9019 lines
457 KiB
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}</style><title>Frankenstein | Project Gutenberg</title>
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<link rel="dcterms.isFormatOf" href="http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/84">
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<meta name="dc.creator" content="Shelley, Mary Wollstonecraft, 1797-1851">
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<meta name="dc.subject" content="Science fiction">
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<meta name="dc.subject" content="Horror tales">
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<meta name="dc.subject" content="Gothic fiction">
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<meta name="dc.subject" content="Scientists -- Fiction">
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<meta name="dc.subject" content="Monsters -- Fiction">
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<meta name="dc.subject" content="Frankenstein, Victor (Fictitious character) -- Fiction">
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<meta name="dc.subject" content="Frankenstein's monster (Fictitious character) -- Fiction">
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<body><header class="pg-boilerplate pgheader" id="pg-header" lang="en"><h2 id="pg-header-heading" title="">The Project Gutenberg eBook of <span lang="en" id="pg-title-no-subtitle">Frankenstein; or, the modern prometheus</span></h2>
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<div>This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and
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most other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions
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whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms
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of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online
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you will have to check the laws of the country where you are located
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before using this eBook.</div>
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<div class="container" id="pg-machine-header"><p><strong>Title</strong>: Frankenstein; or, the modern prometheus</p>
|
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<div id="pg-header-authlist">
|
||
<p><strong>Author</strong>: Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley</p>
|
||
</div>
|
||
<br>
|
||
|
||
<p><strong>Release date</strong>: October 1, 1993 [eBook #84]<br>
|
||
Most recently updated: February 10, 2026</p>
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|
||
<p><strong>Language</strong>: English</p>
|
||
|
||
<p><strong>Other information and formats</strong>: <a href="https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/84">www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/84</a></p>
|
||
|
||
<p><strong>Credits</strong>: Judith Boss, Christy Phillips, Lynn Hanninen and David Meltzer. HTML version by Al Haines.<br>
|
||
Further corrections by Menno de Leeuw.</p>
|
||
|
||
</div><div id="pg-start-separator">
|
||
<span>*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK FRANKENSTEIN; OR, THE MODERN PROMETHEUS ***</span>
|
||
</div></header><div></div>
|
||
|
||
<h1>Frankenstein;</h1>
|
||
|
||
<h3>or, the Modern Prometheus</h3>
|
||
|
||
<h2 class="no-break">by Mary Wollstonecraft (Godwin) Shelley</h2>
|
||
|
||
<hr>
|
||
|
||
<div class="chapter">
|
||
|
||
<h2>CONTENTS</h2>
|
||
|
||
<table style="margin-right: auto; margin-left: auto">
|
||
|
||
<tbody><tr>
|
||
<td>
|
||
<a href="#letter1" class="pginternal">Letter 1</a>
|
||
</td>
|
||
</tr>
|
||
|
||
<tr>
|
||
<td>
|
||
<a href="#letter2" class="pginternal">Letter 2</a>
|
||
</td>
|
||
</tr>
|
||
|
||
<tr>
|
||
<td>
|
||
<a href="#letter3" class="pginternal">Letter 3</a>
|
||
</td>
|
||
</tr>
|
||
|
||
<tr>
|
||
<td>
|
||
<a href="#letter4" class="pginternal">Letter 4</a>
|
||
</td>
|
||
</tr>
|
||
|
||
<tr>
|
||
<td>
|
||
<a href="#chap01" class="pginternal">Chapter 1</a>
|
||
</td>
|
||
</tr>
|
||
|
||
<tr>
|
||
<td>
|
||
<a href="#chap02" class="pginternal">Chapter 2</a>
|
||
</td>
|
||
</tr>
|
||
|
||
<tr>
|
||
<td>
|
||
<a href="#chap03" class="pginternal">Chapter 3</a>
|
||
</td>
|
||
</tr>
|
||
|
||
<tr>
|
||
<td>
|
||
<a href="#chap04" class="pginternal">Chapter 4</a>
|
||
</td>
|
||
</tr>
|
||
|
||
<tr>
|
||
<td>
|
||
<a href="#chap05" class="pginternal">Chapter 5</a>
|
||
</td>
|
||
</tr>
|
||
|
||
<tr>
|
||
<td>
|
||
<a href="#chap06" class="pginternal">Chapter 6</a>
|
||
</td>
|
||
</tr>
|
||
|
||
<tr>
|
||
<td>
|
||
<a href="#chap07" class="pginternal">Chapter 7</a>
|
||
</td>
|
||
</tr>
|
||
|
||
<tr>
|
||
<td>
|
||
<a href="#chap08" class="pginternal">Chapter 8</a>
|
||
</td>
|
||
</tr>
|
||
|
||
<tr>
|
||
<td>
|
||
<a href="#chap09" class="pginternal">Chapter 9</a>
|
||
</td>
|
||
</tr>
|
||
|
||
<tr>
|
||
<td>
|
||
<a href="#chap10" class="pginternal">Chapter 10</a>
|
||
</td>
|
||
</tr>
|
||
|
||
<tr>
|
||
<td>
|
||
<a href="#chap11" class="pginternal">Chapter 11</a>
|
||
</td>
|
||
</tr>
|
||
|
||
<tr>
|
||
<td>
|
||
<a href="#chap12" class="pginternal">Chapter 12</a>
|
||
</td>
|
||
</tr>
|
||
|
||
<tr>
|
||
<td>
|
||
<a href="#chap13" class="pginternal">Chapter 13</a>
|
||
</td>
|
||
</tr>
|
||
|
||
<tr>
|
||
<td>
|
||
<a href="#chap14" class="pginternal">Chapter 14</a>
|
||
</td>
|
||
</tr>
|
||
|
||
<tr>
|
||
<td>
|
||
<a href="#chap15" class="pginternal">Chapter 15</a>
|
||
</td>
|
||
</tr>
|
||
|
||
<tr>
|
||
<td>
|
||
<a href="#chap16" class="pginternal">Chapter 16</a>
|
||
</td>
|
||
</tr>
|
||
|
||
<tr>
|
||
<td>
|
||
<a href="#chap17" class="pginternal">Chapter 17</a>
|
||
</td>
|
||
</tr>
|
||
|
||
<tr>
|
||
<td>
|
||
<a href="#chap18" class="pginternal">Chapter 18</a>
|
||
</td>
|
||
</tr>
|
||
|
||
<tr>
|
||
<td>
|
||
<a href="#chap19" class="pginternal">Chapter 19</a>
|
||
</td>
|
||
</tr>
|
||
|
||
<tr>
|
||
<td>
|
||
<a href="#chap20" class="pginternal">Chapter 20</a>
|
||
</td>
|
||
</tr>
|
||
|
||
<tr>
|
||
<td>
|
||
<a href="#chap21" class="pginternal">Chapter 21</a>
|
||
</td>
|
||
</tr>
|
||
|
||
<tr>
|
||
<td>
|
||
<a href="#chap22" class="pginternal">Chapter 22</a>
|
||
</td>
|
||
</tr>
|
||
|
||
<tr>
|
||
<td>
|
||
<a href="#chap23" class="pginternal">Chapter 23</a>
|
||
</td>
|
||
</tr>
|
||
|
||
<tr>
|
||
<td>
|
||
<a href="#chap24" class="pginternal">Chapter 24</a>
|
||
</td>
|
||
</tr>
|
||
|
||
</tbody></table>
|
||
|
||
</div><!--end chapter-->
|
||
|
||
<div class="chapter">
|
||
|
||
<h2><a id="letter1"></a>Letter 1</h2>
|
||
|
||
<p class="letter2">
|
||
<i>To Mrs. Saville, England.</i>
|
||
</p>
|
||
|
||
<p class="right">
|
||
St. Petersburgh, Dec. 11th, 17—.
|
||
</p>
|
||
|
||
<p>
|
||
You will rejoice to hear that no disaster has accompanied the commencement of
|
||
an enterprise which you have regarded with such evil forebodings. I arrived
|
||
here yesterday, and my first task is to assure my dear sister of my welfare and
|
||
increasing confidence in the success of my undertaking.
|
||
</p>
|
||
|
||
<p>
|
||
I am already far north of London, and as I walk in the streets of Petersburgh,
|
||
I feel a cold northern breeze play upon my cheeks, which braces my nerves and
|
||
fills me with delight. Do you understand this feeling? This breeze, which has
|
||
travelled from the regions towards which I am advancing, gives me a foretaste
|
||
of those icy climes. Inspirited by this wind of promise, my daydreams become
|
||
more fervent and vivid. I try in vain to be persuaded that the pole is the seat
|
||
of frost and desolation; it ever presents itself to my imagination as the
|
||
region of beauty and delight. There, Margaret, the sun is for ever visible, its
|
||
broad disk just skirting the horizon and diffusing a perpetual splendour.
|
||
There—for with your leave, my sister, I will put some trust in preceding
|
||
navigators—there snow and frost are banished; and, sailing over a calm sea, we
|
||
may be wafted to a land surpassing in wonders and in beauty every region
|
||
hitherto discovered on the habitable globe. Its productions and features may be
|
||
without example, as the phenomena of the heavenly bodies undoubtedly are in
|
||
those undiscovered solitudes. What may not be expected in a country of eternal
|
||
light? I may there discover the wondrous power which attracts the needle and
|
||
may regulate a thousand celestial observations that require only this voyage to
|
||
render their seeming eccentricities consistent for ever. I shall satiate my
|
||
ardent curiosity with the sight of a part of the world never before visited,
|
||
and may tread a land never before imprinted by the foot of man. These are my
|
||
enticements, and they are sufficient to conquer all fear of danger or death and
|
||
to induce me to commence this laborious voyage with the joy a child feels when
|
||
he embarks in a little boat, with his holiday mates, on an expedition of
|
||
discovery up his native river. But supposing all these conjectures to be false,
|
||
you cannot contest the inestimable benefit which I shall confer on all mankind,
|
||
to the last generation, by discovering a passage near the pole to those
|
||
countries, to reach which at present so many months are requisite; or by
|
||
ascertaining the secret of the magnet, which, if at all possible, can only be
|
||
effected by an undertaking such as mine.
|
||
</p>
|
||
|
||
<p>
|
||
These reflections have dispelled the agitation with which I began my letter,
|
||
and I feel my heart glow with an enthusiasm which elevates me to heaven, for
|
||
nothing contributes so much to tranquillise the mind as a steady purpose—a
|
||
point on which the soul may fix its intellectual eye. This expedition has been
|
||
the favourite dream of my early years. I have read with ardour the accounts of
|
||
the various voyages which have been made in the prospect of arriving at the
|
||
North Pacific Ocean through the seas which surround the pole. You may remember
|
||
that a history of all the voyages made for purposes of discovery composed the
|
||
whole of our good Uncle Thomas’ library. My education was neglected, yet I was
|
||
passionately fond of reading. These volumes were my study day and night, and my
|
||
familiarity with them increased that regret which I had felt, as a child, on
|
||
learning that my father’s dying injunction had forbidden my uncle to allow me
|
||
to embark in a seafaring life.
|
||
</p>
|
||
|
||
<p>
|
||
These visions faded when I perused, for the first time, those poets whose
|
||
effusions entranced my soul and lifted it to heaven. I also became a poet and
|
||
for one year lived in a paradise of my own creation; I imagined that I also
|
||
might obtain a niche in the temple where the names of Homer and Shakespeare are
|
||
consecrated. You are well acquainted with my failure and how heavily I bore the
|
||
disappointment. But just at that time I inherited the fortune of my cousin, and
|
||
my thoughts were turned into the channel of their earlier bent.
|
||
</p>
|
||
|
||
<p>
|
||
Six years have passed since I resolved on my present undertaking. I can, even
|
||
now, remember the hour from which I dedicated myself to this great enterprise.
|
||
I commenced by inuring my body to hardship. I accompanied the whale-fishers on
|
||
several expeditions to the North Sea; I voluntarily endured cold, famine,
|
||
thirst, and want of sleep; I often worked harder than the common sailors during
|
||
the day and devoted my nights to the study of mathematics, the theory of
|
||
medicine, and those branches of physical science from which a naval adventurer
|
||
might derive the greatest practical advantage. Twice I actually hired myself as
|
||
an under-mate in a Greenland whaler, and acquitted myself to admiration. I must
|
||
own I felt a little proud when my captain offered me the second dignity in the
|
||
vessel and entreated me to remain with the greatest earnestness, so valuable
|
||
did he consider my services.
|
||
</p>
|
||
|
||
<p>
|
||
And now, dear Margaret, do I not deserve to accomplish some great purpose? My
|
||
life might have been passed in ease and luxury, but I preferred glory to every
|
||
enticement that wealth placed in my path. Oh, that some encouraging voice would
|
||
answer in the affirmative! My courage and my resolution is firm; but my hopes
|
||
fluctuate, and my spirits are often depressed. I am about to proceed on a long
|
||
and difficult voyage, the emergencies of which will demand all my fortitude: I
|
||
am required not only to raise the spirits of others, but sometimes to sustain
|
||
my own, when theirs are failing.
|
||
</p>
|
||
|
||
<p>
|
||
This is the most favourable period for travelling in Russia. They fly quickly
|
||
over the snow in their sledges; the motion is pleasant, and, in my opinion, far
|
||
more agreeable than that of an English stagecoach. The cold is not excessive,
|
||
if you are wrapped in furs—a dress which I have already adopted, for there is a
|
||
great difference between walking the deck and remaining seated motionless for
|
||
hours, when no exercise prevents the blood from actually freezing in your
|
||
veins. I have no ambition to lose my life on the post-road between St.
|
||
Petersburgh and Archangel.
|
||
</p>
|
||
|
||
<p>
|
||
I shall depart for the latter town in a fortnight or three weeks; and my
|
||
intention is to hire a ship there, which can easily be done by paying the
|
||
insurance for the owner, and to engage as many sailors as I think necessary
|
||
among those who are accustomed to the whale-fishing. I do not intend to sail
|
||
until the month of June; and when shall I return? Ah, dear sister, how can I
|
||
answer this question? If I succeed, many, many months, perhaps years, will pass
|
||
before you and I may meet. If I fail, you will see me again soon, or never.
|
||
</p>
|
||
|
||
<p>
|
||
Farewell, my dear, excellent Margaret. Heaven shower down blessings on you, and
|
||
save me, that I may again and again testify my gratitude for all your love and
|
||
kindness.
|
||
</p>
|
||
|
||
<p class="right">
|
||
Your affectionate brother,<br>
|
||
R. Walton
|
||
</p>
|
||
|
||
</div><!--end chapter-->
|
||
|
||
<div class="chapter">
|
||
|
||
<h2><a id="letter2"></a>Letter 2</h2>
|
||
|
||
<p class="letter2">
|
||
<i>To Mrs. Saville, England.</i>
|
||
</p>
|
||
|
||
<p class="right">
|
||
Archangel, 28th March, 17—.
|
||
</p>
|
||
|
||
<p>
|
||
How slowly the time passes here, encompassed as I am by frost and snow! Yet a
|
||
second step is taken towards my enterprise. I have hired a vessel and am
|
||
occupied in collecting my sailors; those whom I have already engaged appear to
|
||
be men on whom I can depend and are certainly possessed of dauntless courage.
|
||
</p>
|
||
|
||
<p>
|
||
But I have one want which I have never yet been able to satisfy, and the
|
||
absence of the object of which I now feel as a most severe evil, I have no
|
||
friend, Margaret: when I am glowing with the enthusiasm of success, there will
|
||
be none to participate my joy; if I am assailed by disappointment, no one will
|
||
endeavour to sustain me in dejection. I shall commit my thoughts to paper, it
|
||
is true; but that is a poor medium for the communication of feeling. I desire
|
||
the company of a man who could sympathise with me, whose eyes would reply to
|
||
mine. You may deem me romantic, my dear sister, but I bitterly feel the want of
|
||
a friend. I have no one near me, gentle yet courageous, possessed of a
|
||
cultivated as well as of a capacious mind, whose tastes are like my own, to
|
||
approve or amend my plans. How would such a friend repair the faults of your
|
||
poor brother! I am too ardent in execution and too impatient of difficulties.
|
||
But it is a still greater evil to me that I am self-educated: for the first
|
||
fourteen years of my life I ran wild on a common and read nothing but our Uncle
|
||
Thomas’ books of voyages. At that age I became acquainted with the celebrated
|
||
poets of our own country; but it was only when it had ceased to be in my power
|
||
to derive its most important benefits from such a conviction that I perceived
|
||
the necessity of becoming acquainted with more languages than that of my native
|
||
country. Now I am twenty-eight and am in reality more illiterate than many
|
||
schoolboys of fifteen. It is true that I have thought more and that my
|
||
daydreams are more extended and magnificent, but they want (as the painters
|
||
call it) <i>keeping;</i> and I greatly need a friend who would have sense
|
||
enough not to despise me as romantic, and affection enough for me to endeavour
|
||
to regulate my mind.
|
||
</p>
|
||
|
||
<p>
|
||
Well, these are useless complaints; I shall certainly find no friend on the
|
||
wide ocean, nor even here in Archangel, among merchants and seamen. Yet some
|
||
feelings, unallied to the dross of human nature, beat even in these rugged
|
||
bosoms. My lieutenant, for instance, is a man of wonderful courage and
|
||
enterprise; he is madly desirous of glory, or rather, to word my phrase more
|
||
characteristically, of advancement in his profession. He is an Englishman, and
|
||
in the midst of national and professional prejudices, unsoftened by
|
||
cultivation, retains some of the noblest endowments of humanity. I first became
|
||
acquainted with him on board a whale vessel; finding that he was unemployed in
|
||
this city, I easily engaged him to assist in my enterprise.
|
||
</p>
|
||
|
||
<p>
|
||
The master is a person of an excellent disposition and is remarkable in the
|
||
ship for his gentleness and the mildness of his discipline. This circumstance,
|
||
added to his well-known integrity and dauntless courage, made me very desirous
|
||
to engage him. A youth passed in solitude, my best years spent under your
|
||
gentle and feminine fosterage, has so refined the groundwork of my character
|
||
that I cannot overcome an intense distaste to the usual brutality exercised on
|
||
board ship: I have never believed it to be necessary, and when I heard of a
|
||
mariner equally noted for his kindliness of heart and the respect and obedience
|
||
paid to him by his crew, I felt myself peculiarly fortunate in being able to
|
||
secure his services. I heard of him first in rather a romantic manner, from a
|
||
lady who owes to him the happiness of her life. This, briefly, is his story.
|
||
Some years ago he loved a young Russian lady of moderate fortune, and having
|
||
amassed a considerable sum in prize-money, the father of the girl consented to
|
||
the match. He saw his mistress once before the destined ceremony; but she was
|
||
bathed in tears, and throwing herself at his feet, entreated him to spare her,
|
||
confessing at the same time that she loved another, but that he was poor, and
|
||
that her father would never consent to the union. My generous friend reassured
|
||
the suppliant, and on being informed of the name of her lover, instantly
|
||
abandoned his pursuit. He had already bought a farm with his money, on which he
|
||
had designed to pass the remainder of his life; but he bestowed the whole on
|
||
his rival, together with the remains of his prize-money to purchase stock, and
|
||
then himself solicited the young woman’s father to consent to her marriage with
|
||
her lover. But the old man decidedly refused, thinking himself bound in honour
|
||
to my friend, who, when he found the father inexorable, quitted his country,
|
||
nor returned until he heard that his former mistress was married according to
|
||
her inclinations. “What a noble fellow!” you will exclaim. He is so; but then
|
||
he is wholly uneducated: he is as silent as a Turk, and a kind of ignorant
|
||
carelessness attends him, which, while it renders his conduct the more
|
||
astonishing, detracts from the interest and sympathy which otherwise he would
|
||
command.
|
||
</p>
|
||
|
||
<p>
|
||
Yet do not suppose, because I complain a little or because I can conceive a
|
||
consolation for my toils which I may never know, that I am wavering in my
|
||
resolutions. Those are as fixed as fate, and my voyage is only now delayed
|
||
until the weather shall permit my embarkation. The winter has been dreadfully
|
||
severe, but the spring promises well, and it is considered as a remarkably
|
||
early season, so that perhaps I may sail sooner than I expected. I shall do
|
||
nothing rashly: you know me sufficiently to confide in my prudence and
|
||
considerateness whenever the safety of others is committed to my care.
|
||
</p>
|
||
|
||
<p>
|
||
I cannot describe to you my sensations on the near prospect of my undertaking.
|
||
It is impossible to communicate to you a conception of the trembling sensation,
|
||
half pleasurable and half fearful, with which I am preparing to depart. I am
|
||
going to unexplored regions, to “the land of mist and snow,” but I shall kill
|
||
no albatross; therefore do not be alarmed for my safety or if I should come
|
||
back to you as worn and woeful as the “Ancient Mariner.” You will smile at my
|
||
allusion, but I will disclose a secret. I have often attributed my attachment
|
||
to, my passionate enthusiasm for, the dangerous mysteries of ocean to that
|
||
production of the most imaginative of modern poets. There is something at work
|
||
in my soul which I do not understand. I am practically industrious—painstaking,
|
||
a workman to execute with perseverance and labour—but besides this there is a
|
||
love for the marvellous, a belief in the marvellous, intertwined in all my
|
||
projects, which hurries me out of the common pathways of men, even to the wild
|
||
sea and unvisited regions I am about to explore.
|
||
</p>
|
||
|
||
<p>
|
||
But to return to dearer considerations. Shall I meet you again, after having
|
||
traversed immense seas, and returned by the most southern cape of Africa or
|
||
America? I dare not expect such success, yet I cannot bear to look on the
|
||
reverse of the picture. Continue for the present to write to me by every
|
||
opportunity: I may receive your letters on some occasions when I need them most
|
||
to support my spirits. I love you very tenderly. Remember me with affection,
|
||
should you never hear from me again.
|
||
</p>
|
||
|
||
<p class="right">
|
||
Your affectionate brother,<br>
|
||
Robert Walton
|
||
</p>
|
||
|
||
</div><!--end chapter-->
|
||
|
||
<div class="chapter">
|
||
|
||
<h2><a id="letter3"></a>Letter 3</h2>
|
||
|
||
<p class="letter2">
|
||
<i>To Mrs. Saville, England.</i>
|
||
</p>
|
||
|
||
<p class="right">
|
||
July 7th, 17—.
|
||
</p>
|
||
|
||
<p>
|
||
My dear Sister,
|
||
</p>
|
||
|
||
<p>
|
||
I write a few lines in haste to say that I am safe—and well advanced on my
|
||
voyage. This letter will reach England by a merchantman now on its homeward
|
||
voyage from Archangel; more fortunate than I, who may not see my native land,
|
||
perhaps, for many years. I am, however, in good spirits: my men are bold and
|
||
apparently firm of purpose, nor do the floating sheets of ice that continually
|
||
pass us, indicating the dangers of the region towards which we are advancing,
|
||
appear to dismay them. We have already reached a very high latitude; but it is
|
||
the height of summer, and although not so warm as in England, the southern
|
||
gales, which blow us speedily towards those shores which I so ardently desire
|
||
to attain, breathe a degree of renovating warmth which I had not expected.
|
||
</p>
|
||
|
||
<p>
|
||
No incidents have hitherto befallen us that would make a figure in a letter.
|
||
One or two stiff gales and the springing of a leak are accidents which
|
||
experienced navigators scarcely remember to record, and I shall be well content
|
||
if nothing worse happen to us during our voyage.
|
||
</p>
|
||
|
||
<p>
|
||
Adieu, my dear Margaret. Be assured that for my own sake, as well as yours, I
|
||
will not rashly encounter danger. I will be cool, persevering, and prudent.
|
||
</p>
|
||
|
||
<p>
|
||
But success <i>shall</i> crown my endeavours. Wherefore not? Thus far I have
|
||
gone, tracing a secure way over the pathless seas, the very stars themselves
|
||
being witnesses and testimonies of my triumph. Why not still proceed over the
|
||
untamed yet obedient element? What can stop the determined heart and resolved
|
||
will of man?
|
||
</p>
|
||
|
||
<p>
|
||
My swelling heart involuntarily pours itself out thus. But I must finish.
|
||
Heaven bless my beloved sister!
|
||
</p>
|
||
|
||
<p class="right">
|
||
R.W.
|
||
</p>
|
||
|
||
</div><!--end chapter-->
|
||
|
||
<div class="chapter">
|
||
|
||
<h2><a id="letter4"></a>Letter 4</h2>
|
||
|
||
<p class="letter2">
|
||
<i>To Mrs. Saville, England.</i>
|
||
</p>
|
||
|
||
<p class="right">
|
||
August 5th, 17—.
|
||
</p>
|
||
|
||
<p>
|
||
So strange an accident has happened to us that I cannot forbear recording it,
|
||
although it is very probable that you will see me before these papers can come
|
||
into your possession.
|
||
</p>
|
||
|
||
<p>
|
||
Last Monday (July 31st) we were nearly surrounded by ice, which closed in the
|
||
ship on all sides, scarcely leaving her the sea-room in which she floated. Our
|
||
situation was somewhat dangerous, especially as we were compassed round by a
|
||
very thick fog. We accordingly lay to, hoping that some change would take place
|
||
in the atmosphere and weather.
|
||
</p>
|
||
|
||
<p>
|
||
About two o’clock the mist cleared away, and we beheld, stretched out in every
|
||
direction, vast and irregular plains of ice, which seemed to have no end. Some
|
||
of my comrades groaned, and my own mind began to grow watchful with anxious
|
||
thoughts, when a strange sight suddenly attracted our attention and diverted
|
||
our solicitude from our own situation. We perceived a low carriage, fixed on a
|
||
sledge and drawn by dogs, pass on towards the north, at the distance of half a
|
||
mile; a being which had the shape of a man, but apparently of gigantic stature,
|
||
sat in the sledge and guided the dogs. We watched the rapid progress of the
|
||
traveller with our telescopes until he was lost among the distant inequalities
|
||
of the ice.
|
||
</p>
|
||
|
||
<p>
|
||
This appearance excited our unqualified wonder. We were, as we believed, many
|
||
hundred miles from any land; but this apparition seemed to denote that it was
|
||
not, in reality, so distant as we had supposed. Shut in, however, by ice, it
|
||
was impossible to follow his track, which we had observed with the greatest
|
||
attention.
|
||
</p>
|
||
|
||
<p>
|
||
About two hours after this occurrence we heard the ground sea, and before night
|
||
the ice broke and freed our ship. We, however, lay to until the morning,
|
||
fearing to encounter in the dark those large loose masses which float about
|
||
after the breaking up of the ice. I profited of this time to rest for a few
|
||
hours.
|
||
</p>
|
||
|
||
<p>
|
||
In the morning, however, as soon as it was light, I went upon deck and found
|
||
all the sailors busy on one side of the vessel, apparently talking to someone
|
||
in the sea. It was, in fact, a sledge, like that we had seen before, which had
|
||
drifted towards us in the night on a large fragment of ice. Only one dog
|
||
remained alive; but there was a human being within it whom the sailors were
|
||
persuading to enter the vessel. He was not, as the other traveller seemed to
|
||
be, a savage inhabitant of some undiscovered island, but a European. When I
|
||
appeared on deck the master said, “Here is our captain, and he will not allow
|
||
you to perish on the open sea.”
|
||
</p>
|
||
|
||
<p>
|
||
On perceiving me, the stranger addressed me in English, although with a foreign
|
||
accent. “Before I come on board your vessel,” said he, “will you have the
|
||
kindness to inform me whither you are bound?”
|
||
</p>
|
||
|
||
<p>
|
||
You may conceive my astonishment on hearing such a question addressed to me
|
||
from a man on the brink of destruction and to whom I should have supposed that
|
||
my vessel would have been a resource which he would not have exchanged for the
|
||
most precious wealth the earth can afford. I replied, however, that we were on
|
||
a voyage of discovery towards the northern pole.
|
||
</p>
|
||
|
||
<p>
|
||
Upon hearing this he appeared satisfied and consented to come on board. Good
|
||
God! Margaret, if you had seen the man who thus capitulated for his safety,
|
||
your surprise would have been boundless. His limbs were nearly frozen, and his
|
||
body dreadfully emaciated by fatigue and suffering. I never saw a man in so
|
||
wretched a condition. We attempted to carry him into the cabin, but as soon as
|
||
he had quitted the fresh air he fainted. We accordingly brought him back to the
|
||
deck and restored him to animation by rubbing him with brandy and forcing him
|
||
to swallow a small quantity. As soon as he showed signs of life we wrapped him
|
||
up in blankets and placed him near the chimney of the kitchen stove. By slow
|
||
degrees he recovered and ate a little soup, which restored him wonderfully.
|
||
</p>
|
||
|
||
<p>
|
||
Two days passed in this manner before he was able to speak, and I often feared
|
||
that his sufferings had deprived him of understanding. When he had in some
|
||
measure recovered, I removed him to my own cabin and attended on him as much as
|
||
my duty would permit. I never saw a more interesting creature: his eyes have
|
||
generally an expression of wildness, and even madness, but there are moments
|
||
when, if anyone performs an act of kindness towards him or does him any the
|
||
most trifling service, his whole countenance is lighted up, as it were, with a
|
||
beam of benevolence and sweetness that I never saw equalled. But he is
|
||
generally melancholy and despairing, and sometimes he gnashes his teeth, as if
|
||
impatient of the weight of woes that oppresses him.
|
||
</p>
|
||
|
||
<p>
|
||
When my guest was a little recovered I had great trouble to keep off the men,
|
||
who wished to ask him a thousand questions; but I would not allow him to be
|
||
tormented by their idle curiosity, in a state of body and mind whose
|
||
restoration evidently depended upon entire repose. Once, however, the
|
||
lieutenant asked why he had come so far upon the ice in so strange a vehicle.
|
||
</p>
|
||
|
||
<p>
|
||
His countenance instantly assumed an aspect of the deepest gloom, and he
|
||
replied, “To seek one who fled from me.”
|
||
</p>
|
||
|
||
<p>
|
||
“And did the man whom you pursued travel in the same fashion?”
|
||
</p>
|
||
|
||
<p>
|
||
“Yes.”
|
||
</p>
|
||
|
||
<p>
|
||
“Then I fancy we have seen him, for the day before we picked you up we saw some
|
||
dogs drawing a sledge, with a man in it, across the ice.”
|
||
</p>
|
||
|
||
<p>
|
||
This aroused the stranger’s attention, and he asked a multitude of questions
|
||
concerning the route which the dæmon, as he called him, had pursued. Soon
|
||
after, when he was alone with me, he said, “I have, doubtless, excited your
|
||
curiosity, as well as that of these good people; but you are too considerate to
|
||
make inquiries.”
|
||
</p>
|
||
|
||
<p>
|
||
“Certainly; it would indeed be very impertinent and inhuman in me to trouble
|
||
you with any inquisitiveness of mine.”
|
||
</p>
|
||
|
||
<p>
|
||
“And yet you rescued me from a strange and perilous situation; you have
|
||
benevolently restored me to life.”
|
||
</p>
|
||
|
||
<p>
|
||
Soon after this he inquired if I thought that the breaking up of the ice had
|
||
destroyed the other sledge. I replied that I could not answer with any degree
|
||
of certainty, for the ice had not broken until near midnight, and the traveller
|
||
might have arrived at a place of safety before that time; but of this I could
|
||
not judge.
|
||
</p>
|
||
|
||
<p>
|
||
From this time a new spirit of life animated the decaying frame of the
|
||
stranger. He manifested the greatest eagerness to be upon deck to watch for the
|
||
sledge which had before appeared; but I have persuaded him to remain in the
|
||
cabin, for he is far too weak to sustain the rawness of the atmosphere. I have
|
||
promised that someone should watch for him and give him instant notice if any
|
||
new object should appear in sight.
|
||
</p>
|
||
|
||
<p>
|
||
Such is my journal of what relates to this strange occurrence up to the present
|
||
day. The stranger has gradually improved in health but is very silent and
|
||
appears uneasy when anyone except myself enters his cabin. Yet his manners are
|
||
so conciliating and gentle that the sailors are all interested in him, although
|
||
they have had very little communication with him. For my own part, I begin to
|
||
love him as a brother, and his constant and deep grief fills me with sympathy
|
||
and compassion. He must have been a noble creature in his better days, being
|
||
even now in wreck so attractive and amiable.
|
||
</p>
|
||
|
||
<p>
|
||
I said in one of my letters, my dear Margaret, that I should find no friend on
|
||
the wide ocean; yet I have found a man who, before his spirit had been broken
|
||
by misery, I should have been happy to have possessed as the brother of my
|
||
heart.
|
||
</p>
|
||
|
||
<p>
|
||
I shall continue my journal concerning the stranger at intervals, should I have
|
||
any fresh incidents to record.
|
||
</p>
|
||
|
||
<p class="right">
|
||
August 13th, 17—.
|
||
</p>
|
||
|
||
<p>
|
||
My affection for my guest increases every day. He excites at once my admiration
|
||
and my pity to an astonishing degree. How can I see so noble a creature
|
||
destroyed by misery without feeling the most poignant grief? He is so gentle,
|
||
yet so wise; his mind is so cultivated, and when he speaks, although his words
|
||
are culled with the choicest art, yet they flow with rapidity and unparalleled
|
||
eloquence.
|
||
</p>
|
||
|
||
<p>
|
||
He is now much recovered from his illness and is continually on the deck,
|
||
apparently watching for the sledge that preceded his own. Yet, although
|
||
unhappy, he is not so utterly occupied by his own misery but that he interests
|
||
himself deeply in the projects of others. He has frequently conversed with me
|
||
on mine, which I have communicated to him without disguise. He entered
|
||
attentively into all my arguments in favour of my eventual success and into
|
||
every minute detail of the measures I had taken to secure it. I was easily led
|
||
by the sympathy which he evinced to use the language of my heart, to give
|
||
utterance to the burning ardour of my soul and to say, with all the fervour
|
||
that warmed me, how gladly I would sacrifice my fortune, my existence, my every
|
||
hope, to the furtherance of my enterprise. One man’s life or death were but a
|
||
small price to pay for the acquirement of the knowledge which I sought, for the
|
||
dominion I should acquire and transmit over the elemental foes of our race. As
|
||
I spoke, a dark gloom spread over my listener’s countenance. At first I
|
||
perceived that he tried to suppress his emotion; he placed his hands before his
|
||
eyes, and my voice quivered and failed me as I beheld tears trickle fast from
|
||
between his fingers; a groan burst from his heaving breast. I paused; at length
|
||
he spoke, in broken accents: “Unhappy man! Do you share my madness? Have you
|
||
drunk also of the intoxicating draught? Hear me; let me reveal my tale, and you
|
||
will dash the cup from your lips!”
|
||
</p>
|
||
|
||
<p>
|
||
Such words, you may imagine, strongly excited my curiosity; but the paroxysm of
|
||
grief that had seized the stranger overcame his weakened powers, and many hours
|
||
of repose and tranquil conversation were necessary to restore his composure.
|
||
</p>
|
||
|
||
<p>
|
||
Having conquered the violence of his feelings, he appeared to despise himself
|
||
for being the slave of passion; and quelling the dark tyranny of despair, he
|
||
led me again to converse concerning myself personally. He asked me the history
|
||
of my earlier years. The tale was quickly told, but it awakened various trains
|
||
of reflection. I spoke of my desire of finding a friend, of my thirst for a
|
||
more intimate sympathy with a fellow mind than had ever fallen to my lot, and
|
||
expressed my conviction that a man could boast of little happiness who did not
|
||
enjoy this blessing.
|
||
</p>
|
||
|
||
<p>
|
||
“I agree with you,” replied the stranger; “we are unfashioned creatures, but
|
||
half made up, if one wiser, better, dearer than ourselves—such a friend ought
|
||
to be—do not lend his aid to perfectionate our weak and faulty natures. I once
|
||
had a friend, the most noble of human creatures, and am entitled, therefore, to
|
||
judge respecting friendship. You have hope, and the world before you, and have
|
||
no cause for despair. But I—I have lost everything and cannot begin life anew.”
|
||
</p>
|
||
|
||
<p>
|
||
As he said this his countenance became expressive of a calm, settled grief that
|
||
touched me to the heart. But he was silent and presently retired to his cabin.
|
||
</p>
|
||
|
||
<p>
|
||
Even broken in spirit as he is, no one can feel more deeply than he does the
|
||
beauties of nature. The starry sky, the sea, and every sight afforded by these
|
||
wonderful regions seem still to have the power of elevating his soul from
|
||
earth. Such a man has a double existence: he may suffer misery and be
|
||
overwhelmed by disappointments, yet when he has retired into himself, he will
|
||
be like a celestial spirit that has a halo around him, within whose circle no
|
||
grief or folly ventures.
|
||
</p>
|
||
|
||
<p>
|
||
Will you smile at the enthusiasm I express concerning this divine wanderer? You
|
||
would not if you saw him. You have been tutored and refined by books and
|
||
retirement from the world, and you are therefore somewhat fastidious; but this
|
||
only renders you the more fit to appreciate the extraordinary merits of this
|
||
wonderful man. Sometimes I have endeavoured to discover what quality it is
|
||
which he possesses that elevates him so immeasurably above any other person I
|
||
ever knew. I believe it to be an intuitive discernment, a quick but
|
||
never-failing power of judgment, a penetration into the causes of things,
|
||
unequalled for clearness and precision; add to this a facility of expression
|
||
and a voice whose varied intonations are soul-subduing music.
|
||
</p>
|
||
|
||
<p class="right">
|
||
August 19th, 17—.
|
||
</p>
|
||
|
||
<p>
|
||
Yesterday the stranger said to me, “You may easily perceive, Captain Walton,
|
||
that I have suffered great and unparalleled misfortunes. I had determined at
|
||
one time that the memory of these evils should die with me, but you have won me
|
||
to alter my determination. You seek for knowledge and wisdom, as I once did;
|
||
and I ardently hope that the gratification of your wishes may not be a serpent
|
||
to sting you, as mine has been. I do not know that the relation of my disasters
|
||
will be useful to you; yet, when I reflect that you are pursuing the same
|
||
course, exposing yourself to the same dangers which have rendered me what I am,
|
||
I imagine that you may deduce an apt moral from my tale, one that may direct
|
||
you if you succeed in your undertaking and console you in case of failure.
|
||
Prepare to hear of occurrences which are usually deemed marvellous. Were we
|
||
among the tamer scenes of nature I might fear to encounter your unbelief,
|
||
perhaps your ridicule; but many things will appear possible in these wild and
|
||
mysterious regions which would provoke the laughter of those unacquainted with
|
||
the ever-varied powers of nature; nor can I doubt but that my tale conveys in
|
||
its series internal evidence of the truth of the events of which it is
|
||
composed.”
|
||
</p>
|
||
|
||
<p>
|
||
You may easily imagine that I was much gratified by the offered communication,
|
||
yet I could not endure that he should renew his grief by a recital of his
|
||
misfortunes. I felt the greatest eagerness to hear the promised narrative,
|
||
partly from curiosity and partly from a strong desire to ameliorate his fate if
|
||
it were in my power. I expressed these feelings in my answer.
|
||
</p>
|
||
|
||
<p>
|
||
“I thank you,” he replied, “for your sympathy, but it is useless; my fate is
|
||
nearly fulfilled. I wait but for one event, and then I shall repose in peace. I
|
||
understand your feeling,” continued he, perceiving that I wished to interrupt
|
||
him; “but you are mistaken, my friend, if thus you will allow me to name you;
|
||
nothing can alter my destiny; listen to my history, and you will perceive how
|
||
irrevocably it is determined.”
|
||
</p>
|
||
|
||
<p>
|
||
He then told me that he would commence his narrative the next day when I should
|
||
be at leisure. This promise drew from me the warmest thanks. I have resolved
|
||
every night, when I am not imperatively occupied by my duties, to record, as
|
||
nearly as possible in his own words, what he has related during the day. If I
|
||
should be engaged, I will at least make notes. This manuscript will doubtless
|
||
afford you the greatest pleasure; but to me, who know him, and who hear it from
|
||
his own lips—with what interest and sympathy shall I read it in some future
|
||
day! Even now, as I commence my task, his full-toned voice swells in my ears;
|
||
his lustrous eyes dwell on me with all their melancholy sweetness; I see his
|
||
thin hand raised in animation, while the lineaments of his face are irradiated
|
||
by the soul within. Strange and harrowing must be his story, frightful the
|
||
storm which embraced the gallant vessel on its course and wrecked it—thus!
|
||
</p>
|
||
|
||
</div><!--end chapter-->
|
||
|
||
<div class="chapter">
|
||
|
||
<h2><a id="chap01"></a>Chapter 1</h2>
|
||
|
||
<p>
|
||
I am by birth a Genevese, and my family is one of the most distinguished of
|
||
that republic. My ancestors had been for many years counsellors and syndics,
|
||
and my father had filled several public situations with honour and reputation.
|
||
He was respected by all who knew him for his integrity and indefatigable
|
||
attention to public business. He passed his younger days perpetually occupied
|
||
by the affairs of his country; a variety of circumstances had prevented his
|
||
marrying early, nor was it until the decline of life that he became a husband
|
||
and the father of a family.
|
||
</p>
|
||
|
||
<p>
|
||
As the circumstances of his marriage illustrate his character, I cannot refrain
|
||
from relating them. One of his most intimate friends was a merchant who, from a
|
||
flourishing state, fell, through numerous mischances, into poverty. This man,
|
||
whose name was Beaufort, was of a proud and unbending disposition and could not
|
||
bear to live in poverty and oblivion in the same country where he had formerly
|
||
been distinguished for his rank and magnificence. Having paid his debts,
|
||
therefore, in the most honourable manner, he retreated with his daughter to the
|
||
town of Lucerne, where he lived unknown and in wretchedness. My father loved
|
||
Beaufort with the truest friendship and was deeply grieved by his retreat in
|
||
these unfortunate circumstances. He bitterly deplored the false pride which led
|
||
his friend to a conduct so little worthy of the affection that united them. He
|
||
lost no time in endeavouring to seek him out, with the hope of persuading him
|
||
to begin the world again through his credit and assistance.
|
||
</p>
|
||
|
||
<p>
|
||
Beaufort had taken effectual measures to conceal himself, and it was ten months
|
||
before my father discovered his abode. Overjoyed at this discovery, he hastened
|
||
to the house, which was situated in a mean street near the Reuss. But when he
|
||
entered, misery and despair alone welcomed him. Beaufort had saved but a very
|
||
small sum of money from the wreck of his fortunes, but it was sufficient to
|
||
provide him with sustenance for some months, and in the meantime he hoped to
|
||
procure some respectable employment in a merchant’s house. The interval was,
|
||
consequently, spent in inaction; his grief only became more deep and rankling
|
||
when he had leisure for reflection, and at length it took so fast hold of his
|
||
mind that at the end of three months he lay on a bed of sickness, incapable of
|
||
any exertion.
|
||
</p>
|
||
|
||
<p>
|
||
His daughter attended him with the greatest tenderness, but she saw with
|
||
despair that their little fund was rapidly decreasing and that there was no
|
||
other prospect of support. But Caroline Beaufort possessed a mind of an
|
||
uncommon mould, and her courage rose to support her in her adversity. She
|
||
procured plain work; she plaited straw and by various means contrived to earn a
|
||
pittance scarcely sufficient to support life.
|
||
</p>
|
||
|
||
<p>
|
||
Several months passed in this manner. Her father grew worse; her time was more
|
||
entirely occupied in attending him; her means of subsistence decreased; and in
|
||
the tenth month her father died in her arms, leaving her an orphan and a
|
||
beggar. This last blow overcame her, and she knelt by Beaufort’s coffin weeping
|
||
bitterly, when my father entered the chamber. He came like a protecting spirit
|
||
to the poor girl, who committed herself to his care; and after the interment of
|
||
his friend he conducted her to Geneva and placed her under the protection of a
|
||
relation. Two years after this event Caroline became his wife.
|
||
</p>
|
||
|
||
<p>
|
||
There was a considerable difference between the ages of my parents, but this
|
||
circumstance seemed to unite them only closer in bonds of devoted affection.
|
||
There was a sense of justice in my father’s upright mind which rendered it
|
||
necessary that he should approve highly to love strongly. Perhaps during former
|
||
years he had suffered from the late-discovered unworthiness of one beloved and
|
||
so was disposed to set a greater value on tried worth. There was a show of
|
||
gratitude and worship in his attachment to my mother, differing wholly from the
|
||
doting fondness of age, for it was inspired by reverence for her virtues and a
|
||
desire to be the means of, in some degree, recompensing her for the sorrows she
|
||
had endured, but which gave inexpressible grace to his behaviour to her.
|
||
Everything was made to yield to her wishes and her convenience. He strove to
|
||
shelter her, as a fair exotic is sheltered by the gardener, from every rougher
|
||
wind and to surround her with all that could tend to excite pleasurable emotion
|
||
in her soft and benevolent mind. Her health, and even the tranquillity of her
|
||
hitherto constant spirit, had been shaken by what she had gone through. During
|
||
the two years that had elapsed previous to their marriage my father had
|
||
gradually relinquished all his public functions; and immediately after their
|
||
union they sought the pleasant climate of Italy, and the change of scene and
|
||
interest attendant on a tour through that land of wonders, as a restorative for
|
||
her weakened frame.
|
||
</p>
|
||
|
||
<p>
|
||
From Italy they visited Germany and France. I, their eldest child, was born at
|
||
Naples, and as an infant accompanied them in their rambles. I remained for
|
||
several years their only child. Much as they were attached to each other, they
|
||
seemed to draw inexhaustible stores of affection from a very mine of love to
|
||
bestow them upon me. My mother’s tender caresses and my father’s smile of
|
||
benevolent pleasure while regarding me are my first recollections. I was their
|
||
plaything and their idol, and something better—their child, the innocent and
|
||
helpless creature bestowed on them by Heaven, whom to bring up to good, and
|
||
whose future lot it was in their hands to direct to happiness or misery,
|
||
according as they fulfilled their duties towards me. With this deep
|
||
consciousness of what they owed towards the being to which they had given life,
|
||
added to the active spirit of tenderness that animated both, it may be imagined
|
||
that while during every hour of my infant life I received a lesson of patience,
|
||
of charity, and of self-control, I was so guided by a silken cord that all
|
||
seemed but one train of enjoyment to me.
|
||
</p>
|
||
|
||
<p>
|
||
For a long time I was their only care. My mother had much desired to have a
|
||
daughter, but I continued their single offspring. When I was about five years
|
||
old, while making an excursion beyond the frontiers of Italy, they passed a
|
||
week on the shores of the Lake of Como. Their benevolent disposition often made
|
||
them enter the cottages of the poor. This, to my mother, was more than a duty;
|
||
it was a necessity, a passion—remembering what she had suffered, and how she
|
||
had been relieved—for her to act in her turn the guardian angel to the
|
||
afflicted. During one of their walks a poor cot in the foldings of a vale
|
||
attracted their notice as being singularly disconsolate, while the number of
|
||
half-clothed children gathered about it spoke of penury in its worst shape. One
|
||
day, when my father had gone by himself to Milan, my mother, accompanied by me,
|
||
visited this abode. She found a peasant and his wife, hard working, bent down
|
||
by care and labour, distributing a scanty meal to five hungry babes. Among
|
||
these there was one which attracted my mother far above all the rest. She
|
||
appeared of a different stock. The four others were dark-eyed, hardy little
|
||
vagrants; this child was thin and very fair. Her hair was the brightest living
|
||
gold, and despite the poverty of her clothing, seemed to set a crown of
|
||
distinction on her head. Her brow was clear and ample, her blue eyes cloudless,
|
||
and her lips and the moulding of her face so expressive of sensibility and
|
||
sweetness that none could behold her without looking on her as of a distinct
|
||
species, a being heaven-sent, and bearing a celestial stamp in all her
|
||
features.
|
||
</p>
|
||
|
||
<p>
|
||
The peasant woman, perceiving that my mother fixed eyes of wonder and
|
||
admiration on this lovely girl, eagerly communicated her history. She was not
|
||
her child, but the daughter of a Milanese nobleman. Her mother was a German and
|
||
had died on giving her birth. The infant had been placed with these good people
|
||
to nurse: they were better off then. They had not been long married, and their
|
||
eldest child was but just born. The father of their charge was one of those
|
||
Italians nursed in the memory of the antique glory of Italy—one among the
|
||
<i>schiavi ognor frementi,</i> who exerted himself to obtain the liberty of his
|
||
country. He became the victim of its weakness. Whether he had died or still
|
||
lingered in the dungeons of Austria was not known. His property was
|
||
confiscated; his child became an orphan and a beggar. She continued with her
|
||
foster parents and bloomed in their rude abode, fairer than a garden rose among
|
||
dark-leaved brambles.
|
||
</p>
|
||
|
||
<p>
|
||
When my father returned from Milan, he found playing with me in the hall of our
|
||
villa a child fairer than pictured cherub—a creature who seemed to shed
|
||
radiance from her looks and whose form and motions were lighter than the
|
||
chamois of the hills. The apparition was soon explained. With his permission my
|
||
mother prevailed on her rustic guardians to yield their charge to her. They
|
||
were fond of the sweet orphan. Her presence had seemed a blessing to them, but
|
||
it would be unfair to her to keep her in poverty and want when Providence
|
||
afforded her such powerful protection. They consulted their village priest, and
|
||
the result was that Elizabeth Lavenza became the inmate of my parents’ house—my
|
||
more than sister—the beautiful and adored companion of all my occupations and
|
||
my pleasures.
|
||
</p>
|
||
|
||
<p>
|
||
Everyone loved Elizabeth. The passionate and almost reverential attachment with
|
||
which all regarded her became, while I shared it, my pride and my delight. On
|
||
the evening previous to her being brought to my home, my mother had said
|
||
playfully, “I have a pretty present for my Victor—tomorrow he shall have it.”
|
||
And when, on the morrow, she presented Elizabeth to me as her promised gift, I,
|
||
with childish seriousness, interpreted her words literally and looked upon
|
||
Elizabeth as mine—mine to protect, love, and cherish. All praises bestowed on
|
||
her I received as made to a possession of my own. We called each other
|
||
familiarly by the name of cousin. No word, no expression could body forth the
|
||
kind of relation in which she stood to me—my more than sister, since till death
|
||
she was to be mine only.
|
||
</p>
|
||
|
||
</div><!--end chapter-->
|
||
|
||
<div class="chapter">
|
||
|
||
<h2><a id="chap02"></a>Chapter 2</h2>
|
||
|
||
<p>
|
||
We were brought up together; there was not quite a year difference in our ages.
|
||
I need not say that we were strangers to any species of disunion or dispute.
|
||
Harmony was the soul of our companionship, and the diversity and contrast that
|
||
subsisted in our characters drew us nearer together. Elizabeth was of a calmer
|
||
and more concentrated disposition; but, with all my ardour, I was capable of a
|
||
more intense application and was more deeply smitten with the thirst for
|
||
knowledge. She busied herself with following the aerial creations of the poets;
|
||
and in the majestic and wondrous scenes which surrounded our Swiss home —the
|
||
sublime shapes of the mountains, the changes of the seasons, tempest and calm,
|
||
the silence of winter, and the life and turbulence of our Alpine summers—she
|
||
found ample scope for admiration and delight. While my companion contemplated
|
||
with a serious and satisfied spirit the magnificent appearances of things, I
|
||
delighted in investigating their causes. The world was to me a secret which I
|
||
desired to divine. Curiosity, earnest research to learn the hidden laws of
|
||
nature, gladness akin to rapture, as they were unfolded to me, are among the
|
||
earliest sensations I can remember.
|
||
</p>
|
||
|
||
<p>
|
||
On the birth of a second son, my junior by seven years, my parents gave up
|
||
entirely their wandering life and fixed themselves in their native country. We
|
||
possessed a house in Geneva, and a <i>campagne</i> on Belrive, the eastern
|
||
shore of the lake, at the distance of rather more than a league from the city.
|
||
We resided principally in the latter, and the lives of my parents were passed
|
||
in considerable seclusion. It was my temper to avoid a crowd and to attach
|
||
myself fervently to a few. I was indifferent, therefore, to my school-fellows
|
||
in general; but I united myself in the bonds of the closest friendship to one
|
||
among them. Henry Clerval was the son of a merchant of Geneva. He was a boy of
|
||
singular talent and fancy. He loved enterprise, hardship, and even danger for
|
||
its own sake. He was deeply read in books of chivalry and romance. He composed
|
||
heroic songs and began to write many a tale of enchantment and knightly
|
||
adventure. He tried to make us act plays and to enter into masquerades, in
|
||
which the characters were drawn from the heroes of Roncesvalles, of the Round
|
||
Table of King Arthur, and the chivalrous train who shed their blood to redeem
|
||
the holy sepulchre from the hands of the infidels.
|
||
</p>
|
||
|
||
<p>
|
||
No human being could have passed a happier childhood than myself. My parents
|
||
were possessed by the very spirit of kindness and indulgence. We felt that they
|
||
were not the tyrants to rule our lot according to their caprice, but the agents
|
||
and creators of all the many delights which we enjoyed. When I mingled with
|
||
other families I distinctly discerned how peculiarly fortunate my lot was, and
|
||
gratitude assisted the development of filial love.
|
||
</p>
|
||
|
||
<p>
|
||
My temper was sometimes violent, and my passions vehement; but by some law in
|
||
my temperature they were turned not towards childish pursuits but to an eager
|
||
desire to learn, and not to learn all things indiscriminately. I confess that
|
||
neither the structure of languages, nor the code of governments, nor the
|
||
politics of various states possessed attractions for me. It was the secrets of
|
||
heaven and earth that I desired to learn; and whether it was the outward
|
||
substance of things or the inner spirit of nature and the mysterious soul of
|
||
man that occupied me, still my inquiries were directed to the metaphysical, or
|
||
in its highest sense, the physical secrets of the world.
|
||
</p>
|
||
|
||
<p>
|
||
Meanwhile Clerval occupied himself, so to speak, with the moral relations of
|
||
things. The busy stage of life, the virtues of heroes, and the actions of men
|
||
were his theme; and his hope and his dream was to become one among those whose
|
||
names are recorded in story as the gallant and adventurous benefactors of our
|
||
species. The saintly soul of Elizabeth shone like a shrine-dedicated lamp in
|
||
our peaceful home. Her sympathy was ours; her smile, her soft voice, the sweet
|
||
glance of her celestial eyes, were ever there to bless and animate us. She was
|
||
the living spirit of love to soften and attract; I might have become sullen in
|
||
my study, rough through the ardour of my nature, but that she was there to
|
||
subdue me to a semblance of her own gentleness. And Clerval—could aught ill
|
||
entrench on the noble spirit of Clerval? Yet he might not have been so
|
||
perfectly humane, so thoughtful in his generosity, so full of kindness and
|
||
tenderness amidst his passion for adventurous exploit, had she not unfolded to
|
||
him the real loveliness of beneficence and made the doing good the end and aim
|
||
of his soaring ambition.
