Chapter: My present situation was one in which all voluntary thought was
swallowed up and lost. I was hurried away by fury; revenge alone endowed
me with strength and composure; it modelled my feelings, and allowed me
to be calculating and calm, at periods when otherwise delirium or death
would have been my portion.

My first resolution was to quit Geneva for ever; my country, which, when
I was happy and beloved, was dear to me, now, in my adversity, became
hateful. I provided myself with a sum of money, together with a few
jewels which had belonged to my mother, and departed.

And now my wanderings began, which are to cease but with life. I have
traversed a vast portion of the earth, and have endured all the
hardships which travellers, in deserts and barbarous countries, are wont
to meet. How I have lived I hardly know; many times have I stretched my
failing limbs upon the sandy plain, and prayed for death. But revenge
kept me alive; I dared not die, and leave my adversary in being.

When I quitted Geneva, my first labour was to gain some clue by which I
might trace the steps of my fiendish enemy. But my plan was unsettled;
and I wandered many hours around the confines of the town, uncertain
what path I should pursue. As night approached, I found myself at the
entrance of the cemetery where William, Elizabeth, and my father,
reposed. I entered it, and approached the tomb which marked their
graves. Every thing was silent, except the leaves of the trees, which
were gently agitated by the wind; the night was nearly dark; and the
scene would have been solemn and affecting even to an uninterested
observer. The spirits of the departed seemed to flit around, and to cast
a shadow, which was felt but seen not, around the head of the mourner.

The deep grief which this scene had at first excited quickly gave way to
rage and despair. They were dead, and I lived; their murderer also
lived, and to destroy him I must drag out my weary existence. I knelt on
the grass, and kissed the earth, and with quivering lips exclaimed, "By
the sacred earth on which I kneel, by the shades that wander near me, by
the deep and eternal grief that I feel, I swear; and by thee, O Night,
and by the spirits that preside over thee, I swear to pursue the daemon,
who caused this misery, until he or I shall perish in mortal conflict.
For this purpose I will preserve my life: to execute this dear revenge,
will I again behold the sun, and tread the green herbage of earth, which
otherwise should vanish from my eyes for ever. And I call on you,
spirits of the dead; and on you, wandering ministers of vengeance, to
aid and conduct me in my work. Let the cursed and hellish monster drink
deep of agony; let him feel the despair that now torments me."

I had begun my adjuration with solemnity, and an awe which almost
assured me that the shades of my murdered friends heard and approved my
devotion; but the furies possessed me as I concluded, and rage choaked
my utterance.

I was answered through the stillness of night by a loud and fiendish
laugh. It rung on my ears long and heavily; the mountains re-echoed it,
and I felt as if all hell surrounded me with mockery and laughter.
Surely in that moment I should have been possessed by phrenzy, and have
destroyed my miserable existence, but that my vow was heard, and that I
was reserved for vengeance. The laughter died away: when a well-known
and abhorred voice, apparently close to my ear, addressed me in an
audible whisper--"I am satisfied: miserable wretch! you have determined
to live, and I am satisfied."

I darted towards the spot from which the sound proceeded; but the devil
eluded my grasp. Suddenly the broad disk of the moon arose, and shone
full upon his ghastly and distorted shape, as he fled with more than
mortal speed.

I pursued him; and for many months this has been my task. Guided by a
slight clue, I followed the windings of the Rhone, but vainly. The blue
Mediterranean appeared; and, by a strange chance, I saw the fiend enter
by night, and hide himself in a vessel bound for the Black Sea. I took
my passage in the same ship; but he escaped, I know not how.

