War Stories

Doc. Hollywood :

Good. Let's see what we've got. 

You're a lucky man, Mr. Whale. 

Whatever damage was done by your stroke, 

it left your motor abilities relatively unimpaired. 

James Whale :

Yes, Dr. Payne, but what about 

from the neck upwards? 

What's the story there? 

Doc. Hollywood :

That's what I'm trying to explain. 

The central nervous system 

selects items from a constant 

storm of sensations —

Whatever was killed in your stroke seems 

to have short-circuited this mechanism. 

James Whale :

So you're saying there's 

An Electrical Storm going on 

inside My Head. 

Doc. Hollywood :

Well, that's as good a way 

as any to describe it.

I've seen far worse cases. 

James Whale :

What about all The Rest? 

The killing headaches. 

The phantom smells. 

My inability to close my eyes,

without thinking of a hundred 

things simultaneously. 

Doc. Hollywood :

I've never encountered the 

olfactory hallucinations before, 

but I'm sure they're related. 

James Whale :

So, what do I do? 

Doc. Hollywood :

Take the Luminol to sleep... 

and whenever you feel 

an attack coming on. 

James Whale :

What you're saying is that this isn't 

just a case of resting until I'm better, 

but that my condition will continue 

to deteriorate until 

the end of my life?

The Bride

The Creature :

She hate me. 

Like others. 

Dr. Pretorius :

Look out! The lever! 

Get away from that lever! You'll blow us all to atoms. 

Baroness Elizabeth von Frankenstein :

Henry! Undo the door! Henry! 

Baron Dr. Henry von Frankenstein :

Get back! 

Get back! 

Baroness Elizabeth von Frankenstein :

I won't unless you come! 

Baron Dr. Henry von Frankenstein :

But I can't leave them! I can't! 

The Creature :

Yes. Go!

You, Live! Go!

(He turns to Pretorius and The Bride)

You, stay —

We Belong Dead.

Dr. Septimus Pretorius :

Doctor. I think The Heart 

is beating. Look. 

Baron Dr. Henry von Frankenstein :

It's beating, but the rhythm 

of the beat is uneven. 

Increase the saline solution. 

Dr. Septimus Pretorius :

Is there any Life yet? 

Baron Dr. Henry von Frankenstein :

No. Not Life-Itself yet -

This is only the 

simulacrum of Life. 

This action only responds 

when the current is applied.

We must be patient - 

The Human Heart 

is more complex than 

any other part of The Body.

Mary

True Things are in Highlighted in Green.

Lies, fibs, spurious Bad-Faith or illegitimate claims, statements or assertions are here-given, presented in RED.

---

FRANKENSTEIN:

OR,

THE MODERN PROMETHEUS.

BY MARY W. SHELLEY.

AUTHOR OF THE LAST MAN, PERKIN WARBECK, &c. &c.

[Transcriber's Note: This text was produced from a photo-reprint of the 1831 edition.]

REVISED, CORRECTED,
AND ILLUSTRATED WITH A NEW INTRODUCTION,
BY THE AUTHOR.

LONDON:
HENRY COLBURN AND RICHARD BENTLEY,
NEW BURLINGTON STREET:
BELL AND BRADFUTE, EDINBURGH;
AND CUMMING, DUBLIN.
1831.

---

INTRODUCTION.

The Publishers of the Standard Novels, in selecting "Frankenstein" for one of their series, expressed a wish that I should furnish them with some account of the origin of the story. I am the more willing to comply, because I shall thus give a general answer to the question, so very frequently asked me — "How I, when a young girl, came to think of, and to dilate upon, so very hideous an idea?" It is true that I am very averse to bringing myself forward in print; but as my account will only appear as an appendage to a former production, and as it will be confined to such topics as have connection with my authorship alone, I can scarcely accuse myself of a personal intrusion.

It is not singular that, as the daughter of two persons of distinguished literary celebrity, I should very early in life have thought of writing. As a child I scribbled; and my favourite pastime, during the hours given me for recreation, was to "write stories." Still I had a dearer pleasure than this, which was the formation of castles in the air—the indulging in waking dreams—the following up trains of thought, which had for their subject the formation of a succession of imaginary incidents. My dreams were at once more fantastic and agreeable than my writings. In the latter I was a close imitator—rather doing as others had done, than putting down the suggestions of my own mind. What I wrote was intended at least for one other eye—my childhood's companion and friend; but my dreams were all my own; I accounted for them to nobody; they were my refuge when annoyed—my dearest pleasure when free.

