. Oh, yes, let me
+see--from this day the Gospel is to be read in all schoolhouses.
+
+Olof. Is that all?
+
+Courtier. All? Oh, no, I remember! I have a special order from the King
+to you--and a most sensible one--that, as the people are stirred up over
+all these innovations, you must by no means disturb the old forms; must
+not abolish masses, holy water, nor any other usage, nor furthermore
+indulge in any reckless acts, for hereafter the King will not close his
+eyes to your escapades as he has had to do in the past, when he lacked
+power to do otherwise.
+
+Olof. I see! And the new faith which he has permitted me to preach so
+far?
+
+Courtier. It is to ripen slowly.--It will come! It will come!
+
+Olof. Is there anything more?
+
+Courtier (rising). No. If you will only keep calm now, you may go very
+far. Oh, yes--I came near forgetting the best part of all. My dear
+Pastor, permit me to congratulate you! Here is your appointment.
+Pastor of the city church, with an income of three thousand, at your
+age--indeed, you could now settle down in peace and enjoy life, even if
+you were never to get any further. It is splendid to have reached one's
+goal while still so young. I congratulate you! [Exit.]
+
+Olof (flinging the appointment on the floor). So this is all that I have
+fought and suffered for! An appointment! A royal appointment! I have
+been serving Belial instead of God! Woe be to you, false King, who have
+sold your Lord and God! Alas for me, who have sold my life and my labors
+to mammon! O God in Heaven, forgive me! (He throws himself, weeping, on
+a bench.)
+
+[Enter Christine and Gert. Christine comes forward, while Gert remains
+in the background.]
+
+Christine (picks up the appointment and reads it; then she runs to Olof,
+her face beaming). Now, Olof, I can wish you joy with a happy heart!
+(She starts to caress him, but he leaps to his feet and pushes her
+away.)
+
+Olof. Leave me alone! You, too!
+
+Gert (coming forward). Well, Olof, the faith--
+
+Olof. The lack of faith, you mean!
+
+Gert. The Pope is beaten, isn't he? Hadn't we better begin with the
+Emperor soon?
+
+Olof. We began at the wrong end.
+
+Gert. At last!
+
+Olof. You were right, Gert! I am with you now! It's war, but it must be
+open and honest.
+
+Gert. Until to-day you have been dreaming childish dreams.
+
+Olof. I know it. Now the flood is coming! Let it come! Alas for them and
+for us!
+
+Christine. Olof, for Heaven's sake, stop!
+
+Olof. Leave me, child! Here you will be drowned, or you will drag me
+down.
+
+Gert. What made you venture out in the storm, my child?
+
+[Exit Christine.]
+
+(The ringing of bells, the joyful shouting of crowds, and the sounding
+of drums and trumpets become audible.)
+
+Olof (going to the window). What has set the people shouting?
+
+Gert. The King is providing them with a maypole and music outside North
+Gate.
+
+Olof. And are they not aware that he will chasten them with swords
+instead of rods?
+
+Gert. Aware? If they were!
+
+Olof. Poor children! They dance to his piping and follow his drums to
+their death! Must all die, then, in order that one may live?
+
+Gert. No, one shall die that all may live!
+
+(Olof makes a gesture dismay and repugnance.)
+
+
+
+
+ACT IV
+
+(A Room in the House of Olof's Mother. At the right stands a bedstead
+with four posts, in which the Mother is lying sick. Christine is asleep
+on a chair. Lars Pedersson is renewing the oil of the night-lamp and
+turning the hour glass.)
+
+Lars (speaking to himself). Midnight--Now comes the critical time.
+(He goes to the bed and listens. At that moment Christine moans in her
+sleep. He crosses the room and wakens her.) Christine! (She wakes with a
+start.) Go to bed, child; I will watch.
+
+Christine. No, I will wait. I must speak to her before she dies--I think
+Olof should be here soon.
+
+Lars. It is for his sake you are watching!
+
+Christine. Yes, and you mustn't say that I have slept. Do you hear?
+
+Lars. Poor girl!--You're not happy!
+
+Christine. Who says one should be happy?
+
+Lars. Does Olof know that you are here?
+
+Christine. No, he would never permit it. He wants to keep me like the
+carved image of some saint standing on a shelf. The smaller and weaker
+he can make me, the greater is his pleasure in placing his strength at
+my feet--
+
+Mother (waking). Lars! (Christine holds back Lars and steps forward.)
+Who is that?
+
+Christine. The nurse.
+
+Mother. Christine!
+
+Christine. Do you want anything?
+
+Mother. Nothing from you.
+
+Christine. Dame Christine!
+
+Mother. Don't make my last moments more bitter. Go away from here!
+
+Lars (coming forward). What do you want, mother?
+
+Mother. Take away that woman! And bring the father confessor--I shall
+soon die.
+
+Lars. Is not your own son worthy of receiving your last confidences?
+
+Mother. No, he has done nothing to deserve them. Has Marten come yet?
+
+Lars. Marten is a bad man.
+
+Mother. O Lord, how terrible Thy punishment! My children standing
+between myself and Thee! Am I then to be denied the consolations of
+religion in my last moments? You have taken my life--do you want to
+destroy my soul, too--the soul of your mother? (She falls into a faint.)
+
+Lars. Do you hear that, Christine! What are we to do? Shall we let
+her die in the deception practised on her by a miserable wretch like
+Marten--and perhaps get her thanks for it--or shall we turn her final
+prayer into a curse? No, let them come, rather! Or what do you think,
+Christine?
+
+Christine. I dare not think at all.
+
+Lars (goes out for a moment, but returns quickly). Oh, it is horrible!
+They have fallen asleep over their dice and their tumblers. And by such
+as those my mother is to be prepared for her death!
+
+Christine. But why not tell her the truth?
+
+Lars. She won't believe it, and it is cast back on us as a lie.
+
+Mother. My son, won't you listen to your mother's last request?
+
+Lars (going out). May God forgive me!
+
+Christine. Olof would never have done that!
+
+(Lars returns with Marten and Nils, whereupon he leads Christine out of
+the room.)
+
+Marten (going up to the bed). She's sleeping.
+
+Nils (places a box on the floor, opens it, and begins to take out
+aspersorium, censer, chrismatory, palms, and candles). That means we
+can't go to work yet.
+
+Marten. If we have waited all this time, we can afford to wait a little
+longer--provided that damned priest doesn't show up.
+
+Nils. Master Olof, you mean?--Do you think that fellow out there noticed
+anything?
+
+Marten. What do I care? As soon as the old woman gives up the coin, I am
+free.
+
+Nils. You 're a pretty thorough-paced rascal, you are!
+
+Marten. Yes, but I am getting tired of it. I am beginning to long for
+peace. Do you know what life is?
+
+Nils. No.
+
+Marten. Pleasure! "The flesh was God!" Isn't that the way it's written
+somewhere?
+
+Nils. "The Word became flesh," you mean?
