THE TIME MACHINE
THE WONDERFUL VISIT
AND OTHER STORIES
BY
H. G. WELLS


LONDON
T. FISHER UNWIN, LTD.
MCMXXIV












THE WORKS OF
H. G. WELLS
ATLANTIC EDITION
VOLUME I








Copyright, 1924, by Charles Scribner's Sons
Copyright, 1895, by Hen'ry Holt and Company
Copyright, 1895, by Macmillan and Company
Copyright1, 1897, by Edoward Arnold
for the United States of America
Printed in the United States of America




CONTENTS
VOLUME I
PAGE
A GENERAL INTRODUCTION TO THE ATLANTIC EDITION........            ix
PREFACE TO VOLUME I.           xxi
THE TIME MACHINE........    1
THE WONDERFUL VISIT.119
OTHER EARLY FANTASTIC STORIES.. 277








A GENERAL INTRODUCTION
TO THE ATLANTIC EDITION
WHEN a firm of publishers has the enterprise to
issue a collected edition of a man's writings, and there
are subscribers to such a publication, it ill becomes
him to question the permanent value of the material
so honoured. There is only one graceful response to
this compliment, and that is to take himself as seriously as he has been taken, and to set out his writings
with as brave a face as possible. "Writings" he
will call them, in this preface at least, rather than
"Works" as the title has it, because they are so
miscellaneous and uneven.
Whatever benefit may accrue to publisher and subscriber through the publication of this edition, on
the author at any rate it has inflicted the salutary
discipline of rereading himself from the beginning
and the necessity of a provisional summing up of his
own activities. There is, he finds, a very strong temptation in this occasion to present his display as much
more coherent and orderly than it is in reality. Of
course, the unity due to personality was inevitable.
We have, it is plain, a mind projected here upon the
world, amused by the spectacle without, but rather
more concerned by the urgency within. But there
does also seem to be something more than the mere
unity of a developing character throughout these
ix




A GENERAL INTRODUCTION


writings; there is a continuous intellectual process.
A group of questions shapes itself steadily and progressively; "What is the drive in me?" "What has
it got to do with the other drives?" "What has it
got to do with the spectacle without?"
Again and again the author returns to this group
of inquiries; he takes this or that aspect of the drive
in this or that relationship and experiments with possible answers. Since the human mind is a very infirm implement, and abstract and philosophical
phraseology still very unsatisfactory, it has perforce
to use symbols and help itself out with concrete
imaginations. These writings are sometimes stories,
sometimes fables and fantasies; sometimes they are
discussions posed in relation to an attitude rather
deliberately assumed. The idea of producing a "finished work" was never strong at any time in the
writer's mind. Some of the earlier books were very
carefully written; "Love and Mr. Lewisham," for
example, was sedulously polished, and so was "The
First Men in the Moon"; "A Modern Utopia" also
was planned and written with considerable care; but
most of these writings are sketches, some, like "The
World Set Free," quite broken-backed sketches, intended to carry an idea or a group of ideas over to
an interested reader and lacking any pretension to
"finish" or "execution" or any of the implicit claims
of the set and deliberate and dignified work of art.
These collected writings aim at something in the flatest contrast with-what shall I call it?-the processional dignity of such a collection as that of the works
of Henry James. Such works are essentially trix




TO THE ATLANTIC EDITION


umphs of conception and treatment, things in themselves completed, finished, and presented, they stand
or fall as that; these, on the contrary, are essentially
comments and enhancements of the interest of life
itself. Possibly these writings, in whole or in part,
are literature, but certainly, with one exception to be
noted in its place, they are not Works of Art. It
is far truer to call them Journalism than Art.
So the author, putting as brave a face as possible
upon the matter, writes of his writings as a whole.
Much of this abundant "output" of temporary interest, much that he afterwards rewrote in a more
permanent form, he has excluded from this collection and thrust for ever into the waste-paper basket.
Still there remains a certain amount of material,
he is bound to admit, that fits very questionably
into the frame of his general statement. There are
things reprinted here which were done almost as
casually as the faces one sketches on one's blottingpad; things that have bubbled up from nothing in
the mind, which pleased him to do and which it has
pleased him to reprint.
A paragraph or so about the origins and life of the
writer seems to be owing to the readers of this edition.
His father, Joseph Wells, was originally a gardener,
the son of Joseph Wells, the head gardener of Lord de
Lisle at Penshurst. By an odd coincidence Joseph
Wells, Jr., was gardener to another Joseph Wells,
Joseph Wells of Redleaf, a man of considerable wealth
and position, but the two families had no blood relationship whatever. The writer's mother was the
daughter of George Neal, an inn-keeper at Midhurst
xi




A GENERAL INTRODUCTION


in Sussex, and she was maid to Miss Featherstonehaugh of Up Park, Petersfield. But long before he
was born (in 1866) his parents had left "service." His
father had sunk a small inheritance in an unsuccessful
crockery shop at Bromley in Kent, and was staving
off bankruptcy by earning money as a professional
cricketer. He was a swift and subtle bowler, and
made a record at a match between Kent and Sussex
at Hove in 1862 by clean bowling four wickets in
succession. The writer was the youngest of four children. The home was poverty-struck and shabby
but not unhappy; if food was sometimes rather short
there was plenty to read, for Joseph Wells had a
taste for reading and would go to sales to pick up a
cheap lot of books whenever opportunity offered.
Moreover Bromley possessed a Literary Institute
with a lending library, and there was a small middleclass Academy kept by a teacher of some ability, Mr.
Thomas Morley, which the writer attended. Before
he was thirteen he had acquired the reading habit
and he was filled with curiosity about this world in
which he found himself. He read everything but
the novels of Sir Walter Scott, which bored him
indescribably, though he read and learned by heart
much of "Marmion" and "The Lady of the Lake."
Books bought haphazard at sales make an uneven library. The contents and omissions of the Bromley
book-shelves were equally notable. Washington Irving was much in evidence in a cheap collected edition.
Chaucer's works, Grote's "History of Greece," Humboldt's "Cosmos," George Eliot's "Middlemarch,"
bound volumes of Punch, an old edition of Captain
xii




TO THE ATLANTIC EDITION


Cook's "Travels," a fascinating middle-eighteenth
century Atlas with abounding Terrae Incognitae, are
vivid among the writer's memories. On Sundays
mother insisted upon the Bible, but Sturm's "Reflections" and Clarke's New Testament with its footnotes sowed the seeds of an early scepticism. Some
Shakespeare he read at school, but not much of him
otherwise; all of Dickens that was not at home he
found at a cousin's home, and the pictures in a Wood's
"Natural History" possessed by that same cousin
gave him an inkling of evolution and a nightmare
terror of gorillas.
When the writer was ten or eleven his father was
disabled by a fall which crippled him, and when he
was thirteen the little shop collapsed. His mother
returned as housekeeper to her former mistress at Up
Park, and his father took refuge in a small, inexpensive cottage. Further education for the writer
seemed impossible. There was some trouble in finding
him employment, an unhandy boy preoccupied with
reading. He was tried over as a draper's apprentice,
as a pupil-teacher in an elementary school, as a chemist's apprentice, and again as a draper. After two
years with the second draper, a Mr. Hyde of Southsea,
he prayed to have his indentures cancelled, and became a sort of pupil-teacher at the Midhurst Grammar-School. In the intervals between these attempts
to begin life he took refuge in the housekeeper's room
with his mother at Up Park. From the library above
stairs he borrowed and read translations of Plutarch's
"Lives," Plato's "Republic," and Lucretius, and,
most entrancing book! "Vathek"; and he struggled
xiii




A GENERAL INTRODUCTION


with and partly understood the easy French of some
volumes of Voltaire's works. Sir Harry Featherstonehaugh, friend of the Prince Regent, from whom
the house had descended to his sister-in-law, my
mother's Miss Featherstonehaugh, had been a liberal
thinker. Moreover in the attic at Up Park the writer
unearthed a Gregorian telescope in its box, put it together with some difficulty, and spent some chilly
but wonderful nights looking at the moon, at the
phases of Venus, and at Jupiter's satellites.
From Midhurst he won a studentship at what is
now the Royal College of Science, South Kensington.
He did three years of good work there; his biological
professor was Huxley, and a little later, without much
difficulty, he was able to take the London Bachelor
of Science degree with first-class honours in Zoology.
Thereafter came some school teaching and the direction of "cramming" classes for the science examinations in the London medical course. But insufficient
food and exercise during his student days, when he
had to live in London upon his weekly allowance of a
guinea, had left him with an attenuated physique; a
football accident close upon his twenty-first birthday
crushed and destroyed one kidney, and his body did
not readjust itself satisfactorily to the consequences
of these misadventures until he was in his middle
thirties. He had some years of not so much ill
health as unstable health. Each London winter
made a sustained attempt to kill him. He was almost
driven by these circumstances to live out of London
and to indulge his desire to write for a living.
While at the Royal College of Science he had
xiv




TO THE ATLANTIC EDITION
started and edited the student's magazine which, as
the Phoenix, still survives. His next published writings were in the educational papers, his first book was
a little text-book of biology in two volumes for the
use of his cramming-class students. Then he began to
write humourous articles and sketches and short
stories in the Pall Mall Gazette, the Saturday Review
and other publications. Among the students of his
cramming classes in London, he met his present wife,
Catherine Robbins. To her sympathy, loyalty, cooperation, and capable management of his affairs his
success in the world is very largely due. For from
three and twenty onward, his life has been one
of steadily increasing prosperity with more freedom,
more leisure, more travel, and a wider and more
various circle of friends every year.
These facts will suffice to give the reader an idea of
the angle from which the writings here collected were
done. Those ruling questions, "What is the drive
in me?" "What has it got to do with the other
drives?" "What has it got to do with the spectacle
without?" seem to have been almost innate. Before he left the draper's shop the writer, inspired perhaps by Lucretius, Humboldt, and the Gregorian telescope, was jotting down in a little note-book his
rudimentary answers to such questions as "What is
matter?" and "What is space?" and while he was
still a student at the Royal College he schemed a universal history. These were not so much ambitions
as attempts to satisfy an overpowering need to
know-to know personally, to get hold of the hang
of life as one saw it, with that clearness, that sense
xv




A GENERAL INTRODUCTION


of achieved possession, which, he found, only writing
down could give.
The stories and essays in this collection are arranged in an order roughly chronological. But whenever it has seemed to be more illuminating or interesting to bring things together that did not follow one
another closely, the chronological order has been disregarded. Each volume will have a brief introduction placing its contents in relation to the rest of the
work. It is the most difficult judgment of all to
judge oneself, but the writer believes that the whole
effect of the collection upon any one who finds it
worth while to look through it, will be one of growth
and increasing clearness. Certain ideas appear very
early and develop. There is, for example, a profound
scepticism about man's knowledge of final reality.
While the writer was still a science student he was
seized by the idea that time is a dimension of space
differing only in the relation of the human consciousness towards it, and that both Newtonian space and
syllogistic reasoning are simplifications of a more
subtle and intangible reality, simplifications imposed
upon us by the limitations and imperfections of our
minds. This line of thought leads to the recognition
that such ideas as the idea of Right and the idea of
God may also prove to be relative and provisional,
that they are attempts to simplify and so bring into
the compass of human reactions what is otherwise
humanly inexpressible.
And another leading idea that grows throughout
these writings is the idea of a synthetic Collective
Mind, arising out of and using and passing on beyond
xvi




TO THE ATLANTIC EDITION


our individual minds. What we call Science is, in
the writer's way of thinking, the knowledge in this
Mind; and it develops a will for collective effort and
a collective purpose in mankind. A very large proportion of these writings plays about this group of
ideas. It is the basis of the writer's socialism and of
his international interpretations. The theme of several of the novels is the reaction of the passionate
ego-centred individual to the growing consciousness
and the gathering imperatives of such a collective
mind.
It is the writer's belief that human society is now
undergoing changes more rapid and more profound
than have ever happened to it before, and that a world
community is steadily and swiftly replacing the practically separate national and racial communities of
the past. Himself a child of change, born in a home
that was broken up by failure in retail trade, and
escaping only by very desperate exertions from a life
of servitude and frustration, he has been made aware
of, and he is still enormously aware of and eager to
understand and express, the process of adaptation,
destruction, and reconstruction of old moral and intellectual and political and economic formulae that
is going on all about us. Indeed all these volumes
are about unrest and change. Even in his novels
his characters, like Kipps and Mr. Polly, are either
change-driven and unable to understand, or, like Benham of "The Research Magnificent" or Stratton in
"The Passionate Friends," they are attempting desperately to understand, and still more desperately attempting to thrust at and interfere with change.
XVii




A GENERAL INTRODUCTION


Inseparable from the question "What is the drive
in me?" are the questions: "What should one do?"
"What ought one to do?" There is no such thing as
an impersonal discussion of conduct or absolute detachment in art. Contemporary criticism is too
often vitiated by a pretence that such an aloofness is
possible. It would be easier to study anatomy without a body to touch and see and dissect, than to discuss conduct without experiences, personalities, and
imperatives. For, to be a little franker than he was
in his opening paragraphs, the writer confesses his
profound disbelief in any perfect or permanent work
of art. All art, all science, and still more certainly
all writing are experiments in statement. There will
come a time for every work of art when it will have
served its purpose and be bereft of its last rag of significance. Here in these collected volumes are fantasy, fiction, discussion, and stated case, all openly
and deliberately experimental, all in essence sketches
and trials. This edition is a diary of imaginations and
ideas much more than a set display, the record of a
life lived in a time of great readjustment rather than
of creative achievement.
Necessarily where the standpoint varies there are
many variations in statement. Quite apart from the
real blunders, the wanderings into dead alleys, and
the slow tentative realisations, step by step, of a limited and fallible man, there must also be many merely
apparent inconsistencies in such writings. A man
may say one day that Monte Rosa lies to the right
of the Matterhorn and another day he may say it lies
to the left, and he may be an entirely trustworthy
xviii




TO THE ATLANTIC EDITION


man approaching the mountains one day from Aosta
and another from Zermatt. But if he should be
drawn into controversies he may find that some
hasty and resentful antagonist has seized upon these
two statements as an illustration of his mental and
moral disorders. He will be asked to stop scrapping his opinions and to make up his mind once for
all whether Monte Rosa is the mountain to the left
or the mountain to the right. Now at times the
writer has ruffled the convictions of others and fallen
into disputations, and out of the ensuing controversial
give and take there has distilled an accusation that he
alters his opinions frequently and completely. The
other day, for instance, an amiable contemporary
said of the writer that he changed his opinions as he
changed his shirt. This is substantially untrue. If
it were true these volumes of close upon thirty years
of thinking and writing would be a poor bargain for
any subscriber. But it is so far true that to the questions, "Do you believe in God?" "Do you believe
in nationality?"  "Do you believe in individualism,
in socialism?" the writer shows himself as often disposed to answer "Yes" as "No." One cannot give
precise answers to indefinable questions. In these
volumes you will find the writer constantly working
at the telling of just the sort of God, just the sort of
England, just the sort of individual freedom and just
the sort of social service he believes in, and just the
sort that he repudiates and denies. Yet reading all
these writings over, as this collected edition has at
last obliged the writer to do, he is, he is bound to
confess, surprised at his own general consistency.
xix




A GENERAL INTRODUCTION


There is growth in these writings indeed, but there
is continuity. He cannot venture to estimate what
he may have done for other people by writing such
a quantity of books and stories and articles, but on
the whole-lapses due to vanity and indolence and
obtuseness notwithstanding-he feels he has done
well by himself. He would live and write in rather
the same way if he had to live over again. There is,
he believes, in the ultimate reckoning something said
in these volumes that was not said before, and something shaped that was not shaped before.
H. G. WELLS.


XX




PREFACE TO VOLUME I


IN this first volume are some of the author's earliest
imaginative writings. The idea of "The Time Machine" itself, a rather forced development of the idea
that time is a direction in space, came when he was
still a student at the Royal College of Science. He
tried to make a story of it in the students' magazine.
If the old numbers of that publication for the years
1889 and 1890, or thereabouts, still exist, the curious
may read there that first essay, written obviously
under the influence of Hawthorne and smeared with
that miscellaneous allusiveness that Carlyle and many
other of the great Victorians had made the fashion.
"Time Travellers" were not to be written of in those
days of the twopence coloured style; the story was
called, rather deliciously, "The Chronic Argonauts"
and the Time Traveller was "Mr. Nebo-gipfel."
Similar pigments prevailed throughout. A cleansing
course of Swift and Sterne intervened before the idea
was written again for Henley's National Observer in
1894, and his later New Review in 1895, and published as a book in the spring of the latter year. That
version stands here unaltered. There was a slight
struggle between the writer and W. E. Henley who
wanted, he said, to put a little "writing" into the
tale. But the writer was in reaction from that sort
xxi




PREFACE TO VOLUME I


of thing, the Henley interpolations were cut out again,
and he had his own way with his text.
And now the writer reads this book, "The Time
Machine," and can no more touch it or change it than
if it were the work of an entirely different person.
He reads it again after a long interval, he does not
believe he has opened its pages for twenty years, and
finds it hard and "clever" and youthful. Andwhat is rather odd, he thinks-a little unsympathetic.
He is left doubting-rather irrelevantly to the general business of this Preface-whether if the Time
Machine were a sufficiently practicable method of
transport for such a meeting, the H. G. Wells of 1894
and the H. G. Wells of 1922 would get on very well
together. But he has found a copy of the book in
which, somewhen about 1898 or 1899, he marked out
a few modifications in arrangement and improvements in expression. Almost all these suggested
changes he has accepted, so that what the reader
gets here is a revised definitive version a quarter of
a century old.
"The Jilting of Jane" and "The Cone" are also
very "young" things. "The Jilting of Jane" is the
sort of little deliberately pleasant and sympathetic
sketch that every young journalist was doing in those
days. "The Cone" is the last surviving relic of what
might have been a considerable lark to write; it was
to have been a vast melodrama, all at that same level
of high sensation. These two were done some time
before the first rewriting of "The Time Machine"
but before its final revision. After them comes a
string of irresponsible stories. They are just invenxxii




PREFACE TO VOLUME I


tions that were written for magazines, and there is
hardly anything more to be said for them. "The
Wonderful Visit" was published as a book very soon
after "The Time Machine," and it develops the
method of quite a number of the writer's short stories, the method of bringing some fantastically possible or impossible thing into a commonplace group of
people, and working out their reactions with the
completest gravity and reasonableness. Perhaps the
best and reallest of all this group of stories is the
one called "The Purple Pileus," which completes
this first volume.
H. G. W.


xxiii








THE TIME MACHINE








THE TIME MACHINE


~1
HE Time Traveller (for so it will be
convenient to speak of him) was expounding a recondite matter to us.
His grey eyes shone and twinkled,
SR        and his usually pale face was flushed
t and         animated. The fire burned
brightly, and the soft radiance of the incandescent
lights in the lilies of silver caught the bubbles that
flashed and passed in our glasses. Our chairs, being
his patents, embraced and caressed us rather than
submitted to be sat upon, and there was that luxurious after-dinner atmosphere when thought runs
gracefully free of the trammels of precision. And he
put it to us in this way-marking the points with a
lean forefinger-as we sat and lazily admired his
earnestness over this new paradox (as we thought
it) and his fecundity.
"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 ad3




THE TIME MACHINE


mit 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 exten4




THE TIME MACHINE


sively 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-Dimensional 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 three 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
5




THE TIME MACHINE


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 recognised? 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 about in Time as we move about in
the other dimensions of Space?"
The Time Traveller smiled. "Are you so sure we
can move freely in Space? Right and left we can go,
6




THE TIME MACHINE


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 TimeDimension 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 stay7




THE TIME MACHINE


ing back for any length of time, any more than a
savage or an animal has of staying six feet above the
ground. But a civilised 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."
8




THE TIME MACHINE


"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 fin9




THE TIME MACHINE


ished 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 hearth rug. 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 full 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 armchair 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
10




THE TIME MACHINE


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
11




THE TIME MACHINE


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.
Every one 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.
12




THE TIME MACHINE


"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," said I, "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
13




THE TIME MACHINE


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.
14




THE TIME MACHINE


I caught Filby's eye over the shoulder of the Medical Man, and he winked at me solemnly.
~2
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 egg-shell 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 Medi15




THE TIME MACHINE


cal Man, whom I met on Friday at the Linnaan.
He said he had seen a similar thing at Tiibingen, 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
16




THE TIME MACHINE


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 greyereither 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
17




THE TIME MACHINE


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, bloodstained 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 head-lines.
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
18




THE TIME MACHINE


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 dinnerfor 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
19




THE TIME MACHINE


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 finger nail;
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
20




THE TIME MACHINE


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 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 inadequacyto express its quality. You read, I will suppose, at



THE TIME MACHINE


tentively 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.
~3
"I TOLD some of you last Thursday of the principles of the Time Machine, and showed you the actual
thing itself, incomplete in the workshop. There it is
now, a little travel-worn, truly; and one of the ivory
bars is cracked, and a brass rail bent; but the rest of
it's sound enough. I expected to finish it on Friday;
but on Friday, when the putting together was nearly
done, I found that one of the nickel bars was exactly
one inch too short, and this I had to get remade; so
that the thing was not complete until this morning.
It was at ten o'clock to-day that the first of all Time
Machines began its career. I gave it a last tap, tried
all the screws again, put one more drop of oil on the
quartz rod, and sat myself in the saddle. I suppose
a suicide who holds a pistol to his skull feels much the
same wonder at what will come next as I felt then.
I took the starting lever in one hand and the stopping
one in the other, pressed the first, and almost immedi22




THE TIME MACHINE


ately the second. I seemed to reel; I felt a nightmare
sensation of falling; and, looking round, I saw the
laboratory exactly as before. Had anything happened? For a moment I suspected that my intellect
had tricked me. Then I noted the clock. A moment
before, as it seemed, it had stood at a minute or so
past ten; now it was nearly half past three!
"I drew a breath, set my teeth, gripped the starting lever with both hands, and went off with a thud.
The laboratory got hazy and went dark. Mrs.
Watchett came in and walked, apparently without
seeing me, towards the garden door. I suppose it
took her a minute or so to traverse the place, but to
me she seemed to shoot across the room like a rocket.
I pressed the lever over to its extreme position. The
night came like the turning out of a lamp, and in
another moment came to-morrow. The laboratory
grew faint and hazy, then fainter and ever fainter.
To-morrow night came black, then day again, night
again, day again, faster and faster still. An eddying
murmur filled my ears, and a strange, dumb confusedness descended on my mind.
"I am afraid I cannot convey the peculiar sensations of time travelling. They are excessively unpleasant. There is a feeling exactly like that one has
upon a switchback-of a helpless headlong motion!
I felt the same horrible anticipation, too, of an imminent smash. As I put on pace, night followed day
like the flapping of a black wing. The dim suggestion
of the laboratory seemed presently to fall away from
me, and I saw the sun hopping swiftly across the sky,
leaping it every minute, and every minute marking a
23




THE TIME MACHINE


day. I supposed the laboratory had been destroyed
and I had come into the open air. I had a dim impression of scaffolding, but I was already going too
fast to be conscious of any moving things. The slowest snail that ever crawled dashed by too fast for me.
The twinkling succession of darkness and light was
excessively painful to the eye. Then, in the intermittent darknesses, I saw the moon spinning swiftly
through her quarters from new to full, and had a
faint glimpse of the circling stars. Presently, as I
went on, still gaining velocity, the palpitation of night
and day merged into one continuous greyness; the
sky took on a wonderful deepness of blue, a splendid
luminous colour like that of early twilight; the jerking sun became a streak of fire, a brilliant arch, in
space; the moon a fainter fluctuating band; and I
could see nothing of the stars, save now and then a
brighter circle flickering in the blue.
"The landscape was misty and vague. I was still
on the hillside upon which this house now stands,
and the shoulder rose above me grey and dim. I saw
trees growing and changing like puffs of vapour, now
brown, now green; they grew, spread, shivered, and
passed away. I saw huge buildings rise up faint and
fair, and pass like dreams. The whole surface of the
earth seemed changed-melting and flowing under my
eyes. The little hands upon the dials that registered
my speed raced round faster and faster. Presently I
noted that the sun belt swayed up and down, from
solstice to solstice, in a minute or less, and that consequently my pace was over a year a minute; and minute by minute the white snow flashed across the
24




THE TIME MACHINE


world, and vanished, and was followed by the bright,
brief green of spring.
"The unpleasant sensations of the start were less
poignant now. They merged at last into a kind of hysterical exhilaration. I remarked indeed a clumsy
swaying of the machine, for which I was unable to
account. But my mind was too confused to attend
to it, so with a kind of madness growing upon me, I
flung myself into futurity. At first I scarce thought
of stopping, scarce thought of anything but these
new sensations. But presently a fresh series of impressions grew up in my mind-a certain curiosity
and therewith a certain dread-until at last they took
complete possession of me. What strange developments of humanity, what wonderful advances upon
our rudimentary civilisation, I thought, might not
appear when I came to look nearly into the dim elusive world that raced and fluctuated before my eyes!
I saw great and splendid architecture rising about
me, more massive than any buildings of our own
time, and yet, as it seemed, built of glimmer and
mist. I saw a richer green flow up the hillside, and
remain there without any wintry intermission. Even
through the veil of my confusion the earth seemed
very fair. And so my mind came round to the business of stopping.
"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!




