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The First Men in the Moon Chapter 4 - Inside the Sphere · The H. G. Wells Library

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  Speaker 1: Chapter four of the First Men in the Moon. This
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  Speaker 1: is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the
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  Speaker 1: public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit
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  Speaker 1: LibriVox dot org. This recording is by Mark Smith of Simpsonville,
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  Speaker 1: South Carolina. The First Men in the Moon by H. G. Wells,
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  Speaker 1: Chapter four. Inside the Sphere, go on, said Cavour, as
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  Speaker 1: I sat across the edge of the manhole and looked
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  Speaker 1: down into the black interior of the sphere. We two
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  Speaker 1: were alone. It was evening, the sun had set, and
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  Speaker 1: the stillness of the twilight was upon everything. I drew
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  Speaker 1: my other leg inside and slid down the smooth glass
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  Speaker 1: to the bottom of the sphere. Then turned to take
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  Speaker 1: the cans of food and other impediments from Cavore. The
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  Speaker 1: interior was warm, the thermometer stood at eighty, and as
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  Speaker 1: we should lose little or none of this by radiation,
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  Speaker 1: we were dressed in shoes and thin flannels. We had, however,
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  Speaker 1: a bundle of thick woolen clothing and several thick blankets
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  Speaker 1: to guard against mischance. By Cavor's direction, I placed the packages,
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  Speaker 1: the cylinders of oxygen, and so forth loosely about my feet,
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  Speaker 1: and soon we had everything in. He walked about the
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  Speaker 1: roofless shed for a time, seeking anything we had overlooked,
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  Speaker 1: and then crawled in after me. I noted something in
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  Speaker 1: his hand. What have you got there, I asked, haven't
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  Speaker 1: you brought anything to read? Good Lord, No, I forgot
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  Speaker 1: to tell you there are uncertainties. The voyage may last.
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  Speaker 1: We may be weeks, but we shall be floating in
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  Speaker 1: the sphere with absolutely no occupation. I wish i'd known.
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  Speaker 1: He peered out of the manhole. Look, he said, there's
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  Speaker 1: something there is there time we shall be an hour.
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  Speaker 1: I looked out. It was an old number of tit
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  Speaker 1: bits that one of the men must have brought. Farther away.
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  Speaker 1: In the corner, I saw torn Lloyd's News. I scrambled
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  Speaker 1: back into the sphere with these things. What have you got,
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  Speaker 1: I said. I took the book from his hand and
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  Speaker 1: read the works of William Shakespeare. He colored slightly. My
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  Speaker 1: education has been so purely scientific, he said, apologetically. Never
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  Speaker 1: read him. Never he knew a little, You know, in
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  Speaker 1: an irregular sort of way, precisely what I am told,
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  Speaker 1: said Cavor. I assisted him to screw in the glass
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  Speaker 1: cover of the manhole, and then he pressed a stud
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  Speaker 1: to close the corresponding blind in the outer case. The
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  Speaker 1: little oblong of twilight vanished. We were in darkness for
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  Speaker 1: a time. Neither of us spoke. Although our case would
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  Speaker 1: not be impervious to sound, everything was very still. I
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  Speaker 1: perceived there was nothing to grip when the shock of
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  Speaker 1: our start should come. And I realized that I should
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  Speaker 1: be uncomfortable for want of a chair. Why have we
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  Speaker 1: no chairs, I asked, I've settled all that, said cavour,
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  Speaker 1: we won't need them. Why not? He will see, he said,
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  Speaker 1: in the tone of a man who refuses to talk.
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  Speaker 1: I became silent. Suddenly it had come to me, clear
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  Speaker 1: and vivid that I was a fool to be inside
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  Speaker 1: that sphere. Even now, I asked myself, is it too
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  Speaker 1: late to withdraw the world outside? The sphere I knew
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  Speaker 1: would be cold and inhospitable enough for me for weeks
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  Speaker 1: I have been living on subsidies from cavore. But after
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  Speaker 1: would it be as cold as the infinite zero, as
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  Speaker 1: inhospitable as empty space. If it had not been for
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  Speaker 1: the appearance of cowardice, I believe that even then I
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  Speaker 1: should have made him let me out. But I hesitated
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  Speaker 1: on that score, and hesitated and grew fretful and angry.
