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**The Project Gutenberg Etext of Frankenstein by Mary Shelley**
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Title        Author                      [filename.ext] ##

Frankenstein/Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley [frank10x.xxx] 84
Frankenstein/Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley [frank10a.xxx] 84a

[Two separate editions were prepared from the same sources]


Frankenstein, or the Modern Prometheus
by Mary Wollstonecraft (Godwin) Shelley

[Chapters 1-6:  mostly scanned by David Meltzer,
Meltzer@cat.syr.edu,  proofread, partially typed and submitted by
Christy Phillips,  Caphilli@hawk.syr.edu, submitted on 9/24/93.
Proofread by Lynn Hanninen, submitted 10/93.

Frankenstein, continued (Chapters 20-24)
Scanned by Judy Boss (boss@cwis.unomaha.edu)
Proofread by Christy Phillips (caphilli@hawk.syr.edu)
Reproofed by Lynn Hanninen (leh1@lehigh.edu)
Margination and last proofing by THE GAR


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Frankenstein, or, the Modern Prometheus
by Mary Wollestonecraft (Godwin) Shelley



Letter 1


To Mrs. Saville, England

                                 St. Petersburgh, Dec. 11th, 17--

You will rejoice to hear that no disaster has accompanied the commencement
of an enterprise which you have regarded with such evil forebodings.
I arrived here yesterday, and my first task is to assure my dear sister
of my welfare and increasing confidence in the success of my undertaking.

I am already far north of London, and as I walk in the streets
of Petersburgh, I feel a cold northern breeze play upon my cheeks,
which braces my nerves and fills me with delight.  Do you understand
this feeling?  This breeze, which has travelled from the regions
towards which I am advancing, gives me a foretaste of those icy climes.
Inspirited by this wind of promise, my daydreams become more fervent
and vivid.  I try in vain to be persuaded that the pole
is the seat of frost and desolation; it ever presents itself
to my imagination as the region of beauty and delight.  There,
Margaret,
the sun is forever visible, its broad disk just skirting the horizon
and diffusing a perpetual splendour.  There--for with your leave,
my sister, I will put some trust in preceding navigators--
there snow and frost are banished; and, sailing over a calm sea,
we may be wafted to a land surpassing in wonders and in beauty
every region hitherto discovered on the habitable globe.
Its productions and features may be without example, as the phenomena
of the heavenly bodies undoubtedly are in those undiscovered solitudes.
What may not be expected in a country of eternal light?
I may there discover the wondrous power which attracts the needle
and may regulate a thousand celestial observations that require
only this voyage to render their seeming eccentricities consistent forever.
I shall satiate my ardent curiosity with the sight of a part of the world
never before visited, and may tread a land never before imprinted
by the foot of man.  These are my enticements, and they are sufficient
to conquer all fear of danger or death and to induce me to commence
this labourious voyage with the joy a child feels when he embarks
in a little boat, with his holiday mates, on an expedition of discovery
up his native river.  But supposing all these conjectures to be false,
you cannot contest the inestimable benefit which I shall confer
on all mankind, to the last generation, by discovering a passage
near the pole to those countries, to reach which at present so many months
are requisite; or by ascertaining the secret of the magnet, which,
if at all possible, can only be effected by an undertaking such as mine.

These reflections have dispelled the agitation with which I began my letter,
and I feel my heart glow with an enthusiasm which elevates me to heaven,
for nothing contributes so much to tranquillize the mind
as a steady purpose--a point on which the soul may fix
its intellectual eye.  This expedition has been the favourite dream
of my early years.  I have read with ardour the accounts
of the various voyages which have been made in the prospect
of arriving at the North Pacific Ocean through the seas
which surround the pole.  You may remember that a history
of all the voyages made for purposes of discovery composed the whole
of our good Uncle Thomas' library.  My education was neglected,
yet I was passionately fond of reading.  These volumes were my study
day and night, and my familiarity with them increased that regret
which I had felt, as a child, on learning that my father's dying injunction
had forbidden my uncle to allow me to embark in a seafaring life.

These visions faded when I perused, for the first time, those poets
whose effusions entranced my soul and lifted it to heaven.  I also became
a poet and for one year lived in a paradise of my own creation;
I imagined that I also might obtain a niche in the temple
where the names of Homer and Shakespeare are consecrated.
You are well acquainted with my failure and how heavily
I bore the disappointment.  But just at that time I inherited
the fortune of my cousin, and my thoughts were turned
into the channel of their earlier bent.

Six years have passed since I resolved on my present undertaking.
I can, even now, remember the hour from which I dedicated myself
to this great enterprise.  I commenced by inuring my body to hardship.
I accompanied the whale-fishers on several expeditions to the North Sea;
I voluntarily endured cold, famine, thirst, and want of sleep;
I often worked harder than the common sailors during the day
and devoted my nights to the study of mathematics, the theory of medicine,
and those branches of physical science from which a naval adventurer
might derive the greatest practical advantage.  Twice I actually hired myself
as an under-mate in a Greenland whaler, and acquitted myself to admiration.
I must own I felt a little proud when my captain offered me
the second dignity in the vessel and entreated me to remain
with the greatest earnestness, so valuable did he consider my services.

And now, dear Margaret, do I not deserve to accomplish
some great purpose?  My life might have been passed in ease and luxury,
but I preferred glory to every enticement that wealth placed in my path.
Oh, that some encouraging voice would answer in the affirmative!
My courage and my resolution is firm; but my hopes fluctuate,
and my spirits are often depressed.  I am about to proceed
on a long and difficult voyage, the emergencies of which
will demand all my fortitude:  I am required not only
to raise the spirits of others, but sometimes to sustain my own,
when theirs are failing.

This is the most favourable period for travelling in Russia.
They fly quickly over the snow in their sledges; the motion is pleasant,
and, in my opinion, far more agreeable than that of an English stagecoach.
The cold is not excessive, if you are wrapped in furs--
a dress which I have already adopted, for there is a great difference
between walking the deck and remaining seated motionless for hours,
when no exercise prevents the blood from actually freezing in your veins.
I have no ambition to lose my life on the post-road between
St. Petersburgh and Archangel.

I shall depart for the latter town in a fortnight or three weeks;
and my intention is to hire a ship there, which can easily be done
by paying the insurance for the owner, and to engage as many sailors
as I think necessary among those who are accustomed to the whale-fishing.
I do not intend to sail until the month of June; and when shall I return?
Ah, dear sister, how can I answer this question?  If I succeed,
many, many months, perhaps years, will pass before you and I may meet.
If I fail, you will see me again soon, or never.

Farewell, my dear, excellent Margaret.  Heaven shower down blessings on you,
and save me, that I may again and again testify my gratitude
for all your love and kindness.

                                       Your affectionate brother,
                                       R. Walton



Letter 2


To Mrs. Saville, England

                                      Archangel, 28th March, 17--

How slowly the time passes here, encompassed as I am by frost and snow!
Yet a second step is taken towards my enterprise.  I have hired a vessel
and am occupied in collecting my sailors; those whom I have already engaged
appear to be men on whom I can depend and are certainly possessed
of dauntless courage.

But I have one want which I have never yet been able to satisfy,
and the absence of the object of which I now feel as a most severe evil.
I have no friend, Margaret:  when I am glowing with the enthusiasm
of success, there will be none to participate my joy; if I am assailed
by disappointment, no one will endeavour to sustain me in dejection.
I shall commit my thoughts to paper, it is true; but that is a poor medium
for the communication of feeling.  I desire the company of a man
who could sympathize with me, whose eyes would reply to mine.
You may deem me romantic, my dear sister, but I bitterly feel
the want of a friend.  I have no one near me, gentle yet courageous,
possessed of a cultivated as well as of a capacious mind,
whose tastes are like my own, to approve or amend my plans.
How would such a friend repair the faults of your poor brother!
I am too ardent in execution and too impatient of difficulties.
But it is a still greater evil to me that I am self-educated:
for the first fourteen years of my life I ran wild on a common
and read nothing but our Uncle Thomas' books of voyages.
At that age I became acquainted with the celebrated poets
of our own country; but it was only when it had ceased to be in my power
to derive its most important benefits from such a conviction
that I perceived the necessity of becoming acquainted with more languages
than that of my native country.  Now I am twenty-eight and am in reality
more illiterate than many schoolboys of fifteen.  It is true
that I have thought more and that my daydreams are more extended
and magnificent, but they want (as the painters call it) *keeping*;
and I greatly need a friend who would have sense enough not to despise me
as romantic, and affection enough for me to endeavour to regulate my mind.

Well, these are useless complaints; I shall certainly find no friend
on the wide ocean, nor even here in Archangel, among merchants and seamen.
Yet some feelings, unallied to the dross of human nature, beat even
in these rugged bosoms.  My lieutenant, for instance, is a man of wonderful
courage and enterprise; he is madly desirous of glory, or rather,
to word my phrase more characteristically, of advancement in his profession.
He is an Englishman, and in the midst of national and professional
prejudices, unsoftened by cultivation, retains some of the noblest
endowments of humanity.  I first became acquainted with him
on board a whale vessel; finding that he was unemployed in this city,
I easily engaged him to assist in my enterprise.

