Frankenstein's Bride (44 page)

They retired and I turned towards my friend, but he was sunk in languor
and almost deprived of life.

How all this will terminate, I know not, but I had rather die than return
shamefully, my purpose unfulfilled. Yet I fear such will be my fate; the men,
unsupported by ideas of glory and honor, can never willingly continue to endure
their present hardships.

September 7th

The die is cast; I have consented to return if we are not destroyed. Thus are
my hopes blasted by cowardice and indecision; I come back ignorant and disappointed.
It requires more philosophy than I possess to bear this injustice
with patience.

September 12th

It is past; I am returning to England. I have lost my hopes of utility and glory;
I have lost my friend. But I will endeavor to detail these bitter circumstances to
you, my dear sister; and while I am wafted towards England and towards you,
I will not despond.

September 9th, the ice began to move, and roarings like thunder were heard
at a distance as the islands split and cracked in every direction. We were in the
most imminent peril, but as we could only remain passive, my chief attention
was occupied by my unfortunate guest whose illness increased in such a degree
that he was entirely confined to his bed. The ice cracked behind us and was
driven with force towards the north; a breeze sprang from the west, and on the
11th the passage towards the south became perfectly free. When the sailors saw
this and that their return to their native country was apparently assured, a shout
of tumultuous joy broke from them, loud and long-continued. Frankenstein, who
was dozing, awoke and asked the cause of the tumult. “They shout,” I said,
“because they will soon return to England.”

“Do you, then, really return?”

“Alas! Yes; I cannot withstand their demands. I cannot lead them unwillingly
to danger, and I must return.”

“Do so, if you will; but I will not. You may give up your purpose, but mine
is assigned to me by heaven, and I dare not. I am weak, but surely the spirits
who assist my vengeance will endow me with sufficient strength.” Saying this,
he endeavored to spring from the bed, but the exertion was too great for him;
he fell back and fainted.

It was long before he was restored, and I often thought that life was entirely
extinct. At length he opened his eyes; he breathed with difficulty and was
unable to speak. The surgeon gave him a composing draught and ordered us
to leave him undisturbed. In the meantime he told me that my friend had certainly
not many hours to live.

His sentence was pronounced, and I could only grieve and be patient. I sat
by his bed, watching him; his eyes were closed, and I thought he slept; but
presently he called to me in a feeble voice, and bidding me come near, said,
“Alas! The strength I relied on is gone; I feel that I shall soon die, and he, my
enemy and persecutor, may still be in being. Think not, Walton, that in the last
moments of my existence I feel that burning hatred and ardent desire of revenge
I once expressed; but I feel myself justified in desiring the death of my adversary.
During these last days I have been occupied in examining my past conduct;
nor do I find it blamable. In a fit of enthusiastic madness I created a
rational creature and was bound towards him to assure, as far as was in my
power, his happiness and well-being. This was my duty, but there was another
still paramount to that. My duties towards the beings of my own species had
greater claims to my attention because they included a greater proportion of happiness
or misery. Urged by this view, I refused, and I did right in refusing, to
create a companion for the first creature. He showed unparalleled malignity and
selfishness in evil; he destroyed my friends; he devoted to destruction beings who
possessed exquisite sensations, happiness, and wisdom; nor do I know where
this thirst for vengeance may end. Miserable himself that he may render no other
wretched, he ought to die. The task of his destruction was mine, but I have
failed. When actuated by selfish and vicious motives, I asked you to undertake
my unfinished work, and I renew this request now, when I am only induced by
reason and virtue.

“Yet I cannot ask you to renounce your country and friends to fulfill this
task; and now that you are returning to England, you will have little chance
of meeting with him. But the consideration of these points, and the well balancing
of what you may esteem your duties, I leave to you; my judgment and
ideas are already disturbed by the near approach of death. I dare not ask you
to do what I think right, for I may still be misled by passion.

“That he should live to be an instrument of mischief disturbs me; in other
respects, this hour, when I momentarily expect my release, is the only happy one
which I have enjoyed for several years. The forms of the beloved dead flit before
me, and I hasten to their arms. Farewell, Walton! Seek happiness in tranquility
and avoid ambition, even if it be only the apparently innocent one of distinguishing
yourself in science and discoveries. Yet why do I say this? I have myself
been blasted in these hopes, yet another may succeed.”

His voice became fainter as he spoke, and at length, exhausted by his effort,
he sank into silence. About half an hour afterwards he attempted again to speak
but was unable; he pressed my hand feebly, and his eyes closed forever, while
the irradiation of a gentle smile passed away from his lips.

Margaret, what comment can I make on the untimely extinction of this glorious
spirit? What can I say that will enable you to understand the depth of my
sorrow? All that I should express would be inadequate and feeble. My tears
flow; my mind is overshadowed by a cloud of disappointment. But I journey
towards England, and I may there find consolation.

I am interrupted. What do these sounds portend? It is midnight; the breeze
blows fairly, and the watch on deck scarcely stir. Again there is a sound as of
a human voice, but hoarser; it comes from the cabin where the remains of
Frankenstein still lie. I must arise and examine. Good night, my sister.

Great God! what a scene has just taken place! I am yet dizzy with the
remembrance of it. I hardly know whether I shall have the power to detail it;
yet the tale which I have recorded would be incomplete without this final and
wonderful catastrophe.

I entered the cabin where lay the remains of my ill-fated and admirable
friend. Over him hung a form which I cannot find words to describe—gigantic
in stature, yet uncouth and distorted in its proportions. As he hung over the coffin,
his face was concealed by long locks of ragged hair; but one vast hand was
extended, in color and apparent texture like that of a mummy. When he heard
the sound of my approach, he ceased to utter exclamations of grief and horror
and sprung towards the window. Never did I behold a vision so horrible as his
face, of such loathsome yet appalling hideousness. I shut my eyes involuntarily
and endeavored to recollect what were my duties with regard to this destroyer.
I called on him to stay.

