Chapter XVII: July-September 1822 (2)

I shudder with horror when I look back on what I have suffered, and
when I think of the wild and miserable thoughts that have possessed me
I say to myself, "Is it true that I ever felt thus?" and then I weep
in pity of myself; yet each day adds to the stock of sorrow, and death
is the only end. I would study, and I hope I shall. I would write, and
when I am settled I may. But were it not for the steady hope I
entertain of joining him, what a mockery would be this world! without
that hope I could not study or write, for fame and usefulness (except
as regards my child) are nullities to me. Yet I shall be happy if
anything I ever produce may exalt and soften sorrow, as the writings
of the divinities of our race have mine. But how can I aspire to that?

The world will surely one day feel what it has lost when this bright
child of song deserted her. Is not _Adonais_ his own elegy? and there
does he truly depict the universal woe which should overspread all
good minds since he has ceased to be their fellow-labourer in this
worldly scene. How lovely does he paint death to be, and with what
heartfelt sorrow does one repeat that line--

But I am chained to Time, and cannot thence depart.

How long do you think I shall live? as long as my mother? Then eleven
long years must intervene. I am now on the eve of completing my five
and twentieth year; how drearily young for one so lost as I. How young
in years for one who lives ages each day in sorrow. Think you that
these moments are counted in my life as in other people's? Oh no! The
day before the sea closed over mine own Shelley he said to Marianne,
"If I die to-morrow I have lived to be older than my father; I am
ninety years of age." Thus, also, may I say. The eight years I passed
with him was spun out beyond the usual length of a man's life, and
what I have suffered since will write years on my brow and intrench
them in my heart. Surely I am not long for this world; most sure
should I be were it not for my boy, but God grant that I may live to
make his early years happy.

Well, adieu! I have no events to write about, and can, therefore, only
scrawl about my feelings; this letter, indeed, is only the sequel of
my last. In that I closed the history of all events that can interest
me; that letter I wish you to send my Father, the present one it is
best not.

I suppose I shall see you in England some of these days, but I shall
write to you again before I quit this place. Be as happy as you can,
and hope for better things in the next world; by firm hope you may
attain your wishes. Again, adieu!--Affectionately yours,

M. S.

Do not write to me again here, or at all, until I write to you.

Within a day or two after this letter was written, Mary, with Jane Williams and their children, quitted Pisa; Clare only remaining behind.

From a letter--a very indignant one--of Mrs. Mason's, it may be inferred that appeals for a little assistance had been made on Clare's behalf to Byron, who did not respond. He had been, unwittingly, contributing to her support during the last few weeks of Shelley's life; Shelley having undertaken to get some translations (from Goethe) made for Byron, and giving the work secretly to Clare. The truth now came out, and she found more difficulty than heretofore in getting paid. Dependent for the future on her own exertions, she was going, according to her former resolution, to Vienna, where Charles Clairmont was now established. Mary's departure left her dreadfully solitary, and within a few hours she despatched one of her characteristic epistles, touched with that motley of bitter cynicism and grotesque, racy, humour which developed in her later letters.

_Half-past 2, Wednesday Morning._

MY DEAR MARY--You have only been gone a few hours. I have been
inexpressibly low-spirited. I hope dear Jane will be with you when
this arrives. Nothing new has happened--what should? To me there seems
nothing under the sun, except the old tale of misery, misery!

* * * * *

_Thursday._

I am to begin my journey to Vienna on Monday. Mrs. Mason will make me
go, and the consequence is that it will be double as much, as I am to
go alone. Imagine all the lonely inns, the weary long miles, if I do.
Observe, whatever befalls in life, the heaviest part, the very dregs
of the misfortune fall on me.

Alone, alone, all, all alone,
Upon a wide, wide sea,
And Christ would take no mercy
Upon my soul in agony.

But I believe my Minerva[3] is right, for I might wait to all eternity
for a party. You may remember what Lord Byron said about paying for
the translation; now he has mumbled and grumbled and demurred, and
does not know whether it is worth it, and will only give forty crowns,
so that I shall not be overstocked when I arrive at Vienna, unless,
indeed, God shall spread a table for me in the wilderness. I mean to
chew rhubarb the whole way, as the only diversion I can think of at
all suited to my present state of feeling, and if I should write you
scolding letters, you will excuse them, knowing that, with the
Psalmist, "Out of the bitterness of my mouth have I spoken."

* * * * *

Kiss the dear little Percy for me, and if Jane is with you, tell her
how much I have thought of her, and that her image will always float
across my mind, shining in my dark history like a ray of light across
a cave. Kiss her children also with all a grandmother's love. Accept
my best wishes for your happiness. Dio ti da, Maria, ventura.--Your
affectionate

CLARE.

