Frankenstein

by Spike Milligan

  I am preparing to depart. I am going to unexplored regions, ‘to the land of mist and snow’; but I shall kill no albatross, therefore do not be alarmed for my safety. If you see an albatross, he can be one I did not kill.

  So, dear sister, continue to write to me by every opportunity and don’t forget to enclose the postal orders.

  Your affectionate brother,

  Robert Walton

  LETTER III

  To Mrs Saville, England.

  July 7th, 17––.

  My dear Sister,

  I write a few lines in haste to say that I am safe. My men are bold and apparently firm of purpose. But the floating sheets of ice that continually pass us, indicating the dangers of the region towards which we are advancing, appear to dismay them. They all shrink from their posts and huddle together in fear, many crossing themselves. Why not? They have crossed everybody else.

  My swelling heart involuntarily pours itself out thus. The doctor says it’s a vascular leak. But I must finish. Heaven bless my beloved sister.

  R.W.

  P.S. Please keep sending the postal orders.

  LETTER IV

  To Mrs Saville, England.

  August 5th, 17––.

  So strange an accident has happened to us. My seamen groaned. A strange sight attracted our attention. We perceived a low carriage, fixed on a sledge and drawn by dogs, pass on towards the north at the distance of half a mile but which had the shape of a man, apparently of gigantic stature. He was smoking a cigarette. He sat in the sledge and guided the dogs. We watched the rapid progress of the traveller with our telescopes until he was lost among the distant inequalities of the ice.

  In the morning I went on deck and found all the sailors busy on one side of the vessel, apparently talking to someone in the sea. It was a sledge, like that we had seen before, which had drifted towards us in the night on a large fragment of ice. Only one dog remained alive; but there was a human being with it. He was not, as the other traveller seemed to be, a savage inhabitant. When I appeared on deck, the master said, “Here is our captain, and he will not allow you to perish on the open sea. Come aboard and he will give you beans on toast and Horlicks.”

  On perceiving me, the stranger addressed me in English, although with a foreign accent. “Before I come on board,” said he, “will you have the kindness to inform me whither you are bound.”

  I replied that we were on a voyage of discovery, in search of heaven, and if he came aboard I would give him beans on toast and Horlicks.

  Upon hearing this he came aboard. Good God! Margaret, if you had seen the man who thus capitulated for his safety…His limbs were frozen, and his body dreadfully emaciated by cold and fatigue; his penis had snapped off. I never saw a man in so wretched a condition. We attempted to carry him into the cabin, but as soon as he had quitted the fresh air he fainted! We accordingly brought him back to the deck, and restored him to animation by rubbing him with brandy and forcing him to swallow a small quantity. He forced himself to swallow quite a large quantity. As soon as he showed signs of life, we wrapped him up in blankets and placed him near the chimney of the kitchen stove. By slow degrees he recovered and ate at great speed some of the beans on toast. We had to stand clear of him.

  Two days passed in this manner before we could get close enough to speak. Then, when my guest was a little recovered, I had trouble keeping off the men who wished to ask him a thousand questions – What’s the Pope’s inside leg measuirement? What’s your blood group? Have you ever had prostate trouble? Do you like beans on toast and Horlicks? The lieutenant asked why he had come so far off the ice.

  “To seek the one who fled from me.”

  “And did the man who you pursued travel in the same fashion?”

  “Yes.”

  “Then I fancy we have seen him, for the day before we picked you up, we saw some dogs drawing a sledge, with a man in it, across the ice. He was huge, he would have knocked the shit out of you.”

  This aroused the stranger. Alone with me he said, “Thank you for having rescued me from a strange and perilous situation.”

  “Oh it is nothing,” I said, “we are only charging you for bed and breakfast.”

  August 19th, 17––.

  Dear Sister,

  The stranger, whose name is Victor Frankenstein, is still travelling on the ship with me and his intellect is very satisfying; he speaks two languages – good and bad. He has told me that he will tell me his story and commence his narrative tomorrow when I am at leisure. Please keep sending the postal orders.

