you belong then to my enemy—to him towards whom I have
sworn eternal revenge; you shall be my first victim.’

“The child still struggled, and loaded me with epithets which carried
despair to my heart: I grasped his throat to silence him, and in a
moment he lay dead at my feet. “I gazed on my victim, and my heart swelled with exultation and hellish
triumph: clapping my hands, I exclaimed, ‘I, too, can create desolation;
my enemy is not impregnable; this death will carry despair to him, and a
thousand other miseries shall torment and destroy him.’

“As I fixed my eyes on the child, I saw something glittering on his
breast. I took it; it was a portrait of a most lovely woman. In spite of
my malignity, it softened and attracted me. For a few moments I gazed
with delight on her dark eyes, fringed by deep lashes, and her lovely
lips; but presently my rage returned: I remembered that I was for ever
deprived of the delights that such beautiful creatures could bestow; and
that she whose resemblance I contemplated would, in regarding me, have
changed that air of divine benignity to one expressive of disgust and
affright. “Can you wonder that such thoughts transported me with rage? I only
wonder that at that moment, instead of venting my sensations in
exclamations and agony, I did not rush among mankind, and perish in the
attempt to destroy them. “While I was overcome by these feelings, I left the spot where I had
committed the murder, and was seeking a more secluded hiding-place, when
I perceived a woman passing near me. She was young, not indeed so
beautiful as her whose portrait I held, but of an agreeable aspect, and
blooming in the loveliness of youth and health. Here, I thought, is one
of those whose smiles are bestowed on all but me; she shall not escape:
thanks to the lessons of Felix, and the sanguinary laws of man, I have
learned how to work mischief. I approached her unperceived, and placed
the portrait securely in one of the folds of her dress. “For some days I haunted the spot where these scenes had taken place;
sometimes wishing to see you, sometimes resolved to quit the world and
its miseries for ever. At length I wandered towards these mountains, and
have ranged through their immense recesses, consumed by a burning
passion which you alone can gratify. We may not part until you have
promised to comply with my requisition. I am alone, and miserable; man
will not associate with me; but one as deformed and horrible as myself
would not deny herself to me. My companion must be of the same species,
and have the same defects. This being you must create.”




CHAPTER IX. 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.”

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 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
realized. 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.