Frankenstein Unbound

by Aldiss, Brian

  My companion took this opportunity to hide himself in his papers. So I listened to the talk of the travelers about me, hoping for a bit of instant history. But were they talking about the aftermath of the Napoleonic Wars? Were they talking about the increasing industrialization of the times? Were they talking about the first steamship crossing the Atlantic? Were they talking about Walter Scott or Lord Byron or Goethe or Metternich? Were they talking about the slave trade or the Congress of Vienna? (All matters which I judged to be vital and contemporary!) Did they spare one word for that valiant new American nation across the Atlantic?

  They did not.

  They talked about the latest sensation—some wretched murder—and about a woman, a maidservant, who was to be tried for the murder in Geneva the next day! I would have sighed for human nature, had it not been for the excellence of my trout and the wine which accompanied it.

  At last, as I set my knife and fork down, I caught the gloomy eye of my table companion and ventured to say, “You will be in Geneva tomorrow in time to see this wretched woman brought to justice, I presume?”

  His face took on severe lines, anger glowed in his eyes. Setting his papers down, he said in a low voice, “Justice, you say? What do you know of the case that you prejudge this lady’s guilt beforehand? Why should you be so anxious that she should hang? What injury did she ever do you—or any living soul, for that matter?”

  “I must apologize—I see you know the lady personally.”

  But he had dropped his eyes and lost interest in me. Shrinking back in his chair, he seemed to become prey to some inner conflict. “About her head hangs purest innocence. Deepest guilt lies heavy on the shoulders...” I did not catch his last words; perhaps he said, “... of others.”

  I rose, bid him good evening, and went outside to stand in the road and enjoy the scents of darkness and the sight of the moon. Yes, I stood in the middle of the road, and gloried that there was no danger of being knocked down by traffic.

  The sound of a running stream invited me over to a bridge. Standing there in shade, I observed the man and woman who had also been eating in the hotel emerge with their child.

  He said, “I wonder if Justine Moritz will sleep peacefully tonight!” They both chuckled and passed on down the road.

  Justine Moritz! I divined that they spoke of the woman who was on trial for her life in Geneva on the morrow. More! I had heard that name before, and searched my memory to discover its associations. I recalled de Sade’s heroine, Justine, and reflected that he too would be alive now, if now was when I believed it to be. But my new superior self told me that Justine Moritz was somebody else.

  As I stood with my hands resting on the stone of the bridge, the door of the hotel was again thrown open. A figure emerged, pulling a cloak about him. It was my melancholy friend. An accordion sounded within the hotel, and I guessed that the distractions of music might have driven him outside.

  His movements suggested as much. He paced about with arms folded. Once, he threw them wide in a gesture of protest. He looked in every way a man distraught. Although I felt sorry for him, that prickliness in his manner made me reluctant to reveal myself to him.

  Of a sudden, he made up his mind. He said something aloud—something about a devil, I thought—and then he began striding away as if his life depended on it.

  My superior self came to an immediate decision. Normally, I would have returned indoors and gone meekly to bed. Instead, I began to follow my distraught friend at a suitable distance.

  The way he went led downhill. The road curved, and I emerged from a copse to confront a splendid panorama. There was the lake—Lake Geneva, Lac Léman, as the Swiss call it—and there, not far distant, lay the spires and roofs of Geneva!

  It was a city I had loved in my time. Now how it was shrunken! The moonlight lent it enchantment, of course, but what a poky place it looked, lying by the lakeside in the clear night. Romantic behind its walls, yes, but nothing to the great city I had known. In my day—why, Sécheron would have been swallowed up in its inner suburbs!

  But my superior self made nothing of that. We moved down the hill, my quarry and I. There was a village clinging to the lakeside. Somewhere lay the sound of singing—I say “lay,” for the voice seemed to float on the waters as gently as a slight mist.

