The Crystal Egg - H.G. Wells

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
The Crystal Egg by H. G. Wells. There was until
a year ago a little and very grimy looking shop
near seven dials, over which, in weather worn yellow lettering,
the name of Sea Cave Naturalist and Dealer in Antiquities
was inscribed. The contents of its window were curiously variegated.

(00:24):
They comprised some elephant tusks and an imperfect set of chessmen,
beads and weapons, of box of eyes, two skulls of
tigers and one of human, several moth eaten stuffed monkeys,
one holding a lamp, an old fashioned cabinet of fly
blown ostrojegg or sow, some fishing tackle, and an extraordinarily
dirty empty glass fish tank. There was also, at the

(00:46):
moment the story begins, a mass of crystal worked into
the shape of an egg and brilliantly polished. And at
that two people who stood outside the window were looking,
one of them a tall, thin clergyman, the other a
black bearded young man of dusky complexion and unobtrusive costume.
The dusky young man spoke with eager gesticulation and seemed

(01:08):
anxious for his companion to purchase the article. While they
were there. Mister Cave came into his shop, his beard
still wagging with the bread and butter of his tea.
When he saw these men in the object of their regard,
his countenance fell. He glanced guiltily over his shoulder, and
softly shut the door. He was a little old man,

(01:29):
with pale face and peculiar wootery blue eyes. His hair
was a dirty gray, and he wore a shabby blue
frock coat and ancient silk hat and carpet slippers. Very
much down at heel, he remained watching the two men
as they talked. The clergyman went deep into his trouser pocket,
examined a handful of money, and showed his teeth in

(01:50):
an agreeable smile. Mister Cave seemed still more depressed. When
they came into the shop. The clergyman, without any ceremony,
asked the price of the crystal. Mister Kave glanced nervously
toward the door leading to the parlor and said five pounds.
The clergyman protested that the price was high to his
companion as well as to mister Cave. It was indeed

(02:12):
very much more than mister Cave had intended to ask
when he had stocked the article, and an attempt at
bargaining ensued. Mister Cave stepped to the shop door and
held it open. Five pounds is my price, he said,
as though he wished to save himself the trouble of
unprofitable discussion. As he did so, the upper portion of
a woman's face appeared above the blind in the glass

(02:34):
upper panel of the door leading into the parlor, and
stared curiously at the two customers. Five pounds is my price,
said mister Cave, with a quiver in his voice. The
smarty young man had so far remained a spectator, watching
Cave keenly. Now he spoke. Give him five pounds, he said.
The clergyman glanced at him to see if he were

(02:54):
in earnest, and when he looked at mister Cave again,
he saw that the latter's face was white. It's a
lot of money, said the clergyman, and diving into his pocket,
began counting his resources. He had little more than thirty shillings,
and he appealed to his companion, with whom he seemed
to be on terms of considerable intimacy. This gave mister
Kave an opportunity of collecting his thoughts and he began

(03:16):
to explain in an agitated matter that the cristel was not,
as a matter of fact, entirely free for sale. His
two customers were naturally surprised at this and inquired why
he had not thought of that before he began to bargain.
Mister Cave became confused, but he stuck to his story
that the cristal was not in the market that afternoon,
that a probable purchaser of it had already appeared. The two,

(03:40):
treating this as an attempt to raise the price, still
further made as if they would leave the shop. But
at this point the parlor door opened and the owner
of the Dark Fringe and the Little Eyes appeared. She
was a coarse featured, corpulent woman, younger and very much
larger than mister Cave. She walked heavily and her face
was flushed. That crystal is for sale, she said, and

(04:03):
five pounds is a good enough price for it. I
can't think what you're about, Cave not to take the
gentleman's offer. Mister Cave, greatly perturbed by the eruption, looked
angrily at her over the rims of his spectacles, and
without excessive assurance, asserted his right to manage his business
in his own way. An altercation began. The two customers

(04:24):
watched the scene with interest and some amusement, occasionally assisting
missus Cave with suggestions. Mister Cave, hard driven, persisted in
a confused and impossible story of an inquiry for the
crystal that morning, and his agitation became painful, but he
stuck to his point with extraordinary persistence. It was the
young Oriental who ended this curious controversy. He proposed that

