The Time Machine - Chapter 6

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Episode Transcript

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Chapter six of The Time Machine byH. G. Wells. It may
seem odd to you, but itwas two days before I could follow up
the new found clue in what wasmanifestly the proper way. I felt a
peculiar shrinking from those pallid bodies.They were just the half bleached color of

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the worms and things one sees preservedin spirit in a zoological museum, and
they were filthily cold to the touch. Probably my shrinking was largely due to
the sympathetic influence of the eloy,whose disgust of the Morlocks I now began
to appreciate. The next night,I did not sleep well. Probably my

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health was a little disordered. Iwas oppressed with perplexity and doubt. Once
or twice I had a feeling ofintense fear for which I could perceive no
definite reason. I remember creeping noiselesslyinto the Great Hall, where the little
people were sleeping in the moonlight thatnight. Weena was among them, and

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feeling reassured by their presence. Itoccurred to me even then that in the
course of a few days, themoon must pass through its last quarter,
and the nights grow dark. Whenthe appearances of these unpleasant creatures from below,
these whitened lemurs. This new verminthat had replaced the old, might

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be more abundant. And on boththese days I had the restless feeling of
one who shirks and inevitable duty.I felt assured that the time machine was
only to be recovered by boldly penetratingthese underground mysteries. Yet I could not
face the mystery. If only Ihad had a companion, it would have

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been different. But I was sohorribly alone, and even to clamber down
into the darkness of the well appalledme. I don't know if you will
understand my feeling, but I neverfelt quite safe at my back. It
was this restlessness, this insecurity,perhaps that drove me further and further afield

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in my exploring expeditions. Going tothe southwestward towards the rising country that is
now called combe Wood, I observed, far off in the direction of nineteenth
century Banstead, a vast green structure, different in character from any I had
hitherto seen. It was larger thanthe largest of the palaces or ruins I

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knew, and the facade had anoriental look, the face of it having
the luster as well as the palegreen tint, a kind of bluish green
of a certain type of Chinese porcelain. This difference in aspect suggested a difference
in use, and I was mindedto push on and explore. But the

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day was growing late, and Ihad come upon the sight of the place
after a long and tiring circuit.So I resolved to hold over the adventure
for the following day, and Ireturned to the welcome and the caresses of
Little Weena. But next morning Iperceived clearly enough that my curiosity regarding the
palace of green porcelain was a pieceof self deception to enable me to shirk

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by another day and experience I dreaded. I resolved I would make the descent
without further waste of time, andstarted out in the early morning towards a
well near the ruins of granite andaluminium. Little Weena ran with me.
She danced beside me to the well, but when she saw me lean over

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the mouth and look downward, sheseemed strangely disconcerted. Goodbye, Little Weena,
I said, kissing her and thenputting her down. I began to
feel over the parapet for the climbinghooks rather hastily, I may as well
confess, for I feared my couragemight leak away. At first she watched

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me in amazement. Then she gavea most pity cry, and running to
me, she began to pull atme with her little hands. I think
her opposition nerved me rather to proceed. I shook her off, perhaps a
little roughly, and in another momentI was in the throat of the well.
I saw her agonized face over theparapet, and smiled to reassure her.

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Then I clung to look down atthe unstable hooks to which I clung.
I had to clamber down a shaftof perhaps two hundred yards. The
descent was effected by means of metallicbars projecting from the sides of the well,
and these being adapted to the needsof a creature much smaller and lighter

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than myself. I was speedily crampedand fatigued by the descent, and not
simply fatigued. One of the barsbent suddenly under my weight and almost swung
me off into the blackness beneath.For a moment I hung by one hand,
and after that experience I did notdare to rest again, though my

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arms and back were presently acutely painful. I went on clambering down the sheer
descent with as quick emotion as possible. Glancing upward, I saw the aperture
a small blue disk in which astar was visible, while little Weena's head
showed as a round black projection.The thudding sound of a machine below grew

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louder and more oppressive. Everything savethat little disc above, was profoundly dark,
and when I looked up again,Weena had disappeared. I was in
an agony of discomfort. I hadsome thought of trying to go up the
shaft again and leave the underworld alone, But even while I turned this over

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in my mind, I continued todescend. At last, with intense relief,
I saw dimly coming up a footto the right of me, a
slender loophole in the wall. Swingingmyself in, I found it was the
aperture of a narrow, horizontal tunnelin which I could lie down and rest.
It was not too soon. Myarms ached, my back was cramped,

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and I was trembling with the prolongedterror of a fall. Besides this,
the unbroken darkness had had a distressingeffect upon my eyes. The air
was full of the throb and humof machinery pumping air down the shaft.
I do not know how long Ilay. I was roused by a soft

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hand touching my face. Starting upin the darkness, I snatched at my
matches and hastily striking one, Isaw three stooping white creatures similar to the
one I had seen above ground inthe ruin, hastily retreating before the light,
living as they did in what appearedto me impenetrable darkness. Their eyes

