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 Linnæan. He said he had seen a similar thing at Tübingen, 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.
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