时间游客（这样称呼他是为了方便起见）正在给我们讲解一个深奥难懂的问题。他灰色的眼睛一眨一眨的，炯炯有神，往常苍白的面孔此刻红光焕发。壁炉里炉火熊熊，白炽灯在银制百合花灯盘里射出柔和的光亮，照在我们玻璃杯里跳动的气泡上。我们坐的椅子，只有他才有，它们与其说是供我们坐的，不如说是在拥抱我们，抚慰我们。晚饭后的气氛舒适惬意，人们的思绪在这时候往往会不求精确，从容地驰骋奔流。他就这样一边用纤细的食指划着要点，一边在向我们讲述这个深奥的问题，我们都懒洋洋地坐着，钦佩他在这个新谬论上（我们是这样认为的）表现出的认真态度和丰富的创造力。
“你们一定要仔细听我讲。我要反驳一两个几乎是公认的观点。比如，你们在学校里学的几何就是建立在错误的概念上的。”
“要我们从这里听起，范围不免大了点吧？”菲尔比说。他头上长着红头发，喜欢与人争辩。
“我不是要你们接受什么无稽之谈。你们很快会承认我需要你们承认的内容的。你们自然知道，数学上所谓的一条线，一条宽度为零的线其实并不存在。这个你们在学校是学过的吧？数学上所说的平面也是没有的，这些纯粹是抽象的东西。”
“不错。”心理学家说。
“仅有长、宽、高的立方体实际上也不可能存在。”
“我反对这种提法，”菲尔比说，“固体当然可以存在。一切实在的东西……”
“多数人是这样认为的。可你听我说，一个瞬时的立方体能存在吗？”
“不懂你的意思。”菲尔比说。
“一个根本没有持续时间的立方体能够真正存在吗？”
菲尔比陷入了沉思。“很清楚”，时间游客继续道，“任何一个实在的物体都必须向四个方向伸展：它必须有长度、宽度、高度和时间持续度。但由于人类天生的缺陷，这点我待会儿再解释，我们往往忽视这个事实。实际上有四维，其中三维我们称作空间的三个平面，第四维就是时间。然而，人们现在总喜欢在前三者和后者之间划上一条实际并不存在的区分线，因为我们的意识从生命的开始到结束正是沿着时间的同一方向断断续续朝前运动的。”
“这，”一个年轻人说着，哆哆嗦嗦地在灯火上重新点燃了他的雪茄烟。“这……一点确实很清楚。”
“是啊，许多人都忽视了这一点，真是不可思议。”时间游客继续说道，他的兴致更浓了。“实际上这就是第四维的内涵，虽然有些人谈论第四维时并不知道他们指的就是这个意思。这其实只是看待时间的另一种方式。时间和空间三维的任何一维之间都没有什么不同，区别只是我们的意识是沿着时间向前运动的。可有些笨蛋把这个观点的意思搞颠倒了。你们听过他们有关第四维的高见吗？”
“我没听过。”地方长官说。
“是这样的。根据我们数学家的看法，空间有三维，人们可以分别称其为长度、宽度、和高度，而且始终可以通过成直角的三个平面把它们表示出来。但是，有些喜欢刨根问底的人总要问为什么偏偏是三维，为什么没有另一维来同其他三维形成直角呢？他们甚至试图建立四维几何。西蒙·纽科姆教授大约一个月前还在向纽约数学协会解释这个问题呢。你们都知道，我们可以在只有两维的平面上表现一个三维的立体图。同样，他们认为能够通过三维模型来表现四维的东西，只要他们能够掌握透视技法。明白了吧？”
“我想是的，”地方长官轻声说道。他紧锁眉头思考起来，双唇一动一动，好像在重复什么神秘的话。“是的，我想这下明白了。”他过了一会儿说，脸上陡然间露出了喜色。
“嗯，我可以告诉你们，我从事这四维几何的研究已有些时候了。我得出的有些结论很稀奇。比如这是一个人8岁时的一张肖像，这是15岁的，这是17岁的，还有一张是23岁的，等等。这些显然都是一个人的生活片段，是用3维表现出来的4维生命，这是固定的不可改变的东西。”
时间游客停等了片刻，以便大家能够充分理解他的话。接着他说，“思想严谨的人十分清楚，时间只是空间的一种。这是一张常见的科学示意图，记录天气变化的。我手指着的这条线表明气压的变化。昨天白昼气压这么高，夜里又降下去了，今天早上又上升了，慢慢地一直升到这里。气压表里的水银绝对不是在公认的空间三维的意义上勾划出这条线的？可它又确确实实勾划出了这样一条线。因此，我们必须断定，这条线是沿着时间维的。”
“可是，”医生说话时双眼紧盯着炉火里的一块煤。“如果时间真的只是空间的第四维，它为什么现在而且历来都被认为是别的东西呢？我们为什么不能在时间里自由活动，就像我们在空间的其他三维里那样活动？”
时间游客笑了。“你肯定我们能在空间中自由活动吗？我们左右能动，前后也可任意活动，人们历来就是这样活动的。我承认我们在两维中能够自由活动。可上下能动吗？地球引力把我们在地面上。”
“不完全是，”医生说，“用气球行。”
“但是在气球发明之前，除了间歇式的跳跃和路面高低不平外，人是不能任意垂直运动的。”
“不管怎么说，他们还是能够上下运动的。”医生说。
“向下要比向上容易，容易得多。”
“而在时间里根本不能动，你无法离开现在这一时刻。”“我亲爱的先生，你错就错在这里，这也正是全世界的错误所在。我们始终是在脱离现在，我们的精神存在就是非物质的，并且是无维的，它沿着时间维匀速向前，从摇篮走向坟墓。这就像我们的生命，如果从离地50英里的高空开始，我们就必定向下降落。”
“可主要的问题是，”心理学家插话说，“你能够朝空间的任何一个方向运动，而你在时间里无法走来走去。”
“这个想法就是我伟大发现的契机。但是，你说我们在时间里不能运动是错的。比如，如果我在形象地回忆一桩事，我便回到了它的发生时刻。就像你们说的，我变得心不在焉了。我一下子跳了回去，当然我们的双脚无法退回去呆上一段时间，就像一个野蛮人或一头动物无法呆在离地6英尺的空间。但是，文明人在这一点上要比野蛮人强，他可以乘气球排除地球引力向上升。既然这样，他为什么就不能指望自己最终能沿着时间维停止运动或加速运动，甚至逆向运动呢？”
“哦，这，”菲尔比开口道，“是完全……”
“为什么不行？”时间游客问。
“这不合情理。”菲尔比说。
“什么情理？”时间游客问。
“你可以把黑的说成白的，”菲尔比说，“可你永远说服不了我。”
“也许不能，”时间游客说，“但你现在开始明白我钻研四维几何的目的了。很久以前，我就粗粗构想过一种机器
“去穿越时间！”那个年轻人大叫起来。
“它将随心所欲地在空间和时间里运动，完全由驾驶员控制。”
菲尔比笑得前仰后合。
“可我有实验证明。”时间游客说。
“这对历史学家实在是太方便了，”心理学家提示说，“譬如，他可以回到过去，去核实人们公认的关于黑斯廷斯战役的记载！”
“难道你不觉得有点过于引人注目了吗？”医生说，“我们的祖先可不太能容忍年代出差错。”
“人们可以直接从荷马和柏拉图的嘴里学习希腊语了。”这是那个年轻人的想法。
“那样的话，他们一定会给你的考试打不及格。德国学者已经在希腊语上做了许多改进。”
“还有未来呢，”年轻人又说，“想想吧！人们可以把他们所有的钱投资下去，让它在那里生息赚钱，接着再朝前赶。”
“去发现一个社会，”我说，“一个建立在严格的主义基础上的社会。”
“尽是些不着边际的奇谈怪论！”心理学家说。
“是的，我原先也是这样想的，所以从不谈论此事，直到……”
“直到实验证明！”我大声说道，“你能证明它吗？”
“用实验来证明！”菲尔比喊道。他已开始感到头昏脑胀了。
“反正要让我们看看你的实验，”心理学家说，“虽然这全是胡说八道，这你清楚。”
时间游客朝我们大家笑笑。接着，他仍然面带微笑，双手深插在裤袋里，慢吞吞地走出了房间。我们听见他跟拉着拖鞋，沿着长长的过道向实验室走去。
心理学家望着我们。“我不知道他想搞什么名堂？”
“还不是想耍耍花招。”医生说。菲尔比正准备给我们讲他在伯斯勒姆看到的一个巫师，可还没来得及讲完开头，时间游客就回来了。菲尔比想讲的那被轶事只得告吹。
时间游客手里拿着一个闪闪发亮的金属架子。架子和一只小钟差不多大，做工十分考究，里面镶有象牙和一种透明的东西。现在我必须把看到的一切都交代清楚，因为接下去的事情——除非他的解释被接受——绝对是无法理喻的。他把扔在房间里的一张八角形桌子搬到壁炉前，桌子有两条腿就搁在炉前地毯上。他把那个机械装置摆在桌上，拖过一张椅子坐了下来。桌上仅有的另一件东西是一盏罩着灯罩的小台灯，明亮的灯光照在这个模型上。周围还点着十几支蜡烛，两支插在壁炉架上的铜烛台上，另几支插在壁上的烛台上，所以说房间里灯火通明。我在最靠近炉火的一把椅子上坐下来，随即又向前挪了挪，几乎把自己摆到了时间游客和壁炉的中间。菲尔比坐在时间游客背后，两眼朝他肩膀前面张望着。医生和地方长官在右侧注视着，心理学家坐在左侧，年轻人站在心理学家的后面，我们个个都全神贯注。在我看来，任何构思巧妙手段高明的花招要在这种情况下瞒天过海都是不大可能的。
时间游客看看我们，又看看机械装置。“好了吧？”心理学家说。
“这个小东西”，时间游客说，他用胳膊肘撑住桌子，两手按到仪器上，“只是一个模型。我的计划是让机器穿越时间。你们会注意到这东西看上去是歪斜的。这根杆的表面闪闪发光，样子很古怪，似乎有点像是假的。”他说完举手指了指，“另外，这是一根白色的小杠杆，这边还有一根。”
医生从椅子里站了起来，眼睛紧盯着机器。“做得真漂亮。”他说。
“花了两年的时间才做出来的。”时间游客汇报说。当我们都跟着医生站起来时，他又说，“现在我要你们知道，这根杠杆一按下去，就把这架机器送进了未来。另一根杠杆操作逆向运动。这鞍子充当一个时间游客的座位。我马上就按这根杠杆，机器会飞离出去。它将慢慢消失，走进未来的时间，最后无影无踪。请你们好好看看这玩意儿，再检查一下桌子，确保这中间没有任何花招。我可不想浪费了模型还被人骂是江湖骗子。”
大概有一分钟时间过去了，没人作声。心理学家似乎正想对我说什么，可他又改变了主意。接着时间游客举起手指伸向杠杆。“不，”他突然说，“让我借用你的手。”他转向心理学家，握住他的手，叫他把食指伸出来。因此，是心理学家亲手把时间机器送入漫无止境的旅程的。我们都目睹了那根杠杆的转动，我百分之百肯定这里面没有耍花招。就在这时，一阵风吹来，灯火扑扑跳动起来，壁炉架上的一支蜡烛吹灭了。那台小机器打着转转，越飞越远，顷刻间在视野里成了个幻影，像一个闪着微光的黄铜和象牙转出来的旋涡。它走了——消失了！桌子上除了那盏孤灯已一无所有。
大家沉默了片刻。接着菲尔比说他真是该死。
心理学家从恍炮中恢复过来，突然朝桌子底下看去。时间游客乐得哈哈大笑。“怎么说？”他学起了心理学家的说话腔调。随后他起身走到壁炉架上的烟叶罐前，背着我们开始往烟斗里塞烟丝。
我们面面相觑，无话可说。“我说，”医生说，“你这是当真的？你真的相信那架机器走到时间里去了吗？”
“当然。”时间游客说。他弯腰在壁炉火上点燃了一支纸捻，然后他转过身来，边点烟斗边望着心理学家的脸。（心理学家为了故作镇静，自己拿起一支雪茄，连烟屁股都没掐掉就点了起来。）“此外，我那里还有一台大机器即将完工。”——他指了指实验室——“安装完毕后，我打算自己去旅游一趟。”
“你是说那架机器已走进来来？”菲尔比问。
“走进了未来还是过去，我不敢肯定。”
隔了一会儿，心理学家来了灵感。“如果说去了什么地方，那它一定是走进了过去。”他说。
“为什么？”时间游客问。
“因为我相信它没有在空间里移动。如果它已进入未来，那它现在肯定还在这里，因为它必定要穿过现在才能走进未来。”
“可是，”我说，“如果它已走进过去，我们刚进房间时就该看见它。上星期四我们在这里，还有上上个星期四，依此类推！”
“有力的反驳。”地方长官评论道。他转向时间游客，摆出一副公平论事的样子。
“毫无道理，”时间游客说着转向心理学家，“你想想，这个你能解释。这是反应点下的表象，是冲淡的表象，这你知道。”
“当然。”心理学家说。他还再次向我们保证说，“这是心理学上的一个简单问题。我应该想到这个道理，它够明显的，并且有助于说明这种貌似矛盾的现象。我们无法看见这架机器，也欣赏不到它，这就像我们无法看到旋转的轮辐和在空中飞过的子弹。如果机器在时间中旅行的速度比我们快50倍或者100倍，如果它走一分钟我们才走一秒钟，它的速度产生的印象当然就只是它木做时间旅行时的五十分之一或百分之一。这是显而易见的。”他用手在原来摆机器的地方摸了摸。“明白了吧？”他笑着问道。
