The Casebook of Victor Frankenstein

by Peter Ackroyd

  I moved on, carried as much by the crowd as by my own volition. Of course I had no chance of finding him. London can be a wilderness, for those who seek out a particular face. And although I knew that Fred was experienced in all the ways of the city, I also knew how easy it was for a boy to vanish altogether as if snatched from the streets into oblivion. I believe that many were forcibly impressed as seamen; as for the fate of others, I had no notion. Of course I feared that the creature might have seized him; but in my last interview with him he had exhibited such shame and repentance, had so eagerly forsworn any further violence, that I dismissed the speculation. What possible motive could he now have in perpetrating such a deed, when he was anxiously anticipating the end of his earthly life?

  I came back into Jermyn Street despondent. Many would have treated the sudden departure of a servant with no great emotion, but I had not realised how attached I had become to Fred. And then I remembered Mrs. Shoeberry. It was possible that she was sick, or ailing, and that Fred had been obliged to stay with her. I knew from him that she lived in one of the courts off Drury Lane, at the upper end of that street, and I made my way there on foot. Everyone knew Mrs. Shoeberry in that quarter, and I was directed to the tenements in Short’s Rents where I was assured she would be “rinsing.” There was another laundress by the pump in that court, with soap and pumice stone, and I supposed that the water ran more freely here: I asked her for Mrs. Shoeberry’s lodging, and she pointed to an open window on the second floor. “She,” she said, emphasising the word, “is in there.” I made my way up the staircase, not so clean as it might have been, and found Mrs. Shoeberry’s apartment. The door was ajar, and I could already smell the familiar sour odour of London laundry. I knocked, and pushed open the door, but I could see no sign of the laundress herself. Sheets and linen were hanging in profusion all about the room.

  “Whoever is it?” Mrs. Shoeberry’s voice came from behind a sheet.

  “Victor Frankenstein.”

  “Why, Mr. Frankenstein. Beg your pardon.” She stepped out, clutching a brace of wooden pins and a roller. “What has Fred done now?”

  “He has done nothing, Mrs. Shoeberry. I was hoping to find him here.”

  “He ain’t been here, Mr. Frankenstein. He only comes on a Sunday, when I need him for the lifting.” I had no idea what she meant. “Has he gone, then?”

  “I have not seen him since yesterday evening.”

  She considered the matter for a moment. “That is not like Fred.”

  “I know.”

  She looked at me steadily. “Has he been in any trouble, sir?”

  “Not that I am aware of.”

  “There will be something on his mind. I know that boy. When the late Mr. Shoeberry passed off, Fred hid himself away for two days. Said he had been sleeping on the boats. He never mentioned it again. He is deep, that boy.” She went behind the sheets, from which came the sound of an enormous sneeze. After a few moments, she recovered. “Never you mind it, Mr. Frankenstein. He will be back by Sunday. He would not leave me to the lifting.”

  I departed a few minutes later, having given her a florin for her “trouble,” and walked back to Jermyn Street. I had been to some degree reassured by her confidence that Fred would return by Sunday, and so once more I devoted myself to experiment. I went to the workshop each day, where I refined the galvanic mechanism in the light of my further researches: the problem of reversal was still one that exercised me, and led me to a thousand different variations in the batteries and machines. I was confident of a solution, however, and did not weary in my efforts.

  FRED DID NOT RETURN by Sunday. Mrs. Shoeberry came to Jermyn Street in a state of consternation, and asked me whether we should alert the officers of the parish. I did not put much faith in the constables, or in the watch, but I agreed to go with her to the compter in St. James’s Street. There had of course been no reports of a missing boy, but she felt that she had somehow discharged her duty. However, she was not in a comfortable state of mind. She feared something. She asked me if I wanted one of her other sons to take the place of Fred, but I declined the offer.

  As the days passed, I was so intent upon my work that I paid very little attention to my outward circumstances. Polidori continued to lodge in my chambers, and often questioned me about the state of my researches. I could not, as a gentleman, ask him to leave. I never referred to his sudden appearance at Sweep Fair, but I took care to reveal nothing to him. We were, as a result, uneasy companions.

