Work Text:
August 30 17–
The preceding tale is given almost in the precise words in which it was delivered to me. The two narrators were my dear brother, Captain Robert Walton, and our most peculiar guest, one Ernest Frankenstein.
He was a pleasant boy with a sadly humorous smile, one that arrived in pepper-and-salt clothes. It was only upon his second tale that his smile had been replaced by a solemn look in his eyes. One might have mistaken him for a scarecrow that escaped the fields in the rain, but Robert knew better.
We bid him welcome, moving him to a place deep within the townhouse to where he could be better fed and taken care of. His skin was dreadfully cold to the touch, but his face was weathered and, when I stroked my hand against it, rather coarse. His hands were in a similar state, to which I rushed to my chambers and returned with a heavy quilt. Once he settled in bed, draped in heavy wool, and with a bowl of hot stew in his hands, he spoke.
“I suppose,” he paused to take a bite before continuing. “I suppose you would want to know what drew me back.”
I said nothing, simply refilling his bowl. At my gesture, he nodded in gratitude and spoke again.
As you recall, your dear brother, Captain Robert Walton, had arrived at my Swiss home with the remains of my lost brother. He gave no indication of any malicious intent, but with his heavy face and trembling hands, I bid him welcome to my drawing room. He declined, instead displaying the stiff corpse of my dear brother Victor. When I implored him of the cause of his condition, he said that it was a most wild and homely narrative, one that would solicit belief from the most rational and scientific minds.
I was neither rational nor scientific, but the Captain refused to answer. Upon the end of the funeral, he departed with a warning. “Your brother had asked me to complete his monstrous work, one that I will not burden you with.”
Yet I would not listen. I did not regret the actions I would have taken later in my life. Those effects and consequences were mine to make and mine to accept. I travelled to the place where my brother’s malady was seemingly born of. This plot of land, wrought with iron rings and stakes, many of which shared an oily coat of gelatinous substance, and a heavy smoke filled the air, refusing to dissipate and grant the sane mind my soundness. The pride of Ingolstadt was crudely constructed, held together by plaster and dull paints. The windows partly glazed and patched together by old leaves from textbooks. I was not given entry, but a portly gentleman instead strode out to inquire about my presence.
Imagine my surprise when, at the utterance of my name, the man went scarlet and collapsed in tears. I could not make out anything comprehensible; even the most acute ear could not discern any word amongst the nonsensical sound and fury, signifying nothing to the rational mind.
“Sir, if you would be so kind,” I was rather distressed at this sudden display. “Please, speak. What troubles you?”
“If I had known,” he began to rest himself upon a peculiar-shaped stone that might have been some form of monument. “If I had known,” at this, he pressed a hand to his brow, for his round face had grown rather red. “Your brother Victor, was brilliant! Truly! But he had an abnormality about him which caused a little fluctuation in our minds. Then all of a sudden, there was not a trace of him. Why, I wonder if you could tell me where he went those years back?"
The gentleman inquired a particular question. Where had Victor gone? This question would be apparent to me in the coming days.
As I examined his papers all shoddily thrown together and tied loosely with leather, my mind wandered elsewhere, to the knight-errant, who unlike the unfortunate Victor, only had to contest with phantasms and adamant walls. My brother contested with a malady of the mind, of which I would have called malaise if any and all forms of respect had vanished. My mother, when dealing with the whims and caprices of the young, had only spoken to me in vagueness in regards to him, but never an unkind remark.
It was towards the beginning of the first sunset when I decided to abandon the land, and I was glad of it, to abandon the grey brittleness and the miasma. I left with a less clear head.
This is, as you recall, where I arrived at your doorstep. It was toward evening when I arrived, all but the hero of the scene, lightly rapping on your door. You greeted me with familiarity.
“Who is there? By God, get in here!”
I did as I was told. “Thank you,” I was set comfortably, very similar to how I am now. “May I ask, do you know a Robert Walton?”
“My brother is not here at the moment. If you would be so kind, please wait for his return.”
“You are very kind,” I replied. “And brave to accept me. May I ask your name?”
“Margaret Saville,and here, make yourself comfortable!”
I waited and, as I examined the library, it occurred to me, with no small amount of terror, that I was also a lord of luxury, of that of the late kin. My cousin was still warm when the men arrived, giving her lost wealth to my father. Victor had not bothered with me in the coming days before he returned in a box.
When the Captain found me, he made no resistance to my request. He confessed then, to all the madness and calamity that befell my family. He put a glass of wine to his lips, as a refreshment after his toils, paused for a moment, turned towards me:
“His request was for me to continue his pursuit, and I expect that he would have asked the same of you.”
He raised the glass again.
“If you are to pursue that fiend, you will find no resistance from me.” He took another sip. “I can procure a ship for you, but that is all.”
The Charon was a vast structure, with dampened wood and a prudently shortened sail hanging uselessly against the mast, and the tide wearing at the oak. The wood, which might have been a gold or bronze, was grey and brittle, with visible splints flaking off and into the water.
The Captain was a dry gentleman with belittling eyes, one had the gleam of a genuine Devil in it, with limbs that seemed to stretch beyond the intended way. He rarely spoke, but it was a disturbing reedy whistle. He was a man of importance, refusing to acknowledge anything without inclination of his head, as if he was performing some magnificent balancing act upon the tip of his crooked nose.
His crew was one of more than infamy, of which was of notorious repute, one who was easily convinced by an exchange of pounds.
I am far too eager to continue with the tale, but any good boatswain gives you more than what meagre evidence I have presented.
As I crossed the precipice of the known world, I could not help but chuckle at the thought that I stood where no man had gone before. I profess, no small amount of pride filled my heart to know that I had accomplished what the Messenger had failed, but thoughts of Walton became thoughts of Victor, and I soon returned to my melancholy.
Upon arrival to the cold plain, the air had been significantly more piercing than anticipated. It's perhaps a miracle that my dear brother had lasted any length of time in this dessert. After treading through the area for seemingly forever, I stumble upon what seemed to be a severed hand. It was abnormally sized, " What do I make of this? Oh, God! Victor what have you done!? I've seen such a hand before, I must be cautious." Adjacent to the hand were drops of black liquid, which seems to lead towards a cold cave. To my horror, a corpse resembling that of a human but larger lies in the centre of the cave, Its body scarred. " God forgive me, If I had known my brother’s doing, I might have prevented his death and seen his face another day, Victor! Victor! Why have you done this!?"
I pulled myself together and searched for more details, after hours nothing was left to discover. Perhaps this is the end of my brother's terrible endeavours, or perhaps there's more to come.
At the end of his tale, a voice came from Parlour, “I don’t believe it!” The fury in my heart could no longer be restrained.
Ernest smiled. “And I do not believe half the tale myself.”