Frankenstein

I sat one evening in my lab­o­ra­to­ry; the sun had set, and the moon was just ris­ing from the sea; I had not suf­fi­cient light for my employ­ment, and I remained idle, in a pause of con­sid­er­a­tion of whether I should leave my labour for the night or has­ten its con­clu­sion by an unremit­ting atten­tion to it. As I sat, a train of reflec­tion occurred to me which led me to con­sid­er the effects of what I was now doing. Three years before, I was engaged in the same man­ner and had cre­at­ed a fiend whose unpar­al­leled bar­bar­i­ty had des­o­lat­ed my heart and filled it for ever with the bit­ter­est remorse. I was now about to form anoth­er being of whose dis­po­si­tions I was alike igno­rant; she might become ten thou­sand times more malig­nant than her mate and delight, for its own sake, in mur­der and wretched­ness. He had sworn to quit the neigh­bour­hood of man and hide him­self in deserts, but she had not; and she, who in all prob­a­bil­i­ty was to become a think­ing and rea­son­ing ani­mal, might refuse to com­ply with a com­pact made before her cre­ation. They might even hate each oth­er; the crea­ture who already lived loathed his own defor­mi­ty, and might he not con­ceive a greater abhor­rence for it when it came before his eyes in the female form? She also might turn with dis­gust from him to the supe­ri­or beau­ty of man; she might quit him, and he be again alone, exas­per­at­ed by the fresh provo­ca­tion of being desert­ed by one of his own species. 

Even if they were to leave Europe and inhab­it the deserts of the new world, yet one of the first results of those sym­pa­thies for which the dæmon thirst­ed would be chil­dren, and a race of dev­ils would be prop­a­gat­ed upon the earth who might make the very exis­tence of the species of man a con­di­tion pre­car­i­ous and full of ter­ror. Had I right, for my own ben­e­fit, to inflict this curse upon ever­last­ing gen­er­a­tions? I had before been moved by the sophisms of the being I had cre­at­ed; I had been struck sense­less by his fiendish threats; but now, for the first time, the wicked­ness of my promise burst upon me; I shud­dered to think that future ages might curse me as their pest, whose self­ish­ness had not hes­i­tat­ed to buy its own peace at the price, per­haps, of the exis­tence of the whole human race. 

I trem­bled and my heart failed with­in me, when, on look­ing up, I saw by the light of the moon the dæmon at the case­ment. A ghast­ly grin wrin­kled his lips as he gazed on me, where I sat ful­fill­ing the task which he had allot­ted to me. Yes, he had fol­lowed me in my trav­els; he had loi­tered in forests, hid him­self in caves, or tak­en refuge in wide and desert heaths; and he now came to mark my progress and claim the ful­fil­ment of my promise. 

As I looked on him, his coun­te­nance expressed the utmost extent of mal­ice and treach­ery. I thought with a sen­sa­tion of mad­ness on my promise of cre­at­ing anoth­er like to him, and trem­bling with pas­sion, tore to pieces the thing on which I was engaged. The wretch saw me destroy the crea­ture on whose future exis­tence he depend­ed for hap­pi­ness, and with a howl of dev­il­ish despair and revenge, withdrew. 

I left the room, and lock­ing the door, made a solemn vow in my own heart nev­er to resume my labours; and then, with trem­bling steps, I sought my own apart­ment. I was alone; none were near me to dis­si­pate the gloom and relieve me from the sick­en­ing oppres­sion of the most ter­ri­ble reveries. 

Sev­er­al hours passed, and I remained near my win­dow gaz­ing on the sea; it was almost motion­less, for the winds were hushed, and all nature reposed under the eye of the qui­et moon. A few fish­ing ves­sels alone specked the water, and now and then the gen­tle breeze waft­ed the sound of voic­es as the fish­er­men called to one anoth­er. I felt the silence, although I was hard­ly con­scious of its extreme pro­fun­di­ty, until my ear was sud­den­ly arrest­ed by the pad­dling of oars near the shore, and a per­son land­ed close to my house. 

