by John Burke
Next morning I resumed work in the laboratory. The routine was a familiar one by now. I had altered the controls so that I could operate them single-handed, and had practised the sequence several times in order to win complete confidence in it. This time I intended that the creature should come gradually to life instead of being rudely jolted into it. I also intended that, whatever happened, it should not have the opportunity of running loose again until I had talked to it, reasoned with it, and, if necessary, trained it.
It or him . . . in a way I was leaving the decision to the creature. Let him show himself a man, and we would talk as equals; let it be subhuman, and I would train it in whatever way was required.
I adjusted the process so that it spread over the entire day. There were no sudden shocks and no breaks in the procedure. I was confident enough to leave the equipment operating while I went down to have lunch with Elizabeth. The confidence was justified: when I returned to the laboratory, the creature was moving very gently and languidly in the tank. Everything was going according to plan. The head turned, the fingers moved slightly, and the eyes closed against the fluid.
When I lifted the creature from the tank it was like helping a man near to drowning. He appeared to be on the verge of collapse; but in point of fact the opposite was the case—he was on the verge of resuscitation.
I helped him to the one chair and settled him in it. Then, as a precaution, I strapped his arms behind him and put a heavy stick with a solid silver knob against the bench where I could seize it should I need it.
It was now late afternoon. I spent the next hour talking quietly to the creature. I wanted him to feel safe. I wanted him to speak freely—for the two of us to establish a rapport.
At the end of an hour he made a sound. His eyes had been blankly open all this time, but now I seemed to detect a gleam of understanding, and I saw the lips open and begin to work. They twisted, tried to form syllables, and then produced a long, meaningless groan.
I said: “If you understand what I’m saying, nod.”
Slowly the head nodded, but slackly, like that of a baby who has not yet learned to control it.
“You know where you are?”
There was a pause, then another top-heavy nod.
“Are you comfortable?”
He shook his head this time and made a jerking motion with his shoulders which clearly signified that the straps were hurting. I studied that unresponsive face. There were no signs of incipient viciousness there. I thought I could risk giving him a bit more freedom. Cautiously, with the stick always in reach, I loosened his bonds. He raised his arms in a parody of a stretch, and then pushed himself to his feet. It was a painful process. I stood well back. It seemed a sensible thing to do, but in fact I would have done better to stay close to him. He took one step forward and then lost control of his legs. He floundered about the laboratory, knocking glasses over and crashing against the benches. I had to leap forward in order to steer him away from a delicate mass of equipment, and his weight almost carried me off my feet.
When I had steadied him he leaned against the wall, panting. He tried once more to speak, but produced only a sickening, gobbling noise.
Of course it would take time. I would have to be patient. The assembly of different limbs, of a new head and a new brain, would take time to settle down as an individual entity. The normal motor skills would have to be relearned, and allowances made in the brain for differences in physical sensation and reaction.
If the brain, that is, had not been so deeply damaged that it would never be able to assume full control . . .
“Slowly,” I commanded, as the creature made an attempt to move away from the wall. “Come to me—but slowly.”
I held out my hand. He edged towards me, and the sculptor’s hand took mine. At first it was as limp as a shy child’s. Then the grip tightened. His hand was like iron. I tried to pull away, and at once he clamped down, in a savage automatic reaction to the sudden movement.
As gently but firmly as possible I said: “Let go.”
For an instant he was quite still. Then his hand relaxed.
I stood back. He swayed, and once more tottered, blundering against the chair and bringing his arm round in a wide, drunken sweep that could have cleared the bench of beakers and test tubes if he had been a few inches closer.
It was not safe to allow such an uncoordinated creature to roam freely about the laboratory. I did not want to restrict him too much, but obviously he must be kept on a leash until he was able to manage himself in a more civilized fashion.
On a leash, I thought. Yes, that was it. There was, in fact, a length of chain in the store cupboard at the end of the laboratory. It had been used at one stage for hanging dogs in various stages of dismemberment from the rafters, and had been tossed on to a shelf when we advanced beyond those preliminary experiments. Now I took it out.
There was no point in alarming the creature. He looked uncomprehendingly at the chain as I walked casually towards him. I attached one end to a hook in the wall, and hammered the hook closely over the link. He watched, swaying giddily. Then, gauging the distance and the necessary speed, I whipped the chain suddenly round his waist and secured the links behind him. He began to struggle and to beat the air, but as he turned and reached for me I said:
“Down. Keep your arms down.”
Slowly they fell to his side.
With such obedience it would not take long to train him. But to what lengths could I go? Where would I reach a full stop? This was not how I had visualized my creation: not as a massive infant incapable of coherent speech. The thought that the magnificent brain had been damaged beyond redemption nagged at me again and sickened me.
The time had slipped by. Elizabeth would be expecting to see me downstairs. I cleared a space round the creature so that he could roam in comparative freedom without damaging anything, and then went to the door. He watched me like a dog begging to be taken for a walk.
