1 00:00:12,370 --> 00:00:14,179 In the summer of 1816, 2 00:00:14,160 --> 00:00:18,097 strange goings-on troubled puritan Switzerland. 3 00:00:19,290 --> 00:00:22,100 The owner of a hotel on the banks of Lake Geneva 4 00:00:22,080 --> 00:00:25,163 charged the curious to observe what was going on 5 00:00:25,150 --> 00:00:27,858 in a grand house on the opposite shore. 6 00:00:27,840 --> 00:00:30,332 The Villa Diodati. 7 00:00:34,820 --> 00:00:38,848 There were scandalous rumours of free love, incest, 8 00:00:38,830 --> 00:00:41,583 drunken revelry and drugs. 9 00:00:41,561 --> 00:00:43,973 And some of them were true. 10 00:00:45,801 --> 00:00:49,760 Many of the rumours involved the famously debauched poet 11 00:00:49,740 --> 00:00:51,333 Lord Byron. 12 00:00:51,320 --> 00:00:55,302 By that time, he was like a rock star. 13 00:00:55,280 --> 00:00:58,602 But he was joined in notoriety by the brilliant young poet, 14 00:00:58,590 --> 00:01:02,686 Percy Shelley, and his teenage lover Mary. 15 00:01:02,671 --> 00:01:06,562 I think society underestimates 18-year-old girls. 16 00:01:07,870 --> 00:01:11,022 It's a unique gathering of very brilliant minds 17 00:01:11,000 --> 00:01:14,209 that almost you couldn't imagine coming together today. 18 00:01:15,720 --> 00:01:17,620 Drawn into their orbit 19 00:01:17,600 --> 00:01:21,412 were a starstruck young fan and an ambitious doctor. 20 00:01:21,400 --> 00:01:24,973 And everyone at the villa had their secrets, 21 00:01:24,950 --> 00:01:27,567 each their passions and desires. 22 00:01:27,551 --> 00:01:29,462 A disastrous love affair. 23 00:01:29,450 --> 00:01:31,452 Illegitimate children. 24 00:01:31,440 --> 00:01:34,842 Fights, feuds and jealousies. 25 00:01:37,270 --> 00:01:41,218 From this turmoil would emerge two vital works of literature. 26 00:01:41,200 --> 00:01:45,137 When we think back to that summer of 1816, 27 00:01:45,120 --> 00:01:47,930 and that particular night, 28 00:01:47,910 --> 00:01:50,845 we're looking at what is probably 29 00:01:50,830 --> 00:01:54,824 THE key romantic moment in all of literature. 30 00:01:56,310 --> 00:02:01,817 I think it's fair to say there's never been another night like that 31 00:02:01,801 --> 00:02:03,849 in terms of what it spawned. 32 00:02:08,000 --> 00:02:10,970 From one tempestuous night at the villa would spring 33 00:02:10,950 --> 00:02:13,612 two astonishing creations - 34 00:02:13,600 --> 00:02:16,456 the vampire and Frankenstein. 35 00:02:20,490 --> 00:02:24,097 Both born on a dark and stormy night. 36 00:02:42,630 --> 00:02:46,180 The story behind the creation of Frankenstein and the vampire 37 00:02:46,160 --> 00:02:47,742 begins with a scandal, 38 00:02:47,730 --> 00:02:51,564 a scandal surrounding the poet Lord Byron. 39 00:02:51,551 --> 00:02:56,694 Byron was 28 years old and renowned as an outrageous genius 40 00:02:56,671 --> 00:02:58,651 with an ego to match. 41 00:02:58,630 --> 00:03:02,043 A man of enormous sexual appetites. 42 00:03:02,030 --> 00:03:06,137 At a time when poets were as famous as rock stars today, 43 00:03:06,120 --> 00:03:10,500 he was notoriously mad, bad and dangerous to know. 44 00:03:12,640 --> 00:03:18,056 His poems were received in much the same way 45 00:03:18,040 --> 00:03:23,900 that, in the 1960s, a new album by the Beatles was. 46 00:03:23,880 --> 00:03:27,646 There were queues down the streets 47 00:03:27,630 --> 00:03:30,486 outside Byron's publishers. 48 00:03:30,470 --> 00:03:34,054 He did say, "I woke up one day to find myself famous." 49 00:03:35,551 --> 00:03:38,452 Blimey, you read his life and you realise, you know, 50 00:03:38,440 --> 00:03:42,536 Russell Brand is nowhere near the kind of life Byron had, 51 00:03:42,520 --> 00:03:44,124 you know what I mean? 52 00:03:44,110 --> 00:03:47,842 It's like he was a comet through civilisation, in a sense. 53 00:03:49,830 --> 00:03:54,893 Byron may have had his adoring fans, but his private life was a mess. 54 00:03:54,880 --> 00:03:58,817 Stalked by bailiffs and fearing for his life, 55 00:03:58,801 --> 00:04:02,965 in April 1816, he fled England for the Continent. 56 00:04:04,360 --> 00:04:06,454 Difficult to imagine the equivalent now. 57 00:04:06,440 --> 00:04:09,569 It's as if there was a kind of red-top campaign 58 00:04:09,551 --> 00:04:12,202 with your photograph and name all over it. 59 00:04:12,190 --> 00:04:15,683 That's the kind of equivalent that was happening to Byron. 60 00:04:17,750 --> 00:04:21,300 One of the most shocking accusations was that Byron had had 61 00:04:21,280 --> 00:04:25,308 an incestuous relationship with his half-sister Augusta 62 00:04:25,290 --> 00:04:26,906 and fathered a child. 63 00:04:26,890 --> 00:04:28,745 Later, in a letter to her, 64 00:04:28,730 --> 00:04:33,486 he would share the pain of his humiliation and his failed marriage. 65 00:04:35,040 --> 00:04:37,623 She, or rather the separation... 66 00:04:39,080 --> 00:04:40,616 ...has broken my heart. 67 00:04:43,090 --> 00:04:45,855 I feel as if an elephant had trodden on it. 68 00:04:45,840 --> 00:04:48,366 I'm convinced I shall never get over it. 69 00:04:48,350 --> 00:04:52,776 But I try, but this last...wreck 70 00:04:52,760 --> 00:04:55,218 has affected me very differently. 71 00:04:57,400 --> 00:04:59,323 I breathe lead. 72 00:05:03,160 --> 00:05:07,267 But the scandal was not the only reason behind Byron's departure. 73 00:05:08,450 --> 00:05:10,532 He may possibly also 74 00:05:10,520 --> 00:05:14,252 have been running away from an incredibly persistent young lady 75 00:05:14,240 --> 00:05:15,935 called Claire Clairmont. 76 00:05:21,840 --> 00:05:24,753 Claire Clairmont had been one of scores of women 77 00:05:24,730 --> 00:05:27,062 to throw herself at Byron's feet. 78 00:05:27,040 --> 00:05:29,008 Most he ignored. 79 00:05:28,990 --> 00:05:31,823 But few were as headstrong as Claire. 80 00:05:31,811 --> 00:05:34,815 She was determined to catch her man 81 00:05:34,801 --> 00:05:37,293 and wrote to him repeatedly. 82 00:05:37,270 --> 00:05:40,900 I do assure you, your future will shall be mine 83 00:05:40,880 --> 00:05:44,418 and everything that you shall do or say 84 00:05:44,400 --> 00:05:46,402 I shall not question. 85 00:05:48,320 --> 00:05:51,972 Byron was left in no doubt of Claire's intentions. 86 00:05:53,120 --> 00:05:56,613 If you stand in need of amusement, 87 00:05:56,600 --> 00:06:02,175 and I afford it you, pray indulge your humour. 88 00:06:05,600 --> 00:06:10,185 Claire Clairmont was kind of a Byron groupie. 89 00:06:10,170 --> 00:06:13,902 And she had pretty much fan-lettered him 90 00:06:13,880 --> 00:06:15,575 into sleeping with her 91 00:06:15,561 --> 00:06:18,542 and then he had no interest really from there. 92 00:06:19,850 --> 00:06:23,730 And she thinks she's going to be the love of Byron's life. 93 00:06:23,710 --> 00:06:28,364 And she doesn't really see what kind of character Byron is. 94 00:06:30,720 --> 00:06:34,008 Claire knew Byron was heading for Switzerland 95 00:06:33,990 --> 00:06:36,413 and decided she would follow him. 96 00:06:36,400 --> 00:06:40,132 I think Claire enjoyed being in his shadow. 97 00:06:40,120 --> 00:06:42,339 People do escalate towards fame 98 00:06:42,320 --> 00:06:46,826 and kind of get importance by association with famous people. 99 00:06:46,811 --> 00:06:50,577 I mean, why else would she trek halfway across Europe, 100 00:06:50,561 --> 00:06:53,212 well, right across Europe, to be with him? 101 00:06:56,890 --> 00:07:00,337 And so the fuse was lit on an explosive venture 102 00:07:00,320 --> 00:07:03,335 which would transform five extraordinary lives. 103 00:07:03,320 --> 00:07:07,257 First, Claire was joined by a young couple 104 00:07:07,240 --> 00:07:10,938 keen to escape England because of a trauma of their own - 105 00:07:10,920 --> 00:07:13,469 her 18-year-old stepsister Mary... 106 00:07:14,801 --> 00:07:20,092 ...and Mary's lover, the 23-year-old poet Percy Bysshe Shelley. 107 00:07:24,350 --> 00:07:29,572 Now, Percy and Mary were already leaving England to travel in Europe 108 00:07:29,561 --> 00:07:33,020 due to Percy's ill-health at that time. 109 00:07:33,000 --> 00:07:36,379 But Claire Clairmont is absolutely key 110 00:07:36,360 --> 00:07:40,183 in persuading them to go to Geneva in particular, 111 00:07:40,170 --> 00:07:43,185 so that she can actually pursue Byron. 112 00:07:46,970 --> 00:07:50,292 The two lovers were also escaping a scandal. 