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 daughters 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.
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 degrees 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 disjointed 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 incommunicable 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 reflection in
the wave, vary. Thus the sentiment of immediate loss in some sort
decayed, while that of utter, irremediable loneliness grew 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 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 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 creatures. 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 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
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 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 recurrence 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 finished 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 contemptible, 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 procured
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 me when awake, and cradled
me to my repose. 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 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 admired 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 command, and that was not
much, to prevent a recurrence of that chaotic and intolerable despair,
that had succeeded to the miserable shipwreck, 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 rambled 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 ground—because
wild natural scenery reminded me less acutely of my hopeless state of
loneliness. I counted the days, and bore with me a peeled willow-wand,
on which, as well as I could remember, I had notched the days that had
elapsed since my wreck, and each night I added another 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 one
side, spanned by an aqueduct, whose tall arches were rooted in the dell
below, and attested that man had once deigned to bestow labour and
thought here, to adorn and civilize nature. Savage, ungrateful nature,
which in wild sport defaced his remains, protruding her easily renewed,
and fragile growth of wild flowers and parasite plants around his
eternal edifices. I sat on a fragment of rock, and looked round. The
sun had bathed in gold the western atmosphere, and in the east the
clouds caught the radiance, and budded into transient loveliness. It
set on a world that contained me alone for its inhabitant. I took out
my wand—I counted the marks. Twenty-five were already
traced—twenty-five days had already elapsed, since human voice had
gladdened my ears, or human countenance met my gaze. Twenty-five long,
weary days, succeeded by dark and lonesome nights, had mingled with
foregone years, and had become a part of the past—the never to be
recalled—a real, undeniable portion of my life—twenty-five long, long
days.
Why this was not a month!—Why talk of days—or weeks—or months—I must
grasp years in my imagination, if I would truly picture the future to
myself—three, five, ten, twenty, fifty anniversaries of that fatal
epoch might elapse—every year containing twelve months, each of more
numerous calculation 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 far more 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 growth of my life, while my unquiet thoughts
created other divisions, than those ruled over by the planets—and, in
looking back on the age that had elapsed since I had been alone, I
disdained to give the name of days and hours 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—the crickets chirped—the aziolo cooed at intervals. My
thoughts had been of death—these sounds spoke to me of life. I lifted
up my eyes—a bat wheeled round—the sun had sunk behind the jagged line
of mountains, and the paly, crescent moon was visible, silver white,
amidst the orange sunset, and accompanied by one bright star, prolonged
thus the twilight. A herd of cattle passed along in the dell below,
untended, towards their watering place—the grass was rustled by a
gentle breeze, and the olive-woods, mellowed into soft masses by the
moonlight, contrasted their sea-green with the dark chestnut foliage.
Yes, this is the earth; there is no change—no ruin—no rent made in her
verdurous expanse; she continues to wheel round and round, with
alternate night and day, through the sky, though man is not her adorner
or inhabitant. Why could I not forget myself like one of those animals,
and no longer suffer the wild tumult of misery that I endure? Yet, ah!
what a deadly breach yawns between their state and mine! Have not they
companions? Have not they each their mate—their cherished young, their
home, which, though unexpressed to us, is, I doubt not, endeared and
enriched, even in their eyes, by the society which kind nature has
created for them? It is I only that am alone—I, on this little hill
top, gazing on plain and mountain recess—on sky, and its starry
population, listening to every sound of earth, and air, and murmuring
wave,—I only cannot express to any companion my many thoughts, nor lay
my throbbing head on any loved bosom, nor drink from meeting eyes an
intoxicating dew, that transcends the fabulous nectar of the gods.
Shall I not then complain? Shall I not curse the murderous engine which
has mowed down the children of men, my brethren? Shall I not bestow a
malediction on every other of nature’s offspring, which dares live and
enjoy, while I live and suffer?
