h in his troubled life he had to pass. He had overcome
the worst period of terror, which had brought him dangerously near the
borders of sanity, and he felt as if he could again open his eyes and
breathe freely. He was not free from that nervous pressure under which
he had been working, but the worst of the inner tension had relaxed and
he felt the need of taking a survey of what had happened, of summarising
and trying to fathom what could have been underlying his apparently
unaccountable experiences. The literary outcome of this settling of
accounts with the past was _The Road to Damascus_.

_The Road to Damascus_ might be termed a marriage drama, a mystery
drama, or a drama of penance and conversion, according as preponderance
is given to one or other of its characteristics. The question then
arises: what was it in the drama which was of deepest significance to
the author himself? The answer is to be found in the title, with its
allusion to the narrative in the Acts of the Apostles of the journey of
Saul, the persecutor, the scoffer, who, on his way to Damascus, had an
awe-inspiring vision, which converted Saul, the hater of Christ, into
Paul, the apostle of the Gentiles. Strindberg's drama describes the
progress of the author right up to his conversion, shows how stage by
stage he relinquishes worldly things, scientific renown, and above all
woman, and finally, when nothing more binds him to this world, takes the
vows of a monk and enters a monastery where no dogmas or theology, but
only broadminded humanity and resignation hold sway. What, however,
in an inner sense, distinguishes Strindberg's drama from the Bible
narrative is that the conversion itself--although what leads up to it
is convincingly described, both logically and psychologically--does
not bear the character of a final and irrevocable decision, but on
the contrary is depicted with a certain hesitancy and uncertainty. THE
STRANGER'S entry into the monastery consequently gives the impression of
being a piece of logical construction; the author's heart is not wholly
in it. From Strindberg's later works it also becomes evident that his
severe crisis had undoubtedly led to a complete reformation in that it
definitely caused him to turn from worldly things, of which indeed he
had tasted to the full, towards matters divine. But this did not
mean that then and there he accepted some specific religion, whether
Christian or other. One would undoubtedly come neare