Frankenstein; or, The Modern Prometheus

Mary Shelley — original 1818 edition

Translated into Matt Bargar language

Opening pages

In three volumes. Volume I.

London: Printed for Lackington, Hughes, Harding, Mavor, & Jones, Finsbury Square. 1818.

Did I ask you, my maker, to shape me into a man out of clay? Did I ask you to bring me out of darkness?

— Paradise Lost, translated here from the original epigraph

To William Godwin, author of Political Justice, Caleb Williams, and other works: the author respectfully dedicates these volumes to you.

Preface

Dr. Darwin and some German writers on physiology have suggested that the event this story is built around might be possible. I don't mean that I actually believe it. But in using it as the basis for a work of imagination, I wanted to do more than put together a series of supernatural scares. This premise gives me something that a story about ghosts or magic wouldn't. It creates situations we haven't seen before. And even if the event itself is physically impossible, it gives me a way of looking at human feelings that is broader, and in some ways more powerful, than the situations we ordinarily encounter in life.

I have tried to keep the basic workings of human nature true, while giving myself the freedom to put them together in new ways. The Iliad does this. So do the Greek tragedies, Shakespeare's The Tempest and A Midsummer Night's Dream, and especially Milton's Paradise Lost. Even a modest novelist, writing for the pleasure of others or for their own, can reasonably use that same freedom in prose. Really, it is more of a principle than a freedom, considering how many extraordinary expressions of human feeling it has produced in the greatest poetry.

The idea behind the story came up in an ordinary conversation. I started writing it partly for amusement and partly to see what I could do with abilities I hadn't tried using before. Other reasons developed as I went. I do care about how the reader is affected by whatever moral implications the characters and their feelings carry. Mostly, though, I wanted to avoid the weakening effect of so many present-day novels, and to show the beauty of affection within a family and the value of goodness toward everyone. The main character's opinions grow out of his particular personality and circumstances. They shouldn't always be taken as my own beliefs. And these pages shouldn't be read as an argument against any particular philosophical doctrine.

There is something else that makes this story meaningful to me. I began it in the magnificent landscape where much of it takes place, with people whose company I will always long for. I spent the summer of 1816 near Geneva. The weather was cold and rainy, and in the evenings we gathered around a blazing wood fire. Sometimes we entertained ourselves with a collection of German ghost stories that happened to come our way. Those stories made us want to try writing something like them. Two friends and I agreed that we would each write a story based on a supernatural event. A story by one of those friends would, I know, be much more welcome to the public than anything I could hope to write.

Then the weather suddenly became beautiful. My two friends went off into the Alps, where the magnificence of the scenery took their minds entirely away from their ghost stories. The story that follows is the only one we completed.

Letter I

To Mrs. Saville, England.

St. Petersburg, December 11, 17—.

You will be glad to hear that the expedition you were so worried about has begun safely. I arrived here yesterday, and the first thing I wanted to do was tell you that I am well, and that I feel more confident about what I am setting out to do.

I am already a long way north of London. When I walk through the streets of Petersburg, I can feel the cold northern wind on my face, and it makes me feel stronger and more alive. Do you know what I mean? The wind has come from the place I am going, so it feels like I am already getting a little of what it will be like there. It makes everything I have imagined feel more vivid. I try to picture the pole as nothing but ice and emptiness, but I keep seeing a place of beauty and pleasure. Margaret, imagine the sun always visible, its great circle just brushing the horizon, spreading light that never ends. And if you will let me put some trust in the navigators who came before me, there may be a place there beyond the snow and frost, where we can sail across a calm sea to a land more beautiful and extraordinary than anywhere people have found so far. The things growing there, the landscape itself, could be unlike anything we know, just as the movements of the sun and stars must be different in those unexplored places. What couldn't we find in a country of permanent light? I might discover the force that draws a compass needle north. I might make observations that finally explain a thousand things about the heavens that only appear irregular because we haven't gone there to look. I could satisfy this enormous curiosity by seeing a part of the world no one has visited, and walking on land no human foot has touched. That is enough to carry me past the fear of danger or death. I can begin this difficult voyage with the same pleasure a child feels setting off in a little boat with his friends to explore the river near home. But even if all those possibilities turn out to be wrong, there is still the lasting benefit to humanity of finding a passage near the pole to countries that now take months to reach. Or of understanding magnetism, if it can be understood at all, through an expedition like this one.

Thinking through all of that has settled the anxiety I felt when I started writing. Now I feel that enthusiasm lifting me again. There is something very calming about having a definite purpose, something your mind can keep looking toward. This expedition has been my favorite dream since I was young. I used to read every account I could find of voyages trying to reach the North Pacific through the seas around the pole. You remember that Uncle Thomas's entire library was made up of books about voyages of discovery. I didn't get much of an education, but I loved reading. I studied those books day and night. The more familiar I became with them, the more I regretted what I had learned as a child: that our father, before he died, had instructed our uncle never to let me go to sea.

For a while those dreams faded. I discovered the poets, and their writing carried me into something that felt like heaven. I became a poet myself, and for a year I lived in a paradise I had made in my own imagination. I thought I might earn a place beside Homer and Shakespeare. You know how that went, and how hard I took the disappointment. But just then I inherited our cousin's fortune, and my thoughts returned to what I had wanted before.

It has been six years since I decided to undertake this expedition. I can still remember the exact moment I committed myself to it. I began by getting my body used to hardship. I went with the whalers on several voyages into the North Sea. I deliberately endured cold, hunger, thirst, and very little sleep. During the day I often worked harder than the ordinary sailors, and at night I studied mathematics, medical theory, and the branches of physical science that would be most useful to someone exploring at sea. Twice I signed on as an under-mate aboard a Greenland whaling ship and did very well. I admit I felt proud when my captain offered me the second-highest position aboard and pressed me to stay. He thought that much of the work I was doing.

And after all that, Margaret, haven't I earned the chance to accomplish something great? I could have lived comfortably, with every luxury. I chose glory over everything my money could have given me. I wish someone would tell me that was worth doing. My courage and my commitment are steady, but my hopes move around, and I often feel low. I am about to begin a long, difficult voyage that will demand everything I have. I will need to keep the others going, and sometimes keep myself going too, when their confidence gives way.

This is the best season for traveling in Russia. Their sledges move quickly over the snow, and the ride is pleasant. I like it much more than an English stagecoach. The cold is manageable if you wrap yourself in furs, which I have already started doing. Walking around a ship's deck is very different from sitting still for hours, with no movement to keep your blood from practically freezing in your veins. I would like to get farther than the road between Petersburg and Archangel before my life ends.

I plan to leave for Archangel in two or three weeks. There I will hire a ship, which should be easy enough if I pay for the owner's insurance, and take on as many sailors as I need from among the men used to whaling. I don't intend to sail until June. As for when I will return, how can I answer that? If I succeed, it could be many months or even years before we see each other. If the expedition fails, you will see me again soon, or you won't see me again at all.

Goodbye, my dear Margaret. May heaven give you every blessing and bring me safely back, so that I can keep showing you how grateful I am for your love and kindness.

Your loving brother,

R. Walton.

Letter II

To Mrs. Saville, England.

Archangel, March 28, 17—.

Time passes so slowly here, surrounded by all this snow and ice. But I have taken another step toward the expedition. I have hired a ship and am gathering the crew. The men I have taken on so far seem dependable, and they certainly have courage.

There is one thing I have wanted that I have never been able to find, and I feel its absence more painfully now. I don't have a friend, Margaret. When something goes well and I am excited about it, there will be no one to share that feeling with. When things go badly, there will be no one to help me through the disappointment. I can write my thoughts down, but paper is a poor substitute for another person who feels with you. I want the company of a man who understands me, whose eyes can answer mine. You may think that sounds romantic, but I feel the need for it deeply. There is no one near me who is gentle and courageous, educated and broad-minded, interested in the things I care about, who could tell me when my plans are sound and help me improve them when they need it. A friend like that could do so much for me. I get too carried away once I start doing something, and too impatient with whatever gets in the way. My education is an even greater problem. For the first fourteen years of my life I ran around the common and read nothing but Uncle Thomas's books about voyages. Then I discovered our great English poets. By the time I understood how valuable it would be to know other languages, the years when I could have benefited most from learning them had already passed. Now I am twenty-eight, and in some respects I know less than plenty of fifteen-year-old schoolboys. I have thought more than they have, and the things I imagine are larger and more ambitious, but they need what painters call keeping: the parts don't always fit together in the right proportion. I need a friend sensible enough to take my imagination seriously, and fond enough of me to help me give it direction.

There is little use complaining about it. I am unlikely to find that friend on the open ocean, or even here among the merchants and sailors of Archangel. Still, there are feelings in these rough men that are free of the uglier parts of human nature. My lieutenant, for instance, is extraordinarily brave and enterprising, and wants glory almost desperately. He is English, with all sorts of prejudices from his country and his profession, and he hasn't had the education that might soften them. But he still has some of the finest human qualities. I first knew him aboard a whaling ship. When I learned that he was here without work, it was easy to bring him into the expedition.

The ship's master is an exceptionally good-natured man. Everyone aboard knows him for his gentleness and the mild way he keeps discipline. He won't even hunt, which is the favorite amusement here and practically the only one, because he cannot bear to shed blood. And his generosity is extraordinary. Some years ago he fell in love with a young Russian woman who had a modest fortune. He had saved a considerable amount of prize money, and her father agreed to the marriage. Before the wedding he visited her and found her in tears. She fell at his feet and begged him to release her, explaining that she loved someone else, a poor man her father would never let her marry. He reassured her, asked the man's name, and immediately gave up his own plans to marry her. He had already bought a farm where he meant to spend the rest of his life. He gave the whole farm to the other man, along with the rest of his prize money to buy livestock, and then went to the woman's father himself to ask him to agree to their marriage. Her father refused. He believed his honor required him to keep his commitment to my friend. When my friend saw that he wouldn't change his mind, he left the country and stayed away until he heard that the woman had married the man she wanted. I can hear you saying what a noble man he is. And he is. But he has spent his whole life aboard ships, and his thinking scarcely reaches beyond the ropes and rigging.

Please don't take these complaints, or my ability to imagine a comfort I may never have, as any sign that I am wavering about the expedition. My decision is settled. The weather is the only thing keeping me from leaving now. The winter has been terribly severe, but the spring looks promising. People say it is an unusually early season, so perhaps I can sail sooner than I expected. I will take care with my decisions. You know me well enough to trust my judgment when other people's safety is in my hands.

I don't know how to describe what it feels like to be this close to leaving. It is a kind of trembling, part pleasure and part fear, and I can't quite convey it. I am going somewhere unexplored, into “the land of mist and snow.” But I don't intend to kill an albatross, so you can set aside that particular worry about my safety.

Will I see you again after crossing those immense seas and coming home around the southern tip of Africa or America? I hardly dare expect that much success, but I can't bear to dwell on the other possibility. Please write whenever you have the opportunity. There is a chance, though a small one, that your letters could reach me just when I most need the encouragement. I love you very much. If you never hear from me again, remember me with love.

Your loving brother,

Robert Walton.

Letter III

To Mrs. Saville, England.

July 7, 17—.

My dear sister,

I am writing quickly to tell you that I am safe and well along in the voyage. A merchant ship returning from Archangel will carry this letter to England. She is more fortunate than I am in that respect. It may be years before I see home again. But I feel good. My men are brave and seem as committed as ever. Even the sheets of ice continually floating past us, showing what dangers lie ahead, seem to leave their courage intact. We are already very far north. Still, it is midsummer, and although it is cooler than England, the winds coming from the south carry a warmth that revives us. I hadn't expected that. Those same winds are moving us quickly toward the shores I want so badly to reach.

So far, there has been little that would make much of a story in a letter. A couple of strong gales and a broken mast are the sort of things experienced sailors hardly think to record. I will be happy if the rest of our voyage gives us no greater trouble than that.

Goodbye, dear Margaret. For your sake as well as my own, I will choose my risks carefully. I will stay calm, keep going, and use my judgment.

Give my love to all my friends in England.

With all my affection,

R. W.

Letter IV

To Mrs. Saville, England.

August 5, 17—.

Something so strange has happened that I have to write it down, even though you will probably see me before these pages reach you.

Last Monday, July 31, ice nearly surrounded us. It pressed in on every side, leaving barely enough open water for the ship. We were in some danger, especially with the thick fog all around us. We held our position and waited for the weather to change.

At about two in the afternoon, the fog cleared. We could see enormous, uneven plains of ice stretching in every direction, apparently without an end. Some of the men groaned. I was growing anxious myself when we saw something so strange that, for a moment, we forgot our own situation. About half a mile away, a low carriage mounted on a sledge and pulled by dogs was traveling north. Someone shaped like a man, but apparently enormous, sat in it and guided the dogs. We followed him through our telescopes as he moved quickly across the ice, until the distant ridges hid him.

We could hardly believe it. As far as we knew, the nearest land was hundreds of miles away. The sight of this traveler suggested it might be closer than we thought. We watched his tracks carefully, but with the ship trapped in ice, we had no way to follow them.

About two hours later we heard the deep swell of the sea. Before night the ice broke apart and released the ship. We stayed where we were until morning, since we wanted daylight to navigate among the great loose pieces floating around us. I used the time to get a few hours of rest.

As soon as it was light, I went on deck. The sailors had gathered along one side and seemed to be talking to someone in the water. A sledge like the one we had seen had drifted toward us during the night on a large piece of ice. One dog was still alive. There was a man in the sledge, and the sailors were trying to persuade him to come aboard. He was European, rather than what we had taken the other traveler to be, a native of some undiscovered island. When I appeared, the master told him, “Here is our captain. He will make sure you are taken safely out of the sea.”

The stranger looked at me and spoke in English, with a foreign accent. “Before I come aboard,” he said, “would you tell me where you are going?”

Imagine hearing that from a man who was so close to dying. I would have thought the chance to get aboard our ship meant more to him than all the wealth in the world. But I answered him. We were on a voyage of discovery toward the North Pole.

That satisfied him, and he agreed to come aboard. My God, Margaret, if you had seen the condition of this man who was setting terms for his own rescue. His arms and legs were nearly frozen, and exhaustion and suffering had left his body terribly thin. I had never seen anyone in such a state. We tried to carry him into the cabin, but the moment we took him out of the fresh air he fainted. We brought him back on deck, rubbed him with brandy, and made him swallow a little. When he began to come around, we wrapped him in blankets and put him near the chimney of the kitchen stove. He recovered slowly. A little soup did him an astonishing amount of good.

It took two days before he could speak. Several times I worried that what he had endured had taken away his ability to understand us. Once he was a little stronger, I moved him into my own cabin and looked after him whenever my duties allowed. I have never met anyone who interested me more. His eyes usually look wild, sometimes almost mad. But if someone does something kind for him, even the smallest service, his whole face can light up with a warmth and gentleness I have never seen equaled. Most of the time, though, he is sunk in grief and despair. Sometimes he grinds his teeth, as if he can no longer bear the weight of what he is carrying.

As he began to recover, I had trouble keeping the crew away. They wanted to ask him a thousand questions. He clearly needed complete rest, in his mind as much as in his body, and I wouldn't let their curiosity disturb him. Once, though, the lieutenant asked why he had come so far across the ice in such an unusual vehicle.

His face immediately darkened with the deepest grief. “I am looking for someone who fled from me,” he said.

“Was the man you were following traveling the same way?”

“Yes.”

“Then I think we have seen him. The day before we found you, we saw dogs pulling a man on a sledge across the ice.”

That brought the stranger fully to attention. He asked question after question about the direction the other traveler had taken. He called him a demon. A little later, when we were alone, he said, “I must have made you as curious as these good men. But you have been considerate enough to leave your questions unasked.”

“Of course. It would be intrusive and cruel to trouble you just to satisfy my curiosity.”

“And yet you saved me from a very strange and dangerous situation. Your kindness has brought me back to life.”

Soon afterward he asked whether I thought the breaking ice had destroyed the other sledge. I told him I couldn't say with any certainty. The ice hadn't broken until nearly midnight, and the traveler might have reached safety by then. I had no way to know.

After that, he wanted badly to go on deck and watch for the sledge. I persuaded him to stay in the cabin. He is still far too weak for that raw air. I promised to have someone watch for him and tell him immediately if anything new appeared.

That brings this account up to today. His health is gradually improving, but he says little and seems uneasy whenever anyone other than me enters the cabin. Still, he is so gentle and considerate that all the sailors care about him, even though they have barely spoken with him. I am beginning to love him like a brother. His deep, constant grief makes me feel for him terribly. He must have been an extraordinary man before all this happened. Even now, with so much of him broken, he is so appealing and kind.

I told you in an earlier letter that I would never find a friend on the open ocean. Yet here is a man I would have been happy to call the brother of my heart, if I could have known him before suffering broke his spirit.

I will add to this account whenever there is something new to tell you.

August 13, 17—.

I care for my guest more every day. I admire him enormously, and I feel just as deeply for what he is going through. How could I see someone like him brought so low by misery and feel anything less? He is gentle and wise, and his mind is so well developed. When he speaks, the words seem carefully chosen, yet they come quickly and with an eloquence I have never heard before.

He is much stronger now and spends most of his time on deck, apparently watching for the sledge that was ahead of his. But even with all his unhappiness, he takes a real interest in other people's work. He has asked me a great deal about the expedition, and I have told him my history openly. He seemed pleased that I trusted him. He suggested several changes to my plan that I expect will be very useful. He gives advice without showing off what he knows. Everything seems to come from a natural concern for the people around him. Sometimes the gloom overwhelms him, and then he sits alone and tries to work through the part of his mood that makes him withdrawn or resentful. Those spells pass like a cloud moving away from the sun, although the underlying sadness stays. I have tried to earn his trust, and I think I have. One day I told him how much I had always wanted a friend who could understand me and help guide me. I explained that I welcome advice. “I educated myself,” I said, “and perhaps I don't have enough confidence in what I can do. I want a companion with more wisdom and experience, someone who can help me feel sure of my course and support me in it. I have always thought a friendship like that was possible.”

“I agree,” he said. “Friendship is something worth wanting, and it is possible to find it. I once had a friend who was the finest human being I have known, so I have some right to speak about it. You have hope, and your life is still ahead of you. You have reason to keep that hope. But I have lost everything. I cannot begin again.”

As he spoke, his face settled into a quiet grief that went straight through me. Then he said nothing more and soon returned to his cabin.

Even with his spirit so worn down, I have never known anyone who feels the beauty of nature more deeply. The stars, the sea, everything this extraordinary place shows us can still lift him out of himself. It is almost as if a man like him has two lives. In one he can be overwhelmed by suffering and disappointment. But when he turns inward, there is something like a protected circle of light around him, a place where grief and human foolishness cannot reach.

Will you laugh at how carried away I am about this remarkable wanderer? If you do, you will have given up that openness that was always so lovely in you. But smile at my enthusiasm if you like. Every day gives me another reason to feel it.

August 19, 17—.

Yesterday the stranger said, “Captain Walton, you can see that I have suffered extraordinary misfortunes. At one time I intended to let the knowledge of them die with me, but you have persuaded me to change my mind. You want knowledge and wisdom, as I once did. I hope with all my heart that getting what you want will serve you better than getting what I wanted served me. For me it became a serpent that turned and stung me. I don't know whether my story will help you. But if you want to hear it, listen. I believe the strange events in it may show you something about nature that will expand what you are able to understand. You will hear about powers and events you have been used to thinking impossible. But I believe the events themselves, taken together, will give you the evidence that what I am telling you is true.”

You can imagine how much I wanted to hear him. At the same time, I could hardly bear the idea of making him live through his suffering again by telling it. I was intensely curious, but I also wanted to understand whether there was anything I could do to help him. I told him both of those things.

“Thank you for your sympathy,” he said, “but it can do little for me now. My fate has nearly run its course. There is only one thing left that I am waiting for, and then I will be at peace.” He saw that I wanted to interrupt him. “I understand what you feel, my friend, if you will let me call you that. But you are mistaken if you believe you can change what is coming. Listen to my history. You will understand how completely it has already been decided.”

He said he would begin the next day, when I had time to listen. I thanked him warmly. I have decided that every evening I am free, I will write down what he told me that day, keeping as close as I can to his own words. When I am busy, I will at least take notes. I know you will find this manuscript deeply interesting. And for me, knowing him and hearing it directly from him, imagine what it will mean to read it again someday.

Volume I

Chapter I

I was born in Geneva, into one of the republic's most prominent families. For many years my ancestors had served as councilors and chief magistrates. My father held several public offices with honor, and people respected him for his integrity and the tireless attention he gave to public affairs. He spent his younger years occupied with the business of his country. It was only later in life that he thought about marrying and having sons who might carry his name and his principles into another generation.

The way he came to marry tells you something about him. One of his closest friends was a merchant named Beaufort. His business had been prosperous, but a series of reversals left him poor. He was proud and unbending, and he couldn't bear to live in poverty and obscurity in the same country where people had known him for his position and wealth. He paid his debts honorably, then took his daughter to Lucerne, where they lived unknown and in distress. My father cared deeply for him. He was grieved by what had happened and by the loss of his friend's company. He decided to find him and offer the help and credit that might let him begin again.

Beaufort had concealed himself so well that it took my father ten months to find him. When he finally learned where he was, he hurried to the house, in a poor street near the Reuss. But there was only misery waiting for him. Beaufort had saved a small amount from the collapse of his affairs, enough to support them for a few months. He had hoped to find respectable work with a merchant. While he waited, he did little. The time to think only gave his grief more room to grow, until after three months he was sick in bed, unable to make any effort at all.

His daughter looked after him tenderly, but she could see their little supply of money running out, with no prospect of more. Caroline Beaufort had an unusual strength of mind, though. The harder things became, the more courage she found. She took in plain sewing, plaited straw, and found other little ways to earn barely enough to keep them alive.

They lived that way for several months. As her father grew worse, caring for him took more of her time, and she could earn less. In the tenth month he died in her arms, leaving her an orphan with nothing. That finally overwhelmed her. My father entered the room while she was kneeling beside Beaufort's coffin, crying bitterly. To her he must have seemed like a protecting spirit. She placed herself in his care. After his friend's burial, he brought her to Geneva and arranged for a relative to look after her. Two years later, Caroline became his wife.

Marriage and fatherhood gave my father so much to do that he gave up many of his public responsibilities and devoted himself to educating his children. I was the eldest, the one expected to carry on his work and usefulness. I could hardly have had more loving parents. My health and development were constantly on their minds, especially during the years when I was their only child. Before I go on, though, I should tell you about something that happened when I was four.

My father had a sister he loved dearly. She had married an Italian gentleman when she was young. Soon after the marriage, she and her husband had visited her native country, but in the years afterward my father had heard little from her. Around the time I am describing, she died. A few months later her husband wrote to say that he intended to marry an Italian woman. He asked my father to take care of Elizabeth, his only child by my father's sister. “I would like you to regard her as your own daughter,” he wrote, “and bring her up that way. Her mother's fortune is secured to her, and I will send you the documents to keep. Think about whether you would prefer to raise your niece yourself or have her brought up by a stepmother.”

My father decided at once and went to Italy to bring Elizabeth to her new home. My mother often said that she was the most beautiful child she had ever seen, already showing a gentle, affectionate nature. That, and my mother's wish to draw our family as close together as possible, led her to think of Elizabeth as my future wife. She never had reason to regret that hope.

From then on, Elizabeth Lavenza was my playmate, and as we grew older, my friend. She was easy to teach and good-tempered, but also lively and playful, like a summer insect. Her feelings ran deep beneath all that energy, and she was extraordinarily affectionate. She enjoyed freedom as much as anyone, yet she could adapt gracefully to restrictions and other people's whims. Her imagination was abundant, and she could also apply herself seriously to work. The way she looked seemed to express the way her mind worked. Her hazel eyes were quick and lively as a bird's, but had a beautiful softness. She was light and graceful, and although she could endure a great deal of fatigue, she looked wonderfully delicate. I admired her intelligence and imagination, and loved looking after her as I might a favorite animal. I had never seen so much grace in body and mind with so little self-importance.

Everyone adored Elizabeth. Whenever the servants wanted something, they asked her to speak for them. We never quarreled. Our characters were very different, but the differences themselves seemed to fit together. I was calmer and more philosophical, yet less willing to give way. I could keep working longer, although my concentration was less intense while I worked. I wanted to investigate the facts of the physical world. She followed the imaginary creations of the poets. To me the world was a secret I wanted to uncover. To her it was an open space to fill with creations of her own.

My brothers were much younger than I was, but one of my school friends gave me the companionship they were still too young to offer. Henry Clerval was the son of a Geneva merchant who was a close friend of my father's. Henry had remarkable talent and imagination. When he was nine he wrote a fairy tale that amazed and delighted all his friends. He loved stories of chivalry and romance. Even when we were very young, we performed plays he made from those books, with Orlando, Robin Hood, Amadis, and St. George as the main characters.

I can hardly imagine a happier childhood. My parents were indulgent, and my companions were kind. Our lessons were never forced on us. Somehow there was always something we wanted to accomplish that made us eager to learn. That was what moved us, rather than competition with each other. Elizabeth practiced drawing because she wanted to please her aunt with a picture of a favorite scene, rather than because she wanted to get ahead of another child. We learned Latin and English so we could read what was written in those languages. Punishment never made study unpleasant for us. We loved applying ourselves, and things other children would have called work were our amusements. Perhaps we read fewer books or learned languages more slowly than children taught in the usual way, but what we learned stayed more deeply in our minds.

Henry was part of this family circle. He was always with us. He went to school with me and usually spent his afternoons at our house. He was an only child, with no companions at home, so his father was glad he had friends with us. We were never entirely happy when Clerval was away.

I like to stay with these memories of childhood, before suffering changed me, before my bright hopes of being useful to the world narrowed into gloomy thoughts about myself. But I also need to tell you about the events that gradually led to everything that followed. When I try to understand where the passion that governed my fate began, I find small, almost forgotten beginnings. It was like a mountain stream that grew as it flowed, until it became the torrent that swept away every hope and pleasure I had.

Natural philosophy, the study of the physical world, has governed my fate. So I want to explain how I came to care about it. When I was thirteen, we took a pleasure trip to the baths near Thonon. Bad weather kept us inside an inn for a day. There I found a volume by Cornelius Agrippa. I opened it without much interest, but the theory he was trying to prove and the extraordinary things he described soon excited me. It felt as if a new light had come into my mind. I ran to my father to tell him what I had found. Looking back, it strikes me how many chances teachers have to guide a child's curiosity toward useful knowledge, and how often they let those chances pass. My father glanced at the title page. “Cornelius Agrippa,” he said. “Victor, don't spend your time on this. It is rubbish.”

If he had explained why Agrippa's principles had been disproved, and how modern science offered something far more powerful because its results were real and practical, I would certainly have put Agrippa aside. With my imagination already excited, I probably would have taken up the more reasonable chemistry that modern discoveries had made possible. Perhaps the train of thought that eventually ruined me would never have begun moving in that direction. But a careless glance at the title didn't convince me that my father knew what was in the book. I kept reading eagerly.

When we got home I obtained everything Agrippa had written, then the works of Paracelsus and Albertus Magnus. I studied their wild ideas with delight. They seemed like treasures almost no one else knew about. I often wanted to tell my father what I was learning, but his vague dismissal of Agrippa held me back. I told Elizabeth instead, after making her promise to keep it secret. She wasn't interested in the subject, so I was left to follow it alone.

It may seem strange that someone could become a follower of Albertus Magnus in the eighteenth century. But my family had little scientific knowledge, and I hadn't attended the science lectures at the Geneva schools. Reality had little opportunity to disturb my dreams. I worked diligently at finding the philosopher's stone and the elixir of life. The elixir interested me most. Wealth mattered less than the glory of freeing the human body from disease and making people safe from every death except a violent one.

I had other ambitions too. My favorite authors freely promised the ability to summon ghosts and devils, and I worked eagerly to do it. When my incantations produced nothing, I blamed my own inexperience or an error in the way I performed them. I kept trusting the knowledge and honesty of the writers teaching me.

I also examined the natural things happening around me. Distillation and the extraordinary effects of steam amazed me, though my favorite authors knew nothing about them. Most astonishing of all were experiments with an air pump that I saw at the house of a gentleman we often visited.

The older philosophers' ignorance of these and other things weakened my confidence in them. But I couldn't put them aside entirely until I had some other way of understanding the world to take their place.

When I was about fifteen, we were staying at our house near Belrive during an extraordinarily violent thunderstorm. It came from behind the Jura mountains, with terrifying thunder breaking out from several parts of the sky at once. I watched it with curiosity and delight. As I stood in the doorway, I suddenly saw a stream of fire coming from an old, beautiful oak about twenty yards from the house. When the dazzling light was gone, the oak was gone too. Only a ruined stump remained. The next morning we found that the tree had been destroyed in a peculiar way. It hadn't simply split. It had been reduced to thin ribbons of wood. I had never seen anything so completely destroyed.

I was astonished and eagerly asked my father what thunder and lightning were and where they came from. “Electricity,” he said, and described its effects. He built a small electrical machine and showed me several experiments. He also made a kite with wire and string that drew down what was then described as electrical fluid from the clouds.

That finally displaced Agrippa, Albertus Magnus, and Paracelsus from the position they had held in my imagination. Yet, unfortunately, I still felt little desire to study a modern scientific system. Something else helped put me off it.

