How many types of agitation are there?
“Your family is perfectly well,” said Mr Kirwin, “and a friend has come to visit you.”
“Oh take him away. I cannot see him, for God’s sake; do not let him enter.”
“I should have thought, young man, that the presence of your father would have been welcome!”
“My father!” I cried. “Why the fuck didn’t you say?”
Nothing at this moment could have given me greater pleasure than the arrival of my father. I stretched out my hand to him.
“Are you, then, safe – and Elizabeth – and Ernest? Did you manage to avoid that big tax demand?” I said.
“Why are you dwelling in this terrible prison?”
“Well, they will not let me stay at the Savoy.”
“And poor Clerval, what a terrible end.”
The name of my unfortunate friend was too great to be endured and I shed tears. Soon the cell was ankle deep in tears.
“Alas! yes, my father, the most horrible things hang over me; a noose for a start. I should have died on the coffin of Henry.”
“Then why didn’t you if it would have made you feel better?”
Mr Kirwin came in, and insisted that my strength should not be exhausted by too much exertion. The appearance of my father in flowing white robes was like that of an angel complete with wings, and he flew away.
I sat for hours, motionless and speechless, wishing for some mighty revolution that might bury me and my destroyer. I sat for three days waiting; still the mighty revolution did not come.
I was obliged to travel nearly a 100 miles to where the court was held – so I had plenty of time before it arrived. I was spared the disgrace of appearing publicly as a criminal: I gave evidence from the clothes cupboard, speaking through the keyhole. The grand jury rejected the bill (I had but one in for expenses) on it being proved that I was on the Orkney Islands at the hour that the body of my friend was found; and a fortnight after my removal, I was liberated from prison.
My father was enraptured on finding me freed from the vexations of a criminal charge. What he meant was, murderer! I was again allowed to breathe the fresh atmosphere. He had booked a room for me at the Savoy. They took me to an optician who could find nothing wrong with my eyes so I went to a cobblers. He said he could find nothing wrong except that I needed a pair of new shoes.
One morning, my father awoke me with an electric cattle prod. I was in a deep depression. At night I put a loaded pistol by my bed but in the morning it was still there, and so was I.
My father was concerned for my health. I was a shattered wreck; I lay in bits all over the cabin floor. My strength was gone – I think it went to Bexhill-on-Sea. I was a mere skeleton. I urged our leaving Ireland and we took our passage on the SS Plassey, a splendid ship with a slight tendency to sink. It was midnight. I lay on the deck looking at the stars, with the passers-by walking over me.
I repassed my life, the death of my mother and my departure for Ingolstadt where I became a compulsive onanist. I called to mind the night in which my monster asked for a cigarette.
I had been in the custom of taking every night a small quantity of laudanum – yeah, man! I now doubled my usual quantity. My dreams presented a thousand objects that scared me: dentist’s drill, hand grenade, hangman’s rope, a bank overdraft, cuddly toy, a set of golf clubs, electric toaster, holiday for two in Venice, dishwasher, a dozen wine glasses…Next morning, they threw a bucket of water over me. The fiend was not here; he must have been there! A sense of security, a feeling that a truce was established, and a disastrous future imparted itself to me. In other words, I was shit scared.
CHAPTER V
The voyage came to an end and I found I had overtaxed my strength. I discovered I could only travel on a stretcher or by walking on one leg. My father wished me to seek amusement in society. I abhorred the face of man. How they would, each and all, abhor me and hunt me from the world for what I had done. Arghhhh!
At length, my father yielded to my desire to avoid society and he locked me in the W.C., where I had a plentiful supply of water. He would say to me through the keyhole, “You can take a horse to water but he needn’t drink; you can’t make a silk purse out of a sow’s ear; a bird in the hand is worth two in the bush; beware your sins will find you out; a stitch in time saves nine.”
“Thank you father,” said I.
