Frankenstein

“I now has­ten to the more mov­ing part of my sto­ry. I shall relate events that impressed me with feel­ings which, from what I had been, have made me what I am. 

“Spring advanced rapid­ly; the weath­er became fine and the skies cloud­less. It sur­prised me that what before was desert and gloomy should now bloom with the most beau­ti­ful flow­ers and ver­dure. My sens­es were grat­i­fied and refreshed by a thou­sand scents of delight and a thou­sand sights of beauty. 

“It was on one of these days, when my cot­tagers peri­od­i­cal­ly rest­ed from labour—the old man played on his gui­tar, and the chil­dren lis­tened to him—that I observed the coun­te­nance of Felix was melan­choly beyond expres­sion; he sighed fre­quent­ly, and once his father paused in his music, and I con­jec­tured by his man­ner that he inquired the cause of his son’s sor­row. Felix replied in a cheer­ful accent, and the old man was recom­menc­ing his music when some­one tapped at the door. 

“It was a lady on horse­back, accom­pa­nied by a coun­try-man as a guide. The lady was dressed in a dark suit and cov­ered with a thick black veil. Agatha asked a ques­tion, to which the stranger only replied by pro­nounc­ing, in a sweet accent, the name of Felix. Her voice was musi­cal but unlike that of either of my friends. On hear­ing this word, Felix came up hasti­ly to the lady, who, when she saw him, threw up her veil, and I beheld a coun­te­nance of angel­ic beau­ty and expres­sion. Her hair of a shin­ing raven black, and curi­ous­ly braid­ed; her eyes were dark, but gen­tle, although ani­mat­ed; her fea­tures of a reg­u­lar pro­por­tion, and her com­plex­ion won­drous­ly fair, each cheek tinged with a love­ly pink. 

“Felix seemed rav­ished with delight when he saw her, every trait of sor­row van­ished from his face, and it instant­ly expressed a degree of ecsta­t­ic joy, of which I could hard­ly have believed it capa­ble; his eyes sparkled, as his cheek flushed with plea­sure; and at that moment I thought him as beau­ti­ful as the stranger. She appeared affect­ed by dif­fer­ent feel­ings; wip­ing a few tears from her love­ly eyes, she held out her hand to Felix, who kissed it rap­tur­ous­ly and called her, as well as I could dis­tin­guish, his sweet Ara­bi­an. She did not appear to under­stand him, but smiled. He assist­ed her to dis­mount, and dis­miss­ing her guide, con­duct­ed her into the cot­tage. Some con­ver­sa­tion took place between him and his father, and the young stranger knelt at the old man’s feet and would have kissed his hand, but he raised her and embraced her affectionately. 

“I soon per­ceived that although the stranger uttered artic­u­late sounds and appeared to have a lan­guage of her own, she was nei­ther under­stood by nor her­self under­stood the cot­tagers. They made many signs which I did not com­pre­hend, but I saw that her pres­ence dif­fused glad­ness through the cot­tage, dis­pelling their sor­row as the sun dis­si­pates the morn­ing mists. Felix seemed pecu­liar­ly hap­py and with smiles of delight wel­comed his Ara­bi­an. Agatha, the ever-gen­tle Agatha, kissed the hands of the love­ly stranger, and point­ing to her broth­er, made signs which appeared to me to mean that he had been sor­row­ful until she came. Some hours passed thus, while they, by their coun­te­nances, expressed joy, the cause of which I did not com­pre­hend. Present­ly I found, by the fre­quent recur­rence of some sound which the stranger repeat­ed after them, that she was endeav­our­ing to learn their lan­guage; and the idea instant­ly occurred to me that I should make use of the same instruc­tions to the same end. The stranger learned about twen­ty words at the first les­son; most of them, indeed, were those which I had before under­stood, but I prof­it­ed by the others. 

