Frankenstein

“It is with con­sid­er­able dif­fi­cul­ty that I remem­ber the orig­i­nal era of my being; all the events of that peri­od appear con­fused and indis­tinct. A strange mul­ti­plic­i­ty of sen­sa­tions seized me, and I saw, felt, heard, and smelt at the same time; and it was, indeed, a long time before I learned to dis­tin­guish between the oper­a­tions of my var­i­ous sens­es. By degrees, I remem­ber, a stronger light pressed upon my nerves, so that I was oblig­ed to shut my eyes. Dark­ness then came over me and trou­bled me, but hard­ly had I felt this when, by open­ing my eyes, as I now sup­pose, the light poured in upon me again. I walked and, I believe, descend­ed, but I present­ly found a great alter­ation in my sen­sa­tions. Before, dark and opaque bod­ies had sur­round­ed me, imper­vi­ous to my touch or sight; but I now found that I could wan­der on at lib­er­ty, with no obsta­cles which I could not either sur­mount or avoid. The light became more and more oppres­sive to me, and the heat weary­ing me as I walked, I sought a place where I could receive shade. This was the for­est near Ingol­stadt; and here I lay by the side of a brook rest­ing from my fatigue, until I felt tor­ment­ed by hunger and thirst. This roused me from my near­ly dor­mant state, and I ate some berries which I found hang­ing on the trees or lying on the ground. I slaked my thirst at the brook, and then lying down, was over­come by sleep. 

“It was dark when I awoke; I felt cold also, and half fright­ened, as it were, instinc­tive­ly, find­ing myself so des­o­late. Before I had quit­ted your apart­ment, on a sen­sa­tion of cold, I had cov­ered myself with some clothes, but these were insuf­fi­cient to secure me from the dews of night. I was a poor, help­less, mis­er­able wretch; I knew, and could dis­tin­guish, noth­ing; but feel­ing pain invade me on all sides, I sat down and wept. 

“Soon a gen­tle light stole over the heav­ens and gave me a sen­sa­tion of plea­sure. I start­ed up and beheld a radi­ant form rise from among the trees. [The moon] I gazed with a kind of won­der. It moved slow­ly, but it enlight­ened my path, and I again went out in search of berries. I was still cold when under one of the trees I found a huge cloak, with which I cov­ered myself, and sat down upon the ground. No dis­tinct ideas occu­pied my mind; all was con­fused. I felt light, and hunger, and thirst, and dark­ness; innu­mer­able sounds rang in my ears, and on all sides var­i­ous scents salut­ed me; the only object that I could dis­tin­guish was the bright moon, and I fixed my eyes on that with pleasure. 

“Sev­er­al changes of day and night passed, and the orb of night had great­ly less­ened, when I began to dis­tin­guish my sen­sa­tions from each oth­er. I grad­u­al­ly saw plain­ly the clear stream that sup­plied me with drink and the trees that shad­ed me with their foliage. I was delight­ed when I first dis­cov­ered that a pleas­ant sound, which often salut­ed my ears, pro­ceed­ed from the throats of the lit­tle winged ani­mals who had often inter­cept­ed the light from my eyes. I began also to observe, with greater accu­ra­cy, the forms that sur­round­ed me and to per­ceive the bound­aries of the radi­ant roof of light which canopied me. Some­times I tried to imi­tate the pleas­ant songs of the birds but was unable. Some­times I wished to express my sen­sa­tions in my own mode, but the uncouth and inar­tic­u­late sounds which broke from me fright­ened me into silence again. 

“The moon had dis­ap­peared from the night, and again, with a less­ened form, showed itself, while I still remained in the for­est. My sen­sa­tions had by this time become dis­tinct, and my mind received every day addi­tion­al ideas. My eyes became accus­tomed to the light and to per­ceive objects in their right forms; I dis­tin­guished the insect from the herb, and by degrees, one herb from anoth­er. I found that the spar­row uttered none but harsh notes, whilst those of the black­bird and thrush were sweet and enticing. 

