Frankenstein Remade
Frankenstein Remade
by Marly Shelley
Copyright 2010 Marly Shelley
Letter 1
TO Saville, England
St. Petasburgh, Dec. 11th, 17-
You will rejoice to hear that no disaster has accompanied the commencement of an enterprise which you have regarded with such evil forebodings. I arrived here yesterday, and my first task is to assure my dear brother of my welfare and increasing confidence in the success of my undertaking.
I am already far north of London, and as I walk in the streets of Petasburgh, I feel a cold northern breeze play upon my cheeks, which braces my nerves and fills me with delight. Do you understand this feeling? This breeze, which has travelled from the regions towards which I am advancing, gives me a foretaste of those icy climes. Inspirited by this wind of promise, my daydreams become more fervent and vivid. I try in vain to be persuaded that the pole is the seat of frost and desolation; it ever presents itself to my imagination as the region of beauty and delight. There, Marion, the sun is forever visible, its broad disk just skirting the horizon and diffusing a perpetual splendour. There--for with your leave, my brother, I will put some trust in preceding navigators--there snow and frost are banished; and, sailing over a calm sea, we may be wafted to a land surpassing in wonders and in beauty every region hitherto discovered on the habitable globe. Its productions and features may be without example, as the phenomena of the heavenly bodies undoubtedly are in those undiscovered solitudes. What may not be expected in a country of eternal light? I may there discover the wondrous power which attracts the needle and may regulate a thousand celestial observations that require only this voyage to render their seeming eccentricities consistent forever. I shall satiate my ardent curiosity with the sight of a part of the world never before visited, and may tread a land never before imprinted by the foot of woman. These are my enticements, and they are sufficient to conquer all fear of danger or death and to induce me to commence this laborious voyage with the joy a child feels when she embarks in a little boat, with her holiday mates, on an expedition of discovery up her native river. But supposing all these conjectures to be false, you cannot contest the inestimable benefit which I shall confer on all mankind, to the last generation, by discovering a passage near the pole to those countries, to reach which at present so many months are requisite; or by ascertaining the secret of the magnet, which, if at all possible, can only be effected by an undertaking such as mine.
These reflections have dispelled the agitation with which I began my letter, and I feel my heart glow with an enthusiasm which elevates me to heaven, for nothing contributes so much to tranquillize the mind as a steady purpose--a point on which the soul may fix its intellectual eye. This expedition has been the favourite dream of my early years. I have read with ardour the accounts of the various voyages which have been made in the prospect of arriving at the North Pacific Ocean through the seas which surround the pole. You may remember that a history of all the voyages made for purposes of discovery composed the whole of our good Aunt Thomasina' library. My education was neglected, yet I was passionately fond of reading. These volumes were my study day and night, and my familiarity with them increased that regret which I had felt, as a child, on learning that my mother's dying injunction had forbidden my aunt to allow me to embark in a seafaring life.
These visions faded when I perused, for the first time, those poets whose effusions entranced my soul and lifted it to heaven. I also became a poet and for one year lived in a paradise of my own creation; I imagined that I also might obtain a niche in the temple where the names of Homer and Shakespeare are consecrated. You are well acquainted with my failure and how heavily I bore the disappointment. But just at that time I inherited the fortune of my cousin, and my thoughts were turned into the channel of their earlier bent.
Six years have passed since I resolved on my present undertaking. I can, even now, remember the hour from which I dedicated myself to this great enterprise. I commenced by inuring my body to hardship. I accompanied the whale-fishers on several expeditions to the North Sea; I voluntarily endured cold, famine, thirst, and want of sleep; I often worked harder than the common sailors during the day and devoted my nights to the study of mathematics, the theory of medicine, and those branches of physical science from which a naval adventurer might derive the greatest practical advantage. Twice I actually hired myself as an under-mate in a Greenland whaler, and acquitted myself to admiration. I must own I felt a little proud when my captain offered me the second dignity in the vessel and entreated me to remain with the greatest earnestness, so valuable did she consider my services. And now, dear Marion, do I not deserve to accomplish some great purpose? My life might have been passed in ease and luxury, but I preferred glory to every enticement that wealth placed in my path. Oh, that some encouraging voice would answer in the affirmative! My courage and my resolution is firm; but my hopes fluctuate, and my spirits are often depressed. I am about to proceed on a long and difficult voyage, the emergencies of which will demand all my fortitude: I am required not only to raise the spirits of others, but sometimes to sustain my own, when theirs are failing.
