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The Time Machine - HG Wells · Audiobook Collection

0:00
Speaker 1: The Time Machine, Chapter one. The time Traveler, for so
0:06
Speaker 1: it will be convenient to speak of him, was expounding
0:09
Speaker 1: a recondite matter to us. His gray eyes shone and twinkled,
0:13
Speaker 1: and his usually pale face was flushed and animated. The
0:18
Speaker 1: fire burned brightly, and the soft radiance of the incandescent
0:21
Speaker 1: lights in the lilies of silver caught the bubbles that
0:25
Speaker 1: flashed and passed in our glasses. Our chairs, being his patents,
0:30
Speaker 1: embraced and caressed us, rather than submitted to be sat upon.
0:35
Speaker 1: And there was that luxurious after dinner atmosphere when thought
0:39
Speaker 1: Romes gracefully free of the trammels of precision, and he
0:43
Speaker 1: put it to us in this way, marking the points
0:46
Speaker 1: with a lean forefinger, as we sat and lazily admired
0:49
Speaker 1: his earnestness over his new paradox as we thought it,
0:53
Speaker 1: and his fecundity. You must follow me carefully. I shall
0:58
Speaker 1: have to controvert nor two ideas that are almost universally accepted.
1:04
Speaker 1: The geometry, for instance, they taught you at school, is
1:07
Speaker 1: founded on a misconception. Is not that a rather large
1:12
Speaker 1: thing to expect us to begin upon? Said philby an
1:16
Speaker 1: argumentative person with red hair. I do not mean to
1:20
Speaker 1: ask you to accept anything without reasonable ground for it.
1:23
Speaker 1: You will soon admit as much as I need from you.
1:26
Speaker 1: You know, of course, that a mathematical line, a line
1:29
Speaker 1: of thickness nil, has no real existence. They taught you
1:33
Speaker 1: that neither has a mathematical plane. These things are mere abstractions.
1:40
Speaker 1: That is all right, said the psychologist. Nor having only length,
1:45
Speaker 1: breadth and thickness. Can a cube have a real existence? There,
1:50
Speaker 1: I object, said Philby. Of course a solid body may
1:54
Speaker 1: exist all real things, so most people think. But wait
1:59
Speaker 1: a moment, can an instantaneous cube exist? Don't follow you,
2:05
Speaker 1: said Philby? Can a cube that does not last for
2:09
Speaker 1: any time at all? Have a real existence? Philby became pensive. Clearly,
2:16
Speaker 1: the time traveler proceeded, Any real body must have extension
2:20
Speaker 1: in four directions. It must have length, breadth, thickness, and duration.
2:27
Speaker 1: But through a natural infirmity of the flesh, which I
2:30
Speaker 1: will explain to you in a moment, we incline to
2:33
Speaker 1: overlook this fact. There are really four dimensions, three which
2:37
Speaker 1: we call the three planes of space, and a fourth time.
2:42
Speaker 1: There is, however, a tendency to draw an unreal distinction
2:47
Speaker 1: between the former three dimensions, and the latter because it
2:51
Speaker 1: happens that our consciousness moves intermittently in one direction along
2:56
Speaker 1: the ladder from the beginning to the end of our lives.
3:00
Speaker 1: That said a very young man, making spasmodic efforts to
3:04
Speaker 1: relight his cigar over the lamp. That very clear. Indeed,
3:10
Speaker 1: now it is very remarkable that this is so extensively overlooked,
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Speaker 1: continued the time traveler, with a slight accession of cheerfulness. Really,
3:20
Speaker 1: this is what is meant by the fourth dimension. Though
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Speaker 1: some people who talk about the fourth dimension do not
3:26
Speaker 1: know they mean it. It is only another way of
3:30
Speaker 1: looking at time. There is no difference between time and
3:34
Speaker 1: any of the three dimensions of space, except that our
3:38
Speaker 1: consciousness moves along it. But some foolish people have got
3:43
Speaker 1: hold of the wrong side of that idea. You have
3:46
Speaker 1: all heard what they have to say about this fourth dimension.
3:50
Speaker 1: I have not said the provincial mayor. It is simply
3:54
Speaker 1: this that space, as our mathematicians have it, is spoken
3:59
Speaker 1: of as having three dimensions, which one may call length, breadth,
4:04
Speaker 1: and thickness, and is always definable by reference to three planes,
4:08
Speaker 1: each at right angles to the others. But some philosophical
4:13
Speaker 1: people have been asking why three dimensions, particularly why not
4:18
Speaker 1: another direction at right angles to the other three, and
4:22
Speaker 1: have even tried to construct a four dimension geometry. Professor
4:26
Speaker 1: Simon Knucomb was expounding this to the New York Mathematical
4:29
Speaker 1: Society only a month or so ago. You know how
4:33
Speaker 1: on a flat surface which has only two dimensions, we
4:36
Speaker 1: can represent a figure of a three dimensional solid. And
4:40
Speaker 1: similarly they think that by models of three dimensions they
4:44
Speaker 1: could represent one of four if they could master the
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Speaker 1: perspective of the thing. See I think so, murmured the
4:52
Speaker 1: provincial mayor, and knitting his brows, he lapsed into an
4:56
Speaker 1: introspective state, his lips moving as one who repeats me
5:00
Speaker 1: mystic words. Yes, I think I see it now, he said,
5:05
Speaker 1: after some time, brightening in a quite transitory manner. Well,
5:11
Speaker 1: I do not mind telling you I have been at
5:13
Speaker 1: work upon this geometry of four dimensions for some time.
5:17
Speaker 1: Some of my results are curious. For instance, here is
5:20
Speaker 1: a portrait of a man at eight years old, another
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Speaker 1: at fifteen, another at seventeen, another at twenty three, and
5:27
Speaker 1: so on. All these are evidently sections, as it were,
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Speaker 1: three dimensional representations of his four dimensioned being, which is
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Speaker 1: a fixed and unalterable thing. Scientific people proceeded the time traveler,
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Speaker 1: after the pause required for the proper assimilation of this,
5:46
Speaker 1: know very well that time is only a kind of space.
5:51
Speaker 1: Here is a popular scientific diagram, a weather record. This
5:55
Speaker 1: line I traced with my finger shows the movement of
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Speaker 1: the barometer. Yesterday it was so high. Yesterday night it fell.
6:04
Speaker 1: Then this morning it rose again, and so gently upward
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Speaker 1: to here. Surely the mercury did not trace this line
6:12
Speaker 1: in any of the dimensions of space generally recognized. But
6:15
Speaker 1: certainly it traced such a line, And that line, therefore,
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Speaker 1: we must conclude, was along the time dimension. But said
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Speaker 1: the medical man, staring hard at a coal in the fire,
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Speaker 1: if time is really only a fourth dimension of space,
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Speaker 1: why is it, and why has it always been regarded
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Speaker 1: as something different? And why cannot we move in time
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Speaker 1: as we move about in the other dimensions of space?
6:43
Speaker 1: The time traveler smiled, Are you sure we can move
6:47
Speaker 1: freely in space? Right and left? We can go backward
6:51
Speaker 1: and forward freely enough, and men always have done so.
6:55
Speaker 1: I admit we move freely in two dimensions, But how
6:59
Speaker 1: about up and down? Gravitation limits us? There not exactly,
7:05
Speaker 1: said the medical man. There are balloons. But before the balloons,
7:11
Speaker 1: say for spasmodic jumping, and the inequalities of the surface,
7:15
Speaker 1: man had no freedom of vertical movement. Still they could
7:20
Speaker 1: move a little up and down, said the medical man, easier,
7:24
Speaker 1: far easier down than up. And you cannot move at
7:28
Speaker 1: all in time. You cannot get away from the present moment,
7:32
Speaker 1: my dear sir. That is just where you are wrong.
7:37
Speaker 1: That is just where the whole world has gone wrong.
7:40
Speaker 1: We are always getting away from the present moment. Our
7:44
Speaker 1: mental existences, which are immaterial and have no dimensions, are
7:49
Speaker 1: passing along the time dimension with a uniform velocity from
7:52
Speaker 1: the cradle to the grave, just as we should travel
7:56
Speaker 1: down if we began our existence fifty miles above the
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Speaker 1: earth serve. But the great difficulty is this, interrupted the psychologist.
8:06
Speaker 1: You can move about in all directions of space, but
8:09
Speaker 1: you cannot move about in time. That is the germ
8:14
Speaker 1: of my great discovery. But you are wrong to say
8:17
Speaker 1: that we cannot move about in time. For instance, if
8:21
Speaker 1: I am recalling an incident very vividly, I go back
8:25
Speaker 1: to the instant of its occurrence. I become absent minded.
8:29
Speaker 1: As you say, I jump back for a moment. Of course,
8:33
Speaker 1: we have no means of staying back for any length
8:35
Speaker 1: of time, any more than a savage or an animal
8:38
Speaker 1: has of staying six feet above the ground. But a
8:42
Speaker 1: civilized man is better off than the savage in this respect.
8:46
Speaker 1: He can go up against gravitation in a balloon. And
8:50
Speaker 1: why should he not hope that ultimately he may be
8:53
Speaker 1: able to stop or accelerate his drift along the time dimension,
8:57
Speaker 1: or even turn about and travel the other way. Oh,
9:02
Speaker 1: this began Philby, is all, why not, said the time traveler.
9:08
Speaker 1: It's against reason, said Philby. What reason? Said the time traveler.
9:15
Speaker 1: You can show black as white by argument, said Philby,
9:19
Speaker 1: But you will never convince me. Possibly not, said the
9:24
Speaker 1: time traveler. But now you begin to see the object
9:27
Speaker 1: of my investigations into the geometry of four dimensions. Long ago,
9:33
Speaker 1: I had a vague inkling of a machine to travel
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Speaker 1: through time, exclaimed the very young man, that shall travel
9:42
Speaker 1: indifferently in any direction of space and time, as the
9:45
Speaker 1: driver determines. Philby contented himself with laughter. But I have
9:52
Speaker 1: experimental verification, said the time traveler. It would be remarkably
9:58
Speaker 1: convenient for the historian. The psychologist suggested one might travel
10:03
Speaker 1: back and verify the accepted account of the Battle of Hastings,
10:06
Speaker 1: for instance. Don't you think you would attract attention, said
10:11
Speaker 1: the medical man. Our ancestors had no great tolerance for anachronisms.
10:17
Speaker 1: One might get one's Greek from the very lips of
10:20
Speaker 1: Homer and Plato, the very young man thought, in which
10:24
Speaker 1: case they would certainly plow you for the little go.
10:27
Speaker 1: The German scholars have improved Greek so much. Then there
10:32
Speaker 1: is the future, said the very young man. Just think
10:37
Speaker 1: one might invest all one's money, leave it to accumulated interest,
10:41
Speaker 1: and hurry on ahead to discover a society, said I
10:46
Speaker 1: erected on a strictly communistic basis of all the wild,
10:51
Speaker 1: extravagant theories, began the psychologist. Yes, so it seemed to me,
10:58
Speaker 1: and so I never talked of it until experimental verification,
11:04
Speaker 1: cried I you are going to verify that the experiment,
11:09
Speaker 1: cried Philby, who was getting brain weary. Let us see
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Speaker 1: your experiment, anyhow, said the psychologist. Though it's all humbug,
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Speaker 1: you know. The time traveler smiled round at us, then,
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Speaker 1: still smiling faintly, and with his hands deep in his
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Speaker 1: trousers pockets. He walked slowly out of the room, and
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Speaker 1: we heard his slipper shuffling down the long passage to
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Speaker 1: his laboratory. The psychologist looked at us. I wonder what
11:37
Speaker 1: he's got. Some sleight of hand trick or other, said
11:42
Speaker 1: the medical man, and Philby tried to tell us about
11:45
Speaker 1: a conjurer he had seen at Burslem, But before he
11:48
Speaker 1: had finished his preface, the time traveler came back, and
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Speaker 1: Philby's anecdote collapsed. The thing the time traveler held in
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Speaker 1: his hand was a glittering metallic framework, scarcely larger than
12:01
Speaker 1: a small clock, and very delicately made. There was ivory
12:05
Speaker 1: in it, and some transparent crystalline substance. And now I
12:10
Speaker 1: must be explicit for this that follows, unless his explanation
12:14
Speaker 1: is to be accepted, is an absolutely unaccountable thing. He
12:20
Speaker 1: took one of the small octagonal tables that were scattered
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Speaker 1: about the room and set it in front of the fire,
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Speaker 1: with two legs on the hearth rug. On this table
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Speaker 1: he placed the mechanism. Then he drew up a chair
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Speaker 1: and sat down. The only other object on the table
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Speaker 1: was a small shaded lap. The bright light of which
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Speaker 1: fell upon the model. There were also perhaps a dozen candles,
12:44
Speaker 1: about two in brass candlesticks upon the mantle, and several ensconces,
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Speaker 1: so that the room was brilliantly illuminated. I sat in
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Speaker 1: a low arm chair nearest the fire, and I drew
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Speaker 1: this forward so as to be almost between the time
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Speaker 1: traveler and the fireplace. Philby sat behind him, looking over
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Speaker 1: his shoulder. The medical man and the provincial mayor watched
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Speaker 1: him in profile, from the right, the psychologist from the left.
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Speaker 1: The very young man stood behind the psychologist. We were
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Speaker 1: all on the alert. It appears incredible to me that
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Speaker 1: any kind of trick, however subtly conceived, and however adroitly done,
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Speaker 1: could have been played upon us under these conditions. The
13:29
Speaker 1: time traveler looked at us, and then at the mechanism. Well,
13:34
Speaker 1: said the psychologist. This little affair, said the time traveler,
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Speaker 1: resting his elbows upon the table and pressing his hands
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Speaker 1: together above. The apparatus is only a model. It is
13:46
Speaker 1: my plan for a machine to travel through time. You
13:51
Speaker 1: will notice that it looks singularly askew, and that there
13:55
Speaker 1: is an odd twinkling appearance about this bar, as though
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Speaker 1: it was in some way unreal. He pointed to the
14:02
Speaker 1: part with his finger. Also, here is one little white lever,
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Speaker 1: and here is another. The medical man got up out
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Speaker 1: of his chair and peered into the thing. It's beautifully made,
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Speaker 1: he said, it took two years to make, retorted the
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Speaker 1: time traveler. Then, when we had all imitated the action
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Speaker 1: of the medical man, he said, now I want you
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Speaker 1: clearly to understand that this lever being pressed over sends
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Speaker 1: the machine gliding into the future, and this other reverses
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Speaker 1: the motion. This saddle represents the seat of a time traveler. Presently,
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Speaker 1: I am going to press the lever, and off the
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Speaker 1: machine will go. It will vanish, pass into future time
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Speaker 1: and disappear. Have a good look at the thing, look
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Speaker 1: at the table too, and satisfy yourselves there is no trickery.
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Speaker 1: I don't want to waste this model and then be
15:00
Speaker 1: I'm a quack. There was a minute's pause. Perhaps the
15:05
Speaker 1: psychologist seemed about to speak to me, but changed his mind.
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Speaker 1: Then the time traveler put forth his finger towards the lever. No,
15:15
Speaker 1: he said, suddenly, lend me your hand, And turning to
15:19
Speaker 1: the psychologist, he took that individual's hand in his own
15:22
Speaker 1: and told him to put out his forefinger, so that
15:25
Speaker 1: it was the psychologist himself who sent forth the model
15:28
Speaker 1: time machine on its interminable voyage. We all saw the
15:33
Speaker 1: lever turn. I am absolutely certain there was no trickery.
15:38
Speaker 1: There was a breath of wind, and the lamp flame jumped.
15:42
Speaker 1: One of the candles on the mantel was blown out,
15:44
Speaker 1: and the little machine suddenly swung round, became indistinct, was
15:49
Speaker 1: seen as a ghost for a second, perhaps as an
15:52
Speaker 1: eddy of faintly glittering brass and ivory. And it was gone, vanished,
15:58
Speaker 1: save for the lamp. The table was bare. Everyone was
16:02
Speaker 1: silent for a minute. Then Philby said he was damned.
16:07
Speaker 1: The psychologist recovered from his stupor and suddenly looked under
16:11
Speaker 1: the table at that. The time traveler laughed cheerfully. Well,
16:17
Speaker 1: he said, with a reminiscence of the psychologist. Then, getting up,
16:22
Speaker 1: he went to the tobacco jar on the mantel, and,
16:24
Speaker 1: with his back to us, began to fill his pipe.
16:27
Speaker 1: We stared at each other. Look here, said the medical man.
16:33
Speaker 1: Are you in earnest about this? Do you seriously believe
16:37
Speaker 1: that that machine has traveled into time? Certainly, said the
16:42
Speaker 1: time traveler, stooping to light a spill at the fire.
16:46
Speaker 1: Then he turned, lighting his pipe to look at the
16:49
Speaker 1: psychologist's face. The psychologist, to show that he was not unhinged,
16:54
Speaker 1: helped himself to a cigar and tried to light it uncut.
16:58
Speaker 1: What is more, I have a big machine nearly finished
17:01
Speaker 1: in there, he indicated the laboratory, and when that is
17:05
Speaker 1: put together, I mean to have a journey on my
17:08
Speaker 1: own account. You mean to say that that machine has
17:13
Speaker 1: traveled into the future, said Philby. Into the future or
17:17
Speaker 1: the past. I don't for certain know which. After an interval,
17:23
Speaker 1: the psychologist had an inspiration. It must have gone into
17:27
Speaker 1: the past, if it has gone anywhere, He said, why,
17:32
Speaker 1: said the time traveler, Because I presume that it has
17:36
Speaker 1: not moved in space, and if it traveled into the future,
17:40
Speaker 1: it would still be here all this time, since it
17:43
Speaker 1: must have traveled through this time. But I said, if
17:48
Speaker 1: it traveled into the past, it would have been visible
17:51
Speaker 1: when we came first into this room, and last Thursday
17:55
Speaker 1: when we were here, and the thursday before that, and
17:58
Speaker 1: so forth. Serious objections, remarked the provincial mayor, with an
18:04
Speaker 1: air of impartiality, turning towards the time traveler. Not a bit,
18:09
Speaker 1: said the time traveler. And to the psychologist, you think
18:13
Speaker 1: you can explain that its presentation below the threshold, you know,
18:17
Speaker 1: diluted presentation, of course, said the psychologist, and reassured us
18:24
Speaker 1: that's a simple point of psychology. I should have thought
18:28
Speaker 1: of it. It's plain enough and helps the paradox delightfully.
18:32
Speaker 1: We cannot see it, nor can we appreciate this machine
18:35
Speaker 1: any more than we can. Thus spoke of a wheel
18:38
Speaker 1: spinning or a bullet flying through the air. If it
18:42
Speaker 1: is traveling through time fifty times or a hundred times
18:45
Speaker 1: faster than we are. If it gets through a minute
18:48
Speaker 1: while we get through a second, the impression it creates will,
18:52
Speaker 1: of course, be only one fiftieth or one hundredth of
18:55
Speaker 1: what it would make if it were not traveling in time.
18:58
Speaker 1: That's plain enough. He passed his hand through the space
19:02
Speaker 1: in which the machine had been. You see, he said, laughing.
19:07
Speaker 1: We sat and stared at the vacant table for a
19:10
Speaker 1: minute or so. Then the time traveler asked us what
19:13
Speaker 1: we thought of it all. It sounds plausible enough to night,
19:18
Speaker 1: said the medical man. But wait until tomorrow, wait for
19:23
Speaker 1: the common sense of the morning. Would you like to
19:27
Speaker 1: see the time machine itself, asked the time traveler, and therewith,
19:31
Speaker 1: taking the lamp in his hand, he led the way
19:34
Speaker 1: down the long, drafty corridor to his laboratory. I remember
19:39
Speaker 1: vividly the flickering light, his queer broad head in silhouette,
19:44
Speaker 1: the dance of the shadows. How we all followed him,
19:47
Speaker 1: puzzled but incredulous. And how there in the laboratory we
19:52
Speaker 1: beheld a larger edition of the little mechanism which we
19:55
Speaker 1: had seen vanish from before our eyes. Parts were of nickel,
20:00
Speaker 1: parts of ivory. Parts had certainly been filed or sawn
20:04
Speaker 1: out of rock crystal. The thing was generally complete, but
20:08
Speaker 1: the twisted crystaline bars lay unfinished upon the bench beside
20:12
Speaker 1: some sheets of drawings, and I took one up for
20:14
Speaker 1: a better look at it. Quartz, it seemed to be.
20:19
Speaker 1: Look here, said the medical man. Are you perfectly serious?
20:24
Speaker 1: Or is this a trick like that ghost you showed
20:27
Speaker 1: us last Christmas? Upon that machine, said the time traveler,
20:32
Speaker 1: holding the lamp aloft. I intend to explore time. Is
20:37
Speaker 1: that plain? I was never more serious in my life.
20:42
Speaker 1: None of us quite knew how to take it. I
20:45
Speaker 1: caught Philbey's eye over the shoulder of the medical man,
20:48
Speaker 1: and he winked at me solemnly. End of chapter one,
20:55
Speaker 1: Chapter two. I think that at the time none of
20:59
Speaker 1: us quite believed in the time machine. The fact is
21:03
Speaker 1: the time Traveler was one of those men who are
21:05
Speaker 1: too clever to be believed. You never felt that you
21:09
Speaker 1: saw all round him, you always suspected some subtle reserve,
21:13
Speaker 1: some ingenuity in ambush behind his lucid frankness. Had Philby
21:20
Speaker 1: shown the model and explained the matter in the time
21:22
Speaker 1: Traveler's words, we should have shown him far less skepticism,
21:27
Speaker 1: for we should have perceived his motives. A pork butcher
21:31
Speaker 1: could understand Philby. But the time Traveler had more than
21:35
Speaker 1: a touch of whim among his elements, and we distrusted him.
21:40
Speaker 1: Things that would have made the frame of a less
21:42
Speaker 1: clever man seemed tricks in his hands. It is a
21:46
Speaker 1: mistake to do things too easily. The serious people who
21:50
Speaker 1: took him seriously never felt quite sure of his deportment.
21:55
Speaker 1: They were somehow aware that trusting their reputations for judgment
21:59
Speaker 1: with him was like furnishing a nursery with egg shell china.
22:04
Speaker 1: So I didn't think any of us said very much
22:07
Speaker 1: about time traveling in the interval between that Thursday and
22:10
Speaker 1: the next, though its odd potentialities ran no doubt in
22:14
Speaker 1: most of our minds, its plausibility, that is, its practical incredibleness,
22:20
Speaker 1: the curious possibilities of an acronism, and of utter confusion,
22:24
Speaker 1: it suggested. For my own part, I was particularly preoccupied
22:29
Speaker 1: with the trick of the model that I remember discussing
22:34
Speaker 1: with the medical man, whom I met on Friday at
22:37
Speaker 1: the Linnaean. He said he had seen a similar thing
22:40
Speaker 1: at Tubingen and laid considerable stress on the blowing out
22:44
Speaker 1: of the candle, but how the trick was done he
22:47
Speaker 1: could not explain. The next Thursday, I went again to Richmond.
22:53
Speaker 1: I suppose I was one of the time Traveler's most
22:56
Speaker 1: constant guests, and, arriving late, found for or five men
23:01
Speaker 1: already assembled in his drawing room. The medical man was
23:04
Speaker 1: standing before the fire with a sheet of paper in
23:07
Speaker 1: one hand and his watch in the other. I looked
23:10
Speaker 1: around for the time traveler. And it's half past seven now,
23:14
Speaker 1: said the medical man. I suppose we'd better have dinner.
23:19
Speaker 1: Where's said I, naming our host? You've just come. It's
23:24
Speaker 1: rather odd. He's unavoidably detained. He asks me in this
23:29
Speaker 1: note to lead off with dinner at seven. If he's
23:32
Speaker 1: not back, says he'll explain when he comes. It seems
23:37
Speaker 1: a pity to let the dinner spoil, said the editor
23:40
Speaker 1: of a well known daily paper, and thereupon the doctor
23:44
Speaker 1: rang the bell. The psychologist was the only person besides
23:48
Speaker 1: the doctor and myself who had attended the previous dinner.
23:53
Speaker 1: The other men were blank. The editor aforementioned, a certain journalist,
23:58
Speaker 1: and another a quiet, shy man with a beard, whom
24:02
Speaker 1: I didn't know, and who, as far as my observation went,
24:06
Speaker 1: never opened his mouth. All the evening there was some
24:10
Speaker 1: speculation at the dinner table about the time traveler's absence,
24:14
Speaker 1: and I suggested time traveling in a half jockular spirit.
24:19
Speaker 1: The editor wanted that explain to him, and the psychologist
24:23
Speaker 1: volunteered a wooden account of the ingenious paradox and trick
24:27
Speaker 1: we had witnessed that day week. He was in the
24:30
Speaker 1: midst of his exposition when the door from the corridor
24:33
Speaker 1: opened slowly and without noise. I was facing the door
24:38
Speaker 1: and saw it first. Hullo, I said, at last, and
24:42
Speaker 1: the door opened wider and the time traveler stood before us.
24:46
Speaker 1: I gave a cry of surprise. Good heavens man, what's
24:51
Speaker 1: the matter? Cried the medical man who saw him next,
24:54
Speaker 1: and the whole tableful turned towards the door. He was
24:58
Speaker 1: in an amazing plight. His coat was dusty and dirty
25:02
Speaker 1: and smeared with green down the sleeves. His hair disordered and,
25:07
Speaker 1: as it seemed to me, grayer, either with dust and
25:10
Speaker 1: dirt or because its color had actually faded. His face
25:15
Speaker 1: was ghastly pale. His chin had a brown cut on it,
25:19
Speaker 1: a cut half healed. His expression was haggard and drawn,
25:24
Speaker 1: as by intense suffering. For a moment, he hesitated in
25:28
Speaker 1: the doorway, as if he had been dazzled by the light.
25:32
Speaker 1: Then he came into the room. He walked with just
25:36
Speaker 1: such a limp as I have seen in footsore traps.
25:40
Speaker 1: We stared at him in silence, expecting him to speak.
25:44
Speaker 1: He said not a word, but came painfully to the
25:47
Speaker 1: table and made a motion towards the wine. The editor
25:51
Speaker 1: filled a glass of champagne and pushed it towards him.
25:55
Speaker 1: He drained it, and it seemed to do him good,
25:58
Speaker 1: for he looked round the table and the ghost of
26:00
Speaker 1: his old smile flickered across his face. What on earth
26:05
Speaker 1: have you been up to, man, said the doctor. The
26:09
Speaker 1: time traveler did not seem to hear. Don't let me
26:13
Speaker 1: disturb you, he said, with a certain faltering articulation. I'm
26:17
Speaker 1: all right. He stopped, held out his glass for more,
26:21
Speaker 1: and took it off at a draft. That's good, he said.
26:26
Speaker 1: His eyes grew brighter, and a faint color came into
26:28
Speaker 1: his cheeks. His glance flickered over our faces with a
26:32
Speaker 1: certain dull approval, and then went round the warm and
26:36
Speaker 1: comfortable room. Then he spoke again, still as it were,
26:40
Speaker 1: feeling his way. Among his words, I'm going to wash
26:45
Speaker 1: and dress, and then I'll come down and explain things.
26:48
Speaker 1: Save me some of that mutton. I'm starving for a
26:51
Speaker 1: bit of meat. He looked across at the editor, who
26:56
Speaker 1: was a rare visitor, and hoped he was all right.
26:59
Speaker 1: The editor began a question, Tell you, presently, said the
27:03
Speaker 1: time traveler. I'm funny. I'll be right in a minute.
27:08
Speaker 1: He put down his glass and walked towards the staircase door. Again.
27:13
Speaker 1: I remarked his lameness and the soft padding sound of
27:17
Speaker 1: his footfall, and standing up in my place. I saw
27:21
Speaker 1: his feet as he went out. He had nothing on
27:24
Speaker 1: them but a pair of tattered, blood stained socks. Then
27:28
Speaker 1: the door closed upon him. I had half a mind
27:31
Speaker 1: to follow till I remembered how he detested any fuss
27:35
Speaker 1: about himself. For a minute, perhaps my mind was wool gathering.
27:42
Speaker 1: Then remarkable behavior of an eminent scientist. I heard the
27:47
Speaker 1: editor say, thinking after his wont in headlines, and this
27:52
Speaker 1: brought my attention back to the bright dinner table. What's
27:56
Speaker 1: the game, said the journalist. Has he been doing the
28:00
Speaker 1: amateur cadger, I don't follow. I met the eye of
28:04
Speaker 1: the psychologist and read my own interpretation in his face.
28:08
Speaker 1: I thought of the time traveler limping painfully upstairs. I
28:12
Speaker 1: don't think any one else had noticed his lameness. The
28:16
Speaker 1: first to recover completely from this surprise was the medical
28:20
Speaker 1: man who rang the bell. The time traveler hated to
28:23
Speaker 1: have servants waiting at dinner for a hot plate. At
28:27
Speaker 1: that the editor turned to his knife and fork with
28:30
Speaker 1: a grunt, and the silent man followed suit. The dinner
28:34
Speaker 1: was resumed. Conversation was exclamatory for a little while, with
28:39
Speaker 1: gaps of wonderment, and then The editor got fervent in
28:43
Speaker 1: his curiosity. Does our friend eke out his modest income
28:48
Speaker 1: with a crossing? Or has he his nebuchadnazar phases? He inquired.
28:55
Speaker 1: I feel assured. It's this business of the time machine,
28:58
Speaker 1: I said, took up the psychologist's account of our previous meeting.
29:03
Speaker 1: The new guests were frankly incredulous. The editor raised objections,
29:09
Speaker 1: what was this time traveling? A man couldn't cover himself
29:13
Speaker 1: with dust by rolling in a paradox, could he? And then,
29:18
Speaker 1: as the idea came home to him, he resorted to caricature.
29:22
Speaker 1: Hadn't he any clothes brushes in the future. The journalist too,
29:26
Speaker 1: would not believe at any price and join the editor
29:29
Speaker 1: in the easy work of heaping ridicule on the whole thing.