我们坐在那里，两眼盯着空荡荡的桌子看了一会儿。这时，时间游客问我们如何看待这一切。
“这一切今天晚上听起来很有道理，”医生说，“不过要等到明天再下结论，等明早大家神智清醒时再说。”
“你们想看看真正的时间机器吗？”时间游客问。说完他手里拿着灯，领我们沿着通风的长廊朝他的实验室走去。我清楚地记得那闪烁的灯火，他那大脑袋的侧影，舞动的人影，记得我们如何一个个跟着他，心里迷惑不解可又不愿轻信，如何在实验室目睹了就在我们眼前消失的那架小机器的大号翻版。大机器的有些部件是镍制的，有些是象牙做的，还有些是用水晶石挫成或锯成的。机器已大体完成，但是水晶曲棒还摆在凳上的几张图纸旁，没有完工。我拿起一根曲棒仔细看了看，发现好像是用石英做的。
“我说，”医生问道，“你这是完全认真的？还是骗骗人的——就像去年圣诞节你给我们看的那个鬼？”
“坐这架机器，”时间游客高举着灯说道，“我想去探索时间。清楚了吧？我这辈子还从未这样认真过。”
我们谁也不知道该如何去理解他的这句话。
我的视线越过医生的肩膀和菲尔比投来的目光相遇了，他表情严肃地朝我使了个眼色。
`You must follow me carefully. I shall have to controvert one or two ideas that are almost universally accepted. The geometry, for instance, they taught you at school is founded on a misconception.'
`Is not that rather a large thing to expect us to begin upon?' said Filby, an argumentative person with red hair.
`I do not mean to ask you to accept anything without reasonable ground for it. You will soon admit as much as I need from you. You know of course that a mathematical line, a line of thickness NIL, has no real existence. They taught you that? Neither has a mathematical plane. These things are mere abstractions.'
`That is all right,' said the Psychologist.
`Nor, having only length, breadth, and thickness, can a cube have a real existence.'
`There I object,' said Filby. `Of course a solid body may exist. All real things--'
`So most people think. But wait a moment. Can an INSTANTANEOUS cube exist?'
`Don't follow you,' said Filby.
`Can a cube that does not last for any time at all, have a real existence?'
Filby became pensive. `Clearly,' the Time Traveller proceeded, `any real body must have extension in FOUR directions: it must have Length, Breadth, Thickness, and--Duration. But through a natural infirmity of the flesh, which I will explain to you in a moment, we incline to overlook this fact. There are really four dimensions, three which we call the three planes of Space, and a fourth, Time. There is, however, a tendency to draw an unreal distinction between the former three dimensions and the latter, because it happens that our consciousness moves intermittently in one direction along the latter from the beginning to the end of our lives.'
`That,' said a very young man, making spasmodic efforts to relight his cigar over the lamp; `that . . . very clear indeed.'
`Now, it is very remarkable that this is so extensively overlooked,' continued the Time Traveller, with a slight accession of cheerfulness. `Really this is what is meant by the Fourth Dimension, though some people who talk about the Fourth Dimension do not know they mean it. It is only another way of looking at Time. THERE IS NO DIFFERENCE BETWEEN TIME AND ANY OF THE THREE DIMENSIONS OF SPACE EXCEPT THAT OUR CONSCIOUSNESS MOVES ALONG IT. But some foolish people have got hold of the wrong side of that idea. You have all heard what they have to say about this Fourth Dimension?'
`_I_ have not,' said the Provincial Mayor.
`It is simply this. That Space, as our mathematicians have it, is spoken of as having three dimensions, which one may call Length, Breadth, and Thickness, and is always definable by reference to three planes, each at right angles to the others. But some philosophical people have been asking why THREE dimensions particularly--why not another direction at right angles to the other three?--and have even tried to construct a Four-Dimension geometry. Professor Simon Newcomb was expounding this to the New York Mathematical Society only a month or so ago. You know how on a flat surface, which has only two dimensions, we can represent a figure of a three-dimensional solid, and similarly they think that by models of thee dimensions they could represent one of four--if they could master the perspective of the thing. See?'
`I think so,' murmured the Provincial Mayor; and, knitting his brows, he lapsed into an introspective state, his lips moving as one who repeats mystic words. `Yes, I think I see it now,' he said after some time, brightening in a quite transitory manner.
`Well, I do not mind telling you I have been at work upon this geometry of Four Dimensions for some time. Some of my results are curious. For instance, here is a portrait of a man at eight years old, another at fifteen, another at seventeen, another at twenty-three, and so on. All these are evidently sections, as it were, Three-Dimensional representations of his Four-Dimensioned being, which is a fixed and unalterable thing.
`Scientific people,' proceeded the Time Traveller, after the pause required for the proper assimilation of this, `know very well that Time is only a kind of Space. Here is a popular scientific diagram, a weather record. This line I trace with my finger shows the movement of the barometer. Yesterday it was so high, yesterday night it fell, then this morning it rose again, and so gently upward to here. Surely the mercury did not trace this line in any of the dimensions of Space generally recognized? But certainly it traced such a line, and that line, therefore, we must conclude was along the Time-Dimension.'
