by Robert Reed
say, that words could not express our long drawn agony; yet how
can words image sensations, whose tormenting keenness throw us
back, as it were, on the deep roots and hidden foundations of our na-
ture, which shake our being with earth-quake-throe, so that we leave
to confide in accustomed feelings which like mother-earth support
us, and cling to some vain imagination or deceitful hope, which will
soon be buried in the ruins occasioned by the final shock. I have
called that period a fortnight, which we passed watching the changes
of the sweet child’s malady—and such it might have been—at night,
we wondered to find another day gone, while each particular hour
seemed endless . Day and night were exchanged for one another un-
counted; we slept hardly at all, nor did we even quit his room, except
when a pang of grief seized us, and we retired from each other for a
short period to conceal our sobs and tears . We endeavoured in vain
to abstract Clara from this deplorable scene . She sat, hour after hour,
THE LAST MAN, by Mary Shelley | 1234
looking at him, now softly arranging his pillow, and, while he had
power to swallow, administered his drink . At length the moment of
his death came: the blood paused in its flow —his eyes opened, and
then closed again: without convulsion or sigh, the frail tenement
was left vacant of its spiritual inhabitant .
I have heard that the sight of the dead has confirmed materialists
in their belief . I ever felt otherwise . Was that my child—that move-
less decaying inanimation? My child was enraptured by my caress-
es; his dear voice cloathed with meaning articulations his thoughts,
otherwise inaccessible; his smile was a ray of the soul, and the same
soul sat upon its throne in his eyes . I turn from this mockery of what
he was . Take, O earth, thy debt! freely and for ever I consign to
thee the garb thou didst afford . But thou, sweet child, amiable and
beloved boy, either thy spirit has sought a fitter dwelling, or, shrined
in my heart, thou livest while it lives .
We placed his remains under a cypress, the upright mountain be-
ing scooped out to receive them . And then Clara said, “If you wish
me to live, take me from hence . There is something in this scene of
transcendent beauty, in these trees, and hills and waves, that for ever
whisper to me, leave thy cumbrous flesh, and make a part of us. I
earnestly entreat you to take me away .”
So on the fifteenth of August we bade adieu to our villa, and the
embowering shades of this abode of beauty; to calm bay and noisy
waterfall; to Evelyn’s little grave we bade farewell! and then, with
heavy hearts, we departed on our pilgrimage towards Rome .
CHAPTER IX.
Now—soft awhile—have I arrived so near the end? Yes! it is
all over now—a step or two over those new made graves, and the
wearisome way is done . Can I accomplish my task? Can I streak my
paper with words capacious of the grand conclusion? Arise, black
Melancholy! quit thy Cimmerian solitude! Bring with thee murky
fogs from hell, which may drink up the day; bring blight and pestif-
erous exhalations, which, entering the hollow caverns and breathing
THE LAST MAN, by Mary Shelley | 1235
places of earth, may fill her stony veins with corruption, so that not
only herbage may no longer flourish, the trees may rot, and the riv-
ers run with gall—but the everlasting mountains be decomposed,
and the mighty deep putrify, and the genial atmosphere which clips
the globe, lose all powers of generation and sustenance . Do this, sad
visaged power, while I write, while eyes read these pages .
And who will read them? Beware, tender offspring of the re-born
world— beware, fair being, with human heart, yet untamed by care,
and human brow, yet unploughed by time—beware, lest the cheer-
ful current of thy blood be checked, thy golden locks turn grey, thy
sweet dimpling smiles be changed to fixed, harsh wrinkles! Let not
day look on these lines, lest garish day waste, turn pale, and die .
Seek a cypress grove, whose moaning boughs will be harmony be-
fitting; seek some cave, deep embowered in earth’s dark entrails,
where no light will penetrate, save that which struggles, red and
flickering, through a single fissure, staining thy page with grimmest
livery of death .
