Chapter 06 (Frankenstein (Full Cast))

01Section 8 of Frankenstein.

02This LibriVox recording is in the public domain.

03Frankenstein or the modern Prometheus by Mary Shelley.

04Section 8.

05Chapter 6.

06Clareval then put the following letter into my hands.

07It was from my own Elizabeth.

08My dearest cousin, you have been ill, very ill, and even the constant letters of dear, kind Henry are not sufficient to reassure me on your account.

09You are forbidden to write, to hold a pen.

10Yet one word from you, dear Victor, is necessary to calm our apprehensions.

11For a long time I have thought that each post would bring this line, and my persuasions have restrained my uncle from undertaking a journey to Ingolstadt.

12I have prevented his encountering the inconveniences and perhaps dangers of so long a journey.

13Yet how often have I regretted not being able to perform it myself.

14I figure to myself that the task of attending on your sick-bed has devolved on some mercenary old nurse, who could never guess your wishes nor minister to them with the care and affection of your poor cousin.

15Yet that is over now.

16Clareval writes that indeed you are getting better.

17I eagerly hope that you will confirm this intelligence soon in your own handwriting.

18Get well, and return to us.

19You will find a happy, cheerful home and friends who love you dearly.

20Your father's health is vigorous, and he asks but to see you, but to be assured that you are well, and not a care will ever cloud his benevolent countenance.

21How pleased you would be to remark the improvement of our earnest!

22He is now sixteen and full of activity and spirit.

23He is desirous to be a true Swiss and to enter into foreign service, but we cannot part with him, at least until his elder brother returns to us.

24My uncle is not pleased with the idea of a military career in a distant country, but earnest never had your powers of application.

25He looks upon study as an odious fetter.

26His time is spent in the open air, climbing the hills or rowing on the lake.

27I fear that he will become an idler, unless we yield the point and permit him to enter on the profession which he has selected.

28Little alteration, except the growth of our dear children, has taken place since you left us.

29The blue lake and snow-clad mountains, they never change, and I think our placid home and our contented hearts are regulated by the same immutable laws.

30My trifling occupations take up my time and amuse me, and I am rewarded for any exertions by seeing none but happy, kind faces around me.

31Since you left us, but one change has taken place in our little household.

32Do you remember on what occasion Justine Moritz entered our family?

33Probably you do not.

34I will relate her history, therefore, in a few words.

35Madame Moritz, her mother, was a widow with four children, of whom Justine was the third.

36This girl had always been the favorite of her father.

37But through a strange perversity her mother could not endure her, and after the death of Monsieur Moritz treated her very ill.

38My aunt observed this, and when Justine was twelve years of age prevailed on her mother to allow her to live at our house.

39The republican institutions of our country have produced simpler and happier manners than those which prevail in the great monarchies that surround it.

40Hence there is less distinction between the several classes of its inhabitants, and the lower orders, being neither so poor nor so despised, their manners are more refined and moral.

41A servant in Geneva does not mean the same thing as a servant in France and England.

42Justine, thus received in our family, learned the duties of a servant, a condition which, in our fortunate country, does not include the idea of ignorance and a sacrifice of the dignity of a human being.

43Justine, you may remember, was a great favorite of yours, and I recollect he once remarked that if you were in an ill-humor, one glance from Justine could dissipate it, for the same reason that Ariosto gives concerning the beauty of Angelica.

44She looked so frank-hearted and happy.

45My aunt conceived a great attachment for her, by which she was induced to give her an education superior to that which she had at first intended.

46This benefit was fully repaid.

47Justine was the most grateful little creature in the world.

48I do not mean that she made any professions—I never heard one pass her lips—but you could see by her eyes that she almost adored her protectress.

49Although her disposition was gay and in many respects inconsiderate, yet she paid the greatest attention to every gesture of my aunt.

50She thought her the model of all excellence, and endeavored to imitate her phraseology and manners, so that even now she often reminds me of her.

51When my dearest aunt died, every one was too much occupied in their own grief to notice poor Justine, who had attended her during her illness with the most anxious affection.

52Poor Justine was very ill, but other trials were reserved for her.

53One by one her brothers and sister died, and her mother, with the exception of her neglected daughter, was left childless.

54The conscience of the woman was troubled.

55She began to think that the deaths of her favorites was a judgment from heaven to chastise her partiality.

56She was a Roman Catholic, and I believe her confessor confirmed the idea which she had conceived.

