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The Island of Doctor Moreau Chapter 16 - How the Beast Folk Taste Blood · The H. G. Wells Library

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Speaker 1: Section seventeen of the Island of Doctor Moreau by H. G. Wells.
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Speaker 1: This LibriVox recording is in the public domain. Read by
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Speaker 1: Tom Hare sixteen. How the beast folk taste blood. My
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Speaker 1: experience as a writer betrays me, and I wander from
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Speaker 1: the thread of my story. After I had breakfasted with Montgomery,
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Speaker 1: he took me across the island to see the fumarole
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Speaker 1: in the source of the hot spring into whose scalding
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Speaker 1: waters I had blundered on the previous day. Both of
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Speaker 1: us carried whips in loaded revolvers. While going through a
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Speaker 1: leafy jungle on our road thither, we heard a rabbit squealing.
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Speaker 1: We stopped and listened, but we heard no more, and
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Speaker 1: presently we went on our way, and the incident dropped
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Speaker 1: out of our mindes. Montgomery called my intention to certainly
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Speaker 1: little pink animals with long hind legs that went leaping
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Speaker 1: through the undergrowth. He told me they were creatures made
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Speaker 1: of the offspring of the beast people that Moreau had invented.
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Speaker 1: He had fancied they might serve for meat, but a
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Speaker 1: rabbit like habit of devouring their young had defeated this intention.
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Speaker 1: I had already encountered some of these creatures, once during
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Speaker 1: my moonlight flight from the Leopard Man, and once during
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Speaker 1: my pursuit by Moreau on the previous day. By chance,
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Speaker 1: one hopping to avoid us, leapt into the hole caused
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Speaker 1: by the uprooting of a wind blown tree. Before it
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Speaker 1: could extricate itself, we managed to catch it. It spat like
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Speaker 1: a cat, scratched and kicked vigorously with its hind legs,
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Speaker 1: and made an attempt to bite, but its teeth were
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Speaker 1: too feeble to inflict more than a painless pinch. Seemed
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Speaker 1: to me rather a pretty little creature, and as Montgomery
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Speaker 1: stated that it never destroyed the turf burrowing and was
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Speaker 1: very cleanly in its habits, I should imagine it might
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Speaker 1: prove a convenient substitute for the common rabbit in gentlemen's parks.
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Speaker 1: We also saw on our way the trunk of a
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Speaker 1: tree barked in long strips and splintered deeply. Montgomery called
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Speaker 1: my attention to this not to claw the bark of truth.
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Speaker 1: That is the law, he said, much thumb of them
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Speaker 1: care for it. It was after this I think that
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Speaker 1: we met the satyr and the ape man. The satire
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Speaker 1: was a gleam of classical memory on the part of Moreau.
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Speaker 1: His face so vine an expression like the coarser Hebrew type,
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Speaker 1: his voice a harsh bleat his nether extremity satanic. He
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Speaker 1: was gnawing the husk of a pod like fruit. As
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Speaker 1: he passed us. Both of them saluted Montgomery. Hail, said
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Speaker 1: they to the other with the whip. There the third
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Speaker 1: with a whip, now, said Montgomery. Though you'd better mind
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Speaker 1: worth He not made, said the ape man. He said,
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Speaker 1: he said he was made. The satie man looked curiously
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Speaker 1: at me. The third with the whip, he that walks
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Speaker 1: weeping into the sea, has a thin white face. He
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Speaker 1: hath a thin long whip, said Montgomery. Yet did they
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Speaker 1: he bled and wept, said the satier. You never bleed
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Speaker 1: nor weep. The master does not bleed or weep all
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Speaker 1: n d'orfin beggar, said Montgomery. You'll bleed and weep if
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Speaker 1: you don't look out. He has five fingers. He is
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Speaker 1: a five man, like me, said the ape man. Come along, prindic,
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Speaker 1: said Montgomery, taking my arm, and I went on with him.
