Frankenstein; Or, The Modern Prometheus
His sentence was pronounced; and I could only grieve, and be patient. I
sat by his bed, watching him; his eyes were closed, and I thought he
slept; but presently he called to me in a feeble voice, and, bidding me
come near, said--"Alas! the strength I relied on is gone; I feel that I
shall soon die, and he, my enemy and persecutor, may still be in being.
Think not, Walton, that in the last moments of my existence I feel that
burning hatred, and ardent desire of revenge, I once expressed; but I
feel myself justified in desiring the death of my adversary. During
these last days I have been occupied in examining my past conduct; nor
do I find it blamable. In a fit of enthusiastic madness I created a
rational creature, and was bound towards him, to assure, as far as was
in my power, his happiness and well-being. This was my duty; but there
was another still paramount to that. My duties towards the beings of my
own species had greater claims to my attention, because they included a
greater proportion of happiness or misery. Urged by this view, I
refused, and I did right in refusing, to create a companion for the
first creature. He showed unparalleled malignity and selfishness, in
evil: he destroyed my friends; he devoted to destruction beings who
possessed exquisite sensations, happiness, and wisdom; nor do I know
where this thirst for vengeance may end. Miserable himself, that he may
render no other wretched, he ought to die. The task of his destruction
was mine, but I have failed. When actuated by selfish and vicious
motives, I asked you to undertake my unfinished work; and I renew this
request now, when I am only induced by reason and virtue.
"Yet I cannot ask you to renounce your country and friends, to fulfil
this task; and now, that you are returning to England, you will have
little chance of meeting with him. But the consideration of these
points, and the well balancing of what you may esteem your duties, I
leave to you; my judgment and ideas are already disturbed by the near
approach of death. I dare not ask you to do what I think right, for I
may still be misled by passion.
"That he should live to be an instrument of mischief disturbs me; in
other respects, this hour, when I momentarily expect my release, is the
only happy one which I have enjoyed for several years. The forms of the
beloved dead flit before me, and I hasten to their arms. Farewell,
Walton! Seek happiness in tranquillity, and avoid ambition, even if it
be only the apparently innocent one of distinguishing yourself in
science and discoveries. Yet why do I say this? I have myself been
blasted in these hopes, yet another may succeed."
His voice became fainter as he spoke; and at length, exhausted by his
effort, he sunk into silence. About half an hour afterwards he attempted
again to speak, but was unable; he pressed my hand feebly, and his eyes
closed for ever, while the irradiation of a gentle smile passed away
from his lips.
Margaret, what comment can I make on the untimely extinction of this
glorious spirit? What can I say, that will enable you to understand the
depth of my sorrow? All that I should express would be inadequate and
feeble. My tears flow; my mind is overshadowed by a cloud of
disappointment. But I journey towards England, and I may there find
consolation.
I am interrupted. What do these sounds portend? It is midnight; the
breeze blows fairly, and the watch on deck scarcely stir. Again; there
is a sound as of a human voice, but hoarser; it comes from the cabin
where the remains of Frankenstein still lie. I must arise, and examine.
Good night, my sister.
Great God! what a scene has just taken place! I am yet dizzy with the
remembrance of it. I hardly know whether I shall have the power to
detail it; yet the tale which I have recorded would be incomplete
without this final and wonderful catastrophe.
I entered the cabin, where lay the remains of my ill-fated and admirable
friend. Over him hung a form which I cannot find words to describe;
gigantic in stature, yet uncouth and distorted in its proportions. As he
hung over the coffin, his face was concealed by long locks of ragged
hair; but one vast hand was extended, in colour and apparent texture
like that of a mummy. When he heard the sound of my approach, he ceased
to utter exclamations of grief and horror, and sprung towards the
window. Never did I behold a vision so horrible as his face, of such
loathsome, yet appalling hideousness. I shut my eyes involuntarily, and
endeavoured to recollect what were my duties with regard to this
destroyer. I called on him to stay.
He paused, looking on me with wonder; and, again turning towards the
lifeless form of his creator, he seemed to forget my presence, and every
feature and gesture seemed instigated by the wildest rage of some
uncontrollable passion.
"That is also my victim!" he exclaimed: "in his murder my crimes are
consummated; the miserable series of my being is wound to its close! Oh,
Frankenstein! generous and self-devoted being! what does it avail that
I now ask thee to pardon me? I, who irretrievably destroyed thee by
destroying all thou lovedst. Alas! he is cold, he cannot answer me."
His voice seemed suffocated; and my first impulses, which had suggested
to me the duty of obeying the dying request of my friend, in destroying
his enemy, were now suspended by a mixture of curiosity and compassion.
I approached this tremendous being; I dared not again raise my eyes to
his face, there was something so scaring and unearthly in his ugliness.
I attempted to speak, but the words died away on my lips. The monster
continued to utter wild and incoherent self-reproaches. At length I
gathered resolution to address him in a pause of the tempest of his
passion: "Your repentance," I said, "is now superfluous. If you had
listened to the voice of conscience, and heeded the stings of remorse,
before you had urged your diabolical vengeance to this extremity,
Frankenstein would yet have lived.
