Frankenstein

On my return, I found the fol­low­ing let­ter from my father:—

“My dear Victor,

“You have prob­a­bly wait­ed impa­tient­ly for a let­ter to fix the date of your return to us; and I was at first tempt­ed to write only a few lines, mere­ly men­tion­ing the day on which I should expect you. But that would be a cru­el kind­ness, and I dare not do it. What would be your sur­prise, my son, when you expect­ed a hap­py and glad wel­come, to behold, on the con­trary, tears and wretched­ness? And how, Vic­tor, can I relate our mis­for­tune? Absence can­not have ren­dered you cal­lous to our joys and griefs; and how shall I inflict pain on my long absent son? I wish to pre­pare you for the woe­ful news, but I know it is impos­si­ble; even now your eye skims over the page to seek the words which are to con­vey to you the hor­ri­ble tid­ings.

“William is dead!—that sweet child, whose smiles delight­ed and warmed my heart, who was so gen­tle, yet so gay! Vic­tor, he is murdered!

“I will not attempt to con­sole you; but will sim­ply relate the cir­cum­stances of the trans­ac­tion.

“Last Thurs­day (May 7th), I, my niece, and your two broth­ers, went to walk in Plain­palais. The evening was warm and serene, and we pro­longed our walk far­ther than usu­al. It was already dusk before we thought of return­ing; and then we dis­cov­ered that William and Ernest, who had gone on before, were not to be found. We accord­ing­ly rest­ed on a seat until they should return. Present­ly Ernest came, and enquired if we had seen his broth­er; he said, that he had been play­ing with him, that William had run away to hide him­self, and that he vain­ly sought for him, and after­wards wait­ed for a long time, but that he did not return.

“This account rather alarmed us, and we con­tin­ued to search for him until night fell, when Eliz­a­beth con­jec­tured that he might have returned to the house. He was not there. We returned again, with torch­es; for I could not rest, when I thought that my sweet boy had lost him­self, and was exposed to all the damps and dews of night; Eliz­a­beth also suf­fered extreme anguish. About five in the morn­ing I dis­cov­ered my love­ly boy, whom the night before I had seen bloom­ing and active in health, stretched on the grass livid and motion­less; the print of the murder’s fin­ger was on his neck.

“He was con­veyed home, and the anguish that was vis­i­ble in my coun­te­nance betrayed the secret to Eliz­a­beth. She was very earnest to see the corpse. At first I attempt­ed to pre­vent her but she per­sist­ed, and enter­ing the room where it lay, hasti­ly exam­ined the neck of the vic­tim, and clasp­ing her hands exclaimed, ‘O God! I have mur­dered my dar­ling child!’

“She faint­ed, and was restored with extreme dif­fi­cul­ty. When she again lived, it was only to weep and sigh. She told me, that that same evening William had teased her to let him wear a very valu­able minia­ture that she pos­sessed of your moth­er. This pic­ture is gone, and was doubt­less the temp­ta­tion which urged the mur­der­er to the deed. We have no trace of him at present, although our exer­tions to dis­cov­er him are unremit­ted; but they will not restore my beloved William!

“Come, dear­est Vic­tor; you alone can con­sole Eliz­a­beth. She weeps con­tin­u­al­ly, and accus­es her­self unjust­ly as the cause of his death; her words pierce my heart. We are all unhap­py; but will not that be an addi­tion­al motive for you, my son, to return and be our com­forter? Your dear moth­er! Alas, Vic­tor! I now say, Thank God she did not live to wit­ness the cru­el, mis­er­able death of her youngest darling!

“Come, Vic­tor; not brood­ing thoughts of vengeance against the assas­sin, but with feel­ings of peace and gen­tle­ness, that will heal, instead of fes­ter­ing, the wounds of our minds. Enter the house of mourn­ing, my friend, but with kind­ness and affec­tion for those who love you, and not with hatred for your enemies.

“Your affec­tion­ate and afflict­ed father,“Alphonse Frankenstein.

“Gene­va, May 12th, 17—.”

Cler­val, who had watched my coun­te­nance as I read this let­ter, was sur­prised to observe the despair that suc­ceed­ed the joy I at first expressed on receiv­ing new from my friends. I threw the let­ter on the table, and cov­ered my face with my hands.

