The Plague, Pestilence & Apocalypse MEGAPACK™

by Robert Reed

  of man, during long years one among many—now remained sole

  survivor of my species .

  The sun sank behind the western hills; I had fasted since the

  preceding evening, but, though faint and weary, I loathed food, nor

  ceased, while yet a ray of light remained, to pace the lonely streets .

  Night came on, and sent every living creature but me to the bosom

  of its mate . It was my solace, to blunt my mental agony by personal

  hardship—of the thousand beds around, I would not seek the luxury

  of one; I lay down on the pavement,—a cold marble step served

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  me for a pillow—midnight came; and then, though not before, did

  my wearied lids shut out the sight of the twinkling stars, and their

  reflex on the pavement near. Thus I passed the second night of my

  desolation .

  CHAPTER X.

  I AWOKE in the morning, just as the higher windows of the lofty

  houses received the first beams of the rising sun. The birds were

  chirping, perched on the windows sills and deserted thresholds of

  the doors. I awoke, and my first thought was, Adrian and Clara are

  dead . I no longer shall be hailed by their good-morrow—or pass the

  long day in their society . I shall never see them more . The ocean has

  robbed me of them—stolen their hearts of love from their breasts,

  and given over to corruption what was dearer to me than light, or

  life, or hope .

  I was an untaught shepherd-boy, when Adrian deigned to confer

  on me his friendship . The best years of my life had been passed

  with him . All I had possessed of this world’s goods, of happiness,

  knowledge, or virtue—I owed to him . He had, in his person, his

  intellect, and rare qualities, given a glory to my life, which without

  him it had never known . Beyond all other beings he had taught me,

  that goodness, pure and single, can be an attribute of man . It was a

  sight for angels to congregate to behold, to view him lead, govern,

  and solace, the last days of the human race .

  My lovely Clara also was lost to me—she who last of the daugh-

  ters of man, exhibited all those feminine and maiden virtues, which

  poets, painters, and sculptors, have in their various languages strove

  to express . Yet, as far as she was concerned, could I lament that she

  was removed in early youth from the certain advent of misery? Pure

  she was of soul, and all her intents were holy . But her heart was the

  throne of love, and the sensibility her lovely countenance expressed,

  was the prophet of many woes, not the less deep and drear, because

  she would have for ever concealed them .

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  These two wondrously endowed beings had been spared from

  the universal wreck, to be my companions during the last year of

  solitude . I had felt, while they were with me, all their worth . I was

  conscious that every other sentiment, regret, or passion had by de-

  grees merged into a yearning, clinging affection for them . I had not

  forgotten the sweet partner of my youth, mother of my children,

  my adored Idris; but I saw at least a part of her spirit alive again in

  her brother; and after, that by Evelyn’s death I had lost what most

  dearly recalled her to me; I enshrined her memory in Adrian’s form,

  and endeavoured to confound the two dear ideas . I sound the depths

  of my heart, and try in vain to draw thence the expressions that can

  typify my love for these remnants of my race . If regret and sorrow

  came athwart me, as well it might in our solitary and uncertain state,

  the clear tones of Adrian’s voice, and his fervent look, dissipated

  the gloom; or I was cheered unaware by the mild content and sweet

  resignation Clara’s cloudless brow and deep blue eyes expressed .

  They were all to me—the suns of my benighted soul—repose in my

  weariness—slumber in my sleepless woe . Ill, most ill, with disjoint-

  ed words, bare and weak, have I expressed the feeling with which

  I clung to them . I would have wound myself like ivy inextricably

  round them, so that the same blow might destroy us . I would have

  entered and been a part of them—so that

  If the dull substance of my flesh were thought,

  even now I had accompanied them to their new and incommuni-

  cable abode .

  Never shall I see them more . I am bereft of their dear converse—

  bereft of sight of them . I am a tree rent by lightning; never will the

  bark close over the bared fibres—never will their quivering life, torn

  by the winds, receive the opiate of a moment’s balm . I am alone

  in the world— but that expression as yet was less pregnant with

  misery, than that Adrian and Clara are dead .

  The tide of thought and feeling rolls on for ever the same, though

  the banks and shapes around, which govern its course, and the re-

  flection in the wave, vary. Thus the sentiment of immediate loss in

  some sort decayed, while that of utter, irremediable loneliness grew

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  on me with time . Three days I wandered through Ravenna—now

  thinking only of the beloved beings who slept in the oozy caves

  of ocean—now looking forward on the dread blank before me;

  shuddering to make an onward step—writhing at each change that

  marked the progress of the hours .