113 00:07:50,280 --> 00:07:54,444 Shelley had outraged society by advocating free love. 114 00:07:56,040 --> 00:07:59,192 And he'd already fathered a child with Mary, 115 00:07:59,170 --> 00:08:00,911 despite being a married man. 116 00:08:02,200 --> 00:08:04,498 10 days after Byron, 117 00:08:04,480 --> 00:08:06,721 they too fled the country in secret. 118 00:08:08,030 --> 00:08:13,343 They had skedaddled while he was still legally married. 119 00:08:13,330 --> 00:08:17,904 So this was a pretty daring thing for her to have done. In fact, they were 120 00:08:17,890 --> 00:08:22,498 all doing daring things. They were challenging accepted norms. 121 00:08:22,480 --> 00:08:26,451 Mary came from a famous family of radicals. 122 00:08:26,431 --> 00:08:31,574 Her father, William Godwin, once shared Shelley's belief in free love. 123 00:08:31,561 --> 00:08:35,452 But not now and not when it came to his daughter. 124 00:08:35,431 --> 00:08:39,095 He accused the poet of corrupting her. 125 00:08:40,691 --> 00:08:46,937 In my judgment, neither I, nor your daughter, nor her offspring 126 00:08:46,920 --> 00:08:50,299 ought to receive the treatment we encounter on every side. 127 00:08:51,600 --> 00:08:56,345 A young family, innocent and benevolent and united, 128 00:08:56,330 --> 00:09:00,449 should not be confounded with prostitutes and seducers. 129 00:09:01,840 --> 00:09:04,923 Shelley was in financial difficulties, 130 00:09:04,910 --> 00:09:09,780 was not being received by the Godwin house, broken off from his own family. 131 00:09:09,760 --> 00:09:13,902 And so travel looked like one of the ways of dealing with this. 132 00:09:14,990 --> 00:09:18,654 I resolve to commit myself by decided step. 133 00:09:18,640 --> 00:09:21,746 I therefore take Mary to Geneva. 134 00:09:21,730 --> 00:09:24,449 I leave England... 135 00:09:24,431 --> 00:09:27,913 I know not... perhaps for ever. 136 00:09:31,640 --> 00:09:34,723 The three of them began the long journey to Switzerland, 137 00:09:34,710 --> 00:09:38,453 a country that offered more than just an escape from personal troubles. 138 00:09:40,610 --> 00:09:44,695 For over a decade, travel in Europe had been difficult and dangerous 139 00:09:44,681 --> 00:09:47,218 because of the Napoleonic Wars. 140 00:09:47,200 --> 00:09:50,818 The British victory at the Battle of Waterloo the year before 141 00:09:50,800 --> 00:09:52,143 had changed all this. 142 00:09:56,320 --> 00:10:00,348 Switzerland, from the point of view of Gothic interest, 143 00:10:00,330 --> 00:10:02,321 was up there with Italy 144 00:10:02,300 --> 00:10:06,908 as the kind of rugged, sublime, picturesque place to go and see. 145 00:10:08,250 --> 00:10:12,574 After the Napoleonic wars, the poor English had to make do with 146 00:10:12,561 --> 00:10:17,783 Devon and the Lake District which is why all the poetry of 1800 to 1815 147 00:10:17,770 --> 00:10:20,626 is chock-a-block with views of the Lake District because 148 00:10:20,610 --> 00:10:22,544 they couldn't get anything better, 149 00:10:22,530 --> 00:10:24,578 that's the only sublime thing they'd got. 150 00:10:26,410 --> 00:10:29,380 But suddenly there's Switzerland, with Mont Blanc. 151 00:10:30,920 --> 00:10:35,164 And so it's very much a part of what drew them there. 152 00:10:38,850 --> 00:10:42,980 Travelling to Switzerland with Lord Byron was his personal physician, 153 00:10:42,960 --> 00:10:46,055 Dr John Polidori, the fifth and final character 154 00:10:46,040 --> 00:10:50,022 to play a decisive role in the remarkable events of the summer. 155 00:10:51,691 --> 00:10:55,821 Polidori hoped it would be his big break into the literary world. 156 00:10:57,130 --> 00:10:59,986 He had ambitions of his own to be a writer. 157 00:11:01,720 --> 00:11:06,351 Polidori is a kind of wannabe. He dresses like Byron, he's his doctor, 158 00:11:06,330 --> 00:11:08,936 he's a kind of groupie, in a sense. 159 00:11:08,920 --> 00:11:11,503 He hangs on to the train, the menagerie, 160 00:11:11,480 --> 00:11:13,528 he's a member of the bestiary of Byron 161 00:11:13,510 --> 00:11:15,729 that travels around Europe, you know. 162 00:11:15,710 --> 00:11:21,171 Polidori's job was to look after Byron, whose louche lifestyle 163 00:11:21,150 --> 00:11:24,336 of sex, drugs and drinking meant that in the past 164 00:11:24,320 --> 00:11:28,655 he'd suffered from gonorrhoea, haemorrhoids and liver problems. 165 00:11:30,210 --> 00:11:32,907 Byron was also paranoid about putting on weight. 166 00:11:32,890 --> 00:11:34,813 He'd been very fat as a child 167 00:11:34,800 --> 00:11:38,191 and used medicinal purges to keep off the pounds. 168 00:11:40,340 --> 00:11:42,707 But although he relied on the doctor, 169 00:11:42,691 --> 00:11:47,709 Byron didn't take him seriously, nicknaming him Polly Dolly. 170 00:11:54,970 --> 00:11:59,817 And so it was that the travellers arrived in Geneva in May 1816. 171 00:12:01,720 --> 00:12:05,133 The ground was laid for an explosive coming together 172 00:12:05,120 --> 00:12:07,703 of talent, ambition and desire. 173 00:12:09,070 --> 00:12:13,303 A summer that would shape the rest of their lives. 174 00:12:18,280 --> 00:12:21,181 Mary felt relief at her new surroundings, 175 00:12:21,160 --> 00:12:25,222 sensing she was on the verge of a dramatic change in her life. 176 00:12:26,490 --> 00:12:29,630 At what a different scene are we now arrived? 177 00:12:29,610 --> 00:12:34,639 To the warm sunshine and to the humming of sun-loving insects. 178 00:12:36,080 --> 00:12:39,220 From the windows of our hotel, we see the lovely lake, 179 00:12:39,200 --> 00:12:42,067 blue as the heavens which it reflects 180 00:12:42,050 --> 00:12:45,031 and sparkling with the golden beams. 181 00:12:45,010 --> 00:12:47,661 I feel as happy as a new-fledged bird 182 00:12:47,640 --> 00:12:50,735 and hardly care what twig I fly to 183 00:12:50,720 --> 00:12:54,179 so that I may try my new-found wings. 184 00:13:02,610 --> 00:13:06,854 But Mary's stepsister Claire's frustration had been growing. 185 00:13:06,840 --> 00:13:10,014 She'd assumed she would be back in Byron's bed by now. 186 00:13:11,120 --> 00:13:14,704 Instead, she'd had to wait 10 days for him just to arrive. 187 00:13:16,000 --> 00:13:19,345 And when he did, despite staying in the same hotel, 188 00:13:19,330 --> 00:13:20,934 he avoided her. 189 00:13:20,920 --> 00:13:24,015 Claire wrote to him, he ignored her. 190 00:13:25,520 --> 00:13:27,579 How can you be so very unkind? 191 00:13:27,561 --> 00:13:30,724 I did not expect you to answer my note last evening 192 00:13:30,710 --> 00:13:33,111 because I supposed you'd be so tired. 193 00:13:33,090 --> 00:13:34,945 But this morning? 194 00:13:34,930 --> 00:13:37,900 I'm sure you cannot say, as you used in London, 195 00:13:37,880 --> 00:13:40,178 that you are overwhelmed with affairs 196 00:13:40,160 --> 00:13:42,504 and had not an instant to yourself. 197 00:13:44,080 --> 00:13:47,311 I have been in this weary hotel this fortnight. 198 00:13:48,571 --> 00:13:51,893 It seems so unkind, so cruel of you 199 00:13:51,880 --> 00:13:54,861 to treat me with such marked indifference. 200 00:13:57,571 --> 00:14:02,225 Will you go straight up to the top of the house this evening at 7.30 201 00:14:02,210 --> 00:14:07,592 and I shall be on the landing place and show you the room. 202 00:14:13,210 --> 00:14:15,713 Claire was not the only one with a secret plan. 203 00:14:16,800 --> 00:14:19,508 Polidori had a hidden agenda. 204 00:14:21,010 --> 00:14:24,719 He was keeping a secret journal of his time with Byron. 205 00:14:26,240 --> 00:14:30,268 So, this sort of idea of secret narratives going on, 206 00:14:30,250 --> 00:14:32,582 not merely Polidori's secret diary, 207 00:14:32,571 --> 00:14:38,226 but Claire's secret plan as she thinks innocently to capture Byron. 208 00:14:38,210 --> 00:14:42,022 So there are considerable psychological and sexual tensions 209 00:14:42,000 --> 00:14:43,900 going on in that little group. 210 00:14:47,210 --> 00:14:51,704 On the 29th of May, the five met for the first time. 211 00:14:51,691 --> 00:14:55,116 Over the coming days, they began to socialise together. 212 00:14:57,080 --> 00:14:59,538 Byron continued to shun Claire. 213 00:15:01,000 --> 00:15:03,662 But the two poets delighted in each other's company. 214 00:15:04,850 --> 00:15:08,377 Soon, Byron and Shelley started looking for houses by the lake 215 00:15:08,360 --> 00:15:10,112 to rent for the summer. 