Frankenstein

The being fin­ished speak­ing and fixed his looks upon me in the expec­ta­tion of a reply. But I was bewil­dered, per­plexed, and unable to arrange my ideas suf­fi­cient­ly to under­stand the full extent of his propo­si­tion. He continued, 

“You must cre­ate a female for me with whom I can live in the inter­change of those sym­pa­thies nec­es­sary for my being. This you alone can do, and I demand it of you as a right which you must not refuse to concede.” 

The lat­ter part of his tale had kin­dled anew in me the anger that had died away while he nar­rat­ed his peace­ful life among the cot­tagers, and as he said this I could no longer sup­press the rage that burned with­in me. 

“I do refuse it,” I replied; “and no tor­ture shall ever extort a con­sent from me. You may ren­der me the most mis­er­able of men, but you shall nev­er make me base in my own eyes. Shall I cre­ate anoth­er like your­self, whose joint wicked­ness might des­o­late the world. Begone! I have answered you; you may tor­ture me, but I will nev­er consent.” 

“You are in the wrong,” replied the fiend; “and instead of threat­en­ing, I am con­tent to rea­son with you. I am mali­cious because I am mis­er­able. Am I not shunned and hat­ed by all mankind? You, my cre­ator, would tear me to pieces and tri­umph; remem­ber that, and tell me why I should pity man more than he pities me? You would not call it mur­der if you could pre­cip­i­tate me into one of those ice-rifts and destroy my frame, the work of your own hands. Shall I respect man when he con­demns me? Let him live with me in the inter­change of kind­ness, and instead of injury I would bestow every ben­e­fit upon him with tears of grat­i­tude at his accep­tance. But that can­not be; the human sens­es are insur­mount­able bar­ri­ers to our union. Yet mine shall not be the sub­mis­sion of abject slav­ery. I will revenge my injuries; if I can­not inspire love, I will cause fear, and chiefly towards you my arch-ene­my, because my cre­ator, do I swear inex­tin­guish­able hatred. Have a care; I will work at your destruc­tion, nor fin­ish until I des­o­late your heart, so that you shall curse the hour of your birth.” 

A fiendish rage ani­mat­ed him as he said this; his face was wrin­kled into con­tor­tions too hor­ri­ble for human eyes to behold; but present­ly he calmed him­self and proceeded— 

“I intend­ed to rea­son. This pas­sion is detri­men­tal to me, for you do not reflect that you are the cause of its excess. If any being felt emo­tions of benev­o­lence towards me, I should return them a hun­dred and a hun­dred­fold; for that one creature’s sake I would make peace with the whole kind! But I now indulge in dreams of bliss that can­not be realised. What I ask of you is rea­son­able and mod­er­ate; I demand a crea­ture of anoth­er sex, but as hideous as myself; the grat­i­fi­ca­tion is small, but it is all that I can receive, and it shall con­tent me. It is true, we shall be mon­sters, cut off from all the world; but on that account we shall be more attached to one anoth­er. Our lives will not be hap­py, but they will be harm­less and free from the mis­ery I now feel. Oh! My cre­ator, make me hap­py; let me feel grat­i­tude towards you for one ben­e­fit! Let me see that I excite the sym­pa­thy of some exist­ing thing; do not deny me my request!” 

I was moved. I shud­dered when I thought of the pos­si­ble con­se­quences of my con­sent, but I felt that there was some jus­tice in his argu­ment. His tale and the feel­ings he now expressed proved him to be a crea­ture of fine sen­sa­tions, and did I not as his mak­er owe him all the por­tion of hap­pi­ness that it was in my pow­er to bestow? He saw my change of feel­ing and continued, 

“If you con­sent, nei­ther you nor any oth­er human being shall ever see us again; I will go to the vast wilds of South Amer­i­ca. My food is not that of man; I do not destroy the lamb and the kid to glut my appetite; acorns and berries afford me suf­fi­cient nour­ish­ment. My com­pan­ion will be of the same nature as myself and will be con­tent with the same fare. We shall make our bed of dried leaves; the sun will shine on us as on man and will ripen our food. The pic­ture I present to you is peace­ful and human, and you must feel that you could deny it only in the wan­ton­ness of pow­er and cru­el­ty. Piti­less as you have been towards me, I now see com­pas­sion in your eyes; let me seize the favourable moment and per­suade you to promise what I so ardent­ly desire.” 

“You pro­pose,” replied I, “to fly from the habi­ta­tions of man, to dwell in those wilds where the beasts of the field will be your only com­pan­ions. How can you, who long for the love and sym­pa­thy of man, per­se­vere in this exile? You will return and again seek their kind­ness, and you will meet with their detes­ta­tion; your evil pas­sions will be renewed, and you will then have a com­pan­ion to aid you in the task of destruc­tion. This may not be; cease to argue the point, for I can­not consent.” 

“How incon­stant are your feel­ings! But a moment ago you were moved by my rep­re­sen­ta­tions, and why do you again hard­en your­self to my com­plaints? I swear to you, by the earth which I inhab­it, and by you that made me, that with the com­pan­ion you bestow, I will quit the neigh­bour­hood of man and dwell, as it may chance, in the most sav­age of places. My evil pas­sions will have fled, for I shall meet with sym­pa­thy! My life will flow qui­et­ly away, and in my dying moments I shall not curse my maker.” 

