The Island of Doctor Moreau - H. G. Wells (little readers txt) 📗

with it.

It remembered me, and was terrified beyond imagination; and it had no

more than the wits of a sheep. The more I looked at it the clumsier

it seemed, until at last I put the monster out of its misery.

These animals without courage, these fear-haunted, pain-driven things,

without a spark of pugnacious energy to face torment,—they are no good for

man-making.

 

“Then I took a gorilla I had; and upon that, working with infinite

care and mastering difficulty after difficulty, I made my first man.

All the week, night and day, I moulded him. With him it was chiefly

the brain that needed moulding; much had to be added, much changed.

I thought him a fair specimen of the negroid type when I had

finished him, and he lay bandaged, bound, and motionless before me.

It was only when his life was assured that I left him and came

into this room again, and found Montgomery much as you are.

He had heard some of the cries as the thing grew human,—

cries like those that disturbed you so. I didn’t take him

completely into my confidence at first. And the Kanakas too,

had realised something of it. They were scared out of their wits

by the sight of me. I got Montgomery over to me—in a way;

but I and he had the hardest job to prevent the Kanakas deserting.

Finally they did; and so we lost the yacht. I spent many days

educating the brute,—altogether I had him for three or four months.

I taught him the rudiments of English; gave him ideas of counting;

even made the thing read the alphabet. But at that he was slow,

though I’ve met with idiots slower. He began with a clean sheet,

mentally; had no memories left in his mind of what he had been.

When his scars were quite healed, and he was no longer anything

but painful and stiff, and able to converse a little, I took

him yonder and introduced him to the Kanakas as an interesting

stowaway.

 

“They were horribly afraid of him at first, somehow,—which offended

me rather, for I was conceited about him; but his ways seemed so mild,

and he was so abject, that after a time they received him and took his

education in hand. He was quick to learn, very imitative and adaptive,

and built himself a hovel rather better, it seemed to me, than their

own shanties. There was one among the boys a bit of a missionary,

and he taught the thing to read, or at least to pick out letters,

and gave him some rudimentary ideas of morality; but it seems

the beast’s habits were not all that is desirable.

 

“I rested from work for some days after this, and was in a mind to

write an account of the whole affair to wake up English physiology.

Then I came upon the creature squatting up in a tree and gibbering

at two of the Kanakas who had been teasing him. I threatened him,

told him the inhumanity of such a proceeding, aroused his sense of shame,

and came home resolved to do better before I took my work back to England.

I have been doing better. But somehow the things drift back again:

the stubborn beast-flesh grows day by day back again.

But I mean to do better things still. I mean to conquer that.

This puma—

 

“But that’s the story. All the Kanaka boys are dead now;

one fell overboard of the launch, and one died of a wounded

heel that he poisoned in some way with plant-juice. Three

went away in the yacht, and I suppose and hope were drowned.

The other one—was killed. Well, I have replaced them.

Montgomery went on much as you are disposed to do at first,

and then—

 

“What became of the other one?” said I, sharply,—“the other Kanaka

who was killed?”

 

“The fact is, after I had made a number of human creatures I made

a Thing.” He hesitated.

 

“Yes,” said I.

 

“It was killed.” “I don’t understand,” said I; “do you mean to say—”

 

“It killed the Kanakas—yes. It killed several other things that

it caught. We chased it for a couple of days. It only got loose

by accident—I never meant it to get away. It wasn’t finished.

It was purely an experiment. It was a limbless thing, with a

horrible face, that writhed along the ground in a serpentine fashion.

It was immensely strong, and in infuriating pain. It lurked in

the woods for some days, until we hunted it; and then it wriggled

into the northern part of the island, and we divided the party

to close in upon it. Montgomery insisted upon coming with me.

The man had a rifle; and when his body was found, one of the barrels

was curved into the shape of an S and very nearly bitten through.

Montgomery shot the thing. After that I stuck to the ideal of humanity—

except for little things.”

 

He became silent. I sat in silence watching his face.

 

“So for twenty years altogether—counting nine years in England—

I have been going on; and there is still something in everything I do

that defeats me, makes me dissatisfied, challenges me to further effort.

Sometimes I rise above my level, sometimes I fall below it; but always

I fall short of the things I dream. The human shape I can get now,

almost with ease, so that it is lithe and graceful, or thick and strong;

but often there is trouble with the hands and the claws,—painful things,

that I dare not shape too freely. But it is in the subtle grafting

and reshaping one must needs do to the brain that my trouble lies.

The intelligence is often oddly low, with unaccountable blank ends,

unexpected gaps. And least satisfactory of all is something that I

cannot touch, somewhere—I cannot determine where—in the seat

of the emotions. Cravings, instincts, desires that harm humanity,

a strange hidden reservoir to burst forth suddenly and inundate

the whole being of the creature with anger, hate, or fear.

