The New Annotated Frankenstein

by Mary Shelley

  In light of the date of translation, the book in question must have been the French edition, and Safie and the creature learned French. Because the creature already knew many of the words, we may deduce that the household spoke French, and this is confirmed later by the creature, who recounts that the De Lacey family hailed from Paris (though we learn later that the events here take place in Germany, probably not far from Ingolstadt) and that the senior De Lacey is of French descent.

  7. The word is “degenerating” in the 1831 edition.

  8. “Advantages” is used in place of “acquisitions” in the 1831 edition.

  CHAPTER VI.1

  “SOME TIME ELAPSED before I learned the history of my friends. It was one which could not fail to impress itself deeply on my mind, unfolding as it did a number of circumstances each interesting and wonderful to one so utterly inexperienced as I was.

  “The name of the old man was De Lacey. He was descended from a good family in France, where he had lived for many years in affluence, respected by his superiors, and beloved by his equals. His son was bred in the service of his country; and Agatha had ranked with ladies of the highest distinction. A few months before my arrival, they had lived in a large and luxurious city, called Paris, surrounded by friends, and possessed of every enjoyment which virtue, refinement of intellect, or taste, accompanied by a moderate fortune, could afford.

  “The father of Safie had been the cause of their ruin. He was a Turkish merchant, and had inhabited Paris for many years, when, for some reason which I could not learn, he became obnoxious to the government.2 He was seized and cast into prison the very day that Safie arrived from Constantinople3 to join him. He was tried, and condemned to death. The injustice of his sentence was very flagrant; all Paris was indignant; and it was judged that his religion and wealth, rather than the crime alleged against him, had been the cause of his condemnation.

  “Felix had4 been present at the trial; his horror and indignation were uncontrollable, when he heard the decision of the court. He made, at that moment, a solemn vow to deliver5 him, and then looked around for the means. After many fruitless attempts to gain admittance to the prison, he found a strongly grated window in an unguarded part of the building, which lighted the dungeon of the unfortunate Mahometan; who, loaded with chains, waited in despair the execution of the barbarous sentence. Felix visited the grate at night, and made known to the prisoner his intentions in his favour. The Turk, amazed and delighted, endeavoured to kindle the zeal of his deliverer by promises of reward and wealth. Felix rejected his offers with contempt; yet when he saw the lovely Safie, who was allowed to visit her father,6 and who, by her gestures, expressed her lively gratitude, the youth could not help owning to his own mind, that the captive possessed a treasure which would fully reward his toil and hazard.

  “The Turk quickly perceived the impression that his daughter had made on the heart of Felix, and endeavoured to secure him more entirely in his interests by the promise of her hand in marriage, so soon as he should be conveyed to a place of safety. Felix was too delicate to accept this offer; yet he looked forward to the probability of that event as to the consummation of his happiness.

  “During the ensuing days, while the preparations were going forward for the escape of the merchant, the zeal of Felix was warmed by several letters that he received from this lovely girl, who found means to express her thoughts in the language of her lover by the aid of an old man, a servant of her father’s, who understood French. She thanked him in the most ardent terms for his intended services towards her father;7 and at the same time she gently deplored her own fate.

  “I have copies of these letters; for I found means, during my residence in the hovel, to procure the implements of writing; and the letters were often in the hands of Felix or Agatha.8 Before I depart, I will give them to you, they will prove the truth of my tale; but at present, as the sun is already far declined, I shall only have time to repeat the substance of them to you.

  “Safie related, that her mother was a Christian Arab,9 seized and made a slave by the Turks; recommended by her beauty, she had won the heart of the father of Safie, who married her. The young girl spoke in high and enthusiastic terms of her mother, who, born in freedom spurned the bondage to which she was now reduced. She instructed her daughter in the tenets of her religion, and taught her to aspire to higher powers of intellect, and an independence of spirit, forbidden to the female followers of Mahomet.10 This lady died; but her lessons were indelibly impressed on the mind of Safie, who sickened at the prospect of again returning to Asia, and the being immured within the walls of a haram,11 allowed only to occupy herself with puerile12 amusements, ill suited to the temper of her soul, now accustomed to grand ideas and a noble emulation for virtue. The prospect of marrying a Christian, and remaining in a country where women were allowed to take a rank in society, was enchanting to her.

