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When I returned to the common1 the sun was setting. Scattered groups were hurrying from the direction of Woking, and one or two persons were returning. The crowd about the pit had increased, and stood out black against the lemon yellow of the sky—a couple of hundred people, perhaps. There were raised voices, and some sort of struggle appeared to be going on about the pit. Strange imaginings passed through my mind. As I drew nearer I heard Stent’s voice:
“Keep back! Keep back!”
A boy came running towards me. “It’s a-movin’,” he said to me as he passed; “a-screwin’and a-screwin’ out. I don’t like it. I’m a-goin’ ‘ome, I am.”
The end of the cylinder was being screwed out from within. Nearly two feet of shining screw projected2. Somebody blundered against me, and I narrowly missed being pitched onto the top of the screw.3 I turned, and as I did so the screw must have come out, for the lid of the cylinder fell upon the gravel with a ringing concussion.4 I stuck my elbow into the person behind me, and turned my head towards the Thing again. For a moment that circular cavity seemed perfectly black. I had the sunset in my eyes.
I think everyone expected to see a man emerge—possibly something a little unlike us terrestrial men, but in all essentials a man. I know I did. But, looking, I presently saw something stirring within the shadow: grayish billowy movements, one above another, and then two luminous diskslike eyes.5 Then something resembling a little grey snake, about the thickness of a walking stick, coiled up out of the writhing middle, and wriggled in the air towards me—and then another.6
A sudden chill came over me. There was a loud shriek from a woman behind. I half turned, keeping my eyes fixed upon the cylinder still, from which other tentacles were now projecting, and began pushing my way back from the edge of the pit. I saw astonishment giving place to horror on the face of the people about me. I heard inarticulate exclamations on all sides.7 There was a general movement backwards. I saw the shopman struggling still on the edge of the pit. I found myself alone…I looked again at the cylinder, and ungovernable terror gripped me. I stood petrified8 and staring.
A big grayish rounded bulk, the size, perhaps, of a bear, was rising slowly and painfully out of the cylinder. As it bulged up and caught the light, it glistened like wet leather.9
Two large dark-coloured eyes were regarding me steadfastly. The mass that framed them, the head of the thing, was rounded, and had, one might say, a face. There was a mouth under the eye, the brim of which quivered and panted, and dropped saliva.10 The whole creature heaved and pulsated convulsively.11 A lank tentacular appendage gripped the edge of the cylinder, another swayed in the air.12
Those who have never seen a living Martian can scarcely imagine the strange horror of its appearance. The peculiar V-shaped mouth with its pointed upper lip, the absence of brow ridges, the absence of a chin beneath the wedgelike lower lip, the incessant quivering of this mouth, the Gorgon groups of tentacles, the tumultuous breathing of the lungs in a strange atmosphere, the evident heaviness and painfulness of movement due to the greater gravitational energy of the earth—above all, the extraordinary intensity of the immerse eyes—were at once vital, intense, inhuman, crippled and monstrous.13 There was something fungoid in the oily brown skin, something in the clumsy deliberation of the tedious movements unspeakably nasty.14 Even at this first encounter, this first glimpse, I was overcome with disgust and dread.
Suddenly the monster vanished. It had toppled over the brim of the cylinder and fallen into the pit, with a thud like the fall of a great mass of leather.15 I heard it give a peculiar thick cry, and forthwith another of these creatures appeared darkly in the deep shadow of the aperture16.
