The Time Machine — EN

VII
A Sudden Shock

“As I stood there mus­ing over this too per­fect tri­umph of man, the full moon, yel­low and gib­bous, came up out of an over­flow of sil­ver light in the north-east. The bright lit­tle fig­ures ceased to move about below, a noise­less owl flit­ted by, and I shiv­ered with the chill of the night. I deter­mined to descend and find where I could sleep.

“I looked for the build­ing I knew. Then my eye trav­elled along to the fig­ure of the White Sphinx upon the pedestal of bronze, grow­ing dis­tinct as the light of the ris­ing moon grew brighter. I could see the sil­ver birch against it. There was the tan­gle of rhodo­den­dron bush­es, black in the pale light, and there was the lit­tle lawn. I looked at the lawn again. A queer doubt chilled my com­pla­cen­cy. “No,” said I stout­ly to myself, “that was not the lawn.”

“But it was the lawn. For the white lep­rous face of the sphinx was towards it. Can you imag­ine what I felt as this con­vic­tion came home to me? But you can­not. The Time Machine was gone!

“At once, like a lash across the face, came the pos­si­bil­i­ty of los­ing my own age, of being left help­less in this strange new world. The bare thought of it was an actu­al phys­i­cal sen­sa­tion. I could feel it grip me at the throat and stop my breath­ing. In anoth­er moment I was in a pas­sion of fear and run­ning with great leap­ing strides down the slope. Once I fell head­long and cut my face; I lost no time in stanch­ing the blood, but jumped up and ran on, with a warm trick­le down my cheek and chin. All the time I ran I was say­ing to myself: “They have moved it a lit­tle, pushed it under the bush­es out of the way.” Nev­er­the­less, I ran with all my might. All the time, with the cer­tain­ty that some­times comes with exces­sive dread, I knew that such assur­ance was fol­ly, knew instinc­tive­ly that the machine was removed out of my reach. My breath came with pain. I sup­pose I cov­ered the whole dis­tance from the hill crest to the lit­tle lawn, two miles per­haps, in ten min­utes. And I am not a young man. I cursed aloud, as I ran, at my con­fi­dent fol­ly in leav­ing the machine, wast­ing good breath there­by. I cried aloud, and none answered. Not a crea­ture seemed to be stir­ring in that moon­lit world.

“When I reached the lawn my worst fears were real­ized. Not a trace of the thing was to be seen. I felt faint and cold when I faced the emp­ty space among the black tan­gle of bush­es. I ran round it furi­ous­ly, as if the thing might be hid­den in a cor­ner, and then stopped abrupt­ly, with my hands clutch­ing my hair. Above me tow­ered the sphinx, upon the bronze pedestal, white, shin­ing, lep­rous, in the light of the ris­ing moon. It seemed to smile in mock­ery of my dis­may.

“I might have con­soled myself by imag­in­ing the lit­tle peo­ple had put the mech­a­nism in some shel­ter for me, had I not felt assured of their phys­i­cal and intel­lec­tu­al inad­e­qua­cy. That is what dis­mayed me: the sense of some hith­er­to unsus­pect­ed pow­er, through whose inter­ven­tion my inven­tion had van­ished. Yet, for one thing I felt assured: unless some oth­er age had pro­duced its exact dupli­cate, the machine could not have moved in time. The attach­ment of the levers – I will show you the method lat­er – pre­vent­ed any one from tam­per­ing with it in that way when they were removed. It had moved, and was hid, only in space. But then, where could it be?

“I think I must have had a kind of fren­zy. I remem­ber run­ning vio­lent­ly in and out among the moon­lit bush­es all round the sphinx, and star­tling some white ani­mal that, in the dim light, I took for a small deer. I remem­ber, too, late that night, beat­ing the bush­es with my clenched fist until my knuck­les were gashed and bleed­ing from the bro­ken twigs. Then, sob­bing and rav­ing in my anguish of mind, I went down to the great build­ing of stone. The big hall was dark, silent, and desert­ed. I slipped on the uneven floor, and fell over one of the mala­chite tables, almost break­ing my shin. I lit a match and went on past the dusty cur­tains, of which I have told you.

