Jane Goes Batty Read Online Free PDF

“Honestly.”
    Marschner’s opera was not really to her liking. For one thing, she found the German language completely without appeal. As a friend had once said, “It always sounds as if they’re on the verge of coughing something up.” For another, the libretto was ridiculous. “Not that most of them aren’t,” Jane remarked to Jasper. “But this one is particularly melodramatic. You see, Lord Ruthven is a vampire. One night—I don’t know why—the Vampire Master comes to him and informs him that unless he is able to kill three virgins before the clock strikes one the next morning, he’ll die. If he
can
kill three of them, he gets to live another year.”
    Jane took another drink of wine. “Of course there is no such thing as a Vampire Master,” she continued. “And the rest is equally silly. Something about a cave and moonlight and Ruthven pretending to be his own brother. It all ends badly for him and he goes to hell.”
    Jasper yawned.
    “My sentiments exactly,” Jane agreed. “Still, I can’t help feeling a bit sentimental toward it.”
    In the spring of 1828 she had been dead for nearly eleven years and the novelty had not yet worn off. For reasons she could not now recall she was in Leipzig. Hearing that a new opera about a vampire had recently premiered, she was curious to see it. When she found out that the opera was based on Dr. John Polidori’s novel
The Vampyre
, she was even more intrigued. It was Polidori, after all, who had vacationed with Byron at the villa on Lake Geneva the summer Jane was turned.
    “I suppose I thought I might understand him better or some such foolish notion,” Jane informed Jasper. “Byron, that is. I hadn’t quite given up hope that he might yet love me.”
    The opera had devastated her. Sitting in the darkness of thebalcony she had watched with mounting terror as the young woman, Janthe, fell under the spell of the handsome vampire and became his first victim. Several times she had to stop herself from crying out to the girl to run. But just as Jane had been entranced by Byron’s beauty, Janthe fell prey to Ruthven’s charms. During the soprano’s final lines Jane had wept uncontrollably, and at the intermission she had fled into the night.
    She had returned to the opera a week later, determined to see it through to the end. This time as she watched Lord Ruthven seduce and destroy first Janthe and then Emily, her sorrow was replaced with anger. At the finale, when Ruthven’s evil plan to marry the chaste and virtuous Malwina and thus secure his immortality was thwarted by Malwina’s true love, Edgar, Jane applauded fiercely, not only for the fine performances but for the triumph of good over evil.
    For years she had hated Byron and often thought about what she would say or do should she see him again. Then, when he’d first appeared in her bookshop, she had immediately felt the draw of him as if no time at all had passed. He was still dashing, and his wit had grown even sharper over the centuries. She had even succumbed to his charms once again and spent a night with him.
    They had since come to terms with each other, and although Jane knew they could never again be lovers, there were still moments when she thought she was meant to be with him. She wouldn’t have to explain anything to him, or worry about him growing old.
    “And I wouldn’t have to become Jewish,” she told Jasper.
    But she wasn’t in love with Byron. Now she was in love with Walter, and she and Byron were merely friends. Besides, Byron was always falling in love with other men, which made it considerably more difficult to imagine spending an eternity with him.
    Jane pushed thoughts of Byron and vampires and Leipzig from her mind and turned back to the computer screen. She haddecided to play
Der Vampyr
out of some hope that it might inspire her. She had a vague idea that she wanted to write about longing and loss, and she thought perhaps listening to Marschner’s opera would put her