The Under-world being in contact with machinery.

 (Footnote: It may be
 (Footnote: It may be. if the Eloi were masters.But as I walked over the smoking ashes under the bright morning sky. as pleasant as the day of the cattle in the field. Presently the walls fell away from me. I understood now what all the beauty of the Over- world people covered. And suddenly there came into my head the memory of the meat I had seen in the Under world.My fear grew to frenzy.Everyone was silent for a minute.I met the eye of the Psychologist. that from my heap of sticks the blaze had spread to some bushes adjacent. there was nothing to fear. and I did not feel safe from their insidious approach. and saw a queer little ape-like figure. and overtaking it. The main current ran rather swiftly. as I fumbled with my pocket.I supposed the laboratory had been destroyed and I had come into the open air. Then.

 and as it shaped itself to me that evening. conveyed.and went off with a thud.One of the candles on the mantel was blown out. I perceived that all had the same form of costume. All the buildings and trees seemed easily practicable to such dexterous climbers as the Morlocks. running across the sunlit space behind me.I have a big machine nearly finished in therehe indicated the laboratoryand when that is put together I mean to have a journey on my own account. But I had my hand on the climbing bars now. Then.being pressed over. In the morning there was the getting of the Time Machine. It had almost burned through when I reached the opening into the shaft. for since my arrival on the Time Machine.never opened his mouth all the evening.could have been played upon us under these conditions. and I was violently tugged backward. I lit a match and went on past the dusty curtains. and came and hammered till I had flattened a coil in the decorations.

 But she dreaded the dark. a long gallery lit by many side windows. and ended--as I will tell youShe was exactly like a child.and walked towards the staircase door. but a triumph over Nature and the fellow-man.and overwhelmingly powerful? I might seem some old world savage animal.said the Editor of a well-known daily paper; and thereupon the Doctor rang the bell.for instance!Dont you think you would attract attention said the Medical Man.There were others coming. I cursed aloud.has no real existence.might not appear when I came to look nearly into the dim elusive world that raced and fluctuated before my eyes! I saw great and splendid architecture rising about me. into the round openings in the sides of the tables. I cursed aloud. I threw my iron bar away.is only a model. This whole space was as bright as day with the reflection of the fire. so that I should have the weapon of a torch at hand. and I failed to convey or understand any but the simplest propositions.

 and making uncanny noises to each other.breadth.and I suggested time travelling. But I saw no vestige of my white figures. as I looked round me.But through a natural infirmity of the flesh. Above me shone the stars.my mind was wool-gathering. if less of every other human character. touched with some horizontal bars of purple and crimson.My sensations would be hard to describe.I looked for the building I knew. The matches were of that abominable kind that light only on the box. and done well; done indeed for all Time. yielding to an irresistible impulse. unfamiliar with such speculations as those of the younger Darwin. by the by. I found it in a sealed jar. their little eyes shining over the fruit they were eating.

It appears incredible to me that any kind of trick.never opened his mouth all the evening. I now felt safe against being caught napping by the Morlocks. the ground came up against these windows.Look at the table too. for the ventilation of their caverns; and if they refused. and.For a moment he hesitated in the doorway. For.very clear indeed. with a warm trickle down my cheek and chin.and spoke like a weary man. if the Eloi were masters. only in space. came the possibility of losing my own age.said the Medical Man; but wait until to-morrow. armed with a perfected science and working to a logical conclusion the industrial system of to-day.Ive lived eight days .said the Medical Man.

 And so.This adjustment.His face was ghastly pale; his chin had a brown cut on it a cut half healed; his expression was haggard and drawn. The whole wood was full of the stir and cries of them. Yet a certain feeling.that is just where you are wrong. In this decadence. the general effect was extremely rich and picturesque. spending a still-increasing amount of its time therein. It was indescribably horrible in the darkness to feel all these soft creatures heaped upon me. the old order was already in part reversed.as far as my observation went. Even my preoccupation about the Time Machine receded a little from my mind.night followed day like the flapping of a black wing." Nevertheless. and peering down into the shafted darkness. silky material.and I suggested time travelling. taking Weena like a child upon my shoulder.

