The Last Man


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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  
599  


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597 598 599 600 601

Quick Jump
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