My father wanted me to attend a course of lectures on natural philosophy, and I agreed gladly. But something kept me from going until the course was almost over. The lecture I finally attended made no sense to me. The professor talked fluently about potassium and boron, sulfates and oxides, words that meant nothing to me. I turned against the whole subject. I still enjoyed reading Pliny and Buffon, whom I thought almost equally interesting and useful.

At that age I spent most of my time on mathematics and related subjects. I was also busy with languages. Latin was already familiar, and I had begun reading easier Greek authors without a dictionary. I understood English and German perfectly. Those were my accomplishments at seventeen. Learning and keeping up with all that reading filled my days.

I also became my brothers' teacher. Ernest, six years younger than me, was my main pupil. He had been in poor health since infancy, and Elizabeth and I had constantly cared for him. He was gentle, but couldn't manage much demanding study. William, the youngest, was still a baby, the most beautiful little boy imaginable. His lively blue eyes, dimpled cheeks, and affectionate ways made everyone love him tenderly.

That was our family. It seemed as if care and pain could never enter it. My father guided our studies, and my mother shared our pleasures. None of us tried to place ourselves above the others. We never heard anyone giving orders. We cared about each other enough to respond to even the smallest wish.

Chapter II

When I was seventeen, my parents decided I should attend the university at Ingolstadt. Until then I had gone to school in Geneva. My father thought that to complete my education, I needed to know ways of living beyond those of my own country. We set a date for me to leave soon. But before it came, I experienced the first great sorrow of my life, almost a warning of the suffering ahead.

Elizabeth caught scarlet fever. Her case was mild, and she recovered quickly. We had all tried to persuade my mother to stay away from her sickroom. At first she agreed. But once she heard that Elizabeth was improving, she couldn't bear to stay away any longer. She entered the room while there was still a serious danger of infection. The decision cost her life. Three days later she became ill. Her fever was severe, and the faces of the people caring for her showed what they feared. Even as she was dying, she kept her courage and kindness. She placed Elizabeth's hand in mine. “My children,” she said, “the thought of your marriage has been my greatest hope for the future. Now it will comfort your father. Elizabeth, my love, you must take my place with your younger cousins. I am so sorry to leave you. I have been happy and loved, and that makes it hard to leave you all. But I should turn my thoughts toward accepting death peacefully, and toward the hope of seeing you in another world.”

She died calmly, her face still expressing affection. I hardly need to describe what people feel when death tears away someone they love most: the emptiness inside, the despair visible on their faces. For so long your mind refuses to understand that someone you saw every day, whose existence felt like part of your own, can be gone forever. That the light in those familiar eyes has gone out, that a voice you loved can fall silent and never be heard again. That is what fills the first days. Then time makes the reality undeniable, and the real bitterness of grief begins. But who has escaped having someone dear taken away? Why describe a sorrow everyone has felt or will feel? Eventually a time comes when you have some choice in whether to remain inside the grief. A smile can return, and even if smiling feels almost sacrilegious, you let it stay. My mother was dead, but there were still things for us to do. We had to go on with everyone else, and learn to count ourselves fortunate while even one person we loved remained alive.

The journey to Ingolstadt, postponed during all of this, was arranged again. I asked my father for a few more weeks. They were sad weeks. My mother's death and my approaching departure weighed on us all. Elizabeth worked to bring some happiness back into the house. Her aunt's death had given her a new firmness and strength. She meant to fulfill every responsibility carefully, and she felt that the greatest of them, keeping her uncle and cousins happy, now belonged to her. She comforted me, kept my father company, and taught my brothers. I had never found her more enchanting than during that time, when she was always thinking about what she could do for others, with so little thought for herself.

At last the day came. I had said goodbye to all my friends except Clerval, who spent the final evening with us. He was deeply disappointed that he couldn't come with me. His father wanted him to join the business and would not agree to let him go. He held to his favorite belief that learning was unnecessary for ordinary commercial life. Henry had a cultivated mind. He wanted to work and was happy to become his father's partner, but he also thought a man could be a good merchant and still develop his understanding.

We stayed up late listening to him and making little arrangements for the future. I left early the next morning. Elizabeth cried, partly because I was leaving, and partly because she remembered that this same journey should have happened three months earlier, when my mother would still have been there to give me her blessing.

I got into the carriage in a very low state of mind. All my life I had been surrounded by people I loved, each of us trying to give pleasure to the others. Now I was alone. At the university I would have to find my own friends and look after myself. My life had been so sheltered and centered on home that the thought of unfamiliar faces repelled me. My brothers, Elizabeth, and Clerval were the “old familiar faces.” I felt entirely unfit for the company of strangers. That was how I thought at the beginning of the journey. As I went on, my spirits and hopes rose. I wanted knowledge intensely. At home I had often resented being confined to one place during my youth. I had wanted to enter the world and find my place among other people. Now that I was getting what I wanted, it would be foolish to regret it.

The journey was long and tiring, so there was plenty of time for those thoughts and many others. At last I saw the town's tall white steeple. I got out of the carriage and was shown to a room where I would spend the evening alone, doing whatever I pleased.

The next morning I delivered my letters of introduction and visited several leading professors. One was M. Krempe, the professor of natural philosophy. He received me politely and asked what progress I had made in the different sciences. With some apprehension, I named the only authors I had read on those subjects. He stared at me. “Have you really spent your time studying that nonsense?”

I said I had. “Every minute you gave those books is gone,” he said heatedly. “You have filled your memory with disproved theories and useless names. Good God, where have you been living that nobody explained this to you? These ideas you have swallowed so eagerly are a thousand years old, and as stale as their age suggests. In an age of science and enlightenment, I hardly expected to meet a follower of Albertus Magnus and Paracelsus. You will have to begin your studies all over again.”

He stepped away and wrote down several books on natural philosophy for me to obtain. Before sending me off, he said that the following week he would begin a course on the general relations of the physical sciences. Another professor, M. Waldman, would teach chemistry on the alternating days.

I went back to my room without feeling especially disappointed. I had already decided that the authors he condemned were of little use. But I felt little desire to read the books he recommended either. Krempe was short and squat, with a rough voice and an unpleasant face. The man himself did little to make his subject attractive. Beyond that, I looked down on what modern science was trying to accomplish. The old masters had wanted immortality and power. Their aims may have been impossible, but at least they were grand. Now it seemed that the whole ambition of research was to destroy the visions that had drawn me to science in the first place. I was being asked to exchange dreams of limitless grandeur for realities I thought scarcely worth having.

I spent my first two or three days almost entirely alone, thinking that way. When the next week began, I remembered what Krempe had said about the lectures. I couldn't bring myself to listen to that conceited little man delivering pronouncements from a lectern. But there was also Waldman, whom I hadn't met because he had been away.

Partly out of curiosity and partly because I had little else to do, I went to the lecture room. Waldman arrived soon afterward. He was very different from his colleague. He looked about fifty and had an exceptionally kind expression. There was some gray at his temples, though the hair at the back of his head was nearly black. He was short but stood remarkably straight, and his voice was the most pleasant I had ever heard. He began with the history of chemistry and the advances various scholars had made, speaking the names of the greatest discoverers with real enthusiasm. Then he described the current state of the science and explained many of its basic terms. After a few introductory experiments, he ended with a tribute to modern chemistry that I have never forgotten.

“The old teachers promised things that were impossible and accomplished nothing,” he said. “Modern scientists promise very little. They know that metals cannot be transformed into other metals by the old alchemists' methods, and that the elixir of life is a fantasy. But these men, who seem to spend their days with their hands in dirt and their eyes over microscopes and crucibles, have actually done extraordinary things. They reach into nature's hidden places and show how she works. They rise into the heavens. They have discovered how the blood circulates and what makes up the air we breathe. They have gained powers that are new and almost without limit. They can command the thunder, imitate an earthquake, and even confront the invisible world with images of its own.”

I left delighted with both the professor and his lecture, and visited him that evening. At home he was even gentler and easier to like. The dignity he had shown while lecturing gave way to warmth and friendliness. He listened carefully as I described my studies. He smiled at the names of Agrippa and Paracelsus, but without Krempe's contempt. “Modern scientists owe much of the foundation of their knowledge to the tireless efforts of those men,” he said. “They did a great deal to bring the facts to light. They left us the easier work of giving those facts new names and arranging them into related groups. The work of gifted people, even when it follows a mistaken direction, usually produces some lasting benefit for humanity.” He spoke simply, without self-importance or affectation. I told him that his lecture had changed my opinion of modern chemists, and asked what books he thought I should get.

“I am glad to have gained a student,” he said. “If you work as hard as your ability deserves, I have every confidence in you. Chemistry is the part of physical science where some of the greatest advances have been made, and where we can expect more. That is why I have made it my particular study. But I have kept up with the other sciences too. A man who knows only chemistry will make a poor chemist. If you want to become a scientist in the fullest sense, rather than someone who merely performs little experiments, I would advise you to study every branch of natural philosophy, including mathematics.”

He took me into his laboratory and explained the different instruments. He told me which ones to obtain, and promised I could use his own once I knew enough to handle them without disrupting their mechanisms. He also gave me the list of books I had asked for. Then I left.

That was how the day ended. It is a day I will always remember. It decided the course of my life.

Chapter III

From that day on, natural philosophy, and especially chemistry in its broadest sense, occupied almost all my time. I eagerly read the brilliant, carefully reasoned works modern researchers had written. I attended lectures and got to know the university's scientists. Even Krempe, behind the disagreeable face and manner, had a great deal of good sense and real knowledge. Those qualities were valuable whatever I thought of the man. Waldman became a true friend. His gentleness never came with rigid insistence that his view was the only possible one. He taught openly and good-naturedly, without making a performance of his learning. At first, perhaps, I was drawn to his subject more because I liked him than because I loved the science itself. But that changed as I learned. The further I went, the more I pursued it for its own sake. What had begun as a matter of discipline became such an eager occupation that I would often still be in the laboratory when morning light made the stars disappear.

Working that closely, I advanced quickly. My enthusiasm astonished the other students, and my progress astonished the professors. Krempe would sometimes ask with a sly smile how Cornelius Agrippa was doing. Waldman took a much warmer pleasure in what I accomplished. Two years went by without a visit to Geneva. I was completely absorbed in discoveries I hoped to make. It is difficult to explain the attraction of science to someone who hasn't felt it. In other subjects you can reach the point others have reached and have nothing more to learn. In science there is always something further to discover and wonder at. Even an ordinary mind, applied steadily to one subject, can become highly accomplished. I had given myself entirely to a single pursuit, and my progress was so rapid that by the end of those two years I had found ways to improve several chemical instruments. Those discoveries earned me considerable respect and admiration at the university. Eventually I knew as much of the theory and practice of natural philosophy as the professors at Ingolstadt could teach me. Staying there seemed unlikely to take me further. I was thinking of going home to my friends when something happened that kept me there.

The structure of the human body had especially interested me, along with the structure of every living animal. Where did life itself come from? It was a bold question, one people had always regarded as a mystery. But how many things are we close to understanding, if we let ourselves inquire instead of holding back through fear or carelessness? I thought it over and decided to concentrate on the sciences concerned with physiology. Without the almost supernatural enthusiasm I felt, the work would have been exhausting and nearly unbearable. To understand life, I first had to examine death. I learned anatomy, but that was only part of it. I also had to observe how the body naturally decays. My father had taken care to keep supernatural fears out of my education. I can't remember ever trembling at a superstitious story or fearing a ghost. Darkness did little to my imagination. To me a graveyard was simply a place where lifeless bodies were kept, bodies that had once been beautiful and strong and were now food for worms. But now I studied the causes and stages of that decay, spending days and nights in burial vaults and places where human remains were stored. I concentrated on things most people could hardly bear to look at. I saw the human form waste away, the healthy cheek give way to the corruption of death, and worms take possession of the wonders of the eye and brain. I examined every small part of the process, every cause involved in the change from life to death and from death to life. Then, out of all that darkness, I suddenly saw something. It was so extraordinary and yet so simple that I felt dizzy at what it made possible. I wondered how, among all the brilliant men who had studied the same science, I could be the one to discover such a secret.

Remember, I am telling you something real, rather than the vision of a madman. What I am saying is as certain as the sun shining in the sky. The result might sound miraculous, but every step leading to it was distinct and reasonable. After days and nights of almost unbelievable work and exhaustion, I discovered what causes generation and life. More than that, I learned how to give life to matter that had none.

My first astonishment soon became delight. After so much difficult work, to arrive at what I had wanted most was immensely satisfying. The discovery overwhelmed me so completely that the steps leading to it seemed to disappear. I could see only the result. Something the wisest people had studied and wanted since the beginning of the world was now within my reach. I don't mean that the finished achievement appeared all at once, as if by magic. What I had learned showed me how to direct my efforts toward it. The work itself still had to be done. I was like the Arabian in the story who had been buried with the dead and found a way back to life by following one faint light that seemed almost useless.

I can see the eagerness in your face, my friend, and the wonder and hope in your eyes. You expect me to tell you the secret. I cannot. Listen to the rest of my story and you will understand why. I will not guide you toward certain misery and destruction, as eager and unguarded as I once was. If my advice means little, perhaps my example will show you how dangerous acquiring knowledge can be, and how much happier a man may be who takes his own town for the whole world than one who tries to become greater than human nature allows.

Once I had this extraordinary power, I spent a long time deciding how to use it. I could give life, but constructing a body to receive it, with all the intricacies of fibers, muscles, and veins, was still an almost inconceivable amount of difficult work. At first I wondered whether to make a being like myself or something more simply organized. But my early success had carried my imagination too far for me to doubt that I could animate something as complex and extraordinary as a human being. The materials available to me seemed barely adequate, but I believed I would eventually succeed. I prepared myself for repeated setbacks. My experiments might continually be frustrated, and the final result might still be imperfect. Yet science and mechanics were improving every day. Even if my own attempt fell short, it might establish the basis for success later. The size and complexity of the plan seemed to me insufficient reasons to call it impractical. That was the state of mind in which I began making a human being. Working with such tiny parts slowed me down enormously. So I changed my original plan and decided to make the being gigantic, about eight feet tall and large in proportion. I spent several months gathering and arranging my materials successfully. Then I began.

The feelings that carried me forward in that first excitement of success were like a hurricane. Life and death seemed to be boundaries that existed only in our minds. I would be the first to cross them, pouring light into a dark world. A new species would bless me as its creator and source. Many happy, good beings would owe their existence to me. No father could deserve his child's gratitude as completely as I would deserve theirs. I began to think that if I could animate lifeless matter, I might eventually restore life to a body that death had apparently left to decay, although I couldn't yet do that.

Those thoughts kept me going as I worked without rest. Study had made me pale, and staying shut inside had made me thin. Sometimes I came within reach of certainty and then failed, but I held to the hope that the next day or even the next hour would bring the result. I had devoted myself to a secret that belonged to me alone. The moon looked down on my midnight work while I pursued nature into her hidden places with breathless, unrelenting eagerness. How can I convey the horror of that secret labor? I worked among the damp remains of graves and tortured living animals to give life to dead matter. My hands tremble and my vision blurs remembering it now. Then, though, an irresistible, almost frantic impulse drove me on. It seemed I had no feeling or soul left for anything else. It was a temporary trance. When that unnatural stimulation ended and I returned to my old ways, my feelings came back all the more sharply. I collected bones from burial houses and put my hands into the body's most solemn secrets. My workshop was a solitary room, almost a cell, at the top of the house, separated from the other rooms by a passage and staircase. There I carried out my filthy work of creation, staring at its details until my eyes seemed to strain out of their sockets. Dissecting rooms and slaughterhouses supplied many of my materials. Often my own human feelings recoiled from what I was doing. Still, my eagerness kept increasing, and I brought the work closer to completion.

The summer went by while I gave myself entirely to that one purpose. It was a beautiful season. The fields had never produced a richer harvest, nor the vines a more abundant vintage. I scarcely saw any of it. The same absorption that shut out the landscape also pushed aside the friends so many miles away, whom I hadn't seen for so long. I knew my silence worried them. I remembered my father's words well: “When you feel good about yourself, I know you will think of us with affection, and we will hear from you regularly. Forgive me if I take a break in your letters as a sign that your other responsibilities are being set aside too.”

So I understood how my father would feel. But I couldn't pull my thoughts away from work that, repellent as it was, had taken an irresistible hold on my imagination. I seemed to want to put all my affections on hold until I had finished the one great task that had swallowed every other part of my life.

At the time I thought it would be unfair for my father to read that neglect as a moral fault. Now I think he would have been justified in holding me partly responsible. A person living as they should ought to preserve a calm, peaceful mind, with passions and passing desires kept from disturbing it. I see no reason to exempt the pursuit of knowledge. If a course of study weakens your affection for people and destroys your pleasure in the simple things that carry nothing harmful in them, then that study has become wrong for you. It is no longer suited to the human mind. If people had always followed that principle, if they had kept every ambition from disturbing the peace of their homes and affections, Greece would have remained free. Caesar would have spared his own country. Europeans would have discovered America more gradually, and the empires of Mexico and Peru would have survived.

But here I am giving you a moral argument at the most interesting point in the story. Your expression tells me to go on.

My father never reproached me in his letters. His only response to my silence was to ask more closely what I was doing. Winter, spring, and summer passed while I worked. I scarcely noticed the blossoms or the unfolding leaves, things that had once given me such pleasure. The leaves had withered before the work approached its end. By then each day showed me more clearly how well I had succeeded. But anxiety restrained my enthusiasm. I looked more like someone condemned to labor in a mine or some other unhealthy trade than an artist enjoying his favorite work. Every night brought a lingering fever. My nerves became painfully unsettled, something I regretted all the more because I had always been so healthy and had prided myself on my steady nerves. I believed exercise and amusement would put me right. I promised myself both as soon as my creation was finished.

Chapter IV

It was a bleak November night when I finally saw the result of my work. I gathered the instruments around me, almost in agony with anxiety, ready to put a spark of life into the lifeless thing at my feet. It was already one in the morning. Rain pattered against the windows, and my candle was almost gone. In that fading light I saw the creature's dull yellow eye open. It breathed heavily, and its arms and legs moved in a convulsion.

How can I describe what I felt at that catastrophe, or the being I had taken such extraordinary care to make? His limbs were in proportion. I had chosen features I thought would be beautiful. Beautiful. My God. The yellow skin barely covered the muscles and arteries beneath it. His hair was flowing, glossy black, his teeth pearly white. But those qualities only made everything else more horrible by contrast: the watery eyes, almost the same color as their dull whitish sockets, the shriveled skin, the straight black lips.

The events of life can change quickly, but our feelings change faster still. For nearly two years I had worked hard at one thing: giving life to a body. I had given up rest and health for it, wanting it with far more intensity than was reasonable. Now it was done, and everything beautiful about the dream disappeared. Horror and disgust left me breathless. I couldn't bear to look at what I had made. I rushed out and paced my bedroom for a long time, too disturbed to sleep. Finally exhaustion took over. I threw myself onto the bed fully dressed, hoping for a few moments in which I could forget. I slept, but my dreams were wild. I saw Elizabeth walking through Ingolstadt, healthy and beautiful. I was surprised and delighted, and embraced her. But as I kissed her, her lips took on the color of death. Her face changed, and I was holding my dead mother's body. A burial shroud wrapped around her, with worms crawling through the folds. I woke in terror, my forehead wet with cold sweat, my teeth chattering, my whole body shaking. In the yellow moonlight coming through the shutters, I saw the miserable creature I had made. He was holding up the curtain of my bed and staring at me with what I can only call his eyes. He opened his mouth and made indistinct sounds. A grin wrinkled his cheeks. He might have said something, but I heard nothing. He reached out a hand, apparently to keep me there. I escaped and rushed downstairs. I spent the rest of the night in the courtyard, pacing in agitation, listening to every sound and fearing that it meant the approach of the demonic body I had brought to life.

I don't believe anyone could have endured the horror of that face. A mummy brought back to life would have been less hideous. I had looked at him before he was finished, and he was ugly then. But once the muscles and joints could move, he became something even Dante could never have imagined.

That night was wretched. Sometimes my heart beat so quickly and forcefully that I could feel every artery pounding. Then I would become so weak I nearly fell. Along with the horror came bitter disappointment. Dreams that had fed and comforted me for so long had become a hell. It had happened so quickly, and so completely.

At last a wet, miserable morning arrived. With sleepless, aching eyes I could see the church of Ingolstadt, its white steeple, and the clock showing six. The porter opened the courtyard gates, and I went out into the streets. I walked quickly, as if I could escape the creature I expected to see around every corner. I couldn't bring myself to return to my rooms. I hurried on, soaked by rain falling from a dark, comfortless sky.

I kept walking, trying to ease my mind by moving my body. I went through the streets with little idea where I was or what I was doing. Fear made my heart pound sickeningly. I hurried unevenly along, afraid to look around, like the person in the poem:

Walking a lonely road in fear,
he looks behind him once,
then keeps going and never turns again,
because he knows a terrifying fiend
is following close behind.

Eventually I found myself across from the inn where the coaches usually stopped. I paused there, for no reason I understood, watching a carriage approach from the other end of the street. As it came closer, I recognized the Swiss coach. It stopped beside me. The door opened, and there was Henry Clerval. He saw me and jumped out. “Frankenstein! I am so glad to see you. What luck that you should be here just as I arrive.”

I can't tell you how happy I was to see him. He brought my father, Elizabeth, and everything I loved about home back into my mind. I took his hand and, for a moment, forgot the horror and everything that had happened. For the first time in months I felt a calm, peaceful happiness. I welcomed him warmly, and we walked toward the college. He talked about our friends and how fortunate he was that he had finally been allowed to come. “You can imagine how hard it was to persuade my father that a merchant is allowed to understand something besides bookkeeping,” he said. “I am still not sure I convinced him. Every time I asked, he answered like the Dutch schoolmaster in The Vicar of Wakefield: ‘I earn ten thousand florins a year without Greek. I eat very well without Greek.’ In the end, his affection for me was stronger than his dislike of learning. So here I am, allowed a voyage of discovery into the land of knowledge.”

“I am so pleased to see you. But tell me about my father, my brothers, and Elizabeth. How were they when you left?”

“Well, and happy, apart from some worry about how seldom you write. I intend to give you a little lecture about that myself. But, Frankenstein—” He stopped and looked closely at me. “I hadn't realized how ill you look. You are so thin and pale. You look as if you have been awake for several nights.”

“You are right. I have been so absorbed in one occupation that I have given myself very little rest. You can see the result. But I hope, I sincerely hope, that the work is over now, and that I am finally free.”

I was trembling violently. I could hardly bear to think about the night before, much less refer to it. I walked quickly, and we soon reached the college. Then a thought made me shiver: the creature might still be in my rooms, alive and walking around. I dreaded seeing him myself, but I was even more afraid that Henry would see him. I asked Henry to wait at the bottom of the stairs and ran up. My hand was on the lock before I stopped to think. A cold shudder went through me. I flung the door open the way a child does when he expects a ghost on the other side. Nothing appeared. I went in fearfully. The room was empty. The bedroom was empty too. I could hardly believe such good fortune was possible. Once I was sure the creature had gone, I clapped my hands with joy and ran down to Clerval.

We went upstairs, and a servant brought breakfast. I could barely contain myself. It went beyond happiness. My skin tingled with an unbearable sensitivity, and my pulse raced. I couldn't stay still for an instant. I jumped over chairs, clapped, and laughed aloud. At first Henry thought I was simply delighted to see him. Then he looked more closely and saw something wild in my eyes that he couldn't explain. My loud, uncontrolled laughter, with no real happiness in it, frightened and astonished him.

“Victor, for God's sake, what is happening? Please stop laughing like that. You are so ill. What has brought this on?”

“Don't ask me,” I cried, covering my eyes. I thought I saw the creature moving into the room. “He can tell you. Save me! Save me!” I imagined it taking hold of me, struggled furiously, and collapsed in a fit.

Poor Clerval. What must that have been like for him? A reunion he had looked forward to with such pleasure had become something terrible. But I saw none of his distress. I lay unconscious, and it was a very long time before I fully came to myself.

That was the beginning of a nervous fever that kept me confined for several months. Henry alone cared for me. I learned afterward that he had kept the seriousness of my illness from my family. He knew my father was old and unfit for such a long journey, and how much distress the news would cause Elizabeth. He believed I could have no kinder or more attentive care than he could give. Confident that I would recover, he felt he was sparing them suffering rather than doing them any harm.

But I was very ill. I believe only his limitless, constant attention brought me back to life. The creature I had animated was always before my eyes, and I talked about him endlessly in my delirium. At first Henry must have thought these were only the wanderings of a sick mind. But I returned so persistently to the same thing that he came to believe some extraordinary and terrible event had caused the illness.

I recovered very slowly, with repeated setbacks that frightened and grieved him. I remember the first time I could take pleasure in anything outside myself. The fallen leaves were gone, and new buds were appearing on the trees outside my window. It was a beautiful spring, and it helped me recover. Happiness and affection began to return. The gloom lifted, and before long I was as cheerful as I had been before that fatal obsession took hold of me.

“Clerval, you have been so kind to me,” I said. “You expected to spend this winter studying, and instead you have spent it in my sickroom. How can I repay you? I feel terrible about keeping you from what you wanted to do. I hope you can forgive me.”

“You can repay me completely by keeping yourself calm and getting well as quickly as possible. Since you seem in better spirits, perhaps there is something I can talk to you about?”

I trembled. Something to talk about? Could he mean the subject I could hardly allow myself to think of?

He saw the color leave my face. “Take it easy. We can leave it if it upsets you. I only meant that your father and cousin would be very happy to get a letter in your own handwriting. They know very little of how ill you have been, and your long silence worries them.”

“Is that all, Henry? How could you think I would first want anything other than to turn toward the people I love, who deserve so much of my love?”

“Then perhaps you would like a letter that arrived a few days ago. I believe it is from your cousin.”

Chapter V

Clerval put this letter into my hands.

To V. Frankenstein.

My dear cousin,

I can't tell you how worried we have all been about your health. We keep wondering whether Clerval is telling us how ill you really are. It has been months since we saw your handwriting. All this time you have had to dictate your letters to Henry. Victor, you must have been terribly ill. We have been almost as unhappy as we were after your dear mother's death. Your father was nearly convinced you were in danger and could hardly be kept from setting out for Ingolstadt. Clerval always says you are improving. I hope so much that you will soon confirm it in your own hand. We really are very distressed. Once you relieve us of that fear, we will be the happiest people in the world. Your father is so healthy now that he looks ten years younger than he did last winter. Ernest has changed so much you would hardly know him. He is almost sixteen, and the sickly appearance he had a few years ago has given way to strength and activity.

Your father and I spent a long time last night talking about what Ernest should do for a living. Being ill so often as a child kept him from developing the habit of steady study. Now that he is well, he wants to be outdoors all the time, climbing the hills or rowing on the lake. I suggested farming, which you know is a favorite idea of mine. A farmer can have a healthy, happy life, doing work that is about as beneficial to others as any work can be. Your father had thought of training him as a lawyer and then using his connections to help him become a judge. But Ernest is hardly suited to that. And surely growing food for people is more creditable than becoming the keeper of their vices, and sometimes helping them along, as lawyers do. I said that even if a prosperous farmer's occupation was no more honorable than a judge's, it was at least happier. A judge is always having to deal with the darker side of people. Your father smiled and said I ought to be a lawyer myself. That ended the discussion.

Now I have a little story that should please you and perhaps amuse you. Do you remember Justine Moritz? Perhaps you don't, so I will tell you briefly. Her mother, Madame Moritz, was a widow with four children. Justine was the third. She had always been her father's favorite, but for some strange reason her mother couldn't bear her. After her father died, her mother treated her badly. Your mother noticed, and when Justine was twelve, persuaded Madame Moritz to let her come and live with us. The republican institutions of our country have given us simpler, happier ways than the great monarchies around us. The classes are less sharply separated. People in the lower ranks are less poor and less despised, and their behavior is more refined and moral. Being a servant in Geneva means something different from being a servant in France or England. Justine learned a servant's duties in our family, but in our fortunate country that position carries neither an assumption of ignorance nor the surrender of a person's dignity.

I expect you remember her now. She was always a favorite of yours. You once said that if you were in a bad mood, one look from Justine could lift it, for the same reason Ariosto gives for Angelica's beauty: she looked so open-hearted and happy. Your mother became very fond of her and gave her a better education than she had first intended. Justine repaid that kindness fully. She was wonderfully grateful. I don't mean that she made speeches about it. I never heard her do that. But you could see in her eyes that she almost worshipped the woman who had protected her. She was lively and often thoughtless, but she watched every gesture your mother made. To her, your mother was the model of everything good. She tried to copy the way she spoke and behaved, and even now she often reminds me of her.

When your mother died, we were all so occupied with our own grief that we scarcely noticed Justine, who had cared for her with such anxious affection. Justine became very ill herself. And there was more waiting for her.

Her brothers and sister died one after another, until the mother had only the daughter she had neglected. Her conscience began troubling her. She thought heaven had taken her favorites as punishment for the way she had favored them. She was Roman Catholic, and I believe her confessor reinforced that thought. A few months after you left for Ingolstadt, her mother repented and called Justine home. The poor girl cried when she left us. Your mother's death had changed her. Her old liveliness had softened into a gentle manner that made her even more appealing. Living with her mother did little to bring back her happiness. Madame Moritz's repentance was uncertain. Sometimes she begged Justine's forgiveness. More often she accused her of causing her siblings' deaths. Constant fretting brought on a decline in her health, which at first made her even more irritable. She is at peace now. She died when the cold first arrived, at the beginning of this past winter. Justine has come back to us, and I love her dearly. She is intelligent, gentle, and very pretty. As I said, her expressions and manner constantly remind me of your mother.

