The Frankenstein Papers

by Fred Saberhagen

  I started from my sleep with horror… a cold dew covered my forehead, my teeth chattered, and every limb became convulsed; when, by the dim and yellow light of the moon, as it forced its way through the window—shutters, I beheld the wretch—the miserable monster whom I had created. He held up the curtain of the bed; and his eyes, if eyes they may be called, were fixed on me. His jaws opened, and he muttered some inarticulate sounds, while a grin wrinkled his cheeks. He might have spoken, but I did not hear; one hand was stretched out, seemingly to detain me, but I escaped and rushed downstairs.

  And out of doors, where he spent the night, as he says, "catching and fearing each sound" in terror of "the approach of the demoniacal corpse" to which he had given life.

  Strange behavior, Sir, I think, for a man who brags of being utterly free of all superstitious terror.

  In the morning Frankenstein, accompanied by a friend of his named Henry Clerval (who is now, unfortunately, also reported dead) re-entered the house and ascended to the upper rooms. The creature, to Frankenstein's joy and amazement, had completely disappeared. Clerval, who had no idea of what sort of experiments had been going on, or of their result, was "frightened and astonished" to see how the philosopher in his relief "jumped over the chairs," clapped his hands, and laughed aloud.

  Frankenstein then very promptly—on the same day—fell ill, with an acute attack of brain fever, from which it took him months to recover. During these months no appearances of the "monster" are recorded anywhere.

  Frau Bauer says she remembers no such extended period of illness afflicting her lodger. She does, I think, remember the night of the experiment, almost three years ago—some peculiarity then occurred—it is hard to get her to say anything that might allow me to deduce what it was. But according to her, only a few days after that night, Victor Frankenstein, appearing agitated but healthy, left her house and the town, never to return. The university records support this. Frau Bauer says she thought the young man was going back to his home in Geneva.

  I fear, Sir, that this epistle has already grown far too long, and I am uncertain whether you, having read this far in it, may not already have concluded that the information that prompted you to write me was mistaken, this whole matter is all silliness, and that neither of us should waste more time upon it. That is—I am almost sure—my own opinion. It would be so without qualification, were it not for the grimly silent attitudes of some of the people here. There is a certain looking over the shoulder that I detect—though it is hard to put one's finger on—and what might be a tremulous secret listening.

  I fear that I am not conveying my impressions well. They are that something quite out of the ordinary happened here three years ago, something startling which has not yet become common knowledge. And I am quite sure that the truth of it has not yet been told, in Walton's pamphlet or anywhere else.

  Yr Obdt Srvt

  Benjamin Freeman

  LETTER 2

  November 3,1782

  My esteemed Parent—

  My life here at the university, or rather on its fringes, goes on apace. Most of the folk whom I encounter in Ingolstadt, I am sure, take it for granted that I am but another student—I am only a handful of years older than most of those in attendance. Still I flatter myself that were I to put on a solemn mien, I could convince many that I am a youngish master.

  To my American eyes and ears this university is something of a strange place, filled with rumors of a secret society called Illuminaries, or Illuminists, and including in the student body, as it does, a number of young men whose favorite recreation, beyond drinking beer and wenching, seems to be duelling one another with swords.

  And, perhaps rather more to our present purpose, there is the medical school.

  I have learned that a certain medical student, enrolled here until four years ago, was named Saville—it is of course to a Mrs. Saville, in London, that the Walton letters are supposedly addressed. Whether this coincidence of names be more than a mere result of chance, is certainly one of the questions that ought to be answered in the course of my investigation. Quite possibly, if there is a real Mrs. Saville in London, it was she who arranged for their widespread publication.

  The story here is that the student Saville, having attained the age of five-and-twenty years, came into a very considerable inheritance. At about that time he ceased to be a student, the former circumstance no doubt contributing materially to the latter. However, he continued in residence in Ingolstadt for some time, probably a month or two, after ceasing to attend the university. Alas, the well-to-do Ingolstadt Saville is no longer here, though in his case I have heard no report of death.