This is the most favourable period for travelling in Russia. They fly quickly over the snow in their sledges; the motion is pleasant, and, in my opinion, far more agreeable than that of an English stagecoach. The cold is not excessive, if you are wrapped in furs--a dress which I have already adopted, for there is a great difference between walking the deck and remaining seated motionless for hours, when no exercise prevents the blood from actually freezing in your veins. I have no ambition to lose my life on the post-road between St. Petasburgh and Archangel. I shall depart for the latter town in a fortnight or three weeks; and my intention is to hire a ship there, which can easily be done by paying the insurance for the owner, and to engage as many sailors as I think necessary among those who are accustomed to the whale-fishing. I do not intend to sail until the month of June; and when shall I return? Ah, dear brother, how can I answer this question? If I succeed, many, many months, perhaps years, will pass before you and I may meet. If I fail, you will see me again soon, or never. Farewell, my dear, excellent Marion. Heaven shower down blessings on you, and save me, that I may again and again testify my gratitude for all your love and kindness.
Your affectionate sister, R. Walton
Letter 2
To Saville, England
Archangel, 28th March, 17-
How slowly the time passes here, encompassed as I am by frost and snow! Yet a second step is taken towards my enterprise. I have hired a vessel and am occupied in collecting my sailors; those whom I have already engaged appear to be women on whom I can depend and are certainly possessed of dauntless courage.
But I have one want which I have never yet been able to satisfy, and the absence of the object of which I now feel as a most severe evil, I have no friend, Marion: when I am glowing with the enthusiasm of success, there will be none to participate my joy; if I am assailed by disappointment, no one will endeavour to sustain me in dejection. I shall commit my thoughts to paper, it is true; but that is a poor medium for the communication of feeling. I desire the company of a woman who could sympathize with me, whose eyes would reply to mine. You may deem me romantic, my dear brother, but I bitterly feel the want of a friend. I have no one near me, gentle yet courageous, possessed of a cultivated as well as of a capacious mind, whose tastes are like my own, to approve or amend my plans. How would such a friend repair the faults of your poor sister! I am too ardent in execution and too impatient of difficulties. But it is a still greater evil to me that I am self-educated: for the first fourteen years of my life I ran wild on a common and read nothing but our Aunt Thomasina' books of voyages. At that age I beca
me acquainted with the celebrated poets of our own country; but it was only when it had ceased to be in my power to derive its most important benefits from such a conviction that I perceived the necessity of becoming acquainted with more languages than that of my native country. Now I am twenty-eight and am in reality more illiterate than many schoolboys of fifteen. It is true that I have thought more and that my daydreams are more extended and magnificent, but they want (as the painters call it) KEEPING; and I greatly need a friend who would have sense enough not to despise me as romantic, and affection enough for me to endeavour to regulate my mind. Well, these are useless complaints; I shall certainly find no friend on the wide ocean, nor even here in Archangel, among merchants and seawomen. Yet some feelings, unallied to the dross of human nature, beat even in these rugged pectorals. My lieutenant, for instance, is a woman of wonderful courage and enterprise; she is madly desirous of glory, or rather, to word my phrase more characteristically, of advancement in her profession. She is an Englisher, and in the midst of national and professional prejudices, unsoftened by cultivation, retains some of the noblest endowments of humanity. I first became acquainted with her on board a whale vessel; finding that she was unemployed in this city, I easily engaged her to assist in my enterprise. The mistress is a person of an excellent disposition and is remarkable in the ship for her gentleness and the mildness of her discipline. This circumstance, added to her well-known integrity and dauntless courage, made me very desirous to engage her. A youth passed in solitude, my best years spent under your gentle and masculine fosterage, has so refined the groundwork of my character that I cannot overcome an intense distaste to the usual brutality exercised on board ship: I have never believed it to be necessary, and when I heard of a mariner equally noted for her kindliness of heart and the respect and obedience paid to her by her crew, I felt myself peculiarly fortunate in being able to secure her services. I heard of her first in rather a