Frankenstein - According to

still down a well I found it very hard to answer. Henry
proposed a pedestrian tour in the environs of Ingolstadt and I acceded with
pleasure to this proposition: I was fond of exercise but not that bloody fond.
In the end it was to prove too strenuous for me. My health deteriorated; I
tried very hard. I was taken for the salubrious air of the Alps but when I
breathed it I fainted. In a few days I recovered.
    Henry
rejoiced in my gaiety and I started to yodel. He exerted himself to amuse me:
he would juggle three bags °f flour, he stood on his head and yodelled the
‘William Tell Overture’, he played the banjo and danced. He could make himself
disappear; this he did by the simple expedient of leaving the room. His
conversation was full of imagination. He spoke in Persian and Arabic; that was
Wonderful, but I didn’t understand a bloody word. He repeated my favourite
Wordsworth poem:
     
    I wandered lonely as a cloud
    That drifts aloft over dales and
hills
    And all at once I came upon
    My dog being sick on the
daffodils.
     
    Clerval
believed the world was flat, but he kept trippin over it.
    We
returned to our college on a Sunday afternoon: the peasants were dancing and
hurling each other off cliffs into the lake. It was an old custom and they
never tired of it, except those who drowned. My own spirits were high and I
bounded along with feelings of unbridled joy and hilarity. From a great
distance my family could see me bounding with unbridled joy and hilarity.

CHAPTER
VII
     
     
     
    On
my return I found the following letter from my father:
     
    My
dear son.
    You
expect a happy and glad welcome and a box of gift-wrapped suppositories for
your haemorrhoids. Well fuck your luck. But how can I relate our misfortune?
William is dead! — di diddly I di — dead; he has stopped yodelling. One day he
went for a walk but did not return. We searched for him until night fell and
then we returned to the house. About five in the morning I discovered my lovely
boy, who the night before I had seen blooming and yodelling, stretched on the
grass lifeless and motionless. He was as stiff as a poker. His neck had been
broken and his face was facing backwards. In other words he was lying face
downwards on his back. He was conveyed home in a wheelbarrow. The anguish
visible on my countenance betrayed the secret to Elizabeth. The fact that the
body was rigid was another giveaway. She was Very keen to see the corpse; she
likes that sort of thing. Seeing the corpse, she fainted away; a bucket of
water soon revived her. The previous day William had teased her to let him wear
a very valuable miniature. It was an ivory elephant and he wanted to use it as
fishing bait.
     
    Come,
Victor, not brooding thoughts of vengeane against the assassin — but just in
case would you bring a musket, a sword, a brace of pistols and a bomb.
    Your affectionate and afflicted father,
    Alphonse Frankenstein
    Geneva, May 12th, 17—
     
     
    ‘My
dear Frankenstein,’ exclaimed Henry, when he perceived me weeping with
bitterness, ‘are we always to see you unhappy, you miserable bastard?’
    I
motioned him to take up the letter so he took it up to the first floor while I
walked up and down the room from north to south, to east and west, to
nor-noreast, to sou-souwest, to 20° west, to 30° east — by which time I had
covered the whole room.
    ‘I
can offer you no consolation,’ said he.
    ‘Then
piss off,’ said I.
    ‘Now
I go instantly to Geneva: come with me, Henry, to order four horses over the
counter.’ I held up four fingers to make sure we got them. As soon as the
horses arrived I hurried into a cabriolet and bade farewell to my friend.
    My
journey was very uncomfortable as I was suffering from piles and looking
forward to the gift of suppositories. I wished to hurry home for I longed to
console and sympathise with the miserable bloody lot back home.
     
    As
I approached my home
    I
recognised the dome
    I
recognised the bailiffs men
    Bringing
out the furniture now and then
    The last contents they brought
was my mother
    And then my invalid brother.
     
    I
remained two days at Lausanne in a painful state of mind and arse and then
continued my journey towards Geneva. The road ran by the side of the lake which
became narrower and narrower and narrower and finally it disappeared, and so
did I; it took a month to find me again. As I approached my native town I
discovered more distinctly the black sides of Jura and the bright summit of
Mont