29:33
Speaker 1: They were both the new kind of journalist, very joyous,
29:37
Speaker 1: irreverent young men. Our special correspondent in the Day after
29:42
Speaker 1: Tomorrow reports the journalist was saying, or rather shouting, when
29:47
Speaker 1: the time traveler came back. He was dressed in ordinary
29:50
Speaker 1: evening clothes, and nothing save his haggard look remained of
29:54
Speaker 1: the change that had startled me, I say, said the editor, hilariously,
30:00
Speaker 1: These chaps here, say you have been traveling into the
30:03
Speaker 1: middle of next week. Tell us all about little Roseberry,
30:06
Speaker 1: will you? What will you take for the lot? The
30:10
Speaker 1: time traveler came to the place reserved for him without
30:13
Speaker 1: a word. He smiled quietly in his old way. Where's
30:17
Speaker 1: my mutton? He said? What a treat it is to
30:20
Speaker 1: stick a fork into meat again, Story cried the editor.
30:26
Speaker 1: Story be damned, said the time traveler. I want something
30:30
Speaker 1: to eat. I won't say a word until I get
30:33
Speaker 1: some peptone into my arteries. Thanks and the salt. One word,
30:39
Speaker 1: said I Have you been time traveling? Yes, said the
30:44
Speaker 1: time traveler, with his mouth full, nodding his head. I'd
30:48
Speaker 1: give a shilling a line for a verbatim note, said
30:51
Speaker 1: the editor. The time traveler pushed his glass towards the
30:54
Speaker 1: silent man and rang it with his finger nail, at
30:57
Speaker 1: which the silent man, who had been staring at at
31:00
Speaker 1: his face, started convulsively and poured in wine. The rest
31:04
Speaker 1: of the dinner was uncomfortable. For my own part. Sudden
31:08
Speaker 1: questions kept rising to my lips, and I dare say
31:12
Speaker 1: it was the same with the others. The journalist tried
31:16
Speaker 1: to relieve the tension by telling anecdotes of Hetty Potter.
31:20
Speaker 1: The time Traveler devoted his attention to his dinner and
31:23
Speaker 1: displayed the appetite of a trap. The medical man smoked
31:27
Speaker 1: a cigarette and watched the time Traveler through his eyelashes.
31:32
Speaker 1: The Silent Man seemed even more clumsy than usual, and
31:36
Speaker 1: drank champagne with regularity and determination out of sheer nervousness.
31:42
Speaker 1: At last, the time Traveler pushed his plate away and
31:45
Speaker 1: looked round us. I suppose I must apologize, he said,
31:50
Speaker 1: I was simply starving. I've had a most amazing time.
31:56
Speaker 1: He reached out his hand for a cigar and cut
31:58
Speaker 1: the end. But come into the smoking room. It's too
32:02
Speaker 1: long a story to tell. Over greasy plates and ringing
32:06
Speaker 1: the bell. In passing, he led the way into the
32:08
Speaker 1: adjoining room. You have told blank and Dash and chose
32:12
Speaker 1: about the machine, he said to me, leaning back in
32:15
Speaker 1: his easy chair and naming the three new guests. But
32:19
Speaker 1: the thing's a mere paradox, said the editor. I can't
32:24
Speaker 1: argue to night. I don't mind telling you the story,
32:27
Speaker 1: but I can't argue I will, he went on, tell
32:31
Speaker 1: you the story of what has happened to me if
32:34
Speaker 1: you like. But you must refrain from interruptions. I want
32:39
Speaker 1: to tell it badly. Most of it will sound like lying,
32:43
Speaker 1: so be it. It's true, every word of it all the same.
32:49
Speaker 1: I was in my laboratory at four o'clock, and since
32:52
Speaker 1: then I've lived eight days, such days as no human
32:58
Speaker 1: being ever lived before. I'm nearly worn out, but I
33:02
Speaker 1: shan't sleep till I've told this thing over to you.
33:06
Speaker 1: Then I shall go to bed. But no interruptions. Is
33:10
Speaker 1: it agreed? Agreed, said the editor, and the rest of
33:15
Speaker 1: us echoed agreed. And with that the time traveler began
33:20
Speaker 1: his story as I've set it forth. He sat back
33:24
Speaker 1: in his chair at first, and spoke like a weary man. Afterwards,
33:28
Speaker 1: he got more animated in writing it down. I feel,
33:32
Speaker 1: with only too much keenness, the inadequacy of pen and ink,
33:36
Speaker 1: and above all, my own inadequacy to express its quality.
33:41
Speaker 1: You read, I will suppose attentively enough. But you cannot
33:46
Speaker 1: see the speaker's white, sincere face in the bright circle
33:50
Speaker 1: of the little lamp, nor hear the intonation of his voice.
33:54
Speaker 1: You cannot know how his expression followed the turns of
33:57
Speaker 1: his story. Most of us hearers were in shadow for
34:02
Speaker 1: the candles in the smoking room had not been lighted,
34:05
Speaker 1: and only the face of the journalist and the legs
34:08
Speaker 1: of the silent man from the knees downward were illuminated.
34:12
Speaker 1: At first, we glanced now and again at each other.
34:16
Speaker 1: After a time we ceased to do that and looked
34:19
Speaker 1: only at the time traveler's face. End of Chapter two,
34:27
Speaker 1: Chapter three. I told some of you last Thursday of
34:32
Speaker 1: the principles of the time machine, and showed you the
34:34
Speaker 1: actual thing itself incomplete in the workshop. There. It is
34:39
Speaker 1: now a little travel worn truly, and one of the
34:42
Speaker 1: ivory bars is cracked and a brass rail bent, but
34:46
Speaker 1: the rest of it sound enough. I expected to finish
34:49
Speaker 1: it on Friday. But on Friday, when the putting together
34:53
Speaker 1: was nearly done, I found that one of the nickel
34:56
Speaker 1: bars was exactly one inch too short, and this I
34:59
Speaker 1: had to get remade, so that the thing was not
35:02
Speaker 1: complete until this morning. It was at ten o'clock to
35:06
Speaker 1: day that the first of all time machines began its career.
35:11
Speaker 1: I gave it at last tap, tried all the screws again,
35:14
Speaker 1: put one more drop of oil on the quartz rod,
35:17
Speaker 1: and sat myself in the saddle. I suppose a suicide
35:22
Speaker 1: who holds a pistol to his skull feels much the
35:25
Speaker 1: same wonder at what will come next as I felt.
35:28
Speaker 1: Then I took the starting lever in one hand and
35:31
Speaker 1: the stopping one in the other. Pressed the first, and
35:35
Speaker 1: almost immediately the second, I seemed to reel. I felt
35:40
Speaker 1: a nightmare sensation of falling, and looking around, I saw
35:44
Speaker 1: the laboratory exactly as before. Had anything happened. For a moment,
35:49
Speaker 1: I suspected that my intellect had tricked me. Then I
35:54
Speaker 1: noted the clock a moment before, as it seemed it
35:58
Speaker 1: had stood at a minute or so past ten. Now
36:02
Speaker 1: it was nearly half past three. I drew a breath,
36:07
Speaker 1: set my teeth, gripped the starting lever with both hands,
36:10
Speaker 1: and went off with a thud. The laboratory got hazy
36:14
Speaker 1: and went dark. Missus Watchett came in and walked, apparently
36:19
Speaker 1: without seeing me, towards the garden door. I suppose it
36:22
Speaker 1: took her a minute or so to traverse the place,
36:25
Speaker 1: but to me, she seemed to shoot across the room
36:28
Speaker 1: like a rocket. I pressed the lever over to its
36:32
Speaker 1: extreme position. The night came like the turning out of
36:35
Speaker 1: a lamp, and in another moment came tomorrow. The laboratory
36:40
Speaker 1: grew faint and hazy, then fainter and even fainter. Tomorrow
36:45
Speaker 1: night came black, then day again, night again, day again,
36:49
Speaker 1: faster and faster still, and Eddie murmur filled my ears,
36:54
Speaker 1: and a strange, dumb, confusedness descended on my mind. I
37:00
Speaker 1: am afraid I cannot convey the peculiar sensations of time traveling.
37:05
Speaker 1: They are excessively unpleasant. There is a feeling exactly like
37:09
Speaker 1: that one has upon a switchback of a helpless headlong motion.
37:15
Speaker 1: I felt the same horrible anticipation, too, of an imminent
37:18
Speaker 1: smash as I put on pace. Night followed day, like
37:24
Speaker 1: the flapping of a black wing. The dim suggestion of
37:28
Speaker 1: the laboratory seemed presently to fall away from me, and
37:31
Speaker 1: I saw the sun hopping swiftly across the sky, leaping
37:35
Speaker 1: it every minute, and every minute, marking a day. I
37:40
Speaker 1: suppose the laboratory had been destroyed, and I had come
37:43
Speaker 1: into the open air. I had a dim impression of scaffolding,
37:48
Speaker 1: but I was already going too fast to be conscious
37:50
Speaker 1: of any moving things. The slowest snail that ever crawled
37:55
Speaker 1: dashed by too fast for me. The twinkling succession of
37:59
Speaker 1: darkness and light was excessively painful to the eye. Then,
38:04
Speaker 1: in the intermittent darknesses, I saw the moon spinning swiftly
38:08
Speaker 1: through her quarters from new to full, and had a
38:11
Speaker 1: faint glimpse of the circling stars. Presently, as I went on,
38:16
Speaker 1: still gaining velocity, the palpitation of night and day merged
38:20
Speaker 1: into one continuous grayness. The sky took on a wonderful
38:25
Speaker 1: deepness of blue, a splendid, luminous color like that of
38:29
Speaker 1: early twilight. The jerking sun became a streak of fire,
38:34
Speaker 1: a brilliant arch in space, the moon a fainter, fluctuating band,
38:40
Speaker 1: and I could see nothing of the stars save now
38:43
Speaker 1: and then a brighter circle flickering in the blue. The
38:48
Speaker 1: landscape was misty and vague. I was still on the
38:52
Speaker 1: hillside upon which this house now stands, and the shoulder
38:56
Speaker 1: rose above me, gray and dim. I saw trees growing
39:00
Speaker 1: and changing, like puffs of vapor, now brown, now green.
39:05
Speaker 1: They grew, spread, shivered, and passed away. I saw huge
39:11
Speaker 1: buildings rise up, faint and fair, and pass like dreams.
39:16
Speaker 1: The whole surface of the earth seemed changed, melting, and
39:20
Speaker 1: flowing under my eyes. The little hands upon the dials
39:24
Speaker 1: that registered my speed raced round faster and faster. Presently
39:30
Speaker 1: I noted that the sun belt swayed up and down
39:33
Speaker 1: from solstice to solstice in a minute or less, and
39:37
Speaker 1: that consequently my pace was over a year a minute,
39:41
Speaker 1: and minute by minute, the white snow flashed across the
39:45
Speaker 1: world and vanished, and was followed by the bright, brief
39:48
Speaker 1: green of spring. The unpleasant sensations of the start were
39:53
Speaker 1: less poignant now they merged at last into a kind
39:57
Speaker 1: of hysterical exhilaration. I remarked, indeed, a clumsy swaying of
40:02
Speaker 1: the machine for which I was unable to account, But
40:07
Speaker 1: my mind was too confused to attend to it. So,
40:11
Speaker 1: with a kind of madness growing upon me, I flung
40:14
Speaker 1: myself into futurity. At first I scarce thought of stopping,
40:20
Speaker 1: scarce thought of anything but these new sensations. But presently
40:25
Speaker 1: a fresh series of impressions grew up in my mind
40:28
Speaker 1: a certain curiosity, and therewith a certain dread, until at
40:34
Speaker 1: last they took complete possession of me. What strange developments
40:39
Speaker 1: of humanity, What wonderful advances upon our rudimentary civilization I
40:44
Speaker 1: thought might not appear. When I came to look nearly
40:47
Speaker 1: into the dim elusive world that raced and fluctuated before
40:51
Speaker 1: my eyes, I saw great and splendid architecture rising about me,
40:57
Speaker 1: more massive than any buildings of our own time, and
41:01
Speaker 1: yet it seemed built of glimmer and mist. I saw
41:05
Speaker 1: a richer green flow up the hillside and remain there
41:09
Speaker 1: without any wintry intermission. Even through the veil of my confusion,
41:14
Speaker 1: the earth seemed very fair, And so my mind came
41:18
Speaker 1: round to the business of stopping. The peculiar risk lay
41:23
Speaker 1: in the possibility of my finding some substance in the
41:27
Speaker 1: space which I or the machine occupied. So long as
41:31
Speaker 1: I traveled at a high velocity through time, this scarcely mattered.
41:35
Speaker 1: I was, so to speak, attenuated, was slipping like a
41:39
Speaker 1: vapor through the interstices of intervening substances. But to come
41:44
Speaker 1: to a stop involve the jamming of myself, molecule by
41:48
Speaker 1: molecule into whatever lay in my way. Meant bringing my
41:53
Speaker 1: atoms into such intimate contact with those of the obstacle
41:57
Speaker 1: that a profound chemical reaction, possibly a far reaching explosion,
42:01
Speaker 1: would result and blow myself and my apparatus out of
42:05
Speaker 1: all possible dimensions, into the unknown. This possibility had occurred
42:11
Speaker 1: to me again and again while I was making the machine,
42:15
Speaker 1: but then I had cheerfully accepted it as an unavoidable risk,
42:20
Speaker 1: one of the risks a man has got to take.
42:24
Speaker 1: Now the risk was inevitable. I no longer saw it
42:27
Speaker 1: in the same cheerful light. The fact is that, insensibly,
42:32
Speaker 1: the absolute strangeness of everything, the sickly jarring and swaying
42:36
Speaker 1: of the machine, above all, the feeling of prolonged falling,
42:41
Speaker 1: had absolutely upset my nerve. I told myself that I
42:45
Speaker 1: could never stop, and with a gust of petulance, I
42:48
Speaker 1: resolved to stop forthwith, like an impatient fool, I lugged
42:53
Speaker 1: over the lever, and incontinently the thing went wreathing over,
42:57
Speaker 1: and I was flung headlong through the air. There was
43:01
Speaker 1: the sound of a clap of thunder in my ears.
43:04
Speaker 1: I may have been stunned for a moment. A pitiless
43:07
Speaker 1: hail was hissing round me, and I was sitting on
43:10
Speaker 1: a soft turf in front of the overset machine. Everything
43:15
Speaker 1: still seemed gray, But presently I remarked that the confusion
43:19
Speaker 1: in my ears was gone. I looked round me. I
43:23
Speaker 1: was on what seemed to be a little lawn in
43:26
Speaker 1: a garden, surrounded by rhododendron bushes, and I noticed that
43:31
Speaker 1: their mauve and purple blossoms were dropping in a shower
43:34
Speaker 1: under the beating of the hailstones. The rebounding, dancing hail
43:39
Speaker 1: hung in a cloud over the machine and drove along
43:42
Speaker 1: the ground like smoke. In a moment, I was wet
43:46
Speaker 1: to the skin. Fine hospitality, said I to a man
43:51
Speaker 1: who has traveled innumerable years to see you. Presently, I
43:56
Speaker 1: thought what a fool I was to get wet. I
43:59
Speaker 1: stood up and looked round me. A colossal figure, carved
44:03
Speaker 1: apparently in some white stone, loomed indistinctly beyond the rhododendrons
44:09
Speaker 1: through the hazy downpour. But all else of the world
44:13
Speaker 1: was invisible. My sensations would be hard to describe. As
44:18
Speaker 1: the columns of hail grew thinner, I saw the white
44:21
Speaker 1: figure more distinctly. It was very large, for a silver
44:26
Speaker 1: birch tree touched its shoulder. It was of a white
44:29
Speaker 1: marble in shape, something like a winged sphinx, but the wings,
44:34
Speaker 1: instead of being carried vertically at the sides were spread
44:38
Speaker 1: so that it seemed to hover. The pedestal, it appeared
44:42
Speaker 1: to me, was of bronze, and was thick with vertigris.
44:47
Speaker 1: It chast that the face was towards me. The sightless
44:51
Speaker 1: eyes seemed to watch me. There was the faint shadow
44:55
Speaker 1: of a smile on the lips. It was greatly weather worn,
45:00
Speaker 1: and that imparted an unpleasant suggestion of disease. I stood
45:05
Speaker 1: looking at it for a little space, half a minute perhaps,
45:09
Speaker 1: or half an hour. It seemed to advance and to recede,
45:13
Speaker 1: as the hail drove before it, denser or thinner. At last,
45:17
Speaker 1: I tore my eyes from it for a moment, and
45:19
Speaker 1: saw that the hail curtain had worn threadbare, and that
45:23
Speaker 1: the sky was lightning with the promise of the sun.
45:27
Speaker 1: I looked up again at the crouching white shape, and
45:30
Speaker 1: the full temerity of my voyage came suddenly upon me.
45:35
Speaker 1: What might appear when that hazy curtain was altogether withdrawn?
45:40
Speaker 1: What might not have happened to men? What if cruelty
45:44
Speaker 1: had grown into a common passion? What if in this
45:48
Speaker 1: interval the race had lost its manliness and had developed
45:51
Speaker 1: into something inhuman, unsympathetic and overwhelmingly powerful. I might seem
45:58
Speaker 1: some old world savage animal, only the more dreadful and
46:02
Speaker 1: disgusting for our common likeness, a foul creature, to be
46:07
Speaker 1: incontinently slain. Already I saw other vast shapes, huge buildings
46:14
Speaker 1: with intricate parapets, and tall columns, with a wooded hillside
46:18
Speaker 1: dimly creeping in upon me. Through the lessening storm. I
46:22
Speaker 1: was seized with a panic fear. I turned frantically to
46:26
Speaker 1: the time machine and strove hard to readjust it. As
46:30
Speaker 1: I did so, the shafts of the sun smote through
46:33
Speaker 1: the thunder storm. The gray downpour was swept aside and vanished,
46:39
Speaker 1: like the trailing garments of a ghost. Above me, in
46:42
Speaker 1: the intense blue of the summer sky, some faint brown
46:46
Speaker 1: shreds of cloud whirled into nothingness. The great buildings about
46:51
Speaker 1: me stood out clear and distinct, shining with the wet
46:54
Speaker 1: of the thunder storm, and picked out in white by
46:57
Speaker 1: the unmelted hailstones piled along theses. I felt naked in
47:03
Speaker 1: a strange world. I felt as perhaps a bird may
47:08
Speaker 1: feel in the clear air, knowing the hawk wings above
47:12
Speaker 1: and will swoop. My fear grew to frenzy. I took
47:16
Speaker 1: a breathing space, set my teeth, and again grappling fiercely
47:20
Speaker 1: wrist and knee with the machine. It gave under my
47:24
Speaker 1: desperate onset and turned over. It struck my chin violently,
47:29
Speaker 1: one hand on the saddle, the other on the lever.
47:32
Speaker 1: I stood, panting heavily, in attitude to mount again. But
47:36
Speaker 1: with this recovery of a prompt retreat, my courage recovered.
47:41
Speaker 1: I looked more curiously and less fearfully at this world
47:45
Speaker 1: of the remote future. In a circular opening high up
47:49
Speaker 1: in the wall of the nearer house, I saw a
47:51
Speaker 1: group of figures clad in rich soft robes. They had
47:55
Speaker 1: seen me, and their faces were directed towards me. Then
48:00
Speaker 1: I heard voices approaching me. Coming through the bushes by
48:03
Speaker 1: the white sphinx, were the heads and shoulders of men running.
48:08
Speaker 1: One of these emerged in a pathway leading straight to
48:11
Speaker 1: the little lawn upon which I stood with my machine.
48:15
Speaker 1: He was a slight creature, perhaps four feet high, clad
48:19
Speaker 1: in a purple tunic, girdled at the waist with a
48:22
Speaker 1: leather belt. Sandals or buskins I could not clearly distinguish
48:27
Speaker 1: which were on his feet. His legs were bare to
48:30
Speaker 1: the knees, and his head was bare. Noticing that, I
48:34
Speaker 1: noticed for the first time how warm the air was.
48:39
Speaker 1: He struck me as being a very beautiful and graceful creature,
48:43
Speaker 1: but indescribably frail. His flushed face reminded me of the
48:48
Speaker 1: more beautiful kind of consumptive, that hectic beauty of which
48:52
Speaker 1: we used to hear so much. At this sight of him,
48:56
Speaker 1: I suddenly regained confidence. I took my hands from the
49:00
Speaker 1: machine end of chapter three, Chapter four. In another moment,
49:09
Speaker 1: we were standing face to face I and this fragile
49:13
Speaker 1: thing out of futurity. He came straight up to me
49:16
Speaker 1: and laughed into my eyes. The absence from his bearing
49:20
Speaker 1: of any sign of fear struck me at once. Then
49:23
Speaker 1: he turned to the two others who were following him,
49:25
Speaker 1: and spoke to them in a strange and very sweet
49:28
Speaker 1: and liquid tongue. There were others coming, and presently a
49:33
Speaker 1: little group of perhaps eight or ten of these exquisite
49:36
Speaker 1: creatures were about me. One of them addressed me. It
49:39
Speaker 1: came into my head oddly enough that my voice was
49:42
Speaker 1: too harsh and deep for them, So I shook my head, and,
49:46
Speaker 1: pointing to my ears, shook it again, he came a
49:49
Speaker 1: step forward, hesitated, and then touched my hand. Then I
49:54
Speaker 1: felt other soft little tentacles upon my back and shoulders.
49:59
Speaker 1: They wanted to make sure I was real. There was
50:02
Speaker 1: nothing in this at all alarming. Indeed, there was something
50:05
Speaker 1: in these pretty little people that inspired confidence, a graceful gentleness,
50:11
Speaker 1: a certain childlike ease. And besides, they looked so frail
50:16
Speaker 1: that I could fancy myself flinging the whole dozen of
50:19
Speaker 1: them about like nine pins. But I made a sudden
50:22
Speaker 1: motion to warn them when I saw their little pink
50:25
Speaker 1: hands feeling the time machine happily. Then, when it was
50:28
Speaker 1: not too late, I thought of a danger I had
50:31
Speaker 1: hitherto forgotten, and reaching over the bars of the machine,
50:34
Speaker 1: I unscrewed the little levers that would set it in
50:37
Speaker 1: motion and put these in my pocket. Then I turned
50:41
Speaker 1: again to see what I could do in the way
50:43
Speaker 1: of communication. And then, looking more nearly into their features,
50:48
Speaker 1: I saw some further peculiarities in their dressed in China
50:52
Speaker 1: type of prettiness. Their hair, which was uniformly curly, came
50:57
Speaker 1: to a sharp end at the neck and cheek. There
51:00
Speaker 1: was not the faintest suggestion of it on the face
51:03
Speaker 1: and their ears were singularly minute. Their mouths were small,
51:07
Speaker 1: with bright red, rather thin lips, and the little chins
51:11
Speaker 1: ran to a point. The eyes were large and mild,
51:16
Speaker 1: And this may seem egotism on my part. I fancied
51:20
Speaker 1: even that there was a certain lack of the interest
51:22
Speaker 1: I might have expected in them, as they made no
51:25
Speaker 1: effort to communicate with me, but simply stood round me,
51:28
Speaker 1: smiling and speaking in soft cooing notes to each other.
51:32
Speaker 1: I began the conversation. I pointed to the time machine
51:36
Speaker 1: and to myself, then, hesitating for a moment, how to
51:39
Speaker 1: express time, I pointed to the sun at once. A
51:44
Speaker 1: quaintly pretty little figure in checkered purple and white followed
51:47
Speaker 1: my gesture and then astonished me by imitating the sound
51:51
Speaker 1: of thunder. For a moment I staggered, though the import
51:56
Speaker 1: of his gesture was plain enough. The question come into
52:00
Speaker 1: my mind abruptly. Were these creatures fools? You may hardly
52:05
Speaker 1: understand how it took me. You see, I had always
52:08
Speaker 1: anticipated that the people of the year eight hundred and
52:11
Speaker 1: two thousand odd would be incredibly in front of us
52:15
Speaker 1: in knowledge art everything. Then one of them suddenly asked
52:19
Speaker 1: me a question that showed him to be on the
52:21
Speaker 1: intellectual level of One of our five year old children
52:24
Speaker 1: asked me, in fact, if I had come from the
52:27
Speaker 1: sun in a thunder storm, it let loose the judgment
52:31
Speaker 1: I had suspended upon their clothes, their frail, light limbs
52:35
Speaker 1: and fragile features. A flow of disappointment rushed across my mind.
52:40
Speaker 1: For a moment I felt that I had built the
52:43
Speaker 1: time machine in vain. I nodded, pointed to the sun,
52:48
Speaker 1: and gave them such a vivid rendering of a thunderclap
52:51
Speaker 1: as startled them. They all withdrew a pace or so
52:54
Speaker 1: and bowed. Then came one, laughing towards me, carrying a
52:58
Speaker 1: chain of beautiful flows hours altogether new to me, and
53:02
Speaker 1: put it about my neck. The idea was received with
53:05
Speaker 1: melodious applause, and presently they were all running to and
53:09
Speaker 1: fro for flowers, and laughingly flinging them upon me, until
53:13
Speaker 1: I was almost smothered with blossom. You who have never
53:17
Speaker 1: seen the like can scarcely imagine what delicate and wonderful
53:22
Speaker 1: flowers countless years of culture had created. Then some one
53:27
Speaker 1: suggested that their plaything should be exhibited in the nearest building,
53:31
Speaker 1: and so I was led past the sphinx of white marble,
53:35
Speaker 1: which had seemed to watch me all the while with
53:37
Speaker 1: a smile at my astonishment, towards a vast gray edifice
53:41
Speaker 1: of fretted stone. As I went with them, the memory
53:45
Speaker 1: of my confident anticipations of a profoundly grave and intellectual
53:50
Speaker 1: posterity came with irresistible merriment to my mind. The building
53:55
Speaker 1: had a huge entry, and was altogether of colossal dimensions.
54:00
Speaker 1: I was naturally most occupied with the growing crowd of
54:03
Speaker 1: little people, and with the big open portals that yawned
54:06
Speaker 1: before me, shadowy and mysterious. My general impression of the
54:11
Speaker 1: world I saw over their heads was a tangled waste
54:13
Speaker 1: of beautiful bushes and flowers, a long neglected and yet
54:18
Speaker 1: weedless garden. I saw a number of tall spikes of
54:21
Speaker 1: strange white flowers, measuring a foot perhaps across the spread
54:25
Speaker 1: of the waxen petals. They grew scattered as if wild,
54:30
Speaker 1: among the variegated shrubs, but as I say, I did
54:34
Speaker 1: not examine them closely. At this time, the time machine
54:38
Speaker 1: was left deserted on the turf among the rhododendrons. The
54:42
Speaker 1: arch of the doorway was richly carved, but naturally I
54:45
Speaker 1: did not observe the carving very narrowly, though I fancied.
54:49
Speaker 1: I saw suggestions of old Phoenician decorations as I passed through,
54:54
Speaker 1: and it struck me that they were very badly broken
54:56
Speaker 1: and weather worn. Several more bright the clad people met
55:01
Speaker 1: me in the doorway, and so we entered. I dressed
55:05
Speaker 1: in dingy nineteenth century garments, looking grotesque enough, garlanded with flowers,
55:11
Speaker 1: and surrounded by an eddying mass of bright, soft colored
55:14
Speaker 1: robes and shining white limbs. In a melodious whirl of
55:18
Speaker 1: laughter and laughing speech. The big doorway opened into a
55:22
Speaker 1: proportionately great hall, hung with brown. The roof was in shadow,
55:27
Speaker 1: and the windows, partially glazed with colored glass and partially unglazed,
55:32
Speaker 1: admitted a tempered light. The floor was made up of
55:36
Speaker 1: huge blocks of some very hard white metal, not plates
55:40
Speaker 1: nor slabs, blocks, and it was so much worn, as
55:44
Speaker 1: I judged by the going to and fro of past generations,
55:48
Speaker 1: as to be deeply channeled. Along the more frequented ways
55:52
Speaker 1: transverse to the length were innumerable tables made of slabs
55:56
Speaker 1: of polished stone, raised perhaps a foot from the floor,
56:00
Speaker 1: and upon these were heaps of fruits, saw I recognized
56:04
Speaker 1: as a kind of hypertrophied raspberry and orange, But for
56:08
Speaker 1: the most part they were strange. Between the tables was
56:12
Speaker 1: scattered a great number of cushions. Upon these. My conductors
56:16
Speaker 1: seated themselves, signing for me to do likewise, with a
56:21
Speaker 1: pretty absence of ceremony, they began to eat the fruit
56:24
Speaker 1: with their hands, flinging peel and stalks and so forth
56:28
Speaker 1: into the round openings in the sides of the tables.
56:31
Speaker 1: I was not loath to follow their example, for I
56:34
Speaker 1: felt thirsty and hungry. As I did so, I surveyed
56:38
Speaker 1: the hall at my leisure, and perhaps the thing that
56:42
Speaker 1: struck me most was its dilapidated look. The stained glass windows,
56:48
Speaker 1: which displayed only a geometrical pattern, were broken in many places,
56:52
Speaker 1: and the curtains that hung across the lower end were
56:55
Speaker 1: thick with dust, and it caught my eye that the
56:59
Speaker 1: corner of the marble te near me was fractured. Nevertheless,
57:03
Speaker 1: the general effect was extremely rich and picturesque. There were
57:07
Speaker 1: perhaps a couple of hundred people dining in the hall,
57:11
Speaker 1: and most of them, seated as near to me as
57:13
Speaker 1: they could come, were watching me with interest, their little
57:16
Speaker 1: eyes shining over the fruit they were eating. All were
57:20
Speaker 1: clad in the same soft and yet strong, silky material. Fruit,
57:26
Speaker 1: by the bye was all their diet. These people of
57:29
Speaker 1: the remote future were strict vegetarians, and while I was
57:33
Speaker 1: with them, in spite of some carnal cravings, I had
57:36
Speaker 1: to be frugivous also. Indeed, I found afterwards that horses, cattle,
57:42
Speaker 1: sheep dogs had followed the Ichtheosaurus into extinction. But the
57:47
Speaker 1: fruits were very delightful. One in particular, had seemed to
57:51
Speaker 1: be in season all the time I was there. A
57:54
Speaker 1: flowery thing in a three sided husk was especially good,
57:58
Speaker 1: and I made it my stable. At first I was
58:02
Speaker 1: puzzled by all these strange fruits and by the strange
58:05
Speaker 1: flowers I saw, But later I began to perceive their
58:09
Speaker 1: import However, I am telling you of my fruit dinner
58:13
Speaker 1: in the distant future. Now. So soon as my appetite
58:17
Speaker 1: was a little checked, I determined to make a resolute
58:20
Speaker 1: attempt to learn the speech of these new men of mine.
