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

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Speaker 1: Chapter five. As I stood there, musing over this too
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Speaker 1: perfect triumph of man, the full moon, yellow and gibbous,
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Speaker 1: came up out of an overflow of silver light. In
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Speaker 1: the northeast. The bright little figure ceased to move about below.
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Speaker 1: A noiseless owl flitted by, and I shivered with the
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Speaker 1: chill of the night. I determined to descend and find
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Speaker 1: where I could sleep. I looked for the building I knew.
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Speaker 1: Then My eye traveled along to the figure of the
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Speaker 1: white sphinx upon the pedestal of bronze, growing distinct as
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Speaker 1: the light of the rising moon grew brighter, I could
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Speaker 1: see the silver birch against it. There was the tangle
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Speaker 1: of rhododendron bushes, black in the pale light. And there
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Speaker 1: was the little lawn. I looked at the lawn again.
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Speaker 1: A queer doubt chilled my complacency. No, said I stoutly
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Speaker 1: to myself. That was not the lawn. But it was
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Speaker 1: the lawn, for the white, leprous face of the sphinx
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Speaker 1: was towards it. Can you imagine what I felt as
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Speaker 1: this conviction came home to me? But you cannot. The
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Speaker 1: time machine was gone at once, like a lash across
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Speaker 1: the face came the possibility of losing my own age,
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Speaker 1: of being left helpless in this strange new world. The
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Speaker 1: bare thought of it was an actual physical sensation. I
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Speaker 1: could feel it grip me at the throat and stop
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Speaker 1: my breathing. In another moment, I was in a passion
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Speaker 1: of fear and running with great leaping strides down the slope.
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Speaker 1: Once I fell headlong and cut my face, I lost
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Speaker 1: no time in stanching the blood, but jumped up and
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Speaker 1: ran on, with a warm trickle down my cheek and chin.
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Speaker 1: All the time I ran, I was saying to myself,
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Speaker 1: they have moved it a little, pushed under the bushes,
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Speaker 1: out of the way. Nevertheless, I ran with all my might,
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Speaker 1: all the time with the certain that sometimes comes with
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Speaker 1: excessive dread. I knew that such assurance was folly. Knew
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Speaker 1: instinctively that the machine was removed out of my reach.
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Speaker 1: My breath came with pain. I suppose I covered the
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Speaker 1: whole distance from the hillcrest to the little lawn, two miles,
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Speaker 1: perhaps in ten minutes. And I am not a young man.
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Speaker 1: I cursed aloud as I ran at my confident folly
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Speaker 1: in leaving the machine, wasting good breath. Thereby I cried aloud,
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Speaker 1: and none answered. Not a creature seemed to be stirring
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Speaker 1: in the moonlit world. When I reached the lawn, my
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Speaker 1: worst fears were realized. Not a trace of the thing
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Speaker 1: was to be seen. I felt faint and cold. When
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Speaker 1: I faced the empty space among the black tangle of bushes.
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Speaker 1: I ran round it furiously, as if the thing might
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Speaker 1: be hidden in a corner, and then stopped abruptly, with
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Speaker 1: my hands clutching my hair. Above me towered the sphynx
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Speaker 1: upon the bronze pedestal, white, shining leprous in the light
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Speaker 1: of the rising moon. It seemed to smile in mockery
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Speaker 1: of my dismay. I might have consoled myself by imagining
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Speaker 1: the little people had put the mechanism in some shelter
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Speaker 1: for me, had I not felt assured of their physical
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Speaker 1: and intellectual inadequacy. That is what dismayed me, the sense
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Speaker 1: of some hitherto unsuspected power through whose intervention my invention
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Speaker 1: had vanished. Yet for one thing, I felt assured, unless
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Speaker 1: some other age had produced its exact duplicate, the machine
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Speaker 1: could not have moved in time. The attachment of the
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Speaker 1: levers I will show you the method later prevented any
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Speaker 1: one from tampering with it in that way. When they
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Speaker 1: were removed, it had moved and was hid only in space.
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Speaker 1: But then where could it be? I think I must
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Speaker 1: have had a kind of frenzy. I remember running violently
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Speaker 1: in and out among the moonlit bushes all round the Sphinx,
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Speaker 1: and startling some white animal that, in the dim light
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Speaker 1: I took for a small deer. I remember too late
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Speaker 1: that night, beating the bushes with my clenched fist until
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Speaker 1: my knuckles were gashed and bleeding from the broken twigs. Then,
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Speaker 1: sobbing and raving in my anguish of mind, I went
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Speaker 1: down to the great Building of Stone. The big hall
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Speaker 1: was dark, silent, and deserted. I slipped on the uneven
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Speaker 1: floor and fell over one of the malachite tables, almost
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Speaker 1: breaking my shin. I lit a match and went on
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Speaker 1: past the dusty curtains of which I have told you.
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Speaker 1: Then I found a second great hall, covered with cushions,
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Speaker 1: upon which perhaps a score or so of the little
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Speaker 1: people were sleeping. I have no doubt they found my
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Speaker 1: second appearance strange enough, coming suddenly out of the quiet
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Speaker 1: darkness with inarticulate noises and the splutter and flare of
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Speaker 1: a match. For they had forgotten about matches. Where is
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Speaker 1: my time machine? I began bawling like an angry child,
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Speaker 1: laying hands upon them and shaking them up together. I
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Speaker 1: must have been very queer to them. Some laughed, most
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Speaker 1: of them looked sorely frightened. When I saw them standing
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Speaker 1: round me, it came into my head that I was
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Speaker 1: doing as foolish a thing as it was possible for
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Speaker 1: me to do under the circumstances, in trying to revive
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Speaker 1: the sensation of fear. For reasoning from their daylight behavior,
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Speaker 1: I thought that fear must be forgotten. Abruptly, I dashed
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Speaker 1: down the match, and, knocking one of the people over
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Speaker 1: in my course, went blundering across the big dining hall again.
