From that day on, natural philosophy—and especially chemistry—became almost my entire life.
I read everything I could find about the subject. The works of modern scientists fascinated me, and I threw myself into my studies with an enthusiasm that seemed to grow stronger every day.
I attended every lecture I could and spent as much time as possible with the university’s scientists.
Even Professor Krempe began to earn my respect.
I still disliked his rough voice and unpleasant appearance, but I soon discovered that beneath them was a sharp mind and a great deal of useful knowledge.
Professor Waldman, however, became something much more important to me.
He was a true friend.
He never treated me as an inferior student. He explained difficult ideas patiently and never tried to impress me with complicated words.
Whenever I became confused, he found a simpler way to explain things.
Because of him, subjects that had once seemed impossible gradually became understandable.
At first, my studies were irregular. Some days I worked hard; on others, I lacked motivation.
But that soon changed.
My curiosity became stronger than my need for sleep.
Before long, I was spending entire nights in the laboratory.
Sometimes I would look up from my work and realize that dawn had already arrived and the stars had disappeared from the sky.
My progress was surprisingly fast.
The other students were amazed by how quickly I learned, and even my professors were impressed.
Professor Krempe occasionally teased me.
“So, Victor,” he said one day with a knowing smile, “how is your old friend Cornelius Agrippa?”
I understood the joke.
“You don’t have to worry,” I replied. “I’ve learned my lesson.”
Professor Waldman, on the other hand, was genuinely pleased with my progress.
He encouraged me constantly.
Two years passed like this.
During that entire time, I never returned to Geneva.
I was completely absorbed in science and determined to make discoveries of my own.
There is something dangerously exciting about scientific research.
In many subjects, you eventually reach the limits of what other people have already discovered.
Science is different.
There is always another question.
Another mystery.
Another door waiting to be opened.
Even an ordinary person who studies one subject with complete dedication can eventually become highly skilled at it.
I had only one goal, and I pursued it with all my strength.
After two years, I had made several improvements to scientific instruments used in chemical experiments.
The university began to recognize my work, and I earned a reputation among both students and professors.
Eventually, I had learned as much natural philosophy as the professors at Ingolstadt could teach me.
I began thinking seriously about returning to Geneva.
I missed my family.
I missed Elizabeth.
I missed my old life.
But then something happened that changed my plans completely.
For some time, I had been fascinated by the human body.
I wanted to understand what separated a living creature from a dead one.
One question kept returning to my mind.
Where does life come from?
It was an enormous question.
For centuries, people had treated it as one of nature’s greatest mysteries.
But I could not accept that mystery simply because everyone else had.
I thought about all the things humanity had already discovered.
How many more secrets might still be within our reach if we were brave enough to search for them?
I decided to focus my studies on physiology and the processes of life.
It was a terrible subject to study.
To understand life, I first had to understand death.
So I began studying anatomy.
But anatomy alone was not enough.
I needed to see what happened to the human body after death.
Fortunately, I had never been raised to fear ghosts or supernatural stories.
As a child, darkness had never frightened me.
A graveyard had never seemed mysterious. To me, it was simply a place where dead bodies were buried.
Now I began to see it differently.
I started visiting places where the dead were kept.
I spent long hours in burial vaults and rooms filled with corpses.
I examined bodies in various stages of decay.
I watched healthy human flesh lose its color and strength.
I saw the beauty of life disappear and the destruction of death take its place.
I studied every detail I could.
What happened to the body after death?
What caused those changes?
Could the process somehow be reversed?
I became obsessed.
Then, one day, everything suddenly came together.
A brilliant idea struck me.
It was so simple that I could hardly believe no one had discovered it before.
I had found what I believed was the secret behind the generation of life.
More than that, I believed I had discovered how to give life to something that had never been alive.
I know how this sounds.
You may think I am describing some feverish dream or the delusion of a madman.
I assure you, I am not.
The discovery came after countless experiments, failures, and sleepless nights.
But eventually, I succeeded.
I had discovered the principle that creates life.
And I had found a way to bring dead matter to life.
At first, I was overwhelmed with joy.
For years, I had struggled toward this goal.
Now I had finally reached it.
The greatest mystery that had challenged humanity for centuries was suddenly within my reach.
I imagined what this discovery could mean.
I could create life.
I could create a new kind of being.
Perhaps an entire new race could someday exist because of me.
I imagined them looking upon me as their creator.
No father, I thought, could ever receive greater gratitude from his children than I would receive from beings whose lives I had created.
And if I could bring dead matter back to life, perhaps one day I might even be able to restore people who had already died.