I must also tell you about our darling William. I wish you could see him. He is tall for his age, with sweet, laughing blue eyes, dark lashes, and curly hair. When he smiles, two little dimples appear in each of his healthy pink cheeks. He has already had one or two little “wives,” but his favorite is Louisa Biron, a pretty girl of five.

You probably want a little Geneva gossip too. The pretty Miss Mansfield has been receiving congratulations on her coming marriage to a young Englishman, John Melbourne. Her unattractive sister Manon married the wealthy banker M. Duvillard last autumn. Your favorite school friend, Louis Manoir, has had several reversals since Clerval left Geneva, but he is in good spirits again. People say he is about to marry Madame Tavernier, a lively, pretty French widow. She is much older than he is, but everyone admires her and likes her.

Writing all this has made me feel better. But I can't finish without asking about your health again. Victor, if you are well enough, please write yourself and make your father and all of us happy. As for the other possibility, I can hardly bear to think about it. I am already crying. Goodbye, my dearest cousin.

Elizabeth Lavenza.

Geneva, March 18, 17—.

“Dear Elizabeth,” I said when I finished. “I will write at once and put their minds at ease.” I did, though the effort exhausted me. My recovery had begun, however, and it continued steadily. Two weeks later I could leave my room.

One of the first things I needed to do was introduce Clerval to the professors. That was hard on a mind as wounded as mine. Since the night when my work ended and my suffering began, I could hardly bear even the name of natural philosophy. Long after I otherwise seemed healthy, seeing a chemical instrument could bring back all the agony of my nervous symptoms. Henry had noticed and put all my equipment out of sight. He had even moved me to different rooms because he saw how much I disliked the place that had been my laboratory. But his care couldn't protect me during those visits. Waldman's warm, kindly praise for my extraordinary progress was torture. He soon noticed my discomfort, but thought it came from modesty. To draw me out, he stopped talking about my achievements and began talking about science itself. What could I do? He wanted to please me, and every word hurt. It felt as if he were carefully setting out, one after another, the instruments of a slow and cruel death. I struggled under it but was afraid to show what I felt. Henry, always quick to notice another person's feelings, turned the conversation away by mentioning his own complete ignorance of the subject. We began talking more generally. I thanked him inwardly, without saying a word. He was clearly surprised by my reaction, but never tried to extract my secret. I loved him with an affection and respect beyond measure. Even so, I couldn't make myself tell him what had happened. The memory was always with me, and I feared that describing it aloud would fix it even more deeply in my mind.

Krempe was harder to turn aside. I was painfully sensitive then, and his blunt, rough praise hurt even more than Waldman's kindness. “Damn the fellow,” he cried. “Clerval, he has passed us all. You can stare, but it is true. A few years ago this youngster believed in Cornelius Agrippa as firmly as the Gospel. Now he is at the head of the university. If someone doesn't bring him down soon, the rest of us will be embarrassed.” Seeing my discomfort, he went on, “Yes, Frankenstein is modest. An excellent quality in a young man. The young ought to have doubts about themselves. I did when I was young, Clerval. But it wears off very quickly.”

Fortunately, that led Krempe into praising himself, and the conversation moved away from me.

Clerval had little inclination for the physical sciences. His imagination was too lively for their small details. Languages were his main interest. He wanted to learn enough of them to continue studying on his own once he returned to Geneva. After mastering Greek and Latin, he turned to Persian, Arabic, and Hebrew. I had always found inactivity difficult. Now I wanted to escape my thoughts and couldn't bear my former studies. Studying beside Henry was a great relief. The writers of the East offered comfort as well as knowledge. Their sadness soothed me, and their happiness lifted me more than the writers of any other country ever had. In their books, life seemed to become warm sunlight and a rose garden, the smiles and frowns of a beautiful adversary, and the fire consuming your own heart. It was so different from the masculine, heroic poetry of Greece and Rome.

The summer passed that way. I planned to return to Geneva late in the autumn, but several delays kept me until winter. Snow made the roads impassable, so I had to wait for spring. I felt that delay bitterly. I wanted to see home and the people I loved. I had only stayed so long because I was reluctant to leave Henry in an unfamiliar place before he knew anyone. Still, we spent the winter cheerfully. Spring came unusually late, but its beauty made the wait worthwhile.

It was already May. I expected a letter any day that would settle the date of my departure, when Henry suggested a walking tour around Ingolstadt. I could say goodbye properly to the countryside where I had lived so long. I gladly agreed. I liked exercise, and Henry had always been my favorite companion on walks through the landscape at home.

We spent two weeks walking. My health and spirits had long since returned, and the fresh air, the ordinary events along the way, and Henry's conversation strengthened them further. Study had shut me away from other people and made me withdrawn. Henry brought out my better feelings. He taught me again to love the sight of nature and children's happy faces. What a friend he was. He loved me sincerely and tried to raise my mind to the level of his own. A selfish pursuit had narrowed and cramped me. His affection and gentleness warmed me and opened my senses again. I became the happy person I had been a few years earlier, loving and loved, with little sorrow or care. When I was happy, even the lifeless parts of nature could give me extraordinary pleasure. A peaceful sky and green fields filled me with delight. It really was a beautiful season. Spring flowers covered the hedges, while summer flowers were already in bud. I was free of the thoughts that, despite all my efforts, had weighed so heavily on me during the previous year.

Henry was delighted to see me happy and shared what I felt. He worked to entertain me while expressing what was in his own mind. His resources seemed astonishing. His conversation was full of imagination. Often, following the Persian and Arabic writers, he invented extraordinary stories full of passion and invention. Sometimes he recited my favorite poems. Sometimes he drew me into arguments and defended his side with great ingenuity.

We returned to the college on a Sunday afternoon. Country people were dancing, and everyone we met seemed happy. My own spirits were high. I went along almost bounding with unrestrained pleasure.

Chapter VI

When we returned, I found this letter from my father.

To V. Frankenstein.

My dear Victor,

You have probably been waiting eagerly for a letter settling the date of your return. At first I thought of writing only that, a few lines saying when we would expect you. But that kindness would really be cruel. You would arrive expecting a happy welcome and find us in tears. How can I tell you what has happened? Being away cannot have made you indifferent to our happiness or sorrow, and how can I bring such pain to a child who is far from me? I want to prepare you, but I know I can't. Even now you are probably looking ahead for the words that will tell you.

William is dead. That sweet, gentle, happy child, whose smile warmed my heart. Victor, he has been murdered.

I will simply tell you what happened. I can offer little comfort.

Last Thursday, May 7, Elizabeth, your two brothers, and I went walking in Plainpalais. It was a warm, peaceful evening, so we stayed out longer than usual. By the time we thought of coming home, it was nearly dark. William and Ernest had gone ahead, and we couldn't see them. We sat down to wait. Soon Ernest came back and asked whether we had seen his brother. They had been playing together. William had run off to hide. Ernest had looked for him without success, then waited a long time, but William hadn't come back.

We grew concerned and searched until nightfall. Then Elizabeth thought he might have gone home. He wasn't there. We went out again with torches. I couldn't rest while I imagined my boy lost outside in the damp night air. Elizabeth was in terrible distress too. At about five in the morning I found him. The child I had seen healthy and lively the evening before was lying on the grass, discolored and still. The mark of the murderer's finger was on his neck.

We brought him home. Elizabeth saw my face and understood. She insisted on seeing him. I tried to prevent it at first, but she persisted. She went into the room, quickly examined his neck, clasped her hands, and cried, “God, I have murdered my darling child!”

She fainted, and we struggled to bring her around. When she recovered, she could only weep and sigh. She told me that William had begged that evening to wear her valuable miniature portrait of your mother. The portrait is gone. It must have tempted the murderer. We are still doing everything we can to find him, but we have no trace of him. And finding him cannot bring William back.

Come home, Victor. You alone may be able to comfort Elizabeth. She cries constantly and blames herself unfairly for his death. Hearing her breaks my heart. We are all unhappy. Let that give you another reason to come and comfort us. Your dear mother. I find myself thanking God she did not live to see the cruel death of her youngest child.

Come with peaceful, gentle feelings, Victor, with something that can help heal our wounds. Bring kindness and affection for the people who love you into this house of mourning. Please let your thoughts turn toward us rather than toward revenge on the murderer.

Your loving and grieving father,

Alphonse Frankenstein.

Geneva, May 12, 17—.

Henry had watched my face as I read. He was startled to see the happiness with which I had received news from home turn to despair. I threw the letter onto the table and covered my face.

“Frankenstein,” he said when he saw how bitterly I was crying, “are you always to suffer? My dear friend, what has happened?”

I gestured toward the letter and paced the room in extreme agitation. When Henry read it, he cried too.

“I have nothing that can comfort you,” he said. “This cannot be repaired. What will you do?”

“Go straight to Geneva. Come and help me arrange the horses.”

As we walked, Henry tried to help me through it. He offered real sympathy rather than the usual consoling phrases. “Poor William. That dear child is resting with his mother now. The people who love him weep, but he is at peace. He can no longer feel the murderer's hand. The earth covers him, and he feels no pain. It is the people left behind who suffer most, and time is the only comfort for them. This is hardly the moment for the Stoics' claims that death is no evil and that a person ought to rise above despair when someone dear is gone forever. Even Cato cried over his brother's body.”

He spoke as we hurried through the streets. The words stayed with me, and later I remembered them when I was alone. Just then, though, as soon as the horses were ready, I climbed into a small carriage and said goodbye.

The journey was sad. At first I wanted to move as quickly as possible so I could comfort the people I loved and share their grief. As I got closer to Geneva, I slowed down. I could barely manage all the feelings crowding into my mind. I was passing places familiar from childhood that I hadn't seen in nearly six years. How much could have changed? One sudden, devastating change had happened, but a thousand smaller changes might have happened too, quietly and gradually, yet with consequences just as lasting. I became afraid to go on. I imagined countless troubles I couldn't even name, but that made me tremble.

I stayed in Lausanne for two days in that painful state. I looked out over the lake. The water was still, everything around it calm, the snowy mountains, those “palaces of nature,” unchanged. Gradually that beautiful peace steadied me, and I continued toward Geneva.

The road followed the lake as it narrowed toward home. I could see the dark slopes of the Jura more clearly and the bright summit of Mont Blanc. I cried like a child. “My dear mountains. My beautiful lake. Is this how you welcome me back? Your summits are clear, the sky and water blue and peaceful. Are you promising me peace, or making a mockery of my sorrow?”

I worry that dwelling on these details will tire you, my friend. But compared with what came afterward, those were happy days, and I like remembering them. My country, my beloved country. Only someone born there could understand what I felt seeing those streams and mountains again, and above all that lovely lake.

Yet as I came nearer home, grief and fear overtook me again. Night fell, and when I could barely see the dark mountains, my mood grew darker too. The whole scene seemed filled with some vast, indistinct evil. I had a dim sense that I was going to become the most miserable person alive. I was right, except that all the suffering I imagined amounted to less than a hundredth of what was still to come.

It was fully dark when I reached the outskirts of Geneva. The city gates were closed, so I had to spend the night in Secheron, a village half a league east of the city. The sky was clear, and I couldn't rest. I decided to visit the place where William had been killed. Since I couldn't pass through the city, I crossed the lake by boat to reach Plainpalais. During that short crossing, I saw lightning playing in beautiful patterns over Mont Blanc. The storm seemed to be approaching quickly. Once ashore, I climbed a low hill to watch it. Clouds filled the sky. Large drops began falling slowly, then the rain quickly grew heavy.

I left my seat and walked on as the storm and darkness deepened. Thunder crashed overhead and echoed from Salève, the Jura, and the Savoy Alps. Lightning dazzled me and lit the lake like a vast sheet of fire. For an instant afterward everything seemed completely black, until my eyes recovered. As often happens in Switzerland, storms seemed to be taking place in several parts of the sky at once. The most violent was directly north of Geneva, over the water between Belrive's headland and Copêt. Another sent faint flashes over the Jura. A third hid and sometimes revealed the Môle, the pointed mountain east of the lake.

I walked quickly, watching this beautiful, terrifying storm. The great conflict in the sky lifted my spirits. I clasped my hands and called out, “William, dear angel, this is your funeral. This is your funeral song.” As I spoke, a figure slipped out from behind a nearby group of trees. I stopped and stared. Then lightning showed him plainly. His enormous size and a deformity more hideous than anything human told me at once that this was the creature I had brought to life. What was he doing there? Could he have murdered my brother? The thought made me shudder, but as soon as it came to me I accepted it as certain. My teeth chattered, and I leaned against a tree to keep standing. The figure passed quickly and vanished into the darkness. Surely no ordinary human could have destroyed that beautiful child. He was the murderer. I had no doubt. The thought itself seemed proof enough. I considered following him, but the next flash showed him already climbing the rocks on the nearly vertical side of Mont Salève, south of Plainpalais. He soon reached the top and disappeared.

I stood still. The thunder stopped, but rain kept falling, and darkness hid everything. I thought through all the things I had tried to forget: the work that led to his creation, the sight of him alive at my bedside, his departure. It was almost two years since I had first given him life. Was this his first crime? I had released a depraved being into the world, someone who delighted in slaughter and misery. Hadn't he murdered my brother?

I spent the rest of the night outside, cold and wet, in anguish I can hardly convey. I barely felt the weather. My mind was full of evil and despair. The being I had sent among people, with the will and strength to do something as horrible as this, seemed almost like my own vampire, my own spirit escaped from the grave and compelled to destroy everything I loved.

At dawn I walked toward the city. The gates were open, and I hurried to my father's house. My first impulse was to reveal what I knew and have the murderer pursued immediately. Then I thought about what I would have to say: that I had made a being and brought him to life, and had met him at midnight among the cliffs of a mountain almost impossible to climb. There was also my nervous fever, beginning just when I said I had created him. That would make an already unbelievable account sound like delirium. If someone else had told me that story, I would have taken it for madness. Even if my family believed me enough to organize a search, his extraordinary nature would let him evade it. And what could a search achieve? Who could capture something able to climb the overhanging cliffs of Mont Salève? I decided to stay silent.

It was about five when I entered the house. I asked the servants to let the family sleep and went into the library to wait until their usual hour of rising.

Six years had passed, dreamlike except for one indelible mark. I was standing where I had last embraced my father before leaving for Ingolstadt. My dear, honorable father was still here for me. Above the mantel was a painting of my mother, commissioned by him. It showed Caroline Beaufort kneeling in despair beside her father's coffin. Her clothes were simple and her face pale, but there was such dignity and beauty in her that pity could hardly be the main feeling. Beneath it was a miniature of William. I cried when I looked at it. Then Ernest came in. He had heard me arrive and hurried to welcome me. He was happy to see me, but there was sorrow in the welcome. “Victor, I wish you had come three months ago,” he said. “We were so happy then. Now you are coming home to tears. Our father looks so sad. It seems as if this has brought back all his grief for Mamma. Elizabeth is inconsolable.” He began to cry.

“Please try to be calmer,” I said. “After so long away, let me come into our father's house without feeling utterly miserable at once. Tell me how he is bearing it. And how is Elizabeth?”

“She needs comfort. She blamed herself for William's death, and it made her terribly unhappy. But since the murderer was discovered—”

“Discovered? My God, how? Who could have pursued him? You might as well try to catch the wind or hold back a mountain stream with a straw.”

“I don't understand. But we were all distressed when she was discovered. At first nobody believed it. Even now Elizabeth won't be persuaded, despite all the evidence. Who would have thought Justine Moritz, so kind and so fond of us, could suddenly become that wicked?”

“Justine? That poor girl is accused? Wrongly, of course. Everyone knows that. Surely nobody believes it, Ernest?”

“At first nobody did. But several things came out that have almost forced us to believe it. Her own confused behavior has added to the evidence until I am afraid there is hardly room for doubt. The trial is today. You will hear everything.”

He told me that on the morning William was found, Justine became ill and went to bed. A few days later a servant examined the clothes she had worn that night and found my mother's portrait in her pocket, the very thing believed to have tempted the murderer. The servant showed it to another, who went straight to a magistrate without speaking to the family. Their testimony led to Justine's arrest. When accused, her extreme confusion seemed to strengthen the suspicion.

It was a strange account, but my certainty remained. “You are all mistaken,” I said earnestly. “I know who the murderer is. Justine is innocent.”

My father entered then. His face was marked deeply by sorrow, though he tried to greet me cheerfully. After our sad reunion he would have changed the subject, but Ernest said, “Papa, Victor says he knows who murdered William.”

“Unfortunately, so do we,” my father replied. “I would rather have remained ignorant than discover such wickedness and ingratitude in someone I valued so much.”

“Father, you are mistaken. Justine is innocent.”

“If she is, may God protect her from being punished as guilty. Her trial is today. I sincerely hope she will be acquitted.”

That calmed me. I was completely convinced that Justine, and indeed every ordinary human being, was innocent of this murder. So I couldn't imagine circumstantial evidence strong enough to convict her. I waited eagerly for the trial, certain of her acquittal and expecting nothing worse.

Elizabeth soon joined us. She had changed greatly in six years. The pretty, good-natured girl everyone had loved was now a woman, extraordinarily lovely in her face and figure. Her broad, open forehead suggested intelligence and frankness. Her hazel eyes were gentle, with a sadness added by recent grief. Her hair was rich dark auburn, her skin fair, her figure slender and graceful. She welcomed me affectionately. “Your arrival gives me hope,” she said. “Perhaps you can find some way to clear poor innocent Justine. Who can feel safe if she can be convicted? I am as certain of her innocence as of my own. It is twice as hard for us. We have lost that dear boy, and now someone else I love may be taken from us by an even worse fate. If she is condemned, I will never be happy again. But she won't be. I am sure she won't. And then, even after William's death, I may be happy again.”

“She is innocent, Elizabeth, and we will prove it. Take comfort in knowing she will be acquitted.”

“You are so kind. Everyone else believes she is guilty. I knew it was impossible, but seeing everyone so dangerously prejudiced made me feel hopeless.” She cried.

“My dear niece,” my father said, “dry your tears. If she is innocent, as you believe, trust the judges to be just. I will do everything I can to prevent even the slightest partiality.”

Chapter VII

We spent a few sad hours waiting for eleven, when the trial would begin. My father and the others had to attend as witnesses, and I went with them. The whole wretched imitation of justice was a living torture to me. We were about to learn whether my curiosity and uncontrolled experiments would cost two lives: an innocent, happy child, and a young woman whose death would be made even more horrible by disgrace. Justine had so many good qualities, so much reason to look forward to a happy life. Now all of it might end in a dishonored grave, and I would be the cause. I would have preferred a thousand times to confess to her supposed crime myself. But I had been away when it happened. A confession from me would sound like madness and do nothing to clear her.

Justine looked calm. She wore mourning, and the seriousness of what she felt made her naturally appealing face extraordinarily beautiful. She seemed supported by her innocence. She kept from trembling even with thousands staring at her and condemning her. Imagining the enormity of her supposed crime had shut out any kindness her appearance might otherwise have stirred. Her composure was clearly an effort. Since her earlier confusion had been used as evidence against her, she had forced herself to appear courageous. When she entered, she looked around and quickly found us. Tears seemed to cloud her eyes, but she recovered. Her look of sad affection seemed to speak her complete innocence.

The prosecutor stated the charge, and witnesses were called. Several strange circumstances combined against her, enough to unsettle anyone without my reason for knowing she was innocent. She had been out all night. Near morning, a woman going to market had seen her near the place where William's body was later found. Asked what she was doing, she had looked strange and given a confused, unclear answer. She returned home at about eight. When asked where she had been, she said she had been looking for William and asked urgently whether there was news. Seeing his body sent her into violent distress, and she stayed in bed for days. Then the portrait found in her pocket was shown. In an unsteady voice, Elizabeth identified it as the picture she had put around William's neck an hour before he disappeared. Horror and indignation murmured through the courtroom.

Justine was asked to defend herself. Her face had changed during the evidence. Surprise, fear, and misery were plain to see, and sometimes she fought back tears. But when called to speak, she gathered herself. Her voice shook, though we could hear it.

“God knows that I am completely innocent,” she said. “But I don't expect saying so to clear me. I will explain the facts against me as plainly as I can. Where something remains doubtful or suspicious, I hope the way I have always lived will help the judges interpret it fairly.”

She explained that, with Elizabeth's permission, she had spent the evening at her aunt's house in Chêne, a village about a league from Geneva. On her way back at about nine, a man asked whether she had seen the lost child. Alarmed, she spent hours searching. By then the city gates had closed. She stayed part of the night in the barn of a cottage whose people knew her well, because she was reluctant to wake them. Unable to rest or sleep, she went out early to look for William again. If she had been near his body, she hadn't known it. Her confusion when the market woman questioned her was understandable after a sleepless night, while she was still worried about him. As for the portrait, she had no explanation.

“I know how heavily that fact weighs against me, and what it may cost me,” she said. “But I cannot explain it. All I can do is say I know nothing about it, then try to imagine how it could have got into my pocket. Even there, I have little to go on. I believe I have no enemy in the world, certainly none wicked enough to destroy me for no reason. Did the murderer put it there? I know of no chance he had to do so. And why would he steal something valuable only to give it up so soon?

“I leave my case to the judges' sense of justice, although I see little hope. Please let a few witnesses speak about my character. If their evidence cannot outweigh the guilt attributed to me, I must be condemned. But I would stake my salvation on my innocence.”

People who had known her for years were called. They spoke well of her, but fear and hatred of the crime they believed she had committed made them hesitant and reluctant. Elizabeth saw that even Justine's excellent character and blameless conduct might fail to help her. Though deeply agitated, she asked to address the court.

“I am the murdered child's cousin,” she said, “or really his sister. His parents raised me, and I lived with them long before he was born. Some may think it improper for me to speak now. But I see someone about to die because the people calling themselves her friends are afraid to defend her. Please allow me to say what I know. I have lived with the accused, first for five years, then for almost two more. Throughout that time she was one of the kindest, most caring people I have known. She cared for my aunt, Madame Frankenstein, through her final illness with great love and attention. Then she cared for her own mother through a long illness, in a way everyone who saw it admired. Afterward she came back to my uncle's house, where the whole family loved her. She was deeply attached to William and treated him with a mother's affection. Despite everything said against her, I have complete confidence in her innocence. She had no reason to do this. As for the little ornament on which so much of the case depends, if she had really wanted it, I would gladly have given it to her. That is how much I value her.”

Dear Elizabeth. The court murmured its approval, but only of her generosity in speaking. For Justine, the effect was worse. People condemned her more fiercely for what they now saw as terrible ingratitude. Justine cried while Elizabeth spoke, but said nothing. My own agitation and anguish were extreme throughout. I did more than believe her innocent. I knew she was. Could the demon I was certain had killed William also have arranged, as some hellish amusement, for an innocent woman to die in disgrace? I couldn't bear my situation. When the crowd's reaction and the judges' faces showed that they had already condemned her, I rushed out in agony. I thought even the accused suffered less than I did. Her innocence supported her. Remorse had its teeth in me and would never let go.

I spent the night in complete misery. In the morning I went to the court, my mouth and throat dry. I couldn't bring myself to ask, but the officer knew me and understood why I had come. The votes had been cast. Every ballot was black. Justine was condemned.

I can't describe what I felt. I have tried to explain earlier moments of horror, but words cannot convey the sickening despair of that one. The officer added that Justine had confessed. “Hardly necessary in such an obvious case,” he said, “but I am glad of it. Our judges dislike condemning someone on circumstantial evidence, however decisive.”

At home, Elizabeth asked eagerly what had happened.

“It has gone as you might expect,” I said. “Judges would rather let ten innocent people suffer than let one guilty person escape. But she has confessed.”

That devastated Elizabeth, who had been so certain. “How will I ever trust in human kindness again? I loved Justine like a sister. How could those innocent smiles have concealed betrayal? Those gentle eyes seemed incapable of even an unkind mood. And yet she has murdered someone.”

Soon we heard that Justine wanted to see her. My father preferred that she stay away, but left the decision to her own judgment and feelings. “I will go,” Elizabeth said, “even if she is guilty. Victor, you must come with me. I can't go alone.” The thought tortured me, but I couldn't refuse.

We entered the dark prison room. Justine sat on straw at the far end, her hands chained, her head on her knees. She rose when she saw us. Once we were alone, she threw herself at Elizabeth's feet, crying bitterly. Elizabeth cried too.

“Justine, why did you take away the last comfort I had? I trusted your innocence. I was deeply unhappy then, but I am more unhappy now.”

“Do you believe it too? Do you think I am so wicked? Are you joining the people who want to crush me?” Sobs nearly stopped her voice.

“Get up, dear girl. If you are innocent, why kneel? I am on your side. I believed you despite all the evidence, until I heard you had confessed. If that report is wrong, nothing can shake my trust in you. Only your own confession could do that.”

“I did confess. But it was a lie. I did it to obtain absolution, and now the lie weighs on me more heavily than all my other sins. May God forgive me. Ever since the sentence, my confessor has pressed me without rest. He threatened me until I almost began to believe I was the monster he described. He said I would be excommunicated and burn in hell if I remained stubborn at the end. I had nobody to support me. Everyone saw me as someone destined for disgrace and damnation. What could I do? In a terrible moment I agreed to a lie. Only now do I feel truly miserable.”

She stopped to cry, then continued. “It was horrible to think you would believe your Justine, whom your blessed aunt had treated so well and whom you loved, could do something only a devil could have done. Dear William. That dear, blessed child. Soon I will see him in heaven, where we will all be happy. That comforts me, even while I am going to disgrace and death.”

“Justine, forgive me for doubting you even for a moment. Why did you confess? Please take heart. I will tell everyone you are innocent and make them believe it. Yet you still must die. You, my playmate, my companion, more than my sister. How can I survive something so terrible?”

“Dear Elizabeth, please try to stop crying. Help me think of a better life. Help me rise above the little concerns of this world of injustice and conflict. You are my dear friend. Please help me keep my hope.”

“I will try to comfort you, but this is so painful and so hopeless that I hardly know how. May heaven give you acceptance and a confidence that reaches beyond this world. I hate its displays and pretenses. One person is murdered, and immediately another is put through a slow, torturing death. The executioners still have innocent blood on their hands and believe they have done something great. They call it retribution. What a hateful word. When I hear it, I know punishments are coming worse than anything the darkest tyrant could invent to satisfy revenge. But that does little to comfort you, unless leaving such a miserable place can give you some pride. I wish I were at peace with my aunt and William, away from this world and these faces I can hardly bear to look at.”

Justine smiled faintly. “That is despair, dear lady, rather than acceptance. It is a lesson I must keep from learning. Talk about something else, something that brings peace rather than more pain.”

I had withdrawn into a corner to hide my anguish. Despair. Who could talk of despair? I believed even this poor woman, due to cross the terrible boundary between life and death the next day, felt less agony than I did. I ground my teeth and groaned from deep inside. Justine startled, then saw who it was and came toward me. “It is kind of you to visit,” she said. “I hope you believe I am innocent.”

I couldn't answer. Elizabeth spoke for me. “He has been even more certain than I have. Even when he heard you had confessed, he kept his trust in your innocence.”

“I thank him sincerely. In these last moments I am so grateful to anyone who thinks kindly of me. Affection is so sweet to someone in my position. It takes away more than half the suffering. Now that you and your cousin know I am innocent, I feel I can die peacefully.”

That was how she tried to comfort us and herself. She did reach the acceptance she wanted. But I, the true murderer, felt something living inside me that would never die, eating away every possibility of hope or comfort. Elizabeth cried and suffered too, but her suffering was innocent. Like a cloud over the moon, it could hide her brightness for a while but could never stain it. Anguish and despair had entered the center of my heart. I carried a hell within me that nothing could put out. We stayed for hours, and Elizabeth could barely make herself leave. “I wish I could die with you,” she cried. “I cannot live in this world of suffering.”

Justine tried to look cheerful while holding back bitter tears. She embraced Elizabeth and said, in a voice struggling to stay steady, “Goodbye, dear Elizabeth, my beloved and only friend. May heaven bless and protect you. May this be the last sorrow you ever have. Live and be happy, and make other people happy too.”

On the way home, Elizabeth said, “Victor, you don't know how relieved I am to trust her innocence again. If I had been wrong about her, I could never have had peace. For the moment I thought she was guilty, I felt a pain I couldn't have borne for long. Now some of that weight is gone. An innocent person is suffering, but the woman I thought kind and good really is that person. She has kept the trust I placed in her. That gives me comfort.”

Dear cousin. Her thoughts were as gentle as her eyes and voice. But I was wretched beyond anything anyone could imagine.

End of Volume I.

Volume II

Chapter I

There is something terribly painful about the stillness that follows a rapid series of events. Your feelings have been stretched to their limit, and then everything is settled. There is nothing to do, nothing left to hope or fear. Justine died. She was at rest. I was alive. Blood still moved through my veins, but nothing could lift the weight of despair and remorse from my heart. I couldn't sleep. I wandered like an evil spirit. I had caused horrors beyond description, and I was convinced there were many more ahead. Yet my heart was full of kindness and a love of goodness. I had begun with generous intentions, eager for the day when I could put them into practice and be useful to other people. All of that was ruined. Instead of a clear conscience, the ability to look back with satisfaction and forward with hope, I had guilt and remorse driving me into a torment I have no language for.

