My present situation was one in which all
voluntary thought was swallowed up and lost. I was hurried away by
fury; revenge alone endowed me with strength and composure; it
moulded my feelings, and allowed me to be calculating and calm, at
periods when otherwise delirium or death would have been my portion.
My first resolution was to quit Geneva for ever; my country,
which, when I was happy and beloved, was dear to me, now, in my
adversity, became hateful. I provided myself with a sum of money,
together with a few jewels which had belonged to my mother, and
departed.
And now my wanderings began, which are to cease
but with life. I have traversed a vast portion of the earth, and
have endured all the hardships which travellers, in deserts and
barbarous countries, are wont to meet. How I have lived I hardly
know; many times have I stretched my failing limbs upon the sandy
plain and prayed for death. But revenge kept me alive; I dared not
die and leave my adversary in being.
When I quitted Geneva my
first labour was to gain some clue by which I might trace the steps
of my fiendish enemy. But my plan was unsettled; and I wandered many
hours round the confines of the town, uncertain what path I should
pursue. As night approached, I found myself at the entrance of the
cemetery where William, Elizabeth, and my father reposed. I entered
it and approached the tomb which marked their graves. Everything was
silent, except the leaves of the trees, which were gently agitated
by the wind; the night was nearly dark; and the scene would have
been solemn and affecting even to an uninterested observer. The
spirits of the departed seemed to flit around and to cast a shadow,
which was felt but not seen, around the head of the mourner.
The
deep grief which this scene had at first excited quickly gave way to
rage and despair. They were dead, and I lived; their murderer also
lived, and to destroy him I must drag out my weary existence. I
knelt on the grass and kissed the earth, and with quivering lips
exclaimed, "By the sacred earth on which I kneel, by the shades that
wander near me, by the deep and eternal grief that I feel, I swear;
and by thee, O Night, and the spirits that preside over thee, to
pursue the daemon who caused this misery until he or I shall perish
in mortal conflict. For this purpose I will preserve my life: to
execute this dear revenge will I again behold the sun and tread the
green herbage of earth, which otherwise should vanish from my eyes
for ever. And I call on you, spirits of the dead; and on you,
wandering ministers of vengeance, to aid and conduct me in my work.
Let the cursed and hellish monster drink deep of agony; let him feel
the despair that now torments me."
I had begun my abjuration
with solemnity and an awe which almost assured me that the shades of
my murdered friends heard and approved my devotion; but the furies
possessed me as I concluded, and rage choked my utterance.
I
was answered through the stillness of night by a loud and fiendish
laugh. It rung on my ears long and heavily; the mountains re-echoed
it, and I felt as if all hell surrounded me with mockery and
laughter. Surely in that moment I should have been possessed by
frenzy, and have destroyed my miserable existence, but that my vow
was heard and that I was reserved for vengeance. The laughter died
away; when a well-known and abhorred voice, apparently close to my
ear, addressed me in an audible whisper--"I am satisfied: miserable
wretch! you have determined to live, and I am satisfied."
I
darted towards the spot from which the sound proceeded; but the
devil eluded my grasp. Suddenly the broad disk of the moon arose and
shone full upon his ghastly and distorted shape as he fled with more
than mortal speed.
I pursued him; and for many months this
has been my task. Guided by a slight clue I followed the windings of
the Rhone, but vainly. The blue Mediterranean appeared; and, by a
strange chance, I saw the fiend enter by night and hide himself in a
vessel bound for the Black Sea. I took my passage in the same ship;
but he escaped, I know not how.
Amidst the wilds of Tartary
and Russia, although he still evaded me, I have ever followed in his
track. Sometimes the peasants, scared by this horrid apparition,
informed me of his path; sometimes he himself, who feared that if I
lost all trace of him I should despair and die, left some mark to
guide me. The snows descended on my head, and I saw the print of his
huge step on the white plain. To you first entering on life, to whom
care is new and agony unknown, how can you understand what I have
felt and still feel? Cold, want, and fatigue were the least pains
which I was destined to endure; I was cursed by some devil, and
carried about with me my eternal hell; yet still a spirit of good
followed and directed my steps; and, when I most murmured, would
suddenly extricate me from seemingly insurmountable difficulties.
Sometimes, when nature, overcome by hunger, sunk under the
exhaustion, a repast was prepared for me in the desert that restored
and inspirited me. The fare was, indeed, coarse, such as the
peasants of the country ate; but I will not doubt that it was set
there by the spirits that I had invoked to aid me. Often, when all
was dry, the heavens cloudless, and I was parched by thirst, a
slight cloud would bedim the sky, shed the few drops that revived
me, and vanish.
