Latest / The H. G. Wells Library / In the Days of the Comet Book Second Chapter First Section 3-4

Transcript

In the Days of the Comet Book Second Chapter First Section 3-4 · The H. G. Wells Library

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: Book two, Chapter one, sections three and four of In
• 0:05
  Speaker 1: the Days of the Comet. This is a LibriVox recording.
• 0:09
  Speaker 1: All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more
• 0:13
  Speaker 1: information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox dot org. In
• 0:20
  Speaker 1: the Days of the Comet by H. G. Wells, Book two,
• 0:26
  Speaker 1: Chapter one, sections three and four. Everywhere the awakening came
• 0:34
  Speaker 1: with the sunrise. We awakened to the gladness of the morning.
• 0:39
  Speaker 1: We walked, dazzled in a light that was joy everywhere
• 0:43
  Speaker 1: that was so, it was always morning. It was morning,
• 0:47
  Speaker 1: because until the direct rays of the sun touched it,
• 0:51
  Speaker 1: the changing nitrogen of our atmosphere did not pass into
• 0:55
  Speaker 1: its permanent phase, and the sleepers lay as they had fallen,
• 1:00
  Speaker 1: in its intermediate state. The air hung inert, incapable of
• 1:05
  Speaker 1: producing either revival or stupefaction, no longer green, but not
• 1:11
  Speaker 1: yet changed to the gas that now lives in us.
• 1:15
  Speaker 1: To every one, I think came some parallel to the
• 1:18
  Speaker 1: mental states I have already sought to describe, a wonder
• 1:24
  Speaker 1: an impression of joyful novelty. There was also, very commonly
• 1:29
  Speaker 1: a certain confusion of the intelligence, a difficulty in self recognition.
• 1:35
  Speaker 1: I remember clearly as I sat on my style that
• 1:38
  Speaker 1: presently I had the clearest doubts of my own identity,
• 1:42
  Speaker 1: and fell into the artist metaphysical questionings. If this be I,
• 1:47
  Speaker 1: I said, then how is it I am no longer
• 1:50
  Speaker 1: madly seeking Nettie? Nettie is now the remotest thing, and
• 1:56
  Speaker 1: all my wrongs? Why have I suddenly passed out of
• 1:59
  Speaker 1: all that passion? Why does not the thought of verall
• 2:03
  Speaker 1: quicken my pulses? I was only one of many millions
• 2:07
  Speaker 1: who that morning had the same doubts. I suppose one
• 2:12
  Speaker 1: knows one's self or oneself when one returns from sleep
• 2:17
  Speaker 1: or insensibility, by the familiarity of one's bodily sensations. And
• 2:23
  Speaker 1: that morning all our most intimate bodily sensations were changed.
• 2:28
  Speaker 1: The intimate chemical processes of life were changed. Its nervous
• 2:34
  Speaker 1: metabodly for the fluctuating, uncertain passion darkened thought and feeling
• 2:40
  Speaker 1: of the old time came steady, full bodied, wholesome processes.
• 2:46
  Speaker 1: Touch was different, sight was different, sound, and all the
• 2:51
  Speaker 1: senses were subtler. Had it not been that our thought
• 2:55
  Speaker 1: was steadier and fuller, I believed great multitudes of men
• 3:00
  Speaker 1: would have gone mad. But as it was we understood.
• 3:03
  Speaker 1: The dominant impression I would convey in this account of
• 3:06
  Speaker 1: the change is one of enormous release, of a vast,
• 3:11
  Speaker 1: substantial exaltation. There was an effect, as it were, of
• 3:16
  Speaker 1: light headedness that was also clear headedness, and the alteration
• 3:21
  Speaker 1: in one's bodily sensations, instead of producing the mental obfuscation,
• 3:26
  Speaker 1: the loss of identity that was a common mental trouble
• 3:30
  Speaker 1: under former conditions, gave simply a new detachment from the
• 3:34
  Speaker 1: tumored passions and entanglements of the personal life. In this
• 3:40
  Speaker 1: story of my bitter restricted youth that I have been
• 3:44
  Speaker 1: telling you, I have sought constantly to convey the narrowness,
• 3:49
  Speaker 1: the intensity, the confusion, muddle, and dusty heat of the
• 3:53
  Speaker 1: old world. It was quite clear to me within an
• 3:57
  Speaker 1: hour of my awakening that all that was in some
• 3:59
  Speaker 1: misae serious way over and done. That too, was the
• 4:04
  Speaker 1: common experience. Men stood up, They took the new air
• 4:09
  Speaker 1: into their lungs, a deep, long breath, and the past
• 4:13
  Speaker 1: fell from them. They could forgive, they could disregard, they
• 4:18
  Speaker 1: could attempt. And it was no new thing, no miracle
• 4:23
  Speaker 1: that sets aside the former order of the world. It
• 4:27
  Speaker 1: was a change in material conditions, a change in the
• 4:31
  Speaker 1: atmosphere that at one bound had released them, some of
• 4:36
  Speaker 1: them it had released to death. Indeed, man himself had
• 4:41
  Speaker 1: changed not at all. We knew before the change, the
• 4:45
  Speaker 1: meanest new by glowing moments in ourselves and others, by
• 4:50
  Speaker 1: histories and music and beautiful things, by heroic instances and
• 4:55
  Speaker 1: splendid stories, how fine mankind could be, how fine almost
• 5:02
  Speaker 1: any human being could, upon occasion be. But the poison
• 5:06
  Speaker 1: in the air, its poverty in all the nobler elements,
• 5:11
  Speaker 1: which made such moments rare and remarkable, All that has changed.
