Young Frankenstein
Page 4
"Damn, I wish I had a candle," he said loudly.
Inga answered. "I have it."
"Well, I can't reach it. I'm on the other side of the wall. You might as well put it back."
"Very well, Doctor."
A moment later, he felt himself moving again. Yes, the wall was swinging around! There was a sudden brightness. He got a glimpse of Inga. Her robe was open and those big bazooms were fairly reaching out to him. Then, suddenly, total darkness again.
"Oh, hell!" he said.
"Where are you?" Inga called.
"Don't start that again," he said. "Look, it's the candle that does it. But the mechanism has gone haywire or something. I don't want to go all the way around again. Here's what you do: Take the candle out. Then, when I come around your way, I'll jump off and see if I can stop the wall some way."
"All right, Doctor. Ready?"
"Ready!"
He was moving again. He saw the light. But suddenly the movement ceased. He was stuck. His head was in the bedroom, but the rest of him was somewhere else.
"Oh, my!" Inga wailed. "You're stuck."
"I know that, damn it! How did it happen?"
"I don't know," she wept.
"All right. Now, listen to me carefully. Don't do anything with the candle. But, with all your might, push on the other end of the bookcases. Okay?"
"Yes."
Inga placed the candle on a nearby table. Then she backed off and made a run at the opposite end of the bookshelves. She hit them with a crunch. The doctor felt himself jerked forward. The next thing he knew, he was tumbling across the bedroom floor. He landed against the door, head down and feet up.
"Good girl!" he said, righting himself. "That was per-"
Inga was gone.
"Oh, no! Inga!"
She replied plaintively from the other side of the wall. "Put the candle back, Doctor."
"I guess I'll have to try it."
He picked up the candle and went to the sconce. As he was trying to fit the candle into it, out of a corner of his eye he saw the wall jerk. Testing, he touched the sconce once more. The wall jerked again. With the system down pat, it was no problem at all to swing the wall back into place. By jerks, he delivered Inga from the darkness.
"The question is," he said to her when she was free, "what's behind there? I couldn't see, could you?"
She shook her head. "It was too dark."
"We've got to find out. I couldn't sleep, not knowing." He went back to the sconce and began tapping it with the candle again. "Let me know when it's open wide enough."
"A little more ... a little more . . . there, that's it!"
Dr. Frankenstein walked to the opening and peered into the darkness. "Can't see a thing," he said. "I better open it wider."
"It's better to light one little candle in the darkness," she said.
"That's a nice thought."
The doctor got a lighted candle from another sconce, then returned to the opening and eased his way through it. In the light he could see a doorway, and, just beyond it, the beginning of a stairs.
"I'm going down," he said. "That music-it's coming from down there."
Inga clutched at him. "Let me come with you, Doctor, please! I don't want to stay up here alone!"
"All right-quietly, though."
Together, they went through the doorway and began the descent.
Cobwebs brushed their faces.
"Ughhh!" Inga said.
Dr. Frankenstein raised the candle higher and they could see the stairwell walls, crawling with a greenish fungus. The dense darkness ahead seemed to be infinite. But they knew they would come to an end eventually, for the music continued to drift up to them from below, and they were certain that it was being produced by some human like themselves.
A huge rat appeared on a ledge.
Inga squealed in fright.
The rat scampered off.
Inga clutched the doctor's arm. "I'm afraid!"
"Do you want to go back?"
"Yes."
"Then, go on."
"I'm afraid."
"Forward it is, then," he said.
Again, they descended. The steps became slick with slime. The walls were dankly dripping with dampness.
"All these old houses have leaky basements," Dr. Frankenstein said. "The way to fix them is to-Oh-oh. What have we here?"
They had reached a landing. There was a door. The music seemed to be coming from beyond it.
"This is it, I think," the doctor said. "I'm going in. Coming?"
"Right behind you, Doctor."
He grasped the doorknob firmly-and it crumbled to dust in his hand.
