When I was eleven and Juliet eight years of age, a cousin of mine, much older than eitherâhe seemed to us a manâtook great notice of my playmate; he called her his bride, and asked her to marry him. She refused, and he insisted, drawing her unwillingly towards him. With the countenance and emotions of a maniac I threw myself on himâI strove to draw his swordâI clung to his neck with the ferocious resolve to strangle him: he was obliged to call for assistance to disengage himself from me. On that night I led Juliet to the chapel of our house: I made her touch the sacred relicsâI harrowed her childâs heart, and profaned her childâs lips with an oath, that she would be mine, and mine only.
Mary Shelley, Transformation