THE TIME MACHINE


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




THE TIME MACHINE


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 birchtree 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.
"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
27




THE TIME MACHINE


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
unmelted 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 wins
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
28




THE TIME MACHINE


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




THE TIME MACHINE


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.
"And then, looking more nearly into their features,
I saw some further peculiarities in their Dresdenchina type of prettiness. Their hair, which was uniformly curly, came to a sharp end at the neck and
cheek; there was not the faintest suggestion of it on
the face, and their ears were singularly minute. The
mouths were small, with bright red, rather thin lips,
30




THE TIME MACHINE


and the little chins ran to a point. The eyes were
large and mild; and-this may seem egotism on my
part-I fancied even then that there was a certain
lack of the interest I might have expected in them.
"As they made no effort to communicate with me,
but simply stood round me smiling and speaking in
soft cooing notes to each other, I began the conversation. I pointed to the Time Machine and to myself.
Then, hesitating for a moment how to express time,
I pointed to the sun. At once a quaintly pretty little
figure in chequered purple and white followed my gesture, and then astonished me by imitating the sound
of thunder.
"For a moment I was staggered, though the import of his gesture was plain enough. The question
had come into my mind abruptly: were these creatures fools? You may hardly understand how it took
me. You see I had always anticipated that the people of the year Eight Hundred and Two Thousand
odd would be incredibly in front of us in knowledge,
art, everything. Then one of them suddenly asked me
a question that showed him to be on the intellectual
level of one of our five-year-old children-asked me,
in fact, if I had come from the sun in a thunderstorm! It let loose the judgment I had suspended
upon their clothes, their frail light limbs, and fragile
features. A flow of disappointment rushed across my
mind. For a moment I felt that I had built the Time
Machine in vain.
"I nodded, pointed to the sun, and gave them such
a vivid rendering of a thunderclap as startled them.
They all withdrew a pace or so and bowed. Then
31




THE TIME MACHINE


came one laughing towards me, carrying a chain of
beautiful flowers altogether new to me, and put it
about my neck. The idea was received with melodious applause; and presently they were all running to
and fro for flowers, and laughingly flinging them upon
me until I was almost smothered with blossom. You
who have never seen the like can scarcely imagine
what delicate and wonderful flowers countless years
of culture had created. Then some one suggested that
their plaything should be exhibited in the nearest
building, and so I was led past the sphinx of white
marble, which had seemed to watch me all the while
with a smile at my astonishment, towards a vast grey
edifice of fretted stone. As I went with them the
memory of my confident anticipations of a profoundly
grave and intellectual posterity came, with irresistible
merriment, to my mind.
"The building had a huge entry, and was altogether of colossal dimensions. I was naturally most
occupied with the growing crowd of little people, and
with the big open portals that yawned before me
shadowy and mysterious. My general impression of
the world I saw over their heads was of a tangled
waste of beautiful bushes and flowers, a long-neglected
and yet weedless garden. I saw a number of tall
spikes of strange white flowers, measuring a foot perhaps across the spread of the waxen petals. They
grew scattered, as if wild, among the variegated
shrubs, but, as I say, I did not examine them closely
at this time. The Time Machine was left deserted on
the turf among the rhododendrons.
"The arch of the doorway was richly carved, but
32




THE TIME MACHINE


naturally I did not observe the carving very narrowly,
though I fancied I saw suggestions of old Phoenician
decorations as I passed through, and it struck me
that they were very badly broken and weather-worn.
Several more brightly clad people met me in the doorway, and so we entered, I, dressed in dingy nineteenth-century garments, looking grotesque enough,
garlanded with flowers, and surrounded by an eddying mass of bright, soft-coloured robes and shining
white limbs, in a melodious whirl of laughter and
laughing speech.
"The big doorway opened into a proportionately
great hall hung with brown. The roof was in shadow,
and the windows, partially glazed with coloured glass
and partially unglazed, admitted a tempered light.
The floor was made up of huge blocks of some very
hard white metal, not plates nor slabs, blocks, and
it was so much worn, as I judged by the going to and
fro of past generations, as to be deeply channelled
along the more frequented ways. Transverse to the
length were innumerable tables made of slabs of polished stone, raised perhaps a foot from the floor, and
upon these were heaps of fruits. Some I recognised
as a kind of hypertrophied raspberry and orange,
but for the most part they were strange.
"Between the tables was scattered a great number
of cushions. Upon these my conductors seated themselves, signing for me to do likewise. With a pretty
absence of ceremony they began to eat the fruit with
their hands, flinging peel and stalks and so forth,
into the round openings in the sides of the tables. I
was not loth to follow their example, for I felt thirsty
33




THE TIME MACHINE


and hungry. As I did so I surveyed the hall at my
leisure.
"And perhaps the thing that struck me most was
its dilapidated look. The stained-glass windows,
which displayed only a geometrical pattern, were
broken in many places, and the curtains that hung
across the lower end were thick with dust. And it
caught my eye that the corner of the marble table
near me was fractured. Nevertheless, the general
effect was extremely rich and picturesque. There
were, perhaps, a couple of hundred people dining in
the hall, and most of them, seated as near to me as
they could come, were watching me with interest,
their little eyes shining over the fruit they were eating. All were clad in the same soft, and yet strong,
silky material.
"Fruit, by the bye, was all their diet. These people of the remote future were strict vegetarians, and
while I was with them, in spite of some carnal cravings, I had to be frugivorous also. Indeed, I found
afterwards that horses, cattle, sheep, dogs, had followed the Ichthyosaurus into extinction. But the
fruits were very delightful; one, in particular, that
seemed to be in season all the time I was there-a
floury thing in a three-sided husk-was especially
good, and I made it my staple. At first I was puzzled
by all these strange fruits, and by the strange flowers
I saw, but later I began to perceive their import.
"However, I am telling you of my fruit dinner in
the distant future now. So soon as my appetite was
a little checked, I determined to make a resolute attempt to learn the speech of these new men of mine.
34




THE TIME MACHINE


Clearly that was the next thing to do. The fruits
seemed a convenient thing to begin upon, and holding one of these up I began a series of interrogative
sounds and gestures. I had some considerable diffi(ulty in conveying my meaning. At first my efforts
met with a stare of surprise or inextinguishable laughter, but presently a fair-haired little creature seemed
to grasp my intention and repeated a name. They
had to chatter and explain the business at great
length to each other, and my first attempts to make
the exquisite little sounds of their language caused
an immense amount of amusement. However, I felt
like a schoolmaster amidst children, and persisted,
and presently I had a score of noun substantives at
least at my command; and then I got to demonstrative pronouns, and even the verb 'to eat.' But it
was slow work, and the little people soon tired and
wanted to get away from my interrogations, so I determined, rather of necessity, to let them give their
lessons in little doses when they felt inclined. And
very little doses I found they were before long, for
I never met people more indolent or more easily
fatigued.
"A queer thing I soon discovered about my little
hosts, and that was their lack of interest. They would
come to me with eager cries of astonishment, like
children, but like children they would soon stop examining me and wander away after some other toy.
The dinner and my conversational beginnings ended,
I noted for the first time that almost all those who
had surrounded me at first were gone. It is odd, too,
how speedily I came to disregard these little people.
35




THE TIME MACHINE


I went out through the portal into the sunlit world
again so soon as my hunger was satisfied. I was continually meeting more of these men of the future,
who would follow me a little distance, chatter and
laugh about me, and, having smiled and gesticulated
in a friendly way, leave me again to my own devices.
"The calm of evening was upon the world as I
emerged from the great hall, and the scene was lit
by the warm glow of the setting sun. At first things
were very confusing. Everything was so entirely
different from the world I had known-even the flowers. The big building I had left was situate on the
slope of a broad river valley, but the Thames had
shifted, perhaps, a mile from its present position. I
resolved to mount to the summit of a crest, perhaps
a mile and a half away, from which I could get a
wider view of this our planet in the year Eight Hundred and Two Thousand Seven Hundred and One
A. D. For that, I should explain, was the date the
little dials of my machine recorded.
"As I walked I was watchful for every impression
that could possibly help to explain the condition of
ruinous splendour in which I found the world-for
ruinous it was. A little way up the hill, for instance,
was a great heap of granite, bound together by masses
of aluminium, a vast labyrinth of precipitous walls
and crumbled heaps, amidst which were thick heaps
of very beautiful pagoda-like plants-nettles possibly
-but wonderfully tinted with brown about the
leaves, and incapable of stinging. It was evidently
the derelict remains of some vast structure, to what
end built I could not determine. It was here that I
36




THE TIME MACHINE


was destined, at a later date, to have a very strange
experience-the first intimation of a still stranger
discovery-but of that I will speak in its proper
place.
"Looking round with a sudden thought, from a
terrace on which I rested for a while, I realised that
there were no small houses to be seen. Apparently
the single house, and possibly even the household,
had vanished. Here and there among the greenery
were palace-like buildings, but the house and the cottage, which form such characteristic features of our
own English landscape, had disappeared.
"'Communism,' said I to myself.
"And on the heels of that came another thought.
I looked at the half dozen little figures that were following me. Then, in a flash, I perceived that all had
the same form of costume, the same soft hairless
visage, and the same girlish rotundity of limb. It
may seem strange, perhaps, that I had not noticed
this before. But everything was so strange. Now,
I saw the fact plainly enough. In costume, and in
all the differences of texture and bearing that now
mark off the sexes from each other, these people of
the future were alike. And the children seemed to
my eyes to be but the miniatures of their parents.
I judged, then, that the children of that time were
extremely precocious, physically at least, and I found
afterwards abundant verification of my opinion.
"Seeing the ease and security in which these people were living, I felt that this close resemblance of
the sexes was after all what one would expect; for the
strength of a man and the softness of a woman, the
37




THE TIME MACHINE


institution of the family, and the differentiation of
occupations are mere militant necessities of an age of
physical force. Where population is balanced and
abundant, much child-bearing becomes an evil rather
than a blessing to the State; where violence comes
but rarely and offspring are secure, there is less necessity-indeed there is no necessity-for an efficient
family, and the specialisation of the sexes with reference to their children's needs disappears. We see
some beginnings of this even in our own time, and in
this future age it was complete. This, I must remind
you, was my speculation at the time. Later, I was
to appreciate how far it fell short of the reality.
"While I was musing upon these things, my attention was attracted by a pretty little structure, like a
well under a cupola. I thought in a transitory way
of the oddness of wells still existing, and then resumed
the thread of my speculations. There were no large
buildings towards the top of the hill, and as my walking powers were evidently miraculous, I was presently
left alone for the first time. With a strange sense
of freedom and adventure I pushed on up to the
crest.
"There I found a seat of some yellow metal that
I did not recognise, corroded in places with a kind of
pinkish rust and half smothered in soft moss, the arm
rests cast and filed into the resemblance of griffins'
heads. I sat down on it, and I surveyed the broad
view of our old world under the sunset of that long
day. It was as sweet and fair a view as I have ever
seen. The sun had already gone below the horizon
and the west was flaming gold, touched with some
38




THE TIME MACHINE
horizontal bars of purple and crimson. Below was
the valley of the Thames, in which the river lay like
a band of burnished steel. I have already spoken of
the great palaces dotted about among the variegated
greenery, some in ruins and some still occupied. Here
and there rose a white or silvery figure in the waste
garden of the earth, here and there came the sharp
vertical line of some cupola or obelisk. There were no
hedges, no signs of proprietary rights, no evidences
of agriculture; the whole earth had become a garden.
"So watching, I began to put my interpretation
upon the things I had seen, and as it shaped itself to
me that evening, my interpretation was something in
this way. (Afterwards I found I had got only a halftruth-or only a glimpse of one facet of the truth.)
"It seemed to me that I had happened upon humanity upon the wane. The ruddy sunset set me
thinking of the sunset of mankind. For the first time
I began to realise an odd consequence of the social
effort in which we are at present engaged. And yet,
come to think, it is a logical consequence enough.
Strength is the outcome of need; security sets a premium on feebleness. The work of ameliorating the conditions of life-the true civilising process that makes
life more and more secure-had gone steadily on to a
climax. One triumph of a united humanity over Nature had followed another. Things that are now mere
dreams had become projects deliberately put in hand
and carried forward. And the harvest was what I
saw!
"After all, the sanitation and the agriculture of today are still in the rudimentary stage. The science of
39




THE TIME MACHINE


our time has attacked but a little department of the
field of human disease, but, even so, it spreads its
operations very steadily and persistently. Our agriculture and horticulture destroy a weed just here and
there and cultivate perhaps a score or so of wholesome plants, leaving the greater number to fight out
a balance as they can. We improve our favourite
plants and animals-and how few they are-gradually by selective breeding; now a new and better
peach, now a seedless grape, now a sweeter and larger
flower, now a more convenient breed of cattle. We
improve them gradually, because our ideals are vague
and tentative, and our knowledge is very limited; because Nature, too, is shy and slow in our clumsy
hands. Some day all this will be better organised,
and still better. That is the drift of the current in
spite of the eddies. The whole world will be intelligent, educated, and cooperating; things will move
faster and faster towards the subjugation of Nature.
In the end, wisely and carefully we shall readjust the
balance of animal and vegetable life to suit our human
needs.
"This adjustment, I say, must have been done, and
done well; done indeed for all time, in the space of
Time across which my machine had leaped. The air
was free from gnats, the earth from weeds or fungi;
everywhere were fruits and sweet and delightful
flowers; brilliant butterflies flew hither and thither.
The ideal of preventive medicine was attained. Diseases had been stamped out. I saw no evidence of
any contagious diseases during all my stay. And I
shall have to tell you later that even the processes of
40




THE TIME MACHINE


putrefaction and decay had been profoundly affected
by these changes.
"Social triumphs, too, had been effected. I saw
mankind housed in splendid shelters, gloriously
clothed, and as yet I had found them engaged in no
toil. There were no signs of struggle, neither social
nor economical struggle. The shop, the advertisement, traffic, all that commerce which constitutes the
body of our world, was gone. It was natural on that
golden evening that I should jump at the idea of a
social paradise. The difficulty of increasing population had been met, I guessed, and population had
ceased to increase.
"But with this change in condition comes inevitably adaptations to the change. What, unless biological science in a mass of errors, is the cause of
human intelligence and vigour? Hardship and freedom: conditions under which the active, strong, and
subtle survive and the weaker go to the wall; conditions that put a premium upon the loyal alliance of
capable men, upon self-restraint, patience, and decision. And the institution of the family, and the
emotions that arise therein, the fierce jealousy, the
tenderness for offspring, parental self-devotion, all
found their justification and support in the imminent
dangers of the young. Now, where are these imminent dangers? There is a sentiment arising, and it
will grow, against connubial jealousy, against fierce
maternity, against passion of all sorts; unnecessary
things now, and things that make us uncomfortable,
savage survivals, discords in a refined and pleasant life.
"I thought of the physical slightness of the people,
41




THE TIME MACHINE


their lack of intelligence, and those big abundant
ruins, and it strengthened my belief in a perfect conquest of Nature. For after the battle comes Quiet.
Humanity had been strong, energetic, and intelligent,
and had used all its abundant vitality to alter the conditions under which it lived. And now came the reaction of the altered conditions.
"Under the new conditions of perfect comfort and
security, that restless energy, that with us is strength,
would become weakness. Even in our own time certain tendencies and desires, once necessary to survival, are a constant source of failure. Physical courage and the love of battle, for instance, are no great
help-may even be hindrances-to a civilised man.
And in a state of physical balance and security, power,
intellectual as well as physical, would be out of place.
For countless years I judged there had been no danger
of war or solitary violence, no danger from wild
beasts, no wasting disease to require strength of constitution, no need of toil. For such a life, what we
should call the weak are as well equipped as the
strong, are indeed no longer weak. Better equipped
indeed they are, for the strong would be fretted by an
energy for which there was no outlet. No doubt the
exquisite beauty of the buildings I saw was the outcome of the last surgings of the now purposeless
energy of mankind before it settled down into perfect
harmony with the conditions under which it livedthe flourish of that triumph which began the last
great peace. This has ever been the fate of energy in
security; it takes to art and to eroticism, and then
come languor and decay.




THE TIME MACHINE


"Even this artistic impetus would at last die away
-had almost died in the Time I saw. To adorn themselves with flowers, to dance, to sing in the sunlight;
so much was left of the artistic spirit, and no more.
Even that would fade in the end into a contented inactivity. We are kept keen on the grindstone of pain
and necessity, and, it seemed to me, that here was
that hateful grindstone broken at last!
"As I stood there in the gathering dark I thought
that in this simple explanation I had mastered the
problem of the world-mastered the whole secret of
these delicious people. Possibly the checks they had
devised for the increase of population had succeeded
too well, and their numbers had rather diminished
than kept stationary. That would account for the
abandoned ruins. Very simple was my explanation,
and plausible enough-as most wrong theories are!
~5
"As I stood there musing over this too perfect triumph of man, the full moon, yellow and gibbous,
came up out of an overflow of silver light in the
north-east. The bright little figures ceased to move
about below, a noiseless owl flitted by, and I shivered
with the chill of the night. I determined to descend
and find where I could sleep.
"I looked for the building I knew. Then my eye
travelled along to the figure of the White Sphinx
upon the pedestal of bronze, growing distinct as the
light of the rising moon grew brighter. I could see
the silver birch against it. There was the tangle of
43




THE TIME MACHINE


rhododendron bushes, black in the pale light, and
there was the little lawn. I looked at the lawn again.
A queer doubt chilled my complacency. 'No,' said I
stoutly to myself, 'that was not the lawn.'
"But it was the lawn. For the white leprous face
of the sphinx was towards it. Can you imagine what
I felt as this conviction came home to me? But you
cannot. The Time Machine was gone!
"At once, like a lash across the face, came the possibility of losing my own age, of being left helpless in
this strange new world. The bare thought of it was
an actual physical sensation. I could feel it grip me
at the throat and stop my breathing. In another
moment I was in a passion of fear and running with
great leaping strides down the slope. Once I fell
headlong and cut my face; I lost no time in stanching
the blood, but jumped up and ran on, with a warm
trickle down my cheek and chin. All the time I ran
I was saying to myself, 'They have moved it a little,
pushed it under the bushes out of the way.' Nevertheless, I ran with all my might. All the time, with
the certainty that sometimes comes with excessive
dread, I knew that such assurance was folly, knew
instinctively that the machine was removed out of my
reach. My breath came with pain. I suppose I
covered the whole distance from the hill crest to the
little lawn, two miles, perhaps, in ten minutes. And
I am not a young man. I cursed aloud, as I ran, at
my confident folly in leaving the machine, wasting
good breath thereby. I cried aloud, and none answered. Not a creature seemed to be stirring in that
moonlit world.
44




THE TIME MACHINE


"When I reached the lawn my worst fears were
realised. Not a trace of the thing was to be seen. I
felt faint and cold when I faced the empty space
among the black tangle of bushes. I ran round it
furiously, as if the thing might be hidden in a corner,
and then stopped abruptly, with my hands clutching
my hair. Above me towered the sphinx, upon the
bronze pedestal, white, shining, leprous, in the light
of the rising moon. It seemed to smile in mockery
of my dismay.
"I might have consoled myself by imagining the little people had put the mechanism in some shelter for
me, had I not felt assured of their physical and intellectual inadequacy. That is what dismayed me: the
sense of some hitherto unsuspected power, through
whose intervention my invention had vanished. Yet,
of one thing I felt assured: unless some other age had
produced its exact duplicate, the machine could not
have moved ip time. The attachment of the leversI will show you the method later-prevented any one
from tampering with it in that way when they were
removed. It had moved, and was hid, only in space.
But then, where could it be?
"I think I must have had a kind of frenzy. I
remember running violently in and out among the
moonlit bushes all round the sphinx, and startling
some white animal that, in the dim light, I took for
a small deer. I remember, too, late that night, beating the bushes with my clenched fists until my
knuckles were gashed and bleeding from the broken
twigs. Then, sobbing and raving in my anguish of
mind, I went down to the great building of stone.
45




THE TIME MACHINE


The big hall was dark, silent, and deserted. I slipped
on the uneven floor, and fell over one of the malachite
tables, almost breaking my shin. I lit a match and
went on past the dusty curtains, of which I have told
you.
"There I found a second great hall covered with
cushions, upon which, perhaps, a score or so of the
little people were sleeping. I have no doubt they
found my second appearance strange enough, coming
suddenly out of the quiet darkness with inarticulate
noises and the splutter and flare of a match. For
they had forgotten about matches. 'Where is my
Time Machine?' I began, bawling like an angry child,
laying hands upon them and shaking them up together. It must have been very queer to them.
Some laughed, most of them looked sorely frightened.
"When I saw them standing round me, it came into
my head that I was doing as foolish a thing as it was
possible for me to do under the circumstances, in trying to revive the sensation of fear. For, reasoning
from their daylight behaviour, I thought that fear
must be forgotten.
"Abruptly, I dashed down the match, and, knocking one of the people over in my course, went blundering across the big dining-hall again, out under the
moonlight. I heard cries of terror and their little
feet running and stumbling this way and that. I do
not remember all I did as the moon crept up the sky.
I suppose it was the unexpected nature of my loss
that maddened me. I felt hopelessly cut off from
my own kind-a strange animal in an unknown world.
I must have raved to and fro, screaming and crying
46




THE TIME MACHINE


upon God and Fate. I have a memory of horrible
fatigue, as the long night of despair wore away; of
looking in this impossible place and that; of groping
among moonlit ruins and touching strange creatures
in the black shadows; at last, of lying on the ground
near the sphinx and weeping with absolute wretchedness. I had nothing left but misery. Then I slept,
and when I woke again it was full day, and a couple
of sparrows were hopping round me on the turf within
reach of my arm.
"I sat up in the freshness of the morning, trying to
remember how I had got there, and why I had such a
profound sense of desertion and despair. Then things
came clear in my mind. With the plain, reasonable
daylight, I could look my circumstances fairly in the
face. I saw the wild folly of my frenzy overnight,
and I could reason with myself. Suppose the worst?
I said. Suppose the machine altogether lost-perhaps destroyed? It behooves me to be calm and patient, to learn the way of the people, to get a clear
idea of the method of my loss, and the means of
getting materials and tools; so that in the end, perhaps, I may make another. That would be my only
hope, a poor hope perhaps, but better than despair.
And, after all, it was a beautiful and curious world.
"But probably the machine had only been taken
away. Still, I must be calm and patient, find its
hiding-place, and recover it by force or cunning.
And with that I scrambled to my feet and looked
about me, wondering where I could bathe. I felt
weary, stiff, and travel-soiled. The freshness of the
morning made me desire an equal freshness. I had
47




THE TIME MACHINE


exhausted my emotion. Indeed, as I went about my
business, I found myself wondering at my intense excitement overnight. I made a careful examination of
the ground about the little lawn. I wasted some
time in futile questionings, conveyed, as well as I was
able, to such of the little people as came by. They all
failed to understand my gestures; some were simply
stolid, some thought it was a jest and laughed at me.
I had the hardest task in the world to keep my hands
off their pretty laughing faces. It was a foolish impulse, but the devil begotten of fear and blind anger
was ill curbed and still eager to take advantage of my
perplexity. The turf gave better counsel. I found
a groove ripped in it, about midway between the pedestal of the sphinx and the marks of my feet where,
on arrival, I had struggled with the overturned machine. There were other signs of removal about, with
queer narrow footprints like those I could imagine
made by a sloth. This directed my closer attention
to the pedestal. It was, as I think I have said, of
bronze. It was not a mere block, but highly decorated with deep framed panels on either side. I went
and rapped at these. The pedestal was hollow. Examining the panels with care I found them discontinuous with the frames. There were no handles or
keyholes, but possibly the panels, if they were doors,
as I supposed, opened from within. One thing was
clear enough to my mind. It took no very great
mental effort to infer that my Time Machine was inside that pedestal. But how it got there was a different problem.
"I saw the heads of two orange-clad people coming
48




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through the bushes and under some blossom-covered
apple-trees towards me. I turned smiling to them
and beckoned them to me. They came, and then,
pointing to the bronze pedestal, I tried to intimate
my wish to open it. But at my first gesture towards
this they behaved very oddly. I don't know how to
convey their expression to you. Suppose you were
to use a grossly improper gesture to a delicate-minded
woman-it is how she would look. They went off as
if they had received the last possible insult. I tried
a sweet-looking little chap in white next, with exactly
the same result. Somehow, his manner made me feel
ashamed of myself. But, as you know, I wanted the
Time Machine, and I tried him once more. As he
turned off, like the others, my temper got the better
of me. In three strides I was after him, had him by
the loose part of his robe round the neck, and began
dragging him towards the sphinx. Then I saw the
horror and repugnance of his face, and all of a sudden
I let him go.
"But I was not beaten yet. I banged with my fist
at the bronze panels. I thought I heard something
stir inside-to be explicit, I thought I heard a sound
like a chuckle-but I must have been mistaken. Then
I got a big pebble from the river, and came and hammered till I had flattened a coil in the decorations,
and the verdigris came off in powdery flakes. The
delicate little people must have heard me hammering
in gusty outbreaks a mile away on either hand, but
nothing came of it. I saw a crowd of them upon the
slopes, looking furtively at me. At last, hot and
tired, I sat down to watch the place. But I was too
49




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restless to watch long; I am too Occidental for a long
vigil. I could work at a problem for years, but to
wait inactive for twenty-four hours-that is another
matter.
"I got up after a time, and began walking aimlessly through the bushes towards the hill again.
'Patience,' said I to myself. 'If you want your machine again you must leave that sphinx alone. If
they mean to take your machine away, it's little good
your wrecking their bronze panels, and if they don't,
you will get it back as soon as you can ask for it. To
sit among all those unknown things before a puzzle
like that is hopeless. That way lies monomania.
Face this world. Learn its ways, watch it, be careful of too hasty guesses at its meaning. In the end
you will find clues to it all.' Then suddenly the humour of the situation came into my mind: the thought
of the years I had spent in study and toil to get into
the future age, and now my passion of anxiety to get
out of it. I had made myself the most complicated
and the most hopeless trap that ever a man devised.
Although it was at my own expense, I could not help
myself. I laughed aloud.
"Going through the big palace, it seemed to me
that the little people avoided me. It may have been
my fancy, or it may have had something to do with
my hammering at the gates of bronze. Yet I felt tolerably sure of the avoidance. I was careful, however,
to show no concern and to abstain from any pursuit
of them, and in the course of a day or two things got
back to the old footing. I made what progress I
could in the language, and in addition I pushed my




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explorations here' and there. Either I missed some
subtle point, or their language was excessively simple-almost exclusively composed of concrete substantives and verbs. There seemed to be few, if any,
abstract terms, or little use of figurative language.
Their sentences were usually simple and of two words,
and I failed to convey or understand any but the simplest propositions. I determined to put the thought
of my Time Machine and the mystery of the bronze
doors under the sphinx as much as possible in a
corner of memory, until my growing knowledge
would lead me back to them in a natural way. Yet
a certain feeling, you may understand, tethered
me in a circle of a few miles round the point of my
arrival.
"So far as I could see, all the world displayed
the same exuberant richness as the Thames valley.
From every hill I climbed I saw the same abundance
of splendid buildings, endlessly varied in material and
style, the same clustering thickets of evergreens, the
same blossom-laden trees and tree-ferns. Here and
there water shone like silver, and beyond, the land
rose into blue undulating hills, and so faded into the
serenity of the sky. A peculiar feature, which presently attracted my attention, was the presence of certain circular wells, several, as it seemed to me, of a
very great depth. One lay by the path up the hill,
which I had followed during my first walk. Like the
others, it was rimmed with bronze, curiously wrought,
and protected by a little cupola from the rain. Sitting by the side of these wells, and peering down into
the shafted darkness, I could see no gleam of water,




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nor could I start any reflection with a lighted match.
But in all of them I heard a certain sound: a thudthud-thud, like the beating of some big engine; and
I discovered, from the flaring of my matches, that a
steady current of air set down the shafts. Further,
I threw a scrap of paper into the throat of one, and,
instead of fluttering slowly down, it was at once
sucked swiftly out of sight.
"After a time, too, I came to connect these wells
with tall towers standing here and there upon the
slopes; for above them there was often just such a
flicker in the air as one sees on a hot day above a sunscorched beach. Putting things together, I reached
a strong suggestion of an extensive system of subterranean ventilation, whose true import it was difficult
to imagine. I was at first inclined to associate it with
the sanitary apparatus of these people. It was an
obvious conclusion, but it was absolutely wrong.
"And here I must admit that I learned very little
of drains and bells and modes of conveyance, and the
like conveniences, during my time in this real future.
In some of these visions of Utopias and coming times
which I have read, there is a vast amount of detail
about building, and social arrangements, and so forth.
But while such details are easy enough to obtain when
the whole world is contained in one's imagination,
they are altogether inaccessible to a real traveller
amid such realities as I found here. Conceive the
tale of London which a negro, fresh from Central
Africa, would take back to his tribe! What would
he know of railway companies, of social movements,
of telephone and telegraph wires, of the Parcels De



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livery Company, and postal orders and the like?
Yet we, at least, should be willing enough to explain
these things to him! And even of what he knew,
how much could he make his untravelled friend either
apprehend or believe? Then, think how narrow the
gap between a negro and a white man of our own
times, and how wide the interval between myself and
these of the Golden Age! I was sensible of much
which was unseen, and which contributed to my comfort; but save for a general impression of automatic
organisation, I fear I can convey very little of the
difference to your mind.
"In the matter of sepulture, for instance, I could
see no signs of crematoria nor anything suggestive of
tombs. But it occurred to me that, possibly, there
might be cemeteries (or crematoria) somewhere beyond the range of my explorings. This, again, was a
question I deliberately put to myself, and my curiosity was at first entirely defeated upon the point.
The thing puzzled me, and I was led to make a
further remark, which puzzled me still more: that
aged and infirm among this people there were none.
"I must confess that my satisfaction with my first
theories of an automatic civilisation and a decadent
humanity did not long endure. Yet I could think of
no other. Let me put my difficulties. The several
big palaces I had explored were mere living places,
great dining-halls and sleeping apartments. I could
find no machinery, no appliances of any kind. Yet
these people were clothed in pleasant fabrics that
must at times need renewal, and their sandals, though
undecorated, were fairly complex specimens of metal53




