“I consent to your demand,” I said, “on your solemn oath to quit Europe forever.”

“I swear,” he cried, “by the sun and by the fire of love which burns in 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.”

Saying this, he suddenly quitted me, fearful, perhaps, of any change in my sentiments.

IV.—­The Doom of Frankenstein

I travelled to England with my friend Henry Clerval, and we parted in Scotland.  I had fixed on one of the remotest of the Orkneys as the scene of my labours.

Three years before I was engaged in the same manner, and had created a fiend whose barbarity had desolated my heart.  I was now about to form another being, of whose dispositions I was alike ignorant.  He had sworn to quit the neighbourhood of man, and hide himself in deserts, but she had not.  They might even hate each other, and she might quit him.  Even if they were to leave Europe, a race of devils would be propagated upon the earth, who might make the very existence of man precarious and full of terror.

I was alone on a solitary island, when looking up, the monster whom I dreaded appeared.  My mind was made up:  I would never create another like to him.

“Begone,” I cried, “I break my promise.  Never will I create your equal in deformity and wickedness.  Leave me; I am inexorable.”

The monster saw my determination in my face, and gnashed his teeth in anger.  “Shall each man,” cried he, “find a wife for his bosom, and each beast have his mate, and I be alone?  I had feelings of affection, and they were requited by detestation and scorn.  Are you to be happy, while I grovel in the intensity of my wretchedness?  I go, but remember, I shall be with you on your wedding night.”

I started forward, but he quitted the house with precipitation.  In a few moments I saw him in his boat, which shot across the waters with an arrowy swiftness.

The next day I set off to rejoin Clerval, and return home.  But I never saw my friend again.  The monster murdered him, and for a time I lay in prison on suspicion of the crime.  On my release one duty remained to me.  It was necessary that I should hasten without delay to Geneva, there to watch over the lives of those I loved, and to lie in wait for the murderer.

Soon after my arrival, my father spoke of my long-contemplated marriage with Elizabeth.  I remembered the fiend’s words, “I shall be with you on your wedding night,” and if I had thought what might be the devilish intention of my adversary I would never have consented.  But thinking it was only my own death I was preparing I agreed with a cheerful countenance.

Elizabeth seemed happy, and I was tranquil.  In the meantime I took every precaution, carrying pistols and dagger, lest the fiend should openly attack me.