Ah, no! I will discipline my sorrowing heart to sympathy in your joys;
I will be happy, because ye are so. Live on, ye innocents, nature’s
selected darlings; I am not much unlike to you. Nerves, pulse, brain,
joint, and flesh, of such am I composed, and ye are organized by the
same laws. I have something beyond this, but I will call it a defect,
not an endowment, if it leads me to misery, while ye are happy. Just
then, there emerged from a near copse two goats and a little kid, by
the mother’s side; they began to browze the herbage of the hill. I
approached near to them, without their perceiving me; I gathered a
handful of fresh grass, and held it out; the little one nestled close
to its mother, while she timidly withdrew. The male stepped forward,
fixing his eyes on me: I drew near, still holding out my lure, while
he, depressing his head, rushed at me with his horns. I was a very
fool; I knew it, yet I yielded to my rage. I snatched up a huge
fragment of rock; it would have crushed my rash foe. I poized it—aimed
it—then my heart failed me. I hurled it wide of the mark; it rolled
clattering among the bushes into dell. My little visitants, all aghast,
galloped back into the covert of the wood; while I, my very heart
bleeding and 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
all that lives. I will seek the towns—Rome, the capital of the world,
the crown of man’s achievements. Among its storied streets, hallowed
ruins, and stupendous remains of human exertion, I shall not, as here,
find every thing forgetful of man; trampling on his memory, defacing
his works, proclaiming from hill to hill, and vale to vale,—by the
torrents freed from the boundaries which he imposed—by the vegetation
liberated from the laws which he enforced—by his habitation abandoned
to mildew and weeds, that his power is lost, his race annihilated for
ever.
I hailed the Tiber, for that was as it were an unalienable possession
of humanity. I hailed the wild Campagna, for every rood had been trod
by man; and its savage uncultivation, of no recent date, only
proclaimed more distinctly his power, since he had given an honourable
name and sacred title to what else would have been a worthless, barren
track. I entered Eternal Rome by the Porta del Popolo, and saluted with
awe its time-honoured space. The wide square, the churches near, the
long extent of the 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 the population of animals which still existed
in this mighty city, had gone to rest; there was no sound, save the
murmur of its many fountains, whose soft monotony was harmony to my
soul. The knowledge that I was in Rome, soothed me; that wondrous city,
hardly more illustrious for its heroes and sages, than for the power it
exercised over the imaginations of men. I went to rest that night; the
eternal burning of my heart quenched,—my senses tranquil.
The next morning I eagerly began my rambles in search of oblivion. I
ascended the many terraces of the garden of the Colonna Palace, under
whose roof I had been sleeping; and passing out from it at its summit,
I found myself on Monte Cavallo. The fountain sparkled in the sun; the
obelisk above pierced the clear dark-blue air. The statues on each
side, the works, as they are inscribed, of Phidias and Praxiteles,
stood in undiminished grandeur, representing Castor and Pollux, who
with majestic power tamed the rearing animal at their side. If those
illustrious artists had in truth chiselled these forms, how many
passing generations had their giant proportions outlived! and now they
were viewed by the last of the species they were sculptured to
represent and deify. I had shrunk into insignificance in my own eyes,
as I considered the multitudinous beings these stone demigods had
outlived, but this after-thought restored me to dignity in my own
conception. The sight of the poetry eternized in these statues, took
the sting from the thought, arraying it only in poetic ideality.
I repeated to myself,—I am in Rome! I behold, and as it were,
familiarly converse with the wonder of the world, sovereign mistress of
the imagination, majestic and eternal survivor of millions of
generations of extinct men. I endeavoured to quiet the sorrows of my
aching heart, by even now 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 meanest streets are strewed with truncated columns,
broken capitals—Corinthian and Ionic, and sparkling fragments of
granite or porphyry. The walls of the most penurious dwellings enclose
a fluted pillar or ponderous stone, which once made part of the palace
of the Cæsars; and the voice of dead time, in still vibrations, is
breathed from these dumb things, animated and glorified as they were by
man.
I embraced the vast columns of the temple of Jupiter Stator, which
survives in the open space that was the Forum, and leaning my burning
cheek against its cold durability, I tried to lose the sense of present
misery and present desertion, by recalling to the haunted cell of my
brain vivid memories 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 of surpassing brightness during the murky night of
the empire;—as the verses of Horace and Virgil, or the glowing periods
of Cicero thronged into the opened gates of my mind, I felt myself
exalted by long forgotten enthusiasm. I was delighted to know that I
beheld the scene which they beheld—the scene which their wives and
mothers, and crowds of the unnamed witnessed, while at the same time
they honoured, applauded, or wept for these matchless specimens of
humanity. At length, then, I had found a consolation. I had not vainly
sought the storied precincts of Rome—I had discovered a medicine for my
many and vital wounds.
