3.9. CHAPTER IX.
NOW—soft awhile—have I arrived so near the end? Yes!
it is all over now—a step or two over those new made
graves, and the wearisome way is done. Can I
accomplish my task? Can I streak my paper with words
capacious of the grand conclusion? Arise, black
Melancholy! quit thy Cimmerian solitude! Bring with
thee murky fogs from hell, which may drink up the day;
bring blight and pestiferous exhalations, which,
entering the hollow caverns and breathing places of
earth, may fill her stony veins with corruption, so
that not only herbage may no longer flourish, the trees
may rot, and the rivers run with gall—but the
everlasting
mountains be decomposed, and the mighty
deep putrify, and the genial atmosphere which clips the
globe, lose all powers of generation and sustenance.
Do this, sad visaged power, while I write, while eyes
read these pages.
And who will read them? Beware, tender offspring of the
re-born world—beware, fair being, with human heart,
yet untamed by care, and human brow, yet unploughed by
time—beware, lest the cheerful current of thy blood
be checked, thy golden locks turn grey, thy sweet
dimpling smiles be changed to fixed, harsh wrinkles!
Let not day look on these lines, lest garish day
waste, turn pale, and die. Seek a cypress grove, whose
moaning boughs will be harmony befitting; seek some
cave, deep embowered in earth's dark entrails, where
no light will penetrate, save that which struggles,
red and flickering, through a single fissure, staining
thy page with grimmest livery of death.
There is a painful confusion in my brain,
which refuses
to delineate distinctly succeeding events. Sometimes
the irradiation of my friend's gentle smile comes
before me; and methinks its light spans and fills
eternity—then, again, I feel the gasping throes—
We quitted Como, and in compliance with Adrian's
earnest desire, we took Venice in our way to Rome.
There was something to the English peculiarly
attractive in the idea of this wave-encircled,
island-enthroned city. Adrian had never seen it. We
went down the Po and the Brenta in a boat; and, the
days proving intolerably hot, we rested in the
bordering palaces during the day, travelling through
the night, when darkness made the bordering banks
indistinct, and our solitude less remarkable; when the
wandering moon lit the waves that divided before our
prow, and the night-wind filled our sails, and the
murmuring stream, waving trees, and swelling canvass,
accorded in harmonious strain. Clara, long overcome by
excessive grief, had to a great degree
cast aside her
timid, cold reserve, and received our attentions with
grateful tenderness. While Adrian with poetic fervour
discoursed of the glorious nations of the dead, of the
beauteous earth 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 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, beyond the ocean which
begirt
his lonely island, thousands lived whom the sun
enlightened when it shone also on him: beneath the
meridian sun and visiting moon, I alone bore human
features; I alone could give articulation to thought;
and, when I slept, both day and night were unbeheld of
any. He had fled from his fellows, and was transported
with terror at the print of a human foot. I would have
knelt down and worshipped the same. The wild and cruel
Caribbee, the merciless Cannibal—or worse than these,
the uncouth, brute, and remorseless veteran in the
vices of civilization, would have been to me a beloved
companion, a treasure dearly prized—his nature would
be kin to mine; his form cast in the same mould; human
blood would flow in his veins; a human sympathy must
link us for ever. It cannot be that I shall never
behold a fellow being more!—never!—never!—not in the
course of years!—Shall I wake, and speak to none,
pass the interminable hours, my soul, islanded in the
world, a solitary point,
surrounded by vacuum? Will
day follow day endlessly thus?—No! no! a God rules the
world—providence has not exchanged its golden sceptre
for an aspic's sting. Away! let me fly from the
ocean-grave, let me depart from this barren nook, paled
in, as it is, from access by its own desolateness; let
me tread once again the paved towns; step over the
threshold of man's dwellings, and most certainly I
shall find this thought a horrible vision—a maddening,
but evanescent dream.
I entered Ravenna, (the town nearest to the spot
whereon I had been cast), before the second sun had set
on the empty world; I saw many living creatures; oxen,
and horses, and dogs, but there was no man among them;
I entered a cottage, it was vacant; I ascended the
marble stairs of a palace, the bats and the owls were
nestled in the tapestry; I stepped softly, not to
awaken the sleeping town: I rebuked a dog, that by
yelping disturbed the sacred stillness; I would not
believe that all was
as it seemed—The world was not
dead, but I was mad; I was deprived of sight, hearing,
and sense of touch; I was labouring under the force of
a spell, which permitted me to behold all sights of
earth, except its human inhabitants; they were pursuing
their ordinary labours. Every house had its inmate; but
I could not perceive them. If I could have deluded
myself into a belief of this kind, I should have been
far more satisfied. But my brain, tenacious of its
reason, refused to lend itself to such
imaginations—and though I endeavoured to play the
antic to myself, I knew that I, the offspring of man,
during long years one among many—now remained sole
survivor of my species.
The sun sank behind the western hills; I had fasted
since the preceding evening, but, though faint and
weary, I loathed food, nor ceased, while yet a ray of
light remained, to pace the lonely streets. Night came
on, and sent every living creature but me to the bosom
of its mate. It was my solace, to blunt my mental
agony
by personal hardship—of the thousand beds
around, I would not seek the luxury of one; I lay down
on the pavement,—a cold marble step served me for a
pillow—midnight came; and then, though not before,
did my wearied lids shut out the sight of the twinkling
stars, and their reflex on the pavement near. Thus I
passed the second night of my desolation.