“ ‘Boy, you will never see your father again; you must come with me.’

“ ‘Hideous monster! let me go. My papa is a Syndic⁠—he is M. Frankenstein⁠—he will punish you. You dare not keep me.’

“ ‘Frankenstein! you belong then to my enemy⁠—to him towards whom I have sworn eternal revenge; you shall be my first victim.’

“The child still struggled, and loaded me with epithets which carried despair to my heart; I grasped his throat to silence him, and in a moment he lay dead at my feet.

“I gazed on my victim, and my heart swelled with exultation and hellish triumph: clapping my hands, I exclaimed, ‘I, too, can create desolation; my enemy is not invulnerable; this death will carry despair to him, and a thousand other miseries shall torment and destroy him.’