The War of the Worlds / Война миров

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Герберт Уэллс. The War of the Worlds / Война миров

Book One. The Coming of the Martians

Chapter One. The Eve of the War

Chapter Two. The Falling Star

Chapter Three. On Horsell Common

Chapter Four. The Cylinder Opens

Chapter Five. The Heat-Ray

Chapter Six. The Heat-Ray in the Chobham Road

Chapter Seven. How I Reached Home

Chapter Eight. Friday Night

Chapter Nine. The Fighting Begins

Chapter Ten. In the Storm

Chapter Eleven. At the Window

Chapter Twelve. What I Saw of the Destruction of Weybridge and Shepperton

Chapter Thirteen. How I Fell in with the Curate

Chapter Fourteen. In London

Chapter Fifteen. What Had Happened in Surrey

Chapter Sixteen. The Exodus from London

Chapter Seventeen. The “Thunder Child”

Book Two. The Earth under the Martians

Chapter One. Under Foot

Chapter Two. What We Saw from the Ruined House

Chapter Three. The Days of Imprisonment

Chapter Four. The Death of the Curate

Chapter Five. The Stillness

Chapter Six. The Work of Fifteen Days

Chapter Seven. The Man on Putney Hill

Chapter Eight. Dead London

Chapter Nine. Wreckage

Chapter Ten. The Epilogue

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No one would have believed in the last years of the nineteenth century that this world was being watched keenly and closely by intelligences greater than man’s and yet as mortal as his own; that as men busied themselves about their various concerns they were scrutinised and studied, perhaps almost as narrowly as a man with a microscope might scrutinise the transient creatures that swarm and multiply in a drop of water. With infinite complacency men went to and fro over this globe about their little affairs, serene in their assurance of their empire over matter. It is possible that the infusoria under the microscope do the same. No one gave a thought to the older worlds of space as sources of human danger, or thought of them only to dismiss the idea of life upon them as impossible or improbable. It is curious to recall some of the mental habits of those departed days. At most terrestrial men fancied there might be other men upon Mars, perhaps inferior to themselves and ready to welcome a missionary enterprise. Yet across the gulf of space, minds that are to our minds as ours are to those of the beasts that perish, intellects vast and cool and unsympathetic, regarded this Earth with envious eyes, and slowly and surely drew their plans against us. And early in the twentieth century came the great disillusionment.

The planet Mars, I scarcely need remind the reader, revolves about the Sun at a mean distance of 140,000,000 miles, and the light and heat it receives from the Sun is barely half of that received by this world. It must be, if the nebular hypothesis has any truth, older than our world; and long before this Earth ceased to be molten, life upon its surface must have begun its course. The fact that it is scarcely one seventh of the volume of the Earth must have accelerated its cooling to the temperature at which life could begin. It has air and water and all that is necessary for the support of animated existence.

.....

I sat up, strangely perplexed. For a moment, perhaps, I could not clearly understand how I came there. My terror had fallen from me like a garment. My hat had gone, and my collar had burst away from its fastener. A few minutes before, there had only been three real things before me – the immensity of the night and space and nature, my own feebleness and anguish, and the near approach of death. Now it was as if something turned over, and the point of view altered abruptly. There was no sensible transition from one state of mind to the other. I was immediately the self of every day again – a decent, ordinary citizen. The silent common, the impulse of my flight, the starting flames, were as if they had been in a dream. I asked myself had these latter things indeed happened? I could not credit it.

I rose and walked unsteadily up the steep incline of the bridge. My mind was blank wonder. My muscles and nerves seemed drained of their strength. I dare say I staggered drunkenly. A head rose over the arch, and the figure of a workman carrying a basket appeared. Beside him ran a little boy. He passed me, wishing me good night. I was minded to speak to him, but did not. I answered his greeting with a meaningless mumble and went on over the bridge.

.....