  Two weeks after Fred’s disappearance I received a letter from Mary Shelley, informing me that the household (in which she included Lord Byron) had left Switzerland and made their way south to Pisa where they had procured lodgings on the Lung’Arno:

  It is sufficiently commodious, and we pay only thirteen sequins a month. We have an excellent mezzanino, and three rooms on the fourth floor. From here we have a view of the sunsets, which Shelley deems incomparable. Lord Byron has taken up residence in a much grander house, but he deigns to dine with us each evening. He is at this moment reading to Shelley some passage out of a poem he has recently composed. I cannot make out the words. He wishes to remove us all to the Gulf of Spezia, but the prospect of yet another journey appals me.

  When I read this out to Polidori, he grimaced. “The man is demented,” he said. “He would drive a saint to madness. He has a demon inside him that will not let him, or anyone, rest.”

  “But wait. You have not heard Mary’s postscript. She must have written it some days later.” I read out to him the forlorn message with which she ended the letter:

  We have now moved on to a dwelling built on the shore at Lerici. It is known as Casa Magni and, although it is indeed large, it hardly qualifies as a house. It is more like a fortress buffeted by the sea and the sea-wind. There is a rough path to take us to the little village of San Terenzo, where we can purchase only the most rudimentary provisions. And there is only one chimney for cooking! There is no garden, and the rear of the house faces a thick wood. It is the most gloomy spot imaginable, and only the prospect of the sea lifts my spirits. Oh, how I long to be in London now!”

  I put down the letter. “She is tired of travelling.”

  “She is tired of Byron, too, I imagine,” Polidori said.

  THEN, TWO WEEKS LATER, I received another letter. I recognised the handwriting on the envelope to be Mary’s, but it was so scrawled and strained that I knew that it contained fearful news:

  There is something I cannot say. And I can barely express it in words. Shelley is dead. He was drowned at sea. He died with a companion, in a boat that has not yet been found. They had set sail from Livorno into the Gulf of Spezia, when by all accounts they were overwhelmed by a sudden summer storm.

  Her letter broke off at this juncture, but then at some later time she resumed it on a separate sheet.

  Yesterday he was recovered. He had been washed onto the shore, near the mouth of the Serchio river, two miles from here. Lord Byron formally recognised the body. I could not do it. Bysshe was wearing the double-breasted jacket and nankeen trousers he purchased in Geneva. Do you remember them? The officials here demanded that he should be buried where he was found, with his grave filled with quicklime, but Byron and I revolted at such a coarse procedure. For once I felt grateful to Byron for assuming the manner and authority of lordship. We were given permission to cremate poor Bysshe on the sea-shore. Two servants of the house, together with Byron, built up a funeral pyre on the beach. It was a day of bright sun. How I wish you had been with me, Victor, during these last rites. We placed Bysshe on the flames, and Byron poured wine, salt and frankincense on the conflagration. I could not look, but Byron plunged his hand into the fire and took out Bysshe’s heart still intact. He means to bury the ashes in the Protestant cemetery at Rome, but I could not endure any further time in this country. I must leave. And there is an end of all but despair.

  THE DEATH OF MY COMPANION had so thoroughly unnerved me that for two days I lost all sensation of liv
ing. I do not know how I conducted myself, or where I travelled; I awoke in soiled linen and, as far as I am aware, I did not eat. I believe that Polidori avoided me, in consideration of my grief, but on the third morning he knocked upon the door of my study.

  “Mary is returning next week,” he said. “Here is a note from Byron.”

