The Delicate Dependency: A Novel of the Vampire Life by Michael Talbot Page B
Authors: Michael Talbot
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your accident, or any other affairs I should handle for you?”
“No,” he sighed, “there’s no one.”
I nodded. “In that case, I think you should be getting some rest now. I’ll look in on you tomorrow afternoon to see how you’re doing.” As I turned to leave I remembered one more thing. “I’m sorry, in the excitement of your waking up I completely forgot to introduce myself. My name is Dr. Gladstone.” I smiled at him once again and he nodded slightly. “Could I inquire as to what your name is?” I prodded.
“Niccolo,” he said, and a faint flicker of pride spread across his worried face. “Niccolo Cavalanti.”
V
When I left Mr. Cavalanti’s room that evening, curiosity possessed me to check the occupants in the rooms on either side of his. I was impressed to find there was, indeed, a frail and elderly woman in one of them and a heavyset man deep in slumber in the other. I was not surprised when I mounted the stairs to the third floor and was greeted by the fresh antiseptic smell of carbolic acid. So he was right in these matters, I thought to myself. He was a very keenly observant young man, as he had said. But what I did not know at that time was that he was also very correct about people fearing him. I saw to it that no sunlight came into the room, as he requested, and this in itself created a certain degree of notoriety. But what really set the sway of opinion against my ethereal young acquaintance was that he refused to touch a drop of food or drink. Whenever a meal was placed before him he would inhale the aroma of each dish carefully, as if absorbing some nourishment from the vapors, and then push the plate aside without touching a thing. After three days of this absolute fast he had developed quite a reputation among the internes and staff of Redgewood, and not a favorable reputation at that. For some reason his odd habits were interpreted as sinister and malevolent. The nurses on duty started avoiding his room, and a low form of gossip began, alleging that he was different At first I greeted this chatter as ridiculous. When I confronted Mr. Cavalanti on the matter he insisted he never ate. I humored him in this assertion and took it as another example of his eccentric paranoia, but as the days of his fast continued, and he revealed no sign of weakness or deficiency, even I became suspicious. On my way to Redgewood one afternoon I paid a visit to the National Gallery, and when I set eyes on the frail and delicate being seated beside the Virgin, I felt a cool chill of adrenaline rush through my body. There was too much coincidence, I told myself. Had I encountered a being who was truly of a different substance, a different vibration? Had my carriage actually injured an angel?
By the seventh day of Mr. Cavalanti’s fast the entire hospital was in an uproar. By some stretch of the imagination he might have remained unharmed by his abstinence from food, but everything medical science taught us said he could not have survived that long without water. Disregarding normal body functions, even the amount of water lost through the lungs in every exhalation of his breath should have left him dangerously dehydrated. Such a loss should have resulted in an abnormal thickening of the blood—what little of it Mr. Cavalanti had—and cyanosis, a bluish coloration of the skin caused by lack of oxygen in the blood, should have set in. Nonetheless, Mr. Cavalanti did not suffer from cyanosis. He remained as anemically pale and animated as ever.
I begged him to take some sustenance, or to allow me to have him fed intravenously, but he adamantly refused. With this I was left with the choice of either putting him under sedation, or allowing his deadly fast to continue. It was a decision I found impossible to make. To put him under sedation I would have to use force, and I could not extricate myself from the fear that perhaps this was the wrong thing to do. After all, his metabolism obviously was very
“No,” he sighed, “there’s no one.”
I nodded. “In that case, I think you should be getting some rest now. I’ll look in on you tomorrow afternoon to see how you’re doing.” As I turned to leave I remembered one more thing. “I’m sorry, in the excitement of your waking up I completely forgot to introduce myself. My name is Dr. Gladstone.” I smiled at him once again and he nodded slightly. “Could I inquire as to what your name is?” I prodded.
“Niccolo,” he said, and a faint flicker of pride spread across his worried face. “Niccolo Cavalanti.”
V
When I left Mr. Cavalanti’s room that evening, curiosity possessed me to check the occupants in the rooms on either side of his. I was impressed to find there was, indeed, a frail and elderly woman in one of them and a heavyset man deep in slumber in the other. I was not surprised when I mounted the stairs to the third floor and was greeted by the fresh antiseptic smell of carbolic acid. So he was right in these matters, I thought to myself. He was a very keenly observant young man, as he had said. But what I did not know at that time was that he was also very correct about people fearing him. I saw to it that no sunlight came into the room, as he requested, and this in itself created a certain degree of notoriety. But what really set the sway of opinion against my ethereal young acquaintance was that he refused to touch a drop of food or drink. Whenever a meal was placed before him he would inhale the aroma of each dish carefully, as if absorbing some nourishment from the vapors, and then push the plate aside without touching a thing. After three days of this absolute fast he had developed quite a reputation among the internes and staff of Redgewood, and not a favorable reputation at that. For some reason his odd habits were interpreted as sinister and malevolent. The nurses on duty started avoiding his room, and a low form of gossip began, alleging that he was different At first I greeted this chatter as ridiculous. When I confronted Mr. Cavalanti on the matter he insisted he never ate. I humored him in this assertion and took it as another example of his eccentric paranoia, but as the days of his fast continued, and he revealed no sign of weakness or deficiency, even I became suspicious. On my way to Redgewood one afternoon I paid a visit to the National Gallery, and when I set eyes on the frail and delicate being seated beside the Virgin, I felt a cool chill of adrenaline rush through my body. There was too much coincidence, I told myself. Had I encountered a being who was truly of a different substance, a different vibration? Had my carriage actually injured an angel?
By the seventh day of Mr. Cavalanti’s fast the entire hospital was in an uproar. By some stretch of the imagination he might have remained unharmed by his abstinence from food, but everything medical science taught us said he could not have survived that long without water. Disregarding normal body functions, even the amount of water lost through the lungs in every exhalation of his breath should have left him dangerously dehydrated. Such a loss should have resulted in an abnormal thickening of the blood—what little of it Mr. Cavalanti had—and cyanosis, a bluish coloration of the skin caused by lack of oxygen in the blood, should have set in. Nonetheless, Mr. Cavalanti did not suffer from cyanosis. He remained as anemically pale and animated as ever.
I begged him to take some sustenance, or to allow me to have him fed intravenously, but he adamantly refused. With this I was left with the choice of either putting him under sedation, or allowing his deadly fast to continue. It was a decision I found impossible to make. To put him under sedation I would have to use force, and I could not extricate myself from the fear that perhaps this was the wrong thing to do. After all, his metabolism obviously was very
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