I turned and, running madly, made for the first group of trees, perhaps a hundred yards away; but I ran slantingly and stumbling, for I could not avert my face from these things.17
There, among some young pine trees and furze bushes, I stopped, panting, and waited further development. The common round the sand pits was dotted with people, standing like myself in a half-fascinated terror, staring at these creatures, or rather at the heaped gravel at the edge of the pit in which they lay. S
我回到公用地上时，太阳开始落山了。三五成群的人们从沃金镇急急赶来（看陨石降落砸出的大坑），也有一两个人转身离开。在陨石坑附近围观的人越来越多，大约有几百人吧，黑压压的一片，映衬着淡黄色的天空。有人大声喧哗，还有人似乎在坑边扭打了起来。我的脑海中闪过一些奇怪的念头。当走近陨石坑时，我听到了斯滕特的声音：
“退后！退后！”
一个男孩冲我跑来。“那玩意儿在动呢，”他经过我时嚷嚷道，“它正在转动，已经旋开了。我可不喜欢那玩意儿，我要回家了。”
圆筒盖的末端从里面旋了出来，露出大约两英尺长的闪闪发亮的螺丝。有人撞了我一下，我差点儿掉到圆筒盖上。我转过身，就在这转身的一刹那，螺丝一定掉了出来，因为我听见圆筒盖掉在沙砾地上发出砰的一声。我用胳膊肘捅了捅站在身后的人，又扭头去看那个东西。有那么一会儿，圆筒里面一片漆黑，西下的阳光照在我眼中，我什么也看不见。
我猜想，每个人都巴望圆筒里钻出个人来——呃，或许跟地球上的人类会有些不同，但本质上还应是个人。我知道我就是这样期待的。但是，看着看着，我看见阴影里有什么东西在蠕动，像灰色的波浪上下起伏，随后露出一双两个大圆盘似的发光的眼睛。某种大约手杖那么粗的东西，像小灰蛇似地从不断震动的圆筒中盘旋而出，在空中朝我舞动着——然后又冲向其他人。
我突然感到不寒而栗。身后传来一个女人的惊声尖叫。我目不转睛地盯着圆筒，只见更多的触须从圆筒里伸了出来，于是赶忙半侧过身子推开人群向后撤退。此刻，之前惊奇的表情已从周围人们的脸上褪去，取而代之的是恐惧和害怕。四面八方传来的都是含混不清的惊叫声。人群开始向后退。我看到某个店员还在坑边挣扎着向外爬。我发现自己孤零零一人……我又朝那圆筒看去，一种难以抑制的恐惧袭上心头。我呆若木鸡地站着，眼睛发直，无法动弹。
一个硕大的灰色圆形物体，大小和一头熊差不多，正慢慢地、费力地从圆筒里升起。当它全部冒出来后，阳光打在身上，它就像湿皮革一样闪闪发亮。
一双深色大眼睛死死地盯住我，眼睛周围的这一大团圆圆的东西是它的头部，也可能有人会说，它还有张脸。眼睛下是嘴巴，周围在不停地颤抖，喘着粗气，还淌着口水。这个生物整个不由自主地在喘息着、颤抖着。一根触须似的附肢紧抓着圆筒的边缘，而另外的则在空中挥舞。
那些没有见过活生生的火星人的人很难想象得到它们的外形有多么陌生和恐怖。它长着怪异的V形嘴巴和凸起的上唇，没有眉骨，楔形的下唇下面也找不到下巴，嘴巴不停地颤动着，长着一条条像蛇发女怪似的触须，它的肺还不适应陌生的空气，呼吸粗重不堪，由于地球的重力比火星上大得多，它的动作显得笨重和吃力——特别是它那双骇人的大眼睛——立即就给人一种致命、紧张、野蛮、残缺和畸形可怕的感觉。它油乎乎的棕色皮肤上长着某种真菌，那刻意笨拙而缓慢的动作中散发出一种不可名状的肮脏污秽感。即使是第一次相遇，第一眼便让我的内心充满了厌恶与恐惧。
突然间，那个怪物消失了。它从圆筒的边缘跌了出来，扑通一声掉进坑里，发出的响声就好像一大堆皮革掉在地上。我听到它发出了一声怪异而嘶哑的叫声，随后，另一个类似的生物又从圆筒的阴影里冒了出来。
我转身，疯狂地朝大约一百码外的树林跑去；不过我是跌跌撞撞地，半倾斜着身子跑的，因为我的视线无法从那些火星人身上移开。
我喘着气，在几棵幼松和金雀花灌木丛中站定，喘着气，等待事态的进一步发展。坑边的公共地上零星站着几个人，像我一样被吓得半死，目不转睛地盯着那些生物，或者望着沙坑边那些东西占据的土堆。S
1. common: （社区居民的）公共用地，如公园等。
2. project: 突出，外伸。
3. blunder: 撞上（某物）；pitch: 踉跄倒下。
4. gravel: 沙砾，石子；concussion: 冲击，震荡。
5. billowy: 波涛的，波浪的；luminous: 发光的，明亮的。
6. coil up: 盘绕，缠绕；writhing: （因剧痛等）扭动，蠕动；wriggle: 蠕动，蜿蜒而行。
7. inarticulate: 含混不清的，词不达意的；exclamation: 惊叹，感叹。
8. petrified: 非常害怕，恐慌的。
9. bulge: 凸出，鼓胀；glisten: 闪光，闪耀。
10. brim: （杯、碗等的）口，边沿；saliva: 唾液。
11. heave: （强烈而有节奏地）起伏，颤抖；pulsate: （有规律地）跳动，搏动；convulsive: （突然而无法控制的）痉挛，抽搐。
12. lank: 平直而无光泽的；appendage: 附加物，附肢。
13. Gorgon: 戈耳工蛇发女怪，即古希腊神话中三个蛇发女怪之一，人见之即化为石头；crippled: 残废的，残缺的。
14. fungoid: 真菌；deliberation: （说话或办事）缓慢，从容。
15. topple: 摇摇欲坠，倒塌；thud: 砰的一声，扑通一声。
16. aperture: 小孔，缝隙。
17. slant: 倾斜，歪斜；avert one’s face from sth. : 转移目光，背过脸。
“Keep back! Keep back!”
