The Biographer's Tale

by A. S. Byatt

  It is odd that he recorded all this in what appears to have been his first letter to B.

  Card no. 22

  “When I saw the stiff and lifeless body, the livid, pale and foam-flecked lips; when I thought of the loss of so old and excellent a friend and remembered the sleepless nights, the laborious days, the journeys, the midnight hours of exhausting study which had preceded his attainment of that learning in which he had no rival to fear—then I burst into tears. And when I foresaw that all this scholarship, which should have earned immortality for him and glory for his country, would perish with his death, then the love which I still felt for my friend commanded that the pledge we had once made—that the survivor would give to the world the observations of the other—must be honoured.”

  A. was drowned in a canal in Amsterdam on 27th September 1735 after a convivial evening with Seba. A few days earlier, he had read to CL all he had so far written of his book on ichthyology, keeping CL up almost all night—his usual habit was to go to the tavern from three to nine, to work from nine to three in the night, and to sleep from three till noon. CL wrote of their last, intense discussion:—“He kept me long, too long, unendurably long (which was unlike our usual practice) but had I known that it was to be our last talk together I would have wished it even longer.” A. was only 29 when he drowned. CL described him as “the ornament and glory of his nation!” He wrote, “Thus too early did Fate pluck this unique genius! Thus did the most distinguished of ichthyologists perish in the waters, having devoted his life to the discovery of their inhabitants!…”

  Card no. 23 [Thursday, April 14th 1840]

  I went in a Steam Boat to Putney to see the Oxford and Cambridge rowing match. As we were returning, very fast and with the tide, through Battersea Bridge, we ran foul of the middle pier. I, who was behind the paddle-box, saw how we were going just before we struck, and caught tight hold of one of the paddle-box steps, expecting a general smash and determined to have a swim for it. Well, the body of the packet cleared, but the paddle-box, behind which I was, came full crash against the sides of the arch. It split open just before me by the shock. I was thrown head foremost through the cleft, right amongst the paddle wheels, which were still going round, they not having touched the pier … Well, this regularly stunned me. Thank heavens my neck was not broken in the wheel. (Escape no. 1.) I was quite insensible, and how I cleared the bridge I have not the slightest conception. I must have been beaten down by the paddle wheels beneath the bottom of the boat—and fortunately enough, otherwise I must have been jammed between it and the pier and of course squashed. That makes Escape no. 2. Well, as I said, I was insensible, and when I knew where I was, I found myself under a large piece of wood which proved to be the outer side of the paddle-box … I of course gave myself up, but determined to have a regular push for life … I did not sink I daresay a foot below the surface, but I got entangled in some long bits of wood, which as I was all but spent nearly drowned me, and when I got to the surface they were too heavy to give me any real support, so I looked round, and saw the side of the paddle-box, which had before been so much in my way, floating down with the tide. I struck out and soon reached it—and I did feel happy. I climbed on to it and it was a perfect raft. (Escape no. 3.) On looking about me I found that the steamer was 300 yards or so in front and could not stir … Well, I was in the midst of the river, plenty of boats and watermen were at the shore, those nice dear fellows who when they see you struggling, look on, and never dream of rowing to you till you are either safe or dead—yes, and if safe, they swear they saved your life, march off to the Royal Humane Society and get a gold medal for their pains, with a long paragraph in The Times about “unparalleled bravery,” and so forth. Well, after waving my hat, for I don’t know how long, off some half-dozen came in a body. I was pulled into a boat and felt very seedy, I was dizzy and very sick. However, to put the captain out of his fright, I took an oar, declared nothing was the matter with me and pulled mechanically.

