Peter Ackroyd - The Casebook of Victor Frankenstein

HE HAD FINISHED SPEAKING, and turned back towards the Thames. I could see that he was in thrall to some powerful emotion, and I could almost feel pity for his miserable state. He was doomed to wander across the earth, in search of nothing that the world could give to him-love, friendship, compassion were all denied to him. If it were true that he could not die, that the fearful terms of his existence were ever renewed, he would endure in his wilderness. “What would you have me do?” I asked him.

“Do? Once you create life, you must take responsibility for it. You are responsible!”

“I will create no more life. I pledge that to you.”

“A weak answer, sir. Do you not realise the bond between us? There is a pact of fire that can never be abrogated. I am wedded to you so closely that we might be the same person. I was conceived and shaped in your hands.” He turned around at that moment, and faced me. “I have no one except you. Will you abandon me? You are my last hope. My last refuge.” I bowed down and wept. “You weep for yourself, and not for me.”

“I pity you.”

“Spare your pity for yourself.”

“I would give everything I have to release you from your suffering. If I could reduce you once more to inanimate matter, I would gladly do so. Do you wish for that?”

We both remained in silence for a long time. I was still seated, while he paced up and down the workshop in an agony of thought. Finally he stopped beside my chair. “I can be your child. Or your servant. I can watch over you, and protect you from harm.”

“That cannot be.”

“Cannot? I know no such word. We have an adamantine bond. What is ‘cannot’?”

“That bond is a frightful one. You have become the dark agent of desolation.”

“Through your will.”

“My purpose was benign. I had hoped to create a being of infinite benevolence. One in whom the forces of nature would have worked together to awaken a new spiritual being. I believed in the perfectibility of mankind-”

“Oh, don’t speak of that. Since you awakened me, as you put it, I have witnessed nothing but fear and woe and violence.”

“You have caused them.”

“But you are the ultimate cause.”

“Listen to me. I shared with my friends a new creed of liberty and unselfishness. I had hoped to advance it.”

“Your new creed has proved to be an illusion then. Mankind is not to be improved.”

“You are mistaken in that. There will be, there must be, progress in the sciences.”

“Behold your progress. Here I stand.”

When I saw him exulting over me, my pity for him turned to anger. “I abjure you. I beg you to remove yourself to some distant place and trouble men no more.”

“You wish me to travel to some vast desert or distant island. Or perhaps to some ice precipice among the loftiest mountains?”

“Anywhere out of this world.”

“So my suffering is less important than your repose.”

“The repose of all.”

“It is an interesting proposition. In this instance, then, I would ask you to form for me a companion in this secluded life.”

“What?”

“Create me another being who can become my bride, of the same nature and the same characteristics as myself.”

“Insanity.”

“Wherefore insane? We will be estranged from all the world, but we will never be separated from one another. I do not say that we will enjoy bliss, but we will at least be free from suffering. Who can I speak to? There is no one. I am alone in the world. Do you know this affliction? I think not. You have not experienced the feeling of being utterly cast away, of being adrift on the margin of life unseen and unheard. If I cry out, there is no one to care for me. If I am in agony of spirit, there is no one to console me. It is in your power to mend my loneliness. Do not deny me this request.”

“How can I proceed with such a monstrous task? My instruments have all been destroyed-by you.”

“It is a matter of expense. That is all. You know how to conjure forth the electrical power. You can construct the machines.”

“You seriously intend me to take a female from the grave and animate her?”

“If you consent, neither you nor any other man will look upon this face again. My companion and I will lead a harmless life of simple toil. We shall find our rest on the kind earth, and content ourselves with the seclusion of a hidden island; we shall drink the waters of the brook, and eat the acorns. We shall be sufficient one to another.”

I sat in a daze of wonder and apprehension. I envisaged all the scenes of this process: the assembly of the electrical machines, the body or the parts of a woman taken from the tomb and brought down to Limehouse, the light and heat of the terrible creation. And then yet one more being to arise from the table, with all the powers I knew she would possess! Might they then not couple, and have offspring? No. The dead could not breed new life. Of that I was certain.

“She must be young and beautiful,” he said.

“I cannot consent.”

“We will leave the world to those who are happy in it. Freed from the hatred of my fellow creatures, I shall express all the benevolence that you once hoped to find in me. I will no longer curse and rage against you. I swear by the light of the sun. I swear that I will leave you for ever.”

I entertained his argument for a moment only, since I remained firm in my detestation and rejection of a proposal that might have intolerable consequences. “It is not to be contemplated.”

“You would destroy my one chance of happiness? Of salvation?”

“I would deny you the chance of wreaking more havoc and misery upon the world, with a companion your equal in strength and purpose.”

“Very well, sir. I am fearless, and therefore powerful. I say this clearly to you now, even though I am wrapped in anger and in the contemplation of revenge. Your days will pass in dread and horror, and soon enough you will repent of all the injuries you have inflicted on me. One day you will curse the sun that gazes on your misery.”

“I charge you this. Do not follow me!”

“Oh, is that the sum of your fears? Let me tell you now that you can never escape me. If you will not create for me a companion, then I choose you to be my spouse. We shall be inseparable, two living things joined together. Do you delight in the prospect as much as I do?”

“I can travel to the outermost reaches of the world-”

“Do not think of fleeing to the wilderness. The wilderness in me is greater. I will find you out.”

“Can I not reason with you?”

“Reason? What has reason to do with this? The pact between us is of fire and blood.”

“So you will shadow me, will you? Then you will be a subordinate creature, a slave to my wishes.”

“No. I will not be with you always. I will not be with you often. But when you are least ready, then I will be there. What if I were to appear on your wedding night?”

“How can there be such a thing, when I know that you are somewhere around me?”

“Precisely. I am no slave. I am your master. And remember this, sir. You are sure to be visited by me.” He went over to the door, and seemed to exult in the power of the night and the river. “Now for the estuary,” he said. “I pledge myself to eternal pain!”

I SAT, OR RATHER CROUCHED, in my chair, amid the rubble which was all that remained of my work, as the hours passed. It has been said that evils come to an end, but that fear endures for ever. I had entered a state of being which could only be curtailed with my death. And how, how, in these first hours, did I long for death to come! I sat in the workshop until dawn but then, through some brute or animal instinct, I returned home through the streets of London. There was a heavy rain to which I paid very little regard; it seemed to be no more than the accompaniment of my dread, throwing up vistas of mist and mud along every street.