• 5:16
  Speaker 1: The air was changed, and the spirit of man that
• 5:20
  Speaker 1: had drowsed and slumbered and dreamt dull and evil things,
• 5:24
  Speaker 1: awakened and stood with wonder clean eyes, refreshed, looking again
• 5:30
  Speaker 1: on life. Section four. The miracle of the awakening came
• 5:37
  Speaker 1: to me in solitude, the laughter, and then the tears.
• 5:41
  Speaker 1: Only after some time did I come upon another man.
• 5:45
  Speaker 1: Until I heard his voice calling. I didn't seem to
• 5:48
  Speaker 1: feel there were any other people in the world. All
• 5:52
  Speaker 1: that seemed past, with all the stresses that were past.
• 5:56
  Speaker 1: I had come out of the individual pit in which
• 5:59
  Speaker 1: my show egotism had lurked. I had overflowed to all humanity.
• 6:05
  Speaker 1: I had seemed to be all humanity. I had laughed
• 6:09
  Speaker 1: at swindles as I could have laughed at myself, And
• 6:12
  Speaker 1: this shout that came to me seemed like the coming
• 6:16
  Speaker 1: of an unexpected thought in my own mind. But when
• 6:20
  Speaker 1: it was repeated, I answered, I am hurt, said the voice,
• 6:26
  Speaker 1: and I descended into the lane forthwith, and so came
• 6:30
  Speaker 1: upon mel Mount, sitting near the ditch with his back
• 6:34
  Speaker 1: to me. Some of the incidental sensory impressions of that
• 6:40
  Speaker 1: morning bit so deeply into my mind that I verily believe,
• 6:45
  Speaker 1: when at last I face the greater mysteries that lie
• 6:49
  Speaker 1: beyond this life, when the things of this life fade
• 6:52
  Speaker 1: from me, as the mists of the morning fade before
• 6:56
  Speaker 1: the sun, these irrelevant, petty details will be the last
• 7:00
  Speaker 1: to leave me. Would be the last wisps visible of
• 7:04
  Speaker 1: that attenuating veil. I believe, for instance, I could match
• 7:08
  Speaker 1: the fur upon the collar of his great motoring coat.
• 7:11
  Speaker 1: Now could paint the dull red tinge of his big cheek,
• 7:16
  Speaker 1: with his fair eyelashes just catching the light and showing
• 7:20
  Speaker 1: beyond his hat was off, his dome shaped head, with
• 7:24
  Speaker 1: its smooth hair between red and extreme fairness, was bent
• 7:28
  Speaker 1: forward in scrutiny of his twisted foot. His back seemed enormous,
• 7:34
  Speaker 1: and there was something about the mere massive sight of
• 7:37
  Speaker 1: him that filled me with liking. What's wrong? Said I?
• 7:42
  Speaker 1: I say? He said, in his full deliberate tones, straining
• 7:46
  Speaker 1: round to see me and showing a profile, a well
• 7:50
  Speaker 1: modeled nose, a sensitive, clumsy big lip known to every
• 7:55
  Speaker 1: caricaturist in the world. I'm in a fix. I've fell
• 7:59
  Speaker 1: and wrenched my ankle. Where are you? I walked round
• 8:03
  Speaker 1: him and stood looking at his face. I perceived he
• 8:07
  Speaker 1: had his gaiter and sock and boot off, The motor
• 8:10
  Speaker 1: gauntlets had been cast aside, and he was kneading the
• 8:14
  Speaker 1: injured part in an exploratory manner with his thick thumbs
• 8:19
  Speaker 1: by jove, I said, you're Melmount. Melmount, he thought. That's
• 8:24
  Speaker 1: my name, he said, without looking up. But it doesn't
• 8:27
  Speaker 1: affect my ankle. We remained silent for a few moments,
• 8:31
  Speaker 1: except for a grunt of pain from him. Do you know,
• 8:34
  Speaker 1: I asked? What has happened to things? He seemed to
• 8:39
  Speaker 1: complete his diagnosis. It's not broken, he said, do you know?
