"But as he walked on the shore, through glades and into the forest, design and colour began to mingle as if he had seen it all through tears. The mental shock, remorse, repentance, shame, began to dissolve him, and consciousness was loosened in its fixtures. Old thoughts about a task unfulfilled, about humanity suffering under mistakes and delusions, arose. Suffering enlarged his ego, the impression that he was fighting an evil power stimulated his resistance into wild defiance; the desire to battle with fate awoke, and from a heap of stakes he thoughtlessly picked up a long pointed stick. In his hand it became a spear and a club.
"He burst into the forest, breaking branches as if he had been fighting its dark giants. He kicked the fungi under his feet as if he were battering in so many empty gnomes' skulls. He yelled as if he were driving wolves and foxes, and opp! opp! opp! echoed the cry through the pine forest.
"At last he came to a rock which rose as an almost perpendicular wall in front of him. He struck it with his spear as if he wished to hew it down, and stormed up its side. Bushes crackled under his hand, and rustled down the mountain, tom up by the roots; stones rolled down; he put his foot on young junipers and whipped them till they lay broken like down-trodden grass. Thus he forced himself up and stood on the top.
"The rocks lay below, and beyond them the sea in an enormous circular view. He breathed as if now at last he had sufficient space. But on the mountain there stood a broken fir which was taller than he. He climbed it, spear in hand, and seated himself astride on the top which formed a saddle. Then he took off his belt, made a noose and hung it round a branch, came down from the tree and picked up a large stone which he placed in the sling.
"Now there was only the sky above him. But beneath him spread the pine forest, head by head, like an army storming his citadel. Beyond it the fjord raged and advanced towards him like cavalry of white cuirassiers; and beyond it lay the naked rocks like a fleet of monitors.
"'Come,' he cried, and brandished his spear, 'come a hundred, come a thousand,' he called. And spurring his high wooden horse he shook his weapon.
"The September wind blew from the fjord, and the sun set. The pine forest below became a murmuring crowd. And now he wanted to speak to them. But they murmured incomprehensible words and answered only 'Wood,' when he spoke to them.
"'Jesus or Barabbas?' he roared. 'Jesus or Barabbas?'
"'Barabbas, of course,' he answered himself, when he listened for an answer.
"Darkness fell, and he felt frightened, dismounted from his saddle, and went home.
"Was he mad? No! He was only a poet who had sung in the forest instead of at the writing-table. But he hoped that he was mad; he wished darkness to extinguish his light, for he saw no hope which could illuminate the darkness.
"His consciousness, which saw through the nothingness of life, wanted to see no more. It preferred to live in illusions, like the sick man who wants to believe that he will get well and therefore hopes it!"
Was he mad? The school of psychologists which sees in every manifestation of the genus irritabile evidence in favour of a verdict of insanity will conclude that he was. There is urgent need for a psychological restatement of the supernormalities of genius. The wild outbursts of the world's intuitionalists, the devouring fire of their creative passion, must ever remain unintelligible to soul-paupers and to those whose cerebral activities are strictly dependent upon the presence of print. But genius may expect better understanding from those who give careful thought to the processes of mind, and who should have penetrated beyond the definitions of "sane" or "mad." Those who live and die in ignorance of the blessings of Horace's golden mediocrity probably find the compensation which Dryden voiced:
"There is a pleasure, sure, in being mad,
Which none but madmen know."
The consciousness of greatness and power which accompanies the unshackling of genius is mistaken for megalomania and contrasted with the accompanying inability to achieve worldly success along well-trodden roads. The result is contempt and ridicule.
Strindberg descended from his peak of glory, and for the seventh time the prodigal son returned to his father's house. He was not welcome. He had proved himself a good-for-nothing, and the family now treated him with open contempt.
Life at home became intolerable and he again fled to the sea. He lived for some time at Sandhamn, amongst pilots and coastguard-men. Acquaintance with the sea-faring life was a tonic to the mind and an incentive to interest in the practical side of life.
"You are twenty-four," said one of these friends to him, "and you are nothing yet. You are surely going to be something, like other people, even if you want to be an author, for one can't live on that."
Wise and timely words. Following his friend's advice, Strindberg aspired to a clerk-ship in the local telegraph office, and diligently practised the art of the telegraph operator. After a month he was allowed to send off the weather telegrams. The office routine was somewhat painful, but life amongst honest and hard-working seamen showed him new sides of human character, and the steady sense of duty which keeps the mind placid and happy amidst whirlpools and storms.
Two shipwrecks off the coast supplied material for picturesque and vivid description, which he made use of in letters to Dagens Nyheter, one of the daily papers of Stockholm. The letters brought him a good offer of work on the staff of the paper, which he thankfully accepted.