  For three days I wandered to and fro in this melancholy town . I

  passed whole hours in going from house to house, listening whether

  I could detect some lurking sign of human existence . Sometimes

  I rang at a bell; it tinkled through the vaulted rooms, and silence

  succeeded to the sound . I called myself hopeless, yet still I hoped;

  and still disappointment ushered in the hours, intruding the cold,

  sharp steel which first pierced me, into the aching festering wound.

  I fed like a wild beast, which seizes its food only when stung by

  intolerable hunger . I did not change my garb, or seek the shelter of

  a roof, during all those days . Burning heats, nervous irritation, a

  ceaseless, but confused flow of thought, sleepless nights, and days

  instinct with a frenzy of agitation, possessed me during that time .

  As the fever of my blood encreased, a desire of wandering came

  upon me. I remember, that the sun had set on the fifth day after my

  wreck, when, without purpose or aim, I quitted the town of Ravenna .

  I must have been very ill . Had I been possessed by more or less of

  delirium, that night had surely been my last; for, as I continued to

  walk on the banks of the Mantone, whose upward course I followed,

  I looked wistfully on the stream, acknowledging to myself that its

  pellucid waves could medicine my woes for ever, and was unable

  to account to myself for my tardiness in seeking their shelter from

  the poisoned arrows of thought, that were piercing me through and

  through . I walked a considerable part of the night, and excessive

  weariness at length conquered my repugnance to the availing myself

  of the deserted habitations of my species . The waning moon, which

  had just risen, shewed me a cottage, whose neat entrance and trim
>
  garden reminded me of my own England . I lifted up the latch of

  the door and entered. A kitchen first presented itself, where, guided

  by the moon beams, I found materials for striking a light . Within

  this was a bed room; the couch was furnished with sheets of snowy

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  whiteness; the wood piled on the hearth, and an array as for a meal,

  might almost have deceived me into the dear belief that I had here

  found what I had so long sought—one survivor, a companion for

  my loneliness, a solace to my despair . I steeled myself against the

  delusion; the room itself was vacant: it was only prudent, I repeated

  to myself, to examine the rest of the house . I fancied that I was proof

  against the expectation; yet my heart beat audibly, as I laid my hand

  on the lock of each door, and it sunk again, when I perceived in each

  the same vacancy . Dark and silent they were as vaults; so I returned

  to the first chamber, wondering what sightless host had spread the

  materials for my repast, and my repose . I drew a chair to the table,

  and examined what the viands were of which I was to partake . In

  truth it was a death feast! The bread was blue and mouldy; the cheese

  lay a heap of dust . I did not dare examine the other dishes; a troop

  of ants passed in a double line across the table cloth; every utensil

  was covered with dust, with cobwebs, and myriads of dead flies:

  these were objects each and all betokening the fallaciousness of my

  expectations . Tears rushed into my eyes; surely this was a wanton

  display of the power of the destroyer . What had I done, that each

  sensitive nerve was thus to be anatomized? Yet why complain more

  now than ever? This vacant cottage revealed no new sorrow— the

  world was empty; mankind was dead—I knew it well—why quarrel

  therefore with an acknowledged and stale truth? Yet, as I said, I had

  hoped in the very heart of despair, so that every new impression of

  the hard-cut reality on my soul brought with it a fresh pang, telling

  me the yet unstudied lesson, that neither change of place nor time

  could bring alleviation to my misery, but that, as I now was, I must

  continue, day after day, month after month, year after year, while I

  lived . I hardly dared conjecture what space of time that expression

  implied. It is true, I was no longer in the first blush of manhood;

  neither had I declined far in the vale of years—men have accounted

  mine the prime of life: I had just entered my thirty-seventh year;

  every limb was as well knit, every articulation as true, as when I

  had acted the shepherd on the hills of Cumberland; and with these

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  advantages I was to commence the train of solitary life . Such were

  the reflections that ushered in my slumber on that night.

  The shelter, however, and less disturbed repose which I enjoyed,

  restored me the following morning to a greater portion of health and

  strength, than I had experienced since my fatal shipwreck . Among

  the stores I had discovered on searching the cottage the preceding

  night, was a quantity of dried grapes; these refreshed me in the

  morning, as I left my lodging and proceeded towards a town which

  I discerned at no great distance . As far as I could divine, it must

  have been Forli . I entered with pleasure its wide and grassy streets .

  All, it is true, pictured the excess of desolation; yet I loved to find

  myself in those spots which had been the abode of my fellow crea-

  tures . I delighted to traverse street after street, to look up at the tall

  houses, and repeat to myself, once they contained beings similar to

  myself—I was not always the wretch I am now . The wide square

  of Forli, the arcade around it, its light and pleasant aspect cheered

  me . I was pleased with the idea, that, if the earth should be again

  peopled, we, the lost race, would, in the relics left behind, present no

  contemptible exhibition of our powers to the new comers .

