by Mary Shelley
I turned with loathing from the woman who could utter so unfeeling a speech to a person just saved, on the very edge of death; but I felt languid, and unable to reflect on all that had passed. The whole series of my life appeared to me as a dream; I sometimes doubted if indeed it were all true, for it never presented itself to my mind with the force of reality.
An Irish petty sessions court of the day.
As the images that floated before me became more distinct, I grew feverish; a darkness pressed around me; no one was near me who soothed me with the gentle voice of love; no dear hand supported me. The physician came and prescribed medicines, and the old woman prepared them for me; but utter carelessness was visible in the first, and the expression of brutality was strongly marked in the visage of the second. Who could be interested in the fate of a murderer, but the hangman who would gain his fee?
These were my first reflections; but I soon learned that Mr. Kirwin had shewn me extreme kindness. He had caused the best room in the prison to be prepared for me (wretched indeed was the best); and it was he who had provided a physician and a nurse. It is true, he seldom came to see me; for, although he ardently desired to relieve the sufferings of every human creature, he did not wish to be present at the agonies and miserable ravings of a murderer. He came, therefore, sometimes to see that I was not neglected; but his visits were short, and at long intervals.
One day, when I was gradually recovering, I was seated in a chair, my eyes half open, and my cheeks livid like those in death, I was overcome by gloom and misery, and often reflected I had better seek death9 than remain miserably pent up only to be let loose in a world replete with wretchedness. At one time I considered whether I should not declare myself guilty, and suffer the penalty of the law, less innocent than poor Justine had been. Such were my thoughts, when the door of my apartment was opened, and Mr. Kirwin entered. His countenance expressed sympathy and compassion; he drew a chair close to mine, and addressed me in French—
“I fear that this place is very shocking to you; can I do any thing to make you more comfortable?”
“I thank you; but all that you mention is nothing to me: on the whole earth there is no comfort which I am capable of receiving.”
“I know that the sympathy of a stranger can be but of little relief to one borne down as you are by so strange a misfortune. But you will, I hope, soon quit this melancholy abode; for, doubtless, evidence can easily be brought to free you from the criminal charge.”10
“That is my least concern: I am, by a course of strange events, become the most miserable of mortals. Persecuted and tortured as I am and have been, can death be any evil to me?”
“Nothing indeed could be more unfortunate and agonizing than the strange chances that have lately occurred. You were thrown, by some surprising accident, on this shore, renowned for its hospitality: seized immediately, and charged with murder. The first sight that was presented to your eyes was the body of your friend, murdered in so unaccountable a manner, and placed, as it were, by some fiend across your path.”11
As Mr. Kirwin said this, notwithstanding the agitation I endured on this retrospect of my sufferings, I also felt considerable surprise at the knowledge he seemed to possess concerning me. I suppose some astonishment was exhibited in my countenance; for Mr. Kirwin hastened to say—
“It was not until a day or two after your illness that I thought of examining your dress,12 that I might discover some trace by which I could send to your relations an account of your misfortune and illness. I found several letters, and, among others, one which I discovered from its commencement to be from your father. I instantly wrote to Geneva: nearly two months have elapsed since the departure of my letter.13—But you are ill; even now you tremble: you are unfit for agitation of any kind.”
“This suspense is a thousand times worse than the most horrible event: tell me what new scene of death has been acted, and whose murder I am now to lament.”
“Your family is perfectly well,” said Mr. Kirwin, with gentleness; “and some one, a friend, is come to visit you.”
I know not by what chain of thought the idea presented itself, but it instantly darted into my mind that the murderer had come to mock at my misery, and taunt me with the death of Clerval, as a new incitement for me to comply with his hellish desires. I put my hand before my eyes, and cried out in agony—
“Oh! take him away! I cannot see him; for God’s sake, do not let him enter!”
Mr. Kirwin regarded me with a troubled countenance. He could not help regarding my exclamation as a presumption of my guilt, and said, in rather a severe tone—
“I should have thought, young man, that the presence of your father would have been welcome, instead of inspiring such violent repugnance.”
“My father!” cried I, while every feature and every muscle was relaxed from anguish to pleasure. “Is my father, indeed, come? How kind, how very kind. But where is he, why does he not hasten to me?”
My change of manner surprised and pleased the magistrate; perhaps he thought that my former exclamation was a momentary return of delirium, and now he instantly resumed his former benevolence. He rose, and quitted the room with my nurse, and in a moment my father entered it.
