-
Poster
-
-
04-11-2004, 10:01 PM
Lounge -
#22
Poster
Chapter 13: The Use of Spies
XIII. THE USE OF SPIES
1. Sun Tzu said: Raising a host of a hundred thousand men
and marching them great distances entails heavy loss on the
people and a drain on the resources of the State. The daily
expenditure will amount to a thousand ounces of silver.
[Cf. II. ss. ss. 1, 13, 14.]
There will be commotion at home and abroad, and men will drop
down exhausted on the highways.
[Cf. TAO TE CHING, ch. 30: "Where troops have been
quartered, brambles and thorns spring up. Chang Yu has the note:
"We may be reminded of the saying: 'On serious ground, gather in
plunder.' Why then should carriage and transportation cause
exhaustion on the highways?--The answer is, that not victuals
alone, but all sorts of munitions of war have to be conveyed to
the army. Besides, the injunction to 'forage on the enemy' only
means that when an army is deeply engaged in hostile territory,
scarcity of food must be provided against. Hence, without being
solely dependent on the enemy for corn, we must forage in order
that there may be an uninterrupted flow of supplies. Then,
again, there are places like salt deserts where provisions being
unobtainable, supplies from home cannot be dispensed with."]
As many as seven hundred thousand families will be impeded in
their labor.
[Mei Yao-ch`en says: "Men will be lacking at the plough-
tail." The allusion is to the system of dividing land into nine
parts, each consisting of about 15 acres, the plot in the center
being cultivated on behalf of the State by the tenants of the
other eight. It was here also, so Tu Mu tells us, that their
cottages were built and a well sunk, to be used by all in common.
[See II. ss. 12, note.] In time of war, one of the families had
to serve in the army, while the other seven contributed to its
support. Thus, by a levy of 100,000 men (reckoning one able-
bodied soldier to each family) the husbandry of 700,000 families
would be affected.]
2. Hostile armies may face each other for years, striving
for the victory which is decided in a single day. This being so,
to remain in ignorance of the enemy's condition simply because
one grudges the outlay of a hundred ounces of silver in honors
and emoluments,
["For spies" is of course the meaning, though it would spoil
the effect of this curiously elaborate exordium if spies were
actually mentioned at this point.]
is the height of inhumanity.
[Sun Tzu's agreement is certainly ingenious. He begins by
adverting to the frightful misery and vast expenditure of blood
and treasure which war always brings in its train. Now, unless
you are kept informed of the enemy's condition, and are ready to
strike at the right moment, a war may drag on for years. The
only way to get this information is to employ spies, and it is
impossible to obtain trustworthy spies unless they are properly
paid for their services. But it is surely false economy to
grudge a comparatively trifling amount for this purpose, when
every day that the war lasts eats up an incalculably greater sum.
This grievous burden falls on the shoulders of the poor, and
hence Sun Tzu concludes that to neglect the use of spies is
nothing less than a crime against humanity.]
3. One who acts thus is no leader of men, no present help
to his sovereign, no master of victory.
[This idea, that the true object of war is peace, has its
root in the national temperament of the Chinese. Even so far
back as 597 B.C., these memorable words were uttered by Prince
Chuang of the Ch`u State: "The [Chinese] character for 'prowess'
is made up of [the characters for] 'to stay' and 'a spear'
(cessation of hostilities). Military prowess is seen in the
repression of cruelty, the calling in of weapons, the
preservation of the appointment of Heaven, the firm establishment
of merit, the bestowal of happiness on the people, putting
harmony between the princes, the diffusion of wealth."]
4. Thus, what enables the wise sovereign and the good
general to strike and conquer, and achieve things beyond the
reach of ordinary men, is FOREKNOWLEDGE.
[That is, knowledge of the enemy's dispositions, and what he
means to do.]
5. Now this foreknowledge cannot be elicited from spirits;
it cannot be obtained inductively from experience,
[Tu Mu's note is: "[knowledge of the enemy] cannot be
gained by reasoning from other analogous cases."]
nor by any deductive calculation.
[Li Ch`uan says: "Quantities like length, breadth,
distance and magnitude, are susceptible of exact mathematical
determination; human actions cannot be so calculated."]
6. Knowledge of the enemy's dispositions can only be
obtained from other men.
[Mei Yao-ch`en has rather an interesting note: "Knowledge
of the spirit-world is to be obtained by divination; information
in natural science may be sought by inductive reasoning; the laws
of the universe can be verified by mathematical calculation: but
the dispositions of an enemy are ascertainable through spies and
spies alone."]
7. Hence the use of spies, of whom there are five classes:
(1) Local spies; (2) inward spies; (3) converted spies; (4)
doomed spies; (5) surviving spies.
8. When these five kinds of spy are all at work, none can
discover the secret system. This is called "divine manipulation
of the threads." It is the sovereign's most precious faculty.
[Cromwell, one of the greatest and most practical of all
cavalry leaders, had officers styled 'scout masters,' whose
business it was to collect all possible information regarding the
enemy, through scouts and spies, etc., and much of his success in
war was traceable to the previous knowledge of the enemy's moves
thus gained." [1] ]
9. Having LOCAL SPIES means employing the services of the
inhabitants of a district.
[Tu Mu says: "In the enemy's country, win people over by
kind treatment, and use them as spies."]
10. Having INWARD SPIES, making use of officials of the
enemy.
[Tu Mu enumerates the following classes as likely to do good
service in this respect: "Worthy men who have been degraded from
office, criminals who have undergone punishment; also, favorite
concubines who are greedy for gold, men who are aggrieved at
being in subordinate positions, or who have been passed over in
the distribution of posts, others who are anxious that their side
should be defeated in order that they may have a chance of
displaying their ability and talents, fickle turncoats who always
want to have a foot in each boat. Officials of these several
kinds," he continues, "should be secretly approached and bound to
one's interests by means of rich presents. In this way you will
be able to find out the state of affairs in the enemy's country,
ascertain the plans that are being formed against you, and
moreover disturb the harmony and create a breach between the
sovereign and his ministers." The necessity for extreme caution,
however, in dealing with "inward spies," appears from an
historical incident related by Ho Shih: "Lo Shang, Governor of
I-Chou, sent his general Wei Po to attack the rebel Li Hsiung of
Shu in his stronghold at P`i. After each side had experienced a
number of victories and defeats, Li Hsiung had recourse to the
services of a certain P`o-t`ai, a native of Wu-tu. He began to
have him whipped until the blood came, and then sent him off to
Lo Shang, whom he was to delude by offering to cooperate with him
from inside the city, and to give a fire signal at the right
moment for making a general assault. Lo Shang, confiding in
these promises, march out all his best troops, and placed Wei Po
and others at their head with orders to attack at P`o-t`ai's
bidding. Meanwhile, Li Hsiung's general, Li Hsiang, had prepared
an ambuscade on their line of march; and P`o-t`ai, having reared
long scaling-ladders against the city walls, now lighted the
beacon-fire. Wei Po's men raced up on seeing the signal and
began climbing the ladders as fast as they could, while others
were drawn up by ropes lowered from above. More than a hundred
of Lo Shang's soldiers entered the city in this way, every one of
whom was forthwith beheaded. Li Hsiung then charged with all his
forces, both inside and outside the city, and routed the enemy
completely." [This happened in 303 A.D. I do not know where Ho
Shih got the story from. It is not given in the biography of Li
Hsiung or that of his father Li T`e, CHIN SHU, ch. 120, 121.]
11. Having CONVERTED SPIES, getting hold of the enemy's
spies and using them for our own purposes.
[By means of heavy bribes and liberal promises detaching
them from the enemy's service, and inducing them to carry back
false information as well as to spy in turn on their own
countrymen. On the other hand, Hsiao Shih-hsien says that we
pretend not to have detected him, but contrive to let him carry
away a false impression of what is going on. Several of the
commentators accept this as an alternative definition; but that
it is not what Sun Tzu meant is conclusively proved by his
subsequent remarks about treating the converted spy generously
(ss. 21 sqq.). Ho Shih notes three occasions on which converted
spies were used with conspicuous success: (1) by T`ien Tan in
his defense of Chi-mo (see supra, p. 90); (2) by Chao She on his
march to O-yu (see p. 57); and by the wily Fan Chu in 260 B.C.,
when Lien P`o was conducting a defensive campaign against Ch`in.
The King of Chao strongly disapproved of Lien P`o's cautious and
dilatory methods, which had been unable to avert a series of
minor disasters, and therefore lent a ready ear to the reports of
his spies, who had secretly gone over to the enemy and were
already in Fan Chu's pay. They said: "The only thing which
causes Ch`in anxiety is lest Chao Kua should be made general.
Lien P`o they consider an easy opponent, who is sure to be
vanquished in the long run." Now this Chao Kua was a sun of the
famous Chao She. From his boyhood, he had been wholly engrossed
in the study of war and military matters, until at last he came
to believe that there was no commander in the whole Empire who
could stand against him. His father was much disquieted by this
overweening conceit, and the flippancy with which he spoke of
such a serious thing as war, and solemnly declared that if ever
Kua was appointed general, he would bring ruin on the armies of
Chao. This was the man who, in spite of earnest protests from
his own mother and the veteran statesman Lin Hsiang-ju, was now
sent to succeed Lien P`o. Needless to say, he proved no match
for the redoubtable Po Ch`i and the great military power of
Ch`in. He fell into a trap by which his army was divided into
two and his communications cut; and after a desperate resistance
lasting 46 days, during which the famished soldiers devoured one
another, he was himself killed by an arrow, and his whole force,
amounting, it is said, to 400,000 men, ruthlessly put to the
sword.]
12. Having DOOMED SPIES, doing certain things openly for
purposes of deception, and allowing our spies to know of them and
report them to the enemy.
[Tu Yu gives the best exposition of the meaning: "We
ostentatiously do thing calculated to deceive our own spies, who
must be led to believe that they have been unwittingly disclosed.
Then, when these spies are captured in the enemy's lines, they
will make an entirely false report, and the enemy will take
measures accordingly, only to find that we do something quite
different. The spies will thereupon be put to death." As an
example of doomed spies, Ho Shih mentions the prisoners released
by Pan Ch`ao in his campaign against Yarkand. (See p. 132.) He
also refers to T`ang Chien, who in 630 A.D. was sent by T`ai
Tsung to lull the Turkish Kahn Chieh-li into fancied security,
until Li Ching was able to deliver a crushing blow against him.
Chang Yu says that the Turks revenged themselves by killing T`ang
Chien, but this is a mistake, for we read in both the old and the
New T`ang History (ch. 58, fol. 2 and ch. 89, fol. 8
respectively) that he escaped and lived on until 656. Li I-chi
played a somewhat similar part in 203 B.C., when sent by the King
of Han to open peaceful negotiations with Ch`i. He has certainly
more claim to be described a "doomed spy", for the king of Ch`i,
being subsequently attacked without warning by Han Hsin, and
infuriated by what he considered the treachery of Li I-chi,
ordered the unfortunate envoy to be boiled alive.]
13. SURVIVING SPIES, finally, are those who bring back news
from the enemy's camp.
[This is the ordinary class of spies, properly so called,
forming a regular part of the army. Tu Mu says: "Your surviving
spy must be a man of keen intellect, though in outward appearance
a fool; of shabby exterior, but with a will of iron. He must be
active, robust, endowed with physical strength and courage;
thoroughly accustomed to all sorts of dirty work, able to endure
hunger and cold, and to put up with shame and ignominy." Ho Shih
tells the following story of Ta`hsi Wu of the Sui dynasty: "When
he was governor of Eastern Ch`in, Shen-wu of Ch`i made a hostile
movement upon Sha-yuan. The Emperor T`ai Tsu [? Kao Tsu] sent
Ta-hsi Wu to spy upon the enemy. He was accompanied by two other
men. All three were on horseback and wore the enemy's uniform.
When it was dark, they dismounted a few hundred feet away from
the enemy's camp and stealthily crept up to listen, until they
succeeded in catching the passwords used in the army. Then they
got on their horses again and boldly passed through the camp
under the guise of night-watchmen; and more than once, happening
to come across a soldier who was committing some breach of
discipline, they actually stopped to give the culprit a sound
cudgeling! Thus they managed to return with the fullest possible
information about the enemy's dispositions, and received warm
commendation from the Emperor, who in consequence of their report
was able to inflict a severe defeat on his adversary."]
14. Hence it is that which none in the whole army are more
intimate relations to be maintained than with spies.
[Tu Mu and Mei Yao-ch`en point out that the spy is
privileged to enter even the general's private sleeping-tent.]
None should be more liberally rewarded. In no other business
should greater secrecy be preserved.
[Tu Mu gives a graphic touch: all communication with spies
should be carried "mouth-to-ear." The following remarks on spies
may be quoted from Turenne, who made perhaps larger use of them
than any previous commander: "Spies are attached to those who
give them most, he who pays them ill is never served. They
should never be known to anybody; nor should they know one
another. When they propose anything very material, secure their
persons, or have in your possession their wives and children as
hostages for their fidelity. Never communicate anything to them
but what is absolutely necessary that they should know. [2] ]
15. Spies cannot be usefully employed without a certain
intuitive sagacity.
[Mei Yao-ch`en says: "In order to use them, one must know
fact from falsehood, and be able to discriminate between honesty
and double-dealing." Wang Hsi in a different interpretation
thinks more along the lines of "intuitive perception" and
"practical intelligence." Tu Mu strangely refers these
attributes to the spies themselves: "Before using spies we must
assure ourselves as to their integrity of character and the
extent of their experience and skill." But he continues: "A
brazen face and a crafty disposition are more dangerous than
mountains or rivers; it takes a man of genius to penetrate such."
So that we are left in some doubt as to his real opinion on the
passage."]
16. They cannot be properly managed without benevolence and
straightforwardness.
[Chang Yu says: "When you have attracted them by
substantial offers, you must treat them with absolute sincerity;
then they will work for you with all their might."]
17. Without subtle ingenuity of mind, one cannot make
certain of the truth of their reports.
[Mei Yao-ch`en says: "Be on your guard against the
possibility of spies going over to the service of the enemy."]
18. Be subtle! be subtle! and use your spies for every kind
of business.
[Cf. VI. ss. 9.]
19. If a secret piece of news is divulged by a spy before
the time is ripe, he must be put to death together with the man
to whom the secret was told.
[Word for word, the translation here is: "If spy matters
are heard before [our plans] are carried out," etc. Sun Tzu's
main point in this passage is: Whereas you kill the spy himself
"as a punishment for letting out the secret," the object of
killing the other man is only, as Ch`en Hao puts it, "to stop his
mouth" and prevent news leaking any further. If it had already
been repeated to others, this object would not be gained. Either
way, Sun Tzu lays himself open to the charge of inhumanity,
though Tu Mu tries to defend him by saying that the man deserves
to be put to death, for the spy would certainly not have told the
secret unless the other had been at pains to worm it out of
him."]
20. Whether the object be to crush an army, to storm a
city, or to assassinate an individual, it is always necessary to
begin by finding out the names of the attendants, the aides-de-
camp,
[Literally "visitors", is equivalent, as Tu Yu says, to
"those whose duty it is to keep the general supplied with
information," which naturally necessitates frequent interviews
with him.]
and door-keepers and sentries of the general in command. Our
spies must be commissioned to ascertain these.
[As the first step, no doubt towards finding out if any of
these important functionaries can be won over by bribery.]
21. The enemy's spies who have come to spy on us must be
sought out, tempted with bribes, led away and comfortably housed.
Thus they will become converted spies and available for our
service.
22. It is through the information brought by the converted
spy that we are able to acquire and employ local and inward
spies.
[Tu Yu says: "through conversion of the enemy's spies we
learn the enemy's condition." And Chang Yu says: "We must tempt
the converted spy into our service, because it is he that knows
which of the local inhabitants are greedy of gain, and which of
the officials are open to corruption."]
23. It is owing to his information, again, that we can
cause the doomed spy to carry false tidings to the enemy.
[Chang Yu says, "because the converted spy knows how the
enemy can best be deceived."]
24. Lastly, it is by his information that the surviving spy
can be used on appointed occasions.
25. The end and aim of spying in all its five varieties is
knowledge of the enemy; and this knowledge can only be derived,
in the first instance, from the converted spy.
[As explained in ss. 22-24. He not only brings information
himself, but makes it possible to use the other kinds of spy to
advantage.]
Hence it is essential that the converted spy be treated with the
utmost liberality.
26. Of old, the rise of the Yin dynasty
[Sun Tzu means the Shang dynasty, founded in 1766 B.C. Its
name was changed to Yin by P`an Keng in 1401.
was due to I Chih
[Better known as I Yin, the famous general and statesman
who took part in Ch`eng T`ang's campaign against Chieh Kuei.]
who had served under the Hsia. Likewise, the rise of the Chou
dynasty was due to Lu Ya
[Lu Shang rose to high office under the tyrant Chou Hsin,
whom he afterwards helped to overthrow. Popularly known as T`ai
Kung, a title bestowed on him by Wen Wang, he is said to have
composed a treatise on war, erroneously identified with the
LIU T`AO.]
who had served under the Yin.
[There is less precision in the Chinese than I have thought
it well to introduce into my translation, and the commentaries on
the passage are by no means explicit. But, having regard to the
context, we can hardly doubt that Sun Tzu is holding up I Chih
and Lu Ya as illustrious examples of the converted spy, or
something closely analogous. His suggestion is, that the Hsia
and Yin dynasties were upset owing to the intimate knowledge of
their weaknesses and shortcoming which these former ministers
were able to impart to the other side. Mei Yao-ch`en appears to
resent any such aspersion on these historic names: "I Yin and Lu
Ya," he says, "were not rebels against the Government. Hsia
could not employ the former, hence Yin employed him. Yin could
not employ the latter, hence Hou employed him. Their great
achievements were all for the good of the people." Ho Shih is
also indignant: "How should two divinely inspired men such as I
and Lu have acted as common spies? Sun Tzu's mention of them
simply means that the proper use of the five classes of spies is
a matter which requires men of the highest mental caliber like I
and Lu, whose wisdom and capacity qualified them for the task.
The above words only emphasize this point." Ho Shih believes
then that the two heroes are mentioned on account of their
supposed skill in the use of spies. But this is very weak.]
27. Hence it is only the enlightened ruler and the wise
general who will use the highest intelligence of the army for
purposes of spying and thereby they achieve great results.
[Tu Mu closes with a note of warning: "Just as water, which
carries a boat from bank to bank, may also be the means of
sinking it, so reliance on spies, while production of great
results, is oft-times the cause of utter destruction."]