There is a painful confusion in my brain, which refuses to delin-
eate distinctly succeeding events . Sometimes the irradiation of my
friend’s gentle smile comes before me; and methinks its light spans
and fills eternity—then, again, I feel the gasping throes—
We quitted Como, and in compliance with Adrian’s earnest de-
sire, we took Venice in our way to Rome . There was something to
the English peculiarly attractive in the idea of this wave-encircled,
island-enthroned city . Adrian had never seen it . We went down the
Po and the Brenta in a boat; and, the days proving intolerably hot, we
rested in the bordering palaces during the day, travelling through the
night, when darkness made the bordering banks indistinct, and our
solitude less remarkable; when the wandering moon lit the waves
that divided before our prow, and the night-wind filled our sails,
and the murmuring stream, waving trees, and swelling canvass,
accorded in harmonious strain . Clara, long overcome by excessive
grief, had to a great degree cast aside her timid, cold reserve, and
received our attentions with grateful tenderness . While Adrian with
poetic fervour discoursed of the glorious nations of the dead, of the
THE LAST MAN, by Mary Shelley | 1236
beauteous earth and the fate of man, she crept near him, drinking in
his speech with silent pleasure . We banished from our talk, and as
much as possible from our thoughts, the knowledge of our desola-
tion . And it would be incredible to an inhabitant of cities, to one
among a busy throng, to what extent we succeeded . It was as a man
confined in a dungeon, whose small and grated rift at first renders
the doubtful light more sensibly obscure, till, the visual orb having
drunk in the beam, and adapted itself to its scantiness, he finds that
clear noon inhabits his cell . So we, a simple triad on empty earth,
were multiplied to each other, till we became all in all . We stood
like trees, whose roots are loosened by the wind, which support one
another, leaning and clinging with encreased fervour while the win-
try storms howl. Thus we floated down the widening stream of the
Po, sleeping when the cicale sang, awake with the stars . We entered
the narrower banks of the Brenta, and arrived at the shore of the
Laguna at sunrise on the sixth of September . The bright orb slowly
rose from behind its cupolas and towers, and shed its penetrating
light upon the glassy waters . Wrecks of gondolas, and some few
uninjured ones, were strewed on the beach at Fusina . We embarked
in one of these for the widowed daughter of ocean, who, abandoned
and fallen, sat forlorn on her propping isles, looking towards the
far
mountains of Greece . We rowed lightly over the Laguna, and
entered Canale Grande . The tide ebbed sullenly from out the broken
portals and violated halls of Venice: sea weed and sea monsters were
left on the blackened marble, while the salt ooze defaced the match-
less works of art that adorned their walls, and the sea gull flew out
from the shattered window . In the midst of this appalling ruin of the
monuments of man’s power, nature asserted her ascendancy, and
shone more beauteous from the contrast . The radiant waters hardly
trembled, while the rippling waves made many sided mirrors to the
sun; the blue immensity, seen beyond Lido, stretched far, unspecked
by boat, so tranquil, so lovely, that it seemed to invite us to quit the
land strewn with ruins, and to seek refuge from sorrow and fear on
its placid extent .
THE LAST MAN, by Mary Shelley | 1237
We saw the ruins of this hapless city from the height of the tower
of San Marco, immediately under us, and turned with sickening
hearts to the sea, which, though it be a grave, rears no monument,
discloses no ruin . Evening had come apace . The sun set in calm
majesty behind the misty summits of the Apennines, and its gold-
en and roseate hues painted the mountains of the opposite shore .
“That land,” said Adrian, “tinged with the last glories of the day, is
Greece .” Greece! The sound had a responsive chord in the bosom of
Clara . She vehemently reminded us that we had promised to take her
once again to Greece, to the tomb of her parents . Why go to Rome?
what should we do at Rome? We might take one of the many vessels
to be found here, embark in it, and steer right for Albania .
I objected the dangers of ocean, and the distance of the moun-
tains we saw, from Athens; a distance which, from the savage
uncultivation of the country, was almost impassable . Adrian, who
was delighted with Clara’s proposal, obviated these objections .
The season was favourable; the north-west that blew would take
us transversely across the gulph; and then we might find, in some
abandoned port, a light Greek caique, adapted for such navigation,
and run down the coast of the Morea, and, passing over the Isthmus
of Corinth, without much land-travelling or fatigue, find ourselves
at Athens . This appeared to me wild talk; but the sea, glowing with
a thousand purple hues, looked so brilliant and safe; my beloved
companions were so earnest, so determined, that, when Adrian said,
“Well, though it is not exactly what you wish, yet consent, to please
me”—I could no longer refuse . That evening we selected a vessel,
whose size just seemed fitted for our enterprize; we bent the sails
and put the rigging in order, and reposing that night in one of the
city’s thousand palaces, agreed to embark at sunrise the following
morning .
When winds that move not its calm surface, sweep
The azure sea, I love the land no more;
The smiles of the serene and tranquil deep
Tempt my unquiet mind—
THE LAST MAN, by Mary Shelley | 1238
Thus said Adrian, quoting a translation of Moschus’s poem, as in
the clear morning light, we rowed over the Laguna, past Lido, into
the open sea—I would have added in continuation,
But when the roar
Of ocean’s gray abyss resounds, and foam
Gathers upon the sea, and vast waves burst—
But my friends declared that such verses were evil augury;
so in cheerful mood we left the shallow waters, and, when out at
sea, unfurled our sails to catch the favourable breeze . The laugh-
ing morning air filled them, while sun-light bathed earth, sky and
ocean—the placid waves divided to receive our keel, and playfully
kissed the dark sides of our little skiff, murmuring a welcome; as
land receded, still the blue expanse, most waveless, twin sister to the
azure empyrean, afforded smooth conduct to our bark . As the air and
waters were tranquil and balmy, so were our minds steeped in quiet .
