The Frankenstein Papers

Chapter 6

September 28_My heart is heavy. My companion is dead.

It was a long and difficult dying, of more than four-and-twenty hours. When the breathing of Father Jacques became harsh and uneven, and he looked at me without recognition, I began to feel certain that the end was near. Yet life clung to him tenaciously. He sank by slow degrees into a stupor, then into total unconsciousness.

Only toward the end did the good priest rally briefly. Turning his eyes on me, he recognized me once more, and in a feeble voice gave me his blessing; he would have raised his hand, to sign me with the cross, but he could not. A minute later he had breathed his last.

To mark his passing, snow squalls churned their way across the Bay, while to the south, above both land and water, lightning and thunder wept and raged. There are times when I feel a kinship with these forces greater than with any man or woman. Is it perhaps because I know that these powers of the atmosphere assisted at my birth?

My friend's death has affected me, more than I had anticipated. I have tried to pray—but no. That is not strictly true. It would be more accurate to say that I wanted to make an attempt at prayer, but could not. In the end I heard myself muttering some foolish vow, based on no more than the sanctity of my own nature. A vow to do what? I do not even know that. I am not sure now where those words came from, or even what they meant. As I now remember and write down the fact, it appears incomprehensible; and yet at the moment it seemed to me that there was meaning in the words I muttered.

There is rock nearby, a rare sight along this low shore, and an outcrop shattered by weathering has afforded material for the mound under which my friend now lies buried—it is impossible, particularly without more tools than I possess, to dig in this frozen ground, and there are wolves. They are howling not very far outside the shelter as I write this, and I feel very much alone.

The lonely isles at the north of Scotland are not perpetually frozen, as most of this ground must be, but their soil is cold and very rocky. Still, in that soil we dug graves. It was the second grave for most who were put into the ground there, and the rude burial service—if it can be called a burial service; I do remember seeing Clerval's lips moving with muttered prayers—must have been the second for those poor dismembered beings also.

Not that there had been, between their burials, anything that could have been called a second life—but I am anticipating the order of my tale.

I must take great pains to make sure that it is all set down, as coherently as I can do so. Then if I do not survive, there will still be some hope that someone may read it one day and be warned.

Now, I have procrastinated quite long enough, and I must write of London. The Argo made port there in early February of 1780. with Robert Walton captain, and Roger Saville, her owner, on board along with Victor Frankenstein, Henry Clerval, and myself. We had sailed eagerly up the Thames, glad to be out of reach of the Channel storms that had tormented us, and arrived in sight of the metropolis at sunset.

At that time, judging by such of their conversations as I had been able to hear, my human masters (as they continued to believe themselves) still had not determined by what plan they should be most likely to profit from my existence. One of their problems in coming to an agreement among themselves was that their different natures compelled them to seek different goals. Saville craved power and wealth, even beyond the great amounts of each he had already. Walton wanted adventure, and, some day, fame. Clerval—I think he was one of those whose greatest desire is to know secrets that are denied to others. Also he was truly Victor's friend.

And as for my creator… but it is not so easy to set down the goals of Victor Frankenstein. He shared to some degree in the yearnings of each of the other men. And yet in his case there was something more.

However varied their final objectives might be, the four gentlemen had agreed, well before we reached London, that the next step in any successful plan must be for Victor to provide me with a mate. In some of their debates (to which I was a silent listener, more often than they knew) they even favored the scheme of supplying me with more than one female, for breeding purposes; the larger my harem, as Saville frequently remarked, the better the chance of quickly producing a population of willing slaves and workers.

Saville in particular was convinced that none of my progeny would, or could possibly, ever nurse any higher ambition than to serve in one of his burgeoning Birmingham factories, or perhaps labor on one of his Jamaican plantations—he owned several—under conditions where the blacks of Africa tended to die off unprofitably. He strove to implant this vision in the minds of Frankenstein and the others, and kept coming back again and again to the specification that all the workers ultimately produced must not only be docile, strong, and enduring, but should be able to subsist, like swine or goats, on acorns and other inexpensive roughage, with now and then a handful of berries as reward for some particularly difficult labor.

