Strindberg the M An

STRINDBERG THE M AN

GUSTA F UD DGRE N

Trans lated from the Swedish

HA PP A h L O N U LL P . . AXE J V , D

Of th e Departm ent of R om ani c L anguages i and Li teratures , Uni ve rs ty of P enns ylvani a

BOSTON TH E FOUR S EAS COM PAN Y 1920

INTRODUCTION

There are two distinc t ways in which to deal with e ius works e ius : g n and the of g n The old and the new . The old method may be characterized as the descrip tive . It is , generally speaking, negative . It occupies itself mainly with the conscious motives and the external phases of the artist and his life and gives a more or less F literal interpretation of his creation . rom an historical point of view the descriptive method has its own peculiar — value ! from the psycho analytic viewpoint it is less o meritori us , since it adds but little, if anything, to the deeper understanding of the creative mind . The new or interpretative method is based on psychol ’ o . gy It i s positive . It deals exclusively with man s unconscious motivation as the source and main- spring of works of art of whatever kind and independent of time and locality . Thus while the descriptive method accepts u o at its face value the work of geni s , the new or psych analyt ic method penetrates into th e lower strata of the Unconscious in order to ﬁnd the key to th e cryptic mes sage which is indelibly though always illegibly written

r rt in large letters on eve y work of a . ’ Gustaf Uddgren s S trindb erg The M an (En ny b ok om Strindberg) is not a psycho - analytic interpretation of

Strindberg in the true sense o f the term . It is rather descriptive with a strong analytic tendency . As a matter of fact, it contains a number of elements of such general 5 6 STRINDBERG THE MA N interest as to justify the translator ’ s ambition of render

th e ing the work accessible to English speaking public . It constitutes the unpretentious message in the form of biography and reminiscence o f one of those relatively few and highly favo red individuals who can lay claim to a certain amount of intimate personal contact with the F h . Udd ren great Swedish aut or urthermore, Gustaf g possesses such a clear insight into and so profound an appreciation of the complex problems with which Strind berg wrestled unceasingly all his life , as to be entitled to a hearing abroad as well as at home . The book affo rds an excellent general survey o f the — f ’ many sided, turbulent life and activities o Sweden s foremost author . Here we meet the juvenile poet and indomitable revolter such as he appeared to the people — of the seventies ! the so called misogynist who in the

— M arri ed eighties caused a world wide sensation with his , his novels , autobiography and naturalistic plays ! the

o— wandering scientist , acid psych analyst , mystic and paranoiac o f the nineties who rises out of his Dantesque P Inferno, like the bird hoenix from his ashes , to produce — over a score of dramas historical , transcendental, social of such unprecedented excellence as to compare favor ably with the greatest dramatic monuments o f all times the Shakespearian . We follow him to his native land after long years' of exile on the Continent only to ﬁnd hi s . him rej ected, hated and harassed by own And ﬁnally we retire with him to the Blue Tower where he spends his declining years like a hermit until death claims

1 Ma 1 12 . him on the 4th of y, 9 INTRODUCTION 7

’ Udd ren s The chapters containing g straightforward, unadorned account of his several interviews with

e F not Strindberg in G rmany, rance and Sweden are only highly interesting from an historical point of view, but shed a great deal of new light upon the complex psychic life and personality of the poet and reformer . ’ Udd ren s g broad, sympathetic views and simplicity of presentation cannot help producing a tonic effect upon th e reader when j uxtaposited with the intolerance and th e depression wrought by the distortion of facts , mali n cio s attacks , meaningless bombast and glittering generalities of some of the self - appointed high priests of Strindberg criticism on both sides of the Atlantic . h L af e Wit the exception of ind Hag by, Hermann Ess wein, Emil Schering and Drs . Schleich and Landquist, the translator knows of no other writer who seems so well qualiﬁed to discuss Strindberg’ s extraordinary life and immortal achievements as the author of this little th e o volume . It is to be hoped, therefore , that bo k will be welcomed by all students of Strindberg, and that it may fall into the hands of many of those who se knowl edge of a great and good man is limited to the glaring mis n r t represe tations, wilful or othe wise, of that s ubbornly — narrow minded and vociferous clique of reactionaries who have j ustly been branded with the ﬁtting epithet of e le—eatin m onke s ag g y .

A . . I . U i P hiladel h a Pa. p ,

2 May 19 0.

CONTE NTS

I NTRODUCTION — STRINDBERG TH E JUVENILE POET AND REVOLTER — STRINDBERG TH E KNIGHT TH E WEAKER S Ex M Y FIRST MEETING WITH STRINDB ERG TH E WANDERING SCIENTIFIC INVESTIGATOR INFERNO TH E RESURRECTION OF TH E DRAMATIST TH E POET AND TH E WOLVES TH E ECCENTRIC HERMIT LITTLE CHRISTMAS E VE WITH STRINDB ERG I N THE BLUE TOWER

BI BLIOGRAPH Y

P CHA TER I . — STRINDB ERG TH E JUVENILE POET AND REVOLTER

KNEW Strindberg long before I met him . All of I that generation which was young during the latter part o f the seventies and the beginning of the

t M as ter eighties, was carried away by the poet who wro e

la Th Re Room O f and who had raged in e d . To us he was the reawakening of th e Swedish spirit of literature and art . We had been terriﬁed at the greatness to which the two No rwegian giants Ibsen and Bj ornson had attained and we felt almost ashamed that

Sweden at this time could not show a single great man . n Then Strindberg came . He had bee among us for a long time, although we had not known of his presence . u When he came , all the yo ng blood that had any vitality,

the - j oined him . Already, at age of twenty three, he had M as ter Ola the produced such a great work as f, first great masterpiece of Swedish dramatic art- rich in t — you hful fire and turbulent ideas and besides , so Swed ish through and through that we were justified in For commencing to believe in old Sweden once more . in spite of the fact that we were young, we had already had an opportunity to see through th e empty bombast with Which the older writers tried to entice us and thus condemn us to the same in activity into which they them selves had fallen . I 4 STRINDBERG THE MA N

We knew something about that school of suffering which Strindberg had passed through in his youth . This

s fact made him twice as dear to u . We sent our glowing u hatred p to Stockholm, to its old fogies of the press who had received his youthful but manly words with the scoffs and Sheers of impotence and had refused him that recognition which every promising young poet needs in order to grow big and strong and withstand the storms which are sure to rage about him upon the mountain top .

And we placed ourselves wholly on his side when , after — years of insidious persecution during which he had been

—he the cheerful, generous giver took up his position of defense and ﬁnally was forced to attack in person those n who refused to recog ize him . What ecstasy did he not create in our young hearts when alone he attacked th e generally unsatisfactory conditions round about us ! This was something for a h young generation to behold . To cut down t e enemy that grew like weeds in the midst of our acres and to

fight great battles with them, seemed to us. of greater consequence than all the warring expeditions o f the Gustavians on the plains Of Germany or the pursuit o f chimeras in the deserts of Russia . The teacher who believes that the young accept without discrimination all the manipulated historical expositions with which they are to be educated so as to incline ow the t ards one side or other, is thoroughly mistaken . The young on the contrary have a great intuitive ability to see through what is purposely falsified, and when their suspicion has once been awakened, they tear to shreds THE JUVENI LE POET AND REVOLTER 15 the whole fabric of lies with a violence which can be i modified—only in the course of years and wh ch later on on P d develo—ps the part of the hilistine hea of the family into a complete satisfaction with everything that exists .

was This Strindberg, the poet, who forced to give up his journey to P arnass us in order to identify himself with t a pioneer movement, we loved . Con inually we saw him before us in the sym bolic picture which Carl Larsson1 — ’ had furnished as a title page vignette to Strindberg s

I n t e ri - Tim collected juvenile works : h S p ng e . In it s there is a young Titan with sorrowful eye , painfully t ’ drawn mou h , a lion s mane above the mighty brow, and a large thorn pointing towards t—he aching head . The poet of the sharp thorn pointing as it were from a crown of thorns directly towards his creative brain that was the j uvenile image of Strindberg which etched itself more indelibly than all others on the minds of those who were young at that time . All the contemporaries to whom I have spoken of this, once had the same visual sensation of him who aroused us out of our slumber . For Yes , he had brought life to us . we had all gone astray in the desert where we had got sand into our throats instead of water and were on the point of dying with thirst . About ﬁfteen years earlier, Strindberg had passed through the throes of adolescence in which we S now were , and his trong intuition had guided him out of the desert , and when we saw him for the ﬁrst time, he was standing at the boundary of the ever verdant

1 amo s we d sh a s 18 A f u S i rti t, ( 53 16 STRI NDBERG THE MAN

land with a gesture full of promise and new happiness , a pointing out the w y for us . We had passed through the same horrible awakening as Strindberg . With all the ecstasy of youth, we had approached what we considered the highest ideal . We had been told from childhood that n obody can be a good

is i individual without religion , and since youth na ve enough to believe itself goodness personiﬁed, we had all done our level best to penetrate deeper and deeper into that treasury of religion which is hidden from view by i nnumerable veils . a We had had the s me experiences as Strindberg, but when we believed we had reached our goal, when it seemed as though the last veil would be drawn aside, then th e — everything burst like iridescent soap bubble, and there we stood viewing it all from the wrong side .

His despair was ours , and every word he spoke was received by us like fresh spring water which brought us to life again .

What did we care th at th e so - called literary critique in the capital annihilated everything he wrote ? We had entered through the lofty portal Of poetic creation ! we had followed his progress line for line in the characters

M as te l r t e P ri t of r O af and Ge dt h n er. And we had learned how to love this Master Olof who made the walls of the old, crumbling temple fall in order to make room

r s for a greater, freer, and more wo thy tructure . We loved our new Swedish master j ust as highly as we loved M the gentle aster of Galilee . Already the introduction to Mas ter Olof had for us the THE JUVENILE POET AND REVOLTER I 7 beauty o f revelation and recalled to us the sagas which ’ M lof s we had read in our youth . aster O play with the two disciples whose parts in a religious drama he is rehearsing, was to us the harbinger of that new spring of which the author gave us the presentiment . We had been seized with a hatred of the religion in which we had u been deceived, but we still retained that strong religio s sentiment which quest and search had produced, and ’ Strindberg s words fell into a soil that was predisposed to receive them . Not until many years afterwards when I saw M as ter Olaf on the stage did I notice that my love of the play had been so great as to prevent me from fully grasping M the signiﬁcance of the closing scenes of the drama . y belief in the Swedish reformer1 had been so unlimited as to force me to overlook those traits of weakness which the poet had permitted to remain in him in order th at he might be completely human . The next work of Strindberg that came to us down

Th R ed R oom there in the country was e . It was preceded ” by a rumor of excessive redness , the consequence of which was that we , the young, shrank for a time from reading it, in spite of the fact that we considered our selves as red as it was possible to be .

Th e R ed Room And so when we read , we felt as if a new warmth streamed into our veins . Our pulses th robbed more vigorously, and the whole description became enshrouded in a sort Of red mist . And that was

1 r o w e d sh d ne and e ormer Olaus P e tri ( Mas te Ol f) , S i ivi r f , ( 1493 18 STRINDBERG THE MA N

o of r not on acc unt it being politically so ed, since we in the country never had h ad any respect for bureaucratic Stockholm against which Strindberg directed his biting

satire, but rather on account of the violent indignation which these initial clashes with li fe had aroused in the

breast of the young poet . In M as ter Olaf he had as yet been on the great main h road which seems to lead directly up to the eights . With The Red Room he had turned in on a by- path which

meandered among the underbrush . He had thrown himself into the opposition and revolted against this provincial istic community which tried to keep him down and force him to turn away from the lofty genre of Mas te Ola composition Whose rhythm echoed in r f. who re u The poet revolted against his enti s rroundings, Whose indignation gave him a courage so great that not even the highest fo rtress - tower of tradition frightened t him, the poe With the thorn pointing towards his head we could not but love and admire, we who were young at that time . Is it to be wondered at that we stuck to him through ? thick and thin That we ourselves became revolters , each in his own little circle ? Besides this there were in The Red Room glorious descriptions of Bohemian life which for all time to come Opened our eyes to the beauty of a life led in such proud simplicity as that of those young artists among th eir ’ 1 L - garden plots in the vicinity of ill Jans . These Strind berg stories prevented many of us from making

’ 1 e a t Lin-Jans woods t o th e no h of th e ca a Th e b u iful rt pit l .

20 STRI NDBERG THE MA N

’ Strindberg s outline of a cultural history is a patriotic achievement of extraordinary importance . No other b ook that has come into my hands has awakened such a love for our people as that one book . And it is a love that embraces not only the nobility with the brilliant family names , but also the great nameless masses who in silence have fought all the battles of every day li fe with a heroism just as. great as that which our countrymen

- developed on the world famous ﬁelds of battle .

’ The S w edish P e o le at H om e Originally Strindberg s p , was proj ected on a much larger scale, but the publishers forced him to hurry in order to issue the work , which was published in installments , as soon as possible .

Strindberg, therefore , found it necessary to condense it more and more , and in the end he was obliged to style the

u line book A n O t . Swedish literature thus lost one of its most monumental works . The foundation is laid , how and r ever, it is to be hoped that the near future may b ing forth some historian of cultural progress who in a worthy i manner will continue the work which Str ndberg began .

The next epoch - making book by Strindberg was his

h e Kin dom great social satire T e N w g . It caused great n rejoici g among the young, but wrung a cry of horror

- from all the old timers .

The Swedish realm, our entire system of government ,

- the all constitutive bureaucracy , we had been accustomed from childhood on to regard as a kind of divine institu tion so ﬂawlessly perfect that we had to admire it as a THE JUVENILE POET AND REVOLTER 2 1

model for the entire world . The leading men in the province of religi on and literature were scarcely less than n ‘ gods , and it ever would have occurred to anyone to h i approac th s Olympus with criticising glances . And then there came an underrated dramaturgist who not only laid bare a great many flaws in them, but looked at the whole matter from such an elevation that the lofti ness disappeared and the proud height of Olympus caved in, until it became as flat as a newly tilled field, and the — resplendent temples seemed to be situated in mud puddles instead of upon th e brow of the famous mountain .

The N ew Kingdom could not have aroused a discussion more animated had it been a new, half intelligible play by Ibsen . We, the young blood, we revelled in the social emancipation to which we had now attained, j ust as we

The R ed R oom did in the case of , which had prepared the way for the younger artists and art theories in the province of literature and painting . The older genera tion was thoroughly frightened and endeavored to deny the facts with which Strindberg tormented hi s times . They regarded us as irretrievably lost and heading towards a sad future , where, perhaps , some ﬁne day we would be swallowed up by th e earth .

In one respect they were right . It was a hard blow to a young mind to be obliged to tear to shreds, piece by piece, all that had been regarded as the loftiest and the mo st noble . It is like going through a series of opera tions and having the old members replaced by new ones . 22 STRINDBERG THE MA N

You are able thus to save a life, but the result is a piece

— r r r of patch work with seams ato t e t at ave s .

That Strindberg and his contemporary adolescent generation had to submit to this, was not our fault . We would have preferred to continue in our belief in the old

- household gods, but when we noticed that the state of impotent of th e preceding generations had given a vigorous start to cancerous diseases in our breasts , What else could we do but put the knife to the abscesses and remove th em while it was yet time ? Because Strindberg marched at the head of us as the incorruptibly honest and fearless champion of truth , we had the power to e ndure the torture of the operations . ff m f We had su ered fro those a ﬂictions for years , but they were necessary in order that co ming generations mi ght be saved . In our case the mental diseases were only in a primary stage at which an operation was still possible ! in the next generation, they would perhaps become incurable . Cutting down everything that he found decaying or n withered, Strindberg co tinued to advance upon the path which ran like a spiral around the mountain up to its summit . When he arrived, he compared the temple V structure situated there to alhalla, and he found that he a d himself, once a beaming Balder, had been ch nge into a 1 P oems in Vers e and P ros e reviling Loke . It is in his that we meet him in this guise . The spirit of the age in general he symbolizes in the

1 I n E n s h : L o . e e No s e h o o . gli ki S r , Myt l gy TH E JUVENILE POET A ND REVOLTER 23

The Time conception Gods of . He raises them up to

V decadence the alhalla of real , a lofty dwelling which reminds one not a little of a certain literary Areopagus af with sweetened water in the glasses before them . And ter having placed those gods in a proper milieu ala Offen bach he , he himself stepped into the midst of them like t young giant Loke, horsewhipped them until the strokes of d the Whip tore open their bodies , and only watche for the right moment to overthrow the whole assembly . All the gentleness and goodness of the author of

M t l . as er O af had disappeared Before us stood a young, spiteful b lasphemer whose love of truth and j ustice forced him to speak as he did .

It was the revolter pure and simple we beheld, the revolter who had raised the banner of rebellion within the sphere of spirit and intellect . And when he raised the bann er against hypocrisy and counterfeit gods, how could we but follow him ? All the young people of the early eighties who had anything good in them uncondi tionall y went into battle under the colors of this chief . Those who remained at home were the insidious and — narrow minded, who were more intent upon watching the meat—pots (and of stealing some of the meat from those who had hastened to the firing line) than to make sacrifices for a great cause . We ourselves could not at that time realize the magni tude of the fight nor the significance of the victory which a L . ke and his youthful forces actually won But now, 24 STRI NDBERG THE MA N

almost a quarter of a century later, anyone that is so inclined can see that it was this bloodless revolution h ad within the intellectual sphere which, after it caused th e collapse of the crumbling temples, prepared a new th t foundation for e new Sweden, which ever since hat time has been erecting new structures for a people whose

- self respect is on the point of being aroused . t our Wi hout the Strindberg revolution, nation would still be that invertebrate, lethargic weakling who considered that he was doing enough for the age by dreaming about the boom of the leath er- cannon of the seventeenth century and who admired himself while ’ I lying onhis back declaiming Tegnér s Charles XI . P CHA TER II . — STRINDBERG TH E MISUNDERSTOOD KNIGHT OF TH E WEAKER S Ex N spite of the fact that so many wise and good words —e n have already been said by others . g. by Herman — Esswein and John Landquist about th e pretended

- r o woman hater Strindbe g, I , too , am bliged to touch on the subj ect, not in order to produce more evidence to ’ show that Strindberg s hatred of women is a misunde r standing, but because I need this factor also in order to the make the characterization of the poet and man, which

I am endeavoring to present by means of these lines , as complete as possible .

Besides questions pertaining to art, religion, and sociology, in which Strindberg had been the spokesman

th e for young, there was a ﬁeld in which we all stood i e . . face to face with a chaotic confusion . things erotic

At ﬁrst, like Strindberg himself, we had had to ﬁght clear of the maelstrom of misunderstanding upon which — the traditional so called moral conception is based . After we had succeeded by degrees in arriving at our own conclusion in this matter, always with reference to h individual c aracteristics, we suddenly collided with two great icebergs which checked us and became the cause of new confusion . These were the contributions to the question by the n n two great Norwegians Ibse and BjOrnso . Ibsen was 2 5 26 STRINDBERG THE MA N

the more signiﬁcant and the more dangerous, for his

- Nora morals had laid a very serious hold on all and were, at the time when Strindberg sat down and wrote his M arried f , in a fair way to be accepted as a sort of o ﬁcial ’ — individual moral code . Bj ornson s glove morals on the other hand fell down almost immediately on account of e b ing absolutely unreasonable . ’ But the Nora- morals or the Doll s House cult

as thrived, and as it w in a fair way of turning our heads perhaps for a long time to come, the lion woke up in

Strindberg, and he considered the time had come when it was his duty to appear in the arena and strike a great blow . He began his attack by indicating that if the feministic movement of that time was bent on liberating woman in such a way that she would grow more and more like a man , then the movement had strayed from the right ff path . There must be a di erence between man and woman, for if all humanity should become masculine , such a state of affairs could have but one consequence : the downfall of the human race . I f woman did not wish to submit to motherhood, the human race naturally could not continue . Strindberg has a to tally different ideal from that of the : emancipated mannish woman the love of the good, ’ cheerful housewife, the obj ect of the husband s and the ’ — childrens love a woman raised almost to the level of a madonna, but who , because of the treasure she possesses

s in the home, bow before the mate and supporter of the family .