“My dear Franken­stein,” exclaimed Hen­ry, when he per­ceived me weep with bit­ter­ness, “are you always to be unhap­py? My dear friend, what has happened?”

I motioned him to take up the let­ter, while I walked up and down the room in the extremest agi­ta­tion. Tears also gushed from the eyes of Cler­val, as he read the account of my misfortune.

“I can offer you no con­so­la­tion, my friend,” said he; “your dis­as­ter is irrepara­ble. What do you intend to do?”

“To go instant­ly to Gene­va: come with me, Hen­ry, to order the horses.”

Dur­ing our walk, Cler­val endeav­oured to say a few words of con­so­la­tion; he could only express his heart­felt sym­pa­thy. “Poor William!” said he, “dear love­ly child, he now sleeps with his angel moth­er! Who that had seen him bright and joy­ous in his young beau­ty, but must weep over his untime­ly loss! To die so mis­er­ably; to feel the murderer’s grasp! How much more a mur­dered that could destroy radi­ant inno­cence! Poor lit­tle fel­low! one only con­so­la­tion have we; his friends mourn and weep, but he is at rest. The pang is over, his suf­fer­ings are at an end for ever. A sod cov­ers his gen­tle form, and he knows no pain. He can no longer be a sub­ject for pity; we must reserve that for his mis­er­able survivors.”

Cler­val spoke thus as we hur­ried through the streets; the words impressed them­selves on my mind and I remem­bered them after­wards in soli­tude. But now, as soon as the hors­es arrived, I hur­ried into a cabri­o­let, and bade farewell to my friend.

My jour­ney was very melan­choly. At first I wished to hur­ry on, for I longed to con­sole and sym­pa­thise with my loved and sor­row­ing friends; but when I drew near my native town, I slack­ened my progress. I could hard­ly sus­tain the mul­ti­tude of feel­ings that crowd­ed into my mind. I passed through scenes famil­iar to my youth, but which I had not seen for near­ly six years. How altered every thing might be dur­ing that time! One sud­den and des­o­lat­ing change had tak­en place; but a thou­sand lit­tle cir­cum­stances might have by degrees worked oth­er alter­ations, which, although they were done more tran­quil­ly, might not be the less deci­sive. Fear over­came me; I dared no advance, dread­ing a thou­sand name­less evils that made me trem­ble, although I was unable to define them.

I remained two days at Lau­sanne, in this painful state of mind. I con­tem­plat­ed the lake: the waters were placid; all around was calm; and the snowy moun­tains, “the palaces of nature,” were not changed. By degrees the calm and heav­en­ly scene restored me, and I con­tin­ued my jour­ney towards Geneva.

The road ran by the side of the lake, which became nar­row­er as I approached my native town. I dis­cov­ered more dis­tinct­ly the black sides of Jura, and the bright sum­mit of Mont Blanc. I wept like a child. “Dear moun­tains! my own beau­ti­ful lake! how do you wel­come your wan­der­er? Your sum­mits are clear; the sky and lake are blue and placid. Is this to prog­nos­ti­cate peace, or to mock at my unhappiness?”

I fear, my friend, that I shall ren­der myself tedious by dwelling on these pre­lim­i­nary cir­cum­stances; but they were days of com­par­a­tive hap­pi­ness, and I think of them with plea­sure. My coun­try, my beloved coun­try! who but a native can tell the delight I took in again behold­ing thy streams, thy moun­tains, and, more than all, thy love­ly lake!

Yet, as I drew near­er home, grief and fear again over­came me. Night also closed around; and when I could hard­ly see the dark moun­tains, I felt still more gloomi­ly. The pic­ture appeared a vast and dim scene of evil, and I fore­saw obscure­ly that I was des­tined to become the most wretched of human beings. Alas! I proph­e­sied tru­ly, and failed only in one sin­gle cir­cum­stance, that in all the mis­ery I imag­ined and dread­ed, I did not con­ceive the hun­dredth part of the anguish I was des­tined to endure.

