My name is Victor Frankenstein, and for generations my family has been one of the most respected in the government of Geneva. My parents raised me and my two younger brothers, Ernest and William, with patience and love and even brought into our family Elizabeth Lavenza, the orphaned2 daughter of an Italian family.
Elizabeth was a year younger than I, and I truly loved her as my sister, even though we called her my cousin. We spent many happy hours together as we grew up. Elizabeth loved the wonderful sights of nature, while I was more interested in investigating why things in nature happened... When I started school, I formed a lifelong friendship with Henry Clerval. He enjoyed writing adventure stories of heroic knights, then getting me to act them out with him.
What a happy childhood I had! Kind parents, a loving sister, two happy brothers and a fun-loving friend. All this... before my life was ruined... before my wild ambition drove me to unlocking the secrets of nature that had been hidden from man since life on Earth began.
At the age of thirteen, my only interest in science was to discover a way to cure disease, to stop people from dying. My boyhood dreams for studying science continued at the university. My aim was still to find ways to cure disease and prolong3 human life.
I was encouraged to study both modern and ancient scientists by Professor Waldman, my favorite teacher. “By combining knowledge from both,” he told me, “you’ll have unlimited powers. You’ll be able to discover the secrets of the earth, along with the secrets of man’s body and how it works.”
“But, sir,” I protested, “I want to discover more than just the secrets of how the human body works.” And it was that moment that I knew I had to discover the secrets of how the human body was created!
I set up a laboratory on the top floor of my apartment house and worked most night straight through until dawn. For the next months, I spent days and nights in charnel4 houses, the church buildings where corpses5 were kept until they were buried. I learned what happened to people’s bodies right after death, but I needed to know more—I needed to know how death changed the human body as weeks, months, and even years passed. To learn this, I secretly visited cemeteries on dark nights and dug up bodies to study them.
Months of studying and experimenting led to one memorable night when a wondrous light turned on in my brain. In that one astonishing moment, I suddenly understood not only how life turned into death... but how death could be turned back into life!
The realization made me so dizzy, all I could do was ask myself, “Why didn’t the great scientists who came before me discover this secret? Why have I been blessed with unlocking the mysteries of creation?” What followed next were weeks and months of incredible work and fatigue. Not only had I discovered the origin of life, but I continued experimenting until I was actually able to create life from lifeless matter!
The joy I felt made me forget the painful weeks and months I had spent on my work. All I knew was that I had discovered something that men of science had been trying to discover since the world began!
Why do I say that I’ve been destroyed? I say it because the knowledge and power that the secret gave me was more than I, or any man for that matter, could handle.
At first, I spent a great deal of time wondering how to use that knowledge. I knew how to create life, but what should I put that life into? I would need some sort of form in which to put muscles, bones, organs, arteries6, veins, and other body parts. Yes, I would give life to a creature as complex and as wonderful as a human being!
Because of all the intricate7 parts that make up a human body, I decided that the creature would have to be gigantic, about eight feet tall, for me to be able to attach all the body parts, inside and outside.
I spent the next several months collecting all the materials I would need: bones from bodies in charnel houses, animal parts from slaughter8 houses where meat was prepared for market, live animals I trapped or bought, body parts and instruments from the dissecting room9 at the university, and, yes, whole bodies which I dug up from graveyards! <To be continued>
我叫维克多·弗兰肯斯坦，祖辈都是日内瓦的名门望族。在父母悉心照顾与关爱下，我和两个弟弟——欧内斯特、威廉姆健康成长，父母还收养了一个意大利孤儿——伊丽莎白·拉温莎。
伊丽莎白比我小一岁，尽管我们称她为表妹，其实我心里把她当成亲妹妹一样疼爱着。我们一起长大，共同度过许多美好时光。伊丽莎白热爱自然美景，而我更热衷于探索自然界的奥秘……当我开始上学时，我交上了一个终生好友——亨利·克莱佛。他喜欢写一些英勇骑士们的探险故事，然后再叫我和他一起表演出来。
我有一段多么幸福的童年啊！和蔼的父母，可爱的妹妹，两个逗人开心的弟弟和一位风趣的朋友——可我的生活……所有这一切，在我的野心驱动我去解开人类生命起源的奥秘后，都没了。
13岁的时候，我对自然科学产生了兴趣。我只是想找到一种方法，帮助人们治愈疾病、远离死亡。直到我进了大学，学习自然科学的童年梦想仍萦绕在脑海，我的目标还是要找到治愈疾病、延长人们生命的办法。
在我最喜欢的老师——瓦尔多教授的鼓励下，我投身于现代科学与古代科学的学习中。“通过两种科学的融会贯通，”他告诉我，“你会拥有无限的力量。你可以去发现地球和人体的秘密，发现人体运作的原理。”
“但是，先生，”我坚持道，“我想知道的不仅仅是人体如何运作。”就在那个时候，我知道我的使命是揭开生命本源的奥秘！
我在公寓的顶楼建了一间实验室，几乎每天都从深夜工作到黎明。接下来的几个月，我通宵达旦地泡在停尸房和教堂里，那儿存放着等待下葬的尸体。我了解了人刚死后身体发生的变化，但是我要知道的远远不止这些——我要知道尸体在数周、数月、甚至数年后发生的变化。为了寻求答案，我深夜悄悄潜往墓地，挖出尸体来研究。
经过数月研究与实验，在一个令人难忘的夜里，我的脑中突然电光一闪：在这匪夷所思的时刻，我突然发现了一切——人是如何从生到死……还有如何叫人起死回生！
目标终于实现了，我却激动得晕眩起来。我只是反复地问自己：“为什么在我之前那些伟大的科学家们没有发现这个奥秘？而我却会如此受上天恩宠，揭开了创造生命的奥秘？”随后的几十天，我完全沉浸在这项令人难以置信的研究中，疲惫不堪。我不仅发现了生命的起源，而且通过接下来的实验，事实上我已经能够让无生命的物体活起来！
成功的喜悦让我忘却了数周乃至数月投身工作的痛苦辛劳。我只有一个念头：我发现了自世界存在以来科学家们都在探索的奥秘！
为什么我说我被毁了？这样说是因为：这个奥秘所带来的知识和力量，不仅是我，换成世上任何一个人都没能力去操控。
刚开始，我一直在苦苦思索：我知道了如何创造生命，可我应该把生命注入何种物体之中？我需要某种形式的载体来置放肌肉、骨骼、器官、动脉、静脉及其它身体部分。对，我要把生命注入类似人体结构那么复杂精妙的生物体内！
由于人体结构太过错综复杂，我决定我所创造的生物要有8英尺高大，这样我才好组装他身体里里外外各个部分。
我又花了几个月来收集所需的材料：从停尸房里偷来人体骨骼；从屠宰场待卖的肉里找来动物肢体；捕获或购买活着的动物；从大学解剖室弄来人体各个部分和实验所用器械；以及从墓地挖出完整的尸体！
1. 玛丽·雪莱（1797年～1851年），英国著名小说家，诗人雪莱的妻子。玛丽在1818年创作出科幻小说《弗兰肯斯坦》，后人称她为“科幻小说之母”。
2. orphaned adj. 失去双亲的
3. prolong v. 拖延
4. charnel n. 停尸房
5. corpse n. 尸体
6. artery n. 动脉
7. intricate adj. 复杂的
8. slaughter n. 屠宰
9. dissecting room 解剖室