Frankenstein; Or, The Modern Prometheus
consummate the series of my being, and accomplish that which must be
done; but it requires my own. Do not think that I shall be slow to
perform this sacrifice. I shall quit your vessel on the ice-raft which
brought me thither, and shall seek the most northern extremity of the
globe; I shall collect my funeral pile, and consume to ashes this
miserable frame, that its remains may afford no light to any curious and
unhallowed wretch, who would create such another as I have been. I shall
die. I shall no longer feel the agonies which now consume me, or be the
prey of feelings unsatisfied, yet unquenched. He is dead who called me
into being; and when I shall be no more, the very remembrance of us both
will speedily vanish. I shall no longer see the sun or stars, or feel
the winds play on my cheeks. Light, feeling, and sense will pass away;
and in this condition must I find my happiness. Some years ago, when the
images which this world affords first opened upon me, when I felt the
cheering warmth of summer, and heard the rustling of the leaves and the
warbling of the birds, and these were all to me, I should have wept to
die; now it is my only consolation. Polluted by crimes, and torn by the
bitterest remorse, where can I find rest but in death?
"Farewell! I leave you, and in you the last of human kind whom these
eyes will ever behold. Farewell, Frankenstein! If thou wert yet alive,
and yet cherished a desire of revenge against me, it would be better
satiated in my life than in my destruction. But it was not so; thou
didst seek my extinction, that I might not cause greater wretchedness;
and if yet, in some mode unknown to me, thou hadst not ceased to think
and feel, thou wouldst not desire against me a vengeance greater than
that which I feel. Blasted as thou wert, my agony was still superior to
thine; for the bitter sting of remorse will not cease to rankle in my
wounds until death shall close them for ever.
"But soon," he cried, with sad and solemn enthusiasm, "I shall die, and
what I now feel be no longer felt. Soon these burning miseries will be
extinct. I shall ascend my funeral pile triumphantly, and exult in the
agony of the torturing flames. The light of that conflagration will fade
away; my ashes will be swept into the sea by the winds. My spirit will
sleep in peace; or if it thinks, it will not surely think thus.
Farewell."
He sprung from the cabin-window, as he said this, upon the ice-raft
which lay close to the vessel. He was soon borne away by the waves, and
lost in darkness and distance.
THE END.
LONDON:
Printed by A. & R Spottiswoode,
New-Street-Square.
[Transcriber's Note: Possible printer errors corrected:
Line 2863: "I do no not fear to die" to "I do now not fear to die"
Line 6375: "fulfil the wishes of you parents" to "your parents"]