I followed, when I could, the courses of the
rivers; but the daemon generally avoided these, as it was here that
the population of the country chiefly collected. In other places
human beings were seldom seen; and I generally subsisted on the wild
animals that crossed my path. I had money with me, and gained the
friendship of the villagers by distributing it; or I brought with me
some food that I had killed, which, after taking a small part, I
always presented to those who had provided me with fire and utensils
for cooking.
My life, as it passed thus, was indeed hateful
to me, and it was during sleep alone that I could taste joy. O
blessed sleep! often, when most miserable, I sank to repose, and my
dreams lulled me even to rapture. The spirits that guarded me had
provided these moments, or rather hours, of happiness, that I might
retain strength to fulfil my pilgrimage. Deprived of this respite, I
should have sunk under my hardships. During the day I was sustained
and inspirited by the hope of night: for in sleep I saw my friends,
my wife, and my beloved country; again I saw the benevolent
countenance of my father, heard the silver tones of my Elizabeth's
voice, and beheld Clerval enjoying health and youth. Often, when
wearied by a toilsome march, I persuaded myself that I was dreaming
until night should come, and that I should then enjoy reality in the
arms of my dearest friends. What agonising fondness did I feel for
them! how did I cling to their dear forms, as sometimes they haunted
even my waking hours, and persuade myself that they still lived! At
such moments vengeance, that burned within me, died in my heart, and
I pursued my path towards the destruction of the daemon more as a
task enjoined by heaven, as the mechanical impulse of some power of
which I was unconscious, than as the ardent desire of my soul.
What his feelings were whom I pursued I cannot know.
Sometimes, indeed, he left marks in writing on the barks of the
trees, or cut in stone, that guided me and instigated my fury. "My
reign is not yet over" (these words were legible in one of these
inscriptions); "you live, and my power is complete. Fellow me; I
seek the everlasting ices of the north, where you will feel the
misery of cold and frost to which I am impassive. You will find near
this place, if you follow not too tardily, a dead hare; eat and be
refreshed. Come on, my enemy; we have yet to wrestle for our lives;
but many hard and miserable hours must you endure until that period
shall arrive."
Scoffing devil! Again do I vow vengeance;
again do I devote thee, miserable fiend, to torture and death. Never
will I give up my search until he or I perish; and then with what
ecstasy shall I join my Elizabeth and my departed friends, who even
now prepare for me the reward of my tedious toil and horrible
pilgrimage!
As I still pursued my journey to the northward,
the snows thickened and the cold increased in a degree almost too
severe to support. The peasants were shut up in their hovels, and
only a few of the most hardy ventured forth to seize the animals
whom starvation had forced from their hiding places to seek for
prey. The rivers were covered with ice and no fish could be
procured; and thus I was cut off from my chief article of
maintenance.
The triumph of my enemy increased with the
difficulty of my labours. One inscription that he left was in these
words:--"Prepare! your toils only begin: wrap yourself in furs and
provide food; for we shall soon enter upon a journey where your
sufferings will satisfy my everlasting hatred."
My courage
and perseverance were invigorated by these scoffing words; I
resolved not to fail in my purpose; and, calling on Heaven to
support me, I continued with unabated fervour to traverse immense
deserts until the ocean appeared at a distance and formed the utmost
boundary of the horizon. Oh! how unlike it was to the blue seas of
the south! Covered with ice, it was only to be distinguished from
land by its superior wildness and ruggedness. The Greeks wept for
joy when they beheld the Mediterranean from the hills of Asia, and
hailed with rapture the boundary of their toils. I did not weep; but
I knelt down and, with a full heart, thanked my guiding spirit for
conducting me in safety to the place where I hoped, notwithstanding
my adversary's gibe, to meet and grapple with him.
