Nils. You might have been it pretty big man, with your head!
Mårten. 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?
Mårten. 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—
Mårten. 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, Mårten?
Mårten. It's Brother Nils praying to the Holy Virgin. (Nils lights the censer without interrupting his reading.)