now. So soon as my appetite was a little checked, I determined to make
a resolute attempt to learn the speech of these new men of mine.
Clearly that was the next thing to do. The fruits seemed a convenient
thing to begin upon, and holding one of these up I began a series of
interrogative sounds and gestures. I had some considerable difficulty
in conveying my meaning. At first my efforts met with a stare of
surprise or inextinguishable laughter, but presently a fair-haired
little creature seemed to grasp my intention and repeated a name. They
had to chatter and explain the business at great length to each other,
and my first attempts to make the exquisite little sounds of their
language caused an immense amount of genuine, if uncivil, amusement.
However, I felt like a schoolmaster amidst children, and persisted, and
presently I had a score of noun substantives at least at my command;
and then I got to demonstrative pronouns, and even the verb ‘to eat.’
But it was slow work, and the little people soon tired and wanted to
get away from my interrogations, so I determined, rather of necessity,
to let them give their lessons in little doses when they felt inclined.
And very little doses I found they were before long, for I never met
people more indolent or more easily fatigued.
VI.
The Sunset of Mankind
“A queer thing I soon discovered about my little hosts, and that was
their lack of interest. They would come to me with eager cries of
astonishment, like children, but, like children they would soon stop
examining me, and wander away after some other toy. The dinner and my
conversational beginnings ended, I noted for the first time that almost
all those who had surrounded me at first were gone. It is odd, too, how
speedily I came to disregard these little people. I went out through
the portal into the sunlit world again as soon as my hunger was
satisfied. I was continually meeting more of these men of the future,
who would follow me a little distance, chatter and laugh about me, and,
having smiled and gesticulated in a friendly way, leave me again to my
own devices.
“The calm of evening was upon the world as I emerged from the great
hall, and the scene was lit by the warm glow of the setting sun. At
first things were very confusing. Everything was so entirely different
from the world I had known—even the flowers. The big building I had
left was situated on the slope of a broad river valley, but the Thames
had shifted, perhaps, a mile from its present position. I resolved to
mount to the summit of a crest, perhaps a mile and a half away, from
which I could get a wider view of this our planet in the year Eight
Hundred and Two Thousand Seven Hundred and One, A.D. For that, I should
explain, was the date the little dials of my machine recorded.
“As I walked I was watching for every impression that could possibly
help to explain the condition of ruinous splendour in which I found the
world—for ruinous it was. A little way up the hill, for instance, was a
great heap of granite, bound together by masses of aluminium, a vast
labyrinth of precipitous walls and crumpled heaps, amidst which were
thick heaps of very beautiful pagoda-like plants—nettles possibly—but
wonderfully tinted with brown about the leaves, and incapable of
stinging. It was evidently the derelict remains of some vast structure,
to what end built I could not determine. It was here that I was
destined, at a later date, to have a very strange experience—the first
intimation of a still stranger discovery—but of that I will speak in
its proper place.
“Looking round, with a sudden thought, from a terrace on which I rested
for a while, I realised that there were no small houses to be seen.
Apparently the single house, and possibly even the household, had
vanished. Here and there among the greenery were palace-like buildings,
but the house and the cottage, which form such characteristic features
of our own English landscape, had disappeared.
“‘Communism,’ said I to myself.
“And on the heels of that came another thought. I looked at the
half-dozen little figures that were following me. Then, in a flash, I
perceived that all had the same form of costume, the same soft hairless
visage, and the same girlish rotundity of limb. It may seem strange,
perhaps, that I had not noticed this before. But everything was so
strange. Now, I saw the fact plainly enough. In costume, and in all the
differences of texture and bearing that now mark off the sexes from
each other, these people of the future were alike. And the children
seemed to my eyes to be but the miniatures of their parents. I judged
then that the children of that time were extremely precocious,
physically at least, and I found afterwards abundant verification of my
opinion.