216 00:15:11,490 --> 00:15:15,711 In his diary, Polidori recorded his first impressions of Shelley. 217 00:15:16,810 --> 00:15:19,347 May 30th. Got up late, 218 00:15:19,330 --> 00:15:23,062 went to Mr and Mrs Shelley, breakfasted with them, 219 00:15:23,050 --> 00:15:25,519 rode out to see a house together. 220 00:15:25,500 --> 00:15:29,312 Shelley gone through much misery. 221 00:15:29,290 --> 00:15:31,873 Paid Godwin's debts 222 00:15:31,850 --> 00:15:34,262 and seduced his daughter. 223 00:15:34,240 --> 00:15:37,232 Then wondered that he would not see him. 224 00:15:37,220 --> 00:15:38,972 He is very clever. 225 00:15:40,130 --> 00:15:43,350 The more I read his Queen Mab, the more beauties I find. 226 00:15:45,451 --> 00:15:49,149 Byron had poured scorn on Polidori's literary ambitions. 227 00:15:49,130 --> 00:15:52,464 Polidori tried to impress Shelley instead. 228 00:15:52,441 --> 00:15:56,594 June 1st, up late, began my letters. 229 00:15:56,581 --> 00:15:58,424 Went to Shelley's. 230 00:15:58,410 --> 00:16:00,868 After dinner, jumping a wall, 231 00:16:00,850 --> 00:16:04,434 my foot slipped and I strained my left ankle. 232 00:16:05,780 --> 00:16:08,590 Shelley, etc, came in the evening. 233 00:16:08,571 --> 00:16:13,816 Talked of my play, etc, which all agreed was worth nothing. 234 00:16:18,020 --> 00:16:22,014 Shelley, Mary and Claire moved into a small house on the lake. 235 00:16:23,280 --> 00:16:28,343 Soon after, Byron and Polidori moved into a grander property just above it. 236 00:16:28,321 --> 00:16:30,426 The Villa Diodati. 237 00:16:32,441 --> 00:16:36,708 "It was," wrote Byron, "the prettiest place in all the lake." 238 00:16:40,020 --> 00:16:44,582 The villa in summer 1816, the Villa Diodati, it's still there. 239 00:16:44,571 --> 00:16:48,223 It's a rather superior house with a wonderful balcony. 240 00:16:48,210 --> 00:16:53,228 Just the kind of place Lord Byron would have chosen, very expensive. 241 00:16:57,571 --> 00:17:00,120 The five soon developed a routine. 242 00:17:00,100 --> 00:17:02,876 After evenings spent drinking together, 243 00:17:02,860 --> 00:17:05,386 Byron would write into the early hours, 244 00:17:05,370 --> 00:17:08,180 each night keeping a pistol by his bedside, 245 00:17:08,160 --> 00:17:11,983 paranoid his enemies in England might be out to get him. 246 00:17:13,370 --> 00:17:16,590 Shelley and Mary took morning walks by the lake, 247 00:17:16,571 --> 00:17:19,871 at last free of the scandal that had surrounded them in London. 248 00:17:22,360 --> 00:17:24,522 While Polidori had been relegated 249 00:17:24,500 --> 00:17:27,253 to overseeing Byron's household accounts. 250 00:17:28,610 --> 00:17:31,864 And still Claire plotted how to use her charms 251 00:17:31,850 --> 00:17:33,944 to win back the man she loved. 252 00:17:35,810 --> 00:17:38,256 He was more concerned with his appearance 253 00:17:38,240 --> 00:17:40,948 than with another lovestruck teenage fan. 254 00:17:42,210 --> 00:17:45,305 Worried that drunken binges might ruin his figure, 255 00:17:45,290 --> 00:17:49,944 Byron even measured his wrists to check they weren't getting flabby. 256 00:18:01,680 --> 00:18:06,106 But any hopes of an idyllic summer by the lake were rudely interrupted. 257 00:18:06,090 --> 00:18:08,024 There's a kind of scandal 258 00:18:08,010 --> 00:18:10,945 that the Shelleys' party and Lord Byron's party, 259 00:18:10,930 --> 00:18:13,433 who is sleeping with who, that's one of the questions. 260 00:18:13,420 --> 00:18:16,105 And a wonderful story is that people in the hotel 261 00:18:16,090 --> 00:18:18,343 across the lake hired telescopes 262 00:18:18,321 --> 00:18:21,382 so that they could spy on the balcony of the Diodati. 263 00:18:21,370 --> 00:18:24,863 Even what the washing was being hung out, there was great speculation 264 00:18:24,850 --> 00:18:26,750 as to who the nightwear belonged to. 265 00:18:26,730 --> 00:18:29,427 They said that we have formed a pact 266 00:18:29,410 --> 00:18:34,064 to outrage all that is regarded as most sacred in human society. 267 00:18:34,050 --> 00:18:37,736 The English papers did not delay to spread this scandal 268 00:18:37,720 --> 00:18:39,870 and the people believed it. 269 00:18:39,850 --> 00:18:42,706 Hardly any affliction was spared us. 270 00:18:48,780 --> 00:18:50,589 And things only got worse. 271 00:18:50,571 --> 00:18:53,268 There was a sudden change in the weather. 272 00:18:54,860 --> 00:18:59,343 No-one knew that this was the beginning of the summer of darkness. 273 00:19:01,581 --> 00:19:05,882 A volcanic explosion in Indonesia had pumped tonnes of debris 274 00:19:05,860 --> 00:19:08,761 into the atmosphere, blocking out the sun 275 00:19:08,740 --> 00:19:10,981 and creating a volcanic winter. 276 00:19:16,040 --> 00:19:18,031 Across Europe, crops failed 277 00:19:18,010 --> 00:19:20,866 and there was flooding and thunderstorms. 278 00:19:20,850 --> 00:19:23,239 They'd never seen anything like it. 279 00:19:23,220 --> 00:19:25,962 The whole city of Geneva was completely flooded. 280 00:19:25,940 --> 00:19:30,753 The lake was perpetually lit up by dramatic storms. 281 00:19:31,780 --> 00:19:34,238 It was a completely new, 282 00:19:34,220 --> 00:19:39,704 half terrifying and half thrilling experience 283 00:19:39,690 --> 00:19:43,957 for a party of people who were highly literary, 284 00:19:43,940 --> 00:19:47,831 highly excitable, looking for sensations 285 00:19:47,810 --> 00:19:50,518 and you could say that God just gave them it, 286 00:19:50,500 --> 00:19:52,912 "OK, you want it, I'll give it to you." 287 00:19:56,130 --> 00:19:57,950 It was so dark that some days 288 00:19:57,930 --> 00:20:01,412 they were forced to use candles in the afternoon. 289 00:20:01,400 --> 00:20:06,042 An almost perpetual rain confines us principally to the house. 290 00:20:06,020 --> 00:20:10,389 The thunderstorms that visit us are grander and more terrific 291 00:20:10,370 --> 00:20:12,475 than I have ever seen before. 292 00:20:12,461 --> 00:20:17,513 One night, we enjoyed a finer storm than I have ever beheld. 293 00:20:17,500 --> 00:20:19,309 The lake was lit up, 294 00:20:19,290 --> 00:20:21,520 the pines made visible 295 00:20:21,500 --> 00:20:24,674 and all the scene illuminated for an instant. 296 00:20:27,331 --> 00:20:29,880 When a pitchy blackness succeeded 297 00:20:29,860 --> 00:20:32,773 and the thunder came in frightful bursts 298 00:20:32,760 --> 00:20:35,070 over our heads amid the darkness. 299 00:20:38,457 --> 00:20:42,269 To escape the storms, the five spent more time together 300 00:20:42,247 --> 00:20:43,920 socialising at the villa. 301 00:20:44,997 --> 00:20:48,479 A heady atmosphere quickly developed. 302 00:20:48,457 --> 00:20:53,190 There's a sense of real synergy between all these different authors 303 00:20:53,177 --> 00:20:55,919 at the time who are playing off each other, 304 00:20:55,897 --> 00:20:58,901 reading different things together 305 00:20:58,887 --> 00:21:03,097 and actually bouncing ideas off each other all the time. 306 00:21:03,077 --> 00:21:07,389 It sounds like a really wonderful, creative period. 307 00:21:07,367 --> 00:21:12,305 They are perched on the edge of their destinies in a curious way. 308 00:21:12,288 --> 00:21:15,076 But on this beautiful lake. 309 00:21:16,337 --> 00:21:18,431 So it's an immense literary... 310 00:21:18,408 --> 00:21:22,060 like an unexploded bomb, in a way, when they're all there. 311 00:21:26,047 --> 00:21:28,379 # At the mid hour of night 312 00:21:28,357 --> 00:21:32,191 # When stars are weeping, I fly 313 00:21:32,177 --> 00:21:33,838 # To the lone vale... # 314 00:21:33,817 --> 00:21:38,835 I think, at that age, you start to think about the world - 315 00:21:38,817 --> 00:21:40,637 where you come from, you know, 316 00:21:40,617 --> 00:21:43,621 all the things that are part of creation and life. 317 00:21:43,607 --> 00:21:47,874 You can imagine it was a bit like an Oxford University dorm room 318 00:21:47,857 --> 00:21:49,427 with people getting stoned 319 00:21:49,408 --> 00:21:52,469 and talking about life, the universe and everything. 320 00:21:54,567 --> 00:21:58,356 And beneath the surface, sexual tensions had been simmering. 321 00:22:03,717 --> 00:22:07,620 Finally, Byron had given in to Claire's advances. 