XX
* * *
“You are forbidden by my Creator to be in here!”
Those were the first words the nameless monster spoke to me. They were delivered quietly, in a deep voice—“a voice from the grave” was the association the tone aroused. Quiet though the words were, they carried no reassurance. This powerful being need make no special effort to quell me.
The great hand that held me was a mottled blue, crusted and filthy. From its throat, where a carelessly tied scarf failed to conceal deep scars, to its feet, encased in boots that I imagined I recognized, the monster was a monument to grime. It was encrusted in mud and blood and excrement, so that its greatcoat was plastered against its trousers. Snow fell to the floor from it and melted. It still steamed slightly, so damp was it. This indifference to its wretched state was a further cause for alarm.
Shaking me slightly, so that my teeth rattled, it said, “This is no place for you, whoever you may be.”
“You saved my life when I was dying on the hillside.” The words happened to be the first I could enunciate.
“My role is not to spare life but to protect my own. Who am I to be merciful? All men are my enemies, and every living hand is turned against me.”
“You saved my life. You brought me a hare to eat when I was starving to death.”
He—I must cease to refer to him as an it—he let go of me, and I managed to remain standing in his dreadful presence.
“You—are—grateful—to—me?”
“You spared my life. I am grateful for that gift, as perhaps you may be.”
He rumbled. “I have no life while everyone’s hand is turned against me. As I am without sanctuary, so I am without gratitude. My Creator gave me life, and the profit of it is I know how to curse; he gave me feeling, and the profit of it is I know how to suffer! I am fallen! Without his love, his aid, I am fallen.
“‘Why is life given
To be thus wrested from us? Rather why
Obtruded on us thus? Who, if we knew
What we receive, would either not accept
Life offered, or soon beg to lay it down,
Glad to be so dismissed in peace...’
“Are not those the words in the great Miltonic book? But, under threat, my Creator has agreed to make me this Eve with whom you interfere, uncovering her nakedness. She will make my misery more tolerable, my slavery only half-slavery, my exile less a banishment. What are you doing in such a place? Why has He allowed you here? What mischief have you done Him?”
“None, none!”—fearing he might go downstairs and find Frankenstein in a state he would possibly mistake for lifelessness.
He seized my arm again.
“Nobody is allowed to do Him mischief but me! I am His protector as long as He works on this project! Now, tell me what you have done with Him? Are you the Serpent, to come here like this, filthy and venomous?”
For a moment he turned towards the creature that wore the face of Justine. He stretched out an arm and placed a gnarled hand tenderly on her scarred brow; then he turned back to me.
“We’ll see what you have done! Nothing can be hidden from me!”
Dragging me, he strode to the door in two strides and flung it open. I struggled, but he did not even notice. Without a pause, he moved down the stairs. His movements were rapid and inhuman. I had to run with him, dreading what would come next.
Victor Frankenstein still lay senseless on the carpet below. His servant Yet was bending over him, and had Victor’s head against his knee. He looked up angrily, then yelled with terror, and jumped to his feet. The monster, coming forward, knocked him out of the way with one sweep of an arm as he marched towards the prone figure of his creator. The force of the casual blow was such that Yet was flung back against a bookcase. Books showered about him.
As for me, I was dragged forward at that awful pace, like a toy dog on a lead. The monster bent clumsily over his master, calling to him in that hollow and ghastly voice, like a hound baying.
I saw Yet drag himself up, eyes charged with fear, and make for the door to the lower regions. When he got there, he pulled an enormous bell-mouthed gun—I imagine it was a blunderbuss—from his belt and leveled it at the monster.
Instinctively, I threw myself down. The monster turned. He threw up one arm and gave a great cry as the gun went off.
Noise and smoke filled the room.
Yet went blundering down the stairs.
“You killed my master! Now you have wounded me!” cried the monster. With a bound, he was up and giving chase, hurling himself down the stairs. Cries from Yet as he fled.
The noise had its effect on Frankenstein. He groaned and stirred. I saw that he would be coming to in a minute. I dashed the remainder of the wine in his face to revive him, and ran up to the laboratory again.
There was going to be murder before the night was through, and I had to get clear.
I slammed the door shut behind me, but there was no bolt on the inner side. Not that I imagined that any bolt could keep out that terrible avenging creature!
The female still lay there, watery eyes staring at some remote distance from which she waited to be recalled. I crossed behind her, and seized a pair of steps, used to reach the higher shelves. I dragged the steps to the middle of the room, climbed them, swung myself up through the skylight by which the monster had entered.
Supernaturally strong though the monster was, I could not visualize its being able to scale the sheer outside wall of the tower. Therefore it had made itself a ladder. Had not Victor mentioned some such possibility?
It was freezing cold and entirely dark on the roof, despite the snow everywhere.
Nervously, I moved forward, fumbling round the battlements until I came to a protruding wooden pole. Here was the ladder. Only the terror of being caught by the creature—I could all too clearly imagine myself being hurled from the roof—drove me to climb over into space and feel for the first rung of the ladder. But—there it was, and I began to go down as quickly as possible but with difficulty, for there was almost a meter between rungs.
