Frankenstein

We passed a few sad hours until eleven o’clock, when the tri­al was to com­mence. My father and the rest of the fam­i­ly being oblig­ed to attend as wit­ness­es, I accom­pa­nied them to the court. Dur­ing the whole of this wretched mock­ery of jus­tice I suf­fered liv­ing tor­ture. It was to be decid­ed whether the result of my curios­i­ty and law­less devices would cause the death of two of my fel­low beings: one a smil­ing babe full of inno­cence and joy, the oth­er far more dread­ful­ly mur­dered, with every aggra­va­tion of infamy that could make the mur­der mem­o­rable in hor­ror. Jus­tine also was a girl of mer­it and pos­sessed qual­i­ties which promised to ren­der her life hap­py; now all was to be oblit­er­at­ed in an igno­min­ious grave, and I the cause! A thou­sand times rather would I have con­fessed myself guilty of the crime ascribe to Jus­tine, but I was absent when it was com­mit­ted, and such a dec­la­ra­tion would have been con­sid­ered as the rav­ings of a mad­man and would not have excul­pat­ed her who suf­fered through me.

The appear­ance of Jus­tine was calm. She was dressed in mourn­ing, and her coun­te­nance, always engag­ing, was ren­dered, by the solem­ni­ty of her feel­ings, exquis­ite­ly beau­ti­ful. Yet she appeared con­fi­dent in inno­cence and did not trem­ble, although gazed on and exe­crat­ed by thou­sands, for all the kind­ness which her beau­ty might oth­er­wise have excit­ed was oblit­er­at­ed in the minds of the spec­ta­tors by the imag­i­na­tion of the enor­mi­ty she was sup­posed to have com­mit­ted. She was tran­quil, yet her tran­quil­li­ty was evi­dent­ly con­strained; and as her con­fu­sion had before been adduced as a proof of her guilt, she worked up her mind to an appear­ance of courage. When she entered the court she threw her eyes round it and quick­ly dis­cov­ered where we were seat­ed. A tear seemed to dim her eye when she saw us, but she quick­ly recov­ered her­self, and a look of sor­row­ful affec­tion seemed to attest her utter guiltlessness.

The tri­al began, and after the advo­cate against her had stat­ed the charge, sev­er­al wit­ness­es were called. Sev­er­al strange facts com­bined against her, which might have stag­gered any­one who had not such proof of her inno­cence as I had. She had been out the whole of the night on which the mur­der had been com­mit­ted and towards morn­ing had been per­ceived by a mar­ket-woman not far from the spot where the body of the mur­dered child had been after­wards found. The woman asked her what she did there, but she looked very strange­ly and only returned a con­fused and unin­tel­li­gi­ble answer. She returned to the house about eight o’clock, and when one inquired where she had passed the night, she replied that she had been look­ing for the child and demand­ed earnest­ly if any­thing had been heard con­cern­ing him. When shown the body, she fell into vio­lent hys­ter­ics and kept her bed for sev­er­al days. The pic­ture was then pro­duced which the ser­vant had found in her pock­et; and when Eliz­a­beth, in a fal­ter­ing voice, proved that it was the same which, an hour before the child had been missed, she had placed round his neck, a mur­mur of hor­ror and indig­na­tion filled the court.

Jus­tine was called on for her defence. As the tri­al had pro­ceed­ed, her coun­te­nance had altered. Sur­prise, hor­ror, and mis­ery were strong­ly expressed. Some­times she strug­gled with her tears, but when she was desired to plead, she col­lect­ed her pow­ers and spoke in an audi­ble although vari­able voice.

“God knows,” she said, “how entire­ly I am inno­cent. But I do not pre­tend that my protes­ta­tions should acquit me; I rest my inno­cence on a plain and sim­ple expla­na­tion of the facts which have been adduced against me, and I hope the char­ac­ter I have always borne will incline my judges to a favourable inter­pre­ta­tion where any cir­cum­stance appears doubt­ful or suspicious.”

She then relat­ed that, by the per­mis­sion of Eliz­a­beth, she had passed the evening of the night on which the mur­der had been com­mit­ted at the house of an aunt at Chêne, a vil­lage sit­u­at­ed at about a league from Gene­va. On her return, at about nine o’clock, she met a man who asked her if she had seen any­thing of the child who was lost. She was alarmed by this account and passed sev­er­al hours in look­ing for him, when the gates of Gene­va were shut, and she was forced to remain sev­er­al hours of the night in a barn belong­ing to a cot­tage, being unwill­ing to call up the inhab­i­tants, to whom she was well known. Most of the night she spent here watch­ing; towards morn­ing she believed that she slept for a few min­utes; some steps dis­turbed her, and she awoke. It was dawn, and she quit­ted her asy­lum, that she might again endeav­our to find my broth­er. If she had gone near the spot where his body lay, it was with­out her knowl­edge. That she had been bewil­dered when ques­tioned by the mar­ket-woman was not sur­pris­ing, since she had passed a sleep­less night and the fate of poor William was yet uncer­tain. Con­cern­ing the pic­ture she could give no account.

