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26 - Wreckage - The War of the Worlds - H G Wells · Classic Science Fiction Books

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  Speaker 1: Chapter nine Wreckage. And now comes the strangest thing in
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  Speaker 1: my story. Yet perhaps it is not altogether strange. I
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  Speaker 1: remember clearly and coldly and vividly all that I did
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  Speaker 1: that day, until the time that I stood weeping and
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  Speaker 1: praising God upon the summit of Primrose Hill, and then
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  Speaker 1: I forget of the next three days. I know nothing
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  Speaker 1: I have learned since that, so far from my being
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  Speaker 1: the first discoverer of the Martian overthrow, several such wanderers
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  Speaker 1: as myself had already discovered this. On the previous night.
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  Speaker 1: One man the first had gone to Saint Martin's La Grande,
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  Speaker 1: and while I sheltered in the cabman's hut, had contrived
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  Speaker 1: to telegraph to Paris. Thence the joyful news had flashed
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  Speaker 1: all over the world. A thousand cities, chilled by ghastly apprehensions,
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  Speaker 1: suddenly flashed into frantic illuminations. They knew of it in Dublin, Edinburgh, Manchester, Birmingham.
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  Speaker 1: At the time when I stood upon the verge of
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  Speaker 1: the pit, already men weeping with joy, as I have heard,
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  Speaker 1: shouting and staying their work to shake hands and shout,
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  Speaker 1: were making up trains, even as near as crew to
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  Speaker 1: descend upon London. The church bells that had ceased a
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  Speaker 1: fortnight since suddenly caught the news. Until all England was
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  Speaker 1: bell ringing. Men on cycles, lean faced, unkempt, scorched along
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  Speaker 1: every country lane, shouting of unhoped deliverance, shouting to gaunt
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  Speaker 1: staring faces of despair. And for the food across the channel,
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  Speaker 1: across the Irish Sea, across the Atlantic, corn bread and
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  Speaker 1: meat were tearing. To our relief, All the shipping in
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  Speaker 1: the world seemed going London Wood in those days. But
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  Speaker 1: of all this I have no memory. I drifted a
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  Speaker 1: demented man. I found myself in a house of kindly
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  Speaker 1: people who had found me on the third day, wandering, weeping,
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  Speaker 1: and raving through the streets of Saint John's Wood. They
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  Speaker 1: have told me since that I was singing some insane
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  Speaker 1: doggerel about the last man left alive, Hurrah, the last
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  Speaker 1: man left alive. Trouble as they were with their own affairs,
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  Speaker 1: These people, whose name, much as I would like to
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  Speaker 1: express my gratitude to them, I may not even give here, nevertheless,
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  Speaker 1: cumbered themselves with me, sheltered me and protected me from myself.
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  Speaker 1: Apparently they had learned something of my story from me
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  Speaker 1: during the days of my lapse. Very gently, when my
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  Speaker 1: mind was assured again did they break to me what
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  Speaker 1: they had learned of the fate of Leatherhead. Two days
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  Speaker 1: after I was imprisoned. It had been destroyed, with every
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  Speaker 1: soul in it by a Martian. He had swept it
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  Speaker 1: out of existence, as it seemed, without any provocation, as
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  Speaker 1: a boy might crush an ant hill in the mere
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  Speaker 1: wantonness of power. I was a lonely man, and they
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  Speaker 1: were very kind to me. I was a lonely man
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  Speaker 1: and a sad one, and they bore with me. I
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  Speaker 1: remained with them four days after my recovery. All that
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  Speaker 1: time I felt a vague, a growing craving to look
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  Speaker 1: once more on whatever remained of the little life that
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  Speaker 1: seemed so happy and bright in my past. It was
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  Speaker 1: a mere, hopeless desire to feast upon my misery. They
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  Speaker 1: dissuaded me. They did all they could to divert me
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  Speaker 1: from this morbidity. But at last I could resist the
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  Speaker 1: impulse no longer, and, promising faithfully to return to them,
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  Speaker 1: and parting as I will confess from these four day
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  Speaker 1: friends with tears, I went out again into the streets
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  Speaker 1: that had lately been so dark and strange and empty.
