and nervous to a most painful degree. I shunned my fellow-creatures as
if I had been guilty of a crime.


_III.--Frankenstein's Creation_


It was on a dreary night of November that I beheld the accomplishment of
my toil. With an anxiety that amounted to agony, I collected the
instruments of life around me, that I might infuse a spark of being into
the lifeless thing that lay at my feet. I saw the dull yellow eye of the
creature open; it breathed hard; and a convulsive motion agitated its
limbs.

How can I delineate the wretch whom with such infinite pains and care I
had endeavoured to form? His yellow skin scarcely covered the work of
muscles and arteries beneath; his hair was of a lustrous black, and
flowing; his teeth of a pearly whiteness; but his watery eyes seemed
almost of the same colour as the dun-white sockets in which they were
set.

I had worked hard for nearly two years for the sole purpose of infusing
life into an inanimate body. For this I had deprived myself of rest and
health. But now that I had finished, breathless horror and disgust
filled my heart. Unable to endure the aspect of the being I had created,
I rushed out of the room. I tried to sleep, but disturbed by the wildest
dreams, I started up. By the dim and yellow light of the moon I beheld
the miserable monster whom I had created. He held up the curtains of the
bed, and his eyes were fixed on me. He might have spoken, but I did not
hear; one hand was stretched out, seemingly to detain me, but I escaped