  Yours,

  Robert

  My father was very attracted to children from the hills

  He found this blonde beauty, she was called Jill

  He adopted her and took her to Rome

  Where she proceeded to eat them out of house and bloody home.

  CHAPTER I

  I am by birth a Genevese. I was brought up by the Christian Brothers and I was brought down by Mrs Doris Munger of Lewisham. My ancestors had been for many years counsellors and syndics and my father had filled several public situations: (1) he was a lavatory attendant (2) he was a dustman and (3) a street sweeper, posts which he served with honour and reputation. He was respected by all who knew him. He passed his younger days perpetually occupied by affairs of his country. He had quite a few himself until he was caught.

  A variety of circumstances had prevented his marrying early – he was ugly. It was not until the decline of life that he became a husband and the father of a family.

  As the circumstances of his marriage illustrate his character, he married a nymphomaniac. One of his most intimate friends was a merchant from a flourishing state, who fell through numerous mischances – one was a coal hole. He had back trouble. People who borrowed money never gave it back. This man, whose name was Beaufort, and his great grandfather had invented the solid-lead violin for the deaf. He was of proud and unbending disposition and could not bear to live in poverty and oblivion in the same country where he had formerly been a distinguished dustman. Having paid his debts with cheques stamped RTD – his one heirloom – he took to wearing a diamond-studded jock strap. He had to retreat because he lived unknown and in wretchedness.

  My father loved Beaufort with the truest friendship. He bitterly deplored the false pride which led his friend to a conduct so little worthy of the affection that united them. He lost no time in endeavouring to seek him out. He went round the streets with a stop watch, ringing a bell and shouting, “Beaufort, for Christ’s sake where are you man?”

  Beaufort had taken effectual measures to conceal himself: he painted himself black and it was ten months before the paint wore off. My father discovered his abode and hastened to the house. But when he entered, misery and despair alone welcomed him. Beaufort had saved but a very small sum of money from the wreck of his fortunes but it was sufficient to provide him with sustenance, which was all he ate. He was so poor that he had the arse out of not his but somebody else’s trousers. At length his grief took so fast hold of his mind that at the end of three months he lay on a bed of sickness, incapable of any exertion except to play the trombone.

  Caroline Beaufort possessed a mind of an uncommon mould: it was back to front, but her courage rose to support her in her adversity. She procured plain work; she plaited straw blankets. She plaited a straw blanket for her father; she earned a sustenance.

  Several months passed in this manner. Her father smoked and set fire to his straw blanket. Her father grew worse. Her time was entirely occupied in attending him and his trombone. Her means of subsistence decreased and in the tenth month her father died in her arms, leaving her an orphan and a beggar, a terrible inheritance. The orphan was adopted but they told the beggar to ‘bugger off. The last blow overcame her, and she knelt by Beaufort’s coffin weeping. When my father entered the chamber it was flooded. He came like a protecting spirit to the poor girl and her magnificent bosom. After the interment of his friend he conducted her to Geneva, and placed her u
nder the protection of a relation. Two years later, he shot his wife. Caroline and her magnificent boobs then became his wife.

  They seemed to grow in their bonds of devoted affection. There was a sense of justice in my father’s upright mind which rendered it necessary that he should approve highly in order to love strongly. He did it to her six times a day; then he would rest for a fortnight. During former years he had suffered from the late-discovered unworthiness of one beloved, and so was disposed to set a greater value on tried worth. He put a value of £100 on his beloved. Of course he did not know about the liaison between his wife and the milkman – he just wondered why they had not had a milk bill for a year. He strove to shelter her so, as a fair exotic is sheltered by the gardener from every rougher wind, he bought her an umbrella and he had a fence built round her to protect her. Her health and even the tranquillity of her hitherto constant spirit had been shaken by what she had gone through. She had gone through £10,000. During the two years that had elapsed previous to their marriage, my father had gradually relinquished all his public functions – railway guard, hotel porter and tallyman.

