CHAPTER TWO
Doctor Polidori settled the oars and lay back, allowing the boat to drift on. He even dared loosen his cravat. It was perhaps nine o’clock in the evening, a pleasant supper of pheasant and wine at Villa Diodati still warming his body and thoughts. An oil lamp at his knee highlighted every cushion and plank of the rowboat’s interior. Yet the lapping water of Lake Geneva was, as far as Polidori could discern, impenetrably black. The shore was a thin, mist-shrouded line—blurred pinpoints of light escaping from chalets and villas through drawn curtains and shutters. The Alps rose dark and jagged in the distance, surmounted by snow that appeared ice-black in the starlight. The air was chilled and damp. Polidori pulled a cigar from his frock coat pocket, cut off the end, and lit it.