322 00:22:07,607 --> 00:22:10,315 She'd found a way back into his bed. 323 00:22:13,288 --> 00:22:16,622 You know, and I believe saw once, that odd-headed girl 324 00:22:16,607 --> 00:22:20,430 who introduced herself to me shortly before I left England. 325 00:22:20,418 --> 00:22:24,309 But you do not know that I found her with Shelley and her sister at Geneva. 326 00:22:26,007 --> 00:22:30,638 I never loved, nor pretended to love, her, but a man is a man. 327 00:22:30,617 --> 00:22:35,225 And if a girl of 18 comes prancing to you at all hours, 328 00:22:35,207 --> 00:22:37,073 there is but one way. 329 00:22:38,967 --> 00:22:41,550 Byron used Claire in the bedroom, 330 00:22:41,538 --> 00:22:43,711 but neglected her in public. 331 00:22:45,007 --> 00:22:48,648 I think she was already miserably aware 332 00:22:48,627 --> 00:22:52,791 that she was just a bit of froufrou. She was one of many. 333 00:22:52,777 --> 00:22:56,941 Goodness knows, nobody's ever tried to count how many women Byron went to bed with. 334 00:22:56,927 --> 00:22:58,463 Claire was just another. 335 00:23:01,367 --> 00:23:06,259 Shelley tried to comfort Claire, but this only made Mary suspicious. 336 00:23:06,247 --> 00:23:10,013 If Shelley believed in defying convention, 337 00:23:09,997 --> 00:23:13,513 what was to stop them becoming lovers? 338 00:23:13,497 --> 00:23:16,819 There's this weird thing about Mary I've always been intrigued with. 339 00:23:16,797 --> 00:23:19,220 How did they think of things in those days, 340 00:23:19,207 --> 00:23:22,632 especially under the shadow of what they were kind of branding as 341 00:23:22,617 --> 00:23:27,430 free love, which seemed a kind of license for betraying each other, 342 00:23:27,408 --> 00:23:29,263 you know, do what you like. 343 00:23:29,247 --> 00:23:33,389 Shelley's views on sex are very open. 344 00:23:33,367 --> 00:23:37,782 You know, it seems to work more for him than it does for Mary, I think. 345 00:23:40,897 --> 00:23:44,743 According to Polidori's diary, Shelley had even admitted 346 00:23:44,727 --> 00:23:47,515 encouraging Mary to sleep with one of his friends. 347 00:23:47,497 --> 00:23:50,273 He married, and a friend of his, 348 00:23:50,257 --> 00:23:53,261 liking his wife, he tried all he could 349 00:23:53,247 --> 00:23:55,739 to induce her to love him in turn. 350 00:23:56,997 --> 00:23:59,580 Sexual intrigue rippled through the group. 351 00:24:00,767 --> 00:24:04,032 It's a bit like a mad kind of playground, you know, 352 00:24:04,017 --> 00:24:06,668 "You're not my best friend, you're my best friend." 353 00:24:06,647 --> 00:24:09,673 Or "Is she going out with him, or is he going out with her?" 354 00:24:09,657 --> 00:24:12,069 Or "I don't like you any more, I like him now." 355 00:24:13,257 --> 00:24:16,181 Some say Polidori had a crush on Mary, 356 00:24:16,168 --> 00:24:18,990 who in turn had eyes for Byron. 357 00:24:21,257 --> 00:24:24,830 We know that Mary captivated Byron 358 00:24:24,807 --> 00:24:27,390 and that Mary in her own journal 359 00:24:27,367 --> 00:24:33,716 would always refer to Lord Byron in terms of tenderness, wonder, 360 00:24:33,697 --> 00:24:37,383 admiration, affection and even love. 361 00:24:37,367 --> 00:24:42,282 She was very, very attached to him. 362 00:24:42,267 --> 00:24:48,070 And I think that the influence of Byron on Mary, 363 00:24:48,057 --> 00:24:52,449 during that summer at Lake Geneva, was tremendous. 364 00:24:56,697 --> 00:24:59,712 On the fateful evening of 16 June, 365 00:24:59,697 --> 00:25:05,181 the five gathered at the villa. They would not leave until morning. 366 00:25:05,168 --> 00:25:09,389 As a storm raged outside, Byron would act as ringmaster 367 00:25:09,367 --> 00:25:11,870 to his captive audience. 368 00:25:11,857 --> 00:25:14,440 I think maybe it's time for a ghost story. 369 00:25:15,727 --> 00:25:19,914 First, he spooked them with a reading from a French translation 370 00:25:19,897 --> 00:25:23,709 of Phantasmagoria, a remarkable book full of blood-chilling tales 371 00:25:23,687 --> 00:25:28,670 of spirits, dagger-wielding ghosts and wandering death brides. 372 00:25:29,777 --> 00:25:31,279 The Spectre Barber. 373 00:25:31,267 --> 00:25:32,382 Ssh! 374 00:25:35,087 --> 00:25:38,455 HE READS IN FRENCH 375 00:25:43,517 --> 00:25:45,827 You had thunder and you had lightning 376 00:25:45,807 --> 00:25:49,732 and you had people sitting around listening to ghost stories. 377 00:25:49,717 --> 00:25:53,597 HE CONTINUES READING 378 00:25:53,577 --> 00:25:58,720 Feeling people getting quieter and quieter as you tell your story, 379 00:25:58,697 --> 00:26:03,180 there's a kind of peculiar electricity, there's a way 380 00:26:03,168 --> 00:26:07,287 that suddenly everything is a little more alive. 381 00:26:07,267 --> 00:26:12,990 Your fight or flight responses start to activate, 382 00:26:12,977 --> 00:26:19,428 whether you want them to or not. The adrenaline is just starting to pump. 383 00:26:19,408 --> 00:26:23,390 You're actually scared, you can smell fear, 384 00:26:23,377 --> 00:26:25,186 somebody got a little bit scared 385 00:26:25,168 --> 00:26:28,809 and fear pheromones are going off and you're near them 386 00:26:28,797 --> 00:26:31,539 and unconsciously those little fear pheromones 387 00:26:31,527 --> 00:26:33,393 ring little bells in you too. 388 00:26:33,377 --> 00:26:35,789 And now you have a group of people 389 00:26:35,777 --> 00:26:39,304 who are a little more alert, a little weirded out 390 00:26:39,288 --> 00:26:43,031 and just a little bit scared, and having the time of their lives. 391 00:26:49,887 --> 00:26:53,824 And then a challenge gets thrown down of - can we do better? 392 00:26:53,807 --> 00:26:55,309 I have a challenge. 393 00:26:57,377 --> 00:26:59,311 We will each write... 394 00:27:01,267 --> 00:27:02,792 ...a ghost story. 395 00:27:09,887 --> 00:27:13,289 It is itself like some amazing experiment. 396 00:27:13,267 --> 00:27:16,259 You put these various different chemicals - 397 00:27:16,237 --> 00:27:18,456 the Byron chemical, 398 00:27:18,437 --> 00:27:21,873 the Mary Shelley chemical, the Percy Shelley chemical. 399 00:27:23,907 --> 00:27:25,818 And even Polidori. 400 00:27:28,367 --> 00:27:31,393 You put them together and heat 401 00:27:31,377 --> 00:27:37,100 and this amazing group of literary works arises out of it. 402 00:27:51,627 --> 00:27:54,460 Byron was the first to attempt the challenge, 403 00:27:54,447 --> 00:27:57,553 dashing off the beginnings of an intriguing story. 404 00:28:00,247 --> 00:28:03,899 He smiled in a ghastly manner and said faintly, 405 00:28:03,887 --> 00:28:06,026 "it is not yet time." 406 00:28:06,007 --> 00:28:09,739 It tells of an Englishman on an exotic adventure 407 00:28:09,727 --> 00:28:14,870 who befriends a mysterious wealthy gentleman called Augustus Darvell. 408 00:28:14,857 --> 00:28:19,465 I felt Darvell's weight, as it were, increase upon my shoulder. 409 00:28:20,527 --> 00:28:25,476 And turning to look upon his face, perceived that he was dead. 410 00:28:25,457 --> 00:28:30,008 I was shocked, with a certain certainty that could not be mistaken. 411 00:28:29,987 --> 00:28:33,514 His countenance in a few minutes became almost black. 412 00:28:34,617 --> 00:28:37,234 I should have attributed so rapid a change to poison 413 00:28:37,217 --> 00:28:41,905 had I not been aware that he had no opportunity of receiving it unperceived. 414 00:28:43,057 --> 00:28:47,381 The day was declining, the body rapidly altering. 415 00:28:48,857 --> 00:28:52,589 And nothing remained but to fulfil his request. 416 00:28:54,857 --> 00:28:57,792 Byron had thrown down the gauntlet to the others. 417 00:28:57,777 --> 00:29:00,838 Nothing survives of Shelley's story, 418 00:29:00,817 --> 00:29:04,799 but both Polidori and Mary were aspiring writers 419 00:29:04,777 --> 00:29:07,792 and desperate to impress the famous poet. 420 00:29:09,707 --> 00:29:13,268 And Mary felt another pressure. She wanted to prove she was worthy 421 00:29:13,247 --> 00:29:15,432 of her high achieving parents - 422 00:29:15,418 --> 00:29:19,753 the pioneering feminist writer Mary Wollstonecraft 423 00:29:19,737 --> 00:29:21,398 and radical thinker William Godwin. 424 00:29:22,617 --> 00:29:25,803 I was nursed and fed with the love of glory. 425 00:29:25,787 --> 00:29:31,885 To be something great and good was the precept given to me by my father. 426 00:29:33,418 --> 00:29:36,900 And both Percy and Mary were very conscious 427 00:29:36,887 --> 00:29:39,367 of this kind of literary inheritance. 428 00:29:39,347 --> 00:29:42,920 And we know, Mary says, that Percy Shelley was always saying, 429 00:29:42,897 --> 00:29:45,980 "You must write, you must fulfil your inheritance." 430 00:29:47,697 --> 00:29:51,088 She's been raised to be a very independent woman. 431 00:29:51,067 --> 00:29:54,264 She's been raised to be a freethinker, to do her own thing, 432 00:29:54,247 --> 00:29:56,909 and I think she would have been appalled at herself 433 00:29:56,897 --> 00:29:58,979 if she couldn't come up with something. 434 00:30:00,857 --> 00:30:04,919 Mary would soon channel these demons into her work. 435 00:30:14,777 --> 00:30:17,838 But now, unrobe yourself, 436 00:30:17,817 --> 00:30:22,800 for I must pray 'ere yet in bed I lie. 437 00:30:22,787 --> 00:30:26,018 But first, as the hours drew on, 438 00:30:25,997 --> 00:30:28,557 Byron continue to dominate proceedings, 439 00:30:28,537 --> 00:30:33,191 choosing another haunting work to provoke the others into action. 440 00:30:33,168 --> 00:30:36,798 A poem by Samuel Taylor Coleridge, Christabel. 441 00:30:36,777 --> 00:30:39,474 Her gentle limbs did she undress 442 00:30:39,457 --> 00:30:43,314 And lay down in her loveliness... 443 00:30:43,298 --> 00:30:45,949 Byron starts to read, 444 00:30:45,937 --> 00:30:49,840 probably quite deliberately, one of the most terrifying passages 445 00:30:49,817 --> 00:30:51,273 in Christabel. 446 00:30:51,257 --> 00:30:54,477 So, halfway from the bed she rose... 447 00:30:54,457 --> 00:30:58,166 Which is when the seemingly innocent figure 448 00:30:58,147 --> 00:31:00,696 is turned into a kind of witch, 449 00:31:00,677 --> 00:31:06,343 a horrible creature, where her body is described as half deformed. 450 00:31:06,327 --> 00:31:08,830 Beneath the lamp the lady bowed 451 00:31:08,817 --> 00:31:11,479 And slowly rolled her eyes around 452 00:31:11,457 --> 00:31:12,982 Then drawing her breath aloud 453 00:31:12,967 --> 00:31:14,833 Like one that shuddered, she unbound 454 00:31:14,817 --> 00:31:16,706 The cincture from beneath her breast... 455 00:31:16,687 --> 00:31:18,997 And there's this extraordinary scene in the poem 456 00:31:18,977 --> 00:31:21,821 where she takes her clothes off gradually 457 00:31:21,807 --> 00:31:25,357 and it's revealed that in fact she's a kind of monster woman. 458 00:31:25,337 --> 00:31:27,112 Her silken robe, and inner vest 459 00:31:27,097 --> 00:31:28,713 Dropped to her feet... 460 00:31:28,697 --> 00:31:33,191 So they were all very on edge, creeped out. 461 00:31:33,178 --> 00:31:36,512 Then drawing in her breath aloud Like one... 462 00:31:39,137 --> 00:31:42,710 And the description is that her breast and half her side 463 00:31:42,697 --> 00:31:47,351 is all sort of tortured and damaged and twisted. 464 00:31:47,337 --> 00:31:51,740 Behold! Her bosom and half her side A sight to dream on, not to tell 465 00:31:51,727 --> 00:31:53,980 And she is to sleep with Christabel. 466 00:32:01,537 --> 00:32:05,087 In his diary, Polidori recorded Shelley's explanation 467 00:32:05,067 --> 00:32:06,796 for running from the room. 468 00:32:08,657 --> 00:32:12,639 12 o'clock, really began to talk ghostly. 469 00:32:12,617 --> 00:32:16,702 Lord Byron repeated some verses of Coleridge's Christabel, 470 00:32:16,687 --> 00:32:19,554 of the witches breast, when silence ensued 471 00:32:19,537 --> 00:32:23,872 and Shelley, suddenly shrieking and putting his hands to his head, 472 00:32:23,857 --> 00:32:26,554 ran out of the room with a candle. 473 00:32:26,537 --> 00:32:29,279 Threw water in his face and after gave him ether. 474 00:32:29,257 --> 00:32:30,986 He was looking at Mrs Shelley 475 00:32:30,967 --> 00:32:33,629 and suddenly thought of a woman he'd heard of 476 00:32:33,617 --> 00:32:36,268 who had eyes instead of nipples 477 00:32:36,247 --> 00:32:39,888 which, taking hold of his mind, horrified him. 478 00:32:39,867 --> 00:32:45,704 I think we can assume that Dr Polidori had been pretty liberal 479 00:32:45,687 --> 00:32:49,715 with the ether that he had in his little doctor's medicine bag 480 00:32:49,697 --> 00:32:53,543 because they were all clearly pretty high a lot of the time 481 00:32:53,527 --> 00:32:57,555 and this was part of the whole thing of let's get the maximum sensation, 482 00:32:57,537 --> 00:32:59,528 let's get really scared. 483 00:32:59,507 --> 00:33:03,398 Lightning might do it, but the ether might help, and Christabel too. 484 00:33:04,787 --> 00:33:08,269 It's not just ordinary ghost stories, it's something quite surreal, 485 00:33:08,247 --> 00:33:11,433 quite strange, obviously partly sexual thing going on. 486 00:33:19,337 --> 00:33:21,271 Byron had sown the seeds 487 00:33:21,257 --> 00:33:25,672 which would make the Villa Diodati go down in literary history. 488 00:33:25,657 --> 00:33:28,991 Over the following nights and days, 489 00:33:28,977 --> 00:33:32,470 Mary and Polidori continued their attempts to write. 490 00:33:33,697 --> 00:33:37,008 According to Mary, Polidori produced a tale 491 00:33:36,987 --> 00:33:39,172 of a woman with a skull for a head. 492 00:33:40,257 --> 00:33:44,967 Like his plays, it impressed no-one and was soon abandoned. 493 00:33:48,457 --> 00:33:50,607 Mary was desperate to do better. 494 00:33:53,577 --> 00:33:58,401 I busied myself to think of a story, one which would rival those 495 00:33:58,387 --> 00:34:00,822 that had excited us to this task, 496 00:34:00,807 --> 00:34:05,438 one which would speak to the mysterious fears of our nature 497 00:34:05,417 --> 00:34:08,034 and awaken thrilling horror. 498 00:34:08,017 --> 00:34:10,634 One to make the reader dread to look round, 499 00:34:10,617 --> 00:34:14,633 to curdle the blood and quicken the beatings of the heart. 500 00:34:14,617 --> 00:34:17,905 If I did not accomplish these things, 501 00:34:17,887 --> 00:34:21,710 my ghost story would be unworthy of its name. 502 00:34:21,697 --> 00:34:25,270 "Have you thought of a story?" I was asked each morning. 503 00:34:25,257 --> 00:34:29,421 And, each morning, I was forced to reply with a mortifying negative. 504 00:34:29,407 --> 00:34:32,798 Mary thought and thought and thought 505 00:34:32,777 --> 00:34:36,247 and she could not come up with an idea. 506 00:34:36,227 --> 00:34:41,472 And it was really mortifying to Mary because she always 507 00:34:41,457 --> 00:34:44,950 prided herself tremendously on her imagination 508 00:34:44,937 --> 00:34:47,713 and I'm quite sure that she was longing 509 00:34:47,697 --> 00:34:52,555 to win the admiration of Lord Byron with a wonderful story. 510 00:34:55,048 --> 00:34:58,837 I actually think Mary Shelley was the most competitive of them 511 00:34:58,817 --> 00:35:02,549 in that I think she thought she had something to prove a little bit. 512 00:35:02,537 --> 00:35:06,030 And clearly didn't want to be the one that couldn't do it. 513 00:35:21,977 --> 00:35:27,711 When I placed my head on my pillow, I did not sleep. 514 00:35:27,697 --> 00:35:29,608 Nor could I be said to think. 515 00:35:32,188 --> 00:35:36,910 My imagination, unbidden, possessed and guided me, 516 00:35:36,897 --> 00:35:41,289 gifting the successive images that arose in my mind 517 00:35:41,267 --> 00:35:44,885 with a vividness far beyond the usual bounds of reverie. 518 00:35:46,777 --> 00:35:50,429 I saw with shut eyes, 519 00:35:50,417 --> 00:35:53,079 but acute mental vision. 520 00:35:53,058 --> 00:35:56,244 I saw the pale student of unhallowed arts, 521 00:35:56,227 --> 00:35:59,845 kneeling beside the thing he had put together. 522 00:35:59,827 --> 00:36:03,889 SHE GASPS 523 00:36:03,877 --> 00:36:09,372 I saw the hideous phantasm of a man stretched out, 524 00:36:09,357 --> 00:36:13,715 and then, on the workings of some powerful engine, 525 00:36:13,697 --> 00:36:15,631 show signs of life 526 00:36:15,617 --> 00:36:19,144 and stir with a half-vital motion. 527 00:36:22,617 --> 00:36:27,760 Mary had found her inspiration, in part from conversations 528 00:36:27,747 --> 00:36:31,240 at the villa about the latest scientific developments. 529 00:36:32,417 --> 00:36:34,158 Things were in the air, 530 00:36:34,137 --> 00:36:37,289 particularly galvanic experiments 531 00:36:37,267 --> 00:36:39,986 in which you could electrify a corpse 532 00:36:39,967 --> 00:36:44,495 and make it look as if it had momentarily come back to life. 533 00:36:46,267 --> 00:36:51,239 So, I think that it was within the realm of possibility 534 00:36:51,227 --> 00:36:55,141 that you might be able to create a being. 