Frankenstein

Cler­val then put the fol­low­ing let­ter into my hands. It was from my own Elizabeth:

“My dear­est Cousin,

“You have been ill, very ill, and even the con­stant let­ters of dear kind Hen­ry are not suf­fi­cient to reas­sure me on your account. You are for­bid­den to write—to hold a pen; yet one word from you, dear Vic­tor, is nec­es­sary to calm our appre­hen­sions. For a long time I have thought that each post would bring this line, and my per­sua­sions have restrained my uncle from under­tak­ing a jour­ney to Ingol­stadt. I have pre­vent­ed his encoun­ter­ing the incon­ve­niences and per­haps dan­gers of so long a jour­ney, yet how often have I regret­ted not being able to per­form it myself! I fig­ure to myself that the task of attend­ing on your sickbed has devolved on some mer­ce­nary old nurse, who could nev­er guess your wish­es nor min­is­ter to them with the care and affec­tion of your poor cousin. Yet that is over now: Cler­val writes that indeed you are get­ting bet­ter. I eager­ly hope that you will con­firm this intel­li­gence soon in your own handwriting.

“Get well—and return to us. You will find a hap­py, cheer­ful home and friends who love you dear­ly. Your father’s health is vig­or­ous, and he asks but to see you, but to be assured that you are well; and not a care will ever cloud his benev­o­lent coun­te­nance. How pleased you would be to remark the improve­ment of our Ernest! He is now six­teen and full of activ­i­ty and spir­it. He is desirous to be a true Swiss and to enter into for­eign ser­vice, but we can­not part with him, at least until his elder broth­er returns to us. My uncle is not pleased with the idea of a mil­i­tary career in a dis­tant coun­try, but Ernest nev­er had your pow­ers of appli­ca­tion. He looks upon study as an odi­ous fet­ter; his time is spent in the open air, climb­ing the hills or row­ing on the lake. I fear that he will become an idler unless we yield the point and per­mit him to enter on the pro­fes­sion which he has selected.

“Lit­tle alter­ation, except the growth of our dear chil­dren, has tak­en place since you left us. The blue lake and snow-clad mountains—they nev­er change; and I think our placid home and our con­tent­ed hearts are reg­u­lat­ed by the same immutable laws. My tri­fling occu­pa­tions take up my time and amuse me, and I am reward­ed for any exer­tions by see­ing none but hap­py, kind faces around me. Since you left us, but one change has tak­en place in our lit­tle house­hold. Do you remem­ber on what occa­sion Jus­tine Moritz entered our fam­i­ly? Prob­a­bly you do not; I will relate her his­to­ry, there­fore in a few words. Madame Moritz, her moth­er, was a wid­ow with four chil­dren, of whom Jus­tine was the third. This girl had always been the favourite of her father, but through a strange per­ver­si­ty, her moth­er could not endure her, and after the death of M. Moritz, treat­ed her very ill. My aunt observed this, and when Jus­tine was twelve years of age, pre­vailed on her moth­er to allow her to live at our house. The repub­li­can insti­tu­tions of our coun­try have pro­duced sim­pler and hap­pi­er man­ners than those which pre­vail in the great monar­chies that sur­round it. Hence there is less dis­tinc­tion between the sev­er­al class­es of its inhab­i­tants; and the low­er orders, being nei­ther so poor nor so despised, their man­ners are more refined and moral. A ser­vant in Gene­va does not mean the same thing as a ser­vant in France and Eng­land. Jus­tine, thus received in our fam­i­ly, learned the duties of a ser­vant, a con­di­tion which, in our for­tu­nate coun­try, does not include the idea of igno­rance and a sac­ri­fice of the dig­ni­ty of a human being.

“Jus­tine, you may remem­ber, was a great favourite of yours; and I rec­ol­lect you once remarked that if you were in an ill humour, one glance from Jus­tine could dis­si­pate it, for the same rea­son that Arios­to gives con­cern­ing the beau­ty of Angel­i­ca—she looked so frank-heart­ed and hap­py. My aunt con­ceived a great attach­ment for her, by which she was induced to give her an edu­ca­tion supe­ri­or to that which she had at first intend­ed. This ben­e­fit was ful­ly repaid; Jus­tine was the most grate­ful lit­tle crea­ture in the world: I do not mean that she made any pro­fes­sions I nev­er heard one pass her lips, but you could see by her eyes that she almost adored her pro­tec­tress. Although her dis­po­si­tion was gay and in many respects incon­sid­er­ate, yet she paid the great­est atten­tion to every ges­ture of my aunt. She thought her the mod­el of all excel­lence and endeav­oured to imi­tate her phrase­ol­o­gy and man­ners, so that even now she often reminds me of her.