romantic manner, from a sir who owes to her the happiness of his life. This, briefly, is her story. Some years ago she loved a young Russian sir of moderate fortune, and having amassed a considerable sum in prize-money, the mother of the boy consented to the match. She saw her master once before the destined ceremony; but he was bathed in tears, and throwing himself at her feet, entreated her to spare him, confessing at the same time that he loved another, but that she was poor, and that his mother would never consent to the union. My generous friend reassured the suppliant, and on being informed of the name of his lover, instantly abandoned her pursuit. She had already bought a farm with her money, on which she had designed to pass the remainder of her life; but she bestowed the whole on her rival, together with the remains of her prize-money to purchase stock, and then herself solicited the young man's mother to consent to his marriage with his lover. But the old woman decidedly refused, thinking herself bound in honour to my friend, who, when she found the mother inexorable, quitted her country, nor returned until she heard that her former master was married according to his inclinations. 'What a noble fellow!' you will exclaim. She is so; but then she is wholly uneducated: she is as silent as a Turk, and a kind of ignorant carelessness attends her, which, while it renders her conduct the more astonishing, detracts from the interest and sympathy which otherwise she would command.
Yet do not suppose, because I complain a little or because I can conceive a consolation for my toils which I may never know, that I am wavering in my resolutions. Those are as fixed as fate, and my voyage is only now delayed until the weather shall permit my embarkation. The winter has been dreadfully severe, but the spring promises well, and it is considered as a remarkably early season, so that perhaps I may sail sooner than I expected. I shall do nothing rashly: you know me sufficiently to confide in my prudence and considerateness whenever the safety of others is committed to my care.
I cannot describe to you my sensations on the near prospect of my undertaking. It is impossible to communicate to you a conception of the trembling sensation, half pleasurable and half fearful, with which I am preparing to depart. I am going to unexplored regions, to 'the land of mist and snow,' but I shall kill no albatross; therefore do not be alarmed for my safety or if I should come back to you as worn and woeful as the 'Ancient Mariner.' You will smile at my allusion, but I will disclose a secret. I have often attributed my attachment to, my passionate enthusiasm for, the dangerous mysteries of ocean to that production of the most imaginative of modern poets. There is something at work in my soul which I do not understand. I am practically industrious--painstaking, a workwoman to execute with perseverance and labour--but besides this there is a love for the marvellous, a belief in the marvellous, intertwined in all my projects, which hurries me out of the common pathways of women, even to the wild sea and unvisited regions I am about to explore. But to return to dearer considerations. Shall I meet you again, after having traversed immense seas, and returned by the most southern cape of Africa or America? I dare not expect such success, yet I cannot bear to look on the reverse of the picture. Continue for the present to write to me by every opportunity: I may receive your letters on some occasions when I need them most to support my spirits. I love you very tenderly. Remember me with affection, should you never hear from me again.
Your affectionate sister, Roberta Walton
Letter 3
To Saville, England
July 7th, 17-
My dear Sister,
I write a few lines in haste to say that I am safe--and well advanced on my voyage. This letter will reach England by a merchantman now on its homeward voyage from Archangel; more fortunate than I, who may not see my native land, perhaps, for many years. I am, however, in good spirits: my women are bold and apparently firm of purpose, nor do the floating sheets of ice that continually pass us, indicating the dangers of the region towards which we are advancing, appear to dismay them. We have already reached a very high latitude; but it is the height of summer, and although not so warm as in England, the southern gales, which blow us speedily towards those shores which I so ardently desire to attain, breathe a degree of renovating warmth which I had not expected.
No incidents have hitherto befallen us that would make a figure in a letter. One or two stiff gales and the springing of a leak are accidents which experienced navigators scarcely remember to record, and I shall be well content if nothing worse happen to us during our voyage.
Adieu, my dear Marion. Be assured that for my own sake, as well as yours, I will not rashly encounter danger. I will be cool, persevering, and prudent.
