His inflammable fancy saw warnings of danger everywhere. A large dane, lying outside Munch's house, was a sign that he must not enter it, and he returned, thanking the powers which had protected him. Another time he turned away from the house after seeing a child sitting outside the door with a card in its hand which happened to be a ten of spades. In the Luxembourg Gardens two dry twigs, broken by the storm, lay in such a manner as to form the Greek letters P and Y—the first and the last letters of the dreaded name. He implored, the help of Providence, and recited the Psalms of David against his enemies.
The terror of being delivered into the hands of his persecutors was temporarily dispelled by a sense of divine protection, of nearness to the Lord. On March 29th Balzac's Seraphita had fallen into his hands, by chance apparently, but really, he thought, through heavenly guidance. The day was the anniversary of Swedenborg's death, and the coincidence became a token of a spiritual bond between him and the great Swedish seer which outlasted his disease, and remained a source of illumination until his death sixteen years later. Orfila and Swedenborg now spoke to him in his hours of hope; he conversed with them as Blake conversed with Dante, Virgil, and Moses. The Old Testament shed strength upon him. He found comfort in the Book of Job, for Satan had obtained leave to tempt him, as Job was tempted. There were moments when he felt drawn away from life by a heavenly nostalgia, sustained by a realisation of spiritual worth which, at other times, increased his sense of guilt by adding the sin of pride to the many others for which he atoned. Of such moments he writes: "I despise the earth, this impure and unworthy world, humanity and the works of humanity. I see in myself the righteous man to whom the Almighty has sent trials, and whom the purgatory of earthly life shall make worthy of approaching deliverance."
His customary chair at the Brasserie des Lilas was engaged one evening, when he came to seek oblivion in the glass of green absinthe. On another occasion the glass was mysteriously upset, and on a third a chimney above him caught fire, and sent two large pieces of soot into his glass. In these and similar incidents he recognised a guiding hand, tribulations arranged for the purpose of breaking him of a dangerous habit. One is reminded of Rousseau's belief that unfavourable winds had been prepared, as a special trial, for his journey.
Short intervals of spiritual calm did not allay Strindberg's fear of Przybyszewski. Though substantially unfounded, and, though he was in possession of incontrovertible evidence that the Pole was not in Paris, the fear increased until he was mastered by terror. Hotel Orfila was no longer a retreat of peace. Women were admitted—a circumstance which in itself was calculated to disturb his nerves—and with them followed a host of troubles. A mysterious stranger had taken the room adjoining his, and seemed to imitate all Strindberg's movements. Strindberg sat writing at his table, so apparently did the stranger. When Strindberg rose and pushed back his chair, the stranger did likewise. When Strindberg went to bed, the stranger also went to bed. The unseen enemy was there dose to him, watching every movement, waiting for an opportunity to slay him by infernally subtle means. Outside the hotel there were signs of danger. One day he felt Quai Voltaire and Place des Tuileries shake under his feet. Another day a sudden feeling of lameness proved to him that he was being poisoned, and that the Pole had contrived to send gas through the wall. He thought of giving information to the police, but the possibility that he might be imprisoned as a lunatic restrained him. He could no longer work or sleep. There were whispering voices around him; the shadow of a woman on the wall outside his window suggested the fearful revenge of his feminist protagonists. One night he felt an electric current passing through his body. The stranger and his accomplices were evidently doing their murderous work in a thoroughly scientific manner. With the thought, "They are killing me. I will not be killed," he rose from the bed, found the proprietor, and obtained another room for the night. This happened to be under the one tenanted by the terrible stranger, and Strindberg's suspicions were confirmed by hearing a heavy object being dropped into a bag, and securely locked up. Evidently an electric machine, he thought. On the following day he packed up his belongings, and hurriedly left Hotel Orfila.
