You have read this strange and terrific story, Margaret;
and do you not feel your blood congeal with horror, like that
which even now curdles mine? Sometimes, seized with sudden agony,
he could not continue his tale; at others, his voice broken,
yet piercing, uttered with difficulty the words so replete with anguish.
His fine and lovely eyes were now lighted up with indignation,
now subdued to downcast sorrow and quenched in infinite wretchedness.
Sometimes he commanded his countenance and tones and related
the most horrible incidents with a tranquil voice, suppressing every mark
of agitation; then, like a volcano bursting forth,
his face would suddenly change to an expression of the wildest rage
as he shrieked out imprecations on his persecutor.
His tale is connected and told with an appearance of the simplest truth,
yet I own to you that the letters of Felix and Safie, which he showed me,
and the apparition of the monster seen from our ship,
brought to me a greater conviction of the truth of his narrative
than his asseverations, however earnest and connected.
Such a monster has, then, really existence! I cannot doubt it,
yet I am lost in surprise and admiration. Sometimes I endeavoured
to gain from Frankenstein the particulars of his creature's formation,
but on this point he was impenetrable.
"Are you mad, my friend?" said he. "Or whither
does your senseless curiosity lead you? Would you also create for yourself
and the world a demoniacal enemy? Peace, peace! Learn my miseries
and do not seek to increase your own."
Frankenstein discovered that I made notes concerning his history;
he asked to see them and then himself corrected and augmented them
in many places, but principally in giving the life and spirit
to the conversations he held with his enemy. "Since you have preserved
my narration," said he, "I would not that a mutilated one
should go down to posterity."
Thus has a week passed away, while I have listened to the strangest tale
that ever imagination formed. My thoughts and every feeling of my soul
have been drunk up by the interest for my guest which this tale
and his own elevated and gentle manners have created.
I wish to soothe him, yet can I counsel one so infinitely miserable,
so destitute of every hope of consolation, to live? Oh, no!
The only joy that he can now know will be when he composes
his shattered spirit to peace and death. Yet he enjoys one comfort,
the offspring of solitude and delirium; he believes that when in dreams
he holds converse with his friends and derives from that communion
consolation for his miseries or excitements to his vengeance,
that they are not the creations of his fancy, but the beings themselves
who visit him from the regions of a remote world. This faith
gives a solemnity to his reveries that render them to me
almost as imposing and interesting as truth.
Our conversations are not always confined to his own history and misfortunes.
On every point of general literature he displays unbounded knowledge
and a quick and piercing apprehension. His eloquence is forcible
and touching; nor can I hear him, when he relates a pathetic incident
or endeavours to move the passions of pity or love, without tears.
What a glorious creature must he have been in the days of his prosperity,
when he is thus noble and godlike in ruin! He seems to feel his own worth
and the greatness of his fall.
"When younger," said he, "I believed myself destined
for some great enterprise. My feelings are profound, but I possessed
a coolness of judgment that fitted me for illustrious achievements.
This sentiment of the worth of my nature supported me when others
would have been oppressed, for I deemed it criminal to throw away
in useless grief those talents that might be useful to my fellow creatures.
When I reflected on the work I had completed, no less a one
than the creation of a sensitive and rational animal, I could not rank myself
with the herd of common projectors. But this thought, which supported me
in the commencement of my career, now serves only to plunge me lower
in the dust. All my speculations and hopes are as nothing,
and like the archangel who aspired to omnipotence, I am chained
in an eternal hell. My imagination was vivid, yet my powers of analysis
and application were intense; by the union of these qualities
I conceived the idea and executed the creation of a man. Even now
I cannot recollect without passion my reveries while the work was incomplete.
I trod heaven in my thoughts, now exulting in my powers,
now burning with the idea of their effects. From my infancy
I was imbued with high hopes and a lofty ambition; but how am I sunk!
Oh! My friend, if you had known me as I once was, you would not recognize me
in this state of degradation. Despondency rarely visited my heart;
a high destiny seemed to bear me on, until I fell, never,
never again to rise."
