Yet heaven
bless thee, my dearest Justine, with resignation, and a confidence
elevated beyond this world. Oh! how I hate its shews and mockeries! when
one creature is murdered, another is immediately deprived of life in a
slow torturing manner; then the executioners, their hands yet reeking
with the blood of innocence, believe that they have done a great deed. They call this _retribution_. Hateful name! When that word is
pronounced, I know greater and more horrid punishments are going to be
inflicted than the gloomiest tyrant has ever invented to satiate his
utmost revenge. Yet this is not consolation for you, my Justine, unless
indeed that you may glory in escaping from so miserable a den. Alas! I
would I were in peace with my aunt and my lovely William, escaped from a
world which is hateful to me, and the visages of men which I abhor.”

Justine smiled languidly. “This, dear lady, is despair, and not
resignation. I must not learn the lesson that you would teach me. Talk
of something else, something that will bring peace, and not increase of
misery.”

During this conversation I had retired to a corner of the prison-room,
where I could conceal the horrid anguish that possessed me. Despair! Who
dared talk of that? The poor victim, who on the morrow was to pass the
dreary boundary between life and death, felt not as I did, such deep and
bitter agony. I gnashed my teeth, and ground them together, uttering a
groan that came from my inmost soul. Justine started. When she saw who
it was, she approached me, and said, “Dear Sir, you are very kind to
visit me; you, I hope, do not believe that I am guilty.”

I could not answer. “No, Justine,” said Elizabeth; “he is more convinced
of your innocence than I was; for even when he heard that you had
confessed, he did not credit it.”

“I truly thank him. In these last moments I feel the sincerest gratitude
towards those who think of me with kindness. How sweet is the affection
of others to such a wretch as I am! It removes more than half my
misfortune; and I feel as if I could die in peace, now that my innocence
is acknowledged by you, dear lady, and your cousin.”

Thus the poor sufferer tried to comfort others and herself. She indeed
gained the resignation she desired. But I, the true murderer, felt the
never-dying worm alive in my bosom, which allowed of no hope or
consolation. Elizabeth also wept, and was unhappy; but her’s also was
the misery of innocence, which, like a cloud that passes over the fair
moon, for a while hides, but cannot tarnish its brightness. Anguish and
despair had penetrated into the core of my heart; I bore a hell within
me, which nothing could extinguish. We staid several hours with Justine;
and it was with great difficulty that Elizabeth could tear herself away. “I wish,” cried she, “that I were to die with you; I cannot live in this
world of misery.”

Justine assumed an air of cheerfulness, while she with difficulty
repressed her bitter tears. She embraced Elizabeth, and said, in a voice
of half-suppressed emotion, “Farewell, sweet lady, dearest Elizabeth, my
beloved and only friend; may heaven in its bounty bless and preserve
you; may this be the last misfortune that you will ever suffer. Live,
and be happy, and make others so.”

As we returned, Elizabeth said, “You know not, my dear Victor, how much
I am relieved, now that I trust in the innocence of this unfortunate
girl. I never could again have known peace, if I had been deceived in my
reliance on her. For the moment that I did believe her guilty, I felt an
anguish that I could not have long sustained. Now my heart is lightened. The innocent suffers; but she whom I thought amiable and good has not
betrayed the trust I reposed in her, and I am consoled.”

Amiable cousin! such were your thoughts, mild and gentle as your own
dear eyes and voice. But I—I was a wretch, and none ever conceived of
the misery that I then endured. END OF VOL. I.




FRANKENSTEIN;

OR,

THE MODERN PROMETHEUS. IN THREE VOLUMES. VOL. II. London:

    _PRINTED FOR_
    LACKINGTON, HUGHES, HARDING, MAVOR, & JONES,
    FINSBURY SQUARE. 1818. *       *       *       *       *

    Did I request thee, Maker, from my clay
    To mould me man? Did I solicit thee
    From darkness to promote me?——

    Paradise Lost. CHAPTER I. Nothing is more painful to the human mind, than, after the feelings have
been worked up by a quick succession of events, the dead calmness of
inaction and certainty which follows, and deprives the soul both of hope
and fear. Justine died; she rested; and I was alive. The blood flowed
freely in my veins, but a weight of despair and remorse pressed on my
heart, which nothing could remove. Sleep fled from my eyes; I wandered
like an evil spirit, for I had committed deeds of mischief beyond
description horrible, and more, much more, (I persuaded myself) was yet
behind. Yet my heart overflowed with kindness, and the love of virtue. I
had begun life with benevolent intentions, and thirsted for the moment
when I should put them in practice, and make myself useful to my
fellow-beings. Now all was blasted: instead of that serenity of
conscience, which allowed me to look back upon the past with
self-satisfaction, and from thence to gather promise of new hopes, I
was seized by remorse and the sense of guilt, which hurried me away to
a hell of intense tortures, such as no language can describe. This state of mind preyed upon my health, which had entirely recovered
from the first shock it had sustained. I shunned the face of man; all
sound of joy or complacency was torture to me; solitude was my only
consolation—deep, dark, death-like solitude. My father observed with pain the alteration perceptible in my
disposition and habits, and endeavoured to reason with me on the folly
of giving way to immoderate grief. “Do you think, Victor,” said he,
“that I do not suffer also? No one could love a child more than I loved
your brother;” (tears came into his eyes as he spoke); “but is it not a
duty to the survivors, that we should refrain from augmenting their
unhappiness by an appearance of immoderate grief? It is also a duty owed
to yourself; for excessive sorrow prevents improvement or enjoyment, or
even the discharge of daily usefulness, without which no man is fit for
society.”

This advice, although good, was totally inapplicable to my case; I
should have been the first to hide my grief, and console my friends, if
remorse had not mingled its bitterness with my other sensations. Now I
could only answer my father with a look of despair, and endeavour to
hide myself from his view. About this time we retired to our house at Belrive. This change was
particularly agreeable to me. The shutting of the gates regularly at ten
o’clock, and the impossibility of remaining on the lake after that
hour, had rendered our residence within the walls of Geneva very irksome
to me. I was now free.