Chapter 20
I sat one evening in my laboratory; the sun had set, and the moon was
just rising from the sea; I had not sufficient light for my employment,
and I remained idle, in a pause of consideration of whether I should
leave my labour for the night or hasten its conclusion by an unremitting
attention to it. As I sat, a train of reflection occurred to me which led me
to consider the effects of what I was now doing. Three years before, I was
engaged in the same manner and had created a fiend whose unparalleled barbarity
had desolated my heart and filled it forever with the bitterest remorse. I was
now about to form another being of whose dispositions I was alike ignorant;
she might become ten thousand times more malignant than her mate and delight,
for its own sake, in murder and wretchedness. He had sworn to quit the
neighbourhood of man and hide himself in deserts, but she had not; and she,
who in all probability was to become a thinking and reasoning animal,
might refuse to comply with a compact made before her creation.
They might even hate each other; the creature who already lived
loathed his own deformity, and might he not conceive a greater
abhorrence for it when it came before his eyes in the female form?
She also might turn with disgust from him to the superior beauty of man;
she might quit him, and he be again alone, exasperated by the fresh
provocation of being deserted by one of his own species. Even if
they were to leave Europe and inhabit the deserts of the new world,
yet one of the first results of those sympathies for which the daemon
thirsted would be children, and a race of devils would be propagated
upon the earth who might make the very existence of the species of man
a condition precarious and full of terror. Had I right, for my own benefit,
to inflict this curse upon everlasting generations? I had before been moved
by the sophisms of the being I had created; I had been struck senseless by his
fiendish threats; but now, for the first time, the wickedness of my promise
burst upon me; I shuddered to think that future ages might curse me as their
pest, whose selfishness had not hesitated to buy its own peace at the price,
perhaps, of the existence of the whole human race.
I trembled and my heart failed within me, when, on looking up, I saw by the
light of the moon the daemon at the casement. A ghastly grin wrinkled his
lips as he gazed on me, where I sat fulfilling the task which he had allotted
to me. Yes, he had followed me in my travels; he had loitered in forests,
hid himself in caves, or taken refuge in wide and desert heaths; and he now
came to mark my progress and claim the fulfillment of my promise.
As I looked on him, his countenance expressed the utmost extent of malice
and treachery. I thought with a sensation of madness on my promise of creating
another like to him, and trembling with passion, tore to pieces the thing on
which I was engaged. The wretch saw me destroy the creature on whose future
existence he depended for happiness, and with a howl of devilish despair and
revenge, withdrew.
I left the room, and locking the door, made a solemn vow in my own
heart never to resume my labours; and then, with trembling steps,
I sought my own apartment. I was alone; none were near me to dissipate
the gloom and relieve me from the sickening oppression of the most
terrible reveries.
Several hours passed, and I remained near my window gazing on the sea;
it was almost motionless, for the winds were hushed, and all nature
reposed under the eye of the quiet moon. A few fishing vessels alone
specked the water, and now and then the gentle breeze wafted the sound
of voices as the fishermen called to one another. I felt the silence,
although I was hardly conscious of its extreme profundity, until my ear
was suddenly arrested by the paddling of oars near the shore, and a
person landed close to my house.
In a few minutes after, I heard the creaking of my door, as if some
one endeavoured to open it softly. I trembled from head to foot;
I felt a presentiment of who it was and wished to rouse one of the
peasants who dwelt in a cottage not far from mine; but I was overcome
by the sensation of helplessness, so often felt in frightful dreams,
when you in vain endeavour to fly from an impending danger, and was rooted
to the spot. Presently I heard the sound of footsteps along the passage;
the door opened, and the wretch whom I dreaded appeared.
Shutting the door, he approached me and said in a smothered voice,
"You have destroyed the work which you began; what is it that you intend?
Do you dare to break your promise? I have endured toil and misery;
I left Switzerland with you; I crept along the shores of the Rhine,
among its willow islands and over the summits of its hills. I have
dwelt many months in the heaths of England and among the deserts of Scotland.
