Frankenstein - According to

torture to me, yet I could not refuse. I didn’t want to
be seen going so I put a towel over my face. We entered the gloomy prison
chamber and beheld Justine sitting on some straw at the far end; her hands were
manacled and, with difficulty, she was trying to eat a packet of Smith’s
crisps. She rose on seeing us and threw herself at the feet of Elizabeth,
weeping bitterly. We were soon all ankle deep in tears.
    ‘Rise,
my poor girl,’ said Elizabeth. The poor girl rose six feet in the air and
remained there.
    ‘Would
you like a sailor to make your last hours happy?’
    ‘Can
I come down now?’ Justine asked. ‘The local priest said that unless I gave £10
towards the church I will go to hell.’
    ‘Then
pay the £10 and avoid going to hell,’ said Elizabeth.
    ‘Dearest
William, dearest blessed child! I soon shall be able to see you again, in
heaven where we shall all be happy and I can see the strangle marks on your
neck. Goodbye cruel world, goodbye. I leave a sad and bitter world, and that
stupid man in the corner with the towel over his head.’
    During
this conversation I had retired to the corner of the prison room where I could
conceal the horrid anguish that possessed me with a large piece of cardboard.
    ‘I
feel as if I could die in peace.’ We all waited while she tried to die in peace
but nothing happened.
    Thus,
the poor sufferer tried to comfort others — she tried to comfort the Pope, but
before she could she would be strung up.
    We
stayed several hours with Justine and I danced with her three times.
    On
the morrow, Justine died, a favourite with Her Majesty’s Royal Navy. I turned
to contemplate the deep and voiceless grief of my Elizabeth but she wasn’t
there. All that woe and the desolation in the home. All was the work of my
thrice-accursed hands, bloody hands multiplied by three. Justine’s funeral was
accompanied by wailing and lamentations and weeping. It was so bloody noisy we
couldn’t hear the coffin go into the ground.
    Meanwhile,
this monster was walking the countryside at 100 miles per hour, demanding
cigarettes and strangling people if they did not give him one.

VOLUME TWO

CHAPTER I
     
     
     
    I
could never watch Drop the Dead Donkey, I could only watch it fall and
pray for its soul. They say all the souls of dead donkeys go to Bexhill-on-Sea.
    ‘Victor,’
said my father, ‘for fuck’s sake snap out of it. I loved your brother.’
    Tears
came into his eyes; they ran down his body into his boots where they escaped
through lace holes as steam.
    ‘It
is a duty to improve or enjoy, even the discharge of daily usefulness without
which no man is fit for society. For fuck’s sake, snap out of it.’
    Now
I could only answer my father with a look of despair, and endeavour to hide
myself from his view behind a piece of cardboard from where I shouted, ‘For
fuck’s sake I can’t snap out of it.’
    About
this time we moved to a house at Belrive. This change was particularly
agreeable as there was no rent to Pay. Often, when the rest of the family
retired for the night, I took the boat and passed many hours upon the Water. It
sprang a leak, and despite four hours of bailing out it sank. Another time I
hoisted the sails and let the wind take me wherever it would. I ended up in
France.
    It
took me two days of sailing to get back. Often I was tempted to plunge into the
lake; that the waters might close over me and end my calamities forever, but
each time I ran short of breath and had to surface. Thank heaven, it saved my
life.
    I
lived in daily fear lest the monster whom I had created should perpetrate some
new hobby like haddock stretching or nude woodchopping. None of these
activities could obliterate the monster from my mind. I must find him, even if
it means going to the Andes. There I would arrest him.
     
    The monster would not leave my
mind
    Suppose he left it behind!
    He could throw it in the sea
    Dearie me
    And that would be the end of me.
     
    My
father’s health was deeply shaken by the horror of the recent events. We had to
put heavy rocks on him to keep him still.
    ‘When
I reflect, my dear cousin,’ said Elizabeth, ‘I no longer see the world and its
works as they before appeared to me. Before I looked upon the accounts of vice
and injustice.’
    ‘Don’t
worry, I will look up these accounts,’ I said. I did, and there was a deficit
of £50 10s 6d so we closed the books on that company.
    ‘Yes,’
I said, ‘I felt she was innocent before she died. I