Of Love and Evil (The Songs of the Seraphim 2)

The animal drank thirstily and miserably and licked at the bare dish and then immediately began to twitch. It fell on its side, and then on its back and writhed in its agony. In a moment, it had become rigid, its eyes staring dully at nothing and no one.

All watched this little spectacle with revulsion and horror, including me.

But Lodovico was incensed, staring at the priests, and at his father, and then at the dog.

“I swear I am innocent of this!” he declared. “The Jews know the poison. The Jews brought it here. Why, it was this very Jew Vitale who brought the plant to the house …”

“You contradict your story,” said Antonio. “You lie. You stammer. You beg for credence like a coward!”

“I tell you I had no part in it!” cried out the desperate man. “These Jews have bewitched me as they have bewitched my brother. If this thing was done by me, it was in a sleep in which I knew nothing. It was in a sleep in which I wandered, carrying out the acts they forced me to carry out. What do you know of these Jews? You speak of their holy books, but what do you know of these books but that they aren’t filled with the witchcraft that drove me to this? Doesn’t the demon rage in the accursed house at this very hour?”

“Signore Antonio,” said the elder priest, the one with the sharp yet gentle features. “Something must be said of this demon. People in the street can hear it howl. Is all this beyond what a demon can do? I think not!”

Lodovico had a thousand protests—that yes, it was the demon, and yes, it had worked its sinister magic on him, and could no one imagine the evil of this demon, and so forth and so on.

But the solemn Antonio was having none of it. He stared at his natural son with a face that was sad to the point of tears, but no tears flowed. “How could you do this?” he whispered.

Suddenly Lodovico broke loose from the two men who stood beside him, their hands barely holding him.

He rushed at the tree of purple flowers and grabbed at the black seeds in the mud of the pot. He caught as many as his hand could hold.

“Stop him,” I cried. And I flew at him, pushing him backwards, but his hand shot to his lips before I could stop it, forcing the mud and seeds into his open mouth. I jerked his hand away but it was too late.

The guards were on him and so was his father.

“Make him vomit it up,” cried Vitale desperately. “Let me get to him, stand back.”

But I knew it was useless.

I moved away, utterly distraught. What had I allowed to happen here! It was too awful. It was exactly what I myself had wanted to do to him, what I myself had pictured, scooping up the seeds, forcing him to eat them, but he had done this himself as if my evil intentions had taken hold of him. How had I let him do this dreadful deed? Why had I not figured some way to turn him from his purpose?

Lodovico looked at his father. He was choking and shuddering. The guards backed away and only Signore Antonio held him as he began to convulse and then to slip to the floor.

“Merciful Lord,” whispered Signore Antonio, and so did I.

Merciful Lord, have mercy on his immortal soul. Lord in Heaven, forgive him his madness.

“Witchcraft!” said the dying man, his mouth smeared with saliva and mud, and it was his last word. On his knees, he bent forward, his face contorted, and the convulsions shook his entire frame.

Then he rolled over on his side, his legs still twitching, and his face took on the rigid grimace of the poor animal that had died before him.

And I, I who in a life hundreds of years away, and in a land far far away, had used this very poison to dispatch untold victims, could only stand staring helplessly at this one. Oh, what a blunder, that I, sent to answer prayers, had brought about a suicide.

A silence fell over us all.

“He was my friend,” Vitale whispered.

As the old man started to rise, Vitale took his arm.

Niccolò appeared in the gateway. Not making a sound, he stood there in his long white bed tunic, barefoot, trembling, yet staring at his dead brother.

“Go out, all of you,” said Signore Antonio. “Leave me with my son here. Leave me.”

But the elder priest lingered. He was much shaken as were we all, but he gathered his resources and said in a low, contemptuous voice,

“Do not think for a moment that witchcraft is not in operation here,” he said. “That your sons have not been contaminated by their intercourse with these Jews.”

“Fr. Piero, silence,” said the old man. “This was not witchcraft, this was envy! And I did not see what I did not want to see. Now leave me, all of you. Leave me to be alone to mourn my son whom I took from his mother’s arms. Vitale, take your patient to his bed. He will recover now.”

“But the demon, does it not still rage?” the priest demanded. No one was listening to him.

I stared down at the dead man. I couldn’t speak. Couldn’t think. I knew they were all going out, except for the old man, and I must go out as well. Yet I couldn’t take my eyes off his lifeless body. I thought of angels, but without words. I appealed to an unseen realm, intermingled with our own, beings of wisdom and compassion who might be surrounding the soul of this dead man now, but no comforting images came to mind, no words. I had failed. I had failed this one, though I might have saved another. Was that all I had been meant to do? Save the one brother and drive the other to destroy himself? It was inconceivable. And it was I who had driven him to this, most certainly.

I looked up and saw old Pico in the gateway gesturing for me to hurry. All the others had gone out.

I bowed and went behind Signore Antonio and out of the orangery, and into the larger courtyard.

I was dazed. I think perhaps Fr. Piero was there, but I didn’t really look at those standing about.

I saw the open doorway to the street, with the dim silhouettes of a couple of servants keeping watch there, and I moved towards the door and then went through it.

No one questioned me. No one seemed to notice me.

I walked numbly into the crowded piazza and for one moment stared up at the darkening grayish sky. How perfectly solid and real was this world into which I’d been plunged, with its crowded stone houses, built slap against one another, and their random towers. How real the walls of the palazzos opposite, somber and brown, and how real the noises of this motley crowd, with their carefree conversation, and bursts of laughter.

Where was I going? What did I mean to do? I wanted to pray, to go into a church and fall on my knees and pray, yet how could I do this with the yellow patch on my clothes? How could I dare to make the Sign of the Cross, without someone thinking I was mocking my own faith?