VIII Explanation chapter 8 paragraph 9 among 26 paragraphs
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“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.
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“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.
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“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.
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“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.
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“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.
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“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.
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“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.
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“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.
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“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.
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“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.
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“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.
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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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