The possibilities seemed endless.
But discovering how to give life was only the beginning.
I still needed a body that could receive it.
That was an enormous problem.
A living body was incredibly complicated.
It required muscles, veins, nerves, organs, bones, and countless tiny structures working together perfectly.
At first, I considered creating a being as small and simple as possible.
But my confidence had grown too great after my first success.
“If I can understand the human body,” I told myself, “why shouldn’t I be able to create one?”
The materials I had available were far from perfect.
The work would be difficult.
I knew I would fail many times.
Perhaps the final result would be imperfect.
But science and technology were advancing every year.
Even my failures might help future scientists succeed.
I refused to let the size of the challenge discourage me.
I decided to create a human being.
There was one practical problem.
Working with tiny parts would take too much time.
So I made a decision that would later haunt me.
I would make the creature enormous.
It would stand about eight feet tall, with every part of its body enlarged accordingly.
Once I had made that decision, I spent months collecting the materials I needed.
Then I began.
At first, I was consumed by excitement.
I felt as though I were breaking through the ancient boundaries between life and death.
I imagined bringing light into a world that had always been surrounded by mystery.
I imagined a new species thanking me for giving it existence.
I imagined generations of beings who would owe their lives to me.
Those dreams kept me working.
I began to believe that if I could create life from dead matter, perhaps one day I could even reverse death itself.
That thought gave me incredible energy.
But the work slowly destroyed me.
My face became pale.
My body grew thin from spending so much time indoors.
I barely slept.
Sometimes I would come within inches of success, only to fail at the last moment.
Then I would begin again.
“Tomorrow,” I would tell myself. “Maybe tomorrow.”
No one knew what I was doing.
I kept the entire project secret.
Night after night, while the moon shone outside, I worked alone.
I went into places no decent person would willingly enter.
I collected bones from places where the dead had been buried.
I handled human remains.
I examined bodies in ways that would have horrified anyone who knew what I was doing.
Sometimes I even experimented on living animals.
My human conscience often rebelled against the work.
I would stop and feel sickened by what I had become.
But the obsession always returned.
I could not stop.
My laboratory was hidden away in a room at the top of the house, isolated from the rest of the building.
It was more like a filthy cell than a laboratory.
The work consumed every part of my attention.
My eyes burned from exhaustion.
My hands shook.
Yet I continued.
The dissecting room and slaughterhouse became sources for some of the materials I needed.
The work was disgusting, but I was determined to finish.
Summer passed.
Then autumn.
Then winter.
Spring returned, and the world outside came alive again.
Normally, I would have loved watching the fields turn green and the trees bloom.
Now I barely noticed.
I had forgotten how beautiful nature could be.
I had also forgotten my family.
They were hundreds of miles away, and I had not seen them for a very long time.
I knew my silence worried my father.
I remembered what he had once told me.
“I know you’ll think of us while you’re happy with your studies,” he had written. “But if you suddenly stop writing, I will have to assume that you’re neglecting other responsibilities as well.”
He had been right.
I knew exactly what he would think.
Yet I could not pull myself away from my work.
The project had become more important to me than anything else.
I told myself that once it was finished, I would return to my family and make up for everything.
But I kept postponing that day.
Looking back now, I realize my father had every reason to worry.
Knowledge is not automatically good simply because it is knowledge.
A person should be able to pursue an ambition without destroying everything else that gives life meaning.
If a pursuit makes you lose your love for your family, your friends, and the simple joys of life, then something has gone terribly wrong.
I learned that lesson too late.
My father never openly accused me of neglecting my family.
His letters remained kind.
Instead, he simply asked more questions about what I was doing.
But the seasons continued to change.
Winter passed.
Spring came.
Summer followed.
I barely noticed any of it.
The leaves began to fall again before my work finally approached completion.
By then, I could see clearly that I was succeeding.
But instead of feeling peaceful, I became more anxious.
I no longer looked like a scientist enjoying his work.
I looked like a prisoner forced to labor in a mine.
Every night I suffered from a low fever.
My nerves were constantly on edge.
The smallest sound could frighten me.
Even the falling of a leaf could make me jump.
I avoided other people as though I had committed some terrible crime.
Sometimes I caught sight of myself in a mirror and was shocked by what I had become.
But I refused to stop.
I was too close.
“My work will be finished soon,” I told myself.
“Then I’ll rest. I’ll go outside. I’ll see my family. I’ll become myself again.”
That promise was the only thing keeping me going.
I had no idea what would happen when my creation finally opened its eyes.