The hissing and crackling behind me, the explosive thud
as each fresh tree burst into flame, left little time for
reflection. My iron bar still gripped, I followed in the
Morlocks’ path. It was a close race. Once the flames crept
forward so swiftly on my right as I ran that I was
outflanked and had to strike off to the left. But at last I
emerged upon a small open space, and as I did so, a
Morlock came blundering towards me, and past me, and
went on straight into the fire!
‘And now I was to see the most weird and horrible
thing, I think, of all that I beheld in that future age. This
whole space was as bright as day with the reflection of the
fire. In the centre was a hillock or tumulus, surmounted
by a scorched hawthorn. Beyond this was another arm of
the burning forest, with yellow tongues already writhing
from it, completely encircling the space with a fence of The Time Machine
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fire. Upon the hill-side were some thirty or forty
Morlocks, dazzled by the light and heat, and blundering
hither and thither against each other in their
bewilderment. At first I did not realize their blindness, and
struck furiously at them with my bar, in a frenzy of fear, as
they approached me, killing one and crippling several
more. But when I had watched the gestures of one of
them groping under the hawthorn against the red sky, and
heard their moans, I was assured of their absolute
helplessness and misery in the glare, and I struck no more
of them.
‘Yet every now and then one would come straight
towards me, setting loose a quivering horror that made me
quick to elude him. At one time the flames died down
somewhat, and I feared the foul creatures would presently
be able to see me. I was thinking of beginning the fight by
killing some of them before this should happen; but the
fire burst out again brightly, and I stayed my hand. I
walked about the hill among them and avoided them,
looking for some trace of Weena. But Weena was gone.
‘At last I sat down on the summit of the hillock, and
watched this strange incredible company of blind things
groping to and fro, and making uncanny noises to each
other, as the glare of the fire beat on them. The coiling The Time Machine
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uprush of smoke streamed across the sky, and through the
rare tatters of that red canopy, remote as though they
belonged to another universe, shone the little stars. Two
or three Morlocks came blundering into me, and I drove
them off with blows of my fists, trembling as I did so.
‘For the most part of that night I was persuaded it was a
nightmare. I bit myself and screamed in a passionate desire
to awake. I beat the ground with my hands, and got up
and sat down again, and wandered here and there, and
again sat down. Then I would fall to rubbing my eyes and
calling upon God to let me awake. Thrice I saw Morlocks
put their heads down in a kind of agony and rush into the
flames. But, at last, above the subsiding red of the fire,
above the streaming masses of black smoke and the
whitening and blackening tree stumps, and the
diminishing numbers of these dim creatures, came the
white light of the day.
‘I searched again for traces of Weena, but there were
none. It was plain that they had left her poor little body in
the forest. I cannot describe how it relieved me to think
that it had escaped the awful fate to which it seemed
destined. As I thought of that, I was almost moved to
begin a massacre of the helpless abominations about me,
but I contained myself. The hillock, as I have said, was a The Time Machine
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kind of island in the forest. From its summit I could now
make out through a haze of smoke the Palace of Green
Porcelain, and from that I could get my bearings for the
White Sphinx. And so, leaving the remnant of these
damned souls still going hither and thither and moaning,
as the day grew clearer, I tied some grass about my feet
and limped on across smoking ashes and among black
stems, that still pulsated internally with fire, towards the
hiding-place of the Time Machine. I walked slowly, for I
was almost exhausted, as well as lame, and I felt the
intensest wretchedness for the horrible death of little
Weena. It seemed an overwhelming calamity. Now, in
this old familiar room, it is more like the sorrow of a
dream than an actual loss. But that morning it left me
absolutely lonely again—terribly alone. I began to think of
this house of mine, of this fireside, of some of you, and
with such thoughts came a longing that was pain.
‘But as I walked over the smoking ashes under the
bright morning sky, I made a discovery. In my trouser
pocket were still some loose matches. The box must have
leaked before it was lost. The Time Machine
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X
‘About eight or nine in the morning I came to the
same seat of yellow metal from which I had viewed the
world upon the evening of my arrival. I thought of my
hasty conclusions upon that evening and could not refrain
from laughing bitterly at my confidence. Here was the
same beautiful scene, the same abundant foliage, the same
splendid palaces and magnificent ruins, the same silver
river running between its fertile banks. The gay robes of
the beautiful people moved hither and thither among the
trees. Some were bathing in exactly the place where I had
saved Weena, and that suddenly gave me a keen stab of
pain. And like blots upon the landscape rose the cupolas
above the ways to the Under-world. I understood now
what all the beauty of the Over- world people covered.
Very pleasant was their day, as pleasant as the day of the
cattle in the field. Like the cattle, they knew of no
enemies and provided against no needs. And their end was
the same.
‘I grieved to think how brief the dream of the human
intellect had been. It had committed suicide. It had set
itself steadfastly towards comfort and ease, a balanced The Time Machine
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society with security and permanency as its watchword, it
had attained its hopes—to come to this at last. Once, life
and property must have reached almost absolute safety.
The rich had been assured of his wealth and comfort, the
toiler assured of his life and work. No doubt in that
perfect world there had been no unemployed problem, no
social question left unsolved. And a great quiet had
followed.
‘It is a law of nature we overlook, that intellectual
versatility is the compensation for change, danger, and
trouble. An animal perfectly in harmony with its
environment is a perfect mechanism. Nature never appeals
to intelligence until habit and instinct are useless. There is
no intelligence where there is no change and no need of
change. Only those animals partake of intelligence that
have to meet a huge variety of needs and dangers.