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work. Somehow such things must be made. And
the little people displayed no vestige of a creative
tendency. There were no shops, no workshops, no
sign of importations among them. They spent all
their time in playing gently, in bathing in the river,
in making love in a half-playful fashion, in eating
fruit and sleeping. I could not see how things were
kept going.
"Then, again, about the Time Machine: something, I knew not what, had taken it into the hollow
pedestal of the White Sphinx. Why? For the life
of me I could not imagine. Those waterless wells,
too, those flickering pillars. I felt I lacked a clue.
I felt-how shall I put it? Suppose you found an
inscription, with sentences here and there in excellent
plain English, and, interpolated therewith, others
made up of words, of letters even, absolutely unknown to you? Well, on the third day of my visit,
that was how the world of Eight Hundred and Two
Thousand Seven Hundred and One presented itself
to me!
"That day, too, I made a friend-of a sort. It
happened that, as I was watching some of the little
people bathing in a shallow, one of them was seized
with cramp and began drifting downstream. The
main current ran rather swiftly, but not too strongly
for even a moderate swimmer. It will give you an
idea, therefore, of the strange deficiency in these creatures, when I tell you that none made the slightest
attempt to rescue the weakly crying little thing which
was drowning before their eyes. When I realised
this, I hurriedly slipped off my clothes, and, wading
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in at a point lower down, I caught the poor mite and
drew her safe to land. A little rubbing of the limbs
soon brought her round, and I had the satisfaction of
seeing she was all right before I left her. I had got
to such a low estimate of her kind that I did not expect any gratitude from her. In that, however, I
was wrong.
"This happened in the morning. In the afternoon
I met my little woman, as I believe it was, as I was
returning towards my centre from an exploration,
and she received me with cries of delight and presented me with a big garland of flowers-evidently
made for me and me alone. The thing took my imagination. Very possibly I had been feeling desolate.
At any rate I did my best to display my appreciation
of the gift. We were soon seated together in a little
stone arbour, engaged in conversation, chiefly of
smiles. The creature's friendliness affected me exactly
as a child's might have done. We passed each other
flowers, and she kissed my hands. I did the same to
hers. Then I tried talk, and found that her name was
Weena, which, though I don't know what it meant,
somehow seemed appropriate enough. That was the
beginning of a queer friendship which lasted a week,
and ended-as I will tell you!
"She was exactly like a child. She wanted to be
with me always. She tried to follow me everywhere,
and on my next journey out and about it went to my
heart to tire her down, and leave her at last, exhausted
and calling after me rather plaintively. But the
problems of the world had to be mastered. I had
not, I said to myself, come into the future to carry
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on a miniature flirtation. Yet her distress when I
left her was very great, her expostulations at the
parting were sometimes frantic, and I think, altogether, I had as much trouble as comfort from her devotion. Nevertheless she was, somehow, a very great
comfort. I thought it was mere childish affection
-that made her cling to me. Until it was too late, I
did not clearly know what I had inflicted upon her
when I left her. Nor until it was too late did I
clearly understand what she was to me. For, by
merely seeming fond of me, and showing in her weak,
futile way that she cared for me, the little doll of a
creature presently gave my return to the neighbourhood of the White Sphinx almost the feeling of coming home; and I would watch for her tiny figure of
white and gold so soon as I came over the hill.
"It was from her, too, that I learned that fear had
not yet left the world. She was fearless enough in
the daylight, and she had the oddest confidence in
me; for once, in a foolish moment, I made threatening grimaces at her, and she simply laughed at them.
But she dreaded the dark, dreaded shadows, dreaded
black things. Darkness to her was the one thing
dreadful. It was a singularly passionate emotion,
and it set me thinking and observing. I discovered
then, among other things, that these little people
gathered into the great houses after dark, and slept
in droves. To enter upon them without a light was
to put them into a tumult of apprehension. I never
found one out of doors, or one sleeping alone within
doors, after dark. Yet I was still such a blockhead
that I missed the lesson of that fear, and in spite of




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Weena's distress, I insisted upon sleeping away from
these slumbering multitudes.
"It troubled her greatly, but in the end her odd
affection for me triumphed, and for five of the nights
of our acquaintance, including the last night of all,
she slept with her head pillowed on my arm. But my
story slips away from me as I speak of her. It must
have been the night before her rescue that I was
awakened about dawn. I had been restless, dreaming most disagreeably that I was drowned, and that
sea-anemones were feeling over my face with their
soft palps. I woke with a start, and with an odd
fancy that some greyish animal had just rushed out
of the chamber. I tried to get to sleep again, but I
felt restless and uncomfortable. It was that dim grey
hour when things are just creeping out of darkness,
when everything is colourless and clear cut, and yet
unreal. I got up, and went down into the great hall,
and so out upon the flagstones in front of the palace.
I thought I would make a virtue of necessity, and
see the sunrise.
"The moon was setting, and the dying moonlight
and the first pallor of dawn were mingled in a ghastly
half-light. The bushes were inky black, the ground
a sombre grey, the sky colourless and cheerless. And
up the hill I thought I could see ghosts. Three several times, as I scanned the slope, I saw white figures.
Twice I fancied I saw a solitary white, ape-like creature running rather quickly up the hill, and once near
the ruins I saw a leash of them carrying some dark
body. They moved hastily. I did not see what became of them. It seemed that they vanished among




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the bushes. The dawn was still indistinct, you must
understand. I was feeling that chill, uncertain, earlymorning feeling you may have known. I doubted
my eyes.
"As the eastern sky grew brighter, and the light of
the day came on and its vivid colouring returned upon
the world once more, I scanned the view keenly.
But I saw no vestige of my white figures. They were
mere creatures of the half-light. 'They must have
been ghosts,' I said; 'I wonder whence they dated.'
For a queer notion of Grant Allen's came into my
head, and amused me. If each generation die and
leave ghosts, he argued, the world at last will get
overcrowded with them. On that theory they would
have grown innumerable some Eight Hundred Thousand Years hence, and it was no great wonder to see
four at once. But the jest was unsatisfying, and I
was thinking of these figures all the morning, until
Weena's rescue drove them out of my head. I associated them in some indefinite way with the white
animal I had startled in my first passionate search for
the Time Machine. But Weena was a pleasant substitute. Yet all the same, they were soon destined to
take far deadlier possession of my mind.
"I think I have said how much hotter than our own
was the weather of this Golden Age. I cannot account for it. It may be that the sun was hotter, or
the earth nearer the sun. It is usual to assume that
the sun will go on cooling steadily in the future. But
people, unfamiliar with such speculations as those of
the younger Darwin, forget that the planets must ultimately fall back one by one into the parent body. As
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these catastrophes occur, the sun will blaze with renewed energy; and it may be that some inner planet
had suffered this fate. Whatever the reason, the
fact remains that the sun was very much hotter than
we know it.
"Well, one very hot morning-my fourth, I think
-as I was seeking shelter from the heat and glare in
a colossal ruin near the great house where I slept and
fed, there happened this strange thing: Clambering
among these heaps of masonry, I found a narrow gallery, whose end and side windows were blocked by
fallen masses of stone. By contrast with the brilliancy outside, it seemed at first impenetrably dark
to me. I entered it groping, for the change from light
to blackness made spots of colour swim before me.
Suddenly I halted spellbound. A pair of eyes, luminous by reflection against the daylight without, was
watching me out of the darkness.
"The old instinctive dread of wild beasts came
upon me. I clenched my hands and steadfastly
looked into the glaring eyeballs. I was afraid to
turn. Then the thought of the absolute security in
which humanity appeared to be living came to my
mind. And then I remembered that strange terror of
the dark. Overcoming my fear to some extent, I advanced a step and spoke. I will admit that my voice
was harsh and ill-controlled. I put out my hand and
touched something soft. At once the eyes darted
sideways, and something white ran past me. I turned
with my heart in my mouth, and saw a queer little
ape-like figure, its head held down in a peculiar manner, running across the sunlit space behind me. It
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blundered against a block of granite, staggered aside,
and in a moment was hidden in a black shadow beneath another pile of ruined masonry.
"My impression of it is, of course, imperfect; but
I know it was a dull white, and had strange large
greyish-red eyes; also that there was flaxen hair on
its head and down its back. But, as I say, it went
too fast for me to see distinctly. I cannot even say
whether it ran on all-fours, or only with its forearms
held very low. After an instant's pause I followed it
into the second heap of ruins. I could not find it at
first; but, after a time in the profound obscurity, I
came upon one of those round well-like openings of
which I have told you, half closed by a fallen pillar.
A sudden thought came to me. Could this Thing
have vanished down the shaft? I lit a match, and,
looking down, I saw a small, white, moving creature,
with large bright eyes which regarded me steadfastly
as it retreated. It made me shudder. It was so like
a human spider! It was clambering down the wall,
and now I saw for the first time a number of metal
foot and hand rests forming a kind of ladder down
the shaft. Then the light burned my fingers and fell
out of my hand, going out as it dropped, and when I
had lit another the little monster had disappeared.
"I do not know how long I sat peering down that
well. It was not for some time that I could succeed
in persuading myself that the thing I had seen was
human. But, gradually, the truth dawned on me:
that Man had not remained one species, but had differentiated into two distinct animals: that my graceful children of the Upperworld were not the sole
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descendants of our generation, but that this bleached,
obscene, nocturnal Thing, which had flashed before
me, was also heir to all the ages.
"I thought of the flickering pillars and of my theory
of an underground ventilation. I began to suspect
their true import. And what, I wondered, was this
Lemur doing in my scheme of a perfectly balanced
organisation? How was it related to the indolent
serenity of the beautiful Upperworlders? And what
was hidden down there, at the foot of that shaft?
I sat upon the edge of the well telling myself that, at
any rate, there was nothing to fear, and that there I
must descend for the solution of my difficulties. And
withal I was absolutely afraid to go! As I hesitated,
two of the beautiful Upper-world people came running in their amorous sport across the daylight into
the shadow. The male pursued the female, flinging
flowers at her as he ran.
"They seemed distressed to find me, my arm
against the overturned pillar, peering down the well.
Apparently it was considered bad form to remark
these apertures; for when I pointed to this one, and
tried to frame a question about it in their tongue, they
were still more visibly distressed and turned away.
But they were interested by my matches, and I struck
some to amuse them. I tried them again about the
well, and again I failed. So presently I left them,
meaning to go back to Weena, and see what I could
get from her. But my mind was already in revolution; my guesses and impressions were slipping and
sliding to a new adjustment. I had now a clue to the
import of these wells, to the ventilating towers, to
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the mystery of the ghosts; to say nothing of a hint
at the meaning of the bronze gates and the fate of
the Time Machine! And very vaguely there came a
suggestion towards the solution of the economic problem that had puzzled me.
"Here was the new view. Plainly, this second
species of Man was subterranean. There were three
circumstances in particular which made me think that
its rare emergence above ground was the outcome of
a long-continued underground habit. In the first
place, there was the bleached look common in most
animals that live largely in the dark-the white fish
of the Kentucky caves, for instance. Then, those
large eyes, with that capacity for reflecting light, are
common features of nocturnal things-witness the
owl and the cat. And last of all, that evident confusion in the sunshine, that hasty yet fumbling and
awkward flight towards dark shadow, and that peculiar carriage of the head while in the light-all reinforced the theory of an extreme sensitiveness of the
retina.
"Beneath my feet, then, the earth must be tunnelled enormously, and these tunnellings were the
habitat of the new race. The presence of ventilating-shafts and wells along the hill slopes-everywhere, in fact, except along the river valley-showed
how universal were its ramifications. What so natural, then, as to assume that it was in this artificial
Underworld that such work as was necessary to the
comfort of the daylight race was done? The notion
was so plausible that I at once accepted it, and went
on to assume the how of this splitting of the human
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species. I dare say you will anticipate the shape of
my theory; though, for myself, I very soon felt that
it fell far short of the truth.
"At first, proceeding from the problems of our own
age, it seemed clear as daylight to me that the gradual
widening of the present merely temporary and social
difference between the Capitalist and the Labourer,
was the key to the whole position. No doubt it will
seem grotesque enough to you-and wildly incredible!-and yet even now there are existing circumstances to point that way. There is a tendency to
utilise underground space for the less ornamental purposes of civilisation; there is the Metropolitan Railway in London, for instance, there are new electric
railways, there are subways, there are underground
workrooms and restaurants, and they increase and
multiply. Evidently, I thought, this tendency had
increased till industry had gradually lost its birthright in the sky. I mean that it had gone deeper and
deeper into larger and ever larger underground factories, spending a still-increasing amount of its time
therein, till, in the end-! Even now, does not an
East-end worker live in such artificial conditions as
practically to be cut off from the natural surface of
the earth?
"Again, the exclusive tendency of richer peopledue, no doubt, to the increasing refinement of their
education, and the widening gulf between them and
the rude violence of the poor-is already leading to
the closing, in their interest, of considerable portions
of the surface of the land. About London, for instance, perhaps half the prettier country is shut in
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against intrusion. And this same widening gulfwhich is due to the length and expense of the higher
educational process and the increased facilities for and
temptations towards refined habits on the part of the
rich-will make that exchange between class and
class, that promotion by intermarriage which at present retards the splitting of our species along lines of
social stratification, less and less frequent. So, in the
end, above ground you must have the Haves, pursuing pleasure and comfort, and beauty, and below
ground the Have-nots, the Workers getting continually adapted to the conditions of their labour. Once
they were there, they would no doubt have to pay
rent, and not a little of it, for the ventilation of their
caverns; and if they refused, they would starve or be
suffocated for arrears. Such of them as were so constituted as to be miserable and rebellious would die;
and, in the end, the balance being permanent, the survivors would become as well adapted to the conditions of underground life, and as happy in their way,
as the Upper-world people were to theirs. As it
seemed to me, the refined beauty and the etiolated
pallor followed naturally enough.
"The great triumph of Humanity I had dreamed
of took a different shape in my mind. It had been
no such triumph of moral education and general cooperation as I had imagined. Instead, I saw a real
aristocracy, armed with a perfected science and working to a logical conclusion the industrial system of today. Its triumph had not been simply a triumph over
Nature, but a triumph over Nature and the fellow
man. This, I must warn you, was my theory at the
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time. I had no convenient cicerone in the pattern of
the Utopian books. My explanation may be absolutely wrong. I still think it is the most plausible
one. But even on this supposition the balanced civilisation that was at last attained must have long since
passed its zenith, and was now far fallen into decay.
The too-perfect security of the Upperworlders had led
them to a slow movement of degeneration, to a general dwindling in size, strength, and intelligence. That
I could see clearly enough already. What had happened to the Undergrounders I did not yet suspect;
but, from what I had seen of the Morlocks-that, by
the bye, was the name by which these creatures were
called —I could imagine that the modification of
the human type was even far more profound than
among the 'Eloi,' the beautiful race that I already
knew.
"Then came troublesome doubts. Why had the
Morlocks taken my Time Machine? For I felt sure
it was they who had taken it. Why, too, if the Eloi
were masters, could they not restore the machine to
me? And why were they so terribly afraid of the
dark? I proceeded, as I have said, to question
Weena about this Underworld, but here again I was
disappointed. At first she would not understand my
questions, and presently she refused to answer them.
She shivered as though the topic was unendurable.
And when I pressed her, perhaps a little harshly, she
burst into tears. They were the only tears, except my
own, I ever saw in that Golden Age. When I saw
them I ceased abruptly to trouble about the Morlocks, and was only concerned in banishing these
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signs of human inheritance from Weena's eyes. And
very soon she was smiling and clapping her hands
while I solemnly burned a match.
~6
"IT may seem odd to you, but it was two days before I could follow up the new-found clue in what was
manifestly the proper way. I felt a peculiar shrinking from those pallid bodies. They were just the halfbleached colour of the worms and things one sees preserved in spirit in a zoological museum. And they
were filthily cold to the touch. Probably my shrinking was largely due to the sympathetic influence of
the Eloi, whose disgust of the Morlocks I now began
to appreciate.
"The next night I did not sleep well. Probably
my health was a little disordered. I was oppressed
with perplexity and doubt. Once or twice I had a
feeling of intense fear for which I could perceive no
definite reason. I remember creeping noiselessly into
the great hall where the little people were sleeping in
the moonlight-that night Weena was among themand feeling reassured by their presence. It occurred
to me, even then, that in the course of a few days the
moon must pass through its last quarter, and the
nights grow dark, when the appearances of these unpleasant creatures from below, these whitened Lemurs, this new vermin that had replaced the old,
might be more abundant. And on both these days I
had the restless feeling of one who shirks an inevitable
duty. I felt assured that the Time Machine was only
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to be recovered by boldly penetrating these underground mysteries. Yet I could not face the mystery.
If only I had had a companion it would have been
different. But I was so horribly alone, and even to
clamber down into the darkness of the well appalled
me. I don't know if you will understand my feeling,
but I never felt quite safe at my back.
"It was this restlessness, this insecurity, perhaps,
that drove me further and further afield in my exploring expeditions. Going to the south-westward
towards the rising country that is now called Combe
Wood, I observed far off, in the direction of nineteenth-century Banstead, a vast green structure, different in character from any I had hitherto seen. It
was larger than the largest of the palaces or ruins I
knew, and the fagade had an Oriental look: the face
of it having the lustre, as well as the pale-green tint,
a kind of bluish-green, of a certain type of Chinese
porcelain. This difference in aspect suggested a difference in use, and I was minded to push on and explore.
But the day was growing late, and I had come upon
the sight of the place after a long and tiring circuit;
so I resolved to hold over the adventure for the following day, and I returned to the welcome and the
caresses of little Weena. But next morning I perceived clearly enough that my curiosity regarding the
Palace of Green Porcelain was a piece of self-deception, to enable me to shirk, by another day, an experience I dreaded. I resolved I would make the descent
without further waste of time, and started out in the
early morning towards a well near the ruins of granite
and aluminium.
67




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"Little Weena ran with me. She danced beside
me to the well, but when she saw me lean over the
mouth and look downward, she seemed strangely disconcerted. 'Good-bye, little Weena,' I said, kissing
her; and then, putting her down, I began to feel over
the parapet for the climbing hooks. Rather hastily,
I may as well confess, for I feared my courage might
leak away! At first she watched me in amazement.
Then she gave a most piteous cry, and, running to
me, she began to pull at me with her little hands. I
think her opposition nerved me rather to proceed. I
shook her off, perhaps a little roughly, and in another
moment I was in the throat of the well. I saw her
agonised face over the parapet, and smiled to reassure
her. Then I had to look down at the unstable hooks
to which I clung.
"I had to clamber down a shaft of perhaps two
hundred yards. The descent was effected by means of
metallic bars projecting from the sides of the well,
and these being adapted to the needs of a creature
much smaller and lighter than myself, I was speedily
cramped and fatigued by the descent. And not simply fatigued! One of the bars bent suddenly under
my weight, and almost swung me off into the blackness beneath. For a moment I hung by one hand,
and after that experience I did not dare to rest again.
Though my arms and back were presently acutely
painful, I went on clambering down the sheer descent
with as quick a motion as possible. Glancing upward, I saw the aperture, a small blue disk, in which
a star was visible, while little Weena's head showed
as a round black projection. The thudding sound of a
68




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machine below grew louder and more oppressive.
Everything save that little disk above was profoundly
dark, and when I looked up again Weena had disappeared.
"I was in an agony of discomfort. I had some
thought of trying to go up the shaft again, and leave
the Underworld alone. But even while I turned this
over in my mind I continued to descend. At last,
with intense relief, I saw dimly coming up, a foot to
the right of me, a slender loophole in the wall.
Swinging myself in, I found it was the aperture of a
narrow horizontal tunnel in which I could lie down
and 'rest. It was not too soon. My arms ached, my
back was cramped, and I was trembling with the prolonged terror of a fall. Besides this, the unbroken
darkness had had a distressing effect upon my eyes.
The air was full of the throb and hum of machinery
pumping air down the shaft.
"I do not know how long I lay. I was roused by
a soft hand touching my face. Starting up in the
darkness I snatched at my matches and, hastily striking one, I saw three stooping white creatures similar
to the one I had seen above ground in the ruin, hastily
retreating before the light. Living, as they did, in
what appeared to me impenetrable darkness, their
eyes were abnormally large and sensitive, just as are
the pupils of the abysmal fishes, and they reflected
the light in the same way. I have no doubt they
could see me in that rayless obscurity, and they did
not seem to have any fear of me apart from the light.
But, so soon as I struck a match in order to see them,
they fled incontinently, vanishing into dark gutters
69




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and tunnels, from which their eyes glared at me in the
strangest fashion.
"I tried to call to them, but the language they had
was apparently different from that of the Over-world
people; so that I was needs left to my own unaided
efforts, and the thought of flight before exploration
was even then in my mind. But I said to myself,
'You are in for it now,' and, feeling my way along the
tunnel, I found the noise of machinery grow louder.
Presently the walls fell away from me, and I came
to a large open space, and, striking another match,
saw that I had entered a vast arched cavern, which
stretched into utter darkness beyond the range of my
light. The view I had of it was as much as one could
see in the burning of a match.
"Necessarily my memory is vague. Great shapes
like big machines rose out of the dimness, and cast
grotesque black shadows, in which dim spectral Morlocks sheltered from the glare. The place, by the bye,
was very stuffy and oppressive, and the faint halitus
of freshly shed blood was in the air. Some way down
the central vista was a little table of white metal,
laid with what seemed a meal. The Morlocks at any
rate were carnivorous! Even at the time, I remember wondering what large animal could have survived
to furnish the red joint I saw. It was all very indistinct: the heavy smell, the big unmeaning shapes, the
obscene figures lurking in the shadows, and only waiting for the darkness to come at me again! Then the
match burned down, and stung my fingers, and fell, a
wriggling red spot in the blackness.
"I have thought since how particularly ill equipped
70




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I was for such an experience. When I had started
with the Time Machine, I had started with the absurd assumption that the men of the Future would
certainly be infinitely ahead of ourselves in all their
appliances. I had come without arms, without medicine, without anything to smoke-at times I missed
tobacco frightfully!-even without enough matches.
If only I had thought of a Kodak! I could have
flashed that glimpse of the Underworld in a second,
and examined it at leisure. But, as it was, I stood
there with only the weapons and the powers that Nature had endowed me with-hands, feet, and teeth;
these, and four safety-matches that still remained to
me.
"I was afraid to push my way in among all this
machinery in the dark, and it was only with my last
glimpse of light I discovered that my store of matches
had run low. It had never occurred to me until that
moment that there was any need to economise them,
and I had wasted almost half the box in astonishing
the Upperworlders, to whom fire was a novelty. Now,
as I say, I had four left, and while I stood in the dark,
a hand touched mine, lank fingers came feeling over
my face, and I was sensible of a peculiar unpleasant
odour. I fancied I heard the breathing of a crowd
of those dreadful little beings about me. I felt the
box of matches in my hand being gently disengaged,
and other hands behind me plucking at my clothing.
The sense of these unseen creatures examining me
was indescribably unpleasant. The sudden realisation
of my ignorance of their ways of thinking and doing
came home to me very vividly in the darkness. I
71




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shouted at them as loudly as I could. They started
away, and then I could feel them approaching me
again. They clutched at me more boldly, whispering
odd sounds to each other. I shivered violently, and
shouted again-rather discordantly. This time they
were not so seriously alarmed, and they made a queer
laughing noise as they came back at me. I will confess I was horribly frightened. I determined to strike
another match and escape under the protection of its
glare. I did so, and eking out the flicker with a scrap
of paper from my pocket, I made good my retreat to
the narrow tunnel. But I had scarce entered this
when my light was blown out, and in the blackness I
could hear the Morlocks rustling like wind among
leaves, and pattering like the rain, as they hurried
after me.
"In a moment I was clutched by several hands,
and there was no mistaking that they were trying to
haul me back. I struck another light, and waved it
in their dazzled faces. You can scarce imagine how
nauseatingly inhuman they looked-those pale, chinless faces and great, lidless, pinkish-grey eyes!-as
they stared in their blindness and bewilderment.
But I did not stay to look, I promise you: I retreated
again, and when my second match had ended, I
struck my third. It had almost burned through when
I reached the opening into the shaft. I lay down on
the edge, for the throb of the great pump below made
me giddy. Then I felt sideways for the projecting
hooks, and, as I did so, my feet were grasped from
behind, and I was violently tugged backward. I lit
my last match... and it incontinently went out.




THE TIME MACHINE


But I had my hand on the climbing bars now, and,
kicking violently, I disengaged myself from the
clutches of the Morlocks, and was speedily clambering up the shaft, while they stayed peering and blinking up at me: all but one little wretch who followed
me for some way, and well-nigh secured my boot as
a trophy.
"That climb seemed interminable to me. With
the last twenty or thirty feet of it a deadly nausea
came upon me. I had the greatest difficulty in keeping my hold. The last few yards was a frightful
struggle against this faintness. Several times my
head swam, and I felt all the sensations of falling.
At last, however, I got over the well-mouth somehow,
and staggered out of the ruin into the blinding sunlight. I fell upon my face. Even the soil smelt sweet
and clean. Then I remember Weena kissing my
hands and ears, and the voices of others among the
Eloi. Then, for a time, I was insensible.
~7
"Now, indeed, I seemed in a worse case than before. Hitherto, except during my night's anguish at
the loss of the Time Machine, I had felt a sustaining
hope of ultimate escape, but that hope was staggered
by these new discoveries. Hitherto I had merely
thought myself impeded by the childish simplicity of
the little people, and by some unknown forces which
I had only to understand to overcome; but there was
an altogether new element in the sickening quality
of the Morlocks-a something inhuman and malign.
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Instinctively I loathed them. Before, I had felt as
a man might feel who had fallen into a pit: my concern was with the pit and how to get out of it. Now
I felt like a beast in a trap, whose enemy would come
upon him soon.
"The enemy I dreaded may surprise you. It was
the darkness of the new moon. Weena had put this
into my head by some at first incomprehensible remarks about the Dark Nights. It was not now such
a very difficult problem to guess what the coming
Dark Nights might mean. The moon was on the
wane: each night there was a longer interval of darkness. And I now understood to some slight degree
at least the reason of the fear of the little Upperworld people for the dark. I wondered vaguely what
foul villainy it might be that the Morlocks did under
the new moon. I felt pretty sure now that my second
hypothesis was all wrong. The Upper-world people
might once have been the favoured aristocracy, and
the Morlocks their mechanical servants; but that had
long since passed away. The two species that had
resulted from the evolution of man were sliding down
towards, or had already arrived at, an altogether new
relationship. The Eloi, like the Carlovingian kings,
had decayed to a mere beautiful futility. They still
possessed the earth on sufferance: since the Morlocks,
subterranean for innumerable generations, had come
at last to find the daylit surface intolerable. And
the Morlocks made their garments, I inferred, and
maintained them in their habitual needs, perhaps
through the survival of an old habit of service. They
did it as a standing horse paws with his foot, or as a
74




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man enjoys killing animals in sport: because ancient
and departed necessities had impressed it on the
organism. But, clearly, the old order was already in
part reversed. The Nemesis of the delicate ones was
creeping on apace. Ages ago, thousands of generations ago, man had thrust his brother man out of the
ease and the sunshine. And now that brother was
coming back-changed! Already the Eloi had begun to learn one old lesson anew. They were becoming reacquainted with Fear. And suddenly there
came into my head the memory of the meat I had
seen in the Underworld. It seemed odd how it
floated into my mind: not stirred up as it were by the
current of my meditations, but coming in almost like
a question from outside. I tried to recall the form
of it. I had a vague sense of something familiar, but
I could not tell what it was at the time.
"Still, however helpless the little people in the
presence of their mysterious Fear, I was differently
constituted. I came out of this age of ours, this ripe
prime of the human race, when Fear does not paralyse
and mystery has lost its terrors. I at least would defend myself. Without further delay I determined to
make myself arms and a fastness where I might sleep.
With that refuge as a base, I could face this strange
world with some of that confidence I had lost in
realising to what creatures night by night I lay exposed. I felt I could never sleep again until my bed
was secure from them. I shuddered with horror to
think how they must already have examined me.
"I wandered during the afternoon along the valley
of the Thames, but found nothing that commended
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itself to my mind as inaccessible. All the buildings
and trees seemed easily practicable to such dexterous
climbers as the Morlocks, to judge by their wells,
must be. Then the tall pinnacles of the Palace of
Green Porcelain and the polished gleam of its walls
came back to my memory; and in the evening, taking Weena like a child upon my shoulder, I went up
the hills towards the south-west. The distance, I had
reckoned, was seven or eight miles, but it must have
been nearer eighteen. I had first seen the place on
a moist afternoon when distances are deceptively
diminished. In addition, the heel of one of my shoes
was loose, and a nail was working through the solethey were comfortable old shoes I wore about indoors
-so that I was lame. And it was already long past
sunset when I came in sight of the palace, silhouetted
black against the pale yellow of the sky.
"Weena had been hugely delighted when I began
to carry her, but after a time she desired me to let
her down, and ran along by the side of me, occasionally darting off on either hand to pick flowers to stick
in my pockets. My pockets had always puzzled
Weena, but at the last she had concluded that they
were an eccentric kind of vase for floral decoration.
At least she utilised them for that purpose. And that
reminds me! In changing my jacket I found.. "
The Time Traveller paused, put his hand into his
pocket, and silently placed two withered flowers, not unlike very large white mallows, upon the little table.
Then he resumed his narrative.
"As the hush of evening crept over the world and
we proceeded over the hill crest towards Wimbledon,
76




