Page:The collected works of Henrik Ibsen (Heinemann Volume 1).pdf/156



First your oath! The holiest, the most inviolable you can swear.

That you shall have. Yonder on the wall hangs the picture of the Holy Virgin

The Holy Virgin has grown infirm of late. Know you not what the monk of Wittenberg maintains?

Fie! how can you heed the monk of Wittenberg? Peter Kanzler says he is a heretic.

Well, let us not dispute the matter. Here can I show you a saint will serve full well to make oath by.

Come hither,—swear that you will be silent till I myself release your tongue—silent, as you hope for Heaven's salvation for yourself and for the man whose picture hangs there.

[Approaching the picture.] I swear it—so help me God's holy word!

But—Christ save me!