NOTES

the creature open; it

The "lifeless thing" of the previous sentence has suddenly been brought into being as a "creature," a neutral term, but "it" immediately undergoes a process of construction that will continue in a remarkably exact progression over the next two paragraphs. From the very first the "new species" Victor had promised himself in the previous chapter (I:3:8) is not to be denominated with a human pronoun—is, rather, an "it."