+
+Marten. Oh, yes--of course!
+
+Nils. You might have been it pretty big man, with your head!
+
+Marten. Yes, indeed! That's what they feared, and that's why they
+whipped the soul out of my body in the convent--for after all I had a
+soul once! But now there's nothing but body left, and now the body is
+going to have its turn.
+
+Nils. And I suppose they whipped all conscience out of you at the same
+time?
+
+Marten. Well, practically.--But now I want that recipe for spiced
+Rochelle which you were talking of when we fell asleep out there.
+
+Nils. Did I say Rochelle? I meant claret. That is, it can be either the
+one or the other. Well, you take a gallon of wine and half a pound of
+cardamom that has been well cleaned--
+
+Marten. Hush--damn you! She is moving. Out with the book!
+
+Nils (keeps on reading in an undertone during the following scene).
+
+            Aufer immensam, Deus aufer iram;
+            Et cruentatum cohibe flagellum
+            Nec scelus nostrum proferes ad aequam
+               Pendere lancem.
+
+Mother. Is that you, Marten?
+
+Marten. It's Brother Nils praying to the Holy Virgin. (Nils lights the
+censer without interrupting his reading.)
+
+Mother. What a precious boon to hear the word of the Lord in the sacred
+tongue!
+
+Marten. No sweeter sacrifice is known to God than the prayers of pious
+souls.
+
+Mother. Like the incense, my heart is set on fire with holy devotion.
+
+Marten (sprinkling her with holy water). The stains of sin are by your
+God washed off!
+
+Mother. Amen!--Marten, I am passing away--The godlessness of the King
+makes it impossible for me by earthly gifts to strengthen the Holy
+Church in her power of saving souls. You are a pious man--take my
+property and pray for me and for my children. Pray that the Almighty
+may turn their hearts away from all lies, so that some time we may meet
+again in heaven.
+
+Marten (taking the bag of money she hands him). Goodwife, your sacrifice
+is acceptable to the Lord, and for your sake my prayers will be heard by
+God.
+
+Mother. I want to sleep awhile in order to be strong enough to receive
+the last sacrament.
+
+Marten. No one shall disturb your final moments--not even those who were
+your children once.
+
+Mother. It seems cruel, Father Marten, but it's the will of God. (She
+falls asleep; Marten and Nils withdraw from the bed.)
+
+Marten (opening the bag and kissing the gold coins). What stores of
+pleasure lie hidden beneath the hardness of this gold--Ah!
+
+Nils. Are we going now?
+
+Marten. Oh, we might, as our errand here is done, but I think it would
+be a pity to let the old woman die unsaved.
+
+Nils. Unsaved?
+
+Marten. Yes!
+
+Nils. Do you believe in that?
+
+Marten. It's hard to know what one is to believe nowadays. One dies
+happily in this faith, and another in that. All assert that they have
+found the truth.
+
+Nils. And if you were to die now, Marten?
+
+Marten. That's out of the question!
+
+Nils. But if?
+
+Marten. Then I suppose I should go to heaven like the rest. But I should
+prefer to settle a small account with Master Olof first. You see, there
+is one pleasure that surpasses all the rest, and that's the pleasure of
+revenge.
+
+Nils. What has he done to you?
+
+Marten. He has dared to see through me; he has exposed me; he can read
+what I am thinking--Oh!
+
+Nils. And that's why you hate him?
+
+Marten. Isn't that enough? (Somebody is heard knocking on the door
+leading to the street.) Somebody is coming! Read, damn you!
+
+(Nils begins to drone out the same verse as before. The sound of a
+key being inserted in the lock is heard. The door is opened from the
+outside.)
+
+[Enter Olof, looking greatly agitated.]
+
+Mother (waking up). Father Marten!
+
+Olof (goes to the bed). Here is your son, mother! Why didn't you let me
+know that you were sick?
+
+Mother. Farewell, Olof! I forgive you all the evil you have done to me,
+if you will not disturb the few moments I need to prepare myself for
+heaven. Father Marten! Bring here the sacred ointment, so that I may die
+in peace.
+
+Olof. So that's why you didn't call me! (He catches sight of the money
+bag which Marten has forgotten to hide, and snatches it away from the
+monk.) Oh, souls are being bartered here! And this was to be the price!
+Leave this room and this death-bed! Here is my place, not yours!
+
+Marten. You mean to prevent us from fulfilling our office?
+
+Olof. I am showing you the door!
+
+Marten. As long as we are not suspended, we are doing our duty here by
+the King's authority, and not by the Pope's.
+
+Olof. I shall cleanse the Church of the lord without regard to the will
+of King or Pope.
+
+Mother. Will you plunge my soul into perdition, Olof? Will you let me
+die with a curse?
+
+Olof. Calm yourself, mother! You are not going to die in a lie. Seek
+your God in prayer, He is not so far away as you believe.
+
+Marten. A man who won't save his own mother from the pangs of purgatory
+must be the Devil's prophet indeed.
+
+Mother. Christ Jesu, help my soul!
+
+Olof. Will you leave this room, or must I use force? Take away that
+rubbish! (He kicks the ritual accessories across the floor.)
+
+Marten. I'll go if you'll let me have the money your mother has given to
+the Church.
+
+Mother. So that's why you came, Olof? You wanted my gold! Let him have
+it, Marten. I'll let you have all of it, Olof, if you will only leave me
+in peace! I'll give you more than that! I'll let you have everything!
+
+Olof (driven to despair). In God's name, take the money and go! I beg
+you!
+
+Marten (grabbing the bag and going out with Nils). Where the Devil is
+abroad, there our power ends, Dame Christine! (To Olof.) As a heretic
+you are lost for all eternity! As a law-breaker you will get your
+punishment right here! Beware of the King! [Exeunt.]
+
+Olof (kneeling beside his mother's bed). Mother, listen to me before
+you die! (The Mother has lost consciousness.) Mother, mother, if you are
+alive, speak to your son! Forgive me, but I could not act except as I
+have done. I know you have been suffering all your life for my sake.
+You have been praying to God that I should keep His paths. The Lord has
+heard your prayer. Do you want me now to render your whole life futile?
+Do you want me now, by obeying you, to destroy that structure which has
+cost you so much in toil and tears? Forgive me!
+
+Mother. Olof, my soul is no longer of this world--it's out of another
+life I speak to you: turn back! Break that unclean bond which ties your
+body only. Take back the faith you got from me, and I will forgive you!
+
+Olof (weeping bitterly). Mother! Mother!
+
+Mother. Swear that you will do it!
+
+Olof (after long silence). No!
+
+Mother. The curse of God is upon you--I see Him--I see His angry
+look--Help me, Holy Virgin!
+
+Olof. That is not the God of love!
+
+Mother. It is the God of retribution!--It is you who have provoked His
+ire--and it is you who now cast me into the flames of His wrath!--Cursed
+be the hour when I bore you! (She dies.)
