Short Fiction

my wasting form, as a lamp about to loose it vivifying oil. I now behold the glad sun of May. It was May, four years ago, that I first saw my beloved father; it was in May, three years ago that my folly destroyed the only being I was doomed to love. May is returned, and I die. Three days ago, the anniversary of our meeting; and, alas! of our eternal separation, after a day of killing emotion, I caused myself to be led once more to behold the face of nature. I caused myself to be carried to some meadows some miles distant from my cottage; the grass was being mowed, and there was the scent of hay in the fields; all the earth looked fresh and its inhabitants happy. Evening approached and I beheld the sun set. Three years ago and on that day and hour it shone through the branches and leaves of the beech wood and its beams flickered upon the countenance of him whom I then beheld for the last time.95 I now saw that divine orb, gilding all the clouds with unwonted splendour, sink behind the horizon; it disappeared from a world where he whom I would seek exists not; it approached a world where he exists not. Why do I weep so bitterly? Why does my heart heave with vain endeavour to cast aside the bitter anguish that covers it “as the waters cover the sea.” I go from this world where he is no longer and soon I shall meet him in another.

Farewell, Woodville, the turf will soon be green on my grave; and the violets will bloom on it. There is my hope and my expectation; your’s are in this world; may they be fulfilled.96

Abbreviations

• F. of F.⁠—A. The Fields of Fancy, in Lord Abinger’s notebook

• F. of F.⁠—B. The Fields of Fancy, in the notebook in the Bodleian Library

• S.⁠—R. fr. fragments of The Fields of Fancy among the papers of the late Sir John Shelley-Rolls, now in the Bodleian Library

Endnotes

1. The posthumous story by Mrs. Shelley has not before appeared in print. It was found among the unpublished papers of Leigh Hunt, and is authenticated by S. R. Townshend Mayer, Esq., editor of St. James Magazine, London.

   —⁠Ed. Journal

   ↩

2. In Greece, especially in Illyria and Epirus, it is no uncommon thing for persons of the same sex to swear friendship. The Church contains a ritual to consecrate this vow. Two men thus united are called pobratimi, the women posestrime. ↩

3. Master of a merchant ship. ↩

4. The name of the common prison at Florence. ↩

5. My Lord, in Polish. ↩

6. I will it, in Polish. ↩

7. This is true. The Russian language is without that word. ↩

8. At Ostrolenka, the Russian and Polish armies were in sight of one another. The destruction of the Poles seemed inevitable; not expecting the attack, their lines were not formed, and the Russians were triple in number, and advancing in the most perfect order. In this emergency, three hundred students from the University of Warsaw drew hastily up in a body, and, devoting themselves willingly to death, marched forward to meet the onset of the enemy. They were headed by a young man, who distinguished himself by the most exalted courage, and was the only one of their numbers who escaped. He stationed his band in a small wood that lay directly in the path of the Russians, and checked their progress for the space of three hours. Every tree of that wood now waves above a patriot’s grave. In the meantime the Polish army formed, bore down, and gained a brilliant victory. ↩

9. The name is spelled thus in the MSS. of Mathilda and The Fields of Fancy, though in the printed Journal (taken from Shelley and Mary) and in the Letters it is spelled “Matilda.” In the MS. of the journal, however, it is spelled first “Matilda,” later “Mathilda.” ↩

10. Mary has here added detail and contrast to the description in F. of F.⁠—A., in which the passage “save a few black patches⁠ ⁠… on the plain ground” does not appear. ↩

11. The addition of “I am alone⁠ ⁠… withered me” motivates Mathilda’s state of mind and her resolve to write her history. ↩

12. Mathilda too is the unwitting victim in a story of incest. Like Oedipus, she has lost her parent-lover by suicide; like him she leaves the scene of the revelation overwhelmed by a sense of her own guilt, “a sacred horror”; like him, she finds a measure of peace as she is about to die. ↩

13. The addition of “the precious memorials⁠ ⁠… gratitude towards you,” by its suggestion of the relationship between Mathilda and Woodville, serves to justify the detailed narration. ↩

14. At this point two sheets have been removed from the notebook. There is no break in continuity, however. ↩

15. The descriptions of Mathilda’s father and mother and the account of their marriage in the next few pages are greatly expanded from F. of F.⁠—A., where there is only one brief paragraph. The process of expansion can be followed in S.⁠—R. fr. and in F. of F.⁠—B. The development of the character of Diana (who represents Mary’s own mother, Mary Wollstonecraft) gave Mary the most trouble. For the identifications with Mary’s father and mother, see Nitchie, Mary Shelley, pp. 11, 90⁠–⁠93, 96⁠–⁠97. ↩

16. The passage “There was a gentleman⁠ ⁠… school and college vacations” is on a slip of paper pasted on page 11 of the MS. In the margin are two fragments, crossed out, evidently parts of