  M. Krempe has been kind enough to let me audit one or two of his classes, and I am coming to think that his tirade against Frankenstein should not be taken too seriously. While I was in his presence the good professor delivered at least two more similar outbursts, one against lazy students In general, and the other targeted (sorry, Father, I know you dislike the cobbling of good nouns into verbs; perhaps it is my recent efforts to speak German that derange my English) against some unnamed colleagues on the faculty, for precisely what crime I am not sure.

  I do have the feeling, however, that the professor's feelings against Frankenstein are especially bitter, as if there had been at one time some real affection, now betrayed.

  As for M. Waldman, the speech I have heard him deliver to a group of beginning chemistry students was but little different, I think, from one that is recorded in the Walton papers:

  The ancient teachers of this science promised impossibilities and performed nothing. The modern masters promise very little; they know that metals cannot be transformed, and that the elixir of life is a chimera. But these philosophers, whose hands seem made only to dabble in dirt, and their eyes to pore over microscope or crucible, have indeed performed miracles. They ascend into the heavens; they have discovered how the blood circulates, and the nature of the air we breathe. They have acquired new and almost unlimited powers; they can command the thunders of heaven, mimic the earthquake, and even mock the invisible world with its own shadows.

  Stirring words, but I think that the old man's heart is no longer in them when he delivers his set speech of inspiration to each new crop of students. Something, I think, has happened to discourage him.

  And I do not think that any philosopher has yet ascended very far into the heavens, nor begun to command the thunders thereof; but you, Father, are more advanced in these matters than I, and must correct me if I am wrong.

  My talks with both professors again today confirmed the difference in their views of Frankenstein and his experiments. Waldman still has almost reverent feelings toward his former student, whom he considers a great genius; nor does he believe that the terrible events that followed, in Geneva and perhaps elsewhere, were Frankenstein's fault. But Waldman persists in his reluctance to speak of the subject, and only my repeated mention of your interest induced him to say as much to me as he did.

  Later—a small flirtation with a maidservant here in Frau Bauer's house has enabled me to take another look at certain parts of the establishment where the good landlady does not wish anyone to trespass. I am perfectly sure now that the little room at the top was Frankenstein's laboratory, and that secret, or at least inconspicuous, access to it is perfectly possible by means of the stair at the rear of the house and the alley behind it.

  And you will be pleased to know, Father—I may have mentioned it before—that the iron points of your most famed invention are in use here, as I suppose they are in every more or less civilized region of the globe. This house wears two of them upon its uppermost extremities; yet I can see where it has sustained some damage, almost certainly from lightning, upon a chimney near the high room in which the experiments took place. Perhaps the young philosopher who used these rooms, in his eagerness to sample the electric fluid from the clouds, took liberties with the arrangement of conducting rods to the detriment of the good Frau Bauer's property.


  I continue to pursue my inquiries as best I can. Failing to receive any Instructions to the contrary from you within the next fortnight, I purpose to travel on to Geneva, there to investigate the next chapter in the story.

  Yr Obdt Son

  Benjamin Freeman

  P.S. I shall not forget to look further into the matter of "Saville" before I go.

  Chapter 7

  November 9, 1782—

  I have arrived at long last in Montreal. The final days of my journey were accomplished over the surface of a river covered with several feet of ice, upon which snow of equal thickness has already fallen. More snow is descending now. If I have not outraced the winter to this latitude, I have at any rate survived it in the wilderness.

  I have already visited the house of Father Jacques' ecclesiastical superiors. I cannot say that they were particularly saddened to hear that he was dead_more annoyed, as if it might cause some inconvenience to their plans. I wonder how warm my friend's welcome would in fact have been, had he survived to meet them. When I told them of his fate, they at first gave the impression that they half suspected me of murdering their fellow priest_though they did not venture to indicate why I should have done so and then come to them to report his death.

