The Biographer's Tale (19 page)
Read The Biographer's Tale Online
Authors: A. S. Byatt
Tags: #Fiction, #General, #Psychological, #Biographers, #Psychological Fiction, #Bildungsromans, #Coming of Age, #Biography as a Literary Form, #Young Men
I was a failure as a semiotician, I do now see. I may be getting better at
writing
, now, when it is too late, but then I was slow, I did not read the signs.
After a week or so, Vera Alphage wrote to say that she had a free day, and I was welcome to come and study the photographs and cards. I went back to Willesden, where a space had been made for me at a little writing-bureau in what appeared to be the spare bedroomâsparsely furnished, with a single bed, some sort of floral curtains, a patchwork quilt. I took a sandwich and an appleâI didn't want Ms. Alphage to suppose she had to entertain meâbut she brought up a bowl of watercress soup at lunchtime, a brown roll, and a piece of Brie. My initial feeling on confronting the cards, with so limited a time to read them in, was panic. I decided to read them all through, and to noteâon paperâall the subjects of the “entries.” Then I would look at the groupings (if any) and copy out what I myself found most striking. What other approach could I use? It was all peculiarly unsatisfactory. Nor do I think now that I can record here, in full, my “findings.” It took me three visits to make a record of the contents of the box, which still appear to me so diverse and ramshackle that remembering them in any order or making any sense of them is no more than
botching
. I had the idea, which turned out to be hopelessly idealistic, that I should approach them with a completely open mind, a kind of researcher's version of the
tabula rasa
, in order to understand the whole of Destry-Scholes's purpose (if he had one) in accumulating the collection, and the subtleties (if any) of the ordering of the cards.
“To find, not to impose,” as Wallace Stevens magnificently said. One of the reasons I had given up post-structuralist thought was the disagreeable amount of imposing that went on in it. You decided what you were looking for, and then duly found itâmale hegemony, liberal-humanist
idées reçues
, etc. This was made worse by the fact that the deconstructionists and others paid lip-service to the idea that they must not imposeâthey even went so far as half-believing they must not find, either. And yet they discovered the same structures, the same velleities, the same evasions quite routinely in the most disparate texts. I wanted most seriously
not
to impose that sort of a reading, and, more primitively, not to impose my own hypotheses about who Destry-Scholes was, or what he was doing. This was not difficult, as my hypotheses were very ghostly, thin air, no more.
What shape do I give, in my mind, now, to that cubic mass of tiny writing?
The salient bits were where two or three consecutive cards appeared to be on the same subject. Here for instance, is a little sequence beginning with card no. 21 (I asked Vera Alphage's permission to number themâin pencil, lightlyâand she agreed that I might).
Card no. 21
The young man's name was Ludvig David. He dived from a second-floor window in a Roman apartment. He was unwell, suffering from a high fever, pouring with sweat and HI was of the opinion that he believed
that the wavering, liquefying surface he saw below him was the spumy surface of a cool, profound, refreshing sea. Like HI himself, the exiles all felt a perpetual longing for the tossing seas of the North. It is also possible that the young man meant to end, either his temporary but intolerable pain, or his life itself, for more settled reasons. Whatever the reasons for the leap, HI made it his business to be present at the autopsy. He wrote to B, Ludvig David's friend, with a precise description of the state of the corpse. “The skull was crushed at the apex, and the face was scraped, flayed in some sort, and bloodied. The arms and legs were intact, but the ribcage was crushed and the lungs ripped, which caused a great flow of blood.” HI peered doubtless into the cavern of the skull. The scalp and the features were rolled back like the skin of an onion.
It is odd that he recorded all this in what appears to have been his first letter to B.
Card no. 22
“When I saw the stiff and lifeless body, the livid, pale and foam-flecked lips; when I thought of the loss of so old and excellent a friend and remembered the sleepless nights, the laborious days, the journeys, the midnight hours of exhausting study which had preceded his attainment of that learning in which he had no rival to fearâthen I burst into tears. And when I foresaw that all this scholarship, which should have earned immortality for him and glory for his country, would perish with his death, then the love which I still felt for my
friend commanded that the pledge we had once madeâthat the survivor would give to the world the observations of the otherâmust be honoured.”
