by Robert Reed
she worshipped . We all stood mute; many knelt . In a few minutes
however, we were recalled to human wonder and sympathy by a
familiar strain . The air was Haydn’s “New-Created World,” and, old
and drooping as humanity had become, the world yet fresh as at
creation’s day, might still be worthily celebrated by such an hymn of
praise . Adrian and I entered the church; the nave was empty, though
the smoke of incense rose from the altar, bringing with it the recol-
lection of vast congregations, in once thronged cathedrals; we went
into the loft . A blind old man sat at the bellows; his whole soul was
ear; and as he sat in the attitude of attentive listening, a bright glow
of pleasure was diffused over his countenance; for, though his lack-
lustre eye could not reflect the beam, yet his parted lips, and every
line of his face and venerable brow spoke delight . A young woman
sat at the keys, perhaps twenty years of age . Her auburn hair hung on
her neck, and her fair brow shone in its own beauty; but her droop-
ing eyes let fall fast-flowing tears, while the constraint she exercised
THE LAST MAN, by Mary Shelley | 1220
to suppress her sobs, and still her trembling, flushed her else pale
cheek; she was thin; languor, and alas! sickness, bent her form . We
stood looking at the pair, forgetting what we heard in the absorb-
ing sight; till, the last chord struck, the peal died away in lessening
reverberations . The mighty voice, inorganic we might call it, for we
could in no way associate it with mechanism of pipe or key, stilled
its sonorous tone, and the girl, turning to lend her assistance to her
aged companion, at length perceived us .
It was her father; and she, since childhood, had been the guide of
his darkened steps . They were Germans from Saxony, and, emigrat-
ing thither but a few years before, had formed new ties with the
surrounding villagers . About the time that the pestilence had broken
out, a young German student had joined them . Their simple history
was easily divined . He, a noble, loved the fair daughter of the poor
musician, and followed them in their flight from the persecutions
of his friends; but soon the mighty leveller came with unblunted
scythe to mow, together with the grass, the tall flowers of the field.
The youth was an early victim . She preserved herself for her father’s
sake. His blindness permitted her to continue a delusion, at first the
child of accident—and now solitary beings, sole survivors in the
land, he remained unacquainted with the change, nor was aware that
when he listened to his child’s music, the mute mountains, senseless
lake, and unconscious trees, were, himself excepted, her sole audi-
tors .The very day that we arrived she had been attacked by symp-
tomatic illness . She was paralyzed with horror at the idea of leaving
her aged, sightless father alone on the empty earth; but she had not
courage to disclose the truth, and the very excess of her despera-
tion animated her to surpassing exertions . At the accustomed vesper
hour, she led him to the chapel; and, though trembling and weeping
on his account, she played, without fault in time, or error in note, the
hymn written to celebrate the creation of the adorned earth, soon to
be her tomb .
We came to her like visitors from heaven itself; her high-wrought
courage; her hardly sustained firmness, fled with the appearance of
THE LAST MAN, by Mary Shelley | 1221
relief . With a shriek she rushed towards us, embraced the knees of
Adrian, and uttering but the words, “O save my father!” with sobs
and hysterical cries, opened the long-shut floodgates of her woe.
Poor girl!—she and her father now lie side by side, beneath the
high walnut-tree where her lover reposes, and which in her dying
moments she had pointed out to us . Her father, at length aware of
his daughter’s danger, unable to see the changes of her dear coun-
tenance, obstinately held her hand, till it was chilled and stiffened
by death . Nor did he then move or speak, till, twelve hours after,
kindly death took him to his breakless repose . They rest beneath
the sod, the tree their monument;—the hallowed spot is distinct in
my memory, paled in by craggy Jura, and the far, immeasurable
Alps; the spire of the church they frequented still points from out
the embosoming trees; and though her hand be cold, still methinks
the sounds of divine music which they loved wander about, solacing
their gentle ghosts .
CHAPTER VIII.
We had now reached Switzerland, so long the final mark and aim
of our exertions . We had looked, I know not wherefore, with hope
and pleasing expectation on her congregation of hills and snowy
crags, and opened our bosoms with renewed spirits to the icy Biz,
which even at Midsummer used to come from the northern glacier
laden with cold . Yet how could we nourish expectation of relief?
Like our native England, and the vast extent of fertile France, this
mountain-embowered land was desolate of its inhabitants . Nor
bleak mountain-top, nor snow-nourished rivulet; not the ice-laden
Biz, nor thunder, the tamer of contagion, had preserved them— why
therefore should we claim exemption?
