The Casebook of Victor Frankenstein (40 page)

“It never occurred to me at all, Mary.”

“And this is also odd. He never mentioned the story of his double before. Something is preying on his mind. He is be coming light-headed with anxiety. With some fear. Or premonition, perhaps.”

“Of his fate?”

“Yes. Precisely that.”

I knew then that she feared his early death; she believed that Bysshe was acting strangely because he had some sense of his own demise. Why else had he become so interested in seances and ghosts and ghost stories? I tried to reassure her. “Surely he is excited by his travels,” I told her. “And, more especially, by the company of Byron. Bysshe has never lived in such proximity to another poet. It will affect him.”

“Do you think so? I would wish that to be true.”

“He is a delicate organism, Mary. One small touch—”

“Yes. I know. But there is something else. I also fear a
disaster! Over the past month I have experienced the strongest sensations of nervous apprehension. I have believed misfortune to be close to us.”

“Do not say so.” I put my hand upon her arm. “I have noticed a change in Bysshe, too. But I think you are wrong, Mary. It is not fear. It is frustration. Unsatisfied yearning. He deems himself to be a good poet—”

“A great one.”

“I grant that. But his work is known to very few. He has no audience to delight. Not yet. In the company of Byron, whose volumes sell in their thousands, is there any wonder that he should seem ill at ease? That he should have fits of extravagant behaviour? It would be more wonder if he did not.”

“I had thought of that. But Bysshe has no worldly temper, Victor. He is all fire and air. There is no earth in him. No jealousy.”

“I was not speaking of jealousy. I know that he is not an envious man. But, you see, his words are not being received. He writes of love and liberty, but no one hears him. You can see how that would exasperate him. To be understood by so few.”

“Yes, I do see that. Perhaps you are right, Victor. It may be that his friendship with Byron does him no good. His lordship is in many ways quite thoughtless. Have you noticed that? He treats Polidori as if he were a manservant. And Polidori resents it. He resents it bitterly. I would not be at all surprised if they did soon part company.”

“And what of you and Bysshe?”

She seemed horrified. “We are not about to part!”

“No. I mean, where will you go next? If you are not happy in the villa.”

“There is some talk of Italy. Oh, I am so weary of travelling, Victor. I long for England. I long to set up a household with Bysshe. And my father. A small house in Camden would suit.” There was a sudden movement between the trees, and a rustle among the fallen leaves. She stood up and peered into the darkness. “I hate rats,” she said. “Do you mind if we return to the house?”

ON THE FOLLOWING MORNING
I left them. I travelled with Fred in a hired chaise to Chamonix, high among the mountains. We observed the rocks and glaciers, we climbed the passes. I pointed out to Fred a great waterfall. “Do you see,” I said to him, “how the wind carries it away from the rocks? The fine spray of its descent passes before the mountain like a mist.”

“I see it, sir. It reminds me of fire-pumps.”

We travelled up the valley of the Arve, from Bonneville to Cerveaux, where the cataracts roared down into the river. Fred looked on, unimpressed. The summits of the mountains here were hidden in cloud but there were moments when their peaks were visible in the sky, like monuments carved by a giant race before the Flood. “Imagine standing up there,” I said to Fred. “Imagine looking down from the heights into the abyss.”

“I think, Mr. Frankenstein, you had better not do it. You would never come down again.”

“You have no poetry, Fred.”

“If it made me climb them mountains, sir, then I am better without it.”

After the journey of two days we arrived at my old family house in Chamonix; it was locked and bolted, under the care of
an old custodian, Eugene, but I managed to arouse him after repeated knocking on the doors and windows. He was astonished to see me, arriving unannounced after so long an absence, and began to talk in a distracted fashion about my father’s wish that I should one day move back.

“That is for the future,” I told him. “For the present, can you make up the beds? My boy will sleep in your quarters.”

He seemed to take kindly to Fred, and I watched them that evening in the garden feeding the squirrels. I saw Eugene pointing to the glacier above Chamonix which each year advanced several feet, leaving a trail of split and shattered pines. I had observed that glacier since childhood, and it had become for me a symbol of overwhelming cataclysm. As a student I had read Buffon’s prophecy that at some future period the world would be changed into a mass of ice and frost. Who could deny the power of a frozen world? Nature held within itself the seeds of destruction, utterly vast and waste. I had grown up among desolation.

