Frankenstein

Chapter 17

The being finished speaking, and fixed his looks upon me in
expectation of a reply. But I was bewildered, perplexed and
unable to arrange my ideas sufficiently to understand the full
extent of his proposition. He continued--

"You must create a female for me, with whom I can live in the
interchange of those sympathies necessary for my being. This you
alone can do; and I demand it of you as a right which you must
not refuse to concede."

The latter part of his tale had kindled anew in me the anger
that had died away while he narrated his peaceful life among
the cottagers, and, as he said this, I could no longer suppress
the rage that burned within me.

"I do refuse it," I replied; "and no torture shall ever extort
a consent from me. You may render me the most miserable of
men, but you shall never make me base in my own eyes. Shall I
create another like yourself, whose joint wickedness might
desolate the world! Begone! I have answered you; you may
torture me, but I will never consent."

"You are in the wrong," replied the fiend; "and, instead of
threatening, I am content to reason with you. I am malicious
because I am miserable. Am I not shunned and hated by all
mankind? You, my creator, would tear me to pieces, and
triumph; remember that, and tell me why I should pity man more
than he pities me? You would not call it murder if you could
precipitate me into one of those ice-rifts, and destroy my
frame, the work of your own hands. Shall I respect man when he
contemns me? Let him live with me in the interchange of
kindness; and, instead of injury, I would bestow every benefit
upon him with tears of gratitude at his acceptance. But that
cannot be; the human senses are insurmountable barriers to our
union. Yet mine shall not be the submission of abject slavery.
I will revenge my injuries: if I cannot inspire love, I will
cause fear; and chiefly towards you my arch-enemy, because my
creator, do I swear inextinguishable hatred. Have a care: I
will work at your destruction, nor finish until I desolate your
heart, so that you shall curse the hour of your birth."

A fiendish rage animated him as he said this; his face was
wrinkled into contortions too horrible for human eyes to
behold; but presently he calmed himself and proceeded--

"I intended to reason. This passion is detrimental to me;
for you do not reflect that _you_ are the cause of its excess.
If any being felt emotions of benevolence towards me, I should
return them an hundred and an hundred fold; for that one
creature's sake, I would make peace with the whole kind! But I
now indulge in dreams of bliss that cannot be realised. What I
ask of you is reasonable and moderate; I demand a creature of
another sex, but as hideous as myself; the gratification is
small, but it is all that I can receive, and it shall content me.
It is true we shall be monsters, cut off from all the world;
but on that account we shall be more attached to one another.
Our lives will not be happy, but they will be harmless, and
free from the misery I now feel. Oh! my creator, make me happy;
let me feel gratitude towards you for one benefit! Let me see
that I excite the sympathy of some existing thing; do not deny
me my request!"

I was moved. I shuddered when I thought of the possible
consequences of my consent; but I felt that there was some
justice in his argument. His tale, and the feelings he now
expressed, proved him to be a creature of fine sensations; and
did I not as his maker owe him all the portion of happiness
that it was in my power to bestow? He saw my change of feeling
and continued--

"If you consent, neither you nor any other human being shall
ever see us again: I will go to the vast wilds of South
America. My food is not that of man; I do not destroy the lamb
and the kid to glut my appetite; acorns and berries afford me
sufficient nourishment. My companion will be of the same
nature as myself, and will be content with the same fare. We
shall make our bed of dried leaves; the sun will shine on us as
on man, and will ripen our food. The picture I present to you
is peaceful and human, and you must feel that you could deny it
only in the wantonness of power and cruelty. Pitiless as you
have been towards me, I now see compassion in your eyes; let me
seize the favourable moment, and persuade you to promise what
I so ardently desire."

"You propose," replied I, "to fly from the habitations of man,
to dwell in those wilds where the beasts of the field will be
your only companions. How can you, who long for the love and
sympathy of man, persevere in this exile? You will return, and
again seek their kindness, and you will meet with their
detestation; your evil passions will be renewed, and you will
then have a companion to aid you in the task of destruction.
This may not be: cease to argue the point, for I cannot consent."

"How inconstant are your feelings! but a moment ago you were
moved by my representations, and why do you again harden
yourself to my complaints? I swear to you, by the earth which
I inhabit, and by you that made me, that, with the companion
you bestow, I will quit the neighbourhood of man, and dwell as
it may chance in the most savage of places. My evil passions
will have fled, for I shall meet with sympathy! my life will
flow quietly away, and, in my dying moments, I shall not curse
my maker."