I said: “I’ll come back as soon as I can. We’ll soon have you fit to show yourself to the world.” As I was about to open the door, it occurred to me to add: “You will do as I say. As I say . . . and nobody else. Is that understood?”
He nodded.
“Nobody else will come here,” I said. “Nobody else is allowed in here. And you will do nothing until I come back.”
I went out and locked the door. A cloud of depression settled on me as I walked along the creaking boards of the narrow passage. I had a premonition that things were not going to work out as magnificently as I had planned. And there was something else that made me uneasy—something I couldn’t define.
It was the slightest of movements that put me on the alert. A wooden beam that rose up the enure stairwell made an alcove, always sunk in shadow, partly obscured at the top by the eccentric slant of the roof. Dust and cobwebs accumulated there, for I allowed nobody up to this floor to clean or to pry. As I passed it on my way to the stairs, my attention was caught by a broken, drifting cobweb. And I realized that the darkness was more substantial than usual. Somebody was hiding behind the beam.
I did not falter. I went straight on, and down a few steps. Then I paused, flattening myself against the wall, and peered up through the banisters.
Justine emerged from the shadows and scurried along the passage. I went back up the steps, keeping low, until I could see her at the door of the laboratory. From her apron she produced a key. She tried it a few times in the lock, rattling it faintly, and then turned it.
I don’t know how she came by such a key. Perhaps there had been a duplicate key in the servants’ quarters of which I had never known. Perhaps she had stolen my only key for an hour or so after we had been together and had persuaded one of her young village men to make a copy—though I could not recall ever having missed it or having given her such an opportunity, and I could not believe that she would be so foolish as to put it even for a short time into the hands of some valley yokel.
Wherever the key came from, it wo
rked. The door opened and she tiptoed in.
I returned to the landing and made my way along to the open doorway, treading warily so that the squeak of the boards should not give me away.
Justine was silhouetted against the attic window, through which the twilight cast a faint glow. She bumped against something, and stopped. I saw her grope for the edge of the bench, and then she lit the lantern which stood to one side—the lantern which had accompanied me on most of my more important nocturnal trips.
In the mellow light she looked round the laboratory. I waited for her gaze to reach the creature, but she was distracted by a cage of mice at the end of the room. She went to them and peered down.
The shadow of a hand fell across her back.
I started forward, then restrained myself. She had chosen to go in there. Perhaps this was the answer to many things. She had no business in my house after my clear dismissal, and certainly no business in the laboratory. She intended to be a nuisance to me. Let her pay the price of her threats and this trespass.
There was a heavy thud which I identified as the sound of the creature blundering into some obstruction.
Justine spun round.
In the uncertain light I saw the shadows on her face form a pattern of terror. She rammed a fist into her mouth as though to stifle a scream—very considerate of her, I thought ironically.
The dark bulk of the creature loomed over her. The chain rattled. Justine whimpered and turned to run for the door.
I reached it before her. I pulled it shut and turned the key which she had used and which she had had no right to use.
Now she screamed. Now there was no hand in her mouth—she was shrieking like a soul demented.
She must indeed have been mad. A sane person would have realized that the creature, on his chain, could not operate in more than a restricted area. All the stupid girl had to do was stay out of range. But she must have begun to run to and fro like the mice in the cage. Suddenly there was a gasp, cutting off one of her screams. Her feet beat a tattoo on the floor. And there was a dull muttering, and a crunching sound which I did not wish to identify . . . and then silence.
8
The wedding invitations, few as they were, had been sent out and the replies were coming in. At breakfast a few days before the ceremony, Elizabeth looked at me with the first sign of awkwardness I had detected in her.
Timidly she said: “Victor . . . I’ve invited Paul to the wedding.”
It was alien to her nature to have any secrets, and I was surprised that she should have kept this one; surprised, too, that she should have acted thus without consulting me and that she should in any case have known Paul’s new address.
But of course he would have sent word to her somehow. I could imagine the florid missive. It would have been evasive but manly, in Paul’s best treacherous style, telling her that if ever she needed help he would be at her service, that he wished us both well but that if she had any doubts she must be sure to consult him and lean on him.
When I said nothing, Elizabeth went on: “He was a very good friend of yours.”
The past tense was all too appropriate. In recent times he had been anything but a friend.
“I’m sorry if I’ve done wrong,” she said, her head bowed. “He hasn’t accepted yet, so perhaps he won’t come.”
The poor girl was so dejected that I had to reassure her. Although I had no great wish to see the man himself, there was something I wanted to show him. He should see what I had accomplished, and would know what more I could have done if it had not been for his interference.
I said: “I hope he does come, my dear. I hope he accepts.”
This put her mind at rest. She was able to devote all her energies to the wedding preparations.