  I was so dizzy that I scarce knew what I did. On getting to the packet everybody looked horrified, one or two ladies held up their handkerchiefs before their eyes. I couldn’t make out what at, but on getting ashore and to an inn, with a looking-glass I found my face, ears and whiskers, shirt etc. all covered with blood. One nail had hooked me by the side of the nose, another had “carved” out my face and I had as many cuts on my ear as a Christmas pig. I got to bed, half dried clothes and walked to London. Now don’t fancy I am ill. I took enough calomel and salts to do anything, and except a rather torn face and broken head, I really have nothing the matter with me … I have gained great glory by my splashes under water and it is a very good tale to tell—at least when the pain goes off. I now know something of what drowning is—I felt no pain, but rather dreamy—and I also know what my feeling will be when I am dying, as I firmly believed I was then.

  Cards 24 and 25 were copied out (I supposed they were copied out. It was clear to me that 23 was copied from somewhere, and 22 was a mixture of copying and reporting) in a Scandinavian language I couldn’t read. It could have been Swedish—Linnaeus—or Norwegian—Ibsen. The word Maelstrøm occurred, also the words Arcturus, Boreas, and Pisces. This caused me to suppose that these were quotations from Linnaeus—and they were, moreover, the first solid evidence I had had—almost solid evidence—that Destry-Scholes pursued his Scandinavian researches in the original languages. It is possible, of course that he copied the originals, as I copied his copies, with the intention of procuring translations. It occurred to me that Providence, or Fate, had presented me with a translator just when I needed one. I would send the cards to Fulla Biefeld for identification and translation. I would also send the description of the death of A (whom I soon identified as Petrus Artedi, Linnaeus’s student friend, the originator of many of the classificatory systematics which Linnaeus used, or adapted).

  Card no. 26

  It has happened to me more than once to be nearly suffocated, and to have been surprised at the absence of that gasping desire for air that one feels when the breath is suddenly checked. A very little seems sufficient to divert attention from that desire, and to leave the sense only of being ill and on the point of swooning. My chief experiences may seem hardly credible; they were due to a fancy of mine to obtain distinct vision when diving. The convex eyeball stamps a concave lens in the water, whose effect has to be neutralised by a convex lens. This has to be very “strong,” because the refractive power of a lens is greatly diminished by immersion in water. My first experiment was in a bath, using the two objectives of my opera-glass in combination, and with some success. I then had spectacles made for me, which I described at the British Association in 1865. With these I could read the print of a newspaper perfectly under water, when it was held at the exact distance of clear vision, but the range of clear vision was small. I amused myself very frequently with this new hobby, and being most interested in the act of reading, constantly forgot that I was nearly suffocating myself, and was recalled to the fact not by any gasping desire for breath, but purely by a sense of illness, that alarmed me. It disappeared immediately after raising the head out of water and inhaling two or three good whiffs of air.

  Card no. 27

  PEER: What a storm!

  STRANGE PASSENGER: Yes! Beautiful!

  PEER: Beautiful?

  SP: The waves are running as high as houses. It makes my mouth water. Think of the wrecks There will be tonight. Think of the corpses drifting ashore.

  PEER: God preserve us!

  SP: Have you ever seen a man strangled?

  Or hanged—or drowned?

  PEER: What—

  SP: They laugh; but their laughter is forced.

  Most of them bite out their tongues.

  PEER: Get away from me!

  SP: Just one question. Suppose we, for example

  Should strike on a rock, and sink in the darkness—

  PEER: You think there is a danger—?

  SP: I don’t really know what I ough
t to say.

  But suppose now, I should float and you should sink—

  PEER: Oh rubbish—!

  SP: It’s just a hypothesis.

  But when a man stands with one foot in the grave

  He sometimes tends to be generous—

  PEER: [Puts his hand in his pocket.] Oh, money—

  SP: No, no. But if you would be so kind

  As to bequeath me your valuable body—

  PEER: What!

  SP: Only your corpse, you understand.

  To help my researches—

  PEER: Go away!

  SP: But, my dear sir, consider. It’s to your advantage.

  I’ll open you up and let in the light.

  I want to discover the source of your dreams.

  I want to find out how you’re put together—

  PEER: Away!

  SP: But my dear sir! A drowned body—!

  PEER: Blasphemous man!

