October 1, 2025 • 13 mins
Step into the thrilling world of a Victorian scientist who believes he has unlocked the secrets of time travel. As he journeys to the distant future, he discovers humanity has diverged into two very different races the Eloi, delicate and carefree beings living above ground, and the Morlocks, sinister underground dwellers who once served the Eloi but now prey on their innocence. Will he uncover the truth behind this strange new world? Join us for a captivating exploration of evolution and survival. - Summary by Cliff Stone
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Chapter nine of The Time Machine by H. G. Wells.
This LibriVox recording is in the public domain. Read by
Cliffstone of Sydney, Australia, Chapter nine, the Morlocks. It may
seem odd to you, but it was two days before
I could follow up the new found clue in what
(00:22):
was manifestly the proper way. I felt a peculiar shrinking
from those pallid bodies. They were just the half bleached
color of the worms and things one sees preserved in
spirit in a zoological museum, and they were felthily cold
to the touch. Probably my shrinking was largely due to
(00:42):
the sympathetic influence of the eloy, whose disgust of the
molocks I now began to appreciate. 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 intentil man sphere for which
I could perceive no definite reason. I remembered creeping noiselessly
(01:05):
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 white and lemurs, this new vermin that had replaced
(01:28):
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.
(01:51):
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. It was this restlessness,
this insecurity, perhaps that drove me farther and farther afield.
In my exploring expeditions. Going to the southwestward towards the
(02:15):
rising country that is now called combe Wood, I observed,
far off in the direction of nineteenth century Bandstead, 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 facade had an
oriental look, the face of it having the luster as
(02:37):
well as the pale green tint, a kind of bluish
green of a certain type of Chinese porcelain. This difference
in aspects 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 site of
the place after a long and tiring circuit. So I
(02:57):
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 and experience I dreaded. I resolved I would
(03:19):
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. Little Weena ran with me.
She danced beside me to the well, and when she
saw me lean over the mouth and looked downward, she
seemed strangely disconcerted. Good Bye, little Weena, I said, kissing her,
(03:43):
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 call at me with her little hands. I think
her opposition nerved me rather to proceed. I shook her off,
(04:06):
perhaps a little roughly, and in another moment I was
in the throat of the well. I saw her agonized
face over the parapet, and smiled to reassure her. Then
I had to look down at the unstable hooks to
which I clung. I had to clamber down a shaft
of perhaps two hundred yards. The descent was effected by
(04:27):
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
(04:47):
I hung by one hand, and after that experience I
did not dare to rest the game. Though my arms
and back were presently acutely painful, I went on clambering
down the sheer descent with as quick a as possible.
Glancing upward, I saw the aperture a small blue disk
in which a star was visible, while Little Weena's head
(05:08):
showed as a round black projection. The thudding sound of
a machine below grew louder and more oppressive. Everything save
that little disk above was profoundly dark, and when I
looked up again, Weena had disappeared. I was in an
agony of discomfort. I had some thought of trying to
go up the shaft again and leave the underworld alone,
(05:31):
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
(05:51):
not too soon my arms ached my back was cramped,
and I was trembling with the prolonged terror of a fall.
Besides this, the young, broken 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.
I do not know how long I lay. I was
aroused by a soft hand touching my face. Starting up
(06:15):
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
(06:35):
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.
(06:59):
I tried to call to them, but the language they
had was apparently different from that of the overwell 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
(07:22):
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 cabin 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. Necessarily, my memory is vague.
(07:43):
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 by 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
(08:04):
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.
(08:26):
Then the match burnt down and stung my fingers, and
fell a wriggling red spot in the blackness. 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
(08:47):
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 deck, 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
(09:09):
and the powers that nature had endowed me with hands, feet,
and teeth, these and four safety matches that still remained
to me. 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
(09:32):
need to economize them, and I had wasted almost half
the box and 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 odor. I fancied. I heard
(09:54):
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 realization of my ignorance
of their ways of thinking and doing came home to
(10:16):
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,
(10:38):
laughing noise as they came back at me. I well
confess I was horribly frightened. I determined to strike another
match and escape under the protection of his sclare. 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
(11:01):
I could hear the morlocks rustling like wind among leaves
and pattering like the rain as they hurried after me.
In a moment, I was clutched by several hands, and
there was no mistaking that they were trying to haun
me back. I struck another light and waved it in
their dazzled faces. You can scarce imagine how nauseatingly inhuman
(11:21):
they looked, those pale, chinless faces and great, lidless, pinkish
gray 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
(11:42):
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
(12:05):
morlocks and were 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. That climb seemed
interminable to me. With the last twenty or thirty feet
of it, a deadly nausea came upon me. I had
(12:26):
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 mouthed somehow,
and staggered out of the ruin into the blinding sunlight.