535 00:36:57,747 --> 00:37:01,763 Inspiration may also have come from Mary's personal grief. 536 00:37:01,747 --> 00:37:03,681 She had already lost one child. 537 00:37:04,977 --> 00:37:08,288 When you combine it with what was internal to her, her life 538 00:37:08,267 --> 00:37:12,795 of losing children, the thought, what if we could control death? 539 00:37:12,777 --> 00:37:17,328 What if this scientific stuff could help us be in control, 540 00:37:17,308 --> 00:37:19,288 bring our dead children back? 541 00:37:21,058 --> 00:37:24,790 A journal entry from when she lost her child two years earlier 542 00:37:24,777 --> 00:37:27,121 shows just how much this idea haunted her. 543 00:37:29,257 --> 00:37:33,444 Dream that my little baby came to life again, 544 00:37:33,427 --> 00:37:35,919 that it had only been cold 545 00:37:35,897 --> 00:37:39,709 and that we rubbed it by the fire and it lived. 546 00:37:39,697 --> 00:37:42,871 I awake and find no baby. 547 00:37:44,387 --> 00:37:46,549 I think about the little thing all day. 548 00:37:50,537 --> 00:37:53,632 No doubt, the idea of being able to re-vivify something that was 549 00:37:53,617 --> 00:37:56,882 not alive was something remarkably fascinating to her. 550 00:38:00,037 --> 00:38:05,783 The idea so possessed my mind that a thrill of fear ran through me, 551 00:38:05,767 --> 00:38:09,874 and I wished to exchange the ghastly image of my fancy 552 00:38:09,857 --> 00:38:11,359 for the realities around. 553 00:38:12,537 --> 00:38:15,074 Oh, if I could only contrive one which would 554 00:38:15,058 --> 00:38:18,926 frighten my reader as I myself had been frightened that night. 555 00:38:22,907 --> 00:38:28,357 Swift as light, and as cheering, was the idea that broke in upon me. 556 00:38:28,337 --> 00:38:30,044 SHE MOANS 557 00:38:30,027 --> 00:38:32,007 I have found it. 558 00:38:31,987 --> 00:38:35,275 What terrified me will terrify others. 559 00:38:35,257 --> 00:38:38,204 And I need only describe the spectre 560 00:38:38,188 --> 00:38:40,509 which had haunted my midnight pillow. 561 00:38:42,857 --> 00:38:45,713 Mary would begin writing Frankenstein, 562 00:38:45,697 --> 00:38:49,565 the story of the tortured genius, Dr Frankenstein, 563 00:38:49,547 --> 00:38:53,211 who creates a living creature from dead body parts. 564 00:38:54,947 --> 00:38:57,632 "It was on a dreary night of November 565 00:38:57,617 --> 00:38:59,972 "that I beheld the accomplishment of my toils. 566 00:39:01,308 --> 00:39:04,619 "With an anxiety that almost amounted to agony, 567 00:39:04,597 --> 00:39:09,159 "I collected the instruments of life around me, that I might infuse 568 00:39:09,137 --> 00:39:13,711 "a spark of being to the lifeless thing that lay at my feet. 569 00:39:16,178 --> 00:39:18,920 "It was already one in the morning. 570 00:39:18,907 --> 00:39:22,229 "The rain pattered dismally against the panes 571 00:39:22,217 --> 00:39:25,630 "and my candle was nearly burnt out, 572 00:39:25,617 --> 00:39:30,509 "when, by the glimmer of the half-extinguished light, 573 00:39:30,497 --> 00:39:36,436 "I saw the dull, yellow eye of the creature open. 574 00:39:36,417 --> 00:39:40,968 "It breathed hard and a convulsive motion agitated its limbs." 575 00:39:42,707 --> 00:39:44,846 LOW MOANING 576 00:39:44,827 --> 00:39:49,139 Frankenstein is written in homage to what seemed to be the looming 577 00:39:49,117 --> 00:39:53,156 possibility that, actually, maybe you would someday bring somebody 578 00:39:53,137 --> 00:39:57,449 back to life, and that might really lead to a nightmarish end. 579 00:40:00,677 --> 00:40:04,716 In Mary's story, Dr Frankenstein is disgusted by the creature 580 00:40:04,697 --> 00:40:07,689 he creates and rejects it. 581 00:40:07,677 --> 00:40:10,442 Banished, the monster seeks revenge. 582 00:40:13,217 --> 00:40:17,085 He has a reason for behaving and feeling the way he does, 583 00:40:17,068 --> 00:40:19,639 and all he really wants is to be understood. 584 00:40:21,697 --> 00:40:24,610 The creator doesn't come out of it very well. 585 00:40:26,987 --> 00:40:28,489 The creature itself says, 586 00:40:28,477 --> 00:40:34,007 "I am not a monster, I have feelings, just like you." 587 00:40:33,987 --> 00:40:38,925 And that is the theme that continues throughout - what is it to be human? 588 00:40:47,587 --> 00:40:50,807 But just as Mary had begun to develop her story, 589 00:40:50,787 --> 00:40:53,722 events at the villa took another turn. 590 00:40:53,707 --> 00:40:57,928 Claire, the catalyst who had brought the five of them together, 591 00:40:57,907 --> 00:41:01,218 revealed a secret that would ultimately drive them apart. 592 00:41:02,917 --> 00:41:05,761 She was pregnant with Byron's child. 593 00:41:07,427 --> 00:41:09,600 Whether this impregnation took place 594 00:41:09,587 --> 00:41:13,842 before I left England or since, I do not know. 595 00:41:13,827 --> 00:41:17,855 The carnal connection had commenced previously to my setting out. 596 00:41:17,837 --> 00:41:20,317 Next question - is the brat mine? 597 00:41:21,427 --> 00:41:23,498 I have reason to think so, for I know, 598 00:41:23,477 --> 00:41:27,368 as much as one can know such thing, that she had not lived with Shelley 599 00:41:27,347 --> 00:41:29,793 for during the time of our acquaintance, 600 00:41:29,777 --> 00:41:33,805 and that she had had a good deal of that same with me. 601 00:41:33,787 --> 00:41:35,642 This comes of putting it about. 602 00:41:37,068 --> 00:41:40,242 And be damned to it, and thus, people come into the world. 603 00:41:42,497 --> 00:41:44,875 Soon, Claire would return home with Mary and Shelley 604 00:41:44,857 --> 00:41:47,929 to have her child in secret. 605 00:41:47,917 --> 00:41:52,286 The clock was ticking on their time at the villa. 606 00:41:52,267 --> 00:41:55,771 But this would be a pivotal moment in all their lives. 607 00:41:57,227 --> 00:42:00,800 This much alone is certain. 608 00:42:00,787 --> 00:42:06,203 That before we return, we shall have seen and felt 609 00:42:06,188 --> 00:42:12,651 and heard a multiplicity of things which will haunt our talk 610 00:42:12,637 --> 00:42:15,288 and make us a little better worth knowing 611 00:42:15,267 --> 00:42:17,554 than we were before our departure. 612 00:42:18,987 --> 00:42:23,174 At the end of August, after almost three months in Geneva, 613 00:42:23,157 --> 00:42:26,366 Shelley and the sisters left for England. 614 00:42:26,347 --> 00:42:30,921 Claire knew she had lost Byron, but kept writing him pleading letters. 615 00:42:30,907 --> 00:42:33,922 But for Byron, the relationship with the woman 616 00:42:33,907 --> 00:42:37,810 he would later call "a damned bitch" was over. 617 00:42:37,787 --> 00:42:40,404 He wouldn't even see her when she left. 618 00:42:40,387 --> 00:42:42,230 That's how Byron felt about Claire. 619 00:42:44,707 --> 00:42:48,359 When you receive this, I shall be many miles away. 620 00:42:48,337 --> 00:42:51,011 Indeed, I should have been happier to have seen 621 00:42:50,997 --> 00:42:53,523 and kissed you once before I went. 622 00:42:55,267 --> 00:42:58,794 There is nothing in the world I love or care about but yourself. 623 00:43:00,497 --> 00:43:03,125 My dreadful fear is, lest you quite forget me... 624 00:43:04,877 --> 00:43:08,575 ...I shall love you until the end of my life, and nobody else. 625 00:43:12,058 --> 00:43:15,210 Mary returned to England with a precious cargo - 626 00:43:15,198 --> 00:43:17,280 a rough draft of Frankenstein, 627 00:43:17,267 --> 00:43:20,965 which she would expand and develop over the coming year. 628 00:43:23,017 --> 00:43:25,725 But there was to be one more surprise. 629 00:43:25,707 --> 00:43:29,519 One more astonishing piece of work to emerge from within 630 00:43:29,507 --> 00:43:31,282 the walls of the Villa Diodati. 631 00:43:32,987 --> 00:43:36,560 Polidori had continued trying to rise to Byron's challenge 632 00:43:36,537 --> 00:43:40,929 to create a terrifying tale of the supernatural. 633 00:43:40,917 --> 00:43:45,309 He may only have been 20, but he was no stranger to horror. 