He fell back, and the Wind that took his Spirit carried me also intospace.
VII
THE LAST MEN
The Wind bore me onwards more than forty years, and I found seatedbeside a granary half-a-dozen wrinkled and very aged men, whose faceswere set with a determination to go on living to the bitter end. Theywere delirious, and naked; they tore their white beards; they mumbledand could not speak. The great beasts came out of the forest by nightsoftly and gazed at them with their lantern eyes, but never did themharm. All day long they ate and slept or wandered a little aimlesslyabout. During that year four of them died.
Afterwards I saw the last two men. One of them was lying on the groundgasping passionately for breath, his withered limbs awry with pain. Icould see that he had been a magnificent man in his youth. As his oldfriend died, the Last of the Race remembered his Humanity. He bentdown, kissed the livid lips, carefully and tearfully closed the filmedred eyes. He even tried to scratch a grave with his long finger-nails,but soon despaired. He then went away, plodding as fast as he couldhobble, weeping silently, afraid of the Dead. In the afternoon he cameto a vast city, where many corpses lay; and about nightfall, when thestars were shining, he came to a massive half-ruined Dome that hadbeen used for the worship of some God. Entering, he tottered towardsthe altar, which still stood, half-buried in stone-dust and flakes;and reaching up to a great bronze Crucifix that stood upon it, withhis dying strength he clasped to his arms the Emblem of our Sorrow.
* * * * *
I saw the vast Halls and Palaces of men falling in slowly, decaying,crumbling, destroyed by nothing but the rains and the touch of Time.And looking again I saw wandering over and above the ruins, movingcuriously about, myriads of brown, hairy, repulsive little apes.
One of them was building a fire with sticks.
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