  “The day for the execution of the Turk was fixed; but, on the night previous to it, he had quitted prison,13 and before morning was distant many leagues from Paris. Felix had procured passports in the name of his father, sister, and himself. He had previously communicated his plan to the former, who aided the deceit by quitting his house, under the pretence of a journey, and concealed himself, with his daughter, in an obscure part of Paris.

  “Felix conducted the fugitives through France to Lyons, and across Mont Cenis14 to Leghorn,15 where the merchant had decided to wait a favourable opportunity of passing into some part of the Turkish dominions.

  “Safie resolved to remain with her father until the moment of his departure, before which time the Turk renewed his promise that she should be united to his deliverer; and Felix remained with them in expectation of that event; and in the mean time he enjoyed the society of the Arabian, who exhibited towards him the simplest and tenderest affection. They conversed with one another through the means of an interpreter, and sometimes with the interpretation of looks; and Safie sang to him the divine airs of her native country.

  Harem Scene with Mothers and Daughters in Varying Costumes (photographer unknown, ca. 1900).

  “The Turk allowed this intimacy to take place, and encouraged the hopes of the youthful lovers, while in his heart he had formed far other plans. He loathed the idea that his daughter should be united to a Christian; but he feared the resentment of Felix if he should appear lukewarm; for he knew that he was still in the power of his deliverer, if he should choose to betray him to the Italian state which they inhabited. He revolved a thousand plans by which he should be enabled to prolong the deceit until it might be no longer necessary, and secretly to take his daughter with him when he departed. His plans were greatly16 facilitated by the news which arrived from Paris.

  “The government of France were greatly enraged at the escape of their victim, and spared no pains to detect and punish his deliverer. The plot of Felix was quickly discovered, and De Lacey and Agatha were thrown into prison. The news reached Felix, and roused him from his dream of pleasure. His blind and aged father, and his gentle sister, lay in a noisome dungeon, while he enjoyed the free air, and the society of her whom he loved. This idea was torture to him. He quickly arranged with the Turk, that if the latter should find a favourable opportunity for escape before Felix could return to Italy, Safie should remain as a boarder at a convent at Leghorn; and then, quitting the lovely Arabian, he hastened to Paris, and delivered himself up to the vengeance of the law, hoping to free De Lacey and Agatha by this proceeding.

  “He did not succeed. They remained confined for five months before the trial took place; the result of which deprived them of their fortune, and condemned them to a perpetual exile from their native country.

  “They found a miserable asylum in the cottage in Germany, where I discovered them. Felix soon learned that the treacherous Turk, for whom he and his family endured such unheard-of oppression, on discovering that his deliverer was thus reduced to poverty and impotence,17 became a traitor to good feeling and honour, and had quitted Italy with h
is daughter, insultingly sending Felix a pittance of money to aid him, as he said, in some plan of future maintenance.

  “Such were the events that preyed on the heart of Felix, and rendered him, when I first saw him, the most miserable of his family. He could have endured poverty, and when18 this distress had been the meed19 of his virtue, he would have gloried in it: but the ingratitude of the Turk, and the loss of his beloved Safie, were misfortunes more bitter and irreparable. The arrival of the Arabian now infused new life into his soul.

  “When the news reached Leghorn, that Felix was deprived of his wealth and rank, the merchant commanded his daughter to think no more of her lover, but to prepare to return with him to her native country. The generous nature of Safie was outraged by this command; she attempted to expostulate with her father, but he left her angrily, reiterating his tyrannical mandate.

