Young Frankenstein Read online

  A bolt of lightning split the sky, showing Frankenstein Castle in all its ancient and decaying grandeur. The sudden light glistened on the rain-drenched battlements and towers and illuminated the green-gray moss that was spreading like a pestilence along the cracks in its stone walls. Then the flash was gone and in the grainy darkness the castle appeared to be nothing more than an extension of the hill on which it sat, a towering, jagged peak.

  Inside, a single room, a study, was occupied. Nine people sat in straight-backed chairs around a coffin that was resting on a massive, thick-legged table. They were young, middle-aged and old, male and female. In the soft, yellowish glow from an oil lamp, expectancy showed in their faces. Their eyes, however, were not on the casket, but on the man who stood beside it: Cornelius Waldman, the attorney.

  Waldman's attention, in turn, was on a wall clock; the hands were both pointing to twelve midnight. As the clock at last began to chime, he placed his own hands on the lid of the coffin. As one, the nine drew in their breaths and silently counted the strokes of the clock's bell. . . . five . . . six . . . seven . . . The attorney lowered his eyes to the engraved letters on the casket's curved lid:

  He cleared his throat. . . . nine . . . ten . . . Waldman s fingers tightened under theedge of thelid. . . . eleven . . . twelve. The breaths, all nine, were released at once. The attorney gave a heave and up went the coffin lid.

  Waldman, a middle-aged man with an acute case of astigmatism, adjusted his spectacles, which had slipped down almost to the tip of his nose, and peered in at the remains of Beaufort Frankenstein. Even though he had been carefully embalmed, Beaufort had not fared at all well over the years. His head, despite the fact that it had not been especially handsome when he was alive, was now his best feature. It was nothing to look at, consisting primarily of skull, with fragments of waxen flesh still clinging to the bone here and there. It at least had more "body," however, than the rest of him, which was all skeleton.

  Resting on what once had been Beaufort Frankenstein's tummy and clutched by his bony fingers was a flat metal box. The attorney reached in, grasped it, and tugged. Beaufort's grip held. Waldman tugged again, harder. But with the strength of rigor mortis, Beaufort held fast. Perspiring now, the attorney raised a foot and braced it against the coffin and yanked. The box came free. Beaufort had lost in his last willful effort to take at least a representative sample of his worldly goods with him.

  Muttering gruffly, Cornelius Waldman slammed down the lid. He placed the metal box on it, then fished in his vest pocket and came up with a key. Bending and squinting, he inserted the key into the box's lock and turned it. The key kept turning, but the lock did not click. Waldman raised his head and looked apologetically at the nine men and women who were waiting for the box to be opened. Their expressions were hard and unforgiving. Sighing, he fixed his attention again on the key and the lock.

  Heinrich, a man of ninety, who had little more meat on his bones than Beaufort Frankenstein, addressed his wife, Agatha. "My life is in that box," he complained sourly, "and he can't open it!"

  "Shhh!" Agatha responded.

  Heinrich raised himself up an inch or two off the straight-backed chair and spoke to the attorney across the casket. "Hurry, itiot! Hurry!"

  Agatha pulled her husband back. "Quiet, Heinrich. We've waited seventy years. Another three or four seconds won't hurt."

  "Another three or four seconds! I could be dead by then!"

  "Shhhh!"

  A young man in another chair closed his hand over the hand of the young woman seated next to him and squeezed it reassuringly. "What if your beloved great-uncle left you out of his will?" he asked, whispering.

  The young woman, tense, answered, sharply. "Shut your beloved mouth!"

  Another relative, Anastasia, middle-aged but plump and pink-cheeked, spoke hopefully to her mother, Marlene. "Oh, Mutti ... I hardly remember . . . Did the Baron really like me when I was a child?"

  A look that suggested a remembrance of trysts past came into the mother's eyes. "Like a father," Marlene told her daughter soulfully.

  An elderly man muttered to himself. "Wenn dieser bidder Kerl sich nicht beeilt werde ich verruckt. Was zum Teujel machte?"

  Marlene reacted testily. "Shh!"

  "Was?" the elderly man insisted.

  "Shaa!" Marlene told him.

