12 - Chapter 13. Frankenstein by Mary W. Shelley.

12 - Chapter 13. Frankenstein by Mary W. Shelley.  
Frankenstein; or, The Modern Prometheus, Gothic horror novel by Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley that was first published in 1818. The epistolary story follows a scientific genius who brings to life a terrifying monster that torments its creator. It is considered one of the first science-fiction novels. An international sensation, the story has been adapted hundreds of times in different media and has influenced pop culture at large.

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
This is a library box recording. All library box recordings
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Recording by Karen Lebenz Frankenstein. The Modern Prometheus by Mary Shelley,
Chapter thirteen. I now hastened to the more moving part

(00:25):
of my story. I shall relate events that impressed me
with feelings which, from what I had been had made
me what I am. Spring advanced rapidly, and the weather
became fine and the skies cloudless. It surprised me that
what before was desert and gloomy should now bloom with
the most beautiful flowers and verdure. My senses were gratified

(00:50):
and refreshed by a thousand scents of delight and a
thousand sights of beauty. It was on one of these days,
when my cottagers periodically rested from labor, the old man
played on his guitar and the children listened to him,
that I observed the countenance of Felix was melancholy beyond expression.
He sighed frequently, and once his father paused in his music,

(01:13):
and I conjectured, conjectured by his manner, that he inquired
the cause of the son's sorrow. Felix replied in a
cheerful accent, and the old man was recommencing his music
when someone tapped at the door. It was a lady
on horseback, accompanied by a countryman as a guide. The
lady was dressed in a dark suit and covered with

(01:34):
a thick black veil. Agatha asked a question, to which
the stranger only replied by pronouncing, in a sweet accent,
the name of Felix. Her voice was musical, but unlike
that of either of my friends. On hearing this word,
Felix came up hastily to the lady, who, when she
saw him, threw up her veil, and I beheld a

(01:56):
countenance of an angelic beauty and expression. Her hair of shining,
raven black and curiously braided. Her eyes were dark but gentle,
though animated, her features of irregular proportion, and her complexion
wondrously fair, each cheek tingled with a lovely pink. Felix
sometimes ravaged with delight when he saw her, every trait

(02:19):
of sorrow vanished from his face, and it instantly expressed
a degree of ecstatic joy of which I could hardly
have believed it capable. His eyes sparkled as his cheeks
flushed with pleasure, and at that moment I thought of
him as beautiful as the stranger. She appeared affected by
different feelings. Wiping a few tears from her lovely eyes,

(02:40):
she held her hand out to Felix, who kissed it
rapturously and called her as well as I could distinguish
his sweet Abrian. She did not appear to understand him,
but smiled. He assisted her to dismount, and, dismissing her,
guide conducted her into the cottage. Some conversation took place
between him and his father, and the young stranger knelt

(03:02):
at the old man's feet and would have kissed his hand,
but he raised her and embraced her affectionately. I soon
perceived that although the stranger uttered the articulate sounds and
soon appeared to have a language of her own, she
was neither understood by nor herself understood the cottagers. They

(03:22):
made many signs which I did not comprehend, and I
saw that her presence diffused gladness through the cottage, dispelling
their sorrow as the sun dissipates the morning mist. Felix
seemed particularly happy, and with smiles of delight, welcomed his
aberon Agatha, the ever gentle. Agatha kissed the hands of
the lovely stranger, and, pointing to her brother, made signs

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which appeared to me to mean that he had been
sorrowful until she came. Some hours passed thus while they,
by their countenances expressed joy, the cause of which I
did not comprehend. Presently, I found, by the frequent recurrence
of some sound which the stranger repeated after them, that
she was endeavoring to learn their language, and the idea

(04:06):
instantly occurred to me that I should make use of
the same instructions to the same end. The stranger learned
about twenty words at the first lesson. Most of them, indeed,
were those which I had before understood, but I profited
by the others. As night came on, Agatha and the
and the Arabian retired early. When they separated, Felix kissed

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the hand of the stranger and said good night, sweet Safie.
He sat up much longer conversing with his father, and
by the frequent repetition of her name, I conjectured that
their lovely guest was the subject of their conversation. I
ardently desired to understand them, and bent every faculty towards
that purpose, but found it utterly impossible. The next morning,

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Felix went out to his work, and after the usual
occupations of Agatha were finished, the Arabian sat at the
feet of the old man, and, taking his guitar, played
some airs so entrancingly beautiful that they at once drew
tears of sorrow and delight from my eyes. She sang,
and her voice flowed with a rich cadence, swelling or
dying like a night night, like a nightingale of the woods.

