Mårten. 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.
Mårten. 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 Mårten). 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—