THE DRAMA OF THE HERETIC
We may agree with Höffding that "every important individuality is
a point of view for the human race, from which men catch sight of
possibilities and aspects of existence which would otherwise have
escaped them." But we must also acknowledge that the strongest
individuality is i malleable in the hands of experience, and that
contact with humanity wrenches away the mind from cherished points of
view.
Though Strindberg was born with defiance of the Decalogue upon his lips,
though he lived in perpetual revolt against restraint and intellectual
formalism, though he sought above all to think and not to copy,
he could not escape that constant pressure of others which is the
essential of collective existence.
The University, with its rigid forms of instruction, its standards of
learning, had been the cage on the bars of which he had exercised his
muscles of independence. He had craved for freedom; his chronic disgust
at the established order had made him fail through paralysis of will,
where he might have excelled through natural superiority. And yet he
felt strangely _en rapport_ with the tradition of the University, when
in the spring of 1872 he embarked upon journalism in Stockholm. He went
into humble lodgings on borrowed money, and obtained an ill-paid post
on a Radical evening paper.
The journalists with whom he now mingled lacked the culture which the
University imposes even on its most rebellious alumni. They talked in
ready-made phrases and wrote on subjects over which they had no mental
mastery. They could harm or help fellow-creatures by the exercise of a
power for which they were totally unfitted. Loose-witted and garrulous,
they missed central questions and mistook the gossip of the news-hunter
for judicial wisdom.
The journalistic profession of that time did not command general
respect, and the _littérateurs_ of the Radical press were often
treated as a species of social brigands. They were nameless and their
activities subterraneous, but they wrote "_We_" and held the mole's
power of being able to upset the tilled fields of man.
Strindberg plunged into art-criticism, and exposed Count George von
Rosen's famous picture "Erik XIV and Karin Månsdotter," in the National
Museum of Stockholm, to the fire of his discontent. The ashes of his
own drama on "Erik XIV," which he had burnt, lay over his judgment,
and the feeling of identity with the oppressed classes, now revived
through associations, made him resent Rosen's conception of Göran
Persson, the favourite and evil genius of the mad king. Rosen had
painted the sly and intriguing counsellor with a fidelity which was
opposed to Strindberg's view of Persson, as an enemy of the nobility
and a friend of the people. Rosen's standpoint was therefore condemned
in Strindberg's articles, which appeared after some editorial trimming
of their literary ornamentation.
A brief but eventful attachment to a ladies' illustrated paper,
to which he contributed short stories and biography, increased
Strindberg's knowledge of the exigences of journalism and the
possibilities for feminine exploitation of the impecunious male.
He chose his friends amongst the artists. They were shabbily dressed,
cultivated vile manners, were gloriously illiterate, but they had
originality of feeling and thought. Without book-knowledge they had
the knack of seizing the essence of life and of settling problems with
intuitive accuracy. Strindberg still found solace of mind in painting.
It was like singing. The brush and the colours gave shape to his vague
imaginings. The post-romanticism of Corot pervaded his circle of
friends. The idea that one should paint one's own soul, not stocks and
stones, captivated him.
The only value of the impression lay in its fusion with individuality.
One should therefore paint from memory, with fantasy.
He always painted the sea with its shore in the foreground, and
angry-looking firs, some naked cliffs further out, a white light-house
and sea-marks. The sky was usually clouded, but at the horizon the
clouds broke, and light was let through. He painted sunrise and
moonshine, but never clear daylight.
His friends wore long hair, slouch-hats, brightly coloured neckties,
and lived like the birds. They dreamt of canvas so large and subjects
so great that no studio could contain them. A sculptor had made
arrangements with a Norwegian to hew the legendary giant out of the
Dovre mountain, a painter was going to reproduce the sea--nothing but
the sea--with a horizon so vast that the globular shape of the earth
should be made visible.
With two friends of the new life Strindberg talked out his melancholy
questionings, and sketched the future of regenerated humanity. One
was a painter of thirty who had been an agricultural labourer, and
who, after some years' training, had found art an inadequate vehicle
for thought, and who now "lived on nothing" but the stimulus of his
eclectic philosophy.
The friend's name was "Måns," and he had a remarkable faculty for
discovering faulty premises in the fabric of August's _dichtung_. The
other friend possessed the steadiness of the well-established social
unit, and contributed a dispassionate and polite scepticism to the
review of ideas.
