face would light up so when she would tell me about the only true extravagance that she desired. To be able to travel back to her beloved city of her childhood so that she could share with me the many sights of Leipzig that had enchanted her in her youth. The botanical gardens that were the envy of all of Europe, the esplanade where she would stroll on Sundays with her father and mother, the St. Thomas Church where the great composer Johann Sebastian Bach had once been choir director, the city marketplace that she so loved and many other sights that had filled her with such fond and nostalgic memories.
I had waited until darkness fell before entering Leipzig so that I could roam the city unobserved and seek out Johanna’s grave. It was as if an unseen hand guided me to the churchyard and her grave within it. While it was too dark for me to read her gravestone, I could feel the letters that had been engraved on the small slab of granite and knew that I had found Johanna. I sat on the ground next to where she was buried and felt a great emptiness well up within my chest as I thought of how futile it was that we were now in her child-hood city together, and how even her most modest desires had been robbed from her.
That afternoon I had picked a bouquet of wildflowers for her. Bellflowers, daisies, wild roses and poppies, all of which she would delight in when I would surprise her with freshly picked bouquets back in Ingolstadt. As I placed these flowers by her gravestone, the gesture just seemed so insignificant. I tilted my head upwards toward the waxing crescent moon and howled out my agony, the sound emanating from me something horrible and unearthly. A great weariness overtook me and I collapsed to the ground.
A troubling thought occurred to me. What if I chased Frankenstein to the ends of the world only to find that he was innocent of Johanna’s murder? It was possible that he was simply opportunistic in obtaining my brain for his foul experiment. Another villain for purposes unknown to me could have been behind these crimes, and Frankenstein’s involvement could have been nothing more than to bribe the executioner for the material he sought. I could spend a lifetime chasing him only to see my promise to Johanna go unfulfilled.
But what else could I do than seek out Frankenstein?
The weariness that had descended on me left me too tired to think of vengeance. I closed my eyes and tried to think only of Johanna. It took a great effort but soon I pictured her the way she had looked on our last Sunday afternoon together. How contented she was as she rested her head against my shoulder while we sat together on the grassy knoll near the city hall. I could almost imagine the feel of her delicate hand as I had held it within my own. Tears streamed down my cheeks as I desperately clung to these memories. The weariness that I suffered had sunk heavily into my bones and weighed me down like stone. I could barely move and as my thoughts drifted away I fell into a sleep so deep that dreams could not invade it.
An animal instinct woke me. The sun had barely appeared in the horizon and a gray haziness filled the air. Moving stealthily toward me was a member of the clergy, and he carried a pitchfork as if his plans were to run me through. He was less than five feet from me, and as I was startled awake by his approach, he jumped backward, his large craggy face waxen in the faint early-morning light, his mouth opened to form a rigid circle.
“You are lying on hallowed grounds, daemon!” he swore at me, his eyes wide as they reflected a mix of fear and self-righteousness. “Do not blaspheme this area any further with your presence. Begone!”
“And what makes you so certain that I am a daemon?” I asked.
“Your hideousness marks you as such!”
My hood had fallen off my head during my sleep, exposing the full grotesqueness of my appearance. But I was not about to be chased away by this man.
“You do not know the goodness in my heart,” I said. “Now leave me so that I may grieve alone.”
He spotted the flowers then that I had placed by Johanna’s grave, and his eyes took on a wicked look as his chest swelled with piety and a false bravery.
“One can only wonder at the evil nature of the witch that has been buried in this grave to attract a daemonic creature such as yourself. She will need to be dug up from these sacred grounds and her body burned. Now begone!”
He moved forward as if to stick me with his pitchfork. I grabbed it from him with the same quickness that I had displayed during my battle with the wolves. I rose to my full height so that I towered above him and only then did I snap the pitchfork in half and toss the pieces to the ground. The priest stood in front of me trembling, fear striking him so greatly that he couldn’t speak or move.
“The child who rests here was of pure innocence and goodness,” I said. I also trembled, but with me it was out of a burning rage. “If her grave is disturbed I will squash your head like a grape, and the vengeance that I will wreak on your church will be something horrible. Do you understand me?”
He was beyond speech, but his head nodded enough to show that he understood me. I turned from him before my rage led me to murder, and fled the churchyard. I kept running until I was out of the city and in the woods beyond.
Over the next seven days I kept vigil over Johanna. I found a great oak tree that I would climb each day, and with my keener vision, be able to watch for activity within the churchyard that Johanna was buried within. At night, under the cloak of darkness, I would visit her grave and rest by it. I was prepared to carry out my vengeance if her grave was disturbed, but the priest had heeded my words. After those seven days, I was satisfied that Johanna would be allowed to rest in peace, and I left the area of Leipzig and headed southwards toward my homeland of Bavaria.
While I kept vigil over Johanna I had many hours to sit in solitude and reflect on the violence and rage that now swirled through my heart, and these emotions frightened me. As Friedrich Hoffmann I had led a gentle life with barely any harsh thoughts pervading my mind, and certainly never any regarding revenge and murder. Now I was consumed with such thoughts, and it worried me that my soul might become as coarse as my outer appearance. What would vengeance ultimately bring me if these violent thoughts twisted my soul so that it would become unrecognizable to Johanna once I was finally allowed to quit this earth? But how could I ignore my promise to her? How could I allow such a terrible crime to go unpunished? These contradictory positions weighed heavily on me, and after many hours of pondering them I decided that I would find Frankenstein and force him to admit the truth to me, and after that I would decide what I needed to do.
I wandered aimlessly for several days as the thoughts of how I would find Frankenstein tortured me. During these travels I avoided villages and cities, and headed instead into the darkest, most unknown regions of the forest, with my diet consisting solely of berries and mushrooms and nuts that I was able to forage. While I rested several times, I did not sleep. My mind was too troubled with thoughts for sleep to have been possible.
One morning I broke through a dense thicket of thornbushes and small trees to find myself at the base of a valley. As I peered down into it, I saw acres of vineyards growing. I had been under a heavy shelter of elm trees and black locust and mountain ash that had made the forest seem like night, but now as I stood in a clearing I could see the sun was already present in the sky, its rays warm upon my face, and the pleasantness of the scene filled me with a serenity that seemed so foreign to me. I made my way further into the valley to inspect these vines. When I reached them I sampled several bunches of grapes and tasted their sweetness and stood puzzling over this mysterious vineyard. It was then that I spotted to my right a great stone structure that appeared to be a monastery. This made as little sense to me as these vineyards. I knew I had traveled deep into the forest, far from any village or city, so why would a monastery be out here? I moved back to the edge of the woods so that I could investigate this mysterious monastery without being seen.
As I crept through the woods toward this structure, a group of monks appeared as they ambled toward the vineyards to pick grapes. I found a spot where I could watch without their knowledge. I had been without the company of man for many months, for I could not consider Victor Frankenstein or his guest, the Marquis, members of the race, and I took comfort in watching their simple labors. Even though I was apart and hidden from them I felt their camaraderie. I was still puzzled over the existence of this hidden monastery, but I took joy in watching these men pick their grapes. All of them were dressed in the same modest manner: brown robes with a rope tied around their middle and with leather sandals protecting their feet. There was a simplicity in their lives that I longed for. I was so involved in watching them that I had failed to notice that one of their members from the monastery had discovered me, for he was now standing next to me. I didn’t realize this until he had placed a hand lightly on my shoulder.
“You seem to be enjoying our brothers’ labors,” he said.