Spies are a most important element in water, because on them
depends an army's ability to move.
[Chia Lin says that an army without spies is like a man with
ears or eyes.]
-
-
04-11-2004, 10:04 PM
Lounge -
#23
Poster
Sorry -
[quote][b]Paul Goldschmidt's Dictionary of Period Russian Names - Section A
A
* Abakum (m) --
o Pats: Abakumov (Goriashka Abakumov, locksmith). 1596. [Tup 117]
* Abez'iana? (m) --
o Pats: Abez'ianin (Burnash Vasil'ev syn Abez'ianin, Riazan' great landowner). 1561. [Tup 71]
* Abla (m) -- Abla, ruler of Bukhara. 1601. [RIB II 283]
* Ablegirim (m) -- Ablegirim, Pelym prince. 1594. [RIB II 107]
* Ablez (m) --
o Pats: Ablezov (Teriushnoi Leont'ev syn Ablezov, Moscow courtier). 1625. [Tup 390]
* Ablon (m) -- Ablon. 1368. [Mor 1]
* Abnik (m) -- Abnik. 1427. [Mor 1]
* Abotur (m) -- Abotur, serf in Musetsk parish. 1539. [Tup 31]
o Vars: Obotur (Fedot Obotur Vakhromeev syn, "old resident" of the Troitskii Monastary). 1537. [Tup 31]
o Pat Vars: Oboturov [from Obotur] (Ivan Ofonas'ev syn Oboturova, landowner). 1539. [Tup 464]
* Abram (m) -- Russianized form of Abraham.
o Vars: Obram (Obram Markar'ev syn Mishukov, Shui warden). 1634-42. [RIB II 748]
o Pats: Abramov (Beztuzh Abramov, landowner in the Zamozsk parish). 1500. [Tup 46]
+ Abramovich (Derzhislav Abramovich). 1221. [Tup 127]
o Pat Vars: Obramov (Gridia Mishin syn Obramova). 1538-9. [RIB II 773]
* Abrosim (m) --
o Pats: Abrosimov (Meliusha Abrosimov). 1537. [Mor 121]
* Abykan (m) --
o Vars: Obakan (Obakan Vasil'ev syn Titova, servant). 1534. [Tup 31]
+ Obekan (Obekan Kurov). Second Half of 15th Century. [Gra 254]
* Acheiko (m) -- Acheiko Ivanov. 1507. [Mor 5]
* Achekmat (m) --
o Pats: Achekmatov (Maitmas Achekmatov, head of the Iurtov servant tatars). 1617. [RIB II 352]
* Achkas (m) --
o Pats: Achkasov (Vasiuk Presnets Onkudinov syn Achkasov, serf). 1498. [Tup 325]
* Adaliunda (f) -- Adaliunda, nicknamed Daliunda, wife of Lotargius and then Otton I. 912. [Khr 211]
o Dims: Daliunda (wife of Lotargius and then Otton I). 912. [Khr 212]
* Adam (m) -- "man."
+ Adam, ambassador of the Goth border. 1301. [Gra 63]
* Adash (m) --
o Pats: Adashev (Mamai Adashev). 1610. [Tup 243]
* Adaukt (m) -- Adaukt. 14th Century. [Lev 6]
* Adelichka (f) -- dim of Adleida.
* Adka (m) -- "adorn oneself"
o Pats: Adkin (Petr Adkin). 15th Century. [Gra 309]
* Adla (f) -- var of Adleida.
* Adleida (f) -- Adleida. 1206. [Mor 1]
o Dims: Adelichka. 1206. [Mor 1]
+ Adlesha. 1206. [Mor 1]
o Vars: Adleta. 1206. [Mor 1]
+ Adla. 1206. [Mor 1]
* Adlesha (f) -- dim of Adleida.
* Adleta (f) -- var of Adleida.
* Adreian (m) -- var of Adrian.
* Adrian (m) -- "from the Adriatic."
+ Adrian Iarlyk, monk. c1460. [Tup 457]
o Vars: Adreian (Adreian, father superior). 1574. [RIB XII 8]
+ Odreian (Odreian Fedorov). 15th Century. [Gra 275]
* Adviga (f) -- var of Iadviga.
* Aekuev' -- see Aika.
* Aetii (m) -- "eagle."
+ Aetii, martyr. Died in 847. [Buk 136]
* Afaila (f) -- Afaila. 1356. [Lev 12]
* Afanas (m) -- dim of Afanasii.
* Afanasei (m) -- var of Afanasii.
* Afanasii (m) -- "immortal."
+ Afanasii Gruz, city-governor. 1476. [Tup 120]
o Dims: Afanas. 12th Century. [Art IV 30; #152]
+ Afon (Afon Sapogov, Beloozero official). 1535. [RIB II 31]
+ Afonas (Afonas Sheenok Viazmitin). 1500. [Tup 439]
+ Afonik (Afonik Miakinin). 15th Century. [Gra 260]
+ Afonika (Afonika Ivanov syn, sexton). 1500. [RIB XIV 1]
+ Afonka (Afonka Iakovlev). 1635. [RIB II 595]
+ Afonos. Second Half of 15th Century. [Art IV 63; #178]
+ Afon'ka (Afon'ka Bogoslov, Valuisk horseman). 1629. [Tup 57]
+ Ofanas (Ofanas Tolst Nos). 1601. [Tup 393]
+ Ofonas (Ofonas Matov). 1520. [RIB II 37]
+ Ofonaska (Ofonaska Moroz Gridin syn, peasant). 1500. [Tup 256]
+ Ofonasko (Ofonasko Pila, peasant). 1495. [Tup 304]
+ Ofonia (Ofonia Stepanov syn Plotitsyn, scribe). 1555-6. [RIB XIV 58]
+ Ofonka (Ofonka Vasil'ev). 1574. [RIB XII 10-1]
+ Ofonko (Ofonko Grigor'ev syn Neelov). 1611. [RIB II 703]
+ Ofonos. Second Half of 14th Century. [Art VII 11; #406]
+ Ofonosko (Ofonosko Ignatkevii). 15th Century. [Art VII 89; #496]
+ Ofon'ka (Ofon'ka Bitushka, Moscow scribe). 1585. [Tup 48]
o Vars: Afanasei (Afanasei Dichko Moksheev). 1496. [Tup 128]
+ Afonasei (Afonasei Vnukov). 1448-68. [RIB II 23]
+ Afonasii (Afonasii Shchedroi, archmandrate). 1496. [Tup 453]
+ Ofanasei (Ofanasei Grigor'ev syn D'iakov, warden). 1550. [RIB XIV 44]
+ Ofanasii (priest). 1550. [RIB XIV 61]
+ Offenoes (Offenoes Jurievitze, son of a governor). 1448. [Gra 120]
+ Ofonasei (Ofonasei Pop, peasant). 1495. [Tup 315]
+ Ofonasii (Ofonasii Kostkov syn Shchur'iakov). Before 1445. [Gra 197]
o Pats: Afanas'ev (Ivan Afanas'ev syn Ergol'skogo). 1567. [RIB II 42]
+ Afanas'evich (Baush Afanas'evich Marakushev, head of the Belozero strelets). 1614. [Tup 42]
o Pat Vars: Afonas'ev (Kiril Afonas'ev syn). 1593. [RIB XII 13]
+ Afonas'evich (Foma Afonas'evich Buturlin). 1589. [RIB II 322]
+ Ofanasovich' [from Ofanas] (Zhmen' Ofanasovich'
. 1633. [Tup 151]
+ Ofanas'ev [from Ofanasii] (Ivan Ofanas'ev syn Betiuk, warden). 1598. [RIB XIV 812]
+ Ofanas'evich [from Ofanasii] (Ivan Ofanas'evich Nashchokin, governor). 1587. [RIB II 45]
+ Ofonasov [from Ofonas] (Shumko Ofonasov, peasant). 1539. [Tup 451]
+ Ofonas'ev [from Ofonasii] (Ivan Ofonas'ev syn). 1511. [RIB XIV 2]
+ Ofonas'evich [from Ofonasii] (Ondrei Ofonas'evich Volokhov, Mangazei governor). 1625-6. [RIB II 431]
+ Ofonas'evich' [from Ofonasii] (Ivan Ofonas'evich', Novgorod governor). 1435. [Gra 171]
+ Ofonin [from Ofonia] (Onshuk Ofonin, Beloozero peasant). 1557. [Tup 290]
+ Ofonsovetse (Demid Ofonsovetse). First Half of 15th Century. [Gra 200]
o Pat Vars (f): Afonas'eva [from Afonasii] (Mar'itsa Afonas'eva doch', Ivanova zhena). 1608. [RIB XIV 587]
* Afanasiia (f) -- "immortal." Fem of Afanasii.
+ Afanasiia, martyr. Died in 311. [Buk 77]
* Affonii (m) -- "independent."
+ Affonii (m) -- Affonii. 1356. [Lev 12]
* Affvero -- see Alferei.
* Afin (m) -- "Athenian."
o Pats: Afineevich (Dmitrii Afineevich, Moscow boiar). 1425. [Mor 5]
* Afinodor (m) -- "gift of Athens."
+ Afinodor. 1356. [Lev 18]
* Afinogen (m) -- "offspring of Athens."
+ Afinogen, priest-martyr. 4th Century. [Buk 388]
o Pats: Afinogenov (Posnik Afinogenov, Moscow clerk). 1587. [Tup 317]
* Afon (m) -- dim of Afanasii.
* Afonas (m) -- dim of Afanasii.
* Afonasei (m) -- var of Afanasii.
* Afonasii (m) -- var of Afanasii.
* Afonik (m) -- dim of Afanasii.
* Afonika (m) -- dim of Afanasii.
* Afonka (m) -- dim of Afanasii.
* Afonos (m) -- dim of Afanasii.
* Afon'ka (m) -- dim of Afanasii.
* Afrikan (m) -- "African."
+ Afrikan, martyr. 1356. [Lev 11]
* Agaf (m) -- "kindly"
+ Agaf. 13-14th Centuries. [Lev 37]
o Vars: Ogaf (Ogaf Stepanov). 1465-6. [Gra 302]
* Agafan (m) -- var of Agafon.
* Agafangel (m) -- "good herald."
+ Agafangel, martyr. 3rd Century. [Buk 57-8]
* Agafiia (f) -- var of Agaf'ia.
* Agafod (m) -- Agafod. 13-14th Centuries. [Lev 36]
* Agafodor (m) -- "kind gift."
+ Agafodor. 13-14th Centuries. [Lev 32]
* Agafoggel (m) -- Agafoggel. 1356. [Lev 25]
* Agafokliia (f) -- Agafokliia. 1356. [Lev 4]
* Agafon (m) -- "kindly."
+ Agafon. 1356. [Lev 29]
o Dims: Agafonko (Agafonko Kulesh, peasant). 1498. [Tup 215]
+ Gafanko. 14th-15th Centuries. [Art II 25; #23]
+ Ogafanok. First Half of 15th Century. [Art IV 45; #161]
+ Ogafonko (Ogafonko Khudoi). 1500. [Tup 418]
o Vars: Agafan (Agafan Kalkov). Mid 15th Century. [Gra 209]
+ Ogafan (Ogafan Fedorov). Mid 15th Century. [Gra 218]
+ Ogafon. 13th Century. [Art VII 28; #420]
o Pats: Agafonov (Oskak Agafonov, peasant). 1539. [Tup 292]
+ Agafonovich (Vasilii Agafonovich). Mid 15th Century. [Gra 210]
o Pat Vars: Agafanov [from Agafan] (Agafan Ontomanov syn Agafanov). 1609. [RIB XIV 202]
+ Ogafanovich' [from Ogafan] (Iakov Ogafanovich'. Mid 15th Century. [Gra 206]
+ Ogafonov [from Ogafon] (Vasilei Ogafonov, Novgorod ambassador). 1371-2. [Gra 31]
o Pat Vars (f): Ogafonova [from Ogafon] (Matrena Ogafonova zhona). 15th Century. [Gra 275]
* Agafonik (m) -- "good victory."
+ Agafonik. 14th Century. [Lev 8]
* Agafonika (f) -- "good feats."
+ Agafonika, martyr. 3rd Century. [Buk 583]
* Agafonko (m) -- dim of Agafon.
* Agafopod (m) -- "the well-footed."
+ Agafopod, martyr. Died in 3rd Century. [Buk 183]
* Agafopus (m) -- "the well-footed."
+ Agafopus, martyr. 3rd Century. [Buk 711]
* Agafor (m) -- Agafor. 13-14th Centuries. [Lev 49]
* Agafrik (m) -- Agafrik. 13-14th Centuries. [Lev 35]
* Agaf'ia (f) -- "kindly." Russianization of Agatha. Fem of Agaf.
+ Agaf'ia Litovka, serf of Talyzin. 1506. [Tup 461]
o Dims: Ogaf'itsa (Ogaf'itsa Fomina doch'. 1605. [RIB XIV 552]
o Vars: Agafiia (martyr). 1356. [Lev 27]
+ Ogaf'ia (Ogaf'ia Konstiantinova, wife of Konstiantin). 1220. [Erm 68]
+ Ogaf'ia (widow). 1623-4. [RIB II 626]
o Met Vars: Ogaf'in [from Ogaf'ia] (Stepan Ogaf'in). Mid 15th Century. [Gra 228]
* Agai (m) -- Agai, Kondinskii prince. 1594. [RIB II 102]
* Agapii (m) -- "the loved."
+ Agapii. 1356. [Lev 23]
o Vars: Ogap (Ogap Kondrat'ev syn Popovkinskoi). 1617. [RIB XII 159]
* Agapiia (f) -- "the loved." Fem of Agapii.
+ Agapiia. 1356. [Lev 4]
* Agapit (m) -- "the dearly loved."
+ Agapit Trofimov syn. 1530. [RIB XIV 26]
o Dims: Agapitko (Agapitko Samsonov syn). 1606. [RIB XIV 569]
o Vars: Ogapit (Ogapit Trofimov syn). 1521. [RIB XIV 6]
o Pats: Agapitov (Grigorei Agapitov syn Agorkov). 1618. [RIB XIV 311]
* Agapitko (m) -- dim of Agapit.
* Agarok (m) --
o Vars: Ogarok (Vasilei Vasil'ev syn Shadrin-Ogarok). 1553. [RIB XIV 52]
o Pats: Agarkov (Grishka Agarkov). 1618. [RIB XIV 311]
o Pat Vars: Ogarkov [from Ogarok] (Braga Ogarkov syn Simanskogo, boiar trustee). 1571. [Tup 63]
* Agarysh (m) --
o Vars: Ogarysh (Ivashko Ogarysh, peasant). 1495. [Tup 286]
* Agar' (m) --
o Pat Vars: Ogarev [from Ogar'] (Ivan Fomich Ogarev). 1634. [RIB XII 199]
* Agas (m) --
o Pat Vars: Ogasovich' [from Ogas] (Zhiroshka Ogasovich', Novgorodite). 1200. [Tup 151]
* Agashka (f) -- Agashka Iakovleva doch'. 1634-42. [RIB II 734]
o Vars: Ogashka (Ogashka Iakovleva doch'. 1634-42. [RIB II 746]
* Agatal (m) -- another name for the martyr Antal.
+ Agatal. 13-14th Centuries. [Lev 46]
* Agav (m) -- "locust."
+ Agav, apostle. [Buk 12]
* Agavva (m) -- "locust."
+ Agavva, saint. 5th Century. [Buk 654]
* Agei (m) -- var of Aggei.
* Ageiko (m) -- dim of Aggei.
* Agen (m) -- Agen. 1356. [Lev 22]
* Aggei (m) -- "creative, festive."
+ Aggei Ivanov syn Kuvaev. 1613. [RIB XIV 610]
o Dims: Ageiko (Ageiko Ivanov syn Okhlopok, peasant). 1542. [Tup 294]
+ Ogeiko (Ogeiko Proskuriak). 1613. [RIB XIV 610]
o Vars: Agei (Agei Gubar'. 1591. [Tup 122]
+ Aggii (martyr). 4th Century. [Buk 140]
+ Agii. 13-14th Centuries. [Lev 35]
+ Ogei (Ogei Ivanov). 1601. [RIB XIV 158]
o Pat Vars: Ageev [from Agei] (Piatko Ageev syn). 1558. [Tup 329]
* Aggii (m) -- var of Aggei.
* Agii (m) -- var of Aggei.
* Aglaida (f) -- "shining."
+ Aglaida, martyr. 4th Century. [Buk 705]
* Aglaii (m) -- "shining."
+ Aglaii, martyr. 4th Century. [Buk 140]
* Agn (m) -- "immaculate."
+ Agn, martyr. 4th Century. [Buk 168-9]
* Agna (f) -- "immaculate." Fem of Agn.
+ Agna. 1175. [Mor 1]
* Agnia (f) -- var of Agniia.
* Agniia (f) -- "immaculate."
+ Agniia, martyr. 3rd Century. [Buk 53]
o Vars: Agnia. 1356. [Lev 26]
* Agork (m) --
o Pats: Agorkov (Grigorei Agapitov syn Agorkov). 1618. [RIB XIV 311]
* Agrafena (f) --
o Dims: Ogrofenka. 1623. [RIB XIV 662]
o Vars: Ografena (Ografena Ivanovskaia zhena Volinskogo). 1536. [Nik XIII 104]
+ Ogrifina (Ogrifina Ol'girdovna). 1358. [Zap 34]
+ Ogrofena (wife of Prince Andrei Dimitrievich). 1403. [Erm 139]
+ Ogrufena (wife of Fedor Okinfovich). 15th Century. [Gra 179]
+ Ogrufina (relative of Iakov Dmitrievich). 1445. [Gra 198]
* Agramak (m) --
o Pats: Agramakov (Vasilii Agramakov, Enisei governor). 1627. [RIB II 854]
o Pats (f): Agramakova (Mar'ia Mikhailovskaia zhena Agramakova). 1567. [RIB II 42]
* Agrimko (m) -- dim of Ugrim.
* Agripena (f) -- var of Agripina.
* Agripin (m) -- Agripin. 1356. [Lev 12]
* Agripina (f) -- Roman name. Fem of Agripin.
+ Agripina. 13-14th Centuries. [Lev 48]
o Vars: Agripena (Agripena Vasil'evskaia zhena Andrievicha). 1536. [Nik XIII 104]
+ Agrippina (Agrippina Panfilova doch', priest's wife). 1623. [RIB XIV 886]
* Agrippa (f) -- "wild horse."
+ Agrippa, martyr. 7th Century. [Buk 618]
* Agrippina (f) -- var of Agripina.
