The two earlier messages of Mr. Cavor may very well be reserved for that larger volume. They simply tell, with greater brevity and with a difference in several details that is interesting, but not of any vital importance, the bare facts of the making of the sphere and our departure from the world. Throughout, Cavor speaks of me as a man who is dead, but with a curious change of temper as he approaches our landing on the moon. "Poor Bedford," he says of me, and "this poor young man," and he blames himself for inducing a young man, "by no means well equipped for such adventures," to leave a planet "on which he was indisputably fitted to succeed" on so precarious1 a mission. I think he underrates the part my energy and practical capacity played in bringing about the realisation of his theoretical sphere. "We arrived," he says, with no more account of our passage through space than if we had made a journey of common occurrence in a railway train.
And then he becomes increasingly unfair to me. Unfair, indeed, to an extent I should not have expected in a man trained in the search for truth. Looking back over my previously2 written account of these things, I must insist that I have been altogether juster to Cavor than he has been to me. I have extenuated3 little and suppressed nothing. But his account is:--
"It speedily became apparent that the entire strangeness of our circumstances and surroundings--great loss of weight, attenuated4 but highly oxygenated air, consequent exaggeration of the results of muscular effort, rapid development of weird5 plants from obscure spores6, lurid7 sky--was exciting my companion unduly8. On the moon his character seemed to deteriorate9. He became impulsive10, rash, and quarrelsome. In a little while his folly11 in devouring12 some gigantic vesicles and his consequent intoxication13 led to our capture by the Selenites--before we had had the slightest opportunity of properly observing their ways...."
(He says, you observe, nothing of his own concession14 to these same "vesicles.")
And he goes on from that point to say that "We came to a difficult passage with them, and Bedford mistaking certain gestures of theirs"--pretty gestures they were!--"gave way to a panic violence. He ran amuck15, killed three, and perforce I had to flee with him after the outrage16. Subsequently we fought with a number who endeavoured to bar our way, and slew17 seven or eight more. It says much for the tolerance18 of these beings that on my recapture I was not instantly slain19. We made our way to the exterior20 and separated in the crater21 of our arrival, to increase our chances of recovering our sphere. But presently I came upon a body of Selenites, led by two who were curiously22 different, even in form, from any of these we had seen hitherto, with larger heads and smaller bodies, and much more elaborately wrapped about. And after evading23 them for some time I fell into a crevasse24, cut my head rather badly, and displaced my patella, and, finding crawling very painful, decided25 to surrender--if they would still permit me to do so. This they did, and, perceiving my helpless condition, carried me with them again into the moon. And of Bedford I have heard or seen nothing more, nor, so far as I can gather, any Selenite. Either the night overtook him in the crater, or else, which is more probable, he found the sphere, and, desiring to steal a march upon me, made off with it--only, I fear, to find it uncontrollable, and to meet a more lingering fate in outer space."
And with that Cavor dismisses me and goes on to more interesting topics. I dislike the idea of seeming to use my position as his editor to deflect26 his story in my own interest, but I am obliged to protest here against the turn he gives these occurrences. He said nothing about that gasping27 message on the blood-stained paper in which he told, or attempted to tell, a very different story. The dignified28 self-surrender is an altogether new view of the affair that has come to him, I must insist, since he began to feel secure among the lunar people; and as for the "stealing a march" conception, I am quite willing to let the reader decide between us on what he has before him. I know I am not a model man--I have made no pretence29 to be. But am I that?
However, that is the sum of my wrongs. From this point I can edit Cavor with an untroubled mind, for he mentions me no more.
It would seem the Selenites who had come upon him carried him to some point in the interior down "a great shaft30" by means of what he describes as "a sort of balloon." We gather from the rather confused passage in which he describes this, and from a number of chance allusions32 and hints in other and subsequent messages, that this "great shaft" is one of an enormous system of artificial shafts33 that run, each from what is called a lunar "crater," downwards34 for very nearly a hundred miles towards the central portion of our satellite. These shafts communicate by transverse tunnels, they throw out abysmal35 caverns36 and expand into great globular places; the whole of the moon's substance for a hundred miles inward, indeed, is a mere37 sponge of rock. "Partly," says Cavor, "this sponginess is natural, but very largely it is due to the enormous industry of the Selenites in the past. The enormous circular mounds38 of the excavated39 rock and earth it is that form these great circles about the tunnels known to earthly astronomers40 (misled by a false analogy) as volcanoes."