  He smiled. "Ach! ... Ja!"

  There was a click that, in the expectant silence of the room, sounded like a rifle shot. The nine straightened and leaned forward.

  From the box, Cornelius Waldman extracted a parchment. He adjusted his spectacles once more, cleared his throat importantly, then read:

  I, Beaufort Frankenstein, in this my eighty-third year of life, do hereby declare the following statements as my last will and testament, to be read on the occasion of my one hundredth birthday. And I direct my executor, Cornelius Waldman, to assemble those persons previously divulged to him, that they may hear-in my own voice-the final disposition of my property.

  Waldman raised his eyes from the parchment.

  The others exchanged glances, looking puzzled.

  The attorney then turned to his clerk, who was standing nearby, and nodded. The old man, Herr Falkstein, took a phonograph record from an attache case and carefully-very carefully-placed it on the turntable of an aged Victrola.

  The nine drew in their breaths once more.

  Herr Falkstein set the turntable spinning. Gingerly, he lowered the needle toward the record, then set it into a groove. A squawk of scratching came from the speaker. A second later, it was followed by the deep, resonant, majestic voice of Beaufort Frankenstein:

  The once proud name of Frankenstein has been dragged by my only son, Victor, into an abyss of shame. There was a time when the name Frankenstein conjured dreams of virtue. Now, no misery can be found to equal mine. And the catalogue of sins of my once-devoted son will not cease to rankle in my wounds until death shall close them forever-so supremely frightful is the effect of any human endeavor to mock the Creator of the world.

  The monologue was interrupted by a resumption of the scratching. After a moment, however, Beaufort's voice came through again. He was evidently speaking to a servant or an assistant.

  Did you get all that? Are you sure you got "rankle in my wounds?" I'll kill you if you screw this up. All right, all right-get the hell out of the way. You're sure I'm close enough to this thing? All right, shut up!

  Beaufort's voice, which had become shrill through the tirade, regained its majestic quality as he resumed the last will and testament:

  To my cousins, Heinrich and Agatha . . . and to my cousin Walter and his wife, Ilse . . . and to my niece Helene . . . and my dear nephew, Wolfgang . . . and lastly to my cherished old bosom . . . My cherished old bosom friend, Marlene, and to her charming daughter-

  He addressed the servant or assistant again:

  What did she finally name it after all that fuss?

  The smallish voice of the assistant came in:

  Anastasia.

  And Beaufort continued once more:

  -daughter, Anastasia . . . to all of you, in equal shares, I hereby give absolutely and without any restrictions whatsoever, all property of every sort and description, whether real, personal or mixed, to which my estate shall be entitled.

  Heinrich and Agatha threw their arms around each other in as vigorous a hug as they could manage at their advanced ages. Helene and her young man gripped each other's hands tightly. Anastasia and her mother, Marlene, exchanged sly winks. Wolfgang, the nephew, about whom it was whispered that he was latent, hugged himself.

  Then, the voice of Beaufort Frankenstein continued:

  Unless-

  The hugging, the squeezing, the winking abruptly ceased. The h
eirs faced the Victrola again.

  -unless . . . my only male heir, my great-grandson, Frederick, whom I have never seen but who is, at the time of this recording, ten years of age and residing in America with my granddaughter Kath-erine, has, by his own free will, embraced Medicine as his career, and has acquitted himself with some measure of esteem. Then, to him, I leave . . . EVERYTHING!

  The heirs stared at the machine, stunned.

  Heinrich spoke for all of them. "Ach, mein Gott!"

  "Sha! What's the matter with you?" his wife said. "He's probably not even a doctor."

  From the Victrola came the voice of Beaufort Frankenstein again:

  My castle, together with its laboratory, its public and private library, plus all income and principal thereof ... in the fond hope that yet another Frankenstein shall raise our family name to an eminence of dignity that it once enjoyed. As for my dear friends and relations, should this latter improbability come to be, I know that I have your complete understanding. For the path to salvation must be climbed up the barren mountain of my own soul, and not up yours.

  The needle became stuck in the groove, and Beaufort began repeating and repeating his final words:

  . . . up yours . . . up yours . . . up yours . . . up yours...

