The Time Machine | Page 7

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 to-night. 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.

III

`I told some of you last Thursday of the principles of the Time Machine, and showed you
the actual thing itself, incomplete in the workshop. There it is now, a little travel-worn,
truly; and one of the ivory bars is cracked, and a brass rail bent; but the rest of it's sound
enough. I expected to finish it on Friday, but on Friday, when the putting together was
nearly done, I found that one of the nickel bars was exactly one inch too short, and this I
had to get remade; so that the thing was not complete until this morning. It was at ten
o'clock to-day that the first of all Time Machines began its career. I gave it a last tap,
tried all the screws again, put one more drop of oil on the quartz rod, and sat myself in
the saddle. I suppose a suicide who holds a pistol to his skull feels much the same wonder
at what will come next as I felt then. I took the starting lever in one hand and the stopping
one in the other, pressed the first, and almost immediately the second. I seemed to reel; I
felt a nightmare sensation of falling; and, looking round, I saw the laboratory exactly as
before. Had anything happened? For a moment I suspected that my intellect had tricked
me. Then I noted the clock. A moment before, as it seemed, it had stood at a minute or so
past ten; now it was nearly half-past three!
`I drew a breath, set my teeth, gripped the starting lever with both hands, and went off
with a thud. The laboratory got hazy and went dark. Mrs. Watchett came in and walked,
apparently without seeing me, towards the garden door. I suppose it took her a minute or
so to traverse the place, but to me she seemed to shoot across the room like a rocket. I
pressed the lever over to its extreme position. The night came like the turning out of a
lamp, and in another moment came to-morrow. The laboratory grew faint and hazy, then
fainter and ever fainter. To-morrow night came black, then day again, night again, day
again, faster and faster still.