+
+Olof. Mother! Mother! (He takes her hand.) She's dead! And she has not
+forgiven me!--Oh, if your soul be still within this room, behold your
+son: I will do your will, and what was sacred to you shall be sacred to
+me! (He lights the tall wax candles left behind by the friars and places
+them around the bed.) You shall have the consecrated candles that are to
+light your road. (He puts a palm leaf in her hand.) And with this palm
+of peace shall come forgetfulness of that last struggle with what was
+earthly. Oh, mother, if you see me now, then you must forgive me! (In
+the meantime the sun has risen, and the red glow of its first rays
+lights up the curtains; at the sight of it, Olof leaps to his feet.) You
+make my candles fade, O morning sun! You have more love than I! (He goes
+to the window and opens it.)
+
+Lars (entering softly and looking around surprised). Olof!
+
+Olof (putting his arms around him). Brother, all is over! Lars (goes to
+the bed and kneels for a moment; then he rises again). She is dead! (He
+prays silently.) You were here alone?
+
+Olof. It was you who let in the monks.
+
+Lars. And you who drove them out.
+
+Olof. That should have been your task.
+
+Lars. She forgave you?
+
+Olof. She died with a curse on her lips. (Pause.)
+
+Lars (pointing to the candles). Who arranged these ceremonies? (Pause.)
+
+Olof (irritated and humiliated). I weakened for a moment.
+
+Lars. So you are human, after all? I thank you for it!
+
+Olof. Are you mocking my weakness?
+
+Lars. I am praising it.
+
+Olof. And I am cursing it!--God in heaven, am I not right?
+
+Lars. No, you are wrong.
+
+[Enter Christine while Lars is still speaking.]
+
+Christine. You are too much in the right!
+
+Olof. Christine, what are you doing here?
+
+Christine. It was so silent and lonesome at home.
+
+Olof. I asked you not to come here.
+
+Christine. I thought I might be of some use, but I see now--Another time
+I shall stay at home.
+
+Olof. You have been awake all night?
+
+Christine. That is nothing! I will go now if you tell me to!
+
+Olof. Go in there and rest a little while we talk. (Christine begins
+absentmindedly to extinguish the candles.)
+
+Olof. What are you doing, dear?
+
+Christine. Why, it is full daylight.
+
+(Lars gives Olof a significant glance.)
+
+Olof. My mother is dead, Christine.
+
+Christine (as she goes to Olof to let him kiss her on the forehead, the
+look on her face is compassionate but cold). I am sorry for your loss.
+[Exit Christine.]
+
+(Pause. The brothers look for a moment in the direction where she
+disappeared, then at each other.)
+
+Lars. I beg you, Olof, as your friend and brother, don't go on as you
+have been doing.
+
+Olof. The old story! But he who has put his axe to the tree cannot draw
+back until the tree is down. The King has betrayed our cause. Now I will
+see what I can do for it.
+
+Lars. The King is wise.
+
+Olof. He is a miser, a traitor, and a protector of the nobility. First
+he uses me to hunt his game, and then he wants to kick me out.
+
+Lars. He sees farther than you do. If you were to go to three
+million people, telling them: "Your faith is false; believe my words
+instead"--do you think it possible that they would at once cast aside
+their most intimate and most keenly experienced conviction, which until
+then had been a support to them in sorrow as well as in joy? No, the
+life of the soul would be in a bad condition, indeed, if all the old
+things could be disposed of so quickly.
+
+Olof. But it is not so. The whole people is full of doubt. Among the
+priests there is hardly one who knows what to believe--if he cares to
+believe anything at all. Everything is ready for the new, and it is only
+you who are to blame--you weaklings whose consciences will not permit
+you to sow doubt where nothing but a feeble faith remains.
+
+Lars. Look out, Olof! You wish to play the part of God.
+
+Olof. Well, that is what we must do, for I don't think that He Himself
+intends to conic down to us any more.
+
+Lars. You are tearing down and tearing down, Olof, so that soon there
+will be nothing left, and when people ask, "What do we get instead?"
+you always answer, "Not this," "Not that," but never once do you answer,
+"This."
+
+Olof. Presumptuous man! Do you think faith can be given by one to
+another? Do you think that Luther has given us anything new? No! He has
+merely torn away the screens that had been placed around the light. The
+new that I want is doubt of the old, not because it is old, but because
+it is decaying. (Lars points toward their mother's body.) I know what
+you mean. She was too old, and I thank God that she is dead. Now I am
+free--only now! God has willed it!
+
+Lars. Either you have lost your senses, or you are a wicked man!
+
+Olof. Don't reproach me! I have as much respect for our mother's memory
+as you have, but if she had not died now, I don't know how far my
+sacrifices might have gone. Have you noticed in the springtime, brother,
+how the fallen leaves of yesteryear cover the ground as if to smother
+all the young; things that are coming out? What do these do? They push
+aside the withered leaves, or pass right through them, because they must
+get up!
+
+Lars. You are right to a certain extent.--Olof, you broke the laws
+of the Church during a time of lawlessness and unrest. What could be
+forgiven then must be punished now. Don't force the King to appear worse
+than he is. Don't let your scorn for the law and your wilfulness force
+him to punish a man to whom he acknowledges himself indebted.
+
+Olof. Nothing is more wilful than his own rule, and he must learn to
+tolerate the same thing in others. Tell me you have taken service with
+the King--are you going to work against me?
+
+Lars. I am.
+
+Olof. Then we are enemies, and that is what I need, for the old ones
+have disappeared.
+
+Lars. But the tie of blood, Olof--
+
+Olof. I know it only in its source, which is the heart.
+
+Lars. Yet you wept for our mother.
+
+Olof. Weakness, or perhaps a touch of old devotion and gratitude, but
+not because of the tie of blood. What is it, anyhow?
+
+Lars. You are tired out, Olof.
+
+Olof. Yes, I feel exhausted; I have been awake all night.
+
+Lars. You were so late in coming.
+
+Olof. I was out.
+
+Lars. Your doings seem to shun the daylight.
+
+Olof. The daylight shuns my doings.
+
+Lars. Beware of false apostles of freedom!
+
+Olof (struggling with sleepiness and fatigue). That's a
+self-contradictory term. Oh, don't talk to me--I can't stand any more.
+I spoke so much at our meeting--But you don't know about our
+society--Concordia res parvae crescunt--We mean to continue the
+Reformation--Gert is a farsighted man--I seem so small beside
+him--Good-night, Lars! (He falls asleep on a chair.)
+
+Lars (stands looking at him with solicitude). Poor brother--may God
+protect you! (Resounding blows on the street door are heard.) What's
+that? (He goes to the window.)
+
+Gert (outside). For God's sake, open!
+
+Lars. Why, it isn't a matter of life and death, Father Gert. [Exit.]
+
+Gert (outside). In God's name, let me in!
+
+[Enter Christine with a blanket.]
+
+Christine. Olof, why are they knocking like that? He's asleep! (She
+wraps him up in the blanket.) Oh, that I were Sleep, so that you might
+flee to me when tired out by your struggles!
