The Last Man
no subject for reason; and, ignorant as she was of the motives and true
conduct of Raymond, things assumed for her even a worse appearance,
than the reality warranted. He was seldom at the palace; never, but
when he was assured that his public duties would prevent his remaining
alone with Perdita. They seldom addressed each other, shunning
explanation, each fearing any communication the other might make.
Suddenly, however, the manners of Raymond changed; he appeared to
desire to find opportunities of bringing about a return to kindness and
intimacy with my sister. The tide of love towards her appeared to flow
again; he could never forget, how once he had been devoted to her,
making her the shrine and storehouse wherein to place every thought and
every sentiment. Shame seemed to hold him back; yet he evidently wished
to establish a renewal of confidence and affection. From the moment
Perdita had sufficiently recovered herself to form any plan of action,
she had laid one down, which now she prepared to follow. She received
these tokens of returning love with gentleness; she did not shun his
company; but she endeavoured to place a barrier in the way of familiar
intercourse or painful discussion, which mingled pride and shame
prevented Raymond from surmounting. He began at last to shew signs of
angry impatience, and Perdita became aware that the system she had
adopted could not continue; she must explain herself to him; she could
not summon courage to speak—she wrote thus:—
“Read this letter with patience, I entreat you. It will contain no
reproaches. Reproach is indeed an idle word: for what should I reproach
you?
“Allow me in some degree to explain my feeling; without that, we shall
both grope in the dark, mistaking one another; erring from the path
which may conduct, one of us at least, to a more eligible mode of life
than that led by either during the last few weeks.
“I loved you—I love you—neither anger nor pride dictates these lines;
but a feeling beyond, deeper, and more unalterable than either. My
affections are wounded; it is impossible to heal them:—cease then the
vain endeavour, if indeed that way your endeavours tend. Forgiveness!
Return! Idle words are these! I forgive the pain I endure; but the
trodden path cannot be retraced.
“Common affection might have been satisfied with common usages. I
believed that you read my heart, and knew its devotion, its unalienable
fidelity towards you. I never loved any but you. You came the embodied
image of my fondest dreams. The praise of men, power and high
aspirations attended your career. Love for you invested the world for
me in enchanted light; it was no longer the earth I trod—the earth,
common mother, yielding only trite and stale repetition of objects and
circumstances old and worn out. I lived in a temple glorified by
intensest sense of devotion and rapture; I walked, a consecrated being,
contemplating only your power, your excellence;
For O, you stood beside me, like my youth,
Transformed for me the real to a dream,
Cloathing the palpable and familiar
With golden exhalations of the dawn.
‘The bloom has vanished from my life’—there is no morning to this all
investing night; no rising to the set-sun of love. In those days the
rest of the world was nothing to me: all other men—I never considered
nor felt what they were; nor did I look on you as one of them.
Separated from them; exalted in my heart; sole possessor of my
affections; single object of my hopes, the best half of myself.
“Ah, Raymond, were we not happy? Did the sun shine on any, who could
enjoy its light with purer and more intense bliss? It was not—it is not
a common infidelity at which I repine. It is the disunion of an whole
which may not have parts; it is the carelessness with which you have
shaken off the mantle of election with which to me you were invested,
and have become one among the many. Dream not to alter this. Is not
love a divinity, because it is immortal? Did not I appear sanctified,
even to myself, because this love had for its temple my heart? I have
gazed on you as you slept, melted even to tears, as the idea filled my
mind, that all I possessed lay cradled in those idolized, but mortal
lineaments before me. Yet, even then, I have checked thick-coming fears
with one thought; I would not fear death, for the emotions that linked
us must be immortal.
“And now I do not fear death. I should be well pleased to close my
eyes, never more to open them again. And yet I fear it; even as I fear
all things; for in any state of being linked by the chain of memory
with this, happiness would not return—even in Paradise, I must feel
that your love was less enduring than the mortal beatings of my fragile
heart, every pulse of which knells audibly,
The funeral note
Of love, deep buried, without resurrection.
No—no—me miserable; for love extinct there is no resurrection!
“Yet I love you. Yet, and for ever, would I contribute all I possess to
your welfare. On account of a tattling world; for the sake of my—of our
child, I would remain by you, Raymond, share your fortunes, partake
your counsel. Shall it be thus? We are no longer lovers; nor can I call
myself a friend to any; since, lost as I am, I have no thought to spare
from my own wretched, engrossing self. But it will please me to see you
each day! to listen to the public voice praising you; to keep up your
paternal love for our girl; to hear your voice; to know that I am near
you, though you are no longer mine.
“If you wish to break the chains that bind us, say the word, and it
shall be done—I will take all the blame on myself, of harshness or
unkindness, in the world’s eye.