(04:47):
they should call again in the course of two days,
so as to give the alleged inquirer a fair chance.
And then we must insist, said the clergyman, five pounds.
Missus Cave took it on herself to apologize for her husband,
explaining that he was sometimes a little odd, and as
the two customers left, the couple prepared for a free

(05:07):
discussion of the incident in all its bearings. Missus Cave
talked to her husband with singular directness. The poor little man,
quivering with emotion, muddled himself between his stories, maintaining on
the one hand that he had another customer in view,
and on the other, asserting that the crystal was honestly
worth ten guineas. Why did you ask five pounds? Said

(05:28):
his wife. Do let me manage my business my own way,
said mister Cave. Mister Cave had living with him a
step daughter and step son, and at supper that night
the transaction was rediscussed. None of them had a high
opinion of mister Cave's business methods, and this action seemed
a culminating folly. It's my opinion he's refused that Cristal

(05:50):
before said the steps on a loose limbed lout of eighteen.
But five pounds, said the step daughter, an argumentative young
woman of six and twenty. Mister Cave's answers were wretched.
He could only mumble weak assertions that he knew his
own business best. They drove him from his half eaten
supper into the shop to close it for the night.

(06:11):
His ears aflame and tears of vexation behind his spectacles.
Why had he left the crystal in the window so long?
The folly of it? That was the trouble closest in
his mind. For a time he could see no way
of evading the sale. After supper, his step daughter and
step son smartened themselves up and went out, and his

(06:31):
wife retired upstairs to reflect upon the business aspects of
the crystal over a little sugar and lemon and so
forth in hot water. Mister Cave went into the shop
and stayed there until late, ostensibly to make ornamental rockeries
for goldfish cases, but really for a private purpose that
will be better explained later. The next day, missus Kave

(06:52):
found that the crystal had been removed from the window
and was lying behind some second hand books on angling.
She replaced it in a conspicutus position, but she did
not argue further about it, as a nervous headache disinclined
her from debate. Mister Cave was always disinclined. The day
passed disagreeably. Mister Cave was, if anything, more absent minded

(07:13):
than usual and uncommonly irritable withal. In the afternoon, when
his wife was taking her customary sleep, he removed the
crystal from the window again. The next day, mister Cave
had to deliver a consignment of dogfish at one of
the hospital schools, where they were needed for dissection. In
his absence, missus Cave's mind reverted to the topic of

(07:35):
the crystal and the methods of expenditure suitable to a
windfall of five pounds. She had already devised some very
agreeable expedients, among others, a dress of green silk for
herself and a trip to Richmond, when at jangling of
the front doorbell summoned her into the shop. The customer
was an examination coach who came to complain about the
non delivery of certain frogs asked for the previous day.

(07:59):
Missus Cave did not approve of this particular branch of
mister Cave's business, and the gentleman who had called in
a somewhat aggressive mood, retired after a brief exchange of
words entirely civil so far as he was concerned. Missus
Cave's eye then naturally turned to the window. For the
sight of the crystal was an assurance of the five
pounds and her dreams. What was her surprise to find

(08:21):
it gone. She went to the place behind the locker
on the counter where she had discovered it the day before.
It was not there, and she immediately began an eager
search about the shop. When mister Cave returned from his
business with the dogfish about a quarter to two in
the afternoon, he found the shop in some confusion, and
his wife, extremely exasperated, and on her knees behind the counter,

(08:43):
rooting among his taxidermic material. Her face came up hot
and angry over the counter as the jangling bell announced
his return, and she forthwith accused him of hiding it. Hid, what,
asked mister Cave the crystal? At that mister Cave, apparently
much surprised, rushed to the window. Isn't it here? He said,

(09:04):
Great heavens, what has become of it? Just then mister
Cave's step son re entered the shop from the inner room.
He had come home a minute or so before mister Cave,
and he was blaspheming freely. He was apprenticed to a
second hand furniture dealer down the road, but he had
his meals at home, and he was naturally annoyed to
find no dinner ready. But when he heard of the

(09:27):
loss of the crystal, he forgot his meal, and his
anger was diverted from his mother to his stepfather. Their
first idea, of course, was that he had hidden it,
but mister Cave stoutly denied all knowledge of its fate,
freely offering his bedabbed affidavit in the matter, and at
last was worked up to the point of accusing first
his wife and then his step son of having taken

(09:48):
it with a view to private sale. So began an
exceedingly acrimonious and emotional discussion, which ended for missus Cave
in a peculiar nervous condition midway between his deryck's and
a muck, and caused the steps on to be half
an hour late at the furniture establishment in the afternoon,
mister Cave took refuge from his wife's emotions in the shop.

