"Effigy, 1816" by Angelisa Fontaine-Wood
Eleazar Gravenall sighed in relief as the door closed, the Villa Diodati and Lake Geneva with it finally behind him, finally quit of these outcast literati and their ghostly tales. Holding no other letters of introduction in Switzerland, he had only this manor for shelter from the ceaseless rains, and the grim skies lowering. There had been no respite, however, from the nightmares of those sharing its roof, the extravagant club-footed host and his company, the sheer agony of their fancies for walking cadavers and blood-drinking ghouls. Now at last, his carriage departing, he was free. He too was a poet—or had been. He felt honored to have met the host, an English lord renowned for adventures, verses, and outlandishness. True to the man’s fame, Gravenall’s illness seemed to fascinate him, asking for his sensations of that first sight of red coughed into a handkerchief. When asked to share their pastime of hair-raising stories, Gravenall simply could not. Not only did his own ...
