The being finished speaking, and fixed his
looks upon me in expectation of a reply. But I was bewildered,
perplexed and unable to arrange my ideas sufficiently to understand
the full extent of his proposition. He continued--
"You must
create a female for me, with whom I can live in the interchange of
those sympathies necessary for my being. This you alone can do; and
I demand it of you as a right which you must not refuse to concede."
The latter part of his tale had kindled anew in me the anger
that had died away while he narrated his peaceful life among the
cottagers, and, as he said this, I could no longer suppress the rage
that burned within me.
"I do refuse it," I replied; "and no
torture shall ever extort a consent from me. You may render me the
most miserable of men, but you shall never make me base in my own
eyes. Shall I create another like yourself, whose joint wickedness
might desolate the world! Begone! I have answered you; you may
torture me, but I will never consent."
"You are in the
wrong," replied the fiend; "and, instead of threatening, I am
content to reason with you. I am malicious because I am miserable.
Am I not shunned and hated by all mankind? You, my creator, would
tear me to pieces, and triumph; remember that, and tell me why I
should pity man more than he pities me? You would not call it murder
if you could precipitate me into one of those ice-rifts, and destroy
my frame, the work of your own hands. Shall I respect man when he
contemns me? Let him live with me in the interchange of kindness;
and, instead of injury, I would bestow every benefit upon him with
tears of gratitude at his acceptance. But that cannot be; the human
senses are insurmountable barriers to our union. Yet mine shall not
be the submission of abject slavery. I will revenge my injuries: if
I cannot inspire love, I will cause fear; and chiefly towards you my
arch-enemy, because my creator, do I swear inextinguishable hatred.
Have a care: I will work at your destruction, nor finish until I
desolate your heart, so that you shall curse the hour of your
birth."
A fiendish rage animated him as he said this; his
face was wrinkled into contortions too horrible for human eyes to
behold; but presently he calmed himself and proceeded--
"I
intended to reason. This passion is detrimental to me; for you do
not reflect that you are the cause of its excess. If any being felt
emotions of benevolence towards me, I should return them an hundred
and an hundred fold; for that one creature's sake, I would make
peace with the whole kind! But I now indulge in dreams of bliss that
cannot be realised. What I ask of you is reasonable and moderate; I
demand a creature of another sex, but as hideous as myself; the
gratification is small, but it is all that I can receive, and it
shall content me. It is true we shall be monsters, cut off from all
the world; but on that account we shall be more attached to one
another. Our lives will not be happy, but they will be harmless, and
free from the misery I now feel. Oh! my creator, make me happy; let
me feel gratitude towards you for one benefit! Let me see that I
excite the sympathy of some existing thing; do not deny me my
request!"
I was moved. I shuddered when I thought of the
possible consequences of my consent; but I felt that there was some
justice in his argument. His tale, and the feelings he now
expressed, proved him to be a creature of fine sensations; and did I
not as his maker owe him all the portion of happiness that it was in
my power to bestow? He saw my change of feeling and continued--
"If you consent, neither you nor any other human being shall
ever see us again: I will go to the vast wilds of South America. My
food is not that of man; I do not destroy the lamb and the kid to
glut my appetite; acorns and berries afford me sufficient
nourishment. My companion will be of the same nature as myself, and
will be content with the same fare. We shall make our bed of dried
leaves; the sun will shine on us as on man, and will ripen our food.
The picture I present to you is peaceful and human, and you must
feel that you could deny it only in the wantonness of power and
cruelty. Pitiless as you have been towards me, I now see compassion
in your eyes; let me seize the favourable moment, and persuade you
to promise what I so ardently desire."
"You propose,"
replied I, "to fly from the habitations of man, to dwell in those
wilds where the beasts of the field will be your only companions.
How can you, who long for the love and sympathy of man, persevere in
this exile? You will return, and again seek their kindness, and you
will meet with their detestation; your evil passions will be
renewed, and you will then have a companion to aid you in the task
of destruction. This may not be: cease to argue the point, for I
cannot consent."
"How inconstant are your feelings! but a
moment ago you were moved by my representations, and why do you
again harden yourself to my complaints? I swear to you, by the earth
which I inhabit, and by you that made me, that, with the companion
you bestow, I will quit the neighbourhood of man, and dwell as it
may chance in the most savage of places. My evil passions will have
fled, for I shall meet with sympathy! my life will flow quietly
away, and, in my dying moments, I shall not curse my maker."