  Taking pity, Herr Falkstein lifted the needle from the record.

  "Did you inform Frederick Frankenstein of this assembly and all the particulars of time and place?" the attorney asked his clerk.

  "I did, sir," Herr Falkstein replied. He pulled a cablegram from his pocket. "But I received a reply only this morning, saying that he could not come."

  "Was he aware of the importance of this occasion?" Waldman inquired.

  "Yes, sir, he was. But he said he was obligated to give a lecture."

  Waldman peered at his clerk over the rims of his glasses. "What lecture could possibly be more important than the will of Baron Beaufort Frankenstein?"

  Herr Falkstein consulted the cable. " 'Functional Areas of the Cerebrum in Relation to the Skull,'" he read.

  The aged Heinrich collapsed, felled by the implications of Falkstein's statement.

  "Excuse me, Mr. Waldman .. ." Helene said sweetly. "But, is Frederick, then ... a medical doc:

  "Yes, my dear, he is."

  "And has he achieved"-her voice was trembling- ". . . any special degree of eminence?"

  "He is the fifth leading authority in his field," Cornelius Waldman informed her.

  This time, it was Helene who spoke for the others. "Oh, shit!" she said viciously.

  The attorney made a face of condolence, then turned to his clerk once more. "Herr Falkstein, you must go at once and present Dr. Frankenstein with all the details of his inheritance. The estate will provide for your journey."

  "Yes, sir."

  "I object!" Helene said. "If the beloved great-grandson cared at all for the House of Frankenstein, he would have shown it by being here tonight. I think we should disregard the afterthoughts of a very old man."

  Cornelius Waldman drew himself up. "Madam," he said sternly, "the foundation of civilization rests upon adherence to the law. And the law is the law. Das Gesetz ist das Gesetz!"

  From outside came a thunderous crash! A shaft of lightning shattered a window. A curl of smoke rose from the Victrola. And when the thundering and lightning had passed, the record that carried Beaufort Frankenstein's voice lay in fragments on the turntable.

  When, several days later, Herr Falkstein arrived at Baltimore General Hospital, where Dr. Frederick Frankenstein was a member of the staff, he was carrying the flat metal box that had been wrestled from the Baron's grasp. At the entrance he was grabbed by two burly guards, who accused him of being a mad bomber. They released him, however, when he showed them that the box contained nothing but a sheet of parchment. And, to make amends, they told him where he would find Dr. Frankenstein.

  Falkstein marched on in his doddering way and in time arrived at the hospital's teaching section. At an information desk, he was directed to an unmarked doorway. The doorway led him to a stairs. At the top of the stairs, he found another unmarked doorway. Passing through it, he found himself in the balcony of an arena. Young men and women dressed in white-students, he assumed-were occupying most of the seats. Below, a slightly older man, also in white, was speaking, addressing his remarks to the balcony.

  Falkstein half-listened, while looking for another door, the door that he hoped would take him to Dr. Frankenstein. Alas, however, no other opening was in sight. Finally, he bent down and whispered to a young man, asking him if he knew where he might find Dr. Frankenstein. The young man looked sideways at Falkstein, then pointed to the lecturer. Falkstein straightened and peered down into the pit.

  Dr. Frederick Frankenstein was acceptable enough in appearance. He was of medium height and trimly built. His hair was a touch too long for Falkstein's taste. And it had a certain frizziness about it. Frankly, Falkstein didn't care much for the doctor's mustache, either. There was no doubt in his mind, however, that the man was a Frankenstein. The glint of madness was there in his eyes, as discernable as the sudden flame of a match in a pitch-dark room.

  Excusing himself as he proceeded, Falkstein began making his way along a row in search of a seat. Meanwhile, he listened to the lecture.

  "If we look at the base of a brain that has just been removed from a skull," Dr. Frankenstein was saying, "there's very little of the midbrain that we can actually see."

  Falkstein felt a lump under his foot. Looking down, he discovered that he was standing on the foot of one of the students. So absorbed was the young man in the lecture, however, that he was not aware that he was being trod on. Falkstein left an "excuse me" with him, anyway, before moving on.