They introduced Strindberg to Buckle's theories. There he found support
for his rebellion against the scholasticism of Upsala, and learnt that
his disease of doubt was in reality the basis of health. Doubt and
discontent were the pre-requisites of knowledge and progress--the sole
paths towards true happiness.
He felt irritated with all that was old and antiquated. Newspapers
worked for the hour only, with no thought for the future. He could not
read them without spasms of impatience.
The third volume of the autobiography describes his mental tension
in the following passages: "His philosophic friend comforted him and
calmed him by La Bruyère's saying: 'Do not distress yourself over the
stupidity and wickedness of human beings; you may just as well distress
yourself over the falling stone; both are subservient to the same laws;
to be stupid and to fall.'
"'Yes, it is all very well to say that. But to be a bird and compelled
to live in a mine! Air, light, I cannot breathe; not see!' he burst
out. 'I am dying of suffocation!'
"'Write,' said his friend.
"'Yes, but what?'"
Out of the mists of doubt, the volatility of convictions, there rose
creatures clad in flesh and blood, the warring selves of his multiple
personality. The thin silhouettes of history became instinct with life;
and Strindberg's first great drama, _The Heretic_, afterwards named
_Master Olof_, was conceived.
He wrote it during two summer months of quiet life on his island in
the Baltic. It was necessary to act, for his newspaper had died and
food was scarce. His kind friends, the fishermen, gave him credit,
and he could concentrate on his task without the haunting anxiety for
to-morrow's meals.
_Master Olof_ deals with the Swedish Protestant Reformation. In the
personality of Olaus Petri, the Swedish Luther, he had found all
the elements needed for an historical drama of the soul's battle
and final defeat by the world. Olof, the priest with a message, the
fanatic who is willing to live and die for the cause of religious and
social reform, surrenders to compromise. As Archbishop Olaus Petri
he stands forth as the heretic who had purchased peace at the price
of spirituality. The tragedy of enthusiasm, wrecked by the practical
issues of life, is the theme of _Master Olof_, and it has seldom found
a more intense dramatic expression.
Olaus, with the tongue of fire over his head, called to make war on
the superstitions and avarice of the Roman Catholic Church, defies the
bishops. He is saved from the consequences of their wrath by the King,
who knows the value of the energy which impels the heresy. In Gustavus
Vasa, the prudent King who makes Olof his secretary, Strindberg saw
the opportunist, the man of worldly wisdom who neutralises great ideas
by skimming their froth and rejecting their substance. Olof follows
his light and becomes a conspirator against the King. But the King is
stronger than he: caught, punished and pardoned, Olof at last becomes a
dutiful servant of the State, and of the conservative powers which keep
Society immune against the onslaughts of enthusiasts.
In Gerdt the printer, who urged the young Olof to become a Daniel and
to speak the truth before kings, Strindberg saw the revolutionary who
is the consistent enemy of compromise. In Olof's mother, who dies in
the Catholic faith cursing her heretic son, he hears the eternal cry
of the Old stabbed by the New; of the stagnant content that dwells in
Woman when it is hurt by the passionate discontent that dwells in Man.
The relativity of truth and its perpetual evolution, the inevitable
clashing of faiths and convictions, invest the struggle between mother
and son with tragic reality. She has refused to call his wife anything
but a harlot; for is she not living with a priest? She has in vain
exerted parental authority to turn her son from the path of perdition.
To her, Olof is the apostle of Antichrist, the child in the meshes
of Satan, whom passionately she strives to save. "Ask me not," cries
Olof to the mother before delivering his heretical sermon. "A mother's
prayer can tempt angels in heaven to apostasy."
Two rascally priests pray by her deathbed, their thoughts intent on
the bag of gold which tempts their cupidity. She dies comforted by
their presence and shrinking from her son's defilement. But death
smooths sharp differences, and when her eyes are closed Olof lights
the holy candles, places a palm-branch in her hand, and prays for her
forgiveness.
The figure of Strindberg's Olaus Petri, burning with religious
fervour, proclaiming the true creed of Christ to the people who reply
by throwing stones, a reformer who does not perish by his faith but
lives by acceptance of common sense, is a contribution to the world's
deathless _dramatis personæ_. He is very remote from Shakespeare's
Wolsey, and the psychological climax is reversed, but there is
an ecclesiastical magnificence in the two characters which forces
comparisons.