Nothing, at this moment, could have given me greater pleasure than the arrival of my father. I stretched out my hand to him, and cried—
“Are you then safe—and Elizabeth—and Ernest?”
My father calmed me with assurances of their welfare, and endeavoured, by dwelling on these subjects so interesting to my heart, to raise my desponding spirits; but he soon felt that a prison cannot be the abode of cheerfulness. “What a place is this that you inhabit, my son!” said he, looking mournfully at the barred windows, and wretched appearance of the room. “You travelled to seek happiness, but a fatality seems to pursue you. And poor Clerval—”
The name of my unfortunate and murdered friend was an agitation too great to be endured in my weak state; I shed tears.
“Alas! yes, my father,” replied I; “some destiny of the most horrible kind hangs over me, and I must live to fulfil it, or surely I should have died on the coffin of Henry.”
We were not allowed to converse for any length of time, for the precarious state of my health rendered every precaution necessary that could insure tranquillity. Mr. Kirwin came in, and insisted that my strength should not be exhausted by too much exertion. But the appearance of my father was to me like that of my good angel, and I gradually recovered my health.
As my sickness quitted me, I was absorbed by a gloomy and black melancholy, that nothing could dissipate. The image of Clerval was for ever before me, ghastly and murdered. More than once the agitation into which these reflections threw me made my friends dread a dangerous relapse. Alas! why did they preserve so miserable and detested a life? It was surely that I might fulfil my destiny, which is now drawing to a close. Soon, oh, very soon, will death extinguish these throbbings, and relieve me from the mighty weight of anguish that bears me to the dust; and, in executing the award of justice, I shall also sink to rest. Then the appearance of death was distant, although the wish was ever present to my thoughts; and I often sat for hours motionless and speechless, wishing for some mighty revolution that might bury me and my destroyer in its ruins.
The season of the assizes approached. I had already been three months in prison;14 and although I was still weak, and in continual danger of a relapse, I was obliged to travel nearly a hundred miles to the county-town, where the court was held. Mr. Kirwin charged himself with every care of collecting witnesses, and arranging my defence. 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 jury15 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.16
An English courtroom of the day (Bow Street Office by Thomas Rowlandson, 1808).
My father was enraptured on finding me freed from the vexations of a criminal charge, that I was again allowed17 to breathe the fresh atmosphere, and allowed to return to my native country. I did not participate in these feelings; for to me the walls of a dungeon or a palace were alike hateful. The cup of life was poisoned for ever; 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,18 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 endeavoured 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.
I remember, as I quitted the prison, I heard one of the men say, “He may be innocent of the murder, but he has certainly a bad conscience.” These words struck me. A bad conscience! yes, surely I had one. William, Justine, and Clerval, had died through my infernal machinations; “And whose death,” cried I, “is to finish the tragedy? Ah! my father, do not remain in this wretched country; take me where I may forget myself, my existence, and all the world.”19
My father easily acceded to my desire; and, after having taken leave of Mr. Kirwin, we hastened to Dublin. I felt as if I was relieved from a heavy weight, when the packet sailed with a fair wind from Ireland, and I had quitted for ever the country which had been to me the scene of so much misery.20
It was midnight. My father slept in the cabin; and21 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 at the mad enthusiasm that hurried me on to the creation of my hideous enemy, and I called to mind the night during 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;22 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 took a double dose,23 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 night-mare; I felt the fiend’s grasp in my neck, and could not free myself from it; groans and cries rung in my ears. My father, who was watching over me, perceiving my restlessness, awoke me,24 and pointed to the port of Holyhead,25 which we were now entering.
1. Chapter 21 in the 1831 edition.
2. Are we to understand that Clerval put up no struggle when attacked by the creature? Belefant, in Frankenstein, the Man and the Monster, suggests that this is evidence that Victor murdered Clerval, for he would have been able to approach Clerval from the front or while he was sleeping and overpower him without a struggle (94–95).
3. The balance of the sentence does not appear in the 1831 edition, and the “trial” mentioned in the next sentence becomes an “examination.”
4. “Agonizing suffering” is revised to “agonies” in the 1831 edition.
5. Putting the date in October or November 1796, two months after the August–September destruction of the creature’s mate.