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Weena grew tired and wanted to return to the house
of grey stone. But I pointed out the distant pinnacles of the Palace of Green Porcelain to her, and contrived to make her understand that we were seeking
a refuge there from her Fear. You know that great
pause that comes upon things before the dusk?
Even the breeze stops in the trees. To me there is
always an air of expectation about that evening stillness. The sky was clear, remote, and empty save for
a few horizontal bars far down in the sunset. Well,
that night the expectation took the colour of my fears.
In that darkling calm my senses seemed preternaturally sharpened. I fancied I could even feel the
hollowness of the ground beneath my feet: could, indeed, almost see through it the Morlocks in their anthill going hither and thither and waiting for the dark.
In my excitement I fancied that they would receive
my invasion of their burrows as a declaration of war.
And why had they taken my Time Machine?
"So we went on in the quiet, and the twilight deepened into night. The clear blue of the distance faded,
and one star after another came out. The ground
grew dim and the trees black. Weena's fears and
her fatigue grew upon her. I took her in my arms
and talked to her and caressed her. Then, as the
darkness grew deeper, she put her arms round my
neck, and, closing her eyes, tightly pressed her face
against my shoulder. So we went down a long slope
into a valley, and there in the dimness I almost
walked into a little river. This I waded, and went up
the opposite side of the valley, past a number of
sleeping houses, and by a statue-a Faun, or some
77




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the Milky Way, it seemed to me, was still the same
tattered streamer of star-dust as of yore. Southward
(as I judged it) was a very bright red star that was
new to me; it was even more splendid than our own
green Sirius. And amid all these scintillating points
of light one bright planet shone kindly and steadily
like the face of an old friend.
"Looking at these stars suddenly dwarfed my own
troubles and all the gravities of terrestrial life. I
thought of their unfathomable distance, and the slow
inevitable drift of their movements out of the unknown past into the unknown future. I thought of
the great precessional cycle that the pole of the earth
describes. Only forty times had that silent revolution occurred during all the years that I had traversed.
And during these few revolutions all the activity, all
the traditions, the complex organisations, the nations, languages, literatures, aspirations, even the
mere memory of Man as I knew him, had been swept
out of existence. Instead were these frail creatures
who had forgotten their high ancestry, and the white
Things of which I went in terror. Then I thought
of the Great Fear that was between the two species,
and for the first time, with a sudden shiver, came the
clear knowledge of what the meat I had seen might
be. Yet it was too horrible! I looked at little Weena
sleeping beside me, her face white and starlike under
the stars, and forthwith dismissed the thought.
"Through that long night I held my mind off the
Morlocks as well as I could, and whiled away the
time by trying to fancy I could find signs of the old
constellations in the new confusion. The sky kept
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such figure, minus the head. Here too were acacias.
So far I had seen nothing of the Morlocks, but it was
yet early in the night, and the darker hours before
the old moon rose were still to come.
"From the brow of the next hill I saw a thick wood
spreading wide and black before me. I hesitated at
this. I could see no end to it, either to the right or
the left. Feeling tired-my feet in particular, were
very sore-I carefully lowered Weena from my shoulder as I halted, and sat down upon the turf. I could
no longer see the Palace of Green Porcelain, and I was
in doubt of my direction. I looked into the thickness
of the wood and thought of what it might hide.
Under that dense tangle of branches one would be
out of sight of the stars. Even were there no other
lurking danger-a danger I did not care to let my
imagination loose upon-there would still be all the
roots to stumble over and the tree-boles to strike
against. I was very tired, too, after the excitements
of the day; so I decided that I would not face it, but
would pass the night upon the open hill.
"Weena, I was glad to find, was fast asleep. I
carefully wrapped her in my jacket, and sat down beside her to wait for the moonrise. The hillside was
quiet and deserted, but from the black of the wood
there came now and then a stir of living things.
Above me shone the stars, for the night was very
clear. I felt a certain sense of friendly comfort in
their twinkling. All the old constellations had gone
from the sky, however: that slow movement which is
imperceptible in a hundred human lifetimes, had long
since rearranged them in unfamiliar groupings. But
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very clear, except for a hazy cloud or so. No doubt
I dozed at times. Then, as my vigil wore on, came a
faintness in the eastward sky, like the reflection of
some colourless fire, and the old moon rose, thin and
peaked and white. And close behind, and overtaking it, and overflowing it, the dawn came, pale at
first, and then growing pink and warm. No M/lorlocks had approached us. Indeed, I had seen none
upon the hill that night. And in the confidence of
renewed day it almost seemed to me that my fear
had been unreasonable. I stood up and found my
foot with the loose heel swollen at the ankle and painful under the heel; so I sat down again, took off my
shoes, and flung them away.
"I awakened Weena, and we went down into the
wood, now green and pleasant instead of black and
forbidding. We found some fruit wherewith to break
our fast. We soon met others of the dainty ones,
laughing and dancing in the sunlight as though there
was no such thing in nature as the night. And then
I thought once more of the meat that I had seen. I
felt assured now of what it was, and from the bottom
of my heart I pitied this last feeble rill from the great
flood of humanity. Clearly, at some time in the
Long-Ago of human decay the Morlocks' food had
run short. Possibly they had lived on rats and suchlike vermin. Even now man is far less discriminating
and exclusive in his food than he was-far less than
any monkey. His prejudice against human flesh is
no deep-seated instinct. And so these inhuman sons
of men-! I tried to look at the thing in a scientific
spirit. After all, they were less human and more re80




THE TIME MACHINE


mote than our cannibal ancestors of three or four
thousand years ago. And the intelligence that would
have made this state of things a torment had gone.
Why should I trouble myself? These Eloi were mere
fatted cattle, which the ant-like Morlocks preserved
and preyed upon-probably saw to the breeding of.
And there was Weena dancing at my side!
"Then I tried to preserve myself from the horror
that was coming upon me, by regarding it as a rigorous punishment of human selfishness. Man had
been content to live in ease and delight upon the
labours of his fellow man, had taken Necessity as his
watchword and excuse, and in the fulness of time Necessity had come home to him. I even tried a
Carlyle-like scorn of this wretched aristocracy in
decay. But this attitude of mind was impossible.
However great their intellectual degradation, the Eloi
had kept too much of the human form not to claim
my sympathy, and to make me perforce a sharer in
their degradation and their Fear.
"I had at that time very vague ideas as to the
course I should pursue. My first was to secure some
safe place of refuge, and to make myself such arms
of metal or stone as I could contrive. That necessity
was immediate. In the next place, I hoped to procure some means of fire, so that I should have the
weapon of a torch at hand, for nothing, I knew, would
be more efficient against these Morlocks. Then I
wanted to arrange some contrivance to break open
the doors of bronze under the White Sphinx. I had
in mind a battering-ram. I had a persuasion that if
I could enter those doors and carry a blaze of light
81




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before me I should discover the Time Machine and
escape. I could not imagine the Morlocks were
strong enough to move it far away. Weena I had resolved to bring with me to our own time. And turning such schemes over in my mind I pursued our way
towards the building which my fancy had chosen as
our dwelling.
~8
"I FOUND the Palace of Green Porcelain, when we
approached it about noon, deserted and falling into
ruin. Only ragged vestiges of glass remained in its
windows, and great sheets of the green facing had
fallen away from the corroded metallic framework.
It lay very high upon a turfy down, and looking
north-eastward before I entered it, I was surprised to
see a large estuary, or even creek, where I judged
Wandsworth and Battersea must once have been. I
thought then-though I never followed up the
thought-of what might have happened, or might be
happening, to the living things in the sea.
"The material of the Palace proved on examination to be indeed porcelain, and along the face of it I
saw an inscription in some unknown character. I
thought, rather foolishly, that Weena might help me
to interpret this, but I only learned that the bare idea
of writing had never entered her head. She always
seemed to me, I fancy, more human than she was,
perhaps because her affection was so human.
"Within the big valves of the door-which were
open and broken-we found, instead of the customary
82




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hall, a long gallery lit by many side windows. At
the first glance I was reminded of a museum. The
tiled floor was thick with dust, and a remarkable
array of miscellaneous objects was shrouded in
the same grey covering. Then I perceived, standing
strange and gaunt in the centre of the hall, what was
clearly the lower part of a huge skeleton. I recognised by the oblique feet that it was some extinct
creature after the fashion of the Megatherium. The
skull and the upper bones lay beside it in the thick
dust, and in one place, where rain-water had dropped
through a leak in the roof, the thing itself had been
worn away. Further in the gallery was the huge
skeleton barrel of a Brontosaurus. My museum hypothesis was confirmed. Going towards the side I
found what appeared to be sloping shelves, and, clearing away the thick dust, I found the old familiar glass
cases of our own time. But they must have been airtight, to judge from the fair preservation of some of
their contents.
"Clearly we stood among the ruins of some latterday South Kensington! Here, apparently, was the
Palaeontological Section, and a very splendid array
of fossils it must have been, though the inevitable
process of decay that had been staved off for a time,
and had, through the extinction of bacteria and fungi,
lost ninety-nine hundredths of its force, was, nevertheless, with extreme sureness if with extreme slowness at work again upon all its treasures. Here and
there I found traces of the little people in the shape
of rare fossils broken to pieces or threaded in strings
upon reeds. And the cases had in some instances
83




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been bodily removed-by the Morlocks as I judged.
The place was very silent. The thick dust deadened
our footsteps. Weena, who had been rolling a seaurchin down the sloping glass of a case, presently
came, as I stared about me, and very quietly took
my hand and stood beside me.
"And at first I was so much surprised by this ancient monument of an intellectual age, that I gave
no thought to the possibilities it presented. Even
my preoccupation about the Time Machine receded
a little from my mind.
"To judge from the size of the place, this Palace
of Green Porcelain had a great deal more in it than a
Gallery of Palaeontology; possibly historical galleries; it might be, even a library! To me, at least in my
present circumstances, these would be vastly more
interesting than this spectacle of old-time geology in
decay. Exploring, I found another short gallery running transversely to the first. This appeared to be
devoted to minerals, and the sight of a block of sulphur set my mind running on gunpowder. But I
could find no saltpetre; indeed, no nitrates of any
kind. Doubtless they had deliquesced ages ago.
Yet the sulphur hung in my mind, and set up a train
of thinking. As for the rest of the contents of that
gallery, though on the whole they were the best preserved of all I saw, I had little interest. I am no
specialist in mineralogy, and I went on down a very
ruinous aisle running parallel to the first hall I had
entered. Apparently this section had been devoted
to natural history, but everything had long since
passed out of recognition. A few shrivelled and
84




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blackened vestiges of what had once been stuffed
animals, desiccated mummies in jars that had once
held spirit, a brown dust of departed plants; that was
all! I was sorry for that, because I should have been
glad to trace the patient readjustments by which the
conquest of animated nature had been attained. Then
we came to a gallery of simply colossal proportions,
but singularly ill-lit, the floor of it running downward
at a slight angle from the end at which I entered.
At intervals white globes hung from the ceilingmany of them cracked and smashed-which suggested that originally the place had been artificially
lit. Here I was more in my element, for rising on
either side of me were the huge bulks of big machines,
all greatly corroded and many broken down, but
some still fairly complete. You know I have a certain weakness for mechanism, and I was inclined to
linger among these; the more so as for the most part
they had the interest of puzzles, and I could make
only the vaguest guesses at what they were for. I
fancied that if I could solve their puzzles I should
find myself in possession of powers that might be of
use against the Morlocks.
"Suddenly Weena came very close to my side. So
suddenly that she startled me. Had it not been for
her I do not think I should have noticed that the
floor of the gallery sloped at all.* The end I had
come in at was quite above ground, and was lit by
rare slit-like windows. As you went down the length,
the ground came up against these windows, until at


* It may be, of course, that the floor did not slope, but that the museum
was built into the side of a hill.-ED.




THE TIME MACHINE


last there was a pit like the 'area' of a London house
before each, and only a narrow line of daylight at
the top. I went slowly along, puzzling about the
machines, and had been too intent upon them to
notice the gradual diminution of the light, until
Weena's increasing apprehensions drew my attention.
Then I saw that the gallery ran down at last into a
thick darkness. I hesitated, and then, as I looked
round me, I saw that the dust was less abundant
and its surface less even. Further away towards the
dimness, it appeared to be broken by a number of
small narrow footprints. My sense of the immediate presence of the Morlocks revived at that. I felt
that I was wasting my time in this academic examination of machinery. I called to mind that it was
already far advanced in the afternoon, and that I
had still no weapon, no refuge, and no means of making a fire. And then down in the remote blackness
of the gallery I heard a peculiar pattering, and the
same odd noises I had heard down the well.
"I took Weena's hand. Then, struck with a sudden idea, I left her and turned to a machine from
which projected a lever not unlike those in a signalbox. Clambering upon the stand, and grasping this
lever in my hands, I put all my weight upon it sideways. Suddenly Weena, deserted in the central
aisle, began to whimper. I had judged the strength
of the lever pretty correctly, for it snapped after a
minute's strain, and I rejoined her with a mace in my
hand more than sufficient, I judged, for any Morlock
skull I might encounter. And I longed very much
to kill a Morlock or so. Very inhuman, you may
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think, to want to go killing one's own descendants!
But it was impossible, somehow, to feel any humanity
in the things. Only my disinclination to leave
Weena, and a persuasion that if I began to slake my
thirst for murder my Time Machine might suffer,
restrained me from going straight down the gallery
and killing the brutes I heard.
"W'ell, mace in one hand and Weena in the other,
I went out of that gallery and into another and still
larger one, which at the first glance reminded me of
a military chapel hung with tattered flags. The
brown and charred rags that hung from the sides of
it, I presently recognised as the decaying vestiges of
books. They had long since dropped to pieces, and
every semblance of print had left them. But here
and there were warped boards and cracked metallic
clasps that told the tale well enough. Had I been a
literary man I might, perhaps, have moralised upon
the futility of all ambition. But as it was, the thing
that struck me with keenest force was the enormous
waste of labour to which this sombre wilderness of
rotting paper testified. At the time I will confess
that I thought chiefly of the Philosophical Transactions and my own seventeen papers upon physical
optics.
"Then, going up a broad staircase, we came to
what may once have been a gallery of technical chemistry. And here I had not a little hope of useful discoveries. Except at one end where the roof had collapsed, this gallery was well preserved. I went
eagerly to every unbroken case. And at last, in one
of the really air-tight cases, I found a box of matches.
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Very eagerly I tried them. They were perfectly good.
They were not even damp. I turned to Weena.
'Dance,' I cried to her in her own tongue. For now
I had a weapon indeed against the horrible creatures
we feared. And so, in that derelict museum, upon
the thick soft carpeting of dust, to Weena's huge delight, I solemnly performed a kind of composite
dance, whistling The Land of the Leal as cheerfully as
I could. In part it was a modest cancan, in part a
step-dance, in part a skirt-dance (so far as my tailcoat permitted), and in part original. For I am
naturally inventive, as you know.
"Now, I still think that for this box of matches to
have escaped the wear of time for immemorial years
was a most strange, as for me it was a most fortunate
thing. Yet, oddly enough, I found a far unlikelier
substance, and that was camphor. I found it in a
sealed jar, that by chance, I suppose, had been really
hermetically sealed. I fancied at first that it was
paraffin wax, and smashed the glass accordingly.
But the odour of camphor was unmistakable. In the
universal decay this volatile substance had chanced
to survive, perhaps through many thousands of centuries. It reminded me of a sepia painting I had
once seen done from the ink of a fossil Belemnite
that must have perished and become fossilised millions of years ago. I was about to throw it away,
but I remembered that it was inflammable and burned
with a good bright flame-was, in fact, an excellent
candle-and I put it in my pocket. I found no
explosives, however, nor any means of breaking down
the bronze doors. As yet my iron crowbar was the
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most helpful thing I had chanced upon. Nevertheless I left that gallery greatly elated.
"I cannot tell you all the story of that long afternoon. It would require a great effort of memory to
recall my explorations in at all the proper order. I
remember a long gallery of rusting stands of arms,
and how I hesitated between my crowbar and a
hatchet or a sword. I could not carry both, however, and my bar of iron promised best against the
bronze gates. There were numbers of guns, pistols,
and rifles. The most were masses of rust, but many
were of some new metal, and still fairly sound. But
any cartridges or powder there may once have been
had rotted into dust. One corner I saw was charred
and shattered; perhaps, I thought, by an explosion
among the specimens. In another place was a vast
array of idols-Polynesian, Mexican, Grecian, Phoenician, every country on earth I should think. And
here, yielding to an irresistible impulse, I wrote my
name upon the nose of a steatite monster from South
America that particularly took my fancy.
"As the evening drew on, my interest waned. I
went through gallery after gallery, dusty, silent, often
ruinous, the exhibits sometimes mere heaps of rust
and lignite, sometimes fresher. In one place I suddenly found myself near the model of a tin-mine, and
then by the merest accident I discovered, in an airtight case, two dynamite cartridges! I shouted
'Eureka,' and smashed the case with joy. Then came
a doubt. I hesitated. Then, selecting a little side
gallery, I made my essay. I never felt such a disappointment as I did in waiting five, ten, fifteen minutes
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for an explosion that never came. Of course the
things were dummies, as I might have guessed from
their presence. I really believe that, had they not
been so, I should have rushed off incontinently and
blown sphinx, bronze doors, and (as it proved) my
chances of finding the Time Machine, all together
into non-existence.
"It was after that, I think, that we came to a little
open court within the palace. It was turfed, and had
three fruit-trees. So we rested and refreshed ourselves. Towards sunset I began to consider our position. Night was creeping upon us, and my inaccessible hiding-place had still to be found. But that
troubled me very little now. I had in my possession
a thing that was, perhaps, the best of all defences
against the Morlocks-I had matches! I had the
camphor in my pocket, too, if a blaze were needed.
It seemed to me that the best thing we could do
would be to pass the night in the open, protected by
a fire. In the morning there was the getting of the
Time Machine. Towards that, as yet, I had only my
iron mace. But now, with my growing knowledge,
I felt very differently towards those bronze doors.
Up to this, I had refrained from forcing them, largely
because of the mystery on the other side. They had
never impressed me as being very strong, and I hoped
to find my bar of iron not altogether inadequate for
the work.
~9
"WE emerged from the palace while the sun was
still in part above the horizon. I was determined to
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reach the White Sphinx early the next morning, and
ere the dusk I purposed pushing through the woods
that had stopped me on the previous journey. My
plan was to go as far as possible that night, and then,
building a fire, to sleep in the protection of its glare.
Accordingly, as we went along I gathered any sticks
or dried grass I saw, and presently had my arms full
of such litter. Thus loaded, our progress was slower
than I had anticipated, and besides Weena was tired.
And I began to suffer from sleepiness too; so that it
was full night before we reached the wood. Upon the
shrubby hill of its edge Weena would have stopped,
fearing the darkness before us; but a singular sense of
impending calamity, that should indeed have served
me as a warning, drove me onward. I had been
without sleep for a night and two days, and I was
feverish and irritable. I felt sleep coming upon me,
and the Morlocks with it.
"While we hesitated, among the black bushes behind us, and dim against their blackness, I saw three
crouching figures. There was scrub and long grass
all about us, and I did not feel safe from their insidious approach. The forest, I calculated, was rather
less than a mile across. If we could get through it
to the bare hillside, there, as it seemed to me, was an
altogether safer resting-place; I thought that with my
matches and my camphor I could contrive to keep my
path illuminated through the woods. Yet it was evident that if I was to flourish matches with my hands
I should have to abandon my firewood; so, rather reluctantly, I put it down. And then it came into my
head that I would amaze our friends behind by light91




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ing it. I was to discover the atrocious folly of this
proceeding, but it came to my mind as an ingenious
move for covering our retreat.
"I don't know if you have ever thought what a rare
thing flame must be in the absence of man and in a
temperate climate. The sun's heat is rarely strong
enough to burn, even when it is focussed by dewdrops,
as is sometimes the case in more tropical districts.
Lightning may blast and blacken, but it rarely gives
rise to widespread fire. Decaying vegetation may
occasionally smoulder with the heat of its fermentation, but this rarely results in flame. In this decadence, too, the art of fire-making had been forgotten
on the earth. The red tongues that went licking up
my heap of wood were an altogether new and strange
thing to Weena.
"She wanted to run to it and play with it. I believe she would have cast herself into it had I not
restrained her. But I caught her up, and, in spite of
her struggles, plunged boldly before me into the wood.
For a little way the glare of my fire lit the path.
Looking back presently, I could see, through the
crowded stems, that from my heap of sticks the blaze
had spread to some bushes adjacent, and a curved
line of fire was creeping up the grass of the hill. I
laughed at that, and turned again to the dark trees
before me. It was very black, and Weena clung to
me convulsively, but there was still, as my eyes grew
accustomed to the darkness, sufficient light for me to
avoid the stems. Overhead it was simply black,
except where a gap of remote blue sky shone down
upon us here and there. I struck none of my matches
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because I had no hand free. Upon my left arm I
carried my little one, in my right hand I had my
iron bar.
"For some way I heard nothing but the crackling
twigs under my feet, the faint rustle of the breeze
above, and my own breathing and the throb of the
blood-vessels in my ears. Then I seemed to know of
a pattering about me. I pushed on grimly. The pattering grew more distinct, and then I caught the
same queer sounds and voices I had heard in the
Underworld. There were evidently several of the
Morlocks, and they were closing in upon me. Indeed, in another minute I felt a tug at my coat, then
something at my arm. And Weena shivered violently, and became quite still.
"It was time for a match. But to get one I must
put her down. I did so, and, as I fumbled with my
pocket, a struggle began in the darkness about my
knees, perfectly silent on her part and with the same
peculiar cooing sounds from the Morlocks. Soft
little hands, too, were creeping over my coat and
back, touching even my neck. Then the match
scratched and fizzed. I held it flaring, and saw the
white backs of the Morlocks in flight amid the trees.
I hastily took a lump of camphor from my pocket,
and prepared to light it as soon as the match should
wane. Then I looked at Weena. She was lying
clutching my feet and quite motionless, with her face
to the ground. With a sudden fright I stooped to
her. She seemed scarcely to breathe. I lit the block
of camphor and flung it to the ground, and as it split
and flared up and drove back the Morlocks and the
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shadows, I knelt down and lifted her. The wood behind seemed full of the stir and murmur of a great
company!
"She seemed to have fainted. I put her carefully
upon my shoulder and rose to push on, and then there
came a horrible realisation. In manoeuvring with
my matches and Weena, I had turned myself about
several times, and now I had not the faintest idea in
what direction lay my path. For all I knew, I might
be facing back towards the Palace of Green Porcelain. I found myself in a cold sweat. I had to think
rapidly what to do. I determined to build a fire and
encamp where we were. I put Weena, still motionless, down upon a turfy bole, and very hastily, as my
first lump of camphor waned, I began collecting sticks
and leaves. Here and there out of the darkness
round me the Morlocks' eyes shone like carbuncles.
"The camphor flickered and went out. I lit a
match, and as I did so, two white forms that had
been approaching Weena dashed hastily away. One
was so blinded by the light that he came straight for
me and I felt his bones grind under the blow of my
fist. He gave a whoop of dismay, staggered a little
way, and fell down. I lit another piece of camphor,
and went on gathering my bonfire. Presently I noticed how dry was some of the foliage above me, for
since my arrival on the Time Machine, a matter of a
week, no rain had fallen. So, instead of casting about
among the trees for fallen twigs, I began leaping up
and dragging down branches. Very soon I had a
choking smoky fire of green wood and dry sticks,
and could economise my camphor. Then I turned to
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where Weena lay beside my iron mace. I tried what
I could to revive her, but she lay like one dead. I
could not even satisfy myself whether or not she
breathed.
"Now, the smoke of the fire beat over towards me,
and it must have made me heavy of a sudden. Moreover, the vapour of camphor was in the air. My fire
would not need replenishing for an hour or so. I felt
very weary after my exertion, and sat down. The
wood, too, was full of a slumbrous murmur that I did
not understand. I seemed just to nod and open my
eyes. But all was dark, and the Morlocks had their
hands upon me. Flinging off their clinging fingers I
hastily felt in my pocket for the match-box, and-it
had gone! Then they gripped and closed with me
again. In a moment I knew what had happened. I
had slept, and my fire had gone out, and the bitterness of death came over my soul. The forest seemed
full of the smell of burning wood. I was caught by
the neck, by the hair, by the arms, and pulled down.
It was indescribably horrible in the darkness to feel
all these soft creatures heaped upon me. I felt as if
I was in a monstrous spider's web. I was overpowered, and went down. I felt little teeth nipping
at my neck. I rolled over, and as I did so my hand
came against my iron lever. It gave me strength.
I struggled up, shaking the human rats from me, and,
holding the bar short, I thrust where I judged their
faces might be. I could feel the succulent giving of
flesh and bone under my blows, and for a moment I
was free.
"The strange exultation that so often seems to
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accompany hard fighting came upon me. I knew
that both I and Weena were lost, but I determined to
make the Morlocks pay for their meat. I stood with
my back to a tree, swinging the iron bar before me.
The whole wood was full of the stir and cries of them.
A minute passed. Their voices seemed to rise to a
higher pitch of excitement, and their movements
grew faster. Yet none came within reach. I stood
glaring at the blackness. Then suddenly came hope.
What if the Morlocks were afraid? And close on
the heels of that came a strange thing. The darkness
seemed to grow luminous. Very dimly I began to
see the Morlocks about me-three battered at my
feet-and then I recognised, with incredulous surprise, that the others were running, in an incessant
stream, as it seemed, from behind me, and away
through the wood in front. And their backs seemed
no longer white, but reddish. As I stood agape, I
saw a little red spark go drifting across a gap of starlight between the branches, and vanish. And at that
I understood the smell of burning wood, the slumbrous murmur that was growing now into a gusty
roar, the red glow, and the Morlocks' flight.
"Stepping out from behind my tree and looking
back, I saw, through the black pillars of the nearer
trees, the flames of the burning forest. It was my
first fire coming after me. With that I looked for
Weena, but she was gone. The hissing and crackling
behind me, the explosive thud as each fresh tree burst
into flame, left little time for reflection. My iron
bar still gripped, I followed in the Morlocks' path.
It was a close race. Once the flames crept forward
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so swiftly on my right as I ran that I was outflanked
and had to strike off to the left. But at last I
emerged upon a small open space, and as I did so, a
Morlock came blundering towards me, and past me,
and went on straight into the fire!
"And now I was to see the most weird and horrible
thing, I think, of all that I beheld in that future age.
This whole space was as bright as day with the reflection of the fire. In the centre was a hillock or tumulus, surmounted by a scorched hawthorn. Beyond
this was another arm of the burning forest, with yellow tongues already writhing from it, completely encircling the space with a fence of fire. Upon the hillside were some thirty or forty Morlocks, dazzled by.
the light and heat, and blundering hither and thither
against each other in their bewilderment. At first I
did not realise their blindness, and struck furiously
at them with my bar, in a frenzy of fear, as they approached me, killing one and crippling several more.
But when I had watched the gestures of one of them
groping under the hawthorn against the red sky, and
heard their moans, I was assured of their absolute
helplessness and misery in the glare, and I struck no
more of them.
"Yet every now and then one would come straight
towards me, setting loose a quivering horror that
made me quick to elude him. At one time the flames
died down somewhat, and I feared the foul creatures
would presently be able to see me. I was even thinking of beginning the fight by killing some of them before this should happen; but the fire burst out again
brightly, and I stayed my hand. I walked about the
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hill among them and avoided them, looking for some
trace of Weena. But Weena was gone.
"At last I sat down on the summit of the hillock,
and watched this strange incredible company of blind
things groping to and fro, and making uncanny noises
to each other, as the glare of the fire beat on them.
The coiling uprush of smoke streamed across the sky,
and through the rare tatters of that red canopy, remote as though they belonged to another universe,
shone the little stars. Two or three Morlocks came
blundering into me, and I drove them off with blows
of my fists, trembling as I did so.
"For the most part of that night I was persuaded
it was a nightmare. I bit myself and screamed in a
passionate desire to awake. I beat the ground with
my hands, and got up and sat down again, and wandered here and there, and again sat down. Then I
would fall to rubbing my eyes and calling upon God to
let me awake. Thrice I saw Morlocks put their heads
down in a kind of agony and rush into the flames.
But, at last, above the subsiding red of the fire, above
the streaming masses of black smoke and the whitening and blackening tree stumps, and the diminishing
numbers of these dim creatures, came the white light
of the day.
"I searched again for traces of Weena, but there
were none. It was plain that they had left her poor
little body in the forest. I cannot describe how it
relieved me to think that it had escaped the awful
fate to which it seemed destined. As I thought of
that, I was almost moved to begin a massacre of the
helpless abominations about me, but I contained my98




