The Modern Prometheus modern design twist on Mary Shelley's Frankenstein | Page 21

Letter 4

generally an expression of wildness, and even madness, but there are
moments when, if anyone performs an act of kindness towards him
or does him the most trifling service, his whole countenance is lighted
up, as it were, with a beam of benevolence and sweetness that I never
saw equalled. But he is generally melancholy and despairing, and
sometimes he gnashes his teeth, as if impatient of the weight of woes
that oppresses him.
When my guest was a little recovered I had great trouble to keep off
the men, who wished to ask him a thousand questions; but I would not
allow him to be tormented by their idle curiosity, in a state of body and
mind whose restoration evidently depended upon entire repose. Once,
however, the lieutenant asked why he had come so far upon the ice in
so strange a vehicle.
His countenance instantly assumed an aspect of the deepest gloom,
and he replied, “To seek one who fled from me.”
“And did the man whom you pursued travel in the same fashion?”
“Yes.”
“Then I fancy we have seen him, for the day before we picked you up
we saw some dogs drawing a sledge, with a man in it, across the ice.”
This aroused the stranger’s attention, and he asked a multitude of
questions concerning the route which the demon, as he called him,
had pursued. Soon after, when he was alone with me, he said, “I have,
doubtless, excited your curiosity, as well as that of these good people;
but you are too considerate to make inquiries.”
“Certainly; it would indeed be very impertinent and inhuman in me to
trouble you with any inquisitiveness of mine.”
“And yet you rescued me from a strange and perilous situation; you
have benevolently restored me to life.”
Soon after this he inquired if I thought that the breaking up of the ice had
destroyed the other sledge. I replied that I could not answer with any
degree of certainty, for the ice had not broken until near midnight, and
the traveller might have arrived at a place of safety before that time; but
of this I could not judge. From this time a new spirit of life animated the
decaying frame of the stranger. He manifested the greatest eagerness to