28 STRINDBERG THE MA N

The Father richest of periods , the one which begins with

e th and ends with The Dance of D a . ’ What lies behind Strindberg s ﬁght against all the outgrowths of the feministic movement is exactly this : he continually clung to the ideal of woman as wife and mother which he had formed in his youth . And what he attacked during the period in which he wrote and defended his work M arried was just such conditions as are likely to destroy the altogether too unpopular ideal . ’ What he attacked was partly Ibsen s false exposition in ’ A D oll s H ous e of man and woman in wedlock and which started a silly discussion about unhappy marriages in general and especially of woman as the one contrahent in wedlock who has been oppressed for centuries ! partly he directed his weapons against matrimony under present condi ti ons - , as he himself writes in an interview preface to the ﬁrst part of M arri ed :

is I have shown that perfect bliss impossible , I have shown that woman under pres ent condi ti ons has often not always— become a toad on account of her educa — — tion, I have thus write it down, Sir attacked the education of the female, church marriage and the liberty

“ on the part of the men to play the paramour ! con se — quently I have not attacked woman, but rather write

—P res ent ondi ti o C ns . it down, Sir, in large letters

Woman do es not need my defense . She is the fashion and therefore she is the mistress of the world . And the freedom she now demands is the same freedom demanded by all men . This we must acquire as friends , not as enemies, for as such we will get nothing . KNIGHT OF THE WEAKER SEX 29

H ow the author o f Married in spite of these lucid statements of his could be turned into the apostle of —of absolute hatred of women, seems to me to be a sleight hand trick of the kind that is rather difﬁcult of explanation . Of course, it is quite clear from What quarter the trick proceeds ! but to explain and to prove f anything about it conclusively is more di ﬁcult . Strindberg’ s endeavor to appear as the defender of idealistic womanhood displeased all the emancipationists

' “ ’ in skirts or pantaloons who had started the Doll s House ” cult and had set up as their high aim : The emancipation of woman . And, strange to say, it seems to have been the educated element of the nation that had been carried o amil coc otte away by this cult, this w rship of the f y , How many of those who fought bravely against the Ibsen play did n ot go down on their marrow - bones in face of the perverted cult caused by the very same play ? They did not try to refute Strindberg’ s logic with

- n counter proofs a d clear arguments . They probably ff felt that it was rather difﬁcult to argue him o his feet . But they felled the altogether too bold champion by a blow from behind . They declared him an outlaw by at r christening him The Woman H e . Everywhere in Sweden during the years next following M arri ed the lawsuit occasioned by his , around thousands f t o f co fee pots and wi h the aid of thousands of foul ,

tattling tongues, they ﬁxed to the name of Strindberg

this uncalled - for epithet ! and it became so enduringly

th e ﬁxed that even at the present time, nay, on very ’ day of Strindberg s death, a thoughtless j ournalistic 30 STRINDBERG THE MA N literary light could sit down and use in the obituary th e of greatest poet that Sweden has produced, this derogatory term which he ought to have felt to be improper on purely technical grounds in connection with the name of the departed . u Strindberg had, as we have said, a certain p rpose in

o ut en View when he wrote his A B o k ab o Wom . That purpose he attained only in part . He was able to

- but undermine the Nora cult so that it collapsed, to get the feministic movement to progress along lines where it could keep company with reason was an impossibility even for him . M oreover, a comical incident thwarted the whole M a ri ed purpose of r . A prominent lady took exception to it and ordered an action to be brought against it . This ought to have been directed, of course, against its ” immoral tendencies , against the lack of respect with

" which the author speaks of Her Maj esty the Mistress. of

i e the world, . . against those features which ten thousand emancipated housewives had found most obj ectionable in the book . I f that had been done Strindberg would without a doubt have performed a much greater service with his book than he did .

s But instead of this , the accuser twisted the whole matter by bringing action against Marri ed for defamation of religion . Such a course Strindberg never could have

imagined, and it is to this disappointment he refers when “ he gives vent to his despair in the historical words : The ff o . shot went , but my gun did not stand it The pot is ” s bur ted . KNIGHT OF THE WEAKER SEX 3 1

Strindberg writes in the fourth part of The Char ’ w oman s S on (The Author) which was completed in 1 886 1 10 but not published until 9 , that the celebrated lawsuit was a farce staged by a woman and naturally

- intended to bring a man (himself) into the lime light .

The action was a comedy badly written by women, and the part which th ey assigned to Strindberg did not ﬁt him .

It proved the wrong one right through . He refused it, but they forced it upon him, as well as a couple of other rOle s which he liked even less . He was to be u i a popular trib ne , a relig ous reformer, a party leader, —an everything except what he was author . i And when the prosecut on was all over, it had succeeded in its principal aim . Strindberg was clawed to pieces , unable to work and, from an economic point of View , he was ruined . But it also had other consequences for the author of

M rri a ed . He had attacked religion , holy matrimony,

For and emancipated woman . this he was now to be punished . All that he had written was declared to be

was t immoral , he no longer the fashionable au hor, and

188 - 188 during the years 4 9, while he continued to reside abroad, his enemies succeeded in spreading such a terror about his name that upon his arrival home he felt himself to be an unknown man . The great popularity which he had once enjoyed was n go e . I f he had been convicted in the lawsuit over

arri ed . M , there would have been a revolution in his favor

Now he was discharged, dismissed even by young

s Sweden, the literary party who had arrayed them elves 32 STRINDBERG THE MA N about him and chosen him as their chief despite the fact that he never had asked them for that honor . This was their gratitude for his clear and candid state ment pertaining to one of the burning questions of the day and for his having chosen his words so that the statement — will be valid for long years to come, probably as long as men and women shall foolishly get into their heads to — — give one another befo re clergyman or magistrate the rash promise o f partnership for li fe . In the obscure circle of a provincial town where I

M arri ed soj ourned the year when appeared, I had a splendi d opportunity to study the remarkable manner in which Swedish society received the work . A long time before the book appeared and before its o c ntents became known, it had been condemned unani m l Th Kin do e N ew m . ous y. g had not been read in vain

They knew, therefore, how boldly free this social critic was how , little reverence he showed for certain of our

- time honored grievances, and they were convinced beforehand that Strindberg would put his foot in it most decidedly, if he actually undertook to discuss such a delicate question as that of woman and marriage .

They knew, therefore, several weeks in advance that “ Married pleaded for nothing less than free love, the w more accidental the better . All ties ere to be severed, for the parents must not know to whom th eir children

belonged, and on that account all were to be educated

f r by the state in a national institution o foundlings . u Th s parental love was to be blotted out of the world . — And the women well, what their fate might be one KNIGHT OF THE WEAKER SEX 33

a e r could im gine, when they no longer enj oyed th p otec tion of conj ugal ties but instead had to look upon love as n their bread a d butter . The female sex was destined to

form a proletarian class of most despicable creatures , and the last vestige of family life was to be wiped out ' on or ce f all . We can i magine what consternation this created in

the innumerable little homes . Around family lamp the folks are sitting in an atmosphere which one might

almost be j ustiﬁed in calling religious . And then Strind berg’ s big black hand appears and attempts to snatch the

lamp from the table, to disturb that admirable family

ff e concord, and drive the di erent members of th circle

into the street . ’ Strindberg s M arri ed was doomed e ven before it P appeared . eople wondered how the publisher, Albert

- Bonnier, could be bare faced enough to publish it . And it was expected that the book would be conﬁscated before

it had time to leave the press . m I had heard so uch about it myself that, a week ahead

of time, I called on the only bookseller in town asking

him to send me a copy, well wrapped up , as soon as he M arr had received the ﬁrst consignment of i ed. One day I returned from my walk and was on the point n of settling down among my books to conti ue my studies . s Suddenly my aunt came ru hing in, pale and out of

breath , just as if she had been present at some bloody

massacre in the immediate neighborhood . She was in f such a state of agitation that she spoke with di ﬁculty . “ What have you done, Gustaf How can you do any 34 STRINDBERG THE MA N

thing like that ? I—I thought that you were a decent

young man . It is terrible to deﬁle our honorable home

in that way. — ? ’ What way I don t see what you are driving at . And then she told me how my uncle had come home and by chance found a parcel containing M arri ed which

was lying on my desk . His. horror had been so great that he had dropped the book an d refused to pick it up

- except with a pair of ﬁ re tongs . He had taken it back to

the bookseller and read the riot - act to him for daring to

send the book to me . When I hastened down to the bookseller to get the

to en book again, he refused sell it to me . I had a Sharp

counter with him, but to no purpose . Through the back

door, however, he sold the book to those special customers of his who belonged to the literary clique of the commun

ity, and it had a great run, so much so that when its sale

was suppressed, there were but a few copies left . o Th se who had read it did not speak of it, but those who had not read it complained that Strindberg had made prostitutes out of all women and reviled all that is sacred .

I myself was treated as a criminal by my relatives , and they did not wish to be seen publicly together with me . They even warned their acquaintances against the Strind

- i berg friend as against some anarchist c monster .

was Such commotion the poor little work , which in misunderstood advance of its publication, caused all ! o over the country I f there had been a single h nest, fearless, inﬂuential person who had dared to stand up and to declare that M arried was a highly conservative

CHAPTER III .

MY FIRST MEE TING WITH STRINDBERG

HEN Strindberg left Sweden on the 18th of m 188 Nove ber, 4, after the legal proceedings with reference to M arri ed were brought to a e close, his name became wrapp d up almost immediately in a strange silence . We young people could not but believe that the victory which Strindberg had won when he was acquitted of the o charge of blasphemy, would turn all minds t wards him and that he would ﬁnally be given justice as poet and reformer . But instead of that he practically disappeared from our

r view . His litera y activity was dormant during the next t a few years ! or if he wrote any hing, it did not re ch us .

When we again met Strindberg as the unique poet, he ff was an entirely di erent man . He had become a skillful dramatist who had written a couple of Short hyp erm odem The Father Lad Julia dramas , and y , which no publisher in all Sweden had cared to print but of which a publisher 1 H lsin b or in éi g g was the ﬁnancial backer . Despite the fact that Zola had written the preface to The Father and partly approved of the play, the public at home rej ected ’ s it . Strindberg s former friends and protector , Georg

1 Th e s econd ar es c in th e ro nce of can a l g t ity p vi S i . F M IRST EETING WITH STRINDBERG 37

B Ornst erne Brandes and j j Bj ornson, pronounced their anathema over him and scattered bro adcast over the entire North the opinion that the author of The Father

- madm a was a n. The story passed from ear to ear that ’ - one of Strindberg s psycho pathological stories , written during his sojourn on a Danish island, was founded on personal experience and that he was ripe for the lunatic asylum .

In the midst of all this literary gossip about him, his

The I nhabi tants o H ems b n f made its appeara ce . In it there was no sign of insanity . With a hand so light that

r we could hardly believe it to be that of St indberg, he had painted this Japanese idyl of the skerries . It was a K mm endo1 hymn of praise to the summers on y , those summers which had seen the birth of Mas ter Olaf and t The N ew Kin dom —a probably also hat of g , hymn to the out - o f- door life among the skerries to which he loved to return from th e oppressive heat of France and

Switzerland . We can easily understand why Strindberg regarded

' his The I nhabitants of H ems b as a literary trans

re ion g ss . His artistic love of truth accused him of — having painted the picture in too light colors like the “ ” :2 well- known oil pai nting Ruskprick by his own hand in which is seen nothing but a mist - white ocean and a

1 I n th e Stockh olm Arch ipe lago.

2 A s ea- m ark cons is ting of a s lende r pole t o th e t op of wh ich i s ﬁ xed a s m all j uniper bush or th e like . Such navigation mar s r s n s eve a ards a o e th e s ur ace of th e wa er k , i i g r l y b v f t , omm on i n e d sh a e an are ve ry c Sw i l k s d rivers . 38 STRINDBERG THE MA N

Rusk rick still whiter sky, with a big, red p penetrating through both . In his introduction to Life A m ong the S kerri es Strind i berg endeavors in his amiable, na ve manner to exculpate himself from his o wn charges in this matter . He

s declare that it is the bright , smiling element in the life of a man who dwells among the skerries—when it actually takes that form—which he desired to depict in

The I nha i tant H ems o Li e A m on the S kerri es b s of . In f g he had endeavored to give the penumbra, and in order to be able fully to excuse himself, he ﬁnally half promised to give possibly later on and under better auspices , the umbra which must exist in order to present the picture n in its complete ess . But he never gave us this complete pictu re with the — b bluish black um ra . Things never became so cheerful about him as to permit him to write that work . I believe, besides, that he was too much concerned in the matter himself and that he loved the smiling idyl of the skerries too intensely to deepen it into tragic greatnes s .

For n Th e I nhabi tants the inhabita ts of central Sweden, o H ems b f came as a harbinger of j oy, but for us, the dwellers on the west coast who have learned how to love hi ff the strikingly wild w ch our coast has to o er, much more than the inland lake idyls of the Baltic coast , to us ’ Strindberg s idyl of the skerries was altogether too tame, and shared too much of the nature of Japanese water t colors . This is the reason why a my ﬁrst meeting with to m Strindberg, which is now be related, I made an atte pt e i . to convert him, . to get him to relinquish his hold on FIRST MEETING WITH STRINDBERG 39

the entirely idyllic and devote himself and his pen to the

consid titanic , the grandeur of our west coast , which I Th e Father ered to be more ﬁtting for the author of . After six years of exile Strindberg could stand it no longer . He had to return to his beloved Sweden once more, and it had become so dear to him on account of the

Visions caused by his long absence, that he could not be satisﬁed with anything less than actually embracing and beholding his entire native land . He must see it and describe it . The provincial critic had always emphasized his rural

r descriptions as the best in his prose works . The p ac — u - ff to tical p to date publisher could a ord, therefore , be interested in such a plan as to let Strindberg, the then ’ the dethroned chief, undertake a king s circuit through land . I had not been able to ﬁnd out what parts of the country he had covered . But he must have had B ohuslan a particular interest in , for one of the ﬁrst provinces that he explored rather tho roughly was that province .

18 0 the e s One day in September, 9 , local pr s announced that August Strindberg had arrived in Gothenburg and 1 K llar taken up his abode at Gota a e . He intended to study th e natural sceneries of B ohuslan and go on a sail along the coast . One of the ﬁrst to call on him was Gustaf af Geij er z stam was , who at the time employed by August Lindberg

1 One of th e principal h otels . 2 Swedish auth or (1858 40 STRINDBERG THE MA N

- s as a sort of literary aesthetic critic or coun ellor, translator and dramatist . Strindberg and Geij erstam were still the best of friends and Geij erstam did every ’ thing in his power during Strindberg s stay i n Gothen burg to make the latter enjoy all possible privileges

' B h l n during his o us a j ourney . He provided a large — ’ suitable sailing yacht for Strindberg s use . The intel lectual element of the city of Gothenburg gave a recep in tion his honor . And one day Geijerstam made arrangements for me M i to meet Strindberg . y card of introduct on was that I was an enthusiastic disciple of his and that I had been all over the coast which he now proposed to explore , so that I might perhaps be permitted to put my services at

his disposal .

’ About seven o clock I called at the hotel . The hours

between seven and ten in the evening, eleven at the latest, ’ were always Strindberg s conversation hours . Then he enj oyed sitting down to a cup with some good friend or

casual acquaintance . When Strindberg came down stairs to meet me that

evening, I saw him personally for the ﬁrst time . I saw his mighty head with the disarranged gigantic mane

- illumined by the gas light j ust behind him in the stairs .

But within this halo of a saint, I saw a face the traits of which were harder and colder than those of the youthful

poet with the thorn pressed against the forehead . He had endured many sufferings since that time and they

had left an intensiﬁed paleness on his face . They had FIRST MEETING WITH STRINDBERG 4 1 plowed furrows in his cheeks and dug dark hollows under his eyes . ! His eyes In these there was nothing of the dreamer,

M o of that aster Olof whom I had loved as a good br ther .

They were light grey and cold , the ﬂash of the eye was an d sharp repellent, and the continual forcing of the focus had, as it were, pressed the eyes farther back under the vault of the forehead . Immediately I recogn ized in him the persecuted man , and I saw that unceasing hound ing had changed him so strangely that he had something wolfish in his nature . There was a tension in his expres sion as though he were ready immediately to snap back in case anyone yelped at him . ff There was , besides , a di erent air about him from the one he had displayed in the pictures of his youth . In some of th ese there is something unreﬁned about him . In one of them he reminds you of a young fellow who has been sitting on the tailor’ s table1 all his life and 2 h thereby acquired an expression of fatuity . In anot er there pops up a sort of school teacher who pretends to be a superior spirit in spite of the fact th at detachable cuffs reach down on his knuckles . O f the youthful face of 18 0 o 7 , which in my opini n is ideally beautiful, there was not a trace, nor did he resemble in the least the pictures of his later youth .

The Strindberg of forty met me as a cosmopolitan .

1 Al lus ion t o th e fact th at th e tailor s its on th e table wh ile working .

2 P os s ibly a re ference t o a picture taken in 1884 wh ich i s ve ry unattrac tive . 42 STRINDBERG THE MA N

He looked very much like a sculptor who had travelled

an d . for a long time . His dress was faultless modest

He also impressed me as being tired, to a certain extent, of all that he had seen and experienced . I did not know at that time that the romance of his ﬁrst marriage was o b e then drawing to a close , that a third person had c me tween him and his wi fe and that one of the reasons for Strindberg’ s j ourneys at that time was the need of being m away from the two wo en , who made his life at home unbearable .

Geij erstam introduced me to him , we seated ourselves

ca at a Window in the fé, and when Geij erstam left for the theatre the conversation was soon under way .

In the beginning Strindberg was rather reticent .

Without pretending to do so , he sat there and spied on me secretly . As I wished to gain his confidence at once to and make it plain him that I had no evil designs , I began making a sort of literary proposal . t He sat there quietly and listened to the ale of how we , the young at the old petrified Latin School, had been h carried away by his first poems . I told him ow his youthful power of action had proved contagious in our case, how we had j oined him in the insurrection and how ff we had had to su er with him . Strindberg sat there in silence and heard me as I poured over him all the enthusiasm of youth which we

. u had received from him What he tho ght of it all , I do not know , but it was not until afterwards that I noticed what a conﬁrmed skeptic he was . He could take my

. t h words for what they were worth, I felt at it was my

44 STRINDBERG THE MA N

well together, that at my ﬁrst visit to the Stockholm r a sker ies, I w s unable to breathe until I had reached 1 Sandh amn . Strindberg defended himself by describing his Kym

— i i mendo yet Without ment on ng it by name , for he always tried to make a secret out of that spot which he loved — most clearly o f all that I heard him speak of and he described its loveliness in such colors that I could feel that he had enj oyed daily being in the midst of this ideal landscape . M Bohuslan y beloved , on the other hand, I could not induce him to love . I described a sail along its coast . I recalled to him how we wake up in the morning in a setting that has not changed since the time of the

Vikings . It forms the background of primaeval man . ff And the red tinge of the cli s against the light green, isn ’ t that the most beautiful combination of colors that can be seen in nature ? P But Strindberg was not to be moved . This rome

was s theus, who indeed, if anyone, in every re pect created th B ohuslan for a background like at of a landscape, this

Viking o f violent passion, had fallen desperately in love with the idyllic surroundings of his native city ! u And this really seemed to me altogether nreasonable, that he who himself had proclaimed that “ he found the ” t the j oy of exis ence in hard, cruel struggle of life, should be capable of loving natural sceneries which are the very opposite of all that .

1 A n is land in th e outer fringe of th e Stockh olm Arch i pelago. FIRST MEETING WITH STRINDBERG 45

o However, we glided away fr m this topic on which we entertained such absolutely incompatible views . Already e i at my ﬁrst me ting with Str ndberg, I noticed how greatly t ff it displeased him to be contradic ed . He did not su er the least little hobby, to which he himself clung, to be a rudely m nipulated .

This right he reserved for himself . It seemed as though the destruction of a truth which for a long time he had been imparting to all whom he met, the grinding of it to the ﬁnest powder between the heavy stones of his mental mill , and the scattering of it to the winds , gave to this indefatigable self - tormenter above all other things the most exquisite enjoyment . Hence his wrath against anyone who tried to anticipate him . He was in his favorite mood when he could play the part of story teller . In his autobiography he repeatedly a enre sserts that in this g he has outrun others not a little, i — or to make a clean boast of t an entire ell . So we next spoke of movements down there in conti nental Europe . This topic warmed him up . The woman question he considered that he had exhausted and placed in its proper mi li eu as a speciality for unmarried society women alone . The labor question he had for a

n on time lost interest in, because of the e deavors the part of the industrial socialists to bring about a complete state of bankruptcy in contemporary socie ty . But the agri and cultural question appealed to him, he had tried to study it during a lengthy soj ourn among the French u peasantry . This class naturally makes p the main bulk 46 STRINDBERG THE MA N

o n of the nati n, and it is therefore amo g them that the new commonwealth must be founded .

