by Robert Reed
told me where the centre of the town might be, or towards what
point Raymond might have directed his course . The rain ceased; the
clouds sunk behind the horizon; it was now evening, and the sun
descended swiftly the western sky . I scrambled on, until I came to
a street, whose wooden houses, half-burnt, had been cooled by the
rain, and were fortunately uninjured by the gunpowder . Up this I
hurried—until now I had not seen a vestige of man . Yet none of the
defaced human forms which I distinguished, could be Raymond;
so I turned my eyes away, while my heart sickened within me . I
came to an open space—a mountain of ruin in the midst, announced
that some large mosque had occupied the space—and here, scat-
tered about, I saw various articles of luxury and wealth, singed,
destroyed—but shewing what they had been in their ruin—jewels,
strings of pearls, embroidered robes, rich furs, glittering tapestries,
and oriental ornaments, seemed to have been collected here in a pile
destined for destruction; but the rain had stopped the havoc midway .
Hours passed, while in this scene of ruin I sought for Raymond .
Insurmountable heaps sometimes opposed themselves; the still
burning fires scorched me. The sun set; the atmosphere grew dim—
and the evening star no longer shone companionless . The glare of
flames attested the progress of destruction, while, during mingled
light and obscurity, the piles around me took gigantic proportions
and weird shapes . For a moment I could yield to the creative power
of the imagination, and for a moment was soothed by the sublime
fictions it presented to me. The beatings of my human heart drew me
back to blank reality . Where, in this wilderness of death, art thou,
O Raymond—ornament of England, deliverer of Greece, “hero of
unwritten story,” where in this burning chaos are thy dear relics
strewed? I called aloud for him—through the darkness of night, over
the scorching ruins of fallen Constantinople, his name was heard; no
voice replied—echo even was mute .
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I was overcome by weariness; the solitude depressed my spirits .
The sultry air impregnated with dust, the heat and smoke of burn-
ing palaces, palsied my limbs . Hunger suddenly came acutely upon
me . The excitement which had hitherto sustained me was lost; as a
building, whose props are loosened, and whose foundations rock,
totters and falls, so when enthusiasm and hope deserted me, did my
strength fail. I sat on the sole remaining step of an edifice, which
even in its downfall, was huge and magnificent; a few broken walls,
not dislodged by gunpowder, stood in fantastic groupes, and a flame
glimmered at intervals on the summit of the pile . For a time hunger
and sleep contended, till the constellations reeled before my eyes
and then were lost . I strove to rise, but my heavy lids closed, my
limbs over-wearied, claimed repose—I rested my head on the stone,
I yielded to the grateful sensation of utter forgetfulness; and in that
scene of desolation, on that night of despair—I slept .
CHAPTER III.
The stars still shone brightly when I awoke, and Taurus high in
the southern heaven shewed that it was midnight . I awoke from dis-
turbed dreams . Methought I had been invited to Timon’s last feast;
I came with keen appetite, the covers were removed, the hot water
sent up its unsatisfying steams, while I fled before the anger of the
host, who assumed the form of Raymond; while to my diseased
fancy, the vessels hurled by him after me, were surcharged with
fetid vapour, and my friend’s shape, altered by a thousand distor-
tions, expanded into a gigantic phantom, bearing on its brow the
sign of pestilence. The growing shadow rose and rose, filling, and
then seeming to endeavour to burst beyond, the adamantine vault
that bent over, sustaining and enclosing the world . The night-mare
became torture; with a strong effort I threw off sleep, and recalled
reason to her wonted functions. My first thought was Perdita; to her
I must return; her I must support, drawing such food from despair
as might best sustain her wounded heart; recalling her from the wild
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excesses of grief, by the austere laws of duty, and the soft tenderness
of regret .
The position of the stars was my only guide . I turned from the
awful ruin of the Golden City, and, after great exertion, succeeded
in extricating myself from its enclosure . I met a company of soldiers
outside the walls; I borrowed a horse from one of them, and has-
tened to my sister . The appearance of the plain was changed during
this short interval; the encampment was broken up; the relics of the
disbanded army met in small companies here and there; each face
was clouded; every gesture spoke astonishment and dismay .
With an heavy heart I entered the palace, and stood fearful to
advance, to speak, to look . In the midst of the hall was Perdita; she
sat on the marble pavement, her head fallen on her bosom, her hair
dishevelled, her fingers twined busily one within the other; she was
pale as marble, and every feature was contracted by agony . She per-
ceived me, and looked up enquiringly; her half glance of hope was
misery; the words died before I could articulate them; I felt a ghastly
smile wrinkle my lips . She understood my gesture; again her head
fell; again her fingers worked restlessly. At last I recovered speech,
but my voice terrified her; the hapless girl had understood my look,
and for worlds she would not that the tale of her heavy misery should
have been shaped out and confirmed by hard, irrevocable words.
