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"Fear not that I shall be the instrument of future mischief.
My work is nearly complete. Neither yours nor any man's death
is needed to consummate the series of my being and accomplish
that which must be done, but it requires my own. Do not think
that I shall be slow to perform this sacrifice. I shall quit your vessel
on the ice raft which brought me thither and shall seek
the most northern extremity of the globe; I shall collect my funeral pile
and consume to ashes this miserable frame, that its remains
may afford no light to any curious and unhallowed wretch
who would create such another as I have been. I shall die.
I shall no longer feel the agonies which now consume me or be the prey
of feelings unsatisfied, yet unquenched. He is dead
who called me into being; and when I shall be no more, the very remembrance
of us both will speedily vanish. I shall no longer see the sun or stars
or feel the winds play on my cheeks. Light, feeling, and sense
will pass away; and in this condition must I find my happiness.
Some years ago, when the images which this world affords
first opened upon me, when I felt the cheering warmth of summer
and heard the rustling of the leaves and the warbling of the birds,
and these were all to me, I should have wept to die;
now it is my only consolation. Polluted by crimes and torn
by the bitterest remorse, where can I find rest but in death?
"Farewell! I leave you, and in you the last of humankind
whom these eyes will ever behold. Farewell, Frankenstein!
If thou wert yet alive and yet cherished a desire of revenge against me,
it would be better satiated in my life than in my destruction.
But it was not so; thou didst seek my extinction, that I might not cause
greater wretchedness; and if yet, in some mode unknown to me,
thou hadst not ceased to think and feel, thou wouldst not desire
against me a vengeance greater than that which I feel.
Blasted as thou wert, my agony was still superior to thine,
for the bitter sting of remorse will not cease to rankle in my wounds
until death shall close them forever.
"But soon," he cried with sad and solemn enthusiasm, "I shall die,
and what I now feel be no longer felt. Soon these burning miseries
will be extinct. I shall ascend my funeral pile triumphantly
and exult in the agony of the torturing flames. The light
of that conflagration will fade away; my ashes will be swept into the sea
by the winds. My spirit will sleep in peace, or if it thinks,
it will not surely think thus. Farewell."
He sprang from the cabin window as he said this, upon the ice raft
which lay close to the vessel. He was soon borne away by the waves
and lost in darkness and distance.
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