I sat at the foot of these vast columns. The Coliseum, whose naked ruin
is robed by nature in a verdurous and glowing veil, lay in the sunlight
on my right. Not far off, to the left, was the Tower of the Capitol.
Triumphal arches, the falling walls of many temples, strewed the ground
at my feet. I strove, I resolved, to force myself to see the Plebeian
multitude and lofty Patrician forms congregated around; and, as the
Diorama of ages passed across 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; the noisy, sun-burnt rustic,
leading his herd of buffaloes and oxen to the Campo Vaccino. The
romance with which, dipping our pencils in the rainbow hues of sky and
transcendent nature, we to a degree gratuitously endow the Italians,
replaced the solemn grandeur of antiquity. I remembered the dark monk,
and floating figures of “The Italian,” and how my boyish blood had
thrilled at the description. I called to mind Corinna ascending the
Capitol to be crowned, and, passing from the heroine to the author,
reflected how the Enchantress Spirit of Rome held sovereign sway over
the minds of the imaginative, until it rested on me—sole remaining
spectator of its wonders.
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 off my waking dreams; and I, who just now could almost hear the
shouts of the Roman throng, and was hustled by countless multitudes,
now beheld the desart ruins of Rome sleeping under its own blue sky;
the shadows lay tranquilly on the ground; sheep were grazing untended
on the Palatine, and a buffalo stalked down the Sacred Way that led to
the Capitol. I was alone in 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 and remembered power of this time-honoured city?
Double sorrow—sadness, bred in Cimmerian caves, robed my soul in a
mourning garb. The generations I 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 society had 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 my situation. 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 is true that my inscriptions were set up for the most part,
in insignificant towns and villages; yet, even without these memorials,
it was possible that the person, who like me should find himself alone
in a depopulate land, should, like me, come to Rome. The more slender
my expectation was, the more I chose to build on it, and to accommodate
my actions to this vague possibility.
It became necessary therefore, that for a time I should domesticate
myself at Rome. It became necessary, that I should look my disaster in
the face— not playing the school-boy’s part of obedience without
submission; enduring life, and yet rebelling against the laws by which
I lived.
Yet how could I resign myself? Without love, without sympathy, without
communion with any, how could I meet the morning sun, and with it trace
its oft 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 out the fluttering prisoner from my agonized breast?—It was not
cowardice that withheld me; for the true fortitude was to endure; and
death had a soothing sound accompanying it, that would easily entice me
to enter its demesne. But this I would not do. I had, from the moment I
had reasoned on the subject, instituted myself the subject to fate, and
the servant of necessity, the visible laws of the invisible God—I
believed that my obedience was the result of sound reasoning, pure
feeling, and an exalted sense of the true excellence and nobility of my
nature. Could I have seen in this empty earth, in the seasons and their
change, the hand of a blind power only, most willingly would I have
placed my head on the sod, and closed my eyes on its loveliness for
ever. But fate had administered life to me, when the plague had already
seized on its prey—she had dragged me by the hair from out the
strangling waves—By such miracles she had bought me for her own; I
admitted her authority, and bowed to her decrees. If, after mature
consideration, such was my resolve, it was doubly necessary that I
should not lose the end of life, the improvement of my faculties, and
poison its flow by repinings without end. Yet how cease to repine,
since there was no hand near to extract the barbed spear that had
entered my heart of hearts? I stretched out my hand, and it touched
none whose sensations were responsive to mine. I was girded, walled in,
vaulted over, by seven-fold barriers of loneliness. Occupation alone,
if I could deliver myself up to it, would be capable of affording an
opiate to my sleepless sense of woe. Having determined to make Rome my
abode, at least for some months, I made arrangements for my
accommodation—I selected my home. The Colonna Palace was well adapted
for my purpose. Its grandeur— its treasure of paintings, its
magnificent halls were objects soothing and even exhilarating.