57Accordingly, a few months after your departure for Ingolstadt, Justine was called home by her repentant mother.

58Poor girl!

59She wept when she quitted our house.

60She was much altered since the death of my aunt.

61Grief had given softness and a winning mildness to her manners, which had before been remarkable for vivacity.

62Nor was her residence at her mother's house of a nature to restore her gaiety.

63The poor woman was very vacillating in her repentance.

64She sometimes begged Justine to forgive her unkindness, but much oftener accused her of having caused the deaths of her brothers and sister.

65Perpetual fretting at length threw Madame Moritz into a decline, which at first increased her irritability, but she is now at peace forever.

66She died on the first approach of cold weather, at the beginning of this last winter.

67Justine has just returned to us, and I assure you I love her tenderly.

68She is very clever and gentle and extremely pretty.

69As I mentioned before, her mien and her expression continually remind me of my dear aunt.

70I must say also a few words to you, my dear cousin, of little darling William.

71I wish you could see him.

72He is very tall of his age, with sweet, laughing blue eyes, dark eyelashes and curling hair.

73When he smiles two little dimples appear on each cheek which are rosy with health.

74He has already had one or two little wives, but Louisa Baron is his favorite, a pretty little girl of five years of age.

75Now, dear Victor, I dare say you wish to be indulged in a little gossip concerning the good people of Geneva.

76The pretty Miss Mansfield has already received the congratulatory visits on her approaching marriage with a young Englishman, John Melbourne Esquire.

77Her ugly sister, Manol, married Monsieur Duvillard, the rich banker, last autumn.

78Your favorite school-fellow, Louis Manoir, has suffered several misfortunes since the departure of Clerval from Geneva.

79But he has already recovered his spirits and is reported to be on the point of marrying a lively pretty Frenchwoman, Madame Tavernier.

80She is a widow and much older than Manoir, but she is very much admired and a favorite with everybody.

81I have written myself into better spirits, dear cousin, but my anxiety returns upon me as I conclude.

82Write, dearest Victor, one line, one word will be a blessing to us.

83Ten thousand thanks to Henry for his kindness, his affection, and his many letters.

84We are sincerely grateful.

85Adieu, my cousin.

86Take care of yourself.

87And I entreat you.

88Write.

89Elizabeth Lavenza, Geneva, March 18th, 17th.

90Dear, dear Elizabeth, I exclaimed when I had read her letter, I will write instantly and relieve them from the anxiety they must feel.

91I wrote, and this exertion greatly fatigued me.

92But my convalescence had commenced and proceeded regularly.

93In another fortnight I was able to leave my chamber.

94One of my first duties on my recovery was to introduce Clerval to the several professors of the university.

95In doing this I underwent a kind of rough usage, ill befitting the wounds that my mind had sustained.

96Ever since the fatal night, the end of my labours, and the beginning of my misfortunes, I had conceived a violent antipathy even to the name of natural philosophy.

97When I was otherwise quite restored to health, the sight of a chemical instrument would renew all the agony of my nervous symptoms.

98Henry saw this, and had removed all my apparatus for my view.

99He had also changed my apartment, for he perceived that I acquired a dislike for the room which had previously been my laboratory.

100But these cares of Clerval were made of no avail when I visited the professors.

101Master Waldman inflicted torture when he praised, with kindness and warmth, the astonishing progress I had made in the sciences.

102He soon perceived that I disliked the subject, but not guessing the real cause, he attributed my feelings to modesty, and changed the subject from my improvement to the science itself, with a desire, as I evidently saw, of drawing me out.

103What could I do?

104He meant to please, and he tormented me.

105I felt as if he had placed carefully, one by one, in my view, those instruments which were to be afterwards used in putting me to a slow and cruel death.

106I writhed under his words, yet dared not exhibit the pain I felt.

107Clerval, whose eyes and feelings were always quick in discerning the sensations of others, declined the subject, alleging, in excuse, his total ignorance, and the conversation took a more general turn.

108I thanked my friend from my heart, but I did not speak.

109I saw plainly that he was surprised, but he never attempted to draw my secret from me, and although I loved him with a mixture of affection and reverence that knew no bounds, yet I could never persuade myself to confide in him that event which was so often present to my recollection, but which I feared the detail to another would only impress more deeply.

110Master Krampa was not equally docile, and in my condition at the time of almost insupportable sensitiveness, his harsh blunt encomiums gave me even more pain than the benevolent approbation of Master Waldman.

111Damn the fellow!

