Vampyre' and Other Writings

by Polidori, John William; Bishop, Franklin Charles;

26 May After breakfast, and having made up the accounts to-day, and having heard that the voituriers made a claim of drink-money all the way back, we ordered a calèche; but, happening to go into the garden, we saw a boat, into which entering, we pushed out upon the Leman Lake. After rowing some time, happening to come to the ferry, we found the waiter with a direful look to tell us that it was pris pour un monsieur Anglais, who happened to be ______. We got another, and went out to bathe.

  I rode first with LB upon the field of Waterloo; walked first to see Churchill’s tomb; bathed and rowed first on the Leman Lake. – It did as much good. Dined; entered the calèche; drove through Geneva, where I saw an effect of building that pleased me: it was porticoes from the very roof of the high houses to the bottom.

  Went to the house beyond Cologny that belonged to Diodati. They ask five-and-twenty louis for it a month. Narrow, not true. The view from his house is very fine; beautiful lake; at the bottom of the crescent is Geneva. Returned. Pictet called, but LB said ‘not at home’.

  27 May Got up; went about a boat; got one for 3fr. a day: rowed to Sécheron. Breakfasted. Got into a carriage. Went to Banker’s, who changed our money, and afterwards left his card. To Pictet – not at home. Home, and looked at accounts: bad temper on my side. Went into a boat, rowed across to Diodati; cannot have it for three years; English family. Crossed again; I went; LB back. Getting out, LB met M Wollstonecraft Godwin, her sister, and Percy Shelley. I got into the boat into the middle of Leman Lake, and there lay my length, letting the boat go its way.

  Found letter from De Roche inviting me to breakfast to-morrow; curious with regard to LB. Dined; PS, the author of Queen Mab, came; bashful, shy, consumptive; twenty-six; separated from his wife; keeps the two daughters of Godwin, who practise his theories; one LB’s.

  Into the calèche; horloger’s at Geneva; LB paid 15 nap. Towards a watch; I, 13: repeater and minute-hand; foolish watch.

  Went to see the house of Madame Necker, 100 a half-year; came home, etc.

  28 May Went to Geneva, to breakfast with Dr De Roche; acute, sensible, a listener to himself; good clear head. Told me that armies on their march induce a fever (by their accumulation of animal dirt, irregular regimen) of the most malignant typhoid kind; it is epidemic. There was a whole feverish line from Moscow to Metz, and it spread at Geneva the only almost epidemic typhus for many years. He is occupied in the erection of Lancaster schools, which he says succeed well. He is a Louis Bourbonist. He told me my fever was not an uncommon one among travellers. He came home with me, and we had a chat with LB; chiefly politics, where of course we differed. He had a system well worked out, but I hope only hypothetical, about liberty of the French being Machiavellianly not desirable by Europe. He pointed out Dumont in the court, the rédacteur of Bentham.

  Found a letter from Necker to the hotel-master, asking 100 nap. for three months; and another from Pictet inviting LB and any friend to go with him at 8 to Madame Einard, a connection of his. We then, ascending our car, went to see some other house, none suiting.

  When we returned home, Mr Percy Shelley came in to ask us to dinner; declined; engaged for to-morrow. We walked with him, and got into his boat, though the wind raised a little sea upon the lake. Dined at four. Mr Hentsch, the banker, came in; very polite; told LB that, when he saw him yesterday, he had not an idea that he was speaking to one of the most famous lords of England.

  Dressed and went to Pictet’s: an oldish man, about forty-six, tall, well-looking, speaks English well. His daughter showed us a picture, by a young female artist, of Madame Lavallière in the chapel; well executed in pencil – good lights and a lusciously grieving expression.

  Went to Madame Einard. Introduced to a room where about 8 (afterwards 20), 2 ladies (1 more), LB’s name was alone mentioned; mine, like a star in the halo of the moon, invisible. LB not speaking French, M. Einard spoke bad Italian. A Signor Rossi came in, who had joined Murat at Bologna. Manly in thought; admired Dante as a poet more than Ariosto, and a discussion about manliness in a language. Told me Geneva women amazingly chaste even in thoughts. Saw the Lavallière artist. A bonny, rosy, seventy-yeared man, called Bonstetten, the beloved of Gray and the correspondent of Mathison.

  Madame Einard made tea, and left all to take sugar with the fingers. Madame Einard showed some historical pieces of her doing in acquerella, really good, a little too French-gracish. Obliged to leave before ten for the gate shut. Came home, went to bed.

