Read Philip Van Doren Stern (ed) Online
Authors: Travelers In Time
Philip Van Doren Stern (ed) (282 page)
I
did
not
feel
in
the
least
surprised
at
this
sudden
apparition.
It seemed
to
me
quite
natural
that
this
strange
unaged
old
man
should be
sitting
in
my
armchair.
I
did
not
even
interrupt;
I
merely
waited for
the
old
man
to
go
on.
"Everything
would
have
been
different,
but
the
result
would
have been
the
same,"
the
stranger
repeated.
"You
know
how
to
play chess?"
he
asked.
I
said
I
was
an
enthusiastic
but
unskilful
chess
player.
"Very
well,"
said
the
stranger.
"Supposing
you
play
a
game
with
a
professional,
you
make
certain
mistakes,
and
you
lose
the
game.
Let us
assume
you
keep
a
record
of
the
moves,
and
that
when
the
game is
over
your
adversary
allows
you
to
play
it
over
again.
Say
you
rectify an
initial
blunder;
you
use
different
openings,
different
gambits;
you have
a
new
scheme,
an
improved
strategical
plan.
Every
move
you make
in
this
second
game
is
different
from
those
you
made
in
the first
game.
But
do
you
win?
No.
Because
your
adversary,
the
professional,
changes
his
game
in
such
a
manner
as
to
meet
and
answer
the changed
nature
of
your
game.
He
replies
to
your
new
strategy
with a
new
counter-strategy;
his
counter-moves
lead
you
to
move
as
he wishes,
and
in
the
end
he
checkmates
you.
"So
it
is
with
men
in
history.
Supposing
you
were
to
eliminate
the great
men
of
history,
and
substitute
for
them
men
of
a
different nature;
or
supposing
you
left
them
as
they
were,
but
changed
the quality
of
the
moves
and
shortened
or
lengthened
their
careers
inversely
to
what
happened
in
history,
as
you
know
it,
then
every
move in
the
game
would
be
different;
but,
in
spite
of
that,
the
march
of history
and
the
fate
of
mankind
would
be
the
same."
"I
understand
that's
quite
possible,"
I
said,
"but
forgive
the
question,
how
do
you
know?"
"Because,"
said
the
stranger,
"I
am
the
historiographer
of
the
Kingdom
of
Limbo.
I
teach
the
ghosts
history—alternative
history,
in
case they
should
be
conceited."
"Yes,"
I
said,
"but
how
I
don't
quite
see.
Films?
A
cinematograph?"
"Oh,
no,"
said
the
stranger.
"We
do
better
than
that;
we
plunge the
student
into
the
life
of
an
alternative
world;
alternative
to
the period
in
which
he
lived
on
earth;
and
we
let
him
leam
from
experience,
as
an
eyewitness,
what
that
epoch
would
have
been
like
had
his part
been
either
nonexistent
or
different."
"Very
interesting,"
I
said.
"I
should
like
a
glimpse
of
an
alternative world
of
that
kind."
"Nothing
is
easier,"
said
the
stranger.
"Choose
any
epoch
you
like and
I
will
take
you
there."
"Well,"
I
said,
"I
should
like
to
see
what
would
have
happened in
the
period
I
am
reading
about,
supposing
Napoleon
had
entered the
British
Navy
instead
of
the
French
Army."
"Nothing
is
easier,"
said
the
stranger.
"You
shall
have
two
peeps into
that
world
between
1800
and
1850.
Come
along."
I
felt
dazed
for
a
moment,
but
only
for
a
moment,
and
when
I recovered
from
this
fleeting
flash
of
unconsciousness
I
found
myself wide
awake.
I
was
sitting
on
a
verandah;
in
front
of
me
was
a
sea-coast,
against
which
large
grey
breakers
were
rolling;
behind
me
sashed windows
which
reached
to
the
ground
opened
on
to
a
parlour;
and something
touched
a
cell
or
struck
a
note
in
my
memory
which
made me
think
of
Miss
Austen's
novels,
of
Cranford,
and
of
the
breakfast room
in
a
country
house
where
I
had
once
stayed
in
my
childhood. Was
it
a
faint
smell
of
lavender
that
came
from
indoors,
or
the
taste of
the
saffron
bun
I
had
just
eaten,
for
I
had
just
taken
a
bite
from a
saffron
bun,
or
the
elder-flower
wine
that
I
was
sipping,
or
the picture
of
King
George
on
the
wall
I
could
see
over
the
chimney piece
of
the
room
beyond
the
verandah?
I
don't
know.
That
parlour
was
bare,
and
might
have
belonged
to
almost
any epoch.
It
was
slightly
damp.
I
knew
that
I
was
not
in
Europe,
although there
was
nothing
extra-European
either
behind
or
before
me.
I
was talking
to
a
man,
who,
although
he
was
dressed
in
nankeen,
had
something
indefinably
maritime
about
him.
He
was
middle-aged,
with
a tawny
beard
streaked
with
grey
hairs,
and
his
face
was
tanned
and worn
by
exposure;
there
was
nothing
rough,
bluff,
or
hearty
about him,
but,
on
the
contrary,
an
air
of
gentle
and
slightly
melancholy refinement.
He
was
smoking
a
pipe,
and
after
taking
a
puff
or
two in
silence,
he
took
up
the
thread
of
his
discourse
again.
I
was
certain that
the
conversation
was
being
continued
and
not
being
begun,
and I
felt
quite
satisfied
when
my
quiet
interlocutor
said: