Act 3  --  The Triumph of Death

Scene 1

(The outside of a crude tavern in Jacobstad, a Norwegian fishing village age village on the Gulf of Bothnia. Lars, a sea-captain, and his crew are drinking and gambling. Victor sits brooding on one side of the stage, accompanied by Henry. Both are muffled in winter clothing. They have come north following the Creature's trail, and have hired Lars and his crew to pilot them further. Except for the tavern there are no other buildings, only a wasteland of tundra stretching out of sight.)

PHILIP (offstage)

Men of Jacobstad!
Men of Jacobstad!
Repent your sins!

LARS, CREW (gambling)

Watch out! Watch out!
Watch out' Watch out!
He's scuppered now!
He's scuppered now!
He's scuppered --

(Philip enters, wearing a ragged friar's robe. The sailors put by their cards to listen to his wide-eyed tirade in a spirit of amused contempt.)

PHILIP

I have seen wonders
In the sky and on the sea --
A narwhale, seven-horned,
Rose from the deeps
And spoke in human tongues.
See!
The bright Boreal lights
Announce the Son of Man!

LARS (mocking Philip)

And me, I saw a pot of cheese
Last night when I was soused,
And then the Whore of Take-your-ease
Was buckled and deloused!

CREW (joining in)

…buckled and deloused!

PHILIP

O sinners, let the glory of His name
Pierce the ice that seals your hearts.
Repent, repent, for lo
I've seen the evil one himself
Tossing on the waves.
His face was like the face of death,
His stature greater than the fabled norse!

(Philip, seeing that the men are no longer listening, stops and retires, muttering, to the tavern.)

VICTOR (who has been listening to Philip)

The man of whom he speaks --
Might that be the enemy I seek?

HENRY

Death’s in the face of every man.
Your father's eyes were dark
With death when last I spoke with him --
And when he begged you, Victor, to return.

VICTOR (ignoring Henry)

And of great stature, too, he speaks.
Who else could it be, who else but him?

LARS (coming up to Victor and Henry)

I would not put much faith
In Philip's tales, good sir,
He's mad; we let him rave.

VICTOR

I have no other aim but this
To fill with lead the heart
I once too rashly filled with blood.
I'll speak with him.

(Victor follows Philip into the tavern.)

HENRY (to Lars, watching Victor go)

His mind has been destroyed
By grief. It would be wrong to follow him.

LARS

Follow him, sir? Nay,
I follow gold.

HENRY

Then let my greater wealth
Persuade you.

(Shows him a purse.)

This, and more, is yours if you refuse
Your boat to his insane pursuit.

LARS

Your humble servant, sir.
I am persuaded.

VICTOR (coming out of the tavern greatly excited)

Captain, prepare to sail tonight.
That friar's Evil One is him I seek!

(Lars goes to tell the crew. While Victor sings, they continue drinking, getting more and more drunk.)

VICTOR (turning away from Lars, singing to himself)

Already in my pistol's sights
I see his loathsome face.

LARS (to his men)

More ale!

VICTOR

Within my heart I feel
His final agonies of fear.

CREW

Another pint!

HENRY (watching Victor, disgusted)

Delusions!

VICTOR

I see those hands that tore the life
From bride and brother
Bloodless, dead, inert,
Mere sticks upon the snow.

CREW

Drink!

LARS

This one's on me!

VICTOR

Whatever little joy I've known
Before tonight is nothing to the joy
I feel before me now.

CREW (calling out to one of their favorite whores)

Hey, Gertie!

LARS (drinking)

I give you Gertie
Who's crazy and dirty,
And lives on the outskirts of town.

CREW (drinking)

I give you Netty,
Stinking and sweaty,
And ready to blow a man down.

VICTOR

Whatever price of pain was paid
Is small against the thrill
Of knowing he is mine!

CREW

Ale! More ale! Hey Gertie!

LARS

Ale!

VICTOR

Mine! Mine!
Mine to rend!
Mine to flay!
Mine to work my will upon!

CREW

More ale!

LARS

Hey, Gertie!

VICTOR

Mine!

LARS

Hey, Gertie!

VICTOR (turning away, lost in thought)

Mine!

CREW (starting to sing a lewd song)

I give you Dolly,
Juicy and jolly,
Who sells more than cod by the docks.

LARS

I give you Polly,
The fishmonger's folly,
And with her I give you the pox.

VICTOR (suddenly noticing Lars and the crew; deranged)

Beth!…

CREW (turning toward Victor as if egging him on)

Beth!