`But,' said the Medical Man, staring hard at a coal in the fire, `if Time is really only a fourth dimension of Space, why is it, and why has it always been, regarded as something different? And why cannot we move in Time as we move about in the other dimensions of Space?'
The Time Traveller smiled. `Are you sure we can move freely in Space? Right and left we can go, backward and forward freely enough, and men always have done so. I admit we move freely in two dimensions. But how about up and down? Gravitation limits us there.'
`Not exactly,' said the Medical Man. `There are balloons.'
`But before the balloons, save for spasmodic jumping and the inequalities of the surface, man had no freedom of vertical movement.' `Still they could move a little up and down,' said the Medical Man.
`Easier, far easier down than up.'
`And you cannot move at all in Time, you cannot get away from the present moment.'
`My dear sir, that is just where you are wrong. That is just where the whole world has gone wrong. We are always getting away from the present moment. Our mental existences, which are immaterial and have no dimensions, are passing along the Time-Dimension with a uniform velocity from the cradle to the grave. Just as we should travel DOWN if we began our existence fifty miles above the earth's surface.'
`But the great difficulty is this,' interrupted the Psychologist. `You CAN move about in all directions of Space, but you cannot move about in Time.'
`That is the germ of my great discovery. But you are wrong to say that we cannot move about in Time. For instance, if I am recalling an incident very vividly I go back to the instant of its occurrence: I become absent-minded, as you say. I jump back for a moment. Of course we have no means of staying back for any length of Time, any more than a savage or an animal has of staying six feet above the ground. But a civilized man is better off than the savage in this respect. He can go up against gravitation in a balloon, and why should he not hope that ultimately he may be able to stop or accelerate his drift along the Time-Dimension, or even turn about and travel the other way?'
`Oh, THIS,' began Filby, `is all--'
`Why not?' said the Time Traveller.
`It's against reason,' said Filby.
`What reason?' said the Time Traveller.
`You can show black is white by argument,' said Filby, `but you will never convince me.'
`Possibly not,' said the Time Traveller. `But now you begin to see the object of my investigations into the geometry of Four Dimensions. Long ago I had a vague inkling of a machine--'
`To travel through Time!' exclaimed the Very Young Man.
`That shall travel indifferently in any direction of Space and Time, as the driver determines.'
Filby contented himself with laughter.
`But I have experimental verification,' said the Time Traveller.
`It would be remarkably convenient for the historian,' the Psychologist suggested. `One might travel back and verify the accepted account of the Battle of Hastings, for instance!'
`Don't you think you would attract attention?' said the Medical Man. `Our ancestors had no great tolerance for anachronisms.'
`One might get one's Greek from the very lips of Homer and Plato,' the Very Young Man thought.
`In which case they would certainly plough you for the Little-go. The German scholars have improved Greek so much.'
`Then there is the future,' said the Very Young Man. `Just think! One might invest all one's money, leave it to accumulate at interest, and hurry on ahead!'
`To discover a society,' said I, `erected on a strictly communistic basis.'
`Of all the wild extravagant theories!' began the Psychologist.
`Yes, so it seemed to me, and so I never talked of it until--'
`Experimental verification!' cried I. `You are going to verify THAT?'
`The experiment!' cried Filby, who was getting brain-weary.
`Let's see your experiment anyhow,' said the Psychologist, `though it's all humbug, you know.'
The Time Traveller smiled round at us. Then, still smiling faintly, and with his hands deep in his trousers pockets, he walked slowly out of the room, and we heard his slippers shuffling down the long passage to his laboratory.
The Psychologist looked at us. `I wonder what he's got?'
`Some sleight-of-hand trick or other,' said the Medical Man, and Filby tried to tell us about a conjurer he had seen at Burslem; but before he had finished his preface the Time Traveller came back, and Filby's anecdote collapsed.
The thing the Time Traveller held in his hand was a glittering metallic framework, scarcely larger than a small clock, and very delicately made. There was ivory in it, and some transparent crystalline substance. And now I must be explicit, for this that follows--unless his explanation is to be accepted--is an absolutely unaccountable thing. He took one of the small octagonal tables that were scattered about the room, and set it in front of the fire, with two legs on the hearthrug. On this table he placed the mechanism. Then he drew up a chair, and sat down. The only other object on the table was a small shaded lamp, the bright light of which fell upon the model. There were also perhaps a dozen candles about, two in brass candlesticks upon the mantel and several in sconces, so that the room was brilliantly illuminated. I sat in a low arm-chair nearest the fire, and I drew this forward so as to be almost between the Time Traveller and the fireplace. Filby sat behind him, looking over his shoulder. The Medical Man and the Provincial Mayor watched him in profile from the right, the Psychologist from the left. The Very Young Man stood behind the Psychologist. We were all on the alert. It appears incredible to me that any kind of trick, however subtly conceived and however adroitly done, could have been played upon us under these conditions.
The Time Traveller looked at us, and then at the mechanism. `Well?' said the Psychologist.
`This little affair,' said the Time Traveller, resting his elbows upon the table and pressing his hands together above the apparatus, `is only a model. It is my plan for a machine to travel through time. You will notice that it looks singularly askew, and that there is an odd twinkling appearance about this bar, as though it was in some way unreal.' He pointed to the part with his finger. `Also, here is one little white lever, and here is another.'
The Medical Man got up out of his chair and peered into the thing. `It's beautifully made,' he said.
`It took two years to make,' retorted the Time Traveller. Then, when we had all imitated the action of the Medical Man, he said: `Now I want you clearly to understand that this lever, being pressed over, sends the machine gliding into the future, and this other reverses the motion. This saddle represents the seat of a time traveller. Presently I am going to press the lever, and off the machine will go. It will vanish, pass into future Time, and disappear. Have a good look at the thing. Look at the table too, and satisfy yourselves there is no trickery. I don't want to waste this model, and then be told I'm a quack.'
There was a minute's pause perhaps. The Psychologist seemed about to speak to me, but changed his mind. Then the Time Traveller put forth his finger towards the lever. `No,' he said suddenly. `Lend me your hand.' And turning to the Psychologist, he took that individual's hand in his own and told him to put out his forefinger. So that it was the Psychologist himself who sent forth the model Time Machine on its interminable voyage. We all saw the lever turn. I am absolutely certain there was no trickery. There was a breath of wind, and the lamp flame jumped. One of the candles on the mantel was blown out, and the little machine suddenly swung round, became indistinct, was seen as a ghost for a second perhaps, as an eddy of faintly glittering brass and ivory; and it was gone--vanished! Save for the lamp the table was bare.
Everyone was silent for a minute. Then Filby said he was damned.
The Psychologist recovered from his stupor, and suddenly looked under the table. At that the Time Traveller laughed cheerfully. `Well?' he said, with a reminiscence of the Psychologist. Then, getting up, he went to the tobacco jar on the mantel, and with his back to us began to fill his pipe.
We stared at each other. `Look here,' said the Medical Man, `are you in earnest about this? Do you seriously believe that that machine has travelled into time?'
`Certainly,' said the Time Traveller, stooping to light a spill at the fire. Then he turned, lighting his pipe, to look at the Psychologist's face. (The Psychologist, to show that he was not unhinged, helped himself to a cigar and tried to light it uncut.) `What is more, I have a big machine nearly finished in there'--he indicated the laboratory--`and when that is put together I mean to have a journey on my own account.'
`You mean to say that that machine has travelled into the future?' said Filby.
`Into the future or the past--I don't, for certain, know which.'
After an interval the Psychologist had an inspiration. `It must have gone into the past if it has gone anywhere,' he said.
`Why?' said the Time Traveller.
`Because I presume that it has not moved in space, and if it travelled into the future it would still be here all this time, since it must have travelled through this time.'
`But,' I said, `If it travelled into the past it would have been visible when we came first into this room; and last Thursday when we were here; and the Thursday before that; and so forth!'
`Serious objections,' remarked the Provincial Mayor, with an air of impartiality, turning towards the Time Traveller.
`Not a bit,' said the Time Traveller, and, to the Psychologist: `You think. You can explain that. It's presentation below the threshold, you know, diluted presentation.'
`Of course,' said the Psychologist, and reassured us. `That's a simple point of psychology. I should have thought of it. It's plain enough, and helps the paradox delightfully. We cannot see it, nor can we appreciate this machine, any more than we can the spoke of a wheel spinning, or a bullet flying through the air. If it is travelling through time fifty times or a hundred times faster than we are, if it gets through a minute while we get through a second, the impression it creates will of course be only one-fiftieth or one-hundredth of what it would make if it were not travelling in time. That's plain enough.' He passed his hand through the space in which the machine had been. `You see?' he said, laughing.
We sat and stared at the vacant table for a minute or so. Then the Time Traveller asked us what we thought of it all.
`It sounds plausible enough to-night,' said the Medical Man; 'but wait until to-morrow. Wait for the common sense of the morning.'
`Would you like to see the Time Machine itself?' asked the Time Traveller. And therewith, taking the lamp in his hand, he led the way down the long, draughty corridor to his laboratory. I remember vividly the flickering light, his queer, broad head in silhouette, the dance of the shadows, how we all followed him, puzzled but incredulous, and how there in the laboratory we beheld a larger edition of the little mechanism which we had seen vanish from before our eyes. Parts were of nickel, parts of ivory, parts had certainly been filed or sawn out of rock crystal. The thing was generally complete, but the twisted crystalline bars lay unfinished upon the bench beside some sheets of drawings, and I took one up for a better look at it. Quartz it seemed to be.
