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landed in Rome with our scanty kit of knowledge.
We had to live somewhere, there was surely no
reason why we shouldn’t live in Rome as long we
didn’t interfere with the living of our patients.
Soon it became very difficult for any foreigner
in Rome to die without my being called in to see
him through. I became to the dying foreigners
what the Illustrissimo Professore Baccelli was to
the dying Romans—the last hope, alas, so seldom
fulfilled. Another person who never failed to
turn up on these occasions was Signor Cornacchia,
undertaker to the foreign colony and director of
the Protestant Cemetery by Porta San Paolo.
He never seemed to have to be sent for, he always
turned up in good time, his big hook nose seemed
to smell the dead at a distance like the
carrion-vulture. Correctly dressed in a long frock-coat
and top hat, in the fashion of a colleague, he was
always hanging about in the corridor waiting
for his turn to be called in. He seemed to have
taken a great liking to me, saluting me most
cordially with a waving of his top hat whenever
he met me in the street. He always expressed
his regrets when I was the first to leave Rome in
the spring, he always greeted me with
outstretched hands and a friendly: Ben tornato,
Signor Dottore, when I returned in the autumn.
There had been a slight misunderstanding between
us the previous Christmas when he had sent me
twelve bottles of wine with his hopes for a fruitful
cooperation during the coming season. He
seemed deeply hurt by my inability to accept his
gift, he said none of my colleagues had ever
refused his little token of sympathy. The same
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