The master is a person of an excellent disposition and is remarkable
in the ship for his gentleness and the mildness of his discipline.
This circumstance, added to his well-known integrity and dauntless courage,
made me very desirous to engage him.  A youth passed in solitude,
my best years spent under your gentle and feminine fosterage,
has so refined the groundwork of my character that I cannot overcome
an intense distaste to the usual brutality exercised on board ship:
I have never believed it to be necessary, and when I heard of a mariner
equally noted for his kindliness of heart and the respect and obedience
paid to him by his crew, I felt myself peculiarly fortunate
in being able to secure his services.  I heard of him first
in rather a romantic manner, from a lady who owes to him the happiness
of her life.  This, briefly, is his story.  Some years ago
he loved a young Russian lady of moderate fortune, and having amassed
a considerable sum in prize-money, the father of the girl consented
to the match.  He saw his mistress once before the destined ceremony;
but she was bathed in tears, and throwing herself at his feet,
entreated him to spare her, confessing at the same time
that she loved another, but that he was poor, and that her father
would never consent to the union.  My generous friend
reassured the suppliant, and on being informed of the name of her lover,
instantly abandoned his pursuit.  He had already bought a farm
with his money, on which he had designed to pass the remainder of his life;
but he bestowed the whole on his rival, together with the remains
of his prize-money to purchase stock, and then himself solicited
the young woman's father to consent to her marriage with her lover.
But the old man decidedly refused, thinking himself bound in honour
to my friend, who, when he found the father inexorable,
quitted his country, nor returned until he heard that his former mistress
was married according to her inclinations.  "What a noble fellow!"
you will exclaim.  He is so; but then he is wholly uneducated:
he is as silent as a Turk, and a kind of ignorant carelessness attends him,
which, while it renders his conduct the more astonishing,
detracts from the interest and sympathy which otherwise he would command.

Yet do not suppose, because I complain a little or because I can conceive
a consolation for my toils which I may never know, that I am wavering
in my resolutions.  Those are as fixed as fate, and my voyage
is only now delayed until the weather shall permit my embarkation.
The winter has been dreadfully severe, but the spring promises well,
and it is considered as a remarkably early season, so that perhaps
I may sail sooner than I expected.  I shall do nothing rashly:
you know me sufficiently to confide in my prudence and considerateness
whenever the safety of others is committed to my care.

I cannot describe to you my sensations on the near prospect
of my undertaking.  It is impossible to communicate to you
a conception of the trembling sensation, half pleasurable and half fearful,
with which I am preparing to depart.  I am going to unexplored regions,
to "the land of mist and snow," but I shall kill no albatross;
therefore do not be alarmed for my safety or if I should come back to you
as worn and woeful as the "Ancient Mariner." You will smile at my allusion,
but I will disclose a secret.  I have often attributed my attachment to,
my passionate enthusiasm for, the dangerous mysteries of ocean
to that production of the most imaginative of modern poets.
There is something at work in my soul which I do not understand.
I am practically industrious--painstaking, a workman to execute
with perseverance and labour--but besides this there is a love
for the marvellous, a belief in the marvellous, intertwined
in all my projects, which hurries me out of the common pathways of men,
even to the wild sea and unvisited regions I am about to explore.

But to return to dearer considerations.  Shall I meet you again,
after having traversed immense seas, and returned by the most southern cape
of Africa or America?  I dare not expect such success, yet I cannot bear
to look on the reverse of the picture.  Continue for the present
to write to me by every opportunity:  I may receive your letters
on some occasions when I need them most to support my spirits.
I love you very tenderly.  Remember me with affection,
should you never hear from me again.

                                       Your affectionate brother,
                                       Robert Walton



Letter 3


To Mrs.  Saville, England

                                                   July 7th, 17--

My dear Sister,

I write a few lines in haste to say that I am safe--
and well advanced on my voyage.  This letter will reach England
by a merchantman now on its homeward voyage from Archangel;
more fortunate than I, who may not see my native land, perhaps,
for many years.  I am, however, in good spirits:  my men are bold
and apparently firm of purpose, nor do the floating sheets of ice
that continually pass us, indicating the dangers of the region
towards which we are advancing, appear to dismay them.
We have already reached a very high latitude; but it is
the height of summer, and although not so warm as in England,
the southern gales, which blow us speedily towards those shores
which I so ardently desire to attain, breathe a degree
of renovating warmth which I had not expected.

No incidents have hitherto befallen us that would make a figure
in a letter.  One or two stiff gales and the springing of a leak
are accidents which experienced navigators scarcely remember to record,
and I shall be well content if nothing worse happen to us during our voyage.

Adieu, my dear Margaret.  Be assured that for my own sake,
as well as yours, I will not rashly encounter danger.
I will be cool, persevering, and prudent.

But success *shall* crown my endeavours.  Wherefore not?
Thus far I have gone, tracing a secure way over the pathless seas,
the very stars themselves being witnesses and testimonies
of my triumph.  Why not still proceed over the untamed
yet obedient element?  What can stop the determined heart
and resolved will of man?

My swelling heart involuntarily pours itself out thus.
But I must finish.  Heaven bless my beloved sister!


                                                              R.W.



Letter 4


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 3lst) 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,
which seemed 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
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 demon, 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 of 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 l9, 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!



Chapter 1


I am by birth a Genevese, and my family is one of the most distinguished
of that republic.  My ancestors had been for many years counsellors
and syndics, and my father had filled several public situations
with honour and reputation.  He was respected by all who knew him
for his integrity and indefatigable attention to public business.
He passed his younger days perpetually occupied by the affairs
of his country; a variety of circumstances had prevented his marrying early,
nor was it until the decline of life that he became a husband
and the father of a family.

As the circumstances of his marriage illustrate his character,
I cannot refrain from relating them.  One of his most intimate friends
was a merchant who, from a flourishing state, fell,
through numerous mischances, into poverty.  This man,
whose name was Beaufort, was of a proud and unbending disposition
and could not bear to live in poverty and oblivion in the same country
where he had formerly been distinguished for his rank and magnificence.
Having paid his debts, therefore, in the most honourable manner,
he retreated with his daughter to the town of Lucerne,
where he lived unknown and in wretchedness.  My father loved Beaufort
with the truest friendship and was deeply grieved by his retreat
in these unfortunate circumstances.  He bitterly deplored
the false pride which led his friend to a conduct so little worthy
of the affection that united them.  He lost no time in endeavouring
to seek him out, with the hope of persuading him
to begin the world again through his credit and assistance.

Beaufort had taken effectual measures to conceal himself,
and it was ten months before my father discovered his abode.
Overjoyed at this discovery, he hastened to the house,
which was situated in a mean street near the Reuss.
But when he entered, misery and despair alone welcomed him.
Beaufort had saved but a very small sum of money from the wreck
of his fortunes, but it was sufficient to provide him with sustenance
for some months, and in the meantime he hoped to procure
some respectable employment in a merchant's house.  The interval was,
consequently, spent in inaction; his grief only became
more deep and rankling when he had leisure for reflection,
and at length it took so fast hold of his mind that
at the end of three months he lay on a bed of sickness,
incapable of any exertion.

His daughter attended him with the greatest tenderness,
but she saw with despair that their little fund was rapidly decreasing
and that there was no other prospect of support.  But Caroline Beaufort
possessed a mind of an uncommon mould, and her courage rose to support her
in her adversity.  She procured plain work; she plaited straw
and by various means contrived to earn a pittance
scarcely sufficient to support life.

Several months passed in this manner.  Her father grew worse;
her time was more entirely occupied in attending him;
her means of subsistence decreased; and in the tenth month
her father died in her arms, leaving her an orphan and a beggar.
This last blow overcame her, and she knelt by Beaufort's coffin
weeping bitterly, when my father entered the chamber.  He came
like a protecting spirit to the poor girl, who committed herself
to his care; and after the interment of his friend he conducted her
to Geneva and placed her under the protection of a relation.
Two years after this event Caroline became his wife.

There was a considerable difference between the ages of my parents,
but this circumstance seemed to unite them only closer
in bonds of devoted affection.  There was a sense of justice
in my father's upright mind which rendered it necessary
that he should approve highly to love strongly.
Perhaps during former years he had suffered from the late-discovered
unworthiness of one beloved and so was disposed to set a greater value
on tried worth.  There was a show of gratitude and worship
in his attachment to my mother, differing wholly from the doting fondness
of age, for it was inspired by reverence for her virtues
and a desire to be the means of, in some degree, recompensing her
for the sorrows she had endured, but which gave inexpressible grace
to his behaviour to her.  Everything was made to yield to her wishes
and her convenience.  He strove to shelter her, as a fair exotic
is sheltered by the gardener, from every rougher wind and to surround her
with all that could tend to excite pleasurable emotion
in her soft and benevolent mind.  Her health, and even the tranquillity
of her hitherto constant spirit, had been shaken by what she
had gone through.  During the two years that had elapsed previous
to their marriage my father had gradually relinquished
all his public functions; and immediately after their union
they sought the pleasant climate of Italy, and the change of scene
and interest attendant on a tour through that land of wonders,
as a restorative for her weakened frame.