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  Speaker 1: Already they were busy with returning people. In places even
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  Speaker 1: there were shops open, and I saw a drinking fountain
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  Speaker 1: running water. I remember how mockingly bright the day seemed
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  Speaker 1: as I went back on my melancholy pilgrimage to the
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  Speaker 1: little house at Woking. How busy the streets and vivid
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  Speaker 1: the moving life about me. So many people were abroad everywhere,
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  Speaker 1: busied in a thousand activities, that it seemed incredible that
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  Speaker 1: any great proportion of the population could have been slain.
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  Speaker 1: But then I noticed how yellow were the skins of
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  Speaker 1: the people I met, how shaggy the hair of the men,
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  Speaker 1: how large and bright their eyes, and that every other
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  Speaker 1: man still wore his dirty rags. Their faces seemed all
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  Speaker 1: with one of two expressions, a leaping exultation and energy,
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  Speaker 1: or a grim resolution. Save for the expression of the faces,
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  Speaker 1: London seemed a city of tramps. The vestries were indiscriminately
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  Speaker 1: distributing bread sent us by the French government. The ribs
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  Speaker 1: of the few horses showed dismally haggard. Special constables with
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  Speaker 1: white badges stood at the corners of every street. I
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  Speaker 1: saw little of the mischief wrought by the Martians until
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  Speaker 1: I reached Wellington Street, and there I saw the red
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  Speaker 1: weed clambering over the buttresses of Waterloo Bridge. At the
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  Speaker 1: corner of the bridge, too, I saw one of the
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  Speaker 1: common contrasts of that grotesque time, a sheet of paper
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  Speaker 1: flaunting against a thicket of the red weed, transfixed by
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  Speaker 1: a stick that kept it in place. It was the
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  Speaker 1: placard of the first newspaper to resume publication, the Daily Mail.
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  Speaker 1: I bought a copy for a blackened shilling I found
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  Speaker 1: in my pocket. Most of it was in blank, but
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  Speaker 1: the solitary compositor who did the thing had amused himself
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  Speaker 1: by making a grotesque scheme of advertisement stereo on the
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  Speaker 1: back page. The matter he printed was emotional. The news
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  Speaker 1: organization had not as yet found its way back. I
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  Speaker 1: learned nothing fresh, except that already in one week the
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  Speaker 1: examination of the Martian mechanisms had yielded astonishing results. Among
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  Speaker 1: other things, the article assured me what I did not
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  Speaker 1: believe at the time, that the secret of flying was
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  Speaker 1: discovered At Waterloo. I found the free trains that were
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  Speaker 1: taking people to their homes. The first rush was already
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  Speaker 1: over there. Were few people the train, and I was
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  Speaker 1: in no mood for casual conversation. I got a compartment
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  Speaker 1: to myself and sat with folded arms, looking grayly at
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  Speaker 1: the sunlit devastation that flowed past the windows. And just
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  Speaker 1: outside the terminus the train jolted over temporary rails, and
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  Speaker 1: on either side of the railway the houses were blackened ruins.
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  Speaker 1: To Clapham Junction, the face of London was grimy with
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  Speaker 1: powder of the black smoke in spite of two days
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  Speaker 1: of thunder storms and rain. And at Clapham Junction the
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  Speaker 1: line had been wrecked again. There were hundreds of out
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  Speaker 1: of work clerks and shopmen working side by side with
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  Speaker 1: the customary navvies, and we were jolted over a hasty relaying.