I lived principally in the country as a girl, and passed a considerable time in Scotland. I made occasional visits to the more picturesque parts; but my habitual residence was on the blank and dreary northern shores of the Tay, near Dundee. Blank and dreary on retrospection I call them; they were not so to me then. They were the eyry of freedom, and the pleasant region where unheeded I could commune with the creatures of my fancy. I wrote then—but in a most common-place style. It was beneath the trees of the grounds belonging to our house, or on the bleak sides of the woodless mountains near, that my true compositions, the airy flights of my imagination, were born and fostered. I did not make myself the heroine of my tales. Life appeared to me too common-place an affair as regarded myself. I could not figure to myself that romantic woes or wonderful events would ever be my lot; but I was not confined to my own identity, and I could people the hours with creations far more interesting to me at that age, than my own sensations.

After this my life became busier, and reality stood in place of fiction. My husband, however, was from the first, very anxious that I should prove myself worthy of my parentage, and enrol myself on the page of fame. He was for ever inciting me to obtain literary reputation, which even on my own part I cared for then, though since I have become infinitely indifferent to it. At this time he desired that I should write, not so much with the idea that I could produce any thing worthy of notice, but that he might himself judge how far I possessed the promise of better things hereafter. Still I did nothing. Travelling, and the cares of a family, occupied my time; and study, in the way of reading, or improving my ideas in communication with his far more cultivated mind, was all of literary employment that engaged my attention.

In the summer of 1816, we visited Switzerland, and became the neighbours of Lord Byron. At first we spent our pleasant hours on the lake, or wandering on its shores; and Lord Byron, who was writing the third canto of Childe Harold, was the only one among us who put his thoughts upon paper. These, as he brought them successively to us, clothed in all the light and harmony of poetry, seemed to stamp as divine the glories of heaven and earth, whose influences we partook with him.

But it proved a wet, ungenial summer, and incessant rain often confined us for days to the house. Some volumes of ghost stories, translated from the German into French, fell into our hands. There was the History of the Inconstant Lover, who, when he thought to clasp the bride to whom he had pledged his vows, found himself in the arms of the pale ghost of her whom he had deserted. There was the tale of the sinful founder of his race, whose miserable doom it was to bestow the kiss of death on all the younger sons of his fated house, just when they reached the age of promise. His gigantic, shadowy form, clothed like the ghost in Hamlet, in complete armour, but with the beaver up, was seen at midnight, by the moon's fitful beams, to advance slowly along the gloomy avenue. The shape was lost beneath the shadow of the castle walls; but soon a gate swung back, a step was heard, the door of the chamber opened, and he advanced to the couch of the blooming youths, cradled in healthy sleep. Eternal sorrow sat upon his face as he bent down and kissed the forehead of the boys, who from that hour withered like flowers snapt upon the stalk. I have not seen these stories since then; but their incidents are as fresh in my mind as if I had read them yesterday.

"We will each write a ghost story," said Lord Byron; and his proposition was acceded to. There were four of us. The noble author began a tale, a fragment of which he printed at the end of his poem of Mazeppa. Shelley, more apt to embody ideas and sentiments in the radiance of brilliant imagery, and in the music of the most melodious verse that adorns our language, than to invent the machinery of a story, commenced one founded on the experiences of his early life. Poor Polidori had some terrible idea about a skull-headed lady, who was so punished for peeping through a key-hole—what to see I forget—something very shocking and wrong of course; but when she was reduced to a worse condition than the renowned Tom of Coventry, he did not know what to do with her, and was obliged to despatch her to the tomb of the Capulets, the only place for which she was fitted. The illustrious poets also, annoyed by the platitude of prose, speedily relinquished their uncongenial task.

I busied myself to think of a story,—a story to rival those which had excited us to this task. One which would speak to the mysterious fears of our nature, and awaken thrilling horror—one to make the reader dread to look round, to curdle the blood, and quicken the beatings of the heart. If I did not accomplish these things, my ghost story would be unworthy of its name. I thought and pondered—vainly. I felt that blank incapability of invention which is the greatest misery of authorship, when dull Nothing replies to our anxious invocations. Have you thought of a story? I was asked each morning, and each morning I was forced to reply with a mortifying negative.