I have endured incalculable fatigue, and cold, and hunger; do you dare destroy
my hopes?"
"Begone! I do break my promise; never will I create another like yourself,
equal in deformity and wickedness."
"Slave, I before reasoned with you, but you have proved yourself unworthy
of my condescension. Remember that I have power; you believe yourself
miserable, but I can make you so wretched that the light of day will
be hateful to you. You are my creator, but I am your master; obey!"
"The hour of my irresolution is past, and the period of your power is arrived.
Your threats cannot move me to do an act of wickedness; but they confirm me
in a determination of not creating you a companion in vice. Shall I,
in cool blood, set loose upon the earth a daemon whose delight is in death
and wretchedness? Begone! I am firm, and your words will only exasperate
my rage."
The monster saw my determination in my face and gnashed his teeth in the
impotence of anger. "Shall each man," cried he, "find a wife for his bosom,
and each beast have his mate, and I be alone? I had feelings of affection,
and they were requited by detestation and scorn. Man! You may hate,
but beware! Your hours will pass in dread and misery, and soon
the bolt will fall which must ravish from you your happiness forever.
Are you to be happy while I grovel in the intensity of my wretchedness?
You can blast my other passions, but revenge remains -- revenge,
henceforth dearer than light or food! I may die, but first you,
my tyrant and tormentor, shall curse the sun that gazes on your misery.
Beware, for I am fearless and therefore powerful. I will watch with the
wiliness of a snake, that I may sting with its venom. Man, you shall repent
of the injuries you inflict."
"devil, cease; and do not poison the air with these sounds of malice.
I have declared my resolution to you, and I am no coward to bend beneath words.
Leave me; I am inexorable."
"It is well. I go; but remember, I shall be with you on your wedding-night."
I started forward and exclaimed, "Villain! Before you sign my death-warrant,
be sure that you are yourself safe."
I would have seized him, but he eluded me and quitted the house
with precipitation. In a few moments I saw him in his boat,
which shot across the waters with an arrowy swiftness
and was soon lost amidst the waves.
All was again silent, but his words rang in my ears. I burned with rage
to pursue the murderer of my peace and precipitate him into the ocean.
I walked up and down my room hastily and perturbed, while my imagination
conjured up a thousand images to torment and sting me. Why had I not
followed him and closed with him in mortal strife? But I had suffered
him to depart, and he had directed his course towards the mainland.
I shuddered to think who might be the next victim sacrificed to his
insatiate revenge. And then I thought again of his words --
"I WILL BE WITH YOU ON YOUR WEDDING-NIGHT." That, then,
was the period fixed for the fulfillment of my destiny.
In that hour I should die and at once satisfy and extinguish his malice.
The prospect did not move me to fear; yet when I thought of my beloved
Elizabeth, of her tears and endless sorrow, when she should find
her lover so barbarously snatched from her, tears, the first I had shed
for many months, streamed from my eyes, and I resolved not to fall
before my enemy without a bitter struggle.
The night passed away, and the sun rose from the ocean; my feelings
became calmer, if it may be called calmness when the violence of rage
sinks into the depths of despair. I left the house, the horrid scene
of the last night's contention, and walked on the beach of the sea,
which I almost regarded as an insuperable barrier between me and my fellow
creatures; nay, a wish that such should prove the fact stole across me.
I desired that I might pass my life on that barren rock, wearily,
it is true, but uninterrupted by any sudden shock of misery.
If I returned, it was to be sacrificed or to see those whom I most
loved die under the grasp of a daemon whom I had myself created.
I walked about the isle like a restless spectre, separated from all
it loved and miserable in the separation. When it became noon,
and the sun rose higher, I lay down on the grass and was overpowered
by a deep sleep. I had been awake the whole of the preceding night,
my nerves were agitated, and my eyes inflamed by watching and misery.
The sleep into which I now sank refreshed me; and when I awoke,
I again felt as if I belonged to a race of human beings like myself,
and I began to reflect upon what had passed with greater composure;
yet still the words of the fiend rang in my ears like a death-knell;
they appeared like a dream, yet distinct and oppressive as a reality.
