Frankenstein - According to

Blancmange. I wept like a child — boo hoo hoo. ‘Dear mountains! My own beautiful
lake! How do you welcome your wanderer?’ At that moment a landslide pushed me
and the carriage into the lake. That’s how they welcome their wandering kith
and kin.
    ‘Which
are you,’ said a peasant digging me out, ‘are you kith or kin?’
    ‘I
am kith.’
    ‘Well
good, we don’t want any kins here.’
    Yet
as I drew nearer home, grief and fear again overcame me so I did not care a
fuck for the Jura or Mont Blancmange. Night also closed around and I could
hardly see the dark mountains. My landlady said she had put a po under my bed
but if I used it I was not to put it back under the bed because the steam rusts
the springs.
     
    As I cowered on deck it started
to rain
    And, terrible luck, I fell in the
lake again
    William, this storm is your
funeral hymn
    But I got no bloody response from
him.
     
    As
I was unable to rest I resolved to visit the spot where my poor William had
been murdered. As I could not pass through the town I was obliged to cross the
lake in a boat to arrive at Plainpalais. During this short voyage, as I was
rowing, the boat flooded and sank and I had to swim for the shore. I saw the
lightning playing on the summit of Mont Blancmange. Already soaked to the skin,
it started to rain again, absolutely flooding me. It was pitch dark until my
eyes recovered themselves to the darkness. During that time I fell in the lake
for a second time.
    From
the bank I watched the tempest, so beautiful yet terrific. This noble war in
the sky elevated my spirits; I clasped my hands and exclaimed aloud: ‘William,
dear angel! this is thy funeral dirge.’ [I don’t think William heard it but it
was well meant. Ed.] A flash of lightning illuminated the object and discovered
its shape plainly to me, its gigantic stature. His trousers were still around
his ankles. Each flash of lightning lit up his huge wedding, tackle. What did
he there? I waited, but he did nothing there. Was he the murderer of my
brother? He suddenly rushed towards me. ‘Have you got a fag?’ he said. I
hastily gave him a packet. Yes, he was the murderer! [There is not a shred of
evidence against this poor monster. Ed.] Yes, it must have been two years since
I gave this monster life. Was this his first crime? A murderer two years old?
No court would believe it!
    My
first thought was to discover what I knew of the murderer and cause instant
pursuit to be made. ‘Quick, police, fire, ambulance!’ This being I had myself
formed and given life to and met me at midnight. He asked me for a cheese
sandwich. I told him I had no cheese, would fish paste do?
    ‘Oh,’
he queried, ‘what will fish paste do?’
    ‘Nothing,’
I said, ‘it just stays there.’
    He
asked me to help secure his trousers which I did, fixing them from the back
where it was less dangerous.
    It
was about five in the morning when I entered my father’s house. I told the
servants not to disturb the family and they didn’t but they, too, were still in
bed. Six years had elapsed. I embraced my father, beloved parent. I gazed on
the picture of my mother which stood over the mantelpiece. It was an historic
subject painted at my father’s desire and represented Caroline Beaufort in an
agony of despair, kneeling by the coffin of her dead father. My father was
really bent. Her garb was rustic and her cheek pale; but there was an air of
dignity and beauty that hardly permitted the sentiment of pity. Nevertheless it
was a bloody miserable painting. Below this picture was a miniature of William;
my tears flowed when I looked upon it and soon the room was ankle deep in
tears.
    While
I was thus engaged, Ernest entered. ‘Still bloody miserable? Welcome home my
dearest Dick,’ he said. ‘I’m not Dick,’ said I, ‘I’m Victor.’
    ‘Poor
William, he was our darling. We tried to revive him, we even tried a vet.’
    Tears
unrestrained — strained tears are much purer but less plentiful — fell from my
brother’s eyes. ‘Elizabeth, alas, announced herself as having caused the death
of William and that made her very wretched, but since the Murderer has been
discovered…'
    Good
God! How can that be? Who could attempt to pursue him? It is impossible; one
might as well try to overtake the winds or confine a mountain stream with a
straw. He disappeared at a speed of 100 miles per hour. He was eating a fish
paste sandwich and his trousers kept falling down. The police, ambulance and
fire