The Time Machine by H. G. Wells (read online)

IV

‘In another moment we were standing face to face, I and this fragile
thing out of futurity. He came straight up to me and laughed into my
eyes. The absence from his bearing of any sign of fear struck me at
once. Then he turned to the two others who were following him and
spoke to them in a strange and very sweet and liquid tongue.

‘There were others coming, and presently a little group of perhaps
eight or ten of these exquisite creatures were about me. One of them
addressed me. It came into my head, oddly enough, that my voice was
too harsh and deep for them. So I shook my head, and, pointing to my
ears, shook it again. He came a step forward, hesitated, and then
touched my hand. Then I felt other soft little tentacles upon my
back and shoulders. They wanted to make sure I was real. There was
nothing in this at all alarming. Indeed, there was something in
these pretty little people that inspired confidence–a graceful
gentleness, a certain childlike ease. And besides, they looked so
frail that I could fancy myself flinging the whole dozen of them
about like nine-pins. But I made a sudden motion to warn them when I
saw their little pink hands feeling at the Time Machine. Happily
then, when it was not too late, I thought of a danger I had hitherto
forgotten, and reaching over the bars of the machine I unscrewed the
little levers that would set it in motion, and put these in my
pocket. Then I turned again to see what I could do in the way of
communication.

‘And then, looking more nearly into their features, I saw some
further peculiarities in their Dresden-china type of prettiness.
Their hair, which was uniformly curly, came to a sharp end at the
neck and cheek; there was not the faintest suggestion of it on the
face, and their ears were singularly minute. The mouths were small,
with bright red, rather thin lips, and the little chins ran to a
point. The eyes were large and mild; and–this may seem egotism on
my part–I fancied even that there was a certain lack of the
interest I might have expected in them.

‘As they made no effort to communicate with me, but simply stood
round me smiling and speaking in soft cooing notes to each other, I
began the conversation. I pointed to the Time Machine and to myself.
Then hesitating for a moment how to express time, I pointed to the
sun. At once a quaintly pretty little figure in chequered purple and
white followed my gesture, and then astonished me by imitating the
sound of thunder.

‘For a moment I was staggered, though the import of his gesture was
plain enough. The question had come into my mind abruptly: were
these creatures fools? You may hardly understand how it took me.
You see I had always anticipated that the people of the year Eight
Hundred and Two Thousand odd would be incredibly in front of us in
knowledge, art, everything. Then one of them suddenly asked me a
question that showed him to be on the intellectual level of one of
our five-year-old children–asked me, in fact, if I had come from
the sun in a thunderstorm! It let loose the judgment I had suspended
upon their clothes, their frail light limbs, and fragile features.
A flow of disappointment rushed across my mind. For a moment I felt
that I had built the Time Machine in vain.

‘I nodded, pointed to the sun, and gave them such a vivid rendering
of a thunderclap as startled them. They all withdrew a pace or so
and bowed. Then came one laughing towards me, carrying a chain of
beautiful flowers altogether new to me, and put it about my neck.
The idea was received with melodious applause; and presently they
were all running to and fro for flowers, and laughingly flinging
them upon me until I was almost smothered with blossom. You who
have never seen the like can scarcely imagine what delicate and
wonderful flowers countless years of culture had created. Then
someone suggested that their plaything should be exhibited in the
nearest building, and so I was led past the sphinx of white marble,
which had seemed to watch me all the while with a smile at my
astonishment, towards a vast grey edifice of fretted stone. As I
went with them the memory of my confident anticipations of a
profoundly grave and intellectual posterity came, with irresistible
merriment, to my mind.

‘The building had a huge entry, and was altogether of colossal
dimensions. I was naturally most occupied with the growing crowd of
little people, and with the big open portals that yawned before me
shadowy and mysterious. My general impression of the world I saw
over their heads was a tangled waste of beautiful bushes and
flowers, a long neglected and yet weedless garden. I saw a number
of tall spikes of strange white flowers, measuring a foot perhaps
across the spread of the waxen petals. They grew scattered, as if
wild, among the variegated shrubs, but, as I say, I did not examine
them closely at this time. The Time Machine was left deserted on the
turf among the rhododendrons.

‘The arch of the doorway was richly carved, but naturally I did
not observe the carving very narrowly, though I fancied I saw
suggestions of old Phoenician decorations as I passed through, and
it struck me that they were very badly broken and weather-worn.
Several more brightly clad people met me in the doorway, and so we
entered, I, dressed in dingy nineteenth-century garments, looking
grotesque enough, garlanded with flowers, and surrounded by an
eddying mass of bright, soft-colored robes and shining white limbs,
in a melodious whirl of laughter and laughing speech.

‘The big doorway opened into a proportionately great hall hung with
brown. The roof was in shadow, and the windows, partially glazed
with coloured glass and partially unglazed, admitted a tempered
light. The floor was made up of huge blocks of some very hard white
metal, not plates nor slabs–blocks, and it was so much worn, as I
judged by the going to and fro of past generations, as to be deeply
channelled along the more frequented ways. Transverse to the length
were innumerable tables made of slabs of polished stone, raised
perhaps a foot from the floor, and upon these were heaps of fruits.
Some I recognized as a kind of hypertrophied raspberry and orange,
but for the most part they were strange.

‘Between the tables was scattered a great number of cushions.
Upon these my conductors seated themselves, signing for me to do
likewise. With a pretty absence of ceremony they began to eat the
fruit with their hands, flinging peel and stalks, and so forth, into
the round openings in the sides of the tables. I was not loath to
follow their example, for I felt thirsty and hungry. As I did so I
surveyed the hall at my leisure.

‘And perhaps the thing that struck me most was its dilapidated look.
The stained-glass windows, which displayed only a geometrical
pattern, were broken in many places, and the curtains that hung
across the lower end were thick with dust. And it caught my eye that
the corner of the marble table near me was fractured. Nevertheless,
the general effect was extremely rich and picturesque. There were,
perhaps, a couple of hundred people dining in the hall, and most of
them, seated as near to me as they could come, were watching me with
interest, their little eyes shining over the fruit they were eating.
All were clad in the same soft and yet strong, silky material.

‘Fruit, by the by, was all their diet. These people of the remote
future were strict vegetarians, and while I was with them, in spite
of some carnal cravings, I had to be frugivorous also. Indeed, I
found afterwards that horses, cattle, sheep, dogs, had followed the
Ichthyosaurus into extinction. But the fruits were very delightful;
one, in particular, that seemed to be in season all the time I was
there–a floury thing in a three-sided husk–was especially good,
and I made it my staple. At first I was puzzled by all these strange
fruits, and by the strange flowers I saw, but later I began to
perceive their import.

‘However, I am telling you of my fruit dinner in the distant future
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 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.

‘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 realized 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 off-spring are secure, there is less
necessity–indeed there is no necessity–for an efficient family,
and the specialization 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 recognize,
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 realize 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 civilizing 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 to-day 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 organized, 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 leaped. 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 civilized 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!