August Strindberg— Reminiscences of a Protege

My ACQUAINTANCE and association with August Strindberg began in 1910 and extended over a period of slightly more than two years, until his death on May 14. 1912. His influence, however, was destined to have a decisive bearing on my whole life and future. While a student in a preparatmy school in Stockholm, I had eagerly read almost everything Strindberg had written at the time: plays, novels, short stories, autobiographies, poems, as well as his historical, scientific and linguistic works, not to mention polemical newspaper and magazine articles. His dramas, above all, had made on me a profound and lasting impression that was strengthened by witnessing performances of some of them at Strindberg and August Falck's Intima Teatem. dedicated exclusively to the presentation of the great Swedish dramatist's own plays. Strongly influenced by all I had read and seen of Strindberg’s works, I devoted all my spare time after school to the writing of a play, which, when finished, I called On the Pf'ecipice. It was a realistic drama, with its action set in modern times. It had a tragic ending.