by Mary Shelley
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 for ever 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 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.
Preparations were made for the event; congratulatory visits were received; and all wore a smiling appearance. I shut up, as well as I could, in my own heart the anxiety that preyed there, and entered with seeming earnestness into the plans of my father, although they might only serve as the decorations of my tragedy. A house was purchased for us near Cologny,23 by which we should enjoy the pleasures of the country, and yet be so near Geneva as to see my father every day; who would still reside within the walls, for the benefit of Ernest, that he might follow his studies at the schools.24
In the mean time I took every precaution to defend my person, in case the fiend should openly attack me. I carried pistols and a dagger constantly about me, and was ever on the watch to prevent artifice; and by these means gained a greater degree of tranquillity. Indeed, as the period approached, the threat appeared more as a delusion, not to be regarded as worthy to disturb my peace, while the happiness I hoped for in my marriage wore a greater appearance of certainty, as the day fixed for its solemnization drew nearer, and I heard it continually spoken of as an occurrence which no accident could possibly prevent.
Elizabeth seemed happy; my tranquil demeanour contributed greatly to calm her mind. But on the day that was to fulfil my wishes and my destiny, she was melancholy, and a presentiment of evil pervaded her; and perhaps also she thought of the dreadful secret, which I had promised to reveal to her the following day. My father was in the mean time overjoyed, and, in the bustle of preparation, only observed25 in the melancholy of his niece the diffidence of a bride.
After the ceremony was performed, a large party assembled at my father’s; but it was agreed that Elizabeth and I26 should pass the afternoon and night at Evian,27 and return to Cologny the next morning.28 As the day was fair, and the wind favourable, we resolved to go by water.
Those were the last moments of my life during which I enjoyed the feeling of happiness. We passed rapidly along: the sun was hot, but we were sheltered from its rays by a kind of canopy, while we enjoyed the beauty of the scene, sometimes on one side of the lake, where we saw Mont Salêve, the pleasant banks of Montalêgre,29 and at a distance, surmounting all, the beautiful Mont Blânc, and the assemblage of snowy mountains that in vain endeavour to emulate her; sometimes coasting the opposite banks, we saw the mighty Jura opposing its dark side to the ambition that would quit its native country, and an almost insurmountable barrier to the invader who should wish to enslave it.30
A photograph of the town of Evian-les-bains, as Evian is now known, ca. 1895.
I took the hand of Elizabeth: “You are sorrowful, my love. Ah! if you knew what I have suffered, and what I may yet endure, you would endeavour to let me taste the quiet, and freedom from despair, that this one day at least permits me to enjoy.”
“Be happy, my dear Victor,” replied Elizabeth; “there is, I hope, nothing to distress you; and be assured that if a lively joy is not painted in my face, my heart is contented. Something whispers to me not to depend too much on the prospect that is opened before us; but I will not listen to such a sinister voice. Observe how fast we move along, and how the clouds which sometimes obscure, and sometimes rise above the dome of Mont Blânc, render this scene of beauty still more interesting. Look also at the innumerable fish that are swimming in the clear waters, where we can distinguish every pebble that lies at the bottom. What a divine day! how happy and serene all nature appears!”
Thus Elizabeth endeavoured to divert her thoughts and mine from all reflection upon melancholy subjects. But her temper was fluctuating; joy for a few instants shone in her eyes, but it continually gave place to distraction and reverie.
The sun sunk lower in the heavens; we passed the river Drance,31 and observed its path through the chasms of the higher, and the glens of the lower hills. The Alps here come closer to the lake, and we approached the amphitheatre of mountains which forms its eastern boundary. The spire of Evian shone under the woods that surrounded it, and the range of mountain above mountain by which it was overhung.
The wind, which had hitherto carried us along with amazing rapidity, sunk at sunset to a light breeze; the soft air just ruffled the water, and caused a pleasant motion among the trees as we approached the shore, from which it wafted the most delightful scent of flowers and hay. The sun sunk beneath the horizon as we landed; and as I touched the shore, I felt those cares and fears revive, which soon were to clasp me, and cling to me for ever.
1. Chapter 22 in the 1831 edition.
2. This paragraph and the following two sentences are replaced in the 1831 edition with the following, wherein Victor goes far beyond grief over Clerval, expressing moral sentiments regarding his own conduct:
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.
3. Le Havre (or Havre) was then, and remains, the second largest port in France; at the time of the Frankensteins’ visit, it was surpassed only by Nantes, and today it ranks behind only Marseilles. Its proximity to England made it highly strategic during the Napoleonic Wars, soon to erupt.
