CHAPTER X.
I AWOKE in the morning, just as the higher windows of the lofty housesreceived 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 behailed by their good-morrow--or pass the long day in their society. Ishall never see them more. The ocean has robbed me of them--stolen theirhearts of love from their breasts, and given over to corruption what wasdearer to me than light, or life, or hope.
I was an untaught shepherd-boy, when Adrian deigned to confer on me hisfriendship. The best years of my life had been passed with him. All I hadpossessed of this world's goods, of happiness, knowledge, or virtue--Iowed 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 allother beings he had taught me, that goodness, pure and single, can be anattribute of man. It was a sight for angels to congregate to behold, toview 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 daughters ofman, 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 inearly youth from the certain advent of misery? Pure she was of soul, andall her intents were holy. But her heart was the throne of love, and thesensibility her lovely countenance expressed, was the prophet of manywoes, not the less deep and drear, because she would have for everconcealed them.
These two wondrously endowed beings had been spared from the universalwreck, 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 othersentiment, regret, or passion had by degrees merged into a yearning,clinging affection for them. I had not forgotten the sweet partner of myyouth, mother of my children, my adored Idris; but I saw at least a part ofher spirit alive again in her brother; and after, that by Evelyn's death Ihad lost what most dearly recalled her to me; I enshrined her memory inAdrian's form, and endeavoured to confound the two dear ideas. I sound thedepths of my heart, and try in vain to draw thence the expressions that cantypify my love for these remnants of my race. If regret and sorrow cameathwart me, as well it might in our solitary and uncertain state, the cleartones of Adrian's voice, and his fervent look, dissipated the gloom; or Iwas cheered unaware by the mild content and sweet resignation Clara'scloudless brow and deep blue eyes expressed. They were all to me--thesuns of my benighted soul--repose in my weariness--slumber in mysleepless woe. Ill, most ill, with disjointed words, bare and weak, have Iexpressed the feeling with which I clung to them. I would have wound myselflike ivy inextricably round them, so that the same blow might destroy us. Iwould 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 incommunicable abode.
Never shall I see them more. I am bereft of their dear converse--bereftof sight of them. I am a tree rent by lightning; never will the bark closeover the bared fibres--never will their quivering life, torn by thewinds, 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 Adrianand Clara are dead.
The tide of thought and feeling rolls on for ever the same, though thebanks and shapes around, which govern its course, and the reflection in thewave, vary. Thus the sentiment of immediate loss in some sort decayed,while that of utter, irremediable loneliness grew on me with time. Threedays I wandered through Ravenna--now thinking only of the beloved beingswho slept in the oozy caves of ocean--now looking forward on the dreadblank before me; shuddering to make an onward step--writhing at eachchange that marked the progress of the hours.
For three days I wandered to and fro in this melancholy town. I passedwhole hours in going from house to house, listening whether I could detectsome lurking sign of human existence. Sometimes I rang at a bell; ittinkled through the vaulted rooms, and silence succeeded to the sound. Icalled myself hopeless, yet still I hoped; and still disappointment usheredin the hours, intruding the cold, sharp steel which first pierced me, intothe aching festering wound. I fed like a wild beast, which seizes its foodonly when stung by intolerable hunger. I did not change my garb, or seekthe shelter of a roof, during all those days. Burning heats, nervousirritation, a ceaseless, but confused flow of thought, sleepless nights,and days instinct with a frenzy of agitation, possessed me during thattime.