58:23
Speaker 1: Clearly that was the next thing to do. The fruits
58:28
Speaker 1: seemed a convenient thing to begin upon, and holding one
58:31
Speaker 1: of these up, I began a series of interrogative sounds
58:34
Speaker 1: and gestures. I had some considerable difficulty in conveying my meaning.
58:39
Speaker 1: At first my efforts met with a stare of surprise
58:43
Speaker 1: or inextinguishable laughter. But presently a fair haired little creature
58:47
Speaker 1: seemed to grasp my intention and repeated a name. They
58:51
Speaker 1: had to chatter and explain the business at great length
58:54
Speaker 1: to each other, and my first attempts to make the
58:56
Speaker 1: exquisite little sounds of their language caused an immensem amount
59:00
Speaker 1: of amusement. However, I felt like a schoolmaster amidst children,
59:05
Speaker 1: and persistent, and presently I had a score of noun
59:08
Speaker 1: substantives at least at my command, and then I got
59:12
Speaker 1: to demonstrate pronouns and even the verb to eat. But
59:17
Speaker 1: it was slow work, and the little people soon tired
59:20
Speaker 1: and wanted to get away from my interrogations. So I determined,
59:24
Speaker 1: rather of necessity, to let them give their lessons in
59:27
Speaker 1: little doses when they felt inclined. And very little doses
59:32
Speaker 1: I found they were before long, for I never met
59:35
Speaker 1: people more indolent or more easily fatigued. A queer thing
59:40
Speaker 1: I soon discovered about my little hosts, and that was
59:44
Speaker 1: the lack of interest they would come to me with
59:47
Speaker 1: eager cries of astonishment, like children. But like children, they
59:51
Speaker 1: would soon stop examining me and wander away after some
59:55
Speaker 1: other toy. The dinner and my conversation beginnings ended. I
1:00:00
Speaker 1: it for the first time that almost all those who
1:00:02
Speaker 1: had surrounded me at first were gone. It is odd, too,
1:00:07
Speaker 1: how speedily I came to disregard these little people. I
1:00:11
Speaker 1: went out through the portal into the sunlit world again.
1:00:13
Speaker 1: As soon as my hunger was satisfied. I was continually
1:00:17
Speaker 1: meeting more of these men of the future, who would
1:00:19
Speaker 1: follow me at a little distance, chatter and laugh about me, and,
1:00:23
Speaker 1: having smiled and gesticulated in a friendly way, leave me
1:00:27
Speaker 1: again to my own devices. The calm of evening was
1:00:31
Speaker 1: upon the world as I emerged from the Great Hall,
1:00:34
Speaker 1: and the scene was lit by the warm glow of
1:00:37
Speaker 1: the setting sun. At first, things were very confusing. Everything
1:00:42
Speaker 1: was so entirely different from the world I had known,
1:00:46
Speaker 1: even the flowers. The big building I had left was
1:00:49
Speaker 1: situated on the slope of a broad river valley, but
1:00:52
Speaker 1: the Thames had shifted perhaps a mile from its present position.
1:00:56
Speaker 1: I resolved to mount to the summit of a crest
1:00:58
Speaker 1: perhaps a mile in a half away from which I
1:01:01
Speaker 1: could get a wider view of this our planet. In
1:01:04
Speaker 1: the year eight hundred and two thousand, seven hundred and one.
1:01:08
Speaker 1: A d for that I should explain was the date
1:01:13
Speaker 1: the little dials of my machine recorded. As I walked.
1:01:18
Speaker 1: I was watched for every impression that could possibly help
1:01:21
Speaker 1: to explain the condition of ruinous splendor in which I
1:01:24
Speaker 1: found the world. For ruinous. It was a little way
1:01:29
Speaker 1: up the hill, for instance, was a great heap of
1:01:31
Speaker 1: granite bound together by masses of aluminium, a vast labyrinth
1:01:36
Speaker 1: of precipitous walls and crumpled heaps. Amidst which were thick
1:01:40
Speaker 1: heaps of very beautiful pagoda like plants, nettles, possibly but
1:01:45
Speaker 1: wonderfully tinted with brown about the leaves and incapable of stinging.
1:01:51
Speaker 1: It was evidently that derelict remains of some vast structure.
1:01:55
Speaker 1: To what end built I could not determine. It was
1:01:59
Speaker 1: here that I was destined, at a later date to
1:02:02
Speaker 1: have a very strange experience, the first intimation of a
1:02:06
Speaker 1: still stranger discovery. But of that I will speak in
1:02:10
Speaker 1: its proper place. Looking round with a sudden thought from
1:02:15
Speaker 1: a terrace on which I rested for a while, I
1:02:17
Speaker 1: realized that there were no small houses to be seen.
1:02:21
Speaker 1: Apparently the single house, and possibly even the household, had vanished.
1:02:27
Speaker 1: Here and there among the greenery were palace like buildings,
1:02:30
Speaker 1: but the house and the cottage, which formed such characteristic
1:02:34
Speaker 1: features of our own English landscape, had disappeared. Communism, said
1:02:39
Speaker 1: I to myself, And on the heels of that came
1:02:43
Speaker 1: another thought. I looked at the half dozen little figures
1:02:47
Speaker 1: that were following me. Then in a flash, I perceived
1:02:51
Speaker 1: that all had the same form of costume, the same soft,
1:02:55
Speaker 1: hairless visage, and the same girlish rotundity of limb. It
1:03:00
Speaker 1: may seem strange, perhaps that I had not noticed this before,
1:03:04
Speaker 1: but everything was so strange now I saw the fact
1:03:09
Speaker 1: plainly enough. In costume, and in all the differences of
1:03:13
Speaker 1: texture and bearing that now mark off the sexes from
1:03:16
Speaker 1: each other. These people of the future were alike, and
1:03:20
Speaker 1: the children seemed to my eyes to be but the
1:03:23
Speaker 1: miniatures of their parents. I judged then that the children
1:03:27
Speaker 1: of that time were extremely precocious physically at least, and
1:03:31
Speaker 1: I found afterwards abundant verification of my opinion, seeing the
1:03:36
Speaker 1: ease and security in which these people were living. I
1:03:39
Speaker 1: felt that this close resemblance of the sexes was, after all,
1:03:43
Speaker 1: what one would expect for the strength of a man
1:03:47
Speaker 1: and the softness of a woman. The institution of the
1:03:49
Speaker 1: family and the differentiation of occupations are mere militant necessities
1:03:55
Speaker 1: of an age of physical force, where population is balanced
1:03:59
Speaker 1: and abundant. Much child bearing becomes an evil rather than
1:04:02
Speaker 1: a blessing. To the state where violence comes but rarely
1:04:06
Speaker 1: and offspring are secure, there is less necessity. Indeed, there
1:04:11
Speaker 1: is no necessity for an efficient family, and the specialization
1:04:15
Speaker 1: of the sexes with reference to their children's needs disappears.
1:04:20
Speaker 1: We see some beginnings of this even in our own time,
1:04:23
Speaker 1: and in this future age it was complete. This, i
1:04:27
Speaker 1: must remind you, was my speculation at the time. Later
1:04:32
Speaker 1: I was to appreciate how far it fell short of
1:04:35
Speaker 1: the reality. While I was musing upon these things, my
1:04:39
Speaker 1: attention was attracted by a pretty little structure, like a
1:04:43
Speaker 1: well under a cupula. I thought, in a transitory way,
1:04:47
Speaker 1: of the oddness of well still existing, and then resumed
1:04:50
Speaker 1: the thread of my speculations. There were no large buildings
1:04:54
Speaker 1: towards the top of the hill, and as my walking
1:04:57
Speaker 1: powers were evidently miraculous. I was presently left alone for
1:05:01
Speaker 1: the first time. With a strange sense of freedom and adventure,
1:05:05
Speaker 1: I pushed on up to the crest. There I found
1:05:09
Speaker 1: a seat of some yellow metal that I did not recognize,
1:05:13
Speaker 1: corroded in places with a kind of pinkish rust, and
1:05:17
Speaker 1: half smothered in soft moss. The armrests cast and filed
1:05:21
Speaker 1: into the resemblance of griffin's heads. I sat down on it,
1:05:26
Speaker 1: and I surveyed the broad view of our old world
1:05:29
Speaker 1: under the sunset of that long day. It was as
1:05:33
Speaker 1: sweet and fair a view as I have ever seen.
1:05:37
Speaker 1: The sun had already gone below the horizon, and the
1:05:39
Speaker 1: west was flaming gold, touched with some horizontal bars of
1:05:43
Speaker 1: purple and crimson. Below was the valley of the Thames,
1:05:48
Speaker 1: in which the river lay like a band of burnished steel.
1:05:52
Speaker 1: I have already spoken of the great palaces dotted about
1:05:55
Speaker 1: among the variegated greenery, some in ruins and some still
1:06:00
Speaker 1: ill occupied. Here and there rose a white or silvery
1:06:04
Speaker 1: figure in the waste garden of the earth. Here and
1:06:07
Speaker 1: there came the sharp vertical line of some cupula or obelisk.
1:06:12
Speaker 1: There were no hedges, no signs of proprietary rites, no
1:06:16
Speaker 1: evidences of agriculture. The whole earth had become a garden.
1:06:21
Speaker 1: So watching I began to put my interpretation upon the
1:06:24
Speaker 1: things I had seen, and as it shaped itself to
1:06:27
Speaker 1: me that evening my interpretation was something. In this way.
1:06:32
Speaker 1: Afterwards I found I had got only a half truth,
1:06:35
Speaker 1: or only a glimpse of one facet of the truth.
1:06:39
Speaker 1: It seemed to me that I had happened upon humanity
1:06:43
Speaker 1: upon the wane. The ruddy sunset set me thinking of
1:06:47
Speaker 1: the sunset of mankind. For the first time, I began
1:06:52
Speaker 1: to realize an odd consequence of the social effort in
1:06:55
Speaker 1: which we are present, engaged, and yet come to think
1:07:00
Speaker 1: it is a logical consequence. Enough strength is the outcome
1:07:04
Speaker 1: of need. Security sets a premium on feebleness. The work
1:07:09
Speaker 1: of ameliorating the conditions of life, the true civilizing process
1:07:13
Speaker 1: that makes life more and more secure, had gone steadily
1:07:17
Speaker 1: on to a climax. One triumph of a united humanity
1:07:21
Speaker 1: over nature had followed another. Things that are now mere
1:07:25
Speaker 1: dreams had become projects, deliberately put in hand and carried forward.
1:07:30
Speaker 1: And the harvest was what I saw. After all, the
1:07:34
Speaker 1: sanitation and the agriculture of today are still in the
1:07:38
Speaker 1: rudimentary stage. The science of our time has attacked but
1:07:42
Speaker 1: a little department of the field of human disease. But
1:07:45
Speaker 1: even so it spreads its operations very steadily and persistently.
1:07:51
Speaker 1: Our agriculture and horticulture destroy a weed just here and there,
1:07:56
Speaker 1: and cultivate perhaps a score or so of wholesome plants,
1:08:00
Speaker 1: leaving the greater number to fight out a balance as
1:08:02
Speaker 1: they can. We improve our favorite plants and animals, and
1:08:06
Speaker 1: how few they are, gradually by selective breeding. Now a
1:08:11
Speaker 1: new and better peach, Now a seedless grape, now a
1:08:15
Speaker 1: sweeter and larger flower, Now a more convenient breed of cattle.
1:08:20
Speaker 1: We improve them gradually because our ideals are vague and tentative,
1:08:25
Speaker 1: and our knowledge is very limited, because nature, too is
1:08:29
Speaker 1: shy and slow in our clumsy hands. Some day all
1:08:34
Speaker 1: this will be better organized, and still better, that is
1:08:38
Speaker 1: the drift of the current. In spite of the eddies,
1:08:42
Speaker 1: The whole world will be intelligent, educated, and co operating.
1:08:46
Speaker 1: Things will move faster and faster towards the subjugation of nature.
1:08:51
Speaker 1: In the end, wisely and carefully we shall readjust the
1:08:55
Speaker 1: balance of animal and vegetable to suit our human needs.
1:09:00
Speaker 1: This adjustment, I say, must have been done, and done
1:09:03
Speaker 1: well done. Indeed, for all time, in the space of
1:09:07
Speaker 1: time across which my machine had leaped, the air was
1:09:11
Speaker 1: free from gnats, the earth from weeds or fungi. Everywhere
1:09:15
Speaker 1: were fruits and sweet and delightful flowers. Brilliant butterflies flew
1:09:20
Speaker 1: hither and thither. The ideal of preventive medicine was attained.
1:09:24
Speaker 1: Diseases had been stamped out. I saw no evidence of
1:09:28
Speaker 1: any contagious diseases during all my stay, and I shall
1:09:33
Speaker 1: have to tell you later that even the processes of
1:09:35
Speaker 1: putrification and decay had been profoundly affected by these changes.
1:09:41
Speaker 1: Social triumphs, too had been effected. I saw mankind housed
1:09:46
Speaker 1: in splendid shelters, gloriously clothed, and as yet I had
1:09:51
Speaker 1: found them engaged in no toil. There were no signs
1:09:54
Speaker 1: of struggle, neither social nor economical struggle. The shop, the
1:10:00
Speaker 1: advertisement traffic, all that commerce which constitutes the body of
1:10:04
Speaker 1: our world was gone. It was natural, on that golden
1:10:08
Speaker 1: evening that I should jump at the idea of a
1:10:11
Speaker 1: social paradise. The difficulty of increasing population had been met,
1:10:16
Speaker 1: I guessed, and population had ceased to increase. But with
1:10:21
Speaker 1: this change and condition comes inevitably adaptations to the change. What,
1:10:27
Speaker 1: unless biological science is a mass of errors, is the
1:10:30
Speaker 1: cause of human intelligence and vigor, hardship and freedom. Conditions
1:10:35
Speaker 1: under which the active, strong and subtle survive and the
1:10:39
Speaker 1: weaker go to the wall. Conditions that put a premium
1:10:44
Speaker 1: upon the loyal alliance of capable men, upon self restraint,
1:10:48
Speaker 1: patience and decision, and the institution of the family, and
1:10:53
Speaker 1: the emotions that arise therein the fierce jealousy, the tenderness
1:10:57
Speaker 1: for offspring, parental self devotion, all found their justification and
1:11:02
Speaker 1: support in the imminent dangers of the young. Now where
1:11:07
Speaker 1: are these imminent dangers? There is a sentiment arising, and
1:11:11
Speaker 1: it will grow against connubial jealousy, against fierce maternity, against
1:11:17
Speaker 1: passion of all sorts, unnecessary things now and things that
1:11:22
Speaker 1: make us uncomfortable, savage survivals, discords in a refined and
1:11:27
Speaker 1: pleasant life. I thought of the physical slightness of the people,
1:11:33
Speaker 1: their lack of intelligence, and those big, abundant ruins, and
1:11:37
Speaker 1: it strengthened my belief in a perfect conquest of nature.
1:11:42
Speaker 1: For after the battle comes quiet humanity had been strong, energetic,
1:11:47
Speaker 1: and intelligent, and had used all its abundant vitality to
1:11:51
Speaker 1: alter the conditions under which it lived. And now came
1:11:55
Speaker 1: the reaction of the altered conditions. Under the new conditions
1:12:00
Speaker 1: of perfect comforts and security, that restless energy that with
1:12:05
Speaker 1: us is strength would become weakness. Even in our own time,
1:12:10
Speaker 1: certain tendencies and desires, once necessary to survival, are a
1:12:14
Speaker 1: constant source of failure. Physical courage and the love of battle,
1:12:19
Speaker 1: for instance, are no great help, may even be hindrances
1:12:23
Speaker 1: to a civilized man, And in a state of physical
1:12:27
Speaker 1: balance and security, power intellectual as well as physical, would
1:12:31
Speaker 1: be out of place. For countless years, I judge, there
1:12:35
Speaker 1: have been no danger of war or solitary violence, no
1:12:39
Speaker 1: danger from wild beasts, no wasting disease to require strength
1:12:44
Speaker 1: of constitution, no need of toil for such a life.
1:12:49
Speaker 1: What we should call the weak are as well equipped
1:12:52
Speaker 1: as the strong are, indeed no longer weak. Better equipped
1:12:57
Speaker 1: indeed they are, for the strong would be fretted by
1:13:00
Speaker 1: energy for which there was no outlet. No doubt, the
1:13:03
Speaker 1: exquisite beauty of the buildings I saw was the outcome
1:13:06
Speaker 1: of the last surgings of the now purposeless energy of mankind,
1:13:11
Speaker 1: before it settled down into perfect harmony with the conditions
1:13:14
Speaker 1: under which it lived, the flourish of that triumph which
1:13:18
Speaker 1: began the last great peace. This has ever been the
1:13:22
Speaker 1: fate of energy and security. It takes to art and
1:13:25
Speaker 1: to eroticism, and then come languor and decay. Even this
1:13:31
Speaker 1: artistic impetus would at last die away. Had almost died
1:13:35
Speaker 1: in the time I saw to adorn themselves with flowers,
1:13:39
Speaker 1: to dance, to sing in the sunlight. So much was
1:13:42
Speaker 1: left of the artistic spirit, and no more even that
1:13:47
Speaker 1: would fade in the end into a contented inactivity. We
1:13:52
Speaker 1: are kept keen on the grindstone of pain and necessity.
1:13:56
Speaker 1: And it seemed to me that here was that hateful
1:13:59
Speaker 1: grindstone broken at last. As I stood there in the
1:14:03
Speaker 1: gathering dark, I thought that in this simple explanation I
1:14:07
Speaker 1: had mastered the problem of the world, mastered the whole
1:14:11
Speaker 1: secret of these delicious people. Possibly the checks they had
1:14:15
Speaker 1: devised for the increase of population had succeeded too well,
1:14:20
Speaker 1: and their numbers had rather diminished than kept stationary. That
1:14:24
Speaker 1: would account for the abandoned ruins. Very simple was my explanation,
1:14:30
Speaker 1: and plausible enough, as most wrong theories are. End of
1:14:36
Speaker 1: Chapter four, Chapter five. As I stood there musing over
1:14:43
Speaker 1: this too perfect triumph of man, the full moon, yellow
1:14:47
Speaker 1: and gibbous, came up out of an overflow of silver
1:14:50
Speaker 1: light in the northeast. The bright little figure ceased to
1:14:54
Speaker 1: move about below. A noiseless owl flitted by, and I
1:14:57
Speaker 1: shivered with the chill of the night. I determined to
1:15:01
Speaker 1: descend and find where I could sleep. I looked for
1:15:04
Speaker 1: the building I knew. Then My eye traveled along to
1:15:07
Speaker 1: the figure of the white sphinx, upon the pedestal of bronze,
1:15:11
Speaker 1: growing distinct. As the light of the rising moon grew brighter,
1:15:15
Speaker 1: I could see the silver birch against it. There was
1:15:18
Speaker 1: the tangle of rhododendron bushes, black in the pale light.
1:15:22
Speaker 1: And there was the little lawn. I looked at the
1:15:25
Speaker 1: lawn again. A queer doubt chilled my complacency. No, said
1:15:31
Speaker 1: I stoutly to myself. That was not the lawn. But
1:15:36
Speaker 1: it was the lawn, for the white, leprous face of
1:15:40
Speaker 1: the sphinx was towards it. Can you imagine what I
1:15:43
Speaker 1: felt as this conviction came home to me. But you
1:15:47
Speaker 1: cannot The time machine was gone at once, like a
1:15:53
Speaker 1: lash across the face. Came the possibility of losing my
1:15:56
Speaker 1: own age, of being left helpless in this strange news world.
1:16:01
Speaker 1: The bare thought of it was an actual physical sensation.
1:16:05
Speaker 1: I could feel it grit me at the throat and
1:16:07
Speaker 1: stop my breathing. In another moment, I was in a
1:16:11
Speaker 1: passion of fear and running with great leaping strides down
1:16:15
Speaker 1: the slope. Once I fell headlong and cut my face.
1:16:19
Speaker 1: I lost no time in stanching the blood, but jumped
1:16:22
Speaker 1: up and ran on, with a warm trickle down my
1:16:24
Speaker 1: cheek and chin. All the time I ran, I was
1:16:28
Speaker 1: saying to myself, they have moved it a little, pushed
1:16:31
Speaker 1: under the bushes, out of the way. Nevertheless, I ran
1:16:35
Speaker 1: with all my might, all the time, with the certainty
1:16:38
Speaker 1: that sometimes comes with excessive dread. I knew that such
1:16:42
Speaker 1: assurance was folly. Knew instinctively that the machine was removed
1:16:47
Speaker 1: out of my reach. My breath came with pain. I
1:16:51
Speaker 1: suppose I covered the whole distance from the hillcrest to
1:16:54
Speaker 1: the little lawn, two miles, perhaps in ten minutes. And
1:16:59
Speaker 1: I am not a young man. I cursed aloud as
1:17:02
Speaker 1: I ran at my confident folly in leaving the machine,
1:17:06
Speaker 1: wasting good breath. Thereby, I cried aloud, and none answered.
1:17:12
Speaker 1: Not a creature seemed to be stirring in the moonlit world.
1:17:16
Speaker 1: When I reached the lawn, my worst fears were realized.
1:17:20
Speaker 1: Not a trace of the thing was to be seen.
1:17:23
Speaker 1: I felt faint and cold. When I faced the empty
1:17:26
Speaker 1: space among the black tangle of bushes. I ran round
1:17:30
Speaker 1: it furiously, as if the thing might be hidden in
1:17:33
Speaker 1: a corner, and then stopped abruptly, with my hands clutching
1:17:37
Speaker 1: my hair. Above me towered the sphynx upon the bronze pedestal, white,
1:17:43
Speaker 1: shining leprous in the light of the rising moon. It
1:17:47
Speaker 1: seemed to smile in mockery of my dismay. I might
1:17:51
Speaker 1: have consoled myself by imagining the little people had put
1:17:55
Speaker 1: the mechanism in some shelter for me, had I not
1:17:58
Speaker 1: felt assured of their physical intellectual inadequacy. That is what
1:18:03
Speaker 1: dismayed me, the sense of some hitherto unsuspected power through
1:18:08
Speaker 1: whose intervention my invention had vanished. Yet for one thing,
1:18:13
Speaker 1: I felt assured, unless some other age had produced its
1:18:17
Speaker 1: exact duplicate, the machine could not have moved in time.
1:18:22
Speaker 1: The attachment of the levers. I will show you the
1:18:24
Speaker 1: method later prevented anyone from tampering with it in that way.
1:18:28
Speaker 1: When they were removed, it had moved and was hid
1:18:31
Speaker 1: only in space. But then where could it be? I
1:18:37
Speaker 1: think I must have had a kind of frenzy. I
1:18:40
Speaker 1: remember running violently in and out among the moonlit bushes
1:18:43
Speaker 1: all round the Sphinx, and startling some white animal that,
1:18:47
Speaker 1: in the dim light I took for a small deer.
1:18:51
Speaker 1: I remember too late that night beating the bushes with
1:18:54
Speaker 1: my clenched fist until my knuckles were gashed and bleeding
1:18:58
Speaker 1: from the broken twigs. Then, sobbing and raving in my
1:19:02
Speaker 1: anguish of mind, I went down to the great Building
1:19:05
Speaker 1: of Stone. The big hall was dark, silent, and deserted.
1:19:11
Speaker 1: I slipped on the uneven floor and fell over one
1:19:14
Speaker 1: of the malachite tables, almost breaking my shin. I lit
1:19:18
Speaker 1: a match and went on past the dusty curtains of
1:19:21
Speaker 1: which I have told you. Then I found a second
1:19:25
Speaker 1: great hall, covered with cushions, upon which perhaps a score
1:19:30
Speaker 1: or so of the little people were sleeping. I have
1:19:33
Speaker 1: no doubt they found my second appearance strange enough, coming
1:19:37
Speaker 1: suddenly out of the quiet darkness with inarticulate noises and
1:19:41
Speaker 1: the splutter and flare of a match, For they had
1:19:45
Speaker 1: forgotten about matches. Where is my time machine? I began
1:19:51
Speaker 1: bawling like an angry child, laying hands upon them and
1:19:55
Speaker 1: shaking them up together. I must have been very queer
1:19:58
Speaker 1: to them. Some laughed, most of them looked sorely frightened.
1:20:03
Speaker 1: When I saw them standing round me, it came into
1:20:06
Speaker 1: my head that I was doing as foolish a thing
1:20:08
Speaker 1: as it was possible for me to do under the circumstances,
1:20:12
Speaker 1: in trying to revive the sensation of fear. For reasoning
1:20:16
Speaker 1: from their daylight behavior, I thought that fear must be forgotten. Abruptly,
1:20:22
Speaker 1: I dashed down the match, and, knocking one of the
1:20:24
Speaker 1: people over in my course, went blundering across the big
1:20:27
Speaker 1: dining hall again. Out under the moonlight. I heard cries
1:20:31
Speaker 1: of terror, and their little feet running and stumbling this way.
1:20:35
Speaker 1: And that I do not remember all I did as
1:20:38
Speaker 1: the moon crept up the sky. I suppose it was
1:20:42
Speaker 1: the unexpected nature of my loss that maddened me. I
1:20:46
Speaker 1: felt hopelessly caught off from my own kind a strange
1:20:50
Speaker 1: animal in an unknown world. I must have raved to
1:20:54
Speaker 1: and fro screaming and crying upon God and fate. I
1:20:59
Speaker 1: have a memory of horrible fatigue, as the long night
1:21:03
Speaker 1: of despair wore away, of looking in this impossible place,
1:21:06
Speaker 1: and that of groping among moonlit ruins and touching strange
1:21:10
Speaker 1: creatures in the black shadows. At last, of lying on
1:21:14
Speaker 1: the ground near the sphinx and weeping with absolute wretchedness.
1:21:19
Speaker 1: I had nothing left but misery. Then I slept, and
1:21:24
Speaker 1: when I woke again it was full day, and a
1:21:27
Speaker 1: couple of sparrows were hopping round me on the turf,
1:21:30
Speaker 1: within reach of my arm. I sat up in the
1:21:33
Speaker 1: freshness of the morning, trying to remember how I had
1:21:36
Speaker 1: got there, and why I had such a profound sense
1:21:40
Speaker 1: of desertion and despair. Then things came clear in my mind.
1:21:46
Speaker 1: With the plain, reasonable daylight, I could look my circumstances
1:21:50
Speaker 1: fairly in the face. I saw the wild folly of
1:21:53
Speaker 1: my frenzy over night, and I could reason with myself.
1:21:57
Speaker 1: Suppose the worst, I said, Suppose ose the machine altogether lost,
1:22:02
Speaker 1: perhaps destroyed. It behooves me to be calm and patient,
1:22:07
Speaker 1: to learn the way of the people to get a
1:22:09
Speaker 1: clear idea of the method of my loss and the
1:22:12
Speaker 1: means of getting materials and tools, so that in the end,
1:22:16
Speaker 1: perhaps I may make another That would be my only hope,
1:22:21
Speaker 1: perhaps but better than despair. And after all it was
1:22:26
Speaker 1: a beautiful and curious world. But probably the machine had
1:22:32
Speaker 1: only been taken away. Still, I must be calm and patient,
1:22:37
Speaker 1: find its hiding place, and recover it by force or cunning.
1:22:41
Speaker 1: And with that I scrambled to my feet and looked
1:22:44
Speaker 1: about me, wondering where I could bathe. I felt weary, stiff,
1:22:49
Speaker 1: and travel soiled. The freshness of the morning made me
1:22:53
Speaker 1: desire an equal freshness. I had exhausted my emotion. Indeed,
1:22:58
Speaker 1: as I went about my busines, I found myself wondering
1:23:02
Speaker 1: at my intense excitement. Over night, I made a careful
1:23:05
Speaker 1: examination of the ground about the little lawn. I wasted
1:23:09
Speaker 1: some time in futile questionings, conveyed as well as I
1:23:13
Speaker 1: was able to such of the little people as came by.
1:23:17
Speaker 1: They all failed to understand my gestures. Some were simply stolid,
1:23:21
Speaker 1: some thought it was a jest and laughed at me.
1:23:24
Speaker 1: I had the hardest task in the world to keep
1:23:26
Speaker 1: my hands off their pretty laughing faces. It was a
1:23:30
Speaker 1: foolish impulse, but the devil begotten of fear and blind anger,
1:23:34
Speaker 1: was ill curbed and still eager to take advantage of
1:23:37
Speaker 1: my perplexity. The turf gave better counsel. I found a
1:23:43
Speaker 1: groove ripped in it, about midway between the pedestal of
1:23:47
Speaker 1: the sphinx and the marks of my feet, where on
1:23:50
Speaker 1: arrival I had struggled with the overturned machine. There were
1:23:54
Speaker 1: other signs of removal about, with queer, narrow footprints, like
1:23:58
Speaker 1: those I could imagine made by a sloth. This directed
1:24:02
Speaker 1: my closer attention to the pedestal. It was, as I
1:24:06
Speaker 1: think I have said of bronze. It was not a
1:24:09
Speaker 1: mere block, but highly decorated, with deep framed panels on
1:24:13
Speaker 1: either side. I went and wrapped at these. The pedestal
1:24:18
Speaker 1: was hollow. Examining the panels with care, I found them
1:24:22
Speaker 1: discontinuous with the frames. There were no handles or keyholes,
1:24:27
Speaker 1: but possibly the panels if they were doors, as I supposed,
1:24:31
Speaker 1: opened from within. One thing was clear enough to my mind.
