The Solitary of Juan Fernandez, or the Real Robinson Crusoe

nce.-Project of Suicide.-The Last Shot.-The Sea

of rebuilding it; the fish-pond, the bed of water-cresses are encroached upon by sand and weeds, and he thinks not of repairing the

counted enough on two terrific guests, which

the worm gnaweth the garment and rottenness the wood, s

re he had dug a tomb for Marimonda, he bethought

eneath the ruins, under coal dust and half-calcined trunks of trees, he discovered, elevated several feet above the soil, the partition of

y bushes, briars and vines, and which he had delivered over to the flames, was undoubtedly a garden planted by them, on a

ts, incessantly to imagine the sound of a human voice, and incessantly to experience the torture of being undeceived! What elements of happiness has he ever met in this miserable island? When he dreamed of creating

raint, an uneasiness which he cannot define. Perhaps the emotions, so sweet to all, are painful to him only because he cannot communicate them, share them with another. It is not the noisy life of cities which he asks, not even that of the shore. But, at least, a companion, a being to reply to his voice, to be associated with his joys, his sorrows. Marimonda! No, he r

the sense of her acts, because he needed near him a thinking and acting being; but with her, confidences, plans, hopes, communication, the exchange of all those intimate and mysterious thoughts which are the l

ers become e

r to stimulate. Formerly, when in the presence of his comrades at St. Andrew or of the royal fleet, he had signalized himself by feats of address or courage, a sentiment of pride or triumph had inspired him. Since his arrival in the island, his courage a

review all of which his exile from the

generosity, devotion, even pity, all those noble instincts by which the soul reveals itself, for ever interdic

s days! Well, is not this the most valuable service he can expect from it? He examines the gun; the priming is yet undisturbed; he passes his nail over the flint, leans the butt against the ground, takes off the thick leather which covers his foot, that he may be able to fire with more certainty. But during all these preparations his resolution g

hore; it is at the moment when the tide is at its lowest ebb; the sun touches the horizon. Selkirk l

night, suddenly awakened by the sound of the advancing wave, he again flees before the threat of death; he no longer wishe

irects itself towards the shore. By its form, by its copper color, by the multiplicity of its rings, unfolding in

solitary is a

, in the caverns of his mountains; he has become a coward; why sho

tic alga, of a single piece, divided into a thousand cylindrical branches, and much superior to

come out of their holes, boldly carrying away before his eyes fragments, whence issues a thick and brown sap. Emb

lled by the Spaniards porro, and which forms so large a pa

1

by Bory de St. Vincent, and classed by him in the laminari

h oil and furs in a moment of distress, had just come to his ass

urprise a

ottle, strongly secured with a cork and wax. It contains a fragment

h the characters are partially effaced or scarcely legible, Selkirk

the name was illegible.) After having seen my two sons, and almost all my fortune, swallowed up in the sea with the vessel Fernand Cortes, in which I was

le, but without form, without connection, and almost entirely destro