“There I found a sec­ond great hall cov­ered with cush­ions, upon which, per­haps, a score or so of the lit­tle peo­ple were sleep­ing. I have no doubt they found my sec­ond appear­ance strange enough, com­ing sud­den­ly out of the qui­et dark­ness with inar­tic­u­late nois­es and the splut­ter and flare of a match. For they had for­got­ten about match­es. “Where is my Time Machine?” I began, bawl­ing like an angry child, lay­ing hands upon them and shak­ing them up togeth­er. It must have been very queer to them. Some laughed, most of them looked sore­ly fright­ened. When I saw them stand­ing round me, it came into my head that I was doing as fool­ish a thing as it was pos­si­ble for me to do under the cir­cum­stances, in try­ing to revive the sen­sa­tion of fear. For, rea­son­ing from their day­light behav­iour, I thought that fear must be forgotten.

“Abrupt­ly, I dashed down the match, and, knock­ing one of the peo­ple over in my course, went blun­der­ing across the big din­ing-hall again, out under the moon­light. I heard cries of ter­ror and their lit­tle feet run­ning and stum­bling this way and that. I do not remem­ber all I did as the moon crept up the sky. I sup­pose it was the unex­pect­ed nature of my loss that mad­dened me. I felt hope­less­ly cut off from my own kind – a strange ani­mal in an unknown world. I must have raved to and fro, scream­ing and cry­ing upon God and Fate. I have a mem­o­ry of hor­ri­ble fatigue, as the long night of despair wore away; of look­ing in this impos­si­ble place and that; of grop­ing among moon-lit ruins and touch­ing strange crea­tures in the black shad­ows; at last, of lying on the ground near the sphinx and weep­ing with absolute wretched­ness. I had noth­ing left but mis­ery. Then I slept, and when I woke again it was full day, and a cou­ple of spar­rows were hop­ping round me on the turf with­in reach of my arm.

“I sat up in the fresh­ness of the morn­ing, try­ing to remem­ber how I had got there, and why I had such a pro­found sense of deser­tion and despair. Then things came clear in my mind. With the plain, rea­son­able day­light, I could look my cir­cum­stances fair­ly in the face. I saw the wild fol­ly of my fren­zy overnight, and I could rea­son with myself. “Sup­pose the worst?” I said. “Sup­pose the machine alto­geth­er lost – per­haps destroyed? It behooves me to be calm and patient, to learn the way of the peo­ple, to get a clear idea of the method of my loss, and the means of get­ting mate­ri­als and tools; so that in the end, per­haps, I may make anoth­er.” That would be my only hope, per­haps, but bet­ter than despair. And, after all, it was a beau­ti­ful and curi­ous world.

“But prob­a­bly, the machine had only been tak­en away. Still, I must be calm and patient, find its hid­ing-place, and recov­er it by force or cun­ning. And with that I scram­bled to my feet and looked about me, won­der­ing where I could bathe. I felt weary, stiff, and trav­el-soiled. The fresh­ness of the morn­ing made me desire an equal fresh­ness. I had exhaust­ed my emo­tion. Indeed, as I went about my busi­ness, I found myself won­der­ing at my intense excite­ment overnight. I made a care­ful exam­i­na­tion of the ground about the lit­tle lawn. I wast­ed some time in futile ques­tion­ings, con­veyed, as well as I was able, to such of the lit­tle peo­ple as came by. They all failed to under­stand my ges­tures; some were sim­ply stol­id, some thought it was a jest and laughed at me. I had the hard­est task in the world to keep my hands off their pret­ty laugh­ing faces. It was a fool­ish impulse, but the dev­il begot­ten of fear and blind anger was ill curbed and still eager to take advan­tage of my per­plex­i­ty. The turf gave bet­ter coun­sel. I found a groove ripped in it, about mid­way between the pedestal of the sphinx and the marks of my feet where, on arrival, I had strug­gled with the over­turned machine. There were oth­er signs of removal about, with queer nar­row foot­prints like those I could imag­ine made by a sloth. This direct­ed my clos­er atten­tion to the pedestal. It was, as I think I have said, of bronze. It was not a mere block, but high­ly dec­o­rat­ed with deep framed pan­els on either side. I went and rapped at these. The pedestal was hol­low. Exam­in­ing the pan­els with care I found them dis­con­tin­u­ous with the frames. There were no han­dles or key­holes, but pos­si­bly the pan­els, if they were doors, as I sup­posed, opened from with­in. One thing was clear enough to my mind. It took no very great men­tal effort to infer that my Time Machine was inside that pedestal. But how it got there was a dif­fer­ent problem.