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Speaker 1: Out under the moonlight, I heard cries of terror, and
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Speaker 1: their little feet running and stumbling this way. And that
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Speaker 1: I do not remember all I did as the moon
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Speaker 1: crept up the sky. I suppose it was the unexpected
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Speaker 1: nature of my loss that maddened me. I felt hopelessly
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Speaker 1: cut off from my own kind, a strange animal in
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Speaker 1: an unknown world. I must have raved to and fro
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Speaker 1: screaming and crying upon God and fate. I have a
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Speaker 1: memory of horrible fatigue, as the long night of despair
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Speaker 1: wore away, of looking in this impossible place, and that
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Speaker 1: of groping among moonlit ruins and touching strange creatures in
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Speaker 1: the black shadows. At last, of lying on the ground
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Speaker 1: near the sphinx and weeping with absolute wretchedness. I had
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Speaker 1: nothing left but misery. Then I slept, and when I
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Speaker 1: woke again it was full day, and a couple of
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Speaker 1: sparrows were hopping round me on the turf, within reach
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Speaker 1: of my arm. I sat up in the freshness of
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Speaker 1: the morning, trying to remember how I had got there,
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Speaker 1: and why I had such a profound sense of desertion
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Speaker 1: and despair. Then things came clear in my mind. With
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Speaker 1: the plain, reasonable daylight, I could look my circumstances fairly
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Speaker 1: in the face. I saw the wild folly of my
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Speaker 1: frenzy overnight, and I could reason with myself. Suppose the worst,
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Speaker 1: I said, Suppose the machine altogether lost, perhaps destroyed. It
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Speaker 1: behooves me to be calm and patient, to learn the
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Speaker 1: way of the people, to get a clear idea of
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Speaker 1: the method of my loss, and the means of getting
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Speaker 1: materials and tools, so that in the end, perhaps I
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Speaker 1: may make another That would be my only hope. Perhaps
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Speaker 1: but better than despair. And after all it was a
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Speaker 1: beautiful and curious world. But probably the machine had only
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Speaker 1: been taken away. Still, I must be calm and patient,
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Speaker 1: find its hiding place, and recover it by force or cunning.
8:03
Speaker 1: And with that I scrambled to my feet and looked
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Speaker 1: about me, wondering where I could bathe. I felt weary, stiff,
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Speaker 1: and travel soiled. The freshness of the morning made me
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Speaker 1: desire an equal freshness. I had exhausted my emotion. Indeed,
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Speaker 1: as I went about my business, I found myself wondering
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Speaker 1: at my intense excitement. Over night I made a careful
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Speaker 1: examination of the ground about the little lawn. I wasted
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Speaker 1: some time in futile questionings, conveyed as well as I
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Speaker 1: was able to such of the little people as came by.
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Speaker 1: They all failed to understand my gestures. Some were simply stolid,
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Speaker 1: some thought it was a jest and laughed at me.
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Speaker 1: I had the hardest task in the world to keep
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Speaker 1: my hands off their pretty laughing faces. It was a
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Speaker 1: foolish impulse, but the devil begotten of fear and blind anger,
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Speaker 1: was ill curbed and still eager to take advantage of
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Speaker 1: my perplexity. The turf gave better counsel. I found a
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Speaker 1: groove ripped in it, about midway between the pedestal of
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Speaker 1: the sphinx and the marks of my feet, where on
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Speaker 1: arrival I had struggled with the overturned machine. There were
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Speaker 1: other signs of removal about, with queer, narrow footprints, like
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Speaker 1: those I could imagine made by a sloth. This directed
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Speaker 1: my closer attention to the pedestal. It was, as I
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Speaker 1: think I have said of bronze. It was not a
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Speaker 1: mere block, but highly decorated, with deep framed panels on
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Speaker 1: either side. I went and wrapped at these. The pedestal
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Speaker 1: was hollow. Examining the panels with care, I found them
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Speaker 1: discontinuous with the frames. There were no handles or key holes,
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Speaker 1: but possibly the panels if they were doors, as I supposed,
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Speaker 1: opened from within. One thing was clear enough to my mind.
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Speaker 1: It took no very great mental effort to in that
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Speaker 1: my time machine was inside that pedestal, But how it
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Speaker 1: got there was a different problem. I saw the heads
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Speaker 1: of two orange clad people coming through the bushes and
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Speaker 1: under some blossom covered apple trees towards me. I turned
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Speaker 1: smiling to them and beckoned them to me. They came,
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Speaker 1: and then, pointing to the bronze pedestal, I tried to
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Speaker 1: intimate my wish to open it. But at my first
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Speaker 1: gesture towards this, they behaved very oddly. I don't know
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Speaker 1: how to convey their expression to you. Suppose you were
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Speaker 1: to use a grossly improper gesture to a delicate minded woman,
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Speaker 1: it is how she would look. They went off as
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Speaker 1: if they had received the last possible insult. I tried
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Speaker 1: a sweet looking little chap in white next, with exactly
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Speaker 1: the same result. Somehow, his manner made me feel ashamed
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Speaker 1: of myself. But as you know, I wanted the time machine,
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Speaker 1: and I tried him once more. As he turned off,
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Speaker 1: like the others, my temper got the better of me.
