End of the world -- Fiction; Epidemics -- Fiction; Science fiction; Twenty-first century -- Fiction
We descended from Parnassus, emerging from its many folds, and passed
through Livadia on our road to Attica. Perdita would not enter Athens;
but reposing at Marathon on the night of our arrival, conducted me on
the following day, to the spot selected by her as the treasure house of
Raymond’s dear remains. It was in a recess near the head of the ravine
to the south of Hymettus. The chasm, deep, black, and hoary, swept from
the summit to the base; in the fissures of the rock myrtle underwood
grew and wild thyme, the food of many nations of bees; enormous crags
protruded into the cleft, some beetling over, others rising
perpendicularly from it. At the foot of this sublime chasm, a fertile
laughing valley reached from sea to sea, and beyond was spread the blue
Aegean, sprinkled with islands, the light waves glancing beneath the
sun. Close to the spot on which we stood, was a solitary rock, high and
conical, which, divided on every side from the mountain, seemed a
nature-hewn pyramid; with little labour this block was reduced to a
perfect shape; the narrow cell was scooped out beneath in which Raymond
was placed, and a short inscription, carved in the living stone,
recorded the name of its tenant, the cause and aera of his death.
Every thing was accomplished with speed under my directions. I agreed
to leave the finishing and guardianship of the tomb to the head of the
religious establishment at Athens, and by the end of October prepared
for my return to England. I mentioned this to Perdita. It was painful
to appear to drag her from the last scene that spoke of her lost one;
but to linger here was vain, and my very soul was sick with its
yearning to rejoin my Idris and her babes. In reply, my sister
requested me to accompany her the following evening to the tomb of
Raymond. Some days had passed since I had visited the spot. The path to
it had been enlarged, and steps hewn in the rock led us less
circuitously than before, to the spot itself; the platform on which the
pyramid stood was enlarged, and looking towards the south, in a recess
overshadowed by the straggling branches of a wild fig-tree, I saw
foundations dug, and props and rafters fixed, evidently the
commencement of a cottage; standing on its unfinished threshold, the
tomb was at our right-hand, the whole ravine, and plain, and azure sea
immediately before us; the dark rocks received a glow from the
descending sun, which glanced along the cultivated valley, and dyed in
purple and orange the placid waves; we sat on a rocky elevation, and I
gazed with rapture on the beauteous panorama of living and changeful
colours, which varied and enhanced the graces of earth and ocean.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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