Who was there indeed to save? What troop had we brought fit
to stand at bay, and combat with the conqueror? We were a failing
remnant, tamed to mere submission to the coming blow . A train half
dead, through fear of death—a hopeless, unresisting, almost reck-
less crew, which, in the tossed bark of life, had given up all pilotage,
THE LAST MAN, by Mary Shelley | 1222
and resigned themselves to the destructive force of ungoverned
winds . Like a few furrows of unreaped corn, which, left standing on
a wide field after the rest is gathered to the garner, are swiftly borne
down by the winter storm . Like a few straggling swallows, which,
remaining after their fellows had, on the first unkind breath of pass-
ing autumn, migrated to genial climes, were struck to earth by the
first frost of November. Like a stray sheep that wanders over the
sleet-beaten hill-side, while the flock is in the pen, and dies before
morning-dawn . Like a cloud, like one of many that were spread in
impenetrable woof over the sky, which, when the shepherd north
has driven its companions “to drink Antipodean noon,” fades and
dissolves in the clear ether—Such were we!
We left the fair margin of the beauteous lake of Geneva, and en-
tered the Alpine ravines; tracing to its source the brawling Arve,
through the rock-bound valley of Servox, beside the mighty wa-
terfalls, and under the shadow of the inaccessible mountains, we
travelled on; while the luxuriant walnut-tree gave place to the dark
pine, whose musical branches swung in the wind, and whose upright
forms had braved a thousand storms—till the verdant sod, the flow-
ery dell, and shrubbery hill were exchanged for the sky-piercing,
untrodden, seedless rock, “the bones of the world, waiting to be
clothed with every thing neces
sary to give life and beauty .”25 Strange
that we should seek shelter here! Surely, if, in those countries where
earth was wont, like a tender mother, to nourish her children, we
had found her a destroyer, we need not seek it here, where stricken
by keen penury she seems to shudder through her stony veins . Nor
were we mistaken in our conjecture . We vainly sought the vast and
ever moving glaciers of Chamounix, rifts of pendant ice, seas of
congelated waters, the leafless groves of tempest-battered pines,
dells, mere paths for the loud avalanche, and hill-tops, the resort
of thunder-storms . Pestilence reigned paramount even here . By the
time that day and night, like twin sisters of equal growth, shared
equally their dominion over the hours, one by one, beneath the
ice-caves, beside the waters springing from the thawed snows of a
25
Mary Wollstonecraft’s Letters from Norway .
THE LAST MAN, by Mary Shelley | 1223
thousand winters, another and yet another of the remnant of the race
of Man, closed their eyes for ever to the light .
Yet we were not quite wrong in seeking a scene like this, whereon
to close the drama . Nature, true to the last, consoled us in the very
heart of misery . Sublime grandeur of outward objects soothed our
hapless hearts, and were in harmony with our desolation . Many sor-
rows have befallen man during his chequered course; and many a
woe-stricken mourner has found himself sole survivor among many .
Our misery took its majestic shape and colouring from the vast ruin,
that accompanied and made one with it . Thus on lovely earth, many
a dark ravine contains a brawling stream, shadowed by romantic
rocks, threaded by mossy paths—but all, except this, wanted the
mighty back-ground, the towering Alps, whose snowy capes, or
bared ridges, lifted us from our dull mortal abode, to the palaces of
Nature’s own .
This solemn harmony of event and situation regulated our feel-
ings, and gave as it were fitting costume to our last act. Majestic
gloom and tragic pomp attended the decease of wretched humanity .
The funeral procession of monarchs of old, was transcended by our
splendid shews . Near the sources of the Arveiron we performed the
rites for, four only excepted, the last of the species . Adrian and I,
leaving Clara and Evelyn wrapt in peaceful unobserving slumber,
carried the body to this desolate spot, and placed it in those caves
of ice beneath the glacier, which rive and split with the slightest
sound, and bring destruction on those within the clefts—no bird or
beast of prey could here profane the frozen form . So, with hushed
steps and in silence, we placed the dead on a bier of ice, and then,
departing, stood on the rocky platform beside the river springs . All
hushed as we had been, the very striking of the air with our per-
sons had sufficed to disturb the repose of this thawless region; and
we had hardly left the cavern, before vast blocks of ice, detaching
themselves from the roof, fell, and covered the human image we
had deposited within . We had chosen a fair moonlight night, but
our journey thither had been long, and the crescent sank behind the
western heights by the time we had accomplished our purpose . The
THE LAST MAN, by Mary Shelley | 1224
snowy mountains and blue glaciers shone in their own light . The
rugged and abrupt ravine, which formed one side of Mont Anvert,
was opposite to us, the glacier at our side; at our feet Arveiron, white
and foaming, dashed over the pointed rocks that jutted into it, and,
with whirring spray and ceaseless roar, disturbed the stilly night .