Every thing must have a beginning, to speak in Sanchean phrase; and that beginning must be linked to something that went before. The Hindoos give the world an elephant to support it, but they make the elephant stand upon a tortoise. Invention, it must be humbly admitted, does not consist in creating out of void, but out of chaos; the materials must, in the first place, be afforded: it can give form to dark, shapeless substances, but cannot bring into being the substance itself. In all matters of discovery and invention, even of those that appertain to the imagination, we are continually reminded of the story of Columbus and his egg. Invention consists in the capacity of seizing on the capabilities of a subject, and in the power of moulding and fashioning ideas suggested to it.

Many and long were the conversations between Lord Byron and Shelley, to which I was a devout but nearly silent listener. During one of these, various philosophical doctrines were discussed, and among others the nature of the principle of life, and whether there was any probability of its ever being discovered and communicated. They talked of the experiments of Dr. Darwin, (I speak not of what the Doctor really did, or said that he did, but, as more to my purpose, of what was then spoken of as having been done by him,) who preserved a piece of vermicelli in a glass case, till by some extraordinary means it began to move with voluntary motion. Not thus, after all, would life be given. Perhaps a corpse would be re-animated; galvanism had given token of such things: perhaps the component parts of a creature might be manufactured, brought together, and endued with vital warmth.

Night waned upon this talk, and even the witching hour had gone by, before we retired to rest. When I placed my head on my pillow, I did not sleep, nor could I be said to think. My imagination, unbidden, possessed and guided me, gifting the successive images that arose in my mind with a vividness far beyond the usual bounds of reverie. I saw—with shut eyes, but acute mental vision,—I saw the pale student of unhallowed arts kneeling beside the thing he had put together. I saw the hideous phantasm of a man stretched out, and then, on the working of some powerful engine, show signs of life, and stir with an uneasy, half vital motion. Frightful must it be; for supremely frightful would be the effect of any human endeavour to mock the stupendous mechanism of the Creator of the world. His success would terrify the artist; he would rush away from his odious handywork, horror-stricken. He would hope that, left to itself, the slight spark of life which he had communicated would fade; that this thing, which had received such imperfect animation, would subside into dead matter; and he might sleep in the belief that the silence of the grave would quench for ever the transient existence of the hideous corpse which he had looked upon as the cradle of life. He sleeps; but he is awakened; he opens his eyes; behold the horrid thing stands at his bedside, opening his curtains, and looking on him with yellow, watery, but speculative eyes.

I opened mine in terror. The idea so possessed my mind, that a thrill of fear ran through me, and I wished to exchange the ghastly image of my fancy for the realities around. I see them still; the very room, the dark parquet, the closed shutters, with the moonlight struggling through, and the sense I had that the glassy lake and white high Alps were beyond. I could not so easily get rid of my hideous phantom; still it haunted me. I must try to think of something else. I recurred to my ghost story,—my tiresome unlucky ghost story! O! if I could only contrive one which would frighten my reader as I myself had been frightened that night!

Swift as light and as cheering was the idea that broke in upon me. "I have found it! What terrified me will terrify others; and I need only describe the spectre which had haunted my midnight pillow." On the morrow I announced that I had thought of a story. I began that day with the words, It was on a dreary night of November, making only a transcript of the grim terrors of my waking dream.

At first I thought but of a few pages—of a short tale; but Shelley urged me to develope the idea at greater length. I certainly did not owe the suggestion of one incident, nor scarcely of one train of feeling, to my husband, and yet but for his incitement, it would never have taken the form in which it was presented to the world. From this declaration I must except the preface. As far as I can recollect, it was entirely written by him.

And now, once again, I bid my hideous progeny go forth and prosper. I have an affection for it, for it was the offspring of happy days, when death and grief were but words, which found no true echo in my heart. Its several pages speak of many a walk, many a drive, and many a conversation, when I was not alone; and my companion was one who, in this world, I shall never see more. But this is for myself; my readers have nothing to do with these associations.