+
+(The rattle of a heavy cart is heard; then the cart comes to a stop
+outside the house.).
+
+Olof (waking up with a start). Is it five already?
+
+Christine. No, it is only three.
+
+Olof. Wasn't that a baker's cart I heard?
+
+Christine. I don't know, but I don't think it would make such a noise.
+(She goes to the window.) Look, Olof! What can this he?
+
+Olof (going to the window). The headsman's cart!--No, it isn't that.
+
+Christine. It is a hearse!
+
+[Enter Lars and Gert.]
+
+Lars. The plague!
+
+All. The plague!
+
+Gert. The plague is here! Christine, my child, leave this house! The
+angel of death has put his mark upon the gate.
+
+Olof. Who sent the cart?
+
+Gert. The man who put the black cross on the door. No dead body must be
+left a moment in the house.
+
+Olof. Then Marten was the angel of death--and all is nothing but a lie.
+
+Gert. Look out of the window, and you'll see that the cart is loaded
+full. (Blows are heard at the street door again.) You hear! They're
+waiting!
+
+Olof. Without proper burial? That shall never be!
+
+Lars. Without ceremonies, Olof!
+
+Gert. Come away with me, Christine, from this dreadful place! I'll take
+you out of the city to some healthier spot.
+
+Christine. I will stay with Olof after this. If you, father, had loved
+me a little less, you would not have done so much harm.
+
+Gert. Olof, you who have the power, command her to follow me
+
+Olof. I set her free from your tyranny once, you selfish man, and she
+shall never return to it again.
+
+Gert. Christine, get out of this house, at least!
+
+Christine. Not a step until Olof orders me.
+
+Olof. I will no longer order you at all, Christine--remember that!
+
+[Enter several Buriers.]
+
+Burier. I've come for a body. No time to spare!
+
+Olof. Begone from here!
+
+Burier. The King's order!
+
+Lars. Consider what you do, Olof! The law demands it!
+
+Gert. This is no time to hesitate! The crazy mob is aroused against you.
+This house was the first one to be marked, and they are crying: "God's
+punishment upon the heretic!"
+
+Olof (kneeling beside the bed). Mother, forgive! (Rising.) Do your duty!
+
+(The Buriers come forward and begin to get their ropes ready.)
+
+Gert (aside to Olof). "God's punishment upon the King" is our cry!
+
+
+
+
+ACT V
+
+SCENE I
+
+(The Cemetery of the Convent of St. Clara. In the background appears
+a partly demolished convent building, from which a gang of workmen are
+carrying out timber and debris. At the left is a mortuary chapel. Its
+windows are lighted from within, and whenever the door is opened, a
+brilliantly illuminated crucifix on the chancel wall, with a sarcophagus
+standing in front of it, becomes visible. A number of the graves have
+been opened. The moon is just rising from behind the ruined convent.
+Windrank is seated outside the chapel door. Singing is heard from within
+the chapel.)
+
+[Enter Nils.]
+
+Nils (goes up to Windrank). Good evening, Windrank.
+
+Windrank. Please don't talk to me.
+
+Nils. What's the matter now?
+
+Windrank. Didn't you hear what I told you?
+
+Nils. Has your scurvy ending as a skipper affected you so badly that you
+think of turning monk?
+
+Windrank. 52, 53, 54, 55, 56, 57.
+
+Nils. You haven't lost your reason, have you?
+
+Windrank. 58, 59, 60--In the name of Jesu, get away from here!
+
+Nils. You had better have a little nightcap with me.
+
+Windrank. 64, 65--That's what I expected! Get you gone, tempter! I'll
+never take a drink again--until the day after to-morrow.
+
+Nils. But it's a fine remedy against the plague, and with all this
+cadaverous stuff about, you had better be careful.
+
+Windrank. 70--So you really think it's good for the plague?
+
+Nils. Excellent!
+
+Windrank. Only a drop, then! (He drinks from the bottle offered him by
+Nils.)
+
+Nils. Only a drop! But tell me, are you suffering from vertigo since you
+are counting to a hundred?
+
+Windrank. Hush! Hush! There's an epoch coming.
+
+Nils. An epoch?
+
+Windrank. Yes, the day after to-morrow.
+
+Nils. And that's why you keep counting like that?
+
+Windrank. No, it's only because I find it so hard to hold my tongue.
+Now, for heaven's sake, keep quiet! Please go away, or you'll get me
+into trouble!--71, 72, 73.
+
+Nils. Who's inside?
+
+Windrank. 74, 75.
+
+Nils. Is it a funeral?
+
+Windrank. 76, 77.--Go to hell, won't you!
+
+Nils. Just another tiny drop, and the counting will be easier.
+
+Windrank. Just a little one--I will! (He drinks. Singing is heard
+outside.)
+
+Nils. Here come the nuns of St. Clara to celebrate the memory of their
+saint for the last time.
+
+Windrank. That's fine mummery in days like these when everybody is
+getting educated.
+
+Nils. They have obtained the King's permission. You see, the plague
+broke out in the parish of St. Clara, and some believe it was because of
+the godless destruction of St. Clara's convent.
+
+Windrank. And now they mean to drive away the plague with singing--as
+if that bugaboo were a hater of music. But, of course, it wouldn't be a
+wonder if he did flee from their hoarse screeching.
+
+Nils. Will you please tell me who has dared to invade this last
+sanctuary--for it's here the bones of the Saint are to be deposited
+before the place is torn down entirely.
+
+Windrank. Then there'll be a fight, I fear.
+
+[The singing has drawn nearer. A procession enters, made up of Dominican
+friars and Franciscan nuns, headed by Marten. They come to a halt and
+continue singing, while the workmen are making a great deal of noise in
+the background.]
+
+Procession.           Cur super vermes luteos furorem
+           Sunnis, O magni fabricator orbis!
+           Quid sumus quam fex, putris, umbra, pulvis
+              Glebaque terrae!
+
+Marten (to the Abbess). You can see, my sister, how the abode of the
+Lord has been despoiled.
+
+Abbess. The Lord who has delivered us into the hands of the Egyptians
+will also set its free in due time.
+
+Marten (to the workmen). Cease working, and do not disturb our pious
+task!
+
+Overseer. Our orders are to work day and night until this den has been
+torn down.
+
+Abbess. Alas, that unbelief has spread so far down among the people!
+
+Marten. We are celebrating this feast with the permission of the King.
+
+Overseer. Well, I don't mind!
+
+Marten. And therefore I command you to cease your noise. I'll appeal
+directly to your workmen, whom you have forced into this shameless
+undertaking.--I'll ask them if they have any respect whatever left for
+holy--
+
+Overseer. You had better not, for I am in command here. Furthermore, I
+can tell you that they are glad enough to have a chance of tearing down
+these hornets' nests for which they themselves have had to pay--and
+then, too, they are pretty thankful to earn something during a time of
+famine. (He goes toward the background.)