As the fever of my blood encreased, a desire of wandering came upon me. Iremember, 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 beenvery ill. Had I been possessed by more or less of delirium, that night hadsurely been my last; for, as I continued to walk on the banks of theMantone, whose upward course I followed, I looked wistfully on the stream,acknowledging to myself that its pellucid waves could medicine my woesfor ever, and was unable to account to myself for my tardiness in seekingtheir shelter from the poisoned arrows of thought, that were piercing methrough and through. I walked a considerable part of the night, andexcessive weariness at length conquered my repugnance to the availingmyself of the deserted habitations of my species. The waning moon, whichhad just risen, shewed me a cottage, whose neat entrance and trim gardenreminded me of my own England. I lifted up the latch of the door andentered. A kitchen first presented itself, where, guided by the moon beams,I found materials for striking a light. Within this was a bed room; thecouch was furnished with sheets of snowy whiteness; the wood piled on thehearth, and an array as for a meal, might almost have deceived me into thedear belief that I had here found what I had so long sought--onesurvivor, a companion for my loneliness, a solace to my despair. I steeledmyself against the delusion; the room itself was vacant: it was onlyprudent, I repeated to myself, to examine the rest of the house. I fanciedthat I was proof against the expectation; yet my heart beat audibly, as Ilaid my hand on the lock of each door, and it sunk again, when I perceivedin each the same vacancy. Dark and silent they were as vaults; so Ireturned to the first chamber, wondering what sightless host had spread thematerials for my repast, and my repose. I drew a chair to the table, andexamined what the viands were of which I was to partake. In truth it was adeath 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 doubleline across the table cloth; every utensil was covered with dust, withcobwebs, and myriads of dead flies: these were objects each and allbetokening the fallaciousness of my expectations. Tears rushed into myeyes; surely this was a wanton display of the power of the destroyer. Whathad I done, that each sensitive nerve was thus to be anatomized? Yet whycomplain more now than ever? This vacant cottage revealed no new sorrow--the world was empty; mankind was dead--I knew it well--why quarreltherefore with an acknowledged and stale truth? Yet, as I said, I had hopedin the very heart of despair, so that every new impression of the hard-cutreality on my soul brought with it a fresh pang, telling me the yetunstudied lesson, that neither change of place nor time could bringalleviation to my misery, but that, as I now was, I must continue, dayafter day, month after month, year after year, while I lived. I hardlydared conjecture what space of time that expression implied. It is true, Iwas no longer in the first blush of manhood; neither had I declined far inthe vale of years--men have accounted mine the prime of life: I had justentered my thirty-seventh year; every limb was as well knit, everyarticulation as true, as when I had acted the shepherd on the hills ofCumberland; and with these advantages I was to commence the train ofsolitary life. Such were the reflections that ushered in my slumber on thatnight.
The shelter, however, and less disturbed repose which I enjoyed, restoredme the following morning to a greater portion of health and strength, thanI had experienced since my fatal shipwreck. Among the stores I haddiscovered on searching the cot
tage the preceding night, was a quantity ofdried grapes; these refreshed me in the morning, as I left my lodging andproceeded towards a town which I discerned at no great distance. As far asI could divine, it must have been Forli. I entered with pleasure its wideand grassy streets. All, it is true, pictured the excess of desolation; yetI loved to find myself in those spots which had been the abode of my fellowcreatures. I delighted to traverse street after street, to look up at thetall houses, and repeat to myself, once they contained beings similar tomyself--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 waspleased with the idea, that, if the earth should be again peopled, we, thelost race, would, in the relics left behind, present no contemptibleexhibition of our powers to the new comers.
I entered one of the palaces, and opened the door of a magnificent 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 mirror at the endof the hall. No wonder that the lover of the princely Idris should fail torecognize himself in the miserable object there pourtrayed. My tattereddress 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, nowhollow and wild, gleamed from under them--my cheeks were discoloured bythe 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 thissqualid attire is a fitter mourning garb than the foppery of a black suit.And thus, methinks, I should have remained, had not hope, without which Ido not believe man could exist, whispered to me, that, in such a plight, Ishould be an object of fear and aversion to the being, preserved I knew notwhere, but I fondly trusted, at length, to be found by me. Will my readersscorn the vanity, that made me attire myself with some care, for the sakeof this visionary being? Or will they forgive the freaks of a half crazedimagination? I can easily forgive myself--for hope, however vague, was sodear to me, and a sentiment of pleasure of so rare occurrence, that Iyielded readily to any idea, that cherished the one, or promised anyrecurrence of the former to my sorrowing heart. After such occupation, Ivisited every street, alley, and nook of Forli. These Italian townspresented an appearance of still greater desolation, than those of Englandor France. Plague had appeared here earlier--it had finished its course,and achieved its work much sooner than with us. Probably the last summerhad found no human being alive, in all the track included between theshores of Calabria and the northern Alps. My search was utterly vain, yet Idid not despond. Reason methought was on my side; and the chances were byno means contemptible, that there should exist in some part of Italy asurvivor like myself--of a wasted, depopulate land. As therefore Irambled through the empty town, I formed my plan for future operations. Iwould continue to journey on towards Rome. After I should have satisfiedmyself, by a narrow search, that I left behind no human being in the townsthrough 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 ofEnglishmen, had taken up his abode in Rome."