(10:11):
In the evening, the matter was resumed with less passion
than in a judicial spirit, under the presidency of the
step daughter. The supper passed unhappily and culminated in a
painful scene. Mister Cave gave way at last to extreme
exasperation and went out, banging the front door violently. The
rest of the family, having discussed him, with the freedom

(10:32):
his absence warranted, hunted the house from garret to cellar,
hoping to light upon the crystal. The next day the
two customers called again. They were received by Missus Cave
almost in tears. It transpired that no one could imagine
all that she had stood from Cave at various times
in her married pilgrimage. She also gave a garbled account

(10:52):
of the disappearance. The clergyman and the Oriental laughed silently
at one another and said it was very extraordinary, as
Missus Cave seemed disposed to give them the complete history
of her life. They made to leave the shop. Thereupon,
Missus Cave, still clinging to hope, asked for the clergyman's address,
so that if she could get anything out of Cave,
she might communicate it. The address was duly given, but

(11:16):
apparently was afterwards mislaid. Missus Cave can remember nothing about it.
In the evening of that day, the Caves seemed to
have exhausted their emotions, and mister Cave, who had been
out in the afternoon, supped in a gloomy isolation that
contrasted pleasantly with the impassioned controversy of the previous days.
For some time matters were very badly strained in the

(11:37):
Cave household, but neither Cristel nor Customer reappeared. Now, without
mincing the matter, we must admit that mister Cave was
a liar. He knew perfectly well where that crystal was.
It was in the rooms of mister Jacoby, Waite's assistant
demonstrator at Saint Catharine's Hospital, Westbourne Street. It stood on

(11:58):
the sideboard, partially covered by a black velvet cloth, and
beside a decanter of American whiskey. It is from mister Waste, indeed,
that the particulars upon which this narrative is based were derived.
Cave had taken off the thing to the hospital, hidden
in the dogfish sack, and there had pressed the young
investigator to keep it for him. Mister Waste was a

(12:19):
little dubious at first. His relationship to Cave was peculiar.
He had a taste for singular characters, and he had
more than once invited the old man to smoke and
drink in his rooms, and to unfold his rather amusing
views of life in general and of his wife in particular.
Mister Wass had encountered Missus Cave too, on occasions when
mister Cave was not at home to attend him. He

(12:41):
knew the constant interference to which Cave was subjected, and
having weighed the story judicially, he decided to give the
crystal a refuge. Mister Cave promised to explain the reasons
for his remarkable affection for the crystal more fully on
a later occasion, but he spoke distinctly of seeing visions
therein he called on miss to waste. The same evening,

(13:02):
he told a complicated story. The crystal, he said, had
come into his possession with other Ottomans at the forced
sale of another curiosity dealer's effects, and not knowing what
its value might be, he had ticketed it at ten shillings.
It had hung upon his hands at that price for
some months, and he was thinking of reducing the figure
when he made a singular discovery. At that time his

(13:25):
health was very bad, and it must be borne in
mind that throughout all this experience his physical condition was
one of eb and he was in considerable distress by
reason of the negligence the positive ill treatment even he
received from his wife and step children. His wife was vain, extravagant, unfeeling,
and had a growing taste for private drinking. His step

(13:46):
daughter was mean and overreaching, and his stepson had conceived
a violent dislike for him and lost no chance of
showing it. The requirements of his business pressed heavily upon him,
and mister Waste does not think that he was altogether
free from occasional intemperance. He had begun life in a
comfortable position. He was a man of fair education, and

(14:06):
he suffered for weeks at a stretch from melancholia and insomnia.
Afraid to disturb his family, he would slip quietly from
his wife's side when his thoughts became intolerable, and wander
about the house, And about three o'clock one morning, late
in August, chance directed him into the shop. The dirty
little place was impenetrably black, except in one spot, where

