Philip Van Doren Stern (ed) (15 page)

"I
looked
up
again
at
the
crouching
white
shape,
and
the
full temerity
of
my
voyage
came
suddenly
upon
me.
What
might
appear when
that
hazy
curtain
was
altogether
withdrawn?
What
might
not have
happened
to
men?
What
if
cruelty
had
grown
into
a
common passion?
What
if
in
this
interval
the
race
had
lost
its
manliness,
and had
developed
into
something
inhuman,
unsympathetic,
and
overwhelmingly
powerful?
I
might
seem
some
old-world
savage
animal, only
the
more
dreadful
and
disgusting
for
our
common
likeness—a foul
creature
to
be
incontinently
slain.

"Already
I
saw
other
vast
shapes—huge
buildings
with
intricate parapets
and
tall
columns,
with
a
wooded
hillside
dimly
creeping
in upon
me
through
the
lessening
storm.
I
was
seized
with
a
panic
fear. I
turned
frantically
to
the
Time
Machine,
and
strove
hard
to
readjust it.
As
I
did
so
the
shafts
of
the
sun
smote
through
the
thunderstorm. The
grey
downpour
was
swept
aside
and
vanished
like
the
trailing garments
of
a
ghost.
Above
me,
in
the
intense
blue
of
the
summer sky,
some
faint
brown
shreds
of
cloud
whirled
into
nothingness.
The great
buildings
about
me
stood
out
clear
and
distinct,
shining
with the
wet
of
the
thunderstorm,
and
picked
out
in
white
by
the
un-melted
hailstones
piled
along
their
courses.
I
felt
naked
in
a
strange world.
I
felt
as
perhaps
a
bird
may
feel
in
the
clear
air,
knowing
the hawk
wings
above
and
will
swoop.
My
fear
grew
to
frenzy.
I
took
a breathing
space,
set
my
teeth,
and
again
grappled
fiercely,
wrist
and knee,
with
the
machine.
It
gave
under
my
desperate
onset
and
turned over.
It
struck
my
chin
violently.
One
hand
on
the
saddle,
the
other on
the
lever,
I
stood
panting
heavily
in
attitude
to
mount
again.

"But
with
this
recovery
of
a
prompt
retreat
my
courage
recovered.

I
looked more curiously and less fearfully at this world of the remote future. In
a circular opening, high up in the wall of the nearer house, I saw a group of
figures clad in rich soft robes. They had seen me, and their faces were
directed towards me.

"Then
I heard voices approaching me. Coming through the bushes by the White Sphinx
were the heads and shoulders of men running. One of these emerged in a pathway
leading straight to the little lawn upon which I stood with my machine. He was
a slight creature— perhaps four feet high—clad in a purple tunic, girdled at
the waist with a leather belt. Sandals or buskins—I could not clearly
distinguish which—were on his feet; his legs were bare to the knees, and his
head was bare. Noticing that, I noticed for the first time how warm the air
was.

"He
struck me as being a very beautiful and graceful creature, but indescribably
frail. His flushed face reminded me of the more beautiful kind of
consumptive—that hectic beauty of which we used to hear so much. At the sight
of him I suddenly regained confidence. I took my hands from the machine.

4
£•»

"In another moment we were standing face
to face, I and this fragile thing out of futurity. He came straight up to me
and laughed into my eyes. The absence from his bearing of any sign of fear
struck me at once. Then he turned to the two others who were following him and
spoke to them in a strange and very sweet and liquid tongue.

"There
were others coming, and presently a little group of perhaps eight or ten of
these exquisite creatures were about me. One of them addressed me. It came into
my head, oddly enough, that my voice was too harsh and deep for them. So I
shook my head, and, pointing to my ears, shook it again. He came a step forward,
hesitated, and then touched my hand. Then I felt other soft little tentacles
upon my back and shoulders. They wanted to make sure I was real. There was
nothing in this at all alarming. Indeed, there was something in these pretty
little people that inspired confidence—a graceful gentleness, a certain
childlike ease. And besides, they looked so frail that I could fancy myself
flinging the whole dozen of them about like nine-pins.

But
I
made
a
sudden
motion
to
warn
them
when
I
saw
their
little pink
hands
feeling
at
the
Time
Machine.
Happily
then,
when
it
was not
too
late,
I
thought
of
a
danger
I
had
hitherto
forgotten,
and reaching
over
the
bars
of
the
machine
I
unscrewed
the
little
levers that
would
set
it
in
motion,
and
put
these
in
my
pocket.
Then
I turned
again
to
see
what
I
could
do
in
the
way
of
communication.