Spaces:
Running
on
Zero
Running
on
Zero
“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 _nil_, has no real | |
existence. They taught you that? Neither has a mathematical plane. | |
These things are mere abstractions.” | |
“That is all right,” said the Psychologist. | |
“Nor, having only length, breadth, and thickness, can a cube have a | |
real existence.” | |
“There I object,” said Filby. “Of course a solid body may exist. All | |
real things—” | |
“So most people think. But wait a moment. Can an _instantaneous_ cube | |
exist?” | |
“Don’t follow you,” said Filby. | |
“Can a cube that does not last for any time at all, have a real | |
existence?” | |
Filby became pensive. “Clearly,” the Time Traveller proceeded, “any | |
real body must have extension in _four_ 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.” | |
“That,” said a very young man, making spasmodic efforts to relight his | |
cigar over the lamp; “that . . . very clear indeed.” | |
“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. _There is no difference between | |
Time and any of the three dimensions of Space except that our | |
consciousness moves along it_. 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?” | |
“_I_ have not,” said the Provincial Mayor. | |
“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 _three_ 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?” | |
“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. | |
“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. | |
“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.” | |
“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?” | |
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.” | |
“Not exactly,” said the Medical Man. “There are balloons.” | |
“But before the balloons, save for spasmodic jumping and the | |
inequalities of the surface, man had no freedom of vertical movement.” | |
“Still they could move a little up and down,” said the Medical Man. | |
“Easier, far easier down than up.” | |
“And you cannot move at all in Time, you cannot get away from the | |
present moment.” | |
“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 _down_ | |
if we began our existence fifty miles above the earth’s surface.” | |
“But the great difficulty is this,” interrupted the Psychologist. ’You | |
_can_ move about in all directions of Space, but you cannot move about | |
in Time.” | |
“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?” | |
“Oh, _this_,” began Filby, “is all—” | |
“Why not?” said the Time Traveller. | |
“It’s against reason,” said Filby. | |
“What reason?” said the Time Traveller. | |
“You can show black is white by argument,” said Filby, “but you will | |
never convince me.” | |
“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—” | |
“To travel through Time!” exclaimed the Very Young Man. | |
“That shall travel indifferently in any direction of Space and Time, as | |
the driver determines.” | |
Filby contented himself with laughter. | |
“But I have experimental verification,” said the Time Traveller. | |
“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!” | |
“Don’t you think you would attract attention?” said the Medical Man. | |
“Our ancestors had no great tolerance for anachronisms.” | |
“One might get one’s Greek from the very lips of Homer and Plato,” the | |
Very Young Man thought. | |
“In which case they would certainly plough you for the Little-go. The | |
German scholars have improved Greek so much.” | |
“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!” | |
“To discover a society,” said I, “erected on a strictly communistic | |
basis.” | |
“Of all the wild extravagant theories!” began the Psychologist. | |
“Yes, so it seemed to me, and so I never talked of it until—” | |
“Experimental verification!” cried I. “You are going to verify _that_?” | |
“The experiment!” cried Filby, who was getting brain-weary. | |
“Let’s see your experiment anyhow,” said the Psychologist, “though it’s | |
all humbug, you know.” | |
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. | |
The Psychologist looked at us. “I wonder what he’s got?” | |
“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. | |
II. | |
The Machine | |
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. | |
The Time Traveller looked at us, and then at the mechanism. “Well?” | |
said the Psychologist. | |
“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.” | |
The Medical Man got up out of his chair and peered into the thing. | |
“It’s beautifully made,” he said. | |
“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.” | |
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. | |
Everyone was silent for a minute. Then Filby said he was damned. | |
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. | |
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?” | |
“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.” | |
“You mean to say that that machine has travelled into the future?” said | |
Filby. | |
“Into the future or the past—I don’t, for certain, know which.” | |
After an interval the Psychologist had an inspiration. “It must have | |
gone into the past if it has gone anywhere,” he said. | |
“Why?” said the Time Traveller. | |
“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.” | |
“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!” | |
“Serious objections,” remarked the Provincial Mayor, with an air of | |
impartiality, turning towards the Time Traveller. | |
“Not a bit,” said the Time Traveller, and, to the Psychologist: “You | |
think. _You_ can explain that. It’s presentation below the threshold, | |
you know, diluted presentation.” | |
“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. | |
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. | |
“It sounds plausible enough tonight,” said the Medical Man; “but wait | |
until tomorrow. Wait for the common sense of the morning.” | |
“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. | |
“Look here,” said the Medical Man, “are you perfectly serious? Or is | |
this a trick—like that ghost you showed us last Christmas?” | |
“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.” | |
None of us quite knew how to take it. | |
I caught Filby’s eye over the shoulder of the Medical Man, and he | |
winked at me solemnly. | |
III. | |
The Time Traveller Returns | |
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 _him_ 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. | |
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?” | |
“Where’s——?” said I, naming our host. | |
“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.” | |
“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. | |
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. | |
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. | |
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.” | |
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.” | |
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. | |
“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. | |
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 _was_ 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. | |
“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?” | |
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!” | |
“Story!” cried the Editor. | |
“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.” | |
“One word,” said I. “Have you been time travelling?” | |
“Yes,” said the Time Traveller, with his mouth full, nodding his head. | |
“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. | |
“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. | |
“But the thing’s a mere paradox,” said the Editor. | |
“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?” | |
“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. | |
IV. | |
Time Travelling | |
“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! | |
“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. | |
“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. | |
“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. | |
“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. | |
“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. | |
“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.’ | |
“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. | |
“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. | |
“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. | |
“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. | |
“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. | |
“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. | |
“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. | |
V. | |
In the Golden Age | |
“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. | |
“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. | |
“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. | |
“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. | |
“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. | |
“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. | |
“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. | |
“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. | |
“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. | |
“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. | |
“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. | |
“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. | |
“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. | |
VI. | |
The Sunset of Mankind | |
“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. | |
“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. | |
“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. | |
“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. | |
“‘Communism,’ said I to myself. | |
“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. | |
“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. | |
“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. | |
“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. | |
“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.) | |
“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! | |
“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. | |
“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. | |
“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. | |
“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. _Now_, 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. | |
“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. | |
“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. | |
