The Casebook of Victor Frankenstein (36 page)

“No country ever can be,” he replied. “But I live in infinite hope.”

The five of us were comfortably accommodated in the vehicle, and there was a stair to a seat on the roof in case any of us should prefer the air. Lizzie and Fred were engaged in an
elaborate charade of unconcern; they did not speak to each other, nor even glance at one another. Fred sat next to me, by the window in one corner of the carriage, looking out at the passing landscape; Lizzie sat beside Mary, in the opposite corner, busily engaged in the same pastime. The landscape was uniform enough in this part of Holland, with the occasional dwelling or village that might have been drawn by the pen of Van Ruysdael—except for the fact that they were invariably dirty, ill-kept and unrepaired. I pointed this out to Bysshe, who preferred to dwell with rapture on the view of the Alps that we would find at our destination. “Humankind needs grandeur and solitariness,” he said. “Not these placid pastures.”

“There is much to be said for quietness,” I replied.

“It is the quietness of decay,” he said. “The spirit of the age has passed on. Now it belongs to the hero, to the individual soul facing its destiny.” Then he began to quote from one of his own poems, declaiming the words out of the carriage window as we passed through one Dutch hamlet:

“I saw not, heard not, moved not, only felt

His presence flow and mingle through my blood

Till it became his life, and his grew mine
,

And I was thus absorbed, until it passed.”

Our journey continued across Holland, and at last we ascended the road towards Cologne. The air was fresher here, close to the Eifel mountains, and we were entertained by fresh prospects of heath and forest. I knew the juniper and the beech from my childhood days, but I had never known them to grow
in such profusion: here, too, were great outcrops of stone that are a sure token of the mountains beyond. We rested in Cologne, in a small lodging house close to the principal square. “I will not visit the cathedral,” Bysshe announced. “I detest cathedrals. They are monuments to pain and folly. They are tributes to superstition. Cold and gloomy places.”

“You will walk with me through the markets,” Mary replied. “The prosperity of the people will not disturb you.”

“Not at all. Trade is a great solvent in the eventual union of mankind. It is a general blessing.” So we set out, on the following morning, on a tour through the mercantile districts of Cologne close to the river. The old merchants’ houses there reminded me of Geneva, and I was seized by a fervent longing to return to the place of my birth. I consented willingly, therefore, when Bysshe proposed that we take a boat upon the Rhine as far as Strasbourg. From there we would hire a coach to Geneva itself.

My native tongue was now of use, and I bargained with the captain of a barge; his main trade was in conveying cloths from the East to the markets of Cologne and elsewhere, and he was about to return to Strasbourg after delivering a large consignment. Our route would take us through Mainz and Mannheim before reaching our destination. We purchased cold provisions, and made ourselves pretty comfortable for a journey that would last several days. Mary was in high spirits as we set off from the jetty at Cologne. “It is believed,” she said, “that the Rhine and the Thames were conjoined in some distant age of the earth. They formed one mighty river.”

“That is Thomas Burnet’s theory,” Bysshe replied. “How can it ever be proved?”

“Poets need no proof, Bysshe. You always laud the power of the imagination. Of intuition.”

“True, Mary dear. I declare this to be the Thames. We are sailing past Oxford on our way to Richmond and the Tower!”

We made steady progress along the Rhine, and I must say that I marvelled at the landscape; along some stretches of the river were extensive vineyards and gently sloping hills, where the virtues of calm nature were preserved. But these were succeeded by rugged mounts, and crags, and precipices, where castles had been erected among rocks and torrents. “There,” said Bysshe, pointing to one of them, “is tyranny visible. Every stone is fashioned out of blood. It is built upon foundations of suffering.”

Mary sat at the prow of the boat, looking eagerly ahead as we made our way. “The spirit of this place is more friendly than you suppose, Bysshe,” she said. “It is more intimate with humankind. Do you not see? How much more harmonious than those mountain peaks and abysses you praise so highly! This landscape is touched by the human spirit.”