But success SHALL crown my endeavours. Wherefore not? Thus far I have gone, tracing a secure way over the pathless seas, the very stars themselves being witnesses and testimonies of my triumph. Why not still proceed over the untamed yet obedient element? What can stop the determined heart and resolved will of woman?
My swelling heart involuntarily pours itself out thus. But must finish. Heaven bless my beloved brother!
R.W.
Letter 4
To Saville, England
August 5th, 17-
So strange an accident has happened to us that I cannot forbear recording it, although it is very probable that you will see me before these papers can come into your possession.
Last Monday (July 31st) we were nearly surrounded by ice, which closed in the ship on all sides, scarcely leaving his the sea-room in which he floated. Our situation was somewhat dangerous, especially as we were compassed round by a very thick fog. We accordingly lay to, hoping that some change would take place in the atmosphere and weather.
About two o'clock the mist cleared away, and we beheld, stretched out in every direction, vast and irregular plains of ice, which seemed to have no end. Some of my comrades groaned, and my own mind began to grow watchful with anxious thoughts, when a strange sight suddenly attracted our attention and diverted our solicitude from our own situation. We perceived a low carriage, fixed on a sledge and drawn by dogs, pass on towards the north, at the distance of half a mile; a being which had the shape of a wom
an, but apparently of gigantic stature, sat in the sledge and guided the dogs. We watched the rapid progress of the traveller with our telescopes until she was lost among the distant inequalities of the ice. This appearance excited our unqualified wonder. We were, as we believed, many hundred miles from any land; but this apparition seemed to denote that it was not, in reality, so distant as we had supposed. Shut in, however, by ice, it was impossible to follow her track, which we had observed with the greatest attention. About two hours after this occurrence we heard the ground sea, and before night the ice broke and freed our ship. We, however, lay to until the morning, fearing to encounter in the dark those large loose masses which float about after the breaking up of the ice. I profited of this time to rest for a few hours.
In the morning, however, as soon as it was light, I went upon deck and found all the sailors busy on one side of the vessel, apparently talking to someone in the sea. It was, in fact, a sledge, like that we had seen before, which had drifted towards us in the night on a large fragment of ice. Only one dog remained alive; but there was a human being within it whom the sailors were persuading to enter the vessel. She was not, as the other traveller seemed to be, a savage inhabitant of some undiscovered island, but a European. When I appeared on deck the mistress said, 'Here is our captain, and she will not allow you to perish on the open sea.'
On perceiving me, the stranger addressed me in English, although with a foreign accent. 'Before I come on board your vessel,' said she, 'will you have the kindness to inform me whither you are bound?'
You may conceive my astonishment on hearing such a question addressed to me from a woman on the brink of destruction and to whom I should have supposed that my vessel would have been a resource which she would not have exchanged for the most precious wealth the earth can afford. I replied, however, that we were on a voyage of discovery towards the northern pole.
Upon hearing this she appeared satisfied and consented to come on board. Good God! Marion, if you had seen the woman who thus capitulated for her safety, your surprise would have been boundless. Her limbs were nearly frozen, and her body dreadfully emaciated by fatigue and suffering. I never saw a woman in so wretched a condition. We attempted to carry her into the cabin, but as soon as she had quitted the fresh air she fainted. We accordingly brought her back to the deck and restored her to animation by rubbing her with brandy and forcing her to swallow a small quantity. As soon as she showed signs of life we wrapped her up in blankets and placed her near the chimney of the kitchen stove. By slow degrees she recovered and ate a little soup, which restored her wonderfully.
Two days passed in this manner before she was able to speak, and I often feared that her sufferings had deprived her of understanding. When she had in some measure recovered, I removed her to my own cabin and attended on her as much as my duty would permit. I never saw a more interesting creature: her eyes have generally an expression of wildness, and even madness, but there are moments when, if anyone performs an act of kindness towards her or does her the most trifling service, her whole countenance is lighted up, as it were, with a beam of benevolence and sweetness that I never saw equalled. But she is generally melancholy and despairing, and sometimes she gnashes her teeth, as if impatient of the weight of woes that oppresses her.
