Frankenstein

It was eight o’clock when we land­ed; we walked for a short time on the shore, enjoy­ing the tran­si­to­ry light, and then retired to the inn and con­tem­plat­ed the love­ly scene of waters, woods, and moun­tains, obscured in dark­ness, yet still dis­play­ing their black outlines. 

The wind, which had fall­en in the south, now rose with great vio­lence in the west. The moon had reached her sum­mit in the heav­ens and was begin­ning to descend; the clouds swept across it swifter than the flight of the vul­ture and dimmed her rays, while the lake reflect­ed the scene of the busy heav­ens, ren­dered still busier by the rest­less waves that were begin­ning to rise. Sud­den­ly a heavy storm of rain descended. 

I had been calm dur­ing the day, but so soon as night obscured the shapes of objects, a thou­sand fears arose in my mind. I was anx­ious and watch­ful, while my right hand grasped a pis­tol which was hid­den in my bosom; every sound ter­ri­fied me, but I resolved that I would sell my life dear­ly and not shrink from the con­flict until my own life or that of my adver­sary was extinguished. 

Eliz­a­beth observed my agi­ta­tion for some time in timid and fear­ful silence, but there was some­thing in my glance which com­mu­ni­cat­ed ter­ror to her, and trem­bling, she asked, “What is it that agi­tates you, my dear Vic­tor? What is it you fear?” 

“Oh! Peace, peace, my love,” replied I; “this night, and all will be safe; but this night is dread­ful, very dreadful.” 

I passed an hour in this state of mind, when sud­den­ly I reflect­ed how fear­ful the com­bat which I momen­tar­i­ly expect­ed would be to my wife, and I earnest­ly entreat­ed her to retire, resolv­ing not to join her until I had obtained some knowl­edge as to the sit­u­a­tion of my enemy. 

She left me, and I con­tin­ued some time walk­ing up and down the pas­sages of the house and inspect­ing every cor­ner that might afford a retreat to my adver­sary. But I dis­cov­ered no trace of him and was begin­ning to con­jec­ture that some for­tu­nate chance had inter­vened to pre­vent the exe­cu­tion of his men­aces when sud­den­ly I heard a shrill and dread­ful scream. It came from the room into which Eliz­a­beth had retired. As I heard it, the whole truth rushed into my mind, my arms dropped, the motion of every mus­cle and fibre was sus­pend­ed; I could feel the blood trick­ling in my veins and tin­gling in the extrem­i­ties of my limbs. This state last­ed but for an instant; the scream was repeat­ed, and I rushed into the room. 

Great God! Why did I not then expire! Why am I here to relate the destruc­tion of the best hope and the purest crea­ture on earth? She was there, life­less and inan­i­mate, thrown across the bed, her head hang­ing down and her pale and dis­tort­ed fea­tures half cov­ered by her hair. Every­where I turn I see the same figure—her blood­less arms and relaxed form flung by the mur­der­er on its bridal bier. Could I behold this and live? Alas! Life is obsti­nate and clings clos­est where it is most hat­ed. For a moment only did I lose rec­ol­lec­tion; I fell sense­less on the ground. 

When I recov­ered I found myself sur­round­ed by the peo­ple of the inn; their coun­te­nances expressed a breath­less ter­ror, but the hor­ror of oth­ers appeared only as a mock­ery, a shad­ow of the feel­ings that oppressed me. I escaped from them to the room where lay the body of Eliz­a­beth, my love, my wife, so late­ly liv­ing, so dear, so wor­thy. She had been moved from the pos­ture in which I had first beheld her, and now, as she lay, her head upon her arm and a hand­ker­chief thrown across her face and neck, I might have sup­posed her asleep. I rushed towards her and embraced her with ardour, but the dead­ly lan­guor and cold­ness of the limbs told me that what I now held in my arms had ceased to be the Eliz­a­beth whom I had loved and cher­ished. The mur­der­ous mark of the fiend’s grasp was on her neck, and the breath had ceased to issue from her lips. 

While I still hung over her in the agony of despair, I hap­pened to look up. The win­dows of the room had before been dark­ened, and I felt a kind of pan­ic on see­ing the pale yel­low light of the moon illu­mi­nate the cham­ber. The shut­ters had been thrown back, and with a sen­sa­tion of hor­ror not to be described, I saw at the open win­dow a fig­ure the most hideous and abhorred. A grin was on the face of the mon­ster; he seemed to jeer, as with his fiendish fin­ger he point­ed towards the corpse of my wife. I rushed towards the win­dow, and draw­ing a pis­tol from my bosom, fired; but he elud­ed me, leaped from his sta­tion, and run­ning with the swift­ness of light­ning, plunged into the lake. 

