December 30, 2025 • 8 mins
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Twenty two, the man alone in the evening, I started
and drove out to the sea before a gentle wind
from the southeast, slowly, steadily, and the island grew smaller
and smaller, and the lank spire of smoke dwindled to
a finer and finer line Against the hot sunset. The
(00:22):
ocean rose up around me, hiding that low dark patch
from my eyes. The daylight, the trailing glory of the
sun went streaming out of the sky, was drawn aside
like some luminous curtain. And at last I looked into
the blue gulf of immensity which the sunshine hides, and
saw the floating hosts of the stars. The sea was silent,
(00:46):
the sky was silent. I was alone with the night
and silence. So I drifted for three days, eating and
drinking sparingly, and meditating upon all that had happened to me, me
not desiring very greatly then to see men again. One
unclean rag was about me, my hair a black tangle.
(01:09):
No doubt, my discoverers thought me a madman. It is strange,
but I felt no desire to return to mankind. I
was only glad to be quit of the foulness of
the beast people, and on the third day I was
picked up by a brig from Apia to San Francisco.
Neither the captain nor the mate would believe my story.
(01:33):
Judging that solitude and danger had made me mad, and
fearing their opinion might be that of others, I refrained
from telling my adventure further, and professed to recall nothing
that had happened to me between the loss of the
Lady Vain and the time when I was picked up again,
the space of a year. I had to act with
(01:53):
the utmost circumspection to save myself from the suspicion of insanity.
My memory of the law of the two dead sailors,
of the amuse cards, of the darkness of the body
in the canebrake haunted me, and unnatural, as it seems,
with my return to mankind came instead of that confidence
and sympathy I had expected, a strange enhancement of the
(02:18):
uncertainty and dread I had experienced during my stay upon
the island. No one would believe me I was almost
as queer to men as I had been to the
beast people. I may have caught something of the natural
wildness of my companions they say that terror is a disease,
(02:38):
And anyhow I can witness that for several years now
a restless fear has dwelt in my mind, such a
restless fear as a half tamed lion cub may feel.
My trouble took the strangest form. I could not persuade
myself that the men and women I met were not
also another beast, people, animals half wrought into the outward
(03:00):
image of human souls, and that they would presently begin
to revert, to show first this best you'll mark, and
then that. But I have confided my case to a
strangely able man, a man who had known Moreau and
had seemed half to credit my story, a mental specialist,
and he has helped me mightily. Though I do not
(03:22):
expect that the terror of that island will ever altogether
leave me. At most times it lies far in the
back of my mind, a mere distant cloud, a memory
and a faint distrust. But there are times when the
little cloud spreads until it obscures the whole sky. Then
(03:42):
I look about me, at my fellow men, and I
go and fear. I see faces keen and bright, others
dull or dangerous, others, unsteady, insincere, none that have the
calm authority of a reasonable soul. I feel as though
the animal were surging up through them, that presently the
(04:03):
degradation of the islanders will be played over again on
a larger scale. I know this is an illusion, that
these seeming men and women about me are indeed men
and women, men and women forever perfectly reasonable creatures, full
of human desires and tender solicitude, emancipated from instinct, and
(04:24):
the slaves of no fantastic law. Being altogether different from
the beast folk. Yet I shrink from them, from their
curious glances, their inquiries and assistants, and long to be
away from them and alone. For that reason, I live
(04:44):
near the broad, free Downland, and can escape thither when
this shadow is over my soul. And very sweet is
the empty Downland, then under the windswept sky. When I
lived in London, the horror was well nigh in suppor portable.
I could not get away from men. Their voices came
through windows, locked doors were flimsy safeguards. I would go
(05:08):
out into the streets to fight with my delusion, and
prowling women would mew after me. Furtive, craving men glanced
jealously at me. Weary pale workers go coughing by me
with tired eyes and eager paces like wounded deer dripping blood.
Old people bent and dull past murmuring to themselves, and
(05:32):
all unheeding a ragged tale of gibing children. Then I
would turn aside into some chapel, and even there, such
was my disturbance. It seemed that the preacher gibbered big
thinks even as the ape man had done. Or into
some library, and there the intint faces over the books
seemed but patient creatures waiting for prey. Particularly nauseous were
(05:57):
the blank, expressionless faces of people in trains and omnibuses.
They seem no more my fellow creatures than dead bodies
would be. So that I did not dare to travel
unless I was assured of being alone and deeming. It
seemed that I too was not a reasonable creature, but
only an animal tormented with some strange disorder in its brain,
(06:20):
which sent it to wander alone, like a sheep stricken
with gid. This is a mood, however, that comes to
me now, I thank God more rarely I have withdrawn
myself from the confusion of cities and multitudes, and spent
my days surrounded by wise books, bright windows. In this
(06:40):
life of ours, lit by the shining souls of men,
I see few strangers, and have but a small household.
My days I devote to reading and to experiments in chemistry,
and I spend many of the clear nights in the
study of astronomy. There is, though I do not know
(07:01):
how there is or why, there is a sense of
peace and protection in the glittering hosts of heaven. There
it must be, I think, in the vast and eternal
laws of matter, and not in the daily cares and
sins and troubles of men, that whatever is more than
animal within us must find its solace and its hope.
(07:22):
I hope, or I could not live, And so in
hope in solitude my story ends. Edward Prindick. Note The
substance of the chapter entitled Doctor Moreau Explains, which contains
the essential idea of the story, appeared as a middle
(07:44):
article in the Saturday Review in January eighteen ninety five.
