England

The novel Wuthering Heights opens with the arrival of Mr. Lockwood, a bumbling and effete English gentleman. Tired of city life, he thinks he’ll find a restful escape by renting Thrushcross Grange on the barren Yorkshire moors. Instead he’ll be swept up in a gothic narrative of ghosts, vengeance, and romance on the moors. As the north wind bites into the rocks and snow falls in the mist, he arrives to greet his landlord, Heathcliff, who lives at Wuthering Heights. With charming obliviousness, Lockwood is unable to see that Heathcliff is a villain who has wreaked desolation on every person, place, and animal within his reach. But after being attacked by the household dogs and treated scornfully by Heathcliff and the residents of the Heights, Lockwood’s illusions begin to fade. With the weather turned stormy, he gets stuck overnight in a room haunted by the ghost of Kathy, Heathcliff’s dead love. At last the morning comes and Lockwood can escape, “benumbed to my very heart.”

My arrival at my new home in Yorkshire was not nearly so tempestuous. Instead of a gothic estate built of jutting stones, I showed up at a small white house in Saltaire. The weather here is partly cloudy with occasional rain—hardly the setting for ghosts and tragic love stories. In lieu of a pack of hounds, there is a poodle, “Bertie,” who is far too fluffy and cute to make a threatening impression. Like Lockwood, I am in Yorkshire for a break from the city. Saltaire is a small town, especially compared with Vienna, and I find I can relax here. For the next three months, I’ll be taking care of Bertie and exploring England before heading back to Vienna in July.