“The Confessions of a Fool”

Waikato Times, Volume 105, Issue 17613, 18 January 1929, Page 10

“The Confessions of a Fool”

The question which is agitating the minds of all who have seen the recent London production of Strindberg s terrible play of sex antagonisms, Father,” is: What can have been the writer’s own life and what sort of woman did he himself marry > berg has supplied the answer to that question in an autobiographical novel written in 1887 about his own first marriage. “The Confession of a Fool” is one of the grimmest and most poignant documents in literature. 1 lavs bare with tragic intensity and a " ful particularity the Weeding sou its author. The convention of fiction is transparent; it does nothing o the actuality of the life recorded. The Eternal Triangle. In' the beginning the story moves slowly and placidly. The author was casually drawn into the family circl S tt/saron aad speedily .capt.va .4 by the roguish golden curls and g willowy figure of the Baroness The relationship of the husband and wife was friendly rather than passionate. Indeed, the Baron was already enamoured of his cousin, and his wife turned more and more frankly to the studious librarian and writer, sapping the tie fences of his honour and playing upon the weakness of his unwilling love for her The issue was not long in doubt. It was a dreary love, yet sad as it was, to the man it was the source of exquisite spiritual joys because of his unfaltering adoration. But the type oj. the woman began to show itself: The more humble I was, the more knealt before her, small and the more she loved me. She strength and manliness in me, to win her love I had to pretend to be wretched, so that she could pose as the stronger play little mother. The; Baroness left her husband and her lover managed to get her a footing on the stage, for which she yearned. She had no natural aptitude for the work but by dint of his strenuous instruction, the emptying of his genius into her, she had a short-lived succes de scandale, and took upon her the

The Tragic Home-Life of Strindberg .

scornful airs of a tragedy queen. When the nine days’ wonder was over she Irad nothing to depend on and had to turn back to him. It remained the to put the relationship upon its use. financial basis. Whatever b oom had been upon their love was sullied; sordidness invaded their lives; passio , loathing, and jealousy alternated their hearts. The Vampire’s Progress. Unable to endure any longer he went to Paris for a holiday, but was recalled by the announcement that the Baroness was going to have a baby and wished to be made an honest woman. _He hurried back to Sweden, the marriage took place, and there was a temporary recrudescence of bliss. It was the merest triviality which upset their happiness, a King Charles spaniel upon which the Baroness lavished a misplaced love. She was now thirty years old, the critical age, as her husband had good reason to suspect. Not only did he fail to satisfy her, but she began to look abroad for t e fulfilment of her appetite, and evidence was not wanting of an incipient perversion towards her own sex. _ Her passions were more and more unbridled, her’’name was bandied about the town, she was lost to all decencies. And when he made a feeble effort to restrain her she retorted vilely by spreading rumours that he was insane She had won the game. And as she saw me go down before my enemies, she assumed the role of the tender mother, weeping over the prodigal son. Amiable to all tie world, except to me, she drew all my friends over to her side, false ones and true ones alike. Isolated, in the power of a vampire, I abandoned ail attempt at defence. Could I raise my hand against the mother of my children, the woman whom I loved ? A Pool’s Paradise. *The cup of sorrow was not yet full. There was no pretence of wifehood save when strangers were present. She at ~

tempted to get rid of him by poison, that she might have her freedom, cash his life insurance, and receive the pension due to the widow of a famou writer And by her licentious life she insinuated the appalling doubt of the legitimacy of his children. When it seemed that lie would no longer consent to be her lap-dog, a toy to play with, she had recourse to the age-old wiles of women. ShJFt J.. he self to win him back to love, and, constant by nature, wrapped up in his family and convinced irrevocablv of the vital unity of/ the home, he was an easy conquest. ror six months lie lived in a fool’s paradise, | “spring had returned in the autumn of j their lives. ’ ’ When he was once mori i utterlv subjugated, she relapsed mtc , her former indifference and viciousness j Nothing remained but to make th« | clean break that was long overdue . She had dishonoured four people, n« three children of doubtful P and the husband whom her mfidehUei had made a laughing-stock. Divorc< was the only remedy. Misogyny’s Handbook. Such is “The Confession of a Fool.” The reader will find in it elements of the physiology of love, some light on the pathology of the soul, or - strange fragment of the philosoi y crime. The author himself was appalled J what he had done. “This is a terrible book,” he says, “and I regret that 1 ever wrote it.” The reason he gave needs no elaboration—“ I had to was!) mv corpse before it was laid in its coffin.” The genius of Strindberg’s self-revelation, his merciless indictment of one woman, and the specious appearance of logic which extends that into a generalisation of misogyny, make it also a dangerous book, unless due allowance be made for the inevitable distortion of his soul during that long disease, his life.