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Speaker 1: In three strides, I was after him, had him by
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Speaker 1: the loose part of his robe round the neck, and
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Speaker 1: began dragging him towards the sphinx. Then I saw the
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Speaker 1: horror and repugnance of his face, and all of a
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Speaker 1: sudden I let him go. But I was not beaten yet.
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Speaker 1: I banged with my fist at the bronze panels. I
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Speaker 1: thought I heard something stir inside. To be explicit, I
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Speaker 1: thought I heard a sound like a chuckle, But I
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Speaker 1: must have been mistaken. Then I got a big pebble
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Speaker 1: from the river and came and hammered till I had
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Speaker 1: flattened a coil in the decorations, and the verdigris came
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Speaker 1: off in powdery flakes. The delicate little people must have
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Speaker 1: heard me hammering in gusty outbreaks a mile away on
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Speaker 1: either hand, but nothing came of it. I saw a
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Speaker 1: crowd of them upon the slopes, looking furtively at me.
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Speaker 1: At last, hard and tired, I sat down to watch
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Speaker 1: the place. But I was too restless to watch long.
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Speaker 1: I am too occidental for a long vigil. I could
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Speaker 1: work at a problem for years, But to wait inactive
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Speaker 1: for twenty four hours, that is another matter. I got
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Speaker 1: up after a time and began walking aimlessly through the
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Speaker 1: bushes towards the hill again. Patience, said I to myself,
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Speaker 1: if you want your machine again, you must leave that
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Speaker 1: sphinx alone. If they mean to take your machine away,
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Speaker 1: it's little good. You're wrecking their bronze panels. And if
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Speaker 1: they don't you will get it back as soon as
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Speaker 1: you can ask for it. To sit among all those
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Speaker 1: unknown things before. A puzzle like that is hopeless. That
12:40
Speaker 1: way lies monomania. Face this world, learn its ways, watch it,
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Speaker 1: be careful of two hasty guesses at its meaning. In
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Speaker 1: the end you will find clues to it all. Then
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Speaker 1: suddenly the humor of the situation came into my mind,
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Speaker 1: the thought of the years I had spent in study
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Speaker 1: and toil to get into the future age, and now
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Speaker 1: my passion of anxiety to get out of it. I
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Speaker 1: had made myself the most complicated and the most hopeless
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Speaker 1: trap that ever a man devised. Although it was at
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Speaker 1: my own expense, I could not help myself. I laughed
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Speaker 1: aloud going through the big Palace. It seemed to me
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Speaker 1: that the little people avoided me. It may have been
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Speaker 1: my fancy, or it may have had something to do
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Speaker 1: with my hammering at the gates of bronze. Yet I
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Speaker 1: felt tolerably sure of the avoidance. I was careful, however,
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Speaker 1: to show no concern and to abstain from any pursuit
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Speaker 1: of them. And in the course of a day or
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Speaker 1: two things got back to the old footing. I made
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Speaker 1: what progress I could in the language, and in addition
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Speaker 1: I pushed my explorations here and there. Either I missed
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Speaker 1: some subtle point, or their language was excessively simple, most
14:00
Speaker 1: exclusively composed of concrete substantives and verbs. There seemed to
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Speaker 1: be few, if any, abstract terms, or little use of
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Speaker 1: figurative language. Their sentences were usually simple and of two words,
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Speaker 1: and I failed to convey or understand any but the
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Speaker 1: simplest propositions. I determined to put the thought of my
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Speaker 1: time machine and the mystery of the bronze doors under
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Speaker 1: the sphinx, as much as possible, in a corner of memory,
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Speaker 1: until my growing knowledge would lead me back to them
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Speaker 1: in a natural way. Yet a certain feeling you may understand,
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Speaker 1: tethered me in a circle of a few miles round
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Speaker 1: the point of my arrival. So far as I could see,
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Speaker 1: all the world displayed the same exuberant richness as the
14:46
Speaker 1: Thames Valley. From every hill I climbed, I saw the
14:50
Speaker 1: same abundance of splendid buildings, endlessly varied in material and style,
14:55
Speaker 1: the same clustering thickets of evergreens, the same blossom laden
14:59
Speaker 1: tree and tree ferns. Here and there, water shone like silver,
15:04
Speaker 1: and beyond the land rose into blue, undulating hills, and
15:08
Speaker 1: so faded into the serenity of the sky. A peculiar
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Speaker 1: feature which presently attracted my attention was the presence of
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Speaker 1: certain circular wells, several as it seemed to me of
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Speaker 1: a very great depth. One lay by the path up
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Speaker 1: the hill which I had followed during my first walk.
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Speaker 1: Like the others, it was rimmed with bronze, curiously wrought,
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Speaker 1: and protected by a little cupula from the rain. Sitting
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Speaker 1: by the side of these wells and peering down into
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Speaker 1: the shafted darkness, I could see no gleam of water,
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Speaker 1: nor could I start any reflection with a lighted match.
15:45
Speaker 1: But in all of them I heard a certain sound,
15:49
Speaker 1: a thud, thud, dud, like the beating of some big engine,
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Speaker 1: and I discovered from the flaring of the matches that
15:57
Speaker 1: a steady current of air set down the shafts. Further,
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Speaker 1: I threw a scrap of paper into the throat of one,
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Speaker 1: and instead of fluttering slowly down, it was at once
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Speaker 1: sucked swiftly out of sight. After a time, too, I
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Speaker 1: came to connect these wells with tall towers standing here
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Speaker 1: and there upon the slopes, for above them there was
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Speaker 1: often just such a flicker in the air as one
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Speaker 1: sees on a hot day above a sun scorched beach.
