Страница 57 из 67
19
“THE SERVANTS TELL ME,” Byron said as we sat down to breakfast on the following morning, “that a sea monster has been glimpsed in the lake. Surely that is a contradiction?”
“What kind of monster?” Bysshe asked.
“I presume one monster is very like another. I have read of the great serpents that inhabit the deep, but they were never clearly described. But now I have it.” Byron put down his fork. “This is what we will do. We will launch an expedition across the lake. We will hunt the monster! It will be an escapade!”
“Is that wise?” Mary was visibly perplexed.
“If I did what was wise, I would do nothing at all. My boat is properly rigged, if that is what you mean.”
“No. I meant that to chase a serpent-”
“There is no serpent, Mrs. Shelley. I am quite confident of that. But it will be an adventure. We will stand forth as the Argonauts, braving the waves to hunt down a legendary creature. It will be splendid.”
I stayed silent throughout this exchange but, after the meal was over, I agreed to go with them in the two-sailed skiff that Byron had purchased in Geneva. Mary declined the voyage preferring, as she said, to observe the myriad lizards that inhabited the southern wall of the garden. “I prefer my monsters to be diminutive,” she said.
So we set forth, stirred by Byron’s high spirits, on the bosom of the lake. We made for the further shore, so that we might see the setting of the Villa Diodati against the background of the mountains: the prospect was one I knew well, but Bysshe and Polidori professed themselves enchanted. Beyond the banks were slopes of vines, with a number of other villas and gardens situated amongst them. Behind these were the various ridges of black mountains, and towering behind them all was Mont Blanc itself hiding its summit among clouds. The lake was as blue as the sky, with sundry gleamings and twinklings in the varied light of the morning. I looked down into the water, the clearness of which allowed me to see the pebbles in its depths and the occasional shoals of small fish forming and reforming in a galvanic dance. All was pure and limpid. I let my hand trail in the water for a moment.
Suddenly Byron began to sing-or, rather, to wail one high note which echoed across the water. Then he broke into laughter. “That is my Albanian song,” he said. “I learned it from the tribesmen themselves. It is a wild howl, is it not? It may lure the sea-serpent from its lair.” We made our way across the lake, moving steadily further from the shore; Shelley and Polidori were debating the relative merits of Alexander and Napoleon, when our attention was arrested by shouts and calls on the northern bank. A group of people had assembled on an outcrop of rock that jutted into the water, and were pointing towards the middle of the lake. Much to my consternation Byron gave out a whoop of joy, or of excitement, and began steering the craft in that direction. “The good citizens,” he shouted, “have seen some wonder. We must investigate.”
A bank of dark cloud had come down from the mountains, driven by one of those sudden strong winds that are so common in the region; Byron and Bysshe paid no attention to the change in the weather but looked intently ahead. “There is something,” Bysshe exclaimed impatiently. “We must reach it. Over there.” I saw nothing but the black glint of the increasingly turbulent water. “Do you see it now, Byron?”
“I see a shape,” he replied. “It has a peculiar movement. It seems to be writhing in the water.”
“It is the unusual light of the lake,” I told them. “It casts unfamiliar shadows.”
We sailed onward. And then there came upon us a sudden squall, ferocious, that rocked the boat almost to overturning. I had of course heard often of these lacustrine storms, erupting and subsiding in minutes, but I had never before experienced one of them. Then, most strangely, the boat began to turn in increasingly smaller circles; the wind had taken its sails and was spi
The sudden squall presaged a greater storm. When we arrived at the villa, some hours later, the sky had already grown very dark. Mary and Lizzie had been seated in the garden, marvelling at the clouds, but now retreated with us indoors. “It was the most extraordinary sensation,” Byron was telling Mary as we entered the drawing room. “The boat tossed and turned upon the water as if it had no weight at all. I could sense the savage power of nature. It is capricious, like a woman. How I would enjoy being consumed by her!”
“Nature is an action, not an attitude,” Polidori said. “It has no personal intent.”
“You do not truly believe that,” Byron told him. “You think you are right. But you know that you are wrong.”
“On the contrary. My knowledge and belief coincide. Ah. Here is tea.” Lizzie had brought in a copper kettle to place on the fire.
“It is remarkable,” Bysshe said, “that the heat of our bodies has wholly dried our clothes. I was soaked through to the skin. Each of us must have a furnace within.”
“Energy,” I said. “Electrical energy. It pulsates in every living thing. It is the life force.”
“Is that,” Polidori asked me, with the trace of a smile, “the same thing as the human spirit?”
“Oh, no. I think not. That concerns itself with values and with morals. The electrical pulse is purely energy. It is blind force.”
“But energy can be joyous,” Bysshe said. “An infant laughs, does it not?”
“The infant is experiencing life,” I replied. “That is all. It has neither virtue nor vice. It laughs or cries on an instinct. Instinct does not possess qualities.”
At that moment there was a peal of thunder. Bysshe laughed. “You have the elements on your side, Victor. They applaud you. The season of darkness begins.”
“The thunder is electrical too, is it not?” Mary asked me. She was taking up the kettle with a cloth, and pouring the boiling water into a pot. “How is the energy of nature to be distinguished from the electrical force within the body?”
“It is not. It is not different in essentials. It animates all matter. Even the stones in the garden can be electrified.”
“We are surrounded by it, then?”
“I am afraid so. Yes.”
“Why be afraid?” Byron asked me. “What is there to fear in the primal nature of the world?”
It had grown quite dark, and Lizzie busied herself with lighting candles. It was a large drawing room, stretching from the front to the back of the house, and some portions of it were still in shadow. “On such a night as this,” Bysshe told us, “we must amuse ourselves after di