  You’re provoking the storm. Are you out of your mind?

  Look at the sea! These waves are like mountains!

  At any moment we may be killed.

  And you’re acting as though you can hardly wait for it.

  SP: I see you’re not in a mood for discussion.

  But time, they say, changes everything.

  We’ll meet when you’re sinking, if not before.

  Perhaps you’ll be more in the humour, then.

  [Goes into cabin.]

  PEER: Horrible fellows these scientists are!

  You damned freethinker!

  I am not quite sure in what order to recount the next few parts of my tale, as I find that my memory for exact sequences is faultier than I would wish. I feel a desire in myself—an aesthetic desire—to punctuate my assimilation of Destry-Scholes’s shoeboxes (for I began to try to make sense of the photographs as well as of the cards, with some success, as will be seen) with my encounters with the Strange Customer. It shows at least that I was now leading two lives—three, if you count Ormerod Goode as separate from the card index. I had not told him of my latest discovery. I was saving it up. Four, in fact, if you count Fulla Biefeld, in Oxford. I cannot now remember how often I went back to Willesden. A feeling of panic—that I must get a record of the cards before Vera Alphage grew bored or resentful—was replaced by a calm rhythm of consecutive work, as I came to see that she enjoyed my presence there, and even looked forward to my visits. At around this time, Erik and Christophe took off for an exploration of the northern islands of Japan. They left me in charge—I worked four, instead of two, days a week. This meant that my visits to Willesden took place in the evenings. Yes, that is how it was, at that time.

  The Strange Customer asked me if I had favourite Web sites. I spoke of various useful travelling ones, hotel chains, art historical troves, etcetera. He said that was not what he meant. He said he would leave me a list of the ones he and Pym (or Pim) had found particularly helpful. I thanked him. He offered me a cigar. He had one of those curious little implements which nick a small hole in the top of a cigar. It had a very small, very sharp little pronging blade. I said I didn’t smoke. Maurice Bossey said, levelly and expressionlessly, that I didn’t do much, did I? I said I would try to help him if he would be a little more explicit about what he wanted. (Did I really say that? Yes, I did, I remember clearly, some memories ingrain themselves like light on photographic film.) He said he was glad that I intended to be helpful, or the reputation of Puck’s Girdle might have been thought to be at stake. He smoked his fat cigar at me—burning cigar-tobacco has an element of rot in it, I find, an element of burning something already stale and decaying—and I asked him not to, as I am asthmatic. He referred to my “poor little lungs” and puffed more and closer, coils and clouds of dark, thick fume. (No, I am doing too much writing now. Cross that out? Leave it for the moment.) (Anyway, it was fume, and it was in coils.)

  He opened his wallet and produced a very fine paper that contained nothing but a series of Web addresses.

  “Try those,” he said, “as a stimulus to a sluggish imagination. Your dear employers are altogether quicker, I’m sure …” He considered me.

  “There’s not very much of you, is there? Do they take you along with them, ever? Are you part of the crew, so to speak?”

  “I mind the shop,” I told him.

  “Well, don’t mind it with too tight lips,” he said. “Allow a few things to get out or go in. A smile, a chuckle, a bit of information, a snippet of gossip from time to time.”

  I said I didn’t know any gossip.

  He said he was dreadfully afraid that might be true.

  Cards 21–26 I called in my mind the “drowning and autopsy cluster.” Fulla Biefeld wrote back very promptly in answer to my queries, and said that the cards I had sent her were related to Linnaeus. One described his theory that swallows spent the winters under water, under the ice in deep lakes (a theory, she told me, very widespread at the time). The other was a contemporary description of the death of Peter Artedi, who had wandered into an unfenced canal in Amsterdam in an inebriated state, and had been identified in the mortuary by Carolus Linné. Artedi, Fulla Biefeld said, was a person of much greater intelligence than Linnaeus himself, and his classification of the umbelliferae, published by Linnaeus after his death, had been a model for much of Linnaeus’s own work. His system was also thought of, by our own contemporaries, despite having known nothing (of course) about evolution, as an ancestor of cladism, the classification of species by phylogeny, in which each named taxon should have a unique evolutionary history. He was more rigorous and less fanciful than Linnaeus, said Fulla Biefeld. His death at twenty-nine was a long time ago. What exactly was I trying to find out? Scientists could not understand people like me who spent their time on past errors and culs-de-sac, however amusing. She enclosed an article on the effects of the blanket use of pesticides and weedkiller in certain Californian orchards. Such studies should be being carried out in East Anglia, in Bavaria, in Spain, and they were not. She was happy to give me any more help I needed.