4. Victor’s concealment of the place of his imprisonment further suggests some obfuscation regarding the location of his “Scottish” laboratory. Why else leave the village nameless? Certainly he was treated kindly by Mr. Kirwin.
5. [Sic].
6. Instead of “caused by,” the 1831 edition uses the phrase “the offspring of.”
7. This sentence and the next two sentences are substantially revised in the 1831 edition to read as follows, seemingly to suggest that Victor maintained his guilty silence out of kindness rather than shame:
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 r
elieved 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?”
8. The Thomas Text continues,
What could induce me to talk thus incoherently of the dreadful subject that I dared not explain?—In truth, it was insanity, not of the understanding but of the heart, which produced a state of sickness caused me always to think of one thing, of one sentiment, and that thus there would at times escape to my lips, as a half stifled groan sigh may; though else unseen & unheard, just moves the flame that surrounds the marty[r] at the stake. But though he sigh, he will not recant, & though I more weak, gave vent to my pent up thoughts in words such as these, yet I shrunk unalterably from any thing that should reveal the existence of my enemy.
9. The Thomas Text adds, “Montanvert and[.]”
10. Four months have elapsed since Victor’s acquittal. This is an excessive amount of time to have spent traveling from Ireland; the voyage from Portsmouth to Le Havre (a distance of about 110 miles [177 km]) could not have been longer than one day. Victor’s recollection of the term of his confinement may well be distorted, notwithstanding the corroborative statements of Mr. Kirwin—he was feverish, after all, and he retells Walton their conversation more than two years after it took place. The arrival in Paris is set on such a definite date that it is the Dublin departure date that must be doubted. In the Draft, the date was originally February 8, in line with a trial at the winter assizes.
11. This phrase and the preceding sentence are deleted in the 1831 edition, and the following phrase replaces them: “A few days before we left Paris on our way to Switzerland,”
12. This address is omitted in the 1831 edition.
13. In the 1831 edition, the balance of the sentence reads as follows: “and all my doubts satisfied.”
14. The word “cousin” is replaced with “friend” in the 1831 edition.
15. The word “interested” is corrected to “disinterested” in the 1831 edition.
16. Changed from February 18 in the Draft.
17. The warning is in all capitals in the 1831 edition.
18. The phrase “to be with me on my wedding-night” is in all capitals in the 1831 edition.
19. This is now late May or early June 1797.
20. “My cousin” is replaced with “The sweet girl” in the 1831 edition.
21. “Elizabeth” is substituted for “my cousin” in the 1831 edition.
22. The warning is again in all capitals in the 1831 edition.
23. Cologny is a small suburb of Geneva, on the southeastern shore of the lake.
24. This sentence is replaced in the 1831 edition with the following, further evidence that Elizabeth is of good stock, not a mere peasant girl: “Through my father’s exertions a part of the inheritance of Elizabeth had been restored to her by the Austrian government. A small possession on the shores of Como belonged to her. It was agreed that, immediately after our union, we should proceed to Villa Lavenza and spend our first days of happiness beside the beautiful lake near which it stood.”
25. The word “observed” is revised to “recognized” in the 1831 edition.
26. In the 1831 edition, the balance of the sentence and the next sentence are deleted, and the following is substituted: “should commence our journey by water, sleeping that night at Evian and continuing our voyage on the following day. The day was fair, and the wind favourable, all smiled on our nuptial embarkation.”
27. Evian was a small resort town farther around the southern shore of the lake, about 28 miles (45 km) east of Geneva. At the time of Victor’s nuptials, it was not known for its mineral waters, which were not analyzed until 1807, and it had not yet developed as a spa. However, by 1815, Percy Shelley wrote, in Six Weeks’ Tour, “they have mineral waters here [by which he meant Evian, which they were then visiting], eaux savonneuses [soapy water], they call them” (116). Situated in the Haute-Savoie district, the town was under the rule of the despotic king of Sardinia, and Percy Shelley described the inhabitants as “more wretched, diseased, and poor than I ever recollect to have seen. The contrast [with the nearby Swiss citizens] … affords a powerful illustration of the blighting mischiefs of despotism, within the space of a few miles” (116).
28. The Thomas Text revises this to read, “Elizabeth and I should immediately depart for a small estate we possessed at Evian.”
29. Montalègre is a small town in the Cologny district.
30. The Jura did not stop the French, whose army invaded Switzerland in 1798, establishing the Helvetic Republic.
The Thomas Text adds at the beginning of the next paragraph the following: “Why Then gazing on the beloved face of Elizabeth on her graceful form and languid eyes, of with instead of feeling the exultation of a—lover—a husband—in a sudden gush of tears blinded my sight, & as I turned away to hide the involuntary emotion fast drops fell in the wave below. Reason again awoke, and shaking off all unmanly—or more properly all natural thoughts of mischance, I smiled as[.]”
