 of my existence and of its
unspeakable torments, dared to hope for happiness; that while he accumulated
wretchedness and despair upon me, he sought his own enjoyment in feelings and
passions from the indulgence of which I was for ever barred, then impotent envy
and bitter indignation filled me with an insatiable thirst for vengeance. I
recollected my threat, and resolved that it should be accomplished. I knew that
I was preparing for myself a deadly torture; but I was the slave, not the
master, of an impulse, which I detested, yet could not disobey. Yet when she
died! - nay, then I was not miserable. I had cast off all feeling, subdued all
anguish, to riot in the excess of my despair. Evil thenceforth became my good.
Urged thus far, I had no choice but to adapt my nature to an element which I had
willingly chosen. The completion of my demoniacal design became an insatiable
passion. And now it is ended; there is my last victim!«
    I was at first touched by the expressions of his misery; yet, when I called
to mind what Frankenstein had said of his powers of eloquence and persuasion,
and when I again cast my eyes on the lifeless form of my friend, indignation was
rekindled within me. »Wretch!« I said, »it is well that you come here to whine
over the desolation that you have made. You throw a torch into a pile of
buildings; and, when they are consumed, you sit among the ruins, and lament the
fall. Hypocritical fiend! if he whom you mourn still lived, still would he be
the object, again would he become the prey, of your accursed vengeance. It is
not pity that you feel; you lament only because the victim of your malignity is
withdrawn from your power.«
    »Oh, it is not thus - not thus,« interrupted the being; »yet such must be
the impression conveyed to you by what appears to be the purport of my actions.
Yet I seek not a fellow-feeling in my misery. No sympathy may I ever find. When
I first sought it, it was the love of virtue, the feelings of happiness and
affection with which my whole being overflowed, that I wished to be
participated. But now, that virtue has become to me a shadow, and that happiness
and affection are turned into bitter and loathing despair, in what should I seek
for sympathy? I am content to suffer alone, while my sufferings shall endure:
when I die, I am well satisfied that abhorrence and opprobrium