"And do you dream?" said the dæmon; "do you think that I was then dead
to agony and remorse?--He," he continued, pointing to the corpse, "he
suffered not in the consummation of the deed--oh! not the ten-thousandth
portion of the anguish that was mine during the lingering detail of its
execution. A frightful selfishness hurried me on, while my heart was
poisoned with remorse. Think you that the groans of Clerval were music
to my ears? My heart was fashioned to be susceptible of love and
sympathy; and, when wrenched by misery to vice and hatred, it did not
endure the violence of the change, without torture such as you cannot
even imagine.
"After the murder of Clerval, I returned to Switzerland, heart-broken
and overcome. I pitied Frankenstein; my pity amounted to horror: I
abhorred myself. But when I discovered that he, the author at once of my
existence and of its unspeakable torments, dared to hope for happiness;
that while he accumulated wretchedness and despair upon me, he sought
his own enjoyment in feelings and passions from the indulgence of which
I was for ever barred, then impotent envy and bitter indignation filled
me with an insatiable thirst for vengeance. I recollected my threat,
and resolved that it should be accomplished. I knew that I was preparing
for myself a deadly torture; but I was the slave, not the master, of an
impulse, which I detested, yet could not disobey. Yet when she
died!--nay, then I was not miserable. I had cast off all feeling,
subdued all anguish, to riot in the excess of my despair. Evil
thenceforth became my good. Urged thus far, I had no choice but to adapt
my nature to an element which I had willingly chosen. The completion of
my demoniacal design became an insatiable passion. And now it is ended;
there is my last victim!"
I was at first touched by the expressions of his misery; yet, when I
called to mind what Frankenstein had said of his powers of eloquence and
persuasion, and when I again cast my eyes on the lifeless form of my
friend, indignation was rekindled within me. "Wretch!" I said, "it is
well that you come here to whine over the desolation that you have made.
You throw a torch into a pile of buildings; and, when they are consumed,
you sit among the ruins, and lament the fall. Hypocritical fiend! if he
whom you mourn still lived, still would he be the object, again would he
become the prey, of your accursed vengeance. It is not pity that you
feel; you lament only because the victim of your malignity is withdrawn
from your power."
"Oh, it is not thus--not thus," interrupted the being; "yet such must be
the impression conveyed to you by what appears to be the purport of my
actions. Yet I seek not a fellow-feeling in my misery. No sympathy may I
ever find. When I first sought it, it was the love of virtue, the
feelings of happiness and affection with which my whole being
overflowed, that I wished to be participated. But now, that virtue has
become to me a shadow, and that happiness and affection are turned into
bitter and loathing despair, in what should I seek for sympathy? I am
content to suffer alone, while my sufferings shall endure: when I die, I
am well satisfied that abhorrence and opprobrium should load my memory.
Once my fancy was soothed with dreams of virtue, of fame, and of
enjoyment. Once I falsely hoped to meet with beings, who, pardoning my
outward form, would love me for the excellent qualities which I was
capable of unfolding. I was nourished with high thoughts of honour and
devotion. But now crime has degraded me beneath the meanest animal. No
guilt, no mischief, no malignity, no misery, can be found comparable to
mine. When I run over the frightful catalogue of my sins, I cannot
believe that I am the same creature whose thoughts were once filled with
sublime and transcendent visions of the beauty and the majesty of
goodness. But it is even so; the fallen angel becomes a malignant devil.
Yet even that enemy of God and man had friends and associates in his
desolation; I am alone.
"You, who call Frankenstein your friend, seem to have a knowledge of my
crimes and his misfortunes. But, in the detail which he gave you of
them, he could not sum up the hours and months of misery which I
endured, wasting in impotent passions. For while I destroyed his hopes,
I did not satisfy my own desires. They were for ever ardent and craving;
still I desired love and fellowship, and I was still spurned. Was there
no injustice in this? Am I to be thought the only criminal, when all
human kind sinned against me? Why do you not hate Felix, who drove his
friend from his door with contumely? Why do you not execrate the rustic
who sought to destroy the saviour of his child? Nay, these are virtuous
and immaculate beings! I, the miserable and the abandoned, am an
abortion, to be spurned at, and kicked, and trampled on. Even now my
blood boils at the recollection of this injustice.
"But it is true that I am a wretch. I have murdered the lovely and the
helpless; I have strangled the innocent as they slept, and grasped to
death his throat who never injured me or any other living thing. I have
devoted my creator, the select specimen of all that is worthy of love
and admiration among men, to misery; I have pursued him even to that
irremediable ruin. There he lies, white and cold in death. You hate me;
but your abhorrence cannot equal that with which I regard myself. I look
on the hands which executed the deed; I think on the heart in which the
imagination of it was conceived, and long for the moment when these
hands will meet my eyes, when that imagination will haunt my thoughts no
more.
"Fear not that I shall be the instrument of future mischief. My work is
nearly complete. Neither yours nor any man's death is needed to