In Mary Shelley's Frankenstein or the Modern
Prometheus, Victor has worked for years with the goal of reanimating flesh.
In Chapter Five, when he comes to the moment of truth, seeing if the experiment will
work, Victor is filled:
...with an anxiety that almost amounted to
agony.
Whereas Victor had
carefully tried to create an "attractive" creature, with flowing dark hair and brilliant
white teeth, the reality of the monster that lies before him horrifies Victor. When he
sees the breathing being he has created:
...breathless horror and disgust filled my heart.
Unable to endure the aspect of the being I had created, I rushed out of the
room...unable to compose my mind to
sleep.
Victor tries to sleep
in order to escape the horror of what he has done, but his dreams are strange and
frightening nightmares. When he awakes, Victor sees the creature at the side of his bed,
attempting to reach out to him, but Victor escapes.
Victor
paces in the courtyard all night. When the city awakes, Victor walks about,
coincidentally meeting a carriage bringing his dear old friend, Henry Clerval, to
Ingolstadt. Clerval notes Victor's unhealthy pallor. They return to Victor's home, and
finding the creature gone, Victor nearly goes insane with
relief:
...but I was unable to contain myself. It was
not joy only that possessed me; I felt my flesh tingle with excess of sensitiveness, and
my pulse beat rapidly. I was unable to remain for a single instant in the same place; I
jumped over the chairs, clapped my hands, and laughed aloud...when [Clerval] observed me
more attentively, he saw a wildness in my eyes for which he could not
account.
It is, at this
point, that Victor collapses with a nervous fever, and Clerval nurses him through this
difficult time. Only later does Victor begin to recover, becoming much the same man he
had been before attending the university.
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