The Last Man
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,