1:24:36
Speaker 1: It took no very great mental effort to infer that
1:24:39
Speaker 1: my time machine was inside that pedestal. But how it
1:24:43
Speaker 1: got there was a different problem. I saw the heads
1:24:47
Speaker 1: of two orange clad people coming through the bushes and
1:24:50
Speaker 1: under some blossom covered apple trees towards me. I turned
1:24:53
Speaker 1: smiling to them and beckoned them to me. They came,
1:24:57
Speaker 1: and then, pointing to the bronze pedestal, I tried to
1:25:00
Speaker 1: intimate my wish to open it. But at my first
1:25:03
Speaker 1: gesture towards this, they behaved very oddly. I don't know
1:25:08
Speaker 1: how to convey their expression to you. Suppose you were
1:25:11
Speaker 1: to use a grossly improper gesture to a delicate minded woman,
1:25:16
Speaker 1: it is how she would look. They went off as
1:25:20
Speaker 1: if they had received the last possible insult. I tried
1:25:24
Speaker 1: a sweet looking little chap in white next, with exactly
1:25:27
Speaker 1: the same result. Somehow, his manner made me feel ashamed
1:25:32
Speaker 1: of myself. But as you know, I wanted the time machine,
1:25:36
Speaker 1: and I tried him once more. As he turned off
1:25:39
Speaker 1: like the others, my temper got the better of me.
1:25:43
Speaker 1: In three strides, I was after him, had him by
1:25:45
Speaker 1: the loose part of his robe round the neck, and
1:25:48
Speaker 1: began dragging him towards the sphynx. Then I saw the
1:25:52
Speaker 1: horror and repugnance of his face, and all of a sudden,
1:25:55
Speaker 1: I let him go, but I was not beaten yet.
1:26:00
Speaker 1: I banged with my fist at the bronze panels. I
1:26:03
Speaker 1: thought I heard something stir inside. To be explicit, I
1:26:07
Speaker 1: thought I heard a sound like a chuckle. But I
1:26:10
Speaker 1: must have been mistaken. Then I got a big pebble
1:26:13
Speaker 1: from the river and came and hammered till I had
1:26:16
Speaker 1: flattened a coil in the decorations, and the verdigris came
1:26:19
Speaker 1: off in powdery flakes. The delicate little people must have
1:26:23
Speaker 1: heard me hammering in gusty outbreaks a mile away on
1:26:26
Speaker 1: either hand, but nothing came of it. I saw a
1:26:29
Speaker 1: crowd of them upon the slopes, looking furtively at me.
1:26:33
Speaker 1: At last, hot and tired, I sat down to watch
1:26:37
Speaker 1: the place. But I was too restless to watch long.
1:26:41
Speaker 1: I am too occidental for a long vigil. I could
1:26:45
Speaker 1: work at a problem for years, But to wait inactive
1:26:48
Speaker 1: for twenty four hours, that is another matter. I got
1:26:53
Speaker 1: up after a time and began walking aimlessly through the
1:26:55
Speaker 1: bushes towards the hill. Again. Patience, said I to myself.
1:27:01
Speaker 1: If you want your machine again, you must leave that
1:27:03
Speaker 1: sphinx alone. If they mean to take your machine away,
1:27:07
Speaker 1: it's little good. You're wrecking their bronze panels, and if
1:27:10
Speaker 1: they don't, you will get it back as soon as
1:27:12
Speaker 1: you can ask for it. To sit among all those
1:27:15
Speaker 1: unknown things before. A puzzle like that is hopeless. That
1:27:19
Speaker 1: way lies monomania. Face this world, learn its ways, watch it,
1:27:25
Speaker 1: be careful of two hasty guesses at its meaning. In
1:27:28
Speaker 1: the end you will find clues to it all. Then
1:27:34
Speaker 1: suddenly the humor of the situation came into my mind,
1:27:37
Speaker 1: the thought of the years I had spent in study
1:27:40
Speaker 1: and toil to get into the future age, and now
1:27:43
Speaker 1: my passion of anxiety to get out of it. I
1:27:46
Speaker 1: had made myself the most complicated and the most hopeless
1:27:49
Speaker 1: trap that ever a man devised. Although it was at
1:27:53
Speaker 1: my own expense, I could not help myself. I laughed
1:27:57
Speaker 1: aloud going through the Big Palace. It seemed to me
1:28:02
Speaker 1: that the little people avoided me. It may have been
1:28:05
Speaker 1: my fancy, or it may have had something to do
1:28:08
Speaker 1: with my hammering at the gates of bronze. Yet I
1:28:12
Speaker 1: felt tolerably sure of the avoidance. I was careful, however,
1:28:16
Speaker 1: to show no concern and to abstain from any pursuit
1:28:20
Speaker 1: of them, And in the course of a day or two,
1:28:22
Speaker 1: things got back to the old footing. I made what
1:28:25
Speaker 1: progress I could in the language, and in addition I
1:28:28
Speaker 1: pushed my explorations here and there. Either I missed some
1:28:33
Speaker 1: subtle point, or their language was excessively simple, almost exclusively
1:28:39
Speaker 1: composed of concrete substantives and verbs. There seemed to be few,
1:28:44
Speaker 1: if any, abstract terms, or little use of figurative language.
1:28:49
Speaker 1: Their sentences were usually simple and of two words, and
1:28:53
Speaker 1: I failed to convey or understand any but the simplest propositions.
1:28:58
Speaker 1: I determined to put the thought of my time machine
1:29:00
Speaker 1: and the mystery of the bronze doors under the sphinx,
1:29:03
Speaker 1: as much as possible, in a corner of memory, until
1:29:07
Speaker 1: my growing knowledge would lead me back to them in
1:29:09
Speaker 1: a natural way. Yet a certain feeling you may understand,
1:29:14
Speaker 1: tethered me in a circle of a few miles round
1:29:17
Speaker 1: the point of my arrival. So far as I could see,
1:29:21
Speaker 1: all the world displayed the same exuberant richness as the
1:29:24
Speaker 1: Thames Valley. From every hill I climbed, I saw the
1:29:28
Speaker 1: same abundance of splendid buildings, endlessly varied in material and style,
1:29:34
Speaker 1: the same clustering thickets of evergreens, the same blossom laden
1:29:38
Speaker 1: trees and tree ferns. Here and there water shone like silver,
1:29:43
Speaker 1: and beyond the land rose into blue, undulating hills, and
1:29:47
Speaker 1: so faded into the serenity of the sky. A peculiar
1:29:51
Speaker 1: feature which presently attracted my attention was the presence of
1:29:55
Speaker 1: certain circular wells, several as it seemed to me of
1:29:59
Speaker 1: a very great depth. One lay by the path up
1:30:02
Speaker 1: the hill which I had followed during my first walk.
1:30:05
Speaker 1: Like the others, it was rimmed with bronze, curiously wrought,
1:30:09
Speaker 1: and protected by a little cupula from the rain. Sitting
1:30:13
Speaker 1: by the side of these wells and peering down into
1:30:16
Speaker 1: the shafted darkness, I could see no gleam of water,
1:30:20
Speaker 1: nor could I start any reflection with a lighted match.
1:30:23
Speaker 1: But in all of them I heard a certain sound,
1:30:27
Speaker 1: a thud, thud, thud, like the beating of some big engine,
1:30:32
Speaker 1: and I discovered from the flaring of the matches that
1:30:35
Speaker 1: a steady current of air set down the shafts. Further,
1:30:40
Speaker 1: I threw a scrap of paper into the throat of one,
1:30:43
Speaker 1: and instead of fluttering slowly down, it was at once
1:30:46
Speaker 1: sucked swiftly out of sight. After a time too, I
1:30:50
Speaker 1: came to connect these wells with tall towers standing here
1:30:54
Speaker 1: and there upon the slopes for above them there was
1:30:57
Speaker 1: often just such a flicker in the air as one
1:31:00
Speaker 1: sees on a hot day above a sun's scorched beach.
1:31:04
Speaker 1: Putting things together, I reached a strong suggestion of an
1:31:08
Speaker 1: extensive system of subterranean ventilation, whose true import it was
1:31:13
Speaker 1: difficult to imagine. I was at first inclined to associate
1:31:17
Speaker 1: it with the sanitary apparatus of these people. It was
1:31:21
Speaker 1: an obvious conclusion, but it was absolutely wrong. And here
1:31:27
Speaker 1: I must admit that I learned very little of drains
1:31:30
Speaker 1: and bells, and modes of conveyance and the like conveyances
1:31:34
Speaker 1: during my time in this real future. In some of
1:31:38
Speaker 1: these visions of Utopia's and coming times which I have read,
1:31:42
Speaker 1: there is a vast amount of detail about building and
1:31:45
Speaker 1: social arrangements and so forth. But while such details are
1:31:49
Speaker 1: easy enough to obtain when the whole world is contained
1:31:51
Speaker 1: in one's imagination, they are altogether inaccessible to a real traveler.
1:31:56
Speaker 1: Amid such realities as I found here, conceive the tale
1:32:01
Speaker 1: of London, which a Negro fresh from Central Africa would
1:32:05
Speaker 1: take back to his tribe. What would he know of
1:32:08
Speaker 1: railway companies, of social movements, of telephone and telegraph wires,
1:32:13
Speaker 1: of the parcels delivery company, and postal orders and the like.
1:32:17
Speaker 1: Yet we at least should be willing enough to explain
1:32:20
Speaker 1: these things to him. And even of what he knew,
1:32:24
Speaker 1: how much could he make his untraveled friend either apprehend
1:32:28
Speaker 1: or believe? Then? Think how narrow the gap between a
1:32:32
Speaker 1: Negro and a white man of our times, and how
1:32:35
Speaker 1: wide the interval between myself and these of the golden age.
1:32:41
Speaker 1: I was sensible of much which was unseen, and which
1:32:44
Speaker 1: contributed to my comfort. But say, for a general impression
1:32:48
Speaker 1: of automatic organization, I fear I can convey very little
1:32:53
Speaker 1: of the difference to your mind. In the matter of Sepulcher,
1:32:57
Speaker 1: for instance, I could see no signs of crematorise arrea,
1:33:00
Speaker 1: nor anything suggestive of tombs. But it occurred to me
1:33:04
Speaker 1: that possibly there might be cemeteries or crematoria somewhere beyond
1:33:09
Speaker 1: the range of my explorings. This again was a question
1:33:13
Speaker 1: I deliberately put to myself, and my curiosity was at
1:33:17
Speaker 1: first entirely defeated. Upon the point the thing puzzled me
1:33:22
Speaker 1: and I was led to make a further remark, which
1:33:25
Speaker 1: puzzled me still more, that aged and infirm among these
1:33:29
Speaker 1: people there were none. I must confess that my satisfaction
1:33:35
Speaker 1: with my first theories of an automatic civilization and a
1:33:38
Speaker 1: decadent humanity did not long endure. Yet I could think
1:33:43
Speaker 1: of no other let me put my difficulties. The several
1:33:47
Speaker 1: big palaces I had explored were mere living places, great
1:33:52
Speaker 1: dining halls, and sleeping apartments. I could find no machinery,
1:33:57
Speaker 1: no appliances of any kind. Yet these people were clothed
1:34:01
Speaker 1: in pleasant fabrics that must at times need renewal, and
1:34:05
Speaker 1: their sandals, though undecorated, were fairly complex specimens of metal work. Somehow,
1:34:12
Speaker 1: such things must be made, and the little people displayed
1:34:16
Speaker 1: no vestige of a creative tendency. There were no shops,
1:34:20
Speaker 1: no workshops, no sign of importations among them. They spent
1:34:24
Speaker 1: all their time in playing gently, in bathing in the river,
1:34:28
Speaker 1: in making love in a half playful fashion, in eating
1:34:31
Speaker 1: fruit and sleeping. I could not see how things were
1:34:36
Speaker 1: kept going. Then again, about the time machine, something I
1:34:43
Speaker 1: knew not what had taken it into the hollow pedestal
1:34:47
Speaker 1: of the white Sphinx. Why, for the life of me
1:34:50
Speaker 1: I could not imagine those waterless wells too, those flickering pillars.
1:34:58
Speaker 1: I felt I lacked a clue. I felt, how shall
1:35:01
Speaker 1: I put it? Suppose you found an inscription with sentences
1:35:05
Speaker 1: here and there in excellent plain English, and interpolated therewith
1:35:10
Speaker 1: others made up of words of letters, even absolutely unknown
1:35:14
Speaker 1: to you. Well, on the third day of my visit,
1:35:17
Speaker 1: that was how the world of eight hundred and two thousand,
1:35:20
Speaker 1: seven hundred and one presented itself to me. That day too,
1:35:25
Speaker 1: I made a friend of a sort. It happened that,
1:35:28
Speaker 1: as I was watching some of the little people bathing
1:35:30
Speaker 1: in a shallow one of them was seized with a
1:35:33
Speaker 1: cramp and began drifting down stream. The main current ran
1:35:37
Speaker 1: rather swiftly, but not too strongly for even a moderate swimmer.
1:35:41
Speaker 1: It will give you an idea, therefore, of the strange
1:35:44
Speaker 1: deficiency in these creatures, when I tell you that none
1:35:48
Speaker 1: made the slightest attempt to rescue the weakly crying little
1:35:52
Speaker 1: thing which was drowning before their eyes. When I realized this,
1:35:56
Speaker 1: I hurriedly slipped off my clothes, and, wading in at
1:35:59
Speaker 1: a point lower down, I caught the poor mite and
1:36:02
Speaker 1: drew her safe to land. A little rubbing of the
1:36:05
Speaker 1: limbs soon brought her round, and I had the satisfaction
1:36:09
Speaker 1: of seeing she was all right. Before I left her,
1:36:12
Speaker 1: I had got to such a low estimate of her
1:36:14
Speaker 1: kind that I did not expect any gratitude from her
1:36:18
Speaker 1: in that. However, I was wrong. This happened in the morning.
1:36:23
Speaker 1: In the afternoon, I met my little woman, as I
1:36:26
Speaker 1: believe it was, as I was returning towards my center
1:36:29
Speaker 1: from an exploration, and she received me with cries of
1:36:32
Speaker 1: delight and presented me with a big garland of flowers,
1:36:36
Speaker 1: evidently made for me and me alone. The thing took
1:36:41
Speaker 1: my imagination very possibly I had been feeling desolate. At
1:36:46
Speaker 1: any rate, I did my best to display my appreciation
1:36:49
Speaker 1: of the gift. We were soon seated together in a
1:36:52
Speaker 1: little stone arbor, engaged in conversation, chiefly of smiles. The
1:36:57
Speaker 1: creature's friendliness affected me exactly as a child's might have done.
1:37:02
Speaker 1: We passed each other flowers, and she kissed my hands.
1:37:05
Speaker 1: I did the same to hers. Then I tried talk
1:37:09
Speaker 1: and found that her name was Weena, which, though I
1:37:12
Speaker 1: don't know what it meant, somehow seemed appropriate. Enough. That
1:37:17
Speaker 1: was the beginning of a queer friendship, which lasted a
1:37:19
Speaker 1: week and ended. As I will tell you. She was
1:37:24
Speaker 1: exactly like a child. She wanted to be with me always.
1:37:29
Speaker 1: She tried to follow me everywhere, and on my next
1:37:32
Speaker 1: journey out and about. It went to my heart to
1:37:34
Speaker 1: tire her down and leave her at last, exhausted and
1:37:38
Speaker 1: calling after me rather plaintively. But the problems of the
1:37:42
Speaker 1: world had to be mastered. I had not, I said
1:37:45
Speaker 1: to myself, come into the future to carry on a
1:37:48
Speaker 1: miniature flirtation. Yet her distress when I left her was
1:37:52
Speaker 1: very great. Her expostulations at the parting were sometimes frantic,
1:37:57
Speaker 1: and I think altogether I had as much trouble less
1:38:00
Speaker 1: comfort from her devotion. Nevertheless, she was somehow a great comfort.
1:38:07
Speaker 1: I thought it was a mere childish affection that made
1:38:10
Speaker 1: her cling to me. Until it was too late. I
1:38:13
Speaker 1: did not clearly know what I had inflicted upon her
1:38:15
Speaker 1: when I left her, Nor until it was too late
1:38:19
Speaker 1: did I clearly understand what she was to me. For
1:38:23
Speaker 1: by merely seeming fond of me and showing in her weak,
1:38:27
Speaker 1: futile way that she cared for me, the little dull
1:38:30
Speaker 1: of a creature presently gave my return to the neighborhood
1:38:33
Speaker 1: of the White Sphinx almost the feeling of coming home,
1:38:38
Speaker 1: and I would watch for her tiny figure of white
1:38:41
Speaker 1: and gold so soon as I came over the hill.
1:38:44
Speaker 1: It was from her, too that I learned that fear
1:38:47
Speaker 1: had not yet left the world. She was fearless enough
1:38:51
Speaker 1: in the daylight, and she had the oddest confidence in me.
1:38:55
Speaker 1: For once, in a foolish moment, I made threatening grimaces
1:38:58
Speaker 1: at her, and she simply laughed at them. But she
1:39:02
Speaker 1: dreaded the dark, dreaded shadows, dreaded black things. Darkness, to
1:39:07
Speaker 1: her was the one thing dreadful. It was a singularly
1:39:11
Speaker 1: passionate emotion, and it set me thinking and observing. I discovered, then,
1:39:17
Speaker 1: among other things, that these little people gathered into the
1:39:20
Speaker 1: great houses after dark and slept in droves. To enter
1:39:25
Speaker 1: upon them without a light was to put them into
1:39:27
Speaker 1: a tumult of apprehension. I never found one out of doors,
1:39:32
Speaker 1: or one sleeping alone within doors after dark. Yet I
1:39:37
Speaker 1: was still such a blockhead that I missed the lesson
1:39:40
Speaker 1: of that fear, And in spite of Weena's distress, I
1:39:43
Speaker 1: insisted upon sleeping away from these slumbering multitudes. It troubled
1:39:48
Speaker 1: her greatly, but in the end her odd affection for
1:39:51
Speaker 1: me triumphed, and for five of the nights of our acquaintance,
1:39:54
Speaker 1: including the last night of all, she slept with her
1:39:57
Speaker 1: head pillowed on my arm. But my story slips away
1:40:01
Speaker 1: from me as I speak of her. It must have
1:40:03
Speaker 1: been the night before her rescue that I was awakened
1:40:06
Speaker 1: about dawn. I had been restless, dreaming most disagreeably, that
1:40:10
Speaker 1: I was drowned, and that sea anemonies were feeling over
1:40:14
Speaker 1: my face with their soft palps. I woke with a start,
1:40:19
Speaker 1: and with an odd fancy that some grayish animal had
1:40:23
Speaker 1: just rushed out of the chamber. I tried to get
1:40:26
Speaker 1: to sleep again, but I felt restless and uncomfortable. It
1:40:30
Speaker 1: was that dim gray hour when things are just creeping
1:40:33
Speaker 1: out of darkness, when everything is colorless and clear cut
1:40:38
Speaker 1: and yet unreal. I got up and went down into
1:40:41
Speaker 1: the Great Hall, and so out upon the flagstones in
1:40:45
Speaker 1: front of the palace. I thought I would make a
1:40:48
Speaker 1: virtue of necessity and see the sunrise. The moon was setting,
1:40:53
Speaker 1: and the dying moonlight and the first pallor of dawn
1:40:55
Speaker 1: were mingled in a ghastly half light. The bushes were
1:40:59
Speaker 1: inky black, the ground a somber gray, the sky colorless
1:41:04
Speaker 1: and cheerless. And up the hill I thought I could
1:41:09
Speaker 1: see ghosts. There were several times, as I scanned the
1:41:13
Speaker 1: slope I saw white figures. Twice I fancied I saw
1:41:18
Speaker 1: a solitary, white, apelike creature running rather quickly up the hill,
1:41:23
Speaker 1: and once near the ruins, I saw a leash of
1:41:25
Speaker 1: them carrying some dark body. They moved hastily. I did
1:41:30
Speaker 1: not see what became of them. It seemed that they
1:41:33
Speaker 1: vanished among the bushes. The dawn was still indistinct. You
1:41:37
Speaker 1: must understand I was feeling that chill, uncertain early morning
1:41:42
Speaker 1: feeling you may have known. I doubted my eyes as
1:41:47
Speaker 1: the eastern sky grew brighter, and the light of the
1:41:49
Speaker 1: day came on, and its vivid coloring returned upon the
1:41:52
Speaker 1: world once more, I scanned the view keenly, but I
1:41:57
Speaker 1: saw no vestige of my white figures. They were mere
1:42:01
Speaker 1: creatures of the half light. They must have been ghosts,
1:42:06
Speaker 1: I said, I wonder whence they dated. For a queer
1:42:11
Speaker 1: notion of grand Ellen's came into my head and amused me.
1:42:15
Speaker 1: If each generation die and leave ghosts. He argued, the
1:42:19
Speaker 1: world at last will get overcrowded with them. On that theory,
1:42:23
Speaker 1: they would have grown innumerable some eight hundred thousand years since,
1:42:27
Speaker 1: and it was no great wonder to see four at once.
1:42:31
Speaker 1: But the jest was unsatisfying, and I was thinking of
1:42:34
Speaker 1: these figures all the morning, until Weena's rescue drove them
1:42:38
Speaker 1: out of my head. I associated them in some indefinite
1:42:41
Speaker 1: way with the white animal I had startled in my
1:42:44
Speaker 1: first passionate search for the time machine. But Weena was
1:42:47
Speaker 1: a pleasant substitute. Yet all the same, they were soon
1:42:51
Speaker 1: destined to take far deadlier possession of my mind. I
1:42:57
Speaker 1: think I have said how much hotter than our own
1:42:59
Speaker 1: was the weather of this Golden age. I cannot account
1:43:03
Speaker 1: for it. It may be that the Sun was hotter,
1:43:06
Speaker 1: or the Earth nearer the Sun. It is usual to
1:43:09
Speaker 1: assume that the Sun will go on cooling steadily in
1:43:12
Speaker 1: the future, But people unfamiliar with such speculations as those
1:43:16
Speaker 1: of the younger Darwin, forget that the planets must ultimately
1:43:20
Speaker 1: fall back one by one into the parent body. As
1:43:24
Speaker 1: these catastrophes occur, the Sun will blaze with renewed energy,
1:43:29
Speaker 1: and it may be that some inner planet had suffered
1:43:32
Speaker 1: this fate. Whatever the reason, the fact remains that the
1:43:36
Speaker 1: Sun was very much hotter than we know it well.
1:43:40
Speaker 1: One very hot morning, my fourth I think, as I
1:43:44
Speaker 1: was seeking shelter from the heat and glare in a
1:43:46
Speaker 1: colossal ruin near the Great House where I slept and fed,
1:43:50
Speaker 1: there happened this strange thing. Clambering among these heaps of masonry,
1:43:55
Speaker 1: I found a narrow gallery whose end and side windows
1:43:59
Speaker 1: were blocked. I fallen masses of stone. By contrast with
1:44:03
Speaker 1: the brilliancy outside. It seemed at first impenetrably dark to me.
1:44:08
Speaker 1: I entered it, groping for the change from light to
1:44:11
Speaker 1: blackness made spots of color swim before me. Suddenly I halted,
1:44:16
Speaker 1: spell bound. A pair of eyes, luminous by reflection against
1:44:21
Speaker 1: the daylight without was watching me. Out of the darkness.
1:44:26
Speaker 1: The old instinctive dread of wild beasts came upon me.
1:44:30
Speaker 1: I clenched my hands and steadfastly looked into the glaring eyeballs.
1:44:35
Speaker 1: I was afraid to turn. Then the thought of the
1:44:38
Speaker 1: absolute security in which humanity appeared to be living came
1:44:42
Speaker 1: to my mind, and then I remembered that strange terror
1:44:46
Speaker 1: of the dark. Overcoming my fear to some extent, I
1:44:50
Speaker 1: advanced a step and spoke. I will admit that my
1:44:54
Speaker 1: voice was harsh and ill controlled. I put out my
1:44:57
Speaker 1: hand and touched something soft. At once, the eyes darted sideways,
1:45:03
Speaker 1: and something white ran past me. I turned with my
1:45:07
Speaker 1: heart in my mouth, and saw a queer, little apelike figure,
1:45:10
Speaker 1: its head held down in a peculiar manner, running across
1:45:14
Speaker 1: the sunlit space behind me. It blundered against a block
1:45:18
Speaker 1: of granite, staggered aside, and in a moment was hidden
1:45:21
Speaker 1: in a black shadow beneath another pile of ruined masonry.
1:45:26
Speaker 1: My impression of it is, of course imperfect, but I
1:45:30
Speaker 1: know it was a dull white and had strange, large
1:45:34
Speaker 1: grayish red eyes, also that there was flaxen hair on
1:45:38
Speaker 1: its head and down its back. But as I say,
1:45:42
Speaker 1: it went too fast for me to see distinctly, I
1:45:46
Speaker 1: cannot even say whether it ran on all fours or
1:45:49
Speaker 1: only with its forearms held very low. After an instant's pause,
1:45:54
Speaker 1: I followed it into the second heap of ruins. I
1:45:57
Speaker 1: could not find it at first, but after a time
1:46:00
Speaker 1: in the profound obscurity, I came upon one of those
1:46:04
Speaker 1: round well, like openings of which I have told you,
1:46:07
Speaker 1: half closed by a fallen pillar. A sudden thought came
1:46:11
Speaker 1: to me, could this thing have vanished down the shaft?
1:46:16
Speaker 1: I lit a match, and looking down, I saw a small, white,
1:46:20
Speaker 1: moving creature with large, bright eyes, which regarded me steadfastly
1:46:25
Speaker 1: as it retreated. It made me shudder. It was so
1:46:29
Speaker 1: like a human spider. It was clambering down the wall.
1:46:33
Speaker 1: And now I saw for the first time a number
1:46:35
Speaker 1: of metal foot and hand rests forming a kind of
1:46:38
Speaker 1: ladder down the shaft. Then the light burned my fingers
1:46:42
Speaker 1: and fell out of my hand, going out as it dropped,
1:46:45
Speaker 1: and when I lit another the little monster had disappeared.
1:46:51
Speaker 1: I do not know how long I sat peering down
1:46:53
Speaker 1: that well. It was not for some time that I
1:46:56
Speaker 1: could succeed in persuading myself that the thing I had
1:46:59
Speaker 1: seen was human. But gradually the truth dawned on me
1:47:04
Speaker 1: that man had not remained one species, but had differentiated
1:47:09
Speaker 1: into two distinct animals, That my graceful children of the
1:47:13
Speaker 1: upper world were not the sole descendants of our generation,
1:47:17
Speaker 1: but that this bleached, obscene, nocturnal thing which had flashed
1:47:22
Speaker 1: before me was also heir to all the ages I
1:47:27
Speaker 1: thought of the flickering pillars, and of my theory of
1:47:31
Speaker 1: an underground ventilation. I began to suspect their true import
1:47:36
Speaker 1: And what I wondered was this lemur doing in my
1:47:40
Speaker 1: scheme of a perfectly balanced organization? How was it related
1:47:45
Speaker 1: to the indolent serenity of the beautiful upper worlders? And
1:47:49
Speaker 1: what was hidden down there at the foot of that shaft.
1:47:54
Speaker 1: I sat upon the edge of the well, telling myself
1:47:57
Speaker 1: that at any rate, there was nothing to fear, and
1:48:00
Speaker 1: that there I must descend for the solution of my difficulties,
1:48:05
Speaker 1: and withal I was absolutely afraid to go. As I hesitated,
1:48:10
Speaker 1: two of the beautiful upper world people came running in
1:48:13
Speaker 1: their amorous sport across the daylight in the shadow. The
1:48:17
Speaker 1: male pursued the female, flinging flowers at her as he ran.
1:48:21
Speaker 1: They seemed distressed to find me my arm against the
1:48:24
Speaker 1: overturned pillar peering down the well. Apparently it was considered
1:48:29
Speaker 1: bad form to remark these apertures, for when I pointed
1:48:32
Speaker 1: to this one and try to frame a question about
1:48:35
Speaker 1: it in their tongue, they were still more visibly distressed
1:48:38
Speaker 1: and turned away. But they were interested by my matches,
1:48:43
Speaker 1: and I struck some to amuse them. I tried them
1:48:46
Speaker 1: again about the well, and again I failed. So presently
1:48:50
Speaker 1: I left them, meaning to go back to Weena and
1:48:53
Speaker 1: see what I could get from her. But my mind
1:48:56
Speaker 1: was already in revolution. My guesses and in presses were
1:49:00
Speaker 1: slipping and sliding to a new adjustment. I had now
1:49:04
Speaker 1: a clue to the import of these wells, to the
1:49:07
Speaker 1: ventilating towers, to the mystery of the ghosts, to say
1:49:11
Speaker 1: nothing of a hint at the meaning of the bronze
1:49:14
Speaker 1: gates and the fate of the time machine. And very
1:49:19
Speaker 1: vaguely there came a suggestion towards the solution of the
1:49:23
Speaker 1: economic problem that had puzzled me. Here was the new view. Plainly,
1:49:29
Speaker 1: the second species of man was subterranean. There were three
1:49:33
Speaker 1: circumstances in particular, which made me think that its rare
1:49:36
Speaker 1: emergence above ground was the outcome of a long, continued
1:49:40
Speaker 1: underground habit. In the first place, there was the bleached
1:49:44
Speaker 1: look common in most animals that live largely in the dark,
1:49:48
Speaker 1: the white fish of the Kentucky Caves, for instance. Then
1:49:53
Speaker 1: those large eyes with that capacity for reflecting light are
1:49:57
Speaker 1: common features of nocturnal things witness the owl and the cat.
1:50:03
Speaker 1: And last of all, that evident confusion in the sunshine,
1:50:07
Speaker 1: that hasty yet fumbling, awkward flight towards dark shadow, and
1:50:12
Speaker 1: that peculiar carriage of the head while in the light.