* Aida (m) -- Aida Satin, Moscow boiar's son. 1580. [Tup 31]
* Aifal (m) -- Aifal, martyr. Died in 380. [Buk 493]
* Aifal (m) -- Aifal, Novgorod boiar. 1398. [Mor 1]
* Aigustov -- see Avgust.
* Aika (m) -- Karellian name meaning "time."
o Pat Vars: Aekuev'. 14th Century. [Art I 23; #2]
* Aist (m) --
o Pats: Aistov (Andreian Aistov, inhabitant of Nezhegorod, merchant). 1646. [Tup 464]
* Aitugan (f) -- Aitugan. 1623-4. [RIB II 625]
* Aizdiak (m) --
o Pats (f): Aizdiakova (princess). 1623-4. [RIB II 624]
* Akakii (m) -- "unmalicious."
+ Akakii, father superior. Second Half of 15th Century. [Gra 252]
* Akamir (m) -- Akamir, Slavic prince. 799. [Mor 2]
* Akatii (m) --
o Pats: Akat'evich (Volui Akat'evich, under the control of the Moscow Prince). 1380. [Tup 80]
* Akepsim (m) -- Akepsim, martyr and saint. 4th Century. [Buk 618]
o Vars: Akepsima. 1356. [Lev 12]
* Akepsima (m) -- var of Akepsim.
* Aker (m) --
o Pats: Akerovich (Petr Akerovich, boiar of the Kievian principality). 1230. [Tup 464]
* Akhaik (m) -- "Grecian."
+ Akhaik, apostle. [Buk 12]
* Akhamashuk (m) --
o Pats: Akhamashukov (Vasilii Petrovich Akhamashukov Cherkaskoi, Archangel governor). 1632. [RIB II 518]
+ Akhamashukovich (Petr Akhamashukovich Cherkaskii, Berezov governor). 1607. [RIB II 164]
* Akhambek (m) --
o Pats: Akhambekov (Mamai Akhambekov). 1623-4. [RIB II 630]
* Akhei (m) -- Akhei. 1356. [Lev 23]
* Akhiia (m) -- "brother" or "friend of God."
+ Akhiia, Old Testament prophet. [Buk 638]
* Akhmanai (m) --
o Pats: Akhmanaev (Atkacharko Akhmanaev, tatar prince). 1617. [RIB II 350]
* Akhmat (m) -- Akhmat Sevruk, Kievan craftsman. 1552. [Tup 33]
o Pats: Akhmatov (Iurii Akhmatov, landowner). c1610. [Tup 466]
* Akhmet (m) -- Akhmet Semenov syn Serkov. 1596. [RIB XIV 808]
* Akhmilov -- see Akhmyl.
* Akhmyl (m) -- Fedor Akhmyl, Novgorod city-governor official. 1332. [Tup 33]
o Pat Vars: Akhmilov [from Akhmil] (Vas'ka Mikhailov syn Akhmilov, Riazan' landowner). 1616. [Tup 466]
* Akila (m) -- "eagle."
+ Akila. 15th Century. [Lev 51]
* Akilina (f) -- "eagle."
+ Akilina. 1612. [RIB XIV 217]
* Akim (m) -- Akim Vasil'ev syn Basharinskoi. 1617. [RIB XII 166]
* Akina (m) --
o Pats: Akinin (Tret'iak Akinin). 1641. [Tup 401]
* Akindin (m) -- "safe."
+ Akindin. 14th Century. [Lev 39]
* Akinf (m) -- var of Iakinf.
* Akinia (m) --
o Vars: Okinia (Okinia Mosiev, peasant). 1587. [Tup 287]
* Akiula (m) -- var of Akula.
* Akiulina (f) -- var of Akulina.
* Aksak (m) -- Mikifor Aksak, boiar. c1495. [Tup 31]
o Pats: Aksakov (Vasilii Aksakov, was in the Great Prince's court in Suzdal). 1503. [Tup 464]
o Pat Vars: Oksakov [from Oksak] (Sergei Oksakov, "detective" in Novgorod province). c1630. [Tup 464]
* Aksamit (m) --
o Pat Vars: Oksamitovich [from Oksamit] (Sen'ko Oksamitovich, peasant in Gomel'. Recorded in 1640. [Tup 464]
* Aksentii (m) --
o Dims: Oksen (Oksen pasynok Ustiianovich). Mid 15th Century. [Gra 224]
+ Oksenka (Oksenka Diukorev, Smolensk merchant). 1611. [RIB II 702]
+ Oksenko (Oksenko Vlazen, peasant of the Sytinsk parish). 1495. [Tup 87]
+ Oksenteika. 1393. [Gra 167]
o Vars: Oczente (Novgorodite). 1409. Before 1417. [Gra 87]
+ Oksentei. First Quarter of 15th Century. [Gra 192]
+ Oksentii (Novgorodite). 1409, Before 1417. [Gra 95]
o Pats: Aksent'ev (Taras Aksent'ev syn Igumnova). 1592. [RIB XIV 138]
o Pat Vars: Aksentiev (Piatoi Aksentiev syn, peasant). 1613. [Tup 330]
+ Oksenov [from Oksen] (Smeshko Oksenov Musa). 1500. [Tup 261]
+ Oksentiev [from Oksentii] (Feodor Oksentiev syn Telepneva). 1573. [RIB XIV 99]
+ Oksent'ev (Mosiaga Oksent'ev). 1574. [RIB XII 10]
+ Oksent'evich' [from Oksentii] (Ontsifor Oksent'evich'. 15th Century. [Gra 263]
* Aksiniia (f) -- var of Kseniia.
* Aksiutka (f) -- Aksiutka Iakovleva doch'. 1635. [RIB II 595]
* Aktutruian (m) -- Aktutruian, Russian ambassador. 911. [Mor 2]
* Akul (m) -- Akul Vasil'ev syn Sholygin. 1550. [RIB XIV 61]
o Dims: Okulik (Okulik Meshok, serf). 1495. [Tup 263]
+ Okulko (Okulko Khromoi). 1473. [Tup 418]
o Vars: Okul (Okul Zhuk). 1501. [Tup 152]
o Pats: Okulov [from Okul] (Semen Okulov). Mid 15th Century. [Gra 232]
o Pat Vars: Okulov [from Okul] (Kudash Okulov syn Zubov). 1560. [Mor 107]
* Akula (m) -- Akula. 13-14th Centuries. [Lev 51]
o Vars: Akiula. 1356. [Lev 25]
+ Okula (Okula Peretiatko, Mozyr' craftsman). 1552. [Tup 301]
* Akulina (f) --
o Vars: Akiulina. 13-14th Centuries. [Lev 37]
+ Okulina. 15th Century. [Gra 311]
o Met Vars: Okulinin [from Okulina] (Kostiantin Beznosov syn Okulinin, of Tula). 1623-4. [RIB II 598]
* Akup (m) -- Akup. 944. [Mor 2]
* Akustii (m) -- Akustii. 1356. [Lev 4]
* Akytiun (m) -- Akytiun, martyr. End of 3rd Century. [Buk 206-7]
* Alaba (m) --
o Pat Vars: Olabin [from Olaba] (Sofonko Fedorov syn Olabin, Iur'ev city government official). 1633. [Tup 464]
* Alabysh (m) -- Prince Feodor Alabysh, Moscow scribe. 1492. [Tup 31]
o Pats: Alabyshev (Fedor Alabyshev). 1511. [RIB II 28]
* Alach? (m) --
o Pats: Alachev (Igichei Alachev). 1595. [RIB II 102]
o Pats (f): Alacheva (Nastas'ia Alacheva). 1599-1600. [RIB II 152]
* Alachuz (m) --
o Pats: Alachuzov (Bekberdei Alachuzov, Verkhotur tatar). 1624-5. [RIB II 429]
* Alai (m) -- Alai Vasil'ev syn Lodyzhenskogo, Moscow noble. 1565. [Tup 32]
* Alalyka (m) --
o Pats: Alalykin (Egup Alalykin, Suzdal boiar's son). 1629. [Tup 142]
* Alampad (m) -- var of Lampad.
* Alasa (f) -- Alasa. 13-14th Centuries. [Lev 35]
* Alb (m) -- Alb. 1592. [Mor 2]
* Albe (m) -- Albe. 1472. [Mor 2]
* Albertus (m) -- Ivan Albertus, Dalmatian prince. 1632. [RIB II 513]
* Albul (m) -- Albul, of the Synod of Sevast'ianov. 15th Century. [Mor 2]
* Albych (m) --
o Pats: Albychev (Petr Albychev, boiar's son in the Moscow government). 1599. [Tup 464]
* Alchek (m) -- Alchek. c416. [Mor 2]
o Vars: Altitsek. c416. [Mor 2]
* Alchik (m) -- Alchik. 1313. [Mor 2]
* Alchun (m) -- Alchun. 1453. [Mor 2]
* Alei (m) -- Alei, Siberian prince, son of Kuchum. 1603. [RIB II 77]
o Pats: Aleev (Derbysh Aleev). 1623-8. [RIB II 460]
* Aleksa (m) -- dim fo Aleksei.
* Aleksandr (m) -- "steadfast."
+ Aleksandr Pleshchei. c1370. [Tup 306]
o Dims: Aleksandro (Aleksandro Tarasov syn). 1618. [RIB XIV 259]
+ Olel'ko (Olel'ko Vladimirovich). 1408. [Mor 142]
o Vars: Aleksandrii. 13-14th Centuries. [Lev 50]
+ Alexander (merchant warden). 1436. [Gra 111]
+ Allexander. 1372. [Gra 76]
+ Oleksand (Oleksand Romanovich', lieutenant). First Quarter of 15th Century. [Gra 192]
+ Oleksande. 1323. [Mor 142]
+ Oleksandr (Great Prince Aleksandr Oleksandr). 1266. [Gra 14]
+ Oloskadr. End of 14th Century. [Art VII 129; #528]
+ Ol'ksandr (Ol'ksandr Zaets Mikitin, servant). 1448-68. [Tup 158]
+ O'ksandr (O'ksandr Ratslal'. Second Half of 14th Century. [Art V 87; #260]
o Pats: Aleksandrov (Lev Aleksandrov syn Zaitsov). 1511. [RIB II 27]
+ Aleksandrovich (Prince Vsevolod Aleksandrovich, Tver' prince). 1348. [Tup 98]
o Pat Vars: Aleksandriiskoi [from Aleksandrii] (Afonasii Aleksandriiskoi). After 1618. [RIB XIV 859]
+ Aleksandrovich' (Prince Ivan Aleksandrovich', of Pskov). 1463-5. [Gra 323]
+ Allexandrau (Foma Allexandrau). 1503. [Gra 332]
+ Oleksandrov [from Oleksandr] (Ignatei Oleksandrov). Before 1478. [Gra 245]
+ Oleksandrovich [from Oleksandr] (Great Prince Mikhail Oleksandrovich). 1375. [Gra 33]
+ Oleksandrovich' [from Oleksandr] (Ivan Oleksandrovich', Novgorod governor). 1410-1. [Gra 88]
+ Shashchich' [from Shashcha] (Malei Shashchich', Chernobyl' craftsman). 1552. [Tup 243]
o Pats (f): Aleksandrova (Anna Avramova doch' Dekhova, Mikulina zhena Aleksandrova). 1540-1. [RIB XIV 35]
+ Aleksandrovna (Princess Mariia Aleksandrovna, of Tver'. 1347. [Nov 481]
* Aleksandra (f) -- "steadfast." Fem of Aleksandr.
+ Great Princess Aleksandra, wife of Great Prince Ivan. 1389. [Nov 351]
o Vars: Oleksandra (Great Princess Oleksandra). 1364. [Lvo 191]
* Aleksandrii (m) -- var of Aleksandr.
* Aleksandro (m) -- dim of Aleksandr.
* Alekseets (m) -- dim of Aleksei.
* Aleksei -- "to defend."
+ Aleksei Merkhidei, Pskov boiar. 1449. [Tup 250]
o Dims: Aleksa. 13-14th Centuries. [Lev 33]
+ Alekseets (Alekseets Isakov syn, scribe). 1572. [RIB XIV 91]
+ Alekseiko (Alekseiko, called Vladych'ka, clerk). 1377. [Tup 87]
+ Aleshka (Aleshka Iarofeev syn, sexton). 1606. [RIB XIV 831]
+ Lekhno (Lekhno Chetvertnia, peasant). 1582. [Tup 428]
+ Lesha (Lesha Demidov, peasant). 1498. [Tup 199]
+ Leshchik (Iev Leshchik, boiar). 1593. [Tup 226]
+ Leshchuk (Leshchuk Tereshkovich, Minsk peasant). 1616. [Tup 226]
+ Leshko. 1185. [Mor 111]
+ Lezko (Lezko Novotnoi, peasant). 1565. [Tup 281]
+ Olekhna. 15th Century. [Gra 266]
+ Olekhno (Prince Olekhno Glazynia, in the Lithuanian principality). 1495. [Tup 105]
+ Oleksa (Oleksa Kolbints). First Half of 14th Century. [Art VI 90; #389]
+ Olekseets (Olekseets Prokof'ev syn Popov, sexton). 1527. [RIB XIV 16]
+ Olekseiko (Olekseiko Bai, peasant in the Kholm parish). 1495. [Tup 36]
+ Oleksa (Olekso Sviatoslavts). 1174. [Mor 142]
+ Oleksha (Oleksha Mitsun). 1554. [Tup 252]
+ Olenka (Aleksandr Olenka, Moscow governor). 1506. [Tup 288]
+ Olesha (Olesha Galka, warden). 1605. [RIB II 978]
+ Oleshka (Oleshka Fomin syn). 1524. [RIB XIV 10]
+ Oleshko (Oleshko Ianchin'skii, lord). 1386. [RIB II 6]
+ Olsk. 12th-13th Centuries. [Art VII 100; #504]
o Vars: Aleksii (Aleksii Suvorov, Ustiuga officer). 1609. [RIB II 796]
+ Alexe (Alexe Ignatevitze, merchant warden). 1448. [Gra 120]
+ Allexe (Allexe Mikrofavitze, Pskov governor). 1448. [Gra 120]
+ Al'ksii (father superior of the Spaso-Mirozhskii monastery). 15th Century. [Gra 328]
+ Oleksei (archbishop). 1371-2. [Gra 31]
+ Oleksii (Oleksii Ivanovich Gubin, governor). 1611. [RIB XII 155]
o Pats: Alekseev (Dementii Alekseev). Mid 15th Century. [Gra 227]
+ Alekseevich (Petr Alekseevich Tret'iakov, scribe). 1614. [RIB II 888]
o Pat Vars: Alekovich (Zhdan Alekovich, Mozyr' peasant). 1552. [Tup 146]
+ Alekseevich' (Fedor Alekseevich', Novgorod governor). 1435. [Gra 171]
+ Alekseikov [from Alekseiko] (Vashut Alekseikov, peasant of the Mikhailov parish). 1495. [Tup 81]
+ Aleksiev (Ignatei Aleksiev Bludov). 1612. [RIB XIV 212]
+ Lekhnov [from Lekhno] (Lutsek Lekhnov). 15th Century. [Gra 266]
+ Leshin [from Lesha] (Isak Oleksandrov syn Leshin). 1568. [RIB XIV 82]
+ Olehkin [from Oleshka] (Mitkin Kubasov Oleshkina syna Tateva). 1495. [Tup 212]
+ Olekseev [from Oleksei] (Mikhail Olekseev). Middle of 15th Century. [Gra 236]
+ Olekseevich [from Oleksei] (Kura Olekseevich Shemiatov, Pskov ambassador). 1474. [Gra 136]
+ Olekshinich [from Oleksha] (Zakhariie Olekshinich). 1262. [Mor 88]
+ Oleksich (Aleksandr Oleksich Luchnia, courtier). Recorded in 1647. [Tup 234]
+ Oleksiev [from Oleksii] (Ugrim Oleksiev syn Stafilova, servant). 1568. [Tup 409]
+ Oleksievich' [from Oleksii] (Vlasei Oleksievich'. 1478-80. [Gra 307]
+ Oleksin [from Oleksa] (Stepan Oleksin). 1459-69. [Gra 298]
+ Oleksinich [from Oleksa] (Selilo Oleksinich). 1313. [Tup 353]
+ Oleksino [from Oleksa] (Drochila Oleksino). After 1359. [Gra 163]
+ Oleksovskii [from Olekso] (Lord Balteazar Kgnevosh Oleksovskii, royal noble). 1583. [Tup 108]
+ Oleshin [from Olesha]. 1177. [Mor 143]
+ Oleshkov [from Oleshko]. 1605. [RIB XIV 171]
+ Oleshkovich' [from Oleshko] (Tomilo Oleshkovich', craftsman). 1629. [Tup 395]
+ Olichnicz [from Olikhna] (Susz Olichnicz, peasant). 1515. [Tup 384]
+ Oluskove (Constantin Oluskove, Novgorodite). 1396. [Gra 83]
o Pats (f): Alekseeva (Orina Alekseeva, Moscovite). 1470. [Nik XII 124]
* Alekseiko (m) -- dim of Aleksei.
* Aleksii (m) -- var of Aleksei.
* Alenta (m) -- Alenta. 1356. [Lev 10]
* Alen' (m) -- Alen'. 1370. [Mor 2]
* Aleshka (m) -- dim of Aleksei.
* Alevtina (f) -- Alevtina, martyr. Died in 389. [Buk 389]
* Alexander (m) -- var of Aleksandr.
* Alexe (m) -- var of Aleksei.
* Alfei (m) -- var of Alfii.
* Alfer (m) -- dim of Alferei.
