Frankenstein

“Some time elapsed before I learned the his­to­ry of my friends. It was one which could not fail to impress itself deeply on my mind, unfold­ing as it did a num­ber of cir­cum­stances, each inter­est­ing and won­der­ful to one so utter­ly inex­pe­ri­enced as I was. 

“The name of the old man was De Lacey. He was descend­ed from a good fam­i­ly in France, where he had lived for many years in afflu­ence, respect­ed by his supe­ri­ors and beloved by his equals. His son was bred in the ser­vice of his coun­try, and Agatha had ranked with ladies of the high­est dis­tinc­tion. A few months before my arrival they had lived in a large and lux­u­ri­ous city called Paris, sur­round­ed by friends and pos­sessed of every enjoy­ment which virtue, refine­ment of intel­lect, or taste, accom­pa­nied by a mod­er­ate for­tune, could afford. 

“The father of Safie had been the cause of their ruin. He was a Turk­ish mer­chant and had inhab­it­ed Paris for many years, when, for some rea­son which I could not learn, he became obnox­ious to the gov­ern­ment. He was seized and cast into prison the very day that Safie arrived from Con­stan­tino­ple to join him. He was tried and con­demned to death. The injus­tice of his sen­tence was very fla­grant; all Paris was indig­nant; and it was judged that his reli­gion and wealth rather than the crime alleged against him had been the cause of his condemnation. 

“Felix had acci­den­tal­ly been present at the tri­al; his hor­ror and indig­na­tion were uncon­trol­lable when he heard the deci­sion of the court. He made, at that moment, a solemn vow to deliv­er him and then looked around for the means. After many fruit­less attempts to gain admit­tance to the prison, he found a strong­ly grat­ed win­dow in an unguard­ed part of the build­ing, which light­ed the dun­geon of the unfor­tu­nate Muham­madan, who, loaded with chains, wait­ed in despair the exe­cu­tion of the bar­barous sen­tence. Felix vis­it­ed the grate at night and made known to the pris­on­er his inten­tions in his favour. The Turk, amazed and delight­ed, endeav­oured to kin­dle the zeal of his deliv­er­er by promis­es of reward and wealth. Felix reject­ed his offers with con­tempt, yet when he saw the love­ly Safie, who was allowed to vis­it her father and who by her ges­tures expressed her live­ly grat­i­tude, the youth could not help own­ing to his own mind that the cap­tive pos­sessed a trea­sure which would ful­ly reward his toil and hazard. 

“The Turk quick­ly per­ceived the impres­sion that his daugh­ter had made on the heart of Felix and endeav­oured to secure him more entire­ly in his inter­ests by the promise of her hand in mar­riage so soon as he should be con­veyed to a place of safe­ty. Felix was too del­i­cate to accept this offer, yet he looked for­ward to the prob­a­bil­i­ty of the event as to the con­sum­ma­tion of his happiness. 

“Dur­ing the ensu­ing days, while the prepa­ra­tions were going for­ward for the escape of the mer­chant, the zeal of Felix was warmed by sev­er­al let­ters that he received from this love­ly girl, who found means to express her thoughts in the lan­guage of her lover by the aid of an old man, a ser­vant of her father who under­stood French. She thanked him in the most ardent terms for his intend­ed ser­vices towards her par­ent, and at the same time she gen­tly deplored her own fate. 

“I have copies of these let­ters, for I found means, dur­ing my res­i­dence in the hov­el, to pro­cure the imple­ments of writ­ing; and the let­ters were often in the hands of Felix or Agatha. Before I depart I will give them to you; they will prove the truth of my tale; but at present, as the sun is already far declined, I shall only have time to repeat the sub­stance of them to you. 

“Safie relat­ed that her moth­er was a Chris­t­ian Arab, seized and made a slave by the Turks; rec­om­mend­ed by her beau­ty, she had won the heart of the father of Safie, who mar­ried her. The young girl spoke in high and enthu­si­as­tic terms of her moth­er, who, born in free­dom, spurned the bondage to which she was now reduced. She instruct­ed her daugh­ter in the tenets of her reli­gion and taught her to aspire to high­er pow­ers of intel­lect and an inde­pen­dence of spir­it for­bid­den to the female fol­low­ers of Muham­mad. This lady died, but her lessons were indeli­bly impressed on the mind of Safie, who sick­ened at the prospect of again return­ing to Asia and being immured with­in the walls of a harem, allowed only to occu­py her­self with infan­tile amuse­ments, ill-suit­ed to the tem­per of her soul, now accus­tomed to grand ideas and a noble emu­la­tion for virtue. The prospect of mar­ry­ing a Chris­t­ian and remain­ing in a coun­try where women were allowed to take a rank in soci­ety was enchant­i­ng to her. 

“The day for the exe­cu­tion of the Turk was fixed, but on the night pre­vi­ous to it he quit­ted his prison and before morn­ing was dis­tant many leagues from Paris. Felix had pro­cured pass­ports in the name of his father, sis­ter, and him­self. He had pre­vi­ous­ly com­mu­ni­cat­ed his plan to the for­mer, who aid­ed the deceit by quit­ting his house, under the pre­tence of a jour­ney and con­cealed him­self, with his daugh­ter, in an obscure part of Paris. 

“Felix con­duct­ed the fugi­tives through France to Lyons and across Mont Cenis to Leghorn, where the mer­chant had decid­ed to wait a favourable oppor­tu­ni­ty of pass­ing into some part of the Turk­ish dominions. 