The sun had far descended, and I still sat on the shore,
satisfying my appetite, which had become ravenous, with an oaten
cake, when I saw a fishing-boat land close to me, and one of the
men brought me a packet; it contained letters from Geneva, and one
from Clerval entreating me to join him. He said that he was
wearing away his time fruitlessly where he was, that letters from
the friends he had formed in London desired his return to complete
the negotiation they had entered into for his Indian enterprise.
He could not any longer delay his departure; but as his journey to
London might be followed, even sooner than he now conjectured, by
his longer voyage, he entreated me to bestow as much of my society
on him as I could spare. He besought me, therefore, to leave my
solitary isle and to meet him at Perth, that we might proceed
southwards together. This letter in a degree recalled me to life,
and I determined to quit my island at the expiration of two days.
Yet, before I departed, there was a task to perform, on which I
shuddered to reflect; I must pack up my chemical instruments,
and for that purpose I must enter the room which had been the scene
of my odious work, and I must handle those utensils the sight of which
was sickening to me. The next morning, at daybreak, I summoned
sufficient courage and unlocked the door of my laboratory.
The remains of the half-finished creature, whom I had destroyed,
lay scattered on the floor, and I almost felt as if I had mangled the
living flesh of a human being. I paused to collect myself and then
entered the chamber. With trembling hand I conveyed the instruments
out of the room, but I reflected that I ought not to leave the relics
of my work to excite the horror and suspicion of the peasants;
and I accordingly put them into a basket, with a great quantity of stones,
and laying them up, determined to throw them into the sea that very night;
and in the meantime I sat upon the beach, employed in cleaning and arranging
my chemical apparatus.
Nothing could be more complete than the alteration that had taken
place in my feelings since the night of the appearance of the daemon.
I had before regarded my promise with a gloomy despair as a thing that,
with whatever consequences, must be fulfilled; but I now felt as if a film
had been taken from before my eyes and that I for the first time saw clearly.
The idea of renewing my labours did not for one instant occur to me;
the threat I had heard weighed on my thoughts, but I did not reflect
that a voluntary act of mine could avert it. I had resolved in my
own mind that to create another like the fiend I had first made would
be an act of the basest and most atrocious selfishness, and I banished
from my mind every thought that could lead to a different conclusion.
Between two and three in the morning the moon rose; and I then,
putting my basket aboard a little skiff, sailed out about four
miles from the shore. The scene was perfectly solitary; a few
boats were returning towards land, but I sailed away from them.
I felt as if I was about the commission of a dreadful crime and
avoided with shuddering anxiety any encounter with my fellow creatures.
At one time the moon, which had before been clear, was suddenly
overspread by a thick cloud, and I took advantage of the moment
of darkness and cast my basket into the sea; I listened to the
gurgling sound as it sank and then sailed away from the spot.
The sky became clouded, but the air was pure, although chilled by
the northeast breeze that was then rising. But it refreshed me and
filled me with such agreeable sensations that I resolved to prolong
my stay on the water, and fixing the rudder in a direct position,
stretched myself at the bottom of the boat. Clouds hid the moon,
everything was obscure, and I heard only the sound of the boat as
its keel cut through the waves; the murmur lulled me, and in a
short time I slept soundly. I do not know how long I remained in
this situation, but when I awoke I found that the sun had already
mounted considerably. The wind was high, and the waves continually
threatened the safety of my little skiff. I found that the wind
was northeast and must have driven me far from the coast from which
I had embarked. I endeavoured to change my course but quickly
found that if I again made the attempt the boat would be instantly
filled with water. Thus situated, my only resource was to drive
before the wind. I confess that I felt a few sensations of terror.
I had no compass with me and was so slenderly acquainted with the
geography of this part of the world that the sun was of little
benefit to me. I might be driven into the wide Atlantic and feel
all the tortures of starvation or be swallowed up in the
immeasurable waters that roared and buffeted around me.
