These thoughts and other metaphysical questions that they raised troubled me greatly, as did the idea that Frankenstein executed the murder of the woman I believed to be my beloved Johanna for the sole purpose of arranging to have Friedrich Hoffmann blamed for her murder. And for what reason? Simply to gain access to an educated brain? The evil necessary to perpetrate such acts was more than I could fathom.
At some point Frankenstein had covered me again with the same fabric and he and his guest departed, but I wasn’t aware of it until I noticed that the chill brought from his presence was gone and that the laboratory had become deathly quiet.
In the end I decided that my memories and sentiments, if they were indeed real, would make me Friedrich Hoffmann regardless of the body that I now resided in. I would trust Charlotte that she did indeed see a gentle soul within me. Even if the darkest satanic magic was used to bring me to life, that did not have to mean that I was an instrument of the Devil, even if I was now consumed with evil desires, mainly the thoughts of murdering Frankenstein and his equally detestable Marquis.
CHAPTER
6
That same day the Marquis arrived, Frankenstein took Charlotte from the laboratory once night had fallen, and didn’t return her to her shelf for several days. My heart sank in knowing the Marquis’s sickening intentions, but I never asked Charlotte what had happened. I knew without asking her that she had suffered inhumanely, for whatever dim light had previously shone in her eyes had been extinguished upon her return. As it turned out we only had a few remaining respites to spend together. Even with the cruelty that she had been forced to endure, during our brief final minutes, Charlotte still tried with all her soul to raise my own beleaguered spirits.
The day after his arrival the Marquis performed a closer inspection of me, his breath heavy with cognac. A malignance shone in those awful, pale eyes of his as he ran his hands slowly across my body, touching me in unnatural ways. At first all I could do was imagine wrapping my hands around his throat and squeezing that insipid smile from his bloated face, but as I strained to do this my hands failed to lift more than several inches from the table. Finally I calmed myself by knowing that our situation would someday be reversed, and that he would be the one trembling under my touch.
Several days later the Marquis departed. From what I could tell from conversations that he held with Frankenstein within my presence, there were others involved in their enterprise, including a group of wealthy men who were chiefly providing financing. They talked in a mostly cryptic manner, however, and I was unable to learn more of their plans other than they envisioned me playing an important role.
Daily I was growing in strength. These improvements were slow but steady, and I dreamed that I would be able to surprise Frankenstein soon by taking hold of him and breaking his neck. Two weeks after the Marquis had left, Frankenstein thwarted my plans by tying leather straps around my body and securing me tightly to the table. Silently I cursed him for this, for I felt I was only days away from being able to rise from my imprisonment. While I had diligently tried to keep my growing strength from him, he somehow had surmised my improvement and the closeness of my revenge, and he took the proper precautions. The look he gave me as he tightened the straps around my body chilled me, as if he could read my very thoughts.
The very next day after he had strapped me to the table, he packed up his laboratory, emptying it of all of its contents, including Charlotte, so that only I remained. That night for the first time he failed to make his nocturnal visit.
I don’t think I ever felt more alone than I did that next day when sunlight first crept into the room. I had a gnawing suspicion that Victor Frankenstein had left the premises for good, and that I would lie strapped upon that table until I either withered and died, or until some stranger discovered me and slaughtered me for being an ungodly creature. The cruelty of that was more than I could take, for if that were to happen I would never know if Friedrich Hoffmann and the dear woman whom I believed to have been my beloved truly existed or were merely figments of my imagination. And if my dear Johanna had existed, I would never have the opportunity to avenge her murder.
I wept silently then, and continued to weep until I was too exhausted for even that. Eventually night arrived, and I remained helpless and alone in that cursed room. That night, like every other night since Frankenstein brought me into the world, I lay awake without the hope of sleep to offer me a temporary reprieve from my misery.
A week passed without any change in my situation, except that I began to feel the slow gnawing of hunger and a horrible thirst, which confirmed my earlier thoughts about the ointment that Frankenstein had applied nightly to my body. The loneliness I felt was crushing. Even when Charlotte had been held outside of my view, I drew comfort knowing that a sympathetic soul resided only a few feet from me. The miserable nature of my new circumstances must have pushed me closer to madness, for I even found myself missing my host’s nightly satanic chanting.
Frankenstein’s abrupt departure and my abandonment made little sense, at least if I were truly as crucial to his plans as he and the Marquis had implied. What could possibly be the reason for these actions? A cold panic overtook me as I understood what must have happened. They had been discovered. That was the only explanation for these rash developments. Their fiendish plans had been discovered and they were now running for their lives.
A hopelessness welled up within me and I unleashed a horrible bellow, the coarseness and inhuman nature of the sound surprising me. I realized my cry might draw strangers to the dwelling and lead to my discovery, but I did not care. If strangers desired to slaughter me while I lay tied and helpless, I welcomed it. At least it would speed a possible reunion with Johanna, if she had in fact existed, and if Friedrich Hoffmann’s soul resided in my body as I prayed it did. I bellowed until I was hoarse, but it brought no visitors.
Please God, I begged, end this.
Just as a hopelessness had only minutes earlier taken me over, so did now an all-consuming rage. How could a merciful God allow these atrocities? And if the spirit residing in me was human, and if I was being tested in my faith as Job had been, how could any God put one of his unfortunate children through the horrors that I had endured? If I were Friedrich Hoffmann as I believed, maybe I hadn’t always been the most devout practitioner of faith, and maybe during my life I had leaned more toward science than the church, but I had always tried to live an honorable life. How could I have deserved this?
I bellowed again in rage, and stopped only when I realized the leather strap that had been tied around my chest had broken. The slow trickle of strength that had been ever so slowing ebbing back into my body must have turned into a raging torrent over the last few days, for in my rage I broke that strap, which was something not even a wild beast could have done. I sat up with ease and tore apart the strap that bound my legs to the table as easily as a child might have torn a paper ribbon.
I was free.
Clumsily, I fell to the floor, my legs feeling foreign to me. As I balanced on my feet and stood up, the top of my head brushed the very same wood-beam ceiling that I had spent so many hours staring at. What the Marquis had said was true. I was enormous in size, at least eight feet in height. For several moments I tottered on my feet before I gained my balance. With every breath I felt more strength in my legs, as if they were becoming more a part of me. I lifted my hands to my face and gasped at what I saw. As with the glimpse I had caught earlier of the rotted appendage that had been cut from me, these were monstrous hands. Large and gnarled, with that same unearthly translucent flesh, and matted black hair which grew out in clumps along my knuckles and even on my palms. But they were also strong and powerful. I could feel the strength in them as I squeezed them closed. I looked down at my legs and saw they were of the same nature.