|
||
</p>
|
||
|
||
<p>
|
||
I feel exquisite pleasure in dwelling on the recollections of childhood, before
|
||
misfortune had tainted my mind and changed its bright visions of extensive
|
||
usefulness into gloomy and narrow reflections upon self. Besides, in drawing
|
||
the picture of my early days, I also record those events which led, by
|
||
insensible steps, to my after tale of misery, for when I would account to
|
||
myself for the birth of that passion which afterwards ruled my destiny I find
|
||
it arise, like a mountain river, from ignoble and almost forgotten sources;
|
||
but, swelling as it proceeded, it became the torrent which, in its course, has
|
||
swept away all my hopes and joys.
|
||
</p>
|
||
|
||
<p>
|
||
Natural philosophy is the genius that has regulated my fate; I desire,
|
||
therefore, in this narration, to state those facts which led to my predilection
|
||
for that science. When I was thirteen years of age we all went on a party of
|
||
pleasure to the baths near Thonon; the inclemency of the weather obliged us to
|
||
remain a day confined to the inn. In this house I chanced to find a volume of
|
||
the works of Cornelius Agrippa. I opened it with apathy; the theory which he
|
||
attempts to demonstrate and the wonderful facts which he relates soon changed
|
||
this feeling into enthusiasm. A new light seemed to dawn upon my mind, and
|
||
bounding with joy, I communicated my discovery to my father. My father looked
|
||
carelessly at the title page of my book and said, “Ah! Cornelius Agrippa! My
|
||
dear Victor, do not waste your time upon this; it is sad trash.”
|
||
</p>
|
||
|
||
<p>
|
||
If, instead of this remark, my father had taken the pains to explain to me that
|
||
the principles of Agrippa had been entirely exploded and that a modern system
|
||
of science had been introduced which possessed much greater powers than the
|
||
ancient, because the powers of the latter were chimerical, while those of the
|
||
former were real and practical, under such circumstances I should certainly
|
||
have thrown Agrippa aside and have contented my imagination, warmed as it was,
|
||
by returning with greater ardour to my former studies. It is even possible that
|
||
the train of my ideas would never have received the fatal impulse that led to
|
||
my ruin. But the cursory glance my father had taken of my volume by no means
|
||
assured me that he was acquainted with its contents, and I continued to read
|
||
with the greatest avidity.
|
||
</p>
|
||
|
||
<p>
|
||
When I returned home my first care was to procure the whole works of this
|
||
author, and afterwards of Paracelsus and Albertus Magnus. I read and studied
|
||
the wild fancies of these writers with delight; they appeared to me treasures
|
||
known to few besides myself. I have described myself as always having been
|
||
imbued with a fervent longing to penetrate the secrets of nature. In spite of
|
||
the intense labour and wonderful discoveries of modern philosophers, I always
|
||
came from my studies discontented and unsatisfied. Sir Isaac Newton is said to
|
||
have avowed that he felt like a child picking up shells beside the great and
|
||
unexplored ocean of truth. Those of his successors in each branch of natural
|
||
philosophy with whom I was acquainted appeared even to my boy’s apprehensions
|
||
as tyros engaged in the same pursuit.
|
||
</p>
|
||
|
||
<p>
|
||
The untaught peasant beheld the elements around him and was acquainted with
|
||
their practical uses. The most learned philosopher knew little more. He had
|
||
partially unveiled the face of Nature, but her immortal lineaments were still a
|
||
wonder and a mystery. He might dissect, anatomise, and give names; but, not to
|
||
speak of a final cause, causes in their secondary and tertiary grades were
|
||
utterly unknown to him. I had gazed upon the fortifications and impediments
|
||
that seemed to keep human beings from entering the citadel of nature, and
|
||
rashly and ignorantly I had repined.
|
||
</p>
|
||
|
||
<p>
|
||
But here were books, and here were men who had penetrated deeper and knew more.
|
||
I took their word for all that they averred, and I became their disciple. It
|
||
may appear strange that such should arise in the eighteenth century; but while
|
||
I followed the routine of education in the schools of Geneva, I was, to a great
|
||
degree, self-taught with regard to my favourite studies. My father was not
|
||
scientific, and I was left to struggle with a child’s blindness, added to a
|
||
student’s thirst for knowledge. Under the guidance of my new preceptors I
|
||
entered with the greatest diligence into the search of the philosopher’s stone
|
||
and the elixir of life; but the latter soon obtained my undivided attention.
|
||
Wealth was an inferior object, but what glory would attend the discovery if I
|
||
could banish disease from the human frame and render man invulnerable to any
|
||
but a violent death!
|
||
</p>
|
||
|
||
<p>
|
||
Nor were these my only visions. The raising of ghosts or devils was a promise
|
||
liberally accorded by my favourite authors, the fulfilment of which I most
|
||
eagerly sought; and if my incantations were always unsuccessful, I attributed
|
||
the failure rather to my own inexperience and mistake than to a want of skill
|
||
or fidelity in my instructors. And thus for a time I was occupied by exploded
|
||
systems, mingling, like an unadept, a thousand contradictory theories and
|
||
floundering desperately in a very slough of multifarious knowledge, guided by
|
||
an ardent imagination and childish reasoning, till an accident again changed
|
||
the current of my ideas.
|
||
</p>
|
||
|
||
<p>
|
||
When I was about fifteen years old we had retired to our house near Belrive,
|
||
when we witnessed a most violent and terrible thunderstorm. It advanced from
|
||
behind the mountains of Jura, and the thunder burst at once with frightful
|
||
loudness from various quarters of the heavens. I remained, while the storm
|
||
lasted, watching its progress with curiosity and delight. As I stood at the
|
||
door, on a sudden I beheld a stream of fire issue from an old and beautiful oak
|
||
which stood about twenty yards from our house; and so soon as the dazzling
|
||
light vanished, the oak had disappeared, and nothing remained but a blasted
|
||
stump. When we visited it the next morning, we found the tree shattered in a
|
||
singular manner. It was not splintered by the shock, but entirely reduced to
|
||
thin ribbons of wood. I never beheld anything so utterly destroyed.
|
||
</p>
|
||
|
||
<p>
|
||
Before this I was not unacquainted with the more obvious laws of electricity.
|
||
On this occasion a man of great research in natural philosophy was with us, and
|
||
excited by this catastrophe, he entered on the explanation of a theory which he
|
||
had formed on the subject of electricity and galvanism, which was at once new
|
||
and astonishing to me. All that he said threw greatly into the shade Cornelius
|
||
Agrippa, Albertus Magnus, and Paracelsus, the lords of my imagination; but by
|
||
some fatality the overthrow of these men disinclined me to pursue my accustomed
|
||
studies. It seemed to me as if nothing would or could ever be known. All that
|
||
had so long engaged my attention suddenly grew despicable. By one of those
|
||
caprices of the mind which we are perhaps most subject to in early youth, I at
|
||
once gave up my former occupations, set down natural history and all its
|
||
progeny as a deformed and abortive creation, and entertained the greatest
|
||
disdain for a would-be science which could never even step within the threshold
|
||
of real knowledge. In this mood of mind I betook myself to the mathematics and
|
||
the branches of study appertaining to that science as being built upon secure
|
||
foundations, and so worthy of my consideration.
|
||
</p>
|
||
|
||
<p>
|
||
Thus strangely are our souls constructed, and by such slight ligaments are we
|
||
bound to prosperity or ruin. When I look back, it seems to me as if this almost
|
||
miraculous change of inclination and will was the immediate suggestion of the
|
||
guardian angel of my life—the last effort made by the spirit of preservation to
|
||
avert the storm that was even then hanging in the stars and ready to envelop
|
||
me. Her victory was announced by an unusual tranquillity and gladness of soul
|
||
which followed the relinquishing of my ancient and latterly tormenting studies.
|
||
It was thus that I was to be taught to associate evil with their prosecution,
|
||
happiness with their disregard.
|
||
</p>
|
||
|
||
<p>
|
||
It was a strong effort of the spirit of good, but it was ineffectual. Destiny
|
||
was too potent, and her immutable laws had decreed my utter and terrible
|
||
destruction.
|
||
</p>
|
||
|
||
</div><!--end chapter-->
|
||
|
||
<div class="chapter">
|
||
|
||
<h2><a id="chap03"></a>Chapter 3</h2>
|
||
|
||
<p>
|
||
When I had attained the age of seventeen my parents resolved that I should
|
||
become a student at the university of Ingolstadt. I had hitherto attended the
|
||
schools of Geneva, but my father thought it necessary for the completion of my
|
||
education that I should be made acquainted with other customs than those of my
|
||
native country. My departure was therefore fixed at an early date, but before
|
||
the day resolved upon could arrive, the first misfortune of my life occurred—an
|
||
omen, as it were, of my future misery.
|
||
</p>
|
||
|
||
<p>
|
||
Elizabeth had caught the scarlet fever; her illness was severe, and she was in
|
||
the greatest danger. During her illness many arguments had been urged to
|
||
persuade my mother to refrain from attending upon her. She had at first yielded
|
||
to our entreaties, but when she heard that the life of her favourite was
|
||
menaced, she could no longer control her anxiety. She attended her sickbed; her
|
||
watchful attentions triumphed over the malignity of the distemper—Elizabeth was
|
||
saved, but the consequences of this imprudence were fatal to her preserver. On
|
||
the third day my mother sickened; her fever was accompanied by the most
|
||
alarming symptoms, and the looks of her medical attendants prognosticated the
|
||
worst event. On her deathbed the fortitude and benignity of this best of women
|
||
did not desert her. She joined the hands of Elizabeth and myself. “My
|
||
children,” she said, “my firmest hopes of future happiness were placed on the
|
||
prospect of your union. This expectation will now be the consolation of your
|
||
father. Elizabeth, my love, you must supply my place to my younger children.
|
||
Alas! I regret that I am taken from you; and, happy and beloved as I have been,
|
||
is it not hard to quit you all? But these are not thoughts befitting me; I will
|
||
endeavour to resign myself cheerfully to death and will indulge a hope of
|
||
meeting you in another world.”
|
||
</p>
|
||
|
||
<p>
|
||
She died calmly, and her countenance expressed affection even in death. I need
|
||
not describe the feelings of those whose dearest ties are rent by that most
|
||
irreparable evil, the void that presents itself to the soul, and the despair
|
||
that is exhibited on the countenance. It is so long before the mind can
|
||
persuade itself that she whom we saw every day and whose very existence
|
||
appeared a part of our own can have departed for ever—that the brightness of a
|
||
beloved eye can have been extinguished and the sound of a voice so familiar and
|
||
dear to the ear can be hushed, never more to be heard. These are the
|
||
reflections of the first days; but when the lapse of time proves the reality of
|
||
the evil, then the actual bitterness of grief commences. Yet from whom has not
|
||
that rude hand rent away some dear connection? And why should I describe a
|
||
sorrow which all have felt, and must feel? The time at length arrives when
|
||
grief is rather an indulgence than a necessity; and the smile that plays upon
|
||
the lips, although it may be deemed a sacrilege, is not banished. My mother was
|
||
dead, but we had still duties which we ought to perform; we must continue our
|
||
course with the rest and learn to think ourselves fortunate whilst one remains
|
||
whom the spoiler has not seized.
|
||
</p>
|
||
|
||
<p>
|
||
My departure for Ingolstadt, which had been deferred by these events, was now
|
||
again determined upon. I obtained from my father a respite of some weeks. It
|
||
appeared to me sacrilege so soon to leave the repose, akin to death, of the
|
||
house of mourning and to rush into the thick of life. I was new to sorrow, but
|
||
it did not the less alarm me. I was unwilling to quit the sight of those that
|
||
remained to me, and above all, I desired to see my sweet Elizabeth in some
|
||
degree consoled.
|
||
</p>
|
||
|
||
<p>
|
||
She indeed veiled her grief and strove to act the comforter to us all. She
|
||
looked steadily on life and assumed its duties with courage and zeal. She
|
||
devoted herself to those whom she had been taught to call her uncle and
|
||
cousins. Never was she so enchanting as at this time, when she recalled the
|
||
sunshine of her smiles and spent them upon us. She forgot even her own regret
|
||
in her endeavours to make us forget.
|
||
</p>
|
||
|
||
<p>
|
||
The day of my departure at length arrived. Clerval spent the last evening with
|
||
us. He had endeavoured to persuade his father to permit him to accompany me and
|
||
to become my fellow student, but in vain. His father was a narrow-minded trader
|
||
and saw idleness and ruin in the aspirations and ambition of his son. Henry
|
||
deeply felt the misfortune of being debarred from a liberal education. He said
|
||
little, but when he spoke I read in his kindling eye and in his animated glance
|
||
a restrained but firm resolve not to be chained to the miserable details of
|
||
commerce.
|
||
</p>
|
||
|
||
<p>
|
||
We sat late. We could not tear ourselves away from each other nor persuade
|
||
ourselves to say the word “Farewell!” It was said, and we retired under the
|
||
pretence of seeking repose, each fancying that the other was deceived; but when
|
||
at morning’s dawn I descended to the carriage which was to convey me away, they
|
||
were all there—my father again to bless me, Clerval to press my hand once more,
|
||
my Elizabeth to renew her entreaties that I would write often and to bestow the
|
||
last feminine attentions on her playmate and friend.
|
||
</p>
|
||
|
||
<p>
|
||
I threw myself into the chaise that was to convey me away and indulged in the
|
||
most melancholy reflections. I, who had ever been surrounded by amiable
|
||
companions, continually engaged in endeavouring to bestow mutual pleasure—I was
|
||
now alone. In the university whither I was going I must form my own friends and
|
||
be my own protector. My life had hitherto been remarkably secluded and
|
||
domestic, and this had given me invincible repugnance to new countenances. I
|
||
loved my brothers, Elizabeth, and Clerval; these were “old familiar faces,” but
|
||
I believed myself totally unfitted for the company of strangers. Such were my
|
||
reflections as I commenced my journey; but as I proceeded, my spirits and hopes
|
||
rose. I ardently desired the acquisition of knowledge. I had often, when at
|
||
home, thought it hard to remain during my youth cooped up in one place and had
|
||
longed to enter the world and take my station among other human beings. Now my
|
||
desires were complied with, and it would, indeed, have been folly to repent.
|
||
</p>
|
||
|
||
<p>
|
||
I had sufficient leisure for these and many other reflections during my journey
|
||
to Ingolstadt, which was long and fatiguing. At length the high white steeple
|
||
of the town met my eyes. I alighted and was conducted to my solitary apartment
|
||
to spend the evening as I pleased.
|
||
</p>
|
||
|
||
<p>
|
||
The next morning I delivered my letters of introduction and paid a visit to
|
||
some of the principal professors. Chance—or rather the evil influence, the
|
||
Angel of Destruction, which asserted omnipotent sway over me from the moment I
|
||
turned my reluctant steps from my father’s door—led me first to M. Krempe,
|
||
professor of natural philosophy. He was an uncouth man, but deeply imbued in
|
||
the secrets of his science. He asked me several questions concerning my
|
||
progress in the different branches of science appertaining to natural
|
||
philosophy. I replied carelessly, and partly in contempt, mentioned the names
|
||
of my alchemists as the principal authors I had studied. The professor stared.
|
||
“Have you,” he said, “really spent your time in studying such nonsense?”
|
||
</p>
|
||
|
||
<p>
|
||
I replied in the affirmative. “Every minute,” continued M. Krempe with warmth,
|
||
“every instant that you have wasted on those books is utterly and entirely
|
||
lost. You have burdened your memory with exploded systems and useless names.
|
||
Good God! In what desert land have you lived, where no one was kind enough to
|
||
inform you that these fancies which you have so greedily imbibed are a thousand
|
||
years old and as musty as they are ancient? I little expected, in this
|
||
enlightened and scientific age, to find a disciple of Albertus Magnus and
|
||
Paracelsus. My dear sir, you must begin your studies entirely anew.”
|
||
</p>
|
||
|
||
<p>
|
||
So saying, he stepped aside and wrote down a list of several books treating of
|
||
natural philosophy which he desired me to procure, and dismissed me after
|
||
mentioning that in the beginning of the following week he intended to commence
|
||
a course of lectures upon natural philosophy in its general relations, and that
|
||
M. Waldman, a fellow professor, would lecture upon chemistry the alternate days
|
||
that he omitted.
|
||
</p>
|
||
|
||
<p>
|
||
I returned home not disappointed, for I have said that I had long considered
|
||
those authors useless whom the professor reprobated; but I returned not at all
|
||
the more inclined to recur to these studies in any shape. M. Krempe was a
|
||
little squat man with a gruff voice and a repulsive countenance; the teacher,
|
||
therefore, did not prepossess me in favour of his pursuits. In rather a too
|
||
philosophical and connected a strain, perhaps, I have given an account of the
|
||
conclusions I had come to concerning them in my early years. As a child I had
|
||
not been content with the results promised by the modern professors of natural
|
||
science. With a confusion of ideas only to be accounted for by my extreme youth
|
||
and my want of a guide on such matters, I had retrod the steps of knowledge
|
||
along the paths of time and exchanged the discoveries of recent inquirers for
|
||
the dreams of forgotten alchemists. Besides, I had a contempt for the uses of
|
||
modern natural philosophy. It was very different when the masters of the
|
||
science sought immortality and power; such views, although futile, were grand;
|
||
but now the scene was changed. The ambition of the inquirer seemed to limit
|
||
itself to the annihilation of those visions on which my interest in science was
|
||
chiefly founded. I was required to exchange chimeras of boundless grandeur for
|
||
realities of little worth.
|
||
</p>
|
||
|
||
<p>
|
||
Such were my reflections during the first two or three days of my residence at
|
||
Ingolstadt, which were chiefly spent in becoming acquainted with the localities
|
||
and the principal residents in my new abode. But as the ensuing week commenced,
|
||
I thought of the information which M. Krempe had given me concerning the
|
||
lectures. And although I could not consent to go and hear that little conceited
|
||
fellow deliver sentences out of a pulpit, I recollected what he had said of M.
|
||
Waldman, whom I had never seen, as he had hitherto been out of town.
|
||
</p>
|
||
|
||
<p>
|
||
Partly from curiosity and partly from idleness, I went into the lecturing room,
|
||
which M. Waldman entered shortly after. This professor was very unlike his
|
||
colleague. He appeared about fifty years of age, but with an aspect expressive
|
||
of the greatest benevolence; a few grey hairs covered his temples, but those at
|
||
the back of his head were nearly black. His person was short but remarkably
|
||
erect and his voice the sweetest I had ever heard. He began his lecture by a
|
||
recapitulation of the history of chemistry and the various improvements made by
|
||
different men of learning, pronouncing with fervour the names of the most
|
||
distinguished discoverers. He then took a cursory view of the present state of
|
||
the science and explained many of its elementary terms. After having made a few
|
||
preparatory experiments, he concluded with a panegyric upon modern chemistry,
|
||
the terms of which I shall never forget:
|
||
</p>
|
||
|
||
<p>
|
||
“The ancient teachers of this science,” said he, “promised impossibilities and
|
||
performed nothing. The modern masters promise very little; they know that
|
||
metals cannot be transmuted and that the elixir of life is a chimera but these
|
||
philosophers, whose hands seem only made to dabble in dirt, and their eyes to
|
||
pore over the microscope or crucible, have indeed performed miracles. They
|
||
penetrate into the recesses of nature and show how she works in her
|
||
hiding-places. They ascend into the heavens; they have discovered how the blood
|
||
circulates, and the nature of the air we breathe. They have acquired new and
|
||
almost unlimited powers; they can command the thunders of heaven, mimic the
|
||
earthquake, and even mock the invisible world with its own shadows.”
|
||
</p>
|
||
|
||
<p>
|
||
Such were the professor’s words—rather let me say such the words of the
|
||
fate—enounced to destroy me. As he went on I felt as if my soul were grappling
|
||
with a palpable enemy; one by one the various keys were touched which formed
|
||
the mechanism of my being; chord after chord was sounded, and soon my mind was
|
||
filled with one thought, one conception, one purpose. So much has been done,
|
||
exclaimed the soul of Frankenstein—more, far more, will I achieve; treading in
|
||
the steps already marked, I will pioneer a new way, explore unknown powers, and
|
||
unfold to the world the deepest mysteries of creation.
|
||
</p>
|
||
|
||
<p>
|
||
I closed not my eyes that night. My internal being was in a state of
|
||
insurrection and turmoil; I felt that order would thence arise, but I had no
|
||
power to produce it. By degrees, after the morning’s dawn, sleep came. I awoke,
|
||
and my yesternight’s thoughts were as a dream. There only remained a resolution
|
||
to return to my ancient studies and to devote myself to a science for which I
|
||
believed myself to possess a natural talent. On the same day I paid M. Waldman
|
||
a visit. His manners in private were even more mild and attractive than in
|
||
public, for there was a certain dignity in his mien during his lecture which in
|
||
his own house was replaced by the greatest affability and kindness. I gave him
|
||
pretty nearly the same account of my former pursuits as I had given to his
|
||
fellow professor. He heard with attention the little narration concerning my
|
||
studies and smiled at the names of Cornelius Agrippa and Paracelsus, but
|
||
without the contempt that M. Krempe had exhibited. He said that “These were men
|
||
to whose indefatigable zeal modern philosophers were indebted for most of the
|
||
foundations of their knowledge. They had left to us, as an easier task, to give
|
||
new names and arrange in connected classifications the facts which they in a
|
||
great degree had been the instruments of bringing to light. The labours of men
|
||
of genius, however erroneously directed, scarcely ever fail in ultimately
|
||
turning to the solid advantage of mankind.” I listened to his statement, which
|
||
was delivered without any presumption or affectation, and then added that his
|
||
lecture had removed my prejudices against modern chemists; I expressed myself
|
||
in measured terms, with the modesty and deference due from a youth to his
|
||
instructor, without letting escape (inexperience in life would have made me
|
||
ashamed) any of the enthusiasm which stimulated my intended labours. I
|
||
requested his advice concerning the books I ought to procure.
|
||
</p>
|
||
|
||
<p>
|
||
“I am happy,” said M. Waldman, “to have gained a disciple; and if your
|
||
application equals your ability, I have no doubt of your success. Chemistry is
|
||
that branch of natural philosophy in which the greatest improvements have been
|
||
and may be made; it is on that account that I have made it my peculiar study;
|
||
but at the same time, I have not neglected the other branches of science. A man
|
||
would make but a very sorry chemist if he attended to that department of human
|
||
knowledge alone. If your wish is to become really a man of science and not
|
||
merely a petty experimentalist, I should advise you to apply to every branch of
|
||
natural philosophy, including mathematics.”
|
||
</p>
|
||
|
||
<p>
|
||
He then took me into his laboratory and explained to me the uses of his various
|
||
machines, instructing me as to what I ought to procure and promising me the use
|
||
of his own when I should have advanced far enough in the science not to derange
|
||
their mechanism. He also gave me the list of books which I had requested, and I
|
||
took my leave.
|
||
</p>
|
||
|
||
<p>
|
||
Thus ended a day memorable to me; it decided my future destiny.
|
||
</p>
|
||
|
||
</div><!--end chapter-->
|
||
|
||
<div class="chapter">
|
||
|
||
<h2><a id="chap04"></a>Chapter 4</h2>
|
||
|
||
<p>
|
||
From this day natural philosophy, and particularly chemistry, in the most
|
||
comprehensive sense of the term, became nearly my sole occupation. I read with
|
||
ardour those works, so full of genius and discrimination, which modern
|
||
inquirers have written on these subjects. I attended the lectures and
|
||
cultivated the acquaintance of the men of science of the university, and I
|
||
found even in M. Krempe a great deal of sound sense and real information,
|
||
combined, it is true, with a repulsive physiognomy and manners, but not on that
|
||
account the less valuable. In M. Waldman I found a true friend. His gentleness
|
||
was never tinged by dogmatism, and his instructions were given with an air of
|
||
frankness and good nature that banished every idea of pedantry. In a thousand
|
||
ways he smoothed for me the path of knowledge and made the most abstruse
|
||
inquiries clear and facile to my apprehension. My application was at first
|
||
fluctuating and uncertain; it gained strength as I proceeded and soon became so
|
||
ardent and eager that the stars often disappeared in the light of morning
|
||
whilst I was yet engaged in my laboratory.
|
||
</p>
|
||
|
||
<p>
|
||
As I applied so closely, it may be easily conceived that my progress was rapid.
|
||
My ardour was indeed the astonishment of the students, and my proficiency that
|
||
of the masters. Professor Krempe often asked me, with a sly smile, how
|
||
Cornelius Agrippa went on, whilst M. Waldman expressed the most heartfelt
|
||
exultation in my progress. Two years passed in this manner, during which I paid
|
||
no visit to Geneva, but was engaged, heart and soul, in the pursuit of some
|
||
discoveries which I hoped to make. None but those who have experienced them can
|
||
conceive of the enticements of science. In other studies you go as far as
|
||
others have gone before you, and there is nothing more to know; but in a
|
||
scientific pursuit there is continual food for discovery and wonder. A mind of
|
||
moderate capacity which closely pursues one study must infallibly arrive at
|
||
great proficiency in that study; and I, who continually sought the attainment
|
||
of one object of pursuit and was solely wrapped up in this, improved so rapidly
|
||
that at the end of two years I made some discoveries in the improvement of some
|
||
chemical instruments, which procured me great esteem and admiration at the
|
||
university. When I had arrived at this point and had become as well acquainted
|
||
with the theory and practice of natural philosophy as depended on the lessons
|
||
of any of the professors at Ingolstadt, my residence there being no longer
|
||
conducive to my improvements, I thought of returning to my friends and my
|
||
native town, when an incident happened that protracted my stay.
|
||
</p>
|
||
|
||
<p>
|
||
One of the phenomena which had peculiarly attracted my attention was the
|
||
structure of the human frame, and, indeed, any animal endued with life. Whence,
|
||
I often asked myself, did the principle of life proceed? It was a bold
|
||
question, and one which has ever been considered as a mystery; yet with how
|
||
many things are we upon the brink of becoming acquainted, if cowardice or
|
||
carelessness did not restrain our inquiries. I revolved these circumstances in
|
||
my mind and determined thenceforth to apply myself more particularly to those
|
||
branches of natural philosophy which relate to physiology. Unless I had been
|
||
animated by an almost supernatural enthusiasm, my application to this study
|
||
would have been irksome and almost intolerable. To examine the causes of life,
|
||
we must first have recourse to death. I became acquainted with the science of
|
||
anatomy, but this was not sufficient; I must also observe the natural decay and
|
||
corruption of the human body. In my education my father had taken the greatest
|
||
precautions that my mind should be impressed with no supernatural horrors. I do
|
||
not ever remember to have trembled at a tale of superstition or to have feared
|
||
the apparition of a spirit. Darkness had no effect upon my fancy, and a
|
||
churchyard was to me merely the receptacle of bodies deprived of life, which,
|
||
from being the seat of beauty and strength, had become food for the worm. Now I
|
||
was led to examine the cause and progress of this decay and forced to spend
|
||
days and nights in vaults and charnel-houses. My attention was fixed upon every
|
||
object the most insupportable to the delicacy of the human feelings. I saw how
|
||
the fine form of man was degraded and wasted; I beheld the corruption of death
|
||
succeed to the blooming cheek of life; I saw how the worm inherited the wonders
|
||
of the eye and brain. I paused, examining and analysing all the minutiae of
|
||
causation, as exemplified in the change from life to death, and death to life,
|
||
until from the midst of this darkness a sudden light broke in upon me—a light
|
||
so brilliant and wondrous, yet so simple, that while I became dizzy with the
|
||
immensity of the prospect which it illustrated, I was surprised that among so
|
||
many men of genius who had directed their inquiries towards the same science,
|
||
that I alone should be reserved to discover so astonishing a secret.
|
||
</p>
|
||
|
||
<p>
|
||
Remember, I am not recording the vision of a madman. The sun does not more
|
||
certainly shine in the heavens than that which I now affirm is true. Some
|
||
miracle might have produced it, yet the stages of the discovery were distinct
|
||
and probable. After days and nights of incredible labour and fatigue, I
|
||
succeeded in discovering the cause of generation and life; nay, more, I became
|
||
myself capable of bestowing animation upon lifeless matter.
|
||
</p>
|
||
|
||
<p>
|
||
The astonishment which I had at first experienced on this discovery soon gave
|
||
place to delight and rapture. After so much time spent in painful labour, to
|
||
arrive at once at the summit of my desires was the most gratifying consummation
|
||
of my toils. But this discovery was so great and overwhelming that all the
|
||
steps by which I had been progressively led to it were obliterated, and I
|
||
beheld only the result. What had been the study and desire of the wisest men
|
||
since the creation of the world was now within my grasp. Not that, like a magic
|
||
scene, it all opened upon me at once: the information I had obtained was of a
|
||
nature rather to direct my endeavours so soon as I should point them towards
|
||
the object of my search than to exhibit that object already accomplished. I was
|
||
like the Arabian who had been buried with the dead and found a passage to life,
|
||
aided only by one glimmering and seemingly ineffectual light.
|
||
</p>
|
||
|
||
<p>
|
||
I see by your eagerness and the wonder and hope which your eyes express, my
|
||
friend, that you expect to be informed of the secret with which I am
|
||
acquainted; that cannot be; listen patiently until the end of my story, and you
|
||
will easily perceive why I am reserved upon that subject. I will not lead you
|
||
on, unguarded and ardent as I then was, to your destruction and infallible
|
||
misery. Learn from me, if not by my precepts, at least by my example, how
|
||
dangerous is the acquirement of knowledge and how much happier that man is who
|
||
believes his native town to be the world, than he who aspires to become greater
|
||
than his nature will allow.
|
||
</p>
|
||
|
||
<p>
|
||
When I found so astonishing a power placed within my hands, I hesitated a long
|
||
time concerning the manner in which I should employ it. Although I possessed
|
||
the capacity of bestowing animation, yet to prepare a frame for the reception
|
||
of it, with all its intricacies of fibres, muscles, and veins, still remained a
|
||
work of inconceivable difficulty and labour. I doubted at first whether I
|
||
should attempt the creation of a being like myself, or one of simpler
|
||
organization; but my imagination was too much exalted by my first success to
|
||
permit me to doubt of my ability to give life to an animal as complex and
|
||
wonderful as man. The materials at present within my command hardly appeared
|
||
adequate to so arduous an undertaking, but I doubted not that I should
|
||
ultimately succeed. I prepared myself for a multitude of reverses; my
|
||
operations might be incessantly baffled, and at last my work be imperfect, yet
|
||
when I considered the improvement which every day takes place in science and
|
||
mechanics, I was encouraged to hope my present attempts would at least lay the
|
||
foundations of future success. Nor could I consider the magnitude and
|
||
complexity of my plan as any argument of its impracticability. It was with
|
||
these feelings that I began the creation of a human being. As the minuteness of
|
||
the parts formed a great hindrance to my speed, I resolved, contrary to my
|
||
first intention, to make the being of a gigantic stature, that is to say, about
|
||
eight feet in height, and proportionably large. After having formed this
|
||
determination and having spent some months in successfully collecting and
|
||
arranging my materials, I began.
|
||
</p>
|
||
|
||
<p>
|
||
No one can conceive the variety of feelings which bore me onwards, like a
|
||
hurricane, in the first enthusiasm of success. Life and death appeared to me
|
||
ideal bounds, which I should first break through, and pour a torrent of light
|
||
into our dark world. A new species would bless me as its creator and source;
|
||
many happy and excellent natures would owe their being to me. No father could
|
||
claim the gratitude of his child so completely as I should deserve theirs.
|
||
Pursuing these reflections, I thought that if I could bestow animation upon
|
||
lifeless matter, I might in process of time (although I now found it
|
||
impossible) renew life where death had apparently devoted the body to
|
||
corruption.
|
||
</p>
|
||
|
||
<p>
|
||
These thoughts supported my spirits, while I pursued my undertaking with
|
||
unremitting ardour. My cheek had grown pale with study, and my person had
|
||
become emaciated with confinement. Sometimes, on the very brink of certainty, I
|
||
failed; yet still I clung to the hope which the next day or the next hour might
|
||
realise. One secret which I alone possessed was the hope to which I had
|
||
dedicated myself; and the moon gazed on my midnight labours, while, with
|
||
unrelaxed and breathless eagerness, I pursued nature to her hiding-places. Who
|
||
shall conceive the horrors of my secret toil as I dabbled among the unhallowed
|
||
damps of the grave or tortured the living animal to animate the lifeless clay?
|
||
My limbs now tremble, and my eyes swim with the remembrance; but then a
|
||
resistless and almost frantic impulse urged me forward; I seemed to have lost
|
||
all soul or sensation but for this one pursuit. It was indeed but a passing
|
||
trance, that only made me feel with renewed acuteness so soon as, the unnatural
|
||
stimulus ceasing to operate, I had returned to my old habits. I collected bones
|
||
from charnel-houses and disturbed, with profane fingers, the tremendous secrets
|
||
of the human frame. In a solitary chamber, or rather cell, at the top of the
|
||
house, and separated from all the other apartments by a gallery and staircase,
|
||
I kept my workshop of filthy creation; my eyeballs were starting from their
|
||
sockets in attending to the details of my employment. The dissecting room and
|
||
the slaughter-house furnished many of my materials; and often did my human
|
||
nature turn with loathing from my occupation, whilst, still urged on by an
|
||
eagerness which perpetually increased, I brought my work near to a conclusion.
|
||
</p>
|
||
|
||
<p>
|
||
The summer months passed while I was thus engaged, heart and soul, in one
|
||
pursuit. It was a most beautiful season; never did the fields bestow a more
|
||
plentiful harvest or the vines yield a more luxuriant vintage, but my eyes were
|
||
insensible to the charms of nature. And the same feelings which made me neglect
|
||
the scenes around me caused me also to forget those friends who were so many
|
||
miles absent, and whom I had not seen for so long a time. I knew my silence
|
||
disquieted them, and I well remembered the words of my father: “I know that
|
||
while you are pleased with yourself you will think of us with affection, and we
|
||
shall hear regularly from you. You must pardon me if I regard any interruption
|
||
in your correspondence as a proof that your other duties are equally
|
||
neglected.”
|
||
</p>
|
||
|
||
<p>
|
||
I knew well therefore what would be my father’s feelings, but I could not tear
|
||
my thoughts from my employment, loathsome in itself, but which had taken an
|
||
irresistible hold of my imagination. I wished, as it were, to procrastinate all
|
||
that related to my feelings of affection until the great object, which
|
||
swallowed up every habit of my nature, should be completed.
|
||
</p>
|
||
|
||
<p>
|
||
I then thought that my father would be unjust if he ascribed my neglect to vice
|
||
or faultiness on my part, but I am now convinced that he was justified in
|
||
conceiving that I should not be altogether free from blame. A human being in
|
||
perfection ought always to preserve a calm and peaceful mind and never to allow
|
||
passion or a transitory desire to disturb his tranquillity. I do not think that
|
||
the pursuit of knowledge is an exception to this rule. If the study to which
|
||
you apply yourself has a tendency to weaken your affections and to destroy your
|
||
taste for those simple pleasures in which no alloy can possibly mix, then that
|
||
study is certainly unlawful, that is to say, not befitting the human mind. If
|
||
this rule were always observed; if no man allowed any pursuit whatsoever to
|
||
interfere with the tranquillity of his domestic affections, Greece had not been
|
||
enslaved, Cæsar would have spared his country, America would have been
|
||
discovered more gradually, and the empires of Mexico and Peru had not been
|
||
destroyed.
|
||
</p>
|
||
|
||
<p>
|
||
But I forget that I am moralizing in the most interesting part of my tale, and
|
||
your looks remind me to proceed.
|
||
</p>
|
||
|
||
<p>
|
||
My father made no reproach in his letters and only took notice of my silence by
|
||
inquiring into my occupations more particularly than before. Winter, spring,
|
||
and summer passed away during my labours; but I did not watch the blossom or
|
||
the expanding leaves—sights which before always yielded me supreme delight—so
|
||
deeply was I engrossed in my occupation. The leaves of that year had withered
|
||
before my work drew near to a close, and now every day showed me more plainly
|
||
how well I had succeeded. But my enthusiasm was checked by my anxiety, and I
|
||
appeared rather like one doomed by slavery to toil in the mines, or any other
|
||
unwholesome trade than an artist occupied by his favourite employment. Every
|
||
night I was oppressed by a slow fever, and I became nervous to a most painful
|
||
degree; the fall of a leaf startled me, and I shunned my fellow creatures as if
|
||
I had been guilty of a crime. Sometimes I grew alarmed at the wreck I perceived
|
||
that I had become; the energy of my purpose alone sustained me: my labours
|
||
would soon end, and I believed that exercise and amusement would then drive
|
||
away incipient disease; and I promised myself both of these when my creation
|
||
should be complete.
|
||
</p>
|
||
|
||
</div><!--end chapter-->
|
||
|
||
<div class="chapter">
|
||
|
||
<h2><a id="chap05"></a>Chapter 5</h2>
|
||
|
||
<p>
|
||
It was on a dreary night of November that I beheld the accomplishment of my
|
||
toils. With an anxiety that almost amounted to agony, I collected the
|
||
instruments of life around me, that I might infuse a spark of being into the
|
||
lifeless thing that lay at my feet. It was already one in the morning; the rain
|
||
pattered dismally against the panes, and my candle was nearly burnt out, when,
|
||
by the glimmer of the half-extinguished light, I saw the dull yellow eye of the
|
||
creature open; it breathed hard, and a convulsive motion agitated its limbs.
|
||
</p>
|
||
|
||
<p>
|
||
How can I describe my emotions at this catastrophe, or how delineate the wretch
|
||
whom with such infinite pains and care I had endeavoured to form? His limbs
|
||
were in proportion, and I had selected his features as beautiful. Beautiful!
|
||
Great God! His yellow skin scarcely covered the work of muscles and arteries
|
||
beneath; his hair was of a lustrous black, and flowing; his teeth of a pearly
|
||
whiteness; but these luxuriances only formed a more horrid contrast with his
|
||
watery eyes, that seemed almost of the same colour as the dun-white sockets in
|
||
which they were set, his shrivelled complexion and straight black lips.
|
||
</p>
|
||
|
||
<p>
|
||
The different accidents of life are not so changeable as the feelings of human
|
||
nature. I had worked hard for nearly two years, for the sole purpose of
|
||
infusing life into an inanimate body. For this I had deprived myself of rest
|
||
and health. I had desired it with an ardour that far exceeded moderation; but
|
||
now that I had finished, the beauty of the dream vanished, and breathless
|
||
horror and disgust filled my heart. Unable to endure the aspect of the being I
|
||
had created, I rushed out of the room and continued a long time traversing my
|
||
bed-chamber, unable to compose my mind to sleep. At length lassitude succeeded
|
||
to the tumult I had before endured, and I threw myself on the bed in my
|
||
clothes, endeavouring to seek a few moments of forgetfulness. But it was in
|
||
vain; I slept, indeed, but I was disturbed by the wildest dreams. I thought I
|
||
saw Elizabeth, in the bloom of health, walking in the streets of Ingolstadt.
|
||
Delighted and surprised, I embraced her, but as I imprinted the first kiss on
|
||
her lips, they became livid with the hue of death; her features appeared to
|
||
change, and I thought that I held the corpse of my dead mother in my arms; a
|
||
shroud enveloped her form, and I saw the grave-worms crawling in the folds of
|
||
the flannel. I started from my sleep with horror; a cold dew covered my
|
||
forehead, my teeth chattered, and every limb became convulsed; when, by the dim
|
||
and yellow light of the moon, as it forced its way through the window shutters,
|
||
I beheld the wretch—the miserable monster whom I had created. He held up the
|
||
curtain of the bed; and his eyes, if eyes they may be called, were fixed on me.
|
||
His jaws opened, and he muttered some inarticulate sounds, while a grin
|
||
wrinkled his cheeks. He might have spoken, but I did not hear; one hand was
|
||
stretched out, seemingly to detain me, but I escaped and rushed downstairs. I
|
||
took refuge in the courtyard belonging to the house which I inhabited, where I
|
||
remained during the rest of the night, walking up and down in the greatest
|
||
agitation, listening attentively, catching and fearing each sound as if it were
|
||
to announce the approach of the demoniacal corpse to which I had so miserably
|
||
given life.
|
||
</p>
|
||
|
||
<p>
|
||
Oh! No mortal could support the horror of that countenance. A mummy again
|
||
endued with animation could not be so hideous as that wretch. I had gazed on
|
||
him while unfinished; he was ugly then, but when those muscles and joints were
|
||
rendered capable of motion, it became a thing such as even Dante could not have
|
||
conceived.
|
||
</p>
|
||
|
||
<p>
|
||
I passed the night wretchedly. Sometimes my pulse beat so quickly and hardly
|
||
that I felt the palpitation of every artery; at others, I nearly sank to the
|
||
ground through languor and extreme weakness. Mingled with this horror, I felt
|
||
the bitterness of disappointment; dreams that had been my food and pleasant
|
||
rest for so long a space were now become a hell to me; and the change was so
|
||
rapid, the overthrow so complete!
|
||
</p>
|
||
|
||
<p>
|
||
Morning, dismal and wet, at length dawned and discovered to my sleepless and
|
||
aching eyes the church of Ingolstadt, its white steeple and clock, which
|
||
indicated the sixth hour. The porter opened the gates of the court, which had
|
||
that night been my asylum, and I issued into the streets, pacing them with
|
||
quick steps, as if I sought to avoid the wretch whom I feared every turning of
|
||
the street would present to my view. I did not dare return to the apartment
|
||
which I inhabited, but felt impelled to hurry on, although drenched by the rain
|
||
which poured from a black and comfortless sky.
|
||
</p>
|
||
|
||
<p>
|
||
I continued walking in this manner for some time, endeavouring by bodily
|
||
exercise to ease the load that weighed upon my mind. I traversed the streets
|
||
without any clear conception of where I was or what I was doing. My heart
|
||
palpitated in the sickness of fear, and I hurried on with irregular steps, not
|
||
daring to look about me:
|
||
</p>
|
||
|
||
<p class="poem">
|
||
Like one who, on a lonely road,<br>
|
||
Doth walk in fear and dread,<br>
|
||
And, having once turned round, walks on,<br>
|
||
And turns no more his head;<br>
|
||
Because he knows a frightful fiend<br>
|
||
Doth close behind him tread.<br>
|
||
<br>
|
||
[Coleridge’s “Ancient Mariner.”]
|
||
</p>
|
||
|
||
<p>
|
||
Continuing thus, I came at length opposite to the inn at which the various
|
||
diligences and carriages usually stopped. Here I paused, I knew not why; but I
|
||
remained some minutes with my eyes fixed on a coach that was coming towards me
|
||
from the other end of the street. As it drew nearer I observed that it was the
|
||
Swiss diligence; it stopped just where I was standing, and on the door being
|
||
opened, I perceived Henry Clerval, who, on seeing me, instantly sprung out. “My
|
||
dear Frankenstein,” exclaimed he, “how glad I am to see you! How fortunate that
|
||
you should be here at the very moment of my alighting!”
|
||
</p>
|
||
|
||
<p>
|
||
Nothing could equal my delight on seeing Clerval; his presence brought back to
|
||
my thoughts my father, Elizabeth, and all those scenes of home so dear to my
|
||
recollection. I grasped his hand, and in a moment forgot my horror and
|
||
misfortune; I felt suddenly, and for the first time during many months, calm
|
||
and serene joy. I welcomed my friend, therefore, in the most cordial manner,
|
||
and we walked towards my college. Clerval continued talking for some time about
|
||
our mutual friends and his own good fortune in being permitted to come to
|
||
Ingolstadt. “You may easily believe,” said he, “how great was the difficulty to
|
||
persuade my father that all necessary knowledge was not comprised in the noble
|
||
art of book-keeping; and, indeed, I believe I left him incredulous to the last,
|
||
for his constant answer to my unwearied entreaties was the same as that of the
|
||
Dutch schoolmaster in The Vicar of Wakefield: ‘I have ten thousand florins a
|
||
year without Greek, I eat heartily without Greek.’ But his affection for me at
|
||
length overcame his dislike of learning, and he has permitted me to undertake a
|
||
voyage of discovery to the land of knowledge.”
|
||
</p>
|
||
|
||
<p>
|
||
“It gives me the greatest delight to see you; but tell me how you left my
|
||
father, brothers, and Elizabeth.”
|
||
</p>
|
||
|
||
<p>
|
||
“Very well, and very happy, only a little uneasy that they hear from you so
|
||
seldom. By the by, I mean to lecture you a little upon their account myself.
|
||
But, my dear Frankenstein,” continued he, stopping short and gazing full in my
|
||
face, “I did not before remark how very ill you appear; so thin and pale; you
|
||
look as if you had been watching for several nights.”
|
||
</p>
|
||
|
||
<p>
|
||
“You have guessed right; I have lately been so deeply engaged in one occupation
|
||
that I have not allowed myself sufficient rest, as you see; but I hope, I
|
||
sincerely hope, that all these employments are now at an end and that I am at
|
||
length free.”
|
||
</p>
|
||
|
||
<p>
|
||
I trembled excessively; I could not endure to think of, and far less to allude
|
||
to, the occurrences of the preceding night. I walked with a quick pace, and we
|
||
soon arrived at my college. I then reflected, and the thought made me shiver,
|
||
that the creature whom I had left in my apartment might still be there, alive
|
||
and walking about. I dreaded to behold this monster, but I feared still more
|
||
that Henry should see him. Entreating him, therefore, to remain a few minutes
|
||
at the bottom of the stairs, I darted up towards my own room. My hand was
|
||
already on the lock of the door before I recollected myself. I then paused, and
|
||
a cold shivering came over me. I threw the door forcibly open, as children are
|
||
accustomed to do when they expect a spectre to stand in waiting for them on the
|
||
other side; but nothing appeared. I stepped fearfully in: the apartment was
|
||
empty, and my bedroom was also freed from its hideous guest. I could hardly
|
||
believe that so great a good fortune could have befallen me, but when I became
|
||
assured that my enemy had indeed fled, I clapped my hands for joy and ran down
|
||
to Clerval.
|
||
</p>
|
||
|
||
<p>
|
||
We ascended into my room, and the servant presently brought breakfast; but I
|
||
was unable to contain myself. It was not joy only that possessed me; I felt my
|
||
flesh tingle with excess of sensitiveness, and my pulse beat rapidly. I was
|
||
unable to remain for a single instant in the same place; I jumped over the
|
||
chairs, clapped my hands, and laughed aloud. Clerval at first attributed my
|
||
unusual spirits to joy on his arrival, but when he observed me more
|
||
attentively, he saw a wildness in my eyes for which he could not account, and
|
||
my loud, unrestrained, heartless laughter frightened and astonished him.
|
||
</p>
|
||
|
||
<p>
|
||
“My dear Victor,” cried he, “what, for God’s sake, is the matter? Do not laugh
|
||
in that manner. How ill you are! What is the cause of all this?”
|
||
</p>
|
||
|
||
<p>
|
||
“Do not ask me,” cried I, putting my hands before my eyes, for I thought I saw
|
||
the dreaded spectre glide into the room; “<i>he</i> can tell. Oh, save me! Save
|
||
me!” I imagined that the monster seized me; I struggled furiously and fell down
|
||
in a fit.
|
||
</p>
|
||
|
||
<p>
|
||
Poor Clerval! What must have been his feelings? A meeting, which he anticipated
|
||
with such joy, so strangely turned to bitterness. But I was not the witness of
|
||
his grief, for I was lifeless and did not recover my senses for a long, long
|
||
time.
|
||
</p>
|
||
|
||
<p>
|
||
This was the commencement of a nervous fever which confined me for several
|
||
months. During all that time Henry was my only nurse. I afterwards learned
|
||
that, knowing my father’s advanced age and unfitness for so long a journey, and
|
||
how wretched my sickness would make Elizabeth, he spared them this grief by
|
||
concealing the extent of my disorder. He knew that I could not have a more kind
|
||
and attentive nurse than himself; and, firm in the hope he felt of my recovery,
|
||
he did not doubt that, instead of doing harm, he performed the kindest action
|
||
that he could towards them.
|
||
</p>
|
||
|
||
<p>
|
||
But I was in reality very ill, and surely nothing but the unbounded and
|
||
unremitting attentions of my friend could have restored me to life. The form of
|
||
the monster on whom I had bestowed existence was for ever before my eyes, and I
|
||
raved incessantly concerning him. Doubtless my words surprised Henry; he at
|
||
first believed them to be the wanderings of my disturbed imagination, but the
|
||
pertinacity with which I continually recurred to the same subject persuaded him
|
||
that my disorder indeed owed its origin to some uncommon and terrible event.
|
||
</p>
|
||
|
||
<p>
|
||
By very slow degrees, and with frequent relapses that alarmed and grieved my
|
||
friend, I recovered. I remember the first time I became capable of observing
|
||
outward objects with any kind of pleasure, I perceived that the fallen leaves
|
||
had disappeared and that the young buds were shooting forth from the trees that
|
||
shaded my window. It was a divine spring, and the season contributed greatly to
|
||
my convalescence. I felt also sentiments of joy and affection revive in my
|
||
bosom; my gloom disappeared, and in a short time I became as cheerful as before
|
||
I was attacked by the fatal passion.
|
||
</p>
|
||
|
||
<p>
|
||
“Dearest Clerval,” exclaimed I, “how kind, how very good you are to me. This
|
||
whole winter, instead of being spent in study, as you promised yourself, has
|
||
been consumed in my sick room. How shall I ever repay you? I feel the greatest
|
||
remorse for the disappointment of which I have been the occasion, but you will
|
||
forgive me.”
|
||
</p>
|
||
|
||
<p>
|
||
“You will repay me entirely if you do not discompose yourself, but get well as
|
||
fast as you can; and since you appear in such good spirits, I may speak to you
|
||
on one subject, may I not?”
|
||
</p>
|
||
|
||
<p>
|
||
I trembled. One subject! What could it be? Could he allude to an object on whom
|
||
I dared not even think?
|
||
</p>
|
||
|
||
<p>
|
||
“Compose yourself,” said Clerval, who observed my change of colour, “I will not
|
||
mention it if it agitates you; but your father and cousin would be very happy
|
||
if they received a letter from you in your own handwriting. They hardly know
|
||
how ill you have been and are uneasy at your long silence.”
|
||
</p>
|
||
|
||
<p>
|
||
“Is that all, my dear Henry? How could you suppose that my first thought would
|
||
not fly towards those dear, dear friends whom I love and who are so deserving
|
||
of my love?”
|
||
</p>
|
||
|
||
<p>
|
||
“If this is your present temper, my friend, you will perhaps be glad to see a
|
||
letter that has been lying here some days for you; it is from your cousin, I
|
||
believe.”
|
||
</p>
|
||
|
||
</div><!--end chapter-->
|
||
|
||
<div class="chapter">
|
||
|
||
<h2><a id="chap06"></a>Chapter 6</h2>
|
||
|
||
<p>
|
||
Clerval then put the following letter into my hands. It was from my own
|
||
Elizabeth:
|
||
</p>
|
||
|
||
<p class="letter">
|
||
“My dearest Cousin,
|
||
</p>
|
||
|
||
<p>
|
||
“You have been ill, very ill, and even the constant letters of dear kind Henry
|
||
are not sufficient to reassure me on your account. You are forbidden to
|
||
write—to hold a pen; yet one word from you, dear Victor, is necessary to calm
|
||
our apprehensions. For a long time I have thought that each post would bring
|
||
this line, and my persuasions have restrained my uncle from undertaking a
|
||
journey to Ingolstadt. I have prevented his encountering the inconveniences and
|
||
perhaps dangers of so long a journey, yet how often have I regretted not being
|
||
able to perform it myself! I figure to myself that the task of attending on
|
||
your sickbed has devolved on some mercenary old nurse, who could never guess
|
||
your wishes nor minister to them with the care and affection of your poor
|
||
cousin. Yet that is over now: Clerval writes that indeed you are getting
|
||
better. I eagerly hope that you will confirm this intelligence soon in your own
|
||
handwriting.
|
||
</p>
|
||
|
||
<p>
|
||
“Get well—and return to us. You will find a happy, cheerful home and friends
|
||
who love you dearly. Your father’s health is vigorous, and he asks but to see
|
||
you, but to be assured that you are well; and not a care will ever cloud his
|
||
benevolent countenance. How pleased you would be to remark the improvement of
|
||
our Ernest! He is now sixteen and full of activity and spirit. He is desirous
|
||
to be a true Swiss and to enter into foreign service, but we cannot part with
|
||
him, at least until his elder brother returns to us. My uncle is not pleased
|
||
with the idea of a military career in a distant country, but Ernest never had
|
||
your powers of application. He looks upon study as an odious fetter; his time
|
||
is spent in the open air, climbing the hills or rowing on the lake. I fear that
|
||
he will become an idler unless we yield the point and permit him to enter on
|
||
the profession which he has selected.
|
||
</p>
|
||
|
||
<p>
|
||
“Little alteration, except the growth of our dear children, has taken place
|
||
since you left us. The blue lake and snow-clad mountains—they never change; and
|
||
I think our placid home and our contented hearts are regulated by the same
|
||
immutable laws. My trifling occupations take up my time and amuse me, and I am
|
||
rewarded for any exertions by seeing none but happy, kind faces around me.
|
||
Since you left us, but one change has taken place in our little household. Do
|
||
you remember on what occasion Justine Moritz entered our family? Probably you
|
||
do not; I will relate her history, therefore in a few words. Madame Moritz, her
|
||
mother, was a widow with four children, of whom Justine was the third. This
|
||
girl had always been the favourite of her father, but through a strange
|
||
perversity, her mother could not endure her, and after the death of M. Moritz,
|
||
treated her very ill. My aunt observed this, and when Justine was twelve years
|
||
of age, prevailed on her mother to allow her to live at our house. The
|
||
republican institutions of our country have produced simpler and happier
|
||
manners than those which prevail in the great monarchies that surround it.
|
||
Hence there is less distinction between the several classes of its inhabitants;
|
||
and the lower orders, being neither so poor nor so despised, their manners are
|
||
more refined and moral. A servant in Geneva does not mean the same thing as a
|
||
servant in France and England. Justine, thus received in our family, learned
|
||
the duties of a servant, a condition which, in our fortunate country, does not
|
||
include the idea of ignorance and a sacrifice of the dignity of a human being.
|
||
</p>
|
||
|
||
<p>
|
||
“Justine, you may remember, was a great favourite of yours; and I recollect you
|
||
once remarked that if you were in an ill humour, one glance from Justine could
|
||
dissipate it, for the same reason that Ariosto gives concerning the beauty of
|
||
Angelica—she looked so frank-hearted and happy. My aunt conceived a great
|
||
attachment for her, by which she was induced to give her an education superior
|
||
to that which she had at first intended. This benefit was fully repaid; Justine
|
||
was the most grateful little creature in the world: I do not mean that she made
|
||
any professions I never heard one pass her lips, but you could see by her eyes
|
||
that she almost adored her protectress. Although her disposition was gay and in
|
||
many respects inconsiderate, yet she paid the greatest attention to every
|
||
gesture of my aunt. She thought her the model of all excellence and endeavoured
|
||
to imitate her phraseology and manners, so that even now she often reminds me
|
||
of her.
