Peter Ackroyd - The Casebook of Victor Frankenstein

“I do not need your pity.”

“Not need pity? You are the guilty agent of my misfortunes. I did not seek for life, nor did I make myself. Thou art the man!” With that phrase he pointed at me, and his quivering finger seemed to be aimed at my heart. Under the powerful force of his gaze I bowed my head once more and wept. “You may weep now,” he said. “You will weep again.”

I do not know how long we sat in silence together, with only the sound of the wind and the chaffing of the river as companions. Eventually he roused himself and walked towards the door overlooking the Thames. “Look,” he said, “even the rats fly from my approach. The fear I inspire in these creatures was the first evidence of my existence when I left this place, on the cold and howling night of my birth. I will tell you the story, sir. You should know what you yourself have made.”

“I HAD THE SENSATION THAT I had come out of darkness, but I did not understand the nature of that darkness. Then there was light and warmth, an infinite comfort and delight as if I lay suspended in some voluptuous medium. I believe then that I uttered my first sounds.”

“You sang.”

“Was that singing? The sounds emerged from within my form, as if all the fibres of my being were coming out in harmony for the first time. I was in a state of the utmost excitement. Here.” He touched his genitals without any sense of shame or embarrassment. “And then I saw you. I believe that I knew at once that you were my author, that you had transmitted life into my own frame. I did not experience any sensation of gratitude, however, but one of curiosity. What was this breath and motion with which I was endowed? At that moment the world could show me no greater marvel than my own existence: yet I did not know what it was to exist! I believe that you said something to me-some imprecation, some refusal-yet to me your strange voice seemed to issue from the darkness that I had lately escaped. It was as dark and hollow as an echo. I turned from you. It was not fear. Believe me, I hardly know what fear is. It was wonder. I saw beyond the confines of this place a great river, and a world. I sensed the ocean beyond. I sensed life.

“I recall then plunging into the water, in which I moved as if it were my natural element. I knew-by what means, I cannot say-that I was going in the direction of the open sea, and I exulted in my speed and agility. I did not feel the cold; or rather I did not know the meaning of the cold. The water seemed to be alive, too, and to welcome my presence; it flowed across my limbs, and lifted me onwards. So within a short time I had reached the sea. Then I ducked and dived within its waves in the sheer joy of my nature. But a sailing boat approached me. When I came above the water the men on the vessel showed such signs of terror and of horror that one of them threw himself overboard in an effort to escape me, and from the others issued screams and oaths that persuaded me I was not of their kind. You may ask how I was aware of such things, being only recently thrust into the world; I believe now that the mind is a creative power that gives as much as it receives. Like the power of speech, it came to me unbidden.

“I grew weary of the dim expanse of the ocean, and eventually I made my journey back towards the land. On some instinct I made my way here, returning to the place of my origin. You had gone, I discovered, but all the instruments of your art were around me. You may believe that I destroyed them out of fury and resentment at my making. Not so. I threw them down, and scattered them, from the fear that through their agency I might be sent back-that I might be returned to that state of non-being from which I had come. I took your hat and coat then, to shield my nakedness and desolation from the eyes of others, and tried to find a place apart from human habitation. I came upon a lonely path by the shoreline of the river and I met no one for some miles until, just before dawn, I saw a solitary traveller walking ahead of me. I was moving very rapidly along the path, endowed as I seem to be with great strength and nimbleness, and it was only a few moments before he sensed my presence. I stopped and went down to the water’s edge, so that I might not alarm him further. In your hat and cloak I managed to escape detection, but with quickened step he wandered off the path into a neighbouring field. Some instinct had moved him. I walked on until I came to an area I now know to be the estuary, a place of marsh and pasture that seemed to be a wilderness. But there in the distance, beyond some trees and a deep brook, I glimpsed a light. I approached slowly and saw that it came from a solitary dwelling. There was a thatched barn beside it, a rough stone building with one opening; as I came over to it, having easily overstepped the brook, I felt the need for shelter and repose. Yes, even I must rest. I had grown weary after my journey, and to my relief I found the place empty. There was a ladder that afforded access to a small loft or alcove in which straw had been placed; here I lay down and slept.

“I was awoken by the sound of voices. But you wish me to tell you of my dreams before I continue my story? That is easily performed. I did not dream. I have never dreamed since I came to life in this room. When I heard the voices, outside the barn, I instantly arose. I can still recall the words. ‘There is a hare in the field, Father. See him scudding past the horses there.’ These are the first words I remember comprehending-comprehending not as sounds merely but as stirrings and tokens of the mind. I knew these words somewhere within me. I recognised them, and at once a whole host of analogies and associations flooded through me. The world before me was quite changed. The labourer and his daughter, as I discovered them to be, were monarchs and angels in my eyes: they had led me into a kingdom of light, where the words opened the very portals of reality. I stayed in that resting place for most of the day, listening to their quiet conversations. They did not enter it-they never did enter it-and by degrees I came to consider it as my habitation. You wish to ask me how I live? My wants are simpler than yours. I can survive upon a harsher diet than men who subsist in luxury; I found that I could eat the leaves upon the trees, and drink from the waters of the brook, without the least discomfort. But there was better food. The labourer and his daughter had a store of turnips in a small shed behind their cottage and, in the deep night, I would take them and feast on them as if they were the most dainty fare in the world. I heard soon enough how puzzled they were by the disappearance of their crop, but they blamed it on the rats or on the foxes. I have told you of the power of their words, opening up the world to me little by little. I found that, on listening to them, new words came unbidden to my lips-forming chains and associations that became sentences. The power of language must be deeply innate so that, after my awakening, all the details of its fabric and structure rose up somewhere within me.

“I can bear the intensity of heat and the extremity of cold without the least discomfort or danger, but nevertheless I felt the want of clothing. I had wrapped myself in your black cloak when I lay down to sleep, yet I knew that to make my way among strangers I must be more fully and decently clad. One evening, therefore, I ventured onto the marshes of the estuary in search of a village or small town where such items might be found. By good fortune, and by keeping to the shoreline, I came upon the town of Gravesend. The streets were quite silent and deserted, at that hour of the night, and down one narrow thoroughfare I saw the sign of a tailor and gentleman’s outfitter. I forced the door with no difficulty and there, in the darkness, I equipped myself with all the garments I would need including the fine linen stock with which you see me now endowed. I am a gentleman, am I not?