A boy came running towards me. “It’s a-movin’,” he said to me as he passed; “a-screwin’and a-screwin’ out. I don’t like it. I’m a-goin’ ‘ome, I am.”
The end of the cylinder was being screwed out from within. Nearly two feet of shining screw projected2. Somebody blundered against me, and I narrowly missed being pitched onto the top of the screw.3 I turned, and as I did so the screw must have come out, for the lid of the cylinder fell upon the gravel with a ringing concussion.4 I stuck my elbow into the person behind me, and turned my head towards the Thing again. For a moment that circular cavity seemed perfectly black. I had the sunset in my eyes.
I think everyone expected to see a man emerge—possibly something a little unlike us terrestrial men, but in all essentials a man. I know I did. But, looking, I presently saw something stirring within the shadow: grayish billowy movements, one above another, and then two luminous diskslike eyes.5 Then something resembling a little grey snake, about the thickness of a walking stick, coiled up out of the writhing middle, and wriggled in the air towards me—and then another.6
A sudden chill came over me. There was a loud shriek from a woman behind. I half turned, keeping my eyes fixed upon the cylinder still, from which other tentacles were now projecting, and began pushing my way back from the edge of the pit. I saw astonishment giving place to horror on the face of the people about me. I heard inarticulate exclamations on all sides.7 There was a general movement backwards. I saw the shopman struggling still on the edge of the pit. I found myself alone…I looked again at the cylinder, and ungovernable terror gripped me. I stood petrified8 and staring.
A big grayish rounded bulk, the size, perhaps, of a bear, was rising slowly and painfully out of the cylinder. As it bulged up and caught the light, it glistened like wet leather.9
Two large dark-coloured eyes were regarding me steadfastly. The mass that framed them, the head of the thing, was rounded, and had, one might say, a face. There was a mouth under the eye, the brim of which quivered and panted, and dropped saliva.10 The whole creature heaved and pulsated convulsively.11 A lank tentacular appendage gripped the edge of the cylinder, another swayed in the air.12
Those who have never seen a living Martian can scarcely imagine the strange horror of its appearance. The peculiar V-shaped mouth with its pointed upper lip, the absence of brow ridges, the absence of a chin beneath the wedgelike lower lip, the incessant quivering of this mouth, the Gorgon groups of tentacles, the tumultuous breathing of the lungs in a strange atmosphere, the evident heaviness and painfulness of movement due to the greater gravitational energy of the earth—above all, the extraordinary intensity of the immerse eyes—were at once vital, intense, inhuman, crippled and monstrous.13 There was something fungoid in the oily brown skin, something in the clumsy deliberation of the tedious movements unspeakably nasty.14 Even at this first encounter, this first glimpse, I was overcome with disgust and dread.