Besides , he was skeptical about all these social theories , and those which he himself had only lately enunciated, he had already torn to pieces . In one question , however, he showed a lively interest, and that was the dreadful

H e Viz . possibility hinted at by enry G orge , , that modern civilization was face to face with a decline, and that once

Fi ul—i ter 1 more we had to expect the mediaeval mb w n .

While Strindberg told of all this, the latest and the — very latest , that which in the very course of speaking — he added as a con clusion to the preceding he truly lived over again , as it were, a thousand lives . He became M M aster Olof once more, but a aster Olof who had abandone d the church where there was no lon ger any work to do , and who had devoted himself to a more general betterment of the world, a utilitarian, as he then styled himself .

All the time while talking he smoked cigarettes . He inhaled the smoke with the same passionate delight that he hurled forth a few paradoxes with which he hoped to catch me . But when I cleared the reefs on which he hoped to test me it did not seem to disappoint him but rather to cause him satisfaction . At times when he had launched some c rushing argu ment or just caught the idea of one, he would suddenly ’ ’ stop and perform a cigarette smoker s tour d adress e

1 ard w n e wh ch e ce de s th e w h of th e ods Th e h i t r, i pr t ilig t g , lasts for th re e ye ars and forete lls th e de s truction of th e gods

(As ar) and th e world . FIRST MEETING WITH STRINDBERG 47 which made the same pleasing impression on me as some clownery in the circus . It was at the same time amusing and cleverly executed . He would inhale a big puff of smoke which he managed in such a manner th at it made two consecutive circuits through his nose and throat . ’ ’ This smoker s tour d adres s e seemed to me to be some n thing more than a mere trick . It bared o e side of Strindberg even more than any of the words he had pronounced on this occasion : it testiﬁed to how great and

ﬂaming a passion he had always been in this cold world . The spirit ke pt rising gradually the longer we contin 1 ued . We were drinking Swedish nectar, and little by little we had got into the student atmosphere which

Strindberg had a special ability to produce . This ability he retained even to Old age . Despite the fact that he had already made a great name in Europe and had been overwhelm ed with international marks of esteem, he had

as not acquired any overbearing mann ers . He w plain and natural and did not pound the humble opponent to death with peremptory language . But he was also at this time an entirely different man from the pale Loke whom I had seen descending the hotel stairs . His cheeks had taken on color, his eyes had

- grown darker and seemed to be dark blue, they were beaming and open and had lost every sign of suspicion . The Strindberg who extended his hand to me with a — good night was a man full of grace and good will , and I grasped his hand as ﬁrmly and as cordially as though I

1 th e na ona e e ra e m ade om s u a Swe dish punch , ti l b v g , fr g r,

a e and s om e o h e n e d en s . arrao, w t r t r i gr i t 48 STRINDBERG THE MA N had been saying good—bye for a long time to my own father .

B ohuslan When he returned from his trip through , I did not have a chance to see him . I only heard from Geij erstam that Strindberg had had some disagreeable

c hi s experiences . The foul gossip in onnection with M arri ed had penetrated even to the unliterary inhabitants of the wilds of the country, so that the people openly

M arried showed him their hatred for being the father of .

But this after all was no wonder, for the local press. had done its best during the years just preceding to keep him continually on the rack . P I CHA TER V .

TH E WANDERING SCIENTIFIC INVESTIGATOR N his endeavor to obtain more knowledge and new of forms artistic expression, Strindberg always

followed the highest precedents . The name which he most often pronounced when people spoke to him about art and learning, was that of

Goethe . To judge by what he said about the German

Olympian , it seems that secretly he had chosen him as his special ideal and that he always endeavored to test himself and to j udge himself through a comparison with

Goethe . ’ Whenever there was a pe riod in Strindberg s life when for one reaso n or another he could not busy his restless brain with writing, impetuously and with great energy he delved into studies of various kinds . As a young library clerk he studied Swedish history and the Chinese n u la guage . During his soj o rn in Switzerland he was occupied principally with modern sociology . At the beginn ing of his second long exile, when he stayed with 1 e Ola Hansson in Friedrichshagen and later on in B rlin, the exact sciences and modern natural sciences claimed his attention .

- When I found Strindberg in a dark, half furnished ’ studio in Ola H ansson s little cottage in Friedrichshagen

1 Swedish auth or. 49 50 STRINDBERG THE MA N near Berlin about two years after I had met him in d Gothenburg, it was not the poet Strindberg that receive me , but rather the man of scientiﬁc research . He had spent a couple of very unpleasant years in the ’ S weden s vicinity of Stockholm . His large book about

Natural S ceneri es he had not ﬁnished . He had had to go through the long painful proceedings of divorce from hi his ﬁrst wife . He had passed most of s time in the

- skerries , had written some of his short , masterly one act —so plays , he had painted a large number of pictures many that he might have arranged a separate exhibition — and he had described his ﬁrst conj ugal inferno in A ’ F o e i ol s Conf ss on . These two years of suffering and poverty played an ’ important part in Strindberg s life . Doubtless they laid the foundation for that state of excessive irritability which paved the way for the great Inferno - period a few years ’ later . I f these years had not been so hard, Strindberg s career after 1892 might have become entirely different from what it was .

s t When Strindberg went into exile thi time, he hought it was for the last time . During the voyage from

o Stockholm to Stettin, the steamer was foll wed by a huge — dark blue tidal wave , which he later on reproduced in colors , and this indefatigable pursuer he regarded as an omen that he must keep away from his ungrateful countrymen . F th e When I first met him in riedrichshagen , he had appearance of a man who finally could breathe again after a long confinement in a hospital .

52 STRINDBERG THE MA N

The long seclusion in the skerries had made Strindberg f more taciturn than he usually was . It was di ﬁcult to get under way a conversation that might carry him along . He did not wish to discuss the subj ect of belles lettres ! he thought the subj ect was below his dignity . I tried to ’ tell about Herman Gorter s new literary achievements and about Walt Whitman , the great American author, the two new planets about which my life revolved during these two years .

But Strindberg cared for neither of them . It inter e sted him far more to hear about th e red Indian s with whom I had come in contact the year before out there in the wild west . An individual with much of the primitive man in him as he was , he seems always to have sympath iz ed tactiturn with these , mystic people of the wilds , and this in spite of the fact that it was not until towards the end of his life that he thought he had made the interesting discovery that the Indians probably were descendants of the Phoenicians and that Indian word- roots are of a purely Hebrew and Greek origin. What at this time was of particular interest to him as regards the Indians was whether their reticence in the council was a sign of concentrated mental activity or its very opposite . He suddenly asked me if I had not as ascertained this while I w among them . Of course I had not made any direct inquiries of the kind since I was not aware of th e fact that this was an unexplored ﬁeld . But to j udge by what I had seen n of Indians, I had been able to come to the co clusion that they have the power of thinking so secretly THE SCIENTIFIC INVESTIGATOR 53

that one can not by any signs whatsoever divine their F thoughts . urthermore, I had found that when they talk , they express themselves with such concentration and by means of images of such poetic coloring that they e give you the impression of reﬁned thinkers . On th se two grounds I thought it safe to assure Strindberg that

s the great , mystic silence of the Indian could not be due to inactivity of the brain . This seemed to please him, although I am not certain that he was fully convinced . I told him also of a success he had had out there in P unliterary U . S . A . opular among the Swedes he was

- not, of course, since they are all church people as a rule, church - goers of the most narrow - minded kind—and as such void of all understanding of every kind of critique of the existing order of things . After having read ’ Th e R ed R oom Strindberg s , the majority of those whom I met had received the impression that Strindberg t was a dangerous anarchist, and they had made up heir the minds not to read another line from his pen . Even

- Swedish American Singing Societies , which toured ’ Sweden a year or two before Strindberg s death, disowned him and refused to give a red cent to th e national fund which was started at that time in order that the ofﬁcially disowned poet might be given a N obel

P riz e b he S wedis h eo le y t p p .

All the more wonderful it is, therefore, that one of ’ The Strindberg s works that was least popular at home,

S w edis h P eo le at H om e e p , had scored a gr at success that

r ve y year among the exiles in America . It was the founder and former editor of the weekly paper called 54 STRINDBERG THE MA N

The Vi kin g, who had settled down in Chicago, to whom we are indebted for this .

M r Out there he went by the name of . Strand, and he had undertaken to print the entire work and to reproduce was the illustrations . The enterprise such a success that The S w edis h P eople at H om e next to the Bible was the most popular book in the Swedish language in the United

States of America . The publisher had made a net gain t of on Strindberg, and when I told him hat the author was somewhere in the skerries outside of Stock

M r holm in a most destitute condition, . Strand declared 2000 that he wanted to send Strindberg a royalty of $ , if he only could get his address . F After our meeting in riedrichshagen we wrote, both

Strindberg and myself , to Strand with reference to the royalty , which would have come in very handy for

Strindberg at that time . But we never received an n answer, and according to what I lear ed later on , Strand lost every cent he had made on Strindberg, when he tried to publish a second work of the author . A S usual we discussed that evenin g everything between heaven and earth . The strongest impression that I

o f received Strindberg at that time, was his j oy at having l t broken off all relations with bel es le tres . It seemed as if this sort of authorship had fagged him out entirely

had tour he , shortly before , performed such a volitional ’ — de force as A Fool s Confessi on as though he had been quite tired out with this groping in space to which poetic activity is so conducive .

Now, having entered the province of science, he felt THE SCIENTIFI C INVESTIGATOR 55

that he was on ﬁrm ground . He rejoiced with the enthusiasm of a child because the subjects with which he was to occupy himself were so evident that there could be no further reasons for doubt . He no longer wished

the - to be the everlasting skeptic , never ceasing wrecker

s tatu uo th e of the s q . Now work of clearing had been performed and he considered the time of reconstruction

to be at hand .

- l l t His misca cu a ions were of a most serious nature .

s r He delved into the exact science , but eve ywhere he

came across great blanks, which he could not call exact .

This caused a break with the natural sciences in general ,

s - i and from having been a imple hearted, na ve believer, he

r became in this province also the revolutiona y Loke .

Three years afterwards he bursts. out in his S ylva

“ S ylvarum : A generation that has had the courage to

Go d F dethrone the ather, to tear down the state, the

the a church, commonwealth , and mor ls , still bows before n the sciences . But in the scie ces where liberty ought to

the - : ! rule , pass word is Believe in the authorities or die A pillar of the Bastille had not yet been raised in Paris

on the spot where the former Sorbonne was situated, and the cross still dominated the Panthéon and the cupola of

h e t Institute .

“ o There was, therefore, nothing m re to do in the world,

and feeling that I was superfluous , I determined to ” disappear . Thus Strindberg’ s endeavor to find something exact 56 STRINDBERG THE MA N and stable to cling to resulted in a fit of despair which almost led to suicide . His arrival in Germany this time took place at a most inopportune moment and under the most unfavorable

—so enth conditions . I f the author speaks the German u siastic — Strindberg scholar, Hermann Esswein like young

S chillar had found a Weimar among us , that element in him which alone could have brought poise and calm into his life and thus cleansed his spirit of all inclinations to extremes , would undoubtedly have increased in strength and perhaps even conquered in the end .

But Strindberg found no Weimar, only modern

- Berlin . He found no aesthetic philosophic spiritual cul u t re that could inspire conﬁdence, but a roaring, seething chaos of efforts and onsets in every direction and all

i ers ec that childishly wild, shallow spiritual ty, void of p p

tive, which always foams up as soon as , new ﬁelds are ” opened for materialistic culture or exploitation . Instead of ﬁnding the new syntheses which modern science had been able to produce during the latter decades, Strindberg at that time came across the funda a mental preparatory works , lot of details that had not as yet been systematically arranged . He only found the

foundations , but no temples upon them, and it was this

that so deeply embittered him, who came with all his

st rong religiosity prepared to emb race the new rationalism . It was a new Red Room period which he passed

through during this stay in Berlin . But it was entirely different from that period of his youth in which he fought THE SCIENTIFI C INVESTIGATOR 57

1 alon er - o A l bureaucracy with Berns S g as rendez v us . ready the name A t the S ign of the B lack Pig symbolizes m The S i n this Berlin soj ourn . In the little wine roo in g of th e B lack Pig at the corner of Unter den Linden and Pots dame rstrasse , where Strindberg passed the evenings

that winter, the questions of the day were discussed, and everything that seemed in the least antiquated became the obj ect of sharp attacks . Among the friends with whom Strindberg associated t here and who seem to have had some inﬂuence on him, th e most important was the Polish author Stanislaw P I n r 6 — rzybyszewski whom Strindberg in fe no (pp . 6 6 7) d ‘ ’ calls my friend, my disciple who calle me father , F because he had learned of me, my amulus , who gave me the name o f master and kissed my hands because his life began where mine ended . Of none of his literary friends have I heard Strindberg speak with such enthusiasm as of this St achu (an

abbreviation of Stanislaw) . In the beginning of their

n acquaintance, Stri dberg spoke of him as a universal genius and called him the great Pole But Stachu

belonged to those all - embracing minds who t ry to encom fﬁ pass so much that no systems su ce, and whose sphere — — of thought except within well arranged special ﬁ elds — is a never ceasing, billowing chaos .

tachu Besides this , S was one of those who have a need of deadening the increasing Welts chmerz with continual

1 Fash ionable re s taurant and cafe on th e s outh s ide of

B erzelii Park . 58 STRINDBERG THE MA N

re Dionysian orgies . In his despair over the negative sult s to which he had come, we can easily imagine how natural it would be for Strindberg to enter into the spirit — ’ of those wine nights in the little cafe with the unattrac tive name . In order to have something wherewith to counteract n P d the roma tic ole, Strindberg engage a couple of scientiﬁc assistants at this time who s erved him in the — capacity of controllers when they were allowed to do so! which was not always the case—with reference to those discoveries of “ scientiﬁc mistakes ” or “ exact lies which

Strindberg made from time to time . Despite the fact that Strindberg now had renounced his artistic activities , he showed himself in all his artistic glory in these scientiﬁc investigations . He did not study the sciences in the same manner as the sponge - brains at our universities who absorb mechanically ! on the con t rar t n y, he reacted against every hi g, added up his suspicions until he had quite a batch, and when he had h e several such blocks ready, began to make his syntheses sometimes based on a real blunder and thus leading n nowhere, but on other occasio s bringing results which were reached intuitively and proved to be of real value . It must be granted that what Strindberg accomplished was not scientiﬁc achievement in the strict sense of the word . But time and time again , he raised questions of such surprising ingenuity that the ordinary servants of the “ Temple of the Sciences probably would not have hit upon them for a long time, had they not had this original forerunner .

60 STRINDBERG THE MA N step by step over the great rubbish - heap of the occult sciences , and ﬁnally brought about that catastrophe which ’ precipitated him into his life s deepest Inferno . t But before Strindberg got here , he had committed ’ another great folly . Tired of the bachelor s life he had been leading he became desirous of once more casting in his lot with that of a young woman . This time it was a girl whom he met by chance in the literary coteri e of which he was an associate . It was love at ﬁrst sight that attracted them to one another . But Strindberg scarcely seemed to be ac quainted with this little Frida Uhl who before long when insanity threatened him—became his pretty j ailer Neither in what he said nor in what he wrote about her, can we form an estimate of the young woman .

n She got him away from the wild bacchanalia nights, however . As she was a woman of the world , she did not wish to see her betrothed in the somewhat rustic ward robes that Strindberg had brought with him from the skerries . She compelled him to buy modern clothes in

Berlin .

One day artloving Berlin saw the serious man of r F a research, August Strindbe g, and the charming r ulein Frida Uhl coming up to the National Gallery of Art on a sort of exhibition trip . Strindberg had j ammed himself into the traditional apparel of an extreme Berlin dandy

Suit of a large - checkered material with large cuffs on the

- - pantaloons , a short yellowish gray top coat, a loud

z - necktie, a cane of exaggerated si e and a well polished THE SCIENTIFI C INVESTI GA TOR 61 silk hat which hardly could be induced to remain on Strindberg’ s ﬂuffy lion’ s mane !

Shortly afterwards both disappeared from Berlin . They had started on their honeymoon to Heligoland and Gravesend . CHAPTER V . I NFERNO T does not seem improbable that Strindberg began — what he calls his Inferno - wandering the patho ” — logical crisis o f his physicians during his hon ey

moon at Gravesend . Several times during our conversation he reverted to

one of the experiences of that period . It is also

discussed in some of his autobiographical works,

probably in some of the Blue Books .

One Sunday morning he left Gravesend for London . On one of the morning trains he had arrived at the station F just south of London Bridge . rom this point he con

tinued o on fo t, crossing at this early morning hour the

long, deserted bridge .

I But suddenly the bridge is no longer deserted . Towards him there comes like a wave an endless proce s

s t ion of mystic penitents, all with hoods over heir n the heads , so that o ly the gray beards or chins are

Visible , advancing slowly and with silent steps . Strindberg would always revert to these phantoms of

London Bridge . I f they were real , then , through the

deep impression they made upon him , they aided in bringing about the crisis which was being fanned to life

Within him . I f , on the other hand, they were not real d but mere visions , then they forme the introduction to the ” pathological crisis . INFERNO 63

Fully corporeal visions Strindberg never pretends to have had . O f their nature we can judge by his diarian I n erno notes in f . When they became numerous , he felt

s o f h 1 8 a de ire to keep track t em, and from 95

1 0 r to 9 9, he thus continued his dia y of which

I n erno A S the pages in f are an abstract . a rule he seems

r to have had audito y hallucinations , conversations with invisible persons , with Swedenborg and others . He had to cut short his honey—moon in order to ﬁght ’ A Fool s Con es out his second literary lawsuit , because f sion had been seized . Thereupon he accompanied his wife for the ﬁrst time to her relatives in the little Catholic

village on the Danube . After that he did not come in

M 1 8 touch with his friends until arch , 94, when he re

F o turned to riedrichshagen, where he put up at a h tel in

A nti barbarus I order to read the proofs of his .

During the time he wrote this book , Strindberg had got into peculiar ways , and when his attention was called to the fact that here and there his argument was based on erroneous premises , he would not j oin issue on the subj ect . He became embittered and ceased to associate with his friends . He shut himself up within his own self and b ecame impervious to reason .

r After having retu ned to Austria for the summer,

Strindberg left for Paris in August . There he no longer studied the sciences in the proper sense of the word ! he had cast them all o verboard because of the fact that he had met with a few incongruities in what, of course, an d should have been entirely ﬂawless , instead , with the wild desire of the passionate seeker after truth , he had 64 STRINDBERG THE MA N

r e s entered the apoc yphal bord rland of cience, alchemy h erchemistr r and yp y instead of scientiﬁc chemist y, s a trology instead of astronomy, etc . He had also severed relations with literary art and his interest had gone over to mediaeval necromancy . P Strindberg hastened—to aris in order there to devote himself to these quasi sciences . He believed himself to

o f be in possession certain ideas which , i f he could prove o them, would immediately make him fam us within the province of scientiﬁc research , perhaps bring him enormous riches . As he had not written any literary works which brought him an income, he was practically destitute of everything . I wish by the way to point out in this connection that

Strindberg during his Inferno - period in Paris doubtless — would have starved to death unless a stout hearted Swede had intervened and sent him 300 crowns1 a month (the same amount that Bonnier paid him for The I nhabi tants o H Ste ern and f This man was Vult von y , editor

The D ail N ews publisher of y , who ever since the M arri ed legal proceedings against Strindberg caused by , had faithfully stood by him when want from time to time peeped in at his door . Strindberg’ s little Austrian wife had accompanied him

P . was to aris . As she not only a hindrance to him in his scientiﬁc research and proposed experiments but also could not but notice that a pathological crisis was imminent, Strindberg took the ﬁrst opportunity to send

1 Th e Swe dish crown i s norm ally worth about 27 c ents . INFERNO 65

her home . The pretence was that their little daughter K erstin had taken ill . Strindberg tells of the wild j oy he experienced when he was rid of his wife : My pretty jailor who spied on _ u my soul night and day, g essed my secret thoughts, watched the trend of my ideas, j ealously observed my ’ ” s soul striving towards the unknown . It was th e latter in particular which worried and tortured Strindberg . The serious psychic disturbance through which he passed during the following few years already began to show itself in certain peculiarities which obliged the little Austrian woman to play the part of an

- n attendant . In spite of his constant, keen self a alysis , Strindberg could not observe the abnormaliti es which his sickness caused . Not even years after his recupera tion would he recognize them as manifestations of a disease of the mind . And this is consistent with the nature of the disease .