This is the only portion of this story that has
been previously published, and it has been entirely recast to
adapt it to the narrative form. End of the Island
of Doctor Moreau by H. G. Wells
Twenty two, the man alone in the evening, I started
and drove out to the sea before a gentle wind
from the southeast, slowly, steadily, and the island grew smaller
and smaller, and the lank spire of smoke dwindled to
a finer and finer line Against the hot sunset. The
(00:22):
ocean rose up around me, hiding that low dark patch
from my eyes. The daylight, the trailing glory of the
sun went streaming out of the sky, was drawn aside
like some luminous curtain. And at last I looked into
the blue gulf of immensity which the sunshine hides, and
saw the floating hosts of the stars. The sea was silent,
(00:46):
the sky was silent. I was alone with the night
and silence. So I drifted for three days, eating and
drinking sparingly, and meditating upon all that had happened to me, me
not desiring very greatly then to see men again. One
unclean rag was about me, my hair a black tangle.
(01:09):
No doubt, my discoverers thought me a madman. It is strange,
but I felt no desire to return to mankind. I
was only glad to be quit of the foulness of
the beast people, and on the third day I was
picked up by a brig from Apia to San Francisco.
Neither the captain nor the mate would believe my story.
(01:33):
Judging that solitude and danger had made me mad, and
fearing their opinion might be that of others, I refrained
from telling my adventure further, and professed to recall nothing
that had happened to me between the loss of the
Lady Vain and the time when I was picked up again,
the space of a year. I had to act with
(01:53):
the utmost circumspection to save myself from the suspicion of insanity.
My memory of the law of the two dead sailors,
of the amuse cards, of the darkness of the body
in the canebrake haunted me, and unnatural, as it seems,
with my return to mankind came instead of that confidence
and sympathy I had expected, a strange enhancement of the
(02:18):
uncertainty and dread I had experienced during my stay upon
the island. No one would believe me I was almost
as queer to men as I had been to the
beast people. I may have caught something of the natural
wildness of my companions they say that terror is a disease,
(02:38):
And anyhow I can witness that for several years now
a restless fear has dwelt in my mind, such a
restless fear as a half tamed lion cub may feel.
My trouble took the strangest form. I could not persuade
myself that the men and women I met were not
also another beast, people, animals half wrought into the outward
(03:00):
image of human souls, and that they would presently begin
to revert, to show first this best you'll mark, and
then that. But I have confided my case to a
strangely able man, a man who had known Moreau and
had seemed half to credit my story, a mental specialist,
and he has helped me mightily. Though I do not
(03:22):
expect that the terror of that island will ever altogether
leave me. At most times it lies far in the
back of my mind, a mere distant cloud, a memory
and a faint distrust. But there are times when the
little cloud spreads until it obscures the whole sky. Then
(03:42):
I look about me, at my fellow men, and I
go and fear. I see faces keen and bright, others
dull or dangerous, others, unsteady, insincere, none that have the
calm authority of a reasonable soul. I feel as though
the animal were surging up through them, that presently the
(04:03):
degradation of the islanders will be played over again on
a larger scale. I know this is an illusion, that
these seeming men and women about me are indeed men
and women, men and women forever perfectly reasonable creatures, full
of human desires and tender solicitude, emancipated from instinct, and
(04:24):
the slaves of no fantastic law. Being altogether different from
the beast folk. Yet I shrink from them, from their
curious glances, their inquiries and assistants, and long to be
away from them and alone. For that reason, I live
(04:44):
near the broad, free Downland, and can escape thither when
this shadow is over my soul. And very sweet is
the empty Downland, then under the windswept sky. When I
lived in London, the horror was well nigh in suppor portable.
I could not get away from men. Their voices came
through windows, locked doors were flimsy safeguards. I would go
(05:08):
out into the streets to fight with my delusion, and
prowling women would mew after me. Furtive, craving men glanced
jealously at me. Weary pale workers go coughing by me
with tired eyes and eager paces like wounded deer dripping blood.
Old people bent and dull past murmuring to themselves, and
(05:32):
all unheeding a ragged tale of gibing children. Then I
would turn aside into some chapel, and even there, such
was my disturbance. It seemed that the preacher gibbered big
thinks even as the ape man had done. Or into
some library, and there the intint faces over the books
seemed but patient creatures waiting for prey. Particularly nauseous were
(05:57):
the blank, expressionless faces of people in trains and omnibuses.
They seem no more my fellow creatures than dead bodies
would be. So that I did not dare to travel
unless I was assured of being alone and deeming. It
seemed that I too was not a reasonable creature, but
only an animal tormented with some strange disorder in its brain,
(06:20):
which sent it to wander alone, like a sheep stricken
with gid. This is a mood, however, that comes to
me now, I thank God more rarely I have withdrawn
myself from the confusion of cities and multitudes, and spent
my days surrounded by wise books, bright windows. In this
(06:40):
life of ours, lit by the shining souls of men,
I see few strangers, and have but a small household.
My days I devote to reading and to experiments in chemistry,
and I spend many of the clear nights in the
study of astronomy. There is, though I do not know
(07:01):
how there is or why, there is a sense of
peace and protection in the glittering hosts of heaven. There
it must be, I think, in the vast and eternal
laws of matter, and not in the daily cares and
sins and troubles of men, that whatever is more than
animal within us must find its solace and its hope.
(07:22):
I hope, or I could not live, And so in
hope in solitude my story ends. Edward Prindick. Note The
substance of the chapter entitled Doctor Moreau Explains, which contains
the essential idea of the story, appeared as a middle
(07:44):
article in the Saturday Review in January eighteen ninety five.
This is the only portion of this story that has
been previously published, and it has been entirely recast to
adapt it to the narrative form. End of the Island
of Doctor Moreau by H. G. Wells
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