When my guest was a little recovered I had great trouble to keep off the women, who wished to ask her a thousand questions; but I would not allow her to be tormented by their idle curiosity, in a state of body and mind whose restoration evidently depended upon entire repose. Once, however, the lieutenant asked why she had come so far upon the ice in so strange a vehicle.
Her countenance instantly assumed an aspect of the deepest gloom, and she replied, 'To seek one who fled from me.'
'And did the woman whom you pursued travel in the same fashion?'
'Yes.'
'Then I fancy we have seen her, for the day before we picked you up we saw some dogs drawing a sledge, with a woman in it, across the ice.'
This aroused the stranger's attention, and she asked a multitude of questions concerning the route which the demon, as she called her, had pursued. Soon after, when she was alone with me, she said, 'I have, doubtless, excited your curiosity, as well as that of these good people; but you are too considerate to make inquiries.'
'Certainly; it would indeed be very impertinent and inhuman in me to trouble you with any inquisitiveness of mine.'
'And yet you rescued me from a strange and perilous situation; you have benevolently restored me to life.'
Soon after this she inquired if I thought that the breaking up of the ice had destroyed the other sledge. I replied that I could not answer with any degree of certainty, for the ice had not broken until near midnight, and the traveller might have arrived at a place of safety before that time; but of this I could not judge. From this time a new spirit of life animated the decaying frame of the stranger. She manifested the greatest eagerness to be upon deck to watch for the sledge which had before appeared; but I have persuaded her to remain in the cabin, for she is far too weak to sustain the rawness of the atmosphere. I have promised that someone should watch for her and give her instant notice if any new object should appear in sight.
Such is my journal of what relates to this strange occurrence up to the present day. The stranger has gradually improved in health but is very silent and appears uneasy when anyone except myself enters her cabin. Yet her manners are so conciliating and gentle that the sailors are all interested in her, although they have had very little communication with her. For my own part, I begin to love her as a sister, and her constant and deep grief fills me with sympathy and compassion. She must have been a noble creature in her better days, being even now in wreck so attractive and amiable. I said in one of my letters, my dear Marion, that I should find no friend on the wide ocean; yet I have found a woman who, before her spirit had been broken by misery, I should have been happy to have possessed as the sister of my heart.
I shall continue my journal concerning the stranger at intervals, should I have any fresh incidents to record.
August 13th, 17-
My affection for my guest increases every day. She excites at once my admiration and my pity to an astonishing degree. How can I see so noble a creature destroyed by misery without feeling the most poignant grief? She is so gentle, yet so wise; her mind is so cultivated, and when she speaks, although her words are culled with the choicest art, yet they flow with rapidity and unparalleled eloquence. She is now much recovered from her illness and is continually on the deck, apparently watching for the sledge that preceded her own. Yet, although unhappy, she is not so utterly occupied by her own misery but that she interests herself deeply in the projects of others. She has frequently conversed with me on mine, which I have communicated to her without disguise. She entered attentively into all my arguments in favour of my eventual success and into every minute detail of the measures I had taken to secure it. I was easily led by the sympathy which she evinced to use the language of my heart, to give utterance to the burning ardour of my soul and to say, with all the fervour that warmed me, how gladly I would sacrifice my fortune, my existence, my every hope, to the furtherance of my enterprise. One woman's life or death were but a small price to pay for the acquirement of the knowledge which I sought, for the dominion I should acquire and transmit over the elemental foes of our race. As I spoke, a dark gloom spread over my listener's countenance. At first I perceived that she tried to suppress her emotion; she placed her hands before her eyes, and my voice quivered and failed me as I beheld tears trickle fast from between her fingers; a groan burst from her heaving breast. I paused; at length she spoke, in broken accents: 'Unhappy woman! Do you share my madness? Have you drunk also of the intoxicating draught? Hear me; let me reveal my tale, and you will dash the cup from your lips!'
