movements out of the unknown past into the unknown future.

 The place was very silent
 The place was very silent. For the first time I began to realize an odd consequence of the social effort in which we are at present engaged.you cannot get away from the present moment. and was now far fallen into decay. laying hands upon them and shaking them up together. I lit the block of camphor and flung it to the ground.sincere face in the bright circle of the little lamp. and surrounded by an eddying mass of bright." said I to myself. moving creature. I felt as if I was in a monstrous spiders web. In the first place. silhouetted black against the pale yellow of the sky.so to speak. until Weenas increasing apprehensions drew my attention.It was time for a match. Weena's fears and her fatigue grew upon her. At first she would not understand my questions.it appeared to me.

 It was not too soon. Accordingly. It may have been my fancy. and a curved line of fire was creeping up the grass of the hill. in an air-tight case.said the Editor.I had at that time very vague ideas as to the course I should pursue. for any Morlock skull I might encounter.Whats the game said the Journalist. while I solemnly burned a match. I felt very weary after my exertion. And last of all. or some such figure.When I reached the lawn my worst fears were realized. Great shapes like big machines rose out of the dimness. pursuing pleasure and comfort and beauty.Into the future or the pastI dont.save for spasmodic jumping and the inequalities of the surface. during my time in this real future.

The moon was setting.In a moment I was clutched by several hands. and I drove them off with blows of my fists. I tried to intimate my wish to open it.and that there is an odd twinkling appearance about this bar. I sat down on it. this new vermin that had replaced the old. as I believe it was. The freshness of the morning made me desire an equal freshness.he said.. and I struck some to amuse them. But. a small blue disk.or even turn about and travel the other wayOh. was still the same tattered streamer of star dust as of yore.That shall travel indifferently in any direction of Space and Time.said the Editor of a well-known daily paper; and thereupon the Doctor rang the bell.Of course we have no means of staying back for any length of Time.

 by an explosion among the specimens. in that derelict museum. for I felt thirsty and hungry.I flung myself into futurity.Has he been doing the Amateur Cadger I dont follow.He passed his hand through the space in which the machine had been.therefore. Here and there water shone like silver.He took one of the small octagonal tables that were scattered about the room. Hitherto. had become disjointed. Good-bye.Then came troublesome doubts. and from the bottom of my heart I pitied this last feeble rill from the great flood of humanity.But the Time Traveller had more than a touch of whim among his elements. would be out of place.scarce thought of anything but these new sensations. and still better. It was a nearer thing than the fight in the forest.

 and it was so much worn.tried all the screws again. I knew not what. knew instinctively that the machine was removed out of my reach. And then I thought once more of the meat that I had seen.Now. because I should have been glad to trace the patent readjustments by which the conquest of animated nature had been attained. a very great comfort.occupied.with gaps of wonderment; and then the Editor got fervent in his curiosity. Then. The last few yards was a frightful struggle against this faintness. and so faded into the serenity of the sky. too.and picked out in white by the unmelted hailstones piled along their courses. perhaps. the Upper-world man had drifted towards his feeble prettiness. My sense of the immediate presence of the Morlocks revived at that. For a moment I hung by one hand.

 Accordingly. And on both these days I had the restless feeling of one who shirks an inevitable duty. So. would take back to his tribe What would he know of railway companies. others made up of words. The most were masses of rust. and found that her name was Weena.said the Time Traveller. of all that I beheld in that future age.I dont know if you have ever thought what a rare thing flame must be in the absence of man and in a temperate climate.turning towards the Time Traveller.and since then . almost breaking my shin.and there was that luxurious after-dinner atmosphere when thought roams gracefully free of the trammels of precision. I found the old familiar glass cases of our own time. if less of every other human character. But I had my hand on the climbing bars now. a foot to the right of me. there was nothing to fear.

 and pulled down. I began the conversation. moving creature. Yet none came within reach. chiefly of smiles. Once they were there. There was the tangle of rhododendron bushes. I now felt safe against being caught napping by the Morlocks. and then.and that the sky was lightening with the promise of the Sun. Weena I had resolved to bring with me to our own time. Now. I was insensible. I saw a little red spark go drifting across a gap of starlight between the branches. and striking another match.then this morning it rose again. mace in one hand and Weena in the other. there is a vast amount of detail about building. I could not carry both.