Mary answered this letter from Genoa.

FROM MARY TO CLARE.

GENOA, _15th September 1822_.

MY DEAR CLARE--I do not wonder that you were and are melancholy, or
that the excess of that feeling should oppress you. Great God! what
have we gone through, what variety of care and misery, all close now
in blackest night. And I, am I not melancholy? here in this busy
hateful Genoa, where nothing speaks to me of him, except the sea,
which is his murderer. Well, I shall have his books and manuscripts,
and in those I shall live, and from the study of these I do expect
some instants of content. In solitude my imagination and ever-moving
thoughts may afford me some seconds of exaltation that may render me
both happier here and more worthy of him hereafter.

Such as I felt walking up a mountain by myself at sunrise during my
journey, when the rocks looked black about me, and a white mist
concealed all but them. I thought then, that, thinking of him and
exciting my mind, my days might pass in a kind of peace; but these
thoughts are so fleeting; and then I expect unhappiness alone from all
the worldly part of my life--from my intercourse with human beings. I
know that will bring nothing but unhappiness to me, if, indeed, I
except Trelawny, who appears so truly generous and kind.

But I will not talk of myself, you have enough to annoy and make you
miserable, and in nothing can I assist you. But I do hope that you
will find Germany better suited to you in every way than Italy, and
that you will make friends, and, more than all, become really attached
to some one there.

I wish, when I was in Pisa, that you had said that you thought you
should be short of money, and I would have left you more; but you
seemed to think 150 francesconi plenty. I would not go on with Goethe
except with a fixed price per sheet, to be paid regularly, and that
price not less than five guineas. Make this understood fully through
Hunt before you go, and then I will take care that you get the money;
but if you do not _fix_ it, then I cannot manage so well. You are
going to Vienna--how anxiously do I hope to find peace; I do not hope
to find it here. Genoa has a bad atmosphere for me, I fear, and
nothing but the horror of being a burthen to my family prevents my
accompanying Jane. If I had any fixed income I would go at least to
Paris, and I shall go the moment I have one. Adieu, my dear Clare;
write to me often, as I shall to you.--Affectionately yours,

MARY W. S.

I cannot get your German dictionary now, since I must have packed it
in my great case of books, but I will send it by the first
opportunity.

Jane and her children were the next to depart, and for a short time Mary Shelley and her boy were alone. Besides taking a house for the Hunts and herself, she had the responsibility of finding one for Lord Byron. People never scrupled to make her of use; but any object, any duty to fulfil, was good for her in her solitary misery, and she devoted some of her vacant time to sending an account of her plans to Mrs. Gisborne.

MARY SHELLEY TO MRS. GISBORNE.

GENOA, _17th September 1822_.

... I am here alone in Genoa; quite, quite alone! J. has left me to
proceed to England, and, except my sleeping child, I am alone. Since
you do not communicate with my Father, you will perhaps be surprised,
after my last letter, that I do not come to England. I have written to
him a long account of the arguments of all my friends to dissuade me
from that miserable journey; Jane will detail them to you; and,
therefore, I merely say now that, having no business there, I am
determined not to spend that money which will support me nearly a year
here, in a journey, the sole end of which appears to me the necessity
I should be under, when arrived in London, of being a burthen to my
Father. When my crowns are gone, if Sir Timothy refuses, I hope to be
able to support myself by my writings and mine own Shelley's MSS. At
least during many long months I shall have peace as to money affairs,
and one evil the less is much to one whose existence is suffering
alone. Lord Byron has a house here, and will arrive soon. I have taken
a house for the Hunts and myself outside one of the gates. It is large
and neat, with a _podere_ attached; we shall pay about eighty crowns
between us, so I hope that I shall find tranquillity from care this
winter, though that may be the last of my life so free, yet I do not
hope it, though I say so; hope is a word that belongs not to my
situation. He--my own beloved, the exalted and divine Shelley--has
left me alone in this miserable world; this earth, canopied by the
eternal starry heaven--where he is--where, oh, my God! yes, where I
shall one day be.