|
||
</p>
|
||
|
||
<p>
|
||
“When my dearest aunt died every one was too much occupied in their own grief
|
||
to notice poor Justine, who had attended her during her illness with the most
|
||
anxious affection. Poor Justine was very ill; but other trials were reserved
|
||
for her.
|
||
</p>
|
||
|
||
<p>
|
||
“One by one, her brothers and sister died; and her mother, with the exception
|
||
of her neglected daughter, was left childless. The conscience of the woman was
|
||
troubled; she began to think that the deaths of her favourites was a judgement
|
||
from heaven to chastise her partiality. She was a Roman Catholic; and I believe
|
||
her confessor confirmed the idea which she had conceived. Accordingly, a few
|
||
months after your departure for Ingolstadt, Justine was called home by her
|
||
repentant mother. Poor girl! She wept when she quitted our house; she was much
|
||
altered since the death of my aunt; grief had given softness and a winning
|
||
mildness to her manners, which had before been remarkable for vivacity. Nor was
|
||
her residence at her mother’s house of a nature to restore her gaiety. The poor
|
||
woman was very vacillating in her repentance. She sometimes begged Justine to
|
||
forgive her unkindness, but much oftener accused her of having caused the
|
||
deaths of her brothers and sister. Perpetual fretting at length threw Madame
|
||
Moritz into a decline, which at first increased her irritability, but she is
|
||
now at peace for ever. She died on the first approach of cold weather, at the
|
||
beginning of this last winter. Justine has just returned to us; and I assure
|
||
you I love her tenderly. She is very clever and gentle, and extremely pretty;
|
||
as I mentioned before, her mien and her expression continually remind me of my
|
||
dear aunt.
|
||
</p>
|
||
|
||
<p>
|
||
“I must say also a few words to you, my dear cousin, of little darling William.
|
||
I wish you could see him; he is very tall of his age, with sweet laughing blue
|
||
eyes, dark eyelashes, and curling hair. When he smiles, two little dimples
|
||
appear on each cheek, which are rosy with health. He has already had one or two
|
||
little <i>wives,</i> but Louisa Biron is his favourite, a pretty little girl of
|
||
five years of age.
|
||
</p>
|
||
|
||
<p>
|
||
“Now, dear Victor, I dare say you wish to be indulged in a little gossip
|
||
concerning the good people of Geneva. The pretty Miss Mansfield has already
|
||
received the congratulatory visits on her approaching marriage with a young
|
||
Englishman, John Melbourne, Esq. Her ugly sister, Manon, married M. Duvillard,
|
||
the rich banker, last autumn. Your favourite schoolfellow, Louis Manoir, has
|
||
suffered several misfortunes since the departure of Clerval from Geneva. But he
|
||
has already recovered his spirits, and is reported to be on the point of
|
||
marrying a lively pretty Frenchwoman, Madame Tavernier. She is a widow, and
|
||
much older than Manoir; but she is very much admired, and a favourite with
|
||
everybody.
|
||
</p>
|
||
|
||
<p>
|
||
“I have written myself into better spirits, dear cousin; but my anxiety returns
|
||
upon me as I conclude. Write, dearest Victor,—one line—one word will be a
|
||
blessing to us. Ten thousand thanks to Henry for his kindness, his affection,
|
||
and his many letters; we are sincerely grateful. Adieu! my cousin; take care of
|
||
yourself; and, I entreat you, write!
|
||
</p>
|
||
|
||
<p class="right">
|
||
“Elizabeth Lavenza.
|
||
</p>
|
||
|
||
<p class="noindent">
|
||
“Geneva, March 18th, 17—.”<br>
|
||
</p>
|
||
|
||
<p>
|
||
“Dear, dear Elizabeth!” I exclaimed, when I had read her letter: “I will write
|
||
instantly and relieve them from the anxiety they must feel.” I wrote, and this
|
||
exertion greatly fatigued me; but my convalescence had commenced, and proceeded
|
||
regularly. In another fortnight I was able to leave my chamber.
|
||
</p>
|
||
|
||
<p>
|
||
One of my first duties on my recovery was to introduce Clerval to the several
|
||
professors of the university. In doing this, I underwent a kind of rough usage,
|
||
ill befitting the wounds that my mind had sustained. Ever since the fatal
|
||
night, the end of my labours, and the beginning of my misfortunes, I had
|
||
conceived a violent antipathy even to the name of natural philosophy. When I
|
||
was otherwise quite restored to health, the sight of a chemical instrument
|
||
would renew all the agony of my nervous symptoms. Henry saw this, and had
|
||
removed all my apparatus from my view. He had also changed my apartment; for he
|
||
perceived that I had acquired a dislike for the room which had previously been
|
||
my laboratory. But these cares of Clerval were made of no avail when I visited
|
||
the professors. M. Waldman inflicted torture when he praised, with kindness and
|
||
warmth, the astonishing progress I had made in the sciences. He soon perceived
|
||
that I disliked the subject; but not guessing the real cause, he attributed my
|
||
feelings to modesty, and changed the subject from my improvement, to the
|
||
science itself, with a desire, as I evidently saw, of drawing me out. What
|
||
could I do? He meant to please, and he tormented me. I felt as if he had placed
|
||
carefully, one by one, in my view those instruments which were to be afterwards
|
||
used in putting me to a slow and cruel death. I writhed under his words, yet
|
||
dared not exhibit the pain I felt. Clerval, whose eyes and feelings were always
|
||
quick in discerning the sensations of others, declined the subject, alleging,
|
||
in excuse, his total ignorance; and the conversation took a more general turn.
|
||
I thanked my friend from my heart, but I did not speak. I saw plainly that he
|
||
was surprised, but he never attempted to draw my secret from me; and although I
|
||
loved him with a mixture of affection and reverence that knew no bounds, yet I
|
||
could never persuade myself to confide in him that event which was so often
|
||
present to my recollection, but which I feared the detail to another would only
|
||
impress more deeply.
|
||
</p>
|
||
|
||
<p>
|
||
M. Krempe was not equally docile; and in my condition at that time, of almost
|
||
insupportable sensitiveness, his harsh blunt encomiums gave me even more pain
|
||
than the benevolent approbation of M. Waldman. “D—n the fellow!” cried he;
|
||
“why, M. Clerval, I assure you he has outstript us all. Ay, stare if you
|
||
please; but it is nevertheless true. A youngster who, but a few years ago,
|
||
believed in Cornelius Agrippa as firmly as in the gospel, has now set himself
|
||
at the head of the university; and if he is not soon pulled down, we shall all
|
||
be out of countenance.—Ay, ay,” continued he, observing my face expressive of
|
||
suffering, “M. Frankenstein is modest; an excellent quality in a young man.
|
||
Young men should be diffident of themselves, you know, M. Clerval: I was myself
|
||
when young; but that wears out in a very short time.”
|
||
</p>
|
||
|
||
<p>
|
||
M. Krempe had now commenced an eulogy on himself, which happily turned the
|
||
conversation from a subject that was so annoying to me.
|
||
</p>
|
||
|
||
<p>
|
||
Clerval had never sympathised in my tastes for natural science; and his
|
||
literary pursuits differed wholly from those which had occupied me. He came to
|
||
the university with the design of making himself complete master of the
|
||
oriental languages, and thus he should open a field for the plan of life he had
|
||
marked out for himself. Resolved to pursue no inglorious career, he turned his
|
||
eyes toward the East, as affording scope for his spirit of enterprise. The
|
||
Persian, Arabic, and Sanskrit languages engaged his attention, and I was easily
|
||
induced to enter on the same studies. Idleness had ever been irksome to me, and
|
||
now that I wished to fly from reflection, and hated my former studies, I felt
|
||
great relief in being the fellow-pupil with my friend, and found not only
|
||
instruction but consolation in the works of the orientalists. I did not, like
|
||
him, attempt a critical knowledge of their dialects, for I did not contemplate
|
||
making any other use of them than temporary amusement. I read merely to
|
||
understand their meaning, and they well repaid my labours. Their melancholy is
|
||
soothing, and their joy elevating, to a degree I never experienced in studying
|
||
the authors of any other country. When you read their writings, life appears to
|
||
consist in a warm sun and a garden of roses,—in the smiles and frowns of a fair
|
||
enemy, and the fire that consumes your own heart. How different from the manly
|
||
and heroical poetry of Greece and Rome!
|
||
</p>
|
||
|
||
<p>
|
||
Summer passed away in these occupations, and my return to Geneva was fixed for
|
||
the latter end of autumn; but being delayed by several accidents, winter and
|
||
snow arrived, the roads were deemed impassable, and my journey was retarded
|
||
until the ensuing spring. I felt this delay very bitterly; for I longed to see
|
||
my native town and my beloved friends. My return had only been delayed so long,
|
||
from an unwillingness to leave Clerval in a strange place, before he had become
|
||
acquainted with any of its inhabitants. The winter, however, was spent
|
||
cheerfully; and although the spring was uncommonly late, when it came its
|
||
beauty compensated for its dilatoriness.
|
||
</p>
|
||
|
||
<p>
|
||
The month of May had already commenced, and I expected the letter daily which
|
||
was to fix the date of my departure, when Henry proposed a pedestrian tour in
|
||
the environs of Ingolstadt, that I might bid a personal farewell to the country
|
||
I had so long inhabited. I acceded with pleasure to this proposition: I was
|
||
fond of exercise, and Clerval had always been my favourite companion in the
|
||
ramble of this nature that I had taken among the scenes of my native country.
|
||
</p>
|
||
|
||
<p>
|
||
We passed a fortnight in these perambulations: my health and spirits had long
|
||
been restored, and they gained additional strength from the salubrious air I
|
||
breathed, the natural incidents of our progress, and the conversation of my
|
||
friend. Study had before secluded me from the intercourse of my
|
||
fellow-creatures, and rendered me unsocial; but Clerval called forth the better
|
||
feelings of my heart; he again taught me to love the aspect of nature, and the
|
||
cheerful faces of children. Excellent friend! how sincerely you did love me,
|
||
and endeavour to elevate my mind until it was on a level with your own. A
|
||
selfish pursuit had cramped and narrowed me, until your gentleness and
|
||
affection warmed and opened my senses; I became the same happy creature who, a
|
||
few years ago, loved and beloved by all, had no sorrow or care. When happy,
|
||
inanimate nature had the power of bestowing on me the most delightful
|
||
sensations. A serene sky and verdant fields filled me with ecstasy. The present
|
||
season was indeed divine; the flowers of spring bloomed in the hedges, while
|
||
those of summer were already in bud. I was undisturbed by thoughts which during
|
||
the preceding year had pressed upon me, notwithstanding my endeavours to throw
|
||
them off, with an invincible burden.
|
||
</p>
|
||
|
||
<p>
|
||
Henry rejoiced in my gaiety, and sincerely sympathised in my feelings: he
|
||
exerted himself to amuse me, while he expressed the sensations that filled his
|
||
soul. The resources of his mind on this occasion were truly astonishing: his
|
||
conversation was full of imagination; and very often, in imitation of the
|
||
Persian and Arabic writers, he invented tales of wonderful fancy and passion.
|
||
At other times he repeated my favourite poems, or drew me out into arguments,
|
||
which he supported with great ingenuity.
|
||
</p>
|
||
|
||
<p>
|
||
We returned to our college on a Sunday afternoon: the peasants were dancing,
|
||
and every one we met appeared gay and happy. My own spirits were high, and I
|
||
bounded along with feelings of unbridled joy and hilarity.
|
||
</p>
|
||
|
||
</div><!--end chapter-->
|
||
|
||
<div class="chapter">
|
||
|
||
<h2><a id="chap07"></a>Chapter 7</h2>
|
||
|
||
<p>
|
||
On my return, I found the following letter from my father:—
|
||
</p>
|
||
|
||
<p class="letter">
|
||
“My dear Victor,
|
||
</p>
|
||
|
||
<p>
|
||
“You have probably waited impatiently for a letter to fix the date of your
|
||
return to us; and I was at first tempted to write only a few lines, merely
|
||
mentioning the day on which I should expect you. But that would be a cruel
|
||
kindness, and I dare not do it. What would be your surprise, my son, when you
|
||
expected a happy and glad welcome, to behold, on the contrary, tears and
|
||
wretchedness? And how, Victor, can I relate our misfortune? Absence cannot have
|
||
rendered you callous to our joys and griefs; and how shall I inflict pain on my
|
||
long absent son? I wish to prepare you for the woeful news, but I know it is
|
||
impossible; even now your eye skims over the page to seek the words which are
|
||
to convey to you the horrible tidings.
|
||
</p>
|
||
|
||
<p>
|
||
“William is dead!—that sweet child, whose smiles delighted and warmed my heart,
|
||
who was so gentle, yet so gay! Victor, he is murdered!
|
||
</p>
|
||
|
||
<p>
|
||
“I will not attempt to console you; but will simply relate the circumstances of
|
||
the transaction.
|
||
</p>
|
||
|
||
<p>
|
||
“Last Thursday (May 7th), I, my niece, and your two brothers, went to walk in
|
||
Plainpalais. The evening was warm and serene, and we prolonged our walk farther
|
||
than usual. It was already dusk before we thought of returning; and then we
|
||
discovered that William and Ernest, who had gone on before, were not to be
|
||
found. We accordingly rested on a seat until they should return. Presently
|
||
Ernest came, and enquired if we had seen his brother; he said, that he had been
|
||
playing with him, that William had run away to hide himself, and that he vainly
|
||
sought for him, and afterwards waited for a long time, but that he did not
|
||
return.
|
||
</p>
|
||
|
||
<p>
|
||
“This account rather alarmed us, and we continued to search for him until night
|
||
fell, when Elizabeth conjectured that he might have returned to the house. He
|
||
was not there. We returned again, with torches; for I could not rest, when I
|
||
thought that my sweet boy had lost himself, and was exposed to all the damps
|
||
and dews of night; Elizabeth also suffered extreme anguish. About five in the
|
||
morning I discovered my lovely boy, whom the night before I had seen blooming
|
||
and active in health, stretched on the grass livid and motionless; the print of
|
||
the murder’s finger was on his neck.
|
||
</p>
|
||
|
||
<p>
|
||
“He was conveyed home, and the anguish that was visible in my countenance
|
||
betrayed the secret to Elizabeth. She was very earnest to see the corpse. At
|
||
first I attempted to prevent her but she persisted, and entering the room where
|
||
it lay, hastily examined the neck of the victim, and clasping her hands
|
||
exclaimed, ‘O God! I have murdered my darling child!’
|
||
</p>
|
||
|
||
<p>
|
||
“She fainted, and was restored with extreme difficulty. When she again lived,
|
||
it was only to weep and sigh. She told me, that that same evening William had
|
||
teased her to let him wear a very valuable miniature that she possessed of your
|
||
mother. This picture is gone, and was doubtless the temptation which urged the
|
||
murderer to the deed. We have no trace of him at present, although our
|
||
exertions to discover him are unremitted; but they will not restore my beloved
|
||
William!
|
||
</p>
|
||
|
||
<p>
|
||
“Come, dearest Victor; you alone can console Elizabeth. She weeps continually,
|
||
and accuses herself unjustly as the cause of his death; her words pierce my
|
||
heart. We are all unhappy; but will not that be an additional motive for you,
|
||
my son, to return and be our comforter? Your dear mother! Alas, Victor! I now
|
||
say, Thank God she did not live to witness the cruel, miserable death of her
|
||
youngest darling!
|
||
</p>
|
||
|
||
<p>
|
||
“Come, Victor; not brooding thoughts of vengeance against the assassin, but
|
||
with feelings of peace and gentleness, that will heal, instead of festering,
|
||
the wounds of our minds. Enter the house of mourning, my friend, but with
|
||
kindness and affection for those who love you, and not with hatred for your
|
||
enemies.
|
||
</p>
|
||
|
||
<p class="right">
|
||
“Your affectionate and afflicted father,<br>
|
||
“Alphonse Frankenstein.
|
||
</p>
|
||
|
||
<p class="noindent">
|
||
“Geneva, May 12th, 17—.”<br>
|
||
</p>
|
||
|
||
<p>
|
||
Clerval, who had watched my countenance as I read this letter, was surprised to
|
||
observe the despair that succeeded the joy I at first expressed on receiving
|
||
news from my friends. I threw the letter on the table, and covered my face with
|
||
my hands.
|
||
</p>
|
||
|
||
<p>
|
||
“My dear Frankenstein,” exclaimed Henry, when he perceived me weep with
|
||
bitterness, “are you always to be unhappy? My dear friend, what has happened?”
|
||
</p>
|
||
|
||
<p>
|
||
I motioned him to take up the letter, while I walked up and down the room in
|
||
the extremest agitation. Tears also gushed from the eyes of Clerval, as he read
|
||
the account of my misfortune.
|
||
</p>
|
||
|
||
<p>
|
||
“I can offer you no consolation, my friend,” said he; “your disaster is
|
||
irreparable. What do you intend to do?”
|
||
</p>
|
||
|
||
<p>
|
||
“To go instantly to Geneva: come with me, Henry, to order the horses.”
|
||
</p>
|
||
|
||
<p>
|
||
During our walk, Clerval endeavoured to say a few words of consolation; he
|
||
could only express his heartfelt sympathy. “Poor William!” said he, “dear
|
||
lovely child, he now sleeps with his angel mother! Who that had seen him bright
|
||
and joyous in his young beauty, but must weep over his untimely loss! To die so
|
||
miserably; to feel the murderer’s grasp! How much more a murdered that could
|
||
destroy radiant innocence! Poor little fellow! one only consolation have we;
|
||
his friends mourn and weep, but he is at rest. The pang is over, his sufferings
|
||
are at an end for ever. A sod covers his gentle form, and he knows no pain. He
|
||
can no longer be a subject for pity; we must reserve that for his miserable
|
||
survivors.”
|
||
</p>
|
||
|
||
<p>
|
||
Clerval spoke thus as we hurried through the streets; the words impressed
|
||
themselves on my mind and I remembered them afterwards in solitude. But now, as
|
||
soon as the horses arrived, I hurried into a cabriolet, and bade farewell to my
|
||
friend.
|
||
</p>
|
||
|
||
<p>
|
||
My journey was very melancholy. At first I wished to hurry on, for I longed to
|
||
console and sympathise with my loved and sorrowing friends; but when I drew
|
||
near my native town, I slackened my progress. I could hardly sustain the
|
||
multitude of feelings that crowded into my mind. I passed through scenes
|
||
familiar to my youth, but which I had not seen for nearly six years. How
|
||
altered every thing might be during that time! One sudden and desolating change
|
||
had taken place; but a thousand little circumstances might have by degrees
|
||
worked other alterations, which, although they were done more tranquilly, might
|
||
not be the less decisive. Fear overcame me; I dared no advance, dreading a
|
||
thousand nameless evils that made me tremble, although I was unable to define
|
||
them.
|
||
</p>
|
||
|
||
<p>
|
||
I remained two days at Lausanne, in this painful state of mind. I contemplated
|
||
the lake: the waters were placid; all around was calm; and the snowy mountains,
|
||
“the palaces of nature,” were not changed. By degrees the calm and heavenly
|
||
scene restored me, and I continued my journey towards Geneva.
|
||
</p>
|
||
|
||
<p>
|
||
The road ran by the side of the lake, which became narrower as I approached my
|
||
native town. I discovered more distinctly the black sides of Jura, and the
|
||
bright summit of Mont Blanc. I wept like a child. “Dear mountains! my own
|
||
beautiful lake! how do you welcome your wanderer? Your summits are clear; the
|
||
sky and lake are blue and placid. Is this to prognosticate peace, or to mock at
|
||
my unhappiness?”
|
||
</p>
|
||
|
||
<p>
|
||
I fear, my friend, that I shall render myself tedious by dwelling on these
|
||
preliminary circumstances; but they were days of comparative happiness, and I
|
||
think of them with pleasure. My country, my beloved country! who but a native
|
||
can tell the delight I took in again beholding thy streams, thy mountains, and,
|
||
more than all, thy lovely lake!
|
||
</p>
|
||
|
||
<p>
|
||
Yet, as I drew nearer home, grief and fear again overcame me. Night also closed
|
||
around; and when I could hardly see the dark mountains, I felt still more
|
||
gloomily. The picture appeared a vast and dim scene of evil, and I foresaw
|
||
obscurely that I was destined to become the most wretched of human beings.
|
||
Alas! I prophesied truly, and failed only in one single circumstance, that in
|
||
all the misery I imagined and dreaded, I did not conceive the hundredth part of
|
||
the anguish I was destined to endure.
|
||
</p>
|
||
|
||
<p>
|
||
It was completely dark when I arrived in the environs of Geneva; the gates of
|
||
the town were already shut; and I was obliged to pass the night at Secheron, a
|
||
village at the distance of half a league from the city. The sky was serene;
|
||
and, as I was unable to rest, I resolved to visit the spot where my poor
|
||
William had been murdered. As I could not pass through the town, I was obliged
|
||
to cross the lake in a boat to arrive at Plainpalais. During this short voyage
|
||
I saw the lightning playing on the summit of Mont Blanc in the most beautiful
|
||
figures. The storm appeared to approach rapidly, and, on landing, I ascended a
|
||
low hill, that I might observe its progress. It advanced; the heavens were
|
||
clouded, and I soon felt the rain coming slowly in large drops, but its
|
||
violence quickly increased.
|
||
</p>
|
||
|
||
<p>
|
||
I quitted my seat, and walked on, although the darkness and storm increased
|
||
every minute, and the thunder burst with a terrific crash over my head. It was
|
||
echoed from Salêve, the Juras, and the Alps of Savoy; vivid flashes of
|
||
lightning dazzled my eyes, illuminating the lake, making it appear like a vast
|
||
sheet of fire; then for an instant every thing seemed of a pitchy darkness,
|
||
until the eye recovered itself from the preceding flash. The storm, as is often
|
||
the case in Switzerland, appeared at once in various parts of the heavens. The
|
||
most violent storm hung exactly north of the town, over the part of the lake
|
||
which lies between the promontory of Belrive and the village of Copêt. Another
|
||
storm enlightened Jura with faint flashes; and another darkened and sometimes
|
||
disclosed the Môle, a peaked mountain to the east of the lake.
|
||
</p>
|
||
|
||
<p>
|
||
While I watched the tempest, so beautiful yet terrific, I wandered on with a
|
||
hasty step. This noble war in the sky elevated my spirits; I clasped my hands,
|
||
and exclaimed aloud, “William, dear angel! this is thy funeral, this thy
|
||
dirge!” As I said these words, I perceived in the gloom a figure which stole
|
||
from behind a clump of trees near me; I stood fixed, gazing intently: I could
|
||
not be mistaken. A flash of lightning illuminated the object, and discovered
|
||
its shape plainly to me; its gigantic stature, and the deformity of its aspect
|
||
more hideous than belongs to humanity, instantly informed me that it was the
|
||
wretch, the filthy dæmon, to whom I had given life. What did he there? Could he
|
||
be (I shuddered at the conception) the murderer of my brother? No sooner did
|
||
that idea cross my imagination, than I became convinced of its truth; my teeth
|
||
chattered, and I was forced to lean against a tree for support. The figure
|
||
passed me quickly, and I lost it in the gloom. Nothing in human shape could
|
||
have destroyed the fair child. <i>He</i> was the murderer! I could not doubt
|
||
it. The mere presence of the idea was an irresistible proof of the fact. I
|
||
thought of pursuing the devil; but it would have been in vain, for another
|
||
flash discovered him to me hanging among the rocks of the nearly perpendicular
|
||
ascent of Mont Salêve, a hill that bounds Plainpalais on the south. He soon
|
||
reached the summit, and disappeared.
|
||
</p>
|
||
|
||
<p>
|
||
I remained motionless. The thunder ceased; but the rain still continued, and
|
||
the scene was enveloped in an impenetrable darkness. I revolved in my mind the
|
||
events which I had until now sought to forget: the whole train of my progress
|
||
toward the creation; the appearance of the works of my own hands at my bedside;
|
||
its departure. Two years had now nearly elapsed since the night on which he
|
||
first received life; and was this his first crime? Alas! I had turned loose
|
||
into the world a depraved wretch, whose delight was in carnage and misery; had
|
||
he not murdered my brother?
|
||
</p>
|
||
|
||
<p>
|
||
No one can conceive the anguish I suffered during the remainder of the night,
|
||
which I spent, cold and wet, in the open air. But I did not feel the
|
||
inconvenience of the weather; my imagination was busy in scenes of evil and
|
||
despair. I considered the being whom I had cast among mankind, and endowed with
|
||
the will and power to effect purposes of horror, such as the deed which he had
|
||
now done, nearly in the light of my own vampire, my own spirit let loose from
|
||
the grave, and forced to destroy all that was dear to me.
|
||
</p>
|
||
|
||
<p>
|
||
Day dawned; and I directed my steps towards the town. The gates were open, and
|
||
I hastened to my father’s house. My first thought was to discover what I knew
|
||
of the murderer, and cause instant pursuit to be made. But I paused when I
|
||
reflected on the story that I had to tell. A being whom I myself had formed,
|
||
and endued with life, had met me at midnight among the precipices of an
|
||
inaccessible mountain. I remembered also the nervous fever with which I had
|
||
been seized just at the time that I dated my creation, and which would give an
|
||
air of delirium to a tale otherwise so utterly improbable. I well knew that if
|
||
any other had communicated such a relation to me, I should have looked upon it
|
||
as the ravings of insanity. Besides, the strange nature of the animal would
|
||
elude all pursuit, even if I were so far credited as to persuade my relatives
|
||
to commence it. And then of what use would be pursuit? Who could arrest a
|
||
creature capable of scaling the overhanging sides of Mont Salêve? These
|
||
reflections determined me, and I resolved to remain silent.
|
||
</p>
|
||
|
||
<p>
|
||
It was about five in the morning when I entered my father’s house. I told the
|
||
servants not to disturb the family, and went into the library to attend their
|
||
usual hour of rising.
|
||
</p>
|
||
|
||
<p>
|
||
Six years had elapsed, passed in a dream but for one indelible trace, and I
|
||
stood in the same place where I had last embraced my father before my departure
|
||
for Ingolstadt. Beloved and venerable parent! He still remained to me. I gazed
|
||
on the picture of my mother, which stood over the mantel-piece. It was an
|
||
historical subject, painted at my father’s desire, and represented Caroline
|
||
Beaufort in an agony of despair, kneeling by the coffin of her dead father. Her
|
||
garb was rustic, and her cheek pale; but there was an air of dignity and
|
||
beauty, that hardly permitted the sentiment of pity. Below this picture was a
|
||
miniature of William; and my tears flowed when I looked upon it. While I was
|
||
thus engaged, Ernest entered: he had heard me arrive, and hastened to welcome
|
||
me: “Welcome, my dearest Victor,” said he. “Ah! I wish you had come three
|
||
months ago, and then you would have found us all joyous and delighted. You come
|
||
to us now to share a misery which nothing can alleviate; yet your presence
|
||
will, I hope, revive our father, who seems sinking under his misfortune; and
|
||
your persuasions will induce poor Elizabeth to cease her vain and tormenting
|
||
self-accusations.—Poor William! he was our darling and our pride!”
|
||
</p>
|
||
|
||
<p>
|
||
Tears, unrestrained, fell from my brother’s eyes; a sense of mortal agony crept
|
||
over my frame. Before, I had only imagined the wretchedness of my desolated
|
||
home; the reality came on me as a new, and a not less terrible, disaster. I
|
||
tried to calm Ernest; I enquired more minutely concerning my father, and here I
|
||
named my cousin.
|
||
</p>
|
||
|
||
<p>
|
||
“She most of all,” said Ernest, “requires consolation; she accused herself of
|
||
having caused the death of my brother, and that made her very wretched. But
|
||
since the murderer has been discovered—”
|
||
</p>
|
||
|
||
<p>
|
||
“The murderer discovered! Good God! how can that be? who could attempt to
|
||
pursue him? It is impossible; one might as well try to overtake the winds, or
|
||
confine a mountain-stream with a straw. I saw him too; he was free last night!”
|
||
</p>
|
||
|
||
<p>
|
||
“I do not know what you mean,” replied my brother, in accents of wonder, “but
|
||
to us the discovery we have made completes our misery. No one would believe it
|
||
at first; and even now Elizabeth will not be convinced, notwithstanding all the
|
||
evidence. Indeed, who would credit that Justine Moritz, who was so amiable, and
|
||
fond of all the family, could suddenly become so capable of so frightful, so
|
||
appalling a crime?”
|
||
</p>
|
||
|
||
<p>
|
||
“Justine Moritz! Poor, poor girl, is she the accused? But it is wrongfully;
|
||
every one knows that; no one believes it, surely, Ernest?”
|
||
</p>
|
||
|
||
<p>
|
||
“No one did at first; but several circumstances came out, that have almost
|
||
forced conviction upon us; and her own behaviour has been so confused, as to
|
||
add to the evidence of facts a weight that, I fear, leaves no hope for doubt.
|
||
But she will be tried today, and you will then hear all.”
|
||
</p>
|
||
|
||
<p>
|
||
He then related that, the morning on which the murder of poor William had been
|
||
discovered, Justine had been taken ill, and confined to her bed for several
|
||
days. During this interval, one of the servants, happening to examine the
|
||
apparel she had worn on the night of the murder, had discovered in her pocket
|
||
the picture of my mother, which had been judged to be the temptation of the
|
||
murderer. The servant instantly showed it to one of the others, who, without
|
||
saying a word to any of the family, went to a magistrate; and, upon their
|
||
deposition, Justine was apprehended. On being charged with the fact, the poor
|
||
girl confirmed the suspicion in a great measure by her extreme confusion of
|
||
manner.
|
||
</p>
|
||
|
||
<p>
|
||
This was a strange tale, but it did not shake my faith; and I replied
|
||
earnestly, “You are all mistaken; I know the murderer. Justine, poor, good
|
||
Justine, is innocent.”
|
||
</p>
|
||
|
||
<p>
|
||
At that instant my father entered. I saw unhappiness deeply impressed on his
|
||
countenance, but he endeavoured to welcome me cheerfully; and, after we had
|
||
exchanged our mournful greeting, would have introduced some other topic than
|
||
that of our disaster, had not Ernest exclaimed, “Good God, papa! Victor says
|
||
that he knows who was the murderer of poor William.”
|
||
</p>
|
||
|
||
<p>
|
||
“We do also, unfortunately,” replied my father, “for indeed I had rather have
|
||
been for ever ignorant than have discovered so much depravity and ungratitude
|
||
in one I valued so highly.”
|
||
</p>
|
||
|
||
<p>
|
||
“My dear father, you are mistaken; Justine is innocent.”
|
||
</p>
|
||
|
||
<p>
|
||
“If she is, God forbid that she should suffer as guilty. She is to be tried
|
||
today, and I hope, I sincerely hope, that she will be acquitted.”
|
||
</p>
|
||
|
||
<p>
|
||
This speech calmed me. I was firmly convinced in my own mind that Justine, and
|
||
indeed every human being, was guiltless of this murder. I had no fear,
|
||
therefore, that any circumstantial evidence could be brought forward strong
|
||
enough to convict her. My tale was not one to announce publicly; its astounding
|
||
horror would be looked upon as madness by the vulgar. Did any one indeed exist,
|
||
except I, the creator, who would believe, unless his senses convinced him, in
|
||
the existence of the living monument of presumption and rash ignorance which I
|
||
had let loose upon the world?
|
||
</p>
|
||
|
||
<p>
|
||
We were soon joined by Elizabeth. Time had altered her since I last beheld her;
|
||
it had endowed her with loveliness surpassing the beauty of her childish years.
|
||
There was the same candour, the same vivacity, but it was allied to an
|
||
expression more full of sensibility and intellect. She welcomed me with the
|
||
greatest affection. “Your arrival, my dear cousin,” said she, “fills me with
|
||
hope. You perhaps will find some means to justify my poor guiltless Justine.
|
||
Alas! who is safe, if she be convicted of crime? I rely on her innocence as
|
||
certainly as I do upon my own. Our misfortune is doubly hard to us; we have not
|
||
only lost that lovely darling boy, but this poor girl, whom I sincerely love,
|
||
is to be torn away by even a worse fate. If she is condemned, I never shall
|
||
know joy more. But she will not, I am sure she will not; and then I shall be
|
||
happy again, even after the sad death of my little William.”
|
||
</p>
|
||
|
||
<p>
|
||
“She is innocent, my Elizabeth,” said I, “and that shall be proved; fear
|
||
nothing, but let your spirits be cheered by the assurance of her acquittal.”
|
||
</p>
|
||
|
||
<p>
|
||
“How kind and generous you are! every one else believes in her guilt, and that
|
||
made me wretched, for I knew that it was impossible: and to see every one else
|
||
prejudiced in so deadly a manner rendered me hopeless and despairing.” She
|
||
wept.
|
||
</p>
|
||
|
||
<p>
|
||
“Dearest niece,” said my father, “dry your tears. If she is, as you believe,
|
||
innocent, rely on the justice of our laws, and the activity with which I shall
|
||
prevent the slightest shadow of partiality.”
|
||
</p>
|
||
|
||
</div><!--end chapter-->
|
||
|
||
<div class="chapter">
|
||
|
||
<h2><a id="chap08"></a>Chapter 8</h2>
|
||
|
||
<p>
|
||
We passed a few sad hours until eleven o’clock, when the trial was to commence.
|
||
My father and the rest of the family being obliged to attend as witnesses, I
|
||
accompanied them to the court. During the whole of this wretched mockery of
|
||
justice I suffered living torture. It was to be decided whether the result of
|
||
my curiosity and lawless devices would cause the death of two of my fellow
|
||
beings: one a smiling babe full of innocence and joy, the other far more
|
||
dreadfully murdered, with every aggravation of infamy that could make the
|
||
murder memorable in horror. Justine also was a girl of merit and possessed
|
||
qualities which promised to render her life happy; now all was to be
|
||
obliterated in an ignominious grave, and I the cause! A thousand times rather
|
||
would I have confessed myself guilty of the crime ascribed to Justine, but I
|
||
was absent when it was committed, and such a declaration would have been
|
||
considered as the ravings of a madman and would not have exculpated her who
|
||
suffered through me.
|
||
</p>
|
||
|
||
<p>
|
||
The appearance of Justine was calm. She was dressed in mourning, and her
|
||
countenance, always engaging, was rendered, by the solemnity of her feelings,
|
||
exquisitely beautiful. Yet she appeared confident in innocence and did not
|
||
tremble, although gazed on and execrated by thousands, for all the kindness
|
||
which her beauty might otherwise have excited was obliterated in the minds of
|
||
the spectators by the imagination of the enormity she was supposed to have
|
||
committed. She was tranquil, yet her tranquillity was evidently constrained;
|
||
and as her confusion had before been adduced as a proof of her guilt, she
|
||
worked up her mind to an appearance of courage. When she entered the court she
|
||
threw her eyes round it and quickly discovered where we were seated. A tear
|
||
seemed to dim her eye when she saw us, but she quickly recovered herself, and a
|
||
look of sorrowful affection seemed to attest her utter guiltlessness.
|
||
</p>
|
||
|
||
<p>
|
||
The trial began, and after the advocate against her had stated the charge,
|
||
several witnesses were called. Several strange facts combined against her,
|
||
which might have staggered anyone who had not such proof of her innocence as I
|
||
had. She had been out the whole of the night on which the murder had been
|
||
committed and towards morning had been perceived by a market-woman not far from
|
||
the spot where the body of the murdered child had been afterwards found. The
|
||
woman asked her what she did there, but she looked very strangely and only
|
||
returned a confused and unintelligible answer. She returned to the house about
|
||
eight o’clock, and when one inquired where she had passed the night, she
|
||
replied that she had been looking for the child and demanded earnestly if
|
||
anything had been heard concerning him. When shown the body, she fell into
|
||
violent hysterics and kept her bed for several days. The picture was then
|
||
produced which the servant had found in her pocket; and when Elizabeth, in a
|
||
faltering voice, proved that it was the same which, an hour before the child
|
||
had been missed, she had placed round his neck, a murmur of horror and
|
||
indignation filled the court.
|
||
</p>
|
||
|
||
<p>
|
||
Justine was called on for her defence. As the trial had proceeded, her
|
||
countenance had altered. Surprise, horror, and misery were strongly expressed.
|
||
Sometimes she struggled with her tears, but when she was desired to plead, she
|
||
collected her powers and spoke in an audible although variable voice.
|
||
</p>
|
||
|
||
<p>
|
||
“God knows,” she said, “how entirely I am innocent. But I do not pretend that
|
||
my protestations should acquit me; I rest my innocence on a plain and simple
|
||
explanation of the facts which have been adduced against me, and I hope the
|
||
character I have always borne will incline my judges to a favourable
|
||
interpretation where any circumstance appears doubtful or suspicious.”
|
||
</p>
|
||
|
||
<p>
|
||
She then related that, by the permission of Elizabeth, she had passed the
|
||
evening of the night on which the murder had been committed at the house of an
|
||
aunt at Chêne, a village situated at about a league from Geneva. On her return,
|
||
at about nine o’clock, she met a man who asked her if she had seen anything of
|
||
the child who was lost. She was alarmed by this account and passed several
|
||
hours in looking for him, when the gates of Geneva were shut, and she was
|
||
forced to remain several hours of the night in a barn belonging to a cottage,
|
||
being unwilling to call up the inhabitants, to whom she was well known. Most of
|
||
the night she spent here watching; towards morning she believed that she slept
|
||
for a few minutes; some steps disturbed her, and she awoke. It was dawn, and
|
||
she quitted her asylum, that she might again endeavour to find my brother. If
|
||
she had gone near the spot where his body lay, it was without her knowledge.
|
||
That she had been bewildered when questioned by the market-woman was not
|
||
surprising, since she had passed a sleepless night and the fate of poor William
|
||
was yet uncertain. Concerning the picture she could give no account.
|
||
</p>
|
||
|
||
<p>
|
||
“I know,” continued the unhappy victim, “how heavily and fatally this one
|
||
circumstance weighs against me, but I have no power of explaining it; and when
|
||
I have expressed my utter ignorance, I am only left to conjecture concerning
|
||
the probabilities by which it might have been placed in my pocket. But here
|
||
also I am checked. I believe that I have no enemy on earth, and none surely
|
||
would have been so wicked as to destroy me wantonly. Did the murderer place it
|
||
there? I know of no opportunity afforded him for so doing; or, if I had, why
|
||
should he have stolen the jewel, to part with it again so soon?
|
||
</p>
|
||
|
||
<p>
|
||
“I commit my cause to the justice of my judges, yet I see no room for hope. I
|
||
beg permission to have a few witnesses examined concerning my character, and if
|
||
their testimony shall not overweigh my supposed guilt, I must be condemned,
|
||
although I would pledge my salvation on my innocence.”
|
||
</p>
|
||
|
||
<p>
|
||
Several witnesses were called who had known her for many years, and they spoke
|
||
well of her; but fear and hatred of the crime of which they supposed her guilty
|
||
rendered them timorous and unwilling to come forward. Elizabeth saw even this
|
||
last resource, her excellent dispositions and irreproachable conduct, about to
|
||
fail the accused, when, although violently agitated, she desired permission to
|
||
address the court.
|
||
</p>
|
||
|
||
<p>
|
||
“I am,” said she, “the cousin of the unhappy child who was murdered, or rather
|
||
his sister, for I was educated by and have lived with his parents ever since
|
||
and even long before his birth. It may therefore be judged indecent in me to
|
||
come forward on this occasion, but when I see a fellow creature about to perish
|
||
through the cowardice of her pretended friends, I wish to be allowed to speak,
|
||
that I may say what I know of her character. I am well acquainted with the
|
||
accused. I have lived in the same house with her, at one time for five and at
|
||
another for nearly two years. During all that period she appeared to me the
|
||
most amiable and benevolent of human creatures. She nursed Madame Frankenstein,
|
||
my aunt, in her last illness, with the greatest affection and care and
|
||
afterwards attended her own mother during a tedious illness, in a manner that
|
||
excited the admiration of all who knew her, after which she again lived in my
|
||
uncle’s house, where she was beloved by all the family. She was warmly attached
|
||
to the child who is now dead and acted towards him like a most affectionate
|
||
mother. For my own part, I do not hesitate to say that, notwithstanding all the
|
||
evidence produced against her, I believe and rely on her perfect innocence. She
|
||
had no temptation for such an action; as to the bauble on which the chief proof
|
||
rests, if she had earnestly desired it, I should have willingly given it to
|
||
her, so much do I esteem and value her.”
|
||
</p>
|
||
|
||
<p>
|
||
A murmur of approbation followed Elizabeth’s simple and powerful appeal, but it
|
||
was excited by her generous interference, and not in favour of poor Justine, on
|
||
whom the public indignation was turned with renewed violence, charging her with
|
||
the blackest ingratitude. She herself wept as Elizabeth spoke, but she did not
|
||
answer. My own agitation and anguish was extreme during the whole trial. I
|
||
believed in her innocence; I knew it. Could the dæmon who had (I did not for a
|
||
minute doubt) murdered my brother also in his hellish sport have betrayed the
|
||
innocent to death and ignominy? I could not sustain the horror of my situation,
|
||
and when I perceived that the popular voice and the countenances of the judges
|
||
had already condemned my unhappy victim, I rushed out of the court in agony.
|
||
The tortures of the accused did not equal mine; she was sustained by innocence,
|
||
but the fangs of remorse tore my bosom and would not forgo their hold.
|
||
</p>
|
||
|
||
<p>
|
||
I passed a night of unmingled wretchedness. In the morning I went to the court;
|
||
my lips and throat were parched. I dared not ask the fatal question, but I was
|
||
known, and the officer guessed the cause of my visit. The ballots had been
|
||
thrown; they were all black, and Justine was condemned.
|
||
</p>
|
||
|
||
<p>
|
||
I cannot pretend to describe what I then felt. I had before experienced
|
||
sensations of horror, and I have endeavoured to bestow upon them adequate
|
||
expressions, but words cannot convey an idea of the heart-sickening despair
|
||
that I then endured. The person to whom I addressed myself added that Justine
|
||
had already confessed her guilt. “That evidence,” he observed, “was hardly
|
||
required in so glaring a case, but I am glad of it, and, indeed, none of our
|
||
judges like to condemn a criminal upon circumstantial evidence, be it ever so
|
||
decisive.”
|
||
</p>
|
||
|
||
<p>
|
||
This was strange and unexpected intelligence; what could it mean? Had my eyes
|
||
deceived me? And was I really as mad as the whole world would believe me to be
|
||
if I disclosed the object of my suspicions? I hastened to return home, and
|
||
Elizabeth eagerly demanded the result.
|
||
</p>
|
||
|
||
<p>
|
||
“My cousin,” replied I, “it is decided as you may have expected; all judges had
|
||
rather that ten innocent should suffer than that one guilty should escape. But
|
||
she has confessed.”
|
||
</p>
|
||
|
||
<p>
|
||
This was a dire blow to poor Elizabeth, who had relied with firmness upon
|
||
Justine’s innocence. “Alas!” said she. “How shall I ever again believe in human
|
||
goodness? Justine, whom I loved and esteemed as my sister, how could she put on
|
||
those smiles of innocence only to betray? Her mild eyes seemed incapable of any
|
||
severity or guile, and yet she has committed a murder.”
|
||
</p>
|
||
|
||
<p>
|
||
Soon after we heard that the poor victim had expressed a desire to see my
|
||
cousin. My father wished her not to go but said that he left it to her own
|
||
judgment and feelings to decide. “Yes,” said Elizabeth, “I will go, although
|
||
she is guilty; and you, Victor, shall accompany me; I cannot go alone.” The
|
||
idea of this visit was torture to me, yet I could not refuse.
|
||
</p>
|
||
|
||
<p>
|
||
We entered the gloomy prison chamber and beheld Justine sitting on some straw
|
||
at the farther end; her hands were manacled, and her head rested on her knees.
|
||
She rose on seeing us enter, and when we were left alone with her, she threw
|
||
herself at the feet of Elizabeth, weeping bitterly. My cousin wept also.
|
||
</p>
|
||
|
||
<p>
|
||
“Oh, Justine!” said she. “Why did you rob me of my last consolation? I relied
|
||
on your innocence, and although I was then very wretched, I was not so
|
||
miserable as I am now.”
|
||
</p>
|
||
|
||
<p>
|
||
“And do you also believe that I am so very, very wicked? Do you also join with
|
||
my enemies to crush me, to condemn me as a murderer?” Her voice was suffocated
|
||
with sobs.
|
||
</p>
|
||
|
||
<p>
|
||
“Rise, my poor girl,” said Elizabeth; “why do you kneel, if you are innocent? I
|
||
am not one of your enemies, I believed you guiltless, notwithstanding every
|
||
evidence, until I heard that you had yourself declared your guilt. That report,
|
||
you say, is false; and be assured, dear Justine, that nothing can shake my
|
||
confidence in you for a moment, but your own confession.”
|
||
</p>
|
||
|
||
<p>
|
||
“I did confess, but I confessed a lie. I confessed, that I might obtain
|
||
absolution; but now that falsehood lies heavier at my heart than all my other
|
||
sins. The God of heaven forgive me! Ever since I was condemned, my confessor
|
||
has besieged me; he threatened and menaced, until I almost began to think that
|
||
I was the monster that he said I was. He threatened excommunication and hell
|
||
fire in my last moments if I continued obdurate. Dear lady, I had none to
|
||
support me; all looked on me as a wretch doomed to ignominy and perdition. What
|
||
could I do? In an evil hour I subscribed to a lie; and now only am I truly
|
||
miserable.”
|
||
</p>
|
||
|
||
<p>
|
||
She paused, weeping, and then continued, “I thought with horror, my sweet lady,
|
||
that you should believe your Justine, whom your blessed aunt had so highly
|
||
honoured, and whom you loved, was a creature capable of a crime which none but
|
||
the devil himself could have perpetrated. Dear William! dearest blessed child!
|
||
I soon shall see you again in heaven, where we shall all be happy; and that
|
||
consoles me, going as I am to suffer ignominy and death.”
|
||
</p>
|
||
|
||
<p>
|
||
“Oh, Justine! Forgive me for having for one moment distrusted you. Why did you
|
||
confess? But do not mourn, dear girl. Do not fear. I will proclaim, I will
|
||
prove your innocence. I will melt the stony hearts of your enemies by my tears
|
||
and prayers. You shall not die! You, my playfellow, my companion, my sister,
|
||
perish on the scaffold! No! No! I never could survive so horrible a
|
||
misfortune.”
|
||
</p>
|
||
|
||
<p>
|
||
Justine shook her head mournfully. “I do not fear to die,” she said; “that pang
|
||
is past. God raises my weakness and gives me courage to endure the worst. I
|
||
leave a sad and bitter world; and if you remember me and think of me as of one
|
||
unjustly condemned, I am resigned to the fate awaiting me. Learn from me, dear
|
||
lady, to submit in patience to the will of heaven!”
|
||
</p>
|
||
|
||
<p>
|
||
During this conversation I had retired to a corner of the prison room, where I
|
||
could conceal the horrid anguish that possessed me. Despair! Who dared talk of
|
||
that? The poor victim, who on the morrow was to pass the awful boundary between
|
||
life and death, felt not, as I did, such deep and bitter agony. I gnashed my
|
||
teeth and ground them together, uttering a groan that came from my inmost soul.
|
||
Justine started. When she saw who it was, she approached me and said, “Dear
|
||
sir, you are very kind to visit me; you, I hope, do not believe that I am
|
||
guilty?”
|
||
</p>
|
||
|
||
<p>
|
||
I could not answer. “No, Justine,” said Elizabeth; “he is more convinced of
|
||
your innocence than I was, for even when he heard that you had confessed, he
|
||
did not credit it.”
|
||
</p>
|
||
|
||
<p>
|
||
“I truly thank him. In these last moments I feel the sincerest gratitude
|
||
towards those who think of me with kindness. How sweet is the affection of
|
||
others to such a wretch as I am! It removes more than half my misfortune, and I
|
||
feel as if I could die in peace now that my innocence is acknowledged by you,
|
||
dear lady, and your cousin.”
|
||
</p>
|
||
|
||
<p>
|
||
Thus the poor sufferer tried to comfort others and herself. She indeed gained
|
||
the resignation she desired. But I, the true murderer, felt the never-dying
|
||
worm alive in my bosom, which allowed of no hope or consolation. Elizabeth also
|
||
wept and was unhappy, but hers also was the misery of innocence, which, like a
|
||
cloud that passes over the fair moon, for a while hides but cannot tarnish its
|
||
brightness. Anguish and despair had penetrated into the core of my heart; I
|
||
bore a hell within me which nothing could extinguish. We stayed several hours
|
||
with Justine, and it was with great difficulty that Elizabeth could tear
|
||
herself away. “I wish,” cried she, “that I were to die with you; I cannot live
|
||
in this world of misery.”
|
||
</p>
|
||
|
||
<p>
|
||
Justine assumed an air of cheerfulness, while she with difficulty repressed her
|
||
bitter tears. She embraced Elizabeth and said in a voice of half-suppressed
|
||
emotion, “Farewell, sweet lady, dearest Elizabeth, my beloved and only friend;
|
||
may heaven, in its bounty, bless and preserve you; may this be the last
|
||
misfortune that you will ever suffer! Live, and be happy, and make others so.”
|
||
</p>
|
||
|
||
<p>
|
||
And on the morrow Justine died. Elizabeth’s heart-rending eloquence failed to
|
||
move the judges from their settled conviction in the criminality of the saintly
|
||
sufferer. My passionate and indignant appeals were lost upon them. And when I
|
||
received their cold answers and heard the harsh, unfeeling reasoning of these
|
||
men, my purposed avowal died away on my lips. Thus I might proclaim myself a
|
||
madman, but not revoke the sentence passed upon my wretched victim. She
|
||
perished on the scaffold as a murderess!
|
||
</p>
|
||
|
||
<p>
|
||
From the tortures of my own heart, I turned to contemplate the deep and
|
||
voiceless grief of my Elizabeth. This also was my doing! And my father’s woe,
|
||
and the desolation of that late so smiling home all was the work of my
|
||
thrice-accursed hands! Ye weep, unhappy ones, but these are not your last
|
||
tears! Again shall you raise the funeral wail, and the sound of your
|
||
lamentations shall again and again be heard! Frankenstein, your son, your
|
||
kinsman, your early, much-loved friend; he who would spend each vital drop of
|
||
blood for your sakes, who has no thought nor sense of joy except as it is
|
||
mirrored also in your dear countenances, who would fill the air with blessings
|
||
and spend his life in serving you—he bids you weep, to shed countless tears;
|
||
happy beyond his hopes, if thus inexorable fate be satisfied, and if the
|
||
destruction pause before the peace of the grave have succeeded to your sad
|
||
torments!
|
||
</p>
|
||
|
||
<p>
|
||
Thus spoke my prophetic soul, as, torn by remorse, horror, and despair, I
|
||
beheld those I loved spend vain sorrow upon the graves of William and Justine,
|
||
the first hapless victims to my unhallowed arts.
|
||
</p>
|
||
|
||
</div><!--end chapter-->
|
||
|
||
<div class="chapter">
|
||
|
||
<h2><a id="chap09"></a>Chapter 9</h2>
|
||
|
||
<p>
|
||
Nothing is more painful to the human mind than, after the feelings have been
|
||
worked up by a quick succession of events, the dead calmness of inaction and
|
||
certainty which follows and deprives the soul both of hope and fear. Justine
|
||
died, she rested, and I was alive. The blood flowed freely in my veins, but a
|
||
weight of despair and remorse pressed on my heart which nothing could remove.
|
||
Sleep fled from my eyes; I wandered like an evil spirit, for I had committed
|
||
deeds of mischief beyond description horrible, and more, much more (I persuaded
|
||
myself) was yet behind. Yet my heart overflowed with kindness and the love of
|
||
virtue. I had begun life with benevolent intentions and thirsted for the moment
|
||
when I should put them in practice and make myself useful to my fellow beings.
|
||
Now all was blasted; instead of that serenity of conscience which allowed me to
|
||
look back upon the past with self-satisfaction, and from thence to gather
|
||
promise of new hopes, I was seized by remorse and the sense of guilt, which
|
||
hurried me away to a hell of intense tortures such as no language can describe.
|
||
</p>
|
||
|
||
<p>
|
||
This state of mind preyed upon my health, which had perhaps never entirely
|
||
recovered from the first shock it had sustained. I shunned the face of man; all
|
||
sound of joy or complacency was torture to me; solitude was my only
|
||
consolation—deep, dark, deathlike solitude.
|
||
</p>
|
||
|
||
<p>
|
||
My father observed with pain the alteration perceptible in my disposition and
|
||
habits and endeavoured by arguments deduced from the feelings of his serene
|
||
conscience and guiltless life to inspire me with fortitude and awaken in me the
|
||
courage to dispel the dark cloud which brooded over me. “Do you think, Victor,”
|
||
said he, “that I do not suffer also? No one could love a child more than I
|
||
loved your brother”—tears came into his eyes as he spoke—“but is it not a duty
|
||
to the survivors that we should refrain from augmenting their unhappiness by an
|
||
appearance of immoderate grief? It is also a duty owed to yourself, for
|
||
excessive sorrow prevents improvement or enjoyment, or even the discharge of
|
||
daily usefulness, without which no man is fit for society.”
|
||
</p>
|
||
|
||
<p>
|
||
This advice, although good, was totally inapplicable to my case; I should have
|
||
been the first to hide my grief and console my friends if remorse had not
|
||
mingled its bitterness, and terror its alarm, with my other sensations. Now I
|
||
could only answer my father with a look of despair and endeavour to hide myself
|
||
from his view.
|
||
</p>
|
||
|
||
<p>
|
||
About this time we retired to our house at Belrive. This change was
|
||
particularly agreeable to me. The shutting of the gates regularly at ten
|
||
o’clock and the impossibility of remaining on the lake after that hour had
|
||
rendered our residence within the walls of Geneva very irksome to me. I was now
|
||
free. Often, after the rest of the family had retired for the night, I took the
|
||
boat and passed many hours upon the water. Sometimes, with my sails set, I was
|
||
carried by the wind; and sometimes, after rowing into the middle of the lake, I
|
||
left the boat to pursue its own course and gave way to my own miserable
|
||
reflections. I was often tempted, when all was at peace around me, and I the
|
||
only unquiet thing that wandered restless in a scene so beautiful and
|
||
heavenly—if I except some bat, or the frogs, whose harsh and interrupted
|
||
croaking was heard only when I approached the shore—often, I say, I was tempted
|
||
to plunge into the silent lake, that the waters might close over me and my
|
||
calamities for ever. But I was restrained, when I thought of the heroic and
|
||
suffering Elizabeth, whom I tenderly loved, and whose existence was bound up in
|
||
mine. I thought also of my father and surviving brother; should I by my base
|
||
desertion leave them exposed and unprotected to the malice of the fiend whom I
|
||
had let loose among them?