From Italy they visited Germany and France.  I, their eldest child,
was born at Naples, and as an infant accompanied them in their rambles.
I remained for several years their only child.   Much as they were
attached to each other, they seemed to draw inexhaustible stores
of affection from a very mine of love to bestow them upon me.
My mother's tender caresses and my father's smile of benevolent pleasure
while regarding me are my first recollections.  I was their plaything
and their idol, and something better--their child, the innocent
and helpless creature bestowed on them by heaven, whom to bring up to good,
and whose future lot it was in their hands to direct to happiness
or misery, according as they fulfilled their duties towards me.
With this deep consciousness of what they owed towards the being
to which they had given life, added to the active spirit of tenderness
that animated both, it may be imagined that while during every hour
of my infant life I received a lesson of patience, of charity,
and of self-control, I was so guided by a silken cord that all seemed
but one train of enjoyment to me.

For a long time I was their only care.  My mother had much desired
to have a daughter, but I continued their single offspring.
When I was about five years old, while making an excursion
beyond the frontiers of Italy, they passed a week on the shores
of the Lake of Como.  Their benevolent disposition often made them enter
the cottages of the poor.  This, to my mother, was more than a duty;
it was a necessity, a passion--remembering what she had suffered,
and how she had been relieved--for her to act in her turn
the guardian angel to the afflicted.  During one of their walks
a poor cot in the foldings of a vale attracted their notice
as being singularly disconsolate, while the number of half-clothed children
gathered about it spoke of penury in its worst shape.  One day,
when my father had gone by himself to Milan, my mother, accompanied by me,
visited this abode.  She found a peasant and his wife, hard working,
bent down by care and labour, distributing a scanty meal
to five hungry babes.  Among these there was one which attracted
my mother far above all the rest.  She appeared of a different stock.
The four others were dark-eyed, hardy little vagrants;
this child was thin and very fair.  Her hair was the brightest
living gold, and despite the poverty of her clothing, seemed
to set a crown of distinction on her head.  Her brow was clear and ample,
her blue eyes cloudless, and her lips and the moulding of her face
so expressive of sensibility and sweetness that none could behold her
without looking on her as of a distinct species, a being heaven-sent,
and bearing a celestial stamp in all her features.

The peasant woman, perceiving that my mother fixed eyes of wonder
and admiration on this lovely girl, eagerly communicated her history.
She was not her child, but the daughter of a Milanese nobleman.
Her mother was a German and had died on giving her birth.
The infant had been placed with these good people to nurse:
they were better off then.  They had not been long married,
and their eldest child was but just born.  The father of their charge
was one of those Italians nursed in the memory of the antique glory
of Italy--one among the *schiavi ognor frementi*, who exerted himself
to obtain the liberty of his country.  He became the victim
of its weakness.  Whether he had died or still lingered
in the dungeons of Austria was not known.  His property was confiscated;
his child became an orphan and a beggar.  She continued
with her foster parents and bloomed in their rude abode,
fairer than a garden rose among dark-leaved brambles.

When my father returned from Milan, he found playing with me
in the hall of our villa a child fairer than pictured cherub--
a creature who seemed to shed radiance from her looks and whose form
and motions were lighter than the chamois of the hills.  The apparition
was soon explained.  With his permission my mother prevailed
on her rustic guardians to yield their charge to her.  They were fond
of the sweet orphan.  Her presence had seemed a blessing to them,
but it would be unfair to her to keep her in poverty and want
when Providence afforded her such powerful protection.
They consulted their village priest, and the result was
that Elizabeth Lavenza became the inmate of my parents' house--
my more than sister--the beautiful and adored companion
of all my occupations and my pleasures.

Everyone loved Elizabeth.  The passionate and almost reverential attachment
with which all regarded her became, while I shared it, my pride
and my delight.  On the evening previous to her being brought to my home,
my mother had said playfully, "I have a pretty present for my Victor--
tomorrow he shall have it." And when, on the morrow,
she presented Elizabeth to me as her promised gift, I,
with childish seriousness, interpreted her words literally
and looked upon Elizabeth as mine--mine to protect, love, and cherish.
All praises bestowed on her I received as made to a possession of my own.
We called each other familiarly by the name of cousin.  No word,
no expression could body forth the kind of relation in which she stood
to me--my more than sister, since till death she was to be mine only.



Chapter 2


We were brought up together; there was not quite a year
difference in our ages.  I need not say that we were strangers
to any species of disunion or dispute.  Harmony was the soul
of our companionship, and the diversity and contrast
that subsisted in our characters drew us nearer together.
Elizabeth was of a calmer and more concentrated disposition;
but, with all my ardour, I was capable of a more intense application
and was more deeply smitten with the thirst for knowledge.
She busied herself with following the aerial creations
of the poets; and in the majestic and wondrous scenes
which surrounded our Swiss home--the sublime shapes
of the mountains, the changes of the seasons, tempest and calm,
the silence of winter, and the life and turbulence
of our Alpine summers--she found ample scope for admiration
and delight.  While my companion contemplated with a serious
and satisfied spirit the magnificent appearances of things,
I delighted in investigating their causes.  The world was to me
a secret which I desired to divine.  Curiosity, earnest research
to learn the hidden laws of nature, gladness akin to rapture,
as they were unfolded to me, are among the earliest sensations
I can remember.

On the birth of a second son, my junior by seven years,
my parents gave up entirely their wandering life and fixed themselves
in their native country.  We possessed a house in Geneva, and a campagne
on Belrive, the eastern shore of the lake, at the distance
of rather more than a league from the city.  We resided principally
in the latter, and the lives of my parents were passed
in considerable seclusion.  It was my temper to avoid a crowd
and to attach myself fervently to a few.  I was indifferent, therefore,
to my school-fellows in general; but I united myself in the bonds
of the closest friendship to one among them.  Henry Clerval
was the son of a merchant of Geneva.  He was a boy
of singular talent and fancy.  He loved enterprise, hardship,
and even danger for its own sake.  He was deeply read
in books of chivalry and romance.  He composed heroic songs
and began to write many a tale of enchantment and knightly adventure.
He tried to make us act plays and to enter into masquerades,
in which the characters were drawn from the heroes of Roncesvalles,
of the Round Table of King Arthur, and the chivalrous train
who shed their blood to redeem the holy sepulchre
from the hands of the infidels.

No human being could have passed a happier childhood than myself.
My parents were possessed by the very spirit of kindness and indulgence.
We felt that they were not the tyrants to rule our lot
according to their caprice, but the agents and creators
of all the many delights which we enjoyed.  When I mingled
with other families I distinctly discerned how peculiarly fortunate
my lot was, and gratitude assisted the development of filial love.

My temper was sometimes violent, and my passions vehement;
but by some law in my temperature they were turned
not towards childish pursuits but to an eager desire to learn,
and not to learn all things indiscriminately.  I confess
that neither the structure of languages, nor the code of governments,
nor the politics of various states possessed attractions for me.
It was the secrets of heaven and earth that I desired to learn;
and whether it was the outward substance of things
or the inner spirit of nature and the mysterious soul of man
that occupied me, still my inquiries were directed to the metaphysical,
or in its highest sense, the physical secrets of the world.

Meanwhile Clerval occupied himself, so to speak,
with the moral relations of things.  The busy stage of life,
the virtues of heroes, and the actions of men were his theme;
and his hope and his dream was to become one among those
whose names are recorded in story as the gallant
and adventurous benefactors of our species.  The saintly soul
of Elizabeth shone like a shrine-dedicated lamp in our peaceful home.
Her sympathy was ours; her smile, her soft voice, the sweet glance
of her celestial eyes, were ever there to bless and animate us.
She was the living spirit of love to soften and attract;
I might have become sullen in my study, through the ardour of my nature,
but that she was there to subdue me to a semblance of her own gentleness.
And Clerval--could aught ill entrench on the noble spirit of Clerval?
Yet he might not have been so perfectly humane, so thoughtful
in his generosity,  so full of kindness and tenderness
amidst his passion for adventurous exploit, had she not unfolded
to him the real loveliness of beneficence and made the doing good
the end and aim of his soaring ambition.

I feel exquisite pleasure in dwelling on the recollections of childhood,
before misfortune had tainted my mind and changed its bright visions
of extensive usefulness into gloomy and narrow reflections upon self.
Besides, in drawing the picture of my early days, I also record
those events which led, by insensible steps, to my after tale of misery,
for when I would account to myself for the birth of that passion
which afterward ruled my destiny I find it arise, like a mountain river,
from ignoble and almost forgotten sources; but, swelling as it proceeded,
it became the torrent which, in its course, has swept away
all my hopes and joys.  Natural philosophy is the genius
that has regulated my fate; I desire, therefore, in this narration,
to state those facts which led to my predilection for that science.
When I was thirteen years of age we all went on a party of pleasure
to the baths near Thonon; the inclemency of the weather
obliged us to remain a day confined to the inn.  In this house
I chanced to find a volume of the works of Cornelius Agrippa.
I opened it with apathy; the theory which he attempts
to demonstrate and the wonderful facts which he relates
soon changed this feeling into enthusiasm.  A new light
seemed to dawn upon my mind, and bounding with joy,
I communicated my discovery to my father.  My father looked carelessly
at the title page of my book and said, "Ah! Cornelius Agrippa!
My dear Victor, do not waste your time upon this; it is sad trash."