A. was drowned in a canal in Amsterdam on 27th September 1735 after a convivial evening with Seba. A few days earlier, he had read to CL all he had so far written of his book on ichthyology, keeping CL up almost all nightâhis usual habit was to go to the tavern from three to nine, to work from nine to three in the night, and to sleep from three till noon. CL wrote of their last, intense discussion:â“He kept me long, too long, unendurably long (which was unlike our usual practice) but had I known that it was to be our last talk together I would have wished it even longer.” A. was only 29 when he drowned. CL described him as “the ornament and glory of his nation!” He wrote, “Thus too early did Fate pluck this unique genius! Thus did the most distinguished of ichthyologists perish in the waters, having devoted his life to the discovery of their inhabitants!⦔
Card no. 23 [Thursday, April 14th 1840]
I went in a Steam Boat to Putney to see the Oxford and Cambridge rowing match. As we were returning, very fast and with the tide, through Battersea Bridge, we ran foul of the middle pier. I, who was behind the paddle-box, saw how we were going just before we struck, and caught tight hold of one of the paddle-box steps, expecting a general smash and determined to have a swim for it. Well, the body of the packet cleared, but
the paddle-box, behind which I was, came full crash against the sides of the arch. It split open just before me by the shock. I was thrown head foremost through the cleft, right amongst the paddle wheels, which were still going round, they not having touched the pier â¦Â Well, this regularly stunned me. Thank heavens my neck was not broken in the wheel. (Escape no. 1.) I was quite insensible, and how I cleared the bridge I have not the slightest conception. I must have been beaten down by the paddle wheels beneath the bottom of the boatâand fortunately enough, otherwise I must have been jammed between it and the pier and of course squashed. That makes Escape no. 2. Well, as I said, I was insensible, and when I knew where I was, I found myself under a large piece of wood which proved to be the outer side of the paddle-box â¦Â I of course gave myself up, but determined to have a regular push for life â¦Â I did not sink I daresay a foot below the surface, but I got entangled in some long bits of wood, which as I was all but spent nearly drowned me, and when I got to the surface they were too heavy to give me any real support, so I looked round, and saw the side of the paddle-box, which had before been so much in my way, floating down with the tide. I struck out and soon reached itâand I did feel happy. I climbed on to it and it was a perfect raft. (Escape no. 3.) On looking about me I found that the steamer was 300 yards or so in front and could not stir â¦Â Well, I was in the midst of the river, plenty of boats and watermen were at the shore, those nice dear fellows who when
they see you struggling, look on, and never dream of rowing to you till you are either safe or deadâyes, and if safe, they swear they saved your life, march off to the Royal Humane Society and get a gold medal for their pains, with a long paragraph in
The Times
about “unparalleled bravery,” and so forth. Well, after waving my hat, for I don't know how long, off some half-dozen came in a body. I was pulled into a boat and felt very seedy, I was dizzy and very sick. However, to put the captain out of his fright, I took an oar, declared nothing was the matter with me and pulled mechanically.
I was so dizzy that I scarce knew what I did. On getting to the packet everybody looked horrified, one or two ladies held up their handkerchiefs before their eyes. I couldn't make out what at, but on getting ashore and to an inn, with a looking-glass I found my face, ears and whiskers, shirt etc. all covered with blood. One nail had hooked me by the side of the nose, another had “carved” out my face and I had as many cuts on my ear as a Christmas pig. I got to bed, half dried clothes and walked to London. Now don't fancy I am ill. I took enough calomel and salts to do anything, and except a rather torn face and broken head, I really have
nothing
the matter with me â¦Â I have gained great glory by my splashes under water and it is a very good tale to tellâat least when the pain goes off. I now know something of what drowning isâI felt no pain, but rather dreamyâand I also know what my feeling will be when I am dying, as I firmly believed I was then.
