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 pestiferous exhalations, which,
entering the hollow caverns and breathing 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 rivers 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 cheerful 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 befitting; 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 delineate
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 desire, 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 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 desolation. 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 wintry 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 matchless
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.
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 golden 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 mountains 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—
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 laughing 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 untroubled
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 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? O, do not fear, we
shall soon be on shore!”
The darkness prevented me from seeing the changes of her countenance;
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 undivided.”
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 lightning 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 way or that, in spite
of their angry buffetings. Adrian also could swim—but the weakness of
his frame prevented him from feeling pleasure in the exercise, or
acquiring any great expertness. But what power could the strongest
swimmer oppose to the overpowering violence of ocean in its fury? My
efforts to prepare my companions were rendered nearly futile —for the
roaring breakers prevented our hearing one another speak, and the
waves, that broke continually over our boat, obliged me to exert all my
strength in lading the water out, as fast as it came in. The while
darkness, palpable and rayless, hemmed us round, dissipated only by the
lightning; sometimes we beheld thunderbolts, fiery red, fall into the
sea, and at intervals vast spouts stooped from the clouds, churning the
wild ocean, which rose to meet them; while the fierce gale bore the
rack onwards, and they were lost in the chaotic mingling of sky and
sea. Our gunwales had been torn away, our single sail had been rent to
ribbands, and borne down the stream of the wind. We had cut away our
mast, and lightened the boat of all she contained—Clara attempted to
assist me in heaving the water from the hold, and, as she turned her
eyes to look on the lightning, I could discern by that momentary gleam,
that resignation had conquered every fear. We have a power given us in
any worst extremity, which props the else feeble mind of man, and
enables us to endure the most savage tortures with a stillness of soul
which in hours of happiness we could not have imagined. A calm, more
dreadful in truth than the tempest, allayed the wild beatings of my
heart—a calm like that of the gamester, the suicide, and the murderer,
when the last die is on the point of being cast—while the poisoned cup
is at the lips,—as the death-blow is about to be given.
Hours passed thus—hours which might write old age on the face of
beardless youth, and grizzle the silky hair of infancy—-hours, while
the chaotic uproar continued, while each dread gust transcended in fury
the one before, and our skiff hung on the breaking wave, and then
rushed into the valley below, and trembled and spun between the watery
precipices that seemed most to meet above her. For a moment the gale
paused, and ocean sank to comparative silence—it was a breathless
interval; the wind which, as a practised leaper, had gathered itself up
before it sprung, now with terrific roar rushed over the sea, and the
waves struck our stern. Adrian exclaimed that the rudder was gone;—“We
are lost,” cried Clara, “Save yourselves—O save yourselves!” The
lightning shewed me the poor girl half buried in the water at the
bottom of the boat; as she was sinking in it Adrian caught her up, and
sustained her in his arms. We were without a rudder—we rushed prow
foremost into the vast billows piled up a-head— they broke over and
filled the tiny skiff; one scream I heard—one cry that we were gone, I
uttered; I found myself in the waters; darkness was around. When the
light of the tempest flashed, I saw the keel of our upset boat close to
me—I clung to this, grasping it with clenched hand and nails, while I
endeavoured during each flash to discover any appearance of my
companions. I thought I saw Adrian at no great distance from me,
clinging to an oar; I sprung from my hold, and with energy beyond my
human strength, I dashed aside the waters as I strove to lay hold of
him. As that hope failed, instinctive love of life animated me, and
feelings of contention, as if a hostile will combated with mine. I
breasted the surges, and flung them from me, as I would the opposing
front and sharpened claws of a lion about to enfang my bosom. When I
had been beaten down by one wave, I rose on another, while I felt
bitter pride curl my lip.
Ever since the storm had carried us near the shore, we had never
attained any great distance from it. With every flash I saw the
bordering coast; yet the progress I made was small, while each wave, as
it receded, carried me back into ocean’s far abysses. At one moment I
felt my foot touch the sand, and then again I was in deep water; my
arms began to lose their power of motion; my breath failed me under the
influence of the strangling waters— a thousand wild and delirious
thoughts crossed me: as well as I can now recall them, my chief feeling
was, how sweet it would be to lay my head on the quiet earth, where the
surges would no longer strike my weakened frame, nor the sound of
waters ring in my ears—to attain this repose, not to save my life, I
made a last effort—the shelving shore suddenly presented a footing for
me. I rose, and was again thrown down by the breakers—a point of rock
to which I was enabled to cling, gave me a moment’s respite; and then,
taking advantage of the ebbing of the waves, I ran forwards— gained the
dry sands, and fell senseless on the oozy reeds that sprinkled them.
I must have lain long deprived of life; for when first, with a
sickening feeling, I unclosed my eyes, the light of morning met them.
