When your message reached me, I was already in a convenient location (yes, upon another matter, in which you have an interest; no need to mention it here) and so I proceeded directly to the university town of Ingolstadt. I am writing this in a small rented room in the very house in which the then-student, Victor Frankenstein, conducted his mysterious experiments up until three years ago; and where his supposed monster was created. (I say "supposed" advisedly, Sir; you will no doubt appreciate why, as you read on).
The town of Ingolstadt is interesting to American eyes, and no doubt worthy of description; but I shall not try your patience much in that regard. Suffice it to say that the old church is as picturesque as claimed for it, and there is here a printing press of the fifteenth century, which you, in memory of your original profession, would no doubt find worthy a visit on some more peaceful and leisurely occasion.
As the seat of a university of some reputation, Ingolstadt is accustomed to entertaining wander-ing youths of diverse nationalities, and my presence here has evoked a second look from no one. A few preliminary questions, asked in a tavern or two, gained me sufficient information about the location of the house. When I arrived at her door, the landlady, a Frau Bauer, assumed without asking that I was a student. One of the vacant rooms she showed me was, I was sure, the very chamber where he lodged, near the top of the house. (I will give, presently, more on the reasons for my certainty.) Naturally I engaged the room at once.
From the landing outside its door a small, narrow stair goes up even higher; despite a firm prohibition from Frau Bauer, I have managed to get a look at the single room up there, and am convinced that it is the very chamber where the Frankenstein experiments took place. It contains no real bed, only a long, low table, stained and marble-topped, with drain and sink attached, reminding me of something out of a dissecting-room at medical school—save only that this example is nine feet long. A couple of other tables and some shelves, all empty, and most of them stained as if with powerful chemicals, complete the furnishings. There are certain metal fittings screwed into the woodwork on the walls and at the window, that I found curiously reminiscent, Sir, of some of your own electrical equipment; it was almost as if one of your lightning-conductors had been installed in the room and then partially removed.
There are marks on the door and frame, suggesting that several locks and bolts once there have also been removed. One lock remains, and it is ordinarily kept secured.
Once settled into my rented room, I began to ask questions about the young man, Victor Frankenstein, who lived here only a few short years ago. Frau Bauer gave me suspicious looks at that point, and ho real information. I did not press the matter with her, but walked out to see what I could learn among the academics themselves.
I have heard much conversation from these gentlemen in a brief time, but as to what I have learned… I understood from your letter, Sir, who met the young man once and have long known his father, that this young Frankenstein, if his claims were true, was not only the foremost electrical experimenter in Europe, but absolutely the first in the entire world. From what I have been able to learn so far here at the university, from the men who knew him, he is either one of the world's greatest philosophers, as you suggest—or one of its greatest frauds and humbugs.
M. Waldman, the first professor that I spoke to, claims to have once met you (I sometimes think that almost every educated man in Europe has done so), and on reading my letter of introduction was at pains to welcome "the son of the distinguished Franklin." His English is far better than my German, and perhaps superior to my French, and so we conversed mostly in English.
Perhaps you will remember M. Waldman. He is now in his fifties, a man of quiet dignity with an air of sadness about him; short and straight of build, with a pleasant, convincing voice. He has read the Walton account of the Frankenstein affair (which is the same version, I trust, as that which came to your attention in Paris and caused you to write to me). M. Waldman seems to find it difficult to believe that such fantastic events—the reanimation of corpses, etc.—could really have taken place; but evidently he can see no alternative to belief. Or rather, perhaps, he will consider none.
Matters are quite different with M. Krempe, professor of natural philosophy, who also held that post during the years when Victor Frankenstein was a student here. Krempe also counseled the young man, and says that he remembers him quite well. Krempe like Waldman is short in physical stature, but beyond that it would be hard to find two men who are more different. Krempe's voice is gruff and forbidding, his face—not to mince words—ugly, and his whole personal appearance slovenly to an unusual degree.
Krempe's first reaction to the name of Frankenstein was a cold stare. "Have you really, young man," were his first words to me, "spent much time and effort in pursuing this story? I advise you strongly to give it up. Victor Frankenstein's work was—"
The concluding word was spoken in some dialect, an obscure one I think, of German. I heard it but imperfectly at the time, partly because of the explosive violence with which it reached my ears; and I would hesitate to try to set down its orthography; but I fear the precise meaning was unmistakable from the great expression of contempt with which it was uttered.
From my student days I am well aware that disagreements among learned professors are no rarity in universities, and I suppose that Ingolstadt is no exception. But this conflict seems unusually fierce. The one thing all parties are in agreement on is that Frankenstein should not be much talked about at all; and this accord, combined with their evident strong divergence of opinion about the experiments themselves, makes me think that the truth, if I can uncover it, ought to be interesting indeed.
Now, as to the Walton papers—what Waldman has shown me is an English-language copy of a thick pamphlet, really a book, entitled Frankenstein; or, the Modern Prometheus, that was published in London this summer and seems to be identical to the one you mentioned to me: the production of an English Captain Robert Walton, purporting to contain Victor Frankenstein's true story, as told to Walton aboard his ship. The story is couched in the form of letters from Walton to his sister, a Mrs. Saville, in London.
Frankly, Sir, I find it, on first reading, an incredible relation. Captain Walton would have us believe that Frankenstein, who had been traveling alone by dogsled, came aboard the captain's ship, the Argo, while she was on the verge of being locked into the Arctic ice last summer. The young philosopher, emaciated and weakened by great hardship, gasped out—at considerable length, and with many digressions—his tale of monsters, murder, and revenge, and then died in the captain's arms.
Walton also reports a brief visit to his ship by the monster, following the death of Frankenstein, after which the creature was last seen driving another dogsled in the general direction of the Pole. There the nameless "demon" (as his creator often calls him in the book) vowed to die, in some such words as these: "I shall ascend my funeral pile triumphantly, and exult in the agony of the torturing flames… my ashes will be swept into the sea by the winds."
Yes Sir, all in all, I certainly have my doubts. If there were no other obstacle to arouse them, the improbability of anyone planning to arrange a "funeral pile" in that wasteland of ice and water would be enough.
I would send you a copy of the whole Walton relation as it exists here, so that you could be sure it is identical to the version you have already seen; but I have at the moment only M. Waldman's own copy, which he has been kind enough to let me borrow—your name, Father, is one to conjure with, here in Ingolstadt as elsewhere. In any case, my own first hurried look at the story assures, me that it rambles and wanders into many digressions. It will be easier for both of us, I think, if I assume your familiarity with the general matter of it. I will copy directly for you only those passages that seem to bear most directly on that central topic in which you are interested—the existence or nonexistence of the monster—and his true origins, nature, and behavior if he does exist. Thus we may be sure we are considering the same supposed events.