In pursuance of this scheme, I entered a painter's shop, and procuredmyself the paint. It is strange that so trivial an occupation should haveconsoled, and even enlivened me. But grief renders one childish, despairfantastic. To this simple inscription, I merely added the adjuration,"Friend, come! I wait for thee!--Deh, vieni! ti aspetto!" On thefollowing morning, with something like hope for my companion, I quittedForli on my way to Rome. Until now, agonizing retrospect, and drearyprospects for the future, had stung me when awake, and cradled me to myrepose. Many times I had delivered myself up to the tyranny of anguish--many times I resolved a speedy end to my woes; and death by my own handswas a remedy, whose practicability was even cheering to me. What could Ifear in the other world? If there were an hell, and I were doomed to it, Ishould come an adept to the sufferance of its tortures--the act wereeasy, the speedy and certain end of my deplorable tragedy. But now thesethoughts faded before the new born expectation. I went on my way, not asbefore, feeling each hour, each minute, to be an age instinct withincalculable pain.
As I wandered along the plain, at the foot of the Appennines--throughtheir vallies, and over their bleak summits, my path led me through acountry which had been trodden by heroes, visited and admired by thousands.They had, as a tide, receded, leaving me blank and bare in the midst. Butwhy complain? Did I not hope?--so I schooled myself, even after theenlivening spirit had really deserted me, and thus I was obliged to call upall the fortitude I could command, and that was not much, to prevent arecurrence of that chaotic and intolerable despair, that had succeeded tothe miserable shipwreck, that had consummated every fear, and dashed toannihilation every joy.
I rose each day with the morning sun, and left my desolate inn. As my feetstrayed through the unpeopled country, my thoughts rambled through theuniverse, and I was least miserable when I could, absorbed in reverie,forget the passage of the hours. Each evening, in spite of weariness, Idetested to enter any dwelling, there to take up my nightly abode--I havesat, hour after hour, at the door of the cottage I had selected, unable tolift the latch, and meet face to face blank desertion within. Many nights,though autumnal mists were spread around, I passed under an ilex--manytimes I have supped on arbutus berries and chestnuts, making a fire,gypsy-like, on the ground--because wild natural scenery reminded me lessacutely of my hopeless state of loneliness. I counted the days, and borewith me a peeled willow-wand, on which, as well as I could remember, I hadnotched the days that had elapsed since my wreck, and each night I addedanother unit to the melancholy sum.
I had toiled up a hill which led to Spoleto. Around was spread a plain,encircled by the chestnut-covered Appennines. A dark ravine was on oneside, spanned by an aqueduct, whose tall arches were rooted in the dellbelow, and attested that man had once deigned to bestow labour and thoughthere, to adorn and civilize nature. Savage, ungrateful nature, which inwild sport defaced his remains, protruding her easily renewed, and fragilegrowth of wild flowers and parasite plants around his eternal edifices. Isat on a fragment of rock, and looked round. The sun had bathed in gold thewestern atmosphere, and in the east the clouds caught the radiance, andbudded into transient loveliness. It set on a world that contained me alonefor its inhabitant. I took out my wand--I counted the marks. Twenty-fivewere already traced--twenty-five days had already elapsed, since humanvoice had gladdened my ears, or human countenance met my gaze. Twenty-fivelong, weary days, succeeded by dark and lonesome nights, had mingled withforegone years, and had become a part of the past--the never to berecalled--a real, undeniable portion of my life--twenty-five long, longdays.
Why this was not a month!--Why talk of days--or weeks--or months--Imust grasp years in my imagination, if I would truly picture the future tomyself--three, five, ten, twenty, fifty anniversaries of that fatal epochmight elapse--every year containing twelve months, each of more numerouscalculation in a diary, than the twenty-five days gone by--Can it be?Will it be?--We had been used to look forward to death tremulously--wherefore, but because its place was obscure? But more terrible, and farmore obscure, was the unveiled course of my lone futurity. I broke my wand;I threw it from me. I needed no recorder of the inch and barley-corn growthof my life, while my unquiet thoughts created other divisions, than thoseruled over by the planets--and, in looking back on the age that hadelapsed since I had been alone, I disdained to give the name of days andhours to the throes of agony which had in truth portioned it out.