It was down this shaft they took him, in this "sort of balloon" he speaks of, at first into an inky blackness and then into a region of continually increasing phosphorescence. Cavor's despatches show him to be curiously regardless of detail for a scientific man, but we gather that this light was due to the streams and cascades41 of water--"no doubt containing some phosphorescent organism"--that flowed ever more abundantly downward towards the Central Sea. And as he descended42, he says, "The Selenites also became luminous43." And at last far below him he saw, as it were, a lake of heatless fire, the waters of the Central Sea, glowing and eddying44 in strange perturbation, "like luminous blue milk that is just on the boil."
"This Lunar Sea," says Cavor, in a later passage "is not a stagnant45 ocean; a solar tide sends it in a perpetual flow around the lunar axis46, and strange storms and boilings and rushings of its waters occur, and at times cold winds and thunderings that ascend47 out of it into the busy ways of the great ant-hill above. It is only when the water is in motion that it gives out light; in its rare seasons of calm it is black. Commonly, when one sees it, its waters rise and fall in an oily swell48, and flakes49 and big rafts of shining, bubbly foam50 drift with the sluggish51, faintly glowing current. The Selenites navigate52 its cavernous straits and lagoons53 in little shallow boats of a canoe-like shape; and even before my journey to the galleries about the Grand Lunar, who is Master of the Moon, I was permitted to make a brief excursion on its waters.
"The caverns and passages are naturally very tortuous54. A large proportion of these ways are known only to expert pilots among the fishermen, and not infrequently Selenites are lost for ever in their labyrinths55. In their remoter recesses56, I am told, strange creatures lurk57, some of them terrible and dangerous creatures that all the science of the moon has been unable to exterminate58. There is particularly the Rapha, an inextricable mass of clutching tentacles59 that one hacks60 to pieces only to multiply; and the Tzee, a darting61 creature that is never seen, so subtly and suddenly does it slay62..."
He gives us a gleam of description.
"I was reminded on this excursion of what I have read of the Mammoth63 Caves; if only I had had a yellow flambeau instead of the pervading64 blue light, and a solid-looking boatman with an oar65 instead of a scuttle-faced Selenite working an engine at the back of the canoe, I could have imagined I had suddenly got back to earth. The rocks about us were very various, sometimes black, sometimes pale blue and veined, and once they flashed and glittered as though we had come into a mine of sapphires67. And below one saw the ghostly phosphorescent fishes flash and vanish in the hardly less phosphorescent deep. Then, presently, a long ultra-marine vista68 down the turgid stream of one of the channels of traffic, and a landing stage, and then, perhaps, a glimpse up the enormous crowded shaft of one of the vertical69 ways.
"In one great place heavy with glistening70 stalactites a number of boats were fishing. We went alongside one of these and watched the long-armed Selenites winding71 in a net. They were little, hunchbacked insects, with very strong arms, short, bandy legs, and crinkled face-masks. As they pulled at it that net seemed the heaviest thing I had come upon in the moon; it was loaded with weights--no doubt of gold--and it took a long time to draw, for in those waters the larger and more edible72 fish lurk deep. The fish in the net came up like a blue moonrise--a blaze of darting, tossing blue.
"Among their catch was a many-tentaculate, evil-eyed black thing, ferociously73 active, whose appearance they greeted with shrieks74 and twitters, and which with quick, nervous movements they hacked75 to pieces by means of little hatchets76. All its dissevered limbs continued to lash66 and writhe77 in a vicious manner. Afterwards, when fever had hold of me, I dreamt again and again of that bitter, furious creature rising so vigorous and active out of the unknown sea. It was the most active and malignant78 thing of all the living creatures I have yet seen in this world inside the moon....
"The surface of this sea must be very nearly two hundred miles (if not more) below the level of the moon's exterior; all the cities of the moon lie, I learnt, immediately above this Central Sea, in such cavernous spaces and artificial galleries as I have described, and they communicate with the exterior by enormous vertical shafts which open invariably in what are called by earthly astronomers the 'craters79' of the moon. The lid covering one such aperture80 I had already seen during the wanderings that had preceded my capture.