I will add but one word as to the alterations I have made. They are principally those of style. I have changed no portion of the story, nor introduced any new ideas or circumstances. I have mended the language where it was so bald as to interfere with the interest of the narrative; and these changes occur almost exclusively in the beginning of the first volume. Throughout they are entirely confined to such parts as are mere adjuncts to the story, leaving the core and substance of it untouched.

M. W. S.

London, October 15, 1831.

---

The act of writing this novella distracted Mary Shelley from her grief after the deaths of her one-year-old daughter Clara at Venice in September 1818 and her three-year-old son William in June 1819 in Rome.3 These losses plunged Mary Shelley into a depression that distanced her emotionally and sexually from Percy Shelley and left her, as he put it, “on the hearth of pale despair”.

Narrating from her deathbed, Mathilda, a young woman barely in her twenties, writes her story as a way of explaining her actions to her friend, Woodville. Her narration follows her lonely upbringing and climaxes at a point when her unnamed father confesses his incestuous love for her. This is then followed by his suicide by drowning and her ultimate demise; her relationship with the gifted young poet, Woodville, fails to reverse Matilda’s emotional withdrawal or prevent her lonely death.

The novella begins with readers becoming aware that this story is being narrated in the first person, by Mathilda, and that this narration is meant for a specific audience in answer to a question asked prior to the novella’s beginning: “You have often asked me the cause of my solitary life; my tears; and above all of my impenetrable and unkind silence.” Readers quickly learn that Mathilda is on her deathbed and this is the only reason she is exposing what seems to be a dark secret.

Mathilda’s narrative first explores the relationship between her mother and father, and how they knew each other growing up. Mathilda’s mother, Diana, and her father were childhood friends; Mathilda’s father found solace in Diana after the death of his own mother and the two married not long after. Mathilda, as narrator, notes that Diana changed Mathilda’s father making him more tender and less fickle. However, Mathilda was born a little more than a year after their marriage and Diana died a few days after her birth, causing her father to sink into a deep depression. His sister, Mathilda’s aunt, came to England to stay with them and help care for Mathilda, but Mathilda’s father, unable to even look at his daughter, left about a month after his wife’s death and Mathilda was raised by her aunt.

Mathilda tells Woodville that her upbringing, while cold on the part of her aunt, was never neglectful; she learned to occupy her time with books and jaunts around her aunt’s estate in Loch Lomond, Scotland. On Mathilda’s sixteenth birthday her aunt received a letter from Mathilda’s father expressing his desire to see his daughter. Mathilda describes their first three months in each other’s company as being blissful, but this ended first when Mathilda’s aunt dies and then, after the two return to London, upon Mathilda’s father’s expression of his love for her.

Leading up to the moment of revelation, Mathilda was courted by suitors which, she noticed, drew dark moods from her father. This darkness ensued causing Mathilda to plot a way of bringing back the father she once knew. She asked him to accompany her on a walk through the woods that surrounded them and, on this walk, she expressed her concerns and her wishes to restore their relationship. Her father accused her of being “presumptuous and very rash.”

However, this did not stop her and he eventually confessed his incestuous desire regarding her. Mathilda’s father fainted and she retreated back to their home. Her father left her a note the next morning explaining that he would leave her and she understood that his actual intent was to commit suicide. Mathilda followed him, but was too late to stop him from drowning himself.

For some time after his death, Mathilda returned to society as she became sick in her attempts to stop her father. She realized, though, that she could not remain in this society and she faked her own death to ensure that no one would come looking for her. Mathilda re-established herself in a solitary house in the heath. She has a maid who came to care for the house every few days, but other than that she had no human interaction until Woodville also established residence in the heath about two years after she chose to reside there.

Woodville was mourning the loss of his betrothed, Elinor, and a poet. He and Mathilda struck a friendship; Woodville often asked Mathilda why she never smiled but she would not go into much detail regarding this. One day, Mathilda suggested to Woodville that they end their mutual sorrows together and commit suicide. Woodville talked Mathilda out of this decision, but soon after had to leave the heath to care for his ailing mother. Mathilda contemplates her future after his departure, and while walking through the heath, gets lost and ends up sleeping outside for a night. It rains while she sleeps outside and, after she makes her way back to her home, she becomes extremely sick.

It is in this state that Mathilda decides to write out her story to Woodville as a way of explaining to him her darker countenance, even though she recognizes that she does not have much longer to live.

