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Reality is water-soluble.
I do not! said Byron. The human race seeks its own death. We hasten towards what we fear most. I shook my head. I was on firm ground now in this ark of ours. I said, It is men who seek death. If a single one of you carried a life in his womb for nine months, only to see that child perish as a baby, or in infancy, or through want, disease, or, thereafter, war, you would not seek death in the way that you do. Yet death is heroic, said Byron. And life is not.
The gentlemen laugh at me indulgently. They respect me, up to a point, but we have arrived at that point. We are talking about the animating principle, says Byron, slowly and patiently as if to a child. Not the soil, not the bedding, not the container; the life-spark. The life-spark is male. Agreed! said Polidori, and of course if two gentlemen agree that must be enough to settle the matter for any woman.
But there is something of a lighthousekeeper in me, and I am not afraid of solitude, nor of nature in her wildness. I found in those days that my happiest times were outside and alone, inventing stories of every kind, and as far from my real circumstances as possible. I became my own ladder and trapdoor to other worlds. I was my own disguise. The sight of a figure, far off, on some journey of his own, was enough to spark my imagination towards a tragedy or a miracle. I was never bored except in the company of others.
I watched him, sardonic, cynical. A great poet, truly, yet unkind. The gifts of our nature seem not to modify the manner of our behaviour.
My creator will not be a madman. He will be a visionary. A man with family and friends. Dedicated to his work. I will take him to the brink and make him leap. I will show his glory as well as his horror. I will call him Victor Frankenstein.
Perhaps, I said, it is women who bring knowledge into the world quite as much as men do. Eve ate the apple. Pandora opened the box. Had they not done so humankind is what? Automata. Bovine. Contented pig. Show me that pig! said Claire. I shall marry that pig! Why must life be suffering? Author’s note: THIS IS THE MOST PROFOUND THING CLAIRE HAS SAID IN HER LIFE. Just like a woman … said Byron (re suffering). We are purified by suffering. (So speaks the Emperor of Indulgence.)
Then why do you support the Luddites, I said, if you champion the inventions they destroy? No man should be a slave to a machine, said Byron. It is degrading. Men are slaves to other men, I said. And everywhere women are slaves. There will always be hierarchies of men, he replied, but to see all that you have worked for taken away by a lump of metal and wood, that would drive a man half mad.
The English are serial racists – one group gets accepted, another group becomes the scapegoat.
Max explains that the dewars are so cold that a temporary power loss doesn’t matter. Even a few weeks wouldn’t matter. What if there’s a nuclear war? asks Ron. Max suggests there will be other things to worry about. Ron sees the good sense of this. His processing speed picks up and he spots a pattern in the data. Ryan, you just said that 55 million people die every year? Yes … We wouldn’t want them all back though, would we? Author’s note: THIS IS THE MOST PROFOUND THING RON HAS EVER SAID.
Is Donald Trump getting his brain frozen? asks Ron. Max explains that the brain has to be fully functioning at clinical death.
The waitress sashayed away. That is a beautiful ass, said Ron. Women are not body parts! said Claire. How is a man supposed to give a woman a compliment, then? said Ron. You a #MeToo type? I won’t get into my politics, said Claire, I’ll just tell you that you can say the following to a woman: what intelligent eyes she has. What a beautiful soul she has. What deep understanding she has. What fine dress sense she has. Is that all? said Ron. Think of it like practising the piano, said Claire. Get those right and we can try some other pieces.
