The Monster Trilogy. Brian Aldiss

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СКАЧАТЬ had that pleasure, thank you. My name is Joseph Bodenland, known as Joe, as in jovial.’

      ‘Ah, then you’re a son of Jupiter – an auspicious star. Are you a military man, Mr Bodenland?’

      ‘No, by no means.’

      ‘Both Florence and I are of military stock. That’s why I ask. My grandfather was Thomas Thorley of the 43rd Regiment. Fought against Bonaparte, later took part in the conquest of Burma, 1824. Florence’s father, Lt Colonel James Balcombe, served in India and the Crimea, with great distinction.’

      ‘I see. Came through all right?’

      Florence Stoker asked, to cover her guest’s awkwardness, ‘Is your family prosperous? You Americans are so expert at business, so I hear.’

      ‘I know your compatriot, Mark Twain,’ Stoker said, turning to give an anxious tug at the curtains. ‘Most amusing chap, I thought. I tried to get him to write us a play.’

      Genially taking Bodenland’s elbow, he led him through a maze of tables on which various keepsake albums and other mementoes lay, towards a cheerful log fire.

      Over the fireplace hung a large oil, its eroticism not entirely out of keeping with the luxury of the rest of the room. A naked pink woman sat fondling or being fondled by a cupid. Another figure was offering her a honeycomb in one hand and holding a scorpion’s sting in the other. The figure of Time in the background was preparing to draw a curtain over the amorous scene. Bodenland regarded it with some amazement.

      ‘Like it?’ Stoker asked, catching his glance. ‘Nice piece of classical art. Bronzino’s celebrated “Venus, Cupid, Folly, and Time”. An all-embracing title.’ He laughed and shot a glance at his wife. ‘It’s a copy, of course, but a good one.’

      When they had settled down in armchairs, and Mrs Stoker had rung the bell and summoned the maidservant, and the maidservant had adjusted the curtains to everyone’s satisfaction – ‘That girl has no feeling for the symmetry of folds,’ said Mrs Stoker, severely – they lapsed into general conversation over a glass of sherry.

      At length Bodenland said, ‘Of course, I know your name best as author of Dracula.’

      ‘Is that a play you would be speaking of?’

      ‘A book, Mr Stoker, a novel. It’s world-famous where I come from.’ After a long pause, he added, ‘All about vampires.’

      ‘What do you know about vampires, may I ask?’ Looking suspicious.

      ‘A fair deal, I guess. I’m given to believe I have locked one in your garden shed.’

      At this news, Stoker pulled again at his beard. He went further and pulled at his lip. Then he got up rapidly up from his chair, wended his way across the room, and peered through the curtains, muttering.

      He came back, still muttering, frowning, his broad and rugged face all a-twitch.

      ‘I shall have to see about that later. Anyhow, you’re mistaken, allow me to say. It does so happen that I am writing a novel at present all about vampires, which I intend to entitle “The Undead” … Hm, all the same, I like the starkness of that as a title: “Dracula” … Hm.’

      ‘He works too hard, Mr Bodenland,’ said Mrs Stoker. ‘He’s never home till after midnight. He’s back today only because tomorrow is a special day for Mr Irving.’

      She rose. ‘Excuse me, sir. I must confer with Maria, our cook. Dinner, at which we hope you will join us, will be ready at eight o’clock prompt.’

      When the two men were alone, Stoker leaned forward to poke the fire, saying as he stared into the flames, ‘Tell me, do you have any theories regarding vampires?’

      ‘I assume they are products of the imagination. As I rather assume you are too.’

      Stoker then gave him a hard look, holding out a glowing poker.

      ‘Is that some sort of joke? I don’t find it funny.’

      ‘I’m sorry, I apologize. I meant that to be sitting here with you, a famous man, seems to me like wild fantasy.’

      ‘Wilde? Oscar Wilde? He was once engaged to my Florence. Well, he’s got himself into a real pickle now, to be sure … Let me ask you this. Men are made to feel guilty about the sexual side of their natures. Do you believe that sex and guilt and disease and vampires are all related?’

      ‘I never thought of it.’

      ‘I have reason to think of it, good reason.’ These words, spoken with a morbid emphasis, were accompanied by equally emphatic wags of the poker, as though the ginger man was conducting the last bars of a symphony. ‘Let me ask you a riddle. What does the following refer to, if not to planets: “A night on Venus means a lifetime on Mercury”?’

      Despite the obvious good nature of his host, Bodenland was beginning to wish he had looked for a simple inn for the night.

      ‘I don’t know what you’re talking about.’

      ‘Syphilis, Mr Bodenland, that’s what I’m talking about. VD – the soldier’s term for it. Syphilis, the vampire of our amorous natures, that’s what. “Thou hast proven and visited mine heart in the night season.” That’s what the psalm says, and a ghastly saying it is … Now, perhaps you’d care to have a wash before we go in to dinner.’

      This was a moment to be grasped, Bodenland saw, in which to explain how he had arrived, and how his country was more distant than even the imaginative Stoker might guess.

      Stoker listened with many a tug of the beard, many a dubious shake of the head, many a ‘Well, I’ll be jiggered!’ many a ‘Saints in heaven!’ At the end, he remained stubbornly unbelieving, saying he had endured many a far-fetched thing acted out on the stage, but nothing like this. He knew of occupants of the wards of the nearby lunatic asylum who believed themselves to be Napoleon, but even there none imagined they came from a future when their mothers were as yet unborn.

      ‘I come from an age where anything can be believed,’ Bodenland said, half-way between amusement and irritation. ‘You evidently live in an age where nothing can be. Even when you have proof.’

      ‘What proof do you offer?’

      ‘Tomorrow, you shall see the vehicle by which I arrived here.’

      Nodding rather grimly, Stoker rose from his armchair. ‘Very well then, until that time I shall be forced to play the mistrustful host, who doubts the veracity of his guest, and regards his account as merely a tall story told before dinner.’

      ‘I hope, sir, that over the soup you may reflect that my sincerity in this matter is some token of my honesty.’

      ‘… And by the cheese course I’ll have swallowed your every word!’ With an explosion of laughter, Stoker led his guest from the room. His good humour went some way towards smoothing Bodenland’s ruffled feelings. It was only later that he came to realize how human beings came equipped with a defence mechanism which saved them accepting immediately anything which lay beyond their everyday experience; for so it was to prove in his own case.

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