His words had a strange effect upon me. I compassionated him,
and sometimes felt a wish to console him; but when I looked
upon him, when I saw the filthy mass that moved and talked, my
heart sickened, and my feelings were altered to those of horror
and hatred. I tried to stifle these sensations; I thought
that, as I could not sympathise with him, I had no right to
withhold from him the small portion of happiness which was yet
in my power to bestow.

"You swear," I said, "to be harmless; but have you not already
shown a degree of malice that should reasonably make me
distrust you? May not even this be a feint that will increase
your triumph by affording a wider scope for your revenge."

"How is this? I must not be trifled with: and I demand an
answer. If I have no ties and no affections, hatred and vice
must be my portion; the love of another will destroy the cause
of my crimes, and I shall become a thing of whose existence
every one will be ignorant. My vices are the children of a
forced solitude that I abhor; and my virtues will necessarily
arise when I live in communion with an equal. I shall feel the
affections of a sensitive being, and become linked to the chain
of existence and events, from which I am now excluded."

I paused some time to reflect on all he had related, and the
various arguments which he had employed. I thought of the
promise of virtues which he had displayed on the opening of his
existence, and the subsequent blight of all kindly feeling by
the loathing and scorn which his protectors had manifested
towards him. His power and threats were not omitted in my
calculations: a creature who could exist in the ice-caves of
the glaciers, and hide himself from pursuit among the ridges of
inaccessible precipices, was a being possessing faculties it
would be vain to cope with. After a long pause of reflection,
I concluded that the justice due both to him and my
fellow-creatures demanded of me that I should comply with
his request. Turning to him, therefore, I said--

"I consent to your demand, on your solemn oath to quit Europe
for ever, and every other place in the neighbourhood of man, as
soon as I shall deliver into your hands a female who will
accompany you in your exile."

"I swear," he cried, "by the sun, and by the blue sky of
Heaven, and by the fire of love that burns my heart, that if
you grant my prayer, while they exist you shall never behold
me again. Depart to your home, and commence your labours: I shall
watch their progress with unutterable anxiety; and fear not
but that when you are ready I shall appear."

Saying this, he suddenly quitted me, fearful, perhaps, of any
change in my sentiments. I saw him descend the mountain with
greater speed than the flight of an eagle, and quickly lost
among the undulations of the sea of ice.

His tale had occupied the whole day; and the sun was upon
the verge of the horizon when he departed. I knew that I ought
to hasten my descent towards the valley, as I should soon be
encompassed in darkness; but my heart was heavy, and my steps
slow. The labour of winding among the little paths of the
mountains, and fixing my feet firmly as I advanced, perplexed
me, occupied as I was by the emotions which the occurrences of
the day had produced. Night was far advanced when I came to
the half-way resting-place, and seated myself beside the
fountain. The stars shone at intervals, as the clouds passed
from over them; the dark pines rose before me, and every here
and there a broken tree lay on the ground: it was a scene of
wonderful solemnity, and stirred strange thoughts within me.
I wept bitterly; and clasping my hands in agony, I exclaimed,
"Oh! stars, and clouds, and winds, ye are all about to mock me:
if ye really pity me, crush sensation and memory; let me become
as nought; but if not, depart, depart, and leave me in darkness."

These were wild and miserable thoughts; but I cannot describe
to you how the eternal twinkling of the stars weighed upon me,
and how I listened to every blast of wind as if it were a dull
ugly siroc on its way to consume me.

Morning dawned before I arrived at the village of Chamounix; I
took no rest, but returned immediately to Geneva. Even in my
own heart I could give no expression to my sensations--they
weighed on me with a mountain's weight, and their excess
destroyed my agony beneath them. Thus I returned home, and
entering the house, presented myself to the family. My haggard
and wild appearance awoke intense alarm; but I answered no
question, scarcely did I speak. I felt as if I were placed
under a ban--as if I had no right to claim their sympathies--as
if never more might I enjoy companionship with them. Yet even
thus I loved them to adoration; and to save them, I resolved to
dedicate myself to my most abhorred task. The prospect of such
an occupation made every other circumstance of existence pass
before me like a dream; and that thought only had to me the
reality of life.

Chapter 18

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