Such words, you may imagine, strongly excited my curiosity; but the paroxysm of grief that had seized the stranger overcame her weakened powers, and many hours of repose and tr
anquil conversation were necessary to restore her composure. Having conquered the violence of her feelings, she appeared to despise herself for being the slave of passion; and quelling the dark tyranny of despair, she led me again to converse concerning myself personally. She asked me the history of my earlier years. The tale was quickly told, but it awakened various trains of reflection. I spoke of my desire of finding a friend, of my thirst for a more intimate sympathy with a fellow mind than had ever fallen to my lot, and expressed my conviction that a woman could boast of little happiness who did not enjoy this blessing. 'I agree with you,' replied the stranger; 'we are unfashioned creatures, but half made up, if one wiser, better, dearer than ourselves--such a friend ought to be--do not lend her aid to perfectionate our weak and faulty natures. I once had a friend, the most noble of human creatures, and am entitled, therefore, to judge respecting friendship. You have hope, and the world before you, and have no cause for despair. But I--I have lost everything and cannot begin life anew.'
As she said this her countenance became expressive of a calm, settled grief that touched me to the heart. But she was silent and presently retired to her cabin.
Even broken in spirit as she is, no one can feel more deeply than she does the beauties of nature. The starry sky, the sea, and every sight afforded by these wonderful regions seem still to have the power of elevating her soul from earth. Such a woman has a double existence: she may suffer misery and be overwhelmed by disappointments, yet when she has retired into herself, she will be like a celestial spirit that has a halo around her, within whose circle no grief or folly ventures.
Will you smile at the enthusiasm I express concerning this divine wanderer? You would not if you saw her. You have been tutored and refined by books and retirement from the world, and you are therefore somewhat fastidious; but this only renders you the more fit to appreciate the extraordinary merits of this wonderful woman. Sometimes I have endeavoured to discover what quality it is which she possesses that elevates her so immeasurably above any other person I ever knew. I believe it to be an intuitive discernment, a quick but never-failing power of judgment, a penetration into the causes of things, unequalled for clearness and precision; add to this a facility of expression and a voice whose varied intonations are soul-subduing music.
August 19, 17-
Yesterday the stranger said to me, 'You may easily perceive, Captain Walton, that I have suffered great and unparalleled misfortunes. I had determined at one time that the memory of these evils should die with me, but you have won me to alter my determination. You seek for knowledge and wisdom, as I once did; and I ardently hope that the gratification of your wishes may not be a serpent to sting you, as mine has been. I do not know that the relation of my disasters will be useful to you; yet, when I reflect that you are pursuing the same course, exposing yourself to the same dangers which have rendered me what I am, I imagine that you may deduce an apt moral from my tale, one that may direct you if you succeed in your undertaking and console you in case of failure. Prepare to hear of occurrences which are usually deemed marvellous. Were we among the tamer scenes of nature I might fear to encounter your unbelief, perhaps your ridicule; but many things will appear possible in these wild and mysterious regions which would provoke the laughter of those unacquainted with the ever- varied powers of nature; nor can I doubt but that my tale conveys in its series internal evidence of the truth of the events of which it is composed.'
You may easily imagine that I was much gratified by the offered communication, yet I could not endure that she should renew her grief by a recital of her misfortunes. I felt the greatest eagerness to hear the promised narrative, partly from curiosity and partly from a strong desire to ameliorate her fate if it were in my power. I expressed these feelings in my answer.
'I thank you,' she 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,' continued she, perceiving that I wished to interrupt her; 'but you are mistaken, my friend, if thus you will allow me to name you; nothing can alter my destiny; listen to my history, and you will perceive how irrevocably it is determined.'
She then told me that she would commence her narrative the next day when I should be at leisure. This promise drew from me the warmest thanks. I have resolved every night, when I am not imperatively occupied by my duties, to record, as nearly as possible in her own words, what she has related during the day. If I should be engaged, I will at least make notes. This manuscript will doubtless afford you the greatest pleasure; but to me, who know her, and who hear it from her own lips--with what interest and sympathy shall I read it in some future day! Even now, as I commence my task, her full- toned voice swells in my ears; her lustrous eyes dwell on me with all their melancholy sweetness; I see her thin hand raised in animation, while the lineaments of her face are irradiated by the soul within.
Strange and harrowing must be her story, frightful the storm which embraced the gallant vessel on its course and wrecked it--thus!