Read Online Frankenstein Unbound by Brian Aldiss - Free Book Online Page B

talk literature, y’know—I’d as leave hear news of America, parts of which still linger in the Carboniferous Age, I understand.” As I was about to open my mouth like a fish, the outer door swung open and in bounced two hounds, followed by a slender young man shaking raindrops from his head. He scattered water about from a blue cap he carried, while the dogs sent flurries of water everywhere. In the half-hour I had spent with Lord Byron, I had forgotten that it was again raining steadily.
    Byron jumped up with a roar and offered the newcomer a plaid rug on which to dry his hair. The roar made the dogs scatter, barking, and a manservant to appear. The servant banished the dogs and threw logs into the great tiled stove before which we had been sitting.
    It was plain how pleased the two men were to see each other. The patter that passed between them spoke of an easy familiarity, and was so fast and allusive that I could hardly follow it.
    “I seem to have a veritable serpentine in my locks,” said the newcomer, still shedding water and laughing wildly.
    “Did I not say last night that you were serpent-licked, and Mary agreed? Now you are serpent-locked!”
    “Then forgive me while I discharge my serpentine!” he said while toweling vigorously.
    “I’ll do my duty by a yet older form. Um —‘Ambo florentes aetatibus, Arcades ambo ...’”
    “Capital! And it’s a motto that would serve for us both, Albé, even if our Arcadia is liable to flood!”
    Byron had his glass in his hand. In the excitement, the sheet of paper that had lain beneath the glass fluttered to the floor. I picked it up. My action recalled my presence to him. Taking my arm as if in apology for a moment’s neglect, Byron said, “My dear Bodenland, you must be acquainted with my fellow reprobate and exile.” So I was introduced to Percy Bysshe Shelley.
    Yes, Byron introduced me to Shelley. From that moment on, my severance with the old modes of reality was complete.
    The younger man was immediately all confusion, like a girl. He was habited youthfully, in black jacket and trousers, over which he had a dripping cape. The blue cap he tossed to the floor in order to grasp my hand. He gave me a dazzling smile. Shelley was all electricity where Byron was all beef—if I can say that without implying lack of admiration for Byron. He was taller than Byron, but stooped slightly, whereas Byron’s demeanor was almost soldierly at times. He was pimply, bony, beardless, but absolutely animated.
    “How d’you do, Mr. Bodenland, you are in time to listen to a little revision!” He pulled a paper from his pocket and began to read a poem, assuming a somewhat falsetto voice.
“Some say that gleams of a remoter world
    Visit the soul in sleep—that death’s a slumber,
    And that its shapes the busy thoughts outnumber
    Of those who wake and live! I look on high—”
    Byron clapped his hands to interrupt. “Sorry, I disagree with those sentiments! Hark to my immortal answer—
“When Time, or soon or late, shall bring
    The dreamless sleep that lulls the dead—
    Then your remoter worlds, old thing,
    Will lie extinguished in your head!
    “Forgive my coarse and characteristic interruption! But don’t work the poet business so hard. I don’t need convincing! Either you are a worse poet than I, in which case I’m bored—or you’re better, when I’m jealous!”
    “I compete only with myself, Albé, not with you,” Shelley said. But he tucked his manuscript away with a good grace. Albé was the nickname they had for Byron.
    “That game’s too easy for you! You always excel yourself,” Byron said kindly, as if anxious that he might have hurt Shelley’s feelings. “Come on, have some wine, and there’s laudanum on the chimney piece if you need it. Mr. Bodenland was about to tell me of some tremendous thing that cheered him recently!”
    Shelley sat close, pushing away the wine, and looked into my face. “Is that indeed so? Did you see a ray of