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Speaker 1: The satier and the ape man stood watching us and
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Speaker 1: making other remarks to each other. He says nothing, said
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Speaker 1: the satier men have voices yeth to day. He asked
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Speaker 1: me of things to eat, said the ape man. He
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Speaker 1: did not know. Then they spoke inaudible things, and I
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Speaker 1: heard the satier laughing. It was on our way back
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Speaker 1: that we came upon the dead rabbit. The red body
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Speaker 1: of the wretched little beast was rent to pieces, many
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Speaker 1: of the ribs stripped white, and the backbone indisputably gnawed.
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Speaker 1: At that, Montgomery stopped. Good God, said he stooping down
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Speaker 1: and picking up some of the crushed vertebrae to examine
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Speaker 1: them more closely. Good God, he repeated, What can this mean?
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Speaker 1: Some carnivore of yours has remembered its old habits, I said,
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Speaker 1: after a pause. This backbone has been bitten through. He stood, staring,
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Speaker 1: with his face white and his lip pulled askew. I
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Speaker 1: don't like this, he said slowly. I saw something of
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Speaker 1: the same kind, said I. The first day I came here,
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Speaker 1: the devil you did. What was it? A rabbit with
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Speaker 1: its head twisted off the day you came here, the
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Speaker 1: day I came here, In the undergrowth at the back
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Speaker 1: of the enclosure, when I went out in the evening,
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Speaker 1: the head was completely wrung off. He gave a long,
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Speaker 1: low whistle. And what is more, I have an idea
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Speaker 1: of which of your brute did the thing. It's only
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Speaker 1: a suspicion, you know. Before I came on the rabbit,
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Speaker 1: I saw one of your monsters drinking in the stream,
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Speaker 1: fucking his drink. Yes, not to Thirk, you'll drink. That
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Speaker 1: is the law. Much the brutes care for the law? Eh?
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Speaker 1: Would moreaud not about it was the brute who chased me,
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Speaker 1: of course, said Montgomery. It's just the way with the carnival.
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Speaker 1: After a keel, they'd drink. It's the tete of blood?
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Speaker 1: You know? What was the brute like? He continued, Would
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Speaker 1: you know him again? He glanced about us, standing astride
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Speaker 1: over the mass of dead rabbit, his eyes roving among
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Speaker 1: the shadows and screens of greenery, the lurking places and
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Speaker 1: ambuse gards of the forest that bounded us in the
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Speaker 1: tethte of blood, he said again. He took out his
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Speaker 1: revol wolpha, examined the cartridges in it, and replaced it.
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Speaker 1: Then he began to pull at his dropping lip. I
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Speaker 1: think I should know the brute again, I said, I
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Speaker 1: stunned him he ought to have a handsome bruise on
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Speaker 1: the forehead of him. But then we have to prove
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Speaker 1: that he killed the rabbit, said Montgomery. I with I'd
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Speaker 1: never brought the things here. I should have gone on,
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Speaker 1: But he stayed there, thinking over the mangled rabbit in
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Speaker 1: a puzzle headed way. As it was. I went to
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Speaker 1: such a distance that the rabbit's remains were hidden. Come on,
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Speaker 1: I said. Presently, he woke and came towards me. You see,
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Speaker 1: he said, almost in a whisper. They are all for
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Speaker 1: both to have a fixed idea against eating anything that
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Speaker 1: runs on land. If thumb brute hath by any accident,
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Speaker 1: taithe did blood. We went on some way in silence.
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Speaker 1: I wonder what can have happened, he said to himself. Then,
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Speaker 1: after a pause, again, I did a foolish thing the
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Speaker 1: other day the servant of mine. I throwed him how
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Speaker 1: to skin and cook a rabbit. It thought I saw
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Speaker 1: him licking his hands. It never occurred to me. Then
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Speaker 1: we must put a stop to this. I must tell Moreau.
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Speaker 1: He could think of nothing else on our homeward journey.
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Speaker 1: Moreau took the matter even more seriously than Montgomery, and
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Speaker 1: I need scarcely say that I was affected by the
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Speaker 1: evident consternation. We must make an example, said Moreau. I've
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Speaker 1: no doubt in my mind that the leopard man was
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Speaker 1: the sinner, but how can we prove it? I wish, Montgomery,
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Speaker 1: you had kept your taste for meat in hand and
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Speaker 1: gone without these exciting novelties. We may find ourselves in
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Speaker 1: a mess. Yet through it, I was a thiliath, said Montgomery.
