732 words, 4 minutes read time
In the home stretch:
30) “The Mortal Immortal” by Mary Shelley (yes, that Mary Shelley)
Plot:
In what appears to be a journal entry dated July 16, 1833, the narrator, Winzy, notes that it is the anniversary of his having been alive for three hundred and twenty-three years.
Is he then immortal? He’s been asking himself that question. He’s just noticed a gray hair in his brown locks. Certainly that indicates decay—or maybe it’s been there all along, undetected until now.
He’ll tell the reader his story and let them decide.
When he was young and very poor, he worked for a “philosopher,” Cornelius Agrippa. One of his “scholars” “unawares raised the foul fiend during his master’s absence, and was destroyed by him.”
Winzy was also away at the time and doesn’t know the details of the matter.
Perhaps not too surprisingly, Cornelius Agrippa had trouble keeping help after that. Even our hero ran away, where he met Bertha and fell in love. How was he to marry her and keep her in the custom to which she was accustomed? That is, fed, clothed, housed, and breathing? Especially since the local noblewoman took her in after she lost her parents and dressed her in silks?
Cornelius Agrippa offered him a bag of gold if he’d come back to work. He came back, only to see Bertha get impatient and start keeping company with Albert friggin’ Hoffer, of all people.
Cornelius Agrippa was working on an important experiment, a fluid he told Winzy would cure love. After working on it for days, he left Winzy in charge of watching it and went to take a nap. Whatever happens, he told Winzy he must not drink any of it.
Winzy daydreamed about killing Bertha and Albert. He let the fluid cook too long and didn’t wake Cornelius. The fluid emitted a flash of light. He drank half of it and dropped the vessel containing it, smashing it to bits.
The philosopher woke and grabbed Winzy by the throat. “Wretch! you have destroyed the labor of my life!”
Winzy never told Cornelius he drank half of it.
Winzy was happy. He was free, no longer in love with Bertha.
Some time later, he saw her at the castle where she’s been living. “[S]he was a thousand times more graceful and charming than ever—I no longer loved—Oh! no, I adored—worshipped—idolized her!”
The philosopher neglected to mention some vital information about that fluid.
Thoughts:
This story is gloriously gothic in tone and structure. It meanders all over the place. I had a lot of fun with it, though. Poor Winzy. Can’t win for losing.
While this story and Frankenstein share some themes—alchemy, transformation, immortality, and perhaps suicide—they are quite different. The ending doesn’t come in a burning windmill (neither does Frankenstein, but the old movies seem to love it). The reader doesn’t know how Winzy has spent more than three hundred years looking like a twenty-year-old guy, other than that he hasn’t stopped looking for a way to end his condition. Both tales also show elements of the old story of the Wandering Jew , demonstrating isolation, alienation, and physical wandering.
There is a plant by the same name, too, but obviously that’s a different matter.
If Winzy had spent a little less time indulging in hatred and more time watching the philosopher’s potion, he might not be in this fix. He loves and mourns Bertha after she dies, and then spends the rest of his many days trying to rejoin society.
I liked this short story. It is unlike modern fare, however. I suspect a present-day editor would have a field day with the metaphorical red pencil. Nevertheless, I found it enjoyable.
This story can be read here:
This story can be listened to here: (33:49)
Bio: Mary Shelley was a UK writer most famously known as the author of Frankenstein, or The Modern Prometheus (1818), originally written when she was only 19. Her mother, the women’s rights activist Mary Wollstonecraft (1759-1797), died in childbirth. Her father, William Godwin, and her stepmother, Mary Jane Godwin, wrote children’s stories. While her novels generally focus on horror without supernatural elements, her shorter fiction often introduces supernatural elements.
Title: “The Mortal Immortal”
Author: Mary Shelley (1797-1851)
First published: The Keepsake for MDCCCXXXIV [1834], 1833
Length: short story