I found the granaries of Rome well stored with grain, and particularly
with Indian corn; this product requiring less art in its preparation
for food, I selected as my principal support. I now found the hardships
and lawlessness of my youth turn to account. A man cannot throw off the
habits of sixteen years. Since that age, it is true, I had lived
luxuriously, or at least surrounded by all the conveniences
civilization afforded. But before that time, I had been “as uncouth a
savage, as the wolf-bred founder of old Rome”—and now, in Rome itself,
robber and shepherd propensities, similar to those of its founder, were
of advantage to its sole inhabitant. I spent the morning riding and
shooting in the Campagna—I passed long hours in the various galleries—I
gazed at each statue, and lost myself in a reverie before many a fair
Madonna or beauteous nymph. I haunted the Vatican, and stood surrounded
by marble forms of divine beauty. Each stone deity was possessed by
sacred gladness, and the eternal fruition of love. They looked on me
with unsympathizing complacency, and often in wild accents I reproached
them for their supreme indifference—for they were human shapes, the
human form divine was manifest in each fairest limb and lineament. The
perfect moulding brought with it the idea of colour and motion; often,
half in bitter mockery, half in self-delusion, I clasped their 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 a
volume, and, choosing some sequestered, shady nook, on the banks of the
Tiber, or opposite the fair temple in the Borghese Gardens, or under
the old pyramid of Cestius, I endeavoured to conceal me from myself,
and immerse myself in the subject traced on the pages before me. As if
in the same soil you plant nightshade and a myrtle tree, they will each
appropriate the mould, moisture, and air administered, for the
fostering their several properties—so did my grief find sustenance, and
power of existence, and growth, in what else had been divine manna, to
feed radiant meditation. Ah! while I streak this paper with the tale of
what my so named occupations were—while I shape the skeleton of my
days—my hand trembles—my heart pants, and my brain refuses to lend
expression, or phrase, or idea, by which to image forth the veil of
unutterable woe that clothed these bare realities. O, worn and beating
heart, may I dissect thy fibres, and tell how in each unmitigable
misery, sadness dire, repinings, and despair, existed? May I record my
many ravings—the wild curses I hurled at torturing nature—and how I
have passed days shut out from light and food—from all except the
burning hell alive in my own bosom?
I was presented, meantime, with one other occupation, the one best
fitted to discipline my melancholy thoughts, which strayed backwards,
over many a ruin, and through many a flowery glade, even to the
mountain recess, from which in early youth I had first emerged.
During one of my rambles through the habitations of Rome, I found
writing materials on a table in an author’s study. Parts of a
manuscript lay scattered about. It contained a learned disquisition on
the Italian language; one page an unfinished dedication to posterity,
for whose profit the 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 whom dedicated?
And then with silly flourish (what so capricious and childish as
despair?) I wrote,
DEDICATION
TO THE ILLUSTRIOUS DEAD.
SHADOWS, ARISE, AND READ YOUR FALL!
BEHOLD THE HISTORY OF THE
LAST MAN.
Yet, will not this world be re-peopled, and the children of a saved
pair of lovers, in some to me unknown and unattainable seclusion,
wandering to these prodigious relics of the ante-pestilential race,
seek to learn how beings so wondrous in their achievements, with
imaginations infinite, and powers godlike, had departed from their home
to an unknown country?
I will write and leave in this most ancient city, this “world’s sole
monument,” a record of these things. I will leave a monument of the
existence of Verney, the Last Man. At first I thought only to speak of
plague, of death, and last, of desertion; but I lingered fondly on my
early years, and recorded with sacred zeal the virtues of my
companions. They have been with me during the fulfilment of my task. I
have brought it to an end—I lift my eyes from my paper—again they are
lost to me. Again I feel that I am alone.
A year has passed since I have been thus occupied. The seasons have
made their wonted round, and decked this eternal city in a changeful
robe of surpassing beauty. A year has passed; and I no longer _guess_
at my state or my prospects—loneliness is my familiar, sorrow my
inseparable companion. I have endeavoured to brave the storm—I have
endeavoured to school myself to fortitude—I have sought to imbue myself
with the lessons of wisdom. It will not do. My hair has become nearly
grey—my voice, unused now to utter sound, comes strangely on my ears.
My person, with its human powers and features, seem to me a monstrous
excrescence of nature. How express in human language a woe human being
until this hour never knew! How give intelligible expression to a pang
none but I could ever understand!— No one has entered Rome. None will
ever come. I smile bitterly at the delusion I have so long nourished,
and still more, when I reflect that I have exchanged it for another as
delusive, as false, but to which I now cling 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
inhabitants to take up their abode in the many dwellings of the
deserted city—frost has suspended the gushing fountains—and Trevi has
stilled her eternal music. I had made a rough calculation, aided by the
stars, by which I endeavoured to ascertain the first day of the new
year. In the old out-worn age, the Sovereign Pontiff was used to go in
solemn pomp, and mark the renewal 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 the aera 2100, last year of the world!