Clare is no longer with me. Jane quitted me this morning at 4. After
she left me I again went to rest, and thought of Pugnano, its halls,
its cypresses, the perfume of its mountains, and the gaiety of our
life beneath their shadow. Then I dozed awhile, and in my dream saw
dear Edward most visibly; he came, he said, to pass a few hours with
us, but could not stay long. Then I woke, and the day began. I went
out, took Hunt's house; but as I walked I felt that which is with me
the sign of unutterable grief. I am not given to tears, and though my
most miserable fate has often turned my eyes to fountains, yet oftener
I suffer agonies unassuaged by tears. But during these last sufferings
I have felt an oppression at my heart I never felt before. It is not a
palpitation, but a _stringimento_ which is quite convulsive, and, did
I not struggle greatly, would cause violent hysterics. Looking on the
sea, or hearing its roar, his dirge, it comes upon me; but these are
corporeal sufferings I can get over, but that which is insurmountable
is the constant feeling of despair that shadows me: I seem to walk on
a narrow path with fathomless precipices all around me. Yet where can
I fall? I have already fallen, and all that comes of bad or good is a
mere mockery.

Those about me have no idea of what I suffer; none are sufficiently
interested in me to observe that, though my lips smile, my eyes are
blank, or to notice the desolate look that I cast up towards the sky.
Pardon, dear friend, this selfishness in writing thus. There are
moments when the heart must _sfogare_ or be suffocated, and such a
moment is this--when quite alone, my babe sleeping, and dear Jane
having just left me, it is with difficulty I prevent myself from
flying from mental misery by bodily exertion, when to run into that
vast grave (the sea) until I sink to rest, would be a pleasure to me,
and instead of this I write, and as I write I say, Oh God, have pity
on me. At least I will have pity on you. Good-night, I will finish
this when people are about me, and I am in a more cheerful mood.
Good-night. I will go look at the stars. They are eternal, so is he,
so am I.

You have not written to me since my misfortune. I understand this; you
first waited for a letter from me, and that letter told you not to
write. But answer this as soon as you receive it; talk to me of
yourselves, and also of my English affairs. I am afraid that they will
not go on very well in my absence, but it would cost more to set them
right than they are worth. I will, however, let you know what I think
my friends ought to do, that when you talk to Peacock he may learn
what I wish. A claim should be made on the part of Shelley's executors
for a maintenance for my child and myself from Sir Timothy. Lord Byron
is ready to do this or any other service for me that his office of
executor demands from him; but I do not wish it to be done separately
by him, and I want to hear from England before I ask him to write to
Whitton on the subject. Secondly, Ollier must be asked for all MSS.,
and some plan be reflected on for the best manner of republishing
Shelley's works, as well as the writings he has left. Who will allow
money to Ianthe and Charles?

As for you, my dear friends, I do not see what you can do for me,
except to send me the originals or copies of Shelley's most
interesting letters to you. I hope soon to get into my house, where
writing, copying Shelley's MSS., walking, and being of some use in the
education of Marianne's children will be my occupations. Where is that
letter in verse Shelley once wrote to you? Let me have a copy of it.
Is not Peacock very lukewarm and insensible in this affair? Tell me
what Hogg says and does, and my Father also, if you have an
opportunity of knowing. Here is a long letter all about myself, but
though I cannot write, I like to hear of others. Adieu, dear
friends.--Your sincerely attached,

MARY W. SHELLEY.

The fragment that follows is from Mrs. Williams' first letter, written from Geneva, where she and Edward had lived in such felicity, and where they had made friends with Medwin, Roberts, and Trelawny: a happy, light-hearted time on which it was torture to look back.

JANE WILLIAMS TO MARY SHELLEY.

GENEVA, _September 1822_.

I only arrived this day, my dearest Mary, and find your letter, the
only friend who welcomes me. I will not detail all the misery I have
suffered, let it be added to the heap that must be piled up; and when
the measure is brimful, it needs must overflow; and then, peace! What
have been my feelings to-day? I have gazed on that lake, still and
ever the same, rolling on in its course, as if this gap in creation
had never been made. I have passed that place where our little boat
used to land, but where is the hand stretched out to meet mine, where
the glad voice, the sweet smile, the beloved form? Oh! Mary, is my
heart human that I endure scenes like this, and live? My arrival at
the inn here has been one of the most painful trials I have yet
undergone. The landlady, who came to the door, did not recognise me
immediately, and when she did, our mutual tears prevented both
interrogation and answer for some minutes. I then bore my sorrowful
burden up these stairs he had formerly passed in all the pride of
youth, hope, and love. When will these heartrending scenes be
finished? Never! for, when they cease, memory will furnish others.

* * * * *

God bless you, dearest girl; take care of yourself. Remember me to the
Hunts.--Ever yours,

JANE.

Not long after this Byron arrived at Genoa with his train, and the Hunts with their tribe.

"All that were now left of our Pisan circle," writes Trelawny,
"established themselves at Albaro,--Byron, Leigh Hunt, and Mrs.
Shelley. The fine spirit that had animated and held us together was
gone. Left to our own devices, we degenerated apace."