"Upon the condition of the less central portion of the moon I have not yet arrived at very precise knowledge. There is an enormous system of caverns in which the mooncalves shelter during the night; and there are abattoirs81 and the like--in one of these it was that I and Bedford fought with the Selenite butchers--and I have since seen balloons laden82 with meat descending83 out of the upper dark. I have as yet scarcely learnt as much of these things as a Zulu in London would learn about the British corn supplies in the same time. It is clear, however, that these vertical shafts and the vegetation of the surface must play an essential role in ventilating and keeping fresh the atmosphere of the moon. At one time, and particularly on my first emergence84 from my prison, there was certainly a cold wind blowing _down_ the shaft, and later there was a kind of sirocco upward that corresponded with my fever. For at the end of about three weeks I fell ill of an indefinable sort of fever, and in spite of sleep and the quinine tabloids85 that very fortunately I had brought in my pocket, I remained ill and fretting86 miserably87, almost to the time when I was taken into the presence of the Grand Lunar, who is Master of the Moon.
"I will not dilate88 on the wretchedness of my condition," he remarks, "during those days of ill-health." And he goes on with great amplitude89 with details I omit here. "My temperature," he concludes, "kept abnormally high for a long time, and I lost all desire for food. I had stagnant waking intervals90, and sleep tormented91 by dreams, and at one phase I was, I remember, so weak as to be earth-sick and almost hysterical92. I longed almost intolerably for colour to break the everlasting93 blue..."
He reverts94 again presently to the topic of this sponge-caught lunar atmosphere. I am told by astronomers and physicists95 that all he tells is in absolute accordance with what was already known of the moon's condition. Had earthly astronomers had the courage and imagination to push home a bold induction96, says Mr. Wendigee, they might have foretold97 almost everything that Cavor has to say of the general structure of the moon. They know now pretty certainly that moon and earth are not so much satellite and primary as smaller and greater sisters, made out of one mass, and consequently made of the same material. And since the density98 of the moon is only three-fifths that of the earth, there can be nothing for it but that she is hollowed out by a great system of caverns. There was no necessity, said Sir Jabez Flap, F.R.S., that most entertaining exponent99 of the facetious100 side of the stars, that we should ever have gone to the moon to find out such easy inferences, and points the pun with an allusion31 to Gruyere, but he certainly might have announced his knowledge of the hollowness of the moon before. And if the moon is hollow, then the apparent absence of air and water is, of course, quite easily explained. The sea lies within at the bottom of the caverns, and the air travels through the great sponge of galleries, in accordance with simple physical laws. The caverns of the moon, on the whole, are very windy places. As the sunlight comes round the moon the air in the outer galleries on that side is heated, its pressure increases, some flows out on the exterior and mingles101 with the evaporating air of the craters (where the plants remove its carbonic acid), while the greater portion flows round through the galleries to replace the shrinking air of the cooling side that the sunlight has left. There is, therefore, a constant eastward102 breeze in the air of the outer galleries, and an upflow during the lunar day up the shafts, complicated, of course, very greatly by the varying shape of the galleries, and the ingenious contrivances of the Selenite mind....
