The Time Machine — EN

III
The Time Traveller Returns

I think that at that time none of us quite believed in the Time Machine. The fact is, the Time Trav­eller was one of those men who are too clever to be believed: you nev­er felt that you saw all round him; you always sus­pect­ed some sub­tle reserve, some inge­nu­ity in ambush, behind his lucid frank­ness. Had Fil­by shown the mod­el and explained the mat­ter in the Time Traveller’s words, we should have shown him far less scep­ti­cism. For we should have per­ceived his motives; a pork butch­er could under­stand Fil­by. But the Time Trav­eller had more than a touch of whim among his ele­ments, and we dis­trust­ed him. Things that would have made the frame of a less clever man seemed tricks in his hands. It is a mis­take to do things too eas­i­ly. The seri­ous peo­ple who took him seri­ous­ly nev­er felt quite sure of his deport­ment; they were some­how aware that trust­ing their rep­u­ta­tions for judg­ment with him was like fur­nish­ing a nurs­ery with egg-shell chi­na. So I don’t think any of us said very much about time trav­el­ling in the inter­val between that Thurs­day and the next, though its odd poten­tial­i­ties ran, no doubt, in most of our minds: its plau­si­bil­i­ty, that is, its prac­ti­cal incred­i­ble­ness, the curi­ous pos­si­bil­i­ties of anachro­nism and of utter con­fu­sion it sug­gest­ed. For my own part, I was par­tic­u­lar­ly pre­oc­cu­pied with the trick of the mod­el. That I remem­ber dis­cussing with the Med­ical Man, whom I met on Fri­day at the Lin­naean. He said he had seen a sim­i­lar thing at Tub­in­gen, and laid con­sid­er­able stress on the blow­ing out of the can­dle. But how the trick was done he could not explain.

The next Thurs­day I went again to Rich­mond – sup­pose I was one of the Time Traveller’s most con­stant guests – and, arriv­ing late, found four or five men already assem­bled in his draw­ing-room. The Med­ical Man was stand­ing before the fire with a sheet of paper in one hand and his watch in the oth­er. I looked round for the Time Trav­eller, and – “It’s half-past sev­en now,” said the Med­ical Man. “I sup­pose we’d bet­ter have dinner?”

“Where’s – –?” said I, nam­ing our host.

“You’ve just come? It’s rather odd. He’s unavoid­ably detained. He asks me in this note to lead off with din­ner at sev­en if he’s not back. Says he’ll explain when he comes.”

“It seems a pity to let the din­ner spoil,” said the Edi­tor of a well-known dai­ly paper; and there­upon the Doc­tor rang the bell.

The Psy­chol­o­gist was the only per­son besides the Doc­tor and myself who had attend­ed the pre­vi­ous din­ner. The oth­er men were Blank, the Edi­tor afore­men­tioned, a cer­tain jour­nal­ist, and anoth­er – a qui­et, shy man with a beard – whom I didn’t know, and who, as far as my obser­va­tion went, nev­er opened his mouth all the evening. There was some spec­u­la­tion at the din­ner-table about the Time Traveller’s absence, and I sug­gest­ed time trav­el­ling, in a half-joc­u­lar spir­it. The Edi­tor want­ed that explained to him, and the Psy­chol­o­gist vol­un­teered a wood­en account of the “inge­nious para­dox and trick” we had wit­nessed that day week. He was in the midst of his expo­si­tion when the door from the cor­ri­dor opened slow­ly and with­out noise. I was fac­ing the door, and saw it first. “Hal­lo!” I said. “At last!” And the door opened wider, and the Time Trav­eller stood before us. I gave a cry of sur­prise. “Good heav­ens! man, what’s the mat­ter?” cried the Med­ical Man, who saw him next. And the whole table­ful turned towards the door.