(14:27):
he perceived an unusual glow of light. Approaching this, he
discovered it to be the crystal leg, which was standing
on the corner of the counter towards the window. A
thin ray smote through a crack in the shutters, impinged
upon the object, and seemed as if it were to
fill its entire interior. It occurred to mister Cave that
this was not in accordance with the laws of optics

(14:49):
as he had known them in his younger days. He
could understand the rays being refracted by the crystal and
coming to a focus in its interior, but this diffusion
jarred with his physical care. He approached the crystal, nearly
peering into it and round it with a transient revival
of the scientific curiosity that in his youth had determined
his choice of calling. He was surprised to find the

(15:12):
light not steady, but writhing within the substance of the egg,
as though that object was a hollow sphere of some
luminous vapor. In moving about to get different points of view,
he suddenly found that he had come between it and
the ray, and that the crystal none the less remained luminous.
Greatly astonished, he lifted it out of the light ray
and carried it to the darkest part of the shop.

(15:34):
It remained bright for some four or five minutes, when
it slowly faded and went out. He placed it in
the thin streak of daylight, and its luminousness was almost
immediately restored. So far, at least mister Waste was able
to verify the remarkable story of mister Cave. He has
himself repeatedly held this crystal in a ray of light,

(15:54):
which has had to be of less diameter than one millimeter,
and in a perfect darkness such as could be produced
by velvet wrapping the crystal did undoubtedly appear very faintly phosphorescent.
It would seem, however, that the luminousness was of some
exceptional sort, and not equally visible to all eyes. For
mister Harbinger, whose name will be familiar to the scientific reader,

(16:16):
in conjunction with the pasteur Institute, was quite unable to
see any light whatever, and mister Waste's own capacity for
its appreciation was out of comparison inferior to that of
mister Cave's. Even with mister Cave, the power varied considerably.
His vision was most vivid during states of extreme weakness
and fatigue. Now from the outset, this light in the

(16:38):
crystal exercised a curious fascination upon mister Cave, and it
says more for his loneliness of soul than a volume
of pathetic writing could do. That he told no human
being of his curious observations. He seems to have been
living in such an atmosphere of petty spite that to
admit the existence of a pleasure would have been to
risk the loss of it. He found that as the

(17:01):
dawn advanced and the amount of diffused light increased, the
crystal became to all appearance non luminous, and for some
time he was unable to see anything in it, except
at night time in dark corners of the shop. But
the use of an old velvet cloth, which he used
as a background for a collection of minerals, occurred to him,
and by doubling this and putting it over his head

(17:22):
and hands, he was able to get a sight of
the luminous movement within the crystal, even in the daytime.
He was very cautious lest he should be thus discovered
by his wife, and he practiced this occupation only in
the afternoons while she was asleep upstairs, and then circumspectly
in a hollow under the counter. And one day, turning
the crystal about in his hands, he saw something. It

(17:45):
came and went like a flash, but it gave him
the impression that the object had for a moment opened
to him the view of a wide and spacious and
strange country. And turning it about he did, just as
the light faded, see the same vision again. Now it
would be tedious and unnecessary to state all the phases
of mister Cave's discovery from this point, suffice that the

(18:07):
effect was this, the crystal being peered into at an
angle of about one hundred and thirty seven degrees from
the direction of the illuminating ray gave a clear and
consistent picture of a wide and peculiar countryside. It was
not dream like at all. It produced a definite impression
of reality, and the better the light, the more real
and solid it seemed. It was a moving picture, that

(18:30):
is to say, certain objects moved in it, but slowly,
in an orderly manner, like real things, and according as
the direction of the lighting and vision changed, the picture
changed also. It must indeed have been like looking through
an oval glass at a view and turning the glass
about to get it different aspects. Mister Cave's statements, mister

(18:51):
Wace assures me, were extremely circumstantial and entirely free from
any of that emotional quality that taints hallucinatory impressions. But
it must be remembered that all the efforts of mister
Waste to see any similar clarity in the faint opalescence
of the crystal were wholly unsuccessful, try as he would.
The difference in intensity of the impressions received by the

(19:12):
two men was very great, and it is quite conceivable
that what was a view to mister Cave was a
mere blurred nebulosity to mister Waste. The view, as mister
Cave described it, was invariably of an extensive plane, and
he seemed always to be looking at it from a
considerable height, as if from a tower or a mast.

