Latest / Science Fiction Books - Daily / 09 - The Time Machine - H G Wells

Transcript

09 - The Time Machine - H G Wells · Science Fiction Books - Daily

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: Chapter nine. We emerged from the palace while the sun
• 0:04
  Speaker 1: was still in part above the horizon. I was determined
• 0:08
  Speaker 1: to reach the White Sphinx early the next morning, and
• 0:11
  Speaker 1: ere the dusk, I proposed pushing through the woods that
• 0:14
  Speaker 1: had stopped me on the previous journey. My plan was
• 0:18
  Speaker 1: to go as far as possible that night, and then
• 0:21
  Speaker 1: building a fire to sleep in the protection of its glare. Accordingly,
• 0:26
  Speaker 1: as we went along, I gathered any sticks or dried
• 0:29
  Speaker 1: grass I saw, and presently had my arms full of
• 0:32
  Speaker 1: such litter thus loaded. Our progress was slower than I
• 0:37
  Speaker 1: had anticipated, And besides, Weena was tired, and I began
• 0:42
  Speaker 1: to suffer from sleepiness too, so that it was full
• 0:46
  Speaker 1: night before we reached the wood upon the shrubby hill
• 0:50
  Speaker 1: of its edge. Weena would have stopped fearing the darkness
• 0:53
  Speaker 1: before us, but a singular sense of impending calamity that
• 0:58
  Speaker 1: should indeed have served me as a warning, drove me onward.
• 1:03
  Speaker 1: I had been without sleep for a night and two days,
• 1:06
  Speaker 1: and I was feverish and irritable. I felt sleep coming
• 1:10
  Speaker 1: upon me and the morlocks with it. While we hesitated
• 1:15
  Speaker 1: among the black bushes behind us and dim against their blackness,
• 1:19
  Speaker 1: I saw three crouching figures. There was scrub and long
• 1:23
  Speaker 1: grass all about us, and I did not feel safe
• 1:26
  Speaker 1: from their insidious approach. The forest, I calculated, was rather
• 1:32
  Speaker 1: less than a mile across if we could get through
• 1:35
  Speaker 1: it to the bare hillside, there, as it seemed to me,
• 1:38
  Speaker 1: was an altogether safer resting place. I thought that with
• 1:42
  Speaker 1: my matches and my camphor, I could contrive to keep
• 1:45
  Speaker 1: my path illuminated through the woods. Yet it was evident
• 1:50
  Speaker 1: that if I was to flourish matches with my hands,
• 1:54
  Speaker 1: I should have to abandon my firewood. So rather reluctantly
• 1:59
  Speaker 1: I put it down, and then it came into my
• 2:02
  Speaker 1: head that I would amaze our friends behind by lighting it.
• 2:06
  Speaker 1: I was to discover the atrocious folly of this proceeding,
• 2:10
  Speaker 1: but it came to my mind as an ingenious move
• 2:12
  Speaker 1: for covering our retreat. I don't know if you have
• 2:16
  Speaker 1: ever thought what a rare thing flame must be in
• 2:19
  Speaker 1: the absence of man and in a temperate climate, the
• 2:23
  Speaker 1: sun's heat is rarely strong enough to burn, even when
• 2:27
  Speaker 1: it is focused by dewdrops, as is sometimes the case
• 2:30
  Speaker 1: in more tropical districts. Lightning may blast and blacken, but
• 2:35
  Speaker 1: it rarely gives rise to widespread fire. Decaying vegetation may
• 2:40
  Speaker 1: occasionally smolder with the heat of its fermentation, but this
• 2:44
  Speaker 1: rarely results in flame. In this decadence, too, the art
• 2:48
  Speaker 1: of fire making had been forgotten on the earth. The
• 2:51
  Speaker 1: red tongues that went licking up my heap of wood
• 2:54
  Speaker 1: were an altogether new and strange thing to Weena. She
• 2:59
  Speaker 1: wanted to run to it and play with it. I
• 3:02
  Speaker 1: believe she would have cast herself into it had I
• 3:05
  Speaker 1: not restrained her. But I caught her up, and, in
• 3:08
  Speaker 1: spite of her struggles, plunged boldly before me into the
• 3:12
  Speaker 1: wood for a little way. The glare of my fire
• 3:15
  Speaker 1: lit the path. Looking back presently, I could see through
• 3:19
  Speaker 1: the crowded stems that from my heap of sticks, the
• 3:22
  Speaker 1: blaze had spread to some bushes adjacent, and a curved
• 3:26
  Speaker 1: line of fire was creeping up the grass of the hill.
