when, at Paris, in 1895 and 1896, he strove to make gold by the
transmutation of baser metals, while at the same time his spirit
was travelling through all the seven hells in its search for the
heaven promised by the great mystics of the past.

"There Are Crimes and Crimes" may, in fact, be regarded as his
first definite step beyond that crisis, of which the preceding
works were at once the record and closing chord. When, in 1909, he
issued "The Author," being a long withheld fourth part of his
first autobiographical series, "The Bondwoman's Son," he prefixed
to it an analytical summary of the entire body of his work.
Opposite the works from 1897-8 appears in this summary the
following passage: "The great crisis at the age of fifty;
revolutions in the life of the soul, desert wanderings,
Swedenborgian Heavens and Hells." But concerning "There Are Crimes
and Crimes" and the three historical dramas from the same year he
writes triumphantly: "Light after darkness; new productivity, with
recovered Faith, Hope and Love--and with full, rock-firm
Certitude."

In its German version the play is named "Rausch," or
"Intoxication," which indicates the part played by the champagne
in the plunge of Maurice from the pinnacles of success to the
depths of misfortune. Strindberg has more and more come to see
that a moderation verging closely on asceticism is wise for most
men and essential to the man of genius who wants to fulfil his
divine mission. And he does not scorn to press home even this
comparatively humble lesson with the naive directness and fiery
zeal which form such conspicuous features of all his work.