The Time Machine
utilise underground space for the less ornamental purposes of
civilisation; there is the Metropolitan Railway in London, for
instance, there are new electric railways, there are subways, there are
underground workrooms and restaurants, and they increase and multiply.
Evidently, I thought, this tendency had increased till Industry had
gradually lost its birthright in the sky. I mean that it had gone
deeper and deeper into larger and ever larger underground factories,
spending a still-increasing amount of its time therein, till, in the
end—! Even now, does not an East-end worker live in such artificial
conditions as practically to be cut off from the natural surface of the
earth?
“Again, the exclusive tendency of richer people—due, no doubt, to the
increasing refinement of their education, and the widening gulf between
them and the rude violence of the poor—is already leading to the
closing, in their interest, of considerable portions of the surface of
the land. About London, for instance, perhaps half the prettier country
is shut in against intrusion. And this same widening gulf—which is due
to the length and expense of the higher educational process and the
increased facilities for and temptations towards refined habits on the
part of the rich—will make that exchange between class and class, that
promotion by intermarriage which at present retards the splitting of
our species along lines of social stratification, less and less
frequent. So, in the end, above ground you must have the Haves,
pursuing pleasure and comfort and beauty, and below ground the
Have-nots, the Workers getting continually adapted to the conditions of
their labour. Once they were there, they would no doubt have to pay
rent, and not a little of it, for the ventilation of their caverns; and
if they refused, they would starve or be suffocated for arrears. Such
of them as were so constituted as to be miserable and rebellious would
die; and, in the end, the balance being permanent, the survivors would
become as well adapted to the conditions of underground life, and as
happy in their way, as the Overworld people were to theirs. As it
seemed to me, the refined beauty and the etiolated pallor followed
naturally enough.
“The great triumph of Humanity I had dreamed of took a different shape
in my mind. It had been no such triumph of moral education and general
co-operation as I had imagined. Instead, I saw a real aristocracy,
armed with a perfected science and working to a logical conclusion the
industrial system of today. Its triumph had not been simply a triumph
over Nature, but a triumph over Nature and the fellow-man. This, I must
warn you, was my theory at the time. I had no convenient cicerone in
the pattern of the Utopian books. My explanation may be absolutely
wrong. I still think it is the most plausible one. But even on this
supposition the balanced civilisation that was at last attained must
have long since passed its zenith, and was now far fallen into decay.
The too-perfect security of the Overworlders had led them to a slow
movement of degeneration, to a general dwindling in size, strength, and
intelligence. That I could see clearly enough already. What had
happened to the Undergrounders I did not yet suspect; but, from what I
had seen of the Morlocks—that, by the bye, was the name by which these
creatures were called—I could imagine that the modification of the
human type was even far more profound than among the ‘Eloi,’ the
beautiful race that I already knew.
“Then came troublesome doubts. Why had the Morlocks taken my Time
Machine? For I felt sure it was they who had taken it. Why, too, if the
Eloi were masters, could they not restore the machine to me? And why
were they so terribly afraid of the dark? I proceeded, as I have said,
to question Weena about this Underworld, but here again I was
disappointed. At first she would not understand my questions, and
presently she refused to answer them. She shivered as though the topic
was unendurable. And when I pressed her, perhaps a little harshly, she
burst into tears. They were the only tears, except my own, I ever saw
in that Golden Age. When I saw them I ceased abruptly to trouble about
the Morlocks, and was only concerned in banishing these signs of her
human inheritance from Weena’s eyes. And very soon she was smiling and
clapping her hands, while I solemnly burnt a match.
IX.
The Morlocks
“It may seem odd to you, but it was two days before I could follow up
the new-found clue in what was manifestly the proper way. I felt a
peculiar shrinking from those pallid bodies. They were just the
half-bleached colour of the worms and things one sees preserved in
spirit in a zoological museum. And they were filthily cold to the
touch. Probably my shrinking was largely due to the sympathetic
influence of the Eloi, whose disgust of the Morlocks I now began to
appreciate.
“The next night I did not sleep well. Probably my health was a little
disordered. I was oppressed with perplexity and doubt. Once or twice I
had a feeling of intense fear for which I could perceive no definite
reason. I remember creeping noiselessly into the great hall where the
little people were sleeping in the moonlight—that night Weena was among
them—and feeling reassured by their presence. It occurred to me even
then, that in the course of a few days the moon must pass through its
last quarter, and the nights grow dark, when the appearances of these
unpleasant creatures from below, these whitened Lemurs, this new vermin
that had replaced the old, might be more abundant. And on both these
days I had the restless feeling of one who shirks an inevitable duty. I
felt assured that the Time Machine was only to be recovered by boldly
penetrating these mysteries of underground. Yet I could not face the
mystery. If only I had had a companion it would have been different.
But I was so horribly alone, and even to clamber down into the darkness
of the well appalled me. I don’t know if you will understand my
feeling, but I never felt quite safe at my back.