• 3:30
  Speaker 1: I laughed at that, and turned again to the dark
• 3:32
  Speaker 1: trees before me. It was very black, and Weena clung
• 3:36
  Speaker 1: to me convulsively, But there was still, as my eyes
• 3:40
  Speaker 1: grew accustomed to the darkness, sufficient light for me to
• 3:43
  Speaker 1: avoid the stems. Overhead, it was simply black, except where
• 3:48
  Speaker 1: a gap of remote blue sky shone down upon us.
• 3:51
  Speaker 1: Here and there I struck none of my matches. Because
• 3:54
  Speaker 1: I had no hand free upon my left arm, I
• 3:58
  Speaker 1: carried my little one in my right right hand. I
• 4:00
  Speaker 1: had my iron bar for some way. I heard nothing
• 4:05
  Speaker 1: but the crackling twigs under my feet, the faint rustle
• 4:08
  Speaker 1: of the breeze above, and my own breathing, and the
• 4:11
  Speaker 1: throb of the blood vessels in my ears. Then I
• 4:15
  Speaker 1: seemed to know of a pattering about me. I pushed
• 4:18
  Speaker 1: on grimly. The pattering grew more distinct, and then I
• 4:22
  Speaker 1: caught the same queer sound and voices I had heard
• 4:25
  Speaker 1: in the underworld. There were evidently several of the morlocks,
• 4:30
  Speaker 1: and they were closing in upon me. Indeed, in another minute,
• 4:34
  Speaker 1: I felt a tug at my coat, then something at
• 4:38
  Speaker 1: my arm, and Weena shivered violently and became quite still.
• 4:43
  Speaker 1: It was time for a match, but to get one,
• 4:46
  Speaker 1: I must put her down. I did so, and as
• 4:50
  Speaker 1: I fumbled with my pocket, a struggle began in the
• 4:53
  Speaker 1: darkness about my knees. Perfectly silent on her part, and
• 4:57
  Speaker 1: with the same peculiar cooing sounds from the more soft
• 5:01
  Speaker 1: little hands, too were creeping over my coat and back,
• 5:05
  Speaker 1: touching even my neck. Then the match scratched and fizzed.
• 5:10
  Speaker 1: I held it flaring, and saw the white backs of
• 5:13
  Speaker 1: the Morlocks in flight amid the trees. I hastily took
• 5:17
  Speaker 1: a lump of camphor from my pocket and prepared to
• 5:19
  Speaker 1: light it as soon as the match should wane. Then
• 5:23
  Speaker 1: I looked at Weena. She was lying clutching my feet
• 5:27
  Speaker 1: and quite motionless, with her face to the ground. With
• 5:31
  Speaker 1: a sudden fright, I stooped to her. She seemed scarcely
• 5:35
  Speaker 1: to breathe. I lit the block of camphor and flung
• 5:38
  Speaker 1: it to the ground, and as it split and flared
• 5:41
  Speaker 1: up and drove back the Morlocks and the shadows, I
• 5:44
  Speaker 1: knelt down and lifted her. The wood behind seemed full
• 5:48
  Speaker 1: of the stir and murmur of a great company. She
• 5:53
  Speaker 1: seemed to have fainted. I put her carefully upon my
• 5:56
  Speaker 1: shoulder and rose to push on. And then there came
• 6:00
  Speaker 1: a horrible realization. In maneuvering with my matches and Weena,
• 6:05
  Speaker 1: I had turned myself about several times, and now I
• 6:09
  Speaker 1: had not the faintest idea in what direction lay my path.
• 6:13
  Speaker 1: For all I knew I might be facing back towards
• 6:16
  Speaker 1: the palace of green porcelain, I found myself in a
• 6:20
  Speaker 1: cold sweat. I had to think rapidly what to do.