1:50:15
Speaker 1: All reinforced the theory of an extreme sensitiveness of the
1:50:19
Speaker 1: retina beneath my feet. Then the earth must be tunneled enormously,
1:50:25
Speaker 1: and these tunnelings were the habitats of the new race.
1:50:29
Speaker 1: The presence of ventilating shafts and wells along the hill
1:50:32
Speaker 1: slopes everywhere, in fact, except along the river valley, showed
1:50:36
Speaker 1: how universal were its ramifications. What so natural, then, as
1:50:41
Speaker 1: to assume that it was in this artificial underworld that
1:50:45
Speaker 1: such work as was necessary to the comfort of the
1:50:47
Speaker 1: daylight race was done. The notion was so plausible that
1:50:52
Speaker 1: I at once accepted it, and went on to assume
1:50:55
Speaker 1: the how of this splitting of the human species. I
1:50:59
Speaker 1: daresay you will anticipate the shape of my theory, though
1:51:03
Speaker 1: for myself I very soon felt that it fell far
1:51:07
Speaker 1: short of the truth. At first, proceeding from the problems
1:51:13
Speaker 1: of our own age, it seemed clear as daylight to
1:51:15
Speaker 1: me that the gradual widening of the present merely temporary
1:51:19
Speaker 1: and social difference between the capitalist and the laborer was
1:51:23
Speaker 1: the key to the whole position. No doubt, it will
1:51:27
Speaker 1: seem grotesque enough to you, and wildly incredible, And yet
1:51:31
Speaker 1: even now there are existing circumstances to point that way.
1:51:36
Speaker 1: There is a tendency to utilize underground space for the
1:51:39
Speaker 1: less ornamental purposes of civilization. There is the Metropolitan Railway
1:51:44
Speaker 1: in London, for instance. There are the new electric railways,
1:51:47
Speaker 1: There are subways, There are underground workrooms and restaurants, and
1:51:51
Speaker 1: they increase and multiply. Evidently, I thought this tendency had
1:51:56
Speaker 1: increased till industry had gradually lost its birthright in the sky.
1:52:02
Speaker 1: I mean that it had gone deeper and deeper into
1:52:05
Speaker 1: larger and ever larger underground factories, spending a still increasing
1:52:10
Speaker 1: amount of its time therein till in the end, even now,
1:52:15
Speaker 1: does not an East End worker live in such artificial
1:52:17
Speaker 1: conditions as practically to be cut off from the natural
1:52:20
Speaker 1: surface of the earth. Again, the exclusive tendency of richer people,
1:52:26
Speaker 1: due no doubt to the increasing refinement of their education
1:52:30
Speaker 1: and the widening gulf between them and the rude violence
1:52:33
Speaker 1: of the poor, is already leading to the closing in
1:52:36
Speaker 1: their interest of considerable portions of the surface of the land.
1:52:40
Speaker 1: About London, for instance, perhaps half the prettier country is
1:52:44
Speaker 1: shut in against intrusion. And the same widening gulf, which
1:52:50
Speaker 1: is due to the length and expense of the higher
1:52:52
Speaker 1: educational process, and the increased facilities for and temptations towards
1:52:57
Speaker 1: refined habits on the part of the rich, will make
1:53:00
Speaker 1: that exchange between class and class, that promotion by intermarriage,
1:53:05
Speaker 1: which at present retards the splitting of our species along
1:53:09
Speaker 1: lines of social stratification, less and less frequent. So in
1:53:14
Speaker 1: the end, above ground you must have the halves pursuing
1:53:18
Speaker 1: pleasure and comfort and beauty, and below ground the havenots,
1:53:23
Speaker 1: the workers getting continually adapted to the conditions of their labor.
1:53:29
Speaker 1: Once they were there, they would no doubt have to
1:53:31
Speaker 1: pay rent, and not a little of it, for the
1:53:33
Speaker 1: ventilation of their caverns, and if they refused, they would
1:53:37
Speaker 1: starve or be suffocated for arrears. Such of them as
1:53:42
Speaker 1: were so constituted as to be miserable and rebellious would die,
1:53:47
Speaker 1: And in the end, the balance being permanent, the survivors
1:53:50
Speaker 1: would become as well adapted to the conditions of underground life,
1:53:54
Speaker 1: and as happy in their way as the upper world
1:53:57
Speaker 1: people were to theirs. As it seemed to me, the
1:54:01
Speaker 1: refined beauty and the etiolated pallor followed. Naturally enough, the
1:54:07
Speaker 1: great triumph of humanity I had dreamed of took a
1:54:11
Speaker 1: different shape in my mind. It had been no such
1:54:14
Speaker 1: triumph of moral education and general cooperation as I had imagined. Instead,
1:54:21
Speaker 1: I saw a real aristocracy, armed with a perfected science
1:54:26
Speaker 1: and working to a logical conclusion the industrial system of today.
1:54:31
Speaker 1: Its triumph had not been simply a triumph over nature,
1:54:34
Speaker 1: but a triumph over nature and the fellow man. This,
1:54:40
Speaker 1: I must warn you, was my theory at the time.
1:54:44
Speaker 1: I had no convenient cicerone in the pattern of the
1:54:47
Speaker 1: utopian books. My explanation may be absolutely wrong. I still
1:54:52
Speaker 1: think it is the most plausible one. But even on
1:54:56
Speaker 1: this supposition, the balanced civilization that was at least attained
1:55:00
Speaker 1: must have long since passed its zenith and was now
1:55:03
Speaker 1: far fallen into decay. The too perfect security of the
1:55:09
Speaker 1: upper worlders had led them to a slow movement of degeneration,
1:55:14
Speaker 1: to a general dwindling in size, strength, and intelligence that
1:55:19
Speaker 1: I could see clearly enough already what had happened to
1:55:22
Speaker 1: the underworlders I did not yet suspect, but from what
1:55:26
Speaker 1: I had seen of the Morlocks, that, by the way,
1:55:29
Speaker 1: was the name by which the creatures were called, I
1:55:31
Speaker 1: could imagine that the modification of the human type was
1:55:35
Speaker 1: even far more profound than among the Eloi, the beautiful
1:55:39
Speaker 1: race that I already knew. Then came troublesome doubts. Why
1:55:46
Speaker 1: had the Morlocks taken my time machine? For I felt
1:55:49
Speaker 1: sure it was they who had taken it. Why, too,
1:55:52
Speaker 1: if the Eloi were masters, could they not restore the
1:55:56
Speaker 1: machine to me? And why were they so terribly afraid
1:55:59
Speaker 1: of the dark. I proceeded, as I have said, to
1:56:03
Speaker 1: question Weena about this underworld, But here again I was disappointed.
1:56:09
Speaker 1: At first she would not understand my questions, and presently
1:56:13
Speaker 1: she refused to answer them. She shivered, as though the
1:56:17
Speaker 1: topic was unendurable, and when I pressed her, perhaps a
1:56:21
Speaker 1: little harshly, she burst into tears. They were the only
1:56:26
Speaker 1: tears except my own I ever saw in that golden age.
1:56:31
Speaker 1: When I saw them, I ceased abruptly to trouble about
1:56:34
Speaker 1: the Morlocks, and was only concerned in banishing these signs
1:56:38
Speaker 1: of the human inheritance from Weena's eyes, and very soon
1:56:43
Speaker 1: she was smiling and clapping her hands while I solemnly
1:56:47
Speaker 1: burned a match. End of Chapter five, Chapter six. It
1:56:55
Speaker 1: may seem odd to you, but it was two days
1:56:58
Speaker 1: before I could follow up the new fountain clue in
1:57:00
Speaker 1: what was manifestly the proper way. I felt a peculiar
1:57:05
Speaker 1: shrinking from those pallid bodies. They were just the half
1:57:08
Speaker 1: bleached color of the worms and things one sees preserved
1:57:11
Speaker 1: in spirit in a zoological museum, and they were filthily
1:57:15
Speaker 1: cold to the touch. Probably my shrinking was largely due
1:57:20
Speaker 1: to the sympathetic influence of the Eloi, whose disgust of
1:57:23
Speaker 1: the morlocks I now began to appreciate. The next night,
1:57:28
Speaker 1: I did not sleep well. Probably my health was a
1:57:31
Speaker 1: little disordered. I was oppressed with perplexity and doubt. Once
1:57:36
Speaker 1: or twice I had a feeling of intense fear for
1:57:39
Speaker 1: which I could perceive no definite reason. I remember creeping
1:57:45
Speaker 1: noiselessly into the Great Hall where the little people were
1:57:48
Speaker 1: sleeping in the moonlight that night. Weena was among them,
1:57:52
Speaker 1: and feeling reassured by their presence. It occurred to me
1:57:56
Speaker 1: even then that in the course of a few days,
1:57:59
Speaker 1: the moon must pass through its last quarter, and the
1:58:02
Speaker 1: nights grow dark when the appearances of these unpleasant creatures
1:58:06
Speaker 1: from below, these whitened lemurs, this new vermin that had
1:58:11
Speaker 1: replaced the old, might be more abundant. And on both
1:58:15
Speaker 1: these days I had the restless feeling of one who
1:58:19
Speaker 1: shirks an inevitable duty. I felt assured that the time
1:58:23
Speaker 1: machine was only to be recovered by boldly penetrating these
1:58:27
Speaker 1: underground mysteries. Yet I could not face the mystery. If
1:58:32
Speaker 1: only I had had a companion, it would have been different.
1:58:36
Speaker 1: But I was so horribly alone, and even to clamber
1:58:39
Speaker 1: down into the darkness of the well appalled me. I
1:58:43
Speaker 1: don't know if you will understand my feeling, but I
1:58:46
Speaker 1: never felt quite safe at my back. It was this restlessness,
1:58:51
Speaker 1: this insecurity, perhaps that drove me further and further afield
1:58:56
Speaker 1: in my exploring expeditions. Going to the south northwestward towards
1:59:01
Speaker 1: the rising country that is now called combe Wood, I observed,
1:59:05
Speaker 1: far off in the direction of nineteenth century Banstead, a
1:59:09
Speaker 1: vast green structure, different in character from any I had
1:59:13
Speaker 1: hitherto seen. It was larger than the largest of the
1:59:17
Speaker 1: palaces or ruins I knew, and the facade had an
1:59:21
Speaker 1: oriental look, the face of it having the luster as
1:59:25
Speaker 1: well as the pale green tint, a kind of bluish
1:59:28
Speaker 1: green of a certain type of Chinese porcelain. This difference
1:59:32
Speaker 1: in aspect suggested a difference in use, and I was
1:59:36
Speaker 1: minded to push on and explore. But the day was
1:59:40
Speaker 1: growing late, and I had come upon the side of
1:59:42
Speaker 1: the place after a long and tiring circuit. So I
1:59:46
Speaker 1: resolved to hold over the adventure for the following day,
1:59:49
Speaker 1: and I returned to the welcome and the caresses of
1:59:52
Speaker 1: Little Weena. But next morning I perceived clearly enough that
1:59:56
Speaker 1: my curiosity regarding the palace of Green porcelain was a
2:00:00
Speaker 1: piece of self deception to enable me to shirk by
2:00:04
Speaker 1: another day and experience I dreaded. I resolved I would
2:00:08
Speaker 1: make the descent without further waste of time, and started
2:00:12
Speaker 1: out in the early morning towards a well near the
2:00:14
Speaker 1: ruins of granite and aluminium. Little Weena ran with me.
2:00:20
Speaker 1: She danced beside me to the well, but when she
2:00:23
Speaker 1: saw me lean over the mouth and look downward, she
2:00:26
Speaker 1: seemed strangely disconcerted. Good Bye, Little Weena, I said, kissing her,
2:00:32
Speaker 1: and then putting her down. I began to feel over
2:00:34
Speaker 1: the parapet for the climbing hooks rather hastily, I may
2:00:39
Speaker 1: as well confess, for I feared my courage might leak away.
2:00:43
Speaker 1: At first she watched me in amazement. Then she gave
2:00:47
Speaker 1: a most piteous cry, and running to me, she began
2:00:50
Speaker 1: to pull at me with her little hands. I think
2:00:53
Speaker 1: her opposition nerved me rather to proceed. I shook her off,
2:00:58
Speaker 1: perhaps a little roughly, and in another moment I was
2:01:01
Speaker 1: in the throat of the well. I saw her agonized
2:01:04
Speaker 1: face over the parapet, and smiled to reassure her. Then
2:01:09
Speaker 1: I clung to look down at the unstable hooks to
2:01:12
Speaker 1: which I clung. I had to clamber down a shaft
2:01:16
Speaker 1: of perhaps two hundred yards. The descent was affected by
2:01:20
Speaker 1: means of metallic bars projecting from the sides of the well,
2:01:24
Speaker 1: and these being adapted to the needs of a creature
2:01:26
Speaker 1: much smaller and lighter than myself. I was speedily cramped
2:01:30
Speaker 1: and fatigued by the descent, and not simply fatigued. One
2:01:35
Speaker 1: of the bars bent suddenly under my weight and almost
2:01:38
Speaker 1: swung me off into the blackness. Beneath. For a moment
2:01:43
Speaker 1: I hung by one hand, and after that experience I
2:01:46
Speaker 1: did not dare to rest again. Though my arms and
2:01:49
Speaker 1: back were presently acutely painful, I went on clambering down
2:01:54
Speaker 1: the sheer descent with as quick emotion as possible. Glancing upward,
2:01:58
Speaker 1: I saw the aperture a small blue disk in which
2:02:02
Speaker 1: a star was visible, while little Weena's head showed as
2:02:05
Speaker 1: a round black projection. The thudding sound of a machine
2:02:10
Speaker 1: below grew louder and more oppressive. Everything save that little
2:02:14
Speaker 1: disk above was profoundly dark, and when I looked up again,
2:02:19
Speaker 1: Weena had disappeared. I was in an agony of discomfort.
2:02:25
Speaker 1: I had some thought of trying to go up the
2:02:26
Speaker 1: shaft again and leave the under world alone, But even
2:02:31
Speaker 1: while I turned this over in my mind, I continued
2:02:33
Speaker 1: to descend. At last, with intense relief, I saw dimly
2:02:39
Speaker 1: coming up a foot to the right of me, a
2:02:41
Speaker 1: slender loop hole in the wall. Swinging myself in, I
2:02:45
Speaker 1: found it was the aperture of a narrow, horizontal tunnel
2:02:48
Speaker 1: in which I could lie down and rest. It was
2:02:52
Speaker 1: not too soon my arms ached, my back was cramped,
2:02:56
Speaker 1: and I was trembling with the prolonged terror of a fall.
2:03:00
Speaker 1: Besides this, the unbroken darkness had had a distressing effect
2:03:04
Speaker 1: upon my eyes. The air was full of the throb
2:03:07
Speaker 1: and hum of machinery pumping air down the shaft. I
2:03:12
Speaker 1: do not know how long I lay. I was roused
2:03:16
Speaker 1: by a soft hand touching my face. Starting up in
2:03:20
Speaker 1: the darkness, I snatched at my matches and hastily striking one,
2:03:24
Speaker 1: I saw three stooping white creatures, similar to the one
2:03:28
Speaker 1: I had seen above ground in the ruin, hastily retreating
2:03:31
Speaker 1: before the light, living as they did in what appeared
2:03:36
Speaker 1: to me impenetrable darkness. Their eyes were abnormally large and sensitive,
2:03:42
Speaker 1: just as are the pupils of the abysmal fishes, and
2:03:45
Speaker 1: they reflected the light in the same way. I have
2:03:48
Speaker 1: no doubt they could see me in that rayless obscurity,
2:03:52
Speaker 1: and they did not seem to have any fear of
2:03:54
Speaker 1: me apart from the light. But so soon as I
2:03:57
Speaker 1: struck a match in order to see them, they fled incontinently,
2:04:01
Speaker 1: vanishing into dark gutters and tunnels, from which their eyes
2:04:05
Speaker 1: glared at me in the strangest fashion. I tried to
2:04:10
Speaker 1: call to them, but the language they had was apparently
2:04:13
Speaker 1: different from that of the over world people, so that
2:04:17
Speaker 1: I was needs left to my own unaided efforts, and
2:04:20
Speaker 1: the thought of flight before exploration was even then in
2:04:23
Speaker 1: my mind. But I said to myself, you are in
2:04:28
Speaker 1: for it now, And feeling my way along the tunnel,
2:04:31
Speaker 1: I found the noise of machinery grow louder. Presently the
2:04:35
Speaker 1: walls fell away from me, and I came into a
2:04:38
Speaker 1: large open space, and, striking another match, saw that I
2:04:42
Speaker 1: had entered a vast, arched cavern which stretched into utter
2:04:46
Speaker 1: darkness beyond the range of my light. The view I
2:04:49
Speaker 1: had of it was as much as one could see
2:04:51
Speaker 1: in the burning of a match. Necessarily, my memory is vague.
2:04:58
Speaker 1: Great shapes like big man machines rose out of the
2:05:01
Speaker 1: dimness and cast grotesque black shadows in which dim spectral
2:05:06
Speaker 1: morlocks sheltered from the glare. The place by the by
2:05:11
Speaker 1: was very stuffy and oppressive, and a faint halitus of
2:05:14
Speaker 1: freshly shed blood was in the air. Some Way down
2:05:18
Speaker 1: the central vista was a little table of white metal
2:05:21
Speaker 1: laid with what seemed a meal. The morlocks, at any rate,
2:05:25
Speaker 1: were carnivorous. Even at the time, I remember wondering what
2:05:30
Speaker 1: large animal could have survived to furnish the red joint.
2:05:33
Speaker 1: I saw it was all very indistinct, the heavy smell,
2:05:38
Speaker 1: the big, unmeaning shapes, the obscene figures lurking in the shadows,
2:05:44
Speaker 1: and only waiting for the darkness to come at me again.
2:05:48
Speaker 1: Then the match burned down and stung my fingers, and
2:05:51
Speaker 1: fell a wriggling red spot in the blackness. I have
2:05:56
Speaker 1: thought since how particularly ill equipped I was such an experience.
2:06:02
Speaker 1: When I had started with the time machine, I had
2:06:04
Speaker 1: started with the absurd assumption that the men of the
2:06:07
Speaker 1: future would certainly be infinitely ahead of ourselves in all
2:06:11
Speaker 1: their appliances. I had come without arms, without medicine, without
2:06:15
Speaker 1: anything to smoke. At times I missed tobacco frightfully, even
2:06:20
Speaker 1: without enough matches. If only I had thought of a Kodak,
2:06:25
Speaker 1: I could have flashed that glimpse of the underworld in
2:06:28
Speaker 1: a second and examined it at leisure. But as it was,
2:06:32
Speaker 1: I stood there with only the weapons and the powers
2:06:35
Speaker 1: that nature had endowed me with hands, feet, and teeth,
2:06:40
Speaker 1: these and four safety matches that still remained to me.
2:06:46
Speaker 1: I was afraid to push my way in among all
2:06:48
Speaker 1: this machinery. In the dark, and it was only with
2:06:51
Speaker 1: my last glimpse of light I discovered that my store
2:06:54
Speaker 1: of matches had run low. It had never occurred to
2:06:58
Speaker 1: me until that moment that there was any need to
2:07:01
Speaker 1: economize them, and I had wasted almost half the box
2:07:04
Speaker 1: in astonishing the upper worlders, to whom fire was a novelty. Now,
2:07:10
Speaker 1: as I say, I had four left, And while I
2:07:13
Speaker 1: stood in the dark, a hand touched mine. Lank fingers
2:07:18
Speaker 1: came feeling over my face, and I was sensible of
2:07:21
Speaker 1: a peculiar, unpleasant odor. I fancied. I heard the breathing
2:07:26
Speaker 1: of a crowd of these dreadful little beings about me.
2:07:30
Speaker 1: I felt the box of matches in my hand being
2:07:32
Speaker 1: gently disengaged, and other hands behind me plucking at my clothing.
2:07:38
Speaker 1: The sense of these unseen creatures examining me was indescribably unpleasant.
2:07:44
Speaker 1: The sudden realization of my ignorance of their ways of
2:07:47
Speaker 1: thinking and doing came home to me very vividly. In
2:07:50
Speaker 1: the darkness. I shouted at them as loudly as I could.
2:07:54
Speaker 1: They started away, and then I could feel them approaching
2:07:57
Speaker 1: me again. They clutched it me more boldly, whispering odd
2:08:02
Speaker 1: sounds to each other. I shivered violently and shouted again,
2:08:07
Speaker 1: rather discordantly. This time they were not so seriously alarmed,
2:08:11
Speaker 1: and they made a queer, laughing noise as they came
2:08:14
Speaker 1: back at me. I will confess I was horribly frightened.
2:08:20
Speaker 1: I determined to strike another match and escape under the
2:08:22
Speaker 1: protection of its glare. I did so, and eking out
2:08:26
Speaker 1: the flicker with a scrap of paper from my pocket,
2:08:29
Speaker 1: I made good my retreat to the narrow tunnel. But
2:08:33
Speaker 1: I had scarce entered this when my light was blown
2:08:36
Speaker 1: out and in the darkness, I could hear the morlocks
2:08:39
Speaker 1: rustling like wind among leaves, and pattering like the rain
2:08:43
Speaker 1: as they hurried after me. In a moment, I was
2:08:47
Speaker 1: clutched by several hands, and there was no mistaking that
2:08:50
Speaker 1: they were trying to haul me back. I struck another
2:08:53
Speaker 1: light and waved it in their dazzled faces. You can
2:08:57
Speaker 1: scarce imagine how nauseatingly human they looked, those pale, chinless
2:09:03
Speaker 1: faces and great, lidless, pinkish gray eyes as they stared
2:09:08
Speaker 1: in their blindness and bewilderment. But I did not stay
2:09:13
Speaker 1: to look, I promise you. I retreated again, and when
2:09:16
Speaker 1: my second match had ended, I struck my third it
2:09:21
Speaker 1: had almost burned through. When I reached the opening into
2:09:24
Speaker 1: the shaft, I laid down on the edge, for the
2:09:27
Speaker 1: throb of the great pump below made me giddy. Then
2:09:31
Speaker 1: I felt sideways for the projecting hooks, and as I
2:09:34
Speaker 1: did so, my feet were grass from behind, and I
2:09:38
Speaker 1: was violently tugged backward. I lit my last match, and
2:09:43
Speaker 1: it incontinently went out, But I had my hand on
2:09:46
Speaker 1: the climbing bars now and kicking violently. I disengaged myself
2:09:51
Speaker 1: from the clutches of the morlocks and was speedily clambering
2:09:54
Speaker 1: up the shaft, while they stayed peering and blinking up
2:09:57
Speaker 1: at me. All but one little wretch, who followed me
2:10:01
Speaker 1: for some way and well nigh secured my boot as
2:10:04
Speaker 1: a trophy. That climb seemed interminable to me. With the
2:10:09
Speaker 1: last twenty or thirty feet of it, a deadly nausea
2:10:12
Speaker 1: came upon me. I had the greatest difficulty in keeping
2:10:16
Speaker 1: my hold. The last few yards was a frightful struggle
2:10:20
Speaker 1: against this faintness. Several times my head swam, and I
2:10:24
Speaker 1: felt all the sensations of falling. At last, however, I
2:10:29
Speaker 1: got over the well mouth somehow, and staggered out of
2:10:32
Speaker 1: the ruin into the blinding sunlight. I fell upon my face.
2:10:36
Speaker 1: Even the soil smelt sweet and clean. Then I remember
2:10:41
Speaker 1: Weena kissing my hands and ears, and the voices of
2:10:45
Speaker 1: others among the eloy Then for a time I was insensible.
2:10:52
Speaker 1: End of chapter six, Chapter seven. Now, indeed I seemed
2:10:59
Speaker 1: in a worse case than before. Hitherto, except during my
2:11:03
Speaker 1: night's anguish at the loss of the time machine, I
2:11:06
Speaker 1: had felt a sustaining hope of ultimate escape. But that
2:11:10
Speaker 1: hope was staggered by these new discoveries. Hitherto I had
2:11:15
Speaker 1: merely thought myself impeded by the childish simplicity of the
2:11:18
Speaker 1: little people, and by some unknown forces which I had
2:11:22
Speaker 1: only to understand to overcome. But there was an altogether
2:11:26
Speaker 1: new element in the sickening quality of the morlocks, a
2:11:30
Speaker 1: something inhuman and malign. Instinctively I loathed them. Before I
2:11:37
Speaker 1: had felt as a man might feel who had fallen
2:11:39
Speaker 1: into a pit. My concern was with the pit and
2:11:42
Speaker 1: how to get out of it. Now I felt like
2:11:45
Speaker 1: a beast in a trap whose enemy would come upon
2:11:49
Speaker 1: him soon. The enemy I dreaded, may surprise you. It
2:11:54
Speaker 1: was the darkness of the new moon. Weena had put
2:11:57
Speaker 1: this into my head by some at first incomprehensible remarks
2:12:02
Speaker 1: about the dark nights. It was not now such a
2:12:05
Speaker 1: very difficult problem to guess what the coming of dark
2:12:08
Speaker 1: nights might mean. The moon was on the wane each night,
2:12:13
Speaker 1: there was a longer interval of darkness, and now I
2:12:17
Speaker 1: understood to some slight degree at least the reason of
2:12:20
Speaker 1: the fear of the little upper world people for the dark.
2:12:24
Speaker 1: I wondered vaguely what foul villainy it might be that
2:12:27
Speaker 1: the Morlocks did under the new moon. I felt pretty
2:12:31
Speaker 1: sure now that my second hypothesis was all wrong. The
2:12:35
Speaker 1: upper world people might once have been the favored aristocracy
2:12:39
Speaker 1: and the Morlocks their mechanical servants, but that had long
2:12:43
Speaker 1: since passed away. The two species that had resulted from
2:12:47
Speaker 1: the evolution of man were sliding down towards or had
2:12:51
Speaker 1: already arrived at an altogether new relationship. The Eloi, like
2:12:56
Speaker 1: the Carolingian kings, had decayed to a mere, beautiful futility.
2:13:02
Speaker 1: They still possessed the earth on sufferance. Since the Morlocks,
2:13:05
Speaker 1: subterranean for innumerable generations, had come at last to find
2:13:09
Speaker 1: the day that surface intolerable, and the morlocks made their garments.
2:13:14
Speaker 1: I inferred and maintained them in their habitual needs, perhaps
2:13:18
Speaker 1: through the survival of an old habit of service. They
2:13:22
Speaker 1: did it as a standing horse paused with his foot,
2:13:26
Speaker 1: or as a man enjoys killing animals in sport, because
2:13:30
Speaker 1: ancient and departed necessities had impressed it on the organism.
2:13:34
Speaker 1: But clearly the old order was already in part reversed.
2:13:39
Speaker 1: The nemesis of the delicate ones was creeping on apace
2:13:43
Speaker 1: ages ago, thousands of generations ago. Men had thrust his
2:13:47
Speaker 1: brother Men out of the ease and the sunshine, and
2:13:51
Speaker 1: now that brother was coming back. Changed Already, the eloy
2:13:56
Speaker 1: had begun to learn one old lesson anew. They were
2:14:00
Speaker 1: becoming reacquainted with fear. And suddenly there came into my
2:14:04
Speaker 1: head the memory of the meat I had seen in
2:14:07
Speaker 1: the underworld. It seemed odd, how it floated into my mind,
2:14:12
Speaker 1: not stirred up, as it were, by the current of
2:14:15
Speaker 1: my meditations, but coming in almost like a question from outside.
2:14:20
Speaker 1: I tried to recall the form of it. I had
2:14:23
Speaker 1: a vague sense of something familiar, but I could not
2:14:26
Speaker 1: tell what it was at the time. Still, however, helpless
2:14:31
Speaker 1: the little peopled in the presence of their mysterious fear.
2:14:35
Speaker 1: I was differently constituted. I came out of this age
2:14:39
Speaker 1: of ours, this ripe prime of the human race. When
2:14:42
Speaker 1: fear does not paralyze and mystery has lost its terrors,
2:14:47
Speaker 1: I at least would defend myself without further delay. I
2:14:51
Speaker 1: determined to make myself arms and a fastness where I
2:14:54
Speaker 1: might sleep. With that refuge as a base, I could
2:14:58
Speaker 1: face this strange world with some of that confidence I
2:15:01
Speaker 1: had lost in realizing to what creatures night by night
2:15:04
Speaker 1: I lay exposed. I felt I could never sleep again
2:15:08
Speaker 1: until my bed was secure from them. I shuddered with
2:15:12
Speaker 1: horror to think how they must already have examined me.
2:15:16
Speaker 1: I wandered during the afternoon along the valley of the Thames,
2:15:19
Speaker 1: but found nothing that commended itself to my mind as inaccessible.
2:15:24
Speaker 1: All the buildings and trees seemed easily practical to such
2:15:28
Speaker 1: dexterous climbers as the Morlocks, to judge by their wells,
2:15:32
Speaker 1: must be. Then, the tall pinnacles of the Palace of
2:15:36
Speaker 1: Green Porcelain and the polished gleam of its walls came
2:15:39
Speaker 1: back to my memory and in the evening, taking Weena
2:15:42
Speaker 1: like a child upon my shoulder, I went up the
2:15:45
Speaker 1: hills towards the southwest. The distance I had reckoned was
2:15:49
Speaker 1: seven or eight miles, but it must have been near eighteen.
2:15:54
Speaker 1: I had first seen the place on a moist afternoon,
2:15:57
Speaker 1: when distances are deceptively diminished. In addition, the heel of
2:16:01
Speaker 1: one of my shoes was loose and a nail was
2:16:04
Speaker 1: working through the sole. They were comfortable old shoes. I
2:16:07
Speaker 1: wore about indoors, so that I was lame, and it
2:16:11
Speaker 1: was already long past sunset when I came in sight
2:16:14
Speaker 1: of the palace, silhouetted black against the pale yellow of
2:16:17
Speaker 1: the sky. Weena had been hugely delighted when I began
2:16:22
Speaker 1: to carry her, but after a while she desired me
2:16:25
Speaker 1: to let her down, and ran along by the side
2:16:27
Speaker 1: of me, occasionally darting off on either hand to pick
2:16:30
Speaker 1: flowers to stick in my pockets. My pockets had always
2:16:34
Speaker 1: puzzled Weena, but at the last she had concluded that
2:16:38
Speaker 1: they were an eccentric kind of vase for floral decoration.
