Peter Ackroyd - The Casebook of Victor Frankenstein

A moment’s thought would have convinced me of the rashness of my plan; but I was seized with a sudden desire to feel the electrical fluid in as intimate a manner as possible. What was the sensation when it coursed through the fibres and muscles of the body, illuminating and energising every pathway? I was not so lunatic as to test the whole of my body, but instead I placed a metallic band upon my wrist and a small cap or thimble of brass upon each of my fingertips; I chose a relatively low level of current but, even so, when I turned on the column I was at once surrounded by what I can only call a flash of lightning. I had never witnessed this as an observer, so I surmised that the lightning could only be seen by the subject. It lasted no more than two or three seconds, but it seemed to me to have a wave-like pattern. It resembled a curtain of light being shaken.

As the sensation passed I became aware that my hand was trembling violently with some voluntary impulse: it wished to do something and quite by instinct I took up the pen and paper which I always kept by my equipment. My hand seized the pen and immediately began to write in a large and florid manner that I did not recognise as my own. It was the strangest communication I had ever received. I cannot think of external things as having an external existence, it wrote, and I commune with everything I see as something not apart from but inherent in my own nature. To feel is to exist. Then my hand rested, only to begin again with the same florid and energetic motion. I am suspended among uncertainties, mysteries, doubts, without any recourse to fact or reason. At this point I decided to remove, with my free hand, the metal band and the thimbles of brass.

I was perfectly astonished at the outcome of the experiment, and for the next few minutes I wandered around the workshop in a feverish state of excitation. From whom, or where, had these words sprung? Clearly they derived from me in some occluded way. But I had never represented them to myself or, as far as I was aware, ever dreamed of conceiving them. What secret voice was manifesting itself within the power of the electrical fluid? I banged my fist against the wooden side-table by my chair, and at once it splintered into fragments. I seemed to have acquired some fresh access of strength. I went over to the wooden door that separated two of the rooms of the workshop, and with immense ease I struck and shattered one of its panels. I examined my hand with interest, and saw that it was perfectly unharmed by its exertions. I tested it upon the cast-iron stairway leading down into the basement, and realised at once that it was of immense power. The electrical fluid had strengthened it immeasurably, so that I was now capable of curling in my fist a portion of the iron fabric. My other hand retained its normal strength. “I must make sure,” I said aloud, “that I do not shake hands with anyone.” This was a new power of unutterable consequence. If I had electrified the whole of my body, I would have been resurrected as a being of vast strength. And what of Jack Keat who would soon be entering the workshop? Would he also be endowed with supernatural might?

It was with some relief, I admit, that I felt my hand gradually revert to its state of normal strength; but not without a sensation of painful cramp that lasted for several minutes and caused me agonies of suffering. I could neither flex nor extend it, but laid it down upon the table while it passed through its transition. Eventually the pain abated. I tested my fingers and palm, and found them receptive to ordinary stimuli with no great increase of strength. I did not wish to inflict any pain upon my subject, of course, but I solaced myself with the knowledge that it would not be of any long duration. And surely the dead would react differently from the living?

A week after the experiment I had gone out onto the jetty to witness the effects of a London storm; it was a winter’s tale indeed, with great peals of thunder echoing down the chasms and the caverns of the streets while the lightning flash lit up the steeples of the churches and the dome of St. Paul ’s. The spectacle of the awful and majestic in nature has always the effect of solemnising my mind, especially when it was here so mixed with the haunts of men. All then becomes one life. My reverie was broken by the sight of a small boat making its way to the jetty; the heavy swell and the departing tide seemed to make it ride across the water, and I feared for the safety of its solitary occupant. But he seemed to be a skilful boatman and, when he came closer to the foreshore, I saw that it was Lane. “You have come on a foul night,” I said to him as I helped him to secure the rope around the landing post.

“I have never known such a night as this. Boothroyd sent me.” I gained the impression that Boothroyd’s commands were to be respected.

“What is the matter?”

“Nothing the matter. The boy is going fast. It will be tomorrow or tomorrow night. Be prepared for your body.” He asked me for a flask of brandy spirit, which I willingly gave him, and he drank half of it down before venturing once more upon the Thames. The lightning flash seemed to accompany him onto the water, and his shape was soon lost to sight in the veil of rain.

I was deeply interested by the news of Jack’s decline. He would come to me within an hour of death, as fresh as if he had fallen asleep, and I would be able to restore his natural warmth and motion. I would awaken him. I had no thought beyond that first moment of resurrection, but now my imagination began to conjure visions of his wonder and gratitude at being restored to life. I busied myself in the workshop, preparing everything for the solemn moment of the electrical charge. I must have gone out to the jetty a thousand times, braving the wind and the rain, in order to look for the resurrectionists and their cargo. I waited throughout that night-sleep was not a consideration for me-and, when dawn came, the rain ceased. All was calm and quiet. Once more I could hear the Thames lapping against the wooden posts of my jetty. Then I heard another sound-the sound of oars splashing in the water. I jumped up from my chair and ran outside to see Boothroyd and Miller rowing quickly towards the shore. Lane stood at the prow with the landing rope in his hands, and there was another person lying at the back of the boat. It was him. They had not put him in a sack but had lain him carefully in the stern: one arm was hanging over the side, its hand trailing in the water.

I could not keep my eyes from the body as Lane secured the boat. Boothroyd and Miller leapt out, and then knelt down to take it onto the jetty. “Be careful,” I murmured. “For his sake.”

“Dead only an hour ago,” Boothroyd said. “He is served up nice and fresh.”

They carried the body into the workshop, and laid it down upon the long wooden table that I had set up. Boothroyd looked upon it with a certain satisfaction, as if he had despatched him himself. “It is the neatest job I have ever done,” he said.

I paid them ten guineas, as they had requested, and they returned to their boat. I could hear them laughing as they rowed away across the water.

HIS WAS THE MOST BEAUTIFUL CORPSE I had ever seen. It seemed that the flush had not left the cheeks, and that the mouth was curved in the semblance of a smile. There was no expression of sadness or of horror upon the face but, rather, one of sublime resignation. The body itself was muscular and firmly knit; the phthisis had removed any trace of superfluous fat, and the chest, abdomen and thighs were perfectly formed. The legs were fine and muscular, the arms most elegantly proportioned. The hair was full and thick, curling at the back and sides, and I noticed that there was a small scar above the left eyebrow. That was the only defect I could find.