by H. G. Wells
XXII. THE MAN ALONE.
IN the evening I started, and drove out to sea before a gentle windfrom the southwest, slowly, steadily; and the island grew smallerand smaller, and the lank spire of smoke dwindled to a finer andfiner line against the hot sunset. The ocean rose up around me,hiding that low, dark patch from my eyes. The daylight, the trailingglory of the sun, went streaming out of the sky, was drawn asidelike some luminous curtain, and at last I looked into the bluegulf of immensity which the sunshine hides, and saw the floatinghosts of the stars. The sea was silent, the sky was silent.I was alone with the night and silence.
So I drifted for three days, eating and drinking sparingly, and meditatingupon all that had happened to me,--not desiring very greatly then to seemen again. One unclean rag was about me, my hair a black tangle:no doubt my discoverers thought me a madman.
It is strange, but I felt no desire to return to mankind.I was only glad to be quit of the foulness of the Beast People.And on the third day I was picked up by a brig from Apia to San Francisco.Neither the captain nor the mate would believe my story, judging thatsolitude and danger had made me mad; and fearing their opinion mightbe that of others, I refrained from telling my adventure further,and professed to recall nothing that had happened to me betweenthe loss of the "Lady Vain" and the time when I was picked up again,--thespace of a year.
I had to act with the utmost circumspection to save myself from thesuspicion of insanity. My memory of the Law, of the two dead sailors,of the ambuscades of the darkness, of the body in the canebrake,haunted me; and, unnatural as it seems, with my return to mankind came,instead of that confidence and sympathy I had expected, a strangeenhancement of the uncertainty and dread I had experiencedduring my stay upon the island. No one would believe me;I was almost as queer to men as I had been to the Beast People.I may have caught something of the natural wildness of my companions.They say that terror is a disease, and anyhow I can witness that forseveral years now a restless fear has dwelt in my mind,--such a restlessfear as a half-tamed lion cub may feel.
My trouble took the strangest form. I could not persuade myselfthat the men and women I met were not also another Beast People,animals half wrought into the outward image of human souls, and that theywould presently begin to revert,--to show first this bestial markand then that. But I have confided my case to a strangely ableman,--a man who had known Moreau, and seemed half to credit my story;a mental specialist,--and he has helped me mightily, though I do notexpect that the terror of that island will ever altogether leave me.At most times it lies far in the back of my mind, a mere distant cloud,a memory, and a faint distrust; but there are times when the littlecloud spreads until it obscures the whole sky. Then I look about meat my fellow-men; and I go in fear. I see faces, keen and bright;others dull or dangerous; others, unsteady, insincere,--none thathave the calm authority of a reasonable soul. I feel as thoughthe animal was surging up through them; that presently the degradationof the Islanders will be played over again on a larger scale.I know this is an illusion; that these seeming men and women aboutme are indeed men and women,--men and women for ever, perfectlyreasonable creatures, full of human desires and tender solicitude,emancipated from instinct and the slaves of no fantasticLaw,--beings altogether different from the Beast Folk. Yet I shrinkfrom them, from their curious glances, their inquiries and assistance,and long to be away from them and alone. For that reason I live nearthe broad free downland, and can escape thither when this shadowis over my soul; and very sweet is the empty downland then, under thewind-swept sky.
When I lived in London the horror was well-nigh insupportable.I could not get away from men: their voices came through windows;locked doors were flimsy safeguards. I would go out into the streetsto fight with my delusion, and prowling women would mew after me;furtive, craving men glance jealously at me; weary, pale workersgo coughing by me with tired eyes and eager paces, like woundeddeer dripping blood; old people, bent and dull, pass murmuringto themselves; and, all unheeding, a ragged tail of gibing children.Then I would turn aside into some chapel,--and even there,such was my disturbance, it seemed that the preacher gibbered"Big Thinks," even as the Ape-man had done; or into some library,and there the intent faces over the books seemed but patientcreatures waiting for prey. Particularly nauseous were the blank,expressionless faces of people in trains and omnibuses;they seemed no more my fellow-creatures than dead bodies would be,so that I did not dare to travel unless I was assured of being alone.And even it seemed that I too was not a reasonable creature,but only an animal tormented with some strange disorder in itsbrain which sent it to wander alone, like a sheep strickenwith gid.
This is a mood, however, that comes to me now, I thank God,more rarely. I have withdrawn myself from the confusion of citiesand multitudes, and spend my days surrounded by wise books,--brightwindows in this life of ours, lit by the shining souls of men.I see few strangers, and have but a small household.My days I devote to reading and to experiments in chemistry,and I spend many of the clear nights in the study of astronomy.There is--though I do not know how there is or why there is--a senseof infinite peace and protection in the glittering hosts of heaven.There it must be, I think, in the vast and eternal laws of matter,and not in the daily cares and sins and troubles of men, that whateveris more than animal within us must find its solace and its hope. I hope,or I could not live.
And so, in hope and solitude, my story ends.
EDWARD PRENDICK.
NOTE. The substance of the chapter entitled "Doctor Moreau explains,"which contains the essential idea of the story, appeared as a middlearticle in the "Saturday Review" in January, 1895. This isthe only portion of this story that has been previously published,and it has been entirely recast to adapt it to the narrative form.