“What do you mean, Fred, yes and no?”
“Yes, he drinks. And no, he don’t drink in that way.” He pretended to stagger and fall.
“It is good of you to say so.”
“Thank you, sir. I do my best.”
I HAD NO INTENTION of visiting Bysshe and Harriet while my work continued. I could no more prepare myself for society than if I had spent the past months in the frozen wastes of the Arctic. Ever since the resurrectionists had first visited me at Limehouse they had plied a busy trade. I had more need than ever of their services since I was intent upon testing every fibre and muscle of the human frame for its electrical potential. I had learned that the muscles of the leg were at first most resistant to the power, but that a slight repositioning of the metal strip above the tarsal bone worked wonders with movement and flexibility. The bones and ligaments of the human hand were highly responsive to the electrical fluid, and I discovered that a slight contact with the various carpal bones set off a frenzy of fluttering and trembling. The carotidal and vertebral arteries were also a source of much satisfaction to me, being highly delicate and flexible when charged. So by degrees I devised an electrical map of the human body.
I had more success than I expected on the transplantation of limbs. I believed that all the emanations of the human body possessed an innate living principle, seeking as well as manifesting life, taking energy and animation from whatever source was available. The late John Hunter had excelled at what he called the transplanting of teeth, from the mouth of a healthy young sweep to the decaying jaw of a London merchant, and I saw no reason to deny the principle to the arm or to the leg. In the Limehouse workshop I removed two arms from the body of a young man by means of surgical amputation, and then quickly stitched them onto the torso of an elderly specimen who, as Boothroyd informed me, had expired of the dropsy. When I applied the electrical charge the hands and forearms worked as if they were in perfect order, with no sign of dropsical trembling; he continued to clench his fists, and raise his palms outward, for the duration of the experiment. When I repeated the procedure, I observed the same movements executed with a slight increase of motion. I was curious to see the extent of the change if I altered the rate and rapidity of the charge, and to my surprise the hands began to communicate with each other-so to speak-by the touching of the fingertips. There was a defined pattern of movement, so much like sign language that I had the strangest sensation of being signalled by the cadaver in front of me. Was it possible that the young man, whose hands and arms had been severed, was skilled in the gestures of the dumb?
My principal concern was with the cerebrum, and with the excitation of sight, hearing and speech. I had isolated the electrical lobe, and in a series of trials I endeavoured to trace the paths of its influence. Much to my delight I soon discovered that it affected the visual and aural nerves equally, and that the vocal cords were stimulated by the charging of the arytenoid cartilages. I had assumed the larynx to be the responsible agent, but I was wrong. The experiments with hearing were most rewarding. Once the lobe was in an alert state I fired my blunderbuss beside the right ear of the subject; the head jerked to one side, away from the noise. On another occasion I began to whisper, and the head moved forward a fraction towards me. With sight the effects were less distinct. The eyes always opened in a state of electrical excitation, but sometimes they were so dull of hue that I could detect no evidence of a visual ray. In what I deemed to be the more intelligent subjects, however, there was a definite reaction to various stimuli. When I lit a candle in front of the eyes of one cadaver, there was a detectable movement of the pupil; when I blew out the light the pupil dilated. In one experiment I held before the eyes of one young specimen, scarcely more than a boy, a little struggling mouse; his eyes became fixed upon the creature, in the same manner as those of some cadaverous animal intent upon its prey.
In the course of these trials I noticed that, in the corpses of the younger specimens, the phallus became erect at the slightest excitation and remained in a state of alertness for the duration of the electrical charge. In the older bodies this did not occur. My work on the phallus was at first confined to an examination of the three columns of erectile tissue, but I then advanced to an attempt at the measurement of the spermal fluid. By means of the firm pressure of my fingers I brought one body to a state of ejaculation, at which point there came a groan; but no spermatozoa appeared. There was no fluid, but there was instead a sprinkling of material with the appearance and consistency of dust. It may have been a principle of nature that the dead could not bring forth new life. I was not sure, but I was determined to continue the experiment.
As the weeks passed, and the London autumn turned to bitter winter, I was still more ardent in execution and more impatient of difficulties. I was exhausting bodies at a great rate; I kept some of them in the ice-house which I had fashioned in the basement space of the old manufactory, while I discharged others into the Thames with the knowledge that the full tide would carry them downstream where they would join the score of other corpses taken up by the sheriffs of Blackwall or Woolwich; there was a promontory at North Woolwich known as Deadman’s Point, to which many of the bodies of the drowned used to drift. Many more would find their way by stages to the open sea, where all prospect of discovery was of course abandoned. There were a few specimens that I placed in a pit of lime I had created, between the foreshore and my workshop, where the action of the dissolvent soon removed all traces of their existence.
If you ask me if I had any qualms about the nature of my profession, I would answer you with a solemn denial. I did not rank myself with the herd of common projectors, nor did I consider myself to be in the least tainted by my association with the bodies of the dead. There were occasions when I experienced the pains of solitude, of course, and there came upon my mind a sense of loneliness all the more acute from my presence in the teeming city. Solitude is like despair: it has no remedy. The death of Elizabeth had only confirmed what I believed to be my fate in the world. One afternoon I picked up by chance in a coffee-house a copy of the Monthly Magazine and came upon a poem by Bysshe. My attention was immediately arrested by its opening lines:
Youth of tumultuous soul, and haggard eye!
Thy wasted form, thy hurried steps I view
On thy wan forehead starts the lethal dew
And oh! the anguish of that shuddering sigh!
Beside it was a commentary, in smaller type: His countenance told in a strange and terrible language of agonies that had been, and were, and were still to continue to be. I could not help but recall Bysshe’s look of concern when he came to my apartments, but of course I could not credit him with any prophetic skills.
It was in this period that I began my night walks. I pursued the loneliest and most silent ways, but there were moments when I believed that I could hear footsteps behind me echoing on the cobbles. I would start and look over my shoulder, expecting to see a form or the shadow of a form; but I saw nothing at all. The nights of London are gloomy enough, with all of its miserable lives pent up close together, but for a melancholy man they are an emanation or reflection of his own fearfulness. That was at least how I considered them. In the rain I saw strange shapes moving through the streets, obscure and dark, as if they were carrying burdens. On moonlit nights every sound seemed to be magnified, and a sudden cry or laugh would make me shudder. On such nights, too, the shadows were longer and more intense. Sometimes I stopped on the threshold of a courtyard, or an alley, and peered into the darkness; then a figure would suddenly appear, or pass quickly from one corner to another, and I would step back.