’It may seem odd to you, but it was two days
before I could follow up the new-found clue in what
was manifestly the proper way. I felt a peculiar
shrinking from those pallid bodies. They were
just the half-bleached colour of the worms and things
one sees preserved in spirit in a zoological museum.
And they were filthily cold to the touch. Probably
my shrinking was largely due to the sympathetic influence
of the Eloi, whose disgust of the Morlocks I now began
to appreciate.
’The next night I did not sleep well. Probably
my health was a little disordered. I was oppressed
with perplexity and doubt. Once or twice I had
a feeling of intense fear for which I could perceive
no definite reason. I remember creeping noiselessly
into the great hall where the little people were sleeping
in the moonlight—that night Weena was among
them—and feeling reassured by their presence.
It occurred to me even then, that in the course of
a few days the moon must pass through its last quarter,
and the nights grow dark, when the appearances of
these unpleasant creatures from below, these whitened
Lemurs, this new vermin that had replaced the old,
might be more abundant. And on both these days
I had the restless feeling of one who shirks an inevitable
duty. I felt assured that the Time Machine was
only to be recovered by boldly penetrating these underground
mysteries. Yet I could not face the mystery.
If only I had had a companion it would have been different.
But I was so horribly alone, and even to clamber down
into the darkness of the well appalled me. I
don’t know if you will understand my feeling,
but I never felt quite safe at my back.
’It was this restlessness, this insecurity,
perhaps, that drove me further and further afield
in my exploring expeditions. Going to the south-westward
towards the rising country that is now called Combe
Wood, I observed far off, in the direction of nineteenth-century
Banstead, a vast green structure, different in character
from any I had hitherto seen. It was larger than
the largest of the palaces or ruins I knew, and the
facade had an Oriental look: the face of it having
the lustre, as well as the pale-green tint, a kind
of bluish-green, of a certain type of Chinese porcelain.
This difference in aspect suggested a difference in
use, and I was minded to push on and explore.
But the day was growing late, and I had come upon
the sight of the place after a long and tiring circuit;
so I resolved to hold over the adventure for the following
day, and I returned to the welcome and the caresses
of little Weena. But next morning I perceived
clearly enough that my curiosity regarding the Palace
of Green Porcelain was a piece of self-deception, to
enable me to shirk, by another day, an experience
I dreaded. I resolved I would make the descent
without further waste of time, and started out in
the early morning towards a well near the ruins of
granite and aluminium.
