Frankenstein

CREATURE: I've never been shown a kindness. Show me one now.

WALTON: What kindness?

CREATURE: Build for him a pyre. Light up the sky with his passing.

CREATURE: I longed to be with him. But I wanted his final moments to have peace. I could see you were a friend to him.

WALTON: What is that to you? Evil as you are.

CREATURE: I am as he made me. In his own image.

WALTON: You drove him to his torment.

CREATURE: And he drove me to mine.

WALTON: Then why weep for him?

CREATURE: Would you not? He was father. And mother. We fell from grace together. He from his God. I from mine.

CREATURE: You were with him at the end.

WALTON: Yes.

CREATURE: I was watching.

CREATURE: I have been... afraid. Afraid... they will hate me... because I am so very ugly... and they are so very beautiful

GRANDFATHER: People can be kinder than you think.

CREATURE: I am afraid.

GRANDFATHER: You're an outcast.

CREATURE: Yes. I have been seeking my friends.

GRANDFATHER: Friends? Do they live around here?

CREATURE: Yes. Very close

GRANDFATHER: Why do you not go to them?

GRANDFATHER: I'm glad you finally came to the door. A man shouldn't have to scurry in the shadows.

CREATURE: Better that way... for me.

GRANDFATHER: Why?

CREATURE: I'm... very, very ugly. People are afraid. Except you.

GRANDFATHER: It can't be as bad as that.

CREATURE: Worse.

CREATURE: Nice.

GRANDFATHER: The music? Or the fire?

CREATURE: GET AWAY FROM HER! SHE'S MINE!

VICTOR: SHE'LL NEVER BE YOURS! SHE SAID MY NAME! SHE REMEMBERS!

CREATURE: She's beautiful.

VICTOR: She's not for you.

CREATURE: I'm sure the lady knows her own mind. Doesn't she? Let her decide the proper suitor.

CREATURE: You will honor your promise to me!

VICTOR: I will not! Kill me now!

CREATURE: That is mild compared to what will come. If you deny me my wedding night. I'll be with you on yours.

VICTOR: What is this?

CREATURE: A brain. Extremities.

VICTOR: This was not taken from a grave.

CREATURE: What does it matter? She'll live again. You'll make her.

VICTOR: No. I draw the line.

VICTOR: Why... her?

CREATURE: Her body pleases me.

CREATURE: Soon?

VICTOR: Yes. I want this over and done with.

CREATURE: I'll be waiting. And watching.

VICTOR: What can I do?

CREATURE: There is something I want. A friend.

VICTOR: Friend?

CREATURE: A companion. A female. Like me, so she won't hate me.

VICTOR: Like you? Oh, God, you don't know what you're asking.

CREATURE: I do know that for the sympathy of one living being, I would make peace with all. I have love in me the likes of which you can scarcely imagine. And rage the likes of which you would not believe. If I cannot satisfy the one, I will demonically indulge the other. That choice is yours. You're the one who set this in motion, Frankenstein.

VICTOR: And if I consent?

CREATURE: We'd travel north, my bride and I. To the furthest reaches of the Pole, where no man has ever set foot. There we would live out our lives. Together. No human eye would ever see us again. This I vow.

CREATURE: In which part of me did this knowledge reside? In these hands? In this mind? In this heart? And reading and speaking. Not things learned... so much as things remembered.

VICTOR: Trace memories in the brain, perhaps.

CREATURE: Stolen memories. Stolen and hazy. They taunt me in my dreams. I've seen a beautiful woman lying back and beckoning for me to love her. Whose woman was this? I've seen boys playing, splashing about in a stream. Whose childhood friends were these? Who am I?

VICTOR: I don't know.

CREATURE: Then perhaps I believe in evil after all.

CREATURE: Why, Victor? Why? What were you thinking?

VICTOR: There was something at work in my soul which I do not understand.

CREATURE: What of my soul? Do I have one? Or was that a part you left out? Who were these people of which I am comprised? Good people? Bad people?

VICTOR: Materials. Nothing more.

CREATURE: You're wrong. Do you know I knew how to play this?

CREATURE: The letters in your journal. That and a geography book. Your Elizabeth sounds lovely.

VICTOR: Kill me and have done with it.

CREATURE: Kill you? Hardly that.

VICTOR: Then why am I here? What did you want with me?

CREATURE: More to the point, why am I here? What did you want with me? What does one say to one's Maker, having finally met him face to face? Milton gave it voice. Did I request thee, Maker, from my clay to mould me Man? Did I solicit thee from Darkness to promote me?