"Let's just hope it's not stuck, too," Dr. Frankenstein said.
He put his weight against the door. It gave, then, complaining loudly, swung away. At that same instant, the music stopped.
"I think we touched a nerve," the doctor whispered to Inga.
"What?"
"Shop talk," he told her.
With the doctor holding the candle high again, they advanced. They could see that they were in a large room, but the details were unclear, shrouded in murky dimness. Then all at once the light fell on a skull.
"Ughh!" Inga said again, shuddering.
Dr. Frankenstein reached the light forward. The skull was resting on a shelf. Below it, a label read: 11 Months Dead. The skull had decayed to the point that if it had been touched it would have become dust.
They moved foward-and saw a second skull. It still had patches of skin clinging to it. The label read: 8 Months Dead.
The light from the candle picked up another skull. One eyeball remained in the socket. There was a little hair left on the crown. According to the label, it was 4 Months Dead.
The doctor shifted the light to the next label. It read: Freshly Dead. He raised the light to get a look at the skull. It looked hardly dead at all. It was a healthy color. It had all its teeth. The eyes were there, twinkling mischievously. It looked, in fact, quite familiar.
"You!" Dr. Frankenstein said, recognizing the face.
Igor leaped back from the shelf. "Aiiiiiiiiiii!" he howled ghoulishly. Then, tying the howl to a tune, he broke into song. ".. . ain't got no body!"
"Aye-gor!" the doctor admonished.
"Fro-derick!" Igor responded.
"How did you get here?"
"Through the dumbwaiter," Igor told him. "I was up in the kitchen and I heard that music and I followed it down."
"But it wasn't you playing?"
Igor shook his head.
"Then someone else must have been down here," Inga said brightly.
Dr. Frankenstein considered. "It seems that way," he agreed, after a brief deliberation. He looked around, peering into the dimness. "Aren't there any lights around here?"
Igor pointed toward a nearby dark corner. "Two nasty-looking switches over there," he said.
"Why didn't you turn on the lights?"
"I never like to go first."
"Oh, for-"
Dr. Frankenstein strode to the corner and flipped one of the switches. The whole room seemed to explode in dancing flashes of electric current. The light was blinding. Covering his eyes, the doctor groped for the switch he had flipped, found it, then disengaged it. The flashes of current sizzled out, leaving darkness. Immediately, the doctor pressed the second switch. Light returned. This time it was bright but stable.
"Ohhhh!" Inga said, astounded.
"In spades!" the doctor said.
They had found the infamous laboratory of the legendary Dr. Victor Frankenstein. There were great collections of beakers and tubes, complicated-looking apparatuses, huge machines, networks of electrical wiring. All were covered with dust and linked by cobwebs, but the magnificence could not be concealed.
"So this is where it happened," the doctor said bitterly. "What a filthy mess."
"Oh, I don't know," Igor said. "A little paint, a few flowers . . ."
"You didn't see anyone else down here?" the doctor asked him.
With Dr. Frankenstein in the lead, the three moved cautiously toward the door.
Suddenly, there was the sound of running.
The trio halted, exchanging questioning looks.
"That rat again?" Inga wondered.
"I doubt it."
They moved on. When they reached the door, Dr. Frankenstein grasped it by the edge and yanked it open. They heard a sudden rushing sound, then a flurry of wings. A horde of bats came swooping out through the doorway. The three dived for cover, ducking under laboratory tables. Almost as suddenly as the bats had appeared, however, they were gone.
The doctor was the first to get to the door again. He reached in and found a wall switch and pressed it. A light came on and he and Inga and Igor moved warily through the open doorway. They found themselves in what was obviously a private library. Almost every inch of wall space was covered by shelves of musty books. The room had a dank, foul odor, the smell of decay.
"Doctor, look!" Inga cried out, pointing.
A violin and a bow rested on a table in the center of the room. Near them were an ashtray and a smoldering cigar.
"Well," Dr. Frankenstein said, "this explains the music."
"But who was playing it?" Inga asked.
