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- Герберт Уеллс
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- Война миров
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- Стр. 81/99
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For
some
time
I
stood
tottering
on
the
mound
regardless
of
my
safety
.
Within
that
noisome
den
from
which
I
had
emerged
I
had
thought
with
a
narrow
intensity
only
of
our
immediate
security
.
I
had
not
realised
what
had
been
happening
to
the
world
,
had
not
anticipated
this
startling
vision
of
unfamiliar
things
.
I
had
expected
to
see
Sheen
in
ruins
--
I
found
about
me
the
landscape
,
weird
and
lurid
,
of
another
planet
.
For
that
moment
I
touched
an
emotion
beyond
the
common
range
of
men
,
yet
one
that
the
poor
brutes
we
dominate
know
only
too
well
.
I
felt
as
a
rabbit
might
feel
returning
to
his
burrow
and
suddenly
confronted
by
the
work
of
a
dozen
busy
navvies
digging
the
foundations
of
a
house
.
I
felt
the
first
inkling
of
a
thing
that
presently
grew
quite
clear
in
my
mind
,
that
oppressed
me
for
many
days
,
a
sense
of
dethronement
,
a
persuasion
that
I
was
no
longer
a
master
,
but
an
animal
among
the
animals
,
under
the
Martian
heel
.
With
us
it
would
be
as
with
them
,
to
lurk
and
watch
,
to
run
and
hide
;
the
fear
and
empire
of
man
had
passed
away
.
But
so
soon
as
this
strangeness
had
been
realised
it
passed
,
and
my
dominant
motive
became
the
hunger
of
my
long
and
dismal
fast
.
In
the
direction
away
from
the
pit
I
saw
,
beyond
a
red-covered
wall
,
a
patch
of
garden
ground
unburied
.
This
gave
me
a
hint
,
and
I
went
knee-deep
,
and
sometimes
neck-deep
,
in
the
red
weed
.
The
density
of
the
weed
gave
me
a
reassuring
sense
of
hiding
.
The
wall
was
some
six
feet
high
,
and
when
I
attempted
to
clamber
it
I
found
I
could
not
lift
my
feet
to
the
crest
.
So
I
went
along
by
the
side
of
it
,
and
came
to
a
corner
and
a
rockwork
that
enabled
me
to
get
to
the
top
,
and
tumble
into
the
garden
I
coveted
.
Here
I
found
some
young
onions
,
a
couple
of
gladiolus
bulbs
,
and
a
quantity
of
immature
carrots
,
all
of
which
I
secured
,
and
,
scrambling
over
a
ruined
wall
,
went
on
my
way
through
scarlet
and
crimson
trees
towards
Kew
--
it
was
like
walking
through
an
avenue
of
gigantic
blood
drops
--
possessed
with
two
ideas
:
to
get
more
food
,
and
to
limp
,
as
soon
and
as
far
as
my
strength
permitted
,
out
of
this
accursed
unearthly
region
of
the
pit
.
Some
way
farther
,
in
a
grassy
place
,
was
a
group
of
mushrooms
which
also
I
devoured
,
and
then
I
came
upon
a
brown
sheet
of
flowing
shallow
water
,
where
meadows
used
to
be
.
These
fragments
of
nourishment
served
only
to
whet
my
hunger
.
At
first
I
was
surprised
at
this
flood
in
a
hot
,
dry
summer
,
but
afterwards
I
discovered
that
it
was
caused
by
the
tropical
exuberance
of
the
red
weed
.
Directly
this
extraordinary
growth
encountered
water
it
straightway
became
gigantic
and
of
unparalleled
fecundity
.
Its
seeds
were
simply
poured
down
into
the
water
of
the
Wey
and
Thames
,
and
its
swiftly
growing
and
Titanic
water
fronds
speedily
choked
both
those
rivers
.
At
Putney
,
as
I
afterwards
saw
,
the
bridge
was
almost
lost
in
a
tangle
of
this
weed
,
and
at
Richmond
,
too
,
the
Thames
water
poured
in
a
broad
and
shallow
stream
across
the
meadows
of
Hampton
and
Twickenham
.
As
the
water
spread
the
weed
followed
them
,
until
the
ruined
villas
of
the
Thames
valley
were
for
a
time
lost
in
this
red
swamp
,
whose
margin
I
explored
,
and
much
of
the
desolation
the
Martians
had
caused
was
concealed
.
In
the
end
the
red
weed
succumbed
almost
as
quickly
as
it
had
spread
.
A
cankering
disease
,
due
,
it
is
believed
,
to
the
action
of
certain
bacteria
,
presently
seized
upon
it
.
Now
by
the
action
of
natural
selection
,
all
terrestrial
plants
have
acquired
a
resisting
power
against
bacterial
diseases
--
they
never
succumb
without
a
severe
struggle
,
but
the
red
weed
rotted
like
a
thing
already
dead
.
The
fronds
became
bleached
,
and
then
shrivelled
and
brittle
.
They
broke
off
at
the
least
touch
,
and
the
waters
that
had
stimulated
their
early
growth
carried
their
last
vestiges
out
to
sea
.
My
first
act
on
coming
to
this
water
was
,
of
course
,
to
slake
my
thirst
.
I
drank
a
great
deal
of
it
and
,
moved
by
an
impulse
,
gnawed
some
fronds
of
red
weed
;
but
they
were
watery
,
and
had
a
sickly
,
metallic
taste
.
I
found
the
water
was
sufficiently
shallow
for
me
to
wade
securely
,
although
the
red
weed
impeded
my
feet
a
little
;
but
the
flood
evidently
got
deeper
towards
the
river
,
and
I
turned
back
to
Mortlake
.
I
managed
to
make
out
the
road
by
means
of
occasional
ruins
of
its
villas
and
fences
and
lamps
,
and
so
presently
I
got
out
of
this
spate
and
made
my
way
to
the
hill
going
up
towards
Roehampton
and
came
out
on
Putney
Common
.
Here
the
scenery
changed
from
the
strange
and
unfamiliar
to
the
wreckage
of
the
familiar
:
patches
of
ground
exhibited
the
devastation
of
a
cyclone
,
and
in
a
few
score
yards
I
would
come
upon
perfectly
undisturbed
spaces
,
houses
with
their
blinds
trimly
drawn
and
doors
closed
,
as
if
they
had
been
left
for
a
day
by
the
owners
,
or
as
if
their
inhabitants
slept
within
.
The
red
weed
was
less
abundant
;
the
tall
trees
along
the
lane
were
free
from
the
red
creeper
.
I
hunted
for
food
among
the
trees
,
finding
nothing
,
and
I
also
raided
a
couple
of
silent
houses
,
but
they
had
already
been
broken
into
and
ransacked
.
I
rested
for
the
remainder
of
the
daylight
in
a
shrubbery
,
being
,
in
my
enfeebled
condition
,
too
fatigued
to
push
on
.