  “A few days after, the Turk entered his daughter’s apartment, and told her hastily, that he had reason to believe that his residence at Leghorn had been divulged, and that he should speedily be delivered up to the French government; he had, consequently, hired a vessel to convey him to Constantinople, for which city he should sail in a few hours. He intended to leave his daughter under the care of a confidential servant, to follow at her leisure with the greater part of his property, which had not yet arrived at Leghorn.

  “When alone, Safie resolved in her own mind the plan of conduct that it would become her to pursue in this emergency. A residence in Turkey was abhorrent to her; her religion and feelings were alike adverse to it. By some papers of her father’s, which fell into her hands, she heard of the exile of her lover, and learnt the name of the spot where he then resided. She hesitated some time, but at length she formed her determination. Taking with her some jewels that belonged to her, and a small sum of money, she quitted Italy, with an attendant, a native of Leghorn, but who understood the common language of Turkey,20 and departed for Germany.

  “She arrived in safety at a town about twenty leagues from the cottage of De Lacey, when her attendant fell dangerously ill. Safie nursed her with the most devoted affection; but the poor girl died, and the Arabian was left alone, unacquainted with the language of the country, and utterly ignorant of the customs of the world. She fell, however, into good hands. The Italian had mentioned the name of the spot for which they were bound; and, after her death, the woman of the house in which they had lived took care that Safie should arrive in safety at the cottage of her lover.”

  1. Chapter 14 in the 1831 edition.

  2. Although the timeline is vague here, the creature began observing the De Lacey family in the spring of 1794. The crimes of the Turkish merchant likely took place in 1792, when mass arrests of royalists occurred. In September 1792, mobs entered the Paris prisons, slaughtering over two thousand prisoners; the Turk was lucky to avoid dying then. Safie’s father, albeit of low character as is evidenced by his betrayal of Felix and his family, may have been guilty of nothing more than trading with the aristocracy. As such, he joins the parade of innocents wrongfully convicted: the De Laceys, Justine Moritz, Victor Frankenstein, and even the creature suffer the same fate.

  3. Dedicated in 330 CE by the Roman emperor Constantine on the site of the ancient city of Byzantium, Constantinople was one of the two capitals of the Roman Empire, and the principal city of the eastern Roman, or Byzantine, Empire. By the twelfth century CE, it was the largest city in Europe. When the Byzantine Empire fell to the Ottoman Turks in 1453, Constantinople became the capital of the Ottoman Empire. In 1923, with the founding of the modern nation of Turkey, it was renamed Istanbul. Making Safie’s place of origin Constantinople automatically labeled her, in the minds of early nineteenth-century readers, as an exotic creature epitomizing the values of the Eastern Empire; literally spanning two continents, Constantinople was the gateway between the exotic East and the commonplace West.

  4. The word “accidentally” is inserted in the 1831 edition.

  5. This has the now somewhat obsolete meaning of “release from a place”—that is, to liberate Safie’s father from prison.

  6. And who, by the strangest of coincidences, happened to be there at the same time that Felix was communicating with her father through a “strongly grated window.” It is a wonder that Felix could even see “the lovely Safie” in what must have been a poorly lit cell, much less her “gestures of gratitude.”

  7. “Parent” replaces “father” in the 1831 edition.

  8. How, one may wonder, might the creature have obtained the letters from the cottage without the knowledge of its inhabitants? Having obtained writing implements, undoubtedly also stolen from the cottage, he then proceeded to copy them over while confined in a “hovel” barely large enough for him to sit upright, lit only by light transmitted through the neighboring sty. The story is hardly to be believed—and to what end did he copy them? Perhaps they formed part of his curriculum for self-taught reading.

  9. The Arab Christians were largely the remnants of ancient Arabic tribes descended from pre-Islamic times. Today, they include both Latinized Christians and Greek Orthodox Christians. Islamist countries generally gave these Christian families religious freedom in exchange for payment of special taxes imposed on all non-Muslims (called jizyah in Arabic or cizye in Turkish). The Arab-Christians were highly influential in the Arab Renaissance, which commenced in the 1840s.

