Chapter 10 (The Time Machine)

01CHAPTER X.

02About eight or nine in the morning I came to the same seat of yellow metal from which I had viewed the world upon the evening of my arrival.

03I thought of my hasty conclusions upon that evening, and could not refrain from laughing bitterly at my confidence.

04Here was the same beautiful scene, the same abundant foliage, the same splendid palaces and magnificent ruins, the same silver river running between its fertile banks.

05The gay robes of the beautiful people moved hither and thither among the trees.

06Some were bathing in exactly the place where I had saved Wena, and that suddenly gave me a keen stab of pain.

07And like blots upon the landscape rose the cupulas above the ways to the underworld.

08I understood now what all the beauty of the overworld people covered.

09Very pleasant was their day, as pleasant as the day of the cattle in the field.

10Like the cattle, they knew of no enemies and provided against no needs.

11And their end was the same.

12I grieve to think how brief the dream of the human intellect had been.

13It had committed suicide.

14It had set itself steadfastly towards comfort and ease.

15A balanced society, with security and permanency as its watchword.

16It had attained its hopes, and come to this at last.

17Once life and property must have reached almost absolute safety.

18The rich had been assured of his wealth and comfort.

19The toiler assured of his life and work.

20No doubt, in that perfect world, there had been no unemployed problem, no social question left unsolved.

21And a great quiet had followed.

22It is a law of nature we overlook, that intellectual versatility is the compensation for change, danger, and trouble.

23An animal perfectly in harmony with its environment is a perfect mechanism.

24Nature never appeals to intelligence until habit and instinct are useless.

25There is no intelligence where there is no change and no need of change.

26Only those animals partake of intelligence that have to meet a huge variety of needs and dangers.

27So, as I see it, the upper-world man had drifted towards his feeble prettiness, and the underworld to mere mechanical industry.

28But that perfect state had lacked one thing, even for mechanical perfection.

29Absolute permanency.

30Apparently, as time went on, the feeding of the underworld, however it was affected, had become disjointed.

31Mother Necessity, who had been staved off for a few thousand years, came back again, and she began below.

32The underworld, being in contact with machinery, which, however perfect, still needs some little thought outside habit, had probably retained perforce rather more initiative, if less of every other human character than the upper.

33And when other meat failed them, they turned to what old habit had hitherto forbidden.

34So, I say I saw it in my last view of the world of eight hundred and two thousand, seven hundred and one.

35It may be as wrong an explanation as mortal wit could invent.

36It is how the thing shaped itself to me, and as that I give it to you.

37After the fatigues, excitements, and terrors of the past days, and in spite of my grief, this seat and the tranquil view and the warm sunlight were very pleasant.

38I was very tired and sleepy, and soon my theorizing passed into dozing.

39Catching myself at that, I took my own hint, and spreading myself out upon the turf, I had a long and refreshing sleep.

40I awoke a little before sunsetting.

41I now felt safe against being caught napping by the Morlocks, and stretching myself, I came down on the hill towards the white Sphinx.

42I had my crowbar in one hand, and the other hand played with the matches in my pocket.

43And now came a most unexpected thing.

44As I approached the pedestal of the Sphinx, I found the bronze valves were open.

45They had slid down into grooves.

46At that, I stopped short before them, hesitating to enter.

47Within was a small apartment, and on a raised place in the corner of this was the time machine.

48I had the small levers in my pocket.

49So here, after all my elaborate preparations for the siege of the white Sphinx, was a meek surrender.

50I threw my iron bar away, almost sorry not to use it.

51A sudden thought came into my head as I stooped towards the portal.

52For once, at least, I grasped the mental operations of the Morlocks.

53Suppressing a strong inclination to laugh, I stepped through the bronze frame and up to the time machine.

54I was surprised to find it had been carefully oiled and cleaned.

55I have suspected since that the Morlocks had even partially taken it to pieces while trying in their dim way to grasp its purpose.

56Now, as I stood and examined it, finding a pleasure in the mere touch of the contrivance, the thing I had expected happened.

57The bronze panel suddenly slid up and struck the frame with a clang.

58I was in the dark, trapped.

59So the Morlocks thought, and at that I chuckled gleefully.

60I could already hear their murmuring laughter as they came towards me.

61Very calmly I tried to strike the match.

62I had only to fix on the levers and depart then like a ghost, but I had overlooked one little thing.

63The matches were of that abominable kind that light only on the box.

64You may imagine how all my calm vanished.

65The little brutes were close upon me.

66One touched me.

67I made a sweeping blow in the dark at them with the levers and began to scramble into the saddle of the machine.

68Then came one hand upon me, and then another.

69Then I had simply to fight against their persistent fingers for my levers, and at the same time feel for the studs over which these fitted.

70One, indeed, they almost got away from me.

71As it slipped from my hand I had to bud in the dark with my head.

72I could hear the Morlocks' skull ring to recover it.

73It was a nearer thing than the fight in the forest, I think, this last scramble.

74But, at last, the lever was fitted and pulled over.

75The clinging hand slipped from me.

76The darkness presently fell from my eyes.

77I found myself in the same grey light and tumult I have already described.

78End of Chapter 10 End of Chapter 10 End of Chapter 10 End of Chapter 10 End of Chapter 10 End of Chapter 10 End of Chapter 10