B995 <=> B997 [BTG XLII Beelzebub in America, p. 996]

“’Although none of the local specialists found anything at all in me, I nevertheless continued to doubt, because on the one hand my fretting about my health and on the other hand my own common sense continued to assure me that I must certainly already have been infected with one of these terrible diseases.

“’All this brought me to the point that I decided at any expense, to have a consultation here in Paris, but this time with the leading specialists from the whole of Europe. I could afford myself this because, owing to the World War, when transport had everywhere broken down, and all commodities had gone up in price, our firm, having everywhere very large stocks of dried fruit in storage, had that year made considerable profits, a fairly good portion of which fell to my share.

“’When I had called these European celebrities together, they unanimously pronounced after all kinds of very “detailed” investigations and what are called “chemical analyses” know to them themselves, that there was not the slightest sign of any venereal disease in my organism.

“’Although this finding of theirs put an end to the chronic fretting about my health, yet it was the cause of the growth in me of such a strong feeling of inquisitiveness and curiosity to clear up this question, that from then on it became a sort of mania with me, a kind of “idee fixe.”

“’And also from then on, the serious observation and study of everything concerning these diseases animated and justified the sense of what I have called “my odious life.”

“’During this period of my life I made these observations and studies of mine at all times with my whole inner real “I” while in a drunken, semidrunken, and also sober state.