These creatures of mine seemed strange and uncanny to you so soon

as you began to observe them; but to me, just after I make them,

they seem to be indisputably human beings. It’s afterwards, as I

observe them, that the persuasion fades. First one animal trait,

then another, creeps to the surface and stares out at me.

But I will conquer yet! Each time I dip a living creature into the bath

of burning pain, I say, `This time I will burn out all the animal;

this time I will make a rational creature of my own!’ After all,

what is ten years? Men have been a hundred thousand in the making.”

He thought darkly. “But I am drawing near the fastness.

This puma of mine—” After a silence, “And they revert.

As soon as my hand is taken from them the beast begins

to creep back, begins to assert itself again.” Another long

silence.

 

“Then you take the things you make into those dens?” said I.

 

“They go. I turn them out when I begin to feel the beast in them,

and presently they wander there. They all dread this house and me.

There is a kind of travesty of humanity over there. Montgomery knows

about it, for he interferes in their affairs. He has trained one

or two of them to our service. He’s ashamed of it, but I believe

he half likes some of those beasts. It’s his business, not mine.

They only sicken me with a sense of failure. I take no interest in them.

I fancy they follow in the lines the Kanaka missionary marked out,

and have a kind of mockery of a rational life, poor beasts!

There’s something they call the Law. Sing hymns about `all thine.’

They build themselves their dens, gather fruit, and pull herbs—

marry even. But I can see through it all, see into their very souls,

and see there nothing but the souls of beasts, beasts that perish,

anger and the lusts to live and gratify themselves.—Yet they’re odd;

complex, like everything else alive. There is a kind of upward

striving in them, part vanity, part waste sexual emotion,

part waste curiosity. It only mocks me. I have some hope of this puma.

I have worked hard at her head and brain—“And now,” said he,

standing up after a long gap of silence, during which we had each

pursued our own thoughts, “what do you think? Are you in fear of me

still?”

 

I looked at him, and saw but a white-faced, white-haired man,

with calm eyes. Save for his serenity, the touch almost of beauty that

resulted from his set tranquillity and his magnificent build, he might

have passed muster among a hundred other comfortable old gentlemen.

Then I shivered. By way of answer to his second question, I handed

him a revolver with either hand.

 

“Keep them,” he said, and snatched at a yawn. He stood up, stared at

me for a moment, and smiled. “You have had two eventful days,”

said he. “I should advise some sleep. I’m glad it’s all clear.

Good-night.” He thought me over for a moment, then went out by

the inner door.

 

I immediately turned the key in the outer one. I sat down again;

sat for a time in a kind of stagnant mood, so weary, emotionally,

mentally, and physically, that I could not think beyond the point

at which he had left me. The black window stared at me like an eye.

At last with an effort I put out the light and got into the hammock.

Very soon I was asleep.

 

XV. CONCERNING THE BEAST FOLK.

 

I WOKE early. Moreau’s explanation stood before my mind,

clear and definite, from the moment of my awakening. I got out

of the hammock and went to the door to assure myself that the key

was turned. Then I tried the window-bar, and found it firmly fixed.

That these man-like creatures were in truth only bestial monsters,

mere grotesque travesties of men, filled me with a vague uncertainty

of their possibilities which was far worse than any definite fear.

 

A tapping came at the door, and I heard the glutinous accents

of M’ling speaking. I pocketed one of the revolvers (keeping one

hand upon it), and opened to him.

 

“Good-morning, sair,” he said, bringing in, in addition to the customary

herb-breakfast, an ill-cooked rabbit. Montgomery followed him.

His roving eye caught the position of my arm and he smiled askew.

 

The puma was resting to heal that day; but Moreau, who was singularly

solitary in his habits, did not join us. I talked with Montgomery

to clear my ideas of the way in which the Beast Folk lived.

In particular, I was urgent to know how these inhuman monsters were kept

from falling upon Moreau and Montgomery and from rending one another.

He explained to me that the comparative safety of Moreau and

himself was due to the limited mental scope of these monsters.

In spite of their increased intelligence and the tendency of their

animal instincts to reawaken, they had certain fixed ideas implanted

by Moreau in their minds, which absolutely bounded their imaginations.

They were really hypnotised; had been told that certain things

were impossible, and that certain things were not to be done,

and these prohibitions were woven into the texture of their minds beyond

any possibility of disobedience or dispute.

 

Certain matters, however, in which old instinct was at war

with Moreau’s convenience, were in a less stable condition.

A series of propositions called the Law (I bad already heard them recited)

battled in their minds with the deep-seated, ever-rebellious cravings

of their animal natures. This Law they were ever repeating,

I