The Frankenstein Papers

Chapter 7

November 9, 1782—

I have arrived at long last in Montreal. The final days of my journey were accomplished over the surface of a river covered with several feet of ice, upon which snow of equal thickness has already fallen. More snow is descending now. If I have not outraced the winter to this latitude, I have at any rate survived it in the wilderness.

I have already visited the house of Father Jacques' ecclesiastical superiors. I cannot say that they were particularly saddened to hear that he was dead_more annoyed, as if it might cause some inconvenience to their plans. I wonder how warm my friend's welcome would in fact have been, had he survived to meet them. When I told them of his fate, they at first gave the impression that they half suspected me of murdering their fellow priest_though they did not venture to indicate why I should have done so and then come to them to report his death.

Then one of them took pity on me, so far as to make a half-hearted offer of some menial employment—a form of charity, of course—but I declined with what I believe was dignity. My would-be benefactor appeared to be surprised and insulted by my adopting such an attitude. I realize that I am proud sometimes, and I wonder why. My position in the world is certainly unique, anomalous: I am neither peasant nor lord, commoner nor king, slave nor nobleman. I am only what the world takes me for. And so far, with a few exceptions, it has taken me for nothing but a nightmare.

I can sense already that in America all these and other categories into which human beings are arranged count for far less than they do in the Old World. Perhaps I am, like Franklin, an American, in spirit if not by birth.

However that may be, I am not sheltering tonight in the establishment of the haughty priests—Oratorians, I think they are—but under the solid stable roof of someone else, who does not know that I am here. Naturally I am all but penniless, and expect to go hungry if I do not find work tomorrow. But I am told, and can well believe, that sturdy fellows are everywhere in demand for clearing snow. And I certainly fit that category, if no other.

During my several passages today through the streets of Montreal, folk gaped at me, even as others have done, in the past, in Europe. None today were bold enough to say the words aloud: Behold the hideous giant!—but I am inured to that reaction now, whether it is silent or outspoken. And I have learned that humans, or some of them at least, are capable of better things.

Despite the reactions of the crowd, it is obvious that the city—any city, European or American, and the bigger the better—is a more congenial place for me than any but the most exceptional village or farm would be. A city is accustomed to the odd. Today there were heads turning to look after me, and there was some laughter, and some uneasiness. But no one screamed and fled at my approach, or took it to be his duty to fire a gun at me.

November 10_As I expected, I experienced little difficulty this morning in finding work as a laborer, and earning the few coins needed for bread and soup and a place to lie in comparative warmth. My giant's frame promises such a capacity for work that employers are ready to ignore my face. I have also been lucky enough to come into the possession of a few used garments that fit me not too ill. I rest tonight above a stable, where I share a loft with several of my fellow-laborers. They have generously given me half of the considerable space all to myself; no doubt at this moment they are curious as to what I am writing, but I doubt that any of them will develop the courage to ask.

Should they ever have the chance to read what I intend to set down tonight, they will find their courage tested.

After that first encounter with the resurrectionists, the gentlemen and I remained for several months in London. During all this time I lived ashore, simple lodgings having been provided for me in a dockside warehouse now owned by Saville. This building provided a place where he and Walton, as men concerned in maritime trade, could reasonably maintain an office and greet callers who came to them on business. It was a huge, rambling, brick structure, and with its many rooms suited our purposes admirably. My quarters, naturally, were neither spacious nor very comfortable, yet still they offered a vast improvement over what I had been forced to endure aboard the ship. And no attempt was made to confine me to my quarters closely; each of the gentlemen had many other concerns to keep him occupied, and I suppose each of them assumed that the others generally had me in charge.

Though I valued my liberty, I was in no hurry to escape, being nearly as afraid of the public outside the warehouse walls as the public might have been of me. The practical effect of all this was that I enjoyed a much greater degree of freedom than aboard ship, and at night I allowed a natural curiosity to draw me out of my dull, cramped quarters and into the streets of the great city. There darkness allowed me considerable latitude for exploration, without my appearance exciting the wonder and fear of the crowd.

What marvels, though they must have been mere commonplace events to the dwellers in the dock-side hovels, I beheld whilst lurking in the darkness! In this half-world of the befogged metropolis, the few fragmented memories retained by my body of its former life, or lives (if such indeed were the sources of my pieces of inexplicable knowledge)

could offer me no guidance. I observed the terror and struggles of the great city's poor, and the follies, sometimes equally terrible, of her wealthy. I learned, among other things, a little more about what men and women can be like. Keeping to the shadows of the city's night with timid determination, I retreated quickly when any started to take notice of me, and took extreme care that no one should observe my comings and goings from the warehouse.

During the day, I always remained indoors. It was during this time that Victor, carefully measuring my feet—he was always so precise with measurements—arranged that a pair of boots should be custom-made for me.

With his newly gathered equipment, he had quickly improvised a new laboratory, much larger than his workroom had been at Ingolstadt, in an upper room of the otherwise largely disused warehouse. In his new workshop he took measurements of me—never anything so mundane as my simple height—and tested me, on machines that tried my strength and my endurance. And he would sometimes sit for a long time, chin on hand, pondering my existence.

