submits in quiet resignation.

The second part of _The Road to Damascus_ is dominated by the
scenes of the great alchemist banquet which, in all its fantastic
oddity, is one of the most suggestive ever created on the ancient
theme of the fickleness of fortune. It was suggested above that
there were two factors beyond all others binding Strindberg to the
world and making him hesitate before the monastery; one was woman,
from whom he sets himself free in Part II, after the birth of a
child--precisely as in his marriage to Frida Uhl--the other was
scientific honour, in its highest phase equivalent, to Strindberg,
to the power to produce gold. Countless were the experiments for
this purpose made by Strindberg in his primitive laboratories, and
countless his failures. To the world-famous author, literary honour
meant little as opposed to the slightest prospect of being
acknowledged as a prominent scientist. Harriet Bosse has told me
that Strindberg seldom said anything about his literary work, never
was interested in what other people thought of them, or troubled to
read the reviews; but on the other hand he would often, with
sparkling eyes and childish pride, show her strips of paper,
stained at one end with some golden-brown substance. 'Look,' he
said, 'this is pure gold, and I have made it!' In face of the
stubborn scepticism of scientific experts Strindberg was, however,
driven to despair as to his ability, and felt his dreams of fortune
shattered, as did THE STRANGER at the macabre banquet given in his
honour--a banquet which was, as a matter of fact, planned by his
Paris friends, not, as Strindberg would have liked to believe, in
honour of the great scientist, but to the great author.

In Part I of _The Road to Damascus_, THE STRANGER replies with a