“Seeing the ease and security in which these people were living, 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, the
institution of the family, and the differentiation of occupations are
mere militant necessities of an age of physical force. Where population
is balanced and abundant, much childbearing becomes an evil rather than
a blessing to the State; where violence comes but rarely and offspring
are secure, there is less necessity—indeed there is no necessity—for an
efficient family, and the specialisation of the sexes with reference to
their children’s needs disappears. We see some beginnings of this even
in our own time, and in this future age it was complete. This, I must
remind you, was my speculation at the time. Later, I was to appreciate
how far it fell short of the reality.
“While I was musing upon these things, my attention was attracted by a
pretty little structure, like a well under a cupola. I thought in a
transitory way of the oddness of wells still existing, and then resumed
the thread of my speculations. There were no large buildings towards
the top of the hill, and as my walking powers were evidently
miraculous, I was presently left alone for the first time. With a
strange sense of freedom and adventure I pushed on up to the crest.
“There I found a seat of some yellow metal that I did not recognise,
corroded in places with a kind of pinkish rust and half smothered in
soft moss, the arm-rests cast and filed into the resemblance of
griffins’ heads. I sat down on it, and I surveyed the broad view of our
old world under the sunset of that long day. It was as sweet and fair a
view as I have ever seen. The sun had already gone below the horizon
and the west was flaming gold, touched with some horizontal bars of
purple and crimson. Below was the valley of the Thames, in which the
river lay like a band of burnished steel. I have already spoken of the
great palaces dotted about among the variegated greenery, some in ruins
and some still occupied. Here and there rose a white or silvery figure
in the waste garden of the earth, here and there came the sharp
vertical line of some cupola or obelisk. There were no hedges, no signs
of proprietary rights, no evidences of agriculture; the whole earth had
become a garden.
“So watching, I began to put my interpretation upon the things I had
seen, and as it shaped itself to me that evening, my interpretation was
something in this way. (Afterwards I found I had got only a half
truth—or only a glimpse of one facet of the truth.)
“It seemed to me that I had happened upon humanity upon the wane. The
ruddy sunset set me thinking of the sunset of mankind. For the first
time I began to realise an odd consequence of the social effort in
which we are at present engaged. And yet, come to think, it is a
logical consequence enough. Strength is the outcome of need; security
sets a premium on feebleness. The work of ameliorating the conditions
of life—the true civilising process that makes life more and more
secure—had gone steadily on to a climax. One triumph of a united
humanity over Nature had followed another. Things that are now mere
dreams had become projects deliberately put in hand and carried
forward. And the harvest was what I saw!
“After all, the sanitation and the agriculture of today are still in
the rudimentary stage. The science of our time has attacked but a
little department of the field of human disease, but, even so, it
spreads its operations very steadily and persistently. Our agriculture
and horticulture destroy a weed just here and there and cultivate
perhaps a score or so of wholesome plants, leaving the greater number
to fight out a balance as they can. We improve our favourite plants and
animals—and how few they are—gradually by selective breeding; now a new
and better peach, now a seedless grape, now a sweeter and larger
flower, now a more convenient breed of cattle. We improve them
gradually, because our ideals are vague and tentative, and our
knowledge is very limited; because Nature, too, is shy and slow in our
clumsy hands. Some day all this will be better organised, and still
better. That is the drift of the current in spite of the eddies. The
whole world will be intelligent, educated, and co-operating; things
will move faster and faster towards the subjugation of Nature. In the
end, wisely and carefully we shall readjust the balance of animal and
vegetable life to suit our human needs.
“This adjustment, I say, must have been done, and done well; done
indeed for all Time, in the space of Time across which my machine had
leapt. The air was free from gnats, the earth from weeds or fungi;
everywhere were fruits and sweet and delightful flowers; brilliant
butterflies flew hither and thither. The ideal of preventive medicine
was attained. Diseases had been stamped out. I saw no evidence of any
contagious diseases during all my stay. And I shall have to tell you
later that even the processes of putrefaction and decay had been
profoundly affected by these changes.