  My friend went on down the winding road for about two miles, finishing at the quayside, where he rapped smartly on a door. I hung about further down the street, hoping not to be seen by the few people who were strolling there. I watched as he engaged a man who led him down to a boat; they climbed in, and the man began to haul away on his oars. The boat slipped through shadow and then could be seen heading across the lake, already slightly obscured by the tenuous mist. Without thinking, I went to the edge of the quay.

  At once a man came up to me bearing a dim lantern and said, “Are you requiring a ferry to the other side of the lake, good sir?”

  Why not? The chase was on. In no time, we had arranged terms. We climbed down to his fishing boat and were pushing off against the stonework. I told him to douse his lantern and follow the other boat.

  “I expect you are acquainted with the gentleman in the other vessel, sir,” my oarsman said.

  These villagers—of course they would make it their business to know anyone who was rich and whose father lived so near! Here was the chance to have my suspicions confirmed.

  “I know his name,” I said boldly. “But Pm surprised you should!”

  “The family is well known in these parts, good sir. He is young Victor Frankenstein, his famous father’s son.”

  II

  * * *

  Frankenstein’s boat moored at Plainpalais, on the other side of sleeping Geneva. In my day, the area formed part of the center of that city. It was but a village, and four small sailing boats, sails drooping and oars plying, moved out from a tiny wooden jetty as we moved in.

  Telling my man to wait, I followed Frankenstein at a distance. Can you imagine what my excitement was? I assume you cannot, for already the feelings I had at the time are inscrutable to me, so imbued was I with an electric sense of occasion. My superior self had taken over—call it the result of time shock, if you will, but I felt myself in the presence of myth and, by association, accepted myself as mythical! It is a sensation of some power, let me tell you! The mind becomes simple and the will strong.

  Frankenstein, the Frankenstein, walked briskly, and I followed briskly. Despite the peace of the early night, lightning was flickering about the horizon. “Horizon” may be an appropriate word in Texas, but it does no justice to the country beyond Plainpalais, for there the horizon includes Mont Blanc, the highest mountain in the Alps, or in Europe, for that matter. The lightning bathed the peak in intricate figures, which seemed to grow brighter as clouds rolled up and hid the moon. At first, the lightning was silent, almost furtive; then peals of thunder accompanied it.

  The thunder helped to camouflage the noise of my steps. We were now climbing fairly steeply into the mountains and silence was impossible if I were not to lose my quarry. He paused at one point on a low hill and cried aloud—perhaps not without a touch of relish for the dramatic, characteristic of his age—“William, dearest little brother! Close by this spot wast thou murdered and thy dear innocence cast down!”

  He raised his hands. Then he said, more soberly, “And the guilt rests with me...” and lowered his arms to his side.

  I should be more particular in my description of this singular man. A side view of his face was reminiscent of profiles seen on coins and medals, for his features were clear-cut and sharp. And one has to have some distinction to appear on a medal. This clarity, aided by his youth, made him handsome, though there was about the handsomeness something of the coldness of a coin. His features were a little too set. The melancholy that had struck me at first was very much a part of his character.

  Rain began to fall in large heavy drops. As I recalled, storms spring up rapidly about the Swiss lakes, appearing to arrive f
rom all corners of the sky at once. The thunder burst with a grand crash above our heads, and the heavens flung down their contents upon us.

  Over to the northwest, the dark bulk of the Jura was flickeringly lit. The lake became an intermittent sheet of fire. The heavy clouds that had gathered about the summit of Mont Blanc boiled from within. The world was full of noise, dazzling light, blinding darkness, torrential rain. All of which served merely to raise Frankenstein’s spirits. He walked more briskly now, still climbing, picking his way fast and carelessly, so that he could keep his face turned up as much as possible to the source of the storm.

  He was shouting aloud. Much of what he said was lost in the noise, but once, as we climbed a precipitous path and were no more than four meters apart, I heard him cry aloud the name of William again. “William, my dear little angel! This is thy funeral, this thy dirge!”

  With similar cries, he staggered out on to more level ground. I was about to break from sheltering rock and follow when I saw him stop aghast and raise one arm involuntarily in a gesture of self-protection.