I hid my face in my hands. The twitter of the young birds going to rest,and their rustling among the trees, disturbed the still evening-air--thecrickets chirped--the aziolo cooed at intervals. My thoughts had been ofdeath--these sounds spoke to me of life. I lifted up my eyes--a batwheeled round--the sun had sunk behind the jagged line of mountains, andthe paly, crescent moon was visible, s
ilver white, amidst the orangesunset, and accompanied by one bright star, prolonged thus the twilight. Aherd of cattle passed along in the dell below, untended, towards theirwatering place--the grass was rustled by a gentle breeze, and theolive-woods, mellowed into soft masses by the moonlight, contrasted theirsea-green with the dark chestnut foliage. Yes, this is the earth; there isno change--no ruin--no rent made in her verdurous expanse; shecontinues to wheel round and round, with alternate night and day, throughthe sky, though man is not her adorner or inhabitant. Why could I notforget myself like one of those animals, and no longer suffer the wildtumult of misery that I endure? Yet, ah! what a deadly breach yawns betweentheir state and mine! Have not they companions? Have not they each theirmate--their cherished young, their home, which, though unexpressed to us,is, I doubt not, endeared and enriched, even in their eyes, by the societywhich kind nature has created for them? It is I only that am alone--I, onthis little hill top, gazing on plain and mountain recess--on sky, andits starry population, listening to every sound of earth, and air, andmurmuring wave,--I only cannot express to any companion my many thoughts,nor lay my throbbing head on any loved bosom, nor drink from meeting eyesan intoxicating dew, that transcends the fabulous nectar of the gods. ShallI not then complain? Shall I not curse the murderous engine which has moweddown the children of men, my brethren? Shall I not bestow a malediction onevery other of nature's offspring, which dares live and enjoy, while I liveand suffer?
Ah, no! I will discipline my sorrowing heart to sympathy in your joys; Iwill be happy, because ye are so. Live on, ye innocents, nature's selecteddarlings; I am not much unlike to you. Nerves, pulse, brain, joint, andflesh, of such am I composed, and ye are organized by the same laws. I havesomething beyond this, but I will call it a defect, not an endowment, if itleads me to misery, while ye are happy. Just then, there emerged from anear copse two goats and a little kid, by the mother's side; they began tobrowze the herbage of the hill. I approached near to them, without theirperceiving me; I gathered a handful of fresh grass, and held it out; thelittle one nestled close to its mother, while she timidly withdrew. Themale stepped forward, fixing his eyes on me: I drew near, still holding outmy lure, while he, depressing his head, rushed at me with his horns. I wasa very fool; I knew it, yet I yielded to my rage. I snatched up a hugefragment of rock; it would have crushed my rash foe. I poized it--aimedit--then my heart failed me. I hurled it wide of the mark; it rolledclattering among the bushes into dell. My little visitants, all aghast,galloped back into the covert of the wood; while I, my very heart bleedingand torn, rushed down the hill, and by the violence of bodily exertion,sought to escape from my miserable self.
No, no, I will not live among the wild scenes of nature, the enemy of allthat lives. I will seek the towns--Rome, the capital of the world, thecrown of man's achievements. Among its storied streets, hallowed ruins, andstupendous remains of human exertion, I shall not, as here, find everything forgetful of man; trampling on his memory, defacing his works,proclaiming from hill to hill, and vale to vale,--by the torrents freedfrom the boundaries which he imposed--by the vegetation liberated fromthe laws which he enforced--by his habitation abandoned to mildew andweeds, that his power is lost, his race annihilated for ever.
I hailed the Tiber, for that was as it were an unalienable possession ofhumanity. I hailed the wild Campagna, for every rood had been trod by man;and its savage uncultivation, of no recent date, only proclaimed moredistinctly his power, since he had given an honourable name and sacredtitle to what else would have been a worthless, barren track. I enteredEternal Rome by the Porta del Popolo, and saluted with awe itstime-honoured space. The wide square, the churches near, the long extent ofthe Corso, the near eminence of Trinita de' Monti appeared like fairy work,they were so silent, so peaceful, and so very fair. It was evening; and thepopulation of animals which still existed in this mighty city, had gone torest; there was no sound, save the murmur of its many fountains, whose softmonotony was harmony to my soul. The knowledge that I was in Rome, soothedme; that wondrous city, hardly more illustrious for its heroes and sages,than for the power it exercised over the imaginations of men. I went torest that night; the eternal burning of my heart quenched,--my sensestranquil.
