The Casebook of Victor Frankenstein (32 page)

“I am glad to hear it, Mr. Hayman. There is much to be done.” He worked tirelessly throughout the day, carefully
testing and retesting every constituent of the electrical columns.

“It is fortunate,” he said, “the original elements are so sturdy. Their assembly is helped immensely by their durability.”

“That is your genius, sir. You were the artificer.”

“Genius has nothing to do with it. Just common sense, sir. And practice. It resolves all knots.” I knew that to be the English way. Yet I believed also that passion, and imagination, had their place in the investigation of science. What is a natural philosopher without vision? “I have been considering, Mr. Frankenstein, your questions on the electrical fluid. You recall that you asked me the effects of the waves being reversed, as it were?”

“I do indeed.”

“I have done the mathematics. And in theory there should be no discernible difference in the nature of the fluid. But its direction would be utterly changed. It would flow inward rather than outward.”

“How is that possible?”

“This is the puzzle. What, in this case, is inward? Does it mean that it would return into itself? But, since we do not understand its nature, the concept is meaningless to us. Does it mean that it would harbour its powers in some infinitely small space? Then it might pose an extreme hazard. Or would it change its nature and become some wholly new and unknown force? Here I will leave common sense behind, Mr. Frankenstein. I thank God it will never be accomplished. It might wreak unexampled havoc on the world.”

“And you believe that it cannot be done?”

“Undoubtedly. Faraday himself could not accomplish it.”

He had not completed the work, by the end of that day, and he pledged to return on the following Sunday. I spent the intervening days in intense study of the electrical phenomena; I visited the library of the Royal Society, where I was shown the latest treatises of Hans Oersted and Joseph Henry; I studied the details of the Wimshurst Machine and the Electric Rocking Machine. In the last few months Oersted had in fact published his experiments on what he called the “magneto-electrical field,” having created trials in which a magnetic needle had moved at right angles to a current of the electrical fluid. Could the power and direction of the current thus be measured and, if measured, changed? The mighty Newton had observed that to every action there is an equal and opposite reaction—could not the power of magnetism therefore change the direction of the fluid?

On the following Sunday Hayman completed the work. He had added further refinements, too, in the capacity of the voltaic batteries and in the substitution of bitumen for some of the wax and resin. “I hope you can continue your work in peace,” he said. “There are many who fear the electrical fluid. They deem it to be monstrous. An attempt to distort God’s laws.”

“I have no intention of creating a monster, Mr. Hayman. Quite the opposite.”

After he had gone I sat down upon the long wooden table restored by the workmen. Here the creature had risen from death. It was here that he would be once more returned to silence and darkness. I heard the sound of the Thames as the tide came up, lapping against the wooden piles of the landing stage, and for the first time it afforded me the sensation of expectancy and hope.

THE PENNY-A-LINERS
had not been idle. Two days after our return from Marlow there had been reports in the London newspapers of the “unexampled tragedy” and “terrible misadventure” that had befallen Bysshe. The details of Martha’s death were recounted in some detail, with particular attention to the “foul creature” and “fiendish villain” seen at Mary’s window; but this news was swiftly followed by further and more sensational reports of Harriet’s death at the Serpentine. The coincidence of these deaths in water led some public prints to question the competence of the constabulary in London and the adjacent counties; but others, such as the
Mercury
and the
Advertiser
, had somehow acquired the information that Bysshe had been sent down from Oxford on the charge of atheism. The writers of these journals suggested, though they did not state, that the two murders might be construed as a terrible warning to the unbeliever Shelley. “How a merciful God,” Bysshe said to me on his first visit to Jermyn Street after Marlow, “could arrange the death of two young women for my benefit—is quite beyond me. It would be as good a reason for atheism as any I have proposed myself.”

“Pay no attention. These papers are forgotten in an hour.”

“I have absolutely no regard for them, Victor. I read them as
comedy. I recite them to Mary, with all the actions and attitudes of the zany.”

“How is Mary?”

“How is she? She is sweet. She is lovely. She is witty. She is wise beyond her sex. Anything else you wish me to add?”

“So life in Somers Town is pure Eden?”

“Mr. Godwin is sometimes an obstacle to bliss. But we walk together in the churchyard of St. Pancras. Do you know it? Where the graves and the roots of the oaks are entangled?”

“No.”

“There is the grave of Mary’s mother. We visit it.”

“You make love in graveyards, Bysshe?”

“Make love is not the just phrase, Victor. We are friends deep in accord and in mutual harmony. We are devoted to one another’s interests.”

“Well, this is love by another name.”

“Do you think so? By the way, there is something we must attend. It will afford endless delight.” He took from his pocket a sheet of paper which, when he had unfolded it, turned out to be a playbill announcing the imminent performance of
The Atheist’s Curse
. It was subtitled “Two Deaths Too Many.”

“Isn’t it delicious, Victor? Isn’t it rich?”

It was clearly designed to be a drama on Bysshe and the events of the previous few months. I must say that I was surprised by his good humour. But he had a remarkable ability to rise above circumstances, if I may put it like that, and to see himself in a wholly impersonal light. “We will not tell Mary,” he said. “It will disturb her. But we must go, Victor, for the novelty of it. Do you think I will be portrayed on the stage?”

“Most certainly.”

“Then we must go tonight.”

We entered the Alhambra Theatre that same night, as he wished. We took a small box on the side of the stage, on the level of the pit, where we were subject to the usual catcalls and ribaldry of the lower classes. Bysshe was not recognised, of course, but from his appearance and bearing he was obviously a gentleman. If the fellows of the pit had known that he was the subject of the melodrama, there would have been an uproar. The small orchestra had just struck up a plaintive tune, when there was a knock on the door of our box. “Who the devil is it?” Bysshe asked me. “Come!”

