Frankenstein's Bride (40 page)

The season of the assizes approached. I had already been three months in prison, and although I was still weak and in continual
danger of a relapse, I was obliged to travel nearly a hundred miles to the country town where the court was held. Mr. Kirwin
charged himself with every care of collecting witnesses and arranging my defense. I was spared the disgrace of appearing publicly
as a criminal, as the case was not brought before the court that decides on life and death. The grand jury rejected the bill,
on its being proved that I was on the Orkney Islands at the hour the body of my friend was found; and a fortnight after my
removal I was liberated from prison.

My father was enraptured on finding me freed from the vexations of a criminal charge, that I was again allowed to breathe
the fresh atmosphere and permitted to return to my native country. I did not participate in these feelings, for to me the
walls of a dun geon or a palace were alike hateful. The cup of life was poisoned forever, and although the sun shone upon
me, as upon the happy and gay of heart, I saw around me nothing but a dense and frightful darkness, penetrated by no light
but the glimmer of two eyes that glared upon me. Sometimes they were the expressive eyes of Henry, languishing in death, the
dark orbs nearly covered by the lids and the long black lashes that fringed them; sometimes it was the watery, clouded eyes
of the monster, as I first saw them in my chamber at Ingolstadt.

My father tried to awaken in me the feelings of affection. He talked of Geneva, which I should soon visit, of Elizabeth and
Ernest; but these words only drew deep groans from me. Sometimes, indeed, I felt a wish for happiness and thought with melancholy
delight of my beloved cousin or longed, with a devouring
maladie du pays
, to see once more the blue lake and rapid Rhone, that had been so dear to me in early childhood; but my general state of
feeling was a torpor in which a prison was as welcome a residence as the divinest scene in nature; and these fits were seldom
interrupted but by paroxysms of anguish and despair. At these moments I often endeavored to put an end to the existence I
loathed, and it required unceasing attendance and vigilance to restrain me from committing some dreadful act of violence.

Yet one duty remained to me, the recollection of which finally triumphed over my selfish despair. It was necessary that I
should return without delay to Geneva, there to watch over the lives of those I so fondly loved and to lie in wait for the
murderer, that if any chance led me to the place of his concealment, or if he dared again to blast me by his presence, I might,
with unfailing aim, put an end to the existence of the monstrous image which I had endued with the mockery of a soul still
more monstrous. My father still desired to delay our departure, fearful that I could not sustain the fatigues of a journey,
for I was a shattered wreck—the shadow of a human being. My strength was gone. I was a mere skeleton, and fever night and
day preyed upon my wasted frame.

Still, as I urged our leaving Ireland with such inquietude and impatience, my father thought it best to yield. We took our
passage on board a vessel bound for Havre-de-Grace and sailed with a fair wind from the Irish shores. It was midnight. I lay
on the deck looking at the stars and listening to the dashing of the waves. I hailed the darkness that shut Ireland from my
sight, and my pulse beat with a feverish joy when I reflected that I should soon see Geneva. The past appeared to me in the
light of a frightful dream; yet the vessel in which I was, the wind that blew me from the detested shore of Ireland, and the
sea which surrounded me told me too forcibly that I was deceived by no vision and that Clerval, my friend and dearest companion,
had fallen a victim to me and the monster of my creation. I repassed, in my memory, my whole life—my quiet happiness while
residing with my family in Geneva, the death of my mother, and my departure for Ingolstadt. I remembered, shuddering, the
mad enthusiasm that hurried me on to the creation of my hideous enemy, and I called to mind the night in which he first lived.
I was unable to pursue the train of thought; a thousand feelings pressed upon me, and I wept bitterly.

Ever since my recovery from the fever I had been in the custom of taking every night a small quantity of laudanum, for it
was by means of this drug only that I was enabled to gain the rest necessary for the preservation of life. Oppressed by the
recollection of my various misfortunes, I now swallowed double my usual quantity and soon slept profoundly. But sleep did
not afford me respite from thought and misery; my dreams presented a thousand objects that scared me. Towards morning I was
possessed by a kind of nightmare; I felt the fiend's grasp in my neck and could not free myself from it; groans and cries
rang in my ears. My father, who was watching over me, perceiving my restlessness, awoke me; the dashing waves were around,
the cloudy sky above, the fiend was not here: a sense of security, a feeling that a truce was established between the present
hour and the irresistible, disastrous future imparted to me a kind of calm forgetfulness, of which the human mind is by its
structure peculiarly susceptible.

