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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 endeavoured 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 mean time 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 fulfil 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 tranquillity, 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 sunk into silence. |
About half an hour afterwards he attempted again to speak, but was unable; he pressed my hand feebly, and his eyes closed for ever, 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 colour 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 endeavoured 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 dæmon; "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 for ever 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. |