As Strindberg himself feared the worst, he decided to rid himsel f entirely of his wife . Seized with a mad desire i to do h mself harm, he says, he committed what he has “ ” h er un ard termed suicide by sending an outrageous, p ' " bhild onable letter and saying farewell to wi fe and , laid old on hinting that a new relation had h his thoughts .

This new relation which had taken hold of his thoughts, was his metaphysical brooding, not at all another woman . “ After this letter to his wife, he calls himself Self ” murderer and assassin , and becomes misanthropic to such a degree that he repels everybody . And yet he wonders that nobody comes to call on him . 66 STRINDBERG THE MA N

his ex er The same night wife left him, he began his p i ments . r With drawn cu tains, fearing to be taken for an anarchist, he worked with a smelting furnace ﬁre in a Dutch stove and six crucibles of ﬁne china bought for ” money stolen from himself in order to demonstrate that there is c arbonaceous matter in sulphur and that

- sulphur, therefore, is not an element . Towards morning he thought he had found carbon in the residue of the “ ” sulphur and that thus he had upset standard chemistry “ c and attained to that immortality whi h mortals grant . He was j ealously anxious about his great discovery and did not dare to let it be known among the authorities . He wished to prove also that sulphur contains hydrogen and oxygen , but he did not possess enough apparatus .

His monthly allowances he had spent in experiments , he and ceased to take regular meals , besides, during the ﬁrst “ ” u — s lphur night, he had burned his hand so severely that the skin peeled off and he could not touch anything with out feeling pain . M y hands were black as want, bleeding as my heart, I r he complains in nfe no. But Unknown at the same time, he begins to speak of P owers which had persecuted him for years and put a obstacles in his w y. He is surrounded by a frightfully hi m solemn, empty silence , and this induces to challenge the Invisible One to wrestle with him body to body and soul against soul . “ - Thus the atheistic free thinker, the convert to the

s occult sciences, has no sooner tepped over the threshold “ of the temple of the magians than he conj ures up an

68 STRINDBERG THE MA N

Despite the fact that Strindberg loves and admires this invisible magician , with Whom he is connected only t through correspondence, in every let er he presents him with proofs of his antipathy for theosophy, and when Magus begins to make use of elevated language and tries to tyrannize him , as if Strindberg were a lunatic , and Mm B l k l e . avat s orders the poet to read y , the self conscious artist within Strindberg assumes such propor tions that he becomes a head taller than the magician , and Strindberg declares proudly that ' he does not need h t t in ea h im any Blavatsky and t a nob ody has any h g to t c h .

When the magian still threatens , he is warned not to meddle with Strindberg’ s fate which “ is in the keeping of the hand of Providence which always has guided me . At the same time that he so powerfully beat back the a attack of the magi n against his spiritual liberty, he ff secretly su ered mental torments of the worst kind, believing himself to be in continual danger of his life, P pursued by his former friend the ole . At this time Strin dberg had taken up his abode in the ’ l Orﬁla d A ssas o d Catholic Hotel in rue , and I , not knowing of his presence, had settled down in Hotel des ’ ’ A eri ain l Abb é l E ée m c s in rue de de p , on the other side du of the southernmost part of the Jardin Luxembourg, where Strindberg had resided earlier . From mutual friends I learned that Strindberg dwelled t M n in the ! uar ier de ontpar asse, but that he had begged to be excused from social intercourse on account of his

1 Reference i s h e re made t o th e work entitled S ecret ” Doctrine . INFERNO 69

i chem cal experiments . It was hinted that he was not in his right mind and that on this account it was advisable to respect his refusal to receive callers . Where he kept

im o th e h self n body knew, since day when he had had an attack of nerves because dinner had been served for him ’ in the yard of Mm e . Charlotte s Crémerie in rue de la e grande Chaumi re, the little restaurant of the artists n where he surely was surrou ded by sincere friends . One day the Norwegi an painter Edvard Munch came and related that he had run across Strindberg who had commenced to feel rather lonesome and shown himself desirous of his company . In order to facilitate his M ’ approach, unch had proposed to paint Strindberg s picture, and Strindberg had been posing for him a couple of hours now and then .

But Strindberg had a ﬁxed idea . Ever since he had ’ heard Schumann s A ufschwung played one afternoon in Orﬁ la the neighborhood of Hotel , he had been fully convinced that Przybyszewski had arrived in Paris by

- way of Vienna Berlin in order to murder him . The rea son for the Pole’ s mania for murder was that his wife had been intimate with Strindberg only a very short time before she had met the Pole . t Without being initiated into the de ails, anyone will readily see that on such grounds Stachu scarcely had a reason for conj uring up a hatred of Strindberg so glowing as to inspire him with the idea of murder . Munch and myself knew very well that there was another man on whom Stachu had lavished all his hatred and whom he had dealt a severe blow by describing him 70 STRINDBERG THE MA N unsympathetically in a novel where he ended his life as a suicide . Thus he had already exacted the vengeance, the taking of which he seems to have imposed upon himself on account of the liberties which his wife had permitted herself before her marriage, and f had no special occasion to ﬂy into ﬁts o anger . The endeavors on the part of Munch to assure Strind berg th at he had nothing to fear from the Przybyszew skis , were in vain . Once Strindberg got this false notion

- into his head, no counter evidence could get it out of him . Not even the fact that Stachu was in Copenhagen in the

not greatest misery and , try all he might, could possibly come to Paris to continue his studies of trials of witches and mediaeval Satanism ! F inally, however, Strindberg got a piece of counter F evidence before which he had to bow . rom Berlin ’ s Prz b sz ewski s came the new that y y ﬁrst wi fe, a young P o olish w man, had committed suicide after having murdered their two children because of worries over lack Stachu of support, and that , who immediately had gone there, had been arrested and stood indicted for having urged her to commit this deed of despair . 18 th — When, on the of June Strindberg mentions

I n erno—M this in his f unch came in , annihilated and trembling from head to foot and broke the news to Strin—dberg, the latter had to giv—e up his false notion . And c haracteristic of Strindberg h e was so completely delivered of it, that as soon as the ﬁrst surprise had abated, he felt sincere sympathy for his friend who u formerly had shown such a tenacio s attachment to him, I NFERNO 7 1

and peace came into his soul after he had been pur

f r sued o months by monsters of his own imagination .

But threatened he was ! this idea he still clung to . Secretly he believed that it was his ardent prayers which had perhaps turned away the dagger and that he had parried the thrust in such a way that it caught the

assassin right in the heart . Just as fearful as he had formerly been of Prz ybys ’ z ewski s dagger, equally eager he now became to save and

to reestablish his friend with the murderous intentions . He agreed with Munch that they must save the Pole ’ s literary reputation by an art icle to be written by Strind berg for the R evue B lanche concerning his literary merits and illustrated with his picture (the Pole’ s) drawn by

M . unch . But this plan was never executed An article in a Paris review could hardly have resulted in Prz ybys ’ z e wski s liberation . Other measures had to be taken .

Munch was ordered to call me . After having resided six months in Strindberg’ s neigh

r b o hood without having seen him a single time, I was thus brought together with him as by chance . I know ’ that it was Prz ybysz ewski s indefatigable devotion to Strindberg which had aroused the suspicion of the latter and that Strindberg, of course, was glad to receive support when he was in need of it, but felt an aversion u to being gratefully indebted for what he co ld not repay . ’ One afternoon about ﬁve o clock, I walked over to rﬁ l Hotel O a in order to call for Strindberg. In the ’ porter s lodge, I had to keep company with an old Catholic priest and a couple of young candidates for the STRINDBERG THE MA N priesthood while the attendant went up stairs to inform

Strindberg of the call . His room was tabooed ground, for there he watched in a continual state of anxiety over his great secrets , his new methods for the production of iodine and gold . He was at the time occupied with his gold syntheses . o in Hotel Orﬁla looked like a monastery . The ro m

old o which I sat was cold and damp . The fell ws, who “ ” came and went, impressed me as slippery eels and I felt very depressed at the th ought that the Master Olof of my youth had been conﬁned in such a place . A more unﬁt asylum for one who suffered from typical melan

hol c y could hardly be found .

F d . inally Strin berg came With a silent greeting, he beckoned me to follow . Not until we had advanced a good distance in the street did he begin to speak .

I saw in his pale, ashen face what torments he had passed through . Since he now really occupied himself

s with black art , I believe that there would be in his traits something of that proud boldness characteristic of

For of the necromancer . I had met some the leading followers of occult sciences in Paris and I had had an opportunity o f studying them at close quarters . In Strindberg there was not a sign of this presumptuousness 1 h bris by which, as he tells us , he had been beset, this y which is the only sin the gods cannot pardon .

On the contrary, Strindberg had already something of

the penitent about him . I saw in his eyes that he had

1 e e erm me an n : wan onne ss wan o ins en e A Gr k t i g t , t n ol c , INFERNO 73

P regretted his injustice towards rzybyszewski . The sensitive giant was nervous as a young girl and seemed almost to be accusing himself for the misfortunes ’ a P n of St chu . I told him that it was the ole s ow brother who had accused him, but that made Strindberg even o t more c nscious of guilt . He still hought that it was his —Strindberg’ s —hatred which had crystallized in the brother and caused him to play the part of accuser . e P But now, wh n rzybyszewski was in j ail and accused of having caused his Polish wife to commit murder and ’ suicide, Strindberg s sympathy for the unfortunate man had been aroused . We seated ourselves among th e trees in front of the

L and . Brasserie des ilas , ordered some absinthe Ever ’ Mme since Strindberg had ceased to frequent . Charlotte s , this place had been his regular resort . But he never took his meals here, he only dropped in to provide for a little brighter dreams with diluted wormwood poison and for r that fatigue which was necessa y for him in order to sleep . He was now so terribly upset about the fate of Stachu that he was ready to commit follies to save him . I was to assist him in starting diplomatic action from Paris in order to get Stachu out of j ail . Strindberg was to make the declaration that Stachu was altogether too talented an artist and altogether too sensitive a being to endure a th e term in j ail . It would mean insanity and authorities would be guilty of spiritual murder . Strindberg got tangled up in such difﬁculties that in the end we did not know how to execute his much too e b ta h elaborate plan . H seemed to e convinced that S c u 74 STRINDBERG THE MA N was guilty and j ust on that account had to be saved in some supernatural way. As I for my part was convinced that S tachu would

ri s clear himself , and with his supe or powers of p ycho logical analysis would be able to brush aside his brother’ s

t r accusation , I considered it far more important to y to calm Strindberg than to plunge into great political adventures which in the end would lead to no results .

But Strindberg did not consent to be calmed . It struck me that he was bound to be occupied with same subj ect of care . On purely physical grounds he had been forced to give up the ﬁxed idea that Stachu ’ s dagger was over him continually, and as he was now out of that n perpetual danger, he had to have a other . He seemed to be desirous of pushing his diplomatic action so in absur dum that people ﬁnally might receive the impression that it was he himself who was to blame for the murder in

Berlin and not the man who had been arrested . Our long argument ended with my consenting to write to certain inﬂuential persons in Berlin . We also agreed P P o that the large olish colony in aris sh uld be stirred up, but that not until this had been accomplished Would we resort to diplomatic ways and means . Strindberg in any case had had a chance to give vent to his fears and to ai r his plans . And he went home considerably appeased and not without a certain amount of self - satisfaction at the thought that the possibility of a little martyrdom still loomed up in the distance . P ’ eople had been speaking of Strindberg s insanity, a which it w s thought would soon break out . Of all that

76 STRINDBERG THE MA N

he had done during a life of trials and tribulations, nobody had a right to stone, even if he had made mis takes . But he had a vital need of letting loose the stream — — — — within him this panta rei s tream of Heraclitus and it proved a delight to him at this stage to let his skiff passively glide away with the current . He was in need of rest after all his tribulations and disappointments , and — he could not get it in any other way a rest which was at the same time a movement away towards an unknown goal . The goal which he reached would no doubt have been ff a di erent one , more worthy o f his former and present

s e self, had he not, during periods of weakne s wh n he r ought to have been prevented from anything of the so t, returned to the stuffy little homes down there by the

Danube . Those old, religiously stunted crones did doubtless exert a destructive inﬂuence upon him j ust when the state of weakness. rendered him most suscept ible . Especially did they inj ure him by fanning to life his self - accusations and by getting him into a greater r state of perplexity than was necessa y .

- During the most serious stage of his Inferno period, e hi Strindberg k pt away from s friends entirely. After he h ad found out that Przybyszewski had been released ’ - re from prison, Strindberg s inclination to self torture i ce ve d a new impetus . Through a couple of pieces of

to re paper found in the street, he believed himself have ceived a message to the effect that Stachu and his wife again had arrived in Paris and that they planned anew to murder him . INFERNO 77

Immediately he also suspected Edvard Munch of plot ting with them and after one of the sittings for his portrait, Strindberg sent him a mystical post card which obliged Munch to discontinue his calls . It read as follows

o The last time you called on me, you lo ked like a —I murderer or the tool of a murderer . only wish to inform you that the Pett enkofer gas - oven in the adj acent h ﬁ room is incapable of being used and is, t erefore, un t

S . for the purpose . g Shortly after that Strindberg had disappeared from Orﬁla Hotel . He had tried a couple of times t o commit

suicide by inhaling hydrocyanate of potash . But on the ﬁrst occasion a hornet had entered th e room buzzing

- furiously . The second time the bell boy, who came in and

I n disturbed him his preparations, saved his li fe . But one night when he believed himself to be about to be murdered by means of poisonous gases and an electric m P achine, manipulated by his olish friend in the adjacent room, he ﬂed from the hotel, away from the death for which he longed so eagerly, but which nobody else than himself was permitted to administer . n No one of us k ew where he . had gone that sco rching 18 6 hot July day in 9 when he disappeared . We thought that he had done what he once did in his youth, that he had voluntarily turned himself over to some private ff asylum for those su ering from mental derangement . Not until one year later when he made hi s confession

o I n erno in his bo k f , were we permitted to know that he had remained for a while in Paris in a small hotel near 78 STRINDBERG THE MA N

P s the Jardin des lantes, where he pas ed through another

- imaginary death crisis . This in turn forced him to v renew his ﬂight . When he arri ed in the circle of t acquaintances in Dieppe, hey believed him to be com

letel p y mad . He himself seemed to fear being locked up and accordingly continued his journey to a friend of his , 1 EliasSon the hospital physician Dr . A . at Ystad, who s ﬁnally took charge of him in earne t .

According to the celebrated German psychiatrist, Dr . ” ’ Rhamner a S . , Strindberg s dise se was so developed at this time that he ought to have been taken into some asylum . But it is possible that i f this had been done contrary to his desire , the disease might have been further aggravated . His most irreconcilable enemies in Sweden u h have anno nced as a serious accusation against him, t at if he had been shut up in an asylum, he would have gone

‘ completely mad . Surely, but many of us who are now regarded as fully sane , would probably have done the same . Rhamne r Yet it is interesting to know that Dr . on scientiﬁc grounds considers it safe to afﬁrm that Strind

’ cannot berg s disease be classiﬁed as paranoia, but rather M elancholia M oralis as melancholy . It was a typical with a desire for seclusion , indeﬁnite fear, thoughts of death , suicidal ideas and false notions of guilt . Later on in the further development of the complex of symptoms , there was added praecordial anguish with attacks of

1 a of n A town in th e extrem e south ern p rt Swe de .

2 nz a e n r L era u und e d z n e . S e e Gre fr g de it t r M i i , H ft 6

Mfinch en, 1907 . INFERNO 79

Raptus M elancholi cus accompanied by chimerical imag

eries and optical illusions . It was , therefore, a typical case of ordinary melancholy which at the height of its

M elancholi D o a ia a development showed itself as a cem m n c .

‘ F Rhamner urthermore, Dr . points out that it would be ’ a mistake to regard Strindberg s leaning towards mysti cism th e his and occult sciences , found in all writings, as ’ o i n a path log cal Sig . Strindberg s mysticism is ﬁnally focused in his endeavors to bring about a syn thesis between science and religion . ff It is di erent with his pessimism . He has himself tried to explain it as havi ng been caused by his disconso

late childhood and all his sufferings . But th ese only hi played the part of sustaining moments, while s nervous constitution and psychic depression constituted the head d spring of his ever conspicuous pessimism . Strin berg o was b rn a neuropath . P CHA TER VI .

TH E RESURRECTION OF THE DRAMATIST

ROM the sickbed Strindberg rose tried and puri ﬁ e s d. He employed his convale cence by record ing his experiences of the preceding period in the two I n erno L e ends autobiographical works f and g , and to his religious broodings he said farewell in that magniﬁ a ob res tles cent piece of symbolism : J c W .

At the same time that he recovered his strength, he matured . He is no longer the fanatic chastiser swing — ing the knout whip over himself and his time . He has himself learned from life, and he once more mounts that literary Olympus which had stood vacant during his

- absence, and becomes the calm, serious minded teacher who, from the phenomena of antagonizing conﬂict , points out to mortals those laws of li fe which have forcibly shaped the course of events . To be sure he began his new dramatic period with a A dvent r mystery play, ! but in his ve y next work, he is the s in the midst of lofty tyle, in the golden period of ri his old age . It is in and through his histo cal dramas that he became the great poet once more .

At this epoch, I again met Strindberg . He had hidden himself down in Lund1 so securely that not even his

1 Swedis h university town in th e s outh ernm os t province of

Sweden. RESURRECTION OF THE DRAMATI ST 8 1

address was known . All his correspondence had to pass B l through the hands of his friend, Waldemar ii ow. A few days before Strindberg was to celebrate his ﬁftieth t I bir hday, arrived in Lund in company with a young r r Ho stedt a tist, A thur g , who was to illustrate my article concerning the hero of the day . ’ We had to go to B iilow s editorial offi ce in order to r ’ asce tain Strindberg s whereabouts . When we got there, Strindberg himself had already called a couple of times Was looking for us . As he busy, he had left word for us to call on him later in his apartment . It was a winter day glorious with sunshine . In Stockholm it had o stormed and bl wn a biting gale the day before, but in the Scanian university city it was as temperate as far down in central Europe . The snow was melting in the streets and in the air there was a feeling of spring .

After a tour through this idyllic country town, we went ’ o f 1 to Strindberg s place residence, which was number 4 Tome a s tan g p ga . Through an archway we came into a

' but e yard closed in by buildings on three sides , on th fourth continuing as a garden plot hemmed in by a fence.

In the small two- storied wing on the right Strindberg

e had his abode . We mounted a qu er little stair and knocked at the door of the celebrity . n A few seconds elapsed before a yone came . Then the door opened slowly, and before us stood Strindberg in such a ﬂood of sunlight that we scarcely could di stinguish him . He stood there so ethereally transparent that he might have been tak en for a spectre of his own self .

. How old he had grown during these years ! When I 8 2 STRI NDB ERG THE MA N

P his met him in aris, he was as yet in prime, somewhat the worse for all his hardships, but not so as to show — age . Now a cheerful, gray haired old man appeared before us . All that confusion of gray hair pointed straight out in every direction, there was something sunken about his face, and his bearing was not upright im and proud as in former years . That he gave me the

o s pressi n of being so hrivelled up, was no doubt partly due to the fact that he wore a large checkered dressing gown that ﬁtted him rather loosely . And he came trot ting towards us in soft felt- slippers which made him

as appear somewhat sho rter than he w . In a cheerful and cordial manner he received us and

o o - conducted us int his studio, where c untry like sim as n plicity ruled supreme . The room w fur ished in the i old style, old solid furniture with coverings character stic of a parsonage or the sanctuary of some old maid . Nothing reminded us of Strindberg himself with his exclusive taste, not even the writing table standing diagonally over by the window, with the exception , pos sibl o f y, a large pile of manuscript on one end of it , on the wrapper of which Strindberg had written in his own “ ” hand : Drama . The rays of the sun fell obliquely through the window and lighted up the entire corner in front of the table in such a manner th at the room, despite its plainness , put on a cheerful , homelike air . Strindberg sat down in his large arm - chair by the writing table and his face quivered lightly, as if he were fearful of the questions that we might put to him .

84 STRINDBERG THE MA N

s own . I f you peak of it, it slackens your tension o e u And you commit y urself by making statem nts , he sed to excuse himself .

hi s But this time, strange to say, he discussed dramas

A dvent quite openly . He told of his mystery play, , and even gave us a whole mass of details about its contents .