`Look here,' said the Medical Man, `are you perfectly serious? Or is this a trick--like that ghost you showed us last Christmas?'
`Upon that machine,' said the Time Traveller, holding the lamp aloft, `I intend to explore time. Is that plain? I was never more serious in my life.'
None of us quite knew how to take it.
I caught Filby's eye over the shoulder of the Medical Man, and he winked at me solemnly.
“你们一定要仔细听我讲。我要反驳一两个几乎是公认的观点。比如，你们在学校里学的几何就是建立在错误的概念上的。”
“要我们从这里听起，范围不免大了点吧？”菲尔比说。他头上长着红头发，喜欢与人争辩。
“我不是要你们接受什么无稽之谈。你们很快会承认我需要你们承认的内容的。你们自然知道，数学上所谓的一条线，一条宽度为零的线其实并不存在。这个你们在学校是学过的吧？数学上所说的平面也是没有的，这些纯粹是抽象的东西。”
“不错。”心理学家说。
“仅有长、宽、高的立方体实际上也不可能存在。”
“我反对这种提法，”菲尔比说，“固体当然可以存在。一切实在的东西……”
“多数人是这样认为的。可你听我说，一个瞬时的立方体能存在吗？”
“不懂你的意思。”菲尔比说。
“一个根本没有持续时间的立方体能够真正存在吗？”
菲尔比陷入了沉思。“很清楚”，时间游客继续道，“任何一个实在的物体都必须向四个方向伸展：它必须有长度、宽度、高度和时间持续度。但由于人类天生的缺陷，这点我待会儿再解释，我们往往忽视这个事实。实际上有四维，其中三维我们称作空间的三个平面，第四维就是时间。然而，人们现在总喜欢在前三者和后者之间划上一条实际并不存在的区分线，因为我们的意识从生命的开始到结束正是沿着时间的同一方向断断续续朝前运动的。”
“这，”一个年轻人说着，哆哆嗦嗦地在灯火上重新点燃了他的雪茄烟。“这……一点确实很清楚。”
“是啊，许多人都忽视了这一点，真是不可思议。”时间游客继续说道，他的兴致更浓了。“实际上这就是第四维的内涵，虽然有些人谈论第四维时并不知道他们指的就是这个意思。这其实只是看待时间的另一种方式。时间和空间三维的任何一维之间都没有什么不同，区别只是我们的意识是沿着时间向前运动的。可有些笨蛋把这个观点的意思搞颠倒了。你们听过他们有关第四维的高见吗？”
“我没听过。”地方长官说。
“是这样的。根据我们数学家的看法，空间有三维，人们可以分别称其为长度、宽度、和高度，而且始终可以通过成直角的三个平面把它们表示出来。但是，有些喜欢刨根问底的人总要问为什么偏偏是三维，为什么没有另一维来同其他三维形成直角呢？他们甚至试图建立四维几何。西蒙·纽科姆教授大约一个月前还在向纽约数学协会解释这个问题呢。你们都知道，我们可以在只有两维的平面上表现一个三维的立体图。同样，他们认为能够通过三维模型来表现四维的东西，只要他们能够掌握透视技法。明白了吧？”
“我想是的，”地方长官轻声说道。他紧锁眉头思考起来，双唇一动一动，好像在重复什么神秘的话。“是的，我想这下明白了。”他过了一会儿说，脸上陡然间露出了喜色。
“嗯，我可以告诉你们，我从事这四维几何的研究已有些时候了。我得出的有些结论很稀奇。比如这是一个人8岁时的一张肖像，这是15岁的，这是17岁的，还有一张是23岁的，等等。这些显然都是一个人的生活片段，是用3维表现出来的4维生命，这是固定的不可改变的东西。”
时间游客停等了片刻，以便大家能够充分理解他的话。接着他说，“思想严谨的人十分清楚，时间只是空间的一种。这是一张常见的科学示意图，记录天气变化的。我手指着的这条线表明气压的变化。昨天白昼气压这么高，夜里又降下去了，今天早上又上升了，慢慢地一直升到这里。气压表里的水银绝对不是在公认的空间三维的意义上勾划出这条线的？可它又确确实实勾划出了这样一条线。因此，我们必须断定，这条线是沿着时间维的。”
“可是，”医生说话时双眼紧盯着炉火里的一块煤。“如果时间真的只是空间的第四维，它为什么现在而且历来都被认为是别的东西呢？我们为什么不能在时间里自由活动，就像我们在空间的其他三维里那样活动？”
时间游客笑了。“你肯定我们能在空间中自由活动吗？我们左右能动，前后也可任意活动，人们历来就是这样活动的。我承认我们在两维中能够自由活动。可上下能动吗？地球引力把我们在地面上。”
“不完全是，”医生说，“用气球行。”
“但是在气球发明之前，除了间歇式的跳跃和路面高低不平外，人是不能任意垂直运动的。”
“不管怎么说，他们还是能够上下运动的。”医生说。
“向下要比向上容易，容易得多。”
“而在时间里根本不能动，你无法离开现在这一时刻。”“我亲爱的先生，你错就错在这里，这也正是全世界的错误所在。我们始终是在脱离现在，我们的精神存在就是非物质的，并且是无维的，它沿着时间维匀速向前，从摇篮走向坟墓。这就像我们的生命，如果从离地50英里的高空开始，我们就必定向下降落。”
“可主要的问题是，”心理学家插话说，“你能够朝空间的任何一个方向运动，而你在时间里无法走来走去。”
“这个想法就是我伟大发现的契机。但是，你说我们在时间里不能运动是错的。比如，如果我在形象地回忆一桩事，我便回到了它的发生时刻。就像你们说的，我变得心不在焉了。我一下子跳了回去，当然我们的双脚无法退回去呆上一段时间，就像一个野蛮人或一头动物无法呆在离地6英尺的空间。但是，文明人在这一点上要比野蛮人强，他可以乘气球排除地球引力向上升。既然这样，他为什么就不能指望自己最终能沿着时间维停止运动或加速运动，甚至逆向运动呢？”
“哦，这，”菲尔比开口道，“是完全……”
“为什么不行？”时间游客问。
“这不合情理。”菲尔比说。
“什么情理？”时间游客问。
“你可以把黑的说成白的，”菲尔比说，“可你永远说服不了我。”
“也许不能，”时间游客说，“但你现在开始明白我钻研四维几何的目的了。很久以前，我就粗粗构想过一种机器
“去穿越时间！”那个年轻人大叫起来。
“它将随心所欲地在空间和时间里运动，完全由驾驶员控制。”
菲尔比笑得前仰后合。
“可我有实验证明。”时间游客说。
“这对历史学家实在是太方便了，”心理学家提示说，“譬如，他可以回到过去，去核实人们公认的关于黑斯廷斯战役的记载！”
“难道你不觉得有点过于引人注目了吗？”医生说，“我们的祖先可不太能容忍年代出差错。”
“人们可以直接从荷马和柏拉图的嘴里学习希腊语了。”这是那个年轻人的想法。
“那样的话，他们一定会给你的考试打不及格。德国学者已经在希腊语上做了许多改进。”
“还有未来呢，”年轻人又说，“想想吧！人们可以把他们所有的钱投资下去，让它在那里生息赚钱，接着再朝前赶。”
“去发现一个社会，”我说，“一个建立在严格的主义基础上的社会。”
“尽是些不着边际的奇谈怪论！”心理学家说。
“是的，我原先也是这样想的，所以从不谈论此事，直到……”
“直到实验证明！”我大声说道，“你能证明它吗？”
“用实验来证明！”菲尔比喊道。他已开始感到头昏脑胀了。
“反正要让我们看看你的实验，”心理学家说，“虽然这全是胡说八道，这你清楚。”
时间游客朝我们大家笑笑。接着，他仍然面带微笑，双手深插在裤袋里，慢吞吞地走出了房间。我们听见他跟拉着拖鞋，沿着长长的过道向实验室走去。
心理学家望着我们。“我不知道他想搞什么名堂？”
“还不是想耍耍花招。”医生说。菲尔比正准备给我们讲他在伯斯勒姆看到的一个巫师，可还没来得及讲完开头，时间游客就回来了。菲尔比想讲的那被轶事只得告吹。
时间游客手里拿着一个闪闪发亮的金属架子。架子和一只小钟差不多大，做工十分考究，里面镶有象牙和一种透明的东西。现在我必须把看到的一切都交代清楚，因为接下去的事情——除非他的解释被接受——绝对是无法理喻的。他把扔在房间里的一张八角形桌子搬到壁炉前，桌子有两条腿就搁在炉前地毯上。他把那个机械装置摆在桌上，拖过一张椅子坐了下来。桌上仅有的另一件东西是一盏罩着灯罩的小台灯，明亮的灯光照在这个模型上。周围还点着十几支蜡烛，两支插在壁炉架上的铜烛台上，另几支插在壁上的烛台上，所以说房间里灯火通明。我在最靠近炉火的一把椅子上坐下来，随即又向前挪了挪，几乎把自己摆到了时间游客和壁炉的中间。菲尔比坐在时间游客背后，两眼朝他肩膀前面张望着。医生和地方长官在右侧注视着，心理学家坐在左侧，年轻人站在心理学家的后面，我们个个都全神贯注。在我看来，任何构思巧妙手段高明的花招要在这种情况下瞒天过海都是不大可能的。
时间游客看看我们，又看看机械装置。“好了吧？”心理学家说。
“这个小东西”，时间游客说，他用胳膊肘撑住桌子，两手按到仪器上，“只是一个模型。我的计划是让机器穿越时间。你们会注意到这东西看上去是歪斜的。这根杆的表面闪闪发光，样子很古怪，似乎有点像是假的。”他说完举手指了指，“另外，这是一根白色的小杠杆，这边还有一根。”
医生从椅子里站了起来，眼睛紧盯着机器。“做得真漂亮。”他说。
“花了两年的时间才做出来的。”时间游客汇报说。当我们都跟着医生站起来时，他又说，“现在我要你们知道，这根杠杆一按下去，就把这架机器送进了未来。另一根杠杆操作逆向运动。这鞍子充当一个时间游客的座位。我马上就按这根杠杆，机器会飞离出去。它将慢慢消失，走进未来的时间，最后无影无踪。请你们好好看看这玩意儿，再检查一下桌子，确保这中间没有任何花招。我可不想浪费了模型还被人骂是江湖骗子。”
大概有一分钟时间过去了，没人作声。心理学家似乎正想对我说什么，可他又改变了主意。接着时间游客举起手指伸向杠杆。“不，”他突然说，“让我借用你的手。”他转向心理学家，握住他的手，叫他把食指伸出来。因此，是心理学家亲手把时间机器送入漫无止境的旅程的。我们都目睹了那根杠杆的转动，我百分之百肯定这里面没有耍花招。就在这时，一阵风吹来，灯火扑扑跳动起来，壁炉架上的一支蜡烛吹灭了。那台小机器打着转转，越飞越远，顷刻间在视野里成了个幻影，像一个闪着微光的黄铜和象牙转出来的旋涡。它走了——消失了！桌子上除了那盏孤灯已一无所有。
大家沉默了片刻。接着菲尔比说他真是该死。
心理学家从恍炮中恢复过来，突然朝桌子底下看去。时间游客乐得哈哈大笑。“怎么说？”他学起了心理学家的说话腔调。随后他起身走到壁炉架上的烟叶罐前，背着我们开始往烟斗里塞烟丝。
我们面面相觑，无话可说。“我说，”医生说，“你这是当真的？你真的相信那架机器走到时间里去了吗？”
“当然。”时间游客说。他弯腰在壁炉火上点燃了一支纸捻，然后他转过身来，边点烟斗边望着心理学家的脸。（心理学家为了故作镇静，自己拿起一支雪茄，连烟屁股都没掐掉就点了起来。）“此外，我那里还有一台大机器即将完工。”——他指了指实验室——“安装完毕后，我打算自己去旅游一趟。”
“你是说那架机器已走进来来？”菲尔比问。
“走进了未来还是过去，我不敢肯定。”
隔了一会儿，心理学家来了灵感。“如果说去了什么地方，那它一定是走进了过去。”他说。
“为什么？”时间游客问。
“因为我相信它没有在空间里移动。如果它已进入未来，那它现在肯定还在这里，因为它必定要穿过现在才能走进未来。”
“可是，”我说，“如果它已走进过去，我们刚进房间时就该看见它。上星期四我们在这里，还有上上个星期四，依此类推！”
“有力的反驳。”地方长官评论道。他转向时间游客，摆出一副公平论事的样子。
“毫无道理，”时间游客说着转向心理学家，“你想想，这个你能解释。这是反应点下的表象，是冲淡的表象，这你知道。”
“当然。”心理学家说。他还再次向我们保证说，“这是心理学上的一个简单问题。我应该想到这个道理，它够明显的，并且有助于说明这种貌似矛盾的现象。我们无法看见这架机器，也欣赏不到它，这就像我们无法看到旋转的轮辐和在空中飞过的子弹。如果机器在时间中旅行的速度比我们快50倍或者100倍，如果它走一分钟我们才走一秒钟，它的速度产生的印象当然就只是它木做时间旅行时的五十分之一或百分之一。这是显而易见的。”他用手在原来摆机器的地方摸了摸。“明白了吧？”他笑着问道。
我们坐在那里，两眼盯着空荡荡的桌子看了一会儿。这时，时间游客问我们如何看待这一切。
“这一切今天晚上听起来很有道理，”医生说，“不过要等到明天再下结论，等明早大家神智清醒时再说。”
