Document two

Failure.

Why cannot stimulate? Stimulated rest of body. Subject alive now, undeniable, though heart does not beat, and organs do not move. Immobilized with chains and checked undergarments, free from stains, and blood at near total coagulation, yet muscles move, eyes see, lungs operate. Screams worse than ever, after shock. Must have stimulated something, but brain still totally unresponsive. Tried hitting on head when broke loose of ropes two days ago and was quiet for at least three minutes. Thought killed… for real… until screaming again. Original serum and battery worked to bring life to limbs, why not to mind? Why not to person?

Still there. Must still be there.

Steward asking more questions when ordered larger battery. Thinks may not be wise if needs low stimulus, as though were doctor! Can he tell difference between a frog’s heart and a person’s? Can he tell what makes difference between life and death? Can he tell what steps taken in reversing such in lower life forms?

No.

Went out for own supplies yesterday. Have dismissed all but Steward, who makes meals and runs errands, usually. Bought pistol, and more powerful battery. Did not put on Steward’s list. Will not again, to supplier. Must remember. Just medicine, that I take.

Was quiet outside manor.

Wanted to sleep, but drove to town. Picked up things, then returned. Heard screaming and wanted to leave again, but could not leave work. Took nap in car shed though. Very long. Steward found in morning with bag from pharmacist. Gave very suspicious look when told him was whiskey. Probably smelled none on breath, and knows no drink. Have not since Patrick. More lies. More suspicion. Must send away, but cannot run house alone. Cannot feed self and work. Must have help.

So, pistol.

And watching.

And stronger battery. Will try injecting additional fluid if cannot get response on next try. Perhaps consider straight into the brain. Will be difficult if cannot immobilize. May damage tissue, and cannot do that at any cost. Next thing to kill. Must find stronger rope. Should have got in town. Would have, if remembered. God. Must sleep soon or lose mind.

(The page has no date)

September

I have asked Emily’s father if I might marry her.

Hands are shaking. Very annoying. Broke pen.

I told him that I had not purchased a ring yet, that I have not even discussed it with my father yet, all true. He told me that he would, of course, be happy to have me as a son in law if Emily was happy, and that I should ask her, but, asked many questions regarding where we would live if we were married now. Suggested I should finish my studies before getting any ring, and letting things take time. All very wise. It has only been two months, which astonishes when I stop to think on it. It feels like it has been so much less, and eternities in between.

He has also heard, through the dean’s luncheons, about me and Patrick’s experiments and chosen focus of study, and asked me closely about it while we smoked in his study. I thought he might hold some hidden fascination with the subject, or perhaps an undiscovered interest, so I told him all about the frogs in winter, the way they are preserved and seem to come back to life, thinking to impress him with the detail of our study. It was all rather embarrassing when, after I’d finished describing our experiments rinsing the frozen frogs in different solutions before thawing to note the differences, he cleared his throat and asked whether I was planning to make the subject my emphasis while in school. I told him I’d been thinking about it, and he suggested that I might get more profit from a study of the living. That frogs did not pay well when their children got colds, but that setting an old man’s broken leg could keep a man in meat for a week if he didn’t botch it up. He seemed to think it was a game. Told me, on the one hand, that he would be happy to see me and Emily wed, and on the other, that I was wasting my time.

Emily didn’t think so though.

I told her about it later. Not, about talking to her father, but talking to her father about frogs. Told her he thought our experiments were silly. That he couldn’t see the possibilities if we could learn how it was done and replicate it. She did not think it was silly. Extraordinary as it may seem, she claims that it happened to her, when she was a little girl. She had tuberculosis. Father couldn’t cure her and she died. Then a priest, apparently, prayed over her, and she came back to life. She says she remembers very little of it, only being very sick and falling asleep, then waking up. But her father was the one that pronounced her dead, and he was a competent doctor in his day, and she was dead some hour and a half or more before anyone could bring the priest from St. Michael. A miracle, which is ridiculous of course, but is proof that life can be returned to dead flesh even after the heart has stopped beating, even in mammalian life as well as amphibian. Proof that our experiments could still bear fruit despite recent set backs.

I must decide what I am going to do though.

If I wish to make real progress and real break throughs with the frogs, then I must spend real time with the project. It will not be enough to dabble as others have done throughout history, freezing and then thawing the frogs to watch the process and scratching my chin. We have already discovered the extent to which they may be amputated without endangering them during the process and have found some confirmations that it must be some secretion that enables them to return from death by washing it from them. We have even applied some more specialized tools to observing the reawakening process as heat moves inwards from the skin and the heart, regardless of its connection to the rest of the body, begins to beat again. Think what could be done if we could apply such techniques to men! Surgeries could be safely performed with the body completely frozen, the heart stopped. Ruined organs could be replaced! Men and women could be rescued from death even long after their heart has ceased to beat!

We would be like gods!

But all is theoretical

And frogs do not pay for honeymoons

or wedding rings.

Must think.

(Dated September of 1892)