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  Speaker 1: And the time passed. There came a little jerk, a
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  Speaker 1: noise like champagne being uncorked in another room, and a
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  Speaker 1: faint whistling sound. For just one instant, I had a
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  Speaker 1: sense of enormous tension, a transient conviction that my feet
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  Speaker 1: were pressing downward with a force of countless tons. It
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  Speaker 1: lasted for an infinitesimal time, but it stirred me to action.
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  Speaker 1: Cavor I said, into the darkness, my nerves and rags.
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  Speaker 1: I don't think I stopped. He made no answer. Confound it,
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  Speaker 1: I cried, I'm a fool. What business have I? I hear?
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  Speaker 1: I'm not coming kuvor the thing's too risky. I'm getting out.
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  Speaker 1: You can't, he said, can't. We'll soon see about that.
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  Speaker 1: He made no answer. For ten seconds. It's too late
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  Speaker 1: for us to quarrel now, Bedford, he said, that little
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  Speaker 1: jerk was the start. Already we are flying as swiftly
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  Speaker 1: as a bullet up into the gulf of space, ah,
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  Speaker 1: I said, And then it didn't seem to matter what happened.
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  Speaker 1: For a time, I was as it were, stunned. I
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  Speaker 1: had nothing to say. It was just as if I
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  Speaker 1: had never heard of this idea of leaving the world before.
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  Speaker 1: Then I perceived an unaccountable change in my bodily sensations.
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  Speaker 1: It was a feeling of lightness, of unreality. Coupled with
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  Speaker 1: that was a queer sensation in the head, an apoplectic
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  Speaker 1: effect almost, and a thumping of blood vessels at the ears.
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  Speaker 1: Neither of these feelings diminished as time went on. But
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  Speaker 1: at last I got so used to them that I
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  Speaker 1: experienced no inconvenience. I heard a click, and a little
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  Speaker 1: glow lamp came into being. I saw Kavor's face as
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  Speaker 1: white as I felt my own to be. We regarded
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  Speaker 1: one another in silence. The transparent blackness of the glass
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  Speaker 1: behind him made him seem as though he floated in
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  Speaker 1: a void. Well, we're committed, I said, at last, Yes,
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  Speaker 1: he said, we're committed. Don't move, he exclaimed, at some
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  Speaker 1: suggestion of a gesture. Let your muscles keep quite lax,
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  Speaker 1: as if you were in bed. We are in a
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  Speaker 1: little universe of our own. Look at those things, He
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  Speaker 1: pointed to the loose cases and bundles that had been
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  Speaker 1: lying on the blankets. In the bottom of the sphere.
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  Speaker 1: I was astonished to see that they were floating, now
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  Speaker 1: nearly a foot from the spherical wall. Then I saw
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  Speaker 1: from his shadow that Cavour was no longer leaning against
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  Speaker 1: the glass. I thrust out my hand behind me, and
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  Speaker 1: found that I, too was suspended in space, clear of
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  Speaker 1: the glass. I did not cry out nor gesticulate, but
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  Speaker 1: fear came upon me. It was like being held and
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  Speaker 1: lifted by something, you know not what. The mere touch
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  Speaker 1: of my hand against the glass moved me rapidly. I
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  Speaker 1: understood what had happened, but that did not prevent my
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  Speaker 1: being afraid. We were cut off from all exterior gravitation.
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  Speaker 1: Only the attraction of objects within our sphere had effect. Consequently,
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  Speaker 1: everything that was not fixed to the glass was falling
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  Speaker 1: slowly because of the slightness of our masses towards the
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  Speaker 1: center of gravity of our little world, which seemed to
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  Speaker 1: be somewhere about the middle of the sphere, but rather
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  Speaker 1: nearer to myself than Cavore. On account of my greater weight,
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  Speaker 1: we must turn round, said Cavor, and float back to
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  Speaker 1: back with the things between us. It was the strangest
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  Speaker 1: sensation conceivable floating thus loosely in space at first, indeed
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  Speaker 1: horribly strange, and when the horror passed, not disagreeable at all,
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  Speaker 1: exceeding RESTful. Indeed, the nearest thing in earthly experience to
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  Speaker 1: it that I know is lying on a very thick,
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  Speaker 1: soft feather bed. But the quality of utter detachment and
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  Speaker 1: independence I had not reckoned on things like this. I
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  Speaker 1: had expected a violent jerk at starting, a giddy sense
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  Speaker 1: of speed. Instead I felt as if I were disembodied.
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  Speaker 1: It was not like the beginning of a journey. It
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  Speaker 1: was like the beginning of a dream. End of Chapter