  Then one of them took pity on me, so far as to make a half-hearted offer of some menial employment—a form of charity, of course—but I declined with what I believe was dignity. My would-be benefactor appeared to be surprised and insulted by my adopting such an attitude. I realize that I am proud sometimes, and I wonder why. My position in the world is certainly unique, anomalous: I am neither peasant nor lord, commoner nor king, slave nor nobleman. I am only what the world takes me for. And so far, with a few exceptions, it has taken me for nothing but a nightmare.

  I can sense already that in America all these and other categories into which human beings are arranged count for far less than they do in the Old World. Perhaps I am, like Franklin, an American, in spirit if not by birth.

  However that may be, I am not sheltering tonight in the establishment of the haughty priests—Oratorians, I think they are—but under the solid stable roof of someone else, who does not know that I am here. Naturally I am all but penniless, and expect to go hungry if I do not find work tomorrow. But I am told, and can well believe, that sturdy fellows are everywhere in demand for clearing snow. And I certainly fit that category, if no other.

  During my several passages today through the streets of Montreal, folk gaped at me, even as others have done, in the past, in Europe. None today were bold enough to say the words aloud: Behold the hideous giant!—but I am inured to that reaction now, whether it is silent or outspoken. And I have learned that humans, or some of them at least, are capable of better things.

  Despite the reactions of the crowd, it is obvious that the city—any city, European or American, and the bigger the better—is a more congenial place for me than any but the most exceptional village or farm would be. A city is accustomed to the odd. Today there were heads turning to look after me, and there was some laughter, and some uneasiness. But no one screamed and fled at my approach, or took it to be his duty to fire a gun at me.

  November 10_As I expected, I experienced little difficulty this morning in finding work as a laborer, and earning the few coins needed for bread and soup and a place to lie in comparative warmth. My giant's frame promises such a capacity for work that employers are ready to ignore my face. I have also been lucky enough to come into the possession of a few used garments that fit me not too ill. I rest tonight above a stable, where I share a loft with several of my fellow-laborers. They have generously given me half of the considerable space all to myself; no doubt at this moment they are curious as to what I am writing, but I doubt that any of them will develop the courage to ask.

  Should they ever have the chance to read what I intend to set down tonight, they will find their courage tested.

  After that first encounter with the resurrectionists, the gentlemen and I remained for several months in London. During all this time I lived ashore, simple lodgings having been provided for me in a dockside warehouse now owned by Saville. This building provided a place where he and Walton, as men concerned in maritime trade, could reasonably maintain an office and greet callers who came to them on business. It was a huge, rambling, brick structure, and with its many rooms suited our purposes admirably. My quarters, naturally, were neither spacious nor very comfortable, yet still they offered a vast improvement over what I had been forced to endure aboard the ship. And no attempt was made to confine me to my quarters closely; each of the gentlemen had many other concerns to keep him occupied, and I suppose each of them assumed that the others generally had me in charge.

  Though I valued my liberty, I was in no hurry to escape, being nearly as afraid of the public outside the warehouse walls as the public might have been of me. The practical effect of all this was that I enjoyed a much greater degree of freedom than aboard ship, and at night I allowed a natural curiosity to draw me out of my dull, cramped quarters and into the streets of the great city. There darkness allowed me considerable latitude for exploration, without my appearance exciting the wonder and fear of the crowd.

  What marvels, though they must have been mere commonplace events to the dwellers in the dock-side hovels, I beheld whilst lurking in the darkness! In this half-world of the befogged metropolis, the few fragmented memories retained by my body of its former life, or lives (if such indeed were the sources of my pieces of inexplicable knowledge)

  could offer me no guidance. I observed the terror and struggles of the great city's poor, and the follies, sometimes equally terrible, of her wealthy. I learned, among other things, a little more about what men and women can be like. Keeping to the shadows of the city's night with timid determination, I retreated quickly when any started to take notice of me, and took extreme care that no one should observe my comings and goings from the warehouse.

