Young Frankenstein (6 page)

"Ughh!" Inga said again, shuddering.

Dr. Frankenstein reached the light forward. The skull was resting on a shelf. Below it, a label read:
11 Months Dead.
The skull had decayed to the point that if it had been touched it would have become dust.

They moved foward-and saw a second skull. It still had patches of skin clinging to it. The label read:
8 Months Dead.

The light from the candle picked up another skull. One eyeball remained in the socket
.
There was a little hair left on the crown. According to the label, it was
4 Months Dead.

The doctor shifted the light to the next label. It read:
Freshly Dead.
He raised the light to get a look at the skull. It looked hardly dead at all. It was a healthy color. It had all its teeth. The eyes were there, twinkling mischievously. It looked, in fact, quite familiar.

"You!" Dr
.
Frankenstein said, recognizing the face
.

Igor leaped back from the shelf
. "Aiiiiiiiiiii!"
he howled ghoulishly
.
Then, tying the howl to a tune, he broke into song
.
".. . ain't got no body!"

"Aye-gor!" the doctor admonished.

"Fro-derick!" Igor responded.

"How did you get here?"

"Through the dumbwaiter," Igor told him. "I was up in the kitchen and I heard that music and I followed it down."

"But it wasn't you playing?"

Igor shook his head.

"Then someone else must have been down here," Inga said brightly
.

Dr
.
Frankenstein considered. "It seems that way," he agreed, after a brief deliberation
.
He looked around, peering into the dimness. "Aren't there any lights around here?"

Igor pointed toward a nearby dark corner. "Two nasty-looking switches over there," he said.

"Why didn't you turn on the lights?"

"I never like to go first."

"Oh, for-"

Dr. Frankenstein strode to the corner and flipped one of the switches
.
The whole room seemed to explode in dancing flashes of electric current
.
The light was blinding. Covering his eyes, the doctor groped for the switch he had flipped, found it, then disengaged it. The flashes of current sizzled out, leaving darkness. Immediately, the doctor pressed the second switch. Light returned. This time it was bright but stable.

"Ohhhh!" Inga said, astounded.

"In spades!" the doctor said.

They had found the infamous laboratory of the legendary Dr. Victor Frankenstein
.
There were great collections of beakers and tubes, complicated-looking apparatuses, huge machines, networks of electrical wiring. All were covered with dust and linked by cobwebs, but the magnificence could not be concealed.

"So this is where it happened," the doctor said bitterly. "What a filthy mess."

"Oh, I don't know," Igor said. "A little paint, a few flowers . . ."

"You didn't see anyone else down here?" the doctor asked him.

"No." He pointed to a thick door at the other side of the room. "But when I first came in, there was a light coming from in there."

With Dr. Frankenstein in the lead, the three moved cautiously toward the door.

Suddenly, there was the sound of running
.

The trio halted, exchanging questioning looks.

"That rat again?" Inga wondered.

"I doubt it."

They moved on. When they reached the door, Dr. Frankenstein grasped it by the edge and yanked it open. They heard a sudden rushing sound, then a flurry of wings. A horde of bats came swooping out through the doorway. The three dived for cover, ducking under laboratory tables. Almost as suddenly as the bats had appeared, however, they were gone.

The doctor was the first to get to the door again. He reached in and found a wall switch and pressed it. A light came on and he and Inga and Igor moved warily through the open doorway
.
They found themselves in what was obviously a private library
.
Almost every inch of wall space was covered by shelves of musty books. The room had a dank, foul odor, the smell of decay.

"Doctor, look!" Inga cried out, pointing
.

A violin and a bow rested on a table in the center of the room. Near them were an ashtray and a smoldering cigar.

"Well," Dr. Frankenstein said, "this explains the music."

"But who was playing it?" Inga asked.

"That, we don't know," he replied. "I think it's a pret-ty good guess, though, that he was a cigar smoker." He turned to Igor. "Let me smell your breath!"

Igor exhaled expansively into the doctor's face.

Dr. Frankenstein staggered backwards, his eyes watering, a look of abject disgust on his countenance.

"Garlic toast," Igor told him.

Recovering, the doctor began looking around again. "What place is this?" he mused.

"The music room," Igor said. "The violin gives it away."

"No, no, it's a library, of course
.
But-" He bent close to the books on a shelf. "Do you think it's possible that-"

Outside, lightning flashed. The title of the book that the doctor was peering at was illuminated. He read it aloud:

"It is!" Dr
.
Frankenstein shouted
.
"This is my grandfather's private library! This book proves it!"

"How 1 Did It,"
Igor said thoughtfully
.
"Good title. Always sells
.
"

"I wonder what kind of alchemistic drivel it is," the doctor said, taking the book from the shelf
.
He opened it to the first page, then read aloud again:

Whence, I often asked myself, did the principles of life proceed? To examine the cause of life, we must first have recourse to death.

The doctor clapped the book closed
.
"God, what a madman!" he said derisively
.

There was a flash of thunder that shook the whole castle.

