The eyes looked into his soul with a supernatural irony, and the goldmaker was struck by paralysing doubt, by fear of the consequences of his folly. One day he was forcibly reminded that the fruits of his labour should be consecrated to Wisdom, not Mammon. He had written an article in _Le Temps_, and drawn public interest to his theory that iodine could be made from benzine. An enterprising agent called on him, and showed him that his idea contained possibilities for a highly successful commercial undertaking, and that a patent might be worth millions of francs. Strindberg repudiated the suggestion, though the agent offered him 100,000 francs if he would go with him to Berlin, and subordinate his experiments to industrial usages. Unpaid bills and the usual want of money caused him to give more serious thought to the offer made. After some time he was willing to meet the agent and a chemist, for the purpose of making a conclusive experiment, and to turn his art into much-needed cash. He collected his retorts and reagents, and arrived at the agent's office on the day appointed. It happened to be Whit-Sunday, and the office, which looked out on a dark and grimy street, was so dirty that the result was one of those mental revolutions to which hyper-æsthetic senses are subject. "Memories of childhood were awakened," he writes. "Whitsuntide, the feast of joy, when the little church was decorated with foliage, tulips, and lilies, when it was opened for the children's first Communion, the girls clad in white like angels ... the organ ... the tolling of the bells...." A feeling of shame overcame him, he returned home determined not to turn science into a business. He cleared his room of the chemical apparatus, swept and dusted it, and made it beautiful with flowers. A bath and clean clothes added to the feeling of purification, and during a walk in the Montparnasse cemetery gentle thoughts of peace filled his mind. _O crux ave spes unica_--these words from the graves carried a message of the future. Not love, not gain, not honour for him, but the cross, the only path to wisdom!