legislature which promulgates clearly defined sentences. I thought of the forty days of the flood, the forty years of wandering in the desert, the forty days' fast kept by Moses, Elijah, and Christ.

My journal thus records my impressions:

"The sun shines. A certain quiet resigned uncertainty reigns within me. I ask myself whether a catastrophe will not prevent the performance of the piece, which perhaps ought not to be played. In it I have, at any rate, spoken men fair, but to advise the Ruler of the Universe is presumption, perhaps blasphemy. The fact that I have laid bare the comparative nothingness of life (with Buddhism), its irrational contradictions, its wickedness and lawlessness, may be praiseworthy if it teaches men resignation. That I have shown the comparative innocence of men in this life, which of itself involves guilt, is not indeed wrong, but...."

Just now comes a telephone message from the theatre: "The result of this is in God's hand." "Exactly what I think," I answer, and ask myself again whether the piece ought to be played. (I believe it is already determined by the higher powers what the issue of the first performance will prove.)

I feel as though it were Sunday. The "White Shape" appears outside on the balcony of the "growing castle."

My thoughts have lately been occupied with death and with the life after this. Yesterday I read Plato's Timæus and Phædo. At present I write a work called The Island of the Dead. In it I describe the awakening after death, and what follows. But I hesitate, for I am frightened at the boundless misery of mere life. Lately I burned a drama; it was so sincere, that I shuddered at it. What I do not understand is this: ought one to hide the misery, and flatter men? I wish to write cheerfully and beautifully, but ought not, and cannot. I conceive it as a terrible duty to be truthful, and life is indescribably hideous.

Now the clock strikes eleven, and at twelve o'clock is the rehearsal.

The same day at 8 P.M. I have seen the rehearsal of the Dream Play, and suffered greatly. I received the impression that this piece ought not to be played. It is presumptuous, and certainly blasphemous (?). I am disturbed and alarmed.

I have had no midday meal; at seven o'clock I ate some cold food out of the basket in the kitchen.

During the religious broodings of my last forty days I read the Book of Job, saying to myself certainly at the same time that I was no righteous man like him. Then I came to the 22nd chapter, in which Eliphaz the Temanite unmasks Job: "Thou hast taken pledges of thy brother for nought, and stripped the naked of their clothing; thou hast not given water to the weary to drink, and thou hast withholden bread from the hungry. ... Is not thy wickedness great and thine iniquities infinite?"

Then the whole comfort of the Book of Job vanished, and I stood again forlorn and irresolute. What shall a poor man hold on to? What shall I believe? How can he help thinking perversely?

Yesterday I read Plato's Timæus and Phædo. There I found so much self-contradictory wisdom, that in the evening I threw my devotional books away and prayed to God out of a full heart. "What will happen now? God help me! Amen."

The stage-manager visited me yesterday evening. We both felt, in despair.... The night was quiet.

April 16, 1907.—Read the proof of the Black Flags,[1] which I wrote in 1904. I asked myself whether the book was a crime, and whether it ought to be published. I opened the Bible, and came on the prophet Jonah, who was compelled to prophesy although he hid himself. That quieted me. But it is a terrible book!

April 17.—To-day the Dream Play will be performed for the first time. A gentle fall of snow in the morning. Read the last chapter of Job: God punishes Job because he presumed to wish to understand His work. Job prays for pardon, and is forgiven.

Quiet grey weather till 3 P.M. Then G. came with a piece of good news.

Spent the evening alone at home. At eight o'clock there was a ring at the door. A messenger brought a laurel-wreath with the inscription: "Truth, Light, Liberation." I took the wreath at once to the bust of Beethoven on the tiled stove and placed it on his head, since I had so much to thank him for, especially just now for the music accompanying my drama.

At eleven o'clock a telephone from the theatre announces that everything has gone well.

May 29.—The Black Flags come out to-day. I make very satisfactory terms with the publisher regarding the Blue Book (and I had thought it would not be printed at all). So I determined to remain in my house, which I had determined to leave on account of poverty.

August 20.—I read this evening the proofs of the Blue Book. Then the sky grew coal-black with towering dark clouds. A storm of rain fell; then it cleared up, and a great rainbow stood round the church, which was lit up by the sun.

August 22.—I am reading now the proofs of the Blue Book, and I feel now as though my mission in life were ended. I have been able to say all I had to say.

I dreamt that I was in the home of my childhood at Sabbatsberg, and saw that the great pond was dried up. This pond had always been dangerous to children because it was surrounded by a swamp; it had an evil smell, and was full of frogs, hedgehogs, and lizards. Now in my dream I walked about on the dry ground, and was astonished to find it so clean. I thought now that I have broken with the Black Flags the frog-swamp is done with.

September 1.—Read the last proofs of the Blue Book.

September 2.—Came across tramcar 365, which I had not seen since I began to write the Blue Book on June 15, 1906.

September 12.—The Blue Book appears to-day. It is the first clear day in summer. I dreamt I found myself in a stone-quarry, and could neither go up nor down. I thought quite quietly, "Well, I must cry for help!"

The German motto to-day on the tear-off calendar is: "What is to be clarified must first ferment."

To-day I got new clothes which fitted. My old ones had been too tight to the point of torture.

My little daughter visited me. I took her home again in a chaise.

September 14.—The whole day clear. Towards evening, however, about a quarter to six, the sky became covered with most portentous-looking clouds, with black outlines like obliquely hanging theatre-flies. Afterwards these were driven out by a storm over the sea.

This evening my Crown Bride was performed. Thus, then, the Blue Book had appeared. It looked well with its blue and red binding, which resembled that of my first book, the Red Room, but in its contents differed as much from it as red from blue. In the first I had, like Jeremiah, to pluck up, break down, and destroy; but in this book I was able to build and to plant. And I will conclude with Hezekiah's song of praise:

"I said, in the noontide of my days, I shall go to the gates of the grave:

"My age is departed, and is removed from me as a shepherd's tent:

"I have rolled up like a weaver my life; he will cut me off from the loom.

"From day even to night wilt thou make an end of me.

"Like a swallow or a crane, so did I chatter; I did mourn as a dove: mine eyes fail with looking upward.