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self. The hillock, as I have said, was a kind of island
in the forest. From its summit I could now make out
through a haze of smoke the Palace of Green Porcelain, and from that I could get my bearings for the
White Sphinx. And so, leaving the remnant of these
damned souls still going hither and thither and moaning, as the day grew clearer, I tied some grass about
my feet and limped on across smoking ashes and
among black stems, that still pulsated internally with
fire, towards the hiding-place of the Time Machine.
I walked slowly, for I was almost exhausted, as well
as lame, and I felt the intensest wretchedness for the
horrible death of little Weena. It seemed an overwhelming calamity. Now, in this old familiar room,
it is more like the sorrow of a dream than an actual
loss. But that morning it left me absolutely lonely
again-terribly alone. I began to think of this house
of mine, of this fireside, of some of you, and with such
thoughts came a longing that was pain.
"But, as I walked over the smoking ashes under
the bright morning sky, I made a discovery. In my
trouser pocket were still some loose matches. The
box must have leaked before it was lost.
~ 10
"ABOUT eight or nine in the morning I came to the
same seat of yellow metal from which I had viewed
the world upon the evening of my arrival. I thought
of my hasty conclusions upon that evening and could
not refrain from laughing bitterly at my confidence.
Here was the same beautiful scene, the same abun99




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dant foliage, the same splendid palaces and magnificent ruins, the same silver river running between its
fertile banks. The gay robes of the beautiful people
moved hither and thither among the trees. Some
were bathing in exactly the place where I had saved
Weena, and that suddenly gave me a keen stab of
pain. And like blots upon the landscape rose the
cupolas above the ways to the Underworld. I understood now what all the beauty of the Over-world people covered. Very pleasant was their day, as pleasant as the day of the cattle in the field. Like the
cattle, they knew of no enemies and provided against
no needs. And their end was the same.
"I grieved to think how brief the dream of the
human intellect had been. It had committed suicide. It had set itself steadfastly towards comfort
and ease, a balanced society with security and permanency as its watchword, it had attained its hopes-to
come to this at last. Once, life and property must
have reached almost absolute safety. The rich had
been assured of his wealth and comfort, the toiler assured of his life and work. No doubt in that perfect
world there had been no unemployed problem, no
social question left unsolved. And a great quiet
had followed.
"It is a law of nature we overlook, that intellectual
versatility is the compensation for change, danger,
and trouble. An animal perfectly in harmony with
its environment is a perfect mechanism. Nature
never appeals to intelligence until habit and instinct
are useless. There is no intelligence where there is no
change and no need of change. Only those animals
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partake of intelligence that have to meet a huge variety of needs and dangers.
"So, as I see it, the Upper-world man had drifted
towards his feeble prettiness, and the Underworld to
mere mechanical industry. But that perfect state
had lacked one thing even for mechanical perfection
-absolute permanency. Apparently as time went
on, the feeding of the Underworld, however it was
effected, had become disjointed. Mother Necessity,
who had been staved off for a few thousand years,
came back again, and she began below. The Underworld being in contact with machinery, which, however perfect, still needs some little thought outside
habit, had p'obably retained perforce rather more
initiative, if less of every other human character, than
the upper. And when other meat failed them, they
turned to what old habit had hitherto forbidden. So
I say I saw it in my last view of the world of Eight
Hundred and Two Thousand Seven Hundred and
One. It may be as wrong an explanation as mortal
wit could invent. It is how the thing shaped itself
to me, and as that I give it to you.
"After the fatigues, excitements, and terrors of the
past days, and in spite of my grief, this seat and the
tranquil view and the warm sunlight were very pleasant. I was very tired and sleepy, and soon my
theorising passed into dozing. Catching myself at
that, I took my own hint, and spreading myself out
upon the turf I had a long and refreshing sleep.
"I awoke a little before sunsetting. I now felt safe
against being caught napping by the Morlocks, and,
stretching myself, I came on down the hill towards
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the White Sphinx. I had my crowbar in one hand,
and the other hand played with the matches in my
pocket.
"And now came a most unexpected thing. As I
approached the pedestal of the sphinx I found the
bronze valves were open. They had slid down into
grooves.
"At that I stopped short before them, hesitating
to enter.
"Within was a small apartment, and on a raised
place in the corner of this was the Time Machine. I
had the small levers in my pocket. So here, aftei all
my elaborate preparations for the siege of the White
Sphinx, was a meek surrender. I threw my iron bar
away, almost sorry not to use it.
"A sudden thought came into my head as I stooped
towards the portal. For once, at least, I grasped the
mental operations of the Morlocks. Suppressing a
strong inclination to laugh, I stepped through the
bronze frame and up to the Time Machine. I was
surprised to find it had been carefully oiled and
cleaned. I have suspected since that the Morlocks
had even partially taken it to pieces while trying in
their dim way to grasp its purpose.
"Now as I stood and examined it, finding a pleasure in the mere touch of the contrivance, the thing
I had expected happened. The bronze panels suddenly slid up and struck the frame with a clang. I
was in the dark-trapped. So the Morlocks thought.
At that I chuckled gleefully.
"I could already hear their murmuring laughter as
they came towards me. Very calmly I tried to strike
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the match. I had only to fix on the levers and depart
then like a ghost. But I had overlooked one little
thing. The matches were of that abominable kind
that light only on the box.
"You may imagine how all my calm vanished. The
little brutes were close upon me. One touched me.
I made a sweeping blow in the dark at them with the
levers, and began to scramble into the saddle of the
machine. Then came one hand upon me and then
another. Then I had simply to fight against their
persistent fingers for my levers, and at the game time
feel for the studs over which these fitted. One, indeed, they almost got away from me. As it slipped
from my hand, I had to butt in the dark with my
head-I could hear the Morlock's skull ring-to recover it. It was a nearer thing than the fight in the
forest, I think, this last scramble.
"But at last the lever was fixed and pulled over.
The clinging hands slipped from me. The darkness
presently fell from my eyes. I found myself in the
same grey light and tumult I have already described.
~ 11
"I HAVE already told you of the sickness and confusion that comes with time travelling. And this
time I was not seated properly in the saddle, but
sideways and in an unstable fashion. For an indefinite time I clung to the machine as it swayed and
vibrated, quite unheeding how I went, and when I
brought myself to look at the dials again I was amazed
to find where I had arrived. One dial records days,
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another thousands of days, another millions of days,
and another thousands of millions. Now, instead of
reversing the levers I had pulled them over so as to
go forward with them, and when I came to look at
these indicators I found that the thousands hand was
sweeping round as fast as the seconds hand of a
watch-into futurity.
"As I drove on, a peculiar change crept over the
appearance of things. The palpitating greyness grew
darker; then-though I was still travelling with prodigious velocity-the blinking succession of day and
night, which was usually indicative of a slower pace,
returned, and grew more and more marked. This
puzzled me very much at first. The alternations of
night and day grew slower and slower, and so did the
passage of the sun across the sky, until they seemed
to stretch through centuries. At last a steady twilight brooded over the earth, a twilight only broken
now and then when a comet glared across the darkling sky. The band of light that had indicated the
sun had long since disappeared; for the sun had
ceased to set-it simply rose and fell in the west,
and grew ever broader and more red. All trace of
the moon had vanished. The circling of the stars,
growing slower and slower, had given place to creeping points of light. At last, some time before I
stopped, the sun, red and very large, halted motionless upon the horizon, a vast dome glowing with a
dull heat, and now and then suffering a momentary
extinction. At one time it had for a little while
glowed more brilliantly again, but it speedily reverted
to its sullen red heat. I perceived by this slowing
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down of its rising and setting that the work of the
tidal drag was done. The earth had come to rest with
one face to the sun, even as in our own time the moon
faces the earth. Very cautiously, for I remembered
my former headlong fall, I began to reverse my motion. Slower and slower went the circling hands until the thousands one seemed motionless and the
daily one was no longer a mere mist upon its scale.
Still slower, until the dim outlines of a desolate beach
grew visible.
"I stopped very gently and sat upon the Time Machine, looking round. The sky was no longer blue.
North-eastward it was inky black, and out of the
blackness shone brightly and steadily the pale white
stars. Overhead it was a deep Indian red and starless, and south-eastward it grew brighter to a glowing
scarlet where, cut by the horizon, lay the huge hull
of the sun, red and motionless. The rocks about me
were of a harsh reddish colour, and all the trace of
life that I could see at first was the intensely green
vegetation that covered every projecting point on
their south-eastern face. It was the same rich green
that one sees on forest moss or on the lichen in caves:
plants which like these grow in a perpetual twilight.
"The machine was standing on a sloping beach.
The sea stretched away to the south-west, to rise into
a sharp bright horizon against the wan sky. There
were no breakers and no waves, for not a breath of
wind was stirring. Only a slight oily swell rose and
fell like a gentle breathing, and showed that the
eternal sea was still moving and living. And along
the margin where the water sometimes broke was a
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thick incrustation of salt-pink under the lurid sky.
There was a sense of oppression in my head, and I
noticed that I was breathing very fast. The sensation
reminded me of my only experience of mountaineering, and from that I judged the air to be more rarefied
than it is now.
"Far away up the desolate slope I heard a harsh
scream, and saw a thing like a huge white butterfly
go slanting and fluttering up into the sky and, circling,
disappear over some low hillocks beyond. The sound
of its voice was so dismal that I shivered and seated
myself more firmly upon the machine. Looking
round me again, I saw that, quite near, what I had
taken to be a reddish mass of rock was moving slowly
towards me. Then I saw the thing was really a monstrous crab-like creature. Can you imagine a crab
as large as yonder table, with its many legs moving
slowly and uncertainly, its big claws swaying, its long
antennae, like carters' whips, waving and feeling, and
its stalked eyes gleaming at you on either side of its
metallic front? Its back was corrugated and ornamented with ungainly bosses, and a greenish incrustation blotched it here and there. I could see the many
palps of its complicated mouth flickering and feeling
as it moved.
"As I stared at this sinister apparition crawling
towards me, I felt a tickling on my cheek as though a
fly had lighted there. I tried to brush it away with
my hand, but in a moment it returned, and almost
immediately came another by my ear. I struck at
this, and caught something threadlike. It was drawn
swiftly out of my hand. With a frightful qualm, I
106




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turned, and saw that I had grasped the antenna of
another monster crab that stood just behind me. Its
evil eyes were wriggling on their stalks, its mouth was
all alive with appetite, and its vast ungainly claws,
smeared with an algal slime, were descending upon
me. In a moment my hand was on the lever, and I
had placed a month between myself and these monsters. But I was still on the same beach, and I saw
them distinctly now as soon as I stopped. Dozens
of them seemed to be crawling here and there, in the
sombre light, among the foliated sheets of intense
green.
"I cannot convey the sense of abominable desolation that hung over the world. The red eastern sky,
the northward blackness, the salt Dead Sea, the stony
beach crawling with these foul, slow-stirring monsters,
the uniform poisonous-looking green of the lichenous
plants, the thin air that hurts one's lungs; all contributed to an appalling effect. I moved on a hundred years, and there was the same red sun-a little
larger, a little duller-the same dying sea, the same
chill air, and the same crowd of earthy crustacea
creeping in and out among the green weed and the
red rocks. And in the westward sky I saw a curved
pale line like a vast new moon.
"So I travelled, stopping ever and again, in great
strides of a thousand years or more, drawn on by the
mystery of the earth's fate, watching with a strange
fascination the sun grow larger and duller in the westward sky, and the life of the old earth ebb away.
At last, more than thirty million years hence, the
huge red-hot dome of the sun had come to obscure
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nearly a tenth part of the darkling heavens. Then I
stopped once more, for the crawling multitude of
crabs had disappeared, and the red beach, save for
its livid green liverworts and lichens, seemed lifeless.
And now it was flecked with white. A bitter cold
assailed me. Rare white flakes ever and again came
eddying down. To the north-eastward, the glare of
snow lay under the starlight of the sable sky, and I
could see an undulating crest of hillocks pinkish
white. There were fringes of ice along the sea margin,
with drifting masses further out; but the main expanse of that salt ocean, all bloody under the eternal
sunset, was still unfrozen.
"I looked about me to see if any traces of animal
life remained. A certain indefinable apprehension
still kept me in the saddle of the machine. But I
saw nothing moving, in earth or sky or sea. The green
slime on the rocks alone testified that life was not
extinct. A shallow sand-bank had appeared in the
sea and the water had receded from the beach. I fancied I saw some black object flopping about upon this
bank, but it became motionless as I looked at it, and
I judged that my eye had been deceived, and that
the black object was merely a rock. The stars in the
sky were intensely bright and seemed to me to twinkle
very little.
"Suddenly I noticed that the circular westward
outline of the sun had changed: that a concavity, a
bay, had appeared in the curve. I saw this grow
larger. For a minute perhaps I stared aghast at this
blackness that was creeping over the day, and then I
realised that an eclipse was beginning. Either the
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moon or the planet Mercury was passing across the
sun's disk. Naturally, at first I took it to be the
moon, but there is much to incline me to believe that
what I really saw was the transit of an inner planet
passing very near to the earth.
"The darkness grew apace; a cold wind began to
blow in freshening gusts from the east, and the showering white flakes in the air increased in number.
From the edge of the sea came a ripple and whisper.
Beyond these lifeless sounds the world was silent.
Silent? It would be hard to convey the stillness of
it. All the sounds of man, the bleating of sheep, the
cries of birds, the hum of insects, the stir that makes
the background of our lives-all that was over. As
the darkness thickened, the eddying flakes grew more
abundant, dancing before my eyes; and the cold of
the air more intense. At last, one by one, swiftly,
one after the other, the white peaks of the distant
hills vanished into blackness. The breeze rose to a
moaning wind. I saw the black central shadow of
the eclipse sweeping towards me. In another moment the pale stars alone were visible. All else was
rayless obscurity. The sky was absolutely black.
"A horror of this great darkness came on me. The
cold, that smote to my marrow, and the pain I felt
in breathing, overcame me. I shivered, and a deadly
nausea seized me. Then like a red-hot bow in the sky
appeared the edge of the sun. I got off the machine
to recover myself. I felt giddy and incapable of facing the return journey. As I stood sick and confused
I saw again the moving thing upon the shoal-there
was no mistake now that it was a moving thing109




THE TIME MACHINE


against the red water of the sea. It was a round
thing, the size of a football perhaps, or, it may be,
bigger, and tentacles trailed down from it; it seemed
black against the weltering blood-red water, and it
was hopping fitfully about. Then I felt I was fainting. But a terrible dread of lying helpless in that
remote and awful twilight sustained me while I
clambered upon the saddle.
~ 12
"So I came back. For a long time I must have
been insensible upon the machine. The blinking succession of the days and nights was resumed, the sun
got golden again, the sky blue. I breathed with
greater freedom. The fluctuating contours of the land
ebbed and flowed. The hands spun backward upon
the dials. At last I saw again the dim shadows of
houses, the evidences of decadent humanity. These,
too, changed and passed, and others came. Presently, when the million dial was at zero, I slackened
speed. I began to recognise our own petty and familiar architecture, the thousands hand ran back to
the starting-point, the night and day flapped slower
and slower. Then the old walls of the laboratory
came round me. Very gently, now, I slowed the
mechanism down.
"I saw one little thing that seemed odd to me. I
think I have told you that when I set out, before my
velocity became very high, Mrs. Watchett had walked
across the room, travelling, as it seemed to me, like
a rocket. As I returned, I passed again across that
110




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minute when she traversed the laboratory. But now
her every motion appeared to be the exact inversion
of her previous ones. The door at the lower end
opened, and she glided quietly up the laboratory,
back foremost, and disappeared behind the door by
which she had previously entered. Just before that
I seemed to see Hillyer for a moment; but he passed
like a flash.
"Then I stopped the machine, and saw about me
again the old familiar laboratory, my tools, my appliances just as I had left them. I got off the thing
very shakily, and sat down upon my bench. For several minutes I trembled violently. Then I became
calmer. Around me was my old workshop again,
exactly as it had been. I might have slept there,
and the whole thing have been a dream.
"And yet, not exactly! The thing had started
from the south-east corner of the laboratory. It had
come to rest again in the north-west, against the wall
where you saw it. That gives you the exact distance
from my little lawn to the pedestal of the White
Sphinx, into which the Morlocks had carried my machine.
"For a time my brain went stagnant. Presently
I got up and came through the passage here, limping,
because my heel was still painful, and feeling sorely
begrimed. I saw the Pall Mall Gazette on the table
by the door. I found the date was indeed to-day,
and looking at the timepiece, saw the hour was almost
eight o'clock. I heard your voices and the clatter of
plates. I hesitated-I felt so sick and weak. Then
I sniffed good wholesome meat, and opened the door
111




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on you. You know the rest. I washed, and dined,
and now I am telling you the story."
"I know," he said, after a pause, "that all this
will be absolutely incredible to you. To me the one
incredible thing is that I am here to-night in this old
familiar room, looking into your friendly faces and
telling you these strange adventures."
He looked at the Medical Man. "No. I cannot
expect you to believe it. Take it as a lie-or a
prophecy. Say I dreamed it in the workshop. Consider I have been speculating upon the destinies of
our race until I have hatched this fiction. Treat my
assertion of its truth as a mere stroke of art to enhance its interest. And taking it as a story, what do
you think of it?"
He took up his pipe, and began, in his old accustomed manner, to tap with it nervously upon the bars
of the grate. There was a momentary stillness. Then
chairs began to creak and shoes to scrape upon the
carpet. I took my eyes off the Time Traveller's face,
and looked round at his audience. They were in the
dark, and little spots of colour swam before them.
The Medical Man seemed absorbed in the contemplation of our host. The Editor was looking hard at the
end of his cigar-the sixth. The Journalist fumbled
for his watch. The others, as far as I remember, were
motionless.
The Editor stood up with a sigh. "What a pity
it is you're not a writer of stories!" he said, putting
his hand on the Time Traveller's shoulder.
"You don't believe it?"
"Well —"
112




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"I thought not."
The Time Traveller turned to us. "Where are the
matches?" he said. He lit one and spoke over his
pipe, puffing. "To tell you the truth.. I hardly
believe it myself.... And yet..."
His eye fell with a mute inquiry upon the withered
white flowers upon the little table. Then he turned
over the hand holding his pipe, and I saw he was
looking at some half-healed scars on his knuckles.
The Medical Man rose, came to the lamp, and
examined the flowers. "The gynaeceum's odd," he
said. The Psychologist leant forward to see, holding
out his hand for a specimen.
"I'm hanged if it isn't a quarter to one," said the
Journalist. "How shall we get home?"
"Plenty of cabs at the station," said the Psychologist.
"It's a curious thing," said the Medical Man; "but
I certainly don't know the natural order of these
flowers. May I have them?"
The Time Traveller hesitated. Then suddenly:
"Certainly not."
"Where did you really get them?" said the Medical Man.
The Time Traveller put his hand to his head. He
spoke like one who was trying to keep hold of an
idea that eluded him. "They were put into my
pocket by Weena, when I travelled into Time." He
stared round the room. "I'm damned if it isn't all
going. This room and you and the atmosphere of
every day is too much for my memory. Did I ever
make a Time Machine, or a model of a Time Ma113




THE TIME MACHINE


chine? Or is it all only a dream? They say life is a
dream, a precious poor dream at times-but I can't
stand another that won't fit. It's madness. And
where did the dream come from?... I must look
at that machine. If there is one!"
He caught up the lamp swiftly, and carried it,
flaring red, through the door into the corridor. We
followed him. There in the flickering light of the
lamp was the machine sure enough, squat, ugly, and
askew; a thing of brass, ebony, ivory, and translucent
glimmering quartz. Solid to the touch-for I put
out my hand and felt the rail of it-and with brown
spots and smears upon the ivory, and bits of grass
and moss upon the lower parts, and one rail bent
awry.
The Time Traveller put the lamp down on the
bench, and ran his hand along the damaged rail.
"It's all right now," he said. "The story I told you
was true. I'm sorry to have brought you out here
in the cold." He took up the lamp, and, in an absolute silence, we returned to the smoking-room.
He came into the hall with us and helped the Editor on with his coat. The Medical Man looked into
his face and, with a certain hesitation, told him he
was suffering from overwork, at which he laughed
hugely. I remember him standing in the open doorway, bawling good night.
I shared a cab with the Editor. He thought the
tale a "gaudy lie." For my own part I was unable
to come to a conclusion. The story was so fantastic
and incredible, the telling so credible and sober. I
lay awake most of the night thinking about it. I de114




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termined to go next day and see the Time Traveller
again. I was told he was in the laboratory, and being
on easy terms in the house, I went up to him. The
laboratory, however, was empty. I stared for a minute at the Time Machine and put out my hand and
touched the lever. At that the squat substantiallooking mass swayed like a bough shaken by the
wind. Its instability startled me extremely, and I
had a queer reminiscence of the childish days when
I used to be forbidden to meddle. I came back
through the corridor. The Time Traveller met me
in the smoking-room. He was coming from the
house. He had a small camera under one arm and a
knapsack under the other. He laughed when he saw
me, and gave me an elbow to shake. "I'm frightfully busy," said he, "with that thing in there."
"But is it not some hoax?" I said. "Do you
really travel through time?"
"Really and truly I do." And he looked frankly
into my eyes. He hesitated. His eye wandered
about the room. "I only want half an hour," he
said. "I know why you came, and it's awfully good
of you. There's some magazines here. If you'll stop
to lunch I'll prove you this time travelling up to the
hilt, specimens and all. If you'll forgive my leaving
you now?"
I consented, hardly comprehending then the full
import of his words, and he nodded and went on
down the corridor. I heard the door of the laboratory slam, seated myself in a chair, and took up a
daily paper. What was he going to do before lunchtime? Then suddenly I was reminded by an adver115




THE TIME MACHINE


tisement that I had promised to meet Richardson,
the publisher, at two. I looked at my watch, and
saw that I could barely save that engagement. I got
up and went down the passage to tell the Time Traveller.
As I took hold of the handle of the door I heard an
exclamation, oddly truncated at the end, and a click
and a thud. A gust of air whirled round me as I
opened the door, and from within came the sound of
broken glass falling on the floor. The Time Traveller
was not there. I seemed to see a ghostly, indistinct
figure sitting in a whirling mass of black and brass
for a moment-a figure so transparent that the bench
behind with its sheets of drawings was absolutely distinct; but this phantasm vanished as I rubbed my
eyes. The Time Machine had gone. Save for a subsiding stir of dust, the further end of the laboratory
was empty. A pane of the skylight had, apparently,
just been blown in.
I felt an unreasonable amazement. I knew that
something strange had happened, and for the moment
could not distinguish what the strange thing might
be. As I stood staring, the door into the garden
opened, and the man-servant appeared.
We looked at each other. Then ideas began to
come. "Has Mr.      gone out that way?" said I.
"No, sir. No one has come out this way. I was
expecting to find him here."
At that I understood. At the risk of disappointing Richardson I stayed on, waiting for the Time
Traveller; waiting for the second, perhaps still
stranger story, and the specimens and photographs
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he would bring with him. But I am beginning now
to fear that I must wait a lifetime. The Time Traveller vanished three years ago. And, as everybody
knows now, he has never returned.
EPILOGUE
ONE cannot choose but wonder. Will he ever return? It may be that he swept back into the past,
and fell among the blood-drinking, hairy savages of
the Age of Unpolished Stone; into the abysses of the
Cretaceous Sea; or among the grotesque saurians, the
huge reptilian brutes of the Jurassic times. He may
even now-if I may use the phrase-be wandering on
some plesiosaurus-haunted Oolitic coral reef, or beside the lonely saline lakes of the Triassic Age. Or
did he go forward, into one of the nearer ages, in
which men are still men, but with the riddles of our
own time answered and its wearisome problems
solved? Into the manhood of the race: for I, for my
own part, cannot think that these latter days of weak
experiment, fragmentary theory, and mutual discord
are indeed man's culminating time! I say, for my
own part. He, I know-for the question had been
discussed among us long before the Time Machine
was made-thought but cheerlessly of the Advancement of Mankind, and saw in the growing pile of
civilisation only a foolish heaping that must inevitably fall back upon and destroy its makers in the
end. If that is so, it remains for us to live as though
it were not so. But to me the future is still black
and blank-is a vast ignorance, lit at a few casual
places by the memory of his story. And I have by
117




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me, for my comfort, two strange white flowers-shrivelled now, and brown and flat and brittle-to witness
that even when mind and strength had gone, gratitude and a mutual tenderness still lived on in the
heart of man.


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THE WONDERFUL VISIT


~1
ON the Night of the Strange Bird, many people at
Sidderton (and some nearer) saw a glare on the Sidderford Moor. But no one in Sidderford saw it, for
most of Sidderford was abed.
All day the wind had been rising, so that the larks
on the moor chirruped fitfully near the ground or
rose only to be driven like leaves before the wind.
The sun set in a bloody welter of clouds, and the moon
was hidden. The glare, they say, was golden like a
beam shining out of the sky, not a uniform blaze but
broken all over by curving flashes like the waving of
swords. It lasted but a moment and left the night
dark and obscure. There were letters about it in
Nature, and a rough drawing that no one thought
very like. (You may see it for yourself-the drawing that was unlike the glare-on page 42 of Vol.
cclx, of that publication.)
None in Sidderford saw the light, but Annie,
Hooker Durgan's wife, was lying awake, and she saw
the reflection of it-a flickering tongue of gold-dancing on the wall.
She, too, was one of those who heard the sound.
The others who heard the sound were Lumpy Durgan,
the half-wit, and Amory's mother. They said it was
a sound like children singing and a throbbing of harp121




THE WONDERFUL VISIT


strings, carried on a rush of notes like that which
sometimes comes from an organ. It began and ended
like the opening and shutting of a door, and before
and after they heard nothing but the night wind
howling over the moor and the noise of the caves
under Sidderford cliff. Amory's mother said she
wanted to cry when she heard it, but Lumpy was
only sorry he could hear no more.
That is as much as any one can tell you of the glare
upon Sidderford Moor and the alleged music therewith. And whether these had any real connection
with the Strange Bird whose history follows, is more
than I can say. But I set it down here for reasons
that will be more apparent as the story proceeds.
~2
SANDY BRIGHT was coming down the road froi
Spinner's carrying a side of bacon he had taken in ex
change for a clock. He saw nothing of the light bu'
he heard and saw the Strange Bird. He suddenly
heard a flapping and a voice like a woman wailing
and being a nervous man and all alone, he wa
alarmed forthwith, and turning (all a-tremble) sav
something large and black against the dim darknes
of the cedars up the hill. It seemed to be comin;
right down upon him, and incontinently he droppe,
his bacon and set off running, only to fall head
long.
He tried in vain-such was his state of mind-t
remember the beginning of the Lord's Prayer. Th
122




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Strange Bird flapped over him, something larger than
himself, with a vast spread of wings, and, as he
thought, black. He screamed and gave himself up
for lost. Then it went past him, sailing down the
hill, and, soaring over the Vicarage, vanished into
the hazy valley towards Sidderford.
And Sandy Bright lay upon his stomach there for
ever so long, staring into the darkness after the
Strange Bird. At last he got upon his knees and began to thank Heaven for his merciful deliverance,
with his eyes downhill. He went on down into the
village, talking aloud and confessing his sins as he
went, lest the Strange Bird should come back. All
who heard him thought him drunk. But from that
night he was a changed man, and had done with
drunkenness and defrauding the revenue by selling
silver ornaments without a licence. And the side of
bacon lay upon the hillside until the tallyman from
Portburdock found it in the morning.
The next who saw the Strange Bird was a solicitor's
clerk at Iping Hanger, who was climbing the hill before breakfast to see the sunrise. Save for a few
dissolving wisps of cloud the sky had been blown clear
in the night. At first he thought it was an eagle he
saw. It was near the zenith and incredibly remote,
a mere bright speck above the pink cirri; and it
seemed as if it fluttered and beat itself against the
sky as an imprisoned swallow might do against a
window-pane. Then down it came into the shadow of
the earth, sweeping in a great curve towards Portburdock and round over the Hanger, and so vanishing
behind the woods of Siddermorton Park. It seemed
123




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larger than a man. Just before it was hidden, the
light of the rising sun smote over the edge of the
downs and touched its wings, and they flashed with
the brightness of flames and the colour of precious
stones, and so passed, leaving the witness agape.
A ploughman going to his work, along under the
stone wall of Siddermorton Park, saw the Strange
Bird flash over him for a moment and vanish among
the hazy interstices of the beeches. But he saw little
of the colour of the wings, witnessing only that its legs,
which were long, seemed pink and bare like naked
flesh, and its body mottled white. It smote like an
arrow through the air and was gone.
These were the first three eye-witnesses of the
Strange Bird.
Now in these days one does not cower before the
devil and one's own sinfulness, or see strange iridescent wings in the light of dawn and say nothing of
it afterwards. The young solicitor's clerk told his
mother and sisters at breakfast, and afterwards on
his way to the office at Portburdock, spoke of it to
the blacksmith of Hammerpond, and spent the morning with his fellow clerks marvelling instead of copying deeds. And Sandy Bright went to talk the
matter over with Mr. Jekyll, the "Primitive" minister, and the ploughman told old Hugh and afterwards
the Vicar of Siddermorton.
"They are not an imaginative race about here,"
said the Vicar of Siddermorton, "I wonder how much
of that was true. Barring that he thinks the wings
were brown it sounds uncommonly like a Flamingo."


124




THE WONDERFUL VISIT


~3
THE Vicar of Siddermorton (which is nine miles inland from Siddermouth as the crow flies) was an ornithologist. Some such pursuit, botany, antiquity,
folk-lore, is almost inevitable for a single man in his
position. He was given to geometry also, propounding occasionally impossible problems in the Educational Times, but ornithology was his forte. He had
already added two visitors to the list of occasional
British birds. His name was well known in the
columns of the Zoologist (I am afraid it may be forgotten by now, for the world moves apace). And on
the day after the coming of the Strange Bird, came
first one and then another to confirm the ploughman's
story and tell him, not that it had any connection, of
the glare upon Sidderford Moor.
Now, the Vicar of Siddermorton had two rivals in
his scientific pursuits: Gully of Sidderton, who had
actually seen the glare, and who it was sent the drawing to Nature, and Borland the natural-history dealer,
who kept the marine laboratory at Portburdock.
Borland, the Vicar thought, should have stuck to his
copepods, but instead he kept a taxidermist, and took
advantage of his littoral position to pick up rare seabirds. It was evident to any one who knew anything
of collecting that both these men would be scouring
the country after the strange visitant, before twentyfour hours were out.
The Vicar's eye rested on the back of Saunders's
"British Birds," for he was in his study at the time.
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Already in two places there was entered: "the only
known British specimen was secured by the Rev. K.
Hillyer, Vicar of Siddermorton." A third such entry.
He doubted if any other collector had that.
He looked at his watch-two. He had just
lunched, and usually he "rested" in the afternoon.
He knew it would make him feel very disagreeable if
he went out into the hot sunshine-both on the top
of his head and generally. Yet Gully perhaps was
out, prowling observant. Suppose it was something
very good and Gully got it!
His gun stood in the corner. (The thing had iridescent wings and pink legs! The chromatic conflict was
certainly exceedingly stimulating.) He took his gun.
He would have gone out by the glass doors and
verandah, and down the garden into the hill road, in
order to avoid his housekeeper's eye. He knew his
gun expeditions were not approved of. But advancing towards him up the garden, he saw the Curate's
wife and her two daughters, carrying tennis-rackets.
His Curate's wife was a young woman of immense will,
who used to play tennis on his lawn and cut his roses,
differ from him on doctrinal points, and criticise his
personal behaviour all over the parish. He went in
abject fear of her, was always trying to propitiate
her. But so far he had clung to his ornithology..
However, he went out by the front door.
~4
IF it were not for collectors England would be
full, so to speak, of rare birds and wonderful butter126




THE WONDERFUL VISIT


flies, strange flowers and a thousand interesting
things. But happily the collector prevents all that,
either killing with his own hands or, by buying extravagantly, procuring people of the lower classes to
kill such eccentricities as appear. It makes work for
people, even though Acts of Parliament interfere.
In this way, for instance, he is killing off the chough
in Cornwall, the Bath white butterfly, the Queen of
Spain Fritillary; and can plume himself upon the
extermination of the Great Auk, and a hundred other
rare birds and plants and insects. All that is the
work of the collector and his glory alone. In the
name of Science. And this is right and as it should
be; eccentricity, in fact, is immorality-think over it
again if you do not think so now-just as eccentricity
in one's way of thinking is madness (I defy you to
find another definition that will fit all the cases of
either); and if a species is rare it follows that it is not
Fitted to Survive. The collector is after all merely
like the foot soldier in the days of heavy armour-he
leaves the combatants alone and cuts the throats of
those who are overthrown. So one may go through
England from end to end in the summer time and see
only eight or ten commonplace wild flowers, and the
commoner butterflies, and a dozen or so common
birds, and never be offended by any breach of the
monotony, any splash of strange blossom or flutter of
unknown wing. All the rest have been "collected"
years ago. For which cause we should all love Collectors, and bear in mind what we owe them when
their collections are displayed. These camphorated
little drawers of theirs, their glass cases and blotting127




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paper books, are the graves of the Rare and the Beautiful, the symbols of the Triumph of Leisure (morally
spent) over the Delights of Life. (All of which, as
you very properly remark, has nothing whatever to
do with the Strange Bird.)
~5
THERE is a place on the moor where the black water
shines among the succulent moss, and the hairy sundew, eater of careless insects, spreads its red-stained
hungry hands to the God who gives his creaturesone to feed another. On a ridge thereby grow birches
with a silvery bark, and the soft green of the larch
mingles with the dark green fir. Thither through the
honey-humming heather came the Vicar in the heat
of the day,, carrying a gun under his arm, a gun
loaded with swanshot for the Strange Bird. And
over his disengaged hand he carried a pocket handkerchief wherewith, ever and again, he wiped his beady
face.
He went by and on past the big pond and the pool
full of brown leaves where the Sidder arises, and
so by the road (which is at first sandy and then
chalky) to the little gate that goes into the park.
There are seven steps up to the gate and on the
further side six down again-lest the deer escape-so
that when the Vicar stood in the gateway his head
was ten feet or more above the ground. And looking
where a tumult of bracken fronds filled the hollow
between two groups of beech, his eye caught something parti-coloured that wavered and went. Sud128




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denly his face gleamed and his muscles grew tense; he
ducked his head, clutched his gun with both hands,
and stood still. Then watching keenly, he came on
down the steps into the park, and, still holding his
gun in both hands, crept rather than walked towards
the jungle of bracken.
Nothing stirred, and he almost feared that his eyes
had played him false, until he reached the ferns and
had gone rustling breast-high into them. Then suddenly rose something full of wavering colours, twenty
yards or less in front of his face, and beating the air.
In another moment it had fluttered above the bracken
and spread its pinions wide. He saw what it was, his
heart was in his mouth, and he fired out of pure surprise and habit.
There was a scream of superhuman agony, the
wings beat the air twice, and the victim came slanting
swiftly downward and struck the ground-a struggling heap of writhing body, broken wing and flying
bloodstained plumes-upon the turfy slope behind.
The Vicar stood aghast, with his smoking gun in
his hand. It was no bird at all, but a youth with an
extremely beautiful face, clad in a robe of saffron and
with iridescent wings, across whose pinions great
waves of colour, flushes of purple and crimson, golden
green and intense blue, pursued one another as he
writhed in his agony. Never had the Vicar seen such
gorgeous floods of colour, not stained-glass windows,
not the wings of butterflies, not even the glories of
crystals seen between prisms, no colours on earth
could compare with them. Twice the Angel raised
himself, only to fall over sideways again. Then the
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beating of the wings diminished, the terrified face
grew pale, the floods of colour abated, and suddenly
with a sob he lay prone, and the changing hues of the
broken wings faded swiftly into one uniform dull grey
hue.
"Oh! what has happened to me?" cried the Angel
(for such it was), shuddering violently, hands outstretched and clutching the ground, and then lying
still.
"Dear me!" said the Vicar. "I had no idea." He
came forward cautiously. "Excuse me," he said, "I
am afraid I have shot you."
It was the obvious remark.
The Angel seemed to become aware of his presence
for the first time. He raised himself by one hand, his
brown eyes stared into the Vicar's. Then with a gasp,
and biting his nether lip, he struggled into a sitting
position and surveyed the Vicar from top to toe.
"A man!" said the Angel, clasping his forehead;
"a man in the maddest black clothes and without a
feather upon him. Then I was not deceived. I am
indeed in the Land of Dreams!"
~6
Now there are some things frankly impossible.
The weakest intellect will admit this situation is impossible. The Atheneum will probably say as much
should it condescend to review this. Sun-bespattered
ferns, spreading beech-trees, the Vicar and the gun are
acceptable enough. But this Angel is a different
matter. Plain sensible people will scarcely go on
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with such an extravagant story. And the Vicar fully
appreciated this impossibility. But he lacked decision. Consequently he went on with it, as you shall
immediately hear. He was hot, it was after dinner,
he was in no mood for mental subtleties. The Angel
had him at a disadvantage, and further distracted
him from the main issue by irrelevant iridescence and
a violent fluttering. For the moment it never occurred to the Vicar to ask whether the Angel was
possible or not. He accepted him in the confusion of
the moment, and the mischief was done. Put yourself in his place, my dear Athenceum. You go out
shooting. You hit something. That alone would disconcert you. You find you have hit an Angel, and
he writhes about for a minute and then sits up and
addresses you. He makes no apology for his own
impossibility. Indeed, he carries the charge clean
into your camp. "A man!" he says, pointing. "A
man in the maddest black clothes and without a
feather upon him. Then I was not deceived. I am
indeed in the Land of Dreams!" You must answer
him. Unless you take to your heels. Or blow his
brains out with your second barrel as an escape from
the controversy.
"The Land of Dreams! Pardon me if I suggest
you have just come out of it," was the Vicar's remark.
"How can that be?" said the Angel.
"Your wing," said the Vicar, "is bleeding. Before
we talk, may I have the pleasure-the melancholy
pleasure-of tying it up? I am really most sincerely
sorry...." The Angel put his hand behind his back
and winced.
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The Vicar assisted his victim to stand up. The
Angel turned gravely and the Vicar, with numberless
insignificant panting parentheses, carefully examined
the injured wings. (They articulated, he observed
with interest, to a kind of second glenoid on the outer
and upper edge of the shoulder-blade. The left wing
had suffered little except the loss of some of the primary wing-quills, and a shot or so in the ala spuria,
but the humerus bone of the right was evidently
smashed.) The Vicar stanched the bleeding as well as
he could and tied up the bone with his pocket handkerchief and the neck wrap his housekeeper made him
carry in all weathers.
"I'm afraid you will not be able to fly for some
time," said he, feeling the bone.
"I don't like this new sensation," said the Angel.
"The Pain when I feel your bone?"
"The what?" said the Angel.
"The Pain."
"'Pain'-you call it. No, I certainly don't like
the Pain. Do you have much of this Pain in the
Land of Dreams?"
"A very fair share," said the Vicar. "Is it new to
you?"
"Quite," said the Angel. "I don't like it."
"How curious!" said the Vicar, and bit at the end
of a strip of linen to tie a knot. "I think this bandaging must serve for the present," he said. "I've studied ambulance work before, but never the bandaging
up of wing wounds. Is your Pain any better?"
"It glows now instead of flashing," said the
Angel.
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"I am afraid you will find it glow for some time,"
said the Vicar, still intent on the wound.
The Angel gave a shrug of the wing and turned
round to look at the Vicar again. He had been trying
to keep an eye on the Vicar over his shoulder during
all their interview. He looked at him from top to
toe with raised eyebrows and a growing smile on his
beautiful soft-featured face. "It seems so odd," he
said with a sweet little laugh, "to be talking to a
Man!"
"Do you know," said the Vicar, "now that I come
to think of it, it is equally odd to me that I should be
talking to an Angel. I am a somewhat matter-offact person. A Vicar has to be. Angels I have always regarded as-artistic conceptions —"
"Exactly what we think of men."
"But surely you have seen so many men-"
"Never before to-day. In pictures and books,
times enough of course. But I have seen several
since the sunrise, solid real men, besides a horse or so
-those Unicorn things, you know, without hornsand quite a number of those grotesque knobby things
called 'cows.' I was naturally a little frightened at so
many mythical monsters, and came to hide here until
it was dark. I suppose it will be dark again presently
like it was at first. Phew! This Pain of yours is poor
fun. I hope I shall wake up directly."
"I don't understand quite," said the Vicar, knitting
his brows and tapping his forehead with his flat hand.
"Mythical monster!" The worst thing he had been
called for years hitherto was a "mediaeval anachronism" (by an advocate of Disestablishment). "Do I
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understand that you consider me as-as something in
a dream?"
"Of course," said the Angel smiling.
"And this world about me, these rugged trees and
spreading fronds-"
"Is all so very dream-like," said the Angel. "Just
exactly what one dreams of-or artists imagine."
"You have artists then among the Angels?"
"All kinds of artists. Angels with wonderful imaginations, who invent men and cows and eagles and
a thousand impossible creatures."
"Impossible creatures!" said the Vicar.
"Impossible creatures," said the Angel. "Myths."
"But I'm real!" said the Vicar. "I assure you I'm
real."
The Angel shrugged his wings and winced and
smiled. "I can always tell when I am dreaming," he
said.
"You-dreaming," said the Vicar. He looked
round him.
" You dreaming!" he repeated. His mind worked
diffusely.
He held out his hand with all his fingers moving.
"I have it!" he said. "I begin to see." A really brilliant idea was dawning upon his mind. He had not
studied mathematics at Cambridge for nothing, after
all. "Tell me, please. Some animals of your world.. of the Real World, real animals, you know."
"Real animals!" said the Angel smiling. "Whythere's Griffins and Dragons-and Jabberwocks-and
Cherubim-and Sphinxes-and the Hippogriff-and
Mermaids-and Satyrs-and..."
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"Thank you," said the Vicar as the Angel appeared
to be warming to his work; "thank you. That is quite
enough. I begin to understand."
He paused for a moment, his face pursed up. "Yes. I begin to see it."
"See what?" asked the Angel.
"The Griffins and Satyrs and so forth. It's as
clear..."
"I don't see them," said the Angel.
"No, the whole point is they are not to be seen in
this world. But our men with imaginations have
told us all about them, you know. And even I at
times... there are places in this village where you
must simply take what they set before you, or give
offence-I, I say, have seen in my dreams Jabberwocks, Bogle brutes, Mandrakes..   From  our
point of view, you know, they are Dream Creatures.
"Dream Creatures!" said the Angel. "How singular! This is a very curious dream. A kind of topsyturvy one. You call men real and angels a myth.
It almost makes one think that in some odd way
there must be two worlds as it were..."
"At least Two," said the Vicar.
"Lying somewhere close together, and yet scarcely
suspecting...
"As near as page to page of a book."
"Penetrating each other, living each its own life.
This is really a delicious dream!"
"And never dreaming of each other."
"Except when people go a-dreaming!"
"Yes," said the Angel thoughtfully. "It must be
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something of the sort. And that reminds me. Sometimes when I have been dropping asleep, or drowsing
under the noontide sun, I have seen strange corrugated faces just like yours, going by me, and trees
with green leaves upon them, and such queer uneven
ground as this.... It must be so. I have fallen
into another world."
"Sometimes," began the Vicar, "at bedtime, when
I have been just on the edge of consciousness, I have
seen faces as beautiful as yours, and the strange
dazzling vistas of a wonderful scene that flowed past
me, winged shapes soaring over it, and wonderfulsometimes terrible-forms going to and fro. I have
even heard sweet music, too, in my ears.... It
may be that as we withdraw our attention from the
world of sense, the pressing world about us, as we
pass into the twilight of repose, other worlds..
Just as we see the stars, those other worlds in space,
when the glare of day recedes.... And the artistic
dreamers who see such things most clearly...."
They looked at one another.
"And in some incomprehensible manner I have
fallen into this world of yours out of my own," said
the Angel, "into the world of my dreams, grown real!"
He looked about him. "Into the world of my
dreams."
"It is confusing," said the Vicar. "It almost makes
one think there may be (ahem) Four Dimensions after
all. In which case, of course," he went on hurriedly
-for he loved geometrical speculations and took a
certain pride in his knowledge of them-"there may
be any number of three-dimensional universes packed
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side by side, and all dimly dreaming of one another.
There may be world upon world, universe upon universe. It's perfectly possible. There's nothing so
incredible as the absolutely possible. But I wonder
how you came to fall out of your world into mine.....
"Dear me!" said the Angel; "there's deer and a
stag! Just as they draw them on the coats of arms.
How grotesque it all seems! Can I really be awake?"
He rubbed his knuckles into his eyes.
The half dozen of dappled deer came in Indian file
obliquely through the trees and halted, watching.
"It's no dream-I am really a solid concrete Angel,
in Dream Land," said the Angel. He laughed. The
Vicar stood surveying him. The Reverend gentleman
was pulling his mouth askew after a habit he had,
and slowly stroking his chin. He was asking himself
whether he, too, was not in the Land of Dreams.
~7
Now in the World of the Angels, so the Vicar learned
in the course of many conversations, there is neither
pain nor trouble nor death, marrying nor giving in
marriage, birth nor forgetting. Only at times new
things begin. It is a land without hill or dale, a
wonderfully level land, glittering with strange buildings, with incessant sunlight or full moon, and with
incessant breezes blowing through the AEolian traceries of the trees. It is Wonderland, with glittering
seas hanging in the sky, across which strange fleets go
sailing, none know whither. There the flowers glow in
Heaven and the stars shine about one's feet and the
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breath of life is a delight. The land goes on foreverthere is no solar system nor interstellar space such as
there is in our universe-and the air goes upward past
the sun into the uttermost abyss of their sky. And
there is nothing but Beauty there-all the beauty in
our art is but feeble rendering of faint glimpses of
that wonderful world, and our composers, our original
composers, are those who hear, however faintly, the
dust of melody that drives before its winds. And the
angels, and wonderful monsters of bronze and marble
and living fire, go to and fro therein.
It is a land of Law-for whatever is, is under the
law-but its laws all, in some strange way, differ from
ours. Their geometry is different because their space
has a curve in it so that all their planes are cylinders;
and their law of Gravitation is not according to the
law of inverse squares, and there are four-and-twenty
primary colours instead of only three. Most of the
fantastic things of our science are commonplaces
there, and all our earthly science would seem to them
the maddest dreaming. There are no flowers upon
their plants, for instance, but jets of coloured fire.
That, of course, will seem mere nonsense to you because you do not understand. Most of what the
Angel told the Vicar, indeed the Vicar could not realise, because his own experiences, being only of this
world of matter, warred against his understanding.
It was too strange to imagine.
What had jolted these twin universes together so
that the Angel had fallen suddenly into Sidderford,
neither the Angel nor the Vicar could tell. Nor for
the matter of that could the author of this story. The
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author is concerned with the facts of the case, and has
neither the desire nor the confidence to explain them.
Explanations are the fallacy of a scientific age. And
the cardinal fact of the case is this, that out in Siddermorton Park, with the glory of some wonderful world
where there is neither sorrow nor sighing still clinging
to him, on the 4th of August 1895, stood an Angel,
bright and beautiful, talking to the Vicar of Siddermorton about the plurality of worlds. The author
will swear to the Angel, if need be; and there he draws
the line.
~8
"I HAVE," said the Angel, "a most unusual feeling
-here. Have had since sunrise. I don't remember
ever having any feeling-here before."
"Not pain, I hope," said the Vicar.
"Oh, no! It is quite different from that-a kind
of vacuous feeling."
"The atmospheric pressure, perhaps, is a little
different," the Vicar began, feeling his chin.
"And do you know, I have also the most curious
sensations in my mouth-almost as if-it's so absurd!
-as if I wanted to stuff things into it."
"Bless me!" said the Vicar. "Of course! You're
hungry!"
"Hungry!" said the Angel. "What's that?"
"Don't you eat?"
"Eat! The word's quite new to me."
"Put food into your mouth, you know. One has
to here. You will soon learn. If you don't, you get
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thin and miserable, and suffer a great deal-pain, you
know-and finally you die."
"Die!" said the Angel. "That's another strange
word!"
"It's not strange here. It means leaving off, you
know," said the Vicar.
"We never leave off," said the Angel.
"You don't know what may happen to you in this
world," said the Vicar, thinking him over. "Possibly
if you are feeling hungry, and can feel pain and have
your wings broken, you may even have to die before
you get out of it again. At any rate you had better
try eating. For my own part-ahem!-there are
many more disagreeable things."
"I suppose I had better Eat," said the Angel. "If
it's not too difficult. I don't like this 'Pain' of yours,
and I don't like this 'Hungry.' If your 'Die' is anything like it, I would prefer to Eat. What a very odd
world this is!"
"To Die," said the Vicar, "is generally considered
worse than either pain or hunger... It depends."
"You must explain all that to me later," said the
Angel. "Unless I wake up. At present, please show
me how to eat. If you will. I feel a kind of urgency..
"Pardon me," said the Vicar, and offered an elbow.
"If I may have the pleasure of entertaining you.
My house lies yonder-not a couple of miles from
here."
"Your House!" said the Angel a little puzzled; but
he took the Vicar's arm affectionately, and the two,
conversing as they went, waded slowly through the
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luxuriant bracken, sun-mottled under the trees, and
on over the stile in the park palings, and so across
the bee-swarming heather for a mile or more, down
the hillside, home.
You would have been charmed at the couple could
you have seen them. The Angel, slight of figure,
scarcely five feet high, and with a beautiful, almost
effeminate face, such as an Italian old Master might
have painted. (Indeed, there is one in the National
Gallery [Tobias and the Angel, by some artist unknown] not at all unlike him so far as face and spirit
go.) He was robed simply in a purple-wrought
saffron blouse, bare-kneed and bare-footed, with his
wings, broken now, and a leaden grey, folded behind
him. The Vicar was a short, rather stout figure, rubicund, red-haired, clean-shaven, and with bright ruddybrown eyes. He wore a piebald straw hat with a
black ribbon, a very neat white tie, and a fine gold
watch-chain. He was so greatly interested in his
companion that it only occurred to him when he was
in sight of the Vicarage that he had left his gun lying
just where he had dropped it in the bracken.
He was rejoiced to hear that the pain of the bandaged wing fell rapidly in intensity.
~9
LET US be plain. The Angel of this story is the
Angel of Art, not the Angel that one must be irreverent to touch-neither the Angel of religious feeling
nor the Angel of popular belief. The last we all know.
She is alone among the angelic hosts in being dis141




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tinctly feminine: she wears a robe of immaculate, unmitigated white with sleeves, is fair, with long golden
tresses, and has eyes of the blue of Heaven. Just a
pure woman she is, pure maiden or pure matron, in
her robe de nuit, and with wings attached to her
shoulder-blades. Her callings are domestic and sympathetic, she watches over a cradle or assists a sister
soul heavenward. Often she bears a palm-leaf, but
one would not be surprised if one met her carrying a
warming-pan softly to some poor chilly sinner. She
it was who came down in a bevy to Marguerite in
prison, in the amended last scene in Faust at the
Lyceum; and the interesting and improving little children that are to die young, have visions of such angels
in the novels of Mrs. Henry Wood. This white
womanliness with her indescribable charm of lavender-like holiness, her aroma of clean, methodical lives,
is, it would seem after all, a purely Teutonic invention. Latin thought knows her not; the old masters
have none of her. She is of a piece with that gentle
innocent ladylike school of art whereof the greatest
triumph is "a lump in one's throat," and where wit
and passion, scorn and pomp, have no place. The
white angel was made in Germany, in the land of
blonde women and the domestic sentiments. She
comes to us cool and worshipful, pure and tranquil,
as silently soothing as the breadth and calmness of
the starlit sky, which also is so unspeakably dear to
the Teutonic soul.... W. e do her reverence. And
to the angels of the Hebrews, those spirits of power
and mystery, to Raphael, Zadkiel, and Michael, of
whom only Watts has caught the shadow, of whom
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only Blake has seen the splendour, to them too, do
we do reverence.
But this Angel the Vicar shot is, we say, no such
angel at all, but the Angel of Italian art, polychromatic and gay. He comes from the land of beautiful
dreams and not from any holier place. At best he
is a popish creature. Bear patiently, therefore, with
his scattered remiges, and be not hasty with your
charge of irreverence before the story is read.
~ 10
THE Curate's wife and her two daughters and Mrs.
Jehoram were still playing tennis on the lawn behind the Vicar's study, playing keenly and talking in
gasps about paper patterns for blouses. But the
Vicar forgot and came in that way.
They saw the Vicar's hat above the rhododendrons,
and a bare curly head beside him. "I must ask him
about Susan Wiggin," said the Curate's wife. She
was about to serve, and stood with a racket in one
hand and a ball between the fingers of the other.
"He really ought to have gone to see her-being the
Vicar. Not George. I-Ah!"
For the two figures suddenly turned the corner and
were visible. The Vicar, arm in arm withYou see, it came on the Curate's wife suddenly.
The Angel's face being towards her she saw nothing
of the wings. Only a face of unearthly beauty in a
halo of chestnut hair, and a graceful figure clothed in
a saffron garment that barely reached the knees. The
thought of those knees flashed upon the Vicar at
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once. He, too, was horror-struck. So were the two
girls and Mrs. Jehoram. All horror-struck. The
Angel stared in astonishment at the horror-struck
group. You see, he had never seen any one horrorstruck before.
"Mis-ter Hillyer!" said the Curate's wife. "This
is too much!" She stood speechless for a moment.
"Oh!"
She swept round upon the rigid girls. "Come!"
The Vicar opened and shut his voiceless mouth. The
world hummed and spun about him. There was a
whirling of zephyr skirts, four impassioned faces
sweeping towards the open door of the passage that
ran through the Vicarage. He felt his position went
with them.
"Mrs. Mendham," said the Vicar, stepping forward. "Mrs. Mendham. You don't understand   "
"Oh!" they all said again.
One, two, three, four skirts vanished in the doorway. The Vicar staggered half-way across the lawn
and stopped, aghast. "This comes," he heard the
Curate's wife say, out of the depth of the passage,
"of having an unmarried vicar-." The umbrellastand wobbled. The front door of the Vicarage
slammed like a minute-gun. There was silence for a
space.
"I might have thought," he said. "She is always
so hasty."
He put his hand to his chin-a habit with him.
Then turned his face to his companion. The Angel
was evidently wellbred. He was holding up Mrs.
Jehoram's sunshade-she had left it on one of the
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cane chairs-and examining it with extraordinary
interest. He opened it. "What a curious little mechanism!" he said. "What can it be for?"
The Vicar did not answer. The angelic costume certainly was-the Vicar knew it was a case for a French
phrase-but he could scarcely remember it. He so
rarely used French. It was not de trop, he knew.
Anything but de trop. The Angel was de trop, but
certainly not his costume. Ah! Sans culotte!
The Vicar examined his visitor critically-for the
first time. "He will be difficult to explain," he said to
himself softly.
The Angel stuck the sunshade into the turf and
went to smell the sweet-brier. The sunshine fell upon
his brown hair and gave it almost the appearance of
a halo. He pricked his finger. "Odd!" he said.
"Pain again."
"Yes," said the Vicar, thinking aloud. "He's very
beautiful and curious as he is. I should like him best
so. But I am afraid I must."
He approached the Angel with a nervous cough.
~ 11
"THOSE," said the Vicar, "were ladies."
"How grotesque," said the Angel, smiling and
smelling the sweet-brier. "And such quaint shapes!"
"Possibly," said the Vicar. "Did you, ahem, notice
how they behaved?"
"They went away. Seemed, indeed, to run away.
Frightened? I, of course, was frightened at things
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without wings. I hope-they were not frightened at
my wings?"
"At your appearance generally," said the Vicar,
glancing involuntarily at the pink feet.
"Dear me! It never occurred to me. I suppose I
seemed as odd to them as you did to me." He glanced
down. "And my feet. You have hoofs like a hippogriff."
"Boots," corrected the Vicar.
"Boots, you call them! But, anyhow, I am sorry
I alarmed   "
"You see," said the Vicar, stroking his chin, "our
ladies, ahem, have peculiar views-rather inartistic
views-about, ahem, clothing. Dressed as you are, I
am afraid, I am really afraid that-beautiful as your
costume certainly is-you will find yourself somewhat, ahem, somewhat isolated in society. We have
a little proverb: 'When in Rome, ahem, one must do
as the Romans do.' I can assure you that, assuming
you are desirous to, ahem, associate with us-during
your involuntary stay  "
The Angel retreated a step or so as the Vicar came
nearer and nearer in his attempt to be diplomatic
and confidential. The beautiful face grew perplexed.
"I don't quite understand. Why do you keep making]those noises in your throat? Is it Die or Eat, or
any of those....
"As your host," interrupted the Vicar, and stopped.
"As my host," said the Angel.
"Would you object, pending more permanent
arrangements, to invest yourself, ahem, in a suit, an
entirely new suit I may say, like this I have on?"
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"Oh!" said the Angel. He retreated so as to take
in the Vicar from top to toe. "Wear clothes like
yours!" he said. He was puzzled but amused. His
eyes grew round and bright, his mouth 'puckered at
the corners.
"Delightful!" he said, clapping his hands together.
"What a mad, quaint dream this is! Where are
they?" He caught at the neck of the saffron robe.
"Indoors!" said the Vicar. "This way. We will
change-indoors!"
~ 12
So the Angel was invested in a pair of nether garments of the Vicar's, a shirt, ripped down the back
to accommodate the wings, socks, shoes-the Vicar's
dress shoes-collar, tie, and light overcoat. But putting on the latter was painful, and reminded the
Vicar that the bandaging was temporary. "I will
ring for tea at once, and send Grummet down for
Crump," said the Vicar.  "And dinner shall be
earlier." While the Vicar shouted his orders over
the landing rails, the Angel surveyed himself in the
cheval-glass with immense delight. If he was a
stranger to pain, he was evidently no strangerthanks perhaps to dreaming-to the pleasure of incongruity.
They had tea in the drawing-room. The Angel sat
on the music-stool (music-stool because of his wings).
At first he wanted to lie on the hearth-rug. He
looked much less radiant in the Vicar's clothes than
he had done upon the moor when dressed in saffron.
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His face shone still, the colour of his hair and cheeks
was strangely bright, and there was a superhuman
light in his eyes, but his wings under the overcoat
gave him the appearance of a hunchback. The garments, indeed, made quite a terrestrial thing of him,
the trousers were puckered transversely, and the
shoes a size or so too large.
He was charmingly affable and quite ignorant of
the most elementary facts of civilisation. Eating
came without much difficulty, and the Vicar had an
entertaining time teaching him how to take tea.
"What a mess it is! What a dear grotesque ugly
world you live in!" said the Angel. "Fancy stuffing
things into your mouth! We use our mouths just to
talk and sing with. Our world, you know, is almost
incurably beautiful. We get so very little ugliness,
that I find all this... delightful."
Mrs. Hinijer, the Vicar's housekeeper, looked at
the Angel suspiciously when she brought in the tea.
She thought him rather a "queer customer." What
she would have thought had she seen him in saffron
no one can tell.
The Angel shuffled about the room with his cup of
tea in one hand, and the bread and butter in the
other, and examined the Vicar's furniture. Outside
the French windows, the lawn with its array of dahlias
and sunflowers glowed in the warm sunlight, and Mrs.
Jehoram's sunshade stood thereon like a triangle of
fire. He thought the Vicar's portrait over the mantel very curious indeed, could not understand what it
was there for. "You have yourself round," he said,
apropos of the portrait, "why want yourself flat?"
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and he was vastly amused at the glass fire-screen.
He found the oak chairs odd. "You're not square,
are you?" he said, when the Vicar explained their
use. "We never double ourselves up. We lie about
on the asphodel when we want to rest."
"The chair," said the Vicar, "to tell you the truth,
has always puzzled me. It dates, I think, from the
days when the floors were cold and very dirty. I
suppose we have kept up the habit. It's become a
kind of instinct with us to sit on chairs. Anyhow, if I
went to see one of my parishioners, and suddenly
spread myself out on the floor-the natural way of it
-I don't know what she would do. It would be all
over the parish in no time. Yet it seems the natural
method of reposing, to recline. The Greeks and
Romans       "
"What is this?" said the Angel abruptly.
"That's a stuffed kingfisher. I killed it."
"Killed it!"
"Shot it," said the Vicar, "with a gun."
"Shot! As you did me?"
"I didn't kill you, you see. Fortunately."
"Is killing making like that?"
"In a way."
"Dear me! And you wanted to make me like
that-wanted to put glass eyes in me and string me
up in a glass case full of ugly green and brown
stuff?"
"You see," began the Vicar, "I scarcely understood    "
"Is that 'die'?" asked the Angel suddenly.
"That is dead; it died."
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"Poor little thing. I must eat a lot. But you say
you killed it. Why?"
"You see," said the Vicar, "I take an interest in
birds, and I (ahem) collect them. I wanted the
specimen —
The Angel stared at him for a moment with puzzled
eyes. "A beautiful bird like that!" he said with a
shiver. "Because the fancy took you. You wanted
the specimen!"
He thought for a minute. "Do you often kill?" he
asked the Vicar.
~ 13
THEN Dr. Crump arrived. Grummet had met him
not a hundred yards from the Vicarage gate. He was
a large, rather heavy-looking man, with a cleanshaven face and a double chin. He was dressed in a
grey morning coat (he always affected grey), with a
chequered black-and-white tie. "What's the trouble?" he said, entering and staring without a shadow
of surprise at the Angel's radiant face.
"This-ahem-gentleman," said the Vicar, "orah-Angel"-the Angel bowed-"is suffering from
a gunshot wound."
"Gunshot wound!" said Dr. Crump. "In July!
May I look at it, Mr.-Angel, I think you said?"
"He will probably be able to assuage your pain,"
said the Vicar. "Let me assist you to remove your
coat?"
The Angel turned obediently.
"Spinal curvature?" muttered Dr. Crump quite
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audibly, walking round behind the Angel. "No! abnormal growth. Hullo! This is odd!" He clutched
the left wing. "Curious," he said. "Reduplication of
the anterior limb-bifid coracoid. Possible, of course,
but I've never seen it before." The Angel winced
under his hands.  "Humerus. Radius and Ulna.
All there. Congenital, of course. Humerus broken.
Curious integumentary simulation of feathers. Dear
me. Almost avian. Probably of considerable interest in comparative anatomy. I never did! How
did this gunshot happen, Mr. Angel?"
The Vicar was amazed at the Doctor's matter-offact manner.
"Our friend," said the Angel, moving his head at
the Vicar.
"Unhappily it is my doing," said the Vicar, stepping forward, explanatory. "I mistook the gentleman-the Angel (ahem)-for a large bird-"
"Mistook him for a large bird! What next?
Your eyes want seeing to," said Dr. Crump. "I've
told you so before." He went on patting and feeling,
keeping time with a series of grunts and inarticulate
mutterings...  "But this is really a very good bit
of amateur bandaging," said he. "I think I shall leave
it. Curious malformation this is! Don't you find it
inconvenient, Mr. Angel?"
He suddenly walked round so as to look in the
Angel's face.
The Angel thought he referred to the wound. "It
is rather," he said.
"If it wasn't for the bones I should say paint with
iodine night and morning. Nothing like iodine.
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You could paint your face flat with it. But the
osseous outgrowth, the bones, you know, complicate
things. I could saw them off, of course. It's not a
thing one should have done in a hurry"Do you mean my wings?" said the Angel in
alarm.
"Wings!" said the Doctor.  "Eigh? Call 'em
wings! Yes-what else should I mean?"
"Saw them off!" said the Angel.
"Don't you think so? It's of course your affair.
I am only advising —"
"Saw them off! What a funny creature you are!"
said the Angel, beginning to laugh.
"As you will," said the Doctor. He detested people who laughed. "The things are curious," he said,
turning to the Vicar. "If inconvenient"-to the
Angel. "I never heard of such complete reduplication
before-at least among animals. In plants it's common enough. Were you the only one in your
family?" He did not wait for a reply. "Partial
cases of the fission of limbs are not at all uncommon, of course, Vicar-six-fingered children,
calves with six feet, and cats with double toes, you
know. May I assist you?" he said, turning to the
Angel who was struggling with the coat. "But such
a complete reduplication, and so avian, too! It
would be much less remarkable if it was simply another pair of arms."
The coat was got on and he and the Angel stared
at one another.
"Really," said the Doctor, "one begins to understand how that beautiful myth of the angels arose.
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You look a little hectic, Mr. Angel-feverish. Excessive brilliance is almost worse as a symptom than
excessive pallor. Curious your name should be
Angel. I must send you a cooling draught, if you
should feel thirsty in the night.. "
He made a memorandum on his shirt cuff. The
Angel watched him thoughtfully, with the dawn of a
smile in his eyes.
"One minute, Crump," said the Vicar, taking the
Doctor's arm and leading him towards the door.
The Angel's smile grew brighter. He looked down
at his black-clad legs. "He positively thinks I am a
man!" said the Angel. "What he makes of the wings
beats me altogether. What a queer creature he must
be! This is really a most extraordinary dream!"
~ 14
"THAT is an Angel," whispered the Vicar. "You
don't understand."
"What?" said the Doctor in a quick, sharp voice.
His eyebrows went up and he smiled.
"But the wings?"
"Quite natural, quite... if a little abnormal."
"Are you sure they are natural?"
"My dear fellow, everything that is, is natural.
There is nothing unnatural in the world. If I thought
there was I should give up practice and go into La
Grande Chartreuse. There are abnormal phenomena,
of course. And-"
"But the way I came upon him," said the Vicar.
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"Yes, tell me where you picked him up," said the
Doctor. He sat down on the hall table.
The Vicar began rather hesitatingly-he was not
very good at story-telling-with the rumours of a
strange great bird. He told the story in clumsy
sentences-for, knowing the Bishop as he did, with
that awful example always before him he dreaded
getting his pulpit style into his daily conversationand at every third sentence or so, the Doctor made a
downward movement of his head-the corners of his
mouth tucked away, so to speak-as though he ticked
off the phases of the story and so far found it just as
it ought to be. "Self-hypnotism," he murmured once.
"I beg your pardon?" said the Vicar.
"Nothing," said the Doctor. "Nothing, I assure
you. Go on. This is extremely interesting."
The Vicar told him he went out with his gun.
"After lunch, I think you said?" interrupted the
Doctor.
"Immediately after," said the Vicar.
"You should not do such things, you know. But
go on, please."
He came to the glimpse of the Angel from the gate.
"In the full glare," said the Doctor, in parenthesis.
"It was seventy-nine in the shade."
When the Vicar had finished, the Doctor pressed
his lips together tighter than ever, smiled faintly, and
looked significantly into the Vicar's eyes.
"You don't..." began the Vicar falteringly.
The Doctor shook his head. "Forgive me," he
said, putting his hand on the Vicar's arm.
"You go out," he said, "on a hot lunch and on a
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hot afternoon. Probably over eighty. Your mind,
what there is of it, is whirling with avian expectations.
I say, 'what there is of it,' because most of your nervous energy is down there, digesting your dinner. A
man who has been lying in the bracken stands up before you and you blaze away. Over he goes-and as
it happens-as it happens-he has reduplicate fore
limbs, one pair being not unlike wings. It's a coincidence certainly. And as for his iridescent colours
and so forth- Have you never had patches of
colour swim before your eyes before, on a brilliant
sunlit day?... Are you sure they were confined
to the wings? Think."
"But he says he is an Angel!" said the Vicar,
staring out of his little round eyes, his plump hands
in his pockets.
"Ah!" said the Doctor with his eye on the Vicar.
"I expected as much." He paused.
"But don't you think.." began the Vicar.
"That man," said the Doctor in a low, earnest
voice, "is a mattoid."
"A what?" said the Vicar.
"A mattoid. An abnormal man. Did you notice
the effeminate delicacy of his face? His tendency to
quite unmeaning laughter? His neglected hair?
Then consider his singular dress...."
The Vicar's hand went up to his chin.
"Marks of mental weakness," said the Doctor.
"Many of this type of degenerate show this same
disposition to assume some vast mysterious credentials. One will call himself the Prince of Wales, another the Archangel Gabriel, another the Deity even.
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Ibsen thinks he is a Great Teacher, and Maeterlinck
a new Shakespeare. I've just been reading all about
it-in Nordau. No doubt his odd deformity gave
him an idea...
"But really," began the Vicar.
"No doubt he's slipped away from confinement."
"I do not altogether accept..."
"You will. If not, there's the police, and failing
that, advertisement; but of course his people may
want to hush it up. It's a sad thing in a family...."
"He seems so altogether.."
"Probably you'll hear from his friends in a day or
so," said the Doctor, feeling for his watch. "He can't
live far from here, I should think. He seems harmless enough. I must come along and see that wing
again to-morrow." He slid off the hall table and stood
up.
"Those old wives' tales still have their hold on
you," he said, patting the Vicar on the shoulder.
"But an Angel, you know- Ha, ha!"
"I certainly did think..." said the Vicar dubiously.
"Weigh the evidence," said the Doctor, still
fumbling at his watch. "Weigh the evidence with
our instruments of precision. What does it leave
you? Splashes of colour, spots of fancy-muscce
volantes."
"And yet," said the Vicar, "I could almost swear
to the glory on his wings...."
"Think it over," said the Doctor (watch out);
"hot afternoon-brilliant sunshine-boiling down on
your head...  But really I must be going. It is
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a quarter to five. I'll see your-Angel (ha, ha!) tomorrow again, if no one has been to fetch him in the
meanwhile. Your bandaging was really very good.
I flatter myself on that score. Our ambulance classes
were a success, you see.... Good afternoon."
~ 15
THE Vicar opened the door half mechanically to
let out Crump, and saw Mendham, his curate, coming up the pathway by the hedge of purple vetch
and meadowsweet. At that his hand went up to his
chin and his eyes grew perplexed. Suppose he was
deceived. The Doctor passed the Curate with a
sweep of his hand from his hat brim. Crump was an
extraordinarily clever fellow, the Vicar thought, and
knew far more of one's brain than one did oneself.
The Vicar felt that acutely. It made the coming explanation difficult. Suppose he were to go back into
the drawing-room and find just a tramp asleep on
the hearth-rug.
Mendham was a cadaverous man with a magnificent beard. He looked, indeed, as though he had
run to beard as a mustard plant does to seed. But
when he spoke you found he had a voice as well.
"My wife came home in a dreadful state," he
brayed out at long range.
"Come in," said the Vicar; "come in. Most remarkable occurrence. Please come in. Come into
the study. I'm really dreadfully sorry. But when I
explain.."
"And apologise, I hope," brayed the Curate.
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"And apologise. No, not that way. This way.
The study."
"Now what was that woman?" said the Curate,
turning on the Vicar as the latter closed the study
door.
"What woman?"
"Pah!"
"But really!"
"The painted creature in light attire-disgustingly
light attire, to speak freely-with whom you were
promenading the garden."
"My dear Mendham-that was an Angel!"
"A very pretty Angel?"
"The world is getting so matter-of-fact," said the
Vicar.
"The world," roared the Curate, "grows blacker
every day. But to find a man in your position,
shamelessly, openly..."
"Bother!" said the Vicar aside. He rarely swore.
"Look here, Mendham, you really misunderstand. I
can assure you..
"Very well," said the Curate. "Explain!" He
stood with his lank legs apart, his arms folded, scowling at his Vicar over his big beard.
(Explanations, I repeat, I have always considered
the peculiar fallacy of this scientific age.)
The Vicar looked about him helplessly. The world
had all gone dull and dead. Had he been dreaming
all the afternoon? Was there really an angel in the
drawing-room? Or was he the sport of a complicated
hallucination?
"Well?" said Mendham, at the end of a minute.
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The Vicar's hand fluttered about his chin. "It's
such a round-about story," he said.
"No doubt it will be," said Mendham harshly.
The Vicar restrained a movement of impatience.
"I went out to look for a strange bird this afternoon...    Do you believe in angels, Mendham,
real angels?"
"I'm not here to discuss theology. I am the husband of an insulted woman."
"But I tell you it's not a figure of speech; this is an
angel, a real angel with wings. He's in the next room
now. You do misunderstand me so..."
"Really, Hillyer- "
"It is true, I tell you, Mendham. I swear it is
true." The Vicar's voice grew impassioned. "What
sin I have done that I should entertain and clothe
angelic visitants, I don't know. I only know thatinconvenient as it undoubtedly will be-I have an
angel now in the drawing-room, wearing my new suit
and finishing his tea. And he's stopping with me,
indefinitely, at my invitation. No doubt it was rash
of me. But I can't turn him out, you know, because
Mrs. Mendham- I may be a weakling, but I am
still a gentleman."
"Really, Hillyer-  "
"I can assure you it is true." There was a note of
hysterical desperation in the Vicar's voice. "I fired
at him, taking him for a flamingo, and hit him in the
wing."
"I thought this was a case for the Bishop. I find
it is a case for the Lunacy Commissioners."
"Come and see him, Mendham!"
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"But there are no angels."
"We teach the people differently," said the Vicar.
"Not as material bodies," said the Curate.
"Anyhow, come and see him."
"I don't want to see your hallucinations," began
the Curate.
"I can't explain anything unless you come and see
him," said the Vicar. "A man who's more like an
angel than anything else in heaven or earth. You
simply must see if you wish to understand."
"I don't wish to understand," said the Curate.
"I don't wish to lend myself to any imposture.
Surely, Hillyer, if this is not an imposition, you can
tell me yourself.... Flamingo, indeed!"
~ 16
THE Angel had finished his tea and was standing
looking pensively out of the window. He thought
the old church down the valley lit by the light of the
setting sun was very beautiful, but he could not understand the serried ranks of tombstones that lay up
the hillside beyond. He turned as Mendham and
the Vicar came in.
Now Mendham could bully his Vicar cheerfully
enough, just as he could bully his congregation; but
he was not the sort of man to bully a stranger. He
looked at the Angel, and the "strange woman" theory
was disposed of. The Angel's beauty was too clearly
the beauty of a youth.
"Mr. Hillyer tells me," Mendham began, in an al160




