Frankenstein; or, the modern prometheus

Victor Frankenstein’s Early Life

I am by birth a Genevese, born of one of the most distinguished families of that republic. My father had filled several public stations with honour and was respected by all who knew him for his integrity. He married late in life, only after a variety of circumstances had long prevented it.

One of his most intimate friends was a merchant named Beaufort, who had fallen from a flourishing state into poverty through numerous mischances. A man of proud and unbending disposition, Beaufort retreated with his daughter to Lucerne, where he lived unknown and in wretchedness. My father loved him with the truest friendship and lost no time in seeking him out.

Beaufort had concealed himself effectually, and it was ten months before my father discovered his abode, in a mean street near the Reuss. When he entered, misery and despair alone welcomed him. Beaufort had saved but a small sum from the wreck of his fortunes, enough for some months of sustenance, during which he hoped to procure respectable employment. The interval was spent in inaction, his grief grew deeper, and at the end of three months he lay on a bed of sickness.

His daughter, Caroline Beaufort, attended him with the greatest tenderness. She possessed a mind of uncommon mould, and her courage rose to support her in adversity. She procured plain work, plaited straw, and contrived to earn a pittance scarcely sufficient to support life. In the tenth month her father died in her arms, leaving her an orphan and a beggar. My father entered as she knelt weeping by Beaufort’s coffin, came like a protecting spirit to the poor girl, and after the interment of his friend conducted her to Geneva. Two years later, Caroline became his wife.

There was a considerable difference between the ages of my parents, but this circumstance seemed to unite them only closer in bonds of devoted affection. Her health had been shaken by what she had gone through, and immediately after their union they sought Italy as a restorative for her weakened frame.

I, their eldest child, was born at Naples. When I was about five years old, while making an excursion beyond the frontiers of Italy, they passed a week on the shores of the Lake of Como. During one of their walks, a poor cot in the foldings of a vale attracted their notice. Among the half-clothed children gathered about it, one attracted my mother far above all the rest. The four others were dark-eyed, hardy little vagrants; this child was thin and very fair, her hair the brightest living gold, her brow clear and ample, her blue eyes cloudless, and her features so expressive of sensibility and sweetness that none could behold her without looking on her as a being heaven-sent.

The peasant woman communicated her history: she was not her child, but the daughter of a Milanese nobleman. Her mother was a German and had died on giving her birth. Her father had been one of those Italians nursed in the memory of the antique glory of Italy, who exerted himself to obtain the liberty of his country and became the victim of its weakness. Whether he had died or still lingered in the dungeons of Austria was not known. His property was confiscated; his child became an orphan and a beggar.

Elizabeth Lavenza became the inmate of my parents’ house—my more than sister, the beautiful and adored companion of all my occupations and my pleasures. On the evening previous to her being brought to my home, my mother had said playfully, “I have a pretty present for my Victor—tomorrow he shall have it.” I, with childish seriousness, interpreted her words literally and looked upon Elizabeth as mine—mine to protect, love, and cherish.

We were brought up together; there was not quite a year difference in our ages. Elizabeth was of a calmer and more concentrated disposition, while I was capable of a more intense application, more deeply smitten with the thirst for knowledge. She busied herself with following the aerial creations of the poets; in the majestic scenes around our Swiss home she found ample scope for admiration. While she contemplated with a serious spirit the magnificent appearances of things, I delighted in investigating their causes. The world was to me a secret which I desired to divine.

On the birth of a second son, my junior by seven years, my parents gave up their wandering life and fixed themselves in their native country. I united myself in the bonds of the closest friendship to one among my school-fellows: Henry Clerval, son of a Geneva merchant. He was a boy of singular talent and fancy, deeply read in books of chivalry and romance, who composed heroic songs and tried to make us act plays drawn from the heroes of Roncesvalles, the Round Table of King Arthur, and the chivalrous train who shed their blood to redeem the holy sepulchre.

My temper was sometimes violent, and my passions vehement; but by some law in my temperature they were turned towards an eager desire to learn. It was the secrets of heaven and earth that I desired to learn. Meanwhile Clerval occupied himself with the moral relations of things—the virtues of heroes, the actions of men. The saintly soul of Elizabeth shone like a shrine-dedicated lamp in our peaceful home. She was the living spirit of love to soften and attract.

Natural philosophy is the genius that has regulated my fate. When I was thirteen, we all went on a party of pleasure to the baths near Thonon; the inclemency of the weather obliged us to remain a day confined to the inn, where I chanced to find a volume of the works of Cornelius Agrippa. I opened it with apathy; the theory soon changed this feeling into enthusiasm. I communicated my discovery to my father. He looked carelessly at the title page and said, “Ah! Cornelius Agrippa! My dear Victor, do not waste your time upon this; it is sad trash.”

His cursory glance by no means assured me that he was acquainted with its contents, and I continued to read with the greatest avidity. I procured the whole works of Agrippa, and afterwards of Paracelsus and Albertus Magnus. I read and studied the wild fancies of these writers with delight. In spite of the discoveries of modern philosophers, I always came from my studies discontented and unsatisfied. I became a disciple of the alchemists, entering with the greatest diligence into the search of the philosopher’s stone and the elixir of life.