it as a thunderbolt striking mortals with a destructive force like
the lightning hurled by the almighty Zeus. It is easy to understand
that a man of such temperament would not be particularly suited for
married life, where self-sacrifice and strong-minded patience may
be severely tested. In addition his three wives were themselves
artists, one an authoress, the other two actresses, all of them
pronounced characters, endowed with a degree of will and
self-assertion, which, although it could not be matched against
Strindberg's, yet would have been capable of producing friction
with rather more pliant natures than that of the Swedish dramatist.

In the trilogy Strindberg's first wife, Siri von Essen, his
marriage to whom was happiest and lasted longest (1877-1891), and
more especially his second wife, the Austrian authoress Frida Uhl
(married to him 1893-1897) have supplied the subject matter for his
picture of THE LADY. In the happy marriage scenes of Part III we
recognise reminiscences from the wedding of Strindberg, then
fifty-two, and the twenty-three-year-old actress Harriet Bosse,
whose marriage to him lasted from 1901 until 1904.

The character of THE LADY in Parts I and II is chiefly drawn from
recollections--fairly recent when the drama was written--of Frida
Uhl and his life with her. From the very beginning her marriage to
Strindberg had been most troublous. In the autumn of 1892
Strindberg moved from the Stockholm skerries to Berlin, where he
lived a rather hectic Bohemian life among the artists collecting in
the little tavern 'Zum Schwarzen Ferkel.' He made the acquaintance
of Frida Uhl in the beginning of the year 1893, and after a good
many difficulties was able to arrange for a marriage on the 2nd May
on Heligoland Island, where English marriage laws, less rigorous