"That, we don't know," he replied. "I think it's a pret-ty good guess, though, that he was a cigar smoker." He turned to Igor. "Let me smell your breath!"
Igor exhaled expansively into the doctor's face.
Dr. Frankenstein staggered backwards, his eyes watering, a look of abject disgust on his countenance.
"Garlic toast," Igor told him.
Recovering, the doctor began looking around again. "What place is this?" he mused.
"The music room," Igor said. "The violin gives it away."
"No, no, it's a library, of course. But-" He bent close to the books on a shelf. "Do you think it's possible that-"
Outside, lightning flashed. The title of the book that the doctor was peering at was illuminated. He read it aloud:
"It is!" Dr. Frankenstein shouted. "This is my grandfather's private library! This book proves it!"
"How 1 Did It," Igor said thoughtfully. "Good title. Always sells."
"I wonder what kind of alchemistic drivel it is," the doctor said, taking the book from the shelf. He opened it to the first page, then read aloud again:
Whence, I often asked myself, did the principles of life proceed? To examine the cause of life, we must first have recourse to death.
The doctor clapped the book closed. "God, what a madman!" he said derisively.
There was a flash of thunder that shook the whole castle.
Inga hurried to the doctor's side. "I'm frightened," she said. "It was as if-"
"As if he heard me?" Dr. Frankenstein smiled. "I sincerely doubt it. However," he said, steering Inga toward the doorway, "we might as well leave."
"Taking the book along, I see," Igor said slyly.
"Yes, why not?" the doctor replied. "I might read a few passages. I think we could all use a good laugh."
They left the library and returned to the laboratory.
"I could use some refreshment," the doctor said, smiling at Inga.
"Spot of tea?" she asked. "I could boil the water in a beaker, and, let's see . . ."
"That will be fine," Dr. Frankenstein told her, settling onto a tall stool and opening his grandfather's book once more.
Inga found tea in a tin, then put water on to boil. Igor occupied himself by examining the various apparatuses.
Dr. Frankenstein chuckled. "The man was a raisin cake," he said to his companions. Then, to prove the point, he read aloud again:
. . . and as soon as the dazzling light vanished, the oak tree had disappeared. I know then that electricity and galvanism had changed my life.
The doctor howled with glee. "Toot-y-frutti!" he said.
From above, once more, a roll of thunder that shook the castle.
"Maybe you ought to read to yourself-silently," Inga suggested, fearful again.
"Rubbish. Those thunder claps are mere coincidence." He laughed. "Listen to this." Again, he read aloud:
When I look back now, it seems to me as if this almost miraculous event obliterated any last effort to avert the storm that was even then hanging in the stars.
Dr. Frankenstein slapped a knee. "This guy kills me!"
This time, the thunder rattled the beakers. The water that Was being prepared for tea seemed to boil up extra furiously.
The doctor looked skyward, finally taking serious notice of the thunder. What he saw surprised him, and, for the moment, took his mind off the violent thunderclaps. He saw the sky. It surprised him because he expected to see a ceiling.
"Look up there," he said to the others.
"A hole in the roof," Igor said.
"With a window over it," Inga said.
"It's a skylight," the doctor told them. "It can be opened, though. Why do you suppose that is?"
"I can make a wild guess," Igor said. "To haul dead bodies in and out, maybe?"
"That is one possible explanation," the doctor conceded. He shrugged. "Ah, well, it doesn't concern us." He turned his attention back to the book, reading on:
... until, from the midst of this darkness, a sudden light broke in upon me-a light so brilliant and wondrous, and yet so simple!
Inga was pouring the tea. "Hot," she cautioned Dr. Frankenstein. "Don't burn your tongue."
The doctor nodded and read on-and on and on. Hours passed. Inga and Igor, slumping on stools, became glassy-eyed. Every once in a while, their eyes closed-only to fly open suddenly when they were startled back to wakefulness by Dr. Frankenstein's uproarious laughter at some passage from the book.