634 00:43:46,437 --> 00:43:50,089 John Polidori had been a medical student in Edinburgh, 635 00:43:50,068 --> 00:43:53,242 and I speak as an ex-Edinburgh student myself, 636 00:43:53,227 --> 00:43:56,288 a very Gothic place to live, I can assure you, 637 00:43:56,267 --> 00:43:57,928 particularly in those days. 638 00:43:57,907 --> 00:44:00,490 And it's worth remembering how horrendous 639 00:44:00,477 --> 00:44:04,721 the experience of a medical student would have been in those days. 640 00:44:04,707 --> 00:44:09,440 We are in, almost in Burke and Hare days, digging up corpses, 641 00:44:09,427 --> 00:44:13,569 operations being done without anaesthetic, so, Polidori was 642 00:44:13,557 --> 00:44:18,006 steeped in this blood and pain and anguish, which he knew at first-hand. 643 00:44:21,227 --> 00:44:25,289 Tensions had been growing all summer between Polidori and Byron. 644 00:44:25,277 --> 00:44:28,167 The doctor was frustrated that Byron treated him like a lowly 645 00:44:28,147 --> 00:44:32,072 employee, when he really wanted to be Byron's equal as a writer. 646 00:44:33,787 --> 00:44:39,248 When Byron and Polidori came out to Lake Geneva, Polidori had 647 00:44:39,227 --> 00:44:43,243 barely got to Dover before he was pulling out little plays 648 00:44:43,227 --> 00:44:46,436 he had written and saying, "Would you like to listen to this?" 649 00:44:46,417 --> 00:44:48,249 He was terribly proud of his talent 650 00:44:48,227 --> 00:44:51,572 and foolish enough to say things to Byron like, you know, 651 00:44:51,557 --> 00:44:53,446 "You and I are writers together," 652 00:44:53,427 --> 00:44:56,567 which, you know, rather annoyed Byron. 653 00:44:56,547 --> 00:45:02,771 Polidori was a brilliant young man. He had passed medical school at 19. 654 00:45:02,757 --> 00:45:05,522 But what he wanted to be was Byron, 655 00:45:05,507 --> 00:45:08,135 and what he could never be was Byron. 656 00:45:08,117 --> 00:45:10,802 He didn't have the personality, he didn't have the charm, 657 00:45:10,787 --> 00:45:14,360 he didn't have the talent. 658 00:45:14,347 --> 00:45:18,045 The relationship is a very, very tense one. 659 00:45:19,068 --> 00:45:23,096 Polidori was continuously mocked by Byron, 660 00:45:23,078 --> 00:45:24,853 the whole time they were there. 661 00:45:25,987 --> 00:45:31,289 He was taunting Polidori, calling him Dr Polly, ridiculing him, 662 00:45:31,267 --> 00:45:33,372 making him feel small. 663 00:45:34,707 --> 00:45:38,757 Everywhere they went, Polidori felt overshadowed by the famous poet. 664 00:45:40,557 --> 00:45:45,723 Went to Geneva. Introduced to a room where, about eight, two ladies. 665 00:45:47,507 --> 00:45:50,670 Lord Byron's name was alone mentioned. 666 00:45:50,657 --> 00:45:55,652 Mine, like a star in the halo of the moon, invisible. 667 00:45:58,587 --> 00:46:02,649 Polidori started to escape the villa and mingle with the social set 668 00:46:02,637 --> 00:46:07,734 across the lake, a more sympathetic audience for his writing. 669 00:46:07,717 --> 00:46:12,359 He began the tale of blood and lust which would become The Vampyre. 670 00:46:15,697 --> 00:46:19,133 There was no colour upon her cheek, not even upon her lip. 671 00:46:20,237 --> 00:46:23,252 Yet, there was a stillness about her face that seemed 672 00:46:23,237 --> 00:46:27,049 almost as attaching as the life that once dwelt there. 673 00:46:27,027 --> 00:46:29,655 Upon her neck and breast was blood, 674 00:46:29,637 --> 00:46:33,574 and upon her throat were the marks of teeth having opened a vein. 675 00:46:33,557 --> 00:46:36,299 To this, the men pointed, crying simultaneously, 676 00:46:36,287 --> 00:46:39,769 struck with horror, "A vampire! A vampire!" 677 00:46:42,517 --> 00:46:45,657 Polidori's story took elements of Byron's supernatural tale 678 00:46:45,637 --> 00:46:48,049 from the night at the villa - 679 00:46:48,027 --> 00:46:51,930 the exotic settings, the mysterious, aristocratic adventurer - 680 00:46:51,917 --> 00:46:56,013 and developed them into a fully fledged vampire story. 681 00:46:57,948 --> 00:47:00,326 But he did something remarkable. 682 00:47:00,307 --> 00:47:04,039 In a kind of act of revenge, he used Lord Byron himself 683 00:47:04,017 --> 00:47:07,362 as inspiration for the sinister creature. 684 00:47:08,837 --> 00:47:11,761 It happened that in the midst of the dissipations 685 00:47:11,747 --> 00:47:13,806 attendant upon a London winter, 686 00:47:13,787 --> 00:47:16,609 there appeared at the various parties of the leaders of the town 687 00:47:16,597 --> 00:47:21,296 a nobleman more remarkable for his singularities than his rank. 688 00:47:23,667 --> 00:47:26,489 Up until that point, vampires, 689 00:47:26,467 --> 00:47:28,447 in Eastern European legend, 690 00:47:28,427 --> 00:47:31,476 were monstrous, they were creepy, 691 00:47:31,457 --> 00:47:34,939 they were nasty and unpleasant. 692 00:47:37,867 --> 00:47:42,361 They are disgusting and they have no redeeming features. 693 00:47:42,347 --> 00:47:45,931 They are back from the dead, they want your blood, they are icky! 694 00:47:47,208 --> 00:47:52,578 Polidori's vampire, however, displayed many of Byron's qualities. 695 00:47:52,557 --> 00:47:56,733 Aristocratic decadence, predatory sexuality 696 00:47:56,717 --> 00:47:59,129 and a seemingly endless appeal to women. 697 00:48:00,707 --> 00:48:04,120 In spite of the deadly hue of his face, 698 00:48:04,107 --> 00:48:06,166 which never gained a warmer tint, 699 00:48:06,147 --> 00:48:09,890 either from the blush of modesty or the strong emotion of passion, 700 00:48:09,877 --> 00:48:12,608 though its form in outline were beautiful, 701 00:48:12,587 --> 00:48:16,729 many of the female hunters, after notoriety, 702 00:48:16,717 --> 00:48:18,731 attempted to win his attentions 703 00:48:18,717 --> 00:48:22,290 and gain at least some marks of what they might term affection. 704 00:48:24,797 --> 00:48:27,323 This was a shocking transformation. 705 00:48:27,307 --> 00:48:30,117 By giving his vampire a Byronic twist, 706 00:48:30,097 --> 00:48:33,818 Polidori had created the first truly modern vampire story. 707 00:48:35,027 --> 00:48:37,974 There had been vampires before Polidori. 708 00:48:37,958 --> 00:48:39,392 None of them, as far as I know, 709 00:48:39,377 --> 00:48:43,371 had been members of the English aristocracy. 710 00:48:43,357 --> 00:48:48,932 And it was that, the fusion of Byron with the vampire world, 711 00:48:48,917 --> 00:48:51,659 that he gave us. 712 00:48:51,637 --> 00:48:55,210 And suddenly, the cool vampire came into the world. 713 00:48:56,737 --> 00:49:01,800 Dracula would explore the cool vampire from another direction. 714 00:49:01,787 --> 00:49:09,012 These days, you could fire crucifixes from your crucifix-firing 715 00:49:08,997 --> 00:49:14,731 machine gun at 1000 vampires and not hit any who weren't cool, 716 00:49:14,717 --> 00:49:17,379 lonely, Byronic and probably aristocratic. 717 00:49:21,557 --> 00:49:24,800 By the end of the summer, Byron had had enough of Polidori. 718 00:49:25,997 --> 00:49:27,203 He fired him. 719 00:49:28,987 --> 00:49:33,845 And early in October, the poet's time in Geneva also came to an end. 720 00:49:36,078 --> 00:49:38,331 Byron left for Italy. 721 00:49:38,317 --> 00:49:40,615 But even the sensual delights on offer in Venice, 722 00:49:40,597 --> 00:49:43,658 a city he called his "sea Sodom", 723 00:49:43,637 --> 00:49:49,656 could not dispel the long shadow cast by the Villa Diodati. 724 00:49:49,637 --> 00:49:53,096 Writing to a friend, he would lament his time in Switzerland, 725 00:49:53,078 --> 00:49:56,651 where he had penned a new section of his poem, Childe Harold. 726 00:49:58,357 --> 00:50:01,247 I was half mad during the time of this composition, 727 00:50:01,227 --> 00:50:07,166 between metaphysics, mountains, lakes, love, 728 00:50:07,147 --> 00:50:08,649 unextinguishable of thoughts, 729 00:50:08,637 --> 00:50:11,299 unutterable in the nightmare of my own delinquencies. 730 00:50:15,717 --> 00:50:18,687 I should, many a good day, have blown my brains out. 731 00:50:18,667 --> 00:50:20,135 Apart for the recollection that 732 00:50:20,117 --> 00:50:22,336 it would have given pleasure to my mother-in-law. 733 00:50:22,317 --> 00:50:25,332 And even then, if I could have been certain to haunt her. 734 00:50:37,387 --> 00:50:42,086 The Villa Diodati would fade back into the mists of literary history. 735 00:50:42,068 --> 00:50:44,890 But the impact of the work sparked into life 736 00:50:44,877 --> 00:50:47,380 by this heady summer had barely begun. 