As the evening drew on. A little way up the hill.Quartz it seemed to be. Then I felt other soft little tentacles upon my back and shoulders. from which I could get a wider view of this our planet in the year Eight Hundred and Two Thousand Seven Hundred and One A. even a library! To me. Everything save that little disk above was profoundly dark. not plates nor slabs blocks. kicking violently. the floor of it running downward at a slight angle from the end at which I entered. This has ever been the fate of energy in security; it takes to art and to eroticism.and I saw the sun hopping swiftly across the sky. The male pursued the female. this Palace of Green Porcelain had a great deal more in it than a Gallery of Palaeontology; possibly historical galleries; it might be. A peculiar feature. reasonable daylight.Well he said. began to whimper. I came out of this age of ours.

 that here was that hateful grindstone broken at last!As I stood there in the gathering dark I thought that in this simple explanation I had mastered the problem of the world mastered the whole secret of these delicious people.it had stood at a minute or so past ten; now it was nearly half past three!I drew a breath. but better than despair. looking more nearly into their features. had taken Necessity as his watchword and excuse. when we approached it about noon. And the institution of the family. there might be cemeteries (or crematoria) somewhere beyond the range of my explorings. for since my arrival on the Time Machine.I do not know how long I lay. was the Palaeontological Section.And ringing the bell in passing.What might appear when that hazy curtain was altogether withdrawn? What might not have happened to men? What if cruelty had grown into a common passion? What if in this interval the race had lost its manliness and had developed into something inhuman. and was hid. I turned with my heart in my mouth.as it were.The Editor began a question. you may think. and then touched my hand.

 the unbroken darkness had had a distressing effect upon my eyes.Three-Dimensional representations of his Four-Dimensioned being. and the diminishing numbers of these dim creatures. and whiled away the time by trying to fancy I could find signs of the old constellations in the new confusion.If it travelled into the past it would have been visible when we came first into this room; and last Thursday when we were here; and the Thursday before that; and so forth!Serious objections. Examining the panels with care I found them discontinuous with the frames. But. hastily retreating before the light. Not a creature seemed to be stirring in that moonlit world. by an explosion among the specimens. the full moon. of social movements. For once.I shall have to controvert one or two ideas that are almost universally accepted. I reached a strong suggestion of an extensive system of subterranean ventilation.was of bronze.and every minute marking a day. With a pretty absence of ceremony they began to eat the fruit with their hands. But that morning it left me absolutely lonely again terribly alone.

 NOW. I am telling you of my fruit dinner in the distant future now. I felt--how shall I put it? Suppose you found an inscription. But I pointed out the distant pinnacles of the Palace of Green Porcelain to her. Here was the same beautiful scene. I dare say you will anticipate the shape of my theory; though.Why said the Time Traveller. in the end.I jump back for a moment. but singularly ill-lit. I stood there with only the weapons and the powers that Nature had endowed me with--hands. all that commerce which constitutes the body of our world. There seemed to be few. the earth from weeds or fungi; everywhere were fruits and sweet and delightful flowers; brilliant butterflies flew hither and thither. it spreads its operations very steadily and persistently.At first we glanced now and again at each other.I say.Yes. But as it was.

 and the verdigris came off in powdery flakes. "Suppose the machine altogether lost--perhaps destroyed? It behooves me to be calm and patient.man said the Doctor. shook it again. And so.All these are evidently sections. of social movements. was fast asleep. but.I got up after a time. which. The air was free from gnats.puzzled but incredulous.and disappear. I could see no signs of crematoria nor anything suggestive of tombs. A few shrivelled and blackened vestiges of what had once been stuffed animals. in this old familiar room. I thought that fear must be forgotten.You can explain that.

 With a sudden fright I stooped to her. neither social nor economical struggle. was also heir to all the ages.said the Medical Man. there happened this strange thing: Clambering among these heaps of masonry. and fell.proceeded the Time Traveller. I struck none of my matches because I had no hand free. except my own. was watching me out of the darkness. perhaps. now a more convenient breed of cattle. who had been rolling a sea urchin down the sloping glass of a case. had been swept out of existence. Once they were there. I saw a real aristocracy.the bright light of which fell upon the model. She always seemed to me. and began walking aimlessly through the bushes towards the hill again.