Meanwhile he looked forward to his next series of experiments, which were to provide me with at least one mate. He grumbled frequently about the early difficulty of obtaining the necessary raw materials. Success in that endeavor was not too long in coming, though; in London money could do anything. The Argo had remained in port, and Captain Walton needed very little time to establish contact with a second group of Resurrectionists, who proved to be more competent as well as more peaceful than the first. The leader of this new company was a man named Eli Hammer, whose wife, Matilda played an active role in his enterprise as well. Mrs. Hammer was a rather prim-looking matron of about forty, who, when I observed her through a knothole in an interior wall, appeared well qualified to be a chaperone. Meanwhile I was enjoined, by all four of my first managers, to keep myself at all times out of sight of the new employees as they began to come and go around the warehouse. At the time I supposed that the Hammers would probably never learn of my existence.

Mrs. Hammer possessed a valuable skill at figures, and as part of his agreement with her husband, Saville found regular employment for her at a desk in his warehouse office. The entire small staff, who had formerly conducted the modest normal business of the building, had been dismissed when we moved in.

This epoch also marked the first appearance among us of one who was to become the most dangerous of my enemies. This was a man called Small, a pockmarked, sandy-haired person of about thirty years of age, ugly yet quite vain about his person, distinguished by demoniac energy and a controlled fierceness of manner. I have never heard him spoken to, or spoken of, by any other name than Small. His stature suited his name, and I am sure that his spirit, if indeed he has one—I have no reason to doubt that he still breathes—is smaller yet.

The explanation of Small's presence came to me gradually, through words overheard here and there and actions observed. Saville, evidently thinking matters over after our brawl with the first party of graverobbers, and not wishing to have to depend upon my help in any future violent disagreement, had found this man somewhere—God knows where—and hired him as bodyguard and general factotum; That a man of physically small stature could demonstrate proficiency as a bodyguard says something about his other qualifications.

But the arrival of the abominable Small was not, by far, the greatest alteration in our company. Not only romance but marriage had entered Saville's life, whether shortly before or shortly after his sudden though not unexpected inheritance of wealth I am still not sure. His betrothed was none other than Walton's only sister, Margaret. The couple had known each other at least slightly, I gathered, for years before Saville came into his fortune; but as the date of his twenty-fifth birthday drew near she had acted in a timely way to renew and strengthen the acquaintance. Later I learned that Margaret was a widow, a little older than her new husband.

It was not only Roger's wealth that the lady found attractive; the two of them were in truth kindred spirits. Almost from the time of our arrival in London he shared with her the plans he had worked out to gain advantage from the discoveries of Frankenstein. Their wedding, a quietly-managed affair—somehow I failed to receive an invitation—took place shortly after our business operations had moved into the warehouse.

Several times before the wedding, when Saville was engaged in business elsewhere, his bride-to-be visited the warehouse. Frankenstein at first objected to the presence, just outside his laboratory, of this woman he did not even know, and objected even more strongly to her being given knowledge of his work, and the plans to expand and perfect it. Clerval seconded my creator's protests. But it had long been clear that Saville was the senior member of the partnership, and he would hear of nothing but that his new wife be included immediately and as a full partner. Walton, perhaps knowing his sister well, had no complaint to make.

"She's in, and that's that," Saville said, shortly after completing the formal introduction of his bride to Frankenstein and Clerval. There was little that they could say. I, of course, had not been introduced, but was observing the ceremony through a convenient knothole in the wall between the room of the meeting and a passage leading to my own rude accommodations.

The lady, perhaps feeling somewhat unwelcome, departed soon after the introductions were over, and without actually seeing me. Looking back now, I think that she had not yet grasped the fact that I, the proof of the scheme on which money was to be spent, was physically present somewhere on the premises.

It was not that Margaret ruled Roger, as some women are able to rule their husbands, but that he, confident of his authority, sought to put to use her naturally great abilities.

Her next visit to the warehouse came shortly after the wedding, I think on the very next day. It occurred at an hour when Saville was elsewhere, engaged in some other of the numerous enterprises that consume the time and effort of a man of wealth.

Naturally, since the time when her husband-to-be had first told her about our establishment and its goals, her curiosity had grown enormously. She was now unwilling to wait any longer to learn about the mysterious enterprise in which he was engaged with a sea captain, and a philosopher; and to see and hear what evidence existed of the tremendous secret they possessed, and that had awakened in them all such dreams of avarice and power.

She returned to the building on an afternoon when Victor alone of the gentlemen was present, and bullied him into exhibiting me to her—or, rather, she was well on the way to achieving such a result when I decided that the time had come to take my own destiny more firmly in hand. What harm was this young woman likely to be able to do me? Standing tall and walking boldly, I emerged from my usual place of hiding, into the laboratory where she could see me. My creator turned from the lady to gaze at me in consternation; I had managed to surprise him utterly.

The lady too was surprised. "What is it?" she asked Victor in a whisper. Yet in her eyes, as she gazed upon my countenance, was not terror or disgust, but interest tinged with horror.

I said, "I am capable of speaking for myself, Madam."

