Plays: The Father; Countess Julie; The Outlaw; The Stronger | Page 4

course, which he had
formerly done.

"How much can you get along on per annum until you graduate?"
asked the king.
Strindberg was unable to say in a moment. "I'm rather short of coin
myself," said the king quite frankly, "but do you think you could
manage on eight hundred riksdaler a year?" Strindberg was
overwhelmed by such munificence, and the interview was concluded
by his introduction to the court treasurer, from whom he received his
first quarter's allowance of two hundred crowns.
Full of thankfulness for this unexpected turn of fate, the young
dramatist returned to Upsala. For once he appeared satisfied with his lot,
and took up his studies with more earnestness than ever. The year 1871
closed brilliantly for the young writer, for in addition to the kingly
favor be received honorable mention from the Swedish Academy for
his Greek drama "Hermione." The following year, 1872, life at the
university again began to pall on his restless mind, and he took to
painting.
Then followed a serious disagreement with one of the professors, so
that when he received word from the court treasurer that it was
uncertain whether his stipend could be continued on account of the
death of the king, he decided to leave the University for good. At a
farewell banquet in his honor, he expressed his appreciation of all he
had received from his student friends, saying, "A personality does not
develop from itself, but out of each soul it comes in contact with, it
sucks a drop, just as the bee gathers its honey from a million flowers
giving it forth eventually as its own."
Strindberg went to Stockholm to become a literateur and, if possible, a
creative artist. He gleaned a living from newspaper work for a few
months, but in the summer went to a fishing village on a remote island
in Bothnia Bay where, in his twenty-third year, he wrote his great
historical drama, "Master Olof." Breaking away from traditions and
making flesh and blood creations instead of historical skeletons in this
play, it was refused by all the managers of the theatres, who assured
Strindberg that the public would not tolerate any such unfamiliar
methods. Strindberg protested, and defended and tried to elucidate his

realistic handling of the almost sacred historical personages, but in vain,
for "Master Olof" was not produced until seven years later, when it was
put on at the Swedish Theatre at Stockholm in 1880, the year Ibsen was
writing "Ghosts" at Sorrento.
In 1874, after a year or two of unsuccessful effort to make a living in
various employments, he became assistant at the Court library, which
was indeed a haven of refuge, a position providing both leisure for
study and an assured income. Finding in the library some Chinese
parchments which had not been catalogued; he plunged into the study
of that language. A treatise which he wrote on the subject won him
medals from various learned societies at home, as well as recognition
from the French Institute. This success induced the many other treatises
that followed, for which he received a variety of decorations, and along
with the honors nearly brought upon himself "a salubrious idiocy," to
use his own phrase.
Then something happened that stirred the old higher voice in him,-- he
fell in love. He had been invited through a woman friend to go to the
home of Baron Wrangel, where his name as an author was esteemed.
He refused the invitation, but the next day, walking in the city streets
with this same woman friend, they encountered the Baroness Wrangel
to whom Strindberg was introduced. The Baroness asked him once
more to come. He promised to do so, and they separated. As
Strindberg's friend went into a shop, he turned to look down the street;
noting the beautiful lines of the disappearing figure of the Baroness,
noting, too, a stray lock of her golden hair, that had escaped from her
veil, and played against the white ruching at her throat. He gazed after
her long, in fact, until she disappeared in the crowded street. From that
moment he was not a free man. The friendship which followed resulted
in the divorce of the Baroness from her husband and her marriage to
Strindberg, December 30, 1877, when he was twenty-eight years old.
At last Strindberg had someone to love, to take care of, to worship.
This experience of happiness, so strange to him, revived the creative
impulse.
The following year, 1878, "Master Olof" was finally accepted for

publication, and won immediate praise and appreciation. This, to his
mind, belated success, roused in Strindberg a smoldering resentment,
which lack of confidence and authority of position had heretofore
caused him to repress. He broke out with a burning satire, in novel
form, called "The Red Room,"