6. French, that is.
7. According to Greek legend, Ixion, a king of Thessaly and son of the war god Ares, was caught by Zeus in the act of attempting to seduce Zeus’s wife, Hera. Hera had reported Ixion’s advances to Zeus; Zeus tested Ixion by constructing a cloud that looked like Hera and placing it in Ixion’s bed. The inevitable occurred, and Zeus punished Ixion by affixing him to a fiery wheel, either in the sky or the underworld, depending on the source of the tale. The punishment roughly approximated a crime committed by Ixion against his own father-in-law, Eioneus (or Deioneus): Unwilling to pay Eioneus the bride-price for his daughter, Ixion murdered him by throwing him into a burning pit, having lured him to the inferno on the pretext of wishing to deliver payment. A pariah thereafter, shunned by all, he found a sympathetic audience in Zeus, who was willing to redeem him and offered him a place on Mount Olympus. It was there, in the god’s own court, that Ixion repaid Zeus’s largesse by trying to lure Hera away from him—hence a punishment that may seem out of proportion to the crime.
8. The old woman refers to the “quarter sessions” court, which quarterly heard matters that were more serious than those tried summarily by a justice of the peace or magistrate. The quarter sessions court, however, would not hear a case of murder, which would be referred to the periodic assizes court. This in fact happened here, for Victor later refers to the assizes.
9. In the 1831 edition, the balance of the sentence is revised to “than desire to remain in a world which to me was replete with wretchedness.”
10. If, as is clear from this statement, Kirwin was certain that exculpatory evidence can “easily be brought,” why would he avoid Victor, who concluded that he “did not wish to be present at the agonies and miserable ravings of a murderer”?
11. This reminds us of the tantalizing questions raised by Clerval’s murder: Where was he killed? Why did the creature bring Clerval’s corpse to a small town in Ireland? The creature certainly had no way of knowing that Victor would beach his craft here, and Clerval could not have been anywhere near the town—or Ireland, for that matter, for he had written to Victor asking him to meet up in Perth. Furthermore, the body was not yet cold when discovered. This suggests that the creature actually took Clerval prisoner and transported him while yet alive to this town, killing him either in the boat in which they traveled or immediately on taking him ashore. All of this occurred in the short interval after the creature departed from Victor’s island laboratory. No explanation for these conundrums is put forward by the creature or Victor.
12. In the 1831 edition, the preceding portion of this sentence is replaced with the following: “Immediately upon your being taken ill, all the papers that were on your person were brought me, and I examined them.”
13. This scene, therefore, occurs at most a few weeks after Victor’s recovery, probably in November or early December 1796.
14. Bringing the likely date of the events to mid-December 1796 and the season of the winter assizes. However, see note 10, Volume III, Chapter V, below.
15. The “grand jury” and the “petty jury” were bodies empaneled by the king (and selected by local officials to consider whether the evidence merited that alleged criminals be brought to trial. The grand jury was abolished in Ireland in 1924. Ireland’s relationship with England was changing at the time of Frankenstein; in 1801, in the wake of the so-called United Irishmen Rebellion against English rule, the Irish Parliam
ent was abolished, and Ireland became part of the United Kingdom of England and Ireland. “Home rule” was a contentious subject between England and Ireland for more than a century thereafter, and not until 1914 was that status granted by England. In 1922, most of Ireland seceded from the UK and formed the Irish Free State, changing its name to Ireland in 1937. Thereafter, only Northern Ireland remained part of the United Kingdom.
16. Probably just after the new year in 1797.
17. The word “permitted” replaces “allowed” in the 1831 edition.
18. Homesickness (Fr.). Chris Lambert, writing for Harvard Magazine in 2001, explains, “In 1688 a Swiss doctor, Johannes Hofer, identified a new medical syndrome, nostalgia: ‘the sad mood originating from the desire for return to one’s native land.’ Various displaced Swiss of the seventeenth century suffered from it—students from the Republic of Berne studying in Basel; domestics working in France and Germany; soldiers fighting abroad. The nostalgia syndrome removed people from present reality. The afflicted took on a lifeless and haggard countenance, became indifferent to their surroundings, confused past and present, and even hallucinated voices and ghosts.” The term “nostalgia” was still employed by doctors treating soldiers during the Civil War. In World War I, a theory was advanced that the condition was caused by a reaction to the explosion of shells; the diagnosis “shell shock” was applied. (See Charles S. Myers, “A Contribution to the Study of Shell Shock: Being an Account of Three Cases of Loss of Memory, Vision, Smell, and Taste, Admitted into the Duchess of Westminster’s War Hospital, Le Touquet” [The Lancet, February 13, 1915, 316–20]. Myers was a medical doctor and a captain of the Royal Army Medical Corps.) The designation “post-traumatic stress disorder” was adopted in the third edition of the American Psychiatric Association’s Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM-III), published in 1980. See note 22, Volume III, Chapter II, above.