Victor, with spasmodic arm movements that he must have thought were subtle but forceful gestures, was trying to quiet me. Meanwhile he assured his guest that she was in no danger.

But the woman only gave him a contemptuous look, and turned back to me. She too was able to decide what her own ideas were, and to express them. "Where are you from?" she asked me at last.

"Bavaria," I replied evenly. "And you?"

A stunned silence greeted this bold question. Realizing promptly that something was amiss, I hastened to offer an apology. "Forgive my lack of social graces; but you see, my education has been inadequate. No one's fault, really, I suppose, but there it is—if there is aught you would like to ask me, I repeat, I am quite capable of speaking for myself. As I see you are."

My creator was speechless. As for the lady, she shook her lovely head in silence, not knowing what to make of me. The fashion for high-piled constructions in the hair was coming in that year, but this lady would not incommode herself with such nonsense; black natural ringlets shook, tumbled, against ivory skin. I think the fact that she did not know just what to think delighted her, instead of producing a stunned or angry reaction, as it would have done in a lesser woman.

Other words were said between us on that occasion; I find that now I cannot very well remember them. I do know that our meeting ended with the suggestion, at least, that Mrs. Saville intended somehow to get to know me better.

The time came when Frankenstein's gathering of materials was nearly finished, and our stay in London was drawing to its close. I still did not exist, officially. The story put forward locally by the gentlemen to explain their activities was that they had formed a company to go into the north of Ireland, there to establish a hospital for indigent fishermen and their families. How many people in London who heard this story of the hospital actually believed it I do not know. But no one scoffed openly at the pretense, as far as I am aware. I have said that Saville was—and is—immensely wealthy.

For reasons I was not completely aware of at the time, it was decided among the gentlemen that a certain increase in staff was necessary. Mrs. Hammer somehow recruited two poor girls, Bess and Molly, both very young, sturdy and healthy, to join our establishment. They were to accompany us when we sailed (to Ireland, as they were told) and serve some role as housekeepers when we established a hospital for fishermen. I believe that both of them were country lasses, only recently arrived in London.

In private conversation Victor told me that he believed the hospital story would provide just the cover that we needed; and that the girls were really needed to serve as housekeepers, when we set up our small colony in isolation. This explanation seemed believable; both young women struck me as at least dimly respectable (How should I have been able to judge? But I could judge such matters. Even then.) and I supposed whores would have been recruited if that service were needed, and it was thought there was a shortage of them in Ireland. There was certainly no insufficiency in great London.

Bess and Molly were not members of the Hammer family, but I am sure that one of the requirements in their recruitment was tolerance for such business activities as that family practiced. Looking back, I suspect, that at least one of the two girls, country origins or not, came from a family engaged somewhere in a similar trade. I believe they were told frankly that when we arrived at our northern destination there would be some such work in progress, delivery of dead patients to a medical school perhaps.

Meanwhile, the task of gathering Victor's necessary materials proceeded quite successfully, with a stock of young female bodies accumulating in our warehouse. I observed Frankenstein, with his own hands, packing these materials in hogsheads of brine, and I wondered how they should be listed in the cargo when we set sail. It did not really occur to me—as yet—to wonder whether all of these bodies had been obtained by robbing graves, or whether the strict requirements for freshness had encouraged our new provisioners to adopt even more enterprising methods.

Walton expressed concern that the two live girls, Bess and Molly, might somehow discover the truth about our cargo. Eventually they would learn it, but preferably not until we had sailed. He employed his literary talents to develop an alternative story, that male bodies were easy to obtain in Ireland, but that there some prudish papist prohibition was in effect against research on females. Whether there was any truth to that portion of his story or not I have never had the opportunity to discover.

Small, as I have said, had attached himself to our group, though making no real contribution that I could see. But he disappeared again a month or two before we were to sail. At the time I was relieved, thinking that perhaps I had seen the last of him, for the dislike between us had been instantaneous and mutual. Later I was to discover that his detachment from our strange community was only temporary, and that Roger knew where he had gone.

By early May of 1780, our preparations were almost complete. We were in fact on the verge of sailing, when a letter arrived for Victor, forwarded from Ingolstadt, through what intermediary I never learned. The message was from my creator's father, who thought his eldest son was still in school at Ingolstadt, and it brought shocking and terrible news—William, Victor's youngest brother, only seven years old, had been most foully murdered. At the time when the venerable Alphonse dispatched his letter, no one in Geneva yet had the slightest idea of who the guilty party might be.

This horrible intelligence took everyone in our establishment by surprise. Victor, of course, was badly shaken. He insisted that he must return to Geneva at once, to see and commiserate with his surviving family, before he secluded himself in some remote place and plunged into what he expected would be months of uninterrupted work. We must wait for him in London; he would return to us as soon as possible.

Hastily the men who thought themselves my masters took counsel together. It was decided that our voyage need not be postponed; the establishment of the new laboratory, on lands also owned by Saville, need not wait for Frankenstein's presence. Saville and Clerval, with some help from Walton and his men—and from me—could manage the settlement and construction, down to the final arrangement and testing of equipment. We would sail.

I cannot continue to write of those things just now.

I must rest. And soon, somehow, I must get back to Europe.