Criticism

Commentators have often read the text as autobiographical, with the three central characters standing for Mary Shelley, William Godwin (her father), and Percy Shelley (her husband). There is no firm evidence, however, that the storyline itself is autobiographical.8 Analysis of Mathilda’s first draft, titled “The Fields of Fancy”, reveals that Mary Shelley took as her starting point Mary Wollstonecraft’s unfinished “The Cave of Fancy”, in which a small girl’s mother dies in a shipwreck. Like Mary Shelley herself, Mathilda idealises her lost mother.

According to editor Janet Todd, the absence of the mother from the last pages of the novella suggests that Mathilda’s death renders her one with her mother, enabling a union with the dead father.

Critic Pamela Clemit resists a purely autobiographical reading and argues that Mathilda is an artfully crafted novella, deploying confessional and unreliable narrations in the style of her father, as well as the device of the pursuit used by Godwin in his Caleb Williams and by Mary Shelley in Frankenstein.

The novella’s 1959 editor, Elizabeth Nitchie, noted its faults of “verbosity, loose plotting, somewhat stereotyped and extravagant characterization” but praised a “feeling for character and situation and phrasing that is often vigorous and precise”.

The story may be seen as a metaphor for what happens when a woman, ignorant of all consequences, follows her own heart while dependent on her male benefactor.

Mathilda has also been seen as an example of redefining female Gothic narratives. An important characteristic of this redefined genre often includes female narrators having more control over the story than was common at the time. According to Kathleen A. Miller, “Although Shelley’s novella appears to relate a conventional female gothic narrative of a young woman victimized by her father’s incestuous desire, it leaves open the possibility that, in fact, it is Mathilda, rather than her father, who wields control over the novel’s gothic script.”15 This potentially allows for Mathilda to be viewed as a positive role model in nineteenth-century literature as she overcomes paternal authority and refuses to conform to commonly accepted practices regarding female characters in literature of the time. This redefinition occurs in various ways: Mathilda’s refusal to name her father, her voice being the primary source of information provided to readers, and a lack of the novella ending in marriage which was the typical motif for female gothic literature.

Mary Shelley sent the finished Mathilda to her father in England, to submit for publication. However, though Godwin admired aspects of the novella, he found the incest theme “disgusting and detestable” and failed to return the manuscript despite his daughter’s repeated requests.

In the light of Percy Shelley’s later death by drowning, Mary Shelley came to regard the novella as ominous; she wrote of herself and Jane Williams “driving (like Mathilda) towards the sea to learn if we were to be for ever doomed to misery”.

The novella was published for the first time in 1959, edited by Elizabeth Nitchie from dispersed papers.

It has become possibly Mary Shelley’s best-known work after Frankenstein.

Footnotes

Clemit, “Legacies of Godwin and Wollstonecraft”, 37. Mary Shelley spelled the novella’s title “Matilda” and the heroine’s name “Mathilda”. The book has been published under each title.

Todd, Introduction to Matilda, xxii; Bennett, An Introduction, 47. During this period, Percy Shelley dramatised an incestuous tale of his own, The Cenci.

“When I wrote Matilda, miserable as I was, the inspiration was sufficient to quell my wretchedness temporarily.” Journal entry, 27 October 1822, quoted in Bennett, An Introduction, 53; see also, The Journals of Mary Shelley, 442.

“Thou art fled, gone down the dreary road,” he wrote, “that leads to Sorrow’s most obscure abode”. From “To Mary Shelley”, published in Mary Shelley’s edition of Percy Shelley’s poetical works, 1839. Quoted in Todd, Introduction to Matilda, xvi; see also Mellor, Mary Shelley, 142.

Bennett, Betty T. (1990). The Mary Shelley Reader. Oxford University Press. p. 176.

Bennett, Betty T (1990). The Mary Shelley Reader. Oxford University Press. p. 199.

The novella’s 1959 editor, Elizabeth Nitchie, for example, states: “The three main characters are clearly Mary herself, Godwin, and Shelley, and their relations can easily be reassorted to correspond with reality”. Introduction to Mathilda; see also, Mellor, Mary Shelley, 143.

Scary Monsters

 

 

She's Dreaming. 

 

Got that? Off the charts.

 

Scary Monsters.

 

Let's amp it up. 