“As night came on, Agatha and the Ara­bi­an retired ear­ly. When they sep­a­rat­ed Felix kissed the hand of the stranger and said, ‘Good night sweet Safie.’ He sat up much longer, con­vers­ing with his father, and by the fre­quent rep­e­ti­tion of her name I con­jec­tured that their love­ly guest was the sub­ject of their con­ver­sa­tion. I ardent­ly desired to under­stand them, and bent every fac­ul­ty towards that pur­pose, but found it utter­ly impossible. 

“The next morn­ing Felix went out to his work, and after the usu­al occu­pa­tions of Agatha were fin­ished, the Ara­bi­an sat at the feet of the old man, and tak­ing his gui­tar, played some airs so entranc­ing­ly beau­ti­ful that they at once drew tears of sor­row and delight from my eyes. She sang, and her voice flowed in a rich cadence, swelling or dying away like a nightin­gale of the woods. 

“When she had fin­ished, she gave the gui­tar to Agatha, who at first declined it. She played a sim­ple air, and her voice accom­pa­nied it in sweet accents, but unlike the won­drous strain of the stranger. The old man appeared enrap­tured and said some words which Agatha endeav­oured to explain to Safie, and by which he appeared to wish to express that she bestowed on him the great­est delight by her music. 

“The days now passed as peace­ably as before, with the sole alter­ation that joy had tak­en place of sad­ness in the coun­te­nances of my friends. Safie was always gay and hap­py; she and I improved rapid­ly in the knowl­edge of lan­guage, so that in two months I began to com­pre­hend most of the words uttered by my protectors. 

“In the mean­while also the black ground was cov­ered with herbage, and the green banks inter­spersed with innu­mer­able flow­ers, sweet to the scent and the eyes, stars of pale radi­ance among the moon­light woods; the sun became warmer, the nights clear and balmy; and my noc­tur­nal ram­bles were an extreme plea­sure to me, although they were con­sid­er­ably short­ened by the late set­ting and ear­ly ris­ing of the sun, for I nev­er ven­tured abroad dur­ing day­light, fear­ful of meet­ing with the same treat­ment I had for­mer­ly endured in the first vil­lage which I entered. 

“My days were spent in close atten­tion, that I might more speed­i­ly mas­ter the lan­guage; and I may boast that I improved more rapid­ly than the Ara­bi­an, who under­stood very lit­tle and con­versed in bro­ken accents, whilst I com­pre­hend­ed and could imi­tate almost every word that was spoken. 

“While I improved in speech, I also learned the sci­ence of let­ters as it was taught to the stranger, and this opened before me a wide field for won­der and delight. 

“The book from which Felix instruct­ed Safie was Volney’s Ruins of Empires. I should not have under­stood the pur­port of this book had not Felix, in read­ing it, giv­en very minute expla­na­tions. He had cho­sen this work, he said, because the declam­a­to­ry style was framed in imi­ta­tion of the East­ern authors. Through this work I obtained a cur­so­ry knowl­edge of his­to­ry and a view of the sev­er­al empires at present exist­ing in the world; it gave me an insight into the man­ners, gov­ern­ments, and reli­gions of the dif­fer­ent nations of the earth. I heard of the sloth­ful Asi­at­ics, of the stu­pen­dous genius and men­tal activ­i­ty of the Gre­cians, of the wars and won­der­ful virtue of the ear­ly Romans—of their sub­se­quent degenerating—of the decline of that mighty empire, of chival­ry, Chris­tian­i­ty, and kings. I heard of the dis­cov­ery of the Amer­i­can hemi­sphere and wept with Safie over the hap­less fate of its orig­i­nal inhabitants. 

“These won­der­ful nar­ra­tions inspired me with strange feel­ings. Was man, indeed, at once so pow­er­ful, so vir­tu­ous and mag­nif­i­cent, yet so vicious and base? He appeared at one time a mere scion of the evil prin­ci­ple and at anoth­er as all that can be con­ceived of noble and god­like. To be a great and vir­tu­ous man appeared the high­est hon­our that can befall a sen­si­tive being; to be base and vicious, as many on record have been, appeared the low­est degra­da­tion, a con­di­tion more abject than that of the blind mole or harm­less worm. For a long time I could not con­ceive how one man could go forth to mur­der his fel­low, or even why there were laws and gov­ern­ments; but when I heard details of vice and blood­shed, my won­der ceased and I turned away with dis­gust and loathing. 

