The charge which he had made against himself was not true, and he was soon the prey of remorse. His injured pride had led him to write a letter which he describes as shameful and unpardonable, and in the loneliness which followed he saw himself as a suicide and assassinator. On Christmas Eve the vision of his deserted wife and child by the Christmas tree caused him to flee from the company which he had sought, and visit café after café, where he failed to find comfort in the usual glass of absinthe. During the night the feeling of being persecuted by an unknown power, bent on preventing his great task, overcame him. He slept badly, and was repeatedly awakened by a cold current of air sweeping across his face. Poverty, his persistent enemy, did hot leave him in peace. He lacked the necessary means to pay for rent and regular meals. His hands were black and swollen through neglect, and symptoms of blood-poisoning in the arms set in. The news of his helplessness and misery spread amongst his countrymen in Paris. He was sought out by a persistent countrywoman who raised a sum of money amongst the Swedes in Paris, and Strindberg was brought to the Hospital of Saint Louis, his cup of humiliation filled to overflowing. At the hospital he felt imprisoned amongst ghosts, punished by having to live in the midst of people with the faces of the dead and dying, the wrecks of humanity who offended his sense of beauty by appearing without a nose or an eye, with a split lip or a mortifying cheek. Amongst these derelicts Strindberg watched the gentle ministrations of the old sœur de charité. She was kind to him, allowed him little privileges, called him her boy, and he responded by calling her "my mother." "How blissful," he writes, "to say this word mother which had not passed my lips for thirty years. The old woman who belongs to the Order of Saint Augustine, and who wears the costume of the dead because she has never taken part in life, is gentle as self-sacrifice, and teaches us to smile at our pains, as if they were pleasures, for she knows how beneficial suffering can be. Not a reproachful word, no expostulations or sermons." "This nun has played a part in my life," he adds, and, when writing down his _Inferno_ experiences three years later, he sends her thoughts of gratitude for having shown him the path of the cross.