There is an impressive simplicity in the language, and the author
achieves the highest effects in portraiture with few rhetorical
devices. The conflict of personalities makes the drama rich in
contrasts, but they are softened by an atmosphere of fatalistic
resignation before the irreconcilability of ideas. The characters are
all right with the limited measure of rightness which is contained in
each soul. They are all wrong with the wrongness which is inseparable
from human form. In _Master Olof_ Strindberg spoke as Goethe had spoken
in _Goetz von Berlichingen_.
_Master Olof_ was written during one of those periods of simple life
and isolation which Strindberg sought with the craving of the repentant
monk.
Debauch and drunkenness were eschewed, milk took the place of liquids
of fermentation. Angling, swimming, fencing and mental gymnastics in
the company of three sympathetic friends kept body and mind vigorous.
One of the friends paid his bill and our dramatist returned to town
filled with hope and with the sense of relief of one who has at last
said what he thinks. The play was sent to the manager of the Royal
Theatre, and its author returned to the palette.
Whilst waiting for the verdict Strindberg sought to "idiotise" himself,
and to stifle thought by diligent painting during some weeks. One
evening at a gathering of press-men, the late editor of the dead
evening paper told him that the play had been rejected. He felt
suddenly ill and had to leave the company.
The next day he heard the reason for the refusal. Gustavus Vasa and
Olaus Petri were distorted and degraded. He knew that he had stripped
them of their historical and patriotic aureole, and he had deliberately
restored their human contours. But such restoration was not welcome,
and he was warned that the public did not want it. A thorough revision
of the play was recommended.
The bitterness of failure now worked havoc in his soul. He plunged
into the study of social problems. He found human folly supreme
in principles of government and in the judgment of majorities and
minorities. The curse of nescience was upon all flesh.
"His thoughts struggled like fish in the net and ended in entangling
themselves," he writes of this mood. He tried to dismiss such
thoughts. But it was impossible. They returned "like a quiet, great
sorrow, bringing despair because the world went its way--idiotically,
majestically, inevitably--to the devil." A new rôle, that of sceptic,
materialist, atheist, seemed to be his own part in the drama of mind.
He strove to free himself from prejudices, social, religious, moral
and practical, and ceased to read newspapers. For newspapers praised
stupidity, mistook acts of egotism for love of humanity, and insulted
intelligence.
"He had but one opinion: that everything was wrong; but one conviction:
that nothing could be done to make things better at present; but one
hope: that some day the time for interference would come, and that
things would then improve."
There is something infinitely pathetic in Strindberg's life-long
conflict with social injustice and fatuity. He was like a man digging
deep for the straggling roots of a large tree. Sometimes he found
one, but he could never put his foot on all at the same time. Social
evolution, with its infinite variety of hidden forces, which burst into
foliage on the tree of good and evil, yielded but few secrets to his
spade. He besieged the soil in his hand with passionate questions and
showered curses upon the matter under his muck-rake, but the elusive
spirit which makes flowers out of dirt and green life out of black
decay escaped him. The scepticism and impetus to transvalue all values
which the rejection of _Master Olof_ had accelerated were further
developed by the company which Strindberg now found congenial. A
coterie of artists, writers and dilettantish philosophers assembled in
the evenings in the Red Room of "Berns Restaurant." The tone was free,
the clamour for truth loud, and contemptuous of the treasures of the
past. The company was heterogeneous and disputatious, but held together
by an aggressive scepticism which was beautifully sincere. The axiom
that the spring of human action is egoism, was the basis of argument,
and hypocrisy was hunted down with relentless severity.
The old was to be destroyed and the new created.
"That is ancient," were words of reproach. As new human beings they
must think new thoughts, and new thoughts required new language.
Anecdotes and old jokes were cut short. Phrases and borrowed
expressions were rejected. One was allowed to be coarse and to call
things by their proper names, but not to be vulgar, not to quote from
the latest comic opera or to use witticisms which had appeared in the
last number of the comic paper.
Everything was focussed to strictly personal and independent judgment.
Strindberg led the way in destructive criticism. Like Spencer before
the old masters, he found the artistic perfection of the past centuries
over-rated and superseded. The historical Jesus had been exposed to
speculative criticism by scholars, and every tyro in the Red Room had
the courage to follow.
