by Cindy Winget
“After the frog has been pithed, meaning to sever the spinal cord, you are then ready to reveal a muscle for testing. One of the largest and, therefore, easiest muscles to obtain is the femoris of the upper leg, as I have done here.” He indicated his own frog lying upon the table.
Upon standing and retrieving his specimen, Victor was relieved to observe that the bucket did not contain a live frog, croaking and blinking up at him, but rather a deceased frog floating on his back in a few inches of water.
As Van Helsing handed him his bucket, he called out to the class, “Be sure to keep the muscle of the leg wet. If it dries out, it becomes useless. Edward, will you pass these out, please?” Van Helsing handed the young man a stack of pans. “And, Reginald, will you pass out these?” he handed another boy a bundle of tools.
Louder, Van Helsing said, “Place the frog in a clean dissecting pan. For future reference, be sure that neither the pan nor dissecting instruments have been contaminated with preservatives and remember to rinse the specimen off first. In this case, I have already done so for you. With forceps, lift the skin from one thigh and cut the skin completely around the leg using scissors. Then pull the cut end back and peel the skin off the leg. Be careful not to touch the outer surface of the frog’s skin to the muscle tissues or to touch your hands to the muscle as poisons may still be present on the frog’s skin and may damage some of the muscle cells.”
As Van Helsing continued to explain the procedure, Victor did as he was told and was gratified when the leg of the frog twitched into the upright position as Van Helsing’s had. He took copious notes while playing around with getting other muscles of the frog to twitch or convulse.
After class, Van Helsing came up and revealed to Victor that he had recently discovered that the nephew of Luigi Galvani was coming to London in order to perform a human demonstration of his uncle’s work.
“You really must attend,” Van Helsing told him.
He didn’t have to tell Victor twice, for upon hearing this, there was nothing that could have prevented him from attending.
*****
The appointed day arrived, and Victor prevailed upon Van Helsing to accompany him.
“How can you call yourself an anatomy professor and a disciple of Galvanism and yet not attend?”
“I have far too much work to do today, Victor. I applaud your desire in wanting to see it, as I think you should, but I myself am far too busy.”
“Oh pish-posh! Your work can wait. This is a singular event that may never again happen upon our doorstep.”
“But it is several leagues away. The carriage ride alone would take—”
“Never mind about that. With me for company, it will seem but a mile.”
“Oh, all right, you insolent boy,” groused Van Helsing good-naturedly.
The journey was not as long and strenuous as Van Helsing had alluded, and they had a marvelous time talking. Victor was once again grateful to have found such a friend in Van Helsing. As delightful as Jonathan and Jack were, it was nice to talk to a fellow scientist who had all the same interests as Victor.
They alighted from the carriage and stepped onto the cobblestone streets of London. It had recently rained and there was a mist that shrouded the streets in a hazy gloom. Van Helsing wore a long overcoat, which he pulled close against the chill weather. Victor stepped around him and headed toward Newgate Prison, where the demonstration was to be held.
“Why do you think that he is doing his demonstration at a prison?” Victor asked Van Helsing.
He looked at Victor with surprise. “I would have thought the reason was obvious.”
Victor thought about it a moment. “You don’t mean to tell me that he is performing his demonstration on a convict?”
Van Helsing nodded in confirmation.
At one point in time, this news would have unsettled Victor and filled him with revulsion; but he had grown accustomed to such gruesome work, having dissected his own fair share of criminals.
“This convict is of particular interest to those who live around here, or so I hear. His name was George Foster, and he was convicted of murdering his wife and daughter—drowned them in Paddington Canal. He was hanged for his crimes, and, as an added punishment, they are allowing Giovanni Aldini to perform his exhibition on Foster’s corpse.”
They knew when they were drawing near because there was a large crowd gathered around the prison.
“Step lively! Come on! Come in closer!” came a voice, presumably Aldini’s.
Victor and Van Helsing managed to wiggle their way to the front of the crowd and had a clear view of the deceased convict’s body.
A hush fell upon the waiting crowd as Aldini picked up two metal rods. “You are all here to witness the miracle of the electro-stimulation technique of deceased limbs, performed upon the recently executed body of George Foster. My Uncle, Luigi Galvani, God rest his soul, has proven time and again that all living organisms are quickened, and their living movements made possible by the body’s production of electricity. I am here to inform you that such phenomena does not cease in death. Death only robs our body’s ability to produce electricity, but with some outside stimulation, our dead muscles may once again be constrained to move.”
Aldini inserted one of the metal rods he held into the left ear of George Foster. The other he placed on the convict’s tongue. He then turned on an electrical machine similar to that used in Van Hesling’s classroom. Upon the first application of the process to the face, the jaws of the deceased began to quiver, and the adjoining muscles were horribly contorted. One eye actually began to open.
Many of the people around Victor gasped in horror and disgust, but as for Victor, he looked on in fascination.
Aldini then made an incision upon the body’s arm, flaying the skin and flapping it over to reveal the muscles underneath. The same process Victor himself had used on the frog was then applied to the arm of George Foster, but unlike the frog, his death was recent enough that bright red blood dribbled down the arm and dripped upon the cobblestone street. As the electric current charged through the muscles of the arm, it began to lift and the hand was actually made to clench.