My health, fully restored after the earlier illness, began to suffer again. I avoided people. The sound of happiness or contentment tortured me. The only comfort I found was solitude, deep and dark and almost like death.

My father saw the change in my habits and disposition, and it pained him. He tried to reason with me about letting grief carry me so far. “Victor, do you think I suffer any less?” he said, with tears in his eyes. “I loved your brother as much as anyone could love a child. But we owe something to the people still with us. We ought to keep our grief from adding to their unhappiness. You owe something to yourself too. Too much sorrow keeps a person from learning, enjoying life, or even doing the ordinary useful things that let us take our place among others.”

It was good advice, but it didn't fit what was happening to me. If grief alone had been the problem, I would gladly have hidden it and comforted the people I loved. Remorse had mixed its bitterness into everything else. I could only look at my father in despair and try to stay out of his sight.

Around then we moved to our house at Belrive. I welcomed the change. In Geneva the gates closed at ten every night, making it impossible to stay out on the lake afterward. I had found the confinement hard to bear. Now I was free. Often, once the family had gone to bed, I took a boat out and spent hours on the water. Sometimes I set the sail and let the wind carry me. Sometimes I rowed to the middle of the lake and let the boat drift while I gave myself over to miserable thoughts. Everything around me was peaceful. Apart from a bat, perhaps, or the harsh, broken croaking of frogs when I came near shore, I seemed the only restless thing in that beautiful scene. Often I wanted to plunge into the silent lake and let the water close over me and all my troubles forever. But I thought of brave, suffering Elizabeth, whom I loved dearly and whose life was bound to mine. I thought of my father and my remaining brother. Could I abandon them and leave them exposed to the being I had released among them?

At those moments I cried bitterly and wished for peace of mind, if only so I could give them comfort and happiness. But remorse put out every hope. I had caused suffering that could never be undone. Every day I feared some new crime from the creature I had made. I had a dim feeling that this was far from over, that he would commit something so terrible it would almost blot out the memory of what had already happened. As long as anyone I loved remained, there was something to fear. I hated him beyond anything I can convey. Thinking of him made me grind my teeth and my eyes burn. I wanted to extinguish the life I had given so thoughtlessly. When I considered his crimes and malice, my desire for revenge became limitless. I would have climbed the highest peak of the Andes if I could have thrown him from its summit. I wanted to see him again so I could turn every bit of my anger against him and avenge William and Justine.

Our house was full of mourning. The recent horrors had badly shaken my father's health. Elizabeth was sad and discouraged. Her ordinary occupations gave her little pleasure. Enjoyment seemed almost a violation of what we owed the dead. She thought endless sorrow and tears were the proper tribute to innocence so cruelly destroyed. The happy girl who had walked beside me at the lake and talked excitedly about our future was gone. She had become serious, often talking about how quickly fortune changes and how uncertain human life is.

“When I think about Justine's death,” she said, “the world looks different to me. Before, the injustice and wickedness I read about or heard about seemed like stories from long ago, or imaginary troubles. At least they were far away, things I understood with my reason more than I could really picture. Now suffering has come into our own home. People seem like monsters wanting each other's blood. But I know that is unfair. Everyone thought she was guilty. And if she had done it, she really would have been extraordinarily wicked: killing her benefactor's child for a few jewels, a child she had cared for since birth and seemed to love as her own. I couldn't agree to anyone being put to death, but I would have thought someone capable of that unfit to remain among other people. Yet she was innocent. I know it. I feel it. You believe it too, and that strengthens my certainty. Victor, when a lie can look so much like truth, how can anyone be sure of happiness? I feel as if I am walking along a cliff with thousands of people pressing toward me, trying to push me over. William and Justine have been killed, while the murderer is free, perhaps even respected. But even if I were condemned to die on the scaffold for those crimes, I would still prefer my place to his.”

Listening was agony. I was the real murderer in consequence, though I hadn't performed the acts. Elizabeth saw my pain and gently took my hand. “Victor, please calm yourself. God knows how deeply this has affected me, but you are suffering more than I am. Sometimes your face shows such despair, and sometimes revenge, that it frightens me. I would give my life for your peace. Surely we can be happy, living quietly here in our own country, keeping to ourselves. What could disturb us?”

She cried as she said it, doubting the comfort she offered. Yet she smiled too, trying to drive away whatever was tormenting me. My father saw only an excessive version of the grief he expected me to feel. He thought something I enjoyed might help restore my usual calm. That was why he had brought us into the country. Now he suggested a family trip to the valley of Chamonix. I had been there before, but Elizabeth and Ernest hadn't, and both had often said how much they wanted to see the scenery everyone described as so extraordinary. We left Geneva around the middle of August, nearly two months after Justine's death.

The weather was unusually fine. If a change of scene could have lifted my sorrow, this journey would have done what my father hoped. Even as it was, the landscape interested me and sometimes quieted the grief, though it couldn't remove it. The first day we traveled by carriage. In the morning the mountains were distant. We gradually moved toward them, following the Arve through a valley that narrowed around us. After sunset enormous mountains and cliffs hung above us on every side. We could hear the river raging among the rocks and waterfalls crashing nearby.

The next day we rode mules. As we climbed, the valley grew more magnificent. Ruined castles stood on the cliffs of pine-covered mountains. The Arve rushed below, and cottages appeared here and there among the trees. It was wonderfully beautiful. Above it all, the white, shining pyramids and domes of the Alps rose so high they seemed to belong to another world, inhabited by another kind of being.

We crossed the Pélissier bridge, where the river's ravine opened before us, then climbed the mountain above it. Soon we entered the valley of Chamonix. It was grander and more astonishing than the valley of Servox we had just passed through, though less picturesque and fertile. Snowy mountains enclosed it directly. The ruined castles and cultivated fields were gone. Enormous glaciers came close to the road. We heard avalanches thundering down and saw the clouds of powder in their wake. Mont Blanc rose above the surrounding pointed peaks, its magnificent dome commanding the valley.

Sometimes I rode beside Elizabeth and tried to draw her attention to the beautiful things around us. Often I let my mule fall behind and sank into painful thoughts. At other times I urged it ahead, hoping to forget my companions, the world, and above all myself. Once I was far enough away, I would get down and throw myself onto the grass under the weight of horror and despair. I reached Chamonix at eight that evening. My father and Elizabeth were exhausted. Ernest was delighted and full of energy. His only concern was the south wind, which seemed to promise rain for the next day.

We went to our rooms early, but I, at least, stayed awake. For hours I watched pale lightning above Mont Blanc and listened to the Arve rushing below my window.

Chapter II

Despite what our guides had predicted, the next day was fine, though cloudy. We visited the source of the Arveiron and rode through the valley until evening. These magnificent scenes gave me as much comfort as I was capable of feeling. They lifted me beyond petty concerns. They couldn't take away the grief, but they made it quieter and calmer. They also drew me, for a while, away from the thoughts I had been turning over for the past month. I came back tired but less unhappy, and talked with my family more cheerfully than I had in some time. My father was pleased. Elizabeth was overjoyed. “See how happy you make everyone when you are happy yourself,” she said. “Please try to keep feeling this way.”

The following morning rain poured down, and thick mist hid the summits. I got up early, feeling unusually low. The rain depressed me. The old feelings came back, and I was miserable. I knew how disappointed my father would be by the change, so I wanted to stay away until I could hide what was overwhelming me. They would spend the day at the inn. I was used to rain, damp, and cold, so I decided to go alone to the summit of Montanvert. I remembered the effect of seeing that huge, constantly moving glacier for the first time. It had filled me with a kind of exaltation, as if my mind could leave a dark world behind and rise into light and happiness. Nature at its most powerful and majestic had always made my mind more solemn and helped me forget everyday troubles. I knew the path well. I wanted to be alone because another person's presence would take away the solitary grandeur of it.

The climb is steep, but short, constant turns cut into the mountain let you work your way up. The landscape is terribly desolate. Everywhere there are signs of winter avalanches: broken trees scattered over the ground, some destroyed completely, others bent against projecting rocks or lying across one another. Higher up, snowy gullies cross the path, with stones continually rolling down them. One is especially dangerous. Even speaking loudly can disturb the air enough to bring destruction down on you. The pines are stunted and sparse, their darkness making the scene feel more severe. Below me, great masses of mist rose from the valley's rivers and curled around the opposite mountains. Uniform cloud hid their summits. Rain fell from the dark sky and deepened the sadness of everything around me. Why do people boast of having finer feelings than animals? It only makes us more dependent. If hunger, thirst, and desire were all that moved us, we might be nearly free. Instead, every passing wind can move us, every chance word and the scene it brings to mind.

We rest, and a dream can poison sleep.
We rise, and one stray thought can spoil the day.
We feel and think, we reason, laugh, and cry,
hold sorrow close or let our worries go.
It makes no difference. Joy and sorrow
both have an open road by which to leave.
Yesterday can never promise tomorrow.
Change alone is certain to remain.

It was nearly noon when I reached the top. I sat for a while on the rock above the sea of ice. Mist covered it and the mountains around it. Then a breeze cleared the cloud, and I went down onto the glacier. The surface rises and falls like rough water, broken by deep cracks. The ice field is almost a league wide, but crossing it took me nearly two hours. On the far side was a bare, vertical mountain face. From where I stood, Montanvert was directly opposite, a league away, with Mont Blanc rising above it in tremendous majesty. I stood in a recess of the rock and looked out. The sea of ice, or really the great river of ice, wound among the surrounding mountains. Their high summits hung above its hollows, the frozen peaks glittering in sunlight above the clouds. My heart, so sad before, began to fill with something like happiness. “Wandering spirits,” I said, “if you really wander instead of resting in your narrow graves, let me have this little happiness. Or take me with you, away from the pleasures of life.”

Then I saw a man's figure in the distance, coming toward me faster than any person could. He leaped over the cracks I had crossed so carefully. As he came closer, he seemed taller than a human being. My vision clouded and I felt faint, but the cold mountain wind quickly revived me. Then I recognized him, the terrible being I had made. I shook with rage and horror. I decided to wait until he reached me and fight him to the death. His face showed bitter suffering mixed with contempt and malice. Its unearthly ugliness was almost unbearable to look at, but I scarcely noticed that. At first anger and hatred kept me from speaking. When my voice returned, I poured out furious disgust and contempt.

“Devil! You dare come near me? Aren't you afraid of what I will do to you? Go away, you vile insect. Or stay and let me crush you. If only destroying your miserable life could bring back the people you murdered.”

“I expected this,” he said. “People hate the wretched. How much more must they hate me, more miserable than any living thing? But you are my creator. You reject the being you made, though we are bound together until one of us is destroyed. You intend to kill me. How can you treat life so carelessly? Fulfill your responsibility to me, and I will fulfill mine to you and everyone else. Agree to my conditions, and I will leave you all in peace. Refuse, and I will feed death with the blood of your remaining friends until it has had enough.”

“You hateful monster. Hell's tortures would be too gentle a punishment for what you have done. You blame me for creating you? Come here, then. Let me put out the spark I gave you so thoughtlessly.”

I threw myself at him, driven by every feeling that can make one being want to destroy another.

He avoided me easily.

“Be calm,” he said. “Please hear me before you turn your hatred against me. Haven't I suffered enough? Must you add to it? My life may be nothing but suffering, but it is still dear to me, and I will defend it. Remember that you made me stronger than yourself. I am taller and more agile. Even so, I will resist the temptation to fight you. I am your creature. I can be gentle and obedient to the person who is naturally my lord and king, if you do the part you owe me. Frankenstein, you give justice to everyone else. Why trample on the one being who has the strongest claim to your fairness, mercy, and affection? You made me. I ought to be your Adam. Instead I am the fallen angel, driven away from happiness before I had done anything wrong. I see happiness everywhere, and I alone am shut out of it forever. I was kind and good. Suffering made me a fiend. Give me happiness and I will be good again.”

“Go away. I refuse to listen. We can have nothing in common. We are enemies. Leave, or fight me until one of us dies.”

“What can I say to reach you? Can nothing make you look kindly at the being begging for your compassion? Believe me, Frankenstein. I was kind. I was full of love for people. But I am alone, terribly alone. My own creator hates me. What can I expect from other people, who owe me nothing? They reject and hate me too. These empty mountains and bleak glaciers are my refuge. I have wandered here for days. I alone have no fear of the caves in the ice. They are my home, the only one people let me have. I welcome these harsh skies because they are kinder than your fellow human beings. If people knew I existed, they would do what you are doing and arm themselves to destroy me. Why shouldn't I hate the people who hate me? I will offer my enemies no terms. I am miserable, and they will be miserable too. Yet you can make this right for me and save them from it. Only your decision now can make the evil grow so great that it sweeps away you, your family, and thousands of others. Have some compassion. Hear my story. Once you have heard it, reject me or pity me as you think I deserve. But listen first. Even human laws, bloody as they are, allow the guilty to speak before condemning them. You accuse me of murder and would destroy the life you created with a clear conscience. What wonderful justice people have. I am asking you to listen, rather than asking you to spare me. Hear me, then destroy what you made if you still can and still choose to.”

“Why remind me of something I can hardly bear to think about, that I was the cause and maker of you? I curse the day you first saw light. I curse the hands that made you, even though they are my own. You have made me too miserable to consider whether I am treating you fairly. Go away. Let me stop looking at you.”

“Then I will spare you that sight, my creator.” He put his hated hands over my eyes, and I knocked them away. “You can still listen and give me compassion. I ask it for the sake of the good qualities I once had. My story is long and strange. This cold is too much for your delicate body. Come to the hut on the mountain. The sun is still high. Before it disappears behind those snowy cliffs to light another world, you will have heard everything and can decide. You will decide whether I leave human society forever and live harmlessly, or become a torment to your fellow beings and bring you quickly to ruin.”

He led the way across the ice, and I followed. My heart was too full for an answer. As I walked, I considered his arguments and decided at least to hear him. Curiosity moved me, and compassion strengthened the decision. I had assumed he murdered my brother and badly wanted to know whether it was true. For the first time I also felt the responsibility a creator owes to his creature. I ought to have tried to make him happy before complaining about his wickedness. So I agreed. We crossed the glacier and climbed the opposite rock. The air was cold, and rain began again. We entered the hut, he looking triumphant, I heavy-hearted and low. But I had agreed to listen. I sat beside the fire my hateful companion had lit, and he began his story.

Chapter III

“It is hard to remember the beginning of my existence. Everything from that time is blurred. So many strange sensations came at once. I saw, felt, heard, and smelled together, and it took a long time to separate one sense from another. I remember a stronger light pressing on me until I had to close my eyes. Then darkness troubled me. But almost as soon as I felt it, the light returned, apparently because I opened my eyes. I walked, and I think went downward. Soon everything felt different. Before, solid, dark things had surrounded me, things I could neither see nor feel through. Now I could move freely. Whatever lay in my way, I could go over or around. The light grew more oppressive, and the heat tired me as I walked, so I looked for shade. I came to the forest near Ingolstadt. There I lay beside a stream until hunger and thirst brought me out of my half-sleep. I ate berries from the trees and the ground, drank from the stream, then lay down and fell asleep.

“When I woke it was dark. I was cold and felt an almost instinctive fear at being so alone. Before leaving your rooms I had felt cold and put on some clothes, but they did little to protect me from the night's damp. I was helpless and miserable. I understood nothing and could hardly distinguish one thing from another. Pain seemed to come from every side. I sat down and cried.

“Then a gentle light spread across the sky, and it pleased me. I stood and saw something shining rise among the trees. I watched it in wonder. It moved slowly and lit my path, so I went looking for berries again. I was still cold. Under a tree I found a great cloak, wrapped it around myself, and sat down. My mind had no clear ideas. There was light, hunger, thirst, darkness, countless sounds in my ears and different smells everywhere. The bright moon was the one thing I could distinguish. I looked at it with pleasure.

“Days and nights passed. The moon had grown much smaller before I began separating my sensations. Gradually I could see clearly the stream I drank from and the trees whose leaves shaded me. I was delighted to discover that a pleasant sound I often heard came from the throats of the small winged animals that sometimes passed between my eyes and the light. I began to see the shapes around me more precisely, and the edges of the bright canopy overhead. Sometimes I tried to copy the birds' songs, but couldn't. Sometimes I wanted to express what I felt in some way of my own. The rough, shapeless sounds I made frightened me into silence.

“I was still in the forest when the moon disappeared and then began to show itself again as a smaller shape. By then I could distinguish my sensations, and every day brought new ideas. My eyes had become used to light and could see things in their proper forms. I could tell an insect from a plant, and gradually one plant from another. I learned that the sparrow's notes were harsh, while the blackbird and thrush sang sweetly.

“One cold day I found a fire some wandering beggars had left. The warmth delighted me. In my happiness I put my hand into the glowing embers, then pulled it back with a cry of pain. How strange that the same thing could produce such opposite feelings. I examined the fire and was pleased to find that it consisted of wood. I gathered branches quickly, but they were wet and wouldn't burn. Disappointed, I sat and watched. The wet wood I had put near the heat dried and caught fire. I thought about that and felt the different branches until I understood the cause. Then I collected a great supply to dry, so I could keep the fire going. As night came and I grew sleepy, I was terribly afraid the fire would go out. I carefully covered it with dry wood and leaves, put wet branches over it, spread my cloak, and lay on the ground to sleep.

“In the morning I went straight to the fire. I uncovered it, and a light breeze soon brought back the flame. I noticed that too and made a fan of branches to revive the embers when they were fading. The next night I was pleased to discover that fire gave light as well as warmth. It helped with food too. Some scraps the travelers had left were roasted and tasted much better than the berries I gathered. I tried putting my own food on the embers. It spoiled the berries, but improved the nuts and roots.

“Food became scarce, though. Sometimes I searched all day without finding even a few acorns to ease my hunger. I decided to leave and look for somewhere that could supply the few things I needed more easily. I hated giving up the fire. I had found it by chance and had no idea how to make another. I spent hours thinking about the problem, but finally had to leave it unsolved. I wrapped myself in the cloak and walked through the forest toward the setting sun. After three days of wandering I reached open country. Heavy snow had fallen the previous night, leaving every field white. The scene felt desolate, and the cold, wet covering on the ground chilled my feet.

“It was about seven in the morning. I badly wanted food and shelter. At last I saw a little hut on rising ground, probably built for a shepherd. I had never seen anything like it and examined it curiously. The door was open, so I went in. An old man sat beside a fire preparing breakfast. Hearing me, he turned, screamed, and ran out across the fields faster than his frail body seemed capable of going. His appearance was unlike anything I had seen, and his flight surprised me. But I loved the hut. Rain and snow couldn't enter. The ground was dry. To me it seemed as wonderful a refuge as Pandemonium must have seemed to the devils after the lake of fire. I greedily ate the shepherd's remaining breakfast: bread, cheese, milk, and wine. I disliked the wine. Then I lay in some straw and fell asleep from exhaustion.

“I woke at noon. The sun shone warmly on the white ground and drew me outside. I put the remaining food into a bag I found and walked on for several hours. At sunset I reached a village. It seemed miraculous. I admired the huts, the neat cottages, and the grander houses in turn. Vegetables grew in gardens. Milk and cheese stood in cottage windows, tempting me. I went into one of the best cottages. Almost before I was through the door, children screamed and a woman fainted. The whole village was stirred up. Some people fled. Others attacked me. They threw stones and other objects until, badly bruised, I escaped into the open country. I hid fearfully in a low, empty shed that looked miserable after the palaces I thought I had seen. It stood against a neat, pleasant cottage, but my painful experience kept me from entering that. The shed was wooden and so low that I could barely sit upright. Its earth floor was dry. Wind came through countless gaps, but it sheltered me from snow and rain.

“I lay down there, happy to have found even such a poor refuge from the weather, and happier still to be away from people's cruelty.

“At dawn I crept out to examine the cottage and see whether I could stay. My shelter stood against its back, with a pigsty and a clear pool bordering the exposed sides. I had entered through an open part. Now I blocked every gap through which someone might see me with stones and wood, arranging them so I could move them when I needed to leave. Light coming through the pigsty was enough.

“I covered the floor with clean straw and withdrew inside when I saw a man in the distance. I remembered the previous night too well to put myself in his power. First I had supplied myself with a stolen loaf of coarse bread and a cup, which let me drink the clear water beside my shelter more easily than my hands did. The floor was slightly raised and stayed completely dry. Being near the cottage chimney kept it reasonably warm.

“I decided to stay until something gave me reason to leave. Compared with the bleak forest, dripping branches, and damp earth, it was paradise. I enjoyed my breakfast and was about to shift a plank to get water when I heard footsteps. Through a little gap I saw a young woman passing with a pail on her head. Her manner was gentle, unlike what I have since observed among cottage dwellers and farm servants. She was poorly dressed, in a coarse blue skirt and a linen jacket. Her fair hair was plaited without decoration. She looked patient and sad. About a quarter of an hour later she returned with the pail partly full of milk. The weight seemed to trouble her. A young man met her, looking even more unhappy. He spoke a few sad sounds, took the pail from her head, and carried it into the cottage. She followed. Soon he came out with tools and crossed the field behind the house. She worked in the house and yard.

“Examining my shelter, I found that part of the cottage wall had once held a window. Wood now filled the panes, but one board had a tiny crack I could just see through. Beyond it was a clean, whitewashed room with very little furniture. In a corner near a small fire sat an old man, his head resting sadly on his hands. The young woman tidied the room, then took something from a drawer to work on and sat beside him. He picked up an instrument and began making sounds sweeter than the thrush or nightingale. Even to someone like me, who had never seen anything beautiful, it was a lovely sight. His silver hair and kindly face made me feel respect. Her gentle ways drew my affection. He played a sweet, sad tune that brought tears to her eyes. He noticed only when she began to sob. He said a few sounds, and she put down her work and knelt at his feet. He lifted her and smiled with such love and kindness that I felt something new and overwhelming. It mixed pleasure and pain in a way entirely different from hunger, cold, warmth, or food. I had to turn away from the window because I couldn't bear it.

“Soon the young man returned carrying wood on his shoulders. The girl met him and helped take it down, then carried some inside and put it on the fire. In a corner of the cottage he showed her a large loaf and a piece of cheese. She looked pleased. She gathered roots and plants from the garden, put them in water over the fire, then returned to her work. He went out to dig and pull up roots. After about an hour she joined him, and they came inside together.

“The old man had been thoughtful and sad, but brightened when they appeared. They sat down and quickly ate. The young woman tidied again. The old man walked for a few minutes in the sunshine outside, leaning on the young man's arm. The contrast between them was beautiful: one silver-haired, his face shining with kindness and love, the other slender and graceful, his features finely balanced, but his expression and bearing deeply sad. The old man returned inside. The younger one took different tools and went across the fields.

“Darkness came quickly, but I was amazed to see they could extend the light with candles. Sunset needn't end my pleasure in watching them. That evening the girl and young man worked at things I couldn't understand. The old man played the instrument again, making those wonderful sounds. When he finished, the young man began making sounds of his own. They were monotonous, unlike the instrument or the birds. I later learned that he was reading aloud. At the time I knew nothing of words or writing.

“After a little while they put out the lights and, I supposed, went to rest.”

Chapter IV

“I lay on the straw, awake, thinking about what I had seen. Their gentleness stayed with me most. I wanted to join them, but I was afraid. I remembered the villagers too well. Whatever I might decide later, for now I would stay quietly in the shed, watch, and try to understand why these people did what they did.

“They rose before sunrise. The young woman tidied and prepared food. After the first meal, the young man left.

“The day followed the same pattern as the day before. He worked outside, and she did various demanding jobs indoors. I soon realized the old man was blind. He spent his free time playing his instrument or thinking. The love and respect the younger two showed him were extraordinary. They did every little duty and kindness gently, and he rewarded them with affectionate smiles.

“But they were unhappy. The young man and woman often went aside and seemed to cry. I couldn't see why, but it affected me deeply. If such lovely beings were miserable, perhaps my own misery was less strange. I was imperfect and alone. Yet what troubled them? To my eyes they had a delightful home and every luxury. Fire warmed them, delicious food satisfied their hunger, and their clothes were excellent. More than that, they had each other. Every day they spoke and exchanged loving looks. What did their tears mean? Were they really in pain? At first I couldn't answer. Time and constant attention gradually explained things that had seemed mysterious.

“It took quite a while to understand one source of their unhappiness: poverty. They suffered from it severely. They lived entirely on vegetables from their garden and milk from one cow. In winter it gave very little because they could barely feed it. I believe they were often painfully hungry, especially the younger two. Several times I saw them put food in front of the old man while keeping none for themselves.

“That kindness moved me deeply. Until then I had stolen some of their food at night. Once I understood that taking it caused them pain, I stopped. I lived on berries, nuts, and roots from a nearby wood instead.

“I also found a way to help them. The young man spent much of each day gathering firewood. At night I borrowed his tools, quickly worked out how to use them, and brought back enough wood for several days.

“The first time, I remember, the girl opened the door in the morning and stared at the great pile outside. She called out. The young man came and looked just as surprised. I was pleased to see that he stayed out of the forest that day. He repaired the cottage and worked in the garden instead.

“Gradually I discovered something more important. They could communicate their experiences and feelings through definite sounds. Their words could bring pleasure or pain, smiles or sadness, to the person listening. It seemed like a divine kind of knowledge, and I wanted desperately to learn it. At first every attempt frustrated me. They spoke quickly, and most of the words had no obvious connection to something I could see. I had no clue how to work out their meaning. But after several cycles of the moon in my shelter, and a great deal of effort, I learned names for some familiar things: fire, milk, bread, wood. I learned their names too. The younger two had several each. The old man had only one: Father. The girl was Sister or Agatha. The young man was Felix, Brother, or Son. I can't describe the pleasure of understanding what those sounds stood for and being able to say them myself. I recognized other words too, including good, dearest, and unhappy, but couldn't yet understand or use them.

“That was how I spent the winter. Their beauty and gentle ways made them dear to me. I grew sad when they were unhappy and shared their pleasure when they rejoiced. I saw few other people. When someone else entered the cottage, the roughness of their manner and walk only made my friends seem more accomplished. The old man often tried to lift his children's spirits. That was another word I sometimes heard him call them. His cheerful voice and kind expression gave pleasure even to me. Agatha listened respectfully, sometimes wiping away tears as quietly as she could. Usually she looked and sounded happier after he encouraged her. Felix was different. He was always the saddest. Even with my inexperience, I could see he seemed more deeply wounded than the others. But although his face was sadder, his voice was more cheerful than his sister's, especially when he spoke to his father.

“I could give countless small examples of what they were like. In the middle of their poverty, Felix happily brought Agatha the first little white flower to appear through the snow. Before she rose in the morning, he cleared the snow from her path to the dairy, drew water, and fetched wood from the outbuilding. He was constantly astonished to find the wood supply renewed by an unseen hand. Sometimes I think he worked for a neighboring farmer, because he would leave until dinner and return without wood. Other days he worked in the garden. With little gardening to do in the frost, he read to his father and Agatha.

“The reading puzzled me at first. Gradually I noticed that many of the sounds were the same as in their conversations. I guessed that marks on the paper represented speech he understood. I wanted badly to understand those too. But how could I, when I still didn't know the sounds they represented? I was improving steadily, yet even with all my concentration I couldn't follow a conversation. I saw clearly that before revealing myself, however much I wanted to, I ought to master their language. Perhaps words would help them look past my deformed appearance. Watching them had taught me about that too.

“I admired their well-formed bodies, their grace, beauty, and delicate skin. Then I saw myself in a clear pool and was terrified. At first I drew back, unable to believe the reflection was mine. When I finally understood that I really was the monster I saw, shame and discouragement filled me. I still had little idea how much that deformity would cost me.

“The sun grew warmer, the days longer. Snow melted and left bare trees and dark earth. Felix had more work, and the heartbreaking signs of approaching starvation disappeared. I later learned that their food was plain, but it was nourishing, and now they had enough. New kinds of plants appeared in the garden for them to tend. Each day of the advancing season brought more signs of comfort.

“At noon the old man walked on his son's arm, except when water fell from the sky. I learned to call that rain. It happened often, but strong winds dried the ground quickly. The season became much pleasanter.

“My life kept to a regular pattern. In the morning I watched them. When their different jobs separated them, I slept. I spent the rest of the day observing my friends. After they went to bed, if there was moonlight or starlight, I went into the woods for my food and their firewood. When I returned, I cleared their path if snow had fallen and did the little tasks I had seen Felix do. I later learned how much these unseen services astonished them. Once or twice I heard the words good spirit and wonderful, though I didn't yet know what they meant.

“My thoughts were becoming more active. I wanted to understand their feelings and motives, why Felix was so miserable and Agatha so sad. Foolishly, I thought I might be able to make these good people happy again. When I slept or went away, I kept seeing the blind father, gentle Agatha, and excellent Felix in my mind. I thought of them as higher beings who would determine my future. I imagined a thousand ways of introducing myself and being received. At first they would feel disgust. Then my gentleness and friendly words would win their favor, and eventually their love.

