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 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 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 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 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
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 every one 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 mountains, 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
half-way 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.