The Time Machine

By H.G. Wells

Modernized by The Book Renewal Project

I. Introduction

The Time Traveller (for it will be easier to speak of him this way) was explaining a highly specialized subject to us. His gray eyes shone and twinkled, and his usually pale face was flushed and lively. The fire burned brightly, and the soft glow from the incandescent lights in the silver lilies caught the bubbles that flashed and passed through our glasses. Our chairs, which he had patented, seemed to embrace and caress us rather than simply support us, and there was that luxurious post-dinner atmosphere when thoughts flow freely without being restricted by strict precision. And he presented it to us like this—pointing out various spots with a slender forefinger—as we sat, lazily admiring his deep commitment to this new paradox (or so we thought) and his boundless knowledge.

“You must follow me carefully. I will have to challenge one or two ideas that are almost universally accepted. Geometry, for instance; what they taught you at school is based on a misconception.”

“Isn’t that a very big thing to expect us to start with?” said Filby, who was argumentative and had red hair.

“I don't mean to ask you to accept anything without reasonable grounds for it. You will soon admit that I need as much from you as I do myself. You know, of course, that a mathematical line, a line with zero thickness, doesn't actually exist. They taught you that? Neither does a mathematical plane. These things are mere abstractions.”

“That’s alright,” said the Psychologist.

“Also, something like a cube cannot have real existence, even if it only has length, width, and depth.”

“There I disagree,” said Filby. “Of course a solid object can exist. All real things—”

“So most people think. But wait a moment. Can an instantaneous cube exist?”

“Don’t follow you,” said Filby.

“Can a cube that doesn't last at all truly exist?”

Filby became thoughtful. “Clearly,” the Time Traveller continued, “any real object must have extension in four directions: it must have Length, Breadth, Thickness, and—Duration. But because of a natural failing of our flesh, which I will explain to you shortly, we tend to ignore this fact. There are really four dimensions: three that we call the three planes of Space, and a fourth, Time. However, there's a tendency to draw an unreal distinction between those first three dimensions and the last one, simply because our consciousness moves intermittently in only one direction along it from the start to the end of our lives.”

“That,” said a very young man who was making jerky efforts to relight his cigar over the lamp, “that... is quite clear indeed.”

“Now, what's very remarkable is that this fact is so widely ignored,” continued the Time Traveller, with a slight lift in spirits. “This is truly what is meant by the Fourth Dimension, even though some people who talk about it don’t realize what they mean. It’s just another way of looking at Time. There's no difference between Time and any of the three dimensions of Space except that our consciousness travels along it. But some foolish people have misunderstood this idea. Have you all heard what they have to say about this Fourth Dimension?”

“I haven’t,” said the Provincial Mayor.

"It is simply the way things are. Space, as our mathematicians describe it, is said to possess three dimensions—what we might call Length, Breadth, and Depth—and is invariably defined by reference to three planes, each meeting at right angles to the others. However, some philosophers have questioned why exactly three dimensions: could there not be another direction perpendicular to these three? They have even attempted to construct a four-dimensional geometry. Professor Simon Newcomb explained this very concept to the New York Mathematical Society only about a month ago. You know how on a flat surface, which possesses merely two dimensions, we can represent a figure from a solid object in three dimensions, and similarly, they suggest that with models of three dimensions, one might represent a four-dimensional form—if only they could grasp its perspective. See?"

"I believe so," murmured the Provincial Mayor, his brow furrowed as he seemed to drift into deep contemplation, his lips moving as if reciting an arcane phrase. After a moment, with a sudden flicker of clarity, he spoke, "Yes, I think I see it now."

"Well, I must confess that I have been studying this geometry of Four Dimensions for some time. Some of my findings are rather peculiar. For instance, here is a portrait of the man at age eight, another at fifteen, one at seventeen, and yet another at twenty-three, and so on. These are all obviously cross-sections, to speak of it, three-dimensional depictions of his four-dimensional essence—which remains a single, unalterable entity."

“Scientific people,” continued the Time Traveller, after pausing for the audience to fully absorb that point, “know very well that Time is just a kind of Space. Here is a common scientific diagram—a weather record. This line I trace with my finger shows how the barometer moved. Yesterday it was so high, last night it dropped, then this morning it rose again, and so gently up to here. Surely mercury didn't trace this line in any of the dimensions of Space that we generally recognize? But certainly it traced such a line, and that line, therefore, we must conclude, ran along the Time-Dimension.”

“But,” said the Medical Man, staring intently at a piece of coal in the fire, “if Time is really just a fourth dimension of Space, why has it always been treated as something separate? And why can't we move through Time the way we move through the other dimensions of Space?”

The Time Traveller smiled. “Are you so certain that we can move freely in Space? We can go right and left, back and forth quite easily—and people have always done so. I grant we move freely in two dimensions. But what about up and down? Gravity limits us there.”

“Not exactly,” countered the Medical Man. “There are balloons.”

“But before balloons, apart from sudden jumping and dealing with surface unevenness, humanity had no freedom of vertical movement.”

“Still they could manage to move a little up and down,” said the Medical Man.

“It was much easier to go down than up though.”

“And you can’t move at all in Time; you can’t escape from the present moment.”

“My dear sir, you are mistaken on that point—indeed, you mistake the entire scope of reality. We are perpetually moving away from the present instant. Our consciousness, being immaterial and lacking physical dimensions, simply traverses the Time-Dimension at a constant rate, from infancy to final breath. It is akin to descending continuously, even if we began our journey fifty miles above the Earth’s surface.”

“But the true challenge,” interrupted the Psychologist, “is this: you can navigate every direction in Space, yet traversing Time eludes you.”

“That constitutes the core of my significant discovery. However, you are wrong to suggest that we cannot move through time. Consider, for instance, vividly recalling an event; when I do so, I am instantly transported back to the moment it occurred: I become momentarily detached from reality, just as you described. I leap back in thought. Admittedly, we have no mechanism to remain suspended for any duration—much like a wild animal cannot hover six feet above the ground. Yet, a civilized person fares better than such a brute; he can ascend against gravity in a balloon. Therefore, why should he not harbor the hope that, eventually, he might learn to halt or accelerate his drift along the Time-Dimension, or even turn back and travel in reverse?”

“Oh, this,” Filby began, “is all—”

“Why not?” countered the Time Traveller.

“It defies logic,” Filby stated.

“What logic?” inquired the Time Traveller.

“You might argue that black is white,” replied Filby, “but you will never persuade me.”

“Possibly not,” said the Time Traveller. “But now you are beginning to see the subject of my research into the geometry of Four Dimensions. A long time ago I had a vague idea of a machine—”

“To travel through Time!” exclaimed the Very Young Man.

“It will travel regardless of any direction in Space and Time, according to the driver’s choice.”

Filby chuckled contentedly.

“But I have experimental proof,” said the Time Traveller.

“It would be incredibly helpful for a historian,” the Psychologist suggested. “For example, one could go back and check the accepted account of the Battle of Hastings!”

“Don’t you think you’d draw attention?” said the Medical Man. “Our ancestors weren't very forgiving of anything out of place.”

“One could learn Greek right from Homer and Plato themselves,” thought the Very Young Man.

“In that case, they would definitely question you about everything. The German scholars have improved Greek so much.”

“Then there’s the future,” said the Very Young Man. “Just imagine! One could invest all their money, let it earn interest, and just zip ahead!”

“To discover a society,” I said, “built on a strictly communist basis.”

“Of all your wild theories!” began the Psychologist.

“Yes, that’s what it seemed to me, and I never brought it up until—”

“Experimental proof!” I exclaimed. “You’re going to test that?”

“The experiment!” cried Filby, who was growing tired of it all.

“Let’s see your experiment anyway,” said the Psychologist, “even if you know it’s all nonsense.”

The Time Traveller offered us a smile. Then, still wearing that faint smile and keeping his hands deep in his trouser pockets, he strolled slowly out of the room. We heard the soft shuffling of his slippers echoing down the long hallway toward his laboratory.

The Psychologist regarded us. “I wonder what he possesses?”

“A simple trick of the hand, I suspect,” murmured the Medical Man. Filby attempted to recount a conjurer he had seen in Burslem, but before he could finish his tale, the Time Traveller reappeared, abruptly derailing Filby’s story.

II. The Machine

In his hand, the Time Traveller held a shimmering metallic framework—no larger than a small clock face, and possessing an ethereal delicacy. It incorporated ivory alongside some clear crystalline material. I must be exceptionally precise now, for what follows is utterly unaccountable unless I accept his account. He selected one of the small octagonal tables scattered about the room and positioned it before the hearth, allowing its two legs to rest upon the rug. Upon this surface, he placed the apparatus. Then, he drew up a chair and settled into it. The only other item on the table was a small, shaded lamp casting its bright glow upon the model. About a dozen candles were also present—two set in brass candlesticks atop the mantelpiece and several affixed to sconces—ensuring the room was brightly illuminated. I took a low armchair nearest the fire, drawing it close so that I found myself almost situated between the Time Traveller and the flames. Filby remained behind him, casting glances over his shoulder. To the right, the Medical Man and the Provincial Mayor observed him in profile, while to the left stood the Psychologist. The Very Young Man was positioned directly behind the Psychologist. We were all watchful. It strikes me as incredible that any deception, no matter how subtly devised or skillfully executed, could have been perpetrated upon us under such circumstances.

The Time Traveller glanced at us, and then at the mechanism. "Well?" inquired the Psychologist.

“This little contraption,” the Time Traveller explained, resting his elbows on the table and clasping his hands above the apparatus, “is merely a model. It represents my design for a machine capable of traversing time. You’ll observe that it appears quite asymmetrical, and this bar has an odd luminescence to it—as if it were somehow illusory.” He tapped the section with his finger. “Additionally, here is a small white lever, and over here is another.”

The Medical Man rose from his chair, leaning close to examine the device. “It is beautifully crafted,” he observed.

“It required two years of my labor to build,” retorted the Time Traveller. After we all emulated the Medical Man's gesture, he continued: “Now, I want you to understand clearly that pulling this lever propels the machine into the future, and this other one reverses the motion. This seat is designed for a time voyager. Next, I shall pull the lever, and the mechanism will depart. It will vanish, passing into the flow of future Time, and disappear from sight. Take a close look at it. Examine the table as well, ensuring there are no hidden tricks involved. I refuse to have this model discredited simply because I am called a fraud.”

A brief pause seemed to settle over the room. The Psychologist appeared poised to speak, but then changed his mind. Next, the Time Traveller pointed a finger toward the lever. “No,” he stated abruptly. “Lend me your hand.” Turning toward the Psychologist, he took that man’s own hand and instructed him to extend his index finger. Thus, it was the Psychologist himself who dispatched the model Time Machine on its ceaseless journey. We all observed the lever turn. I am absolutely certain there was no artifice at play. A gust of wind swept through, causing the lamp flame to flicker. One of the candles upon the mantel extinguished itself, and the small mechanism suddenly swung around, becoming indistinct—a fleeting vision like a ghost for perhaps a second: a swirl of subtly glittering brass and ivory; and then it was gone—vanished! Save for the lamp, the table was bare.

A hush fell over everyone, lasting for a full minute. Then Filby announced that he felt accursed.

The Psychologist snapped out of his reverie and abruptly peered under the table. At this, the Time Traveller let out a cheerful laugh. “Well?” he inquired, fixing an expectant look upon the Psychologist. Following that, he rose and walked to the tobacco jar on the mantelpiece, beginning to fill his pipe with his back to us.

We simply stared at one another. “Listen,” the Medical Man remarked, “are you serious about this? Do you truly believe that machine traveled through time?”

“Certainly,” remarked the Time Traveller, bending low to ignite a spill at the hearth. He then turned, lighting his pipe, to regard the Psychologist’s face. (The Psychologist, keen to prove his sanity, retrieved a cigar and attempted to light it with an uncut end.) “What’s more, I have a colossal contraption nearly complete in there”—he gestured toward the laboratory—“and once everything is assembled, I intend to take a trip at my own expense.”

“You mean that machine traveled into the future?” inquired Filby.

“Into the future or the past—I am uncertain of that.”

After a brief silence, the Psychologist conceived an idea. “It must have proceeded into the past if it went anywhere,” he asserted.

“Why?” questioned the Time Traveller.

“Because I assume its movement was not spatial; and if it had journeyed merely into the future, it would still be present now, given that it must have traversed this duration.”

“But,” I interrupted, “if it traveled into the past, it should have been visible when we first entered this room; and last Thursday when we were here; and the Thursday before that; and so on!”

“Some serious objections,” noted the Provincial Mayor, adopting an air of studied neutrality as he turned toward the Time Traveller.

“Not at all,” responded the Time Traveller, then addressing the Psychologist: “You yourself can explain this. It’s a presentation below the threshold, you see; a diluted presentation.”

“Of course,” said the Psychologist, reassuring us. “That’s a simple point in psychology. I should have thought of that. It’s plain enough, and it helps the paradox beautifully. We can’t see it, nor can we fully appreciate this machine, any more than we can perceive the spoke on a spinning wheel, or a bullet passing through the air. If it travels through time fifty or even one hundred times faster than us—if it covers a minute while we experience only a second—the impression it leaves will naturally be only one-fiftieth or one-hundredth of what it would create if it weren't moving through time. That’s quite straightforward.” He passed his hand through the space where the machine had been. “You see?” he said, laughing.

We sat staring at the empty table for a minute or so. Then the Time Traveller asked us what we thought of everything.

“It sounds believable enough tonight,” said the Medical Man; “but wait until tomorrow. Wait for the common sense of the morning.”

“Would you like to see the Time Machine itself?” asked the Time Traveller. With that, taking the lamp in his hand, he led the way down the long, drafty corridor to his laboratory. I vividly remember the flickering light, his strange, broad head silhouetted against it, the dancing shadows, how we all followed him—confused but unconvinced—and how there in the laboratory we beheld a larger version of the little contraption that had disappeared before our eyes. Some parts were nickel, some ivory, and some had certainly been cut or planed from rock crystal. The whole thing was mostly complete, but twisted crystalline bars lay unfinished on the bench next to some sheets of drawings, and I picked one up for a closer look. It appeared to be quartz.

“Take a look at this,” declared the Medical Man, “Are you truly serious? Or is this some trick—like that apparition you showed us last Christmas?”

“With this device,” stated the Time Traveller, raising the lamp high, “I intend to explore time. Is that understood? I have never been more earnest in my life.”

None of us knew how to react.

I caught Filby’s eye over the Medical Man's shoulder, and he winked at me with a solemn gesture.

III. The Time Traveller Returns

I think that at the time none of us truly believed in the Time Machine. The truth is, the Time Traveller was one of those men who were too clever to be believed: you never felt like you saw everything about him; you always suspected some subtle reserve, some ingenuity lying in wait, behind his clear honesty. If Filby had shown the model and explained the matter using the Time Traveller's own words, we would have been far less skeptical of him. Because then we could have figured out his motives: a butcher could understand Filby. But the Time Traveller possessed more than just a touch of whimsy among his traits, and we mistrusted him. Things that would have impressed the fame of a less clever man seemed like tricks in his hands. It is easy to get things wrong when you are too comfortable. The serious people who took him seriously were never completely sure of his manner; they somehow sensed that entrusting their judgment to him was like setting up a nursery with fragile china. So I don’t think any of us said much about time travel between that Thursday and the next, though its odd possibilities were certainly running through most of our minds: its believability—that is, how practically impossible it seemed—and the curious possibilities of anachronism and utter confusion it suggested. As for me, I was particularly preoccupied with the model's trickery. I remember discussing it with the Medical Man, whom I met on Friday at the Linnæan. He said he had seen something similar in Tübingen and placed a lot of emphasis on blowing out the candle. But he couldn't explain how the trick was accomplished.

The following Thursday, I returned to Richmond—I must have become one of the Time Traveller’s most habitual visitors—and, arriving late, discovered four or five men already gathered in his drawing-room. The Medical Man stood near the hearth, holding a sheet of paper in one hand and his pocket watch in the other. I scanned the room for the Time Traveller, until the Medical Man spoke up, "It's half-past seven now. Perhaps we should have dinner?"

"Where is—?" I inquired, pointing out our host.

"Have you just arrived? It’s rather unusual. He is unavoidably detained. He left me this note to begin dinner at seven if he wasn't back. He promised to explain everything upon his return."

"It would be a pity to let the meal go to waste," suggested the editor of a prominent daily paper, and with that, the Doctor rang the bell.

The Psychologist was the only person besides the Doctor and me who had attended the previous dinner. The other men were Blank, the Editor mentioned earlier, a certain journalist, and another—a quiet, shy man with a beard—whom I didn't know, and who, as far as I could tell, never opened his mouth all evening. There was some discussion at the dinner table about the Time Traveller’s absence, and I jokingly suggested time travel. The Editor wanted an explanation for it, so the Psychologist offered a clumsy account of the "ingenious paradox and trick" we had witnessed that day week. He was in the middle of his explanation when the door from the hallway slowly opened without a sound. I was facing the door and saw it first. "Hello!" I exclaimed. "Finally!" The door opened wider, and the Time Traveller stood before us. I gasped in surprise. "Good heavens! Man, what's wrong?" cried the Medical Man, who saw him next. And the entire table turned toward the door.

He was in a terrible state. His coat was dusty and dirty, streaked with green down the sleeves; his hair was messy, and it seemed grayer—either because of dust and dirt or because its color had actually faded. His face was ghastly pale; he had a brown cut on his chin—a cut that was partly healed; his expression was worn out and drawn, as if from intense suffering. For a moment he paused in the doorway, as if dazzled by the light. Then he walked into the room. He walked with a limp just like I'd seen in poor hobos. We stared at him in silence, waiting for him to speak.

He remained silent, yet walked laboriously to the table and gestured toward the wine. The Editor poured a glass of champagne and nudged it across the wood toward him. He drank it down, and it seemed to invigorate him; he surveyed the gathering at the table, and the ghost of his former smile flickered across his face. "What on earth have you been up to, man?" inquired the Doctor. The Time Traveller appeared not to register the question. "Don't let me disturb you," he murmured in a slightly shaky tone. "I'm fine." He paused, extended his glass, and drained the remainder in a single gulp. "That's good," he observed. His eyes brightened, and a delicate flush rose on his cheeks. His gaze drifted over our faces with a certain detached satisfaction before wandering around the warm, comfortable room. Then he spoke once more, as if meticulously choosing every word. "I'm going to freshen up and get dressed; after that, I shall come down and explain everything.... Save me some of that mutton. I am famished for something meaty."