  In that broken place, rocks and shattered boulders lay in a half-circle, ruined pines growing among them. My immediate thought was that Frankenstein had encountered a bear, and might at any moment come dashing back and discover me. Blunderingly, I moved to my left among the boulders, being careful to keep behind them and not be seen. Then, crouching down, I peered out through the pouring rain and saw such a sight as I will never forget.

  Frankenstein was backing away, still holding that defensive gesture. His jaw hung open, and he was near enough for me to see the rain dashing from his face— when lightning showed him at all. Before him, a monstrous shape had emerged from a clump of shattered pines.

  It was no bear. In most respects it was human in shape, but gigantic in stature, and there seemed nothing of the human being in the way it suddenly paced forward from the trees. The lightning came again, and a tremendous stroke of thunder. I was staring at Frankenstein’s monster!

  As if to increase my terror, there came at that instant a pause in the electric war overhead. Only far away among the trees did a flickering still galvanize the distant Jura. We were cast into impenetrable blackness, with the rain still cascading down and that devilish thing on the loose!

  I slipped limply to my knees in extreme terror, still staring ahead, never daring even to blink, though the rain poured down my forehead and over my eyelashes.

  There was another streak of lightning overhead. Frankenstein had slumped back against a tree trunk for support, his head lolling back as if he were about to collapse in a faint. His monster, the creature he had created, was striding towards him. Then blackness again.

  Then more lightning. The gigantic figure had passed by Frankenstein as if the latter did not exist. But it was coming towards me. I saw that its arms did not swing properly as it walked—but, oh, how fast it walked!

  Another great peal of thunder, then more lightning. The abominable thing took a tremendous leap. It was above me on the rocks, and then it sprang into the darkness behind me. For a moment I heard its footsteps in something between a walk and a run, then it was gone. I was left crouching in the rain.

  After a while, I pulled myself together and stood up. The storm seemed to be moving over a little. Frankenstein still leaned against the tree, bereft of movement.

  During one flash of lightning, I saw a hut, a mountain refuge, standing some way behind me. I could take the rain no longer. I was frozen, although the weather had only a half-share in that. As I headed towards shelter, I glanced south, where another peak—its name is Mont Salève—stood against the troubled sky. There I saw the monster again, swarming up the cruel face. It went like a spider, climbing almost perpendicularly. It was superhuman.

  I burst into the hut, gasping and shuddering, and stripped off jacket, shirt, and undervest. Between chattering teeth, I was talking to myself.

  In the hut were a wooden bed, a stove, a table, and rope. A rough blanket lay neatly folded on the bed. I snatched it up and flung it round me, sitting there shaking.

  Gradually, the rain petered out. A wind blew, all was silence, save for the dripping roof outside. The lightning ceased. My trembling ceased My earlier excitement returned.

  I—I—had seen Frankenstein’s monster! There was no mistaking it.

  Of its face I had no clear idea. The twenty-first century 4-D representations had prepared me for something horrific; yet my impression was of features more frightening than strictly horrifying. I could not recall the face. The light was so confusing, the monster’s movements so fast, that I had a memory only of an abstraction of sculptured bone. The overall impression had been fully as alarming as anyone could have anticipated. Its creator’s reaction to it had merely added to my alarm.

  Putting on my wet clothes, I moved out of the hut.

  I had thought the moonlight was diffused through cloud, so general was the dim light. Once I was outside, however, I saw that the sky was almost free of cloud and the moon had set. Dawn was breaking over the world once more.

  Victor Frankenstein was still in the clearing where I had last seen him. As if immune to discomfort and pain, he stood in his damp cloak with one foot up on a stone. Resting his weight on his bended knee, he was staring motionless over a precipice towards the lake. What he looked at inwardly, I know not But his immobility, long maintained, hinted at the heaviness of his thoughts, and lent him something of the awe that attached to his odious creation.

  I was about to go quietly down the hillside when he moved. Slowly, he shook his head once or twice, and then began to make the descent. Since daylight was flooding into the world, I was able to stay at a distance and keep him in sight. So we both came down from the mountain. Truth was, I more than once looked back over my shoulder to see if anything was following me.

  The gates of Geneva were open. Wagons were going out empty, heading for the forest. I saw a spanking stage emerge and take the road that led to Chamonix, its four horses stepping high. Frankenstein entered between the gray walls, and I ceased to follow him.

  III

  * * *

  This record so far has been dictated in one long burst. After watching Victor Frankenstein walk towards his father’s house, I came through Geneva and back to Sécheron and my automobile. The Felder was as I had left it; I climbed in and put this account in my portable tape-memory.

  My heart-searchings must have no place here. Before getting to the murder trial, I will note two incidents that occurred in Geneva. Two things I wanted above all, and one of them was money, for I knew old systems of currency were in operation throughout the nineteenth century. The second thing I found quickly by looking at a newspaper in a coffee shop: the day’s date. It was May 23rd, 1816.

  I scanned the paper for news. It was disappointingly empty of anything I could comprehend; mainly there was local news, with a great deal of editorializing about the German constitution. The name of Carl August of Saxe-Weimar figured largely, but I had heard neither of him nor of it. Perhaps I had naïvely expected headlines of the HUMPHREY DAVY INVENTS MINERS’ SAFETY LAMP, ROSSINI WRITES FIRST OPERA, HENRY THOREAU BORN kind of thing!

  My quest for money also held its disappointments. I had on my wrist—besides my CompC phone, now useless—a new disposable watch, powered by a uranium isotope and worth at least $70,000 at the current going price in U.S.A., 2020. As a unique object in Geneva, 1816, how much greater should its value be! Moreover, the Swiss watchmakers were the best equipped in the world at this time to appreciate its sophistication.

  Full of hope, I took the watch in to a smart business in the Rue du Rhone, where it was examined by a stately manager.

  “How do you open it?” he asked.

  “It won’t open. It is sealed shut.”

  “Then how does one examine the works if something goes wrong?”

  “That is the whole virtue of this particular make of watch. It does not go wrong. It is guaranteed never to go wrong!”

  He smil
ed very charmingly at me.

  “Certainly its defects are very well concealed. So too is the winder!”

  “Ah, but it does not wind. It will go forever—or at least for a century. Then it stops, and one thrown it away. It is a disposable watch.”

  His smile grew still sweeter. He looked at my clothes, all creased and still damp from the night’s activities. “I observe you are a foreigner, m’sieu. I presume this is a foreign watch. From the Netherlands, perhaps?”

  “It’s North Korean,” I said.

  With the tenderest of smiles, he proffered my watch to me in an open palm. “Then may I suggest you sell your unstoppable watch back to the North Koreans, m’sieu!”

  At two other establishments I had no better luck. But at a fourth I met an inquisitive little man who took greatly to the instrument, examining it under magnifying glasses and listening to its working through a miniature stethoscope.

  “Very ingenious, even if it is powered by a bee who will expire as you leave my premises!” he said. “Where was it made?”

  “It’s the latest thing from North America.” I was learning caution.

  “Such a timepiece! What is this N.K. inscribed on its face?”

  “It stands for New Kentucky.”

  “I have not even seen this metal before. It interests me, and I shall have pleasure taking it apart and examining its secrets.”

  “Those secrets could set you a century ahead of all rival watchmakers.”

  We began arguing over prices. In the end, I accepted a derisory sum, and left his shop feeling sore and cheated. Yet, directly I stepped out into the sunshine again, my superior self took over, and I looked at the matter differently. I had good solid francs in my pocket, and what did the watchmaker have? A precision instrument whose chief virtues were useless to anyone in this age. Its undeviating accuracy in recording the passage of time to within one twenty-millionth of a second was a joke in a world that still went largely by the leisurely passage of the sun, where stagecoaches left at dawn, noon, or sunset. That wretched obsession with time which was a hallmark of my own age had not yet set in; there were not even railway timetables to make people conform to the clock.