The Last Man
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,