avoided . . . any encounter
Victor's regaining a sense of community through the influence of Clerval's
letter, as he represented himself three paragraphs earlier, seems far from
certain. His shying from contact with his fellow humans has become
virtually instinctive. That he refers to the fishermen by the generic
term "creatures" is instructive, since it separates them to a marked
degree within the same generic category as the being whom he created.