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Speaker 1: Putting things together, I reached a strong suggestion of an
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Speaker 1: extensive system of subterranean ventilation, whose true import it was
16:35
Speaker 1: difficult to imagine. I was at first inclined to associate
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Speaker 1: it with the sanitary apparatus of these people. It was
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Speaker 1: an obvious conclusion, but it was absolutely wrong. And here
16:48
Speaker 1: I must admit that I learned very little of drains
16:52
Speaker 1: and bells, and modes of conveyance and the light conveyances
16:56
Speaker 1: during my time in this real future. In some of
16:59
Speaker 1: the visions of Utopia's and coming times which I have read,
17:03
Speaker 1: there is a vast amount of detail about building and
17:06
Speaker 1: social arrangements and so forth. But while such details are
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Speaker 1: easy enough to obtain when the whole world is contained
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Speaker 1: in one's imagination, they are altogether inaccessible to a real traveler.
17:18
Speaker 1: Amid such realities as I found here, conceive the tale
17:22
Speaker 1: of London which a Negro fresh from Central Africa would
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Speaker 1: take back to his tribe. What would he know of
17:30
Speaker 1: railway companies, of social movements, of telephone and telegraph wires
17:35
Speaker 1: of the parcels Delivery company, and postal orders and the like.
17:39
Speaker 1: Yet we at least should be willing enough to explain
17:42
Speaker 1: these things to him. And even of what he knew,
17:46
Speaker 1: how much could he make his untraveled friend either apprehend
17:50
Speaker 1: or believe? Then think how narrow the gap between a
17:54
Speaker 1: negro and a white man of our times, and how
17:57
Speaker 1: wide the interval between myself and the of the golden age.
18:02
Speaker 1: I was sensible of much which was unseen, and which
18:06
Speaker 1: contributed to my comfort. But say for a general impression
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Speaker 1: of automatic organization, I fear I can convey very little
18:14
Speaker 1: of the difference to your mind. In the matter of sepulcher,
18:18
Speaker 1: for instance, I could see no signs of crematoria, nor
18:22
Speaker 1: anything suggestive of tombs. But it occurred to me that
18:26
Speaker 1: possibly there might be cemeteries or crematoria somewhere beyond the
18:31
Speaker 1: range of my explorings. This again was a question I
18:35
Speaker 1: deliberately put to myself, and my curiosity was at first
18:39
Speaker 1: entirely defeated. Upon the point the thing puzzled me, and
18:44
Speaker 1: I was led to make a further remark, which puzzled
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Speaker 1: me still more, that aged and infirm among these people
18:51
Speaker 1: there were none. I must confess that my satisfaction with
18:57
Speaker 1: my first theories of an automatic civilization and a decadent
19:00
Speaker 1: humanity did not long endure. Yet I could think of
19:04
Speaker 1: no other let me put my difficulties. The several big
19:09
Speaker 1: palaces I had explored were mere living places, great dining halls,
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Speaker 1: and sleeping apartments. I could find no machinery, no appliances
19:19
Speaker 1: of any kind. Yet these people were clothed in pleasant
19:23
Speaker 1: fabrics that must at times need renewal, and their sandals,
19:28
Speaker 1: though undecorated, were fairly complex specimens of metal work. Somehow
19:33
Speaker 1: such things must be made, and the little people displayed
19:37
Speaker 1: no vestige of a creative tendency. There were no shops,
19:41
Speaker 1: no workshops, no sign of importations among them. They spent
19:46
Speaker 1: all their time in playing gently, in bathing in the river,
19:49
Speaker 1: in making love in a half playful fashion, in eating
19:53
Speaker 1: fruit and sleeping. I could not see how things were
19:57
Speaker 1: kept going. Then again about the time machine. Something I knew,
20:05
Speaker 1: not what had taken it into the hollow pedestal of
20:08
Speaker 1: the white Sphinx. Why, for the life of me I
20:12
Speaker 1: could not imagine those waterless wells, too, those flickering pillars.
20:19
Speaker 1: I felt I lacked a clue. I felt, how shall
20:23
Speaker 1: I put it, Suppose you found an inscription with sentences
20:26
Speaker 1: here and there in excellent plain English, and interpolated therewith
20:31
Speaker 1: others made up of words of letters, even absolutely unknown
20:36
Speaker 1: to you. Well, on the third day of my visit,
20:39
Speaker 1: that was how the world of eight hundred and two thousand,
20:42
Speaker 1: seven hundred and one presented itself to me. That day too,
20:46
Speaker 1: I made a friend of a sort. It happened that,
20:49
Speaker 1: as I was watching some of the little people bathing
20:52
Speaker 1: in a shallow one of them was seized with a
20:54
Speaker 1: cramp and began drifting down stream. The main current ran
20:58
Speaker 1: rather swiftly, but not too strongly for even a moderate swimmer.
21:03
Speaker 1: It will give you an idea, therefore, of the strange
21:06
Speaker 1: deficiency in these creatures, when I tell you that none
21:10
Speaker 1: made the slightest attempt to rescue the weakly crying little
21:13
Speaker 1: thing which was drowning before their eyes. When I realized this,
21:18
Speaker 1: I hurriedly slipped off my clothes, and, wading in at
21:21
Speaker 1: a point lower down, I caught the poor mite and
21:23
Speaker 1: drew her safe to land. A little rubbing of the
21:27
Speaker 1: limbs soon brought her round and I had the satisfaction
21:30
Speaker 1: of seeing she was all right. Before I left her,
21:33
Speaker 1: I had got to such a low estimate of her
21:36
Speaker 1: kind that I did not expect any gratitude from her
21:39
Speaker 1: in that however, I was wrong. This happened in the morning.
