by Robert Reed
The war, which about a year before the present time had broken
out between Greece and Turkey, brought about many reverses of
fortune . Her husband became bankrupt, and then in a tumult and
threatened massacre on the part of the Turks, they were obliged to
fly at midnight, and reached in an open boat an English vessel un-
der sail, which brought them immediately to this island . The few
THE LAST MAN, by Mary Shelley | 922
jewels they had saved, supported them awhile . The whole strength
of Evadne’s mind was exerted to support the failing spirits of her
husband . Loss of property, hopelessness as to his future prospects,
the inoccupation to which poverty condemned him, combined to
reduce him to a state bordering on insanity . Five months after their
arrival in England, he committed suicide .
“You will ask me,” continued Evadne, “what I have done since;
why I have not applied for succour to the rich Greeks resident here;
why I have not returned to my native country? My answer to these
questions must needs appear to you unsatisfactory, yet they have
sufficed to lead me on, day after day, enduring every wretchedness,
rather than by such means to seek relief . Shall the daughter of the
noble, though prodigal Zaimi, appear a beggar before her compeers
or inferiors—superiors she had none . Shall I bow my head before
them, and with servile gesture sell my nobility for life? Had I a child,
or any tie to bind me to existence, I might descend to this—but, as
it is—the world has been to me a harsh step-mother; fain would I
leave the abode she seems to grudge, and in the grave forget my
pride, my struggles, my despair . The time will soon come; grief and
famine have already sapped the foundations of my being; a very
short time, and I shall have passed away; unstained by the crime of
self-destruction, unstung by the memory of degradation, my spirit
will throw aside the miserable coil, and find such recompense as
fortitude and resignation may deserve . This may seem madness to
you, yet you also have pride and resolution; do not then wonder that
my pride is tameless, my resolution unalterable .”
Having thus finished her tale, and given such an account as she
deemed fit, of the motives of her abstaining from all endeavour to
obtain aid from her countrymen, Evadne paused; yet she seemed
to have more to say, to which she was unable to give words . In the
mean time Raymond was eloquent . His desire of restoring his lovely
friend to her rank in society, and to her lost prosperity, animated
him, and he poured forth with energy, all his wishes and intentions
on that subject . But he was checked; Evadne exacted a promise, that
he should conceal from all her friends her existence in England .
THE LAST MAN, by Mary Shelley | 923
“The relatives of the Earl of Windsor,” said she haughtily, “doubt-
less think that I injured him; perhaps the Earl himself would be the
first to acquit me, but probably I do not deserve acquittal. I acted
then, as I ever must, from impulse . This abode of penury may at
least prove the disinterestedness of my conduct . No matter: I do not
wish to plead my cause before any of them, not even before your
Lordship, had you not first discovered me. The tenor of my actions
will prove that I had rather die, than be a mark for scorn—behold
the proud Evadne in her tatters! look on the beggar-princess! There
is aspic venom in the thought—promise me that my secret shall not
be violated by you .”
Raymond promised; but then a new discussion ensued . Evadne
required another engagement on his part, that he would not without
her concurrence enter into any project for her benefit, nor himself
offer relief . “Do not degrade me in my own eyes,” she said; “poverty
has long been my nurse; hard-visaged she is, but honest . If dishon-
our, or what I conceive to be dishonour, come near me, I am lost .”
Raymond adduced many arguments and fervent persuasions to
overcome her feeling, but she remained unconvinced; and, agitated
by the discussion, she wildly and passionately made a solemn vow,
to fly and hide herself where he never could discover her, where
famine would soon bring death to conclude her woes, if he persisted
in his to her disgracing offers . She could support herself, she said .
