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diff --git a/test/time.html b/test/time.html new file mode 100644 index 0000000..8b48f04 --- /dev/null +++ b/test/time.html @@ -0,0 +1,4402 @@ +<!DOCTYPE html> +<html lang="en"><head> +<meta http-equiv="content-type" content="text/html; charset=UTF-8"> +<meta charset="utf-8"><style> +#pg-header div, #pg-footer div { + all: initial; + display: block; + margin-top: 1em; + margin-bottom: 1em; + margin-left: 2em; +} +#pg-footer div.agate { + font-size: 90%; + margin-top: 0; + margin-bottom: 0; + text-align: center; +} +#pg-footer li { + all: initial; + display: block; + margin-top: 1em; + margin-bottom: 1em; + text-indent: -0.6em; +} +#pg-footer div.secthead { + font-size: 110%; + font-weight: bold; +} +#pg-footer #project-gutenberg-license { + font-size: 110%; + margin-top: 0; + margin-bottom: 0; + text-align: center; +} +#pg-header-heading { + all: inherit; + text-align: center; + font-size: 120%; + font-weight:bold; +} +#pg-footer-heading { + all: inherit; + text-align: center; + font-size: 120%; + font-weight: normal; + margin-top: 0; + margin-bottom: 0; +} +#pg-header #pg-machine-header p { + text-indent: -4em; + margin-left: 4em; + margin-top: 1em; + margin-bottom: 0; + font-size: medium +} +#pg-header #pg-header-authlist { + all: initial; + margin-top: 0; + margin-bottom: 0; +} +#pg-header #pg-machine-header strong { + font-weight: normal; +} +#pg-header #pg-start-separator, #pg-footer #pg-end-separator { + margin-bottom: 3em; + margin-left: 0; + margin-right: auto; + margin-top: 2em; + text-align: center +} + + .xhtml_center {text-align: center; display: block;} + .xhtml_center table { + display: table; + text-align: left; + margin-left: auto; + margin-right: auto; + }</style><title>The Project Gutenberg eBook of The Time Machine, by H. G. Wells</title> +<link href="time_files/cover.jpg" rel="icon" type="image/x-cover" id="id-8432451369110091092"> +<style>body { + text-align: justify + } +@media screen { + body { + margin-left: 10%; + margin-right: 10% + } + } +.pagedjs_page_content > div { + margin-left: 10%; + margin-right: 10% + } +h1, h2, h3, h4, h5 { + text-align: center; + font-style: normal; + font-weight: normal; + line-height: 1.5; + margin-top: 0.5em; + margin-bottom: 0.5em + } +h1 { + font-size: 300%; + margin-top: 0.6em; + margin-bottom: 0.6em; + letter-spacing: 0.12em; + word-spacing: 0.2em; + text-indent: 0 + } +h2 { + font-size: 150%; + margin-top: 2em; + margin-bottom: 1em + } +h3 { + font-size: 130%; + margin-top: 1em + } +h4 { + font-size: 120% + } +h5 { + font-size: 110% + } +hr { + width: 80%; + margin-top: 2em; + margin-bottom: 2em + } +div.chapter { + page-break-before: always; + margin-top: 4em + } +p { + text-indent: 1em; + margin-top: 0.25em; + margin-bottom: 0.25em + } +div.fig { + display: block; + margin: 0 auto; + text-align: center; + margin-top: 1em; + margin-bottom: 1em + } +a:link { + color: blue; + text-decoration: none + } +a:visited { + color: blue; + text-decoration: none + } +a:hover { + color: red + }</style> + +<link rel="schema.dc" href="http://purl.org/dc/elements/1.1/"> +<link rel="schema.dcterms" href="http://purl.org/dc/terms/"> +<meta name="dc.title" content="The Time Machine"> +<meta name="dc.language" content="en"> +<meta name="dcterms.source" content="https://www.gutenberg.org/files/35/35-h/35-h.htm"> +<meta name="dcterms.modified" content="2025-07-01T07:42:21.419602+00:00"> +<meta name="dc.rights" content="Public domain in the USA."> +<link rel="dcterms.isFormatOf" href="http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/35"> +<meta name="dc.creator" content="Wells, H. G. (Herbert George), 1866-1946"> +<meta name="dc.subject" content="Science fiction"> +<meta name="dc.subject" content="Time travel -- Fiction"> +<meta name="dc.subject" content="Dystopias -- Fiction"> +<meta name="dcterms.created" content="2004-10-02"> +<meta name="generator" content="Ebookmaker 0.13.7 by Project Gutenberg"> +<meta property="og:title" content="The Time Machine"> +<meta property="og:type" content="Text"> +<meta property="og:url" content="https://www.gutenberg.org/cache/epub/35/pg35-images.html"> +<meta property="og:image" content="https://www.gutenberg.org/cache/epub/35/pg35.cover.medium.jpg"> +</head> + +<body><section class="pg-boilerplate pgheader" id="pg-header" lang="en"><h2 id="pg-header-heading" title="">The Project Gutenberg eBook of <span lang="en" id="pg-title-no-subtitle">The Time Machine</span></h2> + +<div>This ebook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and +most other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions +whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms +of the Project Gutenberg License included with this ebook or online +at <a class="reference external" href="https://www.gutenberg.org/">www.gutenberg.org</a>. If you are not located in the United States, +you will have to check the laws of the country where you are located +before using this eBook.</div> + +<div class="container" id="pg-machine-header"><p><strong>Title</strong>: The Time Machine</p> +<div id="pg-header-authlist"> +<p><strong>Author</strong>: H. G. Wells</p> +</div> +<p><strong>Release date</strong>: October 2, 2004 [eBook #35]<br> + Most recently updated: April 19, 2025</p> + +<p><strong>Language</strong>: English</p> + + +</div><div id="pg-start-separator"> +<span>*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE TIME MACHINE ***</span> +</div></section><div></div> + +<div class="fig" style="width:55%;"> +<img alt="[Illustration]" src="time_files/cover.jpg" style="width:100%;" id="img_images_cover.jpg"> +</div> + +<h1> +The Time Machine +</h1> + +<h3> +An Invention +</h3> + +<h2> +by H. G. Wells +</h2> + +<hr> + +<h2> +CONTENTS +</h2> + +<table style="margin-right: auto; margin-left: auto;"> + +<tbody><tr> +<td> I </td> +<td> +<a href="#chap01" class="pginternal">Introduction</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> II </td> +<td> +<a href="#chap02" class="pginternal">The Machine</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> III </td> +<td> +<a href="#chap03" class="pginternal">The Time Traveller Returns</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> IV </td> +<td> +<a href="#chap04" class="pginternal">Time Travelling</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> V </td> +<td> +<a href="#chap05" class="pginternal">In the Golden Age</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> VI </td> +<td> +<a href="#chap06" class="pginternal">The Sunset of Mankind</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> VII </td> +<td> +<a href="#chap07" class="pginternal">A Sudden Shock</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> VIII </td> +<td> +<a href="#chap08" class="pginternal">Explanation</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> IX </td> +<td> +<a href="#chap09" class="pginternal">The Morlocks</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> X </td> +<td> +<a href="#chap10" class="pginternal">When Night Came</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> XI </td> +<td> +<a href="#chap11" class="pginternal">The Palace of Green Porcelain</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> XII </td> +<td> +<a href="#chap12" class="pginternal">In the Darkness</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> XIII </td> +<td> +<a href="#chap13" class="pginternal">The Trap of the White Sphinx</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> XIV </td> +<td> +<a href="#chap14" class="pginternal">The Further Vision</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> XV </td> +<td> +<a href="#chap15" class="pginternal">The Time Traveller’s Return</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> XVI </td> +<td> +<a href="#chap16" class="pginternal">After the Story</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td></td> +<td> +<a href="#chap17" class="pginternal">Epilogue</a></td> +</tr> + +</tbody></table> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a id="chap01"></a>I.<br> +Introduction</h2> + +<p> +The Time Traveller (for so it will be convenient to speak of him) was +expounding a recondite matter to us. His pale grey eyes shone and twinkled, and +his usually pale face was flushed and animated. The fire burnt brightly, +and the soft radiance of the incandescent lights in the lilies of silver +caught the bubbles that flashed and passed in our glasses. Our chairs, +being his patents, embraced and caressed us rather than submitted to be sat +upon, and there was that luxurious after-dinner atmosphere, when thought +runs gracefully free of the trammels of precision. And he put it to us in +this way—marking the points with a lean forefinger—as we sat +and lazily admired his earnestness over this new paradox (as we thought it) +and his fecundity. +</p> + +<p> +“You must follow me carefully. I shall have to controvert one or +two ideas that are almost universally accepted. The geometry, for instance, +they taught you at school is founded on a misconception.” +</p> + +<p> +“Is not that rather a large thing to expect us to begin +upon?” said Filby, an argumentative person with red hair. +</p> + +<p> +“I do not mean to ask you to accept anything without reasonable +ground for it. You will soon admit as much as I need from you. You know of +course that a mathematical line, a line of thickness <i>nil</i>, has no +real existence. They taught you that? Neither has a mathematical plane. +These things are mere abstractions.” +</p> + +<p> +“That is all right,” said the Psychologist. +</p> + +<p> +“Nor, having only length, breadth, and thickness, can a cube have +a real existence.” +</p> + +<p> +“There I object,” said Filby. “Of course a solid body +may exist. All real things—” +</p> + +<p> +“So most people think. But wait a moment. Can an +<i>instantaneous</i> cube exist?” +</p> + +<p> +“Don’t follow you,” said Filby. +</p> + +<p> +“Can a cube that does not last for any time at all, have a real +existence?” +</p> + +<p> +Filby became pensive. “Clearly,” the Time Traveller +proceeded, “any real body must have extension in <i>four</i> +directions: it must have Length, Breadth, Thickness, and—Duration. +But through a natural infirmity of the flesh, which I will explain to you +in a moment, we incline to overlook this fact. There are really four +dimensions, three which we call the three planes of Space, and a fourth, +Time. There is, however, a tendency to draw an unreal distinction between +the former three dimensions and the latter, because it happens that our +consciousness moves intermittently in one direction along the latter from +the beginning to the end of our lives.” +</p> + +<p> +“That,” said a very young man, making spasmodic efforts to +relight his cigar over the lamp; “that . . . very clear +indeed.” +</p> + +<p> +“Now, it is very remarkable that this is so extensively +overlooked,” continued the Time Traveller, with a slight accession of +cheerfulness. “Really this is what is meant by the Fourth Dimension, +though some people who talk about the Fourth Dimension do not know they +mean it. It is only another way of looking at Time. <i>There is no +difference between Time and any of the three dimensions of Space except +that our consciousness moves along it</i>. But some foolish people have got +hold of the wrong side of that idea. You have all heard what they have to +say about this Fourth Dimension?” +</p> + +<p> +“<i>I</i> have not,” said the Provincial Mayor. +</p> + +<p> +“It is simply this. That Space, as our mathematicians have it, is +spoken of as having three dimensions, which one may call Length, Breadth, +and Thickness, and is always definable by reference to three planes, each +at right angles to the others. But some philosophical people have been +asking why <i>three</i> dimensions particularly—why not another +direction at right angles to the other three?—and have even tried to +construct a Four-Dimensional geometry. Professor Simon Newcomb was expounding +this to the New York Mathematical Society only a month or so ago. You know +how on a flat surface, which has only two dimensions, we can represent a +figure of a three-dimensional solid, and similarly they think that by +models of three dimensions they could represent one of four—if they +could master the perspective of the thing. See?” +</p> + +<p> +“I think so,” murmured the Provincial Mayor; and, knitting +his brows, he lapsed into an introspective state, his lips moving as one +who repeats mystic words. “Yes, I think I see it now,” he said +after some time, brightening in a quite transitory manner. +</p> + +<p> +“Well, I do not mind telling you I have been at work upon this +geometry of Four Dimensions for some time. Some of my results are curious. +For instance, here is a portrait of a man at eight years old, another at +fifteen, another at seventeen, another at twenty-three, and so on. All +these are evidently sections, as it were, Three-Dimensional representations +of his Four-Dimensioned being, which is a fixed and unalterable thing. +</p> + +<p> +“Scientific people,” proceeded the Time Traveller, after the +pause required for the proper assimilation of this, “know very well +that Time is only a kind of Space. Here is a popular scientific diagram, a +weather record. This line I trace with my finger shows the movement of the +barometer. Yesterday it was so high, yesterday night it fell, then this +morning it rose again, and so gently upward to here. Surely the mercury did +not trace this line in any of the dimensions of Space generally recognised? +But certainly it traced such a line, and that line, therefore, we must +conclude, was along the Time-Dimension.” +</p> + +<p> +“But,” said the Medical Man, staring hard at a coal in the +fire, “if Time is really only a fourth dimension of Space, why is it, +and why has it always been, regarded as something different? And why cannot +we move in Time as we move about in the other dimensions of +Space?” +</p> + +<p> +The Time Traveller smiled. “Are you so sure we can move freely in +Space? Right and left we can go, backward and forward freely enough, and +men always have done so. I admit we move freely in two dimensions. But how +about up and down? Gravitation limits us there.” +</p> + +<p> +“Not exactly,” said the Medical Man. “There are +balloons.” +</p> + +<p> +“But before the balloons, save for spasmodic jumping and the +inequalities of the surface, man had no freedom of vertical +movement.” +</p> + +<p> +“Still they could move a little up and down,” said the +Medical Man. +</p> + +<p> +“Easier, far easier down than up.” +</p> + +<p> +“And you cannot move at all in Time, you cannot get away from the +present moment.” +</p> + +<p> +“My dear sir, that is just where you are wrong. That is just where +the whole world has gone wrong. We are always getting away from the present +moment. Our mental existences, which are immaterial and have no dimensions, +are passing along the Time-Dimension with a uniform velocity from the +cradle to the grave. Just as we should travel <i>down</i> if we began our +existence fifty miles above the earth’s surface.” +</p> + +<p> +“But the great difficulty is this,” interrupted the +Psychologist. ’You <i>can</i> move about in all directions of Space, +but you cannot move about in Time.” +</p> + +<p> +“That is the germ of my great discovery. But you are wrong to say +that we cannot move about in Time. For instance, if I am recalling an +incident very vividly I go back to the instant of its occurrence: I become +absent-minded, as you say. I jump back for a moment. Of course we have no +means of staying back for any length of Time, any more than a savage or an +animal has of staying six feet above the ground. But a civilised man is +better off than the savage in this respect. He can go up against +gravitation in a balloon, and why should he not hope that ultimately he may +be able to stop or accelerate his drift along the Time-Dimension, or even +turn about and travel the other way?” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, <i>this</i>,” began Filby, “is +all—” +</p> + +<p> +“Why not?” said the Time Traveller. +</p> + +<p> +“It’s against reason,” said Filby. +</p> + +<p> +“What reason?” said the Time Traveller. +</p> + +<p> +“You can show black is white by argument,” said Filby, +“but you will never convince me.” +</p> + +<p> +“Possibly not,” said the Time Traveller. “But now you +begin to see the object of my investigations into the geometry of Four +Dimensions. Long ago I had a vague inkling of a machine—” +</p> + +<p> +“To travel through Time!” exclaimed the Very Young Man. +</p> + +<p> +“That shall travel indifferently in any direction of Space and +Time, as the driver determines.” +</p> + +<p> +Filby contented himself with laughter. +</p> + +<p> +“But I have experimental verification,” said the Time +Traveller. +</p> + +<p> +“It would be remarkably convenient for the historian,” the +Psychologist suggested. “One might travel back and verify the +accepted account of the Battle of Hastings, for instance!” +</p> + +<p> +“Don’t you think you would attract attention?” said +the Medical Man. “Our ancestors had no great tolerance for +anachronisms.” +</p> + +<p> +“One might get one’s Greek from the very lips of Homer and +Plato,” the Very Young Man thought. +</p> + +<p> +“In which case they would certainly plough you for the +Little-go. The German scholars have improved Greek so much.” +</p> + +<p> +“Then there is the future,” said the Very Young Man. +“Just think! One might invest all one’s money, leave it to +accumulate at interest, and hurry on ahead!” +</p> + +<p> +“To discover a society,” said I, “erected on a +strictly communistic basis.” +</p> + +<p> +“Of all the wild extravagant theories!” began the +Psychologist. +</p> + +<p> +“Yes, so it seemed to me, and so I never talked of it +until—” +</p> + +<p> +“Experimental verification!” cried I. “You are going +to verify <i>that</i>?” +</p> + +<p> +“The experiment!” cried Filby, who was getting +brain-weary. +</p> + +<p> +“Let’s see your experiment anyhow,” said the +Psychologist, “though it’s all humbug, you know.” +</p> + +<p> +The Time Traveller smiled round at us. Then, still smiling faintly, and +with his hands deep in his trousers pockets, he walked slowly out of the +room, and we heard his slippers shuffling down the long passage to his +laboratory. +</p> + +<p> +The Psychologist looked at us. “I wonder what he’s +got?” +</p> + +<p> +“Some sleight-of-hand trick or other,” said the Medical Man, +and Filby tried to tell us about a conjuror he had seen at Burslem, but before +he had finished his preface the Time Traveller came back, and Filby’s +anecdote collapsed. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a id="chap02"></a>II.<br> +The Machine</h2> + +<p> +The thing the Time Traveller held in his hand was a glittering metallic +framework, scarcely larger than a small clock, and very delicately made. +There was ivory in it, and some transparent crystalline substance. And now +I must be explicit, for this that follows—unless his explanation is +to be accepted—is an absolutely unaccountable thing. He took one of +the small octagonal tables that were scattered about the room, and set it +in front of the fire, with two legs on the hearthrug. On this table he +placed the mechanism. Then he drew up a chair, and sat down. The only other +object on the table was a small shaded lamp, the bright light of which fell +upon the model. There were also perhaps a dozen candles about, two in brass +candlesticks upon the mantel and several in sconces, so that the room was +brilliantly illuminated. I sat in a low arm-chair nearest the fire, and I +drew this forward so as to be almost between the Time Traveller and the +fireplace. Filby sat behind him, looking over his shoulder. The Medical Man +and the Provincial Mayor watched him in profile from the right, the +Psychologist from the left. The Very Young Man stood behind the +Psychologist. We were all on the alert. It appears incredible to me that +any kind of trick, however subtly conceived and however adroitly done, +could have been played upon us under these conditions. +</p> + +<p> +The Time Traveller looked at us, and then at the mechanism. +“Well?” said the Psychologist. +</p> + +<p> +“This little affair,” said the Time Traveller, resting his +elbows upon the table and pressing his hands together above the apparatus, +“is only a model. It is my plan for a machine to travel through time. +You will notice that it looks singularly askew, and that there is an odd +twinkling appearance about this bar, as though it was in some way +unreal.” He pointed to the part with his finger. “Also, here is +one little white lever, and here is another.” +</p> + +<p> +The Medical Man got up out of his chair and peered into the thing. +“It’s beautifully made,” he said. +</p> + +<p> +“It took two years to make,” retorted the Time Traveller. +Then, when we had all imitated the action of the Medical Man, he said: +“Now I want you clearly to understand that this lever, being pressed +over, sends the machine gliding into the future, and this other reverses +the motion. This saddle represents the seat of a time traveller. Presently +I am going to press the lever, and off the machine will go. It will vanish, +pass into future Time, and disappear. Have a good look at the thing. Look +at the table too, and satisfy yourselves there is no trickery. I +don’t want to waste this model, and then be told I’m a +quack.” +</p> + +<p> +There was a minute’s pause perhaps. The Psychologist seemed about +to speak to me, but changed his mind. Then the Time Traveller put forth his +finger towards the lever. “No,” he said suddenly. “Lend +me your hand.” And turning to the Psychologist, he took that +individual’s hand in his own and told him to put out his forefinger. +So that it was the Psychologist himself who sent forth the model Time +Machine on its interminable voyage. We all saw the lever turn. I am +absolutely certain there was no trickery. There was a breath of wind, and +the lamp flame jumped. One of the candles on the mantel was blown out, and +the little machine suddenly swung round, became indistinct, was seen as a +ghost for a second perhaps, as an eddy of faintly glittering brass and +ivory; and it was gone—vanished! Save for the lamp the table was +bare. +</p> + +<p> +Everyone was silent for a minute. Then Filby said he was damned. +</p> + +<p> +The Psychologist recovered from his stupor, and suddenly looked under +the table. At that the Time Traveller laughed cheerfully. +“Well?” he said, with a reminiscence of the Psychologist. Then, +getting up, he went to the tobacco jar on the mantel, and with his back to +us began to fill his pipe. +</p> + +<p> +We stared at each other. “Look here,” said the Medical Man, +“are you in earnest about this? Do you seriously believe that that +machine has travelled into time?” +</p> + +<p> +“Certainly,” said the Time Traveller, stooping to light a +spill at the fire. Then he turned, lighting his pipe, to look at the +Psychologist’s face. (The Psychologist, to show that he was not +unhinged, helped himself to a cigar and tried to light it uncut.) +“What is more, I have a big machine nearly finished in +there”—he indicated the laboratory—“and when that +is put together I mean to have a journey on my own account.” +</p> + +<p> +“You mean to say that that machine has travelled into the +future?” said Filby. +</p> + +<p> +“Into the future or the past—I don’t, for certain, +know which.” +</p> + +<p> +After an interval the Psychologist had an inspiration. “It must +have gone into the past if it has gone anywhere,” he said. +</p> + +<p> +“Why?” said the Time Traveller. +</p> + +<p> +“Because I presume that it has not moved in space, and if it +travelled into the future it would still be here all this time, since it +must have travelled through this time.” +</p> + +<p> +“But,” said I, “If it travelled into the past it would +have been visible when we came first into this room; and last Thursday when +we were here; and the Thursday before that; and so forth!” +</p> + +<p> +“Serious objections,” remarked the Provincial Mayor, with an +air of impartiality, turning towards the Time Traveller. +</p> + +<p> +“Not a bit,” said the Time Traveller, and, to the +Psychologist: “You think. <i>You</i> can explain that. It’s +presentation below the threshold, you know, diluted +presentation.” +</p> + +<p> +“Of course,” said the Psychologist, and reassured us. +“That’s a simple point of psychology. I should have thought of +it. It’s plain enough, and helps the paradox delightfully. We cannot +see it, nor can we appreciate this machine, any more than we can the spoke +of a wheel spinning, or a bullet flying through the air. If it is +travelling through time fifty times or a hundred times faster than we are, +if it gets through a minute while we get through a second, the impression +it creates will of course be only one-fiftieth or one-hundredth of what it +would make if it were not travelling in time. That’s plain +enough.” He passed his hand through the space in which the machine +had been. “You see?” he said, laughing. +</p> + +<p> +We sat and stared at the vacant table for a minute or so. Then the Time +Traveller asked us what we thought of it all. +</p> + +<p> +“It sounds plausible enough tonight,” said the Medical Man; +“but wait until tomorrow. Wait for the common sense of the +morning.” +</p> + +<p> +“Would you like to see the Time Machine itself?” asked the +Time Traveller. And therewith, taking the lamp in his hand, he led the way +down the long, draughty corridor to his laboratory. I remember vividly the +flickering light, his queer, broad head in silhouette, the dance of the +shadows, how we all followed him, puzzled but incredulous, and how there in +the laboratory we beheld a larger edition of the little mechanism which we +had seen vanish from before our eyes. Parts were of nickel, parts of ivory, +parts had certainly been filed or sawn out of rock crystal. The thing was +generally complete, but the twisted crystalline bars lay unfinished upon +the bench beside some sheets of drawings, and I took one up for a better +look at it. Quartz it seemed to be. +</p> + +<p> +“Look here,” said the Medical Man, “are you perfectly +serious? Or is this a trick—like that ghost you showed us last +Christmas?” +</p> + +<p> +“Upon that machine,” said the Time Traveller, holding the +lamp aloft, “I intend to explore time. Is that plain? I was never +more serious in my life.” +</p> + +<p> +None of us quite knew how to take it. +</p> + +<p> +I caught Filby’s eye over the shoulder of the Medical Man, and he +winked at me solemnly. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a id="chap03"></a>III.<br> +The Time Traveller Returns</h2> + +<p> +I think that at that time none of us quite believed in the Time Machine. +The fact is, the Time Traveller was one of those men who are too clever to +be believed: you never felt that you saw all round him; you always +suspected some subtle reserve, some ingenuity in ambush, behind his lucid +frankness. Had Filby shown the model and explained the matter in the Time +Traveller’s words, we should have shown <i>him</i> far less +scepticism. For we should have perceived his motives: a pork-butcher could +understand Filby. But the Time Traveller had more than a touch of whim +among his elements, and we distrusted him. Things that would have made the +fame of a less clever man seemed tricks in his hands. It is a mistake to +do things too easily. The serious people who took him seriously never felt +quite sure of his deportment; they were somehow aware that trusting their +reputations for judgment with him was like furnishing a nursery with +eggshell china. So I don’t think any of us said very much about time +travelling in the interval between that Thursday and the next, though its +odd potentialities ran, no doubt, in most of our minds: its plausibility, +that is, its practical incredibleness, the curious possibilities of +anachronism and of utter confusion it suggested. For my own part, I was +particularly preoccupied with the trick of the model. That I remember +discussing with the Medical Man, whom I met on Friday at the Linnæan. He +said he had seen a similar thing at Tübingen, and laid considerable stress +on the blowing-out of the candle. But how the trick was done he could not +explain. +</p> + +<p> +The next Thursday I went again to Richmond—I suppose I was one of +the Time Traveller’s most constant guests—and, arriving late, +found four or five men already assembled in his drawing-room. The Medical +Man was standing before the fire with a sheet of paper in one hand and his +watch in the other. I looked round for the Time Traveller, +and—“It’s half-past seven now,” said the Medical +Man. “I suppose we’d better have dinner?” +</p> + +<p> +“Where’s——?” said I, naming our host. +</p> + +<p> +“You’ve just come? It’s rather odd. He’s +unavoidably detained. He asks me in this note to lead off with dinner at +seven if he’s not back. Says he’ll explain when he +comes.” +</p> + +<p> +“It seems a pity to let the dinner spoil,” said the Editor +of a well-known daily paper; and thereupon the Doctor rang the bell. +</p> + +<p> +The Psychologist was the only person besides the Doctor and myself who +had attended the previous dinner. The other men were Blank, the Editor +aforementioned, a certain journalist, and another—a quiet, shy man +with a beard—whom I didn’t know, and who, as far as my +observation went, never opened his mouth all the evening. There was some +speculation at the dinner-table about the Time Traveller’s absence, +and I suggested time travelling, in a half-jocular spirit. The Editor +wanted that explained to him, and the Psychologist volunteered a wooden +account of the “ingenious paradox and trick” we had witnessed +that day week. He was in the midst of his exposition when the door from the +corridor opened slowly and without noise. I was facing the door, and saw it +first. “Hallo!” I said. “At last!” And the door +opened wider, and the Time Traveller stood before us. I gave a cry of +surprise. “Good heavens! man, what’s the matter?” cried +the Medical Man, who saw him next. And the whole tableful turned towards +the door. +</p> + +<p> +He was in an amazing plight. His coat was dusty and dirty, and smeared +with green down the sleeves; his hair disordered, and as it seemed to me +greyer—either with dust and dirt or because its colour had actually +faded. His face was ghastly pale; his chin had a brown cut on it—a +cut half-healed; his expression was haggard and drawn, as by intense +suffering. For a moment he hesitated in the doorway, as if he had been +dazzled by the light. Then he came into the room. He walked with just such +a limp as I have seen in footsore tramps. We stared at him in silence, +expecting him to speak. +</p> + +<p> +He said not a word, but came painfully to the table, and made a motion +towards the wine. The Editor filled a glass of champagne, and pushed it +towards him. He drained it, and it seemed to do him good: for he looked +round the table, and the ghost of his old smile flickered across his face. +“What on earth have you been up to, man?” said the Doctor. The +Time Traveller did not seem to hear. “Don’t let me disturb +you,” he said, with a certain faltering articulation. +“I’m all right.” He stopped, held out his glass for more, +and took it off at a draught. “That’s good,” he said. His +eyes grew brighter, and a faint colour came into his cheeks. His glance +flickered over our faces with a certain dull approval, and then went round +the warm and comfortable room. Then he spoke again, still as it were +feeling his way among his words. “I’m going to wash and dress, +and then I’ll come down and explain things.... Save me some of that +mutton. I’m starving for a bit of meat.” +</p> + +<p> +He looked across at the Editor, who was a rare visitor, and hoped he was +all right. The Editor began a question. “Tell you presently,” +said the Time Traveller. “I’m—funny! Be all right in a +minute.” +</p> + +<p> +He put down his glass, and walked towards the staircase door. Again I +remarked his lameness and the soft padding sound of his footfall, and +standing up in my place, I saw his feet as he went out. He had nothing on +them but a pair of tattered, blood-stained socks. Then the door closed upon +him. I had half a mind to follow, till I remembered how he detested any +fuss about himself. For a minute, perhaps, my mind was wool-gathering. +Then, “Remarkable Behaviour of an Eminent Scientist,” I heard +the Editor say, thinking (after his wont) in headlines. And this brought my +attention back to the bright dinner-table. +</p> + +<p> +“What’s the game?” said the Journalist. “Has he +been doing the Amateur Cadger? I don’t follow.” I met the eye +of the Psychologist, and read my own interpretation in his face. I thought +of the Time Traveller limping painfully upstairs. I don’t think +anyone else had noticed his lameness. +</p> + +<p> +The first to recover completely from this surprise was the Medical Man, +who rang the bell—the Time Traveller hated to have servants waiting +at dinner—for a hot plate. At that the Editor turned to his knife and +fork with a grunt, and the Silent Man followed suit. The dinner was +resumed. Conversation was exclamatory for a little while with gaps of +wonderment; and then the Editor got fervent in his curiosity. “Does +our friend eke out his modest income with a crossing? or has he his +Nebuchadnezzar phases?” he inquired. “I feel assured it’s +this business of the Time Machine,” I said, and took up the +Psychologist’s account of our previous meeting. The new guests were +frankly incredulous. The Editor raised objections. “What <i>was</i> +this time travelling? A man couldn’t cover himself with dust by +rolling in a paradox, could he?” And then, as the idea came home to +him, he resorted to caricature. Hadn’t they any clothes-brushes in +the Future? The Journalist too, would not believe at any price, and joined +the Editor in the easy work of heaping ridicule on the whole thing. They +were both the new kind of journalist—very joyous, irreverent young +men. “Our Special Correspondent in the Day after Tomorrow +reports,” the Journalist was saying—or rather +shouting—when the Time Traveller came back. He was dressed in +ordinary evening clothes, and nothing save his haggard look remained of the +change that had startled me. +</p> + +<p> +“I say,” said the Editor hilariously, “these chaps +here say you have been travelling into the middle of next week! Tell us all +about little Rosebery, will you? What will you take for the lot?” +</p> + +<p> +The Time Traveller came to the place reserved for him without a word. He +smiled quietly, in his old way. “Where’s my mutton?” he +said. “What a treat it is to stick a fork into meat again!” +</p> + +<p> +“Story!” cried the Editor. +</p> + +<p> +“Story be damned!” said the Time Traveller. “I want +something to eat. I won’t say a word until I get some peptone into my +arteries. Thanks. And the salt.” +</p> + +<p> +“One word,” said I. “Have you been time +travelling?” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes,” said the Time Traveller, with his mouth full, nodding +his head. +</p> + +<p> +“I’d give a shilling a line for a verbatim note,” said +the Editor. The Time Traveller pushed his glass towards the Silent Man and +rang it with his fingernail; at which the Silent Man, who had been staring +at his face, started convulsively, and poured him wine. The rest of the +dinner was uncomfortable. For my own part, sudden questions kept on rising +to my lips, and I dare say it was the same with the others. The Journalist +tried to relieve the tension by telling anecdotes of Hettie Potter. The +Time Traveller devoted his attention to his dinner, and displayed the +appetite of a tramp. The Medical Man smoked a cigarette, and watched the +Time Traveller through his eyelashes. The Silent Man seemed even more +clumsy than usual, and drank champagne with regularity and determination +out of sheer nervousness. At last the Time Traveller pushed his plate away, +and looked round us. “I suppose I must apologise,” he said. +“I was simply starving. I’ve had a most amazing time.” He +reached out his hand for a cigar, and cut the end. “But come into the +smoking-room. It’s too long a story to tell over greasy +plates.” And ringing the bell in passing, he led the way into the +adjoining room. +</p> + +<p> +“You have told Blank, and Dash, and Chose about the +machine?” he said to me, leaning back in his easy-chair and naming +the three new guests. +</p> + +<p> +“But the thing’s a mere paradox,” said the Editor. +</p> + +<p> +“I can’t argue tonight. I don’t mind telling you the +story, but I can’t argue. I will,” he went on, “tell you +the story of what has happened to me, if you like, but you must refrain +from interruptions. I want to tell it. Badly. Most of it will sound like +lying. So be it! It’s true—every word of it, all the same. I +was in my laboratory at four o’clock, and since then … I’ve +lived eight days … such days as no human being ever lived before! I’m +nearly worn out, but I shan’t sleep till I’ve told this thing +over to you. Then I shall go to bed. But no interruptions! Is it +agreed?” +</p> + +<p> +“Agreed,” said the Editor, and the rest of us echoed +“Agreed.” And with that the Time Traveller began his story as I +have set it forth. He sat back in his chair at first, and spoke like a +weary man. Afterwards he got more animated. In writing it down I feel with +only too much keenness the inadequacy of pen and ink—and, above all, +my own inadequacy—to express its quality. You read, I will suppose, +attentively enough; but you cannot see the speaker’s white, sincere +face in the bright circle of the little lamp, nor hear the intonation of +his voice. You cannot know how his expression followed the turns of his +story! Most of us hearers were in shadow, for the candles in the +smoking-room had not been lighted, and only the face of the Journalist and +the legs of the Silent Man from the knees downward were illuminated. At +first we glanced now and again at each other. After a time we ceased to do +that, and looked only at the Time Traveller’s face. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a id="chap04"></a>IV.<br> +Time Travelling</h2>> + +<p> +“I told some of you last Thursday of the principles of the Time +Machine, and showed you the actual thing itself, incomplete in the +workshop. There it is now, a little travel-worn, truly; and one of the +ivory bars is cracked, and a brass rail bent; but the rest of it’s +sound enough. I expected to finish it on Friday; but on Friday, when the +putting together was nearly done, I found that one of the nickel bars was +exactly one inch too short, and this I had to get remade; so that the thing +was not complete until this morning. It was at ten o’clock today +that the first of all Time Machines began its career. I gave it a last tap, +tried all the screws again, put one more drop of oil on the quartz rod, and +sat myself in the saddle. I suppose a suicide who holds a pistol to his +skull feels much the same wonder at what will come next as I felt then. I +took the starting lever in one hand and the stopping one in the other, +pressed the first, and almost immediately the second. I seemed to reel; I +felt a nightmare sensation of falling; and, looking round, I saw the +laboratory exactly as before. Had anything happened? For a moment I +suspected that my intellect had tricked me. Then I noted the clock. A +moment before, as it seemed, it had stood at a minute or so past ten; now +it was nearly half-past three! +</p> + +<p> +“I drew a breath, set my teeth, gripped the starting lever with +both hands, and went off with a thud. The laboratory got hazy and went +dark. Mrs. Watchett came in and walked, apparently without seeing me, +towards the garden door. I suppose it took her a minute or so to traverse +the place, but to me she seemed to shoot across the room like a rocket. I +pressed the lever over to its extreme position. The night came like the +turning out of a lamp, and in another moment came tomorrow. The laboratory +grew faint and hazy, then fainter and ever fainter. Tomorrow night came +black, then day again, night again, day again, faster and faster still. An +eddying murmur filled my ears, and a strange, dumb confusedness descended +on my mind. +</p> + +<p> +“I am afraid I cannot convey the peculiar sensations of time +travelling. They are excessively unpleasant. There is a feeling exactly +like that one has upon a switchback—of a helpless headlong motion! I +felt the same horrible anticipation, too, of an imminent smash. As I put on +pace, night followed day like the flapping of a black wing. The dim +suggestion of the laboratory seemed presently to fall away from me, and I +saw the sun hopping swiftly across the sky, leaping it every minute, and +every minute marking a day. I supposed the laboratory had been destroyed +and I had come into the open air. I had a dim impression of scaffolding, +but I was already going too fast to be conscious of any moving things. The +slowest snail that ever crawled dashed by too fast for me. The twinkling +succession of darkness and light was excessively painful to the eye. Then, +in the intermittent darknesses, I saw the moon spinning swiftly through her +quarters from new to full, and had a faint glimpse of the circling stars. +Presently, as I went on, still gaining velocity, the palpitation of night +and day merged into one continuous greyness; the sky took on a wonderful +deepness of blue, a splendid luminous colour like that of early twilight; +the jerking sun became a streak of fire, a brilliant arch, in space; the +moon a fainter fluctuating band; and I could see nothing of the stars, save +now and then a brighter circle flickering in the blue. +</p> + +<p> +“The landscape was misty and vague. I was still on the hillside +upon which this house now stands, and the shoulder rose above me grey and +dim. I saw trees growing and changing like puffs of vapour, now brown, now +green; they grew, spread, shivered, and passed away. I saw huge buildings +rise up faint and fair, and pass like dreams. The whole surface of the +earth seemed changed—melting and flowing under my eyes. The little +hands upon the dials that registered my speed raced round faster and +faster. Presently I noted that the sun belt swayed up and down, from +solstice to solstice, in a minute or less, and that consequently my pace +was over a year a minute; and minute by minute the white snow flashed +across the world, and vanished, and was followed by the bright, brief green +of spring. +</p> + +<p> +“The unpleasant sensations of the start were less poignant now. +They merged at last into a kind of hysterical exhilaration. I remarked, +indeed, a clumsy swaying of the machine, for which I was unable to account. +But my mind was too confused to attend to it, so with a kind of madness +growing upon me, I flung myself into futurity. At first I scarce thought of +stopping, scarce thought of anything but these new sensations. But +presently a fresh series of impressions grew up in my mind—a certain +curiosity and therewith a certain dread—until at last they took +complete possession of me. What strange developments of humanity, what +wonderful advances upon our rudimentary civilisation, I thought, might not +appear when I came to look nearly into the dim elusive world that raced and +fluctuated before my eyes! I saw great and splendid architecture rising +about me, more massive than any buildings of our own time, and yet, as it +seemed, built of glimmer and mist. I saw a richer green flow up the +hillside, and remain there, without any wintry intermission. Even through +the veil of my confusion the earth seemed very fair. And so my mind came +round to the business of stopping. +</p> + +<p> +“The peculiar risk lay in the possibility of my finding some +substance in the space which I, or the machine, occupied. So long as I +travelled at a high velocity through time, this scarcely mattered: I was, +so to speak, attenuated—was slipping like a vapour through the +interstices of intervening substances! But to come to a stop involved the +jamming of myself, molecule by molecule, into whatever lay in my way; meant +bringing my atoms into such intimate contact with those of the obstacle +that a profound chemical reaction—possibly a far-reaching +explosion—would result, and blow myself and my apparatus out of all +possible dimensions—into the Unknown. This possibility had occurred +to me again and again while I was making the machine; but then I had +cheerfully accepted it as an unavoidable risk—one of the risks a man +has got to take! Now the risk was inevitable, I no longer saw it in the +same cheerful light. The fact is that, insensibly, the absolute strangeness +of everything, the sickly jarring and swaying of the machine, above all, +the feeling of prolonged falling, had absolutely upset my nerves. I told +myself that I could never stop, and with a gust of petulance I resolved to +stop forthwith. Like an impatient fool, I lugged over the lever, and +incontinently the thing went reeling over, and I was flung headlong through +the air. +</p> + +<p> +“There was the sound of a clap of thunder in my ears. I may have been +stunned for a moment. A pitiless hail was hissing round me, and I was +sitting on soft turf in front of the overset machine. Everything still +seemed grey, but presently I remarked that the confusion in my ears was +gone. I looked round me. I was on what seemed to be a little lawn in a +garden, surrounded by rhododendron bushes, and I noticed that their mauve +and purple blossoms were dropping in a shower under the beating of the +hailstones. The rebounding, dancing hail hung in a little cloud over the +machine, and drove along the ground like smoke. In a moment I was wet to +the skin. ‘Fine hospitality,’ said I, ‘to a man who has +travelled innumerable years to see you.’ +</p> + +<p> +“Presently I thought what a fool I was to get wet. I stood up and +looked round me. A colossal figure, carved apparently in some white stone, +loomed indistinctly beyond the rhododendrons through the hazy downpour. But +all else of the world was invisible. +</p> + +<p> +“My sensations would be hard to describe. As the columns of hail +grew thinner, I saw the white figure more distinctly. It was very large, +for a silver birch-tree touched its shoulder. It was of white marble, in +shape something like a winged sphinx, but the wings, instead of being +carried vertically at the sides, were spread so that it seemed to hover. +The pedestal, it appeared to me, was of bronze, and was thick with +verdigris. It chanced that the face was towards me; the sightless eyes +seemed to watch me; there was the faint shadow of a smile on the lips. It +was greatly weather-worn, and that imparted an unpleasant suggestion of +disease. I stood looking at it for a little space—half a minute, +perhaps, or half an hour. It seemed to advance and to recede as the hail +drove before it denser or thinner. At last I tore my eyes from it for a +moment, and saw that the hail curtain had worn threadbare, and that the sky +was lightening with the promise of the sun. +</p> + +<p> +“I looked up again at the crouching white shape, and the full +temerity of my voyage came suddenly upon me. What might appear when that +hazy curtain was altogether withdrawn? What might not have happened to men? +What if cruelty had grown into a common passion? What if in this interval +the race had lost its manliness, and had developed into something inhuman, +unsympathetic, and overwhelmingly powerful? I might seem some old-world +savage animal, only the more dreadful and disgusting for our common +likeness—a foul creature to be incontinently slain. +</p> + +<p> +“Already I saw other vast shapes—huge buildings with +intricate parapets and tall columns, with a wooded hillside dimly creeping +in upon me through the lessening storm. I was seized with a panic fear. I +turned frantically to the Time Machine, and strove hard to readjust it. As +I did so the shafts of the sun smote through the thunderstorm. The grey +downpour was swept aside and vanished like the trailing garments of a +ghost. Above me, in the intense blue of the summer sky, some faint brown +shreds of cloud whirled into nothingness. The great buildings about me +stood out clear and distinct, shining with the wet of the thunderstorm, and +picked out in white by the unmelted hailstones piled along their courses. I +felt naked in a strange world. I felt as perhaps a bird may feel in the +clear air, knowing the hawk wings above and will swoop. My fear grew to +frenzy. I took a breathing space, set my teeth, and again grappled +fiercely, wrist and knee, with the machine. It gave under my desperate +onset and turned over. It struck my chin violently. One hand on the saddle, +the other on the lever, I stood panting heavily in attitude to mount +again. +</p> + +<p> +“But with this recovery of a prompt retreat my courage recovered. +I looked more curiously and less fearfully at this world of the remote +future. In a circular opening, high up in the wall of the nearer house, I +saw a group of figures clad in rich soft robes. They had seen me, and their +faces were directed towards me. +</p> + +<p> +“Then I heard voices approaching me. Coming through the bushes by +the White Sphinx were the heads and shoulders of men running. One of these +emerged in a pathway leading straight to the little lawn upon which I stood +with my machine. He was a slight creature—perhaps four feet +high—clad in a purple tunic, girdled at the waist with a leather +belt. Sandals or buskins—I could not clearly distinguish +which—were on his feet; his legs were bare to the knees, and his head +was bare. Noticing that, I noticed for the first time how warm the air +was. +</p> + +<p> +“He struck me as being a very beautiful and graceful creature, but +indescribably frail. His flushed face reminded me of the more beautiful +kind of consumptive—that hectic beauty of which we used to hear so +much. At the sight of him I suddenly regained confidence. I took my hands +from the machine. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a id="chap05"></a>V.<br> +In the Golden Age</h2> + +<p> +“In another moment we were standing face to face, I and this +fragile thing out of futurity. He came straight up to me and laughed into +my eyes. The absence from his bearing of any sign of fear struck me at +once. Then he turned to the two others who were following him and spoke to +them in a strange and very sweet and liquid tongue. +</p> + +<p> +“There were others coming, and presently a little group of perhaps +eight or ten of these exquisite creatures were about me. One of them +addressed me. It came into my head, oddly enough, that my voice was too +harsh and deep for them. So I shook my head, and, pointing to my ears, +shook it again. He came a step forward, hesitated, and then touched my +hand. Then I felt other soft little tentacles upon my back and shoulders. +They wanted to make sure I was real. There was nothing in this at all +alarming. Indeed, there was something in these pretty little people that +inspired confidence—a graceful gentleness, a certain childlike ease. +And besides, they looked so frail that I could fancy myself flinging the +whole dozen of them about like ninepins. But I made a sudden motion to +warn them when I saw their little pink hands feeling at the Time Machine. +Happily then, when it was not too late, I thought of a danger I had +hitherto forgotten, and reaching over the bars of the machine I unscrewed +the little levers that would set it in motion, and put these in my pocket. +Then I turned again to see what I could do in the way of communication. +</p> + +<p> +“And then, looking more nearly into their features, I saw some +further peculiarities in their Dresden china type of prettiness. Their +hair, which was uniformly curly, came to a sharp end at the neck and cheek; +there was not the faintest suggestion of it on the face, and their ears +were singularly minute. The mouths were small, with bright red, rather thin +lips, and the little chins ran to a point. The eyes were large and mild; +and—this may seem egotism on my part—I fancied even that there +was a certain lack of the interest I might have expected in them. +</p> + +<p> +“As they made no effort to communicate with me, but simply stood +round me smiling and speaking in soft cooing notes to each other, I began +the conversation. I pointed to the Time Machine and to myself. Then, +hesitating for a moment how to express Time, I pointed to the sun. At once +a quaintly pretty little figure in chequered purple and white followed my +gesture, and then astonished me by imitating the sound of thunder. +</p> + +<p> +“For a moment I was staggered, though the import of his gesture +was plain enough. The question had come into my mind abruptly: were these +creatures fools? You may hardly understand how it took me. You see, I had +always anticipated that the people of the year Eight Hundred and Two +Thousand odd would be incredibly in front of us in knowledge, art, +everything. Then one of them suddenly asked me a question that showed him +to be on the intellectual level of one of our five-year-old +children—asked me, in fact, if I had come from the sun in a +thunderstorm! It let loose the judgment I had suspended upon their clothes, +their frail light limbs, and fragile features. A flow of disappointment +rushed across my mind. For a moment I felt that I had built the Time +Machine in vain. +</p> + +<p> +“I nodded, pointed to the sun, and gave them such a vivid +rendering of a thunderclap as startled them. They all withdrew a pace or so +and bowed. Then came one laughing towards me, carrying a chain of beautiful +flowers altogether new to me, and put it about my neck. The idea was +received with melodious applause; and presently they were all running to +and fro for flowers, and laughingly flinging them upon me until I was +almost smothered with blossom. You who have never seen the like can +scarcely imagine what delicate and wonderful flowers countless years of +culture had created. Then someone suggested that their plaything should be +exhibited in the nearest building, and so I was led past the sphinx of +white marble, which had seemed to watch me all the while with a smile at my +astonishment, towards a vast grey edifice of fretted stone. As I went with +them the memory of my confident anticipations of a profoundly grave and +intellectual posterity came, with irresistible merriment, to my mind. +</p> + +<p> +“The building had a huge entry, and was altogether of colossal +dimensions. I was naturally most occupied with the growing crowd of little +people, and with the big open portals that yawned before me shadowy and +mysterious. My general impression of the world I saw over their heads was a +tangled waste of beautiful bushes and flowers, a long neglected and yet +weedless garden. I saw a number of tall spikes of strange white flowers, +measuring a foot perhaps across the spread of the waxen petals. They grew +scattered, as if wild, among the variegated shrubs, but, as I say, I did +not examine them closely at this time. The Time Machine was left deserted +on the turf among the rhododendrons. +</p> + +<p> +“The arch of the doorway was richly carved, but naturally I did +not observe the carving very narrowly, though I fancied I saw suggestions +of old Phœnician decorations as I passed through, and it struck me that +they were very badly broken and weather-worn. Several more brightly clad +people met me in the doorway, and so we entered, I, dressed in dingy +nineteenth-century garments, looking grotesque enough, garlanded with +flowers, and surrounded by an eddying mass of bright, soft-coloured robes +and shining white limbs, in a melodious whirl of laughter and laughing +speech. +</p> + +<p> +“The big doorway opened into a proportionately great hall hung +with brown. The roof was in shadow, and the windows, partially glazed with +coloured glass and partially unglazed, admitted a tempered light. The floor +was made up of huge blocks of some very hard white metal, not plates nor +slabs—blocks, and it was so much worn, as I judged by the going to +and fro of past generations, as to be deeply channelled along the more +frequented ways. Transverse to the length were innumerable tables made of +slabs of polished stone, raised, perhaps, a foot from the floor, and upon +these were heaps of fruits. Some I recognised as a kind of hypertrophied +raspberry and orange, but for the most part they were strange. +</p> + +<p> +“Between the tables was scattered a great number of cushions. Upon +these my conductors seated themselves, signing for me to do likewise. With +a pretty absence of ceremony they began to eat the fruit with their hands, +flinging peel and stalks, and so forth, into the round openings in the +sides of the tables. I was not loath to follow their example, for I felt +thirsty and hungry. As I did so I surveyed the hall at my leisure. +</p> + +<p> +“And perhaps the thing that struck me most was its dilapidated +look. The stained-glass windows, which displayed only a geometrical +pattern, were broken in many places, and the curtains that hung across the +lower end were thick with dust. And it caught my eye that the corner of the +marble table near me was fractured. Nevertheless, the general effect was +extremely rich and picturesque. There were, perhaps, a couple of hundred +people dining in the hall, and most of them, seated as near to me as they +could come, were watching me with interest, their little eyes shining over +the fruit they were eating. All were clad in the same soft, and yet strong, +silky material. +</p> + +<p> +“Fruit, by the bye, was all their diet. These people of the remote +future were strict vegetarians, and while I was with them, in spite of some +carnal cravings, I had to be frugivorous also. Indeed, I found afterwards +that horses, cattle, sheep, dogs, had followed the Ichthyosaurus into +extinction. But the fruits were very delightful; one, in particular, that +seemed to be in season all the time I was there—a floury thing in a +three-sided husk—was especially good, and I made it my staple. At +first I was puzzled by all these strange fruits, and by the strange flowers +I saw, but later I began to perceive their import. +</p> + +<p> +“However, I am telling you of my fruit dinner in the distant future +now. So soon as my appetite was a little checked, I determined to make a +resolute attempt to learn the speech of these new men of mine. Clearly that +was the next thing to do. The fruits seemed a convenient thing to begin +upon, and holding one of these up I began a series of interrogative sounds +and gestures. I had some considerable difficulty in conveying my meaning. +At first my efforts met with a stare of surprise or inextinguishable +laughter, but presently a fair-haired little creature seemed to grasp my +intention and repeated a name. They had to chatter and explain the business +at great length to each other, and my first attempts to make the exquisite +little sounds of their language caused an immense amount of genuine, if +uncivil, amusement. However, I felt like a schoolmaster amidst children, +and persisted, and presently I had a score of noun substantives at least at +my command; and then I got to demonstrative pronouns, and even the verb +‘to eat.’ But it was slow work, and the little people soon +tired and wanted to get away from my interrogations, so I determined, +rather of necessity, to let them give their lessons in little doses when +they felt inclined. And very little doses I found they were before long, +for I never met people more indolent or more easily fatigued. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a id="chap06"></a>VI.<br> +The Sunset of Mankind</h2> + +<p> +“A queer thing I soon discovered about my little hosts, and that +was their lack of interest. They would come to me with eager cries of +astonishment, like children, but, like children they would soon stop +examining me, and wander away after some other toy. The dinner and my +conversational beginnings ended, I noted for the first time that almost all +those who had surrounded me at first were gone. It is odd, too, how +speedily I came to disregard these little people. I went out through the +portal into the sunlit world again as soon as my hunger was satisfied. I +was continually meeting more of these men of the future, who would follow +me a little distance, chatter and laugh about me, and, having smiled and +gesticulated in a friendly way, leave me again to my own devices. +</p> + +<p> +“The calm of evening was upon the world as I emerged from the +great hall, and the scene was lit by the warm glow of the setting sun. At +first things were very confusing. Everything was so entirely different from +the world I had known—even the flowers. The big building I had left +was situated on the slope of a broad river valley, but the Thames had +shifted, perhaps, a mile from its present position. I resolved to mount to +the summit of a crest, perhaps a mile and a half away, from which I could +get a wider view of this our planet in the year Eight Hundred and Two +Thousand Seven Hundred and One, A.D. For that, I should explain, was the +date the little dials of my machine recorded. +</p> + +<p> +“As I walked I was watching for every impression that could +possibly help to explain the condition of ruinous splendour in which I +found the world—for ruinous it was. A little way up the hill, for +instance, was a great heap of granite, bound together by masses of +aluminium, a vast labyrinth of precipitous walls and crumpled heaps, amidst +which were thick heaps of very beautiful pagoda-like plants—nettles +possibly—but wonderfully tinted with brown about the leaves, and +incapable of stinging. It was evidently the derelict remains of some vast +structure, to what end built I could not determine. It was here that I was +destined, at a later date, to have a very strange experience—the +first intimation of a still stranger discovery—but of that I will +speak in its proper place. +</p> + +<p> +“Looking round, with a sudden thought, from a terrace on which I +rested for a while, I realised that there were no small houses to be seen. +Apparently the single house, and possibly even the household, had vanished. +Here and there among the greenery were palace-like buildings, but the house +and the cottage, which form such characteristic features of our own English +landscape, had disappeared. +</p> + +<p> +“‘Communism,’ said I to myself. +</p> + +<p> +“And on the heels of that came another thought. I looked at the +half-dozen little figures that were following me. Then, in a flash, I +perceived that all had the same form of costume, the same soft hairless +visage, and the same girlish rotundity of limb. It may seem strange, +perhaps, that I had not noticed this before. But everything was so strange. +Now, I saw the fact plainly enough. In costume, and in all the differences +of texture and bearing that now mark off the sexes from each other, these +people of the future were alike. And the children seemed to my eyes to be +but the miniatures of their parents. I judged then that the children of +that time were extremely precocious, physically at least, and I found +afterwards abundant verification of my opinion. +</p> + +<p> +“Seeing the ease and security in which these people were living, I +felt that this close resemblance of the sexes was after all what one would +expect; for the strength of a man and the softness of a woman, the +institution of the family, and the differentiation of occupations are mere +militant necessities of an age of physical force. Where population is +balanced and abundant, much childbearing becomes an evil rather than a +blessing to the State; where violence comes but rarely and offspring are +secure, there is less necessity—indeed there is no +necessity—for an efficient family, and the specialisation of the +sexes with reference to their children’s needs disappears. We see +some beginnings of this even in our own time, and in this future age it was +complete. This, I must remind you, was my speculation at the time. Later, I +was to appreciate how far it fell short of the reality. +</p> + +<p> +“While I was musing upon these things, my attention was attracted +by a pretty little structure, like a well under a cupola. I thought in a +transitory way of the oddness of wells still existing, and then resumed the +thread of my speculations. There were no large buildings towards the top of +the hill, and as my walking powers were evidently miraculous, I was +presently left alone for the first time. With a strange sense of freedom +and adventure I pushed on up to the crest. +</p> + +<p> +“There I found a seat of some yellow metal that I did not +recognise, corroded in places with a kind of pinkish rust and half +smothered in soft moss, the arm-rests cast and filed into the resemblance +of griffins’ heads. I sat down on it, and I surveyed the broad view +of our old world under the sunset of that long day. It was as sweet and +fair a view as I have ever seen. The sun had already gone below the horizon +and the west was flaming gold, touched with some horizontal bars of purple +and crimson. Below was the valley of the Thames, in which the river lay +like a band of burnished steel. I have already spoken of the great palaces +dotted about among the variegated greenery, some in ruins and some still +occupied. Here and there rose a white or silvery figure in the waste garden +of the earth, here and there came the sharp vertical line of some cupola or +obelisk. There were no hedges, no signs of proprietary rights, no evidences +of agriculture; the whole earth had become a garden. +</p> + +<p> +“So watching, I began to put my interpretation upon the things I +had seen, and as it shaped itself to me that evening, my interpretation was +something in this way. (Afterwards I found I had got only a +half truth—or only a glimpse of one facet of the truth.) +</p> + +<p> +“It seemed to me that I had happened upon humanity upon the wane. +The ruddy sunset set me thinking of the sunset of mankind. For the first +time I began to realise an odd consequence of the social effort in which we +are at present engaged. And yet, come to think, it is a logical consequence +enough. Strength is the outcome of need; security sets a premium on +feebleness. The work of ameliorating the conditions of life—the true +civilising process that makes life more and more secure—had gone +steadily on to a climax. One triumph of a united humanity over Nature had +followed another. Things that are now mere dreams had become projects +deliberately put in hand and carried forward. And the harvest was what I +saw! +</p> + +<p> +“After all, the sanitation and the agriculture of today are still +in the rudimentary stage. The science of our time has attacked but a little +department of the field of human disease, but, even so, it spreads its +operations very steadily and persistently. Our agriculture and horticulture +destroy a weed just here and there and cultivate perhaps a score or so of +wholesome plants, leaving the greater number to fight out a balance as they +can. We improve our favourite plants and animals—and how few they +are—gradually by selective breeding; now a new and better peach, now +a seedless grape, now a sweeter and larger flower, now a more convenient +breed of cattle. We improve them gradually, because our ideals are vague +and tentative, and our knowledge is very limited; because Nature, too, is +shy and slow in our clumsy hands. Some day all this will be better +organised, and still better. That is the drift of the current in spite of +the eddies. The whole world will be intelligent, educated, and +co-operating; things will move faster and faster towards the subjugation of +Nature. In the end, wisely and carefully we shall readjust the balance of +animal and vegetable life to suit our human needs. +</p> + +<p> +“This adjustment, I say, must have been done, and done well; done +indeed for all Time, in the space of Time across which my machine had +leapt. The air was free from gnats, the earth from weeds or fungi; +everywhere were fruits and sweet and delightful flowers; brilliant +butterflies flew hither and thither. The ideal of preventive medicine was +attained. Diseases had been stamped out. I saw no evidence of any +contagious diseases during all my stay. And I shall have to tell you later +that even the processes of putrefaction and decay had been profoundly +affected by these changes. +</p> + +<p> +“Social triumphs, too, had been effected. I saw mankind housed in +splendid shelters, gloriously clothed, and as yet I had found them engaged +in no toil. There were no signs of struggle, neither social nor economical +struggle. The shop, the advertisement, traffic, all that commerce which +constitutes the body of our world, was gone. It was natural on that golden +evening that I should jump at the idea of a social paradise. The difficulty +of increasing population had been met, I guessed, and population had ceased +to increase. +</p> + +<p> +“But with this change in condition comes inevitably adaptations to +the change. What, unless biological science is a mass of errors, is the +cause of human intelligence and vigour? Hardship and freedom: conditions +under which the active, strong, and subtle survive and the weaker go to the +wall; conditions that put a premium upon the loyal alliance of capable men, +upon self-restraint, patience, and decision. And the institution of the +family, and the emotions that arise therein, the fierce jealousy, the +tenderness for offspring, parental self-devotion, all found their +justification and support in the imminent dangers of the young. <i>Now</i>, +where are these imminent dangers? There is a sentiment arising, and it will +grow, against connubial jealousy, against fierce maternity, against passion +of all sorts; unnecessary things now, and things that make us +uncomfortable, savage survivals, discords in a refined and pleasant +life. +</p> + +<p> +“I thought of the physical slightness of the people, their lack of +intelligence, and those big abundant ruins, and it strengthened my belief +in a perfect conquest of Nature. For after the battle comes Quiet. Humanity +had been strong, energetic, and intelligent, and had used all its abundant +vitality to alter the conditions under which it lived. And now came the +reaction of the altered conditions. +</p> + +<p> +“Under the new conditions of perfect comfort and security, that +restless energy, that with us is strength, would become weakness. Even in +our own time certain tendencies and desires, once necessary to survival, +are a constant source of failure. Physical courage and the love of battle, +for instance, are no great help—may even be hindrances—to a +civilised man. And in a state of physical balance and security, power, +intellectual as well as physical, would be out of place. For countless +years I judged there had been no danger of war or solitary violence, no +danger from wild beasts, no wasting disease to require strength of +constitution, no need of toil. For such a life, what we should call the +weak are as well equipped as the strong, are indeed no longer weak. Better +equipped indeed they are, for the strong would be fretted by an energy for +which there was no outlet. No doubt the exquisite beauty of the buildings I +saw was the outcome of the last surgings of the now purposeless energy of +mankind before it settled down into perfect harmony with the conditions +under which it lived—the flourish of that triumph which began the +last great peace. This has ever been the fate of energy in security; it +takes to art and to eroticism, and then come languor and decay. +</p> + +<p> +“Even this artistic impetus would at last die away—had +almost died in the Time I saw. To adorn themselves with flowers, to dance, +to sing in the sunlight: so much was left of the artistic spirit, and no +more. Even that would fade in the end into a contented inactivity. We are +kept keen on the grindstone of pain and necessity, and it seemed to me +that here was that hateful grindstone broken at last! +</p> + +<p> +“As I stood there in the gathering dark I thought that in this +simple explanation I had mastered the problem of the world—mastered +the whole secret of these delicious people. Possibly the checks they had +devised for the increase of population had succeeded too well, and their +numbers had rather diminished than kept stationary. That would account for +the abandoned ruins. Very simple was my explanation, and plausible +enough—as most wrong theories are! +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a id="chap07"></a>VII.