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Frankenstein; or, the Modern Prometheus is a novel by Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley that was first published in 1818. Read the full text of Frankenstein in its entirety, completely free.

Letter 1

To Mrs. Saville, England.

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.

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 day dreams 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 disc 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 forever. 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.

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’s 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.

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.

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.

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 are 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.

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 stage-coach. 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.

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.

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. — Your affectionate brother,


Letter 2

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.

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’s 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 day dreams are more extended  and magnificent; but they want (as the painters call it) keeping; 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.

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.

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: 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.

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.

I cannot describe to you my sensations on the near prospect of 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.

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. — Your affectionate brother,


Letter 3

My dear Sister, — 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.

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.

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.

But success shall 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?

My swelling heart involuntarily pours itself out thus. But I must finish.  Heaven bless my beloved sister!


Letter 4

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

In the morning, however, as soon as it was light, I went upon the deck, and  found all the sailors busy on one side of the vessel, apparently talking to some one 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 an 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.”

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?”

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.

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.

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.

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?

His countenance instantly assumed an aspect of the deepest gloom; and he replied, “To seek one who fled from me.”

“And did the man whom you pursued travel in the same fashion?”

“Yes.”

“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.”

This aroused the stranger’s attention; and he asked a multitude of questions concerning the route which the daemon, 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.”

“Certainly; it would indeed be very impertinent and inhuman in me to trouble you with any inquisitiveness of mine.”

“And yet you rescued me from a strange and perilous situation; you have  benevolently restored me to life.”

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.

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 some one should watch for him, and give him instant notice if any new object should appear in sight.

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 any one 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.

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.

I shall continue my journal concerning the stranger at intervals, should I have any fresh incidents to record.

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.

He is now much recovered from his illness, and is continually on 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 drank also of the  intoxicating draught? Hear me — let me reveal my tale, and you will dash the  cup from your lips!”

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.

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.

“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.”

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.

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.

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.

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.”

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.

“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.”

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!


Chapter 1

Iam 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.

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.

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 any exertion.

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.

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.

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  doating 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.

From Italy they visited Germany and France. I, their eldest child, was born  in 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 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.

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 Milain, 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.

The peasant woman, perceiving that my mother fixed eyes of wondering 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 schiaviognor frementi, who exerted himself to obtain the liberty of his country. He became the victim of 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.

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.

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.


Chapter 2

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 a 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.

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 campagne 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 schoolfellows 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.

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.

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.

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.

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, drawing the picture of 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 as it proceeded, it became the torrent which, in its course, has swept away all my hopes and joys.

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.”

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.

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 beside myself I have described myself as always having been embued with a fervent longing to penetrate the secrets of nature. In spice 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 boys apprehensions, as tyros engaged in the same pursuit.

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.

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!

Nor were these my only visions. The raising of ghosts or devils was a promise  liberally accorded by my favourite authors, the fulfillment 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.

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 ribands  of wood. I never beheld anything so utterly destroyed.

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.

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 envelope 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.

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.
 


Chapter 3

WhenI 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.

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 sick bed — 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 death-bed 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.”

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 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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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 embued 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 alchymists as the principal authors I had studied. The professor stared; “Have you,” he said,  “really spent your time in studying such nonsense?”

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.”

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, fellow-professor, would lecture upon chemistry the alternate days that  he omitted.

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 alchymists. 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.

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.

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:-

“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.”

Such were the professor’s words — rather let me say such the words of 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.

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.

“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.”

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.

Thus ended a day memorable to me: it decided my future destiny.


Chapter 4

From this memorable 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.

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 improvement, I thought of returning to my friends and my native town, when an incident happened that protracted my stay.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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  organisation; 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.

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.

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 eye-balls 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.

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.”

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.

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, Caesar would have spared his country; America would have been  discovered more gradually; and the empires of Mexico and Peru had not been destroyed.

But I forget that I am moralising in the most interesting part of my tale; and your looks remind me to proceed.

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.


Chapter 5

It was on a dreary night of November that I beheld the  accomplishment of my toils. With an anxiety that almost amounted to agony, 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.

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.

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, 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 down stairs. 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.

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.

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!

Morning, dismal and wet, at length dawned, and discovered to my sleepless and  aching eyes the church of Ingolstadt, 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.

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:-

“Like one who, on a lonely road,
Doth walk in fear and  dread,
And, having once turned round, walks on,
And turns no more his  head;
Because he knows a frightful fiend
Doth close behind him tread.” *

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!”

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 bookkeeping; 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 school-master 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.”

“It gives me the greatest delight to see you; but tell me how you left my  father, brothers, and Elizabeth.”

“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.”

“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.”

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.

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.

“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?”

“Do not ask me,” cried I, putting my hands before my eyes for I thought I saw  the dreaded spectre glide into the room; “he can tell. — Oh, save me! save me!” I imagined that the monster seized me; I struggled furiously, and fell down in a fit.

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.

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.

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 forever 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.

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.

“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.”

“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?”

I trembled. One subject! what could it be? Could he allude to an object on whom I dared not even think?

“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.”

“Is that all, my dear Henry? How could you suppose that my first thoughts  would not fly towards those dear, dear friends whom I love, and who are so deserving of my love.”

“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.”
 


Chapter 6

Clerval then put the following letter into hands. It was  from my own Elizabeth: —

My dearest Cousin, — 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 sick bed 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.

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; 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 return 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.

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.

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.

When my dearest aunt died, everyone 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.

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 judgment  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 forever. She died on the first approach of cold weather, at the beginning  of this last winter. Justine has 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 expressions continually remind me of my dear aunt.

