FRANKENSTEIN recap: chapter 6
In which Victor Frankenstein changes his major and there is much foreshadowing
Previously on: Victor Frankenstein does his thing and is horribly surprised to discover that this is not, in fact, the smartest thing anyone has ever done in the history of ever, freaks out, runs away, and collapses upon the breast of his devoted friend Henry Clerval in a highly dramatic attack of “nervous fever”. The monster, abandoned, has departed the narrative for now.
We pick up with Victor reading a letter from his notsister/cousin Elizabeth back in Geneva. (I am still not clear on the cousin thing: in previous chapters she was described as a noble-born orphan unrelated to the Frankensteins who was taken in/adopted by said family as a companion for baby Victor, but then suddenly she turns into his cousin as well as/instead of being his notsister? Presumably I’m missing something here.)
Elizabeth prettily entreats Victor to write back to them and tells him everything is for the best in this best of all possible worlds, what could possibly ever go wrong in such an elysian haven of bliss:
“Get well—and return to us. You will find a happy, cheerful home and friends who love you dearly. Your father’s health is vigorous, and he asks but to see you, but to be assured that you are well; and not a care will ever cloud his benevolent countenance.”
Yay? Notsistercousin Elizabeth goes on to discuss yet another ward of the Frankenstein menage, Justine Moritz, whom Victor’s mother took in out of the goodness of her heart, and upon whom she proceeded to bestow the dignity and refined morals of a servant:
The republican institutions of our country have produced simpler and happier manners than those which prevail in the great monarchies that surround it. Hence there is less distinction between the several classes of its inhabitants; and the lower orders, being neither so poor nor so despised, their manners are more refined and moral. A servant in Geneva does not mean the same thing as a servant in France and England. Justine, thus received in our family, learned the duties of a servant, a condition which, in our fortunate country, does not include the idea of ignorance and a sacrifice of the dignity of a human being.
“Justine, you may remember, was a great favourite of yours;
Thanks for letting us know!
and I recollect you once remarked that if you were in an ill humour, one glance from Justine could dissipate it, for the same reason that Ariosto gives concerning the beauty of Angelica—she looked so frank-hearted and happy.
Except for when it turned out to be scarlet fever o’clock and the saintly Mrs. F kicked it. Justine’s estranged family – her mother was a narcissist and hates her, preferring all of Justine’s brothers – also got decimated by the disease, leaving narc-mom bereft of children except Justine, whom she subsequently demanded to have returned to her. Justine was less than thrilled by this development:
Poor girl! She wept when she quitted our house; she was much altered since the death of my aunt; grief had given softness and a winning mildness to her manners, which had before been remarkable for vivacity. Nor was her residence at her mother’s house of a nature to restore her gaiety. The poor woman was very vacillating in her repentance. She sometimes begged Justine to forgive her unkindness, but much oftener accused her of having caused the deaths of her brothers and sister. Perpetual fretting at length threw Madame Moritz into a decline, which at first increased her irritability, but she is now at peace for ever. She died on the first approach of cold weather, at the beginning of this last winter. Justine has just returned to us; and I assure you I love her tenderly. She is very clever and gentle, and extremely pretty; as I mentioned before, her mien and her expression continually remind me of my dear aunt.
I’ll take “foreshadowing” for four hundred, Alex.
“I must say also a few words to you, my dear cousin, of little darling William. I wish you could see him; he is very tall of his age, with sweet laughing blue eyes, dark eyelashes, and curling hair. When he smiles, two little dimples appear on each cheek, which are rosy with health.”
Make that “heavy foreshadowing” for eight hundred. Justine is the dutiful and devoted waif-war, William is the youngest Frankenstein scion. Both are pure and innocent as the driven snow.
Victor, on reading this: “I will write instantly and relieve them from the anxiety they must feel.” I wrote, and this exertion greatly fatigued me; but my convalescence had commenced, and proceeded regularly. In another fortnight I was able to leave my chamber.
