PLAYS

FIRST SERIES

BY

AUGUST STRINDBERG

THE DREAM PLAY
THE LINK
THE DANCE OF DEATH, Part I
THE DANCE OF DEATH, Part II

TRANSLATED WITH AN INTRODUCTION BY

EDWIN BJÖRKMAN

NEW YORK

CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS

1912

NOTE
This translation is authorised by Mr. Strindberg,
and he has also approved the selection
of the plays included in this volume.

CONTENTS

INTRODUCTION
A CHRONOLOGICAL LIST OF AUGUST STRINDBERG'S MAIN WORKS
THE DREAM PLAY
THE LINK
THE DANCE of DEATH, PART I
THE DANCE of DEATH, PART II

INTRODUCTION

To the first volume of his remarkable series of autobiographical novels, August Strindberg gave the name of "The Bondwoman's Son." The allusion was twofold—to his birth and to the position which fate, in his own eyes, seemed to have assigned him both as man and artist.

If we pass on to the third part of his big trilogy, "To Damascus," also an autobiographical work, but written nearly twenty years later, we find The Stranger, who is none but the author, saying: "I was the Bondwoman's Son, concerning whom it was writ—Cast out this bondwoman and her son; for the son of the bondwoman shall not be heir with the free woman's son.'"

And The Lady, back of whom we glimpse Strindberg's second wife, replies: "Do you know why Ishmael was cast out? It is to be read a little further back—because he was a scoffer! And then it is also said: 'He will be a wild man; his hand will be against every man, and every man's hand against him; and he shall dwell in opposition to all his brethren.'"

These quotations should be read in conjunction with still another, taken from Strindberg's latest play, "The Great Highway," which, while being a sort of symbolical summary of his life experience, yet pierces the magic circle of self-concern within which too often he has remained a captive. There The Hermit asks: "You do not love your fellow-men?" And Strindberg, masquerading as The Hunter, cries in answer: "Yes, far too much, and fear them for that reason, too."

August Strindberg was born at Stockholm, Sweden, on January 22, 1849. His father was a small tradesman, who had lost his business just before August was born, but who had the energy and ability to start all over again as a steam-ship agent, making a decided success of his second venture. The success, however, was slow in coming, and the boy's earliest years were spent in the worst kind of poverty—that poverty which has to keep up outward appearances.

The mother had been a barmaid in one of the numerous inns forming one of the Swedish capital's most characteristic features. There the elder Strindberg had met her and fallen deeply in love with her. August was their third child, born a couple of months after their relationship had become legalized in spite of bitter opposition from the husband's family. Other children followed, many of them dying early, so that August could write in later years that one of his first concrete recollections was of the black-jacketed candy which used to be passed around at every Swedish funeral.

Though the parents were always tired, and though the little home was hopelessly overcrowded—ten persons living in three rooms—yet the family life was not without its happiness. Only August seemed to stand apart from the rest, having nothing in common with his parents or with the other children. In fact, a sort of warfare seems to have been raging incessantly between him and his elder brothers. Thus a character naturally timid and reserved had those traits developed to a point where its whole existence seemed in danger of being warped.

At school he was not much happier, and as a rule he regarded the tasks set him there as so much useless drudgery. Always and everywhere he seemed in fear of having his personality violated, until at last that apprehension, years later, took on a form so morbid that it all but carried him across the limits of rationality. With this suspiciousness of his environment went, however, a keen desire to question and to understand. He has said of himself that the predominant traits of his character have been "doubt and sensitiveness to pressure." In these two traits much of his art will, indeed, find its explanation.

At the age of thirteen he lost his mother, and less than a year later his father remarried—choosing for his second wife the former housekeeper. That occurrence made the boy's isolation at home complete. During the years that followed he threw himself with his usual passionate surrender into religious broodings and practices. This mood lasted until he left for the university at Upsala. He was then eighteen. During his first term at the university he was so poor that he could buy no books. Worse even—he could not buy the wood needed to heat the bare garret where he lived.

Returning to Stockholm, he tried to teach in one of the public schools—the very school which he had attended during the unhappiest part of his childhood. From that time dates the theme of eternal repetition, of forced return to past experiences, which recurs constantly in his works. Another recurring theme is that of unjust punishment, and it has also come out of his own life—from an occasion when, as a boy of eight, he was suspected of having drunk some wine that was missing, and when, in spite of his indignant protests, he was held guilty and finally compelled to acknowledge himself so in order to escape further punishment.

But while still teaching school, he made certain acquaintances that set his mind groping for some sort of literary expression. He tried time and again to write verse, only to fail—until one day, in a sort of trance, he found himself shaping words into measured lines, and it suddenly dawned on him that he had accomplished the feat held beyond him. From the first the stage drew him, and his initial work was a little comedy, concerning which nothing is known now. Then he wrote another one-act play with the Danish sculptor Thorvaldsen for central figure, and this was accepted by the Royal Theatre and actually played with some success. Finally he produced a brief historical play in prose, "The Outlaw," which was spurned by the critics and the public, but which brought him the personal good-will and financial support of King Charles XV.

Thus favoured, he returned to the university with the thought of taking a degree. Instead he read everything not required in the courses, quarrelled with every professor to whom he had to submit himself