112cried he.

113Why, Monsieur Clerval, I assure you he has outstripped us all.

114Hey, stay if you please, but it is nevertheless true.

115A youngster who but a few years ago believed in Cornelius Agrippa as firmly as in the gospel has now set himself at the head of the university, and if he is not soon pulled down, we shall all be out of countenance, eh?

116Continued he, observing my face expressive of suffering.

117Monsieur Frankenstein is modest.

118An excellent quality in a young man.

119A young man should be diffident of themselves, you know, Monsieur Clerval.

120I was myself when young, but that wears out in a very short time.

121Master Krampa had now commenced a eulogy on himself, which happily turned the conversation from a subject that was so annoying to me.

122Clerval had never sympathized in my tastes for natural science, and his literary pursuits differed wholly from those which had occupied me.

123He came to the university with the design of making himself complete master of the oriental languages, and thus he should open a field for the plan of life he had marked out for himself.

124Resolved to pursue no inglorious career, he turned his eyes toward the East as affording scope for his spirit of enterprise.

125The Persian, Arabic, and Sanskrit languages engaged his attention, and I was easily induced to enter on the same studies.

126Idleness had ever been irksome to me, and now that I wished to fly from reflection and hated my former studies, I felt great relief in being the fellow-pupil with my friend, and found not only instruction but consolation in the works of the orientalists.

127I did not, like him, attempt a critical knowledge of their dialects, for I did not contemplate making any other use of them than temporary amusement.

128I read merely to understand their meaning, and they well repaid my labours.

129Their melancholy is soothing, and their joy elevating, to a degree I never experienced in studying the authors of any other country.

130When you read their writings, life appears to consist in a warm sun and a garden of roses, in the smiles and frowns of a fair enemy, and the fire that consumes your own heart.

131How different from the manly and heroical poetry of Greece and Rome!

132Summer passed away in these occupations, and my return to Geneva was fixed for the latter end of autumn.

133But, being delayed by several accidents, winter and snow arrived, the roads were deemed impassable, and my journey was retarded until the ensuing spring.

134I felt this delay very bitterly, for I longed to see my native town and my beloved friends.

135My return had only been delayed so long, from an unwillingness to leave Clerval in a strange place, before he had become acquainted with any of its inhabitants.

136The winter, however, was spent cheerfully, and although the spring was uncommonly late, when it came its beauty compensated for its dilatoriness.

137The month of May had already commenced, and I expected the letter daily which was to fix the date of my departure, when Henry proposed a pedestrian tour in the environs of Ingolstadt that I might bid a personal farewell to the country I had so long inhabited.

138I acceded with pleasure to this proposition.

139I was fond of exercise, and Clerval had always been my favourite companion in the ramble of this nature that I had taken among the scenes of my native country.

140We passed a fortnight in these perambulations.

141My health and spirits had long been restored, and they gained additional strength from the salubrious air I breathed, the natural incidents of our progress, and the conversation of my friend.

142Study had before secluded me from the intercourse of my fellow creatures, and rendered me unsocial.

143But Clerval called forth the better feelings of my heart.

144He again taught me to love the aspect of nature, and the cheerful faces of children.

145Excellent friend!

146How sincerely did you love me, and endeavour to elevate my mind until it was on a level with your own?

147A selfish pursuit had Crampton narrowed me, until your gentleness and affection warmed and opened my senses.

148I became the same happy creature who, a few years ago, loved and beloved by all, had no sorrow or care.

149When happy, inanimate nature had the power of bestowing on me the most delightful sensations, a serene sky and verdant fields filled me with ecstasy.

150The present season was indeed divine, the flowers of spring bloomed in the hedges, while those of summer were already in bud.

151I was undisturbed by thoughts which during the preceding year had pressed upon me, notwithstanding my endeavours to throw them off with an invincible burden.

152Henry rejoiced in my gaiety, and sincerely sympathised in my feelings.

153He exerted himself to amuse me, while he expressed the sensations that filled his soul.

154The resources of his mind on this occasion were truly astonishing.

155His conversation was full of imagination, and very often, in imitation of the Persian and Arabic writers, he invented tales of wonderful fancy and passion.

156At other times he repeated my favourite poems, or drew me into arguments, which he supported with great ingenuity.

157We returned to our college on a Sunday afternoon.

158The peasants were dancing, and every one we met appeared gay and happy.

159My own spirits were high, and I bounded along with feelings of unbridled joy and hilarity.

160End of section 8