Frankenstein

To Mrs. Sav­ille, Eng­land.

August 5th, 17—.

So strange an acci­dent has hap­pened to us that I can­not for­bear record­ing it, although it is very prob­a­ble that you will see me before these papers can come into your possession.

Last Mon­day (July 31st) we were near­ly sur­round­ed by ice, which closed in the ship on all sides, scarce­ly leav­ing her the sea-room in which she float­ed. Our sit­u­a­tion was some­what dan­ger­ous, espe­cial­ly as we were com­passed round by a very thick fog. We accord­ing­ly lay to, hop­ing that some change would take place in the atmos­phere and weather.

About two o’clock the mist cleared away, and we beheld, stretched out in every direc­tion, vast and irreg­u­lar plains of ice, whichseemed to have no end. Some of my com­rades groaned, and my own mind began to grow watch­ful with anx­ious thoughts, when a strange sight sud­den­ly attract­ed our atten­tion and divert­ed our solic­i­tude from our own sit­u­a­tion. We per­ceived a low car­riage, fixed on a sledge and drawn by dogs, pass on towards the north, at the dis­tance of half a mile; a being which had the shape of a man, but appar­ent­ly of gigan­tic stature, sat in the sledge and guid­ed the dogs. We watched the rapid progress of the trav­eller with our tele­scopes until he was lost among the dis­tant inequal­i­ties of the ice.

This appear­ance excit­ed our unqual­i­fied won­der. We were, as we believed, many hun­dred miles from any land; but this appari­tion seemed to denote that it was not, in real­i­ty, so dis­tant as we had sup­posed. Shut in, how­ev­er, by ice, it was impos­si­ble to fol­low his track, which we had observed with the great­est attention.

About two hours after this occur­rence we heard the ground sea, and before night the ice broke and freed our ship. We, how­ev­er, lay to until the morn­ing, fear­ing to encounter in the dark those large loose mass­es which float about after the break­ing up of the ice. I prof­it­ed of this time to rest for a few hours.

In the morn­ing, how­ev­er, as soon as it was light, I went upon deck and found all the sailors busy on one side of the ves­sel, appar­ent­ly talk­ing to some­one in the sea. It was, in fact, a sledge, like that we had seen before, which had drift­ed towards us in the night on a large frag­ment of ice. Only one dog remained alive; but there was a human being with­in it whom the sailors were per­suad­ing to enter the ves­sel. He was not, as the oth­er trav­eller seemed to be, a sav­age inhab­i­tant of some undis­cov­ered island, but a Euro­pean. When I appeared on deck the mas­ter said, “Here is our cap­tain, and he will not allow you to per­ish on the open sea.”

On per­ceiv­ing me, the stranger addressed me in Eng­lish, although with a for­eign accent. “Before I come on board your ves­sel,” said he, “will you have the kind­ness to inform me whith­er you are bound?”

You may con­ceive my aston­ish­ment on hear­ing such a ques­tion addressed to me from a man on the brink of destruc­tion and to whom I should have sup­posed that my ves­sel would have been a resource which he would not have exchanged for the most pre­cious wealth the earth can afford. I replied, how­ev­er, that we were on a voy­age of dis­cov­ery towards the north­ern pole.

Upon hear­ing this he appeared sat­is­fied and con­sent­ed to come on board. Good God! Mar­garet, if you had seen the man who thus capit­u­lat­ed for his safe­ty, your sur­prise would have been bound­less. His limbs were near­ly frozen, and his body dread­ful­ly ema­ci­at­ed by fatigue and suf­fer­ing. I nev­er saw a man in so wretched a con­di­tion. We attempt­ed to car­ry him into the cab­in, but as soon as he had quit­ted the fresh air he faint­ed. We accord­ing­ly brought him back to the deck and restored him to ani­ma­tion by rub­bing him with brandy and forc­ing him to swal­low a small quan­ti­ty. As soon as he showed signs of life we wrapped him up in blan­kets and placed him near the chim­ney of the kitchen stove. By slow degrees he recov­ered and ate a lit­tle soup, which restored him wonderfully.