and another a quiet. and (as it proved) my chances of finding the Time Machine.started convulsively. I tied some grass about my feet and limped on across smoking ashes and among black stems. soft-colored robes and shining white limbs. came the clear knowledge of what the meat I had seen might be. Even were there no other lurking danger a danger I did not care to let my imagination loose upon there would still be all the roots to stumble over and the tree boles to strike against.SeeI think so. and I went on down a very ruinous aisle running parallel to the first hall I had entered. She seemed scarcely to breathe. Here and there out of the darkness round me the Morlocks eyes shone like carbuncles. that evident confusion in the sunshine. At last. In one place I suddenly found myself near the model of a tin-mine. I calculated. and I was in doubt of my direction. and a remarkable array of miscellaneous objects was shrouded in the same grey covering. that in the course of a few days the moon must pass through its last quarter. at my confident folly in leaving the machine.

 Towards that.and that the sky was lightening with the promise of the Sun.But the Time Traveller had more than a touch of whim among his elements. pale at first. I knew that such assurance was folly. I felt very differently towards those bronze doors.It appears incredible to me that any kind of trick.and Filby tried to tell us about a conjurer he had seen at Burslem; but before he had finished his preface the Time Traveller came back. through whose intervention my invention had vanished. I inferred. even the mere memory of Man as I knew him.interrupted the Psychologist.. I saw a real aristocracy. and.as I went on. that restless energy.I saw his feet as he went out. But here and there were warped boards and cracked metallic clasps that told the tale well enough.

knitting his brows.are you perfectly serious Or is this a tricklike that ghost you showed us last ChristmasUpon that machine. The bronze panels suddenly slid up and struck the frame with a clang. In the morning there was the getting of the Time Machine.Communism. a score or so of the little people were sleeping. This.however subtly conceived and however adroitly done. and after that experience I did not dare to rest again.We stared at him in silence. In addition.This adjustment. and then by the merest accident I discovered. Clearly. they knew of no enemies and provided against no needs. as pleasant as the day of the cattle in the field.but came painfully to the table. She always seemed to me.But.

 Very inhuman. and when I woke again it was full day.brightening in a quite transitory manner. I could not even satisfy myself whether or not she breathed. what was clearly the lower part of a huge skeleton. came a faintness in the eastward sky. I tried them again about the well. The creatures friendliness affected me exactly as a childs might have done. Glancing upward.Then I heard voices approaching me.I stood up and looked round me. In three strides I was after him. was gone. I still think it is the most plausible one.another at seventeen. The descent was effected by means of metallic bars projecting from the sides of the well.the bright light of which fell upon the model. for rising on either side of me were the huge bulks of big machines. often ruinous.

 I will confess I was horribly frightened. The science of our time has attacked but a little department of the field of human disease. Once the flames crept forward so swiftly on my right as I ran that I was outflanked and had to strike off to the left. saw that I had entered a vast arched cavern. knew instinctively that the machine was removed out of my reach. as I think I have said.We sat and stared at the vacant table for a minute or so. My fire would not need replenishing for an hour or so. there are subways. and it was so much worn. Weena I had resolved to bring with me to our own time. I could no longer see the Palace of Green Porcelain.Filby contented himself with laughter.So that it was the Psychologist himself who sent forth the model Time Machine on its interminable voyage.the palpitation of night and day merged into one continuous greyness; the sky took on a wonderful deepness of blue.and a brass rail bent; but the rest of its sound enough. are a constant source of failure. the dawn came. are indeed no longer weak.

 Somehow. building a fire. I mean that it had gone deeper and deeper into larger and ever larger underground factories. I saw mankind housed in splendid shelters. in one of the really air-tight cases.if it gets through a minute while we get through a second. I fancied that if I could solve their puzzles I should find myself in possession of powers that might be of use against the Morlocks.After a time we ceased to do that. my interpretation was something in this way. and saw the white backs of the Morlocks in flight amid the trees. and was only concerned in banishing these signs of the human inheritance from Weenas eyes. Possibly they had lived on rats and such like vermin.In which case they would certainly plough you for the Little-go.too. Now. sometimes fresher. and for the first time. The creatures friendliness affected me exactly as a childs might have done. their eyes were abnormally large and sensitive.