I had already been out many hours and felt the torment of a burning
thirst, a prelude to my other sufferings. I looked on the heavens,
which were covered by clouds that flew before the wind, only to be
replaced by others; I looked upon the sea; it was to be my grave.
"fiend," I exclaimed, "your task is already fulfilled!" I thought
of Elizabeth, of my father, and of Clerval -- all left behind, on
whom the monster might satisfy his sanguinary and merciless passions.
This idea plunged me into a reverie so despairing and frightful that
even now, when the scene is on the point of closing before me forever,
I shudder to reflect on it.
Some hours passed thus; but by degrees, as the sun declined towards
the horizon, the wind died away into a gentle breeze and the sea
became free from breakers. But these gave place to a heavy swell;
I felt sick and hardly able to hold the rudder, when suddenly I saw
a line of high land towards the south.
Almost spent, as I was, by fatigue and the dreadful suspense I
endured for several hours, this sudden certainty of life rushed
like a flood of warm joy to my heart, and tears gushed from my eyes.
How mutable are our feelings, and how strange is that clinging love
we have of life even in the excess of misery! I constructed
another sail with a part of my dress and eagerly steered my course
towards the land. It had a wild and rocky appearance, but as I
approached nearer I easily perceived the traces of cultivation.
I saw vessels near the shore and found myself suddenly transported
back to the neighbourhood of civilized man. I carefully traced the
windings of the land and hailed a steeple which I at length saw
issuing from behind a small promontory. As I was in a state of
extreme debility, I resolved to sail directly towards the town,
as a place where I could most easily procure nourishment.
Fortunately I had money with me.
As I turned the promontory I perceived a small neat town and a good harbour,
which I entered, my heart bounding with joy at my unexpected escape.
As I was occupied in fixing the boat and arranging the sails,
several people crowded towards the spot. They seemed much
surprised at my appearance, but instead of offering me any
assistance, whispered together with gestures that at any other time
might have produced in me a slight sensation of alarm. As it was,
I merely remarked that they spoke English, and I therefore
addressed them in that language. "My good friends," said I,
"will you be so kind as to tell me the name of this town and
inform me where I am?"
"You will know that soon enough," replied a man with a hoarse voice.
"Maybe you are come to a place that will not prove much to your taste,
but you will not be consulted as to your quarters, I promise you."
I was exceedingly surprised on receiving so rude an answer from a stranger,
and I was also disconcerted on perceiving the frowning and angry countenances
of his companions. "Why do you answer me so roughly?" I replied.
"Surely it is not the custom of Englishmen to receive strangers
so inhospitably."
"I do not know," said the man, "what the custom of the English
may be, but it is the custom of the Irish to hate villains."
While this strange dialogue continued, I perceived the crowd rapidly
increase. Their faces expressed a mixture of curiosity and anger,
which annoyed and in some degree alarmed me.
I inquired the way to the inn, but no one replied. I then moved forward,
and a murmuring sound arose from the crowd as they followed and surrounded me,
when an ill-looking man approaching tapped me on the shoulder and said,
"Come, sir, you must follow me to Mr. Kirwin's to give an account of yourself."
"Who is Mr. Kirwin? Why am I to give an account of myself?
Is not this a free country?"
"Ay, sir, free enough for honest folks. Mr. Kirwin is a magistrate,
and you are to give an account of the death of a gentleman who was
found murdered here last night."
This answer startled me, but I presently recovered myself.
I was innocent; that could easily be proved; accordingly I followed
my conductor in silence and was led to one of the best houses in
the town. I was ready to sink from fatigue and hunger, but being
surrounded by a crowd, I thought it politic to rouse all my strength,
that no physical debility might be construed into apprehension or
conscious guilt. Little did I then expect the calamity that was
in a few moments to overwhelm me and extinguish in horror and despair
all fear of ignominy or death. I must pause here, for it requires
all my fortitude to recall the memory of the frightful events
which I am about to relate, in proper detail, to my recollection.
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