Brian Aldiss - Frankenstein Unbound

Quixotic or not, I had no real idea of where I was going. Or rather, I had an idea, but it was of the vaguest. Far more clear in my mind were recurrent pictures of Victor trembling as if with fever; Elizabeth, fair and beautiful and composed; Justine, pleading without effect for her life before a room full of people covertly eager for her blood; and the creature Frankenstein had made – that gigantic figure without a face, striking fear and worse than fear wherever it went. Although I knew it moved rapidly, all I had of it in my memory was a series of still pictures, captured in rain by lightning. It was enemy to the world, yet the world knew nothing of it! What a madman Frankenstein was to have created such a thing, and to hope to keep its existence a secret!

I tried to recall details of Frankenstein’s ghastly history. How would he act if he knew that his career was to be made into fiction, to serve as an object lesson, and a name of opprobrium, to the generations that followed him? Unfortunately, I had not read Mary Shelley’s novel since I was a lad; such recollection of it as I had was obscured by the travesties of it I had watched in 4-D on film, TV, and CircC.

At this juncture, I realized that I had driven close to the point where the boat had landed me the previous evening. I was not far from where the boy William had been murdered. I stopped the car.

There were binoculars in the Felder. Nor had I forgotten the swivel-gun mounted on the roof. The thought that such armament was compulsory for anyone privileged enough to own a private car in my own time reminded me that, Napoleonic Wars apart, I was now in an age where the safety and sanctity of the individual was taken for granted. If you read this, Mina, no doubt you will realize what was in my mind; supernaturally fast Frankenstein’s creation might be, but the swivel-gun would stop him.

Through the binoculars, I traced the path I had taken the night before when following Victor.

As I half-expected, Victor had returned to the scene of his younger brother’s murder. No doubt he had fled straight there from the pressures of the court. I could not see him well; he was mainly hidden behind trees, and motionless. Although I scanned the terrain round about him anxiously, I could discover no sign of the monster.

Locking the car, I began to climb the hill.

So far, I have evaded a central issue. Now it was forced on me. The accidents that had brought me back into the past were real enough. My whole being accepted the fact that I was, at least in some fashion , in Switzerland in the year 1816, in the month of May.

But Frankenstein? He was a fictitious character, a myth, wasn’t he? There was no way that I could understand whereby he could exist. The fact that I was where I was might be highly unlikely; that did not make his being there any more likely. In fact, I had to admit it. I found his existence impossible to explain. Although I was about to confront him, my experience told me that he was – well, I’ve no words for it: on a different plane of reality.

At last I was up on a level with him. The lake was below, the dull tinkle of cowbells came up to me. A peaceful enough spot, yet made profoundly melancholy by reason of its associations. The trees in their light spring foliage held no cheer.

Frankenstein was walking to and fro now, muttering to himself. In my hesitation to step forth lay this question: supposing that this encounter revealed my unreality rather than his …? As I was about to move forward, a whole cloud of doubt precipitated itself upon me. The frail web of human perceptions was laid bare. I stood outside myself and saw myself there, a poor creature whose energies were based on a slender set of assumptions, whose very identity was a chancy affair of chemicals and accidents.

‘Who’s there? Come forth if you still haunt this place, damned being!’

Maybe I had made some inadvertent noise. Victor was confronting me, his face white and drawn. I saw no fear there.

I stood forth.

‘Who are you, and what do you want with me? Are you from the court?’

‘Monsieur Frankenstein, my name is Bodenland, Joseph Bodenland. We met at the hotel yesterday. I apologize for intruding upon you.’

‘No matter, if you have news. Is a verdict out yet?’

‘Yes.’ I had recovered myself by now. ‘Justine has been condemned to death. The verdict was the inevitable one in view of your silence.’

‘What do you know of my affairs? Who sent you here?’

‘I am here on my own account. And I know little of your affairs, except the one crucial thing which nobody else seems to know – the central secret of your life!’

He was still confronting me in a pugnacious attitude, but at this he took a step back.

‘Are you another phantom sent to plague me? A product of my imagination?’

‘You are sick, man! Because of your sickness, an innocent woman is going to die, and your fair Elizabeth is going to be plunged into misery.’

‘Whoever or whatever you are, you speak truth. Unhappy wretch that I am, I left my native fireside and alienated my home to seek strange truths in undiscovered lands. My responsibility is too great, too great!’

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