It was com­plete­ly dark when I arrived in the envi­rons of Gene­va; the gates of the town were already shut; and I was oblig­ed to pass the night at Secheron, a vil­lage at the dis­tance of half a league from the city. The sky was serene; and, as I was unable to rest, I resolved to vis­it the spot where my poor William had been mur­dered. As I could not pass through the town, I was oblig­ed to cross the lake in a boat to arrive at Plain­palais. Dur­ing this short voy­age I saw the light­ning play­ing on the sum­mit of Mont Blanc in the most beau­ti­ful fig­ures. The storm appeared to approach rapid­ly, and, on land­ing, I ascend­ed a low hill, that I might observe its progress. It advanced; the heav­ens were cloud­ed, and I soon felt the rain com­ing slow­ly in large drops, but its vio­lence quick­ly increased.

I quit­ted my seat, and walked on, although the dark­ness and storm increased every minute, and the thun­der burst with a ter­rif­ic crash over my head. It was echoed from Salêve, the Juras, and the Alps of Savoy; vivid flash­es of light­ning daz­zled my eyes, illu­mi­nat­ing the lake, mak­ing it appear like a vast sheet of fire; then for an instant every thing seemed of a pitchy dark­ness, until the eye recov­ered itself from the pre­ced­ing flash. The storm, as is often the case in Switzer­land, appeared at once in var­i­ous parts of the heav­ens. The most vio­lent storm hung exact­ly north of the town, over the part of the lake which lies between the promon­to­ry of Bel­rive and the vil­lage of Copêt. Anoth­er storm enlight­ened Jura with faint flash­es; and anoth­er dark­ened and some­times dis­closed the Môle, a peaked moun­tain to the east of the lake.

While I watched the tem­pest, so beau­ti­ful yet ter­rif­ic, I wan­dered on with a hasty step. This noble war in the sky ele­vat­ed my spir­its; I clasped my hands, and exclaimed aloud, “William, dear angel! this is thy funer­al, this thy dirge!” As I said these words, I per­ceived in the gloom a fig­ure which stole from behind a clump of trees near me; I stood fixed, gaz­ing intent­ly: I could not be mis­tak­en. A flash of light­ning illu­mi­nat­ed the object, and dis­cov­ered its shape plain­ly to me; its gigan­tic stature, and the defor­mi­ty of its aspect more hideous than belongs to human­i­ty, instant­ly informed me that it was the wretch , the filthy dæmon, to whom I had giv­en life. What did he there? Could he be (I shud­dered at the con­cep­tion) the mur­der­er of my broth­er? No soon­er did that idea cross my imag­i­na­tion, than I became con­vinced of its truth; my teeth chat­tered, and I was forced to lean against a tree for sup­port. The fig­ure passed me quick­ly, and I lost it in the gloom. Noth­ing in human shape could have destroyed the fair child. He was the mur­der­er! I could not doubt it. The mere pres­ence of the idea was an irre­sistible proof of the fact. I thought of pur­su­ing the dev­il; but it would have been in vain, for anoth­er flash dis­cov­ered him to me hang­ing among the rocks of the near­ly per­pen­dic­u­lar ascent of Mont Salêve, a hill that bounds Plain­palais on the south. He soon reached the sum­mit, and disappeared.

I remained motion­less. The thun­der ceased; but the rain still con­tin­ued, and the scene was enveloped in an impen­e­tra­ble dark­ness. I revolved in my mind the events which I had until now sought to for­get: the whole train of my progress toward the cre­ation; the appear­ance of the works of my own hands at my bed­side; its depar­ture. Two years had now near­ly elapsed since the night on which he first received life; and was this his first crime? Alas! I had turned loose into the world a depraved wretch, whose delight was in car­nage and mis­ery; had he not mur­dered my brother?

No one can con­ceive the anguish I suf­fered dur­ing the remain­der of the night, which I spent, cold and wet, in the open air. But I did not feel the incon­ve­nience of the weath­er; my imag­i­na­tion was busy in scenes of evil and despair. I con­sid­ered the being whom I had cast among mankind, and endowed with the will and pow­er to effect pur­pos­es of hor­ror, such as the deed which he had now done, near­ly in the light of my own vam­pire, my own spir­it let loose from the grave, and forced to destroy all that was dear to me.