“I saw the heads of two orange-clad peo­ple com­ing through the bush­es and under some blos­som-cov­ered apple-trees towards me. I turned smil­ing to them and beck­oned them to me. They came, and then, point­ing to the bronze pedestal, I tried to inti­mate my wish to open it. But at my first ges­ture towards this they behaved very odd­ly. I don’t know how to con­vey their expres­sion to you. Sup­pose you were to use a gross­ly improp­er ges­ture to a del­i­cate-mind­ed woman – it is how she would look. They went off as if they had received the last pos­si­ble insult. I tried a sweet-look­ing lit­tle chap in white next, with exact­ly the same result. Some­how, his man­ner made me feel ashamed of myself. But, as you know, I want­ed the Time Machine, and I tried him once more. As he turned off, like the oth­ers, my tem­per got the bet­ter of me. In three strides I was after him, had him by the loose part of his robe round the neck, and began drag­ging him towards the sphinx. Then I saw the hor­ror and repug­nance of his face, and all of a sud­den I let him go.

“But I was not beat­en yet. I banged with my fist at the bronze pan­els. I thought I heard some­thing stir inside – to be explic­it, I thought I heard a sound like a chuck­le – but I must have been mis­tak­en. Then I got a big peb­ble from the riv­er, and came and ham­mered till I had flat­tened a coil in the dec­o­ra­tions, and the verdi­gris came off in pow­dery flakes. The del­i­cate lit­tle peo­ple must have heard me ham­mer­ing in gusty out­breaks a mile away on either hand, but noth­ing came of it. I saw a crowd of them upon the slopes, look­ing furtive­ly at me. At last, hot and tired, I sat down to watch the place. But I was too rest­less to watch long; I am too Occi­den­tal for a long vig­il. I could work at a prob­lem for years, but to wait inac­tive for twen­ty-four hours – that is anoth­er matter.

“I got up after a time, and began walk­ing aim­less­ly through the bush­es towards the hill again. “Patience,” said I to myself. “If you want your machine again you must leave that sphinx alone. If they mean to take your machine away, it’s lit­tle good your wreck­ing their bronze pan­els, and if they don’t, you will get it back as soon as you can ask for it. To sit among all those unknown things before a puz­zle like that is hope­less. That way lies mono­ma­nia. Face this world. Learn its ways, watch it, be care­ful of too hasty guess­es at its mean­ing. In the end you will find clues to it all.” Then sud­den­ly the humour of the sit­u­a­tion came into my mind: the thought of the years I had spent in study and toil to get into the future age, and now my pas­sion of anx­i­ety to get out of it. I had made myself the most com­pli­cat­ed and the most hope­less trap that ever a man devised. Although it was at my own expense, I could not help myself. I laughed aloud.

“Going through the big palace, it seemed to me that the lit­tle peo­ple avoid­ed me. It may have been my fan­cy, or it may have had some­thing to do with my ham­mer­ing at the gates of bronze. Yet I felt tol­er­a­bly sure of the avoid­ance. I was care­ful, how­ev­er, to show no con­cern and to abstain from any pur­suit of them, and in the course of a day or two things got back to the old foot­ing. I made what progress I could in the lan­guage, and in addi­tion I pushed my explo­rations here and there. Either I missed some sub­tle point or their lan­guage was exces­sive­ly sim­ple – almost exclu­sive­ly com­posed of con­crete sub­stan­tives and verbs. There seemed to be few, if any, abstract terms, or lit­tle use of fig­u­ra­tive lan­guage. Their sen­tences were usu­al­ly sim­ple and of two words, and I failed to con­vey or under­stand any but the sim­plest propo­si­tions. I deter­mined to put the thought of my Time Machine and the mys­tery of the bronze doors under the sphinx as much as pos­si­ble in a cor­ner of mem­o­ry, until my grow­ing knowl­edge would lead me back to them in a nat­ur­al way. Yet a cer­tain feel­ing, you may under­stand, teth­ered me in a cir­cle of a few miles round the point of my arrival.