r, which has left permanent scars upon my mind.
I must confess that I lost faith in the sanity of the world
when I saw it suffering the painful disorder of this island.
A blind Fate, a vast pitiless Mechanism, seemed to cut and
shape the fabric of existence and I, Moreau (by his passion
for research), Montgomery (by his passion for drink), the Beast
People with their instincts and mental restrictions, were torn
and crushed, ruthlessly, inevitably, amid the infinite complexity
of its incessant wheels. But this condition did not come all at once:
I think indeed that I anticipate a little in speaking of
it now.

XVII. A CATASTROPHE.

SCARCELY six weeks passed before I had lost every feeling but
dislike and abhorrence for this infamous experiment of Moreau's.
My one idea was to get away from these horrible caricatures of my
Maker's image, back to the sweet and wholesome intercourse of men.
My fellow-creatures, from whom I was thus separated, began to assume
idyllic virtue and beauty in my memory. My first friendship with
Montgomery did not increase. His long separation from humanity,
his secret vice of drunkenness, his evident sympathy with the Beast People,
tainted him to me. Several times I let him go alone among them.
I avoided intercourse with them in every possible way.
I spent an increasing proportion of my time upon the beach,
looking for some liberating sail that never appeared,--until one day
there fell upon us an appalling disaster, which put an altogether
different aspect upon my strange surroundings.

It was about seven or eight weeks after my landing,--rather more,
I think, though I had not troubled to keep account of the time,--when
this catastrophe occurred. It happened in the early morning--I
should think about six. I had risen and breakfasted early, having
been aroused by the noise of three Beast Men carrying wood into the
enclosure.

After breakfast I went to the open gateway of the enclosure,
and stood there smoking a cigarette and enjoying the freshness
of the early morning. Moreau presently came round the corner
of the enclosure and greeted me. He passed by me, and I heard him
behind me unlock and enter his laboratory. So indurated was I
at that time to the abomination of the place, that I heard without
a touch of emotion the puma victim begin another day of torture.
It met its persecutor with a shriek, almost exactly like that of an
angry virago.

Then suddenly something happ