* Alferei (m) --
+ Alferei Ivanov syn Tolmach'. 1583-7. [RIB XIV 122]
o Dims: Alfer (Alfer Grishin). 1448-68. [RIB II 24]
+ Alferko (Alferko Sidorov syn, scribe). 1567. [RIB XIV 78]
+ Olferko (Olferko Onan'in). Mid 15th Century. [Gra 208]
o Vars: Olfer (Olfer Ivanov syn Mamonov). 1538-9. [RIB II 773]
+ Olferei (Olferei Semenov). 1459-69. [Gra 298]
+ Olferii (of the Nikonovskii Chukhchenemskii monastery). Mid 15th Century. [Gra 203]
+ Olferiia. 14th Century. [Art III 16; #92]
+ Olofer'. Second Half of 14th Century. [Art V 148; #314]
+ Olufer (Olufer Mandyevich). 1327. [Mor 118]
+ Oluferei (Oluferei Sergeevich'. 15th Century. [Gra 263]
+ Oluferii (scribe). After 1359. [Gra 163]
+ Olufer'i (father-in-law of Vasilii Vasil'evich). Mid 15th Century. [Gra 207]
+ Ol'fer' (Ol'fer' Kuzmin syn). 15th Century. [Gra 269]
o Pat Vars: Affvero (Leonei Affvero Jacscaw). 1503. [Gra 332]
+ Alferov (Sava Ivanov syn Alferov). 1612. [RIB XIV 209]
+ Olferov [from Olfer] (Zakhar Olferov). 1393. [Gra 167-8]
+ Olferovich' [from Olfer] (Nemera Olferovich', Mozyr' craftsman). 1552. [Tup 273]
+ Olfer'ev [from Olferei] (Malafei Olfer'ev syn). 15th Century. [Gra 268]
+ Olfer'evich' [from Olferei] (Mikhail Olfer'evich'. Mid 15th Century. [Gra 240]
+ Olufer'ev [from Oluferii] (Semen Olufer'ev syn). 1536-7. [RIB XIV 31]
+ Olufer'evich' [from Oluferii] (Dmitrei Olufer'evich'. Mid 15th Century. [Gra 225]
o Pats (f): Olfer'eva (I. M. Olfer'eva). 1518. [Tup 96]
* Alferko (m) -- dim of Alferei.
* Alfii (m) -- "change."
+ Alfii. 13-14th Centuries. [Lev 42]
o Vars: Alfei. 1356. [Lev 20]
* Alforomii (m) -- var of Varfolomei.
o Pat Vars: Oliab'ev [from Oliabii] (Dmitrii Semenovich Oliab'ev). 1587. [RIB II 46]
* Alibai (m) --
o Pats: Alibaev (Gil'deiko Alibaev). 1623-8. [RIB II 465]
* Alifim (m) --
o Pat Vars: Olifimov [from Olifim] (Vasilei Olifimov syn Shchelkanov). 1623-4. [RIB II 627]
* Alim (m) -- Alim, martyr. Contemporary of Christ. [Buk 420]
* Alimpei (m) -- var of Alimpii.
* Alimpii (m) -- "without sadness."
+ Alimpii. 1356. [Lev 16]
o Vars: Alipii (elder). 1645. [RIB XIV 964]
+ Alimpei (Alimpei Danilov syn). 1620. [RIB XIV 344]
o Pats Vars: Alimpiev (Neustroi Alimpiev, clerk). 1621. [Tup 276]
* Alipii (m) -- var of Alimpii.
* Aliui (m) --
o Pat Vars: Aliuevits. Second Half of 13th Century. [Art IV 13; #138]
* Alkach (m) -- Palka Alkach, peasant of the Bologoe parish. 1495. [Tup 32]
* Alkhim (m) -- Alkhim Skoryna. 1601. [Tup 359]
o Pats: Alkhimovich (Sava Alkhimovich Skoryna). 1601. [Tup 359]
* Alkup (m) -- Alkup. 798. [Mor 2]
* Alla (f) -- Alla, martyr. 4th Century. [Buk 168-9]
* Allexander (m) -- var of Aleksandr.
* Allexe (m) -- var of Aleksei.
* Almaz (m) -- Almaz Ivanov, Dvina border chief. 1639. [Tup 32]
* Alopez (m) -- Alopez. 1629. [Mor 2]
* Alpidifor (m) -- Alpidifor. 1356. [Lev 12]
* Alshik (m) -- Alshik, Moravian. 1312. [Mor 2]
* Altitsek (m) -- var of Alchek.
* Altom (m) -- Altom. 1351. [Mor 2]
* Altoman (m) --
o Pat Vars: Altomanovik (Vanishev Altomanovik). 1400. [Mor 34]
* Altynchach' (f) -- "three kopecks."
+ Altynchach', daughter of Bekbulat the Astrakhan. 1561. [Nik XIII 333]
* Alubiz (m) -- Alubiz Gochetik. 1442. [Mor 2]
* Aluka (m) --
o Pats: Alukin (Samko Alukin, Sol'vychegodsk peasant). 1629. [Tup 465]
* Alump (m) -- Alump. 14th Century. [Lev 13]
o Pats: Alump'ev (Selivestr Nechiai Alump'ev syn). 1566. [RIB XIV 72]
* Alupii (m) -- Alupii. 15th Century. [Lev 37]
* Alusian (m) -- Alusian, Bulgarian leader. 1040. [Mor 2]
* Alvian (m) -- "rich."
+ Alvian, martyr. 4th Century. [Buk 232]
* Alym (m) --
o Pats: Alymov (Semen Alymov). c1610. [Tup 465]
* Alzbeta (f) -- var of Alzhbeta.
* Alzhbeta (f) -- Alzhbeta. 1211. [Mor 2]
o Vars: Alzbeta (daughter of Polish king Kazimir). 1309. [Khr 244]
+ Alzhita. 1535. [Zap 410]
+ Elzbeta (daughter of Andrei II). 1235. [Khr 243]
+ El'zhbeta. 1535. [Zap 352]
+ Olzhbeta. 1535. [Zap 410]
* Alzhita (f) -- var of Alzhbeta.
* Al'ksii (m) -- var of Aleksei.
* Al'gird (m) --
o Pat Vars: Ol'gerdovich [from Ol'gerd] (Zedzovit Ioann Ol'gerdovich, Lithuanian prince). 1378. [Mor 90]
o Pat Vars (f): Ol'girdovna [from Ol'gird] (Ogrifina Ol'girdovna). 1358. [Zap 34]
* Ambakum (m) -- Ambakum. 1356. [Lev 17]
* Ambar? (m) --
o Pats: Ambarov (Grishka Ambarov, peasant of Iur'ev district). c1620. [Tup 465]
* Ambros (m) -- var of Ambrosii.
* Ambrosii (m) -- "divine."
+ Ambrosii. 1356. [Lev 18]
o Vars: Ambros (Ambros Semenov). 1612. [RIB XIV 215]
* Ambrosim (m) --
o Dims: Obrosimets. 1393. [Gra 168]
+ Obrosimka (Obrosimka Koran'ka). 1548. [Tup 195]
+ Obrosimko (Obrosimko Emel'ianov syn Vshivkov, scribe). 1617. [RIB XII 164]
o Vars: Obrosim (Obrosim Vasil'ev syn). Mid 15th Century. [Gra 228]
o Pats: Ambrosimov (Vasilei Ambrosimov syn). 1563. [RIB XIV 65]
o Pat Vars: Obrosimov [from Obrosim] (Panulka Obrosimov, peasant). 1539. [Tup 296]
+ Obrosimovich' [from Obrosim] (Oleksei Obrosimovich'. Mid 15th Century. [Gra 233]
* Ambur (m) -- Ivan Ambur. Before 1439. [Gra 114]
* Amelfa (f) --
o Vars: Omelfa (Omelfa Iakimova doch'. Mid 15th Century. [Gra 223]
+ Omel'fa. 1566. [Mor 143]
* Amel'ko (m) -- Amel'ko Voronoi, Chernigov peasant. 1649. [Tup 95]
* Amfian (m) -- "neighbor."
+ Amfian, martyr. Beginning of 4th Century. [Buk 179]
* Amfilokhii (m) -- "sitting in an ambush."
+ Amfilokhii. 13-14th Centuries. [Lev 35]
o Pat Vars: Amfilof'ev [from Amfilofii] (Zav'ialko Amfilof'ev). 1609. [Tup 154]
* Amilii (m) -- "big" or "wide."
+ Amilii, apostle. [Buk 12]
* Amin (m) -- Fedor Shubacheev Amin, Moscow Ambassador in Ord. 1348. [Tup 32]
o Pats: Aminev (Semen Aminev pasynok, landowner in the Zvenigorod district). 1434. [Tup 465]
* Amion (m) -- Amion. 1356. [Lev 1]
* Ammon (m) -- "artist."
+ Ammon, saint. Died c350. [Buk 563-4]
o Vars: Ammonii (martyr). 4th Century. [Buk 499-500]
+ Amon (martyr). 1356. [Lev 1]
* Ammonii (m) -- var of Ammon.
* Ammun (m) -- Ammun, martyr. 4th Century. [Buk 493]
* Amon (m) -- var of Ammon.
* Amonit (m) -- Amonit, martyr. 3rd Century. [Buk 627]
* Amos (m) -- "burdened."
+ Amos, priest. 1393. [Gra 168]
o Vars: Omos. 15th Century. [Gra 259]
o Pats: Amosov (Matfei Amosov syn Ivanova). 1550. [RIB XIV 43]
o Pat Vars: Ammosov [from Ammos] (Izmira Ammosov, servant). 1586. [Tup 166]
+ Omosov [from Omos] (Ignatei Omosov). 1415-21. [Gra 147]
+ Omosovich' [from Omos] (Stepan Omosovich'. Mid 15th Century. [Gra 233]
* Amplii (m) -- "significant."
+ Amplii. 1356. [Lev 11]
* Ampliia (f) -- "significant". Fem of Amplii.
+ Ampliia. 14th Century. [Lev 29]
* Amun (m) -- Amun. 14th Century. [Lev 6]
* Amvrosii (m) -- "deathless" or "divine."
+ Amvrosii. Born in 340. [Buk 685]
o Vars: Obros (Obros Fedorov syn). 1611. [RIB XII 156]
+ Obrosii. 14th Century. [Art VI 43; #354]
+ Obrysii. 14th Century. [Art VI 43; #354]
o Pat Vars: Obrosov [from Obros] (Efim Obrosov, servant). 1592. [RIB XIV 143]
+ Obros'ev [from Obrosii] (Fedorko Obros'ev). 1574. [RIB XII 11]
* An (m) -- An. 1491. [Mor 4]
* Ana (f) -- var of Anna.
* Anafrei (m) --
o Dims: Onofreiko (Onofreiko Polovets). 1586. [Tup 312]
o Vars: Onofrei (Onofrei Ivanov syn). 1572. [RIB XIV 89]
o Pat Vars: Onofreev [from Onofrei] (Vasilii Onofreev syn Batura, Ustiug peasant). 1555. [Tup 42]
* Anagast (m) -- Anagast. 574. [Mor 2]
o Vars: Onogost. 574. [Mor 2]
* Anana (m) -- var of Ananiia.
* Anania (m) -- var of Ananiia.
* Ananii (m) -- var of Ananiia.
* Ananiia (m) -- "to thank God."
+ Ananiia Isakov syn Ontomanov. 1609. [RIB XIV 202]
o Dims: Ananko (Ananko Drovko, peasant). 15th Century. [Tup 134]
+ Onanka (Onanka Shchebenikha). 1500. [Tup 452]
+ Onan'ka (Onan'ka Koshel', peasant). 1495. [Tup 204]
+ Onashka (Onashka Il'in syn). Mid 15th Century. [Gra 219]
+ Onash'ka (Onash'ka Grigor'evich). Mid 15th Century. [Gra 227]
o Vars: Anana. 1356. [Lev 17]
+ Anania (Anania Stepanovich'. 15th Century. [Gra 273]
+ Ananii (Ananii Goriain Mikhailov syn Lazareva, serf). 1498. [Tup 116]
+ Anan'ia. 1393. [Gra 167]
+ Annany (Annany Smonevitze, Novgorod lieutenant). 1439. [Gra 113]
+ Onania. Second Half of 14th Century. [Art VII 139; #538]
+ Onaniia. 12th Century. [Art VII 150; SR #10]
+ Onan'i (Onan'i Nechaev). 1631. [RIB II 920]
+ Onan'ia. 14th Century. [Art I 27; #3]
o Pats: Anan'in (Iakov Anan'in syn Cherepanov). 1563. [RIB XIV 63]
o Pat Vars: Anan'ich (Olisei Anan'ich, Novgorod captain). 1372. [Gra 32]
+ Onan'ev [from Onanii] (Levontii Onan'en, clerk). 1573. [RIB II 97]
+ Onan'ich [from Onan'ia] (Mikhail Onan'ich, Novgorod governor). 1435. [Gra 35]
+ Onan'in [from Onan'ia] (Semen Onan'in). Before 1445. [Gra 196]
o Pats (f): Anan'evicha (Ostaf'ia Anan'evicha). 1393. [Art I 28]
* Ananko (m) -- dim of Ananiia.
* Anan'ia (m) -- var of Ananiia.
* Anaprei (m) --
o Vars: Onoprei (Korobka Onoprei Kukhmistr, Chernobyl' craftsman). 1552. [Tup 197]
* Anashka (m) -- Anashka Ivanov Narabaldina. 1604. [RIB XIV 165]
* Anastas (m) -- var of Anastasii.
* Anastasii (m) -- "risen."
+ Anastasii. 1356. [Lev 25]
o Vars: Anastas. 13-14th Centuries. [Lev 39]
* Anastasiia (f) -- "arisen, resurrected." Fem of Anastasii.
+ Anastasiia V'rkhuslava. 1225. [Mor 54]
o Dims: Nastasiia. 13-14th Centuries. [Lev 38]
+ Nastas'ia (Nastas'ia Ivanova zhena Grigor'eva, mother of Iurii). 1476. [Nov 514]
+ Nastia (Nastia Litovka, serf of Talyzin). 1506. [Tup 461]
+ Nastka. 1150. [Mor 134]
+ Nostas'ia. 14th-15th Century. [Art II 45; #43]
o Vars: Angusta (Princess Angusta, wife of Great Prince Simeon Ivanovich). c1337. [Erm 104]
+ Augusta (wife of Semen). 1333. [Nov 479]
o Met Vars: Nastasich [from Nastas'ia] (Vasil' Nastasich, boiar). 1169. [Tup 24]
+ Nastas'chich [from Nastas'ia] (Oleg Nastas'chich). 12th Century. [Tup 288]
+ Nastas'ich [from Nastas'ia] (Oleg Nastas'ich). 1187. [Tup 24]
* Anatolii (m) -- "east."
+ Anatolii. 13-14th Centuries. [Lev 50]
* Andele (m) -- var of Angel.
* Andel' (m) -- Andel'. 1639. [Mor 2]
* Andom (m) --
o Pat Vars: Andomskoi (Prince Ivan Golenishche Andomskoi, Moscow governor). 1506. [Tup 109]
* Andre (m) -- var of Andrei.
* Andrea (m) -- var of Andrei.
* Andrei (m) -- "brave, valiant."
+ Andrei Bogoliubskii, Iur'ev syn Dolgorukovo. 1157. [Tup 22]
o Dims: Andreiko (Andreiko Bobr, peasant of the Korotsk parish). 1495. [Tup 49]
+ Andriushka (Andriushka Bezschastnoi, nomad). 1623. [Tup 46]
+ Andrukh (Andrukh Hiczka, Kamenets craftsman). 1565. [Tup 104]
+ Andrushko (Andrushko Karaka, Vinnitsa craftsman). 1552. [Tup 174]
+ Ondreets (Ondreets Bezmuka, Vinnytsia craftsman). 1552. [Tup 44]
+ Ondreika (Ondreika Khliust). 1473. [Tup 415]
+ Ondreiko (Ondreiko Vasil'ev syn, sexton). 1524-5. [RIB XIV 14]
+ Ondriiko (Ondriiko Ivanov syn). 1607. [RIB XIV 578]
+ Ondrik. 14th-15th Centuries. [Art VI 58; #362]
+ Ondriusha (Ondriusha Shemilovskoi). 1538-9. [RIB II 773]
+ Ondriushka (Ondriushka Pasnovets, cossack). 1605. [Tup 297]
+ Ondriushko (Ondriushko Goreloi, servant). 1649. [Tup 116]
o Vars: Andre (Novgorod governor). 1338. [Gra 71]
+ Andrea (Andrea Ywanoa, boiar and Novgorod governor). 1411. [Gra 89]
+ Andrii (Andrii Petrov Gnevashev). 1602. [RIB XIV 161]
+ Andriia. 1222. [Mor 3]
+ Andrzey (Andrzey Ciolek). 1617. [Tup 420]
+ Andzey (Andzey Chorusko, craftsman). 1565. [Tup 116]
+ Endrei. Second Half of 14th Century. [Art V 97; #271]
+ Ondre (Ondre Mikhailovich'. 15th Century. [Gra 264]
+ Ondrei (Ondrei Kritskii). 1294-1304. [Gra 141]
+ Ondri (Ondri Konanovich). First Quarter of 15th Century. [Gra 190]
+ Ondrii. 15th Century. [Art VII 88; #495]
+ Onedrii (Onedrii Ivanovits). First Half of 15th Century. [Art V 142; #310]
+ On'drei (On'drei Ivanovich'. Mid 15th Century. [Gra 203]
o Pats: Andreev (Vedenikto Andreev). 1375. [Gra 285]
+ Andreevich (Vladimir Andreevich). 1362. [Tup 87]
o Pat Vars: Andreavitze (Jessiff Andreavitze, Novgorod governor). 1448. [Gra 120]
+ Andreevich' (Miroslav Andreevich'. 1146. [Tup 251]
+ Andreikov (Motovilko Andreikov, peasant). 1500. [Tup 258]
+ Andrevitze (Isaack Andrevitze). 1439. [Gra 113]
+ Andriev [from Andrii] (Luka Andriev Zykov). 1602. [RIB XIV 161]
+ Ondreev [from Ondrei] (Mikita Ondreev). 1397-1432. [RIB II 13]
+ Ondreevich [from Ondrei] (Mikhail Ondreevich, Novgorod captain). 1448-61. [Gra 38]
+ Ondreevich' [from Ondrei] (Isak Ondreevich'. 1459-69. [Gra 300]
+ Ondreikov [from Ondreiko] (Gridka Ondreikov Sokol, peasant). 1500. [Tup 366]
+ Ondriev [from Ondrii] (Efim Ondriev syn Piadyshev). 1604. [RIB XIV 168]
+ Ondrievich' [from Ondrii] (Nazar'ia Ondrievich'. Mid 15th Century. [Gra 231]
+ Ondronikov [from Ondroniko] (Erosimko Ondronikov). 1495. [Mor 83]
&nb
-
-
04-11-2004, 10:12 PM
Lounge -
#24
Poster
This is turning out exactly as I planned...