Nay, she seemed to wish to distract my thoughts from the subject:
she rose from the floor: “Hush!” she said, whisperingly; “after much
weeping, Clara sleeps; we must not disturb her .” She seated herself
then on the same ottoman where I had left her in the morning resting
on the beating heart of her Raymond; I dared not approach her, but
sat at a distant corner, watching her starting and nervous gestures . At
length, in an abrupt manner she asked, “Where is he?”
“O, fear not,” she continued, “fear not that I should entertain
hope! Yet tell me, have you found him? To have him once more
in my arms, to see him, however changed, is all I desire . Though
Constantinople be heaped above him as a tomb, yet I must find
him—then cover us with the city’s weight, with a mountain piled
above—I care not, so that one grave hold Raymond and his Perdita .”
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Then weeping, she clung to me: “Take me to him,” she cried, “un-
kind Lionel, why do you keep me here? Of myself I cannot find him
—but you know where he lies—lead me thither .”
At first these agonizing plaints filled me with intolerable com-
passion . But soon I endeavoured to extract patience for her from
the ideas she suggested . I related my adventures of the night, my
endeavours to find our
lost one, and my disappointment. Turning her
thoughts this way, I gave them an object which rescued them from
insanity . With apparent calmness she discussed with me the proba-
ble spot where he might be found, and planned the means we should
use for that purpose . Then hearing of my fatigue and abstinence,
she herself brought me food . I seized the favourable moment, and
endeavoured to awaken in her something beyond the killing torpor
of grief . As I spoke, my subject carried me away; deep admiration;
grief, the offspring of truest affection, the overflowing of a heart
bursting with sympathy for all that had been great and sublime in
the career of my friend, inspired me as I poured forth the praises of
Raymond .
“Alas, for us,” I cried, “who have lost this latest honour of the
world! Beloved Raymond! He is gone to the nations of the dead; he
has become one of those, who render the dark abode of the obscure
grave illustrious by dwelling there . He has journied on the road that
leads to it, and joined the mighty of soul who went before him . When
the world was in its infancy death must have been terrible, and man
left his friends and kindred to dwell, a solitary stranger, in an un-
known country. But now, he who dies finds many companions gone
before to prepare for his reception . The great of past ages people it,
the exalted hero of our own days is counted among its inhabitants,
while life becomes doubly ‘the desart and the solitude .’
“What a noble creature was Raymond, the first among the men
of our time . By the grandeur of his conceptions, the graceful daring
of his actions, by his wit and beauty, he won and ruled the minds of
all . Of one only fault he might have been accused; but his death has
cancelled that . I have heard him called inconstant of purpose—when
he deserted, for the sake of love, the hope of sovereignty, and when
THE LAST MAN, by Mary Shelley | 1011
he abdicated the protectorship of England, men blamed his infirmity
of purpose . Now his death has crowned his life, and to the end of
time it will be remembered, that he devoted himself, a willing vic-
tim, to the glory of Greece . Such was his choice: he expected to die .
He foresaw that he should leave this cheerful earth, the lightsome
sky, and thy love, Perdita; yet he neither hesitated or turned back,
going right onward to his mark of fame . While the earth lasts, his ac-
tions will be recorded with praise . Grecian maidens will in devotion
strew flowers on his tomb, and make the air around it resonant with
patriotic hymns, in which his name will find high record.”
I saw the features of Perdita soften; the sternness of grief yielded
to tenderness—I continued:—“Thus to honour him, is the sacred
duty of his survivors . To make his name even as an holy spot of
ground, enclosing it from all hostile attacks by our praise, shed-
ding on it the blossoms of love and regret, guarding it from decay,
and bequeathing it untainted to posterity . Such is the duty of his
friends . A dearer one belongs to you, Perdita, mother of his child .
Do you remember in her infancy, with what transport you beheld
Clara, recognizing in her the united being of yourself and Raymond;
joying to view in this living temple a manifestation of your eternal
loves . Even such is she still . You say that you have lost Raymond . O,
no!—yet he lives with you and in you there . From him she sprung,
flesh of his flesh, bone of his bone—and not, as heretofore, are you
content to trace in her downy cheek and delicate limbs, an affinity
to Raymond, but in her enthusiastic affections, in the sweet qualities
of her mind, you may still find him living, the good, the great, the
beloved . Be it your care to foster this similarity—be it your care to
render her worthy of him, so that, when she glory in her origin, she
take not shame for what she is .”