So that’s all right then. He immediately forgets all about his family and throws himself into introducing Clerval to the university. We are not given to understand what the hell they thought about his entirely weird two-year corpse party independent study option, but apparently that was entirely acceptable in the curriculum of Ingolstadt University. However, poor Victor suffers agonies because he and he alone knows his awful secrets and everything is all about him:
One of my first duties on my recovery was to introduce Clerval to the several professors of the university. In doing this, I underwent a kind of rough usage, ill befitting the wounds that my mind had sustained. Ever since the fatal night, the end of my labours, and the beginning of my misfortunes, I had conceived a violent antipathy even to the name of natural philosophy.
Victor, sweetie, what you were doing isn’t natural philosophy. What you were doing was having an extended Tupperware party with corpse bits. A corpse party.
When I was otherwise quite restored to health, the sight of a chemical instrument would renew all the agony of my nervous symptoms. Henry saw this, and had removed all my apparatus from my view. He had also changed my apartment; for he perceived that I had acquired a dislike for the room which had previously been my laboratory.
That and there’s probably corpse-part residue everywhere.
But these cares of Clerval were made of no avail when I visited the professors. M. Waldman inflicted torture when he praised, with kindness and warmth, the astonishing progress I had made in the sciences. He soon perceived that I disliked the subject; but not guessing the real cause, he attributed my feelings to modesty, and changed the subject from my improvement, to the science itself, with a desire, as I evidently saw, of drawing me out. What could I do? He meant to please, and he tormented me. I felt as if he had placed carefully, one by one, in my view those instruments which were to be afterwards used in putting me to a slow and cruel death. I writhed under his words, yet dared not exhibit the pain I felt.
Oh, you exhibited it. You totally exhibited it. I bet your pallid brow stood out in dewy drops of cold sweat and a darkness swam before your eyes, style of thing. I bet Clerval was like “am I gonna have to catch him? OMG I might have to catch him!” with heart eyes. Clerval is definitely into the hurt/comfort scene here.
Clerval, whose eyes and feelings were always quick in discerning the sensations of others, declined the subject, alleging, in excuse, his total ignorance; and the conversation took a more general turn. I thanked my friend from my heart, but I did not speak. I saw plainly that he was surprised, but he never attempted to draw my secret from me; and although I loved him with a mixture of affection and reverence that knew no bounds, yet I could never persuade myself to confide in him that event which was so often present to my recollection, but which I feared the detail to another would only impress more deeply.
DUDE. He literally spent months by your bed of pain as you moaned and raved in your delirium about all the horrible shit you did. He knows about your secret even if you haven’t deliberately informed him of it, and you ought to know that.
He still doesn’t like Krempe:
M. Krempe was not equally docile; and in my condition at that time, of almost insupportable sensitiveness
Me me me me meeeeeeeeee
his harsh blunt encomiums gave me even more pain than the benevolent approbation of M. Waldman. “D—n the fellow!” cried he; “why, M. Clerval, I assure you he has outstript us all. Ay, stare if you please; but it is nevertheless true. A youngster who, but a few years ago, believed in Cornelius Agrippa as firmly as in the gospel, has now set himself at the head of the university; and if he is not soon pulled down, we shall all be out of countenance.
Krempe: only sane person.
—Ay, ay,” continued he, observing my face expressive of suffering, “M. Frankenstein is modest; an excellent quality in a young man. Young men should be diffident of themselves, you know, M. Clerval: I was myself when young; but that wears out in a very short time.”
M. Krempe had now commenced an eulogy on himself, which happily turned the conversation from a subject that was so annoying to me.
Oh shut up. Victor decides to change his major because his notboyfriend is into languages:
Clerval had never sympathised in my tastes for natural science; and his literary pursuits differed wholly from those which had occupied me. He came to the university with the design of making himself complete master of the oriental languages, and thus he should open a field for the plan of life he had marked out for himself. Resolved to pursue no inglorious career, he turned his eyes toward the East, as affording scope for his spirit of enterprise. The Persian, Arabic, and Sanskrit languages engaged his attention, and I was easily induced to enter on the same studies. Idleness had ever been irksome to me, and now that I wished to fly from reflection, and hated my former studies, I felt great relief in being the fellow-pupil with my friend, and found not only instruction but consolation in the works of the orientalists. I did not, like him, attempt a critical knowledge of their dialects, for I did not contemplate making any other use of them than temporary amusement.
