version falls far short of the original one, and the very fact
that it is more logical, more carefully reasoned, tends at times
to render it less psychologically true. Each version has its own
merits and its own faults, and in their appeal they are so
radically different that a choice between them must always remain
meaningless except on temperamental grounds. At one point,
however--and an important one at that--the metrical version seems
to me the happier by far.

That cry of "renegade," which, echoing from the dim recesses of
the church, makes the prose version end on a note of perplexing
irony, may be theatrically effective, but it can hardly be called
logical. Gert has been disposed of. His sudden return out of the
clutches of the soldiers is inexplicable and unwarranted. Worse
still, he has only a short while previous been urging Olof to
live on for his work. If Olof be a renegade, he is so upon the
advice of Gert himself, and to call the concession made by Olof
for the saving of his own life far-reaching enough to explain
Gert's sudden change of attitude approaches dangerously near to
quibbling. In the metrical version, on the other hand, the same
cry of "renegade" is quite logically and suitably wrung from the
lips of Vilhelm, the scholar who is still dreaming of uncompromised
ideals. But it is not the final word. This comes from Olof,
and takes the form of a brief apostrophe to the fleeing Vilhelm,
which I think ranks with the finest passages produced by Strindberg.
Apologetically, I offer this English version of it as a fitting
close to my Introduction:

Olof. Oh, what a word! But though it shook the air,
These columns did not stir, nor fell the dome,