“When my dear­est aunt died every one was too much occu­pied in their own grief to notice poor Jus­tine, who had attend­ed her dur­ing her ill­ness with the most anx­ious affec­tion. Poor Jus­tine was very ill; but oth­er tri­als were reserved for her.

“One by one, her broth­ers and sis­ter died; and her moth­er, with the excep­tion of her neglect­ed daugh­ter, was left child­less. The con­science of the woman was trou­bled; she began to think that the deaths of her favourites was a judge­ment from heav­en to chas­tise her par­tial­i­ty. She was a Roman Catholic; and I believe her con­fes­sor con­firmed the idea which she had con­ceived. Accord­ing­ly, a few months after your depar­ture for Ingol­stadt, Jus­tine was called home by her repen­tant moth­er. Poor girl! She wept when she quit­ted our house; she was much altered since the death of my aunt; grief had giv­en soft­ness and a win­ning mild­ness to her man­ners, which had before been remark­able for vivac­i­ty. Nor was her res­i­dence at her mother’s house of a nature to restore her gai­ety. The poor woman was very vac­il­lat­ing in her repen­tance. She some­times begged Jus­tine to for­give her unkind­ness, but much often­er accused her of hav­ing caused the deaths of her broth­ers and sis­ter. Per­pet­u­al fret­ting at length threw Madame Moritz into a decline, which at first increased her irri­tabil­i­ty, but she is now at peace for ever. She died on the first approach of cold weath­er, at the begin­ning of this last win­ter. Jus­tine has just returned to us; and I assure you I love her ten­der­ly. She is very clever and gen­tle, and extreme­ly pret­ty; as I men­tioned before, her mien and her expres­sion con­tin­u­al­ly remind me of my dear aunt.

“I must say also a few words to you, my dear cousin, of lit­tle dar­ling William. I wish you could see him; he is very tall of his age, with sweet laugh­ing blue eyes, dark eye­lash­es, and curl­ing hair. When he smiles, two lit­tle dim­ples appear on each cheek, which are rosy with health. He has already had one or two lit­tle wives, but Louisa Biron is his favourite, a pret­ty lit­tle girl of five years of age.

“Now, dear Vic­tor, I dare say you wish to be indulged in a lit­tle gos­sip con­cern­ing the good peo­ple of Gene­va. The pret­ty Miss Mans­field has already received the con­grat­u­la­to­ry vis­its on her approach­ing mar­riage with a young Eng­lish­man, John Mel­bourne, Esq. Her ugly sis­ter, Manon, mar­ried M. Duvil­lard, the rich banker, last autumn. Your favourite schoolfel­low, Louis Manoir, has suf­fered sev­er­al mis­for­tunes since the depar­ture of Cler­val from Gene­va. But he has already recov­ered his spir­its, and is report­ed to be on the point of mar­ry­ing a live­ly pret­ty French­woman, Madame Tav­ernier. She is a wid­ow, and much old­er than Manoir; but she is very much admired, and a favourite with everybody.

“I have writ­ten myself into bet­ter spir­its, dear cousin; but my anx­i­ety returns upon me as I con­clude. Write, dear­est Victor,—one line—one word will be a bless­ing to us. Ten thou­sand thanks to Hen­ry for his kind­ness, his affec­tion, and his many let­ters; we are sin­cere­ly grate­ful. Adieu! my cousin; take care of your­self; and, I entreat you, write!

“Eliz­a­beth Lavenza.

“Gene­va, March 18th, 17—.”

“Dear, dear Eliz­a­beth!” I exclaimed, when I had read her let­ter: “I will write instant­ly and relieve them from the anx­i­ety they must feel.” I wrote, and this exer­tion great­ly fatigued me; but my con­va­les­cence had com­menced, and pro­ceed­ed reg­u­lar­ly. In anoth­er fort­night I was able to leave my cham­ber.

