sentences:  His love for Sempronio's ward Grilletta is the reason, and in the first scene he mixes drugs while making melancholy reflections on his lot, which has led him to a master who buries himself in his newspapers instead of attending to his business, and allowing his apprentices get on as best they may.Sempronio relates that the plague is raging in Russia.The news that an old cousin of his has married his young ward is more interesting to him than all his drugs and pills; he intends to act likewise with Grilletta.