Scattered about this room were couches and chaise longues that were covered with satin cushions. The room had the feel of an evil amphitheater, and I guessed this was where the play that Frankenstein had mentioned was to be performed. What was most striking and what filled me with the greatest sense of loathing were not the columns decorated with their instruments of torture, but a mural that ran fully around the room and held a height of at least eight feet, with the figures within it painted to be life-sized. This mural reflected what was at first glance a pleasant ballroom scene of men in their elegant attire and women in their fine ballroom gowns waltzing happily together. But if you looked more closely you could see a glint of wickedness shining in the men’s eyes, as well as hint of horror shading the women’s complexions. I tried to look away from this strange painting, but it was as if I were compelled to stare at it, almost as if I were afraid to look away from it.
“You are enjoying the mural?” Frankenstein asked, obviously pleased with himself. “This is my own contribution to the Marquis’ brilliant work, for he could not possibly have divined a mural of this sort, as will become apparent to you over time. But I am quite pleased with it. Here, let me show you more.”
He led me to one of what were a half dozen closets attached to this room. Frankenstein opened the closet door, and inside, it was furnished with a couch similar to those scattered about the main room, with other whips and evil devices hanging from the walls. When we stepped out of the closet, I stopped, confused. The mural appeared to have changed subtly, the men’s faces all the more sinister, the women’s faces registering a touch more fear. I also imagined that their positions within their waltz had changed, as if they had taken several steps during my absence. Frankenstein seemed pleased by my confusion, but only asked that we continue our tour.
“The other closets are all the same as the one I showed you,” he said. “But let me show you the dining room, which is, sadly, still under construction.”
Frankenstein took me to an adjoining room, which was to be the dining room. Workmen were hanging rich red tapestries and painting the walls and crafting an ornamental molding made of ivory along the edges of the ceiling. A great oak table sat in the middle of the room, and scattered about this table were fine armchairs with fat leather cushions. There was nothing overtly sinister about this room—at least not like the amphitheater that I was shown—but it still filled me with a sense of loathing. Perhaps it was that an evil permeated the interior of this castle as completely as if it were air, and that it would chill me wherever I went within these castle walls.
From this dining room, Frankenstein next showed me a set of private bedrooms, all of which were still under construction. Even with the canopied beds and the other fine furnishings, these rooms filled me with the same sort of revulsion as the dining room and amphitheater.
“The living quarters for my guests are on higher floors,” Frankenstein confided to me. “These chambers are to be used for the drama that we will be performing. Come, there is still much I desire to show you.”
He took me to a stone staircase that led into the bowels of the castle and what appeared to be a dungeon. Workmen were assembling a complex set of gears and machinery across eight pillars that stood in a row, all of which had manacles attached to them. Frankenstein stopped to admire this. He pointed out a chain and told me that when it was pulled the victims who were secured to each of these pillars would be murdered simultaneously.
“All done through different means,” he giggled. “Garroted, stabbed, set on fire, shot by darts and other exquisite forms of death. It will be a thing of beauty.”
“What do you mean the victims who are to be chained to those pillars?”
He fought to contain another giggle, but otherwise did not answer me. Instead he moved hurriedly to an iron door and pulled it open. He stood eagerly by this open door waiting for me. On entering this chamber I found cages filled with young girls, none of which could have been older than twenty. I stared at them dumbfounded. There could have been several hundred of them, and as I looked at their horrorstruck and pitiful expressions, I saw that were even younger children among them, both boys and girls.
“These are to be the players in our drama,” Frankenstein told me.
I stared at him as dumbly as I did those poor prisoners, Frankenstein’s words not yet sinking in.
“Of course, I will be playing a role, as will several of my guests. But these will be the star players of our production, and none of this would have been possible without you, Friedrich.”
I could not understand what he was saying, and as he saw my bewilderment his expression grew exceedingly wicked.
“We stole them when you were terrorizing the Saxony and Bavarian provinces,” he explained, his voice slicing me as sharply as if it had been a dagger. “All of these thefts were blamed on you. Without your help, Friedrich, we would never have been able to procure the players that we need for our drama.”
I closed my eyes and imagined the feverish state that I had been in when I stole into those cities under the cloak of darkness and skulked about their citizenry, almost as if I were little more than a puppet being manipulated by an invisible hand. I understood then.
“It was your black magic that sent me into those cities and villages, and made me act I did,” I said, my voice rumbling out in a soft echo.
“Of course,” Frankenstein said.
I looked at the faces of these young girls and children as they stared back at me, horrified. All I could see was innocence and purity.
“These are who you will be murdering on those machines?” I asked, not quite believing that any man, no matter how evil, could do as Frankenstein was suggesting.
“Some of them will play that role,” Frankenstein said. “Others will be assigned their own special roles, all of which they will play out as demanded. In the meantime, they will be well-fed and kept healthy, and their innocence will not be breached. We need all of them to remain virgins leading up to our drama, although none will remain virgins for very long after it begins.”
He chuckled at that.
The full magnitude of what I had seen and what Frankenstein was telling me began to sink in. The murdering machines, the devices for torture and other evil. And with utter disgust I understood the unwitting role that I played.
“This is not a temple of nature,” I spat out, “but a temple of depravity!”
Frankenstein’s eyes darkened and his smile lost some of its luster. “You are wrong, Friedrich,” he said. “In nature, is there such thing as murder and rape? If a tiger wishes to kill another animal, does it not just do so? If a male beast wishes to make use of a female of its species, or any other species that it is stronger than, does it not just overpower it and do as it wishes?”
“We are not animals.”
“But we are, Friedrich. With all of our pretense of being something greater than that, that is all we are, and our drama will be representing the ultimate truth of nature, and not the hypocrisy of man and his supposed high morality. In Paris right now, under the guise of piety and God, the sanctimonious fiend, Robespierre, is each day sending hundreds of innocent men and women to their death by the guillotine and unleashing rivers of blood so great that they have had to build special gutters to contain it. In Spain, for such alleged crimes of heresy, hundreds of innocent men and women are tortured and murdered each day in ways every bit as barbaric as what our play will call for. The few lives that we will be sacrificing here for our little drama will be a drop of piss compared to the oceans that these civilized nations pour out.”