The Last Man
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