The Mortal Immortal (Mary Shelley) — graded reader B1–B2

The Mortal Immortal

A graded reader · Mary Shelley · B1–B2

Warm-up

• What's the best age to be? Why?

• Would you like to live to a hundred? What would you do with all that time?

• Have you ever done something brave, or silly, to impress someone you loved?

• Do you know any old stories about magic drinks or potions?

The author and the book

Mary Shelley (1797–1851)

Mary Shelley was born Mary Wollstonecraft Godwin in London in 1797. Her mother, the writer Mary Wollstonecraft, died just eleven days after she was born. Her father, William Godwin, was a famous thinker.

As a teenager, she ran away with the young poet Percy Shelley, and later married him. In the summer of 1816, by Lake Geneva, the poet Lord Byron challenged his friends to write a ghost story. Mary was eighteen. Her story became Frankenstein, published in 1818 without her name on it.

In 1822, Percy drowned when his boat sank in a storm off the coast of Italy. Mary decided to live by her pen. She sold more than twenty stories to annuals, beautiful gift books. For this story, she was given a picture called "Bertha" to base it on.

"The Mortal Immortal" appeared in The Keepsake for 1834, which came out in December 1833. Mary Shelley died in London in 1851, aged 53.

Key words

alchemist

potion

elixir

a scientist of the past who tried to turn metal into gold, or to make a drink for long life

a drink with magic or medical power

a magic drink that is supposed to cure everything, or to let you live for ever

immortal

scorn

living for ever; the opposite, mortal, means you must die one day

the feeling that someone is worthless and doesn't deserve your respect

Let's talk

• Mary Shelley wrote many stories to pay her bills. Does writing for money make a story worse?

• Scientists today are trying to slow down ageing. Would you take a pill to stay young?

• What is good about growing old? What is hard about it?

• The story is called "The Mortal Immortal". How can someone be both mortal and immortal?

PART 1 OF 4

The alchemist's apprentice

PART 1 · THE ALCHEMIST'S APPRENTICE

July 16th, 1833. Today is a special anniversary for me. Today I complete my three hundred and twenty-third year!

Am I immortal? I have asked myself this question day and night for three hundred and three years, and I still cannot answer it. This very day I found a grey hair among my brown ones. Surely that means I am growing old? Or perhaps it has been hiding there for three hundred years.

I will tell my story, and my reader shall judge for me. It will help me pass a few hours of a long eternity, which has become so tiring to me. For ever! Oh, the weight of never-ending time! But to my story.

All the world has heard of Cornelius Agrippa, the great alchemist.

People also say that one of his students called up the Devil while his master was away, and was destroyed. After that, Agrippa's students and servants all ran away.

I was then very young, very poor, and very much in love. When Cornelius offered me a purse of gold to stay, I felt as if Satan himself was tempting me. I ran away as fast as my shaking knees allowed.

My feet carried me where they went every evening: to a spring in the woods, where a dark-haired girl was waiting. Her name was Bertha. We had been neighbours and playmates since we were babies. When a fever killed her parents, a rich, lonely old lady from the castle adopted her. Now Bertha wore silk and lived in a marble palace.

PART 1 · THE ALCHEMIST'S APPRENTICE

But she still met me secretly by the spring.

That evening she was angry and tired of waiting, and she almost blamed me for being poor.

"I am honest, even if I am poor!" I said. "If I were not, I could soon be rich!"

She asked a thousand questions until I told her everything. Then she looked at me with scorn.

"You pretend to love me, and you're afraid to face the Devil for my sake!"

Ashamed, and full of love and hope, I went back to the alchemist.

A year passed. I earned good money, and I never saw the Devil. But one week my master needed me day and night, and Bertha waited at the spring for nothing.

When at last I ran to her, she sent me away in scorn. Soon after, she rode past my smoky window with Albert Hoffer, a rich young man. I heard my name, and then laughter.

Jealousy entered my heart like poison.

Cornelius had not slept for three days and nights, watching his experiment. At last, sleep was winning.

"Winzy," he murmured, "look at that glass. The liquid is a soft rose colour. The moment it begins to change, wake me." Then, half asleep, he added a warning. "Winzy, my boy, do not touch it. Do not put it to your lips. It is a potion to cure love. You would not stop loving your Bertha. Beware! Do not drink!"

Book club

PART 1 · THE ALCHEMIST'S APPRENTICE

1. Why did Winzy run away from Cornelius Agrippa at first?

2. Who was Bertha, and how did her life change after her parents died?

3. What made Winzy go back to work for the alchemist?

4. Bertha called him a coward for being afraid. Was that fair?

5. Would you take a frightening job for someone you loved?

6. Cornelius has told Winzy not to drink. What do you think he will do?

PART 2 OF 4

A cure for love

PART 2 · A CURE FOR LOVE

And he slept. I watched the glass, but the rose colour did not change. My thoughts went to the spring, and to all the happy evenings that would never come again. Never! The word was like a snake in my heart. False girl! False and cruel! And yet... if only I could look at her with careless eyes. That would be a victory!