“The thought encouraged me and made me study language harder. My voice was rough, but the organs that made it were flexible. Though I sounded very different from their soft, musical voices, I could say the words I knew fairly easily. It was like the fable of the donkey and the lapdog. But surely a gentle donkey with affectionate intentions, however clumsy his manners, deserved better than blows and curses.

“Spring's pleasant rain and warmth transformed the earth. People who had seemed hidden away in caves came out to cultivate it in different ways. The birds sang more cheerfully, and leaves began opening on the trees. What a happy earth it seemed, fit for gods to live on, though only a short time before it had been bleak, wet, and unhealthy. Nature's beauty lifted me. The past faded from memory. The present was peaceful, and the future shone with hope and the promise of happiness.”

Chapter V

“Now I will come to the more affecting part of my story, the events that changed what I felt and made me what I am.

“Spring came on quickly. The weather turned fine, the sky clear. It amazed me that a place so empty and gloomy could fill with beautiful flowers and green growth. A thousand lovely sights and scents refreshed my senses.

“One day, when the family was taking its regular rest from work, the old man played his guitar while his children listened. Felix looked more sorrowful than I can describe. He sighed repeatedly. His father paused, apparently to ask why he was sad. Felix answered cheerfully. The old man was about to play again when someone knocked.

“A woman sat outside on horseback, with a countryman guiding her. She wore dark clothes and a thick black veil. Agatha asked something. The stranger answered only with Felix's name, spoken sweetly. Her voice was musical, but unlike either of my friends' voices. Felix hurried over. When she saw him, she lifted the veil and revealed a face of almost angelic beauty. Her shining black hair was intricately braided. Her dark eyes were lively but gentle, her features well proportioned, her skin remarkably fair with pink in each cheek.

“Felix was overwhelmed with delight. Every sign of sorrow disappeared. I could hardly have believed his face capable of so much joy. His eyes shone, his cheeks flushed, and at that moment he seemed as beautiful as she was. She appeared to feel several things at once. She wiped tears from her eyes and held out her hand. He kissed it eagerly and called her, as nearly as I could make out, his sweet Arabian. She seemed to understand little of what he said, but smiled. He helped her down, sent away the guide, and brought her inside. He spoke with his father. The stranger knelt before the old man and would have kissed his hand, but he lifted and embraced her affectionately.

“I soon saw that she had a language of her own, but neither she nor the family understood the other's words. They made signs I couldn't follow. Still, her presence filled the house with happiness, clearing away sorrow like sunlight clearing morning mist. Felix was especially delighted. Agatha kissed her hands and pointed to her brother, making gestures that seemed to explain how unhappy he had been before she came. For hours their faces showed a pleasure whose cause I couldn't yet understand. Then I noticed the stranger repeating a particular sound after them. She was learning their language. Immediately I realized I could learn from the same lessons. She learned about twenty words in the first one. I already knew most, but the others helped me.

“Agatha and the visitor went to bed early. When they parted, Felix kissed the stranger's hand. ‘Good night, sweet Safie,’ he said. He stayed up much longer talking to his father. They repeated her name so often that I assumed they were talking about her. I tried with every ability I had to understand them, but it was beyond me.

“The next morning Felix went to work. After Agatha finished her usual tasks, Safie sat at the old man's feet and played his guitar. The music was so beautiful that I cried with both pleasure and sadness. She sang in rich phrases that grew and faded like a nightingale's song in the woods.

“When she finished, she handed the guitar to Agatha, who at first declined. Agatha played a simple tune and sang sweetly, though with a very different effect from Safie's extraordinary music. The old man seemed delighted. He said something Agatha tried to explain to Safie, apparently telling her how much pleasure her playing had given him.

“The days were as peaceful as before, except that happiness had replaced sadness in my friends' faces. Safie was always cheerful. She and I learned quickly. Within two months I could understand most of what the people I thought of as my protectors were saying.

“Meanwhile, plants covered the dark ground, and countless flowers filled the green banks. They delighted both sight and smell, like pale stars among the moonlit trees. The sun grew warmer, the nights clear and mild. My nighttime walks became a great pleasure, though the late sunset and early sunrise made them shorter. I stayed hidden during daylight, afraid of another encounter like the one in that first village.

“I spent the days listening closely so I could learn faster. I can say that I advanced more quickly than Safie. She still understood little and spoke haltingly, while I could understand and repeat almost every word.

“As she learned to read and write, I learned too. It opened an enormous new world of wonder and pleasure.

“Felix used Volney's Ruins of Empires to teach her. I would have understood little of its meaning without his detailed explanations. He said he chose it because its rhetorical style imitated Eastern writers. Through it I gained a rough knowledge of history and the empires then existing. I learned about different countries' customs, governments, and religions. The account described the people of Asia as idle, the Greeks as extraordinarily gifted and intellectually active. It told of the wars and great virtues of early Rome, its later corruption, and the empire's decline. There were accounts of chivalry, Christianity, and kings. I heard about the discovery of the American hemisphere and cried with Safie over what happened to its original inhabitants.

“Those stories stirred strange feelings. Could people really be so powerful, good, and magnificent, and also so cruel and degraded? Sometimes humanity seemed an offshoot of evil itself. At other times it seemed capable of everything noble and godlike. Being a great and good person seemed the highest honor a feeling being could have. Being cruel and corrupt, as so many people in history had been, seemed lower than the condition of a blind mole or a harmless worm. For a long time I couldn't understand why one person would kill another, or even why laws and governments were necessary. Once I heard the details of wrongdoing and bloodshed, I understood and turned away in disgust.

“Every conversation opened something new. Listening to Felix teach Safie, I learned about the strange arrangements of human society: how property is divided, enormous wealth and terrible poverty, social position, ancestry, and noble blood.

“That made me think about myself. What people valued most seemed to be wealth joined to a high and honorable ancestry. Someone with only one might still be respected. Someone with neither was usually treated as a wanderer or a slave, expected to spend his strength for the benefit of a favored few. What was I? I knew nothing about my creation or creator. I had no money, no friends, no property. Beyond that, my body was hideously deformed. I wasn't even the same kind of being as a person. I was more agile, could live on rougher food, and could endure greater heat and cold with less harm. I was much taller. I saw and heard of nobody like me. Was I a monster, a stain on the earth that everyone fled and refused to acknowledge?

“Those thoughts hurt me beyond anything I can describe. I tried to drive them away, but every new thing I learned brought more sorrow. I wished I had stayed in the forest, knowing nothing beyond hunger, thirst, and warmth.

“Knowledge is a strange thing. Once it takes hold, it clings to the mind like lichen to rock. Sometimes I wanted to be free of thought and feeling altogether. But I learned that only death could end the ability to feel pain, and death was something I feared without understanding. I admired goodness and loved my neighbors' gentle ways. Yet I could share their life only by watching secretly, unseen and unknown. That made the desire to belong stronger instead of satisfying it. Agatha's gentle words, Safie's lively smiles, the father's kind encouragement, Felix's animated talk: none of it was for me. I was miserably unhappy.

“Other lessons went deeper still. I learned the difference between the sexes, how children are born and grow, how a father delights in a baby's smile and an older child's lively remarks. I learned how a mother's care and life gather around her child, how a young mind expands and learns, what brothers and sisters are, and all the different bonds connecting people.

“Where were my own family and friends? No father had watched over my infancy. No mother had smiled at me or held me. If they had, it lay in an empty darkness beyond my memory. From the earliest moment I could remember, I had been the same size and shape. I had never seen another being like me, or anyone who claimed a connection to me. What was I? The question kept returning, and I could answer only with groans.

“I will soon tell you where those feelings led. First let me return to the family. Their history filled me with indignation, happiness, and wonder, all of it ending in greater love and respect for my protectors. That was the name I liked to give them, in an innocent and partly painful attempt to deceive myself.”

Chapter VI

“It took time to learn their history. It stayed deeply with me, full of circumstances that were extraordinary to someone with as little experience as I had.

“The old man's name was De Lacey. He came from a good French family and had spent many comfortable years in France, respected by people above him in rank and loved by his equals. His son had been brought up to serve his country. Agatha had moved among women of the highest social standing. Only a few months before I arrived, they had lived in Paris, a large, luxurious city, surrounded by friends. With their moderate fortune, they had enjoyed everything goodness, education, and taste could offer.

“Safie's father caused their ruin. He was a Turkish merchant who had lived in Paris for years. For a reason I never learned, the government turned against him. They arrested him on the very day Safie arrived from Constantinople to join him. He was tried and sentenced to death. The injustice was so obvious that all Paris was indignant. People thought his religion and wealth had condemned him more than the alleged crime.

“Felix attended the trial. Hearing the verdict filled him with uncontrollable horror and anger. He solemnly decided to free the prisoner, then looked for a way. After repeated attempts to get inside the prison failed, he found a heavily barred window in an unguarded part of the building. It opened into the dungeon where the Muslim prisoner lay in chains, waiting in despair for the sentence to be carried out. Felix came to the window at night and explained his plan. Amazed and delighted, the merchant offered money and rewards to encourage him. Felix rejected those offers contemptuously. But then he saw Safie, who was allowed to visit her father. Her gestures showed her gratitude. Felix had to admit to himself that the prisoner did possess a treasure that could repay every effort and danger.

“The merchant quickly saw how strongly his daughter had affected Felix. To bind him more closely to the escape plan, he promised him her hand once they reached safety. Felix was too considerate to accept a bargain like that, but the possibility of marrying her seemed the fulfillment of everything he wanted.

“While they prepared the escape, letters from Safie strengthened his enthusiasm. An elderly servant of her father's who knew French helped her write in Felix's language. She thanked him passionately for what he intended to do, and gently expressed her sadness about her own situation.

“I have copies of the letters. While I lived in the shed, I found ways to obtain writing materials. Felix or Agatha often had the letters out where I could see them. I will give you my copies before I leave, as evidence that my story is true. The sun is already low, so for now I can only tell you what they contained.

“Safie wrote that her mother was a Christian Arab whom the Turks had captured and enslaved. Her beauty won her father's heart, and he married her. Safie spoke of her mother with great admiration. Born free, her mother hated the bondage she had been brought into. She taught her daughter her religion and encouraged intellectual ambition and an independent spirit, qualities she understood to be denied to women who followed Muhammad. Her mother died, but Safie kept those lessons. She dreaded returning to Asia and being confined in a harem, left with childish amusements that would never satisfy a mind accustomed to large ideas and a serious desire for goodness. Marrying a Christian and staying in a country where she believed women could have a recognized place in society seemed wonderful to her.

“The merchant's execution date was set. The night before, he escaped. By morning he was many leagues from Paris. Felix had obtained passports in his own name and those of his father and sister. He had told his father the plan beforehand. De Lacey helped by pretending to go on a journey, then hiding with Agatha in an obscure part of Paris.

“Felix led the fugitives through France to Lyons, over Mont Cenis, and on to Leghorn. The merchant planned to wait there until he could travel to Turkish territory.

“Safie intended to stay with her father until he left. Before then, the merchant renewed his promise that she would marry his rescuer. Felix stayed with them expecting that marriage. Meanwhile he enjoyed Safie's company and her simple, tender affection. They spoke through an interpreter, and sometimes their looks interpreted for them. She sang him beautiful songs from her country.

“Her father encouraged their closeness and hopes while secretly intending something else. He hated the thought of his daughter marrying a Christian. But he was afraid of Felix's anger if he seemed reluctant. Felix still had power over him. He could reveal him to the authorities in the Italian state where they were staying. The merchant considered all sorts of ways to keep deceiving him until he could safely take Safie away. News from Paris made that much easier.

“The French government was furious at the prisoner's escape and determined to find and punish whoever had helped. Felix's part was soon discovered. His father and Agatha were imprisoned. When Felix heard, his happiness collapsed. His old, blind father and gentle sister were in a filthy dungeon while he enjoyed freedom and the woman he loved. The thought tortured him. He arranged with the merchant that if there was a chance to leave before Felix returned to Italy, Safie would stay as a boarder in a Leghorn convent. Then he left her and hurried to Paris, giving himself up in the hope of freeing his family.

“It failed. They remained imprisoned for five months before the trial. The judgment took away their fortune and exiled them from France forever.

“They found poor shelter in the German cottage where I saw them. Felix soon learned that once the merchant knew his rescuer had lost his money and influence, he abandoned gratitude and honor. He left Italy with his daughter and sent Felix an insultingly small sum, supposedly to help him find some way to support himself.

“That was what weighed on Felix and made him the saddest of them when I first arrived. He could have endured poverty. If it had come as the price of doing right, he could even have taken pride in it. But the merchant's ingratitude and the loss of Safie were more bitter, and seemed beyond repair. Her arrival brought him back to life.

“When news of Felix's lost wealth and position reached Leghorn, Safie's father ordered her to forget him and prepare to go home. Her generous nature recoiled from the order. She tried to reason with him, but he repeated his command and left angrily.

“A few days later he came into her room in a hurry. He believed someone had revealed his whereabouts and that he would soon be handed over to France. He had hired a ship for Constantinople and would sail within hours. She was to remain with a trusted servant and follow later with most of his property, which had yet to reach Leghorn.

“Alone, Safie considered what to do. Living in Turkey was repellent to her, against both her feelings and her religion. Some of her father's papers came into her hands. From them she learned of Felix's exile and where he was living. She hesitated, then decided. With some jewels of her own, a little money, and an attendant from Leghorn who spoke the common language of Turkey, she left Italy for Germany.

“They traveled safely to a town about twenty leagues from De Lacey's cottage. There the attendant became dangerously ill. Safie cared for her devotedly, but she died. Safie was left alone, unable to speak the country's language and knowing almost nothing of the ways of the world. Fortunately, kind people helped her. The attendant had mentioned their destination, and after her death the woman who kept the house where they had stayed arranged for Safie to reach Felix safely.”

Chapter VII

“That was my dear family's history. It affected me deeply. What it showed me of society taught me to admire their goodness and condemn people's cruelty.

“At that point, crime still felt distant. Kindness and generosity were right in front of me every day. They made me want to enter the wider world, where so many admirable qualities could be exercised. But to explain how my mind developed, I need to tell you about something that happened at the beginning of August that year.

“One night, while gathering food for myself and wood for the family, I found a leather traveling bag in the woods. It held clothes and books. I seized it eagerly and carried it to my shelter. Fortunately, the books were in the language I had begun learning at the cottage: Paradise Lost, a volume of Plutarch's Lives, and The Sorrows of Werther. I was delighted to own them. While my friends went about their work, I studied those accounts and thought about them constantly.

“Their effect is hard to describe. They gave me countless new images and feelings. Sometimes I was carried into delight, but more often I sank into deep sadness. Beyond its simple, moving story, Werther discussed so many opinions and illuminated so many things I had barely understood that it became an endless source of thought and wonder. Its gentle domestic life, joined with elevated feelings directed toward something beyond oneself, fit both what I had seen in the cottage and what I wanted in my own heart. Werther himself seemed more divine than any being I had seen or imagined. There was no self-importance in him, and his character affected me deeply. The discussions of death and suicide astonished me. I couldn't judge the arguments properly, but I leaned toward his opinions and cried over his death without fully understanding it.

“As I read, I kept applying things to my own feelings and situation. I was like these people, yet strangely different. I sympathized with them and partly understood them, but my mind was still unformed. I depended on nobody and belonged to nobody. As the poem says, the way for me to leave was open. Nobody would mourn if I ceased to exist. I was hideous and enormous. What did that mean? Who was I? What was I? Where had I come from, and where was I going? Those questions kept coming back, without an answer.

“My volume of Plutarch's Lives described the founders of the ancient republics. It affected me very differently. Werther's imagination had taught me gloom and discouragement. Plutarch gave me greater thoughts, lifting me out of my narrow, miserable concerns to admire the heroes of earlier ages. Much of it was beyond my experience. I had only confused ideas of kingdoms, great stretches of land, mighty rivers, and endless seas. I knew almost nothing of cities or large gatherings of people. The cottage had been my only school for human nature. Now I saw larger fields of action: people governing their kind, or slaughtering them. I felt a strong love of goodness and hatred of wrongdoing, as far as I understood those terms. At that time I judged them only through pleasure and pain. That naturally led me to admire peaceful lawmakers such as Numa, Solon, and Lycurgus more than Romulus and Theseus. The family's simple, father-led life helped those impressions take hold. If my first teacher about humanity had been a young soldier eager for glory and killing, perhaps I would have felt differently.

“But Paradise Lost moved me in a different and much deeper way. Like the other books, I took it for a true history. The picture of an all-powerful God fighting his own creatures filled me with awe and wonder. Whenever I saw a resemblance, I compared the events with my own situation. Like Adam, I seemed to have been created without a link to any other being. In every other way we were different. He came from God's hands complete, happy, and fortunate, cared for especially by his creator. He could speak with higher beings and learn from them. I was miserable, helpless, and alone. Often Satan seemed a closer likeness. Watching my friends' happiness sometimes filled me, as it filled him, with bitter envy.

“Something else strengthened those feelings. Soon after reaching the shed, I found papers in the clothes I had taken from your laboratory. At first I left them alone. Once I could read the writing, I studied them closely. They were your journal from the four months before my creation. You described every step of your work in detail, mixed with accounts of things at home. You must remember them. Here they are. Everything about my cursed beginning is in those pages, every disgusting circumstance that produced me. You describe my loathsome body in language that records your horror and makes mine impossible to erase. Reading it sickened me. ‘I curse the day I came to life,’ I cried. ‘Why did you make something so hideous that even you turned away? God mercifully made people beautiful and attractive, in his own image. I am a filthy version of yours, made more horrible by the resemblance. Even Satan had fellow devils to admire and encourage him. I am alone and hated.’

“Those were my thoughts in lonely, discouraged hours. When I looked at the family's kindness, though, I persuaded myself that once they understood how much I admired them, they would pity me and look past my deformity. Would they really turn away someone, however monstrous, who asked for friendship and compassion? I decided to keep my hope and prepare myself in every way for the meeting that would settle my fate. I delayed it for several more months. So much depended on its success that the thought of failure frightened me. Besides, every day I understood so much more that I wanted a few more months of learning before I tried.

“Things changed at the cottage meanwhile. Safie's presence made everyone happy, and there was more to live on. Felix and Agatha spent more time talking and enjoying themselves. Servants helped with the work. They appeared comfortable and content rather than rich. Their minds were peaceful, while mine became more disturbed every day. Everything I learned showed me more clearly how completely I was an outcast. I kept hope alive, but one look at my reflection in water or my shadow in moonlight made it disappear, as frail and changeable as those images themselves.

“I tried to put those fears aside and strengthen myself for the meeting. Sometimes I let my imagination wander freely into paradise. I pictured beautiful, kind beings who understood me and cheered me with comforting smiles. It was only a dream. I had no Eve to soothe me or share my thoughts. I was alone. I remembered Adam asking his creator for a companion. Where was my creator? He had abandoned me. In my bitterness, I cursed him.

“Autumn passed that way. I watched the leaves wither and fall with surprise and grief. Nature became as bare and bleak as when I first saw the forest and the moon. The weather itself troubled me little. My body endured cold better than heat. But flowers, birds, and summer's beauty had been my greatest pleasures. When they went, I watched the family more closely. Summer's departure did little to their happiness. They loved and understood each other. Since their pleasure depended on one another, changes outside could scarcely disturb it. The more I saw, the more I wanted their kindness and protection. I wanted to be known and loved, to have those gentle faces turn toward me with affection. That was the whole of my ambition. I hardly dared imagine their turning away in disgust. They never drove poor people from the door. I was asking for more than a little food or rest, for kindness and sympathy, but I believed I deserved some share of that too.

“Winter approached. A full cycle of seasons had passed since I first awoke. Now I thought only about introducing myself. I considered many plans and finally decided to enter when the blind father was alone. I understood that my unnatural appearance had chiefly frightened the people who had seen me. My voice was rough, but there was nothing terrifying in it. If I could win De Lacey's goodwill while the others were away, perhaps he could help them tolerate me.

“One day the sun shone on the fallen red leaves, bringing cheerfulness without warmth. Safie, Agatha, and Felix went for a long walk. At his own request, the old man stayed behind. He took up his guitar and played tunes more sweet and mournful than any I had heard from him. At first he looked pleased. Then thoughtfulness and sadness took over. Finally he put the instrument down and sat in reflection.

“My heart raced. This was the moment that would decide whether my hopes or fears came true. The servants had gone to a nearby fair. Everything was quiet. The opportunity was ideal. Yet when I tried to act, my legs failed and I sank to the ground. I stood again, gathered all my resolve, and moved the planks concealing my shelter. The fresh air revived me. I approached the cottage door.

“I knocked. ‘Who is there?’ the old man said. ‘Come in.’

“I entered. ‘Forgive the intrusion. I am a traveler who needs a little rest. Would you let me sit by the fire for a few minutes?’

“‘Come in,’ De Lacey said. ‘I will do what I can for you. My children are away, and I am blind, so finding you food may be difficult.’

“‘Please leave that to me. I have food. All I need is warmth and rest.’

“I sat down. We were quiet. Every minute mattered, but I couldn't decide how to begin. Then he spoke.

“‘Your speech makes me think you are from my country. Are you French?’

“‘No. A French family educated me, and French is the only language I know. I am going to ask protection from friends I love sincerely. I have some hope that they will accept me.’

“‘Are they German?’

“‘French. But let us talk differently about it. I am unfortunate and abandoned. I have no relative or friend anywhere. The kind people I am going to have never seen me and know little of me. I am terribly afraid. If they reject me, I will be an outcast forever.’

“‘Keep your hope. Having no friends is indeed a misfortune. But when self-interest has little part in it, people's hearts can be full of brotherly kindness. If these are good people, you have reason for hope.’

“‘They are good, the best people in the world. But they are prejudiced against me. My intentions are kind. I have done no harm and have even been useful in some ways. Yet a terrible prejudice clouds their sight. Where they should see a feeling, affectionate friend, they see only a hateful monster.’

“‘That is unfortunate. If you are blameless, can you help them understand their error?’

“‘That is what I am trying to do, and why I am so frightened. I love them dearly. For months I have done little kindnesses for them every day without their knowing. But they think I want to hurt them. That is what I need to overcome.’

“‘Where do they live?’

“‘Near here.’

“He paused. ‘Tell me the whole story openly. Perhaps I can help them understand. I am blind, so I cannot judge your face, but your words make me believe you are sincere. I am poor and an exile, but it would give me real pleasure to help another human being.’

“‘Thank you. I accept. Your kindness lifts me from the ground. With your help, I hope I can remain among people and share their sympathy.’

“‘Heaven grant it. Even if you really had committed a crime, being driven away could only make you desperate. It would do little to make you good. My family and I have suffered too. We were condemned though innocent. You can judge how much I feel for you.’

“‘How can I thank you? You are the first person to speak kindly to me. I will always be grateful. Your kindness gives me confidence about the friends I am about to meet.’

“‘Can you tell me their names and where they live?’

“I paused. This was the decision that would give me happiness or take it away forever. I tried to find the strength to answer, but the effort exhausted what I had left. I sank into the chair and sobbed. Then I heard the others coming. I had no time. I took his hand. ‘Now. Please save and protect me. You and your family are the friends I mean. Please stand by me in this moment.’

“‘Great God,’ he cried. ‘Who are you?’

“The door opened. Felix, Safie, and Agatha came in. Their horror was beyond description. Agatha fainted. Safie rushed out, unable even to help her. Felix sprang forward and tore me from his father, whose knees I was holding. Furious, he threw me to the floor and beat me with a stick. I could have torn him apart as a lion tears an antelope. But my heart sank with a sickening pain, and I held back. He was about to strike again. Overcome by pain and anguish, I left. In the confusion I escaped unnoticed to my shelter.”

Chapter VIII

“I cursed you, my creator. Why was I alive? Why hadn't I put out the life you had given so carelessly? I don't know. Despair hadn't fully taken me yet. What I felt was rage and revenge. I could have destroyed the cottage and everyone inside, and taken pleasure in their screams.

“At night I left the shed and wandered through the wood. I had stopped caring whether anyone found me. I let my anguish out in terrible howls, like a wild animal breaking free of a trap. I smashed whatever blocked me and moved through the trees as quickly as a deer. What a miserable night. The cold stars seemed to mock me. Bare branches moved overhead. Now and then a bird's sweet voice broke the stillness. Everything else was resting or enjoying itself. Like Satan, I carried hell inside me. With nobody to feel for me, I wanted to tear up the trees, destroy everything around me, then sit and enjoy the ruin.

“That fierce pleasure couldn't last. Exertion exhausted me. I fell onto wet grass, helpless with despair. Among all the millions of people, nobody would pity or help me. Why should I feel kindness toward my enemies? From that moment I declared permanent war on humanity, especially on the one who had made me and sent me into this unbearable misery.

“The sun rose. Hearing people, I knew I couldn't return to the shed that day. I hid in thick undergrowth and decided to think through my situation.

“Sunlight and fresh air calmed me somewhat. Considering what had happened, I began to think my conclusions had been too quick. I had acted unwisely. The father had clearly begun to care about me. I had been foolish to let his children see me so soon. I should have let him become familiar with me, then introduced myself gradually once the others were prepared. Perhaps the mistake could still be repaired. After thinking for a long time, I decided to return, find the old man, and win him over by explaining myself.

“The thought steadied me. In the afternoon I slept deeply, but without peaceful dreams. I kept seeing the scene again, the women fleeing and Felix dragging me from his father's feet. I woke exhausted. It was already night. I crept out to find food.

“After eating, I took the familiar path to the cottage. Everything was quiet. I went into my shelter and waited for the family to get up. Their usual hour passed. The sun rose high, but nobody appeared. I shook, afraid something dreadful had happened. The cottage was dark and silent. The suspense was agony.

“Two countrymen passed, then stopped near the house and talked with vigorous gestures. I couldn't follow them because they used the local language rather than my friends' French. Soon Felix arrived with another man. That surprised me. I knew he hadn't left the cottage that morning. I listened anxiously for an explanation.

“‘You understand that you will owe three months' rent and give up the produce of the garden?’ the man asked. ‘I want to treat you fairly. Please take a few days to think.’

“‘There is nothing to consider,’ Felix replied. ‘We can never live here again. After what I told you, my father's life is in serious danger. My wife and sister will never recover from the horror. Please stop trying to persuade me. Take back the cottage and let me leave.’

“He shook violently as he spoke. They went inside for a few minutes, then left. I never saw any member of the De Lacey family again.

“I spent the rest of the day in the shed, numb with complete despair. My protectors were gone. The only bond holding me to the world was broken. For the first time I gave hatred and revenge possession of my heart without trying to restrain them. I let them carry me toward thoughts of injury and death. When I remembered the father's gentle voice, Agatha's kind eyes, or Safie's beauty, the anger faded and tears gave me some relief. Then I remembered their rejection and abandonment, and the rage returned. Unable to harm a person, I turned against lifeless things. As night came, I gathered combustible material around the cottage. I destroyed every cultivated thing in the garden, then waited impatiently for the moon to set.

“A fierce wind rose from the woods and scattered the lingering clouds. It swept through like an avalanche and brought a kind of madness that carried me beyond reason. I lit a dry branch and danced furiously around the doomed house, watching the moon near the western horizon. As its edge disappeared, I waved the burning branch. When it was gone, I screamed and lit the straw, heather, and brush I had gathered. The wind drove the fire. Flames quickly wrapped the house, their forked tongues consuming it.

“Once I was certain no help could save any part of it, I went into the woods.

“The world was open before me, but where should I go? I wanted to get far away, yet to someone hated everywhere, one country seemed as terrible as another. Then I thought of you. Your papers had told me you were my father, my creator. Who had a stronger claim on you than the being whose life you had made? Felix had taught Safie geography, so I knew roughly how the countries lay in relation to one another. Your papers named Geneva as your hometown. I decided to go there.

“How would I find it? I knew I had to travel southwest, but the sun was my only guide. I knew none of the towns I would pass and could ask nobody for directions. Still, I kept my resolve. You were my only possible source of help, though I felt only hatred for you. You had given me senses and feelings, then cast me out to be despised and feared. But I had a claim on your pity and help. I would seek from you the justice I had failed to find anywhere else.

“The journey was long and terribly difficult. It was late autumn when I left. I traveled only at night, afraid of seeing a human face. Nature faded around me. The sun lost its warmth. Rain and snow fell, great rivers froze, and the earth became hard, cold, and bare. I had no shelter. How often I cursed the cause of my existence. My old gentleness was gone. Everything in me had turned bitter. The closer I came to your home, the stronger my revenge became. Snow fell and water froze, but I kept going. Occasional events helped me find my way, and I had a map, though I often wandered far off course. My feelings allowed me no rest. Whatever happened seemed to feed my misery and anger. Then, near the Swiss border, when the sun was warm again and the earth was turning green, something happened that fixed those feelings more deeply than ever.

“Usually I rested by day and traveled under cover of darkness. One morning my route went through a deep forest, so I risked continuing after sunrise. It was one of the first spring days. Even I felt cheered by the sunlight and mild air. Gentleness and pleasure, feelings I thought dead, came back. Half surprised, I let myself follow them. I forgot my loneliness and deformity and dared to be happy. Gentle tears ran down my face. I looked up gratefully at the sun that had given me this pleasure.