“One day, when I was oppressed by cold, I found a fire which had been left by some wan­der­ing beg­gars, and was over­come with delight at the warmth I expe­ri­enced from it. In my joy I thrust my hand into the live embers, but quick­ly drew it out again with a cry of pain. How strange, I thought, that the same cause should pro­duce such oppo­site effects! I exam­ined the mate­ri­als of the fire, and to my joy found it to be com­posed of wood. I quick­ly col­lect­ed some branch­es, but they were wet and would not burn. I was pained at this and sat still watch­ing the oper­a­tion of the fire. The wet wood which I had placed near the heat dried and itself became inflamed. I reflect­ed on this, and by touch­ing the var­i­ous branch­es, I dis­cov­ered the cause and bus­ied myself in col­lect­ing a great quan­ti­ty of wood, that I might dry it and have a plen­ti­ful sup­ply of fire. When night came on and brought sleep with it, I was in the great­est fear lest my fire should be extin­guished. I cov­ered it care­ful­ly with dry wood and leaves and placed wet branch­es upon it; and then, spread­ing my cloak, I lay on the ground and sank into sleep. 

“It was morn­ing when I awoke, and my first care was to vis­it the fire. I uncov­ered it, and a gen­tle breeze quick­ly fanned it into a flame. I observed this also and con­trived a fan of branch­es, which roused the embers when they were near­ly extin­guished. When night came again I found, with plea­sure, that the fire gave light as well as heat and that the dis­cov­ery of this ele­ment was use­ful to me in my food, for I found some of the offals that the trav­ellers had left had been roast­ed, and tast­ed much more savoury than the berries I gath­ered from the trees. I tried, there­fore, to dress my food in the same man­ner, plac­ing it on the live embers. I found that the berries were spoiled by this oper­a­tion, and the nuts and roots much improved. 

“Food, how­ev­er, became scarce, and I often spent the whole day search­ing in vain for a few acorns to assuage the pangs of hunger. When I found this, I resolved to quit the place that I had hith­er­to inhab­it­ed, to seek for one where the few wants I expe­ri­enced would be more eas­i­ly sat­is­fied. In this emi­gra­tion I exceed­ing­ly lament­ed the loss of the fire which I had obtained through acci­dent and knew not how to repro­duce it. I gave sev­er­al hours to the seri­ous con­sid­er­a­tion of this dif­fi­cul­ty, but I was oblig­ed to relin­quish all attempt to sup­ply it, and wrap­ping myself up in my cloak, I struck across the wood towards the set­ting sun. I passed three days in these ram­bles and at length dis­cov­ered the open coun­try. A great fall of snow had tak­en place the night before, and the fields were of one uni­form white; the appear­ance was dis­con­so­late, and I found my feet chilled by the cold damp sub­stance that cov­ered the ground. 

“It was about sev­en in the morn­ing, and I longed to obtain food and shel­ter; at length I per­ceived a small hut, on a ris­ing ground, which had doubt­less been built for the con­ve­nience of some shep­herd. This was a new sight to me, and I exam­ined the struc­ture with great curios­i­ty. Find­ing the door open, I entered. An old man sat in it, near a fire, over which he was prepar­ing his break­fast. He turned on hear­ing a noise, and per­ceiv­ing me, shrieked loud­ly, and quit­ting the hut, ran across the fields with a speed of which his debil­i­tat­ed form hard­ly appeared capa­ble. His appear­ance, dif­fer­ent from any I had ever before seen, and his flight some­what sur­prised me. But I was enchant­ed by the appear­ance of the hut; here the snow and rain could not pen­e­trate; the ground was dry; and it pre­sent­ed to me then as exquis­ite and divine a retreat as Pandæ­mo­ni­um appeared to the dæmons of hell after their suf­fer­ings in the lake of fire. I greed­i­ly devoured the rem­nants of the shepherd’s break­fast, which con­sist­ed of bread, cheese, milk, and wine; the lat­ter, how­ev­er, I did not like. Then, over­come by fatigue, I lay down among some straw and fell asleep. 