A bright flash appeared before my eyes. Lights brighter than diamonds danced on the liquid, and a sweet smell filled the room. I will, I thought. I must drink.

I raised the glass to my lips. "It will cure me of love, of torture!"

I had drunk half of the most delicious drink ever tasted, when the old man moved. I jumped and dropped the glass.

Flames ran across the floor, and Cornelius's hands were at my throat.

"Wretch! You have destroyed the work of my life!"

He thought I had picked up the glass from curiosity and dropped it in fright. I never told him the truth.

That night I slept like a man in paradise. In the morning I walked on air. "This is what it is to be cured of love," I thought. "Today Bertha will find me cold and careless."

I walked to the castle. Bertha saw me, and suddenly she ran down the marble steps towards me, light as a young deer. But the old lady, who called herself Bertha's protector but was really her tyrant, saw me too. She hurried after her, panting.

PART 2 · A CURE FOR LOVE

"Where are you going so fast, my bold girl? Back to your cage. There are hawks about!"

How lovely she looked! Her eyes flashed, and her cheeks burned with anger. I no longer loved her. Oh, no! I adored her, I worshipped her!

That morning, she had been ordered to marry my rival at once, or be thrown out in shame. Bertha remembered how cruel she had been to me, and she wept.

"Oh, Winzy!" she cried. "Take me to your mother's cottage. Take me to poverty and happiness!"

Soon after, Bertha became my wife. The potion had not cured me of love. It had given me courage, and won me my Bertha.

Five years later, I was called to the bedside of the dying Cornelius. His eyes were fixed on a glass of rose-coloured liquid.

"A second time my hopes are about to come true," he said weakly, "and a second time they are destroyed. Five years ago you knocked the same drink from me. Now it is too late."

"But master, how can a cure for love bring you back to life?"

"A cure for love, and for all things. The Elixir of Immortality. Ah! If I could drink now, I would live for ever!"

A golden flash came from the liquid. He reached out his hand, and the glass exploded into a thousand pieces. His eyes were glassy. He was dead.

But I lived, and I was going to live for ever!

Book club

PART 2 · A CURE FOR LOVE

1. Why did Winzy decide to drink the potion?

2. What did Cornelius believe had happened to his potion?

3. Why did Bertha leave the castle with Winzy?

4. Winzy expected to feel nothing for Bertha, but he adored her. Why, do you think?

5. Was Winzy wrong never to tell his master the truth?

6. Winzy believes he will live for ever. What problems might he face?

PART 3 OF 4

The scholar bewitched

PART 3 · THE SCHOLAR BEWITCHED

For a few days I believed his words. I remembered the wonderful feeling after I drank. I looked in the mirror: in five years, my face had not changed at all. I was, then, IMMORTAL!

A few days later, I laughed at myself. I loved my old master and respected his wisdom, but I didn't believe he could command the powers of darkness. His science was only human. And human science, I told myself, could never break the laws of nature and keep a soul in its body for ever. His drink was a strong medicine. It had given me health and joy, and perhaps a long life. But a long life is very different from immortality.

I believed this for many years. But it was true that I still looked wonderfully young. People laughed at me for looking in the mirror so often. But I looked in vain. My forehead, my cheeks, my eyes, my whole body were the same as in my twentieth year.

I was troubled. I looked at Bertha's faded beauty, and I seemed more like her son than her husband. Our neighbours began to say the same, and soon they called me "the Scholar bewitched". Bertha grew uneasy, then jealous and bad-tempered. We had no children; we were everything to each other.

PART 3 · THE SCHOLAR BEWITCHED

As she grew older, her beauty faded and her lively spirit turned sharp. But I still loved her as the girl I had worshipped and won.

At last, our life became impossible. Bertha was fifty; I was twenty. People avoided us. They said I was friends with my old master's dark spirits. Poor Bertha was pitied, but left alone. I was looked at with horror. Nobody would buy what our farm produced, so I had to travel twenty miles, to places where nobody knew me, to sell our things.

One winter night, we sat by our lonely fire: the old-hearted young man and his old wife.

Again Bertha demanded the truth. She repeated everything people said about me.

She begged me to throw off the spell. Grey hair, she said, was far more handsome than my brown curls. Old age deserved respect. Were youth and good looks really worth all this shame and hatred? In the end, they would burn me as a black magician. And she, who had never shared my good fortune, would be stoned with me!

At last she said that I must tell her my secret, and give her the same gift, or she would denounce me.

And then she burst into tears.

Book club

PART 3 · THE SCHOLAR BEWITCHED

1. Why did Winzy stop believing that he was immortal?

2. How did the neighbours treat Winzy and Bertha, and why?

3. What did Bertha demand that winter night?

4. Bertha said old age deserves respect. Does your culture respect old age?

5. Can you understand Bertha's anger? Would you feel the same in her place?

6. What do you think Winzy will tell Bertha? What will she do then?

PART 4 OF 4

Half of eternity

PART 4 · HALF OF ETERNITY

So I told her the truth, as gently as I could. I spoke only of a very long life, not of immortality, which was what I believed myself.