21:45
Speaker 1: In the afternoon, I met my little woman, as I
21:48
Speaker 1: believe it was, as I was returning towards my center
21:51
Speaker 1: from an exploration, and she received me with cries of
21:54
Speaker 1: delight and presented me with a big garland of flowers,
21:57
Speaker 1: evidently made for me and meal alone. The thing took
22:02
Speaker 1: my imagination very possibly I had been feeling desolate. At
22:07
Speaker 1: any rate, I did my best to display my appreciation
22:10
Speaker 1: of the gift. We were soon seated together in a
22:13
Speaker 1: little stone arbor, engaged in conversation, chiefly of smiles. The
22:19
Speaker 1: creature's friendliness affected me exactly as a child's might have done.
22:23
Speaker 1: We passed each other flowers, and she kissed my hands.
22:27
Speaker 1: I did the same to hers. Then I tried talk
22:31
Speaker 1: and found that her name was Weena, which, though I
22:34
Speaker 1: don't know what it meant, somehow seemed appropriate enough. That
22:38
Speaker 1: was the beginning of a queer friendship, which lasted a
22:41
Speaker 1: week and ended as I will tell you she was
22:46
Speaker 1: exactly like a child. She wanted to be with me always.
22:50
Speaker 1: She tried to follow me everywhere, and on my next
22:53
Speaker 1: journey out and about. It went to my heart to
22:56
Speaker 1: tire her down and leave her at last, exhausted and
22:59
Speaker 1: calling out after me rather plaintively. But the problems of
23:03
Speaker 1: the world had to be mastered. I had not, I
23:06
Speaker 1: said to myself, come into the future to carry on
23:09
Speaker 1: a miniature flirtation. Yet her distress when I left her
23:13
Speaker 1: was very great. Her expostulations at the parting were sometimes frantic,
23:18
Speaker 1: and I think altogether I had as much trouble as
23:21
Speaker 1: comfort from her devotion. Nevertheless, she was somehow a great comfort.
23:29
Speaker 1: I thought it was a mere childish affection that made
23:31
Speaker 1: her cling to me. Until it was too late. I
23:34
Speaker 1: did not clearly know what I had inflicted upon her
23:37
Speaker 1: when I left her, nor until it was too late
23:40
Speaker 1: did I clearly understand what she was to me. For
23:45
Speaker 1: by merely seeming fond of me and showing in her weak,
23:48
Speaker 1: futile way that she cared for me, the little dull
23:52
Speaker 1: of a creature presently gave my return to the neighborhood
23:55
Speaker 1: of the White Sphinx almost the feeling of coming home,
24:00
Speaker 1: and I would watch for her tiny figure of white
24:02
Speaker 1: and gold so soon as I came over the hill.
24:06
Speaker 1: It was from her, too that I learned that fear
24:09
Speaker 1: had not yet left the world. She was fearless enough
24:12
Speaker 1: in the daylight, and she had the oddest confidence in me.
24:16
Speaker 1: For once, in a foolish moment, I made threatening grimaces
24:20
Speaker 1: at her, and she simply laughed at them. But she
24:23
Speaker 1: dreaded the dark, dreaded shadows, dreaded black things. Darkness, to
24:29
Speaker 1: her was the one thing dreadful. It was a singularly
24:33
Speaker 1: passionate emotion, and it set me thinking and observing. I discovered, then,
24:39
Speaker 1: among other things, that these little people gathered into the
24:42
Speaker 1: great houses after dark and slept in droves. To enter
24:46
Speaker 1: upon them without a light was to put them into
24:49
Speaker 1: a tumult of apprehension. I never found one out of doors,
24:54
Speaker 1: or one sleeping alone within doors after dark. Yet I
24:58
Speaker 1: was still such a blockhead that I missed the lesson
25:01
Speaker 1: of that fear, And in spite of Weena's distress, I
25:04
Speaker 1: insisted upon sleeping away from the slumbering multitudes. It troubled
25:10
Speaker 1: her greatly, but in the end, her odd affection for
25:13
Speaker 1: me triumphed, and for five of the nights of our acquaintance,
25:16
Speaker 1: including the last night of all, she slept with her
25:19
Speaker 1: head pillowed on my arm. But my story slips away
25:23
Speaker 1: from me as I speak of her. It must have
25:25
Speaker 1: been the night before her rescue that I was awakened
25:27
Speaker 1: about dawn. I had been restless, dreaming most disagreeably that
25:32
Speaker 1: I was drowned, and that sea anemonies were feeling over
25:35
Speaker 1: my face with their soft palps. I woke with a start,
25:40
Speaker 1: and with an odd fancy that some grayish animal had
25:44
Speaker 1: just rushed out of the chamber. I tried to get
25:47
Speaker 1: to sleep again, but I felt restless and uncomfortable. It
25:52
Speaker 1: was that dim, gray hour when things are just creeping
25:55
Speaker 1: out of darkness, when everything is colorless and clear cut
25:59
Speaker 1: and yet unreal. I got up and went down into
26:03
Speaker 1: the Great Hall, and so out upon the flagstones in
26:06
Speaker 1: front of the palace. I thought I would make a
26:09
Speaker 1: virtue of necessity and see the sunrise. The moon was setting,
26:14
Speaker 1: and the dying moonlight and the first pallor of dawn
26:17
Speaker 1: were mingled in a ghastly half light. The bushes were
26:21
Speaker 1: inky black, the ground a somber gray, the sky colorless
26:26
Speaker 1: and cheerless, and up the hill I thought I could
26:31
Speaker 1: see ghosts. There were several times, as I scanned the
26:35
Speaker 1: slope I saw white figures. Twice I fancied I saw
26:39
Speaker 1: a solitary, white, apelike creature running rather quickly up the hill,
26:44
Speaker 1: and once near the ruins, I saw a leash of
26:47
Speaker 1: them carrying some dark body. They moved hastily. I did
26:52
Speaker 1: not see what became of them. It seemed that they
26:55
Speaker 1: vanished among the bushes. The dawn was still indistinct. You
26:59
Speaker 1: must understand I was feeling that chill, uncertain early morning
27:03
Speaker 1: feeling you may have known. I doubted my eyes as
27:08
Speaker 1: the eastern sky grew brighter, and the light of the
27:11
Speaker 1: day came on, and its vivid coloring returned upon the world.