|
||
</p>
|
||
|
||
<p>
|
||
At these moments I wept bitterly and wished that peace would revisit my mind
|
||
only that I might afford them consolation and happiness. But that could not be.
|
||
Remorse extinguished every hope. I had been the author of unalterable evils,
|
||
and I lived in daily fear lest the monster whom I had created should perpetrate
|
||
some new wickedness. I had an obscure feeling that all was not over and that he
|
||
would still commit some signal crime, which by its enormity should almost
|
||
efface the recollection of the past. There was always scope for fear so long as
|
||
anything I loved remained behind. My abhorrence of this fiend cannot be
|
||
conceived. When I thought of him I gnashed my teeth, my eyes became inflamed,
|
||
and I ardently wished to extinguish that life which I had so thoughtlessly
|
||
bestowed. When I reflected on his crimes and malice, my hatred and revenge
|
||
burst all bounds of moderation. I would have made a pilgrimage to the highest
|
||
peak of the Andes, could I, when there, have precipitated him to their base. I
|
||
wished to see him again, that I might wreak the utmost extent of abhorrence on
|
||
his head and avenge the deaths of William and Justine.
|
||
</p>
|
||
|
||
<p>
|
||
Our house was the house of mourning. My father’s health was deeply shaken by
|
||
the horror of the recent events. Elizabeth was sad and desponding; she no
|
||
longer took delight in her ordinary occupations; all pleasure seemed to her
|
||
sacrilege toward the dead; eternal woe and tears she then thought was the just
|
||
tribute she should pay to innocence so blasted and destroyed. She was no longer
|
||
that happy creature who in earlier youth wandered with me on the banks of the
|
||
lake and talked with ecstasy of our future prospects. The first of those
|
||
sorrows which are sent to wean us from the earth had visited her, and its
|
||
dimming influence quenched her dearest smiles.
|
||
</p>
|
||
|
||
<p>
|
||
“When I reflect, my dear cousin,” said she, “on the miserable death of Justine
|
||
Moritz, I no longer see the world and its works as they before appeared to me.
|
||
Before, I looked upon the accounts of vice and injustice that I read in books
|
||
or heard from others as tales of ancient days or imaginary evils; at least they
|
||
were remote and more familiar to reason than to the imagination; but now misery
|
||
has come home, and men appear to me as monsters thirsting for each other’s
|
||
blood. Yet I am certainly unjust. Everybody believed that poor girl to be
|
||
guilty; and if she could have committed the crime for which she suffered,
|
||
assuredly she would have been the most depraved of human creatures. For the
|
||
sake of a few jewels, to have murdered the son of her benefactor and friend, a
|
||
child whom she had nursed from its birth, and appeared to love as if it had
|
||
been her own! I could not consent to the death of any human being, but
|
||
certainly I should have thought such a creature unfit to remain in the society
|
||
of men. But she was innocent. I know, I feel she was innocent; you are of the
|
||
same opinion, and that confirms me. Alas! Victor, when falsehood can look so
|
||
like the truth, who can assure themselves of certain happiness? I feel as if I
|
||
were walking on the edge of a precipice, towards which thousands are crowding
|
||
and endeavouring to plunge me into the abyss. William and Justine were
|
||
assassinated, and the murderer escapes; he walks about the world free, and
|
||
perhaps respected. But even if I were condemned to suffer on the scaffold for
|
||
the same crimes, I would not change places with such a wretch.”
|
||
</p>
|
||
|
||
<p>
|
||
I listened to this discourse with the extremest agony. I, not in deed, but in
|
||
effect, was the true murderer. Elizabeth read my anguish in my countenance, and
|
||
kindly taking my hand, said, “My dearest friend, you must calm yourself. These
|
||
events have affected me, God knows how deeply; but I am not so wretched as you
|
||
are. There is an expression of despair, and sometimes of revenge, in your
|
||
countenance that makes me tremble. Dear Victor, banish these dark passions.
|
||
Remember the friends around you, who centre all their hopes in you. Have we
|
||
lost the power of rendering you happy? Ah! While we love, while we are true to
|
||
each other, here in this land of peace and beauty, your native country, we may
|
||
reap every tranquil blessing—what can disturb our peace?”
|
||
</p>
|
||
|
||
<p>
|
||
And could not such words from her whom I fondly prized before every other gift
|
||
of fortune suffice to chase away the fiend that lurked in my heart? Even as she
|
||
spoke I drew near to her, as if in terror, lest at that very moment the
|
||
destroyer had been near to rob me of her.
|
||
</p>
|
||
|
||
<p>
|
||
Thus not the tenderness of friendship, nor the beauty of earth, nor of heaven,
|
||
could redeem my soul from woe; the very accents of love were ineffectual. I was
|
||
encompassed by a cloud which no beneficial influence could penetrate. The
|
||
wounded deer dragging its fainting limbs to some untrodden brake, there to gaze
|
||
upon the arrow which had pierced it, and to die, was but a type of me.
|
||
</p>
|
||
|
||
<p>
|
||
Sometimes I could cope with the sullen despair that overwhelmed me, but
|
||
sometimes the whirlwind passions of my soul drove me to seek, by bodily
|
||
exercise and by change of place, some relief from my intolerable sensations. It
|
||
was during an access of this kind that I suddenly left my home, and bending my
|
||
steps towards the near Alpine valleys, sought in the magnificence, the eternity
|
||
of such scenes, to forget myself and my ephemeral, because human, sorrows. My
|
||
wanderings were directed towards the valley of Chamounix. I had visited it
|
||
frequently during my boyhood. Six years had passed since then: <i>I</i> was a
|
||
wreck, but nought had changed in those savage and enduring scenes.
|
||
</p>
|
||
|
||
<p>
|
||
I performed the first part of my journey on horseback. I afterwards hired a
|
||
mule, as the more sure-footed and least liable to receive injury on these
|
||
rugged roads. The weather was fine; it was about the middle of the month of
|
||
August, nearly two months after the death of Justine, that miserable epoch from
|
||
which I dated all my woe. The weight upon my spirit was sensibly lightened as I
|
||
plunged yet deeper in the ravine of Arve. The immense mountains and precipices
|
||
that overhung me on every side, the sound of the river raging among the rocks,
|
||
and the dashing of the waterfalls around spoke of a power mighty as
|
||
Omnipotence—and I ceased to fear or to bend before any being less almighty than
|
||
that which had created and ruled the elements, here displayed in their most
|
||
terrific guise. Still, as I ascended higher, the valley assumed a more
|
||
magnificent and astonishing character. Ruined castles hanging on the precipices
|
||
of piny mountains, the impetuous Arve, and cottages every here and there
|
||
peeping forth from among the trees formed a scene of singular beauty. But it
|
||
was augmented and rendered sublime by the mighty Alps, whose white and shining
|
||
pyramids and domes towered above all, as belonging to another earth, the
|
||
habitations of another race of beings.
|
||
</p>
|
||
|
||
<p>
|
||
I passed the bridge of Pélissier, where the ravine, which the river forms,
|
||
opened before me, and I began to ascend the mountain that overhangs it. Soon
|
||
after, I entered the valley of Chamounix. This valley is more wonderful and
|
||
sublime, but not so beautiful and picturesque as that of Servox, through which
|
||
I had just passed. The high and snowy mountains were its immediate boundaries,
|
||
but I saw no more ruined castles and fertile fields. Immense glaciers
|
||
approached the road; I heard the rumbling thunder of the falling avalanche and
|
||
marked the smoke of its passage. Mont Blanc, the supreme and magnificent Mont
|
||
Blanc, raised itself from the surrounding <i>aiguilles</i>, and its tremendous
|
||
<i>dôme</i> overlooked the valley.
|
||
</p>
|
||
|
||
<p>
|
||
A tingling long-lost sense of pleasure often came across me during this
|
||
journey. Some turn in the road, some new object suddenly perceived and
|
||
recognised, reminded me of days gone by, and were associated with the
|
||
lighthearted gaiety of boyhood. The very winds whispered in soothing accents,
|
||
and maternal Nature bade me weep no more. Then again the kindly influence
|
||
ceased to act—I found myself fettered again to grief and indulging in all the
|
||
misery of reflection. Then I spurred on my animal, striving so to forget the
|
||
world, my fears, and more than all, myself—or, in a more desperate fashion, I
|
||
alighted and threw myself on the grass, weighed down by horror and despair.
|
||
</p>
|
||
|
||
<p>
|
||
At length I arrived at the village of Chamounix. Exhaustion succeeded to the
|
||
extreme fatigue both of body and of mind which I had endured. For a short space
|
||
of time I remained at the window watching the pallid lightnings that played
|
||
above Mont Blanc and listening to the rushing of the Arve, which pursued its
|
||
noisy way beneath. The same lulling sounds acted as a lullaby to my too keen
|
||
sensations; when I placed my head upon my pillow, sleep crept over me; I felt
|
||
it as it came and blessed the giver of oblivion.
|
||
</p>
|
||
|
||
</div><!--end chapter-->
|
||
|
||
<div class="chapter">
|
||
|
||
<h2><a id="chap10"></a>Chapter 10</h2>
|
||
|
||
<p>
|
||
I spent the following day roaming through the valley. I stood beside the
|
||
sources of the Arveiron, which take their rise in a glacier, that with slow
|
||
pace is advancing down from the summit of the hills to barricade the valley.
|
||
The abrupt sides of vast mountains were before me; the icy wall of the glacier
|
||
overhung me; a few shattered pines were scattered around; and the solemn
|
||
silence of this glorious presence-chamber of imperial Nature was broken only by
|
||
the brawling waves or the fall of some vast fragment, the thunder sound of the
|
||
avalanche or the cracking, reverberated along the mountains, of the accumulated
|
||
ice, which, through the silent working of immutable laws, was ever and anon
|
||
rent and torn, as if it had been but a plaything in their hands. These sublime
|
||
and magnificent scenes afforded me the greatest consolation that I was capable
|
||
of receiving. They elevated me from all littleness of feeling, and although
|
||
they did not remove my grief, they subdued and tranquillised it. In some
|
||
degree, also, they diverted my mind from the thoughts over which it had brooded
|
||
for the last month. I retired to rest at night; my slumbers, as it were, waited
|
||
on and ministered to by the assemblance of grand shapes which I had
|
||
contemplated during the day. They congregated round me; the unstained snowy
|
||
mountain-top, the glittering pinnacle, the pine woods, and ragged bare ravine,
|
||
the eagle, soaring amidst the clouds—they all gathered round me and bade me be
|
||
at peace.
|
||
</p>
|
||
|
||
<p>
|
||
Where had they fled when the next morning I awoke? All of soul-inspiriting fled
|
||
with sleep, and dark melancholy clouded every thought. The rain was pouring in
|
||
torrents, and thick mists hid the summits of the mountains, so that I even saw
|
||
not the faces of those mighty friends. Still I would penetrate their misty veil
|
||
and seek them in their cloudy retreats. What were rain and storm to me? My mule
|
||
was brought to the door, and I resolved to ascend to the summit of Montanvert.
|
||
I remembered the effect that the view of the tremendous and ever-moving glacier
|
||
had produced upon my mind when I first saw it. It had then filled me with a
|
||
sublime ecstasy that gave wings to the soul and allowed it to soar from the
|
||
obscure world to light and joy. The sight of the awful and majestic in nature
|
||
had indeed always the effect of solemnising my mind and causing me to forget
|
||
the passing cares of life. I determined to go without a guide, for I was well
|
||
acquainted with the path, and the presence of another would destroy the
|
||
solitary grandeur of the scene.
|
||
</p>
|
||
|
||
<p>
|
||
The ascent is precipitous, but the path is cut into continual and short
|
||
windings, which enable you to surmount the perpendicularity of the mountain. It
|
||
is a scene terrifically desolate. In a thousand spots the traces of the winter
|
||
avalanche may be perceived, where trees lie broken and strewed on the ground,
|
||
some entirely destroyed, others bent, leaning upon the jutting rocks of the
|
||
mountain or transversely upon other trees. The path, as you ascend higher, is
|
||
intersected by ravines of snow, down which stones continually roll from above;
|
||
one of them is particularly dangerous, as the slightest sound, such as even
|
||
speaking in a loud voice, produces a concussion of air sufficient to draw
|
||
destruction upon the head of the speaker. The pines are not tall or luxuriant,
|
||
but they are sombre and add an air of severity to the scene. I looked on the
|
||
valley beneath; vast mists were rising from the rivers which ran through it and
|
||
curling in thick wreaths around the opposite mountains, whose summits were hid
|
||
in the uniform clouds, while rain poured from the dark sky and added to the
|
||
melancholy impression I received from the objects around me. Alas! Why does man
|
||
boast of sensibilities superior to those apparent in the brute; it only renders
|
||
them more necessary beings. If our impulses were confined to hunger, thirst,
|
||
and desire, we might be nearly free; but now we are moved by every wind that
|
||
blows and a chance word or scene that that word may convey to us.
|
||
</p>
|
||
|
||
<p class="poem">
|
||
We rest; a dream has power to poison sleep.<br>
|
||
We rise; one wand’ring thought pollutes the day.<br>
|
||
We feel, conceive, or reason; laugh or weep,<br>
|
||
Embrace fond woe, or cast our cares away;<br>
|
||
It is the same: for, be it joy or sorrow,<br>
|
||
The path of its departure still is free.<br>
|
||
Man’s yesterday may ne’er be like his morrow;<br>
|
||
Nought may endure but mutability!
|
||
</p>
|
||
|
||
<p>
|
||
It was nearly noon when I arrived at the top of the ascent. For some time I sat
|
||
upon the rock that overlooks the sea of ice. A mist covered both that and the
|
||
surrounding mountains. Presently a breeze dissipated the cloud, and I descended
|
||
upon the glacier. The surface is very uneven, rising like the waves of a
|
||
troubled sea, descending low, and interspersed by rifts that sink deep. The
|
||
field of ice is almost a league in width, but I spent nearly two hours in
|
||
crossing it. The opposite mountain is a bare perpendicular rock. From the side
|
||
where I now stood Montanvert was exactly opposite, at the distance of a league;
|
||
and above it rose Mont Blanc, in awful majesty. I remained in a recess of the
|
||
rock, gazing on this wonderful and stupendous scene. The sea, or rather the
|
||
vast river of ice, wound among its dependent mountains, whose aerial summits
|
||
hung over its recesses. Their icy and glittering peaks shone in the sunlight
|
||
over the clouds. My heart, which was before sorrowful, now swelled with
|
||
something like joy; I exclaimed, “Wandering spirits, if indeed ye wander, and
|
||
do not rest in your narrow beds, allow me this faint happiness, or take me, as
|
||
your companion, away from the joys of life.”
|
||
</p>
|
||
|
||
<p>
|
||
As I said this I suddenly beheld the figure of a man, at some distance,
|
||
advancing towards me with superhuman speed. He bounded over the crevices in the
|
||
ice, among which I had walked with caution; his stature, also, as he
|
||
approached, seemed to exceed that of man. I was troubled; a mist came over my
|
||
eyes, and I felt a faintness seize me, but I was quickly restored by the cold
|
||
gale of the mountains. I perceived, as the shape came nearer (sight tremendous
|
||
and abhorred!) that it was the wretch whom I had created. I trembled with rage
|
||
and horror, resolving to wait his approach and then close with him in mortal
|
||
combat. He approached; his countenance bespoke bitter anguish, combined with
|
||
disdain and malignity, while its unearthly ugliness rendered it almost too
|
||
horrible for human eyes. But I scarcely observed this; rage and hatred had at
|
||
first deprived me of utterance, and I recovered only to overwhelm him with
|
||
words expressive of furious detestation and contempt.
|
||
</p>
|
||
|
||
<p>
|
||
“Devil,” I exclaimed, “do you dare approach me? And do not you fear the fierce
|
||
vengeance of my arm wreaked on your miserable head? Begone, vile insect! Or
|
||
rather, stay, that I may trample you to dust! And, oh! That I could, with the
|
||
extinction of your miserable existence, restore those victims whom you have so
|
||
diabolically murdered!”
|
||
</p>
|
||
|
||
<p>
|
||
“I expected this reception,” said the dæmon. “All men hate the wretched; how,
|
||
then, must I be hated, who am miserable beyond all living things! Yet you, my
|
||
creator, detest and spurn me, thy creature, to whom thou art bound by ties only
|
||
dissoluble by the annihilation of one of us. You purpose to kill me. How dare
|
||
you sport thus with life? Do your duty towards me, and I will do mine towards
|
||
you and the rest of mankind. If you will comply with my conditions, I will
|
||
leave them and you at peace; but if you refuse, I will glut the maw of death,
|
||
until it be satiated with the blood of your remaining friends.”
|
||
</p>
|
||
|
||
<p>
|
||
“Abhorred monster! Fiend that thou art! The tortures of hell are too mild a
|
||
vengeance for thy crimes. Wretched devil! You reproach me with your creation,
|
||
come on, then, that I may extinguish the spark which I so negligently
|
||
bestowed.”
|
||
</p>
|
||
|
||
<p>
|
||
My rage was without bounds; I sprang on him, impelled by all the feelings which
|
||
can arm one being against the existence of another.
|
||
</p>
|
||
|
||
<p>
|
||
He easily eluded me and said,
|
||
</p>
|
||
|
||
<p>
|
||
“Be calm! I entreat you to hear me before you give vent to your hatred on my
|
||
devoted head. Have I not suffered enough, that you seek to increase my misery?
|
||
Life, although it may only be an accumulation of anguish, is dear to me, and I
|
||
will defend it. Remember, thou hast made me more powerful than thyself; my
|
||
height is superior to thine, my joints more supple. But I will not be tempted
|
||
to set myself in opposition to thee. I am thy creature, and I will be even mild
|
||
and docile to my natural lord and king if thou wilt also perform thy part, the
|
||
which thou owest me. Oh, Frankenstein, be not equitable to every other and
|
||
trample upon me alone, to whom thy justice, and even thy clemency and
|
||
affection, is most due. Remember that I am thy creature; I ought to be thy
|
||
Adam, but I am rather the fallen angel, whom thou drivest from joy for no
|
||
misdeed. Everywhere I see bliss, from which I alone am irrevocably excluded. I
|
||
was benevolent and good; misery made me a fiend. Make me happy, and I shall
|
||
again be virtuous.”
|
||
</p>
|
||
|
||
<p>
|
||
“Begone! I will not hear you. There can be no community between you and me; we
|
||
are enemies. Begone, or let us try our strength in a fight, in which one must
|
||
fall.”
|
||
</p>
|
||
|
||
<p>
|
||
“How can I move thee? Will no entreaties cause thee to turn a favourable eye
|
||
upon thy creature, who implores thy goodness and compassion? Believe me,
|
||
Frankenstein, I was benevolent; my soul glowed with love and humanity; but am I
|
||
not alone, miserably alone? You, my creator, abhor me; what hope can I gather
|
||
from your fellow creatures, who owe me nothing? They spurn and hate me. The
|
||
desert mountains and dreary glaciers are my refuge. I have wandered here many
|
||
days; the caves of ice, which I only do not fear, are a dwelling to me, and the
|
||
only one which man does not grudge. These bleak skies I hail, for they are
|
||
kinder to me than your fellow beings. If the multitude of mankind knew of my
|
||
existence, they would do as you do, and arm themselves for my destruction.
|
||
Shall I not then hate them who abhor me? I will keep no terms with my enemies.
|
||
I am miserable, and they shall share my wretchedness. Yet it is in your power
|
||
to recompense me, and deliver them from an evil which it only remains for you
|
||
to make so great, that not only you and your family, but thousands of others,
|
||
shall be swallowed up in the whirlwinds of its rage. Let your compassion be
|
||
moved, and do not disdain me. Listen to my tale; when you have heard that,
|
||
abandon or commiserate me, as you shall judge that I deserve. But hear me. The
|
||
guilty are allowed, by human laws, bloody as they are, to speak in their own
|
||
defence before they are condemned. Listen to me, Frankenstein. You accuse me of
|
||
murder, and yet you would, with a satisfied conscience, destroy your own
|
||
creature. Oh, praise the eternal justice of man! Yet I ask you not to spare me;
|
||
listen to me, and then, if you can, and if you will, destroy the work of your
|
||
hands.”
|
||
</p>
|
||
|
||
<p>
|
||
“Why do you call to my remembrance,” I rejoined, “circumstances of which I
|
||
shudder to reflect, that I have been the miserable origin and author? Cursed be
|
||
the day, abhorred devil, in which you first saw light! Cursed (although I curse
|
||
myself) be the hands that formed you! You have made me wretched beyond
|
||
expression. You have left me no power to consider whether I am just to you or
|
||
not. Begone! Relieve me from the sight of your detested form.”
|
||
</p>
|
||
|
||
<p>
|
||
“Thus I relieve thee, my creator,” he said, and placed his hated hands before
|
||
my eyes, which I flung from me with violence; “thus I take from thee a sight
|
||
which you abhor. Still thou canst listen to me and grant me thy compassion. By
|
||
the virtues that I once possessed, I demand this from you. Hear my tale; it is
|
||
long and strange, and the temperature of this place is not fitting to your fine
|
||
sensations; come to the hut upon the mountain. The sun is yet high in the
|
||
heavens; before it descends to hide itself behind your snowy precipices and
|
||
illuminate another world, you will have heard my story and can decide. On you
|
||
it rests, whether I quit for ever the neighbourhood of man and lead a harmless
|
||
life, or become the scourge of your fellow creatures and the author of your own
|
||
speedy ruin.”
|
||
</p>
|
||
|
||
<p>
|
||
As he said this he led the way across the ice; I followed. My heart was full,
|
||
and I did not answer him, but as I proceeded, I weighed the various arguments
|
||
that he had used and determined at least to listen to his tale. I was partly
|
||
urged by curiosity, and compassion confirmed my resolution. I had hitherto
|
||
supposed him to be the murderer of my brother, and I eagerly sought a
|
||
confirmation or denial of this opinion. For the first time, also, I felt what
|
||
the duties of a creator towards his creature were, and that I ought to render
|
||
him happy before I complained of his wickedness. These motives urged me to
|
||
comply with his demand. We crossed the ice, therefore, and ascended the
|
||
opposite rock. The air was cold, and the rain again began to descend; we
|
||
entered the hut, the fiend with an air of exultation, I with a heavy heart and
|
||
depressed spirits. But I consented to listen, and seating myself by the fire
|
||
which my odious companion had lighted, he thus began his tale.
|
||
</p>
|
||
|
||
</div><!--end chapter-->
|
||
|
||
<div class="chapter">
|
||
|
||
<h2><a id="chap11"></a>Chapter 11</h2>
|
||
|
||
<p>
|
||
“It is with considerable difficulty that I remember the original era of my
|
||
being; all the events of that period appear confused and indistinct. A strange
|
||
multiplicity of sensations seized me, and I saw, felt, heard, and smelt at the
|
||
same time; and it was, indeed, a long time before I learned to distinguish
|
||
between the operations of my various senses. By degrees, I remember, a stronger
|
||
light pressed upon my nerves, so that I was obliged to shut my eyes. Darkness
|
||
then came over me and troubled me, but hardly had I felt this when, by opening
|
||
my eyes, as I now suppose, the light poured in upon me again. I walked and, I
|
||
believe, descended, but I presently found a great alteration in my sensations.
|
||
Before, dark and opaque bodies had surrounded me, impervious to my touch or
|
||
sight; but I now found that I could wander on at liberty, with no obstacles
|
||
which I could not either surmount or avoid. The light became more and more
|
||
oppressive to me, and the heat wearying me as I walked, I sought a place where
|
||
I could receive shade. This was the forest near Ingolstadt; and here I lay by
|
||
the side of a brook resting from my fatigue, until I felt tormented by hunger
|
||
and thirst. This roused me from my nearly dormant state, and I ate some berries
|
||
which I found hanging on the trees or lying on the ground. I slaked my thirst
|
||
at the brook, and then lying down, was overcome by sleep.
|
||
</p>
|
||
|
||
<p>
|
||
“It was dark when I awoke; I felt cold also, and half frightened, as it were,
|
||
instinctively, finding myself so desolate. Before I had quitted your apartment,
|
||
on a sensation of cold, I had covered myself with some clothes, but these were
|
||
insufficient to secure me from the dews of night. I was a poor, helpless,
|
||
miserable wretch; I knew, and could distinguish, nothing; but feeling pain
|
||
invade me on all sides, I sat down and wept.
|
||
</p>
|
||
|
||
<p>
|
||
“Soon a gentle light stole over the heavens and gave me a sensation of
|
||
pleasure. I started up and beheld a radiant form rise from among the trees.
|
||
[The moon] I gazed with a kind of wonder. It moved slowly, but it enlightened
|
||
my path, and I again went out in search of berries. I was still cold when under
|
||
one of the trees I found a huge cloak, with which I covered myself, and sat
|
||
down upon the ground. No distinct ideas occupied my mind; all was confused. I
|
||
felt light, and hunger, and thirst, and darkness; innumerable sounds rang in my
|
||
ears, and on all sides various scents saluted me; the only object that I could
|
||
distinguish was the bright moon, and I fixed my eyes on that with pleasure.
|
||
</p>
|
||
|
||
<p>
|
||
“Several changes of day and night passed, and the orb of night had greatly
|
||
lessened, when I began to distinguish my sensations from each other. I
|
||
gradually saw plainly the clear stream that supplied me with drink and the
|
||
trees that shaded me with their foliage. I was delighted when I first
|
||
discovered that a pleasant sound, which often saluted my ears, proceeded from
|
||
the throats of the little winged animals who had often intercepted the light
|
||
from my eyes. I began also to observe, with greater accuracy, the forms that
|
||
surrounded me and to perceive the boundaries of the radiant roof of light which
|
||
canopied me. Sometimes I tried to imitate the pleasant songs of the birds but
|
||
was unable. Sometimes I wished to express my sensations in my own mode, but the
|
||
uncouth and inarticulate sounds which broke from me frightened me into silence
|
||
again.
|
||
</p>
|
||
|
||
<p>
|
||
“The moon had disappeared from the night, and again, with a lessened form,
|
||
showed itself, while I still remained in the forest. My sensations had by this
|
||
time become distinct, and my mind received every day additional ideas. My eyes
|
||
became accustomed to the light and to perceive objects in their right forms; I
|
||
distinguished the insect from the herb, and by degrees, one herb from another.
|
||
I found that the sparrow uttered none but harsh notes, whilst those of the
|
||
blackbird and thrush were sweet and enticing.
|
||
</p>
|
||
|
||
<p>
|
||
“One day, when I was oppressed by cold, I found a fire which had been left by
|
||
some wandering beggars, and was overcome with delight at the warmth I
|
||
experienced from it. In my joy I thrust my hand into the live embers, but
|
||
quickly drew it out again with a cry of pain. How strange, I thought, that the
|
||
same cause should produce such opposite effects! I examined the materials of
|
||
the fire, and to my joy found it to be composed of wood. I quickly collected
|
||
some branches, but they were wet and would not burn. I was pained at this and
|
||
sat still watching the operation of the fire. The wet wood which I had placed
|
||
near the heat dried and itself became inflamed. I reflected on this, and by
|
||
touching the various branches, I discovered the cause and busied myself in
|
||
collecting a great quantity of wood, that I might dry it and have a plentiful
|
||
supply of fire. When night came on and brought sleep with it, I was in the
|
||
greatest fear lest my fire should be extinguished. I covered it carefully with
|
||
dry wood and leaves and placed wet branches upon it; and then, spreading my
|
||
cloak, I lay on the ground and sank into sleep.
|
||
</p>
|
||
|
||
<p>
|
||
“It was morning when I awoke, and my first care was to visit the fire. I
|
||
uncovered it, and a gentle breeze quickly fanned it into a flame. I observed
|
||
this also and contrived a fan of branches, which roused the embers when they
|
||
were nearly extinguished. When night came again I found, with pleasure, that
|
||
the fire gave light as well as heat and that the discovery of this element was
|
||
useful to me in my food, for I found some of the offals that the travellers had
|
||
left had been roasted, and tasted much more savoury than the berries I gathered
|
||
from the trees. I tried, therefore, to dress my food in the same manner,
|
||
placing it on the live embers. I found that the berries were spoiled by this
|
||
operation, and the nuts and roots much improved.
|
||
</p>
|
||
|
||
<p>
|
||
“Food, however, became scarce, and I often spent the whole day searching in
|
||
vain for a few acorns to assuage the pangs of hunger. When I found this, I
|
||
resolved to quit the place that I had hitherto inhabited, to seek for one where
|
||
the few wants I experienced would be more easily satisfied. In this emigration
|
||
I exceedingly lamented the loss of the fire which I had obtained through
|
||
accident and knew not how to reproduce it. I gave several hours to the serious
|
||
consideration of this difficulty, but I was obliged to relinquish all attempt
|
||
to supply it, and wrapping myself up in my cloak, I struck across the wood
|
||
towards the setting sun. I passed three days in these rambles and at length
|
||
discovered the open country. A great fall of snow had taken place the night
|
||
before, and the fields were of one uniform white; the appearance was
|
||
disconsolate, and I found my feet chilled by the cold damp substance that
|
||
covered the ground.
|
||
</p>
|
||
|
||
<p>
|
||
“It was about seven in the morning, and I longed to obtain food and shelter; at
|
||
length I perceived a small hut, on a rising ground, which had doubtless been
|
||
built for the convenience of some shepherd. This was a new sight to me, and I
|
||
examined the structure with great curiosity. Finding the door open, I entered.
|
||
An old man sat in it, near a fire, over which he was preparing his breakfast.
|
||
He turned on hearing a noise, and perceiving me, shrieked loudly, and quitting
|
||
the hut, ran across the fields with a speed of which his debilitated form
|
||
hardly appeared capable. His appearance, different from any I had ever before
|
||
seen, and his flight somewhat surprised me. But I was enchanted by the
|
||
appearance of the hut; here the snow and rain could not penetrate; the ground
|
||
was dry; and it presented to me then as exquisite and divine a retreat as
|
||
Pandæmonium appeared to the dæmons of hell after their sufferings in the lake
|
||
of fire. I greedily devoured the remnants of the shepherd’s breakfast, which
|
||
consisted of bread, cheese, milk, and wine; the latter, however, I did not
|
||
like. Then, overcome by fatigue, I lay down among some straw and fell asleep.
|
||
</p>
|
||
|
||
<p>
|
||
“It was noon when I awoke, and allured by the warmth of the sun, which shone
|
||
brightly on the white ground, I determined to recommence my travels; and,
|
||
depositing the remains of the peasant’s breakfast in a wallet I found, I
|
||
proceeded across the fields for several hours, until at sunset I arrived at a
|
||
village. How miraculous did this appear! The huts, the neater cottages, and
|
||
stately houses engaged my admiration by turns. The vegetables in the gardens,
|
||
the milk and cheese that I saw placed at the windows of some of the cottages,
|
||
allured my appetite. One of the best of these I entered, but I had hardly
|
||
placed my foot within the door before the children shrieked, and one of the
|
||
women fainted. The whole village was roused; some fled, some attacked me,
|
||
until, grievously bruised by stones and many other kinds of missile weapons, I
|
||
escaped to the open country and fearfully took refuge in a low hovel, quite
|
||
bare, and making a wretched appearance after the palaces I had beheld in the
|
||
village. This hovel however, joined a cottage of a neat and pleasant
|
||
appearance, but after my late dearly bought experience, I dared not enter it.
|
||
My place of refuge was constructed of wood, but so low that I could with
|
||
difficulty sit upright in it. No wood, however, was placed on the earth, which
|
||
formed the floor, but it was dry; and although the wind entered it by
|
||
innumerable chinks, I found it an agreeable asylum from the snow and rain.
|
||
</p>
|
||
|
||
<p>
|
||
“Here, then, I retreated and lay down happy to have found a shelter, however
|
||
miserable, from the inclemency of the season, and still more from the barbarity
|
||
of man. As soon as morning dawned I crept from my kennel, that I might view the
|
||
adjacent cottage and discover if I could remain in the habitation I had found.
|
||
It was situated against the back of the cottage and surrounded on the sides
|
||
which were exposed by a pig sty and a clear pool of water. One part was open,
|
||
and by that I had crept in; but now I covered every crevice by which I might be
|
||
perceived with stones and wood, yet in such a manner that I might move them on
|
||
occasion to pass out; all the light I enjoyed came through the sty, and that
|
||
was sufficient for me.
|
||
</p>
|
||
|
||
<p>
|
||
“Having thus arranged my dwelling and carpeted it with clean straw, I retired,
|
||
for I saw the figure of a man at a distance, and I remembered too well my
|
||
treatment the night before to trust myself in his power. I had first, however,
|
||
provided for my sustenance for that day by a loaf of coarse bread, which I
|
||
purloined, and a cup with which I could drink more conveniently than from my
|
||
hand of the pure water which flowed by my retreat. The floor was a little
|
||
raised, so that it was kept perfectly dry, and by its vicinity to the chimney
|
||
of the cottage it was tolerably warm.
|
||
</p>
|
||
|
||
<p>
|
||
“Being thus provided, I resolved to reside in this hovel until something should
|
||
occur which might alter my determination. It was indeed a paradise compared to
|
||
the bleak forest, my former residence, the rain-dropping branches, and dank
|
||
earth. I ate my breakfast with pleasure and was about to remove a plank to
|
||
procure myself a little water when I heard a step, and looking through a small
|
||
chink, I beheld a young creature, with a pail on her head, passing before my
|
||
hovel. The girl was young and of gentle demeanour, unlike what I have since
|
||
found cottagers and farmhouse servants to be. Yet she was meanly dressed, a
|
||
coarse blue petticoat and a linen jacket being her only garb; her fair hair was
|
||
plaited but not adorned: she looked patient yet sad. I lost sight of her, and
|
||
in about a quarter of an hour she returned bearing the pail, which was now
|
||
partly filled with milk. As she walked along, seemingly incommoded by the
|
||
burden, a young man met her, whose countenance expressed a deeper despondence.
|
||
Uttering a few sounds with an air of melancholy, he took the pail from her head
|
||
and bore it to the cottage himself. She followed, and they disappeared.
|
||
Presently I saw the young man again, with some tools in his hand, cross the
|
||
field behind the cottage; and the girl was also busied, sometimes in the house
|
||
and sometimes in the yard.
|
||
</p>
|
||
|
||
<p>
|
||
“On examining my dwelling, I found that one of the windows of the cottage had
|
||
formerly occupied a part of it, but the panes had been filled up with wood. In
|
||
one of these was a small and almost imperceptible chink through which the eye
|
||
could just penetrate. Through this crevice a small room was visible,
|
||
whitewashed and clean but very bare of furniture. In one corner, near a small
|
||
fire, sat an old man, leaning his head on his hands in a disconsolate attitude.
|
||
The young girl was occupied in arranging the cottage; but presently she took
|
||
something out of a drawer, which employed her hands, and she sat down beside
|
||
the old man, who, taking up an instrument, began to play and to produce sounds
|
||
sweeter than the voice of the thrush or the nightingale. It was a lovely sight,
|
||
even to me, poor wretch who had never beheld aught beautiful before. The silver
|
||
hair and benevolent countenance of the aged cottager won my reverence, while
|
||
the gentle manners of the girl enticed my love. He played a sweet mournful air
|
||
which I perceived drew tears from the eyes of his amiable companion, of which
|
||
the old man took no notice, until she sobbed audibly; he then pronounced a few
|
||
sounds, and the fair creature, leaving her work, knelt at his feet. He raised
|
||
her and smiled with such kindness and affection that I felt sensations of a
|
||
peculiar and overpowering nature; they were a mixture of pain and pleasure,
|
||
such as I had never before experienced, either from hunger or cold, warmth or
|
||
food; and I withdrew from the window, unable to bear these emotions.
|
||
</p>
|
||
|
||
<p>
|
||
“Soon after this the young man returned, bearing on his shoulders a load of
|
||
wood. The girl met him at the door, helped to relieve him of his burden, and
|
||
taking some of the fuel into the cottage, placed it on the fire; then she and
|
||
the youth went apart into a nook of the cottage, and he showed her a large loaf
|
||
and a piece of cheese. She seemed pleased and went into the garden for some
|
||
roots and plants, which she placed in water, and then upon the fire. She
|
||
afterwards continued her work, whilst the young man went into the garden and
|
||
appeared busily employed in digging and pulling up roots. After he had been
|
||
employed thus about an hour, the young woman joined him and they entered the
|
||
cottage together.
|
||
</p>
|
||
|
||
<p>
|
||
“The old man had, in the meantime, been pensive, but on the appearance of his
|
||
companions he assumed a more cheerful air, and they sat down to eat. The meal
|
||
was quickly dispatched. The young woman was again occupied in arranging the
|
||
cottage, the old man walked before the cottage in the sun for a few minutes,
|
||
leaning on the arm of the youth. Nothing could exceed in beauty the contrast
|
||
between these two excellent creatures. One was old, with silver hairs and a
|
||
countenance beaming with benevolence and love; the younger was slight and
|
||
graceful in his figure, and his features were moulded with the finest symmetry,
|
||
yet his eyes and attitude expressed the utmost sadness and despondency. The old
|
||
man returned to the cottage, and the youth, with tools different from those he
|
||
had used in the morning, directed his steps across the fields.
|
||
</p>
|
||
|
||
<p>
|
||
“Night quickly shut in, but to my extreme wonder, I found that the cottagers
|
||
had a means of prolonging light by the use of tapers, and was delighted to find
|
||
that the setting of the sun did not put an end to the pleasure I experienced in
|
||
watching my human neighbours. In the evening the young girl and her companion
|
||
were employed in various occupations which I did not understand; and the old
|
||
man again took up the instrument which produced the divine sounds that had
|
||
enchanted me in the morning. So soon as he had finished, the youth began, not
|
||
to play, but to utter sounds that were monotonous, and neither resembling the
|
||
harmony of the old man’s instrument nor the songs of the birds; I since found
|
||
that he read aloud, but at that time I knew nothing of the science of words or
|
||
letters.
|
||
</p>
|
||
|
||
<p>
|
||
“The family, after having been thus occupied for a short time, extinguished
|
||
their lights and retired, as I conjectured, to rest.”
|
||
</p>
|
||
|
||
</div><!--end chapter-->
|
||
|
||
<div class="chapter">
|
||
|
||
<h2><a id="chap12"></a>Chapter 12</h2>
|
||
|
||
<p>
|
||
“I lay on my straw, but I could not sleep. I thought of the occurrences of the
|
||
day. What chiefly struck me was the gentle manners of these people, and I
|
||
longed to join them, but dared not. I remembered too well the treatment I had
|
||
suffered the night before from the barbarous villagers, and resolved, whatever
|
||
course of conduct I might hereafter think it right to pursue, that for the
|
||
present I would remain quietly in my hovel, watching and endeavouring to
|
||
discover the motives which influenced their actions.
|
||
</p>
|
||
|
||
<p>
|
||
“The cottagers arose the next morning before the sun. The young woman arranged
|
||
the cottage and prepared the food, and the youth departed after the first meal.
|
||
</p>
|
||
|
||
<p>
|
||
“This day was passed in the same routine as that which preceded it. The young
|
||
man was constantly employed out of doors, and the girl in various laborious
|
||
occupations within. The old man, whom I soon perceived to be blind, employed
|
||
his leisure hours on his instrument or in contemplation. Nothing could exceed
|
||
the love and respect which the younger cottagers exhibited towards their
|
||
venerable companion. They performed towards him every little office of
|
||
affection and duty with gentleness, and he rewarded them by his benevolent
|
||
smiles.
|
||
</p>
|
||
|
||
<p>
|
||
“They were not entirely happy. The young man and his companion often went apart
|
||
and appeared to weep. I saw no cause for their unhappiness, but I was deeply
|
||
affected by it. If such lovely creatures were miserable, it was less strange
|
||
that I, an imperfect and solitary being, should be wretched. Yet why were these
|
||
gentle beings unhappy? They possessed a delightful house (for such it was in my
|
||
eyes) and every luxury; they had a fire to warm them when chill and delicious
|
||
viands when hungry; they were dressed in excellent clothes; and, still more,
|
||
they enjoyed one another’s company and speech, interchanging each day looks of
|
||
affection and kindness. What did their tears imply? Did they really express
|
||
pain? I was at first unable to solve these questions, but perpetual attention
|
||
and time explained to me many appearances which were at first enigmatic.
|
||
</p>
|
||
|
||
<p>
|
||
“A considerable period elapsed before I discovered one of the causes of the
|
||
uneasiness of this amiable family: it was poverty, and they suffered that evil
|
||
in a very distressing degree. Their nourishment consisted entirely of the
|
||
vegetables of their garden and the milk of one cow, which gave very little
|
||
during the winter, when its masters could scarcely procure food to support it.
|
||
They often, I believe, suffered the pangs of hunger very poignantly, especially
|
||
the two younger cottagers, for several times they placed food before the old
|
||
man when they reserved none for themselves.
|
||
</p>
|
||
|
||
<p>
|
||
“This trait of kindness moved me sensibly. I had been accustomed, during the
|
||
night, to steal a part of their store for my own consumption, but when I found
|
||
that in doing this I inflicted pain on the cottagers, I abstained and satisfied
|
||
myself with berries, nuts, and roots which I gathered from a neighbouring wood.
|
||
</p>
|
||
|
||
<p>
|
||
“I discovered also another means through which I was enabled to assist their
|
||
labours. I found that the youth spent a great part of each day in collecting
|
||
wood for the family fire, and during the night I often took his tools, the use
|
||
of which I quickly discovered, and brought home firing sufficient for the
|
||
consumption of several days.
|
||
</p>
|
||
|
||
<p>
|
||
“I remember, the first time that I did this, the young woman, when she opened
|
||
the door in the morning, appeared greatly astonished on seeing a great pile of
|
||
wood on the outside. She uttered some words in a loud voice, and the youth
|
||
joined her, who also expressed surprise. I observed, with pleasure, that he did
|
||
not go to the forest that day, but spent it in repairing the cottage and
|
||
cultivating the garden.
|
||
</p>
|
||
|
||
<p>
|
||
“By degrees I made a discovery of still greater moment. I found that these
|
||
people possessed a method of communicating their experience and feelings to one
|
||
another by articulate sounds. I perceived that the words they spoke sometimes
|
||
produced pleasure or pain, smiles or sadness, in the minds and countenances of
|
||
the hearers. This was indeed a godlike science, and I ardently desired to
|
||
become acquainted with it. But I was baffled in every attempt I made for this
|
||
purpose. Their pronunciation was quick, and the words they uttered, not having
|
||
any apparent connection with visible objects, I was unable to discover any clue
|
||
by which I could unravel the mystery of their reference. By great application,
|
||
however, and after having remained during the space of several revolutions of
|
||
the moon in my hovel, I discovered the names that were given to some of the
|
||
most familiar objects of discourse; I learned and applied the words, <i>fire,
|
||
milk, bread,</i> and <i>wood.</i> I learned also the names of the cottagers
|
||
themselves. The youth and his companion had each of them several names, but the
|
||
old man had only one, which was <i>father.</i> The girl was called
|
||
<i>sister</i> or <i>Agatha,</i> and the youth <i>Felix, brother,</i> or
|
||
<i>son</i>. I cannot describe the delight I felt when I learned the ideas
|
||
appropriated to each of these sounds and was able to pronounce them. I
|
||
distinguished several other words without being able as yet to understand or
|
||
apply them, such as <i>good, dearest, unhappy.</i>
|
||
</p>
|
||
|
||
<p>
|
||
“I spent the winter in this manner. The gentle manners and beauty of the
|
||
cottagers greatly endeared them to me; when they were unhappy, I felt
|
||
depressed; when they rejoiced, I sympathised in their joys. I saw few human
|
||
beings besides them, and if any other happened to enter the cottage, their
|
||
harsh manners and rude gait only enhanced to me the superior accomplishments of
|
||
my friends. The old man, I could perceive, often endeavoured to encourage his
|
||
children, as sometimes I found that he called them, to cast off their
|
||
melancholy. He would talk in a cheerful accent, with an expression of goodness
|
||
that bestowed pleasure even upon me. Agatha listened with respect, her eyes
|
||
sometimes filled with tears, which she endeavoured to wipe away unperceived;
|
||
but I generally found that her countenance and tone were more cheerful after
|
||
having listened to the exhortations of her father. It was not thus with Felix.
|
||
He was always the saddest of the group, and even to my unpractised senses, he
|
||
appeared to have suffered more deeply than his friends. But if his countenance
|
||
was more sorrowful, his voice was more cheerful than that of his sister,
|
||
especially when he addressed the old man.
|
||
</p>
|
||
|
||
<p>
|
||
“I could mention innumerable instances which, although slight, marked the
|
||
dispositions of these amiable cottagers. In the midst of poverty and want,
|
||
Felix carried with pleasure to his sister the first little white flower that
|
||
peeped out from beneath the snowy ground. Early in the morning, before she had
|
||
risen, he cleared away the snow that obstructed her path to the milk-house,
|
||
drew water from the well, and brought the wood from the outhouse, where, to his
|
||
perpetual astonishment, he found his store always replenished by an invisible
|
||
hand. In the day, I believe, he worked sometimes for a neighbouring farmer,
|
||
because he often went forth and did not return until dinner, yet brought no
|
||
wood with him. At other times he worked in the garden, but as there was little
|
||
to do in the frosty season, he read to the old man and Agatha.
|
||
</p>
|
||
|
||
<p>
|
||
“This reading had puzzled me extremely at first, but by degrees I discovered
|
||
that he uttered many of the same sounds when he read as when he talked. I
|
||
conjectured, therefore, that he found on the paper signs for speech which he
|
||
understood, and I ardently longed to comprehend these also; but how was that
|
||
possible when I did not even understand the sounds for which they stood as
|
||
signs? I improved, however, sensibly in this science, but not sufficiently to
|
||
follow up any kind of conversation, although I applied my whole mind to the
|
||
endeavour, for I easily perceived that, although I eagerly longed to discover
|
||
myself to the cottagers, I ought not to make the attempt until I had first
|
||
become master of their language, which knowledge might enable me to make them
|
||
overlook the deformity of my figure, for with this also the contrast
|
||
perpetually presented to my eyes had made me acquainted.
|
||
</p>
|
||
|
||
<p>
|
||
“I had admired the perfect forms of my cottagers—their grace, beauty, and
|
||
delicate complexions; but how was I terrified when I viewed myself in a
|
||
transparent pool! At first I started back, unable to believe that it was indeed
|
||
I who was reflected in the mirror; and when I became fully convinced that I was
|
||
in reality the monster that I am, I was filled with the bitterest sensations of
|
||
despondence and mortification. Alas! I did not yet entirely know the fatal
|
||
effects of this miserable deformity.
|
||
</p>
|
||
|
||
<p>
|
||
“As the sun became warmer and the light of day longer, the snow vanished, and I
|
||
beheld the bare trees and the black earth. From this time Felix was more
|
||
employed, and the heart-moving indications of impending famine disappeared.
|
||
Their food, as I afterwards found, was coarse, but it was wholesome; and they
|
||
procured a sufficiency of it. Several new kinds of plants sprang up in the
|
||
garden, which they dressed; and these signs of comfort increased daily as the
|
||
season advanced.
|
||
</p>
|
||
|
||
<p>
|
||
“The old man, leaning on his son, walked each day at noon, when it did not
|
||
rain, as I found it was called when the heavens poured forth its waters. This
|
||
frequently took place, but a high wind quickly dried the earth, and the season
|
||
became far more pleasant than it had been.
|
||
</p>
|
||
|
||
<p>
|
||
“My mode of life in my hovel was uniform. During the morning I attended the
|
||
motions of the cottagers, and when they were dispersed in various occupations,
|
||
I slept; the remainder of the day was spent in observing my friends. When they
|
||
had retired to rest, if there was any moon or the night was star-light, I went
|
||
into the woods and collected my own food and fuel for the cottage. When I
|
||
returned, as often as it was necessary, I cleared their path from the snow and
|
||
performed those offices that I had seen done by Felix. I afterwards found that
|
||
these labours, performed by an invisible hand, greatly astonished them; and
|
||
once or twice I heard them, on these occasions, utter the words <i>good spirit,
|
||
wonderful</i>; but I did not then understand the signification of these terms.
|
||
</p>
|
||
|
||
<p>
|
||
“My thoughts now became more active, and I longed to discover the motives and
|
||
feelings of these lovely creatures; I was inquisitive to know why Felix
|
||
appeared so miserable and Agatha so sad. I thought (foolish wretch!) that it
|
||
might be in my power to restore happiness to these deserving people. When I
|
||
slept or was absent, the forms of the venerable blind father, the gentle
|
||
Agatha, and the excellent Felix flitted before me. I looked upon them as
|
||
superior beings who would be the arbiters of my future destiny. I formed in my
|
||
imagination a thousand pictures of presenting myself to them, and their
|
||
reception of me. I imagined that they would be disgusted, until, by my gentle
|
||
demeanour and conciliating words, I should first win their favour and
|
||
afterwards their love.
|
||
</p>
|
||
|
||
<p>
|
||
“These thoughts exhilarated me and led me to apply with fresh ardour to the
|
||
acquiring the art of language. My organs were indeed harsh, but supple; and
|
||
although my voice was very unlike the soft music of their tones, yet I
|
||
pronounced such words as I understood with tolerable ease. It was as the ass
|
||
and the lap-dog; yet surely the gentle ass whose intentions were affectionate,
|
||
although his manners were rude, deserved better treatment than blows and
|
||
execration.
|
||
</p>
|
||
|
||
<p>
|
||
“The pleasant showers and genial warmth of spring greatly altered the aspect of
|
||
the earth. Men who before this change seemed to have been hid in caves
|
||
dispersed themselves and were employed in various arts of cultivation. The
|
||
birds sang in more cheerful notes, and the leaves began to bud forth on the
|
||
trees. Happy, happy earth! Fit habitation for gods, which, so short a time
|
||
before, was bleak, damp, and unwholesome. My spirits were elevated by the
|
||
enchanting appearance of nature; the past was blotted from my memory, the
|
||
present was tranquil, and the future gilded by bright rays of hope and
|
||
anticipations of joy.”
|
||
</p>
|
||
|
||
</div><!--end chapter-->
|
||
|
||
<div class="chapter">
|
||
|
||
<h2><a id="chap13"></a>Chapter 13</h2>
|
||
|
||
<p>
|
||
“I now hasten to the more moving part of my story. I shall relate events that
|
||
impressed me with feelings which, from what I had been, have made me what I am.
|
||
</p>
|
||
|
||
<p>
|
||
“Spring advanced rapidly; the weather became fine and the skies cloudless. It
|
||
surprised me that what before was desert and gloomy should now bloom with the
|
||
most beautiful flowers and verdure. My senses were gratified and refreshed by a
|
||
thousand scents of delight and a thousand sights of beauty.
|
||
</p>
|
||
|
||
<p>
|
||
“It was on one of these days, when my cottagers periodically rested from
|
||
labour—the old man played on his guitar, and the children listened to him—that
|
||
I observed the countenance of Felix was melancholy beyond expression; he sighed
|
||
frequently, and once his father paused in his music, and I conjectured by his
|
||
manner that he inquired the cause of his son’s sorrow. Felix replied in a
|
||
cheerful accent, and the old man was recommencing his music when someone tapped
|
||
at the door.
|
||
</p>
|
||
|
||
<p>
|
||
“It was a lady on horseback, accompanied by a country-man as a guide. The lady
|
||
was dressed in a dark suit and covered with a thick black veil. Agatha asked a
|
||
question, to which the stranger only replied by pronouncing, in a sweet accent,
|
||
the name of Felix. Her voice was musical but unlike that of either of my
|
||
friends. On hearing this word, Felix came up hastily to the lady, who, when she
|
||
saw him, threw up her veil, and I beheld a countenance of angelic beauty and
|
||
expression. Her hair of a shining raven black, and curiously braided; her eyes
|
||
were dark, but gentle, although animated; her features of a regular proportion,
|
||
and her complexion wondrously fair, each cheek tinged with a lovely pink.
|
||
</p>
|
||
|
||
<p>
|
||
“Felix seemed ravished with delight when he saw her, every trait of sorrow
|
||
vanished from his face, and it instantly expressed a degree of ecstatic joy, of
|
||
which I could hardly have believed it capable; his eyes sparkled, as his cheek
|
||
flushed with pleasure; and at that moment I thought him as beautiful as the
|
||
stranger. She appeared affected by different feelings; wiping a few tears from
|
||
her lovely eyes, she held out her hand to Felix, who kissed it rapturously and
|
||
called her, as well as I could distinguish, his sweet Arabian. She did not
|
||
appear to understand him, but smiled. He assisted her to dismount, and
|
||
dismissing her guide, conducted her into the cottage. Some conversation took
|
||
place between him and his father, and the young stranger knelt at the old man’s
|
||
feet and would have kissed his hand, but he raised her and embraced her
|
||
affectionately.
|
||
</p>
|
||
|
||
<p>
|
||
“I soon perceived that although the stranger uttered articulate sounds and
|
||
appeared to have a language of her own, she was neither understood by nor
|
||
herself understood the cottagers. They made many signs which I did not
|
||
comprehend, but I saw that her presence diffused gladness through the cottage,
|
||
dispelling their sorrow as the sun dissipates the morning mists. Felix seemed
|
||
peculiarly happy and with smiles of delight welcomed his Arabian. Agatha, the
|
||
ever-gentle Agatha, kissed the hands of the lovely stranger, and pointing to
|
||
her brother, made signs which appeared to me to mean that he had been sorrowful
|
||
until she came. Some hours passed thus, while they, by their countenances,
|
||
expressed joy, the cause of which I did not comprehend. Presently I found, by
|
||
the frequent recurrence of some sound which the stranger repeated after them,
|
||
that she was endeavouring to learn their language; and the idea instantly
|
||
occurred to me that I should make use of the same instructions to the same end.
|
||
The stranger learned about twenty words at the first lesson; most of them,
|
||
indeed, were those which I had before understood, but I profited by the others.
|
||
</p>
|
||
|
||
<p>
|
||
“As night came on, Agatha and the Arabian retired early. When they separated
|
||
Felix kissed the hand of the stranger and said, ‘Good night sweet Safie.’ He
|
||
sat up much longer, conversing with his father, and by the frequent repetition
|
||
of her name I conjectured that their lovely guest was the subject of their
|
||
conversation. I ardently desired to understand them, and bent every faculty
|
||
towards that purpose, but found it utterly impossible.
|
||
</p>
|
||
|
||
<p>
|
||
“The next morning Felix went out to his work, and after the usual occupations
|
||
of Agatha were finished, the Arabian sat at the feet of the old man, and taking
|
||
his guitar, played some airs so entrancingly beautiful that they at once drew
|
||
tears of sorrow and delight from my eyes. She sang, and her voice flowed in a
|
||
rich cadence, swelling or dying away like a nightingale of the woods.
|
||
</p>
|
||
|
||
<p>
|
||
“When she had finished, she gave the guitar to Agatha, who at first declined
|
||
it. She played a simple air, and her voice accompanied it in sweet accents, but
|
||
unlike the wondrous strain of the stranger. The old man appeared enraptured and
|
||
said some words which Agatha endeavoured to explain to Safie, and by which he
|
||
appeared to wish to express that she bestowed on him the greatest delight by
|
||
her music.