• 8:44
  Speaker 1: I repeated, what has happened to everything. No, he said,
• 8:47
  Speaker 1: looking up at me, and curiously for the first time,
• 8:51
  Speaker 1: There's some difference. There's a difference. He smiled, a smile
• 8:55
  Speaker 1: of unexpected pleasantness, and an interest was coming into his eyes. Ah,
• 9:00
  Speaker 1: A little preoccupied with my own internal sensations, I remark
• 9:05
  Speaker 1: an extraordinary brightness about things? Is that it? That's part
• 9:10
  Speaker 1: of it? And the queer feeling a clear headedness, he
• 9:14
  Speaker 1: surveyed me and meditated gravely. I woke up, he said,
• 9:20
  Speaker 1: feeling his way in his memory, and I I lost
• 9:24
  Speaker 1: my way. I forget quite how. There was a curious
• 9:28
  Speaker 1: green fog. He stared at his foot, remembering something to
• 9:33
  Speaker 1: do with a comet. I was by a hedge in
• 9:36
  Speaker 1: the darkness, tried to run. Then I must have pitched
• 9:39
  Speaker 1: into this lane. Look, he pointed with his head. There's
• 9:43
  Speaker 1: a wooden rail new broken there. I must have stumbled
• 9:47
  Speaker 1: over that out of the field above. He scrutinized this
• 9:50
  Speaker 1: and concluded. Yes, it was dark, I said, and a
• 9:55
  Speaker 1: sort of a green gas came out of nothing everywhere.
• 10:00
  Speaker 1: That's the last I remember. And then you woke up,
• 10:04
  Speaker 1: so did I. In a state of great bewilderment. Certainly
• 10:08
  Speaker 1: the something odd in the air. I was. I was
• 10:12
  Speaker 1: rushing along a road in a motor car, very much
• 10:15
  Speaker 1: excited and preoccupied. I got down. He held out a
• 10:19
  Speaker 1: triumphant finger ironclads. Now I've got it. We'd strung our
• 10:25
  Speaker 1: fleet from here to Texall. We'd got right across them,
• 10:30
  Speaker 1: and the elbe mined. We'd lost the Lord Warden, by jove, Yes,
• 10:35
  Speaker 1: the Lord Warden, a battleship that cost two million pounds,
• 10:40
  Speaker 1: and that fool Rigby said it didn't matter. Eleven hundred
• 10:44
  Speaker 1: men went down. I remember. Now. We were sweeping up
• 10:48
  Speaker 1: the North Sea like a net, with a North Atlantic
• 10:51
  Speaker 1: fleet waiting at the Pharaohs for him, and not one
• 10:54
  Speaker 1: of em had three days coal. Now was that a dream? No?
• 11:00
  Speaker 1: I told a lot of people as much a meeting
• 11:03
  Speaker 1: was it to reassure them. They were warlike, but extremely frightened.
• 11:08
  Speaker 1: Queer people paunchee and ball like gnomes most of them. Where,
• 11:14
  Speaker 1: of course, we had it all over a big dinner oysters, Colchester.
• 11:18
  Speaker 1: I'd been there just to show all this raid scare
• 11:21
  Speaker 1: was nonsense, and I was coming back here. But it
• 11:25
  Speaker 1: doesn't seem as though that was recent. I suppose it was. Yes,
• 11:29
  Speaker 1: of course, it was. I got out of my car
• 11:32
  Speaker 1: at the bottom of the rise with the idea of
• 11:34
  Speaker 1: walking along the cliff path because everyone said one of
• 11:38
  Speaker 1: their battleships was being chased along the shore. That's clear
• 11:43
  Speaker 1: I heard their guns, he reflected, queer, I should have forgotten.
• 11:48
  Speaker 1: Did you hear any guns? I said, I had heard them.
• 11:53
  Speaker 1: Was it last night? Late last night, one or two
• 11:56
  Speaker 1: in the morning. He leant back on his hand and
• 11:59
  Speaker 1: looked at me, smiling frankly. Even now, he said, it's odd.
