Mary was present during that conversation. She wasn’t invited to participate, first, because she was a woman, and, even worse, because she was very young. And yet that conversation must have marked her deeply. Why did she not just write something to pass the time? She had a subject, she simply needed to develop it and keep the book to herself when she had finished it.
However, when they returned to England, Shelley read the manuscript and encouraged her to publish it. Further, since he was already famous, he decided to submit it to a publisher and write the preface himself. Mary resisted, but in the end agreed, with one condition: her name should not appear on the cover.
The initial print run of five hundred copies quickly sold out. Mary thought it must be because of Shelley’s preface, but, on the second edition, she agreed to allow her name to appear as author. Ever since, the book has remained a constant presence in bookshops around the world. It has inspired writers, theater directors, film directors, Halloween partiers, and those at masked balls. It was recently described by one well-known critic as “the most creative work of Romanticism and possibly of the last two hundred years.”
No one can explain why. Most people have never read it, but almost everyone has heard of it.
It tells the story of Victor, a Swiss scientist, born in Geneva and brought up by his parents to understand the world through science. While still a child, he sees a lightning bolt strike a tree and wonders if that is the source of life. Could man create another human being?
And like a modern version of Prometheus, the mythological figure who stole fire from the gods in order to help mankind (the author used The Modern Prometheus as her subtitle, but few remember this), he begins to work to try and replicate God’s greatest deed. Needless to say, despite all the care he takes, the experiment slides out of his control.
The title of the book: Frankenstein.
Dear God, of whom I think very little but in whom I trust in times of affliction, did I come here purely by chance? Or was it Your invisible and implacable hand that led me to this castle and reminded me of that story?
Mary met Shelley when she was fifteen. He was already married, but, undeterred by social conventions, she followed the man she considered the love of her life.
Fifteen! And she already knew exactly what she wanted. And knew how to get it, too. I’m in my thirties and wish for a different things every hour, but am incapable of fulfilling them … although I’m perfectly capable of walking through a romantic, melancholy autumn afternoon, thinking about what to say when the moment arrives.
I am not Mary Shelley. I’m Victor Frankenstein and his monster.
I tried to breathe life into something inanimate, and the result will be the same as in the book: spreading terror and destruction.
No more tears. No more despair. I feel as though my heart has given up beating. My body reacts accordingly, because I can’t move. It’s autumn, and the evening comes on quickly, the lovely sunset soon replaced by twilight. I’m still sitting here when night comes, looking at the castle and seeing its tenants scandalizing the bourgeoisie of Geneva at the beginning of the nineteenth century.
Where is the lightning bolt that brought the monster to life?
No bolt from out of the blue. The traffic, which isn’t very heavy in this area, anyway, grows still thinner. My children will be waiting for their dinner, and my husband—who knows the state I’m in—will soon start to worry. But it’s as if I have a ball and chain around my feet. I still can’t move.
I’m a loser.
SHOULD someone beg forgiveness for harboring an impossible Love?
No, certainly not.
Because God’s Love for us is also impossible. It’s never requited at the time, and yet He continues to love us. He loved us so much that He sent His only son to explain how Love is the force that moves the sun and all the stars. In one of his letters to the Corinthians (which we were made to learn by heart at school), Paul says:
Though I speak with the tongues of men and of angels, and have not charity, I am become as sounding brass, or a tinkling cymbal.
And we all know why. We often hear what seem to be great ideas to transform the world, but they are words spoken without feeling, empty of Love. However logical and intelligent they might be, they do not touch us.
Paul compares Love with Prophecy, with knowledge of the Mysteries, and with Faith and Charity.
Why is Love more important than Faith?
Because Faith is merely the road that leads us to the Greater Love.
Why is Love more important than Charity?
Because Charity is only one of the manifestations of Love. And the whole is always more important than the part. And Charity is also only one of the many roads that Love uses to bring man closer to his fellow man.
And we all know that there is a lot of Charity out there without Love. Every week, a “charity ball” is held. People pay a fortune to buy a table, take part, and have fun in their jewels and their expensive clothes. We leave thinking that the world is a better place because of the amount of money collected for the homeless in Somalia, the refugees from Yemen, or the starving in Ethiopia. We stop feeling guilty about the cruel display of poverty, but we never ask ourselves where that money is going.
Those without the right contacts to go to a charity ball or those who can’t afford such extravagance will pass by a beggar and give him a coin. Fine. What could be easier than tossing a coin at a beggar in the street? It’s usually easier than not doing so.
What a sense of relief, and for just one coin! It’s cheap and solves the beggar’s problem.
However, if we really loved him, we would do a lot more for him.
Or we would do nothing. We wouldn’t give him that coin and—who knows?—our sense of guilt at such poverty might awaken real Love in us.
Paul then goes on to compare Love with sacrifice and martyrdom.
I understand his words better today. Even if I were the most successful woman in the world, even if I were more admired and more desired than Marianne K?nig, it would be worth nothing if I had no Love in my heart. Nothing.
Whenever I interview artists or politicians, social workers or doctors, students or civil servants, I always ask: “What is your objective, your goal?” Some say: to start a family. Others say: to get on in my career. But when I probe deeper and ask again, the automatic response is: to make the world a better place.
I feel like going to the Mont Blanc Bridge in Geneva with a manifesto printed in letters of gold and handing it to every passing person and car. On it will be written:
I ask all those who hope to one day work for the good of humanity: never forget that even if you deliver up your body to be burned, you gain nothing if you have not Love. Nothing!
There is nothing more important we can give than the Love reflected in our own lives. That is the one universal language that allows us to speak Chinese or the dialects of India. When I was young, I traveled a lot—it was part of every student’s rite of passage. I visited countries both rich and poor. I did not usually speak the local language, but everywhere the silent eloquence of Love helped me make myself understood.
The message of Love is in the way I live my life, and not in my words or my deeds.
In the letter to the Corinthians, Paul tells us, in three short lines, that Love is made of many elements, like light. We learn at school that if we pick up a prism and allow a ray of light to pass through, that ray will divide into seven colors, those of the rainbow.
Paul shows us the rainbow of Love just as a prism reveals to us the rainbow of light.
And what are those elements? They are virtues we hear about every day and that we can practice in every moment.
Patience: Love is patient …
Kindness:… and kind.
Generosity: Love does not envy …
Humility:… or boast; it is not arrogant …
Courtesy:… or rude.
Unselfishness: It does not insist on its own way.
Good temper: It is not irritable … or resentful.
Guilelessness: or resentful.
Sincerity: It does not rejoice at wrongdoing, but rejoices with the truth.