I stepped back in horror, and his eyes followed my movement.
I could not resist the strangeness of his gaze, and we stared at one another. I was observing someone who had gone beyond death and had returned, but what did he imagine that I was? I could see nothing in his eyes except the darkness from which he had come. His lips parted, and then there issued from him the strangest sequence of sounds I had ever heard: it was like a rolling cascade of tones and pitches, but utterly discordant and repulsive. They were the sounds from the depths, sounds which should have been muffled or stifled, but to my astonishment I realised that he was attempting to sing. He was singing to me, while he continued to gaze upon me, and I stood in such awe of him that I could not move. This was no longer Jack. This was something else.
I do not know how long I stood there, but he was at length overcome by some kind of convulsion of restlessness. He began to rise from the table. With no more effort than would suffice for the breaking of a twig he snapped the bands which held down his neck, wrists and ankles; then he sat upright.
He looked around the workshop, as an animal might survey his cage, and then once more turned to me. He smiled, if it may be called a smile; his blackened lips opened, and there was a frightful rictus running from ear to ear. I could see a set of brilliantly white teeth, all the more startling in his discoloured mouth.
I backed away, taking a few paces, and found myself against the wall of the workshop where I kept my glass vessels and retorts for experimental use. For a moment he seemed to lose interest in me. He noticed his penis, still erect, and with a groan he began to stimulate himself in front of me. I looked on in absolute astonishment as he laboured to produce the seminal fluid. What monstrous issue might emerge from one who had died and had been reborn? His most devoted efforts were unavailing, however, and he turned to me with a curiously submissive or perhaps embarrassed look. Did he consider me to be his keeper, or his guardian, or his creator? Had he sinned like Adam in the Garden?
He walked a few steps, and I noticed that his movements were light and vigorous. I saw that he was about to walk towards me and, in my alarm, I put out both of my hands in supplication. “No!” I shouted to him. “Come no closer, if you please!” He hesitated. I was not sure whether he still understood human speech, or whether my strident voice and gestures had deterred him.
He stood uncertainly in the middle of the room, and moved his head from side to side as if testing the muscles of his neck. He put his hands up to his face, and seemed perplexed by the mottled texture of his flesh; he examined his hands very carefully, and seemed not to recognise them as his own. Again he looked at me, craftily and almost cunningly; again I put out my hands to prevent him.
To my utter relief he turned away from me and began walking towards the door that led to the jetty. He raised his face as if he had sensed the river close by. He did not open the door; he pushed himself past it, overthrowing it with one blow of his right arm. He seemed to relish the scents of the night and the river, the tar and the smoke and the filth that accrue to the foreshore. He surveyed the scene of both of the banks, and then seemed to look keenly downstream towards the sea. He raised his arms above his head, in a gesture of celebration or supplication, and plunged into the water. He was able to swim at an extraordinary speed, and within a very few moments he was out of my sight.
My first sensation was one of relief, that my odious handiwork had left me, but that was quickly followed by a fear and horror so intense that I could scarcely stand. I could not bring myself to remain in my workshop, the site of that terrible rebirth, and I staggered along the foreshore until I reached Limehouse Stairs. It was not an area to be visited by night, but I had lost all sense of physical danger. I was beset by a horror more frightful than any with which a human being could threaten me. I sat upon the damp steps, with bowed head, seeing nothing ahead of me but darkness. I hoped that the foul being might disappear for ever-might even be lost in the sea, if that was indeed his destination. It was possible that he might have no memory of his origin, and never return to Limehouse or to London in search of the mystery of his existence. Nevertheless I had created a being that might become a terror to the world, unhewn and endowed with unnatural strength. A rat scuttled past me and dropped into the water. Or perhaps he might quickly lose his strength, as my hand had done, and revert to a position of incapacity or weakness? In that case he would be a wretched being indeed, but not one to instil panic fear. Yet what kind of being was he? Was he aware that he possessed human existence? Did he even possess a consciousness?
I stood up, and walked from the stairs to the church of St. Lawrence by the Causeway. Never had I felt so strong a need for comfort and consolation, from whatever source it might come, and I mounted the worn steps towards the great door. I could not bring myself to cross the threshold. I was an accursed thing. I had taken my stand outside the range of God’s creation. I had usurped the Creator himself. This was no place for me. It was then, I believe, that the fever fell upon me. I do not remember where I wandered, but I was in a mist of fears and delusions. I recall entering a public house, and being served gin and other spirits until I dropped unconscious. I must have been robbed, and left in the street, because I woke up in a stinking alley. Still I wandered. For a few moments I must have believed that I had returned to my native Geneva, for I spoke a few words in French and German; then I was buffeted by the crowds along the highway, and I recall that my body was soaking with sweat and ague. It began to rain, and I crept down a side street where the overhanging roofs were able to shield me. I had never been more wretched-I, who had dreamed of renown, was no more than a wanderer in the streets of men. I heard a sudden sound behind me, at the other end of the street, and a cat screeched. I turned around in horror. I was struck by the terror that he might be pursuing me; I fled back into the highway and, joining without choice or thought the steady stream of people, I made my way eventually into the central neighbourhoods of London. I had been weeping-for how long, I do not know-and a gingerbread seller passed me a red cloth as I leaned against the wall beside her stall.
“Do you know what you are doing?” she asked me.
“I must go on.” I wanted to ask her the direction in which I lived, but for that moment I could not remember the name of the street. I could not remember anything. She gave me one of her cakes; my mouth was too dry and inflamed to swallow it, and I spat it out before moving on. Some instinct, common to all life, led me home. I found myself in Piccadilly. I staggered and fell against a horse post, but then who helped me to my feet but Fred?
“Whatever has happened to you, Mr. Frankenstein?”
“I don’t know. I don’t know what has happened to me.”
“You have had a mauling, you have.”
“Have I?”
“Do you know who did it?”
“I did it.”
He led me down Piccadilly and around the corner into Jermyn Street. I recognised the neighbourhood but then I became delirious again, and Fred explained to me later that I had been muttering words and phrases to myself that he could not understand. He washed me, put me in my bed, and called his mother. Mrs. Shoeberry ministered to me during the whole period of my fever. I discovered later that she piled the sheets and blankets on me “to force it out,” as she put it; all the windows and doors to my room were closed, and a fire was left perpetually burning in the grate. I wondered that she did not stifle me to death. The first thing I recall is her sitting by me, with a piece of needlework on her lap.