At length I stood on the ground, up to my ankles in fresh-fallen snow.
First I pulled the great ladder away from the tower, sending it crashing back into the trees. Then I went round to the gate, to listen there in an agony of apprehension.
Banging noises sounded from within. There was the clang of metal as a bar was withdrawn. A small door in the big gates was flung open. Yet emerged, staggering drunkenly and clutching his shoulder.
By now, my sight had adjusted to the dark. I was hidden behind a tree, but could see his dark barrel-shaped silhouette clearly enough. Behind him, something was fighting to get out of the door. It was the monster. Instinctively, I ducked back a tree or two. Yet stood in the clearing as if undecided. He ambled over to the nearest tree—happily some meters from where I stood hidden, and turned towards the tower.
Then I realized that he was wounded, and could not run, and that he carried a sword in his hand.
The monster still struggled to climb through a door too small for his immense frame. He wrenched at the stout paneling, roaring with fury. With a splintering noise, it fell beneath his pressure. He broke through, and in a twinkling was across the clearing that separated him from Yet.
Yet had time for one blow. Maybe it was a saber he held. I saw a broad blade flash dimly, heard it strike the sleeve of the monster’s greatcoat. A ferocious growl came from the monster. He gave Yet no time to strike again.
First he flung the man headfirst into the snow. Then he sprang savagely on top of him, and grappled him by the throat—as once he must have grappled with little William. And Yet could put up no more resistance than William.
In a moment, the monster rose, lurching slightly, and started to head back for the dark tower. Behind him, Yet lay lifeless in the snow.
XXI
* * *
“You have killed again!” cried Victor Frankenstein.
He stood in the
shattered doorway, confronting his monster, a shadow among shadows. From where I stood, I could see only that sharp-cut face of his, blurred by darkness and passion.
The monster stopped before him. “Master, why do you misrepresent my every action? I attacked your servant only because I believed he had killed you. Your possessions and your servants are sacred to me, as well you know! Be propitious while I speak—hast thou not made me here thy substitute!”
“Cease to quote your Miltonic scriptures at me! You dare say thus, fiend, and yet you threaten the life of my fiancée?”
To this the monster had nothing to say, but stood silent. They remained as they were; in some fashion they were communing, and I could sense from my vantage point the necessity that linked them. Perhaps the monster could never be dominated, yet Frankenstein, being human, could not resist the attempt.
“You remonstrate with me, you thing of evil, when your hands are still wet with the blood of my brother William. I know you brought about his death, whatever the court said on that score.”
Then the monster spoke in his desolate voice. “You must abide by the verdict of the court, for you perforce come within human jurisdiction. They have no such claim on me, being without humanity. I say only this—that perplexed and troubled at my bad success, as was the Tempter, I struck at you through William. He to me was a limb of you, even as I am.”
“And that filthy deed you put onto another.”
At this, the monster gave a laugh like a whipped bloodhound. “I ripped the locket from his sanguined throat and tucked it into the pocket of the maid where she slept. If she was hanged for that, so much for man’s legal institutions!”
“For that piece of devilry you will be well repaid, never fear!”
The creature growled. Again they ran out of words. Victor remained in the shattered door. The nameless one waited outside, its outline blurred by the slow ascent of steam from its clothes. Lizards could not have been more still than the creature until it spoke again, this time with a note of pleading in its voice.
“Let me enter into the tower, my Creator, and let me see you bring life to the mate I know you have prepared, manlike but different sex, so lovely fair. And then—since you cannot find it in your heart to love me—we will go our separate ways, for ever and ever, never to meet more. You shall go where you will. I will dwell in the frigid lands with my bride, and no man shall ever set eyes on us again!”
Again silence.
Finally, Frankenstein said, “Very well, so shall it be, since it cannot be otherwise. I will give life to the female. Then you must go and nevermore afflict my eyesight.”
The great creature fell on its knees in the snow. I saw it reach out its hand towards Frankenstein’s boots.
“Master, I will feel only gratitude, that I swear! The thoughts that torment me I will forget. I am your slave. How I wish that but once before you banish me we might converse together on fragrant subjects! What a world you might open up to me... yet all we ever speak of together is guilt and death, I know not why. The grave is never far from my meditations, Master, and when the boy died in my clutch—oh, you cannot understand, it was as Adam said, a sight of terror, foul and ugly to behold, horrid to think, how horrible to feel! Speak to me once in loving tongues of better things.”
“Do not fawn! Get up! Stand away! You must come with me into the tower to accomplish this foul work, since Yet is slain—I need your aid stoking the boilers to keep the electricity at full voltage. Enter and be silent.”
Moaning, the creature rose, saying impulsively, “When I found you just now, I feared you were killed also, Master.”
“Confound you, I was not killed but drugged. Maybe it would have been better for me otherwise! That interfering Bodenland was to blame. If you encounter him, fiend, you may exercise your fiendishness on him without restraint!” They were now moving inside. I followed to the door and heard the creature’s rebuke by way of reply.