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were abnormally large and sensitive, justas are the pupils of the abysmal fishes,
and they reflected the light in thesame way. I have no doubt
they could see me in that raylessobscurity, and they did not seem to
have any fear of me apart fromthe light. But so soon as I
struck a match in order to seethem, they fled incontinently, vanishing into

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dark gutters and tunnels, from whichtheir eyes glared at me in the strangest
fashion. I tried to call tothem, but the language they had was
apparently different from that of the overworldpeople, so that I was needs left
to my own unaided efforts. Andthe thought of flight before exploration was even
then in my mind. But Isaid to myself, you are in for

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it now, And feeling my wayalong the tunnel, I found the noise
of machinery grow louder. Presently thewalls fell away from me, and I
came into a large open space,and, striking another match, saw that
I had entered a vast, archedcavern which stretched into utter darkness beyond the
range of light. The view Ihad of it was as much as one

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could see in the burning of amatch. Necessarily, my memory is vague.
Great shapes like big machines rose outof the dimness and cast grotesque black
shadows in which dim spectral morlocks shelteredfrom the glare. The place by the
bye was very stuffy and oppressive,and a faint halitus of freshly shed blood

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was in the air. Some Waydown the central vista was a little table
of white metal laid with what seemeda meal. The morlocks, at any
rate, were carnivorous. Even atthe time, I remember wondering what large
animal could have survived to furnish thered joint I saw. It was all
very indistinct. The heavy smell thebig unmeaning shapes, the obscene figures lurking

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in the shadows, and only waitingfor the darkness to come at me again.
Then the match burned down and stungmy fingers, and fell a wriggling
red spot in the blackness. Ihave thought since how particularly ill equipped I
was for such an experience. WhenI had started with the time machine,

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I had started with the absurd assumptionthat the men of the future would certainly
be infinitely ahead of ourselves in alltheir 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 Kodak,

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I could have flashed that glimpse ofthe underworld in a second and examined
it at leisure. But as itwas, I stood there with only the
weapons and the powers that nature hadendowed me with hands, feet, and
teeth, these and four safety matchesthat still remained to me. I was

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afraid to push my way among allthis machinery in the dark. And it
was only with my last glimpse oflight I discovered that my store of matches
had run low. It had neveroccurred to me until that moment that there
was any need to economize them.And I had wasted almost half the box
in astonishing the upper worlders, towhom fire was a novelty. Now,

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as I say, I had fourleft, 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 the breathing of a crowd ofthese dreadful little beings about me. I
felt the box of matches in myhand being gently disengaged, and other hands

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behind me plucking at my clothing.The sense of these unseen creatures examining me
was indescribably unpleasant. The sudden realizationof my ignorance of their ways of aching
and doing came home to me veryvividly. In the darkness. I shouted
at them as loudly as I could. They started away, and then I

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could feel them approaching me again.They clutched at me more boldly, whispering
odd sounds to each other. Ishivered violently and shouted again, rather discordantly.
This time they were not so seriouslyalarmed, and they made a queer
laughing noise as they came back atme. I will confess I was horribly

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frightened. I determined to strike anothermatch and escape under the protection of its
glare. I did so, andeking out the flicker with a scrap of
paper from my pocket, I madegood my retreat to the narrow tunnel.
But I had scarce entered this whenmy light was blown out, and in
the darkness I could hear the morlocksrustling like wind among leaves and pattering like

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the rain as they hurried after me. In a moment, I was clutched
by several hands, and there wasno mistaking that they were trying to haul
me back. I struck another lightand waved it in their dazzled faces.
You can scarce imagine how nauseatingly inhumanthey looked, those pale, chinless faces

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and great, lidless, pinkish grayeyes as they stared in their blindness and
bewilderment. But I did not stayto look, I promise you. I
retreated again, and when my secondmatch had ended, I struck my third.
It had almost burned through. WhenI reached the opening into the shaft,

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I lay down on the edge,for the throb of the great pump
below made me giddy. Then Ifelt sideways for the projecting hooks, and
as I did so, my feetwere grass from behind, and I was
violently tugged backward. I lit mylast match, and it incontinently went out,
But I had my hand on theclimbing bars now, and kicking violently.

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I disengaged myself from the clutches ofthe morlocks and was speedily clambering up
the shaft, while they stayed peeringand blinking up at me. All but
one little wretch, who followed mefor some way and well nigh secured my
boot as a trophy. That climbseemed interminable to me. With the last

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twenty or thirty feet of it,a deadly nausea came upon me. I
had the greatest difficulty in keeping myhold. The last few yards was a
frightful struggle against this faintness. Severaltimes my head swam, and I felt
all the sensations of falling. Atlast, however, I got over the
well mouth somehow and staggered out ofthe ruin into the blinding sunlight. I

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fell upon my face. Even thesoil smelt sweet and clean. Then I
remember Weena kissing my hands and ears, and the voices of others among the
eloy Then, for a time Iwas insensible. End of chapter six