VICTOR: Fine words from a child killer. You who murdered my brother.

CREATURE: Your crime... as well as mine.

VICTOR: How dare you. You're disgusting and evil.

CREATURE: Evil? Do you believe in evil?

VICTOR: I see it before me.

CREATURE: I'm not sure I believe. But then I had no one to instruct me. I had no mother... and my father abandoned me at birth.

CREATURE: Come warm yourself if you like.

VICTOR: You speak.

CREATURE: Yes, I speak. And read. And think... and know the ways of Man. I've been waiting for you. Two months now.

VICTOR: How did you find me?

ELIZABETH: Are you all right?

JUSTINE: Fine.

ELIZABETH: Nothing. Still nothing.

JUSTINE: It's been months. It's not like him.

ELIZABETH: Something's wrong. I know it. I've heard rumors of cholera spreading south from Hamburg.

JUSTINE: So have I

ELIZABETH: I should go. I should leave today.

JUSTINE: Elizabeth. If it's true, travel into Germany would be banned. You'd never get near Ingolstadt. Besides, they're only rumors.

ELIZABETH: And not a word of them to Father. He's agitated enough not hearing from Victor.

JUSTINE: Read him one of the old letters and rephrase it. We'll say it came today. It'll set his mind at ease.

JUSTINE: Must've been a terrible row.

ELIZABETH: He was almost expelled for calling one of his professors a "pompous... Fellow..."

JUSTINE: You dance so beautifully together.

ELIZABETH: And you look so lovely.

JUSTINE: Elizabeth, really! He's quite mad!

ELIZABETH: Scandalous! What would your dear mother say?

JUSTINE: One-two-three, one-two-three, twirl- two-three...

ELIZABETH: That's the nature of all progress, William. Don't let your brother sway you otherwise.

JUSTINE: Quite right!

JUSTINE: Poor William! What indignant tears!

ELIZABETH: There, there... shhh...

FATHER: Have you seen Willie?

ELIZABETH: Is he not back yet?

FATHER: Claude rode over there to see if held lost track of time. They say he never arrived.

ELIZABETH: It's far too late for him to still be out.

FATHER: What does it say?

ELIZABETH: Let this locket be a token of the vow we took the night I left. He's coming home to marry me.

FATHER: He always was opinionated.

ELIZABETH: He set things right with a proper apology... and now they've put him in charge of dissection lab!

ELIZABETH: Victor!

VICTOR: Open this door for no-one!

VICTOR: I remember the first time I ever saw you. Crossing the floor of the grand ballroom with my parents at your side. So beautiful even then.

ELIZABETH: I have been waiting for this ever since.

ELIZABETH: Brother and sister no more.

VICTOR: Now husband and wife.

VICTOR: No. Not tomorrow, not next week, Marry me today.

ELIZABETH: Why the change? What about your work?

VICTOR: It was misguided and pointless. Is your answer yes?

ELIZABETH: It is

VICTOR: We'll leave this afternoon, right after the ceremony. Pack only what you need.

ELIZABETH: Does this have something to do with that man you saw?

VICTOR: Yes. We're in danger here. Every moment we stay.

ELIZABETH: Victor, tell me why! Trust me!

VICTOR: I do. But you must trust me for now.

ELIZABETH: What sort of task?

VICTOR: It's not something I can explain now. Perhaps someday.

ELIZABETH: What of our marriage? Victor, we've had so much tragedy. I want this family to live again.

VICTOR: So do I.

ELIZABETH: We need each other now, I need your comfort and strength, not separation and solitude.

VICTOR: A month at most, that's all I ask. Elizabeth, please. Things have not yet resolved. I must take steps to see that they do. For our family's sake. For our sake. You are life itself. We shall seal our vow. The moment I am done.

ELIZABETH: I thought I'd never see you again!

VICTOR: I'm all right. I'm safe,

ELIZABETH: Do you know this man? Is there something between you?

VICTOR: I know only that he is a killer. And I shall bring back his carcass.

VICTOR: My mind was not playing tricks. He was there in the storm... gloating over his crimes... challenging me to come.

ELIZABETH: But why risk yourself? Hasn't this family suffered enough?

VICTOR: I've no choice

ELIZABETH: If what you say is true, it is a matter for the police!

VICTOR: They've done a fine job. Hanging an innocent for the crime of a fiend.

ELIZABETH: Our decision. Together.

VICTOR: Your decision. For us.

ELIZABETH: I give you my soul...

VICTOR: ...until our wedding night. When our bodies will join.

ELIZABETH: Victor. I love you,

VICTOR: Elizabeth. My more than sister.

