Doctor Ambrogio, standing at the door of the chemist’s shop, looked like Æsculapius himself, with his ruddy, well-nourished face, full of severe learning, and his long white beard, under which appeared, wound several times round his neck, a heavy scarlet woollen scarf. If this physician, who was great at blood-letting and cupping, had remained a little behind the times, the chemist had by no means done so; and in this instance the old and the new generation joined hands. For the chemist, emulous of his city colleagues, had sold to a Florentine dealer in antiquities the phials and vases of glazed terra-cotta and the dried Nile crocodile, which, hanging with widely-opened jaws from the middle of the ceiling, had formerly given an uncanny idea of medical science and the apothecary’s art, as though they had been devouring monsters. Moreover, he had decorated his shop with all the latest improvements—gilt boxes and ornamental stoppers, chalybeate water, and purgative syrups enclosed in cut-glass bottles; and he never sold an ounce of cream of tartar or bitter salts without doing it up in a little bag of glazed paper. All this elegance certainly raised the price of his commodities; but only consider how much it added to the efficiency of the drugs!
Here, right in front of this luxurious establishment, Phœbus stood still, in the midst of the crowd, opened his book, turned over the pages, and after discoursing for some time, concluded by prescribing Dr. Ambrogio, who was still standing in the doorway, and who suffered from sciatica, a decoction of asinine cucumber.
Dr. Ambrogio turned his back, closed the glass door, and said to Sor Vincenzino, who was seated on the sofa reading the paper: “This blind man is a public nuisance, and I cannot think why you don’t get him out of the way. If I were syndic....”
“If you were syndic you would know what red-tape and difficulties and formalities are! Last year I tried to send him to the hospital for the blind at ..., and they sent him back because he was not a native of the place.”
“Yes, I remember. I gave him as full a certificate as I could to get him away from here. Good heavens! If this town is not a nest of wretchedness, I don’t know what is.”
The chaplain, who was also in the shop waiting for the chemist, seemed touched to the quick, and said—
“It is the fault of the rich. If the rich were to think more about giving work——”
But the doctor interrupted him.
“Here we are with the rich again! Can’t you understand, sir, that the rich have too many taxes?” The syndic nodded approvingly. “It’s the Government that’s in fault,” said the doctor. “Here’s the dilemma, and there’s no getting out of it:—Either they ought to take off the income-tax, or they, and not we, should see to the feeding of these starving wretches.”
“Very true! Just the thing I have so often thought,” answered the syndic. “Because if they were to take off the income-tax, that sum would remain in the treasury; but it cannot remain there, because the funds have to be turned to account; and for doing this labour is needed, and labour being needed it has to be paid for, and being paid for, why, there you are. Then people have something to eat! Why, that’s quite clear, gentlemen! No difficulty in understanding that!”