<br> +A Sudden Shock</h2> + +<p> +“As I stood there musing over this too perfect triumph of man, the +full moon, yellow and gibbous, came up out of an overflow of silver light +in the north-east. The bright little figures ceased to move about below, a +noiseless owl flitted by, and I shivered with the chill of the night. I +determined to descend and find where I could sleep. +</p> + +<p> +“I looked for the building I knew. Then my eye travelled along to +the figure of the White Sphinx upon the pedestal of bronze, growing +distinct as the light of the rising moon grew brighter. I could see the +silver birch against it. There was the tangle of rhododendron bushes, black +in the pale light, and there was the little lawn. I looked at the lawn +again. A queer doubt chilled my complacency. ‘No,’ said I stoutly to +myself, ‘that was not the lawn.’ +</p> + +<p> +“But it <i>was</i> the lawn. For the white leprous face of the +sphinx was towards it. Can you imagine what I felt as this conviction came +home to me? But you cannot. The Time Machine was gone! +</p> + +<p> +“At once, like a lash across the face, came the possibility of +losing my own age, of being left helpless in this strange new world. The +bare thought of it was an actual physical sensation. I could feel it grip +me at the throat and stop my breathing. In another moment I was in a +passion of fear and running with great leaping strides down the slope. Once +I fell headlong and cut my face; I lost no time in stanching the blood, but +jumped up and ran on, with a warm trickle down my cheek and chin. All the +time I ran I was saying to myself: ‘They have moved it a little, pushed it +under the bushes out of the way.’ Nevertheless, I ran with all my might. +All the time, with the certainty that sometimes comes with excessive dread, +I knew that such assurance was folly, knew instinctively that the machine +was removed out of my reach. My breath came with pain. I suppose I covered +the whole distance from the hill crest to the little lawn, two miles +perhaps, in ten minutes. And I am not a young man. I cursed aloud, as I +ran, at my confident folly in leaving the machine, wasting good breath +thereby. I cried aloud, and none answered. Not a creature seemed to be +stirring in that moonlit world. +</p> + +<p> +“When I reached the lawn my worst fears were realised. Not a trace +of the thing was to be seen. I felt faint and cold when I faced the empty +space among the black tangle of bushes. I ran round it furiously, as if the +thing might be hidden in a corner, and then stopped abruptly, with my hands +clutching my hair. Above me towered the sphinx, upon the bronze pedestal, +white, shining, leprous, in the light of the rising moon. It seemed to +smile in mockery of my dismay. +</p> + +<p> +“I might have consoled myself by imagining the little people had +put the mechanism in some shelter for me, had I not felt assured of their +physical and intellectual inadequacy. That is what dismayed me: the sense +of some hitherto unsuspected power, through whose intervention my invention +had vanished. Yet, for one thing I felt assured: unless some other age had +produced its exact duplicate, the machine could not have moved in time. The +attachment of the levers—I will show you the method +later—prevented anyone from tampering with it in that way when they +were removed. It had moved, and was hid, only in space. But then, where +could it be? +</p> + +<p> +“I think I must have had a kind of frenzy. I remember running +violently in and out among the moonlit bushes all round the sphinx, and +startling some white animal that, in the dim light, I took for a small +deer. I remember, too, late that night, beating the bushes with my clenched +fist until my knuckles were gashed and bleeding from the broken twigs. +Then, sobbing and raving in my anguish of mind, I went down to the great +building of stone. The big hall was dark, silent, and deserted. I slipped +on the uneven floor, and fell over one of the malachite tables, almost +breaking my shin. I lit a match and went on past the dusty curtains, of +which I have told you. +</p> + +<p> +“There I found a second great hall covered with cushions, upon +which, perhaps, a score or so of the little people were sleeping. I have no +doubt they found my second appearance strange enough, coming suddenly out +of the quiet darkness with inarticulate noises and the splutter and flare +of a match. For they had forgotten about matches. ‘Where is my Time +Machine?’ I began, bawling like an angry child, laying hands upon them and +shaking them up together. It must have been very queer to them. Some +laughed, most of them looked sorely frightened. When I saw them standing +round me, it came into my head that I was doing as foolish a thing as it +was possible for me to do under the circumstances, in trying to revive the +sensation of fear. For, reasoning from their daylight behaviour, I thought +that fear must be forgotten. +</p> + +<p> +“Abruptly, I dashed down the match, and knocking one of the people +over in my course, went blundering across the big dining-hall again, out +under the moonlight. I heard cries of terror and their little feet running +and stumbling this way and that. I do not remember all I did as the moon +crept up the sky. I suppose it was the unexpected nature of my loss that +maddened me. I felt hopelessly cut off from my own kind—a strange +animal in an unknown world. I must have raved to and fro, screaming and +crying upon God and Fate. I have a memory of horrible fatigue, as the long +night of despair wore away; of looking in this impossible place and that; +of groping among moonlit ruins and touching strange creatures in the black +shadows; at last, of lying on the ground near the sphinx and weeping with +absolute wretchedness, even anger at the folly of leaving the machine +having leaked away with my strength. I had nothing left but misery. Then I +slept, and when I woke again it was full day, and a couple of sparrows were +hopping round me on the turf within reach of my arm. +</p> + +<p> +“I sat up in the freshness of the morning, trying to remember how I +had got there, and why I had such a profound sense of desertion and +despair. Then things came clear in my mind. With the plain, reasonable +daylight, I could look my circumstances fairly in the face. I saw the wild +folly of my frenzy overnight, and I could reason with myself. +‘Suppose the worst?’ I said. ‘Suppose the machine +altogether lost—perhaps destroyed? It behoves me to be calm and +patient, to learn the way of the people, to get a clear idea of the method +of my loss, and the means of getting materials and tools; so that in the +end, perhaps, I may make another.’ That would be my only hope, a poor +hope, perhaps, but better than despair. And, after all, it was a beautiful +and curious world. +</p> + +<p> +“But probably the machine had only been taken away. Still, I must +be calm and patient, find its hiding-place, and recover it by force or +cunning. And with that I scrambled to my feet and looked about me, +wondering where I could bathe. I felt weary, stiff, and travel-soiled. The +freshness of the morning made me desire an equal freshness. I had exhausted +my emotion. Indeed, as I went about my business, I found myself wondering +at my intense excitement overnight. I made a careful examination of the +ground about the little lawn. I wasted some time in futile questionings, +conveyed, as well as I was able, to such of the little people as came by. +They all failed to understand my gestures; some were simply stolid, some +thought it was a jest and laughed at me. I had the hardest task in the +world to keep my hands off their pretty laughing faces. It was a foolish +impulse, but the devil begotten of fear and blind anger was ill curbed and +still eager to take advantage of my perplexity. The turf gave better +counsel. I found a groove ripped in it, about midway between the pedestal +of the sphinx and the marks of my feet where, on arrival, I had struggled +with the overturned machine. There were other signs of removal about, with +queer narrow footprints like those I could imagine made by a sloth. This +directed my closer attention to the pedestal. It was, as I think I have +said, of bronze. It was not a mere block, but highly decorated with deep +framed panels on either side. I went and rapped at these. The pedestal was +hollow. Examining the panels with care I found them discontinuous with the +frames. There were no handles or keyholes, but possibly the panels, if they +were doors, as I supposed, opened from within. One thing was clear enough +to my mind. It took no very great mental effort to infer that my Time +Machine was inside that pedestal. But how it got there was a different +problem. +</p> + +<p> +“I saw the heads of two orange-clad people coming through the +bushes and under some blossom-covered apple-trees towards me. I turned +smiling to them, and beckoned them to me. They came, and then, pointing to +the bronze pedestal, I tried to intimate my wish to open it. But at my +first gesture towards this they behaved very oddly. I don’t know how +to convey their expression to you. Suppose you were to use a grossly +improper gesture to a delicate-minded woman—it is how she would look. +They went off as if they had received the last possible insult. I tried a +sweet-looking little chap in white next, with exactly the same result. +Somehow, his manner made me feel ashamed of myself. But, as you know, I +wanted the Time Machine, and I tried him once more. As he turned off, like +the others, my temper got the better of me. In three strides I was after +him, had him by the loose part of his robe round the neck, and began +dragging him towards the sphinx. Then I saw the horror and repugnance of +his face, and all of a sudden I let him go. +</p> + +<p> +“But I was not beaten yet. I banged with my fist at the bronze +panels. I thought I heard something stir inside—to be explicit, I +thought I heard a sound like a chuckle—but I must have been mistaken. +Then I got a big pebble from the river, and came and hammered till I had +flattened a coil in the decorations, and the verdigris came off in powdery +flakes. The delicate little people must have heard me hammering in gusty +outbreaks a mile away on either hand, but nothing came of it. I saw a crowd +of them upon the slopes, looking furtively at me. At last, hot and tired, I +sat down to watch the place. But I was too restless to watch long; I am too +Occidental for a long vigil. I could work at a problem for years, but to +wait inactive for twenty-four hours—that is another matter. +</p> + +<p> +“I got up after a time, and began walking aimlessly through the +bushes towards the hill again. ‘Patience,’ said I to myself. +‘If you want your machine again you must leave that sphinx alone. If +they mean to take your machine away, it’s little good your wrecking +their bronze panels, and if they don’t, you will get it back as soon +as you can ask for it. To sit among all those unknown things before a +puzzle like that is hopeless. That way lies monomania. Face this world. +Learn its ways, watch it, be careful of too hasty guesses at its meaning. +In the end you will find clues to it all.’ Then suddenly the humour +of the situation came into my mind: the thought of the years I had spent in +study and toil to get into the future age, and now my passion of anxiety to +get out of it. I had made myself the most complicated and the most hopeless +trap that ever a man devised. Although it was at my own expense, I could +not help myself. I laughed aloud. +</p> + +<p> +“Going through the big palace, it seemed to me that the little +people avoided me. It may have been my fancy, or it may have had something +to do with my hammering at the gates of bronze. Yet I felt tolerably sure +of the avoidance. I was careful, however, to show no concern and to abstain +from any pursuit of them, and in the course of a day or two things got back +to the old footing. I made what progress I could in the language, and in +addition I pushed my explorations here and there. Either I missed some +subtle point or their language was excessively simple—almost +exclusively composed of concrete substantives and verbs. There seemed to be +few, if any, abstract terms, or little use of figurative language. Their +sentences were usually simple and of two words, and I failed to convey or +understand any but the simplest propositions. I determined to put the +thought of my Time Machine and the mystery of the bronze doors under the +sphinx, as much as possible in a corner of memory, until my growing +knowledge would lead me back to them in a natural way. Yet a certain +feeling, you may understand, tethered me in a circle of a few miles round +the point of my arrival. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a id="chap08"></a>VIII.<br> +Explanation</h2> + +<p> +“So far as I could see, all the world displayed the same exuberant +richness as the Thames valley. From every hill I climbed I saw the same +abundance of splendid buildings, endlessly varied in material and style, +the same clustering thickets of evergreens, the same blossom-laden trees +and tree ferns. Here and there water shone like silver, and beyond, the +land rose into blue undulating hills, and so faded into the serenity of the +sky. A peculiar feature, which presently attracted my attention, was the +presence of certain circular wells, several, as it seemed to me, of a very +great depth. One lay by the path up the hill which I had followed during +my first walk. Like the others, it was rimmed with bronze, curiously +wrought, and protected by a little cupola from the rain. Sitting by the +side of these wells, and peering down into the shafted darkness, I could +see no gleam of water, nor could I start any reflection with a lighted +match. But in all of them I heard a certain sound: a +thud—thud—thud, like the beating of some big engine; and I +discovered, from the flaring of my matches, that a steady current of air +set down the shafts. Further, I threw a scrap of paper into the throat of +one, and, instead of fluttering slowly down, it was at once sucked swiftly +out of sight. +</p> + +<p> +“After a time, too, I came to connect these wells with tall towers +standing here and there upon the slopes; for above them there was often +just such a flicker in the air as one sees on a hot day above a +sun-scorched beach. Putting things together, I reached a strong suggestion +of an extensive system of subterranean ventilation, whose true import it +was difficult to imagine. I was at first inclined to associate it with the +sanitary apparatus of these people. It was an obvious conclusion, but it +was absolutely wrong. +</p> + +<p> +“And here I must admit that I learnt very little of drains and +bells and modes of conveyance, and the like conveniences, during my time in +this real future. In some of these visions of Utopias and coming times +which I have read, there is a vast amount of detail about building, and +social arrangements, and so forth. But while such details are easy enough +to obtain when the whole world is contained in one’s imagination, +they are altogether inaccessible to a real traveller amid such realities as +I found here. Conceive the tale of London which a negro, fresh from Central +Africa, would take back to his tribe! What would he know of railway +companies, of social movements, of telephone and telegraph wires, of the +Parcels Delivery Company, and postal orders and the like? Yet we, at least, +should be willing enough to explain these things to him! And even of what +he knew, how much could he make his untravelled friend either apprehend or +believe? Then, think how narrow the gap between a negro and a white man of +our own times, and how wide the interval between myself and these of the +Golden Age! I was sensible of much which was unseen, and which contributed +to my comfort; but save for a general impression of automatic organisation, +I fear I can convey very little of the difference to your mind. +</p> + +<p> +“In the matter of sepulture, for instance, I could see no signs of +crematoria nor anything suggestive of tombs. But it occurred to me that, +possibly, there might be cemeteries (or crematoria) somewhere beyond the +range of my explorings. This, again, was a question I deliberately put to +myself, and my curiosity was at first entirely defeated upon the point. The +thing puzzled me, and I was led to make a further remark, which puzzled me +still more: that aged and infirm among this people there were none. +</p> + +<p> +“I must confess that my satisfaction with my first theories of an +automatic civilisation and a decadent humanity did not long endure. Yet I +could think of no other. Let me put my difficulties. The several big +palaces I had explored were mere living places, great dining-halls and +sleeping apartments. I could find no machinery, no appliances of any kind. +Yet these people were clothed in pleasant fabrics that must at times need +renewal, and their sandals, though undecorated, were fairly complex +specimens of metalwork. Somehow such things must be made. And the little +people displayed no vestige of a creative tendency. There were no shops, no +workshops, no sign of importations among them. They spent all their time in +playing gently, in bathing in the river, in making love in a half-playful +fashion, in eating fruit and sleeping. I could not see how things were kept +going. +</p> + +<p> +“Then, again, about the Time Machine: something, I knew not what, +had taken it into the hollow pedestal of the White Sphinx. <i>Why?</i> For +the life of me I could not imagine. Those waterless wells, too, those +flickering pillars. I felt I lacked a clue. I felt—how shall I put +it? Suppose you found an inscription, with sentences here and there in +excellent plain English, and interpolated therewith, others made up of +words, of letters even, absolutely unknown to you? Well, on the third day +of my visit, that was how the world of Eight Hundred and Two Thousand Seven +Hundred and One presented itself to me! +</p> + +<p> +“That day, too, I made a friend—of a sort. It happened that, +as I was watching some of the little people bathing in a shallow, one of +them was seized with cramp and began drifting downstream. The main current +ran rather swiftly, but not too strongly for even a moderate swimmer. It +will give you an idea, therefore, of the strange deficiency in these +creatures, when I tell you that none made the slightest attempt to rescue +the weakly crying little thing which was drowning before their eyes. When I +realised this, I hurriedly slipped off my clothes, and, wading in at a +point lower down, I caught the poor mite and drew her safe to land. A +little rubbing of the limbs soon brought her round, and I had the +satisfaction of seeing she was all right before I left her. I had got to +such a low estimate of her kind that I did not expect any gratitude from +her. In that, however, I was wrong. +</p> + +<p> +“This happened in the morning. In the afternoon I met my little +woman, as I believe it was, as I was returning towards my centre from an +exploration, and she received me with cries of delight and presented me +with a big garland of flowers—evidently made for me and me alone. The +thing took my imagination. Very possibly I had been feeling desolate. At +any rate I did my best to display my appreciation of the gift. We were soon +seated together in a little stone arbour, engaged in conversation, chiefly +of smiles. The creature’s friendliness affected me exactly as a +child’s might have done. We passed each other flowers, and she kissed +my hands. I did the same to hers. Then I tried talk, and found that her +name was Weena, which, though I don’t know what it meant, somehow +seemed appropriate enough. That was the beginning of a queer friendship +which lasted a week, and ended—as I will tell you! +</p> + +<p> +“She was exactly like a child. She wanted to be with me always. +She tried to follow me everywhere, and on my next journey out and about it +went to my heart to tire her down, and leave her at last, exhausted and +calling after me rather plaintively. But the problems of the world had to +be mastered. I had not, I said to myself, come into the future to carry on +a miniature flirtation. Yet her distress when I left her was very great, +her expostulations at the parting were sometimes frantic, and I think, +altogether, I had as much trouble as comfort from her devotion. +Nevertheless she was, somehow, a very great comfort. I thought it was mere +childish affection that made her cling to me. Until it was too late, I did +not clearly know what I had inflicted upon her when I left her. Nor until +it was too late did I clearly understand what she was to me. For, by merely +seeming fond of me, and showing in her weak, futile way that she cared for +me, the little doll of a creature presently gave my return to the +neighbourhood of the White Sphinx almost the feeling of coming home; and I +would watch for her tiny figure of white and gold so soon as I came over +the hill. +</p> + +<p> +“It was from her, too, that I learnt that fear had not yet left +the world. She was fearless enough in the daylight, and she had the oddest +confidence in me; for once, in a foolish moment, I made threatening +grimaces at her, and she simply laughed at them. But she dreaded the dark, +dreaded shadows, dreaded black things. Darkness to her was the one thing +dreadful. It was a singularly passionate emotion, and it set me thinking +and observing. I discovered then, among other things, that these little +people gathered into the great houses after dark, and slept in droves. To +enter upon them without a light was to put them into a tumult of +apprehension. I never found one out of doors, or one sleeping alone within +doors, after dark. Yet I was still such a blockhead that I missed the +lesson of that fear, and in spite of Weena’s distress, I insisted upon +sleeping away from these slumbering multitudes. +</p> + +<p> +“It troubled her greatly, but in the end her odd affection for me +triumphed, and for five of the nights of our acquaintance, including the +last night of all, she slept with her head pillowed on my arm. But my story +slips away from me as I speak of her. It must have been the night before +her rescue that I was awakened about dawn. I had been restless, dreaming +most disagreeably that I was drowned, and that sea anemones were feeling +over my face with their soft palps. I woke with a start, and with an odd +fancy that some greyish animal had just rushed out of the chamber. I tried +to get to sleep again, but I felt restless and uncomfortable. It was that +dim grey hour when things are just creeping out of darkness, when +everything is colourless and clear cut, and yet unreal. I got up, and went +down into the great hall, and so out upon the flagstones in front of the +palace. I thought I would make a virtue of necessity, and see the +sunrise. +</p> + +<p> +“The moon was setting, and the dying moonlight and the first +pallor of dawn were mingled in a ghastly half-light. The bushes were inky +black, the ground a sombre grey, the sky colourless and cheerless. And up +the hill I thought I could see ghosts. Three several times, as I scanned +the slope, I saw white figures. Twice I fancied I saw a solitary white, +ape-like creature running rather quickly up the hill, and once near the +ruins I saw a leash of them carrying some dark body. They moved hastily. I +did not see what became of them. It seemed that they vanished among the +bushes. The dawn was still indistinct, you must understand. I was feeling +that chill, uncertain, early-morning feeling you may have known. I doubted +my eyes. +</p> + +<p> +“As the eastern sky grew brighter, and the light of the day came on +and its vivid colouring returned upon the world once more, I scanned the +view keenly. But I saw no vestige of my white figures. They were mere +creatures of the half-light. ‘They must have been ghosts,’ I +said; ‘I wonder whence they dated.’ For a queer notion of Grant +Allen’s came into my head, and amused me. If each generation die and +leave ghosts, he argued, the world at last will get overcrowded with them. +On that theory they would have grown innumerable some Eight Hundred +Thousand Years hence, and it was no great wonder to see four at once. But +the jest was unsatisfying, and I was thinking of these figures all the +morning, until Weena’s rescue drove them out of my head. I associated +them in some indefinite way with the white animal I had startled in my +first passionate search for the Time Machine. But Weena was a pleasant +substitute. Yet all the same, they were soon destined to take far deadlier +possession of my mind. +</p> + +<p> +“I think I have said how much hotter than our own was the weather +of this Golden Age. I cannot account for it. It may be that the sun was +hotter, or the earth nearer the sun. It is usual to assume that the sun +will go on cooling steadily in the future. But people, unfamiliar with such +speculations as those of the younger Darwin, forget that the planets must +ultimately fall back one by one into the parent body. As these catastrophes +occur, the sun will blaze with renewed energy; and it may be that some +inner planet had suffered this fate. Whatever the reason, the fact remains +that the sun was very much hotter than we know it. +</p> + +<p> +“Well, one very hot morning—my fourth, I think—as I +was seeking shelter from the heat and glare in a colossal ruin near the +great house where I slept and fed, there happened this strange thing. +Clambering among these heaps of masonry, I found a narrow gallery, whose +end and side windows were blocked by fallen masses of stone. By contrast +with the brilliancy outside, it seemed at first impenetrably dark to me. I +entered it groping, for the change from light to blackness made spots of +colour swim before me. Suddenly I halted spellbound. A pair of eyes, +luminous by reflection against the daylight without, was watching me out of +the darkness. +</p> + +<p> +“The old instinctive dread of wild beasts came upon me. I clenched +my hands and steadfastly looked into the glaring eyeballs. I was afraid to +turn. Then the thought of the absolute security in which humanity appeared +to be living came to my mind. And then I remembered that strange terror of +the dark. Overcoming my fear to some extent, I advanced a step and spoke. I +will admit that my voice was harsh and ill-controlled. I put out my hand +and touched something soft. At once the eyes darted sideways, and something +white ran past me. I turned with my heart in my mouth, and saw a queer +little ape-like figure, its head held down in a peculiar manner, running +across the sunlit space behind me. It blundered against a block of granite, +staggered aside, and in a moment was hidden in a black shadow beneath +another pile of ruined masonry. +</p> + +<p> +“My impression of it is, of course, imperfect; but I know it was a +dull white, and had strange large greyish-red eyes; also that there was +flaxen hair on its head and down its back. But, as I say, it went too fast +for me to see distinctly. I cannot even say whether it ran on all fours, or +only with its forearms held very low. After an instant’s pause I +followed it into the second heap of ruins. I could not find it at first; +but, after a time in the profound obscurity, I came upon one of those round +well-like openings of which I have told you, half closed by a fallen +pillar. A sudden thought came to me. Could this Thing have vanished down +the shaft? I lit a match, and, looking down, I saw a small, white, moving +creature, with large bright eyes which regarded me steadfastly as it +retreated. It made me shudder. It was so like a human spider! It was +clambering down the wall, and now I saw for the first time a number of +metal foot and hand rests forming a kind of ladder down the shaft. Then the +light burned my fingers and fell out of my hand, going out as it dropped, +and when I had lit another the little monster had disappeared. +</p> + +<p> +“I do not know how long I sat peering down that well. It was not +for some time that I could succeed in persuading myself that the thing I +had seen was human. But, gradually, the truth dawned on me: that Man had +not remained one species, but had differentiated into two distinct animals: +that my graceful children of the Upper World were not the sole descendants +of our generation, but that this bleached, obscene, nocturnal Thing, which +had flashed before me, was also heir to all the ages. +</p> + +<p> +“I thought of the flickering pillars and of my theory of an +underground ventilation. I began to suspect their true import. And what, I +wondered, was this Lemur doing in my scheme of a perfectly balanced +organisation? How was it related to the indolent serenity of the beautiful +Overworlders? And what was hidden down there, at the foot of that shaft? +I sat upon the edge of the well telling myself that, at any rate, there was +nothing to fear, and that there I must descend for the solution of my +difficulties. And withal I was absolutely afraid to go! As I hesitated, two +of the beautiful upperworld people came running in their amorous sport +across the daylight in the shadow. The male pursued the female, flinging +flowers at her as he ran. +</p> + +<p> +“They seemed distressed to find me, my arm against the overturned +pillar, peering down the well. Apparently it was considered bad form to +remark these apertures; for when I pointed to this one, and tried to frame +a question about it in their tongue, they were still more visibly +distressed and turned away. But they were interested by my matches, and I +struck some to amuse them. I tried them again about the well, and again I +failed. So presently I left them, meaning to go back to Weena, and see what +I could get from her. But my mind was already in revolution; my guesses and +impressions were slipping and sliding to a new adjustment. I had now a clue +to the import of these wells, to the ventilating towers, to the mystery of +the ghosts; to say nothing of a hint at the meaning of the bronze gates and +the fate of the Time Machine! And very vaguely there came a suggestion +towards the solution of the economic problem that had puzzled me. +</p> + +<p> +“Here was the new view. Plainly, this second species of Man was +subterranean. There were three circumstances in particular which made me +think that its rare emergence above ground was the outcome of a +long-continued underground habit. In the first place, there was the +bleached look common in most animals that live largely in the +dark—the white fish of the Kentucky caves, for instance. Then, those +large eyes, with that capacity for reflecting light, are common features of +nocturnal things—witness the owl and the cat. And last of all, that +evident confusion in the sunshine, that hasty yet fumbling awkward flight +towards dark shadow, and that peculiar carriage of the head while in the +light—all reinforced the theory of an extreme sensitiveness of the +retina. +</p> + +<p> +“Beneath my feet, then, the earth must be tunnelled enormously, +and these tunnellings were the habitat of the New Race. The presence of +ventilating shafts and wells along the hill slopes—everywhere, in +fact, except along the river valley—showed how universal were its +ramifications. What so natural, then, as to assume that it was in this +artificial Underworld that such work as was necessary to the comfort of the +daylight race was done? The notion was so plausible that I at once accepted +it, and went on to assume the <i>how</i> of this splitting of the human +species. I dare say you will anticipate the shape of my theory; though, for +myself, I very soon felt that it fell far short of the truth. +</p> + +<p> +“At first, proceeding from the problems of our own age, it seemed +clear as daylight to me that the gradual widening of the present merely +temporary and social difference between the Capitalist and the Labourer +was the key to the whole position. No doubt it will seem grotesque enough +to you—and wildly incredible!—and yet even now there are +existing circumstances to point that way. There is a tendency to utilise +underground space for the less ornamental purposes of civilisation; there +is the Metropolitan Railway in London, for instance, there are new electric +railways, there are subways, there are underground workrooms and +restaurants, and they increase and multiply. Evidently, I thought, this +tendency had increased till Industry had gradually lost its birthright in +the sky. I mean that it had gone deeper and deeper into larger and ever +larger underground factories, spending a still-increasing amount of its +time therein, till, in the end—! Even now, does not an East-end +worker live in such artificial conditions as practically to be cut off from +the natural surface of the earth? +</p> + +<p> +“Again, the exclusive tendency of richer people—due, no +doubt, to the increasing refinement of their education, and the widening +gulf between them and the rude violence of the poor—is already +leading to the closing, in their interest, of considerable portions of the +surface of the land. About London, for instance, perhaps half the prettier +country is shut in against intrusion. And this same widening +gulf—which is due to the length and expense of the higher educational +process and the increased facilities for and temptations towards refined +habits on the part of the rich—will make that exchange between class +and class, that promotion by intermarriage which at present retards the +splitting of our species along lines of social stratification, less and +less frequent. So, in the end, above ground you must have the Haves, +pursuing pleasure and comfort and beauty, and below ground the Have-nots, +the Workers getting continually adapted to the conditions of their labour. +Once they were there, they would no doubt have to pay rent, and not a +little of it, for the ventilation of their caverns; and if they refused, +they would starve or be suffocated for arrears. Such of them as were so +constituted as to be miserable and rebellious would die; and, in the end, +the balance being permanent, the survivors would become as well adapted to +the conditions of underground life, and as happy in their way, as the +Overworld people were to theirs. As it seemed to me, the refined beauty +and the etiolated pallor followed naturally enough. +</p> + +<p> +“The great triumph of Humanity I had dreamed of took a different +shape in my mind. It had been no such triumph of moral education and +general co-operation as I had imagined. Instead, I saw a real aristocracy, +armed with a perfected science and working to a logical conclusion the +industrial system of today. Its triumph had not been simply a triumph over +Nature, but a triumph over Nature and the fellow-man. This, I must warn +you, was my theory at the time. I had no convenient cicerone in the pattern +of the Utopian books. My explanation may be absolutely wrong. I still think +it is the most plausible one. But even on this supposition the balanced +civilisation that was at last attained must have long since passed its +zenith, and was now far fallen into decay. The too-perfect security of the +Overworlders had led them to a slow movement of degeneration, to a +general dwindling in size, strength, and intelligence. That I could see +clearly enough already. What had happened to the Undergrounders I did not +yet suspect; but, from what I had seen of the Morlocks—that, by the +bye, was the name by which these creatures were called—I could imagine +that the modification of the human type was even far more profound than +among the ‘Eloi,’ the beautiful race that I already knew. +</p> + +<p> +“Then came troublesome doubts. Why had the Morlocks taken my Time +Machine? For I felt sure it was they who had taken it. Why, too, if the +Eloi were masters, could they not restore the machine to me? And why were +they so terribly afraid of the dark? I proceeded, as I have said, to +question Weena about this Underworld, but here again I was disappointed. +At first she would not understand my questions, and presently she refused +to answer them. She shivered as though the topic was unendurable. And when +I pressed her, perhaps a little harshly, she burst into tears. They were +the only tears, except my own, I ever saw in that Golden Age. When I saw +them I ceased abruptly to trouble about the Morlocks, and was only +concerned in banishing these signs of her human inheritance from +Weena’s eyes. And very soon she was smiling and clapping her hands, +while I solemnly burnt a match. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a id="chap09"></a>IX.<br> +The Morlocks</h2> + +<p> +“It may seem odd to you, but it was two days before I could follow +up the new-found clue in what was manifestly the proper way. I felt a +peculiar shrinking from those pallid bodies. They were just the +half-bleached colour of the worms and things one sees preserved in spirit +in a zoological museum. And they were filthily cold to the touch. Probably +my shrinking was largely due to the sympathetic influence of the Eloi, +whose disgust of the Morlocks I now began to appreciate. +</p> + +<p> +“The next night I did not sleep well. Probably my health was a +little disordered. I was oppressed with perplexity and doubt. Once or twice +I had a feeling of intense fear for which I could perceive no definite +reason. I remember creeping noiselessly into the great hall where the +little people were sleeping in the moonlight—that night Weena was +among them—and feeling reassured by their presence. It occurred to me +even then, that in the course of a few days the moon must pass through its +last quarter, and the nights grow dark, when the appearances of these +unpleasant creatures from below, these whitened Lemurs, this new vermin +that had replaced the old, might be more abundant. And on both these days I +had the restless feeling of one who shirks an inevitable duty. I felt +assured that the Time Machine was only to be recovered by boldly +penetrating these mysteries of underground. Yet I could not face the mystery. +If only I had had a companion it would have been different. But I was so +horribly alone, and even to clamber down into the darkness of the well +appalled me. I don’t know if you will understand my feeling, but I +never felt quite safe at my back. +</p> + +<p> +“It was this restlessness, this insecurity, perhaps, that drove me +farther and farther afield in my exploring expeditions. Going to the +south-westward towards the rising country that is now called Combe Wood, I +observed far-off, in the direction of nineteenth-century Banstead, a vast +green structure, different in character from any I had hitherto seen. It +was larger than the largest of the palaces or ruins I knew, and the façade +had an Oriental look: the face of it having the lustre, as well as the +pale-green tint, a kind of bluish-green, of a certain type of Chinese +porcelain. This difference in aspect suggested a difference in use, and I +was minded to push on and explore. But the day was growing late, and I had +come upon the sight of the place after a long and tiring circuit; so I +resolved to hold over the adventure for the following day, and I returned +to the welcome and the caresses of little Weena. But next morning I +perceived clearly enough that my curiosity regarding the Palace of Green +Porcelain was a piece of self-deception, to enable me to shirk, by another +day, an experience I dreaded. I resolved I would make the descent without +further waste of time, and started out in the early morning towards a well +near the ruins of granite and aluminium. +</p> + +<p> +“Little Weena ran with me. She danced beside me to the well, but when +she saw me lean over the mouth and look downward, she seemed strangely +disconcerted. ‘Good-bye, little Weena,’ I said, kissing her; +and then putting her down, I began to feel over the parapet for the +climbing hooks. Rather hastily, I may as well confess, for I feared my +courage might leak away! At first she watched me in amazement. Then she +gave a most piteous cry, and running to me, she began to pull at me with +her little hands. I think her opposition nerved me rather to proceed. I +shook her off, perhaps a little roughly, and in another moment I was in the +throat of the well. I saw her agonised face over the parapet, and smiled to +reassure her. Then I had to look down at the unstable hooks to which I +clung. +</p> + +<p> +“I had to clamber down a shaft of perhaps two hundred yards. The +descent was effected by means of metallic bars projecting from the sides of +the well, and these being adapted to the needs of a creature much smaller +and lighter than myself, I was speedily cramped and fatigued by the +descent. And not simply fatigued! One of the bars bent suddenly under my +weight, and almost swung me off into the blackness beneath. For a moment I +hung by one hand, and after that experience I did not dare to rest again. +Though my arms and back were presently acutely painful, I went on +clambering down the sheer descent with as quick a motion as possible. +Glancing upward, I saw the aperture, a small blue disc, in which a star was +visible, while little Weena’s head showed as a round black +projection. The thudding sound of a machine below grew louder and more +oppressive. Everything save that little disc above was profoundly dark, and +when I looked up again Weena had disappeared. +</p> + +<p> +“I was in an agony of discomfort. I had some thought of trying to +go up the shaft again, and leave the Underworld alone. But even while I +turned this over in my mind I continued to descend. At last, with intense +relief, I saw dimly coming up, a foot to the right of me, a slender +loophole in the wall. Swinging myself in, I found it was the aperture of a +narrow horizontal tunnel in which I could lie down and rest. It was not too +soon. My arms ached, my back was cramped, and I was trembling with the +prolonged terror of a fall. Besides this, the unbroken darkness had had a +distressing effect upon my eyes. The air was full of the throb and hum of +machinery pumping air down the shaft. +</p> + +<p> +“I do not know how long I lay. I was roused by a soft hand +touching my face. Starting up in the darkness I snatched at my matches and, +hastily striking one, I saw three stooping white creatures similar to the +one I had seen above ground in the ruin, hastily retreating before the +light. Living, as they did, in what appeared to me impenetrable darkness, +their eyes were abnormally large and sensitive, just as are the pupils of +the abysmal fishes, and they reflected the light in the same way. I have no +doubt they could see me in that rayless obscurity, and they did not seem to +have any fear of me apart from the light. But, so soon as I struck a match +in order to see them, they fled incontinently, vanishing into dark gutters +and tunnels, from which their eyes glared at me in the strangest +fashion. +</p> + +<p> +“I tried to call to them, but the language they had was apparently +different from that of the Overworld people; so that I was needs left to +my own unaided efforts, and the thought of flight before exploration was +even then in my mind. But I said to myself, ‘You are in for it +now,’ and, feeling my way along the tunnel, I found the noise of +machinery grow louder. Presently the walls fell away from me, and I came to +a large open space, and striking another match, saw that I had entered a +vast arched cavern, which stretched into utter darkness beyond the range of +my light. The view I had of it was as much as one could see in the burning +of a match. +</p> + +<p> +“Necessarily my memory is vague. Great shapes like big machines +rose out of the dimness, and cast grotesque black shadows, in which dim +spectral Morlocks sheltered from the glare. The place, by the bye, was very +stuffy and oppressive, and the faint halitus of freshly-shed blood was in +the air. Some way down the central vista was a little table of white metal, +laid with what seemed a meal. The Morlocks at any rate were carnivorous! +Even at the time, I remember wondering what large animal could have +survived to furnish the red joint I saw. It was all very indistinct: the +heavy smell, the big unmeaning shapes, the obscene figures lurking in the +shadows, and only waiting for the darkness to come at me again! Then the +match burnt down, and stung my fingers, and fell, a wriggling red spot in +the blackness. +</p> + +<p> +“I have thought since how particularly ill-equipped I was for such +an experience. When I had started with the Time Machine, I had started with +the absurd assumption that the men of the Future would certainly be +infinitely ahead of ourselves in all their appliances. I had come without +arms, without medicine, without anything to smoke—at times I missed +tobacco frightfully!—even without enough matches. If only I had +thought of a Kodak! I could have flashed that glimpse of the Underworld in +a second, and examined it at leisure. But, as it was, I stood there with +only the weapons and the powers that Nature had endowed me +with—hands, feet, and teeth; these, and four safety-matches that +still remained to me. +</p> + +<p> +“I was afraid to push my way in among all this machinery in the +dark, and it was only with my last glimpse of light I discovered that my +store of matches had run low. It had never occurred to me until that moment +that there was any need to economise them, and I had wasted almost half the +box in astonishing the Overworlders, to whom fire was a novelty. Now, as +I say, I had four left, and while I stood in the dark, a hand touched mine, +lank fingers came feeling over my face, and I was sensible of a peculiar +unpleasant odour. I fancied I heard the breathing of a crowd of those +dreadful little beings about me. I felt the box of matches in my hand being +gently disengaged, and other hands behind me plucking at my clothing. The +sense of these unseen creatures examining me was indescribably unpleasant. +The sudden realisation of my ignorance of their ways of thinking and doing +came home to me very vividly in the darkness. I shouted at them as loudly +as I could. They started away, and then I could feel them approaching me +again. They clutched at me more boldly, whispering odd sounds to each +other. I shivered violently, and shouted again—rather discordantly. +This time they were not so seriously alarmed, and they made a queer +laughing noise as they came back at me. I will confess I was horribly +frightened. I determined to strike another match and escape under the +protection of its glare. I did so, and eking out the flicker with a scrap +of paper from my pocket, I made good my retreat to the narrow tunnel. But I +had scarce entered this when my light was blown out and in the blackness I +could hear the Morlocks rustling like wind among leaves, and pattering like +the rain, as they hurried after me. +</p> + +<p> +“In a moment I was clutched by several hands, and there was no +mistaking that they were trying to haul me back. I struck another light, +and waved it in their dazzled faces. You can scarce imagine how +nauseatingly inhuman they looked—those pale, chinless faces and +great, lidless, pinkish-grey eyes!—as they stared in their blindness +and bewilderment. But I did not stay to look, I promise you: I retreated +again, and when my second match had ended, I struck my third. It had almost +burnt through when I reached the opening into the shaft. I lay down on the +edge, for the throb of the great pump below made me giddy. Then I felt +sideways for the projecting hooks, and, as I did so, my feet were grasped +from behind, and I was violently tugged backward. I lit my last match … and +it incontinently went out. But I had my hand on the climbing bars now, and, +kicking violently, I disengaged myself from the clutches of the Morlocks, +and was speedily clambering up the shaft, while they stayed peering and +blinking up at me: all but one little wretch who followed me for some way, +and well-nigh secured my boot as a trophy. +</p> + +<p> +“That climb seemed interminable to me. With the last twenty or +thirty feet of it a deadly nausea came upon me. I had the greatest +difficulty in keeping my hold. The last few yards was a frightful struggle +against this faintness. Several times my head swam, and I felt all the +sensations of falling. At last, however, I got over the well-mouth somehow, +and staggered out of the ruin into the blinding sunlight. I fell upon my +face. Even the soil smelt sweet and clean. Then I remember Weena kissing my +hands and ears, and the voices of others among the Eloi. Then, for a time, +I was insensible. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a id="chap10"></a>X.<br> +When Night Came</h2> + +<p> +“Now, indeed, I seemed in a worse case than before. Hitherto, +except during my night’s anguish at the loss of the Time Machine, I +had felt a sustaining hope of ultimate escape, but that hope was staggered +by these new discoveries. Hitherto I had merely thought myself impeded by +the childish simplicity of the little people, and by some unknown forces +which I had only to understand to overcome; but there was an altogether new +element in the sickening quality of the Morlocks—a something inhuman +and malign. Instinctively I loathed them. Before, I had felt as a man might +feel who had fallen into a pit: my concern was with the pit and how to get +out of it. Now I felt like a beast in a trap, whose enemy would come upon +him soon. +</p> + +<p> +“The enemy I dreaded may surprise you. It was the darkness of the +new moon. Weena had put this into my head by some at first incomprehensible +remarks about the Dark Nights. It was not now such a very difficult problem +to guess what the coming Dark Nights might mean. The moon was on the wane: +each night there was a longer interval of darkness. And I now understood to +some slight degree at least the reason of the fear of the little +Upperworld people for the dark. I wondered vaguely what foul villainy it +might be that the Morlocks did under the new moon. I felt pretty sure now +that my second hypothesis was all wrong. The Upperworld people might once +have been the favoured aristocracy, and the Morlocks their mechanical +servants: but that had long since passed away. The two species that had +resulted from the evolution of man were sliding down towards, or had +already arrived at, an altogether new relationship. The Eloi, like the +Carlovignan kings, had decayed to a mere beautiful futility. They still +possessed the earth on sufferance: since the Morlocks, subterranean for +innumerable generations, had come at last to find the daylit surface +intolerable. And the Morlocks made their garments, I inferred, and +maintained them in their habitual needs, perhaps through the survival of an +old habit of service. They did it as a standing horse paws with his foot, +or as a man enjoys killing animals in sport: because ancient and departed +necessities had impressed it on the organism. But, clearly, the old order +was already in part reversed. The Nemesis of the delicate ones was creeping +on apace. Ages ago, thousands of generations ago, man had thrust his +brother man out of the ease and the sunshine. And now that brother was +coming back—changed! Already the Eloi had begun to learn one old lesson +anew. They were becoming reacquainted with Fear. And suddenly there came +into my head the memory of the meat I had seen in the Underworld. It +seemed odd how it floated into my mind: not stirred up as it were by the +current of my meditations, but coming in almost like a question from +outside. I tried to recall the form of it. I had a vague sense of something +familiar, but I could not tell what it was at the time. +</p> + +<p> +“Still, however helpless the little people in the presence of +their mysterious Fear, I was differently constituted. I came out of this +age of ours, this ripe prime of the human race, when Fear does not paralyse +and mystery has lost its terrors. I at least would defend myself. Without +further delay I determined to make myself arms and a fastness where I might +sleep. With that refuge as a base, I could face this strange world with +some of that confidence I had lost in realising to what creatures night by +night I lay exposed. I felt I could never sleep again until my bed was +secure from them. I shuddered with horror to think how they must already +have examined me. +</p> + +<p> +“I wandered during the afternoon along the valley of the Thames, +but found nothing that commended itself to my mind as inaccessible. All the +buildings and trees seemed easily practicable to such dexterous climbers as +the Morlocks, to judge by their wells, must be. Then the tall pinnacles of +the Palace of Green Porcelain and the polished gleam of its walls came back +to my memory; and in the evening, taking Weena like a child upon my +shoulder, I went up the hills towards the south-west. The distance, I had +reckoned, was seven or eight miles, but it must have been nearer eighteen. +I had first seen the place on a moist afternoon when distances are +deceptively diminished. In addition, the heel of one of my shoes was loose, +and a nail was working through the sole—they were comfortable old +shoes I wore about indoors—so that I was lame. And it was already +long past sunset when I came in sight of the palace, silhouetted black +against the pale yellow of the sky. +</p> + +<p> +“Weena had been hugely delighted when I began to carry her, but +after a while she desired me to let her down, and ran along by the side of +me, occasionally darting off on either hand to pick flowers to stick in my +pockets. My pockets had always puzzled Weena, but at the last she had +concluded that they were an eccentric kind of vases for floral decoration. +At least she utilised them for that purpose. And that reminds me! In +changing my jacket I found…” +</p> + +<p> +<i>The Time Traveller paused, put his hand into his pocket, and silently +placed two withered flowers, not unlike very large white mallows, upon the +little table. Then he resumed his narrative.</i> +</p> + +<p> +“As the hush of evening crept over the world and we proceeded over +the hill crest towards Wimbledon, Weena grew tired and wanted to return to +the house of grey stone. But I pointed out the distant pinnacles of the +Palace of Green Porcelain to her, and contrived to make her understand that +we were seeking a refuge there from her Fear. You know that great pause +that comes upon things before the dusk? Even the breeze stops in the trees. +To me there is always an air of expectation about that evening stillness. +The sky was clear, remote, and empty save for a few horizontal bars far +down in the sunset. Well, that night the expectation took the colour of my +fears. In that darkling calm my senses seemed preternaturally sharpened. I +fancied I could even feel the hollowness of the ground beneath my feet: +could, indeed, almost see through it the Morlocks on their ant-hill going +hither and thither and waiting for the dark. In my excitement I fancied +that they would receive my invasion of their burrows as a declaration of +war. And why had they taken my Time Machine? +</p> + +<p> +“So we went on in the quiet, and the twilight deepened into night. +The clear blue of the distance faded, and one star after another came out. +The ground grew dim and the trees black. Weena’s fears and her +fatigue grew upon her. I took her in my arms and talked to her and caressed +her. Then, as the darkness grew deeper, she put her arms round my neck, +and, closing her eyes, tightly pressed her face against my shoulder. So we +went down a long slope into a valley, and there in the dimness I almost +walked into a little river. This I waded, and went up the opposite side of +the valley, past a number of sleeping houses, and by a statue—a Faun, +or some such figure, <i>minus</i> the head. Here too were acacias. So far I +had seen nothing of the Morlocks, but it was yet early in the night, and +the darker hours before the old moon rose were still to come. +</p> + +<p> +“From the brow of the next hill I saw a thick wood spreading wide and +black before me. I hesitated at this. I could see no end to it, either to +the right or the left. Feeling tired—my feet, in particular, were +very sore—I carefully lowered Weena from my shoulder as I halted, and +sat down upon the turf. I could no longer see the Palace of Green +Porcelain, and I was in doubt of my direction. I looked into the thickness +of the wood and thought of what it might hide. Under that dense tangle of +branches one would be out of sight of the stars. Even were there no other +lurking danger—a danger I did not care to let my imagination loose +upon—there would still be all the roots to stumble over and the +tree-boles to strike against. I was very tired, too, after the excitements +of the day; so I decided that I would not face it, but would pass the night +upon the open hill. +</p> + +<p> +“Weena, I was glad to find, was fast asleep. I carefully wrapped +her in my jacket, and sat down beside her to wait for the moonrise. The +hillside was quiet and deserted, but from the black of the wood there came +now and then a stir of living things. Above me shone the stars, for the +night was very clear. I felt a certain sense of friendly comfort in their +twinkling. All the old constellations had gone from the sky, however: that +slow movement which is imperceptible in a hundred human lifetimes, had long +since rearranged them in unfamiliar groupings. But the Milky Way, it seemed +to me, was still the same tattered streamer of star-dust as of yore. +Southward (as I judged it) was a very bright red star that was new to me; +it was even more splendid than our own green Sirius. And amid all these +scintillating points of light one bright planet shone kindly and steadily +like the face of an old friend. +</p> + +<p> +“Looking at these stars suddenly dwarfed my own troubles and all +the gravities of terrestrial life. I thought of their unfathomable +distance, and the slow inevitable drift of their movements out of the +unknown past into the unknown future. I thought of the great precessional +cycle that the pole of the earth describes. Only forty times had that +silent revolution occurred during all the years that I had traversed. And +during these few revolutions all the activity, all the traditions, the +complex organisations, the nations, languages, literatures, aspirations, +even the mere memory of Man as I knew him, had been swept out of existence. +Instead were these frail creatures who had forgotten their high ancestry, +and the white Things of which I went in terror. Then I thought of the Great +Fear that was between the two species, and for the first time, with a +sudden shiver, came the clear knowledge of what the meat I had seen might +be. Yet it was too horrible! I looked at little Weena sleeping beside me, +her face white and starlike under the stars, and forthwith dismissed the +thought. +</p> + +<p> +“Through that long night I held my mind off the Morlocks as well +as I could, and whiled away the time by trying to fancy I could find signs +of the old constellations in the new confusion. The sky kept very clear, +except for a hazy cloud or so. No doubt I dozed at times. Then, as my vigil +wore on, came a faintness in the eastward sky, like the reflection of some +colourless fire, and the old moon rose, thin and peaked and white. And +close behind, and overtaking it, and overflowing it, the dawn came, pale at +first, and then growing pink and warm. No Morlocks had approached us. +Indeed, I had seen none upon the hill that night. And in the confidence of +renewed day it almost seemed to me that my fear had been unreasonable. I +stood up and found my foot with the loose heel swollen at the ankle and +painful under the heel; so I sat down again, took off my shoes, and flung +them away. +</p> + +<p> +“I awakened Weena, and we went down into the wood, now green and +pleasant instead of black and forbidding. We found some fruit wherewith to +break our fast. We soon met others of the dainty ones, laughing and dancing +in the sunlight as though there was no such thing in nature as the night. +And then I thought once more of the meat that I had seen. I felt assured +now of what it was, and from the bottom of my heart I pitied this last +feeble rill from the great flood of humanity. Clearly, at some time in the +Long-Ago of human decay the Morlocks’ food had run short. Possibly +they had lived on rats and such-like vermin. Even now man is far less +discriminating and exclusive in his food than he was—far less than +any monkey. His prejudice against human flesh is no deep-seated instinct. +And so these inhuman sons of men——! I tried to look at the +thing in a scientific spirit. After all, they were less human and more +remote than our cannibal ancestors of three or four thousand years ago. And +the intelligence that would have made this state of things a torment had +gone. Why should I trouble myself? These Eloi were mere fatted cattle, +which the ant-like Morlocks preserved and preyed upon—probably saw to +the breeding of. And there was Weena dancing at my side! +</p> + +<p> +“Then I tried to preserve myself from the horror that was coming +upon me, by regarding it as a rigorous punishment of human selfishness. Man +had been content to live in ease and delight upon the labours of his +fellow-man, had taken Necessity as his watchword and excuse, and in the +fullness of time Necessity had come home to him. I even tried a +Carlyle-like scorn of this wretched aristocracy in decay. But this attitude +of mind was impossible. However great their intellectual degradation, the +Eloi had kept too much of the human form not to claim my sympathy, and to +make me perforce a sharer in their degradation and their Fear. +</p> + +<p> +“I had at that time very vague ideas as to the course I should +pursue. My first was to secure some safe place of refuge, and to make +myself such arms of metal or stone as I could contrive. That necessity was +immediate. In the next place, I hoped to procure some means of fire, so +that I should have the weapon of a torch at hand, for nothing, I knew, +would be more efficient against these Morlocks. Then I wanted to arrange +some contrivance to break open the doors of bronze under the White Sphinx. +I had in mind a battering ram. I had a persuasion that if I could enter +those doors and carry a blaze of light before me I should discover the Time +Machine and escape. I could not imagine the Morlocks were strong enough to +move it far away. Weena I had resolved to bring with me to our own time. +And turning such schemes over in my mind I pursued our way towards the +building which my fancy had chosen as our dwelling. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a id="chap11"></a>XI.<br> +The Palace of Green Porcelain</h2> + +<p> +“I found the Palace of Green Porcelain, when we approached it +about noon, deserted and falling into ruin. Only ragged vestiges of glass +remained in its windows, and great sheets of the green facing had fallen +away from the corroded metallic framework. It lay very high upon a turfy +down, and looking north-eastward before I entered it, I was surprised to +see a large estuary, or even creek, where I judged Wandsworth and Battersea +must once have been. I thought then—though I never followed up the +thought—of what might have happened, or might be happening, to the +living things in the sea. +</p> + +<p> +“The material of the Palace proved on examination to be indeed +porcelain, and along the face of it I saw an inscription in some unknown +character. I thought, rather foolishly, that Weena might help me to +interpret this, but I only learnt that the bare idea of writing had never +entered her head. She always seemed to me, I fancy, more human than she +was, perhaps because her affection was so human. +</p> + +<p> +“Within the big valves of the door—which were open and +broken—we found, instead of the customary hall, a long gallery lit by +many side windows. At the first glance I was reminded of a museum. The +tiled floor was thick with dust, and a remarkable array of miscellaneous +objects was shrouded in the same grey covering. Then I perceived, standing +strange and gaunt in the centre of the hall, what was clearly the lower +part of a huge skeleton. I recognised by the oblique feet that it was some +extinct creature after the fashion of the Megatherium. The skull and the +upper bones lay beside it in the thick dust, and in one place, where +rain-water had dropped through a leak in the roof, the thing itself had +been worn away. Further in the gallery was the huge skeleton barrel of a +Brontosaurus. My museum hypothesis was confirmed. Going towards the side I +found what appeared to be sloping shelves, and clearing away the thick +dust, I found the old familiar glass cases of our own time. But they must +have been air-tight to judge from the fair preservation of some of their +contents. +</p> + +<p> +“Clearly we stood among the ruins of some latter-day South +Kensington! Here, apparently, was the Palæontological Section, and a very +splendid array of fossils it must have been, though the inevitable process +of decay that had been staved off for a time, and had, through the +extinction of bacteria and fungi, lost ninety-nine hundredths of its force, +was nevertheless, with extreme sureness if with extreme slowness at work +again upon all its treasures. Here and there I found traces of the little +people in the shape of rare fossils broken to pieces or threaded in strings +upon reeds. And the cases had in some instances been bodily +removed—by the Morlocks, as I judged. The place was very silent. The +thick dust deadened our footsteps. Weena, who had been rolling a sea urchin +down the sloping glass of a case, presently came, as I stared about me, and +very quietly took my hand and stood beside me. +</p> + +<p> +“And at first I was so much surprised by this ancient monument of +an intellectual age that I gave no thought to the possibilities it +presented. Even my preoccupation about the Time Machine receded a little +from my mind. +</p> + +<p> +“To judge from the size of the place, this Palace of Green +Porcelain had a great deal more in it than a Gallery of Palæontology; +possibly historical galleries; it might be, even a library! To me, at least +in my present circumstances, these would be vastly more interesting than +this spectacle of old-time geology in decay. Exploring, I found another +short gallery running transversely to the first. This appeared to be +devoted to minerals, and the sight of a block of sulphur set my mind +running on gunpowder. But I could find no saltpetre; indeed, no nitrates of +any kind. Doubtless they had deliquesced ages ago. Yet the sulphur hung in +my mind, and set up a train of thinking. As for the rest of the contents of +that gallery, though on the whole they were the best preserved of all I +saw, I had little interest. I am no specialist in mineralogy, and I went on +down a very ruinous aisle running parallel to the first hall I had entered. +Apparently this section had been devoted to natural history, but everything +had long since passed out of recognition. A few shrivelled and blackened +vestiges of what had once been stuffed animals, desiccated mummies in jars +that had once held spirit, a brown dust of departed plants: that was all! I +was sorry for that, because I should have been glad to trace the patient +readjustments by which the conquest of animated nature had been attained. +Then we came to a gallery of simply colossal proportions, but singularly +ill-lit, the floor of it running downward at a slight angle from the end at +which I entered. At intervals white globes hung from the ceiling—many +of them cracked and smashed—which suggested that originally the place +had been artificially lit. Here I was more in my element, for rising on +either side of me were the huge bulks of big machines, all greatly corroded +and many broken down, but some still fairly complete. You know I have a +certain weakness for mechanism, and I was inclined to linger among these; +the more so as for the most part they had the interest of puzzles, and I +could make only the vaguest guesses at what they were for. I fancied that +if I could solve their puzzles I should find myself in possession of powers +that might be of use against the Morlocks. +</p> + +<p> +“Suddenly Weena came very close to my side. So suddenly that she +startled me. Had it not been for her I do not think I should have noticed +that the floor of the gallery sloped at all. [Footnote: It may be, of +course, that the floor did not slope, but that the museum was built into +the side of a hill.—ED.] The end I had come in at was quite above +ground, and was lit by rare slit-like windows. As you went down the length, +the ground came up against these windows, until at last there was a pit +like the ‘area‘ of a London house before each, and only a +narrow line of daylight at the top. I went slowly along, puzzling about the +machines, and had been too intent upon them to notice the gradual +diminution of the light, until Weena’s increasing apprehensions drew +my attention. Then I saw that the gallery ran down at last into a thick +darkness. I hesitated, and then, as I looked round me, I saw that the dust +was less abundant and its surface less even. Further away towards the +dimness, it appeared to be broken by a number of small narrow footprints. +My sense of the immediate presence of the Morlocks revived at that. I felt +that I was wasting my time in the academic examination of machinery. I +called to mind that it was already far advanced in the afternoon, and that +I had still no weapon, no refuge, and no means of making a fire. And then +down in the remote blackness of the gallery I heard a peculiar pattering, +and the same odd noises I had heard down the well. +</p> + +<p> +“I took Weena’s hand. Then, struck with a sudden idea, I +left her and turned to a machine from which projected a lever not unlike +those in a signal-box. Clambering upon the stand, and grasping this lever +in my hands, I put all my weight upon it sideways. Suddenly Weena, deserted +in the central aisle, began to whimper. I had judged the strength of the +lever pretty correctly, for it snapped after a minute’s strain, and I +rejoined her with a mace in my hand more than sufficient, I judged, for any +Morlock skull I might encounter. And I longed very much to kill a Morlock +or so. Very inhuman, you may think, to want to go killing one’s own +descendants! But it was impossible, somehow, to feel any humanity in the +things. Only my disinclination to leave Weena, and a persuasion that if I +began to slake my thirst for murder my Time Machine might suffer, +restrained me from going straight down the gallery and killing the brutes I +heard. +</p> + +<p> +“Well, mace in one hand and Weena in the other, I went out of that +gallery and into another and still larger one, which at the first glance +reminded me of a military chapel hung with tattered flags. The brown and +charred rags that hung from the sides of it, I presently recognised as the +decaying vestiges of books. They had long since dropped to pieces, and +every semblance of print had left them. But here and there were warped +boards and cracked metallic clasps that told the tale well enough. Had I +been a literary man I might, perhaps, have moralised upon the futility of +all ambition. But as it was, the thing that struck me with keenest force +was the enormous waste of labour to which this sombre wilderness of rotting +paper testified. At the time I will confess that I thought chiefly of the +<i>Philosophical Transactions</i> and my own seventeen papers upon physical +optics. +</p> + +<p> +“Then, going up a broad staircase, we came to what may once have been +a gallery of technical chemistry. And here I had not a little hope of +useful discoveries. Except at one end where the roof had collapsed, this +gallery was well preserved. I went eagerly to every unbroken case. And at +last, in one of the really air-tight cases, I found a box of matches. Very +eagerly I tried them. They were perfectly good. They were not even damp. I +turned to Weena. ‘Dance,’ I cried to her in her own tongue. For +now I had a weapon indeed against the horrible creatures we feared. And so, +in that derelict museum, upon the thick soft carpeting of dust, to +Weena’s huge delight, I solemnly performed a kind of composite dance, +whistling <i>The Land of the Leal</i> as cheerfully as I could. In part it +was a modest <i>cancan</i>, in part a step dance, in part a skirt dance (so +far as my tail-coat permitted), and in part original. For I am naturally +inventive, as you know. +</p> + +<p> +“Now, I still think that for this box of matches to have escaped +the wear of time for immemorial years was a most strange, as for me it was +a most fortunate, thing. Yet, oddly enough, I found a far unlikelier +substance, and that was camphor. I found it in a sealed jar, that by +chance, I suppose, had been really hermetically sealed. I fancied at first +that it was paraffin wax, and smashed the glass accordingly. But the odour +of camphor was unmistakable. In the universal decay this volatile substance +had chanced to survive, perhaps through many thousands of centuries. It +reminded me of a sepia painting I had once seen done from the ink of a +fossil Belemnite that must have perished and become fossilised millions of +years ago. I was about to throw it away, but I remembered that it was +inflammable and burnt with a good bright flame—was, in fact, an +excellent candle—and I put it in my pocket. I found no explosives, +however, nor any means of breaking down the bronze doors. As yet my iron +crowbar was the most helpful thing I had chanced upon. Nevertheless I left +that gallery greatly elated. +</p> + +<p> +“I cannot tell you all the story of that long afternoon. It would +require a great effort of memory to recall my explorations in at all the +proper order. I remember a long gallery of rusting stands of arms, and how +I hesitated between my crowbar and a hatchet or a sword. I could not carry +both, however, and my bar of iron promised best against the bronze gates. +There were numbers of guns, pistols, and rifles. The most were masses of +rust, but many were of some new metal, and still fairly sound. But any +cartridges or powder there may once have been had rotted into dust. One +corner I saw was charred and shattered; perhaps, I thought, by an explosion +among the specimens. In another place was a vast array of +idols—Polynesian, Mexican, Grecian, Phœnician, every country on +earth, I should think. And here, yielding to an irresistible impulse, I +wrote my name upon the nose of a steatite monster from South America that +particularly took my fancy. +</p> + +<p> +“As the evening drew on, my interest waned. I went through gallery +after gallery, dusty, silent, often ruinous, the exhibits sometimes mere +heaps of rust and lignite, sometimes fresher. In one place I suddenly found +myself near the model of a tin mine, and then by the merest accident I +discovered, in an air-tight case, two dynamite cartridges! I shouted +‘Eureka!’ and smashed the case with joy. Then came a doubt. I +hesitated. Then, selecting a little side gallery, I made my essay. I never +felt such a disappointment as I did in waiting five, ten, fifteen minutes +for an explosion that never came. Of course the things were dummies, as I +might have guessed from their presence. I really believe that had they not +been so, I should have rushed off incontinently and blown Sphinx, bronze +doors, and (as it proved) my chances of finding the Time Machine, all +together into non-existence. +</p> + +<p> +“It was after that, I think, that we came to a little open court +within the palace. It was turfed, and had three fruit-trees. So we rested +and refreshed ourselves. Towards sunset I began to consider our position. +Night was creeping upon us, and my inaccessible hiding-place had still to +be found. But that troubled me very little now. I had in my possession a +thing that was, perhaps, the best of all defences against the +Morlocks—I had matches! I had the camphor in my pocket, too, if a +blaze were needed. It seemed to me that the best thing we could do would be +to pass the night in the open, protected by a fire. In the morning there +was the getting of the Time Machine. Towards that, as yet, I had only my +iron mace. But now, with my growing knowledge, I felt very differently +towards those bronze doors. Up to this, I had refrained from forcing them, +largely because of the mystery on the other side. They had never impressed +me as being very strong, and I hoped to find my bar of iron not altogether +inadequate for the work. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a id="chap12"></a>XII.<br> +In the Darkness</h2> + +<p> +“We emerged from the Palace while the sun was still in part above the +horizon. I was determined to reach the White Sphinx early the next morning, +and ere the dusk I purposed pushing through the woods that had stopped me +on the previous journey. My plan was to go as far as possible that night, +and then, building a fire, to sleep in the protection of its glare. +Accordingly, as we went along I gathered any sticks or dried grass I saw, +and presently had my arms full of such litter. Thus loaded, our progress +was slower than I had anticipated, and besides Weena was tired. And I, +also, began to suffer from sleepiness too; so that it was full night before +we reached the wood. Upon the shrubby hill of its edge Weena would have +stopped, fearing the darkness before us; but a singular sense of impending +calamity, that should indeed have served me as a warning, drove me onward. +I had been without sleep for a night and two days, and I was feverish and +irritable. I felt sleep coming upon me, and the Morlocks with it. +</p> + +<p> +“While we hesitated, among the black bushes behind us, and dim +against their blackness, I saw three crouching figures. There was scrub and +long grass all about us, and I did not feel safe from their insidious +approach. The forest, I calculated, was rather less than a mile across. If +we could get through it to the bare hillside, there, as it seemed to me, +was an altogether safer resting-place; I thought that with my matches and +my camphor I could contrive to keep my path illuminated through the woods. +Yet it was evident that if I was to flourish matches with my hands I should +have to abandon my firewood; so, rather reluctantly, I put it down. And +then it came into my head that I would amaze our friends behind by lighting +it. I was to discover the atrocious folly of this proceeding, but it came +to my mind as an ingenious move for covering our retreat. +</p> + +<p> +“I don’t know if you have ever thought what a rare thing +flame must be in the absence of man and in a temperate climate. The +sun’s heat is rarely strong enough to burn, even when it is focused +by dewdrops, as is sometimes the case in more tropical districts. Lightning +may blast and blacken, but it rarely gives rise to widespread fire. +Decaying vegetation may occasionally smoulder with the heat of its +fermentation, but this rarely results in flame. In this decadence, too, the +art of fire-making had been forgotten on the earth. The red tongues that +went licking up my heap of wood were an altogether new and strange thing to +Weena. +</p> + +<p> +“She wanted to run to it and play with it. I believe she would +have cast herself into it had I not restrained her. But I caught her up, +and in spite of her struggles, plunged boldly before me into the wood. For +a little way the glare of my fire lit the path. Looking back presently, I +could see, through the crowded stems, that from my heap of sticks the blaze +had spread to some bushes adjacent, and a curved line of fire was creeping +up the grass of the hill. I laughed at that, and turned again to the dark +trees before me. It was very black, and Weena clung to me convulsively, but +there was still, as my eyes grew accustomed to the darkness, sufficient +light for me to avoid the stems. Overhead it was simply black, except where +a gap of remote blue sky shone down upon us here and there. I lit none +of my matches because I had no hand free. Upon my left arm I carried my +little one, in my right hand I had my iron bar. +</p> + +<p> +“For some way I heard nothing but the crackling twigs under my +feet, the faint rustle of the breeze above, and my own breathing and the +throb of the blood-vessels in my ears. Then I seemed to know of a pattering +behind me. I pushed on grimly. The pattering grew more distinct, and then I +caught the same queer sound and voices I had heard in the Underworld. +There were evidently several of the Morlocks, and they were closing in upon +me. Indeed, in another minute I felt a tug at my coat, then something at my +arm. And Weena shivered violently, and became quite still. +</p> + +<p> +“It was time for a match. But to get one I must put her down. I +did so, and, as I fumbled with my pocket, a struggle began in the darkness +about my knees, perfectly silent on her part and with the same peculiar +cooing sounds from the Morlocks. Soft little hands, too, were creeping over +my coat and back, touching even my neck. Then the match scratched and +fizzed. I held it flaring, and saw the white backs of the Morlocks in +flight amid the trees. I hastily took a lump of camphor from my pocket, and +prepared to light it as soon as the match should wane. Then I looked at +Weena. She was lying clutching my feet and quite motionless, with her face +to the ground. With a sudden fright I stooped to her. She seemed scarcely +to breathe. I lit the block of camphor and flung it to the ground, and as +it split and flared up and drove back the Morlocks and the shadows, I knelt +down and lifted her. The wood behind seemed full of the stir and murmur of +a great company! +</p> + +<p> +“She seemed to have fainted. I put her carefully upon my shoulder +and rose to push on, and then there came a horrible realisation. In +manœuvring with my matches and Weena, I had turned myself about several +times, and now I had not the faintest idea in what direction lay my path. +For all I knew, I might be facing back towards the Palace of Green +Porcelain. I found myself in a cold sweat. I had to think rapidly what to +do. I determined to build a fire and encamp where we were. I put Weena, +still motionless, down upon a turfy bole, and very hastily, as my first +lump of camphor waned, I began collecting sticks and leaves. Here and there +out of the darkness round me the Morlocks’ eyes shone like +carbuncles. +</p> + +<p> +“The camphor flickered and went out. I lit a match, and as I did +so, two white forms that had been approaching Weena dashed hastily away. +One was so blinded by the light that he came straight for me, and I felt +his bones grind under the blow of my fist. He gave a whoop of dismay, +staggered a little way, and fell down. I lit another piece of camphor, and +went on gathering my bonfire. Presently I noticed how dry was some of the +foliage above me, for since my arrival on the Time Machine, a matter of a +week, no rain had fallen. So, instead of casting about among the trees for +fallen twigs, I began leaping up and dragging down branches. Very soon I +had a choking smoky fire of green wood and dry sticks, and could economise +my camphor. Then I turned to where Weena lay beside my iron mace. I tried +what I could to revive her, but she lay like one dead. I could not even +satisfy myself whether or not she breathed. +</p> + +<p> +“Now, the smoke of the fire beat over towards me, and it must have +made me heavy of a sudden. Moreover, the vapour of camphor was in the air. +My fire would not need replenishing for an hour or so. I felt very weary +after my exertion, and sat down. The wood, too, was full of a slumbrous +murmur that I did not understand. I seemed just to nod and open my eyes. +But all was dark, and the Morlocks had their hands upon me. Flinging off +their clinging fingers I hastily felt in my pocket for the match-box, +and—it had gone! Then they gripped and closed with me again. In a +moment I knew what had happened. I had slept, and my fire had gone out, and +the bitterness of death came over my soul. The forest seemed full of the +smell of burning wood. I was caught by the neck, by the hair, by the arms, +and pulled down. It was indescribably horrible in the darkness to feel all +these soft creatures heaped upon me. I felt as if I was in a monstrous +spider’s web. I was overpowered, and went down. I felt little teeth +nipping at my neck. I rolled over, and as I did so my hand came against my +iron lever. It gave me strength. I struggled up, shaking the human rats +from me, and, holding the bar short, I thrust where I judged their faces +might be. I could feel the succulent giving of flesh and bone under my +blows, and for a moment I was free. +</p> + +<p> +“The strange exultation that so often seems to accompany hard +fighting came upon me. I knew that both I and Weena were lost, but I +determined to make the Morlocks pay for their meat. I stood with my back to +a tree, swinging the iron bar before me. The whole wood was full of the +stir and cries of them. A minute passed. Their voices seemed to rise to a +higher pitch of excitement, and their movements grew faster. Yet none came +within reach. I stood glaring at the blackness. Then suddenly came hope. +What if the Morlocks were afraid? And close on the heels of that came a +strange thing. The darkness seemed to grow luminous. Very dimly I began to +see the Morlocks about me—three battered at my feet—and then I +recognised, with incredulous surprise, that the others were running, in an +incessant stream, as it seemed, from behind me, and away through the wood +in front. And their backs seemed no longer white, but reddish. As I stood +agape, I saw a little red spark go drifting across a gap of starlight +between the branches, and vanish. And at that I understood the smell of +burning wood, the slumbrous murmur that was growing now into a gusty roar, +the red glow, and the Morlocks’ flight. +</p> + +<p> +“Stepping out from behind my tree and looking back, I saw, through +the black pillars of the nearer trees, the flames of the burning forest. It +was my first fire coming after me. With that I looked for Weena, but she +was gone. The hissing and crackling behind me, the explosive thud as each +fresh tree burst into flame, left little time for reflection. My iron bar +still gripped, I followed in the Morlocks’ path. It was a close race. +Once the flames crept forward so swiftly on my right as I ran that I was +outflanked and had to strike off to the left. But at last I emerged upon a +small open space, and as I did so, a Morlock came blundering towards me, +and past me, and went on straight into the fire! +</p> + +<p> +“And now I was to see the most weird and horrible thing, I think, +of all that I beheld in that future age. This whole space was as bright as +day with the reflection of the fire. In the centre was a hillock or +tumulus, surmounted by a scorched hawthorn. Beyond this was another arm of +the burning forest, with yellow tongues already writhing from it, +completely encircling the space with a fence of fire. Upon the hillside +were some thirty or forty Morlocks, dazzled by the light and heat, and +blundering hither and thither against each other in their bewilderment. At +first I did not realise their blindness, and struck furiously at them with +my bar, in a frenzy of fear, as they approached me, killing one and +crippling several more. But when I had watched the gestures of one of them +groping under the hawthorn against the red sky, and heard their moans, I +was assured of their absolute helplessness and misery in the glare, and I +struck no more of them. +</p> + +<p> +“Yet every now and then one would come straight towards me, +setting loose a quivering horror that made me quick to elude him. At one +time the flames died down somewhat, and I feared the foul creatures would +presently be able to see me. I was thinking of beginning the fight by +killing some of them before this should happen; but the fire burst out +again brightly, and I stayed my hand. I walked about the hill among them +and avoided them, looking for some trace of Weena. But Weena was gone. +</p> + +<p> +“At last I sat down on the summit of the hillock, and watched this +strange incredible company of blind things groping to and fro, and making +uncanny noises to each other, as the glare of the fire beat on them. The +coiling uprush of smoke streamed across the sky, and through the rare +tatters of that red canopy, remote as though they belonged to another +universe, shone the little stars. Two or three Morlocks came blundering +into me, and I drove them off with blows of my fists, trembling as I did +so. +</p> + +<p> +“For the most part of that night I was persuaded it was a +nightmare. I bit myself and screamed in a passionate desire to awake. I +beat the ground with my hands, and got up and sat down again, and wandered +here and there, and again sat down. Then I would fall to rubbing my eyes +and calling upon God to let me awake. Thrice I saw Morlocks put their heads +down in a kind of agony and rush into the flames. But, at last, above the +subsiding red of the fire, above the streaming masses of black smoke and +the whitening and blackening tree stumps, and the diminishing numbers of +these dim creatures, came the white light of the day. +</p> + +<p> +“I searched again for traces of Weena, but there were none. It was +plain that they had left her poor little body in the forest. I cannot +describe how it relieved me to think that it had escaped the awful fate to +which it seemed destined. As I thought of that, I was almost moved to begin +a massacre of the helpless abominations about me, but I contained myself. +The hillock, as I have said, was a kind of island in the forest. From its +summit I could now make out through a haze of smoke the Palace of Green +Porcelain, and from that I could get my bearings for the White Sphinx. And +so, leaving the remnant of these damned souls still going hither and +thither and moaning, as the day grew clearer, I tied some grass about my +feet and limped on across smoking ashes and among black stems that still +pulsated internally with fire, towards the hiding-place of the Time +Machine. I walked slowly, for I was almost exhausted, as well as lame, and +I felt the intensest wretchedness for the horrible death of little Weena. +It seemed an overwhelming calamity. Now, in this old familiar room, it is +more like the sorrow of a dream than an actual loss. But that morning it +left me absolutely lonely again—terribly alone. I began to think of +this house of mine, of this fireside, of some of you, and with such +thoughts came a longing that was pain. +</p> + +<p> +“But, as I walked over the smoking ashes under the bright morning +sky, I made a discovery. In my trouser pocket were still some loose +matches. The box must have leaked before it was lost. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a id="chap13"></a>XIII.<br> +The Trap of the White Sphinx</h2> + +<p> +“About eight or nine in the morning I came to the same seat of +yellow metal from which I had viewed the world upon the evening of my +arrival. I thought of my hasty conclusions upon that evening and could not +refrain from laughing bitterly at my confidence. Here was the same +beautiful scene, the same abundant foliage, the same splendid palaces and +magnificent ruins, the same silver river running between its fertile banks. +The gay robes of the beautiful people moved hither and thither among the +trees. Some were bathing in exactly the place where I had saved Weena, and +that suddenly gave me a keen stab of pain. And like blots upon the +landscape rose the cupolas above the ways to the Underworld. I understood +now what all the beauty of the Overworld people covered. Very pleasant was +their day, as pleasant as the day of the cattle in the field. Like the +cattle, they knew of no enemies and provided against no needs. And their +end was the same. +</p> + +<p> +“I grieved to think how brief the dream of the human intellect had +been. It had committed suicide. It had set itself steadfastly towards +comfort and ease, a balanced society with security and permanency as its +watchword, it had attained its hopes—to come to this at last. Once, +life and property must have reached almost absolute safety. The rich had +been assured of his wealth and comfort, the toiler assured of his life and +work. No doubt in that perfect world there had been no unemployed problem, +no social question left unsolved. And a great quiet had followed. +</p> + +<p> +“It is a law of nature we overlook, that intellectual versatility +is the compensation for change, danger, and trouble. An animal perfectly in +harmony with its environment is a perfect mechanism. Nature never appeals +to intelligence until habit and instinct are useless. There is no +intelligence where there is no change and no need of change. Only those +animals partake of intelligence that have to meet a huge variety of needs +and dangers. +</p> + +<p> +“So, as I see it, the Upperworld man had drifted towards his +feeble prettiness, and the Underworld to mere mechanical industry. But +that perfect state had lacked one thing even for mechanical +perfection—absolute permanency. Apparently as time went on, the +feeding of an Underworld, however it was effected, had become disjointed. +Mother Necessity, who had been staved off for a few thousand years, came +back again, and she began below. The Underworld being in contact with +machinery, which, however perfect, still needs some little thought outside +habit, had probably retained perforce rather more initiative, if less of +every other human character, than the Upper. And when other meat failed +them, they turned to what old habit had hitherto forbidden. So I say I saw +it in my last view of the world of Eight Hundred and Two Thousand Seven +Hundred and One. It may be as wrong an explanation as mortal wit could +invent. It is how the thing shaped itself to me, and as that I give it to +you. +</p> + +<p> +“After the fatigues, excitements, and terrors of the past days, +and in spite of my grief, this seat and the tranquil view and the warm +sunlight were very pleasant. I was very tired and sleepy, and soon my +theorising passed into dozing. Catching myself at that, I took my own hint, +and spreading myself out upon the turf I had a long and refreshing +sleep. +</p> + +<p> +“I awoke a little before sunsetting. I now felt safe against being +caught napping by the Morlocks, and, stretching myself, I came on down the +hill towards the White Sphinx. I had my crowbar in one hand, and the other +hand played with the matches in my pocket. +</p> + +<p> +“And now came a most unexpected thing. As I approached the +pedestal of the sphinx I found the bronze valves were open. They had slid +down into grooves. +</p> + +<p> +“At that I stopped short before them, hesitating to enter. +</p> + +<p> +“Within was a small apartment, and on a raised place in the corner +of this was the Time Machine. I had the small levers in my pocket. So here, +after all my elaborate preparations for the siege of the White Sphinx, was +a meek surrender. I threw my iron bar away, almost sorry not to use it. +</p> + +<p> +“A sudden thought came into my head as I stooped towards the +portal. For once, at least, I grasped the mental operations of the +Morlocks. Suppressing a strong inclination to laugh, I stepped through the +bronze frame and up to the Time Machine. I was surprised to find it had +been carefully oiled and cleaned. I have suspected since that the Morlocks +had even partially taken it to pieces while trying in their dim way to +grasp its purpose. +</p> + +<p> +“Now as I stood and examined it, finding a pleasure in the mere +touch of the contrivance, the thing I had expected happened. The bronze +panels suddenly slid up and struck the frame with a clang. I was in the +dark—trapped. So the Morlocks thought. At that I chuckled +gleefully. +</p> + +<p> +“I could already hear their murmuring laughter as they came +towards me. Very calmly I tried to strike the match. I had only to fix on +the levers and depart then like a ghost. But I had overlooked one little +thing. The matches were of that abominable kind that light only on the +box. +</p> + +<p> +“You may imagine how all my calm vanished. The little brutes were +close upon me. One touched me. I made a sweeping blow in the dark at them +with the levers, and began to scramble into the saddle of the machine. Then +came one hand upon me and then another. Then I had simply to fight against +their persistent fingers for my levers, and at the same time feel for the +studs over which these fitted. One, indeed, they almost got away from me. +As it slipped from my hand, I had to butt in the dark with my head—I +could hear the Morlock’s skull ring—to recover it. It was a +nearer thing than the fight in the forest, I think, this last scramble. +</p> + +<p> +“But at last the lever was fixed and pulled over. The clinging +hands slipped from me. The darkness presently fell from my eyes. I found +myself in the same grey light and tumult I have already described. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a id="chap14"></a>XIV.<br> +The Further Vision</h2> + +<p> +“I have already told you of the sickness and confusion that comes +with time travelling. And this time I was not seated properly in the +saddle, but sideways and in an unstable fashion. For an indefinite time I +clung to the machine as it swayed and vibrated, quite unheeding how I went, +and when I brought myself to look at the dials again I was amazed to find +where I had arrived. One dial records days, and another thousands of days, +another millions of days, and another thousands of millions. Now, instead +of reversing the levers, I had pulled them over so as to go forward with +them, and when I came to look at these indicators I found that the +thousands hand was sweeping round as fast as the seconds hand of a +watch—into futurity. +</p> + +<p> +“As I drove on, a peculiar change crept over the appearance of +things. The palpitating greyness grew darker; then—though I was still +travelling with prodigious velocity—the blinking succession of day +and night, which was usually indicative of a slower pace, returned, and +grew more and more marked. This puzzled me very much at first. The +alternations of night and day grew slower and slower, and so did the +passage of the sun across the sky, until they seemed to stretch through +centuries. At last a steady twilight brooded over the earth, a twilight +only broken now and then when a comet glared across the darkling sky. The +band of light that had indicated the sun had long since disappeared; for +the sun had ceased to set—it simply rose and fell in the west, and +grew ever broader and more red. All trace of the moon had vanished. The +circling of the stars, growing slower and slower, had given place to +creeping points of light. At last, some time before I stopped, the sun, red +and very large, halted motionless upon the horizon, a vast dome glowing +with a dull heat, and now and then suffering a momentary extinction. At one +time it had for a little while glowed more brilliantly again, but it +speedily reverted to its sullen red heat. I perceived by this slowing down +of its rising and setting that the work of the tidal drag was done. The +earth had come to rest with one face to the sun, even as in our own time +the moon faces the earth. Very cautiously, for I remembered my former +headlong fall, I began to reverse my motion. Slower and slower went the +circling hands until the thousands one seemed motionless and the daily one +was no longer a mere mist upon its scale. Still slower, until the dim +outlines of a desolate beach grew visible. +</p> + +<p> +“I stopped very gently and sat upon the Time Machine, looking +round. The sky was no longer blue. North-eastward it was inky black, and +out of the blackness shone brightly and steadily the pale white stars. +Overhead it was a deep Indian red and starless, and south-eastward it grew +brighter to a glowing scarlet where, cut by the horizon, lay the huge hull +of the sun, red and motionless. The rocks about me were of a harsh reddish +colour, and all the trace of life that I could see at first was the +intensely green vegetation that covered every projecting point on their +south-eastern face. It was the same rich green that one sees on forest moss +or on the lichen in caves: plants which like these grow in a perpetual +twilight. +</p> + +<p> +“The machine was standing on a sloping beach. The sea stretched +away to the south-west, to rise into a sharp bright horizon against the wan +sky. There were no breakers and no waves, for not a breath of wind was +stirring. Only a slight oily swell rose and fell like a gentle breathing, +and showed that the eternal sea was still moving and living. And along the +margin where the water sometimes broke was a thick incrustation of +salt—pink under the lurid sky. There was a sense of oppression in my +head, and I noticed that I was breathing very fast. The sensation reminded +me of my only experience of mountaineering, and from that I judged the air +to be more rarefied than it is now. +</p> + +<p> +“Far away up the desolate slope I heard a harsh scream, and saw a +thing like a huge white butterfly go slanting and fluttering up into the +sky and, circling, disappear over some low hillocks beyond. The sound of +its voice was so dismal that I shivered and seated myself more firmly upon +the machine. Looking round me again, I saw that, quite near, what I had +taken to be a reddish mass of rock was moving slowly towards me. Then I saw +the thing was really a monstrous crab-like creature. Can you imagine a crab +as large as yonder table, with its many legs moving slowly and uncertainly, +its big claws swaying, its long antennæ, like carters’ whips, waving +and feeling, and its stalked eyes gleaming at you on either side of its +metallic front? Its back was corrugated and ornamented with ungainly +bosses, and a greenish incrustation blotched it here and there. I could see +the many palps of its complicated mouth flickering and feeling as it +moved. +</p> + +<p> +“As I stared at this sinister apparition crawling towards me, I +felt a tickling on my cheek as though a fly had lighted there. I tried to +brush it away with my hand, but in a moment it returned, and almost +immediately came another by my ear. I struck at this, and caught something +threadlike. It was drawn swiftly out of my hand. With a frightful qualm, I +turned, and I saw that I had grasped the antenna of another monster crab +that stood just behind me. Its evil eyes were wriggling on their stalks, +its mouth was all alive with appetite, and its vast ungainly claws, smeared +with an algal slime, were descending upon me. In a moment my hand was on +the lever, and I had placed a month between myself and these monsters. But +I was still on the same beach, and I saw them distinctly now as soon as I +stopped. Dozens of them seemed to be crawling here and there, in the sombre +light, among the foliated sheets of intense green. +</p> + +<p> +“I cannot convey the sense of abominable desolation that hung over +the world. The red eastern sky, the northward blackness, the salt Dead Sea, +the stony beach crawling with these foul, slow-stirring monsters, the +uniform poisonous-looking green of the lichenous plants, the thin air that +hurts one’s lungs: all contributed to an appalling effect. I moved on +a hundred years, and there was the same red sun—a little larger, a +little duller—the same dying sea, the same chill air, and the same +crowd of earthy crustacea creeping in and out among the green weed and the +red rocks. And in the westward sky, I saw a curved pale line like a vast +new moon. +</p> + +<p> +“So I travelled, stopping ever and again, in great strides of a +thousand years or more, drawn on by the mystery of the earth’s fate, +watching with a strange fascination the sun grow larger and duller in the +westward sky, and the life of the old earth ebb away. At last, more than +thirty million years hence, the huge red-hot dome of the sun had come to +obscure nearly a tenth part of the darkling heavens. Then I stopped once +more, for the crawling multitude of crabs had disappeared, and the red +beach, save for its livid green liverworts and lichens, seemed lifeless. +And now it was flecked with white. A bitter cold assailed me. Rare white +flakes ever and again came eddying down. To the north-eastward, the glare +of snow lay under the starlight of the sable sky, and I could see an +undulating crest of hillocks pinkish white. There were fringes of ice along +the sea margin, with drifting masses farther out; but the main expanse of +that salt ocean, all bloody under the eternal sunset, was still +unfrozen. +</p> + +<p> +“I looked about me to see if any traces of animal life remained. A +certain indefinable apprehension still kept me in the saddle of the +machine. But I saw nothing moving, in earth or sky or sea. The green slime +on the rocks alone testified that life was not extinct. A shallow sandbank +had appeared in the sea and the water had receded from the beach. I fancied +I saw some black object flopping about upon this bank, but it became +motionless as I looked at it, and I judged that my eye had been deceived, +and that the black object was merely a rock. The stars in the sky were +intensely bright and seemed to me to twinkle very little. +</p> + +<p> +“Suddenly I noticed that the circular westward outline of the sun +had changed; that a concavity, a bay, had appeared in the curve. I saw this +grow larger. For a minute perhaps I stared aghast at this blackness that +was creeping over the day, and then I realised that an eclipse was +beginning. Either the moon or the planet Mercury was passing across the +sun’s disk. Naturally, at first I took it to be the moon, but there +is much to incline me to believe that what I really saw was the transit of +an inner planet passing very near to the earth. +</p> + +<p> +“The darkness grew apace; a cold wind began to blow in freshening +gusts from the east, and the showering white flakes in the air increased in +number. From the edge of the sea came a ripple and whisper. Beyond these +lifeless sounds the world was silent. Silent? It would be hard to convey +the stillness of it. All the sounds of man, the bleating of sheep, the +cries of birds, the hum of insects, the stir that makes the background of +our lives—all that was over. As the darkness thickened, the eddying +flakes grew more abundant, dancing before my eyes; and the cold of the air +more intense. At last, one by one, swiftly, one after the other, the white +peaks of the distant hills vanished into blackness. The breeze rose to a +moaning wind. I saw the black central shadow of the eclipse sweeping +towards me. In another moment the pale stars alone were visible. All else +was rayless obscurity. The sky was absolutely black. +</p> + +<p> +“A horror of this great darkness came on me. The cold, that smote +to my marrow, and the pain I felt in breathing, overcame me. I shivered, +and a deadly nausea seized me. Then like a red-hot bow in the sky appeared +the edge of the sun. I got off the machine to recover myself. I felt giddy +and incapable of facing the return journey. As I stood sick and confused I +saw again the moving thing upon the shoal—there was no mistake now +that it was a moving thing—against the red water of the sea. It was a +round thing, the size of a football perhaps, or, it may be, bigger, and +tentacles trailed down from it; it seemed black against the weltering +blood-red water, and it was hopping fitfully about. Then I felt I was +fainting. But a terrible dread of lying helpless in that remote and awful +twilight sustained me while I clambered upon the saddle. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a id="chap15"></a>XV.<br> +The Time Traveller’s Return</h2> + +<p> +“So I came back. For a long time I must have been insensible upon +the machine. The blinking succession of the days and nights was resumed, +the sun got golden again, the sky blue. I breathed with greater freedom. +The fluctuating contours of the land ebbed and flowed. The hands spun +backward upon the dials. At last I saw again the dim shadows of houses, the +evidences of decadent humanity. These, too, changed and passed, and others +came. Presently, when the million dial was at zero, I slackened speed. I +began to recognise our own pretty and familiar architecture, the thousands +hand ran back to the starting-point, the night and day flapped slower and +slower. Then the old walls of the laboratory came round me. Very gently, +now, I slowed the mechanism down. +</p> + +<p> +“I saw one little thing that seemed odd to me. I think I have told +you that when I set out, before my velocity became very high, Mrs. Watchett +had walked across the room, travelling, as it seemed to me, like a rocket. +As I returned, I passed again across that minute when she traversed the +laboratory. But now her every motion appeared to be the exact inversion of +her previous ones. The door at the lower end opened, and she glided quietly +up the laboratory, back foremost, and disappeared behind the door by which +she had previously entered. Just before that I seemed to see Hillyer for a +moment; but he passed like a flash. +</p> + +<p> +“Then I stopped the machine, and saw about me again the old +familiar laboratory, my tools, my appliances just as I had left them. I got +off the thing very shakily, and sat down upon my bench. For several minutes +I trembled violently. Then I became calmer. Around me was my old workshop +again, exactly as it had been. I might have slept there, and the whole +thing have been a dream. +</p> + +<p> +“And yet, not exactly! The thing had started from the south-east +corner of the laboratory. It had come to rest again in the north-west, +against the wall where you saw it. That gives you the exact distance from +my little lawn to the pedestal of the White Sphinx, into which the Morlocks +had carried my machine. +</p> + +<p> +“For a time my brain went stagnant. Presently I got up and came +through the passage here, limping, because my heel was still painful, and +feeling sorely begrimed. I saw the <i>Pall Mall Gazette</i> on the table by +the door. I found the date was indeed today, and looking at the timepiece, +saw the hour was almost eight o’clock. I heard your voices and the +clatter of plates. I hesitated—I felt so sick and weak. Then I +sniffed good wholesome meat, and opened the door on you. You know the rest. +I washed, and dined, and now I am telling you the story. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a id="chap16"></a>XVI.<br> +After the Story</h2> + +<p> +“I know,” he said, after a pause, “that all this will be +absolutely incredible to you, but to me the one incredible thing is that I +am here tonight in this old familiar room looking into your friendly faces +and telling you these strange adventures.” He looked at the Medical +Man. “No. I cannot expect you to believe it. Take it as a +lie—or a prophecy. Say I dreamed it in the workshop. Consider I have +been speculating upon the destinies of our race, until I have hatched this +fiction. Treat my assertion of its truth as a mere stroke of art to enhance +its interest. And taking it as a story, what do you think of it?” +</p> + +<p> +He took up his pipe, and began, in his old accustomed manner, to tap +with it nervously upon the bars of the grate. There was a momentary +stillness. Then chairs began to creak and shoes to scrape upon the carpet. +I took my eyes off the Time Traveller’s face, and looked round at his +audience. They were in the dark, and little spots of colour swam before +them. The Medical Man seemed absorbed in the contemplation of our host. The +Editor was looking hard at the end of his cigar—the sixth. The +Journalist fumbled for his watch. The others, as far as I remember, were +motionless. +</p> + +<p> +The Editor stood up with a sigh. “What a pity it is you’re +not a writer of stories!” he said, putting his hand on the Time +Traveller’s shoulder. +</p> + +<p> +“You don’t believe it?” +</p> + +<p> +“Well——” +</p> + +<p> +“I thought not.” +</p> + +<p> +The Time Traveller turned to us. “Where are the matches?” he +said. He lit one and spoke over his pipe, puffing. “To tell you the +truth... I hardly believe it myself..... And yet...” +</p> + +<p> +His eye fell with a mute inquiry upon the withered white flowers upon +the little table. Then he turned over the hand holding his pipe, and I saw +he was looking at some half-healed scars on his knuckles. +</p> + +<p> +The Medical Man rose, came to the lamp, and examined the flowers. +“The gynæceum’s odd,” he said. The Psychologist leant +forward to see, holding out his hand for a specimen. +</p> + +<p> +“I’m hanged if it isn’t a quarter to one,” said +the Journalist. “How shall we get home?” +</p> + +<p> +“Plenty of cabs at the station,” said the Psychologist. +</p> + +<p> +“It’s a curious thing,” said the Medical Man; +“but I certainly don’t know the natural order of these flowers. +May I have them?” +</p> + +<p> +The Time Traveller hesitated. Then suddenly: “Certainly +not.” +</p> + +<p> +“Where did you really get them?” said the Medical Man. +</p> + +<p> +The Time Traveller put his hand to his head. He spoke like one who was +trying to keep hold of an idea that eluded him. “They were put into +my pocket by Weena, when I travelled into Time.” He stared round the +room. “I’m damned if it isn’t all going. This room and +you and the atmosphere of every day is too much for my memory. Did I ever +make a Time Machine, or a model of a Time Machine? Or is it all only a +dream? They say life is a dream, a precious poor dream at times—but I +can’t stand another that won’t fit. It’s madness. And +where did the dream come from? … I must look at that machine. If there is +one!” +</p> + +<p> +He caught up the lamp swiftly, and carried it, flaring red, through the +door into the corridor. We followed him. There in the flickering light of +the lamp was the machine sure enough, squat, ugly, and askew, a thing of +brass, ebony, ivory, and translucent glimmering quartz. Solid to the +touch—for I put out my hand and felt the rail of it—and with +brown spots and smears upon the ivory, and bits of grass and moss upon the +lower parts, and one rail bent awry. +</p> + +<p> +The Time Traveller put the lamp down on the bench, and ran his hand +along the damaged rail. “It’s all right now,” he said. +“The story I told you was true. I’m sorry to have brought you +out here in the cold.” He took up the lamp, and, in an absolute +silence, we returned to the smoking-room. +</p> + +<p> +He came into the hall with us and helped the Editor on with his coat. +The Medical Man looked into his face and, with a certain hesitation, told +him he was suffering from overwork, at which he laughed hugely. I remember +him standing in the open doorway, bawling good-night. +</p> + +<p> +I shared a cab with the Editor. He thought the tale a “gaudy +lie.” For my own part I was unable to come to a conclusion. The story +was so fantastic and incredible, the telling so credible and sober. I lay +awake most of the night thinking about it. I determined to go next day and +see the Time Traveller again. I was told he was in the laboratory, and +being on easy terms in the house, I went up to him. The laboratory, +however, was empty. I stared for a minute at the Time Machine and put out +my hand and touched the lever. At that the squat substantial-looking mass +swayed like a bough shaken by the wind. Its instability startled me +extremely, and I had a queer reminiscence of the childish days when I used +to be forbidden to meddle. I came back through the corridor. The Time +Traveller met me in the smoking-room. He was coming from the house. He had +a small camera under one arm and a knapsack under the other. He laughed +when he saw me, and gave me an elbow to shake. “I’m frightfully +busy,” said he, “with that thing in there.” +</p> + +<p> +“But is it not some hoax?” I said. “Do you really +travel through time?” +</p> + +<p> +“Really and truly I do.” And he looked frankly into my eyes. +He hesitated. His eye wandered about the room. “I only want half an +hour,” he said. “I know why you came, and it’s awfully +good of you. There’s some magazines here. If you’ll stop to +lunch I’ll prove you this time travelling up to the hilt, specimens +and all. If you’ll forgive my leaving you now?” +</p> + +<p> +I consented, hardly comprehending then the full import of his words, and +he nodded and went on down the corridor. I heard the door of the laboratory +slam, seated myself in a chair, and took up a daily paper. What was he +going to do before lunch-time? Then suddenly I was reminded by an +advertisement that I had promised to meet Richardson, the publisher, at +two. I looked at my watch, and saw that I could barely save that +engagement. I got up and went down the passage to tell the Time +Traveller. +</p> + +<p> +As I took hold of the handle of the door I heard an exclamation, oddly +truncated at the end, and a click and a thud. A gust of air whirled round +me as I opened the door, and from within came the sound of broken glass +falling on the floor. The Time Traveller was not there. I seemed to see a +ghostly, indistinct figure sitting in a whirling mass of black and brass +for a moment—a figure so transparent that the bench behind with its +sheets of drawings was absolutely distinct; but this phantasm vanished as I +rubbed my eyes. The Time Machine had gone. Save for a subsiding stir of +dust, the further end of the laboratory was empty. A pane of the skylight +had, apparently, just been blown in. +</p> + +<p> +I felt an unreasonable amazement. I knew that something strange had +happened, and for the moment could not distinguish what the strange thing +might be. As I stood staring, the door into the garden opened, and the +man-servant appeared. +</p> + +<p> +We looked at each other. Then ideas began to come. “Has Mr. +—— gone out that way?” said I. +</p> + +<p> +“No, sir. No one has come out this way. I was expecting to find +him here.” +</p> + +<p> +At that I understood. At the risk of disappointing Richardson I stayed +on, waiting for the Time Traveller; waiting for the second, perhaps still +stranger story, and the specimens and photographs he would bring with him. +But I am beginning now to fear that I must wait a lifetime. The Time +Traveller vanished three years ago. And, as everybody knows now, he has +never returned. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a id="chap17"></a>Epilogue</h2> + +<p> +One cannot choose but wonder. Will he ever return? It may be that he +swept back into the past, and fell among the blood-drinking, hairy savages +of the Age of Unpolished Stone; into the abysses of the Cretaceous Sea; or +among the grotesque saurians, the huge reptilian brutes of the Jurassic +times. He may even now—if I may use the phrase—be wandering on +some plesiosaurus-haunted Oolitic coral reef, or beside the lonely saline +seas of the Triassic Age. Or did he go forward, into one of the nearer +ages, in which men are still men, but with the riddles of our own time +answered and its wearisome problems solved? Into the manhood of the race: +for I, for my own part, cannot think that these latter days of weak +experiment, fragmentary theory, and mutual discord are indeed man’s +culminating time! I say, for my own part. He, I know—for the question +had been discussed among us long before the Time Machine was +made—thought but cheerlessly of the Advancement of Mankind, and saw +in the growing pile of civilisation only a foolish heaping that must +inevitably fall back upon and destroy its makers in the end. If that is so, +it remains for us to live as though it were not so. But to me the future is +still black and blank—is a vast ignorance, lit at a few casual places +by the memory of his story. And I have by me, for my comfort, two strange +white flowers—shrivelled now, and brown and flat and brittle—to +witness that even when mind and strength had gone, gratitude and a mutual +tenderness still lived on in the heart of man. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div></div><section class="pg-boilerplate pgheader" id="pg-footer" lang="en"> +<div id="pg-end-separator"> +<span>*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE TIME MACHINE ***</span> +</div> + + +<div> +Updated editions will replace the previous one—the old editions will +be renamed. +</div><div> +Creating the works from print editions not protected by U.S. copyright +law means that no one owns a United States copyright in these works, +so the Foundation (and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United +States without permission and without paying copyright +royalties. 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