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Speaker 1: But the thing's done now, and you sad I might
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Speaker 1: have them. You know, we must see to the thing
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Speaker 1: at once, said Morreau. I suppose if anything should turn up,
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Speaker 1: Imling can take care of himself. I'm not though suer
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Speaker 1: of Imling, said Montgomery. I think I ought to know him.
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Speaker 1: In the afternoon, Moreau, Montgomery, myself, and Imling went across
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Speaker 1: the island to the huts in the ravine. We three
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Speaker 1: were armed. Emling carried the little hatchet he used in
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Speaker 1: chopping firewood and some coils of wire. Moreau had a
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Speaker 1: huge coward's horn slung over his shoulder. You will see
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Speaker 1: a gathering of the beast people, said Montgomery. It is
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Speaker 1: a pretty fight. Moreau said, not a word on the way,
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Speaker 1: but the expression of his heavy white fringed face was
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Speaker 1: grimly set. We crossed the ravine down which smoked the
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Speaker 1: stream of hot water, and followed the winding pathway through
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Speaker 1: the cane brakes until we reached a wide area covered
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Speaker 1: over with a thick, powdery yellow substance, which I believe
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Speaker 1: was sulfur, above the shoulder of a weedy bank. The
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Speaker 1: sea glittered. We came to a kind of shallow natural amphitheater,
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Speaker 1: and here the four of us halted. Then Moreau sounded
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Speaker 1: the horn and broke the sleeping stillness of the tropical afternoon.
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Speaker 1: He must have had strong lungs. The hooting note rose
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Speaker 1: and rose amidst its echoes to at last an ear
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Speaker 1: penetrating intensity, Ah, said Moreau, letting the curved instrument fall
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Speaker 1: to his side again. Immediately there was a crashing through
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Speaker 1: the yellow canes and a sound of voices from the
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Speaker 1: dinse green jungle that marked the morass through which I
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Speaker 1: had run on the previous day. Then at three or
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Speaker 1: four points on the edge of the sulfurous area appeared
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Speaker 1: the grotesque forms of the beast people hurrying towards us.
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Speaker 1: I could not help a creeping horror as I perceived
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Speaker 1: first one and then another trot out from the trees
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Speaker 1: or reeds, and come shambling along over the hot dust.
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Speaker 1: But Moreau and Montgomery stood calmly enough, and perforce I
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Speaker 1: stuck beside them first to arrive as the satyr, strangely
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Speaker 1: unreal for all that he cast a shadow and tossed
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Speaker 1: the dust with his hoofs after him from the break,
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Speaker 1: became a monstrous lout, a thing of horse and rhinoceros,
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Speaker 1: chewing a straw as it came. Then appeared the swine woman,
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Speaker 1: and two wolf women, then the foxpare witch, with her
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Speaker 1: red eyes and her peaked red face, and then others,
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Speaker 1: all hurrying eagerly. As they came forward. They began to
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Speaker 1: cringe towards Moreau and chant quite regardless of one another,
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Speaker 1: fragments of the latter half of the litany of the law.
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Speaker 1: His is the hand that wounds, his is the hand
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Speaker 1: that heals, and so forth. As soon as they had
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Speaker 1: approached within a distance of perhaps thirty yards, they halted, and,
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Speaker 1: bowing on knees and elbows, began flinging the white dust
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Speaker 1: upon their heads. Imagine the scene, if you can. We
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Speaker 1: three blue clad men with our misshapen, black faced attendant,
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Speaker 1: standing in a wide expanse of sunlit yellow dust, under
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Speaker 1: the blazing blue sky, and surrounded by this circle of
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Speaker 1: crouching and gesticulating monstrosities, some almost human, save in their
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Speaker 1: subtle expression and gestures, some like cripples, some so strangely
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Speaker 1: distorted as to resemble nothing but the denizens of our
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Speaker 1: wildest dreams. And beyond the ready lines of a cane
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Speaker 1: break in one direction, a dense tangle of palm trees
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Speaker 1: on the other, separating us from the ravine with the huts,
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Speaker 1: and to the north the hazy horizon of the Pacific Ocean.
