Frankenstein's Bride (42 page)

C H A PT E R 2 4

MY PRESENT SITUATION was one in which all voluntary thought was swallowed up and lost. I was hurried away by fury; revenge
alone endowed me with strength and composure; it molded my feelings and allowed me to be calculating and calm at periods when
otherwise delirium or death would have been my portion.

My first resolution was to quit Geneva forever; my country, which, when I was happy and beloved, was dear to me, now, in my
adversity, became hateful. I provided myself with a sum of money, together with a few jewels which had belonged to my mother,
and departed. And now my wanderings began which are to cease but with life. I have traversed a vast portion of the earth and
have endured all the hardships which travelers in deserts and barbarous countries are wont to meet. How I have lived I hardly
know; many times have I stretched my failing limbs upon the sandy plain and prayed for death. But revenge kept me alive; I
dared not die and leave my adversary in being.

When I quitted Geneva my first labor was to gain some clue by which I might trace the steps of my fiendish enemy. But my plan
was unsettled, and I wandered many hours round the confines of the town, uncertain what path I should pursue. As night approached
I found myself at the entrance of the cemetery where William, Elizabeth, and my father reposed. I entered it and approached
the tomb which marked their graves. Everything was silent except the leaves of the trees, which were gently agitated by the
wind; the night was nearly dark, and the scene would have been solemn and affecting even to an uninterested observer. The
spirits of the departed seemed to flit around and to cast a shadow, which was felt but not seen, around the head of the mourner.

The deep grief which this scene had at first excited quickly gave way to rage and despair. They were dead, and I lived; their
murderer also lived, and to destroy him I must drag out my weary existence. I knelt on the grass and kissed the earth and
with quivering lips exclaimed, “By the sacred earth on which I kneel, by the shades that wander near me, by the deep and eternal
grief that I feel, I swear; and by thee, O Night, and the spirits that preside over thee, to pursue the daemon who caused
this misery, until he or I shall perish in mortal conflict. For this purpose I will preserve my life; to execute this dear
revenge will I again behold the sun and tread the green herbage of earth, which otherwise should vanish from my eyes forever.
And I call on you, spirits of the dead, and on you, wandering ministers of vengeance, to aid and conduct me in my work. Let
the cursed and hellish monster drink deep of agony; let him feel the despair that now torments me.” I had begun my adjuration
with solemnity and an awe which almost assured me that the shades of my murdered friends heard and approved my devotion, but
the furies possessed me as I concluded, and rage choked my utterance.

I was answered through the stillness of night by a loud and fiendish laugh. It rang on my ears long and heavily; the mountains
re-echoed it, and I felt as if all hell surrounded me with mockery and laughter. Surely in that moment I should have been
possessed by frenzy and have destroyed my miserable existence but that my vow was heard and that I was reserved for vengeance.
The laughter died away, when a well-known and abhorred voice, apparently close to my ear, addressed me in an audible whisper,
“I am satisfied, miserable wretch! You have determined to live, and I am satisfied.” I darted towards the spot from which
the sound proceeded, but the devil eluded my grasp. Suddenly the broad disk of the moon arose and shone full upon his ghastly
and distorted shape as he fled with more than mortal speed.

I pursued him, and for many months this has been my task. Guided by a slight clue, I followed the windings of the Rhone, but
vainly. The blue Mediterranean appeared, and by a strange chance, I saw the fiend enter by night and hide himself in a vessel
bound for the Black Sea. I took my passage in the same ship, but he escaped, I know not how.

Amidst the wilds of Tartary and Russia, although he still evaded me, I have ever followed in his track. Sometimes the peasants,
scared by this horrid apparition, informed me of his path; sometimes he himself, who feared that if I lost all trace of him
I should despair and die, left some mark to guide me. The snows descended on my head, and I saw the print of his huge step
on the white plain. To you first entering on life, to whom care is new and agony unknown, how can you understand what I have
felt and still feel? Cold, want, and fatigue were the least pains which I was destined to endure; I was cursed by some devil
and carried about with me my eternal hell; yet still a spirit of good followed and directed my steps and when I most murmured
would suddenly extricate me from seemingly insurmountable difficulties. Sometimes, when nature, overcome by hunger, sank under
the exhaustion, a repast was prepared for me in the desert that restored and inspirited me. The fare was, indeed, coarse,
such as the peasants of the country ate, but I will not doubt that it was set there by the spirits that I had invoked to aid
me. Often, when all was dry, the heavens cloudless, and I was parched by thirst, a slight cloud would bedim the sky, shed
the few drops that revived me, and vanish.

I followed, when I could, the courses of the rivers; but the daemon generally avoided these, as it was here that the population
of the country chiefly collected. In other places human beings were seldom seen, and I generally subsisted on the wild animals
that crossed my path. I had money with me and gained the friendship of the villagers by distributing it; or I brought with
me some food that I had killed, which, after taking a small part, I always presented to those who had provided me with fire
and utensils for cooking.

My life, as it passed thus, was indeed hateful to me, and it was during sleep alone that I could taste joy. O blessed sleep!
Often, when most miserable, I sank to repose, and my dreams lulled me even to rapture. The spirits that guarded me had provided
these moments, or rather hours, of happiness that I might retain strength to fulfill my pilgrimage. Deprived of this respite,
I should have sunk under my hardships. During the day I was sustained and inspirited by the hope of night, for in sleep I
saw my friends, my wife, and my beloved country; again I saw the benevolent countenance of my father, heard the silver tones
of my Elizabeth's voice, and beheld Clerval enjoying health and youth. Often, when wearied by a toilsome march, I persuaded
myself that I was dreaming until night should come and that I should then enjoy reality in the arms of my dearest friends.
What agonizing fondness did I feel for them! How did I cling to their dear forms, as sometimes they haunted even my waking
hours, and persuade myself that they still lived! At such moments vengeance, that burned within me, died in my heart, and
I pursued my path towards the destruction of the daemon more as a task enjoined by heaven, as the mechanical impulse of some
power of which I was unconscious, than as the ardent desire of my soul.