  10. The Quran is usually interpreted as teaching that women are subservient to men, who are the lords, masters, and managers of the household. However, the creature is not strictly correct in ascribing to Islam the idea that women are not to be educated. The prophet Muhammad is said to have applauded religious education for Muslim women; it was only secular education that, until recently, was withheld. Still, in 2007, UNICEF reported that in seventeen of the fifty-seven Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) member countries, primary school participation stood at below 60 percent. (However, UNICEF also noted that in countries including Jordan, Bahrain, Lebanon, and Oman, girls outnumbered boys in school.) More than half the adult population was illiterate in some Islamic countries, and the proportion was as high as 70 percent among women. Since 2007, OIC literacy rates have improved, but there is still a 6.5 percent disparity between literate boys and literate girls (as contrasted with developed countries, where there is no gender-based disparity).

  11. Haram literally means “forbidden” in Arabic. Harem became the Turkish word for a separate part of a Muslim household for the housing of women—wives, concubines, female servants, and their offspring.

  12. “Infantile,” not “puerile,” in the 1831 edition.

  13. The phrase “had quit prison” is altered to “quitted his prison” in the 1831 edition.

  14. A pass in Savoy between France and Italy.

  15. Livorno, the capital of the province of Livorno and the most important port city in Tuscany, on the Ligurian Sea. Its population at this time was around fifty thousand. “Leghorn” is a Briticism and was unlikely used by the creature but rather interpolated by Shelley. As we have seen, it was on his return from Leghorn to Lerici that Percy Shelley died at sea: See the Foreword, pp. lvi, above, and note 40, Volume I, Letter III, above.

  16. “Greatly” is omitted in the 1831 edition.

  17. The word “impotence” is replaced with “ruin” in the 1831 edition.

  18. The word “when” is replaced by “while” in the 1831 edition, and the phrase “would have” is omitted.

  19. The earned share or reward.

  20. “Turkish” in the Draft, changed by Percy Shelley to “Arabic” but changed back to this description in the final 1818 text.

  CHAPTER VII.1

  “SUCH WAS THE history of my beloved cottagers. It impressed me deeply. I learned, from the views of social life which it developed, to admire their virtues, and to deprecate the vices of mankind.

  “As yet I looked upon crime as a distant evil; benevolence and generosity were ever present before me, inciting within me a desire to become an act
or in the busy scene where so many admirable qualities were called forth and displayed. But, in giving an account of the progress of my intellect, I must not omit a circumstance which occurred in the beginning of the month of August of the same year.2

  “One night, during my accustomed visit to the neighbouring wood, where I collected my own food, and brought home firing for my protectors, I found on the ground a leathern portmanteau, containing several articles of dress and some books. I eagerly seized the prize, and returned with it to my hovel. Fortunately the books were written3 in the language the elements of which I had acquired at the cottage; they consisted of Paradise Lost,4 a volume of Plutarch’s Lives,5 and the Sorrows of Werter.6 The possession of these treasures gave me extreme delight; I now continually studied and exercised my mind upon these histories, whilst my friends were employed in their ordinary occupations.

  “I can hardly describe to you the effect of these books. They produced in me an infinity of new images and feelings, that sometimes raised me to ecstasy, but more frequently sunk me into the lowest dejection. In the Sorrows of Werter, besides the interest of its simple and affecting story, so many opinions are canvassed, and so many lights thrown upon what had hitherto been to me obscure subjects, that I found in it a never-ending source of speculation and astonishment. The gentle and domestic manners it described, combined with lofty sentiments and feelings, which had for their object something out of self, accorded well with my experience among my protectors,7 and with the wants which were for ever alive in my own bosom. But I thought Werter himself a more divine being than I had ever beheld or imagined; his character contained no pretension, but it sunk deep. The disquisitions upon death and suicide were calculated to fill me with wonder. I did not pretend to enter into the merits of the case, yet I inclined towards the opinions of the hero, whose extinction I wept, without precisely understanding it.