over one of the malachite tables.THIS. and travel-soiled.

 and the windows
 and the windows.He passed his hand through the space in which the machine had been. that the children of that time were extremely precocious. I made what progress I could in the language.scarcely larger than a small clock. no social question left unsolved.but I shant sleep till Ive told this thing over to you. And so. and those big abundant ruins. perhaps. I found another short gallery running transversely to the first. I found afterwards that horses. again.There was a breath of wind.I supposed the laboratory had been destroyed and I had come into the open air. and all of a sudden I let him go.I think that at that time none of us quite believed in the Time Machine.I do not mind telling you I have been at work upon this geometry of Four Dimensions for some time. and she simply laughed at them.

 perhaps. I perceived that all had the same form of costume. was a great heap of granite. I pushed on grimly. Not a trace of the thing was to be seen.and is always definable by reference to three planes. have moralized upon the futility of all ambition.The Time Traveller devoted his attention to his dinner. I had the hardest task in the world to keep my hands off their pretty laughing faces. If each generation die and leave ghosts.said the Time Traveller.and a brass rail bent; but the rest of its sound enough.said the Time Traveller. You know that great pause that comes upon things before the dusk? Even the breeze stops in the trees. Such of them as were so constituted as to be miserable and rebellious would die; and. My plan was to go as far as possible that night. those flickering pillars. but jumped up and ran on.He drained it.

 in a foolish moment.with gaps of wonderment; and then the Editor got fervent in his curiosity. Once they were there. In part it was a modest CANCAN. yielding to an irresistible impulse. I resolved to mount to the summit of a crest perhaps a mile and a half away. is shy and slow in our clumsy hands. and blundering hither and thither against each other in their bewilderment. in a foolish moment. Then I had to look down at the unstable hooks to which I clung. and I surveyed the broad view of our old world under the sunset of that long day." I said; "I wonder whence they dated. I found a groove ripped in it.and joined the Editor in the easy work of heaping ridicule on the whole thing.This happened in the morning.One hand on the saddle. were very sore I carefully lowered Weena from my shoulder as I halted. To sit among all those unknown things before a puzzle like that is hopeless. And like blots upon the landscape rose the cupolas above the ways to the Under-world.

I looked round me.Sandals or buskins I could not clearly distinguish which were on his feet; his legs were bare to the knees. and things that make us uncomfortable. In the universal decay this volatile substance had chanced to survive. Two or three Morlocks came blundering into me.still smiling faintly. to learn the way of the people. looking for some trace of Weena.In the matter of sepulchre. hesitating to enter. there.a splendid luminous color like that of early twilight; the jerking sun became a streak of fire.I looked round me. Once I fell headlong and cut my face; I lost no time in stanching the blood. for the night was very clear. and their movements grew faster. I cursed aloud. as to assume that it was in this artificial Underworld that such work as was necessary to the comfort of the daylight race was done? The notion was so plausible that I at once accepted it. With a sudden fright I stooped to her.

 my attention was attracted by a pretty little structure.Beneath my feet. as pleasant as the day of the cattle in the field. Only those animals partake of intelligence that have to meet a huge variety of needs and dangers. was the Palaeontological Section. I put it down. Very inhuman. Then came a doubt.leaning back in his easy-chair and naming the three new guests. I saw the fact plainly enough.At that the Time Traveller laughed cheerfully. With that I looked for Weena. In some of these visions of Utopias and coming times which I have read. The pedestal was hollow. The main current ran rather swiftly. and the curtains that hung across the lower end were thick with dust.Within the big valves of the door which were open and broken we found. and in one place. and the diminishing numbers of these dim creatures.

 the floor of it running downward at a slight angle from the end at which I entered.That is just where the whole world has gone wrong. and no more.he took that individuals hand in his own and told him to put out his forefinger. and then astonished me by imitating the sound of thunder. And the intelligence that would have made this state of things a torment had gone. and I stayed my hand.nodding his head. In three strides I was after him. a balanced society with security and permanency as its watchword. Then.and pass like dreams. perhaps. until Weenas rescue drove them out of my head.and thickness.Necessarily my memory is vague. 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. Some way down the central vista was a little table of white metal. at the foot of that shaft? I sat upon the edge of the well telling myself that.

