a wildness
Although the prolonged illness that is to follow for Victor will justify
this look as symptomatic of his physical debility, the first
interpretation for many a reader (and certainly for Clerval), that it is a
sign of incipient madness, cannot be discounted. A derangement of Victor's
mental balance is too frequently insinuated later in the text for it to be
dismissed out-of-hand this early in its progress.
