8
I HAD ALREADY RETURNED TO MY EXPERIMENTS with renewed enthusiasm after the long absence from my studies. My anger at Bysshe prompted me to work ever more arduously, and to shun all human company so that I could lose myself in my pursuits. I felt myself to be truly alone, having been so signally betrayed by one whom I looked upon as friend and companion. I purchased electrical apparatus from a manufacturer in Mill Street, but I soon realised that the scale of his work was not sufficient. I had made some advances. I had acquainted myself with the coroner of Oxford, a former student of my college. I explained to him that my studies required the use of human specimens, and after some reflection on the matter he agreed to help me in the cause of the advancement of science. He was himself an explorer of natural phenomena, having become interested in geological speculation and the structure of the earth, and so he sympathised with my desire to seek out the sources of life in the human frame. I promised to bring him some Alpine rocks after my next visit to Geneva.
I still used the barn in Headington for my experiments and, in the quiet of the evening, the coroner’s two servants would bring me the corpses-or, on occasions, the parts of the corpses-which the coroner had viewed that day. They waited while I worked on them through the night, and then returned them to the coroner’s office in Clarendon Street. I paid them liberally-a guinea each-for every visit. I do believe that the English will do anything for money.
I made some startling discoveries in the course of this work. I found a method of passing electricity through the entire human frame so that it seemed to tremble and to quiver. I was also able to transmit an electrical current through the spine of one child that prompted the eyes to open and the mouth to part. I had hoped for some sounds to be manifested by the vocal cords, but in that I was disappointed. Mr. Franklin had already suggested that electricity might be used to revive the heart, in patients just expired, and I had no reason to doubt him. Green shoots can spring from a blasted tree. I remembered the case in Geneva, some years before, when a young girl was pronounced dead after falling from a first-storey window; yet she had been restored to life by the use of the electrical vessel known as the Leyden jar.
The subjects sent to me by the coroner were generally too long gone for any hope of revival, although I nurtured a strange and wild hope when I was presented with an infant lately drowned in the Thames. I had read of drowned men being chafed or pummelled into life, and I believed that the body of an infant still contained the primal fire or the living principle. I drained the excess fluid from a small hole in the abdomen, and then placed the child on tin-foil as a good conductor. I then surrounded her with hermetically sealed jars, making up the Leyden device; there was a crack, as of summer thunder, and to my dismay the infant was dreadfully burned. But there was no life. I believe that I told the coroner that the burns were the discoloration attendant on drowning.
I could not remain in Oxford without arousing suspicion, even though I worked in the remotest corner of Headington. I had bribed the porters to ignore my nocturnal journeys, before the gates of the college were closed, and my return to my rooms after the gates had opened. They believed a woman to be in the case, and I chose not to disabuse them. But they would talk. When the Master called me into his study, for what he called a conversation, I suspected the worst. But I had already come to the conclusion that it was time for my departure. I would not obtain my degree; but with my father dead and an independent fortune bequeathed to me, I really had no need of the initials after my name.
The Master greeted me warmly enough, and we engaged in what the English call “chat.”
“Your tutor tells me that you are following the principles of natural science, Mr. Frankenstein.”
“That is my aim, sir.”
“Do they by chance lead you towards the mystic and the transcendental?”
“I do not understand you.”
“Is there a spiritual aspect?”
“I am a student of the brain and body, not of the soul.”
“This is a Christian university, Mr. Frankenstein. We must always consider the soul.”
He was a tall man, with bald head and pronounced side-whiskers; he offered me a glass of amontillado, which I accepted.
“Have you ever considered, sir, the growth of limbs?” I asked him.
“I beg your pardon?”
“There is some power that forms them in embryo. There is a seed which they contain within their own frame.”
“What has this to do with the soul?”
“It is a question I might put to you, sir. What has it to do with the soul? If we possess such an entity, then surely it must play its part in the formation of the body. It is often said that the eyes are the windows of the soul. Professor Stokes has proved that the eyes are formed in the womb.”
“Our knowledge is finite, Mr. Frankenstein.”
“Oh, but I wish to stretch it. I wish to travel further in every sense.”
“I do not follow you.”
“There is no other way of telling you this, sir. I have determined to leave Oxford. I must thank you for your kindness, and I can say with some certainty that this has been the most formative epoch of my life.”
We shook hands. I must say that I had never been more delighted to leave anyone’s presence: the Master represented all the weight of the dead learning that I wished to shake off.
Within a week I had packed all my belongings, tipped a tearful Florence, and hired a coach to London. I set off in the highest spirits, convinced that I was about to fashion a new world. In the solitude of the carriage I recited some lines from Lord Byron as we passed through the village of Acton:
“’Tis to create, and in creating live
A being more intense, that we endow
With form and fancy, gaining as we give
The life we image…”
In my search for life, I believed that I was about to re-create myself.
ON ARRIVING IN JERMYN STREET I hired a young day porter, whose stand was in the little path beside the church, to take my parcels and my other belongings to my set of rooms on the third floor. It was the top storey of the building, but he performed the task without the usual complaint and bluster of the English working man. I discovered his name to be Frederick, or Fred, and I was so taken by his eager and enthusiastic manner that I wished to learn more of him. He could have been no more than thirteen or fourteen. “Well, Fred, how is your trade?”
“So-so, sir. It could be worse. It could be better. There is no telling.” He had a mournful manner of speaking, but then he smiled as if all were a great comedy.
“How did you come by it?”
“Inheritance, sir. My father was porter here all of his life. He dropped down dead while lifting a donkey out of its traces. Terrible event.” Then he smiled again.
“When was this?”
“Three months ago. I stood at his post the very same afternoon. My mother told me it was my station in life. She says it runs in the family.”
“Do you have a brother who could take over from you?”
“Several of them, sir. All willing.”
“Then I would like to offer you another post.”
“In another street, sir?”
“No. I mean to say, I would like to offer you another position. Would you care to be my servant here?” He looked at me, and took off his cap. “Your duties will be light. I am alone in the world.”
“Where would I sleep, sir?”
“There is a small room at the end of this passage. It looks over the alley.”
“The well-beloved alley.” He seemed relieved by my answer. “I would be what they call a general boy, sir?”
“You would prepare my meals. Lay out my clothes. And so forth.”
“I would run errands, would I?”
“Naturally.” He smiled broadly. “You would be my factotum, Fred.”