• 6:25
  Speaker 1: I determined to build a fire, and in camp where
• 6:27
  Speaker 1: we were, I put Weena, still motionless, down upon a
• 6:32
  Speaker 1: turfy bowl, and very hastily, as my first lump of
• 6:35
  Speaker 1: camphor waned, I began collecting sticks and leaves here and
• 6:40
  Speaker 1: there out of the darkness round me. The morlock's eyes
• 6:43
  Speaker 1: shone like carbuncles. The camphor flickered and went out. I
• 6:49
  Speaker 1: lit a match, and as I did so, two white
• 6:52
  Speaker 1: forms that had been approaching Weena dashed hastily away. One
• 6:57
  Speaker 1: was so blinded by the light that he came straight
• 6:59
  Speaker 1: for me, and I felt his bones grind under the
• 7:02
  Speaker 1: blow of my fist. He gave a whoop of dismay,
• 7:05
  Speaker 1: staggered a little way, and fell down. I lit another
• 7:09
  Speaker 1: piece of camphor and went on gathering my bonfire. Presently
• 7:13
  Speaker 1: I noticed how dry was some of the foliage above me,
• 7:17
  Speaker 1: For since my arrival on the time machine a matter
• 7:20
  Speaker 1: of a week, no rain had fallen. So instead of
• 7:24
  Speaker 1: casting about among the trees for fallen twigs, I began
• 7:28
  Speaker 1: leaping up and dragging down branches. Very soon I had
• 7:32
  Speaker 1: a choking, smoky fire of green wood and dry sticks,
• 7:36
  Speaker 1: and could economize my camphor. Then I turned to where
• 7:40
  Speaker 1: Lena lay beside my iron mace. I tried what I
• 7:43
  Speaker 1: could to revive her, but she lay like one dead.
• 7:47
  Speaker 1: I could not even satisfy myself whether or not she breathed. Now,
• 7:52
  Speaker 1: the smoke of the fire beat over towards me, and
• 7:55
  Speaker 1: it must have made me heavy of a sudden Moreover,
• 7:58
  Speaker 1: the vapor of camphor was in the My fire would
• 8:02
  Speaker 1: not need replenishing for an hour or so. I felt
• 8:06
  Speaker 1: very weary after my exertion, and sat down. The wood, too,
• 8:10
  Speaker 1: was full of a slumbrous murmur that I did not understand.
• 8:15
  Speaker 1: I seemed just to nod and open my eyes. But
• 8:18
  Speaker 1: all was dark, and the morlocks had their hands upon me,
• 8:23
  Speaker 1: flinging off their clinging fingers. I hastily felt in my
• 8:26
  Speaker 1: pocket for the match box, and it had gone. Then
• 8:30
  Speaker 1: they gripped and closed with me again. In a moment
• 8:34
  Speaker 1: I knew what had happened. I had slept, and my
• 8:37
  Speaker 1: fire had gone out, and the bitterness of death came
• 8:40
  Speaker 1: over my soul. The forest seemed full of the smell
• 8:45
  Speaker 1: of burning wood. I was caught by the neck, by
• 8:48
  Speaker 1: the hair, by the arms, and pulled down. It was
• 8:52
  Speaker 1: indescribably horrible in the darkness to feel all those soft
• 8:56
  Speaker 1: creatures heaped upon me. I felt as if I was
• 8:59
  Speaker 1: in a monstrous spider's web. I was overpowered and went down.
• 9:04
  Speaker 1: I felt little teeth nipping at my neck. I rolled over,
• 9:08
  Speaker 1: and as I did so, my hand came against my
• 9:11
  Speaker 1: iron lever. It gave me strength. I struggled up, shaking
• 9:15
  Speaker 1: the human rats from me and holding the bar short.
• 9:18
  Speaker 1: I thrust where I judged their faces might be. I
• 9:22
  Speaker 1: could feel the succulent giving of flesh and bone under
• 9:25
  Speaker 1: my blows, and for a moment I was free. The
• 9:29
  Speaker 1: strange exultation that so often seems to accompany hard fighting
• 9:33
  Speaker 1: came upon me. I knew that both I and Weena
• 9:36
  Speaker 1: were lost, but I determined to make the morlots pay
• 9:39
  Speaker 1: for their meat. I stood with my back to a tree,
• 9:43
  Speaker 1: swinging the iron bar before me. The whole wood was
• 9:46
  Speaker 1: full of the stir and cries of them. A minute passed,
• 9:51
  Speaker 1: their voices seemed to rise to a higher pitch of excitement,
• 9:54
  Speaker 1: and their movements grew faster. Yet none came within reach.