  Was introduced by Shelley to Mary Wollstonecraft Godwin, called here Mrs Shelley. Saw picture by Madame Einard of a cave in the Jura where in winter there is no ice, in summer plenty. No names announced, no ceremony – each speaks to whom he pleases. Saw the bust of Jean Jacques erected upon the spot where the Geneva magistrates were shot. LB said it was probably built of some of the stones with which they pelted him. The walk is deserted. They are now mending their roads. Formerly they could not, because the municipal money always went to the public box.

  29 May Went with Mr Hentsch to see some houses along the valley in which runs the Rhone: nothing. Dined with Mr and Mrs Percy Shelley and Wollstonecraft Godwin. Hentsch told us that the English last year exported corn to Italy to a great amount.

  30 May Got up late. Went to Mr and Mrs Shelley; breakfasted with them; rowed out to see a house together. S went from Lucerne with the two, with merely £26, to England along the Rhine in bateaux. Gone through much misery, thinking he was dying; married a girl for the mere sake of letting her have the jointure that would accrue to her; recovered; found he could not agree; separated; paid Godwin’s debts, and seduced his daughter; then wondered that he would not see him. The sister left the father to go with the other. Got a child. All clever, and no meretricious appearance. He is very clever: the more I read his Queen Mab, the more beauties I find. Published at fourteen a novel; got £30 for it; by his second work £100. Mab not published. – Went in calèche with LB to see a house; again after dinner to leave cards; then on lake with LB. I, Mrs S, and Miss G, on to the lake till nine. Drank tea, and came away at 11 after confabbing. The batelier went to Shelley, and asked him as a favour not to tell LB what he gave for his boat, as he thought it quite fit that Milord’s payment be double; we sent Berger to say we did not wish for a boat.

  31 May Breakfasted with Shelley; read Italian with Mrs S; dined; went into a boat with Mrs S, and rowed all night till 9; tea’d together; chatted, etc.

  1 June Breakfasted with S; entered a calèche; took Necker’s house for 100 louis for 8 or 365 days. Saw several houses for Shelley; one good. Dined; went in the boat; all tea’d together.

  Rogers the subject: LB thinks good poet; malicious. Marquis of Lansdowne being praised by a whole company as a happy man, having all good, R said, ‘But how horridly he carves turbot!’ Ward having reviewed his poems in the Quarterly, having a bad heart and being accused of learning his speeches, LB, upon malignantly hinting to him how he had been carved, heard him say: ‘I stopped his speaking though by my epigram, which is –

  ‘“Ward has no heart, they say, but I deny it;

  He has a heart, and gets his speeches by it.”’

  On LB writing a poem to his sister wherein he says, ‘And when friends e’en paused and love,’ etc., Rogers, going to some one, said; ‘I don’t know what LB means by pausing; I called upon him every day.’ He did this regularly, telling LB all the bad news with a malignant grin. When LB wrote ‘Weep, daughter of a royal line’, Rogers came to him one day, and, taking up the Courier, said: ‘I am sure now you’re attacked there; now don’t mind them’; and began reading, looking every now and then at LB with an anxious searching eye, till he came to ‘that little poet and disagreeable person, Mr Samuel –’ when he tore the paper, and said: ‘Now this must be that fellow Croker,’ and wished LB to challenge him. He talked of going to Cumberland with LB, and, asking him how he meant to travel, LB said ‘With four horses.’ Rogers went to company, and said: ‘It is strange to hear a man talking of four horses who seals his letters with a tallow can
dle.’

  Shelley is another instance of wealth inducing relations to confine for madness, and was only saved by his physician being honest. He was betrothed from a boy to his cousin, for age; another came who had as much as he would have, and she left him ‘because he was an atheist’. When starving, a friend to whom he had given £2000, though he knew it, would not come near him. Heard Mrs Shelley repeat Coleridge on Pitt, which persuades me he is a poet.

  A young girl of eighteen, handsome, dined within half-an-hour yesterday: buried to-day. Geneva is fortified – legumes growing in the fosses. – Went about linen and plate.

  2 June Breakfasted with Shelley. Read Tasso with Mrs Shelley. Took child for Vaccination.

  Found gates shut because of church-service. Went in search of Rossi. Saw a village where lads and lasses, soubrettes and soldiers, were dancing, to a tabor and drum, waltzes, cotillons, etc. Dr R not at home.