• 12:04
  Speaker 1: But the whole that seems like a silly dream. Do
• 12:08
  Speaker 1: you think there was a Lord Warden? Do you really
• 12:12
  Speaker 1: believe we sank all that machinery for fun? It was
• 12:17
  Speaker 1: a dream, and yet it happened. By all the standards
• 12:22
  Speaker 1: of the former time, it would have been remarkable that
• 12:25
  Speaker 1: I talked quite easily and freely with so great a man. Yes,
• 12:30
  Speaker 1: I said, that's it. One feels one has awakened from
• 12:34
  Speaker 1: something more than that green gas, as though the other
• 12:38
  Speaker 1: things also weren't quite real. He knitted his brows and
• 12:43
  Speaker 1: felt the calf of his leg thoughtfully. I made a
• 12:46
  Speaker 1: speech at Colchester, he said. I thought he was going
• 12:49
  Speaker 1: to add something more about that, but there lingered a
• 12:52
  Speaker 1: habit of reticence in the man that held him for
• 12:56
  Speaker 1: the moment. It's a very curious thing, he broke away,
• 13:00
  Speaker 1: that this pain should be on the whole more interesting
• 13:04
  Speaker 1: than disagreeable. You are in pain. My angle is it's
• 13:09
  Speaker 1: either broken or badly sprained. I think sprained. It's very
• 13:14
  Speaker 1: painful to move, But personally I'm not in pain. That
• 13:18
  Speaker 1: sort of general sickness that comes with local injury. Not
• 13:22
  Speaker 1: a trace of it. He mused, and remarked, I was
• 13:26
  Speaker 1: speaking at Colchester and saying things about the war. I
• 13:29
  Speaker 1: begin to see it better. The reporter's scribbles Scribble Max
• 13:34
  Speaker 1: Sustain eighteen eighty five. Hubbub compliments about the oysters, n
• 13:40
  Speaker 1: What was it about the war? A war that must
• 13:43
  Speaker 1: needs be long and bloody, taking toll from castle and cottage,
• 13:48
  Speaker 1: taking toll rhetorical Gusto was I drunk last night? His
• 13:54
  Speaker 1: eyebrows puckered. He had drawn up his right knee, his
• 13:57
  Speaker 1: elbow rested thereon, and his chin on his The deep
• 14:01
  Speaker 1: set gray eyes beneath his thatch of eyebrow stared at
• 14:05
  Speaker 1: unknown things. My God, he murmured, My God, with a
• 14:09
  Speaker 1: note of disgust. He made a big, brooding figure in
• 14:13
  Speaker 1: the sunlight. He had an effect of more than physical largeness.
• 14:17
  Speaker 1: He made me feel that it became me to wait
• 14:20
  Speaker 1: upon his thinking. I had never met a man of
• 14:23
  Speaker 1: this sort before. I did not know such men existed.
• 14:29
  Speaker 1: It is a curious thing that I cannot now recall
• 14:32
  Speaker 1: any ideas whatever that I had before the change about
• 14:37
  Speaker 1: the personalities of statesmen. But I doubt if ever in
• 14:41
  Speaker 1: those days I thought of them at all as tangible
• 14:44
  Speaker 1: individual human beings, conceivably of some intellectual complexity. I believe
• 14:51
  Speaker 1: that my impression was a straightforward blend of caricature and
• 14:56
  Speaker 1: newspaper leader. I certainly had no respect for them, and now,
• 15:00
  Speaker 1: without servility or any insincerity whatever, as if it were
• 15:07
  Speaker 1: a first fruit of a change, I found myself in
• 15:11
  Speaker 1: the presence of a human being towards whom I perceived
• 15:15
  Speaker 1: myself inferior and subordinate, before whom I stood, without servility
• 15:21
  Speaker 1: or any insincerity whatever, in an attitude of respect and attention.
• 15:28
  Speaker 1: My inflamed my rancid egotism. Or was it, after all,
• 15:33
  Speaker 1: only the chances of life had never once permitted that
• 15:37
  Speaker 1: before the change. He emerged from his thoughts still with
• 15:42
  Speaker 1: a faint perplexity in his manner. That speech I made
• 15:46
  Speaker 1: last night, he said, was damned mischievous nonsense. You know,
• 15:51
  Speaker 1: nothing can alter that, nothing, no little fat gnomes in
• 15:55
  Speaker 1: evening dress, gobbling oysters gulp. It was a most natural
• 16:01
  Speaker 1: part of the wonder of that morning that he should
• 16:04
  Speaker 1: adopt this incredible note of frankness, and that it should
• 16:07
  Speaker 1: abate nothing from my respect for him. Yes, he said,
• 16:13
  Speaker 1: you are right. It's all indisputable fact, and I can't
• 16:18
  Speaker 1: believe it was anything but a dream. End of Book two,
• 16:24
  Speaker 1: Chapter one, Sections three and four.