"The power of speech is yours, then, "the youth who had already spoken-muttered in a strange, almost feverish tone. "Repeat my name!" he commanded briskly.
"Victor Frankenstein."
"Ah. Good. And some degree of understanding."
He turned to his companion. "The cerebrum is not decayed after all, Henry, or at least… residual memory in the fibers. As I had hoped." He spoke confidently but gestured vaguely; his companion gaped at him, hoping intently for enlightenment, not getting much.
Regaining his assurance, Frankenstein stepped forward. For the moment pride and wonder were uppermost in him, his fear and loathing put aside.
"I made you," he murmured to me, and in his voice were tones I have since heard in the prayers of the devout. "I really did."
And was it French that the three of us were speaking together on that day? But no, I think that it was German.
Whatever the language, I could not at first believe that statement when he made it, that simple claim to be the author of my being. And yet I think that, on some deep contradictory level of my being, I already was convinced.
The hound, after circling me uneasily a time or two, had lain down, while Victor paced back and forth under the dripping trees, hands clasped behind his back. Clerval had gradually overcome his paralysis; I could see that he was thinking now, staring at me as he stroked his chin. I stared back, trying to comprehend the marvel that I had just been told.
Frankenstein stopped his pacing suddenly and said: "I am going to write about him to Priestley in London, and to Franklin in Philadelphia. To others as well. Cavendish, I suppose, though he'll never answer. Let me see. Mesmer. Lavoisier. And to Edinburgh, the medical school there…"
"I think that Franklin is not in Philadelphia," said Clerval softly. He was preparing some kind of additional objection, I thought, when I interrupted him.
"What is my name?" I asked. My voice is strong and deep, but I have been told that it is not unpleasant.
Frankenstein appeared surprised at the question, almost as if it had come from one of his laboratory animals.
"I do not know," he replied at length. "I never gave you a name. I suppose that now you are at liberty to choose one for yourself, should you feel the need." Awe grew in his voice as he was speaking, and as he uttered the last words he was staring at me again in simple wonder.
I did feel the need for a name, or I should not have asked the question. For that moment at least it had seemed of immense importance. Yet I had no idea of what name I ought to have.
As I stood dumbly by, my creator was starting to make plans with Clerval. "He cannot stay here. Obviously. There's no telling what trouble he might get into. And I cannot bring him back to the house…"
"No, hardly," Henry cautiously agreed.
"Nor, I think, anywhere in Ingolstadt. I think he must be taken to Geneva… or somewhere near there." In ecstasy and agony, he stared at me again. "I must have time to think. To plan."
"I'll help you," Henry Clerval assured him. Then Henry addressed me boldly, while holding one hand, perhaps unconsciously, near his own pistol. He demanded: "How do you live here? Are you troubling the local peasants? What do you eat?"
"I sleep here." I pointed to the hollow tree from which my dried leaves had spilled. "I eat—what I can find. Sometimes the people—the peasants—see me, but they always cry out and run away when that happens. I don't try to follow them. Victor, I am—"
"You are not to call me 'Victor'." Frankenstein said quickly. I believe he shuddered. "By rights it should be 'master', I suppose."
"Master." I tried the word out on my tongue; French, German, English—in whatever language, I like it not, and did not like it then. Though it is hard now for me to remember just what I was thinking then. Perhaps I was scarcely capable of thought at all, but only dealt with things as they happened in the world around me, and grasped at memories—odd things, mostly fragments that came and went before they could be seized and examined closely. My mind, perhaps, had not yet cleared from the electric trauma of my birth.
The two young men began to take food from their wallets and put it before me, setting some of it on the ground, as if I were an animal—or some minor deity being offered sacrifice. I was hungry, as always—I fell to and began to eat. Bread, cheese, sausage. The food they provided was better than anything I had yet been able to find in the forest.
Victor—it was not long before he changed his mind and gave his tacit consent that I should call him that; what closer relationship could two beings have?—Victor, I say, went on pacing and thinking aloud. Soon they had the rudiments of a plan; between them they were starting to work something out.
I was commanded to stay where I was, by which they meant near the spot where we were presently standing. In a few days they would return, bringing more food, and meet me on a disused road nearby. They would be driving an old carriage, a wagon, some kind of inconspicuous vehicle which they would obtain in the meantime.
Clerval insisted that someone named Roger would have to be consulted on the scheme—Roger was spoken of, by both of them, with uncertainty and respect. Frankenstein was uncertain about everything, and plainly relieved to have the support of his friends in dealing with his so passionately sought responsibility—that is to say, myself.
When they had brought the wagon, I would ride concealed in the vehicle while they drove. Somehow I would be taken to Geneva, the city where Victor's family lived and where he could be sure of additional help. Somewhere in the vicinity of Geneva I would lie concealed, while my creator-master and his friend Henry—presumably still in conference with the mysterious Roger—pondered what to do with me next.
I listened to it all, bemused, uncertain, not knowing what part of the strange world around me I ought to trust, unless it should be this man who said he had created me, and his companions. Rather than listening to the planning so intently, I should have watched their faces, and tried to gauge the depths within their souls. But how could I have done that then?
In any event, their plan, as I shall relate, was altered drastically.
Again I find that I must pause in my struggle with these memories. At the same time I must continue writing, to retain a hold on sanity, and on my newly-restored determination to deal with the world around me. I have conquered the white bear…
Let me relate more of what has happened since I came to be the sole voyager upon this ice-bound ship. Oh yes, it is indeed a voyage that I now endure, and not sheer immobility. The ice is moving. The sounds it makes are proof enough of that, even if it were not possible to see the great cakes sliding and crumbling along the Mary Goode's stout timbered sides. Toward what destiny the ship may be drifting, and how rapidly, are questions I cannot hope to answer while there are no real landmarks to be seen. Only rarely in the midst of this months-long day, darkened only by brief periods of twilight can I even glimpse the stars or moon. And the sun, never moving far from the horizon, is of but little help in determining my location. I can make a rough judgment of south and north, and that is all.
Have I not already mentioned the circumstances of my first arrival at the ship? It came at the end of a flight of nearly a year, that had begun in Paris when I realized that Franklin was unable to help me, and that my enemies, Frankenstein among them, were closing in on me again.
From Paris I traveled ever north and east, thinking to lead my pursuers ever farther from the lands with which they were familiar, and in which their wealth and power had their roots. Month after month I fled from them, by coach, on foot, and at last, from the vicinity of Archangel, by dogsled.
When I came upon the Mary Goode I was staggering on foot over the ice, my dogs long since eaten or drowned. I had abandoned the last platform-portion of my sled when most of my supplies were gone and it would no longer serve me as a raft. In such a plight I came sliding and scrambling toward the ship, because in all the vast white emptiness there was no other goal in sight.