Strindberg's, yet would have
been capable of producing friction with rather more pliant natures than
that of the Swedish dramatist.

In the trilogy Strindberg's first wife, Siri von Essen, his marriage to
whom was happiest and lasted longest (1877-1891), and more especially
his second wife, the Austrian authoress Frida Uhl (married to him
1893-1897) have supplied the subject matter for his picture of THE LADY.
In the happy marriage scenes of Part III we recognise reminiscences from
the wedding of Strindberg, then fifty-two, and the twenty-three-year-old
actress Harriet Bosse, whose marriage to him lasted from 1901 until
1904.

The character of THE LADY in Parts I and II is chiefly drawn from
recollections--fairly recent when the drama was written--of Frida
Uhl and his life with her. From the very beginning her marriage to
Strindberg had been most troublous. In the autumn of 1892 Strindberg
moved from the Stockholm skerries to Berlin, where he lived a rather
hectic Bohemian life among the artists collecting in the little tavern
'Zum Schwarzen Ferkel.' He made the acquaintance of Frida Uhl in the
beginning of the year 1893, and after a good many difficulties was able
to arrange for a marriage on the 2nd May on Heligoland Island,
where English marriage laws, less rigorous than the German, applied.
Strindberg's nervous temperament would not tolerate a quiet and peaceful
honeymoon; quite soon the couple departed to Gravesend via Hamburg.
Strindberg was too restless to stay there and moved on to London. There
he left his wife to try to negotiate for the production of his plays,
and journeyed alone to Sellin, on the island of Ruegen, after having
first been compelled to stop in Hamburg owing to lack of money.
Strindberg stayed on Ruegen during the month of July, and then left for
the home of his parents-in-law at Mondsee, near Salzburg in Austria,
where he was to meet his wife. But when she was delayed a few days on
the journey from London, Strindberg impatiently departed for Berlin,
where Frida Uhl followed shortly after. About the same time an action
was brought for the suppression of the German version of _Le Plaidoyer
d'un Fou_ as being immoral. This book gives an undisguised, intensely
personal picture of Strindberg's first marriage, and was intended by him
for publication only after his death as a defence against accusations
directed against him for his behaviour towards Siri von Essen.
Strindberg was acquitted after a