“Yet, as I have said, I should be best pleased, at least for the
present, to live under the same roof with you. When the fever of my
young life is spent; when placid age shall tame the vulture that
devours me, friendship may come, love and hope being dead. May this be
true? Can my soul, inextricably linked to this perishable frame, become
lethargic and cold, even as this sensitive mechanism shall lose its
youthful elasticity? Then, with lack-lustre eyes, grey hairs, and
wrinkled brow, though now the words sound hollow and meaningless, then,
tottering on the grave’s extreme edge, I may be—your affectionate and
true friend,
“PERDITA.”
Raymond’s answer was brief. What indeed could he reply to her
complaints, to her griefs which she jealously paled round, keeping out
all thought of remedy. “Notwithstanding your bitter letter,” he wrote,
“for bitter I must call it, you are the chief person in my estimation,
and it is your happiness that I would principally consult. Do that
which seems best to you: and if you can receive gratification from one
mode of life in preference to another, do not let me be any obstacle. I
foresee that the plan which you mark out in your letter will not endure
long; but you are mistress of yourself, and it is my sincere wish to
contribute as far as you will permit me to your happiness.”
“Raymond has prophesied well,” said Perdita, “alas, that it should be
so! our present mode of life cannot continue long, yet I will not be
the first to propose alteration. He beholds in me one whom he has
injured even unto death; and I derive no hope from his kindness; no
change can possibly be brought about even by his best intentions. As
well might Cleopatra have worn as an ornament the vinegar which
contained her dissolved pearl, as I be content with the love that
Raymond can now offer me.”
I own that I did not see her misfortune with the same eyes as Perdita.
At all events methought that the wound could be healed; and, if they
remained together, it would be so. I endeavoured therefore to sooth and
soften her mind; and it was not until after many endeavours that I gave
up the task as impracticable. Perdita listened to me impatiently, and
answered with some asperity:—“Do you think that any of your arguments
are new to me? or that my own burning wishes and intense anguish have
not suggested them all a thousand times, with far more eagerness and
subtlety than you can put into them? Lionel, you cannot understand what
woman’s love is. In days of happiness I have often repeated to myself,
with a grateful heart and exulting spirit, all that Raymond sacrificed
for me. I was a poor, uneducated, unbefriended, mountain girl, raised
from nothingness by him. All that I possessed of the luxuries of life
came from him. He gave me an illustrious name and noble station; the
world’s respect reflected from his own glory: all this joined to his
own undying love, inspired me with sensations towards him, akin to
those with which we regard the Giver of life. I gave him love only. I
devoted myself to him: imperfect creature that I was, I took myself to
task, that I might become worthy of him. I watched over my hasty
temper, subdued my burning impatience of character, schooled my
self-engrossing thoughts, educating myself to the best perfection I
might attain, that the fruit of my exertions might be his happiness. I
took no merit to myself for this. He deserved it all—all labour, all
devotion, all sacrifice; I would have toiled up a scaleless Alp, to
pluck a flower that would please him. I was ready to quit you all, my
beloved and gifted companions, and to live only with him, for him. I
could not do otherwise, even if I had wished; for if we are said to
have two souls, he was my better soul, to which the other was a
perpetual slave. One only return did he owe me, even fidelity. I earned
that; I deserved it. Because I was mountain bred, unallied to the noble
and wealthy, shall he think to repay me by an empty name and station?
Let him take them back; without his love they are nothing to me. Their
only merit in my eyes was that they were his.”
Thus passionately Perdita ran on. When I adverted to the question of
their entire separation, she replied: “Be it so! One day the period
will arrive; I know it, and feel it. But in this I am a coward. This
imperfect companionship, and our masquerade of union, are strangely
dear to me. It is painful, I allow, destructive, impracticable. It
keeps up a perpetual fever in my veins; it frets my immedicable wound;
it is instinct with poison. Yet I must cling to it; perhaps it will
kill me soon, and thus perform a thankful office.”
In the mean time, Raymond had remained with Adrian and Idris. He was
naturally frank; the continued absence of Perdita and myself became
remarkable; and Raymond soon found relief from the constraint of
months, by an unreserved confidence with his two friends. He related to
them the situation in which he had found Evadne. At first, from
delicacy to Adrian he concealed her name; but it was divulged in the
course of his narrative, and her former lover heard with the most acute
agitation the history of her sufferings. Idris had shared Perdita’s ill
opinion of the Greek; but Raymond’s account softened and interested
her. Evadne’s constancy, fortitude, even her ill-fated and
ill-regulated love, were matter of admiration and pity; especially
when, from the detail of the events of the nineteenth of October, it
was apparent that she preferred suffering and death to any in her eyes
degrading application for the pity and assistance of her lover. Her
subsequent conduct did not diminish this interest. At first, relieved
from famine and the grave, watched over by Raymond with the tenderest
assiduity, with that feeling of repose peculiar to convalescence,
Evadne gave herself up to rapturous gratitude and love. But reflection
returned with health. She questioned him with regard to the motives
which had occasioned his critical absence. She framed her enquiries
with Greek subtlety; she formed her conclusions with the decision and