A woman next to Victor seemed liable to faint. She was pale, her eyes wide as she looked on. Her husband, who stood next to her, wrapped a comforting arm around her.
The process was subsequently done to the large muscle of the thigh as well. Much like the frog from class, the leg was set in motion.
When the demonstration was complete and the crowd began to disperse, Van Helsing was kind enough to procure the published book of Luigi Galvani’s work for him. Victor devoured it as a starving man devoured bread. This book held a power over him as no other had before. Not even Agrippa in his youth had held him so spellbound. For three days, he did nothing but read. When he emerged from that book, there was in him a voracious thirst for knowledge the likes of which he had never felt before. He then procured for himself the complete work of Humphry Davy and William Nicholson, the world’s leading electrical researchers.
He was convinced that he, Victor Frankenstein, was going to be the man hailed by science as the first man to discover the origin of life, and this new science of Galvanism was going to help him on his way to greatness.
Chapter Seven
With the stipend Victor received each month from his father, he set up a lab not far from the College and went to work. He spent all his time and energy on his new project. He was about to undertake such a venture that would exalt him to the realm of the gods. An entire race of beings may very well one day owe eternal gratitude to him for their very existence. He would create such a figure, that it would surpass mere ordinary mortals. His Adam would be more of an Adonis. A Hercules. A man among men, so perfect in form that others would weep for a single glimpse of him, and the fact that he was man-made, rather than divinely appointed would throw a wrench into every theology and give science its proper place in this world.
He was no theologian. His mother wa
s religious, although she did not believe in organized religion, and his father, as far as he knew, professed no religious affiliation of any kind. Victor’s childhood was therefore bereft of any religious attitudes. He knew that both his mother and Elizabeth prayed, but having never done so himself, he had little qualms about “stepping on God’s toes” as it were. His agnostic attitude towards religion did little to deter him. Maybe God existed and maybe he didn’t, all Victor knew was that he wanted to make this world as fair and good as he could during his mortal existence upon it, and he intended to rob death of its power.
Now when he visited charnel houses and graves, he was no longer making a study of the deterioration of human flesh. It wasn’t decay that he sought now, but life.
He would visit only those graves that had the freshest of bodies; robbing these poor devils of their parts—heart, lungs, liver, etc.—and taking them back to his laboratory to be put to good use. His study of anatomy had become such that he knew every capillary and piece of tissue that went into making a human being.
Such was the case on a dark night in October, when Victor heard tale of a funeral being held that day for a young man who had been thrown from his horse. Perfect for Victor’s needs. He waited for nightfall and then made his move, hopping the low stone wall that surrounded the local cemetery and making his way toward the newly dug grave, a shovel propped up on his shoulder and a bag full of tools in the other hand. Victor was glad to see that the family had not provided a mortsafe for their deceased loved one. Likely they couldn’t afford it.
Having done this a dozen times before, Victor was less vigilant than he should have been, for as he began to dig, a small rustling of dry leaves alerted him to the presence of something else in the cemetery.
Stopping, Victor listened. When he heard nothing more, he resumed digging, making it to the pinewood coffin. He used the sharp edge of the shovel to pull up the lid that had been nailed shut.
“Who’s there?” called forth a voice from the darkness.
Victor glanced up hastily and saw the faint glow of a lantern. It was still a ways off. If he hurried, he could grab his plunder and make it out of the graveyard before getting caught. If he left now, he would miss his opportunity for fresh parts.
Frantically hoisting the lid off the coffin, Victor began to cut open the unveiled corpse. The body was too heavy to lug away and dissect later at his leisure. He mainly needed three parts, the pancreas, the pelvic bone, and the heart. Working quickly, but precisely—if he accidently cut any part of the heart or pancreas, they would be useless to him—he was able to successfully remove them from the body. He placed each organ in an individual glass jar full of alcohol.
Glancing up, Victor saw that the lantern was much closer. He wouldn’t have time for the pelvic bone, which would take a great deal more time to remove.
“What are you doing out here?” growled the man as he perceived Victor’s shadow in the expanding glow of the lantern’s light.
Victor shoved his tools and the glass jars into his black medical bag and hoisted himself out of the grave. Grabbing up the shovel he began to run.
“Hey! What do you think you are doing, young man!?” shouted the man behind him as he gave chase.
Victor, without glancing behind him, threw the shovel over the stone fence. It hit the ground with a loud thud. Fearing to break the jars, Victor kept a tight grasp on his bag as he leaped over the low stone wall. Once again snatching up the shovel, Victor ran all the way back to his laboratory. He shut and locked the door behind him, gasping for air.
For the next few weeks, he worked feverishly from sunup to sundown, pausing only when the relentless gnawing in his stomach or exhaustion in his muscles demanded that he stop for a few hours to eat and rest. He forgot about everything else. He no longer attended classes and his correspondence to friends and family ceased to be a part of his monthly routine. His mind was wholly focused on one thing and one thing only.
