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08 - The Time Machine - H G Wells · Daily Sci-Fi Books

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  Speaker 1: Chapter eight. I found the Palace of green porcelain when
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  Speaker 1: we approached it about noon, deserted and falling into ruin.
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  Speaker 1: Only ragged vestiges of glass remained in its windows, and
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  Speaker 1: great sheets of the green facing had fallen away from
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  Speaker 1: the corroded metallic framework. It lay very high upon a
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  Speaker 1: turfy down and looking northeastward. Before I entered it, I
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  Speaker 1: was surprised to see a large estuary, or even creek,
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  Speaker 1: where I judged Wandsworth and Battersea must have once been.
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  Speaker 1: I thought, then, though I never followed up the thought
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  Speaker 1: of what might have happened, or might be happening to
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  Speaker 1: the living things in the sea. The material of the
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  Speaker 1: palace proved on examination to be indeed porcelain, and along
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  Speaker 1: the face of it I saw an inscription in some
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  Speaker 1: unknown character. I thought rather foolishly that Weena might help
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  Speaker 1: me to interpret this, but I only learned that that
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  Speaker 1: the bare idea of writing had never entered her head.
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  Speaker 1: She always seemed to me, I fancy, more human than
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  Speaker 1: she was, perhaps because her affection was so human. Within
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  Speaker 1: the big valves of the door, which were open and broken,
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  Speaker 1: we found instead of the customary hall, a long gallery
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  Speaker 1: lit by many side windows. At the first glance I
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  Speaker 1: was reminded of a museum. The tiled floor was thick
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  Speaker 1: with dust, and a remarkable array of miscellaneous objects was
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  Speaker 1: shrouded in the same gray covering. Then I perceived, standing
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  Speaker 1: strange and gaunt in the center of the hall, what
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  Speaker 1: was clearly the lower part of a huge skeleton. I
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  Speaker 1: recognized by the oblique feet that it was some extinct
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  Speaker 1: creature after the fashion of the megatherium. The skull and
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  Speaker 1: upper bones lay beside it in the thick dust, and
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  Speaker 1: in one place, where rain water had dropped through a
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  Speaker 1: leak in the room, the thing itself had been worn away.
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  Speaker 1: Further in the gallery was the huge skeleton barrel of
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  Speaker 1: a brontosaurus. My museum hypothesis was confirmed. Going towards the side,
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  Speaker 1: I found what appeared to be sloping shelves, and clearing
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  Speaker 1: away the thick dust, I found the old familiar glass
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  Speaker 1: cases of our own time. But they must have been
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  Speaker 1: air tight, to judge from the fair preservation of some
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  Speaker 1: of their contents. Clearly we stood among the ruins of
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  Speaker 1: some latter day South Kensington. Here apparently was the palaeontological section,
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  Speaker 1: and a very splendid array of fossils. It must have
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  Speaker 1: been though the inevitable process of decay, that had been
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  Speaker 1: staved off for a time, and had, through the extinction
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  Speaker 1: of bacteria and fungi, lost ninety nine hundreds of its force,
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  Speaker 1: was nevertheless, with extreme sureness, if with extreme slowness, at
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  Speaker 1: work again upon all its treasures. Here and there I
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  Speaker 1: found traces of the little people in the shape of
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  Speaker 1: rare fossils, broken to pieces, or threaded in strings upon reeds,
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  Speaker 1: and the cases had in some instances been bodily removed
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  Speaker 1: by the morlocks. As I judged, the place was very silent,
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  Speaker 1: the thick dust deadened our footsteps. Weena, who had been
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  Speaker 1: rolling a sea urchin down the sloping glass of a case,
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  Speaker 1: presently came as I stared about me, and very quietly
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  Speaker 1: took my hand and stood beside me. And at first
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  Speaker 1: I was so much surprised by this ancient monument of
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  Speaker 1: an intellectual age, that I gave no thought to the
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  Speaker 1: possibilities it presented. Even my preoccupation about the time machine
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  Speaker 1: receded a little from my mind. To judge, from the
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  Speaker 1: size of the place, this palace of green porcelain had
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  Speaker 1: a great deal more in it than a gallery of paleontology,
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  Speaker 1: possibly historical galleries. It might be even a library. To me,
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  Speaker 1: at least in my present circumstances, these would be vastly
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  Speaker 1: more interesting than this spectacle of old time geology. In
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  Speaker 1: decay exploring, I found another short gallery running transversely to
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  Speaker 1: the first. This appeared to be devoted to minerals, and
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  Speaker 1: the sight of a block of sulfur set my mind
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  Speaker 1: running on gunpowder. But I could find no saltpeter, indeed
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  Speaker 1: no nitrates of any kind. Doubtless they had deliquesce ages ago.
