The Infant's Skull; Or, The End of the World. A Tale of the Millennium — John Stuart Mill — John Shaqi
The Infant's Skull; Or, The End of the World. A Tale of the Millennium
John Stuart Mill · en
The narrative of my father, Yvon the Forester, breaks off here. He could
not finish it. He was soon after taken sick and died. Before expiring he
made to me the following confession which he desired inserted in the
family's annals:
"I have a horrible confession to make. Near by the grave to which I took
the body of Julyan, lay a large heap of wood that was to be reduced to
coal by the woodsmen. My family was starving in the hut. I saw no way of
prolonging their existence. The thought then occurred to me: 'Last night
the abominable food that I carried to my family from Gregory's human
charnel house kept them from dying in the agonies of starvation. My
grandson is dead. What should I do? Bury the body of little Julyan or
have it serve to prolong the life of those who gave him life?'
"After long hesitating before such frightful alternatives, the thought
of the agonies that my family were enduring decided me. I lighted the
heap of dried wood. I laid upon it the flesh of my grandson, and by the
light cast from the pyre I buried his bones, except a fragment of his
skull, which I preserved as a sad and solemn relic of those accursed
days, and on which I engraved these fateful words in the Gallic tongue:
_Fin-al-bred_--The End of the World. I then took the broiled pieces of
meat to my expiring family!... You all ate in the dark.... You knew not
what you ate.... The ghastly meal saved your lives!"
My father then delivered to me the parchment that contained his
narrative, accompanied with the lettered bone from the skull of my poor
little Julyan, and also the iron arrow-head which accompanied the
narrative left by our ancestor Eidiol, the skipper of Paris. Some day,
perhaps, these two narratives may be joined to the chronicle of our
family, no doubt held by those of our relatives who must still be living
in Britanny.
My father Yvon died on the 9th of September, 1034.