+
+Marten. Let us forget the wickedness and tumult of this world. Let us
+enter the sacred place and pray for them.
+
+Abbess. Lord, Lord, the cities of Thy sanctuary are laid waste! Zion is
+laid waste, and Jerusalem is lying desolate!
+
+Windrank. 100.--Nobody can get in here!
+
+The Conspirators (within the chapel). We swear!
+
+Marten. Who has dared to invade the chapel?
+
+Windrank. It's no more a chapel since it has become a royal storehouse.
+
+Abbess. That's why the godless one gave us his permission!
+
+[The door of the chapel is thrown open and the conspirators appear;
+among them Olof, Lars Andersson, Gert, the German, the Dane, the Man
+from Smaland, and others.]
+
+Olof (much excited). What kind of buffoonery is this?
+
+Marten. Make way for the handmaidens of St. Clara!
+
+Olof. Do you think your idols can keep away the plague that God has sent
+you as a punishment? Do you think the Lord will find those pieces of
+bone you carry in the box there so pleasant that He forgives all your
+dreadful sins? Take away that abomination! (He takes the reliquary from
+the Abbess and throws it into one of the open graves.) From dust you
+have come, and to dust you shall return, even if your name was Sancta
+Clara da Spoleto and you ate only three ounces of bread a day and slept
+among the swine at night! (The nuns scream.)
+
+Marten. If you fear not what is holy, fear at least your temporal ruler.
+Look here! He has still so much respect left for divine things that he
+dreads the wrath of the saint. (He shows a document to Olof.)
+
+Olof. Do you know what the Lord did with the king of the Assyrians when
+he permitted the worship of idols? He smote him and all his people. Thus
+the righteous is made to suffer with the unrighteous. In the name of the
+one omnipotent God, I declare this worship of Baal abolished, even if
+all the kings of the earth give their permit. The Pope wanted to sell my
+soul to Satan, but I tore the contract to pieces--you remember? Should
+I then fear a King who wants to sell his people to the Baalim? (He tears
+the document to pieces.)
+
+Marten (to his followers). You are my witnesses that he has defamed the
+King.
+
+Olof (to his followers). And you are my witnesses before God that I have
+led the people of a godless King away from him!
+
+Marten. Listen, ye faithful! It is because of this heretic that God has
+smitten us with the plague--it is the punishment of God, and it fell
+first of all on his mother.
+
+Olof. Listen, ye faithless papists! It was the punishment of the Lord on
+me because I had served Sennacherib against Judah. I will atone my crime
+by leading Judah against the kings of the Assyrians and the Egyptians.
+
+(The moon has risen in the meantime. It is very red, and a fiery glare
+pervades the place. The crowd is frightened.)
+
+Olof (mounting one of the graves). Heaven is weeping blood over your
+sins and your idolatry. Punishment shall be meted out, for those in
+authority have fallen into wrongdoing. Can't you see that the very
+graves are yawning for prey--
+
+(Gert seizes Olof by the arm, whispers to him, and leads him down from
+the mound. The crowd is panic-stricken.)
+
+Abbess. Give us back our reliquary, so that we may abandon this home of
+desolation.
+
+Marten. It is better to let the bones of the Saint remain in this
+consecrated soil than to have them touched by the vile hands of
+heretics!
+
+Olof. You are afraid of the plague, cowards that you are! Is your faith
+in the sacred bones no stronger?
+
+(Gert whispers to Olof again. The procession has in the meantime
+scattered, so that only a part of it remains on the stage.)
+
+Olof (to Marten). Now you should be satisfied, you hypocrite! Go and
+tell him whom you serve that a box of silver is about to be buried here,
+and he'll dig it out of the earth with his own nails. Tell him that the
+moon, which is usually made of silver, has turned into gold, merely to
+make your master raise his eyes toward heaven for once. Tell him that
+you, by your blasphemous buffooneries, have succeeded in provoking an
+honest man's wrath--
+
+[Exeunt Marten and the members of the procession.]
+
+Gert. Enough, Olof! (To all the conspirators except Olof and Lars.)
+Leave us, please!
+
+[Exeunt the conspirators, exchanging whispers.]
+
+Gert (to Olof and Lars). It's too late to back down now!
+
+Olof. What do you want, Gert--speak!
+
+Gert (showing them a bound volume). Before you two, servants of God, a
+people steps forth to make its confession. Do you acknowledge your oath?
+
+Olof and Lars. We have sworn!
+
+Gert. This book is the result of my silent labors. On every page you
+will find a cry of distress, a sigh from thousands who have been blind
+enough to think it God's will that they should suffer the tyranny of
+one man--who have thought it their duty not even to hope for liberation.
+(Olof takes the volume and begins to read.) You shall hear complaints
+all the way from the primeval forests of Norrland down to the Sound. Out
+of the wreckage from the churches the King is building new castles for
+the nobility and new prisons for the people. You shall read how the
+King is bartering away law and justice by letting murderers escape their
+punishment if they seek refuge at the salt-works. You shall read how
+he is taxing vice by letting harlots pay for the right to ply their
+traffic. Yea, the very fishes of the rivers, the water of the sea
+itself, have been usurped by him. But the end is in sight. The eyes
+of the people have been opened. There is seething and fermenting
+everywhere. Soon the tyranny will be crushed, and the people shall be
+free!
+
+Olof. Who wrote the songs in this book?
+
+Gert. The people! These are songs of the people--so they sing who feel
+the yoke pressing. I have visited city and country, asking them: "Are
+you happy?" These are the answers! I have held assizes. Here are the
+verdicts entered. Do you believe that a million wills may conquer one?
+Do you believe that God has bestowed this land with all its human souls
+and all its property upon a single man, for him to deal with as it suits
+his pleasure? Or do you not rather believe that he should do the will of
+all?--You do not answer? You are awed, I see, by the thought that it may
+come to an end! Listen to my confession! Tomorrow the oppressor dies,
+and you shall all be free!
+
+Olof and Lars. What are you saying?
+
+Gert. You didn't understand what I was talking about at our meetings.
+
+Olof. You have deceived us!
+
+Gert. Not at all! You are perfectly free. Two voices less mean nothing.
+Everything is prepared.
+
+Lars. Have you considered the consequences?
+
+Gert. Fool! Is it not for the sake of the consequences that I have done
+all this?
+
+Olof. Supposing Gert be right--what do you say, Lars?
+
+Lars. I wasn't born to lead.
+
+Olof. All are born to lead, but all are not willing to sacrifice the
+flesh.
+
+Gert. Only he who has the courage to face scorn and ridicule can lead.
+For hatred is as nothing compared with the laughter that kills.
+
+Olof. And if it should miscarry?
+
+Gert. Dare to face that, too! You don't know that Thomas Muenster has
+established a new spiritual kingdom at Muhlhausen. You don't know
+that all Europe is in revolt. Who was Dacke, if not a defender of the
+oppressed? What have the Dalecarlians meant by all their rebellions, if
+not to defend their freedom against him who broke his plighted faith?