737 00:50:50,437 --> 00:50:54,010 Mary continued to redraft Frankenstein, 738 00:50:53,997 --> 00:50:56,204 finally publishing it in 1818. 739 00:50:57,717 --> 00:51:00,891 The subject matter is so extraordinary. 740 00:51:00,877 --> 00:51:04,802 No-one conceived it was by Mary Shelley. 741 00:51:04,787 --> 00:51:07,939 They produce a very small number, 500 copies. 742 00:51:09,537 --> 00:51:11,938 But it doesn't have a popular impact. 743 00:51:11,917 --> 00:51:16,093 And if we look ahead, what really transforms it is, 744 00:51:16,078 --> 00:51:18,968 a few years later, there is a dramatised version of it. 745 00:51:21,078 --> 00:51:22,523 And it is a huge hit. 746 00:51:25,747 --> 00:51:27,613 The early dramatised versions 747 00:51:27,597 --> 00:51:31,409 turned a reflective tale into a creepy spectacle. 748 00:51:32,637 --> 00:51:34,560 They silenced the creature 749 00:51:34,547 --> 00:51:37,175 and shaped how we think of Frankenstein today. 750 00:51:38,237 --> 00:51:42,014 But all versions share the original's central thought. 751 00:51:41,997 --> 00:51:44,329 In this case, I think 752 00:51:44,317 --> 00:51:48,049 it's one of the first warnings that science can run amok. 753 00:51:49,587 --> 00:51:54,616 It is a constant warning to people to not overstep their own boundaries. 754 00:51:54,597 --> 00:51:56,053 But people still keep doing it. 755 00:51:56,037 --> 00:52:00,019 It's amazing, that's a lesson that we keep trying to 756 00:51:59,997 --> 00:52:03,023 teach each other over and over, and yet, it never takes. 757 00:52:03,007 --> 00:52:06,329 It's alive! It's alive, it's alive! 758 00:52:06,317 --> 00:52:07,842 It's alive! 759 00:52:07,828 --> 00:52:13,016 He has attempted to better the work of God. How rebellious. 760 00:52:12,997 --> 00:52:16,535 But the result has not been... 761 00:52:16,517 --> 00:52:19,293 It's not lived up to his expectations. 762 00:52:20,828 --> 00:52:24,617 It's a "what if" story. You know, what if we could do this? 763 00:52:24,597 --> 00:52:26,099 How would it work out? 764 00:52:27,907 --> 00:52:32,140 It is a very, very serious book, it's not just a Gothic novel. 765 00:52:32,117 --> 00:52:35,371 And I think the reason it goes on resonating 766 00:52:35,357 --> 00:52:41,603 so much is that one can see so many different interpretations in it. 767 00:52:41,587 --> 00:52:45,251 Trifling with science, how should science be used? 768 00:52:45,237 --> 00:52:51,028 But it also is a book from which we can learn about ways to treat 769 00:52:51,007 --> 00:52:53,669 somebody who doesn't look like us - 770 00:52:53,647 --> 00:52:57,129 the creature certainly doesn't look like us. 771 00:52:57,107 --> 00:53:00,771 It's a story about innocence, which is corrupted by man. 772 00:53:09,467 --> 00:53:13,961 One year after Frankenstein, in 1819, The Vampyre was published. 773 00:53:15,677 --> 00:53:19,534 But from the outset, there was confusion about who wrote it, 774 00:53:19,517 --> 00:53:23,920 with Byron still identified by some as the author, even decades later. 775 00:53:26,037 --> 00:53:29,735 I mean, ironic that when The Vampyre came out, it was successful, 776 00:53:29,717 --> 00:53:32,015 but it was successful because first of all, 777 00:53:31,997 --> 00:53:34,659 people thought it was Byron who had written it. 778 00:53:35,727 --> 00:53:40,665 Byron himself came to hear about it and was absolutely furious. 779 00:53:40,647 --> 00:53:44,538 And he, plainly, himself, did not think all that well of The Vampyre, 780 00:53:44,517 --> 00:53:48,852 because he was extremely keen to quickly distance himself from it. 781 00:53:50,637 --> 00:53:54,414 Polidori, however, was eager to claim the work. 782 00:53:54,397 --> 00:53:59,039 And whatever its merits, by taking an ancient piece of folklore 783 00:53:59,017 --> 00:54:02,829 and transforming its villain into a rapacious aristocrat, 784 00:54:02,807 --> 00:54:06,482 Polidori created a powerful tale that resonated with the times. 785 00:54:07,597 --> 00:54:12,239 He's channelling into anxieties of the time about a particularly 786 00:54:12,218 --> 00:54:16,496 dissipated English aristocratic society, 787 00:54:16,477 --> 00:54:22,052 a society which is far too complacent about 788 00:54:22,037 --> 00:54:25,416 an alluring stranger being admitted into the midst. 789 00:54:28,078 --> 00:54:33,050 I think vampires have represented different things at different times. 790 00:54:37,587 --> 00:54:43,777 But there is always a level on which a vampire story is about sex. 791 00:54:43,757 --> 00:54:47,387 And that's simply what they are about, you look at them, 792 00:54:47,367 --> 00:54:51,019 sometimes it's subtext, sometimes it's text, 793 00:54:50,997 --> 00:54:52,908 but there is sex in every vampire story. 794 00:54:56,797 --> 00:54:59,983 It represented the untamed part of us, 795 00:54:59,968 --> 00:55:04,496 the carnal part of us that cannot be denied. 796 00:55:04,477 --> 00:55:09,449 If you deny it, it just grows stronger and more primal. 797 00:55:19,197 --> 00:55:23,748 Two works, Frankenstein and The Vampyre, 798 00:55:23,727 --> 00:55:27,777 that can both be traced back to one brief moment in time. 799 00:55:29,627 --> 00:55:33,461 We don't normally get to know where things begin. 800 00:55:34,597 --> 00:55:39,330 You know, you don't get to know what inspired a certain book, 801 00:55:39,317 --> 00:55:44,903 what inspired something that changed the game for ever. 802 00:55:44,887 --> 00:55:48,425 In this case, we actually have an origin story, 803 00:55:48,407 --> 00:55:53,254 we know where Dracula began. We know where Frankenstein began. 804 00:55:54,247 --> 00:55:58,218 We know where the twin pillars of horror fiction 805 00:55:58,197 --> 00:56:00,973 that we stand on today began. 806 00:56:00,958 --> 00:56:06,328 And it's in a house on a very rainy, thundery, miserable night, 807 00:56:06,307 --> 00:56:09,811 by Lake Geneva. Perfect night to tell ghost stories. 808 00:56:17,527 --> 00:56:20,690 But if the tales inspired by the time at the Villa Diodati 809 00:56:20,677 --> 00:56:24,466 are still flourishing almost 200 years later, 810 00:56:24,447 --> 00:56:27,189 there seems to have been something of a curse on the lives 811 00:56:27,177 --> 00:56:30,909 of those five people who came together that giddy summer. 812 00:56:33,907 --> 00:56:39,209 John Polidori died in 1821, shortly before his 26th birthday. 813 00:56:40,607 --> 00:56:43,360 Unable to keep up with debts from gambling, 814 00:56:43,347 --> 00:56:46,408 it's thought he killed himself by taking prussic acid. 815 00:56:48,627 --> 00:56:50,459 Shelley drowned the following year 816 00:56:50,437 --> 00:56:54,908 in the Gulf of Spezia in Italy after a sudden storm. 817 00:56:54,887 --> 00:56:56,491 He was not quite 30. 818 00:56:59,757 --> 00:57:05,332 Two years later, in 1824, Byron died from an illness after joining 819 00:57:05,317 --> 00:57:10,005 the cause of the Greek Nationalists in their battle against the Turks. 820 00:57:09,987 --> 00:57:11,853 He was 36 years old. 821 00:57:14,997 --> 00:57:19,059 Claire never got over Byron and never married, 822 00:57:19,037 --> 00:57:23,850 describing herself as "unhappily the victim of a happy passion". 823 00:57:27,877 --> 00:57:31,051 Frankenstein established Mary Shelley as a writer. 824 00:57:33,047 --> 00:57:38,269 Almost 25 years after the summer by Lake Geneva that inspired it, 825 00:57:38,247 --> 00:57:43,469 she revisited the Villa Diodati and reflected on her time there, and how 826 00:57:43,457 --> 00:57:48,133 her life since had had something of the character of a horror story. 827 00:57:51,708 --> 00:57:55,349 At length, I caught a glimpse of the scenes among which I had lived 828 00:57:55,327 --> 00:57:59,332 when first I stepped out from childhood into life, 829 00:57:59,317 --> 00:58:04,346 there on the shores of Belle Rive to Diodati. 830 00:58:04,327 --> 00:58:08,286 Was I the same person who had lived there, 831 00:58:08,267 --> 00:58:10,338 the companion of the dead? 832 00:58:10,317 --> 00:58:12,740 For all were gone. 833 00:58:12,718 --> 00:58:16,768 Storm and blight and death had passed over and destroyed all. 834 00:58:18,017 --> 00:58:22,420 While yet very young, I had reached the position of an aged person, 835 00:58:22,407 --> 00:58:26,253 driven back on memory for companionship of the beloved, 836 00:58:26,237 --> 00:58:31,220 to feel that all my life since was but an unreal phantasmagoria.