• 9:59
  Speaker 1: I stood glaring at the blackness. Then suddenly came hope,
• 10:04
  Speaker 1: what if the Morlocks were afraid? And close on the
• 10:08
  Speaker 1: heels of that came a strange thing. The darkness seemed
• 10:12
  Speaker 1: to grow luminous, very dimly. I began to see the
• 10:16
  Speaker 1: morlocks about me, Three battered at my feet, and then
• 10:20
  Speaker 1: I recognized with incredulous surprise that the others were running
• 10:24
  Speaker 1: in an incessant stream, as it seemed, from behind me
• 10:27
  Speaker 1: and away through the wood in front, and their backs
• 10:31
  Speaker 1: seemed no longer white but reddish. As I stood agape,
• 10:36
  Speaker 1: I saw a little red spark go drifting across a
• 10:38
  Speaker 1: gap of starlight between the branches and vanish. And at
• 10:43
  Speaker 1: that I understood the smell of burning wood, the slumbrous
• 10:47
  Speaker 1: murmur that was growing now into a gusty roar, the
• 10:50
  Speaker 1: red glow, and the morlock's flight. Stepping out from behind
• 10:55
  Speaker 1: my tree, and looking back, I saw through the black
• 10:59
  Speaker 1: pillars of the nearer trees the flames of the burning forest.
• 11:03
  Speaker 1: It was my first fire coming after me. With that,
• 11:07
  Speaker 1: I looked for Weena, but she was gone. The hissing
• 11:11
  Speaker 1: and crackling behind me, the explosive thud as each fresh
• 11:15
  Speaker 1: tree burst into flame, left little time for reflection. My
• 11:20
  Speaker 1: iron bar still gripped, I followed in the morlock's path.
• 11:24
  Speaker 1: It was a close race. Once the flames crept forward
• 11:27
  Speaker 1: so swiftly on my right as I ran that I
• 11:29
  Speaker 1: was out flanked and had to strike off to the left.
• 11:33
  Speaker 1: But at last I emerged upon a small open space,
• 11:37
  Speaker 1: and as I did so, a morlock came blundering towards me,
• 11:41
  Speaker 1: and passed me and went on straight into the fire.
• 11:45
  Speaker 1: And now I was able to see the most weird
• 11:48
  Speaker 1: and horrible thing I think of all that I beheld
• 11:51
  Speaker 1: in that future age. This whole space was as bright
• 11:55
  Speaker 1: as day with the reflection of the fire. In the
• 11:58
  Speaker 1: center was a hill or tumulus, surmounted by a scorched hawthorn.
• 12:04
  Speaker 1: Beyond this was another arm of the burning forest, with
• 12:07
  Speaker 1: yellow tongues already writhing from it, completely encircling the space
• 12:11
  Speaker 1: with a fence of fire. Upon the hillside were some
• 12:15
  Speaker 1: thirty or forty morlocks, dazzled by the light and heat,
• 12:19
  Speaker 1: and blundering hither and thither against each other in their bewilderment.
• 12:24
  Speaker 1: At first I did not realize their blindness, and struck
• 12:28
  Speaker 1: furiously at them with my bar, in a frenzy of
• 12:31
  Speaker 1: fear as they approached me, killing one and crippling several more.
• 12:36
  Speaker 1: But when I had watched the gestures of one of
• 12:39
  Speaker 1: them groping under the hawthorn against the red sky, and
• 12:43
  Speaker 1: heard their moans, I was assured of their absolute helplessness
• 12:47
  Speaker 1: and misery in the glare, and I struck no more
• 12:50
  Speaker 1: of them. Yet every now and then one would come
• 12:54
  Speaker 1: straight towards me, setting loose a quivering horror that made
• 12:58
  Speaker 1: ME quick to elude him. At one time, the flames
• 13:01
  Speaker 1: died down somewhat, and I feared the foul creatures would
• 13:05
  Speaker 1: presently be able to see me. I was thinking of
• 13:08
  Speaker 1: beginning the fight by killing some of them before this
• 13:11
  Speaker 1: should happen. But the fire burst out again brightly, and
• 13:14
  Speaker 1: I stayed my hand. I walked about the hill among
• 13:18
  Speaker 1: them and avoided them, looking for some trace of Weena.