  The imminent return of Mary roused me from my stupor. For some reason inexplicable to myself, I wished to destroy the creature before she arrived in England: I did not allow myself to suppose that there was any real threat to her, as there had been to Harriet and Martha, but I wanted to be free of that foul burden before I saw Mary again. I wished to protect her in her grief-and, perhaps, to console her. How could I perform such a task with the creature still alive? I had in any case reached the pitch of my experiments, when success now seemed to me to be assured. By the use of conducting wires, and a series of metal plates placed at variable levels and degrees of inclination, I had at last been able to alter the direction and strength of the electrical fluid. I had tried the experiment on a stray dog, tranquillised by ether, and it had immediately expired under the charge.

  For an extravagant sum I now purchased a Barbary ape from a sailor in Wapping: I could not test my theory upon my fellow beings, and I believed that the ape was the closest to our species for the purposes of experiment. I tranquillised it with ether, as before, and after securing it upon the table with leather straps I subjected it to the electrical charge. It was thrown into severe convulsions, with many spasms and contortions, and expired after sixteen seconds. Then I applied the charge again: even as I watched the body began to decay, the skin shrivelling and the flesh dissolving. The stench was terrible, but I was determined to see the experiment to the end. I administered a further shock, and very soon the body was reduced to a skeleton; then the bones themselves began to fragment until they crumbled into dust. I had succeeded.

  22

  I LEFT LIMEHOUSE in a state of exaltation. I was sure that my long bondage to the creature was now at an end. I walked down the highway, past the small streets where those in search of strange sights and sensations were always to be found. I walked in perfect safety. I turned a corner and, glancing quickly to my right, I saw Polidori. He was standing in the shadows, but he was perfectly recognisable to me. In my mood of triumph I decided to make a chase of it. I stood in the street and gave him ample time to notice me. Then I walked with rapid step towards Ratcliff and Whitechapel, and threaded my way through the narrow streets that comprise the neighbourhood. I believed that I could hear footsteps somewhere behind me; so I turned into an alley, and waited. When Polidori passed me I stepped out and took him by the arm. “Good evening,” I said. “I see that we frequent the same neighbourhood.”

  He turned towards me, and became quite still. “Perhaps I am in search of adventure?”

  “No. You are in search of me.”

  He was silent for a moment. “You interest me, Victor, I admit it. You have an understanding altogether more vast than mere-”

  “So you have gone through my papers, as I suspected. Is it not so?” I no longer cared to conceal anything. “What have you seen?”

  “Wonderful things. But I cannot find the key.”

  “And I hold the key. That is why you follow me.”

  He had recovered his self-possession. “I told you that I wish to know your secrets. I believe that you are conducting, performing, how shall I put it, something unusual?”

  He had found the proper opportunity. My exhilaration and sense of achievement were such that I might have cried them aloud in the streets. “Mine is a strange case,” I said.

  “I knew it.”

  “You will not believe me.”

  “There is conviction on your face. That is enough for me.”

  “Not conviction. But triumph. We cannot speak here.” I must have been perspiring very freely, for my clothes were quite wet.

  I hailed a cab and we made our way to Jermyn Street. We sat in my study. I could hardly wait to tell the story of my success.

  “Mine is a strange case. I don’t think there has ever been a stranger. I believe it to be unique.”

  “Are you being serious, Frankenstein?”

  “I dare say you will be ready to laugh at me.”

  “Not at all. I want to understand you.”

  “Oh, then you would have to go a long way back.” I told him then the whole story of my experiments. Throughout the long discourse, he said nothing. He was observing me in the most unusual way. “I can assure you, Polidori, that what I have told you is true and exact. Every stage of the proceedings is as I have outlined.”

  When I paused, having told him of the first awakening of the creature, he leaned forward and whispered: “So this thing lived? Is that what you are telling me?” He put his hand to his forehead, in a gesture of extreme astonishment. His eyes were very wide.

  I nodded. Then I added, in a low voice, “It still lives.” Polidori looked around the room in terror. “No. Not here. It lives on the estuary of the river. Away from human habitation.”

  “You have seen it again?”