Some
weeks before this period I had procured a sledge and dogs, and thus
traversed the snows with inconceivable speed. I know not whether the
fiend possessed the same advantages; but I found that, as before I
had daily lost ground in the pursuit, I now gained on him: so much
so that, when I first saw the ocean, he was but one day's journey in
advance, and I hoped to intercept him before he should reach the
beach. With new courage, therefore, I pressed on, and in two days
arrived at a wretched hamlet on the sea-shore. I inquired of the
inhabitants concerning the fiend, and gained accurate information. A
gigantic monster, they said, had arrived the night before, armed
with a gun and many pistols, putting to flight the inhabitants of a
solitary cottage through fear of his terrific appearance. He had
carried off their store of winter food, and placing it in a sledge,
to draw which he had seized on a numerous drove of trained dogs, he
had harnessed them, and the same night, to the joy of the
horror-struck villagers, had pursued his journey across the sea in a
direction that led to no land; and they conjectured that he must
speedily be destroyed by the breaking of the ice or frozen by the
eternal frosts.
On hearing this information, I suffered a
temporary access of despair. He had escaped me; and I must commence
a destructive and almost endless journey across the mountainous ices
of the ocean--amidst cold that few of the inhabitants could long
endure, and which I, the native of a genial and sunny climate, could
not hope to survive. Yet at the idea that the fiend should live and
be triumphant, my rage and vengeance returned, and, like a mighty
tide, overwhelmed every other feeling. After a slight repose, during
which the spirits of the dead hovered round and instigated me to
toil and revenge, I prepared for my journey.
I exchanged my
land-sledge for one fashioned for the inequalities of the Frozen
Ocean; and purchasing a plentiful stock of provisions, I departed
from land.
I cannot guess how many days have passed since
then; but I have endured misery which nothing but the eternal
sentiment of a just retribution burning within my heart could have
enabled me to support. Immense and rugged mountains of ice often
barred up my passage, and I often heard the thunder of the ground
sea which threatened my destruction. But again the frost came and
made the paths of the sea secure.
By the quantity of
provision which I had consumed, I should guess that I had passed
three weeks in this journey; and the continual protraction of hope,
returning back upon the heart, often wrung bitter drops of
despondency and grief from my eyes. Despair had indeed almost
secured her prey, and I should soon have sunk beneath this misery.
Once, after the poor animals that conveyed me had with incredible
toil gained the summit of a sloping ice mountain, and one, sinking
under his fatigue, died, I viewed the expanse before me with
anguish, when suddenly my eye caught a dark speck upon the dusky
plain. I strained my sight to discover what it could be, and uttered
a wild cry of ecstasy when I distinguished a sledge and the
distorted proportions of a well known form within. Oh! with what a
burning gush did hope revisit my heart! warm tears filled my eyes,
which I hastily wiped away that they might not intercept the view I
had of the daemon; but still my sight was dimmed by the burning
drops until, giving way to the emotions that oppressed me, I wept
aloud.
But this was not the time for delay: I disencumbered the
dogs of their dead companion, gave them a plentiful portion of food;
and, after an hour's rest, which was absolutely necessary, and yet
which was bitterly irksome to me, I continued my route. The sledge
was still visible; nor did I again lose sight of it except at the
moments when for a short time some ice-rock concealed it with its
intervening crags. I indeed perceptibly gained on it; and when,
after nearly two days' journey, I beheld my enemy at no more than a
mile distant, my heart bounded within me.
But now, when I
appeared almost within grasp of my foe, my hopes were suddenly
extinguished, and I lost all trace of him more utterly than I had
ever done before. A ground sea was heard; the thunder of its
progress, as the waters rolled and swelled beneath me, became every
moment more ominous and terrific. I pressed on, but in vain. The
wind arose; the sea roared; and, as with the mighty shock of an
earthquake, it split and cracked with a tremendous and overwhelming
sound. The work was soon finished: in a few minutes a tumultuous sea
rolled between me and my enemy, and I was left drifting on a
scattered piece of ice, that was continually lessening, and thus
preparing for me a hideous death.
In this manner many
appalling hours passed; several of my dogs died; and I myself was
about to sink under the accumulation of distress when I saw your
vessel riding at anchor, and holding forth to me hopes of succour
and life. I had no conception that vessels ever came so far north,
and was astounded at the sight. I quickly destroyed part of my
sledge to construct oars; and by these means was enabled, with
infinite fatigue, to move my ice-raft in the direction of your ship.
I had determined, if you were going southward, still to trust myself
to the mercy of the seas rather than abandon my purpose. I hoped to
induce you to grant me a boat with which I could pursue my enemy.
But your direction was northward. You took me on board when my
vigour was exhausted, and I should soon have sunk under my
multiplied hardships into a death which I still dread--for my task
is unfulfilled.