VICTOR

…and certain death,
For Beth lies in her grave.

CREW

Death!
Beth lies in her Grave.

VICTOR

I'd give you Liz,
But as it is,
Poor Liz lies dead as well.

CREW

Liz!
Poor Liz!

VICTOR

I'd give you her,
If blood there were…

CREW

Blood!

VICTOR

…But now she's gone to hell.

HENRY (who has been listening with increasing horror)

Madman or monster,
Have you no shame?
Can you, in, company like this,
Dishonor Elizabeth's name?

VICTOR (with restrained fury)

Henry! Again I warn you --
Do not seek to stay my hand.
My will is proof against your words.

HENRY (firmly)

Then be commanded.
Your father's dying.
Filial duty demands your presence by his side.

VICTOR

My father dies in his time.
I grieve for him, but larger grief
And higher duty rule my acts.

HENRY (desperately)

Read his letter.

VICTOR

Do you suppose that having reached
This near my goal, I'd be denied
The only pleasure life can offer me
His death, who killed Elizabeth.
Return to your domestic hearth, Henry.
Leave me to my revenge.

HENRY (with half-mad persistence)

You may be deaf to reason.
These men are not.
My purse is deeper far than his, Captain.
Give me your pledge you won't indulge
This madman in his flight beyond
The pale of law. It's not revenge,
Unworthy motive that it is, but lust --
Not revenge that draws him north,
But lust for his own death.

LARS (leaning toward Victor, with drunken eagerness)

What say you Frankenstein?
Can you meet his price?

VICTOR

I'll double it!

(He draws his pistol and shoots Henry. He takes the purse from Henry's convulsing hands, and turns to Lars.)

This will I add to the sum
Already yours, when my foe
Lies at my feet, as lifeless
As this foolish friend.

(Victor exits toward the ship, never once looking back. The sailors, both shocked and impressed, watch him for a moment in silence.)

LARS, CREW (finally finding their voices)

Let all who've never stained
Their hands with blood remain behind.
We sail for higher wages, lads,
And for a man who knows his mind.

(Lars and the Crew begin drunkenly to pick up their things, getting ready to follow Victor on board ship.)

PHILIP (who has emerged from the tavern just in time to see Victor shoot Henry)

Unholy man, fly to your doom.
The wretch whose blood compels your thirst
Shall never fall a prey to you.
Your friend's the only foe you kill;
Your bride's, the only blood you spill.
It stains your guilty hands.
Fly -- to the north -- and die,
And die, and die on frozen strands!

LARS, CREW (preparing to leave)

Let all who've never stained
Their hands with blood remain behind
We sail for higher wages, lads.
And for a man who knows his mind.

(They leave while they sing. Their last few words come from offstage. Philip stays behind for a moment, watching Henry, and then exits in a different direction. Henry, not quite dead, begins to stir.)

HENRY (remembering Victor's final words)

Not lifeless quite…
Nor yet a friend,
Although I thought…
But all thoughts
Are nothing now…
For a while the air will pulse
With breath,
Then comes death,
Friend death…
Have you never stood so close
That you could see
Its emptiness?
Bend down, bend down,
And study how I die,
And feel…
Your own…approaching…
Nothingness…

(He dies.)

(Curtain.)

Scene 2

(An Arctic waste. A twilight varied by the constantly changing colored gleams of the aurora. On the packed ice the dim forms of the corpses of men and dogs. The Creature stands at the highest point on the stage, dressed in a motley of furs and hides.)

CREATURE

Alone! Alone! Unwitnessed in a world
No mind but mine was ever shown;
No voice but mine, no summons possible
No choice of aye or nay.

See where they lie, my enemies -- 
Their corpses piled.
Here my Creator lies!

Pain! Endless, ever keener pain!

(Addressing the corpses, as if in a vision, it predicts a grim future for humanity.)

I bid you breed, increase
Until you
Spill into the seas and fill the air
With screams of rage.
Spawn and gnaw like rats
The suffering flesh you press against.
See nothing in each other's eyes
But greed and knife-inviting fear.
Snatch the starveling's
Last adulterated loaf,
And satisfy your lust upon his children.

Nature! Study her decrees!
Discover there the key to universal death,
And turn this spinning ball of dirt,
This Earth, into a second sun!
And may they burn,
The slaughterers who still survive,
In one last all-destroying holocaust!

(weakly)

What's left to curse?
Only myself, who stood accursed
From moment of first consciousness.

Nothing left…
My mind…
The silence…

(Its voice becomes inaudible.)

(Silence.)

(Curtain)