Chapter 11 A clear conscience 第11章 良知未泯

Mary Shelley

從偷吃食物的小偷到助人为乐的施善者，怪物经历了怎样的变化？

Each night， after the people in the house had gone to bed， I stole some of their food for myself. But soon I realized that the old man was blind. And I realized that often the three of them did not have enough to eat. I saw the two young people put extra food on the blind man's plate， although they were hungry themselves.

When I saw that， I stopped stealing their food. Their life was already hard enough， so I went back to the wild fruit in the woods. I tried to help them in other ways， too. During the night， I cut firewood for them， and added it secretly to the wood which the young man had cut during the day. I was very happy to see how much this pleased the young man.

After a while， I began to understand some of the noises that the people made to each other. The first words that I understood were words like

“fire” and“bread”. I also learned that the three people called each other by names. The girl was Agatha， the young man was Felix， and the old man was called Father. I tried to make the noises that they made， and slowly I began to speak.

The two young people were very beautiful. One day I saw my own face in the water of the river. It was a terrible face. I understood why people were frightened and why they shouted and threw stones. I knew then that I could not let these beautiful people see me. They would be frightened by my horrible face and body.

Summer was coming， and I continued to watch and learn. I also continued to help the two people and their father， and did many jobs for them in the night. They were always surprised in the morning when they saw what I had done. I heard them talk about the “good creature” who did these “wonderful” things.

But the family were often sad， and I wished I could make them happy. I looked forward to the time when I could speak well enough to talk to them. And I was happy because I was sure I would soon have three good friends.

[Reading][Check]

1. According to this chapter， what can be used to describe the monster's personalities？

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2. Do you think the monster would be accepted by his neighbors for what he had done for them？ If you were his neighbor， how would you get along with him？

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