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1
precarious
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| adj.不安定的，靠不住的；根据不足的 | |
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previously
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| adv.以前，先前（地） | |
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extenuated
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| v.（用偏袒的辩解或借口）减轻( extenuate的过去式和过去分词 )；低估，藐视 | |
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attenuated
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| v.（使）变细( attenuate的过去式和过去分词 )；（使）变薄；（使）变小；减弱 | |
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weird
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| adj.古怪的，离奇的；怪诞的，神秘而可怕的 | |
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spores
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| n.（细菌、苔藓、蕨类植物）孢子( spore的名词复数 )v.（细菌、苔藓、蕨类植物）孢子( spore的第三人称单数 ) | |
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7
lurid
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| adj.可怕的；血红的；苍白的 | |
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unduly
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| adv.过度地，不适当地 | |
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9
deteriorate
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| v.变坏；恶化；退化 | |
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impulsive
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| adj.冲动的，刺激的；有推动力的 | |
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folly
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| n.愚笨，愚蠢，蠢事，蠢行，傻话 | |
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devouring
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| 吞没( devour的现在分词 )； 耗尽； 津津有味地看； 狼吞虎咽地吃光 | |
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intoxication
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| n.wild excitement;drunkenness；poisoning | |
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concession
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| n.让步，妥协；特许(权) | |
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amuck
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| ad.狂乱地 | |
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outrage
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| n.暴行，侮辱，愤怒；vt.凌辱，激怒 | |
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slew
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| v.（使）旋转；n.大量，许多 | |
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tolerance
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| n.宽容；容忍，忍受；耐药力；公差 | |
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slain
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| 杀死，宰杀，杀戮( slay的过去分词 )； (slay的过去分词) | |
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exterior
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| adj.外部的，外在的；表面的 | |
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crater
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| n.火山口，弹坑 | |
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curiously
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| adv.有求知欲地；好问地；奇特地 | |
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evading
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| 逃避( evade的现在分词 )； 避开； 回避； 想不出 | |
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crevasse
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| n. 裂缝，破口；v.使有裂缝 | |
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decided
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| adj.决定了的，坚决的；明显的，明确的 | |
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deflect
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| v.(使)偏斜，(使)偏离，(使)转向 | |
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gasping
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| adj. 气喘的, 痉挛的 动词gasp的现在分词 | |
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dignified
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| a.可敬的，高贵的 | |
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pretence
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| n.假装，作假；借口，口实；虚伪；虚饰 | |
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shaft
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| n.(工具的)柄，杆状物 | |
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allusion
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| n.暗示，间接提示 | |
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allusions
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| 暗指，间接提到( allusion的名词复数 ) | |
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shafts
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| n.轴( shaft的名词复数 )；（箭、高尔夫球棒等的）杆；通风井；一阵（疼痛、害怕等） | |
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downwards
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| adj./adv.向下的（地），下行的（地） | |
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abysmal
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| adj.无底的，深不可测的，极深的；糟透的，极坏的；完全的 | |
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caverns
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| 大山洞，大洞穴( cavern的名词复数 ) | |
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mere
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| adj.纯粹的；仅仅，只不过 | |
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mounds
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| 土堆，土丘( mound的名词复数 )； 一大堆 | |
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excavated
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| v.挖掘( excavate的过去式和过去分词 )；开凿；挖出；发掘 | |
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astronomers
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| n.天文学者，天文学家( astronomer的名词复数 ) | |
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cascades
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| 倾泻( cascade的名词复数 )； 小瀑布（尤指一连串瀑布中的一支）； 瀑布状物； 倾泻（或涌出）的东西 | |
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descended
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| a.为...后裔的，出身于...的 | |
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43
luminous
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| adj.发光的，发亮的；光明的；明白易懂的；有启发的 | |
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44
eddying
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| 涡流，涡流的形成 | |
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45
stagnant
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| adj.不流动的，停滞的，不景气的 | |
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46
axis
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| n.轴，轴线，中心线；坐标轴，基准线 | |
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47
ascend
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| vi.渐渐上升，升高；vt.攀登，登上 | |
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48
swell
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| vi.膨胀，肿胀；增长，增强 | |
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49
flakes
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| 小薄片( flake的名词复数 )； （尤指）碎片； 雪花； 古怪的人 | |
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50
foam
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| v./n.泡沫，起泡沫 | |
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51
sluggish
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| adj.懒惰的，迟钝的，无精打采的 | |
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52
navigate
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| v.航行，飞行；导航，领航 | |