The report of the pis­tol brought a crowd into the room. I point­ed to the spot where he had dis­ap­peared, and we fol­lowed the track with boats; nets were cast, but in vain. After pass­ing sev­er­al hours, we returned hope­less, most of my com­pan­ions believ­ing it to have been a form con­jured up by my fan­cy. After hav­ing land­ed, they pro­ceed­ed to search the coun­try, par­ties going in dif­fer­ent direc­tions among the woods and vines. 

I attempt­ed to accom­pa­ny them and pro­ceed­ed a short dis­tance from the house, but my head whirled round, my steps were like those of a drunk­en man, I fell at last in a state of utter exhaus­tion; a film cov­ered my eyes, and my skin was parched with the heat of fever. In this state I was car­ried back and placed on a bed, hard­ly con­scious of what had hap­pened; my eyes wan­dered round the room as if to seek some­thing that I had lost. 

After an inter­val I arose, and as if by instinct, crawled into the room where the corpse of my beloved lay. There were women weep­ing around; I hung over it and joined my sad tears to theirs; all this time no dis­tinct idea pre­sent­ed itself to my mind, but my thoughts ram­bled to var­i­ous sub­jects, reflect­ing con­fus­ed­ly on my mis­for­tunes and their cause. I was bewil­dered, in a cloud of won­der and hor­ror. The death of William, the exe­cu­tion of Jus­tine, the mur­der of Cler­val, and last­ly of my wife; even at that moment I knew not that my only remain­ing friends were safe from the malig­ni­ty of the fiend; my father even now might be writhing under his grasp, and Ernest might be dead at his feet. This idea made me shud­der and recalled me to action. I start­ed up and resolved to return to Gene­va with all pos­si­ble speed. 

There were no hors­es to be pro­cured, and I must return by the lake; but the wind was unfavourable, and the rain fell in tor­rents. How­ev­er, it was hard­ly morn­ing, and I might rea­son­ably hope to arrive by night. I hired men to row and took an oar myself, for I had always expe­ri­enced relief from men­tal tor­ment in bod­i­ly exer­cise. But the over­flow­ing mis­ery I now felt, and the excess of agi­ta­tion that I endured ren­dered me inca­pable of any exer­tion. I threw down the oar, and lean­ing my head upon my hands, gave way to every gloomy idea that arose. If I looked up, I saw scenes which were famil­iar to me in my hap­pi­er time and which I had con­tem­plat­ed but the day before in the com­pa­ny of her who was now but a shad­ow and a rec­ol­lec­tion. Tears streamed from my eyes. The rain had ceased for a moment, and I saw the fish play in the waters as they had done a few hours before; they had then been observed by Eliz­a­beth. Noth­ing is so painful to the human mind as a great and sud­den change. The sun might shine or the clouds might low­er, but noth­ing could appear to me as it had done the day before. A fiend had snatched from me every hope of future hap­pi­ness; no crea­ture had ever been so mis­er­able as I was; so fright­ful an event is sin­gle in the his­to­ry of man. 

But why should I dwell upon the inci­dents that fol­lowed this last over­whelm­ing event? Mine has been a tale of hor­rors; I have reached their acme, and what I must now relate can but be tedious to you. Know that, one by one, my friends were snatched away; I was left des­o­late. My own strength is exhaust­ed, and I must tell, in a few words, what remains of my hideous narration. 

I arrived at Gene­va. My father and Ernest yet lived, but the for­mer sunk under the tid­ings that I bore. I see him now, excel­lent and ven­er­a­ble old man! His eyes wan­dered in vacan­cy, for they had lost their charm and their delight—his Eliz­a­beth, his more than daugh­ter, whom he dot­ed on with all that affec­tion which a man feels, who in the decline of life, hav­ing few affec­tions, clings more earnest­ly to those that remain. Cursed, cursed be the fiend that brought mis­ery on his grey hairs and doomed him to waste in wretched­ness! He could not live under the hor­rors that were accu­mu­lat­ed around him; the springs of exis­tence sud­den­ly gave way; he was unable to rise from his bed, and in a few days he died in my arms. 

What then became of me? I know not; I lost sen­sa­tion, and chains and dark­ness were the only objects that pressed upon me. Some­times, indeed, I dreamt that I wan­dered in flow­ery mead­ows and pleas­ant vales with the friends of my youth, but I awoke and found myself in a dun­geon. Melan­choly fol­lowed, but by degrees I gained a clear con­cep­tion of my mis­eries and sit­u­a­tion and was then released from my prison. For they had called me mad, and dur­ing many months, as I under­stood, a soli­tary cell had been my habitation. 

Lib­er­ty, how­ev­er, had been a use­less gift to me, had I not, as I awak­ened to rea­son, at the same time awak­ened to revenge. As the mem­o­ry of past mis­for­tunes pressed upon me, I began to reflect on their cause—the mon­ster whom I had cre­at­ed, the mis­er­able dæmon whom I had sent abroad into the world for my destruc­tion. I was pos­sessed by a mad­den­ing rage when I thought of him, and desired and ardent­ly prayed that I might have him with­in my grasp to wreak a great and sig­nal revenge on his cursed head. 

