The Frankenstein Papers

FINAL LETTER

April 7,1783 Ingolstadt

Dear Sir—

Looking back on the course of this investigation, I feel that I have been led from the unlikely and the improbable on to the inconceivable and the impossible. Now, once more, after yet another series of mystifying events, I write you from this quiet university town. Its peaceful aspect has not changed in the five months I have been gone, and the horrifying events that have concerned me since then, seem, at this moment, as remote as if they had never happened.

I believe—I am sure—that my companion has very recently experienced some substantial return of memory; that he is now satisfied that he has solved the riddles posed by the mystery of his being, and the question of his identity. But the knowledge, whatever it may be, has not brought him happiness, but rather the reverse; and no plea of mine will induce him to share it with me.

Briefly, this morning, he tentatively attempted to do so. We were seated out of doors on this pleasant spring morning, at one side of the town square, while around us the normal business of shopkeepers, workers, and loiterers went on—my friend's extraordinary figure has now been seen here so much that it has ceased to attract any very particular attention.

He leaned toward me, and interrupted a lengthy silence to say suddenly: "Freeman, you are my friend. You have risked your life for me. I owe you some kind of an explanation."

"I am relieved to hear you say there is to be an explanation, but I do not consider that you owe me one." Though of course I did. At that moment there was nothing in the world I wanted more.

But again he fell silent; I could see that, for whatever reason, the effort to explain was very difficult for him.

After lengthy private consideration, staring at the fountain and the pigeons, and now and then dartling me a worried glance, he began, or tried to begin, the answer I so desired to have. "Once there was a scientist—a philosopher—who wondered if it might be possible to create intelligent life, the equal of his own."

"A worthy ambition," I remarked, when a pause threatened to prolong itself unduly.

"Yes. Oh yes." My friend nodded. "And natural enough, I think. You see, although there were many others of his kind around him—and he had colleagues, who were interested in the same things_this philosopher still found the universe something of a lonely place. I wonder now—I wonder now sometimes if, perhaps, nobody loved him—if perhaps his researches would have followed a different direction if he had been loved."

I did not know what to make of this at all, and murmured or grunted something, in what I hoped was a wise and thoughtful tone.

My friend resumed. "They all did—all felt this loneliness—he and his colleagues too. They all felt tormented by the same questions."

I grunted again, encouragingly as I thought. But again my friend fell silent. He sat for so long without speaking, still staring into the flowing waters of the fountain, that I thought it necessary to prompt him.

"The philosopher," I said.

"Hey?" muttered my tall friend absently.

"The one who tried to create life," I reminded him. "I suppose that he never really succeeded?"

My companion started, and looked at me as if for a moment he did not recognize me. "Oh but he did," he said then, joylessly. "Yes, he succeeded. With the help of others. And then he found that his difficulties were just beginning. He felt a responsibility for the beings of his creation…"

"Beings?" I asked. "More than one?"

But yet another lengthy silence ensued. I waited, more confused than ever, but confidently expecting that eventually I should hear more.

But it was not to be. My companion arose suddenly, turned his back on our bench, and without casting another look in my direction walked away from me with long strides. In a moment he was out of the square; too late I jumped to my feet and made a halfhearted attempt to follow him; halfhearted, because I know it is impossible for mere human legs to keep up with the pace his legs can set. At the edge of town I caught one more glimpse of him as he vanished into the countryside. I am awaiting his return.

Item: There were strange sights reported in the sky above Bavaria last night, and I suppose that garbled rumors of the man-carrying balloons now being tested in France are somehow responsible. The descriptions were quite lurid; I should not be surprised to learn that the prescientific idea of stones falling from the sky is not, in these hinterlands, completely dead. God knows how such news—particularly that of the balloons, I mean_can travel so rapidly, but some of the populace here are excited, which excitement I suppose must be a thousand times intensified in Paris.

Later_Frankenstein is just arrived here in Ingolstadt, much to my surprise, and we have spoken again. He is quite agitated, says he is determined to recompense me in some way for the ill-treatment I have suffered on occasion from his former associates. I say "former" because he has now resolved, he says, to have nothing more to do with Saville and Walton.

He says, further, that you have given him good advice, and he is determined to follow it; but if his past record is considered, perhaps we should not place too great a reliance on his persistence in any course of action. I have told him that to make amends to me, he ought to seek you out, and reveal to you all his electrical secrets. I hope that this tactic meets with your approval. For myself, I want nothing from the man, and feel as wary of his sudden friendship as I should if he declared himself my enemy.

After talking to me, Frankenstein departed, having hired some men to help him, announcing that he plans to search the countryside for the being he has authored—or believes that he has authored. I have a premonition that he may find the search no easy one.

Later again_Captain Walton also has arrived in town, somewhat to my alarm—I have seen him only at a distance. He looks worried, and I hear he has been asking after Saville, who was en route here also but has not arrived. The sea captain, without his leader, is behaving in what appears to be a harmless manner, but I shall certainly be on my guard. He has already announced locally, I hear, that he is here to gather material for his next book.

Later still_Twenty four hours have elapsed, since my companion stalked off leaving me in the square, and he still has not reappeared. I am worried about him but can discover nothing. Saville was definitely reported in Munich, but seems to have disappeared somewhere along the road between that city and here, a highway, as you know, relatively short and well traveled. My fear is that the two of them have met, and that my friend has suffered by the encounter. Perhaps they have somehow destroyed each other.

I will write more as soon as I have discovered more.

Your Son,

Benjamin Freeman