London became our temporary home, and we decided to stay there for several months.
Henry was excited about meeting the writers, scientists, and other talented people who were making a name for themselves in the city.
For me, however, meeting people was not important.
I had come to England for one reason.
I needed the knowledge required to keep my terrible promise.
I quickly used the letters of introduction I had brought from Geneva and began visiting some of the country’s most respected scientists.
If this journey had happened during the happier years of my life, I would have been thrilled.
I would have enjoyed every conversation and every new friendship.
But those days were gone.
Now I visited these men only because I hoped they could give me information that would help me complete my work.
Being around other people had become exhausting.
When I was alone, I could lose myself in the beauty of the sky, the earth, and the natural world.
Henry’s company also brought me some peace. His cheerful voice could temporarily quiet the darkness in my mind.
But whenever I saw happy people laughing and enjoying their lives, my despair returned.
I felt separated from the rest of humanity by a wall I could never cross.
That wall had been built with the blood of William and Justine.
Whenever I remembered what had happened to them, the pain became almost unbearable.
Henry, however, reminded me of the person I had once been.
He was curious about everything.
He wanted to learn, explore, and understand the world around him.
Every new custom and every difference between English life and our own fascinated him.
He also had a personal ambition that had occupied his thoughts for years.
He dreamed of traveling to India.
He believed that his knowledge of Indian languages and his understanding of Indian society might one day help him contribute to European trade and expansion there.
England was an important step toward making that dream possible.
Henry was always busy.
The only thing that limited his happiness was the sadness he could see in me.
I tried to hide it from him.
I did not want my misery to ruin the excitement of this new stage of his life.
Sometimes he asked me to go somewhere with him, but I refused.
“I have another appointment,” I would say.
In reality, I simply wanted to be alone.
At the same time, I began gathering the materials I needed for my second creation.
Every step toward that task felt like torture.
It was as if a single drop of water were falling onto my head again and again without stopping.
Whenever I thought about the work, I felt terrible pain.
Even mentioning it made my lips tremble and my heart race.
Several months passed in London.
Then we received a letter from a man in Scotland who had once visited us in Geneva.
He described the beauty of his homeland and invited us to travel farther north and visit him in Perth.
Henry immediately wanted to accept.
As for me, although I had grown to hate social life, I still wanted to see mountains and rivers again.
I longed for the kind of wild beauty that had once brought me peace.
We had arrived in England in October.
By February, we had been there for several months.
We decided to begin our journey north after another month.
We would not take the direct road to Edinburgh.
Instead, we planned to visit Windsor, Oxford, Matlock, and the lakes of Cumberland before eventually reaching Scotland.
We expected the entire journey to last until the end of July.
I packed my chemical equipment and the materials I had collected.
My plan was simple.
Somewhere in the remote Scottish Highlands, I would finally finish my work.
On March 27, we left London.
We spent several days at Windsor, walking through its magnificent forest.
For two men who had grown up among mountains, the forest was a completely different world.
The enormous oak trees impressed us.
So did the large number of wild animals and the graceful deer moving through the woods.
From Windsor, we continued to Oxford.
As soon as we entered the city, we were reminded of its dramatic history.
More than a century earlier, King Charles I had gathered his army there during the English Civil War.
Oxford had remained loyal to him even after much of the country had turned against him and supported Parliament.
Everywhere we went, we could imagine the people connected with that troubled period—the king himself, his loyal friend Falkland, the ambitious Goring, the queen, and their son.
It felt as though the past still lived in the streets.
Henry loved that feeling.
Even without its history, Oxford would have been beautiful enough to impress us.
The old colleges were magnificent.
The streets had an almost grand appearance.
And the river Isis flowed peacefully beside the city through bright green meadows.
Its calm surface reflected the towers, domes, and church spires rising among the ancient trees.
I enjoyed Oxford.
But my happiness was never complete.
The past haunted me.
So did the future.
I had once been made for a quiet and happy life.
