Peter Ackroyd - The Casebook of Victor Frankenstein

“Them bottles were filled, half-filled and not filled at all. I didn’t know where to put them in the general clean.”

She was referring to the experimental laboratory I had set up in my bedroom. It was a modest affair-some crucibles, tubes, and a portable burner-but she had a nervous dread of anything she called “medicinal.” For some reason it reminded her of her husband’s untimely death, an event which she took much pleasure in describing to me in all its detail. “I left them where they was,” she said. “I did not touch them, Mr. Frankentine.”

“That was very good of you.”

“I never touch my gentlemen’s properties. Oh, no. Did you have a good journey from Old Smokey?” She was a Londoner by birth, as she never ceased to inform me, but she had married the short-lived Oxford man and had never moved away. “I suppose there was a good fog.”

“Much rain, Florence, I’m afraid.”

“I am sorry to hear that.” She seemed delighted that the city continued to suffer from bad weather. “But it clears the fog, you see.” She lowered her voice to a whisper. “How is Mr. Shelley?”

“He is very well. He flourishes in London.”

“He is often spoken of here.” She was still whispering, although there was no one to overhear us. “He is considered wild.”

“He is not savage, Florence. He is very thoughtful.”

“Is that what you call it? Well.” She took my trunk, and hauled it into the bedroom where she began to unpack my shirts and general linen. “Whatever is this?” I heard the question, and knew at once what she meant. I had placed for safekeeping among my linen a small model of vitreous clay; it was a simulacrum of the human brain, perfect in all of its details, that I had purchased from an apothecary in Dean Street. He had told me that it was a copy of the brain of one Davy Morgan, a notorious highwayman who had been hanged a few months before.

“It is nothing, Florence. Leave it on the table.”

“I will not touch it, Mr. Frankenline. It is worm-eaten.”

I went into the bedroom, and picked up the model. “These are not worms. These are the fibres of the brain. Do you see? They are like the channels and currents of the ocean.” How slight was the knowledge of the human organism! There was not one person in a thousand-a hundred thousand-who had stopped to consider the workings of the mind or of the body.

“It isn’t natural,” she said.

“It is nature itself, Florence. I believe that to be the optic lobe.”

“It is no good telling me things like that, sir.” She looked at me in horror. “I want nothing to do with it.”

“If we could stimulate that area, then we might see for many miles. Would that not be an advantage?”

“It would not. With your eyes popping out of your head? Oh dear, no.”

I put the model on the work-table I had set up by the window of the room. “I am afraid that you will remain in ignorance, Florence.”

“At least, sir, I will be happy.”

It did not occur to me then that Florence ’s words expressed some instinctive truth; the natural sentiments of mankind, however coarsely expressed, have a justice of their own. But I had already separated myself for ever from the ordinary pursuits of men. My mind was filled with one thought, one conception, one purpose. I wished to achieve more, far more, than those around me and I fully believed that I would pioneer a new way, explore unknown powers, and unfold to the world the deepest mysteries of creation.

I read widely in the libraries of Oxford, straying very far from the directions of my moral tutor who seemed to know nothing beyond Galen and Aristotle. Once a week I climbed the stairs to Professor Saville’s rooms, across the quadrangle from my own, where I always found him sitting in a high-backed chair with a tumbler of brandy and cold water by his side. My early education in Geneva had given me a sufficiency of Greek and Latin, so that the weekly requirements of translation caused no difficulties for me. I had already informed him that my interest lay in the growth and development of the human frame, at which he seemed genuinely astonished.

“It is not a pursuit,” he said, “that I associate with gentlemen.”

“But if gentlemen do not venture upon it, sir, who will?”

“Are there not anatomists in the world?”

“I am concerned with the workings of human life. What subject is of more importance?”

“Surely Galen and Avicenna have informed us on all such matters?” Saville had a habit of rising from his seat, after delivering an opinion, and then walking around the room before resuming his position. Only then would he take a sip from the tumbler.

“I believe, sir, that Galen used the anatomy of a Barbary ape?”

“Quite satisfactory.” He took another tour of the room. “You are not suggesting that we defile the human temple?”

“How else can we learn from where the principle of life proceeds?”

“You need only open your Bible, Mr. Frankenstein, to be assured on these matters.”

“I know the Bible well, sir-”

“I very much hope so.”

“But I confess myself ignorant of the actual mechanism.”

“Mechanism? Whatever do you mean?”

“We learn in Genesis, sir, that God formed man out of the dust of the ground and then breathed into his nostrils the breath of life.”

“What of it?”

“My question is, of what did that breath consist?”

“You have been too much in the company of Mr. Shelley.” He began another perambulation of the room and, on his return to his chair, swallowed a large portion of brandy and water. “You are beginning to doubt Holy Scripture.”

“I am simply curious.”

“Never be curious. It is the path to perdition. Now, shall we turn to the subject at hand?” He began to examine my translation into Greek of an editorial from The Times , on the prospects for Dalmatian independence, and I left his chambers soon after.

SO THERE WAS TO BE NO ENLIGHTENMENT for me at Oxford. I had already determined to study enough to attain my degree, principally for the sake of my father, but like a pilgrim I prepared myself for another journey. The mind that is ambitious makes itself. I found a small barn outside Oxford, in the little village of Headington; I rented this from a farmer for an inconsiderable sum, on the understanding that I was a student of medicine who was mixing noxious chemicals and combinations that needed to be prepared away from the haunts of men. The barn was surrounded by open fields, but had the advantage of a small track leading towards it. It was, as I told him, ideal for my purposes. And so it proved.

I began my experiments on the animal kingdom without, I hope, inflicting unnecessary or excessive pain. I had learned, from my studies of Priestley and Davy, the effectiveness of nitrous oxide as a means of anaesthesia; and I already knew the sedative effect of henbane when administered in large quantities. Yet I began with the smallest creatures. Even the humble worm, and the water-beetle, are objects of wonder to the student of Nature. Under the microscope the fly became a chamber of delights: the vessels of the eye were lustrous and brimming with life, crystals with manifold gleamings. How complex, and yet how vulnerable! All was held in such delicate poise and balance that the breadth of a hair separated life and brightness from darkness and nonentity.

I purchased turtle doves and other birds in the market off Corn Street and, when I felt the quick breathing warmth beneath my fingers, I sensed the elusive pulse of life. Was it the same warmth that suffused the mechanism of the voltaic batteries? Warmth meant motion and excitation, and movement visible or invisible was the condition of life itself. I believed that I was on the edge of a great discovery. If I could create movement, would it not then reproduce itself in sequence just as the waves beating against the shore rise up in harmonious array? The world followed one dance.