'In order to understand the first part of _The Road to Damascus_ we
must take into consideration that the author had not yet shaken off
his terrifying visions and persecutionary hallucinations. He can
play with them artistically, sometimes he feels tempted to make a
joke of them, but they still retain for him their "terrifying
semi-reality." It is this which makes the drama so bewildering,
but at the same time so vigorous and affecting. Later, when
depicting dream states, he creates an artful blend of reality and
poetry. He produces more exquisite works of art, but he no longer
gives the same anguished impression of a soul striving to free
itself from the meshes of his _idees fixes_.'

With his hypersensitive nervous system Strindberg, like THE
STRANGER, really gives the impression of having been a visionary.
For instance, his author friend Albert Engstroem, has told how one
evening during a stay far out in the Stockholm skerries, far from
all civilisation, Strindberg suddenly had a feeling that his little
daughter was ill, and wanted to return to town at once. True
enough, it turned out that the girl had fallen ill just at the time
when Strindberg had felt the warning. As regards thought-reading,
it appears that at the slightest change in expression and often for
no perceptible reason at all, Strindberg would draw the most
definite conclusions, as definite as from an uttered word or an
action. This we have to keep in mind, for instance, when judging
Strindberg's accusations against his wife in _Le Plaidoyer d'un
Fou_, the book which THE LADY in _The Road to Damascus_ is tempted
to read, in spite of having been forbidden by THE STRANGER, with
tragic results. In Part III of the drama Strindberg lets THE
STRANGER discuss this thought-reading problem with his first wife.