Thursday, 3 July 1884

I would have gone to see him every day if I were not afraid of boring him.

I went looking for wrestlers at the fair and on the outer boulevards, in the company of Rosalie and Irma.

Nothing yet.

Well, they say that cholera is already in Paris.

This morning at seven o’clock I was at Potain’s. He examined me rather cursorily and is sending me to Eaux-Bonnes.¹ Afterwards, we shall see. But I read the letter he has written to his colleague at the spa — I unsealed it.

It says there is a cavity at the apex of the right lung. Adding that I am the most undisciplined and imprudent patient in the world.

Afterwards, as it was not yet eight o’clock, I went to see the young doctor on the rue de l’Échiquier. He strikes me as a serious young man, for he seems disagreeably surprised by my condition and insists very strongly that I go to see one of the princes of medical science — Bouchard or Grancher, and so on. Since I refuse, he says he will come with me provided that I go.

So I consent. Potain maintains that I was much sicker before and that things improved beyond all hope, that now it has come back but that it will be sorted out. And he is so optimistic that I must be in a very low state indeed.

Young Béclère, for his part, does not share this view — he says I was sicker before but that the illness was acute; there was fear it would carry me off very quickly, and it did not, hence the improvement beyond all hope. But now it is a worsening of a chronic illness... In short, he absolutely wants to take me to this Grancher. I shall go.

Consumptive, that’s what I am!

This, and the rest... And everything.

It is no joke.

And nothing good to console me even a little!