"Andrew J. Offutt - Gone With the Gods" - читать интересную книгу автора (Offutt Andrew J)

hand of raising the dead is through the East European superstition ... vampirism."
Well, George confessed to being fascinated by that subject, though just now he was into
Charlemagne pretty heavily, again. So we talked on. Outside, it was a proper night for such a
conversation: the wind blew and cracked its cheeks, the rain sluiced down with viciousness. Eventually
Percy was nodding off, and we had to call a halt. George and John stayed the night, though I think Claire
slept alone. I did.
The following night we were reminded that Percy had on two occasions penned what were then
Gothic romances (of the "Castle of Otranto" school, not like the "Gothics" of the Twentieth Century):
"Zastrozzi," and "St. Irvyne or The Rosicrucian." That led us to the fact that John's father was guilty of
having translated Walpole's "Otranto" into his native tongue. Ah, the interconnections! I tried to tell them
Ruthven Todd's surrealist tale of the boy who found himself in a sort of Erehwon and eventually turned
into a Great Auk, "The Lost Traveller." They weren't much interested, though John was taken with the
name "Ruthven" and made a note of it.
This night was even worse; somehow we agreed to an appropriate reading of stories of the occult.
There was one about the legend of poor old Prometheus, another, "History of the Inconstant Lover,"
about a man whose bride turned out to be either ancient or a corpse, I forget which.
Then, all excited, George was suggesting that we all try our hands at a ghost story, or something
supernatural. I suggested a vampire tale, with George excitedly interrupting the outline to embellishтАФand
John assiduously making notes in his illegible physician's hand. Mary demurred; she had no supernatural
ideas.
"Suppose," I said, "that a scientist of brilliant mind, a physician such as our esteemed friend here,
were convinced that galvanism could be used to revive the deadтАФor impart life to a humanoid creature
of his own devising!"
"There, dear," Percy said, yawning, "combine that with your fascination with Prometheus and perhaps
you will unburden your sweet self of a story of surpassing horror."
So, George Gordon started his vampire story, halfheartedly, and Claire, too, started one, while John
tinkered with the wennpyr idea that was mine and George's. Eventually he wrote it, as a novellaтАФabout
a vampire named Lord Ruthven, no less!тАФand for a while it was attributed to George. It was Mary,
though, who commenced to skip meals and make her fingers sore, writing her yarn of "Prometheus
Rebound, or The Strange Tale of Doktor Schmidt." It was I who suggested that the entire novel might be
handled as a flashback. She thought that was very clever indeed, and hopped to it.
Convincing her that "Viktor Schmidt" was a nowhere name was rather more difficult.
"Why not the name of that American electricity man, Franken?" John suggested.
"Franklin," I muttered.
"Franklinson?" Claire amended.
"In German," enthusiastic George cried. "Frankenstein!"
"That's a nice name," Mary said.
At last the rains let up. I departed, with Mary thanking me profusely and all of them begging me to
return. I promised.
And I did; that was part of my Master Plan. By that time, two years later, John Polidori had been
canned as George's companion and tame physician and had published "The Vampyre" in London;
George Gordon had abandoned his novel in favor of fitting together the scraps of paper into the third
canto of "Childe Harold," which he signed Lord Byron as usual, and Mary Shelley's novel "Frankenstein
or The Modern Prometheus" was doing very well indeed.
I was welcomed with open arms and bottles, naturally, and both Byron and Shelley agreed to what I
wanted and had gone through the whole business to set up: personal interviews. I made sure never to
goof up and let them hear any sounds from the tape recorder. Nor would Count Alessandro Volta, over
Como way, have recognized its power source, the successor to the Voltaic pile and the Voltaic cell. Size
C.
Once again I departed my dear friends George (of course we didn't call him Lord), Percy, Mary,