And then she shewed him how, by executing various designs and
paintings, she earned a pittance for her support . Raymond yielded
for the present . He felt assured, after he had for awhile humoured
her self-will, that in the end friendship and reason would gain the
day .But the feelings that actuated Evadne were rooted in the depths
of her being, and were such in their growth as he had no means
of understanding . Evadne loved Raymond . He was the hero of her
imagination, the image carved by love in the unchanged texture of
her heart . Seven years ago, in her youthful prime, she had become
attached to him; he had served her country against the Turks; he had
in her own land acquired that military glory peculiarly dear to the
THE LAST MAN, by Mary Shelley | 924
Greeks, since they were still obliged inch by inch to fight for their
security. Yet when he returned thence, and first appeared in public
life in England, her love did not purchase his, which then vacil-
lated between Perdita and a crown . While he was yet undecided,
she had quitted England; the news of his marriage reached her, and
her hopes, poorly nurtured blossoms, withered and fell . The glory
of life was gone for her; the roseate halo of love, which had imbued
every object with its own colour, faded;—she was content to take
life as it was, and to make the best of leaden-coloured reality . She
married; and, carrying her restless energy of character with her into
new scenes, she turned her thoughts to ambition, and aimed at the
title and power of Princess of Wallachia; while her patriotic feelings
were soothed by the idea of the good she might do her country, when
her husband should be chief of this principality. She lived to find
ambition, as unreal a delusion as love . Her intrigues with Russia for
the furtherance of her object, excited the jealousy of the Porte, and
the animosity of the Greek government . She was considered a traitor
by both, the ruin of her husband followed; they avoided death by a
timely flight, and she fell from the height of her desires to penury in
England . Much of this tale she concealed from Raymond; nor did
she confess, that repulse and denial, as to a criminal convicted of
the worst of crimes, that of bringing the scythe of foreign despotism
to cut away the new springing liberties of her country, would have
followed her application to any among the Greeks .
She knew that she was the cause of her husband’s utter ruin; and
she strung herself to bear the consequences . The reproaches which
agony extorted; or worse, cureless, uncomplaining depression,
when his mind was sunk in a torpor, not the less painful because
it was silent and moveless . She repro
ached herself with the crime
of his death; guilt and its punishments appeared to surround her; in
vain she endeavoured to allay remorse by the memory of her real
integrity; the rest of the world, and she among them, judged of her
actions, by their consequences . She prayed for her husband’s soul;
she conjured the Supreme to place on her head the crime of his self-
destruction—she vowed to live to expiate his fault .
THE LAST MAN, by Mary Shelley | 925
In the midst of such wretchedness as must soon have destroyed
her, one thought only was matter of consolation . She lived in the
same country, breathed the same air as Raymond . His name as Pro-
tector was the burthen of every tongue; his achievements, projects,
and magnificence, the argument of every story. Nothing is so pre-
cious to a woman’s heart as the glory and excellence of him she
loves; thus in every horror Evadne revelled in his fame and pros-
perity . While her husband lived, this feeling was regarded by her
as a crime, repressed, repented of . When he died, the tide of love
resumed its ancient flow, it deluged her soul with its tumultuous
waves, and she gave herself up a prey to its uncontrollable power .
But never, O, never, should he see her in her degraded state .
Never should he behold her fallen, as she deemed, from her pride
of beauty, the poverty-stricken inhabitant of a garret, with a name
which had become a reproach, and a weight of guilt on her soul . But
though impenetrably veiled from him, his public office permitted
her to become acquainted with all his actions, his daily course of
life, even his conversation . She allowed herself one luxury, she saw
the newspapers every day, and feasted on the praise and actions of
the Protector . Not that this indulgence was devoid of accompanying
grief . Perdita’s name was for ever joined with his; their conjugal
felicity was celebrated even by the authentic testimony of facts .
They were continually together, nor could the unfortunate Evadne
read the monosyllable that designated his name, without, at the same
time, being presented with the image of her who was the faithful
companion of all his labours and pleasures . They, their Excellencies,
met her eyes in each line, mingling an evil potion that poisoned her
very blood .
It was in the newspaper that she saw the advertisement for the de-
sign for a national gallery . Combining with taste her remembrance of
the edifices which she had seen in the east, and by an effort of genius
enduing them with unity of design, she executed the plan which had
been sent to the Protector . She triumphed in the idea of bestowing,
unknown and forgotten as she was, a benefit upon him she loved;
and with enthusiastic pride looked forward to the accomplishment
THE LAST MAN, by Mary Shelley | 926
of a work of hers, which, immortalized in stone, would go down
to posterity stamped with the name of Raymond . She awaited with
eagerness the return of her messenger from the palace; she listened
insatiate to his account of each word, each look of the Protector;
she felt bliss in this communication with her beloved, although he
knew not to whom he addressed his instructions . The drawing itself
became ineffably dear to her . He had seen it, and praised it; it was
again retouched by her, each stroke of her pencil was as a chord of
thrilling music, and bore to her the idea of a temple raised to cel-
ebrate the deepest and most unutterable emotions of her soul . These
contemplations engaged her, when the voice of Raymond first struck
her ear, a voice, once heard, never to be forgotten; she mastered her
gush of feelings, and welcomed him with quiet gentleness .
Pride and tenderness now struggled, and at length made a com-
promise together . She would see Raymond, since destiny had led
him to her, and her constancy and devotion must merit his friendship .