The next morning I eagerly began my rambles in search of oblivion. Iascended the many terraces of the garden of the Colonna Palace, under whoseroof I had been sleeping; and passing out from it at its summit, I foundmyself on Monte Cavallo. The fountain sparkled in the sun; the obeliskabove pierced the clear dark-blue air. The statues on each side, the works,as they are inscribed, of Phidias and Praxiteles, stood in undiminishedgrandeur, representing Castor and Pollux, who with majestic power tamed therearing animal at their side. If those illustrious artists had in truthchiselled these forms, how many passing generations had their giantproportions outlived! and now they were viewed by the last of the speciesthey were sculptured to represent and deify. I had shrunk intoinsignificance in my own eyes, as I considered the multitudinous beingsthese stone demigods had outlived, but this after-thought restored me todignity in my own conception. The sight of the poetry eternized in thesestatues, took the sting from the thought, arraying it only in poeticideality.
I repeated to myself,--I am in Rome! I behold, and as it were, familiarlyconverse with the wonder of the world, sovereign mistress of theimagination, majestic and eternal survivor of millions of generations ofextinct men. I endeavoured to quiet the sorrows of my aching heart, by evennow taking an interest in what in my youth I had ardently longed to see.Every part of Rome is replete with relics of ancient times. The meaneststreets are strewed with truncated columns, broken capitals--Corinthianand Ionic, and sparkling fragments of granite or porphyry. The walls of themost penurious dwellings enclose a fluted pillar or ponderous stone, whichonce made part of the palace of the Caesars; and the voice of dead time, instill vibrations, is breathed from these dumb things, animated andglorified as they were by man.
I embraced the vast columns of the temple of Jupiter Stator, which survivesin the open space that was the Forum, and leaning my burning cheek againstits cold durability, I tried to lose the sense of present misery andpresent desertion, by recalling to the haunted cell of my brain vividmemories of times gone by. I rejoiced at my success, as I figured Camillus,the Gracchi, Cato, and last the heroes of Tacitus, which shine meteors ofsurpassing brightness during the murky night of the empire;--as theverses of Horace and Virgil, or the glowing periods of Cicero thronged intothe opened gates of my mind, I felt myself exalted by long forgottenenthusiasm. I was delighted to know that I beheld the scene which theybeheld--the scene which their wives and mothers, and crowds of theunnamed witnessed, while at the same time they honoured, applauded, or weptfor these matchless specimens of humanity. At length, then, I had found aconsolation. I had not vainly sought the storied precincts of Rome--I haddiscovered a medicine for my many and vital wounds.
I sat at the foot of these vast columns. The Coliseum, whose naked ruin isrobed by nature in a verdurous and glowing veil, lay in the sunlight on myright. Not far off, to the left, was the Tower of the Capitol. Triumphalarches, the falling walls of many temples, strewed the ground at my feet. Istrove, I resolved, to force myself to see the Plebeian multitude and loftyPatrician forms congregated around; and, as the Diorama of ages passedacross my subdued fancy, they were replaced by the modern Roman; the Pope,in his white stole, distributing benedictions to the kneeling worshippers;the friar in his cowl; the dark-eyed girl, veiled by her mezzera; thenoisy, sun-burnt rustic, leading his herd of buffaloes and oxen to theCampo Vaccino. The romance with which, dipping our pencils in the rainbowhues of sky and transcendent nature, we to a degree gratuitously endow theItalians, replaced the solemn grandeur of antiquity. I remembered the darkmonk, and floating figures of "The Italian," and how my boyish blood hadthrilled at the description. I called to mind Corinna ascending the Capitolto be crowned, and, passing from the heroine to the author, reflected howthe Enchantress Spirit of Rome held sovereign sway over the minds of the
imaginative, until it rested on me--sole remaining spectator of itswonders.
I was long wrapt by such ideas; but the soul wearies of a pauseless flight;and, stooping from its wheeling circuits round and round this spot,suddenly it fell ten thousand fathom deep, into the abyss of the present--into self-knowledge--into tenfold sadness. I roused myself--I cast offmy waking dreams; and I, who just now could almost hear the shouts of theRoman throng, and was hustled by countless multitudes, now beheld thedesart ruins of Rome sleeping under its own blue sky; the shadows laytranquilly on the ground; sheep were grazing untended on the Palatine, anda buffalo stalked down the Sacred Way that led to the Capitol. I was alonein the Forum; alone in Rome; alone in the world. Would not one living man--one companion in my weary solitude, be worth all the glory andremembered power of this time-honoured city? Double sorrow--sadness,bred in Cimmerian caves, robed my soul in a mourning garb. The generationsI had conjured up to my fancy, contrasted more strongly with the end of all--the single point in which, as a pyramid, the mighty fabric of societyhad ended, while I, on the giddy height, saw vacant space around me.