Change the poles from plus to minus and from minus to plus.
The doctor hooted. "Have you ever heard such nonsense?"
I, Victor Frankenstein, alone succeeded in discovering the cause of generation of life.
The doctor whooped. "Nutty as a fruitcake!"
Nay, even more: I, myself, became capable of bestowing animation upon lifeless matter!
Dr. Frankenstein closed the book. He grinned, shaking his head. "Grandfather nutsy," he said. He chuckled. He laughed heartily. Then, suddenly, he stifled the hilarity. His expression became drawn. His eyes glinted with the Frankenstein madness. All at once, he leaped up, snatched the tea cup from the work bench and smashed it against a wall.
"It could work!" he bellowed.
Lightning crashed in the sky!
Igor's face was illuminated. He was smiling gleefully.
The light lit up Inga's face. She was staring fixedly at the doctor, terrified-yet somehow proud.
Again, the thunder rumbled and the lightning cracked. The castle quivered. But, there was a general feeling in the laboratory that this was nice thunder and nice lightning, that Baron Frankenstein, wherever he was, was pleased as punch.
In the dining room of Frankenstein Castle, the doctor himself sat at the head of the table. To his right was Inga and to his left sat Igor. Before them were the remains of the evening meal. The doctor was reading once more from his grandfather's book, How I Did It. Again, Inga was trying desperately to keep from falling asleep. Igor had solved the problem. He wasn't listening. Instead, he was sketching idly on a large pad. Outside, darkness was coming on. There were occasional feeble rumbles of thunder and halfhearted crashes of lightning. A fine rain was falling. For that area, however, it could be said to be a pleasant evening. The werewolves were quiet. No violin was playing the haunting and mysterious Transylvanian lullaby. And Frau Blucher was nowhere in sight.
As the minuteness of the parts formed a great hindrance to my speed, I resolved to make the Creature of a gigantic stature.
Dr. Frankenstein lowered the book. "Of course!" he said. "That would simplify everything."
"In other words," Inga sa
id, forcing her eyes open, "his veins, his feet, his hands, his organs would all have to be increased in size,"
"Exactly."
She thought a moment and smiled. "He would have an enormous schwanzstucker," she said.
"That goes without saying."
"He's going to be very popular," Igor said.
"So then," the doctor said, "what we're aiming for is a being approximately seven feet in height, with all features either congenitally or artificially proportionate in size."
Igor held up the pad on which he had been sketching. "Would he look something like this?" he asked.
The doctor and Inga studied the drawing. The creature that Igor had sketched bore a striking resemblance to the popular conception of the Frankenstein monster.
"Hello, yes, you've caught something there," the doctor said approvingly. "Crude, yes. Primitive, no doubt. Still, something tells me that this might be our man." He glowed. "By thunder, the dogs have got the scent and the hunt is on! Quickly now!" He glanced toward a window. "There's a storm coming up. We don't have a moment to lose."
"Where to?" Igor asked.
"In search of a body, of course," Dr. Frankenstein told him, rising. "Igor, my man, hitch the horses to the cart and we'll be off!"
Igor rose quickly and in his strange, crippled gait, scurried from the room.
"What can I do?" Inga asked the doctor.
"You can clear this table," he told her.
"Is this . . . where you intend to ... to do it?"
"Heavens, no. I just don't like to see dirty dishes standing around."
Leaving Inga to tidy up, the doctor joined Igor in the courtyard. When the horses had been hitched to the cart, they set out. The rain was falling harder. The moon was hidden behind dark clouds. And the werewolves were howling again.
"This is terrible country, this rain, rain, rain," the doctor complained.
"Look on the bright side-we never have a drought," Igor said.
"Yes, but-"
"Our lawns never get brown."
"Yes, I guess there are advantages."
They soon reached the outskirts of the village. They drove straight through to the other outskirts. As they approached the prison, Dr. Frankenstein touched a finger to his lips, cautioning Igor to be quiet.
"I didn't say anything," Igor responded.