Amidst the wilds of Tartary and Russia, although he still evaded me, I
have ever followed in his track. Sometimes the peasants, scared by this
horrid apparition, informed me of his path; sometimes he himself, who
feared that if I lost all trace I should despair and die, often left
some mark to guide me. The snows descended on my head, and I saw the
print of his huge step on the white plain. To you first entering on
life, to whom care is new, and agony unknown, how can you understand
what I have felt, and still feel? Cold, want, and fatigue, were the least
pains which I was destined to endure; I was cursed by some devil, and
carried about with me my eternal hell; yet still a spirit of good
followed and directed my steps, and, when I most murmured, would
suddenly extricate me from seemingly insurmountable difficulties.
Sometimes, when nature, overcome by hunger, sunk under the exhaustion, a
repast was prepared for me in the desert, that restored and inspirited
me. The fare was indeed coarse, such as the peasants of the country ate;
but I may not doubt that it was set there by the spirits that I had
invoked to aid me. Often, when all was dry, the heavens cloudless, and I
was parched by thirst, a slight cloud would bedim the sky, shed the few
drops that revived me, and vanish.

I followed, when I could, the courses of the rivers; but the daemon
generally avoided these, as it was here that the population of the
country chiefly collected. In other places human beings were seldom
seen; and I generally subsisted on the wild animals that crossed my
path. I had money with me, and gained the friendship of the villagers by
distributing it, or bringing with me some food that I had killed, which,
after taking a small part, I always presented to those who had provided
me with fire and utensils for cooking.

My life, as it passed thus, was indeed hateful to me, and it was during
sleep alone that I could taste joy. O blessed sleep! often, when most
miserable, I sank to repose, and my dreams lulled me even to rapture.
The spirits that guarded me had provided these moments, or rather hours,
of happiness, that I might retain strength to fulfil my pilgrimage.
Deprived of this respite, I should have sunk under my hardships. During
the day I was sustained and inspirited by the hope of night: for in
sleep I saw my friends, my wife, and my beloved country; again I saw the
benevolent countenance of my father, heard the silver tones of my
Elizabeth's voice, and beheld Clerval enjoying health and youth. Often,
when wearied by a toilsome march, I persuaded myself that I was dreaming
until night should come, and that I should then enjoy reality in the
arms of my dearest friends. What agonizing fondness did I feel for them!
how did I cling to their dear forms, as sometimes they haunted even my
waking hours, and persuade myself that they still lived! At such
moments vengeance, that burned within me, died in my heart, and I
pursued my path towards the destruction of the daemon, more as a task
enjoined by heaven, as the mechanical impulse of some power of which I
was unconscious, than as the ardent desire of my soul.

What his feelings were whom I pursued, I cannot know. Sometimes, indeed,
he left marks in writing on the barks of the trees, or cut in stone,
that guided me, and instigated my fury. "My reign is not yet over,"
(these words were legible in one of these inscriptions); "you live, and
my power is complete. Follow me; I seek the everlasting ices of the
north, where you will feel the misery of cold and frost, to which I am
impassive. You will find near this place, if you follow not too tardily,
a dead hare; eat, and be refreshed. Come on, my enemy; we have yet to
wrestle for our lives; but many hard and miserable hours must you
endure, until that period shall arrive."

Scoffing devil! Again do I vow vengeance; again do I devote thee,
miserable fiend, to torture and death. Never will I omit my search,
until he or I perish; and then with what ecstacy shall I join my
Elizabeth, and those who even now prepare for me the reward of my
tedious toil and horrible pilgrimage.

As I still pursued my journey to the northward, the snows thickened, and
the cold increased in a degree almost too severe to support. The
peasants were shut up in their hovels, and only a few of the most hardy
ventured forth to seize the animals whom starvation had forced from
their hiding-places to seek for prey. The rivers were covered with ice,
and no fish could be procured; and thus I was cut off from my chief
article of maintenance.

The triumph of my enemy increased with the difficulty of my labours. One
inscription that he left was in these words: "Prepare! your toils only
begin: wrap yourself in furs, and provide food, for we shall soon enter
upon a journey where your sufferings will satisfy my everlasting
hatred."

