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her home. The pretence was that their httle daughter Kerstin had taken ill.

Strindberg tells of the “wild joy” he experienced when he was rid of his wife: “My pretty jailor who spied on my soul night and day, guessed my secret thoughts, watched the trend of my ideas, jealously observed my soul’s striving towards the unknown.”

It was the 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 attendant. In spite of his constant, keen self-analysis, Strindberg could not observe the abnormalities which his sickness caused. Not even years after his recuperation 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 himself entirely of his wife. Seized with a mad desire to do himself harm, he says, he committed what he has termed “suicide” by sending her an outrageous, unpardonable letter and saying farewell to wife and child, hinting that a new relation had laid, hold on 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.