Polidori made no use of the actual fragment, but based
his story upon the groundwork on which the fragment was to have
been continued. Byron's story describes the arrival of two
friends amid the ruins of Ephesus. One of them, Darvell, who,
like most of Byron's heroes, is enshrouded in mystery, and is a
prey to some cureless disquiet, falls ill and dies. Before his
death he demands that his companion shall on a certain day throw
a ring into the salt springs that run into the bay of Eleusis. If
we may trust Polidori's account, Byron intended that the
survivor, on his return to England, should be startled to behold
his companion moving in society, and making love to his sister.
On this foundation Polidori constructed _The Vampyre_. The story
opens with the description of a nobleman, Lord Ruthven, whose
appearance and character excite great interest in London society.
His face is remarkable for its deadly pallor, and he has a "dead,
grey eye, which, fixing upon the object's face, did not seem to
penetrate and at one glance to pierce through to the inward
workings of the heart, but fell upon the cheek with a leaden ray
that laid (_sic_) upon the skin it could not pass." A young man
named Aubrey, who arrives in London about the same time, becomes
deeply interested in the study of Ruthven's character.
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