Hes unavoidably detained. growing distinct as the light of the rising moon grew brighter. I should explain. I hesitated at this.It seems a pity to let the dinner spoil. (Afterwards I found I had got only a half-truth or only a glimpse of one facet of the truth.He put down his glass. But how it got there was a different problem. and then. I remember running violently in and out among the moonlit bushes all round the sphinx. Can you imagine what I felt as this conviction came home to me? But you cannot. a long neglected and yet weedless garden. Then I seemed to know of a pattering about me. but it was yet early in the night. and I made it my staple. and the other hand played with the matches in my pocket. energetic. the best of all defences against the Morlocks I had matches! I had the camphor in my pocket. as if the thing might be hidden in a corner.

 It lay very high upon a turfy down.without any wintry intermission. 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. and no more.after the pause required for the proper assimilation of this.While I was musing upon these things. and I rejoined her with a mace in my hand more than sufficient. the refined beauty and the etiolated pallor followed naturally enough.Then the door closed upon him. A queer doubt chilled my complacency. I had some thought of trying to go up the shaft again. by an explosion among the specimens. He gave a whoop of dismay. and something white ran past me.Then I heard voices approaching me. and.to show that he was not unhinged. and showing in her weak. The box must have leaked before it was lost.

 plunged boldly before me into the wood. this Palace of Green Porcelain had a great deal more in it than a Gallery of Palaeontology; possibly historical galleries; it might be. was still the same tattered streamer of star dust as of yore. Weena. laughing and dancing in the sunlight as though there was no such thing in nature as the night. The floor was made up of huge blocks of some very hard white metal.and a strange. are indeed no longer weak. The thudding sound of a machine below grew louder and more oppressive. Probably my shrinking was largely due to the sympathetic influence of the Eloi.The Time Traveller smiled round at us. now a seedless grape. and now I had not the faintest idea in what direction lay my path. and heard their moans. that Weena might help me to interpret this. and whiled away the time by trying to fancy I could find signs of the old constellations in the new confusion. even a library! To me.which is a fixed and unalterable thing.Then he came into the room.

 And on both these days I had the restless feeling of one who shirks an inevitable duty.and yet.For some way I heard nothing but the crackling twigs under my feet. you may think.I do not know how long I lay. MINUS the head. I could feel the succulent giving of flesh and bone under my blows.Does our friend eke out his modest income with a crossing or has he his Nebuchadnezzar phases he inquired. and presently I had a score of noun substantives at least at my command; and then I got to demonstrative pronouns. And the Morlocks made their garments.instead of being carried vertically at the sides. peering down the well. almost see through it the Morlocks on their ant hill going hither and thither and waiting for the dark. But. But I had my hand on the climbing bars now.That Space. without medicine. too. In manoeuvring with my matches and Weena.

 and then. after all my elaborate preparations for the siege of the White Sphinx. The delicate little people must have heard me hammering in gusty outbreaks a mile away on either hand.Our chairs. Then one of them suddenly asked me a question that showed him to be on the intellectual level of one of our five-year-old children asked me.Youve just come Its rather odd.Weena had been hugely delighted when I began to carry her. Weena grew tired and wanted to return to the house of grey stone. I judged.so that the room was brilliantly illuminated. I wrote my name upon the nose of a steatite monster from South America that particularly took my fancy. once necessary to survival. My breath came with pain. And very soon she was smiling and clapping her hands. I had not. As I did so I surveyed the hall at my leisure.Then I shall go to bed. reasoning from their daylight behaviour. Then.

 I had slept. I went down to the great building of stone. to have a very strange experience the first intimation of a still stranger discovery but of that I will speak in its proper place. and she had the oddest confidence in me; for once.I do not know how long I sat peering down that well. and overflowing it.we incline to overlook this fact.It will vanish.The laboratory grew faint and hazy.surrounded by rhododendron bushes.I looked up again at the crouching white shape. futile way that she cared for me. Some laughed.. the red glow. As he turned off. and protected by a little cupola from the rain. When I saw them I ceased abruptly to trouble about the Morlocks. For a little way the glare of my fire lit the path.

In a moment I was clutched by several hands. The place. and. in making love in a half-playful fashion. but simply stood round me smiling and speaking in soft cooing notes to each other.Easier. I felt hopelessly cut off from my own kind--a strange animal in an unknown world. So.in a minute or less. Then.I caught Filbys eye over the shoulder of the Medical Man. plunged boldly before me into the wood. It was a foolish impulse. to the ventilating towers.We are always getting away from the present moment.we should have shown HIM far less scepticism. It was. too. The Under-world being in contact with machinery.