At night he made the last toilet of the condemned, took a bath, shaved, and attired himself in a manner worthy of a solemn parting from the body and its miseries. Waiting for the end, he reflected that he could harbour no fear of hell in another world--he had passed through a thousand hells in this life. Anguish endowed him with a burning desire to quit the vanities and deceptive pleasures of the world. "Born with a heavenly nostalgia," he writes, "as a child I cried over the uncleanliness of existence; amongst relatives and in society I felt a stranger, far away from the land of my home. Ever since my childhood I have sought my God, and found the devil. I carried the cross of Christ in my youth, and I have denied a God who is content to rule over slaves who love those who whip them." After a few hours' sleep he was awakened by the sensation of being lifted out of bed by a pump, sucking his heart. He had scarcely put his feet on the floor before he felt an electric douche fall upon his neck, and press him to the ground. He rose, snatched his clothes, and rushed out into the garden. A light cough from the room, wherein dwelt his enemy, was answered by a cough from the other room. The conspirators were clearly signalling to each other. To return to the room of horror was out of question. He dragged an arm-chair into the garden, and finally went to sleep under the star-lit sky, soothed by the presence of the flowers. On the following morning he fled to friends in Dieppe, cursing his unknown enemies. His friends were horrified at his appearance, and when his kind hostess led him to a looking-glass he saw in his own face, not only the traces of suffering and neglect, but an expression which filled him with shame and detestation of himself. "If I had then read Swedenborg," he writes, "the imprint left by the evil spirit would have explained to me my mental state and the events of the last weeks." Despite the efforts of his sympathetic friends to convince him that the house was free from dangers of any kind, the night brought new terrors. Sitting at a table, and waiting for the sinister moment when the clock should strike two, Strindberg was determined bravely to face the worst. Uncovering his chest, he challenged the unknown persecutors to strike him. The response was the sensation of an electric current directed against his heart, gradually increasing in strength until he could resist it no longer. As if struck by a clap of thunder, he felt his body filled by a fluid which was suffocating him, and drawing out his heart.