  They travelled to Italy, they visited Germany, France and Bexhill-on-Sea. Their eldest child was born in Naples. For several years I was the only child. Much as they were attached to each other (they were joined at the hip) they seemed to draw inexhaustible stores of affection from a very mine of love to bestow on me. Yes that was it – I was a plaything and when they got tired of that, their idol, and as a last resort, they used me as a child. During every hour of my infant life I received the lessons of patience (for this I was locked in a cupboard for an hour), charity (they made me give them all my pocket money) and, finally, karate lessons.

  For a long time, apart from the rent, I was their only expense. Occasionally, to prove my progress I would fell my father with a karate chop to the neck.

  My mother often used to visit the poor. I didn’t understand – we were the poor. To my mother this was more than a duty. For her to act in her turn the guardian angel to the afflicted was a great act in itself, and she travelled the halls with it. One house she visited contained some neglected children. It spoke of penury in the worst shape. In fact, one of the children spoke, “This is penury in its worst shape.” Among the children was a very thin girl, fair with hair the brightest gold colour. It seemed to set a crown of distinction on her head. She had blue eyes.

  When my father returned from Milan he found in the hall of our villa a child fairer than a pictured cherub – a creature who seemed to shed radiance from her looks and whose form and motions were lighter than the chamois of the hills. And, above all, she had good drainage. It would be unfair to keep her in poverty when we could give her a better quality of poverty. Her name was Elizabeth. Everyone loved her, even Lord Palmerston and Lord Nelson; everyone had the most reverential attachment, which was attached to her side. On the morning her parents presented Elizabeth to me as a promised gift, she arrived gift wrapped.

  CHAPTER II

  We were brought up together, only one inch separated us. I was capable of a more intense application and was deeply smitten with a thirst for knowledge. I got her to play doctors and nurses. At heart I was a dirty little devil. She busied herself with following the aerial creations of the poets. “The nightingale. Blessed bard death wasn’t meant for thee.” Now let some other bloody bird snuff it. It was summer, the brilliant sun, the flowers and cow pats, and Elizabeth pursued the world of nature. What causes elephants? I had never had them so I couldn’t answer her.

  On the birth of a second son, my parents gave up their wandering life and fixed themselves in their native country using contact glue. We possessed a villa in Venice. When we visited there I forgot and as I opened the back door I stepped straight into the canal. My parents’ lives had passed into considerable seclusion. He locked himself in the loo all day and she locked herself in the attic all night. I united myself in the bonds of a close friend; he had a hundred pounds’ worth. Henry Clerval was a boy of singular talents. He could play hop-scotch, and above all he liked whipping. He read books of chivalry, romance and Sade and he composed heroic songs: “I’ve got a heroic bunch of coconuts, see them all standing in a row, big ones, little ones, ones as big as your head, etc., etc.” He liked characters – King Arthur and his Round Table, the one he had breakfast on. He wanted to shed blood to redeem the Holy Sepulchre from the Infidels which meant Saladin, who beat the shit out of the Crusaders.

  Saladin was fighting for Jerusalem

  He said the city belonged to him

  He and his calvary charged the city

  But they missed, ‘twas such a pity.

  My parents were possessed by a generous spirit, usually 90% proof Famous Grouse.

  My temper was sometimes violent and I was given to swinging a cat round and round my head in a room just to prove there was enough space to swing one. I was trying to solve the physical secrets of the world: did Queen Victoria have thin legs? and did John Brown wear anything under the kilt?

  Clerval was desperate to be a horse in the charge of the Light Brigade. To this effect he went around wearing a saddle on his back and charging imaginary Russian guns.

  I had exquisite pleasure in dwelling on the recollections of my childhood – a bottle, my potty, and my crap-filled nappy.