VICTOR: You make me weak.

ELIZABETH: Not as weak as I.

ELIZABETH: Brother and sister still?

VICTOR: I wish to be your husband.

ELIZABETH: I wish to be your wife.

VICTOR: Then come with me to Ingolstadt. Marry me now.

ELIZABETH: If only I could. But one of us must stay. Father's not strong. Willie's just a child. Who can look after them in your absence? Who can run the estate?

VICTOR: Only you.

ELIZABETH: I will be here when you return.

VICTOR: This feels... incestuous.

ELIZABETH: Is that what makes it so delicious?

VICTOR: I've loved you all my life

ELIZABETH: All my life I've known.

ELIZABETH: Smell the air. Wonderful.

VICTOR: Quite a send-off, isn't it?

ELIZABETH: Father's so proud.

VICTOR: And you?

ELIZABETH: Prouder still. You'll be the handsomest student there.

VICTOR: I'll have to do better than that.

ELIZABETH: You will. What do you want, Victor?

VICTOR: To be the best there ever was. To push our knowledge beyond our dreams... to eradicate disease and pestilence... to purge mankind of ignorance and fear...

VICTOR: Don't listen, Willie. Progress is a feast to be consumed. Women would have you believe you must walk before you can run. Or run before you can waltz!

ELIZABETH: Give me that child before you fill his head with drivel!

ELIZABETH: Oh, do give him here! He needs to be comforted and held!

VICTOR: He needs to vent his outrage to the skies! Make yourself heard, Willie! Learning to walk is not an easy thing! Why should it be so?

ELIZABETH: Victor, have a care! You'll make him dizzy!

VICTOR: The world is a dizzying place.

VICTOR: What kind of God is He to will this?

ELIZABETH: She was mother to me as well. But ours is the job of the living. It's up to us now to hold this family together. We must think of Father and be strong for him. I cannot do that alone.

VICTOR: God took her from us.

ELIZABETH: He left a beautiful gift in her place. A baby boy. To cherish and love as our very own. Your brother

VICTOR: How could all my father's knowledge and skill fail to save her?

ELIZABETH: It's not ours to decide. All that live must die. It's God's will.

ELIZABETH: Are you sure it can't hurt us?

VICTOR: Nothing can. Not ever.

VICTOR: Don't cry, Elizabeth.

ELIZABETH: Aren't you?

WALTON: A warming wind.

GRIGORI: This ice will break yet. How's our guest?

WALTON: He died. Raving about phantoms. He was mad, poor devil. Gather a detail. Have the body removed from my cabin.

GRIGORI: Aye, Captain.

GRIGORI: Captain, I implore you. The men are frightened and angry. They want your assurance.

WALTON: They knew the risks when they signed on. I've come too far to turn back now.

GRIGORI: Then you run the danger of pushing them to mutiny.

GRIGORI: It's going to ram us.

WALTON: It wouldn't dare.

HENRY: Professor?

WALDMAN: Oh God.

WALDMAN: I'm quite serious. Look at all the charity and clinic work we do. Up until thirty years ago, the concept of vaccine was unheard of.

HENRY: You're saying all disease will eventually be eradicated?

WALDMAN: I'm convinced. Not by treating symptoms, but by diving nature's most jealously-guarded secrets.

HENRY: Do you foresee this happening in our lifetimes?

WALDMAN: No. But someday.

HENRY: Thank goodness. We'd be out of work.

VICTOR: All that I once loved lies in a shallow grave. By my hand.

HENRY: Let it go.

VICTOR: Are you sure you'll be all right?

HENRY: Yes, don't worry. I'll look after your father. You look after her.

VICTOR: I'll be back as soon as I've got her far away and safe. We'll hunt this fiend down together.

HENRY: Only if you'll tell me who he is.

VICTOR: I owe you that. Done.

HENRY: What happened up there?

VICTOR: I didn't find what I was looking for.

HENRY: Quite a place.

VICTOR: Thank you, Henry.

HENRY: For what?

VICTOR: This. My home. My family. If not for you, I'd be dead in a burial pit somewhere.

HENRY: It's the down-and-outs I pity most. Those who can't fend for themselves. They'll be dead by the thousands before this is done. They don't stand a chance out there.

VICTOR: No. They don't.

HENRY: Victor. This place looked like a charnel house. What went on here?

HENRY: Thank God your fever broke. Slowly, now. Just a sip. I've been worried we might lose you. It's been touch-and-go for a week.

VICTOR: A... week?

