No one else in the group, not even the man I had supposed to be Kunuk's husband, appeared to be in the least surprised by her invitation, nor offered the least objection to it. And verily I had none.
This morning, in my eyes, even the world of ice has a certain warmth about it. The very sun is brighter. Ye have been wrong, ye gods who attempt to control my destiny, whoever ye may be_who from my creation have despised and detested me! I have put behind me the curse of death ye would have fastened on me from my creation, and I go on to life!
I babble foolishly. But it does not matter. We go south. I shall probably write no more today. Or tonight.
Next day_Last night with Kunuk again. My appetites, long denied, seem insatiable. And yet. There is already an undercurrent of dissatisfaction. The woman is good, and kind, and gives me much_and yet she is not of my kind. And there is much_something—I would have, that she cannot give.
The hunters this morning killed a seal, spearing it through a hole in the ice, and we have fresh meat again. Entrails and all are devoured, as with the bear. When we left the frozen ship, my friends insisted on bringing with them the bear's liver, along with the other meat, despite my gestures of warning, meant to describe sickness. Now I see that they feed some of the liver to the dogs, and eat of it themselves without harm, by mixing small morsels with large amounts of other meat. I dared to taste a mouthful of the mixture, and have suffered no ill effect; I suppose that what is poisonous in large quantities may be of benefit in small. And memory comes and goes, fleetingly; memory from some life before this one, gone again before I can even try to fix its shape or substance.
As always, I hoard up bits of knowledge of this mysterious world in which I find myself. The time will no doubt soon come again when I must confront its mysteries alone.
Kunuk, who will never be able to read these words, you have been all to me that you can be. I already realize that I will miss you keenly when that hour of our parting comes. And whether my life be long or short thereafter, I shall remember you until its end.
Later_I believe that we are still proceeding almost directly south. Still I do not know whether I am north of Iceland, Greenland, or even Labrador. There has been no chance for me to get my bearings from the sky. My companions however seem to know where they are going; at least they evince no sign of uncertainty or uneasiness about their route.
Kunuk has rejoined her husband in his sleeping-furs, though not without a look or two at me, as if she were concerned over what I might think of this change. In truth I did not like it much; yet how could I object?
The older woman, whose name I am still uncertain of, smiled at me tentatively; but I only smiled back, and closed my eyes, and fell asleep.
Next day_I am alone again. It is a strange, almost a frightening situation after so many days of unaccustomed companionship. But I have thrived on loneliness before, and shall again.
The end of fellowship—and of more intimate gratifications—came before I was well prepared for it, yet hardly as a surprise. I had known from the start that my path and that of my companions might diverge at any moment. Land, solid and undeniable, had come into view, hills no taller than I am but looming like the Alps in this eternal flatness.
No sooner had we climbed onto the land, than my party showed their intention of turning west among the snowy, barren hills.
I, however, rightly or wrongly, persisted stubbornly in my determination to continue south; and I no longer had the least doubt as to which way that was. My most weighty reason was that I had already satisfied myself, by dint of long and patient gesturing, that whoever had taught these people the sign of the cross was to be found in that direction.
My friends, when they saw I was determined, wasted no further time or strength in argument. They insisted on going west from the point of our landfall, and so we amicably, and somewhat sadly, separated.
I have some food, some fishing hooks and lines, and a seal-hunter's spear, the last traded to me for a large share of my supply of fish-hooks and some other trade goods that were on the hulk. After what I have survived already, I do not fear to face the miles ahead. So far, since our separation, the weather has been favorable, and I see no sign of immediate change. And hardihood against the elements is mine, greater than that of any human being. On to the south alone!
Chapter 4
Early August? 1782?_At any rate much later than my last entry
Twenty days (if my reckoning of time is accurate) of nearly continuous travel have at last brought me free of the perpetual ice. I now traverse a land of mosses and stinging insects, wild flowers and dwarf birches. In some ways—the rocks and grass, the uninhabited distances, the dearth of trees—this territory reminds me of that other seagirt land of evil memory, to which I was brought by Frankenstein and by his mentor Saville, a man more evil than himself, to be their slave, their accomplice, their companion—it would take a long list of words to exhaust all the possibilities of what I was to them at one time and another. Now I am fairly certain that my creator is dead. And toward that other, and the human creatures who serve him, I can know only enmity.
The resemblance between this land where I now find myself, and those isles in the north of Britain has been rendered all the more acute by a deterioration in the weather. Since leaving my friends I have endured three or four storms, or squalls; one of them a veritable tempest of snow and freezing rain—I am sure that no human, unsheltered as I am, could have survived it.
At the moment the rain has ceased. I am writing this overdue entry in my journal whilst seated on a granite outcropping in what is almost a verdant meadow. I believe the month now to be August; and I am now virtually certain that, despite the similarities of landscape mentioned above, I am now in America and not in any part of northern Europe. The differences in terrain, and in flora and fauna, are too great to admit of any other conclusion. This, of course, will mean another long and arduous journey, a crossing of the sea, before I can confront those who hold the secrets of my being—if those secrets did not die with Frankenstein—but still, in my heart, I am relieved not to be on those desolate Scottish isles now.
The Argo, sailing from Rotterdam, did not bear us directly to that northern land. I had heard enough from the men who thought themselves my owners, to understand that our first destination was London, but not enough to explain to me why it must be so. I was already beginning to distrust those men; but I had no one and nothing else to trust. It was for me a hideous voyage; I suffered somewhat from seasickness, and of course, at the command of my creator, remained below decks almost continuously. Few or none of the crew even knew that I was on board.
It seemed to me even then that I had not always been confined out of sight lest I terrify anyone who caught a glimpse of me—but when and where could that have been?
My chief occupation on the voyage from Rotterdam to London, then, was thought—and so much thought can be dangerous. Not only did I think, but I made every effort to listen to more conversations among my masters as to what they were planning to do with me, and for me.
I was able to gather that the ship either had already, when we came aboard, some cargo deliverable to London; or that some had been taken on when Saville informed Captain Walton of his new destination. I was no expert on maritime affairs; and yet such concepts as cargo and profit were in some way familiar to me.