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 fame 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 eggshell 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--I 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 anyone 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
apologise," 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.
[ END OF CHAPTER, MOVE TO CHAPTER IV ]