"And now, my Bertha, will you denounce the lover of your youth? You will not, I know. But it is too hard, my poor wife, that you should suffer for my bad luck. I will leave you. I loved you in youth. God knows I would not leave you in age, but your safety and happiness need it."

I took my cap and walked to the door. In a moment, Bertha's arms were round my neck.

"No, my husband, my Winzy, you shall not go alone. Take me with you. Among strangers we'll be safe.

I'm sure the charm will soon wear off. You shall not leave me."

"I will not, my Bertha. I will be your true, faithful husband while you are spared to me."

Secretly, we left for a quiet corner of western France. It was cruel for poor Bertha: a new country and a new language. To hide the difference in our ages, she wore make-up and young clothes. Could I be angry? Did I not wear a mask too?

Her jealousy never slept. She looked for wrinkles in my face. Once, she thought the prettiest girl in the village was looking at me, so she bought me a grey wig. My youth was a disease, she told everyone.

PART 4 · HALF OF ETERNITY

One morning I would wake up white-haired and bent with age.

Many long years passed. At last Bertha could not leave her bed, and I nursed her as a mother nurses a child. When I put the earth over her grave, I wept. I had lost everything that tied me to humanity.

Since then, how many have been my sorrows, how few my joys! I am a sailor without a compass on a stormy sea, with no light except the hope of death.

Am I immortal? Perhaps the drink gave only a long life. And I drank only half. To drink half the Elixir of Immortality is perhaps to be half immortal. But who can count the years of half of eternity?

I have looked into many calm lakes and said, "There is peace in those waters." Yet I have turned away, to live another day.

This very day, I made a plan. I will go on a journey that no mortal could survive, and test my immortality.

Before I go, a miserable vanity has made me write these pages. I would not die and leave no name behind. Three centuries have passed since I drank that fatal drink. Before another year passes, I will fight the powers of frost in their own home, through hunger, hard work and storms. There I will give this body, too strong a cage for a soul that longs for freedom, to the wind and the water. Or, if I survive, my name will be one of the most famous in human history.

Book club

PART 4 · HALF OF ETERNITY

1. What did Winzy offer to do, and how did Bertha answer?

2. How did Bertha try to hide the difference in their ages?

3. What plan has Winzy made at the end?

4. Winzy says he drank only half the elixir. Does that give him hope, or fear?

5. Was Winzy a good husband? Was Bertha a good wife?

6. Winzy writes so he won't die "and leave no name behind". Why does that matter to him?

Big questions

1

Winzy drank to be cured of love. What did the elixir really give him?

2

Is living for ever a gift or a curse? Would you drink the elixir?

3

Who suffered more: Winzy, who stayed young, or Bertha, who grew old?

4

Bertha said grey hair is more handsome than youth. Are we too afraid of ageing today?

5

Do you think Winzy survives his journey? Does Shelley want us to know?

6

Shelley lost her mother and her husband young. Can you feel that loss in this story?

TEACHER'S REFERENCE · SKIP OR DELETE BEFORE CLASS

Answer key

Part 1 · 1 People said one of Agrippa's students had called up the Devil and been destroyed. When Cornelius offered him gold to stay, Winzy felt as if Satan was tempting him.

Part 1 · 2 She was his childhood neighbour and playmate. A fever killed her parents, and a rich old lady from the castle adopted her, so she wore silk and lived in a marble palace.

Part 1 · 3 Bertha mocked him for being afraid to face the Devil for her sake. He felt ashamed, and hoped the money would help him win her.

Part 2 · 1 He was full of jealousy and pain about Bertha, and Cornelius had said it was a potion to cure love. The liquid also flashed beautifully and smelled wonderful.

Part 2 · 2 He thought Winzy had picked it up out of curiosity and dropped it in fright.

Part 2 · 3 The old lady had ordered her to marry Albert at once or be thrown out, and she was sorry she had been cruel to Winzy.

Part 3 · 1 He decided his master's science was only human and could not break the laws of nature. The drink was a strong medicine that gave health and perhaps long life, not immortality.

Part 3 · 2 They avoided them. People said Winzy was friends with dark spirits, because he still looked twenty while Bertha grew old. Nobody would buy from their farm.

Part 3 · 3 The truth. She wanted him to share his secret and give her the same gift, or she would denounce him.

Part 4 · 1 He offered to leave her, so that she could be safe and happy. She refused and said she would go with him.

Part 4 · 2 She wore make-up and young clothes, and acted young. She also told everyone Winzy was secretly growing old, and bought him a grey wig.

Part 4 · 3 To go, within a year, on a journey into the home of the frost that no mortal could survive, to test his immortality: either he will die and be free, or he will return famous.