I heard the voice of Mrs. Shoeberry. She was trailing her son up the staircase, all the while complaining of her “poor knees” that could hardly stand the strain of climbing. “Well, here you are, sir,” she said when she came onto the landing. She seemed surprised to see me in my own lodging. “I have laboured long and hard over your linen, sir. Fred, give Mr. Frankenstein the parcel. All crisp and white like a snow field.”
“I am glad to hear it, Mrs. Shoeberry.”
“The sheets are perfection. You will sleep as cleanly as a nun.”
“I hope so.” I took her into the drawing room and paid her a florin, which she accepted with alacrity.
“I hear, sir, that you have been in strange parts.”
“Ma!”
“It is my way to converse with my gentlemen, Fred. I am not a post.”
“We have been to Marlow, if that is what you mean.”
“I don’t exactly know where that is, sir.”
“Along the Thames.”
“Oh, the Thames, is it? Quite a long river, sir.” It was clear to me that Fred had not informed his mother of Martha’s death; it was no doubt too explosive a topic. “There is an awful lot of water in the Thames, sir. Mark my words.”
“Undoubtedly, Mrs. Shoeberry.”
“And to be plain, sir, we don’t quite know where it all comes from. There is a deal of dirt in it. It is ever such a hindrance to us laundry women. I never go down to the stairs no more. I would come back more dead than alive. Filthy smell, sir. Pah!” She mimed all the symptoms of disgust, much to Fred’s annoyance.
“You must get back, Ma,” he urged her. “Little Tom will be missing his tea.”
“Stop your pushing and your pulling, boy. Mr. Frankenstein and I are enjoying a quiet chat.” Her eyes roamed about the room. “I shall look after them shirts as if they were my own, sir. Do you happen to have an ounce of spirits about you? This rain has upset my constitution. Women are frail, sir, in wet weather.” I went over to my cabinet and poured her a glass of gin, which she swallowed in a moment-taking care afterwards to lick her lips, in case any of the precious fluid had escaped her. “The water gets into our bones.”
“Ma, I have to prepare Mr. Frankenstein’s supper.”
“Oh? What are you having, sir?”
“What am I having, Fred?”
“Pork chops in onion gravy. With a good head of crackling.”
“That’s sumptuous, that is. Make sure the crackling is moist, Fred. It draws up the richness.”
“We must not detain you any longer, Mrs. Shoeberry. I know you are a very busy woman.”
“Busy? I am like a cartwheel, sir. Always turning.” Fred left the room and began to descend the stairs, with the clear understanding that his mother should follow. “Yes, boy,” she said. “Don’t fluster me. You will make me all of a quiver.” She went out of the door, and then stopped. “I will starch your cuffs, sir. They will be so stiff that you will not know them.”
“I am obliged, Mrs. Shoeberry.”
ON THE FOLLOWING MORNING I took once more the familiar way to Limehouse, but fired now by a new eagerness to embark upon the means of destroying the creature. The workshop was still in disarray, of course, but there was no evidence of further incursions by him. All lay in disorder. The pieces of the electrical columns, constructed for me by Francis Hayman, lay upon the floor. They had some marks of the elements, where the rain had blown upon them, but I observed that each part was still intact: the discs, the cakes of wax and resin, the vitreous glass and metal lay in separate pieces. There was rust upon the metal, but it would be easily removed. If I could enlist the aid of Hayman once again, I could re-create the conditions of my original experiment. But first I needed to restore the workshop itself. Over the next few days, with the help of the workmen who had rebuilt the interior so many months before, I repaired the walls and replaced the shelves and cabinets. I told them that a gang of scuffle-hunters, the local name for the river thieves, had broken in and searched for money. They warned me of the dangers of working by the Thames, and placed a great padlock upon the newly fitted door.
I called upon Hayman at the offices of the Convex Light Company in Abchurch Lane. Here I explained to him the injury to the equipment he had constructed for me-blaming once more the activities of the scuffle-hunters-and asked his help in restoring it. Then I asked him the question that most concerned me. “Have you debated, sir, on the possibilities of a negative fluid?”
“You will have to be more precise, Mr. Frankenstein.”
“What I mean is this. We believe the electrical fluid to be transmitted in wave form, do we not?”
“That is the theory. Although some deem it to be comprised of particles.”
“Let us assume it to be waves. Would I be right in conceiving of these waves, in effect, as a series of curves?”
“You are close. I am convinced that there are innumerable magnetic curves, packed so closely together that they seem to form an indivisible line.”
“But each curve could in theory be traced and measured?”
“In theory.”
“It would have a high point and a low point?”
“There will be parabolic and hyperbolic arcs.”
“Precisely my meaning. And what, Mr. Hayman, if they were reversed?”
“You astonish me, Mr. Frankenstein. It would entirely change the nature of the electrical fluid. But it could not be done. The laws of physical science stand in the way.”
“I am used to defying such laws.”
“Truly?”
“I mean only that like you I wish to make advances in our knowledge of the world. All physical laws are provisional, are they not?”
“How far have you proceeded, sir, with your original research?”
I had told him, in the course of our earlier conversations, that by means of the electrical fluid I wished to restore life and energy to animal tissue. “I have made some small steps,” I replied. “I have found it possible to restore animation to certain fish. But for a short time only.”
“Carry on with the work, Mr. Frankenstein. It is of the utmost interest and importance to the rest of us. Be assured of that.”
He agreed to visit the Limehouse workshop on the following Sunday, and to assist me in the restoration of the broken equipment. On his arrival, as I had hoped, he concluded that the damage could be repaired without undue effort; in fact, he began the task at once. “Sunday,” he said, “is my day for private working. I gain strength from it. Work is my church.”
“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.”