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.