My own feelings were mixed as I listened to these discussions. Had I taken Saville's plans seriously, I would have been outraged. I realized he took such schemes very seriously indeed, and that the other men were at best indifferent to them, at worst his eager followers. But before any such design for breeding slaves could be put into effect, it was necessary that my mate, or mates, should be created. Somehow I could not, or did not wish to, look beyond that point. Let that be done, successfully, I thought. Let me be granted another like myself, mate and companion, and then we shall see what we shall see. Looking back now, I have a hard time understanding what my state of mind was then. But it was centered on an utter loneliness, an estrangement from the world, from which I have only lately started to emerge.

Clerval from the start took me more seriously than did any of the others, even my creator. To Henry it was never totally inconceivable that I might have some legitimate thoughts and aspirations of my own. In conferences with the other gentlemen he frequently expressed his opinion that they would be doing a great wrong in making me a slave, without first determining beyond doubt that my nature was fitted for nothing better. By raising this point he usually managed to awaken a twinge of conscience in Frankenstein, and got at least soothing agreement from the others. But then five minutes later the discussion would have returned to the question of whether plantations or mines would offer the most profitable use for my multitude of potential brothers, sisters, and descendants.

As for Walton, he was, as I have said, an adventurer; and what we were engaged in was for him a superb adventure, whatever it might turn out to mean to others. From the moment we came aboard his ship, and he heard from her owner some of Frankenstein's story and mine, Walton began taking notes in preparation for its telling. Saville, after giving the matter some thought and cautioning the captain on certain matters, allowed him to proceed with his plan for eventual publication, in some form. I wonder now if anything will ever come of that.

What of Victor himself? If he failed to regard me as a person, he had at all times a proprietary interest, and sometimes protested jealously that the others were, in attempting to decide my fate, robbing him of what was rightfully his. But Saville could always placate him with offers of a superb laboratory in which to work, almost unlimited funds, assistants, most of all a powerful friend to stand between him and the obtrusive world—and Victor would be soothed.

As soon as the Argo was moored to a London wharf, all of the crew who could be spared were set free, and wasted no time in descending upon the taverns and brothels ashore. I was allowed to stretch my limbs by being freed from my tiny closet of a cabin, granted the rare privilege of emergence into the barely larger chamber wherein Clerval and my creator had been quartered, and which formed the only means of egress from my own closet to the world.

"What is happening now?" I whispered. There were times during those days of confinement and enforced silence when I felt that I was losing, through disuse, the power of speech. Oh, I might have rebelled, physically, and with temporary success. Knocked out of my way the men who thought themselves my masters, risen to the deck, terrifying some sailors who had not dreamt that anything like me was aboard… but what would I have done after that? Remember that the world out of sight of my gentleman-captors was utterly unknown to me, and what little evidence I had of it looked strange and frightening indeed.

The plan, or that part of it of which I was condescendingly informed, called for Clerval to remain on board to keep an eye on me, whilst Frankenstein and Saville were escorted ashore by Captain Walton, who claimed to be able to conduct them promptly to certain men with whom they would be able to do business. He had already sent a message ashore, and those men would be waiting. Exactly what sort of business was to be conducted in London first was not explained to' me, but I thought that I could guess. To duplicate his feat of creation, Frankenstein would need laboratory equipment—he had brought very little with him from Bavaria. Also the raw materials would be required—human bodies, or the component parts of them, that had once been living but now were not. The dead of night, I somehow understood, would not be the proper time to set out to purchase laboratory equipment.

I did not argue with my orders to stay aboard, but neither had I any intention of obeying them. I knew that the mission that took the men ashore was vitally connected with my own future, and I meant to discover what decisions were being made on that subject, and what was actually accomplished.

Less than a minute after the departure of Walton, Saville, and Frankenstein, I had managed to get over the ship's side by unorthodox means, acting decisively as soon as my remaining guardian's back was turned. Swinging on lines, leaping with an agility more than human, I needed only a moment to gain the dock.

It was a substantial relief to have my feet planted again on solid land. Listening carefully to the sounds of the city, the docks, the river, as I stood there swathed in night and fog, I was barely able to pick up the murmuring of the three familiar voices in time to hurry after them.

