[05] Frankenstein or, The Modern Prometheus [프랑켄슈타인]

Chapter 4

 

 

From this day natural philosophy, and particularly chemistry, in the

most comprehensive sense of the term, became nearly my sole occupation.

I read with ardour those works, so full of genius and discrimination,

which modern inquirers have written on these subjects. I attended the

lectures and cultivated the acquaintance of the men of science of the

university, and I found even in M. Krempe a great deal of sound sense

and real information, combined, it is true, with a repulsive

physiognomy and manners, but not on that account the less valuable. In

M. Waldman I found a true friend. His gentleness was never tinged by

dogmatism, and his instructions were given with an air of frankness and

good nature that banished every idea of pedantry. In a thousand ways

he smoothed for me the path of knowledge and made the most abstruse

inquiries clear and facile to my apprehension. My application was at

first fluctuating and uncertain; it gained strength as I proceeded and

soon became so ardent and eager that the stars often disappeared in the

light of morning whilst I was yet engaged in my laboratory.

 

As I applied so closely, it may be easily conceived that my progress

was rapid. My ardour was indeed the astonishment of the students, and

my proficiency that of the masters. Professor Krempe often asked me,

with a sly smile, how Cornelius Agrippa went on, whilst M. Waldman

expressed the most heartfelt exultation in my progress. Two years

passed in this manner, during which I paid no visit to Geneva, but was

engaged, heart and soul, in the pursuit of some discoveries which I

hoped to make. None but those who have experienced them can conceive

of the enticements of science. In other studies you go as far as

others have gone before you, and there is nothing more to know; but in

a scientific pursuit there is continual food for discovery and wonder.

A mind of moderate capacity which closely pursues one study must

infallibly arrive at great proficiency in that study; and I, who

continually sought the attainment of one object of pursuit and was

solely wrapped up in this, improved so rapidly that at the end of two

years I made some discoveries in the improvement of some chemical

instruments, which procured me great esteem and admiration at the

university. When I had arrived at this point and had become as well

acquainted with the theory and practice of natural philosophy as

depended on the lessons of any of the professors at Ingolstadt, my

residence there being no longer conducive to my improvements, I thought

of returning to my friends and my native town, when an incident

happened that protracted my stay.

 

One of the phenomena which had peculiarly attracted my attention was

the structure of the human frame, and, indeed, any animal endued with

life. Whence, I often asked myself, did the principle of life proceed?

It was a bold question, and one which has ever been considered as a

mystery; yet with how many things are we upon the brink of becoming

acquainted, if cowardice or carelessness did not restrain our

inquiries. I revolved these circumstances in my mind and determined

thenceforth to apply myself more particularly to those branches of

natural philosophy which relate to physiology. Unless I had been

animated by an almost supernatural enthusiasm, my application to this

study would have been irksome and almost intolerable. To examine the

causes of life, we must first have recourse to death. I became

acquainted with the science of anatomy, but this was not sufficient; I

must also observe the natural decay and corruption of the human body.

In my education my father had taken the greatest precautions that my

mind should be impressed with no supernatural horrors. I do not ever

remember to have trembled at a tale of superstition or to have feared

the apparition of a spirit. Darkness had no effect upon my fancy, and

a churchyard was to me merely the receptacle of bodies deprived of

life, which, from being the seat of beauty and strength, had become

food for the worm. Now I was led to examine the cause and progress of

this decay and forced to spend days and nights in vaults and

charnel-houses. My attention was fixed upon every object the most

insupportable to the delicacy of the human feelings. I saw how the

fine form of man was degraded and wasted; I beheld the corruption of

death succeed to the blooming cheek of life; I saw how the worm

inherited the wonders of the eye and brain. I paused, examining and

analysing all the minutiae of causation, as exemplified in the change

from life to death, and death to life, until from the midst of this

darkness a sudden light broke in upon me—a light so brilliant and

wondrous, yet so simple, that while I became dizzy with the immensity

of the prospect which it illustrated, I was surprised that among so

many men of genius who had directed their inquiries towards the same

science, that I alone should be reserved to discover so astonishing a

secret.

 

Remember, I am not recording the vision of a madman. The sun does not

more certainly shine in the heavens than that which I now affirm is

true. Some miracle might have produced it, yet the stages of the

discovery were distinct and probable. After days and nights of

incredible labour and fatigue, I succeeded in discovering the cause of

generation and life; nay, more, I became myself capable of bestowing

animation upon lifeless matter.

 

The astonishment which I had at first experienced on this discovery

soon gave place to delight and rapture. After so much time spent in

painful labour, to arrive at once at the summit of my desires was the

most gratifying consummation of my toils. But this discovery was so

great and overwhelming that all the steps by which I had been

progressively led to it were obliterated, and I beheld only the result.

What had been the study and desire of the wisest men since the creation

of the world was now within my grasp. Not that, like a magic scene, it

all opened upon me at once: the information I had obtained was of a

nature rather to direct my endeavours so soon as I should point them

towards the object of my search than to exhibit that object already

accomplished. I was like the Arabian who had been buried with the dead

and found a passage to life, aided only by one glimmering and seemingly

ineffectual light.

 

I see by your eagerness and the wonder and hope which your eyes

express, my friend, that you expect to be informed of the secret with

which I am acquainted; that cannot be; listen patiently until the end

of my story, and you will easily perceive why I am reserved upon that

subject. I will not lead you on, unguarded and ardent as I then was,

to your destruction and infallible misery. Learn from me, if not by my

precepts, at least by my example, how dangerous is the acquirement of

knowledge and how much happier that man is who believes his native town

to be the world, than he who aspires to become greater than his nature

will allow.

 

When I found so astonishing a power placed within my hands, I hesitated

a long time concerning the manner in which I should employ it.

Although I possessed the capacity of bestowing animation, yet to

prepare a frame for the reception of it, with all its intricacies of

fibres, muscles, and veins, still remained a work of inconceivable

difficulty and labour. I doubted at first whether I should attempt the

creation of a being like myself, or one of simpler organization; but my

imagination was too much exalted by my first success to permit me to

doubt of my ability to give life to an animal as complex and wonderful

as man. The materials at present within my command hardly appeared

adequate to so arduous an undertaking, but I doubted not that I should

ultimately succeed. I prepared myself for a multitude of reverses; my

operations might be incessantly baffled, and at last my work be

imperfect, yet when I considered the improvement which every day takes

place in science and mechanics, I was encouraged to hope my present

attempts would at least lay the foundations of future success. Nor

could I consider the magnitude and complexity of my plan as any

argument of its impracticability. It was with these feelings that I

began the creation of a human being. As the minuteness of the parts

formed a great hindrance to my speed, I resolved, contrary to my first

intention, to make the being of a gigantic stature, that is to say,

about eight feet in height, and proportionably large. After having

formed this determination and having spent some months in successfully

collecting and arranging my materials, I began.

 

No one can conceive the variety of feelings which bore me onwards, like

a hurricane, in the first enthusiasm of success. Life and death

appeared to me ideal bounds, which I should first break through, and

pour a torrent of light into our dark world. A new species would bless

me as its creator and source; many happy and excellent natures would

owe their being to me. No father could claim the gratitude of his

child so completely as I should deserve theirs. Pursuing these

reflections, I thought that if I could bestow animation upon lifeless

matter, I might in process of time (although I now found it impossible)

renew life where death had apparently devoted the body to corruption.

 

These thoughts supported my spirits, while I pursued my undertaking

with unremitting ardour. My cheek had grown pale with study, and my

person had become emaciated with confinement. Sometimes, on the very

brink of certainty, I failed; yet still I clung to the hope which the

next day or the next hour might realise. One secret which I alone

possessed was the hope to which I had dedicated myself; and the moon

gazed on my midnight labours, while, with unrelaxed and breathless

eagerness, I pursued nature to her hiding-places. Who shall conceive

the horrors of my secret toil as I dabbled among the unhallowed damps

of the grave or tortured the living animal to animate the lifeless

clay? My limbs now tremble, and my eyes swim with the remembrance; but

then a resistless and almost frantic impulse urged me forward; I seemed

to have lost all soul or sensation but for this one pursuit. It was

indeed but a passing trance, that only made me feel with renewed

acuteness so soon as, the unnatural stimulus ceasing to operate, I had

returned to my old habits. I collected bones from charnel-houses and

disturbed, with profane fingers, the tremendous secrets of the human

frame. In a solitary chamber, or rather cell, at the top of the house,

and separated from all the other apartments by a gallery and staircase,

I kept my workshop of filthy creation; my eyeballs were starting from

their sockets in attending to the details of my employment. The

dissecting room and the slaughter-house furnished many of my materials;

and often did my human nature turn with loathing from my occupation,

whilst, still urged on by an eagerness which perpetually increased, I

brought my work near to a conclusion.

 

The summer months passed while I was thus engaged, heart and soul, in

one pursuit. It was a most beautiful season; never did the fields

bestow a more plentiful harvest or the vines yield a more luxuriant

vintage, but my eyes were insensible to the charms of nature. And the

same feelings which made me neglect the scenes around me caused me also

to forget those friends who were so many miles absent, and whom I had

not seen for so long a time. I knew my silence disquieted them, and I

well remembered the words of my father: “I know that while you are

pleased with yourself you will think of us with affection, and we shall

hear regularly from you. You must pardon me if I regard any

interruption in your correspondence as a proof that your other duties

are equally neglected.”

 

I knew well therefore what would be my father’s feelings, but I could

not tear my thoughts from my employment, loathsome in itself, but which

had taken an irresistible hold of my imagination. I wished, as it

were, to procrastinate all that related to my feelings of affection

until the great object, which swallowed up every habit of my nature,

should be completed.

 

I then thought that my father would be unjust if he ascribed my neglect

to vice or faultiness on my part, but I am now convinced that he was

justified in conceiving that I should not be altogether free from

blame. A human being in perfection ought always to preserve a calm and

peaceful mind and never to allow passion or a transitory desire to

disturb his tranquillity. I do not think that the pursuit of knowledge

is an exception to this rule. If the study to which you apply yourself

has a tendency to weaken your affections and to destroy your taste for

those simple pleasures in which no alloy can possibly mix, then that

study is certainly unlawful, that is to say, not befitting the human

mind. If this rule were always observed; if no man allowed any pursuit

whatsoever to interfere with the tranquillity of his domestic

affections, Greece had not been enslaved, Cæsar would have spared his

country, America would have been discovered more gradually, and the

empires of Mexico and Peru had not been destroyed.

 

But I forget that I am moralizing in the most interesting part of my

tale, and your looks remind me to proceed.

 

My father made no reproach in his letters and only took notice of my

silence by inquiring into my occupations more particularly than before.

Winter, spring, and summer passed away during my labours; but I did not

watch the blossom or the expanding leaves—sights which before always

yielded me supreme delight—so deeply was I engrossed in my

occupation. The leaves of that year had withered before my work drew near

to a close, and now every day showed me more plainly how well I had

succeeded. But my enthusiasm was checked by my anxiety, and I appeared

rather like one doomed by slavery to toil in the mines, or any other

unwholesome trade than an artist occupied by his favourite employment.

Every night I was oppressed by a slow fever, and I became nervous to a most

painful degree; the fall of a leaf startled me, and I shunned my fellow

creatures as if I had been guilty of a crime. Sometimes I grew alarmed at

the wreck I perceived that I had become; the energy of my purpose alone

sustained me: my labours would soon end, and I believed that exercise and

amusement would then drive away incipient disease; and I promised myself

both of these when my creation should be complete.