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CHAPTER X.

In the Blue Tower

ONE day in the summer of 1908, Strindberg disappeared from the Red House. He moved to a boarding-house, but his address had to be kept secret.

Later on when I met him, I found that he had left his cozy little home at 40 Karlavägen for the most fanciful reasons. The Intima Theatre had got into debt, and as Strindberg's name was on its notes and loans and since, moreover, he had gone surety for the rent, he had become so thoroughly convinced of financial collapse that he daily feared the moment when the servants of the law should seize his home. The thought of the possibility of a warrant of distress being served upon him so disgusted Strindberg, that rather than expose himself to anything of the sort, he left the apartment where he had been so happy during these years.

But the whole danger of seizure was imaginary. None of the creditors of the Intima Theatre had ever thought of this, and its business had been attended to with great energy by director Falck, so that there were no notes due, or anything of the sort on account of which legal measures might have been demanded.

Howere, he had found a temporary asylum in the Blue Tower, as he afterwards called the new quarters. Here he rented three small rooms, and as he looked upon

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