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Speaker 1: Sixty two sixty three, counted Moreau. There are four more.
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Speaker 1: I do not see, the Leopard Man, said I. Presently
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Speaker 1: Moreau sounded the great horn again, and at the sound
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Speaker 1: of it, all the beast people writhed and graveled in
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Speaker 1: the dust. Then, slinking out of the cane brake, stooping
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Speaker 1: near the ground and trying to join the dust throwing circle.
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Speaker 1: Behind Moreau's back, came the Leopard Man. The last of
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Speaker 1: the east People to arrive was the little ape Man.
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Speaker 1: The earlier animals, hot and weary with their groveling, shot
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Speaker 1: vicious glances at him. Cease, said Moreau in his firm,
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Speaker 1: loud voice, and the beast people sat back upon their
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Speaker 1: hams and wrested from their worshiping. Where is the sayer
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Speaker 1: of the law, said Moreau, And the hairy gray monster
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Speaker 1: bowed his face in the dust. Say the words, said Moreau,
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Speaker 1: forthwith all in the kneeling assembly, swaying from side to
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Speaker 1: side and dashing up the sulfur with their hands. First
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Speaker 1: the right hand, and a puff of dust, and then
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Speaker 1: the left began once more to chant their strange litany.
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Speaker 1: When they reached not to eat flesh or fish, That
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Speaker 1: is the law. Moreau held up his lank white hand. Stop,
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Speaker 1: he cried, And there fell absolute silence upon them all.
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Speaker 1: I think they all knew and dreaded what was coming.
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Speaker 1: I looked round at their strange faces. When I saw
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Speaker 1: their wincing attitudes and the furtive dread in their bright eyes,
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Speaker 1: I wondered that I had ever believed them to be men.
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Speaker 1: That law has been broken, said Moreau. None escape from
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Speaker 1: the faceless creature with the silvery hair. None escape, repeated
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Speaker 1: the kneeling circle of beast people. Who is he cried Moreau,
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Speaker 1: and looked round at their faces. Cracking his whip. I
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Speaker 1: fancy the hyena swine looked dejected, so too did the
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Speaker 1: leopard man. Moreau stopped facing this creature, who cringed towards
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Speaker 1: him with the memory and dread of infinite torment. Who
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Speaker 1: is he? Repeated Moreau in a voice of thunder. Evil.
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Speaker 1: Is he who breaks the law? Chanted the sayer of
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Speaker 1: the law. Moreau looked into the eyes at the leopard
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Speaker 1: man and seemed to be dragging the very soul out
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Speaker 1: of the creature. Who breaks the law? Said Moreau, taking
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Speaker 1: his eyes off his victim and turning towards us. Seemed
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Speaker 1: to me there was a touch of exultation in his voice.
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Speaker 1: Goes back to the house of pain, they all clamored.
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Speaker 1: Goes back to the house of pain. O, master work,
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Speaker 1: to the house of pain work, to the house of pain,
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Speaker 1: gabbled the ape man, as though the idea was sweet
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Speaker 1: to him. Do you hear, said Moreau, turning back to
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Speaker 1: the criminal, My friend, hullo for the leopard man, released
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Speaker 1: from Moreau's eye, had risen straight from his knees, and
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Speaker 1: now with his eyes aflame and his huge feline tusks
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Speaker 1: flashing out from under his curling lips leaped towards his tormentor.
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Speaker 1: I am convinced that only the madness of unendurable fear
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Speaker 1: could have prompted this attack. The whole circle of three
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Speaker 1: score monsters seemed to rise about us. I drew my revolver.