2:16:42
Speaker 1: At least she utilized them for that purpose, and that
2:16:45
Speaker 1: reminds me. In changing my jacket, I found the time
2:16:50
Speaker 1: traveler paused, put his hand into his pocket, and silently
2:16:53
Speaker 1: placed two withered flowers, not unlike very large white mallows,
2:16:58
Speaker 1: upon the little table. Then he resumed his narrative as
2:17:02
Speaker 1: the hush of the evening crept over the world, and
2:17:05
Speaker 1: we proceeded over the hill crest towards Wimbledon. Weena grew
2:17:08
Speaker 1: tired and wanted to return to the House of gray Stone,
2:17:12
Speaker 1: but I pointed out the distant pinnacles of the Palace
2:17:15
Speaker 1: of Green Porcelain to her, and contrived to make her
2:17:18
Speaker 1: understand that we were seeking a refuge there from her fear.
2:17:22
Speaker 1: You know that great pause that comes upon things before
2:17:25
Speaker 1: the dusk, even the breeze stops in the trees. To me,
2:17:30
Speaker 1: there is always an air of expectation about that evening stillness.
2:17:34
Speaker 1: The sky was clear, remote and empty, save for a
2:17:38
Speaker 1: few horizontal bars far down in the sunset. Well that night,
2:17:43
Speaker 1: the expectation took the color of my fears. In that
2:17:47
Speaker 1: darkling calm, my senses seemed peter naturally sharpened. I fancied
2:17:53
Speaker 1: I could even feel the hollowness of the ground beneath
2:17:56
Speaker 1: my feet, could indeed almost see through it. The morlocks
2:18:00
Speaker 1: on their ant hill, going hither and thither, and waiting
2:18:04
Speaker 1: for the dark. In my excitement I fancied that they
2:18:08
Speaker 1: would receive my invasion of their burrows as a declaration
2:18:11
Speaker 1: of war. And why had they taken my time machine?
2:18:17
Speaker 1: So we went on in the quiet, and the twilight
2:18:20
Speaker 1: deepened into night. The clear blue of the distance faded,
2:18:25
Speaker 1: and one star after another came out. The ground grew dim,
2:18:30
Speaker 1: and the trees black. Ween A's fears and her fatigue
2:18:33
Speaker 1: grew upon her. I took her in my arms and
2:18:36
Speaker 1: talked to her and caressed her. Then, as the darkness
2:18:40
Speaker 1: grew deeper, she put her arms round my neck, and,
2:18:43
Speaker 1: closing her eyes tightly, pressed her face against my shoulder.
2:18:48
Speaker 1: So we went down a long slope into a valley,
2:18:51
Speaker 1: and there, in the dimness, I almost walked into a
2:18:54
Speaker 1: little river. This I waited, and went up on the
2:18:57
Speaker 1: opposite side of the valley, pasted a number of sleeping houses,
2:19:01
Speaker 1: and by a statue a fawn or some such figure
2:19:04
Speaker 1: minus the head. Here too were acacious. So far I
2:19:09
Speaker 1: had seen nothing of the Morlocks. But it was yet
2:19:12
Speaker 1: early in the night, and the darker hours before the
2:19:15
Speaker 1: old moon rose were still to come from the brow
2:19:19
Speaker 1: of the next hill, I saw a thick wood spreading
2:19:22
Speaker 1: wide and black before me. I hesitated at this. I
2:19:26
Speaker 1: could see no end to it, either to the right
2:19:29
Speaker 1: or the left. Feeling tired, my feet, in particular were
2:19:33
Speaker 1: very sore, I carefully lowered Weena from my shoulder. As
2:19:37
Speaker 1: I halted and sat down upon the turf, I could
2:19:41
Speaker 1: no longer see the palace of green porcelain, and I
2:19:44
Speaker 1: was in doubt of my direction. I looked into the
2:19:47
Speaker 1: thickness of the wood and thought of what it might hide.
2:19:51
Speaker 1: Under that dense tangle of branches. One would be out
2:19:54
Speaker 1: of sight of the stars, even were there no other
2:19:58
Speaker 1: lurking danger, A danger I did not care to let
2:20:01
Speaker 1: my imagination loose upon. There would still be all the
2:20:04
Speaker 1: roots to stumble over and the tree bowls to strike against.
2:20:08
Speaker 1: I was very tired too, after the excitements of the day,
2:20:12
Speaker 1: so I decided that I would not face it, but
2:20:16
Speaker 1: would pass the night upon the open hill. Weena, I
2:20:20
Speaker 1: was glad to find, was fast asleep. I carefully wrapped
2:20:24
Speaker 1: her in my jacket and sat down beside her to
2:20:27
Speaker 1: wait for the moonrise. The hillside was quiet and deserted,
2:20:31
Speaker 1: but from the black of the wood. There came now,
2:20:34
Speaker 1: and then a stir of living things above me shone.
2:20:39
Speaker 1: The stars for the night was very clear. I felt
2:20:43
Speaker 1: a certain sense of friendly comfort in their twinkling. All
2:20:47
Speaker 1: the old constellations had gone from the sky. However, that
2:20:51
Speaker 1: slow movement, which is imperceptible in a hundred human lifetimes,
2:20:55
Speaker 1: had long since rearranged them in unfamiliar groupings. The milky Way,
2:21:00
Speaker 1: it seemed to me, was still the same tattered streamer
2:21:04
Speaker 1: of star dust as of yore. Southward, as I judged,
2:21:08
Speaker 1: it was a very bright red star that was new
2:21:11
Speaker 1: to me. It was even more splendid than our own
2:21:14
Speaker 1: green serious, and amid all these scintillating points of light,
2:21:18
Speaker 1: one bright planet shone kindly and steadily, like the face
2:21:23
Speaker 1: of an old friend. Looking at these stars suddenly dwarfed
2:21:28
Speaker 1: my own troubles and all the gravities of terrestrial life.
2:21:32
Speaker 1: I thought of their unfathomable distance, and the slow, inevitable
2:21:36
Speaker 1: drift of their movements out of the unknown past into
2:21:40
Speaker 1: the unknown future. I thought of the great processional cycle
2:21:45
Speaker 1: that the pole of the Earth describes. Only forty times
2:21:49
Speaker 1: had that silent revolution occurred during all the years that
2:21:52
Speaker 1: I had traversed, and during these few revolutions, all the activity,
2:21:57
Speaker 1: all the traditions, the complex organizations, the nations, languages, literatures, aspirations,
2:22:05
Speaker 1: even the mere memory of Man as I knew him,
2:22:08
Speaker 1: had been swept out of existence. Instead were these frail
2:22:14
Speaker 1: creatures who had forgotten their high ancestry, and the white
2:22:18
Speaker 1: things of which I went in terror. Then I thought
2:22:24
Speaker 1: of the great fear that was between the two species,
2:22:27
Speaker 1: and for the first time, with a sudden shiver, came
2:22:30
Speaker 1: the clear knowledge of what the meat I had seen
2:22:34
Speaker 1: might be. Yet it was too horrible. I looked at
2:22:38
Speaker 1: little Weena sleeping beside me, her face white and star
2:22:43
Speaker 1: like under the stars, and forthwith dismissed the thought. Through
2:22:49
Speaker 1: that long night, I held my mind off the morlocks
2:22:52
Speaker 1: as well as I could, and whiled away the time
2:22:55
Speaker 1: by trying to fancy. I could find signs of the
2:22:58
Speaker 1: old constellations in the new confusion. The sky kept very clear,
2:23:04
Speaker 1: except for a hazy cloud or so, no doubt I
2:23:07
Speaker 1: dozed at times. Then, as my vigil wore on, came
2:23:12
Speaker 1: a faintness in the eastward sky, like the reflection of
2:23:16
Speaker 1: some colorless fire, and the old moon rose thin and
2:23:21
Speaker 1: peaked and white, and close behind and overtaking it and
2:23:25
Speaker 1: overflowing it. The dawn came pale at first, and then
2:23:29
Speaker 1: growing pink and warm. No morlocks had approached us, indeed,
2:23:35
Speaker 1: I had seen none upon the hill that night, and
2:23:39
Speaker 1: in the confidence of renewed day, it almost seemed to
2:23:42
Speaker 1: me that my fear had been unreasonable. I stood up
2:23:46
Speaker 1: and found my foot with the loose heel, swollen at
2:23:48
Speaker 1: the ankle, and painful under the heel. So I sat
2:23:52
Speaker 1: down again, took off my shoes and flung them away.
2:23:57
Speaker 1: I awakened Weena, and we went down into the wood,
2:24:00
Speaker 1: now green and pleasant instead of black, and forbidding we
2:24:05
Speaker 1: found some fruit wherewith to break our fast. We soon
2:24:09
Speaker 1: met others of the dainty ones, laughing and dancing in
2:24:12
Speaker 1: the sunlight, as though there were no such thing in
2:24:15
Speaker 1: nature as the night. And then I thought once more
2:24:19
Speaker 1: of the meat I had seen. I felt assured now
2:24:23
Speaker 1: of what it was, and from the bottom of my
2:24:26
Speaker 1: heart I pitied this last feeble rill from the great
2:24:30
Speaker 1: flood of humanity. Clearly, at some time in the long
2:24:34
Speaker 1: ago of human decay, the morlock's food had run short.
2:24:39
Speaker 1: Possibly they had lived on rats and such like vermin.
2:24:43
Speaker 1: Even now, man is far less discriminating and exclusive in
2:24:47
Speaker 1: his food than he was, far less than any monkey.
2:24:51
Speaker 1: His prejudice against human flesh is no deep seated instinct.
2:24:57
Speaker 1: And so these inhuman sons of my men, I tried
2:25:01
Speaker 1: to look at the thing in a scientific spirit. After all,
2:25:05
Speaker 1: they were less human and more remote than our cannibal
2:25:08
Speaker 1: ancestors of three or four thousand years ago. And the
2:25:12
Speaker 1: intelligence that would have made this state of things a
2:25:15
Speaker 1: torment had gone. Why should I trouble myself? These eloi
2:25:20
Speaker 1: were mere fatted cattle, which the ant like morlocks preserved
2:25:24
Speaker 1: and preyed upon, probably saw to the breeding of. And
2:25:29
Speaker 1: there was Weena dancing at my side. Then I tried
2:25:35
Speaker 1: to preserve myself from the horror that was coming upon
2:25:37
Speaker 1: me by regarding it as a rigorous punishment of human selfishness.
2:25:43
Speaker 1: Man had been content to live in ease and delight
2:25:46
Speaker 1: upon the labors of his fellow man had taken necessity
2:25:49
Speaker 1: as his watchword and excuse, and in the fullness of
2:25:53
Speaker 1: time necessity had come home to him. I even tried
2:25:57
Speaker 1: a Carlyle like scorn of this wretch aristocracy in decay.
2:26:02
Speaker 1: But this attitude of mind was impossible. However, great their
2:26:06
Speaker 1: intellectual degradation, the ELOI had kept too much of the
2:26:10
Speaker 1: human form not to claim my sympathy and to make
2:26:14
Speaker 1: me perforce a sharer in their degradation and their fear.
2:26:20
Speaker 1: I had at that time very vague ideas as to
2:26:23
Speaker 1: the course I should pursue. My first was to secure
2:26:28
Speaker 1: some safe place of refuge, and to make myself such
2:26:31
Speaker 1: arms of metal or stone as I could contrive. That
2:26:35
Speaker 1: necessity was immediate. In the next place, I hoped to
2:26:38
Speaker 1: procure some means of fire, so that I should have
2:26:41
Speaker 1: the weapon of a torch at hand, for nothing I
2:26:44
Speaker 1: knew would be more efficient against these morlocks. Then I
2:26:49
Speaker 1: wanted to arrange some contrivance to break open the doors
2:26:52
Speaker 1: of bronze under the white Sphinx. I had in mind
2:26:56
Speaker 1: a battering ram. I had a persuasion that if I
2:27:00
Speaker 1: could enter those doors and carry a blaze of light
2:27:02
Speaker 1: before me, I should discover the time machine and escape.
2:27:06
Speaker 1: I could not imagine the Morlocks were strong enough to
2:27:09
Speaker 1: move it far away. Weena I had resolved to bring
2:27:13
Speaker 1: with me to our own time, and, turning such schemes
2:27:17
Speaker 1: over in my mind, I pursued our way towards the
2:27:20
Speaker 1: building which my fancy had chosen as our dwelling end
2:27:26
Speaker 1: of chapter seven, Chapter eight. I found the Palace of
2:27:32
Speaker 1: green porcelain when we approached it about noon, deserted and
2:27:35
Speaker 1: falling into ruin. Only ragged vestiges of glass remained in
2:27:40
Speaker 1: its windows, and great sheets of the green facing had
2:27:43
Speaker 1: fallen away from the corroded metallic framework. It lay very
2:27:48
Speaker 1: high upon a turfy down and looking northeastward. Before I
2:27:51
Speaker 1: entered it, I was surprised to see a large estuary,
2:27:54
Speaker 1: or even creek, where I judged Wandsworth and Battersea must
2:27:58
Speaker 1: have once been. I thought, then, though I never followed
2:28:03
Speaker 1: up the thought of what might have happened or might
2:28:06
Speaker 1: be happening to the living things in the sea. The
2:28:10
Speaker 1: material of the palace proved on examination to be indeed porcelain,
2:28:15
Speaker 1: and along the face of it I saw an inscription
2:28:18
Speaker 1: in some unknown character. I thought rather foolishly that Weena
2:28:24
Speaker 1: might help me to interpret this, but I only learned
2:28:28
Speaker 1: that the bare idea of writing had never entered her head.
2:28:32
Speaker 1: She always seemed to me I fancy, more human than
2:28:35
Speaker 1: she was, perhaps because her affection was so human Within
2:28:41
Speaker 1: the big valves of the door, which were open and broken.
2:28:45
Speaker 1: We found, instead of the customary hall, a long gallery
2:28:49
Speaker 1: lit by many side windows. At the first glance I
2:28:53
Speaker 1: was reminded of a museum. The tiled floor was thick
2:28:57
Speaker 1: with dust, and a remarkable array of miscellaneous objects was
2:29:01
Speaker 1: shrouded in the same gray covering. Then I perceived, standing
2:29:06
Speaker 1: strange and gaunt in the center of the hall, what
2:29:09
Speaker 1: was clearly the lower part of a huge skeleton. I
2:29:13
Speaker 1: recognized by the oblique feet that it was some extinct
2:29:16
Speaker 1: creature after the fashion of the megatherium. The skull and
2:29:21
Speaker 1: upper bones lay beside it in the thick dust, and
2:29:24
Speaker 1: in one place where rain water had dropped through a
2:29:27
Speaker 1: leak in the roof, the thing itself had been worn away.
2:29:31
Speaker 1: Further in the gallery was the huge skeleton barrel of
2:29:34
Speaker 1: a brontosaurus. My museum hypothesis was confirmed. Going towards the side,
2:29:41
Speaker 1: I found what appeared to be sloping shelves, and clearing
2:29:45
Speaker 1: away the thick dust, I found the old familiar glass
2:29:48
Speaker 1: cases of our own time, but they must have been
2:29:52
Speaker 1: air tight, to judge from the fair preservation of some
2:29:56
Speaker 1: of their contents. Clearly we stood a the ruins of
2:30:00
Speaker 1: some latter day South Kensington. Here apparently was the paleontological section,
2:30:07
Speaker 1: and the very splendid array of fossils. It must have been,
2:30:11
Speaker 1: though the inevitable process of decay, that had been staved
2:30:14
Speaker 1: off for a time, and had, through the extinction of
2:30:18
Speaker 1: bacteria and fungi, lost ninety nine hundreds of its force,
2:30:23
Speaker 1: was nevertheless, with extreme sureness, if with extreme slowness, at
2:30:27
Speaker 1: work again upon all its treasures. Here and there I
2:30:31
Speaker 1: found traces of the little people in the shape of
2:30:34
Speaker 1: rare fossils, broken to pieces or threaded in strings upon reeds,
2:30:39
Speaker 1: and the cases had in some instances been bodily removed
2:30:43
Speaker 1: by the morlocks. As I judged, the place was very silent,
2:30:48
Speaker 1: the thick dust deadened our footsteps. Weena, who had been
2:30:52
Speaker 1: rolling a sea urchin down the sloping glass of a case,
2:30:56
Speaker 1: presently came as I stared about me, and very quietly
2:30:59
Speaker 1: took my hand and stood beside me. And at first
2:31:04
Speaker 1: I was so much surprised by this ancient monument of
2:31:07
Speaker 1: an intellectual age, that I gave no thought to the
2:31:11
Speaker 1: possibilities it presented. Even my preoccupation about the time machine
2:31:16
Speaker 1: receded a little from my mind to judge from the
2:31:20
Speaker 1: size of the place, this palace of green porcelain had
2:31:24
Speaker 1: a great deal more in it than a gallery of paleontology,
2:31:28
Speaker 1: possibly historical galleries. It might be even a library. To me,
2:31:34
Speaker 1: at least in my present circumstances, these would be vastly
2:31:38
Speaker 1: more interesting than this spectacle of old time geology. In Decay, exploring,
2:31:43
Speaker 1: I found another short gallery running transversely to the first.
2:31:47
Speaker 1: This appeared to be devoted to minerals, and the side
2:31:50
Speaker 1: of a block of sulfur set my mind running on gunpowder.
2:31:55
Speaker 1: But I could find no saltpeter, indeed no nitrates of
2:31:59
Speaker 1: any kind. Doubtless they had deliquest ages ago. Yet the
2:32:05
Speaker 1: sulfur hung in my mind and set up a train
2:32:08
Speaker 1: of thinking. As for the rest of the contents of
2:32:11
Speaker 1: that gallery, though on the whole they were the best
2:32:14
Speaker 1: preserved of all I saw, I had little interest. I
2:32:18
Speaker 1: am no specialist in mineralogy, and I went on down
2:32:21
Speaker 1: a very ruinous aisle running parallel to the first hall
2:32:24
Speaker 1: I had entered. Apparently this section had been devoted to
2:32:28
Speaker 1: natural history, but everything had long since passed out of recognition.
2:32:33
Speaker 1: A few shriveled and blackened vestiges of what had once
2:32:37
Speaker 1: been stuffed animals, desiccated mummies, and jars that had once
2:32:41
Speaker 1: held spirit, a brown dust of departed plants. That was
2:32:45
Speaker 1: all I was sorry for that, because I should have
2:32:49
Speaker 1: been glad to trace the patent readjustments by which the
2:32:53
Speaker 1: conquest of animated nature had been attained. Then we came
2:32:57
Speaker 1: to a gallery of simply colossal proportions, but singularly ill lit,
2:33:02
Speaker 1: the floor of it running downward at a slight angle
2:33:05
Speaker 1: from the end at which I entered. At intervals, white
2:33:09
Speaker 1: globes hung from the ceiling, many of them cracked and smashed,
2:33:13
Speaker 1: which suggested that originally the place had been artificially lit.
2:33:17
Speaker 1: Here I was more in my element, for rising on
2:33:20
Speaker 1: either side of me were the huge bulks of big machines,
2:33:24
Speaker 1: all greatly corroded and many broken down, but some still
2:33:29
Speaker 1: fairly complete. You know, I have a certain weakness for mechanism,
2:33:34
Speaker 1: and I was inclined to linger among these, the more
2:33:37
Speaker 1: so as for the most part they had the interest
2:33:40
Speaker 1: of puzzles, and I could make only the vaguest guesses
2:33:44
Speaker 1: at what they were. For I fancied that if I
2:33:48
Speaker 1: could solve their puzzles, I should find myself in possession
2:33:51
Speaker 1: of powers that might be of use against the morlocks. Suddenly,
2:33:56
Speaker 1: Weena came very close to my side, so suddenly that
2:33:59
Speaker 1: she startled me. Had it not been for her, I
2:34:02
Speaker 1: do not think I should have noticed that the floor
2:34:04
Speaker 1: of the gallery sloped at all. Footnote. It may be,
2:34:08
Speaker 1: of course, that the floor did not slope, but that
2:34:11
Speaker 1: the museum was built into the side of a hill.
2:34:13
Speaker 1: Editor The end I had come in at was quite
2:34:17
Speaker 1: above ground, and was lit by rare slit like windows.
2:34:22
Speaker 1: As you went down the length, the ground came up
2:34:25
Speaker 1: against these windows, until at last there was a pit
2:34:29
Speaker 1: like the area of a London house before each, and
2:34:32
Speaker 1: only a narrow line of daylight at the top. I
2:34:35
Speaker 1: went slowly along, puzzling about the machines, and had been
2:34:40
Speaker 1: too intent upon them to notice the gradual diminution of
2:34:44
Speaker 1: the light until Weena's increasing apprehensions drew my attention. Then
2:34:50
Speaker 1: I saw that the gallery ran down at last into
2:34:53
Speaker 1: a thick darkness. I hesitated, and then as I looked
2:34:58
Speaker 1: round me, I saw that the dust was less abundant
2:35:01
Speaker 1: and its surface less. Even further away towards the dimness,
2:35:06
Speaker 1: it appeared to be broken by a number of small
2:35:09
Speaker 1: narrow footprints. My sense of the immediate presence of the
2:35:13
Speaker 1: morlocks revived. At that I felt that I was wasting
2:35:16
Speaker 1: my time in the academic examination of machinery. I called
2:35:20
Speaker 1: to mind that it was already far advanced in the afternoon,
2:35:24
Speaker 1: and that I had still no weapon, no refuge, and
2:35:28
Speaker 1: no means of making a fire. And then down in
2:35:32
Speaker 1: the remote blackness of the gallery, I heard a peculiar
2:35:35
Speaker 1: pattering and the same odd noises I had heard down
2:35:39
Speaker 1: the well. I took Weena's hand, then struck with a
2:35:44
Speaker 1: sudden idea, I left her and turned to a machine
2:35:48
Speaker 1: from which projected a lever not unlike those in a
2:35:51
Speaker 1: signal box. Clambering up the stand and grasping this lever
2:35:55
Speaker 1: in my hands, I put all my weight upon its sideways. Suddenly, Weena,
2:36:00
Speaker 1: deserted in the central aisle, began to whimper. I had
2:36:04
Speaker 1: judged the strength of the lever pretty correctly, for it
2:36:08
Speaker 1: snapped after a minute's strain, and I rejoined her with
2:36:11
Speaker 1: a mace in my hand, more than sufficient, I judged
2:36:14
Speaker 1: for any morlock's skull I might encounter. And I longed
2:36:18
Speaker 1: very much to kill a morlock, or so very inhuman
2:36:22
Speaker 1: you may think to want to go killing one's own descendants.
2:36:26
Speaker 1: But it was impossible, somehow to feel any humanity in
2:36:30
Speaker 1: the things. Only my disinclination to leave Weena and a
2:36:36
Speaker 1: persuasion that if I began to slake my thirst for murder,
2:36:40
Speaker 1: my time machine might suffer, restrained me from going straight
2:36:44
Speaker 1: down the gallery and killing the brutes. I heard, well,
2:36:48
Speaker 1: mace in one hand and Weena in the other. I
2:36:51
Speaker 1: went out of that gallery and into another and still
2:36:54
Speaker 1: larger one, which, at the first glance reminded me of
2:36:58
Speaker 1: a military chapel hung with tattered flags. The brown and
2:37:03
Speaker 1: charred rags that hung from the sides of it I
2:37:06
Speaker 1: presently recognized as the decaying vestiges of books. They had
2:37:11
Speaker 1: long since dropped to pieces, and every semblance of print
2:37:14
Speaker 1: had left them. But here and there were warped boards
2:37:18
Speaker 1: and cracked metallic clasps that told the tale well enough.
2:37:22
Speaker 1: Had I been a literary man, I might perhaps have
2:37:25
Speaker 1: moralized upon the futility of all ambition. But as it was,
2:37:30
Speaker 1: the thing that struck me with the keenest force was
2:37:33
Speaker 1: the enormous waste of labor to which this somber wilderness
2:37:37
Speaker 1: of rotting paper testified at the time, I will confess
2:37:41
Speaker 1: that I thought chiefly of the philosophical transactions and my
2:37:45
Speaker 1: own seventeen papers upon physical optics. Then, going up a
2:37:52
Speaker 1: broad staircase, we came to what may once have been
2:37:55
Speaker 1: a gallery of technical chemistry. And here I had not
2:37:59
Speaker 1: a little hope of useful discoveries. Except at one end,
2:38:03
Speaker 1: where the roof had collapsed, this gallery was well preserved.
2:38:07
Speaker 1: I went eagerly to every unbroken case, and at last,
2:38:12
Speaker 1: in one of the really air tight cases, I found
2:38:15
Speaker 1: a box of matches. Very eagerly I tried them. They
2:38:19
Speaker 1: were perfectly good. They were not even damp. I turned
2:38:23
Speaker 1: to Weena dance. I cried to her in her own tongue.
2:38:27
Speaker 1: For now I had a weapon, indeed, against the horrible
2:38:30
Speaker 1: creatures we feared. And so, in that derelict museum, upon
2:38:35
Speaker 1: the thick soft carpeting of dust, to Weena's huge delight,
2:38:40
Speaker 1: I solemnly performed a kind of composite dance, whistling the
2:38:44
Speaker 1: land of the leal as cheerfully as I could. In
2:38:48
Speaker 1: part it was a modest can can, in part a
2:38:51
Speaker 1: step dance, in part a skirt dance. So far as
2:38:54
Speaker 1: my tail coat permitted and in part original, for I
2:38:58
Speaker 1: am naturally inventive, as you know now, I still think
2:39:03
Speaker 1: that for this box of matches to have escaped the
2:39:06
Speaker 1: wear of time for immemorial years was most strange. As
2:39:10
Speaker 1: for me it was a most fortunate thing. Yet oddly
2:39:15
Speaker 1: enough I found a far unlikelier substance, and that was camphor.
2:39:21
Speaker 1: I found it in a sealed jar that, by chance,
2:39:23
Speaker 1: I suppose had been really hermetically sealed. I fancied at
2:39:28
Speaker 1: first that it was paraffin wax, and smashed the glass accordingly,
2:39:33
Speaker 1: But the odor of camphor was unmistakable. In the universal decay,
2:39:39
Speaker 1: this volatile substance had chanced to survive, perhaps through many
2:39:43
Speaker 1: thousands of centuries. It reminded me of a Sepia painting
2:39:48
Speaker 1: I had once seen, done from the ink of a
2:39:50
Speaker 1: fossil bellumnite that must have perished and become fossilized millions
2:39:54
Speaker 1: of years ago. I was about to throw it away,
2:39:57
Speaker 1: but I remembered that it was in floes ammable and
2:40:01
Speaker 1: burned with a good bright flame, was in fact an
2:40:04
Speaker 1: excellent candle, and I put it in my pocket. I
2:40:08
Speaker 1: found no explosives, however, nor any means of breaking down
2:40:12
Speaker 1: the bronze doors. As yet my iron crowbar was the
2:40:16
Speaker 1: most helpful thing I had chanced upon. Nevertheless, I left
2:40:20
Speaker 1: that gallery greatly elated. I cannot tell you all the
2:40:25
Speaker 1: story of that long afternoon. It would require a great
2:40:28
Speaker 1: effort of memory to recall my explorations in at all
2:40:32
Speaker 1: the proper order. I remember a long gallery of rusting
2:40:36
Speaker 1: stands of arms, and how I hesitated between my crowbar
2:40:41
Speaker 1: and a hatchet or a sword. I could not carry both, however,
2:40:45
Speaker 1: and my bar of iron promised best against the bronze gates.
2:40:50
Speaker 1: There were numbers of guns, pistols, and rifles, and most
2:40:54
Speaker 1: were masses of rust. But many were of some new metal,
2:40:58
Speaker 1: and still fairly sound. But any cartridges or powder there
2:41:03
Speaker 1: may once have been had rotted into dust. One corner
2:41:08
Speaker 1: I saw was charred and shattered, perhaps, I thought, by
2:41:12
Speaker 1: an explosion. Among the specimens. In another place was a
2:41:16
Speaker 1: vast array of idols, Polynesian, Mexican, Grecian, Phoenician, every country
2:41:22
Speaker 1: on Earth, I should think, And here, yielding to an
2:41:26
Speaker 1: irresistible impulse, I wrote my name upon the nose of
2:41:29
Speaker 1: a stea tight monster from South America that particularly took
2:41:33
Speaker 1: my fancy As the evening drew on my interest waned
2:41:39
Speaker 1: I went through gallery after gallery, dusty, silent, often ruinous,
2:41:45
Speaker 1: the exhibit sometimes mere heaps of rust and lignite, sometimes fresher.
2:41:50
Speaker 1: In one place I suddenly found myself near the model
2:41:53
Speaker 1: of a tin mine, and then, by the merest accident,
2:41:57
Speaker 1: I discovered in an air tight case two dynamite cartridges.
2:42:02
Speaker 1: I shouted, eureka, had smashed the case with joy. Then
2:42:07
Speaker 1: came a doubt. I hesitated. Then, selecting a little side gallery,
2:42:13
Speaker 1: I made my essay. I never felt such a disappointment
2:42:17
Speaker 1: as I did in waiting five ten, fifteen minutes for
2:42:22
Speaker 1: an explosion that never came. Of course, the things were dummies,
2:42:27
Speaker 1: as I might have guessed from their presence. I really
2:42:31
Speaker 1: believed that had they not been so, I should have
2:42:34
Speaker 1: rushed off incontinently and blown sphinx bronze doors, and as
2:42:39
Speaker 1: it proved my chances of finding the time machine all
2:42:42
Speaker 1: together into non existence. It was after that I think
2:42:48
Speaker 1: that we came to a little open court within the palace.