In a few min­utes after, I heard the creak­ing of my door, as if some one endeav­oured to open it soft­ly. I trem­bled from head to foot; I felt a pre­sen­ti­ment of who it was and wished to rouse one of the peas­ants who dwelt in a cot­tage not far from mine; but I was over­come by the sen­sa­tion of help­less­ness, so often felt in fright­ful dreams, when you in vain endeav­our to fly from an impend­ing dan­ger, and was root­ed to the spot. 

Present­ly I heard the sound of foot­steps along the pas­sage; the door opened, and the wretch whom I dread­ed appeared. Shut­ting the door, he approached me and said in a smoth­ered voice, 

“You have destroyed the work which you began; what is it that you intend? Do you dare to break your promise? I have endured toil and mis­ery; I left Switzer­land with you; I crept along the shores of the Rhine, among its wil­low islands and over the sum­mits of its hills. I have dwelt many months in the heaths of Eng­land and among the deserts of Scot­land. I have endured incal­cu­la­ble fatigue, and cold, and hunger; do you dare destroy my hopes?” 

“Begone! I do break my promise; nev­er will I cre­ate anoth­er like your­self, equal in defor­mi­ty and wickedness.” 

“Slave, I before rea­soned with you, but you have proved your­self unwor­thy of my con­de­scen­sion. Remem­ber that I have pow­er; you believe your­self mis­er­able, but I can make you so wretched that the light of day will be hate­ful to you. You are my cre­ator, but I am your mas­ter; obey!” 

“The hour of my irres­o­lu­tion is past, and the peri­od of your pow­er is arrived. Your threats can­not move me to do an act of wicked­ness; but they con­firm me in a deter­mi­na­tion of not cre­at­ing you a com­pan­ion in vice. Shall I, in cool blood, set loose upon the earth a dæmon whose delight is in death and wretched­ness? Begone! I am firm, and your words will only exas­per­ate my rage.” 

The mon­ster saw my deter­mi­na­tion in my face and gnashed his teeth in the impo­tence of anger. “Shall each man,” cried he, “find a wife for his bosom, and each beast have his mate, and I be alone? I had feel­ings of affec­tion, and they were requit­ed by detes­ta­tion and scorn. Man! You may hate, but beware! Your hours will pass in dread and mis­ery, and soon the bolt will fall which must rav­ish from you your hap­pi­ness for ever. Are you to be hap­py while I grov­el in the inten­si­ty of my wretched­ness? You can blast my oth­er pas­sions, but revenge remains—revenge, hence­forth dear­er than light or food! I may die, but first you, my tyrant and tor­men­tor, shall curse the sun that gazes on your mis­ery. Beware, for I am fear­less and there­fore pow­er­ful. I will watch with the wil­i­ness of a snake, that I may sting with its ven­om. Man, you shall repent of the injuries you inflict.” 

“Dev­il, cease; and do not poi­son the air with these sounds of mal­ice. I have declared my res­o­lu­tion to you, and I am no cow­ard to bend beneath words. Leave me; I am inexorable.” 

“It is well. I go; but remem­ber, I shall be with you on your wedding-night.” 

I start­ed for­ward and exclaimed, “Vil­lain! Before you sign my death-war­rant, be sure that you are your­self safe.” 

I would have seized him, but he elud­ed me and quit­ted the house with pre­cip­i­ta­tion. In a few moments I saw him in his boat, which shot across the waters with an arrowy swift­ness and was soon lost amidst the waves. 