Delcium, eight drop.

 

See, most of our best work is done

when they're asleep.

 

 

 

 

Helen, may I ask you a question?

Helen : 

Uh, yeah, of course.

 

I don't mean to be patronizing,

but you seem to be quite a fragile thing.

 

Are you ill?

Helen : 

Um, guess I am.

Got quite a few things wrong with me.

 

Um, my ankle, my wrist.

 

I get tired.

I get anxious.

 

What are you anxious about?

 

 

Helen :

Everything.

Makes it hard to make friends.

 

Oh, yeah, I had A Friend once.

 

We used to play chess every Saturday morning.

Yeah, he was very interesting.

 

He lost both legs in the 

retaking of Goose Green.

Helen :

Poor guy.

 

Yeah.

Funny thing was is 

his nickname was

‘Stumpy’ before it all happened.

Just didn't feel like I could 

call him that after.

Helen : 

What did you call him?

 

Knobby No-Legs.

I don't know what 

happened to him.

We must have had 

a falling out.

 

 

 

James Whale :

Tell me something, Clayton. 

Do you believe in mercy killing? 

Clayton, The Gardener : 

I never really gave it much thought. 

James Whale : 

You must've come across 

such situations in Korea. 

 

A wounded comrade, or 

perhaps even An Enemy. 

You know, someone for whom 

Death would be a blessing. 

 

Clayton, The Gardener : 

I never went to Korea. 

I never even made it through boot camp. 

That I was A Marine, which is True.

You filled in the rest. 

James Whale : 

Oh, I see. 

 

Clayton, The Gardener :

My Old Man was A Marine. 

Lied about his age, and he enlisted. 

 

James Whale :

Is this The Great War? 

Clayton, The Gardener : 

Yeah. Yeah.

By the time he was ready 

to ship out, it was all over.

So, he felt like he'd missed out. 

 

James Whale :

Well, it was a very lucky thing he did.

Clayton, The Gardener : 

 That's not the way he saw it. 

To him it was like

His Life never really got started. 

 

Nothing else seemed to matter.

Certainly not His Family. 

James Whale : 

Is that why you became 

A Marine, for Your Father's sake? 

Clayton, The Gardener : 

I figured it'd be The Next Best Thing. 

I mean, but, you know, 

I loved it, too. 

 

It was a chance to be 

a part of something important, 

Something that's 

bigger than yourself. 

 

James Whale :

So, what happened? 

 

Clayton, The Gardener :

Didn't have the guts for it. 

 

James Whale :

Hmm? 

 

Clayton, The Gardener :

Literally. My appendix burst. 

They gave me a medical discharge.

 

And the only thing I can think is, 

‘How the hell am I gonna 

tell My Father?’

 

And you know what happened

when I finally did tell him?  

He laughed at me. 

 

Well, them's the breaks, huh? 

No War Stories for this pup. 

 

 

James Whale :

That's where you're wrong, Clayton. 

You just told me one. 

 

A Very Good Story indeed. 

 

Whew. This Storm is getting worse.

"A Perfect Night for Mystery and Horror.

The Air Itself is filled with Monsters." 

 

Clayton, The Gardener :

That's from one of your movies, right? 

 

James Whale :

Very good. 

 

Clayton, The Gardener :

"The only monsters are here." 

 

James Whale :

Don't remember that one.

 

Clayton, The Gardener :

This afternoon at the party when you said, 

"The only monsters are here," 

I was wondering which "here" that was. 

 

James Whale :

No, I--I don't recall. 

Memories of The War, perhaps.

Barnett. Barnett on The Wire. 

 

Clayton, The Gardener :

Your Friend. 

 

James Whale :

He caught his one night coming 

back from reconnaissance. 

 

I wouldn't take him, but McGill did, 

"just to give the laddie a taste." 

 

They were nearly home when 

a Maxim gun opened fire. 

 

Barnet's body landed on this wire 

that was as thick as briers. 

 

It was hanging there the next morning. 

 

It was only a hundred yards from The Line,

but too far... For anyone to fetch it. 

 

So we saw him every morning stand-to 

"Good morning, Barnett," 

we used to say to him. 

 

"How's old Barnett looking today?"

 

"He seemed a little peaked. 

Looks a little plumper." 

And if he hung there... 

