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The Island of Doctor Moreau Chapter 22 - The Man Alone · The H. G. Wells Library

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  Speaker 1: Section twenty three of the Island of Doctor Moreau by
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  Speaker 1: Each G. Wells. This LibriVox recording is in the public domain.
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  Speaker 1: Read by Tom Hare twenty two. The man Alone in
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  Speaker 1: the evening, I started and drove out to the sea
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  Speaker 1: before a gentle wind from the southeast, slowly, steadily, and
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  Speaker 1: the island grew smaller and smaller, and the lank spire
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  Speaker 1: of smoke dwindled to a finer and finer line against
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  Speaker 1: the hot sunset. The ocean rose up around me, hiding
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  Speaker 1: that low dark patch from my eyes. The daylight, the
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  Speaker 1: trailing glory of the sun went streaming out of the sky,
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  Speaker 1: was drawn aside like some luminous curtain. And at last
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  Speaker 1: I looked into the blue gulf of immensity which the
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  Speaker 1: sunshine hides, and saw the floating hosts of the stars.
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  Speaker 1: The sea was silent, the sky was silent. I was
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  Speaker 1: alone with the night and silence. So I drifted for
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  Speaker 1: three days, eating and drinking sparingly, and meditating upon all
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  Speaker 1: that had happened to me, not desiring very greatly then
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  Speaker 1: to see men again. One unclean rag was about me,
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  Speaker 1: my hair a black tangle. No doubt, my discoverers thought
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  Speaker 1: me a madman. It is strange, but I felt no
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  Speaker 1: desire to return to mankind. I was only glad to
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  Speaker 1: be quit of the foulness of the beast people. And
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  Speaker 1: on the third day I was picked up by a
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  Speaker 1: brig from Apia to San Francisco. Neither the captain nor
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  Speaker 1: the mate would believe my story. Judging that solitude and
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  Speaker 1: danger had made me mad, and fearing their opinion might
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  Speaker 1: be that of others, I refrained from telling my adventure further,
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  Speaker 1: and professed to recall nothing that had happened to me
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  Speaker 1: between the loss of the Lady Vain and the time
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  Speaker 1: when I was picked up again, the space of a year.
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  Speaker 1: I had to act with the utmost circumspection to save
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  Speaker 1: myself from the suspicion of insanity. My memory of the
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  Speaker 1: law of the two dead sailors, of the amuse gards,
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  Speaker 1: of the darkness of the body in the canebrake haunted me,
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  Speaker 1: and unnatural, as it seems, with my return to mankind
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  Speaker 1: came instead of that confidence and sympathy I had expected,
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  Speaker 1: a strange enhancement of the uncertainty and dread I had
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  Speaker 1: experienced during my stay upon the island. No one would
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  Speaker 1: believe me I was almost as queer to men as
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  Speaker 1: I had been to the beast people. I may have
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  Speaker 1: caught something of the natural wildness of my companions. They
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  Speaker 1: say that terror is a disease, and anyhow I can
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  Speaker 1: witness that for several years now a restless fear has
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  Speaker 1: dwelt in my mind, such a restless fear as a
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  Speaker 1: half tamed lion cub may feel. My trouble took the
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  Speaker 1: strangest form. I could not persuade myself that the men
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  Speaker 1: and women I met were not also another beast people,
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  Speaker 1: animals half wrought into the outward image of human souls,
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  Speaker 1: and that they would presently begin to revert, to show
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  Speaker 1: first this bestial mark and then that But I have
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  Speaker 1: confided my case to a strangely able man, a man
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  Speaker 1: who had known Moreau and had seemed half to credit
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  Speaker 1: my story, a mental specialist, and he has helped me mightily.
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  Speaker 1: Though I do not expect that the terror of that
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  Speaker 1: island will ever altogether leave me. At most times it
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  Speaker 1: lies far in the back of my mind, a mere
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  Speaker 1: distant cloud, a memory and a faint distrust. But there
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  Speaker 1: are times when the little cloud spreads until it obscures
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  Speaker 1: the whole sky. Then I look about me at my
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  Speaker 1: fellow men, and I go and fear. I see faces
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  Speaker 1: keen and bright, others dull or dangerous, others, unsteady, insincere,
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  Speaker 1: none that have the calm authority of a reasonable soul.