“Safie resolved to remain with her father until the moment of his depar­ture, before which time the Turk renewed his promise that she should be unit­ed to his deliv­er­er; and Felix remained with them in expec­ta­tion of that event; and in the mean­time he enjoyed the soci­ety of the Ara­bi­an, who exhib­it­ed towards him the sim­plest and ten­der­est affec­tion. They con­versed with one anoth­er through the means of an inter­preter, and some­times with the inter­pre­ta­tion of looks; and Safie sang to him the divine airs of her native country. 

“The Turk allowed this inti­ma­cy to take place and encour­aged the hopes of the youth­ful lovers, while in his heart he had formed far oth­er plans. He loathed the idea that his daugh­ter should be unit­ed to a Chris­t­ian, but he feared the resent­ment of Felix if he should appear luke­warm, for he knew that he was still in the pow­er of his deliv­er­er if he should choose to betray him to the Ital­ian state which they inhab­it­ed. He revolved a thou­sand plans by which he should be enabled to pro­long the deceit until it might be no longer nec­es­sary, and secret­ly to take his daugh­ter with him when he depart­ed. His plans were facil­i­tat­ed by the news which arrived from Paris. 

“The gov­ern­ment of France were great­ly enraged at the escape of their vic­tim and spared no pains to detect and pun­ish his deliv­er­er. The plot of Felix was quick­ly dis­cov­ered, and De Lacey and Agatha were thrown into prison. The news reached Felix and roused him from his dream of plea­sure. His blind and aged father and his gen­tle sis­ter lay in a noi­some dun­geon while he enjoyed the free air and the soci­ety of her whom he loved. This idea was tor­ture to him. He quick­ly arranged with the Turk that if the lat­ter should find a favourable oppor­tu­ni­ty for escape before Felix could return to Italy, Safie should remain as a board­er at a con­vent at Leghorn; and then, quit­ting the love­ly Ara­bi­an, he has­tened to Paris and deliv­ered him­self up to the vengeance of the law, hop­ing to free De Lacey and Agatha by this proceeding. 

“He did not suc­ceed. They remained con­fined for five months before the tri­al took place, the result of which deprived them of their for­tune and con­demned them to a per­pet­u­al exile from their native country. 

“They found a mis­er­able asy­lum in the cot­tage in Ger­many, where I dis­cov­ered them. Felix soon learned that the treach­er­ous Turk, for whom he and his fam­i­ly endured such unheard-of oppres­sion, on dis­cov­er­ing that his deliv­er­er was thus reduced to pover­ty and ruin, became a trai­tor to good feel­ing and hon­our and had quit­ted Italy with his daugh­ter, insult­ing­ly send­ing Felix a pit­tance of mon­ey to aid him, as he said, in some plan of future maintenance. 

“Such were the events that preyed on the heart of Felix and ren­dered him, when I first saw him, the most mis­er­able of his fam­i­ly. He could have endured pover­ty, and while this dis­tress had been the meed of his virtue, he glo­ried in it; but the ingrat­i­tude of the Turk and the loss of his beloved Safie were mis­for­tunes more bit­ter and irrepara­ble. The arrival of the Ara­bi­an now infused new life into his soul. 

“When the news reached Leghorn that Felix was deprived of his wealth and rank, the mer­chant com­mand­ed his daugh­ter to think no more of her lover, but to pre­pare to return to her native coun­try. The gen­er­ous nature of Safie was out­raged by this com­mand; she attempt­ed to expos­tu­late with her father, but he left her angri­ly, reit­er­at­ing his tyran­ni­cal mandate. 

“A few days after, the Turk entered his daughter’s apart­ment and told her hasti­ly that he had rea­son to believe that his res­i­dence at Leghorn had been divulged and that he should speed­i­ly be deliv­ered up to the French gov­ern­ment; he had con­se­quent­ly hired a ves­sel to con­vey him to Con­stan­tino­ple, for which city he should sail in a few hours. He intend­ed to leave his daugh­ter under the care of a con­fi­den­tial ser­vant, to fol­low at her leisure with the greater part of his prop­er­ty, which had not yet arrived at Leghorn. 

“When alone, Safie resolved in her own mind the plan of con­duct that it would become her to pur­sue in this emer­gency. A res­i­dence in Turkey was abhor­rent to her; her reli­gion and her feel­ings were alike averse to it. By some papers of her father which fell into her hands she heard of the exile of her lover and learnt the name of the spot where he then resided. She hes­i­tat­ed some time, but at length she formed her deter­mi­na­tion. Tak­ing with her some jew­els that belonged to her and a sum of mon­ey, she quit­ted Italy with an atten­dant, a native of Leghorn, but who under­stood the com­mon lan­guage of Turkey, and depart­ed for Germany. 

“She arrived in safe­ty at a town about twen­ty leagues from the cot­tage of De Lacey, when her atten­dant fell dan­ger­ous­ly ill. Safie nursed her with the most devot­ed affec­tion, but the poor girl died, and the Ara­bi­an was left alone, unac­quaint­ed with the lan­guage of the coun­try and utter­ly igno­rant of the cus­toms of the world. She fell, how­ev­er, into good hands. The Ital­ian had men­tioned the name of the spot for which they were bound, and after her death the woman of the house in which they had lived took care that Safie should arrive in safe­ty at the cot­tage of her lover.”