Inga hurried to the doctor's side. "I'm frightened," she said. "It was as if-"

"As if he heard me?" Dr. Frankenstein smiled. "I sincerely doubt it. However," he said, steering Inga toward the doorway, "we might as well leave."

"Taking the book along, I see," Igor said slyly.

"Yes, why not?" the doctor replied
.
"I might read a few passages. I think we could all use a good laugh."

They left the library and returned to the laboratory.

"I could use some refreshment," the doctor said, smiling at Inga.

"Spot of tea?" she asked. "I could boil the water in a beaker, and, let's see . . ."

"That will be fine," Dr. Frankenstein told her, settling onto a tall stool and opening his grandfather's book once more.

Inga found tea in a tin, then put water on to boil. Igor occupied himself by examining the various apparatuses.

Dr. Frankenstein chuckled
.
"The man was a raisin cake," he said to his companions. Then, to prove the point, he read aloud again:

. . .
and as soon as the dazzling light vanished, the oak tree had disappeared. I know then that electricity and galvanism had changed my life.

The doctor howled with glee. "Toot-y-frutti!" he said.

From above, once more, a roll of thunder that shook the castle
.

"Maybe you ought to read to yourself-silently," Inga suggested, fearful again
.

"Rubbish. Those thunder claps are mere coincidence
.
" He laughed. "Listen to this." Again, he read aloud:

When I look back now, it seems to me as if this almost miraculous event obliterated any last effort to avert the storm that was even then hanging in the stars.

Dr. Frankenstein slapped a knee. "This guy kills me!"

This time, the thunder rattled the beakers
.
The water that Was being prepared for tea seemed to boil up extra furiously.

The doctor looked skyward, finally taking serious notice of the thunder
.
What he saw surprised him, and, for the moment, took his mind off the violent thunderclaps
.
He saw the sky
.
It surprised him because he expected to see a ceiling
.

"Look up there," he said to the others.

"A hole in the roof," Igor said.

"With a window over it," Inga said.

"It's a skylight," the doctor told them. "It can be opened, though. Why do you suppose that is?"

"I can make a wild guess," Igor said. "To haul dead bodies in and out, maybe?"

"That
is
one possible explanation," the doctor conceded
.
He shrugged. "Ah, well, it doesn't concern us." He turned his attention back to the book, reading on:

...
until, from the midst of this darkness, a sudden light broke in upon me
-
a light so brilliant and wondrous, and yet so simple!

Inga was pouring the tea. "Hot," she cautioned Dr. Frankenstein
.
"Don't burn your tongue."

The doctor nodded and read on-and on and on. Hours passed. Inga and Igor, slumping on stools, became glassy-eyed. Every once in a while, their eyes closed-only to fly open suddenly when they were startled back to wakefulness by Dr. Frankenstein's uproarious laughter at some passage from the book.

Change the poles from plus to minus and from minus to plus.

The doctor hooted
.
"Have you ever heard such nonsense?"

I
,
Victor Frankenstein, alone succeeded in discovering the cause of generation of life.

The doctor whooped
.
"Nutty as a fruitcake!"

Nay, even more: I, myself, became capable of bestowing animation upon lifeless matter!

Dr. Frankenstein closed the book. He grinned, shaking his head. "Grandfather nutsy," he said. He chuckled. He laughed heartily. Then, suddenly, he stifled the hilarity. His expression became drawn. His eyes glinted with the Frankenstein madness
.
All at once, he leaped up, snatched the tea cup from the work bench and smashed it against a wall
.

"It could work!"
he bellowed.

Lightning crashed in the sky!

Igor's face was illuminated
.
He was smiling gleefully.

The light lit up Inga's face. She was staring fixedly at the doctor, terrified-yet somehow proud.

Again, the thunder rumbled and the lightning cracked
.
The castle quivered
.
But, there was a general feeling in the laboratory that this was
nice
thunder and
nice
lightning, that Baron Frankenstein, wherever he was, was pleased as punch.

In the dining room of Frankenstein Castle, the doctor himself sat at the head of the table. To his right was Inga and to his left sat Igor. Before them were the remains of the evening meal. The doctor was reading once more from his grandfather's book,
How I Did It.
Again, Inga was trying desperately to keep from falling asleep. Igor had solved the problem. He wasn't listening. Instead, he was sketching idly on a large pad. Outside, darkness was coming on. There were occasional feeble rumbles of thunder and halfhearted crashes of lightning. A fine rain was falling
.
For that area, however, it could be said to be a pleasant evening
.
The werewolves were quiet
.
No violin was playing the haunting and mysterious Transylvanian lullaby. And Frau Blucher was nowhere in sight.

As the minuteness of the parts formed a great hindrance to my speed, I resolved to make the Creature of a gigantic stature.

Dr. Frankenstein lowered the book. "Of course!" he said. "That would simplify everything
.
"

"In other words," Inga said, forcing her eyes open, "his veins, his feet, his hands, his organs would all have to be increased in size,"

"Exactly."