Two days passed in this man­ner before he was able to speak, and I often feared that his suf­fer­ings had deprived him of under­stand­ing. When he had in some mea­sure recov­ered, I removed him to my own cab­in and attend­ed on him as much as my duty would per­mit. I nev­er saw a more inter­est­ing crea­ture: his eyes have gen­er­al­ly an expres­sion of wild­ness, and even mad­ness, but there are moments when, if any­one per­forms an act of kind­ness towards him or does him any the most tri­fling ser­vice, his whole coun­te­nance is light­ed up, as it were, with a beam of benev­o­lence and sweet­ness that I nev­er saw equalled. But he is gen­er­al­ly melan­choly and despair­ing, and some­times he gnash­es his teeth, as if impa­tient of the weight of woes that oppress­es him.

When my guest was a lit­tle recov­ered I had great trou­ble to keep off the men, who wished to ask him a thou­sand ques­tions; but I would not allow him to be tor­ment­ed by their idle curios­i­ty, in a state of body and mind whose restora­tion evi­dent­ly depend­ed upon entire repose. Once, how­ev­er, the lieu­tenant asked why he had come so far upon the ice in so strange a vehicle.

His coun­te­nance instant­ly assumed an aspect of the deep­est gloom, and he replied, “To seek one who fled from me.”

“And did the man whom you pur­sued trav­el in the same fashion?”

“Yes.”

“Then I fan­cy we have seen him, for the day before we picked you up we saw some dogs draw­ing a sledge, with a man in it, across the ice.”

This aroused the stranger’s atten­tion, and he asked a mul­ti­tude of ques­tions con­cern­ing the route which the dæmon, as he called him, had pur­sued. Soon after, when he was alone with me, he said, “I have, doubt­less, excit­ed your curios­i­ty, as well as that of these good peo­ple; but you are too con­sid­er­ate to make inquiries.”

“Cer­tain­ly; it would indeed be very imper­ti­nent and inhu­man in me to trou­ble you with any inquis­i­tive­ness of mine.”

“And yet you res­cued me from a strange and per­ilous sit­u­a­tion; you have benev­o­lent­ly restored me to life.”

Soon after this he inquired if I thought that the break­ing up of the ice had destroyed the oth­er sledge. I replied that I could not answer with any degree of cer­tain­ty, for the ice had not bro­ken until near mid­night, and the trav­eller might have arrived at a place of safe­ty before that time; but of this I could not judge.

From this time a new spir­it of life ani­mat­ed the decay­ing frame of the stranger. He man­i­fest­ed the great­est eager­ness to be upon deck to watch for the sledge which had before appeared; but I have per­suad­ed him to remain in the cab­in, for he is far too weak to sus­tain the raw­ness of the atmos­phere. I have promised that some­one should watch for him and give him instant notice if any new object should appear in sight.

Such is my jour­nal of what relates to this strange occur­rence up to the present day. The stranger has grad­u­al­ly improved in health but is very silent and appears uneasy when any­one except myself enters his cab­in. Yet his man­ners are so con­cil­i­at­ing and gen­tle that the sailors are all inter­est­ed in him, although they have had very lit­tle com­mu­ni­ca­tion with him. For my own part, I begin to love him as a broth­er, and his con­stant and deep grief fills me with sym­pa­thy and com­pas­sion. He must have been a noble crea­ture in his bet­ter days, being even now in wreck so attrac­tive and ami­able.

I said in one of my let­ters, my dear Mar­garet, that I should find no friend on the wide ocean; yet I have found a man who, before his spir­it had been bro­ken by mis­ery, I should have been hap­py to have pos­sessed as the broth­er of my heart.

I shall con­tin­ue my jour­nal con­cern­ing the stranger at inter­vals, should I have any fresh inci­dents to record.

August 13th, 17—.