But Strindberg defied the art-consciousness of the world by attacking
Shakespeare. He knew all his plays, had read them in English, and was
familiar with the commentators. He inveighed against the loose and
disconnected composition in _Hamlet_, the commonplace characterisation,
the weakness of the anti-climax. His sling wanted a Goliath. The blind
worship of that which is old and famous roused him to battle. Friends
who came from Upsala thought alike and talked alike. They had become
parrots who repeated the same views on Raphael and Schiller, automata
from which conventional imitation had plucked every idiosyncrasy.
The happy camaraderie of the Bohemian circle and the race for
intellectual independence did not assuage the pangs of physical hunger.
After some dinnerless days Strindberg decided to make another attempt
to join the profession of his heart. He travelled to Gothenburg on
borrowed money, presented himself to the manager of the theatre, and
offered his services as actor. His demand for a rehearsal of the play
and part which he selected was granted, but he could not command the
necessary emotional energy. He was offered an engagement at a small
salary, but the condition of waiting for two months before appearing
did not commend itself to his impetuous spirit, and he returned
dejected to Stockholm. He felt that the charge of changeability which
was brought against him was not altogether unjust, and though he was
ashamed of his many changes, he could not act otherwise.
The persistence with which Strindberg attempted a theatrical career
is strange in view of the lack of self-confidence, with which he was
afflicted when face to face with an audience. At viva voce examinations
he was attacked by sudden aphasia, though he knew the answers to the
questions. He found difficulty in public speaking, and his linguistic
gifts did not help him to speak foreign languages with ease.
In the beginning of 1873 Strindberg found employment as editor of
a new paper published in the interests of the insurance system.
A less appropriate sphere of activity could scarcely have been
devised, but he managed to transform the dry bones of premium and
compensation into delectable morsels of brain-food. He penetrated
the mysteries of commerce and statistics, studied the relationship
between birth-rate and pauperism, and examined Socialism as a solution
of economic riddles. But his inability to accommodate himself to
existing conditions brought the enterprise to a speedy end. It was
never financially sound, and when Strindberg chastised the methods
of shipping insurance companies subscriptions began to fall off. A
burlesque in which he ridiculed the methods of insolvent companies,
and which was privately acted before indignant victims did not add to
his popularity as editor. He exposed shams and humbug regardless of
consequences. The crash came during the summer, when Strindberg was
seeking peace of mind on his island. A loan had gaily been contracted
in the Riksbank to meet the costs of publication.
The day of repayment found Strindberg and his friends of the "Red Room"
absolutely incapable of paying the debt. The presence of the printer's
bill and the absence of the guarantees offered by the various insurance
companies brought him to despair. The catastrophe had been precipitated
by the carelessness of his coadjutors; Strindberg had honestly done his
part to fulfil the obligations of the loan.
Strindberg fell seriously ill with fever. In delirious dreams he was
haunted by futile remorse, by angry creditors and subscribers. In his
brain-storms he battled with the evil one, who was permitted to bring
deception and suffering to innocent humanity whilst God looked on
complacently. His illness was followed by ague, which troubled him for
many years.
A plan to find Nirvana in the waves ended in the return of the will to
live and a liaison with the housekeeper in the cottage.
The friends who shared the cottage with him had left, and Strindberg
fell passionately in love. She had been kind to him during his
illness, and he felt drawn towards her by invisible cords which, under
the circumstances, spelt tragedy. For after a short time she was
unfaithful to him, and he fell a prey to tormenting jealousy.
No human experience passed him by lightly; he was a sensitive subject,
who received impressions with painful vividness, and responded with the
volcanic intensity of surcharged emotion.
The description which he gives in _In the Red Room_ of the psychosis of
his jealousy is of much interest:
"But as he walked on the shore, through glades and into the
forest, design and colour began to mingle as if he had seen it all
through tears. The mental shock, remorse, repentance, shame, began
to dissolve him, and consciousness was loosened in its fixtures.
Old thoughts about a task unfulfilled, about humanity suffering
under mistakes and delusions, arose. Suffering enlarged his ego,
the impression that he was fighting an evil power stimulated his
resistance into wild defiance; the desire to battle with fate
awoke, and from a heap of stakes he thoughtlessly picked up a long
pointed stick. In his hand it became a spear and a club.