“你们想看看真正的时间机器吗？”时间游客问。说完他手里拿着灯，领我们沿着通风的长廊朝他的实验室走去。我清楚地记得那闪烁的灯火，他那大脑袋的侧影，舞动的人影，记得我们如何一个个跟着他，心里迷惑不解可又不愿轻信，如何在实验室目睹了就在我们眼前消失的那架小机器的大号翻版。大机器的有些部件是镍制的，有些是象牙做的，还有些是用水晶石挫成或锯成的。机器已大体完成，但是水晶曲棒还摆在凳上的几张图纸旁，没有完工。我拿起一根曲棒仔细看了看，发现好像是用石英做的。
“我说，”医生问道，“你这是完全认真的？还是骗骗人的——就像去年圣诞节你给我们看的那个鬼？”
“坐这架机器，”时间游客高举着灯说道，“我想去探索时间。清楚了吧？我这辈子还从未这样认真过。”
我们谁也不知道该如何去理解他的这句话。
我的视线越过医生的肩膀和菲尔比投来的目光相遇了，他表情严肃地朝我使了个眼色。
`You must follow me carefully. I shall have to controvert one or two ideas that are almost universally accepted. The geometry, for instance, they taught you at school is founded on a misconception.'
`Is not that rather a large thing to expect us to begin upon?' said Filby, an argumentative person with red hair.
`I do not mean to ask you to accept anything without reasonable ground for it. You will soon admit as much as I need from you. You know of course that a mathematical line, a line of thickness NIL, has no real existence. They taught you that? Neither has a mathematical plane. These things are mere abstractions.'
`That is all right,' said the Psychologist.
`Nor, having only length, breadth, and thickness, can a cube have a real existence.'
`There I object,' said Filby. `Of course a solid body may exist. All real things--'
`So most people think. But wait a moment. Can an INSTANTANEOUS cube exist?'
`Don't follow you,' said Filby.
`Can a cube that does not last for any time at all, have a real existence?'
Filby became pensive. `Clearly,' the Time Traveller proceeded, `any real body must have extension in FOUR directions: it must have Length, Breadth, Thickness, and--Duration. But through a natural infirmity of the flesh, which I will explain to you in a moment, we incline to overlook this fact. There are really four dimensions, three which we call the three planes of Space, and a fourth, Time. There is, however, a tendency to draw an unreal distinction between the former three dimensions and the latter, because it happens that our consciousness moves intermittently in one direction along the latter from the beginning to the end of our lives.'
`That,' said a very young man, making spasmodic efforts to relight his cigar over the lamp; `that . . . very clear indeed.'
`Now, it is very remarkable that this is so extensively overlooked,' continued the Time Traveller, with a slight accession of cheerfulness. `Really this is what is meant by the Fourth Dimension, though some people who talk about the Fourth Dimension do not know they mean it. It is only another way of looking at Time. THERE IS NO DIFFERENCE BETWEEN TIME AND ANY OF THE THREE DIMENSIONS OF SPACE EXCEPT THAT OUR CONSCIOUSNESS MOVES ALONG IT. But some foolish people have got hold of the wrong side of that idea. You have all heard what they have to say about this Fourth Dimension?'
`_I_ have not,' said the Provincial Mayor.
`It is simply this. That Space, as our mathematicians have it, is spoken of as having three dimensions, which one may call Length, Breadth, and Thickness, and is always definable by reference to three planes, each at right angles to the others. But some philosophical people have been asking why THREE dimensions particularly--why not another direction at right angles to the other three?--and have even tried to construct a Four-Dimension geometry. Professor Simon Newcomb was expounding this to the New York Mathematical Society only a month or so ago. You know how on a flat surface, which has only two dimensions, we can represent a figure of a three-dimensional solid, and similarly they think that by models of thee dimensions they could represent one of four--if they could master the perspective of the thing. See?'
`I think so,' murmured the Provincial Mayor; and, knitting his brows, he lapsed into an introspective state, his lips moving as one who repeats mystic words. `Yes, I think I see it now,' he said after some time, brightening in a quite transitory manner.
`Well, I do not mind telling you I have been at work upon this geometry of Four Dimensions for some time. Some of my results are curious. For instance, here is a portrait of a man at eight years old, another at fifteen, another at seventeen, another at twenty-three, and so on. All these are evidently sections, as it were, Three-Dimensional representations of his Four-Dimensioned being, which is a fixed and unalterable thing.
`Scientific people,' proceeded the Time Traveller, after the pause required for the proper assimilation of this, `know very well that Time is only a kind of Space. Here is a popular scientific diagram, a weather record. This line I trace with my finger shows the movement of the barometer. Yesterday it was so high, yesterday night it fell, then this morning it rose again, and so gently upward to here. Surely the mercury did not trace this line in any of the dimensions of Space generally recognized? But certainly it traced such a line, and that line, therefore, we must conclude was along the Time-Dimension.'
`But,' said the Medical Man, staring hard at a coal in the fire, `if Time is really only a fourth dimension of Space, why is it, and why has it always been, regarded as something different? And why cannot we move in Time as we move about in the other dimensions of Space?'
The Time Traveller smiled. `Are you sure we can move freely in Space? Right and left we can go, backward and forward freely enough, and men always have done so. I admit we move freely in two dimensions. But how about up and down? Gravitation limits us there.'