His words had a strange effect upon me. I com­pas­sion­at­ed him and some­times felt a wish to con­sole him, but when I looked upon him, when I saw the filthy mass that moved and talked, my heart sick­ened and my feel­ings were altered to those of hor­ror and hatred. I tried to sti­fle these sen­sa­tions; I thought that as I could not sym­pa­thise with him, I had no right to with­hold from him the small por­tion of hap­pi­ness which was yet in my pow­er to bestow. 

“You swear,” I said, “to be harm­less; but have you not already shown a degree of mal­ice that should rea­son­ably make me dis­trust you? May not even this be a feint that will increase your tri­umph by afford­ing a wider scope for your revenge?” 

“How is this? I must not be tri­fled with, and I demand an answer. If I have no ties and no affec­tions, hatred and vice must be my por­tion; the love of anoth­er will destroy the cause of my crimes, and I shall become a thing of whose exis­tence every­one will be igno­rant. My vices are the chil­dren of a forced soli­tude that I abhor, and my virtues will nec­es­sar­i­ly arise when I live in com­mu­nion with an equal. I shall feel the affec­tions of a sen­si­tive being and become linked to the chain of exis­tence and events from which I am now excluded.” 

I paused some time to reflect on all he had relat­ed and the var­i­ous argu­ments which he had employed. I thought of the promise of virtues which he had dis­played on the open­ing of his exis­tence and the sub­se­quent blight of all kind­ly feel­ing by the loathing and scorn which his pro­tec­tors had man­i­fest­ed towards him. His pow­er and threats were not omit­ted in my cal­cu­la­tions; a crea­ture who could exist in the ice-caves of the glac­i­ers and hide him­self from pur­suit among the ridges of inac­ces­si­ble precipices was a being pos­sess­ing fac­ul­ties it would be vain to cope with. After a long pause of reflec­tion I con­clud­ed that the jus­tice due both to him and my fel­low crea­tures demand­ed of me that I should com­ply with his request. Turn­ing to him, there­fore, I said, 

“I con­sent to your demand, on your solemn oath to quit Europe for ever, and every oth­er place in the neigh­bour­hood of man, as soon as I shall deliv­er into your hands a female who will accom­pa­ny you in your exile.” 

“I swear,” he cried, “by the sun, and by the blue sky of heav­en, and by the fire of love that burns my heart, that if you grant my prayer, while they exist you shall nev­er behold me again. Depart to your home and com­mence your labours; I shall watch their progress with unut­ter­able anx­i­ety; and fear not but that when you are ready I shall appear.” 

Say­ing this, he sud­den­ly quit­ted me, fear­ful, per­haps, of any change in my sen­ti­ments. I saw him descend the moun­tain with greater speed than the flight of an eagle, and quick­ly lost among the undu­la­tions of the sea of ice. 

His tale had occu­pied the whole day, and the sun was upon the verge of the hori­zon when he depart­ed. I knew that I ought to has­ten my descent towards the val­ley, as I should soon be encom­passed in dark­ness; but my heart was heavy, and my steps slow. The labour of wind­ing among the lit­tle paths of the moun­tain and fix­ing my feet firm­ly as I advanced per­plexed me, occu­pied as I was by the emo­tions which the occur­rences of the day had pro­duced. Night was far advanced when I came to the halfway rest­ing-place and seat­ed myself beside the foun­tain. The stars shone at inter­vals as the clouds passed from over them; the dark pines rose before me, and every here and there a bro­ken tree lay on the ground; it was a scene of won­der­ful solem­ni­ty and stirred strange thoughts with­in me. I wept bit­ter­ly, and clasp­ing my hands in agony, I exclaimed, “Oh! stars and clouds and winds, ye are all about to mock me; if ye real­ly pity me, crush sen­sa­tion and mem­o­ry; let me become as nought; but if not, depart, depart, and leave me in darkness.” 

These were wild and mis­er­able thoughts, but I can­not describe to you how the eter­nal twin­kling of the stars weighed upon me and how I lis­tened to every blast of wind as if it were a dull ugly siroc on its way to con­sume me. 

Morn­ing dawned before I arrived at the vil­lage of Chamounix; I took no rest, but returned imme­di­ate­ly to Gene­va. Even in my own heart I could give no expres­sion to my sensations—they weighed on me with a mountain’s weight and their excess destroyed my agony beneath them. Thus I returned home, and enter­ing the house, pre­sent­ed myself to the fam­i­ly. My hag­gard and wild appear­ance awoke intense alarm, but I answered no ques­tion, scarce­ly did I speak. I felt as if I were placed under a ban—as if I had no right to claim their sympathies—as if nev­er more might I enjoy com­pan­ion­ship with them. Yet even thus I loved them to ado­ra­tion; and to save them, I resolved to ded­i­cate myself to my most abhorred task. The prospect of such an occu­pa­tion made every oth­er cir­cum­stance of exis­tence pass before me like a dream, and that thought only had to me the real­i­ty of life.