Exxxxcellent... [taps fingers]
-
-
04-11-2004, 10:16 PM
Lounge -
#25
Poster
[color=yellow][SIZE=18]OBNOXIOUS SPAM! OBNOXIOUS SPAM! OBNOXIOUS SPAM! OBNOXIOUS SPAM! OBNOXIOUS SPAM! OBNOXIOUS SPAM! OBNOXIOUS SPAM! OBNOXIOUS SPAM! OBNOXIOUS SPAM! OBNOXIOUS SPAM! OBNOXIOUS SPAM! OBNOXIOUS SPAM! OBNOXIOUS SPAM! OBNOXIOUS SPAM! OBNOXIOUS SPAM! OBNOXIOUS SPAM! OBNOXIOUS SPAM! OBNOXIOUS SPAM! OBNOXIOUS SPAM! OBNOXIOUS SPAM! OBNOXIOUS SPAM! OBNOXIOUS SPAM! OBNOXIOUS SPAM! OBNOXIOUS SPAM! OBNOXIOUS SPAM! OBNOXIOUS SPAM! OBNOXIOUS SPAM! OBNOXIOUS SPAM! OBNOXIOUS SPAM! OBNOXIOUS SPAM! OBNOXIOUS SPAM! OBNOXIOUS SPAM! OBNOXIOUS SPAM! OBNOXIOUS SPAM! OBNOXIOUS SPAM! OBNOXIOUS SPAM! OBNOXIOUS SPAM! OBNOXIOUS
-
-
04-11-2004, 10:24 PM
Lounge -
#26
Poster
SPAM - one from/for Wells
Chapter I
The Time Traveller (for so it will be convenient to speak of him) was expounding a recondite matter to us. His grey eyes shone and twinkled, and his usually pale face was flushed and animated. The fire burned brightly, and the soft radiance of the incandescent lights in the lilies of silver caught the bubbles that flashed and passed in our glasses. Our chairs, being his patents, embraced and caressed us rather than submitted to be sat upon, and there was that luxurious after-dinner atmosphere when thought roams gracefully free of the trammels of precision. And he put it to us in this way - marking the points with a lean forefinger - as we sat and lazily admired his earnestness over this new paradox (as we thought it
and his fecundity.
'You must follow me carefully. I shall have to controvert one or two ideas that are almost universally accepted. The geometry, for instance, they taught you at school is founded on a misconception.'
'Is not that rather a large thing to expect us to begin upon?' said Filby, an argumentative person with red hair.
'I do not mean to ask you to accept anything without reasonable ground for it. You will soon admit as much as I need from you. You know of course that a mathematical line, a line of thickness nil, has no real existence. They taught you that? Neither has a mathematical plane. These things are mere abstractions.'
'That is all right,' said the Psychologist.
'Nor, having only length, breadth, and thickness, can a cube have a real existence.'
'There I object,' said Filby. 'Of course a solid body may exist. All real things - '
'So most people think. But wait a moment. Can an instantaneous cube exist?'
'Don't follow you,' said Filby.
'Can a cube that does not last for any time at all, have a real existence?'
Filby became pensive. 'Clearly,' the Time Traveller proceeded, 'any real body must have extension in four directions: it must have Length, Breadth, Thickness, and - Duration. But through a natural infirmity of the flesh, which I will explain to you in a moment, we incline to overlook this fact. There are really four dimensions, three which we call the three planes of Space, and a fourth, Time. There is, however, a tendency to draw an unreal distinction between the former three dimensions and the latter, because it happens that our consciousness moves intermittently in one direction along the latter from the beginning to the end of our lives.'
'That,' said a very young man, making spasmodic efforts to relight his cigar over the lamp; 'that . . . very clear indeed.'
'Now, it is very remarkable that this is so extensively overlooked,' continued the Time Traveller, with a slight accession of cheerfulness. 'Really this is what is meant by the Fourth Dimension, though some people who talk about the Fourth Dimension do not know they mean it. It is only another way of looking at Time. There is no diffirence between time and any of the three dimensions of space except that our consciousness moves along it. But some foolish people have got hold of the wrong side of that idea. You have all heard what they have to say about this Fourth Dimension?'
'I have not,' said the Provincial Mayor.
'It is simply this. That Space, as our mathematicians have it, is spoken of as having three dimensions, which one may call Length, Breadth, and Thickness, and is always definable by reference to three planes, each at right angles to the others. But some philosophical people have been asking why three dimensions particularly - why not another direction at right angles to the other three? - and have even tried to construct a Four-Dimension geometry. Professor Simon Newcomb was expounding this to the New York Mathematical Society only a month or so ago. You know how on a flat surface, which has only two dimensions, we can represent a figure of a three-dimensional solid, and similarly they think that by models of thee dimensions they could represent one of four - if they could master the perspective of the thing. See?'
'I think so,' murmured the Provincial Mayor; and, knitting his brows, he lapsed into an introspective state, his lips moving as one who repeats mystic words. 'Yes, I think I see it now,' he said after some time, brightening in a quite transitory manner.
'Well, I do not mind telling you I have been at work upon this geometry of Four Dimensions for some time. Some of my results are curious. For instance, here is a portrait of a man at eight years old, another at fifteen, another at seventeen, another at twenty-three, and so on. All these are evidently sections, as it were, Three-Dimensional representations of his Four-Dimensioned being, which is a fixed and unalterable thing.'
'Scientific people,' proceeded the Time Traveller, after the pause required for the proper assimilation of this, 'know very well that Time is only a kind of Space. Here is a popular scientific diagram, a weather record. This line I trace with my finger shows the movement of the barometer. Yesterday it was so high, yesterday night it fell, then this morning it rose again, and so gently upward to here. Surely the mercury did not trace this line in any of the dimensions of Space generally recognized? But certainly it traced such a line, and that line, therefore, we must conclude was along the Time-Dimension.'
'But,' said the Medical Man, staring hard at a coal in the fire, 'if Time is really only a fourth dimension of Space, why is it, and why has it always been, regarded as something different? And why cannot we move in Time as we move about in the other dimensions of Space?'
The Time Traveller smiled. 'Are you sure we can move freely in Space? Right and left we can go, backward and forward freely enough, and men always have done so. I admit we move freely in two dimensions. But how about up and down? Gravitation limits us there.'
'Not exactly,' said the Medical Man. 'There are balloons.'
'But before the balloons, save for spasmodic jumping and the inequalities of the surface, man had no freedom of vertical movement.' 'Still they could move a little up and down,' said the Medical Man.
'Easier, far easier down than up.'
'And you cannot move at all in Time, you cannot get away from the present moment.'
'My dear sir, that is just where you are wrong. That is just where the whole world has gone wrong. We are always getting away from the present movement. Our mental existences, which are immaterial and have no dimensions, are passing along the Time-Dimension with a uniform velocity from the cradle to the grave. Just as we should travel down if we began our existence fifty miles above the earth's surface.'
'But the great difficulty is this,' interrupted the Psychologist. 'You can move about in all directions of Space, but you cannot move about in Time.'
'That is the germ of my great discovery. But you are wrong to say that we cannot move about in Time. For instance, if I am recalling an incident very vividly I go back to the instant of its occurrence: I become absent-minded, as you say. I jump back for a moment. Of course we have no means of staying back for any length of Time, any more than a savage or an animal has of staying six feet above the ground. But a civilized man is better off than the savage in this respect. He can go up against gravitation in a balloon, and why should he not hope that ultimately he may be able to stop or accelerate his drift along the Time-Dimension, or even turn about and travel the other way?'
'Oh, this,' began Filby, 'is all - '
'Why not?' said the Time Traveller.
'It's against reason,' said Filby.
'What reason?' said the Time Traveller.
'You can show black is white by argument,' said Filby, 'but you will never convince me.'
'Possibly not,' said the Time Traveller. 'But now you begin to see the object of my investigations into the geometry of Four Dimensions. Long ago I had a vague inkling of a machine - '
'To travel through Time!' exclaimed the Very Young Man.
'That shall travel indifferently in any direction of Space and Time, as the driver determines.'
Filby contented himself with laughter.
'But I have experimental verification,' said the Time Traveller.
'It would be remarkably convenient for the historian,' the Psychologist suggested. 'One might travel back and verify the accepted account of the Battle of Hastings, for instance!'
'Don't you think you would attract attention?' said the Medical Man. 'Our ancestors had no great tolerance for anachronisms.'
'One might get one's Greek from the very lips of Homer and Plato,' the Very Young Man thought.
'In which case they would certainly plough you for the Little-go. The German scholars have improved Greek so much.'
'Then there is the future,' said the Very Young Man. 'Just think! One might invest all one's money, leave it to accumulate at interest, and hurry on ahead!'
'To discover a society,' said I, 'erected on a strictly communistic basis.'
'Of all the wild extravagant theories!' began the Psychologist.
'Yes, so it seemed to me, and so I never talked of it until - '
'Experimental verification!' cried I. 'You are going to verify that?'
'The experiment!' cried Filby, who was getting brain-weary.
'Let's see your experiment anyhow,' said the Psychologist, 'though it's all humbug, you know.'
The Time Traveller smiled round at us. Then, still smiling faintly, and with his hands deep in his trousers pockets, he walked slowly out of the room, and we heard his slippers shuffling down the long passage to his laboratory.
The Psychologist looked at us. 'I wonder what he's got?'
'Some sleight-of-hand trick or other,' said the Medical Man, and Filby tried to tell us about a conjurer he had seen at Burslem; but before he had finished his preface the Time Traveller came back, and Filby's anecdote collapsed.
The thing the Time Traveller held in his hand was a glittering metallic framework, scarcely larger than a small clock, and very delicately made. There was ivory in it, and some transparent crystalline substance. And now I must be explicit, for this that follows - unless his explanation is to be accepted - is an absolutely unaccountable thing. He took one of the small octagonal tables that were scattered about the room, and set it in front of the fire, with two legs on the hearthrug. On this table he placed the mechanism. Then he drew up a chair, and sat down. The only other object on the table was a small shaded lamp, the bright light of which fell upon the model. There were also perhaps a dozen candles about, two in brass candlesticks upon the mantel and several in sconces, so that the room was brilliantly illuminated. I sat in a low arm-chair nearest the fire, and I drew this forward so as to be almost between the Time Traveller and the fireplace. Filby sat behind him, looking over his shoulder. The Medical Man and the Provincial Mayor watched him in profile from the right, the Psychologist from the left. The Very Young Man stood behind the Psychologist. We were all on the alert. It appears incredible to me that any kind of trick, however subtly conceived and however adroitly done, could have been played upon us under these conditions.
The Time Traveller looked at us, and then at the mechanism. 'Well?' said the Psychologist.
'This little affair,' said the Time Traveller, resting his elbows upon the table and pressing his hands together above the apparatus, 'is only a model. It is my plan for a machine to travel through time. You will notice that it looks singularly askew, and that there is an odd twinkling appearance about this bar, as though it was in some way unreal.' He pointed to the part with his finger. 'Also, here is one little white lever, and here is another.'
The Medical Man got up out of his chair and peered into the thing. 'It's beautifully made,' he said.
'It took two years to make,' retorted the Time Traveller. Then, when we had all imitated the action of the Medical Man, he said: 'Now I want you clearly to understand that this lever, being pressed over, sends the machine gliding into the future, and this other reverses the motion. This saddle represents the seat of a time traveller. Presently I am going to press the lever, and off the machine will go. It will vanish, pass into future Time, and disappear. Have a good look at the thing. Look at the table too, and satisfy yourselves there is no trickery. I don't want to waste this model, and then be told I'm a quack.'
There was a minute's pause perhaps. The Psychologist seemed about to speak to me, but changed his mind. Then the Time Traveller put forth his finger towards the lever. 'No,' he said suddenly. 'Lend me your hand.' And turning to the Psychologist, he took that individual's hand in his own and told him to put out his forefinger. So that it was the Psychologist himself who sent forth the model Time Machine on its interminable voyage. We all saw the lever turn. I am absolutely certain there was no trickery. There was a breath of wind, and the lamp flame jumped. One of the candles on the mantel was blown out, and the little machine suddenly swung round, became indistinct, was seen as a ghost for a second perhaps, as an eddy of faintly glittering brass and ivory; and it was gone - vanished! Save for the lamp the table was bare.
Everyone was silent for a minute. Then Filby said he was damned.
The Psychologist recovered from his stupor, and suddenly looked under the table. At that the Time Traveller laughed cheerfully. 'Well?' he said, with a reminiscence of the Psychologist. Then, getting up, he went to the tobacco jar on the mantel, and with his back to us began to fill his pipe.
We stared at each other. 'Look here,' said the Medical Man, 'are you in earnest about this? Do you seriously believe that that machine has travelled into time?'
'Certainly,' said the Time Traveller, stooping to light a spill at the fire. Then he turned, lighting his pipe, to look at the Psychologist's face. (The Psychologist, to show that he was not unhinged, helped himself to a cigar and tried to light it uncut.) 'What is more, I have a big machine nearly finished in there' - he indicated the laboratory - 'and when that is put together I mean to have a journey on my own account.'
'You mean to say that that machine has travelled into the future?' said Filby.
'Into the future or the past - I don't, for certain, know which.'
After an interval the Psychologist had an inspiration. 'It must have gone into the past if it has gone anywhere,' he said.
'Why?' said the Time Traveller.
'Because I presume that it has not moved in space, and if it travelled into the future it would still be here all this time, since it must have travelled through this time.'
'But,' I said, 'If it travelled into the past it would have been visible when we came first into this room; and last Thursday when we were here; and the Thursday before that; and so forth!'
'Serious objections,' remarked the Provincial Mayor, with an air of impartiality, turning towards the Time Traveller.
'Not a bit,' said the Time Traveller, and, to the Psychologist: 'You think. You can explain that. It's presentation below the threshold, you know, diluted presentation.'
'Of course,' said the Psychologist, and reassured us. 'That's a simple point of psychology. I should have thought of it. It's plain enough, and helps the paradox delightfully. We cannot see it, nor can we appreciate this machine, any more than we can the spoke of a wheel spinning, or a bullet flying through the air. If it is travelling through time fifty times or a hundred times faster than we are, if it gets through a minute while we get through a second, the impression it creates will of course be only one-fiftieth or one-hundredth of what it would make if it were not travelling in time. That's plain enough.' He passed his hand through the space in which the machine had been. 'You see?' he said, laughing.
We sat and stared at the vacant table for a minute or so. Then the Time Traveller asked us what we thought of it all.
'It sounds plausible enough to-night,' said the Medical Man; 'but wait until to-morrow. Wait for the common sense of the morning.'
'Would you like to see the Time Machine itself?' asked the Time Traveller. And therewith, taking the lamp in his hand, he led the way down the long, draughty corridor to his laboratory. I remember vividly the flickering light, his queer, broad head in silhouette, the dance of the shadows, how we all followed him, puzzled but incredulous, and how there in the laboratory we beheld a larger edition of the little mechanism which we had seen vanish from before our eyes. Parts were of nickel, parts of ivory, parts had certainly been filed or sawn out of rock crystal. The thing was generally complete, but the twisted crystalline bars lay unfinished upon the bench beside some sheets of drawings, and I took one up for a better look at it. Quartz it seemed to be.
'Look here,' said the Medical Man, 'are you perfectly serious? Or is this a trick - like that ghost you showed us last Christmas?'
'Upon that machine,' said the Time Traveller, holding the lamp aloft, 'I intend to explore time. Is that plain? I was never more serious in my life.'
None of us quite knew how to take it.
I caught Filby's eye over the shoulder of the Medical Man, and he winked at me solemnly.
Chapter 2
Chapter II
I think that at that time none of us quite believed in the Time Machine. The fact is, the Time Traveller was one of those men who are too clever to be believed: you never felt that you saw all round him; you always suspected some subtle reserve, some ingenuity in ambush, behind his lucid frankness. Had Filby shown the model and explained the matter in the Time Traveller's words, we should have shown him far less scepticism. For we should have perceived his motives; a pork butcher could understand Filby. But the Time Traveller had more than a touch of whim among his elements, and we distrusted him. Things that would have made the frame of a less clever man seemed tricks in his hands. It is a mistake to do things too easily. The serious people who took him seriously never felt quite sure of his deportment; they were somehow aware that trusting their reputations for judgment with him was like furnishing a nursery with egg-shell china. So I don't think any of us said very much about time travelling in the interval between that Thursday and the next, though its odd potentialities ran, no doubt, in most of our minds: its plausibility, that is, its practical incredibleness, the curious possibilities of anachronism and of utter confusion it suggested. For my own part, I was particularly preoccupied with the trick of the model. That I remember discussing with the Medical Man, whom I met on Friday at the Linnaean. He said he had seen a similar thing at Tubingen, and laid considerable stress on the blowing out of the candle. But how the trick was done he could not explain.
The next Thursday I went again to Richmond - I suppose I was one of the Time Traveller's most constant guests - and, arriving late, found four or five men already assembled in his drawing-room. The Medical Man was standing before the fire with a sheet of paper in one hand and his watch in the other. I looked round for the Time Traveller, and - 'It's half-past seven now,' said the Medical Man. 'I suppose we'd better have dinner?'
'Where's - - ?' said I, naming our host.
'You've just come? It's rather odd. He's unavoidably detained. He asks me in this note to lead off with dinner at seven if he's not back. Says he'll explain when he comes.'
'It seems a pity to let the dinner spoil,' said the Editor of a well-known daily paper; and thereupon the Doctor rang the bell.
The Psychologist was the only person besides the Doctor and myself who had attended the previous dinner. The other men were Blank, the Editor aforementioned, a certain journalist, and another - a quiet, shy man with a beard - whom I didn't know, and who, as far as my observation went, never opened his mouth all the evening. There was some speculation at the dinner-table about the Time Traveller's absence, and I suggested time travelling, in a half-jocular spirit. The Editor wanted that explained to him, and the Psychologist volunteered a wooden account of the 'ingenious paradox and trick' we had witnessed that day week. He was in the midst of his exposition when the door from the corridor opened slowly and without noise. I was facing the door, and saw it first. 'Hallo!' I said. 'At last!' And the door opened wider, and the Time Traveller stood before us. I gave a cry of surprise. 'Good heavens! man, what's the matter?' cried the Medical Man, who saw him next. And the whole tableful turned towards the door.
He was in an amazing plight. His coat was dusty and dirty, and smeared with green down the sleeves; his hair disordered, and as it seemed to me greyer - either with dust and dirt or because its colour had actually faded. His face was ghastly pale; his chin had a brown cut on it - a cut half healed; his expression was haggard and drawn, as by intense suffering. For a moment he hesitated in the doorway, as if he had been dazzled by the light. Then he came into the room. He walked with just such a limp as I have seen in footsore tramps. We stared at him in silence, expecting him to speak.
