The Casebook of Victor Frankenstein (24 page)

I WENT TO THE COURT OF JUSTICE
at the Old Bailey on that Monday morning; the Sessions House, where the trial was to be held, looked to me more like a cardboard puppet theatre than a place of justice. The judge was adorned with scarlet and white, and he held a linen handkerchief up to his nose to ward off the lingering putrescence of gaol fever. The jurors sat on two rows of benches on the left-hand side of the court; they were London rate-payers, of course, with all the smugness and self-sufficiency of their type. There was a large crowd in the body of the courtroom itself, made up of shopmen and apprentices, of vagrant boys and ballad singers, of anyone who had no other pastime or occupation that afternoon. There were reporters and sketch-makers there, too, all of them causing an incessant bustle and noise. It was very like watching the activity of a London street. On the right-hand side of the court was a small wooden witness box into which, much to the excitement of the spectators, Daniel was now led. His wrists were bound with manacles, and he was wearing the same clothes that I had seen on him in the cell at Clerkenwell. The judge then called all those present to be silent, as a prayer was intoned by the clerk of the court to the Divine Judge who—it must be presumed—would watch over these proceedings. Daniel did not join in the
prayer, but stood calmly looking down at his manacled hands. Then, in a round and portentous voice, one of the attorneys sitting at a table immediately beneath the judge began to read out the charges. Daniel stood almost at attention, without any perceptible movement; he was intent upon every word, as if it were a story of someone else’s crime. When the attorney had finished his account, Daniel looked around at the court with an expression of impatience.

He was asked if he wished to enter any plea, and he replied with an earnest “Not guilty!” The officers of the watch were then called to a witness box, directly opposite that in which Daniel stood. The first of them, Stephen Martin, explained the circumstances of finding “the accused” sleeping beneath a tree by the Serpentine. “That is a lake,” the judge told the jurors, “to be found in the Hyde Park.” The jurors, who must have known this very well already, received the information with great seriousness. Martin then went on to explain how the hands and cheeks of the accused were bloodied. When the accused was thereupon taken into custody, at the watch-house on the corner of Queen’s Gate, a necklace was found in the pocket of his breeches. Martin spoke rapidly, much to the dismay of the penny-a-liners, and in a high voice that caused amusement among the more vulgar spectators.

It seems that in English law the accused is able to question and to challenge witnesses, in a way that would seem unfitting on the Continent, and Daniel at once asked Martin if he, Daniel, had seemed surprised by the discovery of the necklace.

“Yes. Oh, yes,” he replied in his rapid way. “You seemed to be much taken aback. But that was because you was play-acting. Lawks.”

“You found me sleeping beneath a tree?”

“Of course I did.”

“Why should a murderer and a thief fall asleep at the scene of his own crime?”

“For why? For the reason that the person accused, being yourself, is touched.” Martin tapped his forehead, much to the delight of the spectators.

“Well, Mr. Martin, am I a lunatic or an actor? I really do not think I can be both.”

“Whatever you wish, Mr. Westbrook. I am not particular.” Martin laughed quite gaily.

The second and third members of the watch described, in identical terms, the discovery of Harriet’s body. She had been found by two children, in the shadow of a bridge that crossed over the middle point of the Serpentine. Daniel listened to the testimony of the witnesses with great attention, his manacled hands stretched out before him, and at the end he merely bowed his head. He did not wish to question them. The account of the discovery of his sister seemed to have left him momentarily without the power of speech.

But then, when asked by the judge if he wished to make any final statement, he raised his head and looked steadily at the jurors. “I do not expect justice in this place,” he said. “I have long since concluded that the judicial system of our country is a tissue of corruption.”

At which point the judge interrupted him. “You are here to defend yourself, sir. You are not here to deliver your opinion of English law.”

“But that is the point, is it not? That justice is not to be found in the well of an English court?”

“That is not the point. You have no point.” The judge was growing angry. “The point is worthless. I throw it out.”

“I defend myself then with a simple phrase. I am innocent. I had no part in my sister’s death. I abhor the notion of violence. But to direct it against a member of my own family—it is unthinkable to me. Surely you cannot accuse a brother of such a crime? A loving brother who helped to raise her from her infant days? No, no. Never can it be.” He paused, to regain control of his feelings. “I have no conception of how she met her end. I do not know how my face and hands were bloody. I do not know how her necklace was found in my pocket. I can only guess at some malign conspiracy. At some infernal evil. Yet I know this. I am not the man.” His words of evident sincerity received the murmured approval of many spectators, who were then quickly silenced by the judge. Daniel was led away, and the jurors retired to another room.

I stayed in the court, not trusting myself to be alone. I knew Daniel to be entirely blameless, and yet here he was obliged to defend his life while I sat idly watching him. I knew, too, what the verdict would be. The law is a net, a snare, which binds its victims even as they struggle to be free. After no more than an hour the jurors returned, and Daniel was again led out in manacles. His face was flushed red, and he stumbled as he mounted the stairs of the witness box. Someone shouted out, “Not guilty,” and there was scattered applause in the courtroom. Daniel shook his head, frowning slightly, and strained forward to listen to the jurors’ verdict. It came without ceremony. Guilty of unlawful killing. There was silence after that, a silence in which the darkness of his fate was absorbed.

Then with a barely perceptible expression of disquiet Daniel
turned towards the judge, who made a great ceremony out of placing the black cloth upon his wig. He recited the circumstances of Daniel’s supposed murder of his sister, dwelling with evident relish on the details of the discovery of the body, before pronouncing sentence on what he called “the heinous slaughter” and the “barely conceivable evil” of the crime. I agreed with him upon that point, although I knew that the perpetrator was elsewhere. Daniel no doubt received the sentence of death with remarkable calm; I could not see him, since his back was turned to the court while he faced the judge. He carried himself erect, as he left the courtroom, and did not look in my direction.

