In the autumn of 1892 we find Strindberg in Germany. The curse of marriage is no longer upon his head. He lives at Friedrichshagen, near Berlin, with his friends, the Swedish writer Ola Hansson, and his wife Laura Marholm who has written an interesting psychological study of Strindberg. Strindberg has passed through one of those "deaths," in which he found temporary Nirvana when the battle of thoughts had been too sanguinary. He has forsaken literature, thrown away the pen as a worthless tool of a tormented imagination which can scratch but not solve the riddle of the Sphinx. He has been re-born--a scientist. The exact sciences--chemistry, physics, astronomy--hold out hopes of complete replies to questions which the playwright can dress in human shape but not analyse. Strindberg's friend, Gustaf Uddgren,[2] has described a visit to him at this time. His study was bare and uninviting. On the floor there lay stacks of scientific books piled up against the wall. They had been bought with the first money he had earned in Germany, and none had been wasted on the luxury of a bookcase. The room contained a large, old easel, not unlike a brown skeleton; a writing-table from which the usual heaps of manuscript and notes were conspicuously absent; and, for the comfort of the body, a few easy chairs and a sofa, arranged so as to give the impression of a drawing-room. Strindberg did not wish to discuss literary subjects. He was glad to have left off writing, and looked forward with eager joy to scientific research. Uddgren tried in vain to induce him to talk about Walt Whitman. Strindberg preferred to discuss Red Indians with his guest who knew something of the wild west. After a few months at Friedrichshagen Strindberg moved to Berlin. He was in need of change and expansion. In the evenings he was now found in a little Wein Stube in Unter den Linden which is called "Zum Schwarzen Ferkel." It had already won fame as the favourite resort of Heine and E.T.A. Hoffmann. Here he was the centre of a literary and scientific coterie. Guitar in hand, amidst sympathetic friends, he became Dionysos, the singer of glad tidings, of wine-born joy. He improvised songs, and the nights were made short with wit and sparkling discussions. The Polish writer, Stanislav Przybyszewski, became much attached to Strindberg who found in him whirling depths of imaginative thought which attracted him, and made him seek his society on the principle of _similia similibus curantur_. Amongst other friends of the coterie were Holger Drachmann, Gunnar Heiberg, Adolf Paul, and Edvard Munch. "Zum Schwarzen Ferkel" is impregnated with the Strindbergian spirit. The landlord proudly shows the visitor the portraits which Strindberg gave him, and the picture by Strindberg, entitled _Die Welle_, which hangs on the wall.