My courage and perseverance were invigorated by these scoffing words; I
resolved not to fail in my purpose; and, calling on heaven to support
me, I continued with unabated fervour to traverse immense deserts, until
the ocean appeared at a distance, and formed the utmost boundary of the
horizon. Oh! how unlike it was to the blue seas of the south! Covered
with ice, it was only to be distinguished from land by its superior
wildness and ruggedness. The Greeks wept for joy when they beheld the
Mediterranean from the hills of Asia, and hailed with rapture the
boundary of their toils. I did not weep; but I knelt down, and, with a
full heart, thanked my guiding spirit for conducting me in safety to the
place where I hoped, notwithstanding my adversary's gibe, to meet and
grapple with him.

Some weeks before this period I had procured a sledge and dogs, and thus
traversed the snows with inconceivable speed. I know not whether the
fiend possessed the same advantages; but I found that, as before I had
daily lost ground in the pursuit, I now gained on him; so much so, that
when I first saw the ocean, he was but one day's journey in advance, and
I hoped to intercept him before he should reach the beach. With new
courage, therefore, I pressed on, and in two days arrived at a wretched
hamlet on the seashore. I inquired of the inhabitants concerning the
fiend, and gained accurate information. A gigantic monster, they said,
had arrived the night before, armed with a gun and many pistols; putting
to flight the inhabitants of a solitary cottage, through fear of his
terrific appearance. He had carried off their store of winter food, and,
placing it in a sledge, to draw which he had seized on a numerous drove
of trained dogs, he had harnessed them, and the same night, to the joy
of the horror-struck villagers, had pursued his journey across the sea
in a direction that led to no land; and they conjectured that he must
speedily be destroyed by the breaking of the ice, or frozen by the
eternal frosts.

On hearing this information, I suffered a temporary access of despair.
He had escaped me; and I must commence a destructive and almost endless
journey across the mountainous ices of the ocean,--amidst cold that few
of the inhabitants could long endure, and which I, the native of a
genial and sunny climate, could not hope to survive. Yet at the idea
that the fiend should live and be triumphant, my rage and vengeance
returned, and, like a mighty tide, overwhelmed every other feeling.
After a slight repose, during which the spirits of the dead hovered
round, and instigated me to toil and revenge, I prepared for my
journey.

I exchanged my land sledge for one fashioned for the inequalities of the
frozen ocean; and, purchasing a plentiful stock of provisions, I
departed from land.

I cannot guess how many days have passed since then; but I have endured
misery, which nothing but the eternal sentiment of a just retribution
burning within my heart could have enabled me to support. Immense and
rugged mountains of ice often barred up my passage, and I often heard
the thunder of the ground sea, which threatened my destruction. But
again the frost came, and made the paths of the sea secure.

By the quantity of provision which I had consumed I should guess that I
had passed three weeks in this journey; and the continual protraction of
hope, returning back upon the heart, often wrung bitter drops of
despondency and grief from my eyes. Despair had indeed almost secured
her prey, and I should soon have sunk beneath this misery; when once,
after the poor animals that carried me had with incredible toil gained
the summit of a sloping ice mountain, and one sinking under his fatigue
died, I viewed the expanse before me with anguish, when suddenly my eye
caught a dark speck upon the dusky plain. I strained my sight to
discover what it could be, and uttered a wild cry of ecstacy when I
distinguished a sledge, and the distorted proportions of a well-known
form within. Oh! with what a burning gush did hope revisit my heart!
warm tears filled my eyes, which I hastily wiped away, that they might
not intercept the view I had of the daemon; but still my sight was dimmed
by the burning drops, until, giving way to the emotions that oppressed
me, I wept aloud.

But this was not the time for delay; I disencumbered the dogs of their
dead companion, gave them a plentiful portion of food; and, after an
hour's rest, which was absolutely necessary, and yet which was bitterly
irksome to me, I continued my route. The sledge was still visible; nor
did I again lose sight of it, except at the moments when for a short
time some ice rock concealed it with its intervening crags. I indeed
perceptibly gained on it; and when, after nearly two days' journey, I
beheld my enemy at no more than a mile distant, my heart bounded within
me.