What his feelings were whom I pursued I cannot know. Sometimes, indeed, he left marks in writing on the barks of the trees
or cut in stone that guided me and instigated my fury. “My reign is not yet over”—these words were legible in one of these
inscrip-tions—“you live, and my power is complete. Follow me; I seek the everlasting ices of the north, where you will feel
the misery of cold and frost, to which I am impassive. You will find near this place, if you follow not too tardily, a dead
hare; eat and be refreshed. Come on, my enemy; we have yet to wrestle for our lives, but many hard and miserable hours must
you endure until that period shall arrive.”

Scoffing devil! Again do I vow vengeance; again do I devote thee, miserable fiend, to torture and death. Never will I give
up my search until he or I perish; and then with what ecstasy shall I join my Elizabeth and my departed friends, who even
now prepare for me the reward of my tedious toil and horrible pilgrimage!

As I still pursued my journey to the northward, the snows thickened and the cold increased in a degree almost too severe to
support. The peasants were shut up in their hovels, and only a few of the most hardy ventured forth to seize the animals whom
starvation had forced from their hiding-places to seek for prey. The rivers were covered with ice, and no fish could be procured;
and thus I was cut off from my chief article of maintenance.

The triumph of my enemy increased with the difficulty of my labors. One inscription that he left was in these words: “Prepare!
Your toils only begin; wrap yourself in furs and provide food, for we shall soon enter upon a journey where your sufferings
will satisfy my everlasting hatred.”

My courage and perseverance were invigorated by these scoffing words; I resolved not to fail in my purpose, and calling on
heaven to support me, I continued with unabated fervor to traverse immense deserts, until the ocean appeared at a distance
and formed the utmost boundary of the horizon. Oh! How unlike it was to the blue seasons of the south! Covered with ice, it
was only to be distinguished from land by its superior wildness and ruggedness. The Greeks wept for joy when they beheld the
Mediterranean from the hills of Asia, and hailed with rapture the boundary of their toils. I did not weep, but I knelt down
and with a full heart thanked my guiding spirit for conducting me in safety to the place where I hoped, notwithstanding my
adversary's gibe, to meet and grapple with him.

Some weeks before this period I had procured a sledge and dogs and thus traversed the snows with inconceivable speed. I know
not whether the fiend possessed the same advantages, but I found that, as before I had daily lost ground in the pursuit, I
now gained on him, so much so that when I first saw the ocean he was but one day's journey in advance, and I hoped to intercept
him before he should reach the beach. With new courage, therefore, I pressed on, and in two days arrived at a wretched hamlet
on the seashore. I inquired of the inhabitants concerning the fiend and gained accurate information. A gigantic monster, they
said, had arrived the night before, armed with a gun and many pistols, putting to flight the inhabitants of a solitary cottage
through fear of his terrific appearance. He had carried off their store of winter food, and placing it in a sledge, to draw
which he had seized on a numerous drove of trained dogs, he had harnessed them, and the same night, to the joy of the horror-struck
villagers, had pursued his journey across the sea in a direction that led to no land; and they conjectured that he must speedily
be destroyed by the breaking of the ice or frozen by the eternal frosts.

On hearing this information I suffered a temporary access of despair. He had escaped me, and I must commence a destructive
and almost endless journey across the mountainous ices of the ocean, amidst cold that few of the inhabitants could long endure
and which I, the native of a genial and sunny climate, could not hope to survive. Yet at the idea that the fiend should live
and be triumphant, my rage and vengeance returned, and like a mighty tide, overwhelmed every other feeling. After a slight
repose, during which the spirits of the dead hovered round and instigated me to toil and revenge, I prepared for my journey.

I exchanged my land-sledge for one fashioned for the inequalities of the frozen ocean, and purchasing a plentiful stock of
provisions, I departed from land.

I cannot guess how many days have passed since then, but I have endured misery which nothing but the eternal sentiment of
a just retribution burning within my heart could have enabled me to support. Immense and rugged mountains of ice often barred
up my passage, and I often heard the thunder of the ground sea, which threatened my destruction. But again the frost came
and made the paths of the sea secure.

By the quantity of provision which I had consumed, I should guess that I had passed three weeks in this journey; and the continual
protraction of hope, returning back upon the heart, often wrung bitter drops of despondency and grief from my eyes. Despair
had indeed almost secured her prey, and I should soon have sunk beneath this misery. Once, after the poor animals that conveyed
me had with incredible toil gained the summit of a sloping ice mountain, and one, sinking under his fatigue, died, I viewed
the expanse before me with anguish, when suddenly my eye caught a dark speck upon the dusky plain. I strained my sight to
discover what it could be and uttered a wild cry of ecstasy when I distinguished a sledge and the distorted proportions of
a well-known form within. Oh! With what a burning gush did hope revisit my heart! Warm tears filled my eyes, which I hastily
wiped away, that they might not intercept the view I had of the daemon; but still my sight was dimmed by the burning drops,
until, giving way to the emotions that oppressed me, I wept aloud.

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.