21 July 2027
Wednesday. A nervous young woman asked me at the briefing whether anybody would jump out at her.
I was offended on behalf of science. Nobody jumps out in my laboratory. There are no actors hiding in my cupboards; I would have found them, as I have been through those cupboards a thousand times looking for the spleen. Everything that happens in here happens because of the machinery, the lighting, the sound, the storm and, at the very end, if the assistants have done well, the Subject.
It is dark, I admitted. It is gothic. There are jars, and a body under a sheet, and the thunder is very loud. But it is not that kind of horror. It is the kind where the hair stands up on one’s arms and one laughs about it on the way home.
She went in holding her friend’s sleeve. She came out asking when she could come back. I have never been so flattered, or so suspicious.
In the margin: I did not jump out at her. I sat up very slowly, as I always do, so as not to alarm anybody. She said, “Oh, he’s lovely.” Nobody has ever said that. I have written it inside my sheet, next to the reviews.
— V. Frankenstein