Must I then lose this admirable being? I have longed for a friend;
I have sought one who would sympathize with and love me. Behold,
on these desert seas I have found such a one, but I fear I have gained him
only to know his value and lose him. I would reconcile him to life,
but he repulses the idea.
"I thank you, Walton," he said, "for your kind intentions
towards so miserable a wretch; but when you speak of new ties
and fresh affections, think you that any can replace those who are gone?
Can any man be to me as Clerval was, or any woman another Elizabeth?
Even where the affections are not strongly moved by any superior excellence,
the companions of our childhood always possess a certain power
over our minds which hardly any later friend can obtain.
They know our infantine dispositions, which, however they may be
afterwards modified, are never eradicated; and they can judge of our actions
with more certain conclusions as to the integrity of our motives.
A sister or a brother can never, unless indeed such symptoms
have been shown early, suspect the other of fraud or false dealing,
when another friend, however strongly he may be attached, may,
in spite of himself, be contemplated with suspicion. But I enjoyed friends,
dear not only through habit and association, but from their own merits;
and wherever I am, the soothing voice of my Elizabeth and the conversation
of Clerval will be ever whispered in my ear. They are dead,
and but one feeling in such a solitude can persuade me to preserve my life.
If I were engaged in any high undertaking or design, fraught
with extensive utility to my fellow creatures, then could I live
to fulfil it. But such is not my destiny; I must pursue and destroy
the being to whom I gave existence; then my lot on earth will be fulfilled
and I may die."
I write to you, encompassed by peril and ignorant whether I am
ever doomed to see again dear England and the dearer friends that
inhabit it. I am surrounded by mountains of ice which admit of
no escape and threaten every moment to crush my vessel. The brave fellows
whom I have persuaded to be my companions look towards me for aid,
but I have none to bestow. There is something terribly appalling
in our situation, yet my courage and hopes do not desert me.
Yet it is terrible to reflect that the lives of all these men
are endangered through me. If we are lost, my mad schemes are the cause.
And what, Margaret, will be the state of your mind? You will not hear
of my destruction, and you will anxiously await my return. Years will pass,
and you will have visitings of despair and yet be tortured by hope.
Oh! My beloved sister, the sickening failing of your heart-felt expectations
is, in prospect, more terrible to me than my own death. But you
have a husband and lovely children; you may be happy. Heaven bless you
and make you so!
My unfortunate guest regards me with the tenderest compassion.
He endeavours to fill me with hope and talks as if life were a possession
which he valued. He reminds me how often the same accidents
have happened to other navigators who have attempted this sea,
and in spite of myself, he fills me with cheerful auguries.
Even the sailors feel the power of his eloquence; when he speaks,
they no longer despair; he rouses their energies,
and while they hear his voice they believe these vast mountains of ice
are mole-hills which will vanish before the resolutions of man.
These feelings are transitory; each day of expectation delayed
fills them with fear, and I almost dread a mutiny caused by this despair.
A scene has just passed of such uncommon interest that,
although it is highly probable that these papers may never reach you,
yet I cannot forbear recording it.
We are still surrounded by mountains of ice, still in imminent danger
of being crushed in their conflict. The cold is excessive,
and many of my unfortunate comrades have already found a grave
amidst this scene of desolation. Frankenstein has daily declined in health;
a feverish fire still glimmers in his eyes, but he is exhausted,
and when suddenly roused to any exertion, he speedily sinks again
into apparent lifelessness.
I mentioned in my last letter the fears I entertained of a mutiny.
This morning, as I sat watching the wan countenance of my friend--
his eyes half closed and his limbs hanging listlessly--
I was roused by half a dozen of the sailors, who demanded admission
into the cabin. They entered, and their leader addressed me.
He told me that he and his companions had been chosen by the other sailors
to come in deputation to me to make me a requisition which, in justice,
I could not refuse. We were immured in ice and should probably never escape,
but they feared that if, as was possible, the ice should dissipate
and a free passage be opened, I should be rash enough to continue my voyage
and lead them into fresh dangers, after they might happily
have surmounted this. They insisted, therefore, that I should engage
with a solemn promise that if the vessel should be freed
I would instantly direct my course southwards.