The streets at this hour were dark as coal mines. The occasional hurrying passerby with his lantern was unaware of me except as a pair of soft footsteps, a dim and sizeless presence in the night.

The three men I was following carried no lantern, and I had some difficulty—more than once I almost lost them in the fog. At length they turned into a mews, traversed it for a hundred yards, and then emerged upon another street. Presently I at last heard one of them tapping at a door. I was only a few yards behind them when the door opened, and I could confirm the presence of their three shadows, outlined in a faint wash of light against the fog.

Even before the door had closed behind them I was moving close to the small building they had entered, which was not much more than a large shed. The one small window that faced the street side had been blocked off, and I had heard the street door being locked after the gentlemen went in. Trying my ear first against the door and then at the window, I was unable to hear more than a faint unintelligible murmur of voices from within.

Stealthily—I can move softly and lightly when I choose—I made my way around to the rear of the building. There, to my satisfaction, I found it possible, my great height being an advantage, to position myself outside a high dirty window in such a way that I could obtain a very satisfactory view of the interior of a rear room, and also hear most of what was being said within.

By the light of a cheap tallow candle, I could see two landsmen, both rather scruffy-looking, seated at a table with Frankenstein and Saville, while Walton stood by with folded arms. There was a bottle of rum on the table, along with some chipped and dirty crockery, and the two Londoners were helping themselves to drink, though the gentlemen had evidently disdained to do so under these conditions.

On another table nearby, a trestle construction even rougher than that at which the men sat talking, there lay a shape as of a human body. It was very small, motionless and covered by a dirty canvass. I saw at once that my surmise as to the nature of the business to be conducted at this meeting had been correct.

If any further confirmation had been needed, it was provided by the first words I heard. They came from one of the strangers and were to the effect that though in London there existed a thriving trade in the bodies of the newly dead, as in any other trade, reliability and devotion to quality work were by no means universal among Resurrections.

Frankenstein, whose English was accented and somewhat limited, asked in puzzlement about the meaning of a word. "Resurrectionist? I take it that is—?"

The more heavily-built one of the resurrectionists answered with an expansive gesture. "Why, it's no more and no less than it sounds like, sir. It's quite a good solid trade here in London, as I 'ad the honor to inform you, and my partner here and me are as well-established in it as anyone you could hope to find." He gave a self-satisfied nod, including Saville and Walton in his glance. "Should any of you gentlemen 'ave your doubts, you could look in at Doctor Hunter's anatomy school in Windmill Street, and ask 'em there."

Frankenstein turned aside to Saville, and explained that such conditions must represent a new factor in his calculations. Where he had been working before, on the Continent, medical schools and other researchers who were considered legitimate had a fairly easy time obtaining bodies.

"But here—I had not realized, but now I see—if even the anatomy schools here must steal their materials, no doubt for us things will be even more difficult. Here I suppose it will be a serious criminal matter to possess a stolen body?"

The other landsman, whose general air was that of a man who has come down in the world, now spoke up, in a voice considerably more cultured than that of his business associate. "Now there, gentlemen, just there, if I may say so, is where the gentleman is wrong. Possession of a dead body, any dead body, in England is not criminal. Oh, there are certain times and places when, for those engaged in our trade, caution is certainly needed. Some of the cemeteries have augmented their fences with dogs and guards. But by the laws of England, no one can have property rights in a corpse. It is not possible, therefore, for mortal remains to be considered stolen property. The medical schools, you see, have no other dependable source of supply besides our trade, and really none at all within the law, which says that the veriest pauper must be buried. God rest their souls in peace. By the way, will you be needing the teeth?"

Frankenstein blinked at him. "Yes—some of them at least—one good set, certainly—why do you ask?"

"There is another market. The dentists use them sometimes, to implant in living jaws."

"Dentists?" Saville sniffed at the word. "Oh, yes, Frenchified tooth-drawers, I suppose you mean."

"I shall need at least one good complete set of teeth," said Victor. "Probably the largest sound specimens available. I care not what you do with the rest." I ran my tongue around inside my mouth; good solid work, like most of the rest of the construction.

