The Villa Deodati
The breeze began to blow from the lake, reinvigorating the air about the Villa Deodati and its environs. Byron looked down to the sea (1) , watching the Shelleys begin to walk back to the house. Polidori was in the library, sleeping.
The tedium was thick, and he felt as if he could cut it with a sword, possibly to make marzipan-filled côtelettes d'ennuie ( cutlets of boredom) for holiday gifts.
He looked forward to hearing the continuation of Mary Shelley's new story this evening, her gothic tale of impossible and forbidden romances.
A noise from the library disturbed him. He brusquely walked into the room where Polydori slept undisturbed, and walked over to the television, which was filled with images of mobs of poor people in some European capital or other. The people in the hi-def images were talking rapidly in a dialect he could not understand, so he assumed it was London.
Byron looked for the TV remote, whose tiny wheezy steam governor disclosed its location, and turned the TV off.
" 'The poor you shall have always with you' " , he thought sardonically, "but certainly not in the library or the great room."
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notes
(1) sometimes Lake Geneva was referred to as "the sea",
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