AustLit

Exract from Author's note: 'I cannot but realise that in the following study I shall be accused of plagiarising Pirandello's story and play, The Man with the Flower in His Mouth, to such an extent that it would have been far more decent just to have translated that work, thereby sinking into the obscurity of a mere translator...My defence however, is, first, that the portrayal of the mind of a hypochondriac being gradually carried over the boundary line between sanity and delirium, is essentially different from recording the minute and meticulous observations of someone inevitably condemned to die by an actual disease...There are some no doubt who hold that the clinical diagnosis of madness is not a suitable subject for drama; about that, since I have written the sketch, I cannot argue. Apart from this, and the play once written, it is inevitable that coincidences in matter and form must appear strikingly evident; not can I, indeed, deny my consciousness of Pirandello's work during its composition.'

Although the entire scene takes place on the upper deck of an ocean liner, stage directions mention that the ship is bound for Australia, and character dialogue suggests that the protagonists have travelled from London, England.