I continued in the same dream world. I imagined I was the Greek god Apollo, surrounded by woodland nymphs. Then, one day, I was no longer Apollo but Victor Frankenstein and strapped down to the bed. Was there any mail when I was away? Yes.
The day before we left Paris (how in God’s name did I get there?) I received the following letter from Elizabeth:
My dear friend.
It gave me the greatest pleasure to receive a letter and your dirty laundry and you are no longer at a formidable distance like Ireland but still wear the restrictive jacket. How you must suffer! I hope to see you looking even more ill than when you quitted Geneva. This winter has been miserable, tortured as I have been by revolving swannicles and anxious suspense; yet I hope to see peace in your countenance and to find that your heart is not totally void of comfort and tranquillity. I know you enjoy so much being ill.
P.S. Perhaps on our wedding day you can leave off your straitjacket.
Elizabeth Lavenza
Geneva, May 18th, 17––.
After the ceremony was performed, a large party assembled. The sun was hot so we did not touch it. The sun sank lower in the heavens; and we passed the river Drance. We looked at the numerous fish that were swimming in the clear water so, stripping off, I dove into the water and retrieved a fish which I gave to my Elizabeth who straightaway ate it.
CHAPTER VI
We walked on the shore, enjoying the transitory light and dogs crapping on the beach. Suddenly a heavy storm descended and we were drenched. I had been calm during the day; now, between my teeth I clenched a dagger. In my left hand I carried a grenade, while in my right hand I had a sword.
I earnestly entreated Elizabeth to retire, resolving to join her as soon as I had some knowledge of the whereabouts of the monster. She left me and went to prepare divorce papers. One of the hand grenades was in my trouser pocket. Should it suddenly explode, I would be castrated on my wedding night.
Suddenly I heard a shrill and dreadful scream. I could feel the blood trickling in my veins, and tingling in the extremities of my limbs. This state lasted but for an instant; the scream was repeated, and I rushed into the room.
Great God! why did I not then expire? [Nothing was stopping you. Ed.] She was there, lifeless and inanimate, thrown across the bed, her head hanging down, her body hanging up and her pale and distorted features half covered by her hair. Everywhere I turn I see the same figure – £10,000 from her insurance.
There lay the body of Elizabeth, my love, my wife, so lately living, so dear, so worthy, so dead! Deadly languor and coldness of the limbs told me that rigor mortis had set in. What I now held in my arms had ceased to exist. No, now she was a stiff.
I looked up and saw at the open window a figure, the most hideous and abhorred. A grin was on the face of the monster which seemed to take in part of his chest. He seemed to jeer, the cheeky devil. With his fiendish fingers he reached towards the package of my cigarettes, which he grabbed. Drawing my pistol from my bosom, I fired and the recoil threw me back and jammed me in the window. He plunged into the lake and swam away with the swiftness of lightning.
The discharge of my pistol brought a crowd into the room and the ceiling down. I pointed to the spot from where he had disappeared. We followed the tracks with maps and boats, and nets were cast – but all we caught was a fourteen-pound salmon. After passing several hours, we returned hopeless but with a good catch of fish.
After having landed, they proceeded to search the country; search parties going in different directions among the woods and vines following a trail of dog-ends. We never saw any of them again.
I attempted to accompany them, and proceeded a short distance from the house; but my head whirled around and ended up facing the other way. My steps were like those of a drunken man and I fell at last in a state of utter exhaustion. In this state I was carried back and placed on a bed, hardly conscious of what had happened. My eyes wandered round the room and eventually returned to me.
After an interval I arose and, as if by instinct, crawled across the room; many thought I was a dog and patted me. There in the room, the corpse of my beloved lay. There were women weeping around; I hung over her boobs but gradually I slid off. I joined my sad tears to theirs and soon the room was ankle deep in tears.
I knew not whether my friends and my cigarettes were safe from the malignity of the fiend; my father even now might be writhing under his grasp and threatening him with the police. Who knows? Ernest might be dead at his feet. King Edward might be trampled underfoot. I started up and resolved to return to Geneva with all possible speed. There were no horses to be procured, so instead we boiled some eggs.
