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1When Night Came "Now, indeed, I seemed in a worse case than before. Hitherto, except during my night's anguish at the
2loss of the Time Machine, I had felt a sustaining hope of ultimate escape, but that hope was staggered by these new
3discoveries. Hitherto I had merely thought myself impeded by the childish simplicity of the little people, and by some
4unknown forces which I had only to understand to overcome; but there was an altogether new element in the sickening
5quality of the Morlocks--a something inhuman and malign. Instinctively I loathed them. Before, I had felt as a man might
6feel who had fallen into a pit: my concern was with the pit and how to get out of it. Now I felt like a beast in a trap,
7whose enemy would come upon him soon. "The enemy I dreaded may surprise you. It was the darkness of the new moon. Weena
8had put this into my head by some at first incomprehensible remarks about the Dark Nights. It was not now such a very
9difficult problem to guess what the coming Dark Nights might mean. The moon was on the wane: each night there was a
10longer interval of darkness. And I now understood to some slight degree at least the reason of the fear of the little
11Upperworld people for the dark. I wondered vaguely what foul villainy it might be that the Morlocks did under the new
12moon. I felt pretty sure now that my second hypothesis was all wrong. The Upperworld people might once have been the
13favoured aristocracy, and the Morlocks their mechanical servants: but that had long since passed away. The two species
14that had resulted from the evolution of man were sliding down towards, or had already arrived at, an altogether new
15relationship. The Eloi, like the Carlovignan kings, had decayed to a mere beautiful futility. They still possessed the
16earth on sufferance: since the Morlocks, subterranean for innumerable generations, had come at last to find the daylit
17surface intolerable. And the Morlocks made their garments, I inferred, and maintained them in their habitual needs,
18perhaps through the survival of an old habit of service. They did it as a standing horse paws with his foot, or as a man
19enjoys killing animals in sport: because ancient and departed necessities had impressed it on the organism. But,
20clearly, the old order was already in part reversed. The Nemesis of the delicate ones was creeping on apace. Ages ago,
21thousands of generations ago, man had thrust his brother man out of the ease and the sunshine. And now that brother was
22coming back--changed! Already the Eloi had begun to learn one old lesson anew. They were becoming reacquainted with
23Fear. And suddenly there came into my head the memory of the meat I had seen in the Underworld. It seemed odd how it
24floated into my mind: not stirred up as it were by the current of my meditations, but coming in almost like a question
25from outside. I tried to recall the form of it. I had a vague sense of something familiar, but I could not tell what it
26was at the time. "Still, however helpless the little people in the presence of their mysterious Fear, I was differently
27constituted. I came out of this age of ours, this ripe prime of the human race, when Fear does not paralyse and mystery
28has lost its terrors. I at least would defend myself. Without further delay I determined to make myself arms and a
29fastness where I might sleep. With that refuge as a base, I could face this strange world with some of that confidence I
30had lost in realising to what creatures night by night I lay exposed. I felt I could never sleep again until my bed was
31secure from them. I shuddered with horror to think how they must already have examined me. "I wandered during the
32afternoon along the valley of the Thames, but found nothing that commended itself to my mind as inaccessible. All the
33buildings and trees seemed easily practicable to such dexterous climbers as the Morlocks, to judge by their wells, must
34be. Then the tall pinnacles of the Palace of Green Porcelain and the polished gleam of its walls came back to my memory;
35and in the evening, taking Weena like a child upon my shoulder, I went up the hills towards the south-west. The
36distance, I had reckoned, was seven or eight miles, but it must have been nearer eighteen. I had first seen the place on
37a moist afternoon when distances are deceptively diminished. In addition, the heel of one of my shoes was loose, and a
38nail was working through the sole--they were comfortable old shoes I wore about indoors--so that I was lame. And it was
39already long past sunset when I came in sight of the palace, silhouetted black against the pale yellow of the sky.
40"Weena had been hugely delighted when I began to carry her, but after a while she desired me to let her down, and ran
41along by the side of me, occasionally darting off on either hand to pick flowers to stick in my pockets. My pockets had
42always puzzled Weena, but at the last she had concluded that they were an eccentric kind of vases for floral decoration.
43At least she utilised them for that purpose. And that reminds me! In changing my jacket I found…" The Time Traveller
44paused, put his hand into his pocket, and silently placed two withered flowers, not unlike very large white mallows,
45upon the little table. Then he resumed his narrative. "As the hush of evening crept over the world and we proceeded over
46the hill crest towards Wimbledon, Weena grew tired and wanted to return to the house of grey stone. But I pointed out
47the distant pinnacles of the Palace of Green Porcelain to her, and contrived to make her understand that we were seeking
48a refuge there from her Fear. You know that great pause that comes upon things before the dusk? Even the breeze stops in
49the trees. To me there is always an air of expectation about that evening stillness. The sky was clear, remote, and
50empty save for a few horizontal bars far down in the sunset. Well, that night the expectation took the colour of my
51fears. In that darkling calm my senses seemed preternaturally sharpened. I fancied I could even feel the hollowness of
52the ground beneath my feet: could, indeed, almost see through it the Morlocks on their ant-hill going hither and thither
53and waiting for the dark. In my excitement I fancied that they would receive my invasion of their burrows as a
54declaration of war. And why had they taken my Time Machine? "So we went on in the quiet, and the twilight deepened into
55night. The clear blue of the distance faded, and one star after another came out. The ground grew dim and the trees
56black. Weena's fears and her fatigue grew upon her. I took her in my arms and talked to her and caressed her. Then, as
57the darkness grew deeper, she put her arms round my neck, and, closing her eyes, tightly pressed her face against my
58shoulder. So we went down a long slope into a valley, and there in the dimness I almost walked into a little river. This
59I waded, and went up the opposite side of the valley, past a number of sleeping houses, and by a statue--a Faun, or some
60such figure, minus the head. Here too were acacias. So far I had seen nothing of the Morlocks, but it was yet early in
61the night, and the darker hours before the old moon rose were still to come. "From the brow of the next hill I saw a
62thick wood spreading wide and black before me. I hesitated at this. I could see no end to it, either to the right or the
63left. Feeling tired--my feet, in particular, were very sore--I carefully lowered Weena from my shoulder as I halted, and
64sat down upon the turf. I could no longer see the Palace of Green Porcelain, and I was in doubt of my direction. I
65looked into the thickness of the wood and thought of what it might hide. Under that dense tangle of branches one would
66be out of sight of the stars. Even were there no other lurking danger--a danger I did not care to let my imagination
67loose upon--there would still be all the roots to stumble over and the tree-boles to strike against. I was very tired,
68too, after the excitements of the day; so I decided that I would not face it, but would pass the night upon the open
69hill.
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