HENRY: We feared cholera. Turned out to be pneumonia, brought on by nervous exhaustion and some idiot running around in a storm.

VICTOR: Is that your diagnosis?

HENRY: Mine and Professor Krempe's. We've been trading off nursing you in shifts. The rest of the time we're out working with the cholera victims. It's his turn for that just now.

VICTOR: You've been going round-the-clock?

HENRY: We catch a few hours sleep where we can. Usually here at your bedside.

VICTOR: Everything in moderation, Clerval.

HENRY: Nothing in moderation, Frankenstein.

VICTOR: This is a bad time, Henry. I'm busy just now. What do you want?

HENRY: Things have gone worse with this cholera outbreak. Thousand new cases a day now. Classes have been suspended. University's shut down.

VICTOR: Yes? And?

HENRY: Listen to what I'm saying. The militia's arriving to quarantine the city. Most of us are getting out while we still can.

VICTOR: You'll be leaving then. Just as well. You never were cut out for this, Henry. Goodbye.

HENRY: Victor. This has got to stop. Nobody's seen you in months. You haven't attended a single class.

VICTOR: I've been preoccupied.

HENRY: We all know how hard you took Waldman's death. Even Krempe is sympathetic. But it is time to move on. It is time to concern yourself with life.

VICTOR: That is my concern. I'm involved in something just now. I want to finish it in Waldman's memory.

HENRY: How much longer?

VICTOR: Few months perhaps. I'm gathering the raw materials even now.

HENRY: You're making a scene!

VICTOR: Why Waldman? He of all people should have cheated death!

HENRY: You can't. Death is God's will!

VICTOR: I resent God's monopoly.

HENRY: That's blasphemy!

VICTOR: Blasphemy be damned! Waldman spent his life trying to help people!

HENRY: All the more reason for us to continue his work with the poor!

VICTOR: No. He had more important work.

HENRY: There are sick people who need our help. Here and now. Not in some future time. Consider that.

HENRY: Keep your voice down. You don't know what you're saying.

VICTOR: It was wrong, Henry! It shouldn't have happened! The bastard deserves to die.

HENRY: They just caught the man who did it.

VICTOR: He was a frightened soul who acted out of fear and ignorance.

HENRY: They'll hang him all the same.

VICTOR: Good. I'll be there to hear his worthless neck snap.

HENRY: And here's to Him. Everything in moderation, Frankenstein.

VICTOR: Nothing in moderation, Clerval.

VICTOR: Only you would think of that!

HENRY: Somebody has to!

HENRY: Now you've got him started.

VICTOR: These are exciting times, Henry. We're entering an era of amazing breakthroughs. Look at Edward Jenner. He wasn't content to bleed people with leeches, he pioneered a new frontier of thought

HENRY: ...yes, and thanks to him, smallpox has been virtually eliminated. I've heard this speech before.

VICTOR: But you haven't listened, Never in history has so much seemed possible. We're on the verge of answers undreamt of... but only if we have the courage to ask the questions.

HENRY: The entire school heard it. It wasn't something one could miss.

VICTOR: You're a comfort to me, Henry.

HENRY: What now? Writing about it in your journal won't help.

VICTOR: It's a letter to my father.

VICTOR: Rich old ladies and their daughters?

HENRY: Can you think of a better reason?

VICTOR: Quite a few.

HENRY: Do me a favor then... ...keep them to yourself.

VICTOR: Do you really think I'm mad?

HENRY: Come now. Magnus? Agrippa? Next thing you know, you'll be teaching toadstools to speak.

HENRY: Henry Clerval.

VICTOR: Victor, Victor Frankenstein.

HENRY: I know. You have a way of making an impression.

VICTOR: Are you having me on?

HENRY: Of course I am. It pays to humor the insane.

VICTOR: I am not mad.

HENRY: As a march hare.

HENRY: I was just clearing my throat.

VICTOR: Very well then.

JUSTINE: I have always loved him.

PROSECUTOR: Is it also not true that you murdered his brother William in a misdirected crime of passion?

JUSTINE: Murder Willie? In my heart, he was our child. Victor's and mine. Such a thing could never have entered my mind.

PROSECUTOR: So you have claimed. Yet you have no explanation for this. The locket last seen in the hands of the poor murdered child was found hidden in your dress the morning following the murder. The locket you so coveted. How did it come to be in your possession?

JUSTINE: I have no knowledge of that.

JUSTINE: Yes. I took refuge in the barn. Wouldn't you? Lost in the storm? Freezing and wet? I was exhausted and could search no longer.