It was the beginning of a religious drama, j ust like those mystery plays which ushered in the golden era of the

h was English drama . Strindberg hoped t at the time not too far distant when a “ religious theatre” could be insti

tuted.

th e The large manuscript pile on the corner of table, consisting of great square sheets of Lessebo paper, writ ’ ten full in Strindberg s even , careful vertical hand, was

Gus tavus Vasa the manuscript of , the ﬁrst in a proposed s eries of historical dramas . But when may we expect to see them on the stage ? Full of indignation he declared that they would not play ’ e his dramas at home . As Sw den s sole dramatist , he ought to have had the privilege of being played . His manuscripts mouldered away in the manuscript cup F of . boards the theatres But idiotic, tedious rench

- boulevard dramas were given .

— fo r And besides , it is impossible an author continually how to write dramas that never are played . Just think much I could have learned by seeing my own plays on the stage ! Just consider to what extent this has arrested my development as a dramatist ! He felt that there was no other solution than for him to start a Strindberg Theatre in Stockholm . But RESURRECTION OF THE DRAMATI ST 8 5 where could he ﬁnd a backer for such an enterprise ? for Yet such a theatre could be arranged quite reasonably . All that was needed was a small auditorium for only a o hundred pe ple, young actors who desired to learn how to act naturally, and decorations of the simplest kind . had ff Of all the injuries that he su ered, that seemed to him to be the greatest . Not to be played, he felt as a depreciation of his dramatic talent . And despite the fact that, as we know, eight years later he really got his th e Strindberg Theatre, old Intima Theatre at Norra B antor et g , nevertheless, even to the end of his days, he was mortiﬁed at seeing some of his most beautiful crea Gustavus A dol hu tions rej ected . These were his p s, his

Nathan der Weis e The Ni htin ale , as he has called it, his g g in Wi ttenber g, in which he becomes reconciled with Protestantism as a liberation from heathen Rome and North ermanic with the local g renaissance , and ﬁnally his

Gus tavus I I I . , with which he had hoped that the new Intima Theatre might open its gates to the public in th e 1 1 1 His fall of 9 , although this hope, too, failed him . little one- act plays which he himself styles descriptions “ ” from cynic life , he did not care so much about . But his resentment at not being perm itted to see the three d above mentioned dramas acte , he had to take with him to his grave . After our ﬁrst meeting with Strindberg in his own ’ r we H an n s apa tment, met him later in the day in Ake sso v little restaurant where he had reser ed a private room . He was an entirely different man when we met him ff there . The appearance of an old man he had laid o 86 STRINDBERG THE MA N

- Hi . s together with the dressing gown hair, to be sure, was j ust as gray, but in spite of that fact, there was something youthfully dashing about him . Again he got

i the into that att tude and atmosphere of student, and we sat down at the dinn er table like three youngsters who oo had taken a holiday and were in for a g d time .

He had put his. religious broodings to ﬂight . Yet, as mysticism w his most beloved topic . Soon we were in of the midst it, so deeply, indeed, that for the whole evening we could not get out of it . He told of his exper iences , and he was most interested in being info rmed about ours . All the little things that occurred round about him he continued to look upon as direct messages from unknown powers with whom he had been in constant communica tion ever since the sulphur and gold period in Paris .

Nowadays , however, he had a feeling of security, for he believed himself to be surrounded mostly by good spirits . He had hardened himself so as to be able to withstand the evil ones . When they revealed themselves, he immediately struck them down .

He read old mediaeval prayer- books in order to enj oy an d rest and quiet during the evenings . The Bible Swedenborg he only used as books o f reference when he

was in doubt and in ne ed of counsel . He would open

these books at random, but he always received an answer

to what he asked .

n . I one respect, he was entirely unlike himself All his

bitterness and suspicion had been wiped out of his soul . o As the hours passed, he kept drawing cl ser and closer RESURRECTION OF THE DRAMATI ST 87

a o to us . He forgot himself in order to become bs rbed ’ e Ho stedt s in our own little sorrows . And wh n I related g sad life and his fruitless endeavors to develop to its full lat was éc that artistic genius which his, Strindberg vibrated with that warmth of heart of which he was capable but which he mostly kept under control in order to strengthen himself . t e o He sat h re, great, wise and good, and sp ke his in common sense to us . He became absorbed two Swed ish archetypes whom he loved most of all : those two V s pairs o f characters, Odin (Wadan) and Gustavus a a,

Odin and Birger Jarl (Birger the Earl) . The evening in question, it was the former binary constellation in which he became absorbed . And later, when I read his us tavus a a drama G V s , I was able to understand how much of himself he had put into the character of the old king.

He felt like a Gustavus Vasa of his own time . He had united the indifferent masses about their own great th e interests, he had made them oust the devilkins from P rincipality of Cunning, and built up a new spiritual intellectual kingdom for both Swedish gentry and

r . too peasant y He ruled somewhat autocratically, but he i considered h mself forced to do this, lest they (the people) shou ld relapse into that dangerous state of decrepitude into which they had been lulled by the ni ‘ U on . All good minds in the nation were to unite with him and

o d m and l and back his own g o ind wi l, those who were

1 Th e s o-called K almar Union effected by ! ue en Margare t

em ac n we den Norwa and enmar . and br i g S , y D k 8 8 STRINDBERG THE MA N indisposed to do so would reap the same reward as the

Dalec rli a ans . , when they opposed Gustavus But it was — 2 not only a pile of blood stained Dalecarlian coats that were being carried into the presence of the angry king, whose heart was strong enough to see the blood of his former friends and supporters being spilled, it was just as much Strindberg’ s former friends up there in the

Swedish capital , those who rebelled against him and tried to dethrone him, at whom he ﬂung a word of warning

- with the blood stained white sheepskin coats . How strong th e poet had grown by becoming absorbed

V - in this Gustavus asa character, surrounded by the myth ological glimmer of Northern antiquity ! He reviewed life with that trustfulness which restores the vigor of the doubting soul, and he looked far, far into the future,

—w which u where he saw a Sweden , if it followed his j di — cions counsel would have strength enough to emerge

Victoriously out of the world- conﬂagration which he knew would come . Strindberg felt that in him and through him th e Swedish spirit had once more united into a new powerful character counting its lineage directly from those Swedes of old who after death were raised to the rank of divinities . But j ust that character of divinity was as repugn ant

2 us on t a s n i Th e e ad e s of th All i o ce e n Gus tavus Vas a. l r e s u o n e e ous Dal e carli ans are awa n an aud e nc e t bb r , r b lli iti g i P re e n h are a e d o t on a with th e king . s tly t ey c ll u e fte r th e

B ut h e do n t r rn . e a h e a m s n r oth er . t y o etu Aft r w il es e ge brings i n s om e blood- s taine d sh e e p- s kin c oats wh ich h e th rows down before th os e wh os e turn h as not yet com e t o appe ar n before th e ki g . RESURRECTION OF THE DRAMATI ST 89

’ to him as the fool s cap and bells , or again, an object of as much indifference as the ermine robe ! it was — the humanly personal in Father Odin the only one who M 1 had drunk wisdom out of the well of imer, and in — — Gu stavus V asa the Founder of the kingdom he ad mired and loved .

th e ea Without in least suspecting it, he assumed gr ter proportions in my eyes that evening than ever before . I felt that such a man had the right to demand th at the

o world sh uld not pass him over in silence , as they had endeavored to do in Stockholm ! that the entire following generation was a young forest which never would grow up even to the lower branches of his gigantic crown and thus constituted an obstruction, inasmuch as it masked the giant from the human procession which advanced on the hollo w road through the forest . I f the people at that time had been permitted to see him freely, they ought to have awakened much earlier to that consciousness which is the beginning of the develop i ment of character, and have felt that mighty, ntellectual ’ th e uplift, which contemplation of the life s work of a man like Strindberg can inspire . That night we remained together until after twelve ’

o . o clock . Strindberg had become m re and more cheery — e That dull despair the fe ling of being ostracized, a — P ariah which at ﬁrst I thought lay like a sediment at the bottom of everything he said, was gone . He thawed

1 m er a an was th e c e a or of th e ocean and th e Mi , gi t, r t ' To et a dr n out of m er s prim aeval s ourc e of wis dom . g i k Mi we W odan e d e d one of h i s e e s . h o . ll, pl g y ( Myt l) 90 STRINDBERG THE MA N out because of the fact that there were human beings who believed in him and who expected nothing short of miracles of him . This had given him courage to let go of himself in such a manner as, presumably, he did not wish to do among th e indifferent high priests of the exact sciences . He continued to brighten up until he looked like one of

- - d - those fair haired, curly heade , good natured children who are a proof, it seems to me, that humanity has. at least one goal for which to strive . But in the midst of this clear, congenial atmosphere, another sorrow caused poisonous ﬂowers to unfold in his soul . It was again the regret that some of his dramas had not been played . t He was suddenly seized with palpitation of the hear , and we had to leave immediately . — My heart warns me when I stay out too long . Now o I must walk half an hour in the pen , quite slowly, in order to get my balance so that I may be able to sleep ? during the night . Are you coming along

We started out into the night, a cold winter night with

- a dark blue sky and glittering stars . The little city slept an quietly under a covering of black and white . We w dered towards the outskirts where the houses were m s small, low huts a ong which Strindberg trode like a

giant . The broad brim of the " felt hat cast a shadow over his

- face . Then suddenly there was a shooting star . He tossed his head back and looked Skyward as though he

were trying to penetrate into a secret .

P I I CHA TER V .

TH E POET AND TH E WOLVES

O one here in our cramped city can walk his way

straight ahead in proud loneliness , as Strindberg

- has done, without arousing ill will and anger among those whose fate it has been to dwell in the kind of spiritual atmosphere , where everything personal ,

‘ r eve ything that makes you a living being, has been blotted out .

During his long wanderings , Strindberg has , therefore,

r ever had a ﬂock of those hung y wolves on his heels . In his early adolescence it was the literary “ wise old fogeys whose anger he aroused and who scorned and The furiously lashed this overbearing youngster who , in Outlaw did not shrink from confessing that his aspira hi tion was to become a poet . T s was the very worst ff n Of o ense , for one the literary old fogeys had succeeded in spite of the fact that they had all written verse in their youth . In th e beginning Strindberg allowed the brutal fangs ll o f a these attackers to tear away at his bleeding breast . How could one b ut be deeply stirred when reading in ’ Strindberg s autobiography how one evening in Uppsala, 92 THE POET A ND THE WOLVES 93

1 his own Runa - friends obliged him to read an article full — of gibes and sneers in the hateful E vening Journal an — organ which persecuted him all his life in which his “ ﬁrst drama appearing in print was the obj ect of ﬂagel

” " lation and mockery . He says that involuntarily he had o to c nfess that the paper spoke the truth , but also that it “ ” worked him up terribly .

He felt that he was exposed, outwitted, lured into the

open . But what he could not as yet see and claim indem nit h hid y for, was t at the exposer, who behind the words ,

was a brutal little dwarf, who wielded the scourge in retaliation for torments that he himself had formerly ff to su ered, the shadow of a human being who hated see

new vigorous shoots grow on the old tree . No good, noble—minded man can take the executioner’ s axe in his hand ! that is the ofﬁce o f those who are predestined to t criminal exis ence, but whom some lucky chance has

rescued from the dangerous road . To expo se in that manner a young promising poet in

all his nakedness , to show him fraught with the defects

of which even the most perfect human being is possessed , bears witness to such moral baseness that one is taken

s o— Of aback at ﬁnding it in the called high places culture,

among those of the highest university education, among

the foremost and most trusted men of the state . 18 i Only nine years later, in 79, when Str ndberg had

1 Runa Rune th e nam e of a e ar soc e ounde d ( ) , lit r y i ty f by Strindbe rg and two of h i s s tud ent friends at th e Univers ity

t h e 28t of Feb . 1 . e m e r of U s a a. I t da e s om h 870 pp l t fr , M b

Udd ren . B o en om r nd e r s h was m e d t o n ne . ip li it i ( g k St i b g,

D. 94 STRINDBERG THE MA N

The Red Room hi published his social novel , w ch to a certain extent had been inspired by Charles Dickens ’ “ David Co er eld pp ﬁ , he learned how to see through the relative invalidity of criticism and bravely decided never again to read the critique of his own works . He then declared that he had realized that individuals on the same cultural level have identical opinions in iden tical things, that their opinions , j udgment and critique in general are caused automatically by involuntary activi ties Of their brains . This resolve not to read what was written about himself and his works , Strindberg lived up to for the

. Of rest of his life And because of his great sense equity, ri he did not wish to read even good c ticism, inasmuch as he did not pay any attention to unfavorable criticism of himself and his works . Through this course of conduct he doubtless escaped many a bitter hour and unnecessary ff su erings, for it is a fact that no Swedish poet has been waited on by his countrymen with so much uncalled for scorn, so much rabidness, so many false accusations, as

Strindberg . a: a: h W en Strindberg, after having passed his ﬁftieth mile

o h oi st ne, felt t at he had enough power resistance to go

- into the snake pit, and came up to Stockholm with three ‘l Gus tavus Vas a The Folleun ar such dramas as , g and E ric XI V r , you might have expected that the new litera y generation , which during his long soj ourn in foreign u lands had grown up at home! wo ld have greeted his

1 Th e Dynas ty of Swedish rulers (1250 THE POET AND THE WOLVES 95

return with j oy . He came in the quality of conqueror, not in a triumphal chariot to be sure, but rather on foot ! yet he came with that glory about himself which reminds you of the crusader who was part of the forces which o endeavored to recapture the H ly Sepulchre .

- Strindberg was received in ice cold silence . He had

as been regarded as dead, a great departed one, to whom ff sometimes you O er a ﬂower of remembrance , but with whom you are no more anxious to dine than with a skeleton . New constellations had originated since his star had set

o - in the south, after he had settled d wn to a hermit life in the sign of the Southern Cross and Sirius . Venus M M and ars , nay, the whole ilky Way grew pale in terror and envy when this. brilliant, gigantic comet rose over th e horizon and blazed a wide , glittering white way across fi rmam ent the from south to north, eclipsing both fixed n l n 3L stars a d p a ets . The situation of the little twinkling stars was very unpleasant ! this cannot be denied . They had been about to grow large and mighty . The people had become accustomed to finding their way at night by their some what faint glow , but now all this was of the past, because of this wonder of the heavens who turned night into broad daylight . F o urtherm re, the whole nation had grown tired of the

th e great conﬂicts of life, of great campaigning in newly

1 Uddgren h ere re fe rs t o certain prominent conte mporary we d sh w e s an at W i rs é n wh o ou h Re a sm and S i rit r d C . D . f g t li N aturalis m of wh ich Strindbe rg h ad once been th e ch ie f rep re s ent ati ve in Swe den . 96 STR INDBERG THE MA N acquired territories which Strindberg continually had made us pass through . A feeling of j oy had seized the

ﬁ resides people at being at their own once more, and it b rt had een asce ained through certain c—omparisons that what we lacked most of all at home was happiness .

w e We lacked it, and yet had already been favored with it . Strindberg had created it in his new, great i dramat c art, but it was a j oy or happiness for the phys l ica l . y strong, not for weaklings And since the people as th e yet were weak after all nursery diseases, they could not stand the genuine j oy of mighty emotions . They

‘ —in- it was wanted a ﬁtting amount o f j oy life, and this that i the poets o f the nineties tried to g ve them . Those who were moderately desirous o f happiness got exactly what they wanted . They were permitted to M V rejoice in the fact that ars , enus , Sirius and the rest of them celebrated nuptials in the classic style , in which , however, the masquerade costumes were the only things that imitated antiquity . But what about spiritual sustenance ? That they did h ad not dare to share with anybody else . I f they any of

o n . F r their w , they kept it for themselves o there was no spiritual j oy in Sirius’ announcement that love is Old beauti ful only when it is and decrepit . In what way did Mars think that he could increase our happiness by 1 th e describing how steadfast Carolinians, to no avail, were permitted to freeze to death in foreign lands ? Of what remarkable kind of happiness did Venus intend to be the protégée when she proclaimed that the women

1 r f h a XII Th e so d e s o C e s . 1 l i rl , ( 697 THE POET AND THE WOLVES 97

should be shut up in the temple whi le the men were to stand outside in the rain ? The intensely sad aspect of the yelping of the poets o f

the nineties against Strindberg is , that they did not realize that Strindberg like themselves was fighting for the new synthe ses that were destined to be built up on the sites where Strindberg some time in the eighties had torn down all the hovels which a perverted real estate policy had wished to keep in order to create artificially inflated

rents , precisely as it had happened in practical life at that i time with n the precincts of our own Stockholm . “ ” The young happiness - enthusiasts wanted to oust the ” grudge , a something which did not exist in Strindberg, o but indeed in those s ur, drawling parasites who had

claimed to be followers of Strindberg . They worshipped —s beauty and hated word quabbles , but they forgot that the u bea ty of battle is the highest beauty , and that joy in life

cannot be obtained without sacriﬁce . o What p sterity will j udge them hardest for is , that they did not see that Strindberg’ s progress of penance and

self - redemption offered much more beauty—whether considered from an aesthetic or purely human point Of — t s view than heir own tourist trip to Rome and Babylon .

They had lost all genuine religious sentiment, all desire to t o at ain to great ideals , and therefore they c uld not under ’ stand Strindberg s Violent longings to satisfy his religious new needs , to ﬁnd syntheses which were to fuse the th e knowledge of times with an emancipated religion . s I f they had felt and under tood this , it ought to have been possible for them to have forbearance with Strindberg’ s 98 STRINDBERG THE MA N excess in word and deed and instead of committing acts of s u inj ustice to look into his soul, where the inde tr ctible skeptic still had his abode and continually brought new fuel to the ﬂame of doubt . The reason why Strindberg aimed at building loftier t and wi der arches than hey, is to be sought in the extraordinary mental faculties of the man . I f it pleased the gi ant to play with historic puppets and to place them in a row so that it might seem as though there was some relation between them, this ought not to have caused such outbursts of anger among those who , after all, were indebted to him for so many other favors .

The sore point in their attack on Strindberg was, furthermore, that they felt much displeased at Strind ’ f berg s strong religious longing . This had a painful e fect upon them, seemed to them like a poison which they

h . n thought they had eliminated, but whic reappeared I f this they reveal their own coarse conception o life, confess that they are void o f every higher spiritual need, th e that religious sentiment is repulsive to them, nay, that

- they have no perception of a world will in general .

In their longing for classic beauty, they ought to have turned to Epicurus who was so unj ustly blackened by dogm atic Christianity. What great wisdom might they ! n not have received from him He, the great unrecog ized a individualist of antiquity, would h ve possessed the power to show th em the wrong in their yelping against

. v ! Strindberg Yes , e en he a Fin lly, i f they had not become dazzled and blinded so nl e t n sudde y by se ing every hi g in red, when they looked

I OO STRINDBERG THE MA N

a great deal of hatred against th e ruling literary c oterie

at home, this fact cannot be characterized in any other

way than as humanly justiﬁable . It would have been

more than inhuman, if he had remained silent and not

allowed his great indignation to explode . During the years following the annihilation of The

Folkun ar ca italﬂ an g , the whole literary clique of the p y

provincial critique , unfortunately, we never have had tried as effectively as possible to kill Strindberg by

unbroken silence . That was the manner in which the

long series of historical dramas were killed . Only Gus tavus A dol hus to p they held on , since with regard to

d o this play the yelping coul still be c ntinued . They 1L Skansen howled like wolves at , because under Strind ’ s berg s treatment, Gustavus Adolphus had lo t his saintly halo ! instead he had become a great and good human being whom Strindberg himself compares with N athan th i e e W s . Not even from a scenic point of View did

Gus tavus A dol hus p amount to anything. In fact , the e petty critique dares to ass rt this even to this day, in spite of the fact that some o f Europe’ s foremost critics have s proved the oppo ite . His dream—play dramas Strindberg was not able to e publish for s veral years, and much less was he able to

E as ter have them performed, except which was played in the Dramatic Theatre . ’ Strindberg s exceedingly charming picture of himself A lone in old age, , in which he shows himself as com

1 Th e famous Zoo at Dj urgarden (Th e De er- garde n) t o th e e as t of th e city prope r. THE POET AND THE WOLVES 101

letel p y recovered from his sickness , the critics could not The Gothic Rooms appreciate . His , they ridiculed,

declaring that it never could equal The Red Room . This irritated Strindberg more than any other one thing and

The Gothic R ooms only the year before his death, he read and declared time and time again to his friends that he

himself placed it at the head of all his novels . N ew S wedish D es tini es experienced a similar treat d B eaut ment . The beauti ful escriptions of the skerries , y 1 Cove and S ham e S ound only caused disgust among the

delicate literary gourmands . And ﬁnally when Strind berg published his large collection oi poems containing some of the most remarkable lyri c creations in the

Swedish language, the critics kept perfect silence as though the poet had committed some unseemly act . He who has followed the brutal course of injustice against the poet during all these years , he who has seen the coterie- critique hammer him down inch by inch until that statue of gold, which once was his , became telescoped into itself to such an extent as to present — nothing but the ﬂatness of a penny h e who has seen all that and understood the purpose , must confess , if he ’ “ u has any sense of j stice, that Strindberg s reckoning ” with the D ecadence poets in B lack Flags was not only

s i fully ju tiﬁable , but indeed a demand wh ch the epoch had made upon him . Strindberg had to defend himself against the parasites

1 H a r n e h n n F L nd af ppily e d re d Fair ave a d oulst rand by L . i i n : nd er T on H a e h e of R evo et . e g by Stri b g, Spirit lt, c , Appl t

C o New York, 1913 . 102 STRINDBERG THE MAN

coteri e - round about him . The ruling spirit had wrought

- s a stupor in the literary self consciousnes , so that there was no one who could see the difference any longer between a vagabond and a nobleman . One of the clean est and most honorable of artists in our country once declared to me, that he considered it a godsend that

Strindberg set the axe to the root of the tree, thus exposing the degenerate progeny who tried to tell the ’ — people that they were following in Strindberg s foot steps . r B lack Apa t from this , Strindberg created with his Flags a satirical work of art which is destined to live through centuries . The much discussed literary char acter is a masterly drawn type, who in company with Sir

F f P E s r. u John alsta f and ickwick q , is bo nd to enter eternity . The rancorous severity with which the char acter in question is drawn, is based on a personal hatred, h w ich seems exaggerated, but without just that amount of sharpness in the tone, the type never would have become so striking as it is . At the present time, we ought to be able to forget that Strindberg used a model

. the to a certain extent As a rule, characters of the book are compounded o f the speciﬁc qualities of two or three models . Hence they differ considerably from their pro tot es yp and cannot be designated by this or that name . The same is true as regards the maj ority of the characters Red R oom of the , and Strindberg did not want the artists Red Room of the to be called by their right names, in spite of the fact that they were sympathetically drawn throughout . W B lack Fla s a hen g was bout to be published, Strind

CHAPTER VIII .