But now, when I appeared almost within grasp of my enemy, my hopes were
suddenly extinguished, and I lost all trace of him more utterly than I
had ever done before. A ground sea was heard; the thunder of its
progress, as the waters rolled and swelled beneath me, became every
moment more ominous and terrific. I pressed on, but in vain. The wind
arose; the sea roared; and, as with the mighty shock of an earthquake,
it split, and cracked with a tremendous and overwhelming sound. The work
was soon finished: in a few minutes a tumultuous sea rolled between me
and my enemy, and I was left drifting on a scattered piece of ice, that
was continually lessening, and thus preparing for me a hideous death.

In this manner many appalling hours passed; several of my dogs died; and
I myself was about to sink under the accumulation of distress, when I
saw your vessel riding at anchor, and holding forth to me hopes of
succour and life. I had no conception that vessels ever came so far
north, and was astounded at the sight. I quickly destroyed part of my
sledge to construct oars; and by these means was enabled, with infinite
fatigue, to move my ice-raft in the direction of your ship. I had
determined, if you were going southward, still to trust myself to the
mercy of the seas, rather than abandon my purpose. I hoped to induce you
to grant me a boat with which I could still pursue my enemy. But your
direction was northward. You took me on board when my vigour was
exhausted, and I should soon have sunk under my multiplied hardships
into a death, which I still dread,--for my task is unfulfilled.

Oh! when will my guiding spirit, in conducting me to the daemon, allow me
the rest I so much desire; or must I die, and he yet live? If I do,
swear to me, Walton, that he shall not escape; that you will seek him,
and satisfy my vengeance in his death. Yet, do I dare ask you to
undertake my pilgrimage, to endure the hardships that I have undergone?
No; I am not so selfish. Yet, when I am dead, if he should appear; if
the ministers of vengeance should conduct him to you, swear that he
shall not live--swear that he shall not triumph over my accumulated
woes, and live to make another such a wretch as I am. He is eloquent
and persuasive; and once his words had even power over my heart: but
trust him not. His soul is as hellish as his form, full of treachery and
fiend-like malice. Hear him not; call on the manes of William, Justine,
Clerval, Elizabeth, my father, and of the wretched Victor, and thrust
your sword into his heart. I will hover near, and direct the steel
aright.

 The Great Pursuit begins, but it's pretty one-sided: the monster leaves a trail of clues for Victor to follow, but never allows his creator to get close enough to catch him. It's on this chase that Victor meets Walton, and now he asks Walton to pursue the monster after Victor dies. After that, Victor's narrative ends, and we're back to the outside frame, where Victor is on the boat with that sensitive, superior guy who writes letters to his sister. Remember? Walton, for some reason, believes all of Victor's lunatic ravings. He also wishes he had known Victor when he was normal, too, because he thinks he would have made a good friend. That makes us seriously question Walton, because really? This guy has just told you an insane story about how he created a monster and you wish you could have been friends with him? Meanwhile, the crew asks Walton if they can head home already, because with the sub-zero temperatures and the stuck-in-the-ice situation, morale has gotten unbearably low. Victor berates them for giving up, and they are momentarily moved to agree with him. But two days later, they ask again, and Walton is all "Fine. We can go home." When the ship is about to return to England, Victor dies. Just like that. A few days pass. Walton hears strange noises coming from the room with Victor's body. He finds the monster crying over the body. !!! Of course, the first thing Walton notices is how ugly the monster is. Still, he's pretty nice. The monster concludes that now that his maker is dead, he has no more purpose in life, such as killing Victor's friends or leaving Victor puzzling clues or stalking Victor from afar. Now that he has nothing left, the monster decides to build a funeral pyre for himself on a mountaintop and die, which sounds awfully dramatic if you ask us. He leaves the ship and disappears into the dark--conveniently leaving open the question of whether or not he actually does die. And hey! It only took 100+ years to come out with Frankenstein II: The Bride of Frankenstein.