In comparison with the unstained deep, funereal earth appeared a
grave, its high rocks and stately mountains were but monuments, its
trees the plumes of a herse, the brooks and rivers brackish with tears
for departed man. Farewell to desolate towns —to fields with their
savage intermixture of corn and weeds—to ever multiplying relics
of our lost species . Ocean, we commit ourselves to thee —even as
the patriarch of old floated above the drowned world, let us be saved,
as thus we betake ourselves to thy perennial flood.
Adrian sat at the helm; I attended to the rigging, the breeze right
aft filled our swelling canvas, and we ran before it over the untrou-
bled deep . The wind died away at noon; its idle breath just permitted
us to hold our course . As lazy, fair-weather sailors, careless of the
coming hour, we talked gaily of our coasting voyage, of our arrival at
Athens . We would make our home of one of the Cyclades, and there
in myrtle-groves, amidst perpetual spring, fanned by the wholesome
sea-breezes—we would live long years in beatific union—Was there
such a thing as death in the world?—
THE LAST MAN, by Mary Shelley | 1239
The sun passed its zenith, and lingered down the stainless floor of
heaven . Lying in the boat, my face turned up to the sky, I thought I
saw on its blue white, marbled streaks, so slight, so immaterial, that
now I said— They are there—and now, It is a mere imagination . A
sudden fear stung me while I gazed; and, starting up, and running
to the prow,—as I stood, my hair was gently lifted on my brow—a
dark line of ripples appeared to the east, gaining rapidly on us—my
breathless remark to Adrian, was followed by the flapping of the
canvas, as the adverse wind struck it, and our boat lurched—swift
as speech, the web of the storm thickened over head, the sun went
down red, the dark sea was strewed with foam, and our skiff rose
and fell in its encreasing furrows .
Behold us now in our frail tenement, hemmed in by hungry,
roaring waves, buffeted by winds . In the inky east two vast clouds,
sailing contrary ways, met; the lightning leapt forth, and the hoarse
thunder muttered . Again in the south, the clouds replied, and the
forked stream of fire running along the black sky, shewed us the
appalling piles of clouds, now met and obliterated by the heaving
waves . Great God! And we alone—we three— alone—alone—sole
dwellers on the sea and on the earth, we three must perish! The vast
universe, its myriad worlds, and the plains of boundless earth which
we had left—the extent of shoreless sea around—contracted to my
view—they and all that they contained, shrunk up to one point, even
to our tossing bark, freighted with glorious humanity .
A convulsion of despair crossed the love-beaming face of Adrian,
while with set teeth he murmured, “Yet they shall be saved!” Clara,
visited by an human pang, pale and trembling, crept near him—he
looked on her with an encouraging smile—“Do you fear, sweet girl?
&
nbsp; O, do not fear, we shall soon be on shore!”
The darkness prevented me from seeing the changes of her coun-
tenance; but her voice was clear and sweet, as she replied, “Why
should I fear? neither sea nor storm can harm us, if mighty destiny
or the ruler of destiny does not permit . And then the stinging fear of
surviving either of you, is not here—one death will clasp us undi-
vided .”
THE LAST MAN, by Mary Shelley | 1240
Meanwhile we took in all our sails, save a gib; and, as soon as
we might without danger, changed our course, running with the
wind for the Italian shore . Dark night mixed everything; we hardly
discerned the white crests of the murderous surges, except when
lightning made brief noon, and drank the darkness, shewing us our
danger, and restoring us to double night . We were all silent, except
when Adrian, as steersman, made an encouraging observation . Our
little shell obeyed the rudder miraculously well, and ran along on the
top of the waves, as if she had been an offspring of the sea, and the
angry mother sheltered her endangered child .
I sat at the prow, watching our course; when suddenly I heard
the waters break with redoubled fury . We were certainly near the
shore—at the same time I cried, “About there!” and a broad light-
ning filling the concave, shewed us for one moment the level beach
a-head, disclosing even the sands, and stunted, ooze-sprinkled
beds of reeds, that grew at high water mark . Again it was dark, and
we drew in our breath with such content as one may, who, while
fragments of volcano-hurled rock darken the air, sees a vast mass
ploughing the ground immediately at his feet . What to do we knew
not —the breakers here, there, everywhere, encompassed us—they
roared, and dashed, and flung their hated spray in our faces. With
considerable difficulty and danger we succeeded at length in altering
our course, and stretched out from shore . I urged my companions to
prepare for the wreck of our little skiff, and to bind themselves to
some oar or spar which might suffice to float them. I was myself
an excellent swimmer—the very sight of the sea was wont to raise
in me such sensations, as a huntsman experiences, when he hears
a pack of hounds in full cry; I loved to feel the waves wrap me
and strive to overpower me; while I, lord of myself, moved this