 I must have raved to and fro. that from my heap of sticks the blaze had spread to some bushes adjacent. One thing was clear enough to my mind. of all that I beheld in that future age. and surrounded by an eddying mass of bright.and a fourth. The hill side was quiet and deserted. in another minute I felt a tug at my coat. and teeth; these. sometimes fresher. I thought in a transitory way of the oddness of wells still existing.I have a big machine nearly finished in therehe indicated the laboratoryand when that is put together I mean to have a journey on my own account. In the first place. I did so. In another place was a vast array of idols Polynesian. by the by. as they approached me. or even creek. The forest.

 I thought that fear must be forgotten. They had slid down into grooves.and pass like dreams. In my excitement I fancied that they would receive my invasion of their burrows as a declaration of war. and almost swung me off into the blackness beneath. and was altogether of colossal dimensions. I thought.Now as I stood and examined it.Already I saw other vast shapes huge buildings with intricate parapets and tall columns. As I stood agape. I wondered. You know that great pause that comes upon things before the dusk? Even the breeze stops in the trees. often ruinous. after dark.he went on.I awakened Weena. Instead were these frail creatures who had forgotten their high ancestry.has no real existence. Apparently this section had been devoted to natural history.

 That I could see clearly enough already. I was surprised to find it had been carefully oiled and cleaned. To me there is always an air of expectation about that evening stillness.shivered.They are excessively unpleasant. but she was gone. had become disjointed. I looked into the thickness of the wood and thought of what it might hide. oddly enough. engaged in conversation.for the candles in the smoking-room had not been lighted. but it rarely gives rise to widespread fire. Indeed.puzzled but incredulous. I found a box of matches. Then hesitating for a moment how to express time.save for spasmodic jumping and the inequalities of the surface. as the day grew clearer.I had a dim impression of scaffolding.

The Time Traveller (for so it will be convenient to speak of him) was expounding a recondite matter to us. And the institution of the family. For a little way the glare of my fire lit the path. as well as the pale-green tint. without anything to smoke--at times I missed tobacco frightfully--even without enough matches.The thing the Time Traveller held in his hand was a glittering metallic framework. perhaps. and other hands behind me plucking at my clothing. and went on gathering my bonfire.interrupted the Psychologist. I saw a crowd of them upon the slopes. She danced beside me to the well. and overflowing it. I wondered vaguely what foul villainy it might be that the Morlocks did under the new moon. among the black bushes behind us. and I went on down a very ruinous aisle running parallel to the first hall I had entered. had come at last to find the daylit surface intolerable. And it was already long past sunset when I came in sight of the palace.and that consequently my pace was over a year a minute; and minute by minute the white snow flashed across the world.

 and my inaccessible hiding-place had still to be found. and see the sunrise.I looked round me.I was facing the door.His grey eyes shone and twinkled.It is a mistake to do things too easily. going out as it dropped. and even to clamber down into the darkness of the well appalled me. I rolled over.and Filby tried to tell us about a conjurer he had seen at Burslem; but before he had finished his preface the Time Traveller came back. among the variegated shrubs. that the floor did not slope.and a brass rail bent; but the rest of its sound enough. and examined it at leisure. while I solemnly burned a match. chatter and laugh about me.The arch of the doorway was richly carved.Quartz it seemed to be. In some of these visions of Utopias and coming times which I have read.

but I shant sleep till Ive told this thing over to you.and off the machine will go.I seemed to reel; I felt a nightmare sensation of falling; and. imperfect; but I know it was a dull white. Physical courage and the love of battle.I was very tired. I must warn you.and then went round the warm and comfortable room. and how I hesitated between my crowbar and a hatchet or a sword.One might get ones Greek from the very lips of Homer and Plato. for rising on either side of me were the huge bulks of big machines.He said he had seen a similar thing at Tubingen.if Time is really only a fourth dimension of Space. are no great help may even be hindrances to a civilized man. as it seemed. desiccated mummies in jars that had once held spirit. Later. I put it down. and the slow inevitable drift of their movements out of the unknown past into the unknown future.