Chapter 15 — the rejection

The Creature has been planning the meeting for months. He has watched the family and knows their habits: he knows that on a particular day Felix and Agatha will go to the village to trade, and the blind old De Lacey will be alone in the cottage with his guitar. He picks that day. He waits until Felix and Agatha have left. He approaches the cottage and knocks gently on the door.

The conversation begins well. The blind old man, who cannot see what is in his doorway, hears only a strangely formal voice — a traveler in distress, asking for an hour of conversation and the cover of his hearth. De Lacey, gentle, invites him in. The Creature speaks his prepared speech. He says he is unfortunate; he has friends who hate him; he has come, as a stranger, to ask for the old man's protection in advance — to ask, that is, that the old man speak well of him to the friends, when the friends arrive, so that they will look at him with less prejudice. De Lacey is moved. He says of course; tell me your story; the cottage is yours. The Creature is overwhelmed; the breakthrough is happening.

Then the door opens. Felix, Agatha, and Safie come in from the village. They see what is sitting at their father's feet. Agatha faints. Safie flees the cottage. Felix grabs a stick from the corner of the room and beats the Creature with it across the face and shoulders, dragging him toward the door. The Creature, who could have killed Felix in a single motion, does not lift a hand against him. He flees. He spends the next night howling on a hillside above the cottage, and at dawn he comes back down to find the cottage empty — the family has left in the night, fled, will not be back. The Creature, in his rage, burns the cottage to the ground. The break is total. He sets out, that morning, to find his maker.