Latest / Science Fiction Books / 02 - The Machine Stops - E M Forster

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02 - The Machine Stops - E M Forster · Science Fiction Books

0:00
Speaker 1: Chapter two, the mending apparatus, by a vestibule, by a lift,
0:08
Speaker 1: by a tubular railway, by a platform, by a sliding door.
0:13
Speaker 1: By reversing all the steps of her departure, did Vashti
0:16
Speaker 1: arrive at her son's room, which exactly resembled her own.
0:20
Speaker 1: She might well declare that the visit was superfluous. The buttons,
0:24
Speaker 1: the knobs, the reading desk with the book, the temperature,
0:27
Speaker 1: the atmosphere, the illumination all were exactly the same. And
0:32
Speaker 1: if Kuno himself, flush of her flush, stood close beside
0:35
Speaker 1: her at last, what profit was there? And that she
0:39
Speaker 1: was too well bred to shake him by the hand.
0:43
Speaker 1: Averting her eyes, she spoke as follows. Here, I am,
0:48
Speaker 1: I have had the most terrible journey and greatly retarded
0:50
Speaker 1: the development of my soul. It is not worth it, Cuno,
0:54
Speaker 1: it is not worth it. My time is too precious.
0:57
Speaker 1: The sunlight almost touched me, and I have met with
0:59
Speaker 1: the rudest people. I can only stop a few minutes,
1:03
Speaker 1: say what you want to say, and then I must return.
1:07
Speaker 1: I have been threatened with homelessness, said Kuno. She looked
1:12
Speaker 1: at him. Now, I have been threatened with homelessness, and
1:16
Speaker 1: I could not tell you such a thing through the machine.
1:19
Speaker 1: Homelessness means death. The victim is exposed to the air,
1:23
Speaker 1: which kills him. I have been outside since I spoke
1:26
Speaker 1: to you last. The tremendous thing has happened, and they
1:29
Speaker 1: have discovered me. But why shouldn't you go outside? She exclaimed.
1:34
Speaker 1: It is perfectly legal, perfectly mechanical, to visit the surface
1:38
Speaker 1: of the earth. I have lately been to a lecture
1:41
Speaker 1: on the sea. There is no objection in that. One
1:43
Speaker 1: simply summons a respirator and gets an aggression permit. It
1:47
Speaker 1: is not the kind of thing that spiritually minded people do,
1:50
Speaker 1: and I begged you not to do it, but there
1:52
Speaker 1: is no legal objection to it. I did not get
1:55
Speaker 1: an aggression permit. Then how did you get out? I
2:00
Speaker 1: found out a way of my own. The phrase conveyed
2:04
Speaker 1: no meaning to her, and he had to repeat it.
2:07
Speaker 1: A way of your own, she whispered. But that would
2:11
Speaker 1: be wrong. Why the question shocked her beyond measure. You
2:18
Speaker 1: are beginning to worship the machine, he said coldly. You
2:21
Speaker 1: think it irreligious of me to have found out a
2:23
Speaker 1: way of my own. It was just what the committee
2:26
Speaker 1: thought when they threatened me with homelessness. At this she
2:29
Speaker 1: grew angry. I worship nothing, she cried, I am most advanced.
2:34
Speaker 1: I don't think you irreligious, for there is no such
2:36
Speaker 1: thing as religion left. All the fear and the superstition
2:39
Speaker 1: that existed once have been destroyed by the machine. I
2:42
Speaker 1: only meant that to find out a way of your
2:44
Speaker 1: own was. Besides, there is no new way out, so
2:49
Speaker 1: it is always supposed, except through the vomitories, for which
2:53
Speaker 1: one must have an aggression permit. It is impossible to
2:55
Speaker 1: get out. The book says, so well, the book's wrong.
3:00
Speaker 1: I have been out on my feet. Forcuno was possessed
3:03
Speaker 1: of a certain physical strength. By these days it was
3:08
Speaker 1: a demerit to be muscular. Each infant was examined at birth,
3:12
Speaker 1: and all who promised undue strength were destroyed. Humanitarians may protest,
3:17
Speaker 1: but it would have been no true kindness to let
3:19
Speaker 1: an athlete live. He would never have been happy in
3:22
Speaker 1: that state of life to which the machine had called him.