Could you be any more condescending?
I read merely to understand their meaning, and they well repaid my labours. Their melancholy is soothing, and their joy elevating, to a degree I never experienced in studying the authors of any other country. When you read their writings, life appears to consist in a warm sun and a garden of roses,—in the smiles and frowns of a fair enemy, and the fire that consumes your own heart. How different from the manly and heroical poetry of Greece and Rome!
My mistake, you could be more condescending. Well done, sir. Well done.
Next we have another instance of Victor Frankenstein Sucks at Pacing: he describes the passage of several seasons in a few sentences and then picks up again with a detailed in-depth description of his activities:
Summer passed away in these occupations, and my return to Geneva was fixed for the latter end of autumn; but being delayed by several accidents, winter and snow arrived, the roads were deemed impassable, and my journey was retarded until the ensuing spring. I felt this delay very bitterly; for I longed to see my native town and my beloved friends. My return had only been delayed so long, from an unwillingness to leave Clerval in a strange place, before he had become acquainted with any of its inhabitants. The winter, however, was spent cheerfully; and although the spring was uncommonly late, when it came its beauty compensated for its dilatoriness.
You sort of see the calendar pages flying by in the background with a faint zoop! sound.
The month of May had already commenced, and I expected the letter daily which was to fix the date of my departure, when Henry proposed a pedestrian tour in the environs of Ingolstadt, that I might bid a personal farewell to the country I had so long inhabited. I acceded with pleasure to this proposition: I was fond of exercise, and Clerval had always been my favourite companion in the ramble of this nature that I had taken among the scenes of my native country.
Not only does he suck at pacing, he’s verbose in the extreme. “Clerval suggested we go on a backpacking trip” would cover the same amount of ground. He has a great time frolicking among the wonders of nature, praising Clerval’s friendship, and making everything all about him:
A selfish pursuit had cramped and narrowed me, until your gentleness and affection warmed and opened my senses; I became the same happy creature who, a few years ago, loved and beloved by all, had no sorrow or care.
Loved and beloved by all as it should be, because he is Victor Frankenstein and all shall love him and despair.
When happy, inanimate nature had the power of bestowing on me the most delightful sensations. A serene sky and verdant fields filled me with ecstasy.
Yes, the summer was designed for you alone, Victor, for ecstasy-filling purposes.
The present season was indeed divine; the flowers of spring bloomed in the hedges, while those of summer were already in bud. I was undisturbed by thoughts which during the preceding year had pressed upon me, notwithstanding my endeavours to throw them off, with an invincible burden.
You mean the whole unspeakable-crime thing combined with the total abdication of any responsibility for your own idiotic actions? Those thoughts? How nice that you didn’t have to be disturbed by them!
Henry rejoiced in my gaiety, and sincerely sympathised in my feelings: he exerted himself to amuse me, while he expressed the sensations that filled his soul. The resources of his mind on this occasion were truly astonishing: his conversation was full of imagination; and very often, in imitation of the Persian and Arabic writers, he invented tales of wonderful fancy and passion. At other times he repeated my favourite poems, or drew me out into arguments, which he supported with great ingenuity.
We returned to our college on a Sunday afternoon: the peasants were dancing, and every one we met appeared gay and happy. My own spirits were high, and I bounded along with feelings of unbridled joy and hilarity.
I have absolutely no doubt that there were little tweety-birds that fluttered down from the trees and alighted upon Victor’s fingers to sing duets with him, and possibly small furry woodland creatures that drew near to bask in his disney-princess glow. Probably he sparkled, too, ever so faintly.
This is, of course, heavy-handed foreshadowing for $1,000 and a daily double, because next time, Tragedy Strikes and Everything is Terrible Forever!