Kabanata Kabanata 9 · IX. The Morlocks

. 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

very indistinct: the heavy smell, the big unmeaning shapes, the obscene

figures lurking in the shadows, and only waiting for the darkness to

come at me again! Then the match burnt down, and stung my fingers, and

fell, a wriggling red spot in the blackness.

“I have thought since how particularly ill-equipped I was for such an

experience. When I had started with the Time Machine, I had started

with the absurd assumption that the men of the Future would certainly

be infinitely ahead of ourselves in all their appliances. I had come

without arms, without medicine, without anything to smoke—at times I

missed tobacco frightfully!—even without enough matches. If only I had

thought of a Kodak! I could have flashed that glimpse of the Underworld

in a second, and examined it at leisure. But, as it was, I stood there

with only the weapons and the powers that Nature had endowed me

with—hands, feet, and teeth; these, and four safety-matches that still

remained to me.

“I was afraid to push my way in among all this machinery in the dark,

and it was only with my last glimpse of light I discovered that my

store of matches had run low. It had never occurred to me until that

moment that there was any need to economise them, and I had wasted

almost half the box in 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, lank fingers came feeling over my face, and I was

sensible of a peculiar unpleasant odour. I fancied I heard the

breathing of a crowd of those dreadful little beings about me. I felt

the box of matches in my hand being gently disengaged, and other hands

behind me plucking at my clothing. The sense of these unseen creatures

examining me was indescribably unpleasant. The sudden realisation of my

ignorance of their ways of thinking and doing came home to me very

vividly in the darkness. I shouted at them as loudly as I could. They

started away, and then I could feel them approaching me again. They

clutched at me more boldly, whispering odd sounds to each other. I

shivered violently, and shouted again—rather discordantly. This time

they were not so seriously alarmed, and they made a queer laughing

noise as they came back at me. I will confess I was horribly

frightened. I determined to strike another match and escape under the

protection of its glare. I did so, and eking out the flicker with a

scrap of paper from my pocket, I made good my retreat to the narrow

tunnel. But I had scarce entered this when my light was blown out and

in the blackness I could hear the Morlocks rustling like wind among

leaves, and pattering like the rain, as they hurried after me.

“In a moment I was clutched by several hands, and there was no

mistaking that they were trying to haul me back. I struck another

light, and waved it in their dazzled faces. You can scarce imagine how

nauseatingly inhuman they looked—those pale, chinless faces and great,

lidless, pinkish-grey eyes!—as they stared in their blindness and

bewilderment. But I did not stay to look, I promise you: I retreated

again, and when my second match had ended, I struck my third. It had

almost burnt through when I reached the opening into the shaft. I lay

down on the edge, for the throb of the great pump below made me giddy.

Then I felt sideways for the projecting hooks, and, as I did so, my

feet were grasped from behind, and I was violently tugged backward. I

lit my last match … and it incontinently went out. But I had my hand on

the climbing bars now, and, kicking violently, I disengaged myself from

the clutches of the Morlocks, and was speedily clambering up the shaft,

while they stayed peering and blinking up at me: all but one little

wretch who followed me for some way, and well-nigh secured my boot as a

trophy.

“That climb seemed interminable to me. With the last twenty or thirty

feet of it a deadly nausea came upon me. I had the greatest difficulty

in keeping my hold. The last few yards was a frightful struggle against

this faintness. Several times my head swam, and I felt all the

sensations of falling. At last, however, I got over the well-mouth

somehow, and staggered out of the ruin into the blinding sunlight. I

fell upon my face. Even the soil smelt 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 insensible.

Chap