TH E ECCENTRIC HERMIT FTER the mental and physical illnesses and suf

fe rin s g with which the old century closed for him, the ever hypersensitive Strindberg had become even more sensitive and delicate . Although the mental disorder had been overcome, he had the mania of his

n - Infer o period, in that he insisted upon seeing direct n evidence of the supernatural powers i every incident, th e nay least triﬂe, that graced his eyes . His constant planning to shut himself up in a Catholic monastery was thus caused by a desire to get away from not the painful external world, by any newly aroused religious inclination inducing him to throw himself into the arms of the Roman church . Since for many reasons he considered himself unﬁt for the monastery, he hit upon the idea of establishing him “ ” self as a private hermit right in the midst of the

Swedish capital . This isolation of his he put into effect P shortly after he had moved up there in 1899. reviously r F 1 he had lived for a sho t time at urusund .

At ﬁrst he had hunted up his old friends and comrades, but he soon found that associating with them had no charm for him . He rediscovered himself only when he returned home to his seclusion and quiet and became

1 wa e n ac e i n th e oc h o m rch e A t ri g pl St k l A ip lago . 104 THE ECCENTRIC HERMIT 105

wn hi wrapped up in his o spiritual atmosphere, in w ch ” - he felt at home as in a well made suit Of clothes . ’ Thus on the border- line of Old age Strindberg s hermit “ life, extending nearly over thirteen years, began by his ” exercising himself in the art of being alone . In the f beginning it was di ﬁcult, and he himself confessed that

c . the va uum which held him , insisted upon being ﬁlled up o A lone In his wonderfully charming aut biography , Strindberg expresses a few thoughts which I cannot but “ : off cite By cutting the contact with other people, I a seemed at ﬁrst to lose in power, but simult neously my

e o g began to crystallize as it were , to condense around a r th kernel wherein eve y ing that I had lived through,

united, fused and became absorbed as nourishment of my

soul . Besides this, I accustomed myself to turn over in u my mind everything I saw and heard, in the ho se, in the

‘ r h street, in nature, and by bringing eve yt ing that came to

my notice into the work in hand, I felt my capital grow, and the observations that I made in my loneliness were found to be more valuable than those which I had made ” in society . These words seem to me to be the motto of all that Strindberg wrote during the ﬁrst decade of the new

century . It was , thanks to his complete isolation, during these years that Strindberg gathered all th e material which makes his latest literary output so intimate and

o which enables us to come closer to him, pers nally, than

ever before . What beautiful descriptions of the peacefulness of a

r ff home where eve ything lives and breathes, su ers and 1 06 S TRI NDB ERG THE MA N

rejoices together with him who dwells within, these years have given us ! His novels as well as his dramas and poetry from this period are full of the music of every day life which the hermit Strindberg grasped as no other. In this peaceful retirement he thrived as never before in his own city . His literary activity as well as he him self here passed their fourt h spring . Sorrows and worries he changed into white summer clouds which glided away on the ﬁrst breeze .

- Yet a cloud, dark blue and threatening, continually The hung over his head . After the annihilation of F u olk n ar . g , the theatres were afraid of his dramas a Against the new dramatic style , somewh t after the pat tern of Maeterlinck which he had commenced in E as ter

S wanwhite The Crown B ride The and continued in , and

Dream Pla y, the directors of the theatres assumed a skeptical attitude, considering the plays to be too artistic, too exclusive for the appreciative powers of the general public . 1 00 In the month of December, 9 , Strindberg wrote me to the effect that I must see him in an important business matter . Unfortunately I was sick and could not put in 1 B anér atan an appearance in his bachelor quarters, 3 g , until one week later .

It was the question of starting a Strindberg Theatre . It hurt him terribly to write drama after drama and not see a single one on the stage . This underrating of his

it ' a i ni capac y s dramatist must not go on ad nﬁ tum. In

o s order to put a st p to it, he wanted me to help him tart a Strindberg Theatre .

108 STRINDBERG THE MA N

I cite this incident, not as a criticism of Strindberg, but only in order to show how utterly sensitive he was , to show how this hypersensibility was coupled with an nt hysteric suspicion which, out of most innoce words ,

r n - would construe , ve y u reasonably, non existent secret intentions o f which he surely could not discover a trace in the deepest recesses of the subconscious will of the individual . He himself spoke of this pathological suspicion of his of which he showed the symptoms even in his child I t hood . has followed him all through li fe and has become, it seems to me, the main spring of that equally incurable scepticism of his . And yet , it was thanks to this constant ability to be doubtful o f all those ideas n t which he had take up to analyze, hat he had escaped the fate o f becoming wedded to any one of them . Opin ions exist only in order to illumine life spontaneously from a certain side . Unless they are broken up imme diately and unless you permit their being replaced by t others , you will soon see every hing upside down again . The same peculiar suspicion which Strindberg showed r me on this occasion, he p obably showed everybody . It was not difﬁcult for him to become isolated under such circumstances . Just at the time when Strindberg had that calm about himself which he needed, he chanced to fall in love in earnest . He married the young actress Harriet Bosse whose acquaintance he made while she was taking the

“ ” " E s ter part of the girl in his play a . During their three years of married li fe ( 1901 I never saw Strind THE ECCENTRIC HERMIT 109

berg . But I know that during these years were written m The Dance some of his greatest works , his double dra a 1 o Death ord- la an P ett A t f and his new poems W P y d y r . Chr s aetos His greatest lyric poem, y , owes its existence to

this marriage . the Divorced for third time, he now dwelt alone in the the small, plain home he had built up in large Red House, Karlava en F 40 g . our ﬂights up on the right was Strind ’ t berg s apartment . When en ering the hall, there hung l — directly in front of you a sma l oil painting by himself .

Through a framework of foliage, you looked into a sunny

Eden . It was as if this little picture would warn the a caller th t he was approaching tabooed ground . The

door on the left led t o his s tudio . This was a compar ativel ob loin y small room, g in shape and with a single T window facing the north . he whole wall on the left was covered with book - shelves reaching from ﬂoor to

ceiling . On the right there stood a couple of manuscript one cupboards and on the highest of these, an eagle

spread his wings . Diagonally by the window there was the writing table

- a . full of note books, m nuscripts , etc , and a few trinkets, all arranged in the minute order which Strindberg wanted about himself when he worked . At the table there stood that high- backed arm- chair which he occupies in the a photographs of th t period taken by Anton Blomberg.

Close by th e book - shelves there was a smoking- table and a couple of rattan chairs for callers .

- th e di - Double doors led to ning room . This room

1 n H and c a . L nd and H a e Word Play a d i r ft i g by, op . cit . 1 10 STRINDBERG THE MA N — was also quite plain, with a dining table in the

- centre , a serving table and an arm chair in the corner on the right by the window . As a rule there was a wealth

o s t of fl wer on both hese tables , flowers that were sent by unknown admirers , or bought by himself during his morning walks . These flowers he always arranged personally in such a way that they harmonized with . the state of mind in which

’ he happened to be . When he was in a solemn frame of mind, he also spread out on chairs and tables some beau

m . tiful , e broidered East Indian draperies On a pillar between the windows, he had placed a small statue of Buddah . — The adj oining room was his drawing room . It looked — furni as though it was not in use . The slender legged ture had on light coverings both winter and summ er . i There were no p ctures on the walls , only small and large photographs of his children .

His bedroom, ﬁnally, was situated in the rear of the house . It was so plain that it impressed the caller as a monastic cell . A narrow iron bedstead, a large photo Of —M graph his youngest daughter, little Anne arie, a small t—able wi—th an old Bible, a couple of old Catholic b ok m a prayer o s that w s all . This is the home which he himself describes in the

A lo latter part of ne . Here he passed his time during the 1 02— 1 08 years 9 9 , and here he wrote most of what he published during those years .

- The windows faced north east , so that he had no sun in not his rooms except early in the morning, and at all

1 12 STRINDBERG THE MA N

The rest of the day he had to be occupied with other things . Under the seemingly quiet exterior, he felt a

r s constant, bu ning restle sness which forced him to be occupied with studies and research of all kinds, if for no other reason than to make the time pass . Here in the Red House it was the preliminary studies to the B lue

B oo u ks he was concerned with, mainly spec lations in

. r chemistry and astronomy . But he was also conce ned with some quasi~sc ientiﬁ c research works in the history of religion, for which he harbored a glowing hatred because it seemed to him that their aim was to show that the Bible could be traced to Babel and that, by means of scientiﬁc evidence, they tried to detract from the worth of revealed truth . There were quite a number of things that he hated in his old age . He was continually the same brilliant reasoner as when in his younger days he “ ” 1 used to be called the Eagle by his friends in Berns . The only difference was that at that time he was wrecking

the then assin s tate o thin s and tearing down p g f g , now he was raging against the new and p ermanent s tatus quo which was inco mpatible with the faith of his childhood to which he had returned . In the nineties , modern science had declared that the universe no longer had any secrets for it . It had found the key to all riddles , solved all problems . — It was the boastful language of these quasi sci entiﬁ c — high brows that continually embittered Strindberg and caused him to treat the exact sciences with so much con tempt . But these were statements which no real prom

1 B erns S al on er s e e . 8 ch a . IV g , p , pt . THE ECCENTRIC HERMIT 1 13

inent scientists had made, for they no doubt continue to

th e e hold, that, as regards great secrets , we know pr c

lus minu r s e o. tically nothing more than p , , z

But on account of a few scientific snobs , Strindberg condemned them all . Besides, in matters pertaining to s thi kind of knowledge, he wanted to play the part of the clairvoyant . With an eagerness , which bordered on m light hysteria, he seized upon a misunderstood state ent and now then, turned and twisted in the Vise of his own ut ff imagination , until he had p an entirely di erent a interpret tion upon it than it originally had, and finally in that way he was able to produce a fictitious fact which he would be delighted to use later on as a crushing argument . There was nothing to which he clung so tenaciously a o f s to these facts his own making. It was as if he h believed, that in this ever flowing stream, t ere would be a few firm points that could give him a feeling of quiet, and therefore he moored his skiff to a couple of floating buoys , without ascertaining whether they were fastened to the bottom or not . When conversing with him , it was imperative to refrain from touching upon these buoys .

This put a damper on his spirits , nay, he would even lose hi s temper and show his guests the door, if they contra dicted him too vigorously . In particular he clung to his mystic discovery concerning the birds , e . g . the landrail

hib er which can make itself invisible, the swallows which nate, and regarding the whereabouts in general of the migratory birds during the winter . He hinted vaguely premonitions which he did not wish to express . These 1 14 STRINDBERG TH E MA N were mystic secrets which it might be dangerous to betray . These oddities often suggested to me that he wanted — them as a kind of safety valve against the state of inﬁ rm ity through which he had had to ﬁght his way . He

- referred to them as it were to test his self control, the signal superiority of his own brain over illusions . ? And his new religious. inclinations After he had o settled down in the Red House, he had once m re passed through a rather serious crisis which closed with perfect harmony between him and the supernatural powers . This was the ﬁnal act in his great and marvelous self redemption . He had now granted himself complete absolution and balanced the books in such a way that they could be pass ed upon favorably by the Tribunal hi above as well as by mself . Such a closing of the books ought not to have been

’ difﬁ cult to bring about , not even for a man with his own f strong sense o j ustice . The very fact that he had again

- awakened among us the old Swedish spirit , the very same Spirit which moved in the loftiest of the old Icelandic o p etry, the most inspiring, the most stimulating of all this desperate deﬁance of the impelling power and mean ” — 1 — inglessn ess of life Vilhelm Ekelund puts it this “ ” f a fact alone ought to have su ﬁced to llow the sins , which he possibly had committed, to be carried away by the wind like withered leaves to the pit where they were destined to decompose of their own accord .

During the last few years I met Strindberg, his relig

1 e sh o Sw di p et .

1 16 STRINDBERG THE MA N

the cloak of Christian dogma, which ﬁts loosely or snugly s at the same time . He felt himself to be a de cendant of

Lii tz en Vasa who had not fallen at , but returned home after bloody battles , to create order in the confusion which was the result of hi s long absence on expeditions in foreign lands . i He believed no longer in absolute evolut on . Several times he declared — I do not believe that life ever will be anything else o than it is . This is the worst of all hells . I cann t con i m ce ve of any worse . Even if you change the for of n gover ment and religion ever so many times, humanity will always remain the same . He felt that he had to comfort not only himself but also his times . Every night he read his old Roman Catholic — inb ued prayer books in order to become with their peace ,

edifi cation not to acquire a Roman Catholic , and in the same way he wanted to comfort others . The fire which burned within him was so strong that he needed quieting remedies in order to rest at night . I f we turn to his literary records we find that not even through these can he be marshalled into the ranks of the c onvert church Christians . No bids such a farewell to l his own brethren as did Strindberg in his B lack F ags .

th e - n i On the contrary, ego ce tric which dwells with n him,

. en The reat remains there even to the d . When in G Hi hwa g y he deﬁnitely lays down the pen, he rises up like the wrestling Jacob against God and endeavors to over whelm him

’ I ll not let go thy hand, Eternal One, THE ECCENTRIC HERMIT 1 17

’

s . Thy mighty hand, until I m ble sed by Thee And then he bursts out in these accents which testify to an unbroken self - esteem h Bless me, t ine own humanity, ff ff i Of ! Which su ers , su ers from thy g ft life Me ﬁrst who suffered most ! “ : Me th Me These words , y humanity, and ﬁrst, who ff su ered most, do not proceed from the lips of a man who has languished under the burden of life and laid his t he cross on shoulders of another, but rather from a blond giant of the Viking- type who personally has carried

r s the cross to his own Calva y, and who claim a reward

r ha fo it . That he d not been able to be what he had — — wished to b e the closing word in the drama does not detract from the proud self - assertion in the consciousness ’ the of greatness of his life s work . I f we wish to hear Strindberg speak from his heart in an even stronger tone we need only read his words to the “ ” Japanese on the latter 5 question as to how he sees life

The H unte r : This found I bitterer than death, indeed, To take this monstrous mockery in earnest

To hold as sacred that which was so beastly . CHAPTER IX .

1 LITTLE CHRISTMAS EVE WITH STRINDBERG B E TRI ND RG had ﬁnally set up his own theatre, but under such great difﬁculties that it seemed as though all the powers o f the world had c onspired against him lest in the end he should brin g his. unplayed dramas on the stage .

the Old When the theatre, Intima Theatre at Norra

B antor et was g , to be opened, it took months before the sanction Of the auth orities could be obtained and before all the necessary changes were completed . As Strind ’ berg was str ongly opposed to director Falck s and his ’ company s going on a tour through the country, he was obliged to pay their salaries for more than two months . And when on the 26th Of November 1907 the theatre ﬁnally opened its gates and that forceful masterpiece The Peli can x , a play e pressly written for the occasion, was e given as a premi re, there rose in unison a lupine howl u against both the play and the a thor, loudest against him

the dramatis t self , perhaps , but not so much against as th aut —B a against e hor of lack Fl gs . They did not consider that it was Sweden’ s ﬁrst and only great dramatist who now himself sought to make good the wrongs done him, that it was the author himself who had to pay the piper . The Intima Theatre was to be

1 Th e we de n S s s o des ig ate th e 23rd of December . 1 18

120 STRINDBERG THE MA N

‘ r e a tistic pause . Without our having heard her st ps , she now opened quite unexpectedly the hall door, and so silently that you had the feeling you had come to some spiritualistic s éance in the house of the magian Magus . While we took Off our coats and peeped into The

P romis ed Land o , a little Strindberg painting on the p ’ osite s r p wall, the door to Strindberg libra y was Opened and on the threshold stood Strindberg himself . He stood r there in a ﬂood of light, for his apa tment was fully illumined by electricity as he always had it during the winter evening, even when he was alone . — ! h Well , you are on the dot he said wit a smile, an expression which was equal to the very highest praise . ff hi Then in due order he o ered us s hand, his good powerful hand which cordially pressed ours as a greeting of welcome . As a rule Strindberg avoided shaking hands with people, for on the inside of his right hand he had a spot of eczema which one c ould not help feeling and of which Strindberg was very loath to Speak . At times the spot was inﬂamed and then Strindberg contin ‘ ll ua y wore a black cotton glove on the right hand . How

t ot - he supposed hat he g this skin disease, he relates in his autobiography .

After we had entered his little library, he closed the

us r door carefully behind , and with a g eat gesture pulled a drapery in front o f it in order that nobody sh ould be able to peep through the key- hole or to hear what was said within the Holy of Holies . o — Thereup n he turned to us in a gay, student like man was ner which meant , though no word spoken, that now CHRI STMAS EVE WITH STRINDBERG 12 1

we might cut loose and have a right pleasant evening, for all worries had been shaken Off. — ! Here, gentlemen , the toddy table is ready This was accompanied by an animated gesture in the direction of a table with liquors placed in the left corner

th e . e near bookshelves Th n he suddenly stopped, just as though he had realized that he had no longer a couple of young students from the seventies before him , who , th e according to customs of those days , refreshed them selves with warm toddy u Altho gh you , you are going to have grog, of course .

There were plenty of refreshments . We had the choice of whisky, cognac or punch ! there was hot water for toddy and cold soda water for grog . In order at least to begin alike, the three of us determined to take whisky grog and accordingly seated ourselves on the three nar

- — row, high backed dining room chairs which Strindberg had placed around the table and on which we were forced to sit up straight as in an examination under some super c iliou s professor . This does not imply that Strindberg acted the part of On t a professor . the o her hand, he was the youngest ’ o us a am ng , and s soon as we had drunk each other s

o . health, his t ngue started to wag I had happened to express my surprise that the Intima Theatre did not have the support of a certain great M ae cenas to the e xtent indicated by the rumor . — u — Well, j st imagine Strindberg interrupted , delight — ed to be able to relate something truly interesting while 122 STRINDBERG THE MA N

Falck and I sat here one evening last fall discuss ing the s run que tion of capital wherewith to the theatre, I happened to think of him ﬁrst of all , of him, the patron art who of , since I could not but think that he has done so much for pictorial art might also lend a hand to the

d . o much abused ramatic art But , you w uld hardly e believe it, as soon as I pronounced his nam a miracle took place . —A miracle ? — F Yes , it is a fact, declared alck . — W e heard a rumbling noise in the chimney- ﬂue and a moment later a brick came down into the ﬁ re

- place, blew open the brass doors , which ought almost to have been an impossibility, and landed on the ﬂoor here in the midst of us . Then I knew the reply that we could expect from that man . — M ? The aecenas answered in th e negative, then

—Y es 000 , he could neither lend us nor borrow 3 o cr wns for us . But j ust think that a brick can give

n k answer to the mere thi ing of something . We found this advance message of the Powers as well M as the refusal of the aecenas equally wonderful . But we did not know just then that the patron in question was himself in great ﬁnancial embarrassment at that time .