If, instead of this remark, my father had taken the pains
to explain to me that the principles of Agrippa
had been entirely exploded and that a modern system of science
had been introduced which possessed much greater powers
than the ancient, because the powers of the latter were chimerical,
while those of the former were real and practical,
under such circumstances I should certainly have thrown Agrippa aside
and have contented my imagination, warmed as it was,
by returning with greater ardour to my former studies.
It is even possible that the train of my ideas
would never have received the fatal impulse that led to my ruin.
But the cursory glance my father had taken of my volume
by no means assured me that he was acquainted with its contents,
and I continued to read with the greatest avidity.
When I returned home my first care was to procure the whole works
of this author, and afterwards of Paracelsus and Albertus Magnus.
I read and studied the wild fancies of these writers with delight;
they appeared to me treasures known to few besides myself.
I have described myself as always having been imbued
with a fervent longing to penetrate the secrets of nature.
In spite of the intense labour and wonderful discoveries
of modern philosophers, I always came from my studies discontented
and unsatisfied.  Sir Isaac Newton is said to have avowed
that he felt like a child picking up shells beside the great
and unexplored ocean of truth.  Those of his successors
in each branch of natural philosophy with whom I was acquainted
appeared even to my boy's apprehensions as tyros engaged
in the same pursuit.

The untaught peasant beheld the elements around him and was acquainted
with their practical uses.  The most learned philosopher knew little more.
He had partially unveiled the face of Nature, but her immortal
lineaments were still a wonder and a mystery.  He might dissect,
anatomize, and give names; but, not to speak of a final cause,
causes in their secondary and tertiary grades were utterly unknown to him.
I had gazed upon the fortifications and impediments that seemed
to keep human beings from entering the citadel of nature,
and rashly and ignorantly I had repined.

But here were books, and here were men who had penetrated deeper
and knew more.  I took their word for all that they averred,
and I became their disciple.  It may appear strange that such
should arise in the eighteenth century; but while I followed the routine
of education in the schools of Geneva, I was, to a great degree,
self-taught with regard to my favourite studies.  My father
was not scientific, and I was left to struggle with a child's blindness,
added to a student's thirst for knowledge.  Under the guidance
of my new preceptors I entered with the greatest diligence
into the search of the philosopher's stone and the elixir of life;
but the latter soon obtained my undivided attention.
Wealth was an inferior object, but what glory would attend
the discovery if I could banish disease from the human frame
and render man invulnerable to any but a violent death!
Nor were these my only visions.  The raising of ghosts or devils
was a promise liberally accorded by my favourite authors,
the fulfillment of which I most eagerly sought; and if my incantations
were always unsuccessful, I attributed the failure rather to my own
inexperience and mistake than to a want of skill or fidelity
in my instructors.  And thus for a time I was occupied by exploded systems,
mingling, like an unadept, a thousand contradictory theories
and floundering desperately in a very slough of multifarious knowledge,
guided by an ardent imagination and childish reasoning, till an accident
again changed the current of my ideas.  When I was
about fifteen years old we had retired to our house near Bekive,
when we witnessed a most violent and terrible thunderstorm.
It advanced from behind the mountains of Jura, and the thunder burst
at once with frightful loudness from various quarters of the heavens.
I remained, while the storm lasted, watching its progress
with curiosity and delight.  As I stood at the door, on a sudden
I beheld a stream of fire issue from an old and beautiful oak
which stood about twenty yards from our house; and so soon
as the dazzling light vanished, the oak had disappeared,
and nothing remained but a blasted stump.  When we visited it
the next morning, we found the tree shattered in a singular manner.
It was not splintered by the shock, but entirely reduced
to thin ribbons of wood.  I never beheld anything
so utterly destroyed.

Before this I was not unacquainted with the more obvious
laws of electricity.  On this occasion a man of great research
in natural philosophy was with us, and excited by this catastrophe,
he entered on the explanation of a theory which he had formed
on the subject of electricity and galvanism, which was at once new
and astonishing to me.  All that he said threw greatly
into the shade Cornelius Agrippa, Albertus Magnus, and Paracelsus,
the lords of my imagination; but by some fatality the overthrow
of these men disinclined me to pursue my accustomed studies.
It seemed to me as if nothing would or could ever be known.
All that had so long engaged my attention suddenly grew despicable.
By one of those caprices of the mind which we are perhaps
most subject to in early youth, I at once gave up
my former occupations, set down natural history and all its progeny
as a deformed and abortive creation, and entertained
the greatest disdain for a would-be science which
could never even step within the threshold of real knowledge.
In this mood of mind I betook myself to the mathematics
and the branches of study appertaining to that science
as being built upon secure foundations, and so worthy
of my consideration.

Thus strangely are our souls constructed, and by such slight ligaments
are we bound to prosperity or ruin.  When I look back,
it seems to me as if this almost miraculous change of inclination
and will was the immediate suggestion of the guardian angel
of my life--the last effort made by the spirit of preservation
to avert the storm that was even then hanging in the stars
and ready to envelop me.  Her victory was announced
by an unusual tranquillity and gladness of soul which followed
the relinquishing of my ancient and latterly tormenting studies.
It was thus that I was to be taught to associate evil with their prosecution,
happiness with their disregard.

It was a strong effort of the spirit of good, but it was ineffectual.
Destiny was too potent, and her immutable laws had decreed
my utter and terrible destruction.



Chapter 3


When I had attained the age of seventeen my parents resolved
that I should become a student at the university of Ingolstadt.
I had hitherto attended the schools of Geneva, but my father
thought it necessary for the completion of my education
that I should be made acquainted with other customs
than those of my native country.  My departure was therefore fixed
at an early date, but before the day resolved upon could arrive,
the first misfortune of my life occurred--an omen, as it were,
of my future misery.  Elizabeth had caught the scarlet fever;
her illness was severe, and she was in the greatest danger.
During her illness many arguments had been urged
to persuade my mother to refrain from attending upon her.
She had at first yielded to our entreaties, but when she heard
that the life of her favourite was menaced, she could no longer
control her anxiety.  She attended her sickbed; her watchful attentions
triumphed over the malignity of the distemper--Elizabeth was saved,
but the consequences of this imprudence were fatal to her preserver.
On the third day my mother sickened; her fever was accompanied
by the most alarming symptoms, and the looks of her medical attendants
prognosticated the worst event.  On her deathbed the fortitude
and benignity of this best of women did not desert her.
She joined the hands of Elizabeth and myself.  "My children,"
she said, "my firmest hopes of future happiness were placed
on the prospect of your union.  This expectation
will now be the consolation of your father.  Elizabeth, my love,
you must supply my place to my younger children.  Alas!
I regret that I am taken from you; and, happy and beloved
as I have been, is it not hard to quit you all?
But these are not thoughts befitting me; I will endeavour
to resign myself cheerfully to death and will indulge a hope
of meeting you in another world."

She died calmly, and her countenance expressed affection
even in death.  I need not describe the feelings of those
whose dearest ties are rent by that most irreparable evil,
the void that presents itself to the soul, and the despair
that is exhibited on the countenance.  It is so long
before the mind can persuade itself that she whom we saw every day
and whose very existence appeared a part of our own can have departed
forever--that the brightness of a beloved eye can have been extinguished
and the sound of a voice so familiar and dear to the ear can be hushed,
never more to be heard.  These are the reflections of the first days;
but when the lapse of time proves the reality of the evil,
then the actual bitterness of grief commences.  Yet from whom
has not that rude hand rent away some dear connection?
And why should I describe a sorrow which all have felt,
and must feel?  The time at length arrives when grief
is rather an indulgence than a necessity; and the smile
that plays upon the lips, although it may be deemed a sacrilege,
is not banished.  My mother was dead, but we had still duties
which we ought to perform; we must continue our course with the rest
and learn to  think ourselves fortunate whilst one remains
whom the spoiler has not seized.  My departure for Ingolstadt,
which had been deferred by these events, was now again determined upon.
I obtained from my father a respite of some weeks.  It appeared to me
sacrilege so soon to leave the repose, akin to death,
of the house of mourning and to rush into the thick of life.
I was new to sorrow, but it did not the less alarm me.
I was unwilling to quit the sight of those that remained to me,
and above all, I desired to see my sweet Elizabeth
in some degree consoled.

She indeed veiled her grief and strove to act the comforter
to us all.  She looked steadily on life and assumed its duties
with courage and zeal.  She devoted herself to those
whom she had been taught to call her uncle and cousins.
Never was she so enchanting as at this time, when she recalled
the sunshine of her smiles and spent them upon us.
She forgot even her own regret in her endeavours to make us forget.

The day of my departure at length arrived.   Clerval spent the last evening
with us.  He had endeavoured to persuade his father to permit him
to accompany me and to become my fellow student, but in vain.  His father
was a narrow-minded trader and saw idleness and ruin
in the aspirations and ambition of his son.  Henry deeply felt
the misfortune of being debarred from a liberal education.
He said little, but when he spoke I read in his kindling eye
and in his animated glance a restrained but firm resolve
not to be chained to the miserable details of commerce.

