I called upon Hayman at the offices of the Convex Light Company in Abchurch Lane. Here I explained to him the injury to the equipment he had constructed for me-blaming once more the activities of the scuffle-hunters-and asked his help in restoring it. Then I asked him the question that most concerned me. “Have you debated, sir, on the possibilities of a negative fluid?”
“You will have to be more precise, Mr. Frankenstein.”
“What I mean is this. We believe the electrical fluid to be transmitted in wave form, do we not?”
“That is the theory. Although some deem it to be comprised of particles.”
“Let us assume it to be waves. Would I be right in conceiving of these waves, in effect, as a series of curves?”
“You are close. I am convinced that there are innumerable magnetic curves, packed so closely together that they seem to form an indivisible line.”
“But each curve could in theory be traced and measured?”
“In theory.”
“It would have a high point and a low point?”
“There will be parabolic and hyperbolic arcs.”
“Precisely my meaning. And what, Mr. Hayman, if they were reversed?”
“You astonish me, Mr. Frankenstein. It would entirely change the nature of the electrical fluid. But it could not be done. The laws of physical science stand in the way.”
“I am used to defying such laws.”
“Truly?”
“I mean only that like you I wish to make advances in our knowledge of the world. All physical laws are provisional, are they not?”
“How far have you proceeded, sir, with your original research?”
I had told him, in the course of our earlier conversations, that by means of the electrical fluid I wished to restore life and energy to animal tissue. “I have made some small steps,” I replied. “I have found it possible to restore animation to certain fish. But for a short time only.”
“Carry on with the work, Mr. Frankenstein. It is of the utmost interest and importance to the rest of us. Be assured of that.”
He agreed to visit the Limehouse workshop on the following Sunday, and to assist me in the restoration of the broken equipment. On his arrival, as I had hoped, he concluded that the damage could be repaired without undue effort; in fact, he began the task at once. “Sunday,” he said, “is my day for private working. I gain strength from it. Work is my church.”
“I am glad to hear it, Mr. Hayman. There is much to be done.” He worked tirelessly throughout the day, carefully testing and retesting every constituent of the electrical columns.
“It is fortunate,” he said, “the original elements are so sturdy. Their assembly is helped immensely by their durability.”
“That is your genius, sir. You were the artificer.”
“Genius has nothing to do with it. Just common sense, sir. And practice. It resolves all knots.” I knew that to be the English way. Yet I believed also that passion, and imagination, had their place in the investigation of science. What is a natural philosopher without vision? “I have been considering, Mr. Frankenstein, your questions on the electrical fluid. You recall that you asked me the effects of the waves being reversed, as it were?”
“I do indeed.”
“I have done the mathematics. And in theory there should be no discernible difference in the nature of the fluid. But its direction would be utterly changed. It would flow inward rather than outward.”
“How is that possible?”
“This is the puzzle. What, in this case, is inward? Does it mean that it would return into itself? But, since we do not understand its nature, the concept is meaningless to us. Does it mean that it would harbour its powers in some infinitely small space? Then it might pose an extreme hazard. Or would it change its nature and become some wholly new and unknown force? Here I will leave common sense behind, Mr. Frankenstein. I thank God it will never be accomplished. It might wreak unexampled havoc on the world.”
“And you believe that it cannot be done?”
“Undoubtedly. Faraday himself could not accomplish it.”
He had not completed the work, by the end of that day, and he pledged to return on the following Sunday. I spent the intervening days in intense study of the electrical phenomena; I visited the library of the Royal Society, where I was shown the latest treatises of Hans Oersted and Joseph Henry; I studied the details of the Wimshurst Machine and the Electric Rocking Machine. In the last few months Oersted had in fact published his experiments on what he called the “magneto-electrical field,” having created trials in which a magnetic needle had moved at right angles to a current of the electrical fluid. Could the power and direction of the current thus be measured and, if measured, changed? The mighty Newton had observed that to every action there is an equal and opposite reaction-could not the power of magnetism therefore change the direction of the fluid?
On the following Sunday Hayman completed the work. He had added further refinements, too, in the capacity of the voltaic batteries and in the substitution of bitumen for some of the wax and resin. “I hope you can continue your work in peace,” he said. “There are many who fear the electrical fluid. They deem it to be monstrous. An attempt to distort God’s laws.”
“I have no intention of creating a monster, Mr. Hayman. Quite the opposite.”
After he had gone I sat down upon the long wooden table restored by the workmen. Here the creature had risen from death. It was here that he would be once more returned to silence and darkness. I heard the sound of the Thames as the tide came up, lapping against the wooden piles of the landing stage, and for the first time it afforded me the sensation of expectancy and hope.
17
THE PENNY-A-LINERS had not been idle. Two days after our return from Marlow there had been reports in the London newspapers of the “unexampled tragedy” and “terrible misadventure” that had befallen Bysshe. The details of Martha’s death were recounted in some detail, with particular attention to the “foul creature” and “fiendish villain” seen at Mary’s window; but this news was swiftly followed by further and more sensational reports of Harriet’s death at the Serpentine. The coincidence of these deaths in water led some public prints to question the competence of the constabulary in London and the adjacent counties; but others, such as the Mercury and the Advertiser, had somehow acquired the information that Bysshe had been sent down from Oxford on the charge of atheism. The writers of these journals suggested, though they did not state, that the two murders might be construed as a terrible warning to the unbeliever Shelley. “How a merciful God,” Bysshe said to me on his first visit to Jermyn Street after Marlow, “could arrange the death of two young women for my benefit-is quite beyond me. It would be as good a reason for atheism as any I have proposed myself.”
“Pay no attention. These papers are forgotten in an hour.”
“I have absolutely no regard for them, Victor. I read them as comedy. I recite them to Mary, with all the actions and attitudes of the zany.”
“How is Mary?”
“How is she? She is sweet. She is lovely. She is witty. She is wise beyond her sex. Anything else you wish me to add?”