  I entered one of the palaces, and opened the door of a magnifi-

  cent saloon . I started—I looked again with renewed wonder . What

  wild-looking, unkempt, half-naked savage was that before me? The

  surprise was momentary .

  I perceived that it was I myself whom I beheld in a large mir-

  ror at the end of the hall . No wonder that the lover of the princely

  Idris should fail to recognize himself in the miserable object there

  pourtrayed . My tattered dress was that in which I had crawled half

  alive from the tempestuous sea . My long and tangled hair hung in elf

  locks on my brow—my dark eyes, now hollow and wild, gleamed

  from under them—my cheeks were discoloured by the jaundice,

  which (the effect of misery and neglect) suffused my skin, and were

  half hid by a beard of many days’ growth .

  Yet why should I not remain thus, I thought; the world is dead,

  and this squalid attire is a fitter mourning garb than the foppery of

  a black suit . And thus, methinks, I should have remained, had not

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  hope, without which I do not believe man could exist, whispered to

  me, that, in such a plight, I should be an object of fear and aversion

  to the being, preserved I knew not where, but I fondly trusted, at

  length, to be found by me . Will my readers scorn the vanity, that

  made me attire myself with some care, for the sake of this visionary

  being? Or will they forgive the freaks of a half crazed imagination? I

  can easily forgive myself—for hope, however vague, was so dear to

  me, and a sentiment of pleasure of so rare occurrence, that I yielded

  readily to any idea, that cherished the one, or promised any recur-

  rence of the former to my sorrowing heart . After such occupation,

  I visited every street, alley, and nook of Forli . These Italian towns

  presented an appearance of still greater desolation, than those of

  England or France. Plague had appeared here earlier—it had fin-

  ished its course, and achieved its work much sooner than with us .

  Probably the last summer had found no human being alive, in all

  the track included between the shores of Calabria and the northern

  Alps . My search was utterly vain, yet I did not despond . Reason

  methought was on my side; and the chances were by no means con-

  temptible, that there should exist in some part of Italy a survivor

  like myself—of a wasted, depopulate land . As therefore I rambled

  through the empty town, I formed my plan for future operations . I

  would continue to journey on towards Rome . After I should have

  satisfied myself, by a narrow search, that I left behind no human

  being in the towns through which I passed, I would write up in a

  conspicuous part of each, with white paint, in three languages, that

  “Verney, the last of the race of Englishmen, had taken up his abode

  in Rome .”

  In pursuance of this scheme, I entered a painter’s shop, and pro-

  cured myself the paint . It is strange that so trivial an occupation

  should have consoled, and even enlivened me . But grief renders

  one childish, despair fantastic
. To this simple inscription, I merely

  added the adjuration, “Friend, come! I wait for thee!—Deh, vieni!

  ti aspetto!” On the following morning, with something like hope

  for my companion, I quitted Forli on my way to Rome . Until now,

  agonizing retrospect, and dreary prospects for the future, had stung

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  me when awake, and cradled me to my repose . Many times I had

  delivered myself up to the tyranny of anguish— many times I re-

  solved a speedy end to my woes; and death by my own hands was a

  remedy, whose practicability was even cheering to me . What could I

  fear in the other world? If there were an hell, and I were doomed to

  it, I should come an adept to the sufferance of its tortures—the act

  were easy, the speedy and certain end of my deplorable tragedy . But

  now these thoughts faded before the new born expectation . I went

  on my way, not as before, feeling each hour, each minute, to be an

  age instinct with incalculable pain .

  As I wandered along the plain, at the foot of the Appennines—

  through their vallies, and over their bleak summits, my path led me

  through a country which had been trodden by heroes, visited and ad-

  mired by thousands . They had, as a tide, receded, leaving me blank

  and bare in the midst . But why complain? Did I not hope?—so I

  schooled myself, even after the enlivening spirit had really deserted

  me, and thus I was obliged to call up all the fortitude I could com-

  mand, and that was not much, to prevent a recurrence of that chaotic

  and intolerable despair, that had succeeded to the miserable ship-

  wreck, that had consummated every fear, and dashed to annihilation

  every joy .

  I rose each day with the morning sun, and left my desolate inn . As

  my feet strayed through the unpeopled country, my thoughts ram-

  bled through the universe, and I was least miserable when I could,

  absorbed in reverie, forget the passage of the hours . Each evening,

  in spite of weariness, I detested to enter any dwelling, there to take

  up my nightly abode—I have sat, hour after hour, at the door of the

  cottage I had selected, unable to lift the latch, and meet face to face

  blank desertion within . Many nights, though autumnal mists were

  spread around, I passed under an ilex—many times I have supped

  on arbutus berries and chestnuts, making a fire, gypsy-like, on the