THE HORRORS OF A CONSUMPTIVE'S LIFE.

Otago Witness, Issue 2815, 26 February 1908, Page 79

THE HORRORS OF A CONSUMPTIVE'S LIFE.

A HUMAN DOCUMENT,

The horrors and moral sufferings wMch the unhappy consumptive who is without independent means has to endure at the hands of society were never more pathetically or poignantly described than in the posthumous MS. left behind by Mecislas Golberg, who died recently at the Avon Sanatorium, near Paris, of phthisis. j.ueois]as Golberg, who was 38 years of age, was (says the Daily Mail) very nearly a literary genius. He was a Pole, who arrived in Paris fifteen years ago at the age of 23. With his remarkable accomplishments he might have risen to a high place in the world of art or literature, science or medicine, for he had a good knowledge of all these things. But' handicapped by the terrible -disease which had afflicted him for years, he went to the wall in the battle of life. He was a "poet of no small talent, and dreamt dreams of a higher society than that in which we live. At one' ciirie he ran a sociological periodical in Paris. He was an ardent advocate of ''art for art's salce";_ he wished to establish a kind of art theatre in Paris, where only masterpieces should be staged. He himself wrote a classical , tragedy, which 'he- jntitled ■" The Repen--tance of Prometheus." — The Modern Leper. — In the MS 1 , in which he, describes his experiences as a consumptive be writes at times ■ with infinite' sadness, at . others with biting satire, and occasionally he bursts out into angry fits and inveighs with rage against society. A man afflicted with consumption (he writes) is a modern leper ; he is accursed, and there is no room for him in the workaday world. Since tuberculosis has laid its grip upon me I am treated as an outlaw; I live beyond the pale of all moral law. Just as in the Middle Ages people fled at the approach of a leper, who, gave notice of his coming by means of a rattle which he was compelled to carry, so nowadays do people avoid the consumptive, with his j betraying cough, as they wopld a man stricken with bubonic plague. He goes on to say that in modern society the poor consumptive is a pariah. He describes how he secured a room in a small hotel, but his cough betrayed him. In the room adjoining mine was a professional singer, a tenor. He would - practise his voice for hours together, until one 1 day, in the. midst of his scales, he suddenly stopped to listen, struck by the sound of my deep, hollow cough, which I could not conceal. He must have made inquiries at the hotel office, for when he passed me. on the stairs next day he hastily put Ms hand- ] kerchief over his mouth and nose, and j kept it there until outside, afraid as im was of breAthjjuc £h* sax in j

which a consumptive moved. Then fcbtf landlord came to me and explained in an embarrassed manner that he muss ask me to giv& up my room at one«, for my next-door neighbour, the tenor, was afraid of losing his voice if I lived near him". Other regular customei-s of the hotel, too, had. objected to the presence in the house of a man in an advanced stage of consumption, and had threatened to leave. < So Mecislas Golberg had to go, .and, having no home of his own, he wandered from one small hotel to another, being ordered away as soon as the customwa grew alarmed at his presence. I took my meals at a cheap restaurant of the wine-shop order, where the food was wholesome and modest in price. The place suited my pocket ; but, alas ! my cadaverous features and my hacking cough soon created a void around me ; nobody would sit at my Able, and at last the customers began to quit Then the proprietor, in as kindly ai manner as possible, tusked , me to go( elsewhere, as my presence was ruining his business. In the cafes, in tramway- cars, and other public places his neighbours •jdgeel away from hint and' avoided him as a "spectre. Did he apply for employment, he was dismissed as soon as his diseass ■wa« discovered. . Persons with whom h« wihed to do business avoided making appointments with him, his acquaintances ran away from him, or showed enii barrassment when conversing with him. Once, when I was obliged to take H long journey, my wan and wasted frame, my bright and sunken ejes, the hectic flush in my cheeks, and the wheezing, painful breathing of my chest must have '-struck the two passengers already in the compartment, foi presently thej both gathered up their belongings an 4 got out. The guard came to me: "If monsieur wishes to tmvel alone he bai ' only to say so ; I can easily frighten people off." The man was looking foj a. tip, of course ; but it will be see* that a consumptive's life is not without its occasional advantages. — Dread of- Death and Hope of Life.— . . Golberg goes op to explain the con. sumptive's dj?ead oi death and his alter* nafce hope of living on : When one first learns for certain that there is bo hope of * cure, on« thinks of death. Beath iB always In one\i mind, but by thinking so much on the grim subject it becomes worn, and one tir.es of it. Then, as. the months drag on, and you find yourself still living, you begin to hope, to hope against hop*, % strange, weird, despairing hope, that perhaps after all your case may not be a common one, that you may live fot years. And death very often delays % long while in taking the consumptive: One evening I dragged myself with great effort to a meeting to hear a speaker on a subject that deexVlv interested me. How I envied him Mb powerful leather lungs, Ms loud, bass voice, which reached to the farthest end of tie room. Yet a year* later the speaker with the powerful lunge was deadi — he had died of x>nsumption — and I was still alive, Later on I went to thank that great 1 and admirable poet Monsieur J. M. de Heredia for the kindly interest he had taken in, me. I was so ill that I put It >ff from day to day, unable to gather 1 sufficient strength to climb the 22 stairs; that led to the poet's flat. At last 1 went. Oh, how exhausted .and breathless I was when I reached his door! He spoke to me cheerfully, bade me persevere, told me I would live many years yet ; and yet "I could read the pity itt ,his .eyeß.^A few months later De Heredia was dead, and I, the plaything of Death, was still lingering on. At last, through the kindness and generosity of Baron Henri de Rothschild, poor Golberg was able to go to the Avan Sana* torium.- Even there* he writes >f th» struggle for life : I cannot live among the > livino. and so I have come here to live with th« diving, 'in this modern: leprosy, where we are all collected together, my brothej -consumptives and myself. ° I w&ch them crawl slowly" over the green swards o* the alleys of the park, with bent heacl and shoulders and racairt gaze, fox they have no enerey left even to think. They await jeath. But even hera humanity shows its vices, its petty failings. There are serfß even in su& fering— serfs- who are domineered ove* by others. There is a struggle to obtain the best reclining chair, the best plao< in the sun, and the " hustlers " get- all the best seats, for even among .tht dying there are " hustlers." ,