However, it was hardly morning, and I might reasonably hope to arrive by night. I hired men to row and took an oar myself because I always experienced relief from mental torment by bodily exercise. But the overflowing misery I now felt, and the excess agitation that I endured, rendered me incapable of any exertion. I threw down the oar and, leaning my head upon my hands, tears streamed from my eyes which flooded the boat and we had to try to bail out. I saw the fish play in the waters as they had done a few hours before; they had then been observed by Elizabeth. In memory of her, I stripped and dived in and retrieved a fish, and in memory of her, I ate it. The sun might shine, or the clouds might lower, but nothing could appear to me as it had done the day before. A fiend had snatched from me every hope of future happiness, plus twenty cigarettes: no creature in the history of man had ever been so miserable as I was then. Mind you, that might be a bit of an exaggeration. Mine had been a tale of hirror and horror. I have reached their acme, and what I must now relate can be tedious to you. [It’s all been bloody tedious. Ed.]
My father and Ernest yet lived, but the former sunk under the tidings that I bore. We threw him a life belt. His Elizabeth, his more-than-daughter, whom he doted on; in fact she was a mass of dote marks. But alas, the springs of existence suddenly gave way: he was unable to rise from his bed and in a few days he died in the arms of his bank manager who, at the last gasp, got him to pay his overdraft.
What then became of me? I know not; and I asked somebody what had become of me; they said I became a train. I lost sensation, and chains and darkness were the only objects that pressed upon me. Sometimes I dreamed that I wandered in flowery meadows and pleasant vales with the friends of my youth, but I awoke and found myself in a public toilet. I gained a clear conception of my miseries and situation and was then released from my prison because they called me mad as a result of me saying I was Julius Caesar and was on my way to invade England and become a director of Hansons.
I began to reflect on the reason why I thought I was a Chinese junk. I think it was the monster whom I had created. I was possessed by a maddening rage when I thought of him and I prayed that I might have him within my grasp; I would tie grenades to his balls and explode them.
I began to reflect on the best means of securing him, and for this purpose I repaired to a criminal judge in the town and told him that I had an accusation to make – that I knew the destroyer of my wife, and who had stolen my fags.
The magistrate listened with attention and kindness. At this stage he signalled two attendants who rushed forward and put me in a straitjacket. As I spoke, rage sparkled in my eyes; the magistrate was intimidated: “You are mistaken,” said he, stifling a laugh. “I will exert myself; and if it is in my power to seize the monster, I shall.” He was laughing, with tears running down his cheeks.
They confined me to a padded cell, so I started to devote my life to the destruction of this monster. But to the magistrate, this elevation of mind had much the appearance of madness. He endeavoured to sooth me as a nurse does a child, pushing me in a pram and giving me a milk bottle.
“Man,” I cried, “how ignorant art thou in thy pride of wisdom! Cease; you know not what it is you say.” They remembered it and let me free, and for a while I became an amateur hangman. I hanged seven amateur murderers.
CHAPTER VII
Then my situation was one in which all voluntary thoughts were swallowed up and lost, and I never found them again. I looked everywhere. I was hurried away by fury, revenge and an overdraft. I provided myself with a sum of money together with a few jewels which belonged to my mother. I took them as she slept – God bless her!
And now my wanderings began, which are to cease but with life. I have traversed a great portion of the earth using an American Express card. How I lived I hardly know – mainly bank jobs. I have stretched my failing limbs upon the sandy plain and have been crapped on by an elephant; rangers dug me out. I have swum the stormy seas; the Dover life boat saved me. I have searched the deepest; a rescue team got me out. But revenge kept me alive. I dare not die, that is the last thing I should do. I would never rest until I had exploded his balls and fed them to my dog.