3:24
Speaker 1: He would have yearned for trees to climb, rivers, to
3:27
Speaker 1: bathe in meadows and hills against which he might measure
3:30
Speaker 1: his body. Men must be adapted to his surroundings, must
3:33
Speaker 1: he not. In the dawn of our world, our weekly
3:37
Speaker 1: must be exposed on Mount Taegatus in its twilight. Our
3:40
Speaker 1: strong will suffer euthanasia. That the machine may progress, that
3:44
Speaker 1: the machine may progress, that the machine may progress eternally.
3:49
Speaker 1: You know we have lost the sense of space. We
3:51
Speaker 1: say space is annihilated, But we have annihilated not space,
3:55
Speaker 1: but the sense thereof. We have lost a part of ourselves.
3:59
Speaker 1: I determined to recover it, and I began by walking
4:02
Speaker 1: up and down the platform of the railway outside my room,
4:05
Speaker 1: up and down until I was tired, and so did
4:08
Speaker 1: recapture the meaning of near and far. Near is a
4:11
Speaker 1: place to which I can get quickly on my feet,
4:15
Speaker 1: not a place to which the train or the airship
4:17
Speaker 1: will take me quickly. Far is a place to which
4:20
Speaker 1: I cannot get quickly on my feet. The vomitory is far,
4:24
Speaker 1: though I could be there in thirty eight seconds by
4:26
Speaker 1: summoning the train. Man is the measure that was my
4:29
Speaker 1: first lesson. Man's feet are the measure for distance, his
4:33
Speaker 1: hands are the measure for ownership. His body is the
4:36
Speaker 1: measure for all that is lovable and desirable and strong.
4:40
Speaker 1: Then I went further, and it was then that I
4:42
Speaker 1: called to you for the first time, and you would
4:44
Speaker 1: not come. This city, as you know, is built deep
4:48
Speaker 1: beneath the surface of the earth, with only the vomitories protruding.
4:52
Speaker 1: Having paced the platform outside my own room, I took
4:56
Speaker 1: the lift to the next platform and paced that also,
4:58
Speaker 1: and so with each in turn, until I came to
5:01
Speaker 1: the topmost above, which begins the earth. All the platforms
5:05
Speaker 1: were exactly alike, and all that I gained by visiting
5:08
Speaker 1: them was to develop my sense of space and my muscles.
5:12
Speaker 1: I think I should have been content with this, It
5:14
Speaker 1: is not a little thing. But as I walked and brooded,
5:18
Speaker 1: it occurred to me that our cities had been built
5:20
Speaker 1: in the days when men still breathed the outer air,
5:22
Speaker 1: and that there had been ventilation shafts for the workmen.
5:26
Speaker 1: I could think of nothing but these ventilation shafts. Had
5:29
Speaker 1: they been destroyed by all the food tubes and medicine
5:32
Speaker 1: tubes and music tubes that the machine has evolved lately,
5:35
Speaker 1: or did traces of them remain? One thing was certain.
5:39
Speaker 1: If I came upon them anywhere, it would be in
5:41
Speaker 1: the railway tunnels of the topmost story. Everywhere else all
5:45
Speaker 1: space was accounted for. I am telling my story quickly.
5:49
Speaker 1: But don't think that I was not a coward, or
5:51
Speaker 1: that your answers never depressed me. It is not the
5:54
Speaker 1: proper thing. It is not mechanical. It is not decent
5:57
Speaker 1: to walk along a railway tunnel. I did not fear
6:00
Speaker 1: that I might tread upon a live rail and be killed.
6:03
Speaker 1: I feared something far more intangible, doing what was not
6:07
Speaker 1: contemplated by the machine. Then I said to myself, man
6:12
Speaker 1: is the measure. And I went, and after many visits
6:16
Speaker 1: I found an opening. The tunnels, of course, were lighted.
