The Time Machine — EN

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When the 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 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 gen­er­a­tions, had come at last to find the daylit sur­face. 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.

“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 hill-side 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 orga­ni­za­tions, 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.