He was in an amaz­ing plight. His coat was dusty and dirty, and smeared with green down the sleeves; his hair dis­or­dered, and as it seemed to me grey­er – either with dust and dirt or because its colour had actu­al­ly fad­ed. His face was ghast­ly pale; his chin had a brown cut on it – a cut half healed; his expres­sion was hag­gard and drawn, as by intense suf­fer­ing. For a moment he hes­i­tat­ed in the door­way, as if he had been daz­zled by the light. Then he came into the room. He walked with just such a limp as I have seen in foot­sore tramps. We stared at him in silence, expect­ing him to speak.

He said not a word, but came painful­ly to the table, and made a motion towards the wine. The Edi­tor filled a glass of cham­pagne, and pushed it towards him. He drained it, and it seemed to do him good: for he looked round the table, and the ghost of his old smile flick­ered across his face. “What on earth have you been up to, man?” said the Doc­tor. The Time Trav­eller did not seem to hear. “Don’t let me dis­turb you,” he said, with a cer­tain fal­ter­ing artic­u­la­tion. “I’m all right.” He stopped, held out his glass for more, and took it off at a draught. “That’s good,” he said. His eyes grew brighter, and a faint colour came into his cheeks. His glance flick­ered over our faces with a cer­tain dull approval, and then went round the warm and com­fort­able room. Then he spoke again, still as it were feel­ing his way among his words. “I’m going to wash and dress, and then I’ll come down and explain things… Save me some of that mut­ton. I’m starv­ing for a bit of meat.”

He looked across at the Edi­tor, who was a rare vis­i­tor, and hoped he was all right. The Edi­tor began a ques­tion. “Tell you present­ly,” said the Time Trav­eller. “I’m – fun­ny! Be all right in a minute.”

He put down his glass, and walked towards the stair­case door.

Again I remarked his lame­ness and the soft padding sound of his foot­fall, and stand­ing up in my place, I saw his feet as he went out. He had noth­ing on them but a pair of tat­tered blood-stained socks. Then the door closed upon him. I had half a mind to fol­low, till I remem­bered how he detest­ed any fuss about him­self. For a minute, per­haps, my mind was wool-gath­er­ing. Then, “Remark­able Behav­iour of an Emi­nent Sci­en­tist,” I heard the Edi­tor say, think­ing (after his wont) in head­lines. And this brought my atten­tion back to the bright dinner-table.

“What’s the game?” said the Jour­nal­ist. “Has he been doing the Ama­teur Cadger? I don’t fol­low.” I met the eye of the Psy­chol­o­gist, and read my own inter­pre­ta­tion in his face. I thought of the Time Trav­eller limp­ing painful­ly upstairs. I don’t think any one else had noticed his lame­ness.

The first to recov­er com­plete­ly from this sur­prise was the Med­ical Man, who rang the bell – the Time Trav­eller hat­ed to have ser­vants wait­ing at din­ner – for a hot plate. At that the Edi­tor turned to his knife and fork with a grunt, and the Silent Man fol­lowed suit. The din­ner was resumed. Con­ver­sa­tion was exclam­a­to­ry for a lit­tle while, with gaps of won­der­ment; and then the Edi­tor got fer­vent in his curios­i­ty. “Does our friend eke out his mod­est income with a cross­ing? or has he his Neb­uchad­nez­zar phas­es?” he inquired. “I feel assured it’s this busi­ness of the Time Machine,” I said, and took up the Psychologist’s account of our pre­vi­ous meet­ing. The new guests were frankly incred­u­lous. The Edi­tor raised objec­tions. “What was this time trav­el­ling? A man couldn’t cov­er him­self with dust by rolling in a para­dox, could he?” And then, as the idea came home to him, he resort­ed to car­i­ca­ture. Hadn’t they any clothes-brush­es in the Future? The Jour­nal­ist too, would not believe at any price, and joined the Edi­tor in the easy work of heap­ing ridicule on the whole thing. They were both the new kind of jour­nal­ist – very joy­ous, irrev­er­ent young men. “Our Spe­cial Cor­re­spon­dent in the Day after Tomor­row reports,” the Jour­nal­ist was say­ing – or rather shout­ing – when the Time Trav­eller came back. He was dressed in ordi­nary evening clothes, and noth­ing save his hag­gard look remained of the change that had star­tled me.

