Fred Saberhagen - The Frankenstein Papers

I purpose to set down here, for the first time, a true and complete account of what the circumstances were, that operated to convince me, absolutely and completely, that you did in fact accomplish exactly what you had claimed to do.

As I have told you in the past, Henry Clerval (who alas is no longer able to speak to confirm my words) and I were both present on that fateful November night that saw the creature's animation. Not until now have I told you in detail exactly what we saw and heard. We had concealed ourselves among the branches of a large tree, the one that, you may remember, grew almost overhanging the sloping roof of Frau Bauer's lodging house. We were able to establish ourselves in such a position that, by looking into one window, we commanded the top of the front stair, and most of the length of the uppermost hall of the house. We also had the door to your laboratory in view, and at certain very important moments we were afforded glimpses into the very room where you had been conducting your experiments.

Let me admit at the start, that our original purpose in establishing ourselves in the tree might be subject to misinterpretation—that is one reason why I have never told you these details until now. We had come there, to put it bluntly, with pranks in mind. Not that I, at least, let me hasten to add, ever intended any such thing as playing a prank on you. But as you are doubtless aware, your reputation among certain of your fellow students (who were unable to conceive of the nobility of your work) was that of someone well suited to be the butt of verbal jests. There was some question of your becoming the object of even lower and more practical attempts at humor. It was widely rumored that you worked with dead bodies, in secrecy, and with this supposition as a base, the most objectionable and fantastic absurdities were freely invented by some of the students, and accepted by others as likely to be facts.

Clerval and I, therefore, had begun an investigation to ascertain the facts. I myself knew you but slightly at the time, yet I could not credit the wild rumors. It would have shamed me to ask you about them directly—you who were even then beginning to be my friend. Nor could Clerval credit them. Rather we two were determined to investigate, to convince ourselves of the seriousness and importance of your work, that we might better be able to refute the ideas of those among our acquaintances who might otherwise have launched a childish persecution against you.

In our endeavor to convince ourselves, we succeeded beyond our wildest dreams.

Before establishing ourselves as observers in the tree that chill, wet night, we had already learned enough, in the preliminary phases of our investigation, to feel sure that you were indeed conducting experiments upon dead bodies. More—that your work, carried out in such secrecy, involved something more than the usual simple dissection of the medical schools. We had already gone so far as to talk to Karl, who was then your servant, with a view to accumulating more information that we might be able to use in your defense. But the peasant stubbornly maintained a pose of complete ignorance, no doubt fearing that if word of your work leaked out some trouble would descend upon himself.

Clerval and I had reached our positions in the tree at a fairly early hour of the night, well before the worst of the rain commenced to fall. The upper hallway within the house, clearly visible through the window not two yards from our eyes, was faintly lighted, by the glow of a lamp somewhere on or near the stair below. The door to the room that we knew must be your laboratory was closed. Light showed around the edges of that door, from which circumstance we deduced that you were presently in that room, and at work. The sole window of the laboratory was of course closely shuttered, and to our disappointment we could see nothing when we endeavored to look directly into it.

We had been for some little time in this situation, and were debating whether we were likely to gain much information if things continued as they were, when the door to the laboratory suddenly opened. Both Clerval and I saw you emerge, an agitated expression on your face. Without pausing, you traversed the upper hall and continued down the front stairs, to what level we could not see. The light that had been in the laboratory was now extinguished; but what excited my determination to investigate further was that the door of that room had been left slightly ajar behind you.

Thinking it my duty to pursue my inquiries as thoroughly as possible, I swung quickly from one large branch of the tree to another, until I was able to climb quietly onto the edge of the roof.

In another moment I had entered the house, through the open hall window. Henry was only a moment behind me.

We reached the door of the laboratory and silently opened it. As we peered together into the mysterious room, the moon emerged momentarily from behind a wrack of flying clouds; its rays fell through the shuttered window strongly enough to bathe in a ghostly illumination the long table in the center of the room, and the long body of that table's occupant. The body was only partially covered by a sheet. The countenance, visible in chiaroscuro, was as solemn and hideous, and (as we then supposed) as irremediably lifeless, as that of one of the stone gargoyles carved upon Notre Dame.

Henry had already turned his attention elsewhere. "A charnel house," he whispered to me softly. Tearing my eyes away from that monumental figure upon the table, I looked about me, beholding various human parts, limbs and organs, preserved in jars and bottles, as well as the several varieties of medical and philosophical equipment with which, as you of course remember, the room was filled.

While Henry and I were still in the midst of our observations in the room, there came to our ears a faint sound from the direction of the back stair, such as might have been caused by the closing of a door somewhere below. In another moment both Clerval and myself were out of the laboratory, and in a few seconds we had made our exit through the hall window and were once more observing events from our place of concealment in the tree.

I ought to mention here that even during this retreat there was never a moment in which we were out of sight of the laboratory's only door; no one could possibly have entered the room during this time without our seeing him, any more than someone could have been concealed inside while we were there. We had both looked under the tables, and there was no other imaginable space in which to hide. I had even tried the shutters of the room's one window, and found them securely fastened from the inside. In any case, it would also have been impossible, short of magic, for anyone to have approached that window, by means of roof or tree, without encountering us.

The sound from below, whatever its cause, proved a false alarm. Another hour passed, while we remained in the tree, at the moment comfortable enough, and debating in whispers between ourselves whether we ought to maintain our vigil or abandon it. Shortly after you descended from the upper hall, we had seen a light appear in one of the rooms on the next floor down, and had assumed you were there. The rest of the house was in darkness.

I shall be eternally grateful that we decided to remain at our posts. For presently we heard another sound, this time unmistakably that of someone entering the rear stairs at the bottom and softly climbing. The peculiar layout of the house and grounds had allowed the newcomer, whoever he was, to approach the house without attracting our attention.

When Big Karl appeared in the dimly-lighted upper hall, we were able to recognize him immediately. Not only by his great size, but by a certain rolling peculiarity that I had noticed earlier in his gait; and he was humming, very softly, as I had heard him do before.