We sat late.  We could not tear ourselves away from each other
nor persuade ourselves to say the word "Farewell!" It was said,
and we retired under the pretence of seeking repose,
each fancying that the other was deceived; but when at morning's dawn
I descended to the carriage which was to convey me away,
they were all there--my father again to bless me, Clerval
to press my hand once more, my Elizabeth to renew her entreaties
that I would write often and to bestow the last feminine attentions
on her playmate and friend.

I threw myself into the chaise that was to convey me away
and indulged in the most melancholy reflections.  I, who had ever been
surrounded by amiable companions, continually engaged in endeavouring
to bestow mutual pleasure--I was now alone.  In the university
whither I was going I must form my own friends and be my own protector.
My life had hitherto been remarkably secluded and domestic,
and this had given me invincible repugnance to new countenances.
I loved my brothers, Elizabeth, and Clenal; these were
"old familiar faces," but I believed myself totally unfitted
for the company of strangers.  Such were my reflections
as I commenced my journey; but as I proceeded,
my spirits and hopes rose.  I ardently desired the acquisition
of knowledge.  I had often, when at home, thought it hard
to remain during my youth cooped up in one place and had longed
to enter the world and take my station among other human beings.
Now my desires were complied with, and it would, indeed,
have been folly to repent.

I had sufficient leisure for these and many other reflections
during my journey to Ingolstadt, which was long and fatiguing.
At length the high white steeple of the town met my eyes.
I alighted and was conducted to my solitary apartment
to spend the evening as I pleased.

The next morning I delivered my letters of introduction
and paid a visit to some of the principal professors.
Chance--or rather the evil influence, the Angel of Destruction,
which asserted omnipotent sway over me from the moment I turned
my reluctant steps from my father's door--led me first to
M. Krempe, professor of natural philosophy.  He was an uncouth man,
but deeply imbued in the secrets of his science.  He asked me
several questions concerning my progress in the different
branches of science appertaining to natural philosophy.  I replied
carelessly, and partly in contempt, mentioned the names
of my alchemists as the principal authors I had studied.
The professor stared.  "Have you," he said, "really spent your time
in studying such nonsense?"

I replied in the affirmative.  "Every minute," continued M. Krempe
with warmth, "every instant that you have wasted on those books
is utterly and entirely lost.  You have burdened your memory
with exploded systems and useless names.  Good God!
In what desert land have you lived, where no one was kind enough
to inform you that these fancies which you have so greedily imbibed
are a thousand years old and as musty as they are ancient?
I little expected, in this enlightened and scientific age,
to find a disciple of Albertus Magnus and Paracelsus.  My dear sir,
you must begin your studies entirely anew."

So saying, he stepped aside and wrote down a list of several books
treating of natural philosophy which he desired me to procure,
and dismissed me after mentioning that in the beginning
of the following week he intended to commence a course of lectures
upon natural philosophy in its general relations, and that M. Waldman,
a fellow professor, would lecture upon chemistry the alternate days
that he omitted.

I returned home not disappointed, for I have said that I had long considered
those authors useless whom the professor reprobated; but I returned
not at all the more inclined to recur to these studies in any shape.
M. Krempe was a little squat man with a gruff voice and a repulsive
countenance; the teacher, therefore, did not prepossess me in favour
of his pursuits.  In rather a too philosophical and connected a strain,
perhaps, I have given an account of the conclusions I had come to
concerning them in my early years.  As a child I had not been content
with the results promised by the modern professors of natural science.
With a confusion of ideas only to be accounted for by my extreme youth
and my want of a guide on such matters, I had retrod the steps of knowledge
along the paths of time and exchanged the discoveries of recent inquirers
for the dreams of forgotten alchemists.  Besides, I had a contempt
for the uses of modern natural philosophy.  It was very different
when the masters of the science sought immortality and power;
such views, although futile, were grand; but now the scene was changed.
The ambition of the inquirer seemed to limit itself to the annihilation
of those visions on which my interest in science was chiefly founded.
I was required to exchange chimeras of boundless grandeur for realities
of little worth.

Such were my reflections during the first two or three days
of my residence at Ingolstadt, which were chiefly spent
in becoming acquainted with the localities and the principal residents
in my new abode.  But as the ensuing week commenced, I thought
of the information which M. Krempe had given me concerning the lectures.
And although I could not consent to go and hear that little conceited fellow
deliver sentences out of a pulpit, I recollected what he had said
of M. Waldman, whom I had never seen, as he had hitherto been out of town.

Partly from curiosity and partly from idleness, I went
into the lecturing room, which M. Waldman entered shortly after.
This professor was very unlike his colleague.  He appeared
about fifty years of age, but with an aspect expressive
of the greatest benevolence; a few grey hairs covered his temples,
but those at the back of his head were nearly black.  His person
was short but remarkably erect and his voice the sweetest
I had ever heard.  He began his lecture by a recapitulation
of the history of chemistry and the various improvements
made by different men of learning, pronouncing with fervour
the names of the most distinguished discoverers.  He then
took a cursory view of the present state of the science
and explained many of its elementary terms.  After having made
a few preparatory experiments, he concluded with a panegyric
upon modern chemistry, the terms of which I shall never forget:
"The ancient teachers of this science," said he, "promised impossibilities
and performed nothing.  The modern masters promise very little;
they know that metals cannot be transmuted and that the elixir of life
is a chimera but these philosophers, whose hands seem only made to dabble
in dirt, and their eyes to pore over the microscope or crucible,
have indeed performed miracles.  They penetrate into the recesses
of nature and show how she works in her hiding-places.
They ascend into the heavens; they have discovered
how the blood circulates, and the nature of the air we breathe.
They have acquired new and almost unlimited powers; they can command
the thunders of heaven, mimic the earthquake, and even mock
the invisible world with its own shadows."

Such were the professor's words--rather let me say such the words
of the fate--enounced to destroy me.  As he went on I felt
as if my soul were grappling with a palpable enemy; one by one
the various keys were touched which formed the mechanism of my being;
chord after chord was sounded, and soon my mind was filled
with one thought, one conception, one purpose.  So much has been done,
exclaimed the soul of Frankenstein--more, far more, will I achieve;
treading in the steps already marked, I will pioneer a new way,
explore unknown powers, and unfold to the world the deepest mysteries
of creation.

I closed not my eyes that night.  My internal being was
in a state of insurrection and turmoil; I felt that order
would thence arise, but I had no power to produce it.  By degrees,
after the morning's dawn, sleep came.  I awoke, and my yesternight's
thoughts were as a dream.  There only remained a resolution to return
to my ancient studies and to devote myself to a science for which
I believed myself to possess a natural talent.  On the same day
I paid M. Waldman a visit.  His manners in private
were even more mild and attractive than in public,
for there was a certain dignity in his mien during his lecture
which in his own house was replaced by the greatest affability
and kindness.  I gave him pretty nearly the same account
of my former pursuits as I had given to his fellow professor.
He heard with attention the little narration concerning my studies
and smiled at the names of Cornelius Agrippa and Paracelsus,
but without the contempt that M. Krempe had exhibited.
He said that "These were men to whose indefatigable zeal
modern philosophers were indebted for most of the foundations
of their knowledge.  They had left to us, as an easier task,
to give new names and arrange in connected classifications
the facts which they in a great degree had been the instruments
of bringing to light.  The labours of men of genius,
however erroneously directed, scarcely ever fail in ultimately turning
to the solid advantage of mankind."  I listened to his statement,
which was delivered without any presumption or affectation,
and then added that his lecture had removed my prejudices
against modern chemists; I expressed myself in measured terms,
with the modesty and deference due from a youth to his instructor,
without letting escape (inexperience in life would have made me ashamed)
any of the enthusiasm which stimulated my intended labours.
I requested his advice concerning the books I ought to procure.

"I am happy," said M. Waldman, "to have gained a disciple;
and if your application equals your ability, I have no doubt
of your success.  Chemistry is that branch of natural philosophy
in which the greatest improvements have been and may be made;
it is on that account that I have made it my peculiar study;
but at the same time, I have not neglected the other
branches of science.  A man would make but a very sorry chemist
if he attended to that department of human knowledge alone.
If your wish is to become really a man of science and not merely
a petty experimentalist, I should advise you to apply to every branch
of natural philosophy, including mathematics."  He then took me
into his laboratory and explained to me the uses of his various machines,
instructing me as to what I ought to procure and promising me the use
of his own when I should have advanced far enough in the science
not to derange their mechanism.  He also gave me the list of books
which I had requested, and I took my leave.

Thus ended a day memorable to me; it decided my future destiny.



Chapter 4


From this day natural philosophy, and particularly chemistry,
in the most comprehensive sense of the term, became nearly
my sole occupation.  I read with ardour those works,
so full of genius and discrimination, which modern inquirers
have written on these subjects.  I attended the lectures
and cultivated the acquaintance of the men of science
of the university, and I found even in M. Krempe a great deal
of sound sense and real information, combined, it is true,
with a repulsive physiognomy and manners, but not on that account
the less valuable.  In M. Waldman I found a true friend.
His gentleness was never tinged by dogmatism, and his instructions
were given with an air of frankness and good nature that banished
every idea of pedantry.  In a thousand ways he smoothed for me
the path of knowledge and made the most abstruse inquiries
clear and facile to my apprehension.  My application was at first
fluctuating and uncertain; it gained strength as I proceeded
and soon became so ardent and eager that the stars often disappeared
in the light of morning whilst I was yet engaged in my laboratory.