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lagoons
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| n.污水池( lagoon的名词复数 )；潟湖；（大湖或江河附近的）小而浅的淡水湖；温泉形成的池塘 | |
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54
tortuous
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| adj.弯弯曲曲的，蜿蜒的 | |
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labyrinths
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| 迷宫( labyrinth的名词复数 )； （文字，建筑）错综复杂的 | |
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56
recesses
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| n.壁凹( recess的名词复数 )；（工作或业务活动的）中止或暂停期间；学校的课间休息；某物内部的凹形空间v.把某物放在墙壁的凹处( recess的第三人称单数 )；将（墙）做成凹形，在（墙）上做壁龛；休息，休会，休庭 | |
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57
lurk
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| n.潜伏，潜行；v.潜藏，潜伏，埋伏 | |
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58
exterminate
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| v.扑灭，消灭，根绝 | |
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tentacles
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| n.触手( tentacle的名词复数 )；触角；触须；触毛 | |
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hacks
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| 黑客 | |
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61
darting
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| v.投掷，投射( dart的现在分词 )；向前冲，飞奔 | |
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62
slay
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| v.杀死，宰杀，杀戮 | |
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mammoth
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| n.长毛象；adj.长毛象似的，巨大的 | |
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pervading
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| v.遍及，弥漫( pervade的现在分词 ) | |
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65
oar
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| n.桨，橹，划手；v.划行 | |
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66
lash
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| v.系牢；鞭打；猛烈抨击；n.鞭打；眼睫毛 | |
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67
sapphires
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| n.蓝宝石，钢玉宝石( sapphire的名词复数 )；蔚蓝色 | |
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vista
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| n.远景，深景，展望，回想 | |
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69
vertical
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| adj.垂直的，顶点的，纵向的；n.垂直物，垂直的位置 | |
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70
glistening
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| adj.闪耀的，反光的v.湿物闪耀，闪亮( glisten的现在分词 ) | |
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71
winding
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| n.绕，缠，绕组，线圈 | |
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72
edible
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| n.食品，食物；adj.可食用的 | |
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73
ferociously
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| 野蛮地，残忍地 | |
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74
shrieks
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| n.尖叫声( shriek的名词复数 )v.尖叫( shriek的第三人称单数 ) | |
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75
hacked
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| 生气 | |
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76
hatchets
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| n.短柄小斧( hatchet的名词复数 )；恶毒攻击；诽谤；休战 | |
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77
writhe
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| vt.挣扎，痛苦地扭曲；vi.扭曲，翻腾，受苦；n.翻腾，苦恼 | |
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malignant
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| adj.恶性的，致命的；恶意的，恶毒的 | |
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79
craters
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| n.火山口( crater的名词复数 )；弹坑等 | |
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80
aperture
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| n.孔，隙，窄的缺口 | |
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81
abattoirs
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| n.屠场( abattoir的名词复数 )；（拳击、摔跤、斗牛等的）角斗场 | |
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82
laden
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| adj.装满了的；充满了的；负了重担的；苦恼的 | |
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83
descending
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| n. 下行 adj. 下降的 | |
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84
emergence
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| n.浮现，显现，出现，（植物）突出体 | |
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85
tabloids
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| n.小报，通俗小报（版面通常比大报小一半，文章短，图片多，经常报道名人佚事）( tabloid的名词复数 )；药片 | |
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86
fretting
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| n. 微振磨损 adj. 烦躁的, 焦虑的 | |
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87
miserably
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| adv.痛苦地；悲惨地；糟糕地；极度地 | |
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dilate
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| vt.使膨胀，使扩大 | |
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amplitude
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| n.广大；充足；振幅 | |
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90
intervals
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| n.[军事]间隔( interval的名词复数 )；间隔时间；[数学]区间；（戏剧、电影或音乐会的）幕间休息 | |
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tormented
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| 饱受折磨的 | |
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92
hysterical
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| adj.情绪异常激动的，歇斯底里般的 | |
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everlasting
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| adj.永恒的，持久的，无止境的 | |
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reverts
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| 恢复( revert的第三人称单数 )； 重提； 回到…上； 归还 | |
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physicists
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| 物理学家( physicist的名词复数 ) | |
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induction
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| n.感应，感应现象 | |
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foretold
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| v.预言，预示( foretell的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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density
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| n.密集，密度，浓度 | |
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exponent
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| n.倡导者，拥护者；代表人物；指数，幂 | |
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facetious
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| adj.轻浮的，好开玩笑的 | |
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101
mingles
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| 混合，混入( mingle的第三人称单数 )； 混进，与…交往[联系] | |
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102
eastward
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| adv.向东；adj.向东的；n.东方，东部 | |
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