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When she had finished, she gave the guitar to Agatha,
who at first declined it. She played a simple air,
and her voice accompanied it in sweet accents, But unlike
the wondrous strain of the stranger, the old man appeared
enraptured and said some words with Agatha endeavored to explain
to Safie, and by which she appeared to wish to
express that she bestowed on him the greatest delight by

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her music. The days now passed as peacefully as before,
with the soul alteration of that joy had taken place
of sadness, and the countenances of my friends. Safie was
always gay and happy. She and I improved rapidly in
the knowledge of language, so that that in two months
I began to comprehend most of the words uttered by

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my detectors. In the meanwhile, also the black ground was
covered with herbage, and the green banks interspersed with innumerable
flowers sweet to the scent, and the eyes stars of
pale radiance among the moonlit woods. The sun became warmer,
the nights clear and balmy, and my nocturnal rambler rambles

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were an extreme pleasure to me, although they were considerably
shortened by the late setting and early rising of the sun.
For I never ventured abroad during daylight, fearful of meeting
with the same treatment I had formerly endured at the
first village which I entered. My days were spent in
close attention that I might more speedily master the language,

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and that I may boast, and I may boast, that
I improved more rapidly than the Arabian, who understood very
little and conversed in broken accents, whilst I comprehended and
could imitate almost every word that was spoken. While I improved
in speech, I also learned the science of letters as
was taught to the stranger, and this opened before me

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a wide range, a wide field for wonder and delight.
The book from which Felix instructed Safie was Volney's Ruins
of Empires. I should not have understood the purport of
this book, had not Felix, in reading it, gave very
minute explanations. He had chosen this work, he said, because
that declamatory style was framed in imitation of the Eastern authors.

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Though this work I obtained a courtee. Through this work,
I obtained a curious knowledge of history and a view
of the several empires at present existing in the world.
It gave me an insight into the manners, governments, and
religions of the different nations of the Earth. I heard
of the slothful asiatics, of the stupendous genius and mental

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activity of the Grecians, of the war and wondrous virtue
of the early Romans, of their subsequent degenerating, of the
decline of that mighty empire of Chivalry, Christianity and Kings.
I heard of the discovery of the American hemisphere, and
wept with Safie over the hapless fate of its original inhabitants.

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These wonderful narrations inspired me with strange feelings. Was man, indeed,
at one so powerful, so virtuous and magnificent, yet so
vicious and base? He appeared at one time the mere
scion of evil, of the evil principle, and at another
as all that can be conceived of noble and godlike.
To be a great and virtuous man appeared the highest

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honor that can befall a sensitive being. To be base
and vicious, as many on record have been, appeared the
lowest degradation, a condition more object that than that of
the blind mole or harmless worm. For a long time
I could not conceive how one man could go forth

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to murder his fellow, or even why there were laws
and governments. But when I heard details of the vice
and bloodshed, my wonder ceased, and I turned away with
disgust and loathing. Every conversation of the Cottagers now opened
new wonders to me. While I listened to the instructors,
instructions which Felix bestowed upon the Arabian, the shame strange

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system of human society was explained to me. I heard
of the division of property, of immense wealth and squalid poverty,
of rank descent and noble blood. The words introduced me
to turn towards myself. I learned that the possessions most
esteemed by your fellow creatures were high and unsullied descent,

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united with riches. A man might be respected with only
one of these advantages, but without either, he was considered,
except in very rare instances, as a vagabond and a slave,
doomed to waste his powers for the profits of the
chosen few. And what was I of my creation and creator?
I was absolutely ignorant, But I knew that I possessed

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no money, no friends, no kind of property. I was
beside endured with a hideously figure, a figure hideously deformed
and lonesome. I was not even the same nature as man.
I was more agile than they, and could subsist on
upon a coarser diet. I bore the extremities of heat
and coal with less injury to my frame, and my

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stature far exceeded theirs. When I looked around, I saw
and heard of none like me. Was I then a monster?
A blot upon the earth from which all men fled,
and whom all men disowned? I cannot describe to you
the agony that these reflections inflicted upon me. I tried
to dispel them, but sorrow only increased with knowledge, Oh

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that I had forever remained in my native wood, nor known,
nor felt beyond the sensations of hunger, thirst, and heat.
Of what a strange nature is knowledge? It clings of
the mine when it is once seized on it, like
a light leechin on a rock. I had sometimes wished
to shake off all thought and feeling, but I learned

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that there was only one means to overcome the sensation
of pain, and that was death, a state of which
I feared yet did not understand. I admired virtue and
good feelings, and loved the gentle manners and admirable qualities
of my cottagers, but I was shut off from the
intercourse with them, except through means which I obtained by
stealth when I was unseen and unknown, which rather increased

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than satisfied the desire I had of becoming one of
my fellows. The gentle words of Agatha and the animated
smiles of the charming Arabian were not for me. The
mild exhortations of the old man and the lively conversation
of the loved Felix were not for me miserable, unhappy wrench.

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Other lessons were impressed upon me even more deeply. I
heard of the differences between the sexes and the birth
and growth of children, How the father doted on the
smiles of the infant and the lively, lively sallies of
the older child. How all life and cares of the
mother were wrapped up in precious charge. How the mind
of youth expanded and gained knowledge of brother, sister, and

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all the various relationships which bind one human being to
another in mutual bonds. But where were my friends and relations?
No father had watched my infant days, no mother had
blessed me with smiles or caresses, nor if they had,
all my past life was now a blot, a blind
vacancy in which I distinguished nothing from my earliest remembrance.

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I had been as I then was in height and proportion.
I had never yet seen a being resembling me, or
who claimed any intercourse with me. What was I? The
question returned, only to be answered with groans. I will
soon explain to what those feelings tended. But allow me
to return to the cottagers, whose story excited me in

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such various feeling of indignation, delight, and wonder, but which
all terminated in innocent love and reverence for my protectors,
For so I loved in an innocent half, painful self
deceit to call them. End of Chapter thirteen,