On her insistence I invited the burgomaster and his wife to dinner one evening, together with some other local worthies who would be present on the day. She was right, of course: it was better that she should meet these folk now rather than make her first acquaintance with them at the ceremony itself. I had neglected some of my duties as her betrothed. I tried to make up for this in a few sociable hours. Certainly the local dignitaries, becoming rather less dignified and more bucolic as the evening wore on, had no complaints about their treatment. A large meal and a plentiful supply of wine speedily washed away any lingering resentment they might have harbored from the years of indifference which the present Baron Frankenstein had displayed towards them.
Nevertheless, I was glad to be rid of them. I was gracious to their plump wives and took their heavy jocularity in good part, but beneath this surface amiability I was deeply, miserably bored. When at last they had all gone I poured myself a glass of the brandy which had been too good to offer them, and smiled over the glass at Elizabeth.
She said: “Gracious, how quiet it is!” She patted the couch beside her. “Come and sit with me a moment, Victor.”
She was demure yet alluring—a gracious hostess yet also, I saw, a woman with a latent fire of her own who would be an entrancing wife. I would allocate a reasonable amount of my precious time to her. I would be well repaid. It was good to know that the tattered remains of Justine were safely buried in the woods and that there would never be any fear of her malicious tongue speaking evil of me to Elizabeth.
But I must not allow her to assume that I was going to change into a sentimental courtier and abandon all my more serious occupations.
I said: “I think I must tidy up some loose ends in the laboratory.”
She came as near to pouting as I had ever seen her. On other women it would have been irritating; on her it was rather charming.
“Victor, I thought that for just one evening—”
“I have to conclude one or two processes before the wedding,” I said. “I must leave everything tidy—and safe.”
She acknowledged this with a resigned sigh. Then she asked: “May I come and watch you at work?”
“Not yet, my dear. One day very soon, I promise.”
“You’ve promised that before. I thought you were going to show me what you had done a few weeks ago.”
“I ran into some difficulties. When they are resolved, you shall see.” I finished my brandy and set the glass down. “A pity we haven’t heard from Paul.”
Elizabeth smiled wryly. “If Paul were here, you’d show him.”
“Because he understands the technical background. He was with me during the earlier stages, remember.”
“And why didn’t he want to go on?”
This was taking a turn I had no wish to follow. I said: “Soon you’ll see what it has all been about. Soon.”
I was halfway up the stairs when there was a knock at the main door. I paused on the landing. Elizabeth’s new maid, a respectable little girl without pretensions and without undue curiosity, crossed the hall.
Paul Krempe stood in the doorway.
“Are the Baron and Miss Elizabeth at home?”
Elizabeth recognized his voice and came running out with an eagerness which I found unbecoming in a young woman of her station.
“Paul, how wonderful to see you. We were afraid you had forgotten us.”
“You are looking more radiant than ever,” he said.
I thought it was time for me to intervene. I went back down the stairs, saying:
“It is good of you to come, Paul.”
He reluctantly looked away from Elizabeth and up at me. “How are you, Victor?”
I reached his level and we shook hands.
“Victor has been saying,” Elizabeth chattered gaily, “how much he wanted to see you. He says he’s got something he wants you to see—haven’t you, Victor?”
Paul looked earnestly, piercingly into my eyes.
“Have you?”
“Yes.” I took his coat from him and waved towards the stairs. “Would you like to go up and see?”
“Victor!” Elizabeth protested. “The very moment Paul arrives . . .”
“We shall not be long,” I said, mo
ving up behind Paul so that he should not be tempted to turn back.
We went up to the laboratory. Once Paul glanced back inquiringly as though asking for some indication of what he might expect. But I intended that he should see for himself, without preamble.
At the door I took out my key.
“Still keeping the place locked?” said Paul. “Is that necessary?”
“You can judge for yourself.”
I opened the door and stood back as he entered.
The creature was crouched in a corner, staring at the floor. When it became aware of us it turned its face to the wall.
Paul stared mutely.
“Nothing to say?” I challenged him.
“So it wasn’t killed,” he said softly.
“It was. At least, life had passed from its body. But I was the one who put it there in the first place, and it was I who restored it.”
Paul turned away. He headed for the door.
“No, wait,” I said. “I want to show you something else.”
“I’ve seen enough.”
“Wait!”
Grudgingly he stayed where he was. He seemed to have difficulty in facing the hunched, huddled body of the creature in the corner. In his face there was no scientific curiosity, no spark of reawakened interest; only loathing.
I stood over the creature. “Get up.” It shivered slightly and tried to compress itself into an even tighter ball. “Come on,” I ordered; “get up.”
Slowly it clambered to its feet. It glanced at Paul and then quickly away at me, waiting for the next command.
I said: “Now come here.”
It came towards me and stood a few inches away.
“Sit down,” I said.
The creature pondered this, then with an ungainly lurch it lowered itself to the floor with its knees under its chin.
“Is this your creature of superior intellect?” said Paul. “Your perfect physical being . . . this animal?” He drew his hand across his brow, and his eyes narrowed in pain. “Ask it a question in advanced physics. It’s got a brain with a lifetime of knowledge behind it. That was the theory, wasn’t it? Go on, ask. It should find it simple.”
