Chapter 12 — the De Laceys

Wandering further, the Creature comes upon a small cottage at the edge of a forest in Switzerland. Behind the cottage, attached to it but separated by a wooden wall, is a small empty hovel — formerly a pigsty. The Creature creeps into it. He discovers that he can hear, through the wooden wall and a small chink high up in it, almost everything that happens in the cottage. He decides to stay. He has, for the first time since leaving Ingolstadt, a place out of the weather and a window into human life.

He observes the cottage's inhabitants through the months that follow. Three people: a blind old man named De Lacey, who plays a guitar and listens; his son Felix, in his twenties, who works the small farm; his daughter Agatha, who keeps house. They are poor — Felix sometimes goes without food so his father and sister can eat; the cupboards are often nearly empty. They are also unfailingly gentle with each other. The Creature, watching, learns more about love in three months than he learned in any other period of his life.

He begins, at night, to do them small secret services. He gathers firewood and stacks it by the door before they wake. He clears the snow from the path. He hears them attribute these gifts to "a good spirit." His pleasure in being able to help is, by his own description, the deepest he has ever felt. He has, in his own way, joined the household. They do not know he is there. He is content, for now, with the arrangement.