St. Paul daily globe. [volume] (Saint Paul, Minn.) 1884-1896, 1890-12-15
KOCH'S HOME LIFE.

Not more than stones throw from
the Bellevue station OF the Berlin Stadt-
han, in the last house Of the Brucken-
strasse, lives DR.. Koch, the "consump-
ton curer," or, as somebody has called
him, the Faust of the nineteenth CEN
tury." The BruckenstraSse is by no
means an aristOcratic thoroughfare,
though any one who does not know the
secrets of the ''rew Berlin" which has
sprung up around the old town during
the last twenty years, would imagine
that all those whte-stone buildings
with balconies, carvings and other Or
lamentations where SO many palaces of
the rich. In reality they are nothing
more than rather superior houses of the
type which the Berliner sweepingIy
calls "Mietskasernen" (hire- barracks).
In the easements live eobblers. tailorS
and small shopkeepers, and in the
front windows of the ground floor
humble flower pots and here and
there hyciDth in glass with
big paper nightcap over the sprout-
ing top to keep the light off. stand in
row. The second floor, the bel-etage,
is the show floor, for which most rent is
| paid, and to which balcony and occa-
sionally bow window belongs. But
Dr.. Koch lives not Oh either of these
floors; his quarters are higher still. up
three flights of steps, covered with the
| regulation coacoanut mating. And
there he has only the one side of the
house, with three front windows looking
upon the opposite side of the street,
where the houses are still i'll the course
| of erection, and with pleasant view
| from the side windows over an empty
| space to where the roof of the Bellevue
palace looks over the bare trees. ''Dr.
| Il. Koch" is printed on the small china
| plate above the letter box on the door,
behind which, on entering, you find
dark little veStibule-again just as you
find it in scores and scores of thousands
of Berlin flats. A big looking glass,
hat stand and few chairs are the only
furniture, upon which dim ray of
light from window in passage
round the corner falls Oh gray No
yember day.
Three doors lead into the vestibule,
the one nearest to the front door adj
hitting to the doctors cosy and COM
Portable study. the chief ornament in
which is fine large marble bust of the
old Emperor William |. rising above
group of healthy-looking foliage plants.
| Everything is of that spotlesS cleanli-
ness which is the German housewives
in herself is exactly the woman one
would imagine to be the presiding gen
JUS over the establishment. She is of
medium height, and very simple dark
dress, held at the throat with gold
ornament, fits closely round her slight
and elegant figure. Her complexion is
fresh and healthy, and her fair hair,
which is simply parted in the center i'll
the way which IS now often playfully
called the madonna coiffure," is just
beginning to turn gray. She is
tie nervous, and it is her constant
complaint at present that If ''meiu
mann" were to see all the callers he
would nOthave the time to eat single
meal in peace. Faithfully, however,
she bears each message into the Sanctum
where the qniet thinker spends his
leisure hours, and it is only when he
himself has declined to see his visitors
that she coined back, still pleasant, still
little nervous. to say ''My husband is
so sorry" etc.
Sometimes, however. the family serv-
ant. mlddle-aged woman, in whom the
simplicity and neatneSS, and even the
slight nervousness, of the frau pro-
fesSorin" are repeated, comes out and
bids the visitor cutter. The hours of the
early afternoon, and again the pleasant
ime from p. m. to midnight are the
visiting hours in DR.. KOch'S household.
The morning callers find him pleasant
enough and courteous, with the ease of
a man of the world, but with much
more than the kindness and geniality
of that parsonage. He is interested in
everything, and knows what is going on
i'll literature, art and politics, as we'll as
of inht no,
DR.. Koch retires at or after midnight,
he takes with him the latest papers
end periodicals, to read, before going to
sleep. of the doingS of that wider
world outside the wonderful world of
science in which he spends the best part
of his life and the best efforts of his
mind. But it is only at night, when the
work of the day is over, that he gives
himself fully UP to social pleasures. 1t
is then that his friends drop in, often to
share his simple meal during which he
takes great deal of soda water, but very
little of any alcoholic drink and more
night the conversation flows on. the pro-
fessor, who is an excellent talker and
companion, being never weary of en-
tertaining his guests.
In the morning DR.. Koch likes to re-
main undisturbed till about 9 o'clock.
when he rises and dresses, carefully and
rather slowly, and comes to breakfast
ready to go out, except that, instead of
the usual morning coat, he wears gar
ment at the sight of which one is at first
almost inclined to turn away and hide
wicked smile This is long, loose
coat, not unlike lady's dressing gown,
and it is quite sleeveless. Its extreme
comfort is, plainly, its one advantage;
and, attired in it, and unconscious of its
wild peculiaritieS, DR.. Koch sits down
to his breakfast. No coffee for him, or
any other cup thai cheers, but instead,
a rather notwithstanding, thick white
soup, into which he puts any amount of
little squares of toasted brown bread.
Then he changes his coats, starts off by
the Stadtbahn TO the Hygienic institute,
where we shall presently see him at
work, and is seen no more till. pune
tually at 2 D. M, he returns home to the
most frugal of dinners, consisting of
one course of meat and vegetables, one
light sweet dish. and, to finish up,
plate of soup.
DR.. Koch's amusements are lntellec-
tual rather than physical, but he is not
for nothing professor of hygiene at the
Berlin university, and he knows well
that after hunting and breeding and
studying bacilIi for four hours he is in
duty bound TO take some bodily eXer
else. This he does faithfully every
afternoon. When the clock strikes 8
there comes hObbiing up the Brucken-
strasse, and led by sturdy subaltern of
the newest bait-StableS, comfortable
looking dapple gray. The animal has
learned by long experience where to
stop, and turns to look at the two fierce
stone lions that guard the steps in the
little front garden of the house on the
top floor of which the professor lives.
Presently he comes out in an attire,
which, were it ever seen i'll Rotten row.
would be the joke of the clubs that
night, and which, even at Berlin, is re-
garded with good-natured smile.
Were the doctor twice as stout as he is,
and were the beast from the bait-stables
Just little better groomed and spirited.
one might imagine the man in the