XXVII
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The occasion reminds me of a wider question. When the fated day of deluge comes, after what fashion will the earth for the most part be overwhelmed by the waves? Will it be by the strength of Ocean and the rise of the outer sea against us? Or will the rain descend uninterruptedly, and will summer be cut out of the year while persistent winter bursts its clouds and pours down endless masses of water? Or will earth herself open new reservoirs and shed forth rivers more abundantly? Or will a single cause be insufficient to produce such a catastrophe, and all the methods conspire together, the rains descending and the river floods rising, and the seas hurrying in hot haste from their place—all agencies in concert bent upon the one aim, the destruction of the human race? The last is the truth. Nature finds no difficulties in compassing her ends, especially when she hastens to make an end of herself. At the creation of things she economises her efforts, putting forth her energy in small imperceptible increase: for destruction she comes with sudden and irresistible might. How long a time is needed to bring the embryo child to the birth! How great the toil called for in rearing the tender infant! How careful the nurture through which the frail body is at length brought to manhood! But how insignificant the effort needed to undo it all! Cities take centuries to establish: an hour brings their ruin. Ages rear the forest: a moment turns it to ashes. To its stability and vigour this universe of things calls for great and constant protection; quickly and suddenly dissolution comes. Deviation by nature from her established order in the world suffices for the destruction of the race.
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So when that day of fate comes, many causes will be at work in fulfilling its decrees; and as some, including Fabianus, think, such a change will not come without a shock to the whole universe. In the first instance there will be excessive rainfall, a dull leaden sky with never a glimpse of the sun. The clouds will be unbroken, the gathering moisture will cause thick darkness, and there will be no winds to lick it up. Hence the crops will be diseased, the grain ere it be grown will wither without fruit. All tillage of man’s hand will be ruined; marsh grass will spring up over all the plains. Presently the stronger plants feel the strain; their roots are loosened, and the pollard elms fall forward, carrying their vines with them. All shrubs lose their hold on the soil, which has become soft and flabby. Soon the ground is so saturated that it can support neither grain nor fruitful pasture. The stress of famine is felt, and recourse is had to the ancient sustenance of berries. The fruit is shaken from ilex and oak, and any other tree that has been able to keep its ground by the support of the clefts of the rocks in the mountains. Roofs are sodden and rickety; the rain has penetrated to the depths, and the foundations sink. The ground is all a marsh. It is vain to seek supports to the tottering houses; every foundation is set on slippery ground, and in the muddy soil nothing is firm. After the storm-clouds have more and more densely massed, and the accumulated snows of centuries have melted, a cataract sweeps down from the lofty mountains carrying before it the woods now insecure in their place, tearing off boulders from their fastenings, and whirling them down in fierce career. It washes off the country houses, and takes down with it flocks of sheep among the débris. The smaller hamlets it carries off as it passes, but at length it leaves its course and rushes in fury upon the larger homesteads. It draws in its career whole cities, inhabitants, and buildings all mixed together: people know not whether to complain of a catastrophe or a shipwreck. So utterly crushed are they and at the same time submerged by its coming.
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By and by, as it advances, the cataract is swollen by the absorption of other torrents, and in devastating course roams through the whole plain. Finally, it holds universal sway; it has earned a title by the widespread destruction of the world which it carries as its burthen. The rivers, too, originally large, have been so hurried down by the storms that they have left their channels. The Rhone, the Rhine, the Danube, even when confined within their banks, have an impetuous torrent. What, suppose you, are they now that they have overflowed and made themselves new banks, and, cutting through the soil have all wandered from their wonted course? With what headlong rush they roll down! The Rhine overspreads the plains, but the wideness of the space causes no slackening of its energy; it pours its waters in full force over the whole extent as if it were rushing through a gorge. The Danube no longer washes the base, or even the middle, of the mountains; it lashes the very summits, bearing down with it the mountain sides it has flooded, the crags it has overturned, the beetling promontories through whole provinces; it undermines their foundations, and carries them far off from the mainland. And, after all, the river finds no exit—for it had closed up every passage against itself—but returns in a circuit, and envelops in one vast whirlpool the huge expanse of lands and cities.
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Meantime the rains continue, the sky becomes still more threatening, and thus, for long, disaster is heaped upon disaster. What was once cloud is now profound night, and that, too, dread and terrible, with gleams of lurid light between. For frequent flashes show, and squalls disturb the sea. Then for the first time, feeling the increase from the rivers, and too narrow to contain itself, the main advances its shores. Its own bounds cannot contain it, and yet the torrents from land prevent its escape, and drive back its waves. Still, the greater part of the torrents detained by their narrow mouth recoil in pools, reducing the fields to the aspect of a continuous lake. Now everything, far as the eye can reach, is a waste of waters. Every hill is hidden in the abyss, everywhere is fathomless depth of water. Only in the highest mountain tops are there shallows. To these heights men have fled with wives and children, and have driven up their cattle. All intercourse and communication have been cut off among the wretched survivors; for all the lower ground has been filled by the waves. The remnants of the human race cling to every lofty peak. Brought to the last shift, they have this one solace, that apprehension has passed into stupor. Astonishment so fills them that there is no room for fear. Even grief finds no place; for it loses its force in one whose wretchedness has passed beyond perception of suffering. So there are only mountain tops that appear like islands above the water, and increase the number of the scattered Cyclades, as that accomplished poet finely says; with an exaltation of language too in keeping with his theme, he exclaims:
All was sea; to the sea there was no shore.
It is a pity he reduced that burst of genius and his splendid subject to childish twaddle by adding:
The wolf has to swim among the sheep, the wave carries tawny lions.
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There is too little seriousness in making sport in this way when the earth has been swallowed up. He expressed a fine thought and caught a vivid picture of the utter confusion when he said:
Through the open plains the rivers wander at their will,
...The towers totter and sink beneath the flood.
That was splendid, if he had not minded what the wolf and the sheep were doing. Could anything, in fact, swim amid such deluge and destruction? Was not every hoof drowned in the same torrent as carried it off? You conceived a worthy image, Ovid, when all the world was overwhelmed, and the sky itself descended upon earth. Keep it up. You will know what it ought to be if you reflect that the whole world was afloat. Now we must return to our discussion.