The Casebook of Victor Frankenstein

17

THE PENNY-A-LINERS had not been idle. Two days after our return from Marlow there had been reports in the London newspapers of the “unexampled tragedy” and “terrible misadventure” that had befallen Bysshe. The details of Martha’s death were recounted in some detail, with particular attention to the “foul creature” and “fiendish villain” seen at Mary’s window; but this news was swiftly followed by further and more sensational reports of Harriet’s death at the Serpentine. The coincidence of these deaths in water led some public prints to question the competence of the constabulary in London and the adjacent counties; but others, such as the Mercury and the Advertiser, had somehow acquired the information that Bysshe had been sent down from Oxford on the charge of atheism. The writers of these journals suggested, though they did not state, that the two murders might be construed as a terrible warning to the unbeliever Shelley. “How a merciful God,” Bysshe said to me on his first visit to Jermyn Street after Marlow, “could arrange the death of two young women for my benefit-is quite beyond me. It would be as good a reason for atheism as any I have proposed myself.”

“Pay no attention. These papers are forgotten in an hour.”

“I have absolutely no regard for them, Victor. I read them as comedy. I recite them to Mary, with all the actions and attitudes of the zany.”

“How is Mary?”

“How is she? She is sweet. She is lovely. She is witty. She is wise beyond her sex. Anything else you wish me to add?”

“So life in Somers Town is pure Eden?”

“Mr. Godwin is sometimes an obstacle to bliss. But we walk together in the churchyard of St. Pancras. Do you know it? Where the graves and the roots of the oaks are entangled?”

“No.”

“There is the grave of Mary’s mother. We visit it.”

“You make love in graveyards, Bysshe?”

“Make love is not the just phrase, Victor. We are friends deep in accord and in mutual harmony. We are devoted to one another’s interests.”

“Well, this is love by another name.”

“Do you think so? By the way, there is something we must attend. It will afford endless delight.” He took from his pocket a sheet of paper which, when he had unfolded it, turned out to be a playbill announcing the imminent performance of The Atheist’s Curse. It was subtitled “Two Deaths Too Many.”

“Isn’t it delicious, Victor? Isn’t it rich?”

It was clearly designed to be a drama on Bysshe and the events of the previous few months. I must say that I was surprised by his good humour. But he had a remarkable ability to rise above circumstances, if I may put it like that, and to see himself in a wholly impersonal light. “We will not tell Mary,” he said. “It will disturb her. But we must go, Victor, for the novelty of it. Do you think I will be portrayed on the stage?”

“Most certainly.”

“Then we must go tonight.”

We entered the Alhambra Theatre that same night, as he wished. We took a small box on the side of the stage, on the level of the pit, where we were subject to the usual catcalls and ribaldry of the lower classes. Bysshe was not recognised, of course, but from his appearance and bearing he was obviously a gentleman. If the fellows of the pit had known that he was the subject of the melodrama, there would have been an uproar. The small orchestra had just struck up a plaintive tune, when there was a knock on the door of our box. “Who the devil is it?” Bysshe asked me. “Come!”

“May I?” A face appeared from behind the door, fleshy but not unpleasing. “May I join you?” A young man, dressed in sky-blue breeches and a jacket of gaberdine, entered cautiously. “There were no boxes left. And these gentlemen-” he gestured to the pit-“would not have left me alone.”

“By all means, sir,” I replied. “There is a seat here.”

“So the attendants told me.”

“I know that man,” Shelley whispered to me. He could say no more. The curtain was parted, to a crescendo from the orchestra, and the stage revealed. An actor, dressed in black, was sitting within what might have been a cave, a secluded chamber or a garden retreat. He was writing on a curled piece of manuscript with an absurdly large quill. “I act in defiance of all known laws,” he announced to the audience. “I say that there is no divinity in the heavens above. There is no God!” Some of the audience jeered at this sentiment, while others cheered and clapped their hands. “I think,” Bysshe whispered, “that this gentleman is supposed to be me.” The jeers and applause were succeeded by whistles when a young woman appeared on the stage. She walked in a very stately manner to the supposed atheist, and gently caressed him. “Ah, my beloved,” she said. “You are the light of the world to me.”

“She does not resemble Harriet in the slightest,” Bysshe said.

There was some stage business of no consequence, after which the young woman stepped forward and addressed the audience. “If only I could persuade him,” she said, “of the existence of a just and merciful God. Then with good conscience I could marry him! I would give my life for him to see the truth!”