“The paths led to the edge of the wood, beside a deep, fast river. Trees bent their newly budding branches over it. I paused, unsure which way to go. Voices made me hide under a cypress. A girl ran toward me, laughing as if someone were chasing her in play. She continued along the steep bank, slipped, and fell into the current. I rushed out. With great effort against the water, I rescued her and dragged her ashore. She was unconscious. I was doing everything I could to revive her when a countryman appeared, probably the person she had been running from. He saw me, seized her from my arms, and hurried deeper into the wood. I followed quickly, hardly knowing why. When he saw me coming, he aimed his gun at me and fired. I fell, and he ran away faster.

“That was my reward for kindness. I had saved a person from death, and now lay in agony with flesh and bone shattered. The gentle feelings I had experienced moments before became a hellish rage. In my pain I swore lasting hatred and revenge against everyone. Then the wound overcame me. My pulse faltered, and I fainted.

“For weeks I lived miserably in the forest, trying to heal. The bullet had entered my shoulder. I couldn't tell whether it remained inside, and I had no way to remove it. The injustice and ingratitude added to the physical pain. Every day I renewed my promise of a deep and deadly revenge, the only thing I thought could repay what I had endured.

“After some weeks the wound healed, and I went on. Sunlight and spring breezes could do little for me now. Happiness seemed a mockery of my desolation, reminding me painfully that pleasure was never meant for me.

“But the journey was nearing its end. Two months later I reached the outskirts of Geneva.

“It was evening. I hid among the fields to think about how to approach you. I was hungry, exhausted, and too unhappy to enjoy the evening breeze or the sun setting behind the Jura mountains.

“A short sleep relieved me of my thoughts. Then a beautiful little boy ran into my hiding place, playful as young children are. Watching him, I suddenly thought that someone so young might still be free of prejudice. Perhaps he had lived too little to learn horror at deformity. If I could take him and raise him as a companion and friend, I would have someone in this populated world.

“I seized him as he passed and pulled him toward me. The moment he saw me, he covered his eyes and screamed. I pulled his hands away. ‘Child, why are you doing that? I mean you no harm. Listen to me.’

“He struggled fiercely. ‘Let me go, monster. You ugly thing. You want to eat me and tear me apart. You are an ogre. Let me go or I will tell my papa.’

“‘You will never see your father again. You must come with me.’

“‘Hideous monster, let me go. My papa is a chief magistrate. He is M. Frankenstein. He will punish you. You dare not keep me.’

“‘Frankenstein. Then you belong to my enemy, the man I have sworn to revenge myself on forever. You will be my first victim.’

“He kept struggling and calling me names that drove despair into my heart. I gripped his throat to silence him. In a moment he lay dead at my feet.

“I looked at him, and a terrible triumph filled me. I clapped my hands. ‘I can cause desolation too. My enemy can be hurt. This death will bring him despair, and a thousand other sorrows will torment and destroy him.’

“Something shone on the child's chest. I took it. It was the portrait of a beautiful woman. Even in my malice, it softened and attracted me. For a few moments I enjoyed looking at her dark, heavily lashed eyes and lovely lips. Then rage returned. I remembered I was forever shut out from the pleasure such beautiful people could give. If the woman herself had looked at me, that expression of divine kindness would have become disgust and fear.

“Can you wonder that I was carried away by anger? I wonder only that I stayed there crying out instead of rushing among people and dying in an attempt to destroy them.

“I left the place of the murder, looking for somewhere more secluded. A young woman passed nearby. She was less beautiful than the portrait, but attractive, young, and healthy. Here was someone whose smiles could be given to everyone except me. She would suffer too. Felix's lessons and humanity's bloody laws had taught me how to do harm. I went up unseen and secured the portrait in a fold of her dress.

“For days I stayed near those places. Sometimes I wanted to see you. Sometimes I wanted to leave the world and all its misery forever. At last I wandered into these mountains. I have moved through their vast hollows, consumed by a desire that only you can satisfy. We cannot part until you promise what I ask. I am alone and miserable. People refuse my company, but someone as deformed and terrible as I am would accept me. My companion must be of my own kind, with the same defects. You must create her.”

Chapter IX

He finished and looked at me, waiting. I was too bewildered to put my thoughts in order or grasp everything his demand involved. He continued.

“You must make a woman for me, someone I can share the sympathy and affection I need to live. You alone can do it. I ask it as a right you must recognize.”

The end of his story had rekindled the anger that had quieted while he described his peaceful life beside the cottage. Now I could contain it no longer.

“I refuse. No torture will make me agree. You can make me the most miserable man alive, but you cannot make me contemptible in my own eyes. Should I make another like you so that together you can lay waste to the world? Go. You have my answer. Torture me if you like. I will never consent.”

“You are wrong,” he said. “I will reason with you rather than threaten. I am cruel because I am miserable. Everyone avoids and hates me. You, my creator, would tear me apart and celebrate. Remember that, then tell me why I should pity people more than they pity me. If you threw me into one of these cracks in the ice and destroyed your own work, you would scarcely call it murder. Why should I respect people who despise me? Let someone live kindly with me, and I would repay that kindness with every benefit I could offer, grateful even to have it accepted. But people's senses stand between us like walls we cannot cross. I refuse a slave's submission. I will avenge what I have suffered. If I cannot inspire love, I will cause fear. Above all I swear an enduring hatred toward you, my greatest enemy because you are my creator. Be careful. I will work to destroy you until your heart is so desolate you curse the hour you were born.”

His anger twisted his face into something almost unbearable to see. Then he calmed himself.

“I meant to reason with you. Anger harms my case because you forget that you caused it. If any being showed me kindness, I would return it a hundred times over. For that one being I would make peace with everyone. But I am imagining a happiness beyond reach. What I ask is reasonable and modest. Make someone of the other sex, as hideous as I am. It is a small satisfaction, but it is all I can have, and I will be content. We will be monsters, shut away from the world, and that will bring us closer to each other. Our lives may have little happiness, but they will be harmless and free of this misery. Give me some happiness. Let me be grateful to you for one kindness. Let me know that something alive can feel for me. Please agree.”

I was moved. The possible consequences made me shudder, but there was justice in part of what he said. His history and his present feelings showed a being capable of deep sensitivity. As his maker, didn't I owe him whatever happiness I could provide? He noticed the change in me.

“If you agree, you and every other person will be free of us forever. I will go into the great wilderness of South America. I have little need for human food. I can live without killing lambs or young goats. Acorns and berries are enough. My companion will have the same nature and be satisfied with the same food. We will sleep on dry leaves. The sun will shine on us as it shines on people and ripen what we eat. What I describe is peaceful and humane. Surely only a cruel abuse of power could deny it. However merciless you have been, I see compassion in your eyes now. Let me use this moment to persuade you.”

“You propose to leave human settlements and live with only wild animals around you. But you want human love and sympathy so badly. How could you keep to that exile? You would return and ask for kindness again. People would reject you. Your anger would come back, and now you would have someone to help you destroy them. I cannot allow it. Please stop arguing. I cannot agree.”

“Your feelings change so quickly. A moment ago you understood me. Why turn away again? I swear by this earth and by you who made me that, with the companion you give, I will leave people behind and live in whatever remote place we find. Sympathy will take away my cruelty. My life will pass quietly, and I will reach its end without cursing my maker.”

His words had a strange power over me. I pitied him and sometimes wanted to comfort him. Then I looked at the foul body moving and speaking before me, and pity became horror and hatred. I tried to quiet that reaction. My inability to feel with him gave me no right to keep him from the small happiness I could still provide.

“You promise to be harmless,” I said. “But haven't you already shown enough malice to give me reason for distrust? Could this be another deception, giving you more opportunity for revenge and a greater triumph?”

“I thought I had reached your compassion. Yet you refuse the one thing that could soften my heart and make me harmless. With no ties or affection, hatred and wrongdoing are all I have. Another being's love would remove the cause of my crimes. I would become something whose existence everyone else knew nothing about. My faults have grown from a forced isolation I hate. Living with an equal would allow goodness to grow instead. I would feel the affections of a sensitive being and join the chain of life and events from which I am now excluded.”

I thought for a long time about his story and arguments. He had shown the promise of goodness early in life. The disgust and contempt of the people he called his protectors had ruined those generous feelings. I also considered his strength and threats. Something that could live in ice caves and escape among inaccessible cliffs had abilities I could hardly oppose. At last I decided that justice to him and to humanity required me to agree.

“I consent,” I said, “if you solemnly swear to leave Europe forever, and every other place near people, as soon as I give you a woman to share your exile.”

“I swear by the sun and the blue sky that, if you grant this, you will never see me again while they endure. Go home and begin. I will watch your progress with an anxiety beyond words. When you are ready, you can be certain I will appear.”

He left abruptly, perhaps afraid I might change my mind. I watched him descend faster than an eagle flies, then disappear among the ridges of the glacier.

His story had taken the day. The sun was near the horizon. I knew I ought to hurry down before darkness surrounded me, but my heart was heavy and I moved slowly. Following the winding paths and finding secure places for my feet was difficult while the day's emotions occupied me so completely. It was late at night when I reached the resting place halfway down and sat beside the fountain. Stars appeared as clouds moved past. Dark pines stood before me, with broken trees scattered here and there. The solemnity of the scene stirred strange thoughts. I cried bitterly, clasping my hands. “Stars, clouds, winds, are you all here to mock me? If you pity me, take away memory and feeling. Let me become nothing. Otherwise go and leave me in darkness.”

Those were wild, miserable thoughts. I can hardly explain how the stars' endless shining weighed on me, or how each gust of wind seemed like a dreadful hot sirocco coming to consume me.

It was dawn before I reached Chamonix. My family had spent the whole night waiting anxiously. My haggard, strange appearance gave them little reassurance.

We returned to Geneva the next day. My father had wanted the journey to distract me and restore my peace. Instead, the remedy had done terrible harm. Unable to understand why I seemed to suffer so much, he hurried us home. He hoped the quiet regularity of family life would gradually soothe whatever was troubling me.

I accepted all their arrangements passively. Even Elizabeth's gentle love couldn't draw me out of despair. My promise weighed on me like the iron hoods Dante describes on the hypocrites in hell. The pleasures of earth and sky passed like a dream. Only that obligation felt real. Can you wonder that I sometimes seemed possessed by madness, or imagined foul creatures all around me tormenting me until I cried out and groaned?

Gradually, though, those feelings quieted. I returned to ordinary daily life with at least some calm, even if I could take little interest in it.

End of Volume II.

Volume III

Chapter I

Days and weeks passed after we returned to Geneva. I couldn't gather the courage to begin again. I feared what the creature would do if I disappointed him, but the work repelled me. Making a woman would require several more months of serious study and investigation. I had heard of discoveries by an English scientist that were important to my success. Sometimes I thought of asking my father to let me visit England, but I clung to every excuse for delay. I couldn't bring myself to disturb the peace that was beginning to return. My health improved greatly, and whenever I could forget the promise, my spirits rose with it. My father was pleased and tried to find some way to remove the remaining sadness. It still came in spells, darkening everything just as happiness approached. Then I sought complete solitude. I spent whole days alone in a little boat, silently watching clouds and listening to water ripple. The fresh air and sunshine usually brought back some calm. I could return to my family with a more ready smile and a lighter heart.

After one of those outings, my father took me aside.

“I am glad to see you enjoying the things you used to,” he said. “You seem more yourself. Yet you remain unhappy and keep avoiding us. For a long time I couldn't understand why. Yesterday something occurred to me. If I am right, please tell me. Keeping it to yourself would accomplish nothing and could multiply all our suffering.”

I trembled violently. He went on.

“I have always looked forward to your marriage with Elizabeth as the bond that would hold our happiness together and support me in old age. You have loved each other since childhood, studied together, and seemed perfectly suited in your interests and characters. But we understand so little. Perhaps the very things I thought favored the marriage have prevented it. You may think of her as a sister, with no desire to marry her. You might even love someone else and feel bound in honor to your cousin. Perhaps that conflict is what makes you so unhappy.”

“Please set that worry aside, Father. I love Elizabeth deeply and sincerely. No other woman has ever drawn the same admiration and affection from me. All my hopes for the future depend on our marriage.”

“That gives me more pleasure than I have felt in some time. If that is how you feel, surely we can be happy again, whatever darkness recent events have brought. It is the hold that darkness has on you that I want to loosen. Would you object to marrying now? We have suffered, and our ordinary peace has been disturbed. At my age and in my health, I need that peace. You are young, but you have enough money, and I see little reason why an early marriage should interfere with any honorable, useful plans you have. Still, I want you to choose your own happiness. A delay would cause me no serious distress. Take my words in that spirit, and answer honestly.”

I listened without speaking and remained unable to answer for a while. Thoughts crowded through me as I tried to find a way forward. An immediate marriage filled me with horror. I had made a solemn promise that I had neither fulfilled nor dared to break. If I broke it, what suffering might fall on me and my family? How could I enter a celebration with that deadly weight around my neck? I had to keep my promise and send the creature away with his companion before I could enjoy the marriage I hoped would bring me peace.

I also needed either to visit England or begin a long correspondence with scientists whose discoveries were essential to the work. Letters would be slow and unsatisfactory. Besides, a change appealed to me. A year or two away, with different places and occupations, might bring something that would let me return peacefully. I might fulfill the promise and see the creature leave. Or an accident might destroy him and end my bondage forever.

Those feelings shaped my answer. I asked to visit England, concealing the real reason under a desire to travel and see the world before settling in Geneva for life.

I asked earnestly, and my father agreed readily. I can hardly imagine a more indulgent parent, or one less inclined to dictate. We quickly arranged the plan. I would go to Strasbourg and meet Clerval. We would spend a little time in the Dutch towns, then stay mainly in England. We would return through France. The whole journey would take two years.

My father comforted himself with the thought that Elizabeth and I would marry as soon as I returned. “Two years will pass quickly,” he said. “Then the last delay to your happiness will be over. I long for us all to be together, with neither hopes nor fears disturbing our peace.”

“I am content with that,” I said. “By then we will both be wiser, and I hope happier.” I sighed. He kindly left my sadness unquestioned, hoping travel would restore me.

As I prepared, one fear kept troubling me. I would leave my family unaware of their enemy and unprotected if my departure enraged him. But he had promised to follow me. Wouldn't he come to England too? That was dreadful in itself, but comforting if it meant the others were safe. The opposite possibility tormented me. Throughout the time I was subject to my creature, I let my immediate feelings govern me. Just then they strongly suggested he would follow and spare my family.

I left late in August for two years away. Elizabeth accepted my reasons. She regretted only that she lacked the same chance to broaden her experience and develop her understanding. Still, she cried as we parted and begged me to return happy and peaceful. “We all depend on you,” she said. “When you are miserable, how can we feel?”

I got into the carriage barely knowing where I was going and caring little about what surrounded me. One thing I remembered, painfully: to order my chemical instruments packed. I had decided to fulfill the promise abroad and return free if I could. I passed through beautiful, magnificent country with unseeing eyes, absorbed in bleak thoughts about where the journey would end and the work I had to do.

After several days and many leagues, I reached Strasbourg and waited two days for Henry. What a contrast there was between us. Every new scene made him feel alive. Sunset delighted him, and sunrise delighted him still more, beginning another day. He pointed out the landscape's changing colors and the sky. “This is living,” he cried. “Now I enjoy being alive. But why are you so sad, Frankenstein?” I was so occupied with gloomy thoughts that I hardly saw the evening star or the golden sunrise reflected in the Rhine. You would find his journal much more enjoyable than my reflections, my friend. He saw everything with feeling and delight. I seemed haunted by a curse that closed every way to pleasure.

We planned to go down the Rhine by boat to Rotterdam and sail from there to London. We passed willow-covered islands and beautiful towns. We stayed a day in Mannheim. Five days after leaving Strasbourg we reached Mainz. Below Mainz the river grows much more picturesque. It runs quickly, turning among hills that are low but steep and beautifully shaped. Ruined castles stand above cliffs, surrounded by dark, inaccessible woods. The landscape changes constantly. In one place there are rugged hills and castles over terrible drops, with the dark river rushing below. Turn a headland, and there are thriving vineyards, green banks, winding water, and busy towns.

It was harvest time. We heard the workers singing as we floated past. Even I took pleasure in it. Lying in the bottom of the boat, looking at the clear blue sky, I seemed to absorb a peace I had hardly known for a long time. If I felt that, imagine Henry. He seemed transported into a fairy country, enjoying a happiness few people experience. “I have seen the finest places in Switzerland,” he said. “Lucerne and Uri, where snowy mountains fall almost vertically into the water, casting such deep shadows that the scene would feel mournful without the bright green islands. I have seen storms there, the wind lifting whirlwinds of water like waterspouts at sea. The waves crash against the mountain where the priest and his lover were buried by an avalanche. People say their dying voices can still be heard when the night wind pauses. I have seen Valais and the Pays de Vaud. But I like this country better than all of them. Our mountains are grander and stranger, but these riverbanks have a charm I have never seen equaled. Look at that castle above the cliff, and the one on the island almost hidden by trees. Those workers coming out of the vines. That village tucked into the mountain. Surely the spirit protecting this place is closer to human feeling than the spirits piling up glaciers or hiding on our inaccessible peaks.”

Clerval, my dear friend. Even now I like recording your words and dwelling on the praise you deserve. He seemed made from nature's poetry itself. His wild, enthusiastic imagination was tempered by a sensitive heart. He overflowed with affection. His devoted friendship was the kind worldly people tell us exists only in fiction. Even human companionship was scarcely enough for that eager mind. Where others admired the landscape, he loved it passionately:

The roaring waterfall stayed with him like a passion.
Tall rock, mountain, deep dark wood,
their colors and their shapes were an appetite,
a feeling and a love.
They needed no further charm supplied by thought,
no interest beyond what the eye itself could give.

Where is he now? Has that gentle, lovely being disappeared forever? His mind was full of ideas and magnificent, fanciful creations, a whole world sustained by his own life. Has that mind perished? Does it live only in my memory? I cannot believe it. Your beautiful body has decayed, but your spirit still comes to comfort your unhappy friend.

Forgive this rush of grief. These words do little justice to Henry, but they soothe a heart filled with the pain of remembering him. I will go on.

Beyond Cologne we reached the Dutch plains. With the wind against us and the current too slow to help, we decided to finish by road with post horses.

The scenery grew less interesting, but a few days brought us to Rotterdam, where we sailed for England. On a clear morning late in December I first saw Britain's white cliffs. The Thames offered a new landscape, flat but fertile, with almost every town recalling some story. Tilbury Fort brought the Spanish Armada to mind. We passed Gravesend, Woolwich, and Greenwich, names I had heard even at home.

Finally we saw London's many steeples, St. Paul's rising above them, and the Tower so famous in English history.

Chapter II

We decided to spend several months in London. Henry wanted to meet the gifted and brilliant people flourishing there. That interested me less. I chiefly wanted the knowledge I needed to keep my promise. I quickly used my letters of introduction to leading scientists.

If I had made this journey during my happier student days, it would have given me extraordinary pleasure. Now something had blighted my life. I visited these people only for what they could tell me about the subject that mattered so terribly. Company tired me. Alone, I could fill my mind with the earth and sky. Henry's voice soothed me, and together those things could give me a brief, deceptive peace. Busy, cheerful faces with little to interest me brought despair back. A barrier stood between me and everyone else, sealed with William's and Justine's blood. Thinking about either name filled me with anguish.

Henry reminded me of who I had been. He was curious and eager for experience and learning. Differences in people's customs gave him endless instruction and amusement. He was always occupied. My sad expression was the only thing restraining his pleasure, and I tried to hide it so he could enjoy entering a new part of life without bitter memories or cares. Often I claimed another engagement and stayed alone. I also began gathering materials for the new creation. It felt like the torture of water dropping endlessly onto one's head. Every thought of it hurt. My lips shook and my heart raced whenever I referred to it.

After some months, a man in Scotland who had once visited us in Geneva wrote to invite us farther north. Weren't the beauties of his country enough to draw us to Perth, where he lived? Henry wanted to accept eagerly. I avoided society, but wanted to see mountains and streams again, the wonders nature gives to her favorite places.

We had arrived in England at the beginning of October, and it was now February. We planned to leave in another month. Instead of going directly to Edinburgh, we would visit Windsor, Oxford, Matlock, and the Cumberland lakes, reaching the end of the tour around late July. I packed the instruments and materials I had gathered, intending to finish in some secluded corner of the northern Scottish Highlands.

We left London on March 27 and spent a few days walking in Windsor's beautiful forest. For two people from the mountains, its great oaks, plentiful game, and stately deer were something new.

Then we went to Oxford. Entering the city, we remembered what had happened there more than a century and a half earlier. Charles I had gathered his forces there. Oxford had stayed loyal when the rest of the country joined Parliament and liberty. Thinking of the unfortunate king, kindly Falkland, insolent Gower, the queen, and the king's son gave every place they might have occupied a special interest. The past seemed to live there, and we loved following its traces. Even without those associations, the city would have been beautiful enough. Ancient colleges, grand streets, and the lovely Isis flowing through green meadows into a peaceful stretch of water, reflecting towers, spires, and domes among old trees.

I enjoyed it, though memory and anticipation made the pleasure bitter. I had been suited to peaceful happiness. In my youth I had scarcely known dissatisfaction. If boredom came, natural beauty or something great in human art and thought could always engage me and lift my spirits. Now I was like a blasted tree, with lightning driven into my soul. I felt I would survive only to become a spectacle of ruined humanity, pitied by others and hateful to myself, a state I will soon be leaving.

We stayed a long time at Oxford, exploring the surrounding country and identifying places connected with what we thought the most stirring period of English history. One discovery led to another and lengthened our outings. We visited Hampden's tomb and the field where he fell. For a moment those memorials lifted me above my degrading fears toward liberty and self-sacrifice. I dared to feel free and look around with a larger spirit. But the iron of my chains had entered my flesh. I soon sank back, shaking and hopeless.

We left Oxford reluctantly and went to Matlock. The surrounding country looked more like Switzerland, but on a smaller scale. The green hills lacked the distant crown of white Alps above our pine-covered mountains. We visited the extraordinary cave and little natural-history collections, arranged like those at Servox and Chamonix. Hearing Henry say Chamonix made me tremble. The association with that terrible meeting made me hurry away.

We went north from Derby and spent two months in Cumberland and Westmorland. I could almost imagine myself among the Swiss mountains. Snow still lingered on northern slopes. The lakes and rocky streams were familiar, dear sights. We met people who almost persuaded me into happiness. Henry's pleasure was greater still. The company of talented people expanded his mind. He discovered abilities and resources in himself that he hadn't imagined while spending time with people less capable than he was. “I could live here,” he said. “Among these mountains I would scarcely long for Switzerland or the Rhine.”

But travel has pain mixed into its pleasures. Your feelings are always being drawn outward. Just as you begin to feel settled, you must leave for something new. That captures your attention in turn, and then you leave it too.

We had barely seen the lakes and grown fond of some of the people before it was time to keep our Scottish appointment. I was ready to go. I had delayed my promise for some time and feared the creature's frustration. He might still be in Switzerland, taking revenge on my family. That thought pursued me whenever I might otherwise have rested. I waited feverishly for letters. A delay filled me with countless fears. When I recognized my father's or Elizabeth's writing, I was almost afraid to read. Sometimes I imagined the creature following us and murdering Henry to make me work faster. Then I stayed beside him like a shadow, trying to protect him from the attack I imagined. I felt haunted by the awareness of some great crime. I had committed none myself, but had brought down a curse as deadly as guilt.

I saw Edinburgh with tired eyes and a tired mind, though it could have interested even someone very unhappy. Henry preferred Oxford's antiquity. Still, Edinburgh's orderly, beautiful New Town, romantic castle, and delightful surroundings, Arthur's Seat, St. Bernard's Well, the Pentland Hills, filled him with pleasure and admiration. I only wanted to reach the end of the journey.

After a week we left, traveling through Coupar and St. Andrews, then along the Tay to Perth. Our friend was expecting us. But I was unfit to laugh and talk with strangers or enter their interests with a guest's expected good humor. I told Henry I wanted to tour Scotland alone. “Enjoy yourself here. Let us meet here again. I may be away a month or two. Please let me follow my own course. Give me a little peace and solitude. I hope to return lighter-hearted, better company for you.”

He tried to change my mind, then saw I was settled and stopped. He asked me to write often. “I would rather be with you on lonely walks than with people I don't know. Come back soon, so I can feel at home again. I can't quite feel that without you.”

After we parted, I decided to find a remote place and finish alone. I was certain the creature followed and would appear when the work was done to claim his companion.

I crossed the northern Highlands and chose one of the remotest Orkney islands. It was barely more than a rock, its steep sides continually beaten by waves. The poor soil fed a few miserable cows and grew oats for five inhabitants whose thin, gaunt bodies showed how little they had to eat. Bread and vegetables, when they could afford such luxuries, and even fresh water came from the mainland about five miles away.

There were only three poor huts. One was empty, and I rented it. Its two rooms showed extreme poverty: fallen thatch, unplastered walls, a door off its hinges. I arranged repairs, bought furniture, and moved in. It might have surprised the people if deprivation hadn't dulled their senses so thoroughly. As it was, they scarcely watched or troubled me, and hardly thanked me for the little food and clothing I gave. Suffering can blunt even people's most basic responses.

At first I worked in the mornings and, weather permitting, walked the stony shore in the evenings, listening to the waves roar and break at my feet. The scene was repetitive and yet always changing. I thought of Switzerland, so unlike this frightening, empty coast: vine-covered hills, cottages scattered through the plains, gentle blue skies reflected in lovely lakes. Even rough weather on those lakes was like a lively child's play beside the voice of the great ocean.

That was my routine at first. As the work advanced, it became more horrible every day. Sometimes I couldn't make myself enter the laboratory for days. Then I would work through day and night to finish. It was a filthy process. During the first experiment, enthusiastic frenzy had blinded me to what I was doing. I could see only the result I wanted. This time I worked with full awareness, and often the sight of my own hands' work sickened me.

Alone with that hateful occupation, with nothing to draw my attention away, my moods grew uneven. I became restless and nervous. Every moment I expected my persecutor. Sometimes I stared at the ground, afraid to raise my eyes and find him there. I feared going out of sight of other people, in case he came to claim his companion while I was alone.

Still, I worked. I had made considerable progress. I looked toward finishing with an eager, trembling hope I hardly dared examine. Mixed with it were vague forebodings that made my heart turn sick.

Chapter III

One evening I sat in the laboratory after sunset. The moon was rising from the sea, but there was too little light to work. I stayed idle, deciding whether to stop for the night or keep going until I finished. Then I began thinking about the consequences. Three years earlier I had worked like this and created a being whose extraordinary cruelty had ruined my life and filled me with permanent remorse. Now I was making another whose character I knew nothing about. She could be far more malicious than he was, taking pleasure in murder and suffering for their own sake. He had sworn to leave people and hide in the wilderness. She had sworn nothing. As a thinking, reasoning being, she could reject an agreement made before she existed. They might even hate each other. He loathed his own deformity. Would he hate it more when he saw it in a woman? She might turn from him toward human beauty, leave him, and make his loneliness worse through rejection by his own kind.

Even if they went to the wilderness of the New World, the affection he wanted would probably produce children. A race of devils might spread across the earth, putting humanity itself in danger. Did I have the right to place that curse on every future generation for my own benefit? His clever arguments had moved me, and his threats had overwhelmed me. Now, for the first time, I saw the wrongness of my promise. Future generations might curse me as the man selfish enough to purchase his peace at the possible cost of the entire human race.

I trembled and felt my courage fail. Then I looked up. In the moonlight, the creature stood at the window, watching me with a ghastly grin while I performed the task he had assigned. He really had followed my travels, lingering in woods, caves, and empty heaths. Now he had come to inspect the work and demand my promise.

His face seemed full of malice and deception. Thinking of my agreement to make another like him filled me with something close to madness. Shaking with anger, I tore apart what I had been making. He watched the destruction of the being on whose future life he had placed his happiness. With a howl of despair and revenge, he disappeared.

I left, locked the door, and solemnly promised myself I would never resume the work. I went unsteadily to my own room. I was alone, with nobody to relieve the gloom or the weight of those terrible thoughts.

Hours passed. I stayed by the window looking at the sea. With the wind still, it scarcely moved. Everything rested under the quiet moon. A few fishing boats marked the water, and occasionally a breeze carried the fishermen's calls. I felt the silence, but only understood how deep it was when I suddenly heard oars near the shore. Someone landed close to the house.

Minutes later my door creaked, as if someone were trying to open it quietly. I shook from head to foot. I felt who it must be and wanted to wake a nearby peasant. Instead I stood helpless, like someone in a nightmare trying and failing to escape danger.

Footsteps came along the passage. The door opened. There he was. He shut it, approached, and spoke in a low voice.

“You destroyed what you began. What do you intend? You dare break your promise? I have endured toil and misery. I left Switzerland with you, crept along the Rhine, among its islands and over its hills. I spent months on England's heaths and Scotland's empty ground. I have suffered more exhaustion, cold, and hunger than you can measure. You dare destroy my hope?”

“Go. I am breaking the promise. I will never make another being as deformed and wicked as you.”

“Slave. I tried reasoning with you. You have shown you deserve nothing so considerate. Remember my power. You think you are miserable. I can make daylight itself hateful to you. You made me, but I am your master. Obey.”

“My weakness is over, and now your power will show itself. Threats will never make me do something wicked. They only strengthen my decision. I will never give you a partner in crime. Should I deliberately release something that delights in death and suffering? Go. I am decided. Your words only make me angrier.”