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 for 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 wives, but Louisa Biron is his favourite, a pretty little girl  five years of age.

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 very 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.

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!

Elizabeth Lavenza.

“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.

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, add 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 to him that event which was so often present to my recollection, but which I feared the detail to another would only impress more  deeply.

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. 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.”

M. Krempe had now commenced an eulogy on himself, which happily turned the conversation from a subject that was so annoying to me.

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, as 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 Sanscrit 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 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!

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.

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 rambles of this nature that I had taken among the scenes of my native country.

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 did you 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.

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.

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.


Chapter 7

 On my return, I found the following letter from my father,  —

My dear Victor, — 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.

William is dead! — that sweet child, whose smiles delighted and warmed my heart, who was so gentle, yet so gay! Victor, he is murdered!

I will not attempt to console you; but will simply relate the circumstances  of the transaction.

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 inquired 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 him a long time, but that he did not  return.

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 murderer’s finger was on his neck.

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!”

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 Wilham!

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!

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. — Your affectionate and afflicted father,

Alphonse Frankenstein.

Clerval, who had watched my countenance as I read this letter, was surprised to observe the despair that succeeded to 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.

“My dear Frankenstein,” exclaimed Henry, when he perceived me weep with  bitterness, “are you always to be unhappy? My dear friend, what has happened?”

I motioned to 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.

“I can offer you no consolation, my friend,” said he; “your disaster is  irreparable. What do you intend to do?”

“To go instantly to Geneva: come with me, Henry, to order the horses.”

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 murderer, that could  destroy such 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.”

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.

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 everything 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 not advance, dreading a thousand nameless evils that made me tremble, although I was unable to define them.

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.

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?”

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!

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.

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  lightnings 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.

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 Saleve, 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 everything 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 that part of the lake which lies  between the promontory of Belrive and the village of Copet. Another storm  enlightened Jura with faint flashes; and another darkened and sometimes  disclosed the Mole, a peaked mountain to the east of the lake.

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 daemon, 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  that fair child. He 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. Saleve, a hill that  bounds Plainpalais on the south. He soon reached the summit, and  disappeared.

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 towards the creation; the appearance of the work of my own hands alive 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?

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.

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 Saleve? These reflections determined me, and I resolved to remain silent.

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.

Six years had elapsed, passed as 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. He expressed  a sorrowful delight to see 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!”

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 inquired more minutely concerning my father  and her I named my cousin.

“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 — “

“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!”

“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 capable of so frightful, so  appalling a crime?”

“Justine Moritz! Poor, poor girl, is she the accused? But it is wrongfully;  every one knows that; no one believes it, surely, Ernest?”

“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 to-day, and you will then hear all.”

He related that, the morning on which the murder of poor Wilham 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.

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.”

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.”

“We do also, unfortunately,” replied my father; “for indeed I had rather have  been for ever ignorant than have discovered so much depravity and ingratitude in one I valued so highly.”

“My dear father, you are mistaken; Justine is innocent.”

“If she is, God forbid that she should suffer as guilty. She is to be tried  to-day, and I hope, I sincerely hope, that she will be acquitted.”

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?

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.”

“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.”

“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 everyone else prejudiced in so deadly a manner rendered me hopeless and despairing.” She wept.

“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.” 
 


Chapter 8

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.

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.

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.

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.

“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.”

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 Chene, 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.

“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?

“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.”

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.

“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.”

A murmur of approbation followed Elizabeth’s simple and powerful appeal but  it was excited by her generous interference, and not in turned with renewed violence, 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 daemon, 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 forego their hold.

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.

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.”

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.

“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.”

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.”

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.

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.

“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.”

“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.

“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.”

“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.”

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 go 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.”

“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! No! no! I never could survive so horrible a  misfortune.”

Justine shook her head mournfully. “I do not fear to die,” she said; “that pang is past. 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!”

During this conversation I had retired to a corner of the prison-room, where I could conceal the horrid anguish that possessed me. 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 kind to visit me; you, I hope, do not believe that I am guilty?”

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.”

“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.”

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.

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 this be the last misfortune that you will ever suffer!  Live, and be happy, and make others so.”

And on the morrow Justine died. Elizabeth’s heartrending 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!

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 wall, and the sound of your lamentations shall again and again be heard! Frankenstein, your son, your kinsman, your early, much-loved friend — 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!

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!


Chapter 9

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.

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.

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.”

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.

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?

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.

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.

“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 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.”

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?”

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.

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.

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 was a wreck —  but nought had changed in those savage and enduring scenes.

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.

I passed the bridge of Pelissier, 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 aiguilles, and its tremendous dome overlooked the valley.

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  light-hearted 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.

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 blest the giver of oblivion.


Chapter 10

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, by the silent working of immutable laws, was ever and  anon rent and tom, 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 mountaintop, 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.

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.

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.

“We rest; a dream has power to poison sleep.
We rise; one wandering thought pollutes the day.
We feel, conceive, or reason; laugh or weep,
Embrace fond woe, or cast our cares away;
It is the same: for, be it joy or sorrow,
The path of its departure still is free.
Man’s yesterday  may ne’er be like his morrow;
Nought may endure but mutability!”

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.”

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.

“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!”

“I expected this reception,” said the daemon. “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.”

“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.”

My rage was without bounds; I sprang on him, impelled by all the feelings  which can arm one being against the existence of another.

He easily eluded me, and said —

“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.”

“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.”

“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 had, 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.”

“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.”

“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 yon snowy precipices, and  illuminate another world, you will have heard my story, and can decide. On you  it rests whether I quit forever 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.”

As he said this, he led the way across the ice: I followed. My heart was full, 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.