Day dawned; and I direct­ed my steps towards the town. The gates were open, and I has­tened to my father’s house. My first thought was to dis­cov­er what I knew of the mur­der­er, and cause instant pur­suit to be made. But I paused when I reflect­ed on the sto­ry that I had to tell. A being whom I myself had formed, and endued with life, had met me at mid­night among the precipices of an inac­ces­si­ble moun­tain. I remem­bered also the ner­vous fever with which I had been seized just at the time that I dat­ed my cre­ation, and which would give an air of delir­i­um to a tale oth­er­wise so utter­ly improb­a­ble. I well knew that if any oth­er had com­mu­ni­cat­ed such a rela­tion to me, I should have looked upon it as the rav­ings of insan­i­ty. Besides, the strange nature of the ani­mal would elude all pur­suit, even if I were so far cred­it­ed as to per­suade my rel­a­tives to com­mence it. And then of what use would be pur­suit? Who could arrest a crea­ture capa­ble of scal­ing the over­hang­ing sides of Mont Salêve? These reflec­tions deter­mined me, and I resolved to remain silent.

It was about five in the morn­ing when I entered my father’s house. I told the ser­vants not to dis­turb the fam­i­ly, and went into the library to attend their usu­al hour of rising.

Six years had elapsed, passed in a dream but for one indeli­ble trace, and I stood in the same place where I had last embraced my father before my depar­ture for Ingol­stadt. Beloved and ven­er­a­ble par­ent! He still remained to me. I gazed on the pic­ture of my moth­er, which stood over the man­tel-piece. It was an his­tor­i­cal sub­ject, paint­ed at my father’s desire, and rep­re­sent­ed Car­o­line Beau­fort in an agony of despair, kneel­ing by the cof­fin of her dead father. Her garb was rus­tic, and her cheek pale; but there was an air of dig­ni­ty and beau­ty, that hard­ly per­mit­ted the sen­ti­ment of pity. Below this pic­ture was a minia­ture of William; and my tears flowed when I looked upon it. While I was thus engaged, Ernest entered: he had heard me arrive, and has­tened to wel­come me: “Wel­come, my dear­est Vic­tor,” said he. “Ah! I wish you had come three months ago, and then you would have found us all joy­ous and delight­ed. You come to us now to share a mis­ery which noth­ing can alle­vi­ate; yet your pres­ence will, I hope, revive our father, who seems sink­ing under his mis­for­tune; and your per­sua­sions will induce poor Eliz­a­beth to cease her vain and tor­ment­ing self-accusations.—Poor William! he was our dar­ling and our pride!”

Tears, unre­strained, fell from my brother’s eyes; a sense of mor­tal agony crept over my frame. Before, I had only imag­ined the wretched­ness of my des­o­lat­ed home; the real­i­ty came on me as a new, and a not less ter­ri­ble, dis­as­ter. I tried to calm Ernest; I enquired more minute­ly con­cern­ing my father, and here I named my cousin.

“She most of all,” said Ernest, “requires con­so­la­tion; she accused her­self of hav­ing caused the death of my broth­er, and that made her very wretched. But since the mur­der­er has been discovered—”

“The mur­der­er dis­cov­ered! Good God! how can that be? who could attempt to pur­sue him? It is impos­si­ble; one might as well try to over­take the winds, or con­fine a moun­tain-stream with a straw. I saw him too; he was free last night!”

“I do not know what you mean,” replied my broth­er, in accents of won­der, “but to us the dis­cov­ery we have made com­pletes our mis­ery. No one would believe it at first; and even now Eliz­a­beth will not be con­vinced, notwith­stand­ing all the evi­dence. Indeed, who would cred­it that Jus­tine Moritz, who was so ami­able, and fond of all the fam­i­ly, could sud­den­ly become so capa­ble of so fright­ful, so appalling a crime?”

“Jus­tine Moritz! Poor, poor girl, is she the accused? But it is wrong­ful­ly; every one knows that; no one believes it, sure­ly, Ernest?”

“No one did at first; but sev­er­al cir­cum­stances came out, that have almost forced con­vic­tion upon us; and her own behav­iour has been so con­fused, as to add to the evi­dence of facts a weight that, I fear, leaves no hope for doubt. But she will be tried today, and you will then hear all.”