6:22
Speaker 1: Everything is light artificial light. Darkness is the exception. So
6:26
Speaker 1: when I saw a black gap in the tiles, I
6:29
Speaker 1: knew it was an exception and rejoiced. I put in
6:32
Speaker 1: my arm I could put in no more at first,
6:35
Speaker 1: and waved it round and round. In ecstasy. I loosened
6:38
Speaker 1: another tile and put in my head and shouted into
6:40
Speaker 1: the darkness, I am coming. I shall do it yet,
6:44
Speaker 1: and my voice reverberated down endless passages. I seemed to
6:48
Speaker 1: hear the spirit of those dead workmen who had returned
6:51
Speaker 1: each evening to the starlight into their wives, and all
6:54
Speaker 1: the generations who had lived in the open air, called
6:56
Speaker 1: back to me. You will do it, Yet you are coming.
7:01
Speaker 1: He paused, and absurd as he was. His last words
7:03
Speaker 1: moved her. For Kuno had lately asked to be a father,
7:07
Speaker 1: and his request had been refused by the committee. His
7:10
Speaker 1: was not a type that the machine desired to hand on.
7:15
Speaker 1: Then a train passed, it brushed by me. But I
7:18
Speaker 1: thrust my head and arms into the hole. I had
7:21
Speaker 1: done enough for one day, so I crawled back to
7:23
Speaker 1: the platform, went down in a lift and summoned my bed.
7:28
Speaker 1: Ah what dreams? And again I called you, and again
7:31
Speaker 1: you refused. She shook her head and said, don't don't
7:36
Speaker 1: talk of these terrible things. You make me miserable. You
7:39
Speaker 1: are throwing civilization away. But I had got back the
7:44
Speaker 1: sense of space, and a man cannot rest. Then I
7:47
Speaker 1: determined to get in at the hole and climb the shaft,
7:51
Speaker 1: and so I exercised my arms day after day. I
7:54
Speaker 1: went through ridiculous movements until my flesh ached and I
7:57
Speaker 1: could hang by my hands and hold the pillow of
7:59
Speaker 1: my bed outstretched for many minutes. Then I summoned a
8:03
Speaker 1: respirator and started. It was easy at first, and the
8:08
Speaker 1: mortar had somehow rotted, and I soon pushed some more
8:11
Speaker 1: tiles in and clambered after them into the darkness, and
8:14
Speaker 1: the spirits of the dead comforted me. I don't know
8:17
Speaker 1: what I mean by that. I just say what I felt.
8:20
Speaker 1: I felt for the first time that a protest had
8:23
Speaker 1: been lodged against corruption, and that even as the dead
8:27
Speaker 1: were comforting me, so I was comforting the unborn. I
8:31
Speaker 1: felt that humanity existed, and that it existed without clothes.
8:34
Speaker 1: How can I possibly explain this? It was naked, humidity
8:38
Speaker 1: seemed naked. And all these tubes and buttons and machineries
8:42
Speaker 1: neither came into the world with us, nor will they
8:44
Speaker 1: follow us out, nor do they matter supremely while we
8:47
Speaker 1: are here. Had I been strong, I would have torn
8:50
Speaker 1: off every garment I had and gone out into the
8:53
Speaker 1: outer air unswaddled. But this is not for me, nor
8:57
Speaker 1: perhaps for my generation. I climbed with my respirator and
9:01
Speaker 1: my hygienic clothes and my dietetic tabloids. Better thus than
9:05
Speaker 1: not at all. There was a ladder made of some
9:10
Speaker 1: primeval metal. The light from the railway fell upon its
9:13
Speaker 1: lowest wrongs, and I saw that it led straight upwards
9:16
Speaker 1: out of the rubble at the bottom of the shaft.
9:19
Speaker 1: Perhaps our ancestors ran up and down it a dozen
9:21
Speaker 1: times daily in their building. As I climbed, the rough
9:25
Speaker 1: edges cut through my gloves so that my hands bled.
9:29
Speaker 1: The light helped me for a while, and then came
9:31
Speaker 1: darkness and worse still, silence, which pierced my ears like
9:34
Speaker 1: a sword. The machine hums. Did you know that its
9:39
Speaker 1: hum penetrates our blood? It may even guide our thoughts?
9:42
Speaker 1: Who knows I was getting beyond its power? Then I thought,
9:47
Speaker 1: this silence means that I am doing wrong. But I
9:51
Speaker 1: heard voices in the silence, and again they strengthened me.