As I applied so closely, it may be easily conceived that
my progress was rapid.  My ardour was indeed the astonishment
of the students, and my proficiency that of the masters.
Professor Krempe often asked me, with a sly smile, how Cornelius Agrippa
went on, whilst M. Waldman expressed the most heartfelt exultation
in my progress.  Two years passed in this manner, during which
I paid no visit to Geneva, but was engaged, heart and soul,
in the pursuit of some discoveries which I hoped to make.
None but those who have experienced them can conceive
of the enticements of science.  In other studies you go as far as others
have gone before you, and there is nothing more to know;
but in a scientific pursuit there is continual food for discovery
and wonder.  A mind of moderate capacity which closely pursues one study
must infallibly arrive at great proficiency in that study;
and I, who continually sought the attainment of one object
of pursuit and was solely wrapped up in this, improved so rapidly
that at the end of two years I made some discoveries
in the improvement of some chemical instruments, which procured me
great esteem and admiration at the university.  When I had arrived
at this point and had become as well acquainted with the theory
and practice of natural philosophy as depended on the lessons
of any of the professors at Ingolstadt, my residence there
being no longer conducive to my improvements, I thought of returning
to my friends and my native town, when an incident happened
that protracted my stay.

One of the phenomena which had peculiarly attracted my attention
was the structure of the human frame, and, indeed, any animal
endued with life.  Whence, I often asked myself, did the principle
of life proceed?  It was a bold question, and one which has ever been
considered as a mystery; yet with how many things are we upon the brink
of becoming acquainted, if cowardice or carelessness did not restrain
our inquiries.  I revolved these circumstances in my mind and determined
thenceforth to apply myself more particularly to those branches
of natural philosophy which relate to physiology.  Unless I had been animated
by an almost supernatural enthusiasm, my application to this study
would have been irksome and almost intolerable.  To examine
the causes of life, we must first have recourse to death.
I became acquainted with the science of anatomy, but this was not sufficient;
I must also observe the natural decay and corruption of the human body.
In my education my father had taken the greatest precautions that my mind
should be impressed with no supernatural horrors.  I do not ever remember
to have trembled at a tale of superstition or to have feared the apparition
of a spirit.  Darkness had no effect upon my fancy, and a churchyard
was to me merely the receptacle of bodies deprived of life, which,
from being the seat of beauty and strength, had become food for the worm.
Now I was led to examine the cause and progress of this decay
and forced to spend days and nights in vaults and charnel-houses.
My attention was fixed upon every object the most insupportable
to the delicacy of the human feelings.  I saw how the fine form of man
was degraded and wasted; I beheld the corruption of death succeed
to the blooming cheek of life; I saw how the worm inherited the wonders
of the eye and brain.  I paused, examining and analysing all the minutiae
of causation, as exemplified in the change from life to death,
and death to life, until from the midst of this darkness a sudden light
broke in upon me--a light so brilliant and wondrous, yet so simple,
that while I became dizzy with the immensity of the prospect
which it illustrated, I was surprised that among so many men of genius
who had directed their inquiries towards the same science,
that I alone should be reserved to discover so astonishing a secret.

Remember, I am not recording the vision of a madman.  The sun does not
more certainly shine in the heavens than that which I now affirm is true.
Some miracle might have produced it, yet the stages of the discovery
were distinct and probable.  After days and nights of incredible labour
and fatigue, I succeeded in discovering the cause of generation and life;
nay, more, I became myself capable of bestowing animation
upon lifeless matter.

The astonishment which I had at first experienced on this discovery
soon gave place to delight and rapture.  After so much time
spent in painful labour, to arrive at once at the summit
of my desires was the most gratifying consummation of my toils.
But this discovery was so great and overwhelming that all the steps
by which I had been progressively led to it were obliterated,
and I beheld only the result.  What had been the study
and desire of the wisest men since the creation of the world
was now within my grasp.  Not that, like a magic scene,
it all opened upon me at once:  the information I had obtained
was of a nature rather to direct my endeavours so soon as I should point them
towards the object of my search than to exhibit that object
already accomplished.  I was like the Arabian who had been buried
with the dead and found a passage to life, aided only by one glimmering
and seemingly ineffectual light.

I see by your eagerness and the wonder and hope which your eyes express,
my friend, that you expect to be informed of the secret with which
I am acquainted; that cannot be; listen patiently until the end of my story,
and you will easily perceive why I am reserved upon that subject.
I will not lead you on, unguarded and ardent as I then was,
to your destruction and infallible misery.  Learn from me,
if not by my precepts, at least by my example, how dangerous
is the acquirement of knowledge and how much happier that man is
who believes his native town to be the world, than he who aspires
to become greater than his nature will allow.

When I found so astonishing a power placed within my hands,
I hesitated a long time concerning the manner in which I should employ it.
Although I possessed the capacity of bestowing animation, yet
to prepare a frame for the reception of it, with all its intricacies
of fibres, muscles, and veins, still remained a work
of inconceivable difficulty and labour.  I doubted at first
whether I should attempt the creation of a being like myself,
or one of simpler organization; but my imagination was too much exalted
by my first success to permit me to doubt of my ability to give life
to an animal as complete and wonderful as man.  The materials at present
within my command hardly appeared adequate to so arduous an undertaking,
but I doubted not that I should ultimately succeed.  I prepared myself
for a multitude of reverses; my operations might be incessantly baffled,
and at last my work be imperfect, yet when I considered the improvement
which every day takes place in science and mechanics, I was encouraged
to hope my present attempts would at least lay the foundations
of future success.  Nor could I consider the magnitude
and complexity of my plan as any argument of its impracticability.
It was with these feelings that I began the creation of a human being.
As the minuteness of the parts formed a great hindrance to my speed,
I resolved, contrary to my first intention, to make the being
of a gigantic stature, that is to say, about eight feet in height,
and proportionably large.  After having formed this determination
and having spent some months in successfully collecting
and arranging my materials, I began.

No one can conceive the variety of feelings which bore me onwards,
like a hurricane, in the first enthusiasm of success.  Life and death
appeared to me ideal bounds, which I should first break through,
and pour a torrent of light into our dark world.  A new species
would bless me as its creator and source; many happy and excellent natures
would owe their being to me.  No father could claim the gratitude
of his child so completely as I should deserve theirs.
Pursuing these reflections, I thought that if I could bestow animation
upon lifeless matter, I might in process of time (although I now found it
impossible) renew life where death had apparently devoted the body
to corruption.

These thoughts supported my spirits, while I pursued my undertaking
with unremitting ardour.  My cheek had grown pale with study,
and my person had become emaciated with confinement.  Sometimes,
on the very brink of certainty, I failed; yet still I clung to the hope
which the next day or the next hour might realize.  One secret
which I alone possessed was the hope to which I had dedicated myself;
and the moon gazed on my midnight labours, while, with unrelaxed
and breathless eagerness, I pursued nature to her hiding-places.
Who shall conceive the horrors of my secret toil as I dabbled
among the unhallowed damps of the grave or tortured the living animal
to animate the lifeless clay?  My limbs now tremble, and my eyes swim
with the remembrance; but then a resistless and almost frantic impulse
urged me forward; I seemed to have lost all soul or sensation
but for this one pursuit.  It was indeed but a passing trance,
that only made me feel with renewed acuteness so soon as,
the unnatural stimulus ceasing to operate, I had returned to my old habits.
I collected bones from charnel-houses and disturbed, with profane fingers,
the tremendous secrets of the human frame.  In a solitary chamber,
or rather cell, at the top of the house, and separated
from all the other apartments by a gallery and staircase,
I kept my workshop of filthy creation; my eyeballs were starting
from their sockets in attending to the details of my employment.
The dissecting room and the slaughter-house furnished many of my materials;
and often did my human nature turn with loathing from my occupation,
whilst, still urged on by an eagerness which perpetually increased,
I brought my work near to a conclusion.

The summer months passed while I was thus engaged, heart and soul,
in one pursuit.  It was a most beautiful season; never did the fields
bestow a more plentiful harvest or the vines yield a more luxuriant vintage,
but my eyes were insensible to the charms of nature.  And the same feelings
which made me neglect the scenes around me caused me also to forget
those friends who were so many miles absent, and whom I had not seen
for so long a time.  I knew my silence disquieted them, and I well remembered
the words of my father:  "I know that while you are pleased with yourself
you will think of us with affection, and we shall hear regularly from you.
You must pardon me if I regard any interruption in your correspondence
as a proof that your other duties are equally neglected."

I knew well therefore what would be my father's feelings,
but I could not tear my thoughts from my employment, loathsome in itself,
but which had taken an irresistible hold of my imagination.  I wished,
as it were, to procrastinate all that related to my feelings of affection
until the great object, which swallowed up every habit of my nature,
should be completed.

