“Why did you kill her?” I asked him.
“I wished you to notice me.”
“What?”
“I wished you to think of me. To consider my plight.”
“By killing Harriet?”
“I knew then that you would not be able to throw me off. To disdain me.”
“Have you no conscience?”
“I have heard the word.” He smiled, or what I took to be a smile passed across his face. “I have heard many words for which I do not feel the sentiment here.” He tapped his breast. “But you understand that, do you not, sir?”
“I cannot understand anything so devoid of principle, so utterly malicious.”
“Oh, surely you have some inkling? I am hardly unknown to you.” I realised then that his was the voice of youth-of the youth he had once been-and that a cause of horror lay in the disparity between the mellifluous expression and the distorted appearance of the creature. “You have not lost your memory, I trust?”
“I wish to God I had.”
“God? That is another word I have heard. Are you my God?”
I must have given an expression of disdain, or disgust, because he gave out a howl of anguish in a manner very different from the way he had conversed. With one sudden movement he picked up the great oaken table, lying damaged upon the floor, and set it upright. “You will remember this. This was my cradle, was it not? Here was I rocked. Or will you pretend that the river gave me birth?” He took a step towards me. “You were the first thing that I saw upon this earth. Is it any wonder that your form is more real to me than that of any other living creature?”
I turned away, in disgust at myself for having created this being. But he misunderstood my movement. He sprang in front of me, with a celerity unparalleled. “You cannot leave me. You cannot shut out my words, however distasteful they may be to you. Were you covered by oceans, or buried in mountains, you would still hear me.” He paused. “I am not devoid of intelligence. Perhaps you made sure of that?”
“I had hoped,” I said in utter sorrow and weariness of spirit, “that you would be a natural man.”
“There now. I have you. You have confirmed what I have long since discovered. You are indeed responsible for my being.” I inclined my head, but my silence was for him assurance enough. “Did I ask you to mould me? Did I solicit you to take me from the darkness?” I could not bring myself to look at him. “Do you hear the blast of the cold wind? To me it is a sweet whisper that lulls me to sleep.” When I looked up at him, he was kneeling upon the floor in a state of abject desolation; if ever I might have felt pity for him, it was at that moment. Once again he exhibited some preternatural awareness of my own thoughts, for he turned and stared at me for a time. “So you have pity on me,” he said, “as I will have pity on you.”
“I do not need your pity.”
“Not need pity? You are the guilty agent of my misfortunes. I did not seek for life, nor did I make myself. Thou art the man!” With that phrase he pointed at me, and his quivering finger seemed to be aimed at my heart. Under the powerful force of his gaze I bowed my head once more and wept. “You may weep now,” he said. “You will weep again.”
I do not know how long we sat in silence together, with only the sound of the wind and the chaffing of the river as companions. Eventually he roused himself and walked towards the door overlooking the Thames. “Look,” he said, “even the rats fly from my approach. The fear I inspire in these creatures was the first evidence of my existence when I left this place, on the cold and howling night of my birth. I will tell you the story, sir. You should know what you yourself have made.”
14
“I HAD THE SENSATION THAT I had come out of darkness, but I did not understand the nature of that darkness. Then there was light and warmth, an infinite comfort and delight as if I lay suspended in some voluptuous medium. I believe then that I uttered my first sounds.”
“You sang.”
“Was that singing? The sounds emerged from within my form, as if all the fibres of my being were coming out in harmony for the first time. I was in a state of the utmost excitement. Here.” He touched his genitals without any sense of shame or embarrassment. “And then I saw you. I believe that I knew at once that you were my author, that you had transmitted life into my own frame. I did not experience any sensation of gratitude, however, but one of curiosity. What was this breath and motion with which I was endowed? At that moment the world could show me no greater marvel than my own existence: yet I did not know what it was to exist! I believe that you said something to me-some imprecation, some refusal-yet to me your strange voice seemed to issue from the darkness that I had lately escaped. It was as dark and hollow as an echo. I turned from you. It was not fear. Believe me, I hardly know what fear is. It was wonder. I saw beyond the confines of this place a great river, and a world. I sensed the ocean beyond. I sensed life.
“I recall then plunging into the water, in which I moved as if it were my natural element. I knew-by what means, I cannot say-that I was going in the direction of the open sea, and I exulted in my speed and agility. I did not feel the cold; or rather I did not know the meaning of the cold. The water seemed to be alive, too, and to welcome my presence; it flowed across my limbs, and lifted me onwards. So within a short time I had reached the sea. Then I ducked and dived within its waves in the sheer joy of my nature. But a sailing boat approached me. When I came above the water the men on the vessel showed such signs of terror and of horror that one of them threw himself overboard in an effort to escape me, and from the others issued screams and oaths that persuaded me I was not of their kind. You may ask how I was aware of such things, being only recently thrust into the world; I believe now that the mind is a creative power that gives as much as it receives. Like the power of speech, it came to me unbidden.
“I grew weary of the dim expanse of the ocean, and eventually I made my journey back towards the land. On some instinct I made my way here, returning to the place of my origin. You had gone, I discovered, but all the instruments of your art were around me. You may believe that I destroyed them out of fury and resentment at my making. Not so. I threw them down, and scattered them, from the fear that through their agency I might be sent back-that I might be returned to that state of non-being from which I had come. I took your hat and coat then, to shield my nakedness and desolation from the eyes of others, and tried to find a place apart from human habitation. I came upon a lonely path by the shoreline of the river and I met no one for some miles until, just before dawn, I saw a solitary traveller walking ahead of me. I was moving very rapidly along the path, endowed as I seem to be with great strength and nimbleness, and it was only a few moments before he sensed my presence. I stopped and went down to the water’s edge, so that I might not alarm him further. In your hat and cloak I managed to escape detection, but with quickened step he wandered off the path into a neighbouring field. Some instinct had moved him. I walked on until I came to an area I now know to be the estuary, a place of marsh and pasture that seemed to be a wilderness. But there in the distance, beyond some trees and a deep brook, I glimpsed a light. I approached slowly and saw that it came from a solitary dwelling. There was a thatched barn beside it, a rough stone building with one opening; as I came over to it, having easily overstepped the brook, I felt the need for shelter and repose. Yes, even I must rest. I had grown weary after my journey, and to my relief I found the place empty. There was a ladder that afforded access to a small loft or alcove in which straw had been placed; here I lay down and slept.