9:54
Speaker 1: He laughed, I had need of them. The next moment
9:57
Speaker 1: I cracked my head against something. She sighed, I had
10:02
Speaker 1: reached one of those pneumatic stoppers that defend us from
10:04
Speaker 1: the outer air. You may have noticed them on the
10:07
Speaker 1: air ship. Pitch dark, my feet on the wrongs of
10:10
Speaker 1: an invisible ladder, my hands cut. I cannot explain how
10:14
Speaker 1: I lived through this part, but the voices still comforted me,
10:17
Speaker 1: and I felt for fastenings. The stopper, I suppose, was
10:21
Speaker 1: about eight feet across. I passed my hand over it
10:24
Speaker 1: as far as I could reach. It was perfectly smooth.
10:27
Speaker 1: I felt it almost to the center, not quite to
10:30
Speaker 1: the center, for my arm was too short. Then the
10:32
Speaker 1: voice said, jump. It is worth it. There may be
10:36
Speaker 1: a handle in the center, and you may catch hold
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Speaker 1: of it, and so come to us your own way.
10:41
Speaker 1: And if there is no handle, so that you may
10:43
Speaker 1: fall and are dashed to pieces, it is still worth it.
10:46
Speaker 1: You will still come to us your own way. So
10:49
Speaker 1: I jumped. There was a handle, and he paused. Tears
10:56
Speaker 1: gathered in his mother's eyes. She knew that he was faded.
11:00
Speaker 1: If he did not die to day, he would die tomorrow.
11:03
Speaker 1: There was not room for such a person in the world.
11:06
Speaker 1: And with her pity disgust mingled, she was ashamed at
11:10
Speaker 1: having borne such a son, she who had always been
11:12
Speaker 1: so respectable and so full of ideas. Was he really
11:16
Speaker 1: the little boy to whom she had taught the use
11:18
Speaker 1: of his stops and buttons, and to whom she had
11:20
Speaker 1: given his first lessons in the book? The very hair
11:23
Speaker 1: that disfigured his lips showed that he was reverting to
11:25
Speaker 1: some savage type on ativism. The machine can have no mercy.
11:32
Speaker 1: There was a handle, and I did catch it. I
11:35
Speaker 1: hung tranced over the darkness and heard the hum of
11:38
Speaker 1: these workings as the last whisper in a dying dream.
11:42
Speaker 1: All these things I had cared about, and all the
11:44
Speaker 1: people I had spoken to through tubes appeared infinitely little. Meanwhile,
11:50
Speaker 1: the handle revolved, My weight had set something in motion,
11:53
Speaker 1: and I spanned slowly. And then I cannot describe it.
11:58
Speaker 1: I was lying with my face to the sun shine.
12:00
Speaker 1: Blood poured from my nose and ears, and I heard
12:03
Speaker 1: a tremendous roaring. The stopper, with me clinging to it,
12:06
Speaker 1: had simply been blown out of the earth, and the
12:08
Speaker 1: air that we make down here was escaping through the
12:11
Speaker 1: vent into the air above. It burst up like a fountain.
12:16
Speaker 1: I crawled back to it for the upper air hurts,
12:19
Speaker 1: and as it were, I took great SIPs from the edge.
12:22
Speaker 1: My respirator had flown goodness knows where, and my clothes
12:25
Speaker 1: were torn. I just lay with my lips close to
12:29
Speaker 1: the hole, and I sipped until the bleeding stopped. You
12:32
Speaker 1: can imagine nothing so curious this hollow in the grass.
12:36
Speaker 1: I will speak of it in a minute. The sun
12:38
Speaker 1: shining into it, not brilliantly, but through marble clouds, the peace,
12:43
Speaker 1: the nonchalance, the sense of space, and brushing my cheek
12:47
Speaker 1: the roaring fountain of our artificial air. Soon I spied
12:51
Speaker 1: my respirator bobbing up and down in the current. High
12:54
Speaker 1: above my head, and higher still were the many airships.