From such vague laments I turned to the contemplation of the minutiae of mysituation. So far, I had not succeeded in the sole object of my desires,the finding a companion for my desolation. Yet I did not despair. It istrue that my inscriptions were set up for the most part, in insignificanttowns and villages; yet, even without these memorials, it was possible thatthe person, who like me should find himself alone in a depopulate land,should, like me, come to Rome. The more slender my expectation was, themore I chose to build on it, and to accommodate my actions to this vaguepossibility.
It became necessary therefore, that for a time I should domesticate myselfat Rome. It became necessary, that I should look my disaster in the face--not playing the school-boy's part of obedience without submission; enduringlife, and yet rebelling against the laws by which I lived.
Yet how could I resign myself? Without love, without sympathy, withoutcommunion with any, how could I meet the morning sun, and with it trace itsoft repeated journey to the evening shades? Why did I continue to live--why not throw off the weary weight of time, and with my own hand, let outthe fluttering prisoner from my agonized breast?--It was not cowardicethat withheld me; for the true fortitude was to endure; and death had asoothing sound accompanying it, that would easily entice me to enter itsdemesne. But this I would not do. I had, from the moment I had reasoned onthe subject, instituted myself the subject to fate, and the servant ofnecessity, the visible laws of the invisible God--I believed that myobedience was the result of sound reasoning, pure feeling, and an exaltedsense of the true excellence and nobility of my nature. Could I have seenin this empty earth, in the seasons and their change, the hand of a blindpower only, most willingly would I have placed my head on the sod, andclosed my eyes on its loveliness for ever. But fate had administered lifeto me, when the plague had already seized on its prey--she had dragged meby the hair from out the strangling waves--By such miracles she hadbought me for her own; I admitted her authority, and bowed to her decrees.If, after mature consideration, such was my resolve, it was doublynecessary that I should not lose the end of life, the improvement of myfaculties, and poison its flow by repinings without end. Yet how cease torepine, since there was no hand near to extract the barbed spear that hadentered my heart of hearts? I stretched out my hand, and it touched nonewhose sensations were responsive to mine. I was girded, walled in, vaultedover, by seven-fold barriers of loneliness. Occupation alone, if I coulddeliver myself up to it, would be capable of affording an opiate to mysleepless sense of woe. Having determined to make Rome my abode, at leastfor some months, I made arrangements for my accommodation--I selected myhome. The Colonna Palace was well adapted for my purpose. Its grandeur--its treasure of paintings, its magnificent halls were objects soothing andeven exhilarating.
I found the granaries of Rome well stored with grain, and particularly withIndian corn; this product requiring less art in its preparation for food, Iselected as my principal support. I now found the hardships and lawlessnessof my youth turn to account. A man cannot throw off the habits of sixteenyears. Since that age, it is true, I had lived luxuriously, or at leastsurrounded by all the conveniences civilization afforded. But before thattime, I had been "as uncouth a savage, as the wolf-bred founder of oldRome"--and now, in Rome itself, robber and shepherd propensities, similarto those of its founder, were of advantage to its sole inhabitant. I spentthe morning riding and shooting in the Campagna--I passed long hours inthe various galleries--I gazed at each statue, and lost myself in areverie before many a fair Madonna or beauteous nymph. I haunted theVatican, and stood surrounded by marble forms of divine beauty. Each stonedeity was possessed by sacred gladness, and the eternal fruition of love.They looked on me with unsympathizing complacency, and often in wildaccents I reproached them for their supreme indifference--for they werehuman shapes, the human form divine was manifest in each fairest limb andlineament. The perfect moulding brought with it the idea of colour andmotion; often, half in bitter mockery, half in self-delusion, I claspedtheir icy proportions, and, coming between Cupid and his Psyche's lips,pressed the unconceiving marble.
