Charon

                                            byLordDunsany



  Charonleaned forward and rowed. All things were one with
hisweariness.
  It was not with him a matter of years or of centuries,
butof wide floods of time, and an old heaviness and a pain
inthe arms that had become for him part of the scheme that
thegods had made and was of a piece with Eternity.
  If the gods had even sent him a contrary wind it would
havedivided all time in his memory into two equal slabs.
  So grey were all things always where he was that if any
radiancelingered a moment among the dead, on the face of
sucha queen perhaps as Cleopatra, his eyes could not have
perceivedit.
  It was strange that the dead nowadays were coming in such
numbers. They were coming in thousands where they used to
comein fifties. It was neitherCharon's duty nor his wont
toponder in his grey soul why these things might be.
Charonleaned forward and rowed.
  Then no one came for a while. It was not unusual for the
godsto send no one down from Earth for such a space. But
thegods knew best.
  Then one man came alone. And the little shade sat
shiveringon a lonely bench and the great boat pushed off.
Only one passenger; the gods knew best.
  And great and wearyCharon rowed on and on beside the
little, silent, shivering ghost.
  And the sound of the river was like a mighty sigh that
Grief in the beginning had sighed among her sisters, and
thatcould not die like the echoes of human sorrow failing
onearthly hills, but was as old as time and the pain in
Charon'sarms.
  Then the boat from the slow, grey river loomed up to the
coastofDis and the little, silent shade still shivering
steppedashore, andCharon turned the boat to go wearily
backto the world. Then the little shadow spoke, that had
beena man.
  "I am the last," he said.
  No one had ever madeCharon smile before, no one before
hadever made him weep.