No Friends

Archangel, 28^thMarch, 17—

To Mrs. Saville, England

How slowly the time passes here, accompanied by frost and snow! Yet a second step is taken towards my enterprise. I have hired a vessel and am occupied in collecting my sailors; those whom I have already engaged appear to be men on whom I can depend and are certainly possessed of intrepid courage.

But I have one want which I have never yet been able to satisfy, and the absence of the object of which I now feel as a most severe evil, I have no friend, Margaret: when I am glowing with the enthusiasm of success, there will be none to participate my joy; if I am assailed by disappointment, no one will endeavour to sustain me in depression. I shall commit my thoughts to paper, it is true; but that is a poor medium for the communication of feeling …

… My lieutenant, for instance, is a man of wonderful courage and enterprise; he is madly desirous of glory, or rather, to word my phrase more characteristically, of advancement in his profession. He is an Englishman, and in the midst of national and professional prejudices, unsoftened by cultivation, retains some of the noblest gifts of humanity. I first became acquainted with him on board a whale vessel; finding that he was unemployed in this city, I easily engaged him to assist in my enterprise. The master is a person of an excellent disposition and is remarkable in the ship for his gentleness and the mildness of his discipline. This circumstance, added to his well-known integrity and intrepid courage, made me very desirous to engage him. A youth passed in solitude, my best years spent under your gentle and feminine raising, has so refined the groundwork of my character that I cannot overcome an intense distaste to the usual brutality exercised on board ship: I have never believed it to be necessary, and when I heard of a mariner equally noted for his kindliness of heart and the respect and obedience paid to him by his crew, I felt myself peculiarly fortunate in being able to secure his services. I heard of him first in rather a romantic manner, from a lady who owes to him the happiness of her life. This, briefly, is his story. Some years ago he loved a young Russian lady of moderate fortune, and having amassed a considerable sum in prize-money, the father of the girl consented to the match. He saw his mistress once before the destined ceremony; but she was bathed in tears, and throwing herself at his feet, pleaded him to spare her, confessing at the same time that she loved another, but that he was poor, and that her father would never consent to the union. My generous friend reassured the petitioner, and on being informed of the name of her lover, instantly abandoned his pursuit. He had already bought a farm with his money, on which he had designed to pass the remainder of his life; but he gave the whole on his rival, together with the remains of his prize-money to purchase stock, and then himself solicited the young woman's father to consent to her marriage with her lover. But the old man decidedly refused, thinking himself bound in honour to my friend, who, when he found the father inexorable, quitted his country, nor returned until he heard that his former mistress was married according to her inclinations. "What a noble fellow!" you will exclaim. He is so; but then he is wholly uneducated: he is as silent as a Turk, and a kind of ignorant carelessness attends him, which, while it renders his conduct the more astonishing, detracts from the interest and sympathy which otherwise he would command.

Yet do not suppose, because I complain a little or because I can conceive a consolation for my toils which I may never know, that I am hesitant in my resolutions. Those are as fixed as fate, and my voyage is only now delayed until the weather shall permit my embarkation. The winter has been dreadfully severe, but the spring promises well, and it is considered as a remarkably early season, so that perhaps I may sail sooner than I expected. I shall do nothing rashly: you know me sufficiently to confide in my prudence and considerateness whenever the safety of others is committed to my care…

Shall I meet you again, after having traversed immense seas, and returned by the most southern cape of Africa or America? I dare not expect such success, yet I cannot bear to look on the reverse of the picture … I love you very tenderly. Remember me with affection, should you never hear from me again.

Your affectionate brother, Robert Walton (en ingles más fácil)

Vocabulario

Arkhangelsk, o Archangel se ubica en ambos lados del rio Dvina cerca de su salida en el Mar Blanco. Fue el principal puerto en la Rusia medieval hasta 1703.

El libro: “Frankenstein o el Moderno Prometeo” fue escrito por Mary Shelley, británica, acerca de un excéntrico científico quien crea una grotesca criatura en un experimento científico poco ortodoxo. Shelley comenzó a escribir su historia cuando tenía dieciocho años y se publicó al cumplir sus veinte. La primera edición fue publicada anónimamente en Londres en 1818. El nombre de la autora aparece en la segunda edición, publicada en Francia en 1823.

La historia surgió de un sueño. Mary, Percy Shelley, Lord Byron y John Polidori decidieron realizar una competencia para establecer quién podía escribir la mejor historia de horror.

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