He paused, looking on me with wonder, and again turning towards the lifeless
form of his creator, he seemed to forget my presence, and every feature and
gesture seemed instigated by the wildest rage of some uncontrollable passion.

“That is also my victim!” he exclaimed. “In his murder my crimes are consummated;
the miserable series of my being is wound to its close! Oh,
Frankenstein! Generous and self-devoted being! What does it avail that I now
ask thee to pardon me? I, who irretrievably destroyed thee by destroying all thou
lovedst. Alas! He is cold, he cannot answer me.” His voice seemed suffocated,
and my first impulses, which had suggested to me the duty of obeying the dying
request of my friend in destroying his enemy, were now suspended by a mixture
of curiosity and compassion. I approached this tremendous being; I dared not
again raise my eyes to his face, there was something so scaring and unearthly
in his ugliness. I attempted to speak, but the words died away on my lips. The
monster continued to utter wild and incoherent self-reproaches. At length I gathered
resolution to address him in a pause of the tempest of his passion. “Your
repentance,” I said, “is now superfluous. If you had listened to the voice of conscience
and heeded the stings of remorse before you had urged your diabolical
vengeance to this extremity, Frankenstein would yet have lived.”

“And do you dream?” said the daemon. “Do you think that I was then
dead to agony and remorse? He,” he continued, pointing to the corpse, “he suffered
not in the consummation of the deed. Oh! Not the ten-thousandth portion
of the anguish that was mine during the lingering detail of its execution. A
frightful selfishness hurried me on, while my heart was poisoned with remorse.
Think you that the groans of Clerval were music to my ears? My heart was
fashioned to be susceptible of love and sympathy, and when wrenched by misery
to vice and hatred, it did not endure the violence of the change without torture
such as you cannot even imagine.

“After the murder of Clerval I returned to Switzerland, heart-broken and
overcome. I pitied Frankenstein; my pity amounted to horror; I abhorred myself.
But when I discovered that he, the author at once of my existence and of its
unspeakable torments, dared to hope for happiness, that while he accumulated
wretchedness and despair upon me he sought his own enjoyment in feelings and
passions from the indulgence of which I was forever barred, then impotent envy
and bitter indignation filled me with an insatiable thirst for vengeance. I recollected
my threat and resolved that it should be accomplished. I knew that I was
preparing for myself a deadly torture, but I was the slave, not the master, of an
impulse which I detested yet could not disobey. Yet when she died! Nay, then I
was not miserable. I had cast off all feeling, subdued all anguish, to riot in the
excess of my despair. Evil thenceforth became my good. Urged thus far, I had
no choice but to adapt my nature to an element which I had willingly chosen.
The completion of my demoniacal design became an insatiable passion. And
now it is ended; there is my last victim!”

I was at first touched by the expressions of his misery; yet, when I called to
mind what Frankenstein had said of his powers of eloquence and persuasion,
and when I again cast my eyes on the lifeless form of my friend, indignation was
rekindled within me. “Wretch!” I said. “It is well that you come here to whine
over the desolation that you have made. You throw a torch into a pile of buildings,
and when they are consumed, you sit among the ruins and lament the fall.
Hypocritical fiend! If he whom you mourn still lived, still would he be the
object, again would he become the prey, of your accursed vengeance. It is not
pity that you feel; you lament only because the victim of your malignity is withdrawn
from your power.”

“Oh, it is not thus—not thus,” interrupted the being. “Yet such must be the
impression conveyed to you by what appears to be the purport of my actions. Yet
I seek not a fellow feeling in my misery. No sympathy may I ever find. When I
first sought it, it was the love of virtue, the feelings of happiness and affection
with which my whole being overflowed, that I wished to be participated. But
now that virtue has become to me a shadow, and that happiness and affection
are turned into bitter and loathing despair, in what should I seek for sympathy?
I am content to suffer alone while my sufferings shall endure; when I die,
I am well satisfied that abhorrence and opprobrium should load my memory.
Once my fancy was soothed with dreams of virtue, of fame, and of enjoyment.
Once I falsely hoped to meet with beings who, pardoning my outward form,
would love me for the excellent qualities which I was capable of unfolding. I
was nourished with high thoughts of honor and devotion. But now crime has
degraded me beneath the meanest animal. No guilt, no mischief, no malignity,
no misery, can be found comparable to mine. When I run over the frightful catalogue
of my sins, I cannot believe that I am the same creature whose thoughts
were once filled with sublime and transcendent visions of the beauty and the
majesty of goodness. But it is even so; the fallen angel becomes a malignant
devil. Yet even that enemy of God and man had friends and associates in his
desolation; I am alone.

“You, who call Frankenstein your friend, seem to have a knowledge of my
crimes and his misfortunes. But in the detail which he gave you of them he could
not sum up the hours and months of misery which I endured wasting in impotent
passions. For while I destroyed his hopes, I did not satisfy my own desires.
They were forever ardent and craving; still I desired love and fellowship, and
I was still spurned. Was there no injustice in this? Am I to be thought the only
criminal, when all humankind sinned against me? Why do you not hate Felix,
who drove his friend from his door with contumely? Why do you not execrate
the rustic who sought to destroy the savior of his child? Nay, these are virtuous
and immaculate beings! I, the miserable and the abandoned, am an abortion,
to be spurned at, and kicked, and trampled on. Even now my blood boils at
the recollection of this injustice.