But it had been possible to start the entire enterprise, thanks to the money that kept pouring in upon Strind berg from all points of the compass . He found it quite a as inexplicable as the brick , that as soon as the daily p pers announced that his dramas were to be played some

124 STRINDBERG THE MA N

F w rom things theatrical e came to other topics , but all ’ o of them dealt with mysticism . Strindberg s predilecti n for the mystical had continued to assert itself with equal

- was tenacity ever since the Inferno period . This a

not— r mania of—his , but it ought as has happened in ce tain instances to be taken as an indication of a continued state of weakness of this mind which was potent and active in all things pertaining to humanity . That evening he related a long series of similar exper iences , all o f which I cannot now remember, but of which the larger number may be classiﬁed under the heading : clairvoyance . To show how closely associated he was us with his dramatic work he told , for instance, that as a rule he felt it in his bones when some of his plays were presented for the ﬁrst time somewhere in Europe . He m could smell s oke and spiritous vapors which meant, in according to him, that people were discussing him tensely in the lobby of some theatre . After he had gone ’ O to bed about ten clock and fallen asleep, he would suddenly be aroused by rounds of applause and, fright ened, he would sit up in bed, wondering whether he was in the theatre . He did not like to go to his own e and was premi res , applause as distasteful to him as the literary yelping which had pursued him all hi s life . But a u after h ving experienced s ch applause, he insisted that f he always received intelligence O some dramatic success . When Strindberg had the opportunity to relate Similar incidents and when he had an audience capable of follow ing the creative fancy which codperated in the telling of s was the tory, he in his element . He was himself so CHRI STMAS EVE WITH STRINDBERG 125 intensely absorbed that time and time again his head o ff hi became too warm . He had to co l O s hot forehead t by ba hing it for a few seconds with cold water. What a he dr nk, he diluted more and more with water and lemon juice . ’ After the day s topics of mysticism were exhausted, he “ ” threw himself into politics . Then it was th e eagle within him that rose on proud wings ! again he became

- R ed R oom the critical art revolutionist of the period, who tore down all idols . He arranged the discussion so that it resembled a great criminal prosecution, where the unj ustly accused was his own point of View . The ff malicious prosecutor pleaded the cause of the plainti .

Then he himself took the part of counsel for the defense, and after the prosecutor had formulated his charges more or less success fully, the defence began .

And then there was a hot tus sle among the shields . m After an expository prea ble , came proofs of the de

f - fence . They came like rattling volleys o machine gun

ﬁre, and for each volley that had mowed down a hostile

: ! force, Strindberg cried out Bang ’ He had hit the bull s eye . The chain of proofs had been welded together so ﬁrmly that there was nothing more to do in th e matter . Bang ! Bang ! The entire militant forces of the prosecutor were riddled . Not a single platoon could hold the ground any longer . The accused was completely acquitted of all charges . Bang ! The judge co uld do nothing else than dismiss him 126 STRI NDBERG THE MAN and that too in a mann er that afforded even more than redress and gave almost the halo of a saint to the man h n w o had been u j ustly accused. Bang ! f r The whole matter was closed once o all .

A couple of hours elapsed in this manner . They had d d passe incre ibly fast, and yet it seemed as though we am had lived through a series of dr as and novels . Hundreds o f human shapes had ﬁled past the inner v e m s ision . Hosts of burning qu stions of the day the y terious magi cian had hung up before our eyes like waving b i banners , ut at the same t me in which he had looked

- at them, they had become torn to shreds by a storm wind and changed into worthless rags ﬁt for the dump .

’ r Sho tly before nine o clock , some one peeped through

- the dining room door . Strindberg raised his glass. and invited us to drain the cups . — Now we are going to have something to eat . I hope ou the grog has given y an appetite . With these words he opened the doors to the dining

. I t was a t e t room _ be ming wi h light from the el c ric chandelier and the candelabra with stearine candles . u u m ste Before the ﬁg re of Buddah there b rned a tiny, y rio us lamp .

a The table was spre d for a feast . The cold table, acco rding to the old - Swedish custom which Strindberg was loved, there, but not the traditional one with sugared i t del ka essen. herring and the like, only Besides, there was a wealth of ﬂowers in small vases placed like

128 STR INDBERG THE MA N

— - At that time I had to eat black hog wash out of a

h - dis carrier . He regarded this fasting of forty days as a punishment for Th e D ream Play which was presumptious and blas hem p ous in that it tried to give advice to Providence. When he was about to tell his brother Axel that he had received food so unpalatable that he could not th ank the

Lord for it, he had, however, been prevented from doing so by a blue ‘ streak of lightning and a clap of thunder which was repeated three times . Because he had been able

s M to suppres the accusation against the ost High, he had

. th received his reward e following day . It was on the — 24th of April of that year that his present ﬁ rst class f housekeeper had commenced to work for him, and rom that day there had been order in the house, and daily he had received the best of food that he could wish for . Everything with which Strindberg treat ed us that

ﬁ rst - the evening was indeed of class quality . After cold table, the housek—eeper brought in a splendid lobster ! then o t . foll wed a well broiled fowl, frui and cheese

Nor did we neglect Bacchus . We had Norwegian a avit v ak . q , the only dram that Strindberg would t e

Then we continued with Burgundy wine . Strindberg had been told by some wine- connoisseur that the consumer should select for himself a brand for which he had devel f oped a taste and then stick to it . He himsel had chosen B eaune and therefore always received an excellent quality . F m urther ore, he was of the opinion that clarets should not be enj oyed at the temperature of the room . They CHRI STMAS EVE WITH STRINDBERG 129 should be taken directly out of the cellar when about For to be used . , to anyone blessed with an acute sense f n of taste, they contained su ﬁcie t ﬂavor, and besides that, cold clarets affected the organism more powerfully than when they were warmed .

u not Strindberg was pure s nshine and j oy . It was only a gay and inspiring banquet at which we were i present . In sp te of the fact that the table talk moved th about material ings , trivialities on the whole , but of n great sig iﬁcance to a sensitive person like Strindberg, there was a festal atmosphere over us, j ust as if we had been celebrating a Christmas Eve in memory of some other great man than the one whom we are accustomed

the 2 th o f — to celebrate on 4 December, another, who also had suffered incredible torments for the humanity whose great conscience he had become . Strindberg’ s good humor was even more intensiﬁed

to when the banquet was drawing a close . He then had the chance to relate his little story about the mysticism

t the off - which en ers into process of c ee making, one of — ff the themes he loved most of all . To make co ee is one — ’ of the most delicate operations in the world, that s approximately th e way he put it . Servants rarely know ff Y ou how to make what may be called good co ee . have

l . to do it yourse f I have always made it myself, and so did Balzac while he was working nights .

ff . . You see, co ee is a sensitive beverage It seems it can receive impressions from the state of mind of the person who makes it . I f it is a dyspeptic person , the o coffee is usually acid . And yet the wh le science of 130 STRINDBERG THE MA N making good coffee consists in careful watching while it ff is in the process of ebullition . The co ee itself speaks up when it is ready . c ot After this little le ture, Strindberg g up, fetched matches, and lighted the small spirit lamp under the percolator which stood on the serving table behind him . After that he turned the double utensil upside down with a graceful movement and a skill which indicated that this was a daily performance . Without looking at the appa ratus , he again seated himself at the table and entered into the conversation with vivacity . And he feigned he did not notice the boiling which was going on behind him , despite the fact that a certain mental tension rather suggested to us that it was the muttering coffee he listened to and not to his own voice . He spoke under u a strain , j st as if the contents of what he uttered did not interest him , or as though it had been something committed to memory . And yet it was his own thoughts t hat he let flow , but thoughts, you might know , which he had repeated to every new guest until they had become t rifles something extraneous, mere that he had given away long ago . P o i extin recisely at the right m ment he rose aga n , g i he u s d ff . the flame , and put the co ee on the table to settle ff d o The co ee which he had made was , indee , delici us , 1 and he seemed as proud of it as Anders. Zorn of his famous cocktail . ’ After the supper, we again settled down in Strindberg s we library . There found a newly spread table with

1 amous wed sh a n er A f S i p i t .

132 STRINDBERG THE MA N

w r a state of perspiration , I sit do n here at my w iting

l . table . As soon as I have paper ready, it breaks oose

The words literally swamp me, and the pen works under n high pressure in order to get it all on the paper . Whe

I have written for a while , I have a feeling as though I in soared space . Then it seems as if a higher will than my own caused the pen to glide over the paper and made it (the will) record words which appear to me as pure inspiration . o After two or three h urs of such ecstatic activity, he had to discontinue in order not to exhaust hims elf .

Inactivity he abhorred, and therefore occupied himself during the rest of the day in every conceivable way . Lately he had provided hims elf with the Encyclopaedia

Britannica, and he studied that work industriously . He also studied languages and mathematics and in the evening the star- studded ﬁ rmam ent not only ast ronom i ll ca . s y, but also as an astrologer Beside this he wrote letters and recorded th e events of the day in his diary . In order to stretch after having been seated for such a

was long time, I had risen to my feet and taking a few steps forward in the room . In so doing, I happened to glance into the sitting—room and what I saw there made me pause in Silent admiration . During the few minutes that Strindberg had been stalk ing about there the room had been changed . The dining- room table he had transformed into a flower garden by means of tulips and other flowers . They were all contained in vases of various sizes and were a floral homage to Christmas and the pe acefulness of the holiday CHRI STMAS EVE WITH STRINDBERG 133

. n season which now began The white, pink and bro ze yellow tulips formed a gentle accord like the ethereal ’ melody of some of Beethoven s earlier sonatas . And it was noticeable that the loving hand, which had arranged all t t hese ﬂowers in symbolic harmony , had placed hem in such a Way that they effected a feeling of balance and that the ﬂower- group as a whole gave th e impression of an altar. On another table opposite this altar of yellow and white, was the Buddah statuette with a red light

n s before it, absorbed in such a potent religious hyp o is as though he had been looking back to origin itself . In order to remove the notion that it was an ordinary

to — room, Strindberg had brought light his Indian knitted table cloths o f white and pale green silk and spread them over the backs of the chairs . It was not the dwelling n of a huma being that I was looking into, it was the private sanctuary of one Whose devotion lay not only on o his lips , but also in the deepest recesses of his s ul .

Strindberg smiled in his inimitable, cordial manner at the astonishment that must have been reﬂected in my features . He walked into the room ahead of me and made a sign for me to follow . — I am in the habit of coming in he re to pray with my

ﬂowers, he said .

And with a glance that glided over them all , he gath ered in all these bright bells into his soul , just as though he wished that they all might chime in concord with s him elf . — You need no words to pray . 134 STRINDBERG THE MA N

He remained for a few moments while this almost audible hymn to the Good and the Beautiful died away within him . He seemed so good, like a child that could

- see the bright side of life only, this weather beaten

’ a t ch mpion wi h the gray lion s mane, he, who could forget himself so completely and become absorbed in a life as immediate and sublime as that of the ﬂowers . This image of the aged po et before his altar of ﬂowers

me absorbed in silent ecstacy, seems to to prove that

Strindberg, in spite of all the hideous and disgusting that life continually poured upon him, had nevertheless been able to guard in his inmost being the sacred ﬂowers of beauty just as uncontaminated as when they grow in a paradise wrought out of the wakeful dreams of a child’ s so ul .

- When we said good night, he stood leaning against the

- door post, tired but at the same time happy over an evening in which he had rejoiced, and smiling at us , even

' Of thou h h e in the moment parting, just as g had to give a free outlet to the sunshine which glowed within his own soul .

1 36 STRINDBERG THE MA N

himself as a bankrupt, he did not dare to bring any of his books or furniture from his former home .

Strindberg was delighted with his new h ome . He rej oiced because here no bold tool of the Ofﬁce of the

- Governor general could force an entrance . He received

- e Falkner P ension good, well prepared food from th one

ﬂight up in the same house . And then, besides , he had

ot aw-a h m em g , y from the t ings which aroused unpleasant ories of the conjugal life he had led yonder in the Red

House .

For a While he rested from his literary activities . But after he had become accust omed to the new surroundings i into which he had removed, he began to wr te again . Within a fortnight he produced a new historical drama

‘ The Las t Kni ht The N ati onal Di g , and a little later on rector M as ter lo Gus tavus , which together with O f and

Vas a r formed a cycle about Gustavus I , his favo ite his torical character . The four years which Strindberg passed in the Blue th e Tower were , generally speaking, among happiest of H i . s his life misanthropy had become less pronounced . He felt that he was made much “ of by those who were nearest to him, he got on comfortably in every respect, and he had the feeling that here he had ﬁnally found that Tus culanum where he was to be permitted to pass his old age in peace . He continued to take his long walks at a time o f day

when he did not have to meet any of his acquaintances . Nowadays he had chosen other routes than those which Karlav i he walked when he resided on agen. To h s I N TH E B LUE TOWER 1 37

' beloved Djurgarden he cam e seldom . As a rule he directed his steps via Drottning and B arnh usgatorna to B nt et the Intima Theatre at Norra a org . He had provided himself with his own keys to the theatre, and thus began his day by inspecting it . He had to lo ok over the repertory list , see what plays were to be n given duri g the week , and which one was being rehearsed . He inspected the work in progress on new h t o decorations , especially of t ose belonging his great — e Damascus cycle which , however, n ver was acted in its entirety .

And then, when, after completed inspection, he left the h t eatre , he always stopped in the square to give it a last h look of farewell . I f the sun was shining on t e upper

as . part of the facade, he interpreted this a good omen

He continued his walk down Vasagatan . At Tegel backen he turned to the right and followed the railway 1 Vasab ron bridge, for the huge, Wide had created a hi m dislike in , a feeling which was probably founded on m 2 some re ainder of that fear of the market—from which he suffered in the beginning of his Inferno period . The unattractive business struc ture on the little island of Stromsborg is itself capable of creating th is feeling of

Vasab ron . aversion, especially when seen from

On the other hand , one could hardly see anything 3 o P handsomer than the H use o f the eerage, seen from

1 A bridge c onne cting th e s o- calle d Norrmalm with th e c ity prope r .

’ 2 Strindbe rg s agoraph obia continued als o after th e Infe rno

e nds . pe riod . S e e h i s L eg 3 Ri ddarh us et . 138 STRINDBERG THE MA N

d o the railway bridge, and as Strin berg always rej iced in

ff o what a orded impressi ns of beauty, we can understand his predilection for the route which he had chosen . Then he wandered farther away across Munkb ron or by way of the narrow streets o f the city proper towards Sk e sb ron Slussen (The Sluice Bridges ) , followed pp (The ! uay) to Norrb ro and Gustaf Adolfs Torg (Gus tavus Adolphus Square) . He was often seen to pass ’ 1 through Kungstragarden (King s Garden) about in the morning . During the last few years he continued from this point Valhallava en up to g , for at the farthest end of this street lived his youngest little daughter, of whom he was especially fond because she was like him and because he considered her a visionary (endowed with the power of second sight) even as a child . She used to tell her papa that when she was alone at home and had nobody to play

o . with, little Robin Goodfell w came to keep her company Finally Strindberg returned by way of Odengatan and

Norrtulls atan . g The latter, o f course, he had been not walking as a schoolboy, although he did like the street, — — but rather chose if time permitted some side street that led down to the Clara School . ’

During the years just preceding his death, Strindberg often took such long morning walks that he became h completely ex austed . When he was in that state , he e u often suffered a slight stroke . His entire sid wo ld then f become so paralyzed that he moved with di ﬁculty . Then

1 E xtensive public gardens in th e vicinity of Gus tavus

Adolph us Sq uare .

140 STRINDBERG THE MA N

n to he had lived himself ! o the other hand, a certain extent , in order not to be robbed of his ideas .

He used to tell of a like case . He had disclosed to a I person, whose name need not mention , the whole outline of a drama which , however , he never had had time to commit to paper . One year later when he visited Stock i o rem ere . holm , the friend urged him to c me to a p It was Strindberg’ s play act for act that was being per an t o formed . The author got ova i n at the close of the performance , but Strindberg sat there dismal and silent . — ’ ? u Don t you like the play asked the acclaimed a thor .

’ — it s m ! Why, y play you have written replied Strind u berg . The friend only la ghed as he would have done at a good j oke .

o The following seas ns , generally speaking, were favor able fo r the Strindberg Theatre . When it became plain that the enterprise was a fair success and one after the ’ other of Strindberg s plays were acted, his own interest in th—e ente rprise became keener . He was present at dress rehearsals and ever gave good advice as regards ha the executi on of the parts . In spite of the fact t t his advice was not always accepted, he could not but leave a certain impress on the theatre, and the acting was more n n pronouncedly Strindbergian , generally speaki g, tha was usually the case in other theatres . For a t ime Strindberg interested himself so much in th o the theatre and e little troupe of y ung actors , who m devoted themselves to his cause , that he invited the to his home to little sprees and from time t o time sent them personal letters in which he expres sed his opinion in I N TH E BLUE TOWER 141

regard to their work, sometimes in the most enthusiastic terms . As the criticism of daily newspaperdom was e t g nerally annihilating, he wanted to streng hen their courage with amiable letters . Thus at times there was a good deal of gaiety in the th e home of old fellow in the Blue Tower . On some

s rare occasion , he would even break loose and accompany to th the young people bowl at e Lidingo Inn . This would u n be enj oyed ntil the small hours in the morning, and the they went out for a j oy- ride by automobile for the rest of the night . After a nap of a couple of hours , he took his P oyster breakfast at the ho enix . t In spi e of his sixty years , Strindberg was thus still a man of vigor . In every day li fe , he was extremely moderate and careful . At this epoch we could not but believe that he yet had a couple of decades to live and to work among us .

Gradually, however, there were signs of a coming aux rupture with the Intima Theatre . Strindberg was F ious that certain dramas should be played which alck, on the other hand, did not dare to put on , on account of possible pecuniary lo sses . The theatre struggled along thanks to the t ours through the provinces with such plays as had scored a success in the capital . The Link with Miss Flygare as the baroness and S wan whi te with Miss Falkner in the leading part were a success throughout the land . The great success o f the last mentioned tour may be attributed in part to a rumor to the effect that the young lady of the

- — leading part was the wife to b e of the aged poet . 142 STRINDBERG THE MA N

own One day of his accord, Strindberg stated the facts of the case . During the earlier part of his stay in the M Blue Tower, he had, in fact, been engaged to iss F alkner for a few days . But then both of them had u found it ridiculo s to sport engagement rings , and there

- P fore they had re exchanged them . But a latonic friendship continued between the two during the years next following . M F the After iss alkner left the Intima Theatre, tension between Strindberg and the theatre became more pro nounce F d. It was further intensiﬁed when director alck announced that he intended to take up a different reper tory, since in his opinion none of the remaining unplayed

Strindberg creations were adapted to his small stage . — we The well known conﬂict which ensued, ended, as ’ F “ know, by Strindberg s attacking alck in such a manner that the latter had to resign and the theatre was forced to shut its doors . One of the reasons contributing to this bitterness against the theatre in which he had taken so much inter

to est, I believe I have found be this , that Strindberg was sick and tired of the idea that he should have a theatre u of his own, j ust as he contin ally grew t ired of and trampled under foot all other ideas that he had embraced for a while, and of which he found later on that he had had enough .

A few months before he died , he again became recon ciled with Falck and sent him thanks for having so ably and deservedly staged and played so many o f his unplayed dramatic works .

144 STRINDBERG THE MA N

His ﬁnances became worse day by day . On several occasions he was without a cent and had to resort to all kinds of measures to get a little money . We tried to s o k ell his dramas , but in St c holm none of them could be a sold on account of the Intima The tre, and among the

o n more pr mi ent provincial directors of theatres , there was not a single one who wanted them, because Strind berg had permitted a few inferior companies to travel i about and g ve free representations , so that the provincial ’ public would not go to a theat re where Strindberg s name was on the posters . The only play that he was able to place on the Swedish stage this summer was a dramatization of The I nhabi tants ’ o P f H erns o . It was sold to The eoples Theatre in e Stockholm and Gothenburg, but in both places the pr m iere was a failure because of adverse criticism . It was contended that the play did not compare favorably with u the novel and by means of this feint, the critics s cceeded k in scaring away the public , ﬁrst in Stoc holm and later

the on, through amiable imitation of the Stockholm critics , also in Gothenburg .