I fell upon my face. Even the soil smelt sweet
(12:48):
and clean. Then I remember Weena kissing my hands and ears,
and the voices of others among the eloy Then for
a time I was insensible. End of Chapter nine
Chapter nine of The Time Machine by H. G. Wells.
This LibriVox recording is in the public domain. Read by
Cliffstone of Sydney, Australia, Chapter nine, the Morlocks. It may
seem odd to you, but it was two days before
I could follow up the new found clue in what
(00:22):
was manifestly the proper way. I felt a peculiar shrinking
from those pallid bodies. They were just the half bleached
color of the worms and things one sees preserved in
spirit in a zoological museum, and they were felthily cold
to the touch. Probably my shrinking was largely due to
(00:42):
the sympathetic influence of the eloy, whose disgust of the
molocks I now began to appreciate. 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 intentil man sphere for which
I could perceive no definite reason. I remembered creeping noiselessly
(01:05):
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 white and lemurs, this new vermin that had replaced
(01:28):
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.
(01:51):
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. It was this restlessness,
this insecurity, perhaps that drove me farther and farther afield.
In my exploring expeditions. Going to the southwestward towards the
(02:15):
rising country that is now called combe Wood, I observed,
far off in the direction of nineteenth century Bandstead, 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 facade had an
oriental look, the face of it having the luster as
(02:37):
well as the pale green tint, a kind of bluish
green of a certain type of Chinese porcelain. This difference
in aspects 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 site of
the place after a long and tiring circuit. So I
(02:57):
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 and experience I dreaded. I resolved I would
(03:19):
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. Little Weena ran with me.
She danced beside me to the well, and when she
saw me lean over the mouth and looked downward, she
seemed strangely disconcerted. Good Bye, little Weena, I said, kissing her,
(03:43):
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 call at me with her little hands. I think
her opposition nerved me rather to proceed. I shook her off,
(04:06):
perhaps a little roughly, and in another moment I was
in the throat of the well. I saw her agonized
face over the parapet, and smiled to reassure her. Then
I had to look down at the unstable hooks to
which I clung. I had to clamber down a shaft
of perhaps two hundred yards. The descent was effected by
(04:27):
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
(04:47):
I hung by one hand, and after that experience I
did not dare to rest the game. Though my arms
and back were presently acutely painful, I went on clambering
down the sheer descent with as quick a as possible.
Glancing upward, I saw the aperture a small blue disk
in which a star was visible, while Little Weena's head
(05:08):
showed as a round black projection. The thudding sound of
a machine below grew louder and more oppressive. Everything save
that little disk above was profoundly dark, and when I
looked up again, Weena had disappeared. I was in an
agony of discomfort. I had some thought of trying to
go up the shaft again and leave the underworld alone,
(05:31):
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
(05:51):
not too soon my arms ached my back was cramped,
and I was trembling with the prolonged terror of a fall.
Besides this, the young, broken 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.
I do not know how long I lay. I was
aroused by a soft hand touching my face. Starting up
(06:15):
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
(06:35):
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.
(06:59):
I tried to call to them, but the language they
had was apparently different from that of the overwell 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
(07:22):
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 cabin 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. Necessarily, my memory is vague.
(07:43):
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 by 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
(08:04):
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.
(08:26):
Then the match burnt down and stung my fingers, and
fell a wriggling red spot in the blackness. 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
(08:47):
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 deck, 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
(09:09):
and the powers that nature had endowed me with hands, feet,
and teeth, these and four safety matches that still remained
to me. 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
(09:32):
need to economize them, and I had wasted almost half
the box and 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 odor. I fancied. I heard
(09:54):
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 realization of my ignorance
of their ways of thinking and doing came home to
(10:16):
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,
(10:38):
laughing noise as they came back at me. I well
confess I was horribly frightened. I determined to strike another
match and escape under the protection of his sclare. 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
(11:01):
I could hear the morlocks rustling like wind among leaves
and pattering like the rain as they hurried after me.
In a moment, I was clutched by several hands, and
there was no mistaking that they were trying to haun
me back. I struck another light and waved it in
their dazzled faces. You can scarce imagine how nauseatingly inhuman
(11:21):
they looked, those pale, chinless faces and great, lidless, pinkish
gray 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
(11:42):
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
(12:05):
morlocks and were 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. That climb seemed
interminable to me. With the last twenty or thirty feet
of it, a deadly nausea came upon me. I had
(12:26):
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 mouthed somehow,
and staggered out of the ruin into the blinding sunlight.
I fell upon my face. Even the soil smelt sweet
(12:48):
and clean. Then I remember Weena kissing my hands and ears,
and the voices of others among the eloy Then for
a time I was insensible. End of Chapter nine
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