Page:Strindberg the Man (1920).djvu/46

He looked very much like a sculptor who had travelled for a long time. His dress was faultless and 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 then drawing to a close, that a third person had come between him and his wife and that one of the reasons for Strindberg's journeys at that time was the need of being away from the two women, who made his life at home unbearable.

Geijerstam introduced me to him, we seated ourselves at a window in the café, and when Geijerstam 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 and make it plain to him that I had no evil designs, I began making a sort of literary proposal.

He sat there quietly and listened to the tale of how we, the young at the old petrified Latin School, had been carried away by his first poems. I told him how his youthful power of action had proved contagious in our case, how we had joined him in the insurrection and how we had had to suffer with him.

Strindberg sat there in silence and heard me as I poured over him all the enthusiasm of youth which we had received from him. What he thought 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 words for what they were worth, I felt that it was my