|
||
</p>
|
||
|
||
<p>
|
||
“The days now passed as peaceably as before, with the sole alteration that joy
|
||
had taken place of sadness in the countenances of my friends. Safie was always
|
||
gay and happy; she and I improved rapidly in the knowledge of language, so that
|
||
in two months I began to comprehend most of the words uttered by my protectors.
|
||
</p>
|
||
|
||
<p>
|
||
“In the meanwhile also the black ground was covered with herbage, and the green
|
||
banks interspersed with innumerable flowers, sweet to the scent and the eyes,
|
||
stars of pale radiance among the moonlight woods; the sun became warmer, the
|
||
nights clear and balmy; and my nocturnal rambles were an extreme pleasure to
|
||
me, although they were considerably shortened by the late setting and early
|
||
rising of the sun, for I never ventured abroad during daylight, fearful of
|
||
meeting with the same treatment I had formerly endured in the first village
|
||
which I entered.
|
||
</p>
|
||
|
||
<p>
|
||
“My days were spent in close attention, that I might more speedily master the
|
||
language; and I may boast that I improved more rapidly than the Arabian, who
|
||
understood very little and conversed in broken accents, whilst I comprehended
|
||
and could imitate almost every word that was spoken.
|
||
</p>
|
||
|
||
<p>
|
||
“While I improved in speech, I also learned the science of letters as it was
|
||
taught to the stranger, and this opened before me a wide field for wonder and
|
||
delight.
|
||
</p>
|
||
|
||
<p>
|
||
“The book from which Felix instructed Safie was Volney’s <i>Ruins of
|
||
Empires</i>. I should not have understood the purport of this book had not
|
||
Felix, in reading it, given very minute explanations. He had chosen this work,
|
||
he said, because the declamatory style was framed in imitation of the Eastern
|
||
authors. Through this work I obtained a cursory knowledge of history and a view
|
||
of the several empires at present existing in the world; it gave me an insight
|
||
into the manners, governments, and religions of the different nations of the
|
||
earth. I heard of the slothful Asiatics, of the stupendous genius and mental
|
||
activity of the Grecians, of the wars and wonderful virtue of the early
|
||
Romans—of their subsequent degenerating—of the decline of that mighty empire,
|
||
of chivalry, Christianity, and kings. I heard of the discovery of the American
|
||
hemisphere and wept with Safie over the hapless fate of its original
|
||
inhabitants.
|
||
</p>
|
||
|
||
<p>
|
||
“These wonderful narrations inspired me with strange feelings. Was man, indeed,
|
||
at once so powerful, so virtuous and magnificent, yet so vicious and base? He
|
||
appeared at one time a mere scion of the evil principle and at another as all
|
||
that can be conceived of noble and godlike. To be a great and virtuous man
|
||
appeared the highest honour that can befall a sensitive being; to be base and
|
||
vicious, as many on record have been, appeared the lowest degradation, a
|
||
condition more abject than that of the blind mole or harmless worm. For a long
|
||
time I could not conceive how one man could go forth to murder his fellow, or
|
||
even why there were laws and governments; but when I heard details of vice and
|
||
bloodshed, my wonder ceased and I turned away with disgust and loathing.
|
||
</p>
|
||
|
||
<p>
|
||
“Every conversation of the cottagers now opened new wonders to me. While I
|
||
listened to the instructions which Felix bestowed upon the Arabian, the strange
|
||
system of human society was explained to me. I heard of the division of
|
||
property, of immense wealth and squalid poverty, of rank, descent, and noble
|
||
blood.
|
||
</p>
|
||
|
||
<p>
|
||
“The words induced me to turn towards myself. I learned that the possessions
|
||
most esteemed by your fellow creatures were high and unsullied descent united
|
||
with riches. A man might be respected with only one of these advantages, but
|
||
without either he was considered, except in very rare instances, as a vagabond
|
||
and a slave, doomed to waste his powers for the profits of the chosen few! And
|
||
what was I? Of my creation and creator I was absolutely ignorant, but I knew
|
||
that I possessed no money, no friends, no kind of property. I was, besides,
|
||
endued with a figure hideously deformed and loathsome; I was not even of the
|
||
same nature as man. I was more agile than they and could subsist upon coarser
|
||
diet; I bore the extremes of heat and cold with less injury to my frame; my
|
||
stature far exceeded theirs. When I looked around I saw and heard of none like
|
||
me. Was I, then, a monster, a blot upon the earth, from which all men fled and
|
||
whom all men disowned?
|
||
</p>
|
||
|
||
<p>
|
||
“I cannot describe to you the agony that these reflections inflicted upon me; I
|
||
tried to dispel them, but sorrow only increased with knowledge. Oh, that I had
|
||
for ever remained in my native wood, nor known nor felt beyond the sensations
|
||
of hunger, thirst, and heat!
|
||
</p>
|
||
|
||
<p>
|
||
“Of what a strange nature is knowledge! It clings to the mind when it has once
|
||
seized on it like a lichen on the rock. I wished sometimes to shake off all
|
||
thought and feeling, but I learned that there was but one means to overcome the
|
||
sensation of pain, and that was death—a state which I feared yet did not
|
||
understand. I admired virtue and good feelings and loved the gentle manners and
|
||
amiable qualities of my cottagers, but I was shut out from intercourse with
|
||
them, except through means which I obtained by stealth, when I was unseen and
|
||
unknown, and which rather increased than satisfied the desire I had of becoming
|
||
one among my fellows. The gentle words of Agatha and the animated smiles of the
|
||
charming Arabian were not for me. The mild exhortations of the old man and the
|
||
lively conversation of the loved Felix were not for me. Miserable, unhappy
|
||
wretch!
|
||
</p>
|
||
|
||
<p>
|
||
“Other lessons were impressed upon me even more deeply. I heard of the
|
||
difference of sexes, and the birth and growth of children, how the father doted
|
||
on the smiles of the infant, and the lively sallies of the older child, how all
|
||
the life and cares of the mother were wrapped up in the precious charge, how
|
||
the mind of youth expanded and gained knowledge, of brother, sister, and all
|
||
the various relationships which bind one human being to another in mutual
|
||
bonds.
|
||
</p>
|
||
|
||
<p>
|
||
“But where were my friends and relations? No father had watched my infant days,
|
||
no mother had blessed me with smiles and caresses; or if they had, all my past
|
||
life was now a blot, a blind vacancy in which I distinguished nothing. From my
|
||
earliest remembrance I had been as I then was in height and proportion. I had
|
||
never yet seen a being resembling me or who claimed any intercourse with me.
|
||
What was I? The question again recurred, to be answered only with groans.
|
||
</p>
|
||
|
||
<p>
|
||
“I will soon explain to what these feelings tended, but allow me now to return
|
||
to the cottagers, whose story excited in me such various feelings of
|
||
indignation, delight, and wonder, but which all terminated in additional love
|
||
and reverence for my protectors (for so I loved, in an innocent, half-painful
|
||
self-deceit, to call them).”
|
||
</p>
|
||
|
||
</div><!--end chapter-->
|
||
|
||
<div class="chapter">
|
||
|
||
<h2><a id="chap14"></a>Chapter 14</h2>
|
||
|
||
<p>
|
||
“Some time elapsed before I learned the history of my friends. It was one which
|
||
could not fail to impress itself deeply on my mind, unfolding as it did a
|
||
number of circumstances, each interesting and wonderful to one so utterly
|
||
inexperienced as I was.
|
||
</p>
|
||
|
||
<p>
|
||
“The name of the old man was De Lacey. He was descended from a good family in
|
||
France, where he had lived for many years in affluence, respected by his
|
||
superiors and beloved by his equals. His son was bred in the service of his
|
||
country, and Agatha had ranked with ladies of the highest distinction. A few
|
||
months before my arrival they had lived in a large and luxurious city called
|
||
Paris, surrounded by friends and possessed of every enjoyment which virtue,
|
||
refinement of intellect, or taste, accompanied by a moderate fortune, could
|
||
afford.
|
||
</p>
|
||
|
||
<p>
|
||
“The father of Safie had been the cause of their ruin. He was a Turkish
|
||
merchant and had inhabited Paris for many years, when, for some reason which I
|
||
could not learn, he became obnoxious to the government. He was seized and cast
|
||
into prison the very day that Safie arrived from Constantinople to join him. He
|
||
was tried and condemned to death. The injustice of his sentence was very
|
||
flagrant; all Paris was indignant; and it was judged that his religion and
|
||
wealth rather than the crime alleged against him had been the cause of his
|
||
condemnation.
|
||
</p>
|
||
|
||
<p>
|
||
“Felix had accidentally been present at the trial; his horror and indignation
|
||
were uncontrollable when he heard the decision of the court. He made, at that
|
||
moment, a solemn vow to deliver him and then looked around for the means. After
|
||
many fruitless attempts to gain admittance to the prison, he found a strongly
|
||
grated window in an unguarded part of the building, which lighted the dungeon
|
||
of the unfortunate Muhammadan, who, loaded with chains, waited in despair the
|
||
execution of the barbarous sentence. Felix visited the grate at night and made
|
||
known to the prisoner his intentions in his favour. The Turk, amazed and
|
||
delighted, endeavoured to kindle the zeal of his deliverer by promises of
|
||
reward and wealth. Felix rejected his offers with contempt, yet when he saw the
|
||
lovely Safie, who was allowed to visit her father and who by her gestures
|
||
expressed her lively gratitude, the youth could not help owning to his own mind
|
||
that the captive possessed a treasure which would fully reward his toil and
|
||
hazard.
|
||
</p>
|
||
|
||
<p>
|
||
“The Turk quickly perceived the impression that his daughter had made on the
|
||
heart of Felix and endeavoured to secure him more entirely in his interests by
|
||
the promise of her hand in marriage so soon as he should be conveyed to a place
|
||
of safety. Felix was too delicate to accept this offer, yet he looked forward
|
||
to the probability of the event as to the consummation of his happiness.
|
||
</p>
|
||
|
||
<p>
|
||
“During the ensuing days, while the preparations were going forward for the
|
||
escape of the merchant, the zeal of Felix was warmed by several letters that he
|
||
received from this lovely girl, who found means to express her thoughts in the
|
||
language of her lover by the aid of an old man, a servant of her father who
|
||
understood French. She thanked him in the most ardent terms for his intended
|
||
services towards her parent, and at the same time she gently deplored her own
|
||
fate.
|
||
</p>
|
||
|
||
<p>
|
||
“I have copies of these letters, for I found means, during my residence in the
|
||
hovel, to procure the implements of writing; and the letters were often in the
|
||
hands of Felix or Agatha. Before I depart I will give them to you; they will
|
||
prove the truth of my tale; but at present, as the sun is already far declined,
|
||
I shall only have time to repeat the substance of them to you.
|
||
</p>
|
||
|
||
<p>
|
||
“Safie related that her mother was a Christian Arab, seized and made a slave by
|
||
the Turks; recommended by her beauty, she had won the heart of the father of
|
||
Safie, who married her. The young girl spoke in high and enthusiastic terms of
|
||
her mother, who, born in freedom, spurned the bondage to which she was now
|
||
reduced. She instructed her daughter in the tenets of her religion and taught
|
||
her to aspire to higher powers of intellect and an independence of spirit
|
||
forbidden to the female followers of Muhammad. This lady died, but her lessons
|
||
were indelibly impressed on the mind of Safie, who sickened at the prospect of
|
||
again returning to Asia and being immured within the walls of a harem, allowed
|
||
only to occupy herself with infantile amusements, ill-suited to the temper of
|
||
her soul, now accustomed to grand ideas and a noble emulation for virtue. The
|
||
prospect of marrying a Christian and remaining in a country where women were
|
||
allowed to take a rank in society was enchanting to her.
|
||
</p>
|
||
|
||
<p>
|
||
“The day for the execution of the Turk was fixed, but on the night previous to
|
||
it he quitted his prison and before morning was distant many leagues from
|
||
Paris. Felix had procured passports in the name of his father, sister, and
|
||
himself. He had previously communicated his plan to the former, who aided the
|
||
deceit by quitting his house, under the pretence of a journey and concealed
|
||
himself, with his daughter, in an obscure part of Paris.
|
||
</p>
|
||
|
||
<p>
|
||
“Felix conducted the fugitives through France to Lyons and across Mont Cenis to
|
||
Leghorn, where the merchant had decided to wait a favourable opportunity of
|
||
passing into some part of the Turkish dominions.
|
||
</p>
|
||
|
||
<p>
|
||
“Safie resolved to remain with her father until the moment of his departure,
|
||
before which time the Turk renewed his promise that she should be united to his
|
||
deliverer; and Felix remained with them in expectation of that event; and in
|
||
the meantime he enjoyed the society of the Arabian, who exhibited towards him
|
||
the simplest and tenderest affection. They conversed with one another through
|
||
the means of an interpreter, and sometimes with the interpretation of looks;
|
||
and Safie sang to him the divine airs of her native country.
|
||
</p>
|
||
|
||
<p>
|
||
“The Turk allowed this intimacy to take place and encouraged the hopes of the
|
||
youthful lovers, while in his heart he had formed far other plans. He loathed
|
||
the idea that his daughter should be united to a Christian, but he feared the
|
||
resentment of Felix if he should appear lukewarm, for he knew that he was still
|
||
in the power of his deliverer if he should choose to betray him to the Italian
|
||
state which they inhabited. He revolved a thousand plans by which he should be
|
||
enabled to prolong the deceit until it might be no longer necessary, and
|
||
secretly to take his daughter with him when he departed. His plans were
|
||
facilitated by the news which arrived from Paris.
|
||
</p>
|
||
|
||
<p>
|
||
“The government of France were greatly enraged at the escape of their victim
|
||
and spared no pains to detect and punish his deliverer. The plot of Felix was
|
||
quickly discovered, and De Lacey and Agatha were thrown into prison. The news
|
||
reached Felix and roused him from his dream of pleasure. His blind and aged
|
||
father and his gentle sister lay in a noisome dungeon while he enjoyed the free
|
||
air and the society of her whom he loved. This idea was torture to him. He
|
||
quickly arranged with the Turk that if the latter should find a favourable
|
||
opportunity for escape before Felix could return to Italy, Safie should remain
|
||
as a boarder at a convent at Leghorn; and then, quitting the lovely Arabian, he
|
||
hastened to Paris and delivered himself up to the vengeance of the law, hoping
|
||
to free De Lacey and Agatha by this proceeding.
|
||
</p>
|
||
|
||
<p>
|
||
“He did not succeed. They remained confined for five months before the trial
|
||
took place, the result of which deprived them of their fortune and condemned
|
||
them to a perpetual exile from their native country.
|
||
</p>
|
||
|
||
<p>
|
||
“They found a miserable asylum in the cottage in Germany, where I discovered
|
||
them. Felix soon learned that the treacherous Turk, for whom he and his family
|
||
endured such unheard-of oppression, on discovering that his deliverer was thus
|
||
reduced to poverty and ruin, became a traitor to good feeling and honour and
|
||
had quitted Italy with his daughter, insultingly sending Felix a pittance of
|
||
money to aid him, as he said, in some plan of future maintenance.
|
||
</p>
|
||
|
||
<p>
|
||
“Such were the events that preyed on the heart of Felix and rendered him, when
|
||
I first saw him, the most miserable of his family. He could have endured
|
||
poverty, and while this distress had been the meed of his virtue, he gloried in
|
||
it; but the ingratitude of the Turk and the loss of his beloved Safie were
|
||
misfortunes more bitter and irreparable. The arrival of the Arabian now infused
|
||
new life into his soul.
|
||
</p>
|
||
|
||
<p>
|
||
“When the news reached Leghorn that Felix was deprived of his wealth and rank,
|
||
the merchant commanded his daughter to think no more of her lover, but to
|
||
prepare to return to her native country. The generous nature of Safie was
|
||
outraged by this command; she attempted to expostulate with her father, but he
|
||
left her angrily, reiterating his tyrannical mandate.
|
||
</p>
|
||
|
||
<p>
|
||
“A few days after, the Turk entered his daughter’s apartment and told her
|
||
hastily that he had reason to believe that his residence at Leghorn had been
|
||
divulged and that he should speedily be delivered up to the French government;
|
||
he had consequently hired a vessel to convey him to Constantinople, for which
|
||
city he should sail in a few hours. He intended to leave his daughter under the
|
||
care of a confidential servant, to follow at her leisure with the greater part
|
||
of his property, which had not yet arrived at Leghorn.
|
||
</p>
|
||
|
||
<p>
|
||
“When alone, Safie resolved in her own mind the plan of conduct that it would
|
||
become her to pursue in this emergency. A residence in Turkey was abhorrent to
|
||
her; her religion and her feelings were alike averse to it. By some papers of
|
||
her father which fell into her hands she heard of the exile of her lover and
|
||
learnt the name of the spot where he then resided. She hesitated some time, but
|
||
at length she formed her determination. Taking with her some jewels that
|
||
belonged to her and a sum of money, she quitted Italy with an attendant, a
|
||
native of Leghorn, but who understood the common language of Turkey, and
|
||
departed for Germany.
|
||
</p>
|
||
|
||
<p>
|
||
“She arrived in safety at a town about twenty leagues from the cottage of De
|
||
Lacey, when her attendant fell dangerously ill. Safie nursed her with the most
|
||
devoted affection, but the poor girl died, and the Arabian was left alone,
|
||
unacquainted with the language of the country and utterly ignorant of the
|
||
customs of the world. She fell, however, into good hands. The Italian had
|
||
mentioned the name of the spot for which they were bound, and after her death
|
||
the woman of the house in which they had lived took care that Safie should
|
||
arrive in safety at the cottage of her lover.”
|
||
</p>
|
||
|
||
</div><!--end chapter-->
|
||
|
||
<div class="chapter">
|
||
|
||
<h2><a id="chap15"></a>Chapter 15</h2>
|
||
|
||
<p>
|
||
“Such was the history of my beloved cottagers. It impressed me deeply. I
|
||
learned, from the views of social life which it developed, to admire their
|
||
virtues and to deprecate the vices of mankind.
|
||
</p>
|
||
|
||
<p>
|
||
“As yet I looked upon crime as a distant evil, benevolence and generosity were
|
||
ever present before me, inciting within me a desire to become an actor in the
|
||
busy scene where so many admirable qualities were called forth and displayed.
|
||
But in giving an account of the progress of my intellect, I must not omit a
|
||
circumstance which occurred in the beginning of the month of August of the same
|
||
year.
|
||
</p>
|
||
|
||
<p>
|
||
“One night during my accustomed visit to the neighbouring wood where I
|
||
collected my own food and brought home firing for my protectors, I found on the
|
||
ground a leathern portmanteau containing several articles of dress and some
|
||
books. I eagerly seized the prize and returned with it to my hovel. Fortunately
|
||
the books were written in the language, the elements of which I had acquired at
|
||
the cottage; they consisted of <i>Paradise Lost</i>, a volume of <i>Plutarch’s
|
||
Lives</i>, and the <i>Sorrows of Werter</i>. The possession of these treasures
|
||
gave me extreme delight; I now continually studied and exercised my mind upon
|
||
these histories, whilst my friends were employed in their ordinary occupations.
|
||
</p>
|
||
|
||
<p>
|
||
“I can hardly describe to you the effect of these books. They produced in me an
|
||
infinity of new images and feelings, that sometimes raised me to ecstasy, but
|
||
more frequently sunk me into the lowest dejection. In the <i>Sorrows of
|
||
Werter</i>, besides the interest of its simple and affecting story, so many
|
||
opinions are canvassed and so many lights thrown upon what had hitherto been to
|
||
me obscure subjects that I found in it a never-ending source of speculation and
|
||
astonishment. The gentle and domestic manners it described, combined with lofty
|
||
sentiments and feelings, which had for their object something out of self,
|
||
accorded well with my experience among my protectors and with the wants which
|
||
were for ever alive in my own bosom. But I thought Werter himself a more divine
|
||
being than I had ever beheld or imagined; his character contained no
|
||
pretension, but it sank deep. The disquisitions upon death and suicide were
|
||
calculated to fill me with wonder. I did not pretend to enter into the merits
|
||
of the case, yet I inclined towards the opinions of the hero, whose extinction
|
||
I wept, without precisely understanding it.
|
||
</p>
|
||
|
||
<p>
|
||
“As I read, however, I applied much personally to my own feelings and
|
||
condition. I found myself similar yet at the same time strangely unlike to the
|
||
beings concerning whom I read and to whose conversation I was a listener. I
|
||
sympathised with and partly understood them, but I was unformed in mind; I was
|
||
dependent on none and related to none. ‘The path of my departure was free,’ and
|
||
there was none to lament my annihilation. My person was hideous and my stature
|
||
gigantic. What did this mean? Who was I? What was I? Whence did I come? What
|
||
was my destination? These questions continually recurred, but I was unable to
|
||
solve them.
|
||
</p>
|
||
|
||
<p>
|
||
“The volume of <i>Plutarch’s Lives</i> which I possessed contained the
|
||
histories of the first founders of the ancient republics. This book had a far
|
||
different effect upon me from the <i>Sorrows of Werter</i>. I learned from
|
||
Werter’s imaginations despondency and gloom, but Plutarch taught me high
|
||
thoughts; he elevated me above the wretched sphere of my own reflections, to
|
||
admire and love the heroes of past ages. Many things I read surpassed my
|
||
understanding and experience. I had a very confused knowledge of kingdoms, wide
|
||
extents of country, mighty rivers, and boundless seas. But I was perfectly
|
||
unacquainted with towns and large assemblages of men. The cottage of my
|
||
protectors had been the only school in which I had studied human nature, but
|
||
this book developed new and mightier scenes of action. I read of men concerned
|
||
in public affairs, governing or massacring their species. I felt the greatest
|
||
ardour for virtue rise within me, and abhorrence for vice, as far as I
|
||
understood the signification of those terms, relative as they were, as I
|
||
applied them, to pleasure and pain alone. Induced by these feelings, I was of
|
||
course led to admire peaceable lawgivers, Numa, Solon, and Lycurgus, in
|
||
preference to Romulus and Theseus. The patriarchal lives of my protectors
|
||
caused these impressions to take a firm hold on my mind; perhaps, if my first
|
||
introduction to humanity had been made by a young soldier, burning for glory
|
||
and slaughter, I should have been imbued with different sensations.
|
||
</p>
|
||
|
||
<p>
|
||
“But <i>Paradise Lost</i> excited different and far deeper emotions. I read it,
|
||
as I had read the other volumes which had fallen into my hands, as a true
|
||
history. It moved every feeling of wonder and awe that the picture of an
|
||
omnipotent God warring with his creatures was capable of exciting. I often
|
||
referred the several situations, as their similarity struck me, to my own. Like
|
||
Adam, I was apparently united by no link to any other being in existence; but
|
||
his state was far different from mine in every other respect. He had come forth
|
||
from the hands of God a perfect creature, happy and prosperous, guarded by the
|
||
especial care of his Creator; he was allowed to converse with and acquire
|
||
knowledge from beings of a superior nature, but I was wretched, helpless, and
|
||
alone. Many times I considered Satan as the fitter emblem of my condition, for
|
||
often, like him, when I viewed the bliss of my protectors, the bitter gall of
|
||
envy rose within me.
|
||
</p>
|
||
|
||
<p>
|
||
“Another circumstance strengthened and confirmed these feelings. Soon after my
|
||
arrival in the hovel I discovered some papers in the pocket of the dress which
|
||
I had taken from your laboratory. At first I had neglected them, but now that I
|
||
was able to decipher the characters in which they were written, I began to
|
||
study them with diligence. It was your journal of the four months that preceded
|
||
my creation. You minutely described in these papers every step you took in the
|
||
progress of your work; this history was mingled with accounts of domestic
|
||
occurrences. You doubtless recollect these papers. Here they are. Everything is
|
||
related in them which bears reference to my accursed origin; the whole detail
|
||
of that series of disgusting circumstances which produced it is set in view;
|
||
the minutest description of my odious and loathsome person is given, in
|
||
language which painted your own horrors and rendered mine indelible. I sickened
|
||
as I read. ‘Hateful day when I received life!’ I exclaimed in agony. ‘Accursed
|
||
creator! Why did you form a monster so hideous that even <i>you</i> turned from
|
||
me in disgust? God, in pity, made man beautiful and alluring, after his own
|
||
image; but my form is a filthy type of yours, more horrid even from the very
|
||
resemblance. Satan had his companions, fellow devils, to admire and encourage
|
||
him, but I am solitary and abhorred.’
|
||
</p>
|
||
|
||
<p>
|
||
“These were the reflections of my hours of despondency and solitude; but when I
|
||
contemplated the virtues of the cottagers, their amiable and benevolent
|
||
dispositions, I persuaded myself that when they should become acquainted with
|
||
my admiration of their virtues they would compassionate me and overlook my
|
||
personal deformity. Could they turn from their door one, however monstrous, who
|
||
solicited their compassion and friendship? I resolved, at least, not to
|
||
despair, but in every way to fit myself for an interview with them which would
|
||
decide my fate. I postponed this attempt for some months longer, for the
|
||
importance attached to its success inspired me with a dread lest I should fail.
|
||
Besides, I found that my understanding improved so much with every day’s
|
||
experience that I was unwilling to commence this undertaking until a few more
|
||
months should have added to my sagacity.
|
||
</p>
|
||
|
||
<p>
|
||
“Several changes, in the meantime, took place in the cottage. The presence of
|
||
Safie diffused happiness among its inhabitants, and I also found that a greater
|
||
degree of plenty reigned there. Felix and Agatha spent more time in amusement
|
||
and conversation, and were assisted in their labours by servants. They did not
|
||
appear rich, but they were contented and happy; their feelings were serene and
|
||
peaceful, while mine became every day more tumultuous. Increase of knowledge
|
||
only discovered to me more clearly what a wretched outcast I was. I cherished
|
||
hope, it is true, but it vanished when I beheld my person reflected in water or
|
||
my shadow in the moonshine, even as that frail image and that inconstant shade.
|
||
</p>
|
||
|
||
<p>
|
||
“I endeavoured to crush these fears and to fortify myself for the trial which
|
||
in a few months I resolved to undergo; and sometimes I allowed my thoughts,
|
||
unchecked by reason, to ramble in the fields of Paradise, and dared to fancy
|
||
amiable and lovely creatures sympathising with my feelings and cheering my
|
||
gloom; their angelic countenances breathed smiles of consolation. But it was
|
||
all a dream; no Eve soothed my sorrows nor shared my thoughts; I was alone. I
|
||
remembered Adam’s supplication to his Creator. But where was mine? He had
|
||
abandoned me, and in the bitterness of my heart I cursed him.
|
||
</p>
|
||
|
||
<p>
|
||
“Autumn passed thus. I saw, with surprise and grief, the leaves decay and fall,
|
||
and nature again assume the barren and bleak appearance it had worn when I
|
||
first beheld the woods and the lovely moon. Yet I did not heed the bleakness of
|
||
the weather; I was better fitted by my conformation for the endurance of cold
|
||
than heat. But my chief delights were the sight of the flowers, the birds, and
|
||
all the gay apparel of summer; when those deserted me, I turned with more
|
||
attention towards the cottagers. Their happiness was not decreased by the
|
||
absence of summer. They loved and sympathised with one another; and their joys,
|
||
depending on each other, were not interrupted by the casualties that took place
|
||
around them. The more I saw of them, the greater became my desire to claim
|
||
their protection and kindness; my heart yearned to be known and loved by these
|
||
amiable creatures; to see their sweet looks directed towards me with affection
|
||
was the utmost limit of my ambition. I dared not think that they would turn
|
||
them from me with disdain and horror. The poor that stopped at their door were
|
||
never driven away. I asked, it is true, for greater treasures than a little
|
||
food or rest: I required kindness and sympathy; but I did not believe myself
|
||
utterly unworthy of it.
|
||
</p>
|
||
|
||
<p>
|
||
“The winter advanced, and an entire revolution of the seasons had taken place
|
||
since I awoke into life. My attention at this time was solely directed towards
|
||
my plan of introducing myself into the cottage of my protectors. I revolved
|
||
many projects, but that on which I finally fixed was to enter the dwelling when
|
||
the blind old man should be alone. I had sagacity enough to discover that the
|
||
unnatural hideousness of my person was the chief object of horror with those
|
||
who had formerly beheld me. My voice, although harsh, had nothing terrible in
|
||
it; I thought, therefore, that if in the absence of his children I could gain
|
||
the good will and mediation of the old De Lacey, I might by his means be
|
||
tolerated by my younger protectors.
|
||
</p>
|
||
|
||
<p>
|
||
“One day, when the sun shone on the red leaves that strewed the ground and
|
||
diffused cheerfulness, although it denied warmth, Safie, Agatha, and Felix
|
||
departed on a long country walk, and the old man, at his own desire, was left
|
||
alone in the cottage. When his children had departed, he took up his guitar and
|
||
played several mournful but sweet airs, more sweet and mournful than I had ever
|
||
heard him play before. At first his countenance was illuminated with pleasure,
|
||
but as he continued, thoughtfulness and sadness succeeded; at length, laying
|
||
aside the instrument, he sat absorbed in reflection.
|
||
</p>
|
||
|
||
<p>
|
||
“My heart beat quick; this was the hour and moment of trial, which would decide
|
||
my hopes or realise my fears. The servants were gone to a neighbouring fair.
|
||
All was silent in and around the cottage; it was an excellent opportunity; yet,
|
||
when I proceeded to execute my plan, my limbs failed me and I sank to the
|
||
ground. Again I rose, and exerting all the firmness of which I was master,
|
||
removed the planks which I had placed before my hovel to conceal my retreat.
|
||
The fresh air revived me, and with renewed determination I approached the door
|
||
of their cottage.
|
||
</p>
|
||
|
||
<p>
|
||
“I knocked. ‘Who is there?’ said the old man. ‘Come in.’
|
||
</p>
|
||
|
||
<p>
|
||
“I entered. ‘Pardon this intrusion,’ said I; ‘I am a traveller in want of a
|
||
little rest; you would greatly oblige me if you would allow me to remain a few
|
||
minutes before the fire.’
|
||
</p>
|
||
|
||
<p>
|
||
“‘Enter,’ said De Lacey, ‘and I will try in what manner I can to relieve your
|
||
wants; but, unfortunately, my children are from home, and as I am blind, I am
|
||
afraid I shall find it difficult to procure food for you.’
|
||
</p>
|
||
|
||
<p>
|
||
“‘Do not trouble yourself, my kind host; I have food; it is warmth and rest
|
||
only that I need.’
|
||
</p>
|
||
|
||
<p>
|
||
“I sat down, and a silence ensued. I knew that every minute was precious to me,
|
||
yet I remained irresolute in what manner to commence the interview, when the
|
||
old man addressed me.
|
||
</p>
|
||
|
||
<p>
|
||
‘By your language, stranger, I suppose you are my countryman; are you French?’
|
||
</p>
|
||
|
||
<p>
|
||
“‘No; but I was educated by a French family and understand that language only.
|
||
I am now going to claim the protection of some friends, whom I sincerely love,
|
||
and of whose favour I have some hopes.’
|
||
</p>
|
||
|
||
<p>
|
||
“‘Are they Germans?’
|
||
</p>
|
||
|
||
<p>
|
||
“‘No, they are French. But let us change the subject. I am an unfortunate and
|
||
deserted creature, I look around and I have no relation or friend upon earth.
|
||
These amiable people to whom I go have never seen me and know little of me. I
|
||
am full of fears, for if I fail there, I am an outcast in the world for ever.’
|
||
</p>
|
||
|
||
<p>
|
||
“‘Do not despair. To be friendless is indeed to be unfortunate, but the hearts
|
||
of men, when unprejudiced by any obvious self-interest, are full of brotherly
|
||
love and charity. Rely, therefore, on your hopes; and if these friends are good
|
||
and amiable, do not despair.’
|
||
</p>
|
||
|
||
<p>
|
||
“‘They are kind—they are the most excellent creatures in the world; but,
|
||
unfortunately, they are prejudiced against me. I have good dispositions; my
|
||
life has been hitherto harmless and in some degree beneficial; but a fatal
|
||
prejudice clouds their eyes, and where they ought to see a feeling and kind
|
||
friend, they behold only a detestable monster.’
|
||
</p>
|
||
|
||
<p>
|
||
“‘That is indeed unfortunate; but if you are really blameless, cannot you
|
||
undeceive them?’
|
||
</p>
|
||
|
||
<p>
|
||
“‘I am about to undertake that task; and it is on that account that I feel so
|
||
many overwhelming terrors. I tenderly love these friends; I have, unknown to
|
||
them, been for many months in the habits of daily kindness towards them; but
|
||
they believe that I wish to injure them, and it is that prejudice which I wish
|
||
to overcome.’
|
||
</p>
|
||
|
||
<p>
|
||
“‘Where do these friends reside?’
|
||
</p>
|
||
|
||
<p>
|
||
“‘Near this spot.’
|
||
</p>
|
||
|
||
<p>
|
||
“The old man paused and then continued, ‘If you will unreservedly confide to me
|
||
the particulars of your tale, I perhaps may be of use in undeceiving them. I am
|
||
blind and cannot judge of your countenance, but there is something in your
|
||
words which persuades me that you are sincere. I am poor and an exile, but it
|
||
will afford me true pleasure to be in any way serviceable to a human creature.’
|
||
</p>
|
||
|
||
<p>
|
||
“‘Excellent man! I thank you and accept your generous offer. You raise me from
|
||
the dust by this kindness; and I trust that, by your aid, I shall not be driven
|
||
from the society and sympathy of your fellow creatures.’
|
||
</p>
|
||
|
||
<p>
|
||
“‘Heaven forbid! Even if you were really criminal, for that can only drive you
|
||
to desperation, and not instigate you to virtue. I also am unfortunate; I and
|
||
my family have been condemned, although innocent; judge, therefore, if I do not
|
||
feel for your misfortunes.’
|
||
</p>
|
||
|
||
<p>
|
||
“‘How can I thank you, my best and only benefactor? From your lips first have I
|
||
heard the voice of kindness directed towards me; I shall be for ever grateful;
|
||
and your present humanity assures me of success with those friends whom I am on
|
||
the point of meeting.’
|
||
</p>
|
||
|
||
<p>
|
||
“‘May I know the names and residence of those friends?’
|
||
</p>
|
||
|
||
<p>
|
||
“I paused. This, I thought, was the moment of decision, which was to rob me of
|
||
or bestow happiness on me for ever. I struggled vainly for firmness sufficient
|
||
to answer him, but the effort destroyed all my remaining strength; I sank on
|
||
the chair and sobbed aloud. At that moment I heard the steps of my younger
|
||
protectors. I had not a moment to lose, but seizing the hand of the old man, I
|
||
cried, ‘Now is the time! Save and protect me! You and your family are the
|
||
friends whom I seek. Do not you desert me in the hour of trial!’
|
||
</p>
|
||
|
||
<p>
|
||
“‘Great God!’ exclaimed the old man. ‘Who are you?’
|
||
</p>
|
||
|
||
<p>
|
||
“At that instant the cottage door was opened, and Felix, Safie, and Agatha
|
||
entered. Who can describe their horror and consternation on beholding me?
|
||
Agatha fainted, and Safie, unable to attend to her friend, rushed out of the
|
||
cottage. Felix darted forward, and with supernatural force tore me from his
|
||
father, to whose knees I clung, in a transport of fury, he dashed me to the
|
||
ground and struck me violently with a stick. I could have torn him limb from
|
||
limb, as the lion rends the antelope. But my heart sank within me as with
|
||
bitter sickness, and I refrained. I saw him on the point of repeating his blow,
|
||
when, overcome by pain and anguish, I quitted the cottage, and in the general
|
||
tumult escaped unperceived to my hovel.”
|
||
</p>
|
||
|
||
</div><!--end chapter-->
|
||
|
||
<div class="chapter">
|
||
|
||
<h2><a id="chap16"></a>Chapter 16</h2>
|
||
|
||
<p>
|
||
“Cursed, cursed creator! Why did I live? Why, in that instant, did I not
|
||
extinguish the spark of existence which you had so wantonly bestowed? I know
|
||
not; despair had not yet taken possession of me; my feelings were those of rage
|
||
and revenge. I could with pleasure have destroyed the cottage and its
|
||
inhabitants and have glutted myself with their shrieks and misery.
|
||
</p>
|
||
|
||
<p>
|
||
“When night came I quitted my retreat and wandered in the wood; and now, no
|
||
longer restrained by the fear of discovery, I gave vent to my anguish in
|
||
fearful howlings. I was like a wild beast that had broken the toils, destroying
|
||
the objects that obstructed me and ranging through the wood with a stag-like
|
||
swiftness. Oh! What a miserable night I passed! The cold stars shone in
|
||
mockery, and the bare trees waved their branches above me; now and then the
|
||
sweet voice of a bird burst forth amidst the universal stillness. All, save I,
|
||
were at rest or in enjoyment; I, like the arch-fiend, bore a hell within me,
|
||
and finding myself unsympathised with, wished to tear up the trees, spread
|
||
havoc and destruction around me, and then to have sat down and enjoyed the
|
||
ruin.
|
||
</p>
|
||
|
||
<p>
|
||
“But this was a luxury of sensation that could not endure; I became fatigued
|
||
with excess of bodily exertion and sank on the damp grass in the sick impotence
|
||
of despair. There was none among the myriads of men that existed who would pity
|
||
or assist me; and should I feel kindness towards my enemies? No: from that
|
||
moment I declared everlasting war against the species, and more than all,
|
||
against him who had formed me and sent me forth to this insupportable misery.
|
||
</p>
|
||
|
||
<p>
|
||
“The sun rose; I heard the voices of men and knew that it was impossible to
|
||
return to my retreat during that day. Accordingly I hid myself in some thick
|
||
underwood, determining to devote the ensuing hours to reflection on my
|
||
situation.
|
||
</p>
|
||
|
||
<p>
|
||
“The pleasant sunshine and the pure air of day restored me to some degree of
|
||
tranquillity; and when I considered what had passed at the cottage, I could not
|
||
help believing that I had been too hasty in my conclusions. I had certainly
|
||
acted imprudently. It was apparent that my conversation had interested the
|
||
father in my behalf, and I was a fool in having exposed my person to the horror
|
||
of his children. I ought to have familiarised the old De Lacey to me, and by
|
||
degrees to have discovered myself to the rest of his family, when they should
|
||
have been prepared for my approach. But I did not believe my errors to be
|
||
irretrievable, and after much consideration I resolved to return to the
|
||
cottage, seek the old man, and by my representations win him to my party.
|
||
</p>
|
||
|
||
<p>
|
||
“These thoughts calmed me, and in the afternoon I sank into a profound sleep;
|
||
but the fever of my blood did not allow me to be visited by peaceful dreams.
|
||
The horrible scene of the preceding day was for ever acting before my eyes; the
|
||
females were flying and the enraged Felix tearing me from his father’s feet. I
|
||
awoke exhausted, and finding that it was already night, I crept forth from my
|
||
hiding-place, and went in search of food.
|
||
</p>
|
||
|
||
<p>
|
||
“When my hunger was appeased, I directed my steps towards the well-known path
|
||
that conducted to the cottage. All there was at peace. I crept into my hovel
|
||
and remained in silent expectation of the accustomed hour when the family
|
||
arose. That hour passed, the sun mounted high in the heavens, but the cottagers
|
||
did not appear. I trembled violently, apprehending some dreadful misfortune.
|
||
The inside of the cottage was dark, and I heard no motion; I cannot describe
|
||
the agony of this suspense.
|
||
</p>
|
||
|
||
<p>
|
||
“Presently two countrymen passed by, but pausing near the cottage, they entered
|
||
into conversation, using violent gesticulations; but I did not understand what
|
||
they said, as they spoke the language of the country, which differed from that
|
||
of my protectors. Soon after, however, Felix approached with another man; I was
|
||
surprised, as I knew that he had not quitted the cottage that morning, and
|
||
waited anxiously to discover from his discourse the meaning of these unusual
|
||
appearances.
|
||
</p>
|
||
|
||
<p>
|
||
“‘Do you consider,’ said his companion to him, ‘that you will be obliged to pay
|
||
three months’ rent and to lose the produce of your garden? I do not wish to
|
||
take any unfair advantage, and I beg therefore that you will take some days to
|
||
consider of your determination.’
|
||
</p>
|
||
|
||
<p>
|
||
“‘It is utterly useless,’ replied Felix; ‘we can never again inhabit your
|
||
cottage. The life of my father is in the greatest danger, owing to the dreadful
|
||
circumstance that I have related. My wife and my sister will never recover from
|
||
their horror. I entreat you not to reason with me any more. Take possession of
|
||
your tenement and let me fly from this place.’
|
||
</p>
|
||
|
||
<p>
|
||
“Felix trembled violently as he said this. He and his companion entered the
|
||
cottage, in which they remained for a few minutes, and then departed. I never
|
||
saw any of the family of De Lacey more.
|
||
</p>
|
||
|
||
<p>
|
||
“I continued for the remainder of the day in my hovel in a state of utter and
|
||
stupid despair. My protectors had departed and had broken the only link that
|
||
held me to the world. For the first time the feelings of revenge and hatred
|
||
filled my bosom, and I did not strive to control them, but allowing myself to
|
||
be borne away by the stream, I bent my mind towards injury and death. When I
|
||
thought of my friends, of the mild voice of De Lacey, the gentle eyes of
|
||
Agatha, and the exquisite beauty of the Arabian, these thoughts vanished and a
|
||
gush of tears somewhat soothed me. But again when I reflected that they had
|
||
spurned and deserted me, anger returned, a rage of anger, and unable to injure
|
||
anything human, I turned my fury towards inanimate objects. As night advanced,
|
||
I placed a variety of combustibles around the cottage, and after having
|
||
destroyed every vestige of cultivation in the garden, I waited with forced
|
||
impatience until the moon had sunk to commence my operations.
|
||
</p>
|
||
|
||
<p>
|
||
“As the night advanced, a fierce wind arose from the woods and quickly
|
||
dispersed the clouds that had loitered in the heavens; the blast tore along
|
||
like a mighty avalanche and produced a kind of insanity in my spirits that
|
||
burst all bounds of reason and reflection. I lighted the dry branch of a tree
|
||
and danced with fury around the devoted cottage, my eyes still fixed on the
|
||
western horizon, the edge of which the moon nearly touched. A part of its orb
|
||
was at length hid, and I waved my brand; it sank, and with a loud scream I
|
||
fired the straw, and heath, and bushes, which I had collected. The wind fanned
|
||
the fire, and the cottage was quickly enveloped by the flames, which clung to
|
||
it and licked it with their forked and destroying tongues.
|
||
</p>
|
||
|
||
<p>
|
||
“As soon as I was convinced that no assistance could save any part of the
|
||
habitation, I quitted the scene and sought for refuge in the woods.
|
||
</p>
|
||
|
||
<p>
|
||
“And now, with the world before me, whither should I bend my steps? I resolved
|
||
to fly far from the scene of my misfortunes; but to me, hated and despised,
|
||
every country must be equally horrible. At length the thought of you crossed my
|
||
mind. I learned from your papers that you were my father, my creator; and to
|
||
whom could I apply with more fitness than to him who had given me life? Among
|
||
the lessons that Felix had bestowed upon Safie, geography had not been omitted;
|
||
I had learned from these the relative situations of the different countries of
|
||
the earth. You had mentioned Geneva as the name of your native town, and
|
||
towards this place I resolved to proceed.
|
||
</p>
|
||
|
||
<p>
|
||
“But how was I to direct myself? I knew that I must travel in a southwesterly
|
||
direction to reach my destination, but the sun was my only guide. I did not
|
||
know the names of the towns that I was to pass through, nor could I ask
|
||
information from a single human being; but I did not despair. From you only
|
||
could I hope for succour, although towards you I felt no sentiment but that of
|
||
hatred. Unfeeling, heartless creator! You had endowed me with perceptions and
|
||
passions and then cast me abroad an object for the scorn and horror of mankind.
|
||
But on you only had I any claim for pity and redress, and from you I determined
|
||
to seek that justice which I vainly attempted to gain from any other being that
|
||
wore the human form.
|
||
</p>
|
||
|
||
<p>
|
||
“My travels were long and the sufferings I endured intense. It was late in
|
||
autumn when I quitted the district where I had so long resided. I travelled
|
||
only at night, fearful of encountering the visage of a human being. Nature
|
||
decayed around me, and the sun became heatless; rain and snow poured around me;
|
||
mighty rivers were frozen; the surface of the earth was hard and chill, and
|
||
bare, and I found no shelter. Oh, earth! How often did I imprecate curses on
|
||
the cause of my being! The mildness of my nature had fled, and all within me
|
||
was turned to gall and bitterness. The nearer I approached to your habitation,
|
||
the more deeply did I feel the spirit of revenge enkindled in my heart. Snow
|
||
fell, and the waters were hardened, but I rested not. A few incidents now and
|
||
then directed me, and I possessed a map of the country; but I often wandered
|
||
wide from my path. The agony of my feelings allowed me no respite; no incident
|
||
occurred from which my rage and misery could not extract its food; but a
|
||
circumstance that happened when I arrived on the confines of Switzerland, when
|
||
the sun had recovered its warmth and the earth again began to look green,
|
||
confirmed in an especial manner the bitterness and horror of my feelings.
|
||
</p>
|
||
|
||
<p>
|
||
“I generally rested during the day and travelled only when I was secured by
|
||
night from the view of man. One morning, however, finding that my path lay
|
||
through a deep wood, I ventured to continue my journey after the sun had risen;
|
||
the day, which was one of the first of spring, cheered even me by the
|
||
loveliness of its sunshine and the balminess of the air. I felt emotions of
|
||
gentleness and pleasure, that had long appeared dead, revive within me. Half
|
||
surprised by the novelty of these sensations, I allowed myself to be borne away
|
||
by them, and forgetting my solitude and deformity, dared to be happy. Soft
|
||
tears again bedewed my cheeks, and I even raised my humid eyes with
|
||
thankfulness towards the blessed sun, which bestowed such joy upon me.
|
||
</p>
|
||
|
||
<p>
|
||
“I continued to wind among the paths of the wood, until I came to its boundary,
|
||
which was skirted by a deep and rapid river, into which many of the trees bent
|
||
their branches, now budding with the fresh spring. Here I paused, not exactly
|
||
knowing what path to pursue, when I heard the sound of voices, that induced me
|
||
to conceal myself under the shade of a cypress. I was scarcely hid when a young
|
||
girl came running towards the spot where I was concealed, laughing, as if she
|
||
ran from someone in sport. She continued her course along the precipitous sides
|
||
of the river, when suddenly her foot slipped, and she fell into the rapid
|
||
stream. I rushed from my hiding-place and with extreme labour, from the force
|
||
of the current, saved her and dragged her to shore. She was senseless, and I
|
||
endeavoured by every means in my power to restore animation, when I was
|
||
suddenly interrupted by the approach of a rustic, who was probably the person
|
||
from whom she had playfully fled. On seeing me, he darted towards me, and
|
||
tearing the girl from my arms, hastened towards the deeper parts of the wood. I
|
||
followed speedily, I hardly knew why; but when the man saw me draw near, he
|
||
aimed a gun, which he carried, at my body and fired. I sank to the ground, and
|
||
my injurer, with increased swiftness, escaped into the wood.
|
||
</p>
|
||
|
||
<p>
|
||
“This was then the reward of my benevolence! I had saved a human being from
|
||
destruction, and as a recompense I now writhed under the miserable pain of a
|
||
wound which shattered the flesh and bone. The feelings of kindness and
|
||
gentleness which I had entertained but a few moments before gave place to
|
||
hellish rage and gnashing of teeth. Inflamed by pain, I vowed eternal hatred
|
||
and vengeance to all mankind. But the agony of my wound overcame me; my pulses
|
||
paused, and I fainted.
|
||
</p>
|
||
|
||
<p>
|
||
“For some weeks I led a miserable life in the woods, endeavouring to cure the
|
||
wound which I had received. The ball had entered my shoulder, and I knew not
|
||
whether it had remained there or passed through; at any rate I had no means of
|
||
extracting it. My sufferings were augmented also by the oppressive sense of the
|
||
injustice and ingratitude of their infliction. My daily vows rose for revenge—a
|
||
deep and deadly revenge, such as would alone compensate for the outrages and
|
||
anguish I had endured.
|
||
</p>
|
||
|
||
<p>
|
||
“After some weeks my wound healed, and I continued my journey. The labours I
|
||
endured were no longer to be alleviated by the bright sun or gentle breezes of
|
||
spring; all joy was but a mockery which insulted my desolate state and made me
|
||
feel more painfully that I was not made for the enjoyment of pleasure.
|
||
</p>
|
||
|
||
<p>
|
||
“But my toils now drew near a close, and in two months from this time I reached
|
||
the environs of Geneva.
|
||
</p>
|
||
|
||
<p>
|
||
“It was evening when I arrived, and I retired to a hiding-place among the
|
||
fields that surround it to meditate in what manner I should apply to you. I was
|
||
oppressed by fatigue and hunger and far too unhappy to enjoy the gentle breezes
|
||
of evening or the prospect of the sun setting behind the stupendous mountains
|
||
of Jura.
|
||
</p>
|
||
|
||
<p>
|
||
“At this time a slight sleep relieved me from the pain of reflection, which was
|
||
disturbed by the approach of a beautiful child, who came running into the
|
||
recess I had chosen, with all the sportiveness of infancy. Suddenly, as I gazed
|
||
on him, an idea seized me that this little creature was unprejudiced and had
|
||
lived too short a time to have imbibed a horror of deformity. If, therefore, I
|
||
could seize him and educate him as my companion and friend, I should not be so
|
||
desolate in this peopled earth.
|
||
</p>
|
||
|
||
<p>
|
||
“Urged by this impulse, I seized on the boy as he passed and drew him towards
|
||
me. As soon as he beheld my form, he placed his hands before his eyes and
|
||
uttered a shrill scream; I drew his hand forcibly from his face and said,
|
||
‘Child, what is the meaning of this? I do not intend to hurt you; listen to
|
||
me.’
|
||
</p>
|
||
|
||
<p>
|
||
“He struggled violently. ‘Let me go,’ he cried; ‘monster! Ugly wretch! You wish
|
||
to eat me and tear me to pieces. You are an ogre. Let me go, or I will tell my
|
||
papa.’
|
||
</p>
|
||
|
||
<p>
|
||
“‘Boy, you will never see your father again; you must come with me.’
|
||
</p>
|
||
|
||
<p>
|
||
“‘Hideous monster! Let me go. My papa is a syndic—he is M. Frankenstein—he will
|
||
punish you. You dare not keep me.’
|
||
</p>
|
||
|
||
<p>
|
||
“‘Frankenstein! you belong then to my enemy—to him towards whom I have sworn
|
||
eternal revenge; you shall be my first victim.’
|
||
</p>
|
||
|
||
<p>
|
||
“The child still struggled and loaded me with epithets which carried despair to
|
||
my heart; I grasped his throat to silence him, and in a moment he lay dead at
|
||
my feet.
|
||
</p>
|
||
|
||
<p>
|
||
“I gazed on my victim, and my heart swelled with exultation and hellish
|
||
triumph; clapping my hands, I exclaimed, ‘I too can create desolation; my enemy
|
||
is not invulnerable; this death will carry despair to him, and a thousand other
|
||
miseries shall torment and destroy him.’
|
||
</p>
|
||
|
||
<p>
|
||
“As I fixed my eyes on the child, I saw something glittering on his breast. I
|
||
took it; it was a portrait of a most lovely woman. In spite of my malignity, it
|
||
softened and attracted me. For a few moments I gazed with delight on her dark
|
||
eyes, fringed by deep lashes, and her lovely lips; but presently my rage
|
||
returned; I remembered that I was for ever deprived of the delights that such
|
||
beautiful creatures could bestow and that she whose resemblance I contemplated
|
||
would, in regarding me, have changed that air of divine benignity to one
|
||
expressive of disgust and affright.
|
||
</p>
|
||
|
||
<p>
|
||
“Can you wonder that such thoughts transported me with rage? I only wonder that
|
||
at that moment, instead of venting my sensations in exclamations and agony, I
|
||
did not rush among mankind and perish in the attempt to destroy them.
|
||
</p>
|
||
|
||
<p>
|
||
“While I was overcome by these feelings, I left the spot where I had committed
|
||
the murder, and seeking a more secluded hiding-place, I entered a barn which
|
||
had appeared to me to be empty. A woman was sleeping on some straw; she was
|
||
young, not indeed so beautiful as her whose portrait I held, but of an
|
||
agreeable aspect and blooming in the loveliness of youth and health. Here, I
|
||
thought, is one of those whose joy-imparting smiles are bestowed on all but me.
|
||
And then I bent over her and whispered, ‘Awake, fairest, thy lover is near—he
|
||
who would give his life but to obtain one look of affection from thine eyes; my
|
||
beloved, awake!’
|
||
</p>
|
||
|
||
<p>
|
||
“The sleeper stirred; a thrill of terror ran through me. Should she indeed
|
||
awake, and see me, and curse me, and denounce the murderer? Thus would she
|
||
assuredly act if her darkened eyes opened and she beheld me. The thought was
|
||
madness; it stirred the fiend within me—not I, but she, shall suffer; the
|
||
murder I have committed because I am for ever robbed of all that she could give
|
||
me, she shall atone. The crime had its source in her; be hers the punishment!
|
||
Thanks to the lessons of Felix and the sanguinary laws of man, I had learned
|
||
now to work mischief. I bent over her and placed the portrait securely in one
|
||
of the folds of her dress. She moved again, and I fled.
|
||
</p>
|
||
|
||
<p>
|
||
“For some days I haunted the spot where these scenes had taken place, sometimes
|
||
wishing to see you, sometimes resolved to quit the world and its miseries for
|
||
ever. At length I wandered towards these mountains, and have ranged through
|
||
their immense recesses, consumed by a burning passion which you alone can
|
||
gratify. We may not part until you have promised to comply with my requisition.
|
||
I am alone and miserable; man will not associate with me; but one as deformed
|
||
and horrible as myself would not deny herself to me. My companion must be of
|
||
the same species and have the same defects. This being you must create.”
|
||
</p>
|
||
|
||
</div><!--end chapter-->
|
||
|
||
<div class="chapter">
|
||
|
||
<h2><a id="chap17"></a>Chapter 17</h2>
|
||
|
||
<p>
|
||
The being finished speaking and fixed his looks upon me in the expectation of a
|
||
reply. But I was bewildered, perplexed, and unable to arrange my ideas
|
||
sufficiently to understand the full extent of his proposition. He continued,
|
||
</p>
|
||
|
||
<p>
|
||
“You must create a female for me with whom I can live in the interchange of
|
||
those sympathies necessary for my being. This you alone can do, and I demand it
|
||
of you as a right which you must not refuse to concede.”