Cards 24 and 25 were copied out (I supposed they were copied out. It was clear to me that 23 was copied from somewhere, and 22 was a mixture of copying and reporting) in a Scandinavian language I couldn't read. It could have been SwedishâLinnaeusâor NorwegianâIbsen. The word Maelstrøm occurred, also the words Arcturus, Boreas, and Pisces. This caused me to suppose that these were quotations from Linnaeusâand they were, moreover, the first solid evidence I had hadâ
almost
solid evidenceâthat Destry-Scholes pursued his Scandinavian researches in the original languages. It is possible, of course that he copied the originals, as I copied his copies, with the intention of procuring translations. It occurred to me that Providence, or Fate, had presented me with a translator just when I needed one. I would send the cards to Fulla Biefeld for identification and translation. I would also send the description of the death of A (whom I soon identified as Petrus Artedi, Linnaeus's student friend, the originator of many of the classificatory systematics which Linnaeus used, or adapted).
Card no. 26
It has happened to me more than once to be nearly suffocated, and to have been surprised at the absence of that gasping desire for air that one feels when the breath is suddenly checked. A very little seems sufficient to divert attention from that desire, and to leave the sense only of being ill and on the point of swooning. My chief experiences may seem hardly credible; they were due to a fancy of mine to obtain distinct vision when diving. The convex eyeball stamps a concave
lens in the water, whose effect has to be neutralised by a convex lens. This has to be very “strong,” because the refractive power of a lens is greatly diminished by immersion in water. My first experiment was in a bath, using the two objectives of my opera-glass in combination, and with some success. I then had spectacles made for me, which I described at the British Association in 1865. With these I could read the print of a newspaper perfectly under water, when it was held at the exact distance of clear vision, but the range of clear vision was small. I amused myself very frequently with this new hobby, and being most interested in the act of reading, constantly forgot that I was nearly suffocating myself, and was recalled to the fact not by any gasping desire for breath, but purely by a sense of illness, that alarmed me. It disappeared immediately after raising the head out of water and inhaling two or three good whiffs of air.
Card no. 27
PEER:
What a storm!
STRANGE PASSENGER:
Yes! Beautiful!
PEER:
Beautiful?
SP:
The waves are running as high as houses. It makes my mouth water. Think of the wrecks There will be tonight. Think of the corpses drifting ashore.
PEER:
God preserve us!
SP:
Have you ever seen a man strangled?
Or hangedâor drowned?
PEER:
Whatâ
SP:
They laugh; but their laughter is forced.
Most of them bite out their tongues.
PEER:
Get away from me!
SP:
Just one question. Suppose we, for example
Should strike on a rock, and sink in the darknessâ
PEER:
You think there is a dangerâ?
SP:
I don't really know what I ought to say.
But suppose now, I should float and you should sinkâ
PEER:
Oh rubbishâ!
SP:
It's just a hypothesis.
But when a man stands with one foot in the grave
He sometimes tends to be generousâ
PEER:
[
Puts his hand in his pocket
.] Oh, moneyâ
SP:
No, no. But if you would be so kind
As to bequeath me your valuable bodyâ
PEER:
What!
SP:
Only your corpse, you understand.
To help my researchesâ
PEER:
Go away!
SP:
But, my dear sir, consider. It's to your advantage.
I'll open you up and let in the light.
I want to discover the source of your dreams.
I want to find out how you're put togetherâ
PEER:
Away!
SP:
But my dear sir! A drowned bodyâ!
PEER:
Blasphemous man!
You're provoking the storm. Are you out of your mind?
Look at the sea! These waves are like mountains!
At any moment we may be killed.
And you're acting as though you can hardly wait for it.
SP:
I see you're not in a mood for discussion.
But time, they say, changes everything.
We'll meet when you're sinking, if not before.
Perhaps you'll be more in the humour, then.
[
Goes into cabin
.]
PEER:
Horrible fellows these scientists are!
You damned freethinker!