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good-bye, but au revoir, from the Marquise, full of
gratitude and praise. It contained a big
banknote. I looked at the faded photograph of Capri
in the corner of my room and put the money in
my pocket. What has become of all the money
I made in those days of prosperity and luck? I
was supposed to save it all for Mastro Vincenzo’s
house, but the fact remains, I never had any
money to save. Wages of sin? Maybe, but if
so, the whole faculty ought to have gone
bankrupt, for we were all in the same boat, the
professors as well as my colleagues, with the same
sort of clientèle as I. Luckily for me I had other
patients as well, plenty of them and enough to
save me from becoming a charlatan altogether.
There were in those days far fewer specialists
than now. I was supposed to know everything,
even surgery. It took me two years to realize
that I was not fit to be a surgeon, I fear it took
my patients less time. Although I was supposed
to be a nerve-doctor, I did everything a doctor
can be asked to do, even obstetrics, and God
helped mother and child. In fact it was
surprising how well the great majority of my patients
resisted the treatment. When Napoleon’s eagle
eye flashed down the list of officers proposed for
promotion to generals, he used to scribble in the
margin of a name: “Is he lucky?” I had luck,
amazing, almost uncanny luck with everything I
laid my hands on, with every patient I saw. I
was not a good doctor, my studies had been too
rapid, my hospital training too short, but there
is not the slightest doubt that I was a successful
doctor. What is the secret of success? To
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