Oh! when will my guiding spirit, in
conducting me to the daemon, allow me the rest I so much desire; or
must I die and he yet live? If I do, swear to me, Walton, that he
shall not escape; that you will seek him and satisfy my vengeance in
his death. And do I dare to ask of you to undertake my pilgrimage,
to endure the hardships that I have undergone? No; I am not so
selfish. Yet, when I am dead, if he should appear; if the ministers
of vengeance should conduct him to you, swear that he shall not
live--swear that he shall not triumph over my accumulated woes, and
survive to add to the list of his dark crimes. He is eloquent and
persuasive; and once his words had even power over my heart: but
trust him not. His soul is as hellish as his form, full of treachery
and fiendlike malice. Hear him not; call on the names of William,
Justine, Clerval, Elizabeth, my father, and of the wretched Victor,
and thrust your sword into his heart. I will hover near and direct
the steel aright.
WALTON, in continuation
August
26th, 17--.
You have read this strange and terrific story,
Margaret; and do you not feel your blood congeal with horror like
that which even now curdles mine? Sometimes, seized with sudden
agony, he could not continue his tale; at others, his voice broken,
yet piercing, uttered with difficulty the words so replete with
anguish. His fine and lovely eyes were now lighted up with
indignation, now subdued to downcast sorrow, and quenched in
infinite wretchedness. Sometimes he commanded his countenance and
tones, and related the most horrible incidents with a tranquil
voice, suppressing every mark of agitation; then, like a volcano
bursting forth, his face would suddenly change to an expression of
the wildest rage, as he shrieked out imprecations on his persecutor.
His tale is connected, and told with an appearance of the
simplest truth; yet I own to you that the letters of Felix and
Safie, which he showed me, and the apparition of the monster seen
from our ship, brought to me a greater conviction of the truth of
his narrative than his asseverations, however earnest and connected.
Such a monster has then really existence! I cannot doubt it; yet I
am lost in surprise and admiration. Sometimes I endeavoured to gain
from Frankenstein the particulars of his creature's formation: but
on this point he was impenetrable.
"Are you mad, my friend?"
said he; "or whither does your senseless curiosity lead you? Would
you also create for yourself and the world a demoniacal enemy?
Peace, peace! learn my miseries, and do not seek to increase your
own."
Frankenstein discovered that I made notes concerning
his history: he asked to see them, and then himself corrected and
augmented them in many places; but principally in giving the life
and spirit to the conversations he held with his enemy. "Since you
have preserved my narration," said he, "I would not that a mutilated
one should go down to posterity."
Thus has a week passed
away, while I have listened to the strangest tale that ever
imagination formed. My thoughts, and every feeling of my soul, have
been drunk up by the interest for my guest, which this tale, and his
own elevated and gentle manners, have created. I wish to soothe him;
yet can I counsel one so infinitely miserable, so destitute of every
hope of consolation, to live? Oh, no! the only joy that he can now
know will be when he composes his shattered spirit to peace and
death. Yet he enjoys one comfort, the offspring of solitude and
delirium: he believes that, when in dreams he holds converse with
his friends and derives from that communion consolation for his
miseries or excitements to his vengeance, they are not the creations
of his fancy, but the beings themselves who visit him from the
regions of a remote world. This faith gives a solemnity to his
reveries that render them to me almost as imposing and interesting
as truth.
Our conversations are not always confined to his
own history and misfortunes. On every point of general literature he
displays unbounded knowledge and a quick and piercing apprehension.
His eloquence is forcible and touching; nor can I hear him, when he
relates a pathetic incident, or endeavours to move the passions of
pity or love, without tears. What a glorious creature must he have
been in the days of his prosperity when he is thus noble and godlike
in ruin! He seems to feel his own worth and the greatness of his
fall.
"When younger," said he, "I believed myself destined
for some great enterprise. My feelings are profound; but I possessed
a coolness of judgment that fitted me for illustrious achievements.
This sentiment of the worth of my nature supported me when others
would have been oppressed; for I deemed it criminal to throw away in
useless grief those talents that might be useful to my
fellow-creatures. When I reflected on the work I had completed, no
less a one than the creation of a sensitive and rational animal, I
could not rank myself with the herd of common projectors. But this
thought, which supported me in the commencement of my career, now
serves only to plunge me lower in the dust. All my speculations and
hopes are as nothing; and, like the archangel who aspired to
omnipotence, I am chained in an eternal hell. My imagination was
vivid, yet my powers of analysis and application were intense; by
the union of these qualities I conceived the idea and executed the
creation of a man. Even now I cannot recollect without passion my
reveries while the work was incomplete. I trod heaven in my
thoughts, now exulting in my powers, now burning with the idea of
their effects. From my infancy I was imbued with high hopes and a
lofty ambition; but how am I sunk! Oh! my friend, if you had known
me as I once was you would not recognise me in this state of
degradation. Despondency rarely visited my heart; a high destiny
seemed to bear me on until I fell, never, never again to rise.
