The Casebook of Victor Frankenstein (14 page)

“Excellent. Did Harriet say anything of Bysshe?”

“He spends his time reading books from a circulating library and composing letters to his father.”

I suspected that very little profit would emerge from either activity, but I said nothing. I did not wish to injure Daniel’s happy expectations for the marriage, although I could see small cause for optimism. If it was a misalliance, as I believed, then little good would come of it. We spoke of other matters. He told me news of the Popular Reform League, and of a recent meeting on Clerkenwell Green when the army had been called; they had been told to quell any disturbances but the meeting passed off peacefully enough. By Daniel’s account the army had in any case been singularly reluctant to intervene. “They are working men, too,” he said. “They will not spill our blood.” Naturally I was pleased, and relieved for his sake, but my own enthusiasm for the cause had diminished. I was so intent upon my own studies that I had little inclination for other pursuits. What can stop the determined heart and resolved will of man? I was as fixed as fate.

NOW THAT I HAD OBTAINED
the pottery manufactory in Limehouse, I had to furnish it with all the equipment and apparatus I would need to create and to store the electrical fluid. I enquired in many different workshops until one afternoon I found myself in the laboratory of Mr. Francis Hayman, a civil engineer who was employed by the Convex Lights Company to investigate new methods of illumination. He was situated in Bermondsey, next to a hat company, not far across the water from Limehouse itself. Once he had learned the nature of my mission he was happy to show me around his workshop, as he
called it, where there were a variety of engines and coils and jars which immediately excited my interest. “What have you so far accomplished?” he asked me.

I told him that I was eager to revive life in animal tissue by means of electricity. “I have begun to experiment,” I said, “by small shocks.”

“There is no doubt that the fluid can be a healing compound. So why should it not be employed to excite dormant organs? Did you happen to read, in Wesley’s journals, that his lameness was mended when he was electrified morning and evening?”

“I did not know of it,” I replied. “But it does not surprise me in the least.”

“But you have noted the difference between the two electricities?” He was a tall man who had acquired a stoop, no doubt through the agency of the low English door.

“I know what Franklin has called the vitreous and the resinous—”

“Well, Mr. Frankenstein, I prefer my own terminology. There is frictional electricity and magnetical electricity and thermal electricity. Their derivation is obvious.”

“Of course.”

“Here is the interesting thing. I believe that electrical fluid is also discharged by means of chemical action. I have called it galvanic electricity. It is a great power of nature, sir.”

“You have created it here?”

“I have. Now my task is to make all of these various fluids cohere. Observe the means.” He took me over to a small wooden bench upon which were placed four elongated glass tubes, with wires passing between them.

“This resembles the electrical balance of Coulomb, Mr. Hayman.”

“You know of that? You are better instructed than I thought.” He had a crisp, almost harsh, manner of speaking. “I have also done experiments with the electrical gymnotus.”

“I beg your pardon?”

“The eel. And also with some electric rays. It is remarkable how the flat fish emits the fluid.”

“Not so remarkable,” I said. “I have examined a specimen of that fish in the course of my work. Beneath its wings are columns of discs, tightly bound together, which must act as a form of natural battery. They possess electric organs.”

“Precisely my conclusion, sir.”

“It is my belief,” I said, “that the electric fluid is deposited in a latent state in unlimited quantity in the earth, the water and the atmosphere. It is in the sheet of summer lightning. It is in the raindrop.”

“In you. And in me.” He shook my hand. “I am pleased to greet an electrical friend. Let me show you something else.”

He took me across his laboratory to a small alcove, partitioned off from the main room. Within it was a cylindrical instrument, some six feet in height, with levels of vitreous glass and metal. “This is my invention,” he said. “It is constructed of zinc, Dutch leaf and quicksilver. It contains almost a thousand small discs, together with cakes of wax and resin.” He stroked the side of the device. “I call it the electrical column.”

“What is its power?”

“Immense.” He opened his eyes very wide. “When it is used in connection with the electrical battery in the outer room. Do you see all those jars connected together? Well—”

“It is a giant nerve, Mr. Hayman.”

“That is a good way of putting it. My employers have fixed ideas in such matters. They wish me to examine new modes of lighting the streets. But with engines such as this, we could see the entire nation in an electric state!”

I knew then that my quest had been successful. I had found the very equipment I would need to transmit the electrical fluid to the human frame. It was not hard for me to persuade Mr. Hayman to build for me an identical machine, with all its various appurtenances; the sum I offered him would more than compensate for his labour, and give him funds for further investigations. It was agreed that various parts of the electrical column would be wrapped in canvas and then transported across the Thames in wherries, from Bermondsey to Limehouse, where he would help to assemble them in my own workshop. I was in a state of intense excitement. To have the means of transmitting life within my power—to be able to create the vital spark—thrilled me beyond measure.

With the assistance of two local workmen I assembled a series of benches and shelves in the workshop, sufficient for the materials I was collecting. I wanted some means of refrigeration, too, and so they constructed for me the type of ice-chamber that is found in the cellars of Billingsgate Market. The wives of the workmen cleaned everything to perfection. I told them that I was studying the slow disappearance of the fish that had once been so plentiful in the Thames, and they applauded me for a labour so useful to the area. I told them that I wished to be left in peace, since my work required long and patient study, and that I was obliged to work at night when the business of the river had diminished. I knew well
enough that my words would be widely distributed in the neighbourhood.

