destruction, and I have been stoned and shot at as a recompense. The
feelings of kindness and gentleness have given place to rage. Mankind
spurns and hates me. The desert mountains and dreary glaciers are my
refuge, and the bleak sky is kinder to me than your fellow-beings. Shall
I not hate them who abhor me? Listen to me, Frankenstein. I have
wandered through these mountains consumed by a burning passion which you
alone can gratify. You must create a female for me with whom I can live.
I am alone and miserable; man will not associate with me; but one as
deformed and horrible as myself would not deny herself to me.

"What I ask of you is reasonable and moderate. It is true, we shall be
monstrous, cut off from all the world: but on that account we shall be
more attached to one another. Our lives will not be happy, but they will
be harmless, and free from the misery I now feel. If you consent,
neither you nor any other human being shall ever see us again: I will go
to the vast wilds of South America. We shall make our bed of dried
leaves; the sun will shine on us as on man, and will ripen our foods. My
evil passion will have fled, for I shall meet with sympathy. My life
will flow quietly away, and in my dying moments I shall not curse my
maker."

His words had a strange effect on me. I compassionated him, and
concluded that the justest view both to him and my fellow-creatures
demanded of me that I should comply with his request.

"I consent to your demand," I said, "on your solemn oath to quit Europe
forever."

"I swear," he cried, "by the sun and by the fire of love which burns in
my heart that if you grant my prayer, while they exist you shall never