12:58
Speaker 1: But no one ever looks out of airship, and in
13:00
Speaker 1: my case, they could not have picked me up. There
13:03
Speaker 1: I was stranded. The sun shone a little way down
13:06
Speaker 1: the shaft and revealed the topmost wrong of the ladder,
13:09
Speaker 1: but it was hopeless trying to reach it. I should
13:12
Speaker 1: either have been tossed up again by the escape, or
13:14
Speaker 1: else have fallen in and died. I could only lie
13:18
Speaker 1: on the grass, sipping and sipping, and from time to
13:21
Speaker 1: time glancing around me. I knew that I was in Wessex,
13:25
Speaker 1: for I had taken care to go to a lecture
13:27
Speaker 1: on the subject before starting. Wessex lies above the room
13:30
Speaker 1: in which we are talking now. It was once an
13:33
Speaker 1: important state. Its kings held all the southern coast from
13:36
Speaker 1: the Andred's Wall to Cornwall, while Wansdyke protected them on
13:40
Speaker 1: the north, running over the high ground. The lecturer was
13:43
Speaker 1: only concerned with the rise of Wessex so I do
13:45
Speaker 1: not know how long it remained in international power, nor
13:48
Speaker 1: would the knowledge have assisted me to tell the truth.
13:51
Speaker 1: I could do nothing but laugh during this part. There
13:54
Speaker 1: was I with a pneumatic stopper by my side and
13:57
Speaker 1: a respirator bobbing above my head. Imprisoned all three of
14:00
Speaker 1: us in a grass grown hollow that was edged with fern.
14:05
Speaker 1: Then he grew grave again. Lucky for me that it
14:09
Speaker 1: was a hollow, for the air began to fall back
14:11
Speaker 1: into it and to fill it as water fills a bowl.
14:13
Speaker 1: I could crawl about. Presently I stood, I breathed a
14:17
Speaker 1: mixture in which the air that hurts predominated whenever I
14:21
Speaker 1: tried to climb the sides. This was not so bad.
14:24
Speaker 1: I had not lost my tabloids and remained ridiculously cheerful.
14:28
Speaker 1: And as for the machine, I forgot about it altogether.
14:31
Speaker 1: My one aim now was to get to the top
14:33
Speaker 1: where the ferns were, and to view whatever objects lay beyond.
14:38
Speaker 1: I rushed the slope. The new air was still too
14:41
Speaker 1: bitter for me, and I came rolling back after a
14:44
Speaker 1: momentary vision of something gray. The sun grew very feeble,
14:48
Speaker 1: and I remembered that he was in Scorpio. I had
14:50
Speaker 1: been to a lecture on that too. If the sun
14:52
Speaker 1: is in scorpio and you are in Wessex, it means
14:55
Speaker 1: that you must be as quick as you can or
14:57
Speaker 1: it will get too dark. This is the first bit
14:59
Speaker 1: of useful information I have ever got from a lecture,
15:02
Speaker 1: and I expect it will be the last. It made
15:04
Speaker 1: me try frantically to breathe the new air and to
15:07
Speaker 1: advance as far as I dared out of my pond.
15:10
Speaker 1: The hollow filled so slowly at times I thought that
15:13
Speaker 1: the fountain played with less vigor. My respirators seemed to
15:17
Speaker 1: dance nearer the earth. The roar was decreasing. He broke off.
15:22
Speaker 1: I don't think this is interesting to you. The rest
15:24
Speaker 1: will interest you even less. There are no ideas in it,
15:27
Speaker 1: and I wish I had not troubled you to come.
15:29
Speaker 1: We are too different. Mother, She told him to continue.
15:34
Speaker 1: It was evening before I climbed the bank. The sun
15:37
Speaker 1: had very nearly slipped out of the sky by this time,
15:39
Speaker 1: and I could not get a good view. You, who
15:42
Speaker 1: have just crossed the roof of the world will not
15:44
Speaker 1: want to hear an account of the little hills that
15:46
Speaker 1: I saw low colorless hills. But to me they were living,
15:50
Speaker 1: and the turf that covered them was a skin under
15:52
Speaker 1: which their muscles rippled. And I felt that those hills
15:55
Speaker 1: had called with incalculable force to men in the past,
15:58
Speaker 1: and that the men had loved them. Now they sleep,
16:02
Speaker 1: perhaps forever, they commune with humanity in dreams. Happy the man,
16:06
Speaker 1: Happy the woman who awakes the hills of Wessex, For
16:09
Speaker 1: though they sleep, they will never die. His voice rose passionately,
16:15
Speaker 1: Cannot you see, cannot all your lectures see that it
16:19
Speaker 1: is we who are dying, and that down here the
16:21
Speaker 1: only thing that really lives is the machine. We created
16:25
Speaker 1: the machine to do our will, but we cannot make
16:27
Speaker 1: it do our will. Now it has robbed us of
16:30
Speaker 1: the sense of space and of the sense of touch.
