I took the chocolate from her. What else could I have done while she looked at me with such earnest charity? With the chocolate crumbling in my hand, I left the cottage and soon quit the village as I continued on into the woods.
I walked for many miles until taking a seat on a fallen tree that must have succumbed to the forces of nature many years earlier, and leaned forward so that my elbows rested on my knees, and dropped my head so that it lay heavy in my hands. I longed to be back within the gentle confines of the monastery, but even if I could find my way back to that hidden sanctuary, how could I face Brother Theodore after what I had done since leaving? And what would he now see in my heart?
When I had first woken up within Frankenstein’s lair, I had felt as if I were still Friedrich Hoffmann. Later, when I was employed and living freely among my fellow brothers at the monastery, I would also frequently envision myself as how I used to be and not as the abomination that I had become. My thirst for vengeance had brought about a madness that left me terrorizing the countryside for months, and now I could only think of myself as something ugly and twisted. My chest ached every time I imagined that young girl’s face and the sheer terror that had filled her eyes.
Even if I could retrace my steps, I could not go back to that monastery. Not with the way Brother Theodore and the other monks would look at me, and not with that urge that was still pulling me southwards. Although I now seemed free from that the invisible force that had made me perform my sinister nighttime excursions as surely as if I had been possessed by spirits and then exorcised, that same urge from before was still present within me. And the truth was that even if that madness had left me, I still thirsted for vengeance.
I sat for hours as I tried to make sense of everything that had happened since I had first woken up within Frankenstein’s laboratory. If that young girl had reported my unwelcome intrusion into her home, I didn’t see any evidence of it since no armed mobs had come searching for me. Given the muddy conditions, if a mob was looking for me they would have had no trouble following my footprints since I made no effort to hide them. But if a mob had come I would have offered no resistance. Death would have been a welcome release from the self-loathing and confusion that consumed me.
When dawn arrived, I left the fallen tree that I had been seated on so despondently and continued my aimless wandering.
Over the next six days I avoided man as best I could and tried to keep my wanderings to the darker depths of the forest. Early on I came across a lost troop of French soldiers who seemed every bit as miserable as I was. I stayed hidden under a canopy of leaves and branches and watched them as they argued about a number of subjects, including their whereabouts and their dwindling supplies. A couple of them insisted vehemently that they never would have embarked on this campaign if they had known that a devil had been let loose within the Bavarian countryside. When I saw what must have been their commanding officer trying to silence their squabbling with the threat of his saber, I had seen enough and stole quietly away. I shuddered minutes later when I heard the eruption of fighting among them and the death cries that followed. They were as damned as I was.
As I continued with my travels I would go back and forth in my mind between despairing over whether I would ever find Victor Frankenstein to desiring to quit Europe and flee instead to the darkest jungles of the Amazon so I would forever be free of man and my damnable quest for vengeance. All of this left me weary, but I did not allow myself to sleep. I was too afraid of the dreams that would invade my mind.
It was on the sixth day after the feverish control over me had broken that I found myself wandering aimlessly through the forest and my thoughts interrupted by the shouting of men. They seemed to be arguing heatedly, with several of them claiming that the Devil had been unleashed upon their countryside and that that by itself proved the existence of witches. This got me curious, and I followed their voices to see what this was about. Keeping myself hidden behind a thick covering of bushes, I saw that I had wandered near a village. A group of forty or so men and women stood in front of a small wooden cottage, their faces reflecting anger and excitement. As I followed their argument, it seemed as if most of them were in agreement that the woman living in the cottage was a witch, with one lone man trying to argue the ridiculousness of their charges. This man was middle-aged and of strong bearing. Tall, broad shouldered, thick-jawed. He was patiently trying to explain how the belief in witchcraft had rightfully been banished from the minds of all but the most ignorant. One of his opponents, a round-bodied man who had the look of a butcher, took exception to this.
“You calling us ignorant then, Karl?” this man demanded.
“No, I’m not saying that. But let us not travel back a hundred years to those dark years when superstitions ruled. We live in an enlightened age. We now know witches never truly existed. This has been proven beyond any doubt. How could they exist under the watchful eye of the Almighty?”
“Then how do you explain the appearance of Satan? If Satan is running free in the countryside, then there are certainly witches to do his bidding!”
“Come now, Ernst. Let us not jump to conclusions. We do not know that anything has been seen. All we are hearing are fanciful stories, that is all.”
“Fanciful stories? So you are calling them all liars?”
“I am saying that the same hysteria that caused people seventy years ago to burn and drown innocent men and women as witches may be making people now believe they are seeing a devil when all they could be seeing is a wild beast, perhaps an exceptionally large bear, and imagining in their hysteria that this animal is something supernatural.”
“And what of the girls who are being stolen?”
“Again, these are just stories! If you really believe this nonsense about Henriette being a witch, then let us bring her to a court and have them decide her guilt.”
A woman’s voice shrilly interrupted them, yelling out that there was no question about this witch’s guilt. The voice belonged to a plain woman of around thirty who had pushed herself to the front and stood red-faced in front of Karl, the man who was trying to reason with them.
“She has bewitched my husband!” this dumpy frau insisted. “We can prove right now that this is so, unless you are in league with her and wish to keep her evil hidden from us!”
This last accusation of hers got the heavyset butcher scowling suspiciously at Karl, as well as several of the other men edging closer to him. He noticed this and realized that he himself was close to being accused of being a witch, and a cautiousness set into his eyes as he closed his mouth and did not argue any further.
A young woman was dragged to the front by several men. She was of a different type from the frau. Although her dress was little more than rags, it did little to hide the suppleness of her body. Even in her dire situation and with the contempt toward her accusers that hardened her expression, her heart-shaped face and fire-red hair radiated beauty.
Her right hand was grabbed, and the butcher cut it with a knife to draw blood. This blood was then marked on the forehead of a small, timid-looking man who stood next to the frau, and who must have been her husband. Once the blood was spread over his forehead, he yelled out that he was no longer bewitched.
“This witch’s spell has been broken,” he exclaimed. He turned to look at the frau and with a forced smile added, “I no longer desire her, but once again only desire my dear wife!”