“It was noon when I awoke, and allured by the warmth of the sun, which shone bright­ly on the white ground, I deter­mined to recom­mence my trav­els; and, deposit­ing the remains of the peasant’s break­fast in a wal­let I found, I pro­ceed­ed across the fields for sev­er­al hours, until at sun­set I arrived at a vil­lage. How mirac­u­lous did this appear! The huts, the neater cot­tages, and state­ly hous­es engaged my admi­ra­tion by turns. The veg­eta­bles in the gar­dens, the milk and cheese that I saw placed at the win­dows of some of the cot­tages, allured my appetite. One of the best of these I entered, but I had hard­ly placed my foot with­in the door before the chil­dren shrieked, and one of the women faint­ed. The whole vil­lage was roused; some fled, some attacked me, until, griev­ous­ly bruised by stones and many oth­er kinds of mis­sile weapons, I escaped to the open coun­try and fear­ful­ly took refuge in a low hov­el, quite bare, and mak­ing a wretched appear­ance after the palaces I had beheld in the vil­lage. This hov­el how­ev­er, joined a cot­tage of a neat and pleas­ant appear­ance, but after my late dear­ly bought expe­ri­ence, I dared not enter it. My place of refuge was con­struct­ed of wood, but so low that I could with dif­fi­cul­ty sit upright in it. No wood, how­ev­er, was placed on the earth, which formed the floor, but it was dry; and although the wind entered it by innu­mer­able chinks, I found it an agree­able asy­lum from the snow and rain. 

“Here, then, I retreat­ed and lay down hap­py to have found a shel­ter, how­ev­er mis­er­able, from the inclemen­cy of the sea­son, and still more from the bar­bar­i­ty of man. As soon as morn­ing dawned I crept from my ken­nel, that I might view the adja­cent cot­tage and dis­cov­er if I could remain in the habi­ta­tion I had found. It was sit­u­at­ed against the back of the cot­tage and sur­round­ed on the sides which were exposed by a pig sty and a clear pool of water. One part was open, and by that I had crept in; but now I cov­ered every crevice by which I might be per­ceived with stones and wood, yet in such a man­ner that I might move them on occa­sion to pass out; all the light I enjoyed came through the sty, and that was suf­fi­cient for me. 

“Hav­ing thus arranged my dwelling and car­pet­ed it with clean straw, I retired, for I saw the fig­ure of a man at a dis­tance, and I remem­bered too well my treat­ment the night before to trust myself in his pow­er. I had first, how­ev­er, pro­vid­ed for my sus­te­nance for that day by a loaf of coarse bread, which I pur­loined, and a cup with which I could drink more con­ve­nient­ly than from my hand of the pure water which flowed by my retreat. The floor was a lit­tle raised, so that it was kept per­fect­ly dry, and by its vicin­i­ty to the chim­ney of the cot­tage it was tol­er­a­bly warm. 

“Being thus pro­vid­ed, I resolved to reside in this hov­el until some­thing should occur which might alter my deter­mi­na­tion. It was indeed a par­adise com­pared to the bleak for­est, my for­mer res­i­dence, the rain-drop­ping branch­es, and dank earth. I ate my break­fast with plea­sure and was about to remove a plank to pro­cure myself a lit­tle water when I heard a step, and look­ing through a small chink, I beheld a young crea­ture, with a pail on her head, pass­ing before my hov­el. The girl was young and of gen­tle demeanour, unlike what I have since found cot­tagers and farm­house ser­vants to be. Yet she was mean­ly dressed, a coarse blue pet­ti­coat and a linen jack­et being her only garb; her fair hair was plait­ed but not adorned: she looked patient yet sad. I lost sight of her, and in about a quar­ter of an hour she returned bear­ing the pail, which was now part­ly filled with milk. As she walked along, seem­ing­ly incom­mod­ed by the bur­den, a young man met her, whose coun­te­nance expressed a deep­er despon­dence. Utter­ing a few sounds with an air of melan­choly, he took the pail from her head and bore it to the cot­tage him­self. She fol­lowed, and they dis­ap­peared. Present­ly I saw the young man again, with some tools in his hand, cross the field behind the cot­tage; and the girl was also bus­ied, some­times in the house and some­times in the yard. 

