know who he was, but my mind got in the way, it still gets in the way. Dr. Bright said I am very fond of seeing, but it’s hard to really see. Does he know his patient’s glass, that I’ve turned again to glass, can he see this? So I’m brittle after all, but when he read to me I wasn’t brittle … and the waves at Lerici and the … and that hand that moved next to mine, that hand in the margins … Is this what slaves feel, is this how his silence felt… Is he even alive anymore and where is he if he is? But what if he can’t die? All those parts he was made from, what if they just go on forever and won’t die? How could I have sent him north like that, alone as he is, if he can’t even die? I watched the girls coming back from the silk mill in Cadenabbia, laughing and talking, watched the frightened man pick out his pear. He would have hated it if he knew I watched him. But if the one who read to me can’t die, what then? Will anyone watch him, will he hate being watched or is that something he needs … Who’ll think of him as I do? … I must study the rest is all nothing … would you buy for me also a gown with a close pink stripe … Petrarch had many dear friends but the plague appeared …my box with the papers being gone, and all the rest broken—
We’re in the graveyard. It’s afternoon, in summer. The River Fleet moving sluggishly nearby. Faint wind in the bushes. Brittle clicking of pebbles in her hand.
I’m reading and she’s listening:
“Secluded-Streamlet Pavilion is one of a number of ‘protecting-stone pavilions.’ Erected around a stone known for its beautiful shape and clear yellow grain, it is also known as Wind and Rain Pavilion. This name is in commemoration of a young woman fighter who, disguised as a boy, sheltered there one stormy night after battle, never to be seen again.”
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“A plum tree holds the moon; a secluded path is added to fresh wind.”
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“The biographical tradition, full of contradictions, says of Sappho: that she married a merchant of Andros, named Cercolas, and had a daughter Cleis; or, contrariwise, that Cercolas is a fictitious name, and that Cleis was not her daughter.”
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“But it must be stressed that metaphor is not a completely successful or controllable means of communication. We employ inadequate language always.”
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“With only coarse bread to eat, water to drink, and my bended arm for a pillow, I feel joy.”
∼ ∼ ∼
“Can perplexity be stabilized? There is no simple solution. We must find a way to live with it. Since there can be no escape from perplexity, it must be seen as a starting point and a necessary condition.”
As I read I listen for her breathing. Is that the sound of the river or her breath? Are they mixing with each other? If I could hear her listening, but what does listening sound like? And if she could hear me listening for her breath, listening for the way she hears me … And then I’m not turning pages anymore, though I still hear pages turning. Is she turning them from where I can’t see her? Is she reading to me?
Who’s the reader? Who’s the listener?
(And I who will never belong in the world. And she who is dead.)
The graveyard’s deep in snow, but we’re still reading. Our skin’s on fire and then it’s glass but we’re still reading.
The pages turn. Her hand’s not old, it moves the way it used to. I don’t know who turns the pages but they turn—
SOURCES
THIS WORK IS A FICTION. Although it roughly follows the events and trajectories of Claire Clairmont’s and Mary Shelley’s lives, my intent was not to construct historically accurate portraits. In the Ice Diary and Metropolis/The Ruins at Luna sections, I have nevertheless incorporated phrases, word clusters, and sometimes whole sentences or lists from Claire Clairmont’s and Mary Shelley’s letters and journals, and in Mary’s case, from her fictions and manuscripts as well. In the Metropolis/The Ruins at Luna section, I also used some of Percy Shelley’s writings from his letters, poems, and the facsimile editions of his notebooks and some from Mary Wollstonecraft’s letters, and other writings. Of course all the letters here, except for one of Claire’s noted below, and a few