|
||
</p>
|
||
|
||
<p>
|
||
The latter part of his tale had kindled anew in me the anger that had died away
|
||
while he narrated his peaceful life among the cottagers, and as he said this I
|
||
could no longer suppress the rage that burned within me.
|
||
</p>
|
||
|
||
<p>
|
||
“I do refuse it,” I replied; “and no torture shall ever extort a consent from
|
||
me. You may render me the most miserable of men, but you shall never make me
|
||
base in my own eyes. Shall I create another like yourself, whose joint
|
||
wickedness might desolate the world. Begone! I have answered you; you may
|
||
torture me, but I will never consent.”
|
||
</p>
|
||
|
||
<p>
|
||
“You are in the wrong,” replied the fiend; “and instead of threatening, I am
|
||
content to reason with you. I am malicious because I am miserable. Am I not
|
||
shunned and hated by all mankind? You, my creator, would tear me to pieces and
|
||
triumph; remember that, and tell me why I should pity man more than he pities
|
||
me? You would not call it murder if you could precipitate me into one of those
|
||
ice-rifts and destroy my frame, the work of your own hands. Shall I respect man
|
||
when he condemns me? Let him live with me in the interchange of kindness, and
|
||
instead of injury I would bestow every benefit upon him with tears of gratitude
|
||
at his acceptance. But that cannot be; the human senses are insurmountable
|
||
barriers to our union. Yet mine shall not be the submission of abject slavery.
|
||
I will revenge my injuries; if I cannot inspire love, I will cause fear, and
|
||
chiefly towards you my arch-enemy, because my creator, do I swear
|
||
inextinguishable hatred. Have a care; I will work at your destruction, nor
|
||
finish until I desolate your heart, so that you shall curse the hour of your
|
||
birth.”
|
||
</p>
|
||
|
||
<p>
|
||
A fiendish rage animated him as he said this; his face was wrinkled into
|
||
contortions too horrible for human eyes to behold; but presently he calmed
|
||
himself and proceeded—
|
||
</p>
|
||
|
||
<p>
|
||
“I intended to reason. This passion is detrimental to me, for you do not
|
||
reflect that <i>you</i> are the cause of its excess. If any being felt emotions
|
||
of benevolence towards me, I should return them a hundred and a hundredfold;
|
||
for that one creature’s sake I would make peace with the whole kind! But I now
|
||
indulge in dreams of bliss that cannot be realised. What I ask of you is
|
||
reasonable and moderate; I demand a creature of another sex, but as hideous as
|
||
myself; the gratification is small, but it is all that I can receive, and it
|
||
shall content me. It is true, we shall be monsters, cut off from all the world;
|
||
but on that account we shall be more attached to one another. Our lives will
|
||
not be happy, but they will be harmless and free from the misery I now feel.
|
||
Oh! My creator, make me happy; let me feel gratitude towards you for one
|
||
benefit! Let me see that I excite the sympathy of some existing thing; do not
|
||
deny me my request!”
|
||
</p>
|
||
|
||
<p>
|
||
I was moved. I shuddered when I thought of the possible consequences of my
|
||
consent, but I felt that there was some justice in his argument. His tale and
|
||
the feelings he now expressed proved him to be a creature of fine sensations,
|
||
and did I not as his maker owe him all the portion of happiness that it was in
|
||
my power to bestow? He saw my change of feeling and continued,
|
||
</p>
|
||
|
||
<p>
|
||
“If you consent, neither you nor any other human being shall ever see us again;
|
||
I will go to the vast wilds of South America. My food is not that of man; I do
|
||
not destroy the lamb and the kid to glut my appetite; acorns and berries afford
|
||
me sufficient nourishment. My companion will be of the same nature as myself
|
||
and will be content with the same fare. We shall make our bed of dried leaves;
|
||
the sun will shine on us as on man and will ripen our food. The picture I
|
||
present to you is peaceful and human, and you must feel that you could deny it
|
||
only in the wantonness of power and cruelty. Pitiless as you have been towards
|
||
me, I now see compassion in your eyes; let me seize the favourable moment and
|
||
persuade you to promise what I so ardently desire.”
|
||
</p>
|
||
|
||
<p>
|
||
“You propose,” replied I, “to fly from the habitations of man, to dwell in
|
||
those wilds where the beasts of the field will be your only companions. How can
|
||
you, who long for the love and sympathy of man, persevere in this exile? You
|
||
will return and again seek their kindness, and you will meet with their
|
||
detestation; your evil passions will be renewed, and you will then have a
|
||
companion to aid you in the task of destruction. This may not be; cease to
|
||
argue the point, for I cannot consent.”
|
||
</p>
|
||
|
||
<p>
|
||
“How inconstant are your feelings! But a moment ago you were moved by my
|
||
representations, and why do you again harden yourself to my complaints? I swear
|
||
to you, by the earth which I inhabit, and by you that made me, that with the
|
||
companion you bestow, I will quit the neighbourhood of man and dwell, as it may
|
||
chance, in the most savage of places. My evil passions will have fled, for I
|
||
shall meet with sympathy! My life will flow quietly away, and in my dying
|
||
moments I shall not curse my maker.”
|
||
</p>
|
||
|
||
<p>
|
||
His words had a strange effect upon me. I compassionated him and sometimes felt
|
||
a wish to console him, but when I looked upon him, when I saw the filthy mass
|
||
that moved and talked, my heart sickened and my feelings were altered to those
|
||
of horror and hatred. I tried to stifle these sensations; I thought that as I
|
||
could not sympathise with him, I had no right to withhold from him the small
|
||
portion of happiness which was yet in my power to bestow.
|
||
</p>
|
||
|
||
<p>
|
||
“You swear,” I said, “to be harmless; but have you not already shown a degree
|
||
of malice that should reasonably make me distrust you? May not even this be a
|
||
feint that will increase your triumph by affording a wider scope for your
|
||
revenge?”
|
||
</p>
|
||
|
||
<p>
|
||
“How is this? I must not be trifled with, and I demand an answer. If I have no
|
||
ties and no affections, hatred and vice must be my portion; the love of another
|
||
will destroy the cause of my crimes, and I shall become a thing of whose
|
||
existence everyone will be ignorant. My vices are the children of a forced
|
||
solitude that I abhor, and my virtues will necessarily arise when I live in
|
||
communion with an equal. I shall feel the affections of a sensitive being and
|
||
become linked to the chain of existence and events from which I am now
|
||
excluded.”
|
||
</p>
|
||
|
||
<p>
|
||
I paused some time to reflect on all he had related and the various arguments
|
||
which he had employed. I thought of the promise of virtues which he had
|
||
displayed on the opening of his existence and the subsequent blight of all
|
||
kindly feeling by the loathing and scorn which his protectors had manifested
|
||
towards him. His power and threats were not omitted in my calculations; a
|
||
creature who could exist in the ice-caves of the glaciers and hide himself from
|
||
pursuit among the ridges of inaccessible precipices was a being possessing
|
||
faculties it would be vain to cope with. After a long pause of reflection I
|
||
concluded that the justice due both to him and my fellow creatures demanded of
|
||
me that I should comply with his request. Turning to him, therefore, I said,
|
||
</p>
|
||
|
||
<p>
|
||
“I consent to your demand, on your solemn oath to quit Europe for ever, and
|
||
every other place in the neighbourhood of man, as soon as I shall deliver into
|
||
your hands a female who will accompany you in your exile.”
|
||
</p>
|
||
|
||
<p>
|
||
“I swear,” he cried, “by the sun, and by the blue sky of heaven, and by the
|
||
fire of love that burns my heart, that if you grant my prayer, while they exist
|
||
you shall never behold me again. Depart to your home and commence your labours;
|
||
I shall watch their progress with unutterable anxiety; and fear not but that
|
||
when you are ready I shall appear.”
|
||
</p>
|
||
|
||
<p>
|
||
Saying this, he suddenly quitted me, fearful, perhaps, of any change in my
|
||
sentiments. I saw him descend the mountain with greater speed than the flight
|
||
of an eagle, and quickly lost among the undulations of the sea of ice.
|
||
</p>
|
||
|
||
<p>
|
||
His tale had occupied the whole day, and the sun was upon the verge of the
|
||
horizon when he departed. I knew that I ought to hasten my descent towards the
|
||
valley, as I should soon be encompassed in darkness; but my heart was heavy,
|
||
and my steps slow. The labour of winding among the little paths of the mountain
|
||
and fixing my feet firmly as I advanced perplexed me, occupied as I was by the
|
||
emotions which the occurrences of the day had produced. Night was far advanced
|
||
when I came to the halfway resting-place and seated myself beside the fountain.
|
||
The stars shone at intervals as the clouds passed from over them; the dark
|
||
pines rose before me, and every here and there a broken tree lay on the ground;
|
||
it was a scene of wonderful solemnity and stirred strange thoughts within me. I
|
||
wept bitterly, and clasping my hands in agony, I exclaimed, “Oh! stars and
|
||
clouds and winds, ye are all about to mock me; if ye really pity me, crush
|
||
sensation and memory; let me become as nought; but if not, depart, depart, and
|
||
leave me in darkness.”
|
||
</p>
|
||
|
||
<p>
|
||
These were wild and miserable thoughts, but I cannot describe to you how the
|
||
eternal twinkling of the stars weighed upon me and how I listened to every
|
||
blast of wind as if it were a dull ugly siroc on its way to consume me.
|
||
</p>
|
||
|
||
<p>
|
||
Morning dawned before I arrived at the village of Chamounix; I took no rest,
|
||
but returned immediately to Geneva. Even in my own heart I could give no
|
||
expression to my sensations—they weighed on me with a mountain’s weight and
|
||
their excess destroyed my agony beneath them. Thus I returned home, and
|
||
entering the house, presented myself to the family. My haggard and wild
|
||
appearance awoke intense alarm, but I answered no question, scarcely did I
|
||
speak. I felt as if I were placed under a ban—as if I had no right to claim
|
||
their sympathies—as if never more might I enjoy companionship with them. Yet
|
||
even thus I loved them to adoration; and to save them, I resolved to dedicate
|
||
myself to my most abhorred task. The prospect of such an occupation made every
|
||
other circumstance of existence pass before me like a dream, and that thought
|
||
only had to me the reality of life.
|
||
</p>
|
||
|
||
</div><!--end chapter-->
|
||
|
||
<div class="chapter">
|
||
|
||
<h2><a id="chap18"></a>Chapter 18</h2>
|
||
|
||
<p>
|
||
Day after day, week after week, passed away on my return to Geneva; and I could
|
||
not collect the courage to recommence my work. I feared the vengeance of the
|
||
disappointed fiend, yet I was unable to overcome my repugnance to the task
|
||
which was enjoined me. I found that I could not compose a female without again
|
||
devoting several months to profound study and laborious disquisition. I had
|
||
heard of some discoveries having been made by an English philosopher, the
|
||
knowledge of which was material to my success, and I sometimes thought of
|
||
obtaining my father’s consent to visit England for this purpose; but I clung to
|
||
every pretence of delay and shrank from taking the first step in an undertaking
|
||
whose immediate necessity began to appear less absolute to me. A change indeed
|
||
had taken place in me; my health, which had hitherto declined, was now much
|
||
restored; and my spirits, when unchecked by the memory of my unhappy promise,
|
||
rose proportionably. My father saw this change with pleasure, and he turned his
|
||
thoughts towards the best method of eradicating the remains of my melancholy,
|
||
which every now and then would return by fits, and with a devouring blackness
|
||
overcast the approaching sunshine. At these moments I took refuge in the most
|
||
perfect solitude. I passed whole days on the lake alone in a little boat,
|
||
watching the clouds and listening to the rippling of the waves, silent and
|
||
listless. But the fresh air and bright sun seldom failed to restore me to some
|
||
degree of composure, and on my return I met the salutations of my friends with
|
||
a readier smile and a more cheerful heart.
|
||
</p>
|
||
|
||
<p>
|
||
It was after my return from one of these rambles that my father, calling me
|
||
aside, thus addressed me,
|
||
</p>
|
||
|
||
<p>
|
||
“I am happy to remark, my dear son, that you have resumed your former pleasures
|
||
and seem to be returning to yourself. And yet you are still unhappy and still
|
||
avoid our society. For some time I was lost in conjecture as to the cause of
|
||
this, but yesterday an idea struck me, and if it is well founded, I conjure you
|
||
to avow it. Reserve on such a point would be not only useless, but draw down
|
||
treble misery on us all.”
|
||
</p>
|
||
|
||
<p>
|
||
I trembled violently at his exordium, and my father continued—
|
||
</p>
|
||
|
||
<p>
|
||
“I confess, my son, that I have always looked forward to your marriage with our
|
||
dear Elizabeth as the tie of our domestic comfort and the stay of my declining
|
||
years. You were attached to each other from your earliest infancy; you studied
|
||
together, and appeared, in dispositions and tastes, entirely suited to one
|
||
another. But so blind is the experience of man that what I conceived to be the
|
||
best assistants to my plan may have entirely destroyed it. You, perhaps, regard
|
||
her as your sister, without any wish that she might become your wife. Nay, you
|
||
may have met with another whom you may love; and considering yourself as bound
|
||
in honour to Elizabeth, this struggle may occasion the poignant misery which
|
||
you appear to feel.”
|
||
</p>
|
||
|
||
<p>
|
||
“My dear father, reassure yourself. I love my cousin tenderly and sincerely. I
|
||
never saw any woman who excited, as Elizabeth does, my warmest admiration and
|
||
affection. My future hopes and prospects are entirely bound up in the
|
||
expectation of our union.”
|
||
</p>
|
||
|
||
<p>
|
||
“The expression of your sentiments of this subject, my dear Victor, gives me
|
||
more pleasure than I have for some time experienced. If you feel thus, we shall
|
||
assuredly be happy, however present events may cast a gloom over us. But it is
|
||
this gloom which appears to have taken so strong a hold of your mind that I
|
||
wish to dissipate. Tell me, therefore, whether you object to an immediate
|
||
solemnisation of the marriage. We have been unfortunate, and recent events have
|
||
drawn us from that everyday tranquillity befitting my years and infirmities.
|
||
You are younger; yet I do not suppose, possessed as you are of a competent
|
||
fortune, that an early marriage would at all interfere with any future plans of
|
||
honour and utility that you may have formed. Do not suppose, however, that I
|
||
wish to dictate happiness to you or that a delay on your part would cause me
|
||
any serious uneasiness. Interpret my words with candour and answer me, I
|
||
conjure you, with confidence and sincerity.”
|
||
</p>
|
||
|
||
<p>
|
||
I listened to my father in silence and remained for some time incapable of
|
||
offering any reply. I revolved rapidly in my mind a multitude of thoughts and
|
||
endeavoured to arrive at some conclusion. Alas! To me the idea of an immediate
|
||
union with my Elizabeth was one of horror and dismay. I was bound by a solemn
|
||
promise which I had not yet fulfilled and dared not break, or if I did, what
|
||
manifold miseries might not impend over me and my devoted family! Could I enter
|
||
into a festival with this deadly weight yet hanging round my neck and bowing me
|
||
to the ground? I must perform my engagement and let the monster depart with his
|
||
mate before I allowed myself to enjoy the delight of a union from which I
|
||
expected peace.
|
||
</p>
|
||
|
||
<p>
|
||
I remembered also the necessity imposed upon me of either journeying to England
|
||
or entering into a long correspondence with those philosophers of that country
|
||
whose knowledge and discoveries were of indispensable use to me in my present
|
||
undertaking. The latter method of obtaining the desired intelligence was
|
||
dilatory and unsatisfactory; besides, I had an insurmountable aversion to the
|
||
idea of engaging myself in my loathsome task in my father’s house while in
|
||
habits of familiar intercourse with those I loved. I knew that a thousand
|
||
fearful accidents might occur, the slightest of which would disclose a tale to
|
||
thrill all connected with me with horror. I was aware also that I should often
|
||
lose all self-command, all capacity of hiding the harrowing sensations that
|
||
would possess me during the progress of my unearthly occupation. I must absent
|
||
myself from all I loved while thus employed. Once commenced, it would quickly
|
||
be achieved, and I might be restored to my family in peace and happiness. My
|
||
promise fulfilled, the monster would depart for ever. Or (so my fond fancy
|
||
imaged) some accident might meanwhile occur to destroy him and put an end to my
|
||
slavery for ever.
|
||
</p>
|
||
|
||
<p>
|
||
These feelings dictated my answer to my father. I expressed a wish to visit
|
||
England, but concealing the true reasons of this request, I clothed my desires
|
||
under a guise which excited no suspicion, while I urged my desire with an
|
||
earnestness that easily induced my father to comply. After so long a period of
|
||
an absorbing melancholy that resembled madness in its intensity and effects, he
|
||
was glad to find that I was capable of taking pleasure in the idea of such a
|
||
journey, and he hoped that change of scene and varied amusement would, before
|
||
my return, have restored me entirely to myself.
|
||
</p>
|
||
|
||
<p>
|
||
The duration of my absence was left to my own choice; a few months, or at most
|
||
a year, was the period contemplated. One paternal kind precaution he had taken
|
||
to ensure my having a companion. Without previously communicating with me, he
|
||
had, in concert with Elizabeth, arranged that Clerval should join me at
|
||
Strasburgh. This interfered with the solitude I coveted for the prosecution of
|
||
my task; yet at the commencement of my journey the presence of my friend could
|
||
in no way be an impediment, and truly I rejoiced that thus I should be saved
|
||
many hours of lonely, maddening reflection. Nay, Henry might stand between me
|
||
and the intrusion of my foe. If I were alone, would he not at times force his
|
||
abhorred presence on me to remind me of my task or to contemplate its progress?
|
||
</p>
|
||
|
||
<p>
|
||
To England, therefore, I was bound, and it was understood that my union with
|
||
Elizabeth should take place immediately on my return. My father’s age rendered
|
||
him extremely averse to delay. For myself, there was one reward I promised
|
||
myself from my detested toils—one consolation for my unparalleled sufferings;
|
||
it was the prospect of that day when, enfranchised from my miserable slavery, I
|
||
might claim Elizabeth and forget the past in my union with her.
|
||
</p>
|
||
|
||
<p>
|
||
I now made arrangements for my journey, but one feeling haunted me which filled
|
||
me with fear and agitation. During my absence I should leave my friends
|
||
unconscious of the existence of their enemy and unprotected from his attacks,
|
||
exasperated as he might be by my departure. But he had promised to follow me
|
||
wherever I might go, and would he not accompany me to England? This imagination
|
||
was dreadful in itself, but soothing inasmuch as it supposed the safety of my
|
||
friends. I was agonised with the idea of the possibility that the reverse of
|
||
this might happen. But through the whole period during which I was the slave of
|
||
my creature I allowed myself to be governed by the impulses of the moment; and
|
||
my present sensations strongly intimated that the fiend would follow me and
|
||
exempt my family from the danger of his machinations.
|
||
</p>
|
||
|
||
<p>
|
||
It was in the latter end of September that I again quitted my native country.
|
||
My journey had been my own suggestion, and Elizabeth therefore acquiesced, but
|
||
she was filled with disquiet at the idea of my suffering, away from her, the
|
||
inroads of misery and grief. It had been her care which provided me a companion
|
||
in Clerval—and yet a man is blind to a thousand minute circumstances which call
|
||
forth a woman’s sedulous attention. She longed to bid me hasten my return; a
|
||
thousand conflicting emotions rendered her mute as she bade me a tearful,
|
||
silent farewell.
|
||
</p>
|
||
|
||
<p>
|
||
I threw myself into the carriage that was to convey me away, hardly knowing
|
||
whither I was going, and careless of what was passing around. I remembered
|
||
only, and it was with a bitter anguish that I reflected on it, to order that my
|
||
chemical instruments should be packed to go with me. Filled with dreary
|
||
imaginations, I passed through many beautiful and majestic scenes, but my eyes
|
||
were fixed and unobserving. I could only think of the bourne of my travels and
|
||
the work which was to occupy me whilst they endured.
|
||
</p>
|
||
|
||
<p>
|
||
After some days spent in listless indolence, during which I traversed many
|
||
leagues, I arrived at Strasburgh, where I waited two days for Clerval. He came.
|
||
Alas, how great was the contrast between us! He was alive to every new scene,
|
||
joyful when he saw the beauties of the setting sun, and more happy when he
|
||
beheld it rise and recommence a new day. He pointed out to me the shifting
|
||
colours of the landscape and the appearances of the sky. “This is what it is to
|
||
live,” he cried; “now I enjoy existence! But you, my dear Frankenstein,
|
||
wherefore are you desponding and sorrowful!” In truth, I was occupied by gloomy
|
||
thoughts and neither saw the descent of the evening star nor the golden sunrise
|
||
reflected in the Rhine. And you, my friend, would be far more amused with the
|
||
journal of Clerval, who observed the scenery with an eye of feeling and
|
||
delight, than in listening to my reflections. I, a miserable wretch, haunted by
|
||
a curse that shut up every avenue to enjoyment.
|
||
</p>
|
||
|
||
<p>
|
||
We had agreed to descend the Rhine in a boat from Strasburgh to Rotterdam,
|
||
whence we might take shipping for London. During this voyage we passed many
|
||
willowy islands and saw several beautiful towns. We stayed a day at Mannheim,
|
||
and on the fifth from our departure from Strasburgh, arrived at Mainz. The
|
||
course of the Rhine below Mainz becomes much more picturesque. The river
|
||
descends rapidly and winds between hills, not high, but steep, and of beautiful
|
||
forms. We saw many ruined castles standing on the edges of precipices,
|
||
surrounded by black woods, high and inaccessible. This part of the Rhine,
|
||
indeed, presents a singularly variegated landscape. In one spot you view rugged
|
||
hills, ruined castles overlooking tremendous precipices, with the dark Rhine
|
||
rushing beneath; and on the sudden turn of a promontory, flourishing vineyards
|
||
with green sloping banks and a meandering river and populous towns occupy the
|
||
scene.
|
||
</p>
|
||
|
||
<p>
|
||
We travelled at the time of the vintage and heard the song of the labourers as
|
||
we glided down the stream. Even I, depressed in mind, and my spirits
|
||
continually agitated by gloomy feelings, even I was pleased. I lay at the
|
||
bottom of the boat, and as I gazed on the cloudless blue sky, I seemed to drink
|
||
in a tranquillity to which I had long been a stranger. And if these were my
|
||
sensations, who can describe those of Henry? He felt as if he had been
|
||
transported to Fairy-land and enjoyed a happiness seldom tasted by man. “I have
|
||
seen,” he said, “the most beautiful scenes of my own country; I have visited
|
||
the lakes of Lucerne and Uri, where the snowy mountains descend almost
|
||
perpendicularly to the water, casting black and impenetrable shades, which
|
||
would cause a gloomy and mournful appearance were it not for the most verdant
|
||
islands that relieve the eye by their gay appearance; I have seen this lake
|
||
agitated by a tempest, when the wind tore up whirlwinds of water and gave you
|
||
an idea of what the water-spout must be on the great ocean; and the waves dash
|
||
with fury the base of the mountain, where the priest and his mistress were
|
||
overwhelmed by an avalanche and where their dying voices are still said to be
|
||
heard amid the pauses of the nightly wind; I have seen the mountains of La
|
||
Valais, and the Pays de Vaud; but this country, Victor, pleases me more than
|
||
all those wonders. The mountains of Switzerland are more majestic and strange,
|
||
but there is a charm in the banks of this divine river that I never before saw
|
||
equalled. Look at that castle which overhangs yon precipice; and that also on
|
||
the island, almost concealed amongst the foliage of those lovely trees; and now
|
||
that group of labourers coming from among their vines; and that village half
|
||
hid in the recess of the mountain. Oh, surely the spirit that inhabits and
|
||
guards this place has a soul more in harmony with man than those who pile the
|
||
glacier or retire to the inaccessible peaks of the mountains of our own
|
||
country.”
|
||
</p>
|
||
|
||
<p>
|
||
Clerval! Beloved friend! Even now it delights me to record your words and to
|
||
dwell on the praise of which you are so eminently deserving. He was a being
|
||
formed in the “very poetry of nature.” His wild and enthusiastic imagination
|
||
was chastened by the sensibility of his heart. His soul overflowed with ardent
|
||
affections, and his friendship was of that devoted and wondrous nature that the
|
||
worldly-minded teach us to look for only in the imagination. But even human
|
||
sympathies were not sufficient to satisfy his eager mind. The scenery of
|
||
external nature, which others regard only with admiration, he loved with
|
||
ardour:—
|
||
</p>
|
||
|
||
<p class="poem">
|
||
——The sounding cataract<br>
|
||
Haunted him like a passion: the tall rock,<br>
|
||
The mountain, and the deep and gloomy wood,<br>
|
||
Their colours and their forms, were then to him<br>
|
||
An appetite; a feeling, and a love,<br>
|
||
That had no need of a remoter charm,<br>
|
||
By thought supplied, or any interest<br>
|
||
Unborrow’d from the eye.<br>
|
||
<br>
|
||
[Wordsworth’s “Tintern Abbey”.]
|
||
</p>
|
||
|
||
<p>
|
||
And where does he now exist? Is this gentle and lovely being lost for ever? Has
|
||
this mind, so replete with ideas, imaginations fanciful and magnificent, which
|
||
formed a world, whose existence depended on the life of its creator;—has this
|
||
mind perished? Does it now only exist in my memory? No, it is not thus; your
|
||
form so divinely wrought, and beaming with beauty, has decayed, but your spirit
|
||
still visits and consoles your unhappy friend.
|
||
</p>
|
||
|
||
<p>
|
||
Pardon this gush of sorrow; these ineffectual words are but a slight tribute to
|
||
the unexampled worth of Henry, but they soothe my heart, overflowing with the
|
||
anguish which his remembrance creates. I will proceed with my tale.
|
||
</p>
|
||
|
||
<p>
|
||
Beyond Cologne we descended to the plains of Holland; and we resolved to post
|
||
the remainder of our way, for the wind was contrary and the stream of the river
|
||
was too gentle to aid us.
|
||
</p>
|
||
|
||
<p>
|
||
Our journey here lost the interest arising from beautiful scenery, but we
|
||
arrived in a few days at Rotterdam, whence we proceeded by sea to England. It
|
||
was on a clear morning, in the latter days of December, that I first saw the
|
||
white cliffs of Britain. The banks of the Thames presented a new scene; they
|
||
were flat but fertile, and almost every town was marked by the remembrance of
|
||
some story. We saw Tilbury Fort and remembered the Spanish Armada, Gravesend,
|
||
Woolwich, and Greenwich—places which I had heard of even in my country.
|
||
</p>
|
||
|
||
<p>
|
||
At length we saw the numerous steeples of London, St. Paul’s towering above
|
||
all, and the Tower famed in English history.
|
||
</p>
|
||
|
||
</div><!--end chapter-->
|
||
|
||
<div class="chapter">
|
||
|
||
<h2><a id="chap19"></a>Chapter 19</h2>
|
||
|
||
<p>
|
||
London was our present point of rest; we determined to remain several months in
|
||
this wonderful and celebrated city. Clerval desired the intercourse of the men
|
||
of genius and talent who flourished at this time, but this was with me a
|
||
secondary object; I was principally occupied with the means of obtaining the
|
||
information necessary for the completion of my promise and quickly availed
|
||
myself of the letters of introduction that I had brought with me, addressed to
|
||
the most distinguished natural philosophers.
|
||
</p>
|
||
|
||
<p>
|
||
If this journey had taken place during my days of study and happiness, it would
|
||
have afforded me inexpressible pleasure. But a blight had come over my
|
||
existence, and I only visited these people for the sake of the information they
|
||
might give me on the subject in which my interest was so terribly profound.
|
||
Company was irksome to me; when alone, I could fill my mind with the sights of
|
||
heaven and earth; the voice of Henry soothed me, and I could thus cheat myself
|
||
into a transitory peace. But busy, uninteresting, joyous faces brought back
|
||
despair to my heart. I saw an insurmountable barrier placed between me and my
|
||
fellow men; this barrier was sealed with the blood of William and Justine, and
|
||
to reflect on the events connected with those names filled my soul with
|
||
anguish.
|
||
</p>
|
||
|
||
<p>
|
||
But in Clerval I saw the image of my former self; he was inquisitive and
|
||
anxious to gain experience and instruction. The difference of manners which he
|
||
observed was to him an inexhaustible source of instruction and amusement. He
|
||
was also pursuing an object he had long had in view. His design was to visit
|
||
India, in the belief that he had in his knowledge of its various languages, and
|
||
in the views he had taken of its society, the means of materially assisting the
|
||
progress of European colonization and trade. In Britain only could he further
|
||
the execution of his plan. He was for ever busy, and the only check to his
|
||
enjoyments was my sorrowful and dejected mind. I tried to conceal this as much
|
||
as possible, that I might not debar him from the pleasures natural to one who
|
||
was entering on a new scene of life, undisturbed by any care or bitter
|
||
recollection. I often refused to accompany him, alleging another engagement,
|
||
that I might remain alone. I now also began to collect the materials necessary
|
||
for my new creation, and this was to me like the torture of single drops of
|
||
water continually falling on the head. Every thought that was devoted to it was
|
||
an extreme anguish, and every word that I spoke in allusion to it caused my
|
||
lips to quiver, and my heart to palpitate.
|
||
</p>
|
||
|
||
<p>
|
||
After passing some months in London, we received a letter from a person in
|
||
Scotland who had formerly been our visitor at Geneva. He mentioned the beauties
|
||
of his native country and asked us if those were not sufficient allurements to
|
||
induce us to prolong our journey as far north as Perth, where he resided.
|
||
Clerval eagerly desired to accept this invitation, and I, although I abhorred
|
||
society, wished to view again mountains and streams and all the wondrous works
|
||
with which Nature adorns her chosen dwelling-places.
|
||
</p>
|
||
|
||
<p>
|
||
We had arrived in England at the beginning of October, and it was now February.
|
||
We accordingly determined to commence our journey towards the north at the
|
||
expiration of another month. In this expedition we did not intend to follow the
|
||
great road to Edinburgh, but to visit Windsor, Oxford, Matlock, and the
|
||
Cumberland lakes, resolving to arrive at the completion of this tour about the
|
||
end of July. I packed up my chemical instruments and the materials I had
|
||
collected, resolving to finish my labours in some obscure nook in the northern
|
||
highlands of Scotland.
|
||
</p>
|
||
|
||
<p>
|
||
We quitted London on the 27th of March and remained a few days at Windsor,
|
||
rambling in its beautiful forest. This was a new scene to us mountaineers; the
|
||
majestic oaks, the quantity of game, and the herds of stately deer were all
|
||
novelties to us.
|
||
</p>
|
||
|
||
<p>
|
||
From thence we proceeded to Oxford. As we entered this city, our minds were
|
||
filled with the remembrance of the events that had been transacted there more
|
||
than a century and a half before. It was here that Charles I. had collected his
|
||
forces. This city had remained faithful to him, after the whole nation had
|
||
forsaken his cause to join the standard of Parliament and liberty. The memory
|
||
of that unfortunate king and his companions, the amiable Falkland, the insolent
|
||
Goring, his queen, and son, gave a peculiar interest to every part of the city
|
||
which they might be supposed to have inhabited. The spirit of elder days found
|
||
a dwelling here, and we delighted to trace its footsteps. If these feelings had
|
||
not found an imaginary gratification, the appearance of the city had yet in
|
||
itself sufficient beauty to obtain our admiration. The colleges are ancient and
|
||
picturesque; the streets are almost magnificent; and the lovely Isis, which
|
||
flows beside it through meadows of exquisite verdure, is spread forth into a
|
||
placid expanse of waters, which reflects its majestic assemblage of towers, and
|
||
spires, and domes, embosomed among aged trees.
|
||
</p>
|
||
|
||
<p>
|
||
I enjoyed this scene, and yet my enjoyment was embittered both by the memory of
|
||
the past and the anticipation of the future. I was formed for peaceful
|
||
happiness. During my youthful days discontent never visited my mind, and if I
|
||
was ever overcome by <i>ennui</i>, the sight of what is beautiful in nature or
|
||
the study of what is excellent and sublime in the productions of man could
|
||
always interest my heart and communicate elasticity to my spirits. But I am a
|
||
blasted tree; the bolt has entered my soul; and I felt then that I should
|
||
survive to exhibit what I shall soon cease to be—a miserable spectacle of
|
||
wrecked humanity, pitiable to others and intolerable to myself.
|
||
</p>
|
||
|
||
<p>
|
||
We passed a considerable period at Oxford, rambling among its environs and
|
||
endeavouring to identify every spot which might relate to the most animating
|
||
epoch of English history. Our little voyages of discovery were often prolonged
|
||
by the successive objects that presented themselves. We visited the tomb of the
|
||
illustrious Hampden and the field on which that patriot fell. For a moment my
|
||
soul was elevated from its debasing and miserable fears to contemplate the
|
||
divine ideas of liberty and self-sacrifice of which these sights were the
|
||
monuments and the remembrancers. For an instant I dared to shake off my chains
|
||
and look around me with a free and lofty spirit, but the iron had eaten into my
|
||
flesh, and I sank again, trembling and hopeless, into my miserable self.
|
||
</p>
|
||
|
||
<p>
|
||
We left Oxford with regret and proceeded to Matlock, which was our next place
|
||
of rest. The country in the neighbourhood of this village resembled, to a
|
||
greater degree, the scenery of Switzerland; but everything is on a lower scale,
|
||
and the green hills want the crown of distant white Alps which always attend on
|
||
the piny mountains of my native country. We visited the wondrous cave and the
|
||
little cabinets of natural history, where the curiosities are disposed in the
|
||
same manner as in the collections at Servox and Chamounix. The latter name made
|
||
me tremble when pronounced by Henry, and I hastened to quit Matlock, with which
|
||
that terrible scene was thus associated.
|
||
</p>
|
||
|
||
<p>
|
||
From Derby, still journeying northwards, we passed two months in Cumberland and
|
||
Westmorland. I could now almost fancy myself among the Swiss mountains. The
|
||
little patches of snow which yet lingered on the northern sides of the
|
||
mountains, the lakes, and the dashing of the rocky streams were all familiar
|
||
and dear sights to me. Here also we made some acquaintances, who almost
|
||
contrived to cheat me into happiness. The delight of Clerval was proportionably
|
||
greater than mine; his mind expanded in the company of men of talent, and he
|
||
found in his own nature greater capacities and resources than he could have
|
||
imagined himself to have possessed while he associated with his inferiors. “I
|
||
could pass my life here,” said he to me; “and among these mountains I should
|
||
scarcely regret Switzerland and the Rhine.”
|
||
</p>
|
||
|
||
<p>
|
||
But he found that a traveller’s life is one that includes much pain amidst its
|
||
enjoyments. His feelings are for ever on the stretch; and when he begins to
|
||
sink into repose, he finds himself obliged to quit that on which he rests in
|
||
pleasure for something new, which again engages his attention, and which also
|
||
he forsakes for other novelties.
|
||
</p>
|
||
|
||
<p>
|
||
We had scarcely visited the various lakes of Cumberland and Westmorland and
|
||
conceived an affection for some of the inhabitants when the period of our
|
||
appointment with our Scotch friend approached, and we left them to travel on.
|
||
For my own part I was not sorry. I had now neglected my promise for some time,
|
||
and I feared the effects of the dæmon’s disappointment. He might remain in
|
||
Switzerland and wreak his vengeance on my relatives. This idea pursued me and
|
||
tormented me at every moment from which I might otherwise have snatched repose
|
||
and peace. I waited for my letters with feverish impatience; if they were
|
||
delayed I was miserable and overcome by a thousand fears; and when they arrived
|
||
and I saw the superscription of Elizabeth or my father, I hardly dared to read
|
||
and ascertain my fate. Sometimes I thought that the fiend followed me and might
|
||
expedite my remissness by murdering my companion. When these thoughts possessed
|
||
me, I would not quit Henry for a moment, but followed him as his shadow, to
|
||
protect him from the fancied rage of his destroyer. I felt as if I had
|
||
committed some great crime, the consciousness of which haunted me. I was
|
||
guiltless, but I had indeed drawn down a horrible curse upon my head, as mortal
|
||
as that of crime.
|
||
</p>
|
||
|
||
<p>
|
||
I visited Edinburgh with languid eyes and mind; and yet that city might have
|
||
interested the most unfortunate being. Clerval did not like it so well as
|
||
Oxford, for the antiquity of the latter city was more pleasing to him. But the
|
||
beauty and regularity of the new town of Edinburgh, its romantic castle and its
|
||
environs, the most delightful in the world, Arthur’s Seat, St. Bernard’s Well,
|
||
and the Pentland Hills, compensated him for the change and filled him with
|
||
cheerfulness and admiration. But I was impatient to arrive at the termination
|
||
of my journey. </p>
|
||
|
||
<p>
|
||
We left Edinburgh in a week, passing through Coupar, St. Andrew’s, and along
|
||
the banks of the Tay, to Perth, where our friend expected us. But I was in no
|
||
mood to laugh and talk with strangers or enter into their feelings or plans
|
||
with the good humour expected from a guest; and accordingly I told Clerval that
|
||
I wished to make the tour of Scotland alone. “Do you,” said I, “enjoy yourself,
|
||
and let this be our rendezvous. I may be absent a month or two; but do not
|
||
interfere with my motions, I entreat you; leave me to peace and solitude for a
|
||
short time; and when I return, I hope it will be with a lighter heart, more
|
||
congenial to your own temper.”
|
||
</p>
|
||
|
||
<p>
|
||
Henry wished to dissuade me, but seeing me bent on this plan, ceased to
|
||
remonstrate. He entreated me to write often. “I had rather be with you,” he
|
||
said, “in your solitary rambles, than with these Scotch people, whom I do not
|
||
know; hasten, then, my dear friend, to return, that I may again feel myself
|
||
somewhat at home, which I cannot do in your absence.”
|
||
</p>
|
||
|
||
<p>
|
||
Having parted from my friend, I determined to visit some remote spot of
|
||
Scotland and finish my work in solitude. I did not doubt but that the monster
|
||
followed me and would discover himself to me when I should have finished, that
|
||
he might receive his companion.
|
||
</p>
|
||
|
||
<p>
|
||
With this resolution I traversed the northern highlands and fixed on one of the
|
||
remotest of the Orkneys as the scene of my labours. It was a place fitted for
|
||
such a work, being hardly more than a rock whose high sides were continually
|
||
beaten upon by the waves. The soil was barren, scarcely affording pasture for a
|
||
few miserable cows, and oatmeal for its inhabitants, which consisted of five
|
||
persons, whose gaunt and scraggy limbs gave tokens of their miserable fare.
|
||
Vegetables and bread, when they indulged in such luxuries, and even fresh
|
||
water, was to be procured from the mainland, which was about five miles
|
||
distant.
|
||
</p>
|
||
|
||
<p>
|
||
On the whole island there were but three miserable huts, and one of these was
|
||
vacant when I arrived. This I hired. It contained but two rooms, and these
|
||
exhibited all the squalidness of the most miserable penury. The thatch had
|
||
fallen in, the walls were unplastered, and the door was off its hinges. I
|
||
ordered it to be repaired, bought some furniture, and took possession, an
|
||
incident which would doubtless have occasioned some surprise had not all the
|
||
senses of the cottagers been benumbed by want and squalid poverty. As it was, I
|
||
lived ungazed at and unmolested, hardly thanked for the pittance of food and
|
||
clothes which I gave, so much does suffering blunt even the coarsest sensations
|
||
of men.
|
||
</p>
|
||
|
||
<p>
|
||
In this retreat I devoted the morning to labour; but in the evening, when the
|
||
weather permitted, I walked on the stony beach of the sea to listen to the
|
||
waves as they roared and dashed at my feet. It was a monotonous yet
|
||
ever-changing scene. I thought of Switzerland; it was far different from this
|
||
desolate and appalling landscape. Its hills are covered with vines, and its
|
||
cottages are scattered thickly in the plains. Its fair lakes reflect a blue and
|
||
gentle sky, and when troubled by the winds, their tumult is but as the play of
|
||
a lively infant when compared to the roarings of the giant ocean.
|
||
</p>
|
||
|
||
<p>
|
||
In this manner I distributed my occupations when I first arrived, but as I
|
||
proceeded in my labour, it became every day more horrible and irksome to me.
|
||
Sometimes I could not prevail on myself to enter my laboratory for several
|
||
days, and at other times I toiled day and night in order to complete my work.
|
||
It was, indeed, a filthy process in which I was engaged. During my first
|
||
experiment, a kind of enthusiastic frenzy had blinded me to the horror of my
|
||
employment; my mind was intently fixed on the consummation of my labour, and my
|
||
eyes were shut to the horror of my proceedings. But now I went to it in cold
|
||
blood, and my heart often sickened at the work of my hands.
|
||
</p>
|
||
|
||
<p>
|
||
Thus situated, employed in the most detestable occupation, immersed in a
|
||
solitude where nothing could for an instant call my attention from the actual
|
||
scene in which I was engaged, my spirits became unequal; I grew restless and
|
||
nervous. Every moment I feared to meet my persecutor. Sometimes I sat with my
|
||
eyes fixed on the ground, fearing to raise them lest they should encounter the
|
||
object which I so much dreaded to behold. I feared to wander from the sight of
|
||
my fellow creatures lest when alone he should come to claim his companion.
|
||
</p>
|
||
|
||
<p>
|
||
In the mean time I worked on, and my labour was already considerably advanced.
|
||
I looked towards its completion with a tremulous and eager hope, which I dared
|
||
not trust myself to question but which was intermixed with obscure forebodings
|
||
of evil that made my heart sicken in my bosom.
|
||
</p>
|
||
|
||
</div><!--end chapter-->
|
||
|
||
<div class="chapter">
|
||
|
||
<h2><a id="chap20"></a>Chapter 20</h2>
|
||
|
||
<p>
|
||
I sat one evening in my laboratory; the sun had set, and the moon was just
|
||
rising from the sea; I had not sufficient light for my employment, and I
|
||
remained idle, in a pause of consideration of whether I should leave my labour
|
||
for the night or hasten its conclusion by an unremitting attention to it. As I
|
||
sat, a train of reflection occurred to me which led me to consider the effects
|
||
of what I was now doing. Three years before, I was engaged in the same manner
|
||
and had created a fiend whose unparalleled barbarity had desolated my heart and
|
||
filled it for ever with the bitterest remorse. I was now about to form another
|
||
being of whose dispositions I was alike ignorant; she might become ten thousand
|
||
times more malignant than her mate and delight, for its own sake, in murder and
|
||
wretchedness. He had sworn to quit the neighbourhood of man and hide himself in
|
||
deserts, but she had not; and she, who in all probability was to become a
|
||
thinking and reasoning animal, might refuse to comply with a compact made
|
||
before her creation. They might even hate each other; the creature who already
|
||
lived loathed his own deformity, and might he not conceive a greater abhorrence
|
||
for it when it came before his eyes in the female form? She also might turn
|
||
with disgust from him to the superior beauty of man; she might quit him, and he
|
||
be again alone, exasperated by the fresh provocation of being deserted by one
|
||
of his own species.
|
||
</p>
|
||
|
||
<p>
|
||
Even if they were to leave Europe and inhabit the deserts of the new world, yet
|
||
one of the first results of those sympathies for which the dæmon thirsted would
|
||
be children, and a race of devils would be propagated upon the earth who might
|
||
make the very existence of the species of man a condition precarious and full
|
||
of terror. Had I right, for my own benefit, to inflict this curse upon
|
||
everlasting generations? I had before been moved by the sophisms of the being I
|
||
had created; I had been struck senseless by his fiendish threats; but now, for
|
||
the first time, the wickedness of my promise burst upon me; I shuddered to
|
||
think that future ages might curse me as their pest, whose selfishness had not
|
||
hesitated to buy its own peace at the price, perhaps, of the existence of the
|
||
whole human race.
|
||
</p>
|
||
|
||
<p>
|
||
I trembled and my heart failed within me, when, on looking up, I saw by the
|
||
light of the moon the dæmon at the casement. A ghastly grin wrinkled his lips
|
||
as he gazed on me, where I sat fulfilling the task which he had allotted to me.
|
||
Yes, he had followed me in my travels; he had loitered in forests, hid himself
|
||
in caves, or taken refuge in wide and desert heaths; and he now came to mark my
|
||
progress and claim the fulfilment of my promise.
|
||
</p>
|
||
|
||
<p>
|
||
As I looked on him, his countenance expressed the utmost extent of malice and
|
||
treachery. I thought with a sensation of madness on my promise of creating
|
||
another like to him, and trembling with passion, tore to pieces the thing on
|
||
which I was engaged. The wretch saw me destroy the creature on whose future
|
||
existence he depended for happiness, and with a howl of devilish despair and
|
||
revenge, withdrew.
|
||
</p>
|
||
|
||
<p>
|
||
I left the room, and locking the door, made a solemn vow in my own heart never
|
||
to resume my labours; and then, with trembling steps, I sought my own
|
||
apartment. I was alone; none were near me to dissipate the gloom and relieve me
|
||
from the sickening oppression of the most terrible reveries.
|
||
</p>
|
||
|
||
<p>
|
||
Several hours passed, and I remained near my window gazing on the sea; it was
|
||
almost motionless, for the winds were hushed, and all nature reposed under the
|
||
eye of the quiet moon. A few fishing vessels alone specked the water, and now
|
||
and then the gentle breeze wafted the sound of voices as the fishermen called
|
||
to one another. I felt the silence, although I was hardly conscious of its
|
||
extreme profundity, until my ear was suddenly arrested by the paddling of oars
|
||
near the shore, and a person landed close to my house.
|
||
</p>
|
||
|
||
<p>
|
||
In a few minutes after, I heard the creaking of my door, as if some one
|
||
endeavoured to open it softly. I trembled from head to foot; I felt a
|
||
presentiment of who it was and wished to rouse one of the peasants who dwelt in
|
||
a cottage not far from mine; but I was overcome by the sensation of
|
||
helplessness, so often felt in frightful dreams, when you in vain endeavour to
|
||
fly from an impending danger, and was rooted to the spot.
|
||
</p>
|
||
|
||
<p>
|
||
Presently I heard the sound of footsteps along the passage; the door opened,
|
||
and the wretch whom I dreaded appeared. Shutting the door, he approached me and
|
||
said in a smothered voice,
|
||
</p>
|
||
|
||
<p>
|
||
“You have destroyed the work which you began; what is it that you intend? Do
|
||
you dare to break your promise? I have endured toil and misery; I left
|
||
Switzerland with you; I crept along the shores of the Rhine, among its willow
|
||
islands and over the summits of its hills. I have dwelt many months in the
|
||
heaths of England and among the deserts of Scotland. I have endured
|
||
incalculable fatigue, and cold, and hunger; do you dare destroy my hopes?”
|
||
</p>
|
||
|
||
<p>
|
||
“Begone! I do break my promise; never will I create another like yourself,
|
||
equal in deformity and wickedness.”
|
||
</p>
|
||
|
||
<p>
|
||
“Slave, I before reasoned with you, but you have proved yourself unworthy of my
|
||
condescension. Remember that I have power; you believe yourself miserable, but
|
||
I can make you so wretched that the light of day will be hateful to you. You
|
||
are my creator, but I am your master; obey!”
|
||
</p>
|
||
|
||
<p>
|
||
“The hour of my irresolution is past, and the period of your power is arrived.
|
||
Your threats cannot move me to do an act of wickedness; but they confirm me in
|
||
a determination of not creating you a companion in vice. Shall I, in cool
|
||
blood, set loose upon the earth a dæmon whose delight is in death and
|
||
wretchedness? Begone! I am firm, and your words will only exasperate my rage.”
|
||
</p>
|
||
|
||
<p>
|
||
The monster saw my determination in my face and gnashed his teeth in the
|
||
impotence of anger. “Shall each man,” cried he, “find a wife for his bosom, and
|
||
each beast have his mate, and I be alone? I had feelings of affection, and they
|
||
were requited by detestation and scorn. Man! You may hate, but beware! Your
|
||
hours will pass in dread and misery, and soon the bolt will fall which must
|
||
ravish from you your happiness for ever. Are you to be happy while I grovel in
|
||
the intensity of my wretchedness? You can blast my other passions, but revenge
|
||
remains—revenge, henceforth dearer than light or food! I may die, but first
|
||
you, my tyrant and tormentor, shall curse the sun that gazes on your misery.
|
||
Beware, for I am fearless and therefore powerful. I will watch with the
|
||
wiliness of a snake, that I may sting with its venom. Man, you shall repent of
|
||
the injuries you inflict.”
|
||
</p>
|
||
|
||
<p>
|
||
“Devil, cease; and do not poison the air with these sounds of malice. I have
|
||
declared my resolution to you, and I am no coward to bend beneath words. Leave
|
||
me; I am inexorable.”
|
||
</p>
|
||
|
||
<p>
|
||
“It is well. I go; but remember, I shall be with you on your wedding-night.”
|
||
</p>
|
||
|
||
<p>
|
||
I started forward and exclaimed, “Villain! Before you sign my death-warrant, be
|
||
sure that you are yourself safe.”
|
||
</p>
|
||
|
||
<p>
|
||
I would have seized him, but he eluded me and quitted the house with
|
||
precipitation. In a few moments I saw him in his boat, which shot across the
|
||
waters with an arrowy swiftness and was soon lost amidst the waves.
|
||
</p>
|
||
|
||
<p>
|
||
All was again silent, but his words rang in my ears. I burned with rage to
|
||
pursue the murderer of my peace and precipitate him into the ocean. I walked up
|
||
and down my room hastily and perturbed, while my imagination conjured up a
|
||
thousand images to torment and sting me. Why had I not followed him and closed
|
||
with him in mortal strife? But I had suffered him to depart, and he had
|
||
directed his course towards the mainland. I shuddered to think who might be the
|
||
next victim sacrificed to his insatiate revenge. And then I thought again of
|
||
his words—“<i>I will be with you on your wedding-night.</i>” That, then, was
|
||
the period fixed for the fulfilment of my destiny. In that hour I should die
|
||
and at once satisfy and extinguish his malice. The prospect did not move me to
|
||
fear; yet when I thought of my beloved Elizabeth, of her tears and endless
|
||
sorrow, when she should find her lover so barbarously snatched from her, tears,
|
||
the first I had shed for many months, streamed from my eyes, and I resolved not
|
||
to fall before my enemy without a bitter struggle.
|
||
</p>
|
||
|
||
<p>
|
||
The night passed away, and the sun rose from the ocean; my feelings became
|
||
calmer, if it may be called calmness when the violence of rage sinks into the
|
||
depths of despair. I left the house, the horrid scene of the last night’s
|
||
contention, and walked on the beach of the sea, which I almost regarded as an
|
||
insuperable barrier between me and my fellow creatures; nay, a wish that such
|
||
should prove the fact stole across me. I desired that I might pass my life on
|
||
that barren rock, wearily, it is true, but uninterrupted by any sudden shock of
|
||
misery. If I returned, it was to be sacrificed or to see those whom I most
|
||
loved die under the grasp of a dæmon whom I had myself created.
|
||
</p>
|
||
|
||
<p>
|
||
I walked about the isle like a restless spectre, separated from all it loved
|
||
and miserable in the separation. When it became noon, and the sun rose higher,
|
||
I lay down on the grass and was overpowered by a deep sleep. I had been awake
|
||
the whole of the preceding night, my nerves were agitated, and my eyes inflamed
|
||
by watching and misery. The sleep into which I now sank refreshed me; and when
|
||
I awoke, I again felt as if I belonged to a race of human beings like myself,
|
||
and I began to reflect upon what had passed with greater composure; yet still
|
||
the words of the fiend rang in my ears like a death-knell; they appeared like a
|
||
dream, yet distinct and oppressive as a reality.
|
||
</p>
|
||
|
||
<p>
|
||
The sun had far descended, and I still sat on the shore, satisfying my
|
||
appetite, which had become ravenous, with an oaten cake, when I saw a
|
||
fishing-boat land close to me, and one of the men brought me a packet; it
|
||
contained letters from Geneva, and one from Clerval entreating me to join him.
|
||
He said that he was wearing away his time fruitlessly where he was, that
|
||
letters from the friends he had formed in London desired his return to complete
|
||
the negotiation they had entered into for his Indian enterprise. He could not
|
||
any longer delay his departure; but as his journey to London might be followed,
|
||
even sooner than he now conjectured, by his longer voyage, he entreated me to
|
||
bestow as much of my society on him as I could spare. He besought me,
|
||
therefore, to leave my solitary isle and to meet him at Perth, that we might
|
||
proceed southwards together. This letter in a degree recalled me to life, and I
|
||
determined to quit my island at the expiration of two days.
|
||
</p>
|
||
|
||
<p>
|
||
Yet, before I departed, there was a task to perform, on which I shuddered to
|
||
reflect; I must pack up my chemical instruments, and for that purpose I must
|
||
enter the room which had been the scene of my odious work, and I must handle
|
||
those utensils the sight of which was sickening to me. The next morning, at
|
||
daybreak, I summoned sufficient courage and unlocked the door of my laboratory.
|
||
The remains of the half-finished creature, whom I had destroyed, lay scattered
|
||
on the floor, and I almost felt as if I had mangled the living flesh of a human
|
||
being. I paused to collect myself and then entered the chamber. With trembling
|
||
hand I conveyed the instruments out of the room, but I reflected that I ought
|
||
not to leave the relics of my work to excite the horror and suspicion of the
|
||
peasants; and I accordingly put them into a basket, with a great quantity of
|
||
stones, and laying them up, determined to throw them into the sea that very
|
||
night; and in the meantime I sat upon the beach, employed in cleaning and
|
||
arranging my chemical apparatus. </p>
|
||
|
||
<p>
|
||
Nothing could be more complete than the alteration that had taken place in my
|
||
feelings since the night of the appearance of the dæmon. I had before regarded
|
||
my promise with a gloomy despair as a thing that, with whatever consequences,
|
||
must be fulfilled; but I now felt as if a film had been taken from before my
|
||
eyes and that I for the first time saw clearly. The idea of renewing my labours
|
||
did not for one instant occur to me; the threat I had heard weighed on my
|
||
thoughts, but I did not reflect that a voluntary act of mine could avert it. I
|
||
had resolved in my own mind that to create another like the fiend I had first
|
||
made would be an act of the basest and most atrocious selfishness, and I
|
||
banished from my mind every thought that could lead to a different conclusion.
|
||
</p>
|
||
|
||
<p>
|
||
Between two and three in the morning the moon rose; and I then, putting my
|
||
basket aboard a little skiff, sailed out about four miles from the shore. The
|
||
scene was perfectly solitary; a few boats were returning towards land, but I
|
||
sailed away from them. I felt as if I was about the commission of a dreadful
|
||
crime and avoided with shuddering anxiety any encounter with my fellow
|
||
creatures. At one time the moon, which had before been clear, was suddenly
|
||
overspread by a thick cloud, and I took advantage of the moment of darkness and
|
||
cast my basket into the sea; I listened to the gurgling sound as it sank and
|
||
then sailed away from the spot. The sky became clouded, but the air was pure,
|
||
although chilled by the northeast breeze that was then rising. But it refreshed
|
||
me and filled me with such agreeable sensations that I resolved to prolong my
|
||
stay on the water, and fixing the rudder in a direct position, stretched myself
|
||
at the bottom of the boat. Clouds hid the moon, everything was obscure, and I
|
||
heard only the sound of the boat as its keel cut through the waves; the murmur
|
||
lulled me, and in a short time I slept soundly.