+He does such things and goes unpunished, but when they want to defend
+themselves, then he raises the cry of revolt and treason.
+
+Olof. So this is the point to which you wanted to lead me, Gert?
+
+Gert. Have you not been led here by the current? You will, but do not
+dare! To-morrow, in the church, the mine will go off, and that will be a
+signal for the people to rise and choose a ruler after their own heart.
+
+Olof (turning over the leaves of the book). If it be the will of all,
+then nobody can stop it. Gert, let me take this book to the King and
+show him what is the will of his people, and he will grant them their
+rights.
+
+Gert. Oh, you child! For a moment he may be scared, and perhaps restore
+a silver pitcher to some church. Then he'll point toward heaven and say:
+"It is not by my own will that I sit here and do you wrong, but by the
+will of God!"
+
+Olof. Then the will of God be done!
+
+Gert. But how?
+
+Olof. He must die that all may live. Murderer, ingrate, traitor--those
+will be my names, perchance. I am sacrificing everything, even my
+honor, my conscience, and my faith--could I possibly give more for those
+pitiable ones who are crying for salvation? Let us go ere I repent!
+
+Gert. Even if you did, it would already be too late. Don't you know
+that Marten is a spy, and perhaps sentence has already been pronounced
+against the rebel!
+
+Olof. Well, I won't repent--and why should I repent of an act that
+implies the carrying out of God's own judgment? Forward, then, in the
+name of the Lord. [Exeunt.]
+
+[Enter Harlot, who kneels at a grave which she has strewn with flowers.]
+
+Harlot. Hast Thou punished me enough now, O Lord, to pardon me?
+
+[Enter Christine quickly.]
+
+Christine. Have you seen Master Olof, goodwife?
+
+Harlot. Are you his friend or his enemy?
+
+Christine. Do you mean to insult me?
+
+Harlot. Pardon me! I haven't seen him since the last time I prayed.
+
+Christine. You look so sorrowful! Oh, I know you now! It was you to whom
+Olof was talking that night in Greatchurch.
+
+Harlot. You mustn't let it be seen that you are talking to me. You don't
+know who I am, do you?
+
+Christine. Oh, yes, I know.
+
+Harlot. You know--so they have told you?
+
+Christine. Olof told me.
+
+Harlot. O my God! And don't you despise me?
+
+Christine. You are an unfortunate, down-trodden woman, Olof told me. Why
+should I despise misfortune?
+
+Harlot. Then you cannot be happy yourself?
+
+Christine. No, we have shared the same fate.
+
+Harlot. I am not the only one, then! Tell me, who was the worthless man
+to whom you gave your love?
+
+Christine. Worthless?
+
+Harlot. Oh, pardon--to one who loves, no one seems worthless! To whom
+did you give your love?
+
+Christine. You know Master Olof, don't you?
+
+Harlot. Oh, tell me that it is not true! Don't rob me of my faith in
+him, too! It is the only thing I have left since God took my child!
+
+Christine. You have had a child? Then you have been happy once.
+
+Harlot. I thank God, who did not permit my son to find out the
+unworthiness of his mother.
+
+Christine. Have you been guilty of any crime, that you speak so?
+
+Harlot. I have just buried it.
+
+Christine. Your child? How can you! And I pray God every day to grant me
+a little one--so that I may at least have one creature to love!
+
+Harlot. Oh, poor child, pray to God that He preserve you from it!
+
+Christine. I don't understand you, goodwife!
+
+Harlot. Don't call me that! You know who I am, don't you?
+
+Christine. Well, don't they offer prayers in the churches for those who
+have hopes?
+
+Harlot. Not for such as we!
+
+Christine. Such as we?
+
+Harlot. They pray for the others and curse us.
+
+Christine. What do you mean by "the others"? I don't understand you at
+all.
+
+Harlot. Do you know the wife of Master Olof?
+
+Christine. Why, that is I!
+
+Harlot. You? Oh, why didn't I guess at once? Can you forgive me a
+moment's doubt? How could vice look like you and him? Alas! You must
+leave me. You are a child, still ignorant of wickedness. You must not be
+talking to me longer. God bless you! Good-bye! (She starts to leave.)
+
+Christine. Don't leave me! Whoever you be, for God's sake, stay! They
+have broken into our house, and my husband is not to be found. Take
+me away from here--home to yourself--anywhere. You must be a good
+woman--you cannot be wicked--
+
+Harlot (interrupting her). If I tell you that the brutality of the crowd
+wouldn't hurt you half so much as my company, then perhaps you will
+forgive me for leaving--
+
+Christine. Who are you?
+
+Harlot. I am an outcast on whom has been fulfilled that curse which God
+hurled at woman after the fall of our first parents. Ask me no more, for
+if I told you more, your contempt would goad me to a self-defence that
+would be still more contemptible.--Here comes somebody who perhaps will
+be generous enough to escort you, if you promise to let him have your
+honor and virtue and eternal peace for his trouble--for that is probably
+the least he will accept for his protection at such a late hour as this!
+Please forgive me--it is not at you that I am railing.
+
+[Enter Windrank, intoxicated.]
+
+Windrank. Why the devil can't a fellow be left alone, even here among
+the corpses? See here, my good ladies, please don't ask me anything, for
+now I can't guarantee that I won't answer. The day after to-morrow I'll
+tell you all about it, for then it'll be too late. Perhaps you're some
+of those nuns that have been made homeless? Well, although women are
+nothing but women, I don't think I have any right to be impolite, for
+all that the sun set long ago. Of course, there is an old law saying
+that nobody can be arrested after sunset, but though the law is a
+bugbear, I think it's too polite to insist on anything when it's a
+question of ladies. Hush, hush, tongue! Why, the old thing is going like
+a spinning-wheel, but that comes from that infernal gin! Why should I be
+dragged into this kind of thing? Of course, I'll get well paid and be a
+man of means, but don't believe that I am doing it for the sake of the
+money! It's done now, but I don't want to--I don't want to! I want to
+sleep in peace nights and have no ghosts to trouble me. Suppose I goo
+and tell? No, then they'll arrest me. Suppose somebody else would go and
+tell? Perhaps one of you nuns might be so kind as to do it?
+
+Christine (who has been conferring with the Harlot). If you have
+anything on your conscience that troubles you, please tell us.
+
+Windrank. Am I to tell? That's just what I want to get out of, but this
+is horrible, and I can't stand it any longer. I am forced to do it. Why
+should I be the one? I don't want to.
+
+Christine. My dear man, you mean to commit--
+
+Windrank. A murder. Who told you? Well, thank God that you know! By all
+means, go ahead and tell about it--at once--or I'll have no peace--no
+peace in all eternity!
+
+Christine (recovering from the first shock). Why should you murder him?
+
+Windrank. Oh, there are such a lot of reasons. Just look at the way he
+is tearing down your nunneries.