27:14
Speaker 1: Once more, I scanned the view keenly, but I saw
27:18
Speaker 1: no vestige of my white figures. They were mere creatures
27:24
Speaker 1: of the half light. They must have been ghosts, I said,
27:28
Speaker 1: I wonder whence they dated? For a queer notion of
27:33
Speaker 1: grand Ellen's came into my head and amused me. If
27:37
Speaker 1: each generation die and leave ghosts, he argued, the world
27:41
Speaker 1: at last will get overcrowded with them. On that theory,
27:45
Speaker 1: they would have grown innumerable some eight hundred thousand years since,
27:49
Speaker 1: and it was no great wonder to see four at once.
27:52
Speaker 1: But the jest was unsatisfying, and I was thinking of
27:56
Speaker 1: these figures all the morning, until Weena's rescue drove them
27:59
Speaker 1: out of my head. I associated them, in some indefinite
28:03
Speaker 1: way with the white animal I had startled in my
28:05
Speaker 1: first passionate search for the time machine. But Uena was
28:09
Speaker 1: a pleasant substitute. Yets all the same, they were soon
28:13
Speaker 1: destined to take far deadlier possession of my mind. I
28:18
Speaker 1: think I have said how much hotter than our own
28:21
Speaker 1: was the weather of this Golden Age? I cannot account
28:24
Speaker 1: for it. It may be that the Sun was hotter,
28:27
Speaker 1: or the Earth nearer the Sun. It is usual to
28:31
Speaker 1: assume that the Sun will go on cooling steadily in
28:34
Speaker 1: the future, But people unfamiliar with such speculations as those
28:38
Speaker 1: of the younger Darwin forget that the planets must ultimately
28:42
Speaker 1: fall back one by one into the parent body. As
28:46
Speaker 1: these catastrophes occur, the Sun will blaze with renewed energy,
28:50
Speaker 1: and it may be that some inner planet had suffered
28:53
Speaker 1: this fate. Whatever the reason, the fact remains that the
28:58
Speaker 1: sun was very much hotter than know it well. One
29:02
Speaker 1: very hot morning, my fourth I think, as I was
29:05
Speaker 1: seeking shelter from the heat and glare in a colossal
29:08
Speaker 1: ruin near the Great House where I slept and fed,
29:11
Speaker 1: there happened this strange thing. Clambering among these heaps of masonry,
29:17
Speaker 1: I found a narrow gallery whose end and side windows
29:20
Speaker 1: were blocked by fallen masses of stone. By contrast with
29:25
Speaker 1: the brilliancy outside, it seemed at first impenetrably dark to me.
29:30
Speaker 1: I entered it, groping for the change from light to
29:33
Speaker 1: blackness made spots of color swim before me. Suddenly I halted, spellbound.
29:39
Speaker 1: A pair of eyes, luminous by reflection against the daylight
29:43
Speaker 1: without was watching me. Out of the darkness. The old
29:48
Speaker 1: instinctive dread of wild beasts came upon me. I clenched
29:52
Speaker 1: my hands and steadfastly looked into the glaring eyeballs. I
29:57
Speaker 1: was afraid to turn. Then the thought of the absolute
30:01
Speaker 1: security in which humanity appeared to be living came to
30:04
Speaker 1: my mind, and then I remembered that strange terror of
30:08
Speaker 1: the dark. Overcoming my fear to some extent, I advanced
30:12
Speaker 1: a step and spoke I will admit that my voice
30:16
Speaker 1: was harsh and ill controlled. I put out my hand
30:19
Speaker 1: and touched something soft. At once, the eyes darted sideways,
30:25
Speaker 1: and something white ran past me. I turned with my
30:28
Speaker 1: heart in my mouth, and saw a queer, little apelike figure,
30:32
Speaker 1: its head held down in a peculiar manner, running across
30:36
Speaker 1: the sunlit space behind me. It blundered against a block
30:39
Speaker 1: of granite, staggered aside, and in a moment was hidden
30:43
Speaker 1: in a black shadow beneath another pile of ruined masonry.
30:48
Speaker 1: My impression of it is, of course imperfect, but I
30:52
Speaker 1: know it was a dull white and had strange, large
30:55
Speaker 1: grayish red eyes, also that there was flaxen hair on
31:00
Speaker 1: its head and down its back. But as I say,
31:04
Speaker 1: it went too fast for me to see distinctly, I
31:08
Speaker 1: cannot even say whether it ran on all fours or
31:10
Speaker 1: only with its forearms held very low. After an instant's pause,
31:15
Speaker 1: I followed it into the second heap of ruins. I
31:19
Speaker 1: could not find it at first, but after a time
31:22
Speaker 1: in the profound obscurity, I came upon one of those
31:26
Speaker 1: round well like openings of which I have told you,
31:29
Speaker 1: half closed by a fallen pillar. A sudden thought came
31:33
Speaker 1: to me, could this thing have vanished down the shaft?