`Not exactly,' said the Medical Man. `There are balloons.'
`But before the balloons, save for spasmodic jumping and the inequalities of the surface, man had no freedom of vertical movement.' `Still they could move a little up and down,' said the Medical Man.
`Easier, far easier down than up.'
`And you cannot move at all in Time, you cannot get away from the present moment.'
`My dear sir, that is just where you are wrong. That is just where the whole world has gone wrong. We are always getting away from the present moment. Our mental existences, which are immaterial and have no dimensions, are passing along the Time-Dimension with a uniform velocity from the cradle to the grave. Just as we should travel DOWN if we began our existence fifty miles above the earth's surface.'
`But the great difficulty is this,' interrupted the Psychologist. `You CAN move about in all directions of Space, but you cannot move about in Time.'
`That is the germ of my great discovery. But you are wrong to say that we cannot move about in Time. For instance, if I am recalling an incident very vividly I go back to the instant of its occurrence: I become absent-minded, as you say. I jump back for a moment. Of course we have no means of staying back for any length of Time, any more than a savage or an animal has of staying six feet above the ground. But a civilized man is better off than the savage in this respect. He can go up against gravitation in a balloon, and why should he not hope that ultimately he may be able to stop or accelerate his drift along the Time-Dimension, or even turn about and travel the other way?'
`Oh, THIS,' began Filby, `is all--'
`Why not?' said the Time Traveller.
`It's against reason,' said Filby.
`What reason?' said the Time Traveller.
`You can show black is white by argument,' said Filby, `but you will never convince me.'
`Possibly not,' said the Time Traveller. `But now you begin to see the object of my investigations into the geometry of Four Dimensions. Long ago I had a vague inkling of a machine--'
`To travel through Time!' exclaimed the Very Young Man.
`That shall travel indifferently in any direction of Space and Time, as the driver determines.'
Filby contented himself with laughter.
`But I have experimental verification,' said the Time Traveller.
`It would be remarkably convenient for the historian,' the Psychologist suggested. `One might travel back and verify the accepted account of the Battle of Hastings, for instance!'
`Don't you think you would attract attention?' said the Medical Man. `Our ancestors had no great tolerance for anachronisms.'
`One might get one's Greek from the very lips of Homer and Plato,' the Very Young Man thought.
`In which case they would certainly plough you for the Little-go. The German scholars have improved Greek so much.'
`Then there is the future,' said the Very Young Man. `Just think! One might invest all one's money, leave it to accumulate at interest, and hurry on ahead!'
`To discover a society,' said I, `erected on a strictly communistic basis.'
`Of all the wild extravagant theories!' began the Psychologist.
`Yes, so it seemed to me, and so I never talked of it until--'
`Experimental verification!' cried I. `You are going to verify THAT?'
`The experiment!' cried Filby, who was getting brain-weary.
`Let's see your experiment anyhow,' said the Psychologist, `though it's all humbug, you know.'
The Time Traveller smiled round at us. Then, still smiling faintly, and with his hands deep in his trousers pockets, he walked slowly out of the room, and we heard his slippers shuffling down the long passage to his laboratory.
The Psychologist looked at us. `I wonder what he's got?'
`Some sleight-of-hand trick or other,' said the Medical Man, and Filby tried to tell us about a conjurer he had seen at Burslem; but before he had finished his preface the Time Traveller came back, and Filby's anecdote collapsed.
The thing the Time Traveller held in his hand was a glittering metallic framework, scarcely larger than a small clock, and very delicately made. There was ivory in it, and some transparent crystalline substance. And now I must be explicit, for this that follows--unless his explanation is to be accepted--is an absolutely unaccountable thing. He took one of the small octagonal tables that were scattered about the room, and set it in front of the fire, with two legs on the hearthrug. On this table he placed the mechanism. Then he drew up a chair, and sat down. The only other object on the table was a small shaded lamp, the bright light of which fell upon the model. There were also perhaps a dozen candles about, two in brass candlesticks upon the mantel and several in sconces, so that the room was brilliantly illuminated. I sat in a low arm-chair nearest the fire, and I drew this forward so as to be almost between the Time Traveller and the fireplace. Filby sat behind him, looking over his shoulder. The Medical Man and the Provincial Mayor watched him in profile from the right, the Psychologist from the left. The Very Young Man stood behind the Psychologist. We were all on the alert. It appears incredible to me that any kind of trick, however subtly conceived and however adroitly done, could have been played upon us under these conditions.
The Time Traveller looked at us, and then at the mechanism. `Well?' said the Psychologist.
`This little affair,' said the Time Traveller, resting his elbows upon the table and pressing his hands together above the apparatus, `is only a model. It is my plan for a machine to travel through time. You will notice that it looks singularly askew, and that there is an odd twinkling appearance about this bar, as though it was in some way unreal.' He pointed to the part with his finger. `Also, here is one little white lever, and here is another.'
The Medical Man got up out of his chair and peered into the thing. `It's beautifully made,' he said.
`It took two years to make,' retorted the Time Traveller. Then, when we had all imitated the action of the Medical Man, he said: `Now I want you clearly to understand that this lever, being pressed over, sends the machine gliding into the future, and this other reverses the motion. This saddle represents the seat of a time traveller. Presently I am going to press the lever, and off the machine will go. It will vanish, pass into future Time, and disappear. Have a good look at the thing. Look at the table too, and satisfy yourselves there is no trickery. I don't want to waste this model, and then be told I'm a quack.'
There was a minute's pause perhaps. The Psychologist seemed about to speak to me, but changed his mind. Then the Time Traveller put forth his finger towards the lever. `No,' he said suddenly. `Lend me your hand.' And turning to the Psychologist, he took that individual's hand in his own and told him to put out his forefinger. So that it was the Psychologist himself who sent forth the model Time Machine on its interminable voyage. We all saw the lever turn. I am absolutely certain there was no trickery. There was a breath of wind, and the lamp flame jumped. One of the candles on the mantel was blown out, and the little machine suddenly swung round, became indistinct, was seen as a ghost for a second perhaps, as an eddy of faintly glittering brass and ivory; and it was gone--vanished! Save for the lamp the table was bare.
Everyone was silent for a minute. Then Filby said he was damned.
The Psychologist recovered from his stupor, and suddenly looked under the table. At that the Time Traveller laughed cheerfully. `Well?' he said, with a reminiscence of the Psychologist. Then, getting up, he went to the tobacco jar on the mantel, and with his back to us began to fill his pipe.
We stared at each other. `Look here,' said the Medical Man, `are you in earnest about this? Do you seriously believe that that machine has travelled into time?'
`Certainly,' said the Time Traveller, stooping to light a spill at the fire. Then he turned, lighting his pipe, to look at the Psychologist's face. (The Psychologist, to show that he was not unhinged, helped himself to a cigar and tried to light it uncut.) `What is more, I have a big machine nearly finished in there'--he indicated the laboratory--`and when that is put together I mean to have a journey on my own account.'
`You mean to say that that machine has travelled into the future?' said Filby.
`Into the future or the past--I don't, for certain, know which.'
After an interval the Psychologist had an inspiration. `It must have gone into the past if it has gone anywhere,' he said.
`Why?' said the Time Traveller.
`Because I presume that it has not moved in space, and if it travelled into the future it would still be here all this time, since it must have travelled through this time.'
`But,' I said, `If it travelled into the past it would have been visible when we came first into this room; and last Thursday when we were here; and the Thursday before that; and so forth!'
`Serious objections,' remarked the Provincial Mayor, with an air of impartiality, turning towards the Time Traveller.
`Not a bit,' said the Time Traveller, and, to the Psychologist: `You think. You can explain that. It's presentation below the threshold, you know, diluted presentation.'
`Of course,' said the Psychologist, and reassured us. `That's a simple point of psychology. I should have thought of it. It's plain enough, and helps the paradox delightfully. We cannot see it, nor can we appreciate this machine, any more than we can the spoke of a wheel spinning, or a bullet flying through the air. If it is travelling through time fifty times or a hundred times faster than we are, if it gets through a minute while we get through a second, the impression it creates will of course be only one-fiftieth or one-hundredth of what it would make if it were not travelling in time. That's plain enough.' He passed his hand through the space in which the machine had been. `You see?' he said, laughing.
We sat and stared at the vacant table for a minute or so. Then the Time Traveller asked us what we thought of it all.
`It sounds plausible enough to-night,' said the Medical Man; 'but wait until to-morrow. Wait for the common sense of the morning.'
`Would you like to see the Time Machine itself?' asked the Time Traveller. And therewith, taking the lamp in his hand, he led the way down the long, draughty corridor to his laboratory. I remember vividly the flickering light, his queer, broad head in silhouette, the dance of the shadows, how we all followed him, puzzled but incredulous, and how there in the laboratory we beheld a larger edition of the little mechanism which we had seen vanish from before our eyes. Parts were of nickel, parts of ivory, parts had certainly been filed or sawn out of rock crystal. The thing was generally complete, but the twisted crystalline bars lay unfinished upon the bench beside some sheets of drawings, and I took one up for a better look at it. Quartz it seemed to be.
`Look here,' said the Medical Man, `are you perfectly serious? Or is this a trick--like that ghost you showed us last Christmas?'
`Upon that machine,' said the Time Traveller, holding the lamp aloft, `I intend to explore time. Is that plain? I was never more serious in my life.'