I endeavoured to read. I visited the libraries of Rome. I selected avolume, and, choosing some sequestered, shady nook, on the banks of theTiber, or opposite the fair temple in the Borghese Gardens, or under theold pyramid of Cestius, I endeavoured to conceal me from myself, andimmerse myself in the subject traced on the pages before me. As if in thesame soil you plant nightshade and a myrtle tree, they will eachappropriate the mould, moisture, and air administered, for the fosteringtheir several properties--so did my grief find sustenance, and power ofexistence, and growth, in what else had been divine manna, to feed radiantmeditation. Ah! while I streak this paper with the tale of what my so namedoccupations were--while I shape the skeleton of my days--my handtrembles--my heart pants, and my brain refuses to lend expression, orphrase, or idea, by which to image forth the veil of unutterable woe thatclothed these bare realities. O, worn and beating heart, may I dissect thyfibres, and tell how in each unmitigable misery, sadness dire, repinings,and despair, existed? May I record my many ravings--the wild curses Ihurled at torturing nature--and how I have passed days shut out fromlight and food--from all except the burning hell alive in my own bosom?
I was presented, meantime, with one other occupation, the one best fittedto discipline my melancholy thoughts, which strayed backwards, over many aruin, and through many a flowery glade, even to the mountain recess, fromwhich in early youth I had first emerged.
During one of my rambles through the habitations of Rome, I found writingmaterials on a table in an author's study. Parts of a manuscript layscattered about. It contained a learned disquisition on the Italianlanguage; one page an unfinished dedication to posterity, for whose profitthe writer had sifted and selected the niceties of this harmonious language--to whose everlasting benefit he bequeathed his labours.
I also will write a book, I cried--for whom to read?--to whomdedicated? And then with silly flourish (what so capricious and childish asdespair?) I wrote, DEDICATION TO THE ILLUSTRIOUS DEAD. SHADOWS, ARISE, ANDREAD YOUR FALL! BEHOLD THE HISTORY OF THE LAST MAN.
Yet, will not this world be re-peopled, and the children of a saved pair oflovers, in some to me unknown and unattainable seclusion, wandering tothese prodigious relics of the ante-pestilential race, seek to learn howbeings so wondrous in their achievements, with imaginations infinite, andpowers godlike, had departed from their home to an unknown country?
I will write and leave in this most ancient city, this "world's solemonument," a record of these things. I will leave a monument of theexistence of Verney, the Last Man. At first I thought only to speak ofplague, of death, and last, of desertion; but I lingered fondly on my earlyyears, and recorded with sacred zeal the virtues of my companions. Theyhave been with me during the fulfilment of my task. I have brought it to anend--I lift my eyes from my paper--again they are lost to me. Again
Ifeel that I am alone.
A year has passed since I have been thus occupied. The seasons have madetheir wonted round, and decked this eternal city in a changeful robe ofsurpassing beauty. A year has passed; and I no longer guess at my state ormy prospects--loneliness is my familiar, sorrow my inseparable companion.I have endeavoured to brave the storm--I have endeavoured to schoolmyself to fortitude--I have sought to imbue myself with the lessons ofwisdom. It will not do. My hair has become nearly grey--my voice, unusednow to utter sound, comes strangely on my ears. My person, with its humanpowers and features, seem to me a monstrous excrescence of nature. Howexpress in human language a woe human being until this hour never knew! Howgive intelligible expression to a pang none but I could ever understand!--No one has entered Rome. None will ever come. I smile bitterly at thedelusion I have so long nourished, and still more, when I reflect that Ihave exchanged it for another as delusive, as false, but to which I nowcling with the same fond trust.
Winter has come again; and the gardens of Rome have lost their leaves--the sharp air comes over the Campagna, and has driven its brute inhabitantsto take up their abode in the many dwellings of the deserted city--frosthas suspended the gushing fountains--and Trevi has stilled her eternalmusic. I had made a rough calculation, aided by the stars, by which Iendeavoured to ascertain the first day of the new year. In the old out-wornage, the Sovereign Pontiff was used to go in solemn pomp, and mark therenewal of the year by driving a nail in the gate of the temple of Janus.On that day I ascended St. Peter's, and carved on its topmost stone theaera 2100, last year of the world!
