Frankenstein

Even though we were tired, too much had happened that night for us to sleep with easy minds. I had dreams... dreams of strange things coming to life on the work-room floor.  I dreamed of Elizabeth walking through the streets of Ingolstadt. Pleased and surprised to see her there I walked up to her and kissed her. But as I took my lips away I saw her lips turn from red to the blue-green colour of death. It started to spread across her face, and I forced myself to wake up.
This must have been about half-past four, because I remember the church clock striking the half-hour soon afterwards. I sat up in bed and drew the back of my hand across my face, which was wet with fear and horror.
I looked round. The curtains were closed, and everything was very dark. There was no more thunder, and the storm had passed. My eyes fell upon the open doorway leading to the work-room. It was dark like everywhere else, but less dark, since a little light came in through the window in the roof. As I sat up in bed thinking of the clearing-up we should have to do when daylight came, a shadow moved into the lighter darkness of the doorway. The shadow became a shape. It filled the doorway and then left it empty again. It had passed into the room where I was. My blood ran cold. Something was standing very close to my bed.
Then I heard a sound from the other bed. Frankenstein was also awake. He suddenly pulled the curtains open, and the unkind, grey light of early morning flowed into the room to show - what can I say? I could see at once that it was the body in the bath, now alive and breathing. But where was the perfection? Where was the man-god of Frankenstein's dreams? Was this the end of the great experiment?
There he stood, unclothed, wet and shining, his long hair hanging down over his chest. If he had stood up straight he would have been a giant -as it was, he was nearly two metres tall- but his back was bent, and his arms hung in front of him like those of a huge monkey. As for his face, the beauty of the body in the bath had gone with the lightning. lnstead of the rosy white of skin before life, the living skin was yellow and dry like old paper, and was stretched across the bones like a piece of clothing that was too small. This left the teeth uncovered, so that he wore an unnatural smile all the time. Lightning burns and lines where the pieces of skin had been joined together marked the rest of his body; and the whites of his narrow eyes were the colour of blood. He was a monster!
No one spoke. The only sound was that of the liquid droppinq off the ends of the Monster's hair on to the floor. Frankenstein was filled with horror. He stared at the Monster and the Monster stared back at him. As for me, after the first surprise I felt nothing but plain, simple fear. But as the minutes passed I began to understand that there was no reason for fear. This was not a wild animal. If he had meant to attack us he would already have done so by now. He was no more certain what to do than we were. As he stared in that fixed way at Frankenstein, it almost seemed as if he knew that he was looking at his maker. He even began to look friendly. Did he want to thank the man who had given him life?
Almost as this thought passed through my mind he took a step forward, went down on his knees and stretched out a hand. I think he was going to kiss Frankenstein's foot. But whatever he meant to do, he did not have a chance to do it, because, with a cry of horror, Frankenstein kicked out, and the Monster fell back. He got up very quickly, which showed that although he looked heavy he was strong and active. Now it was his turn to look surprised, and Frankenstein, seeing that the Monster was not as dangerous as he had thought, took his chance. He picked up a heavy stick and stepped  forward.
"Out!" he cried. "Out of my rooms! Out of my sight! You are disgusting!"
­Still with a look of hurt surprise on his face, and without saying a word, the Monster turned, and Frankenstein ran after him down the passage, where the front door, pulled in by the force of the explosion, lay wide open. He ran out and disappeared down the stairs.
I went straight to the window and looked out. After a minute the Monster came into the street. He seemed uncertain what to do, but in the end he ran off through the still empty town towards the main gate.
'He is disgusting," said Frankenstein. "I cannot bear to think of him."
"But he is yours. You made him," I said.
"He was a mistake."
"Perhaps, but he was your mistake. He is yours, and he knows it. Did you not see how he treated you as his master? And what did you do? You drove him away. That was neither good nor wise.'
Frankenstein grew pale at my words. His whole body shook. "He is not mine. He was a mistake, I tell you - an experiment that went wrong. He is not even human. I owe him nothing!"
"But, my dear fellow, what is going to happen?" I asked. "You cannot just let him run off like that."
"Nature has made a mistake, and, as Nature always does, she will put her mistake right in her own way. This creature cannot live. You could see it was incomplete. It will die a natural death and there will be no more difficulties."
This did not seem a right and proper answer. I tried again: "But do you not feel you have some duty...?"
"Duty!" cried Frankenstein in an excited voice. "Do not speak to me of duty. I have spent too long in this town wasting my life in useless study. I shall return to Geneva. I shall go back home. Yes, I shall leave today!"

Frankenstein took the carriage to the south that evening. I waited in his rooms, expecting trouble. One does not lose an unclothed monster in a small town like Ingolstadt. When nothing happened, I went to the market to make enquiries.
The Monster had run straight out of the town gates. Only the gatekeeper had seen him, and nobody believed him. "He has been drinking again," they said.
"What luck!" I thought. "Frankenstein was right. The Monster will go into the forest and die."

I began to work very hard on my own studies. I heard nothing from Frankenstein, and there was no news of the Monster.
But in September I was buying food in the market when I heard an old wood-cutter talking about a "wild man" in a certain part of the forest. The next day I walked to that part of the forest.
All that day I talked to people who lived in the forest. It was clear that there was indeed a wild man in the woods, even though nobody had been very near to him. He had done no harm. He had attacked nobody. When anyone saw him, he ran away... and he could run very fast.
I knew that I had to find the Monster. I felt that those who made him owed him something; it was somebody's duty to make friends with him so that he would not turn against the human race.
I spent several Sundays looking for him. At last, from behind a bush, I saw him. He was even more frightful than I remembered, but he had changed. He had found some clothing, and he was carrying a basket full of wild fruit. I decided to follow him. He came to a little wooden house in an open space in the forest, pushed open the door, and went in, still carrying his basket.
About ten minutes later, he came out, but not alone. An old man and a very pretty girl came to the door with him. I saw him talking to them - proof that the Monster could talk.
He went off into the forest again, and after a time I went to the little house. The people in it were French: old de Lacy, who was blind, and his son Felix and daughter Agatha. They had had to leave France because of unjust laws. They were good people who had been kind to the Monster.
"He lives in a little hut behind the house," Agatha said. "He is very strange, and very ugly, but there is goodness in him. He cuts wood for us and gathers wild fruits in the forest."
"Other people in the forest call him 'the wild man'," Felix added, "but he is quite clever. He has learnt French only by listening to us. He also listens when we read to Father, and he now knows a great deal."
"I should like to meet him some time," I said. "Perhaps he is the former servant of my friend Frankenstein. His master has gone back to Geneva, but he will want to help his servant, and I will write to him."
I still hoped to get Victor to do his duty.

My work, and very bad weather, made it impossible for me to return to the forest for three weeks. When I went back to the little house, nothing remained of it except a few stones and a mass of blackened wood.
I found proof that the de Lacys had died in the fire, but I could not see whether the Monster had died or not.
I went back to Ingolstadt and worked hard, trying to forget. Then in December I received a letter with a cutting from a Geneva newspaper. William Frankenstein, Victor's little brother, had been murdered, and Justine was to be tried for the murder. The story was that Justine took William into some woods and put her hands round his neck until he was dead, and then she ran off with the gold chain from his neck. They caught her at Thonon.
That was just not possible. Justine loved little William, and she was a kind and loving girl. I decided to return to Geneva at once to try to help either her or the Frankensteins.  

Source: Longman Classics