He turned his look toward the Editor, who was a seldom-seen guest, wondering if all were well with him. The Editor started to ask something. "I'll tell you in a moment," interjected the Time Traveller. "I'm—funny! I'll be right with you."

He set down his glass and moved toward the staircase door. I noticed once more his limp, the soft padding sound of his footsteps, watching his feet as he departed from where I stood. He wore nothing but a pair of tattered, blood-stained socks. Then the door clicked shut behind him. For an instant, I felt the urge to follow, until I recalled how deeply he resented any attention focused on himself. My thoughts drifted for perhaps a minute. Suddenly, "Remarkable Behaviour of an Eminent Scientist," I heard the Editor remark, clearly drafting headlines as was his wont. This snapped my focus back to the brightly lit dining table.

"What is the point?" inquired the Journalist. "Is he pretending to be an amateur beggar? I truly cannot fathom it." I met the Psychologist's gaze and saw my own interpretation mirrored in his expression. My mind drifted back to the Time Traveller hobbling painfully upstairs. I doubt anyone else had noticed that noticeable limp.

The first to fully recover from the surprise was the Medical Man, who rang for a hot plate—the Time Traveller hated having servants waiting during dinner. Then the Editor picked up his knife and fork with a grunt, and the Silent Man followed suit. Dinner resumed. Conversation was exclamatory for a while, punctuated by moments of wonder; eventually, the Editor grew intensely curious. “Does our friend make ends meet with crossing? or does he have his Nebuchadnezzar phases?” he asked. “I’m sure it’s this business of the Time Machine,” I said, picking up the Psychologist's account of our previous meeting. The new guests were openly skeptical. The Editor raised objections. “What was this time traveling? A man couldn’t cover himself in dust by rolling through a paradox, could he?” Then, as the realization hit him, he resorted to ridicule. Didn’t they have any clothes-brushes in the Future? The Journalist also wouldn't believe it no matter what, joining the Editor in easily piling on mockery about the whole affair. They were both the new type of journalist—very cheerful, irreverent young men. “Our Special Correspondent in the Day after Tomorrow reports,” the Journalist was saying—or rather, shouting—when the Time Traveller returned. He was dressed in plain evening clothes, and nothing remained of the change that had startled me except his weary look.

“I say,” the Editor chuckled, “these fellows here are saying you’ve been traveling into the middle of next week! Will you tell us all about little Rosebery? What will you take for everyone?”

The Time Traveller arrived at his reserved spot without saying a word. He smiled quietly, in his usual way. “Where’s my mutton?” he said. “It’s such a treat to stick a fork into real meat again!”

“A story!” cried the Editor.

“Story be damned!” snapped the Time Traveller. “I want something to eat. I won’t say another word until I get some peptone into my arteries. Thanks. And the salt.”

“Just one word,” I said. “Have you been time traveling?”

“Yes,” the Time Traveller replied, nodding his head with his mouth full.

“I’d pay a shilling for a verbatim note,” said the Editor. The Time Traveller pushed his glass towards the Silent Man and tapped it with his fingernail; at which point the Silent Man, who had been staring at him, began to twitch and poured him wine. The rest of dinner was awkward. As for me, sudden questions kept forming on my lips, and I dare say it was the same with everyone else. The Journalist tried to ease the tension by telling stories about Hettie Potter. The Time Traveller focused all his attention on his meal, showing the appetite of a vagrant. The Medical Man smoked a cigarette, watching the Time Traveller through his eyelashes. The Silent Man seemed even more awkward than usual, sipping champagne with steady determination due to sheer nervousness. Finally, the Time Traveller pushed his plate away and looked around us. “I suppose I should apologize,” he said. “I was simply starving. I’ve had a marvelous time.” He reached out his hand for a cigar and cut off the end. “But come into the smoking room. It’s too long a story to tell over greasy plates.” With a ring of the bell as he passed, he led the way into the adjoining room.

“Have you told Blank, and Dash, and Chose about the machine?” he asked me, leaning back in his easy chair and listing the three new guests.

“But the thing is a mere paradox,” said the Editor.

“I can’t argue tonight. I don't mind telling you the story, but I can't argue. I will,” he continued, “tell you the story of what has happened to me, if you like, but you must refrain from interrupting. I want to tell it. Badly. Most of it will sound like lying. So be it! It’s true—every word of it, all of it. I was in my laboratory at four o'clock, and since then… I’ve lived eight days… days that no human being has ever lived before! I’m almost exhausted, but I won’t sleep until I’ve told this to you. Then I’ll go to bed. But no interruptions! Is it agreed?”

“Agreed,” the Editor said, and the rest of us echoed, “Agreed.” And with that, the Time Traveller began his story, just as I have set it out. At first, he sat back in his chair and spoke like a tired man. Afterward, he became more lively. Writing it down, I feel with far too much eagerness how inadequate pen and ink—and, above all, my own inadequacy—are to express its quality. You read, I suppose, attentively enough; but you cannot see the speaker’s pale, sincere face in the bright circle of the little lamp, nor hear the changes in his voice. You cannot know how his expression shifted with the turns of his story! Most of us listeners were in shadow because the candles in the smoking room had not been lit; only the Journalist's face and the Silent Man’s legs below the knees were illuminated. At first, we glanced at each other now and then. After a while, we stopped doing that and looked only at the Time Traveller’s face.

IV. Time Travelling

>

Last Thursday, I briefed some of you on the principles governing the Time Machine, even showing you the actual apparatus—still unfinished in the workshop. There it stands now, a touch weathered from its travels, truly; one of the ivory bars is cracked, and a brass rail is bent; yet, the rest of it remains sound. I had intended to complete it by Friday; but on that day, when the assembly was nearly finished, I discovered that one of the nickel bars was exactly an inch too short, requiring me to have it remade. Consequently, the device was not fully operational until this morning. It was at ten o’clock today that the first Time Machine began its journey. I gave it a final tap, double-checked every screw, added one last drop of oil to the quartz rod, and then settled into the saddle. I imagine that a person taking their own life by pressing a pistol to their skull would feel the same sense of wonder regarding what happens next as I did at that moment. I gripped the starting lever in one hand and the stopping lever in the other, pulling the first, and almost immediately engaging the second. My vision seemed to reel; I felt as if I were about to tumble into a nightmare; and when I looked around, the laboratory appeared exactly as it had been before. Had anything transpired? For an instant, I suspected that my own mind was deceiving me. Then I glanced at the clock. A moment earlier, it had indicated a minute or so past ten; now, it showed nearly half-past three!

I drew a breath, set my jaw firmly, wrapped both hands around the starting lever, and engaged it with a resonant thud. The laboratory atmosphere thickened into a haze, then plunged into darkness. Mrs. Watchett entered and moved toward the garden door, seemingly oblivious to my presence. Although I suspected she took a minute or two to cross the room, to me, her passage across that space felt instantaneous, like a rocket's trajectory. I pushed the lever to its absolute limit. Night descended as if someone were extinguishing a lamp, and just another moment later dawned tomorrow. The lab grew dimmer, shrouded in mist, then faded ever more faintly. Tomorrow night arrived pitch black, succeeded by day, followed by night once more—the cycle quickening with every passing beat. A swirling murmur filled my ears, and a profound, wordless confusion swept over my mind.

"I'm afraid I cannot articulate the bizarre sensation of traversing time. It is profoundly unsettling—it feels precisely like navigating a switchback; an overwhelming loss of control as one hurtles forward! I felt that same dreadful sense of anticipation, as if a crash were imminent. As my momentum increased, night followed day in a flurry, like a black wing beating wildly. The subtle outline of the laboratory seemed to shed from me, and I watched the sun race across the sky, leaping minute by minute, each passing moment marking a new dawn. I surmised that the lab had been obliterated, leaving me exposed to the open air. I caught a vague impression of scaffolding, but I was already moving too swiftly to register anything further. Even the most sluggish snail seemed to zip past in an instant to my perception. The rapid succession of shadows and light was acutely painful to the eyes. Then, through the intermittent gloom, I perceived the moon cycling rapidly through its phases—from new to full—and glimpsed the circling constellations. Soon, as I continued onward, accelerating further, the distinct rhythm of day and night merged into one continuous grey; the sky assumed a magnificent, deep blue, a splendid luminous hue reminiscent of early twilight; the jerking sun became a searing streak of fire, a brilliant arc across the expanse; the moon softened to a fainter, shifting band; and I could discern nothing of the stars save for the occasional bright circle flickering in the blue."

The landscape was misty and indistinct. I remained on the hillside where this house now stands, and the shoulder rose above me, a gray, muted mass. I watched trees appear and change like puffs of vapor—shifting from brown to green; they grew, spread, trembled, and dissolved. Great structures loomed faintly and palely, gliding past as if they were mere dreams. The entire face of the earth seemed transformed before my eyes—as though it were melting and flowing. The little hands on the dials measuring my velocity accelerated with increasing speed. Soon I realized that the sun belt swayed up and down, marking a journey from solstice to solstice in less than a minute, meaning my passage was equivalent to over a year within sixty seconds; moment by passing moment, the white snow flashed across the globe, vanished, and yielded to the bright, fleeting green of spring.

The initial unpleasant feelings had softened, losing their sharpness. They had finally merged into a sort of hysterical euphoria. I did notice, in fact, the machine swaying awkwardly, though I couldn't explain why. But my mind was too scattered to focus on it, so with a mounting sense of frenzy, I plunged myself into imagining what lay ahead. At first, thought of stopping barely crossed my mind; I could think of nothing but these novel sensations. Yet soon, a new constellation of impressions formed within me—a keen curiosity tempered by an equal measure of dread—until they utterly consumed my awareness. What marvelous developments humanity, what wonderful leaps for our rudimentary civilization, I mused, might emerge if I gazed closely into the dim, elusive world that raced and shimmered before my eyes! I envisioned magnificent, splendid architecture rising around me, structures more massive than anything built in our own era, yet seemingly composed of mere glimmer and mist. I saw a deeper emerald green creeping up the hillside, uninterrupted by any season's dormancy. Even through the veil of my confusion, the earth appeared breathtakingly beautiful. And so my thoughts eventually returned to the matter of stopping.

The peculiar peril resided in the chance that I might locate some discernible substance within the void shared by myself and the machine. As long as my passage through time remained swift, this hardly caused alarm: I felt, quite literally, stretched thin—slipping like mist through the gaps of intervening matter! However, achieving a halt would necessitate forcing myself, molecule by painstaking molecule, into whatever stood in my path; it implied bringing my atoms into such intimate contact with those of an obstruction that a profound chemical reaction—perhaps an overwhelming blast—would ensue, tearing myself and my apparatus from all known dimensions and flinging us into the Unknown. This prospect had crossed my mind repeatedly during the construction of the device; yet, I had once cheerfully dismissed it as an inescapable gamble—one of life's inherent dangers! Now, however, that risk felt unavoidable, and the gaiety was gone from my view. In truth, it was the subtle strangeness pervading everything, the sickly jarring sway of the mechanism, and most acutely, the sensation of unending descent, that had utterly frayed my nerves. I swore to myself that stopping was unthinkable; but in a sudden surge of pique, I decided right then and there: I would cease motion. Like an impetuous fool, I yanked the lever, and almost instantly the whole contraption pitched over, sending me flying headfirst through the air.

The rumble of thunder echoed in my ears, leaving me momentarily stunned. A relentless hailstorm hissed around me as I sat on the soft grass before the overturned machinery. Everything still appeared washed out and gray, but soon I realized the ringing in my ears had subsided. I surveyed my surroundings: I was situated on what seemed like a small garden lawn, bordered by rhododendron bushes whose mauve and purple blossoms drifted down in a shower mixed with the hailstones. The bouncing, dancing hail hung suspended in a little cloud above the machine, rolling across the ground like smoke. In an instant, my clothing was soaked to the skin. "Such wonderful hospitality," I murmured wryly, "for a man who has journeyed countless years simply to see you."

I soon considered how foolish it was to let myself get drenched. Rising to my feet, I looked around again. Far beyond the rhododendrons, shrouded in the hazy downpour, loomed an immense figure, seemingly carved from white stone. Yet, everything else in the world remained unseen.

"My sensations would prove difficult to put into words. As the hailstones began to thin, I could see the white figure more distinctly. It was colossal; a silver birch seemed to rest against its shoulder. It appeared fashioned from white marble, somewhat reminiscent of a winged sphinx, though instead of holding its wings vertically at its sides, these were spread as if it were suspended in flight. The pedestal supporting it, I gathered, was thick bronze mottled with verdigris. Curiously, the face was turned toward me; its sightless eyes seemed to fix upon me, and there rested a faint suggestion of a smile upon its lips. It bore the marks of heavy weathering, which imparted an unsettling air of decay. I remained gazing at it for some time—perhaps half a minute, or perhaps half an hour. It seemed to advance and then recede in rhythm with the storm’s diminishing ferocity. At last, I broke my gaze from it, realizing that the curtain of hail had thinned to nothing, and the sky was beginning to lighten, promising sunshine.

I lifted my eyes once more to the crouching white form, and the sheer audacity of my own journey suddenly struck me with force. What vision might emerge when that hazy veil completely dissolved? What fate awaits humankind? What if brutality were to become a pervasive passion? What if, in this era, our species had shed its masculine spirit, degenerating into something inhumane, unsympathetic, and overwhelming powerful? I might appear no better than some savage beast from a forgotten age—only more dreadful and repulsive due to our likeness; a foul creature ripe for the taking.

“I could already see other vast shapes—huge buildings with intricate parapets and tall columns, and a wooded hillside dimly creeping toward me through the lessening storm. I was overcome with panic fear. I frantically turned to the Time Machine, straining hard to adjust it again. As I did so, shafts of sun broke through the thunderstorm. The grey downpour was swept aside and vanished like the trailing garments of a ghost. Above me, in the intense blue of the summer sky, some faint brown shreds of cloud spun into nothingness. The great buildings around me stood out clear and distinct, shining with the wetness of the thunderstorm, and were picked out in white by the unmelted hailstones piled along their cornices. I felt naked in a strange world. I felt as perhaps a bird might feel in the clear air, knowing the hawk above can swoop down at any moment. My fear escalated to frenzy. I took a breath, set my jaw, and once again grappled fiercely, with wrist and knee, against the machine. It yielded under my desperate surge and tipped over. With one hand on the saddle and the other on the lever, I stood panting heavily, ready to mount again.

“But with this recovery of a hasty retreat, my courage returned. I looked at this world of the distant future more curiously and less fearfully. In a circular opening, high up in the wall of the nearer house, I saw a group of figures dressed in rich, soft robes. They had seen me, and their faces were directed toward me.”

Suddenly, I heard voices drawing nearer. Heads and shoulders of men burst through the bushes near the White Sphinx as they ran. One individual emerged along a path leading directly to the small lawn where I stood with my machine. He was slight—perhaps four feet high—and clad in a purple tunic cinched at the waist with a leather belt. On his feet he wore sandals or buskins; I could not discern which clearly—his calves were bare above the knees, and his head uncovered. Noticing this, I became aware for the first time just how warm the air was.

He struck me as an exceedingly beautiful and graceful being, yet one of indefinable frailty. His flushed countenance reminded me of the most exquisite kind of wasting illness—that feverish loveliness we used to hear so often. At the sight of him, a sudden wave of confidence washed over me. I let my hands drop from the machine.

V. In the Golden Age

Moments later, we stood face to face: this delicate figure from some distant time and myself. He approached right up to me and laughed directly into my eyes. His utter lack of apprehension struck me instantly. Then he turned to the other two trailing behind him and spoke to them in an odd, exquisitely sweet, liquid tongue.

“More were coming, and soon a small group of perhaps eight or ten of these exquisite creatures surrounded me. One of them spoke to me. Oddly enough, it occurred to me that my voice was too rough and deep for them. So I shook my head and, pointing to my ears, shook it again. He stepped forward, hesitated, and then touched my hand. Next, I felt other soft little tentacles on my back and shoulders. They seemed to want to make sure I was real. There was nothing alarming about this at all. In fact, there was something about these pretty little people that inspired confidence—a graceful tenderness, a certain childlike ease. Besides, they looked so delicate that I imagined myself tossing all twelve of them around like ninepins. But I made a sudden movement to warn them when I saw their tiny pink hands reaching for the Time Machine. Luckily then, before it was too late, I thought of a danger I had forgotten until now, and reaching over the bars of the machine, I unscrewed the little levers that would start it up and put them in my pocket. Then I turned again to see what I could do about communicating with them.

“And then, looking more closely at their features, I noticed further peculiarities in their Dresden china kind of prettiness. Their hair, which was uniformly curly, ended sharply at the neck and cheek; there wasn't the slightest trace of it on their face, and their ears were remarkably small. Their mouths were small, with bright red, rather thin lips, and their little chins tapered to a point. The eyes were large and mild; and—this might sound like vanity on my part—I even imagined that there was a certain lack of the interest I would have expected in them.

Since they made no attempt to address me—merely standing nearby, smiling, and murmuring softly amongst themselves—I initiated the conversation myself. I pointed first to the Time Machine, then toward myself. For a moment, I paused, unsure how to convey 'time,' so I gestured toward the sun instead. Instantly, an adorably quaint little figure dressed in checkered purple and white followed my gesture, only to surprise me by mimicking the sound of thunder.

I was momentarily taken aback, even though the intention behind his action was perfectly clear. A sudden question sprang to mind: were these people foolish? You can scarcely imagine how deeply that struck me. After all, I had always anticipated that those from the year Eight Hundred and Two Thousand—or something near it—would possess remarkable advancement in knowledge, art, everything. To then have one of them pose a question demonstrating an intellectual level comparable to that of one of our five-year-olds; he actually asked if I had arrived from the sun during a thunderstorm! It dissolved all the judgment I had been restraining regarding their clothing, their slender limbs, and their delicate features. A profound wave of letdown washed over me. For a moment, I felt as though I had constructed the Time Machine in vain.

