there is One who witnesses everything. And above all, there is love.”
CHAPTER ELEVEN
THE FAMILY WAS GATHERED IN THE DINING ROOM OF the unfortunate house when I arrived. The ghost was rampaging in the cellar and now and then sending great howls and roars through all the rooms.
I saw at once that there were four armed guards in attendance on Signore Antonio, hovering about his chair at the head of the table. He looked rested and resolved, and solemn in his black velvet, head bowed, and hands pressed together as if in prayer.
Niccolò looked marvelously improved, and this was the first time I’d seen him in regular clothes, if the clothes of this time could ever be called regular. He was clad in black like his father, and so was Vitale, who sat beside him, and looked up at me with timid eyes.
Fr. Piero was seated at the foot of the table, and beside him on his right were two other clerics, and someone with a stack of papers and an inkwell and quill pen who looked, of course, like a clerk. Abundant food lay on the immense carved sideboard, and a collection of frightened servants, including Pico, cleaved to the walls.
“Sit there,” said Signore Antonio, pointing me to his right. I obeyed.
“I say again I am opposed to this!” said Fr. Piero, “this communing with spirits or whatever it is reasoned to be! This house must be exorcised now. I am prepared to begin.”
“Enough of all that,” said Signore Antonio. “I know now who haunts this house and I will tell you who he is and why he haunts. And I charge you, not a word of this is ever to leave this chamber.”
Reluctantly the priests agreed, but I could see that they did not see themselves as being bound by this. Possibly it would not matter.
The noises from the cellar continued, and once again, I was convinced that the ghost was rolling the heavy casks of wine over the floor.
At Signore Antonio’s gesture the guards closed the door of the dining room, and we had a measure of quiet in which Signore Antonio began to speak.
“LET ME BEGIN MANY YEARS AGO, WHEN I WAS A young student in Florence and had enjoyed myself to some considerable extent at the Court of the Medici, and was not at all glad to see the fierce Savonarola come into that city. Do you know who this is?”
“Tell us, Father,” said Niccolò. “We’ve heard his name all our lives, but don’t really know what happened at the time.”
“Well, I had many friends among the Jews in Florence then as I have now, and I had scholarly friends, and one very grave teacher in particular, who was helping me to translate medical texts from Arabic which he as a great teacher of Hebrew knew very well. This man I venerated much as you boys have come to venerate your Hebrew teachers at Padua and at Montpellier. His name was Giovanni and I was deeply in his debt for the work he did for me, and sometimes felt that I did not pay him enough, for every time he gave me a beautifully prepared manuscript, I took it at once to the printer’s and the book went into circulation for all my friends to see and enjoy. I would say that Giovanni’s translations and annotations for me were circulated throughout Italy, as he worked very hastily and in fair copy most of the time without the slightest mistake.
“Well, Giovanni, who was my good friend and my drinking companion, depended upon me for protection when the friars would come and preach their sermons working up the populace against the Jews. So did his beloved and only son, Lionello, who was as good a friend and companion to me as I have ever had. I loved Lionello and I loved his father with all my heart.
“Now you know every Holy Week in our cities, it is the same. The doors are shut on all the Jews from Holy Thursday through Easter Sunday, as much for their protection as for anything else. And as the sermons are preached in which they are castigated as the slayers of Christ, the young ruffians make for the streets and hurl stones at any Jewish house they can find. The Jews remain indoors, safe from this onslaught, and seldom is more than a window or two broken, and when Easter Sunday is over and the crowd is quiet once more and people