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Speaker 1: The two figures collided. My saw Morile reeling back from
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Speaker 1: the leper man's blow. There was a furious yelling and
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Speaker 1: howling all about us. Every one was moving rapidly. For
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Speaker 1: a moment I thought it was a general revolt. The
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Speaker 1: furious face of the leopard man flashed by mine, with
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Speaker 1: imling close in pursuit. I saw the yellow eyes of
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Speaker 1: the hyena swine blazing with excitement his attitude, as if
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Speaker 1: he were half resolved to attack me. The state here, too,
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Speaker 1: glared at me over the hyena Swine's hunched shoulders. I
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Speaker 1: heard the crack of moreause pistol, and saw the pink
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Speaker 1: flash dart across the tumult The whole crowd seemed to
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Speaker 1: swing round in the direction of the glint of fire,
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Speaker 1: and I too was swung round by the magnetism of
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Speaker 1: the movement. In another second, I was running one of
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Speaker 1: a tumultuous, shouting crowd, in pursuit of the escaping leopard man.
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Speaker 1: That is all I can tell. Definitely. I saw the
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Speaker 1: leopard man strike Moreau, and then everything spun about me
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Speaker 1: until I was running headlong. Imling was ahead, close in
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Speaker 1: pursuit of the fugitive. Behind their tongues already lolling out
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Speaker 1: ran the wolf women in great leaping strides. The swine
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Speaker 1: folk followed, squealing with excitement, and the two bull men
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Speaker 1: in their swathings of white. Then came a row and
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Speaker 1: a cluster of the beast people, his wide brimmed straw
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Speaker 1: hat blown off, his revolver in hand, and his lank
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Speaker 1: white hair streaming out. The hyena swine ran beside me,
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Speaker 1: keeping pace with me and glancing furtively at me out
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Speaker 1: of his feline eyes, and the others came pattering and
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Speaker 1: shouting behind us. The leopard man went bursting his way
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Speaker 1: through the long canes, which sprang back as he passed
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Speaker 1: and rattled in Imling's face. We others in the rear
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Speaker 1: found a trampled path for us when we reached the break.
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Speaker 1: The chaise lay through the break for perhaps a quarter
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Speaker 1: of a mile and then plunged into a dense thicket
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Speaker 1: which retarded our movements exceedingly, though we went through it
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Speaker 1: in a crowd together, franz flicking into our faces, ropey
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Speaker 1: creepers catching us under the chin or gripping our ankles,
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Speaker 1: thorny plants, hooking into and tearing cloth, and fleshed together.
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Speaker 1: He has gone on all fours through this panted morreau,
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Speaker 1: now just ahead of me. None escape, said the wolf bear,
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Speaker 1: laughing into my face. With the exultation of hunting, we
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Speaker 1: burst out again among rocks, and saw the quarry ahead,
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Speaker 1: running lightly on all fours and snarling at us over
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Speaker 1: his shoulder. At that, the wolf folk howled with delight.
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Speaker 1: The thing was still clothed, and at a distance its
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Speaker 1: face still seemed human, but the carriage of its four
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Speaker 1: limbs was feline, and the furtive droop of its shoulder
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Speaker 1: was distinctly that of a hunted animal. It leaped over
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Speaker 1: some thorny yellow flowering bushes and was hidden imling was
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Speaker 1: half way across the space. Most of us now had
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Speaker 1: lost the first speed of the chase and had fallen
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Speaker 1: into a longer and steadier stride. I saw, as we
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Speaker 1: traversed the open that the pursuit was now spreading from
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Speaker 1: a column into a line. The hyena swine still rang
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Speaker 1: close to me, watching me as it ran every now
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Speaker 1: and then, puckering its muzzle with a snarling laugh. At
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Speaker 1: the edge of the rocks, the leopard man, realizing that
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Speaker 1: he was making for the projecting cape upon which he
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Speaker 1: had stalked me on the night of my arrival, had
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Speaker 1: doubled in the undergrowth. But Montgomery had seen the maneuver
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Speaker 1: and turned him again. So, panting, tumbling against rocks, torn
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Speaker 1: by brambles, impeded by ferns and reeds, I helped to
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Speaker 1: pursue the leopard man who had broken the law, and
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Speaker 1: the hyena swine ran, laughing savagely by my side. I
21:41
Speaker 1: staggered on, my head, reeling and my heart beating against
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Speaker 1: my ribs, tired almost to death, and yet not daring
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Speaker 1: to lose sight of the chase, lest I should be
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Speaker 1: left alone with this horrible companion. I staggered on in
21:57
Speaker 1: spite of infinite fatigue and the dense heat of the
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Speaker 1: tropical afternoon. At last, the fury of the hunt slackened.