2:42:51
Speaker 1: It was turfed and had three fruit trees. So we
2:42:55
Speaker 1: rested and refreshed ourselves. Towards sunset, I began to sitter
2:43:00
Speaker 1: our position. Night was creeping upon us, and my inaccessible
2:43:05
Speaker 1: hiding place had still to be found, But that troubled
2:43:09
Speaker 1: me very little. Now I had in my possession a
2:43:12
Speaker 1: thing that was perhaps the best of all defenses against
2:43:16
Speaker 1: the morlocks. I had matches. I had the camphor in
2:43:20
Speaker 1: my pocket too, if a blaze were needed. It seemed
2:43:24
Speaker 1: to me that the best thing we could do would
2:43:26
Speaker 1: be to pass the night in the open, protected by
2:43:29
Speaker 1: a fire. In the morning there was the getting of
2:43:32
Speaker 1: the time machine. Towards that. As yet I had only
2:43:36
Speaker 1: my iron mace. But now, with my growing knowledge, I
2:43:41
Speaker 1: felt very differently towards those bronze doors. Up to this
2:43:46
Speaker 1: I had refrained from forcing them, largely because of the
2:43:50
Speaker 1: mystery on the other side. They had never impressed me
2:43:53
Speaker 1: as being very strong, and I hoped to find my
2:43:56
Speaker 1: bar of iron not altogether inadequate for the work. End
2:44:02
Speaker 1: of chapter eight, Chapter nine, we emerged from the palace
2:44:08
Speaker 1: while the sun was still in part above the horizon.
2:44:12
Speaker 1: I was determined to reach the White Sphinx early the
2:44:14
Speaker 1: next morning, and ere the dusk I proposed pushing through
2:44:18
Speaker 1: the woods that had stopped me on the previous journey.
2:44:22
Speaker 1: My plan was to go as far as possible that night,
2:44:25
Speaker 1: and then building a fire to sleep in the protection
2:44:28
Speaker 1: of its glare. Accordingly, as we went along, I gathered
2:44:32
Speaker 1: any sticks or dried grass I saw, and presently had
2:44:36
Speaker 1: my arms full of such litter thus loaded. Our progress
2:44:41
Speaker 1: was slower than I had anticipated, And besides, Weena was tired,
2:44:46
Speaker 1: and I began to suffer from sleepiness too, so that
2:44:50
Speaker 1: it was full night before we reached the wood upon
2:44:54
Speaker 1: the shrubby hill of its edge. Weena would have stopped
2:44:57
Speaker 1: fearing the darkness before us, but a singular sense of
2:45:02
Speaker 1: impending calamity that should indeed have served me as a warning,
2:45:06
Speaker 1: drove me onward. I had been without sleep for a
2:45:10
Speaker 1: night and two days, and I was feverish and irritable.
2:45:14
Speaker 1: I felt sleep coming upon me, and the morlocks with it.
2:45:19
Speaker 1: While we hesitated among the black bushes behind us, and
2:45:22
Speaker 1: dim against their blackness, I saw three crouching figures. There
2:45:26
Speaker 1: was scrub and long grass all about us, and I
2:45:30
Speaker 1: did not feel safe from their insidious approach. The forest,
2:45:35
Speaker 1: I calculated, was rather less than a mile across if
2:45:39
Speaker 1: we could get through it to the bare hill side. There,
2:45:42
Speaker 1: as it seemed to me, was an altogether safer resting place.
2:45:46
Speaker 1: I thought that with my matches and my camphor, I
2:45:49
Speaker 1: could contrive to keep my path illuminated through the woods.
2:45:54
Speaker 1: Yet it was evident that if I was to flourish
2:45:57
Speaker 1: matches with my hands, I should have to in my firewood.
2:46:02
Speaker 1: So rather reluctantly I put it down. And then it
2:46:06
Speaker 1: came into my head that I would amaze our friends
2:46:09
Speaker 1: behind by lighting it. I was to discover the atrocious
2:46:13
Speaker 1: folly of this proceeding, but it came to my mind
2:46:16
Speaker 1: as an ingenious move for covering our retreat. I don't
2:46:20
Speaker 1: know if you have ever thought what a rare thing
2:46:23
Speaker 1: flame must be in the absence of man, and in
2:46:26
Speaker 1: a temperate climate, the sun's heat is rarely strong enough
2:46:30
Speaker 1: to burn, even when it is focused by dewdrops, as
2:46:34
Speaker 1: is sometimes the case in more tropical districts. Lightning may
2:46:38
Speaker 1: blast and blacken, but it rarely gives rise to widespread fire.
2:46:43
Speaker 1: Decaying vegetation may occasionally smolder with the heat of its fermentation,
2:46:48
Speaker 1: but this rarely results in flame. In this decadence, too,
2:46:53
Speaker 1: the art of fire making had been forgotten on the earth.
2:46:56
Speaker 1: The red tongues that went licking up my heap of
2:46:59
Speaker 1: wood were an altar together, new and strange thing to Weena.
2:47:03
Speaker 1: She wanted to run to it and play with it.
2:47:06
Speaker 1: I believe she would have cast herself into it had
2:47:09
Speaker 1: I not restrained her. But I caught her up, and
2:47:13
Speaker 1: in spite of her struggles, plunged boldly before me into
2:47:16
Speaker 1: the wood for a little way. The glare of my
2:47:20
Speaker 1: fire lit the path. Looking back presently, I could see
2:47:24
Speaker 1: through the crowded stems that from my heap of sticks,
2:47:27
Speaker 1: the blaze had spread to some bushes adjacent, and a
2:47:30
Speaker 1: curved line of fire was creeping up the grass of
2:47:33
Speaker 1: the hill. I laughed at that, and turned again to
2:47:37
Speaker 1: the dark trees before me. It was very black, and
2:47:40
Speaker 1: Weena clung to me convulsively, But there was still, as
2:47:44
Speaker 1: my eyes grew accustomed to the darkness, sufficient light for
2:47:47
Speaker 1: me to avoid the stems. Overhead, it was simply black,
2:47:52
Speaker 1: except where a gap of remote blue sky shone down
2:47:55
Speaker 1: upon us. Here and there I struck none of my matches.
2:47:59
Speaker 1: Because I had no hand free upon my left arm,
2:48:02
Speaker 1: I carried my little one in my right hand. I
2:48:05
Speaker 1: had my iron bar for some way. I heard nothing
2:48:10
Speaker 1: but the crackling twigs under my feet. The faint rustle
2:48:13
Speaker 1: of the breeze above, and my own breathing, and the
2:48:16
Speaker 1: throb of the blood vessels in my ears. Then I
2:48:20
Speaker 1: seemed to know of a pattering about me. I pushed
2:48:23
Speaker 1: on grimly. The pattering grew more distinct, and then I
2:48:27
Speaker 1: caught the same queer sound and voices I had heard
2:48:30
Speaker 1: in the underworld. There were evidently several of the Morlocks,
2:48:35
Speaker 1: and they were closing in upon me. Indeed, in another minute,
2:48:39
Speaker 1: I felt a tug at my coat, then something at
2:48:43
Speaker 1: my arm, and Weena shivered violently and became quite still.
2:48:48
Speaker 1: It was time for a match, but to get one
2:48:51
Speaker 1: I must put her down. I did so, and as
2:48:55
Speaker 1: I fumbled with my pocket, a struggle began in the
2:48:58
Speaker 1: darkness about my knees, perfectly silent on her part, and
2:49:02
Speaker 1: with the same peculiar cooing sounds from the Morlocks. Soft
2:49:06
Speaker 1: little hands too, were creeping over my coat and back,
2:49:10
Speaker 1: touching even my neck. Then the match scratched and fizzed.
2:49:15
Speaker 1: I held it flaring, and saw the white backs of
2:49:18
Speaker 1: the Morlocks in flight amid the trees. I hastily took
2:49:22
Speaker 1: a lump of camphor from my pocket and prepared to
2:49:24
Speaker 1: light it as soon as the match should wane. Then
2:49:28
Speaker 1: I looked at Weena. She was lying clutching my feet
2:49:31
Speaker 1: and quite motionless, with her face to the ground. With
2:49:36
Speaker 1: a sudden fright, I stooped to her. She seemed scarcely
2:49:40
Speaker 1: to breathe. I lit the block of camphor and flung
2:49:43
Speaker 1: it to the ground, And as it split and flared
2:49:46
Speaker 1: up and drove back the morlocks and the shadows, I
2:49:49
Speaker 1: knelt down and lifted her. The wood behind seemed full
2:49:53
Speaker 1: of the stir and murmur of a great company. She
2:49:58
Speaker 1: seemed to have fainted. I put her carefully upon my
2:50:01
Speaker 1: shoulder and rose to push on. And then there came
2:50:05
Speaker 1: a horrible realization. In maneuvering with my matches and Weena,
2:50:09
Speaker 1: I had turned myself about several times, and now I
2:50:14
Speaker 1: had not the faintest idea in what direction lay my path.
2:50:18
Speaker 1: For all I knew I might be facing back towards
2:50:21
Speaker 1: the palace of green Porcelain. I found myself in a
2:50:25
Speaker 1: cold sweat. I had to think rapidly what to do.
2:50:30
Speaker 1: I determined to build a fire, and in camp where
2:50:32
Speaker 1: we were, I put Weena, still motionless, down upon a
2:50:37
Speaker 1: turfy bowl, and very hastily as my first lump of
2:50:40
Speaker 1: camphor waned. I began collecting sticks and leaves here and there.
2:50:45
Speaker 1: Out of the darkness round me. The morlock's eyes shone
2:50:49
Speaker 1: like carbuncles. The camphor flickered and went out. I lit
2:50:54
Speaker 1: a match, and as I did so, two white forms
2:50:57
Speaker 1: that had been approaching Weena dashed hastily away. One was
2:51:02
Speaker 1: so blinded by the light that he came straight for me,
2:51:05
Speaker 1: and I felt his bones grind under the blow of
2:51:07
Speaker 1: my fist. He gave a whoop of dismay, staggered a
2:51:11
Speaker 1: little way, and fell down. I lit another piece of
2:51:14
Speaker 1: camphor and went on gathering my bonfire. Presently I noticed
2:51:19
Speaker 1: how dry was some of the foliage above me. For
2:51:22
Speaker 1: since my arrival on the time Machine a matter of
2:51:25
Speaker 1: a week, no rain had fallen. So instead of casting
2:51:30
Speaker 1: about among the trees for fallen twigs, I began leaping
2:51:33
Speaker 1: up and dragging down branches. Very soon I had a choking,
2:51:38
Speaker 1: smoky fire of green wood and dry sticks, and could
2:51:41
Speaker 1: economize my camphor. Then I turned to where Lena lay
2:51:45
Speaker 1: beside my iron mace. I tried what I could to
2:51:48
Speaker 1: revive her, but she lay like one dead. I could
2:51:52
Speaker 1: not even satisfy myself whether or not she breathed. Now,
2:51:57
Speaker 1: the smoke of the fire beat over towards me, and
2:52:00
Speaker 1: it must have made me heavy of a sudden Moreover,
2:52:03
Speaker 1: the vapor of camphor was in the air. My fire
2:52:07
Speaker 1: would not need replenishing for an hour or so. I
2:52:10
Speaker 1: felt very weary after my exertion, and sat down. The wood, too,
2:52:15
Speaker 1: was full of a slumbrous murmur that I did not understand.
2:52:19
Speaker 1: I seemed just to nod and open my eyes. But
2:52:23
Speaker 1: all was dark, and the morlocks had their hands upon me,
2:52:27
Speaker 1: flinging off their clinging fingers. I hastily felt in my
2:52:31
Speaker 1: pocket for the match box, and it had gone. Then
2:52:35
Speaker 1: they gripped and closed with me again. In a moment
2:52:39
Speaker 1: I knew what had happened. I had slept, and my
2:52:42
Speaker 1: fire had gone out, and the bitterness of death came
2:52:45
Speaker 1: over my soul. The forest seemed full of the smell
2:52:50
Speaker 1: of burning wood. I was caught by the neck, by
2:52:53
Speaker 1: the hair, by the arms, and pulled down. It was
2:52:57
Speaker 1: indescribably horrible in the darkness to feel all those soft
2:53:01
Speaker 1: creatures heaped upon me. I felt as if I was
2:53:04
Speaker 1: in a monstrous spider's web. I was overpowered and went down.
2:53:09
Speaker 1: I felt little teeth nipping at my neck. I rolled over,
2:53:13
Speaker 1: and as I did so, my hand came against my
2:53:16
Speaker 1: iron lever. It gave me strength. I struggled up, shaking
2:53:20
Speaker 1: the human rats from me and holding the bar short.
2:53:23
Speaker 1: I thrust where I judged their faces might be. I
2:53:27
Speaker 1: could feel the succulent giving of flesh and bone under
2:53:30
Speaker 1: my blows, and for a moment I was free. The
2:53:34
Speaker 1: strange exultation that so often seems to accompany hard fighting
2:53:38
Speaker 1: came upon me. I knew that both I and Weena
2:53:41
Speaker 1: were lost, but I determined to make the morlots pay
2:53:44
Speaker 1: for their meat. I stood with my back to a tree,
2:53:48
Speaker 1: swinging the iron bar before me. The whole wood was
2:53:51
Speaker 1: full of the stir and cries of them. A minute passed,
2:53:56
Speaker 1: their voices seemed to rise to a higher pitch of excitement,
2:53:59
Speaker 1: and their movements grew faster, yet none came within reach.
2:54:04
Speaker 1: I stood glaring at the blackness. Then suddenly came hope.
2:54:09
Speaker 1: What if the Morlocks were afraid? And close on the
2:54:13
Speaker 1: heels of that came a strange thing. The darkness seemed
2:54:17
Speaker 1: to grow luminous, very dimly. I began to see the
2:54:21
Speaker 1: Morlocks about me, three battered at my feet, and then
2:54:24
Speaker 1: I recognized with incredulous surprise that the others were running
2:54:29
Speaker 1: in an incessant stream, as it seemed from behind me
2:54:32
Speaker 1: and away through the wood in front, and their backs
2:54:36
Speaker 1: seemed no longer white but reddish. As I stood agape,
2:54:40
Speaker 1: I saw a little red spark go drifting across a
2:54:43
Speaker 1: gap of starlight between the branches and vanish and at
2:54:47
Speaker 1: that I understood the smell of burning wood, the slumbrous
2:54:52
Speaker 1: murmur that was growing now into a gusty roar, the
2:54:55
Speaker 1: red glow, and the morlock's flight hopping out from behind
2:55:00
Speaker 1: my tree, And looking back, I saw through the black
2:55:03
Speaker 1: pillars of the nearer trees the flames of the burning forest.
2:55:08
Speaker 1: It was my first fire coming after me. With that,
2:55:12
Speaker 1: I looked for Weena, but she was gone. The hissing
2:55:16
Speaker 1: and crackling behind me, the explosive thud as each fresh
2:55:20
Speaker 1: tree burst into flame left little time for reflection. My
2:55:24
Speaker 1: iron bar still gripped, I followed in the morlock's path.
2:55:28
Speaker 1: It was a close race. Once the flames crept forward
2:55:32
Speaker 1: so swiftly on my right as I ran that I
2:55:34
Speaker 1: was out flanked and had to strike off to the left.
2:55:38
Speaker 1: But at last I emerged upon a small open space,
2:55:42
Speaker 1: and as I did so, a morlock came blundering towards me,
2:55:46
Speaker 1: and passed me, and went on straight into the fire.
2:55:50
Speaker 1: And now I was able to see the most weird
2:55:53
Speaker 1: and horrible thing I think of all that I beheld
2:55:56
Speaker 1: in that future age. This whole space was as bright
2:56:00
Speaker 1: as day with the reflection of the fire. In the
2:56:03
Speaker 1: center was a hillock or tumulus, surmounted by a scorched hawthorn.
2:56:09
Speaker 1: Beyond this was another arm of the burning forest, with
2:56:12
Speaker 1: yellow tongues already writhing from it, completely encircling the space
2:56:16
Speaker 1: with a fence of fire. Upon the hillside were some
2:56:20
Speaker 1: thirty or forty morlocks, dazzled by the light and heat,
2:56:24
Speaker 1: and blundering hither and thither against each other in their bewilderment.
2:56:29
Speaker 1: At first I did not realize their blindness, and struck
2:56:32
Speaker 1: furiously at them with my bar in a frenzy of
2:56:35
Speaker 1: fear as they approached me, killing one and crippling several more.
2:56:41
Speaker 1: But when I had watched the gestures of one of
2:56:43
Speaker 1: them groping under the hawthorn against the red sky, and
2:56:47
Speaker 1: heard their moans, I was assured of their absolute helplessness
2:56:52
Speaker 1: and misery in the glare, and I struck no more
2:56:55
Speaker 1: of them. Yet every now and then one would come
2:56:59
Speaker 1: straight toward towards me, setting loose a quivering horror that
2:57:03
Speaker 1: made ME quick to elude him. At one time, the
2:57:06
Speaker 1: flames died down somewhat, and I feared the foul creatures
2:57:09
Speaker 1: would presently be able to see me. I was thinking
2:57:13
Speaker 1: of beginning the fight by killing some of them before
2:57:16
Speaker 1: this should happen. But the fire burst out again brightly,
2:57:19
Speaker 1: and I stayed my hand. I walked about the hill
2:57:22
Speaker 1: among them and avoided them, looking for some trace of Weena.
2:57:27
Speaker 1: But Weena was gone. At last, I sat down on
2:57:31
Speaker 1: the summit of the hillock and watched this strange, incredible
2:57:34
Speaker 1: company of blind things, groping to and fro and making
2:57:38
Speaker 1: uncanny noises to each other as the glare of the
2:57:41
Speaker 1: fire beat on them. The coiling uprush of smoke streamed
2:57:45
Speaker 1: across the sky and through the rare tatters of that
2:57:48
Speaker 1: red canopy, remote as though they belonged to another universe
2:57:53
Speaker 1: shown the little stars. Two or three morlocks came blundering
2:57:57
Speaker 1: into me, and I drove them off with blows of
2:57:59
Speaker 1: my fists trembling. As I did so for the most
2:58:04
Speaker 1: part of that night, I was persuaded it was a nightmare.
2:58:08
Speaker 1: I bit myself and screamed in a passionate desire to awake.
2:58:12
Speaker 1: I beat the ground with my hands, and got up,
2:58:15
Speaker 1: and sat down again, and wandered here and there, and
2:58:18
Speaker 1: again sat down. Then I would fall to rubbing my
2:58:22
Speaker 1: eyes and calling upon God to let me awake. Thrice
2:58:25
Speaker 1: I saw morlocks put their heads down in a kind
2:58:28
Speaker 1: of agony, and rush into the flames. But at last,
2:58:32
Speaker 1: above the subsiding red of the fire, above the streaming
2:58:36
Speaker 1: masses of black smoke, and the whitening and blackening tree stumps,
2:58:40
Speaker 1: and the diminishing numbers of these dim creatures, came the
2:58:43
Speaker 1: white light of the day. I searched again for traces
2:58:49
Speaker 1: of Weena, but there were none. It was plain that
2:58:53
Speaker 1: they had left her poor little body in the forest.
2:58:57
Speaker 1: I cannot describe how it relieved me to think that
2:59:01
Speaker 1: it had escaped the awful fate to which it seemed destined.
2:59:06
Speaker 1: As I thought of that, I was almost moved to
2:59:08
Speaker 1: begin a massacre of the helpless abominations about me. But
2:59:12
Speaker 1: I contained myself the hillock as I have said was
2:59:16
Speaker 1: a kind of island in the forest. From its summit
2:59:20
Speaker 1: I could now make out, through a haze of smoke,
2:59:22
Speaker 1: the palace of green porcelain, and from that I could
2:59:25
Speaker 1: get my bearings for the white Sphinx, and so leaving
2:59:30
Speaker 1: the remnant of these damned souls, still going hither and
2:59:34
Speaker 1: thither and moaning. As the day grew clearer, I tied
2:59:37
Speaker 1: some grass about my feet and limped on across smoking
2:59:40
Speaker 1: ashes and among black stems that still pulsated internally with fire,
2:59:46
Speaker 1: towards the hiding place of the time machine. I walked slowly,
2:59:51
Speaker 1: for I was almost exhausted as well as lame, and
2:59:55
Speaker 1: I felt the intensest wretchedness for the horrible death of
2:59:59
Speaker 1: little Weena. It seemed an overwhelming calamity. Now in this old,
3:00:04
Speaker 1: familiar room, it is more like the sorrow of a
3:00:07
Speaker 1: dream than an actual loss. But that morning it left
3:00:11
Speaker 1: me absolutely lonely again, terribly alone. I began to think
3:00:16
Speaker 1: of this house of mine, of this fireside, of some
3:00:19
Speaker 1: of you, and with such thoughts came a longing that
3:00:23
Speaker 1: was pain. But as I walked over the smoking ashes
3:00:28
Speaker 1: under the bright morning sky, I made a discovery in
3:00:32
Speaker 1: my trouser pocket were still some loose matches. The box
3:00:36
Speaker 1: must have leaked before it was lost. End of Chapter nine,
3:00:43
Speaker 1: Chapter ten. About eight or nine in the morning, I
3:00:48
Speaker 1: came to the same seat of yellow metal from which
3:00:51
Speaker 1: I had viewed the world upon the evening of my arrival.
3:00:55
Speaker 1: I thought of my hasty conclusions upon that evening, and
3:00:58
Speaker 1: could not refrain from laughing bitterly at my confidence. Here
3:01:02
Speaker 1: was the same beautiful scene, the same abundant foliage, the
3:01:07
Speaker 1: same splendid palaces and magnificent ruins, the same silver river
3:01:12
Speaker 1: running between its fertile banks. The gay robes of the
3:01:16
Speaker 1: beautiful people moved hither and thither among the trees. Some
3:01:20
Speaker 1: were bathing in exactly the place where I had saved Weena,
3:01:24
Speaker 1: and that suddenly gave me a keen stab of pain.
3:01:28
Speaker 1: And like blots upon the landscape rose the cupulas above
3:01:32
Speaker 1: the ways to the underworld. I understood now what all
3:01:36
Speaker 1: the beauty of the over world people covered? Very pleasant?
3:01:40
Speaker 1: Was their day as pleasant as the day of the
3:01:43
Speaker 1: cattle in the field. Like the cattle, they knew of
3:01:47
Speaker 1: no enemies and provided against no needs, And their end
3:01:52
Speaker 1: was the same. I grieved to think how brief the
3:01:56
Speaker 1: dream of the human intellect had been. It had committed suoneicide.
3:02:00
Speaker 1: It had set itself steadfastly towards comforts and ease, a
3:02:05
Speaker 1: balanced society with security and permanency as its watchword. It
3:02:10
Speaker 1: had attained its hopes, and come to this at last,
3:02:15
Speaker 1: once life and property must have reached almost absolute safety.
3:02:21
Speaker 1: The rich had been assured of his wealth and comfort,
3:02:24
Speaker 1: the toiler assured of his life and work. No doubt,
3:02:29
Speaker 1: in that perfect world there had been no unemployed problem,
3:02:33
Speaker 1: no social question left unsolved, and a great quiet had followed.
3:02:40
Speaker 1: It is a law of nature we overlook that intellectual
3:02:43
Speaker 1: versatility is the compensation for change, danger, and trouble. An
3:02:49
Speaker 1: animal perfectly in harmony with its environment is a perfect mechanism.
3:02:54
Speaker 1: Nature never appeals to intelligence until habit and instinct are useless.
3:03:00
Speaker 1: There is no intelligence where there is no change and
3:03:03
Speaker 1: no need of change. Only those animals partake of intelligence
3:03:07
Speaker 1: that have to meet a huge variety of needs and dangers. So,
3:03:13
Speaker 1: as I see it, the upper world man had drifted
3:03:15
Speaker 1: towards his feeble prettiness, and the underworld to mere mechanical industry.
3:03:22
Speaker 1: But that perfect state had lacked one thing, even for
3:03:25
Speaker 1: mechanical perfection, absolute permanency. Apparently, as time went on, the
3:03:32
Speaker 1: feeding of the underworld, however it was affected, had become disjointed.
3:03:38
Speaker 1: Mother Necessity, who had been staved off for a few
3:03:41
Speaker 1: thousand years, came back again, and she began below the underworld,
3:03:47
Speaker 1: being in contact with machinery, which, however perfect still needs
3:03:51
Speaker 1: some little thought. Outside habit had probably retained perforce rather
3:03:56
Speaker 1: more initiative, if less of every other human character than
3:04:00
Speaker 1: the upper And when other meat failed them, they turned
3:04:04
Speaker 1: to what old habit had hitherto forbidden. So I say
3:04:09
Speaker 1: I saw it in my last view of the world
3:04:11
Speaker 1: of eight hundred and two thousand, seven hundred and one.
3:04:15
Speaker 1: It may be as wrong an explanation as mortal wit
3:04:18
Speaker 1: could invent. It is how the thing shaped itself to me,
3:04:22
Speaker 1: and as that I give it to you. After the fatigues, excitements,
3:04:28
Speaker 1: and terrors of the past days, and in spite of
3:04:31
Speaker 1: my grief, this seat and the tranquil view and the
3:04:34
Speaker 1: warm sunlight were very pleasant. I was very tired and sleepy,
3:04:40
Speaker 1: and soon my theorizing passed into dozing. Catching myself at that,
3:04:45
Speaker 1: I took my own hint and spreading myself out upon
3:04:48
Speaker 1: the turf. I had a long and refreshing sleep. I
3:04:53
Speaker 1: awoke a little before sunsetting. I now felt safe against
3:04:57
Speaker 1: being caught napping by the Morlocks, and stretching myself, I
3:05:01
Speaker 1: came down on the hill towards the White Sphinx. I
3:05:05
Speaker 1: had my crowbar in one hand, and the other hand
3:05:07
Speaker 1: played with the matches in my pocket. And now came
3:05:12
Speaker 1: a most unexpected thing. As I approached the pedestal of
3:05:16
Speaker 1: the Sphinx, I found the bronze valves were open. They
3:05:20
Speaker 1: had slid down into grooves. At that I stopped short
3:05:24
Speaker 1: before them, hesitating to enter. Within was a small apartment,
3:05:30
Speaker 1: and on a raised place in the corner of this
3:05:32
Speaker 1: was the time machine. I had the small levers in
3:05:36
Speaker 1: my pocket, so here, after all my elaborate preparations for
3:05:40
Speaker 1: the siege of the White Sphinx, was a meek surrender.
3:05:45
Speaker 1: I threw my iron bar away, almost sorry not to
3:05:48
Speaker 1: use it. A sudden thought came into my head as
3:05:52
Speaker 1: I stooped towards the portal. For once at least I
3:05:56
Speaker 1: grasped the mental operations of the Morlocks. Pressing a strong
3:06:01
Speaker 1: inclination to laugh, I stepped through the bronze frame and
3:06:04
Speaker 1: up to the time machine. I was surprised to find
3:06:08
Speaker 1: it had been carefully oiled and cleaned. I have suspected
3:06:12
Speaker 1: since that the Morlocks had even partially taken it to
3:06:15
Speaker 1: pieces while trying in their dim way to grasp its purpose. Now,
3:06:21
Speaker 1: as I stood and examined it, finding a pleasure in
3:06:24
Speaker 1: the mere touch of the contrivance, the thing I had
3:06:27
Speaker 1: expected happened. The bronze panel suddenly slid up and struck
3:06:32
Speaker 1: the frame with a clang. I was in the dark, trapped,
3:06:37
Speaker 1: so the morlocks thought, And at that I chuckled gleefully.
3:06:42
Speaker 1: I could already hear their murmuring laughter as they came
3:06:45
Speaker 1: towards me. Very calmly, I tried to strike the match.
3:06:51
Speaker 1: I had only to fix on the levers and depart
3:06:53
Speaker 1: then like a ghost. But I had overlooked one little thing,
3:06:59
Speaker 1: the matches of that abominable kind, that light only on
3:07:03
Speaker 1: the box. You may imagine how all my calm vanished.
3:07:08
Speaker 1: The little brutes were close upon me. One touched me.
3:07:12
Speaker 1: I made a sweeping blow in the dark at them
3:07:14
Speaker 1: with the levers, and began to scramble into the saddle
3:07:17
Speaker 1: of the machine. Then came one hand upon me and
3:07:21
Speaker 1: then another. Then I had simply to fight against their
3:07:25
Speaker 1: persistent fingers for my levers, and at the same time
3:07:29
Speaker 1: few for the studs over which these fitted. One Indeed,
3:07:33
Speaker 1: they almost got away from me as it slipped from
3:07:36
Speaker 1: my hand. I had to bud in the dark with
3:07:38
Speaker 1: my head. I could hear the morlock's skull ring to
3:07:41
Speaker 1: recover it. It was a nearer thing than the fight
3:07:45
Speaker 1: in the forest, I think, this last scramble. But at
3:07:49
Speaker 1: last the lever was fitted and pulled over. The clinging
3:07:53
Speaker 1: hands slipped from me. The darkness presently fell from my eyes.
3:07:58
Speaker 1: I found myself in the same gray lights and tumult
3:08:02
Speaker 1: I have already described end of chapter ten, Chapter eleven.
3:08:11
Speaker 1: I have already told you of this sickness and confusion
3:08:14
Speaker 1: that comes with time traveling. And this time I was
3:08:18
Speaker 1: not seated properly in the saddle, but sideways and in
3:08:22
Speaker 1: an unstable fashion. For an indefinite time. I clung to
3:08:27
Speaker 1: the machine as it swayed and vibrated, quite unheeding how
3:08:31
Speaker 1: I went. And when I brought myself to look at
3:08:33
Speaker 1: the dials again, I was amazed to find where I
3:08:36
Speaker 1: had arrived. One dial records days and another thousands of days,
3:08:42
Speaker 1: another millions of days, and another thousands of millions. Now,
3:08:47
Speaker 1: instead of reversing the levers, I had pulled them over
3:08:51
Speaker 1: so as to go forward with them. And when I
3:08:53
Speaker 1: came to look at these indicators, I found that the
3:08:56
Speaker 1: thousands hand was sweeping round as fast as the second's
3:08:59
Speaker 1: hand of a watch into futurity. As I drove on,
3:09:04
Speaker 1: a peculiar change crept over the appearance of things. The
3:09:08
Speaker 1: palpitating grayness grew darker. Then, though I was still traveling
3:09:12
Speaker 1: with prodigious velocity, the blinking succession of day and night,
3:09:17
Speaker 1: which was usually indicative of a slower pace, returned and
3:09:21
Speaker 1: more and more marked. This puzzled me very much at first.
