dotic history attaching to this vigorous comedy. It
was written in Denmark, where Strindberg, after finishing "The Father"
in Switzerland in 1887, went with his family to live for two years, and
was published March 21, 1888.

Although the scene of the comedy is laid in Paris, all the characters
are Swedish, which may be accounted for by the fact that the feminist
movement, of which "Comrades" is a delicious, stinging satire, had been
more agitated at that time in Scandinavia than elsewhere. That Paris was
chosen as a background for this group of young artists and writers was
probably reminiscent of the time, the early eighties, when Strindberg
with his wife and children left Sweden and, after spending some time
with a colony of artists not far from Fontainebleau, came to Paris,
where there were many friends of other days, and established themselves
in that "sad, silent Passy," as Strindberg's own chronicle of those
times reads. There he took his walks in the deserted arcades of the
empty Trocadero Palace, back of which he lived; went to the Theatre
Francais, where he saw the great success of the day, and was startled
that "an undramatic bagatelle with threadbare scenery, stale intrigues
and superannuated theatrical tricks, could be playing on the foremost
stage of the world;" saw at the Palais de l'Industrie the triennial
exhibition of art works, "the creme de la creme of three salons, and
found not one work of consequence." After some time he came to the
conclusion that "the big city is not the heart that drives the pulses,"
but that it is "the boil that corrupts and poisons," and so betook
himself and his family to Switzerland, where they lived in the vicinity
of Lake Leman, which environment was made use of years later in the
moving one-act play, "Facing Death," presented herewith.

"Pariah," the other one-act play appearing in this volume, is the
generally recognized masterpiece of all the short one-act plays. The
dialogue is so concentrated that it seems as if not one line could be
cut without the whole structure falling to pieces, and in these terse
speeches a genius is revealed that, with something of the divine touch,
sounds the depths of the human heart and reveals its inmost thoughts.
"Pariah" was published in 1890 and "Facing Death" in 1898.

The period of Strindberg's sojourn in Switzerland, 1884-87, was most
important in the evolution of the character and work of the man who,
throughout his career, was to