Nor did Strindberg want to write any more . The year “ The Great Hi hwa before, in g y he had presented his self ” declaration and Said good- bye to li fe and his literary

H e not activity . would rather write anything after this — lyric wander drama . Yet it would seem that among th e great number of e literary works of his pen, th re might have been some single one ﬁt to be printed once more . But this was a ’ A Foo s more difﬁcult matter than one would think . l I N THE BLUE TOWER 145

Confessi on which he himself had never published in — 1 Sweden a paper by the name o f B ud/eaﬂen had — stolen it and published it as a serial he could have found

e his a publish r for, but out of consideration for wife,

from whom he was divorced, and the children of his ﬁrst marriage , he did not wish to see the book in print . ’ but “ Of all of Strindberg s novels , there was no one left B la F s ck lag . After he had reacquired the rights from

s B Orck the publisher j Borjeson, who had printed the t th e ﬁrst edition, he succeeded in placing this book wi h Gothenburg ﬁrm A hlén Akerlund who published a

t wo - popular crown edition of the work . Concerning this Strindberg wrote me on the 1 3th of M ay. He related that Borj eson would release him from the agreement with regard to B lack Flags and asked me “ o quietly to get him a publisher in G thenburg . In Goth “ e nb ur —F g, he writes , because the Stockholm lags will ” then have less of a chance to interfere . And he contin

: ues Since the book is to be had in Danish and German , n I do not see why it should not be obtai able in Swedish . But on the quiet It is characteristic of the fate of Strindberg that in fear and trembling he should be obliged t o publish secretly th e only available w ork t hrough which he might acquire the more indispensable necessities o f life . I f Ahlen Akerlund had not dared to take a stand in his t favor at his time, the old poet would have had to face — — dire need or as he did once before he would have been forced to sell his property.

1 Th e Fiery C ros s . 146 STRI NDB ERG THE MA N

f d In spite of all these economic di ficulties, Strin berg was o . , however, anything but d wncast Though he often lacked the necessities of life, he wrote day after day 1 gratuitously for Aftontidningen and The S ocial D em o 2 H crat. e was in a fighting mood, and his articles , particularly in the first mentioned paper, caused a great sensation .

2 th On the 5 of June, Strindberg sent me a letter which made me believe that the bomb was about to on explode . I must see him immediately, for he is the ” “ s : point of emigrating . But he add from Stockholm ” at least ! At the same time he informs me that his “ friend from the time of his. stay at The Sign of the Black Pi ” P g , rofessor Dr . Schleich , is in the city . But nothing came out of his threatened emigration this e time either . Just wh n Strindberg had decided to pay

. th e a visit to Dr Brand, whose home was in vicinity o f

Boras , Dr . Schleich induced him to change his plans and come along to Berlin instead . But as this was too far and moving there called for too much capital, which by the way could not be provided for, the whole plan came to nought once more .

The result was , however, a few j oyful days together th e with German professor . He took possession of

Strindberg in the old student- like way and before they had been together many hours , they were in such a mood

that they sang ballads and played the piano .

1 One of th e ead n oc h o m da l i g St k l ilie s . 2 Th e o gan of th e ocial e m oc r S D rats .

148 STRINDBERG THE MA N through resistance which breaks the current can the latter was be of practical use and that, consequently, resistance the principle to which all the functions of life could be referred . The professor had written a great work in several parts on this subj ect : Di e Philos ophi e des

i r n n W lde s ta des (The Philosophy of Resista ce) .

All this delighted Strindberg . We got into all kinds of scientific discussions , and the professor reported on the latest scientific results in several different fields . Among other things Strindberg exhibited a keen cur iosit r y as to the real nature of cancer, the ve y disease to which he was destined to succumb in less than two years . Schleich declared that the disease in question originated — — theoretically speaking in the following manner : a couple of cells grow tired of the body to which they belong . They try to form a new union, and to this end , the endoplasts force themselves towards the walls of the cells and there enter into an abortive copulation , forming mb a coalescence of cells which , however, has not the i er ent abilities requisite for the formation o f a new individual (cell) which is the aim and obj ect of the h copulation in question . The reason W y the operations on cancerous tumors is a failure in nearly every case and that the disease soon reveals itself again , is this , that from the cell in coalescence a like inclination to copula

t o . tion is transmitted adjacent cells Operations , therefore, never can give permanent relief , the only effective way being to burn away the affected parts with

d . a re hot iron — _ I nis ur at g p g declared Strindberg, and told in this IN THE BLUE TOWER 149

connection about the peculiar stomach trouble he had been

subj ect to for a couple of years, and which later was supposed to have been the ulcer of the stomach which in turn is supposed to have caused the cancer that ended ’ Strindberg s life . But he did not care to enter into details about his

sickness . He did not want Dr. Schleich, who is a cele b rat e d surgeon , to have reason to interfere or even

attempt to diagnose the case .

A peculiar fact in connection with this matter is , that the disease showed its head shortly after Strindberg had passed through one of his Storm and Stress periods — which he closed with a great general resolve a ﬁnal

balancing up o f accounts . After that he was in such a state of mind that he could do noth ing else than wait for

death , nay, he would even express the desire that it might

not be too far off . That afternoon he explained to Schleich and myself that he suffered terrible torments during these hours of

seclusion . Sch le ich insinuated that he was a self

o t rmentor without an equal , and to this he agreed . Those pains and sufferings which he owed to society

were as nothing to those which he owed to himself .

In order to get him away from all this, Schleich wanted to take him along to the mountains immediately and later B ut on to Berlin . now Strindberg had lost every desire

Now to emigrate . he was more attached than ever to the

Blue Tower . The two years preceding the death of Strindberg seem

to me altogether too familiar for any discussion on my part . 1 50 STRINDBERG THE MA N

He had really hoped to receive the N obel P rize in literature one of these years , but he realized the slight t hi s own probability of this, since, wi hout counting enemy

ffi who ﬁlled the o ce of secretary, he had decided oppon

r l Hallstrbm ents in the two poets Ka lfe t and , who constitu ted th e literary and anti - Strindberg element in th e Swedish Academy 1 When the question came up as to the raising of a national fund for Strindberg, he wrote to me about this as early as the 3 rd of August 1910 : “ ” You mus t not sp eak about a c ollection for me who am taxed or such and such an income but rather ab out f , “ ” ’ nt — o e ri e That s a di erent the founding of an a i N b l P z . ff ’ tte B ut I d rather not have an or hal o i t I ma r. y, f f f , su os e will be s tolen on the wa and in the end the pp , y, a whole affair will be a ﬁ s co.

This idea of his of an anti - Nobel P rize was not carried out, however, despite the fact that there ought to have

- P been a good reason for it . An anti Nobel rize as a protest against the shameless. manner in which The Acad emy distributes prizes would, undoubtedly, have a mission to fulﬁl in ourmoral life . It is quite out of the question that the Swedish Acad emy ever will be able to reform to such a degree as to b e come a representative body of Swedish poets . No self respecting poet can enter this parody on a literary s Areopagu , least of all after the treatment Strindberg received from that quarter as well during his li fe as after

1 Th m re e e d t o as . . at e ene w C . i rs n y f rr Dr D W é , ( 1842 erm ane n s ec e a of t e e sh p t r t ry h Sw di Academy .

1 52 STRINDBERG THE MA N to the people and he considered it his duty to act as their 1 spokesman . This explains the bitter ﬁghts he now initiated against those that had been raised highest aloft by the billows of time . He regarded them as idols which had to be de stroyed and thought that he did not need to be over scrupulous as regards the means he employed while fi o ghting in such a j ust cause . The bl ws he dealt in the

o wrong directi n , we ought to be able to forgive him , knowing as we do that he thought himself to be ac comp lishing deeds that were pleasing to God . I met Strindberg for the last time on this last birthday of his when he was publicly honored by the nation . I found him seated by his desk answering all the congratulations which he had received that morning . He th e s was so scrupulous that he would answer lea t, kind word . Among the congratulations that gladdened him most on his sixtieth birthday was a few lines from the ’ landlady s son in Lund, a little fellow who had gone errands for the author . Our conversation began by a spirited exchange o f words concerning a misunderstanding . But when i u Str ndberg realized that his s spicions were unfounded, n he agai became kind and cheerful , and we had a chat — for half an hour the farewell chat for life .

He dwelled most on his sickness , the pneumonia which he had contracted just on Christmas Eve when he was on

- i — n . von P dau h his way to his son law, Dr hilp and his g

1 Th e au h o h ere re e rs t o th e e a s e of 1 wh ch t r f gr t trik 909. i af e c ed e e anch of a or h f t v ry br l b t rough out Sweden. I N THE BLUE TOWER 1 53

— H ter Greta way up on ornsgatan. He had not been i in able to f nd a taxicab at that time the morni ng . He o had had to walk all the l ng way, dressed in his fur coat, and had arrived at the house soaking wet with perspi ra tion and completely exhausted .

He described this trip as a real walk to death . While

Vasab ron he was advancing slowly across , he noticed that it was entirely empty and he was seized with a feeling t that some hing terrible was in the making. This feeling was so intense that he was hardly able to get to the other end of the bridge . With a certain pride he declared that on the whole he took care of himself while conﬁ ned to his bed with pneumonia . He had consulted a medical work, and there he had read concerning the disease : Treatment

None .

He had cured himself by means of a simple diet, con sisting principally of fruit- porridge and milk and an 1 occasional cold rub - down a la Kneipp when there was fever . In spite of having refused restoratives prescribed P by Dr . von hilp , he had recuperated in a comparatively short time . I could not but wonder at the way in which he had hi regained his former self . On this s red letter day, he seemed to be j ust as vigorous and sound as when he lived ecul in the Red House . But his statements disclosed a p iarly set opinion as regards the methods for the treatment of the disease ! it seemed as though it displeased him to u regain his health . I f he had been permitted to die of pne

- 1 h an ounde of th e s o ca ed Knei cu e . A p ys ici , f r ll pp r 1 54 STRINDBERG THE MA N

o monia, which is a rather painless death, he w uld have been spared many horrible sufferings . But it was his

Karma ff that his su ering, not only mentally but also physically, should exceed that of most other human s being . ’ a I ll not let go thy h nd, Eternal One, ’ ! Thy mighty hand , until I m blessed by Thee — ff ff ! Bless me, who su ers , su ers from thy gift of life

Me ff ﬁrst, who su ered most This was St rindberg’ s own farewell to his literary

The Great H i h career and to life, his closing words in g a w y. Our conversation was suddenly interrupted by an im u pudent beggar, who posed as an old acq aintance o f ’ Strindberg s , forcing an entrance into the house regard l 1 less oi the fact that o d Mina tried to check him . I had to go out and put this professional beggar to ﬂight . He declared that whi le his old friend Strindberg celebrated h o his birthday, he ought to consider t at the p or fellows also were entitled to a little pleasure that day . v When I came in again, the housekeeper had ser ed ’ Strindberg s breakfast . I could, therefore, do nothing —b but say good y, for I knew that he was afraid of inviting me to partake of his table . Once during the summer of 1 08 h a 9 he had invited me to dinner, but that day it p pened that we got such poor food that we could hardly a vavit eat it and had to wash it down with q and absinth .

We shook hands for the last time in life . He was cheerful in the consciousness of the fact that he had a day

’ 1 nd e s o e Stri b rg h usek e p er.

1 56 STRINDBERG THE MA N

on the occasion o f her burial here in Stockholm . He dressed in black on that day, and it was the last time that he was on his feet .

- Terribly emaciated he lay there on his death bed, enduring his sufferings with true heroism and abiding that deliverance for which he had longed continually during the last four years . When he felt that the vital ' b e n t hi m powers ga o fail and that his strong, clear brain e would, before long, be nveloped in the mist of eternal

- b r sleep , he said good y to life with these wo ds ’ i o n r E ver thin ers onal is My l fe s ac c u ts a e clos ed. y g p li r t now ob te a ed. Thereupon he took into his hands the old Bible whi ch

- lay continually on the table by the bed side . i t o I sa nothin m ore . Th s alone is righ . N w y g ff And yet, he still had several days of su ering during which he did not speak with his children , who kept watch — by the death bed . When he regained consciousness from time to time and when his sufferings ceased for a mo ment, he only pronounced their names .

1 Ma r On the 3th of y, all of them had fo med a circle about him from early in the morning, expecting that death would come . The pulse ceased to beat, but his

hi m fi f heart kept alive, and in spite of the intensi ed su fer

- ings , he endured another twenty four hours . On the 1 M a 4th of y about in the afternoon , at a time when ’ e all had left him, his life s ﬂame ﬂicker d and went out . For th ose who loved him and who always adm ired his lofty genius , which , in spite of all its revolutionary

us who tendencies , was his ! for bow before him as the I N THE BLUE TOWER 1 57

- - Self redeemer and Self deliverer, there is one farewell o m w rd which , bea ing more brightly than anything else, consoles us in our grief hi s n i r e N ow everyt ng p er o al is obl te at d. the o Thus at moment when he was passing bey nd, it

was clear to him that the personal element, for which he s had fought all his life, did not exist beyond the gate n whence no o e ever returns . He had the courage to con in fess this , spite of the fact that Death, The Reaper, had

already taken his position at the pillow . The personal

element, which through him had won such glorious vic

tories , was only to be found in the works which he had

left behind . It was as if he had wished to blot out his physical existence with these words in order that his eternal ego might live among us with a much higher and clearer

ﬂame . 1 No dogm a - lisping b onze can come hereafter and claim “ ” Strindberg as the obedient son of the only true church He himself was too close to the Eternal Source to be classiﬁed among those who endeavor to make people ’ believe that there is something wherewith to quench one s

thirst in wells whose springs have long ago run dry . Thro ugh burning hot deserts he led us to the boun P darics of the New Land of romise . Anyone who wishes may enter it . On th e 19th day of May (Sunday) early in the morn ing, all the Stockholm bourgeoisie gathered outside o f

1 Th e nam e of Ch ines e and Japane s e prie sts of th e re ligion of Foh or B uddh a. 1 58 STRINDBERG THE MA N

’ the Blue Tower in order to accompany Sweden s greatest prophet and poet to the place where he was destined to

th e the return to earth again . It was artists and deeper strata who had put in an appearance, those whom he had always loved just as ardently as he had hated the human automato ns in whom the truly human is blotted out or h w . w o obscured It was those had know—n his large, arm, incorruptible heart vibrating with love those it was who i came to follow him on h s last morning journey . He was lowered into the earth without any other words than those which he himself had drawn out of the great w Source of consolation to hich, in his despair, he had been obliged to take refuge . He was honored with ﬂowers by the various strata of K and P society, from the ing the rivy Council to the poorest and most forgotten . He was honored with d stan ards which, in deep silence, were lowered into the —in grave . And order that everything should be in keep ing with the inexorable fate which had pursued him continually—Sunday picnickers were not prevented from plundering his grave and from tearing to pieces the symbol—s of popular homage which adorned his last resting place . o t But the h mage hat posterity will lavish upon him, no profane hands will be able to destroy .

TH E E ND

BIBLIOGRAPHY

V . F JU ENILE DRAMAS The reethinker .

Hermione . In Rome . The Out

- . F 8 law In the Year orty eight . 33 1 1 p . 9 7 . M . ﬁ ASTER OLOF Drama in ve Acts . 358 P 19I 7 ~

I N P - THE S RING TIME . From Fjard a F ingen and Svartb cken . rom the

. 2 1 Sea Here and There . 6 p . 1 1 9 6 . or STUDIES IN THE HISTORY CULTURE. 2 1 1 73 p . 9 7 . TH E R ED ROOM . Stories from the L i fe of Artists and Authors . 399

1 16 . p . 9 LD O STOCKHOLM . Notes from printed

an d . 2 unprinted sources, etc 46 p . 1 1 9 5 . TH E P P P SWEDISH EO LE, ETC. art 10 1 1 I . 5 p . 9 7 .

TH E D P P . P r . VIII . SWE ISH EO LE, ETC a t II 48 3 p 191 7

DRAMAS OF TH E EARLY EIGHTIES . e The Secret o f th Guild . Sir ’ Bengt s Wife . The Journey of 1 1 1 Lucky Peter. 4 4 p . 9 7 .

1 1 . 1 1 . TH E NEw KINGDOM . 7 p 9 7 161 162 STRINDBERG THE MA N

SW EDISH DESTINIES AND A DVE N 8 1 1 P . . . TURES . art I 3 5 p 9 7 SWEDISH DESTINIES AND A DVE N

P . 0 . 1 1 . TURES . art II 5 7 p 9 7 P S V P XIII . OEM IN ERSE AND ROSE, AND SOMNAMBULISTIC NIGHTS AFTER 2 ' 1 1 WAKEFUL DAYS . 3 9 p . 9 7 .

M E . 0 1 1 ARRI D 45 p . 9 7 .

P F s . 2 REAL UTO IAS . our Storie 55 1 1 p . 9 7. I M LI K T LI KT O . XV . ISCELLANEOUS ( OCH ) Critical Essays and Articles from the Eighties on Social and Cultural

P 8 1 1 . . 6 . ! uestions art I . 3 p 9 7 M P . XVII . ISCELLANEOUS, ETC . art II 333 ‘ 1 1 p . 9 7 . ’ TH E N . P SO . XV III CHARWOMAN S art I . ’

r . The Cha woman s Son . The Time F n 1 o . 0 1 of erme tati n 5 5 p . 9 3 . ’ TH E N P . S O . XIX CHARWOMAN S art II . In 1 the Red Room . The Author . 33 1 1 p . 9 3 . F P AMONG RENCH EASANTS . Subj ee e 2 tive Sk tches of Travel . 79 p . 1 1 9 4 . TH E H E M S INHABITANTS OF O. Life among the Skerries 1 1 1 45 p . 9 4.

XXII . ARTICLES, ESSAYS AND SHORT STORIES

. 2 1 1 . FROM THE EIGHTIES 3 9 p . 9 7

. F XXIII NATURALISTIC DRAMAS . The ather . L ady Julia . Creditors . Comrades .

P . . 16 1 1 ariah Samum 5 p . 9 4 .

164 STRINDBERG THE MA N

2 1 16. SAGAS AND ALONE . 39 p . 9

TH E NIGHTINGALE IN WITTENB ERG .

Christina . Gustavus III . 437 p . 1 19 6 .

H E 1 1 T GOTHIC ROOMS . 336 p . 9 7 .

F . 1 18 BLACK LAGS 9 .

2 . HISTORICAL MINIATURES. 3 9 p 1 19 7 .

L M I N I ATUREs . X III . HISTORICAL ( Swedish) i H f n nn n 1 1 . ( O di gam e ) . 393 p . 9 7

E - l TH R ING FEAST Tak la sii . XLIV. OOF ( g ) T 2 1 The Scapegoat. wo Stories . 5 1 1 p . 9 7 . — NOTE I n the Albert Bonnier cata

6 1 1 - 1 1 logue , No . , 9 3 9 7, published 1 18 o 9 , the foll wing note occurs at thi s point Those parts of August Strindberg’ s Complete Works not yet ( 1918 )

ready, will probably comprise

F P . XLV . IVE CHAMBER LAYS (These plays

are : Storm . The Burned Lot . The P Spook Sonata . The elican . The

Black Glove . )

BLUE BOOKS .

TH E K LAST NIGHT . The National B l o Director . The Earl Of jéi b .

E TH E GR AT HIGHWAY. The Slippers

of Abu Casem . BIBLIOGRAPHY 165

LI . SCIENTIFIC ESSAYS AND ARTICLES

LI I . 1 00 WRITTEN AFTER 9 . These volumes will contain Dramaturgy :

. M Hamlet Julius Caesar . emo randum to the Members of the I n M tima Theatre. acbeth and other

plays by Shakespeare. An open

letter to the Intima Theatre . P hilology, etc . The Origins of our M P other Tongue . Biblical roper f Names . Roots O World Lan

guages . Speeches to the Swedish

Nation . The State of the People .

Religious Renaissance . China and

Japan .

LIII . LAST WORKS .

E —I n NOT this bibliography, no attempt has been made to speci fy the contents of each volume . Readers who may desire such information are referred to Albert ’ 6 Bonnier s catalogue No . , which may be obtained from P u 6 1 the Albert Bonnier ublishing Ho se , 5 Third Avenue,

New York, N . Y .

NO complete general Strindberg biblography or source

ob book has as yet been compiled . The best work now tainable is : B ibli ograﬁs ka A nteckningar om S trindb erg

Rune Zetterlund. 1 1 . by Albert Bonnier, Stockholm, 9 3

00 . 3 53 p . The edition is limited to 5 copies