“I nodded, pointed to the sun, and described a thunderclap so vividly that it startled them. They all stepped back about a pace and bowed. Then one started laughing at me, carrying a garland of beautiful flowers I had never seen before, and placed it around my neck. The gesture was met with melodious applause; soon they were all running around gathering flowers, playfully tossing them on me until I was almost smothered in blossoms. You who have never seen such a thing can hardly imagine the delicate and wonderful variety that countless years of culture had created. Then someone suggested that their creation should be displayed in the nearest building, and so I was led past the white marble sphinx, which seemed to have been watching me all along with a knowing smile at my surprise, toward a vast grey structure of carved stone. As I walked with them, the memory of my confident expectations for a deeply serious and intellectual civilization came flooding back into my mind with irresistible amusement.

“The building had a huge entrance and was immense in scale. My attention, naturally, was captured by the growing crowd of people and the large, open portals that yawned before me, shadowy and mysterious. My general impression of the world visible above their heads was a tangled mess of beautiful bushes and flowers—a long-neglected yet weed-free garden. I spotted several tall stalks bearing strange white flowers, perhaps measuring a foot across at the spread of their waxy petals. They grew scattered, as if wild, among the varied shrubs, but, as I said, I did not examine them closely at that moment. The Time Machine was left abandoned on the lawn among the rhododendrons.

“The doorway's archway was richly carved, but I didn’t look at the carving closely; naturally, though as I walked through, I thought I saw hints of ancient Phoenician decorations, and it struck me that they were badly broken and weathered. Several other brightly dressed people met me in the doorway, so we entered—me, looking quite absurd in my dingy nineteenth-century clothes, adorned with flowers, and surrounded by a swirling mass of bright, soft-colored robes and gleaming white arms, all amidst a musical whirl of laughter and chatter.

“The large doorway opened into a proportionally vast hall draped in brown fabric. The roof was in shadow, and the windows, partly fitted with colored glass and partly bare, let in a subdued light. The floor was made of huge blocks of some very hard white metal—not plates or slabs, but blocks—and it was so worn, judging by the constant movement of generations past, that deep channels had formed along the most traveled paths. Running across the length were countless tables made of polished stone slabs, perhaps raised a foot from the floor, and on these lay piles of fruit. I recognized some as a kind of oversized raspberry and orange, but mostly they looked strange.

“Between the tables were scattered many cushions. My guides sat upon these, gesturing for me to do the same. Without much ceremony, they began eating the fruit with their hands, tossing peels and stalks, and so on, into the round openings built into the sides of the tables. I didn't mind following their example, as I was thirsty and hungry. While doing so, I leisurely surveyed the hall.

What struck me most was, perhaps, its dilapidated appearance. The stained-glass windows displayed only geometric patterns, yet they were shattered in numerous places, and the drapes hanging along the lower sections were heavily coated in dust. I also noticed a chip near my elbow on the marble table. Nevertheless, the overall ambiance remained incredibly rich and picturesque. There could have been several hundred diners in the hall, and most of them, seated as closely to me as possible, watched me with keen interest, their eyes sparkling over the fruit they consumed. Everyone wore clothing made of a soft yet resilient silk material.

Fruit, incidentally, seemed to constitute their entire diet. These individuals from some distant future were strict vegetarians, and while I was present, despite any stirring desire for meat, I myself had to eat sparingly. Indeed, I later learned that horses, cattle, sheep, and dogs had all vanished, along with the Ichthyosaurus. Yet, the fruits were utterly delightful; one in particular—a powdery substance nestled within a three-sided shell—seemed perpetually in season whenever I was there, and it was especially exquisite, making it my primary sustenance. Initially, these unfamiliar fruits and the strange blossoms confused me, but later, I began to grasp their significance.

"But I am describing my fruit feast in a far-flung future moment. Once my hunger was somewhat appeased, I determined that the most pressing task was to dedicate myself fully to learning the language of these new companions. The fruits seemed an easy place to begin, so holding one up, I began a string of questioning sounds and gestures. Articulating what I intended proved quite challenging. At first, my efforts were greeted with expressions of surprise or uncontrollable laughter, but soon, a little fair-haired creature seemed to grasp my aim and repeated a name back to me. They had to chatter amongst themselves and explain everything in exhaustive detail, and my initial attempts at forming the delicate sounds of their tongue sparked considerable genuine amusement, even if unpolished. Still, I felt somewhat like an instructor among children, so I pressed on, eventually mastering at least twenty nouns; then I progressed to demonstrative pronouns, and even the verb 'to eat.' However, it was laborious work, and before long, the little folk grew weary and wished to escape my inquiries, so out of necessity, I conceded that they teach me in small increments whenever they felt inclined. And very few such moments followed over time, because I had never encountered people who were either lazier or more prone to exhaustion.

VI. The Sunset of Mankind

I soon discovered a strange thing about my little hosts: their profound disinterest. They would approach me with cries of excitement, brimming with childlike astonishment, yet just like children, they would swiftly cease examining me and drift away toward some other diversion. Once dinner concluded and my initial conversations wound down, I noticed for the first time that nearly everyone who had gathered around me at first was gone. It struck me as odd, too, how quickly I began to dismiss these people. As soon as my hunger was sated, I departed through the portal back into the sunlit world. I continued encountering more of these men from the future; they would trail a short distance behind me, exchanging chatter and chuckles about me, before flashing a friendly smile and gesture, leaving me once more to my own devices.

As I emerged from the grand hall, an evening tranquility had settled over the world, bathed in the warm luminescence of the setting sun. Initially, things were quite bewildering. Everything was so utterly unlike the world I remembered—even the flora. The imposing structure I had departed stood on the incline of a vast river valley, but the Thames had shifted, perhaps by a mile from its present course. I resolved to ascend a nearby rise, situated about a mile and a half away, so that I could gain a broader vista of our planet in the year Eight Hundred and Two Thousand Seven Hundred and One A.D. That, I should clarify, was the date inscribed on my machine's small dials.

As I walked, I searched for every minute detail that might illuminate the state of ruined splendor in which I found the world—for it was genuinely desolate. A little further up the slope lay a colossal mound of granite, interwoven with swaths of aluminum; it formed a vast labyrinth of steep walls and crumbled heaps, interspersed with dense patches of strikingly beautiful, pagoda-like foliage—perhaps nettles—yet these leaves were wonderfully tinged brown and entirely harmless. It was clearly the decaying remnant of some immense edifice; I could not ascertain its original purpose. It was here that, at a later time, I was destined for a profoundly odd experience—the initial suggestion of an even stranger revelation—but I shall address that in due course.

Looking around then, struck by a sudden thought while resting on a terrace, I realized there were no small dwellings visible. Apparently, the single house, and perhaps the entire hamlet, had vanished. Scattered among the greenery stood structures resembling palaces, but the cozy cottage and the humble dwelling—features so characteristic of our own English landscape—were nowhere to be seen.

“Communism,” I murmured to myself.

“And immediately following that came another thought. I looked at the half-dozen little figures trailing behind me. Then, in a flash, I realized they all wore the same type of clothing, had the same smooth, hairless faces, and possessed the same youthful roundness to their limbs. It might seem strange, perhaps, that I hadn't noticed this before. But everything was so unusual. Now, I saw it quite clearly: in terms of costume, and despite all the differences in texture and posture that currently distinguish the sexes from one another, these people of the future were uniform. And the children appeared to my eyes to be mere miniatures of their parents. I concluded then that the children of that time were extremely advanced—at least physically—and later I found plenty of confirmation for my belief.

“Seeing how easily and securely these people lived, I felt that this close resemblance between the sexes was, after all, what one would expect; because the strength of a man and the gentleness of a woman, the structure of the family, and the specialization of jobs are merely urgent necessities during an age dominated by physical conflict. Where the population is balanced and plentiful, having many children becomes a liability rather than a blessing to the State; where violence occurs rarely and offspring are safe, there is less—indeed, no—need for an efficient family structure, and the separation of roles between the sexes based on their children's needs vanishes. We see some beginnings of this even in our own time, and in this future age, it had reached completion. I must remind you that this was my speculation at the time. Later, I came to appreciate how far off the mark I was from the actual reality.”

“While I was thinking about these things, my attention caught a pretty little structure, like a well topped by a small dome. I briefly wondered at the oddity of wells still existing, and then resumed my train of thought. There were no large buildings toward the crest of the hill, and since my walking seemed miraculously effortless, I soon found myself alone for the first time. With a strange feeling of freedom and adventure, I continued up to the top.

“There I found a seat made of some yellow metal that I didn't recognize; it was corroded in places with a kind of pinkish rust and half hidden by soft moss. The armrests were cast and shaped to look like griffin heads. I sat down on it, and I surveyed the broad view of our old world under the setting sun of that long day. It was as beautiful and lovely a sight as I had ever seen. The sun had already dropped below the horizon, and the west glowed gold, brushed with horizontal streaks of purple and crimson. Below was the Thames valley, where the river lay like a band of burnished steel. I have already mentioned the great palaces scattered among the varied greenery—some in ruins and some still occupied. Here and there rose a white or silvery structure in the overgrown garden of the earth; here and there appeared the sharp vertical line of some dome or obelisk. There were no hedges, no signs of private ownership, no evidence of farming; the entire earth had become a garden.

“So, watching, I began to form my own interpretation of what I had seen, and as it took shape for me that evening, my conclusion was along these lines. (Later I found I had only grasped half the truth—or perhaps just one side of it.)”

It seemed to me that I had encountered humanity at its decline. The reddish sunset made me think of the sunset of humankind itself. For the first time, I began to realize an odd consequence of the social effort we were currently engaged in. And yet, on second thought, it was a logical outcome. Strength is the result of necessity; security places a high value on weakness. The work of improving the conditions of life—the true civilizing process that makes life increasingly secure—had steadily progressed toward a climax. One victory of unified humanity over Nature had followed another. Things that were once mere dreams had become projects deliberately launched and pursued. And the harvest was what I saw!

“After all, the sanitation and agriculture of today are still in their rudimentary stages. The science of our time has only tackled a small department of human disease, but even so, it advances its work very steadily and persistently. Our farming and gardening eliminate weeds here and there and cultivate perhaps a couple dozen nutritious plants, leaving the rest to struggle for balance as best they can. We gradually improve our favorite plants and animals—and how few there are—through selective breeding; now a new and better peach, now seedless grapes, now a sweeter and larger flower, now a more convenient breed of cattle. We improve them slowly because our goals are vague and tentative, and our knowledge is quite limited; because Nature itself is shy and slow in our clumsy hands. Someday all this will be better organized, and even better. That is the direction of things despite the setbacks. The whole world will become intelligent, educated, and cooperative; everything will move faster and faster toward mastering Nature. In the end, we shall wisely and carefully readjust the balance of animal and vegetable life to suit our human needs.

“This adjustment, I must say, was accomplished masterfully; it appears truly perfect for all time, within the span of time my machine spanned its jump. The air was devoid of gnats, and the earth free from weeds or fungi; everywhere bloomed fruit-laden branches and sweet, delightful flowers, while brilliant butterflies fluttered back and forth. The ideal of preventive medicine had been realized. Illnesses had vanished. During my entire sojourn, I detected no trace of contagion. And I must tell you later that even the processes of decay and putrefaction had been profoundly altered by these changes.”

"Social triumphs had manifested as well. I observed people residing in splendid dwellings, clad in gorgeous attire, yet I found them engaged in absolutely no labor. There were no visible signs of struggle—neither social nor economic. The shops, the advertisements, the very bustle of traffic—all that commerce which constitutes the core of our civilization—had disappeared. It felt utterly natural, on that golden evening, for me to conceive of a social paradise. I surmised that the problem of population expansion had been resolved, and that growth had finally ceased.

"Yet, with such a shift in circumstances comes the inevitable call for adaptation. What sustains human intellect and vitality if biological science is nothing more than a compilation of fallibility? Adversity and liberty: conditions where the robust, the proactive, and the nuanced survive, while the fainter wither; circumstances that place high regard on the steadfast bond between capable individuals, on self-restraint, patience, and sound judgment. Furthermore, the institution of the family, along with the emotions nurtured within it—the fierce pangs of jealousy, the tenderness for one's progeny, parental devotion—all found their justification and sustenance amidst the immediate perils confronting the young. But where are those immediate dangers now? A sentiment is beginning to brew, and it will only strengthen, directed against spousal jealousies, against intense maternal feeling, against any kind of passion; they have become superfluous matters, uncomfortable vestiges from a life both refined and agreeable.

I considered how physically slight the populace seemed, their apparent lack of intelligence, juxtaposed with those vast, crumbling edifices, and it solidified my conviction in Nature's ultimate subjugation. For after conflict comes stillness. Humanity once possessed strength, vigor, and wit, having expended all its abundant life force to modify its surrounding environment. And now came the natural backlash to these altered conditions."

“Under the new conditions of perfect comfort and security, that restless energy—that which is strength to us—would become weakness. Even in our own time, certain tendencies and desires, once necessary for survival, are a constant source of failure. Physical courage and the love of battle, for instance, are no great help—may even be hindrances—to civilized men. And in a state of physical balance and security, power, intellectual as well as physical, would be out of place. For countless years I judged there had been no danger of war or solitary violence, no danger from wild beasts, no wasting disease requiring strength of constitution, no need for toil. For such a life, those we call the weak are as equipped as the strong; they are indeed no longer weak. In fact, they are better equipped, because the strong would be tormented by an energy for which there was no outlet. No doubt the exquisite beauty of the buildings I saw was the outcome of the last surges of humanity’s now purposeless energy before it settled into perfect harmony with the conditions under which it lived—the flourish of that triumph which began the last great peace. This has always been the fate of energy in security; it turns to art and eroticism, and then comes lethargy and decay.

“Even this artistic drive would eventually fade away—it had almost died in the Time I saw. To decorate themselves with flowers, to dance, to sing in the sunlight: so much remained of the artistic spirit, and no more. Even that would eventually dissolve into contented inactivity. We are kept keen on the grindstone of pain and necessity, and it seemed to me that here was that hateful grindstone broken at last!

“Standing there in the encroaching gloom, I felt as though this simple explanation had granted me mastery over the world’s troubles—the entire secret of these marvelous people. Perhaps their population controls proved too effective, leading to a genuine decrease in numbers rather than mere stasis. That might account for the deserted ruins. My theory was remarkably straightforward, and seemingly credible—much like most erroneous hypotheses!

VII. A Sudden Shock

“As I stood contemplating man’s overly perfect achievement, the full moon, yellow and gibbous, ascended from a wash of silver light in the northeast. The bright little figures below froze; a silent owl drifted past, causing a shiver to run down my spine. I resolved to descend and find a place for the night.

“I searched for the building I recognized. Next, my eyes tracked over to the figure of the White Sphinx atop the bronze pedestal, which grew more distinct as the rising moon intensified its glow. Against it, I could discern the silver birch. There was the thicket of rhododendrons, appearing black in the pale luminescence, and there lay the small lawn. I looked at the expanse of grass again. A strange flicker of doubt pierced my composure. ‘No,’ I stated firmly to myself, ‘that is not the lawn.’

“But it absolutely was. For the sphinx’s white, leprous countenance was oriented toward it. Can you conceive the shock of that realization? Yet, you cannot. The Time Machine had vanished!

Suddenly, like a whip across the face, came the possibility of losing my own age, of being left helpless in this strange new world. The mere thought was an actual physical sensation. I could feel it grip me at the throat and stop my breathing. In another moment, I was gripped by panic and running with long, bounding strides down the slope. Once I fell headfirst and cut my face; I didn't waste any time stopping the blood, but jumped up and kept running, a warm trickle running down my cheek and chin. The whole time I ran, I muttered to myself: "They moved it a little, pushed it under the bushes out of the way." Nevertheless, I ran with all my strength. All the time, with the certainty that comes from extreme dread, I knew that such assurance was foolish; I instinctively knew that the machine was out of reach. My breath came with pain. I estimate I covered the entire distance from the hill crest to the small lawn—perhaps two miles—in ten minutes. And I am not a young man. As I ran, I cursed my rash folly in leaving the machine, wasting good breath doing so. I cried out, and no one answered. Not a single creature seemed awake in that moonlit world.

"When I reached the lawn, my worst fears were confirmed. There wasn't a trace of it to be seen. I felt faint and cold facing the empty space among the black tangle of bushes. I ran around it frantically, as if the thing might be hiding in a corner, before stopping suddenly, clutching my hair. Above me loomed the sphinx, on the bronze pedestal, white, gleaming, leprous, in the light of the rising moon. It seemed to smile mockingly at my distress.

"I might have soothed myself by imagining that the little people had secreted the mechanism away for me, had it not struck me just how physically and intellectually deficient they were. What truly unsettled me was the notion that some unseen force had intervened, causing my invention to disappear. Still, one thing remained certain: unless another civilization had crafted an identical replica, the device could not have traveled through time. The way the levers were mounted—I shall demonstrate this later—made it impossible for anyone to tamper with it in that manner when they had been detached. It had only moved, and concealed itself, in space. But then, where might it be?

I must have been hysterical. I recall running wildly through the moonlight-dappled thickets surrounding the sphinx, startling some white creature which, in the gloom, I mistook for a small deer. I also remember that late evening hitting the bushes repeatedly with my closed fist until my knuckles were scraped and bleeding from the broken twigs. Then, weeping and raving from emotional distress, I proceeded to the grand stone structure. The central hall was dark, silent, and deserted. I slipped on the uneven floorboards and tumbled over one of the malachite tables, nearly breaking my shin. I struck a match and moved past the dusty draperies that I mentioned before.

"“There I found a second great hall covered in cushions, on which perhaps twenty or so of the little people were sleeping. I have no doubt they found my sudden reappearance strange—coming out of the quiet darkness with indistinct noises and the flash and sputter of a match. Because they had forgotten what matches even were. ‘Where is my Time Machine?’ I began, shouting like an angry child, reaching out to them and shaking them together. It must have been very bizarre for them. Some laughed; most of them looked truly frightened. When I saw them standing around me, it struck me that I was doing something as ridiculous as possible given the situation, trying to bring back a sense of fear. Because, judging by their behavior in daylight, I thought they had forgotten how to feel fear.

