Dear Victor, when these last things happened, there could hove been no one in that room except the creature himself.
A few minutes passed, in which we held our breaths, oblivious to the cold and soaking rain, and wondered.
Presently, to our unutterable astonishment, the sole door to the laboratory was pushed open—from the inside. And a moment later, the unmistakable figure of your giant creation, that most savage enigma that I have tried to shelter, and have been forced to pursue across most of Europe, walked for the first time into human sight. It shambled along the hallway and went down the stairs.
My dearest Victor, that pursuit now nears its climax. We shall yet bring it to a successful conclusion. I have sworn, on the graves that both of us hold dear, to da so. But that part of the game, if such a deadly serious matter may be so called, is not yours to play. I beg of you to allow yourself to be guided by my judgment in this matter, just as I have always allowed myself to be ruled by your wisdom, in any matter of the laboratory. Stay in Paris and await us; or, if you prefer, return to London and there resume your all-important labors. Walton and I will rejoin you, in either case, as soon as possible.
Your Friend,
Roger Saville
LETTER 14
April 5,1783
From: Victor Frankenstein, en route to Bavaria
To: Benjamin Franklin, Passy
My dear Sir—
I cannot thank you enough for your advice. I have decided to accept it, and to break permanently my connections with Roger Saville and the others with whom I have long—too long—been associated. In the future I shall certainly do my best to see to it that no associate of mine has a hand in harming any innocent person.
I am now on my way to confront your son, and the being for whose creation I am responsible, in Ingolstadt, or wherever they may be found, separately or together. When I have located them I shall make every effort to make amends for such harm as may have been done them in the past, because of their association with me and with my work. I assure you, Sir, that such harm was never my deliberate intention.
With all respect,
Victor Frankenstein
Postscript: In deciding to sever my connection with Mr. Saville and his associates, I do not mean to imply that I believe the accusation, which you seem to be hinting at, that the man Small, acting under Saville's orders, was probably responsible for the death of my dear Elizabeth. You do not make this accusation flatly in your letter, but I find the implication unmistakable. That Saville should have ordered such a thing, and found someone to carry his orders out, all in an effort to prevent my marriage and induce me to concentrate upon my work! No, Sir, I cannot believe it. My decision for the final separation with Saville is based upon other considerations.
V.F.
Chapter 16
April 6, 1783 Big Karl's village
I have caught up with Big Karl at last. The encounter, while mystifying in several ways, has served at least to lay to rest the last lingering suspicion that I might possibly be Karl, transformed through some unimaginable wizardry of electrical science.
A certain person in the village, one who evidently felt he had some old score to pay back, helped us to arrange an ambush for the man we sought. The same person passed word along to us that Karl was shortly going to return.
Freeman and I lay in wait on the edge of a small grove, and when we saw a man of remarkable height approaching, walking with a rolling gait and humming, we pounced out. I seized the man, who struggled powerfully, but only for a moment.
As soon as he realized that his efforts were useless, he resigned himself to his unusual situation, of being in the grip of one larger and stronger than himself. He is only about six inches shorter than I am, and proportionally built—big and powerful indeed, by human standards, but not so big, powerful—or ugly—as I am.
Once convinced that we intended him no harm_rather that there were prospects of a reward if he told us what we judged to be the truth—Karl agreed to relate to us his version of what happened on that famous November night.
Even as he was speaking, I recalled the hints and mysterious suggestions we had heard about the boots of Big Karl, and took note of his footgear. His boots indeed looked strange, and very strange the more I looked at them—though the longer I gazed, the more there grew in me an unsettling sensation of familiarity. The boots appear to be fashioned of some type of gray, smooth leather, and they look clean and well cared-for despite the shabbiness of the rest of his undistinguished costume.
But, to his story, as he told it to us. On that November night he had been at home until midnight, brooding upon certain problems that had arisen between him and Frankenstein, his employer. Around the middle of the night, determined that some sort of understanding should be reached, he had set out on foot from the village to see the Herr Doktor Frankenstein, to talk to him. There was apparently nothing very unusual in Karl's deciding to pay a visit at such an hour; in fact it was more usual than not for him to come and go at Frau Bauer's lodginghouse late at night. The Herr Doktor always liked to work late, because that way it was easier to keep secret certain things about his work, from his landlady and other curious people. Karl had no trouble in appreciating that point.
He had arrived without incident at the house, and made his way as usual up the back stairs. He was standing in the upper hall of the big old house when a bolt of lightning struck, near enough to make his teeth rattle, as he expressed it. If the lightning had not touched the house itself, which was protected by its iron points upon the roof, it had certainly come very near to hitting it. Karl had been startled and frightened by the flash, and even momentarily dazed.
"It rattled the teeth in my head, gentlemen," he repeated solemnly, looking from me to Freeman and back again. After the lightning he had had to pause for a moment, standing in the little upper hall. Then he had shaken his head and gone on.
On approaching the laboratory door he had noticed that no light was coming out around it, and even that the door itself was slightly open. The darkness was something of a disappointment—it meant that Frankenstein must have given up his labors for the night—but the open door was really an oddity. Only once or twice before had the Herr Doktor forgotten to lock up after himself. Karl had a key also, and thought that Metzger must have one, because both of them sometimes made deliveries at odd hours.
But the unlocked door was only the beginning of the night's surprises. When Karl stepped into the room, to see if the Herr Doktor might have left a message, or perhaps some payment for him, he received instead the next in a series of shocks, the last of which would be almost the equal of the stunning bolt that had afflicted him outside.
His eyes grew wide as he told the story, gazing earnestly at Freeman and myself. "There was two on the table, gentlemen. I didn't know what to think."
Freeman glared at him. "What do you mean, two on the table?"
"Two bodies, sir." The peasant nodded somberly at both of us. "The first thing I think when I see that is that Metzger—he was the other fellow who sometimes brought bodies—has come in ahead of me and made a delivery, and then he forgot to lock up when he left. When Metzger brought them from the medical school sometimes he would leave them just like that. The old lady and her servants never came up to that room, sirs; they knew that Herr Doktor Frankenstein would always keep the door locked, and didn't want them there—"