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  Speaker 1: Yet the sulfur hung in my mind and set up
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  Speaker 1: a train of thinking. As for the rest of the
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  Speaker 1: contents of that gallery, though on the whole they were
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  Speaker 1: the best preserved of all I saw, I had little interest.
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  Speaker 1: I am no specialist in mineralogy, and I went on
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  Speaker 1: down a very ruinous aisle running parallel to the first
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  Speaker 1: hall I had entered. Apparently this section had been devoted
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  Speaker 1: to natural history, but everything had long since passed out
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  Speaker 1: of recognition. A few shriveled and blackened vestiges of what
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  Speaker 1: had once been stuffed animals, desiccated mummies, and jars that
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  Speaker 1: had once held spirit. A brown dust of departed plants.
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  Speaker 1: That was all. I was sorry for that, because I
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  Speaker 1: should have been glad to trace the patent readjustments by
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  Speaker 1: which the conquest of animated nature had been attained. Then
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  Speaker 1: we came to a gallery of simply colossal proportions, but
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  Speaker 1: singularly ill lit, the floor of it running downward at
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  Speaker 1: a slight angle from the end at which I entered.
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  Speaker 1: At intervals, white globes hung from the ceiling, many of
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  Speaker 1: them cracked and smashed, which suggested that originally the place
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  Speaker 1: had been artificially lit. Here I was more in my element,
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  Speaker 1: for rising on either side of me were the huge
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  Speaker 1: bulks of big machines, all greatly corroded and many broken down,
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  Speaker 1: some still fairly complete. You know, I have a certain
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  Speaker 1: weakness for mechanism, and I was inclined to linger among these,
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  Speaker 1: the more so as for the most part they had
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  Speaker 1: the interest of puzzles, and I could make only the
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  Speaker 1: vaguest guesses at what they were. For I fancied that
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  Speaker 1: if I could solve their puzzles, I should find myself
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  Speaker 1: in possession of powers that might be of use against
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  Speaker 1: the Morlocks. Suddenly, Weena came very close to my side
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  Speaker 1: so suddenly that she startled me. Had it not been
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  Speaker 1: for her, I do not think I should have noticed
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  Speaker 1: that the floor of the gallery sloped at all. Footnote.
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  Speaker 1: It may be, of course, that the floor did not slope,
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  Speaker 1: but that the museum was built into the side of
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  Speaker 1: a hill. Editor. The end I had come in at
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  Speaker 1: was quite above ground, and was lit by rare slit
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  Speaker 1: like windows. As you went down the length, the ground
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  Speaker 1: came up against these windows, until at last there was
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  Speaker 1: a pit like the area of a London house before each,
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  Speaker 1: and only a narrow line of daylight at the top.
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  Speaker 1: I went slowly along, puzzling about the machines, and had
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  Speaker 1: been too intent upon them to notice the gradual diminution
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  Speaker 1: of the light until Weena's increasing apprehensions drew my attention.
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  Speaker 1: Then I saw that the gallery ran down at last
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  Speaker 1: into a thick darkness. I hesitated, and then as I
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  Speaker 1: looked round me, I saw that the dust was less
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  Speaker 1: abundant and its surface less. Even further away towards the dimness,
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  Speaker 1: it appeared to be broken by a number of small,
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  Speaker 1: narrow footprints. My sense of the immediate presence of the
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  Speaker 1: morlocks revived. At that I felt that I was wasting
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  Speaker 1: my time in the academic examination of machinery. I called
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  Speaker 1: to mind that it was already far advanced in the afternoon,
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  Speaker 1: and that I had still no weapon, no refuge, and
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  Speaker 1: no means of making a fire. And then down in
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  Speaker 1: the remote blackness of the gallery, I heard a peculiar
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  Speaker 1: pattering and the same odd noises I had heard down
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  Speaker 1: the well. I took Weena's hand, then struck with a
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  Speaker 1: sudden idea, I left her and turned to a machine,
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  Speaker 1: from which projected a lever not unlike those in a
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  Speaker 1: signal box. Clambering up the stand and grasping this lever
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  Speaker 1: in my hands, I put all my weight upon its sideways. Suddenly, Weena,
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  Speaker 1: deserted in the central aisle, began to whimper. I had
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  Speaker 1: judged the strength of the lever pretty correctly, for it
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  Speaker 1: snapped after a minute's strain, and I rejoined her with
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  Speaker 1: a mace in my hand, more than sufficient, I judged
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  Speaker 1: for any morlock's skull I might encounter. And I longed
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  Speaker 1: very much to kill a morlock, or so very inhuman
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  Speaker 1: you may think to want to go killing one's own descendants.