This speech troubled me. I had not despaired, nor had I yet conceived
the idea of returning if set free. Yet could I, in justice,
or even in possibility, refuse this demand? I hesitated before I answered,
when Frankenstein, who had at first been silent, and indeed
appeared hardly to have force enough to attend, now roused himself;
his eyes sparkled, and his cheeks flushed with momentary vigour.
Turning towards the men, he said, "What do you mean? What do you demand
of your captain? Are you, then, so easily turned from your design?
Did you not call this a glorious expedition? And wherefore was it glorious?
Not because the way was smooth and placid as a southern sea,
but because it was full of dangers and terror, because at every new incident
your fortitude was to be called forth and your courage exhibited,
because danger and death surrounded it, and these you were to brave
and overcome. For this was it a glorious, for this was it an honourable
undertaking. You were hereafter to be hailed as the benefactors
of your species, your names adored as belonging to brave men
who encountered death for honour and the benefit of mankind.
And now, behold, with the first imagination of danger, or, if you will,
the first mighty and terrific trial of your courage, you shrink away
and are content to be handed down as men who had not strength enough
to endure cold and peril; and so, poor souls, they were chilly
and returned to their warm firesides. Why, that requires
not this preparation; ye need not have come thus far
and dragged your captain to the shame of a defeat merely
to prove yourselves cowards. Oh! Be men, or be more than men.
Be steady to your purposes and firm as a rock. This ice is not made
of such stuff as your hearts may be; it is mutable and cannot withstand you
if you say that it shall not. Do not return to your families
with the stigma of disgrace marked on your brows. Return as heroes
who have fought and conquered and who know not what it is
to turn their backs on the foe."
He spoke this with a voice so modulated to the different feelings
expressed in his speech, with an eye so full of lofty design
and heroism, that can you wonder that these men were moved?
They looked at one another and were unable to reply. I spoke;
I told them to retire and consider of what had been said,
that I would not lead them farther north if they strenuously desired
the contrary, but that I hoped that, with reflection,
their courage would return.
They retired and I turned towards my friend, but he was sunk in languor
and almost deprived of life.
How all this will terminate, I know not, but I had rather die
than return shamefully, my purpose unfulfilled. Yet I fear
such will be my fate; the men, unsupported by ideas of glory and honour,
can never willingly continue to endure their present hardships.
The die is cast; I have consented to return if we are not destroyed.
Thus are my hopes blasted by cowardice and indecision;
I come back ignorant and disappointed. It requires more philosophy
than I possess to bear this injustice with patience.
It is past; I am returning to England. I have lost my hopes
of utility and glory; I have lost my friend. But I will endeavour
to detail these bitter circumstances to you, my dear sister;
and while I am wafted towards England and towards you,
I will not despond.
September 9th, the ice began to move, and roarings like thunder
were heard at a distance as the islands split and cracked
in every direction. We were in the most imminent peril,
but as we could only remain passive, my chief attention was occupied
by my unfortunate guest whose illness increased in such a degree
that he was entirely confined to his bed. The ice cracked behind us
and was driven with force towards the north; a breeze sprang
from the west, and on the 11th the passage towards the south
became perfectly free. When the sailors saw this and that their return
to their native country was apparently assured, a shout of tumultuous joy
broke from them, loud and long-continued. Frankenstein, who was dozing,
awoke and asked the cause of the tumult. "They shout," I said,
"because they will soon return to England."
"Do you, then, really return?"
"Alas! Yes; I cannot withstand their demands. I cannot lead them
unwillingly to danger, and I must return."
"Do so, if you will; but I will not. You may give up your purpose,
but mine is assigned to me by heaven, and I dare not. I am weak,
but surely the spirits who assist my vengeance will endow me
with sufficient strength." Saying this, he endeavoured
to spring from the bed, but the exertion was too great for him;
he fell back and fainted.
It was long before he was restored, and I often thought
that life was entirely extinct. At length he opened his eyes;
he breathed with difficulty and was unable to speak. The surgeon gave him
a composing draught and ordered us to leave him undisturbed.
In the meantime he told me that my friend had certainly
not many hours to live.