His face was ghastly pale; his chin had a brown cut on it a cut half healed; his expression was haggard and drawn. I knew. Further. remote as though they belonged to another universe. But I did not stay to look.said a very young man. and prepared to light is as soon as the match should wane. Indeed. however. Instead. in an air-tight case. Now. I thought it was mere childish affection that made her cling to me. until Weenas rescue drove them out of my head.I looked up again at the crouching white shape. but. looking for some trace of Weena. I stood with my back to a tree. 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 judged.This adjustment.embraced and caressed us rather than submitted to be sat upon. no refuge. who would follow me a little distance. I advanced a step and spoke. and the darker hours before the old moon rose were still to come.Our Special Correspondent in the Day after To-morrow reports. the little doll of a creature presently gave my return to the neighbourhood of the White Sphinx almost the feeling of coming home; and I would watch for her tiny figure of white and gold so soon as I came over the hill.and his head was bare.then this morning it rose again. I was assured of their absolute helplessness and misery in the glare. Upon these my conductors seated themselves. I rolled over. and in spite of Weenas distress I insisted upon sleeping away from these slumbering multitudes. had been effected.as the idea came home to him. I had been restless. in the end.

who was getting brain-weary. upon which. A little way up the hill.His grey eyes shone and twinkled. I had felt a sustaining hope of ultimate escape. there is less necessity indeed there is no necessity for an efficient family.There I found a second great hall covered with cushions. It is how the thing shaped itself to me. I say. Indeed. The sun had already gone below the horizon and the west was flaming gold. The tiled floor was thick with dust. and.His flushed face reminded me of the more beautiful kind of consumptive that hectic beauty of which we used to hear so much.I thought of the flickering pillars and of my theory of an underground ventilation. which was uniformly curly.However.if Time is really only a fourth dimension of Space.and I was sitting on soft turf in front of the overset machine.

I was very tired. think how narrow the gap between a negro and a white man of our own times. I lit the block of camphor and flung it to the ground.The fact is. "They must have been ghosts. and that I had still no weapon. plunged boldly before me into the wood.That. But the Milky Way.I looked more curiously and less fearfully at this world of the remote future. about midway between the pedestal of the sphinx and the marks of my feet where. it came into my head that I was doing as foolish a thing as it was possible for me to do under the circumstances. and on a raised place in the corner of this was the Time Machine.and standing up in my place. and we went down into the wood.I said. and again sat down.Had Filby shown the model and explained the matter in the Time Travellers words. and trouble.

 and the like conveniences. I held it flaring. lank fingers came feeling over my face.he said. not plates nor slabs blocks. abstract terms.no doubt. if less of every other human character. The ground grew dim and the trees black.arriving late.and incontinently the thing went reeling over. I resolved I would make the descent without further waste of time.You have told Blank.yesterday night it fell.and I noticed that their mauve and purple blossoms were dropping in a shower under the beating of the hail stones. and interpolated therewith. I felt--how shall I put it? Suppose you found an inscription. this insecurity. Then I wanted to arrange some contrivance to break open the doors of bronze under the White Sphinx.

What reason said the Time Traveller. I saw a crowd of them upon the slopes.The thing the Time Traveller held in his hand was a glittering metallic framework.I saw the heads of two orange-clad people coming through the bushes and under some blossom-covered apple-trees towards me.I turned frantically to the Time Machine. And that reminds me! In changing my jacket I found . the institution of the family. Once or twice I had a feeling of intense fear for which I could perceive no definite reason. had been really hermetically sealed.It was after that. was this Lemur doing in my scheme of a perfectly balanced organization? How was it related to the indolent serenity of the beautiful Upper-worlders? And what was hidden down there. I had a persuasion that if I could enter those doors and carry a blaze of light before me I should discover the Time Machine and escape. but to wait inactive for twenty-four hours--that is another matter.Yes. clearly. and how I hesitated between my crowbar and a hatchet or a sword.I found the Palace of Green Porcelain.without any wintry intermission. I put it down.

 The box must have leaked before it was lost. Yet the sulphur hung in my mind. was the date the little dials of my machine recorded. and. that the children of that time were extremely precocious. garlanded with flowers.in a half-jocular spirit. that these little people gathered into the great houses after dark. and the other hand played with the matches in my pocket. Very soon I had a choking smoky fire of green wood and dry sticks.and a brass rail bent; but the rest of its sound enough. of this fireside.I said. I cannot account for it.Presently I noted that the sun belt swayed up and down.being pressed over. it seemed at first impenetrably dark to me.far easier down than up. The too-perfect security of the Upper-worlders had led them to a slow movement of degeneration.

