Though he had promised his father to turn his face against the temptations of authorship and to give single-minded attention to studies, the creative impulse could not be quelled. He wrote _Blotsven_, a tragedy in five acts, which reiterated the religious rebellion of _The Freethinker_, depicting the struggle between the spirit of the Viking and proselytising Christianity. The old Icelandish tales which he now read in the original, and the influence of Oehlenschläger, had helped to mould the form. At this time he became absorbed in the mentality of the Danish writer Sören Kierkegaard. His book _Enten-Eller_--Either Or--which treats of the struggle between the flesh and the spirit, and which preaches the life-fearing asceticism of the helpless sensualist, stirred Strindberg's doubts and self-reproaches. An elder friend by the runic name of "Is," whose real name was Josef Linck, managed, by the simulation of much learning, culminating in intellectual nihilism, to persuade August that his stand-point was untenable. The friend talked philosophy, æsthetics, world-history, dished up Kant, Schopenhauer, Thackeray and George Sand, and dyed August's soul with impotent scepticism. The result was that Strindberg burnt the MSS. of his _Blotsven_. The friend had shown that he was not a poet, and the tears which he shed over the ashes were embittered by the knowledge that he had deceived his father. He hurriedly decided to pass his examination in Latin compositions. He had not made the requisite preparation, called on the Professor in a state of after-dinner exaltation, demonstrated his independence of spirit, and was promptly turned out. The suicide of a student brought the supernatural to the door of the already over-visited mind. Strindberg had met the unhappy man some days before and avoided his company. On visiting the place of the tragedy, he was completely unnerved by the sight of blood and the gruesome associations. He felt half guilty of murder, could not sleep and was haunted by the dead man. The Runic brethren watched over him, but his friend "Rejd" nevertheless found him with a bottle of prussic acid and sinister intentions. The friend shrewdly suggested a preparatory sacrificial rite of four "toddies" before the fatal poison was drained. The desired effect was soon apparent. August had to be carried home, but as the gate of the house was closed his friends threw him over the fence. He remained in a snow-drift until he had recovered sufficiently to find his room. But his ghost-ridden soul did not find peace until he quitted Upsala a few days later.