The Modern Prometheus modern design twist on Mary Shelley's Frankenstein | Page 41
Volume 2
bleak skies I hail, for they are kinder to me than your
fellow beings. If the multitude of mankind knew of my
existence, they would do as you do, and arm themselves
for my destruction. Shall I not then hate them who
abhor me? I will keep no terms with my enemies. I am
miserable, and they shall share my wretchedness. Yet it
is in your power to recompense me, and deliver them
from an evil which it only remains for you to make so
great, that not only you and your family, but thousands
of others, shall be swallowed up in the whirlwinds of
its rage. Let your compassion be moved, and do not
disdain me. Listen to my tale; when you have heard that,
abandon or commiserate me, as you shall judge that I
deserve. But hear me.
The guilty are allowed, by human laws, bloody as
they are, to speak in their own defence before they are
condemned. Listen to me, Frankenstein. You accuse me of
murder, and yet you would, with a satisfied conscience,
destroy your own creature. Oh, praise the eternal justice
of man! Yet I ask you not to spare me; listen to me, and
then, if you can, and if you will, destroy the work of
your hands.”
“Why do you call to my remembrance,” I rejoined,
“circumstances of which I shudder to reflect, that I have
been the miserable origin and author? Cursed be the
day, abhorred devil, in which you first saw light! Cursed
(although I curse myself) be the hands that formed you!
You have made me wretched beyond expression. You
have left me no power to consider whether I am just to
you or not. Begone! Relieve me from the sight of your
detested form.”
“Thus I relieve thee, my creator,” he said, and
placed his hated hands before my eyes, which I “flung
from me with violence; “thus I take from thee a sight
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