16:32
Speaker 1: It has blurred every human relation and narrowed down love
16:36
Speaker 1: to a carnal act. It has paralyzed our bodies and
16:39
Speaker 1: our wills, and now it compels us to worship it.
16:42
Speaker 1: The machine develops, but not on our lines. The machine proceeds,
16:46
Speaker 1: but not to our goal. We only exist as the
16:49
Speaker 1: blood corpuscles that course through its arteries. And if it
16:52
Speaker 1: could work without us, it would let us die. Oh,
16:55
Speaker 1: I have no remedy, or at least only one to
16:59
Speaker 1: tell men again and again that I have seen the
17:01
Speaker 1: hills of Wessex as Alfred saw them when he overthrew
17:04
Speaker 1: the Danes. So the sun set, I forgot to mention
17:09
Speaker 1: that a belt of mist lay between my hill and
17:11
Speaker 1: other hills, and that it was the color of pearl.
17:16
Speaker 1: He broke off for the second time. Go On, said
17:19
Speaker 1: his mother wearily. He shook his head. Go On, nothing
17:23
Speaker 1: that you say can distress me. Now I am hardened.
17:27
Speaker 1: I had meant to tell you the rest, but I cannot.
17:29
Speaker 1: I know that I cannot. Good Bye. Vashti stood irresolute.
17:34
Speaker 1: All her nerves were tingling with his blasphemies. But she
17:37
Speaker 1: was also inquisitive. This is unfair, she complained. You have
17:41
Speaker 1: called me across the world to hear your story, and
17:43
Speaker 1: hear it. I will tell me as briefly as possible,
17:46
Speaker 1: for this is a disastrous waste of time. Tell me
17:49
Speaker 1: how you return to civilization, Oh that, he said, starting
17:54
Speaker 1: you would like to hear about civilization? Certainly, had I
17:58
Speaker 1: got to where my respirator fell down? No, but I
18:01
Speaker 1: understand everything. Now you put on your respirator and managed
18:04
Speaker 1: to walk along the surface of the earth to a vomitory,
18:07
Speaker 1: and there your conduct was reported to the Central Committee
18:10
Speaker 1: by no means. He passed his hand over his forehead,
18:15
Speaker 1: as if dispelling some strong impression. Then resuming his narrative,
18:19
Speaker 1: he warmed to it again. My respirator fell about sunset.
18:24
Speaker 1: I had mentioned that the fountain seemed feebler. Had I
18:27
Speaker 1: not yes about sunset? It let the respirator fall, As
18:32
Speaker 1: I said, I had entirely forgotten about the machine, and
18:36
Speaker 1: I paid no great attention at the time, being occupied
18:39
Speaker 1: with other things. I had my pool of air into
18:41
Speaker 1: which I could dip when the outer keenness became intolerable,
18:45
Speaker 1: and which would possibly remain for days, provided that no
18:47
Speaker 1: wind sprang up to disperse it. Not until it was
18:50
Speaker 1: too late did I realize what the stoppage of the
18:52
Speaker 1: escape implied. You see, the gap in the tunnel had
18:55
Speaker 1: been mended the mending apparatus. The mending apparatus was after me.
19:02
Speaker 1: One other warning I had, but I neglected it. The
19:04
Speaker 1: sky at night was clearer than it had been in
19:06
Speaker 1: the day, and the moon, which was about half the
19:09
Speaker 1: sky behind the sun, shone into the dell at moments
19:12
Speaker 1: quite brightly. I was in my usual place on the
19:15
Speaker 1: boundary between the two atmospheres when I thought I saw
19:18
Speaker 1: something dark move across the bottom of the dell and
19:21
Speaker 1: vanish into the shaft. In my folly, I ran down.
