VIII Explanation chapter 8 paragraph 20 among 26 paragraphs
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“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.
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“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.
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“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.
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“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?
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“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.
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“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.
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“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.
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IX The Morlocks
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“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.
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“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.
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“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.
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“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.
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“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.
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“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.
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“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.
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“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.
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“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.
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“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.
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“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.
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“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.
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“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.
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X When Night Came
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“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.
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