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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 Married which was lying on my desk. His horror had been so great that he had dropped the book and refused to pick it up except with a pair of fire-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 book again, he refused to sell it to me. I had a sharp encounter with him, but to no purpose. Through the backdoor, however, he sold the book to those special customers of his who belonged to the literary clique of the community, and it had a great run, so much so that when its sale was suppressed, there were but a few copies left.

Those 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 Strindberg-friend as against some anarchistic monster.

Such commotion the poor little work, which was misunderstood in advance of its publication, caused all over the country! If there had been a single honest, fearless, influential person who had dared to stand up and to declare that Married was a highly conservative