“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! | |
“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! | |
VII. | |
A Sudden Shock | |
“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. | |
“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.’ | |
“But it _was_ 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! | |
“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. | |
“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. | |
“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? | |
“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. | |
“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. | |
“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. | |
“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. | |
“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. | |
“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. | |
“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. | |
“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. | |
“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. | |
VIII. | |
Explanation | |
“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. | |
“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. | |
“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. | |
“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. | |
“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. | |
“Then, again, about the Time Machine: something, I knew not what, had | |
taken it into the hollow pedestal of the White Sphinx. _Why?_ 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! | |
“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. | |
“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! | |
“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. | |
“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. | |
“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. | |
“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. | |
“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. | |
“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. | |
“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. | |
“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. | |
“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. | |
“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. | |
“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. | |
“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. | |
“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. | |
“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 _how_ 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. | |
“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? | |
“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. | |
“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. | |
“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. | |
IX. | |
The Morlocks | |
“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. | |
“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. | |
“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. | |
“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. | |
“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. | |
“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. | |
“I do not know how long I lay. I was arroused 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. | |
“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. | |
“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. | |
“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. | |
“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. | |
“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. | |
“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. | |
X. | |
When Night Came | |
“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. | |
“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. | |
“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. | |
“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. | |
“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…” | |
_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._ | |
“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? | |
“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, _minus_ 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. | |
“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. | |
“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. | |
“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. | |
“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. | |
“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! | |
“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. | |
“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. | |
XI. | |
The Palace of Green Porcelain | |
“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. | |
“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. | |
“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. | |
“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. | |
“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. | |
“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. | |
“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. | |
“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. | |
“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 _Philosophical Transactions_ | |
and my own seventeen papers upon physical optics. | |
“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 _The Land of the Leal_ as cheerfully as I | |
could. In part it was a modest _cancan_, 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. | |
“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. | |
“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. | |
“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. | |
“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. | |
XII. | |
In the Darkness | |
“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. | |
“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. | |
“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. | |
“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. | |
“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. | |
“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! | |
“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. | |
“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. | |
“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. | |
“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. | |
“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! | |
“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. | |
“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. | |
“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. | |
“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. | |
“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. | |
“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. | |
XIII. | |
The Trap of the White Sphinx | |
“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. | |
“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. | |
“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. | |
“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. | |
“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. | |
“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. | |
“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. | |
“At that I stopped short before them, hesitating to enter. | |
“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. | |
“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. | |
“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. | |
“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. | |
“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. | |
“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. | |
XIV. | |
The Further Vision | |
“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. | |
“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. | |
“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. | |
“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. | |
“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. | |
“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. | |
“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. | |
“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. | |
“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. | |
“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. | |
“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. | |
“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. | |
XV. | |
The Time Traveller’s Return | |
“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. | |
“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. | |
“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. | |
“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. | |
“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 _Pall Mall Gazette_ 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. | |
XVI. | |
After the Story | |
“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?” | |
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. | |
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. | |
“You don’t believe it?” | |
“Well——” | |
“I thought not.” | |
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...” | |
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. | |
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. | |
“I’m hanged if it isn’t a quarter to one,” said the Journalist. “How | |
shall we get home?” | |
“Plenty of cabs at the station,” said the Psychologist. | |
“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?” | |
The Time Traveller hesitated. Then suddenly: “Certainly not.” | |
“Where did you really get them?” said the Medical Man. | |
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!” | |
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. | |
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. | |
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. | |
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.” | |
“But is it not some hoax?” I said. “Do you really travel through time?” | |
“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?” | |
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. | |
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. | |
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. | |
We looked at each other. Then ideas began to come. “Has Mr. —— gone out | |
that way?” said I. | |
“No, sir. No one has come out this way. I was expecting to find him | |
here.” | |
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. | |
Epilogue | |
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. |