Biologists believe that after forty a man of genius--who is in Darwinian parlance a _sport_--returns to his tribe; resumes in himself the traits of his parents. Perhaps Strindberg has reached the grand climacteric and may give us less disturbing masterpieces. In 1902, under the title of Elf Einakter, a German translation of eleven of his one-act plays was published. This collection contains the ripest offering thus far of his unquestionable genius. It begins with Gräfin Julie, condensed by the dramatist into a one-act piece. "A tragedy of naturalism," he calls it. It is an emotional bombshell. The social world seems topsy-turvied after a first reading. After a second, while the gripping power does not relax, one realizes the writer's deep, almost abysmal knowledge of human nature. Imagine a Joseph Andrews made love to by a Lady Booby, youthful, fascinating. But Fielding aims light shafts of satire; Strindberg calls up ghosts with haunting eyes. Passion there is, and a horrible atmosphere of reality. You know the affair has happened; you see the valet, Jean, chucking his cook-sweetheart under the chin as she feeds him with dainties in the kitchen; you witness the appearance on the scene of Julie enamoured; frantic, unhappy Julie; and you view the crumbling of her soul, depicted as in one of those drawings of Giulio Romano from which you avert your head. The finale makes Ghosts an entertainment for urchins. Everything is brought about naturally, inevitably. Be it understood, Strindberg is never pornographic, nor does he show a naked soul merely to afford charming diversion, which is the practice of some French dramatists. What would our Ibsen-hating critics say after Gräfin Julie or Gläubiger! That kitchen--fancy a kitchen as a battlefield of souls!--with its good-hearted and pious cook, the impudent scoundrel of a valet eager for revenge on his superiors, and the hallucinated girl from above stairs--it is a tiny epic of hatred, of class against mass. Julie is neurotic. She has coolly snapped the betrothal vows made with a titled young man of the district It is St. John's Eve. The villa of the Count, Julie's father, is empty save for the two servants, Jean and Christina--the latter is the cook. Julie, bored by her colourless life and fevered by a midsummer's madness, throws herself at the valet's head. He is frightened. His servant nature has the upper hand until the pair, forced to hide because of the intrusion of rough country folk, reappear. Then the male brute is smirking, triumphant. Justin Huntly McCarthy made a translation of the piece for an English magazine in 1892. Here is an excerpt:-- [JULIE _enters, sees the disorder in the kitchen, and clasps her hands. Then she lakes a powder puff and powders her face._] JEAN. [_Enters excited_] There, you see and you hear. Do you still think it possible to remain here? JULIE. No, I do not. But what shall we do? JEAN. Fly; travel; fly away from here. JULIE. Travel? Yes! But where?