"He burst into the forest, breaking branches as if he had been
fighting its dark giants. He kicked the fungi under his feet as if
he were battering in so many empty gnomes' skulls. He yelled as if
he were driving wolves and foxes, and opp! opp! opp! echoed the
cry through the pine forest.
"At last he came to a rock which rose as an almost perpendicular
wall in front of him. He struck it with his spear as if he wished
to hew it down, and stormed up its side. Bushes crackled under
his hand, and rustled down the mountain, tom up by the roots;
stones rolled down; he put his foot on young junipers and whipped
them till they lay broken like down-trodden grass. Thus he forced
himself up and stood on the top.
"The rocks lay below, and beyond them the sea in an enormous
circular view. He breathed as if now at last he had sufficient
space. But on the mountain there stood a broken fir which was
taller than he. He climbed it, spear in hand, and seated himself
astride on the top which formed a saddle. Then he took off his
belt, made a noose and hung it round a branch, came down from the
tree and picked up a large stone which he placed in the sling.
"Now there was only the sky above him. But beneath him spread the
pine forest, head by head, like an army storming his citadel.
Beyond it the fjord raged and advanced towards him like cavalry of
white cuirassiers; and beyond it lay the naked rocks like a fleet
of monitors.
"'Come,' he cried, and brandished his spear, 'come a hundred, come
a thousand,' he called. And spurring his high wooden horse he
shook his weapon.
"The September wind blew from the fjord, and the sun set. The pine
forest below became a murmuring crowd. And now he wanted to speak
to them. But they murmured incomprehensible words and answered
only 'Wood,' when he spoke to them.
"'Jesus or Barabbas?' he roared. 'Jesus or Barabbas?'
"'Barabbas, of course,' he answered himself, when he listened for
an answer.
"Darkness fell, and he felt frightened, dismounted from his
saddle, and went home.
"Was he mad? No! He was only a poet who had sung in the forest
instead of at the writing-table. But he hoped that he was mad;
he wished darkness to extinguish his light, for he saw no hope
which could illuminate the darkness.
"His consciousness, which saw through the nothingness of life,
wanted to see no more. It preferred to live in illusions, like the
sick man who wants to believe that he will get well and therefore
hopes it!"
[Illustration: August Strindberg--Statue by Carl Eldh.--(Reproduced by
kind permission of the Sculptor.)]
Was he mad? The school of psychologists which sees in every
manifestation of the _genus irritabile_ evidence in favour of a verdict
of insanity will conclude that he was. There is urgent need for a
psychological restatement of the supernormalities of genius. The wild
outbursts of the world's intuitionalists, the devouring fire of their
creative passion, must ever remain unintelligible to soul-paupers
and to those whose cerebral activities are strictly dependent upon
the presence of print. But genius may expect better understanding
from those who give careful thought to the processes of mind, and who
should have penetrated beyond the definitions of "sane" or "mad." Those
who live and die in ignorance of the blessings of Horace's golden
mediocrity probably find the compensation which Dryden voiced:
"There is a pleasure, sure, in being mad,
Which none but madmen know."
The consciousness of greatness and power which accompanies the
unshackling of genius is mistaken for megalomania and contrasted
with the accompanying inability to achieve worldly success along
well-trodden roads. The result is contempt and ridicule.
Strindberg descended from his peak of glory, and for the seventh time
the prodigal son returned to his father's house. He was not welcome. He
had proved himself a good-for-nothing, and the family now treated him
with open contempt.
Life at home became intolerable and he again fled to the sea. He
lived for some time at Sandhamn, amongst pilots and coastguard-men.
Acquaintance with the sea-faring life was a tonic to the mind and an
incentive to interest in the practical side of life.
"You are twenty-four," said one of these friends to him, "and you are
nothing yet. You are surely going to be something, like other people,
even if you want to be an author, for one can't live on that."
Wise and timely words. Following his friend's advice, Strindberg
aspired to a clerk-ship in the local telegraph office, and diligently
practised the art of the telegraph operator. After a month he was
allowed to send off the weather telegrams. The office routine was
somewhat painful, but life amongst honest and hard-working seamen
showed him new sides of human character, and the steady sense of duty
which keeps the mind placid and happy amidst whirlpools and storms.
