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1The Morlocks "It may seem odd to you, but it was two days before I could follow up the new-found clue in what was
2manifestly the proper way. I felt a peculiar shrinking from those pallid bodies. They were just the half-bleached colour
3of the worms and things one sees preserved in spirit in a zoological museum. And they were filthily cold to the touch.
4Probably my shrinking was largely due to the sympathetic influence of the Eloi, whose disgust of the Morlocks I now
5began to appreciate. "The next night I did not sleep well. Probably my health was a little disordered. I was oppressed
6with perplexity and doubt. Once or twice I had a feeling of intense fear for which I could perceive no definite reason.
7I remember creeping noiselessly into the great hall where the little people were sleeping in the moonlight--that night
8Weena was among them--and feeling reassured by their presence. It occurred to me even then, that in the course of a few
9days the moon must pass through its last quarter, and the nights grow dark, when the appearances of these unpleasant
10creatures from below, these whitened Lemurs, this new vermin that had replaced the old, might be more abundant. And on
11both these days I had the restless feeling of one who shirks an inevitable duty. I felt assured that the Time Machine
12was only to be recovered by boldly penetrating these mysteries of underground. Yet I could not face the mystery. If only
13I had had a companion it would have been different. But I was so horribly alone, and even to clamber down into the
14darkness of the well appalled me. I don't know if you will understand my feeling, but I never felt quite safe at my
15back. "It was this restlessness, this insecurity, perhaps, that drove me farther and farther afield in my exploring
16expeditions. Going to the south-westward towards the rising country that is now called Combe Wood, I observed far-off,
17in the direction of nineteenth-century Banstead, a vast green structure, different in character from any I had hitherto
18seen. It was larger than the largest of the palaces or ruins I knew, and the façade had an Oriental look: the face of it
19having the lustre, as well as the pale-green tint, a kind of bluish-green, of a certain type of Chinese porcelain. This
20difference in aspect suggested a difference in use, and I was minded to push on and explore. But the day was growing
21late, and I had come upon the sight of the place after a long and tiring circuit; so I resolved to hold over the
22adventure for the following day, and I returned to the welcome and the caresses of little Weena. But next morning I
23perceived clearly enough that my curiosity regarding the Palace of Green Porcelain was a piece of self-deception, to
24enable me to shirk, by another day, an experience I dreaded. I resolved I would make the descent without further waste
25of time, and started out in the early morning towards a well near the ruins of granite and aluminium. "Little Weena ran
26with me. She danced beside me to the well, but when she saw me lean over the mouth and look downward, she seemed
27strangely disconcerted. 'Good-bye, little Weena,' I said, kissing her; and then putting her down, I began to feel over
28the parapet for the climbing hooks. Rather hastily, I may as well confess, for I feared my courage might leak away! At
29first she watched me in amazement. Then she gave a most piteous cry, and running to me, she began to pull at me with her
30little hands. I think her opposition nerved me rather to proceed. I shook her off, perhaps a little roughly, and in
31another moment I was in the throat of the well. I saw her agonised face over the parapet, and smiled to reassure her.
32Then I had to look down at the unstable hooks to which I clung. "I had to clamber down a shaft of perhaps two hundred
33yards. The descent was effected by means of metallic bars projecting from the sides of the well, and these being adapted
34to the needs of a creature much smaller and lighter than myself, I was speedily cramped and fatigued by the descent. And
35not simply fatigued! One of the bars bent suddenly under my weight, and almost swung me off into the blackness beneath.
36For a moment I hung by one hand, and after that experience I did not dare to rest again. Though my arms and back were
37presently acutely painful, I went on clambering down the sheer descent with as quick a motion as possible. Glancing
38upward, I saw the aperture, a small blue disc, in which a star was visible, while little Weena's head showed as a round
39black projection. The thudding sound of a machine below grew louder and more oppressive. Everything save that little
40disc above was profoundly dark, and when I looked up again Weena had disappeared. "I was in an agony of discomfort. I
41had some thought of trying to go up the shaft again, and leave the Underworld alone. But even while I turned this over
42in my mind I continued to descend. At last, with intense relief, I saw dimly coming up, a foot to the right of me, a
43slender loophole in the wall. Swinging myself in, I found it was the aperture of a narrow horizontal tunnel in which I
44could lie down and rest. It was not too soon. My arms ached, my back was cramped, and I was trembling with the prolonged
45terror of a fall. Besides this, the unbroken darkness had had a distressing effect upon my eyes. The air was full of the
46throb and hum of machinery pumping air down the shaft. "I do not know how long I lay. I was roused by a soft hand
47touching my face. Starting up in the darkness I snatched at my matches and, hastily striking one, I saw three stooping
48white creatures similar to the one I had seen above ground in the ruin, hastily retreating before the light. Living, as
49they did, in what appeared to me impenetrable darkness, their eyes were abnormally large and sensitive, just as are the
50pupils of the abysmal fishes, and they reflected the light in the same way. I have no doubt they could see me in that
51rayless obscurity, and they did not seem to have any fear of me apart from the light. But, so soon as I struck a match
52in order to see them, they fled incontinently, vanishing into dark gutters and tunnels, from which their eyes glared at
53me in the strangest fashion. "I tried to call to them, but the language they had was apparently different from that of
54the Overworld people; so that I was needs left to my own unaided efforts, and the thought of flight before exploration
55was 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
56the noise of machinery grow louder. Presently the walls fell away from me, and I came to a large open space, and
57striking another match, saw that I had entered a vast arched cavern, which stretched into utter darkness beyond the
58range 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
59is vague. Great shapes like big machines rose out of the dimness, and cast grotesque black shadows, in which dim
60spectral Morlocks sheltered from the glare. The place, by the bye, was very stuffy and oppressive, and the faint halitus
61of freshly-shed blood was in the air. Some way down the central vista was a little table of white metal, laid with what
62seemed a meal. The Morlocks at any rate were carnivorous! Even at the time, I remember wondering what large animal could
63have survived to furnish the red joint I saw. It was all very indistinct: the heavy smell, the big unmeaning shapes, the
64obscene figures lurking in the shadows, and only waiting for the darkness to come at me again! Then the match burnt
65down, and stung my fingers, and fell, a wriggling red spot in the blackness.
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