Frankenstein; Or, The Modern Prometheus
in order to complete my work. It was, indeed, a filthy process in which
I was engaged. During my first experiment, a kind of enthusiastic frenzy
had blinded me to the horror of my employment; my mind was intently
fixed on the consummation of my labour, and my eyes were shut to the
horror of my proceedings. But now I went to it in cold blood, and my
heart often sickened at the work of my hands.
Thus situated, employed in the most detestable occupation, immersed in a
solitude where nothing could for an instant call my attention from the
actual scene in which I was engaged, my spirits became unequal; I grew
restless and nervous. Every moment I feared to meet my persecutor.
Sometimes I sat with my eyes fixed on the ground, fearing to raise them,
lest they should encounter the object which I so much dreaded to behold.
I feared to wander from the sight of my fellow-creatures, lest when
alone he should come to claim his companion.
In the mean time I worked on, and my labour was already considerably
advanced. I looked towards its completion with a tremulous and eager
hope, which I dared not trust myself to question, but which was
intermixed with obscure forebodings of evil, that made my heart sicken
in my bosom.
CHAPTER XX.
I sat one evening in my laboratory; the sun had set, and the moon was
just rising from the sea; I had not sufficient light for my employment,
and I remained idle, in a pause of consideration of whether I should
leave my labour for the night, or hasten its conclusion by an
unremitting attention to it. As I sat, a train of reflection occurred to
me, which led me to consider the effects of what I was now doing. Three
years before I was engaged in the same manner, and had created a fiend
whose unparalleled barbarity had desolated my heart, and filled it for
ever with the bitterest remorse. I was now about to form another being,
of whose dispositions I was alike ignorant; she might become ten
thousand times more malignant than her mate, and delight, for its own
sake, in murder and wretchedness. He had sworn to quit the neighbourhood
of man, and hide himself in deserts; but she had not; and she, who in
all probability was to become a thinking and reasoning animal, might
refuse to comply with a compact made before her creation. They might
even hate each other; the creature who already lived loathed his own
deformity, and might he not conceive a greater abhorrence for it when it
came before his eyes in the female form? She also might turn with
disgust from him to the superior beauty of man; she might quit him, and
he be again alone, exasperated by the fresh provocation of being
deserted by one of his own species.
Even if they were to leave Europe, and inhabit the deserts of the new
world, yet one of the first results of those sympathies for which the
dæmon thirsted would be children, and a race of devils would be
propagated upon the earth, who might make the very existence of the
species of man a condition precarious and full of terror. Had I right,
for my own benefit, to inflict this curse upon everlasting generations?
I had before been moved by the sophisms of the being I had created; I
had been struck senseless by his fiendish threats: but now, for the
first time, the wickedness of my promise burst upon me; I shuddered to
think that future ages might curse me as their pest, whose selfishness
had not hesitated to buy its own peace at the price, perhaps, of the
existence of the whole human race.
I trembled, and my heart failed within me; when, on looking up, I saw,
by the light of the moon, the dæmon at the casement. A ghastly grin
wrinkled his lips as he gazed on me, where I sat fulfilling the task
which he had allotted to me. Yes, he had followed me in my travels; he
had loitered in forests, hid himself in caves, or taken refuge in wide
and desert heaths; and he now came to mark my progress, and claim the
fulfilment of my promise.
As I looked on him, his countenance expressed the utmost extent of
malice and treachery. I thought with a sensation of madness on my
promise of creating another like to him, and trembling with passion,
tore to pieces the thing on which I was engaged. The wretch saw me
destroy the creature on whose future existence he depended for
happiness, and, with a howl of devilish despair and revenge, withdrew.
I left the room, and, locking the door, made a solemn vow in my own
heart never to resume my labours; and then, with trembling steps, I
sought my own apartment. I was alone; none were near me to dissipate the
gloom, and relieve me from the sickening oppression of the most terrible
reveries.
Several hours passed, and I remained near my window gazing on the sea;
it was almost motionless, for the winds were hushed, and all nature
reposed under the eye of the quiet moon. A few fishing vessels alone
specked the water, and now and then the gentle breeze wafted the sound
of voices, as the fishermen called to one another. I felt the silence,
although I was hardly conscious of its extreme profundity, until my ear
was suddenly arrested by the paddling of oars near the shore, and a
person landed close to my house.
In a few minutes after, I heard the creaking of my door, as if some one
endeavoured to open it softly. I trembled from head to foot; I felt a
presentiment of who it was, and wished to rouse one of the peasants who
dwelt in a cottage not far from mine; but I was overcome by the
sensation of helplessness, so often felt in frightful dreams, when you
in vain endeavour to fly from an impending danger, and was rooted to the
spot.
Presently I heard the sound of footsteps along the passage; the door
opened, and the wretch whom I dreaded appeared. Shutting the door, he
approached me, and said, in a smothered voice--
"You have destroyed the work which you began; what is it that you
intend? Do you dare to break your promise? I have endured toil and
misery: I left Switzerland with you; I crept along the shores of the
Rhine, among its willow islands, and over the summits of its hills. I
have dwelt many months in the heaths of England, and among the deserts
of Scotland. I have endured incalculable fatigue, and cold, and hunger;
do you dare destroy my hopes?"
