"Yes," he replied, to my enquiries, "I remember him quite well; the
young English poet who was ill here. I prescribed for him. Yes - yes! He
wore his hair long."
And that was all I could draw from him. I have noticed more than once
that Italian physicians have a stern conception of the Hippocratic oath:
the affairs of their patients, dead or alive, are a sacred trust in
perpetuity.
The town, furthermore, has undergone manifold improvements in those few
years. Trees are being planted by the roadsides; electric light is
everywhere and, best of all, an excellent water-supply has been led down
from the cool heights of the Sila, bringing cleanliness, health and
prosperity in its train. And a stately cement-bridge is being built over
the Esaro, that "all but stagnant and wholly pestilential stream." The
Esaro glides pleasantly, says the chronicler Noia Molisi. Perhaps it
really glided, in his day.
One might do worse than spend a quiet month or two at Cotrone in the
spring, for the place grows upon one: it is so reposeful and orderly.
But not in winter. Gissing committed the common error of visiting south
Italy at that season when, even if the weather will pass, the country
and its inhabitants are not true to themselves.