  Dined with S; went to the lake with them and LB. Saw their house; fine. Coming back, the sunset, the mountains on one side, a dark mass of outline on the other, trees, houses hardly visible, just distinguishable; a white light mist, resting on the hills around, formed the blue into a circular dome bespangled with stars only and lighted by the moon which gilt the lake. The dome of heaven seemed oval. At 10 landed and drank tea. Madness, Grattan, Curran, etc., subjects.

  3 June Went to Pictet’s on English day.

  4 June Went about Diodati’s house. Then to see Shelley, who, with Mrs Shelley, came over. Went in the evening to a musical society of about ten members at M. Odier’s; who read a very interesting memoir upon the subject of whether a physician should in any case tell a lover the health, or anything that, from being her physician, comes to his knowledge.

  Afterwards had tea and politics. Saw there a Dr Gardner, whom I carried home in the calèche. Odier invited me for every Wednesday.

  Came home. Went on the lake with Shelley and Lord Byron, who quarrelled with me.

  5 June At 12 went to Hentsch about Diodati; thence to Shelley’s. Read Tasso. Home in calèche. Dined with them in the public room: walked in the garden. Then dressed, and to Odier’s, who talked with me about somnambulism. Was at last seated, and conversed with some Génevoises: so so – too fine. Quantities of English; speaking amongst themselves, arms by their sides, mouths open and eyes glowing; might as well make a tour of the Isle of Dogs. Odier gave me yesterday many articles of Bibliothèque – translated and rédigés by himself, and to-day a manuscript on somnambulism.

  6 June At 1 up – breakfasted. With Lord Byron in the calèche to Hentsch, where we got the paper making us masters of Diodati for six months to November 1 for 125 louis.

  Thence to Shelley: back: dinner. To Shelley in boat: driven on shore: home. Looked over inventory and Berger’s accounts. Bed.

  7 June Up at ___. Pains in my loins and languor in my bones. Breakfasted – looked over inventory. Saw LB at dinner; wrote to my father and Shelley; went in the boat with LB; agreed with boatman for English boat. Told us Napoleon had caused him to get his children. Saw Shelley over again.

  8 June Up at 9; went to Geneva on horseback, and then to Diodati to see Shelley; back; dined; into the new boat – Shelley’s, – and talked, till the ladies’ brains whizzed with giddiness, about idealism. Back; rain; puffs of wind. Mistake.

  9 June Up by 1: breakfasted. Read Lucian. Dined. Did the same: tea’d. Went to Hentsch: came home. Looked at the moon, and ordered packing-up.

  10 June Up at 9. Got things ready for going to Diodati; settled accounts, etc. Left at 3; went to Diodati; went back to dinner, and then returned. Shelley etc. came to tea, and we sat talking till 11.

  My rooms are so:

  Picture-gallery

  Bedroom

  11 June Wrote home and to Pryse Gordon. Read Lucian. Went to Shelley’s; Shelley in the evening with us.

  12 June Rode to town. Subscribed to a circulating library, and went in the evening to Madame Odier. Found no one. Miss O, to make time pass, played the Ranz des Vaches – plaintive and warlike. People arrived. Had a confab with Dr O. about perpanism, etc. Began dancing: waltzes, cotillons, French country-dances and English ones: first time I shook my feet to French measure. Ladies all waltzed except the English: they looked on frowning. Introduced to Mrs Slaney: invited me for next night. You ask without introduction; the girls refuse those they dislike. Till 12. Went and slept at the Balance.

  13 June Rode home, and to town again. Went to Mrs Slaney: a ball. Danced and played at chess. Walked home in thunder and lightning: lost my way. Went back in search of some one – fell upon the police. Slept at the Balance.

  14 June Rode home – road almost all day. Dined with Rossi, who came to us; shrewd, quick, manly-minded fellow; like him very much. Shelley etc. fell in in the evening.

  15 June Up late; began my letters. Went to Shelley’s. After dinner, jumping a wall my foot slipped and I strained my left ankle. Shelley etc. came in the evening; talked of my play etc, which all agreed was worth nothing. Afterwards Shelley and I had a conversation about principles, – whether man was to be thought merely an instrument.

  16 June Laid up. Shelley came, and dined and slept here, with Mrs S and Miss Clare Clairmont. Wrote another letter.

  17 June Went into the town; dined with Shelley etc. here. Went after dinner to a ball at Madame Odier’s; where I was introduced to Princess Something and Countess Potocka, Poles, and had with them a long confab. Attempted to dance, but felt such horrid pain was forced to stop. The ghost-stories are begun by all but me.

