Frankenstein

of my malignity, it softened and attracted me. For a few moments I gazed
with delight on her dark eyes, fringed by deep lashes, and her lovely
lips; but presently my rage returned: I remembered that I was for ever
deprived of the delights that such beautiful creatures could bestow; and
that she whose resemblance I contemplated would, in regarding me, have
changed that air of divine benignity to one expressive of disgust and
affright.

"Can you wonder that such thoughts transported me with rage? I only
wonder that at that moment, instead of venting my sensations in
exclamations and agony, I did not rush among mankind, and perish in the
attempt to destroy them.

"While I was overcome by these feelings, I left the spot where I had
committed the murder, and seeking a more secluded hiding-place, I
entered a barn which had appeared to me to be empty. A woman was
sleeping on some straw; she was young: not indeed so beautiful as her
whose portrait I held; but of an agreeable aspect, and blooming in the
loveliness of youth and health. Here, I thought, is one of those whose
joy-imparting smiles are bestowed on all but me. And then I bent over
her, and whispered 'Awake, fairest, thy lover is near--he who would give