I then thought that my father would be unjust if he ascribed my neglect
to vice or faultiness on my part, but I am now convinced
that he was justified in conceiving that I should not be altogether
free from blame.   A human being in perfection ought always to preserve
a calm and peaceful mind and never to allow passion or a transitory desire
to disturb his tranquillity.  I do not think that the pursuit of knowledge
is an exception to this rule.  If the study to which you apply yourself
has a tendency to weaken your affections and to destroy your taste
for those simple pleasures in which no alloy can possibly mix,
then that study is certainly unlawful, that is to say, not befitting
the human mind.  If this rule were always observed; if no man
allowed any pursuit whatsoever to interfere with the tranquillity
of his domestic affections, Greece had not been enslaved, Caesar
would have spared his country, America would have been discovered
more gradually, and the empires of Mexico and Peru had not been destroyed.

But I forget that I am moralizing in the most interesting part
of my tale, and your looks remind me to proceed.  My father
made no reproach in his letters and only took notice of my science
by inquiring into my occupations more particularly than before.
Winter, spring, and summer passed away during my labours;
but I did not watch the blossom or the expanding leaves--sights
which before always yielded me supreme delight--so deeply
was I engrossed in my occupation.  The leaves of that year had withered
before my work drew near to a close, and now every day showed me more plainly
how well I had succeeded.  But my enthusiasm was checked
by my anxiety, and I appeared rather like one doomed by slavery
to toil in the mines, or any other unwholesome trade than an artist
occupied by his favourite employment.  Every night I was oppressed
by a slow fever, and I became nervous to a most painful degree;
the fall of a leaf startled me, and I shunned my fellow creatures
as if I had been guilty of a crime.  Sometimes I grew alarmed
at the wreck I perceived that I had become; the energy of my purpose
alone sustained me:  my labours would soon end, and I believed
that exercise and amusement would then drive away incipient disease;
and I promised myself both of these when my creation should be complete.



Chapter 5


It was on a dreary night of November that I beheld the accomplishment
of my toils.  With an anxiety that almost amounted to agony,
I collected the instruments of life around me, that I might infuse
a spark of being into the lifeless thing that lay at my feet.
It was already one in the morning; the rain pattered dismally
against the panes, and my candle was nearly burnt out, when,
by the glimmer of the half-extinguished light, I saw the dull yellow eye
of the creature open; it breathed hard, and a convulsive motion
agitated its limbs.

How can I describe my emotions at this catastrophe, or how delineate
the wretch whom with such infinite pains and care I had endeavoured to form?
His limbs were in proportion, and I had selected his features as beautiful.
Beautiful!  Great God!  His yellow skin scarcely covered the work of muscles
and arteries beneath; his hair was of a lustrous black, and flowing;
his teeth of a pearly whiteness; but these luxuriances only formed a more
horrid contrast with his watery eyes, that seemed almost of the
same colour as the dun-white sockets in which they were set, his
shrivelled complexion and straight black lips.

The different accidents of life are not so changeable as the feelings
of human nature.  I had worked hard for nearly two years,
for the sole purpose of infusing life into an inanimate body.
For this I had deprived myself of rest and health.  I had desired it
with an ardour that far exceeded moderation; but now that I had finished,
the beauty of the dream vanished, and breathless horror and disgust
filled my heart.  Unable to endure the aspect of the being I had created,
I rushed out of the room and continued a long time traversing my bed-chamber,
unable to compose my mind to sleep.  At length lassitude succeeded
to the tumult I had before endured, and I threw myself on the bed
in my clothes, endeavouring to seek a few moments of forgetfulness.
But it was in vain; I slept, indeed, but I was disturbed
by the wildest dreams.  I thought I saw Elizabeth, in the bloom of health,
walking in the streets of Ingolstadt.  Delighted and surprised,
I embraced her, but as I imprinted the first kiss on her lips,
they became livid with the hue of death; her features appeared to change,
and I thought that I held the corpse of my dead mother in my arms;
a shroud enveloped her form, and I saw  the grave-worms crawling
in the folds of the flannel.  I started from my sleep with horror;
a cold dew covered my forehead, my teeth chattered, and every limb
became convulsed; when, by the dim and yellow light of the moon,
as it forced its way through the window shutters, I beheld the wretch--
the miserable monster whom I had created.  He held up the curtain
of the bed; and his eyes, if eyes they may be called, were fixed on me.
His jaws opened, and he muttered some inarticulate sounds,
while a grin wrinkled his cheeks.  He might have spoken, but I did not hear;
one hand was stretched out, seemingly to detain me, but I escaped
and rushed downstairs.  I took refuge in the courtyard belonging
to the house which I inhabited, where I remained during the rest
of the night, walking up and down in the greatest agitation,
listening attentively, catching and fearing each sound as if it were
to announce the approach of the demoniacal corpse to which
I had so miserably given life.

Oh!  No mortal could support the horror of that countenance.  A mummy
again endued with animation could not be so hideous as that wretch.
I had gazed on him while unfinished; he was ugly then,
but when those muscles and joints were rendered capable of motion,
it became a thing such as even Dante could not have conceived.

I passed the night wretchedly.  Sometimes my pulse beat so quickly
and hardly that I felt the palpitation of every artery; at others,
I nearly sank to the ground through languor and extreme weakness.
Mingled with this horror, I felt the bitterness of disappointment;
dreams that had been my food and pleasant rest for so long a space
were now become a hell to me; and the change was so rapid,
the overthrow so complete!

Morning, dismal and wet, at length dawned and discovered to my sleepless
and aching eyes the church of Ingolstadt, its white steeple and clock,
which indicated the sixth hour.  The porter opened the gates of the court,
which had that night been my asylum, and I issued into the streets,
pacing them with quick steps, as if I sought to avoid the wretch
whom I feared every turning of the street would present to my view.
I did not dare return to the apartment which I inhabited,
but felt impelled to hurry on, although drenched by the rain
which poured from a black and comfortless sky.

I continued walking in this manner for some time, endeavouring
by bodily exercise to ease the load that weighed upon my mind.
I traversed the streets without any clear conception of where I was
or what I was doing.  My heart palpitated in the sickness of fear,
and I hurried on with irregular steps, not daring to look about me:

     Like one who, on a lonely road,
     Doth walk in fear and dread,
     And, having once turned round, walks on,
     And turns no more his head;
     Because he knows a frightful fiend
     Doth close behind him tread.

     [Coleridge's "Ancient Mariner."]

Continuing thus, I came at length opposite to the inn at which
the various diligences and carriages usually stopped.  Here I paused,
I knew not why; but I remained some minutes with my eyes fixed on a coach
that was coming towards me from the other end of the street.
As it drew nearer I observed that it was the Swiss diligence;
it stopped just where I was standing, and on the door being opened,
I perceived Henry Clerval, who, on seeing me, instantly sprung out.
"My dear Frankenstein," exclaimed he, "how glad I am to see you!
How fortunate that you should be here at the very moment of my alighting!"

Nothing could equal my delight on seeing Clerval; his presence
brought back to my thoughts my father, Elizabeth, and all those scenes
of home so dear to my recollection.  I grasped his hand,
and in a moment forgot my horror and misfortune; I felt suddenly,
and for the first time during many months, calm and serene joy.
I welcomed my friend, therefore, in the most cordial manner,
and we walked towards my college.  Clerval continued talking for some time
about our mutual friends and his own good fortune in being permitted
to come to Ingolstadt.  "You may easily believe," said he,
"how great was the difficulty to persuade my father that
all necessary knowledge was not comprised in the noble art of bookkeeping;
and, indeed, I believe I left him incredulous to the last,
for his constant answer to my unwearied entreaties was the same
as that of the Dutch schoolmaster in *The Vicar of Wakefield*:
`I have ten thousand florins a year without Greek, I eat heartily
without Greek.'  But his affection for me at length overcame his dislike
of learning, and he has permitted me to undertake a voyage of discovery
to the land of knowledge."

"It gives me the greatest delight to see you; but tell me
how you left my father, brothers, and Elizabeth."

"Very well, and very happy, only a little uneasy that they hear
from you so seldom.  By the by, I mean to lecture you a little
upon their account myself.  But, my dear Frankenstein," continued he,
stopping short and gazing full in my face, "I did not before remark
how very ill you appear; so thin and pale; you look as if
you had been watching for several nights."

"You have guessed right; I have lately been so deeply engaged
in one occupation that I have not allowed myself sufficient rest,
as you see; but I hope, I sincerely hope, that all these employments
are now at an end and that I am at length free."

I trembled excessively; I could not endure to think of, and far less
to allude to, the occurrences of the preceding night.  I walked
with a quick pace, and we soon arrived at my college.  I then reflected,
and the thought made me shiver, that the creature whom I had left
in my apartment might still be there, alive and walking about.
I dreaded to behold this monster, but I feared still more that Henry
should see him.  Entreating him, therefore, to remain a few minutes
at the bottom of the stairs, I darted up towards my own room.
My hand was already on the lock of the door before I recollected myself.
I then paused, and a cold shivering came over me.  I threw the door
forcibly open, as children are accustomed to do when they expect
a spectre to stand in waiting for them on the other side;
but nothing appeared.  I stepped fearfully in:  the apartment was empty,
and my bedroom was also freed from its hideous guest.  I could hardly believe
that so great a good fortune could have befallen me, but when I became
assured that my enemy had indeed fled, I clapped my hands for joy
and ran down to Clerval.