His sentence was pronounced, and I could only grieve and be patient.
I sat by his bed, watching him; his eyes were closed,
and I thought he slept; but presently he called to me in a feeble voice,
and bidding me come near, said, "Alas! The strength I relied on is gone;
I feel that I shall soon die, and he, my enemy and persecutor,
may still be in being. Think not, Walton, that in the last moments
of my existence I feel that burning hatred and ardent desire of revenge
I once expressed; but I feel myself justified in desiring the death
of my adversary. During these last days I have been occupied
in examining my past conduct; nor do I find it blamable.
In a fit of enthusiastic madness I created a rational creature
and was bound towards him to assure, as far as was in my power,
his happiness and well-being. This was my duty, but there was another
still paramount to that. My duties towards the beings of my own species
had greater claims to my attention because they included a greater proportion
of happiness or misery. Urged by this view, I refused, and I did right
in refusing, to create a companion for the first creature.
He showed unparalleled malignity and selfishness in evil;
he destroyed my friends; he devoted to destruction beings
who possessed exquisite sensations, happiness, and wisdom; nor do I know
where this thirst for vengeance may end. Miserable himself that
he may render no other wretched, he ought to die.
The task of his destruction was mine, but I have failed.
When actuated by selfish and vicious motives, I asked you
to undertake my unfinished work, and I renew this request now,
when I am only induced by reason and virtue.
"Yet I cannot ask you to renounce your country and friends
to fulfil this task; and now that you are returning to England,
you will have little chance of meeting with him. But the consideration
of these points, and the well balancing of what you may esteem your duties,
I leave to you; my judgment and ideas are already disturbed
by the near approach of death. I dare not ask you to do what I think right,
for I may still be misled by passion.
"That he should live to be an instrument of mischief disturbs me;
in other respects, this hour, when I momentarily expect my release,
is the only happy one which I have enjoyed for several years.
The forms of the beloved dead flit before me, and I hasten to their arms.
Farewell, Walton! Seek happiness in tranquillity and avoid ambition,
even if it be only the apparently innocent one of distinguishing yourself
in science and discoveries. Yet why do I say this? I have myself
been blasted in these hopes, yet another may succeed."
His voice became fainter as he spoke, and at length, exhausted by his effort,
he sank into silence. About half an hour afterwards he attempted again
to speak but was unable; he pressed my hand feebly, and his eyes
closed forever, while the irradiation of a gentle smile passed away
from his lips.
Margaret, what comment can I make on the untimely extinction
of this glorious spirit? What can I say that will enable you
to understand the depth of my sorrow? All that I should express
would be inadequate and feeble. My tears flow; my mind
is overshadowed by a cloud of disappointment. But I journey
towards England, and I may there find consolation.
I am interrupted. What do these sounds portend? It is midnight;
the breeze blows fairly, and the watch on deck scarcely stir.
Again there is a sound as of a human voice, but hoarser; it comes
from the cabin where the remains of Frankenstein still lie.
I must arise and examine. Good night, my sister.
Great God! what a scene has just taken place! I am yet dizzy
with the remembrance of it. I hardly know whether I shall have the power
to detail it; yet the tale which I have recorded would be incomplete
without this final and wonderful catastrophe.
I entered the cabin where lay the remains of my ill-fated
and admirable friend. Over him hung a form which I cannot find words
to describe--gigantic in stature, yet uncouth and distorted
in its proportions. As he hung over the coffin, his face
was concealed by long locks of ragged hair; but one vast hand
was extended, in colour and apparent texture like that of a mummy.
When he heard the sound of my approach, he ceased to utter
exclamations of grief and horror and sprung towards the window.
Never did I behold a vision so horrible as his face, of such
loathsome yet appalling hideousness. I shut my eyes involuntarily
and endeavoured to recollect what were my duties with regard
to this destroyer. I called on him to stay.
He paused, looking on me with wonder, and again turning towards
the lifeless form of his creator, he seemed to forget my presence,
and every feature and gesture seemed instigated by the wildest rage
of some uncontrollable passion.
"That is also my victim!" he exclaimed. "In his murder my crimes
are consummated; the miserable series of my being is wound to its close!