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  Speaker 1: All down the line from there the aspect of the
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  Speaker 1: country was gaunt and unfamiliar. Wimbledon particularly had suffered. Walton,
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  Speaker 1: by virtue of its unburned pine woods, seemed the least
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  Speaker 1: hurt of any place along the line. The Wandle, the Mole,
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  Speaker 1: every little stream was a heaped mass of red weed
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  Speaker 1: in appearance between butcher's meat and pickled cabbage. The Surrey
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  Speaker 1: pine woods were too dry, however, for the festoons of
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  Speaker 1: the Red Climber. Beyond Wimbledon, within sight of the line
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  Speaker 1: in certain nursery grounds were the heaped masses of earth
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  Speaker 1: about the sixth cylinder. A number of people were standing
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  Speaker 1: over it, and some sappers were busy in the midst
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  Speaker 1: of it. Over it flaunted a union jack, flapping cheerfully
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  Speaker 1: in the morning breeze. The nursery grounds were everywhere crimson,
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  Speaker 1: with the weed a wide expanse of livid colour, cut
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  Speaker 1: with purple shadows, and very painful to the eye. One's
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  Speaker 1: gaze went with infinite relief from the scorched grays and
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  Speaker 1: sullen reds of the foreground to the blue green softness
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  Speaker 1: of the eastward hills. The line on the London side
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  Speaker 1: of Woking Station was still undergoing repair, so I descended
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  Speaker 1: at Byfleet Station and took the road to Maybury, past
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  Speaker 1: the place where I and the artilleryman had talked to
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  Speaker 1: the Huzzahs, and on by the spot where the Martian
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  Speaker 1: had appeared to me in the thunder storm. Here, moved
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  Speaker 1: by curiosity, I turned aside to find among a tangle
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  Speaker 1: of red fronds, the warped and broken dog cart with
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  Speaker 1: the whitened bones of the horse scattered and gnawed. For
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  Speaker 1: a time I stood regarding these vestiges. Then I returned
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  Speaker 1: through the pine wood, neck high with red weed, here
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  Speaker 1: and there to find the landlord of the spotted dog
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  Speaker 1: had already found burial, and so came home past the
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  Speaker 1: college arms. A man standing at an open cottage door
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  Speaker 1: greeted me by name. As I passed. I looked at
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  Speaker 1: my head house with a quick flash of hope that
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  Speaker 1: faded immediately. The door had been forced, It was unfast
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  Speaker 1: and was opening slowly. As I approached it slammed again.
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  Speaker 1: The curtains of my study fluttered out of the open
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  Speaker 1: window from which I and the artilleryman had watched the dawn.
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  Speaker 1: No one had closed it, since the smashed bushes were
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  Speaker 1: just as I had left them nearly four weeks ago.
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  Speaker 1: I stumbled into the hall and the house felt empty.
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  Speaker 1: The stair carpet was ruffled and discolored, where I had crouched,
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  Speaker 1: soaked to the skin from the thunder storm the night
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  Speaker 1: of the catastrophe. Our muddy footsteps I saw still went
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  Speaker 1: up the stairs. I followed them to my study and
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  Speaker 1: found lying on my writing table, still with the sullenite
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  Speaker 1: paper weight upon it the sheet of work I had
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  Speaker 1: left on the afternoon of the opening of the cylinder.
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  Speaker 1: For a space I stood reading over my abandoned arguments.
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  Speaker 1: It was a paper on the probable development of moral
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  Speaker 1: ideas with the development of the civilizing process. And the
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  Speaker 1: last sentence was the opening of a prophecy in about
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  Speaker 1: two hundred years, I had written, we may expect. The
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  Speaker 1: sentence ended abruptly. I remembered my inability to fix my
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  Speaker 1: mind that morning, scarcely a month gone by, and how
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  Speaker 1: I had broken off to get my daily chronicle from
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  Speaker 1: the newsboy. I remembered how I went down to the
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  Speaker 1: garden gate as he came along, and how I had
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  Speaker 1: listened to his odd story of men from Mars. I
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  Speaker 1: came down and went into the dining room. There with
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  Speaker 1: the mutton and the bread, both far gone now in decay,
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  Speaker 1: and a beer bottle overturned just as I and the
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  Speaker 1: artilleryman had left them. My home was desolate. I perceived
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  Speaker 1: the folly of the faint hope I had cherished so long.
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  Speaker 1: And then a strange thing occurred. It is no use,
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  Speaker 1: said a voice. The house is deserted. No one has
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  Speaker 1: been here these ten days. Do not stay here to
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  Speaker 1: torment yourself. No one escaped but you. I was startled,
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  Speaker 1: had I spoken my thought aloud? I turned, and the
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  Speaker 1: French window was open behind me. I made a step
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  Speaker 1: to it and stood looking out, and there, amazed and afraid.
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  Speaker 1: Even as I stood amazed and afraid were my cousin
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  Speaker 1: and my wife. My wife, white and tearless. She gave
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  Speaker 1: a faint cry. I came, she said, I knew new.
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  Speaker 1: She put her hand to her throat, swayed. I made
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  Speaker 1: a step forward and caught her in my arms. End
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  Speaker 1: of Section twenty six.