We ascended into my room, and the servant presently brought breakfast;
but I was unable to contain myself.  It was not joy only that possessed me;
I felt my flesh tingle with excess of sensitiveness, and my pulse
beat rapidly.  I was unable to remain for a single instant in the same place;
I jumped over the chairs, clapped my hands, and laughed aloud.
Clerval at first attributed my unusual spirits to joy on his arrival,
but when he observed me more attentively, he saw a wildness in my eyes
for which he could not account, and my loud, unrestrained,
heartless laughter frightened and astonished him.

"My dear Victor," cried he, "what, for God's sake, is the matter?
Do not laugh in that manner.  How ill you are!  What is the cause
of all this?"

"Do not ask me," cried I, putting my hands before my eyes, for I
thought I saw the dreaded spectre glide into the room; "*he* can
tell.  Oh, save me!  Save me!" I imagined that the monster seized
me; I struggled furiously and fell down in a fit.

Poor Clerval!  What must have been his feelings?  A meeting,
which he anticipated with such joy, so strangely turned to bitterness.
But I was not the witness of his grief, for I was lifeless
and did not recover my senses for a long, long time.

This was the commencement of a nervous fever which confined me
for several months.  During all that time Henry was my only nurse.
I afterwards learned that, knowing my father's advanced age
and unfitness for so long a journey, and how wretched my sickness
would make Elizabeth, he spared them this grief by concealing the extent
of my disorder.  He knew that I could not have a more kind
and attentive nurse than himself; and, firm in the hope he felt
of my recovery, he did not doubt that, instead of doing harm,
he performed the kindest action that he could towards them.

But I was in reality very ill, and surely nothing but the unbounded
and unremitting attentions of my friend could have restored me to life.
The form of the monster on whom I had bestowed existence was
forever before my eyes, and I raved incessantly concerning him.
Doubtless my words surprised Henry; he at first believed them to be
the wanderings of my disturbed imagination, but the pertinacity
with which I continually recurred to the same subject persuaded him
that my disorder indeed owed its origin to some uncommon and terrible event.

By very slow degrees, and with frequent relapses that alarmed
and grieved my friend, I recovered.  I remember the first time
I became capable of observing outward objects with any kind of pleasure,
I perceived that the fallen leaves had disappeared and that the young buds
were shooting forth from the trees that shaded my window.
It was a divine spring, and the season contributed greatly
to my convalescence.  I felt also sentiments of joy and affection
revive in my bosom; my gloom disappeared, and in a short time
I became as cheerful as before I was attacked by the fatal passion.

"Dearest Clerval," exclaimed I, "how kind, how very good you are to me.
This whole winter, instead of being spent in study, as you promised yourself,
has been consumed in my sick room.  How shall I ever repay you?
I feel the greatest remorse for the disappointment of which I have been
the occasion, but you will forgive me."

"You will repay me entirely if you do not discompose yourself,
but get well as fast as you can; and since you appear in such good spirits,
I may speak to you on one subject, may I not?"

I trembled.  One subject!  What could it be?  Could he allude
to an object on whom I dared not even think?

"Compose yourself," said Clerval, who observed my change of colour,
"I will not mention it if it agitates you; but your father and cousin
would be very happy if they received a letter from you
in your own handwriting.  They hardly know how ill you have been
and are uneasy at your long silence."

"Is that all, my dear Henry?  How could you suppose that my first thought
would not fly towards those dear, dear friends whom I love
and who are so deserving of my love?"

"If this is your present temper, my friend, you will perhaps be glad
to see a letter that has been lying here some days for you;
it is from your cousin, I believe."



Chapter 6


Clerval then put the following letter into my hands.  It was from
my own Elizabeth:

     My dearest Cousin,

     You have been ill, very ill, and even the constant letters
     of dear kind Henry are not sufficient to reassure me
     on your account.  You are forbidden to write--to hold a pen;
     yet one word from you, dear Victor, is necessary to calm
     our apprehensions. For a long time I have thought that each post
     would bring this line, and my persuasions have restrained my uncle
     from undertaking a journey to Ingolstadt.  I have prevented
     his encountering the inconveniences and perhaps dangers
     of so long a journey, yet how often have I regretted
     not being able to perform it myself!  I figure to myself
     that the task of attending on your sickbed has devolved
     on some mercenary old nurse, who could never guess your wishes
     nor minister to them with the care and affection of your
     poor cousin.  Yet that is over now:  Clerval writes
     that indeed you are getting better.  I eagerly hope that you will
     confirm this intelligence soon in your own handwriting.

     Get well--and return to us.  You will find a happy,
     cheerful home and friends who love you dearly.  Your
     father's health is vigorous, and he asks but to see you,
     but to be assured that you are well; and not a care will ever
     cloud his benevolent countenance.  How pleased you would be
     to remark the improvement of our Ernest!  He is now sixteen
     and full of activity and spirit.  He is desirous to be a true Swiss
     and to enter into foreign service, but we cannot part with him,
     at least until his elder brother return to us.  My uncle
     is not pleased with the idea of a military career in a distant country,
     but Ernest never had your powers of application.  He looks upon study
     as an odious fetter; his time is spent in the open air, climbing
     the hills or rowing on the lake.  I fear that he will become
     an idler unless we yield the point and permit him to enter
     on the profession which he has selected.

     Little alteration, except the growth of our dear children,
     has taken place since you left us.  The blue lake and snow-clad
     mountains--they never change; and I think our placid home
     and our contented hearts are regulated by the same immutable laws.
     My trifling occupations take up my time and amuse me, and I am rewarded
     for any exertions by seeing none but happy, kind faces around me.
     Since you left us, but one change has taken place
     in our little household.  Do you remember on what occasion
     Justine Moritz entered our family?  Probably you do not;
     I will relate her history, therefore, in a few words.  Madame Moritz,
     her mother, was a widow with four children, of whom Justine
     was the third.  This girl had always been the favourite of her father,
     but through a strange perversity, her mother could not endure her,
     and after the death of M. Moritz, treated her very ill.  My aunt
     observed this, and when Justine was twelve years of age,
     prevailed on her mother to allow her to live at our house.
     The republican institutions of our country have produced simpler
     and happier manners than those which prevail in the great monarchies
     that surround it.  Hence there is less distinction between
     the several classes of its inhabitants; and the lower orders,
     being neither so poor nor so despised, their manners are more refined
     and moral.  A servant in Geneva does not mean the same thing
     as a servant in France and England.  Justine, thus received
     in our family, learned the duties of a servant, a condition which,
     in our fortunate country, does not include the idea of ignorance
     and a sacrifice of the dignity of a human being.

     Justine, you may remember, was a great favourite of yours;
     and I recollect you once remarked that if you were in an ill humour,
     one glance from Justine could dissipate it, for the same reason
     that Ariosto gives concerning the beauty of Angelica--she looked
     so frank-hearted and happy.  My aunt conceived a great attachment
     for her, by which she was induced to give her an education superior
     to that which she had at first intended.  This benefit was fully repaid;
     Justine was the most grateful little creature in the world:
     I do not mean that she made any professions; I never heard
     one pass her lips, but you could see by her eyes that she
     almost adored her protectress.  Although her disposition was gay
     and in many respects inconsiderate, yet she paid the greatest attention
     to every gesture of my aunt.  She thought her the model
     of all excellence and endeavoured to imitate her phraseology
     and manners, so that even now she often reminds me of her.

     When my dearest aunt died every one was too much occupied
     in their own grief to notice poor Justine, who had attended her
     during her illness with the most anxious affection.  Poor Justine
     was very ill; but other trials were reserved for her.

     One by one, her brothers and sister died; and her mother,
     with the exception of her neglected daughter, was left childless.
     The conscience of the woman was troubled; she began to think
     that the deaths of her favourites was a judgment from heaven
     to chastise her partiality.  She was a Roman Catholic;
     and I believe her confessor confirmed the idea which she had conceived.
     Accordingly, a few months after your departure for Ingolstadt,
     Justine was called home by her repentant mother.  Poor girl!
     She wept when she quitted our house; she was much altered
     since the death of my aunt; grief had given softness
     and a winning mildness to her manners which had before been remarkable
     for vivacity.  Nor was her residence at her mother's house
     of a nature to restore her gaiety.  The poor woman was very vacillating
     in her repentance.  She sometimes begged Justine to forgive
     her unkindness but much oftener accused her of having caused
     the deaths of her brothers and sister.  Perpetual fretting at length
     threw Madame Moritz into a decline, which at first increased
     her irritability, but she is now at peace for ever.  She died
     on the first approach of cold weather, at the beginning
     of this last winter.  Justine has returned to us, and I assure you
     I love her tenderly.  She is very clever and gentle
     and extremely pretty; as I mentioned before, her mien
     and her expressions continually remind me of my dear aunt.

     I must say also a few words to you, my dear cousin,
     of little darling William.  I wish you could see him;
     he is very tall of his age, with sweet laughing blue eyes,
     dark eyelashes, and curling hair.  When he smiles, two little dimples
     appear on each cheek, which are rosy with health