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Speaker 1: We had pinned the wretched brute into a corner of
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Speaker 1: the island. Moreau whip in hand, marshaled us all into
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Speaker 1: an irregular line, and we advanced, now slowly, shouting to
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Speaker 1: one another as we advanced, and tightening the cordon about
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Speaker 1: our victim. He lurked, noiseless and invisible, in the bushes
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Speaker 1: through which I had run from him during that midnight pursuit. Steady,
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Speaker 1: cried Moreau. Steady, as the ends of the line crept
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Speaker 1: round the tangle of undergrowth and hemmed the brute in
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Speaker 1: where the rush came the voice of Montgomery from beyond
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Speaker 1: the thicket. I was on the slope above the bushes.
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Speaker 1: Montgomery and Moreau beat along the beach beneath. Slowly we
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Speaker 1: pushed in among the fretted network of branches and leaves.
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Speaker 1: The quarry was silent. Back to the house of pain,
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Speaker 1: the house of pain, the house of pain. Yelped the
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Speaker 1: voice of the ape man, some twenty yards to the right.
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Speaker 1: When I heard that I forgave the poor wretch all
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Speaker 1: the fear he had inspired in me. I heard the
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Speaker 1: twigs snap and the boughs swish aside before the heavy
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Speaker 1: tread of the horse Rhinoceros upon my right. Then, suddenly,
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Speaker 1: through a polygon of green in the half darkness under
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Speaker 1: the luxuriant growth. I saw the creature we were hunting.
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Speaker 1: I halted. He was crouched together into the smallest possible compass,
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Speaker 1: His luminous green eyes turned over his shoulder, regarding me.
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Speaker 1: It may seem a strange contradiction in me I cannot
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Speaker 1: explain the fact. But now seeing the creature there in
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Speaker 1: a perfectly animal attitude, with the light gleaming in its eyes,
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Speaker 1: and its imperfectly human face distorted with terror, I realized
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Speaker 1: again the fact of its humanity. In another moment, other
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Speaker 1: of its pursuers would see it, and it would be
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Speaker 1: overpowered and captured to experience once more the horrible tortures
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Speaker 1: of the enclosure. Abruptly, I slipped out my revolver, aimed
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Speaker 1: between its terror struck eyes, and fired. As I did so,
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Speaker 1: the hyena swine saw the thing and flung itself upon
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Speaker 1: it with an eager cry, thrusting thirsty teeth into its neck.
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Speaker 1: All about me, the green masses of the thicket were
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Speaker 1: swaying and cracking as the beast. People came rushing together.
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Speaker 1: One face and then another appeared. Don't kill it, Prindick
24:54
Speaker 1: cried moreau don't kill it, And I saw him stooping
24:59
Speaker 1: as he pushed through under the fronds of the big ferns.
25:04
Speaker 1: In another moment, he had beaten off the hyena swine
25:07
Speaker 1: with the handle of his whip, and he and Montgomery
25:11
Speaker 1: were keeping away the excited carnivorous beast people and particularly
25:15
Speaker 1: imling from the still quivering body. The hairy gray thing
25:21
Speaker 1: came sniffing at the corpse under my arm. The other animals,
25:26
Speaker 1: in their animal ardor jostled me to get a nearer view.
25:32
Speaker 1: Confound you, prindick, said Moreau. I wanted him. I'm sorry,
25:39
Speaker 1: said I, though I was not. It was the impulse
25:43
Speaker 1: of the moment. I felt sick with exertion and excitement. Turning,
25:50
Speaker 1: I pushed my way out of the crowding beast people
25:53
Speaker 1: and went on alone up the slope towards the highest
25:56
Speaker 1: part of the headland. Under the shouted directions of Moreau.