(19:32):
To the east and to the west, the plane was
bounded at a remote distance by vast, reddish cliffs, which
reminded him of those he had seen in some picture.
But what the picture was, mister Waste was unable to ascertain.
These cliffs passed north and south. He could tell the
points of the compass by the stars that were visible
of a night, receding in an almost illimitable perspective and

(19:55):
fading into the mists of the distance. Before they met.
He was nearer the the eastern set of cliffs on
the occasion of his first vision, the sun was rising
over them, and black against the sunlight and pale against
their shadow, appeared a multitude of soaring forms that mister
Cave regarded as birds. A vast range of buildings spread
below him. He seemed to be looking down upon them,

(20:18):
and as they approached the blurred and refracted edge of
the picture, they became indistinct. There were also trees curious
in shape and in coloring, a deep mossy green and
an exquisite gray beside a wide and shining canal, and
something great and brilliantly colored flew across the picture. But
the first time mister Cave saw these pictures he saw

(20:38):
only in flashes. His hands shook, his head, moved. The
vision came and went, and grew foggy and indistinct, and
at first he had the greatest difficulty in finding the
picture again, once the direction of it was lost. His
next clear vision, which came about a week after the first,
the interval, having yielded nothing but tantalizing glimpses in some
useful experience, showed him the view down the length of

(21:01):
the valley. The view was different, but he had a
curious persuasion, which his subsequent observations abundantly confirmed that he
was regarding this strange world from exactly the same spot,
although he was looking in a different direction. The long
facade of the great building, whose roof he had looked
down upon before, was now receding in perspective. He recognized

(21:22):
the roof in the front of the facade was a
terrace of massive proportions in extraordinary length, and down the
middle of the terrace at certain intervals stood huge but
very graceful masts bearing small shiny objects which reflected in
the setting sun. The import of these small objects did
not occur to mister Cave until some time after, as

(21:43):
he was describing the scene to mister Waste. The terrace
overhung a thicket of the most luxuriant and graceful vegetation,
and beyond this was a wide grassy lawn on which
certain broad creatures in form like beetles, but enormously larger reposed.
Beyond this again was a richly decorated causeway of pinkish stone,

(22:04):
and beyond that, and lined with dense red weeds, And
passing up the valley, exactly parallel with the distant cliffs,
was a broad and mirror like expanse of water. The
air seemed full of squadrons of great birds maneuvering in
stately curves, and across the river was a multitude of
splendid buildings, richly colored and glittering with metallic tracery and facets,

(22:28):
among a forest of mosslike and likeness trees. And suddenly,
something flapped repeatedly across the vision like the fluttering of
a jeweled fan, or the beating of a wing, and
a face, or rather the upper part of a face
with very large eyes, came as it were, close to
his own, as if on the other side of the crystal.
Mister Cave was so startled and so impressed by the

(22:51):
absolute reality of these eyes, that he drew his head
back from the crystal to look behind it. He had
become so absorbed in watching that he was quite supper
to find himself in the cool darkness of his little shop,
with its familiar odor of methyl mustiness and decay. And
as he blinked about him, the glowing crystal faded and
went out. Such were the first general impressions of mister Cave.

(23:15):
The story is curiously direct and circumstantial from the outset.
When the valley first flashed momentarily on his senses, his
imagination was strangely affected, and as he began to appreciate
the details of the scene he saw, his wonder rose
to the point of passion. He went about his business
listless and distraught, thinking only of the time when he

(23:36):
should be able to return to his watching. And then
a few weeks after his first sight of the valley
came the two customers, the stress and excitement of their offer,
and the narrow escape of the crystal from sale. As
I have already told now, while the thing was mister
Cave's secret, it remained a mere wonder, a thing to
creep to covertly and peep at, as a child might

(23:58):
peep upon a forbidden garden. But mister Waste has for
a young scientific investigator a particularly lucid and consecutive habit
of mind. Directly, the crystal and its story came to him,
and he had satisfied himself by seeing the phosphorescence with
his own eyes, that there really was a certain evidence
for mister Cave's statements. He proceeded to develop the matter systematically.