|
||
</p>
|
||
|
||
<p>
|
||
I do not know how long I remained in this situation, but when I awoke I found
|
||
that the sun had already mounted considerably. The wind was high, and the waves
|
||
continually threatened the safety of my little skiff. I found that the wind was
|
||
northeast and must have driven me far from the coast from which I had embarked.
|
||
I endeavoured to change my course but quickly found that if I again made the
|
||
attempt the boat would be instantly filled with water. Thus situated, my only
|
||
resource was to drive before the wind. I confess that I felt a few sensations
|
||
of terror. I had no compass with me and was so slenderly acquainted with the
|
||
geography of this part of the world that the sun was of little benefit to me. I
|
||
might be driven into the wide Atlantic and feel all the tortures of starvation
|
||
or be swallowed up in the immeasurable waters that roared and buffeted around
|
||
me. I had already been out many hours and felt the torment of a burning thirst,
|
||
a prelude to my other sufferings. I looked on the heavens, which were covered
|
||
by clouds that flew before the wind, only to be replaced by others; I looked
|
||
upon the sea; it was to be my grave. “Fiend,” I exclaimed, “your task is
|
||
already fulfilled!” I thought of Elizabeth, of my father, and of Clerval—all
|
||
left behind, on whom the monster might satisfy his sanguinary and merciless
|
||
passions. This idea plunged me into a reverie so despairing and frightful that
|
||
even now, when the scene is on the point of closing before me for ever, I
|
||
shudder to reflect on it.
|
||
</p>
|
||
|
||
<p>
|
||
Some hours passed thus; but by degrees, as the sun declined towards the
|
||
horizon, the wind died away into a gentle breeze and the sea became free from
|
||
breakers. But these gave place to a heavy swell; I felt sick and hardly able to
|
||
hold the rudder, when suddenly I saw a line of high land towards the south.
|
||
</p>
|
||
|
||
<p>
|
||
Almost spent, as I was, by fatigue and the dreadful suspense I endured for
|
||
several hours, this sudden certainty of life rushed like a flood of warm joy to
|
||
my heart, and tears gushed from my eyes.
|
||
</p>
|
||
|
||
<p>
|
||
How mutable are our feelings, and how strange is that clinging love we have of
|
||
life even in the excess of misery! I constructed another sail with a part of my
|
||
dress and eagerly steered my course towards the land. It had a wild and rocky
|
||
appearance, but as I approached nearer I easily perceived the traces of
|
||
cultivation. I saw vessels near the shore and found myself suddenly transported
|
||
back to the neighbourhood of civilised man. I carefully traced the windings of
|
||
the land and hailed a steeple which I at length saw issuing from behind a small
|
||
promontory. As I was in a state of extreme debility, I resolved to sail
|
||
directly towards the town, as a place where I could most easily procure
|
||
nourishment. Fortunately I had money with me. As I turned the promontory I
|
||
perceived a small neat town and a good harbour, which I entered, my heart
|
||
bounding with joy at my unexpected escape.
|
||
</p>
|
||
|
||
<p>
|
||
As I was occupied in fixing the boat and arranging the sails, several people
|
||
crowded towards the spot. They seemed much surprised at my appearance, but
|
||
instead of offering me any assistance, whispered together with gestures that at
|
||
any other time might have produced in me a slight sensation of alarm. As it
|
||
was, I merely remarked that they spoke English, and I therefore addressed them
|
||
in that language. “My good friends,” said I, “will you be so kind as to tell me
|
||
the name of this town and inform me where I am?”
|
||
</p>
|
||
|
||
<p>
|
||
“You will know that soon enough,” replied a man with a hoarse voice. “Maybe you
|
||
are come to a place that will not prove much to your taste, but you will not be
|
||
consulted as to your quarters, I promise you.”
|
||
</p>
|
||
|
||
<p>
|
||
I was exceedingly surprised on receiving so rude an answer from a stranger, and
|
||
I was also disconcerted on perceiving the frowning and angry countenances of
|
||
his companions. “Why do you answer me so roughly?” I replied. “Surely it is not
|
||
the custom of Englishmen to receive strangers so inhospitably.”
|
||
</p>
|
||
|
||
<p>
|
||
“I do not know,” said the man, “what the custom of the English may be, but it
|
||
is the custom of the Irish to hate villains.”
|
||
</p>
|
||
|
||
<p>
|
||
While this strange dialogue continued, I perceived the crowd rapidly increase.
|
||
Their faces expressed a mixture of curiosity and anger, which annoyed and in
|
||
some degree alarmed me. I inquired the way to the inn, but no one replied. I
|
||
then moved forward, and a murmuring sound arose from the crowd as they followed
|
||
and surrounded me, when an ill-looking man approaching tapped me on the
|
||
shoulder and said, “Come, sir, you must follow me to Mr. Kirwin’s to give an
|
||
account of yourself.”
|
||
</p>
|
||
|
||
<p>
|
||
“Who is Mr. Kirwin? Why am I to give an account of myself? Is not this a free
|
||
country?”
|
||
</p>
|
||
|
||
<p>
|
||
“Ay, sir, free enough for honest folks. Mr. Kirwin is a magistrate, and you are
|
||
to give an account of the death of a gentleman who was found murdered here last
|
||
night.”
|
||
</p>
|
||
|
||
<p>
|
||
This answer startled me, but I presently recovered myself. I was innocent; that
|
||
could easily be proved; accordingly I followed my conductor in silence and was
|
||
led to one of the best houses in the town. I was ready to sink from fatigue and
|
||
hunger, but being surrounded by a crowd, I thought it politic to rouse all my
|
||
strength, that no physical debility might be construed into apprehension or
|
||
conscious guilt. Little did I then expect the calamity that was in a few
|
||
moments to overwhelm me and extinguish in horror and despair all fear of
|
||
ignominy or death.
|
||
</p>
|
||
|
||
<p>
|
||
I must pause here, for it requires all my fortitude to recall the memory of the
|
||
frightful events which I am about to relate, in proper detail, to my
|
||
recollection.
|
||
</p>
|
||
|
||
</div><!--end chapter-->
|
||
|
||
<div class="chapter">
|
||
|
||
<h2><a id="chap21"></a>Chapter 21</h2>
|
||
|
||
<p>
|
||
I was soon introduced into the presence of the magistrate, an old benevolent
|
||
man with calm and mild manners. He looked upon me, however, with some degree of
|
||
severity, and then, turning towards my conductors, he asked who appeared as
|
||
witnesses on this occasion.
|
||
</p>
|
||
|
||
<p>
|
||
About half a dozen men came forward; and, one being selected by the magistrate,
|
||
he deposed that he had been out fishing the night before with his son and
|
||
brother-in-law, Daniel Nugent, when, about ten o’clock, they observed a strong
|
||
northerly blast rising, and they accordingly put in for port. It was a very
|
||
dark night, as the moon had not yet risen; they did not land at the harbour,
|
||
but, as they had been accustomed, at a creek about two miles below. He walked
|
||
on first, carrying a part of the fishing tackle, and his companions followed
|
||
him at some distance. As he was proceeding along the sands, he struck his foot
|
||
against something and fell at his length on the ground. His companions came up
|
||
to assist him, and by the light of their lantern they found that he had fallen
|
||
on the body of a man, who was to all appearance dead. Their first supposition
|
||
was that it was the corpse of some person who had been drowned and was thrown
|
||
on shore by the waves, but on examination they found that the clothes were not
|
||
wet and even that the body was not then cold. They instantly carried it to the
|
||
cottage of an old woman near the spot and endeavoured, but in vain, to restore
|
||
it to life. It appeared to be a handsome young man, about five and twenty years
|
||
of age. He had apparently been strangled, for there was no sign of any violence
|
||
except the black mark of fingers on his neck.
|
||
</p>
|
||
|
||
<p>
|
||
The first part of this deposition did not in the least interest me, but when
|
||
the mark of the fingers was mentioned I remembered the murder of my brother and
|
||
felt myself extremely agitated; my limbs trembled, and a mist came over my
|
||
eyes, which obliged me to lean on a chair for support. The magistrate observed
|
||
me with a keen eye and of course drew an unfavourable augury from my manner.
|
||
</p>
|
||
|
||
<p>
|
||
The son confirmed his father’s account, but when Daniel Nugent was called he
|
||
swore positively that just before the fall of his companion, he saw a boat,
|
||
with a single man in it, at a short distance from the shore; and as far as he
|
||
could judge by the light of a few stars, it was the same boat in which I had
|
||
just landed.
|
||
</p>
|
||
|
||
<p>
|
||
A woman deposed that she lived near the beach and was standing at the door of
|
||
her cottage, waiting for the return of the fishermen, about an hour before she
|
||
heard of the discovery of the body, when she saw a boat with only one man in it
|
||
push off from that part of the shore where the corpse was afterwards found.
|
||
</p>
|
||
|
||
<p>
|
||
Another woman confirmed the account of the fishermen having brought the body
|
||
into her house; it was not cold. They put it into a bed and rubbed it, and
|
||
Daniel went to the town for an apothecary, but life was quite gone.
|
||
</p>
|
||
|
||
<p>
|
||
Several other men were examined concerning my landing, and they agreed that,
|
||
with the strong north wind that had arisen during the night, it was very
|
||
probable that I had beaten about for many hours and had been obliged to return
|
||
nearly to the same spot from which I had departed. Besides, they observed that
|
||
it appeared that I had brought the body from another place, and it was likely
|
||
that as I did not appear to know the shore, I might have put into the harbour
|
||
ignorant of the distance of the town of —— from the place where I had deposited
|
||
the corpse.
|
||
</p>
|
||
|
||
<p>
|
||
Mr. Kirwin, on hearing this evidence, desired that I should be taken into the
|
||
room where the body lay for interment, that it might be observed what effect
|
||
the sight of it would produce upon me. This idea was probably suggested by the
|
||
extreme agitation I had exhibited when the mode of the murder had been
|
||
described. I was accordingly conducted, by the magistrate and several other
|
||
persons, to the inn. I could not help being struck by the strange coincidences
|
||
that had taken place during this eventful night; but, knowing that I had been
|
||
conversing with several persons in the island I had inhabited about the time
|
||
that the body had been found, I was perfectly tranquil as to the consequences
|
||
of the affair.
|
||
</p>
|
||
|
||
<p>
|
||
I entered the room where the corpse lay and was led up to the coffin. How can I
|
||
describe my sensations on beholding it? I feel yet parched with horror, nor can
|
||
I reflect on that terrible moment without shuddering and agony. The
|
||
examination, the presence of the magistrate and witnesses, passed like a dream
|
||
from my memory when I saw the lifeless form of Henry Clerval stretched before
|
||
me. I gasped for breath, and throwing myself on the body, I exclaimed, “Have my
|
||
murderous machinations deprived you also, my dearest Henry, of life? Two I have
|
||
already destroyed; other victims await their destiny; but you, Clerval, my
|
||
friend, my benefactor—”
|
||
</p>
|
||
|
||
<p>
|
||
The human frame could no longer support the agonies that I endured, and I was
|
||
carried out of the room in strong convulsions.
|
||
</p>
|
||
|
||
<p>
|
||
A fever succeeded to this. I lay for two months on the point of death; my
|
||
ravings, as I afterwards heard, were frightful; I called myself the murderer of
|
||
William, of Justine, and of Clerval. Sometimes I entreated my attendants to
|
||
assist me in the destruction of the fiend by whom I was tormented; and at
|
||
others I felt the fingers of the monster already grasping my neck, and screamed
|
||
aloud with agony and terror. Fortunately, as I spoke my native language, Mr.
|
||
Kirwin alone understood me; but my gestures and bitter cries were sufficient to
|
||
affright the other witnesses.
|
||
</p>
|
||
|
||
<p>
|
||
Why did I not die? More miserable than man ever was before, why did I not sink
|
||
into forgetfulness and rest? Death snatches away many blooming children, the
|
||
only hopes of their doting parents; how many brides and youthful lovers have
|
||
been one day in the bloom of health and hope, and the next a prey for worms and
|
||
the decay of the tomb! Of what materials was I made that I could thus resist so
|
||
many shocks, which, like the turning of the wheel, continually renewed the
|
||
torture?
|
||
</p>
|
||
|
||
<p>
|
||
But I was doomed to live and in two months found myself as awaking from a
|
||
dream, in a prison, stretched on a wretched bed, surrounded by gaolers,
|
||
turnkeys, bolts, and all the miserable apparatus of a dungeon. It was morning,
|
||
I remember, when I thus awoke to understanding; I had forgotten the particulars
|
||
of what had happened and only felt as if some great misfortune had suddenly
|
||
overwhelmed me; but when I looked around and saw the barred windows and the
|
||
squalidness of the room in which I was, all flashed across my memory and I
|
||
groaned bitterly.
|
||
</p>
|
||
|
||
<p>
|
||
This sound disturbed an old woman who was sleeping in a chair beside me. She
|
||
was a hired nurse, the wife of one of the turnkeys, and her countenance
|
||
expressed all those bad qualities which often characterise that class. The
|
||
lines of her face were hard and rude, like that of persons accustomed to see
|
||
without sympathising in sights of misery. Her tone expressed her entire
|
||
indifference; she addressed me in English, and the voice struck me as one that
|
||
I had heard during my sufferings.
|
||
</p>
|
||
|
||
<p>
|
||
“Are you better now, sir?” said she.
|
||
</p>
|
||
|
||
<p>
|
||
I replied in the same language, with a feeble voice, “I believe I am; but if it
|
||
be all true, if indeed I did not dream, I am sorry that I am still alive to
|
||
feel this misery and horror.”
|
||
</p>
|
||
|
||
<p>
|
||
“For that matter,” replied the old woman, “if you mean about the gentleman you
|
||
murdered, I believe that it were better for you if you were dead, for I fancy
|
||
it will go hard with you! However, that’s none of my business; I am sent to
|
||
nurse you and get you well; I do my duty with a safe conscience; it were well
|
||
if everybody did the same.”
|
||
</p>
|
||
|
||
<p>
|
||
I turned with loathing from the woman who could utter so unfeeling a speech to
|
||
a person just saved, on the very edge of death; but I felt languid and unable
|
||
to reflect on all that had passed. The whole series of my life appeared to me
|
||
as a dream; I sometimes doubted if indeed it were all true, for it never
|
||
presented itself to my mind with the force of reality.
|
||
</p>
|
||
|
||
<p>
|
||
As the images that floated before me became more distinct, I grew feverish; a
|
||
darkness pressed around me; no one was near me who soothed me with the gentle
|
||
voice of love; no dear hand supported me. The physician came and prescribed
|
||
medicines, and the old woman prepared them for me; but utter carelessness was
|
||
visible in the first, and the expression of brutality was strongly marked in
|
||
the visage of the second. Who could be interested in the fate of a murderer but
|
||
the hangman who would gain his fee?
|
||
</p>
|
||
|
||
<p>
|
||
These were my first reflections, but I soon learned that Mr. Kirwin had shown
|
||
me extreme kindness. He had caused the best room in the prison to be prepared
|
||
for me (wretched indeed was the best); and it was he who had provided a
|
||
physician and a nurse. It is true, he seldom came to see me, for although he
|
||
ardently desired to relieve the sufferings of every human creature, he did not
|
||
wish to be present at the agonies and miserable ravings of a murderer. He came,
|
||
therefore, sometimes to see that I was not neglected, but his visits were short
|
||
and with long intervals.
|
||
</p>
|
||
|
||
<p>
|
||
One day, while I was gradually recovering, I was seated in a chair, my eyes
|
||
half open and my cheeks livid like those in death. I was overcome by gloom and
|
||
misery and often reflected I had better seek death than desire to remain in a
|
||
world which to me was replete with wretchedness. At one time I considered
|
||
whether I should not declare myself guilty and suffer the penalty of the law,
|
||
less innocent than poor Justine had been. Such were my thoughts when the door
|
||
of my apartment was opened and Mr. Kirwin entered. His countenance expressed
|
||
sympathy and compassion; he drew a chair close to mine and addressed me in
|
||
French,
|
||
</p>
|
||
|
||
<p>
|
||
“I fear that this place is very shocking to you; can I do anything to make you
|
||
more comfortable?”
|
||
</p>
|
||
|
||
<p>
|
||
“I thank you, but all that you mention is nothing to me; on the whole earth
|
||
there is no comfort which I am capable of receiving.”
|
||
</p>
|
||
|
||
<p>
|
||
“I know that the sympathy of a stranger can be but of little relief to one
|
||
borne down as you are by so strange a misfortune. But you will, I hope, soon
|
||
quit this melancholy abode, for doubtless evidence can easily be brought to
|
||
free you from the criminal charge.”
|
||
</p>
|
||
|
||
<p>
|
||
“That is my least concern; I am, by a course of strange events, become the most
|
||
miserable of mortals. Persecuted and tortured as I am and have been, can death
|
||
be any evil to me?”
|
||
</p>
|
||
|
||
<p>
|
||
“Nothing indeed could be more unfortunate and agonising than the strange
|
||
chances that have lately occurred. You were thrown, by some surprising
|
||
accident, on this shore, renowned for its hospitality, seized immediately, and
|
||
charged with murder. The first sight that was presented to your eyes was the
|
||
body of your friend, murdered in so unaccountable a manner and placed, as it
|
||
were, by some fiend across your path.”
|
||
</p>
|
||
|
||
<p>
|
||
As Mr. Kirwin said this, notwithstanding the agitation I endured on this
|
||
retrospect of my sufferings, I also felt considerable surprise at the knowledge
|
||
he seemed to possess concerning me. I suppose some astonishment was exhibited
|
||
in my countenance, for Mr. Kirwin hastened to say,
|
||
</p>
|
||
|
||
<p>
|
||
“Immediately upon your being taken ill, all the papers that were on your person
|
||
were brought me, and I examined them that I might discover some trace by which
|
||
I could send to your relations an account of your misfortune and illness. I
|
||
found several letters, and, among others, one which I discovered from its
|
||
commencement to be from your father. I instantly wrote to Geneva; nearly two
|
||
months have elapsed since the departure of my letter. But you are ill; even now
|
||
you tremble; you are unfit for agitation of any kind.”
|
||
</p>
|
||
|
||
<p>
|
||
“This suspense is a thousand times worse than the most horrible event; tell me
|
||
what new scene of death has been acted, and whose murder I am now to lament?”
|
||
</p>
|
||
|
||
<p>
|
||
“Your family is perfectly well,” said Mr. Kirwin with gentleness; “and someone,
|
||
a friend, is come to visit you.”
|
||
</p>
|
||
|
||
<p>
|
||
I know not by what chain of thought the idea presented itself, but it instantly
|
||
darted into my mind that the murderer had come to mock at my misery and taunt
|
||
me with the death of Clerval, as a new incitement for me to comply with his
|
||
hellish desires. I put my hand before my eyes, and cried out in agony,
|
||
</p>
|
||
|
||
<p>
|
||
“Oh! Take him away! I cannot see him; for God’s sake, do not let him enter!”
|
||
</p>
|
||
|
||
<p>
|
||
Mr. Kirwin regarded me with a troubled countenance. He could not help regarding
|
||
my exclamation as a presumption of my guilt and said in rather a severe tone,
|
||
</p>
|
||
|
||
<p>
|
||
“I should have thought, young man, that the presence of your father would have
|
||
been welcome instead of inspiring such violent repugnance.”
|
||
</p>
|
||
|
||
<p>
|
||
“My father!” cried I, while every feature and every muscle was relaxed from
|
||
anguish to pleasure. “Is my father indeed come? How kind, how very kind! But
|
||
where is he, why does he not hasten to me?”
|
||
</p>
|
||
|
||
<p>
|
||
My change of manner surprised and pleased the magistrate; perhaps he thought
|
||
that my former exclamation was a momentary return of delirium, and now he
|
||
instantly resumed his former benevolence. He rose and quitted the room with my
|
||
nurse, and in a moment my father entered it.
|
||
</p>
|
||
|
||
<p>
|
||
Nothing, at this moment, could have given me greater pleasure than the arrival
|
||
of my father. I stretched out my hand to him and cried,
|
||
</p>
|
||
|
||
<p>
|
||
“Are you then safe—and Elizabeth—and Ernest?”
|
||
</p>
|
||
|
||
<p>
|
||
My father calmed me with assurances of their welfare and endeavoured, by
|
||
dwelling on these subjects so interesting to my heart, to raise my desponding
|
||
spirits; but he soon felt that a prison cannot be the abode of cheerfulness.
|
||
“What a place is this that you inhabit, my son!” said he, looking mournfully at
|
||
the barred windows and wretched appearance of the room. “You travelled to seek
|
||
happiness, but a fatality seems to pursue you. And poor Clerval—”
|
||
</p>
|
||
|
||
<p>
|
||
The name of my unfortunate and murdered friend was an agitation too great to be
|
||
endured in my weak state; I shed tears.
|
||
</p>
|
||
|
||
<p>
|
||
“Alas! Yes, my father,” replied I; “some destiny of the most horrible kind
|
||
hangs over me, and I must live to fulfil it, or surely I should have died on
|
||
the coffin of Henry.”
|
||
</p>
|
||
|
||
<p>
|
||
We were not allowed to converse for any length of time, for the precarious
|
||
state of my health rendered every precaution necessary that could ensure
|
||
tranquillity. Mr. Kirwin came in and insisted that my strength should not be
|
||
exhausted by too much exertion. But the appearance of my father was to me like
|
||
that of my good angel, and I gradually recovered my health.
|
||
</p>
|
||
|
||
<p>
|
||
As my sickness quitted me, I was absorbed by a gloomy and black melancholy that
|
||
nothing could dissipate. The image of Clerval was for ever before me, ghastly
|
||
and murdered. More than once the agitation into which these reflections threw
|
||
me made my friends dread a dangerous relapse. Alas! Why did they preserve so
|
||
miserable and detested a life? It was surely that I might fulfil my destiny,
|
||
which is now drawing to a close. Soon, oh, very soon, will death extinguish
|
||
these throbbings and relieve me from the mighty weight of anguish that bears me
|
||
to the dust; and, in executing the award of justice, I shall also sink to rest.
|
||
Then the appearance of death was distant, although the wish was ever present to
|
||
my thoughts; and I often sat for hours motionless and speechless, wishing for
|
||
some mighty revolution that might bury me and my destroyer in its ruins.
|
||
</p>
|
||
|
||
<p>
|
||
The season of the assizes approached. I had already been three months in
|
||
prison, and although I was still weak and in continual danger of a relapse, I
|
||
was obliged to travel nearly a hundred miles to the country town where the
|
||
court was held. Mr. Kirwin charged himself with every care of collecting
|
||
witnesses and arranging my defence. I was spared the disgrace of appearing
|
||
publicly as a criminal, as the case was not brought before the court that
|
||
decides on life and death. The grand jury rejected the bill, on its being
|
||
proved that I was on the Orkney Islands at the hour the body of my friend was
|
||
found; and a fortnight after my removal I was liberated from prison.
|
||
</p>
|
||
|
||
<p>
|
||
My father was enraptured on finding me freed from the vexations of a criminal
|
||
charge, that I was again allowed to breathe the fresh atmosphere and permitted
|
||
to return to my native country. I did not participate in these feelings, for to
|
||
me the walls of a dungeon or a palace were alike hateful. The cup of life was
|
||
poisoned for ever, and although the sun shone upon me, as upon the happy and
|
||
gay of heart, I saw around me nothing but a dense and frightful darkness,
|
||
penetrated by no light but the glimmer of two eyes that glared upon me.
|
||
Sometimes they were the expressive eyes of Henry, languishing in death, the
|
||
dark orbs nearly covered by the lids and the long black lashes that fringed
|
||
them; sometimes it was the watery, clouded eyes of the monster, as I first saw
|
||
them in my chamber at Ingolstadt.
|
||
</p>
|
||
|
||
<p>
|
||
My father tried to awaken in me the feelings of affection. He talked of Geneva,
|
||
which I should soon visit, of Elizabeth and Ernest; but these words only drew
|
||
deep groans from me. Sometimes, indeed, I felt a wish for happiness and thought
|
||
with melancholy delight of my beloved cousin or longed, with a devouring
|
||
<i>maladie du pays</i>, to see once more the blue lake and rapid Rhone, that
|
||
had been so dear to me in early childhood; but my general state of feeling was
|
||
a torpor in which a prison was as welcome a residence as the divinest scene in
|
||
nature; and these fits were seldom interrupted but by paroxysms of anguish and
|
||
despair. At these moments I often endeavoured to put an end to the existence I
|
||
loathed, and it required unceasing attendance and vigilance to restrain me from
|
||
committing some dreadful act of violence.
|
||
</p>
|
||
|
||
<p>
|
||
Yet one duty remained to me, the recollection of which finally triumphed over
|
||
my selfish despair. It was necessary that I should return without delay to
|
||
Geneva, there to watch over the lives of those I so fondly loved and to lie in
|
||
wait for the murderer, that if any chance led me to the place of his
|
||
concealment, or if he dared again to blast me by his presence, I might, with
|
||
unfailing aim, put an end to the existence of the monstrous image which I had
|
||
endued with the mockery of a soul still more monstrous. My father still desired
|
||
to delay our departure, fearful that I could not sustain the fatigues of a
|
||
journey, for I was a shattered wreck—the shadow of a human being. My strength
|
||
was gone. I was a mere skeleton, and fever night and day preyed upon my wasted
|
||
frame.
|
||
</p>
|
||
|
||
<p>
|
||
Still, as I urged our leaving Ireland with such inquietude and impatience, my
|
||
father thought it best to yield. We took our passage on board a vessel bound
|
||
for Havre-de-Grace and sailed with a fair wind from the Irish shores. It was
|
||
midnight. I lay on the deck looking at the stars and listening to the dashing
|
||
of the waves. I hailed the darkness that shut Ireland from my sight, and my
|
||
pulse beat with a feverish joy when I reflected that I should soon see Geneva.
|
||
The past appeared to me in the light of a frightful dream; yet the vessel in
|
||
which I was, the wind that blew me from the detested shore of Ireland, and the
|
||
sea which surrounded me, told me too forcibly that I was deceived by no vision
|
||
and that Clerval, my friend and dearest companion, had fallen a victim to me
|
||
and the monster of my creation. I repassed, in my memory, my whole life; my
|
||
quiet happiness while residing with my family in Geneva, the death of my
|
||
mother, and my departure for Ingolstadt. I remembered, shuddering, the mad
|
||
enthusiasm that hurried me on to the creation of my hideous enemy, and I called
|
||
to mind the night in which he first lived. I was unable to pursue the train of
|
||
thought; a thousand feelings pressed upon me, and I wept bitterly.
|
||
</p>
|
||
|
||
<p>
|
||
Ever since my recovery from the fever, I had been in the custom of taking every
|
||
night a small quantity of laudanum, for it was by means of this drug only that
|
||
I was enabled to gain the rest necessary for the preservation of life.
|
||
Oppressed by the recollection of my various misfortunes, I now swallowed double
|
||
my usual quantity and soon slept profoundly. But sleep did not afford me
|
||
respite from thought and misery; my dreams presented a thousand objects that
|
||
scared me. Towards morning I was possessed by a kind of nightmare; I felt the
|
||
fiend’s grasp in my neck and could not free myself from it; groans and cries
|
||
rang in my ears. My father, who was watching over me, perceiving my
|
||
restlessness, awoke me; the dashing waves were around, the cloudy sky above,
|
||
the fiend was not here: a sense of security, a feeling that a truce was
|
||
established between the present hour and the irresistible, disastrous future
|
||
imparted to me a kind of calm forgetfulness, of which the human mind is by its
|
||
structure peculiarly susceptible.
|
||
</p>
|
||
|
||
</div><!--end chapter-->
|
||
|
||
<div class="chapter">
|
||
|
||
<h2><a id="chap22"></a>Chapter 22</h2>
|
||
|
||
<p>
|
||
The voyage came to an end. We landed, and proceeded to Paris. I soon found that
|
||
I had overtaxed my strength and that I must repose before I could continue my
|
||
journey. My father’s care and attentions were indefatigable, but he did not
|
||
know the origin of my sufferings and sought erroneous methods to remedy the
|
||
incurable ill. He wished me to seek amusement in society. I abhorred the face
|
||
of man. Oh, not abhorred! They were my brethren, my fellow beings, and I felt
|
||
attracted even to the most repulsive among them, as to creatures of an angelic
|
||
nature and celestial mechanism. But I felt that I had no right to share their
|
||
intercourse. I had unchained an enemy among them whose joy it was to shed their
|
||
blood and to revel in their groans. How they would, each and all, abhor me and
|
||
hunt me from the world, did they know my unhallowed acts and the crimes which
|
||
had their source in me!
|
||
</p>
|
||
|
||
<p>
|
||
My father yielded at length to my desire to avoid society and strove by various
|
||
arguments to banish my despair. Sometimes he thought that I felt deeply the
|
||
degradation of being obliged to answer a charge of murder, and he endeavoured
|
||
to prove to me the futility of pride.
|
||
</p>
|
||
|
||
<p>
|
||
“Alas! My father,” said I, “how little do you know me. Human beings, their
|
||
feelings and passions, would indeed be degraded if such a wretch as I felt
|
||
pride. Justine, poor unhappy Justine, was as innocent as I, and she suffered
|
||
the same charge; she died for it; and I am the cause of this—I murdered her.
|
||
William, Justine, and Henry—they all died by my hands.”
|
||
</p>
|
||
|
||
<p>
|
||
My father had often, during my imprisonment, heard me make the same assertion;
|
||
when I thus accused myself, he sometimes seemed to desire an explanation, and
|
||
at others he appeared to consider it as the offspring of delirium, and that,
|
||
during my illness, some idea of this kind had presented itself to my
|
||
imagination, the remembrance of which I preserved in my convalescence. I
|
||
avoided explanation and maintained a continual silence concerning the wretch I
|
||
had created. I had a persuasion that I should be supposed mad, and this in
|
||
itself would for ever have chained my tongue. But, besides, I could not bring
|
||
myself to disclose a secret which would fill my hearer with consternation and
|
||
make fear and unnatural horror the inmates of his breast. I checked, therefore,
|
||
my impatient thirst for sympathy and was silent when I would have given the
|
||
world to have confided the fatal secret. Yet, still, words like those I have
|
||
recorded would burst uncontrollably from me. I could offer no explanation of
|
||
them, but their truth in part relieved the burden of my mysterious woe.
|
||
</p>
|
||
|
||
<p>
|
||
Upon this occasion my father said, with an expression of unbounded wonder, “My
|
||
dearest Victor, what infatuation is this? My dear son, I entreat you never to
|
||
make such an assertion again.”
|
||
</p>
|
||
|
||
<p>
|
||
“I am not mad,” I cried energetically; “the sun and the heavens, who have
|
||
viewed my operations, can bear witness of my truth. I am the assassin of those
|
||
most innocent victims; they died by my machinations. A thousand times would I
|
||
have shed my own blood, drop by drop, to have saved their lives; but I could
|
||
not, my father, indeed I could not sacrifice the whole human race.”
|
||
</p>
|
||
|
||
<p>
|
||
The conclusion of this speech convinced my father that my ideas were deranged,
|
||
and he instantly changed the subject of our conversation and endeavoured to
|
||
alter the course of my thoughts. He wished as much as possible to obliterate
|
||
the memory of the scenes that had taken place in Ireland and never alluded to
|
||
them or suffered me to speak of my misfortunes.
|
||
</p>
|
||
|
||
<p>
|
||
As time passed away I became more calm; misery had her dwelling in my heart,
|
||
but I no longer talked in the same incoherent manner of my own crimes;
|
||
sufficient for me was the consciousness of them. By the utmost self-violence I
|
||
curbed the imperious voice of wretchedness, which sometimes desired to declare
|
||
itself to the whole world, and my manners were calmer and more composed than
|
||
they had ever been since my journey to the sea of ice.
|
||
</p>
|
||
|
||
<p>
|
||
A few days before we left Paris on our way to Switzerland, I received the
|
||
following letter from Elizabeth:
|
||
</p>
|
||
|
||
<p class="letter">
|
||
“My dear Friend,
|
||
</p>
|
||
|
||
<p>
|
||
“It gave me the greatest pleasure to receive a letter from my uncle dated at
|
||
Paris; you are no longer at a formidable distance, and I may hope to see you in
|
||
less than a fortnight. My poor cousin, how much you must have suffered! I
|
||
expect to see you looking even more ill than when you quitted Geneva. This
|
||
winter has been passed most miserably, tortured as I have been by anxious
|
||
suspense; yet I hope to see peace in your countenance and to find that your
|
||
heart is not totally void of comfort and tranquillity.
|
||
</p>
|
||
|
||
<p>
|
||
“Yet I fear that the same feelings now exist that made you so miserable a year
|
||
ago, even perhaps augmented by time. I would not disturb you at this period,
|
||
when so many misfortunes weigh upon you, but a conversation that I had with my
|
||
uncle previous to his departure renders some explanation necessary before we
|
||
meet.
|
||
</p>
|
||
|
||
<p>
|
||
Explanation! You may possibly say, What can Elizabeth have to explain? If you
|
||
really say this, my questions are answered and all my doubts satisfied. But you
|
||
are distant from me, and it is possible that you may dread and yet be pleased
|
||
with this explanation; and in a probability of this being the case, I dare not
|
||
any longer postpone writing what, during your absence, I have often wished to
|
||
express to you but have never had the courage to begin.
|
||
</p>
|
||
|
||
<p>
|
||
“You well know, Victor, that our union had been the favourite plan of your
|
||
parents ever since our infancy. We were told this when young, and taught to
|
||
look forward to it as an event that would certainly take place. We were
|
||
affectionate playfellows during childhood, and, I believe, dear and valued
|
||
friends to one another as we grew older. But as brother and sister often
|
||
entertain a lively affection towards each other without desiring a more
|
||
intimate union, may not such also be our case? Tell me, dearest Victor. Answer
|
||
me, I conjure you by our mutual happiness, with simple truth—Do you not love
|
||
another?
|
||
</p>
|
||
|
||
<p>
|
||
“You have travelled; you have spent several years of your life at Ingolstadt;
|
||
and I confess to you, my friend, that when I saw you last autumn so unhappy,
|
||
flying to solitude from the society of every creature, I could not help
|
||
supposing that you might regret our connection and believe yourself bound in
|
||
honour to fulfil the wishes of your parents, although they opposed themselves
|
||
to your inclinations. But this is false reasoning. I confess to you, my friend,
|
||
that I love you and that in my airy dreams of futurity you have been my
|
||
constant friend and companion. But it is your happiness I desire as well as my
|
||
own when I declare to you that our marriage would render me eternally miserable
|
||
unless it were the dictate of your own free choice. Even now I weep to think
|
||
that, borne down as you are by the cruellest misfortunes, you may stifle, by
|
||
the word <i>honour</i>, all hope of that love and happiness which would alone
|
||
restore you to yourself. I, who have so disinterested an affection for you, may
|
||
increase your miseries tenfold by being an obstacle to your wishes. Ah! Victor,
|
||
be assured that your cousin and playmate has too sincere a love for you not to
|
||
be made miserable by this supposition. Be happy, my friend; and if you obey me
|
||
in this one request, remain satisfied that nothing on earth will have the power
|
||
to interrupt my tranquillity.
|
||
</p>
|
||
|
||
<p>
|
||
“Do not let this letter disturb you; do not answer tomorrow, or the next day,
|
||
or even until you come, if it will give you pain. My uncle will send me news of
|
||
your health, and if I see but one smile on your lips when we meet, occasioned
|
||
by this or any other exertion of mine, I shall need no other happiness.
|
||
</p>
|
||
|
||
<p class="right">
|
||
“Elizabeth Lavenza.
|
||
</p>
|
||
|
||
<p class="noindent">
|
||
“Geneva, May 18th, 17—”<br>
|
||
</p>
|
||
|
||
<p>
|
||
This letter revived in my memory what I had before forgotten, the threat of the
|
||
fiend—“<i>I will be with you on your wedding-night!</i>” Such was my sentence,
|
||
and on that night would the dæmon employ every art to destroy me and tear me
|
||
from the glimpse of happiness which promised partly to console my sufferings.
|
||
On that night he had determined to consummate his crimes by my death. Well, be
|
||
it so; a deadly struggle would then assuredly take place, in which if he were
|
||
victorious I should be at peace and his power over me be at an end. If he were
|
||
vanquished, I should be a free man. Alas! What freedom? Such as the peasant
|
||
enjoys when his family have been massacred before his eyes, his cottage burnt,
|
||
his lands laid waste, and he is turned adrift, homeless, penniless, and alone,
|
||
but free. Such would be my liberty except that in my Elizabeth I possessed a
|
||
treasure, alas, balanced by those horrors of remorse and guilt which would
|
||
pursue me until death.
|
||
</p>
|
||
|
||
<p>
|
||
Sweet and beloved Elizabeth! I read and reread her letter, and some softened
|
||
feelings stole into my heart and dared to whisper paradisiacal dreams of love
|
||
and joy; but the apple was already eaten, and the angel’s arm bared to drive me
|
||
from all hope. Yet I would die to make her happy. If the monster executed his
|
||
threat, death was inevitable; yet, again, I considered whether my marriage
|
||
would hasten my fate. My destruction might indeed arrive a few months sooner,
|
||
but if my torturer should suspect that I postponed it, influenced by his
|
||
menaces, he would surely find other and perhaps more dreadful means of revenge.
|
||
He had vowed <i>to be with me on my wedding-night</i>, yet he did not consider
|
||
that threat as binding him to peace in the meantime, for as if to show me that
|
||
he was not yet satiated with blood, he had murdered Clerval immediately after
|
||
the enunciation of his threats. I resolved, therefore, that if my immediate
|
||
union with my cousin would conduce either to hers or my father’s happiness, my
|
||
adversary’s designs against my life should not retard it a single hour.
|
||
</p>
|
||
|
||
<p>
|
||
In this state of mind I wrote to Elizabeth. My letter was calm and
|
||
affectionate. “I fear, my beloved girl,” I said, “little happiness remains for
|
||
us on earth; yet all that I may one day enjoy is centred in you. Chase away
|
||
your idle fears; to you alone do I consecrate my life and my endeavours for
|
||
contentment. I have one secret, Elizabeth, a dreadful one; when revealed to
|
||
you, it will chill your frame with horror, and then, far from being surprised
|
||
at my misery, you will only wonder that I survive what I have endured. I will
|
||
confide this tale of misery and terror to you the day after our marriage shall
|
||
take place, for, my sweet cousin, there must be perfect confidence between us.
|
||
But until then, I conjure you, do not mention or allude to it. This I most
|
||
earnestly entreat, and I know you will comply.”
|
||
</p>
|
||
|
||
<p>
|
||
In about a week after the arrival of Elizabeth’s letter we returned to Geneva.
|
||
The sweet girl welcomed me with warm affection, yet tears were in her eyes as
|
||
she beheld my emaciated frame and feverish cheeks. I saw a change in her also.
|
||
She was thinner and had lost much of that heavenly vivacity that had before
|
||
charmed me; but her gentleness and soft looks of compassion made her a more fit
|
||
companion for one blasted and miserable as I was.
|
||
</p>
|
||
|
||
<p>
|
||
The tranquillity which I now enjoyed did not endure. Memory brought madness
|
||
with it, and when I thought of what had passed, a real insanity possessed me;
|
||
sometimes I was furious and burnt with rage, sometimes low and despondent. I
|
||
neither spoke nor looked at anyone, but sat motionless, bewildered by the
|
||
multitude of miseries that overcame me.
|
||
</p>
|
||
|
||
<p>
|
||
Elizabeth alone had the power to draw me from these fits; her gentle voice
|
||
would soothe me when transported by passion and inspire me with human feelings
|
||
when sunk in torpor. She wept with me and for me. When reason returned, she
|
||
would remonstrate and endeavour to inspire me with resignation. Ah! It is well
|
||
for the unfortunate to be resigned, but for the guilty there is no peace. The
|
||
agonies of remorse poison the luxury there is otherwise sometimes found in
|
||
indulging the excess of grief.
|
||
</p>
|
||
|
||
<p>
|
||
Soon after my arrival my father spoke of my immediate marriage with Elizabeth.
|
||
I remained silent.
|
||
</p>
|
||
|
||
<p>
|
||
“Have you, then, some other attachment?”
|
||
</p>
|
||
|
||
<p>
|
||
“None on earth. I love Elizabeth and look forward to our union with delight.
|
||
Let the day therefore be fixed; and on it I will consecrate myself, in life or
|
||
death, to the happiness of my cousin.”
|
||
</p>
|
||
|
||
<p>
|
||
“My dear Victor, do not speak thus. Heavy misfortunes have befallen us, but let
|
||
us only cling closer to what remains and transfer our love for those whom we
|
||
have lost to those who yet live. Our circle will be small but bound close by
|
||
the ties of affection and mutual misfortune. And when time shall have softened
|
||
your despair, new and dear objects of care will be born to replace those of
|
||
whom we have been so cruelly deprived.”
|
||
</p>
|
||
|
||
<p>
|
||
Such were the lessons of my father. But to me the remembrance of the threat
|
||
returned; nor can you wonder that, omnipotent as the fiend had yet been in his
|
||
deeds of blood, I should almost regard him as invincible, and that when he had
|
||
pronounced the words “<i>I shall be with you on your wedding-night</i>,” I
|
||
should regard the threatened fate as unavoidable. But death was no evil to me
|
||
if the loss of Elizabeth were balanced with it, and I therefore, with a
|
||
contented and even cheerful countenance, agreed with my father that if my
|
||
cousin would consent, the ceremony should take place in ten days, and thus put,
|
||
as I imagined, the seal to my fate.
|
||
</p>
|
||
|
||
<p>
|
||
Great God! If for one instant I had thought what might be the hellish intention
|
||
of my fiendish adversary, I would rather have banished myself for ever from my
|
||
native country and wandered a friendless outcast over the earth than have
|
||
consented to this miserable marriage. But, as if possessed of magic powers, the
|
||
monster had blinded me to his real intentions; and when I thought that I had
|
||
prepared only my own death, I hastened that of a far dearer victim.
|
||
</p>
|
||
|
||
<p>
|
||
As the period fixed for our marriage drew nearer, whether from cowardice or a
|
||
prophetic feeling, I felt my heart sink within me. But I concealed my feelings
|
||
by an appearance of hilarity that brought smiles and joy to the countenance of
|
||
my father, but hardly deceived the ever-watchful and nicer eye of Elizabeth.
|
||
She looked forward to our union with placid contentment, not unmingled with a
|
||
little fear, which past misfortunes had impressed, that what now appeared
|
||
certain and tangible happiness might soon dissipate into an airy dream and
|
||
leave no trace but deep and everlasting regret.
|
||
</p>
|
||
|
||
<p>
|
||
Preparations were made for the event, congratulatory visits were received, and
|
||
all wore a smiling appearance. I shut up, as well as I could, in my own heart
|
||
the anxiety that preyed there and entered with seeming earnestness into the
|
||
plans of my father, although they might only serve as the decorations of my
|
||
tragedy. Through my father’s exertions a part of the inheritance of Elizabeth
|
||
had been restored to her by the Austrian government. A small possession on the
|
||
shores of Como belonged to her. It was agreed that, immediately after our
|
||
union, we should proceed to Villa Lavenza and spend our first days of happiness
|
||
beside the beautiful lake near which it stood.
|
||
</p>
|
||
|
||
<p>
|
||
In the meantime I took every precaution to defend my person in case the fiend
|
||
should openly attack me. I carried pistols and a dagger constantly about me and
|
||
was ever on the watch to prevent artifice, and by these means gained a greater
|
||
degree of tranquillity. Indeed, as the period approached, the threat appeared
|
||
more as a delusion, not to be regarded as worthy to disturb my peace, while the
|
||
happiness I hoped for in my marriage wore a greater appearance of certainty as
|
||
the day fixed for its solemnisation drew nearer and I heard it continually
|
||
spoken of as an occurrence which no accident could possibly prevent.
|
||
</p>
|
||
|
||
<p>
|
||
Elizabeth seemed happy; my tranquil demeanour contributed greatly to calm her
|
||
mind. But on the day that was to fulfil my wishes and my destiny, she was
|
||
melancholy, and a presentiment of evil pervaded her; and perhaps also she
|
||
thought of the dreadful secret which I had promised to reveal to her on the
|
||
following day. My father was in the meantime overjoyed, and, in the bustle of
|
||
preparation, only recognised in the melancholy of his niece the diffidence of a
|
||
bride.
|
||
</p>
|
||
|
||
<p>
|
||
After the ceremony was performed a large party assembled at my father’s, but it
|
||
was agreed that Elizabeth and I should commence our journey by water, sleeping
|
||
that night at Evian and continuing our voyage on the following day. The day was
|
||
fair, the wind favourable; all smiled on our nuptial embarkation.
|
||
</p>
|
||
|
||
<p>
|
||
Those were the last moments of my life during which I enjoyed the feeling of
|
||
happiness. We passed rapidly along; the sun was hot, but we were sheltered from
|
||
its rays by a kind of canopy while we enjoyed the beauty of the scene,
|
||
sometimes on one side of the lake, where we saw Mont Salêve, the pleasant banks
|
||
of Montalègre, and at a distance, surmounting all, the beautiful Mont Blanc,
|
||
and the assemblage of snowy mountains that in vain endeavour to emulate her;
|
||
sometimes coasting the opposite banks, we saw the mighty Jura opposing its dark
|
||
side to the ambition that would quit its native country, and an almost
|
||
insurmountable barrier to the invader who should wish to enslave it.
|
||
</p>
|
||
|
||
<p>
|
||
I took the hand of Elizabeth. “You are sorrowful, my love. Ah! If you knew what
|
||
I have suffered and what I may yet endure, you would endeavour to let me taste
|
||
the quiet and freedom from despair that this one day at least permits me to
|
||
enjoy.”
|
||
</p>
|
||
|
||
<p>
|
||
“Be happy, my dear Victor,” replied Elizabeth; “there is, I hope, nothing to
|
||
distress you; and be assured that if a lively joy is not painted in my face, my
|
||
heart is contented. Something whispers to me not to depend too much on the
|
||
prospect that is opened before us, but I will not listen to such a sinister
|
||
voice. Observe how fast we move along and how the clouds, which sometimes
|
||
obscure and sometimes rise above the dome of Mont Blanc, render this scene of
|
||
beauty still more interesting. Look also at the innumerable fish that are
|
||
swimming in the clear waters, where we can distinguish every pebble that lies
|
||
at the bottom. What a divine day! How happy and serene all nature appears!”
|
||
</p>
|
||
|
||
<p>
|
||
Thus Elizabeth endeavoured to divert her thoughts and mine from all reflection
|
||
upon melancholy subjects. But her temper was fluctuating; joy for a few
|
||
instants shone in her eyes, but it continually gave place to distraction and
|
||
reverie.
|
||
</p>
|
||
|
||
<p>
|
||
The sun sank lower in the heavens; we passed the river Drance and observed its
|
||
path through the chasms of the higher and the glens of the lower hills. The
|
||
Alps here come closer to the lake, and we approached the amphitheatre of
|
||
mountains which forms its eastern boundary. The spire of Evian shone under the
|
||
woods that surrounded it and the range of mountain above mountain by which it
|
||
was overhung.
|
||
</p>
|
||
|
||
<p>
|
||
The wind, which had hitherto carried us along with amazing rapidity, sank at
|
||
sunset to a light breeze; the soft air just ruffled the water and caused a
|
||
pleasant motion among the trees as we approached the shore, from which it
|
||
wafted the most delightful scent of flowers and hay. The sun sank beneath the
|
||
horizon as we landed, and as I touched the shore I felt those cares and fears
|
||
revive which soon were to clasp me and cling to me for ever.
|
||
</p>
|
||
|
||
</div><!--end chapter-->
|
||
|
||
<div class="chapter">
|
||
|
||
<h2><a id="chap23"></a>Chapter 23</h2>
|
||
|
||
<p>
|
||
It was eight o’clock when we landed; we walked for a short time on the shore,
|
||
enjoying the transitory light, and then retired to the inn and contemplated the
|
||
lovely scene of waters, woods, and mountains, obscured in darkness, yet still
|
||
displaying their black outlines.
|
||
</p>
|
||
|
||
<p>
|
||
The wind, which had fallen in the south, now rose with great violence in the
|
||
west. The moon had reached her summit in the heavens and was beginning to
|
||
descend; the clouds swept across it swifter than the flight of the vulture and
|
||
dimmed her rays, while the lake reflected the scene of the busy heavens,
|
||
rendered still busier by the restless waves that were beginning to rise.
|
||
Suddenly a heavy storm of rain descended.
|
||
</p>
|
||
|
||
<p>
|
||
I had been calm during the day, but so soon as night obscured the shapes of
|
||
objects, a thousand fears arose in my mind. I was anxious and watchful, while
|
||
my right hand grasped a pistol which was hidden in my bosom; every sound
|
||
terrified me, but I resolved that I would sell my life dearly and not shrink
|
||
from the conflict until my own life or that of my adversary was extinguished.
|
||
</p>
|
||
|
||
<p>
|
||
Elizabeth observed my agitation for some time in timid and fearful silence, but
|
||
there was something in my glance which communicated terror to her, and
|
||
trembling, she asked, “What is it that agitates you, my dear Victor? What is it
|
||
you fear?”
|
||
</p>
|
||
|
||
<p>
|
||
“Oh! Peace, peace, my love,” replied I; “this night, and all will be safe; but
|
||
this night is dreadful, very dreadful.”
|
||
</p>
|
||
|
||
<p>
|
||
I passed an hour in this state of mind, when suddenly I reflected how fearful
|
||
the combat which I momentarily expected would be to my wife, and I earnestly
|
||
entreated her to retire, resolving not to join her until I had obtained some
|
||
knowledge as to the situation of my enemy.
|
||
</p>
|
||
|
||
<p>
|
||
She left me, and I continued some time walking up and down the passages of the
|
||
house and inspecting every corner that might afford a retreat to my adversary.
|
||
But I discovered no trace of him and was beginning to conjecture that some
|
||
fortunate chance had intervened to prevent the execution of his menaces when
|
||
suddenly I heard a shrill and dreadful scream. It came from the room into which
|
||
Elizabeth had retired. As I heard it, the whole truth rushed into my mind, my
|
||
arms dropped, the motion of every muscle and fibre was suspended; I could feel
|
||
the blood trickling in my veins and tingling in the extremities of my limbs.
|
||
This state lasted but for an instant; the scream was repeated, and I rushed
|
||
into the room.
|
||
</p>
|
||
|
||
<p>
|
||
Great God! Why did I not then expire! Why am I here to relate the destruction
|
||
of the best hope and the purest creature on earth? She was there, lifeless and
|
||
inanimate, thrown across the bed, her head hanging down and her pale and
|
||
distorted features half covered by her hair. Everywhere I turn I see the same
|
||
figure—her bloodless arms and relaxed form flung by the murderer on its bridal
|
||
bier. Could I behold this and live? Alas! Life is obstinate and clings closest
|
||
where it is most hated. For a moment only did I lose recollection; I fell
|
||
senseless on the ground.
|
||
</p>
|
||
|
||
<p>
|
||
When I recovered I found myself surrounded by the people of the inn; their
|
||
countenances expressed a breathless terror, but the horror of others appeared
|
||
only as a mockery, a shadow of the feelings that oppressed me. I escaped from
|
||
them to the room where lay the body of Elizabeth, my love, my wife, so lately
|
||
living, so dear, so worthy. She had been moved from the posture in which I had
|
||
first beheld her, and now, as she lay, her head upon her arm and a handkerchief
|
||
thrown across her face and neck, I might have supposed her asleep. I rushed
|
||
towards her and embraced her with ardour, but the deadly languor and coldness
|
||
of the limbs told me that what I now held in my arms had ceased to be the
|
||
Elizabeth whom I had loved and cherished. The murderous mark of the fiend’s
|
||
grasp was on her neck, and the breath had ceased to issue from her lips.
|
||
</p>
|
||
|
||
<p>
|
||
While I still hung over her in the agony of despair, I happened to look up. The
|
||
windows of the room had before been darkened, and I felt a kind of panic on
|
||
seeing the pale yellow light of the moon illuminate the chamber. The shutters
|
||
had been thrown back, and with a sensation of horror not to be described, I saw
|
||
at the open window a figure the most hideous and abhorred. A grin was on the
|
||
face of the monster; he seemed to jeer, as with his fiendish finger he pointed
|
||
towards the corpse of my wife. I rushed towards the window, and drawing a
|
||
pistol from my bosom, fired; but he eluded me, leaped from his station, and
|
||
running with the swiftness of lightning, plunged into the lake.
|
||
</p>
|
||
|
||
<p>
|
||
The report of the pistol brought a crowd into the room. I pointed to the spot
|
||
where he had disappeared, and we followed the track with boats; nets were cast,
|
||
but in vain. After passing several hours, we returned hopeless, most of my
|
||
companions believing it to have been a form conjured up by my fancy. After
|
||
having landed, they proceeded to search the country, parties going in different
|
||
directions among the woods and vines.
|
||
</p>
|
||
|
||
<p>
|
||
I attempted to accompany them and proceeded a short distance from the house,
|
||
but my head whirled round, my steps were like those of a drunken man, I fell at
|
||
last in a state of utter exhaustion; a film covered my eyes, and my skin was
|
||
parched with the heat of fever. In this state I was carried back and placed on
|
||
a bed, hardly conscious of what had happened; my eyes wandered round the room
|
||
as if to seek something that I had lost.
|
||
</p>
|
||
|
||
<p>
|
||
After an interval I arose, and as if by instinct, crawled into the room where
|
||
the corpse of my beloved lay. There were women weeping around; I hung over it
|
||
and joined my sad tears to theirs; all this time no distinct idea presented
|
||
itself to my mind, but my thoughts rambled to various subjects, reflecting
|
||
confusedly on my misfortunes and their cause. I was bewildered, in a cloud of
|
||
wonder and horror. The death of William, the execution of Justine, the murder
|
||
of Clerval, and lastly of my wife; even at that moment I knew not that my only
|
||
remaining friends were safe from the malignity of the fiend; my father even now
|
||
might be writhing under his grasp, and Ernest might be dead at his feet. This
|
||
idea made me shudder and recalled me to action. I started up and resolved to
|
||
return to Geneva with all possible speed.