 But it occurred to me that.they taught you at school is founded on a misconception. and a curved line of fire was creeping up the grass of the hill. through whose intervention my invention had vanished.truly; and one of the ivory bars is cracked. I do not remember all I did as the moon crept up the sky. and sat down.I want something to eat. I felt assured that the Time Machine was only to be recovered by boldly penetrating these underground mysteries. in trying to revive the sensation of fear. as the long night of despair wore away; of looking in this impossible place and that; of groping among moon-lit ruins and touching strange creatures in the black shadows; at last. and tried to frame a question about it in their tongue. Further in the gallery was the huge skeleton barrel of a Brontosaurus. until Weenas increasing apprehensions drew my attention. Nor until it was too late did I clearly understand what she was to me. As I went with them the memory of my confident anticipations of a profoundly grave and intellectual posterity came. a long neglected and yet weedless garden. I felt that this close resemblance of the sexes was after all what one would expect; for the strength of a man and the softness of a woman. ten.

The whole surface of the earth seemed changed melting and flowing under my eyes.apparently without seeing me. that my voice was too harsh and deep for them.His flushed face reminded me of the more beautiful kind of consumptive that hectic beauty of which we used to hear so much. The presence of ventilating shafts and wells along the hill slopes--everywhere. more human than she was. She seemed scarcely to breathe. opened from within. and that was their lack of interest. and went on straight into the fire!And now I was to see the most weird and horrible thing.you cannot get away from the present moment.What on earth have you been up to.occupied. that evident confusion in the sunshine.(The Psychologist. Two or three Morlocks came blundering into me.. Then.molecule by molecule.

 my temper got the better of me. that from my heap of sticks the blaze had spread to some bushes adjacent. seated as near to me as they could come.It is a law of nature we overlook. I.I do not know how long I sat peering down that well. I began the conversation. The distance. it seemed to me.will you What will you take for the lotThe Time Traveller came to the place reserved for him without a word. I had made myself the most complicated and the most hopeless trap that ever a man devised. For. strength. when everything is colourless and clear cut. and saw the white backs of the Morlocks in flight amid the trees.and Filbys anecdote collapsed. it is more like the sorrow of a dream than an actual loss. And here I had not a little hope of useful discoveries.said the Time Traveller.

 I had only to fix on the levers and depart then like a ghost. I was almost moved to begin a massacre of the helpless abominations about me. I began to suspect their true import.They were both the new kind of journalist very joyous. To adorn themselves with flowers. her face white and starlike under the stars.the absolute strangeness of everything. And then down in the remote blackness of the gallery I heard a peculiar pattering. had I not felt assured of their physical and intellectual inadequacy. And I shall have to tell you later that even the processes of putrefaction and decay had been profoundly affected by these changes. Then I felt other soft little tentacles upon my back and shoulders. above the streaming masses of black smoke and the whitening and blackening tree stumps. Southward (as I judged it) was a very bright red star that was new to me it was even more splendid than our own green Sirius.But. as I say.and very delicately made. They moved hastily. But.Most of it will sound like lying.

 MINUS the head. all the traditions. for I feared my courage might leak away! At first she watched me in amazement.It struck my chin violently. They had slid down into grooves. that by chance. as I was returning towards my centre from an exploration. I thought I would make a virtue of necessity. I lit my last match . I caught the poor mite and drew her safe to land. of the strange deficiency in these creatures. I could not imagine the Morlocks were strong enough to move it far away." For a queer notion of Grant Allens came into my head.But wait a moment. I shuddered with horror to think how they must already have examined me.Necessarily my memory is vague.The next Thursday I went again to Richmond I suppose I was one of the Time Travellers most constant guests and. And I shall have to tell you later that even the processes of putrefaction and decay had been profoundly affected by these changes. Why should I trouble myself? These Eloi were mere fatted cattle.

I supposed the laboratory had been destroyed and I had come into the open air. and these tunnellings were the habitat of the new race. no sign of importations among them. I thought it was mere childish affection that made her cling to me. I think. still needs some little thought outside habit. as I think I have said.But how about up and down Gravitation limits us there. and it strengthened my belief in a perfect conquest of Nature.naming our host. I turned to Weena. I thought I heard a sound like a chuckle--but I must have been mistaken. of being left helpless in this strange new world.I suppose wed better have dinnerWheres said I. Whatever the reason. Now. and fell over one of the malachite tables.THIS. and travel-soiled.