PROSECUTOR: And is it true, Miss Moritz, that you love Victor Frankenstein? That your heart was broken? Answer the question. Do you love Victor Frankenstein?

KREMPE: You seem to be adapting well to the approved curriculum.

VICTOR: Despite the lack of challenge.

KREMPE: Paracelsus?

VICTOR: Or Albertus Magnus. Cornelius Agrippa...

KREMPE: What is your name?

VICTOR: Victor Frankenstein, sir. Of geneva.

KREMPE: Of Geneva. Tell me, Mr. Frankenstein of Geneva. Do you wish to study medicine? Or mysticism?

KREMPE: In science, the letter of fact is the letter of law. Our pursuit is as dogmatic as any religious precept. Think of yourselves as disciples of a strict and hallowed sect. Someday you may be priests... but only if you learn the scripture chapter and verse. Any questions?

VICTOR: But surely, Professor, you don't intend we disregard the more... philosophical works.

KREMPE: Philosophical?

VICTOR: Those which stir the imagination as well as the intellect. Paracelsus, for one.

VICTOR: I tell you what we need, my friends. Forget the symptoms and diseases. What we need is a vaccine for death itself.

WALDMAN: Oh, now you have gone too far. There's only one God, Victor.

WALDMAN: Victor. He was trying to be gracious.

VICTOR: The strain was evident.

WALDMAN: Re-configure the leads?

VICTOR: Numbers four and twelve directly into the nervous system?

WALDMAN: "...a sincere and heartfelt apology which you will then read aloud to him before the assembled student body and faculty.

VICTOR: Why?

WALDMAN: Our profession needs talent like yours. Destroy your career over an issue of pride? What a waste.

WALDMAN: Electricity.

VICTOR: It's utterly fantastic! This is the sort of thing I'm talking about! We should be learning this!

WALDMAN: Why? God alone knows what it means. Until it has proven value, it's nothing more than a ghoulish parlor trick. Hardly fit for the classroom.

VICTOR: But the possibilities. Combining ancient knowledge with new? Something like this could change our fundamental views!

WALDMAN: It is a thrilling direction to explore. Thrilling and dangerous. Nature can be wonderful and terrible. Science is not a realm for the reckless; it needs a conscience. We must proceed cautiously. Assess as we go. What I do on my own time is my own business. The same holds true for you. You wish to expand your mind? Fine, do so. You can even join me here, if you like. But not at the expense of your normal studies.

VICTOR: I doubt that decision is still mine to make.

WALDMAN: Nonsense. Tonight you will draft an apology to Professor Krempe...

VICTOR: Preposterous.

WALDMAN: I once saw it done, as a boy in Canton. My parents were missionaries. The cure was nothing short of miraculous. I've never forgotten it. Been fascinated ever since.

VICTOR: Professor Waldman.

WALDMAN: Victor, explain yourself.

VICTOR: Krempe has a way of provoking my temper.

WALDMAN: You have a way of provoking his. I've been watching you. You seem impatient with your studies.

VICTOR: To say the least. I came here to expand my mind, but honest inquiry seems strangled at every turn. All we do is cling to the old knowledge instead of seeking the new.

WALDMAN: You disdain accepted wisdom?

VICTOR: No, I embrace it... as something to be used or discarded as we advance the boundaries of what is known.

VICTOR: We are kindred, you and I. Men of ambition. Let me tell you all that I have lost in such pursuits. I pray my story will come to mean for you all that is capricious and evil in man.

WALTON: Who are you?

VICTOR: My name is Frankenstein...

VICTOR: Do you share my madness?

WALTON: Madness?

VICTOR: Frostbite. Gangrene. A simple diagnosis.

WALTON: Are you a physician?

VICTOR: How is it you come to be here?

WALTON: There's a startling question, coming from you. I'm captain of this ship. We sailed from Archangel a month ago, seeking a passage to the North Pole.

VICTOR: Ah. An explorer.

WALTON: Would-be. I'm plagued with my share of difficulties just at the moment.

VICTOR: I heard.

WALTON: I can't say I blame them. We're trapped in this ice and bedeviled by some sort of... creature.

VICTOR: Creature? A... human like creature?

WALTON: You know of it?

VICTOR: Your men are right to be afraid.

WALTON: Then explain it, whatever it is. It could save the voyage. I've spent years planning this. My entire fortune.

VICTOR: You'd persist at the cost of your own life? The lives of your crew?

WALTON: Lives are ephemeral. The knowledge we gain, the achievements we leave behind... those live on.

WALTON: You're awake. I've prepared some broth. It'll help restore you.

VICTOR: I'm... dying.