Yellow lightnings played around the vast dome of Mont Blanc, si-
lent as the snow-clad rock they illuminated; all was bare, wild, and
sublime, while the singing of the pines in melodious murmurings
added a gentle interest to the rough magnificence. Now the riving
and fall of icy rocks clave the air; now the thunder of the avalanche
burst on our ears . In countries whose features are of less magnitude,
nature betrays her living powers in the foliage of the trees, in the
growth of herbage, in the soft purling of meandering streams; here,
endowed with giant attributes, the torrent, the thunder-storm, and
the flow of massive waters, display her activity. Such the church-
yard, such the requiem, such the eternal congregation, that waited
on our companion’s funeral!
Nor was it the human form alone which we had placed in this
eternal sepulchre, whose obsequies we now celebrated . With this
last victim Plague vanished from the earth . Death had never wanted
weapons wherewith to destroy life, and we, few and weak as we had
become, were still exposed to every other shaft with which his full
quiver teemed . But pestilence was absent from among them . For
seven years it had had full sway upon earth; she had trod every nook
of our spacious globe; she had mingled with the atmosphere, which
as a cloak enwraps all our fellow-creatures—the inhabitants of na-
tive Europe—the luxurious Asiatic—the swarthy African and free
American had been vanquished and destroyed by her . Her barbarous
tyranny came to its close here in the rocky vale of Chamounix .
Still recurring scenes of misery and pain, the fruits of this distem-
per, made no more a part of our lives—the word plague no longer
rung in our ears—the aspect of plague incarnate in the human coun-
tenance no longer appeared before our eyes . From this moment I
saw plague no more . She abdicated her throne, and despoiled herself
THE LAST MAN, by Mary Shelley | 1225
of her imperial sceptre among the ice rocks that surrounded us . She
left solitude and silence co-heirs of her kingdom .
My present feelings are so mingled with the past, that I cannot
say whether the knowledge of this change visited us, as we stood on
this sterile spot . It seems to me that it did; that a cloud seemed to
pass from over us, that a weight was taken from the air; that hence-
forth we breathed more freely, and raised our heads with some por-
tion of former liberty . Yet we did not hope . We were impressed by
the sentiment, that our race was run, but that plague would not be
our destroyer . The coming time was as a mighty river, down which
a charmed boat is driven, whose mortal steersman knows, that the
obvious peril is not the one he needs fear, yet that danger is nigh;
and who floats awe-struck under beetling precipices, through the
dark and turbid waters—seeing in the distance yet stranger and
ruder shapes, towards which he is irresistibly impelled . What would
become of us? O for some Delphic oracle, or Pythian maid, to utter
the secrets of futurity! O for some Oedipus to solve the riddle of
the cruel Sphynx! Such Oedipus was I to be—not divining a word’s
juggle, but whose agonizing pangs, and sorrow-tainted life were to
be the engines, wherewith to lay bare the secrets of destiny, and
reveal the meaning of the enigma, whose explanation closed the his-
tory of the human race .
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Dim fancies, akin to these, haunted our minds, and instilled feel-
ings not unallied to pleasure, as we stood beside this silent tomb of
nature, reared by these lifeless mountains, above her living veins,
choking her vital principle . “Thus are we left,” said Adrian, “two
melancholy blasted trees, where once a forest waved . We are left to
mourn, and pine, and die . Yet even now we have our duties, which
we must string ourselves to fulfil: the duty of bestowing pleasure
where we can, and by force of love, irradiating with rainbow hues
the tempest of grief . Nor will I repine if in this extremity we preserve
what we now possess . Something tells me, Verney, that we need no
longer dread our cruel enemy, and I cling with delight to the oracular
voice . Though strange, it will be sweet to mark the growth of your
little boy, and the development of Clara’s young heart . In the midst
THE LAST MAN, by Mary Shelley | 1226
of a desert world, we are everything to them; and, if we live, it must
be our task to make this new mode of life happy to them . At pres-
ent this is easy, for their childish ideas do not wander into futurity,
and the stinging craving for sympathy, and all of love of which our
nature is susceptible, is not yet awake within them: we cannot guess
what will happen then, when nature asserts her indefeasible and sa-
cred powers; but, long before that time, we may all be cold, as he
who lies in yonder tomb of ice . We need only provide for the pres-
ent, and endeavour to fill with pleasant images the inexperienced
fancy of your lovely niece . The scenes which now surround us, vast
and sublime as they are, are not such as can best contribute to this
work . Nature is here like our fortunes, grand, but too destructive,
bare, and rude, to be able to afford delight to her young imagination .
Let us descend to the sunny plains of Italy . Winter will soon be here,
to clothe this wilderness in double desolation; but we will cross the
bleak hill-tops, and lead her to scenes of fertility and beauty, where
her path will be adorned with flowers, and the cheery atmosphere
inspire pleasure and hope .”
In pursuance of this plan we quitted Chamounix on the following
day . We had no cause to hasten our steps; no event was transacted
beyond our actual sphere to enchain our resolves, so we yielded to