There were several moments of quiet, then the Marquis shouting out again.
“How … how do you explain this?”
Frankenstein hesitated before explaining, “My dear Sophie was a whore when she was alive. From Paris. I believe what she is doing now is mimicking behavior that still remains ingrained deep within the recesses of her brain.”
“A Parisian whore, you say? I have been intimate with so many, but I must have missed this one while I was locked away in the Bastille. Why the milky liquid in the bowl?”
“That is how she receives nourishment, by absorbing the liquid through the bottom of her neck. Think of her as an orchid growing in a pot.”
“Fascinating, truly fascinating. Can it exist outside of the bowl?”
“For several hours, yes. After that she would wilt and die.”
“I see that you have taken the precaution of removing its teeth,” the Marquis said. “My dear Victor, please do hand it to me. I desire to have it suckle my finger also.”
My blood boiled as I heard the way they discussed Charlotte as if she were a plaything. During one of our visits together, Charlotte explained to me that it was better for her to lick Frankenstein’s finger than for him to surmise the intelligence that she held. But her eyes also flashed with ferocity as she wished that she still had her teeth so that she would’ve been able to bite off whatever she could of his.
If I had had the power to do so I would have left the table that I was stranded on and crushed both their skulls. When I heard this despicable Marquis remark how he would later make use of Charlotte once he was properly rested from his traveling, I found myself choking with hatred toward this man as I understood his depraved intentions.
They must have grown tired of Charlotte, for the door to the laboratory opened and the creaking of footsteps entered into the room; one pair of footsteps that was heavy and slow, the other all too familiar. I lay on my back staring at the wood-beam ceiling above me. I did not want to give them the advantage of knowing that I had movement within my neck. A loud gasp escaped from the Marquis.
“My God! Is that actually alive?”
“Very much alive.”
“Are … are we safe?”
“Oh yes. Even if he had the strength to rise we would be safe. But for now the creature barely has the ability to raise his hands several inches from the table. Interestingly, he tries to hide this from me. Some sort of animal cunning, I suppose.”
Footsteps approached. The Marquis turned out to be a short and rotund man of about fifty. He was almost entirely bald, his features having a grayish, unhealthy tinge to them and his round, fleshy face seeming almost a caricature of a man who had once been thin and handsome. Timidly, he peered over me, his face awash with fear and curiosity, but even still, a haughtiness pervaded his eyes and lips.
“My God,” the Marquis whispered. “To think that you made this. How?”
“A complicated process,” Frankenstein said with an air of smugness. “The limbs and trunk and head were all fashioned from materials that I had collected, but these would have been of little use without the secret books of alchemy and dark arts that I was most fortunate to have uncovered. Without these volumes, none of this would be possible.”
Fear slowly abated from the Marquis’s pale eyes. He leaned in closer to me, his breath warm upon me.
“Do not dare to tell me there is not intelligence in those eyes!” the Marquis claimed. “I swear he understands every word we speak!”
Frankenstein laughed at that. “My dear Marquis,” he said, “I do not wish to contradict you, but no, that is not the case. His intelligence would be little more than what you could expect from a four-month-old infant. For now, that is all there is. There exists no knowledge within him, and certainly no understanding of language.”
“But I can see the brightness in those horrible watery eyes!”
“Animal cunning, that is all. The brain was obtained from an educated man. The capability of intelligence exists, and with enough schooling this creature could perhaps develop the art of language, but that would require years, if it were indeed possible.”
The Marquis disappeared from view. In my mind’s eye I could imagine him stroking his chin that was so deeply buried in flesh, his brow worried as if he were profoundly deep in thought. The image of this ridiculous little man in such a state struck me as comical and I must have smiled without realizing it for the Marquis exclaimed with excitement, “Victor, look at how a grin wrinkles its face!”
“Do not newborn infants also grin mysteriously?” Frankenstein asked.
The Marquis made a soft humming noise as he considered this. In the end he accepted Frankenstein’s explanation and asked him to remove the blanket from my body. I felt the fabric pulled from me. At the same moment a gasping sound emanated from the Marquis.
“This abomination of yours,” the Marquis sputtered, his voice strangled. “It is magnificently horrific, far surpassing what I had imagined. Look at the sex organ that you constructed for it! It would be the envy of many a stallion! Perhaps there is even enough there to satisfy that empress of Russia! Does it function? Please do tell me that it does!”
“An interesting question, my dear Marquis, and one that I am also curious about. For now, no, there is not yet enough strength in the creature for such activity. But in the future? I do not know. Time will tell.”
“If it does … if it does …” the Marquis’s voice broke off. A brief moment later he continued, his voice having grown exceedingly heated. “Oh, if it does function we would be able to bring more than my masterpiece to life. This creature … this is how I have been envisioning a grotesque giant that I will be naming Minski for a novel that I am currently involved in writing and which will carry the simple title, Juliette. Later I must share these details with you. When I do you will also see how with your magnificent creature we will also be able to create a living tribute to this novel, as well as my masterpiece. I have goose bumps, Victor, simply imagining it.”
Frankenstein and the Marquis continued their heated conversation but it mostly turned into a droning noise in my ears. I would catch pieces of what they would say; the Marquis bitterly complaining about a number of issues: his financial situation, his mother-in-law and her attempts to ruin his life, and how he wept tears of blood when his masterpiece was lost in the Bastille, while Frankenstein eagerly entreated the Marquis to describe his latest novel. It was difficult for me to pay much attention to them. Mostly my thoughts kept returning back to Frankenstein’s earlier words: the brain was obtained from an educated man.
During the many days that I had been housed in Frankenstein’s laboratory, I heard frequent comments uttered from him about how I had been created from materials. I had also seen evidence to support his claims, making it impossible to have believed otherwise. I had begun to suspect that the memories I held so dear were merely illusions. But if Frankenstein had acquired the brain of an educated man to create me, could that man have been Friedrich Hoffmann? Could that be why I believed so dearly that I was this same man? If these memories were real, and if that was the reason I was convinced that I was Friedrich Hoffmann, did that not make me Friedrich Hoffmann, even if other materials were used to construct my body? And what of my soul? How could I possibly have one if I were simply a collection of materials joined together? Charlotte claimed that she could see my soul in my eyes and that it was a gentle one. How could that be? Was it possible that my soul, or should I say, Friedrich Hoffmann’s soul, entered this manufactured body? Or was I in fact soulless, a creature brought into this world through satanic magic? How could such a creature possess a soul?