31. A small tributary of the Rhône, visited during the composition of Six Weeks’ Tour: “As soon as we had passed the opposite promontory, we saw the river Drance, which descends from between a chasm in the mountains, and makes a plain near the lake, intersected by its divided streams. Thousands of besolets, beautiful water-birds, like sea-gulls, but smaller, with purple on their backs, take their station on the shallows, where its waters mingle with the lake” (114).
CHAPTER VI.1
IT WAS EIGHT o’clock when we landed;2 we walked for a short time on the shore, enjoying the transitory light, and then retired to the inn, and contemplated the lovely scene of waters, woods, and mountains, obscured in darkness, yet still displaying their black outlines.
The wind, which had fallen in the south, now rose with great violence in the west. The moon had reached her summit in the heavens, and was beginning to descend; the clouds swept across it swifter than the flight of the vulture, and dimmed her rays, while the lake reflected the scene of the busy heavens, rendered still busier by the restless waves that were beginning to rise. Suddenly a heavy storm of rain descended.
I had been calm during the day; but so soon as night obscured the shapes of objects, a thousand fears arose in my mind. I was anxious and watchful, while my right hand grasped a pistol which was hidden in my bosom; every sound terrified me; but I resolved that I would sell my life dearly, and not relax the impending3 conflict until my own life, or that of my adversary, were extinguished.
Elizabeth observed my agitation for some time in timid and fearful silence; at length she said,4 “What is it that agitates you, my dear Victor? What is it you fear?”
“Oh! peace, peace, my love,” replied I, “this night, and all will be safe: but this night is dreadful, very dreadful.”
I passed an hour in this state of mind, when suddenly I reflected how dreadful5 the combat which I momentarily expected would be to my wife, and I earnestly entreated her to retire, resolving not to join her until I had obtained some knowledge as to the situation of my enemy.
She left me, and I continued some time walking up and down the passages of the house, and inspecting every corner that might afford a retreat to my adversary.6 But I discovered no trace of him, and was beginning to conjecture that some fortunate chance had intervened to prevent the execution of his menaces; when suddenly I heard a shrill and dreadful scream. It came from the room into which Elizabeth had retired. As I heard it, the whole truth rushed into my mind, my arms dropped, the motion of every muscle and fibre was suspended; I could feel the blood trickling in my veins, and tingling in the extremities of my limbs. This state lasted but for an instant; the scream was repeated, and I rushed into the room.
Great God! why did I not then expire! Why am I here to relate the destruction of the best hope, and the purest creature of earth. She was there, lifeless and inanimate, thrown across the bed, her head hanging down, and her pale and distorted features half covered by h
er hair.7 Every where I turn I see the same figure—her bloodless arms and relaxed form flung by the murderer on its bridal bier. Could I behold this, and live? Alas! life is obstinate, and clings closest where it is most hated. For a moment only did I lose recollection; I fainted.8
When I recovered, I found myself surrounded by the people of the inn; their countenances expressed a breathless terror: but the horror of others appeared only as a mockery, a shadow of the feelings that oppressed me. I escaped from them to the room where lay the body of Elizabeth, my love, my wife, so lately living, so dear, so worthy. She had been moved from the posture in which I had first beheld her; and now, as she lay, her head upon her arm, and a handkerchief thrown across her face and neck, I might have supposed her asleep. I rushed towards her, and embraced her with ardour; but the deathly languor and coldness of the limbs told me, that what I now held in my arms had ceased to be the Elizabeth whom I had loved and cherished. The murderous mark of the fiend’s grasp was on her neck, and the breath had ceased to issue from her lips.
The Nightmare, by Henry Fuseli (1781).
The creature attacks Elizabeth, in Frankenstein (Universal Pictures, 1931). The similarity to the Fuseli painting is certainly no coincidence.
While I still hung over her in the agony of despair, I happened to look up. The windows of the room had before been darkened; and I felt a kind of panic on seeing the pale yellow light of the moon illuminate the chamber.9 The shutters had been thrown back; and, with a sensation of horror not to be described, I saw at the open window a figure the most hideous and abhorred. A grin was on the face of the monster; he seemed to jeer, as with his fiendish finger he pointed towards the corpse of my wife. I rushed towards the window, and drawing a pistol from my bosom, shot;10 but he eluded me, leaped from his station, and, running with the swiftness of lightning, plunged into the lake.