“It was this restlessness, this insecurity, perhaps, that drove me
farther and farther afield in my exploring expeditions. Going to the
south-westward towards the rising country that is now called Combe
Wood, I observed far-off, in the direction of nineteenth-century
Banstead, a vast green structure, different in character from any I had
hitherto seen. It was larger than the largest of the palaces or ruins I
knew, and the façade had an Oriental look: the face of it having the
lustre, as well as the pale-green tint, a kind of bluish-green, of a
certain type of Chinese porcelain. This difference in aspect suggested
a difference in use, and I was minded to push on and explore. But the
day was growing late, and I had come upon the sight of the place after
a long and tiring circuit; so I resolved to hold over the adventure for
the following day, and I returned to the welcome and the caresses of
little Weena. But next morning I perceived clearly enough that my
curiosity regarding the Palace of Green Porcelain was a piece of
self-deception, to enable me to shirk, by another day, an experience I
dreaded. I resolved I would make the descent without further waste of
time, and started out in the early morning towards a well near the
ruins of granite and aluminium.
“Little Weena ran with me. She danced beside me to the well, but when
she saw me lean over the mouth and look downward, she seemed strangely
disconcerted. ‘Good-bye, little Weena,’ I said, kissing her; and then
putting her down, I began to feel over the parapet for the climbing
hooks. Rather hastily, I may as well confess, for I feared my courage
might leak away! At first she watched me in amazement. Then she gave a
most piteous cry, and running to me, she began to pull at me with her
little hands. I think her opposition nerved me rather to proceed. I
shook her off, perhaps a little roughly, and in another moment I was in
the throat of the well. I saw her agonised face over the parapet, and
smiled to reassure her. Then I had to look down at the unstable hooks
to which I clung.
“I had to clamber down a shaft of perhaps two hundred yards. The
descent was effected by means of metallic bars projecting from the
sides of the well, and these being adapted to the needs of a creature
much smaller and lighter than myself, I was speedily cramped and
fatigued by the descent. And not simply fatigued! One of the bars bent
suddenly under my weight, and almost swung me off into the blackness
beneath. For a moment I hung by one hand, and after that experience I
did not dare to rest again. Though my arms and back were presently
acutely painful, I went on clambering down the sheer descent with as
quick a motion as possible. Glancing upward, I saw the aperture, a
small blue disc, in which a star was visible, while little Weena’s head
showed as a round black projection. The thudding sound of a machine
below grew louder and more oppressive. Everything save that little disc
above was profoundly dark, and when I looked up again Weena had
disappeared.
“I was in an agony of discomfort. I had some thought of trying to go up
the shaft again, and leave the Underworld alone. But even while I
turned this over in my mind I continued to descend. At last, with
intense relief, I saw dimly coming up, a foot to the right of me, a
slender loophole in the wall. Swinging myself in, I found it was the
aperture of a narrow horizontal tunnel in which I could lie down and
rest. It was not too soon. My arms ached, my back was cramped, and I
was trembling with the prolonged terror of a fall. Besides this, the
unbroken darkness had had a distressing effect upon my eyes. The air
was full of the throb and hum of machinery pumping air down the shaft.
“I do not know how long I lay. I was roused by a soft hand touching
my face. Starting up in the darkness I snatched at my matches and,
hastily striking one, I saw three stooping white creatures similar to
the one I had seen above ground in the ruin, hastily retreating before
the light. Living, as they did, in what appeared to me impenetrable
darkness, their eyes were abnormally large and sensitive, just as are
the pupils of the abysmal fishes, and they reflected the light in the
same way. I have no doubt they could see me in that rayless obscurity,
and they did not seem to have any fear of me apart from the light. But,
so soon as I struck a match in order to see them, they fled
incontinently, vanishing into dark gutters and tunnels, from which
their eyes glared at me in the strangest fashion.
“I tried to call to them, but the language they had was apparently
different from that of the Overworld people; so that I was needs left
to my own unaided efforts, and the thought of flight before exploration
was even then in my mind. But I said to myself, ‘You are in for it
now,’ and, feeling my way along the tunnel, I found the noise of
machinery grow louder. Presently the walls fell away from me, and I
came to a large open space, and striking another match, saw that I had
entered a vast arched cavern, which stretched into utter darkness
beyond the range of my light. The view I had of it was as much as one
could see in the burning of a match.
“Necessarily my memory is vague. Great shapes like big machines rose
out of the dimness, and cast grotesque black shadows, in which dim
spectral Morlocks sheltered from the glare. The place, by the bye, was
very stuffy and oppressive, and the faint halitus of freshly-shed blood
was in the air. Some way down the central vista was a little table of
white metal, laid with what seemed a meal. The Morlocks at any rate
were carnivorous! Even at the time, I remember wondering what large
animal could have survived to furnish the red joint I saw. It was all