None of us quite knew how to take it.
I caught Filby's eye over the shoulder of the Medical Man, and he winked at me solemnly.
我想我们当时谁也不太相信时间机器。事实上，时间游客是个聪明得让人不敢相信的人。你从未感到看透过他，你总是怀疑他坦率的背后还有所保留，还另有用心。要是让菲尔比展示这台机器并用时间游客的话来进行解释，我们就不会这样疑虑重重，因为我们一定会看穿他的动机，连杀猪的都能理解菲尔比。但是，时间游客不仅仅是有几分异想天开，而且我们都不相信他。可以让一个不如他聪明的人名声大振的事情到他手里就成了骗人的把戏。事情做得太容易实在是个错误。那些不和他开玩笑的严肃认真的人从未感到摸，透过他的行为。他们反正也知道，虽然他们擅长判断，可轻易相信他就如同用蛋壳般易碎的瓷器去装饰托儿所。所以，我想我们在那个星期四到下一个星期四的这段时间里，谁也没有多谈时间旅行的事，不过我们大多数人的脑子里无疑还惦记着它虽然可疑却有潜在可能性。这就是其表面上可能而事实上不切实际，也就是造成年代颠倒和天下大乱的可能性。我自己则一心想着机器里面的鬼花招。我记得星期五在林尼安遇上医生后同他讨论过这个问题。他说他在蒂宾根见过类似的事情，并且特别强调了蜡烛被吹灭的现象。但花招是如何耍的，他没法解释。
接下来的星期四我又去了里士满——我相信我是时间游客的常客之——由于到得晚，我发现四五个人已聚集在他的会客室里。医生站在壁炉前，一手拿着一张纸，一手握着一块手表。我朝四周看看，想寻找时间游客。“现在已经7点半了”，医生说，“我看我们最好先吃饭吧？”
“怎么不见……”我问着说出了我们主人的名字。
“你刚来？真是怪事，他一定是耽搁了。他留了张便条，叫我7点钟还不见他回来就先带大家吃饭。他说他回来后再跟大伙解释。”
“有饭不吃似乎有点可惜。”一位著名日报的编辑说。医生随后摇了摇铃。
除了医生和我，心理学家是唯一出席上次晚餐会的人。其他几个人分别是上面提到的那位编辑布兰克，一位记者，还有一位是个留着山羊胡子、内向怕羞的男子，这人我不认识。据我观察，他整个晚上没开口说一句话。用餐时，大家都在猜测时间游客缺席的原因，我半开玩笑地提到了时间旅行。编辑要我们解释一下，心理学家主动要求对我们那天目睹的“巧妙的怪事和把戏”做一番如实的描述。他正讲到一半，通走廊的门慢慢地、悄然无声地打开了。我是朝门坐的，第一个看到了眼前的情境。“你好！”我说，“终于回来啦！”我惊叹一声。这时门开得更大了，时间游客站在我们面前。
“天哪！老兄，怎么回事？”医生大声问道。他是第二个看见他的，全桌的人都转身朝门口望去。
他显得狼狈不堪，外套又灰又脏，袖管上沾满了青兮兮的污迹，头发乱七八糟，好像变得更加灰白了——如果不是因为头发上的灰尘和污垢，那就是头发真的比以前更白了。他脸色如土，下巴上留着一条还没有完全愈合的棕色口子。他神情惟怀，面容枯稿，好像吃尽了苦头。他站在门口，犹豫了片刻，仿佛被灯光刺花了眼。随后，他一瘸一拐地走进了房间，像是我见过的那些腿酸脚痛的徒步旅行者。我们静静地望着他，等待他开口说话。
他一声不吭，费劲地来到桌前，朝酒瓶做了个手势。编辑斟满一杯香摈，推到他面前。他一饮而尽，这下好像来了点精神，因为他朝桌旁的人望了一眼，脸上又掠过了一丝应有的微笑。“你到底上哪儿去了，老兄？”医生问。时间游客好像没听见。“我不来打扰你们，”他说，声音有点颤抖，“我没事。”他说到这里又停了下来，伸出杯子又要了点酒，又是一口喝了个精光。“不错。”他说。双眼越来越有神，面颊上也泛出了淡淡的红晕。他用迟钝的赞许的目光朝我们脸上扫了一眼，接着在温暖舒适的房间里兜了一圈。随后他又开口说话了，好像还是不知道该说什么。“我去洗个澡，换换衣服，然再下来向你们解释……给我留点羊肉，我都要馋死了。”
他朝编辑看了一眼。编辑是位稀客，他希望编辑一切如意。编辑提了个问题。“马上就告诉你，”时间游客答道，“我这模样——太可笑了！不过隔一会儿就好了。”
他放下酒杯，朝搂道门走去。我再次注意到了他走路一瘸一拐的样子和软绵绵的脚步。我从座位上站立起来，在他出门的时候着清了他的双脚。他的脚上只套了一双血迹斑斑的破袜子，连鞋都没穿。这时门在他身后关上了，我真想跟他出去帮帮他，可一想到他讨厌别人为他的事情大惊小怪又打消了念头。我一时心乱如麻，不知所措。这时，我听见编辑说“著名科学家的惊人之举，”他（出于习惯）又在考虑他的文章标题了。我的注意力又被拉回到了气氛热烈的餐桌上。
“这是玩什么游戏？”记者说，“他一直在扮演业余乞丐吗？我真不明白。”我和心理学家目光相遇，我从他脸上看出来，我俩的理解是相同的。我想起了时间游客一瘸一拐爬楼的痛苦模样，以为其他人一个也没注意到他的脚不好。
第一个从惊讶中恢复过来的是医生。他摇摇铃——时间游客不喜欢让仆人站在餐桌旁——示意上热菜。这时编辑咕咕着拿起了刀叉，那个沉默寡言的人也跟着拿起了刀叉。晚饭继续进行。桌上的谈话有段时间竟变成了叫喊，还不时冒出几声惊叹。这时编辑再也按捺不住他的好奇心了：“我们的朋友是有旁门左道来弥补他不高的收入呢？还是在学尼布甲尼撒二世呢？”他问道。“我肯定这和时间机器有关。”我接过心理学家叙述的我们上次聚会的话题答道。新来的客人显然不相信；编辑提出了反对意见：“这时间旅行究竟是什么？一个人总不会在奇谈怪论里滚得满身是泥吧？”说着他想起了什么，于是就讽刺挖苦起来，“难道未来人连掸衣刷都没有？”记者也是死不相信，他站到了编辑的一边，对整个事情横加嘲弄。他俩都是新式的新闻工作者——那种生性快乐又缺乏礼貌的年轻人。“我们的《后天》报特约记者报道说，”记者正说着——其实是喊着——时间游客回来了。他穿着普通的夜礼服，除了面客依旧显得慌怀，刚才让我们大吃一惊的样子已无影无踪。
“我说，”编辑兴高采烈地说，“这些家伙说你刚才到下星期旅行去了！跟我们讲讲小罗斯伯里的事，好吗？你觉得他的命运如何？”
时间游客一声不吭地来到留给他的座位旁，和以往一样安详地笑了。“我的羊肉呢？”他说，“刀叉上又能叉上肉真是享受啊！”
“故事！”编辑喊道。
“去他妈的故事吧！”时间游客说。“我想吃点东西。我不填饱肚皮是什么也不会讲的。谢谢，把盐递一递。”
“就讲一句话，”我说，“你去时间旅行了吗？”
“是的。”时间游客嘴里塞满了东西，他边点头边回答。
“我愿出每行字一先令的价，买下记录稿。”编辑说。时间游客把玻璃杯推向那位沉默者，并用指甲敲敲杯子。两眼一直望着时间游客的沉默者吓了一跳，赶忙为他斟满酒杯。随后吃饭的气氛是令人不快的。就我而言，问题不时地冒到嘴边，我敢说其他人一定也有同感。新闻记者讲起了海迪·波特的轶事趣闻，想缓和一下紧张的气氛。时间游客一门心思只顾吃饭，胃口大得像个流浪汉。医生点燃香烟，眯眼望着时间游客。沉默者似乎比平时更笨口拙舌，他不停地闷声喝着香模酒，借以掩饰内心的紧张不安。时间游客终于推开盘子，朝我们望了一眼。“我想我应该道歉”，他说，“刚才我实在是饿极了。我的经历太惊人了。”他伸手取了一古雪茄烟，切去烟屁股。“还是去吸烟室吧，故事太长了，总不能在这油兮兮的盘子前讲吧。”他顺手摇了摇铃，领大家走进隔壁房间。
“你对戴希、乔士和布兰克讲过时间旅行机器的事吗？”他一边问我一边靠上安乐椅，点出了这三位新客人的名字。
“可这种事情纯属胡扯。”编辑说。
“今晚我无法辩论。我愿意把经过告诉你们，但我不相辩论。如果你们想听，”他继续说道，“我就把我的遭遇全告诉你们，但不能打断我的话。我很想把这个故事讲出来，大多数内容听起来像是谎话，可事情就是这样！这是真的——绝对是真话。我4点钟还在实验室，随后……我度过了8天时间……这是谁也不曾有过的日子啊！我现在真是精疲力竭，可我不把事情告诉你们是不会睡觉去的，讲完了再睡。但不许插话！都同意吗？”
“同意。”编辑说。我们其他人也跟着说了声“同意”。于是，时间游客开始讲述我下面记录的这个故事。他先是靠在椅子上，讲话像个劳累过度的人，后来械讲越起劲。记录时，我特别感到笔墨的欠缺，尤其是我自身能力的不足，无法把这故事淋漓尽致地表达出来。我想，你们会聚精会神地去读的，但是你们无法亲眼目睹讲述者在小灯照射下的那张苍白而又严肃的脸，也无法听到他的讲话声调。你们也无法知道他的表情是如何随着故事的发展而变化的。我们这些听众大多坐在灯影里，因为吸烟室里没有点蜡烛，灯光只照到了记者的脸和那位沉默者的小腿。起初，我们还不时地相互望望，过了一会儿，就再也无暇顾及别人，只是两眼盯着时间游客的脸。
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 any one 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 To-morrow 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 apologize,' 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 to-night. 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.