  “Wait until I have reached the end of my story.” Then I told him the tale of Harriet Westbrook, and of the unlawful condemnation of her brother for her killing. I wept throughout the narrative, for in truth up to this time I had done my utmost to suppress it from my thoughts. Then I related to him the abduction and murder of the servant, Martha, beside the river at Marlow. I began to tell him the history of the creature’s subsequent visits to me. “It threatened me,” I said, “with such dreadful-” I stopped, and found myself to be shaking.

  Polidori rose from the chair in an involuntary movement. “Is this possible, Frankenstein?” Again he looked around the room. “Why has this not been screamed out in the public prints? How can it live amongst us? Why has it not been hunted down?”

  “It desires to live occluded and unknown. It does not wish to be hunted down, as you put it. It has ways of hiding itself from public view.”

  “You must take some more wine,” Polidori said. He was as thoroughly frightened as I was, but he poured me another glass which I drained at once. “Are you calmer now?”

  “Yes, very calm. And you?”

  “Calm enough.”

  “After a period the creature ceased to threaten, and began to plead with me. He wanted to be released from his miseries. I think he felt shame-regret-horror. All of those. I have sometimes thought that he may have committed some further act of foulness, and that it preyed upon his mind. Of this I cannot be sure. But he came to me asking for oblivion.”

  “Thank God.”

  “And I can grant him that wish.” I described to him the experiment upon the Barbary ape, omitting nothing of interest, and then I shared with him my plan for the destruction of the creature. “He will come to me now,” I told him. “I know it. He has a strange susceptibility to me. He will understand that the moment has come for his deliverance. Tomorrow I will see him for the last time.”

  “May I suggest to you, Frankenstein, that you invite me also?”

  “I doubt that he will wish for any other witness.”

  “Yet in the case of failure or only partial success-”

  “There will be no failure.”

  “Do you remember the secret words for the golem? I have not told you this. They must be addressed to the golem by a Jew. Otherwise they will not prevail.” He paused for a moment. “I am of that faith.”

  “Oh, I understand you now. You wish to deliver the words of anathema. You will pronounce the Jewish curse over him. It will not be necessary.”

  “Allow me the possibility, at the very least.”

  “If you wish. But he would be disturbed by your presence. I know it.”

  “Then I will wait somewhere, in secrecy, for a message.”

  “And how will I find a messenger? No. I believe that the creature will come to me at twilight. Twilight is his time. Leave me alone with him for a few hours. He may wish to make a fin
al confession to me, or speak to me of other things. Come at midnight.”

  I COULD NOT SLEEP. I was exhausted, but I was in such a fever of expectation that I could find no rest. I started up each moment, with a fresh image of the creature. Only towards dawn did I fall into a doze, broken by the sound of Polidori going down the stairs and opening the door into the street. I rose at once, washed myself, and prepared for what I believed to be a conclusive day in my fearful life.

  As soon as I arrived at Limehouse I opened the door that led out to the river.

  I waited for three or four hours, looking expectantly onto the water; in the late afternoon I walked to the little landing stage, and inhaled the scent of mud and tar that lingered on the bank. I was not impatient: I had known, even as I hurried from Jermyn Street, that he would not come until twilight. Slowly the air grew darker. A light breeze ruffled the water which was flowing steadily on an incoming tide, and I could see a flock of starlings heading for the marshes on the other side of the river. There was a faint light on the horizon, as the sun dipped lower through clouds. And then I saw him moving through the water; he reared himself upright as he approached me, and then ducked back into the river. I turned and walked into the workshop. I was quite calm when he stood in the doorway. “I have been waiting for you,” I said. “I knew that you would come.”

  “How could I stay away, when my deliverance is near?”

  “You are aware that my experiments have been successful? That my ambition has been accomplished?” He nodded. “So. What do you wish me to do?”

  “You know what I wish for. Death. Forgetting. Oblivion and darkness.”

  “I can promise you these things. Come forward.” He stepped into the light of an oil-lamp. He was wearing a pair of canvas breeches, such as shipmen wear, and a brown jacket; he had a shirt, but no stock, and I could see the yellow hairs upon his chest. He was barefoot, too. I surmised that he had led a harsh existence on the estuary.