Oh, Frankenstein! Generous and self-devoted being! What does it avail
that I now ask thee to pardon me? I, who irretrievably destroyed thee
by destroying all thou lovedst. Alas! He is cold, he cannot answer me."
His voice seemed suffocated, and my first impulses, which had suggested
to me the duty of obeying the dying request of my friend
in destroying his enemy, were now suspended by a mixture
of curiosity and compassion. I approached this tremendous being;
I dared not again raise my eyes to his face, there was something
so scaring and unearthly in his ugliness. I attempted to speak,
but the words died away on my lips. The monster continued
to utter wild and incoherent self-reproaches. At length
I gathered resolution to address him in a pause of the tempest
of his passion. "Your repentance," I said, "is now superfluous.
If you had listened to the voice of conscience and heeded
the stings of remorse before you had urged your diabolical
vengeance to this extremity, Frankenstein would yet have lived."
"And do you dream?" said the daemon. "Do you think that I was then dead
to agony and remorse? He," he continued, pointing to the corpse,
"he suffered not in the consummation of the deed. Oh!
Not the ten-thousandth portion of the anguish that was mine
during the lingering detail of its execution. A frightful selfishness
hurried me on, while my heart was poisoned with remorse.
Think you that the groans of Clerval were music to my ears?
My heart was fashioned to be susceptible of love and sympathy,
and when wrenched by misery to vice and hatred, it did not endure
the violence of the change without torture such as you cannot even imagine.
"After the murder of Clerval I returned to Switzerland,
heart-broken and overcome. I pitied Frankenstein; my pity
amounted to horror; I abhorred myself. But when I discovered that he,
the author at once of my existence and of its unspeakable torments,
dared to hope for happiness, that while he accumulated wretchedness
and despair upon me he sought his own enjoyment in feelings and passions
from the indulgence of which I was forever barred, then impotent envy
and bitter indignation filled me with an insatiable thirst for vengeance.
I recollected my threat and resolved that it should be accomplished.
I knew that I was preparing for myself a deadly torture,
but I was the slave, not the master, of an impulse which I detested
yet could not disobey. Yet when she died! Nay, then I was not miserable.
I had cast off all feeling, subdued all anguish, to riot in the excess
of my despair. Evil thenceforth became my good. Urged thus far,
I had no choice but to adapt my nature to an element
which I had willingly chosen. The completion of my demoniacal design
became an insatiable passion. And now it is ended; there is my last victim!"
I was at first touched by the expressions of his misery;
yet, when I called to mind what Frankenstein had said of his powers
of eloquence and persuasion, and when I again cast my eyes
on the lifeless form of my friend, indignation was rekindled within me.
"Wretch!" I said. "It is well that you come here to whine
over the desolation that you have made. You throw a torch
into a pile of buildings, and when they are consumed,
you sit among the ruins and lament the fall. Hypocritical fiend!
If he whom you mourn still lived, still would he be the object,
again would he become the prey, of your accursed vengeance.
It is not pity that you feel; you lament only because the victim
of your malignity is withdrawn from your power."
"Oh, it is not thus--not thus," interrupted the being.
"Yet such must be the impression conveyed to you by what appears
to be the purport of my actions. Yet I seek not a fellow feeling
in my misery. No sympathy may I ever find. When I first sought it,
it was the love of virtue, the feelings of happiness and affection
with which my whole being overflowed, that I wished to be participated.
But now that virtue has become to me a shadow, and that happiness
and affection are turned into bitter and loathing despair,
in what should I seek for sympathy? I am content to suffer alone
while my sufferings shall endure; when I die, I am well satisfied
that abhorrence and opprobrium should load my memory. Once my fancy
was soothed with dreams of virtue, of fame, and of enjoyment.
Once I falsely hoped to meet with beings who, pardoning my outward form,
would love me for the excellent qualities which I was capable of unfolding.
I was nourished with high thoughts of honour and devotion.
But now crime has degraded me beneath the meanest animal.