“Please, Miss, but your hair is unloosed.” Lizzie spoke out from the middle of the boat. “Are you wishing me to fix it?”

“No, Lizzie. In the open boat we are free.”

“It will hang down awful,” the girl replied.

Bysshe laughed. “By all means see to the appearance of your mistress, Lizzie. She is now a married woman.”

I had moved to the stern of the barge, where a small wooden bench had been set up. Fred sat down beside me and whispered, “Lizzie is very bold, sir. Talking to the mistress like that.”

“Is she bold in other matters, Fred?”

“I don’t talk to her. I don’t look at her. I don’t consider her.”

“You must not be so bashful.”

“Ma warned me about London girls. That Lizzie comes from Bethnal Green.”

“How do you know that?”

“Mr. Shelley told me so. He said that she had been rescued by the mistress.” He needed to say no more.

WE MADE GOOD PROGRESS
up the Rhine. By day we passed several populous villages, as well as the fields and vineyards tended by labourers; by night I could hear the soughing of the wind in the trees mixed with the distant bells and the calls of the wolves resounding in the woods. Never had the world seemed so vivid to me. The new poetry of nature, which Bysshe extolled, seemed then to settle in my bosom.

Nevertheless I was overjoyed to reach Strasbourg. It marked the end of our river journey, and the latest milestone on our progress to my home town. The landscape by degrees had now become more rugged and more majestic, filled with intimations of the grandeur of the Alpine region that we would soon be entering. We hired a carriage to Geneva as soon as we reached the market square of Strasbourg, and before long we were upon the highway to Switzerland. I rejoiced in the sight of my native country, where every prospect reminded me of my happy infancy. I remarked to Bysshe with pride that here the inns were clean and wholesome. He concurred, and commented also upon the bracing air of the region. “It sustains the soul,” he said. “We are living in the higher realms.”

My first sight of Geneva elevated my spirits to the utmost degree: here I could return to what I might call my native
innocency. My visits to the hallowed spots where my father and sister lay buried would serve to strengthen me against any calamity, and my walks in the familiar forests would restore my calm. These, at least, were my expectations. I ordered the coachman to drive us directly to the Villa Diodati, where Byron had already installed himself. It was beside the lake, surrounded by a large garden that sloped down to the water; I remembered it well, having as a boy roamed through the neighbourhood. We had come off the principal avenue that skirted the lake, and were with considerable difficulty manoeuvring our way down the narrow road that led to the villa, when suddenly Byron was striding beside us. “I glimpsed you from the balcony,” he said. “Only you would arrive in a Strasbourg carriage.”

We were soon tumbling out of the vehicle onto the lawn. Byron embraced Mary with the greeting of
“Bonjour
, Madame Shelley!” Then he shook hands with Bysshe and myself. “You are on home ground, Mr. Frankenstein,” he said to me. “Do not forget to worship the Penates of this house. You will bring us good fortune.”

I was about to reply, when Dr. Polidori emerged from the far side of the lawn. I cannot say that I was pleased to see him. “William is here to minister to me,” Byron said. “But he spends his days reading beneath the trees. I have warned him against the study of books, but he will not listen to me.” I could see all around me the wild rhododendron and mountain roses I had known as a child; the air was very still, and the surface of the lake unruffled. I knew that in this region the twilight was of short duration, and I could sense the arrival of dusk and the night. “This gentleman,” Byron said, looking up at the driver,
“is in desperate need of being paid. Pray do so. The servants will take in your bags.”

We were soon comfortably ensconced in the villa. My own room overlooked the garden and the lake, and in the gathering darkness I could see the feeble lights of the villages on the further shore. There were sounds of shouting, and of a general commotion, coming from somewhere in the distance; but I paid little regard to them. I was too much in thrall to the spell of this place, and to the force of my own old memories.

“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?”