In his thirteenth year, his mother
died, a loss for which his father was apparently soon consoled, as
in less than a year he married his housekeeper. This was another
blow to the boy, for he disliked the woman, and there was soon war
between them.
At fifteen he fell in love with it woman of thirty of very
religious character, and its this was a period of fervent belief
with the youth himself, she became an influence in his life for
Home time, but one day a young comrade asked him to luncheon at a
cafe, and for the first time Strindberg partook of schnaps and ale
with a hearty meal. This little luncheon was the event which broke
up the melancholy introspection of his youth and stirred him to
activity.
He went to Upsala University for one term and then left, partly on
account of the lack of funds for books, and partly because the
slow, pedantic methods of learning were distasteful to his
restless, active nature. He then became a school teacher; next
interested in medical science, which he studied energetically,
until the realities of suffering drove him from it. About this
time, the same time, by the way, that Ibsen's "The League of Youth"
was being hissed down at Christiana, the creative artist in
Strindberg began to stir, and after six months more of turmoil of
soul, he turned to the stage as a possible solution, making his
debut at the Dramatiska Theatre in 1869 in Bjornson's "Mary
Stuart," in the part of a lord with one line to speak. After two
months of no advancement he found courage to ask to be heard in one
of the classical roles he had been studying.
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