Great change had taken place meanwhile: grey dawn dappled the flying
clouds, which sped onwards, leaving visible at intervals vast lakes of
pure ether. A fountain of light arose in an encreasing stream from the
east, behind the waves of the Adriatic, changing the grey to a roseate
hue, and then flooding sky and sea with aerial gold.
A kind of stupor followed my fainting; my senses were alive, but memory
was extinct. The blessed respite was short—a snake lurked near me to
sting me into life—on the first retrospective emotion I would have
started up, but my limbs refused to obey me; my knees trembled, the
muscles had lost all power. I still believed that I might find one of
my beloved companions cast like me, half alive, on the beach; and I
strove in every way to restore my frame to the use of its animal
functions. I wrung the brine from my hair; and the rays of the risen
sun soon visited me with genial warmth. With the restoration of my
bodily powers, my mind became in some degree aware of the universe of
misery, henceforth to be its dwelling. I ran to the water’s edge,
calling on the beloved names. Ocean drank in, and absorbed my feeble
voice, replying with pitiless roar. I climbed a near tree: the level
sands bounded by a pine forest, and the sea clipped round by the
horizon, was all that I could discern. In vain I extended my researches
along the beach; the mast we had thrown overboard, with tangled
cordage, and remnants of a sail, was the sole relic land received of
our wreck. Sometimes I stood still, and wrung my hands. I accused earth
and sky —the universal machine and the Almighty power that misdirected
it. Again I threw myself on the sands, and then the sighing wind,
mimicking a human cry, roused me to bitter, fallacious hope. Assuredly
if any little bark or smallest canoe had been near, I should have
sought the savage plains of ocean, found the dear remains of my lost
ones, and clinging round them, have shared their grave.
The day passed thus; each moment contained eternity; although when hour
after hour had gone by, I wondered at the quick flight of time. Yet
even now I had not drunk the bitter potion to the dregs; I was not yet
persuaded of my loss; I did not yet feel in every pulsation, in every
nerve, in every thought, that I remained alone of my race,—that I was
the LAST MAN.
The day had clouded over, and a drizzling rain set in at sunset. Even
the eternal skies weep, I thought; is there any shame then, that mortal
man should spend himself in tears? I remembered the ancient fables, in
which human beings are described as dissolving away through weeping
into ever-gushing fountains. Ah! that so it were; and then my destiny
would be in some sort akin to the watery death of Adrian and Clara. Oh!
grief is fantastic; it weaves a web on which to trace the history of
its woe from every form and change around; it incorporates itself with
all living nature; it finds sustenance in every object; as light, it
fills all things, and, like light, it gives its own colours to all.
I had wandered in my search to some distance from the spot on which I
had been cast, and came to one of those watch-towers, which at stated
distances line the Italian shore. I was glad of shelter, glad to find a
work of human hands, after I had gazed so long on nature’s drear
barrenness; so I entered, and ascended the rough winding staircase into
the guard-room. So far was fate kind, that no harrowing vestige
remained of its former inhabitants; a few planks laid across two iron
tressels, and strewed with the dried leaves of Indian corn, was the bed
presented to me; and an open chest, containing some half mouldered
biscuit, awakened an appetite, which perhaps existed before, but of
which, until now, I was not aware. Thirst also, violent and parching,
the result of the sea-water I had drank, and of the exhaustion of my
frame, tormented me. Kind nature had gifted the supply of these wants
with pleasurable sensations, so that I—even I!—was refreshed and
calmed, as I ate of this sorry fare, and drank a little of the sour
wine which half filled a flask left in this abandoned dwelling. Then I
stretched myself on the bed, not to be disdained by the victim of
shipwreck. The earthy smell of the dried leaves was balm to my sense
after the hateful odour of sea-weed. I forgot my state of loneliness. I
neither looked backward nor forward; my senses were hushed to repose; I
fell asleep and dreamed of all dear inland scenes, of hay-makers, of
the shepherd’s whistle to his dog, when he demanded his help to drive
the flock to fold; of sights and sounds peculiar to my boyhood’s
mountain life, which I had long forgotten.