I could perceive that, when I recalled my sister’s thoughts to her
duties in life, she did not listen with the same patience as before .
She appeared to suspect a plan of consolation on my part, from
which she, cherishing her new-born grief, revolted . “You talk of the
future,” she said, “while the present is all to me. Let me find the
earthly dwelling of my beloved; let us rescue that from common
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dust, so that in times to come men may point to the sacred tomb,
and name it his—then to other thoughts, and a new course of life, or
what else fate, in her cruel tyranny, may have marked out for me .”
After a short repose I prepared to leave her, that I might endeavour
to accomplish her wish . In the mean time we were joined by Clara,
whose pallid cheek and scared look shewed the deep impression
grief had made on her young mind . She seemed to be full of some-
thing to which she could not give words; but, seizing an opportunity
afforded by Perdita’s absence, she preferred to me an earnest prayer,
that I would take her within view of the gate at which her father had
entered Constantinople . She promised to commit no extravagance,
to be docile, and immediately to return . I could not refuse; for Clara
was not an ordinary child; her sensibility and intelligence seemed
already to have endowed her with the rights of womanhood . With
her therefore, before me on my horse, attended only by the servant
who was to re-conduct her, we rode to the Top Kapou . We found a
party of soldiers gathered round it . They were listening . “They are
human cries,” said one: “More like the howling of a dog,” replied
another; and again they bent to catch the sound of regular distant
moans, which issued from the precincts of the ruined city . “That,
Clara,” I said, “is the gate, that the street which yestermorn your
father rode up .” Whatever Clara’s intention had been in asking to be
brought hither, it was balked by the presence of the soldiers . With
earnest gaze she looked on the labyrinth of smoking piles which
had been a city, and then expressed her readiness to return home . At
this moment a melancholy howl struck on our ears; it was repeated;
“Hark!” cried Clara, “he is there; that is Florio, my father’s dog .”
It seemed to me impossible that she could recognise the sound, but
she persisted in her assertion till she gained credit with the crowd
about . At least it would be a benevolent action to rescue the sufferer,
whether human or brute, from the desolation of the town; so, send-
ing Clara back to her home, I again entered Constantinople . Encour-
aged by the impunity attendant on my former visit, several soldiers
who had made a part of Raymond’s body guard, who had loved him,
and sincerely mourned his loss, accompanied me .
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It is impossible to conjecture the strange enchainment of events
which restored the lifeless form of my friend to our hands . In that
part of the town where the fire had most raged the night before, and
which now lay quenched, black and cold, the dying dog of Raym
ond
crouched beside the mutilated form of its lord . At such a time sorrow
has no voice; affliction, tamed by it is very vehemence, is mute. The
poor animal recognised me, licked my hand, crept close to its lord,
and died . He had been evidently thrown from his horse by some fall-
ing ruin, which had crushed his head, and defaced his whole person .
I bent over the body, and took in my hand the edge of his cloak, less
altered in appearance than the human frame it clothed . I pressed
it to my lips, while the rough soldiers gathered around, mourning
over this worthiest prey of death, as if regret and endless lamenta-
tion could re-illumine the extinguished spark, or call to its shattered
prison-house of flesh the liberated spirit. Yesterday those limbs were
worth an universe; they then enshrined a transcendant power, whose
intents, words, and actions were worthy to be recorded in letters of
gold; now the superstition of affection alone could give value to
the shattered mechanism, which, incapable and clod-like, no more
resembled Raymond, than the fallen rain is like the former mansion
of cloud in which it climbed the highest skies, and gilded by the sun,
attracted all eyes, and satiated the sense by its excess of beauty .
Such as he had now become, such as was his terrene vesture, de-
faced and spoiled, we wrapt it in our cloaks, and lifting the burthen
in our arms, bore it from this city of the dead . The question arose
as to where we should deposit him . In our road to the palace, we
passed through the Greek cemetery; here on a tablet of black marble
I caused him to be laid; the cypresses waved high above, their death-
like gloom accorded with his state of nothingness . We cut branches
of the funereal trees and placed them over him, and on these again
his sword . I left a guard to protect this treasure of dust; and ordered
perpetual torches to be burned around .
When I returned to Perdita, I found that she had already been
informed of the success of my undertaking . He, her beloved, the
sole and eternal object of her passionate tenderness, was restored
THE LAST MAN, by Mary Shelley | 1014
her . Such was the maniac language of her enthusiasm . What though
those limbs moved not, and those lips could no more frame modu-
lated accents of wisdom and love! What though like a weed flung