It was on a dreary night of November that I saw the result of my labours. Anxiously, I collected my instruments around me, that I might inject a spark of life into the lifeless thing that lay at my feet. It was already one in the morning; the rain pattered dismally against the window, and my candle was nearly burnt out, when, in the fading light, I saw the dull yellow eye of the creature open; it breathed hard, and a convulsive motion shook its limbs.

How can I describe my emotions at this moment, or how can I describe the wretch whom I had so carefully and painstakingly created? His limbs were in proportion, and I had intended his features to be beautiful. Beautiful! Great God! His yellow skin scarcely covered the muscles and arteries beneath; his hair was shiny black, and flowing; his teeth of pearly whiteness; but these only formed a more horrible contrast with his watery eyes, that seemed almost of the same colour as the dirty-white sockets in which they were set, his wrinkled complexion and straight black lips.

Within stood a tall old man, clean-shaven save for a long white moustache, and clad in black from head to foot, without a single speck of colour about him anywhere....

His face was strong and bird-like, with a thin nose and peculiarly arched nostrils, with a high forehead, and hair growing thinly round the temples, but thickly elsewhere. His eyebrows were massive, almost meeting over the nose, and bushy. The mouth, so far as I could see it under the heavy moustache, was rather cruel-looking, with peculiarly sharp white teeth; these protruded over the lips, whose remarkable ruddiness showed astonishing vitality in a man of his years. For the rest, his ears were pale and at the tops extremely pointed; the chin was broad and strong, and the cheeks firm though thin. The general effect was one of extraordinary pallor.