  18 June My leg much worse. Shelley and party here. Mrs S called me her brother (younger). Began my ghost-story after tea. Twelve o’clock, really began to talk ghostly. LB repeated some verses of Coleridge’s Christabel, of the witch’s breast; when silence ensued, and Shelley, suddenly shrieking and putting his hands to his head, ran out of the room with candle. Threw water in his face, and after gave him ether. He was looking at Mrs S, and suddenly thought of a woman he had heard of who had eyes instead of nipples, which, taking hold of his mind, horrified him. – He married; and, a friend of his liking his wife, he tried all he could to induce her to love him in turn. He is surrounded by friends who feed upon him, and draw upon him as their banker. Once, having hired a house, a man wanted to make him pay more, and came trying to bully him, and at last challenged him. Shelley refused, and was knocked down; coolly said that would not gain him his object, and was knocked down again. – Slaney called.

  19 June Leg worse; began my ghost-story. Mr S etc. forth here. Bonstetten and Rossi called. B told me a story of the religious feuds in Appenzel; a civil war between Catholics and Prostestants. Battle arranged; chief advances; calls the other. Calls himself and other fools, for battles will not persuade of his being wrong. Other agreed, and persuaded them to take the boundary rivulet; they did. Bed at 3 as usual.

  20 June My leg kept me at home. Shelley etc. here.

  21 June Same.

  22 June LB and Shelley went to Vevay; Mrs S and Miss Clare Clairmont to town. Went to Rossi’s – had tired his patience. Called on Odier; Miss reading Byron.

  23 June Went to town; apologised to Rossi. Called on Dr Slaney etc. Walked to Mrs Shelley. Pictet, Odier, Slaney, dined with me. Went down to Mrs S for the evening. Odier mentioned the cases of two gentlemen who, on taking the nitrate of silver, some time after had a blacker face. Pictet confirmed it.

  24 June Up at 12. Dined down with Mrs S and Miss CC.

  26 June Up. Mounted on horseback: went to town. Saw Mrs Shelley: dined. To Dr Rossi’s party of physicians: after at Mrs S.

  27 June Up at Mrs Shelley’s: dined. No calèche arrived: walked to G. No horses: ordered saddle-horse. Walked to Rossi’s – gone. Went to the gate: found him. Obliged to break off the appointment. Went to Odier’s. Met with Mr _____, a friend of Lord Byron’s father. Invited me to his house: been a long time on the Continent. Music, ranz des vaches, beautiful. Rode two hours; went to Mrs S; Miss C talked of a soliloquy.

  28 June All day at M
rs S.

  29 June Up at 1; studied; down at Mrs S.

  30 June Same.

  1 July Went in calèche to town with Mrs S and C for a ride, and to mass (which we did not got to, being begun). Dined at 1. Went to town with Rossi. Introduced to Marchese Saporati; together to Mr Saladin of Vaugeron, Countess Breuss, Calpnafur; and then to a party of ladies. Found Lord Byron and Shelley returned.

  2 July Rain all day. In the evening to Mrs S.

  5 September Not written my Journal till now through neglect and dissipation. Had a long explanation with S and LB about my conduct to LB; threatened to shoot S one day on the water. Horses been a subject of quarrel twice, Berger having accused me of laming one.

  LB went to town in pursuit of thieves who came to steal the anchors after stolen my sail. Was refused permission to go out. I went to the Syndic Saladin, and told him I begged his pardon for our servants, who must have said something insulting, or else he could not have refused permission to leave the port. Thieves attempted to break into the house.

  An apothecary sold some bad magnesia to LB. Found it bad by experiment of sulphuric acid colouring it red rose-colour. Servants spoke about it. Appointed Castan to see experiment; came; impudent; refused to go out; collared him, sent him out, broke spectacles. Laid himself on a wall for three hours; refused to see experiments. Saw LB, told him his tale before two physicians. Brought me to trial before five judges; had an advocate to plead. I pleaded for myself; laughed at the advocate. Lost his cause on the plea of calumny; made me pay 12 florins for the broken spectacles and costs. Magnesia chiefly alumina, as proved by succenate and carbonate of ammonia.

  Dined twice at Madame de Staël’s; visited there also; met Madame de Broglie and M; Miss Randall; two Roccas; Schlegel; Monsignor Brema; Dumont; Bonstetten; Madame Bottini; Madame Mongelas; young de Staël.