My only companion was a dog, a shaggy fellow, half water and halfshepherd's dog, whom I found tending sheep in the Campagna. His master wasdead, but nevertheless he continued fulfilling his duties in expectation ofhis return. If a sheep strayed from the rest, he forced it to return to theflock, and sedulously kept off every intruder. Riding in the Campagna I hadcome upon his sheep-walk, and for some time observed his repetition oflessons learned from man, now useless, though unforgotten. His delight wasexcessive when he saw me. He sprung up to my knees; he capered round andround, wagging his tail, with the short, quick bark of pleasure: he lefthis fold to follow me, and from that day has never neglected to watch byand attend on me, shewing boisterous gratitude whenever I caressed ortalked to him. His pattering steps and mine alone were heard, when weentered the magnificent extent of nave and aisle of St. Peter's. Weascended the myriad steps together, when on the summit I achieved mydesign, and in rough figures noted the date of the last year. I then turnedto gaze on the country, and to take leave of Rome. I had long determined toquit it, and I now formed the plan I would adopt for my future career,after I had left this magnificent abode.
A solitary being is by instinct a wanderer, and that I would become. A hopeof amelioration always attends on change of place, which would even lightenthe burthen of my life. I had been a fool to remain in Rome all this time:Rome noted for Malaria, the famous caterer for death. But it was stillpossible, that, could I visit the whole extent of earth, I should find insome part of the wide extent a survivor. Methought the sea-side was themost probable retreat to be chosen by such a one. If left alone in aninland district, still they could not continue in the spot where their lasthopes had been extinguished; they would journey on, like me, in search of apartner for their solitude, till the watery barrier stopped their furtherprogress.
To that water--cause of my woes, perhaps now to be their cure, I wouldbetake myself. Farewell, Italy!--farewell, thou ornament of the world,matchless Rome, the retreat of the solitary one during long months!--tocivilized life--to the settled home and succession of monotonous days,farewell! Peril will now be mine; and I hail her as a friend--death willperpetually cross my path, and I will meet him as a benefactor; hardship,inclement weather, and dangerous tempests will be my sworn mates. Yespirits of storm, receive me! ye powers of destruction, open wide yourarms, and clasp me for ever! if a kinder power have not decreed anotherend, so that after long endurance I may reap my reward, and again feel myheart beat near the heart of another like to me.
Tiber, the road which is spread by nature's own hand, threading hercontinent, was at my feet, and many a boat was tethered to the banks. Iwould with a few books, provisions, and my dog, embark in one of these andfloat down the current of the stream into the sea; and then, keeping nearland, I would coast the beauteous shores and sunny promontories of the blueMediterranean, pass Naples, along Calabria, and would dare the twin perilsof Scylla and Charybdis; then, with fearless aim, (for what had I to lose?)skim ocean's surface towards Malta and the further Cyclades. I would avoidConstantinople, the sight of whose well-known towers and inlets belonged toanother state of existence from my present one; I would coast Asia Minor,and Syria, and, passing the seven-mouthed Nile, steer northward again, tilllosing sight of forgotten Carthage and deserted Lybia, I should reach thepillars of Hercules. And then--no matter where--the oozy caves, andsoundless depths of ocean may be my dwelling, before I accomplish thislong-drawn voyage, or the arrow of disease find my heart as I float singlyon the weltering Mediterranean; or, in some place I touch at, I may findwhat I seek--a companion; or if this may not be--to endless time,decrepid and grey headed--youth already in the grave with those I love--the lone wanderer will still unfurl his sail, and clasp the tiller--and,still obeying the breezes of heaven, for ever round another and anotherpromontory, anchoring in another and another bay, still ploughing seedlessocean, leaving behind the verdant land of native Europe, adown the tawnyshore of Africa, having weathered the fierce seas of the Cape, I may moormy worn skiff in a creek, shaded by spicy groves of the odorous islands ofthe far Indian ocean.
These are wild dreams. Yet since, now a week ago, they came on me, as Istood on the height of St. Peter's, they have ruled my imagination. I havechosen my boat, and laid in my scant stores. I have selected a few books;the principal are Homer and Shakespeare--But the libraries of the worldare thrown open to me--and in any port I can renew my stock. I form noexpectation of alteration for the better; but the monotonous present isintolerable to me. Neither hope nor joy are my pilots--restless despairand fierce desire of change lead me on. I long to grapple with danger, tobe excited by fear, to have some task, however slight or voluntary, foreach day's fulfilment. I shall witness all the variety of appearance, thatthe elements can assume--I shall read fair augury in the rainbow--menace in the cloud--some lesson or record dear to my heart ineverything. Thus around the shores of deserted earth, while the sun ishigh, and the moon waxes or wanes, angels, the spirits of the dead, and theever-open eye of the Supreme, will behold the tiny bark, freighted withVerney--the LAST MAN.
THE END.
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