Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell (74 page)

They took one last look at the silent white city and stepped into the Darkness.

The alleys were deserted. The inhabitants of the parish had fled to relatives and friends in other parts of the city. But the cats of Venice — who are as contrary a set of creatures as the cats of any other city — had flocked to Santa Maria Zobenigo to dance and hunt and play in the Endless Night which seemed to them to be a sort of high holiday. In the Darkness cats brushed past Dr Greysteel and Frank; and several times Dr Greysteel caught sight of glowing eyes watching him from a doorway.

When they reached the house where Strange lodged it was quiet. They knocked and called out, but no one came. Finding the door was unlocked, they pushed it open. The house was dark. They found the staircase and went up to Strange’s room at the top of the house where he did magic.

After all that had happened they were rather expecting something remarkable, to find Strange in conversation with a demon or haunted by horrible apparitions. It was somewhat disconcerting that the scene which presented itself was so ordinary. The room looked as it had upon numerous occasions. It was lit by a generous number of candles and an iron stove gave out a welcome heat. Strange was at the table, bending over his silver dish with a pure white light radiating up into his face. He did not look up. A clock ticked quietly in the corner. Books, papers and writing things were thickly scattered over every surface as usual. Strange passed the tip of his finger over the surface of the water and struck it twice very gently. Then he turned and wrote something in a book.

“Strange,” said Dr Greysteel.

Strange glanced up. He did not look so frantic as he had the night before, but his eyes had the same haunted look. He regarded the doctor for a long moment without any sign of recognition. “Greysteel,” he murmured at last. “What are you doing here?”

“I have come to see how you are. I am concerned about you.”

Strange made no reply to this. He turned back to his silver dish and made a few gestures over it. But immediately he seemed dissatisfied with what he had done. He took a glass and poured some water into it. Then he took a tiny bottle and carefully tipped two drops of liquid into the glass.

Dr Greysteel watched him. There was no label upon the bottle; the liquid was amber-coloured; it could have been any thing.

Strange observed Dr Greysteel’s eyes upon him. “I suppose you are going to say I ought not to take this. Well, you may spare yourself the trouble!” He drank it down in one draught. “You will not say so when you know the reason!”

“No, no,” said Dr Greysteel in his most placating tone — the one he employed for his most difficult patients. “I assure you I was going to say nothing of the kind. I only wish to know if you are in pain? Or ill? I thought last night that you were. Perhaps I can advise …” He stopped. He smelt something. It was quite overpowering — a dry, musty scent mixed with something rank and animal; and the curious thing was that he recognized it. Suddenly he could smell the room where the old woman lived: the mad old woman with all the cats.

“My wife is alive,” said Strange. His voice was hoarse and thick. “Ha! There! You did not know that!”

Dr Greysteel turned cold. If there was any thing Strange could have said to alarm him even more, this was probably it.

“They told me she was dead!” continued Strange. “They told me that they had buried her! I cannot believe I was so taken in! She was enchanted! She was stolen from me! And that is why I need this!” He waved the little bottle of amber-coloured liquid in the doctor’s face.

Dr Greysteel and Frank took a step or two backwards. Frank muttered in the doctor’s ear. “All is well, sir. All is well. I shall not let him harm you. I have the measure of him. Do not fear.”

“I cannot go back to the house,” said Strange. “He has expelled me and he will not let me go back. The trees will not let me pass. I have tried spells of disenchantment, but they do not work. They do not work …”

“Have you been doing magic since last night?” asked Dr Greysteel.

“What? Yes!”

“I am very sorry to hear it. You should rest. I dare say you do not remember very much of last night …”

“Ha!” exclaimed Strange with bitterest irony. “I shall never forget the smallest detail!”

“Is that so? Is that so?” said Dr Greysteel in the same soothing tone. “Well, I cannot conceal from you that your appearance alarmed me. You were not yourself. It was the consequence, I am sure, of overwork. Perhaps if I …”

“Forgive me, Dr Greysteel, but, as I have just explained, my wife is
enchanted
; she is a prisoner beneath the earth. Much as I would like to continue this conversation, I have far more pressing matters to attend to!”

“Very well. Calm yourself. Our presence here distresses you. We will go away again and come back tomorrow. But before we go, I must say this: the Governor sent a delegation to me this morning. He respectfully requests that you refrain from performing magic for the present …”

“Not do magic!” Strange laughed — a cold, hard, humourless sound. “You ask me to stop now? Quite impossible! What did God make me a magician for, if not for this?” He returned to his silver dish and began to draw signs in the air, just above the surface of the water.