His suspicions fell on friends and foes alike. One day, after a sitting, Munch received a post card from Strindberg which put an end to further visits:
"When last you came to see me you looked like a murderer, or the accomplice of a murderer. I only want to inform you that the Pettenkofer gas-oven in the room next to mine is unusable, and therefore unsuitable for the purpose. Sg."[5]
Side by side with the mania of which the message to Munch is typical, Strindberg retained a sanity during this time which Uddgren had occasion to observe. He went to see Strindberg at Hotel Orfila, and saw the traces of the torture through which he had passed in his haggard, ashen face. Uddgren had heard that Strindberg's insanity was on the point of breaking out, but in the course of a long talk with him he could find no signs of brain-softening. The mania, the eccentricities, the flashing imagination, the instinct for self-martyrisation were there intensified, but not the incoherency which he had observed in other literary friends who were victims of insanity. It is also remarkable that throughout Strindberg's period of lunacy his writings were accepted and printed.
After the flight from Hotel Orfila he hid himself in an hotel in rue de la Clef. All went well for some time. Feeling that he was at a safe distance from his persecutors, he abandoned his incognito, and sent his address to Hotel Orfila. There was an immediate recurrence of the attacks. An old man, with "grey and wicked eyes like a bear," carried empty cases, pieces of tin, and other mysterious objects into the room adjoining his. In the room overhead a noise of hammering and dragging began which suggested the installation of an infernal machine. The noisy preparations were followed by the sound of a revolving wheel, suggestive of preparations for his execution. "I am sentenced to death," he thought; but by whom? By the pietists, catholics, jesuits, theosophists? Was he condemned as a sorcerer or as a black magician? Or was it by the police? Was he suspected of being an anarchist? In the manners of the landlady and the servant he read suspicion and contempt. The struggle seemed hopeless. Preparing to die at the hands of his enemies, he arranged his papers, wrote necessary letters, and said a solemn farewell to Nature as represented by the Jardin des Plantes. "Farewell," he cried, "stones, plants, flowers, trees, butterflies, birds, snakes, all created by God's good hand." Resigned and at peace with Fate he re-entered his hotel, but his anguish returned at the sight of the change which had been made in the room adjoining his. On the mantelpiece lay sheets of metal isolated from each other by pieces of wood, and on the top of each pile a book or a photographic album had been placed, so as to give an innocent look to what could be nothing but accumulators, infernal machines. Two workmen on the roof of a neighbouring house were handling some objects, and pointing to his window—the chain of evidence was complete.
At night he made the last toilet of the condemned, took a bath, shaved, and attired himself in a manner worthy of a solemn parting from the body and its miseries. Waiting for the end, he reflected that he could harbour no fear of hell in another world—he had passed through a thousand hells in this life. Anguish endowed him with a burning desire to quit the vanities and deceptive pleasures of the world. "Born with a heavenly nostalgia," he writes, "as a child I cried over the uncleanliness of existence; amongst relatives and in society I felt a stranger, far away from the land of my home. Ever since my childhood I have sought my God, and found the devil. I carried the cross of Christ in my youth, and I have denied a God who is content to rule over slaves who love those who whip them."
After a few hours' sleep he was awakened by the sensation of being lifted out of bed by a pump, sucking his heart. He had scarcely put his feet on the floor before he felt an electric douche fall upon his neck, and press him to the ground. He rose, snatched his clothes, and rushed out into the garden. A light cough from the room, wherein dwelt his enemy, was answered by a cough from the other room. The conspirators were clearly signalling to each other. To return to the room of horror was out of question. He dragged an arm-chair into the garden, and finally went to sleep under the star-lit sky, soothed by the presence of the flowers. On the following morning he fled to friends in Dieppe, cursing his unknown enemies. His friends were horrified at his appearance, and when his kind hostess led him to a looking-glass he saw in his own face, not only the traces of suffering and neglect, but an expression which filled him with shame and detestation of himself. "If I had then read Swedenborg," he writes, "the imprint left by the evil spirit would have explained to me my mental state and the events of the last weeks." Despite the efforts of his sympathetic friends to convince him that the house was free from dangers of any kind, the night brought new terrors. Sitting at a table, and waiting for the sinister moment when the clock should strike two, Strindberg was determined bravely to face the worst. Uncovering his chest, he challenged the unknown persecutors to strike him. The response was the sensation of an electric current directed against his heart, gradually increasing in strength until he could resist it no longer. As if struck by a clap of thunder, he felt his body filled by a fluid which was suffocating him, and drawing out his heart.