He read the determination in my face and ground his teeth in frustrated rage. “Every man can have a wife. Every animal can have a mate. Must I be alone? I offered affection and received hatred and contempt. Hate me if you choose, but be careful. Your hours will be full of dread and misery. Soon something will take your happiness forever. Are you to be happy while I suffer like this? You can ruin every other feeling, but revenge remains. From now on it is dearer than light or food. I may die, but first you will curse the sun that shines on your misery. I have no fear, and that gives me power. I will watch like a snake until I can poison you. You will regret what you are doing.”

“Stop poisoning the air with your malice. You know my decision. Words will never frighten me into changing it. Leave.”

“Very well. I will go. But remember, I will be with you on your wedding night.”

I sprang forward. “Before you sign my death sentence, make certain of your own safety.”

I tried to seize him, but he escaped and hurried out. Moments later his boat was moving across the water as quickly as an arrow. Soon the waves hid him.

Silence returned, but I kept hearing his words. I wanted to pursue the destroyer of my peace and throw him into the ocean. I paced furiously, imagining a thousand things that stung and tormented me. Why hadn't I followed and fought him to the death? I had let him leave for the mainland. Who would be the next victim of his revenge? Then the words returned: “I will be with you on your wedding night.” That was when I would die. My death would satisfy his malice and end it. The prospect itself scarcely frightened me. But I thought of Elizabeth, her tears and endless sorrow when her husband was taken so brutally. For the first time in months I cried. I resolved that my enemy would have to struggle bitterly before he could kill me.

Night passed. The sun rose from the ocean. My feelings quieted, if rage sinking into despair can be called quiet. I left the scene of our argument and walked the beach. The sea almost seemed a barrier separating me from humanity. Part of me wished it really were. I wanted to spend my life on that bare rock, weary perhaps, but safe from sudden catastrophe. Going back meant either being sacrificed myself or watching the people I loved die at the hands of my own creation.

I wandered like a restless ghost, separated from everything it loved. At noon I lay on the grass and slept deeply. I had been awake all night, my nerves shaken and my eyes sore. Sleep refreshed me. When I woke, I felt connected to other human beings again and could think more calmly. Still, his words rang like a funeral bell, dreamlike but as clear and oppressive as reality.

Late in the afternoon I sat on shore, ravenously eating an oatcake. A fishing boat landed, and a man brought me letters. Some were from Geneva. One was from Henry, asking me to join him. We had left Switzerland almost a year earlier, and still hadn't seen France. He begged me to leave the island and meet him in Perth in a week, so we could arrange the rest of the journey. The letter brought me back toward life. I decided to leave in two days.

First there was something I dreaded. I had to pack my instruments, which meant entering the laboratory and handling things that sickened me. At dawn the next morning I gathered my courage and unlocked the door. The pieces of the unfinished being lay scattered on the floor. I almost felt I had mutilated a living person. I paused to steady myself, then went in. With shaking hands I carried the instruments out. I couldn't leave the remains for the islanders to find and fear. I put them in a basket with many stones and decided to sink them that night. Meanwhile I sat on the shore cleaning and arranging the equipment.

My feelings had changed completely since the creature appeared. Before, I had regarded the promise as something I must keep, whatever followed. Now it felt as if a film had lifted from my eyes. I never considered resuming the work. His threat weighed on me, but I thought of no voluntary act of mine that could avert it. I had decided that creating another such being would be atrocious selfishness. I put aside every thought leading anywhere else.

The moon rose between two and three in the morning. I loaded the basket into a small boat and went about four miles offshore. A few boats were returning to land. I steered away from them, feeling as if I were about to commit a terrible crime and anxious to avoid meeting anyone. A thick cloud suddenly covered the moon. In the darkness I threw the basket into the sea. I listened to it gurgle as it sank, then sailed away. Clouds spread, and a northeast breeze rose, cold but fresh. It made me feel so much better that I decided to stay out longer. I fixed the rudder straight and lay in the bottom of the boat. The moon was hidden. I heard only the boat cutting the water. The sound soothed me, and I fell deeply asleep.

I have no idea how long I slept. When I woke, the sun was well up. Strong wind and waves threatened the little boat. The northeast wind must have driven me far from the island. I tried to turn, but quickly saw that another attempt would fill the boat with water. I had to run before the wind. I admit I was frightened. I had no compass, and knew the geography too poorly for the sun to help much. I might drift into the Atlantic and starve, or drown in the vast waves around me. I had been out for hours. Burning thirst had already begun. I looked at clouds racing overhead and being replaced by more clouds. I looked at the sea that seemed destined to be my grave. “Fiend, your work is already done,” I said. I thought of Elizabeth, my father, and Henry, sinking into thoughts so dreadful that even now, so close to my own end, I tremble remembering them.

Hours passed. As the sun lowered, the wind eased and the breaking waves gave way to a heavy swell. Sick and barely able to hold the rudder, I suddenly saw high land to the south.

I was almost exhausted by the effort and suspense. That sudden certainty of survival filled my heart with warm happiness. I cried.

How changeable our feelings are, and how strangely we cling to life even in great misery. I made another sail from part of my clothes and steered eagerly toward land. The coast was wild and rocky, but as I came closer I saw cultivated ground and boats offshore. I was back near settled people. I followed the shore's curves until a steeple appeared behind a small headland. Weak as I was, I decided to head for the town, where food would be easiest to obtain. Fortunately I had money. Rounding the point, I saw a neat little town and a good harbor. I entered it, delighted at my unexpected escape.

As I secured the boat and sails, people gathered. They seemed surprised, but instead of helping, they whispered and gestured. At another time it might have alarmed me. I noticed only that they spoke English. “Please tell me the name of this town,” I asked in that language, “and where I am.”

“You will find out soon enough,” a rough voice answered. “You may find you like the place less than you expected. But you will have little say in your lodging.”

The rudeness surprised me. The others' angry faces unsettled me too. “Why speak to me that way? Surely English people usually welcome a stranger more kindly.”

“I know little about the English. The Irish have a custom of hating villains.”

The crowd grew quickly. Their curiosity and anger annoyed and began to frighten me. I asked where to find an inn. Nobody answered. When I moved forward, they murmured and surrounded me. An unpleasant-looking man tapped my shoulder. “You must come to Mr. Kirwin and account for yourself.”

“Who is he? Why should I account for myself? Isn't this a free country?”

“Free enough for honest people. Mr. Kirwin is a magistrate. You must answer about a gentleman found murdered here last night.”

That startled me, but I soon steadied myself. I was innocent and could easily prove it. I followed silently to one of the best houses in town. Hunger and fatigue nearly overwhelmed me, but I forced myself to stay upright. I feared the crowd might mistake weakness for fear or guilty knowledge. I had little idea that in moments a catastrophe would take away every concern about disgrace or death and replace it with horror and despair.

I must pause here. Remembering what followed in proper detail takes all the courage I have.

Chapter IV

The magistrate was an elderly, kindly man with a calm manner. He looked at me sternly, though, then asked who would give evidence.

About six men stepped forward. He chose one, who said he had been fishing the night before with his son and brother-in-law, Daniel Nugent. Around ten, a strong north wind began rising, so they headed for land. The moon was still down, and the night very dark. As usual, they landed at a creek about two miles below the harbor. He went ahead with some tackle, the others following farther behind. Walking over the sand, he tripped and fell. His companions came to help. By their lantern they saw he had fallen over a man's apparently lifeless body. At first they thought someone had drowned and washed ashore. But his clothes were dry and his body still warm. They carried him to a nearby old woman's cottage and tried to revive him, without success. He was a handsome young man, about twenty-five. The only sign of violence was a dark mark of fingers on his neck. He seemed to have been strangled.

At first the account meant little to me. Then I heard about the fingers and remembered William. My limbs shook, my sight clouded, and I leaned on a chair. The magistrate watched closely and naturally read my reaction unfavorably.

The son confirmed the story. Daniel Nugent swore that just before the fall he had seen a boat near shore with one man aboard. As well as he could judge by starlight, it was the same boat in which I had arrived.

A woman living by the beach said she had been waiting outside for the fishermen about an hour before hearing of the body. She saw a lone man in a boat push off from the part of shore where it was later found.

Another woman confirmed that the fishermen had brought the still-warm body to her house. They laid it in a bed and rubbed it. Daniel fetched an apothecary, but the man was dead.

Others spoke about my arrival. With that strong north wind, they thought I could easily have been driven around for hours and returned close to where I started. They suggested I had brought the body from elsewhere and, being unfamiliar with the coast, entered the harbor without realizing how near the town of —— was to the place where I had left it.

Kirwin ordered them to take me to the body and watch my reaction. My distress at the description of the murder had probably suggested the idea. He and several others accompanied me to the inn. The night's coincidences struck me as strange, but I felt calm about the outcome. People on my island had spoken with me at about the time the body was found.

They led me into the room and up to the coffin. I still feel dry with horror remembering what I saw. The shock and anguish return even now, faintly compared with that first recognition. The inquiry, the magistrate, the witnesses all vanished like a dream. Henry Clerval lay dead before me. I gasped and threw myself onto him. “Have my murderous experiments taken your life too, Henry? I have destroyed two already, and others wait their turn. But you, my friend, the man who helped and protected me—”

My body could bear no more. They carried me out in violent convulsions.

Fever followed. For two months I was close to death. They later told me my delirium was frightening. I called myself the murderer of William, Justine, and Clerval. Sometimes I begged them to help destroy the being tormenting me. Sometimes I felt its fingers around my neck and screamed in pain and terror. Fortunately I spoke my own language, which only Kirwin understood. My cries and gestures were enough to frighten everyone else.

Why did I survive? Why couldn't someone as miserable as I was sink into forgetfulness and rest? Death takes healthy children, the only hope of their parents. Brides and young lovers can be full of life one day and in their graves the next. What was I made of, to endure these repeated shocks, each turn renewing the torture?

But I lived. After two months I seemed to wake from a dream, lying in a poor prison bed among locks, bars, jailers, and all the apparatus of confinement. I remember it was morning when understanding returned. At first I knew only that some great misfortune had overwhelmed me. Then I saw the barred windows and squalid room. Everything came back, and I groaned.

An old woman sleeping in a chair woke. She was a hired nurse, married to one of the jailers. Her hard, rough face showed the qualities I associated with people accustomed to seeing misery without feeling for it. She spoke English in a completely indifferent voice I recognized from my illness.

“Feeling better, sir?”

“I think so,” I answered weakly. “But if this is real, if it was more than a dream, I am sorry to be alive to feel it.”

“If you mean the gentleman you murdered, you might be better off dead. I expect it will go badly for you. They will hang you at the next sessions. But that is your business. Mine is nursing you until you are well. I can do my duty with a clear conscience. Everyone else could learn from that.”

I turned away in disgust. How could someone speak so coldly to a person barely brought back from death? But I was too weak to think clearly about everything. My life seemed like a dream. Sometimes I doubted it had happened at all. It had so little of reality's force in my mind.

As the images grew clearer, fever returned. Darkness seemed to press around me. There was no loving voice or familiar hand. A physician prescribed medicine and the woman prepared it, but he seemed utterly careless and she looked brutal. Who would care about a murderer's fate except the executioner expecting his fee?

That was my first impression. Soon I learned how much Kirwin had done. He had ordered the best room in the prison prepared for me, poor as even the best was, and hired the physician and nurse. He rarely visited. He wanted to relieve suffering, but preferred to avoid witnessing the agonies and delirium of someone he believed a murderer. He came occasionally to check on my care, staying briefly, with long intervals between visits.

One day, as I slowly improved, I sat with my eyes half open and my cheeks as pale as death. Gloom overwhelmed me. I thought I would be better off dead than confined only to be released into a world of misery. I considered confessing and accepting the punishment. I was less innocent than Justine had been. Then Kirwin came in. His face showed sympathy. He drew up a chair and spoke French.

“I am afraid this place is very distressing. Is there anything I can do to make you more comfortable?”

“Thank you. But the room means little to me. There is no comfort anywhere that I can feel.”

“A stranger's sympathy can do little under such a strange misfortune. Still, I hope you can leave soon. Surely evidence can be found to clear the charge.”

“That concerns me least. Strange events have made me the most miserable person alive. After what I have suffered, what harm could death do?”

“Your circumstances really are extraordinary. An accident casts you onto a coast known for hospitality. You are immediately arrested for murder. Then you see your friend's body, killed so inexplicably and placed in your way as if by a demon.”

Even through the distress of hearing it, I was surprised by how much he knew. He must have seen that in my face.

“A day or two after you fell ill, I examined your clothes to find some way of contacting your family. There were letters, including one whose opening showed it was from your father. I wrote to Geneva at once. That was nearly two months ago. But you are trembling. You are still too ill for agitation.”

“The suspense is worse. Tell me what new death has happened. Whom am I supposed to mourn now?”

“Your family is perfectly well,” he said gently. “Someone has come to see you. A friend.”

For some reason I immediately imagined the murderer coming to mock me and use Henry's death to press his demand. I covered my eyes and cried, “Take him away. I cannot see him. For God's sake, keep him out.”

Kirwin looked troubled. He took it as another sign of guilt and spoke more sternly. “I would have thought your father's presence would please you, rather than provoke such distress.”

“My father?” Every muscle seemed to release from pain into pleasure. “He is here? How kind of him. Where is he? Why isn't he coming?”

The change surprised and pleased Kirwin. Perhaps he thought the earlier reaction was a brief return of delirium. His kindness returned at once. He left with the nurse, and my father entered.

Nothing could have pleased me more. I reached for him. “You are safe? And Elizabeth? Ernest?”

He assured me they were well and tried to lift me by talking about them. But he soon saw how hard it was to encourage happiness in prison. “What a place to find you,” he said, looking at the barred windows and miserable room. “You went away to find happiness, yet some dreadful fate seems to follow you. And poor Clerval—”

The name was more than I could bear. I cried.

“Yes, Father. Something terrible hangs over me, and I must live until it is finished. Otherwise I would surely have died beside Henry's coffin.”

They allowed us little time together. My health was too uncertain for excitement. Kirwin returned and insisted I preserve my strength. But my father seemed like a good angel to me, and gradually I recovered.

As the physical illness receded, a dark sadness took its place. I kept seeing Henry, pale and murdered. More than once those thoughts disturbed me so badly that the others feared a dangerous relapse. Why had they preserved a life so miserable and hateful? Perhaps so I could fulfill the fate that is now nearly finished. Soon death will end this pounding heart and lift the anguish pressing me into the ground. In carrying out justice, I will find rest too. Then, though, death seemed far away, however constantly I wanted it. I sat motionless and silent for hours, wishing some great upheaval would bury both me and my destroyer.

The court sessions approached. I had been in prison three months. Still weak and at risk of relapse, I had to travel almost a hundred miles to the county town. Kirwin arranged the witnesses and defense. I was spared a public criminal trial. The grand jury rejected the charge after proof that I was in the Orkneys when Henry's body was found. Two weeks after the transfer, I was free.

My father was delighted. The charge was gone. I could breathe fresh air and return home. I felt little of his relief. A dungeon and a palace seemed equally hateful. Life was poisoned forever. The sun shone on me as it shone on happy people, but I saw dense darkness around me, broken only by two staring eyes. Sometimes they were Henry's expressive eyes fading in death, nearly covered by the lids and long black lashes. Sometimes they were the creature's cloudy, watery eyes as I first saw them in Ingolstadt.

My father tried to bring back affection by speaking of Geneva, Elizabeth, and Ernest. Usually I could only groan. Sometimes I did want happiness. I thought of Elizabeth with a sad pleasure, or felt an aching homesickness for the blue lake and rushing Rhone I had loved as a child. Usually I was numb. A prison seemed as welcome as the most beautiful landscape. That numbness gave way mainly to fits of anguish and despair. During those spells I often tried to end my life, and they had to watch me constantly to prevent some terrible act.

As I left prison, I heard a man say, “He may be innocent of murder, but his conscience is certainly troubled.” The words went through me. A troubled conscience. Of course. William, Justine, and Henry had died because of my infernal work. “Whose death will finish it?” I cried. “Father, please take me away from this country, somewhere I can forget myself and the world.”

He readily agreed. We said goodbye to Kirwin and hurried to Dublin. When the packet sailed from Ireland with a favorable wind, I felt a great weight lift. I was leaving the country that had held so much suffering for me.

At midnight my father slept in the cabin. I lay on deck looking at the stars and listening to the waves. I welcomed the darkness hiding Ireland. The thought of seeing Geneva made my pulse race with a feverish pleasure. The past seemed a terrible dream. But the ship, the wind carrying us away, and the surrounding sea insisted on reality. Henry, my dearest companion, really had fallen victim to me and what I had made. I went over my whole life: our quiet happiness in Geneva, my mother's death, my departure for Ingolstadt. I shuddered at the mad enthusiasm that had led me to create my enemy and remembered the night he first lived. I couldn't follow the thought further. Too many feelings pressed on me. I cried bitterly.

Since the fever, I had taken a little laudanum each night. Only that drug let me sleep enough to stay alive. Now, overwhelmed by memory, I took twice my usual amount and soon slept deeply. Even then I had little relief. A thousand frightening things filled my dreams. Near morning a nightmare took hold. I felt the creature gripping my neck, unable to free myself, with cries and groans sounding in my ears. My father, watching me, saw my distress and woke me. He pointed to Holyhead harbor, which we were entering.

Chapter V

We planned to avoid London, cross to Portsmouth, and sail for Le Havre. I preferred that mainly because I dreaded returning to the places where Henry and I had found a little peace. Seeing the people we had visited together was a terrible thought. They might ask about his death, and even remembering it brought back the pain of seeing him in that inn at ——.

My father wanted only to restore my health and peace. His care never stopped. My sadness remained stubborn, but he kept hoping. Sometimes he thought I was distressed by the humiliation of answering a murder charge, and tried to show me how little pride mattered.

“Father, you understand so little of me,” I said. “It would degrade human feeling itself if someone like me could feel proud. Justine was as innocent as I was. She faced the same accusation and died for it. I caused that. I murdered her. William, Justine, Henry: they all died by my hands.”

He had heard me say this often in prison. Sometimes he seemed to want an explanation. Sometimes he took it as delirium, an idea formed during my illness that had remained afterward. I kept silent about the creature. The belief that I would be thought mad tied my tongue, even when I would have given anything to share the secret.

Now he looked astonished. “What do you mean? Victor, are you out of your mind? Please never say that again.”

“My mind is clear,” I cried. “The sun and sky that watched my work can bear witness. I caused those innocent deaths. I would have given my own blood drop by drop a thousand times to save them. But I couldn't sacrifice the whole human race.”

That ending convinced him my thoughts were disordered. He immediately changed the subject. He wanted to erase Ireland from my mind and avoided every mention of it, trying to keep me from discussing my suffering too.

With time I became calmer. Misery still lived inside me, but I stopped speaking so incoherently about my crimes. Knowing them was enough. With enormous effort I restrained the pain that sometimes wanted to declare itself to everyone. Outwardly I was calmer than I had been since the glacier.

We reached Le Havre on May 8 and went straight to Paris, where my father's business kept us several weeks. There I received this letter.

To Victor Frankenstein.

My dearest friend,

I was so pleased to get your father's letter from Paris. You are closer now. I can hope to see you in less than two weeks. How much you must have suffered. I expect you will look even less well than when you left Geneva. This winter has been miserable with worry and uncertainty. But I hope to see some peace in your face and find that comfort and calm still have a place in your heart.

I worry that what troubled you a year ago is still there, perhaps stronger. I would leave this alone while so many misfortunes weigh on you, but a conversation with your father before he left makes it necessary to explain something before we meet.

You may wonder what I could possibly need to explain. If that really is your reaction, then my questions are answered, and I can simply sign myself your affectionate cousin. But you are far away. Perhaps you have been both dreading and wanting this conversation. Because that is possible, I must finally write what I have often wanted to say during your absence, but have lacked the courage to begin.

Your parents planned our marriage when we were children. We were told about it and taught to expect it as something certain. We loved playing together and became, I believe, dear friends as we grew. But a brother and sister can love each other deeply without wanting marriage. Could that be true of us? Please answer honestly, for both our happiness. Do you love someone else?

You have traveled and spent years in Ingolstadt. When I saw you so unhappy last autumn, always escaping into solitude, I wondered whether you regretted our engagement but felt honor bound you to fulfill your parents' wishes against your own inclinations. That would be mistaken. I love you. In my dreams of the future you have always been my friend and companion. But I want your happiness as well as mine. Marriage would make me permanently miserable unless you chose it freely. I cry to think that, after all you have suffered, a word like honor might take away the love and happiness that could restore you. I could be making your misery ten times worse by standing between you and what you want. I love you too sincerely to bear that thought. Be happy, Victor. If you grant that one request, you can be sure my own peace will be secure.

Please let this letter rest if it disturbs you. You needn't answer tomorrow, the next day, or even before you arrive. Your father will keep me informed about your health. If anything I have done brings one smile when we meet, I will ask for no greater happiness.

Elizabeth Lavenza.

Geneva, May 18, 17—.

Her letter brought back the threat I had put out of mind: “I will be with you on your wedding night.” That was my sentence. He would use every means to destroy me then, taking away the glimpse of happiness that might have comforted me. My death would complete his crimes. So be it. There would be a struggle to the death. If he won, I would have peace and his power over me would end. If I won, I would be free. But what kind of freedom? The freedom of a peasant whose family has been killed, home burned, and land ruined, left penniless and alone, but free. Except that I still had Elizabeth, a treasure set against the guilt and remorse that would follow me until death.

I read her letter repeatedly. Softer feelings returned and dared to suggest dreams of love and happiness. But the fruit had already been eaten, and the angel's arm was ready to drive me out of paradise. I would die to make her happy. If the creature carried out his threat, death was inevitable. Would marriage simply bring it sooner? Perhaps by a few months. If he thought I was delaying out of fear, he would find other means of revenge, perhaps worse. His promise to appear that night hadn't bound him to peace in the meantime. He had murdered Henry almost immediately after threatening me, as if to prove he still wanted blood. So if marrying soon would please Elizabeth or my father, I would give the threat no power to delay it.

I wrote calmly and affectionately. “I fear there is little happiness left for us here, but whatever I may still have is gathered in you. Put your fears aside. My life and every effort toward contentment are yours alone. I have a secret, a dreadful one. Hearing it will fill you with horror. Then you will wonder less at my misery than at my ability to survive it. I will tell you the day after our marriage. There must be complete trust between us. Until then, please leave it unmentioned. I ask this earnestly, and know you will agree.”

About a week after her letter arrived, we returned to Geneva. She welcomed me warmly, but cried at my thin body and feverish face. She had changed too. She was thinner and had lost much of the wonderful liveliness I remembered. Her gentleness and compassionate looks made her all the more suited to someone as ruined and miserable as I was.

The peace lasted briefly. Memory brought something like madness. Sometimes I burned with rage. Sometimes I sank so low I could only sit motionless, scarcely speaking or looking around, overwhelmed by everything that had happened.

Only Elizabeth could reach me then. Her voice soothed my anger and brought human feeling back when I was numb. She cried with me and for me. When reason returned, she tried to help me accept things. Acceptance may help someone unfortunate. For someone guilty, peace is harder. Remorse poisons even the relief that can sometimes be found in giving yourself over to grief.

Soon my father raised the marriage. I said nothing.

“Do you love someone else?”

“Nobody. I love Elizabeth and look forward to marrying her. Set the day. On it I will devote myself, in life or death, to her happiness.”

“Please speak more hopefully, Victor. We have suffered, but we can hold more closely to what remains and give the living the love we had for the dead. Our circle will be small, but affection and shared suffering will bind it. Time will soften the despair. New children may give us dear people to care for in place of those we have lost.”

That was my father's advice. But the threat returned. After the creature's apparently limitless power to kill, you can understand why I almost thought him invincible and took his promise as unavoidable. Death seemed little harm if it spared me the loss of Elizabeth. So with a calm, almost cheerful face, I agreed that, if she consented, we would marry in ten days. I thought I was sealing my own fate.

My God. If I had understood his real intention for one instant, I would have left my country forever and wandered friendless rather than agree. He seemed to have blinded me by magic. Thinking I was preparing only my death, I hurried a much dearer person toward hers.

As the day approached, fear or some forewarning made my heart sink. I hid it behind cheerfulness. That pleased my father, but did little to deceive Elizabeth's watchful, perceptive eye. She looked forward to marriage with quiet contentment, mixed with a fear learned from our losses: that what now seemed certain might vanish into a dream and leave lasting regret.

We prepared and received congratulations. Everything appeared happy. I kept my anxiety inside and seemed to take a real interest in my father's plans, though they might only be scenery for my tragedy. We bought a house near Cologny, giving us country pleasures close enough to see my father every day. He would remain in the city so Ernest could attend school.

I also took precautions. I carried pistols and a dagger and constantly watched for deception or attack. That helped me feel calmer. As the day approached, the threat began to seem almost unreal, hardly worth allowing to disturb me. The marriage seemed more certain whenever people spoke of it as something nothing could prevent.

Elizabeth seemed happy, and my calm helped steady her. On the day itself, though, she was sad and troubled by a feeling of danger. Perhaps she also thought of the secret I would reveal the following day. My father was delighted. Busy with preparations, he took her sadness for a bride's shyness.

After the ceremony, a large party gathered at his house. Elizabeth and I were to spend the afternoon and night at Evian and return to Cologny the next morning. With fine weather and a favorable wind, we chose to go by water.

Those were the last happy moments of my life. We moved quickly. A canopy sheltered us from the hot sun as we enjoyed the view. On one side were Mont Salève, Montalègre's pleasant banks, and far above them Mont Blanc with the snowy mountains that seemed to try vainly to rival her. Toward the other shore, the dark Jura stood like a boundary against ambitions that might carry someone away from home, and a nearly impassable defense against an invader.

I took her hand. “You are sad, my love. If you knew what I have suffered and may still suffer, you would help me enjoy the quiet this one day gives me.”

“Be happy, Victor,” she said. “I hope there is nothing here to distress you. My face may show little excitement, but my heart is content. Something tells me to put little trust in what lies ahead, but I will try to leave that voice alone. Look how quickly we move. Those clouds passing across and above Mont Blanc make it even more beautiful. And all those fish in the clear water, where we can see every pebble. What a lovely day. Nature seems so happy and peaceful.”

She tried to guide both our thoughts away from sadness. But her mood shifted. Pleasure shone in her eyes briefly, then gave way to distraction and thought.

The sun lowered. We passed the Drance and saw its course through high ravines and lower valleys. Here the Alps stand closer to the lake. We approached the ring of mountains at its eastern end. Evian's steeple shone beneath surrounding woods and the ranks of mountains above.

At sunset the wind that had carried us so swiftly eased. A light breeze rippled the water and moved the trees as we approached, carrying the scent of flowers and hay. The sun disappeared as we landed. The moment I stepped ashore, my fears returned, soon to take hold forever.

Chapter VI

We landed at eight and walked briefly beside the water in the fading light. Then we went to the inn and looked out at the lake, woods, and mountains, dark now but still visible in outline.

The wind that had fallen from the south rose fiercely in the west. The moon had passed its highest point and begun descending. Clouds raced across it, dimming the light. The lake reflected the moving sky, with rising waves adding their own movement. Suddenly heavy rain fell.

I had been calm by day. As darkness hid the shapes around me, a thousand fears arose. I watched anxiously, my hand gripping a pistol inside my clothes. Every sound frightened me. But I was determined to fight dearly for my life and keep fighting until either I or my enemy was dead.

Elizabeth watched in frightened silence. At last she asked, “Victor, what is troubling you? What are you afraid of?”

“Only this night, my love. Once we are through it, we will be safe. But this night is dreadful.”

After an hour, I realized how terrible the fight I expected would be for her to witness. I urged her to go to our room. I would stay away until I knew where the creature was.

She left. I walked through the passages, inspecting every corner where he could hide. There was no sign of him. I was beginning to hope something had prevented him from carrying out the threat when I heard a sharp, terrible scream. It came from Elizabeth's room. The whole truth rushed into my mind. My arms fell. Every muscle seemed to stop. I felt blood moving through my veins and tingling in my hands and feet. It lasted only an instant. She screamed again, and I ran in.

My God, why did I survive that? Why am I here to describe the destruction of my best hope, the purest person on earth? She lay dead across the bed, her head hanging down, her pale, distorted face half hidden by hair. Wherever I look, I see her, those bloodless arms and that relaxed body thrown by the murderer onto the bed that had become her funeral bier. How could I see it and live? Yet life clings stubbornly, especially when it is most hated. I fainted, losing awareness for only a moment.

When I recovered, the people of the inn surrounded me, their faces terrified. Their horror seemed only a shadow of mine. I escaped them and returned to Elizabeth, my wife, so recently alive, so dear and good. Someone had moved her. With her head on her arm and a handkerchief over her face and neck, she almost looked asleep. I embraced her. The cold, lifeless limbs told me that what I held was no longer the Elizabeth I had loved. The mark of the creature's hand was on her neck. Her lips had stopped breathing.

Still bent over her in despair, I looked up. The windows had been dark, but now pale yellow moonlight entered. The shutters were open. At the window stood the creature, grinning and pointing at my wife's body as if mocking me. I rushed forward, drew my pistol, and fired. He escaped, sprang from the window, ran with astonishing speed, and plunged into the lake.