“Then at least free the parish from this Unnatural Night. Do that at least, for me? For friendship’s sake? For Flora’s sake?”

Strange paused in the middle of a gesture. “What are you talking about? What Unnatural Night? What is unnatural about it?”

“For God’s sake, Strange! It is almost noon!”

For a moment Strange said nothing. He looked at the black window, at the darkness in the room and finally at Dr Greysteel. “I had not the least idea,” he whispered, aghast. “Believe me! This is not my doing!”

“Whose is it then?”

Strange did not reply; he stared vacantly about the room.

Dr Greysteel feared it would only vex him to be questioned more about the Darkness, and so he simply asked, “Can you bring the daylight back?”

“I … I do not know.”

Dr Greysteel told Strange that they would come again the next day and he took the opportunity once more to recommend sleep as an excellent remedy.

Strange was not listening, but, just as Dr Greysteel and Frank were leaving, he took hold of the doctor’s arm and whispered, “May I ask you something?”

Dr Greysteel nodded.

“Are you not afraid that it will go out?”

“What will go out?” asked Dr Greysteel.

“The candle.” Strange gestured to Dr Greysteel’s forehead. “The candle inside your head.”

Outside, the Darkness seemed eerier than ever. Dr Greysteel and Frank made their way silently through the night streets. When they reached the daylight at the western extremity of St Mark’s Piazza, both breathed a great sigh of relief.

Dr Greysteel said, “I am determined to say nothing to the Governor about the overturn of his reason. God knows what the Austrians might do. They might send soldiers to arrest him — or worse! I shall simply say that he is unable to banish the Night just now, but that he means no harm to the city — for I am quite certain he does not — and that I am sure of persuading him to set matters right very soon.”

The next day when the sun rose Darkness still covered the parish of Santa Maria Zobenigo. At half past eight Frank went out to buy milk and fish. The pretty, dark-eyed peasant-girl who sold milk from the milk-barge in the San Lorenzo-canal liked Frank and always had a word and a smile for him. This morning she handed him up his jug of milk and asked, “
Hai sentito che lo stregone inglese è pazzo
?” (Have you heard that the English magician is mad?)

In the fish-market by the Grand Canal a fisherman sold Frank three mullet, but then almost neglected to take the money because his attention was given to the argument he was conducting with his neighbour as to whether the English magician had gone mad because he was a magician, or because he was English. On the way home two pale-faced nuns scrubbing the marble steps of a church wished Frank a good morning and told him that they intended to say prayers for the poor, mad English magician. Then just as he was almost at the house-door, a white cat stepped out from under a gondola seat, sprang on to the quayside and gave him a look. He waited for it to say something about Jonathan Strange, but it did not.

“How in God’s name did this happen?” asked Dr Greysteel, sitting up in bed. “Do you think Mr Strange went out and spoke to someone?”

Frank did not know. Out he went again and made some inquiries. It seemed that Strange had not yet stirred from the room at the top of the house in Santa Maria Zobenigo; but Lord Byron (who was the one person in all the city who treated the appearance of Eternal Night as a sort of entertainment) had visited him at about five o’clock the previous evening and had found him still doing magic and raving about candles, pineapples, dances that went on for centuries and dark woods that filled the streets of Venice. Byron had gone home and told his mistress, his landlord and his valet; and, as these were all sociable people much given to spending their evenings among large groups of talkative friends, the number of people who knew by morning was quite remarkable.

“Lord Byron! Of course!” cried Dr Greysteel. “I forgot all about him! I must go and warn him to be discreet.”

“I think it’s a little late for that, sir,” said Frank.

Dr Greysteel was obliged to admit the truth of this. Nevertheless he felt he should like to consult someone. And who better than Strange’s other friend? So that evening he dressed carefully and went in his gondola to the house of the Countess Albrizzi. The Countess was a clever Greek lady of mature years, who had published some books upon sculpture; but her chief delight was to give
conversazioni
where all sorts of fashionable and learned people could meet each other. Strange had attended one or two, but until tonight Dr Greysteel had never troubled about them.

He was shewn to a large room on the
piano nobile
. It was richly decorated with marble floors, wonderful statues, and painted walls and ceilings. At one end of the room the ladies sat in a semi-circle around the Countess. The men stood at the other end. From the moment he entered the room Dr Greysteel felt the eyes of the other guests upon him. More than one person was pointing him out to his neighbour. There was little doubt but that they were talking of Strange and the Darkness.