 

Well, at least until we were relieved.

 

We introduced him to 

the new unit before marching out,

speaking highly of his companionship. 

 

God, we were a witty lot.  

Laughing at Our Dead, 

feeling that it was Our Death, too. 

 

But I tell you, for each man who died I thought, 

"better you than me, poor sod." 

 

You know, a whole generation 

was wiped out by that war. 

Clayton, The Gardener : 

You survived it. 

Can't hurt you now. 

No good to dig it up. 

James Whale : 

Oh. Friend, it's digging itself up. 

There is nothing in

The Here and Now

to take my mind off it. 

 

The parties... Well, you were there. 

Reading... I can't--

 

I-I can't concentrate. 

There's no Work, of course, 

 

And, uh, love and, uh, 

painting and, uh... 

 

Drawing, I mean. Look. 

 

Your Portrait, Clayton. 

It's all gone from me now. All gone. 

 

They're nothing but the scribblings of an infant. 

There's nothing. Nothing. 

 

 

Clayton, The Gardener :

You said you wanted to 

draw me like A Statue —

There. 

 

James Whale : 

It's going to happen after all. 

 

 Clayton, The Gardener :

What did you say? 

 

James Whale :

....No, it won't do. 

 

 Clayton, The Gardener :

What won't do? 

 

James Whale :

You're much too human. 

Clayton, The Gardener : 

Well, what do you expect, bronze? 

 

James Whale :

Don't move. 

I want you to wear this. 

Just so I can see the artistic effect. 

 

Your very human body

against the inhuman mask. 

 

Oh! Very striking. Mmm. 

 

Clayton, The Gardener :

I don't know. 

 

James Whale :

Just for a minute, 

so I can see the effects. 

 

Clayton, The Gardener :

From the first world war, isn't it? 

 

James Whale :

Fasten this around the back. 

Let me help you. There. 

 

Clayton, The Gardener :

Hmm? Uh... Now what?

 

James Whale :

All right, let's take it off.

 

Clayton, The Gardener :

Uh, it's too tight. 

I can't breathe. 

 

James Whale :

Oh, no, l-l-leave it. I'll help. 

Leave it to me. 

Clayton, The Gardener : 

Wha-can you-- 

 

James Whale :

I'm still here. 

 

Clayton, The Gardener :

Um... Mr. Whale. 

 

James Whale :

Oh, what steely muscles 

you've got there. 

Clayton, The Gardener : 

Just take the fuckin' 

mask off me now, ok? 

 

James Whale :

What a solid brute you are. 

Clayton, The Gardener : 

Hey, just get your fuckin' hands off me! 

James Whale : 

It's no use, Clayton. I can't hear you.

I can't hear a word. 

Oh, well, then, maybe this. 

 

Clayton, The Gardener :

Hey, hey, hey, hey! 

James Whale :

Ohh! How will you ever 

get yourself back? 

 

I told you, I'm not that way! 

Get it through your fuckin' head, all right? 

James Whale : 

You feel so good, Clayton.

 

Uhh! Didn't even sting! 

Wait till I tell My Friends about this. 

Won't they be surprised. 

 

 Clayton, The Gardener :

I haven't done anything with you 

 

James Whale :

You undressed for me. 

I've been kissing you. 

How will you ever be able 

to live with yourself? 

 

Clayton, The Gardener :

What do you want from me? 

James Whale : 

I want You to Kill Me. 

 

Clayton, The Gardener : 

What?

 

James Whale :

Break My Neck. 

It'll be so easy to choke 

The Life out of me. 

 

Come on, Clayton. 

We've come this far. 

 

I'm losing My Mind. 

Every day a new piece of it goes,

and soon there'll be none of it left. 

 

But if You Kill Me, 

Death will be bearable. 

 

You could be My Second Monster. 

Come on. Please, do it now. 

Make me invisible. 

Clayton, The Gardener : 

I am not... Your Monster! 

 

 James Whale :

You're a bloody pussycat. 

My deepest apologies.

 Can you ever forgive me? 

 

No, I suppose not. 

I've got to go to bed. 

Clayton, The Gardener : 

Are you ok? 

 

James Whale :

Oh, Clayton. 

 

Clayton, The Gardener :

Do you need some help? 

 

James Whale :

Pray, you undo this button. 

