But my spirits were wild, my pulse beat rapidly, and my loud, unrestrained laughter frightened and astonished Clerval. “Do not ask me,” cried I, putting my hands before my eyes—“he can tell. Oh, save me!” I struggled furiously and fell down in a fit.
This was the commencement of a nervous fever which confined me for several months, during which Henry was my only nurse, concealing the extent of my disorder from my father and Elizabeth. By very slow degrees I recovered. I remember the first time I became capable of observing outward objects with any kind of pleasure, I perceived that the young buds were shooting forth from the trees. It was a divine spring, and my gloom disappeared.
Clerval then put into my hands a letter from Elizabeth:
“My dearest Cousin,—You have been ill, very ill… For a long time I have thought that each post would bring this line… You are forbidden to write; yet one word from you is necessary to calm our apprehensions… Get well—and return to us. You will find a happy, cheerful home…”
She spoke of Ernest, now sixteen, desirous to enter foreign service; of little William, with sweet laughing blue eyes; of the death of Madame Moritz, who had at last found peace; and of Justine, who had just returned to them—“very clever and gentle, and extremely pretty.” The pretty Miss Mansfield had received congratulatory visits on her approaching marriage with John Melbourne, Esq.; her ugly sister Manon had married M. Duvillard, the rich banker; and Louis Manoir was reported to be on the point of marrying Madame Tavernier.
“Dear, dear Elizabeth!” I exclaimed. I wrote instantly, and my convalescence proceeded regularly.
On my recovery I introduced Clerval to the professors. Ever since the fatal night I had conceived a violent antipathy to the name of natural philosophy. M. Waldman’s praise inflicted torture; M. Krempe’s harsh blunt encomiums gave me even more pain. “D—n the fellow!” cried he; “why, he has outstript us all.”
Clerval came to the university to make himself master of the oriental languages, that he might open a field for the plan of life he had marked out. Idleness had ever been irksome to me, and now that I wished to fly from reflection, I felt great relief in being the fellow-pupil with my friend. Their melancholy is soothing, and their joy elevating, to a degree I never experienced in studying the authors of any other country.
Summer passed away, my return to Geneva was fixed for the latter end of autumn, but winter and snow arrived, and my journey was retarded until the ensuing spring. When at last the month of May commenced, Henry proposed a pedestrian tour in the environs of Ingolstadt that I might bid a personal farewell to the country. We passed a fortnight in these perambulations; my health and spirits gained additional strength from the salubrious air, and Clerval called forth the better feelings of my heart.
We returned to our college on a Sunday afternoon: the peasants were dancing, and every one we met appeared gay and happy. My own spirits were high, and I bounded along with feelings of unbridled joy and hilarity.
Frankenstein: The Murder of William and the Trial of Justine
On returning to Ingolstadt, Victor found a letter from his father, Alphonse, dated Geneva, May 12th. After preparing him with trembling words, his father broke the news: William—Victor’s sweet little brother—was dead, murdered.
Last Thursday, May 7th, the family had walked in Plainpalais. As dusk fell, William and Ernest were missing. They searched until night; about five in the morning, Alphonse discovered his boy stretched on the grass, “the print of the murderer’s finger was on his neck.” Elizabeth, seeing the body, cried out that she had murdered her darling child—she had let William wear a miniature of Caroline, which was now missing. “We have no trace of him,” Alphonse wrote. “Come, dearest Victor; you alone can console Elizabeth.”
Clerval, watching Victor’s face as he read, saw despair succeed joy. “Are you always to be unhappy?” he asked. “To go instantly to Geneva,” Victor replied. “Come with me, Henry, to order the horses.”
The journey was melancholy. As he approached his native town after six years, Victor slackened his pace, fearing nameless evils. He lingered two days at Lausanne, contemplating the placid lake and snowy mountains—the “palaces of nature”—until calm restored him. But as he neared home, grief and darkness overcame him again. He arrived too late to enter Geneva, and lodged at Secheron.
Unable to rest under a serene sky, he crossed the lake to Plainpalais, the place where William had died. A violent storm gathered over Mont Blanc. Thunder burst over Salève, the Juras, the Alps of Savoy; vivid lightning turned the lake to fire. Victor clasped his hands: “William, dear angel! this is thy funeral, this thy dirge!” Then, in a flash, he glimpsed a figure stealing from behind trees—gigantic, hideously deformed. He knew instantly the wretch to whom he had given life. Was he the murderer? The thought struck like ice; his teeth chattered. Another flash showed the creature scaling the perpendicular rocks of Mont Salève, then disappearing over the summit.
Victor spent the remainder of the night in cold and wet, but felt nothing but the scenes of evil crowding his mind. Two years had passed since his creation—was this the daemon’s first crime? He thought of the being he had cast among mankind, “nearly in the light of my own vampire, my own spirit let loose from the grave.”
Dawn came. He entered his father’s house at five and waited in the library. Six years dissolved as he gazed upon Caroline’s portrait—an historical subject showing her kneeling in agony by her dead father’s coffin—and upon a miniature of William, which drew fresh tears. Ernest entered, weeping: their father was sinking, Elizabeth accused herself unjustly. Then, with astonishment, Ernest mentioned that the murderer had been discovered.
“The murderer discovered! Good God! how can that be?” Victor cried. “I saw him too; he was free last night!”
Ernest named Justine Moritz, the amiable servant beloved by the family. That morning, the miniature of Caroline had been found in Justine’s pocket; her confused manner had condemned her further. She was to be tried that day.
“You are all mistaken,” Victor said. “I know the murderer. Justine is innocent.”
But Victor dared not speak. His tale would sound like madness, and who could arrest a creature scaling Mont Salève? He resolved to remain silent.
Elizabeth welcomed him with affection, her beauty matured into something more full of sensibility. She relied on Justine’s innocence as upon her own. They went to court at eleven. During the trial, Victor suffered living torture—the result of his lawless devices was about to cause two deaths. Justine appeared calm and beautiful in mourning, though her tranquillity was evidently constrained; she had worked up courage to meet a thousand execrating eyes.
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