(24:21):
Mister Cave was only too eager to come and feast
his eyes on this wonderland he saw, and he came
every night from half past eight until half past ten,
and sometimes in mister Waste's absence during the day. On
Sunday afternoons also he came from the outset. Mister Waste
made copious notes, and it was due to his scientific
method that the relation between the direction from which the

(24:44):
initiating ray entered the crystal and the orientation of the
picture were proved. And by covering the crystal in a
box perforated only with a small aperture to admit the
exciting ray, and by substituting black Holland for his buff blinds,
he greatly prove the conditions of the observations, so that
in a little while they were able to survey the

(25:05):
valley in any direction they desired. So, having cleared the way,
we may give a brief account of this visionary world
within the crystal. The things were in all cases seen
by mister Cave, and the method of working was invariably
for him to watch the crystal and report what he saw.
While mister Wasce, who as a science student had learnt
the trick of writing in the dark, wrote a brief

(25:27):
note of his report. When the crystal faded, it was
put into its box in the proper position, and the
electric light turned on. Mister Wase asked questions and suggested
observations to clear up difficult points. Nothing, indeed could have
been less visionary and more matter of fact. The attention
of mister Cave had been speedily directed to the birdlike

(25:48):
creatures he had seen, so abundantly present in each of
his earlier visions. His first impression was soon corrected, and
he considered for a time that they might represent a
diurnal species of bat. Then he thought, grotesquely enough, that
they might be cherubs. Their heads were round and curiously human,
and it was the eyes of one of them that
had so startled him on his second observation. They had broad,

(26:13):
silvery wings, not feathered, but glistening almost as brilliantly as
new killed fish, and with the same subtle play of color.
And these wings were not built on the plan of
bird wing or bat, mister Waste learned, but supported by
curved ribs radiating from the body. A sort of butterfly
wing with curved ribs seemed best to express their appearance.

(26:35):
The body was small, but fitted with two bunches of
prehensile organs, like long tentacles immediately under the mouth. Incredible
as it appeared to mister Waste, the persuasion at last
became irresistible that it was these creatures which owned the
great quasi human buildings and the magnificent garden that made
the broad valley so splendid. And mister Cave perceived that

(26:57):
the buildings with other peculiarities had no doors, but that
the great circular windows, which opened freely, gave the creatures
egress and entrance. They would alight upon their tentacles, fold
their wings to a smallness, almost rod like, and hop
into the interior. But among them was a multitude of
smaller winged creatures, like great dragonflies and moths, and flying beetles.

(27:19):
And across the green sward, brilliantly colored gigantic ground beetles
crawled lazily to and fro. Moreover, on the causeways and terraces,
large headed creatures, similar to the greater winged flies, but wingless,
were visible, hopping busily upon their handlike tangle of tentacles.
Illusion has already been made to the glittering objects upon

(27:41):
masts that stood upon the terrace of the nearer building.
It dawned upon mister Cave after regarding one of these
masts very fixedly on one particularly vivid day, that the
glittering object there was a crystal exactly like that into
which he peered, And a still more careful scrutiny convinced
him that each one in a vista of nearly twenty

(28:01):
carried a similar object. Occasionally, one of the large flying
creatures would flutter up to one, and, folding its wings
and coiling a number of its tentacles about the mast,
would regard the crystal fixedly for a space, sometimes for
as long as fifteen minutes. And a series of observations
made at the suggestion of mister Waste convinced both watchers that,

(28:22):
so far as this visionary world was concerned, the crystal
into which they peered actually stood at the summit of
the endmost mast on the terrace, and that on one
occasion at least one of these inhabitants of this other
world had looked into mister Cave's face while he was
making these observations. So much for the essential facts of
this very singular story, unless we dismiss it all as

(28:46):
the ingenious fabrication of mister Waste, we have to believe
one of two things. Either that mister Cave's crystal was
in two worlds at once, and that while it was
carried about in one, it remained stationary in the other,
which seems altogether absurd, or else that it had some
peculiar relation of sympathy with another and exactly similar crystal

(29:06):
in this other world, so that what was seen in
the interior of the one in this world was under
suitable conditions visible to an observer in the corresponding crystal
in the other world, and vice versa. At present, indeed,
we do not know of any way in which two
crystals could so come and rap poor. But nowadays we
know enough to understand that the thing is not altogether impossible.

