Peter Ackroyd - The Casebook of Victor Frankenstein

I HAD WRITTEN to Daniel Westbrook a few days after my arrival, announcing my intention to remain in London and asking for news of his sister. I had heard nothing from him for several days but, on my return to Jermyn Street one evening, after an inspection of my new premises, I found him in earnest conversation with Fred at the door of the house. “My dear Daniel,” I said, “come in at once.”

“This lad has been barking at me like a Cerberus.”

“He says he knows you, sir.”

“Of course he knows me, Fred.”

“But he has no card, sir.”

“He does not need a card. Mr. Westbrook is an old friend. Now that you know his face, you must welcome him.”

“Do you hear that, old fellow?” Daniel asked him.

“My bark is worse than my bite, Mr. Westbrook.” Fred had an incurably silly look upon his face, which made us both laugh out loud.

“Well, they are safely married,” Daniel said to me as soon as we were settled in the apartment. “Harriet has written to me from Edinburgh. She is now Mrs. Shelley.”

“Are you not pleased?”

“I would have preferred better circumstances. But, yes, I am pleased for her. Her prospects in life are now immeasurably greater. Even my father sees the advantage of it.”

“Has she discussed her plans with you?”

“They are moving to Cumberland for a few months. Mr. Shelley has an interest in the Lake poets, I believe. Do you know of them?”

“I have read them.”

“He has already been in correspondence with one of them, according to Harriet, and has been offered the rental of a cottage by a lake. She did not remember which one.”

“It sounds delightful.”

“I hope it may be. They have invited me to stay with them.”

“Excellent. Did Harriet say anything of Bysshe?”

“He spends his time reading books from a circulating library and composing letters to his father.”

I suspected that very little profit would emerge from either activity, but I said nothing. I did not wish to injure Daniel’s happy expectations for the marriage, although I could see small cause for optimism. If it was a misalliance, as I believed, then little good would come of it. We spoke of other matters. He told me news of the Popular Reform League, and of a recent meeting on Clerkenwell Green when the army had been called; they had been told to quell any disturbances but the meeting passed off peacefully enough. By Daniel’s account the army had in any case been singularly reluctant to intervene. “They are working men, too,” he said. “They will not spill our blood.” Naturally I was pleased, and relieved for his sake, but my own enthusiasm for the cause had diminished. I was so intent upon my own studies that I had little inclination for other pursuits. What can stop the determined heart and resolved will of man? I was as fixed as fate.

NOW THAT I HAD OBTAINED the pottery manufactory in Limehouse, I had to furnish it with all the equipment and apparatus I would need to create and to store the electrical fluid. I enquired in many different workshops until one afternoon I found myself in the laboratory of Mr. Francis Hayman, a civil engineer who was employed by the Convex Lights Company to investigate new methods of illumination. He was situated in Bermondsey, next to a hat company, not far across the water from Limehouse itself. Once he had learned the nature of my mission he was happy to show me around his workshop, as he called it, where there were a variety of engines and coils and jars which immediately excited my interest. “What have you so far accomplished?” he asked me.

I told him that I was eager to revive life in animal tissue by means of electricity. “I have begun to experiment,” I said, “by small shocks.”

“There is no doubt that the fluid can be a healing compound. So why should it not be employed to excite dormant organs? Did you happen to read, in Wesley’s journals, that his lameness was mended when he was electrified morning and evening?”

“I did not know of it,” I replied. “But it does not surprise me in the least.”

“But you have noted the difference between the two electricities?” He was a tall man who had acquired a stoop, no doubt through the agency of the low English door.

“I know what Franklin has called the vitreous and the resinous-”

“Well, Mr. Frankenstein, I prefer my own terminology. There is frictional electricity and magnetical electricity and thermal electricity. Their derivation is obvious.”

“Of course.”

“Here is the interesting thing. I believe that electrical fluid is also discharged by means of chemical action. I have called it galvanic electricity. It is a great power of nature, sir.”

“You have created it here?”

“I have. Now my task is to make all of these various fluids cohere. Observe the means.” He took me over to a small wooden bench upon which were placed four elongated glass tubes, with wires passing between them.

“This resembles the electrical balance of Coulomb, Mr. Hayman.”

“You know of that? You are better instructed than I thought.” He had a crisp, almost harsh, manner of speaking. “I have also done experiments with the electrical gymnotus.”

“I beg your pardon?”

“The eel. And also with some electric rays. It is remarkable how the flat fish emits the fluid.”

“Not so remarkable,” I said. “I have examined a specimen of that fish in the course of my work. Beneath its wings are columns of discs, tightly bound together, which must act as a form of natural battery. They possess electric organs.”

“Precisely my conclusion, sir.”

“It is my belief,” I said, “that the electric fluid is deposited in a latent state in unlimited quantity in the earth, the water and the atmosphere. It is in the sheet of summer lightning. It is in the raindrop.”

“In you. And in me.” He shook my hand. “I am pleased to greet an electrical friend. Let me show you something else.”

He took me across his laboratory to a small alcove, partitioned off from the main room. Within it was a cylindrical instrument, some six feet in height, with levels of vitreous glass and metal. “This is my invention,” he said. “It is constructed of zinc, Dutch leaf and quicksilver. It contains almost a thousand small discs, together with cakes of wax and resin.” He stroked the side of the device. “I call it the electrical column.”

“What is its power?”

“Immense.” He opened his eyes very wide. “When it is used in connection with the electrical battery in the outer room. Do you see all those jars connected together? Well-”

“It is a giant nerve, Mr. Hayman.”

“That is a good way of putting it. My employers have fixed ideas in such matters. They wish me to examine new modes of lighting the streets. But with engines such as this, we could see the entire nation in an electric state!”

I knew then that my quest had been successful. I had found the very equipment I would need to transmit the electrical fluid to the human frame. It was not hard for me to persuade Mr. Hayman to build for me an identical machine, with all its various appurtenances; the sum I offered him would more than compensate for his labour, and give him funds for further investigations. It was agreed that various parts of the electrical column would be wrapped in canvas and then transported across the Thames in wherries, from Bermondsey to Limehouse, where he would help to assemble them in my own workshop. I was in a state of intense excitement. To have the means of transmitting life within my power-to be able to create the vital spark-thrilled me beyond measure.