Recently read. Did finish.
A harrowing series of notes about the downward progression of his health, along with his growing realization of his own prospects, and his attempts to face it. A story from a time before the germ theory of disease, before antibiotics, before any form of meaningful chemotherapy, or effective treatment of any kind. While not exactly rich, Daudet was wealthy enough to afford what could be had–chiefly quackery, and narcotics. Plus the occasional visit to an honest doctor who would point out, quite simply, his disease was going to kill him in due course through unbearably painful insanity.
“Pain, you must be everything for me. Let me find in you all those foreign lands you will not let me visit. Be my philosophy, be my science.”