His words had a strange effect upon me. I compassionated
him, and sometimes felt a wish to console him; but when I looked
upon him, when I saw the filthy mass that moved and talked, my heart
sickened, and my feelings were altered to those of horror and
hatred. I tried to stifle these sensations; I thought that, as I
could not sympathise with him, I had no right to withhold from him
the small portion of happiness which was yet in my power to bestow.
"You swear," I said, "to be harmless; but have you not
already shown a degree of malice that should reasonably make me
distrust you? May not even this be a feint that will increase your
triumph by affording a wider scope for your revenge."
"How
is this? I must not be trifled with: and I demand an answer. If I
have no ties and no affections, hatred and vice must be my portion;
the love of another will destroy the cause of my crimes, and I shall
become a thing of whose existence every one will be ignorant. My
vices are the children of a forced solitude that I abhor; and my
virtues will necessarily arise when I live in communion with an
equal. I shall feel the affections of a sensitive being, and become
linked to the chain of existence and events, from which I am now
excluded."
I paused some time to reflect on all he had
related, and the various arguments which he had employed. I thought
of the promise of virtues which he had displayed on the opening of
his existence, and the subsequent blight of all kindly feeling by
the loathing and scorn which his protectors had manifested towards
him. His power and threats were not omitted in my calculations: a
creature who could exist in the ice-caves of the glaciers, and hide
himself from pursuit among the ridges of inaccessible precipices,
was a being possessing faculties it would be vain to cope with.
After a long pause of reflection, I concluded that the justice due
both to him and my fellow-creatures demanded of me that I should
comply with his request. Turning to him, therefore, I said--
"I consent to your demand, on your solemn oath to quit
Europe for ever, and every other place in the neighbourhood of man,
as soon as I shall deliver into your hands a female who will
accompany you in your exile."
"I swear," he cried, "by the
sun, and by the blue sky of Heaven, and by the fire of love that
burns my heart, that if you grant my prayer, while they exist you
shall never behold me again. Depart to your home, and commence your
labours: I shall watch their progress with unutterable anxiety; and
fear not but that when you are ready I shall appear."
Saying
this, he suddenly quitted me, fearful, perhaps, of any change in my
sentiments. I saw him descend the mountain with greater speed than
the flight of an eagle, and quickly lost among the undulations of
the sea of ice.
His tale had occupied the whole day; and the
sun was upon the verge of the horizon when he departed. I knew that
I ought to hasten my descent towards the valley, as I should soon be
encompassed in darkness; but my heart was heavy, and my steps slow.
The labour of winding among the little paths of the mountains, and
fixing my feet firmly as I advanced, perplexed me, occupied as I was
by the emotions which the occurrences of the day had produced. Night
was far advanced when I came to the half-way resting-place, and
seated myself beside the fountain. The stars shone at intervals, as
the clouds passed from over them; the dark pines rose before me, and
every here and there a broken tree lay on the ground: it was a scene
of wonderful solemnity, and stirred strange thoughts within me. I
wept bitterly; and clasping my hands in agony, I exclaimed, "Oh!
stars, and clouds, and winds, ye are all about to mock me: if ye
really pity me, crush sensation and memory; let me become as nought;
but if not, depart, depart, and leave me in darkness."
These
were wild and miserable thoughts; but I cannot describe to you how
the eternal twinkling of the stars weighed upon me, and how I
listened to every blast of wind as if it were a dull ugly siroc on
its way to consume me.
Morning dawned before I arrived at
the village of Chamounix; I took no rest, but returned immediately
to Geneva. Even in my own heart I could give no expression to my
sensations--they weighed on me with a mountain's weight, and their
excess destroyed my agony beneath them. Thus I returned home, and
entering the house, presented myself to the family. My haggard and
wild appearance awoke intense alarm; but I answered no question,
scarcely did I speak. I felt as if I were placed under a ban--as if
I had no right to claim their sympathies--as if never more might I
enjoy companionship with them. Yet even thus I loved them to
adoration; and to save them, I resolved to dedicate myself to my
most abhorred task. The prospect of such an occupation made every
other circumstance of existence pass before me like a dream; and
that thought only had to me the reality of life.
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