  During the day, I always remained indoors. It was during this time that Victor, carefully measuring my feet—he was always so precise with measurements—arranged that a pair of boots should be custom-made for me.

  With his newly gathered equipment, he had quickly improvised a new laboratory, much larger than his workroom had been at Ingolstadt, in an upper room of the otherwise largely disused warehouse. In his new workshop he took measurements of me—never anything so mundane as my simple height—and tested me, on machines that tried my strength and my endurance. And he would sometimes sit for a long time, chin on hand, pondering my existence.

  Meanwhile he looked forward to his next series of experiments, which were to provide me with at least one mate. He grumbled frequently about the early difficulty of obtaining the necessary raw materials. Success in that endeavor was not too long in coming, though; in London money could do anything. The Argo had remained in port, and Captain Walton needed very little time to establish contact with a second group of Resurrectionists, who proved to be more competent as well as more peaceful than the first. The leader of this new company was a man named Eli Hammer, whose wife, Matilda played an active role in his enterprise as well. Mrs. Hammer was a rather prim-looking matron of about forty, who, when I observed her through a knothole in an interior wall, appeared well qualified to be a chaperone. Meanwhile I was enjoined, by all four of my first managers, to keep myself at all times out of sight of the new employees as they began to come and go around the warehouse. At the time I supposed that the Hammers would probably never learn of my existence.

  Mrs. Hammer possessed a valuable skill at figures, and as part of his agreement with her husband, Saville found regular employment for her at a desk in his warehouse office. The entire small staff, who had formerly conducted the modest normal business of the building, had been dismissed when we moved in.

  This epoch also marked the first appearance among us of one who was to become the most dangerous of my enemies. This was a man called Small, a pockmarked, sandy-haired person of about thirty years of age, ugly yet qu
ite vain about his person, distinguished by demoniac energy and a controlled fierceness of manner. I have never heard him spoken to, or spoken of, by any other name than Small. His stature suited his name, and I am sure that his spirit, if indeed he has one—I have no reason to doubt that he still breathes—is smaller yet.

  The explanation of Small's presence came to me gradually, through words overheard here and there and actions observed. Saville, evidently thinking matters over after our brawl with the first party of graverobbers, and not wishing to have to depend upon my help in any future violent disagreement, had found this man somewhere—God knows where—and hired him as bodyguard and general factotum; That a man of physically small stature could demonstrate proficiency as a bodyguard says something about his other qualifications.

  But the arrival of the abominable Small was not, by far, the greatest alteration in our company. Not only romance but marriage had entered Saville's life, whether shortly before or shortly after his sudden though not unexpected inheritance of wealth I am still not sure. His betrothed was none other than Walton's only sister, Margaret. The couple had known each other at least slightly, I gathered, for years before Saville came into his fortune; but as the date of his twenty-fifth birthday drew near she had acted in a timely way to renew and strengthen the acquaintance. Later I learned that Margaret was a widow, a little older than her new husband.

  It was not only Roger's wealth that the lady found attractive; the two of them were in truth kindred spirits. Almost from the time of our arrival in London he shared with her the plans he had worked out to gain advantage from the discoveries of Frankenstein. Their wedding, a quietly-managed affair—somehow I failed to receive an invitation—took place shortly after our business operations had moved into the warehouse.

  Several times before the wedding, when Saville was engaged in business elsewhere, his bride-to-be visited the warehouse. Frankenstein at first objected to the presence, just outside his laboratory, of this woman he did not even know, and objected even more strongly to her being given knowledge of his work, and the plans to expand and perfect it. Clerval seconded my creator's protests. But it had long been clear that Saville was the senior member of the partnership, and he would hear of nothing but that his new wife be included immediately and as a full partner. Walton, perhaps knowing his sister well, had no complaint to make.