“You may say that, Mr. Armitage.”
He smiled broadly, having settled the matter to his satisfaction, and clapped me on the back as if he were congratulating me for agreeing with him. “We must get you bread. And meat. And wine.”
Over the rough meal, which the chambermaid brought to us, we exchanged the usual remarks. He lived in Friday Street, off Cheapside, with his father; his father manufactured the lenses and the spectacles, in a workshop on the ground floor of their property, while he acted as a commercial traveller. He had taken advantage of the peace to sail to France, with specimens of his father’s latest work. “You will not find lenses more finely ground,” he said. “You can pick out a distant spire by moonlight.”
“Does he build microscopes?”
“Of course he does. At the moment he has in hand a design that has cylindrical eyes, so to speak, that will make the smallest object clear.”
“I would be very interested in that.”
“You would? What is your study at Oxford, Mr. Frankenstein?”
“I am concerned with the workings of human life.”
“Is that all?” He smiled at me. I could not imagine him breaking into laughter.
“That is how I learned of the nervous fibres of the eye.”
“You are an anatomist then?” He suddenly became very grave, as if I had trespassed upon some private pursuit.
“Not exactly. Not essentially. I cannot claim any great proficiency.”
“Do you know how long the eye survives when it is released from its casing?”
“I have no idea. Minutes, perhaps-”
“Thirty-four seconds. Before its light is extinguished for ever.”
“How do you know this?”
“They dry very quickly, when they have left the socket. Do not ask me how I know.”
“But if they were kept in an aqueous solution, what then?”
“Then, Mr. Frankenstein, you would be considered to ask too much.” He began to eat, very slowly, the meat and bread upon his plate.
I remembered the phrase from Terence. “Nothing human is alien to me, Mr. Armitage.”
He did not answer but continued chewing on his meat. It was veal, as I remember, coated in breadcrumbs in the manner of my compatriots. I had very little appetite for it. Occasionally he would look up at me, with no particular expression in his eye beyond that of calm observation. Eventually he spoke. “My father had an interesting apprenticeship. From the age of fourteen he worked for Dr. John Hunter. Do you know that name?”
“Indeed. Very well.” Hunter’s reputation as a surgeon and anatomist had reached me even in Geneva, where his Natural History of Teeth had been translated into French.
“Dr. Hunter was a great observer of the body, Mr. Frankenstein. He made it his profession.”
“So I have read.”
“His surgical work was second to none. My father has known him to remove a bladder stone in less than three minutes.”
“Truly?”
“And the patient did not die.” Armitage concentrated once more upon his plate, where he was now very deliberately mopping up the crumbs with a portion of bread soaked in wine. “My father still has the stone.”
“The patient did not want it?”
“No. Dr. Hunter called it treasure-trove.”
“But what happened to the eyes?”
“I told you. The patient was still alive. Much to his surprise.”
“Not his. The other eyes that were preserved in water. I presume that they were taken from the bodies of the less fortunate.”
Armitage stared at me with the same curiously dispassionate gaze. “If the patient has died in the operating theatre, then to whom does he belong?” I said nothing, believing that I had already said too much. “Dr. Hunter took the view that, having been entrusted into his care, the body was his responsibility. It became, in a sense, his property.”
“I would not disagree.”
“Excellent. I am speaking to you now in the utmost harmony of good companionship. These facts are not widely known beyond the confines of the medical schools.” My mouth had become dry, and I swallowed a glassful of the wine. “Dr. Hunter believed that the limbs and organs of the deceased patient were of more value to his students than to the soil in which they would otherwise lie. There was a young man, one of Dr. Hunter’s assistants, who had a particular interest in the spleen. So-” Armitage stopped, and surprised me with a broad smile. “As we say in Cheapside, Mr. Frankenstein, it passed under the counter.”
“And your father had a particular interest in eyes?”
“He had always possessed perfect eyesight. It was remarked of him at a very early age. He became interested in the subject, as boys do. I do not know if you have in your country the travelling telescope?” I shook my head. “They are set up in the thoroughfare, and for a small sum you can purchase their use for five minutes. There was always one in the Strand. As a boy, my father loved it. So by degrees he became interested in the relationship between the lens and the eye. Do you know that the eye has its own lens, as permeable as a gas bubble?”
“I was aware of it.”
“It is covered by an exceedingly thin and fine film of transparent substance that my father has named the orb tissue.”
“Your father is an experimentalist, then?”
“I do not know if that is the word, Mr. Frankenstein.” Armitage poured us both another glass of wine. “I will tell you another secret. There were occasions when the patient did not die, of course. That was a source of great satisfaction to Dr. Hunter. But it posed another problem.”
“Of what nature?”
“Scarcity, sir.”
“I believe I understand you. Scarcity of corpses. The readies.”
“It is not a subject that normally arises in conversation. But it was a constant topic among Dr. Hunter and his assistants.”
“How did it resolve itself?”
“You have heard of the resurrectionists, I suppose?”
“Only by report.”
“They are not much mentioned in the public prints these days. But they operate still.”
I was acquainted with the activities of these grave-robbers, or “resurrection men” as they were more generally known. There had been occasional reports of their activity even in Oxford, but there had been no sensations. They were more active in London, where they dug up the fresh bodies of the lately dead and sold them for large sums to the medical schools. “Dr. Hunter was obliged to use their services?”
Armitage nodded. “Reluctantly. He told my father that if these purloined bodies helped to restore life to others, then he could not wholly regret their use.”
“Life for death is a good bargain.”
“You would be welcome on Cheapside, Mr. Frankenstein. My father agreed with you, and helped to negotiate with the men of the resurrectionist profession. He came to know them very well. He said that not one of them was ever sober.”
“You say that they work still?”
“Of course. It is a family trade. They frequent certain inns, where they can be persuaded to-” He raised his hand to his lips, in a gesture of drinking. “Unfortunately there was a trial of one of them, for the theft of a silver crucifix from one of the bodies. He blabbed out the name of Dr. Hunter.”
“And then?”
“It passed over quickly enough. But there was a pamphlet with his name linked to the vampire. You have heard of this entity, Mr. Frankenstein?”
“It is a Magyar superstition. Of no interest.”
“I am glad to hear it. It concerned Dr. Hunter at the time, but his work carried him forward.”
“His work was his life.”
“Yes, indeed. You are very perceptive, if I may say so.” He took some more wine. “You said that you were studying the workings of human life. May I ask what particular aspect interests you?”
I believe that I hesitated for a moment. “I am concerned with the structure of all animals endued with life.”
“To what purpose?”
“I mean to discover the source of that life.”
“But this would include the human frame?”
“I am determined to proceed by degrees, Mr. Armitage.”