“I know,” con­tin­ued the unhap­py vic­tim, “how heav­i­ly and fatal­ly this one cir­cum­stance weighs against me, but I have no pow­er of explain­ing it; and when I have expressed my utter igno­rance, I am only left to con­jec­ture con­cern­ing the prob­a­bil­i­ties by which it might have been placed in my pock­et. But here also I am checked. I believe that I have no ene­my on earth, and none sure­ly would have been so wicked as to destroy me wan­ton­ly. Did the mur­der­er place it there? I know of no oppor­tu­ni­ty afford­ed him for so doing; or, if I had, why should he have stolen the jew­el, to part with it again so soon?

“I com­mit my cause to the jus­tice of my judges, yet I see no room for hope. I beg per­mis­sion to have a few wit­ness­es exam­ined con­cern­ing my char­ac­ter, and if their tes­ti­mo­ny shall not over­weigh my sup­posed guilt, I must be con­demned, although I would pledge my sal­va­tion on my innocence.”

Sev­er­al wit­ness­es were called who had known her for many years, and they spoke well of her; but fear and hatred of the crime of which they sup­posed her guilty ren­dered them tim­o­rous and unwill­ing to come for­ward. Eliz­a­beth saw even this last resource, her excel­lent dis­po­si­tions and irre­proach­able con­duct, about to fail the accused, when, although vio­lent­ly agi­tat­ed, she desired per­mis­sion to address the court.

“I am,” said she, “the cousin of the unhap­py child who was mur­dered, or rather his sis­ter, for I was edu­cat­ed by and have lived with his par­ents ever since and even long before his birth. It may there­fore be judged inde­cent in me to come for­ward on this occa­sion, but when I see a fel­low crea­ture about to per­ish through the cow­ardice of her pre­tend­ed friends, I wish to be allowed to speak, that I may say what I know of her char­ac­ter. I am well acquaint­ed with the accused. I have lived in the same house with her, at one time for five and at anoth­er for near­ly two years. Dur­ing all that peri­od she appeared to me the most ami­able and benev­o­lent of human crea­tures. She nursed Madame Franken­stein, my aunt, in her last ill­ness, with the great­est affec­tion and care and after­wards attend­ed her own moth­er dur­ing a tedious ill­ness, in a man­ner that excit­ed the admi­ra­tion of all who knew her, after which she again lived in my uncle’s house, where she was beloved by all the fam­i­ly. She was warm­ly attached to the child who is now dead and act­ed towards him like a most affec­tion­ate moth­er. For my own part, I do not hes­i­tate to say that, notwith­stand­ing all the evi­dence pro­duced against her, I believe and rely on her per­fect inno­cence. She had no temp­ta­tion for such an action; as to the bauble on which the chief proof rests, if she had earnest­ly desired it, I should have will­ing­ly giv­en it to her, so much do I esteem and val­ue her.”

A mur­mur of appro­ba­tion fol­lowed Elizabeth’s sim­ple and pow­er­ful appeal, but it was excit­ed by her gen­er­ous inter­fer­ence, and not in favour of poor Jus­tine, on whom the pub­lic indig­na­tion was turned with renewed vio­lence, charg­ing her with the black­est ingrat­i­tude. She her­self wept as Eliz­a­beth spoke, but she did not answer. My own agi­ta­tion and anguish was extreme dur­ing the whole tri­al. I believed in her inno­cence; I knew it. Could the dæmon who had (I did not for a minute doubt) mur­dered my broth­er also in his hell­ish sport have betrayed the inno­cent to death and ignominy? I could not sus­tain the hor­ror of my sit­u­a­tion, and when I per­ceived that the pop­u­lar voice and the coun­te­nances of the judges had already con­demned my unhap­py vic­tim, I rushed out of the court in agony. The tor­tures of the accused did not equal mine; she was sus­tained by inno­cence, but the fangs of remorse tore my bosom and would not for­go their hold.

