More later, after I make my first approach to the house, which I shall attempt after dark. I can hope that all my enemies are gathered in the house, and that they remain ignorant of my proximity. But in any case I shall persist.
LETTER 7
February 20,1783
Saville Estate, near London
Sir-Many of the messages I have written you during the past few years have been composed and dispatched under what I considered the most difficult circumstances. But I have perhaps more doubt regarding this one than I have had for any other, that you will ever see it. I know that I am surrounded by our enemies as I write; and, when I have finished writing, I intend giving this paper into the care of the very being whose existence has been, for some months now, the object of our search. Tonight I have seen him, touched him, and have discovered that he lives. He thinks, he speaks! Nay, more than that! He tells me that he has seen you and spoken with you, not two years past, in your house at Passy. The tone in which he made this claim, the evident keenness of his thought, and the particulars of detail that he can give, regarding your person, your servants, and your surroundings there, are such that I tend to believe him. If it be true, there must be, I suppose, some reason of good policy why you could not have told me long ago about that meeting. In any case I pray that you will now tell me all about it, as soon as you can, and in no uncertain terms.
But all that—even that—is only the beginning of my news. I was invited to dine here last night—as I would have written to tell you then, had there been time to do so. To cut the story short, I accepted, and the dinner party—more below on its complications—was extended, by the most pressing invitations, into an overnight stay. There were some natural grounds for this, the night being one of really wretched weather, even for the middle of a British winter.
Inside all was warm and snug, and more or less convivial. Dining and conversation were at an end, and it was only when I had said goodnight to my host and hostess, followed a servant upstairs, and was alone in my room, that I met him—he who has no name, whose existence I have long doubted_he who tells me that he has seen you and spoken with you, in those very rooms at Passy where you and I last spoke face to face—but, as I say, there is much more to tell.
Item: Victor Frankenstein is very much alive. Not only alive and in passably good health, but still actively continuing his work, and that under this very roof; I dined with him this evening.
Why, then, does Walton's book say that Frankenstein is dead? The explanation offered by my hosts for the deception is that the philosopher himself preferred the peace and anonymity of being thought deceased, a condition that would allow him to devote all of his energies to his ongoing labor. The man himself, who was present during this discussion, concurred in this explanation, though, as it seemed to me, without any great enthusiasm.
Frankenstein was, it appears, really aboard Captain Walton's ship on an Arctic voyage, but he had been aboard her from the start at Archangel, and was not rescued from a sled. That voyage was the last leg of a great and well-organized pursuit, beginning in Paris, whose sole object was to recapture the "creature" he had created. Saville and Walton, who organized the chase, hive known of the creature's existence almost from the start. It was not the pursuers, but only their quarry who traveled by means of a dogsled for any distance across the ice.
Item: Saville himself has returned home, and was present when I arrived. Early in the evening, a few remarks were dropped in the drawing room and around the table, in an evident effort to maintain the fiction that Saville has really been in India; but the pallor of his face and hands, if nothing else, would cast grave doubts upon that claim, and evidently it is to be allowed to die. I am sure the man would faint, or more likely explode, if he had any idea that the "demon" he has now been hunting for years was really somewhere on the grounds of his own estate, or indeed anywhere within ten miles of it.
I, of course, have cast no doubts, either by word or by look, upon anything told me by my hosts. I have nodded and smiled, and pretended to believe everything that I was told.
I am sure that my hosts' objective in having me here is to learn from me every thing I know on the subject of the creature, particularly to extract from me any clue I might consciously or unconsciously possess as to its present whereabouts. Mrs. Saville has been interested in that subject since I met her, but I think something must have happened very recently to arouse that interest to a new pitch. This attitude is entirely shared by her husband. Needless to say, I have tried to withhold information as much as possible, while doing my best to let them believe that I just possibly do know something, and that if properly approached I might be willing to consider sharing what I know with them.
There are strong hints from both the Savilles that if I choose to cooperate, I am to be let in on the profits—exactly how profits are to be derived is not yet clear. They wonder if I am authorized to represent my illustrious father—yes, I am afraid they are in no doubt about the connection—and drop more hints that there will of course be profits for you also if I do.
At dinner Mrs. Saville introduced me to her brother, Captain Walton, who had just come in. Her brother is not as pallid as her husband, but still remarkably so for a seafaring man. I took the opportunity to congratulate the captain upon his book, which, as I was able to assure him with some truth, everyone I know has read or is now reading. (My newfound acquaintance, or perhaps I should already call him friend, the very tall one I met in my room, has already assured me that he has read that book, nay, almost committed its every word to memory.)
Walton, as is obvious from his book, is a remarkably well-educated man—at least for a sailor_and prides himself more, I think, upon his literary skill than on anything else. He basked in my compliments.
At dinner there were Saville and Mrs. Saville, Walton, Frankenstein, and myself. The food and wine were the best I have enjoyed in a long time, the service near perfection.
Conversation at first was general. Saville complained at considerable length about the costs of doing business on his plantations in Jamaica, and the general difficulties of trading in blacks and molasses. He related, with some indignation, the story of another businessman, an acquaintance of his, who suffered a sharp loss when the captain of one of his slave-trading ships had attempted to cheat his insurance company by dumping overboard a whole cargo of ailing Africans, then claiming them as having been lost at sea. Under the circumstances the insurance company refused to pay, and the refusal has been upheld in court. Saville's indignation was directed at the insurance company.
I recount all this to you now, that you may have no illusions about the sensibilities of my hosts, and the tenor of their usual conversation. The fact is that the slave business and all other topics were quickly forgotten when the subject of Frankenstein's work came up.
As I have already mentioned, the young philosopher has now established his laboratory within this very mansion. He has been here for some months, I gather, since shortly after last summer's Geneva tragedy. Imagine my surprise when his presence was announced to me, with elaborate casualness, shortly before we sat down to dine; and imagine if you can my great interest a minute later when the man himself appeared. Judging by appearances he must have come fresh from his labors; the odor of chemicals still clung to his clothing, and on close inspection of his sleeves the stains of what must have been his most recent endeavors could still be seen.