One of my first duties on my recov­ery was to intro­duce Cler­val to the sev­er­al pro­fes­sors of the uni­ver­si­ty. In doing this, I under­went a kind of rough usage, ill befit­ting the wounds that my mind had sus­tained. Ever since the fatal night, the end of my labours, and the begin­ning of my mis­for­tunes, I had con­ceived a vio­lent antipa­thy even to the name of nat­ur­al phi­los­o­phy. When I was oth­er­wise quite restored to health, the sight of a chem­i­cal instru­ment would renew all the agony of my ner­vous symp­toms. Hen­ry saw this, and had removed all my appa­ra­tus from my view. He had also changed my apart­ment; for he per­ceived that I had acquired a dis­like for the room which had pre­vi­ous­ly been my lab­o­ra­to­ry. But these cares of Cler­val were made of no avail when I vis­it­ed the pro­fes­sors. M. Wald­man inflict­ed tor­ture when he praised, with kind­ness and warmth, the aston­ish­ing progress I had made in the sci­ences. He soon per­ceived that I dis­liked the sub­ject; but not guess­ing the real cause, he attrib­uted my feel­ings to mod­esty, and changed the sub­ject from my improve­ment, to the sci­ence itself, with a desire, as I evi­dent­ly saw, of draw­ing me out. What could I do? He meant to please, and he tor­ment­ed me. I felt as if he had placed care­ful­ly, one by one, in my view those instru­ments which were to be after­wards used in putting me to a slow and cru­el death. I writhed under his words, yet dared not exhib­it the pain I felt. Cler­val, whose eyes and feel­ings were always quick in dis­cern­ing the sen­sa­tions of oth­ers, declined the sub­ject, alleg­ing, in excuse, his total igno­rance; and the con­ver­sa­tion took a more gen­er­al turn. I thanked my friend from my heart, but I did not speak. I saw plain­ly that he was sur­prised, but he nev­er attempt­ed to draw my secret from me; and although I loved him with a mix­ture of affec­tion and rev­er­ence that knew no bounds, yet I could nev­er per­suade myself to con­fide in him that event which was so often present to my rec­ol­lec­tion, but which I feared the detail to anoth­er would only impress more deeply.

M. Krempe was not equal­ly docile; and in my con­di­tion at that time, of almost insup­port­able sen­si­tive­ness, his harsh blunt encomi­ums gave me even more pain than the benev­o­lent appro­ba­tion of M. Wald­man. “D—n the fel­low!” cried he; “why, M. Cler­val, I assure you he has out­stript us all. Ay, stare if you please; but it is nev­er­the­less true. A young­ster who, but a few years ago, believed in Cor­nelius Agrip­pa as firm­ly as in the gospel, has now set him­self at the head of the uni­ver­si­ty; and if he is not soon pulled down, we shall all be out of coun­te­nance.—Ay, ay,” con­tin­ued he, observ­ing my face expres­sive of suf­fer­ing, “M. Franken­stein is mod­est; an excel­lent qual­i­ty in a young man. Young men should be dif­fi­dent of them­selves, you know, M. Cler­val: I was myself when young; but that wears out in a very short time.”

M. Krempe had now com­menced an eulo­gy on him­self, which hap­pi­ly turned the con­ver­sa­tion from a sub­ject that was so annoy­ing to me.

