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

592

The Last Man