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.