ON THE FOLLOWING MORNING
I set off by myself to the small cemetery of Chamonix where my sister and father were buried. They had been placed in the same grave, with
Frankenstein
etched on the marble tomb. I bowed my head in sorrow, but I could not help but consider the peacefulness of death. It was akin to innocence. All around me was the whiteness of the mountains, with Mont Blanc towering among them; the light of the sun struck their pinnacles, and the brightness became intense—almost intolerable. I closed my eyes for a moment. In that moment death, and the light, came together.

I came back from the cemetery with my faith renewed in the power of the sublime. I was filled with a sense of purpose. I would return to London, and test the electrical fluid. I would alleviate the suffering of the creature by returning it to nonentity.

“We are going back,” I said to Fred as soon as I entered the house.

“To the villa?” He looked downcast.

“No. To London.”

I saw him later doing a little jig in the garden.

THE JOURNEY WAS SLOW
and laborious. By the end of the first week, we were thoroughly exhausted. Then we faced the rigours of the sea, where we lay becalmed for two days before a friendly wind sent us towards England. I had never been more thankful, when we passed the Nore and began our short voyage up the Thames. The flat lands of the estuary lay around us on both shores, and of course I looked with keen attention towards the region where I believed the creature to live. But all seemed waste and wild. The contrast with the Alpine region from which we had come could not be more marked: there was no grandeur here, no sublimity, only weariness and gloom. Perhaps that is why the creature, immured in the marshes, had tired of life.

We passed Limehouse, and I could see the workshop pale in the twilight.

The tide was coming in, and we floated with it towards London Bridge. On our arrival in Jermyn Street Fred unpacked the baggage and prepared for me a bowl of sassafras which, he said, was a restorative after travelling. I must say that I felt the welcome relief of the hot milk, but my peace was suddenly
disturbed by a sharp exclamation from him. “What!” he shouted. “What do you want?” Then he threw one of my boots into a corner. “A mouse!” he said. “It has crept here while we were away!” He went over to the corner and peered down onto the floor. “I have killed it.”

“Well, throw it out of the window.”

“I do not like to touch it.”

“You are happy to murder it. But you are afraid to touch it. What is the matter with you?”

“I do not like the thought of dead things coming alive, sir. It might seem dead, but what if it were to wriggle in my hands?”

I opened the window and looked out into the night. I could smell the coal and charcoal from the domestic fires. Then I went over to the corner, picked up the mouse, and threw it down into the street. “There now. All your terror has gone. Would you prepare my bed?”

ON THE FOLLOWING MORNING
I was about to set off for Limehouse, eager to test my new theory concerning the electrical charge, when Fred announced a visitor. Polidori entered the room, visibly excited, and flung himself down in a chair without invitation. “You are surprised to see me, Frankenstein? I hoped to find you here. You did not return to the villa, so I guessed that you had gone back. I could stand it no longer. Byron has become insufferable, and the poor Shelleys seem to follow his bidding in everything. I got back last night.” He was speaking in a disjointed manner. “You know that Byron is a danger?”

“I have my doubts about him.”

“Doubts? Certainties. He has seduced one of the girls in the neighbourhood of the villa, and the people there are ready to lynch him. His temper has become unbearable. He screams at the servants, and has abused Shelley to his face.”

“In what way?”

“He called him a doodler and an unknown scribbler.”

“And how did Shelley respond?”

“He went pale. Then he turned away and walked out of the room. I could take no more of it, Frankenstein. I left without warning, in case Byron should try and prevent me. When I last saw him he was on one of his drunken sprees, wandering in the garden and slashing at the trees with his cane.”

“Your laudanum would have calmed him.”

“You cannot give an opiate to a madman. It fuels his madness.”

“You think him insane?”

“Deranged. Degraded. Whatever word you wish.”

“No, Polidori. Madness is silent and secret. Don’t you think so? This ebullition of temper is the sign of an oversensitive constitution. Nothing more.”

“Whatever the cause of his lordship’s
frenzy
, I do not wish to witness it. So I have come back.”

“Do you have lodgings?”

“No.” He looked at me almost defiantly.

“Where are you going to stay?”

“I was hoping, Frankenstein, that I might stay with you.”

I could think of no convenient excuse for the moment. “Here?”

“This is where you live, is it not? I know that you have room to spare.”

In the course of that day, then, the bold and resourceful Polidori moved into Jermyn Street. There was a small room at the back that, he said, fitted him admirably. When I broke the news to Fred, he merely rolled his eyes.