My letter was calm and affectionate
A less calming letter could scarcely have been written to a fiancée
who had not heard from her lover for the better part of two years.
Perhaps, Mary Shelley writes with her tongue in her cheek, wishing to
stress the strange air of unreality that has become habitual by now with
Victor. His idea of "perfect confidence," after all, is to let on that he
has a "dreadful" secret and then to require that Elizabeth not ask him a
word about it. The irony is lost on him, though one assumes not on the
reader. Unfortunately for Elizabeth, she, indeed, never questions him
about his odd revelation.