All was again silent, but his words rang in my ears. I burned with rage to pur­sue the mur­der­er of my peace and pre­cip­i­tate him into the ocean. I walked up and down my room hasti­ly and per­turbed, while my imag­i­na­tion con­jured up a thou­sand images to tor­ment and sting me. Why had I not fol­lowed him and closed with him in mor­tal strife? But I had suf­fered him to depart, and he had direct­ed his course towards the main­land. I shud­dered to think who might be the next vic­tim sac­ri­ficed to his insa­tiate revenge. And then I thought again of his words—“I will be with you on your wed­ding-night.” That, then, was the peri­od fixed for the ful­fil­ment of my des­tiny. In that hour I should die and at once sat­is­fy and extin­guish his mal­ice. The prospect did not move me to fear; yet when I thought of my beloved Eliz­a­beth, of her tears and end­less sor­row, when she should find her lover so bar­barous­ly snatched from her, tears, the first I had shed for many months, streamed from my eyes, and I resolved not to fall before my ene­my with­out a bit­ter struggle. 

The night passed away, and the sun rose from the ocean; my feel­ings became calmer, if it may be called calm­ness when the vio­lence of rage sinks into the depths of despair. I left the house, the hor­rid scene of the last night’s con­tention, and walked on the beach of the sea, which I almost regard­ed as an insu­per­a­ble bar­ri­er between me and my fel­low crea­tures; nay, a wish that such should prove the fact stole across me. I desired that I might pass my life on that bar­ren rock, weari­ly, it is true, but unin­ter­rupt­ed by any sud­den shock of mis­ery. If I returned, it was to be sac­ri­ficed or to see those whom I most loved die under the grasp of a dæmon whom I had myself created. 

I walked about the isle like a rest­less spec­tre, sep­a­rat­ed from all it loved and mis­er­able in the sep­a­ra­tion. When it became noon, and the sun rose high­er, I lay down on the grass and was over­pow­ered by a deep sleep. I had been awake the whole of the pre­ced­ing night, my nerves were agi­tat­ed, and my eyes inflamed by watch­ing and mis­ery. The sleep into which I now sank refreshed me; and when I awoke, I again felt as if I belonged to a race of human beings like myself, and I began to reflect upon what had passed with greater com­po­sure; yet still the words of the fiend rang in my ears like a death-knell; they appeared like a dream, yet dis­tinct and oppres­sive as a reality. 

The sun had far descend­ed, and I still sat on the shore, sat­is­fy­ing my appetite, which had become rav­en­ous, with an oat­en cake, when I saw a fish­ing-boat land close to me, and one of the men brought me a pack­et; it con­tained let­ters from Gene­va, and one from Cler­val entreat­ing me to join him. He said that he was wear­ing away his time fruit­less­ly where he was, that let­ters from the friends he had formed in Lon­don desired his return to com­plete the nego­ti­a­tion they had entered into for his Indi­an enter­prise. He could not any longer delay his depar­ture; but as his jour­ney to Lon­don might be fol­lowed, even soon­er than he now con­jec­tured, by his longer voy­age, he entreat­ed me to bestow as much of my soci­ety on him as I could spare. He besought me, there­fore, to leave my soli­tary isle and to meet him at Perth, that we might pro­ceed south­wards togeth­er. This let­ter in a degree recalled me to life, and I deter­mined to quit my island at the expi­ra­tion of two days. 

Yet, before I depart­ed, there was a task to per­form, on which I shud­dered to reflect; I must pack up my chem­i­cal instru­ments, and for that pur­pose I must enter the room which had been the scene of my odi­ous work, and I must han­dle those uten­sils the sight of which was sick­en­ing to me. The next morn­ing, at day­break, I sum­moned suf­fi­cient courage and unlocked the door of my lab­o­ra­to­ry. The remains of the half-fin­ished crea­ture, whom I had destroyed, lay scat­tered on the floor, and I almost felt as if I had man­gled the liv­ing flesh of a human being. I paused to col­lect myself and then entered the cham­ber. With trem­bling hand I con­veyed the instru­ments out of the room, but I reflect­ed that I ought not to leave the relics of my work to excite the hor­ror and sus­pi­cion of the peas­ants; and I accord­ing­ly put them into a bas­ket, with a great quan­ti­ty of stones, and lay­ing them up, deter­mined to throw them into the sea that very night; and in the mean­time I sat upon the beach, employed in clean­ing and arrang­ing my chem­i­cal apparatus. 