I passed a night of unmin­gled wretched­ness. In the morn­ing I went to the court; my lips and throat were parched. I dared not ask the fatal ques­tion, but I was known, and the offi­cer guessed the cause of my vis­it. The bal­lots had been thrown; they were all black, and Jus­tine was condemned.

I can­not pre­tend to describe what I then felt. I had before expe­ri­enced sen­sa­tions of hor­ror, and I have endeav­oured to bestow upon them ade­quate expres­sions, but words can­not con­vey an idea of the heart-sick­en­ing despair that I then endured. The per­son to whom I addressed myself added that Jus­tine had already con­fessed her guilt. “That evi­dence,” he observed, “was hard­ly required in so glar­ing a case, but I am glad of it, and, indeed, none of our judges like to con­demn a crim­i­nal upon cir­cum­stan­tial evi­dence, be it ever so deci­sive.”

This was strange and unex­pect­ed intel­li­gence; what could it mean? Had my eyes deceived me? And was I real­ly as mad as the whole world would believe me to be if I dis­closed the object of my sus­pi­cions? I has­tened to return home, and Eliz­a­beth eager­ly demand­ed the result.

“My cousin,” replied I, “it is decid­ed as you may have expect­ed; all judges had rather that ten inno­cent should suf­fer than that one guilty should escape. But she has confessed.”

This was a dire blow to poor Eliz­a­beth, who had relied with firm­ness upon Justine’s inno­cence. “Alas!” said she. “How shall I ever again believe in human good­ness? Jus­tine, whom I loved and esteemed as my sis­ter, how could she put on those smiles of inno­cence only to betray? Her mild eyes seemed inca­pable of any sever­i­ty or guile, and yet she has com­mit­ted a murder.”

Soon after we heard that the poor vic­tim had expressed a desire to see my cousin. My father wished her not to go but said that he left it to her own judg­ment and feel­ings to decide. “Yes,” said Eliz­a­beth, “I will go, although she is guilty; and you, Vic­tor, shall accom­pa­ny me; I can­not go alone.” The idea of this vis­it was tor­ture to me, yet I could not refuse.

We entered the gloomy prison cham­ber and beheld Jus­tine sit­ting on some straw at the far­ther end; her hands were man­a­cled, and her head rest­ed on her knees. She rose on see­ing us enter, and when we were left alone with her, she threw her­self at the feet of Eliz­a­beth, weep­ing bit­ter­ly. My cousin wept also.

“Oh, Jus­tine!” said she. “Why did you rob me of my last con­so­la­tion? I relied on your inno­cence, and although I was then very wretched, I was not so mis­er­able as I am now.”

“And do you also believe that I am so very, very wicked? Do you also join with my ene­mies to crush me, to con­demn me as a mur­der­er?” Her voice was suf­fo­cat­ed with sobs.

“Rise, my poor girl,” said Eliz­a­beth; “why do you kneel, if you are inno­cent? I am not one of your ene­mies, I believed you guilt­less, notwith­stand­ing every evi­dence, until I heard that you had your­self declared your guilt. That report, you say, is false; and be assured, dear Jus­tine, that noth­ing can shake my con­fi­dence in you for a moment, but your own confession.”

“I did con­fess, but I con­fessed a lie. I con­fessed, that I might obtain abso­lu­tion; but now that false­hood lies heav­ier at my heart than all my oth­er sins. The God of heav­en for­give me! Ever since I was con­demned, my con­fes­sor has besieged me; he threat­ened and men­aced, until I almost began to think that I was the mon­ster that he said I was. He threat­ened excom­mu­ni­ca­tion and hell fire in my last moments if I con­tin­ued obdu­rate. Dear lady, I had none to sup­port me; all looked on me as a wretch doomed to ignominy and perdi­tion. What could I do? In an evil hour I sub­scribed to a lie; and now only am I tru­ly miserable.”

She paused, weep­ing, and then con­tin­ued, “I thought with hor­ror, my sweet lady, that you should believe your Jus­tine, whom your blessed aunt had so high­ly hon­oured, and whom you loved, was a crea­ture capa­ble of a crime which none but the dev­il him­self could have per­pe­trat­ed. Dear William! dear­est blessed child! I soon shall see you again in heav­en, where we shall all be hap­py; and that con­soles me, going as I am to suf­fer ignominy and death.”

“Oh, Jus­tine! For­give me for hav­ing for one moment dis­trust­ed you. Why did you con­fess? But do not mourn, dear girl. Do not fear. I will pro­claim, I will prove your inno­cence. I will melt the stony hearts of your ene­mies by my tears and prayers. You shall not die! You, my playfel­low, my com­pan­ion, my sis­ter, per­ish on the scaf­fold! No! No! I nev­er could sur­vive so hor­ri­ble a misfortune.”

