bore it from this city of the dead. The question arose as to where we

should deposit him. In our road to the palace, we passed through the Greek

cemetery; here on a tablet of black marble I caused him to be laid; the

cypresses waved high above, their death-like gloom accorded with his state

of nothingness. We cut branches of the funereal trees and placed them over

him, and on these again his sword. I left a guard to protect this treasure

of dust; and ordered perpetual torches to be burned around.

When I returned to Perdita, I found that she had already been informed of

the success of my undertaking. He, her beloved, the sole and eternal object

of her passionate tenderness, was restored her. Such was the maniac

language of her enthusiasm. What though those limbs moved not, and those

lips could no more frame modulated accents of wisdom and love! What though

like a weed flung from the fruitless sea, he lay the prey of corruption--

still that was the form she had caressed, those the lips that meeting hers,

had drank the spirit of love from the commingling breath; that was the

earthly mechanism of dissoluble clay she had called her own. True, she

looked forward to another life; true, the burning spirit of love seemed to

her unextinguishable throughout eternity. Yet at this time, with human

fondness, she clung to all that her human senses permitted her to see and

feel to be a part of Raymond.

Pale as marble, clear and beaming as that, she heard my tale, and enquired

concerning the spot where he had been deposited. Her features had lost the

distortion of grief; her eyes were brightened, her very person seemed

dilated; while the excessive whiteness and even transparency of her skin,

271

The Last Man