Frankenstein

We were tired, but we did not sleep. As well as the unanswerable questions that raced around our minds all night the sound of thunder far away wakened old fears. The fine weather which had been the cause of Frankenstein's deciding to end the experiment was breaking up at last.
Cold and hungry, and with arms and legs that did not seem to want to bend, we went out at first light and led our horses to drink from the stream. Then we started along the path where I had found the shoe the day before. All we knew was that the Monster had passed that way about sixteen hours earlier. He could be anywhere by now.
We stopped and thought, and decided to continue along the path. We had no better ideas. We followed it out of the woods to the south-west until we came to a place where it went two ways. One way turned back towards the upper Arve valley, and the other continued towards the Salève. Had he gone up the Arve to Chamonix and the great glacier above? It made sense. He knew we could never follow him through the snows of the highest mountains at this time of the year. As we stopped there, trying to decide which path to take, I noticed something lying a little way along the second of the two paths. I got down from my horse and walked over to pick it up. It was Elizabeth's other shoe! Frankenstein came up, took it in his hands and turned it over doubtfully.
"Well," I said, "aren't you pleased? Isn't it a piece of luck? Just when we need to know which way they went, we find this."
"Exactly," my friend replied. "Just when we need to know. Luck? I'm not so sure."
"Then it must be Elizabeth's doing," I said. "She's trying to show us the way."
Frankenstein shook his head. "I think the truth is less simple than you think, I believe both these shoes were dropped by the Monster."
"By the Monster?" I cried. "But why should he want us to know where he has gone?"
 "Don't you see? To draw us into his power," was Frankenstein's answer. "I think he wants to destroy all three of us. He has Elizabeth, and he is using her to catch us. That shoe was lying right in the middle of the path. It was just too easy."
I did not believe him then. But when at the next place where the path went two ways we found a handkerchief hanging from a branch of a tree, I began to think my friend might be right. I kept my hand on my pistol from that time on.
It was about ten o'clock when we stopped to rest under the shadow of the Salève. It was not clear where we were meant to go from there. If the Monster was looking for a wild place to live in, he would not choose the Salève. This was not a place of snow and ice, but pleasant grassland lying on top of great white cliffs.
Frankenstein had said little that morning; but there was a look on his face that told me more than words could ever tell. He would not rest now until he had destroyed his creature - or until he himself was destroyed.
More thunder sounded, much nearer now. I looked up to the mountain, now unusually clear in the still, heavy air that waited for the coming storm. Something was moving along the edge of the cliff. "Too big for a man, or an animal," I said, pointing.
Frankenstein looked up. "But not for a monster carrying a girl," he said. "You see, he is right on the edge of the cliff where he can be seen against the sky. Clever. He knows we are here, and means us to follow him."

We rode on towards a break in the cliff, where it was possible to climb up to the top by a rocky path. There we left our horses and started climbing. Usually the Monster would have been able to move much faster than us, but even he must have felt the weight of Elizabeth, and when we got to the top we found ourselves not so far behind him.
"If he saw us when we were below, why did he not attack us when we were coming up the cliff? Why is he racing on like this?"
"He still wants to lead us on," Frankenstein replied. "He is making for the highest point of the cliff. When he gets there he will throw her down. And if we are there to see him do it, the greater will be his pleasure."

The storm was about to break over us. As we pushed on higher and higher over the rough grass, the first few heavy drops of rain began to fall. Every few minutes a flash of lightning lit up the shape of the Monster, half carrying, half pulling Elizabeth nearer and nearer to the place he had chosen for her death. He was tired now, and as we began to get closer, he kept looking back. Evil burned in his eyes, and his hair -made wet by the now heavy rain- hung down over his face like oily rope.
Frankenstein and I were climbing side by side. Since I was on the cliff side, I gave as much attention to the placing of my feet as to what the Monster was doing. One careless step on the wet rock meant a fall of a hundred metres and certain death.
We were very close behind him when the first lightning struck the high rocks in front. I remember smelling that  strange burning smell that it gives off when close. The Monster stopped, and I thought at first that he was blinded by the flash. But then he suddenly turned to face us, holding Elizabeth in his arms.
I pulled out my pistol from inside my coat where I had been keeping it dry. I just had time to see that I could not possibly use it without putting Elizabeth in danger, when all at once the Monster raised her high above his head and threw her at me with all his strength.
If her body had struck me any higher, it would have carried me over the edge; which, of course, was what the Monster was trying to do. As it happened, only my feet went over, and I found myself hanging there with my arms around Elizabeth's neck. She put her arms round my neck, and there we were, both for the minute helpless; she lying on the edge, and me hanging over it. I remember listening to the sound of my pistol falling from rock to rock, until at last it went off with a loud noise somewhere near the bottom of the cliff.
"Hold on! Hold on!" I cried, wildly trying to find a foothold in the rock. I could not see what Frankenstein and the Monster were doing. Nor did I care. The most important thing in the world for me just then was to get one leg over the edge of the cliff. I did it. After that it was not hard to get my whole body up. As I lay there getting my strength back, I saw that Frankenstein and the Monster were fighting further along on the edge of the cliff. The rock beneath their feet was wet with the blood that poured from a wound in the Monster's chest. It had been made by a knife in Frankenstein's hand. However, the Monster's own huge hand had closed over his, and with a sudden movement the Monster tore the knife from him. He raised it high above his head. For the first time I saw real joy on his face. I turned my head away. I could not see my friend die.
There was a blue flash, and then I could see nothing.

I woke up to pain and the smell of burning. This time it was not just the smell of burnt air. My coat was on fire. I tore it off, and threw it on the ground and put the fire out with my feet, One side of my face hurt, and as I put my hand up to feel it, I found that some of my hair was burnt. All round me the grass was brown and smoking. I had stood closer to death than I had ever stood before, and I thanked God that I was still alive.
Elizabeth was lying at my feet. Her clothes were also burnt, but the heavy rain had already put out the fire. I raised her to her knees, and as I held her body to mine I felt her heart beating. She was alive.
But what about Frankenstein and the Monster?
I turned to where I had last seen them. One blackened mass was all that was left of their bodies. Together in death, creator and creature could no longer be separated.

It was some time before I could work out what had happened. The knife which the Monster had raised to drive into Frankenstein's body had drawn down the lightning upon him. That same force of nature which had created him had destroyed him.
Shaking myself free from the waking dream that held me, I pulled Elizabeth to her feet, and hand in hand we hurried down the mountain, not stopping until we reached the frightened horses below.

Blackened, burnt and wet to the skin, we rode to Geneva in complete silence.
For some, at least, this strange, unhappy story ended well. Although we did not know it, as we rode through the rain that day, happier days were waiting for Elizabeth and me. The death of Victor was a heavy loss to bear, whether he was remembered as a friend, or a lover or a son. Old Frankenstein took the news badly, as one might expect. But he was strong in mind and body. He lived not only long enough to give Elizabeth and me his blessing when we got married, but also to see our first son given the name of Victor.
I am an old man now - as old as Frankenstein's father was then. Like him, too, I have lived to see the death of a much-loved wife. Since it cannot be long before I follow her, I have set this story down, as I promised at the beginning, so that it will not die with me.
As for the secret of creating life, that died with Frankenstein. Perhaps, as scientists learn more, that secret will one day be rediscovered. But by that time I shall be dead. And I think I shall not be sorry.  

Source: Longman Classics