No human being could have passed a happier childhood than myself. Instead of children’s play and adventure, I was driven by a desire to learn. I wasn’t interested in the structure of language or law. I wanted to learn the secrets of heaven and earth. My father was not scientific, so I had to look for a road without having a map. I entered the search for wisdom and dreamt of finding a way to cure any disease.
I read all the books I could find that threw light upon these matters. I studied maths and physics and the works of many learned author. At the age of seventeen, my parents sent me to university. But I found all that was taught at university very disappointing and decided that I would pioneer a new way, explore unknown powers, and unfold to the world the deepest mysteries of nature.
One of the phenomena that attracted my attention was the structure of the human body, and any animal that was alive. I often asked myself, where the principle of life came from. After days and nights of incredible labour I discovered the cause of life and how to create life from dead matter.
When I found this amazing power placed within my hands, I hesitated a long time how I should use it. Although I knew how to create life, how to prepare a body for it with all its muscles and organs still remained a difficult job. I doubted at first whether I should try to create a being like myself, or one of simpler organization. But soon I dreamt of nothing else but the creation of a creature as complete and wonderful as man.
It was with these feelings that I began the creation of a human being. As the small size of the parts slowed down my speed, I decided to make the being much larger than man; about eight feet in height. With these ideas, spending some months collecting and arranging materials, I began.
Who can imagine the horror of my secret work? I collected bones from graves and cut up dead bodies. Many of my materials came from butcher shops and hospitals. It was on a night in November that I looked at the result of my work. I collected my instruments around me, with which I would light the flame of life into the dead thing that lay at my feet. It was already one in the morning, and my candle was nearly burnt out, when I saw the dull yellow eye of the creature open.
I looked at the terrible monster that I had created. He opened the curtain of the bed; and his eyes, if eyes they may be called, looked at me. His hair was black and his teeth as white as snow, but his skin was yellow. When his thin black lips opened, nothing came out some strange sounds. While unfinished, he was ugly, but now he was a living horror. |