Within six or seven weeks Hayman began to deliver the equipment he had manufactured for me. Over several nights two wherrymen brought it over the Thames. They made use of my landing stage on the riverside, just in front of the work shop, and on the final night under cover of darkness they carried the precious electrical column into the building. Once the boatmen had departed, Hayman began the arduous task of assembling his invention.

“I have been thinking,” I said to him. “I would like another.”

“Another column? It is unnecessary, Frankenstein. The power of this machine is unequalled.”

“But what if I—I mean, what if it—were to cease operation for any reason?”

“It will not happen. I give you my word.”

“I trust you entirely, Hayman, but what if through some error of my own the column ceased to function? My work would be at an utter stand.”

“That is a consideration.” He stayed silent for a moment, and I could hear the lapping of the tide against a boat; there was a cry somewhere downriver, and a chain splashed into the water. “You must promise me this. You must never employ the columns at the same time. The effect would be incalculable. We know so little of the nature of the electrical fluid that no one can predict its course. It could be deathly.”

“I promise you, Hayman.” With that, the deed was done. He agreed to construct another column, on the same principles as the first, and to deliver it within a few weeks. I believe that he was also swayed by the pledge of an equivalent sum. As I
have written before, the English will do anything for profit. I was exultant. I would have within my control the energies of a vast power—perhaps more power than any one man had harboured—and through that power I would create a new form of science. By restoring human life I was about to begin an enterprise that might change human consciousness itself! I was determined to prove that nature can be a moral force, an agent for good and for benevolent change. To bring life out of death—to restore the lost spirits and functions of the human frame—what could be more beneficent?

IT REMAINED FOR ME
now to procure the subjects. I still recalled very well the conversation I had held in Paris with Armitage, the oculist, whose father had been acquainted with the resurrection men; the father had worked as an assistant for John Hunter, a surgeon of great gifts who had needed the supply of fresh specimens for the rehearsal of his skills. Armitage had given me his card but, foolishly, I had mislaid it. So I called in Fred.

“Have you heard, Fred, of an oculist?”

“I have not, sir. If I lived to be a hundred, I would never have heard of him.”

“An opticist? Optician?”

“Is it the same gentleman?”

“Similar.”

“Then he might as well be the man in the moon. I do not know him.”

“Tell me this then, Fred. In your extensive travels through the metropolis—”

“Beg your pardon, sir. I am always on foot.”

“—have you encountered a shop with a large pair of spectacles hanging outside it?”

“Oh, yes. Many times. I took them to be telescopes, sir. Like the one in the Strand. I know of one in Holborn, next to the cheese shop.” Then he slapped his hand on his forehead, and did a small mime of disbelief. “Let me pinch myself, sir. There is one here in Piccadilly. Run by a cove with the name of Wilkinson.”

“Can you go to this Wilkinson, Fred, and ask if he knows of a maker of spectacles by the name of Armitage?”

“I will try, sir. I don’t know if the old codger will speak to me.”

“Why ever not?”

“He is a tartar with us boys.”

“If he will not help you, then go to Holborn. Wherever you see the sign of the spectacles, ask for Armitage.”

So Fred set off. He returned no more than an hour later, bearing in triumph a small piece of paper. “Weeny, waxy, weedy,” he said. I must have looked surprised. “That is Julius Caesar, sir. When he won.” He handed to me the paper, upon which was written a name and address:
W.W. Armitage and Son, 14 Friday Street, Cheapside
.

Such was my impatience, and urgency, that I journeyed there on the same afternoon. It was a narrow-fronted property, with a small street-door and a thin window rising up the whole length of the ground floor. When I entered a cracked bell rang above me, and within a few moments I heard the sound of shuffling steps. The tall window seemed designed to catch as much light as possible from Friday Street, and on the shelves around me I could see all possible varieties of spectacles—green
spectacles, blue spectacles, convex spectacles, concave spectacles, spectacles with front glasses, spectacles with side glasses, and the like. An old man came into the shop, leaning upon a cane. The crown of his head was quite bald, and his puckered mouth suggested that he had lost his teeth, but I noticed at once the brightness of his eyes. “May I be of service to you, sir?”

“I am looking for Mr. Armitage.”

“You see him.”

“I believe, sir, that you have a son.”

“I have.”

“I had the good fortune of meeting him in Paris, and I promised to pay him a visit on my return to London.”

“What is your name, sir?”

“Frankenstein. Victor Frankenstein.”

“Something—” He put his hand up to his forehead. “I am reminded.” He went into the interior passage of the shop, and called out, “Selwyn!”

There came a hurried step down some uncarpeted stairs, and my acquaintance came into the room. “Good Lord,” he said. “I was hoping that I would see you again. This is Mr. Frankenstein, Father, who is studying the workings of human life. I told you of him.”

The father looked at me, with his bright eyes, and seemed to be satisfied. “Tell Mother to bring us some green tea,” he said. “Do you take green tea, Mr. Frankenstein? It is very good for the ocular nerves.”