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 n.o.bility 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.