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."
Chapter 17
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,
"You must create a female for me with whom I can live in the
interchange of those sympathies necessary for my being. This you alone
can do, and I demand it of you as a right which you must not refuse to
concede."
The latter part of his tale had kindled anew in me the anger that had
died away while he narrated his peaceful life among the cottagers, and
as he said this I could no longer suppress the rage that burned within
me.
"I do refuse it," I replied; "and no torture shall ever extort a
consent from me. You may render me the most miserable of men, but you
shall never make me base in my own eyes. Shall I create another like
yourself, whose joint wickedness might desolate the world.
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