I awoke in a painful agony—for I fancied that ocean, breaking its
bounds, carried away the fixed continent and deep rooted mountains,
together with the streams I loved, the woods, and the flocks—it raged
around, with that continued and dreadful roar which had accompanied the
last wreck of surviving humanity. As my waking sense returned, the bare
walls of the guard room closed round me, and the rain pattered against
the single window. How dreadful it is, to emerge from the oblivion of
slumber, and to receive as a good morrow the mute wailing of one’s own
hapless heart —to return from the land of deceptive dreams, to the
heavy knowledge of unchanged disaster!—Thus was it with me, now, and
for ever! The sting of other griefs might be blunted by time; and even
mine yielded sometimes during the day, to the pleasure inspired by the
imagination or the senses; but I never look first upon the
morning-light but with my fingers pressed tight on my bursting heart,
and my soul deluged with the interminable flood of hopeless misery. Now
I awoke for the first time in the dead world—I awoke alone—and the dull
dirge of the sea, heard even amidst the rain, recalled me to the
reflection of the wretch I had become. The sound came like a reproach,
a scoff—like the sting of remorse in the soul—I gasped—the veins and
muscles of my throat swelled, suffocating me. I put my fingers to my
ears, I buried my head in the leaves of my couch, I would have dived to
the centre to lose hearing of that hideous moan.
But another task must be mine—again I visited the detested beach— again
I vainly looked far and wide—again I raised my unanswered cry, lifting
up the only voice that could ever again force the mute air to syllable
the human thought.
What a pitiable, forlorn, disconsolate being I was! My very aspect and
garb told the tale of my despair. My hair was matted and wild—my limbs
soiled with salt ooze; while at sea, I had thrown off those of my
garments that encumbered me, and the rain drenched the thin
summer-clothing I had retained—my feet were bare, and the stunted reeds
and broken shells made them bleed—the while, I hurried to and fro, now
looking earnestly on some distant rock which, islanded in the sands,
bore for a moment a deceptive appearance—now with flashing eyes
reproaching the murderous ocean for its unutterable cruelty.
For a moment I compared myself to that monarch of the waste—Robinson
Crusoe. We had been both thrown companionless—he on the shore of a
desolate island: I on that of a desolate world. I was rich in the so
called goods of life. If I turned my steps from the near barren scene,
and entered any of the earth’s million cities, I should find their
wealth stored up for my accommodation—clothes, food, books, and a
choice of dwelling beyond the command of the princes of former
times—every climate was subject to my selection, while he was obliged
to toil in the acquirement of every necessary, and was the inhabitant
of a tropical island, against whose heats and storms he could obtain
small shelter.—Viewing the question thus, who would not have preferred
the Sybarite enjoyments I could command, the philosophic leisure, and
ample intellectual resources, to his life of labour and peril? Yet he
was far happier than I: for he could hope, nor hope in vain—the
destined vessel at last arrived, to bear him to countrymen and kindred,
where the events of his solitude became a fire-side tale. To none could
I ever relate the story of my adversity; no hope had I. He knew that,
beyond the ocean which begirt his lonely island, thousands lived whom
the sun enlightened when it shone also on him: beneath the meridian sun
and visiting moon, I alone bore human features; I alone could give
articulation to thought; and, when I slept, both day and night were
unbeheld of any. He had fled from his fellows, and was transported with
terror at the print of a human foot. I would have knelt down and
worshipped the same. The wild and cruel Caribbee, the merciless
Cannibal—or worse than these, the uncouth, brute, and remorseless
veteran in the vices of civilization, would have been to me a beloved
companion, a treasure dearly prized—his nature would be kin to mine;
his form cast in the same mould; human blood would flow in his veins; a
human sympathy must link us for ever. It cannot be that I shall never
behold a fellow being more!—never! —never!—not in the course of
years!—Shall I wake, and speak to none, pass the interminable hours, my
soul, islanded in the world, a solitary point, surrounded by vacuum?
Will day follow day endlessly thus? —No! no! a God rules the
world—providence has not exchanged its golden sceptre for an aspic’s
sting. Away! let me fly from the ocean-grave, let me depart from this
barren nook, paled in, as it is, from access by its own desolateness;
let me tread once again the paved towns; step over the threshold of
man’s dwellings, and most certainly I shall find this thought a
horrible vision—a maddening, but evanescent dream.
I entered Ravenna, (the town nearest to the spot whereon I had been
cast), before the second sun had set on the empty world; I saw many
living creatures; oxen, and horses, and dogs, but there was no man
among them; I entered a cottage, it was vacant; I ascended the marble
stairs of a palace, the bats and the owls were nestled in the tapestry;
I stepped softly, not to awaken the sleeping town: I rebuked a dog,
that by yelping disturbed the sacred stillness; I would not believe
that all was as it seemed—The world was not dead, but I was mad; I was
deprived of sight, hearing, and sense of touch; I was labouring under
the force of a spell, which permitted me to behold all sights of earth,
except its human inhabitants; they were pursuing their ordinary
labours. Every house had its inmate; but I could not perceive them. If
I could have deluded myself into a belief of this kind, I should have
been far more satisfied. But my brain, tenacious of its reason, refused
to lend itself to such imaginations—and though I endeavoured to play
the antic to myself, I knew that I, the offspring 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 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.