3:09:26
Speaker 1: The alternations of night and day grew slower and slower,
3:09:30
Speaker 1: and so did the passage of the sun across the sky,
3:09:34
Speaker 1: until they seemed to stretch through centuries. At last, a
3:09:38
Speaker 1: steady twilight brooded over the earth, a twilight only broken
3:09:43
Speaker 1: now and then, when a comet glared across the darkling sky,
3:09:47
Speaker 1: the band of light that had indicated the sun had
3:09:50
Speaker 1: long since disappeared, for the sun had ceased to set.
3:09:55
Speaker 1: It simply rose and fell in the west, and grew
3:09:58
Speaker 1: ever broader and more all trace of the moon had vanished.
3:10:04
Speaker 1: The circling of the stars, growing slower and slower, had
3:10:08
Speaker 1: given place to creeping points of light. At last, some
3:10:13
Speaker 1: time before I stopped, the Sun, very red and very large,
3:10:18
Speaker 1: halted motionless upon the horizon, a vast dome, glowing with
3:10:23
Speaker 1: a dull heat, and now and then suffering a momentary extinction.
3:10:29
Speaker 1: At one time it had, for a little while glowed
3:10:32
Speaker 1: more brilliantly again, but it speedily reverted to its sullen
3:10:37
Speaker 1: red heat. I perceived, by this slowing down of its
3:10:41
Speaker 1: rising and setting, that the work of the tidal drag
3:10:44
Speaker 1: was done. The Earth had come to rest with one
3:10:47
Speaker 1: face to the Sun, even as in our own time,
3:10:51
Speaker 1: the Moon faces the Earth very cautiously. For I remembered
3:10:56
Speaker 1: my former headlong fall, I began to reverse my motion.
3:11:01
Speaker 1: Slower and slower went the circling hands, until the thousands
3:11:05
Speaker 1: one seemed motionless, and the daily one was no longer
3:11:09
Speaker 1: a mere mist upon its scale, still slower, until the
3:11:13
Speaker 1: dim outlines of a desolate beach grew visible. I stopped
3:11:18
Speaker 1: very gently and sat upon the time machine, looking round.
3:11:23
Speaker 1: The sky was no longer blue. Northeastward it was inky black,
3:11:28
Speaker 1: and out of the blackness shone brightly and steadily the
3:11:32
Speaker 1: pale white stars. Overhead it was a deep Indian red
3:11:37
Speaker 1: and starless, and southeastward it grew brighter to a glowing scarlet,
3:11:42
Speaker 1: where cut by the horizon lay the huge hull of
3:11:45
Speaker 1: the sun, red and motionless. The rocks about me were
3:11:50
Speaker 1: of a harsh reddish color. And all the trace of
3:11:54
Speaker 1: life that I could see at first was the intensely
3:11:56
Speaker 1: green vegetation that covered every projecting point on their southeastern face.
3:12:03
Speaker 1: It was the same rich green that one sees on
3:12:06
Speaker 1: forest moss or on the lichen in caves, plants which
3:12:11
Speaker 1: like these grow in a perpetual twilight. The machine was
3:12:16
Speaker 1: standing on a sloping beach. The sea stretched away to
3:12:20
Speaker 1: the southwest to rise into a sharp, bright horizon against
3:12:24
Speaker 1: the wan sky. There were no breakers and no waves,
3:12:29
Speaker 1: for not a breath of wind was stirring. Only a
3:12:32
Speaker 1: slightly oily swell rose and fell like a gentle breathing,
3:12:37
Speaker 1: and showed that the eternal sea was still moving and living.
3:12:42
Speaker 1: And along the margin where the water sometimes broke was
3:12:45
Speaker 1: a thick incrustation of salt pink. Under the lurid sky,
3:12:51
Speaker 1: there was a sense of oppression in my head, and
3:12:53
Speaker 1: I noticed that I was breathing very fast. The sensation
3:12:58
Speaker 1: reminded me of my only ex experience of mountaineering, and
3:13:02
Speaker 1: from that I judged the air to be more rarefied
3:13:05
Speaker 1: than it is now. Far away up the desolate slope,
3:13:09
Speaker 1: I heard a harsh scream and saw a thing like
3:13:12
Speaker 1: a huge white butterfly go slanting and flittering up into
3:13:16
Speaker 1: the sky and circling disappear over some low hillocks beyond.
3:13:22
Speaker 1: The sound of its voice was so dismal that I
3:13:25
Speaker 1: shivered and seated myself more firmly upon the machine. Looking
3:13:30
Speaker 1: round me again, I saw that quite near what I
3:13:33
Speaker 1: had taken to be a reddish mass of rock was
3:13:36
Speaker 1: moving slowly towards me. Then I saw the thing was
3:13:40
Speaker 1: really a monstrous crablike creature. Can you imagine a crab
3:13:46
Speaker 1: as large as yonder table, with its many legs moving
3:13:49
Speaker 1: slowly and uncertainly, its big claws swaying, its long antennae
3:13:55
Speaker 1: like Carter's whips waving and feeling, and its stalked eyes
3:13:59
Speaker 1: gleaming at you at either side of its metallic front.
3:14:03
Speaker 1: Its back was corrugated and ornamented with ungainly bosses and
3:14:07
Speaker 1: a greenish incrustation blotched it. Here and there. I could
3:14:11
Speaker 1: see the many palps of its complicated mouth flickering and
3:14:14
Speaker 1: feeling as it moved. As I stared at this sinister
3:14:20
Speaker 1: apparition crawling towards me, I felt a tickling on my cheek,
3:14:25
Speaker 1: as though a fly had lighted there. I tried to
3:14:28
Speaker 1: brush it away with my hand, but in a moment
3:14:31
Speaker 1: it returned, and almost immediately came another by my ear.
3:14:36
Speaker 1: I struck at this and caught something threadlike. It was
3:14:40
Speaker 1: drawn swiftly out of my hand with a frightful qualm.
3:14:44
Speaker 1: I turned and saw that I had grasped the antennae
3:14:47
Speaker 1: of another monster crab that stood just behind me. Its
3:14:51
Speaker 1: evil eyes were wriggling on their stalks, its mouth was
3:14:55
Speaker 1: all alive with appetite, and its vast, ungainly claws, smeared
3:15:00
Speaker 1: with an algeal slime, were descending upon me. In a moment,
3:15:04
Speaker 1: my hand was on the lever, and I had placed
3:15:07
Speaker 1: a month between myself and these monsters. But I was
3:15:11
Speaker 1: still on the same beach and saw them distinctly. Now,
3:15:15
Speaker 1: as soon as I stopped, dozens of them seemed to
3:15:18
Speaker 1: be crawling here and there in the somber light, among
3:15:21
Speaker 1: the foliated sheets of intense green. I cannot convey the
3:15:26
Speaker 1: sense of abominable desolation that hung over the world. The
3:15:31
Speaker 1: red eastern sky, the northward blackness, the salt dead sea,
3:15:36
Speaker 1: the stony beach, crawling with these foul, slow, stirring monsters,
3:15:42
Speaker 1: the uniform, poisonous looking green of the likeness plants, the
3:15:46
Speaker 1: thin air that hurts one's lungs, all contributed to an
3:15:50
Speaker 1: appalling effect. I moved on a hundred years, and there
3:15:56
Speaker 1: was the same red sun, a little larger, a little duller,
3:16:00
Speaker 1: the same dying sea, the same chill air, and the
3:16:04
Speaker 1: same crowd of earthy crestacea creeping in and out among
3:16:08
Speaker 1: the green weed and the red rocks. And in the
3:16:11
Speaker 1: westward sky I saw a curved pale line like a
3:16:15
Speaker 1: vast new moon. So I traveled, stopping ever and again
3:16:21
Speaker 1: in great strides of a thousand years or more, drawn
3:16:24
Speaker 1: on by the mystery of the Earth's fate, watching with
3:16:27
Speaker 1: a strange fascination, the sun grow larger and duller in
3:16:31
Speaker 1: the westward sky, and the life of the old Earth
3:16:35
Speaker 1: ebb away at last more than thirty million years hence
3:16:40
Speaker 1: the huge red hot dome of the sun had come
3:16:43
Speaker 1: to obscure nearly a tenth part of the darkening heavens.
3:16:47
Speaker 1: Then I stopped once more, for the crawling multitude of
3:16:50
Speaker 1: crabs had disappeared, and the red beech, save for its
3:16:55
Speaker 1: livid green liverworts and lichens, seemed lifeless, and now it
3:17:00
Speaker 1: was flecked with white. A bitter cold assailed me rare
3:17:05
Speaker 1: white flakes. Ever, and again came eddying down to the northeastward.
3:17:10
Speaker 1: The glare of snow lay under the starlight of the
3:17:12
Speaker 1: sable sky, and I could see an undulating crest of
3:17:16
Speaker 1: hellocks pinkish white. There were fringes of ice among the
3:17:20
Speaker 1: sea margin, with drifting masses further out, but the main
3:17:24
Speaker 1: expanse of that salt ocean, all bloody under the eternal sunset,
3:17:29
Speaker 1: was still unfrozen. I looked about me to see if
3:17:34
Speaker 1: any traces of animal life remained. A certain indefinable apprehension
3:17:39
Speaker 1: still kept me in the saddle of the machine. But
3:17:43
Speaker 1: I saw nothing moving in earth or sky or sea.
3:17:48
Speaker 1: The green slime on the rocks alone testified that life
3:17:52
Speaker 1: was not extinct. A shallow sand bank that appeared in
3:17:57
Speaker 1: the sea, and the water had receded from the beach.
3:18:00
Speaker 1: I fancied I saw some black object flopping about upon
3:18:04
Speaker 1: this bank, but it became motionless as I looked at it,
3:18:08
Speaker 1: and I judged that my eye had been deceived, and
3:18:12
Speaker 1: that the black object was merely a rock. The stars
3:18:16
Speaker 1: in the sky were intensely bright and seemed to me
3:18:19
Speaker 1: to twinkle very little. Suddenly I noticed that the circular
3:18:24
Speaker 1: westward outline of the Sun had changed, that a concavity
3:18:29
Speaker 1: a bay, had appeared in the curve. I saw this
3:18:33
Speaker 1: grow larger for a minute, perhaps I stared aghast at
3:18:37
Speaker 1: this blackness that was creeping over the day, and then
3:18:41
Speaker 1: I realized that an eclipse was beginning. Either the Moon
3:18:45
Speaker 1: or the planet Mercury was passing across the Sun's disk naturally.
3:18:51
Speaker 1: At first I took it to be the Moon, but
3:18:54
Speaker 1: there is much to incline me to believe that what
3:18:56
Speaker 1: I really saw was the transit of an inner planet
3:19:00
Speaker 1: passing very near to the Earth. The darkness grew apace,
3:19:05
Speaker 1: A cold wind began to blow in freshening gusts from
3:19:08
Speaker 1: the east, and the showering white flakes in the air
3:19:11
Speaker 1: increased in number. From the edge of the sea came
3:19:15
Speaker 1: a ripple and whisper. Beyond these lifeless sounds, the world
3:19:20
Speaker 1: was silent, silent. It would be hard to convey the
3:19:24
Speaker 1: stillness of it. All the sounds of man, the bleating
3:19:28
Speaker 1: of sheep, the cries of birds, the hum of insects,
3:19:32
Speaker 1: the stir that makes the background of our lives. All
3:19:36
Speaker 1: that was over. As the darkness thickened, the eddying flakes
3:19:40
Speaker 1: grew more abundant, dancing before my eyes, and the cold
3:19:45
Speaker 1: of the air more intense. At last, one by one, swiftly,
3:19:51
Speaker 1: one after the other, the white peaks of the distant
3:19:53
Speaker 1: hills vanished into blackness. The breeze rose to a moaning wind.
3:19:59
Speaker 1: I saw the black central shadow of the eclipse sweeping
3:20:02
Speaker 1: towards me. In another moment, the pale stars alone were visible.
3:20:08
Speaker 1: All else was rayless obscurity. The sky was absolutely black.
3:20:16
Speaker 1: A horror of this great darkness came on me. The
3:20:19
Speaker 1: cold that smote to my marrow, and the pain I
3:20:22
Speaker 1: felt in breathing overcame me. I shivered, and a deadly
3:20:27
Speaker 1: nausea seized me. Then like a red hot bow in
3:20:31
Speaker 1: the sky appeared the edge of the sun. I got
3:20:35
Speaker 1: off the machine to recover myself. I felt giddy and
3:20:39
Speaker 1: incapable of facing the return journey. As I stood, sick
3:20:44
Speaker 1: and confused, I saw again the moving thing upon the shoal.
3:20:48
Speaker 1: There was no mistake now that it was a moving
3:20:51
Speaker 1: thing against the red water of the sea. It was
3:20:55
Speaker 1: a round thing, the size of a football perhaps, or
3:20:58
Speaker 1: it may be bigger, and tentacles trailed down from it.
3:21:03
Speaker 1: It seemed black against the weltering blood red water, and
3:21:06
Speaker 1: it was hopping fitfully about. Then I felt I was fainting,
3:21:12
Speaker 1: but a terrible dread of lying helpless in that remote
3:21:15
Speaker 1: and awful twilight sustained me while I clambered upon the saddle.
3:21:22
Speaker 1: End of chapter eleven, Chapter twelve. So I came back.
3:21:29
Speaker 1: For a long time. I must have been insensible upon
3:21:32
Speaker 1: the machine. The blinking succession of the days and nights
3:21:35
Speaker 1: was resumed. The sun got golden again, the sky blue.
3:21:40
Speaker 1: I breathed with greater freedom. The fluctuating contours of the
3:21:45
Speaker 1: land ebbed and flowed, the hand spun backward upon the dials.
3:21:50
Speaker 1: At last I saw again the dim shadows of houses,
3:21:54
Speaker 1: the evidences of decadent humanity. These too changed and passed,
3:21:59
Speaker 1: and others came presently. When the million dial was at zero,
3:22:04
Speaker 1: I slackened speed. I began to recognize our own petty
3:22:08
Speaker 1: and familiar architecture. The thousand's hand ran back to the
3:22:12
Speaker 1: starting point. The day and night flapped slower and slower.
3:22:17
Speaker 1: Then the old walls of the laboratory came round me
3:22:21
Speaker 1: very gently. Now I slowed the mechanism down. I saw
3:22:26
Speaker 1: one little thing that seemed odd to me. I think
3:22:29
Speaker 1: I've told you that when I set out before, my
3:22:32
Speaker 1: velocity became very high. Missus Watchett had walked across the room, traveling,
3:22:38
Speaker 1: as it seemed to me, like a rocket. As I returned,
3:22:42
Speaker 1: I passed again across that minute when she traversed the laboratory,
3:22:46
Speaker 1: but now her every motion appeared to be the exact
3:22:50
Speaker 1: inversion of her previous ones. The door at the lower
3:22:54
Speaker 1: end opened, and she glided quietly up the laboratory back foremost,
3:22:58
Speaker 1: and disappeared behind the door by which he had previously entered.
3:23:03
Speaker 1: Just before that. I seemed to see heilia for a moment,
3:23:06
Speaker 1: but he passed like a flash. Then I stopped the
3:23:12
Speaker 1: machine and saw about me again the old familiar laboratory,
3:23:17
Speaker 1: My tools, my appliances just as I had left them.
3:23:21
Speaker 1: I got off the thing, very shaky, and sat down
3:23:24
Speaker 1: upon my bench For several minutes. I trembled violently. Then
3:23:30
Speaker 1: I became calmer. Around me was my old workshop again,
3:23:34
Speaker 1: exactly as it had been. I might have slept there,
3:23:38
Speaker 1: and the whole thing had been a dream, and yet
3:23:42
Speaker 1: not exactly. The thing had started from the southeast corner
3:23:46
Speaker 1: of the laboratory, it had come to rest again in
3:23:49
Speaker 1: the northwest against the wall where you saw it. That
3:23:53
Speaker 1: gives you the exact distance from my little lawn to
3:23:56
Speaker 1: the pedestal of the white sphinx into which the morlocks,
3:24:00
Speaker 1: and it carried my machine. For a time, my brain
3:24:04
Speaker 1: went stagnant. Presently I got up and came through the
3:24:07
Speaker 1: passage here, limping because my heel was still painful, and
3:24:11
Speaker 1: feeling sorely begrimed. I saw the pall mall gazette on
3:24:16
Speaker 1: the table by the door. I found the date was
3:24:19
Speaker 1: indeed to day, and looking at the timepiece, saw the
3:24:22
Speaker 1: hour was almost eight o'clock. I heard your voices and
3:24:26
Speaker 1: the clatter of plates. I hesitated. I felt so sick
3:24:31
Speaker 1: and weak. Then I sniffed good wholesome meat and opened
3:24:36
Speaker 1: the door on you. You know the rest. I washed
3:24:40
Speaker 1: and dined, and now I am telling you the story.
3:24:45
Speaker 1: I know, he said, after a pause, that all this
3:24:49
Speaker 1: will be absolutely incredible to you. To me, the one
3:24:53
Speaker 1: incredible thing is that I am here tonight, in this old,
3:24:56
Speaker 1: familiar room, looking into your friendly faces and telling you
3:25:01
Speaker 1: these strange adventures. He looked at the medical man. No,
3:25:07
Speaker 1: I cannot expect you to believe it. Take it as
3:25:10
Speaker 1: a lie or a prophecy. Say, I dreamed it in
3:25:14
Speaker 1: the workshop. Consider I have been speculating upon the destinies
3:25:18
Speaker 1: of our race until I have hatched this fiction. Treat
3:25:22
Speaker 1: my assertion of its truth as a mere stroke of
3:25:26
Speaker 1: art to enhance its interest, and taking it as a story.
3:25:30
Speaker 1: What do you think of it? He took up his
3:25:33
Speaker 1: pipe and began, in his old accustomed manner, to tap
3:25:37
Speaker 1: with it nervously upon the bars of the grate. There
3:25:41
Speaker 1: was a momentary stillness. Then chairs began to creak, and
3:25:45
Speaker 1: shoes to scrape upon the carpet. I took my eyes
3:25:49
Speaker 1: off the time Traveler's face and looked round at his audience.
3:25:53
Speaker 1: They were in the dark, and little spots of color
3:25:56
Speaker 1: swam before them. The medical man seemed absorbed in the
3:25:59
Speaker 1: contemplation of our host. The editor was looking hard at
3:26:03
Speaker 1: the end of his cigar the sixth. The journalist fumbled
3:26:08
Speaker 1: for his watch. The others, as far as I remember,
3:26:11
Speaker 1: were motionless. The editor stood up with a sigh. What
3:26:17
Speaker 1: a pity it is. You're not a writer of stories,
3:26:20
Speaker 1: he said, putting his hand on the time Traveler's shoulder.
3:26:24
Speaker 1: You don't believe it, well, I thought not. The time
3:26:30
Speaker 1: traveler turned to us. Where are the matches, he said?
3:26:34
Speaker 1: He lit one and spoke over his pipe, puffing to
3:26:38
Speaker 1: tell you the truth. I hardly believe it myself. And
3:26:43
Speaker 1: yet his eye fell with a mute inquiry upon the
3:26:47
Speaker 1: withered white flowers upon the little table. Then he turned
3:26:51
Speaker 1: over the hand holding his pipe, and I saw he
3:26:54
Speaker 1: was looking at some half heeled scars on his knuckles.
3:26:58
Speaker 1: The medical man rose, came to the lamp and examined
3:27:01
Speaker 1: the flowers. The gynasium's odd, he said. The psychologist leaned
3:27:08
Speaker 1: forward to see, holding out his hand for a specimen.
3:27:12
Speaker 1: I'm hanged if it isn't quarter to one, said the journalist.
3:27:15
Speaker 1: How shall we get home? Plenty of cabs at the station,
3:27:19
Speaker 1: said the psychologist. It's a curious thing, said the medical man.
3:27:25
Speaker 1: But I certainly don't know the natural order of these flowers?
3:27:29
Speaker 1: May I have them? The time traveler hesitated. Then suddenly, certainly,
3:27:35
Speaker 1: not where did you really get them? Said the medical man.
3:27:41
Speaker 1: The time traveler put his hand to his head. He
3:27:44
Speaker 1: spoke like one who is trying to keep hold of
3:27:46
Speaker 1: an idea that eluded him. They were put into my
3:27:51
Speaker 1: pocket by Weena when I traveled into time. He stared
3:27:55
Speaker 1: around the room. I'm damned if it isn't all going
3:27:59
Speaker 1: The room and you in the atmosphere of every day
3:28:03
Speaker 1: is too much for my memory. Did I ever make
3:28:06
Speaker 1: a time machine or a model of a time machine?
3:28:10
Speaker 1: Or is it all only a dream? They say life
3:28:13
Speaker 1: is a dream, a precious poor dream at times. But
3:28:17
Speaker 1: I can't stand another that won't fit. It's madness. And
3:28:22
Speaker 1: where did the dream come from? I must look at
3:28:25
Speaker 1: that machine, if there is one. He caught up the
3:28:29
Speaker 1: lamp swiftly and carried it, flaring red, through the door
3:28:32
Speaker 1: into the corridor. We followed him. There, in the flickering
3:28:36
Speaker 1: light of the lamp was the machine, sure enough, squat
3:28:40
Speaker 1: ugly and askew, a thing of brass, ebony, ivory and
3:28:45
Speaker 1: translucent glimmering quartz solid to the touch. For I put
3:28:50
Speaker 1: out my hand and felt the rail of it, and
3:28:53
Speaker 1: with brown spots and smears upon the ivory, and bits
3:28:56
Speaker 1: of grass and moss upon the lower parts, and one
3:28:59
Speaker 1: race bent awry. The time traveler put the lamp down
3:29:04
Speaker 1: on the bench and ran his hand along the damaged rail.
3:29:08
Speaker 1: It's all right now, he said. The story I told
3:29:11
Speaker 1: you was true. I'm sorry to have brought you out
3:29:15
Speaker 1: here in the cold. He took up the lamp, and
3:29:18
Speaker 1: in an absolute silence, we returned to the smoking room.
3:29:22
Speaker 1: He came into the hall with us and helped the
3:29:24
Speaker 1: editor on with his coat. The medical man looked into
3:29:27
Speaker 1: his face and with a certain hesitation, told him he
3:29:31
Speaker 1: was suffering from over work, at which he laughed hugely.
3:29:36
Speaker 1: I remember him standing in the open doorway, bawling good night.
3:29:41
Speaker 1: I shared a cab with the editor. He thought the
3:29:44
Speaker 1: tale a gaudy lie. For my own part, I was
3:29:48
Speaker 1: unable to come to a conclusion. The story was so
3:29:52
Speaker 1: fantastic and incredible, the telling so credible and sober. I
3:29:58
Speaker 1: lay awake most of the thinking about it. I determined
3:30:02
Speaker 1: to go next day and see the time traveler again.
3:30:05
Speaker 1: I was told he was in the laboratory, and, being
3:30:08
Speaker 1: on easy terms in the house, I went up to him.
3:30:11
Speaker 1: The laboratory, however, was empty. I stared for a minute
3:30:16
Speaker 1: at the time machine and put out my hand and
3:30:19
Speaker 1: touched the lever. At that the squat substantial looking mass
3:30:24
Speaker 1: swayed like a bow shaken by the wind. Its instability
3:30:29
Speaker 1: startled me extremely, and I had a queer reminiscence of
3:30:33
Speaker 1: the childish days when I used to be forbidden to meddle.
3:30:37
Speaker 1: I came back through the corridor. The time traveler met
3:30:41
Speaker 1: me in the smoking room. He was coming from the house.
3:30:44
Speaker 1: He had a small camera under one arm and a
3:30:47
Speaker 1: knapsack under the other. He laughed when he saw me
3:30:50
Speaker 1: and gave me an elbow to shake. I'm frightfully busy,
3:30:55
Speaker 1: said he with that thing in there, But is it
3:30:59
Speaker 1: not some hoax? I said, do you really travel through time? Really?
3:31:06
Speaker 1: And truly I do? And he looked frankly into my eyes.
3:31:11
Speaker 1: He hesitated his eye wandered about the room. I only
3:31:16
Speaker 1: want half an hour, he said. I know why you came,
3:31:19
Speaker 1: and it's awfully good of you. There's some magazines here.
3:31:23
Speaker 1: If you'll stop to lunch, I'll prove you this time
3:31:26
Speaker 1: traveling up to the hilt, specimen and all, if you'll
3:31:29
Speaker 1: forgive my leaving you now. I consented, hardly comprehending than
3:31:35
Speaker 1: the full import of his words, and he nodded and
3:31:38
Speaker 1: went on down the corridor. I heard the door of
3:31:41
Speaker 1: the laboratory slam, seated myself in a chair and took
3:31:44
Speaker 1: up a daily paper. What was he going to do
3:31:48
Speaker 1: before lunch time? Then suddenly I was reminded by an
3:31:52
Speaker 1: advertisement that I had promised to meet Richardson, the publisher
3:31:55
Speaker 1: at two. I looked at my watch and saw that
3:31:59
Speaker 1: I could barely say gave that engagement. I got up
3:32:02
Speaker 1: and went down the passage to tell the time traveler.
3:32:05
Speaker 1: As I took hold of the handle of the door,
3:32:08
Speaker 1: I heard an exclamation oddly truncated at the end, and
3:32:12
Speaker 1: a click and a thud. A gust of air whirled
3:32:15
Speaker 1: round me as I opened the door, and from within
3:32:18
Speaker 1: came the sound of broken glass falling on the floor.
3:32:22
Speaker 1: The time traveler was not there. I seemed to see
3:32:26
Speaker 1: a ghostly, indistinct figure sitting in a whirling mass of
3:32:30
Speaker 1: black and brass for a moment, a figure so transparent
3:32:34
Speaker 1: that the bench behind with its sheets of drawings was
3:32:37
Speaker 1: absolutely distinct. But this phantasm vanished as I rubbed my eyes.
3:32:43
Speaker 1: The time machine had gone, say for a subsiding stir
3:32:48
Speaker 1: of dust. The further end of the laboratory was empty.
3:32:52
Speaker 1: A pane of the skylight had apparently just been blown in.
3:32:57
Speaker 1: I felt an unreasonable amazement. I knew that something strange
3:33:02
Speaker 1: had happened, and for the moment could not distinguish what
3:33:05
Speaker 1: the strange thing might be. As I stood staring, the
3:33:10
Speaker 1: door into the garden opened and the man servant appeared.
3:33:14
Speaker 1: We looked at each other. Then ideas began to come.
3:33:19
Speaker 1: Has mister gone out that way? Said I, No, sir,
3:33:23
Speaker 1: no one has come out this way. I was expecting
3:33:26
Speaker 1: to find him here. At that, I understood. At the
3:33:31
Speaker 1: risk of disappointing Richardson, I stayed on, waiting for the
3:33:35
Speaker 1: time Traveler, waiting for the second, perhaps still stranger story
3:33:40
Speaker 1: and the specimens and photographs he would bring with him.
3:33:44
Speaker 1: But I am beginning now to fear that I must
3:33:47
Speaker 1: wait a lifetime. The time Traveler vanished three years ago,
3:33:53
Speaker 1: and as everybody knows now, he has never returned epilog
3:34:01
Speaker 1: One cannot choose, but wonder will he ever return. It
3:34:05
Speaker 1: may be that he swept back into the past and
3:34:09
Speaker 1: fell among the blood drinking, hairy savages of the age
3:34:12
Speaker 1: of unpolished stone, into the abysses of the Cretaceous sea,
3:34:17
Speaker 1: or among the grotesque sarians, the huge reptilian brutes of
3:34:21
Speaker 1: the Jurassic times. He may even now, if I may
3:34:26
Speaker 1: use the phrase, be wandering on some plasiosaurus haunted olidic
3:34:31
Speaker 1: coral reef, or beside the lonely saline lakes of the
3:34:34
Speaker 1: Triassic age. Or did he go forward into one of
3:34:39
Speaker 1: the nearer ages in which men are still men? But
3:34:43
Speaker 1: with the riddles of our own time answered and its
3:34:46
Speaker 1: wearisome problem solved, into the manhood of the race. For I,
3:34:51
Speaker 1: for my own part, cannot think that these latter days
3:34:54
Speaker 1: of weak experiment, fragmentary theory, and mutual discord are indeed
3:34:59
Speaker 1: man and culminating time. I say, for my own part,
3:35:04
Speaker 1: he I know, for the question had been discussed among
3:35:07
Speaker 1: us long before the time machine was made. Thought but
3:35:11
Speaker 1: cheerlessly of the advancement of mankind, and saw in the
3:35:15
Speaker 1: growing pile of civilization only a foolish heaping that must
3:35:19
Speaker 1: inevitably fall back upon and destroy its makers. In the end.
3:35:24
Speaker 1: If that is so, it remains for us to live
3:35:27
Speaker 1: as though it were not so. But to me the
3:35:30
Speaker 1: future is still black and blank. He is of vast ignorance,
3:35:35
Speaker 1: lit at a few casual places by the memory of
3:35:38
Speaker 1: his story. And I have by me for my comfort
3:35:43
Speaker 1: two strange white flowers, shriveled now and brown and flat
3:35:48
Speaker 1: and brittle, to witness that even when mind and strength
3:35:52
Speaker 1: had gone, gratitude and a mutual tenderness still lived on
3:35:56
Speaker 1: in the heart of man. The End of the Time
3:36:02
Speaker 1: Machine by H. G. Wells