Philip Van Doren Stern (ed) (14 page)

"The
peculiar
risk
lay
in
the
possibility
of
my
finding
some
substance
in
the
space
which
I,
or
the
machine,
occupied.
So
long
as
I travelled
at
a
high
velocity
through
time,
this
scarcely
mattered;
I was,
so
to
speak,
attenuated—was
slipping
like
a
vapour
through
the interstices
of
intervening
substances!
But
to
come
to
a
stop
involved the
jamming
of
myself,
molecule
by
molecule,
into
whatever
lay
in my
way;
meant
bringing
my
atoms
into
such
intimate
contact
with those
of
the
obstacle
that
a
profound
chemical
reaction—possibly
a far-reaching
explosion—would
result,
and
blow
myself
and
my
apparatus
out
of
all
possible
dimensions—into
the
Unknown.
This
possibility
had
occurred
to
me
again
and
again
while
I
was
making
the machine;
but
then
I
had
cheerfully
accepted
it
as
an
unavoidable
risk —one
of
the
risks
a
man
has
got
to
take!
Now
the
risk
was
inevitable, I
no
longer
saw
it
in
the
same
cheerful
light.
The
fact
is
that,
insensibly,
the
absolute
strangeness
of
everything,
the
sickly
jarring
and swaying
of
the
machine,
above
all,
the
feeling
of
prolonged
falling, had
absolutely
upset
my
nerve.
I
told
myself
that
I
could
never
stop, and
with
a
gust
of
petulance
I
resolved
to
stop
forthwith.
Like
an impatient
fool,
I
lugged
over
the
lever,
and
incontinently
the
thing went
reeling
over,
and
I
was
flung
headlong
through
the
air.

"There
was
the
sound
of
a
clap
of
thunder
in
my
ears.
I
may
have been
stunned
for
a
moment.
A
pitiless
hail
was
hissing
round
me, and
I
was
sitting
on
soft
turf
in
front
of
the
overset
machine.
Everything
still
seemed
grey,
but
presently
I
remarked
that
the
confusion in
my
ears
was
gone.
I
looked
round
me.
I
was
on
what
seemed
to be
a
little
lawn
in
a
garden,
surrounded
by
rhododendron
bushes,
and I
noticed
that
their
mauve
and
purple
blossoms
were
dropping
in
a shower
under
the
beating
of
the
hailstones.
The
rebounding,
dancing hail
hung
in
a
cloud
over
the
machine,
and
drove
along
the
ground like
smoke.
In
a
moment
I
was
wet
to
the
skin.
'Fine
hospitality,'
said I,
'to
a
man
who
has
travelled
innumerable
years
to
see
you.'

"Presently
I
thought
what
a
fool
I
was
to
get
wet.
I
stood
up
and looked
round
me.
A
colossal
figure,
carved
apparently
in
some
white stone,
loomed
indistinctly
beyond
the
rhododendrons
through
the hazy
downpour.
But
all
else
of
the
world
was
invisible.

"My
sensations
would
be
hard
to
describe.
As
the
columns
of
hail grew
thinner,
I
saw
the
white
figure
more
distinctly.
It
was
very
large, for
a
silver
birch-tree
touched
its
shoulder.
It
was
of
white
marble,
in shape
something
like
a
winged
sphinx,
but
the
wings,
instead
of
being carried
vertically
at
the
sides,
were
spread
so
that
it
seemed
to
hover. The
pedestal,
it
appeared
to
me,
was
of
bronze,
and
was
thick
with verdigris.
It
chanced
that
the
face
was
towards
me;
the
sightless
eyes seemed
to
watch
me;
there
was
the
faint
shadow
of
a
smile
on
the lips.
It
was
greatly
weather-worn,
and
that
imparted
an
unpleasant suggestion
of
disease.
I
stood
looking
at
it
for
a
little
space—half
a minute,
perhaps,
or
half
an
hour.
It
seemed
to
advance
and
to
recede as
the
hail
drove
before
it
denser
or
thinner.
At
last
I
tore
my
eyes from
it
for
a
moment,
and
saw
that
the
hail
curtain
had
worn
threadbare,
and
that
the
sky
was
lightening
with
the
promise
of
the
sun.