My affec­tion for my guest increas­es every day. He excites at once my admi­ra­tion and my pity to an aston­ish­ing degree. How can I see so noble a crea­ture destroyed by mis­ery with­out feel­ing the most poignant grief? He is so gen­tle, yet so wise; his mind is so cul­ti­vat­ed, and when he speaks, although his words are culled with the choic­est art, yet they flow with rapid­i­ty and unpar­al­leled elo­quence.

He is now much recov­ered from his ill­ness and is con­tin­u­al­ly on the deck, appar­ent­ly watch­ing for the sledge that pre­ced­ed his own. Yet, although unhap­py, he is not so utter­ly occu­pied by his own mis­ery but that he inter­ests him­self deeply in the projects of oth­ers. He has fre­quent­ly con­versed with me on mine, which I have com­mu­ni­cat­ed to him with­out dis­guise. He entered atten­tive­ly into all my argu­ments in favour of my even­tu­al suc­cess and into every minute detail of the mea­sures I had tak­en to secure it. I was eas­i­ly led by the sym­pa­thy which he evinced to use the lan­guage of my heart, to give utter­ance to the burn­ing ardour of my soul and to say, with all the fer­vour that warmed me, how glad­ly I would sac­ri­fice my for­tune, my exis­tence, my every hope, to the fur­ther­ance of my enter­prise. One man’s life or death were but a small price to pay for the acquire­ment of the knowl­edge which I sought, for the domin­ion I should acquire and trans­mit over the ele­men­tal foes of our race. As I spoke, a dark gloom spread over my listener’s coun­te­nance. At first I per­ceived that he tried to sup­press his emo­tion; he placed his hands before his eyes, and my voice quiv­ered and failed me as I beheld tears trick­le fast from between his fin­gers; a groan burst from his heav­ing breast. I paused; at length he spoke, in bro­ken accents: “Unhap­py man! Do you share my mad­ness? Have you drunk also of the intox­i­cat­ing draught? Hear me; let me reveal my tale, and you will dash the cup from your lips!”

Such words, you may imag­ine, strong­ly excit­ed my curios­i­ty; but the parox­ysm of grief that had seized the stranger over­came his weak­ened pow­ers, and many hours of repose and tran­quil con­ver­sa­tion were nec­es­sary to restore his com­po­sure.

Hav­ing con­quered the vio­lence of his feel­ings, he appeared to despise him­self for being the slave of pas­sion; and quelling the dark tyran­ny of despair, he led me again to con­verse con­cern­ing myself per­son­al­ly. He asked me the his­to­ry of my ear­li­er years. The tale was quick­ly told, but it awak­ened var­i­ous trains of reflec­tion. I spoke of my desire of find­ing a friend, of my thirst for a more inti­mate sym­pa­thy with a fel­low mind than had ever fall­en to my lot, and expressed my con­vic­tion that a man could boast of lit­tle hap­pi­ness who did not enjoy this blessing.

“I agree with you,” replied the stranger; “we are unfash­ioned crea­tures, but half made up, if one wis­er, bet­ter, dear­er than ourselves—such a friend ought to be—do not lend his aid to per­fec­tion­ate our weak and faulty natures. I once had a friend, the most noble of human crea­tures, and am enti­tled, there­fore, to judge respect­ing friend­ship. You have hope, and the world before you, and have no cause for despair. But I—I have lost every­thing and can­not begin life anew.”

As he said this his coun­te­nance became expres­sive of a calm, set­tled grief that touched me to the heart. But he was silent and present­ly retired to his cabin.

Even bro­ken in spir­it as he is, no one can feel more deeply than he does the beau­ties of nature. The star­ry sky, the sea, and every sight afford­ed by these won­der­ful regions seem still to have the pow­er of ele­vat­ing his soul from earth. Such a man has a dou­ble exis­tence: he may suf­fer mis­ery and be over­whelmed by dis­ap­point­ments, yet when he has retired into him­self, he will be like a celes­tial spir­it that has a halo around him, with­in whose cir­cle no grief or fol­ly ventures.