He said not a word, but came painfully to the table, and made a motion towards the wine. The Editor filled a glass of champagne, and pushed it towards him. He drained it, and it seemed to do him good: for he looked round the table, and the ghost of his old smile flickered across his face. 'What on earth have you been up to, man?' said the Doctor. The Time Traveller did not seem to hear. 'Don't let me disturb you,' he said, with a certain faltering articulation. 'I'm all right.' He stopped, held out his glass for more, and took it off at a draught. 'That's good,' he said. His eyes grew brighter, and a faint colour came into his cheeks. His glance flickered over our faces with a certain dull approval, and then went round the warm and comfortable room. Then he spoke again, still as it were feeling his way among his words. 'I'm going to wash and dress, and then I'll come down and explain things. . . Save me some of that mutton. I'm starving for a bit of meat.'
He looked across at the Editor, who was a rare visitor, and hoped he was all right. The Editor began a question. 'Tell you presently,' said the Time Traveller. 'I'm - funny! Be all right in a minute.'
He put down his glass, and walked towards the staircase door. Again I remarked his lameness and the soft padding sound of his footfall, and standing up in my place, I saw his feet as he went out. He had nothing on them but a pair of tattered blood-stained socks. Then the door closed upon him. I had half a mind to follow, till I remembered how he detested any fuss about himself. For a minute, perhaps, my mind was wool-gathering. Then, 'Remarkable Behaviour of an Eminent Scientist,' I heard the Editor say, thinking (after his wont) in headlines. And this brought my attention back to the bright dinner-table.
'What's the game?' said the Journalist. 'Has he been doing the Amateur Cadger? I don't follow.' I met the eye of the Psychologist, and read my own interpretation in his face. I thought of the Time Traveller limping painfully upstairs. I don't think any one else had noticed his lameness.
The first to recover completely from this surprise was the Medical Man, who rang the bell - the Time Traveller hated to have servants waiting at dinner - for a hot plate. At that the Editor turned to his knife and fork with a grunt, and the Silent Man followed suit. The dinner was resumed. Conversation was exclamatory for a little while, with gaps of wonderment; and then the Editor got fervent in his curiosity. 'Does our friend eke out his modest income with a crossing? or has he his Nebuchadnezzar phases?' he inquired. 'I feel assured it's this business of the Time Machine,' I said, and took up the Psychologist's account of our previous meeting. The new guests were frankly incredulous. The Editor raised objections. 'What was this time travelling? A man couldn't cover himself with dust by rolling in a paradox, could he?' And then, as the idea came home to him, he resorted to caricature. Hadn't they any clothes-brushes in the Future? The Journalist too, would not believe at any price, and joined the Editor in the easy work of heaping ridicule on the whole thing. They were both the new kind of journalist - very joyous, irreverent young men. 'Our Special Correspondent in the Day after To-morrow reports,' the Journalist was saying - or rather shouting - when the Time Traveller came back. He was dressed in ordinary evening clothes, and nothing save his haggard look remained of the change that had startled me.
'I say,' said the Editor hilariously, 'these chaps here say you have been travelling into the middle of next week! Tell us all about little Rosebery, will you? What will you take for the lot?'
The Time Traveller came to the place reserved for him without a word. He smiled quietly, in his old way. 'Where's my mutton?' he said. 'What a treat it is to stick a fork into meat again!'
'Story!' cried the Editor.
'Story be damned!' said the Time Traveller. 'I want something to eat. I won't say a word until I get some peptone into my arteries. Thanks. And the salt.'
'One word,' said I. 'Have you been time travelling?'
'Yes,' said the Time Traveller, with his mouth full, nodding his head.
'I'd give a shilling a line for a verbatim note,' said the Editor. The Time Traveller pushed his glass towards the Silent Man and rang it with his fingernail; at which the Silent Man, who had been staring at his face, started convulsively, and poured him wine. The rest of the dinner was uncomfortable. For my own part, sudden questions kept on rising to my lips, and I dare say it was the same with the others. The Journalist tried to relieve the tension by telling anecdotes of Hettie Potter. The Time Traveller devoted his attention to his dinner, and displayed the appetite of a tramp. The Medical Man smoked a cigarette, and watched the Time Traveller through his eyelashes. The Silent Man seemed even more clumsy than usual, and drank champagne with regularity and determination out of sheer nervousness. At last the Time Traveller pushed his plate away, and looked round us. 'I suppose I must apologize,' he said. 'I was simply starving. I've had a most amazing time.' He reached out his hand for a cigar, and cut the end. 'But come into the smoking-room. It's too long a story to tell over greasy plates.' And ringing the bell in passing, he led the way into the adjoining room.
'You have told Blank, and Dash, and Chose about the machine?' he said to me, leaning back in his easy-chair and naming the three new guests.
'But the thing's a mere paradox,' said the Editor.
'I can't argue to-night. I don't mind telling you the story, but I can't argue. I will,' he went on, 'tell you the story of what has happened to me, if you like, but you must refrain from interruptions. I want to tell it. Badly. Most of it will sound like lying. So be it! It's true - every word of it, all the same. I was in my laboratory at four o'clock, and since then . . . I've lived eight days . . . such days as no human being ever lived before! I'm nearly worn out, but I shan't sleep till I've told this thing over to you. Then I shall go to bed. But no interruptions! Is it agreed?'
'Agreed,' said the Editor, and the rest of us echoed 'Agreed.' And with that the Time Traveller began his story as I have set it forth. He sat back in his chair at first, and spoke like a weary man. Afterwards he got more animated. In writing it down I feel with only too much keenness the inadequacy of pen and ink - and, above all, my own inadequacy - to express its quality. You read, I will suppose, attentively enough; but you cannot see the speaker's white, sincere face in the bright circle of the little lamp, nor hear the intonation of his voice. You cannot know how his expression followed the turns of his story! Most of us hearers were in shadow, for the candles in the smoking-room had not been lighted, and only the face of the Journalist and the legs of the Silent Man from the knees downward were illuminated. At first we glanced now and again at each other. After a time we ceased to do that, and looked only at the Time Traveller's face.
Chapter 3
Chapter III
I told some of you last Thursday of the principles of the Time Machine, and showed you the actual thing itself, incomplete in the workshop. There it is now, a little travel-worn, truly; and one of the ivory bars is cracked, and a brass rail bent; but the rest of it's sound enough. I expected to finish it on Friday, but on Friday, when the putting together was nearly done, I found that one of the nickel bars was exactly one inch too short, and this I had to get remade; so that the thing was not complete until this morning. It was at ten o'clock to-day that the first of all Time Machines began its career. I gave it a last tap, tried all the screws again, put one more drop of oil on the quartz rod, and sat myself in the saddle. I suppose a suicide who holds a pistol to his skull feels much the same wonder at what will come next as I felt then. I took the starting lever in one hand and the stopping one in the other, pressed the first, and almost immediately the second. I seemed to reel; I felt a nightmare sensation of falling; and, looking round, I saw the laboratory exactly as before. Had anything happened? For a moment I suspected that my intellect had tricked me. Then I noted the clock. A moment before, as it seemed, it had stood at a minute or so past ten; now it was nearly half-past three!
I drew a breath, set my teeth, gripped the starting lever with both hands, and went off with a thud. The laboratory got hazy and went dark. Mrs. Watchett came in and walked, apparently without seeing me, towards the garden door. I suppose it took her a minute or so to traverse the place, but to me she seemed to shoot across the room like a rocket. I pressed the lever over to its extreme position. The night came like the turning out of a lamp, and in another moment came to-morrow. The laboratory grew faint and hazy, then fainter and ever fainter. To-morrow night came black, then day again, night again, day again, faster and faster still. An eddying murmur filled my ears, and a strange, dumb confusedness descended on my mind.
I am afraid I cannot convey the peculiar sensations of time travelling. They are excessively unpleasant. There is a feeling exactly like that one has upon a switchback - of a helpless headlong motion! I felt the same horrible anticipation, too, of an imminent smash. As I put on pace, night followed day like the flapping of a black wing. The dim suggestion of the laboratory seemed presently to fall away from me, and I saw the sun hopping swiftly across the sky, leaping it every minute, and every minute marking a day. I supposed the laboratory had been destroyed and I had come into the open air. I had a dim impression of scaffolding, but I was already going too fast to be conscious of any moving things. The slowest snail that ever crawled dashed by too fast for me. The twinkling succession of darkness and light was excessively painful to the eye. Then, in the intermittent darknesses, I saw the moon spinning swiftly through her quarters from new to full, and had a faint glimpse of the circling stars. Presently, as I went on, still gaining velocity, the palpitation of night and day merged into one continuous greyness; the sky took on a wonderful deepness of blue, a splendid luminous color like that of early twilight; the jerking sun became a streak of fire, a brilliant arch, in space; the moon a fainter fluctuating band; and I could see nothing of the stars, save now and then a brighter circle flickering in the blue.
The landscape was misty and vague. I was still on the hill-side upon which this house now stands, and the shoulder rose above me grey and dim. I saw trees growing and changing like puffs of vapour, now brown, now green; they grew, spread, shivered, and passed away. I saw huge buildings rise up faint and fair, and pass like dreams. The whole surface of the earth seemed changed - melting and flowing under my eyes. The little hands upon the dials that registered my speed raced round faster and faster. Presently I noted that the sun belt swayed up and down, from solstice to solstice, in a minute or less, and that consequently my pace was over a year a minute; and minute by minute the white snow flashed across the world, and vanished, and was followed by the bright, brief green of spring.
The unpleasant sensations of the start were less poignant now. They merged at last into a kind of hysterical exhilaration. I remarked indeed a clumsy swaying of the machine, for which I was unable to account. But my mind was too confused to attend to it, so with a kind of madness growing upon me, I flung myself into futurity. At first I scarce thought of stopping, scarce thought of anything but these new sensations. But presently a fresh series of impressions grew up in my mind - a certain curiosity and therewith a certain dread - until at last they took complete possession of me. What strange developments of humanity, what wonderful advances upon our rudimentary civilization, I thought, might not appear when I came to look nearly into the dim elusive world that raced and fluctuated before my eyes! I saw great and splendid architecture rising about me, more massive than any buildings of our own time, and yet, as it seemed, built of glimmer and mist. I saw a richer green flow up the hill-side, and remain there, without any wintry intermission. Even through the veil of my confusion the earth seemed very fair. And so my mind came round to the business of stopping,
The peculiar risk lay in the possibility of my finding some substance in the space which I, or the machine, occupied. So long as I travelled at a high velocity through time, this scarcely mattered; I was, so to speak, attenuated - was slipping like a vapour through the interstices of intervening substances! But to come to a stop involved the jamming of myself, molecule by molecule, into whatever lay in my way; meant bringing my atoms into such intimate contact with those of the obstacle that a profound chemical reaction - possibly a far-reaching explosion - would result, and blow myself and my apparatus out of all possible dimensions - into the Unknown. This possibility had occurred to me again and again while I was making the machine; but then I had cheerfully accepted it as an unavoidable risk - one of the risks a man has got to take! Now the risk was inevitable, I no longer saw it in the same cheerful light. The fact is that insensibly, the absolute strangeness of everything, the sickly jarring and swaying of the machine, above all, the feeling of prolonged falling, had absolutely upset my nerve. I told myself that I could never stop, and with a gust of petulance I resolved to stop forthwith. Like an impatient fool, I lugged over the lever, and incontinently the thing went reeling over, and I was flung headlong through the air.
There was the sound of a clap of thunder in my ears. I may have been stunned for a moment. A pitiless hail was hissing round me, and I was sitting on soft turf in front of the overset machine. Everything still seemed grey, but presently I remarked that the confusion in my ears was gone. I looked round me. I was on what seemed to be a little lawn in a garden, surrounded by rhododendron bushes, and I noticed that their mauve and purple blossoms were dropping in a shower under the beating of the hail-stones. The rebounding, dancing hail hung in a cloud over the machine, and drove along the ground like smoke. In a moment I was wet to the skin. "Fine hospitality," said I, "to a man who has travelled innumerable years to see you."
Presently I thought what a fool I was to get wet. I stood up and looked round me. A colossal figure, carved apparently in some white stone, loomed indistinctly beyond the rhododendrons through the hazy downpour. But all else of the world was invisible.
My sensations would be hard to describe. As the columns of hail grew thinner, I saw the white figure more distinctly. It was very large, for a silver birch-tree touched its shoulder. It was of white marble, in shape something like a winged sphinx, but the wings, instead of being carried vertically at the sides, were spread so that it seemed to hover. The pedestal, it appeared to me, was of bronze, and was thick with verdigris. It chanced that the face was towards me; the sightless eyes seemed to watch me; there was the faint shadow of a smile on the lips. It was greatly weather-worn, and that imparted an unpleasant suggestion of disease. I stood looking at it for a little space - half a minute, perhaps, or half an hour. It seemed to advance and to recede as the hail drove before it denser or thinner. At last I tore my eyes from it for a moment and saw that the hail curtain had worn threadbare, and that the sky was lightening with the promise of the Sun.
I looked up again at the crouching white shape, and the full temerity of my voyage came suddenly upon me. What might appear when that hazy curtain was altogether withdrawn? What might not have happened to men? What if cruelty had grown into a common passion? What if in this interval the race had lost its manliness and had developed into something inhuman, unsympathetic, and overwhelmingly powerful? I might seem some old-world savage animal, only the more dreadful and disgusting for our common likeness - a foul creature to be incontinently slain.
Already I saw other vast shapes - huge buildings with intricate parapets and tall columns, with a wooded hill-side dimly creeping in upon me through the lessening storm. I was seized with a panic fear. I turned frantically to the Time Machine, and strove hard to readjust it. As I did so the shafts of the sun smote through the thunderstorm. The grey downpour was swept aside and vanished like the trailing garments of a ghost. Above me, in the intense blue of the summer sky, some faint brown shreds of cloud whirled into nothingness. The great buildings about me stood out clear and distinct, shining with the wet of the thunderstorm, and picked out in white by the unmelted hailstones piled along their courses. I felt naked in a strange world. I felt as perhaps a bird may feel in the clear air, knowing the hawk wings above and will swoop. My fear grew to frenzy. I took a breathing space, set my teeth, and again grappled fiercely, wrist and knee, with the machine. It gave under my desperate onset and turned over. It struck my chin violently. One hand on the saddle, the other on the lever, I stood panting heavily in attitude to mount again.
But with this recovery of a prompt retreat my courage recovered. I looked more curiously and less fearfully at this world of the remote future. In a circular opening, high up in the wall of the nearer house, I saw a group of figures clad in rich soft robes. They had seen me, and their faces were directed towards me.
Then I heard voices approaching me. Coming through the bushes by the White Sphinx were the heads and shoulders of men running. One of these emerged in a pathway leading straight to the little lawn upon which I stood with my machine. He was a slight creature - perhaps four feet high - clad in a purple tunic, girdled at the waist with a leather belt. Sandals or buskins - I could not clearly distinguish which - were on his feet; his legs were bare to the knees, and his head was bare. Noticing that, I noticed for the first time how warm the air was.
He struck me as being a very beautiful and graceful creature, but indescribably frail. His flushed face reminded me of the more beautiful kind of consumptive - that hectic beauty of which we used to hear so much. At the sight of him I suddenly regained confidence. I took my hands from the machine.
Chapter 4
Chapter 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 me 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!
Chapter 5
Chapter V
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 co
-
-
04-11-2004, 10:25 PM
Lounge -
#27
Poster
For it is proven : you can't post the full, unabreviated version of Wells' The Time Machine on this pityfull board...
-
-
04-11-2004, 10:27 PM
Lounge -
#28
Poster
Heh, I read that book. After the third time the word paradox was used, I was confused.
-
-
04-11-2004, 10:27 PM
Lounge -
#29
Poster
Chapter 5
Chapter V
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 realized. 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 any one 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 moon-lit ruins and touching strange creatures in the black shadows; at last, of lying on the ground near the sphinx and weeping with absolute wretchedness. 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 behooves 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, 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.
I got up after a time, and began walking aimlessly through the bushes towards the hill again. "Patience," said I to myself. "If you want your machine again you must leave that sphinx alone. If they mean to take your machine away, it's little good your wrecking their bronze panels, and if they don't, you will get it back as soon as you can ask for it. To sit among all those unknown things before a puzzle like that is hopeless. That way lies monomania. Face this world. Learn its ways, watch it, be careful of too hasty guesses at its meaning. In the end you will find clues to it all." Then suddenly the humour of the situation came into my mind: the thought of the years I had spent in study and toil to get into the future age, and now my passion of anxiety to get out of it. I had made myself the most complicated and the most hopeless trap that ever a man devised. Although it was at my own expense, I could not help myself. I laughed aloud.
Going through the big palace, it seemed to me that the little people avoided me. It may have been my fancy, or it may have had something to do with my hammering at the gates of bronze. Yet I felt tolerably sure of the avoidance. I was careful, however, to show no concern and to abstain from any pursuit of them, and in the course of a day or two things got back to the old footing. I made what progress I could in the language, and in addition I pushed my explorations here and there. Either I missed some subtle point or their language was excessively simple - almost exclusively composed of concrete substantives and verbs. There seemed to be few, if any, abstract terms, or little use of figurative language. Their sentences were usually simple and of two words, and I failed to convey or understand any but the simplest propositions. I determined to put the thought of my Time Machine and the mystery of the bronze doors under the sphinx as much as possible in a corner of memory, until my growing knowledge would lead me back to them in a natural way. Yet a certain feeling, you may understand, tethered me in a circle of a few miles round the point of my arrival.
So far as I could see, all the world displayed the same exuberant richness as the Thames valley. From every hill I climbed I saw the same abundance of splendid buildings, endlessly varied in material and style, the same clustering thickets of evergreens, the same blossom-laden trees and tree-ferns. Here and there water shone like silver, and beyond, the land rose into blue undulating hills, and so faded into the serenity of the sky. A peculiar feature, which presently attracted my attention, was the presence of certain circular wells, several, as it seemed to me, of a very great depth. One lay by the path up the hill, which I had followed during my first walk. Like the others, it was rimmed with bronze, curiously wrought, and protected by a little cupola from the rain. Sitting by the side of these wells, and peering down into the shafted darkness, I could see no gleam of water, nor could I start any reflection with a lighted match. But in all of them I heard a certain sound: a thud-thud-thud, like the beating of some big engine; and I discovered, from the flaring of my matches, that a steady current of air set down the shafts. Further, I threw a scrap of paper into the throat of one, and, instead of fluttering slowly down, it was at once sucked swiftly out of sight.
