Archive of Our Own (BETA rev. 2101)

To Victor Frankenstein, Ingolstadt

My Dear Victor--I write to you before a day has passed since I watched your carriage disappear in the distance, since I already miss you with all my heart and for you, friendless in your first days in a strange city, a friendly note might be some consolation.

How I wish I could accompany you! When we played, as children, it was always as companions; you were Roland to my Oliver and Lancelot to my Arthur; and though our passions for knowledge took different paths, we always believed we could combat the evil and ignorance of the world side by side. While I would be your Patroclus, I sit behind to watch your Elizabeth sew her mother's shroud--and here I am, mixing my heroic metaphors already! There is so much more of the world than is contained in father's books, and it is with you that I wish to explore it. My studies of men, and yours of nature, together would save the world.

But for awhile--and only for awhile, for I will never cease to ask Father to let me join you--we are parted. Parted from you, I see all the more what you mean to me. Even before you left, you remember that night--it seems impossible that it could not have been burned into your memory as indelibly as it is in mine, whose heart and mind since childhood have been so attuned to yours. What passed between us, in the passion and anxiety of being so soon separated, was too much for pen and paper to bear; too much, perhaps, for a proper friendship, but for the friend I love above life itself, was scarcely enough.

Elizabeth sends her regards, and will probably do so herself by the same post.

I continue to debate with my father, and will not give in until I can speak my love to you in person and join your studies in Ingolstadt.

Yours--Henry Clerval

To Henry Clerval, Geneva

Dear Henry--How much I wish you could be in Ingolstadt! I, at least, can be consoled for the lack of family and friends by the studies available to me--I cannot adequately describe the thrill of access to the discoveries and apparatus of modern chemistry. If only you could sit beside me at M. Waldman's lectures, and feel with me the living promise of the chemistry of this century! It claims only to explain the natural world, but it explains truly, and I feel in my heart that it will one provide a hundredfold of what Cornelius Agrippa so vainly promised. We had dreamed of changing the world together; my studies bring me so close to doing so, but you are not at my side. Curse your father's narrow-mindedness!

I, too, remember vividly that one night in your embrace. The passion and love we felt! Our hearts, our minds, so close to being one. More than ever before, I saw how true it was that a true friend could make a man whole. And Henry, though my heart remains yours, and Elizabeth's, and my father and little brothers'--I find that passion burning nearly as strong for my studies. Come to Ingolstadt with me, that you may join your passion and your studies to mine.

Yours--Victor Frankenstein

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To Victor Frankenstein, Ingolstadt

My Dear Victor--I have not heard from you since spring, and neither has your father or Elizabeth. They are giving you time, but we do worry and think of you often. I believe you to be merely so consumed by your studies that all else is forgotten--I remember well how it was when you found a new thing to devote your mind to. Elizabeth and I would have to haul you bodily from your studies into the open air and the society of your dear friends.

But perhaps there are other reasons as well? A new town has other temptations than study. Not to speak of the vices that prey on your father's thoughts on dark nights--but a student can be expected to meet new friends. Though I wish I were there to share your triumphs and travails, to hear the pleasure in your voice at new discoveries and to haul you from your books and your laboratory to talk and drink and sleep, every man needs a friend by him, and if you had found another such in Ingolstadt, I would be happy for you.

Or--and Elizabeth dares not broach this topic, if she even thinks it, but I will be bolder--might you have found a new lady? As much as is my faith in the love you and Elizabeth have shared since childhood, men's hearts do change, and the love of your childhood may not remain the love of your manhood. I and she will always love you, as I believe you will always love us, but if others have joined us in your heart, please write to us and let us know. The woman or the friend you find worthy to share your heart is without doubt worthy of sharing mine.

Geneva is much the same. My father's business is flourishing, if the word can properly be applied to the base acts of commerce. I know that the transfer of goods is important to society, but if I have to spend the rest of my life on debits and credits I may die soon in spirit if not in body. My readings and my thoughts of you sustain me; I see us in all the great companions of myth, despite the two and a half years we have been parted. I do not know if our friendship will ever return to what it was, or grow from that moment of passion before you left, but I pledge to continue it until the day I die.

Yours--Henry Clerval

To Victor Frankenstein, Ingolstadt

My Dear Victor--At long last! I may see you before you see this letter. My father--with, I believe, some intense prodding from yours, who is increasingly, if quietly, worried for you, as are we all--has finally been convinced of the inevitability, if not the worth, of my ambitions to know more than commerce, and has allowed me to go to Ingolstadt! I should arrive by carriage in a week, and I look forward with all my heart to embracing you and joining your quest for knowledge.

Yours--Henry Clerval