Frankenstein's Monster (3 page)

“It is not. Only while the body is inhabited by a soul can it be called human. The arm of a corpse is no more human than the arm of a statue.”

“The body is our punishment for original sin,” Antonio insisted.

“From Descartes to Origen!” said the elderly priest in exasperation. “No, no, no! The universe—the whole universe, along with our bodies—was created out of pure goodness. The body is the servant of the soul. It may even bring good to the soul that animates it.”

I sat mute, breath held. What if at this point I had slipped off my hood and said, “I have no soul, merely some animating galvanic energy; even this body isn’t mine. I’ve been created from dead pieces—each no more human, as you say, than a marble statue. So what of me?” Would the elderly priest have nodded solemnly and said, “My friend, this is a theological knot”? Or would those men of God have feared me as the incarnation of Satan?

It is too late now. Yesterday, as I sat in the square by the double colonnades, leaning back for a moment into the cool shadows cast by the great stone pillars, Walton passed not fifty feet from me. His wild black beard, streaked with gray, gave him the look of a desert prophet calling down a rain of fire. His mouth was tight. His clothes were as severe as a monk’s. The same fierce, other-worldly fervor smoldered in his eyes.

It has been ten years since my father died; ten years since I struggled with Walton on the ice. I had walked away from him with no thought of the future, or that mine would be woven with his from the same thread.

We had first met over my father’s corpse. It was months later when I saw him next. The man I had left on the ice was gone, never to return. Illness had ravaged his face and form, and revenge had fixed itself in his mind. My father’s last words were spoken to Walton. What vow had my father extracted, and then made irrevocable by dying, that had transformed a ship captain in search of the pole into a tracker obsessed with my destruction?

In just those few months, Walton was so changed I did not recognize him. It was after midnight, and I was in a poorly lit alleyway in Minsk. A stranger charged me like a bull, with a dagger instead of horns. Assuming he was a courageous though stupid thief, I took the knife away and swatted him
aside. He charged again. This time I slammed him against the wall and would have rid myself of his nuisance; then he spoke: “You do not know me, do you?”

Having expected a stream of Russian curses and not English, I loosened my grip and peered at the man’s face.

“It makes no difference,” I said, my own English heavily accented.

“I know
you
. I know what you have done. I know what you are. You do not have the right to pass as one of us. You are not a man.”

“Who are you?” I tightened my grasp round his throat.

“Robert Walton.” He held up his hand as if it were a means of identification and, indeed, it was, for it was only when I saw the scarred gap between the fingers that I remembered. “It was on my ship that you destroyed Victor Frankenstein, my one true friend, my brother. You destroyed me.” Walton smiled. “Frankenstein’s last wish was that I rid the world of you. Now it’s my last wish, too.”

“Why? For your finger? My father could have sewn on a new one.”

I flung Walton to the ground. He sprang up, drawing a second knife from his boot.

“I spoke only so you would know that I will have my revenge if it must be from Hell. Next time I will not stop to speak.”

He slipped away to seek some later, more opportune, moment.

What stayed my hand that first night and the others that followed? That Walton was the sole person who knew the truth of my existence? That he was the sole link left to my father? I do not know. Over the subsequent months and years that he tracked me, each time that I did not rid myself of
him made it that less possible to kill him. Now it is unthinkable. I doubt I shall ever fully understand his reasons for revenge, for his word was true: he has not spoken to me again in all this time. We meet and struggle in silence, usually in the night; sometimes we spill our blood onto the ground; we part, knowing we shall meet again.

Thus it has been for nearly ten years.

The candle now melts to the stone, and its flame grows dim. While there is still light, I shall put away my pen and take out my book of poems by Cavalcanti. Although I pick-pocketed it only last week, I have read it so many times—for lack of anything else—that the words are now my own. Once I thought every book a true history. Now I know the deception of art. Cavalcanti deceives twice over: he writes love poetry. Even so, he has been my companion on this part of my journey.

Tonight I shall read him aloud. The skulls here have not heard poetry in too long and are eager for diversion.

