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A BIOGRAPHY
245
to the differences of opinion to which we were often
led, as our imaginations worked in opposite directions.
But this more frequently took place during revision
than in the first draft of our play. Many were the
crises through which the drama passed at this period.
The following little note from Sönya is in answer
to some communication from me on one of these
occasions:
My poor child! how often it has hovered between life and
death! What has happened now 1 Have you been inspired, or
the reverse ? I am inclined to think that you have written as you
did to me out of pure wickedness, so that I might lecture badly
to-day! How can you imagine that I can think about my lecture
when I know that my poor little bantling is going through such
a dangerous crisis! I am glad I have played the part of father,
so that I can feel what poor men must suffer from this miserable
necessity of revision. I wish I could see Strindberg, and shake
hands with him for once ! . . .
I wrote about our drama on the 1st of April to
a friend:
I have tried to introduce a little change into the method of
our work. To S6nya’s great despair I have forbidden her my
study until I have furbished up the whole of the second part of
the play. I was too much interrupted and worried by the
unceasing collaboration while writing the first part. I lost both
the survey of the whole, and all interest and intimate sympathy
with my characters. The desire for solitude which is so strong
in me has been denied me. My personality has been merged
in S<5nya’s by her powerful influence, and still her individuality
has not had full expression. The whole strength of my working
power lies in solitude, and this is a chief objection to
collaboration even with such a sympathetic nature as Sonya’s. She is
the complement of my nature. She is Alice in the " Struggle
for Happiness," who cannot create anything nor embrace
anything with her whole heart unless she can share it with another.
Everything she has produced in mathematical work has been
influenced by some one else, and even her lectures are only
successful when Gösta is present.
16*
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