"Must I then lose this admirable being? I have longed for a
friend; I have sought one who would sympathise with and love me.
Behold, on these desert seas I have found such a one; but I fear I
have gained him only to know his value and lose him. I would
reconcile him to life, but he repulses the idea.
"I thank
you, Walton," he said, "for your kind intentions towards so
miserable a wretch; but when you speak of new ties and fresh
affections, think you that any can replace those who are gone? Can
any man be to me as Clerval was; or any woman another Elizabeth?
Even, where the affections are not strongly moved by any superior
excellence, the companions of our childhood always possess a certain
power over our minds which hardly any later friend can obtain. They
know our infantine dispositions, which, however they may be
afterwards modified, are never eradicated; and they can judge of our
actions with more certain conclusions as to the integrity of our
motives. A sister or a brother can never, unless indeed such
symptoms have been shown early, suspect the other of fraud or false
dealing, when another friend, however strongly he may be attached,
may, in spite of himself, be contemplated with suspicion. But I
enjoyed friends, dear not only through habit and association, but
from their own merits; and wherever I am the soothing voice of my
Elizabeth and the conversation of Clerval will be ever whispered in
my ear. They are dead, and but one feeing in such a solitude can
persuade me to preserve my life. If I were engaged in any high
undertaking or design, fraught with extensive utility to my
fellow-creatures, then could I live to fulfil it. But such is not my
destiny; I must pursue and destroy the being to whom I gave
existence; then my lot on earth will be fulfilled, and I may die."
September 2nd.
MY BELOVED SISTER,--I write to you
encompassed by peril and ignorant whether I am ever doomed to see
again dear England, and the dearer friends that inhabit it. I am
surrounded by mountains of ice which admit of no escape and threaten
every moment to crush my vessel. The brave fellows whom I have
persuaded to be my companions look towards me for aid; but I have
none to bestow. There is something terribly appalling in our
situation, yet my courage and hopes do not desert me. Yet it is
terrible to reflect that the lives of all these men are endangered
through me. If we are lost, my mad schemes are the cause.
And what, Margaret, will be the state of your mind? You will
not hear of my destruction, and you will anxiously await my return.
Years will pass, and you will have visitings of despair, and yet be
tortured by hope. Oh! my beloved sister, the sickening failing of
your heart felt expectations is, in prospect, more terrible to me
than my own death. But you have a husband and lovely children; you
may be happy: Heaven bless you and make you so!
My
unfortunate guest regards me with the tenderest compassion. He
endeavours to fill me with hope; and talks as if life were a
possession which he valued. He reminds me how often the same
accidents have happened to other navigators who have attempted this
sea, and, in spite of myself, he fills me with cheerful auguries.
Even the sailors feel the power of his eloquence: when he speaks
they no longer despair; he rouses their energies and, while they
hear his voice, they believe these vast mountains of ice are
mole-hills which will vanish before the resolutions of man. These
feelings are transitory; each day of expectation delayed fills them
with fear, and I almost dread a mutiny caused by this despair.
September 5th.
A scene has just passed of such
uncommon interest that although it is highly probable that these
papers may never reach you, yet I cannot forbear recording it.
We are still surrounded by mountains of ice, still in
imminent danger of being crushed in their conflict. The cold is
excessive, and many of my unfortunate comrades have already found a
grave amidst this scene of desolation. Frankenstein has daily
declined in health: a feverish fire still glimmers in his eyes; but
he is exhausted, and when suddenly roused to any exertion he
speedily sinks again into apparent lifelessness.
I mentioned
in my last letter the fears I entertained of a mutiny. This morning,
as I sat watching the wan countenance of my friend--his eyes half
closed, and his limbs hanging listlessly--I was roused by half a
dozen of the sailors who demanded admission into the cabin. They
entered, and their leader addressed me. He told me that he and his
companions had been chosen by the other sailors to come in
deputation to me, to make me a requisition which, in justice, I
could not refuse. We were immured in ice and should probably never
escape; but they feared that if, as was possible, the ice should
dissipate, and a free passage be opened, I should be rash enough to
continue my voyage and lead them into fresh dangers after they might
happily have surmounted this. They insisted, therefore, that I
should engage with a solemn promise that if the vessel should be
freed I would instantly direct my course southward.
