FICTION

A WITCH by August Strindberg, translated from the Swedish by Mary Sandbach (Lapis Press: $45; 117 pp.) . The playwright August Strindberg (1849-1912) also wrote much fiction, including this little-known novella that appeared in 1890. According to the publisher’s notes for this first English translation of “A Witch,” Strindberg had written it three years earlier (shortly before his play “Miss Julie”), in turmoil over whether to divorce his unfaithful wife. His ambivalence toward her is reflected in his treatment of Tekla Clement, the “witch” of the title.

Significantly, he sets the story at the very moment in the 17th Century when enlightened Swedish jurists stopped executing women for witchcraft. Tekla’s sins are punished primarily by her own overactive imagination.

And what do those sins consist of? Tekla is a poor girl who grows up in a sailors’ inn and brothel in Stockholm. Thrilled by a confirmation sermon about the equality of all people before Christ, she aspires above her station and succeeds in winning the heart of a young merchant. But her lowly past seems to pursue her, even as she betrays her husband in an attempt to rise even higher--into the aristocracy. A sense of magical omnipotence and a deep insecurity combine to trigger her downfall.

Strindberg was notoriously anti-feminist and, at the time, half-insane with jealousy. So it’s remarkable how sympathetic a character Tekla turns out to be. She’s selfish and heedless, and Strindberg sees something demonic in her upward striving. But she’s no less human than Madame Bovary or the latest Jackie Collins heroine. Like them, she yearns for more than society allots to the average woman. Strindberg wants to condemn her for this, but warmer feelings get in the way. Finally, he has to leave her and let her judges sum up the case. Result: an anticlimax.