He then relat­ed that, the morn­ing on which the mur­der of poor William had been dis­cov­ered, Jus­tine had been tak­en ill, and con­fined to her bed for sev­er­al days. Dur­ing this inter­val, one of the ser­vants, hap­pen­ing to exam­ine the appar­el she had worn on the night of the mur­der, had dis­cov­ered in her pock­et the pic­ture of my moth­er, which had been judged to be the temp­ta­tion of the mur­der­er. The ser­vant instant­ly showed it to one of the oth­ers, who, with­out say­ing a word to any of the fam­i­ly, went to a mag­is­trate; and, upon their depo­si­tion, Jus­tine was appre­hend­ed. On being charged with the fact, the poor girl con­firmed the sus­pi­cion in a great mea­sure by her extreme con­fu­sion of manner.

This was a strange tale, but it did not shake my faith; and I replied earnest­ly, “You are all mis­tak­en; I know the mur­der­er. Jus­tine, poor, good Jus­tine, is innocent.”

At that instant my father entered. I saw unhap­pi­ness deeply impressed on his coun­te­nance, but he endeav­oured to wel­come me cheer­ful­ly; and, after we had exchanged our mourn­ful greet­ing, would have intro­duced some oth­er top­ic than that of our dis­as­ter, had not Ernest exclaimed, “Good God, papa! Vic­tor says that he knows who was the mur­der­er of poor William.”

“We do also, unfor­tu­nate­ly,” replied my father, “for indeed I had rather have been for ever igno­rant than have dis­cov­ered so much deprav­i­ty and ungrat­i­tude in one I val­ued so highly.”

“My dear father, you are mis­tak­en; Jus­tine is innocent.”

“If she is, God for­bid that she should suf­fer as guilty. She is to be tried today, and I hope, I sin­cere­ly hope, that she will be acquit­ted.”

This speech calmed me. I was firm­ly con­vinced in my own mind that Jus­tine, and indeed every human being, was guilt­less of this mur­der. I had no fear, there­fore, that any cir­cum­stan­tial evi­dence could be brought for­ward strong enough to con­vict her. My tale was not one to announce pub­licly; its astound­ing hor­ror would be looked upon as mad­ness by the vul­gar. Did any one indeed exist, except I, the cre­ator, who would believe, unless his sens­es con­vinced him, in the exis­tence of the liv­ing mon­u­ment of pre­sump­tion and rash igno­rance which I had let loose upon the world?

We were soon joined by Eliz­a­beth. Time had altered her since I last beheld her; it had endowed her with love­li­ness sur­pass­ing the beau­ty of her child­ish years. There was the same can­dour, the same vivac­i­ty, but it was allied to an expres­sion more full of sen­si­bil­i­ty and intel­lect. She wel­comed me with the great­est affec­tion. “Your arrival, my dear cousin,” said she, “fills me with hope. You per­haps will find some means to jus­ti­fy my poor guilt­less Jus­tine. Alas! who is safe, if she be con­vict­ed of crime? I rely on her inno­cence as cer­tain­ly as I do upon my own. Our mis­for­tune is dou­bly hard to us; we have not only lost that love­ly dar­ling boy, but this poor girl, whom I sin­cere­ly love, is to be torn away by even a worse fate. If she is con­demned, I nev­er shall know joy more. But she will not, I am sure she will not; and then I shall be hap­py again, even after the sad death of my lit­tle William.”

“She is inno­cent, my Eliz­a­beth,” said I, “and that shall be proved; fear noth­ing, but let your spir­its be cheered by the assur­ance of her acquit­tal.”

“How kind and gen­er­ous you are! every one else believes in her guilt, and that made me wretched, for I knew that it was impos­si­ble: and to see every one else prej­u­diced in so dead­ly a man­ner ren­dered me hope­less and despair­ing.” She wept.

“Dear­est niece,” said my father, “dry your tears. If she is, as you believe, inno­cent, rely on the jus­tice of our laws, and the activ­i­ty with which I shall pre­vent the slight­est shad­ow of par­tial­i­ty.”