“I say,” said the Edi­tor hilar­i­ous­ly, “these chaps here say you have been trav­el­ling into the mid­dle of next week! Tell us all about lit­tle Rose­bery, will you? What will you take for the lot?”

The Time Trav­eller came to the place reserved for him with­out a word. He smiled qui­et­ly, in his old way. “Where’s my mut­ton?” he said. “What a treat it is to stick a fork into meat again!”

“Sto­ry!” cried the Editor.

“Sto­ry be damned!” said the Time Trav­eller. “I want some­thing to eat. I won’t say a word until I get some pep­tone into my arter­ies. Thanks. And the salt.”

“One word,” said I. “Have you been time travelling?”

“Yes,” said the Time Trav­eller, with his mouth full, nod­ding his head.

“I’d give a shilling a line for a ver­ba­tim note,” said the Edi­tor. The Time Trav­eller pushed his glass towards the Silent Man and rang it with his fin­ger­nail; at which the Silent Man, who had been star­ing at his face, start­ed con­vul­sive­ly, and poured him wine. The rest of the din­ner was uncom­fort­able. For my own part, sud­den ques­tions kept on ris­ing to my lips, and I dare say it was the same with the oth­ers. The Jour­nal­ist tried to relieve the ten­sion by telling anec­dotes of Het­tie Pot­ter. The Time Trav­eller devot­ed his atten­tion to his din­ner, and dis­played the appetite of a tramp. The Med­ical Man smoked a cig­a­rette, and watched the Time Trav­eller through his eye­lash­es. The Silent Man seemed even more clum­sy than usu­al, and drank cham­pagne with reg­u­lar­i­ty and deter­mi­na­tion out of sheer ner­vous­ness. At last the Time Trav­eller pushed his plate away, and looked round us. “I sup­pose I must apol­o­gize,” he said. “I was sim­ply starv­ing.

I’ve had a most amaz­ing time.” He reached out his hand for a cig­ar, and cut the end. “But come into the smok­ing-room. It’s too long a sto­ry to tell over greasy plates.” And ring­ing the bell in pass­ing, he led the way into the adjoin­ing room.

“You have told Blank, and Dash, and Chose about the machine?” he said to me, lean­ing back in his easy-chair and nam­ing the three new guests.

“But the thing’s a mere para­dox,” said the Editor.

“I can’t argue tonight. I don’t mind telling you the sto­ry, but I can’t argue. I will,” he went on, “tell you the sto­ry of what has hap­pened to me, if you like, but you must refrain from inter­rup­tions. I want to tell it. Bad­ly. Most of it will sound like lying. So be it! It’s true – every word of it, all the same. I was in my lab­o­ra­to­ry at four o’clock, and since then… I’ve lived eight days… such days as no human being ever lived before! I’m near­ly worn out, but I shan’t sleep till I’ve told this thing over to you. Then I shall go to bed. But no inter­rup­tions! Is it agreed?”

“Agreed,” said the Edi­tor, and the rest of us echoed “Agreed.”

And with that the Time Trav­eller began his sto­ry as I have set it forth. He sat back in his chair at first, and spoke like a weary man. After­wards he got more ani­mat­ed. In writ­ing it down I feel with only too much keen­ness the inad­e­qua­cy of pen and ink – and, above all, my own inad­e­qua­cy – to express its qual­i­ty. You read, I will sup­pose, atten­tive­ly enough; but you can­not see the speaker’s white, sin­cere face in the bright cir­cle of the lit­tle lamp, nor hear the into­na­tion of his voice. You can­not know how his expres­sion fol­lowed the turns of his sto­ry! Most of us hear­ers were in shad­ow, for the can­dles in the smok­ing-room had not been light­ed, and only the face of the Jour­nal­ist and the legs of the Silent Man from the knees down­ward were illu­mi­nat­ed. At first we glanced now and again at each oth­er. After a time we ceased to do that, and looked only at the Time Traveller’s face.