Soon after his return from Vienna, the novelist was informed that a package from Vienna was held for him with thirty-six francs due. Having, of course, no money, he sent his servant in a cab for the package, telling him where he could secure the money and, dead or alive, to bring the package. After spending four hours in an agony of anticipation, wondering what Madame Hanska could be sending him, his messenger arrived with a copy of /Pere Goriot/ which he had given her in Vienna with the request that she give it to some one to whom it might afford pleasure. It will be remembered that while in Vienna, Balzac's financial strain became such that his sister Laure pawned his silver. He afterwards admitted that the journey to Vienna was the greatest folly of his life; it cost him five thousand francs and upset all his affairs. He had other financial troubles also, but found time and means to consult a somnambulist frequently as to his /Predilecta/, and regretted that he did not have one or two soothsayers, so that he might know daily about her. His superstition is seen early in their correspondence where he considered it a good omen that Madame Hanska had sent him the /Imitation de Jesus-Christ/ while he was working on /Le Medecin de Campagne/. Again and again he insisted that she tell him when any of her family were ill, feeling that he could cure at a distance those whom he loved; or that she should send him a piece of cloth worn next to her person, that he might present this to a clairvoyant. After delving deeply into mysticism, and writing some books dealing with it, the novelist writes his "Polar Star": "I am sorry to see that you are reading the mystics: believe me, this sort of reading is fatal to minds like yours; it is a poison; it is an intoxicating narcotic. These books have a bad influence. There are follies of virtue as there are follies of dissipation and vice. If you were not a wife, a mother, a friend, a relation, I would not seek to dissuade you, for then you might go and shut yourself up in a convent at your pleasure without hurting anybody, although you would soon die there. In your situation, and in your isolation in the midst of those deserts, this kind of reading, believe me, is pernicious. The rights of friendship are too feeble to make my voice heard; but let me at least make an earnest and humble request on this subject. Do not, I beg of you, ever read anything more of this kind. I have myself gone through all this, and I speak from experience." As has been stated, Madame Hanska was of assistance to Balzac in his literary work. He used her ideas frequently, and was gracious in expressing his appreciation of them to her: