Two days passed before he was able to speak. When he recovered, I removed him to my own cabin and attended on him[7]. I never saw a more interesting creature. But he is generally melancholy and despairing, and sometimes he gnashes his teeth. The weight of woes oppresses him.
When my guest was a little recovered I had great trouble to keep off the men, who wished to ask him a thousand questions. Once, however, the lieutenant asked why he came so far upon the ice in so strange a vehicle.
The stranger replied, “To seek one who fled from me.”
“And did the man whom you pursued travel in the same fashion?”
“Yes.”
“Then I think we saw him. The day before we picked you up we saw some dogs and a sledge, with a man in it, across the ice.”
The stranger asked many questions about the route and the demon, as he called him. Soon after, when he was alone with me, he said,
“I have, doubtless, excited your curiosity. But you are too considerate to make inquiries. You rescued me from a strange and perilous situation. You have benevolently restored me to life.”
From this time a new spirit of life animated the stranger. He wanted to be upon deck to watch for the sledge. But I persuaded him to remain in the cabin. I promised to give him instant notice if any new object appeared in sight.
The stranger has gradually improved in health but is very silent and appears uneasy when someone enters his cabin. Yet his manners are conciliating and gentle. I begin to love him as a brother. His constant and deep grief fills me with sympathy and compassion.
August 13th, 17-.
My affection for my guest increases every day. He excites my admiration and my pity. He is so gentle, yet so wise. When he speaks, his words flow with rapidity and eloquence.
He is now continually on the deck, watching for the sledge that preceded his own. He knows my feelings. How gladly I shall sacrifice my fortune, my existence, my every hope, to the furtherance of my enterprise! One man’s life or death are a small price to pay for the acquirement of the knowledge which I seek.
And I told him about it. As I spoke, a dark gloom spread over my listener’s countenance. At first I perceived that he tried to suppress his emotion. He placed his hands before his eyes; a groan burst from his breast. I paused. At length he spoke:
“Unhappy man! Do you share my madness? Hear me; let me reveal my tale!”
Such words, you may imagine, strongly excited my curiosity.
“We are helpless creatures,” said the stranger; “we need someone wiser, better, dearer than ourselves. I once had a friend, the most noble of human creatures. But I have lost everything and cannot begin life anew.”
His grief touched me to the heart. But he was silent and retired to his cabin.
August 19th, 17-.
Yesterday the stranger said to me,
“You may easily perceive, Captain Walton, that I have suffered great misfortunes. Will the memory of these evils die with me? No. You seek for knowledge and wisdom, as I once did. I ardently hope that the gratification of your wishes may not be a serpent to you. I do not know if the relation of my disasters is useful to you. Yet I imagine that you may deduce an apt moral from my tale, one that may direct you and console you in case of failure. Prepare to listen to my story.
I wanted to hear the promised narrative, partly from curiosity and partly from a desire to ameliorate his fate. I expressed these feelings in my answer.
“I thank you,” he replied, “for your sympathy, but it is useless; my fate is nearly fulfilled. I wait but for one event, and then I shall repose in peace. I understand your feeling, but you are wrong, my friend. Nothing can alter my destiny. Listen to my history.”
He wanted to commence his narrative the next day. I resolved every night to record what he related. This manuscript will doubtless give you the greatest pleasure. His story is strange and harrowing and frightful.
Chapter 1
I was born in Naples, Italy, and my family is one of the most distinguished Swiss families. There was a considerable difference between the ages of my parents, but this circumstance united them only closer.
When I was about five years old, my parents passed a week on the shores of the Lake of Como. They often entered the cottages of the poor. This, to my mother, was more than a duty; it was a necessity, a passion. One day my mother found a peasant and his wife and five hungry babes. Among these there was a girl which attracted my mother. This child was thin and very fair. Her hair was the brightest living gold. Her brow was clear and ample, her blue eyes cloudless, and her lips and her face expressive of sensibility and sweetness.
The peasant woman eagerly communicated her history. She was not her child, but the daughter of a Milanese nobleman. Her mother died. The infant was with these good people to nurse. The father of that girl wanted to obtain the liberty of his country. He became the victim of its regime. His property was confiscated; his child became an orphan and a beggar.
When my father returned from Milan, my parents adopted that girl. They loved the sweet orphan very much. Elizabeth Lavenza became my sister.
Chapter 2
We lived together. Harmony was the soul of our companionship. Elizabeth was calm and concentrated. While my companion contemplated with a serious and satisfied spirit of things, I wanted to investigate their causes. The world was to me a secret which I desired to understand.
On the birth of a second son, my parents came to their native country. We possessed a house in Geneva, and a villa on the eastern shore of the lake. I was indifferent to my school-fellows in general; but I had a friend among them. Henry Clerval was the son of a merchant of Geneva. He was a boy of talent and fancy. He loved enterprise, hardship, and even danger. He composed heroic songs and began to write knightly tales.
My temper was violent, and my passions vehement. I wanted to learn. It was the secrets of heaven and earth, the physical secrets of the world that I desired to learn.
Meanwhile Clerval occupied himself with the moral relations of things[8]. The busy stage of life, the virtues of heroes, and the actions of men were his theme. The saintly soul of Elizabeth shone in our peaceful home. Her sympathy was ours; her smile, her soft voice, the sweet glance of her celestial eyes, were there to bless and animate us.
Natural philosophy has regulated my fate. I liked to read the works of Agrippa, Paracelsus and Magnus. I read and studied the works of these writers with delight; they appeared to me treasures. I believed them, and I became their disciple. Under the guidance of my new preceptors I began to look for the philosopher’s stone and the elixir of life. I wanted to banish disease from the humankind and save the people from death!
My favourite authors promised to call the ghosts or devils. If my incantations were always unsuccessful, I attributed the failure to my own inexperience and mistake.
When I was about fifteen years old we moved to our house near Belrive. My tormenting studies led to the evil. Destiny was potent, and its immutable laws decreed my terrible destruction.
Chapter 3
When I was seventeen I became a student at the university of Ingolstadt. My departure was fixed, but then the first misfortune of my life occurred – an omen of my future misery.
Elizabeth caught the scarlet fever[9]. Her illness was severe, and she was in danger. My mother could not control her anxiety. She attended her sickbed. Elizabeth was saved, but the sickness was fatal to her saviour. On the third day my mother sickened. On her deathbed this best of women