ON THE MORNING OF THE EXECUTION
, I rose before dawn. How could I sleep? Mr. Garnett had informed me that Daniel would be taken to Newgate, where the ceremony was performed outside the wall, and I had spent the night imagining all the tortures of the condemned man. I dressed and went out into the street, in order to clear my head, but then some involuntary and peremptory impulse sent me walking towards Newgate itself. I was like some man of the crowd, hastening towards a spectacle. If it were possible to be two people, then this was my condition: I wished to be hidden away, lamenting the fate of Daniel in the secrecy of some locked chamber, but at the same time I walked with fiery eyes towards the prison to see him despatched. I seemed to be possessed by some spirit that broods over London on a hanging day, some craving for blood and punishment that is beyond rational calculation. A further consideration occurred to me later. I had given life to the creature, but could the presence of the creature be changing me?

I arrived at Newgate very early, but such was the press of people that I could only reach as far as the churchyard of St. Sepulchre. A mob of children were already assembled in the most prominent places, setting up a cacophony of cries and howls that would have shamed a tribe of monkeys in the jungles of the Niger. Their catcalls were taken up by others in
the crowd, some of whom began dancing and singing obscenities. Such grotesque merriment in the face of death was for me unexampled. The English mob, screeching and laughing and yelling, is a thing of horror in what we deign to call the civilised world. The open space in front of the prison was taken up by men and women who had all the appearance of thieves and prostitutes, as well as other rogues and ruffians of every description. Their smell was insupportable. They whistled and imitated Mr. Punch; they drank from bottles, and fought among themselves. Some of them urinated freely against the walls of the prison itself calling out, according to the London tradition, “In pain!”

There was a lull when Daniel was brought out from a little door that opened onto Newgate Street; then, after the instant of recognition, there was a great roar of execration and triumph. It was as if the whole foul ceremony represented some ritual of human sacrifice by which the community would be healed. The sun had come out from behind clouds as Daniel mounted the steps to the scaffold, greeted with such a chorus of abuse and obscenity that I am surprised he could endure it. But he seemed to hear none of the execration. In the face of the general disorder he was quite calm; if anything, his bearing expressed resolution and, even, resignation. Yet that did not stop the baying of the mob. I looked at the upturned faces of the crowd, so delighted and excited by the coming scene that they seemed to be images of evil itself. Who can believe that humankind is created in God’s image, when observing that desperate and dissolute assembly? The human form is not divine.

The noose was fastened around Daniel’s neck, and a coarse
sack pulled over his head; whether this was some courtesy to his own feelings, I am not sure. Who could bear to see the rictus of death upon his face? The crowd could. The executioner then positioned him carefully above the trap. The cries and yells grew stronger, as the executioner was urged to pull the lever. Then with a sudden movement the platform opened under Daniel. He plunged down as if he had been a stone descending through the air. The crowd then bayed for his death as his body heaved and struggled in the last palpitations of life. The executioner took hold of his legs and jerked them down. Then Daniel was still. The life had gone from him.

I had seen the moment when new life was instilled; now I had seen the instant of departure, when the fire and energy vanished as swiftly as once they had come.

There was a general rush towards the body, for tokens or mementoes, but the line of constables somehow managed to keep the crowd back. Again there was such a roar of abuse and filthy words and ribald songs that I felt quite sickened and shamed by my fellow creatures. The body was cut down from the rope by the executioner, and placed upon a wooden board. According to custom Daniel would now be given to the anatomists, who would begin their ministrations immediately in their hall nearby. I knew enough of that work. So I did not linger at Newgate.

With difficulty I freed myself from the crowd, and walked quickly down towards Fleet Street and the river. I caught a wherry there to Limehouse and, as my boatman rowed against the freezing wind, I exulted in the cold. It tamed my blood. It steadied my excited nerves. I disembarked from the wherry a little upriver from the workshop, and made my way slowly
along the deserted foreshore. It was a forlorn enough scene, with the small wooden jetties and the narrow stone stairs descending into the water.

I came up to the workshop, where I discerned no trace of life. It was as I had left it three months before, wrecked and empty, with the broken glass and detritus covering the floor. There must have been tides higher than usual because there were pools and puddles of river water among the confusion. Any hope of restoring or renovating the broken equipment was clearly misplaced: my whole venture would be left to rack and ruin. I picked up a chair, lying on the ground, and, placing it in the middle of the workshop, sat down. From here I could see the river, through an opening in the broken door, and I waited. My resolution was so intense, and my attention so alert, that I hardly felt the cold. I knew that he would come to this place-that he would wish to encounter me and, if he had the use of language, to converse with me. He had done everything with the simple object of taking vengeance upon me, and he would not miss the opportunity of confronting his creator in the place where he had risen from the dead.

I waited throughout that day. I was shielded from the rain and the wind, and with a phosphorous match I managed to make a fire from the broken wooden shelves that lay upon the floor. Just before dusk I ventured onto the jetty. There was a smell of oil and tar coming from the water, and I could hear the low murmur of the tide against the wooden walls of the embankment. I could see a log, perhaps fallen from a merchantman, coming up with the current—yet it was no log. It was a swimmer, quite straight in the water; I saw his arms moving with almost mechanical force, and he left no wake behind him.
The figure approached, and raised his head from the water; an oil-lamp from an alley on the north bank illuminated him for a moment. It was the creature, swimming steadily towards the workshop. He must have seen me, but he gave no sign of greeting or recognition. He plunged once more into the water, and I lost sight of him.