The Time Machine
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.
VIII.
Explanation
“So far as I could see, all the world displayed the same exuberant
richness as the Thames valley. From every hill I climbed I saw the same
abundance of splendid buildings, endlessly varied in material and
style, the same clustering thickets of evergreens, the same
blossom-laden trees and tree ferns. Here and there water shone like
silver, and beyond, the land rose into blue undulating hills, and so
faded into the serenity of the sky. A peculiar feature, which presently
attracted my attention, was the presence of certain circular wells,
several, as it seemed to me, of a very great depth. One lay by the path
up the hill which I had followed during my first walk. Like the others,
it was rimmed with bronze, curiously wrought, and protected by a little
cupola from the rain. Sitting by the side of these wells, and peering
down into the shafted darkness, I could see no gleam of water, nor
could I start any reflection with a lighted match. But in all of them I
heard a certain sound: a thud—thud—thud, like the beating of some big
engine; and I discovered, from the flaring of my matches, that a steady
current of air set down the shafts. Further, I threw a scrap of paper
into the throat of one, and, instead of fluttering slowly down, it was
at once sucked swiftly out of sight.
“After a time, too, I came to connect these wells with tall towers
standing here and there upon the slopes; for above them there was often
just such a flicker in the air as one sees on a hot day above a
sun-scorched beach. Putting things together, I reached a strong
suggestion of an extensive system of subterranean ventilation, whose
true import it was difficult to imagine. I was at first inclined to
associate it with the sanitary apparatus of these people. It was an
obvious conclusion, but it was absolutely wrong.
“And here I must admit that I learnt very little of drains and bells
and modes of conveyance, and the like conveniences, during my time in
this real future. In some of these visions of Utopias and coming times
which I have read, there is a vast amount of detail about building, and
social arrangements, and so forth. But while such details are easy
enough to obtain when the whole world is contained in one’s
imagination, they are altogether inaccessible to a real traveller amid
such realities as I found here. Conceive the tale of London which a
negro, fresh from Central Africa, would take back to his tribe! What
would he know of railway companies, of social movements, of telephone
and telegraph wires, of the Parcels Delivery Company, and postal orders
and the like? Yet we, at least, should be willing enough to explain
these things to him! And even of what he knew, how much could he make
his untravelled friend either apprehend or believe? Then, think how
narrow the gap between a negro and a white man of our own times, and
how wide the interval between myself and these of the Golden Age! I was
sensible of much which was unseen, and which contributed to my comfort;
but save for a general impression of automatic organisation, I fear I
can convey very little of the difference to your mind.
“In the matter of sepulture, for instance, I could see no signs of
crematoria nor anything suggestive of tombs. But it occurred to me
that, possibly, there might be cemeteries (or crematoria) somewhere
beyond the range of my explorings. This, again, was a question I
deliberately put to myself, and my curiosity was at first entirely
defeated upon the point. The thing puzzled me, and I was led to make a
further remark, which puzzled me still more: that aged and infirm among
this people there were none.
“I must confess that my satisfaction with my first theories of an
automatic civilisation and a decadent humanity did not long endure. Yet
I could think of no other. Let me put my difficulties. The several big
palaces I had explored were mere living places, great dining-halls and
sleeping apartments. I could find no machinery, no appliances of any
kind. Yet these people were clothed in pleasant fabrics that must at
times need renewal, and their sandals, though undecorated, were fairly
complex specimens of metalwork. Somehow such things must be made. And
the little people displayed no vestige of a creative tendency. There
were no shops, no workshops, no sign of importations among them. They
spent all their time in playing gently, in bathing in the river, in
making love in a half-playful fashion, in eating fruit and sleeping. I
could not see how things were kept going.
“Then, again, about the Time Machine: something, I knew not what, had
taken it into the hollow pedestal of the White Sphinx. _Why?_ For the
life of me I could not imagine. Those waterless wells, too, those
flickering pillars. I felt I lacked a clue. I felt—how shall I put it?
Suppose you found an inscription, with sentences here and there in
excellent plain English, and interpolated therewith, others made up of
words, of letters even, absolutely unknown to you? Well, on the third
day of my visit, that was how the world of Eight Hundred and Two
Thousand Seven Hundred and One presented itself to me!
“That day, too, I made a friend—of a sort. It happened that, as I was
watching some of the little people bathing in a shallow, one of them
was seized with cramp and began drifting downstream. The main current
ran rather swiftly, but not too strongly for even a moderate swimmer.
It will give you an idea, therefore, of the strange deficiency in these
creatures, when I tell you that none made the slightest attempt to
rescue the weakly crying little thing which was drowning before their
eyes. When I realised this, I hurriedly slipped off my clothes, and,
wading in at a point lower down, I caught the poor mite and drew her
safe to land. A little rubbing of the limbs soon brought her round, and
I had the satisfaction of seeing she was all right before I left her. I
had got to such a low estimate of her kind that I did not expect any
gratitude from her. In that, however, I was wrong.
“This happened in the morning. In the afternoon I met my little woman,
as I believe it was, as I was returning towards my centre from an
exploration, and she received me with cries of delight and presented me
with a big garland of flowers—evidently made for me and me alone. The
thing took my imagination. Very possibly I had been feeling desolate.
At any rate I did my best to display my appreciation of the gift. We
were soon seated together in a little stone arbour, engaged in
conversation, chiefly of smiles. The creature’s friendliness affected
me exactly as a child’s might have done. We passed each other flowers,
and she kissed my hands. I did the same to hers. Then I tried talk, and
found that her name was Weena, which, though I don’t know what it
meant, somehow seemed appropriate enough. That was the beginning of a
queer friendship which lasted a week, and ended—as I will tell you!
“She was exactly like a child. She wanted to be with me always. She
tried to follow me everywhere, and on my next journey out and about it
went to my heart to tire her down, and leave her at last, exhausted and
calling after me rather plaintively. But the problems of the world had