After a time, too, I came to connect these wells with tall towers standing here and there upon the slopes; for above them there was often just such a flicker in the air as one sees on a hot day above a sun-scorched beach. Putting things together, I reached a strong suggestion of an extensive system of subterranean ventilation, whose true import it was difficult to imagine. I was at first inclined to associate it with the sanitary apparatus of these people. It was an obvious conclusion, but it was absolutely wrong.
And here I must admit that I learned very little of drains and bells and modes of conveyance, and the like conveniences, during my time in this real future. In some of these visions of Utopias and coming times which I have read, there is a vast amount of detail about building, and social arrangements, and so forth. But while such details are easy enough to obtain when the whole world is contained in one's imagination, they are altogether inaccessible to a real traveller amid such realities as I found here. Conceive the tale of London which a negro, fresh from Central Africa, would take back to his tribe! What would he know of railway companies, of social movements, of telephone and telegraph wires, of the Parcels Delivery Company, and postal orders and the like? Yet we, at least, should be willing enough to explain these things to him! And even of what he knew, how much could he make his untravelled friend either apprehend or believe? Then, think how narrow the gap between a negro and a white man of our own times, and how wide the interval between myself and these of the Golden Age! I was sensible of much which was unseen, and which contributed to my comfort; but save for a general impression of automatic organization, I fear I can convey very little of the difference to your mind.
In the matter of sepulchre, for instance, I could see no signs of crematoria nor anything suggestive of tombs. But it occurred to me that, possibly, there might be cemeteries (or crematoria) somewhere beyond the range of my explorings. This, again, was a question I deliberately put to myself, and my curiosity was at first entirely defeated upon the point. The thing puzzled me, and I was led to make a further remark, which puzzled me still more: that aged and infirm among this people there were none.
I must confess that my satisfaction with my first theories of an automatic civilization and a decadent humanity did not long endure. Yet I could think of no other. Let me put my difficulties. The several big palaces I had explored were mere living places, great dining-halls and sleeping apartments. I could find no machinery, no appliances of any kind. Yet these people were clothed in pleasant fabrics that must at times need renewal, and their sandals, though undecorated, were fairly complex specimens of metalwork. Somehow such things must be made. And the little people displayed no vestige of a creative tendency. There were no shops, no workshops, no sign of importations among them. They spent all their time in playing gently, in bathing in the river, in making love in a half-playful fashion, in eating fruit and sleeping. I could not see how things were kept going.
Then, again, about the Time Machine: something, I knew not what, had taken it into the hollow pedestal of the White Sphinx. Why? For the life of me I could not imagine. Those waterless wells, too, those flickering pillars. I felt I lacked a clue. I felt - how shall I put it? Suppose you found an inscription, with sentences here and there in excellent plain English, and interpolated therewith, others made up of words, of letters even, absolutely unknown to you? Well, on the third day of my visit, that was how the world of Eight Hundred and Two Thousand Seven Hundred and One presented itself to me!
That day, too, I made a friend - of a sort. It happened that, as I was watching some of the little people bathing in a shallow, one of them was seized with cramp and began drifting downstream. The main current ran rather swiftly, but not too strongly for even a moderate swimmer. It will give you an idea, therefore, of the strange deficiency in these creatures, when I tell you that none made the slightest attempt to rescue the weakly crying little thing which was drowning before their eyes. When I realized this, I hurriedly slipped off my clothes, and, wading in at a point lower down, I caught the poor mite and drew her safe to land. A little rubbing of the limbs soon brought her round, and I had the satisfaction of seeing she was all right before I left her. I had got to such a low estimate of her kind that I did not expect any gratitude from her. In that, however, I was wrong.
This happened in the morning. In the afternoon I met my little woman, as I believe it was, as I was returning towards my centre from an exploration, and she received me with cries of delight and presented me with a big garland of flowers - evidently made for me and me alone. The thing took my imagination. Very possibly I had been feeling desolate. At any rate I did my best to display my appreciation of the gift. We were soon seated together in a little stone arbour, engaged in conversation, chiefly of smiles. The creature's friendliness affected me exactly as a child's might have done. We passed each other flowers, and she kissed my hands. I did the same to hers. Then I tried talk, and found that her name was Weena, which, though I don't know what it meant, somehow seemed appropriate enough. That was the beginning of a queer friendship which lasted a week, and ended - as I will tell you!
She was exactly like a child. She wanted to be with me always. She tried to follow me everywhere, and on my next journey out and about it went to my heart to tire her down, and leave her at last, exhausted and calling after me rather plaintively. But the problems of the world had to be mastered. I had not, I said to myself, come into the future to carry on a miniature flirtation. Yet her distress when I left her was very great, her expostulations at the parting were sometimes frantic, and I think, altogether, I had as much trouble as comfort from her devotion. Nevertheless she was, somehow, a very great comfort. I thought it was mere childish affection that made her cling to me. Until it was too late, I did not clearly know what I had inflicted upon her when I left her. Nor until it was too late did I clearly understand what she was to me. For, by merely seeming fond of me, and showing in her weak, futile way that she cared for me, the little doll of a creature presently gave my return to the neighbourhood of the White Sphinx almost the feeling of coming home; and I would watch for her tiny figure of white and gold so soon as I came over the hill.
It was from her, too, that I learned that fear had not yet left the world. She was fearless enough in the daylight, and she had the oddest confidence in me; for once, in a foolish moment, I made threatening grimaces at her, and she simply laughed at them. But she dreaded the dark, dreaded shadows, dreaded black things. Darkness to her was the one thing dreadful. It was a singularly passionate emotion, and it set me thinking and observing. I discovered then, among other things, that these little people gathered into the great houses after dark, and slept in droves. To enter upon them without a light was to put them into a tumult of apprehension. I never found one out of doors, or one sleeping alone within doors, after dark. Yet I was still such a blockhead that I missed the lesson of that fear, and in spite of Weena's distress I insisted upon sleeping away from these slumbering multitudes.
It troubled her greatly, but in the end her odd affection for me triumphed, and for five of the nights of our acquaintance, including the last night of all, she slept with her head pillowed on my arm. But my story slips away from me as I speak of her. It must have been the night before her rescue that I was awakened about dawn. I had been restless, dreaming most disagreeably that I was drowned, and that sea anemones were feeling over my face with their soft palps. I woke with a start, and with an odd fancy that some greyish animal had just rushed out of the chamber. I tried to get to sleep again, but I felt restless and uncomfortable. It was that dim grey hour when things are just creeping out of darkness, when everything is colourless and clear cut, and yet unreal. I got up, and went down into the great hall, and so out upon the flagstones in front of the palace. I thought I would make a virtue of necessity, and see the sunrise.
The moon was setting, and the dying moonlight and the first pallor of dawn were mingled in a ghastly half-light. The bushes were inky black, the ground a sombre grey, the sky colourless and cheerless. And up the hill I thought I could see ghosts. There several times, as I scanned the slope, I saw white figures. Twice I fancied I saw a solitary white, ape-like creature running rather quickly up the hill, and once near the ruins I saw a leash of them carrying some dark body. They moved hastily. I did not see what became of them. It seemed that they vanished among the bushes. The dawn was still indistinct, you must understand. I was feeling that chill, uncertain, early-morning feeling you may have known. I doubted my eyes.
As the eastern sky grew brighter, and the light of the day came on and its vivid colouring returned upon the world once more, I scanned the view keenly. But I saw no vestige of my white figures. They were mere creatures of the half light. "They must have been ghosts," I said; "I wonder whence they dated." For a queer notion of Grant Allen's came into my head, and amused me. If each generation die and leave ghosts, he argued, the world at last will get overcrowded with them. On that theory they would have grown innumerable some Eight Hundred Thousand Years hence, and it was no great wonder to see four at once. But the jest was unsatisfying, and I was thinking of these figures all the morning, until Weena's rescue drove them out of my head. I associated them in some indefinite way with the white animal I had startled in my first passionate search for the Time Machine. But Weena was a pleasant substitute. Yet all the same, they were soon destined to take far deadlier possession of my mind.
I think I have said how much hotter than our own was the weather of this Golden Age. I cannot account for it. It may be that the sun was hotter, or the earth nearer the sun. It is usual to assume that the sun will go on cooling steadily in the future. But people, unfamiliar with such speculations as those of the younger Darwin, forget that the planets must ultimately fall back one by one into the parent body. As these catastrophes occur, the sun will blaze with renewed energy; and it may be that some inner planet had suffered this fate. Whatever the reason, the fact remains that the sun was very much hotter than we know it.
Well, one very hot morning - my fourth, I think - as I was seeking shelter from the heat and glare in a colossal ruin near the great house where I slept and fed, there happened this strange thing: Clambering among these heaps of masonry, I found a narrow gallery, whose end and side windows were blocked by fallen masses of stone. By contrast with the brilliancy outside, it seemed at first impenetrably dark to me. I entered it groping, for the change from light to blackness made spots of colour swim before me. Suddenly I halted spellbound. A pair of eyes, luminous by reflection against the daylight without, was watching me out of the darkness.
The old instinctive dread of wild beasts came upon me. I clenched my hands and steadfastly looked into the glaring eyeballs. I was afraid to turn. Then the thought of the absolute security in which humanity appeared to be living came to my mind. And then I remembered that strange terror of the dark. Overcoming my fear to some extent, I advanced a step and spoke. I will admit that my voice was harsh and ill-controlled. I put out my hand and touched something soft. At once the eyes darted sideways, and something white ran past me. I turned with my heart in my mouth, and saw a queer little ape-like figure, its head held down in a peculiar manner, running across the sunlit space behind me. It blundered against a block of granite, staggered aside, and in a moment was hidden in a black shadow beneath another pile of ruined masonry.
My impression of it is, of course, imperfect; but I know it was a dull white, and had strange large greyish-red eyes; also that there was flaxen hair on its head and down its back. But, as I say, it went too fast for me to see distinctly. I cannot even say whether it ran on all-fours, or only with its forearms held very low. After an instant's pause I followed it into the second heap of ruins. I could not find it at first; but, after a time in the profound obscurity, I came upon one of those round well-like openings of which I have told you, half closed by a fallen pillar. A sudden thought came to me. Could this Thing have vanished down the shaft? I lit a match, and, looking down, I saw a small, white, moving creature, with large bright eyes which regarded me steadfastly as it retreated. It made me shudder. It was so like a human spider! It was clambering down the wall, and now I saw for the first time a number of metal foot and hand rests forming a kind of ladder down the shaft. Then the light burned my fingers and fell out of my hand, going out as it dropped, and when I had lit another the little monster had disappeared.
I do not know how long I sat peering down that well. It was not for some time that I could succeed in persuading myself that the thing I had seen was human. But, gradually, the truth dawned on me: that Man had not remained one species, but had differentiated into two distinct animals: that my graceful children of the Upper-world were not the sole descendants of our generation, but that this bleached, obscene, nocturnal Thing, which had flashed before me, was also heir to all the ages.
I thought of the flickering pillars and of my theory of an underground ventilation. I began to suspect their true import. And what, I wondered, was this Lemur doing in my scheme of a perfectly balanced organization? How was it related to the indolent serenity of the beautiful Upper-worlders? And what was hidden down there, at the foot of that shaft? I sat upon the edge of the well telling myself that, at any rate, there was nothing to fear, and that there I must descend for the solution of my difficulties. And withal I was absolutely afraid to go! As I hesitated, two of the beautiful Upper-world people came running in their amorous sport across the daylight in the shadow. The male pursued the female, flinging flowers at her as he ran.
They seemed distressed to find me, my arm against the overturned pillar, peering down the well. Apparently it was considered bad form to remark these apertures; for when I pointed to this one, and tried to frame a question about it in their tongue, they were still more visibly distressed and turned away. But they were interested by my matches, and I struck some to amuse them. I tried them again about the well, and again I failed. So presently I left them, meaning to go back to Weena, and see what I could get from her. But my mind was already in revolution; my guesses and impressions were slipping and sliding to a new adjustment. I had now a clue to the import of these wells, to the ventilating towers, to the mystery of the ghosts; to say nothing of a hint at the meaning of the bronze gates and the fate of the Time Machine! And very vaguely there came a suggestion towards the solution of the economic problem that had puzzled me.
Here was the new view. Plainly, this second species of Man was subterranean. There were three circumstances in particular which made me think that its rare emergence above ground was the outcome of a long-continued underground habit. In the first place, there was the bleached look common in most animals that live largely in the dark - the white fish of the Kentucky caves, for instance. Then, those large eyes, with that capacity for reflecting light, are common features of nocturnal things - witness the owl and the cat. And last of all, that evident confusion in the sunshine, that hasty yet fumbling awkward flight towards dark shadow, and that peculiar carriage of the head while in the light - all reinforced the theory of an extreme sensitiveness of the retina.
Beneath my feet, then, the earth must be tunnelled enormously, and these tunnellings were the habitat of the new race. The presence of ventilating shafts and wells along the hill slopes - everywhere, in fact except along the river valley - showed how universal were its ramifications. What so natural, then, as to assume that it was in this artificial Underworld that such work as was necessary to the comfort of the daylight race was done? The notion was so plausible that I at once accepted it, and went on to assume the how of this splitting of the human species. I dare say you will anticipate the shape of my theory; though, for myself, I very soon felt that it fell far short of the truth.
At first, proceeding from the problems of our own age, it seemed clear as daylight to me that the gradual widening of the present merely temporary and social difference between the Capitalist and the Labourer, was the key to the whole position. No doubt it will seem grotesque enough to you - and wildly incredible! - and yet even now there are existing circumstances to point that way. There is a tendency to utilize underground space for the less ornamental purposes of civilization; there is the Metropolitan Railway in London, for instance, there are new electric railways, there are subways, there are underground workrooms and restaurants, and they increase and multiply. Evidently, I thought, this tendency had increased till Industry had gradually lost its birthright in the sky. I mean that it had gone deeper and deeper into larger and ever larger underground factories, spending a still-increasing amount of its time therein, till, in the end - ! Even now, does not an East-end worker live in such artificial conditions as practically to be cut off from the natural surface of the earth?
Again, the exclusive tendency of richer people - due, no doubt, to the increasing refinement of their education, and the widening gulf between them and the rude violence of the poor - is already leading to the closing, in their interest, of considerable portions of the surface of the land. About London, for instance, perhaps half the prettier country is shut in against intrusion. And this same widening gulf - which is due to the length and expense of the higher educational process and the increased facilities for and temptations towards refined habits on the part of the rich - will make that exchange between class and class, that promotion by intermarriage which at present retards the splitting of our species along lines of social stratification, less and less frequent. So, in the end, above ground you must have the Haves, pursuing pleasure and comfort and beauty, and below ground the Have-nots, the Workers getting continually adapted to the conditions of their labour. Once they were there, they would no doubt have to pay rent, and not a little of it, for the ventilation of their caverns; and if they refused, they would starve or be suffocated for arrears. Such of them as were so constituted as to be miserable and rebellious would die; and, in the end, the balance being permanent, the survivors would become as well adapted to the conditions of underground life, and as happy in their way, as the Upper-world people were to theirs. As it seemed to me, the refined beauty and the etiolated pallor followed naturally enough.
The great triumph of Humanity I had dreamed of took a different shape in my mind. It had been no such triumph of moral education and general co-operation as I had imagined. Instead, I saw a real aristocracy, armed with a perfected science and working to a logical conclusion the industrial system of to-day. Its triumph had not been simply a triumph over Nature, but a triumph over Nature and the fellow-man. This, I must warn you, was my theory at the time. I had no convenient cicerone in the pattern of the Utopian books. My explanation may be absolutely wrong. I still think it is the most plausible one. But even on this supposition the balanced civilization that was at last attained must have long since passed its zenith, and was now far fallen into decay. The too-perfect security of the Upper-worlders had led them to a slow movement of degeneration, to a general dwindling in size, strength, and intelligence. That I could see clearly enough already. What had happened to the Under-grounders I did not yet suspect; but from what I had seen of the Morlocks - that, by the by, was the name by which these creatures were called - I could imagine that the modification of the human type was even far more profound than among the "Eloi," the beautiful race that I already knew.
Then came troublesome doubts. Why had the Morlocks taken my Time Machine? For I felt sure it was they who had taken it. Why, too, if the Eloi were masters, could they not restore the machine to me? And why were they so terribly afraid of the dark? I proceeded, as I have said, to question Weena about this Under-world, but here again I was disappointed. At first she would not understand my questions, and presently she refused to answer them. She shivered as though the topic was unendurable. And when I pressed her, perhaps a little harshly, she burst into tears. They were the only tears, except my own, I ever saw in that Golden Age. When I saw them I ceased abruptly to trouble about the Morlocks, and was only concerned in banishing these signs of the human inheritance from Weena's eyes. And very soon she was smiling and clapping her hands, while I solemnly burned a match.
Chapter 6
Chapter VI
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.
Little Weena ran with me. She danced beside me to the well, but when she saw me lean over the mouth and look downward, she seemed strangely disconcerted. "Good-bye, Little Weena," I said, kissing her; and then putting her down, I began to feel over the parapet for the climbing hooks. Rather hastily, I may as well confess, for I feared my courage might leak away! At first she watched me in amazement. Then she gave a most piteous cry, and running to me, she began to pull at me with her little hands. I think her opposition nerved me rather to proceed. I shook her off, perhaps a little roughly, and in another moment I was in the throat of the well. I saw her agonized face over the parapet, and smiled to reassure her. Then I had to look down at the unstable hooks to which I clung.
I had to clamber down a shaft of perhaps two hundred yards. The descent was effected by means of metallic bars projecting from the sides of the well, and these being adapted to the needs of a creature much smaller and lighter than myself, I was speedily cramped and fatigued by the descent. And not simply fatigued! One of the bars bent suddenly under my weight, and almost swung me off into the blackness beneath. For a moment I hung by one hand, and after that experience I did not dare to rest again. Though my arms and back were presently acutely painful, I went on clambering down the sheer descent with as quick a motion as possible. Glancing upward, I saw the aperture, a small blue disk, in which a star was visible, while little Weena's head showed as a round black projection. The thudding sound of a machine below grew louder and more oppressive. Everything save that little disk above was profoundly dark, and when I looked up again Weena had disappeared.
I was in an agony of discomfort. I had some thought of trying to go up the shaft again, and leave the Under-world alone. But even while I turned this over in my mind I continued to descend. At last, with intense relief, I saw dimly coming up, a foot to the right of me, a slender loophole in the wall. Swinging myself in, I found it was the aperture of a narrow horizontal tunnel in which I could lie down and rest. It was not too soon. My arms ached, my back was cramped, and I was trembling with the prolonged terror of a fall. Besides this, the unbroken darkness had had a distressing effect upon my eyes. The air was full of the throb and hum of machinery pumping air down the shaft.