‘So, as I see it, the Upper-world man had drifted
towards his feeble prettiness, and the Under-world to
mere mechanical industry. But that perfect state had lacked
one thing even for mechanical perfection—absolute
permanency. Apparently as time went on, the feeding of
the Under-world, however it was effected, had become
disjointed. Mother Necessity, who had been staved off for
a few thousand years, came back again, and she began The Time Machine
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below. The Under-world being in contact with
machinery, which, however perfect, still needs some little
thought outside habit, had probably retained perforce
rather more initiative, if less of every other human
character, than the Upper. And when other meat failed
them, they turned to what old habit had hitherto
forbidden. So I say I saw it in my last view of the world of
Eight Hundred and Two Thousand Seven Hundred and
One. It may be as wrong an explanation as mortal wit
could invent. It is how the thing shaped itself to me, and
as that I give it to you.
‘After the fatigues, excitements, and terrors of the past
days, and in spite of my grief, this seat and the tranquil
view and the warm sunlight were very pleasant. I was very
tired and sleepy, and soon my theorizing passed into
dozing. Catching myself at that, I took my own hint, and
spreading myself out upon the turf I had a long and
refreshing sleep.
‘I awoke a little before sunsetting. I now felt safe
against being caught napping by the Morlocks, and,
stretching myself, I came on down the hill towards the
White Sphinx. I had my crowbar in one hand, and the
other hand played with the matches in my pocket. The Time Machine
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‘And now came a most unexpected thing. As I
approached the pedestal of the sphinx I found the bronze
valves were open. They had slid down into grooves.
‘At that I stopped short before them, hesitating to
enter.
‘Within was a small apartment, and on a raised place in
the corner of this was the Time Machine. I had the small
levers in my pocket. So here, after all my elaborate
preparations for the siege of the White Sphinx, was a
meek surrender. I threw my iron bar away, almost sorry
not to use it.
‘A sudden thought came into my head as I stooped
towards the portal. For once, at least, I grasped the mental
operations of the Morlocks. Suppressing a strong
inclination to laugh, I stepped through the bronze frame
and up to the Time Machine. I was surprised to find it had
been carefully oiled and cleaned. I have suspected since
that the Morlocks had even partially taken it to pieces
while trying in their dim way to grasp its purpose.
‘Now as I stood and examined it, finding a pleasure in
the mere touch of the contrivance, the thing I had
expected happened. The bronze panels suddenly slid up
and struck the frame with a clang. I was in the dark—The Time Machine
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trapped. So the Morlocks thought. At that I chuckled
gleefully.
‘I could already hear their murmuring laughter as they
came towards me. Very calmly I tried to strike the match.
I had only to fix on the levers and depart then like a ghost.
But I had overlooked one little thing. The matches were
of that abominable kind that light only on the box.
‘You may imagine how all my calm vanished. The little
brutes were close upon me. One touched me. I made a
sweeping blow in the dark at them with the levers, and
began to scramble into the saddle of the machine. Then
came one hand upon me and then another. Then I had
simply to fight against their persistent fingers for my levers,
and at the same time feel for the studs over which these
fitted. One, indeed, they almost got away from me. As it
slipped from my hand, I had to butt in the dark with my
head—I could hear the Morlock’s skull ring—to recover
it. It was a nearer thing than the fight in the forest, I think,
this last scramble.
‘But at last the lever was fitted and pulled over. The
clinging hands slipped from me. The darkness presently
fell from my eyes. I found myself in the same grey light
and tumult I have already described. The Time Machine
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XI
‘I have already told you of the sickness and confusion
that comes with time travelling. And this time I was not
seated properly in the saddle, but sideways and in an
unstable fashion. For an indefinite time I clung to the
machine as it swayed and vibrated, quite unheeding how I
went, and when I brought myself to look at the dials again
I was amazed to find where I had arrived. One dial records
days, and another thousands of days, another millions of
days, and another thousands of millions. Now, instead of
reversing the levers, I had pulled them over so as to go
forward with them, and when I came to look at these
indicators I found that the thousands hand was sweeping
round as fast as the seconds hand of a watch—into
futurity.
‘As I drove on, a peculiar change crept over the
appearance of things. The palpitating greyness grew
darker; then—though I was still travelling with prodigious
velocity—the blinking succession of day and night, which
was usually indicative of a slower pace, returned, and grew
more and more marked. This puzzled me very much at
first. The alternations of night and day grew slower and The Time Machine
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slower, and so did the passage of the sun across the sky,
until they seemed to stretch through centuries. At last a
steady twilight brooded over the earth, a twilight only
broken now and then when a comet glared across the
darkling sky. The band of light that had indicated the sun
had long since disappeared; for the sun had ceased to set—
it simply rose and fell in the west, and grew ever broader
and more red. All trace of the moon had vanished. The
circling of the stars, growing slower and slower, had given
place to creeping points of light. At last, some time before
I stopped, the sun, red and very large, halted motionless
upon the horizon, a vast dome glowing with a dull heat,
and now and then suffering a momentary extinction. At
one time it had for a little while glowed more brilliantly
again, but it speedily reverted to its sullen red heat. I
perceived by this slowing down of its rising and setting
that the work of the tidal drag was done. The earth had
come to rest with one face to the sun, even as in our own
time the moon faces the earth. Very cautiously, for I
remembered my former headlong fall, I began to reverse
my motion. Slower and slower went the circling hands
until the thousands one seemed motionless and the daily
one was no longer a mere mist upon its scale. Still slower,
until the dim outlines of a desolate beach grew visible. The Time Machine
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‘I stopped very gently and sat upon the Time Machine,
looking round. The sky was no longer blue. North-
eastward it was inky black, and out of the blackness shone
brightly and steadily the pale white stars. Overhead it was