Suddenly, I dashed down the match and knocked one of the people over in my path, blundering across the grand dining hall again, out into the moonlight. I heard screams of terror and their little feet running and stumbling everywhere. I don't remember everything I did as the moon climbed higher in the sky. I suppose it was the unexpected nature of my loss that drove me mad. I felt hopelessly separated from my own kind—a strange animal in an unknown world. I must have rambled back and forth, screaming and cursing God and Fate. I remember a terrible exhaustion, as the long night of despair wore away; looking at this impossible place and that; groping among moonlit ruins and touching strange creatures in the black shadows; finally, lying on the ground near the sphinx and weeping with utter misery, even anger at my foolishness for abandoning the machine after it had drained away my strength. I had nothing left but sorrow. Then I slept, and when I woke again, it was full day, and a couple of sparrows were hopping around me on the grass within reach of my arm.

I sat up, breathing the fresh morning air, attempting to recall how I had arrived there and why a profound sense of abandonment and despair washed over me. Gradually, clarity settled in my mind. In the plain light of day, I was able to confront my circumstances with honesty. I recognized the sheer foolishness of my frenzy from last night, allowing reason to take hold. "What if the worst occurs?" I murmured to myself. "What if the machine is utterly lost—perhaps destroyed? It is vital that I remain calm and patient: I must observe how these people live, gather a clear understanding of what happened to it, and discover where I can source materials and tools; this way, perhaps, I might build another one in the end." That fragile hope would be my only anchor, a meager prospect perhaps, but infinitely preferable to despair. Moreover, after all, it was a world both beautiful and profoundly strange.

“But perhaps the machine was just taken away.Still, I must stay calm and patient; I have to find where it's hidden and get it back, either by force or cleverness.With that thought, I scrambled to my feet and looked around, wondering where I could bathe.I felt tired, stiff, and coated in travel grime.The freshness of the morning made me crave an equal feeling of renewal.I had spent all my emotion.In fact, as I went about what I needed to do, I found myself wondering about my intense excitement from the night before.I carefully examined the ground around the little lawn.I wasted some time asking useless questions, conveying as much as I could to the few people who passed by.None of them understood my gestures; some were simply dull-witted, and others thought it was a joke and laughed at me.It was incredibly hard for me to stop myself from reaching out and touching their pretty laughing faces.It was a ridiculous impulse, but the devilish mix of fear and blind anger was poorly controlled and still eager to take advantage of my confusion.The grass offered better advice.I found a groove ripped into it, about halfway between the sphinx's pedestal and the marks left by my feet where, upon arriving, I had wrestled with the overturned machine.There were other signs of removal nearby, strange, narrow footprints, like those I could imagine an sloth making.This drew my attention closer to the pedestal.It was, as I think I said, made of bronze.It wasn't just a solid block, but it was highly decorated on either side with deep-framed panels.I went and tapped these panels.The pedestal was hollow.Carefully examining the panels, I found they were separate from their frames.There were no handles or keyholes, but perhaps the panels—if they were doors, as I suspected—opened from the inside.One thing was clear enough for my mind.It required no great mental effort to infer that my Time Machine was inside that pedestal.But the mystery of how it came to be was a different matter.

“I spotted two individuals dressed in orange moving through the undergrowth and beneath apple trees laden with blossoms, heading my way. I turned, smiled, and waved them over. They approached, and then, pointing at the bronze pedestal, I attempted to indicate that I wanted it opened. However, when I first gestured toward it, their reaction was strikingly peculiar. I cannot adequately describe their expression to you. Picture this: imagine making an exceedingly vulgar gesture in front of a woman with delicate sensibilities—that is what her face resembled. They walked away as if they had suffered the most egregious slight imaginable. Next, I tried a handsome young man wearing white, and the outcome was precisely the same. In some way, his bearing made me feel ashamed. Nevertheless, since my desire for the Time Machine remained paramount, I attempted him one last time. As he turned away, much like the others, my temper finally overcame my better judgment. In three long strides, I hurried after him, gripped a loose fold of his robe near the neck, and began pulling him toward the sphinx. Then, I saw the look of sheer horror and disgust wash over his face, and abruptly, I let go.

“But I wasn't beaten yet. I hammered with my fist on the bronze panels. I thought I heard something move inside—to be specific, I thought I heard a sound like a chuckle—but I must have been mistaken. Then I grabbed a large pebble from the river and kept hammering until I had flattened a coil in the decorations, and verdigris flaked off in powdery bits. The delicate little people probably heard me banging with gusts of sounds a mile away on both sides, but nothing came of it. I saw a crowd of them on the slopes, watching me suspiciously. Finally, hot and tired, I sat down to watch the place. But I was too restless to watch for long; I am too Occidental for a long vigil. I could work on a problem for years, but waiting inactive for twenty-four hours—that is another matter.

After a while, I got up and started walking aimlessly through the bushes toward the hill again. 'Patience,' I said to myself. 'If you want your machine back, you must leave that sphinx alone. If they plan to take your machine anyway, it's no use wrecking their bronze panels, and if they don't, you'll get it back as soon as you can ask for it. Sitting among all those unknown things before a puzzle like that is hopeless. That path leads only to obsession. Face this world. Learn its ways, observe it, and be careful with any hasty guesses about what it means. Eventually, you will find clues to everything.' Then suddenly the absurdity of the situation hit me: thinking of the years I had spent studying and working just to get into the future age, and now my anxious desire to escape it. I had constructed the most complicated and hopeless trap any man could ever devise. Even though it was at my own expense, I couldn't stop myself. I laughed out loud.

As I wandered through the immense palace, it appeared to me that the local populace actively avoided my presence. Whether this was merely a product of my imagination, or perhaps related to the commotion caused by my hammering on the bronze gates, remained uncertain. Nevertheless, I felt quite convinced of their deliberate avoidance. Still, I took great care not to betray any concern, restraining myself from pressing the issue. After a day or two, things settled back into their accustomed pattern. I continued practicing the language as best I could and made sundry exploratory excursions around the area. Either I failed to grasp some subtle nuance, or their tongue was remarkably straightforward—composed almost entirely of tangible nouns and active verbs. There seemed to be scarce, if any, abstract vocabulary, nor much use of figurative expression. Their sentences were typically brief, often consisting of just two words; consequently, I found myself incapable of conveying or comprehending anything beyond the most rudimentary declarations. I resolved to keep my thoughts regarding the Time Machine and the mystery surrounding the bronze doors beneath the sphinx tucked away in a quiet corner of my memory until my growing understanding naturally guided me back toward them. Yet, there lingered an undeniable sense—if you understand what I mean—that kept me circulating within a few miles of where I had arrived.

VIII. Explanation

As far as I could see, the whole world displayed the same vibrant richness as the Thames Valley. From every hill I climbed, I saw the same abundance of splendid buildings, endlessly varied in material and style; the same clusters of evergreen bushes, the same blossom-laden trees and tree ferns. Here and there, water shone like silver, and beyond, the land rose into blue, rolling hills that faded into the serene sky. A peculiar feature that soon caught my attention was the presence of certain circular wells—several, it seemed to me, of tremendous depth. One lay by the path up the hill I had walked on during my first outing. Like the others, it was lined with curiously wrought bronze and sheltered from the rain by a small cupola. Sitting beside these wells and peering down into the shafted darkness, I could see no gleam of water, nor could I elicit any reflection with a lit match. But in all of them, I heard a distinct sound: a thud—thud—thud, like the beating of some large engine; and by burning my matches, I discovered that a steady current of air descended into the shafts. Further, I dropped a scrap of paper into the mouth of one, and instead of fluttering slowly down, it was instantly sucked swiftly out of sight.

After a while, I also began to connect these wells with tall towers standing here and there on the slopes; for above them there was often just a flicker in the air, like one sees on a hot day over a sun-scorched beach. Putting everything together, I developed a strong feeling that there was an extensive system of underground ventilation, whose true purpose was difficult to imagine. At first, I tended to associate it with the sewage and sanitary systems of these people. It was an obvious conclusion, but it was completely wrong.

Here, however, I must admit that during my time in this real future, I learned very little about drains, bells, modes of transport, or such conveniences. In some of those stories of Utopias and times to come that I have read, there is a vast amount of detail concerning architecture, social customs, and so on. But while it’s easy enough to gather these details when the whole world exists only in one's imagination, they are completely out of reach for a real traveler among realities like what I found here. Imagine telling the story of London that a man who has just arrived from Central Africa would bring back to his tribe! What would he know about railway companies, social movements, telephone and telegraph wires, the Parcels Delivery Company, or postal orders? Yet we, at least, should be willing enough to explain these things to him! And even of what he did know, how much could he make his unexperienced friend understand or believe? Then, consider how small the gap is between a Black man and a white man of our own times, and how vast the gulf is between myself and those of the Golden Age! I was aware of many things that were unseen, and which provided me with comfort; but apart from a general sense of automatic organization, I fear I can convey very little of the difference to your mind.

“Regarding burials, for instance, I saw no signs of crematoria or anything suggesting tombs. But it occurred to me that perhaps there were cemeteries (or crematoria) somewhere beyond the reach of my explorations. This, again, was a question I deliberately posed to myself, and my curiosity was initially completely thwarted by it. The fact puzzled me, and I felt compelled to make another observation, which puzzled me even more: that among this people, there were no elderly or infirm individuals.

“I must confess that my initial satisfaction regarding my theories of an automated civilization and a decadent humanity proved quite fleeting. Nevertheless, I could think of nothing else in the moment. Allow me to elaborate on the difficulties I encountered. The numerous grand palaces I toured were simply residences, expansive dining halls, and sleeping quarters. I detected no machinery, nor any sort of implement whatsoever. Yet these people wore exquisite fabrics that must periodically require mending or replacement, and their sandals, while simple in design, displayed remarkably intricate metalwork. Such items surely required craftsmanship. Furthermore, the inhabitants exhibited no discernible creative drive. There were no mercantile stalls, no workshops, and no evidence suggesting goods arriving from elsewhere. Their days seemed entirely devoted to gentle recreation—strolling by the river, engaging in intimate amusements, consuming fruit, and sleeping. I could not comprehend how their existence remained sustained.

” Then, regarding the Time Machine: something—I cannot say what—had deposited it within the hollow base of the White Sphinx. Why? By all means, I couldn't fathom the reason. And these dry wells, too; those flickering columns. I felt as though a crucial piece of evidence was missing. It was difficult to articulate—imagine discovering an inscription containing sentences in flawless English scattered throughout, interspersed with others composed of words, even characters, entirely unknown to you? Well, on the third day of my stay, that is how the world of Eight Hundred and Two Thousand Seven Hundred and One materialized for me!

“That day, too, I made a friend—of a sort. It happened that as I was watching some of the little people bathing in a shallow area, one of them got cramps and started drifting downstream. The main current flowed quite swiftly, but not so strongly that even an average swimmer couldn't manage it. So, let me give you an idea of what these creatures lacked: not a single one made the slightest effort to rescue the little thing who was weakly crying while drowning right before their eyes. When I realized this, I quickly shed my clothes and, wading in at a lower spot, caught the poor soul and pulled her safely to shore. A little rubbing of the limbs soon revived her, and I had the satisfaction of seeing she was alright before I left her. I had become so low on my opinion of her kind that I didn't expect any gratitude from her. In that regard, however, I was wrong.

“This happened in the morning. In the afternoon I met my little woman—or so I believed—as I was heading back to my usual haunts from an excursion, and she greeted me with shouts of delight and presented me with a huge garland of flowers—clearly made just for me. It completely captivated my imagination. Perhaps I had been feeling downcast. In any case, I tried my best to show how grateful I was for the gift. We soon sat together in a small stone gazebo, talking, mostly through smiles. Her warmth affected me just like it would have done a child. We exchanged flowers, and she kissed my hands. I did the same to hers. Then I tried talking, and learned that her name was Weena, which, though I don’t know what it meant, somehow seemed perfectly fitting. That was the start of a strange friendship that lasted a week, and ended—as I'll tell you!

"She was utterly like a child, needing to be with me constantly. She would follow my every movement; when I next departed, it felt almost natural to tire her out and finally leave her, breathless and calling after me in plaintive cries. But the necessities of the world called for attention—I hadn't come into this future simply to indulge a momentary dalliance. Still, the sheer depth of her distress at my departure was palpable; her parting pleas were at times near-hysterical, and I suspect that, altogether, her devotion troubled me as much as it soothed me. Nevertheless, she remained, somehow, a profound source of comfort. I had dismissed it as mere juvenile attachment that made her cling to me. It wasn't until too late, though, that I fully grasped the effect my departure had wrought upon her; nor did I understand what she meant to me until much later. For merely by appearing fond of me—by demonstrating in her fragile, futile manner how much she cared—that little doll-like creature nearly gave my return to the White Sphinx neighborhood the sensation of coming home; and I would watch for her tiny white and gold figure as soon as I crested the hill.

"It was from her, too, that I learned fear hadn't left the world. She seemed fearless in daylight, and she had this odd confidence in me; once, in a foolish moment, I made threatening grimaces at her, and she just laughed at them. But she dreaded the dark, dreaded shadows, dreaded black things. Darkness was the one thing terrible to her. It was such a deeply felt emotion that it made me think and observe. I discovered then, among other things, that these little people gathered into big houses after dark, and slept in huge groups. Going out to them without a light would throw them into a panic of worry. I never found one outdoors, or one sleeping alone inside, after nightfall. Yet I was still such an idiot that I missed the lesson of that fear, and despite Weena's distress, I insisted on sleeping away from these slumbering crowds.

“It bothered her greatly, but eventually her peculiar fondness for me won out, and for five of the nights we knew each other, including the very last night, she slept with her head resting on my arm. But when I talk about her, my story slips away from me. It must have been the night before her rescue that I was woken up near dawn. I had been restless, dreaming very unpleasantly that I was drowning, and that sea anemones were brushing over my face with their soft tentacles. I woke with a jolt, as if some grayish animal had just rushed out of the room. I tried to fall back asleep, but I felt agitated and uncomfortable. It was that dim gray hour when things are just emerging from darkness, when everything is colorless and starkly defined, yet unreal. I got up, and went down into the great hall, and then out onto the flagstones in front of the palace. I thought I would make the best of it and watch the sunrise.

“The moon was setting, and the dying moonlight mixed with the first pallor of dawn created a ghastly half-light. The bushes were pitch black, the ground a somber gray, and the sky colorless and bleak. And up the hill I thought I could see ghosts. Several times, as I scanned the slope, I saw white figures. Twice I fancied I saw a single white, ape-like creature running quite quickly up the hill, and once near the ruins I saw a leash of them carrying some dark body. They moved hastily. I didn't see what happened to them. It seemed they vanished among the bushes. The dawn was still indistinct, you must understand. I felt that chill, uncertain, early-morning feeling you might know. I doubted my own eyes.”

As the eastern sky brightened, and the day's light returned its vivid colors to the world once more, I scanned the view keenly. But I saw no trace of my white figures. They were merely creatures of the half-light. 'They must have been ghosts,' I murmured; 'I wonder where they came from.' A strange thought about Grant Allen crossed my mind and amused me. If each generation died and left behind ghosts, he argued, the world would eventually become overcrowded with them. According to that theory, there would be innumerable ones in some Eight Hundred Thousand Years, so seeing four at once was no surprise. But the joke was unsatisfying, and I kept thinking about these figures all morning until Weena's rescue drove them from my mind. I vaguely associated them with the white animal I had startled during my first intense search for the Time Machine. But Weena was a pleasant replacement. Still, they were soon destined to take far deadlier hold of my thoughts.

"I believe I have conveyed how much warmer the climate of this Golden Age was than our own. I cannot offer an explanation for it. Perhaps the sun shone more fiercely, or perhaps the Earth orbited closer to it. It is customary to presume that the Sun will continue its steady cooling in subsequent ages. However, people—unacquainted with speculative ideas such as those advanced by a younger Darwin—forget that the planets must eventually fall back sequentially toward their parent body. As these cataclysms unfold, the sun will erupt with revitalized energy; and it might very well be that some inner planet suffered this same destiny. Whatever the precise cause, the reality remains: the sun was vastly hotter than we currently realize.

” "Well, on a scorching morning—my fourth, I believe—as I sought refuge from the oppressive heat and glare within a massive ruin near the grand residence where I rested and dined, this peculiar event transpired. Climbing through these mounds of masonry, I discovered a narrow gallery whose far end and side windows were obstructed by fallen tons of stone. Compared to the brilliance outside, it seemed utterly impenetrable in its gloom at first glance. I advanced into it while navigating by touch; the abrupt shift from daylight to shadow caused colored specks to dance before my vision. Suddenly, I paused, completely captivated. A pair of eyes, gleaming with a reflection catching the outdoor daylight, watched me from the darkness.

A primal, ingrained dread of wild beasts washed over me. I clenched my fists and stared fixedly into those glaring eyes. I was too afraid to turn around. Then the thought struck me of the profound security that humanity seemed to inhabit. Following that, the peculiar terror of the dark crept back. Gathering some courage, I stepped forward and spoke. I must confess my voice was ragged and poorly controlled. I reached out a hand and touched something yielding and soft. Instantly, those eyes darted sideways, and something white flashed past me. With my heart hammering against my ribs, I turned to see a strange, small, ape-like figure, its head bowed in an odd manner, scrambling across the sunlit ground behind me. It collided with a granite block, tripped aside, and in the blink of an eye vanished into the deep shadow beneath another pile of ruined masonry.

"My impression of it is, naturally, imperfect; but I know it was a dull white, and had strange large greyish-red eyes; also that there was flaxen hair on its head and down its back. But, as I say, it moved too fast for me to see clearly. I cannot even tell if it ran on all fours, or only with its forearms held very low. After a moment's pause, I followed it into the second pile of ruins. I couldn't find it at first; but, after some time in the deep darkness, I came upon one of those round, well-like openings I told you about, half-blocked by a fallen pillar. A sudden thought struck me. Could this Creature have vanished down the shaft? I lit a match, and looking down, I saw a small, white, moving thing with large, bright eyes that regarded me steadily as it retreated. It made me shudder. It was so much like a human spider! It was climbing down the wall, and now I saw for the first time several metal foot and hand rests forming a kind of ladder down the shaft. Then the light burned my fingers and slipped from my hand, going out as it dropped, and when I lit another match, the little monster had disappeared.