31:37
Speaker 1: I lit a match, and looking down, I saw a small, white,
31:42
Speaker 1: moving creature with large, bright eyes, which regarded me steadfastly
31:46
Speaker 1: as it retreated. It made me shudder. It was so
31:50
Speaker 1: like a human spider. It was clambering down the wall.
31:54
Speaker 1: And now I saw for the first time a number
31:57
Speaker 1: of metal foot and hand rests forming a kind of
32:00
Speaker 1: ladder down the shaft. Then the light burned my fingers
32:03
Speaker 1: and fell out of my hand, going out as it dropped,
32:06
Speaker 1: And when I lit another the little monster had disappeared.
32:12
Speaker 1: I do not know how long I sat peering down
32:15
Speaker 1: that well. It was not for some time that I
32:18
Speaker 1: could succeed in persuading myself that the thing I had
32:21
Speaker 1: seen was human. But gradually the truth dawned on me
32:25
Speaker 1: that man had not remained one species, but had differentiated
32:30
Speaker 1: into two distinct animals, That my graceful children of the
32:34
Speaker 1: upper world were not the sole descendants of our generation,
32:39
Speaker 1: but that this bleached, obscene, nocturnal thing which had flashed
32:44
Speaker 1: before me was also heir to all the ages. I
32:49
Speaker 1: thought of the flickering pillars, and of my theory of
32:52
Speaker 1: an underground ventilation. I began to suspect their true import
32:58
Speaker 1: and what I wondered, what this leamur doing in my
33:01
Speaker 1: scheme of a perfectly balanced organization. How was it related
33:06
Speaker 1: to the indolent serenity of the beautiful upper worlders? And
33:10
Speaker 1: what was hidden down there at the foot of that shaft.
33:16
Speaker 1: I sat upon the edge of the well, telling myself
33:19
Speaker 1: that at any rate, there was nothing to fear, and
33:22
Speaker 1: that there I must descend for the solution of my difficulties,
33:26
Speaker 1: and withal I was absolutely afraid to go. As I hesitated,
33:32
Speaker 1: two of the beautiful upper world people came running in
33:35
Speaker 1: their amorous sport across the daylight in the shadow. The
33:38
Speaker 1: male pursued the female, flinging flowers at her as he ran.
33:43
Speaker 1: They seemed distressed to find me my arm against the
33:46
Speaker 1: overturned pillar peering down the well. Apparently it was considered
33:50
Speaker 1: bad form to remark these apertures, for when I pointed
33:54
Speaker 1: to this one and tried to frame a question about
33:56
Speaker 1: it in their tongue, they were still more visibly distressed
34:00
Speaker 1: and turned away. But they were interested by my matches,
34:04
Speaker 1: and I struck some to amuse them. I tried them
34:07
Speaker 1: again about the well, and again I failed. So presently
34:11
Speaker 1: I left them, meaning to go back to Weena and
34:14
Speaker 1: see what I could get from her. But my mind
34:18
Speaker 1: was already in revolution. My guesses and impressions were slipping
34:22
Speaker 1: and sliding to a new adjustment. I had now a
34:26
Speaker 1: clue to the import of these wells, to the ventilating towers,
34:30
Speaker 1: to the mystery of the ghosts, to say nothing of
34:33
Speaker 1: a hint at the meaning of the bronze gates and
34:36
Speaker 1: the fate of the time machine. And very vaguely there
34:42
Speaker 1: came a suggestion towards the solution of the economic problem
34:45
Speaker 1: that had puzzled me. Here was the new view. Plainly,
34:50
Speaker 1: the second species of man was subterranean. There were three
34:54
Speaker 1: circumstances in particular, which made me think that its rare
34:58
Speaker 1: emergence above ground was the outlo come of a long,
35:00
Speaker 1: continued underground habit. In the first place, there was the
35:05
Speaker 1: bleached look common in most animals that live largely in
35:09
Speaker 1: the dark, the white fish of the Kentucky caves, for instance.
35:14
Speaker 1: Then those large eyes with that capacity for reflecting light
35:19
Speaker 1: are common features of nocturnal things, witness the owl and
35:23
Speaker 1: the cat. And last of all, that evident confusion in
35:27
Speaker 1: the sunshine, that hasty yet fumbling, awkward flight towards dark shadow,
35:33
Speaker 1: and that peculiar carriage of the head while in the light,
35:37
Speaker 1: all reinforced the theory of an extreme sensitiveness of the
35:40
Speaker 1: retina beneath my feet. Then the earth must be tunneled enormously,
35:47
Speaker 1: and these tunnelings were the habitats of the new race.
35:51
Speaker 1: The presence of ventilating shafts and wells along the hill
35:54
Speaker 1: slopes everywhere, in fact, except along the river valley, showed
35:58
Speaker 1: how universal were its ramifications. What so natural then, as
36:03
Speaker 1: to assume that it was in this artificial underworld that
36:06
Speaker 1: such work as was necessary to the comfort of the
36:09
Speaker 1: daylight race was done. The notion was so plausible that
36:13
Speaker 1: I at once accepted it, and went on to assume
36:17
Speaker 1: the how of this splitting of the human species. I
36:21
Speaker 1: dare say you will anticipate the shape of my theory,
36:25
Speaker 1: though for myself I very soon felt that it fell
36:28
Speaker 1: far short of the truth. At first, proceeding from the
36:34
Speaker 1: problems of our own age, it seemed clear as daylight
36:37
Speaker 1: to me that the gradual widening of the present merely
36:40
Speaker 1: temporary and social difference between the capitalist and the laborer
36:45
Speaker 1: was the key to the whole position. No doubt it
36:48
Speaker 1: will seem grotesque enough to you, and wildly incredible. And
36:53
Speaker 1: yet even now there are existing circumstances to point that way.