"Begone! I do break my promise; never will I create another like
yourself, equal in deformity and wickedness."
"Slave, I before reasoned with you, but you have proved yourself
unworthy of my condescension. Remember that I have power; you believe
yourself miserable, but I can make you so wretched that the light of day
will be hateful to you. You are my creator, but I am your
master;--obey!"
"The hour of my irresolution is past, and the period of your power is
arrived. Your threats cannot move me to do an act of wickedness; but
they confirm me in a determination of not creating you a companion in
vice. Shall I, in cool blood, set loose upon the earth a dæmon, whose
delight is in death and wretchedness? Begone! I am firm, and your words
will only exasperate my rage."
The monster saw my determination in my face, and gnashed his teeth in
the impotence of anger. "Shall each man," cried he, "find a wife for his
bosom, and each beast have his mate, and I be alone? I had feelings of
affection, and they were requited by detestation and scorn. Man! you may
hate; but beware! your hours will pass in dread and misery, and soon the
bolt will fall which must ravish from you your happiness for ever. Are
you to be happy, while I grovel in the intensity of my wretchedness?
You can blast my other passions; but revenge remains--revenge,
henceforth dearer than light or food! I may die; but first you, my
tyrant and tormentor, shall curse the sun that gazes on your misery.
Beware; for I am fearless, and therefore powerful. I will watch with the
wiliness of a snake, that I may sting with its venom. Man, you shall
repent of the injuries you inflict."
"Devil, cease; and do not poison the air with these sounds of malice. I
have declared my resolution to you, and I am no coward to bend beneath
words. Leave me; I am inexorable."
"It is well. I go; but remember, I shall be with you on your
wedding-night."
I started forward, and exclaimed, "Villain! before you sign my
death-warrant, be sure that you are yourself safe."
I would have seized him; but he eluded me, and quitted the house with
precipitation. In a few moments I saw him in his boat, which shot across
the waters with an arrowy swiftness, and was soon lost amidst the waves.
All was again silent; but his words rung in my ears. I burned with rage
to pursue the murderer of my peace, and precipitate him into the ocean.
I walked up and down my room hastily and perturbed, while my imagination
conjured up a thousand images to torment and sting me. Why had I not
followed him, and closed with him in mortal strife? But I had suffered
him to depart, and he had directed his course towards the main land. I
shuddered to think who might be the next victim sacrificed to his
insatiate revenge. And then I thought again of his words--"_I will be
with you on your wedding-night._" That then was the period fixed for the
fulfilment of my destiny. In that hour I should die, and at once satisfy
and extinguish his malice. The prospect did not move me to fear; yet
when I thought of my beloved Elizabeth,--of her tears and endless
sorrow, when she should find her lover so barbarously snatched from
her,--tears, the first I had shed for many months, streamed from my
eyes, and I resolved not to fall before my enemy without a bitter
struggle.
The night passed away, and the sun rose from the ocean; my feelings
became calmer, if it may be called calmness when the violence of rage
sinks into the depths of despair. I left the house, the horrid scene of
the last night's contention, and walked on the beach of the sea, which I
almost regarded as an insuperable barrier between me and my
fellow-creatures; nay, a wish that such should prove the fact stole
across me. I desired that I might pass my life on that barren rock,
wearily, it is true, but uninterrupted by any sudden shock of misery. If
I returned, it was to be sacrificed, or to see those whom I most loved
die under the grasp of a dæmon whom I had myself created.
I walked about the isle like a restless spectre, separated from all it
loved, and miserable in the separation. When it became noon, and the sun
rose higher, I lay down on the grass, and was overpowered by a deep
sleep. I had been awake the whole of the preceding night, my nerves were
agitated, and my eyes inflamed by watching and misery. The sleep into
which I now sunk refreshed me; and when I awoke, I again felt as if I
belonged to a race of human beings like myself, and I began to reflect
upon what had passed with greater composure; yet still the words of the
fiend rung in my ears like a death-knell, they appeared like a dream,
yet distinct and oppressive as a reality.
The sun had far descended, and I still sat on the shore, satisfying my
appetite, which had become ravenous, with an oaten cake, when I saw a
fishing-boat land close to me, and one of the men brought me a packet;
it contained letters from Geneva, and one from Clerval, entreating me to
join him. He said that he was wearing away his time fruitlessly where he
was; that letters from the friends he had formed in London desired his
return to complete the negotiation they had entered into for his Indian
enterprise. He could not any longer delay his departure; but as his
journey to London might be followed, even sooner than he now
conjectured, by his longer voyage, he entreated me to bestow as much of
my society on him as I could spare. He besought me, therefore, to leave
my solitary isle, and to meet him at Perth, that we might proceed
southwards together. This letter in a degree recalled me to life, and I