26:00
Speaker 1: I heard the three white swathed bull men begin dragging
26:04
Speaker 1: the victim down towards the water. It was easy now
26:09
Speaker 1: for me to be alone. The beast people manifested a
26:13
Speaker 1: quite human curiosity about the dead body and followed it
26:17
Speaker 1: in a thick knot, sniffing and growling at it. As
26:21
Speaker 1: the bull men dragged it down the beach. I went
26:24
Speaker 1: to the headland and watched the bull men, black against
26:27
Speaker 1: the evening sky, as they carried the weighted dead body
26:31
Speaker 1: out to sea, And like a wave across my mind
26:35
Speaker 1: came the realization of the unspeakable aimlessness of things upon
26:39
Speaker 1: the island. Upon the beach, among the rocks beneath me
26:44
Speaker 1: were the ape man, the hyena swine, and several other
26:47
Speaker 1: of the beast people standing about Montgomery and Moreau. They
26:52
Speaker 1: were all still intensely excited, and all overflowing with noisy
26:57
Speaker 1: expressions of their loyalty to the law. Yet I felt
27:02
Speaker 1: in absolute assurance in my own mind that the hyena
27:05
Speaker 1: swine was implicated in the rabbit killing. A strange persuasion
27:10
Speaker 1: came upon me that, save for the grossness of the line,
27:14
Speaker 1: the grotesqueness of the forms, I had here before me,
27:18
Speaker 1: the whole balance of human life in miniature, the whole
27:22
Speaker 1: interplay of instinct, reason and fate in its simplest form,
27:28
Speaker 1: the leopard man had happened to go under. That was
27:32
Speaker 1: all the difference, Poor brute, poor brutes. I began to
27:39
Speaker 1: see the viler aspect of Moreau's cruelty I had not
27:43
Speaker 1: thought before of the pain and trouble that came to
27:46
Speaker 1: these poor victims after they had passed from Moreau's hands.
27:51
Speaker 1: I had shivered only at the days of actual torment
27:54
Speaker 1: in the enclosure. But now that seemed to me the
27:58
Speaker 1: lesser part. Before they had been beasts, their instincts fitly
28:03
Speaker 1: adapted to their surroundings, and happy as living things may be.
28:08
Speaker 1: Now they stumbled in the shackles of humanity, lived in
28:12
Speaker 1: a fear that never died, fretted by a law they
28:15
Speaker 1: could not understand. Their mock human existence begun in an agony,
28:21
Speaker 1: was one long internal struggle, one long dread of Moreau,
28:26
Speaker 1: and for what it was the wantonness of it that
28:30
Speaker 1: stirred me. Had Moreau had any intelligible object, I could
28:36
Speaker 1: have sympathized at least a little with him. I am
28:40
Speaker 1: not so squeamish about pain as that I could have
28:44
Speaker 1: forgiven him a little even had his motive been only hate.
28:48
Speaker 1: But he was so irresponsible, so utterly careless, His curiosity,
28:55
Speaker 1: his mad, aimless investigations drove him on, and the things
29:00
Speaker 1: were thrown out to live a year or so, to
29:03
Speaker 1: struggle and blunder and suffer and at last to die painfully.
29:09
Speaker 1: They were wretched in themselves. The old animal hate moved
29:13
Speaker 1: them to trouble one another. The law held them back
29:17
Speaker 1: from a brief, hot struggle and a decisive end to
29:20
Speaker 1: their natural animosities. In those days, my fear of the
29:25
Speaker 1: beast people went the way of my personal fear of Moreau.
29:29
Speaker 1: I fell indeed into a morbid state, deep and enduring
29:35
Speaker 1: and alien to fear, which has left permanent scars upon
29:39
Speaker 1: my mind. I must confess that I lost faith in
29:43
Speaker 1: the sanity of the world when I saw it suffering
29:46
Speaker 1: the painful disorder of this island. A blind fate, a vast,
29:52
Speaker 1: pitiless mechanism seemed to cut in shape the fabric of existence.
29:57
Speaker 1: And I Moreau, by his passion for research, Montgomery, by
30:02
Speaker 1: his passion for drink, the beast people, with their instincts
30:07
Speaker 1: and mental restrictions, were torn and crushed ruthlessly, inevitably, amid
30:14
Speaker 1: the infinite complexity of its incessant wheels. But this condition
30:20
Speaker 1: did not come all at once. I think, indeed, that
30:24
Speaker 1: I anticipate a little in speaking of it now. End
30:29
Speaker 1: of Section seventeen