接下来的星期四我又去了里士满——我相信我是时间游客的常客之——由于到得晚，我发现四五个人已聚集在他的会客室里。医生站在壁炉前，一手拿着一张纸，一手握着一块手表。我朝四周看看，想寻找时间游客。“现在已经7点半了”，医生说，“我看我们最好先吃饭吧？”
“怎么不见……”我问着说出了我们主人的名字。
“你刚来？真是怪事，他一定是耽搁了。他留了张便条，叫我7点钟还不见他回来就先带大家吃饭。他说他回来后再跟大伙解释。”
“有饭不吃似乎有点可惜。”一位著名日报的编辑说。医生随后摇了摇铃。
除了医生和我，心理学家是唯一出席上次晚餐会的人。其他几个人分别是上面提到的那位编辑布兰克，一位记者，还有一位是个留着山羊胡子、内向怕羞的男子，这人我不认识。据我观察，他整个晚上没开口说一句话。用餐时，大家都在猜测时间游客缺席的原因，我半开玩笑地提到了时间旅行。编辑要我们解释一下，心理学家主动要求对我们那天目睹的“巧妙的怪事和把戏”做一番如实的描述。他正讲到一半，通走廊的门慢慢地、悄然无声地打开了。我是朝门坐的，第一个看到了眼前的情境。“你好！”我说，“终于回来啦！”我惊叹一声。这时门开得更大了，时间游客站在我们面前。
“天哪！老兄，怎么回事？”医生大声问道。他是第二个看见他的，全桌的人都转身朝门口望去。
他显得狼狈不堪，外套又灰又脏，袖管上沾满了青兮兮的污迹，头发乱七八糟，好像变得更加灰白了——如果不是因为头发上的灰尘和污垢，那就是头发真的比以前更白了。他脸色如土，下巴上留着一条还没有完全愈合的棕色口子。他神情惟怀，面容枯稿，好像吃尽了苦头。他站在门口，犹豫了片刻，仿佛被灯光刺花了眼。随后，他一瘸一拐地走进了房间，像是我见过的那些腿酸脚痛的徒步旅行者。我们静静地望着他，等待他开口说话。
他一声不吭，费劲地来到桌前，朝酒瓶做了个手势。编辑斟满一杯香摈，推到他面前。他一饮而尽，这下好像来了点精神，因为他朝桌旁的人望了一眼，脸上又掠过了一丝应有的微笑。“你到底上哪儿去了，老兄？”医生问。时间游客好像没听见。“我不来打扰你们，”他说，声音有点颤抖，“我没事。”他说到这里又停了下来，伸出杯子又要了点酒，又是一口喝了个精光。“不错。”他说。双眼越来越有神，面颊上也泛出了淡淡的红晕。他用迟钝的赞许的目光朝我们脸上扫了一眼，接着在温暖舒适的房间里兜了一圈。随后他又开口说话了，好像还是不知道该说什么。“我去洗个澡，换换衣服，然再下来向你们解释……给我留点羊肉，我都要馋死了。”
他朝编辑看了一眼。编辑是位稀客，他希望编辑一切如意。编辑提了个问题。“马上就告诉你，”时间游客答道，“我这模样——太可笑了！不过隔一会儿就好了。”
他放下酒杯，朝搂道门走去。我再次注意到了他走路一瘸一拐的样子和软绵绵的脚步。我从座位上站立起来，在他出门的时候着清了他的双脚。他的脚上只套了一双血迹斑斑的破袜子，连鞋都没穿。这时门在他身后关上了，我真想跟他出去帮帮他，可一想到他讨厌别人为他的事情大惊小怪又打消了念头。我一时心乱如麻，不知所措。这时，我听见编辑说“著名科学家的惊人之举，”他（出于习惯）又在考虑他的文章标题了。我的注意力又被拉回到了气氛热烈的餐桌上。
“这是玩什么游戏？”记者说，“他一直在扮演业余乞丐吗？我真不明白。”我和心理学家目光相遇，我从他脸上看出来，我俩的理解是相同的。我想起了时间游客一瘸一拐爬楼的痛苦模样，以为其他人一个也没注意到他的脚不好。
第一个从惊讶中恢复过来的是医生。他摇摇铃——时间游客不喜欢让仆人站在餐桌旁——示意上热菜。这时编辑咕咕着拿起了刀叉，那个沉默寡言的人也跟着拿起了刀叉。晚饭继续进行。桌上的谈话有段时间竟变成了叫喊，还不时冒出几声惊叹。这时编辑再也按捺不住他的好奇心了：“我们的朋友是有旁门左道来弥补他不高的收入呢？还是在学尼布甲尼撒二世呢？”他问道。“我肯定这和时间机器有关。”我接过心理学家叙述的我们上次聚会的话题答道。新来的客人显然不相信；编辑提出了反对意见：“这时间旅行究竟是什么？一个人总不会在奇谈怪论里滚得满身是泥吧？”说着他想起了什么，于是就讽刺挖苦起来，“难道未来人连掸衣刷都没有？”记者也是死不相信，他站到了编辑的一边，对整个事情横加嘲弄。他俩都是新式的新闻工作者——那种生性快乐又缺乏礼貌的年轻人。“我们的《后天》报特约记者报道说，”记者正说着——其实是喊着——时间游客回来了。他穿着普通的夜礼服，除了面客依旧显得慌怀，刚才让我们大吃一惊的样子已无影无踪。
“我说，”编辑兴高采烈地说，“这些家伙说你刚才到下星期旅行去了！跟我们讲讲小罗斯伯里的事，好吗？你觉得他的命运如何？”
时间游客一声不吭地来到留给他的座位旁，和以往一样安详地笑了。“我的羊肉呢？”他说，“刀叉上又能叉上肉真是享受啊！”
“故事！”编辑喊道。
“去他妈的故事吧！”时间游客说。“我想吃点东西。我不填饱肚皮是什么也不会讲的。谢谢，把盐递一递。”
“就讲一句话，”我说，“你去时间旅行了吗？”
“是的。”时间游客嘴里塞满了东西，他边点头边回答。
“我愿出每行字一先令的价，买下记录稿。”编辑说。时间游客把玻璃杯推向那位沉默者，并用指甲敲敲杯子。两眼一直望着时间游客的沉默者吓了一跳，赶忙为他斟满酒杯。随后吃饭的气氛是令人不快的。就我而言，问题不时地冒到嘴边，我敢说其他人一定也有同感。新闻记者讲起了海迪·波特的轶事趣闻，想缓和一下紧张的气氛。时间游客一门心思只顾吃饭，胃口大得像个流浪汉。医生点燃香烟，眯眼望着时间游客。沉默者似乎比平时更笨口拙舌，他不停地闷声喝着香模酒，借以掩饰内心的紧张不安。时间游客终于推开盘子，朝我们望了一眼。“我想我应该道歉”，他说，“刚才我实在是饿极了。我的经历太惊人了。”他伸手取了一古雪茄烟，切去烟屁股。“还是去吸烟室吧，故事太长了，总不能在这油兮兮的盘子前讲吧。”他顺手摇了摇铃，领大家走进隔壁房间。
“你对戴希、乔士和布兰克讲过时间旅行机器的事吗？”他一边问我一边靠上安乐椅，点出了这三位新客人的名字。
“可这种事情纯属胡扯。”编辑说。
“今晚我无法辩论。我愿意把经过告诉你们，但我不相辩论。如果你们想听，”他继续说道，“我就把我的遭遇全告诉你们，但不能打断我的话。我很想把这个故事讲出来，大多数内容听起来像是谎话，可事情就是这样！这是真的——绝对是真话。我4点钟还在实验室，随后……我度过了8天时间……这是谁也不曾有过的日子啊！我现在真是精疲力竭，可我不把事情告诉你们是不会睡觉去的，讲完了再睡。但不许插话！都同意吗？”
“同意。”编辑说。我们其他人也跟着说了声“同意”。于是，时间游客开始讲述我下面记录的这个故事。他先是靠在椅子上，讲话像个劳累过度的人，后来械讲越起劲。记录时，我特别感到笔墨的欠缺，尤其是我自身能力的不足，无法把这故事淋漓尽致地表达出来。我想，你们会聚精会神地去读的，但是你们无法亲眼目睹讲述者在小灯照射下的那张苍白而又严肃的脸，也无法听到他的讲话声调。你们也无法知道他的表情是如何随着故事的发展而变化的。我们这些听众大多坐在灯影里，因为吸烟室里没有点蜡烛，灯光只照到了记者的脸和那位沉默者的小腿。起初，我们还不时地相互望望，过了一会儿，就再也无暇顾及别人，只是两眼盯着时间游客的脸。
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 any one 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 To-morrow 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 apologize,' 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 to-night. 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.