Vitale was shocked.
“Lodovico, stop,” said the father. “There is no demon in that house. And never have I heard you speak to Vitale like this. This is the man who nursed me back to health when every doctor in Padua, where there are indeed more doctors than anywhere else in Italy, had given me up for dead.”
“Oh, but Father, there is an evil spirit in that house,” said Lodovico. “All the Jews know it. They have a name for it.”
“Dybbuk,” said Vitale wearily, and a bit fearlessly for a man who had a ghost in his house.
“This man’s been plagued by this dybbuk since you gave him the keys,” Lodovico went on. “And it was only after this dybbuk took up residence and started breaking windows in the dead of night that Vitale’s skills as a physician have disintegrated before our very eyes.”
“Disintegrated?” Vitale was stunned. “Who says my skills are disintegrated? Lodovico, this is a lie!” He was hurt, confused.
“But the Jewish patients won’t come to you, will they?” asked Lodovico. Suddenly, he changed his tone. “Vitale, my friend, for the love of my brother, tell the truth.”
Vitale was stymied. But Niccolò only looked at him trustingly and lovingly, and the old man was thoughtful and not quick to say anything at all.
“The Jews have told us this themselves,” said Lodovico. “Three times they’ve tried to drive this dybbuk from your house. This dybbuk is in your study, in the room where you keep your medicines, this dybbuk is in every corner of your house and in every corner perhaps of your mind!”
The young man was working himself into a frenzy.
“No, you must not say those things,” said Niccolò in a loud voice. Vainly he tried again to raise himself on his elbows. “It’s not his doing that I’m ill. Do you think every man who takes a fever and dies of it does so because there’s a demon in a house in the same street? Stop saying such things.”
“Quiet, my son, quiet,” said the old man. He laid his hands on his son and tried to force him back against the pillow. “And remember, my sons, the house in question is mine. Therefore the demon, or the dybbuk as the Jews call it, must certainly belong to me. I must go to the house and confront this awesome spirit who routs exorcists both Jewish and Roman. I must see this spirit with my own eyes.”
“Father, I beg you, don’t do that!” said Lodovico. “Vitale isn’t telling you of the violence of this spirit. Every Jewish doctor who’s come here has told us. It hurls things and breaks things. It stomps its feet.”
“Oh, nonsense,” said the father. “I believe in illness and I believe in cures for it. But in spirits? Spirits who hurl things? This I’ll have to see with my own eyes. It’s enough for me that Vitale is here with Niccolò.”
“Yes, Father,” said Niccolò, “and this is enough for me. Lodovico, you’ve always loved Vitale,” he said to his brother, “the same as I have. The three of us, we’ve been friends since Montpellier. Father, don’t listen to these things.”
“I’m not listening, my son,” said the father, but the father was now carefully observing his son, because the more the son protested, the sicker he looked.
Lodovico knelt down beside the bed and wept with his forehead on his arm. “Niccolò, I would do anything in my power to see you cured of this,” he said, though it was difficult to understand him through his tears. “I love Vitale. I always have. But the other doctors, they say he’s bewitched.”
“Stop, Lodovico,” said the father. “You alarm your brother. Vitale, look at my son. Examine him again. That’s why you’ve come.”
Vitale was watching all of this keenly, and so was I. I couldn’t detect the poison by any scent in the room, but that meant nothing. I knew any number of poisons, which slipped into caviar would do the trick. One thing was clear, however. The patient still had considerable strength.
“Vitale, sit with me,” said the patient. “Stay with me today. The worst thoughts have been coming to me. I see myself dead and buried.”
“Don’t say this, my son,” said the father.
Lodovico was past all comfort.
“Brother, I don’t know what life means without you,” he said tenderly. “Don’t make me contemplate it. The first thing I remember is your standing at the foot of my cradle. For me, as well as for Father, you must get well.”
“All of you, leave us, please,” said Vitale. “Signore, you trust me here as you always have. I want to examine the patient, and you, Toby, take a place there”—he pointed to the far corner—“and play softly to still Niccolò’s nerves.”
“Yes, that’s good,” said the father, and he rose and beckoned for the younger man to come out.
The younger man didn’t want to do it.
“Look, he’s scarce tasted the caviar last given to him,” said Lodovico. He pointed to a small silver plate on the bedside table. The caviar sat in a tiny glass dish inside it with a small delicate silver spoon. Lodovico filled the spoon and brought it to Niccolò’s lips.
“No, no more. I tell you, it burns my eyes.”
“Oh, come, you need it,” said the brother.
“No, no more, I can’t bear anything now,” said Niccolò. Then as if to quiet his brother, he took the spoon and swallowed the caviar and at once his eyes began to redden and tear.
Once again Vitale asked that all go out. He gestured for me to sit down in the corner, where a huge fantastically carved black chair glowered as if waiting to devour me.
“I want to remain here,” said Lodovico. “You should ask me to remain here, Vitale. If you are accused—.”
“Nonsense,” said the father, and taking the son’s hand he led him from the room.
I settled snugly into the huge chair, a veritable monster of exuberant black claws, with red cushions for the back and for the seat. I removed my gloves, slipping them behind my belt, and I began to tune the lute as softly as I could. And it was a beauty. But other thoughts were playing in my mind.
The patient hadn’t been poisoned until the dybbuk had appeared. Surely the poisoner was here, in this house, and I was fairly certain it was the brother, who was taking advantage of the appearance of the ghost. I doubted the poisoner was clever enough to produce a ghost. In fact, I was sure that the poisoner had not produced the ghost. But he was clever enough to begin his evil work because a ghost had appeared.