C H A PT E R 2 2

THE VOYAGE CAME TO AN END. We landed, and proceeded to Paris. I soon found that I had overtaxed my strength and that I must
repose before I could continue my journey. My father's care and attentions were indefatigable, but he did not know the origin
of my sufferings and sought erroneous methods to remedy the incurable ill. He wished me to seek amusement in society. I abhorred
the face of man. Oh, not abhorred! They were my brethren, my fellow beings, and I felt attracted even to the most repulsive
among them, as to creatures of an angelic nature and celestial mechanism. But I felt that I had no right to share their intercourse.
I had unchained an enemy among them whose joy it was to shed their blood and to revel in their groans. How they would, each
and all, abhor me and hunt me from the world did they know my unhallowed acts and the crimes which had their source in me!

My father yielded at length to my desire to avoid society and strove by various arguments to banish my despair. Sometimes
he thought that I felt deeply the degradation of being obliged to answer a charge of murder, and he endeavored to prove to
me the futility of pride.

“Alas! My father,” said I, “how little do you know me. Human beings, their feelings and passions, would indeed be degraded
if such a wretch as I felt pride. Justine, poor unhappy Justine, was as innocent as I, and she suffered the same charge; she
died for it; and I am the cause of this—I murdered her. William, Justine, and Henry—they all died by my hands.”

My father had often, during my imprisonment, heard me make the same assertion; when I thus accused myself, he sometimes seemed
to desire an explanation, and at others he appeared to consider it as the offspring of delirium, and that, during my illness,
some idea of this kind had presented itself to my imagination, the remembrance of which I preserved in my convalescence. I
avoided explanation and maintained a continual silence concerning the wretch I had created. I had a persuasion that I should
be supposed mad, and this in itself would forever have chained my tongue. But, besides, I could not bring myself to disclose
a secret which would fill my hearer with consternation and make fear and unnatural horror the inmates of his breast. I checked,
therefore, my impatient thirst for sympathy and was silent when I would have given the world to have confided the fatal secret.
Yet, still, words like those I have recorded would burst uncontrollably from me. I could offer no explanation of them, but
their truth in part relieved the burden of my mysterious woe.

Upon this occasion my father said, with an expression of unbounded wonder, “My dearest Victor, what infatuation is this? My
dear son, I entreat you never to make such an assertion again.”

“I am not mad,” I cried energetically; “the sun and the heavens, who have viewed my operations, can bear witness of my truth.
I am the assassin of those most innocent victims; they died by my machinations. A thousand times would I have shed my own
blood, drop by drop, to have saved their lives; but I could not, my father, indeed I could not sacrifice the whole human race.”

The conclusion of this speech convinced my father that my ideas were deranged, and he instantly changed the subject of our
conversation and endeavored to alter the course of my thoughts. He wished as much as possible to obliterate the memory of
the scenes that had taken place in Ireland and never alluded to them or suffered me to speak of my misfortunes.

As time passed away I became more calm; misery had her dwelling in my heart, but I no longer talked in the same incoherent
manner of my own crimes; sufficient for me was the consciousness of them. By the utmost self-violence I curbed the imperious
voice of wretchedness, which sometimes desired to declare itself to the whole world, and my manners were calmer and more composed
than they had ever been since my journey to the sea of ice.

A few days before we left Paris on our way to Switzerland, I received the following letter from Elizabeth:

My dear Friend,

It gave me the greatest pleasure to receive a letter from my uncle dated at Paris;
you are no longer at a formidable distance, and I may hope to see you in less
than a fortnight. My poor cousin, how much you must have suffered! I expect
to see you looking even more ill than when you quitted Geneva. This winter
has been passed most miserably, tortured as I have been by anxious suspense;
yet I hope to see peace in your countenance and to find that your heart is not
totally void of comfort and tranquility.