The shot brought people running. I pointed where he had gone, and we pursued in boats. We cast nets and found nothing. After hours we returned hopelessly, most of the others believing I had imagined him. They continued searching on land, splitting into parties among the woods and vineyards.

I stayed behind, exhausted. My sight clouded and fever dried my skin. I lay on a bed barely aware of events, looking around as if searching for something taken from me.

Eventually I remembered my father, waiting for us both, and that I must return alone. I cried for a long time. My thoughts wandered through all my losses and their cause: William, Justine, Henry, now my wife. Even then I had no certainty that the people left were safe. My father might already be in the creature's grasp. Ernest might lie dead at his feet. That made me shudder and brought me to action. I got up, determined to reach Geneva as quickly as possible.

There were no horses, so I had to cross the lake. The wind was against us, the rain heavy, but it was barely morning and I might reach home by night. I hired rowers and took an oar myself. Physical effort had often relieved my mental pain. Now my misery and agitation were too great. I put the oar down and leaned my head on my hands, giving way to every dark thought. Looking up, I saw places familiar from happier days, places I had seen only yesterday with the woman who was now only memory. I cried. The rain paused. Fish moved in the water as they had a few hours earlier when Elizabeth watched them. A great, sudden change is almost unbearably painful. Sunlight or cloud made little difference. Nothing could look as it had the day before. The creature had taken every hope of happiness. I believed nobody had suffered as I did, that such a horror stood alone in human history.

Why dwell on what followed? My story has been full of horrors, and this was their height. What remains can only tire you. One by one the people I loved had been taken, leaving me desolate. My strength is exhausted. I must finish in fewer words.

I reached Geneva. My father and Ernest were alive. But the news broke my father. I can see that good old man now, his eyes empty, their pleasure gone. His niece, more than a daughter to him, had been taken. At his age, with fewer people left to love, he had held all the more tightly to her. I cursed the creature for bringing such misery to his old age. He couldn't endure the horrors around him. An apoplectic fit followed, and a few days later he died in my arms.

What happened to me afterward, I hardly know. I lost awareness. There were only chains and darkness. Sometimes I dreamed of walking through flowering meadows and pleasant valleys with my childhood friends, then woke in confinement. Deep sadness followed. Slowly I came to understand my situation and was released. They had considered me mad. I learned that I had spent many months alone in a cell.

Freedom would have meant little if reason hadn't returned with revenge. Remembering my misfortunes, I thought of their cause, the creature I had made and sent into the world to destroy me. Rage drove me nearly mad. I longed and prayed to have him within my reach, so I could take a terrible revenge.

Soon hatred became more than a wish. I considered how to capture him. About a month after my release, I went to a criminal judge and said I had an accusation. I knew who had destroyed my family and wanted the full force of his authority used to arrest the murderer.

He listened kindly. “I will spare no effort to find him,” he said.

“Thank you. Then hear my evidence. It is so strange I would fear you couldn't believe it, except that truth has something in it that compels belief, however extraordinary. The events connect too closely to be a dream. I have no reason to lie.” I spoke calmly and with force. My decision to pursue my enemy to death had steadied the agony and given me a temporary reason to live. I told the history briefly, firmly, and precisely, keeping the dates exact and avoiding curses or outbursts.

At first he plainly disbelieved me. Gradually he became more attentive and interested. Sometimes he shuddered. Sometimes his face showed surprise that seemed free of doubt.

When I finished, I said, “That is the being I accuse. I ask you to use all your power to find and punish him. It is your official duty, and I hope your human feelings will support you in carrying it out.”

His expression changed. He had listened with the partial belief people give a supernatural story. Asked to act officially, he became doubtful again. Still, he spoke gently. “I would gladly help. But what you describe has powers that could defeat every effort. Who can follow a being across glaciers and into caves where nobody would venture? Months have passed since the crimes. We have no way of knowing where he has gone.”

“I am sure he stays near me. If he is in the Alps, he can be hunted like a chamois and destroyed like a dangerous animal. But I understand what you mean. You doubt the story and intend to leave him unpunished.”

Anger flashed in my eyes and intimidated him. “You misunderstand,” he said. “I will act. If I can capture him, he will be punished in proportion to his crimes. But your own description makes that sound impractical. While proper steps are taken, you ought to prepare yourself for disappointment.”

“I cannot. But words are of little use. My revenge matters little to you. I admit it is a fault, yet it is the only passion left in me, and it consumes everything. I can hardly bear to think that the murderer I released among people still lives. Since you refuse my just request, I have one course left. Alive or dead, I will devote myself to destroying him.”

I trembled with agitation. There was a frenzy in my manner, perhaps something of the fierce, proud resolve attributed to ancient martyrs. To a Geneva magistrate, whose concerns were far removed from heroic devotion, it looked much like madness. He tried to soothe me as a nurse soothes a child and treated my story again as delirium.

“You are so ignorant in your belief that you understand,” I cried. “Please stop. You have no idea what you are saying.”

I left angry and disturbed, to think of another course.

Chapter VII

Every thought I might have chosen for myself was gone. Fury carried me. Revenge alone gave me strength and composure. It shaped my feelings and let me calculate calmly at moments when otherwise I might have fallen into delirium or died.

First I decided to leave Geneva forever. The country I had loved when I was happy and loved in return had become hateful. I took money and a few of my mother's jewels and left.

That began the wandering that will end only with my life. I have crossed a great part of the earth, enduring the hardships travelers meet in deserts and unfamiliar, uncivilized countries. I hardly know how I survived. Many times I lay exhausted on the sand and prayed to die. Revenge kept me alive. I couldn't let myself die while my enemy remained.

At first I looked for a clue to his movements. I had no settled plan and wandered for hours around Geneva, unsure which way to go. Near nightfall I reached the cemetery where William, Elizabeth, and my father lay. I went to their tomb. Only leaves moving gently in the wind broke the silence. It was nearly dark. Even a stranger would have found it solemn and moving. The spirits of the dead seemed to pass around me, casting an unseen but deeply felt shadow over the mourner.

Grief soon became rage and despair. They were dead. I lived. Their murderer lived too, and to destroy him I had to keep dragging out my existence. I knelt, kissed the earth, and spoke with trembling lips. “By this sacred ground, by the spirits near me, by this deep and lasting grief, by night and the powers that govern it, I swear to pursue the creature who caused this until one of us dies in the struggle. I will stay alive for that. I will see the sun and walk the earth again only to carry out this revenge. Spirits of the dead, powers of vengeance, help and guide me. Let him drink deeply of suffering. Let him feel the despair tormenting me.”

I began solemnly, almost certain that the people I had lost heard and approved. By the end rage possessed me and choked my voice.

Loud, demonic laughter answered through the stillness. The mountains echoed it. It seemed as if hell itself surrounded me with mockery. I might have gone mad and destroyed myself then, except that my vow had been heard and I still had revenge to accomplish. The laughter faded. A hated, familiar voice whispered almost in my ear. “You have decided to live. Good. I am satisfied.”

I sprang toward the sound, but he escaped. The moon rose and lit his distorted figure as he fled faster than any human could.

I followed. For months that has been my occupation. A faint clue led me along the winding Rhone, without success. I reached the blue Mediterranean. By chance I saw him board a ship for the Black Sea at night and hide aboard. I traveled on the same ship, but somehow he escaped.

Through the wild country of Tartary and Russia I kept to his track. Sometimes frightened peasants pointed the way. Sometimes he left signs himself, afraid that if I lost every trace I would give up and die. Snow fell, and I saw his enormous footprints across the white plain. How can you, with your life still before you, new to care and unacquainted with agony, understand what I felt and still feel? Cold, hunger, and exhaustion were the smallest parts. I seemed cursed, carrying my own eternal hell. Yet I also felt a good spirit following and guiding me, rescuing me from impossible difficulties when I complained most. Sometimes, collapsing with hunger, I found a meal in an empty place that revived me. It was coarse food, the same as the local peasants ate, but I believed the spirits I had called on left it for me. Often in dry weather, when thirst tormented me, a small cloud came, dropped a little rain to revive me, and disappeared.

I followed rivers when I could. He usually avoided them because that was where people gathered. Elsewhere I rarely saw anyone and lived mostly on wild animals. I used my money to win the villagers' friendship, or brought game. After taking a small portion, I gave the rest to people who lent me fire and cooking utensils.

I hated that life. Only sleep gave me happiness. Sometimes at my most miserable I fell asleep and dreamed with extraordinary pleasure. I thought the spirits guarding me had given me those hours so I could keep going. Without that relief, the hardships would have overcome me. By day I lived on the hope of night. In dreams I saw my friends, my wife, my country. My father's kind face returned. I heard Elizabeth's clear, lovely voice. Henry was young and healthy. After a tiring march I sometimes persuaded myself that the day was the dream, and night would bring reality in my friends' arms. I loved them with an almost unbearable tenderness. Sometimes their forms seemed to remain while I was awake, and I clung to the belief they still lived. Then revenge cooled. I followed the creature more as if heaven had assigned a duty, or some unknown power moved me mechanically, than from my own passionate desire.

I cannot know what he felt. Sometimes he wrote on bark or carved stone to guide me and inflame my anger. One message said, “My reign continues. You live, and my power is complete. Follow me. I am going to the permanent northern ice, where you will suffer cold that does little to me. If you come quickly enough, you will find a dead hare nearby. Eat and recover. Come, enemy. We still have to fight for our lives. First you must endure many hard, miserable hours.”

Mocking devil. I swore revenge again, promised him suffering and death. I would keep searching until one of us died. Then with what happiness I would join Elizabeth and the others, who seemed already to be preparing my reward for this terrible journey.

Farther north, snow deepened and the cold became almost unbearable. The peasants stayed inside. Only the hardiest ventured out to catch animals driven from hiding by hunger. Ice covered the rivers and cut off the fish that had been my chief food.

His triumph grew with my difficulty. Another message read, “Prepare. Your work is only beginning. Wrap yourself in furs and gather food. Soon we begin a journey whose suffering will satisfy my endless hatred.”

The mockery strengthened my determination. Calling on heaven, I crossed enormous empty stretches until the ocean appeared on the horizon. It was so different from the blue southern sea. Covered in ice, it differed from land only in being wilder and more uneven. The Greeks had cried with happiness on seeing the Mediterranean from Asia's hills, welcoming the end of their hardship. I kept my tears back, but knelt and thanked the spirit that had brought me safely to the place where I hoped to catch and fight him, despite his taunts.

Weeks earlier I had obtained a sledge and dogs. They carried me across the snow with astonishing speed. I knew little of how he traveled, but where I had been losing ground each day, now I gained. When I first saw the ocean, he was only a day ahead. I hoped to stop him before he reached shore. Two days later I arrived at a poor seaside village. The people told me he had come the previous night, enormous and armed with a gun and several pistols. His appearance frightened the residents of an isolated cottage into fleeing. He took their winter food, seized trained dogs, loaded a sledge, and set off over the frozen sea that same night. The villagers were relieved. He had gone toward no known land, and they expected the breaking ice or permanent cold to destroy him.

For a moment I despaired. He had escaped onto an almost endless, deadly route over mountainous sea ice. Even the local people could scarcely endure that cold. How could someone born to a sunny climate survive it? But imagining him alive and triumphant brought revenge back like a tide, overwhelming everything. After a brief rest, with the dead seeming to urge me onward, I prepared.

I exchanged my land sledge for one made for rough sea ice, bought plenty of provisions, and left the shore.

I cannot count the days since then. Only the belief in just revenge burning inside me could have sustained such misery. Great, jagged ice mountains blocked the way. I heard the sea swell beneath me, threatening destruction. Then frost returned and made the route secure again.

Judging from the food I had used, I had traveled about three weeks. Hope kept being delayed until it turned back into tears of discouragement. I was nearly finished. Then, after my dogs struggled to the top of a sloping ice mountain and one died from exhaustion, I looked across the plain in anguish and saw a dark speck. I strained to identify it. When I recognized a sledge and that familiar distorted figure, I cried out with happiness. Hope burned through me again. Tears filled my eyes. I wiped them away to keep watching, but they returned until I finally cried aloud.

I had little time to lose. I freed the living dogs from their dead companion, fed them generously, and allowed an hour's necessary but painful rest. Then we went on. I kept the sledge in view except when an ice ridge briefly hid it. I was visibly gaining. After nearly two days he was less than a mile ahead. My heart leaped.

Just as he seemed almost within reach, everything changed. I heard the deep swell under the ice growing louder and more frightening. I pressed forward uselessly. Wind rose, the sea roared, and the ice cracked with the shock of an earthquake. In minutes open, raging water lay between us. I drifted on a shrinking piece of ice, facing a terrible death.

Many dreadful hours passed. More dogs died. I was nearly overcome when I saw your anchored ship and the hope of rescue. I had never imagined a vessel could come so far north. I broke up part of the sledge for oars and, with enormous effort, moved my ice raft toward you. If you had been going south, I intended to stay on the sea rather than give up. I hoped you might lend me a boat. But you were heading north. You took me aboard just as my strength was gone. Soon I would have died under all those hardships, a death I still fear because the task remains unfinished.

When will the spirit guiding me finally let me reach him and rest? Must I die while he lives? If so, Walton, promise he will never escape. Find and kill him for me. But how can I ask you to endure this journey? That would be selfish. Still, if he appears after I am dead, if the powers of revenge bring him here, promise to stop him. He must never triumph over everything I suffered or make anyone else as miserable. He speaks beautifully and persuasively. Once he even moved me. But distrust him. His soul is as hellish as his form, full of deception and malice. Give him no hearing. Call on William, Justine, Henry, Elizabeth, my father, and me, and put your sword through his heart. I will be near to guide it.

Walton continues

August 26, 17—.

Margaret, now you have read this strange, terrible story. Does it chill your blood as it still chills mine? Sometimes a sudden fit of agony stopped him from speaking. Sometimes he forced the words out in a broken but piercing voice. His beautiful eyes would burn with indignation, then fall in sorrow and seem drowned in misery. At other times he controlled his expression and voice so thoroughly that he told the worst events calmly, with every sign of distress restrained. Then his face would change as suddenly as a volcano erupting, and he would scream curses at his persecutor.

The story fits together and sounds simply true. Still, the letters from Felix and Safie that he showed me, and the figure we saw from our ship, convinced me more than his earnest, consistent assertions alone could have done. Such a being really exists. I feel certain of it, yet am lost in astonishment and wonder. Sometimes I tried to learn how he had made it. On that subject he would reveal nothing.

“Are you mad?” he asked. “Where is this thoughtless curiosity leading you? Do you want to create an enemy for yourself and everyone else? What are you trying to learn? Be at peace. Learn from my suffering and spare yourself more.”

When he found out I was taking notes, he asked to see them. He corrected and expanded them in many places, especially the conversations with his enemy, giving them life and force. “Since you have recorded it,” he said, “I want the account preserved whole for those who come after us.”

A week has passed listening to a story stranger than imagination could make. My thoughts and feelings have been absorbed by him, by this history and his noble, gentle manner. I want to soothe him. But can I urge someone so miserable, with so little hope of comfort, to keep living? It seems his only remaining happiness is to settle his broken feelings toward peace and death. He does have one consolation, born of loneliness and delirium. He believes that when he meets his friends in dreams and receives comfort or encouragement for revenge, they really visit him from another world. To him they are more than creations of his mind. That belief gives his reflections a solemnity almost as powerful to me as truth.

We discuss more than his suffering. On literature generally he has immense knowledge and a quick, penetrating understanding. He speaks with power and feeling. I can hardly hear him tell something moving, or appeal to love and pity, without tears. What must he have been when life was good, if he is still so noble in ruin? He seems to know both his worth and how far he has fallen.

“When I was young,” he said, “I felt intended for some great undertaking. I felt deeply, but could also judge calmly. That combination seemed suited to major achievements. Believing I had something valuable to offer supported me where others might have collapsed. It seemed wrong to spend useful abilities on fruitless grief. After making a sensitive, rational being, I could hardly regard myself as just another ordinary schemer. But what encouraged me at first now drives me farther down. My hopes and theories amount to nothing. Like the angel who wanted unlimited power, I am chained in hell. I had a vivid imagination and great powers of analysis and sustained work. Together they let me conceive and create a human being. Even now I feel stirred remembering the dreams I had while the work was unfinished. My thoughts were in heaven, delighted by what I could do and excited by what might follow. High hopes and ambition had filled me since childhood. Look how far I have sunk. If you had known me then, you would scarcely recognize me. I rarely felt discouraged. A great destiny seemed to carry me, until I fell beyond recovery.”

Must I lose him? I have wanted a friend who could understand and love me. I found one in these empty seas, perhaps only to learn his value and have him taken away. I try to turn him back toward life, but he resists.

“Thank you, Walton, for caring,” he said. “But when you speak of new relationships, can you really think anyone could replace them? Who could be another Henry or Elizabeth? Even without exceptional qualities, childhood companions have a hold on us later friends rarely gain. They know the earliest parts of us, which may change but never wholly disappear. They can judge our motives more surely. A brother or sister, unless there were signs early on, can hardly suspect the other of deceit as even a loving later friend sometimes might. My friends were dear for their own merits as well as our history. Wherever I go, I hear Elizabeth and Henry. They are dead. Only one feeling in this solitude keeps me alive. If I had some great plan to benefit people, I could live to complete it. That is no longer my fate. I must destroy what I made. Then my work here is finished, and I can die.”

September 2

My beloved sister,

I am writing in danger, unsure whether I will see England or the people I love again. Mountains of ice trap us and threaten to crush the ship at any moment. The brave men I persuaded to come look to me for help, and I have none to give. The situation is appalling, but I still have courage and hope. We may survive. If we die, I will remember Seneca and try to die bravely.

But what will it be like for you? You may never hear what happened. You will wait for years, sometimes despairing and still tormented by hope. Imagining your expectations repeatedly giving way pains me more than my own death. But you have a husband and lovely children. You may still be happy. May heaven make it so.

My guest regards me with great compassion. He tries to give me hope and speaks as if life is something he values. He reminds me that other navigators have survived similar dangers here. Despite myself, I begin to expect a good outcome. Even the sailors feel the force of his words. Listening, they recover their energy. Those ice mountains seem like molehills that human resolve will overcome. The feeling passes. Each day without change frightens them more. I am almost afraid their despair will become a mutiny.

September 5

Something remarkable has just happened. These pages may never reach you, but I have to record it.

Ice mountains still surround us. We remain in danger of being crushed between them. The cold is severe, and many of my companions have died here. Frankenstein grows weaker each day. There is still a feverish light in his eyes, but he is exhausted. Any sudden effort soon leaves him nearly lifeless.

I told you I feared a mutiny. This morning I sat watching him, pale, his eyes half shut, his limbs slack. Six sailors asked to enter. Their spokesman said the crew had chosen them to make a demand I could scarcely refuse in fairness. We were trapped and might never escape. But if the ice opened, they feared I would continue north and expose them to fresh dangers after surviving this one. They wanted my solemn promise to head south the moment we were free.

It troubled me. I still had hope and had given little thought to turning back. Yet how could I fairly, or even practically, refuse? I hesitated. Frankenstein had been quiet and seemed too weak to follow. Suddenly he stirred. His eyes shone, his face briefly colored, and he turned to them.

“What are you asking your captain? Can your purpose be turned aside so easily? You called this a glorious expedition. Why was it glorious? Because it would be as easy as sailing a calm southern sea? It was glorious because of danger. Every difficulty would call out courage. You would face death and overcome it. That made it honorable. People would remember you as benefactors, brave men risking death for humanity. Now, at the first sight of danger, or if you prefer, the first great test, you retreat. You are content to be remembered as men who were too cold and went home to their fires. You hardly needed all this preparation to prove that. You needn't have brought your captain so far only to shame him with defeat. Be men, or more than men. Hold to your purpose as firmly as rock. This ice can change. Your hearts can be stronger than it is. Refuse to yield. Return to your families as heroes who fought and won, with your honor intact.”

His voice followed every feeling in the speech, his eyes full of heroic purpose. The men were moved. They looked at each other, unable to answer. I asked them to leave and consider it. I promised to go no farther north against their determined wishes, but hoped reflection would restore their courage.

They went. When I turned to him, he had sunk back, almost without life.

I have no idea how this will end. I would rather die than return with my purpose unfulfilled and what I regard as shame. But I fear that will happen. Without thoughts of glory and honor to support them, the men can hardly choose to keep enduring this.

September 7

It is decided. If we survive, I have agreed to return. Cowardice and indecision have ruined my hopes. I will come home disappointed, knowing no more than before. Bearing what I feel as injustice patiently takes more philosophy than I possess.

September 12

It is over. I am returning to England. My hopes of being useful and winning glory are gone. My friend is gone too. I will try to tell you how it happened, and as the ship carries me toward England and you, I will try to keep my spirits up.

On September 19 the ice began moving, with distant thunder as the great masses cracked and split. We were in extreme danger. There was nothing to do but wait, so I concentrated on my guest, now so ill he could scarcely leave his bed. The ice broke behind us and moved north. A west wind rose, and on the 11th the southern passage opened completely. Seeing their return apparently secure, the sailors shouted with prolonged happiness. Frankenstein woke and asked why.

“They are pleased to be going back to England,” I said.

“You really are returning?”

“Yes. I cannot resist their demand or force them into danger.”

“Then return. I will keep going. You can give up your purpose. Mine is assigned by heaven, and I dare not. I am weak, but the spirits helping my revenge will surely give me strength.” He tried to leap from the bed. The effort overwhelmed him, and he fell back unconscious.

It took a long time to revive him. Often I thought he was dead. Eventually he opened his eyes, breathing with difficulty and unable to speak. The surgeon gave him a calming medicine and told us to leave him quiet. Privately, he said my friend had only hours to live.

There was little I could do but grieve and wait. I sat beside him, thinking he slept. Then he called weakly and asked me closer.

“The strength I counted on is gone. I will soon die, and my enemy may live. I no longer feel that burning hatred and desire for revenge, Walton. But I still believe his death would be justified. I have examined my conduct these last days and find it defensible. In enthusiastic madness I made a rational being. I owed him whatever happiness and well-being I could give. But my responsibilities to other people were greater, because more happiness and suffering depended on them. That was why I refused to make him a companion, and I believe the refusal was right. He showed extraordinary malice and selfishness. He destroyed people with deep feelings, happiness, and wisdom. Who knows where his thirst for revenge would end? He ought to die so that his misery causes no more misery. Destroying him was my task, and I failed. Before, selfish and cruel feelings led me to ask you to finish it. I ask again now from what I believe are reason and goodness.

“Yet I cannot ask you to give up your home and friends for it. Returning to England, you are unlikely to meet him. I leave you to weigh those circumstances and what you believe your duties are. Death is already disturbing my judgment. I cannot insist you do what seems right to me, because passion may still mislead me.

“The thought of him doing more harm troubles me. Otherwise this hour, waiting for release, is the happiest I have known for years. The beloved dead seem near, and I am hurrying into their arms. Goodbye, Walton. Look for happiness in calm. Be careful with ambition, even the apparently innocent ambition to distinguish yourself in science and discovery. But why do I say that? Those hopes ruined me. Someone else might succeed.”

His voice weakened until effort exhausted it. He fell silent. About half an hour later he tried to speak again and couldn't. He pressed my hand faintly. His eyes closed forever as a gentle smile faded from his lips.

Margaret, what can I say about the early death of such a spirit? Nothing I write could explain my sorrow adequately. I cry. Disappointment darkens my mind. But I am traveling toward England. Perhaps there I can find comfort.

Something interrupts me. What is that sound? It is midnight, the wind favorable, the watch almost still. Again. Something like a human voice, but rougher, from the cabin where Frankenstein lies. I must get up and see. Good night, sister.

My God, what has happened. I am still dizzy remembering it. I hardly know whether I can describe it. But the account would be incomplete without this final extraordinary event.

I entered the cabin. An enormous, strangely proportioned figure bent over my friend's remains. Long, ragged hair hid his face, but one huge hand reached out, its color and texture like a mummy's. At my approach he stopped crying out in grief and horror and sprang toward the window. When I saw his face, I instinctively closed my eyes. I had never seen anything so frightening and unnaturally hideous. I tried to remember my duty toward the being who had caused this. I called for him to stay.

He stopped and looked at me in surprise. Turning to his creator again, he seemed to forget me, every movement driven by an uncontrolled passion.

“He is my victim too,” he cried. “His death completes my crimes and brings my miserable existence toward its end. Frankenstein, generous and self-sacrificing man, what use is it to ask your forgiveness now? I destroyed you by destroying everyone you loved. You are cold. You cannot answer.”

His voice seemed choked. My first thought had been to obey my friend's dying request and destroy him. Curiosity and compassion held me back. I approached but couldn't bring myself to look at his face again. I tried to speak and found no words. He kept reproaching himself wildly. At a pause I finally said, “Your repentance comes too late. If you had listened to conscience and remorse before taking revenge this far, Frankenstein would be alive.”

“Do you imagine I felt no remorse?” he said. “He suffered nothing compared with what I felt during the long course of carrying it out. Terrible selfishness drove me while remorse poisoned my heart. Do you think Henry's groans were music to me? My heart was made for love and sympathy. Misery twisted it into hatred. That change tortured me in ways you cannot imagine.

“After killing Henry I returned to Switzerland broken and overwhelmed. I pitied Frankenstein with a pity almost like horror. I hated myself. Then I learned that the man who had made both my life and its torments still hoped for happiness. While he gave me despair, he wanted the pleasures and affections I could never have. Helpless envy and bitter anger brought back an endless desire for revenge. I remembered my threat and decided to fulfill it. I knew I was preparing torture for myself. But I was a slave to an impulse I hated and couldn't resist. When she died, though, I had gone beyond misery. I put feeling aside and surrendered to despair. Evil became my good. I had chosen that world and reshaped myself to live in it. Completing my design became a consuming passion. Now it is complete. There lies the last victim.”

At first his misery moved me. Then I remembered Frankenstein's warning about his persuasive powers and looked at my dead friend. Anger returned. “You come here to weep over what you destroyed. You set a building on fire, then sit in the ruins mourning it. If he still lived, you would hunt him again. This is hypocrisy. You feel little pity. You grieve because your victim has passed beyond your power.”

“That is wrong,” he interrupted. “Yet I understand why my actions make it look true. I am asking for no sympathy. I can expect none. When I first wanted it, I wanted someone to share the goodness, affection, and happiness filling me. Now goodness is a shadow, and happiness and affection have become bitter despair. What could I ask anyone to share? I will suffer alone until it ends. Let my memory carry all the hatred and disgrace it deserves. Once I dreamed of goodness, recognition, and pleasure. I hoped people might forgive my appearance and love the good qualities I could develop. Honor and devotion fed my thoughts. Now wrongdoing has degraded me below the lowest animal. No crime, cruelty, or misery seems equal to mine. Listing what I have done, I can hardly believe I am the same being who once imagined the beauty and greatness of goodness. But I am. The fallen angel becomes a malicious devil. Even the enemy of God and humanity had companions in his desolation. I am entirely alone.

“You know my crimes and his suffering. But his account could never add up the hours and months I spent consumed by helpless passions. Destroying his hopes never satisfied my own desires. They kept burning. I still wanted love and companionship, and people still rejected me. Was there no injustice in that? Am I the only criminal, after everyone wronged me? Why reserve your hatred for me? What about Felix, who drove a friend away with insults, or the man who tried to kill the rescuer of his child? They are treated as blameless. I am the abandoned, malformed thing people can reject, kick, and trample. Even now that injustice makes my blood boil.

“But I really am wretched and guilty. I murdered lovely, helpless people. I strangled the innocent in sleep. I closed my hand on the throat of someone who had never harmed me or anyone else. I gave my creator, a man with so much to love and admire, misery and irreversible ruin. There he lies, pale and cold. You hate me. Your hatred cannot equal my own. I look at the hands that did it and think of the heart that conceived it, longing for the moment when I will see and remember them no more.

“You can set aside the fear that I will do more harm. My work is almost finished. Neither your death nor anyone else's is needed. Only mine. I will carry that out soon. I will leave on the ice raft that brought me and go to the farthest north. There I will build my funeral pyre and burn this body to ashes, so nobody's dangerous curiosity can use its remains to make another like me. I will die. These agonies and unsatisfied feelings will end. The man who brought me into existence is dead. When I am gone, even the memory of us will soon disappear. I will never again see sun or stars or feel wind on my face. Light, feeling, sensation will pass. That must be my happiness now. Years ago, when I first saw the world, felt summer warmth, heard leaves and birds, when those things were everything to me, I would have cried to die. Now it is my only comfort. With crimes staining me and remorse tearing me apart, where else can I rest?

“Goodbye. You are the last human being these eyes will see. Goodbye, Frankenstein. If you were alive and still wanted revenge, my living would satisfy it more than my death. But you wanted me gone to prevent more suffering. If you can still think and feel in some way beyond my knowledge, you would hardly want me kept alive only to suffer. Ruined as you were, my agony was greater. The remorse in my wounds can end only when death closes them.

“Soon,” he said with a sad, solemn intensity, “I will die, and these feelings will be gone. The burning misery will end. I will climb my funeral pyre in triumph and welcome the flames' agony. That light will fade. Wind will carry my ashes into the sea. My spirit will rest, or if it thinks, surely it will think differently from this. Goodbye.”

He sprang through the cabin window onto the ice raft beside the ship. The waves carried him away. Soon he disappeared into darkness and distance.

The end.