On a dreary November night, Victor finally succeeds in bringing his creature to life. The moment the creature's dull yellow eye opens, Victor's triumph transforms instantly into horror. The eight-foot being he spent months assembling is hideous, yellow skin barely covering muscles and arteries, watery eyes, black lips. Victor calls his own achievement a 'catastrophe' and his creation a 'wretch.' Unable to endure looking at what he's made, Victor flees his laboratory and spends the night pacing his bedroom in terror. When he finally collapses into fevered sleep, he dreams of kissing Elizabeth only to have her transform into his dead mother's corpse covered in grave-worms.
He wakes to find the creature standing over his bed, reaching out to him. Victor runs screaming from the apartment and spends the rest of the night hiding in a courtyard, terrified. By morning, still too afraid to return home, Victor wanders the rainy streets in a state of shock. Then, by pure chance, he encounters Henry Clerval arriving from Geneva. Henry's familiar face brings Victor momentary relief, the first human connection he's felt in months.
But when they return to Victor's apartment, he's terrified the creature might still be there. To his relief, the room is empty, the creature has vanished. Victor's relief triggers a complete breakdown: he becomes manic, talking incoherently, jumping over furniture, until he collapses into a violent fever that lasts for months. Henry nurses him through it all, never learning what caused Victor's breakdown. This chapter reveals the full horror of Victor's irresponsibility: he created a living, conscious being and immediately abandoned it in disgust, leaving a newborn consciousness alone in a world that will fear and hate it.
Coming Up in Chapter 10
Victor tries to return to normal life, but you can't outrun what you've created. A letter from home brings news that will force him to confront the wider world beyond his obsessions Victor slowly recovers from his months-long fever, nursed devotedly by Henry Clerval. When he's finally well enough, Clerval gives him a letter from Elizabeth that's been waiting..