Yet I fear that the same feelings now exist that made you so miserable a year
ago, even perhaps augmented by time. I would not disturb you at this period,
when so many misfortunes weigh upon you, but a conversation that I had with
my uncle previous to his departure renders some explanation necessary before we
meet. Explanation! You may possibly say, What can Elizabeth have to explain?
If you really say this, my questions are answered and all my doubts satisfied.
But you are distant from me, and it is possible that you may dread and yet be
pleased with this explanation; and in a probability of this being the case, I dare
not any longer postpone writing what, during your absence, I have often wished
to express to you but have never had the courage to begin.

You well know, Victor, that our union had been the favorite plan of your
parents ever since our infancy. We were told this when young, and taught to
look forward to it as an event that would certainly take place. We were affectionate
playfellows during childhood, and, I believe, dear and valued friends to
one another as we grew older. But as brother and sister often entertain a lively
affection towards each other without desiring a more intimate union, may not
such also be our case? Tell me, dearest Victor. Answer me, I conjure you by our
mutual happiness, with simple truth—Do you not love another?

You have traveled; you have spent several years of your life at Ingolstadt;
and I confess to you, my friend, that when I saw you last autumn so unhappy,
flying to solitude from the society of every creature, I could not help supposing
that you might regret our connection and believe yourself bound in honor to fulfill
the wishes of your parents, although they opposed themselves to your inclinations.
But this is false reasoning. I confess to you, my friend, that I love you
and that in my airy dreams of futurity you have been my constant friend and
companion. But it is your happiness I desire as well as my own when I declare
to you that our marriage would render me eternally miserable unless it were the
dictate of your own free choice. Even now I weep to think that, borne down as
you are by the cruelest misfortunes, you may stifle, by the word “honor,” all hope
of that love and happiness which would alone restore you to yourself. I, who
have so disinterested an affection for you, may increase your miseries tenfold by
being an obstacle to your wishes. Ah! Victor, be assured that your cousin and
playmate has too sincere a love for you not to be made miserable by this supposition.
Be happy, my friend; and if you obey me in this one request, remain
satisfied that nothing on earth will have the power to interrupt my tranquility.

Do not let this letter disturb you; do not answer tomorrow, or the next day,
or even until you come, if it will give you pain. My uncle will send me news of
your health, and if I see but one smile on your lips when we meet, occasioned
by this or any other exertion of mine, I shall need no other happiness.

Elizabeth Lavenza

Geneva, May 18th, 17—

This letter revived in my memory what I had before forgotten, the threat of the fiend—“
I will be with you on your wedding night!
” Such was my sentence, and on that night would the daemon employ every art to destroy me and tear me from the glimpse of
happiness which promised partly to console my sufferings. On that night he had determined to consummate his crimes by my death.
Well, be it so; a deadly struggle would then assuredly take place, in which if he were victorious I should be at peace and
his power over me be at an end. If he were vanquished, I should be a free man. Alas! What freedom? Such as the peasant enjoys
when his family have been massacred before his eyes, his cottage burnt, his lands laid waste, and he is turned adrift, homeless,
penniless, and alone, but free. Such would be my liberty except that in my Elizabeth I possessed a treasure, alas, balanced
by those horrors of remorse and guilt which would pursue me until death.

Sweet and beloved Elizabeth! I read and reread her letter, and some softened feelings stole into my heart and dared to whisper
paradisiacal dreams of love and joy; but the apple was already eaten, and the angel's arm bared to drive me from all hope.
Yet I would die to make her happy. If the monster executed his threat, death was inevitable; yet, again, I considered whether
my marriage would hasten my fate. My destruction might indeed arrive a few months sooner, but if my torturer should suspect
that I postponed it, influenced by his menaces, he would surely find other and perhaps more dreadful means of revenge. He
had vowed to be with me on my wedding night, yet he did not consider that threat as binding him to peace in the meantime,
for as if to show me that he was not yet satiated with blood, he had murdered Clerval immediately after the enunciation of
his threats. I resolved, therefore, that if my immediate union with my cousin would conduce either to hers or my father's
happiness, my adversary's designs against my life should not retard it a single hour.