“May I?” A face appeared from behind the door, fleshy but not unpleasing. “May I join you?” A young man, dressed in sky-blue breeches and a jacket of gaberdine, entered cautiously. “There were no boxes left. And these gentlemen—” he gestured to the pit—“would not have left me alone.”

“By all means, sir,” I replied. “There is a seat here.”

“So the attendants told me.”

“I know that man,” Shelley whispered to me. He could say no more. The curtain was parted, to a crescendo from the orchestra, and the stage revealed. An actor, dressed in black, was sitting within what might have been a cave, a secluded chamber or a garden retreat. He was writing on a curled piece of manuscript with an absurdly large quill.
“I act in defiance of all known laws,”
he announced to the audience.
“I say that there is no divinity in the heavens above. There is no God!”
Some of the audience jeered at this sentiment, while others cheered and clapped their hands. “I think,” Bysshe whispered, “that this gentleman is supposed to be me.” The jeers and applause were
succeeded by whistles when a young woman appeared on the stage. She walked in a very stately manner to the supposed atheist, and gently caressed him.
“Ah, my beloved,”
she said.
“You are the light of the world to me.”

“She does not resemble Harriet in the slightest,” Bysshe said.

There was some stage business of no consequence, after which the young woman stepped forward and addressed the audience.
“If only I could persuade him,”
she said,
“of the existence of a just and merciful God. Then with good conscience I could marry him! I would give my life for him to see the truth!”

“To see your tits!” one of the pit called out.

“She can marry him,” Bysshe said, “or give her life. She cannot do both.”

There then followed a scene in which the devil—or, at least, an actor dressed in red—began to leap around the young woman to her evident distress. The atheist on stage proved incapable of seeing this demon, on the evident presumption that he who knows no god knows no devil. It was all very ludicrous, and the gentleman sharing our box began to show signs of restlessness. “It is my belief,” he said, “that men create more damage on each other than the devil ever did.”

“I agree with you, sir,” Bysshe replied.

“This is sad stuff.”

“Execrable.”

“I would not have missed it for anything.” The gentleman was quite at ease in this narrow and grimy box, and I believed that he would have been at ease anywhere. He was in his early manhood, and had the most beguiling smile; it was as if he understood all the tricks of the world, and saw the comedy of them.

“Forgive me, sir,” Shelley said. “But I think I know your name.”

“Oh, indeed?”

“You are Byron.”

“I was when I last looked.”

I expressed my surprise. “Lord Byron?”

He glanced at me with amusement. “Is there another one?”

The intelligence interested me greatly. I had heard of Lord Byron, of course, but had not read any of his verses. Bysshe had the advantage of me in that respect, and had already spoken to me warmly of the early cantos of
Childe Harold’s Pilgrimage
. “I am delighted to meet you, sir,” he said. “I am an admirer.”

“I would repay the compliment, I am sure, if I knew your name.”

“You have just seen me on the stage, I believe.”

“You are the one?”

“The atheist.”

“Shelley? I wondered why a gentleman would come to such a place! So you are Shelley! I have heard a great deal about you from Hogg.”

“You know Tom?”

“He has become a neighbour of mine in Nottinghamshire. He has read me all of your poetry. It delights me. It is pure music.” Then he turned to me with a flattering expression of interest.

“And this,” Shelley said, “is a very dear friend of mine. Victor Frankenstein.”

“Are you also a poet, sir?”

“Oh, no. I am nothing at all.”

“Delighted to hear it. There are too many poets in the world. One is enough. Is that not right, Shelley?”

“Victor is too modest, my lord.”

“Just Byron. I come to my name. Like a dog.”

“Victor is a great inventor.”

“And what do you find?” He had a quick, high-spirited manner of talking. “If it is not too great a secret.”

“I have no secrets, sir. Like Newton I am picking up sea-shells on the shore.”

“Admirable. That is all any of us do. We are dazzled by shape and colour, are we not?” The orchestra had begun to play, as an interval between the acts, and Byron turned back to Bysshe. “Are you tired of yourself yet, Shelley?”

“I could not endure another minute of me.”

“Splendid. So you will both dine with me at Jacob’s. We will raise a glass to atheism, and alarm the waiters.”

We left the theatre and made our way towards the Strand, Byron talking all the way and gesticulating with a finely carved ebony cane. “I have never understood,” he said, “the positive rage for bad drama in London. The cockney public loves nothing more than a thoroughly disgraceful performance by ill-favoured actors. There are so many finer melodramas on the streets of the city. Nothing on the stage bears the slightest comparison with the characters one sees every day in the ordinary business of living. Do you not agree, Mr. Frankenstein, that the events of real life are infinitely more surprising and unusual than anything written down by a scribbler?”

“I have that impression, my lord.”

“Merely Byron.”

“There are incidents in life which would be deemed improbable or even impossible by the ordinary observer.”

“Precisely my point. Why, I could tell you a thousand coincidences and accidents that would be laughed off the boards. Polidori. Are you here? This is a surprise.” He stopped to greet a small sallow-looking young man.

“I had expected to find you drinking in Jacob’s,” the man said.

“You find us going to Jacob’s instead.” He introduced us to Polidori—“Dr. Polidori,” as he named him—and together we walked the few yards to an ancient and dimly lit chop-house where Byron was obviously a frequent and honoured guest. We were installed in a private room on the first floor, where Byron ordered steak
barbare
. “It is my homage to the French people,” he said. “Napoleon has led them to disaster. We can at least support their cuisine.” It transpired, in the course of conversation, that Polidori was personal physician and attendant to Lord Byron; he had been enrolled at the university of Prague, of which city he was a native, before making his way to the university at Edinburgh. I could not help remarking on the parallel with my own journey from Ingolstadt to Oxford, and he evinced much interest in my studies.