Jus­tine shook her head mourn­ful­ly. “I do not fear to die,” she said; “that pang is past. God rais­es my weak­ness and gives me courage to endure the worst. I leave a sad and bit­ter world; and if you remem­ber me and think of me as of one unjust­ly con­demned, I am resigned to the fate await­ing me. Learn from me, dear lady, to sub­mit in patience to the will of heaven!”

Dur­ing this con­ver­sa­tion I had retired to a cor­ner of the prison room, where I could con­ceal the hor­rid anguish that pos­sessed me. Despair! Who dared talk of that? The poor vic­tim, who on the mor­row was to pass the awful bound­ary between life and death, felt not, as I did, such deep and bit­ter agony. I gnashed my teeth and ground them togeth­er, utter­ing a groan that came from my inmost soul. Jus­tine start­ed. When she saw who it was, she approached me and said, “Dear sir, you are very kind to vis­it me; you, I hope, do not believe that I am guilty?”

I could not answer. “No, Jus­tine,” said Eliz­a­beth; “he is more con­vinced of your inno­cence than I was, for even when he heard that you had con­fessed, he did not cred­it it.”

“I tru­ly thank him. In these last moments I feel the sin­cer­est grat­i­tude towards those who think of me with kind­ness. How sweet is the affec­tion of oth­ers to such a wretch as I am! It removes more than half my mis­for­tune, and I feel as if I could die in peace now that my inno­cence is acknowl­edged by you, dear lady, and your cousin.”

Thus the poor suf­fer­er tried to com­fort oth­ers and her­self. She indeed gained the res­ig­na­tion she desired. But I, the true mur­der­er, felt the nev­er-dying worm alive in my bosom, which allowed of no hope or con­so­la­tion. Eliz­a­beth also wept and was unhap­py, but hers also was the mis­ery of inno­cence, which, like a cloud that pass­es over the fair moon, for a while hides but can­not tar­nish its bright­ness. Anguish and despair had pen­e­trat­ed into the core of my heart; I bore a hell with­in me which noth­ing could extin­guish. We stayed sev­er­al hours with Jus­tine, and it was with great dif­fi­cul­ty that Eliz­a­beth could tear her­self away. “I wish,” cried she, “that I were to die with you; I can­not live in this world of misery.”

Jus­tine assumed an air of cheer­ful­ness, while she with dif­fi­cul­ty repressed her bit­ter tears. She embraced Eliz­a­beth and said in a voice of half-sup­pressed emo­tion, “Farewell, sweet lady, dear­est Eliz­a­beth, my beloved and only friend; may heav­en, in its boun­ty, bless and pre­serve you; may this be the last mis­for­tune that you will ever suf­fer! Live, and be hap­py, and make oth­ers so.”

And on the mor­row Jus­tine died. Elizabeth’s heart-rend­ing elo­quence failed to move the judges from their set­tled con­vic­tion in the crim­i­nal­i­ty of the saint­ly suf­fer­er. My pas­sion­ate and indig­nant appeals were lost upon them. And when I received their cold answers and heard the harsh, unfeel­ing rea­son­ing of these men, my pur­posed avow­al died away on my lips. Thus I might pro­claim myself a mad­man, but not revoke the sen­tence passed upon my wretched vic­tim. She per­ished on the scaf­fold as a mur­der­ess!

From the tor­tures of my own heart, I turned to con­tem­plate the deep and voice­less grief of my Eliz­a­beth. This also was my doing! And my father’s woe, and the des­o­la­tion of that late so smil­ing home all was the work of my thrice-accursed hands! Ye weep, unhap­py ones, but these are not your last tears! Again shall you raise the funer­al wail, and the sound of your lamen­ta­tions shall again and again be heard! Franken­stein, your son, your kins­man, your ear­ly, much-loved friend; he who would spend each vital drop of blood for your sakes, who has no thought nor sense of joy except as it is mir­rored also in your dear coun­te­nances, who would fill the air with bless­ings and spend his life in serv­ing you—he bids you weep, to shed count­less tears; hap­py beyond his hopes, if thus inex­orable fate be sat­is­fied, and if the destruc­tion pause before the peace of the grave have suc­ceed­ed to your sad tor­ments!

Thus spoke my prophet­ic soul, as, torn by remorse, hor­ror, and despair, I beheld those I loved spend vain sor­row upon the graves of William and Jus­tine, the first hap­less vic­tims to my unhal­lowed arts.

Chap­ter 9