When I was young, sadness rarely entered my mind.
Whenever boredom or restlessness troubled me, nature could always lift my spirits. Beautiful landscapes and great works created by human beings were enough to make me feel alive again.
But that person was gone.
I felt like a tree that had been struck by lightning.
The damage was deep inside me.
I knew I would survive only long enough to become a miserable reminder of what a human being could lose.
Henry and I spent a long time exploring Oxford and its surroundings.
We searched for places connected with the most important moments in English history.
Every new discovery led us somewhere else, so our walks often lasted much longer than we expected.
One place affected me deeply.
We visited the tomb of John Hampden and the battlefield where he had died.
For a brief moment, I forgot my own misery.
Standing there, I thought about courage, freedom, and the willingness to sacrifice everything for a cause.
For one precious moment, I felt free.
It was as though the chains around my soul had disappeared.
But the feeling did not last.
The chains were still there.
I soon fell back into fear and hopelessness.
Eventually, we left Oxford, although we were reluctant to go.
Our next stop was Matlock.
The landscape around the village reminded me of Switzerland.
But everything was smaller.
The hills were lower, and there were no distant snow-covered Alps rising above them.
We visited a remarkable cave and several small natural-history collections.
Their displays reminded us of collections we had seen in Servoz and Chamonix.
But then Henry mentioned Chamonix.
The name alone made my blood run cold.
I immediately wanted to leave.
That place was connected with memories I could never escape.
From Derby, we continued north.
We spent two months traveling through Cumberland and Westmorland.
The landscape there began to feel strangely familiar.
For the first time in a long while, I could almost imagine myself back among the mountains of Switzerland.
Patches of snow still covered the northern sides of the mountains.
There were beautiful lakes everywhere.
Clear streams rushed over rocks and through the valleys.
These sights were deeply familiar to me.
They brought back memories of home.
We also met several people who were kind enough to make me almost forget my misery.
Henry was happier than ever.
Being around intelligent and talented people seemed to awaken parts of his personality that he had never known were there.
He discovered new interests and abilities within himself.
One day he turned to me with a smile.
“I could stay here forever,” he said. “With these mountains around me, I might hardly miss Switzerland or the Rhine.”
But traveling had its own difficulties.
The excitement of discovering new places never lasted forever.
A traveler could become deeply attached to one place, only to be forced to leave it when the journey continued.
We had barely finished exploring the lakes of Cumberland and Westmorland when the time came to meet our Scottish friend.
I was not sorry to leave.
By then, I had delayed my promise for far too long.
I was terrified of what the creature might do if he became impatient.
What if he remained in Switzerland and attacked my family?
That thought followed me everywhere.
I could not relax.
I waited for letters from home with desperate impatience.
Whenever a letter was late, I imagined the worst.
And whenever one finally arrived, I was almost afraid to open it.
If I saw Elizabeth’s handwriting or my father’s name on the envelope, my heart would pound.
I was terrified of discovering that something terrible had happened.
Sometimes I imagined that the creature was following me.
Perhaps he would become impatient and kill Henry.
Whenever that fear became too strong, I refused to leave Henry’s side.
I followed him everywhere like a shadow.
I wanted to protect him from an enemy who might not even be there.
I felt like a criminal waiting for punishment.
I had not murdered anyone myself, yet I knew I had brought a terrible curse upon my family.
When we reached Edinburgh, I could barely appreciate the city.
Henry loved Oxford more because of its ancient history, but even he was impressed by Edinburgh.
The new part of the city was beautiful and orderly.
The castle looked dramatic against the surrounding landscape.
Arthur’s Seat, St. Bernard’s Well, and the Pentland Hills were all magnificent.
Henry enjoyed every moment.
I could not.
I only wanted the journey to end.
A week later, we left Edinburgh.
We traveled through Coupar and St. Andrews and followed the River Tay until we reached Perth, where our Scottish friend was waiting for us.
By then, I had no desire to spend time with strangers.