"I don't know how long I sat staring down that well. It wasn't until some time later that I could convince myself that the thing I had seen was human. But slowly, the truth dawned on me: that Man hadn't remained one species, but had split into two distinct animals—that my graceful children of the Upper World weren't the only descendants of our generation, but that this bleached, obscene, nocturnal Thing, which flashed before me, was also heir to all the ages."

"I thought about the flickering pillars and my theory of underground ventilation. I started to suspect their real purpose. And what, I wondered, was this Lemur doing in my plan for a perfectly balanced organization? How did it relate to the relaxed calm of the beautiful Overworlders? And what was hidden down there, at the bottom of that shaft? I sat on the edge of the well, telling myself that, at least, there was nothing to fear, and that I had to descend there to solve my problems. But I was absolutely afraid to go! As I hesitated, two beautiful people from the upper world came running across the daylight in the shadow as part of their playful activity. The man chased the woman, tossing flowers at her as he ran.

"They seemed distressed to find me, my arm against the overturned pillar, staring down into the well. Apparently, it was considered rude to comment on these openings; when I pointed to this one and tried to phrase a question about it in their language, they were even more visibly upset and turned away. But they were interested by my matches, so I struck some to amuse them. I tried using them again regarding the well, and I failed again. So soon I left them, intending to return to Weena and see what I could get from her. But my mind was already reeling; my guesses and impressions were shifting and settling into a new pattern. I now had a clue about the purpose of these wells, of the ventilation towers, of the mystery of the ghosts; not to mention a hint as to the meaning of the bronze gates and the fate of the Time Machine! And very vaguely, there came a suggestion toward solving the economic problem that had puzzled me.

“Behold, the novel vista. It was clear that this second kind of Man was subterranean in nature. There were three distinct pieces of evidence that led me to conjecture that its infrequent surfacing resulted from a long-established life beneath the earth. Firstly, there was the pallid cast common to many creatures accustomed to perpetual darkness—consider the white fish found within Kentucky caves, for instance. Secondly, those large, light-reflecting eyes are characteristic features of nocturnal beasts; one need only observe an owl or a cat. And finally, that palpable disarray in direct sunlight, that rapid yet awkward flutter toward deep shade, and the peculiar bearing of the head when exposed to light—all lent support to the theory of exceptionally sensitive retinas.

”Beneath my feet, then, the earth must be riddled with vast tunnels, and these passages served as the habitat for this New Race. The proliferation of ventilation shafts and wells along the hillside slopes—indeed, almost everywhere, save in the river valley—demonstrated the sheer extent of its connections. What could account so naturally for the notion that the arduous labor required to maintain the comforts of the day-dwelling race was conducted within such an artificial Underworld? The concept proved so compelling that I readily accepted it and immediately began to formulate a hypothesis regarding how this divergence within the human species had transpired. I dare say you can anticipate the contours of my theory; although, I soon came to feel that it fell considerably short of the actual truth.

Initially, when first tackling the quandaries of our own time, it appeared startlingly obvious to me that the steady encroachment underground, coupled with the simple, ephemeral chasm separating capitalists and laborers, constituted the core of the entire predicament. I realize this sounds absurd—and utterly unbelievable!—yet even presently, evidence points in that direction. There is a clear inclination toward utilizing subterranean space for the less ornamental facets of civilization; consider the London Metropolitan Railway, as an illustration: we see new electric lines, subways popping up, underground workshops and restaurants sprouting forth, and their numbers continue to multiply. Evidently, I mused, this trend had progressed to the point where Industry had effectively forfeited its right to occupy open space. My point is that it burrowed deeper and deeper into vast, ever-expanding subterranean factories, spending an escalating proportion of its hours below ground, until at last—! Even now, does a worker in the East End not subsist under artificial conditions that practically sever him from the natural surface world?

Once more, the inherent inclination of the affluent—perhaps stemming from their increasingly sophisticated education and the chasm widening between them and the harsh struggles endured by the poor—is already fencing off vast swathes of the land purely for self-interest. Near London, for instance, perhaps half of the most beautiful countryside is now sealed away from any interference. This very widening divide—fueled by the length and cost of advanced schooling and the greater prospects and temptations toward refined living among the wealthy—will cause class mixing, that upward mobility achieved through marriage which presently slows the fragmentation of our species along lines of social standing, to dwindle steadily. Consequently, eventually, above ground you will find the Haves, pursuing pleasure, ease, and beauty; and underground, the Have-nots, the Workers becoming ever accustomed to the regimentation of their toil. Having been housed there, they would surely be obligated to pay rent—and a considerable sum—merely for allowing them to breathe in their subterranean chambers; and should they refuse, they would starve or suffocate from unpaid back payments. Those among them who proved too wretched or rebellious would perish; and, ultimately, since the imbalance was permanent, the survivors would grow as accustomed to underground existence, and as satisfied with it, as those living above ground were to their own surroundings. In my view, refined beauty and a pallid complexion would naturally follow this pattern.

"The grand triumph of humankind that I had once envisioned took a different shape in my mind's eye. It was not the kind of moral awakening or universal cooperation I had imagined. Rather, I pictured an actual aristocracy, armed with perfected science and logically developing into the industrial system we see today. Its success hadn't merely conquered nature; it represented a victory over both nature and humanity itself. Now, I must warn you, that was my theory at the time. I lacked any straightforward guide within the genre of Utopian literature. My explanation might be entirely flawed. Nevertheless, I still consider it the most plausible one. But even based on this premise, the balanced civilization they finally achieved must have long since passed its apex and sunk deep into decay. The Overworlders' excessive sense of security had spurred a gradual deterioration—a general decline in vigor, power, and intellect. I could perceive that quite clearly. As for what befell the Undergrounders, I was not yet certain; but judging by the Morlocks—which, incidentally, is the name these creatures bore—I could surmise that the alteration of the human form was even more profound than that seen among the 'Eloi,' the exquisite race I had already encountered.

Then mounting doubts surfaced. Why had the Morlocks absconded with my Time Machine? I was convinced they were responsible for its disappearance. Furthermore, if the Eloi possessed such mastery, why could they not simply return the device to me? And what, truly, made them so profoundly terrified of the dark? As I recounted, I questioned Weena about this Underworld once more, but my efforts proved futile. Initially, she failed to grasp my inquiries, and soon enough, she declined to answer at all. She shivered as if the subject were unbearable. When I pressed her, perhaps too insistently, she broke into tears. Those were the only tears—save for my own—that I had ever witnessed in that supposed Golden Age. Seeing them, my concern regarding the Morlocks suddenly dissolved; all that mattered was making those signs of humanity fade from Weena's eyes. Before long, she was smiling and clapping her hands as I solemnly lit a match.

IX. The Morlocks

“It may strike you as odd, but it took me two full days to process the new clue in what I felt was the correct manner. I sensed an instinctive withdrawal from those pale forms. Their color was nothing short of washed-out—resembling worms or specimens preserved in a natural history collection. And they were sickeningly cold to the touch. My hesitation was likely largely due to the Eloi’s conditioning, and it was then that I began to grasp their deep revulsion toward the Morlocks.

The night following was troubled by sleeplessness; perhaps my constitution had been slightly unsettled. I was plagued by a wave of confusion and doubt, occasionally seized by an intense dread for which I could detect no discernible cause. I recall slipping silently into the great hall where the little people slumbered beneath the moonlight—Weena was among them that night—and finding comfort in their mere presence. It struck me even then that as the moon neared its final quarter and the nights deepened, these unpleasant entities from below—these whitened Lemurs, this novel vermin supplanting the old—might appear with increasing frequency. For two full days I carried a restless anxiety, as if evading some unavoidable obligation. I was certain that recovering the Time Machine required boldly penetrating these subterranean mysteries. Still, facing that mystery proved impossible for me. If only I had possessed a companion; things would have been different. But my solitude felt overwhelming, and even descending into the well’s darkness terrified me. I do not know if you can fathom my unease, but I never felt safe in my wake.

It was perhaps this inherent restlessness, this subtle sense of unease, that propelled me onward on my exploratory journeys. While heading southwest toward the emerging ground known as Combe Wood, I spotted something in the distant direction of 19th-century Banstead—a vast, verdant structure utterly unlike anything I had encountered before. It dwarfed any palace or ruin I was acquainted with; its façade bore a distinctly Oriental air, possessing an enamel sheen and a pale, blueish-green hue that evoked certain Chinese porcelain. This striking difference in appearance hinted at a foreign purpose, compelling me to press onward and investigate. However, the day was waning, and after such an arduous and tiring trek, I elected to defer further exploration until morning, retreating instead to the familiar comfort of little Weena. Yet, the following dawn brought a stark realization: my fascination with the Palace of Green Porcelain was nothing more than self-deception, merely a way to postpone confronting an experience I dreaded for another day. I resolved to abandon this distraction without wasting further time and set out early that morning toward a well nestled among granite and aluminum ruins.

"Little Weena ran with me. She danced beside me to the well, but when she saw me lean over the edge and look down, she seemed strangely unsettled. 'Goodbye, little Weena,' I said, kissing her; then setting her down, I started feeling along the parapet for the climbing hooks. Rather hastily, I must admit, because I feared my courage might fade away! At first, she just watched me in amazement. Then she let out a very pitiful cry and ran to me, starting to tug at me with her little hands. I think her resistance made it hard for me to continue. I shook her off, perhaps a little roughly, and moments later I was in the mouth of the well. I saw her anguished face over the parapet and smiled to reassure her. Then I had to look down at the unstable hooks I was clinging to.

I had to clamber down a shaft that was perhaps two hundred yards deep. The descent was managed by metallic bars sticking out from the sides of the well, and since these were designed for something much smaller and lighter than me, I quickly became cramped and exhausted just getting down. And not just tired! One of the bars suddenly bent under my weight, nearly swinging me into the darkness below. For a moment, I hung there by one hand, and after that experience, I didn't dare to rest again. Even though my arms and back were hurting sharply right away, I kept clambering down the sheer drop as quickly as possible. Looking up, I saw the opening—a small blue disc—where a star was visible, and little Weena’s head showed as a round black spot. The thumping sound of machinery below grew louder and more oppressive. Everything except that small disc above was profoundly dark, and when I looked up again, Weena had vanished.

I was wracked by discomfort, in genuine agony. I even contemplated ascending the shaft to abandon the Underworld altogether. Yet, even as these thoughts crossed my mind, I continued descending. Finally, with a wave of profound relief, I spotted a faint opening appearing on my right side within the wall. Squeezing myself into it, I discovered it was an entrance leading into a narrow horizontal tunnel where I could finally recline and rest. However, it had been too long. My arms ached, my back felt rigid, and I trembled from the prolonged terror of the fall. Furthermore, the unending darkness had taken a visible toll on my eyesight. The air resonated with the steady throb of machinery pumping breathable air down the shaft.

I lost count of how long I lay there until a gentle hand brushed against my face. In the gloom, I snatched up my matches and struck one quickly. My gaze settled upon three pale creatures crouched nearby, resembling those seen in the surface ruins above; they instantly recoiled from the brightness. Since their existence seemed dependent on utter blackness, their eyes were unnaturally large and sensitive, much like the pupils of deep-sea fish, catching the light with a distinct reflection. I had no doubt that they could perceive me even in that pitch-black void, and they showed no fear toward me unless the light was involved. But the moment I struck the match to illuminate them, they bolted immediately, vanishing into dark crevices and tunnels, only for their eyes to glare at me in a peculiar manner.

I attempted to call out, but their language was utterly foreign compared to the speech of those in the Overworld; thus, I had little choice but to rely on my own wits. The impulse to explore rather than retreat was already taking hold within me. However, I cautioned myself, 'You are in this now.' As I navigated through the tunnel, the sound of machinery gradually intensified. Soon, the walls gave way before me, depositing me into a cavernous, open space. With another strike of my match, I found myself in a vast, arched chamber that dissolved into absolute blackness beyond the meager reach of my flame. My perception of it was limited only to what a flickering matchhead could illuminate.

Naturally, my recollections are vague. Enormous forms, like colossal mechanisms, rose from the gloom, casting grotesque shadows onto places where faint, spectral Morlocks sheltered from the harsh glare. The locale itself felt intensely stale and suffocating, underscored by the faint odor of fresh blood. Directly ahead, there rested a small white metal table set with what appeared to be a meal. These Morlocks were clearly carnivorous creatures! Even then, I recall wondering what large beast could have survived intact to provide the red joint I spotted. The entire scene was indistinct: the heavy aroma, the massive, meaningless silhouettes, the obscene figures lurking in the shadows, perpetually poised for me to succumb once more to the darkness! Then the match sputtered out, stung my fingers, and fell—a small, writhing spot of crimson lost in the blackness.

"I have spent considerable time pondering how terribly unprepared I was for such an experience. When I first set off in the Time Machine, I made the ridiculous assumption that the people of the Future would surpass us immeasurably in every conceivable piece of technology. I arrived utterly unequipped: without weaponry, lacking medical supplies, and even short on matches—I sorely missed my tobacco, in fact! If only I had brought a Kodak camera! I could have captured that glimpse of the Underworld in an instant and studied it at my leisure. But circumstances dictated otherwise; I stood there with nothing but the natural endowments Nature had granted me: hands, feet, teeth; these, along with four meager safety-matches.

"I was afraid to push my way through all this machinery in the dark, and it was only when I had my last glimpse of light that I realized my supply of matches was running low. It hadn't crossed my mind until that moment that I needed to conserve them, and I had wasted almost half the box 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; thin fingers swept across my face, and I noticed a peculiar, unpleasant smell. I thought I heard the breathing of a crowd of those dreadful little beings around me. I felt the matchbox in my hand being gently taken away, and other hands behind me tugging at my clothes. The feeling of these unseen creatures examining me was indescribably unpleasant. The sudden realization that I knew nothing of their way of thinking or acting hit me with vivid force in the darkness. I shouted as loudly as I could. They backed away, and then I could feel them approaching me again. They grabbed at me more boldly, whispering odd sounds to each other. I shivered violently and shouted again—rather jarringly. This time they weren't so seriously alarmed, and they made a strange, mocking sound as they came back toward me. I'll admit I was terribly frightened. I decided to strike another match and escape under the protection of its glow. So I did, using a scrap of paper from my pocket to extend the flicker, and I made my way back to the narrow tunnel. But I had barely entered this when my light was extinguished, and in the blackness, I could hear the Morlocks rustling like wind through leaves, and pattering like rain, as they hurried after me."

Suddenly, several hands grabbed me, and there was no mistaking that they were trying to drag me back. I struck another light and waved it in their startled faces. You can hardly imagine how sickeningly inhuman they looked—those pale, chinless faces and huge, lidless, pinkish-grey eyes!—as they stared with confusion and bewilderment. But I didn't stop to look; I promise you: I retreated again, and when my second match died out, I struck the third. It was almost out when I reached the opening into the shaft. I lay down on the edge because the throbbing of the great pump below made me dizzy. Then I felt sideways for the protruding hooks, and as I did so, my feet were grabbed from behind, and I was yanked backward violently. I lit my last match… and it instantly went out. But I had my hand on the climbing bars by now, and kicking hard, I pulled myself free from the Morlocks' grasp and started scrambling up the shaft quickly, while they stayed peering and blinking at me: all except one little miserable creature who followed me for a distance, and nearly managed to yank my boot away like a trophy.

“That climb seemed endless to me. With the last twenty or thirty feet, a deadly wave of nausea washed over me. I had immense difficulty keeping my grip. The final yards were a terrifying struggle against this weakness. Several times my head spun, and I felt as if I were about to fall. Finally, though, I somehow got over the well-mouth and staggered out of the ruin into the blinding sunlight. I collapsed face-first. Even the soil smelled sweet and clean. Then I remember Weena kissing my hands and ears, and the voices of others among the Eloi. Then, for a time, I was unconscious.

X. When Night Came

Now, I confess I felt worse than before. Until this moment, save for the nightly torment over losing the Time Machine, I had maintained a sustaining hope of ultimate escape; however, that hope has been shattered by these recent revelations. Previously, I had viewed my struggles merely as being hampered by the quaint simplicity of the little people, and believing that some unknown forces were simply matters of understanding necessary for victory; but the Morlocks presented an entirely different degree of repulsion—something decidedly inhuman and sinister. An instinctual loathing rose up within me. Before, I felt like a man who had fallen into a deep pit: my attention was solely fixed upon the depth of the chasm and devising a means of escape. Now, however, I felt like a caged creature whose enemy could appear at any instant.

“The enemy I dreaded might surprise you.It was the darkness of the new moon.Weena had planted this idea in my head through some remarks about Dark Nights that were initially incomprehensible.It wasn't so difficult now to guess what the coming dark nights might mean.The moon was waning; each night brought a longer interval of darkness.And I understood, at least slightly, the reason for the Upperworld people's fear of the dark.I wondered vaguely what foul villainy the Morlocks committed under the new moon.I felt quite certain now that my second theory was entirely wrong.The Upperworld people might once have been the privileged aristocracy, and the Morlocks their mechanical servants: but that had long since passed.The two species that resulted from human evolution were shifting toward—or had already arrived at—a completely new relationship.The Eloi, like the Carlovignan kings, had decayed into mere beautiful uselessness.They still possessed the earth by tolerance: because the Morlocks, having been underground for innumerable generations, had finally found the daylight surface intolerable.And the Morlocks made their clothes, I inferred, and maintained them out of habitual necessity, perhaps through the survival instinct of an old habit of service.They did it as a trained horse paws with its hoof, or as a man enjoys killing animals in sport: because ancient, discarded necessities had imprinted it upon their very existence.But, clearly, the old order was already partially reversed.The downfall of the delicate ones was approaching steadily.Ages ago, thousands of generations ago, man had driven his brother man out of comfort and sunshine.And now that brother was coming back—changed!The Eloi had already begun to learn an old lesson anew.They were becoming reacquainted with Fear.Suddenly, the memory of the meat I had seen in the Underworld popped into my head.It seemed strange how it entered my mind: not brought up by the flow of my thoughts, but arriving almost like a question from somewhere outside.I tried to picture its shape.I had a vague sense that it was something familiar, but I couldn't tell what it was at the time.

