Doctor’s Chamber
A human skull, plaster-white, sat on the desk of Vaccà’s study. Its lower jaw was missing and the upper row of teeth seemed to bite into the walnut veneer. The doctor’s eyes would drift to it during pauses, and if the pause was long his hand would reach to stroke the hollow orbits. It was a theatrical gesture, but not false. Vaccà’s knowledge of anatomy was real enough; so, it seemed, was his melancholy. His gaze on the skull was not a saint’s or poet’s but a natural philosopher’s, who had reason to think that if only the arch from cheekbone to temple were less frail, the brain-pan differently formed, the apertures of the nerves more comfortably set, there might be an end to half the world’s suffering.
Seated at the desk, with the brandy bottle from the operating theatre
