"Ladies and gentlemen," began Varduk, seriously but not heavily, "a new-found piece of Lord Byron's work is bound to be a literary sensation. We hope also to make a theatrical sensation, for our new-found piece is a play.
"A study of Lord Byron evokes varied impressions and appeals. Carlyle thought him a mere dandy, lacking Mr. Brummel's finesse and good humor, while Goethe insisted that he stood second only to Shakespeare among England's poets. His mistress, the Countess Guiccioli, held him literally to be an angel; on the other hand, both Lamartine and Southey called him Satan's incarnation. Even on minor matters—his skill at boxing and swimming, his depth of scholarship, his sincerity in early amours and final espousal of the Greek rebels—the great authorities differ. The only point of agreement is that he had color and individuality."
He paused and picked up some of the papers from his desk.
"We have here his lost play, Ruthven. Students know that Doctor John Polidori wrote a lurid novel of horror called The Vampire, and that he got his idea, or inspiration, or both, from Byron. Polidori's tale in turn inspired the plays of Nodier and Dumas in French, and of Planché and Boucicault in English. Gilbert and Sullivan joked with the story in Ruddigore, and Bram Stoker read it carefully before attempting Dracula. This manuscript," again he lifted it, "is Byron's original. It is, as I have said, a drama."
His expressive eyes, bending upon the page in the dimness, seemed to shed a light of their own. "I think that neither Mr. Connatt nor Miss Vining has seen the play. Will you permit me to read?" He took our consent for granted, and began: "Scene, Malvina's garden. Time, late afternoon—Aubrey, sitting at Malvina's feet, tells his adventures."
Since Ruthven is yet unpublished, I take the liberty of outlining it as I then heard it for the first time. Varduk's voice was expressive, and his sense of drama good. We listened, intrigued and then fascinated, to the opening dialog in which young Aubrey tells his sweetheart of his recent adventures in wildest Greece. The blank verse struck me, at least, as being impressive and not too stiff, though better judges than I have called Byron unsure in that medium. Varduk changed voice and character for each rôle, with a skill almost ventriloquial, to create for us the illusion of an actual drama. I found quite moving Aubrey's story of how bandits were beaten off single-handed by his chance acquaintance, Lord Ruthven. At the point where Aubrey expresses the belief that Ruthven could not have survived the battle:
"I fled, but he remained; how could one man,
Even one so godly gallant, face so many?
He followed not. I knew that he was slain——"
At that point, I say, the first surprize comes with the servant's announcement that Ruthven himself has followed his traveling companion from Greece and waits, whole and sound, for permission to present himself.