The day of my departure for Ingolstadt, deferred for some weeks by my mother’s death, at length arrived.  I reached the town after a long and fatiguing journey, delivered my letters of introduction, and paid a visit to some of the principal professors.

M. Krempe, professor of Natural Philosophy, was an uncouth man.  He asked me several questions concerning my progress in different branches of science, and informed me I must begin my studies entirely anew.

M. Waldman was very unlike his colleague.  His voice was the sweetest I had ever heard.  Partly from curiosity, and partly from idleness, I entered his lecture room, and his panegyric upon modern chemistry I shall never forget:—­“The ancient teachers of this science,” said he, “promised impossibilities, and performed nothing.  The modern masters promise very little, and have, indeed, performed miracles.  They have discovered how the blood circulates, and the nature of the air we breathe.  They have acquired new and almost unlimited powers; they can command the thunders of the heaven, mimic the earthquake, and even mock the invisible world with its own shadows.”

Such were the professor’s words, words of fate enounced to destroy me.  As he went on, I felt as if my soul were grappling with a palpable enemy.  So much has been done, exclaimed the soul of Frankenstein.  More, far more, will I achieve:  I will pioneer a new way, explore unknown powers, and unfold to the world the deepest mysteries of creation.  I closed not my eyes that night; and from this time natural philosophy, and particularly chemistry, became nearly my sole occupation.  My progress was rapid, and at the end of two years I made some discoveries in the improvement of chemical instruments which procured me great esteem at the University.

I became acquainted with the science of anatomy, and often asked myself, Whence did the principle of life proceed?  I observed the natural decay of the human body, and saw how the fine form of man was degraded and wasted.  I examined and analysed all the minutiae of causation in the change from life to death and death to life, until from the midst of this darkness a sudden light broke in upon me.  I became dizzy with the immensity of the prospect, and surprised that among so many men of genius I alone should be reserved to discover so astonishing a secret.

Although I possessed the capacity of bestowing animation, yet to prepare a frame for the reception of it remained a work of inconceivable difficulty and labour.  I collected bones from charnel houses, and the dissecting room and the slaughter house furnished many of my materials.  Often my nature turned with loathing from my occupation, but the thought that if I could bestow animation upon lifeless matter I might in process of time renew life where death had apparently devoted the body to corruption, supported my spirits.

In a solitary chamber at the top of the house I kept my workshop of filthy creation.  The summer months passed, but my eyes were insensible to the charms of nature.  Winter, spring, and summer passed away before my work drew to a close, but now every day showed me how well I had succeeded.  But I had become a wreck, so engrossing was my occupation, and nervous to a most painful degree.  I shunned my fellow-creatures as if I had been guilty of a crime.