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  Speaker 1: But it was impossible, somehow to feel any humanity in
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  Speaker 1: the things. Only my disinclination to leave Weena and a
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  Speaker 1: persuasion that if I began to slake my thirst for murder,
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  Speaker 1: my time machine might suffer, restrained me from going straight
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  Speaker 1: down the gallery and killing the brutes. I heard, well,
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  Speaker 1: mace in one hand and Weena in the other. I
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  Speaker 1: went out of that gallery and into another and still
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  Speaker 1: larger one, which, at the first glance reminded me of
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  Speaker 1: a military chapel hung with tattered flags. The brown and
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  Speaker 1: charred rags that hung from the sides of it I
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  Speaker 1: presently recognized as the decaying vestiges of books. They had
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  Speaker 1: long since dropped to pieces, and every semblance of print
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  Speaker 1: had left them. But here and there were warped boards
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  Speaker 1: and cracked metallic clasps that told the tale well enough.
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  Speaker 1: Had I been a literary man, I might perhaps have
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  Speaker 1: moralized upon the futility of all ms ambition. But as
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  Speaker 1: it was, the thing that struck me with the keenest
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  Speaker 1: force was the enormous waste of labor to which this
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  Speaker 1: somber wilderness of rotting paper testified. At the time, I
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  Speaker 1: will confess that I thought chiefly of the philosophical transactions
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  Speaker 1: and my own seventeen papers upon physical optics. Then, going
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  Speaker 1: up a broad staircase, we came to what may once
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  Speaker 1: have been a gallery of technical chemistry. And here I
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  Speaker 1: had not a little hope of useful discoveries. Except at
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  Speaker 1: one end, where the roof had collapsed, this gallery was
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  Speaker 1: well preserved. I went eagerly to every unbroken case, and
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  Speaker 1: at last, in one of the really air tight cases,
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  Speaker 1: I found a box of matches. Very eagerly I tried them.
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  Speaker 1: They were perfectly good, they were not even damp. I
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  Speaker 1: turned to weena dance. I cried to her in her
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  Speaker 1: own tongue, for now I had a weapon, indeed, against
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  Speaker 1: the horrible creatures we feared. And so, in that derelict museum,
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  Speaker 1: upon the thick soft carpeting of dust, to Ween, as
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  Speaker 1: huge delight, I solemnly performed a kind of composite dance,
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  Speaker 1: whistling the land of the leal as cheerfully as I could.
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  Speaker 1: In part it was a modest can can, in part
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  Speaker 1: a step dance, in part a skirt dance, so far
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  Speaker 1: as my tail coat permitted, and in part original. For
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  Speaker 1: I am naturally inventive, as you know now, I still
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  Speaker 1: think that for this box of matches to have escaped
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  Speaker 1: the wear of time for immemorial years was most strange.
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  Speaker 1: As for me it was a most fortunate thing. Yet
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  Speaker 1: oddly enough I found a far unlikelier substance, and that
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  Speaker 1: was camphor. I found it in a sealed jar that,
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  Speaker 1: by chance, I suppose had been really hermetically sealed. I
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  Speaker 1: fancied at first that it was paraffin wax, and smashed
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  Speaker 1: the glass accordingly, But the odor of camphor was unmistakable.
