I waited throughout that day. I was shielded from the rain and the wind, and with a phosphorous match I managed to make a fire from the broken wooden shelves that lay upon the floor. Just before dusk I ventured onto the jetty. There was a smell of oil and tar coming from the water, and I could hear the low murmur of the tide against the wooden walls of the embankment. I could see a log, perhaps fallen from a merchantman, coming up with the current-yet it was no log. It was a swimmer, quite straight in the water; I saw his arms moving with almost mechanical force, and he left no wake behind him. The figure approached, and raised his head from the water; an oil-lamp from an alley on the north bank illuminated him for a moment. It was the creature, swimming steadily towards the workshop. He must have seen me, but he gave no sign of greeting or recognition. He plunged once more into the water, and I lost sight of him.
I walked back into the workshop, and sat down. I was quite composed.
I heard the sound of something raising itself onto the jetty, with a laboured and heavy motion, and then two footsteps. All at once he stood before me, his clothes steaming; I noticed that, curiously enough, they were drying quickly before my eyes. He was possessed of some extraordinary inward heat.
I suppressed a sudden and overwhelming desire to flee his presence, and remained seated. “You have sought me out,” I said.
He looked at me with an expression of the utmost curiosity. His eyes were gleaming, as if a candle or a lamp had been lit behind them. I knew them, then, to be eyes of the keenest intelligence. Then he bowed his head. “There is no substance,” he replied, “without a shadow.”
I was astonished-no, lost in amazement-at the purity and refinement of his diction. I might have been talking to an angel rather than a devil. “What have you done?” I asked him.
“I? I have done nothing. What have you done? Can you look at me and not weep?” As if under the impress of overwhelming feeling he turned and walked out onto the jetty; yet after a moment he returned, and once more stood before me. I now observed him carefully. Somehow or other he had acquired breeches and linen, and strong leather boots that came up to his calves; he still possessed the black cloak he had taken from me, on the night of his creation, but he had lost or forgotten the hat. His long yellow hair, parted at the crown, reached down to his shoulders and somehow gave him a preternatural image of age; and his skin still had the frightful appearance of being furrowed and folded.
“Why did you kill her?” I asked him.
“I wished you to notice me.”
“What?”
“I wished you to think of me. To consider my plight.”
“By killing Harriet?”
“I knew then that you would not be able to throw me off. To disdain me.”
“Have you no conscience?”
“I have heard the word.” He smiled, or what I took to be a smile passed across his face. “I have heard many words for which I do not feel the sentiment here.” He tapped his breast. “But you understand that, do you not, sir?”
“I cannot understand anything so devoid of principle, so utterly malicious.”
“Oh, surely you have some inkling? I am hardly unknown to you.” I realised then that his was the voice of youth-of the youth he had once been-and that a cause of horror lay in the disparity between the mellifluous expression and the distorted appearance of the creature. “You have not lost your memory, I trust?”
“I wish to God I had.”
“God? That is another word I have heard. Are you my God?”
I must have given an expression of disdain, or disgust, because he gave out a howl of anguish in a manner very different from the way he had conversed. With one sudden movement he picked up the great oaken table, lying damaged upon the floor, and set it upright. “You will remember this. This was my cradle, was it not? Here was I rocked. Or will you pretend that the river gave me birth?” He took a step towards me. “You were the first thing that I saw upon this earth. Is it any wonder that your form is more real to me than that of any other living creature?”
I turned away, in disgust at myself for having created this being. But he misunderstood my movement. He sprang in front of me, with a celerity unparalleled. “You cannot leave me. You cannot shut out my words, however distasteful they may be to you. Were you covered by oceans, or buried in mountains, you would still hear me.” He paused. “I am not devoid of intelligence. Perhaps you made sure of that?”
“I had hoped,” I said in utter sorrow and weariness of spirit, “that you would be a natural man.”
“There now. I have you. You have confirmed what I have long since discovered. You are indeed responsible for my being.” I inclined my head, but my silence was for him assurance enough. “Did I ask you to mould me? Did I solicit you to take me from the darkness?” I could not bring myself to look at him. “Do you hear the blast of the cold wind? To me it is a sweet whisper that lulls me to sleep.” When I looked up at him, he was kneeling upon the floor in a state of abject desolation; if ever I might have felt pity for him, it was at that moment. Once again he exhibited some preternatural awareness of my own thoughts, for he turned and stared at me for a time. “So you have pity on me,” he said, “as I will have pity on you.”
“I do not need your pity.”
“Not need pity? You are the guilty agent of my misfortunes. I did not seek for life, nor did I make myself. Thou art the man!” With that phrase he pointed at me, and his quivering finger seemed to be aimed at my heart. Under the powerful force of his gaze I bowed my head once more and wept. “You may weep now,” he said. “You will weep again.”
I do not know how long we sat in silence together, with only the sound of the wind and the chaffing of the river as companions. Eventually he roused himself and walked towards the door overlooking the Thames. “Look,” he said, “even the rats fly from my approach. The fear I inspire in these creatures was the first evidence of my existence when I left this place, on the cold and howling night of my birth. I will tell you the story, sir. You should know what you yourself have made.”
14
“I HAD THE SENSATION THAT I had come out of darkness, but I did not understand the nature of that darkness. Then there was light and warmth, an infinite comfort and delight as if I lay suspended in some voluptuous medium. I believe then that I uttered my first sounds.”
“You sang.”
“Was that singing? The sounds emerged from within my form, as if all the fibres of my being were coming out in harmony for the first time. I was in a state of the utmost excitement. Here.” He touched his genitals without any sense of shame or embarrassment. “And then I saw you. I believe that I knew at once that you were my author, that you had transmitted life into my own frame. I did not experience any sensation of gratitude, however, but one of curiosity. What was this breath and motion with which I was endowed? At that moment the world could show me no greater marvel than my own existence: yet I did not know what it was to exist! I believe that you said something to me-some imprecation, some refusal-yet to me your strange voice seemed to issue from the darkness that I had lately escaped. It was as dark and hollow as an echo. I turned from you. It was not fear. Believe me, I hardly know what fear is. It was wonder. I saw beyond the confines of this place a great river, and a world. I sensed the ocean beyond. I sensed life.