Noth­ing could be more com­plete than the alter­ation that had tak­en place in my feel­ings since the night of the appear­ance of the dæmon. I had before regard­ed my promise with a gloomy despair as a thing that, with what­ev­er con­se­quences, must be ful­filled; but I now felt as if a film had been tak­en from before my eyes and that I for the first time saw clear­ly. The idea of renew­ing my labours did not for one instant occur to me; the threat I had heard weighed on my thoughts, but I did not reflect that a vol­un­tary act of mine could avert it. I had resolved in my own mind that to cre­ate anoth­er like the fiend I had first made would be an act of the basest and most atro­cious self­ish­ness, and I ban­ished from my mind every thought that could lead to a dif­fer­ent conclusion. 

Between two and three in the morn­ing the moon rose; and I then, putting my bas­ket aboard a lit­tle skiff, sailed out about four miles from the shore. The scene was per­fect­ly soli­tary; a few boats were return­ing towards land, but I sailed away from them. I felt as if I was about the com­mis­sion of a dread­ful crime and avoid­ed with shud­der­ing anx­i­ety any encounter with my fel­low crea­tures. At one time the moon, which had before been clear, was sud­den­ly over­spread by a thick cloud, and I took advan­tage of the moment of dark­ness and cast my bas­ket into the sea; I lis­tened to the gur­gling sound as it sank and then sailed away from the spot. The sky became cloud­ed, but the air was pure, although chilled by the north­east breeze that was then ris­ing. But it refreshed me and filled me with such agree­able sen­sa­tions that I resolved to pro­long my stay on the water, and fix­ing the rud­der in a direct posi­tion, stretched myself at the bot­tom of the boat. Clouds hid the moon, every­thing was obscure, and I heard only the sound of the boat as its keel cut through the waves; the mur­mur lulled me, and in a short time I slept soundly. 

I do not know how long I remained in this sit­u­a­tion, but when I awoke I found that the sun had already mount­ed con­sid­er­ably. The wind was high, and the waves con­tin­u­al­ly threat­ened the safe­ty of my lit­tle skiff. I found that the wind was north­east and must have dri­ven me far from the coast from which I had embarked. I endeav­oured to change my course but quick­ly found that if I again made the attempt the boat would be instant­ly filled with water. Thus sit­u­at­ed, my only resource was to dri­ve before the wind. I con­fess that I felt a few sen­sa­tions of ter­ror. I had no com­pass with me and was so slen­der­ly acquaint­ed with the geog­ra­phy of this part of the world that the sun was of lit­tle ben­e­fit to me. I might be dri­ven into the wide Atlantic and feel all the tor­tures of star­va­tion or be swal­lowed up in the immea­sur­able waters that roared and buf­fet­ed around me. I had already been out many hours and felt the tor­ment of a burn­ing thirst, a pre­lude to my oth­er suf­fer­ings. I looked on the heav­ens, which were cov­ered by clouds that flew before the wind, only to be replaced by oth­ers; I looked upon the sea; it was to be my grave. “Fiend,” I exclaimed, “your task is already ful­filled!” I thought of Eliz­a­beth, of my father, and of Clerval—all left behind, on whom the mon­ster might sat­is­fy his san­guinary and mer­ci­less pas­sions. This idea plunged me into a rever­ie so despair­ing and fright­ful that even now, when the scene is on the point of clos­ing before me for ever, I shud­der to reflect on it. 

Some hours passed thus; but by degrees, as the sun declined towards the hori­zon, the wind died away into a gen­tle breeze and the sea became free from break­ers. But these gave place to a heavy swell; I felt sick and hard­ly able to hold the rud­der, when sud­den­ly I saw a line of high land towards the south. 