• 13:22
  Speaker 1: But Weena was gone. At last. I sat down on
• 13:26
  Speaker 1: the summit of the hillock and watched this strange, incredible
• 13:29
  Speaker 1: company of blind things, groping to and fro and making
• 13:33
  Speaker 1: uncanny noises to each other as the glare of the
• 13:36
  Speaker 1: fire beat on them. The coiling uprush of smoke streamed
• 13:40
  Speaker 1: across the sky and through the rare tatters of that
• 13:44
  Speaker 1: red canopy, remote as though they belonged to another universe
• 13:48
  Speaker 1: shown the little stars. Two or three morlocks came blundering
• 13:52
  Speaker 1: into me, and I drove them off with blows of
• 13:54
  Speaker 1: my fists, trembling as I did so. For the most
• 13:59
  Speaker 1: part of that night, I was persuaded it was a nightmare.
• 14:03
  Speaker 1: I bit myself and screamed in a passionate desire to awake.
• 14:07
  Speaker 1: I beat the ground with my hands, and got up
• 14:10
  Speaker 1: and sat down again, and wandered here and there, and
• 14:13
  Speaker 1: again sat down. Then I would fall to rubbing my
• 14:17
  Speaker 1: eyes and calling upon God to let me awake. Thrice
• 14:21
  Speaker 1: I saw morlocks put their heads down in a kind
• 14:23
  Speaker 1: of agony, and rush into the flames. But at last,
• 14:27
  Speaker 1: above the subsiding red of the fire, above the streaming
• 14:31
  Speaker 1: masses of black smoke, and the whitening and blackening tree stumps,
• 14:35
  Speaker 1: and the diminishing numbers of these dim creatures, came the
• 14:38
  Speaker 1: white light of the day. I searched again for traces
• 14:44
  Speaker 1: of Weena, but there were none. It was plain that
• 14:48
  Speaker 1: they had left her poor little body in the forest.
• 14:52
  Speaker 1: I cannot describe how it relieved me to think that
• 14:56
  Speaker 1: it had escaped the awful fate to which it seemed destined.
• 15:01
  Speaker 1: As I thought of that, I was almost moved to
• 15:03
  Speaker 1: begin a massacre of the helpless abominations about me, But
• 15:07
  Speaker 1: I contained myself. The hillock, as I have said, was
• 15:11
  Speaker 1: a kind of island in the forest. From its summit
• 15:15
  Speaker 1: I could now make out, through a haze of smoke,
• 15:17
  Speaker 1: the palace of green porcelain, and from that I could
• 15:20
  Speaker 1: get my bearings for the white Sphinx, and so leaving
• 15:25
  Speaker 1: the remnant of these damned souls still going hither and
• 15:29
  Speaker 1: thither and moaning. As the day grew clearer, I tied
• 15:32
  Speaker 1: some grass about my feet and limped on across smoking
• 15:35
  Speaker 1: ashes and among black stems that still pulsated internally with fire,
• 15:41
  Speaker 1: towards the hiding place of the time machine. I walked slowly,
• 15:46
  Speaker 1: for I was almost exhausted as well as lame, and
• 15:50
  Speaker 1: I felt the intensest wretchedness for the horrible death of
• 15:54
  Speaker 1: little Weena. It seemed an overwhelming calamity. Now in this old,
• 15:59
  Speaker 1: familiar room, it is more like the sorrow of a
• 16:02
  Speaker 1: dream than an actual loss. But that morning it left
• 16:06
  Speaker 1: me absolutely lonely again, terribly alone. I began to think
• 16:11
  Speaker 1: of this house of mine, of this fireside, of some
• 16:14
  Speaker 1: of you, And with such thoughts came a longing that
• 16:18
  Speaker 1: was pain. But as I walked over the smoking ashes
• 16:23
  Speaker 1: under the bright morning sky, I made a discovery. In
• 16:27
  Speaker 1: my trouser pocket were still some loose matches. The box
• 16:31
  Speaker 1: must have leaked before it was lost. End of Chapter
• 16:37
  Speaker 1: nine