19:24
Speaker 1: I bent over and listened, and I thought I heard
19:26
Speaker 1: a faint scraping noise in the depths at this but
19:31
Speaker 1: it was too late. I took alarm. I determined to
19:34
Speaker 1: put on my respirator and to walk right out of
19:36
Speaker 1: the dell. But my respirator had gone. I knew exactly
19:39
Speaker 1: where it had fallen, between the stopper and the aperture,
19:43
Speaker 1: and I could even feel the mark that it had
19:44
Speaker 1: made in the turf. It had gone, and I realized
19:47
Speaker 1: that something evil was at work, and I had better
19:50
Speaker 1: escape to the outer air. And if I must die,
19:52
Speaker 1: die running towards the cloud that had been the color
19:55
Speaker 1: of a pearl. I never started out of the shaft.
19:58
Speaker 1: It is too horrible. A worm, a long, white worm,
20:02
Speaker 1: had crawled out of the shaft and was gliding over
20:04
Speaker 1: the moonlit grass. I screamed. I did everything that I
20:08
Speaker 1: should not have done. I stamped upon the creature instead
20:11
Speaker 1: of flying from it, and it at once curled around
20:14
Speaker 1: my ankle. Then we fought the worm let me run
20:17
Speaker 1: all over the dell, but edged up my leg as
20:19
Speaker 1: I ran. Help, I cried, that part is too awful.
20:24
Speaker 1: It belongs to the part that you will never know. Help,
20:27
Speaker 1: I cried, Why cannot we suffer in silence? Help? I cried?
20:32
Speaker 1: Then my feet were wound together. I fell. I was
20:35
Speaker 1: dragged away from the deer ferns in the living hills
20:38
Speaker 1: and passed the great metal stopper. I can tell you
20:40
Speaker 1: this part, and I thought it might save me again
20:43
Speaker 1: if I caught hold of the handle. It also was
20:45
Speaker 1: enwrapped it also. Oh, the whole dell was full of
20:48
Speaker 1: the things. They were searching it in all directions. They
20:51
Speaker 1: were denuding it, and the white snouts of others peeped
20:54
Speaker 1: out of the hole, ready if needed. Everything that could
20:57
Speaker 1: be moved. They brought brushwood, bundles of fern, everything, and
21:01
Speaker 1: down we all went, intertwined into hell. The last things
21:05
Speaker 1: that I saw ere the stopper closed after us, were
21:08
Speaker 1: certain stars, and I felt that a man of my
21:10
Speaker 1: sort lived in the sky. For I did fight. I
21:14
Speaker 1: fought till the very end, and it was only my
21:16
Speaker 1: head hitting against the ladder that quieted me. I woke
21:19
Speaker 1: up in this room. The worms had vanished. I was
21:22
Speaker 1: surrounded by artificial light, artificial air, artificial peace, and my
21:27
Speaker 1: friends were calling to me down speaking tubes, to know
21:29
Speaker 1: whether I had come across any new ideas lately. Here
21:33
Speaker 1: his story ended, discussion of it was impossible, and Vashti
21:37
Speaker 1: turned to go It will end in homelessness, she said quietly.
21:42
Speaker 1: I wish it would, retorted Cuno, the machine has been
21:46
Speaker 1: most merciful. I prefer the mercy of God. By that
21:51
Speaker 1: superstitious phrase, do you mean that you could live in
21:53
Speaker 1: the outer air? Yes? Have you ever seen round the
21:57
Speaker 1: vomitories the bones of those who were extruded after the
22:00
Speaker 1: Great Rebellion? Yes, they were left where they perished for
22:04
Speaker 1: our edification. A few crawled away, but they perished too.
22:08
Speaker 1: Who can doubt it? And so with the homeless of
22:10
Speaker 1: our own day. The surface of the earth supports life
22:13
Speaker 1: no longer. Indeed, ferns and a little grass may survive,
22:18
Speaker 1: but all higher life forms have perished. Has any airship
22:21
Speaker 1: detected them? No, has any lecturer dealt with them? No?
22:28
Speaker 1: Then why this obstinacy? Because I have seen them? He exploded,
22:33
Speaker 1: Seen what? Because I have seen her in the twilight,
22:37
Speaker 1: because she came to my help when I called, Because
22:39
Speaker 1: she too was entangled by the worms, and luckier than I,
22:43
Speaker 1: was killed by one of them, piercing her throat. He
22:47
Speaker 1: was mad Vashti departed, nor in the troubles that followed
22:51
Speaker 1: did she ever see his face again. End of chapter two.