But this was not the time for delay; I disencumbered the dogs of their dead companion,gave them a plentiful portion of food, and after an hour’s rest, which was absolutely necessary,and yet which was bitterly irksome to me, I continued my route. The sledge was still visible,nor did I again lose sight of it except at the moments when for a short time some ice-rock concealed it with its intervening crags.I indeed perceptibly gained on it, and when, after nearly two days’ journey,I beheld my enemy at no more than a mile distant, my heart bounded within me.
But now, when I appeared almost within grasp of my foe, my hopes were suddenly extinguished,and I lost all trace of him more utterly than I had ever done before. A ground sea was heard;the thunder of its progress, as the waters rolled and swelled beneath me,became every moment more ominous and terrific. I pressed on, but in vain. The wind arose;the sea roared; and, as with the mighty shock of an earthquake,it split and cracked with a tremendous and overwhelming sound. The work was soon finished;in a few minutes a tumultuous sea rolled between me and my enemy,and I was left drifting on a scattered piece of ice that was continually lessening and thus preparing for me a hideous death.
In this manner many appalling hours passed; several of my dogs died,and I myself was about to sink under the accumulation of distress when I saw your vessel riding at anchor and holding forth to me hopes of succour and life.I had no conception that vessels ever came so far north and was astounded at the sight.I quickly destroyed part of my sledge to construct oars, and by these means was enabled,with infinite fatigue, to move my ice raft in the direction of your ship. I had determined,if you were going southwards, still to trust myself to the mercy of the seas rather than abandon my purpose.I hoped to induce you to grant me a boat with which I could pursue my enemy.But your direction was northwards. You took me on board when my vigour was exhausted,and I should soon have sunk under my multiplied hardships into a death which I still dread, for my task is unfulfilled.
Oh!When will my guiding spirit, in conducting me to the dæmon, allow me the rest I so much desire; or must I die, and he yet live?If I do, swear to me, Walton, that he shall not escape,that you will seek him and satisfy my vengeance in his death.And do I dare to ask of you to undertake my pilgrimage,to endure the hardships that I have undergone?No; I am not so selfish. Yet, when I am dead, if he should appear,if the ministers of vengeance should conduct him to you,swear that he shall not live—swear that he shall not triumph over my accumulated woes and survive to add to the list of his dark crimes.He is eloquent and persuasive, and once his words had even power over my heart; but trust him not.His soul is as hellish as his form, full of treachery and fiend-like malice. Hear him not;call on the names of William, Justine, Clerval, Elizabeth, my father, and of the wretched Victor,and thrust your sword into his heart. I will hover near and direct the steel aright.
Walton, _in continuation._
August 26th, 17—.
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 recognise 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 sympathise 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.”
My beloved Sister,
September 2d.
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.
September 5th.
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.
September 7th.
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.
September 12th.
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 for ever,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 dæmon. “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 for ever 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 for ever 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.