Document Four

Good sign.

Steward not scream when bring back to life. Do nothing. Bad sign, that.

Can move, and does, when prompted. Like servant all again, but much dumber. Simple commands. Stand. Sit. Walk here. Hold. Lift. Cannot seem to recognize things. A cup, a bowl, an apple. Sewed lips shut in advance expecting screaming but removed stitches when silent and asked to speak. No words. Only gargling, like choking, or drowning. Must be damage from bullet. Have tried to fix best possible. Coagulation effective where blood flowed, and leather supports allow to imitate breathing, but does not need to.

Does not respond to name.

What learned?

Cold preserved. Possibly. Like meat or vegetables, does not wilt or go bad in ice. Also different, applied formula directly to brain before stimulation. May account for responsiveness instead of cold. Perhaps, inability to fully penetrate brain without murdering accounts for low level of responsiveness in subj 1.

Had not thought of.

Maybe coagulation is problem. Keep blood in, but also keep formula from running to all parts. Limit stimulation from battery, but frogs from complete frozen to alive with very low level of penetration. Not need circulation to penetrate, then again, very small. Need less, perhaps, to come back. Must think on more. Perhaps frogs, but not many left on property. Must get more traps. Put out old ones. Much work. Much bother. Must also be here in case police or steward’s family arrive. Ask questions. Cannot give body now. Must pretend left, or not return from trip to town. Must not see.

No. Absurd. Would write if did not see again. Perhaps fired, like other servants. Need quiet, and too much noise. Could act eccentric. Not hard. Have put up sign saying no patients already, and house a terrible mess. Saw spiderweb on father’s bookshelves yesterday. Very sad.

Have muffled screaming now, but silence almost as bad. Spend all day with dead steward and very cold. Sleep in library with old books, research, but bad dreams still. Screaming. House too quiet without servants. Imagine screaming everywhere. Wish it was mine. Wish I was cold, and not steward. Wish I did not recognize my own name.

Very tired. Must think what to do.

Must organize new research, must catch more frogs, must get more ammonia and silver nitrate, must test. Wish Patrick were here. Wish any were here. Wish

(Document has no date.)

July

My love.

You’ve given me everything I ever wanted.

I don’t want the world.

I just want you.

Kiss me.

Tell me you love me.

And we can keep your thousand mice.

Just maybe not hanging from the ceiling.

(PS) I read your note while you were trying to hide the box of crickets you use to feed the frogs. I hope you’ll forgive me. You leave these scraps of paper everywhere. I had to tell my mother that you weren’t crazy when you left your notebook at home and she leafed through it, all sorts of different formulas, she thought you were trying to dispose of a body.

- Yours forever, Emily.

(From the back: )

Emily wants a bigger wedding than we can afford. Her father has offered to finance it all, as a loan of course. I think he believes it will encourage me to make my practice more successful, a precaution I find reasonable enough, if still vexing. I cannot begin my practice until graduation, and even then, not until we have moved into the manor and made it our home. When I tell him there is not much money, he suggests removing some of the servants that keep the house, but the steward writes that he is already short handed for all of the cleaning and maintenance the old place requires. It is enough to make me want to burn it all down, or give it to the steward, who clearly thinks he is the only one who knows how the place ought to be run. Let him pay for it without a wage.

I think I will have to borrow against the inheritance. Not from Emily’s father though, that would be too much of an embarrassment. There are old lenders Father used to finance who would give against my income, and who would probably even be able to refer patients to me from the mills in town in order to ensure their investment is repaid, but it will take a trip back to the old place in order to accomplish it, a trip of some two weeks if I made it, time I don’t like to waste with examinations coming up. There is a lecture I and Patrick would very much like to see going on in a few days also on putrefaction and germ theory. Patrick thinks germs may be the reason some of our subjects expire so soon after being brought back to life with the new serum we have developed, and that we ought to focus on getting what we can from the last few months of access we’ll have to the university’s labs. I can’t say I disagree except that I’m the one getting married and starting a practice after leaving school, and there are practical considerations he refuses to make.

He says I should just get a whore.

Lout.

He’d better behave himself at the wedding.

New suit $55

Church Rental $30

Priest’s Fee $20

Why pay Church twice?

Why pay church at all?

Cost of Mother In Law’s happiness: Arm and Leg.

Emily is visiting soon and the apartment is a mess. Clothes are easy to shove into a drawer, but beakers and ice boxes and the electroshock apparatus? Cages of mice. Not even room for an extra chair. Why invited? Silly thing to do. Will have to explain why apartment has been turned into lab. Blame Patrick as much as possible. He will be moving with us though, when we return to the manor, not in the manor of course. Am not marrying him. I will have to find an apartment and laboratory for him in town while I am there about the loan. Cheap, but not too cheap. He will tolerate most anything if is close to a pharmacy. His inheritance is small, and I will have my own affairs to look after in the day, leaving only nights for continued research. When more successful I may subsidize rent to get a better lab, if we do not spend it on more and better equipment. His budget is very limited.

Fear I may be in expensive partnership, but, if successful. If we can learn to give life back to the dead...

What can’t we do?

I am supposed to find something to give Emily at the reception as well. What to give? Give her world, if could. World not enough. Nothing enough.

Maybe flowers.

Stupid.

Must clean before she gets here. Figure out how to give world later.

(Document dated may 1894)