Venice, city of freaks, city of death. I have disappeared into its watery Byzantine labyrinths. In Venice I can stand next to the carved walls that line the narrow alleys and be just one more gargoyle whose features excite disgusted admiration. Like me, nothing here is symmetrical. The once-gorgeous palaces totter with rot. Only their proximity to one another supports them, like a one-legged cripple leaning against a leper with no face.

Dwarfs, hunchbacks, idiots, and other oddities haunt the backstreets like cats. The Venetians tolerate, even patronize,
such unfortunates, being fascinated with decay and deformity. Such a vice will be a virtue if it allows me to dwell here for a time.

I landed in Venice as a stowaway, sitting cramped, knee to chin, in the ship’s hold. I shared the quarters with crates of moldering cheese and some curious rats. Together they made a fine meal. In the morning, I climbed out of the hold while it was still dark, dropped a rope over the side, and silently slid into the Adriatic. The ship’s wake boiled around me, and my sodden cloak was a millstone. As if in concert, they tried to pluck my fingers loose, but I clung to the stern like a barnacle. At last there was a final swell as the sea rushed into the lagoon, and all was calm.

The water of the lagoon had a milk white pall, while the city was gray and pink; in the dawn it shimmered like a dream dissolving. Fishing boats wore the tree of life, omniscient eyes, and other cabalistic signs painted on their prows. Only the stench of garbage and human waste—dumped into the canals and awaiting the tide—belied the fairy-tale wonder of the vision.

I stayed in the water all day as the ship was unloaded, all evening as sailors and merchants came and went about their business. At last, night descended and the docks were empty. It was so quiet I could hear the soft padding of feet as a cat walked by.

I let go of the rudder, swam to the side of the ship abutting the dock, and pulled myself up. For a few minutes I crouched in the shadows. Water puddled off my cloak and dripped through the planks like a fall of rain. I did not move. I had waited all day in the lagoon, lump of flesh that I am; on a dry dock I could wait forever.

In the distance a bell began to strike. Before I could count the hour, another bell, and another, and still another rang, till
the air vibrated first with striking gongs, and then with their echoes. I left the dock and crept onto shore.

In the canals, the water gleamed blackly like oil. Once, as I was getting ready to cross a bridge, railed with wrought iron, instinct pressed me back. I stood still in the darkness. Seconds later a gondola sliced through the canal. Up front a uniformed officer stood with a lantern held aloft, searching on either side. I remained motionless till the last trace of light had faded and the sharp laps of water against the bulwarks were replaced by silence.

I soon found a half-tumbled-down campanile, whose heavily rusted bells still lay amid a pile of bricks at the bottom of the tower. First I made certain that the structure was not shelter to someone else, then I settled down in its most secluded part to rest.

It is dawn. Men are already about on morning business. Voices outside the campanile complain about the city’s occupation. After a thousand years of glory, Venice has begun to change hands as often as a weary old whore. The Austrians claim her now, not for the first time. Arguing over who is worse, the Austrians or the French, the voices at last move away.

My clothes and boots are still wet, my cloak still soaked, but the oilcloth I keep wrapped around my few belongings has once more kept my treasures dry. A candle, a flint, my precious journal, pen and ink, and my current book—each is safe.

Sometimes Fate offers me gifts. No matter how small, I count each one a treasure.

This morning, before dawn had stolen the safety of the lingering shadows, I found a man facedown in an alley, his expression beatific, his cheek comfortably resting on a pillow of
dung. And there—by the fool’s hand—a book! I have read the Cavalcanti five times over. A new book was more welcome than usual. I picked it up, wiped it on the man’s shoulder, and slipped it into my cloak, still wet after its bath in the Adriatic. There the book bumped against the volume of poetry.

I was nearly to the next street when I turned and walked back. A fool with a book is less a fool for having one, given most fools and most books. I gave him the Cavalcanti in exchange for his and hope he finds some wisdom in it.