*****
“I am worried for Victor,” Jonathan told Jack.
“Why is that? Has he finally written to you? Is he ill?” Jack asked anxiously in return.
“No. That’s just it. He hasn’t written at all. It has been six months since his last correspondence. Suppose that he is sick? With no one to take care of him.”
“I have written a letter to Abraham Van Helsing, my old professor. I know that he and Victor have become friends. Perhaps he knows something and can tell us if Victor is well.”
“Have you received a reply?”
“Not as of yesterday, but I have not checked the mail today.” Jack gestured to one of his servants, motioning her over.
“Have I received a note from a Mister Van Helsing?”
“I will check, sir.” With a curtsy, she was gone.
“So, Jack. How goes the directorship over at the insane asylum? Does it suit you the way that you had hoped?” Jonathan asked.
“Yes. Quite well. I believe I am making progress with a woman who is convinced that she is the Virgin Mother.”
“How fascinating! I would like to meet her sometime.”
“I am afraid that that would be out of the question. Ah! Thank you, Miss Shaw. It seems Van Helsing has written back to me after all.”
“Read the letter aloud, if you would,” Jonathan implored him.
Jack Seward,
I am ever so glad to hear from you. It has been years since I have seen your face. Even so, as I read your letter, I could still hear the sound of your voice and the way it would rise and fall, depending on the interest you had in the topic being spoken of. You really must make a visit out to King’s College again whenever it is convenient for you.
As to our mutual friend, Victor Frankenstein, I fear that I cannot ease your mind on this point. To my knowledge he is not ill, nor is he injured in any way. I, at first, thought perhaps he pined over a young lady, for he has stopped making appearances at my lectures. However, when I visited him at his lab, he assured me that this was not the case; that he was working on a project that needed his full time and attention. When I pressed him about the particulars of this project, he became very aloof and refused to tell me a single thing about it. He would not even let me set foot inside his laboratory. I can only hope that whatever he is up to isn’t illegal. I will keep a weather eye out, and if I notice any other suspicious behavior or if he seems ill-at-ease, I will be sure to let you know.
Let it be a comfort to you that he appeared to be of reasonably good health, save for dark circles under his eyes, which I attributed to his working too hard. He seemed happy; full of a secret zeal that was wondrous to behold. In light of this, I wouldn’t worry over much about his well-being. You know Victor, once he gets an idea in his head, he sticks to it as bees to honey. I am sure that in time, when his work is finished, he will once again make an appearance in society and resume our friendly interludes.
Sincerely,
Abraham Van Helsing
“Illegal! Surely Victor would not succumb to criminal acts!” Jonathan was quick to say once Jack was finished reading the letter.
Jack, who had been relieved to hear that Victor was in good health, was surprised by Jonathan’s reaction to the letter. “No. I doubt it. Victor is a good boy. Brought up in a fine home with law-abiding parents who obviously love him and never neglected his needs.”
“Don’t give me that psychological drivel! You know very well that criminals are not made solely by those means—creatures deprived of love or neglected in childhood. There are plenty of opportunists out there who were well brought up.”
“Well then. Why don’t we pay dear Victor a visit and see what he is up to?”
“Yes. Just give me one hour to let Mina know. Let us go and demand an explanation from Victor for his neglect.”
When they arrived at King’s College, they found a man overzealous with work and not willing to stop, even for his friends.
“Come Victor, spend an afternoon among friends,” urged Jonathan. “Surely you c
an stop working for one night. You need to socialize more. You are turning into quite the recluse.”
“I am sorry, Jonathan, but my work takes precedence at this time. I am on the verge of something wondrous!”
“Oh really? And what might that be?”
Victor became quiet. In time, he said, “I would rather not say at this time, but be assured that it will change the way we think about life and death.”
“Well, at least let us enter your lab and sit and talk with you for a spell. You can even continue to work while we converse, if you insist.”
Victor appeared overtly uncomfortable with the request.
“What is this you have upon your vest?” Jack asked.
Both Victor and Jonathan looked to where Jack indicated. There was a dark smear upon Victor’s garment.
Once again, Victor did not respond right away. In time, he said, “It would appear as though I have spilt a bit of supper on my vest. Raspberry jam, perhaps.”
“If I didn’t know any better, I would say that it’s dried blood,” Jack replied.
Victor’s face seemed to grow pale. This was not missed by the ever-observant Doctor Seward. “Is that what this spill truly is?”
Victor gave a sigh of resignation and nodded. He pushed open the door, inviting the two men to step into his laboratory.
Upon entering the room, Jonathan let out a gasp of horror. “Victor! What have you done!”
Realizing the assumption that Jonathan had leapt to, Victor was quick to assure him, “It is all right friend, I have done no man any harm.”
The reason for Jonathan’s alarm came into focus, and Jack saw a man laying upon a metal table. Only the bottom half of him was missing and he was terribly disfigured.
“Van Helsing tells us that you have stopped attending his lectures,” Jack said, looking back toward Victor. “Are you performing autopsies or dissection on your own?”
