第334页 / 共483页

He had sworn to quit the neighbourhood of man and hide himself in

deserts, but she had not; and she, who in all probability was to

become a thinking and reasoning animal, might refuse to comply

with a compact made before her creation. They might even hate

each other; the creature who already lived loathed his own

deformity, and might he not conceive a greater abhorrence for it

when it came before his eyes in the female form? She also might

turn with disgust from him to the superior beauty of man; she

might quit him, and he be again alone, exasperated by the fresh

provocation of being deserted by one of his own species.