This
speech troubled me. I had not despaired; nor had I yet conceived the
idea of returning if set free. Yet could I, in justice, or even in
possibility, refuse this demand? I hesitated before I answered; when
Frankenstein, who had at first been silent, and, indeed, appeared
hardly to have force enough to attend, now roused himself; his eyes
sparkled, and his cheeks flushed with momentary vigour. Turning
towards the men he said--
"What do you mean? What do you
demand of your captain? Are you then so easily turned from your
design? Did you not call this a glorious expedition? And wherefore
was it glorious? Not because the way was smooth and placid as a
southern sea, but because it was full of dangers and terror; because
at every new incident your fortitude was to be called forth and your
courage exhibited; because danger and death surrounded it, and these
you were to brave and overcome. For this was it a glorious, for this
was it an honourable undertaking. You were hereafter to be hailed as
the benefactors of your species; your names adored as belonging to
brave men who encountered death for honour and the benefit of
mankind. And now, behold, with the first imagination of danger, or,
if you will, the first mighty and terrific trial of your courage,
you shrink away, and are content to be handed down as men who had
not strength enough to endure cold and peril; and so, poor souls,
they were chilly and returned to their warm firesides. Why that
requires not this preparation; ye need not have come thus far, and
dragged your captain to the shame of a defeat, merely to prove
yourselves cowards. Oh! be men, or be more than men. Be steady to
your purposes and firm as a rock. This ice is not made of such stuff
as your hearts may be; it is mutable and cannot withstand you if you
say that it shall not. Do not return to your families with the
stigma of disgrace marked on your brows. Return as heroes who have
fought and conquered, and who know not what it is to turn their
backs on the foe."
He spoke this with a voice so modulated
to the different feelings expressed in his speech, with an eye so
full of lofty design and heroism, that can you wonder that these men
were moved? They looked at one another and were unable to reply. I
spoke; I told them to retire and consider of what had been said:
that I would not lead them farther north if they strenuously desired
the contrary; but that I hoped that, with reflection, their courage
would return.
They retired, and I turned towards my friend;
but he was sunk in languor and almost deprived of life.
How
all this will terminate I know not; but I had rather die than return
shamefully--my purpose unfulfilled. Yet I fear such will be my fate;
the men, unsupported by ideas of glory and honour, can never
willingly continue to endure their present hardships.
September 7th.
The die is cast; I have consented to
return if we are not destroyed. Thus are my hopes blasted by
cowardice and indecision; I come back ignorant and disappointed. It
requires more philosophy than I possess to bear this injustice with
patience.
Septmber 12th.
It is past; I am returning
to England. I have lost my hopes of utility and glory;--I have lost
my friend. But I will endeavour to detail these bitter circumstances
to you, my dear sister; and while I am wafted towards England, and
towards you, I will not despond.
September 9th, the ice
began to move, and roarings like thunder were heard at a distance as
the islands split and cracked in every direction. We were in the
most imminent peril; but, as we could only remain passive, my chief
attention was occupied by my unfortunate guest, whose illness
increased in such a degree that he was entirely confined to his bed.
The ice cracked behind us, and was driven with force towards the
north; a breeze sprung from the west, and on the 11th the passage
towards the south became perfectly free. When the sailors saw this,
and that their return to their native country was apparently
assured, a shout of tumultuous joy broke from them, loud and
long-continued. Frankenstein, who was dozing, awoke and asked the
cause of the tumult. "They shout," I said, "because they will soon
return to England."
"Do you then really return?"
"Alas! yes; I cannot withstand their demands. I cannot lead
them unwillingly to danger, and I must return."
"Do so, if
you will; but I will not. You may give up your purpose, but mine is
assigned to me by Heaven, and I dare not. I am weak; but surely the
spirits who assist my vengeance will endow me with sufficient
strength." Saying this, he endeavoured to spring from the bed, but
the exertion was too great for him; he fell back and fainted.
It was long before he was restored; and I often thought that
life was entirely extinct. At length he opened his eyes; he breathed
with difficulty, and was unable to speak. The surgeon gave him a
composing draught and ordered us to leave him undisturbed. In the
meantime he told me that my friend had certainly not many hours to
live.
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 damon; "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 tone 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 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 iceraft 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
hast 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.
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