Cler­val had nev­er sym­pa­thised in my tastes for nat­ur­al sci­ence; and his lit­er­ary pur­suits dif­fered whol­ly from those which had occu­pied me. He came to the uni­ver­si­ty with the design of mak­ing him­self com­plete mas­ter of the ori­en­tal lan­guages, and thus he should open a field for the plan of life he had marked out for him­self. Resolved to pur­sue no inglo­ri­ous career, he turned his eyes toward the East, as afford­ing scope for his spir­it of enter­prise. The Per­sian, Ara­bic, and San­skrit lan­guages engaged his atten­tion, and I was eas­i­ly induced to enter on the same stud­ies. Idle­ness had ever been irk­some to me, and now that I wished to fly from reflec­tion, and hat­ed my for­mer stud­ies, I felt great relief in being the fel­low-pupil with my friend, and found not only instruc­tion but con­so­la­tion in the works of the ori­en­tal­ists. I did not, like him, attempt a crit­i­cal knowl­edge of their dialects, for I did not con­tem­plate mak­ing any oth­er use of them than tem­po­rary amuse­ment. I read mere­ly to under­stand their mean­ing, and they well repaid my labours. Their melan­choly is sooth­ing, and their joy ele­vat­ing, to a degree I nev­er expe­ri­enced in study­ing the authors of any oth­er coun­try. When you read their writ­ings, life appears to con­sist in a warm sun and a gar­den of roses,—in the smiles and frowns of a fair ene­my, and the fire that con­sumes your own heart. How dif­fer­ent from the man­ly and hero­ical poet­ry of Greece and Rome!

Sum­mer passed away in these occu­pa­tions, and my return to Gene­va was fixed for the lat­ter end of autumn; but being delayed by sev­er­al acci­dents, win­ter and snow arrived, the roads were deemed impass­able, and my jour­ney was retard­ed until the ensu­ing spring. I felt this delay very bit­ter­ly; for I longed to see my native town and my beloved friends. My return had only been delayed so long, from an unwill­ing­ness to leave Cler­val in a strange place, before he had become acquaint­ed with any of its inhab­i­tants. The win­ter, how­ev­er, was spent cheer­ful­ly; and although the spring was uncom­mon­ly late, when it came its beau­ty com­pen­sat­ed for its dila­tori­ness.

The month of May had already com­menced, and I expect­ed the let­ter dai­ly which was to fix the date of my depar­ture, when Hen­ry pro­posed a pedes­tri­an tour in the envi­rons of Ingol­stadt, that I might bid a per­son­al farewell to the coun­try I had so long inhab­it­ed. I acced­ed with plea­sure to this propo­si­tion: I was fond of exer­cise, and Cler­val had always been my favourite com­pan­ion in the ram­ble of this nature that I had tak­en among the scenes of my native country.

We passed a fort­night in these per­am­bu­la­tions: my health and spir­its had long been restored, and they gained addi­tion­al strength from the salu­bri­ous air I breathed, the nat­ur­al inci­dents of our progress, and the con­ver­sa­tion of my friend. Study had before seclud­ed me from the inter­course of my fel­low-crea­tures, and ren­dered me unso­cial; but Cler­val called forth the bet­ter feel­ings of my heart; he again taught me to love the aspect of nature, and the cheer­ful faces of chil­dren. Excel­lent friend! how sin­cere­ly you did love me, and endeav­our to ele­vate my mind until it was on a lev­el with your own. A self­ish pur­suit had cramped and nar­rowed me, until your gen­tle­ness and affec­tion warmed and opened my sens­es; I became the same hap­py crea­ture who, a few years ago, loved and beloved by all, had no sor­row or care. When hap­py, inan­i­mate nature had the pow­er of bestow­ing on me the most delight­ful sen­sa­tions. A serene sky and ver­dant fields filled me with ecsta­sy. The present sea­son was indeed divine; the flow­ers of spring bloomed in the hedges, while those of sum­mer were already in bud. I was undis­turbed by thoughts which dur­ing the pre­ced­ing year had pressed upon me, notwith­stand­ing my endeav­ours to throw them off, with an invin­ci­ble burden.

Hen­ry rejoiced in my gai­ety, and sin­cere­ly sym­pa­thised in my feel­ings: he exert­ed him­self to amuse me, while he expressed the sen­sa­tions that filled his soul. The resources of his mind on this occa­sion were tru­ly aston­ish­ing: his con­ver­sa­tion was full of imag­i­na­tion; and very often, in imi­ta­tion of the Per­sian and Ara­bic writ­ers, he invent­ed tales of won­der­ful fan­cy and pas­sion. At oth­er times he repeat­ed my favourite poems, or drew me out into argu­ments, which he sup­port­ed with great inge­nu­ity.

We returned to our col­lege on a Sun­day after­noon: the peas­ants were danc­ing, and every one we met appeared gay and hap­py. My own spir­its were high, and I bound­ed along with feel­ings of unbri­dled joy and hilar­i­ty.