Frankenstein; or, The Modern Prometheus

The beauty of spring cheers the creature. One day, a beautiful woman in a black veil—Safie—approaches on horseback and asks for Felix. Felix is ecstatic. Though they are happy to see each other, she speaks a different language than the cottagers. Felix calls her “his sweet Arabian” (102). When the cottagers begin to teach her their language, the creature decides he will follow along with their lessons.

The next morning, Safie sings to the old man, and her voice is so beautiful that the creature weeps. Safie remains with the cottagers, and the creature continues to learn the cottagers’ language by listening to their lessons. Felix and Safie study various books that give the creature “an insight into the manners, governments, and religions of the different nations of the earth” (104). The creature wonders how people can be “at once so powerful, so virtuous and magnificent, yet so vicious and base” (104). When he hears about humans’ “vice and bloodshed,” he feels “disgust and loathing” (104). He also hears about “division of property, of immense wealth and squalid poverty, of rank, descent, and noble blood” (104).

The creature considers how he himself has no property and is “hideously deformed and loathsome” (105).