That night, I knelt by the grave of my father and my wife. I kissed the earth – it tasted fucking terrible – and then exclaimed, “By the sacred earth on which I kneel, by the shades that wander near me, by the deep and eternal grief that I feel, I swear (I also drink and smoke) to pursue the daemon until he or I shall perish in mortal conflict, preferably him. And I call on you, spirits of the dead – just don’t answer all together.”
Then, to my horror, I heard the monster. He addressed me in an audible voice; that is why I could hear it: “I am satisfied, miserable wretch! You have determined to live, and I am satisfied.”
I darted towards the spot from which the sound proceeded; it was a spot about six inches in diameter, but the devil eluded my grasp. The moon shone full upon his ghastly and distorted shape as he fled with more than mortal speed – 100 miles per hour.
I pursued him, guided by a trail of cigarette ends. I saw the feared fiend enter by night and hide himself in a vessel bound for the Black Sea. Just my luck, I took the wrong sea; I was colour blind. He took passage for the Red Sea, so he escaped.
Amidst the wilds of Tartary and Russia, he still evaded me. Sometimes the peasants, scared by this horrid apparition, informed me of his path; sometimes he himself, who feared that if I lost all trace of him I should despair and die. I saw the print of his huge footstep on the snowy plain, and I fell in it. A spirit of good followed and directed my steps, and I fell down a coal hole. I survived in the deserts by making a camel fricassee; it took me a week to eat it.
In other places, human beings were seldom seen, and I survived on elephant vindaloo. To gain the friendship of the villagers, I distributed some food – I shot an ant which I made into a stew.
I was still hell-bent on catching the monster. I exchanged my land-sledge for one fashioned for the inequalities of the frozen ocean. Immense and rugged mountains of ice often barred up my passage; it was very painful to have ice block up your passage.
Once, after my sledge-dogs had conveyed me up to the summit of an incredibly sloped mountain, one, sinking under his fatigue, died – I ate him. Suddenly, my eyes caught a dark speck upon the dusky plain. I strained my sight to discover what it could be; it was indeed a dark speck on the dusky plain.
Oh: with what a burning gush did warm tears fill my eyes. I caught the tears in a saucepan and before they became cold I made a cup of Oxo. Yes, my sledge-dogs were wonderful. They never stopped to urinate, but raised one leg and did it with the other three legs running.
In this manner, many appalling hours passed. Several of my dogs died and I made them into sausages which I enjoyed. I saw your vessel riding at anchor, and holding forth to me hopes of succour and life. I quickly destroyed part of my sledge to construct oars; and by these means was enabled, with infinite fatigue, to move to your ship.<
br />
Walton, in continuation.
August 26th, 17––.
You have read this strange and terrific story, Margaret, and do you not feel your blood congeal with horror? If it does, you must see a doctor. Sometimes, seized with sudden agony, he could not continue his tale; at others, his voice broke – he kept the pieces in a small bag. His face would suddenly change to an expression of the wildest rage as he shrieked out imprecations at his persecutor, so we put the straitjacket on him. Sometimes, I endeavoured to gain from Frankenstein the particulars of his creature’s formation – where he got the bits.
“Are you mad, my friend?” said he. “Whither does your senseless curiosity lead you? Is it to the monster’s balls which I intend to explode?”
Thus had a week passed away, but he had not. Frankenstein discovered that I made notes concerning his history; he played them back to me on his violin. I have listened to the strangest tale that ever imagination formed; much more frightening than Midsummer Night’s Dream. To soothe him, I drained an entire bottle of brandy down his throat which seemed to relax him. In fact, it relaxed him to the point where he couldn’t get out of bed. He talks of beings who visit him from regions of a remote world. They are all a bit loony.
“When younger,” said he, “I believed myself destined for some great enterprise, like a shareholder in Lloyds. My imagination was vivid, yet my powers of analysis and application were intense. I had conceived the idea, and executed the creation, of a man who would strangle people. I wasn’t very pleased with that – or the people he strangled.”
September 5th, 17––.
My beloved sister,
Frankenstein Page 7