“The breaking of necks is no pleasure for me. I have my religious beliefs, unlike you inventors rare, unmindful of your Maker, though His spirit taught you! Besides, Bodenland expressed some gratitude to me—the only man ever to do so!”
“What religious system could ever light a light within your skull!” said Frankenstein contemptuously, leading the way upstairs, where a shaft of light indicated an open door into the machine room. They climbed through, and the door closed behind them.
For a while I stood by the shattered doorway, wondering what to do. Plenty of timber lay about the building. Maybe I could stack it up and set the place alight, so that they—and that terrible female they were now conspiring to bring to life—would perish in the flames, together with all Frankenstein’s instruments and notes. But how could I get a fire going fast enough to catch them? For they would escape before the fire took hold.
The steam engine began to work faster overhead. Protected by the noise, which surely signified the most hideously active stoking the world had ever seen, I began to search about, even daring to light a flambeau, which was all this ground floor seemed to warrant in the way of illumination.
Plenty of wood and timber lay about, as well as skins of wine and various provisions. To one side stood the phaeton. Beyond that was a stable, with the horse standing there indifferently, uncaring what passed before its eyes as long as it had food. Pushing its head out of the way, I thrust the flambeau into its stall, to see if there might be kerosene or paraffin stored there, or at least a good stack of hay.
An even more welcome sight met my eyes.
There stood my automobile, the Felder, unharmed, almost unscratched!
Amazed, I went into the stable, closing the lower door behind me. The stable was located in the square building adjoining the base of the tower. I saw there was a large door here leading straight outside. My vehicle had been pushed through it.
One of the car doors hung open. I extinguished my torch and climbed in, switching on one of the overhead lights. Everything was in disorder, but I could not see that anything had been taken.
I found a sheet of paper, a certificate which formally handed the vehicle over to the Frankenstein family. It was signed by the Genevan chief of police. So Elizabeth had been careful to acquire the car as some compensation for her fiancé’s supposed murder! But what had Victor made of it? He must have towed it here for further investigation. Had he understood it for what it was? Would that explain why he asked me so few questions, took my unlikely presence and knowledge so much for granted? How precious would this car be to him? What new developments in science would he be able to deduce from the features of my automobile and its contents?
Checking the firearms, I found the swivel gun was intact; a Browning .380 automatic was also present, together with its box of shells. I flung the sporting pistol I had looted onto the back seat, relieved to think I would never have to defend myself with it.
It occurred to me that, only a generation before mine, automobiles had been fueled by gasoline. Gasoline would have been ideal for a sudden blaze; the sealed nuclear drive was useless in that respect.
Having the car gave me other ideas. A fire would always be an easy thing from which a superhuman creature like the monster could escape. A hail of bullets was quite another matter.
Working as quietly as I could, pausing every now and again to listen, I opened the outer gate wide. This entailed shoveling away a considerable drift of snow. Then I attempted to push the vehicle into the open.
I got my shoulder to it and heaved. It would not budge.
After some exertion, I decided the track was too rutted for me to have a hope. Since I would have to start the engine some time in any case, it might be best to do so now, cloaked by the noise of the steam engine thudding somewhere overhead.
Praise be for the twenty-first century! The Felder started immediately, and I watched the revs climbing on the rev-counter until I began to roll forward into the open. What a feeling of power to be back at the wheel again!
Once I was outside, I l
eft the engine running and ran back to close the gate. Then I maneuvered the auto among the trees, until I set it—according to my estimation—in the perfect position, some way from the main gates of the tower, but having them in view even in the present dismal light. Then I raised the blister, and focused the swivel gun.
All I had to do was squeeze the button when someone emerged from the tower. It was the best solution. The extraordinary conversation between Victor and his monster had convinced me of the latter’s supreme dangerousness: given its malevolence, its lying and eloquent tongue was probably as big a threat as its turn of speed.
Time passed. The hours slid slowly down the great entropy slope of the universe.
The snow ceased. A slender moon appeared.
My laboring minutes were occupied with fantasies of the most horrific kind. While the monster stoked, was Victor finding time to perform a facial operation on the female? Or was he... Enough of that. I would have given a good deal to have the stalwart Lord Byron by me, armed with the handgun.
Although visibility improved with moonlight, I was not happy at the improvement. The car might now be noticed from the entrance to the tower, whereas I had set it in shadow. Although it might seem that the advantage was heavily enough with me, ensconced behind a swivel gun, still there was that memory of improved musculature, of fantastic jumps and fast runs, of irascibility coupled with power. Just suppose that creature eluded my first stream of bullets and got to me before I could kill it...
Chilly though I was, the supposition chilled me more. I jumped out of the car and began to collect fallen pine branches with which to camouflage the vehicle.
While I was some meters away from it, the ruined door of the tower was flung wide and the monster emerged.
A fleeting recollection, as the dying are supposed to relive past episodes: recollection of my old sane ordered life now lost by two centuries, of my dear wife, my valued friends, even some of my esteemed enemies, and of my little grandchildren. I recalled how sane and healthy they were, and I contrasted them with the fiends with whom I had to deal in 1816!
Frankenstein Unbound Page 14
