After Experiencing Some Little
Difficulty In Finding Where To Look For Him, I Ascended A Flight Or
Two Of Stairs And Knocked At His Door.
No one came immediately,
but after some little delay the medico himself opened the door, and
admitted me.
I of course made him understand that I had come to
consult him, but before entering upon my throat grievance I
accepted a chair, and exchanged a sentence or two of commonplace
conversation. Now the natural commonplace of the city at this
season was of a gloomy sort, "Come va la peste?" (how goes the
plague?) and this was precisely the question I put. A deep sigh,
and the words, "Sette cento per giorno, signor" (seven hundred a
day), pronounced in a tone of the deepest sadness and dejection,
were the answer I received. The day was not oppressively hot, yet
I saw that the doctor was perspiring profusely, and even the
outside surface of the thick shawl dressing-gown, in which he had
wrapped himself, appeared to be moist. He was a handsome,
pleasant-looking young fellow, but the deep melancholy of his tone
did not tempt me to prolong the conversation, and without further
delay I requested that my throat might be looked at. The medico
held my chin in the usual way, and examined my throat. He then
wrote me a prescription, and almost immediately afterwards I bade
him farewell, but as he conducted me towards the door I observed an
expression of strange and unhappy watchfulness in his rolling eyes.
It was not the next day, but the next day but one, if I rightly
remember, that I sent to request another interview with my doctor.
In due time Dthemetri, who was my messenger, returned, looking
sadly aghast - he had "MET the medico," for so he phrased it,
"coming out from his house - in a bier!"
It was of course plain that when the poor Bolognese was looking at
my throat, and almost mingling his breath with mine, he was
stricken of the plague.
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