Two shipwrecks off the coast supplied material for picturesque and
vivid description, which he made use of in letters to _Dagens Nyheter_,
one of the daily papers of Stockholm. The letters brought him a good
offer of work on the staff of the paper, which he thankfully accepted.
At first everything went smoothly. The editorial office was like an
observatory, from which one could study the world and watch history
in the making. By inapt comparison between the old University and the
potentialities of the new Press, his contempt for the former grew.
The pressman is invested with authority. By the aid of modern
inventions and the efficient organisation of the news-service, he is
enabled to survey events on the world's stage, and to seize its acting
personalities whilst they are still warm with speech. He becomes the
central nervous system of pulsating humanity; he is expected to
interpret its sensory impressions and to enrich the body-social by
concepts and opinions. Strindberg saw the power of the Press, and in
the anticipatory joy of being able to express himself freely, he buried
his old disgust at the wickedness of journalism.
But the peace was short-lived. He was soon taught that one must not
aim at too wide a view-point or express oneself too freely. The ideal
and the real newspaper are two very different things. The idea that
a newspaper must offer its comment and its opinions to the buying
and subscribing public in strict conformity with party colour and
convention was not one to which he could give loyal allegiance.
He reported the debates in the _Riksdag_ in such a disrespectful
manner that a less critical man had to take his place. He reviewed a
Christian journal by declaring that the publisher had incurred a heavy
responsibility by spreading such errors, with the result that his
editor had to appease the indignant publisher.
He gave vent to highly original views on art, and when allowed to act
as dramatic critic of the performances at the Royal Theatre, took the
opportunity of paying off old scores. There were many complaints
against him, and he was even threatened with a thrashing by a
theatrical company which was smarting under his attacks. It was evident
that his services were not appreciated, and Strindberg relieved the
newspaper of his embarrassing presence.
Starvation followed, and under the lash of that whip a few months of
distasteful work on another paper. This time, he tells us, was a period
of bitter want, illness and humiliation. He dared' not go home; his
friends regarded him with pity and suspicion. The circle of the Red
Room was dissolved. Depression and dislike of human society overtook
him. There were days when he preferred to go without food to meeting
people in the restaurant. On other days he followed the same course
through want of money. Sometimes he spent the whole day lying on a
sofa, his thoughts spun in a circle which held the hope that death or
lunacy would set him free, but, when hunger came in the evening, he was
driven out to seek help.
At this time of utter misery there occurred one of those sudden changes
of circumstance which are interwoven in the sombre warp and woof of
Strindberg's destiny like a thread of scarlet. Following a friend's
advice he had applied for the post of assistant librarian in the Royal
Library of Stockholm. His application was successful, and in 1874 he
again placed his foot on the step-ladder of social respectability,
redeemed by the titles of _Royal_ Secretary and "extraordinarie
amanuens."
He threw himself into the depths of human thought, contained in
the books of which he was now master, with the eagerness of one
who is so thirsty that he wants to drink the sea. New passion, new
disillusionment. The great problems of life, those that last through
centuries and chaff the impotence of the human mind, remained problems.
Like a cow chewing the cud, the philosophers of mankind laboured with
the same unanswerable questions. Away then from the intellectual fields
where the mind is poisoned and left in irremediable misery! His new
work demanded a useful and acceptable contribution to the resources of
the library.
He undertook to catalogue Chinese Manuscripts, and devoted a year
to the study of the Chinese language. When the catalogue was ready,
he handed it with a certain pride of victory to the authorities of
the library, for he was now the sinologue of the institution. The
ancient culture of the yellow empire attracted him with its atmosphere
of somnolent mysticism. It was an opiate to his restlessness. In the
Chinese literature he searched for information about Sweden and Swedes,
and in the Swedish literature he looked for references to China and its
inhabitants.
The result was a "Memoir," which was read at the Académie des
Inscriptions et Belles-Lettres. Correspondence with sinologues all
over the world followed, together with membership of learned societies
and a medal from the Imperial Russian Geographical Society. "Thus,"
Strindberg tells us, "he succeeded in contracting a healthy idiotism
which seriously threatened to extinguish all intelligence." He advanced
so far on his new path that he even coveted a Russian order.
He was at last somebody and something in the eyes of the world.
Friends recognised him, and saluted him like one who, having been sick
and foolish, had tired of his folly, and returned to normal life.