(29:29):
This view of the crystals as en rapp poor was
the supposition that occurred to mister Waste, and to me
at least, it seems extremely plausible. And where was this
other world? On? This also the alert intelligence of mister
Waste speedily through light. After sunset, the sky darkened rapidly.
There was a very brief twilight interval, indeed, and the

(29:51):
stars shone out. They were recognizably the same as those
we see arranged in the same constellations. Mister Cave recognized
the bear the ces Aldebaron, and serious, so that the
other world must be somewhere in the Solar system, and
at the utmost only a few hundred millions of miles
from our own. Following up this clue, mister Waste learned

(30:12):
that the midnight sky was a darker blue even than
our midwinter sky, and that the sun seemed a little smaller.
And there were two small moons like our moon, but
smaller and quite differently marked, one of which moved so
rapidly that its motion was clearly visible as one regarded it.
These moons were never high in the sky, but vanished

(30:33):
as they rose, that is, every time they revolved, they
were eclipsed because they were so near their primary planet.
And all this answers quite completely, although mister Cave did
not know it, to what must be the conditions of
things on Mars. Indeed, it seems an exceedingly plausible conclusion
that peering into this crystal, mister Cave did actually see

(30:55):
the planet Mars and its inhabitants. And if that be
the case, then the evening star that shone so brilliantly
in the sky of that distant vision was neither more
nor less than our own familiar Earth. For a time,
the Martians, if they were Martians, do not seem to
have known of mister Cave's inspection. Once or twice one
would come to peer and go away very shortly to

(31:17):
some other mast, as though the vision was unsatisfactory. During
this time, mister Cave was able to watch the proceedings
of these winged people without being disturbed by their attentions.
And although his report is necessarily vague and fragmentary, it
is nevertheless very suggestive. Imagine the impression of humanity a
Martian observer would get, who, after a difficult process of preparation,

(31:39):
and with considerable fatigue to the eyes, was able to
appear at London from the steeple of Saint Martin's Church
for stretches at longest of four minutes at a time.
Mister Cave was unable to ascertain if the winged Martians
were the same as the Martians who hopped about the
causeways and terraces, and if the latter could put on
wings at will. Time saw certain clumsy bipeds, dimly suggestive

(32:03):
of apes, white and partially translucent, feeding among certain of
the likeness trees, and once some of these fled before
one of the hopping round headed Martians, the latter caught
one in its tentacles, and then the picture faded suddenly
and left mister Cave most tantalizingly in the dark. On
another occasion, a vast thing that mister Cave thought at

(32:25):
first was some gigantic insect appeared advancing along the causeway
beside the canal with extraordinary rapidity. As this drew nearer,
mister Cave perceived that it was a mechanism of shining
metals and of extraordinary complexity. And then when he looked again,
it had passed out of sight. After a time, mister
Wace aspired to attract the attention of the Martians, and

(32:47):
the next time that the strange eyes of one of
them appeared close to the crystal, mister Cave cried out
and sprang away, and they immediately turned on the light
and began to gesticulate in a manner suggestive of signaling.
But when at last mister Cave examined the crystal again,
the martian had departed. Thus far, these observations had progressed
in early November, and then mister Cave, feeling that the

(33:10):
suspicions of his family about the crystal were allayed, began
to take it to and fro with him, in order
that as occasion arose in the daytime or night, he
might comfort himself with what was fast becoming the most
real thing in his existence. In December, mister Wace's work,
in conjunction with the forthcoming examination, became heavy. The sittings

(33:30):
were reluctantly suspended for a week and for ten or
eleven days, He's not quite sure which. He saw nothing
of Cave. He then grew anxious to resume these investigations
and the stress of his seasonal labors being abated. He
went down to seven dials. At the corner he noticed
a shutter before a bird fancier's window, and then another
at the cobbler's. Mister Cave's shop was closed. He rapped,

(33:53):
and the door was opened by the step son in black.
He at once called missus Cave, who was mister Wade
could not but observe in cheap but ample widow's weeds
of the most imposing pattern. Without any very great surprise,
mister Waste learnt that Cave was dead and already buried.
She was in tears and her voice was a little thick.

