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You are right—we must solve this mystery together. We are—like sisters, are we not?
“I don’t know,” said Catherine. “We’ll fight, inevitably. I don’t just mean Diana sticking knives into people, which doesn’t count. What I mean is that we’re opinionated. We’ll want our own way. Except maybe Justine, who has to be gentle because she’s so strong. It won’t be a peaceful life, with all of us here.”
Diana was still awake, lying in Mary’s childhood bed with her knees up and a book propped on them. “Go away,” she said, sticking her tongue out. Mary went in and kissed Diana on the forehead, as her mother had kissed her when she was a child. Why had she done that? She did not know—instinct,
She turned and crossed the roof. She felt a savage delight in being up so high, the delight she must have felt on a cliff in the Andes, before Moreau transformed her into a woman. In one direction was a succession of alleys and mews. In the other was Regent’s Park, with its green treetops swaying in the wind.
How strange life was! She had been born in the mountains of Argentina, then born again on Moreau’s island. Now here she was, at the center of the largest city in the world.
BEATRICE: But I’m not a romantic heroine. I’m a scientist.
That was the first meeting of the Athena Club. Oh, we didn’t call it that, not then. Not until several months later, when Justine suggested the name.
can’t afford school fees anyway, and I suspect that sending Diana to school would be a disaster,” said Mary. “So we can educate you both at home. Beatrice can teach you science, and Catherine can teach you literature, and Justine can teach you French and Latin. And I used to be rather good at history.
I wager he does not want the society to know he was involved with the likes of Edward Hyde and Adam Frankenstein.”
“And what did you mean just now, when you said I should become your assistant?” Mary was almost afraid to ask. Surely he did not mean that she would be another Watson? Solving mysteries with him, traveling around England as a detective? Well, detective’s assistant. But still. After all, she had helped solve the Whitechapel Murders. . . .
You may visit him if you like, but I suggest no more than two of you at a time. I hope you won’t be offended if I say that all of you together can be . . . overwhelming. Particularly for a man in his delicate state.”
MARY: Of course not the last. Think of all the things that have happened since then! CATHERINE: Yes, but I have to end with at least a little suspense.
We had to admit that we rather liked her taste, so we let Beatrice decorate and try to talk us into supporting the Labor Movement, Aestheticism, and Rational Dress.
Alice continued to insist that she was only a housemaid and not at all interested in adventures, thank you very much, but she was getting particularly good at Latin, almost as good as Beatrice. And Mrs. Poole was still Mrs. Poole. She would probably never change.
It was Saturday, the day of our official club meeting.
That made a grand total of seventeen pounds, seven shillings for the week. Not bad, much better than we had been doing at first. It was difficult feeding seven mouths and maintaining a large house. But we were managing.
Dr. Seward was still in Purfleet. Joe, who was watching Seward for us, had told us he was planning on going to Vienna again, but at the last minute the trip had been canceled. Why had Seward canceled his trip?
I am, against my will and sometimes without my knowledge, the subject of certain experiments carried out by my father.
“We wanted to know if they were still making monsters,” said Catherine. “I think we have our answer. The Société des Alchimistes, or at least some of its members, are still experimenting on girls.
And then we sat around the large mahogany table: Mary, Diana, Beatrice, Catherine, and Justine. Mapping travel routes, calculating expenses. Planning the future adventures of the Athena Club.
Mary says the book is a pack of lies, and accuses Mrs. Shelley of writing it to protect the Société des Alchimistes, as it was constituted in her time.
Most readers nowadays assume the book is a work of fiction anyway, as Watson did, but it’s not. Neither is it entirely lies.
Mrs. Shelley fails to mention that as a student at the University of Ingolstadt, Frankenstein was inducted into the Société des Alchimistes by his chemistry professor.
MARY: That’s quite clever of you, actually. Making them want to read the second book.
Evidently, it was quite fashionable to be a member of the society in the early part of the century. It was not as secretive as it later became, and just scandalous enough to tempt men like Shelley and Byron.
they were joined by Polidori’s friend Ernest Frankenstein, Victor’s younger brother and the sole remaining member of the Frankenstein family.
Such an abomination should never have been allowed to walk the Earth.
why did Mrs. Shelley write her book, and knowing the truth, why did she lie? It must have been, in part, to deflect attention from the society.
But Mrs. Shelley also did something else: in her Biography, Justine is never created. Frankenstein decides a female monster would be too dangerous, and throws her body parts into the sea. Why did Mary Shelley never join the Société des Alchimistes? Because she was the daughter of Mary Wollstonecraft and the stepsister of Claire Clairmont, whom Lord Byron was treating as a mistress he had already tired of.
Knowing of Justine, she did the best she could, for another woman. She erased her from the story.
and praised it as an accurate portrayal of a group of women trying to get along in the world as best they can, like women anywhere—even if they are monsters.