  One day we went to the baths near Thonon. The inclement weather obliged us to remain a day, confined to the inn. I chanced to find a volume of the works of Cornelius Agrippa. I opened it; a new light seemed to dawn upon my mind. I communicated my discovery to my father who said, “Ah, Cornelius Agrippa. My dear Victor, do not waste your time upon this crap.” Apparently, Agrippa’s theories were crap and had been entirely exploded – which blew his leg off.

  I found Cornelius Agrippa’s book

  I thought I’d have a look

  He opened up my mind

  He did it from behind

  I’ve still got the scar

  Which can be seen from afar.

  When I returned home my first care was to procure what works were left of this author. They consisted of a wooden leg and Paracelsus and Albetus Magnus. I read and studied the wild fancies of these writers – most of them fancied women with big tits. I always came from my studies discontented and unsatisfied. Sir Isaac Newton said he felt like a child picking up shells beside the ocean but never finding one. So? I had gazed upon the fortifications and impediments that seemed to keep human beings from entering the citadel of nature, and rashly and ignorantly I had repined. [This is a lot of bollocks. Ed.]

  So once a year

  Scientists went 100 feet down in a sphere

  They ran out of air

  So they got out of there

  One tried holding his breath

  This brought on his death.

  But here were books and here were men who had penetrated deeper and knew no more. Some had descended to a depth of 300 fathoms but couldn’t hold their breath any longer and had to ascend having proved bugger all. I was self-taught with regard to my favourite studies; hunchbacks and fairies. My father was not scientific but he could juggle with melons. I entered, with the greatest diligence, into the subject of the philosopher’s stone and where he had hidden it, and the elixir of life. The nearest thing that man had to that was Horlicks. Some disbelieved in Horlicks as the elixir of life and said it actually was Oxo. Wealth was an inferior object, but by God it paid the rent. But the glory would attend to the discovery if I could find ways to make man invulnerable to any violent death, like an elephant falling on him.

  Then there was the raising of ghosts and devils. If my incantations were always unsuccessful, people would point me out in the street and say, “See him, his incantations are unsuccessful.” I attributed my failure to wearing skin-tight underpants to avoid ants getting in. And thus for a time I was occupied by exploded systems. There were dozens of explosions going on throughout the house. One blew up my father’s breakfast, another one blew him up. One explosion blew my mother off the W.C.
at a critical moment.

  One day there was a violent and terrible thunderstorm that burst at once with frightful loudness and ripped my trousers off. I remained while the storm lasted, watching its progress. I beheld a stream of fire issue from an old and beautiful oak. It stood just a few yards from where I stood and my face was smoke-blackened. My mother screamed when she saw me. “Help,” she shouted, “There’s a nigger in the house with no trousers on!”

  I at once gave up my former occupations – clog dancing, bare-back riding and pheasant plucking. I set down natural history and all its progeny as a deformed and abortive creation, i.e., a three-legged cripple. Are we bound to prosperity or ruin? When I look back it seems to me that this remarkable change of inclination and will was a suggestion of the guardian angel of my life – Dick Tonk. [What in God’s name is he talking about? Ed.]

  CHAPTER III

  When I was seventeen and had learned to spell cat, dog and duck, they decided I should become a student at the university of Ingolstadt. I should be made acquainted with the customs of my country, with dwarf hurling, haddock stretching and ostrich strangling. My sister had caught scarlet fever, and she caught it with a butterfly net. During her illness we had to prevent my mother nursing her to death. Elizabeth was saved, but the consequence of this imprudence was fatal. On the third day, mother sickened; but for this illness she would be back home boiling custard. Even on her death bed her fortitude continued – she did 250 press ups; it proved too much for her and she died. “It is all our bloody daughter’s fault,” said father.

  I went to my mother’s funeral

  It was raining with a grey sky

  But in her coffin, she was nice and dry

  I wanted to cry, but I could only try, try, try.