“To see your tits!” one of the pit called out.

“She can marry him,” Bysshe said, “or give her life. She cannot do both.”

There then followed a scene in which the devil-or, at least, an actor dressed in red-began to leap around the young woman to her evident distress. The atheist on stage proved incapable of seeing this demon, on the evident presumption that he who knows no god knows no devil. It was all very ludicrous, and the gentleman sharing our box began to show signs of restlessness. “It is my belief,” he said, “that men create more damage on each other than the devil ever did.”

“I agree with you, sir,” Bysshe replied.

“This is sad stuff.”

“Execrable.”

“I would not have missed it for anything.” The gentleman was quite at ease in this narrow and grimy box, and I believed that he would have been at ease anywhere. He was in his early manhood, and had the most beguiling smile; it was as if he understood all the tricks of the world, and saw the comedy of them.

“Forgive me, sir,” Shelley said. “But I think I know your name.”

“Oh, indeed?”

“You are Byron.”

“I was when I last looked.”

I expressed my surprise. “Lord Byron?”

He glanced at me with amusement. “Is there another one?”

The intelligence interested me greatly. I had heard of Lord Byron, of course, but had not read any of his verses. Bysshe had the advantage of me in that respect, and had already spoken to me warmly of the early cantos of Childe Harold’s Pilgrimage. “I am delighted to meet you, sir,” he said. “I am an admirer.”

“I would repay the compliment, I am sure, if I knew your name.”

“You have just seen me on the stage, I believe.”

“You are the one?”

“The atheist.”

“Shelley? I wondered why a gentleman would come to such a place! So you are Shelley! I have heard a great deal about you from Hogg.”

“You know Tom?”

“He has become a neighbour of mine in Nottinghamshire. He has read me all of your poetry. It delights me. It is pure music.” Then he turned to me with a flattering expression of interest.

“And this,” Shelley said, “is a very dear friend of mine. Victor Frankenstein.”

“Are you also a poet, sir?”

“Oh, no. I am nothing at all.”

“Delighted to hear it. There are too many poets in the world. One is enough. Is that not right, Shelley?”

“Victor is too modest, my lord.”

“Just Byron. I come to my name. Like a dog.”

“Victor is a great inventor.”

“And what do you find?” He had a quick, high-spirited manner of talking. “If it is not too great a secret.”

“I have no secrets, sir. Like Newton I am picking up sea-shells on the shore.”

“Admirable. That is all any of us do. We are dazzled by shape and colour, are we not?” The orchestra had begun to play, as an interval between the acts, and Byron turned back to Bysshe. “Are you tired of yourself yet, Shelley?”

“I could not endure another minute of me.”

“Splendid. So you will both dine with me at Jacob’s. We will raise a glass to atheism, and alarm the waiters.”

We left the theatre and made our way towards the Strand, Byron talking all the way and gesticulating with a finely carved ebony cane. “I have never understood,” he said, “the positive rage for bad drama in London. The cockney public loves nothing more than a thoroughly disgraceful performance by ill-favoured actors. There are so many finer melodramas on the streets of the city. Nothing on the stage bears the slightest comparison with the characters one sees every day in the ordinary business of living. Do you not agree, Mr. Frankenstein, that the events of real life are infinitely more surprising and unusual than anything written down by a scribbler?”

“I have that impression, my lord.”

“Merely Byron.”

“There are incidents in life which would be deemed improbable or even impossible by the ordinary observer.”

“Precisely my point. Why, I could tell you a thousand coincidences and accidents that would be laughed off the boards. Polidori. Are you here? This is a surprise.” He stopped to greet a small sallow-looking young man.

“I had expected to find you drinking in Jacob’s,” the man said.

“You find us going to Jacob’s instead.” He introduced us to Polidori-“Dr. Polidori,” as he named him-and together we walked the few yards to an ancient and dimly lit chop-house where Byron was obviously a frequent and honoured guest. We were installed in a private room on the first floor, where Byron ordered steak barbare. “It is my homage to the French people,” he said. “Napoleon has led them to disaster. We can at least support their cuisine.” It transpired, in the course of conversation, that Polidori was personal physician and attendant to Lord Byron; he had been enrolled at the university of Prague, of which city he was a native, before making his way to the university at Edinburgh. I could not help remarking on the parallel with my own journey from Ingolstadt to Oxford, and he evinced much interest in my studies.