But her rights with regard to him, and her cherished independence,
should not be injured by the idea of interest, or the intervention of
the complicated feelings attendant on pecuniary obligation, and the
relative situations of the benefactor, and benefited. Her mind was
of uncommon strength; she could subdue her sensible wants to her
mental wishes, and suffer cold, hunger and misery, rather than con-
cede to fortune a contested point . Alas! that in human nature such
a pitch of mental discipline, and disdainful negligence of nature it-
self, should not have been allied to the extreme of moral excellence!
But the resolution that permitted her to resist the pains of privation,
sprung from the too great energy of her passions; and the concen-
trated self-will of which this was a sign, was destined to destroy
even the very idol, to preserve whose respect she submitted to this
detail of wretchedness .
Their intercourse continued . By degrees Evadne related to her
friend the whole of her story, the stain her name had received in
Greece, the weight of sin which had accrued to her from the death
of her husband . When Raymond offered to clear her reputation, and
demonstrate to the world her real patriotism, she declared that it was
THE LAST MAN, by Mary Shelley | 927
only through her present sufferings that she hoped for any relief to
the stings of conscience; that, in her state of mind, diseased as he
might think it, the necessity of occupation was salutary medicine;
she ended by extorting a promise that for the space of one month
he would refrain from the discussion of her interests, engaging after
that time to yield in part to his wishes . She could not disguise to
herself that any change would separate her from him; now she saw
him each day . His connection with Adrian and Perdita was never
mentioned; he was to her a meteor, a companionless star, which at its
appointed hour rose in her hemisphere, whose appearance brought
felicity, and which, although it set, was never eclipsed . He came
each day to her abode of penury, and his presence transformed it to
a temple redolent with sweets, radiant with heaven’s own light; he
partook of her delirium . “They built a wall between them and the
world”—Without, a thousand harpies raved, remorse and misery,
expecting the destined moment for their invasion . Within, was the
peace as of innocence, reckless blindless, deluding joy, hope, whose
still anchor rested on placid but unconstant water .
Thus, while Raymond had been wrapt in visions of power and
fame, while he looked forward to entire dominion over the elements
and the mind of man, the territory of his own heart escaped his no-
tice; and from that unthought of source arose the mighty torrent that
overwhelmed his will, and carried to the oblivious sea, fame, hope,
and happiness .
CHAPTER VIII.
IN the mean time what did Perdita?
During the first months of his Protectorate, Raymond and she had
been inseparable; each project was discussed with her, each plan
approved by her . I never beheld any one so perfectly happy as my
sweet sister . Her expressive eyes were two stars whose beams were
love; hope and light-heartedness sat on her cloudless brow . She fed
even to tears of joy on the praise and glory of her Lord; her whole
existence was one sacrifice to him, and if in the humility of her heart
THE LAST MAN, by Mary Shelley | 928
she felt self-complacency, it arose from the reflection that she had
won the distinguished hero of the age, and had for years preserved
him, even after time had taken from love its usual nourishment . Her
own feeling was as entire as at its birth . Five years had failed to de-
stroy the dazzling unreality of passion . Most men ruthlessly destroy
the sacred veil, with which the female heart is wont to adorn the idol
of its affections . Not so Raymond; he was an enchanter, whose reign
was for ever undiminished; a king whose power never was suspend-
ed: follow him through the details of common life, still the same
charm of grace and majesty adorned him; nor could he be despoiled
of the innate deification with which nature had invested him. Perdita
grew in beauty and excellence under his eye; I no longer recognised
my reserved abstracted sister in the fascinating and open-hearted
wife of Raymond . The genius that enlightened her countenance,
was now united to an expression of benevolence, which gave divine
perfection to her beauty .
Happiness is in its highest degree the sister of goodness . Suf-
fering and amiability may exist together, and writers have loved to
depict their conjunction; there is a human and touching harmony in
the picture . But perfect happiness is an attribute of angels; and those
who possess it, appear angelic . Fear has been said to be the parent of
religion: even of that religion is it the generator, which leads its vo-
taries to sacrifice human victims at its altars; but the religion which
springs from happiness is a lovelier growth; the religion which
makes the heart breathe forth fervent thanksgiving, and causes us
to pour out the overflowings of the soul before the author of our
being; that which is the parent of the imagination and the nurse of
poetry; that which bestows benevolent intelligence on the visible
mechanism of the world, and makes earth a temple with heaven for
its cope . Such happiness, goodness, and religion inhabited the mind