“Still, no matter how helpless the little people were in the face of their mysterious Fear, I was different. I came out of our age, this peak time for humanity, when Fear doesn't paralyze and mystery has lost its terror. At least I could defend myself. Without further delay, I decided to make myself arms and a safe place where I could sleep. With that refuge as a base, I could face this strange world with some of the confidence I had lost from realizing what creatures left me exposed night after night. I felt I wouldn't be able to sleep again until my bed was secure from them. It filled me with horror to think how much they must have already examined me.

“I wandered through the valley along the Thames in the afternoon, but found nothing that struck me as inaccessible. All the buildings and trees seemed easily reachable for dexterous climbers like the Morlocks; by their appearance, I judged so. Then the tall spires of the Palace of Green Porcelain and the polished shine of its walls came back to my memory; and in the evening, carrying Weena like a child on my shoulder, I walked up the hills toward the southwest. The distance, I had estimated, was seven or eight miles, but it must have been closer to eighteen. I had first seen the place on a damp afternoon when distances are misleadingly short. Furthermore, the heel of one of my shoes was loose, and a nail was piercing through the sole—they were comfortable old shoes I wore around the house—so I limped. And it was already well past sunset when the palace came into view, silhouetted black against the pale yellow sky.”

“Weena had been hugely delighted when I began to carry her, but after a while she wanted me to set her down, and walked along beside me, occasionally darting off either side to pick flowers to stick in my pockets. My pockets had always puzzled Weena, but at last she concluded that they were an eccentric kind of vases for decorating with flowers. At least she used them for that purpose. And that reminds me! While changing my jacket I found…”

The Time Traveller paused, put his hand into his pocket, and silently placed two withered flowers, not unlike very large white mallows, onto the little table. Then he continued his story.

“As the quiet of evening crept over everything and we walked over the hill crest toward Wimbledon, Weena grew tired and wanted to go back to the grey stone house. But I pointed out the distant pinnacles of the Palace of Green Porcelain to her, and managed to make her understand that we were looking for shelter there from her fear. You know that great hush that falls over things before dusk? Even the breeze seems to stop in the trees. To me, there is always an air of expectation about that evening quiet. The sky was clear, distant, and empty except for a few horizontal streaks far off in the sunset. Well, that night the expectation took on the color of my fears. In that dark stillness, my senses seemed unnaturally sharp. I imagined I could even feel the hollowness of the ground beneath my feet: I could almost see the Morlocks moving back and forth in their anthill, waiting for the darkness. In my excitement, I thought they would take my visit to their burrows as a declaration of war. And why had they taken my Time Machine?

We continued in silence as the twilight deepened into night. The clear blue of the distance began to fade, giving way to an emerging constellation of stars. The ground grew dim, and the trees appeared stark black against the gloom. Weena’s apprehension and exhaustion mounted. I held her close, murmuring words while gently stroking her hair. As the darkness deepened further, she instinctively wrapped her arms around my neck, closing her eyes, and pressing her face tightly against my shoulder. We walked down a long slope into a valley; there, shrouded in shadow, I nearly stumbled into a small river. I waded through it and climbed up the opposite bank of the valley, passing several quiet dwellings and alongside a statue—perhaps a Faun, or some similar figure whose head was missing. Acacias grew here as well. Thus far, I had seen no sign of the Morlocks, but it was still early in the night, and the deepest hours preceding the old moon's ascent were yet to arrive.

From the crest of the next rise, a dense, black wood sprawled out before me. I paused at the sight; there seemed to be no visible edge, not to the right nor to the left. Exhausted—my feet were particularly aching—I gently lowered Weena from my shoulder, stopping completely, and sank onto the turf. The Palace of Green Porcelain was now lost to view, and I had no certainty about our direction. I gazed into the wood's deep thickness, pondering what secrets it might hold. Beneath that tangled thicket of branches, one would be hidden entirely from the stars. Even setting aside any imagined peril—a danger my own mind dared not conjure—there would still be roots to trip over and trunks against which to collide. I was utterly weary after the day's excitement; thus, I resolved not to venture through it, but rather to spend the night on the open hill instead.

"Weena, I was relieved to find her fast asleep. I carefully draped my jacket around her and settled down beside her to wait for the moon's ascent. The hillside was silent and deserted, save for the occasional rustle emanating from the black woods. Above me, the stars shone brightly against a remarkably clear night. I felt a profound sense of comforting companionship gazing upon their twinkling display. Yet, even the ancient constellations had shifted their familiar positions; a slow drift, imperceptible over countless human lifetimes, had rearranged them into unfamiliar patterns. Still, the Milky Way seemed unchanged—the same tattered streamer of celestial dust it had always been. To the south, as I estimated, shone a strikingly brilliant red star, unknown to me before; it outshone even our own vibrant green Sirius. And amidst this multitude of glittering pinpricks of light, one bright planet gleamed with gentle constancy, like the visage of an old friend.

"Looking at these stars suddenly made my own troubles and all the concerns of earthly life seem insignificant. I thought about their unfathomable distance, and the slow, inevitable drift of their movements from an unknown past into an unknown future. I thought about the great precessional cycle that the Earth's pole traces. In all the years I had traveled, that silent revolution had occurred only forty times. And during these few revolutions, all the activity, all the traditions, the complex organizations, the nations, languages, literatures, aspirations—even the mere memory of Man as I knew him—had been swept out of existence. Instead were these fragile creatures who had forgotten their grand ancestry, and the white Things that filled me with terror. Then I thought of the Great Fear between the two species, and for the first time, with a sudden shiver, came the clear realization of what the flesh I had seen might be. But it was too horrible! I looked at little Weena sleeping beside me, her face pale and starlike beneath the stars, and immediately dismissed the thought."

Throughout the long night, I tried my best to distract myself from the Morlocks, passing the time by imagining recognizable constellations within the overwhelming confusion of the sky. The heavens remained quite clear, save for a faint haze that drifted across them. Undoubtedly, sleep claimed me at intervals. Then, as my watch ticked onward, a soft luminosity appeared in the eastern sky, resembling the reflection of some colorless fire, and the old moon ascended—slender, peaked, and white. Immediately trailing it, eclipsing it and spilling over its brilliance, arrived the dawn: first pale, then blossoming into pink and warmth. No Morlocks had drawn near. In fact, I hadn't seen any on the hill that night. Amid the solace of the returning daylight, my apprehension seemed almost unwarranted. I rose up, only to find my foot—the heel painfully swollen around the ankle; so I settled back down, slipped off my boots, and cast them aside.

“I awoke Weena, and we wandered into the woods; they were vibrant and lovely now, rather than black and menacing. We gathered some fruit to break our fast. Soon we encountered others of the delicate sort, laughing and dancing in the sunlight as if night held no dominion over nature at all. Then my thoughts returned to the flesh I had glimpsed. I was certain now what it was, and from the deepest part of my heart, I felt a pang of pity for this last, frail remnant of humanity’s vast deluge. Clearly, at some point during the epoch of human decline, the Morlocks must have grown scarce in food—perhaps subsisting solely on rats and similar scavengers. Even today, man is far less discerning or selective in his diet than he once was—barely matching the palate of any monkey. His aversion to human flesh cannot be a deeply rooted instinct. And thus these inhuman progeny of mankind—! I endeavoured to observe the scene with scientific detachment. After all, they seemed less thoroughly human and more distant even than our cannibalistic forebears from three or four millennia past. Moreover, the intelligence that would have turned this situation into torment had vanished. Why should I trouble myself? These Eloi were nothing but fattened livestock, kept and preyed upon by the ant-like Morlocks—perhaps merely to regulate their reproduction. And Weena was dancing beside me!”

“So I tried to save myself from the horror coming my way by viewing it as a severe punishment for human selfishness. Man had been content living in ease and pleasure thanks to his fellow man's labor, had used Necessity as its catchphrase and excuse, and eventually, Necessity had come back to haunt him. I even adopted a disdain for this wretched, decaying aristocracy, something reminiscent of Carlyle. But this mindset was impossible to maintain. No matter how great their intellectual decline, the Eloi had retained too much of the human form not to evoke my sympathy, forcing me into complicity in their decay and their Fear.

“At that time, I had very vague ideas about what course to take. My first thought was to find a safe place to hide and to create some weapons out of metal or stone as I could manage. That need was immediate. Next, I hoped to get some way to make fire so that I would have the weapon of a torch at hand; for nothing, I knew, would be more effective against these Morlocks. After that, I wanted to arrange a way to break open the bronze doors under the White Sphinx. I envisioned using a battering ram. I was convinced that if I could get through those doors and carry a bright light ahead of me, I would find the Time Machine and escape. I couldn't imagine the Morlocks being strong enough to move it far away. Weena, I had decided, was going with me to our own time. Running these plans through my mind, we walked toward the building that my imagination had chosen as our home.

XI. The Palace of Green Porcelain

“When we reached the Palace of Green Porcelain near noon, I discovered it utterly deserted and crumbling into ruin. Only ragged shards of glass remained in its windows, and vast sheets of green exterior had peeled away from the corroded metal framework. It was situated high on a grassy slope; looking northeast before I entered, I was struck by the sight of a large estuary—or perhaps even a creek—which I guessed must have once been Wandsworth and Battersea. At that moment, though I never pursued the thought, I pondered what had happened, or what might still be happening, to the life in the sea.

“ Upon closer inspection, the palace material proved genuinely to be porcelain, and on its facade, I observed an inscription written in some unknown script. In my folly, I hoped Weena could help decipher it, but I soon realized that the very notion of writing had never occurred to her. To be frank, she always struck me as more human than she truly was, perhaps because her affection felt so deeply, genuinely human.

Through the cavernous, broken doors—which remained open—we discovered not a typical hall, but an elongated gallery illuminated by numerous side windows. At first glance, it evoked a museum. The tiled floor was thickly veiled in dust, and an impressive collection of disparate artifacts lay covered beneath the same grey sheet. It was only then that I noticed what was clearly the lower section of a colossal skeleton, standing strangely and gauntly at the gallery’s center. From its angled feet, I recognized it as belonging to some extinct beast resembling Megatherium. The skull and upper bones rested nearby, buried in the thick dust; furthermore, in one spot where rainwater had dripped from a roof leak, the remains themselves had been washed away entirely. Deeper into the gallery was the massive skeletal barrel of a Brontosaurus. My initial theory about the location’s purpose proved correct. Turning toward the side, I found what appeared to be sloping shelves; clearing away the thick grime, I unearthed old, recognizable display cases reminiscent of our own era. However, by the remarkable condition in which some of their contents were preserved, they must have been hermetically sealed.

"Evidently, we stood within the wreckage of some later South Kensington! Apparently, this was the Palaeontological Section, and it must have housed a truly magnificent collection of fossils; yet, the inevitable process of decay—which had been held at bay for a time, only to lose ninety-nine percent of its power due to the extinction of certain bacteria and fungi—was nonetheless, with absolute certainty if not immediate speed, reclaiming all its treasures. Scattered here and there, I discovered traces resembling miniature figures crafted from rare fossils, some snapped into fragments or strung upon reeds. Moreover, several display cases had been entirely stripped bare—by the Morlocks, I suspected. The atmosphere was profoundly quiet; the thick dust muffled every footfall. Weena, who had been rolling a sea urchin along the inclined glass of an exhibit case, soon approached, and as my gaze swept across the surroundings, she quietly took my hand and stood by my side.

“At first, I was so overwhelmed by this colossal exhibition of intellectual brilliance that I failed to contemplate any of the implications it suggested. Even my focus on the Time Machine began to recede from my thoughts.

“Judging by the size of this place, this Palace of Green Porcelain contained far more than a Gallery of Palæontology; perhaps historical galleries; it might even be a library!To me, at least in my current situation, these would be vastly more interesting than this spectacle of decaying old-world geology.Exploring, I found another short gallery running across perpendicular to the first one.This appeared to be dedicated to minerals, and seeing a block of sulfur made me think of gunpowder.But I could find no saltpeter; indeed, no nitrates of any kind.They must have dissolved long ago.Still, the sulfur stayed in my mind and sparked a line of thought.As for the rest of the gallery’s contents—though overall they were the best preserved things I saw—I had little interest.I am no expert in mineralogy, so I moved down a very ruined aisle running parallel to the first hall I had entered.Apparently, this section was devoted to natural history, but everything had long since lost its recognizable form.Just a few withered, blackened remains of what were once stuffed animals, dried-out mummies in jars that once held spirits, and a brown dust of dead plants: that was it!I felt sorry about it because I would have been happy to trace the careful adjustments by which animated nature had been conquered.Then we arrived at a gallery of truly enormous proportions, but it was strangely dim; its floor sloped downward at a slight angle from the end where I entered.At intervals, white globes hung from the ceiling—many of them cracked and smashed—which suggested that the place had once been artificially lit.Here I felt more at home, because rising on either side of me were the huge masses of big machines, all badly corroded and many broken down, but some still fairly complete.You know I have a particular weakness for machinery, and I was tempted to linger among them; especially since most of them looked like puzzles, and I could only make vague guesses about what they were used for.I thought that if I could solve their mysteries, I would possess powers that might be useful against the Morlocks.

“Suddenly Weena came very close to my side, so suddenly that she startled me. If it hadn't been for her, I don't think I would have noticed at all that the floor of the gallery sloped. [Footnote: It may be, of course, that the floor didn't slope, but that the museum was built into the side of a hill.—ED.] The end I arrived at was quite above ground and lit by rare, slit-like windows. As you walked down its length, the ground met these windows until finally there was a pit like the 'area' of a London house in front of each one, with only a narrow line of daylight overhead. I proceeded slowly, pondering the machinery, and had been so focused on it that I failed to notice the gradual dimming of the light, until Weena’s growing anxiety drew my attention. Then I saw that the gallery finally ran down into thick darkness. I hesitated, and then, as I looked around, I noticed that the dust was less plentiful and its surface uneven. Further away toward the gloom, it seemed to be broken by several small, narrow footprints. My sense of the Morlocks' immediate presence revived at that moment. I felt like I was wasting time with this academic examination of machinery. I remembered that it was already late in the afternoon, and I still had no weapon, no safe place, and no way to make a fire. And then down in the remote blackness of the gallery, I heard a peculiar pattering—the same strange noises I had heard down the well.

I took Weena’s hand. Then, struck by a sudden idea, I left her and turned to a machine from which projected a lever not unlike those in a signal box. Climbing onto the stand and grasping this lever with my hands, I put all my weight sideways upon it. Suddenly Weena, deserted in the central aisle, began to whimper. I had judged the strength of the lever quite correctly; it snapped after a minute’s strain, and I rejoined her with a mace in my hand—more than sufficient, I thought, for any Morlock skull I might encounter. And I longed very much to kill a Morlock or so. Very inhuman, you may think, to want to go killing one's own descendants! But it was somehow impossible to feel any humanity in the things. Only my reluctance to leave Weena, and a suspicion that if I started satisfying my thirst for murder my Time Machine might suffer, restrained me from going straight down the gallery and killing the brutes I heard.

"Well, mace in one hand and Weena in the other, I left that gallery and entered another, which was even larger. At first glance, it reminded me of a military chapel adorned with tattered flags. The brown, charred rags hanging from its sides, I soon recognized as the decaying remains of books. They had long since fallen to pieces; every trace of printed material was gone. But here and there were warped boards and cracked metal clasps that told a story well enough. If I were a man of letters, I might perhaps moralize about the futility of all ambition. But as it was, the thing that struck me most powerfully was the enormous waste of effort this somber wasteland of rotting paper represented. At the time, I confess I thought mainly of the Philosophical Transactions and my own seventeen papers on physical optics."

Ascending the broad staircase, we reached what appeared to have once been a gallery dedicated to technical chemistry. I harbored little hope of making any useful discoveries here. With the exception of one end where the roof had collapsed, though, the gallery was remarkably well-preserved. I eagerly inspected every display case that remained intact. Finally, within an exceptionally airtight cabinet, I discovered a box of matches. I tested them with great excitement; they were flawless—not even damp. I turned to Weena. "Dance," I called out to her in her own tongue. For now, I actually possessed a means of defense against the dreadful creatures we dreaded. So, within that ruined museum, across the deep, soft layer of dust covering everything, and to Weena's utter delight, I ceremoniously performed a medley of dances while whistling The Land of the Leal with every cheerful note I could muster. It was partly a modest can-can; partly a step dance; partly a skirt routine (as much as my tailcoat permitted); and partly something entirely novel, because I am naturally inventive, as you know.

I still find it remarkable—though deeply fortunate for me—that this box of matches had endured the passage of time for so many years. Yet, in a peculiar turn of events, I discovered something even more unexpected: camphor. It rested within a sealed jar that must have been perfectly airtight by sheer chance. Initially, I mistook it for paraffin wax and shattered the glass without hesitation. But the scent was unmistakably that of camphor. Amidst all the surrounding decay, this volatile material had managed to survive, perhaps across millennia. It brought to mind a sepia photograph once viewed, an image created from the ink residue of a fossilized Belemnite, a creature long dead and hardened into stone millions of years prior. Just as I was about to discard it, however, I recalled its flammability; it burned with a brilliant flame—in fact, it made an excellent candle—so I tucked it away in my pocket. Nevertheless, I found no explosives, nor any means of forcing open the bronze doors. My iron crowbar remained the most practical object I had encountered. Still, despite these limitations, I departed that gallery feeling profoundly exhilarated.

"I cannot recount the entire story of that lengthy afternoon; it would demand an enormous exertion of memory to piece together my wanderings in chronological order. I recall a long gallery lined with rusty weapon racks, and the indecision I felt between wielding my crowbar, picking up an axe, or grasping a sword. Since I couldn't carry them all, my sturdy iron bar seemed the most suitable option against the bronze gates. There were countless firearms—guns, pistols, and rifles. Most of them were nothing more than mounds of decay, but many were fashioned from some newer metal and retained a surprisingly good semblance of their former selves. Nevertheless, any ammunition or powder that might have been present had likely crumbled to dust. In one corner, I noted an area that was charred and shattered; perhaps, I mused, the remnants of some explosive incident involving the displayed artifacts. Elsewhere stood a vast assortment of idols—Polynesian, Mexican, Greek, Phoenician; conceivably representing every nation on earth. And there, succumbing to an irrepressible urge, I inscribed my name upon the snout of a steatite monster from South America that had particularly captured my attention.