In this state of mind I wrote to Elizabeth. My letter was calm and affectionate. “I fear, my beloved girl,” I said, “little
happiness remains for us on earth; yet all that I may one day enjoy is centered in you. Chase away your idle fears; to you
alone do I consecrate my life and my endeavors for contentment. I have one secret, Elizabeth, a dreadful one; when revealed
to you, it will chill your frame with horror, and then, far from being surprised at my misery, you will only wonder that I
survive what I have endured. I will confide this tale of misery and terror to you the day after our marriage shall take place,
for, my sweet cousin, there must be perfect confidence between us. But until then, I conjure you, do not mention or allude
to it. This I most earnestly entreat, and I know you will comply.”

In about a week after the arrival of Elizabeth's letter we returned to Geneva. The sweet girl welcomed me with warm affection,
yet tears were in her eyes as she beheld my emaciated frame and feverish cheeks. I saw a change in her also. She was thinner
and had lost much of that heavenly vivacity that had before charmed me; but her gentleness and soft looks of compassion made
her a more fit companion for one blasted and miserable as I was.

The tranquility which I now enjoyed did not endure. Memory brought madness with it, and when I thought of what had passed,
a real insanity possessed me; sometimes I was furious and burnt with rage, sometimes low and despondent. I neither spoke nor
looked at anyone, but sat motionless, bewildered by the multitude of miseries that overcame me.

Elizabeth alone had the power to draw me from these fits; her gentle voice would soothe me when transported by passion and
inspire me with human feelings when sunk in torpor. She wept with me and for me. When reason returned, she would remonstrate
and endeavor to inspire me with resignation. Ah! It is well for the unfortunate to be resigned, but for the guilty there is
no peace. The agonies of remorse poison the luxury there is otherwise sometimes found in indulging the excess of grief. Soon
after my arrival my father spoke of my immediate marriage with Elizabeth. I remained silent.

“Have you, then, some other attachment?”

“None on earth. I love Elizabeth and look forward to our union with delight. Let the day therefore be fixed; and on it I will
consecrate myself, in life or death, to the happiness of my cousin.”

“My dear Victor, do not speak thus. Heavy misfortunes have befallen us, but let us only cling closer to what remains and transfer
our love for those whom we have lost to those who yet live. Our circle will be small but bound close by the ties of affection
and mutual misfortune. And when time shall have softened your despair, new and dear objects of care will be born to replace
those of whom we have been so cruelly deprived.”

Such were the lessons of my father. But to me the remembrance of the threat returned; nor can you wonder that, omnipotent
as the fiend had yet been in his deeds of blood, I should almost regard him as invincible, and that when he had pronounced
the words, “
I will be
with you on your wedding night!
” I should regard the threatened fate as unavoidable. But death was no evil to me if the loss of Elizabeth were balanced with
it, and I therefore, with a contented and even cheerful countenance, agreed with my father that if my cousin would consent,
the ceremony should take place in ten days, and thus put, as I imagined, the seal to my fate.

Great God! If for one instant I had thought what might be the hellish intention of my fiendish adversary, I would rather have
banished myself forever from my native country and wandered a friendless outcast over the earth than have consented to this
miserable marriage. But, as if possessed of magic powers, the monster had blinded me to his real intentions; and when I thought
that I had prepared only my own death, I hastened that of a far dearer victim.

As the period fixed for our marriage drew nearer, whether from cowardice or a prophetic feeling, I felt my heart sink within
me. But I concealed my feelings by an appearance of hilarity that brought smiles and joy to the countenance of my father,
but hardly deceived the ever-watchful and nicer eye of Elizabeth. She looked forward to our union with placid contentment,
not unmingled with a little fear, which past misfortunes had impressed, that what now appeared certain and tangible happiness
might soon dissipate into an airy dream and leave no trace but deep and everlasting regret.