My only companion was a dog, a shaggy fellow, half water and half
shepherd’s dog, whom I found tending sheep in the Campagna. His master
was dead, but nevertheless he continued fulfilling his duties in
expectation of his return. If a sheep strayed from the rest, he forced
it to return to the flock, and sedulously kept off every intruder.
Riding in the Campagna I had come upon his sheep-walk, and for some
time observed his repetition of lessons learned from man, now useless,
though unforgotten. His delight was excessive when he saw me. He sprung
up to my knees; he capered round and round, wagging his tail, with the
short, quick bark of pleasure: he left his fold to follow me, and from
that day has never neglected to watch by and attend on me, shewing
boisterous gratitude whenever I caressed or talked to him. His
pattering steps and mine alone were heard, when we entered the
magnificent extent of nave and aisle of St. Peter’s. We ascended the
myriad steps together, when on the summit I achieved my design, and in
rough figures noted the date of the last year. I then turned to gaze on
the country, and to take leave of Rome. I had long determined to quit
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
hope of amelioration always attends on change of place, which would
even lighten the 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 still possible, that, could I visit the whole extent
of earth, I should find in some part of the wide extent a survivor.
Methought the sea-side was the most probable retreat to be chosen by
such a one. If left alone in an inland district, still they could not
continue in the spot where their last hopes had been extinguished; they
would journey on, like me, in search of a partner for their solitude,
till the watery barrier stopped their further progress.
To that water—cause of my woes, perhaps now to be their cure, I would
betake myself. Farewell, Italy!—farewell, thou ornament of the world,
matchless Rome, the retreat of the solitary one during long months!—to
civilized life—to the settled home and succession of monotonous days,
farewell! Peril will now be mine; and I hail her as a friend—death will
perpetually cross my path, and I will meet him as a benefactor;
hardship, inclement weather, and dangerous tempests will be my sworn
mates. Ye spirits of storm, receive me! ye powers of destruction, open
wide your arms, and clasp me for ever! if a kinder power have not
decreed another end, so that after long endurance I may reap my reward,
and again feel my heart beat near the heart of another like to me.
Tiber, the road which is spread by nature’s own hand, threading her
continent, was at my feet, and many a boat was tethered to the banks. I
would with a few books, provisions, and my dog, embark in one of these
and float down the current of the stream into the sea; and then,
keeping near land, I would coast the beauteous shores and sunny
promontories of the blue Mediterranean, pass Naples, along Calabria,
and would dare the twin perils of 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 avoid Constantinople, the sight
of whose well-known towers and inlets belonged to another state of
existence from my present one; I would coast Asia Minor, and Syria,
and, passing the seven-mouthed Nile, steer northward again, till losing
sight of forgotten Carthage and deserted Lybia, I should reach the
pillars of Hercules. And then—no matter where—the oozy caves, and
soundless depths of ocean may be my dwelling, before I accomplish this
long-drawn voyage, or the arrow of disease find my heart as I float
singly on the weltering Mediterranean; or, in some place I touch at, I
may find what 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 another promontory, anchoring in another and another bay, still
ploughing seedless ocean, leaving behind the verdant land of native
Europe, adown the tawny shore of Africa, having weathered the fierce
seas of the Cape, I may moor my worn skiff in a creek, shaded by spicy
groves of the odorous islands of the far Indian ocean.
These are wild dreams. Yet since, now a week ago, they came on me, as I
stood on the height of St. Peter’s, they have ruled my imagination. I
have chosen 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
world are thrown open to me—and in any port I can renew my stock. I
form no expectation of alteration for the better; but the monotonous
present is intolerable to me. Neither hope nor joy are my
pilots—restless despair and fierce desire of change lead me on. I long
to grapple with danger, to be excited by fear, to have some task,
however slight or voluntary, for each day’s fulfilment. I shall witness
all the variety of appearance, that the elements can assume—I shall
read fair augury in the rainbow— menace in the cloud—some lesson or
record dear to my heart in everything. Thus around the shores of
deserted earth, while the sun is high, and the moon waxes or wanes,
angels, the spirits of the dead, and the ever-open eye of the Supreme,
will behold the tiny bark, freighted with Verney—the LAST MAN.
THE END.