No guilt, no mischief, no malignity, no misery, can be found
comparable to mine. When I run over the frightful catalogue
of my sins, I cannot believe that I am the same creature whose thoughts
were once filled with sublime and transcendent visions of the beauty
and the majesty of goodness. But it is even so; the fallen angel
becomes a malignant devil. Yet even that enemy of God and man
had friends and associates in his desolation; I am alone.
"You, who call Frankenstein your friend, seem to have a knowledge
of my crimes and his misfortunes. But in the detail which he gave you
of them he could not sum up the hours and months of misery
which I endured wasting in impotent passions. For while
I destroyed his hopes, I did not satisfy my own desires.
They were forever ardent and craving; still I desired love
and fellowship, and I was still spurned. Was there no injustice
in this? Am I to be thought the only criminal, when all humankind
sinned against me? Why do you not hate Felix, who drove his friend
from his door with contumely? Why do you not execrate the rustic
who sought to destroy the saviour of his child? Nay, these are virtuous
and immaculate beings! I, the miserable and the abandoned,
am an abortion, to be spurned at, and kicked, and trampled on.
Even now my blood boils at the recollection of this injustice.
"But it is true that I am a wretch. I have murdered the lovely
and the helpless; I have strangled the innocent as they slept
and grasped to death his throat who never injured me
or any other living thing. I have devoted my creator, the select specimen
of all that is worthy of love and admiration among men, to misery;
I have pursued him even to that irremediable ruin. There he lies,
white and cold in death. You hate me, but your abhorrence
cannot equal that with which I regard myself. I look on the hands
which executed the deed; I think on the heart in which the imagination
of it was conceived and long for the moment when these hands
will meet my eyes, when that imagination will haunt my thoughts no more.
"Fear not that I shall be the instrument of future mischief.
My work is nearly complete. Neither yours nor any man's death
is needed to consummate the series of my being and accomplish
that which must be done, but it requires my own. Do not think
that I shall be slow to perform this sacrifice. I shall quit your vessel
on the ice raft which brought me thither and shall seek
the most northern extremity of the globe; I shall collect my funeral pile
and consume to ashes this miserable frame, that its remains
may afford no light to any curious and unhallowed wretch
who would create such another as I have been. I shall die.
I shall no longer feel the agonies which now consume me or be the prey
of feelings unsatisfied, yet unquenched. He is dead
who called me into being; and when I shall be no more, the very remembrance
of us both will speedily vanish. I shall no longer see the sun or stars
or feel the winds play on my cheeks. Light, feeling, and sense
will pass away; and in this condition must I find my happiness.
Some years ago, when the images which this world affords
first opened upon me, when I felt the cheering warmth of summer
and heard the rustling of the leaves and the warbling of the birds,
and these were all to me, I should have wept to die;
now it is my only consolation. Polluted by crimes and torn
by the bitterest remorse, where can I find rest but in death?
"Farewell! I leave you, and in you the last of humankind
whom these eyes will ever behold. Farewell, Frankenstein!
If thou wert yet alive and yet cherished a desire of revenge against me,
it would be better satiated in my life than in my destruction.
But it was not so; thou didst seek my extinction, that I might not cause
greater wretchedness; and if yet, in some mode unknown to me,
thou hadst not ceased to think and feel, thou wouldst not desire
against me a vengeance greater than that which I feel.
Blasted as thou wert, my agony was still superior to thine,
for the bitter sting of remorse will not cease to rankle in my wounds
until death shall close them forever.
"But soon," he cried with sad and solemn enthusiasm, "I shall die,
and what I now feel be no longer felt. Soon these burning miseries
will be extinct. I shall ascend my funeral pile triumphantly
and exult in the agony of the torturing flames. The light
of that conflagration will fade away; my ashes will be swept into the sea
by the winds. My spirit will sleep in peace, or if it thinks,
it will not surely think thus. Farewell."
He sprang from the cabin window as he said this, upon the ice raft
which lay close to the vessel. He was soon borne away by the waves
and lost in darkness and distance.
End
Frankenstein (the Modern Prometheus)
by Mary Wollstonecraft (Godwin) Shelley
The Ending
August 26th, 17--
My beloved Sister, September 2nd
September 5th
September 7th
September 12th
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