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  Speaker 1: In the universal decay, this volatile substance had chanced to survive,
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  Speaker 1: perhaps through many thousands of centuries. It reminded me of
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  Speaker 1: a Sepia painting I had once seen, done from the
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  Speaker 1: ink of a fossil bellumnite that must have perished and
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  Speaker 1: become fossilized millions of years ago. I was about to
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  Speaker 1: throw it away, but I remembered that it was inflammable
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  Speaker 1: and burned with a good bright flame, was in fact
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  Speaker 1: an excellent candle, and I put it in my pocket.
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  Speaker 1: I found no explosives, however, nor any means of breaking
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  Speaker 1: down the bronze doors. As yet, my iron crowbar was
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  Speaker 1: the most helpful thing I had chanced upon. Nevertheless, I
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  Speaker 1: left that gallery greatly elated. I cannot tell you all
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  Speaker 1: the story of that long afternoon. It would require a
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  Speaker 1: great effort of memory to recall my explorations in at
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  Speaker 1: all the proper order. I remember a long gallery of
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  Speaker 1: rusting stands of arms, and how I hesitated between my
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  Speaker 1: crowbar and a hatchet or a sword. I could not
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  Speaker 1: carry both, however, and my bar of iron promised best
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  Speaker 1: against the bronze gates. There were numbers of guns, pistols,
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  Speaker 1: and rifles, and most were masses of rust. But many
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  Speaker 1: were of some new metal, and still fairly sound. But
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  Speaker 1: any cartridges or powder there may once have been had
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  Speaker 1: rotted into dust. One corner I saw was charred and shattered, perhaps,
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  Speaker 1: I thought, by an explosion. Among the specimens. In another
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  Speaker 1: place was a vast array of idols Polynesian, Mexican, Grecian, Phoenician,
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  Speaker 1: every country on Earth, I should think. And here, yielding
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  Speaker 1: to an irresistible impulse, I wrote my name upon the
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  Speaker 1: nose of a stea tight monster from South America that
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  Speaker 1: particularly took my fancy. As the evening drew on my interest, Waned,
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  Speaker 1: I went through gallery after gallery, dusty, silent, often ruinous.
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  Speaker 1: The exhibit sometimes mere heaps of rust, and late nite
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  Speaker 1: sometimes fresher. In one place, I suddenly found myself near
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  Speaker 1: the model of a tin mine, and then, by the
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  Speaker 1: merest accident, I discovered in an air tight case two
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  Speaker 1: dynamite cartridges. I shouted eureka and smashed the case with joy.
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  Speaker 1: Then came a doubt. I hesitated. Then, selecting a little
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  Speaker 1: side gallery, I made my essay. I never felt such
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  Speaker 1: a disappointment as I did in waiting five ten, fifteen
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  Speaker 1: minutes for an explosion that never came. Of course, the
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  Speaker 1: things were dummies, as I might of guess from their presence.
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  Speaker 1: I really believed that had they not been so, I
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  Speaker 1: should have rushed off incontinently and blown sphinx bronze doors,
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  Speaker 1: and as it proved my chances of finding the time
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  Speaker 1: machine all together into non existence. It was after that
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  Speaker 1: I think that we came to a little open court
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  Speaker 1: within the palace. It was turfed and had three fruit trees.
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  Speaker 1: So we rested and refreshed ourselves. Towards sunset, I began
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  Speaker 1: to consider our position. Night was creeping upon us, and
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  Speaker 1: my inaccessible hiding place had still to be found. But
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  Speaker 1: that troubled me very little, now I had in my
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  Speaker 1: possession a thing that was perhaps the best of all
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  Speaker 1: defenses against the Morlocks. I had matches. I had the
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  Speaker 1: camphor in my pocket too, if a blaze were needed.
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  Speaker 1: It seemed to me that the best thing we could
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  Speaker 1: do would be to pass the night in the open,
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  Speaker 1: protected by a fire. In the morning there was the
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  Speaker 1: getting of the time machine. Towards that As yet I
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  Speaker 1: had only my iron mace. But now, with my growing knowledge,
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  Speaker 1: I felt very differently towards those bronze doors. Up to
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  Speaker 1: this I had refrained from forcing them, largely because of
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  Speaker 1: the mystery on the other side. They had never impressed
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  Speaker 1: me as being very strong, and I hoped to find
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  Speaker 1: my bar of iron not altogether inadequate for the work.
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  Speaker 1: End of Chapter eight