  My next definitive cluster—starting with card 42, but with some gaps this time, and some uncertainties of classification, might be called “hybrids and mixtures.” It begins with the Hydra of Hamburg.

  Card no. 42

  The seven-headed hydra belonged to the Burgomaster of Hamburg. It had been looted by Count Königsmark in 1648, after the Battle of Prague, from the altar of a local church. Albert Seba, Artedi’s patron, published a drawing of the hydra or seven-headed serpent in the first volume of his Thesaurus of Natural History. CL, taken by Kohl to see the creature, at once detected the fake. He found that the jaws and clawed feet were those of weasels, and that the body had been covered with snake-skins neatly joined and glued. That the creature had seven heads was in itself enough, in his opinion, to establish the fraud. “Good God,” he cried, “who never put more than one clear thought [tanke] in any of Thy created bodies!” He presumed that the hydra had been manufactured by monks as a representation of an Apocalyptic beast, and makes no mention of Greek mythology.

  The Burgomaster had for some time past been trying to sell his hydra and had at first asked an enormous sum for it. It was said that the King of Denmark had made an unsuccessful bid of 30,000 thalers; but latterly the price had been steadily dropping, and when L tactlessly made public his discovery, it fell to nothing at all. Fearing the vengeance of the Burgomaster he thought fit to leave Hamburg forthwith. On 16 May 1735 they went to Altona, from where they embarked in a small two-masted ship for Amsterdam (one ducat per head).

  Card no. 43

  When CL was visiting the Jussieu brothers in Paris in 1737 he accompanied them and their students on botanical hunts. One of the brothers constructed a spurious flower out of fragments of various other specimens, and asked him to name it. He, sharp of eye and quick of wit, was not at all deceived by what was, after all, a common enough student pleasantry. He answered urbanely that the student should consult Jussieu—“since only Jussieu or God could
name the plant.”

  Cards 44 and 45 were both in Swedish. I sent copies of these, too, off to Fulla Biefeld. I give her answers now, since I am not writing to any strict consecutive chronology, and since they reinforce my decision to call this the “hybrid” cluster. The first turned out to concern Linnaeus’s experimental creation of the first fertile plant hybrid—(Tragopogon pratensis x T. porrifolius) and his description in De Sexu Plantarum (1760) of his manipulation of the flowers of Mirabilis, Cannabis and other species, by cutting off the stamens, binding paper round the pistils, etc. in order to confirm the basic principle of botany—that pollination—pollen on the stigma of the pistil—was necessary if the seeds were to ripen.

  Fulla Biefeld added, on her own initiative, that many of the plant hybrids identified by Linnaeus were nothing of the kind. He believed, she told me, that both animals and plants consisted of two substances—pith (or marrow) and bark, medulla and cortex, of which the pith/marrow was inner, the bearer of vital and generative powers, whilst the bark stood for the “outer,” primarily the nutritive faculty. The pith/marrow stood for the female in reproduction (the pistil in plants), the bark corresponded to the “male principle” (the stamens).

  Fulla Biefeld was scornful (or perhaps simply dismissive) about these theories. Linnaeus had come, she said, to tell his disciples that the will resided in the female principle, the ability to expand and contract. In this context he cited the one-celled amoeba, the “lowest of all creatures” (Volvox Chaos dicta), which was “pure marrow” and hence could assume all conceivable shapes.