What does the creature read and what does he learn from it ?

The book from which Safie's lessons are taken, called the Ruins of Empires, provides the creature with a cursory knowledge of history. He grows to understand the manners, governments, and religions of modern Man, and weeps over the atrocities that human beings commit against one another. Upon hearing of man's obsession with wealth and class, the creature turns away in disgust; he wonders what place he can have among such people, since he owns no property, and is absolutely ignorant of the circumstances of his birth.

The creature curses his newfound knowledge, which has caused him to regard himself as a monster and an outcast. He despairs of ever gaining the fellowship of his beloved cottagers, as he is certain that they will recoil from his hideous appearance. At chapter's end, he is friendless, loveless, and almost completely without hope.