CHAPTER XXIV
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 moulded 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 round 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.
Everything 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 not seen,
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 the spirits that preside over thee, 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 abjuration 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 choked 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 frenzy, 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
of him I should despair and die, 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 will 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
I brought 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 agonising 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.
Fellow 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 give
up my search until he or I perish; and then with what ecstasy
shall I join my Elizabeth and my departed friends, 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 sea-shore. 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. Once, after the poor animals
that conveyed 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 ecstasy 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 foe, 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
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. And do I dare to ask of 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 survive to add to the list of his dark
crimes. 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 fiendlike malice.
Hear him not; call on the names 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.
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