36:58
Speaker 1: There is a tendency to utilize underground space for the
37:01
Speaker 1: less ornamental purposes of civilization. There is the Metropolitan Railway
37:05
Speaker 1: in London, for instance. There are the new electric railways.
37:09
Speaker 1: There are subways, There are underground workrooms and restaurants, and
37:13
Speaker 1: they increase and multiply. Evidently, I thought this tendency had
37:18
Speaker 1: increased till industry had gradually lost its birthright in the sky.
37:24
Speaker 1: I mean that it had gone deeper and deeper into
37:27
Speaker 1: larger and ever larger underground factories, spending a still increasing
37:31
Speaker 1: amount of its time therein till in the end, even now,
37:36
Speaker 1: does not an East End worker live in such artificial
37:39
Speaker 1: conditions as practically to be cut off from the natural
37:42
Speaker 1: surface of the earth. Again, the exclusive tendency of richer people,
37:48
Speaker 1: due no doubt to the increasing refinement of their education
37:52
Speaker 1: and the widening gulf between them and the rude violence
37:54
Speaker 1: of the poor, is already leading to the closing in
37:58
Speaker 1: their interest of considerable ports of the surface of the
38:01
Speaker 1: land about London, for instance, perhaps half the prettier country
38:06
Speaker 1: is shut in against intrusion. And the same widening gulf,
38:11
Speaker 1: which is due to the length and expense of the
38:14
Speaker 1: higher educational process, and the increased facilities for and temptations
38:19
Speaker 1: towards refined habits on the part of the rich, will
38:22
Speaker 1: make that exchange between class and class, that promotion by intermarriage,
38:27
Speaker 1: which at present retards the splitting of our species along
38:30
Speaker 1: lines of social stratification, less and less frequent. So in
38:36
Speaker 1: the end, above ground you must have the havelves pursuing
38:40
Speaker 1: pleasure and comfort and beauty, and below ground the have knots,
38:45
Speaker 1: the workers getting continually adapted to the conditions of their labor.
38:50
Speaker 1: Once they were there, they would no doubt have to
38:52
Speaker 1: pay rent, and not a little of it, for the
38:55
Speaker 1: ventilation of their caverns, and if they refused, they would
38:59
Speaker 1: starve or be suffocated for arrears. Such of them as
39:03
Speaker 1: were so constituted as to be miserable and rebellious would die,
39:08
Speaker 1: And in the end, the balance being permanent, the survivors
39:12
Speaker 1: would become as well adapted to the conditions of underground life,
39:16
Speaker 1: and as happy in their way as the upper world
39:18
Speaker 1: people were to theirs. As it seemed to me, the
39:23
Speaker 1: refined beauty and the etiolated pallor followed. Naturally enough, the
39:29
Speaker 1: great triumph of humanity I had dreamed of took a
39:32
Speaker 1: different shape in my mind. It had been no such
39:36
Speaker 1: triumph of moral education and general cooperation as I had imagined. Instead,
39:43
Speaker 1: I saw a real aristocracy, armed with a perfected science
39:47
Speaker 1: and working to a logical conclusion the industrial system of today.
39:52
Speaker 1: Its triumph had not been simply a triumph over nature,
39:56
Speaker 1: but a triumph over nature and the fellow man. This,
40:01
Speaker 1: I must warn you, was my theory at the time.
40:05
Speaker 1: I had no convenient cicerone in the pattern of the
40:08
Speaker 1: utopian books. My explanation may be absolutely wrong. I still
40:14
Speaker 1: think it is the most plausible one. But even on
40:17
Speaker 1: this supposition, the balanced civilization that was at least attained
40:22
Speaker 1: must have long since passed its zenith and was now
40:25
Speaker 1: far fallen into decay. The too perfect security of the
40:30
Speaker 1: upper worlders had led them to a slow movement of degeneration,
40:35
Speaker 1: to a general dwindling in size, strength, and intelligence that
40:40
Speaker 1: I could see clearly enough already what had happened to
40:44
Speaker 1: the underworlders. I did not yet suspect. But from what
40:48
Speaker 1: I had seen of the Morlocks, that, by the way,
40:50
Speaker 1: was the name by which the creatures were called, I
40:53
Speaker 1: could imagine that the modification of the human type was
40:56
Speaker 1: even far more profound than among the Eloi, the beautiful
41:00
Speaker 1: race that I already knew. Then came troublesome doubts. Why
41:07
Speaker 1: had the Morlocks taken my time machine? For I felt
41:11
Speaker 1: sure it was they who had taken it. Why, too,
41:14
Speaker 1: if the Eloi were masters, could they not restore the
41:17
Speaker 1: machine to me? And why were they so terribly afraid
41:21
Speaker 1: of the dark. I proceeded, as I have said, to
41:25
Speaker 1: question Weena about this underworld, But here again I was disappointed.
41:31
Speaker 1: At first she would not understand my questions, and presently
41:35
Speaker 1: she refused to answer them. She shivered, as though the
41:38
Speaker 1: topic was unendurable, and when I pressed her, perhaps a
41:42
Speaker 1: little harshly, she burst into tears. They were the only
41:47
Speaker 1: tears except my own, I ever saw in that golden age.
41:53
Speaker 1: When I saw them, I ceased abruptly to trouble about
41:56
Speaker 1: the Morlocks, and was only concerned in banishing these signs
41:59
Speaker 1: of the human inheritance from Weena's eyes. And very soon
42:04
Speaker 1: she was smiling and clapping her hands while I solemnly
42:08
Speaker 1: burned a match. End of Chapter five,