A small, handsome man was standing by the window. He had dark, curly hair and a full, soft, red mouth. It was a mouth which would have been striking upon a woman, but on a man it was simply extraordinary. With his small stature, carefully chosen clothes and dark hair and eyes, he had a little of the look of Christopher Drawlight — but only if Drawlight had been fearfully clever. Dr Greysteel went up to him directly, and said, “Lord Byron?”

The man turned to see who spoke. He did not look best pleased to be addressed by a dull, stout, middle-aged Englishman. Yet he could not deny who he was. “Yes?”

“My name is Greysteel. I am a friend of Mr Strange.”

“Ah!” said his lordship. “The physician with the beautiful daughter!”

Dr Greysteel, in his turn, was not best pleased to hear his daughter spoken of in such terms by one of the most notorious rakes in Europe, yet he could not deny that Flora was beautiful. Putting it aside for the moment, he said, “I have been to see Strange. All my worst fears are confirmed. His reason is quite overturned.”

“Oh, quite!” agreed Byron. “I was with him again a few hours ago and could not get him to talk of any thing but his dead wife and how she is not really dead, but merely enchanted. And now he shrouds himself in Darkness and works Black Magic! There is something rather admirable in all this, do you not agree?”

“Admirable?” said the doctor sharply. “Say pitiable rather! But do you think he made the Darkness? He told me quite plainly that he had not.”

“But of course he made it!” declared Byron. “A Black World to match his Black Spirits! Who would not blot out the sun sometimes? The difference is that when one is a magician, one can actually do it.”

Dr Greysteel considered this. “You may be right,” he conceded. “Perhaps he created the Darkness and then forgot about it. I do not think he always remembers what he has said or done. I have found that he retains very little impression of my earlier conversations with him.”

“Ah. Well. Quite,” said his lordship, as if there was nothing very surprizing in this and that he too would be glad to forget the doctor’s conversation just as soon as he could. “Were you aware that he has written to his brother-in-law?”

“No, I did not know that.”

“He has instructed the fellow to come to Venice to see his dead sister.”

“Do you think he will come?” asked Dr Greysteel.

“I have not the least idea!” Lord Byron’s tone implied that it was somewhat presumptuous of Dr Greysteel to expect the Greatest Poet of the Age to interest himself in such matters. There was a moment or two of silence and then he added in a more natural tone, “To own the truth, I believe he will not come. Strange shewed me the letter. It was full of disjointed ramblings and reasonings that none but a madman — or a magician! — could understand.”

“It is a very bitter thing,” said Dr Greysteel. “Very bitter indeed! Only the day before yesterday we were walking with him. He was in such cheerful spirits! To have gone from complete sanity to complete madness in the space of one night, I cannot understand it. I wonder if there might not be some physical cause. Some infection perhaps?”

“Nonsense!” declared Byron. “The causes of his madness are purely metaphysical. They lie in the vast chasm between that which one is, and that which one desires to become, between the soul and the flesh. Forgive me, Dr Greysteel, but this is a matter of which I have experience. Of this I can speak with authority.”

“But …” Dr Greysteel frowned and paused to collect his thoughts. “But the period of intense frustration appeared to be over. His work was going well.”

“All I can tell you is this. Before this peculiar obsession with his dead wife, he was full of quite another matter: John Uskglass. You must have observed that? Now I know very little of English magicians. They have always seemed to me a parcel of dull, dusty old men — except for John Uskglass. He is quite another matter! The magician who tamed the Otherlanders!
²
The only magician to defeat Death! The magician whom Lucifer himself was forced to treat as an equal! Now, whenever Strange compares himself to this sublime being — as he must from time to time — he sees himself for what he truly is: a plodding, earth-bound mediocrity! All his achievements — so praised up in the desolate little isle
³
— crumble to dust before him! That will bring on as fine a bout of despair as you could wish to see.
This is to be mortal, And seek the things beyond mortality.
" Lord Byron paused for a moment, as if committing the last remark to memory in case he should want to put it in a poem. “I myself was touched with something of the same melancholia when I was in the Swiss mountains in September. I wandered about, hearing avalanches every five minutes — as if God was bent upon my destruction! I was full of regrets and immortal longings. Several times I was sorely tempted to blow my brains out — and I would have done it too, but for the recollection of the pleasure it would give my mother-in-law.”