The Agonizing Resurrection of Victor Frankenstein and Other Gothic Tales Read Free

Talbot was the human name of the wolfman. He was in his late thirties, unemployed (with prospects), and unmarried. While traveling through Eastern Europe, hiking about forests much of the time, he was attacked by a large wolf and bitten once or twice. After being examined by a doctor, he didn’t give the incident a great deal of thought…until the following month, when he saw the full moon through the diamond-paned windows of an English country house where he was a guest.
    He had fallen in love with the daughter of the man who owned the house, and he was secretly intending to ask her to marry him. But after the first full moon opened his eyes to what he had become, he knew his life was over. He was a murderer, however involuntarily. Before the next full moon he made the woman promise that if anything should happen to him, well, his one wish was to be interred in the mausoleum on the grounds of her father’s estate. “I promise,” she said solemnly, though she understood neither the promise itself, nor the solemnity with which she uttered it.
    Lawrence Talbot wanted to know he would still be close to this woman after his death. But he never imagined that he would also be able to hear her voice, and other voices, while unfortunately being unable to respond.
    “Aren’t we supposed to cut out its heart now?” asked one of the men in the hunting party. (Well, so what if they do? He loved her with every part of himself and would still be capable of sensing her presence on the frequent visits she would undoubtedly make to the mausoleum.) “No, nothing to do with the heart,” says another. “I think we’re supposed to burn up the whole thing right away, and then scatter the ashes.”
    “Yes, that’s quite true,” adds the tall man. “But what do you say?” he asks the woman. She is weeping, “I don’t know, I don’t know. What does it matter anymore?” (No, it does! The promise, the promise!)
    Some of the men complain about how hard it is to turn up decent tinder in a forest where it had rained so much that autumn. Every leaf, every twig they find seems to be slick and damp, as if each one has been stained with some beast’s oily slobber.

 
     
     
    Leading Men
     
    The Intolerable Lesson of the Phantom of the Opera
     
    The phantom of the opera is a genius. Before he became the phantom of the opera he was a composer of only average talent, a talent that was taken advantage of by a greedy swindler who stole the young composer’s music. He tried to get revenge on the villain, and in the process his face was severely disfigured by some chemicals which splashed into it and caught fire. Afterward he moved into the sewers directly beneath the opera house, and he also became a genius.
    In the middle of the opera season the phantom kidnaps a rather mediocre soprano and devotes many weeks to training her voice down in the resonant caverns of the Paris sewer system. He tells the girl to sing from the heart, rapping his chest once or twice to make her aware she is singing from his heart too, and maybe other people’s. This is the basic message of his instruction, though he still exasperates his student with hours and hours of scales, ear training, and so forth.
    One day she gets fed up with all the agony this man is putting her through, and out of despair, not to mention curiosity, rips off the mask that hides his hideous face. She screams and faints. While she is passed out, the phantom takes this opportunity to return her to the upper world of the opera house. For whether she knows it or not, she is now a great singer.
    When the girl regains consciousness from the terrible shock she experienced, her days with the phantom of the opera seem like no more than a vague dream. Later in the season she is starring in an opera and gives a brilliant performance, which the phantom watches from an empty box near the stage. Over and over he raps his chest with satisfaction and a sadness so personal and deep as to be