Will you smile at the enthu­si­asm I express con­cern­ing this divine wan­der­er? You would not if you saw him. You have been tutored and refined by books and retire­ment from the world, and you are there­fore some­what fas­tid­i­ous; but this only ren­ders you the more fit to appre­ci­ate the extra­or­di­nary mer­its of this won­der­ful man. Some­times I have endeav­oured to dis­cov­er what qual­i­ty it is which he pos­sess­es that ele­vates him so immea­sur­ably above any oth­er per­son I ever knew. I believe it to be an intu­itive dis­cern­ment, a quick but nev­er-fail­ing pow­er of judg­ment, a pen­e­tra­tion into the caus­es of things, unequalled for clear­ness and pre­ci­sion; add to this a facil­i­ty of expres­sion and a voice whose var­ied into­na­tions are soul-sub­du­ing music.

August 19th, 17—.

Yes­ter­day the stranger said to me, “You may eas­i­ly per­ceive, Cap­tain Wal­ton, that I have suf­fered great and unpar­al­leled mis­for­tunes. I had deter­mined at one time that the mem­o­ry of these evils should die with me, but you have won me to alter my deter­mi­na­tion. You seek for knowl­edge and wis­dom, as I once did; and I ardent­ly hope that the grat­i­fi­ca­tion of your wish­es may not be a ser­pent to sting you, as mine has been. I do not know that the rela­tion of my dis­as­ters will be use­ful to you; yet, when I reflect that you are pur­su­ing the same course, expos­ing your­self to the same dan­gers which have ren­dered me what I am, I imag­ine that you may deduce an apt moral from my tale, one that may direct you if you suc­ceed in your under­tak­ing and con­sole you in case of fail­ure. Pre­pare to hear of occur­rences which are usu­al­ly deemed mar­vel­lous. Were we among the tamer scenes of nature I might fear to encounter your unbe­lief, per­haps your ridicule; but many things will appear pos­si­ble in these wild and mys­te­ri­ous regions which would pro­voke the laugh­ter of those unac­quaint­ed with the ever-var­ied pow­ers of nature; nor can I doubt but that my tale con­veys in its series inter­nal evi­dence of the truth of the events of which it is composed.”

You may eas­i­ly imag­ine that I was much grat­i­fied by the offered com­mu­ni­ca­tion, yet I could not endure that he should renew his grief by a recital of his mis­for­tunes. I felt the great­est eager­ness to hear the promised nar­ra­tive, part­ly from curios­i­ty and part­ly from a strong desire to ame­lio­rate his fate if it were in my pow­er. I expressed these feel­ings in my answer.

“I thank you,” he replied, “for your sym­pa­thy, but it is use­less; my fate is near­ly ful­filled. I wait but for one event, and then I shall repose in peace. I under­stand your feel­ing,” con­tin­ued he, per­ceiv­ing that I wished to inter­rupt him; “but you are mis­tak­en, my friend, if thus you will allow me to name you; noth­ing can alter my des­tiny; lis­ten to my his­to­ry, and you will per­ceive how irrev­o­ca­bly it is determined.”

He then told me that he would com­mence his nar­ra­tive the next day when I should be at leisure. This promise drew from me the warmest thanks. I have resolved every night, when I am not imper­a­tive­ly occu­pied by my duties, to record, as near­ly as pos­si­ble in his own words, what he has relat­ed dur­ing the day. If I should be engaged, I will at least make notes. This man­u­script will doubt­less afford you the great­est plea­sure; but to me, who know him, and who hear it from his own lips—with what inter­est and sym­pa­thy shall I read it in some future day! Even now, as I com­mence my task, his full-toned voice swells in my ears; his lus­trous eyes dwell on me with all their melan­choly sweet­ness; I see his thin hand raised in ani­ma­tion, while the lin­ea­ments of his face are irra­di­at­ed by the soul with­in. Strange and har­row­ing must be his sto­ry, fright­ful the storm which embraced the gal­lant ves­sel on its course and wrecked it—thus!