  "Yet," Dr. Frankenstein continued, "as I demonstrated in my lecture last week, if the under aspects of the temporal lobes are gently pulled apart, the upper portion of the stem of the brain can be seen."

  Falkstein found a vacant seat and settled in it, resting the metal box on his lap.

  Dr. Frankenstein was now at a blackboard. "This so-called 'brain stem,' " he said, drawing a diagram, "consists of the midbrain, a rounded protrusion called the pons, and a stalk, which tapers downward in this manner and which is called the medulla oblongata. Now ... the medulla oblongata passes out of the skull through the foramen magnum and becomes, of course, the spinal cord."

  Yes, mad, Falkstein thought to himself.

  Dr. Frankenstein looked up toward the balcony. "Are there any questions before we proceed?"

  A student rose. "I have a question, Dr. Frankenstein-"

  The doctor winced. "That's Fronkonsteen," he told the student.

  "I beg your pardon, sir?"

  "My name-it's pronounced Fron-kon-steen."

  "Oh. I thought it was Dr. Frankenstein," the student said, mildly puzzled.

  "No. It's Dr. Fronkonsteen."

  "But, sir, aren't you the grandson of the famous Dr. Frankenstein who ingeniously dug up freshly buried corpses and transferred dead components of the bodies into-"

  "1 know what he did!" Dr. Frankenstein shouted, breaking in. He took a moment to regain his composure, then addressed the young man again. "I know what he did," he said, with forced calm. "But I'd rather be remembered for my own small contributions to science, and not because of my accidental relationship to a famous-" He swallowed hard. "-a famous cuckoo." The other students laughed politely. "Now, if you don't mind," Dr. Frankenstein said to the young man, "can we get on with your question?"

  "Well, sir . . . I'm not sure I understand the distinction between 'reflexive' and 'voluntary' nerve impulses."

  Dr. Frankenstein brightened. "Very good! As it happens, our lab work today is a demonstration of just that distinction. So-why don't we proceed . . ."

  As the student sat down, Dr. Frankenstein picked up what appeared to be a magician's wand from the ledge of the blackboard and tapped a small bell that he had taken from the large pocket of his white coat. At the tinkle, as if by magic, a pair of
double doors opened and an assistant wheeled a patient into the arena on a table. The patient was an emaciated old man who was wearing an oversize hospital gown.

  The doctor indicated the old man with the wand.

  "Mr. Hilltop here," he said, "with whom I have never

  worked or given any prior instructions, has graciously

  offered his services for this afternoon's demonstration."

  There was a murmur of skepticism from the balcony.

  "Mr. Hilltop ..." the doctor said.

  "Yes, sir?"

  "Have we ever seen each other before?" "No, sir."

  Dr. Frankenstein gestured toward the balcony. "Tell them," he said testily.

  "No, sir, we haven't," the patient said, looking up at the students.

  "Do I lie?" the doctor asked his audience. Then he spoke to Mr. Hilltop again. "Would you be kind enough to hop down from the table and stand here beside it, please?"

  The old man obeyed.

  "And now, Mr. Hilltop, if you please, will you raise your left knee?"

  With effort, the patient brought up the left leg,

  "You have just witnessed a 'voluntary' nerve impulse," Dr. Frankenstein told the students. "It begins as a stimulus from the cerebral cortex, passes through the brain stem and then to the particular muscles involved. Mr. Hilltop," he said, "you may lower your knee."

  Down came the leg.

  " 'Reflex' movements, on the other hand," the doctor said to the students, "are those which are made independently of the will, but which are carried out along pathways that pass between the peripheral nervous system and the central nervous system."

  Then suddenly he turned on the patient, shouted, "You filthy, rotten, yellow son-of-a-bitch!" and savagely jabbed his own knee in the direction of Hilltop's groin.

  The old man screamed in panic and doubled forward to protect himself.

  Dr. Frankenstein pulled back his knee, short of the target, then, smiling, pleased with the patient's reaction, addressed the students once more. "We are not aware of these impulses, nor do we intend that they will contract our muscles," he said. "Yet, as you just saw, they work by themselves. What, though, if we block the nerve impulses by applying local pressure?"