“Victor wishes to create new life,” Bysshe said from the other end of the table.

“Really? I am a student of medicine, too, Mr. Frankenstein. I enrolled at the medical school in Edinburgh. Now I am reading the hermetic philosophers.” There was an element of condescension in his manner that I found disagreeable.

“Polidori,” Byron said, “is a great occultist. He whispers to my liver and makes it well. Now I can drink as deep as I wish.”

The food was then brought in by two elderly waiters, who removed the covers and laid down the sauces in perfect unison. It was evident that they still took pleasure in the performance, rehearsed over many years. Over the meal Byron and Bysshe began to talk of poets and of poetry, while Polidori and I resumed our conversation. “Do you find much among the ancients, Dr. Polidori?”

“Ancient wisdom. What else is there to find? You will not be surprised to learn that Galen is still taught in some of our universities. But I discount him. I am more interested in Paracelsus and in Reuchlin. Do you know his De Arte Cabalistica?” I shook my head. “But you are interested in creating life? Is that not so?”

“By means of the electrical fluid, sir.”

“And have you had success?”

“Of the slightest kind.”

“Precisely. There are other means. In the Corpus Hermeticum, collected by Turnebus, there is the figure of the golem. You are aware of it?”

“Of course. It is the creature of the Kabbalah, made out of dust and red clay. It is awarded life by the invocation of ritual words. I have not given that method any serious attention, Dr. Polidori. The electrical charge is more powerful than words.”

“Have you been to Prague, Mr. Frankenstein?”

“Alas not.”

“In the public records kept in the library, there are many reports of the creature. Reports over the centuries.” He leaned forward, and I could smell wine on his breath. “There is supposed to be one in existence even now.”

“Truly?”

“It is said that a local rabbi created him, and keeps him in confinement.”

I must say that Polidori had engaged my attention with his story. “Of what dimensions is this creature?”

“A little larger than human height, but proportionately much stronger and swifter.”

“And why is this prodigy not known to the world? Surely it would overturn all existing concepts of life and creation?”

“The Jews keep it hidden. I am myself of that faith, so I speak of what I know. They do not wish to be derided as sorcerers or diabolists.”

“And how is this being, this golem, concealed?”

“He lives in awe of the rabbi, his master. The rabbi could destroy him as easily as he created him.”

“That is interesting, Dr. Polidori. Can you explain it to me?”

“He has kept back a residue of the materials that created the golem.” He looked at me intently, as if to ascertain my motive in asking such a question. “He would merely have to return them to the creature, by overt or by hidden means, and then pronounce some ritual words. When they are uttered the golem collapses into dust.”

“Do you know the words?”

“Alas not.”

“Can you discover them for me?”

“You have become agitated, sir. Are you unwell?”

“Not at all. I am excited at the advent of new knowledge. I seek it for its own sake.”

“A true philosopher.”

“I venerate wisdom in any form it is offered, sir. Will you be able-will you be permitted-to ascertain these words?”

“It is possible. I maintain a correspondence with scholars in Prague.”

“That would be a great boon to me.”

“Why so?”

“As I said, I seek for knowledge.”

At this moment Byron proposed a toast-not to atheism, as he had suggested in the theatre, but to the Luddite frame-breakers who had “made their protest against the society of the machine.” Bysshe joined the toast enthusiastically, and hailed the spirit of revolution that had manifested itself in the North.

“It is a damn tiresome exercise to quote a man’s words back to him,” Byron said. “But as soon as Tom Hogg read them to me, Shelley, I wanted to embrace you.” He remained standing, and in a loud clear voice recited:

“From the dust of creeds outworn,

From the tyrant’s banner torn,

Gathering round me, onward borne,

There was mingled many a cry-

Freedom! Hope! Death! Victory!”

Bysshe joined in the last line, and raised his glass again with an “hoorah!” that brought one of the waiters back into the room.

“Is everything satisfactory?” he asked Polidori.

“They are saluting the future, Edmund.”

“Then they have better sight than I have, sir.”

“They are poets.”

“I wish them luck then, sir.” The waiter retreated with a bow, having decided that his services were not at that moment required.

“And now, gentlemen,” Byron announced, “let us drink to cunt.”

Bysshe seemed startled by the proposal; he was of a more delicate temperament than Lord Byron, and had always shrunk from any coarseness of expression. But he raised his glass, and drank the wine with evident relish.

“You are employed by Lord Byron?” I asked Polidori.