|
||
</p>
|
||
|
||
<p>
|
||
There were no horses to be procured, and I must return by the lake; but the
|
||
wind was unfavourable, and the rain fell in torrents. However, it was hardly
|
||
morning, and I might reasonably hope to arrive by night. I hired men to row and
|
||
took an oar myself, for I had always experienced relief from mental torment in
|
||
bodily exercise. But the overflowing misery I now felt, and the excess of
|
||
agitation that I endured rendered me incapable of any exertion. I threw down
|
||
the oar, and leaning my head upon my hands, gave way to every gloomy idea that
|
||
arose. If I looked up, I saw scenes which were familiar to me in my happier
|
||
time and which I had contemplated but the day before in the company of her who
|
||
was now but a shadow and a recollection. Tears streamed from my eyes. The rain
|
||
had ceased for a moment, and I saw the fish play in the waters as they had done
|
||
a few hours before; they had then been observed by Elizabeth. Nothing is so
|
||
painful to the human mind as a great and sudden change. The sun might shine or
|
||
the clouds might lower, but nothing could appear to me as it had done the day
|
||
before. A fiend had snatched from me every hope of future happiness; no
|
||
creature had ever been so miserable as I was; so frightful an event is single
|
||
in the history of man.
|
||
</p>
|
||
|
||
<p>
|
||
But why should I dwell upon the incidents that followed this last overwhelming
|
||
event? Mine has been a tale of horrors; I have reached their <i>acme</i>, and
|
||
what I must now relate can but be tedious to you. Know that, one by one, my
|
||
friends were snatched away; I was left desolate. My own strength is exhausted,
|
||
and I must tell, in a few words, what remains of my hideous narration.
|
||
</p>
|
||
|
||
<p>
|
||
I arrived at Geneva. My father and Ernest yet lived, but the former sunk under
|
||
the tidings that I bore. I see him now, excellent and venerable old man! His
|
||
eyes wandered in vacancy, for they had lost their charm and their delight—his
|
||
Elizabeth, his more than daughter, whom he doted on with all that affection
|
||
which a man feels, who in the decline of life, having few affections, clings
|
||
more earnestly to those that remain. Cursed, cursed be the fiend that brought
|
||
misery on his grey hairs and doomed him to waste in wretchedness! He could not
|
||
live under the horrors that were accumulated around him; the springs of
|
||
existence suddenly gave way; he was unable to rise from his bed, and in a few
|
||
days he died in my arms.
|
||
</p>
|
||
|
||
<p>
|
||
What then became of me? I know not; I lost sensation, and chains and darkness
|
||
were the only objects that pressed upon me. Sometimes, indeed, I dreamt that I
|
||
wandered in flowery meadows and pleasant vales with the friends of my youth,
|
||
but I awoke and found myself in a dungeon. Melancholy followed, but by degrees
|
||
I gained a clear conception of my miseries and situation and was then released
|
||
from my prison. For they had called me mad, and during many months, as I
|
||
understood, a solitary cell had been my habitation.
|
||
</p>
|
||
|
||
<p>
|
||
Liberty, however, had been a useless gift to me, had I not, as I awakened to
|
||
reason, at the same time awakened to revenge. As the memory of past misfortunes
|
||
pressed upon me, I began to reflect on their cause—the monster whom I had
|
||
created, the miserable dæmon whom I had sent abroad into the world for my
|
||
destruction. I was possessed by a maddening rage when I thought of him, and
|
||
desired and ardently prayed that I might have him within my grasp to wreak a
|
||
great and signal revenge on his cursed head.
|
||
</p>
|
||
|
||
<p>
|
||
Nor did my hate long confine itself to useless wishes; I began to reflect on
|
||
the best means of securing him; and for this purpose, about a month after my
|
||
release, I repaired to a criminal judge in the town and told him that I had an
|
||
accusation to make, that I knew the destroyer of my family, and that I required
|
||
him to exert his whole authority for the apprehension of the murderer.
|
||
</p>
|
||
|
||
<p>
|
||
The magistrate listened to me with attention and kindness. “Be assured, sir,”
|
||
said he, “no pains or exertions on my part shall be spared to discover the
|
||
villain.”
|
||
</p>
|
||
|
||
<p>
|
||
“I thank you,” replied I; “listen, therefore, to the deposition that I have to
|
||
make. It is indeed a tale so strange that I should fear you would not credit it
|
||
were there not something in truth which, however wonderful, forces conviction.
|
||
The story is too connected to be mistaken for a dream, and I have no motive for
|
||
falsehood.” My manner as I thus addressed him was impressive but calm; I had
|
||
formed in my own heart a resolution to pursue my destroyer to death, and this
|
||
purpose quieted my agony and for an interval reconciled me to life. I now
|
||
related my history briefly but with firmness and precision, marking the dates
|
||
with accuracy and never deviating into invective or exclamation.
|
||
</p>
|
||
|
||
<p>
|
||
The magistrate appeared at first perfectly incredulous, but as I continued he
|
||
became more attentive and interested; I saw him sometimes shudder with horror;
|
||
at others a lively surprise, unmingled with disbelief, was painted on his
|
||
countenance.
|
||
</p>
|
||
|
||
<p>
|
||
When I had concluded my narration, I said, “This is the being whom I accuse and
|
||
for whose seizure and punishment I call upon you to exert your whole power. It
|
||
is your duty as a magistrate, and I believe and hope that your feelings as a
|
||
man will not revolt from the execution of those functions on this occasion.”
|
||
</p>
|
||
|
||
<p>
|
||
This address caused a considerable change in the physiognomy of my own auditor.
|
||
He had heard my story with that half kind of belief that is given to a tale of
|
||
spirits and supernatural events; but when he was called upon to act officially
|
||
in consequence, the whole tide of his incredulity returned. He, however,
|
||
answered mildly, “I would willingly afford you every aid in your pursuit, but
|
||
the creature of whom you speak appears to have powers which would put all my
|
||
exertions to defiance. Who can follow an animal which can traverse the sea of
|
||
ice and inhabit caves and dens where no man would venture to intrude? Besides,
|
||
some months have elapsed since the commission of his crimes, and no one can
|
||
conjecture to what place he has wandered or what region he may now inhabit.”
|
||
</p>
|
||
|
||
<p>
|
||
“I do not doubt that he hovers near the spot which I inhabit, and if he has
|
||
indeed taken refuge in the Alps, he may be hunted like the chamois and
|
||
destroyed as a beast of prey. But I perceive your thoughts; you do not credit
|
||
my narrative and do not intend to pursue my enemy with the punishment which is
|
||
his desert.”
|
||
</p>
|
||
|
||
<p>
|
||
As I spoke, rage sparkled in my eyes; the magistrate was intimidated. “You are
|
||
mistaken,” said he. “I will exert myself, and if it is in my power to seize the
|
||
monster, be assured that he shall suffer punishment proportionate to his
|
||
crimes. But I fear, from what you have yourself described to be his properties,
|
||
that this will prove impracticable; and thus, while every proper measure is
|
||
pursued, you should make up your mind to disappointment.”
|
||
</p>
|
||
|
||
<p>
|
||
“That cannot be; but all that I can say will be of little avail. My revenge is
|
||
of no moment to you; yet, while I allow it to be a vice, I confess that it is
|
||
the devouring and only passion of my soul. My rage is unspeakable when I
|
||
reflect that the murderer, whom I have turned loose upon society, still exists.
|
||
You refuse my just demand; I have but one resource, and I devote myself, either
|
||
in my life or death, to his destruction.”
|
||
</p>
|
||
|
||
<p>
|
||
I trembled with excess of agitation as I said this; there was a frenzy in my
|
||
manner, and something, I doubt not, of that haughty fierceness which the
|
||
martyrs of old are said to have possessed. But to a Genevan magistrate, whose
|
||
mind was occupied by far other ideas than those of devotion and heroism, this
|
||
elevation of mind had much the appearance of madness. He endeavoured to soothe
|
||
me as a nurse does a child and reverted to my tale as the effects of delirium.
|
||
</p>
|
||
|
||
<p>
|
||
“Man,” I cried, “how ignorant art thou in thy pride of wisdom! Cease; you know
|
||
not what it is you say.”
|
||
</p>
|
||
|
||
<p>
|
||
I broke from the house angry and disturbed and retired to meditate on some
|
||
other mode of action.
|
||
</p>
|
||
|
||
</div><!--end chapter-->
|
||
|
||
<div class="chapter">
|
||
|
||
<h2><a id="chap24"></a>Chapter 24</h2>
|
||
|
||
<p>
|
||
My present situation was one in which all voluntary thought was swallowed up
|
||
and lost. I was hurried away by fury; revenge alone endowed me with strength
|
||
and composure; it moulded my feelings and allowed me to be calculating and calm
|
||
at periods when otherwise delirium or death would have been my portion.
|
||
</p>
|
||
|
||
<p>
|
||
My first resolution was to quit Geneva for ever; my country, which, when I was
|
||
happy and beloved, was dear to me, now, in my adversity, became hateful. I
|
||
provided myself with a sum of money, together with a few jewels which had
|
||
belonged to my mother, and departed.
|
||
</p>
|
||
|
||
<p>
|
||
And now my wanderings began which are to cease but with life. I have traversed
|
||
a vast portion of the earth and have endured all the hardships which travellers
|
||
in deserts and barbarous countries are wont to meet. How I have lived I hardly
|
||
know; many times have I stretched my failing limbs upon the sandy plain and
|
||
prayed for death. But revenge kept me alive; I dared not die and leave my
|
||
adversary in being.
|
||
</p>
|
||
|
||
<p>
|
||
When I quitted Geneva my first labour was to gain some clue by which I might
|
||
trace the steps of my fiendish enemy. But my plan was unsettled, and I wandered
|
||
many hours round the confines of the town, uncertain what path I should pursue.
|
||
As night approached I found myself at the entrance of the cemetery where
|
||
William, Elizabeth, and my father reposed. I entered it and approached the tomb
|
||
which marked their graves. Everything was silent except the leaves of the
|
||
trees, which were gently agitated by the wind; the night was nearly dark, and
|
||
the scene would have been solemn and affecting even to an uninterested
|
||
observer. The spirits of the departed seemed to flit around and to cast a
|
||
shadow, which was felt but not seen, around the head of the mourner.
|
||
</p>
|
||
|
||
<p>
|
||
The deep grief which this scene had at first excited quickly gave way to rage
|
||
and despair. They were dead, and I lived; their murderer also lived, and to
|
||
destroy him I must drag out my weary existence. I knelt on the grass and kissed
|
||
the earth and with quivering lips exclaimed, “By the sacred earth on which I
|
||
kneel, by the shades that wander near me, by the deep and eternal grief that I
|
||
feel, I swear; and by thee, O Night, and the spirits that preside over thee, to
|
||
pursue the dæmon who caused this misery, until he or I shall perish in mortal
|
||
conflict. For this purpose I will preserve my life; to execute this dear
|
||
revenge will I again behold the sun and tread the green herbage of earth, which
|
||
otherwise should vanish from my eyes for ever. And I call on you, spirits of
|
||
the dead, and on you, wandering ministers of vengeance, to aid and conduct me
|
||
in my work. Let the cursed and hellish monster drink deep of agony; let him
|
||
feel the despair that now torments me.”
|
||
</p>
|
||
|
||
<p>
|
||
I had begun my adjuration with solemnity and an awe which almost assured me
|
||
that the shades of my murdered friends heard and approved my devotion, but the
|
||
furies possessed me as I concluded, and rage choked my utterance.
|
||
</p>
|
||
|
||
<p>
|
||
I was answered through the stillness of night by a loud and fiendish laugh. It
|
||
rang on my ears long and heavily; the mountains re-echoed it, and I felt as if
|
||
all hell surrounded me with mockery and laughter. Surely in that moment I
|
||
should have been possessed by frenzy and have destroyed my miserable existence
|
||
but that my vow was heard and that I was reserved for vengeance. The laughter
|
||
died away, when a well-known and abhorred voice, apparently close to my ear,
|
||
addressed me in an audible whisper, “I am satisfied, miserable wretch! You have
|
||
determined to live, and I am satisfied.”
|
||
</p>
|
||
|
||
<p>
|
||
I darted towards the spot from which the sound proceeded, but the devil eluded
|
||
my grasp. Suddenly the broad disk of the moon arose and shone full upon his
|
||
ghastly and distorted shape as he fled with more than mortal speed.
|
||
</p>
|
||
|
||
<p>
|
||
I pursued him, and for many months this has been my task. Guided by a slight
|
||
clue, I followed the windings of the Rhone, but vainly. The blue Mediterranean
|
||
appeared, and by a strange chance, I saw the fiend enter by night and hide
|
||
himself in a vessel bound for the Black Sea. I took my passage in the same
|
||
ship, but he escaped, I know not how.
|
||
</p>
|
||
|
||
<p>
|
||
Amidst the wilds of Tartary and Russia, although he still evaded me, I have
|
||
ever followed in his track. Sometimes the peasants, scared by this horrid
|
||
apparition, informed me of his path; sometimes he himself, who feared that if I
|
||
lost all trace of him I should despair and die, left some mark to guide me. The
|
||
snows descended on my head, and I saw the print of his huge step on the white
|
||
plain. To you first entering on life, to whom care is new and agony unknown,
|
||
how can you understand what I have felt and still feel? Cold, want, and fatigue
|
||
were the least pains which I was destined to endure; I was cursed by some devil
|
||
and carried about with me my eternal hell; yet still a spirit of good followed
|
||
and directed my steps and when I most murmured would suddenly extricate me from
|
||
seemingly insurmountable difficulties. Sometimes, when nature, overcome by
|
||
hunger, sank under the exhaustion, a repast was prepared for me in the desert
|
||
that restored and inspirited me. The fare was, indeed, coarse, such as the
|
||
peasants of the country ate, but I will not doubt that it was set there by the
|
||
spirits that I had invoked to aid me. Often, when all was dry, the heavens
|
||
cloudless, and I was parched by thirst, a slight cloud would bedim the sky,
|
||
shed the few drops that revived me, and vanish.
|
||
</p>
|
||
|
||
<p>
|
||
I followed, when I could, the courses of the rivers; but the dæmon generally
|
||
avoided these, as it was here that the population of the country chiefly
|
||
collected. In other places human beings were seldom seen, and I generally
|
||
subsisted on the wild animals that crossed my path. I had money with me and
|
||
gained the friendship of the villagers by distributing it; or I brought with me
|
||
some food that I had killed, which, after taking a small part, I always
|
||
presented to those who had provided me with fire and utensils for cooking.
|
||
</p>
|
||
|
||
<p>
|
||
My life, as it passed thus, was indeed hateful to me, and it was during sleep
|
||
alone that I could taste joy. O blessed sleep! Often, when most miserable, I
|
||
sank to repose, and my dreams lulled me even to rapture. The spirits that
|
||
guarded me had provided these moments, or rather hours, of happiness that I
|
||
might retain strength to fulfil my pilgrimage. Deprived of this respite, I
|
||
should have sunk under my hardships. During the day I was sustained and
|
||
inspirited by the hope of night, for in sleep I saw my friends, my wife, and my
|
||
beloved country; again I saw the benevolent countenance of my father, heard the
|
||
silver tones of my Elizabeth’s voice, and beheld Clerval enjoying health and
|
||
youth. Often, when wearied by a toilsome march, I persuaded myself that I was
|
||
dreaming until night should come and that I should then enjoy reality in the
|
||
arms of my dearest friends. What agonising fondness did I feel for them! How
|
||
did I cling to their dear forms, as sometimes they haunted even my waking
|
||
hours, and persuade myself that they still lived! At such moments vengeance,
|
||
that burned within me, died in my heart, and I pursued my path towards the
|
||
destruction of the dæmon more as a task enjoined by heaven, as the mechanical
|
||
impulse of some power of which I was unconscious, than as the ardent desire of
|
||
my soul.
|
||
</p>
|
||
|
||
<p>
|
||
What his feelings were whom I pursued I cannot know. Sometimes, indeed, he left
|
||
marks in writing on the barks of the trees or cut in stone that guided me and
|
||
instigated my fury. “My reign is not yet over”—these words were legible in one
|
||
of these inscriptions—“you live, and my power is complete. Follow me; I seek
|
||
the everlasting ices of the north, where you will feel the misery of cold and
|
||
frost, to which I am impassive. You will find near this place, if you follow
|
||
not too tardily, a dead hare; eat and be refreshed. Come on, my enemy; we have
|
||
yet to wrestle for our lives, but many hard and miserable hours must you endure
|
||
until that period shall arrive.”
|
||
</p>
|
||
|
||
<p>
|
||
Scoffing devil! Again do I vow vengeance; again do I devote thee, miserable
|
||
fiend, to torture and death. Never will I give up my search until he or I
|
||
perish; and then with what ecstasy shall I join my Elizabeth and my departed
|
||
friends, who even now prepare for me the reward of my tedious toil and horrible
|
||
pilgrimage!
|
||
</p>
|
||
|
||
<p>
|
||
As I still pursued my journey to the northward, the snows thickened and the
|
||
cold increased in a degree almost too severe to support. The peasants were shut
|
||
up in their hovels, and only a few of the most hardy ventured forth to seize
|
||
the animals whom starvation had forced from their hiding-places to seek for
|
||
prey. The rivers were covered with ice, and no fish could be procured; and thus
|
||
I was cut off from my chief article of maintenance.
|
||
</p>
|
||
|
||
<p>
|
||
The triumph of my enemy increased with the difficulty of my labours. One
|
||
inscription that he left was in these words: “Prepare! Your toils only begin;
|
||
wrap yourself in furs and provide food, for we shall soon enter upon a journey
|
||
where your sufferings will satisfy my everlasting hatred.”
|
||
</p>
|
||
|
||
<p>
|
||
My courage and perseverance were invigorated by these scoffing words; I
|
||
resolved not to fail in my purpose, and calling on Heaven to support me, I
|
||
continued with unabated fervour to traverse immense deserts, until the ocean
|
||
appeared at a distance and formed the utmost boundary of the horizon. Oh! How
|
||
unlike it was to the blue seasons of the south! Covered with ice, it was only
|
||
to be distinguished from land by its superior wildness and ruggedness. The
|
||
Greeks wept for joy when they beheld the Mediterranean from the hills of Asia,
|
||
and hailed with rapture the boundary of their toils. I did not weep, but I
|
||
knelt down and with a full heart thanked my guiding spirit for conducting me in
|
||
safety to the place where I hoped, notwithstanding my adversary’s gibe, to meet
|
||
and grapple with him.
|
||
</p>
|
||
|
||
<p>
|
||
Some weeks before this period I had procured a sledge and dogs and thus
|
||
traversed the snows with inconceivable speed. I know not whether the fiend
|
||
possessed the same advantages, but I found that, as before I had daily lost
|
||
ground in the pursuit, I now gained on him, so much so that when I first saw
|
||
the ocean he was but one day’s journey in advance, and I hoped to intercept him
|
||
before he should reach the beach. With new courage, therefore, I pressed on,
|
||
and in two days arrived at a wretched hamlet on the seashore. I inquired of the
|
||
inhabitants concerning the fiend and gained accurate information. A gigantic
|
||
monster, they said, had arrived the night before, armed with a gun and many
|
||
pistols, putting to flight the inhabitants of a solitary cottage through fear
|
||
of his terrific appearance. He had carried off their store of winter food, and
|
||
placing it in a sledge, to draw which he had seized on a numerous drove of
|
||
trained dogs, he had harnessed them, and the same night, to the joy of the
|
||
horror-struck villagers, had pursued his journey across the sea in a direction
|
||
that led to no land; and they conjectured that he must speedily be destroyed by
|
||
the breaking of the ice or frozen by the eternal frosts.
|
||
</p>
|
||
|
||
<p>
|
||
On hearing this information I suffered a temporary access of despair. He had
|
||
escaped me, and I must commence a destructive and almost endless journey across
|
||
the mountainous ices of the ocean, amidst cold that few of the inhabitants
|
||
could long endure and which I, the native of a genial and sunny climate, could
|
||
not hope to survive. Yet at the idea that the fiend should live and be
|
||
triumphant, my rage and vengeance returned, and like a mighty tide, overwhelmed
|
||
every other feeling. After a slight repose, during which the spirits of the
|
||
dead hovered round and instigated me to toil and revenge, I prepared for my
|
||
journey.
|
||
</p>
|
||
|
||
<p>
|
||
I exchanged my land-sledge for one fashioned for the inequalities of the Frozen
|
||
Ocean, and purchasing a plentiful stock of provisions, I departed from land.
|
||
</p>
|
||
|
||
<p>
|
||
I cannot guess how many days have passed since then, but I have endured misery
|
||
which nothing but the eternal sentiment of a just retribution burning within my
|
||
heart could have enabled me to support. Immense and rugged mountains of ice
|
||
often barred up my passage, and I often heard the thunder of the ground sea,
|
||
which threatened my destruction. But again the frost came and made the paths of
|
||
the sea secure.
|
||
</p>
|
||
|
||
<p>
|
||
By the quantity of provision which I had consumed, I should guess that I had
|
||
passed three weeks in this journey; and the continual protraction of hope,
|
||
returning back upon the heart, often wrung bitter drops of despondency and
|
||
grief from my eyes. Despair had indeed almost secured her prey, and I should
|
||
soon have sunk beneath this misery. Once, after the poor animals that conveyed
|
||
me had with incredible toil gained the summit of a sloping ice mountain, and
|
||
one, sinking under his fatigue, died, I viewed the expanse before me with
|
||
anguish, when suddenly my eye caught a dark speck upon the dusky plain. I
|
||
strained my sight to discover what it could be and uttered a wild cry of
|
||
ecstasy when I distinguished a sledge and the distorted proportions of a
|
||
well-known form within. Oh! With what a burning gush did hope revisit my heart!
|
||
Warm tears filled my eyes, which I hastily wiped away, that they might not
|
||
intercept the view I had of the dæmon; but still my sight was dimmed by the
|
||
burning drops, until, giving way to the emotions that oppressed me, I wept
|
||
aloud.
|
||
</p>
|
||
|
||
<p>
|
||
But this was not the time for delay; I disencumbered the dogs of their dead
|
||
companion, gave them a plentiful portion of food, and after an hour’s rest,
|
||
which was absolutely necessary, and yet which was bitterly irksome to me, I
|
||
continued my route. The sledge was still visible, nor did I again lose sight of
|
||
it except at the moments when for a short time some ice-rock concealed it with
|
||
its intervening crags. I indeed perceptibly gained on it, and when, after
|
||
nearly two days’ journey, I beheld my enemy at no more than a mile distant, my
|
||
heart bounded within me.
|
||
</p>
|
||
|
||
<p>
|
||
But now, when I appeared almost within grasp of my foe, my hopes were suddenly
|
||
extinguished, and I lost all trace of him more utterly than I had ever done
|
||
before. A ground sea was heard; the thunder of its progress, as the waters
|
||
rolled and swelled beneath me, became every moment more ominous and terrific. I
|
||
pressed on, but in vain. The wind arose; the sea roared; and, as with the
|
||
mighty shock of an earthquake, it split and cracked with a tremendous and
|
||
overwhelming sound. The work was soon finished; in a few minutes a tumultuous
|
||
sea rolled between me and my enemy, and I was left drifting on a scattered
|
||
piece of ice that was continually lessening and thus preparing for me a hideous
|
||
death.
|
||
</p>
|
||
|
||
<p>
|
||
In this manner many appalling hours passed; several of my dogs died, and I
|
||
myself was about to sink under the accumulation of distress when I saw your
|
||
vessel riding at anchor and holding forth to me hopes of succour and life. I
|
||
had no conception that vessels ever came so far north and was astounded at the
|
||
sight. I quickly destroyed part of my sledge to construct oars, and by these
|
||
means was enabled, with infinite fatigue, to move my ice raft in the direction
|
||
of your ship. I had determined, if you were going southwards, still to trust
|
||
myself to the mercy of the seas rather than abandon my purpose. I hoped to
|
||
induce you to grant me a boat with which I could pursue my enemy. But your
|
||
direction was northwards. You took me on board when my vigour was exhausted,
|
||
and I should soon have sunk under my multiplied hardships into a death which I
|
||
still dread, for my task is unfulfilled.
|
||
</p>
|
||
|
||
<p>
|
||
Oh! When will my guiding spirit, in conducting me to the dæmon, allow me the
|
||
rest I so much desire; or must I die, and he yet live? If I do, swear to me,
|
||
Walton, that he shall not escape, that you will seek him and satisfy my
|
||
vengeance in his death. And do I dare to ask of you to undertake my pilgrimage,
|
||
to endure the hardships that I have undergone? No; I am not so selfish. Yet,
|
||
when I am dead, if he should appear, if the ministers of vengeance should
|
||
conduct him to you, swear that he shall not live—swear that he shall not
|
||
triumph over my accumulated woes and survive to add to the list of his dark
|
||
crimes. He is eloquent and persuasive, and once his words had even power over
|
||
my heart; but trust him not. His soul is as hellish as his form, full of
|
||
treachery and fiend-like malice. Hear him not; call on the names of William,
|
||
Justine, Clerval, Elizabeth, my father, and of the wretched Victor, and thrust
|
||
your sword into his heart. I will hover near and direct the steel aright.
|
||
</p>
|
||
|
||
<p class="letter2">
|
||
Walton, <i>in continuation.</i>
|
||
</p>
|
||
|
||
<p class="right">
|
||
August 26th, 17—.
|
||
</p>
|
||
|
||
<p class="noindent">
|
||
You have read this strange and terrific story, Margaret; and do you not feel
|
||
your blood congeal with horror, like that which even now curdles mine?
|
||
Sometimes, seized with sudden agony, he could not continue his tale; at others,
|
||
his voice broken, yet piercing, uttered with difficulty the words so replete
|
||
with anguish. His fine and lovely eyes were now lighted up with indignation,
|
||
now subdued to downcast sorrow and quenched in infinite wretchedness. Sometimes
|
||
he commanded his countenance and tones and related the most horrible incidents
|
||
with a tranquil voice, suppressing every mark of agitation; then, like a
|
||
volcano bursting forth, his face would suddenly change to an expression of the
|
||
wildest rage as he shrieked out imprecations on his persecutor.
|
||
</p>
|
||
|
||
<p>
|
||
His tale is connected and told with an appearance of the simplest truth, yet I
|
||
own to you that the letters of Felix and Safie, which he showed me, and the
|
||
apparition of the monster seen from our ship, brought to me a greater
|
||
conviction of the truth of his narrative than his asseverations, however
|
||
earnest and connected. Such a monster has, then, really existence! I cannot
|
||
doubt it, yet I am lost in surprise and admiration. Sometimes I endeavoured to
|
||
gain from Frankenstein the particulars of his creature’s formation, but on this
|
||
point he was impenetrable.
|
||
</p>
|
||
|
||
<p>
|
||
“Are you mad, my friend?” said he. “Or whither does your senseless curiosity
|
||
lead you? Would you also create for yourself and the world a demoniacal enemy?
|
||
Peace, peace! Learn my miseries and do not seek to increase your own.”
|
||
</p>
|
||
|
||
<p>
|
||
Frankenstein discovered that I made notes concerning his history; he asked to
|
||
see them and then himself corrected and augmented them in many places, but
|
||
principally in giving the life and spirit to the conversations he held with his
|
||
enemy. “Since you have preserved my narration,” said he, “I would not that a
|
||
mutilated one should go down to posterity.”
|
||
</p>
|
||
|
||
<p>
|
||
Thus has a week passed away, while I have listened to the strangest tale that
|
||
ever imagination formed. My thoughts and every feeling of my soul have been
|
||
drunk up by the interest for my guest which this tale and his own elevated and
|
||
gentle manners have created. I wish to soothe him, yet can I counsel one so
|
||
infinitely miserable, so destitute of every hope of consolation, to live? Oh,
|
||
no! The only joy that he can now know will be when he composes his shattered
|
||
spirit to peace and death. Yet he enjoys one comfort, the offspring of solitude
|
||
and delirium; he believes that when in dreams he holds converse with his
|
||
friends and derives from that communion consolation for his miseries or
|
||
excitements to his vengeance, that they are not the creations of his fancy, but
|
||
the beings themselves who visit him from the regions of a remote world. This
|
||
faith gives a solemnity to his reveries that render them to me almost as
|
||
imposing and interesting as truth.
|
||
</p>
|
||
|
||
<p>
|
||
Our conversations are not always confined to his own history and misfortunes.
|
||
On every point of general literature he displays unbounded knowledge and a
|
||
quick and piercing apprehension. His eloquence is forcible and touching; nor
|
||
can I hear him, when he relates a pathetic incident or endeavours to move the
|
||
passions of pity or love, without tears. What a glorious creature must he have
|
||
been in the days of his prosperity, when he is thus noble and godlike in ruin!
|
||
He seems to feel his own worth and the greatness of his fall.
|
||
</p>
|
||
|
||
<p>
|
||
“When younger,” said he, “I believed myself destined for some great enterprise.
|
||
My feelings are profound, but I possessed a coolness of judgment that fitted me
|
||
for illustrious achievements. This sentiment of the worth of my nature
|
||
supported me when others would have been oppressed, for I deemed it criminal to
|
||
throw away in useless grief those talents that might be useful to my fellow
|
||
creatures. When I reflected on the work I had completed, no less a one than the
|
||
creation of a sensitive and rational animal, I could not rank myself with the
|
||
herd of common projectors. But this thought, which supported me in the
|
||
commencement of my career, now serves only to plunge me lower in the dust. All
|
||
my speculations and hopes are as nothing, and like the archangel who aspired to
|
||
omnipotence, I am chained in an eternal hell. My imagination was vivid, yet my
|
||
powers of analysis and application were intense; by the union of these
|
||
qualities I conceived the idea and executed the creation of a man. Even now I
|
||
cannot recollect without passion my reveries while the work was incomplete. I
|
||
trod heaven in my thoughts, now exulting in my powers, now burning with the
|
||
idea of their effects. From my infancy I was imbued with high hopes and a lofty
|
||
ambition; but how am I sunk! Oh! My friend, if you had known me as I once was,
|
||
you would not recognise me in this state of degradation. Despondency rarely
|
||
visited my heart; a high destiny seemed to bear me on, until I fell, never,
|
||
never again to rise.”
|
||
</p>
|
||
|
||
<p>
|
||
Must I then lose this admirable being? I have longed for a friend; I have
|
||
sought one who would sympathise with and love me. Behold, on these desert seas
|
||
I have found such a one, but I fear I have gained him only to know his value
|
||
and lose him. I would reconcile him to life, but he repulses the idea.
|
||
</p>
|
||
|
||
<p>
|
||
“I thank you, Walton,” he said, “for your kind intentions towards so miserable
|
||
a wretch; but when you speak of new ties and fresh affections, think you that
|
||
any can replace those who are gone? Can any man be to me as Clerval was, or any
|
||
woman another Elizabeth? Even where the affections are not strongly moved by
|
||
any superior excellence, the companions of our childhood always possess a
|
||
certain power over our minds which hardly any later friend can obtain. They
|
||
know our infantine dispositions, which, however they may be afterwards
|
||
modified, are never eradicated; and they can judge of our actions with more
|
||
certain conclusions as to the integrity of our motives. A sister or a brother
|
||
can never, unless indeed such symptoms have been shown early, suspect the other
|
||
of fraud or false dealing, when another friend, however strongly he may be
|
||
attached, may, in spite of himself, be contemplated with suspicion. But I
|
||
enjoyed friends, dear not only through habit and association, but from their
|
||
own merits; and wherever I am, the soothing voice of my Elizabeth and the
|
||
conversation of Clerval will be ever whispered in my ear. They are dead, and
|
||
but one feeling in such a solitude can persuade me to preserve my life. If I
|
||
were engaged in any high undertaking or design, fraught with extensive utility
|
||
to my fellow creatures, then could I live to fulfil it. But such is not my
|
||
destiny; I must pursue and destroy the being to whom I gave existence; then my
|
||
lot on earth will be fulfilled and I may die.”
|
||
</p>
|
||
|
||
<p class="letter">
|
||
My beloved Sister,
|
||
</p>
|
||
|
||
<p class="right">
|
||
September 2d.
|
||
</p>
|
||
|
||
<p>
|
||
I write to you, encompassed by peril and ignorant whether I am ever doomed to
|
||
see again dear England and the dearer friends that inhabit it. I am surrounded
|
||
by mountains of ice which admit of no escape and threaten every moment to crush
|
||
my vessel. The brave fellows whom I have persuaded to be my companions look
|
||
towards me for aid, but I have none to bestow. There is something terribly
|
||
appalling in our situation, yet my courage and hopes do not desert me. Yet it
|
||
is terrible to reflect that the lives of all these men are endangered through
|
||
me. If we are lost, my mad schemes are the cause.
|
||
</p>
|
||
|
||
<p>
|
||
And what, Margaret, will be the state of your mind? You will not hear of my
|
||
destruction, and you will anxiously await my return. Years will pass, and you
|
||
will have visitings of despair and yet be tortured by hope. Oh! My beloved
|
||
sister, the sickening failing of your heart-felt expectations is, in prospect,
|
||
more terrible to me than my own death. But you have a husband and lovely
|
||
children; you may be happy. Heaven bless you and make you so!
|
||
</p>
|
||
|
||
<p>
|
||
My unfortunate guest regards me with the tenderest compassion. He endeavours to
|
||
fill me with hope and talks as if life were a possession which he valued. He
|
||
reminds me how often the same accidents have happened to other navigators who
|
||
have attempted this sea, and in spite of myself, he fills me with cheerful
|
||
auguries. Even the sailors feel the power of his eloquence; when he speaks,
|
||
they no longer despair; he rouses their energies, and while they hear his voice
|
||
they believe these vast mountains of ice are mole-hills which will vanish
|
||
before the resolutions of man. These feelings are transitory; each day of
|
||
expectation delayed fills them with fear, and I almost dread a mutiny caused by
|
||
this despair.
|
||
</p>
|
||
|
||
<p class="right">
|
||
September 5th.
|
||
</p>
|
||
|
||
<p>
|
||
A scene has just passed of such uncommon interest that, although it is highly
|
||
probable that these papers may never reach you, yet I cannot forbear recording
|
||
it.
|
||
</p>
|
||
|
||
<p>
|
||
We are still surrounded by mountains of ice, still in imminent danger of being
|
||
crushed in their conflict. The cold is excessive, and many of my unfortunate
|
||
comrades have already found a grave amidst this scene of desolation.
|
||
Frankenstein has daily declined in health; a feverish fire still glimmers in
|
||
his eyes, but he is exhausted, and when suddenly roused to any exertion, he
|
||
speedily sinks again into apparent lifelessness.
|
||
</p>
|
||
|
||
<p>
|
||
I mentioned in my last letter the fears I entertained of a mutiny. This
|
||
morning, as I sat watching the wan countenance of my friend—his eyes half
|
||
closed and his limbs hanging listlessly—I was roused by half a dozen of the
|
||
sailors, who demanded admission into the cabin. They entered, and their leader
|
||
addressed me. He told me that he and his companions had been chosen by the
|
||
other sailors to come in deputation to me to make me a requisition which, in
|
||
justice, I could not refuse. We were immured in ice and should probably never
|
||
escape, but they feared that if, as was possible, the ice should dissipate and
|
||
a free passage be opened, I should be rash enough to continue my voyage and
|
||
lead them into fresh dangers, after they might happily have surmounted this.
|
||
They insisted, therefore, that I should engage with a solemn promise that if
|
||
the vessel should be freed I would instantly direct my course southwards.
|
||
</p>
|
||
|
||
<p>
|
||
This speech troubled me. I had not despaired, nor had I yet conceived the idea
|
||
of returning if set free. Yet could I, in justice, or even in possibility,
|
||
refuse this demand? I hesitated before I answered, when Frankenstein, who had
|
||
at first been silent, and indeed appeared hardly to have force enough to
|
||
attend, now roused himself; his eyes sparkled, and his cheeks flushed with
|
||
momentary vigour. Turning towards the men, he said,
|
||
</p>
|
||
|
||
<p>
|
||
“What do you mean? What do you demand of your captain? Are you, then, so easily
|
||
turned from your design? Did you not call this a glorious expedition? “And
|
||
wherefore was it glorious? Not because the way was smooth and placid as a
|
||
southern sea, but because it was full of dangers and terror, because at every
|
||
new incident your fortitude was to be called forth and your courage exhibited,
|
||
because danger and death surrounded it, and these you were to brave and
|
||
overcome. For this was it a glorious, for this was it an honourable
|
||
undertaking. You were hereafter to be hailed as the benefactors of your
|
||
species, your names adored as belonging to brave men who encountered death for
|
||
honour and the benefit of mankind. And now, behold, with the first imagination
|
||
of danger, or, if you will, the first mighty and terrific trial of your
|
||
courage, you shrink away and are content to be handed down as men who had not
|
||
strength enough to endure cold and peril; and so, poor souls, they were chilly
|
||
and returned to their warm firesides. Why, that requires not this preparation;
|
||
ye need not have come thus far and dragged your captain to the shame of a
|
||
defeat merely to prove yourselves cowards. Oh! Be men, or be more than men. Be
|
||
steady to your purposes and firm as a rock. This ice is not made of such stuff
|
||
as your hearts may be; it is mutable and cannot withstand you if you say that
|
||
it shall not. Do not return to your families with the stigma of disgrace marked
|
||
on your brows. Return as heroes who have fought and conquered and who know not
|
||
what it is to turn their backs on the foe.”
|
||
</p>
|
||
|
||
<p>
|
||
He spoke this with a voice so modulated to the different feelings expressed in
|
||
his speech, with an eye so full of lofty design and heroism, that can you
|
||
wonder that these men were moved? They looked at one another and were unable to
|
||
reply. I spoke; I told them to retire and consider of what had been said, that
|
||
I would not lead them farther north if they strenuously desired the contrary,
|
||
but that I hoped that, with reflection, their courage would return.
|
||
</p>
|
||
|
||
<p>
|
||
They retired and I turned towards my friend, but he was sunk in languor and
|
||
almost deprived of life.
|
||
</p>
|
||
|
||
<p>
|
||
How all this will terminate, I know not, but I had rather die than return
|
||
shamefully, my purpose unfulfilled. Yet I fear such will be my fate; the men,
|
||
unsupported by ideas of glory and honour, can never willingly continue to
|
||
endure their present hardships.
|
||
</p>
|
||
|
||
<p class="right">
|
||
September 7th.
|
||
</p>
|
||
|
||
<p>
|
||
The die is cast; I have consented to return if we are not destroyed. Thus are
|
||
my hopes blasted by cowardice and indecision; I come back ignorant and
|
||
disappointed. It requires more philosophy than I possess to bear this injustice
|
||
with patience.
|
||
</p>
|
||
|
||
<p class="right">
|
||
September 12th.
|
||
</p>
|
||
|
||
<p>
|
||
It is past; I am returning to England. I have lost my hopes of utility and
|
||
glory; I have lost my friend. But I will endeavour to detail these bitter
|
||
circumstances to you, my dear sister; and while I am wafted towards England and
|
||
towards you, I will not despond.
|
||
</p>
|
||
|
||
<p>
|
||
September 9th, the ice began to move, and roarings like thunder were heard at a
|
||
distance as the islands split and cracked in every direction. We were in the
|
||
most imminent peril, but as we could only remain passive, my chief attention
|
||
was occupied by my unfortunate guest whose illness increased in such a degree
|
||
that he was entirely confined to his bed. The ice cracked behind us and was
|
||
driven with force towards the north; a breeze sprang from the west, and on the
|
||
11th the passage towards the south became perfectly free. When the sailors saw
|
||
this and that their return to their native country was apparently assured, a
|
||
shout of tumultuous joy broke from them, loud and long-continued. Frankenstein,
|
||
who was dozing, awoke and asked the cause of the tumult. “They shout,” I said,
|
||
“because they will soon return to England.”
|
||
</p>
|
||
|
||
<p>
|
||
“Do you, then, really return?”
|
||
</p>
|
||
|
||
<p>
|
||
“Alas! Yes; I cannot withstand their demands. I cannot lead them unwillingly to
|
||
danger, and I must return.”
|
||
</p>
|
||
|
||
<p>
|
||
“Do so, if you will; but I will not. You may give up your purpose, but mine is
|
||
assigned to me by Heaven, and I dare not. I am weak, but surely the spirits who
|
||
assist my vengeance will endow me with sufficient strength.” Saying this, he
|
||
endeavoured to spring from the bed, but the exertion was too great for him; he
|
||
fell back and fainted.
|
||
</p>
|
||
|
||
<p>
|
||
It was long before he was restored, and I often thought that life was entirely
|
||
extinct. At length he opened his eyes; he breathed with difficulty and was
|
||
unable to speak. The surgeon gave him a composing draught and ordered us to
|
||
leave him undisturbed. In the meantime he told me that my friend had certainly
|
||
not many hours to live.
|
||
</p>
|
||
|
||
<p>
|
||
His sentence was pronounced, and I could only grieve and be patient. I sat by
|
||
his bed, watching him; his eyes were closed, and I thought he slept; but
|
||
presently he called to me in a feeble voice, and bidding me come near, said,
|
||
“Alas! The strength I relied on is gone; I feel that I shall soon die, and he,
|
||
my enemy and persecutor, may still be in being. Think not, Walton, that in the
|
||
last moments of my existence I feel that burning hatred and ardent desire of
|
||
revenge I once expressed; but I feel myself justified in desiring the death of
|
||
my adversary. During these last days I have been occupied in examining my past
|
||
conduct; nor do I find it blamable. In a fit of enthusiastic madness I created
|
||
a rational creature and was bound towards him to assure, as far as was in my
|
||
power, his happiness and well-being. This was my duty, but there was another
|
||
still paramount to that. My duties towards the beings of my own species had
|
||
greater claims to my attention because they included a greater proportion of
|
||
happiness or misery. Urged by this view, I refused, and I did right in
|
||
refusing, to create a companion for the first creature. He showed unparalleled
|
||
malignity and selfishness in evil; he destroyed my friends; he devoted to
|
||
destruction beings who possessed exquisite sensations, happiness, and wisdom;
|
||
nor do I know where this thirst for vengeance may end. Miserable himself that
|
||
he may render no other wretched, he ought to die. The task of his destruction
|
||
was mine, but I have failed. When actuated by selfish and vicious motives, I
|
||
asked you to undertake my unfinished work, and I renew this request now, when I
|
||
am only induced by reason and virtue.
|
||
</p>
|
||
|
||
<p>
|
||
“Yet I cannot ask you to renounce your country and friends to fulfil this task;
|
||
and now that you are returning to England, you will have little chance of
|
||
meeting with him. But the consideration of these points, and the well balancing
|
||
of what you may esteem your duties, I leave to you; my judgment and ideas are
|
||
already disturbed by the near approach of death. I dare not ask you to do what
|
||
I think right, for I may still be misled by passion.
|
||
</p>
|
||
|
||
<p>
|
||
“That he should live to be an instrument of mischief disturbs me; in other
|
||
respects, this hour, when I momentarily expect my release, is the only happy
|
||
one which I have enjoyed for several years. The forms of the beloved dead flit
|
||
before me, and I hasten to their arms. Farewell, Walton! Seek happiness in
|
||
tranquillity and avoid ambition, even if it be only the apparently innocent one
|
||
of distinguishing yourself in science and discoveries. Yet why do I say this? I
|
||
have myself been blasted in these hopes, yet another may succeed.”
|
||
</p>
|
||
|
||
<p>
|
||
His voice became fainter as he spoke, and at length, exhausted by his effort,
|
||
he sank into silence. About half an hour afterwards he attempted again to speak
|
||
but was unable; he pressed my hand feebly, and his eyes closed for ever, while
|
||
the irradiation of a gentle smile passed away from his lips.
|
||
</p>
|
||
|
||
<p>
|
||
Margaret, what comment can I make on the untimely extinction of this glorious
|
||
spirit? What can I say that will enable you to understand the depth of my
|
||
sorrow? All that I should express would be inadequate and feeble. My tears
|
||
flow; my mind is overshadowed by a cloud of disappointment. But I journey
|
||
towards England, and I may there find consolation.
|
||
</p>
|
||
|
||
<p>
|
||
I am interrupted. What do these sounds portend? It is midnight; the breeze
|
||
blows fairly, and the watch on deck scarcely stir. Again there is a sound as of
|
||
a human voice, but hoarser; it comes from the cabin where the remains of
|
||
Frankenstein still lie. I must arise and examine. Good night, my sister.
|
||
</p>
|
||
|
||
<p>
|
||
Great God! what a scene has just taken place! I am yet dizzy with the
|
||
remembrance of it. I hardly know whether I shall have the power to detail it;
|
||
yet the tale which I have recorded would be incomplete without this final and
|
||
wonderful catastrophe.
|
||
</p>
|
||
|
||
<p>
|
||
I entered the cabin where lay the remains of my ill-fated and admirable friend.
|
||
Over him hung a form which I cannot find words to describe—gigantic in stature,
|
||
yet uncouth and distorted in its proportions. As he hung over the coffin, his
|
||
face was concealed by long locks of ragged hair; but one vast hand was
|
||
extended, in colour and apparent texture like that of a mummy. When he heard
|
||
the sound of my approach, he ceased to utter exclamations of grief and horror
|
||
and sprung towards the window. Never did I behold a vision so horrible as his
|
||
face, of such loathsome yet appalling hideousness. I shut my eyes involuntarily
|
||
and endeavoured to recollect what were my duties with regard to this destroyer.
|
||
I called on him to stay.
|
||
</p>
|
||
|
||
<p>
|
||
He paused, looking on me with wonder, and again turning towards the lifeless
|
||
form of his creator, he seemed to forget my presence, and every feature and
|
||
gesture seemed instigated by the wildest rage of some uncontrollable passion.
|
||
</p>
|
||
|
||
<p>
|
||
“That is also my victim!” he exclaimed. “In his murder my crimes are
|
||
consummated; the miserable series of my being is wound to its close! Oh,
|
||
Frankenstein! Generous and self-devoted being! What does it avail that I now
|
||
ask thee to pardon me? I, who irretrievably destroyed thee by destroying all
|
||
thou lovedst. Alas! He is cold, he cannot answer me.”
|
||
</p>
|
||
|
||
<p>
|
||
His voice seemed suffocated, and my first impulses, which had suggested to me
|
||
the duty of obeying the dying request of my friend in destroying his enemy,
|
||
were now suspended by a mixture of curiosity and compassion. I approached this
|
||
tremendous being; I dared not again raise my eyes to his face, there was
|
||
something so scaring and unearthly in his ugliness. I attempted to speak, but
|
||
the words died away on my lips. The monster continued to utter wild and
|
||
incoherent self-reproaches. At length I gathered resolution to address him in a
|
||
pause of the tempest of his passion.
|
||
</p>
|
||
|
||
<p>
|
||
“Your repentance,” I said, “is now superfluous. If you had listened to the
|
||
voice of conscience and heeded the stings of remorse before you had urged your
|
||
diabolical vengeance to this extremity, Frankenstein would yet have lived.”
|
||
</p>
|
||
|
||
<p>
|
||
“And do you dream?” said the dæmon. “Do you think that I was then dead to agony
|
||
and remorse? He,” he continued, pointing to the corpse, “he suffered not in the
|
||
consummation of the deed. Oh! Not the ten-thousandth portion of the anguish
|
||
that was mine during the lingering detail of its execution. A frightful
|
||
selfishness hurried me on, while my heart was poisoned with remorse. Think you
|
||
that the groans of Clerval were music to my ears? My heart was fashioned to be
|
||
susceptible of love and sympathy, and when wrenched by misery to vice and
|
||
hatred, it did not endure the violence of the change without torture such as
|
||
you cannot even imagine.
|
||
</p>
|
||
|
||
<p>
|
||
“After the murder of Clerval I returned to Switzerland, heart-broken and
|
||
overcome. I pitied Frankenstein; my pity amounted to horror; I abhorred myself.
|
||
But when I discovered that he, the author at once of my existence and of its
|
||
unspeakable torments, dared to hope for happiness, that while he accumulated
|
||
wretchedness and despair upon me he sought his own enjoyment in feelings and
|
||
passions from the indulgence of which I was for ever barred, then impotent envy
|
||
and bitter indignation filled me with an insatiable thirst for vengeance. I
|
||
recollected my threat and resolved that it should be accomplished. I knew that
|
||
I was preparing for myself a deadly torture, but I was the slave, not the
|
||
master, of an impulse which I detested yet could not disobey. Yet when she
|
||
died! Nay, then I was not miserable. I had cast off all feeling, subdued all
|
||
anguish, to riot in the excess of my despair. Evil thenceforth became my good.
|
||
Urged thus far, I had no choice but to adapt my nature to an element which I
|
||
had willingly chosen. The completion of my demoniacal design became an
|
||
insatiable passion. And now it is ended; there is my last victim!”
|
||
</p>
|
||
|
||
<p>
|
||
I was at first touched by the expressions of his misery; yet, when I called to
|
||
mind what Frankenstein had said of his powers of eloquence and persuasion, and
|
||
when I again cast my eyes on the lifeless form of my friend, indignation was
|
||
rekindled within me. “Wretch!” I said. “It is well that you come here to whine
|
||
over the desolation that you have made. You throw a torch into a pile of
|
||
buildings, and when they are consumed, you sit among the ruins and lament the
|
||
fall. Hypocritical fiend! If he whom you mourn still lived, still would he be
|
||
the object, again would he become the prey, of your accursed vengeance. It is
|
||
not pity that you feel; you lament only because the victim of your malignity is
|
||
withdrawn from your power.”
|
||
</p>
|
||
|
||
<p>
|
||
“Oh, it is not thus—not thus,” interrupted the being. “Yet such must be the
|
||
impression conveyed to you by what appears to be the purport of my actions. Yet
|
||
I seek not a fellow feeling in my misery. No sympathy may I ever find. When I
|
||
first sought it, it was the love of virtue, the feelings of happiness and
|
||
affection with which my whole being overflowed, that I wished to be
|
||
participated. But now that virtue has become to me a shadow, and that happiness
|
||
and affection are turned into bitter and loathing despair, in what should I
|
||
seek for sympathy? I am content to suffer alone while my sufferings shall
|
||
endure; when I die, I am well satisfied that abhorrence and opprobrium should
|
||
load my memory. Once my fancy was soothed with dreams of virtue, of fame, and
|
||
of enjoyment. Once I falsely hoped to meet with beings who, pardoning my
|
||
outward form, would love me for the excellent qualities which I was capable of
|
||
unfolding. I was nourished with high thoughts of honour and devotion. But now
|
||
crime has degraded me beneath the meanest animal. No guilt, no mischief, no
|
||
malignity, no misery, can be found comparable to mine. When I run over the
|
||
frightful catalogue of my sins, I cannot believe that I am the same creature
|
||
whose thoughts were once filled with sublime and transcendent visions of the
|
||
beauty and the majesty of goodness. But it is even so; the fallen angel becomes
|
||
a malignant devil. Yet even that enemy of God and man had friends and
|
||
associates in his desolation; I am alone.
|
||
</p>
|
||
|
||
<p>
|
||
“You, who call Frankenstein your friend, seem to have a knowledge of my crimes
|
||
and his misfortunes. But in the detail which he gave you of them he could not
|
||
sum up the hours and months of misery which I endured wasting in impotent
|
||
passions. For while I destroyed his hopes, I did not satisfy my own desires.
|
||
They were for ever ardent and craving; still I desired love and fellowship, and
|
||
I was still spurned. Was there no injustice in this? Am I to be thought the
|
||
only criminal, when all humankind sinned against me? Why do you not hate Felix,
|
||
who drove his friend from his door with contumely? Why do you not execrate the
|
||
rustic who sought to destroy the saviour of his child? Nay, these are virtuous
|
||
and immaculate beings! I, the miserable and the abandoned, am an abortion, to
|
||
be spurned at, and kicked, and trampled on. Even now my blood boils at the
|
||
recollection of this injustice.
|
||
</p>
|
||
|
||
<p>
|
||
“But it is true that I am a wretch. I have murdered the lovely and the
|
||
helpless; I have strangled the innocent as they slept and grasped to death his
|
||
throat who never injured me or any other living thing. I have devoted my
|
||
creator, the select specimen of all that is worthy of love and admiration among
|
||
men, to misery; I have pursued him even to that irremediable ruin. There he
|
||
lies, white and cold in death. You hate me, but your abhorrence cannot equal
|
||
that with which I regard myself. I look on the hands which executed the deed; I
|
||
think on the heart in which the imagination of it was conceived and long for
|
||
the moment when these hands will meet my eyes, when that imagination will haunt
|
||
my thoughts no more.
|
||
</p>
|
||
|
||
<p>
|
||
“Fear not that I shall be the instrument of future mischief. My work is nearly
|
||
complete. Neither yours nor any man’s death is needed to consummate the series
|
||
of my being and accomplish that which must be done, but it requires my own. Do
|
||
not think that I shall be slow to perform this sacrifice. I shall quit your
|
||
vessel on the ice raft which brought me thither and shall seek the most
|
||
northern extremity of the globe; I shall collect my funeral pile and consume to
|
||
ashes this miserable frame, that its remains may afford no light to any curious
|
||
and unhallowed wretch who would create such another as I have been. I shall
|
||
die. I shall no longer feel the agonies which now consume me or be the prey of
|
||
feelings unsatisfied, yet unquenched. He is dead who called me into being; and
|
||
when I shall be no more, the very remembrance of us both will speedily vanish.
|
||
I shall no longer see the sun or stars or feel the winds play on my cheeks.
|
||
Light, feeling, and sense will pass away; and in this condition must I find my
|
||
happiness. Some years ago, when the images which this world affords first
|
||
opened upon me, when I felt the cheering warmth of summer and heard the
|
||
rustling of the leaves and the warbling of the birds, and these were all to me,
|
||
I should have wept to die; now it is my only consolation. Polluted by crimes
|
||
and torn by the bitterest remorse, where can I find rest but in death?
|
||
</p>
|
||
|
||
<p>
|
||
“Farewell! I leave you, and in you the last of humankind whom these eyes will
|
||
ever behold. Farewell, Frankenstein! If thou wert yet alive and yet cherished a
|
||
desire of revenge against me, it would be better satiated in my life than in my
|
||
destruction. But it was not so; thou didst seek my extinction, that I might not
|
||
cause greater wretchedness; and if yet, in some mode unknown to me, thou hadst
|
||
not ceased to think and feel, thou wouldst not desire against me a vengeance
|
||
greater than that which I feel. Blasted as thou wert, my agony was still
|
||
superior to thine, for the bitter sting of remorse will not cease to rankle in
|
||
my wounds until death shall close them for ever.
|
||
</p>
|
||
|
||
<p>
|
||
“But soon,” he cried with sad and solemn enthusiasm, “I shall die, and what I
|
||
now feel be no longer felt. Soon these burning miseries will be extinct. I
|
||
shall ascend my funeral pile triumphantly and exult in the agony of the
|
||
torturing flames. The light of that conflagration will fade away; my ashes will
|
||
be swept into the sea by the winds. My spirit will sleep in peace, or if it
|
||
thinks, it will not surely think thus. Farewell.”
|
||
</p>
|
||
|
||
<p>
|
||
He sprang from the cabin-window as he said this, upon the ice raft which lay
|
||
close to the vessel. He was soon borne away by the waves and lost in darkness
|
||
and distance.
|
||
</p>
|
||
|
||
</div><!--end chapter-->
|
||
|
||
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