Philip Van Doren Stern (ed) (40 page)

"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
recognised
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
airtight
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.