+
+Christine. The King?
+
+Windrank. Yes, of course! The father and liberator of his country!
+Of course, he's an oppressor, but that's no reason why he should be
+murdered.
+
+Christine. When is it going to happen?
+
+Windrank. Why, to-morrow--in Greatchurch--right in church! [At a signal
+from Christine, the Harlot leaves.]
+
+Christine. How could they pick you for such a deed?
+
+Windrank. Well, you see, I gave a connection or two among the church
+attendants, and then I am poor, of course. What the devil does it matter
+who puts the match to the powder, if only some shrewd fellow is pointing
+the gun? And then we have several other little schemes in reserve,
+although I'm to fire the first shot. But why don't you run off and tell
+about it?
+
+Christine. It has already been done.
+
+Windrank. Well, God be thanked and praised! Goodbye, there goes all my
+money!
+
+Christine. Tell me who you are, you conspirators.
+
+Windrank. No, that I won't tell!
+
+[Enter Nils. He crosses the stage followed by a troop of soldiers and a
+crowd of people.]
+
+Christine. Do you see that they are already looking for you?
+
+Windrank. I wash my hands of it.
+
+Nils (goes up to Windrank without noticing Christine). Have you seen
+Olof Pedersson?
+
+Windrank. Why?
+
+Nils. Because he is wanted.
+
+Windrank. No, I haven't seen him. Are there others wanted?
+
+Nils. Yes, many.
+
+Windrank. No, I haven't seen any of them.
+
+Nils. Well, it will soon be your turn. [Exit.]
+
+Christine. Are they looking for the conspirators?
+
+Windrank. What a question! Now I'm going to clear out. Good-bye!
+
+Christine. Tell me before you go--
+
+Windrank. Haven't time!
+
+Christine. Is Master Olof one of them?
+
+Windrank. Of course! (Christine sinks down unconscious on one of the
+graves. Windrank is suddenly sobered and genuinely moved.) Good Lord in
+heaven, it must be his wife! (He goes to Christine.) I think I've killed
+her! Oh, Hans, Hans, all you can do now is to get a rope for
+yourself! What business did you have to get mixed up with the high and
+mighty?--Come here, somebody, and help a poor woman!
+
+[Enter Olof, led by soldiers carrying torches as he catches sight of
+Christine, he tears himself loose and throws himself on his knees beside
+her.]
+
+Olof. Christine!
+
+Christine. Olof! You're alive! Come away from here and let us go home!
+
+Olof (overwhelmed). It's too late!
+
+
+SCENE 2
+
+(Within Greatchurch. Olof and Gert, dressed as penitents, stand in
+the pillory near the entrance. The organ is playing and the bells are
+ringing. The service is just ended, and the people are leaving the
+church. The Sexton and his wife are standing by themselves in a corner
+near the footlights.)
+
+Sexton. Lars the Chancellor, he was pardoned, but not Master Olof.
+
+Wife. The Chancellor has always been a man of peace and has never
+stirred up any trouble, so I can't understand how he could want to have
+anything to do with such dreadful things.
+
+Sexton. The Chancellor has always had a queer streak, although he has
+never said much, and though he was pardoned, it cost him everything
+he had. I can't help being sorry for Master Olof; I have always had a
+liking for him, even though he has been a fire-brand.
+
+Wife. Well, what's the use of making a young fellow like that pastor?
+
+Sexton. Of course, he's rather young, and that has been his main fault,
+but I'm sure time will cure it.
+
+Wife. What nonsense you are talking, seeing that he's going to die
+to-day.
+
+Sexton. Well, Lord, Lord, if I hadn't clean forgotten about it! But then
+it doesn't seem quite right to me, either.
+
+Wife. Do you know if he has repented?
+
+Sexton. I doubt very much, for I am sure his neck is just as stiff as
+ever.
+
+Wife. But I suppose he'll thaw out a little now, when he sees his class
+of children whom they wouldn't let him prepare for confirmation.
+
+Sexton. Well, I must say that the King can be pretty mean when he turns
+that side to. Now he is making the pastor do church penance the very
+same day his children are being confirmed. It's almost as bad as when
+he made the dean drink with the headsman, or when he sent those two
+prelates riding through the city with crowns of birch bark on their
+heads.
+
+Wife. And his own brother Lars has been sent to shrive him.
+
+Sexton. See, here come the children! How sad they're looking--well, I
+don't wonder. I think I'll have to go in and have a cry myself--
+
+(Enter the children about to be confirmed, boys and girls. They begin to
+march past Olof, carrying bunches of flowers in their hands. They
+look sad and keep their eyes on the ground. A number of older people
+accompany the children. A few curious persons point out Olof and are
+rebuked by others. Last of all the children in the procession comes
+Vilhelm, one of the scholars with whom Olof was seen playing in the
+First Act. He stops timidly in front of him, kneels, and drops his bunch
+of flowers at the feet of Olof, who does not notice it because he has
+pulled down the hood of his penitential robe so that it hides his face.
+Some of the people mutter disapprovingly, while others show signs of
+pleasure. Marten comes forward to take away the flowers, but is pushed
+back by the crowd. Soldiers clear a path for Lars Pedersson, who appears
+in canonicals. The crowd disappears gradually, leaving Lars, Olof, and
+Gert alone on the stage. The playing of the organ ceases, but the bells
+continue to toll.)
+
+Lars. Olof, the King has refused to listen to the petition for pardon
+submitted by the City Corporation. Are you prepared to die?
+
+Olof. I am not able to think so far.
+
+Lars. I have been ordered to prepare you.
+
+Olof. That will have to be done in haste, for my blood is still running
+quickly through my veins.
+
+Lars. Have you repented?
+
+Olof. No!
+
+Lars. Do you want to pass into eternity with an unforgiving mind?
+
+Olof. Oh, put aside the formulas, if you want me to listen to you. I
+can't think that I am going to die now--there 's far too much of life
+and strength left in me.
+
+Lars. I must tell you that I don't think so either, and that it is for a
+new life in this world I am trying to prepare you.
+
+Olof. Then I may live?
+
+Lars. If you will admit that you were mistaken in the past, and if you
+will take back what you have said about the King.
+
+Olof. How could I? That would be to die indeed!
+
+Lars. This was what I had to tell you. Now you must decide for yourself.
+
+Olof. One doesn't parley about one's convictions.
+
+Lars. Even a mistake may turn into conviction. I shall leave you to
+think the matter over. [Exit.]