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  Speaker 1: I feel as though the animal were surging up through them,
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  Speaker 1: that presently the degradation of the islanders will be played
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  Speaker 1: over again on a larger scale. I know this is
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  Speaker 1: an illusion, that these seeming men and women about me
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  Speaker 1: are indeed men and women, men and women forever perfectly
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  Speaker 1: reasonable creatures, full of human desires and tender solicitude, emancipated
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  Speaker 1: from instinct, and the slaves of no fantastic law, being
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  Speaker 1: altogether different from the beast folk. Yet I shrink from them,
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  Speaker 1: from their curious glances, their inquiries and assistants, and long
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  Speaker 1: to be away from them and alone. For that reason,
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  Speaker 1: I live near the broad, free Downland, and can escape
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  Speaker 1: thither when the shadow is over my soul, And very
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  Speaker 1: sweet is the empty down limb. Then under the wind
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  Speaker 1: swept sky, when I lived in London, the horror was
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  Speaker 1: well nigh insupportable. I could not get away from men.
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  Speaker 1: Their voices came through windows, locked doors, were flimsy safeguards.
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  Speaker 1: I would go out into the streets to fight with
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  Speaker 1: my delusion, and prowling women would mew after me. Furtive
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  Speaker 1: craving men glanced jealously at me. Weary pale workers go
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  Speaker 1: coughing by me with tired eyes and eager paces like
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  Speaker 1: wounded deer, dripping blood. Old people bent and dull past
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  Speaker 1: murmuring to themselves, and all unheeding a ragged tale of
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  Speaker 1: gibing children. Then I would turn aside into some chapel,
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  Speaker 1: and even there, such was my disturbance. It seemed that
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  Speaker 1: the preacher gibbered big thinks even as the ape man
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  Speaker 1: had done, Or into some library, and there the intent
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  Speaker 1: faces over the books seemed but patient creatures waiting for prey.
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  Speaker 1: Particularly nauseous were the blank, expressionless faces of people in
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  Speaker 1: trains and omnibuses. They seemed no more my fellow creatures
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  Speaker 1: than dead bodies would be, So that I did not
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  Speaker 1: dare to travel unless I was assured of being alone
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  Speaker 1: and deeming. It seemed that I too was not a
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  Speaker 1: reasonable creature, but only an animal tormented with some strange
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  Speaker 1: disorder in its brain which sent it to wander alone
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  Speaker 1: like a sheep stricken with gid. This is a mood, however,
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  Speaker 1: that comes to me now. I thank God more rarely.
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  Speaker 1: I have withdrawn myself from the confusion of cities and multitudes,
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  Speaker 1: and spent my days surrounded by wise books, bright windows.
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  Speaker 1: In this life of ours, lit by the shining souls
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  Speaker 1: of men, I see few strangers, and have but a
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  Speaker 1: small household. My days I devote to reading and to
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  Speaker 1: experiments in chemistry, and I spend many of the clear
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  Speaker 1: nights in the study of astronomy. There is, though I
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  Speaker 1: do not know how there is or why, there is
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  Speaker 1: a sense of peace and protection in the glittering hosts
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  Speaker 1: of heaven. There it must be, I think, in the
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  Speaker 1: vast and eternal laws of matter, and not in the
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  Speaker 1: daily cares and sins and troubles of men, that whatever
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  Speaker 1: is more than animal within us must find its solace
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  Speaker 1: and its hope. I hope, or I could not live,
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  Speaker 1: And so in hope in solitude my story ends. Edward Prindick.
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  Speaker 1: Note The substance of the chapter entitled Doctor Moreau Explains,
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  Speaker 1: which contains the essential idea of the story, appeared as
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  Speaker 1: a middle article in the Saturday Review in January eighteen
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  Speaker 1: ninety five. This is the only portion of this story
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  Speaker 1: that has been previously published, and it has been entirely
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  Speaker 1: recast to adapt it to the narrative form. And of
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  Speaker 1: the Island of Doctor Moreau by H. G. Wells