My creator was now expressing his anxiety lest there should be any difficulty in getting just the kind of fresh young female specimens that he wanted. While considering this question, the group rose from the table, and went to the other table, where the canvas was drawn back. With the men's backs to me I could see little of the body now revealed to their inspection. It was described by its proprietors as a "large small," it being somewhat over three feet long. A child, from what I could observe of one puny marble leg.

"A bargain, gentlemen, I assure you." The elegant graverobber waved a hand in a dismissive gesture. "Only three guineas."

Saville drawled: "That is certainly excessive." He treated himself to a pinch of snuff.

Victor said firmly that in any case this particular body would be much too small, even if it had been fresh enough. He announced, with the air of one having to repeat something far too often, that his needs were special. He pulled the sheet up again, shrouding the trestle's burden, and turned away from it.

The two Londoners exchanged glances with each other. "Very fresh is sometimes difficult, sir," said the coarser one, "but not impossible. There's no problem in laying hands on any special kind of course a gentleman might want." He looked with a certain expression, meaningful and leering, at his companion.

The other nodded sagely, and remarked in elegant tones that he had heard before of gentlemen who put in orders for young girls freshly dead—he recalled, tolerantly, knowing someone in his own business who thought along quite similar lines.

"And what is that supposed to mean?" Victor inquired sharply. I had thought the meaning was quite plain.

The languid ruffian turned over a hand, palm up; an elegant gesture of a wrist that had doubtless once worn lace. In his pallid face the hatred was quite plain.

A dispute quickly flared up, and as rapidly turned violent. At first it appeared that no one was armed, and the gentlemen were giving a good account of themselves in the game of fisticuffs, though Franken-stein did nothing but retreat dazedly into a corner. Presently, however, in response to an outcry from one of the professional graverobbers, the door leading to the adjoining room burst open and three more men rushed in, one of whom could have been described as a giant—in human terms at least. The other two were armed with wooden cudgels.

Captain Walton had at first been rather obviously enjoying the fight, but this change in the odds was a little too much for him. He drew and fired a pistol, but his shot missed.

My own immediate and overwhelming concern was that my creator must be protected at all costs_else my own future appeared bleak indeed. The danger to Frankenstein now appeared too great to be tolerated. I crouched and sprang up, bursting in through the window, to the great astonishment of all inside.

I had landed in a crouch on the floor of the shed; my first act after springing to my feet again was to reach the side of Frankenstein, and shove him protectively beneath a table. Then, bellowing like a beast, and hurling about furniture and bodies, living and dead, with a strength and violence quite sufficient to impress the enemy, I had in a matter of seconds routed them completely. The men with the cudgels had been given little chance to use them, and the giant had been lucky to escape.

Frankenstein, unharmed but trembling, was slow to emerge from his concealment, and appeared stunned when he came out into the candlelight again. Walton, for the first and only time, behaved toward me as to a fellow man, offering me congratulations and even his hand to shake. Saville did not extend himself that far, but I got a nod of approval from him, and a word or two, such as he might have bestowed upon a favorite dog or horse.

The field was ours. We were left in possession of a small stock of dead women and children, four or five bodies in all. Some of them, which I had not observed till now, were on another trestle table even deeper in the shadows of the room. All were ours now by right of possession, and even legally, if what the resurrectionists had said on that subject was true—I learned later that it was.

But a cursory examination by Frankenstein showed that none of the remains were at all suitable for his purposes. He was a different man, authoritative again, as he looked the bodies over.

I was not even chided for my disobedience in having left the ship and followed my supposed masters; and I was allowed to stand by, listening openly to the discussion. After all, the enemy might conceivably return, and I might once more be needed.

In the end we abandoned the field, not desiring to retain any of the spoils. The only practically useful thing to come out of the episode was a suggestion by Walton, that struck him while looking at the corpses. It was that hogsheads of brine might be just the thing in which to keep our merchandise when it was finally obtained. Such containers could be loaded aboard his ship and transported to our final destination without alarming the sailors who did the work; there would be no need to inform them of the true nature of the cargo.

But on that night we returned empty-handed to the ship. Whatever scheme was decided upon would have to be put into practice later, with the help of another and more tractable crew of resurrectionists.

Such was my first night in London.

I am pushing on to the south. But first I shall take the time to bid a last solemn au revoir to Father Jacques.