“As I fixed my eyes on the child, I saw something
glittering on his breast. I took it; it was
a portrait of a most lovely woman. In spite
of my malignity, it softened and attracted me.
For a few moments I gazed with delight on her dark
eyes, fringed by deep lashes, and her lovely lips;
but presently my rage returned; I remembered that I
was forever deprived of the delights that such beautiful
creatures could bestow and that she whose resemblance
I contemplated would, in regarding me, have changed
that air of divine benignity to one expressive of
disgust and affright.
“Can you wonder that such thoughts transported
me with rage? I only wonder that at that moment,
instead of venting my sensations in exclamations and
agony, I did not rush among mankind and perish in the
attempt to destroy them.
“While I was overcome by these feelings, I left
the spot where I had committed the murder, and seeking
a more secluded hiding-place, I entered a barn which
had appeared to me to be empty. A woman was
sleeping on some straw; she was young, not indeed so
beautiful as her whose portrait I held, but of an
agreeable aspect and blooming in the loveliness of
youth and health. Here, I thought, is one of
those whose joy-imparting smiles are bestowed on all
but me. And then I bent over her and whispered,
`Awake, fairest, thy lover is near—he who
would give his life but to obtain one look of affection
from thine eyes; my beloved, awake!’
“The sleeper stirred; a thrill of terror ran
through me. Should she indeed awake, and see
me, and curse me, and denounce the murderer? Thus
would she assuredly act if her darkened eyes opened
and she beheld me. The thought was madness; it
stirred the fiend within me—not I, but
she, shall suffer; the murder I have committed because
I am forever robbed of all that she could give me,
she shall atone. The crime had its source in
her; be hers the punishment! Thanks to the lessons
of Felix and the sanguinary laws of man, I had learned
now to work mischief. I bent over her and placed
the portrait securely in one of the folds of her dress.
She moved again, and I fled.
“For some days I haunted the spot where these
scenes had taken place, sometimes wishing to see you,
sometimes resolved to quit the world and its miseries
forever. At length I wandered towards these mountains,
and have ranged through their immense recesses, consumed
by a burning passion which you alone can gratify.
We may not part until you have promised to comply
with my requisition. 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.
My companion must be of the same species and have
the same defects. This being you must create.”
The being finished speaking and fixed his looks upon
me in the expectation of a reply. But I was
bewildered, perplexed, and unable to arrange my ideas
sufficiently to understand the full extent of his
proposition. He continued,