(34:14):
She had just returned from Highgate. Her mind seemed occupied
with her own prospects and the honorable details of the obsequies.
But mister Waste was at last able to learn the
particulars of Cave's death. He had been found dead in
his shop in the early morning the day after his
last visit to mister Waste, and the crystal had been
clasped in his stone cold hands. His face was smiling,

(34:37):
said Missus Cave, and the velvet cloth from the minerals
lay on the floor at his feet. He must have
been dead five or six hours when he was found.
This came as a great shock to Waste, and he
began to reproach himself bitterly for having neglected the plain
symptoms of the old man's ill health. But his chief
thought was of the crystal. He approached that topic in
a gingerly manner because he knew Missus Cave's pecul He

(35:01):
was dumbfounded to learn that it was sold. Missus Cave's
first impulse directly after Cave's body had been taken upstairs,
had been to write to the mad clergyman, who had
offered five pounds for the crystal, informing him of its recovery.
But after a violent hunt in which her daughter joined her,
they were convinced of the loss of his address, as
they were without the means required to mourn and bury

(35:23):
Cave in the elaborate style. The dignity of an old
seven dials inhabitant demands. They had appealed to a friendly
fellow tradesman in Great Portland Street. He had very kindly
taken over a portion of the stock at a valuation.
The valuation was his own, and the crystal egg was
included in one of the lots. Mister Waste, after a

(35:44):
few suitable consolatory observations a little off handedly proffered perhaps
hurried at once to Great Portland Street. But there he
learned that the crystal egg had already been sold to
a tall dark man in gray, And there the material
facts of this curious and to me the at least
very suggestive story come abruptly to an end. The Great

(36:04):
Portland Street dealer did not know who the tall dark
man in gray was, nor had he observed him with
sufficient attention to describe him. Minutely. He did not even
know which way this person had gone. After leaving the
shop for a time, mister Waste remained in the shop,
trying the dealer's patience with hopeless questions, venting his own exasperation,

(36:25):
and at last realizing abruptly that the whole thing had
passed out of his hands, had vanished like a vision
of the night. He returned to his own rooms, a
little astonished to find the notes he had made still
tangible and visible upon his untidy table. His annoyance and
disappointment were naturally very great. He made a second call,
equally ineffectual, upon the Great Portland Street Dealer, and he

(36:48):
resorted to advertisements in such periodicals as were likely to
come into the hands of a bric a brac collector.
He also wrote letters to the Daily Chronicle and Nature,
but both those periodicals, suspecting a hoax, asked him to
reconsider his action before they printed, and he was advised
that such a strange story, unfortunately so bare of supporting evidence,

(37:09):
might imperil his reputation as an investigator. Moreover, the calls
of his proper work were urgent, so that after a
month or so, save for an occasional reminder to certain dealers,
he had reluctantly to abandon the quest for the crystal egg,
and from that day to this it remains undiscovered. Occasionally, however,
he tells me, and I can quite believe him, he

(37:31):
has bursts of zeal in which he abandons his more
urgent occupation and resumes the search, whether or not it
will remain lost forever. With the material and origin of
it are things equally speculative at the present time. If
the present purchaser is a collector, one would have expected
the inquiries of mister Waste to have reached him. Through
the dealers. He has been able to discover mister Cave's

(37:54):
clergyman and oriental no other than the Reverend James Parker
and the young Prince of Bossokooney in Java. I am
obliged to them for certain particulars. The object of the
Prince was simple curiosity and extravagance. He was so eager
to buy because Cave was so oddly reluctant to sell.
It is just as possible that the buyer in the

(38:15):
second instance was simply a casual purchaser and not a
collector at all. And the crystal egg, for all I know,
may be at the present moment, within a mile of me,
decorating a drawing room or serving as a paperweight, its
remarkable functions all unknown. Indeed, it is partly with the
idea of such a possibility that I have thrown this
narrative into a form that will give it a chance

(38:37):
of being read by the ordinary consumer of fiction. My
own ideas in the matter are practically identical with those
of mister Waste. I believe the crystal on the mast
in Mars and the crystal egg of mister Cave's to
be in some physical but at present quite inexplicable way
and rapport, and we both believe further that the terrestrial
crystal must have been, possibly at some remote date, sent

(39:01):
hither from that planet, in order to give the Martians
a near view of our affairs. Possibly the fellows to
the crystals in the other masts are also on our globe.
No theory of hallucination suffices for the facts and of
the crystal egg. By H. G. Wells