Almost spent, as I was, by fatigue and the dread­ful sus­pense I endured for sev­er­al hours, this sud­den cer­tain­ty of life rushed like a flood of warm joy to my heart, and tears gushed from my eyes. 

How muta­ble are our feel­ings, and how strange is that cling­ing love we have of life even in the excess of mis­ery! I con­struct­ed anoth­er sail with a part of my dress and eager­ly steered my course towards the land. It had a wild and rocky appear­ance, but as I approached near­er I eas­i­ly per­ceived the traces of cul­ti­va­tion. I saw ves­sels near the shore and found myself sud­den­ly trans­port­ed back to the neigh­bour­hood of civilised man. I care­ful­ly traced the wind­ings of the land and hailed a steeple which I at length saw issu­ing from behind a small promon­to­ry. As I was in a state of extreme debil­i­ty, I resolved to sail direct­ly towards the town, as a place where I could most eas­i­ly pro­cure nour­ish­ment. For­tu­nate­ly I had mon­ey with me. As I turned the promon­to­ry I per­ceived a small neat town and a good har­bour, which I entered, my heart bound­ing with joy at my unex­pect­ed escape. 

As I was occu­pied in fix­ing the boat and arrang­ing the sails, sev­er­al peo­ple crowd­ed towards the spot. They seemed much sur­prised at my appear­ance, but instead of offer­ing me any assis­tance, whis­pered togeth­er with ges­tures that at any oth­er time might have pro­duced in me a slight sen­sa­tion of alarm. As it was, I mere­ly remarked that they spoke Eng­lish, and I there­fore addressed them in that lan­guage. “My good friends,” said I, “will you be so kind as to tell me the name of this town and inform me where I am?” 

“You will know that soon enough,” replied a man with a hoarse voice. “Maybe you are come to a place that will not prove much to your taste, but you will not be con­sult­ed as to your quar­ters, I promise you.” 

I was exceed­ing­ly sur­prised on receiv­ing so rude an answer from a stranger, and I was also dis­con­cert­ed on per­ceiv­ing the frown­ing and angry coun­te­nances of his com­pan­ions. “Why do you answer me so rough­ly?” I replied. “Sure­ly it is not the cus­tom of Eng­lish­men to receive strangers so inhospitably.” 

“I do not know,” said the man, “what the cus­tom of the Eng­lish may be, but it is the cus­tom of the Irish to hate villains.” 

While this strange dia­logue con­tin­ued, I per­ceived the crowd rapid­ly increase. Their faces expressed a mix­ture of curios­i­ty and anger, which annoyed and in some degree alarmed me. I inquired the way to the inn, but no one replied. I then moved for­ward, and a mur­mur­ing sound arose from the crowd as they fol­lowed and sur­round­ed me, when an ill-look­ing man approach­ing tapped me on the shoul­der and said, “Come, sir, you must fol­low me to Mr. Kirwin’s to give an account of yourself.” 

“Who is Mr. Kir­win? Why am I to give an account of myself? Is not this a free country?” 

“Ay, sir, free enough for hon­est folks. Mr. Kir­win is a mag­is­trate, and you are to give an account of the death of a gen­tle­man who was found mur­dered here last night.” 

This answer star­tled me, but I present­ly recov­ered myself. I was inno­cent; that could eas­i­ly be proved; accord­ing­ly I fol­lowed my con­duc­tor in silence and was led to one of the best hous­es in the town. I was ready to sink from fatigue and hunger, but being sur­round­ed by a crowd, I thought it politic to rouse all my strength, that no phys­i­cal debil­i­ty might be con­strued into appre­hen­sion or con­scious guilt. Lit­tle did I then expect the calami­ty that was in a few moments to over­whelm me and extin­guish in hor­ror and despair all fear of ignominy or death. 

I must pause here, for it requires all my for­ti­tude to recall the mem­o­ry of the fright­ful events which I am about to relate, in prop­er detail, to my recollection.