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!