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He fell silent. I sat meditating his words. For a time his wild hope of
communication, of interpretation, with these weird beings held me. Then
that angry despair that was a part of my exhaustion and physical misery
resumed its sway. I perceived with a sudden novel vividness the
extraordinary folly of everything I had ever done. "Ass!" I said; "oh,
ass, unutterable ass. ... I seem to exist only to go about doing
preposterous things. Why did we ever leave the thing? ... Hopping about
looking for patents and concessions in the craters of the moon!... If only
we had had the sense to fasten a handkerchief to a stick to show where we
had left the sphere!
I subsided, fuming.
"It is clear," meditated Cavor, "they are intelligent. One can
hypotheticate certain things. As they have not killed us at once, they
must have ideas of mercy. Mercy! at any rate of restraint. Possibly of
intercourse. They may meet us. And this apartment and the glimpses we had
of its guardian. These fetters! A high degree of intelligence..."
"I wish to heaven," cried I, "I'd thought even twice! Plunge after plunge.
First one fluky start and then another. It was my confidence in you! Why
didn't I stick to my play? That was what I was equal to. That was my world
and the life I was made for. I could have finished that play. I'm certain
... it was a good play. I had the scenario as good as done. Then. ...
Conceive it! leaping to the moon! Practically I've thrown my life away!
That old woman in the inn near Canterbury had better sense."
I looked up, and stopped in mid-sentence. The darkness had given place to
that bluish light again. The door was opening, and several noiseless
Selenites were coming into the chamber. I became quite still, staring at
their grotesque faces.
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