Frankenstein's agreement to create a female

Victor Frankenstein, after hearing the monster's tale and being moved by his arguments, agrees to create a female companion for him, swearing the monster to a solemn oath to leave Europe forever.

The Confrontation on the Glacier

The agreement was forged in the crucible of the monster's long, strange tale, which he narrated to Victor on the glacier of Montanvert. The monster had finished speaking and fixed his looks upon Victor in expectation of a reply. Victor was bewildered, perplexed, and unable to arrange his ideas sufficiently to understand the full extent of the proposition. The monster then demanded, "You must create a female for me with whom I can live in the interchange of those sympathies necessary for my being. This you alone can do, and I demand it of you as a right which you must not refuse to concede." The latter part of the monster's tale had kindled anew in Victor the anger that had died away while he narrated his peaceful life among the cottagers, and as he said this Victor could no longer suppress the rage that burned within him. Victor replied, "I do refuse it; and no torture shall ever extort a consent from me. You may render me the most miserable of men, but you shall never make me base in my own eyes. Shall I create another like yourself, whose joint wickedness might desolate the world. Begone! I have answered you; you may torture me, but I will never consent."

The Monster's Reasoning and Victor's Change of Heart

The monster, however, was not deterred. He replied, "You are in the wrong; and instead of threatening, I am content to reason with you. I am malicious because I am miserable. Am I not shunned and hated by all mankind? You, my creator, would tear me to pieces and triumph; remember that, and tell me why I should pity man more than he pities me?" He argued that if any being felt emotions of benevolence towards him, he would return them a hundred and a hundredfold; for that one creature's sake he would make peace with the whole kind. He insisted that what he asked was reasonable and moderate: a creature of another sex, as hideous as himself. "It is true, we shall be monsters, cut off from all the world; but on that account we shall be more attached to one another. Our lives will not be happy, but they will be harmless and free from the misery I now feel." He promised that if Victor consented, neither he nor any other human being should ever see them again; he would go to the vast wilds of South America, where acorns and berries would afford him sufficient nourishment. Victor was moved. He shuddered when he thought of the possible consequences of his consent, but he felt that there was some justice in the monster's argument. The monster's tale and the feelings he now expressed proved him to be a creature of fine sensations, and Victor, as his maker, felt he owed him all the portion of happiness that it was in his power to bestow. Yet Victor still resisted, fearing that the monster would return and again seek the kindness of man, and that his evil passions would be renewed, now with a companion to aid him in destruction. The monster swore by the earth which he inhabited and by Victor himself that with the companion he bestowed he would quit the neighbourhood of man and dwell in the most savage of places. "My evil passions will have fled, for I shall meet with sympathy! My life will flow quietly away, and in my dying moments I shall not curse my maker." Victor paused to reflect on all the monster had related and the various arguments he had employed. He thought of the promise of virtues the monster had displayed on the opening of his existence and the subsequent blight of all kindly feeling by the loathing and scorn which his protectors had manifested towards him. The monster's power and threats were not omitted in Victor's calculations; a creature who could exist in the ice caves of the glaciers and hide himself from pursuit among the ridges of inaccessible precipices was a being possessing faculties it would be vain to cope with. After a long pause of reflection, Victor concluded that the justice due both to the monster and to his fellow creatures demanded that he should comply with the request.

The Oath and the Agreement

Turning to the monster, Victor said, "I consent to your demand, on your solemn oath to quit Europe forever, and every other place in the neighbourhood of man, as soon as I shall deliver into your hands a female who will accompany you in your exile." The monster cried, "I swear, by the sun, and by the blue sky of heaven, and by the fire of love that burns my heart, that if you grant my prayer, while they exist you shall never behold me again. Depart to your home and commence your labours; I shall watch their progress with unutterable anxiety; and fear not but that when you are ready I shall appear." Saying this, he suddenly quitted Victor, fearful, perhaps, of any change in his sentiments. Victor saw him descend the mountain with greater speed than the flight of an eagle, and quickly lost among the undulations of the sea of ice.

Consequences and the Burden of the Promise

The monster's tale had occupied the whole day, and the sun was upon the verge of the horizon when he departed. Victor knew that he ought to hasten his descent towards the valley, as he would soon be encompassed in darkness, but his heart was heavy, and his steps slow. He wept bitterly, and clasping his hands in agony, he exclaimed, "Oh! Stars and clouds and winds, ye are all about to mock me; if ye really pity me, crush sensation and memory; let me become as nought; but if not, depart, depart, and leave me in darkness." Morning dawned before he arrived at the village of Chamounix; he took no rest, but returned immediately to Geneva. Even in his own heart he could give no expression to his sensations — they weighed on him with a mountain's weight. He felt as if he were placed under a ban — as if he had no right to claim the sympathies of his family — as if never more might he enjoy companionship with them. Yet even thus he loved them to adoration; and to save them, he resolved to dedicate himself to his most abhorred task. The prospect of such an occupation made every other circumstance of existence pass before him like a dream, and that thought only had to him the reality of life.