I do not know how long I lay. I was roused by a soft hand touching my face. Starting up in the darkness I snatched at my matches and, hastily striking one, I saw three stooping white creatures similar to the one I had seen above ground in the ruin, hastily retreating before the light. Living, as they did, in what appeared to me impenetrable darkness, their eyes were abnormally large and sensitive, just as are the pupils of the abysmal fishes, and they reflected the light in the same way. I have no doubt they could see me in that rayless obscurity, and they did not seem to have any fear of me apart from the light. But, so soon as I struck a match in order to see them, they fled incontinently, vanishing into dark gutters and tunnels, from which their eyes glared at me in the strangest fashion.
I tried to call to them, but the language they had was apparently different from that of the Over-world people; so that I was needs left to my own unaided efforts, and the thought of flight before exploration was 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 the noise of machinery grow louder. Presently the walls fell away from me, and I came to a large open space, and striking another match, saw that I had entered a vast arched cavern, which stretched into utter darkness beyond the range 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 is vague. Great shapes like big machines rose out of the dimness, and cast grotesque black shadows, in which dim spectral Morlocks sheltered from the glare. The place, by the by, was very stuffy and oppressive, and the faint halitus of freshly shed blood was in the air. Some way down the central vista was a little table of white metal, laid with what seemed a meal. The Morlocks at any rate were carnivorous! Even at the time, I remember wondering what large animal could have survived to furnish the red joint I saw. It was all very indistinct: the heavy smell, the big unmeaning shapes, the obscene figures lurking in the shadows, and only waiting for the darkness to come at me again! Then the match burned down, and stung my fingers, and fell, a wriggling red spot in the blackness.
I have thought since how particularly ill-equipped I was for such an experience. When I had started with the Time Machine, I had started with the absurd assumption that the men of the Future would certainly be infinitely ahead of ourselves in all their appliances. I had come without arms, without medicine, without anything to smoke - at times I missed tobacco frightfully - even without enough matches. If only I had thought of a Kodak! I could have flashed that glimpse of the Underworld in a second, and examined it at leisure. But, as it was, I stood there with only the weapons and the powers that Nature had endowed me with - hands, feet, and teeth; these, and four safety-matches that still remained to me.
I was afraid to push my way in among all this machinery in the dark, and it was only with my last glimpse of light I discovered that my store of matches had run low. It had never occurred to me until that moment that there was any need to economize them, and I had wasted almost half the box in astonishing the Upper-worlders, to whom fire was a novelty. Now, as I say, I had four left, and while I stood in the dark, a hand touched mine, lank fingers came feeling over my face, and I was sensible of a peculiar unpleasant odour. I fancied I heard the breathing of a crowd of those dreadful little beings about me. I felt the box of matches in my hand being gently disengaged, and other hands behind me plucking at my clothing. The sense of these unseen creatures examining me was indescribably unpleasant. The sudden realization of my ignorance of their ways of thinking and doing came home to me very vividly in the darkness. I shouted at them as loudly as I could. They started away, and then I could feel them approaching me again. They clutched at me more boldly, whispering odd sounds to each other. I shivered violently, and shouted again rather discordantly. This time they were not so seriously alarmed, and they made a queer laughing noise as they came back at me. I will confess I was horribly frightened. I determined to strike another match and escape under the protection of its glare. I did so, and eking out the flicker with a scrap of paper from my pocket, I made good my retreat to the narrow tunnel. But I had scarce entered this when my light was blown out and in the blackness I could hear the Morlocks rustling like wind among leaves, and pattering like the rain, as they hurried after me.
In a moment I was clutched by several hands, and there was no mistaking that they were trying to haul me back. I struck another light, and waved it in their dazzled faces. You can scarce imagine how nauseatingly inhuman they looked - those pale, chinless faces and great, lidless, pinkish-grey eyes! - as they stared in their blindness and bewilderment. But I did not stay to look, I promise you: I retreated again, and when my second match had ended, I struck my third. It had almost burned through when I reached the opening into the shaft. I lay down on the edge, for the throb of the great pump below made me giddy. Then I felt sideways for the projecting hooks, and, as I did so, my feet were grasped from behind, and I was violently tugged backward. I lit my last match . . . and it incontinently went out. But I had my hand on the climbing bars now, and, kicking violently, I disengaged myself from the clutches of the Morlocks and was speedily clambering up the shaft, while they stayed peering and blinking up at me: all but one little wretch who followed me for some way, and wellnigh secured my boot as a trophy.
That climb seemed interminable to me. With the last twenty or thirty feet of it a deadly nausea came upon me. I had the greatest difficulty in keeping my hold. The last few yards was a frightful struggle against this faintness. Several times my head swam, and I felt all the sensations of falling. At last, however, I got over the well-mouth somehow, and staggered out of the ruin into the blinding sunlight. I fell upon my face. Even the soil smelt sweet and clean. Then I remember Weena kissing my hands and ears, and the voices of others among the Eloi. Then, for a time, I was insensible.
Chapter 7
Chapter VII
Now, indeed, I seemed in a worse case than before. Hitherto, except during my night's anguish at the loss of the Time Machine, I had felt a sustaining hope of ultimate escape, but that hope was staggered by these new discoveries. Hitherto I had merely thought myself impeded by the childish simplicity of the little people, and by some unknown forces which I had only to understand to overcome; but there was an altogether new element in the sickening quality of the Morlocks - a something inhuman and malign. Instinctively I loathed them. Before, I had felt as a man might feel 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, whose enemy would come upon him soon.
The enemy I dreaded may surprise you. It was the darkness of the new moon. Weena had put this into my head by some at first incomprehensible remarks about the Dark Nights. It was not now such a very difficult problem to guess what the coming Dark Nights might mean. The moon was on the wane: each night there was a longer interval of darkness. And I now understood to some slight degree at least the reason of the fear of the little Upper-world people for the dark. I wondered vaguely what foul villainy it might be that the Morlocks did under the new moon. I felt pretty sure now that my second hypothesis was all wrong. The Upper-world people might once have been the favoured aristocracy, and the Morlocks their mechanical servants: but that had long since passed away. The two species that had resulted from the evolution of man were sliding down towards, or had already arrived at, an altogether new relationship. The Eloi, like the Carolingian kings, had decayed to a mere beautiful futility. They still possessed the earth on sufferance: since the Morlocks, subterranean for innumerable generations, had come at last to find the daylit surface intolerable. And the Morlocks made their garments, I inferred, and maintained them in their habitual needs, perhaps through the survival of an old habit of service. They did it as a standing horse paws with his foot, or as a man enjoys killing animals in sport: because ancient and departed necessities had impressed it on the organism. But, clearly, the old order was already in part reversed. The Nemesis of the delicate ones was creeping on apace. Ages ago, thousands of generations ago, man had thrust his brother man out of the ease and the sunshine. And now that brother was coming back changed! Already the Eloi had begun to learn one old lesson anew. They were becoming reacquainted with Fear. And suddenly there came into my head the memory of the meat I had seen in the Under-world. It seemed odd how it floated into my mind: not stirred up as it were by the current of my meditations, but coming in almost like a question from outside. I tried to recall the form of it. I had a vague sense of something familiar, but I could not tell what it was at the time.
Still, however helpless the little people in the presence of their mysterious Fear, I was differently constituted. I came out of this age of ours, this ripe prime of the human race, when Fear does not paralyse and mystery has lost its terrors. I at least would defend myself. Without further delay I determined to make myself arms and a fastness where I might sleep. With that refuge as a base, I could face this strange world with some of that confidence I had lost in realizing to what creatures night by night I lay exposed. I felt I could never sleep again until my bed was secure from them. I shuddered with horror to think how they must already have examined me.
I wandered during the afternoon along the valley of the Thames, but found nothing that commended itself to my mind as inaccessible. All the buildings and trees seemed easily practicable to such dexterous climbers as the Morlocks, to judge by their wells, must be. Then the tall pinnacles of the Palace of Green Porcelain and the polished gleam of its walls came back to my memory; and in the evening, taking Weena like a child upon my shoulder, I went up the hills towards the south-west. The distance, I had reckoned, was seven or eight miles, but it must have been nearer eighteen. I had first seen the place on a moist afternoon when distances are deceptively diminished. In addition, the heel of one of my shoes was loose, and a nail was working through the sole - they were comfortable old shoes I wore about indoors - so that I was lame. And it was already long past sunset when I came in sight of the palace, silhouetted black against the pale yellow of the sky.
Weena had been hugely delighted when I began to carry her, but after a while she desired me to let her down, and ran along by the side of me, occasionally darting off on either hand to pick flowers to stick in my pockets. My pockets had always puzzled Weena, but at the last she had concluded that they were an eccentric kind of vase for floral decoration. At least she utilized them for that purpose. And that reminds me! In changing my jacket I found . . .
The Time Traveller paused, put his hand into his pocket, and silently placed two withered flowers, not unlike very large white mallows, upon the little table. Then he resumed his narrative.
As the hush of evening crept over the world and we proceeded over the hill crest towards Wimbledon, Weena grew tired and wanted to return to the house of grey stone. But I pointed out the distant pinnacles of the Palace of Green Porcelain to her, and contrived to make her understand that we were seeking a refuge there from her Fear. You know that great pause that comes upon things before the dusk? Even the breeze stops in the trees. To me there is always an air of expectation about that evening stillness. The sky was clear, remote, and empty save for a few horizontal bars far down in the sunset. Well, that night the expectation took the colour of my fears. In that darkling calm my senses seemed preternaturally sharpened. I fancied I could even feel the hollowness of the ground beneath my feet: could, indeed, almost see through it the Morlocks on their ant-hill going hither and thither and waiting for the dark. In my excitement I fancied that they would receive my invasion of their burrows as a declaration of war. And why had they taken my Time Machine?
So we went on in the quiet, and the twilight deepened into night. The clear blue of the distance faded, and one star after another came out. The ground grew dim and the trees black. Weena's fears and her fatigue grew upon her. I took her in my arms and talked to her and caressed her. Then, as the darkness grew deeper, she put her arms round my neck, and, closing her eyes, tightly pressed her face against my shoulder. So we went down a long slope into a valley, and there in the dimness I almost walked into a little river. This I waded, and went up the opposite side of the valley, past a number of sleeping houses, and by a statue - a Faun, or some such figure, MINUS the head. Here too were acacias. So far I had seen nothing of the Morlocks, but it was yet early in the night, and the darker hours before the old moon rose were still to come.
From the brow of the next hill I saw a thick wood spreading wide and black before me. I hesitated at this. I could see no end to it, either to the right or the left. Feeling tired - my feet, in particular, were very sore - I carefully lowered Weena from my shoulder as I halted, and sat down upon the turf. I could no longer see the Palace of Green Porcelain, and I was in doubt of my direction. I looked into the thickness of the wood and thought of what it might hide. Under that dense tangle of branches one would be out of sight of the stars. Even were there no other lurking danger - a danger I did not care to let my imagination loose upon - there would still be all the roots to stumble over and the tree-boles to strike against.
I was very tired, too, after the excitements of the day; so I decided that I would not face it, but would pass the night upon the open hill.
Weena, I was glad to find, was fast asleep. I carefully wrapped her in my jacket, and sat down beside her to wait for the moonrise. The hill-side was quiet and deserted, but from the black of the wood there came now and then a stir of living things. Above me shone the stars, for the night was very clear. I felt a certain sense of friendly comfort in their twinkling. All the old constellations had gone from the sky, however: that slow movement which is imperceptible in a hundred human lifetimes, had long since rearranged them in unfamiliar groupings. But the Milky Way, it seemed to me, was still the same tattered streamer of star-dust as of yore. Southward (as I judged it) was a very bright red star that was new to me; it was even more splendid than our own green Sirius. And amid all these scintillating points of light one bright planet shone kindly and steadily like the face of an old friend.
Looking at these stars suddenly dwarfed my own troubles and all the gravities of terrestrial life. I thought of their unfathomable distance, and the slow inevitable drift of their movements out of the unknown past into the unknown future. I thought of the great precessional cycle that the pole of the earth describes. Only forty times had that silent revolution occurred during all the years that I had traversed. And during these few revolutions all the activity, all the traditions, the complex organizations, the nations, languages, literatures, aspirations, even the mere memory of Man as I knew him, had been swept out of existence. Instead were these frail creatures who had forgotten their high ancestry, and the white Things of which I went in terror. Then I thought of the Great Fear that was between the two species, and for the first time, with a sudden shiver, came the clear knowledge of what the meat I had seen might be. Yet it was too horrible! I looked at little Weena sleeping beside me, her face white and starlike under the stars, and forthwith dismissed the thought.
Through that long night I held my mind off the Morlocks as well as I could, and whiled away the time by trying to fancy I could find signs of the old constellations in the new confusion. The sky kept very clear, except for a hazy cloud or so. No doubt I dozed at times. Then, as my vigil wore on, came a faintness in the eastward sky, like the reflection of some colourless fire, and the old moon rose, thin and peaked and white. And close behind, and overtaking it, and overflowing it, the dawn came, pale at first, and then growing pink and warm. No Morlocks had approached us. Indeed, I had seen none upon the hill that night. And in the confidence of renewed day it almost seemed to me that my fear had been unreasonable. I stood up and found my foot with the loose heel swollen at the ankle and painful under the heel; so I sat down again, took off my shoes, and flung them away.
I awakened Weena, and we went down into the wood, now green and pleasant instead of black and forbidding. We found some fruit wherewith to break our fast. We soon met others of the dainty ones, laughing and dancing in the sunlight as though there was no such thing in nature as the night. And then I thought once more of the meat that I had seen. I felt assured now of what it was, and from the bottom of my heart I pitied this last feeble rill from the great flood of humanity. Clearly, at some time in the Long-Ago of human decay the Morlocks' food had run short. Possibly they had lived on rats and such-like vermin. Even now man is far less discriminating and exclusive in his food than he was - far less than any monkey. His prejudice against human flesh is no deep-seated instinct. And so these inhuman sons of men - - ! I tried to look at the thing in a scientific spirit. After all, they were less human and more remote than our cannibal ancestors of three or four thousand years ago. And the intelligence that would have made this state of things a torment had gone. Why should I trouble myself? These Eloi were mere fatted cattle, which the ant-like Morlocks preserved and preyed upon - probably saw to the breeding of. And there was Weena dancing at my side!
Then I tried to preserve myself from the horror that was coming upon me, by regarding it as a rigorous punishment of human selfishness. Man had been content to live in ease and delight upon the labours of his fellow-man, had taken Necessity as his watchword and excuse, and in the fullness of time Necessity had come home to him. I even tried a Carlyle-like scorn of this wretched aristocracy in decay. But this attitude of mind was impossible. However great their intellectual degradation, the Eloi had kept too much of the human form not to claim my sympathy, and to make me perforce a sharer in their degradation and their Fear.
I had at that time very vague ideas as to the course I should pursue. My first was to secure some safe place of refuge, and to make myself such arms of metal or stone as I could contrive. That necessity was immediate. In the next place, I hoped to procure some means of fire, so that I should have the weapon of a torch at hand, for nothing, I knew, would be more efficient against these Morlocks. Then I wanted to arrange some contrivance to break open the doors of bronze under the White Sphinx. I had in mind a battering ram. I had a persuasion that if I could enter those doors and carry a blaze of light before me I should discover the Time Machine and escape. I could not imagine the Morlocks were strong enough to move it far away. Weena I had resolved to bring with me to our own time. And turning such schemes over in my mind I pursued our way towards the building which my fancy had chosen as our dwelling.
Chapter 8
Chapter VIII
I found the Palace of Green Porcelain, when we approached it about noon, deserted and falling into ruin. Only ragged vestiges of glass remained in its windows, and great sheets of the green facing had fallen away from the corroded metallic framework. It lay very high upon a turfy down, and looking north-eastward before I entered it, I was surprised to see a large estuary, or even creek, where I judged Wandsworth and Battersea must once have been. I thought then - though I never followed up the thought - of what might have happened, or might be happening, to the living things in the sea.
The material of the Palace proved on examination to be indeed porcelain, and along the face of it I saw an inscription in some unknown character. I thought, rather foolishly, that Weena might help me to interpret this, but I only learned that the bare idea of writing had never entered her head. She always seemed to me, I fancy, more human than she was, perhaps because her affection was so human.
Within the big valves of the door - which were open and broken - we found, instead of the customary hall, a long gallery lit by many side windows. At the first glance I was reminded of a museum. The tiled floor was thick with dust, and a remarkable array of miscellaneous objects was shrouded in the same grey covering. Then I perceived, standing strange and gaunt in the centre of the hall, what was clearly the lower part of a huge skeleton. I recognized by the oblique feet that it was some extinct creature after the fashion of the Megatherium. The skull and the upper bones lay beside it in the thick dust, and in one place, where rain-water had dropped through a leak in the roof, the thing itself had been worn away. Further in the gallery was the huge skeleton barrel of a Brontosaurus. My museum hypothesis was confirmed. Going towards the side I found what appeared to be sloping shelves, and clearing away the thick dust, I found the old familiar glass cases of our own time. But they must have been air-tight to judge from the fair preservation of some of their contents.
Clearly we stood among the ruins of some latter-day South Kensington! Here, apparently, was the Palaeontological Section, and a very splendid array of fossils it must have been, though the inevitable process of decay that had been staved off for a time, and had, through the extinction of bacteria and fungi, lost ninety-nine hundredths of its force, was nevertheless, with extreme sureness if with extreme slowness at work again upon all its treasures. Here and there I found traces of the little people in the shape of rare fossils broken to pieces or threaded in strings upon reeds. And the cases had in some instances been bodily removed - by the Morlocks as I judged. The place was very silent. The thick dust deadened our footsteps. Weena, who had been rolling a sea urchin down the sloping glass of a case, presently came, as I stared about me, and very quietly took my hand and stood beside me.
And at first I was so much surprised by this ancient monument of an intellectual age, that I gave no thought to the possibilities it presented. Even my preoccupation about the Time Machine receded a little from my mind.
To judge from the size of the place, this Palace of Green Porcelain had a great deal more in it than a Gallery of Palaeontology; possibly historical galleries
-
-
04-11-2004, 10:28 PM
Lounge -
#30
Poster
Screw this, just buy the damn book.
-
Posting Permissions
- You may not post new threads
- You may not post replies
- You may not post attachments
- You may not edit your posts
-
Forum Rules
Reply With Quote
. 1633. [Tup 151]
and his fecundity.
Bookmarks