“His lordship feeds me. In return I prepare compounds for his general health. At the moment I am urging him to lose some of his fatness.”

“He seems fleshy. But no more.”

“Have you seen his mother? He has inherited a tendency. It is better to thwart it now.”

“What methods do you employ?”

“Purgatives. I hasten the passage of food through the body. And purgatives burn off the fatty tissue.”

It seemed a novel form of medicine to me, but I was more intrigued than ever by Polidori himself. “How do you find the English people?” I asked him.

“My Lord Byron being the exception?”

“If you say so.”

“I like them well enough to live among them. And you?”

“They are great experimenters. They take nothing for granted.”

I was about to expand upon this theme, when he put his hand upon my arm. “I have noticed, Mr. Frankenstein, that you have a slight nervous tremor below your left cheekbone. What is troubling you?”

“Nothing in particular troubles me.”

“You are not being frank with me. You have become an Englishman.” He laughed. “No matter. I will question you no further. Perhaps it is an affair of the heart. Perhaps it is tremor cordis.”

“My heart is intact, sir.”

“Yet I can help the uneasiness in that nerve. I suppose you have tried tincture of opium?”

“I have been given it. When I was in a fever.”

“I have something better. I have my own especial preparation of powder, to be mixed with the opiate.”

“Do you dispense it to him?” I looked at Byron, who was deep in talk with Bysshe. I heard him utter the phrase, “a modern Prometheus.”

“Of course. He calls it his Muse.”

“And this tremor, as you call it, will cease?”

“Without a doubt. On the instant.”

“I will be indebted to you, Dr. Polidori.”

“I will be helping the cause of experimental philosophy. You will return to your work with renewed vigour and fresh perception.”

“It is as powerful as that?”

“It works marvels.”

It seemed likely that Bysshe and Byron would talk into the night, but I was already weary and needed rest. I took my leave of them after a few minutes but, before departing, I noted down my address for Polidori who thereupon promised to visit me on the following day.

Stepping into the Strand I recalled Byron’s words concerning the true dramas of urban life-how many of these huddled men and women, shrouded now in a fog, would be affected by the events I had unleashed into the world? Since the creature had the power to hurt, and to kill, how many would be directly or indirectly touched by his evil? In a great city many are at risk.

“It is diabolical,” someone said to a companion. “I can’t see a yard ahead of me.”

I took some comfort from Polidori’s description of the golem. I did not put much trust in the existence of this being, but I was nevertheless gratified by the story of its possible destruction. If he obtained a copy of the ritual words, then I would be tempted to employ them upon the creature. I was meditating this when, inadvertently, I knocked against a tall man who had loomed suddenly out of the fog.

“I beg your pardon, sir,” he said. “Good lord, it is Mr. Frankenstein.”

I recognised Selwyn Armitage, the oculist. “I apologise, Mr. Armitage. I was not looking where I was going.”

“No one can look very far in this, Mr. Frankenstein. Even my eyes cannot pierce the gloom. May I walk this way with you?”

“I would be grateful. How is your father? I have the most pleasant memories of his conversation.”

“Pa has passed away, alas.”

“I am very sorry to hear it.”

“It was sudden. An imposthume in his throat. In his dying moments he called for Dr. Hunter to cut it out. He was in a delirium.”

“Your mother bears up?”

“Yes. She is strong. She insists that we continue the business. Now I am behind the counter. But you know, Mr. Frankenstein, you have inspired me.”

“How so?”

“Your discourse to me on the electrical fluid led me to thinking. And thinking led me to tinkering. And tinkering led me to a galvanic machine.”

“You constructed it?”

“I went back to first principles. It is a very simple contrivance of wires and batteries.”

“For what purpose?”

“Did you know that Pa had a collection of eyes?”

“No, sir. I did not.”

“Many of them are perfectly preserved in spirits. The eyes of dogs. The eyes of lizards. The eyes of human beings.”

“You need not tell me the rest, Mr. Armitage.”

“I have caused the pupils to contract. And the irises to tremble.”

“I am obliged to you, Mr. Armitage, but I must be on my way. Good evening to you, sir.” Before he could return my farewell, I had walked across the road and lost myself in fog. I could not endure the recital of his experiments. I was now so thoroughly ashamed of my own labours and ambitions that I could not bear to see them shared by anybody else. What if this electrical mania were widespread? What would be the end of it? Slowly I made my way home through the fog.