Suddenly the monster vanished. It had toppled over the brim of the cylinder and fallen into the pit, with a thud like the fall of a great mass of leather.15 I heard it give a peculiar thick cry, and forthwith another of these creatures appeared darkly in the deep shadow of the aperture16.
I turned and, running madly, made for the first group of trees, perhaps a hundred yards away; but I ran slantingly and stumbling, for I could not avert my face from these things.17
There, among some young pine trees and furze bushes, I stopped, panting, and waited further development. The common round the sand pits was dotted with people, standing like myself in a half-fascinated terror, staring at these creatures, or rather at the heaped gravel at the edge of the pit in which they lay. S
我回到公用地上时，太阳开始落山了。三五成群的人们从沃金镇急急赶来（看陨石降落砸出的大坑），也有一两个人转身离开。在陨石坑附近围观的人越来越多，大约有几百人吧，黑压压的一片，映衬着淡黄色的天空。有人大声喧哗，还有人似乎在坑边扭打了起来。我的脑海中闪过一些奇怪的念头。当走近陨石坑时，我听到了斯滕特的声音：
“退后！退后！”
一个男孩冲我跑来。“那玩意儿在动呢，”他经过我时嚷嚷道，“它正在转动，已经旋开了。我可不喜欢那玩意儿，我要回家了。”
圆筒盖的末端从里面旋了出来，露出大约两英尺长的闪闪发亮的螺丝。有人撞了我一下，我差点儿掉到圆筒盖上。我转过身，就在这转身的一刹那，螺丝一定掉了出来，因为我听见圆筒盖掉在沙砾地上发出砰的一声。我用胳膊肘捅了捅站在身后的人，又扭头去看那个东西。有那么一会儿，圆筒里面一片漆黑，西下的阳光照在我眼中，我什么也看不见。
我猜想，每个人都巴望圆筒里钻出个人来——呃，或许跟地球上的人类会有些不同，但本质上还应是个人。我知道我就是这样期待的。但是，看着看着，我看见阴影里有什么东西在蠕动，像灰色的波浪上下起伏，随后露出一双两个大圆盘似的发光的眼睛。某种大约手杖那么粗的东西，像小灰蛇似地从不断震动的圆筒中盘旋而出，在空中朝我舞动着——然后又冲向其他人。
我突然感到不寒而栗。身后传来一个女人的惊声尖叫。我目不转睛地盯着圆筒，只见更多的触须从圆筒里伸了出来，于是赶忙半侧过身子推开人群向后撤退。此刻，之前惊奇的表情已从周围人们的脸上褪去，取而代之的是恐惧和害怕。四面八方传来的都是含混不清的惊叫声。人群开始向后退。我看到某个店员还在坑边挣扎着向外爬。我发现自己孤零零一人……我又朝那圆筒看去，一种难以抑制的恐惧袭上心头。我呆若木鸡地站着，眼睛发直，无法动弹。
一个硕大的灰色圆形物体，大小和一头熊差不多，正慢慢地、费力地从圆筒里升起。当它全部冒出来后，阳光打在身上，它就像湿皮革一样闪闪发亮。
一双深色大眼睛死死地盯住我，眼睛周围的这一大团圆圆的东西是它的头部，也可能有人会说，它还有张脸。眼睛下是嘴巴，周围在不停地颤抖，喘着粗气，还淌着口水。这个生物整个不由自主地在喘息着、颤抖着。一根触须似的附肢紧抓着圆筒的边缘，而另外的则在空中挥舞。
那些没有见过活生生的火星人的人很难想象得到它们的外形有多么陌生和恐怖。它长着怪异的V形嘴巴和凸起的上唇，没有眉骨，楔形的下唇下面也找不到下巴，嘴巴不停地颤动着，长着一条条像蛇发女怪似的触须，它的肺还不适应陌生的空气，呼吸粗重不堪，由于地球的重力比火星上大得多，它的动作显得笨重和吃力——特别是它那双骇人的大眼睛——立即就给人一种致命、紧张、野蛮、残缺和畸形可怕的感觉。它油乎乎的棕色皮肤上长着某种真菌，那刻意笨拙而缓慢的动作中散发出一种不可名状的肮脏污秽感。即使是第一次相遇，第一眼便让我的内心充满了厌恶与恐惧。
突然间，那个怪物消失了。它从圆筒的边缘跌了出来，扑通一声掉进坑里，发出的响声就好像一大堆皮革掉在地上。我听到它发出了一声怪异而嘶哑的叫声，随后，另一个类似的生物又从圆筒的阴影里冒了出来。
我转身，疯狂地朝大约一百码外的树林跑去；不过我是跌跌撞撞地，半倾斜着身子跑的，因为我的视线无法从那些火星人身上移开。
我喘着气，在几棵幼松和金雀花灌木丛中站定，喘着气，等待事态的进一步发展。坑边的公共地上零星站着几个人，像我一样被吓得半死，目不转睛地盯着那些生物，或者望着沙坑边那些东西占据的土堆。S
1. common: （社区居民的）公共用地，如公园等。
2. project: 突出，外伸。
3. blunder: 撞上（某物）；pitch: 踉跄倒下。
4. gravel: 沙砾，石子；concussion: 冲击，震荡。
5. billowy: 波涛的，波浪的；luminous: 发光的，明亮的。
6. coil up: 盘绕，缠绕；writhing: （因剧痛等）扭动，蠕动；wriggle: 蠕动，蜿蜒而行。
7. inarticulate: 含混不清的，词不达意的；exclamation: 惊叹，感叹。
8. petrified: 非常害怕，恐慌的。
9. bulge: 凸出，鼓胀；glisten: 闪光，闪耀。
10. brim: （杯、碗等的）口，边沿；saliva: 唾液。
11. heave: （强烈而有节奏地）起伏，颤抖；pulsate: （有规律地）跳动，搏动；convulsive: （突然而无法控制的）痉挛，抽搐。
12. lank: 平直而无光泽的；appendage: 附加物，附肢。
13. Gorgon: 戈耳工蛇发女怪，即古希腊神话中三个蛇发女怪之一，人见之即化为石头；crippled: 残废的，残缺的。
14. fungoid: 真菌；deliberation: （说话或办事）缓慢，从容。
15. topple: 摇摇欲坠，倒塌；thud: 砰的一声，扑通一声。
16. aperture: 小孔，缝隙。
17. slant: 倾斜，歪斜；avert one’s face from sth. : 转移目光，背过脸。