“Every con­ver­sa­tion of the cot­tagers now opened new won­ders to me. While I lis­tened to the instruc­tions which Felix bestowed upon the Ara­bi­an, the strange sys­tem of human soci­ety was explained to me. I heard of the divi­sion of prop­er­ty, of immense wealth and squalid pover­ty, of rank, descent, and noble blood. 

“The words induced me to turn towards myself. I learned that the pos­ses­sions most esteemed by your fel­low crea­tures were high and unsul­lied descent unit­ed with rich­es. A man might be respect­ed with only one of these advan­tages, but with­out either he was con­sid­ered, except in very rare instances, as a vagabond and a slave, doomed to waste his pow­ers for the prof­its of the cho­sen few! And what was I? Of my cre­ation and cre­ator I was absolute­ly igno­rant, but I knew that I pos­sessed no mon­ey, no friends, no kind of prop­er­ty. I was, besides, endued with a fig­ure hideous­ly deformed and loath­some; I was not even of the same nature as man. I was more agile than they and could sub­sist upon coars­er diet; I bore the extremes of heat and cold with less injury to my frame; my stature far exceed­ed theirs. When I looked around I saw and heard of none like me. Was I, then, a mon­ster, a blot upon the earth, from which all men fled and whom all men disowned? 

“I can­not describe to you the agony that these reflec­tions inflict­ed upon me; I tried to dis­pel them, but sor­row only increased with knowl­edge. Oh, that I had for ever remained in my native wood, nor known nor felt beyond the sen­sa­tions of hunger, thirst, and heat! 

“Of what a strange nature is knowl­edge! It clings to the mind when it has once seized on it like a lichen on the rock. I wished some­times to shake off all thought and feel­ing, but I learned that there was but one means to over­come the sen­sa­tion of pain, and that was death—a state which I feared yet did not under­stand. I admired virtue and good feel­ings and loved the gen­tle man­ners and ami­able qual­i­ties of my cot­tagers, but I was shut out from inter­course with them, except through means which I obtained by stealth, when I was unseen and unknown, and which rather increased than sat­is­fied the desire I had of becom­ing one among my fel­lows. The gen­tle words of Agatha and the ani­mat­ed smiles of the charm­ing Ara­bi­an were not for me. The mild exhor­ta­tions of the old man and the live­ly con­ver­sa­tion of the loved Felix were not for me. Mis­er­able, unhap­py wretch! 

“Oth­er lessons were impressed upon me even more deeply. I heard of the dif­fer­ence of sex­es, and the birth and growth of chil­dren, how the father dot­ed on the smiles of the infant, and the live­ly sal­lies of the old­er child, how all the life and cares of the moth­er were wrapped up in the pre­cious charge, how the mind of youth expand­ed and gained knowl­edge, of broth­er, sis­ter, and all the var­i­ous rela­tion­ships which bind one human being to anoth­er in mutu­al bonds. 

“But where were my friends and rela­tions? No father had watched my infant days, no moth­er had blessed me with smiles and caress­es; or if they had, all my past life was now a blot, a blind vacan­cy in which I dis­tin­guished noth­ing. From my ear­li­est remem­brance I had been as I then was in height and pro­por­tion. I had nev­er yet seen a being resem­bling me or who claimed any inter­course with me. What was I? The ques­tion again recurred, to be answered only with groans. 

“I will soon explain to what these feel­ings tend­ed, but allow me now to return to the cot­tagers, whose sto­ry excit­ed in me such var­i­ous feel­ings of indig­na­tion, delight, and won­der, but which all ter­mi­nat­ed in addi­tion­al love and rev­er­ence for my pro­tec­tors (for so I loved, in an inno­cent, half-painful self-deceit, to call them).”