+
+Gert. Our harvest wasn't ready. It takes a lot of snow to make the fall
+crops ripen--nay, centuries must pass before you will even see the first
+shoots. All the conspirators are under arrest, they say, and te deums
+are sung on that account. But they are mistaken; conspirators are
+abroad everywhere--in the royal apartments, in the churches, and in the
+market-places--but they dare not do what we have dared. And yet they'll
+reach that point some time. Good-bye, Olof! You must live a little
+longer, for you are young. I shall die with the utmost pleasure. The
+name of every new martyr becomes the rallying-cry for a new host. Don't
+believe that a human soul was ever set on fire by a lie. Don't ever
+distrust those feelings that shake you to your inmost soul when you
+have seen some one suffer spiritual or physical oppression. If the
+whole world tell you that you are wrong, believe your own heart just
+the same--if you are brave enough to do so. The day when you deny your
+self--then you are dead, and eternal perdition will seem a mercy to one
+who, has been guilty of the sin against the Holy Ghost.
+
+Olof. You speak of my release as though it were a certainty.
+
+Gert. The Corporation has offered 500 ducats for your ransom, and if it
+cost only 2000 to get Birgitta declared a saint, then 500 should suffice
+to get you declared guiltless. The King doesn't dare to take your life!
+
+[Enter the Lord High Constable, followed by the Headsman and soldiers.]
+
+Constable. Take away Gert the Printer.
+
+Gert (to Olof, as he is being led away). Good-bye, Olof! Take care of my
+daughter, and don't ever forget the great Whitsunday!
+
+Constable. Master Olof, you are a young man who has been led astray. The
+King will pardon you for the sake of your youth, but as a safeguard he
+demands a retraction wherein you take back whatever you have ventured
+beyond and against his orders.
+
+Olof. Then the King is still in need of me?
+
+Constable. There are many more who need you, but don't rely on his mercy
+until you have fulfilled his condition. Here is the King's warrant. In a
+moment your fetters may be shed, if so be your will, but it will be just
+as easy to tear up this sheet of paper.
+
+Olof. One who contents himself with 500 ducats is not likely to care
+very much for a retraction--
+
+Constable. That is a lie! The headsman is waiting for you. But pray
+listen to a few words from an old man. I, too, have been young, and
+moved by strong passions. They belong to youth; but those passions are
+meant to be killed. I did as you do. I went around telling the truth,
+and all I got in return was ingratitude, or, at the best, a smile
+of derision. I, too, wanted to build a little heaven here on
+earth--(speaking with marked emphasis) of course, on other foundations
+than yours--but soon I came to my senses, and the chimeras were
+sent packing. I have no desire to make you out a man wishing to gain
+notoriety by getting himself talked about--I don't believe anything of
+the kind. You are moved by good intentions, but they are such as must
+cause harm. Your blood is hot, and it blinds you because you exercise
+no self-control. You preach freedom, and you are plunging thousands
+into the slavery of license. Retrace your steps, young man, and make
+atonement for your errors! Restore what you have torn down, and your
+fellow-men will bless you!
+
+Olof (agitated to a point of desperation). It is the truth you speak; I
+hear it, but who taught you to speak like that?
+
+Constable. Experience--that which you lack!
+
+Olof. Can I have lived and fought for a lie? Must I now declare my whole
+youth and the best part of my manhood lost, useless, wasted? Oh, let me
+rather die together with my mistake!
+
+Constable. You should have broken loose from your dreams earlier. But
+calm yourself! Your life is still ahead of you. The past has been a
+school--hard, to be sure, but all the more wholesome. Hitherto you have
+given your life to whims and follies. Now you have some inkling of what
+reality demands of you. Outside that door your creditors are waiting
+with their claims. Here are their bills. The clergy of the young Church
+demand that you live to finish what you have begun so splendidly. The
+City Corporation demands its secretary for the Council. The congregation
+demands its shepherd. The children of the confirmation class demand
+their teacher. Those are your legal creditors. But there is one more
+waiting outside, to whom perhaps you owe more than all the rest, and who
+yet demands nothing at all--your young wife. You have torn her from her
+father's side and set her adrift in the storm. You have broken down her
+childhood faith and filled her mind with restlessness. Your reckless
+deeds have goaded the brutal mob into driving her out of her own
+home. Yet she does not even demand your love: all she asks of you is
+permission to spend a life of suffering by your side.--Now you can see
+that we, too, give a little consideration to other people, although you
+call us selfish.--Let me open this door, which will lead you back into
+the world. Discipline your heart before it hardens, and thank God for
+granting you more time to work for mankind.
+
+Olof (breaking into tears). I am lost!
+
+(Constable gives a sign to the Headsman, who removes the fetters and the
+garb of penitence from Olof; then the Constable opens the door to the
+sacristy, and delegates from the lords, the clergy, and the city guilds
+enter.)
+
+Constable. Olof Pedersson, formerly pastor of the city church at
+Stockholm, do you hereby repent of your misdeeds and retract what you
+have said beyond and against the King's order? Do you declare your
+willingness to keep your oath to the sovereign of this realm, and to
+serve him faithfully?
+
+(Olof remains silent. Lars Pedersson and Christine approach him, while
+many of those present make pleading gestures.)
+
+Olof (in a cold and determined voice). Yes!
+
+Constable. In the name of the King, I set you free!
+
+(Olof and Christine embrace. A number of persons come forward to press
+his hand and utter words of congratulation.)
+
+Olof (in the same cold voice). Before I leave this room, let me be alone
+a moment with my God. I need it! Once upon a time I struck the first
+blow right here, and here--
+
+Lars. Right here you have won your greatest victory this very day!
+
+(All leave the room except Olof, who falls on his knees.)
+
+[Enter Vilhelm cautiously. He looks very much surprised at seeing Olof
+alone and free.]
+
+Vilhelm. I come to bid you farewell, Master Olof, before you pass on to
+another life.
+
+Olof (rising). You have not deserted me, Vilhelm! Help me, then, to
+mourn those happy moments of my youth that are now nothing but a memory!
+
+Vilhelm. Before you die I want to thank you for all that you have
+done for us. It was I who gave you those flowers, which you haven't
+noticed.--They have been trampled on, I see. I wanted to bring you
+a reminder of the days when we were playing under the lindens in the
+convent close at Straengnaes. I thought it might do you good to hear that
+we have never thanked God, as you said we would, because you didn't
+return to us. We have never forgotten you, for it was you who relieved
+us of those cruel penances, and it was you who flung open the heavy
+convent doors and gave us back our freedom and the blue sky and the
+happiness of living. Why you must die, we do not know, but _you_ could
+never do anything wrong. And if you die because you have rendered help
+to some of those that were oppressed, as they tell us, then you should
+not be sorry, although it hurts very, very much. Once you told us how
+Hus was burned because he had dared to tell the truth to those in power.
+You told us how he went to the stake and joyfully commended himself into
+the hands of God, and how he prophesied about the swan that should come
+singing new songs in praise of awakened freedom. That's the way I have
+thought that you would meet your death--with your head thrown back, and
+your eyes toward the sky, and the people crying: "So dies a witness!"
+
+(Olof leans against the pillory, his face showing how the words of
+Vilhelm strike home to him.)
+
+Gert (his voice heard from a distant part of the church.) Renegade!
+
+(Olof sinks down overwhelmed at the foot of the pillory.)
+
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Master Olof, by August Strindberg
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