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1The summer months passed while I was thus engaged, heart and soul, in one pursuit. It was a most beautiful season; never
2did the fields bestow a more plentiful harvest or the vines yield a more luxuriant vintage, but my eyes were insensible
3to the charms of nature. And the same feelings which made me neglect the scenes around me caused me also to forget those
4friends who were so many miles absent, and whom I had not seen for so long a time. I knew my silence disquieted them,
5and I well remembered the words of my father: "I know that while you are pleased with yourself you will think of us with
6affection, and we shall hear regularly from you. You must pardon me if I regard any interruption in your correspondence
7as a proof that your other duties are equally neglected." I knew well therefore what would be my father's feelings, but
8I could not tear my thoughts from my employment, loathsome in itself, but which had taken an irresistible hold of my
9imagination. I wished, as it were, to procrastinate all that related to my feelings of affection until the great object,
10which swallowed up every habit of my nature, should be completed. I then thought that my father would be unjust if he
11ascribed my neglect to vice or faultiness on my part, but I am now convinced that he was justified in conceiving that I
12should not be altogether free from blame. A human being in perfection ought always to preserve a calm and peaceful mind
13and never to allow passion or a transitory desire to disturb his tranquillity. I do not think that the pursuit of
14knowledge is an exception to this rule. If the study to which you apply yourself has a tendency to weaken your
15affections and to destroy your taste for those simple pleasures in which no alloy can possibly mix, then that study is
16certainly unlawful, that is to say, not befitting the human mind. If this rule were always observed; if no man allowed
17any pursuit whatsoever to interfere with the tranquillity of his domestic affections, Greece had not been enslaved,
18Cæsar would have spared his country, America would have been discovered more gradually, and the empires of Mexico and
19Peru had not been destroyed. But I forget that I am moralizing in the most interesting part of my tale, and your looks
20remind me to proceed. My father made no reproach in his letters and only took notice of my silence by inquiring into my
21occupations more particularly than before. Winter, spring, and summer passed away during my labours; but I did not watch
22the blossom or the expanding leaves--sights which before always yielded me supreme delight--so deeply was I engrossed in
23my occupation. The leaves of that year had withered before my work drew near to a close, and now every day showed me
24more plainly how well I had succeeded. But my enthusiasm was checked by my anxiety, and I appeared rather like one
25doomed by slavery to toil in the mines, or any other unwholesome trade than an artist occupied by his favourite
26employment. Every night I was oppressed by a slow fever, and I became nervous to a most painful degree; the fall of a
27leaf startled me, and I shunned my fellow creatures as if I had been guilty of a crime. Sometimes I grew alarmed at the
28wreck I perceived that I had become; the energy of my purpose alone sustained me: my labours would soon end, and I
29believed that exercise and amusement would then drive away incipient disease; and I promised myself both of these when
30my creation should be complete. Chapter 5 It was on a dreary night of November that I beheld the accomplishment of my
31toils. With an anxiety that almost amounted to agony, I collected the instruments of life around me, that I might infuse
32a spark of being into the lifeless thing that lay at my feet. It was already one in the morning; the rain pattered
33dismally against the panes, and my candle was nearly burnt out, when, by the glimmer of the half-extinguished light, I
34saw the dull yellow eye of the creature open; it breathed hard, and a convulsive motion agitated its limbs. How can I
35describe my emotions at this catastrophe, or how delineate the wretch whom with such infinite pains and care I had
36endeavoured to form? His limbs were in proportion, and I had selected his features as beautiful. Beautiful! Great God!
37His yellow skin scarcely covered the work of muscles and arteries beneath; his hair was of a lustrous black, and
38flowing; his teeth of a pearly whiteness; but these luxuriances only formed a more horrid contrast with his watery eyes,
39that seemed almost of the same colour as the dun-white sockets in which they were set, his shrivelled complexion and
40straight black lips. The different accidents of life are not so changeable as the feelings of human nature. I had worked
41hard for nearly two years, for the sole purpose of infusing life into an inanimate body. For this I had deprived myself
42of rest and health. I had desired it with an ardour that far exceeded moderation; but now that I had finished, the
43beauty of the dream vanished, and breathless horror and disgust filled my heart. Unable to endure the aspect of the
44being I had created, I rushed out of the room and continued a long time traversing my bed-chamber, unable to compose my
45mind to sleep. At length lassitude succeeded to the tumult I had before endured, and I threw myself on the bed in my
46clothes, endeavouring to seek a few moments of forgetfulness. But it was in vain; I slept, indeed, but I was disturbed
47by the wildest dreams. I thought I saw Elizabeth, in the bloom of health, walking in the streets of Ingolstadt.
48Delighted and surprised, I embraced her, but as I imprinted the first kiss on her lips, they became livid with the hue
49of death; her features appeared to change, and I thought that I held the corpse of my dead mother in my arms; a shroud
50enveloped her form, and I saw the grave-worms crawling in the folds of the flannel. I started from my sleep with horror;
51a cold dew covered my forehead, my teeth chattered, and every limb became convulsed; when, by the dim and yellow light
52of the moon, as it forced its way through the window shutters, I beheld the wretch--the miserable monster whom I had
53created. He held up the curtain of the bed; and his eyes, if eyes they may be called, were fixed on me. His jaws opened,
54and he muttered some inarticulate sounds, while a grin wrinkled his cheeks. He might have spoken, but I did not hear;
55one hand was stretched out, seemingly to detain me, but I escaped and rushed downstairs. I took refuge in the courtyard
56belonging to the house which I inhabited, where I remained during the rest of the night, walking up and down in the
57greatest agitation, listening attentively, catching and fearing each sound as if it were to announce the approach of the
58demoniacal corpse to which I had so miserably given life. Oh! No mortal could support the horror of that countenance. A
59mummy again endued with animation could not be so hideous as that wretch. I had gazed on him while unfinished; he was
60ugly then, but when those muscles and joints were rendered capable of motion, it became a thing such as even Dante could
61not have conceived. I passed the night wretchedly. Sometimes my pulse beat so quickly and hardly that I felt the
62palpitation of every artery; at others, I nearly sank to the ground through languor and extreme weakness. Mingled with
63this horror, I felt the bitterness of disappointment; dreams that had been my food and pleasant rest for so long a space
64were now become a hell to me; and the change was so rapid, the overthrow so complete! Morning, dismal and wet, at length
65dawned and discovered to my sleepless and aching eyes the church of Ingolstadt, its white steeple and clock, which
66indicated the sixth hour. The porter opened the gates of the court, which had that night been my asylum, and I issued
67into the streets, pacing them with quick steps, as if I sought to avoid the wretch whom I feared every turning of the
68street would present to my view. I did not dare return to the apartment which I inhabited, but felt impelled to hurry
69on, although drenched by the rain which poured from a black and comfortless sky.
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