Nor did my hate long con­fine itself to use­less wish­es; I began to reflect on the best means of secur­ing him; and for this pur­pose, about a month after my release, I repaired to a crim­i­nal judge in the town and told him that I had an accu­sa­tion to make, that I knew the destroy­er of my fam­i­ly, and that I required him to exert his whole author­i­ty for the appre­hen­sion of the murderer. 

The mag­is­trate lis­tened to me with atten­tion and kind­ness. “Be assured, sir,” said he, “no pains or exer­tions on my part shall be spared to dis­cov­er the villain.” 

“I thank you,” replied I; “lis­ten, there­fore, to the depo­si­tion that I have to make. It is indeed a tale so strange that I should fear you would not cred­it it were there not some­thing in truth which, how­ev­er won­der­ful, forces con­vic­tion. The sto­ry is too con­nect­ed to be mis­tak­en for a dream, and I have no motive for false­hood.” My man­ner as I thus addressed him was impres­sive but calm; I had formed in my own heart a res­o­lu­tion to pur­sue my destroy­er to death, and this pur­pose qui­et­ed my agony and for an inter­val rec­on­ciled me to life. I now relat­ed my his­to­ry briefly but with firm­ness and pre­ci­sion, mark­ing the dates with accu­ra­cy and nev­er devi­at­ing into invec­tive or exclamation. 

The mag­is­trate appeared at first per­fect­ly incred­u­lous, but as I con­tin­ued he became more atten­tive and inter­est­ed; I saw him some­times shud­der with hor­ror; at oth­ers a live­ly sur­prise, unmin­gled with dis­be­lief, was paint­ed on his countenance. 

When I had con­clud­ed my nar­ra­tion, I said, “This is the being whom I accuse and for whose seizure and pun­ish­ment I call upon you to exert your whole pow­er. It is your duty as a mag­is­trate, and I believe and hope that your feel­ings as a man will not revolt from the exe­cu­tion of those func­tions on this occasion.” 

This address caused a con­sid­er­able change in the phys­iog­no­my of my own audi­tor. He had heard my sto­ry with that half kind of belief that is giv­en to a tale of spir­its and super­nat­ur­al events; but when he was called upon to act offi­cial­ly in con­se­quence, the whole tide of his increduli­ty returned. He, how­ev­er, answered mild­ly, “I would will­ing­ly afford you every aid in your pur­suit, but the crea­ture of whom you speak appears to have pow­ers which would put all my exer­tions to defi­ance. Who can fol­low an ani­mal which can tra­verse the sea of ice and inhab­it caves and dens where no man would ven­ture to intrude? Besides, some months have elapsed since the com­mis­sion of his crimes, and no one can con­jec­ture to what place he has wan­dered or what region he may now inhabit.” 

“I do not doubt that he hov­ers near the spot which I inhab­it, and if he has indeed tak­en refuge in the Alps, he may be hunt­ed like the chamois and destroyed as a beast of prey. But I per­ceive your thoughts; you do not cred­it my nar­ra­tive and do not intend to pur­sue my ene­my with the pun­ish­ment which is his desert.” 

As I spoke, rage sparkled in my eyes; the mag­is­trate was intim­i­dat­ed. “You are mis­tak­en,” said he. “I will exert myself, and if it is in my pow­er to seize the mon­ster, be assured that he shall suf­fer pun­ish­ment pro­por­tion­ate to his crimes. But I fear, from what you have your­self described to be his prop­er­ties, that this will prove imprac­ti­ca­ble; and thus, while every prop­er mea­sure is pur­sued, you should make up your mind to disappointment.” 

“That can­not be; but all that I can say will be of lit­tle avail. My revenge is of no moment to you; yet, while I allow it to be a vice, I con­fess that it is the devour­ing and only pas­sion of my soul. My rage is unspeak­able when I reflect that the mur­der­er, whom I have turned loose upon soci­ety, still exists. You refuse my just demand; I have but one resource, and I devote myself, either in my life or death, to his destruction.” 

I trem­bled with excess of agi­ta­tion as I said this; there was a fren­zy in my man­ner, and some­thing, I doubt not, of that haughty fierce­ness which the mar­tyrs of old are said to have pos­sessed. But to a Genevan mag­is­trate, whose mind was occu­pied by far oth­er ideas than those of devo­tion and hero­ism, this ele­va­tion of mind had much the appear­ance of mad­ness. He endeav­oured to soothe me as a nurse does a child and revert­ed to my tale as the effects of delirium. 

“Man,” I cried, “how igno­rant art thou in thy pride of wis­dom! Cease; you know not what it is you say.” 

I broke from the house angry and dis­turbed and retired to med­i­tate on some oth­er mode of action.