As evening drew near, my initial interest began to wane. I wandered through gallery after gallery—dusty, hushed, and frequently decaying. The displays themselves ranged from mere heaps of rust and lignite to items that appeared remarkably preserved. In one corner, I suddenly found myself standing by a model of a tin mine; there, purely by chance, I stumbled upon two dynamite cartridges housed in an airtight case! Exclaiming "Eureka!" I smashed the case with delight. Yet, doubt soon crept over me, causing me to hesitate. Eventually, I selected a small side gallery and composed my essay. Never have I felt such deep disappointment as when I waited five, ten, or fifteen minutes for an explosion that never materialized. Of course, they were props, which I could have discerned from their very appearance. I genuinely believe that had those objects not been dummies, I would have acted rashly, destroying the Sphinx, the bronze doors, and (as it ultimately transpired) my prospects of finding the Time Machine—all in one fell swoop—into nothingness.

I believe it was after that we came to a small courtyard within the palace grounds. It was covered in turf and sheltered three fruit-bearing trees, providing a place where we rested and regained our strength. As the sun began to set, I started contemplating our predicament. Night was creeping over us, and my secluded bolt-hole still needed locating. Yet, this worried me little by now. For I possessed something that might serve as an excellent defense against the Morlocks—I had matches! Moreover, I carried camphor in my pocket, should a fire prove necessary. It seemed to me that our best recourse for the evening was to sleep out in the open, sheltered by flames. The matter of the Time Machine arose with the morning. Regarding that, until now, I possessed only my iron mace. But now, equipped with my expanding understanding, I felt quite differently about those bronze doors. Until this point, I had hesitated to force them open, mainly due to the mystery they suggested on the other side. They never seemed exceptionally robust, and I held out hope that my iron bar would not prove entirely inadequate for the undertaking.

XII. In the Darkness

We departed the Palace while the sun was still breaking above the horizon. My objective for the following morning was to reach the White Sphinx early, and by dusk, I planned to press through the woods that had impeded my journey before. The scheme was to cover as much distance as possible that night, then build a fire and sleep under its protection. Accordingly, as we walked, I gathered every twig or patch of dry grass in sight, soon filling both arms with such debris. Our progress was sluggish beneath our heavy loads, slower than anticipated, compounded by Weena’s exhaustion. I, too, began to feel drowsy; thus, it wasn't until deep into the night that we reached the treeline. Atop the scrub-covered rise bordering the forest, Weena must have hesitated, fearful of the gloom ahead; yet, a strange premonition of disaster—which should have served as ample warning—urged me onward. Having been deprived of sleep for eighteen hours, I felt feverish and irritable. Sleep was closing in on me, and the Morlocks followed suit.

“As we paused, feeling uneasy amidst the black thicket behind us—three figures were visible, crouched low and barely discernible against the shadows. Scrub and long grass surrounded us, and I couldn't shake the sense of danger from their creeping approach. I estimated that the forest wasn't more than a mile wide. If we could reach the open hillside, it seemed to me, it would offer a far safer place to rest; I figured my matches and camphor would be enough to keep our path lit through the woods. However, it was evident that if I exhausted all my kindling, I would have no firewood left; so, with considerable reluctance, I set it down. Then, an idea struck me: I could use the wood to signal to our friends behind us by lighting a fire. I would later find this entire scheme utterly foolish, but at that moment, it seemed like a brilliant way to mask our retreat.

“I wonder if you have ever contemplated how scarce fire must be in the absence of people, particularly in a temperate climate. The sun’s warmth rarely generates enough heat to ignite anything, even when concentrated by dew drops, as sometimes occurs in more tropical zones. Lightning might strike and char things black, yet it seldom causes widespread blazes. Decaying vegetation may occasionally smolder from the heat of its own decomposition, but this hardly results in an open flame. Even within decay, however, the craft of making fire had been lost to the earth. The red tongues licking at my pile of wood were something entirely unfamiliar and strange to Weena.

"She wanted to run to it and play with it. I think she would have jumped into it if I hadn't held her back. But I caught her, and despite her struggling, I plunged boldly into the wood ahead of us. For a little way, the glare from my fire lit our path. Looking back shortly after, I could see that through the dense undergrowth, the blaze had spread from my pile of sticks to some nearby bushes, and a curved line of fire was creeping up the hill's grass. I laughed at it, and turned back toward the dark trees before me. It was pitch black, and Weena clung to me convulsively, but as my eyes adjusted to the darkness, there was still enough light for me to step around the thick stems. Overhead, it was simply black, except where gaps of distant blue sky shone down on us here and there. I didn't strike a match because I had both hands full. On my left arm, I carried little one; in my right hand, I held my iron bar.

"For a while, all I could hear were the crackling twigs under my feet, the faint rustle of the breeze above, and my own breathing and the throbbing of blood vessels in my ears. Then, I seemed to notice something tapping behind me. I pushed on grimly. The tapping grew more distinct, and then I heard those same strange sounds and voices I had heard in the Underworld. There were clearly several Morlocks, and they were closing in on me. Indeed, another minute later, I felt a tug on my coat, then something pulling at my arm. And Weena shuddered violently, growing completely still."

“It was time for a match. But to get one I had to put her down. I did so, and as I fumbled in my pocket, a struggle began in the darkness around my knees—perfectly silent from her, accompanied by those same peculiar cooing sounds from the Morlocks. Soft little hands were also creeping over my coat and back, even touching my neck. Then the match scraped and fizzed. I held it burning brightly and watched the white backs of the Morlocks scattering amid the trees. I quickly took a lump of camphor from my pocket and prepared to light it as soon as the match sputtered out. Then I looked at Weena. She was lying there, clutching my feet and completely still, her face pressed to the ground. With sudden alarm, I bent down to her. She seemed barely breathing. I lit the block of camphor and threw it on the ground; as it split open and flared up, driving back the Morlocks and the shadows, I knelt down and lifted her. The woods behind seemed filled with the stir and murmur of a large crowd!

“She must have fainted. I carefully put her on my shoulder and stood up to continue moving, but then a horrible realization hit me. While fiddling with my matches and Weena, I had turned around so many times that I had no idea which way I was heading. I might have been facing back toward the Palace of Green Porcelain. I broke out in a cold sweat. I had to think quickly about what to do. I decided to build a fire and stay where we were. I set Weena, still motionless, down on a grassy stump, and very quickly, as my first piece of camphor burned out, I started collecting sticks and leaves. From the darkness around me, the Morlocks’ eyes glowed like carbuncles.

The camphor flickered and sputtered into silence. I struck a match; simultaneously, two white figures that had been closing in on Weena scattered in haste. One was so momentarily blinded by the flare of light that he bolted straight toward me, and I felt his bones crunch beneath my grip. He let out an alarmed gasp, stumbled a short distance, and collapsed. I lit another piece of camphor and resumed gathering kindling for our bonfire. Soon, I observed how desiccated the overhead foliage was; it had been nearly a week since I arrived on the Time Machine without a single drop of rain. Therefore, instead of searching among the trees for fallen twigs, I began to leap up and pull down branches. Before long, I had established a smoky fire burning with green wood and brittle sticks, which spared my remaining camphor. Then, I turned toward where Weena rested beside my iron mace. I exerted every effort to revive her, but she lay as still as if deceased. I could not even ascertain for myself whether or not she was breathing.

Suddenly, smoke from the blaze billowed over me, leaving me feeling sluggish. Compounding this, a distinct scent of camphor permeated the air. My fire would need no attention for at least an hour or so. Exhausted by my efforts, I sank down and rested. Even the wood seemed to emit a soporific murmur that I could not decipher. A drowsiness washed over me; my eyelids grew heavy before they finally surrendered. But everything was enveloped in darkness, and the Morlocks had their hands upon me. Shaking off their grasping fingers, I quickly fumbled for the matchbox in my pocket—but it was gone! Then they seized me again, pinning me to the ground. In that instant, the truth dawned on me: I had fallen asleep; my fire had guttered out, and a wave of death's bitterness washed over my spirit. The forest seemed heavy with the stench of burning timber. They gripped my neck, yanked my hair, and wrestled my arms down. It was an indescribably horrific experience in that blackness to feel these soft creatures piled upon me, like being caught within the sticky threads of a giant spider's web. I felt myself fading and collapsing. Tiny teeth nipped at my throat. I rolled over; as I did so, my hand struck my iron lever. It jolted strength into me. I struggled up, shaking the human vermin off my body, and keeping hold of the bar steady, I lunged where I believed their faces to be. I could feel the yielding give of flesh and bone beneath my blows, and for a brief moment, freedom was mine.

A peculiar elation, the kind that often follows fierce struggle, washed over me. I knew both Weena and I were beaten, but I resolved to see justice done for the Morlocks' trespasses. I stood with my back against a tree, swinging the iron bar at my side. The entire woods vibrated with their clamor and cries. A minute ticked by. Their voices seemed to crest into a higher pitch of excitement, and their movements grew more frantic. Still, none came close enough. I glared into the gloom. Then, suddenly, hope dawned upon me. What if the Morlocks were afraid? Immediately following that thought came an odd sensation: the darkness appeared to take on a faint luminescence. Barely visible, I started discerning the Morlocks around me—three sprawled at my feet—and then, with incredulous shock, I realized the others were fleeing, in what seemed an endless stream, from behind me and through the woods ahead. Moreover, their backs no longer appeared white, but rather reddish. As I stood dumbfounded, I observed a small crimson spark drifting across a gap of starlight between the boughs before it vanished. In that instant, I comprehended: the scent of burning wood, the soporous murmur building into a roaring blast, the reddish gleam, and the Morlocks' palpable retreat.

Stepping out from behind my tree and looking back, I saw the flames of the burning forest through the black trunks of the nearby trees. It was my first fire chasing me. With that, I looked for Weena, but she was gone. The hissing and crackling behind me, the explosive thud as every fresh tree burst into flame, left no time to think. Still gripping my iron bar, I followed in the Morlocks' path. It was a close race. Once the flames crept forward so quickly on my right while I ran that I was outflanked and had to veer off to the left. But at last I emerged into a small open space, and as I did, a Morlock lumbered toward me, and past me, and went straight into the fire!

"And now I was about to see what I think was the strangest and most horrible thing of everything I had witnessed in that future age. This entire area was as bright as day from the reflection of the fire. In the center was a small hill or mound, topped by a scorched hawthorn. Beyond this was another section of the burning forest, with yellow tongues already writhing out from it, completely surrounding the space like a fence made of fire. On the hillside were perhaps thirty or forty Morlocks, dazzled by the light and heat, stumbling back and forth against each other in their confusion. At first, I didn't realize how blind they were, and struck them furiously with my bar in a panic of fear as they approached me, killing one and crippling several more. But when I watched one of them groping under the hawthorn against the red sky, and heard their moans, I realized they were utterly helpless and miserable in that glare, and I did not strike any more of them."

Still, every so often someone would approach me directly, unleashing a trembling terror that made me quick to evade him. At one point the flames died down somewhat, and I feared the foul creatures might be able to see me soon. I was thinking of starting the fight by killing some of them before that happened; but the fire erupted brightly again, and I restrained myself. I walked around the hill among them, avoiding them, looking for any sign of Weena. But Weena was gone.

"Finally, I sat down on the crest of the small hill, watching this strange, unbelievable group of blind things stumbling back and forth, making eerie noises to one another as the fire's glare beat down on them. The coiling rush of smoke streamed across the sky, and through the sparse scraps of that red canopy, distant as if belonging to another universe, the little stars shone. Two or three Morlocks wandered into me, and I drove them off with blows from my fists, trembling as I did so.

"For most of that night, I was convinced it was a nightmare. I bit myself and screamed in a desperate desire to wake up. I struck the ground with my hands, got up only to sit down again, wandering here and there, before sitting down once more. Then I would fall into rubbing my eyes and pleading with God to let me awake. Three times I saw Morlocks bow their heads as if in agony and rush into the flames. But finally, above the fading red of the fire, above the streaming masses of black smoke and the whitening and darkening tree stumps, and the dwindling numbers of these dim creatures, came the white light of day.

“I searched again for any sign of Weena, but there was nothing. It was clear that they had abandoned her poor little body in the forest. I can’t describe how much it relieved me to think that she had escaped the terrible fate she seemed destined for. As I thought about that, I almost felt like massacring all the helpless abominations around me, but I controlled myself. The small hillock, as I said, was like an island in the forest. From its top, through a haze of smoke, I could now make out the Palace of Green Porcelain, and from there, I could get my bearings for the White Sphinx. So, leaving the remaining damned souls wandering here and there while moaning—as the day grew clearer—I tied some grass around my feet and limped across smoking ashes and past black stems that still pulsed internally with fire, toward the hiding place of the Time Machine. I walked slowly because I was nearly exhausted, in addition to being lame, and I felt an intense wretchedness for little Weena’s horrible death. It seemed like an overwhelming tragedy. Now, in this old familiar room, it feels more like sorrow from a dream than actual loss. But that morning left me utterly lonely again—terribly alone. I started thinking of my house, of this fireplace, of some of you, and with those 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.

XIII. The Trap of the White Sphinx

"Around eight or nine in the morning, I went to the same spot of yellow metal from where I had seen the world on the evening I arrived. I thought about my hasty conclusions from that evening and couldn't stop myself from laughing bitterly at my own overconfidence. Here was the same beautiful scene, the same lush foliage, the same splendid palaces and magnificent ruins, the same silver river running between its fertile banks. The lovely clothes of the beautiful people moved back and forth among the trees. Some were bathing in exactly the spot where I had saved Weena, and that suddenly gave me a sharp pang of pain. And like stains across the landscape rose the cupolas above the paths to the Underworld. I understood now what all the beauty of the Overworld people was covering. Their day seemed pleasant, as pleasant as the cattle in the field. Like the cattle, they knew no enemies and needed nothing. And their end was the same.

"I grieved at how brief the dream of human intellect had been. It had committed suicide. It had set itself firmly toward comfort and ease, a balanced society with security and permanence as its watchword; it had achieved its hopes—to finally come to this state. Once, life and property must have reached near-absolute safety. The rich were assured of their wealth and comfort; the worker was assured of his livelihood. No doubt in that perfect world there had been no unemployment problem, no unresolved social question. And a great quiet had settled over things.

"It is a law of nature we overlook: intellectual versatility is compensation for change, danger, and trouble. An animal perfectly adapted to its environment is a perfect machine. Nature never calls upon intelligence until habit and instinct are useless. There is no intelligence where there is no change and no need for change. Only those animals that have to meet a huge variety of needs and dangers partake in intelligence."

“So, as I see it, the Upperworld man drifted toward his delicate prettiness, while the Underworld turned to mere mechanical industry. But that perfect state was missing one thing even for mechanical perfection—absolute permanence. Apparently, as time wore on, feeding an Underworld, no matter how it was done, had become disjointed. Mother Necessity, who had been kept at bay for a few thousand years, returned, and she began below. The Underworld, being connected to machinery that, however perfect, still required some thought outside of routine, had probably retained more initiative—if less of every other human quality—than the Upperworld. And when other food failed them, they turned to what old habits 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 incorrect an explanation as mortal wit could invent. It is how the thing presented itself to me, and as that I give it to you.

“After the exhaustion, excitement, and terror of the past days, and despite my grief, this seat and the tranquil view and the warm sunlight were very pleasant. I was extremely tired and sleepy, and soon my theorizing slipped into dozing. Catching myself doing it, I took my own hint, and spreading out on the grass, I fell into a long and refreshing sleep.

“I woke up a little before sunset. Now I felt safe from being caught napping by the Morlocks, and stretching myself, I walked down the hill toward the White Sphinx. I had my crowbar in one hand, and with the other, I played with the matches in my pocket.

“And now came something most unexpected. As I approached the sphinx’s pedestal, I found the bronze valves were open. They had slid down into grooves.

I halted abruptly before them, reluctant to proceed

. Inside was a modest apartment, and in the corner, upon an elevated dais, rested the Time Machine. I felt the small levers in my pocket. So here, after all my elaborate preparations for confronting the White Sphinx, lay a gentle surrender. I tossed my iron bar aside, almost regretfully unused to it

. A sudden realization struck me as I bent toward the portal. For once, I grasped how the Morlocks thought mentally. Suppressing a powerful urge to laugh, I stepped through the bronze frame and approached the Time Machine. I was surprised to find it impeccably oiled and polished. I had suspected since that moment that the Morlocks had even partially dismantled it while clumsily attempting to comprehend its function

. Now, as I stood examining it, deriving a strange pleasure simply from touching the apparatus, the expected event occurred. The bronze panels slid upward suddenly, striking the frame with a loud clang. I was in darkness—ensnared. That was what the Morlocks presumed. At that, I let out a gleeful chuckle

. I could already hear their low murmurs of laughter as they neared me. Very calmly, I attempted to strike a match. All it required was for me to direct my attention to the levers and then vanish like a specter. But I had overlooked one small detail: the matches were of that dreadful sort requiring only light from within the box

.“You can imagine how all my calm vanished. The little brutes were closing in on me. One touched me. I swung the levers wildly in the dark at them, scrambling toward the machine’s saddle. Then one hand grabbed me, and then another. I had to fight off their persistent fingers just for my levers while simultaneously feeling for the studs they attached to. Truly, they almost got away from me. When it slipped from my grasp, I had to bang my head in the dark—I could hear the Morlock’s skull clanging—to retrieve it. That last scramble was closer than the fight in the forest, I think.

“But finally the lever was set and pulled across. The clinging hands released me. The darkness instantly lifted from my eyes. I found myself in the same gray light and chaos I had already described.

XIV. The Further Vision

“I’ve already told you about the sickness and confusion that comes with time travel. And this time, I wasn't seated properly in the saddle; I was sideways and unstable. For an indefinite time, I clung to the machine as it swayed and vibrated, paying no attention to how I was going. When I finally managed to look at the dials again, I was amazed by where we had arrived. One dial tracks days, another thousands of days, another millions of days, and another thousands of millions. Now, instead of reversing the levers, I had pulled them across so that we were going forward with them, and when I looked at these indicators, I found that the thousands hand was sweeping around as fast as a watch's second hand—into the future.”