I don't seem to be able 

to manage it when I'm tired. 

 

Do you believe people 

come into our lives 

for a purpose?

 

 Ok, I can manage now. 

When you die, make sure that

your brain is the last organ to fizzle. 

 

 Clayton, The Gardener :

You'll feel better tomorrow. 

James Whale : 

Good night. 

 

Clayton, The Gardener :

Good night. 

 

Hanna / Fritz / Igor :

Hello? 

Oh, hello, Mr. David. 

No, he did not tell me, 

but that's no problem. 

I make the breakfast. 

Yes, very good. Good-bye. 

 

Clayton, The Gardener : 

Hanna, this is not what you think it is. 

 

Hanna / Fritz / Igor :

Aah! All I ask is you get dressed and go. 

 

Clayton, The Gardener :

Hanna, I need to talk to you 

about Mr. Whale. 

 

Hanna / Fritz / Igor :

There is nothing you could 

say would surprise me. 

 

Clayton, The Gardener :

Maybe, but I still need to 

talk to you about him. 

 

Hanna / Fritz / Igor :

I blame my daughter for keeping me out so late. 

I only hope you did not get him excited. 

You could give him new stroke. 

 

Clayton, The Gardener :

Why do you do it, Hanna? 

 

Hanna / Fritz / Igor :

What I do? 

 

Clayton, The Gardener :

Like he was your own 

flesh and blood? 

 

Hanna / Fritz / Igor :

I did it when he was happy. It was easy. 

It's only fair I do it now he is ill. 

 

Oh, enough of this talk. 

I must go wake The Master. 

 

Mr. Jimmy, good morning. 

Mr. Jimmy? 

What have you done with him? 

You look for him. 

Clayton, The Gardener :

I put him to bed last night. 

Mr. Jimmy? Mr. Jimmy! 

Mr. Jimmy! Mr. Jimmy! 

Clayton, The Gardener :

Crazy son of a bitch! 

Oh! No! No! No! 

Mr. Jimmy! Jimmy! Jimmy! 

Clayton, The Gardener :

H-he wanted me to kill him, 

and then he did it himself! 

I didn't do this!

 

 

Hanna / Fritz / Igor :

Mr. Jimmy. It says here, "good-bye."

I find in his room. ‘Sorry', he says. 

'He's had wonderful life'.

 

Oh, my Mr. Jimmy. 

Poor, foolish man.

 

You could not wait for God 

to take you in his time?

 

You must leave.

You were not here 

this morning.

 

 

Clayton, The Gardener :

Look, I did not do this.

 

Hanna / Fritz / Igor :

Police will not know that.

They will want to investigate.

You want them to question 

you about Mr. Jimmy?

 

Please, Clayton, it's better 

that I find the body alone.

 

Clayton, The Gardener :

How are you gonna explain how 

you got him out of The Water?

 

Hanna / Fritz / Igor :

You're right. Uh, we must 

put him back.

 

Clayton, The Gardener :

Wh-uh...

 

Hanna / Fritz / Igor :

Oh, Mr. Jimmy, we do not mean disrespect.

You will keep better in water. 

 

 

 

The Hermit :

“Who are You? 

I think you're A Stranger to me. 

 

I cannot see you. 

I cannot see anything. 

 

You must please excuse me, 

but I'm blind. 

 

Perhaps you're afflicted, too. 

We shall be friends. 

 

It's very lonely here, 

and it's been a long time since

any human being came into this hut. 

 

I shall look after you, 

and you will comfort me.

  

 No, no. This is good.

Smoke. You try. Smoke. 

 

The Creature :

Good! Good! 

The Hermit : 

I was all alone. 

It is bad to be alone. 

 

The Creature :

Alone Bad. Friend Good. 

Friend Good! 

 

 Clayton, The Gardener :

Time for bed, sport.

What did you think of the movie?

Clayton's Son : 

Pretty cool.

Better than most monster movies.

 

Clayton, The Gardener : 

Yeah? I knew the guy who made it.

 

Clayton's Son :  

Is this another one of your stories?

 

Clayton, The Gardener :

No. It's the original sketch of The Monster.

 

Clayton's Son : 

Is this for real? 

 

 

 

Clay, the trash, before it rains. 

Clayton, The Gardener : 

Come on.