“On exam­in­ing my dwelling, I found that one of the win­dows of the cot­tage had for­mer­ly occu­pied a part of it, but the panes had been filled up with wood. In one of these was a small and almost imper­cep­ti­ble chink through which the eye could just pen­e­trate. Through this crevice a small room was vis­i­ble, white­washed and clean but very bare of fur­ni­ture. In one cor­ner, near a small fire, sat an old man, lean­ing his head on his hands in a dis­con­so­late atti­tude. The young girl was occu­pied in arrang­ing the cot­tage; but present­ly she took some­thing out of a draw­er, which employed her hands, and she sat down beside the old man, who, tak­ing up an instru­ment, began to play and to pro­duce sounds sweet­er than the voice of the thrush or the nightin­gale. It was a love­ly sight, even to me, poor wretch who had nev­er beheld aught beau­ti­ful before. The sil­ver hair and benev­o­lent coun­te­nance of the aged cot­tager won my rev­er­ence, while the gen­tle man­ners of the girl enticed my love. He played a sweet mourn­ful air which I per­ceived drew tears from the eyes of his ami­able com­pan­ion, of which the old man took no notice, until she sobbed audi­bly; he then pro­nounced a few sounds, and the fair crea­ture, leav­ing her work, knelt at his feet. He raised her and smiled with such kind­ness and affec­tion that I felt sen­sa­tions of a pecu­liar and over­pow­er­ing nature; they were a mix­ture of pain and plea­sure, such as I had nev­er before expe­ri­enced, either from hunger or cold, warmth or food; and I with­drew from the win­dow, unable to bear these emotions. 

“Soon after this the young man returned, bear­ing on his shoul­ders a load of wood. The girl met him at the door, helped to relieve him of his bur­den, and tak­ing some of the fuel into the cot­tage, placed it on the fire; then she and the youth went apart into a nook of the cot­tage, and he showed her a large loaf and a piece of cheese. She seemed pleased and went into the gar­den for some roots and plants, which she placed in water, and then upon the fire. She after­wards con­tin­ued her work, whilst the young man went into the gar­den and appeared busi­ly employed in dig­ging and pulling up roots. After he had been employed thus about an hour, the young woman joined him and they entered the cot­tage together. 

“The old man had, in the mean­time, been pen­sive, but on the appear­ance of his com­pan­ions he assumed a more cheer­ful air, and they sat down to eat. The meal was quick­ly dis­patched. The young woman was again occu­pied in arrang­ing the cot­tage, the old man walked before the cot­tage in the sun for a few min­utes, lean­ing on the arm of the youth. Noth­ing could exceed in beau­ty the con­trast between these two excel­lent crea­tures. One was old, with sil­ver hairs and a coun­te­nance beam­ing with benev­o­lence and love; the younger was slight and grace­ful in his fig­ure, and his fea­tures were mould­ed with the finest sym­me­try, yet his eyes and atti­tude expressed the utmost sad­ness and despon­den­cy. The old man returned to the cot­tage, and the youth, with tools dif­fer­ent from those he had used in the morn­ing, direct­ed his steps across the fields. 

“Night quick­ly shut in, but to my extreme won­der, I found that the cot­tagers had a means of pro­long­ing light by the use of tapers, and was delight­ed to find that the set­ting of the sun did not put an end to the plea­sure I expe­ri­enced in watch­ing my human neigh­bours. In the evening the young girl and her com­pan­ion were employed in var­i­ous occu­pa­tions which I did not under­stand; and the old man again took up the instru­ment which pro­duced the divine sounds that had enchant­ed me in the morn­ing. So soon as he had fin­ished, the youth began, not to play, but to utter sounds that were monot­o­nous, and nei­ther resem­bling the har­mo­ny of the old man’s instru­ment nor the songs of the birds; I since found that he read aloud, but at that time I knew noth­ing of the sci­ence of words or letters. 

“The fam­i­ly, after hav­ing been thus occu­pied for a short time, extin­guished their lights and retired, as I con­jec­tured, to rest.”