“Social triumphs, too, had been effected. I saw mankind housed in
splendid shelters, gloriously clothed, and as yet I had found them
engaged in no toil. There were no signs of struggle, neither social nor
economical struggle. The shop, the advertisement, traffic, all that
commerce which constitutes the body of our world, was gone. It was
natural on that golden evening that I should jump at the idea of a
social paradise. The difficulty of increasing population had been met,
I guessed, and population had ceased to increase.
“But with this change in condition comes inevitably adaptations to the
change. What, unless biological science is a mass of errors, is the
cause of human intelligence and vigour? Hardship and freedom:
conditions under which the active, strong, and subtle survive and the
weaker go to the wall; conditions that put a premium upon the loyal
alliance of capable men, upon self-restraint, patience, and decision.
And the institution of the family, and the emotions that arise therein,
the fierce jealousy, the tenderness for offspring, parental
self-devotion, all found their justification and support in the
imminent dangers of the young. _Now_, where are these imminent dangers?
There is a sentiment arising, and it will grow, against connubial
jealousy, against fierce maternity, against passion of all sorts;
unnecessary things now, and things that make us uncomfortable, savage
survivals, discords in a refined and pleasant life.
“I thought of the physical slightness of the people, their lack of
intelligence, and those big abundant ruins, and it strengthened my
belief in a perfect conquest of Nature. For after the battle comes
Quiet. Humanity had been strong, energetic, and intelligent, and had
used all its abundant vitality to alter the conditions under which it
lived. And now came the reaction of the altered conditions.
“Under the new conditions of perfect comfort and security, that
restless energy, that with us is strength, would become weakness. Even
in our own time certain tendencies and desires, once necessary to
survival, are a constant source of failure. Physical courage and the
love of battle, for instance, are no great help—may even be
hindrances—to a civilised man. And in a state of physical balance and
security, power, intellectual as well as physical, would be out of
place. For countless years I judged there had been no danger of war or
solitary violence, no danger from wild beasts, no wasting disease to
require strength of constitution, no need of toil. For such a life,
what we should call the weak are as well equipped as the strong, are
indeed no longer weak. Better equipped indeed they are, for the strong
would be fretted by an energy for which there was no outlet. No doubt
the exquisite beauty of the buildings I saw was the outcome of the last
surgings of the now purposeless energy of mankind before it settled
down into perfect harmony with the conditions under which it lived—the
flourish of that triumph which began the last great peace. This has
ever been the fate of energy in security; it takes to art and to
eroticism, and then come languor and decay.
“Even this artistic impetus would at last die away—had almost died in
the Time I saw. To adorn themselves with flowers, to dance, to sing in
the sunlight: so much was left of the artistic spirit, and no more.
Even that would fade in the end into a contented inactivity. We are
kept keen on the grindstone of pain and necessity, and it seemed to me
that here was that hateful grindstone broken at last!
“As I stood there in the gathering dark I thought that in this simple
explanation I had mastered the problem of the world—mastered the whole
secret of these delicious people. Possibly the checks they had devised
for the increase of population had succeeded too well, and their
numbers had rather diminished than kept stationary. That would account
for the abandoned ruins. Very simple was my explanation, and plausible
enough—as most wrong theories are!
VII.
A Sudden Shock
“As I stood there musing over this too perfect triumph of man, the full
moon, yellow and gibbous, came up out of an overflow of silver light in
the north-east. The bright little figures ceased to move about below, a
noiseless owl flitted by, and I shivered with the chill of the night. I
determined to descend and find where I could sleep.
“I looked for the building I knew. Then my eye travelled along to the
figure of the White Sphinx upon the pedestal of bronze, growing
distinct as the light of the rising moon grew brighter. I could see the
silver birch against it. There was the tangle of rhododendron bushes,
black in the pale light, and there was the little lawn. I looked at the
lawn again. A queer doubt chilled my complacency. ‘No,’ said I stoutly
to myself, ‘that was not the lawn.’
“But it _was_ the lawn. For the white leprous face of the sphinx was
towards it. Can you imagine what I felt as this conviction came home to
me? But you cannot. The Time Machine was gone!