As I drove on, a peculiar change crept over the appearance of things. The pulsing gray grew darker; then—even though I was still moving at incredible speed—the blinking succession of day and night, which usually signaled a slower pace, returned, becoming more distinct. This confused me greatly at first. The alternations between night and day slowed down steadily, and so too did the sun's passage across the sky, until it seemed to stretch through centuries. Finally, a steady twilight hung over the earth—a twilight only interrupted now and then by a comet blazing across the dim sky. The band of light that had shown where the sun was had long since disappeared; for the sun no longer set—it simply rose and fell in the west, getting ever wider and redder. All trace of the moon had vanished. The slow, circling stars gave way to creeping points of light. Finally, some time before I stopped, the sun, red and very large, came to a complete halt on the horizon, a vast dome glowing with a dull heat, occasionally experiencing a brief moment of extinction. At one point, it glowed more brilliantly for a short while, but quickly reverted to its sullen red warmth. From the slowing of its rising and setting, I sensed that the effect of tidal drag was complete. The earth had come to rest facing one side toward the sun, just as the moon faces the earth in our time. Very carefully, because I remembered my previous uncontrolled fall, I began to reverse my movement. The turning hands slowed until the thousands hand seemed motionless and the daily hand was no longer just a blur on its face. Even slower, until the faint outlines of a deserted beach came into view.

"I halted gradually and took a seat upon the Time Machine, surveying my surroundings. The sky was no longer blue. To the northeast, it was an inky blackness, from which pale white stars shone with brilliant steadiness. Overhead, the expanse was a deep, starless Indian red, while to the southeast, the color deepened into a glowing scarlet where, bisected by the horizon, rested the massive hull of the sun—red and utterly immobile. The surrounding rocks were a harsh reddish hue, and the first sign of life I perceived was the intensely vibrant green vegetation blanketing every outward-jutting point on their southeastern face. It possessed the same rich emerald shade found in forest moss or cavern lichen: flora adapted to perpetual twilight.

The machine rested on a gently sloping beach. The sea unfurled toward the southwest, meeting the pale sky at a sharply defined horizon. There were no breakers, no visible waves, for not even a breath of wind stirred. Only a subtle, oily swell rose and receded like measured breaths, suggesting that this eternal ocean was alive and moving. Along the edge where the water occasionally washed ashore lay a thick crust of salt—pink under the muted sky. I felt a distinct pressure weighing on my head, and I realized I was breathing with unusual rapidity. This sensation brought to mind my single experience in mountaineering, leading me to judge the air as being thinner than it currently felt."

From a distance, up the desolate slope, I heard a shrill scream and watched something like an enormous white butterfly drift and flutter upward until it circled, vanishing over low hills beyond. The sound of its voice was so dismal that I shuddered, gripping the machine more tightly. Looking around me again, I saw that what I had mistaken for a reddish rock formation was slowly moving toward me. It then struck me that the thing was, in fact, a monstrous, crab-like creature. Can you picture a crustacean as large as that table, with countless legs moving at a sluggish, hesitant pace, its massive claws swaying, and its long antennae—like blacksmith’s whips—waving and testing the air? And its stalked eyes gleamed menacingly on either side of its metallic carapace. Its back was corrugated and adorned with clumsy protuberances, dusted here and there with a patchy green film. I could see the many delicate palps around its complex mouth twitching as it advanced.

As I stared at this sinister apparition crawling toward me, I felt a tickle on my cheek, as if a fly had landed there. I tried to brush it away with my hand, but in an instant it returned, and almost immediately another appeared by my ear. I struck at this one and caught something threadlike. It was swiftly pulled out of my hand. With a dreadful shudder, I turned, and I saw that I had grabbed the antenna of another monster crab standing just behind me. Its malevolent eyes were wobbling on their stalks, its mouth was alive with hunger, and its massive, ungainly claws, smeared with an algal slime, were descending toward me. In an instant my hand reached the lever, and I had put a month between myself and these monsters. But I was still on the same beach, and I saw them distinctly now as soon as I stopped. Dozens of them seemed to be crawling here and there, in the dim light, among the leaf-like sheets of intense green.

"I cannot describe the sense of abominable desolation that hung over the world. The red eastern sky, the northern darkness, the salty Dead Sea, the stony beach creeping with these foul, sluggish monsters, the uniform poisonous-looking green of the lichenous plants, the thin air that pains one's lungs: all contributed to an appalling effect. I moved forward a hundred years, and there was the same red sun—a little larger, a little duller—the same dying sea, the same cold air, and the same crowd of earthy crustaceans creeping in and out among the green weeds and the red rocks. And in the western sky, I saw a curved pale line like a vast new moon."

So I traveled, stopping again and again, covering distances equivalent to a thousand years or more, drawn by the mystery of the Earth's fate, watching with strange fascination as the sun grew larger and duller in the western sky, and as the life of the old earth ebbed away. At last, more than thirty million years later, the huge, red-hot dome of the sun had grown enough to obscure nearly a tenth of the dark heavens. Then I stopped again, because the creeping multitude of crabs had vanished, and the red beach, save for its livid green liverworts and lichens, seemed lifeless. And now it was speckled with white. A bitter cold struck me. Rare white flakes drifted down intermittently. To the northeast, a glare of snow lay beneath the starlight of the dark sky, and I could see an undulating crest of pinkish-white hills. There were edges of ice along the sea margin, with drifting masses further out; but the main expanse of that salty ocean, all blood-colored under the eternal sunset, was still unfrozen.

I looked around me to see if any traces of animal life remained. A certain indefinable apprehension still kept me in the saddle of the machine. But I saw nothing moving, on land or in the sky or in the sea. The green slime on the rocks alone proved that life had not gone extinct. A shallow sandbank had appeared in the sea, and the water had pulled back from the beach. I thought I saw some black object flopping about on this bank, but it became still as I looked at it, and I judged that my eye had tricked me, and that the black object was merely a rock. The stars in the sky were intensely bright and seemed to twinkle very little.

Suddenly, I noticed that the circular outline of the sun, which was setting in the west, had altered; a dip, a natural bay, appeared across its curve. I watched it expand. For what felt like a minute, I stared in horror at this encroaching blackness spreading over the daylight, and then the realization struck me: an eclipse was beginning. Either the moon or the planet Mercury was passing directly across the sun's disc. Initially, I assumed it must be the moon, but much led me to believe that what I was truly witnessing was the passage of an inner planet in extremely close proximity to Earth.

The darkness intensified rapidly; a chill wind began to blow in fresh gusts from the east, and the scattering white flakes in the air multiplied. From the edge of the sea came only a faint ripple and a whisper. Beyond these muted sounds, the world was profoundly silent. Silent? It would be difficult to even articulate its stillness. All the usual sounds—the bleating of sheep, the calls of birds, the buzzing of insects, the constant background murmur of our existence—had vanished completely. As the gloom deepened, the swirling flakes grew more numerous, dancing before my eyes; and the air turned noticeably colder. Finally, one by one, swiftly, in rapid succession, the white crests of the distant hills were swallowed by blackness. The breeze swelled into a mournful moan. I tracked the immense, central shadow of the eclipse sweeping towards me. In moments, only faint stars remained visible. Everything else dissolved into an utter gloom devoid of light. The sky was absolutely black.

“A horror of this great darkness overcame me. The cold, which stung to my bone marrow, and the pain I felt just breathing overwhelmed me. I shook, and a deadly nausea seized me. Then, like a red-hot bow in the sky, the edge of the sun appeared. I got off the machine to recover myself. I felt dizzy and unable to face the journey back. As I stood sick and confused, I saw again the moving thing on the shallows—it was no longer a mistake; it was definitely something that moved—against the red water of the sea. It was a round object, perhaps the size of a football, or maybe bigger, and tentacles trailed down from it; it seemed black against the surging blood-red water, and it was hopping restlessly around. Then I felt myself fading. But a terrible fear of lying helpless in that remote and awful twilight kept me going as I climbed onto the saddle.

XV. The Time Traveller’s Return

“So I returned. For a long time I must have been unconscious on the machine. The blinking succession of days and nights resumed; the sun turned golden again, the sky blue. I breathed with more ease. The changing shapes of the land ebbed and flowed. The hands spun backward on the dials. Finally, I saw the dim shadows of houses again, evidence of decadent humanity. These too changed and passed, and others appeared. Soon, when the million dial reached zero, I slowed down. I began to recognize our own beautiful, familiar architecture; the thousands hand moved back toward the starting point, and the night and day flashed slower and slower. Then the old walls of the laboratory came around me. Very gently, now, I slowed the mechanism.

“There was one minor detail that struck me as peculiar. I recall telling you this before, when I first departed—before my speed became so great—Mrs. Watchett walked across the room; to my eye, she moved with the velocity of a rocket. Upon my return, I passed through that precise spot again while she traversed the laboratory. But now, every movement of hers appeared utterly contrary to her previous actions. The door at the far end opened, and she drifted silently up the length of the lab, heading back toward where I stood, before slipping behind the very doorway by which she had first entered. Just moments before that, I thought I glimpsed Hillyer for an instant; but he was nothing more than a fleeting shadow.

” Then I halted the machine, and the old, familiar laboratory re-emerged around me—my tools, my equipment exactly as they had been when I left them. I dismounted the apparatus with considerable tremor and settled onto my bench. For several minutes, my body shook violently. Eventually, though, I found my composure. My accustomed workshop enveloped me once more, just as it had been. I could have simply drifted off right there; the entire episode might well have been a dream.

“And yet, not quite! The whole sequence originated from the southeast corner of the laboratory. It paused again in the northwest, right against that wall you observed. This confirms the precise distance from my small lawn to the pedestal supporting the White Sphinx—the spot where the Morlocks had placed my machine.”

For a time, my mind went completely blank. Eventually, I managed to get up and shuffle through the hall; my heel still throbbed painfully, and I felt terribly soiled. On the table near the entrance, I noticed the Pall Mall Gazette. Checking the date confirmed it was today, and glancing at the clock, I saw it was nearly eight o’clock. I heard your voices mingling with the clatter of dishes. Hesitation gripped me—I felt so faint and unwell. Then, a scent drifted through: good, wholesome roasting meat, and I opened the door to you. You know what happened next. I washed up, ate dinner, and now I recount this story.

XVI. After the Story

“I know,” he stated after a beat, “that all of this will seem utterly incredible to you, but for me, the truly unbelievable thing is that I am here tonight in this old, familiar room, looking into your kind faces and telling you of these strange adventures.” He turned toward the Medical Man. “No. I cannot expect you to take it seriously. Treat it as a falsehood—or perhaps a prophecy. Suppose I dreamed all of this while in the workshop. Imagine I have been contemplating the future of our species until I spun this fiction into existence. Please accept my insistence that it is truth merely as an artistic flourish meant to heighten the drama. And if you are content to view it only as a tale, what do you think?”

He picked up his pipe and began, in his old habit, to tap it nervously on the grate bars. There was a brief silence. Then chairs started creaking and shoes scraping across the carpet. I took my eyes from the Time Traveller’s face and looked around at his audience. They were in the dark, and little spots of color floated before them. The Medical Man seemed completely absorbed watching our host. The Editor kept staring at the end of his cigar—the sixth one. The Journalist fumbled for his watch. As far as I could remember, everyone else was still.

The Editor stood up with a sigh. “It’s such a pity you aren’t a story writer!” he said, placing a hand on the Time Traveller’s shoulder.

“You don’t believe it?”

“Well—”

“I thought not.”

The Time Traveller turned to us. “Where are the matches?” he asked. He lit one and spoke over his pipe, blowing smoke out. “To tell you the truth... I hardly believe it myself..... And yet...”

His gaze fell with a silent question onto the withered white flowers on the little table. Then he turned his hand holding the pipe, and I saw him looking at some half-healed scars on his knuckles.

The Medical Man got up, walked to the lamp, and examined the flowers. “The gynaeceum is peculiar,” he said. The Psychologist leaned forward to get a look, holding out his hand for a sample.

“I’d swear it must be quarter past twelve,” the Journalist said. “How are we going to get home?”

“There are plenty of cabs at the station,” the Psychologist replied.

“It is a peculiar thing,” the Medical Man remarked, “but I have no idea what the natural arrangement of these flowers is. Might I take them?”

The Time Traveller paused in his response. Then abruptly, “Not at all.”

“But where on earth did you procure them?” inquired the Medical Man.

The Time Traveller placed a hand against his forehead. His speech seemed like that of someone trying to grasp an elusive thought. “Weena slipped them into my pocket while I was traveling through time.” He glanced around the room. “Everything is overwhelming me. This chamber, you, and the very atmosphere of this day—it’s too much for my memory to bear. Did I ever build a Time Machine, or even just a model? Or is it all merely a waking reverie? They say life itself is a dream—a beautiful, impoverished one sometimes—but I cannot endure another that doesn't feel utterly right. It borders on madness. And where did this illusion spring from? … I must inspect that contraption. If there is one!”

He swiftly snatched the lamp and carried it, its light casting a ruddy glow, through the doorway into the hallway. We followed him. There, illuminated by the lamp’s flickering beam, was the machine, just as he claimed: squat, ungainly, and askew—an object fashioned from brass, ebony, ivory, and translucent, glittering quartz. It felt substantial to the touch—for I extended my hand and traced it along its rail—and its ivory sections bore brown spots and smudges, while bits of moss and grass clung to the lower framework; one of its rails was noticeably warped.

The Time Traveller set the lamp down on the bench and ran his hand along the damaged rail. “It’s all right now,” he said. “The story I told you was true. I’m sorry to have brought you out here into the cold.” He picked up the lamp, and in absolute silence, we returned to the smoking-room.

He walked into the hall with us and helped the Editor with his coat. The Medical Man looked him in the face and, with some hesitation, told him he was suffering from overwork, which made him laugh loudly. I remember him standing in the open doorway, shouting goodnight.

I shared a cab with the Editor. He dismissed the tale as a "gaudy lie." As for me, I couldn't come to any conclusion. The story was so fantastic and unbelievable, yet the way he told it was so convincing and measured. I lay awake most of the night thinking about it. I decided that the next day I would go see the Time Traveller again. I was told he was in the laboratory, so since things were casual at the house, I went up to him. The laboratory, however, was empty. I stared at the Time Machine for a minute and then reached out my hand to touch the lever. At that moment, the squat, solidly built object swayed like a branch shaken by the wind. Its instability startled me terribly, and I had a strange memory of my childhood when I was forbidden from fiddling with things. I returned through the corridor. The Time Traveller met me in the smoking-room. He was coming from inside the house. He had a small camera under one arm and a knapsack under the other. He laughed when he saw me and gave me an elbow to shake. "I'm frightfully busy," he said, "with that thing in there."

"But isn't it some hoax?" I asked. "Do you really travel through time?"

“I really, truly do.” And he looked straight into my eyes. He hesitated. His gaze wandered around the room. “I only want half an hour,” he said. “I know why you came, and it’s awfully kind of you. There are some magazines here. If you’ll stop for lunch, I’ll prove this time travel to you in full detail, specimens and all. If you’ll forgive me leaving you now?”

I agreed, hardly understanding the full meaning of his words then, and he nodded and continued down the hall. I heard the laboratory door slam shut, sat down in a chair, and picked up a daily newspaper. What was he going to do before lunchtime? Suddenly, an advertisement reminded me that I had promised to meet Richardson, the publisher, at two o’clock. I checked my watch and saw that I could barely make that appointment. I got up and walked down the passage to tell the Time Traveller.

As I reached for the door handle, I heard an exclamation—abruptly cut off at the end—and a click followed by a thud. A gust of air swirled around me as I opened the door, and from inside came the sound of broken glass falling onto the floor. The Time Traveller was gone. For a moment, I seemed to see a ghostly, indistinct figure sitting in a whirling mass of black and brass—a figure so transparent that the bench behind it with its sheets of drawings was completely clear; but this phantom vanished as I rubbed my eyes. The Time Machine had left. Apart from settling dust motes, the far end of the laboratory was empty. A pane from the skylight had apparently just been blown in.

I was overcome by an unaccountable sense of wonder. I knew something inexplicable had taken place, yet at that moment, I could not pinpoint what it was. As I stood gazing out, the garden door swung open, and the manservant appeared.

We exchanged looks. Soon, thoughts began to surface. "Has Mr.— departed that way?" I inquired.

"No, sir. No one has emerged this way. I had expected to find him right here."

At those words, I understood. Despite the risk of disappointing Richardson, I remained stationary, awaiting the Time Traveller; anticipating not just a second, perhaps even more bizarre account, but also the specimens and photographs he would bring with him. But now, I was beginning to fear that waiting might stretch across an entire lifetime. The Time Traveller vanished three years ago. And, as everyone knew by now, he never returned.

Epilogue

One cannot help but wonder. Will he ever return? Perhaps he has drifted back into the deep past, to wander among the blood-drinking, hairy savages of the Stone Age; into the abysses of the Cretaceous Sea; or perhaps among the grotesque saurians—the massive reptilian brutes of the Jurassic period. He might even now—if I dare use such a phrase—be traversing a plesiosaurus-haunted Oolitic coral reef, or alongside the desolate salt seas of the Triassic Age. Or did he journey forward, into one of the more recent epochs, where humanity remains recognizable, but with the enigmas of our own time solved and its vexing troubles laid to rest? Into the zenith of human maturity: for I—personally—cannot fathom that these latter days of tentative experimentation, fragmented theory, and constant disagreement represent mankind's apex! I state this from my own convictions. He, I know—since this query was debated among us long before the Time Machine was assembled—only viewed Mankind’s progress with deep pessimism, seeing in the ever-growing edifice of civilization nothing but a foolish piling destined to eventually collapse upon and undo its makers. If that is so, then we must choose to live as if otherwise. But for me, the future remains stark and void—a vast emptiness illuminated only by isolated recollections of his tale. And I carry with me, for some solace, two peculiar white flowers—now withered, brown, flat, and brittle—to testify that even when intellect and vigor have departed, gratitude and warm affection continue to reside within the human heart.