The being finished speaking and fixed his looks upon me in the 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 condemns 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 a hundred and a hundredfold;
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 everyone 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 mountain
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 halfway 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.