“At once, like a lash across the face, came the possibility of losing
my own age, of being left helpless in this strange new world. The bare
thought of it was an actual physical sensation. I could feel it grip me
at the throat and stop my breathing. In another moment I was in a
passion of fear and running with great leaping strides down the slope.
Once I fell headlong and cut my face; I lost no time in stanching the
blood, but jumped up and ran on, with a warm trickle down my cheek and
chin. All the time I ran I was saying to myself: ‘They have moved it a
little, pushed it under the bushes out of the way.’ Nevertheless, I ran
with all my might. All the time, with the certainty that sometimes
comes with excessive dread, I knew that such assurance was folly, knew
instinctively that the machine was removed out of my reach. My breath
came with pain. I suppose I covered the whole distance from the hill
crest to the little lawn, two miles perhaps, in ten minutes. And I am
not a young man. I cursed aloud, as I ran, at my confident folly in
leaving the machine, wasting good breath thereby. I cried aloud, and
none answered. Not a creature seemed to be stirring in that moonlit
world.
“When I reached the lawn my worst fears were realised. Not a trace of
the thing was to be seen. I felt faint and cold when I faced the empty
space among the black tangle of bushes. I ran round it furiously, as if
the thing might be hidden in a corner, and then stopped abruptly, with
my hands clutching my hair. Above me towered the sphinx, upon the
bronze pedestal, white, shining, leprous, in the light of the rising
moon. It seemed to smile in mockery of my dismay.
“I might have consoled myself by imagining the little people had put
the mechanism in some shelter for me, had I not felt assured of their
physical and intellectual inadequacy. That is what dismayed me: the
sense of some hitherto unsuspected power, through whose intervention my
invention had vanished. Yet, for one thing I felt assured: unless some
other age had produced its exact duplicate, the machine could not have
moved in time. The attachment of the levers—I will show you the method
later—prevented anyone from tampering with it in that way when they
were removed. It had moved, and was hid, only in space. But then, where
could it be?
“I think I must have had a kind of frenzy. I remember running violently
in and out among the moonlit bushes all round the sphinx, and startling
some white animal that, in the dim light, I took for a small deer. I
remember, too, late that night, beating the bushes with my clenched
fist until my knuckles were gashed and bleeding from the broken twigs.
Then, sobbing and raving in my anguish of mind, I went down to the
great building of stone. The big hall was dark, silent, and deserted. I
slipped on the uneven floor, and fell over one of the malachite tables,
almost breaking my shin. I lit a match and went on past the dusty
curtains, of which I have told you.
“There I found a second great hall covered with cushions, upon which,
perhaps, a score or so of the little people were sleeping. I have no
doubt they found my second appearance strange enough, coming suddenly
out of the quiet darkness with inarticulate noises and the splutter and
flare of a match. For they had forgotten about matches. ‘Where is my
Time Machine?’ I began, bawling like an angry child, laying hands upon
them and shaking them up together. It must have been very queer to
them. Some laughed, most of them looked sorely frightened. When I saw
them standing round me, it came into my head that I was doing as
foolish a thing as it was possible for me to do under the
circumstances, in trying to revive the sensation of fear. For,
reasoning from their daylight behaviour, I thought that fear must be
forgotten.
“Abruptly, I dashed down the match, and knocking one of the people over
in my course, went blundering across the big dining-hall again, out
under the moonlight. I heard cries of terror and their little feet
running and stumbling this way and that. I do not remember all I did as
the moon crept up the sky. I suppose it was the unexpected nature of my
loss that maddened me. I felt hopelessly cut off from my own kind—a
strange animal in an unknown world. I must have raved to and fro,
screaming and crying upon God and Fate. I have a memory of horrible
fatigue, as the long night of despair wore away; of looking in this
impossible place and that; of groping among moonlit ruins and touching
strange creatures in the black shadows; at last, of lying on the ground
near the sphinx and weeping with absolute wretchedness, even anger at
the folly of leaving the machine having leaked away with my strength. I
had nothing left but misery. Then I slept, and when I woke again it was
full day, and a couple of sparrows were hopping round me on the turf
within reach of my arm.