I did not want to laugh, talk, or pretend to be a cheerful guest.
I finally turned to Henry.
“I want to travel through Scotland alone.”
Henry looked surprised.
“Please enjoy yourself here,” I continued. “Let this be our meeting place.”
“How long will you be gone?”
“Perhaps a month or two.”
I paused.
“Please don’t try to follow me or interfere with my plans. I need some time alone.”
Henry remained silent.
“When I return,” I said, “I hope I will feel better. Perhaps then my mood will be closer to yours.”
Henry tried to change my mind.
But he could see that I had already made my decision.
At last, he stopped arguing.
“Then promise me you’ll write often,” he said.
He looked genuinely unhappy.
“I would rather travel with you through those lonely places than stay here with people I barely know.”
He smiled sadly.
“So please come back quickly, my dear friend. I don’t feel completely at home while you’re gone.”
We said goodbye.
At last, I was alone.
I planned to find some remote corner of Scotland where no one could disturb me.
There I would finish my terrible work.
I had no doubt that the creature was following me.
I believed he would eventually appear when I finished, waiting to receive the companion I had promised him.
I traveled through the northern Highlands until I found what I wanted.
One of the most remote islands in the Orkneys seemed perfect.
It was little more than a bare rock surrounded by violent waves.
The land was almost useless.
Only a few miserable cows could find enough grass to survive there.
The five people who lived on the island survived mostly on oatmeal.
Their thin bodies showed how badly they suffered from hunger.
Even vegetables, bread, and fresh water had to be brought from the mainland, which was about five miles away.
There were only three huts on the entire island.
One of them stood empty when I arrived.
I rented it.
It had only two rooms.
The place was filthy and desperately poor.
Part of the roof had collapsed.
The walls were unfinished.
The door was barely attached to its hinges.
I had it repaired and bought a few pieces of furniture.
Then I moved in.
The islanders hardly reacted.
They had suffered for so long that poverty had almost destroyed their ability to be surprised.
I gave them food and clothing, yet they barely thanked me.
Suffering had made them numb.
For the first time in a long while, I was completely alone.
I spent my mornings working.
In the evenings, when the weather allowed it, I walked along the rocky shore.
I would stand there and listen to the waves crashing against the island.
The view was always the same, yet somehow never exactly the same.
It made me think of Switzerland.
But this place was nothing like my homeland.
Switzerland was full of green hills, vineyards, villages, and beautiful lakes.
Its mountains rose proudly into the distance.
Even when its lakes became rough during a storm, their waves seemed gentle compared with the enormous power of the open sea.
Here there was no comfort.
Only wind, rock, water, and endless loneliness.
At first, I followed a simple routine.
But the farther I went with my work, the more horrible it became.
Some days I could not even force myself to enter the laboratory.
On other days, I worked from morning until night without stopping.
The process was disgusting.
When I had created the first creature, I had been blinded by excitement.
I had been so obsessed with completing my experiment that I refused to think about what I was actually doing.
This time there was no excitement.
I knew exactly what I was doing.
And I hated every moment of it.
I was working on something unnatural and horrifying.
There was nowhere to escape.
No one was around to distract me.
My mind became more unstable with every passing day.
I grew nervous and restless.
At every moment, I expected to see the creature.
Sometimes I sat perfectly still, staring at the floor.
I was afraid to look up.
What if he was standing there?
What if I suddenly saw his face?
I was also afraid to walk too far from other people.
Even though I wanted solitude, part of me feared being completely alone.
I believed that if I was isolated, the creature might appear and demand the companion he had been promised.
Still, I continued working.
My creation was beginning to take shape.
The closer I came to finishing, the stronger my emotions became.
I wanted desperately to complete it.
I wanted the creature to leave me alone forever.
But I was also afraid of what would happen when the work was finished.
I could not bring myself to examine those fears too closely.
I simply kept working.
Every day brought me closer to the moment when I would have to face the consequences of what I had begun.