My new prize is
Sorrows of Young Werther
. It was one of the first books I ever read, along with
Paradise Lost
and Plutarch’s
Lives
, and had such a profound effect on me that I hesitate taking it up again. Then, I had read it as my introduction to the entire race of humans. I believed all men to be like Werther: deep, sensitive, overwrought, noble, suffering with the agony and isolation of sheer existence. Now I hope to read the book as a cautionary tale against emotionalism, against the dangers of believing oneself to be accepted—nay, more seductive, against the dangers of believing oneself acceptable.

“Light a candle,” said the voice, and a candle was lit.

“Light another,” the voice repeated, and another candle was lit.

On and on the voice commanded, until a full candelabra blazed in the darkness.

In the dream, I wrote in my journal by the candles’ radiance, breathing in the thousand spices of Venice: not the stink of the rotting hulk in which I now dwell, drained by centuries of extravagance, but the incense of ancient Venice, jewel of the sea.

On waking, I eagerly dwelt for hours on every detail of the dream, burning each into my mind as a memory of actual life. Such fleeting images, the mere suggestions of printed words, offer me more joy, more consolation, than reality ever has.

“Alms for the poor and blind!” the little beggar cried out. “Pave your way to Heaven with alms! A coin for me is worth more indulgences than a dozen novenas!”

Today I have met Lucio, master beggar, who gives twice what he gets, though not in the same coin.

The abandoned campanile is a mere dozen streets from the Piazzetta, next to the old Ducal Palace and overlooking the Basin of San Marco. Yesterday I wandered from alley to alley till the sun set. I drank in the light that is so peculiarly Venetian, its luminosity doubled by the water. The facade of the palace deepened from pink to rose. The building seems to be supported by air alone, lacy columns beneath, with a solid angular bulk on top. It is an impossible structure, and for that I feel kinship with its stones.

Today I arrived at the Piazzetta early and settled in a corner, enthralled with the conversations around me. An hour after I arrived, a blind man took up position a few feet away and held out a wooden bowl to be filled. Instead of sitting in silence as I did, he harangued every person who walked by, grabbing at the air to try to catch a skirt or pantaloon if someone passed without giving.

“Alms for the poor and blind,” he said coaxingly. “I am blind, my wife is feeble, and our baby is sick. Alms! God hears the prayers of the poor, especially when they pray for their generous benefactors. Alms!” When the coins did not
fall quickly enough, his speech became louder and included threats and curses.

Never in a week have I collected half of what he earned in hours. As his bowl filled, I could not help but imagine what I might buy if the money were mine. I could purchase books I truly desired, rather than stealing or stumbling on random titles. For a brief moment I considered his feeble wife and sickly babe, then dismissed the thought. Even if the story were true, he was richer than I simply to possess their companionship.

I crossed to him noiselessly and bent close.

“I have learned to fear the rich,” the beggar said. “Must I fear the poor as well?” From inside his ragged cloak, he pulled out a chunk of bread, tore it in half, and held a piece toward me. “If Venice has been that tightfisted with you, my friend, I should not be. It’s an unprofitable business all around when beggars must steal from beggars.”

Though his eyes wandered slackly, each filmed as if with a caul, he addressed his words in my direction and held the bread before my face.

When I did not reply, he laughed. “You are thinking now, is he really blind? And if he isn’t, can I take the money anyway and outrun him?” He gestured again with the bread. “Go ahead, take it, even if you mean to steal from me besides.”

Surprise at being openly, even kindly, addressed fixed me to the spot and made me more hungry for the spoken word than the written.

“How did you know anyone was there?” I asked. I sat down and accepted his bread.
“Are
you sighted?”

“I’m blind, but for every fifteen coins that clinked in my cup, one would clink a little away from me. How long have you been practicing the noble art of begging?”

“Not long. I arrived in Venice just a few days ago.”

“And not from elsewhere in Italy either, judging from your
accent. Well, you’re too silent, my friend. Here, you must fight for every penny. You must speak up. Beg loudly, pray for those in the crowd, curse them, grab them, jeer at them, make them know you are here. They know Lucio’s here. That’s me. They cannot escape Lucio.”

Lucio talked and talked, as though—robbed of his eyes—he had grown two tongues. When crowds moved our way, without a break in breath he resumed his loud beseeching. I began to leave, and he seized my cloak.