III.—­Frankenstein’s Creation

It was on a dreary night of November that I beheld the accomplishment of my toil.  With an anxiety that amounted to agony, I collected the instruments of life around me, that I might infuse a spark of being into the lifeless thing that lay at my feet.  I saw the dull yellow eye of the creature open; it breathed hard; and a convulsive motion agitated its limbs.

How can I delineate the wretch whom with such infinite pains and care I had endeavoured to form?  His yellow skin scarcely covered the work of muscles and arteries beneath; his hair was of a lustrous black, and flowing; his teeth of a pearly whiteness; but his watery eyes seemed almost of the same colour as the dun-white sockets in which they were set.

I had worked hard for nearly two years for the sole purpose of infusing life into an inanimate body.  For this I had deprived myself of rest and health.  But now that I had finished, breathless horror and disgust filled my heart.  Unable to endure the aspect of the being I had created, I rushed out of the room.  I tried to sleep, but disturbed by the wildest dreams, I started up.  By the dim and yellow light of the moon I beheld the miserable monster whom I had created.  He held up the curtains of the bed, and his eyes were fixed on me.  He might have spoken, but I did not hear; one hand was stretched out, seemingly to detain me, but I escaped and rushed downstairs.

No mortal could support the horror of that countenance.  I had gazed on him while unfinished; he was ugly then, but when those muscles and joints were rendered capable of motion, no mummy could be so hideous.  I took refuge in the court-yard, and passed the night wretchedly.

For several months I was confined by a nervous fever, and on my recovery was filled with a violent antipathy even to the name of Natural Philosophy.

A letter from my father telling me that my youngest brother William had been found murdered, and bidding me return and comfort Elizabeth, made me decide to hasten home.

It was completely dark when I arrived in the environs of Geneva.  The gates of the town were shut, and I was obliged to pass the night at a village outside.  A storm was raging on the mountains, and I wandered out to watch the tempest and resolved to visit the spot where my poor William had been murdered.

Suddenly I perceived in the gloom a figure which stole from behind a clump of trees near me; I could not be mistaken.  A flash of lightning illuminated the object, and discovered its shape plainly to me.  Its gigantic stature, and the deformity of its aspect, more hideous than belongs to humanity, instantly informed me that it was the wretch to whom I had given life.  What did he there?  Could he be the murderer of my brother?  No sooner did that idea cross my imagination than I became convinced of its truth.  The figure passed me quickly, and I lost it in the gloom.  I thought of pursuing, but it would have been in vain, for another flash discovered him to me hanging among the rocks, and he soon reached the summit and disappeared.