Франкенштейн, или Современный Прометей / Frankenstein, or The Modern Prometheus. Уровень 2

The busy stage of life, the virtues of heroes, and the actions of men were his theme. The saintly soul of Elizabeth shone in our peaceful home. Her sympathy was ours; her smile, her soft voice, the sweet glance of her celestial eyes, were there to bless and animate us.

Natural philosophy has regulated my fate. I liked to read the works of Agrippa, Paracelsus and Magnus. I read and studied the works of these writers with delight; they appeared to me treasures. I believed them, and I became their disciple. Under the guidance of my new preceptors I began to look for the philosopher’s stone and the elixir of life.

I wanted to banish disease from the humankind and save the people from death!

My favourite authors promised to call the ghosts or devils. If my incantations were always unsuccessful, I attributed the failure to my own inexperience and mistake.

When I was about fifteen years old we moved to our house near Belrive. My tormenting studies led to the evil. Destiny was potent, and its immutable laws decreed my terrible destruction.

Chapter 3

When I was seventeen I became a student at the university of Ingolstadt. My departure was fixed, but then the first misfortune of my life occurred – an omen of my future misery.

Elizabeth caught the scarlet fever[9 - caught the scarlet fever – заболела скарлатиной]. Her illness was severe, and she was in danger. My mother could not control her anxiety. She attended her sickbed. Elizabeth was saved, but the sickness was fatal to her saviour.

On the third day my mother sickened. On her deathbed this best of women joined the hands of Elizabeth and myself.

“My children,” she said, “Alas! I regret that I go away from you. Love each other, I hope to meet you in another world.”

She died calmly. The day of my departure for Ingolstadt at length arrived. Clerval spent the last evening with us. He persuaded his father to permit him to accompany me and to become my fellow student, but in vain.

His father was a trader.

My journey to Ingolstadt was long and fatiguing. At length I saw the high white steeple of the town. The next morning I delivered my letters of introduction[10 - letters of introduction – рекомендательные письма] and paid a visit to some professors. Chance – or rather the Angel of Destruction – led me to M. Krempe, professor of natural philosophy. He was an uncouth man, but an excellent scientist.