“I sat up in the freshness of the morning, trying to remember how I had
got there, and why I had such a profound sense of desertion and
despair. Then things came clear in my mind. With the plain, reasonable
daylight, I could look my circumstances fairly in the face. I saw the
wild folly of my frenzy overnight, and I could reason with myself.
‘Suppose the worst?’ I said. ‘Suppose the machine altogether
lost—perhaps destroyed? It behoves me to be calm and patient, to learn
the way of the people, to get a clear idea of the method of my loss,
and the means of getting materials and tools; so that in the end,
perhaps, I may make another.’ That would be my only hope, a poor hope,
perhaps, but better than despair. And, after all, it was a beautiful
and curious world.
“But probably the machine had only been taken away. Still, I must be
calm and patient, find its hiding-place, and recover it by force or
cunning. And with that I scrambled to my feet and looked about me,
wondering where I could bathe. I felt weary, stiff, and travel-soiled.
The freshness of the morning made me desire an equal freshness. I had
exhausted my emotion. Indeed, as I went about my business, I found
myself wondering at my intense excitement overnight. I made a careful
examination of the ground about the little lawn. I wasted some time in
futile questionings, conveyed, as well as I was able, to such of the
little people as came by. They all failed to understand my gestures;
some were simply stolid, some thought it was a jest and laughed at me.
I had the hardest task in the world to keep my hands off their pretty
laughing faces. It was a foolish impulse, but the devil begotten of
fear and blind anger was ill curbed and still eager to take advantage
of my perplexity. The turf gave better counsel. I found a groove ripped
in it, about midway between the pedestal of the sphinx and the marks of
my feet where, on arrival, I had struggled with the overturned machine.
There were other signs of removal about, with queer narrow footprints
like those I could imagine made by a sloth. This directed my closer
attention to the pedestal. It was, as I think I have said, of bronze.
It was not a mere block, but highly decorated with deep framed panels
on either side. I went and rapped at these. The pedestal was hollow.
Examining the panels with care I found them discontinuous with the
frames. There were no handles or keyholes, but possibly the panels, if
they were doors, as I supposed, opened from within. One thing was clear
enough to my mind. It took no very great mental effort to infer that my
Time Machine was inside that pedestal. But how it got there was a
different problem.
“I saw the heads of two orange-clad people coming through the bushes
and under some blossom-covered apple-trees towards me. I turned smiling
to them, and beckoned them to me. They came, and then, pointing to the
bronze pedestal, I tried to intimate my wish to open it. But at my
first gesture towards this they behaved very oddly. I don’t know how to
convey their expression to you. Suppose you were to use a grossly
improper gesture to a delicate-minded woman—it is how she would look.
They went off as if they had received the last possible insult. I tried
a sweet-looking little chap in white next, with exactly the same
result. Somehow, his manner made me feel ashamed of myself. But, as you
know, I wanted the Time Machine, and I tried him once more. As he
turned off, like the others, my temper got the better of me. In three
strides I was after him, had him by the loose part of his robe round
the neck, and began dragging him towards the sphinx. Then I saw the
horror and repugnance of his face, and all of a sudden I let him go.
“But I was not beaten yet. I banged with my fist at the bronze panels.
I thought I heard something stir inside—to be explicit, I thought I
heard a sound like a chuckle—but I must have been mistaken. Then I got
a big pebble from the river, and came and hammered till I had flattened
a coil in the decorations, and the verdigris came off in powdery
flakes. The delicate little people must have heard me hammering in
gusty outbreaks a mile away on either hand, but nothing came of it. I
saw a crowd of them upon the slopes, looking furtively at me. At last,
hot and tired, I sat down to watch the place. But I was too restless to
watch long; I am too Occidental for a long vigil. I could work at a
problem for years, but to wait inactive for twenty-four hours—that is
another matter.