Mary Shelley, most famous for her novel Frankenstein, was the daughter of the
feminist theorist Mary Wollstonecraft and William Goodwin. She maried the poet Percy
Bysshe Shelley and became a member of the circle of young English Romantic writers. The
Last Man was written as an expression of her, grief after Shelley's death in
1822.
I Awoke in the morning, just as the higher windows of the lofty houses received the
first beams of the rising sun. The birds were chirping, perched on the window sills and
deserted thresholds of the doors. I awoke, and my first thought was, Adrian and Clara are
dead. I no longer shall be hailed by their good-morrow-or pass the long day in their
society. I shall never see them more. The ocean has robbed me of them-stolen their hearts
of love from their breasts, and given over to corruption what was dearer to me than light,
or life, or hope.
I was an untaught shepherd-boy, when Adrian deigned to confer on me his friendship. The
best years of my life had been passed with him. All I had possessed of this world's goods,
of happiness, knowledge, or virtue-I owed to him. He had, in his person , his intellect,
and rare qualities, given a glory to my life, which without him it had never known. Beyond
all other beings he had taught me, that goodness, pure and single, can be an attribute of
man. It was a sight for angels to congregate to behold, to view him lead, govern, and
solace, the last days of the human race.
My lovely Clara also was lost to me-she who last of the daughters of man, exhibited all
those feminine and maiden virtues, which poets, painters, and sculptors, have in their
various languages strove to express. Yet, as far as she was concerned, could I lament that
she was removed in early youth from the certain advent of misery? Pure she was of soul,
and all her intents were holy. But her heart was the throne of love, and the sensibility
her lovely countenance expressed, was the prophet of many woes, not the less deep and
drear, because she would have for ever concealed them.
These two wondrously endowed beings had been spared from the universal wreck, to be my
companions during the last year of solitude. I had felt, while they were with me, all
their worth. I was conscious that every other sentiment, regret, or passion had by degrees
merged into a yearning, clinging affection for them. I had not forgotten the sweet partner
of my youth, mother of my children, my adored ldris; but I saw at least a part of her
spirit alive again in her brother; and after, that by Evelyn's death I had lost what most
dearly recalled her to me; I enshrined her memory in Adrian's form, and endeavoured to
confound the two dear ideas. I sound the depths of my heart, and try in vain to draw
thence the expressions that can typify my love for these remnants of my race. If regret
and sorrow came athwart me, as well it might in our solitary and uncertain state, the
clear tones of Adrian's voice, and his fervent look, dissipated the gloom; or I was
cheered unaware by the mild content and sweet resignation Clara's cloudless brow and deep
blue eyes expressed. They were all to me-the suns of my benighted soul-repose in my
weariness-sl umber in my sleepless woe. Ill, most ill, with disjointed words, bare and
weak, have I expressed the feeling with which I clung to them. I would have wound myself
like ivy inextricably round them, so that the same blow might destroy us. I would have
entered and been a part of them-so that
If the dull substance of my flesh were thought,
even now I had accompanied them to their new and incommunicable abode.
Never shall I see them more. I am bereft of their dear converse -bereft of sight of
them. I am a tree rent by lightning; never will the bark close over the bared fibres-never
will their quivering life, torn by the winds, receive the opiate of a moment's balm. I am
alone in the world-but that expression as yet was less pregnant with misery, than that
Adrian and Clara are dead.
The tide of thought and feeling rolls on for ever the same, though the banks and shapes
around, which govern its course, and the reflection in the wave, vary. Thus the sentiment
of immediate loss in some sort decayed, while that of utter, irremediable loneliness grew
on me with time. Three days I wandered through Ravenna-now thinking only of the beloved
beings who slept in the oozy caves of ocean-now looking forward on the dread blank before
me; shuddering to make an onward step-writhing at each change that marked the progress of
the hours.
For three days I wandered to and fro in this melancholy town. I passed whole hours in
going from house to house, listening whether I could detect some lurking sign of human
existence. Sometimes I rang at a bell; it tinkled through the vaulted rooms, and silence
succeeded to the sound. I called myself' hopeless, yet still I hoped; and still
disappointment ushered in the hours, intruding the cold, sharp steel which first pierced
me, into the aching festering wound. I fed like a wild beast, which seizes its food only
when stung by intolerable hunger. I did not change my garb, or seek the shelter of a roof,
during all those days. Burning heats, nervous irritation, a ceaseless, but confused flow
of thought, sleepless nights, and days instinct with a frenzy of agitation, possessed me
during that time.
As the fever of my blood increased, a desire of wandering came upon me. I remember,
that the sun had set on the fifth day after my wreck, when, without purpose or aim, I
quitted the town of Ravenna. I must have been very ill. Had I been possessed by more or
less of delirium, that night had surely been my last; for, as I continued to walk on the
banks of the Mantone, whose upward course I followed, I looked wistfully on the stream,
acknowledging to myself that its pellucid waves could medicine my woes for ever, and was
unable to account to myself for my tardiness in seeking their shelter from the poisoned
arrows of thought, that were piercing me through and through. I walked a considerable part
of the night, and excessive weariness at length conquered my repugnance to the availing
myself of the deserted habitations of my species. The waning moon, which had just risen,
shewed me a cottage, whose neat entrance and trim garden reminded me of my own England. I
lifted up the latch of the door and entered. A kitchen first presented itself, where,
guided by the moon beams, I found materials for striking a light. Within this was bed
room; the couch was furnished with sheets of snowy whiteness; the wood piled on the
hearth, and an array as for a meal, might almost have deceived me into the dear belief
that I had here found what I had so long sought-one survivor, a companion for my
loneliness, a solace to my despair. I steeled myself against the delusion; the room itself
was vacant: it was only prudent, I repeated to myself, to examine the rest of the house. I
fancied that I was proof against the expectation; yet my heart beat audibly, as I laid my
hand on the lock of each door, and it sunk again, when I perceived in each the same
vacancy. Dark and silent they were as vaults; so I returned to the first chamber,
wondering what sightless host had spread the materials for my repast, and my repose. I
drew a chair to the table, and examined what the viands were of which I was to partake. In
truth it was a death feast! The bread was blue and mouldy; the cheese lay a heap of dust.
I did not dare examine the other dishes; a troop of ants passed in a double line across
the table cloth; every utensil was covered with dust, with cobwebs, and myriads of dead
flies: these were objects each and all betokening the fallaciousness of my expectations.
Tears rushed into my eyes; surely this was a wanton display of the power of the destroyer.
What had I done, that each sensitive nerve was thus to be anatomized? Yet why complain
more now than ever? This vacant cottage revealed no new sorrow-the world was empty;
mankind was dead-1 knew it well-why quarrel therefore with an acknowledged and stale
truth? Yet, as I said, I had hoped in the very heart of despair, so that every new
impression of the hard-cut reality on my soul brought with it a fresh pang, telling me the
yet unstudied lesson, that neither change of place nor time could bring alleviation to my
misery, but that, as I now was, I must continue, day after day, month after month, year
after year, while I lived. I hardly dared conjecture what space of time that expression
implied. It is true, I was no longer in the first blush of manhood; neither had I declined
far in the vale of years-men have accounted mine the prime of life: I had just entered my
thirty-seventh year; every limb was as well knit, every articulation as true, as when I
had acted 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.
Source:
From Mary Shelley , The Last Man, ed. Hugh J. Lake, Jr. (Lincoln, Neb.:
University of Nebraska Press, 1965), pp. 328-330.
This text is part of the Internet
Modern History Sourcebook. The Sourcebook is a collection of public domain and
copy-permitted texts for introductory level classes in modern European and World history.
