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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 Upper-world 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 Upper-world 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 Carolingian 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 Under-world. 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 realizing 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 vase for floral decoration. At least she utilized 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. [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]