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most apologetic tone, "that you-ah —it's so curious
-claim to be an Angel."
"Are an Angel," said the Vicar.
The Angel bowed.
"Naturally," said Mendham, "we are curious."
"Very," said the Angel. "The blackness and the
shape."
"I beg your pardon?" said Mendham.
"The blackness and the flaps," repeated the Angel;
"and no wings."
"Precisely," said Mendham, who was altogether
at a loss. "We are, of course, curious to know something of how you came into the village in such a peculiar costume."
The Angel looked at the Vicar. The Vicar touched
his chin.
"You see," began the Vicar.
"Let him explain," said Mendham; "I beg."
"I wanted to suggest," began the Vicar.
"And I don't want you to suggest."
"Bother!" said the Vicar.
The Angel looked from one to the other. "Such
rugose expressions flit across your faces!" he said.
"You see, Mr.-Mr.-I don't know your name,"
said Mendham, with a certain diminution of suavity.
"The case stands thus: My wife-four ladies, I might
say-are playing lawn-tennis, when you suddenly rush
out on them, sir; you rush out on them from among
the rhododendra in a very defective costume. You
and Mr. Hillyer."
"But I-" said the Vicar.
"I know. It was this gentleman's costume was
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defective. Naturally-it is my place in fact-to demand an explanation." His voice was growing in volume. "And I must demand an explanation."
The Angel smiled faintly at his note of anger and
his sudden attitude of determination-arms tightly
folded.
"I am rather new to the world," the Angel began.
"Nineteen at least," said Mendham. "Old enough
to know better. That's a poor excuse."
"May I ask one question first?" said the Angel.
"Well?"
"Do you think I am a Man-like yourself? As
the chequered man did."
"If you are not a man  "
"One other question. Have you never heard of an
Angel?"
"I warn you not to try that story upon me,"
said Mendham, now back at his familiar crescendo.
The Vicar interrupted: "But Mendham-he has
wings!"
"Please let me talk to him," said Mendham.
"You are so quaint," said the Angel; "you interrupt everything I have to say."
"But what have you to say?" said Mendham.
"That I really am an Angel...."
"Pshaw!"
"There you go!"
"But tell me, honestly, how you came to be in
the shrubbery of Siddermorton Vicarage-in the
state in which you were. And in the Vicar's company? Cannot you abandon this ridiculous story of
yours?..
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The Angel shrugged his wings.  "What is the
matter with this man?" he said to the Vicar.
"My dear Mendham," said the Vicar, "a few words
from me..."
"Surely my question is straightforward enough!"
"But you won't tell me the answer you want, and
it's no good my telling you any other."
"Pshaw!" said the Curate again. And then turning suddenly on the Vicar: "Where does he come
from?"
The Vicar was in a dreadful state of doubt by this
time.
"He says he is an Angel!" said the Vicar. "Why
don't you listen to him?"
"No angel would alarm four ladies...."
"Is that what it is all about?" said the Angel.
"Enough cause, too, I should think!" said the
Curate.
"But I really did not know," said the Angel.
"This is altogether too much!"
"I am sincerely sorry I alarmed those ladies."
"You ought to be. But I see I shall get nothing
out of you two." Mendham went towards the door.
"I am convinced there is something discreditable at
the bottom of this business. Or why not tell a simple straightforward story? I will confess you puzzle
me. Why, in this enlightened age, you should tell
this fantastic, this far-fetched story of an angel, altogether beats me. What good can it do?.. "
"But stop and look at his wings!" said the Vicar.
"I can assure you he has wings!"
Mendham had his fingers on the door-handle. "I
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have seen quite enough," he said. "It may be this
is simply a foolish attempt at a hoax, Hillyer."
"But Mendham!" said the Vicar.
The Curate halted in the doorway and looked at
the Vicar over his shoulder. The accumulating judgment of months found vent. "I cannot understand,
Hillyer, why you are in the Church. For the life of
me, I cannot. The air is full of Social Movements, of
Economic Change, the Woman Movement, Rational
Dress, The Reunion of Christendom, Socialism, Individualism-all the great and moving Questions of the
Hour! Surely, we who follow the Great Reformer.. And here you are stuffing birds, and startling
ladies with your callous disregard...."
"But Mendham," began the Vicar.
The Curate would not hear him. "You shame the
Apostles with your levity.... But this is only a
preliminary inquiry," he said, with a threatening note
in his sonorous voice, and so vanished abruptly (with
a violent slam) from the room.
~ 17
"ARE all men so odd as this?" said the Angel.
"I'm in such a difficult position," said the Vicar.
"You see," he said, and stopped, searching his chin
for an idea.
"I'm beginning to see," said the Angel.
"They won't believe it."
"I see that."
"They will think I tell lies."
"And?"
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"That will be extremely painful to me."
"Painful!... Pain," said the Angel. "I hope
not."
The Vicar shook his head. The good report of the
village had been the breath of his life so far. "You
see," he said, "it would look so much more plausible
if you said you were just a man."
"But I'm not," said the Angel.
"No, you're not," said the Vicar. "So that's no
good."
"Nobody here, you know, has ever seen an angel,
or heard of one-except in church. If you had made
your debut in the chancel-on Sunday-it might have
been different. But that's too late now....
(Bother!) Nobody, absolutely nobody, will believe in
you.
"I hope I am not inconveniencing you?"
"Not at all," said the Vicar; "not at all. OnlyNaturally it may be inconvenient if you tell a too
incredible story. If I might suggest (ahem) "
"Well?"
"You see, people in the world, being men themselves, will almost certainly regard you as a man. If
you say you are not, they will simply say you do not
tell the truth. Only exceptional people appreciate
the exceptional. When in Rome one must-well, respect Roman prejudices a little-talk Latin. You
will find it better-  "
"You propose I should feign to become a man?"
"You have my meaning at once."
The Angel stared at the Vicar's hollyhocks and
thought.
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"Possibly, after all," he said slowly, "I shall become a man. I may have been too hasty in saying I
was not. You say there are no angels in this world.
Who am I to set myself up against your experience?
A mere thing of a day-so far as this world goes. If
you say there are no angels-clearly I must be something else. I eat-angels do not eat. I may be a
man already."
"A convenient view, at any rate," said the Vicar.
"If it is convenient to you  "
"It is. And then to account for your presence
here.
"If," said the Vicar, after a hesitating moment of
reflection, "if, for instance, you had been an ordinary
man with a weakness for wading, and you had gone
wading in the Sidder, and your clothes had been
stolen, for instance, and I had come upon you in that
position of inconvenience, the explanation I shall have
to make to Mrs. Mendham-would be shorn at least
of the supernatural element. There is such a feeling
against the supernatural element nowadays-even in
the pulpit. You would hardly believe ---"
"It's a pity that was not the case," said the Angel.
"Of course," said the Vicar. "It is a great pity
that was not the case. But at any rate you will
oblige me if you do not obtrude your angelic nature.
You will oblige every one, in fact. There is a settled
opinion that angels do not do this kind of thing. And
nothing is more painful-as I can testify-than a decaying settled opinion.... Settled opinions are
mental teeth in more ways than one. For my own
part,"-the Vicar's hand passed over his eyes for a
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moment-"I cannot but believe you are an angel....Surely I can believe my own eyes."
"We always do ours," said the Angel.
"And so do we, within limits."
Then the clock upon the mantel chimed seven,
and almost simultaneously Mrs. Hinijer announced
dinner.
~ 18
THE Angel and the Vicar sat at dinner. The Vicar,
with his napkin tucked in at his neck, watched the
Angel struggling with his soup. "You will soon get
into the way of it," said the Vicar. The knife-andfork business was done awkwardly but with effect.
The Angel looked furtively at Delia, the little waiting-maid. When presently they sat cracking nutswhich the Angel found congenial enough-and the
girl had gone, the Angel asked: "Was that a lady
too?"
"Well," said the Vicar (crack). "No-she is not
a lady. She is a servant."
"Yes," said the Angel; "she had rather a nicer
shape."
"You mustn't tell Mrs. Mendham that," said the
Vicar, covertly satisfied.
"She didn't stick out so much at the shoulders and
hips, and there was more of her in between. And the
colour of her robes was not discordant-simply neutral. And her face —"
"Mrs. Mendham and her daughters had been playing tennis," said the Vicar, feeling he ought not to
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listen to detraction even of his mortal enemy. "Do
you like these things-these nuts?"
"Very much," said the Angel. Crack.
"You see," said the Vicar (chum, chum, chum),
"for my own part I entirely believe you are an
angel."
"Yes!" said the Angel.
"I shot you-I saw you flutter. It's beyond dispute. In my own mind. I admit it's curious and
against my preconceptions, but-practically-I'm
assured, perfectly assured in fact, that I saw what I
certainly did see. But after the behaviour of these
people. (Crack.) I really don't see how we are to
persuade people. Nowadays people are so very particular about evidence. So that I think there is a
great deal to be said for the attitude you assume.
Temporarily at least I think it would be best for you
to do as you propose to do, and behave as a man as
far as possible. Of course there is no knowing how
or when you may go back. After what has happened
(gluck, gluck, gluck-as the Vicar refills his glass)after what has happened I should not be surprised to
see the side of the room fall away, and the hosts of
Heaven appear to take you away again-take us both
away even. You have so far enlarged my imagination. All these years I have been forgetting Wonderland. But still- It will certainly be wiser to break
the thing gently to them."
"This life of yours," said the Angel. "I'm still in
the dark about it. How do you begin?"
"Dear me!" said the Vicar. "Fancy having to explain that! We begin existence here, you know, as
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babies, silly pink helpless things wrapped in white,
with goggling eyes, that yelp dismally at the Font.
Then these babies grow larger and become even beautiful-when their faces are washed. And they continue to grow to a certain size. They become children,
boys and girls, youths and maidens (crack), young
men and young women. That is the finest time in life,
according to many-certainly the most beautiful.
Full of great hopes and dreams, vague emotions and
unexpected dangers."
"That was a maiden?" said the Angel, indicating
the door through which Delia had disappeared.
"Yes," said the Vicar, "that was a maiden." And
paused thoughtfully.
"And then?"
"Then," said the Vicar, "the glamour fades and
life begins in earnest. The young men and young
women pair off-most of them. They come to me shy
and bashful, in smart ugly dresses, and I marry them.
And then little pink babies come to them, and some
of the youths and maidens that were, grow fat and
vulgar, and some grow thin and shrewish, and their
pretty complexions go, and they get a queer delusion
of superiority over the younger people, and all the
delight and glory goes out of their lives. So they call
the delight and glory of the younger ones, llusion.
And then they begin to drop to pieces."
"Drop to pieces!" said the Angel. "How grotesque!"
"Their hair comes off and gets dull coloured or
ashen grey," said the Vicar. "I, for instance." He
bowed his head forward to show a circular shining
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patch the size of a florin. "And their teeth come out.
Their faces collapse and become as wrinkled and dry
as a shrivelled apple. 'Corrugated' you called mine.
They care more and more for what they have to eat
and to drink, and less and less for any of the other delights of life. Their limbs get loose in the joints,
and their hearts slack, or little pieces from their lungs
come coughing up. Pain..."
"Ah!" said the Angel.
"Pain comes into their lives more and more. And
then they go. They do not like to go, but they have
to-out of this world, very reluctantly, clutching its
pain at last in their eagerness to stop...."
"Where do they go?"
"Once I thought I knew. But now I am older I
know I do not know. We have a Legend-perhaps
it is not a legend. One may be a churchman and disbelieve. Stokes says there is nothing in it...."
The Vicar shook his head at the bananas.
"And you?" said the Angel. "Were you a little
pink baby?"
"A little while ago I was a little pink baby."
"Were you robed then as you are now?"
"Oh, no! Dear me! What a queer idea! Had
long white clothes, I suppose, like the rest of them."
"And then you were a little boy?"
"A little boy."
"And then a glorious youth?"
"I was not a very glorious youth, I am afraid. I
was sickly, and too poor to be radiant, and with a
timid heart. I studied hard and pored over the dying
thoughts of men long dead. So I lost the glory, and
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no maiden came to me, and the dulness of life began
too soon."
"And you have your little pink babies?"
"None," said the Vicar with a scarce perceptible
pause. "Yet all the same, as you see, I am beginning
to drop to pieces. Presently my back will droop like
a wilting flowerstalk. And then, in a few thousand
days more I shall be done with, and I shall go out of
this world of mine.... Whither I do not know."
"And you have to eat like this every day?"
"Eat, and get clothes and keep this roof above me.
There are some very disagreeable things in this world
called Cold and Rain. And the other people herehow and why is too long a story-have made me a
kind of chorus to their lives. They bring their little
pink babies to me and I have to say a name and some
other things over each new pink baby. And when the
children have grown to be youths and maidens, they
come again and are confirmed. You will understand
that better later. Then before they may join in
couples and have pink babies of their own, they must
come again and hear me read out of a book. They
would be outcast, and no other maiden would speak
to the maiden who had a little pink baby without I
had read over her for twenty minutes out of my book.
It's a necessary thing, as you will see. Odd as it may
seem to you. And afterwards when they are falling
"to pieces, I try and persuade them of a strange world
in which I scarcely believe myself, where life is altogether different from what they have had-or desire.
And in the end, I bury them, and read out of my book
to those who will presently follow into the unknown
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land. I stand at the beginning, and at the zenith,
and at the setting of their lives. And on every seventh day, I who am a man myself, I who see no further
than they do, talk to them of the Life to Come-the
life of which we know nothing. If such a life there be.
And slowly I drop to pieces amidst my prophesying."
"What a strange life!" said the Angel.
"Yes," said the Vicar. "What a strange life! But
the thing that makes it strange to me is new. I had
taken it as a matter of course until you came into my
life.
"This life of ours is so insistent," said the Vicar.
"It, and its petty needs, its temporary pleasures
(crack) swathe our souls about. While I am preaching to these people of mine of another life, some are
ministering to one appetite and eating sweets, others
-the old men-are slumbering, the youths glance at
the maidens, the grown men protrude white waistcoats and gold chains, pomp and vanity on a substratum of carnal substance, their wives flaunt garish
bonnets at one another. And I go on droning away of
the things unseen and unrealised-'Eye hath not
seen,' I read, 'nor ear heard, nor hath it entered into
the imagination of man to conceive,' and I look up to
catch an adult male immortal admiring the fit of a
pair of three-and-sixpenny gloves. It is damping
year after year. When I was ailing in my youth I
felt almost the assurance of vision that beneath
this temporary phantasmal world was the real world
-the enduring world of the Life Everlasting. But
now —
He glanced at his chubby white hand, fingering
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the stem of his glass. "I have put on flesh since then,"
he said. [Pause.]
"I have changed and developed very much. The
battle of the Flesh and Spirit does not trouble me as
it did. Every day I feel less confidence in my beliefs,
and more in God. I live, I am afraid, a quiescent
life, duties fairly done, a little ornithology and a little
chess, a trifle of mathematical trifling. My times are
in His hands   "
The Vicar sighed and became pensive. The Angel
watched him, and the Angel's eyes were troubled with
the puzzle of him. "Gluck, gluck, gluck," went the
decanter as the Vicar refilled his glass.
~19
So the Angel dined and talked to the Vicar, and
presently the night came and he was overtaken by
yawning.
"Yah-oh!" said the Angel suddenly. "Dear me!
A higher power seemed suddenly to stretch my mouth
open and a great breath of air went rushing down my
throat."
"You yawned," said the Vicar. "Do you never
yawn in the angelic country?"
"Never," said the Angel.
"And yet you are immortal!-I suppose you want
to go to bed."
"Bed!" said the Angel. "Where's that?"
So the Vicar explained darkness to him and the art
of going to bed. (The Angels it seems sleep only in
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order to dream, and dream, like primitive man, with
their foreheads on their knees. And they sleep
among the white poppy meadows in the heat of the
day.) The Angel found the bedroom arrangements
quaint enough.
"Why is everything raised up on big wooden legs?"
he said. "You have the floor, and then you put everything you have upon a wooden quadruped. Why do
you do it?" The Vicar explained with philosophical
vagueness. The Angel burned his finger in the candleflame-and displayed an absolute ignorance of the
elementary principles of combustion. He was merely
charmed when a line of fire ran up the curtains. The
Vicar had to deliver a lecture on fire so soon as the
flame was extinguished. He had all kinds of explanations to make-even the soap needed explaining. It
was an hour or more before the Angel was safely
tucked in for the night.
"He's very beautiful," said the Vicar, descending
the staircase, quite tired out; "and he's a real angel
no doubt. But I am afraid he will be a dreadful
anxiety, all the same, before he gets into our earthly
way with things."
He seemed quite worried. He helped himself to
an extra glass of sherry before he put away the wine
in the cellaret.
~ 20
THE Curate stood in front of the looking-glass and
solemnly divested himself of his collar.
"I never heard a more fantastic story," said Mrs.
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Mendham from the basket chair. "The man must be
mad. Are you sure-   "
"Perfectly, my dear. I've told you every word,
every incident-"
"Well!" said Mrs. Mendham, and spread her
hands. "There's no sense in it."
"Precisely, my dear."
"The Vicar," said Mrs. Mendham, "must be
mad."
"This hunchback is certainly one of the strangest
creatures I've seen for a long time. Foreign looking,
with a big bright-coloured face and long brown hair.. It can't have been cut for months!" The Curate put his studs carefully upon the shelf of the
dressing-table. "And a kind of staring look about his
eyes, and a simpering smile. Quite a silly-looking
person. Effeminate."
"But who can he be?" said Mrs. Mendham.
"I can't imagine, my dear. Nor where he came
from. He might be a chorister or something of that
sort."
"But why should he be about the shrubbery
in that dreadful costume?"
"I don't know. The Vicar gave me no explanation. He simply said, 'Mendham, this is an Angel.'"
"I wonder if he drinks.... They may have been
bathing near the spring, of course," reflected Mrs.
Mendham. "But I noticed no other clothes on his
arm.
The Curate sat down on his bed and unlaced his
boots.
"It's a perfect mystery to me, my dear." (Flick,
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flick of laces.) "Hallucination is the only charitable- "
"You are sure, George, that it was not a woman."
"Perfectly," said the Curate.
"I know what men are, of course."
"It was a young man of nineteen or twenty," said
the Curate.
"I can't understand it," said Mrs. Mendham.
"You say the creature is staying at the Vicarage?"
"Hillyer is simply mad," said the Curate. He got
up and went padding round the room to the door to
put out his boots. "To judge by his manner you
would really think he believed this cripple was an
angel. Are your shoes out, dear?"
"They're just by the wardrobe," said Mrs. Mendham. "He always was a little queer, you know.
There was always something childish about him....
An angel!
The Curate came and stood by the fire, fumbling
with his braces. Mrs. Mendham liked a fire even in
the summer. "He shirks all the serious problems in
life and is always trifling with some new foolishness,"
said the Curate. "Angel, indeed!" He laughed suddenly. "Hillyer must be mad," he said.
Mrs. Mendham laughed too. "Even that doesn't
explain the hunchback," she said.
"The hunchback must be mad, too," said the
Curate.
"It's the only way of explaining it in a sensible
way," said Mrs. Mendham. [Pause.]
"Angel or no angel," said Mrs. Mendham, "I
know what is due to me. Even supposing the man
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thought he was in the company of an angel, that is no
reason why he should not behave like a gentleman."
"That is perfectly true."
"You will write to the Bishop, of course?"
Mendham coughed. "No, I shan't write to the
Bishop," said Mendham. "I think it seems a little
disloyal.... And he took no notice of the last, you
know."
"But surely-  "
"I shall write to Austin. In confidence. He will
be sure to tell the Bishop, you know. And you must
remember, my dear-"
"That Hillyer can dismiss you, you were going to
say. My dear, the man's much too weak! I should
have a word to say about that. And besides, you do
all his work for him. Practically, we manage the
parish from end to end. I do not know what would
become of the poor if it was not for me. They'd have
free quarters in the Vicarage to-morrow. There is
that Goody Ansell-  "
"I know, my dear," said the Curate, turning away
and proceeding with his undressing. "You were telling me about her only this afternoon."
~ 21
AND thus in the little bedroom over the gable we
reach a first resting-place in this story. And as we
have been hard at it, getting our story spread out
before you, it may be perhaps well to recapitulate a
little.
Looking back you will see that much has been done;
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we began with a blaze of light "not uniform but
broken all over by curving flashes like the waving of
swords," and the sound of a mighty harping, and the
advent of an Angel with polychromatic wings.
Swiftly, dexterously, as the reader must admit,
wings have been clipped, halo handled off, the glory
clapped into coat and trousers, and the Angel made
for all practical purposes a man, under a suspicion
of being either a lunatic or an impostor. You have
heard, too, or at least been able to judge, what the
Vicar and the Doctor and the Curate's wife thought
of the strange arrival. And further remarkable
opinions are to follow.
The afterglow of the summer sunset in the northwest darkens into night and the Angel sleeps, dreaming himself back in the wonderful world where it is
always light, and every one is happy, where fire does
not burn and ice does not chill; where rivulets of
starlight go streaming through the amaranthine
meadows, out to the seas of Peace. He dreams, and
it seems to him that once more his wings glow with a
thousand colours and flash through the crystal air of
the world from which he has come.
So he dreams. But the Vicar lies awake, too perplexed for dreaming. Chiefly he is troubled by the
possibilities of Mrs. Mendham; but the evening's
talk has opened strange vistas in his mind, and he is
stimulated by a sense as of something seen darkly by
the indistinct vision of a hitherto unsuspected wonderland lying about his world. For twenty years now
he has held his village living and lived his daily life,
protected by his familiar creed, by the clamour of
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the details of life, from any mystical dreaming. But
now interweaving with the familiar bother of his
persecuting neighbour, is an altogether unfamiliar
sense of strange new things.
There was something ominous in the feeling.
Once, indeed, it rose above all other considerations,
and in a kind of terror he blundered out of bed,
bruised his shins very convincingly, found the
matches at last, and lit a candle to assure himself of
the reality of his own customary world again. But
on the whole the more tangible trouble was the Mendham avalanche. Her tongue seemed to be hanging
above him like the sword of Damocles. What might
she not say of this business, before her indignant
imagination came to rest?
And while the successful captor of the Strange
Bird was sleeping thus uneasily, Gully of Sidderton
was carefully unloading his gun after a wearisome
blank day, and Sandy Bright was on his knees in
prayer, with the window carefully fastened. Annie
Durgan was sleeping hard with her mouth open, and
Amory's mother was dreaming of washing, and both
of them had long since exhausted the topics of the
Sound and the Glare. Lumpy Durgan was sitting up
in his bed, now crooning the fragment of a tune and
now listening intently for a sound he had heard once
and longed to hear again. As for the solicitor's clerk
at Iping Hanger, he was trying to write poetry about
a confectioner's girl at Portburdock, and the Strange
Bird was quite out of his head. But the ploughman
who had seen it on the confines of Siddermorton Park
had a black eye. That had been one of the more tangi179




THE WONDERFUL VISIT


ble consequences of a little argument about birds'
legs in the Ship. It is worthy of this passing mention, since it is probably the only known instance of
an Angel causing anything of the kind.
~ 22
THE Vicar, going to call the Angel, found him
dressed and leaning out of his window. It was a
glorious morning, still dewy; and the rising sunlight,
slanting round the corner of the house, struck warm
and yellow upon the hillside. The birds were astir in
the hedges and shrubbery. Up the hillside-for it
was late in August-a plough drove slowly. The
Angel's chin rested upon his hands and he did not
turn as the Vicar came up to him.
"How's the wing?" said the Vicar.
"I'd forgotten it," said the Angel. "Is that yonder
a man?"
The Vicar looked. "That's a ploughman."
"Why does he go to and fro like that? Does it
amuse him?"
"He's ploughing. That's his work."
"Work! Why does he do it? It seems a monotonous thing to do."
"It is," admitted the Vicar. "But he has to do it
to get a living, you know. To get food to eat and all
that kind of thing."
"How curious!" said the Angel. "Do all men have
to do that? Do you?"
"Oh, no. He does it for me; does my share."
"Why?" asked the Angel.
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"Oh! in return for things I do for him, you know.
We go in for division of labour in this world. Exchange is no robbery."
"I see," said the Angel, with his eyes still on the
ploughman's heavy movements.
"What do you do for him?"
"That seems an easy question to you," said the
Vicar, "but really!-it's difficult. Our social arrangements are rather complicated. It's impossible
to explain these things all at once, before breakfast.
Don't you feel hungry?"
"I think I do," said the Angel slowly, still at the
window; and then abruptly: "Somehow I can't help
thinking that ploughing must be far from enjoyable."
"Possibly," said the Vicar, "very possibly. But
breakfast is ready. Won't you come down?"
The Angel left the window reluctantly.
"Our society," explained the Vicar on the staircase, "is a complicated organisation."
"Yes?"
"And it is so arranged that some do one thing and
some another."
"And that lean, bent old man trudges after that
heavy blade of iron pulled by a couple of horses while
we go down to eat?"
"Yes. You will find it is perfectly just. Ah!
mushrooms and poached eggs! It's the Social System. Pray be seated. Possibly it strikes you as
unfair?"
"I'm puzzled," said the Angel.
"The drink I'm sending you is called coffee," said
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the Vicar. "I dare say you are. When I was a young
man I was puzzled in the same way. But afterwards
comes a Broader View of Things. (These black
things are called mushrooms; they look beautiful.)
Other Considerations. All men are brothers, of
course, but some are younger brothers, so to speak.
There is work that requires culture and refinement,
and work in which culture and refinement would be
an impediment. And the rights of property must
not be forgotten. One must render unto Caesar.... Do you know, instead of explaining this matter
now (this is yours), I think I will lend you a little
book to read (chum, chum, chum-these mushrooms
are well up to their appearance), which sets the whole
thing out very clearly."
~ 23
AFTER breakfast the Vicar went into the little room
next to his study to find a book on Political Economy
for the Angel to read. For the Angel's social ignorances were clearly beyond any verbal explanations.
The door stood ajar.
"What is that?" said the Angel, following him.
"A violin!" He took it down.
"You play?" said the Vicar.
The Angel had the bow in his hand, and by way of
answer drove it across the strings. The quality of the
note made the Vicar turn suddenly.
The Angel's hand tightened on the instrument.
The bow flew back and flickered, and an air the Vicar
had never heard before danced in his ears. The Angel
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shifted the fiddle under his dainty chin and went on
playing, and as he played his eyes grew bright and
his lips smiled. At first he looked at the Vicar, then
his expression became abstracted. He seemed no
longer to look at the Vicar, but through him at
something beyond, something in his memory or his
imagination, something infinitely remote, undreamed
of hitherto.
The Vicar tried to follow the music. The air reminded him of a flame, it rushed up, shone, flickered
and danced, passed and reappeared. No!-it did
not reappear! Another air-like it and unlike it,
shot up after it, wavered, vanished. Then another.
the same and not the same. It reminded him of the
flaring tongues that palpitate and change above a
newly lit fire. There are two airs-or motifs, which is
it? —thought the Vicar. He knew remarkably little
of musical technique. They go dancing up, one pursuing the other, out of the fire of the incantation, pursuing, fluctuating, turning, up into the sky. There
below was the fire burning, a flame without fuel upon
a level space, and there two flirting butterflies of
sound, dancing away from it, up, one over another,
swift, abrupt, uncertain.
Flirting butterflies were they! What was the Vicar
thinking of? Where was he? In the little room
next to his study, of course! And the Angel standing in front of him smiling into his face, playing the
violin, and looking through him as though he were
only a window. That motif again, a yellow flare,
spread fanlike by a gust, and now one, then with a
swift eddying upward flight the other, the two things
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of fire and light pursuing one another again up into
that clear immensity.
The study and the realities of life suddenly faded
out of the Vicar's eyes, grew thinner and thinner like
a mist that dissolves into air, and he and the Angel
stood together on a pinnacle of wrought music, about
which glittering melodies circled and vanished and
reappeared. He was in the land of Beauty, and once
more the glory of heaven was upon the Angel's face,
and the glowing delights of colour pulsated in his
wings. Himself the Vicar could not see. But I
cannot tell you of the vision of that great and spacious
land, of its incredible openness and height and nobility. For there is no space there like ours, no
time as we know it; one must needs speak by bungling
metaphors and own in bitterness after all that one
has failed. And it was only a vision. The wonderful creatures flying through the ether saw them not
as they stood there, flew through them as one might
pass through a wisp of mist. The Vicar lost all sense
of duration, all sense of necessity ---
"Ah!" said the Angel, suddenly putting down the
fiddle.
The Vicar had forgotten the book on Political
Economy, had forgotten everything until the Angel
had done. For a minute he sat quite still. Then he
woke up with a start. He was sitting on the old
iron-bound chest.
"Really," he said slowly, "you are very clever."
He looked about him in a puzzled way. "I had a
kind of vision while you were playing. I seemed to
see-  What did I see? It has gone."
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He stood up with a dazzled expression upon his
face. "I shall never play the violin again," he said.
"I wish you would take it to your room-and keep
it- And play to me again. I did not know anything of music until I heard you play. I do not feel
as though I had ever heard any music before."
He stared at the Angel, then about him at the
room. "I have never felt anything of this kind with
music before," he said. He shook his head. "I shall
never play again."
~ 24
VERY unwisely, as I think, the Vicar allowed the
Angel to go down into the village by himself, to enlarge his ideas of humanity. Unwisely, because how
was he to imagine the reception the Angel would receive? Not thoughtlessly, I am afraid. He had always carried himself with decorum in the village, and
the idea of a slow procession through the little street
with all the inevitable curious remarks, explanations,
pointings, was too much for him. The Angel might
do the strangest things, the village was certain to
think them so. Peering faces. "Who's he got now?"
Besides, was it not his duty to prepare his sermon in
good time? The Angel, duly directed, went down
cheerfully by himself-still innocent of most of the
peculiarities of the human as distinguished from the
angelic turn of mind.
The Angel walked slowly, his white hands folded
behind his hunched back, his sweet face looking this
way and that. He peered curiously into the eyes of
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the people he met. A little child picking a bunch of
vetch and honeysuckle looked in his face, and forthwith came and put them in his hand. It was about
the only kindness he had from a human being (saving
only the Vicar and one other). He heard Mother
Gustick scolding that granddaughter of hers as he
passed the door. "You Brazen Faggit-you!" said
Mother Gustick. "You Trumpery Baggage!"'
The Angel stopped, startled at the strange sounds
of Mother Gustick's voice. "Put yer best clo'es on,
and yer feather in yer 'at, and off you goes to meet en,
fal lal, and me at 'ome slaving for ye. 'Tis a Fancy
Lady you'll be wantin' to be, my gal, a walkin' Touch
and Go, with yer idleness and finery -"
The voice ceased abruptly, and a great peace
came upon the battered air. "Most grotesque and
strange!" said the Angel, still surveying this wonderful box of discords. "Walking Touch and Go!" He
did not know that Mrs. Gustick had suddenly become
aware of his existence, and was scrutinising his appearance through the window-blind. Abruptly the
door flew open, and she stared out into the Angel's
face. A strange apparition, grey and dusty hair, and
the dirty pink dress unhooked to show the stringy
throat, a discoloured gargoyle, presently to begin
spouting incomprehensible abuse.
"Now then, Mister," began Mrs. Gustick. "Have
ye nothin' better to do than listen at people's doors
for what you can pick up?"
The Angel stared at her in astonishment.
"D'year!" said Mrs. Gustick, evidently very angry
indeed. "Listenin'."
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"Have you any objection to my hearing..."
"Object to my hearing! Course I have! Whad
yer think? You ain't such a Ninny...
"But if ye didn't want me to hear, why did you cry
out so loud? I thought...
"You thought! Softie-that's what you are! You
silly girt staring Gaby, what don't know any better
than to come holding yer girt mouth wide open for all
that you can catch holt on! And then off up there
to tell! You great Fat-Faced, Tale-Bearin' SillyBilly! I'd be ashamed to come poking and peering
round quiet people's houses...."
The Angel was surprised to find that some inexplicable quality in her voice excited the most disagreeable sensations in him and a strong desire to
withdraw. But, resisting this, he stood listening
politely (as the custom is in the Angelic Land so long
as any one is speaking). The entire eruption was beyond his comprehension. He could not perceive any
reason for the sudden projection of this vituperative
head, out of infinity so to speak. And questions
without a break for an answer were outside his experience altogether.
Mrs. Gustick proceeded with her characteristic
fluency, assured him he was no gentleman, inquired
if he called himself one, remarked that every tramp
did as much nowadays, compared him to a Stuck Pig,
marvelled at his impudence, asked him if he wasn't
ashamed of himself standing there, inquired if he was
rooted to the ground, was curious to be told what
he meant by it, wanted to know whether he robbed
a scarecrow for his clothes, suggested that an
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abnormal vanity prompted his behaviour, inquired
if his mother knew he was out, and finally remarking, "I got somethin'll move you, my gentleman,"
disappeared with a ferocious slamming of the
door.
The interval struck the Angel as singularly peaceful. His whirling mind had time to analyse his sensations. He ceased bowing and smiling, and stood
merely astonished.
"This is a curious painful feeling," said the Angel.
"Almost worse than Hungry, and quite different.
When one is hungry one wants to eat. I suppose
she was a woman. Here one wants to get away. I
suppose I might just as well go."
He turned slowly and went down the road meditating. He heard the cottage door reopen, and turning his head, saw through intervening scarlet runners
Mrs. Gustick with a steaming saucepan full of boiling
cabbage water in her hand.
"'Tis well you went, Mister Stolen Breeches,"
came the voice of Mrs. Gustick floating down through
the vermilion blossoms. "Don't you come peeping
and prying round this yer cottage again or I'll learn
ye manners, I will!"
The Angel stood in a state of considerable perplexity. He had no desire to come within earshot of the
cottage again-ever. He did not understand the
precise import of the black pot, but his general impression was entirely disagreeable. There was no
explaining it.
"I mean it!" said Mrs. Gustick, crescendo. "Drat
it!-I mean it."
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The Angel turned and went on, a dazzled look in
his eyes.
"She was very grotesque!" said the Angel. " Very.
Much more than the little man in black. And she
means it. But what she means I don't know!..."
He became silent. "I suppose they all mean something," he said presently, still perplexed.
~ 25
THEN the Angel came in sight of the forge, where
Sandy Bright's brother was shoeing a horse for
the carter from Upmorton. Two hobbledehoys were
standing by the forge staring in a bovine way at the
proceedings. As the Angel approached, these two
and then the carter turned slowly through an angle
of thirty degrees and watched his approach, staring
quietly and steadily at him. The expression on their
faces was one of abstract interest.
The Angel became self-conscious for the first time
in his life. He drew nearer, trying to maintain an
amiable expression on his face, an expression that
beat in vain against their granitic stare. His hands
were behind him. He smiled pleasantly, looking
curiously at the (to him) incomprehensible employment of the smith. But the battery of eyes seemed to
angle for his regard. Trying to meet the three pairs
at once, the Angel lost his alertness and stumbled
over a stone. One of the yokels gave a sarcastic
cough, and was immediately covered with confusion
at the Angel's inquiring gaze, nudging his companion
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with his elbow to cover his disorder. None spoke,
and the Angel did not speak.
So soon as the Angel had passed, one of the three
hummed this tune in an aggressive tone.


4.r_ c,  -.J4p42 -


Then all three of them laughed. One tried to sing
something and found his throat contained phlegm.
The Angel proceeded on his way.
"Who's 'e then?" said the second hobbledehoy.
"Ping, ping, ping," went the blacksmith's hammer.
"S'pose he's one of these here foweners," said the
carter from Upmorton. "Daamned silly fool he do
look to be sure."
"Tas the way with them foweners," said the first
hobbledehoy sagely.
"Got something very like the 'ump," said the
carter from Upmorton. "Diia-ai-mned if 'e ent."
Then the silence healed again, and they resumed
their quiet expressionless consideration of the Angel's
retreating figure.
"Very like the 'ump et is," said the carter after an
enormous pause.
~ 26
THE Angel went on through the village, finding
it all wonderful enough. "They begin, and just a
little while, and then they end," he said to himself
in a puzzled voice. "But what are they doing mean190




THE WONDERFUL VISIT


while?" Once he heard some invisible mouth chant
inaudible words to the tune the man at the forge had
hummed.
"That's the poor creature the Vicar shot with that
great gun of his," said Sarah Glue (of 1, Church Cottages), peering over the blind.
"He looks Frenchified," said Susan Hopper, peering through the interstices of that convenient veil on
curiosity.
"He has sweet eyes," said Sarah Glue, who had met
them for a moment.
The Angel sauntered on. The postman passed him
and touched his hat to him; further down was a dog
asleep in the sun. He went on and saw Mendham,
who nodded distantly and hurried past. (The Curate
did not care to be seen talking to an angel in the village, until more was known about him.) There came
from one of the houses the sound of a child screaming
in a passion, that brought a puzzled look to the angelic
face. Then the Angel reached the bridge below the
last of the houses, and stood leaning over the parapet
watching the glittering little cascade from the mill.
"They begin, and just a little while, and then they
end," said the weir from the mill. The water raced
under the bridge, green and dark and streaked with
foam.
Beyond the mill rose the square tower of the
church with the churchyard behind it, a spray of
tombstones and wooden headboards splashed up the
hillside. A half dozen of beech-trees framed the picture.
Then the Angel heard a shuffling of feet and the
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gride of wheels behind him, and turning his head saw
a man dressed in dirty brown rags and a felt hat grey
with dust, who was standing with a slight swaying
motion and fixedly regarding the Angelic back. Beyond him was another almost equally dirty, pushing
a knife-grinder's barrow over the bridge.
"Mornin'," said the first person, smiling weakly.
"Goomorn." He arrested an escaping hiccough.
The Angel stared at him. He had never seen a
really fatuous smile before. "Who are you?" said
the Angel.
The fatuous smile faded.  "No your business
whoaaam. Wishergoomorn."
"Carm on," said the man with the grindstone,
passing on his way.
"Wishergoomorn," said the dirty man, in a tone
of extreme aggravation. "Carncher Answerme?"
"Carm on you fool!" said the man with the grindstone-receding.
"I don't understand," said the Angel.
"Donunderstan'. Sim'l enough. Wishergoomorn.
Willyanswerme? Wonchr? gemwishergem goomorn.
Cusom answer goomorn. No gem. Haverteachyer."
The Angel was puzzled. The drunken man stood
swaying for a moment, then he made an unsteady
snatch at his hat and threw it down at the Angel's
feet. "Ver well," he said, as one who decides great
issues.
"Carm on!" said the voice of the man with the
grindstone-stopping perhaps twenty yards off.
"You wan fight, you-" the Angel failed to catch
the word. "I'll show yer, not answer gem's goomorn."
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He began to struggle with his jacket. "Think I'm
drun," he said, "I show yer." The man with the
grindstone sat down on the shaft to watch. "Carm
on," he said. The jacket was intricate, and the
drunken man began to struggle about the road, in his
attempts to extricate himself, breathing threatenings
and slaughter. Slowly the Angel began to suspect,
remotely enough, that these demonstrations were hostile. "Mur wun know yer when I done wi' yer," said
the drunken man, coat almost over his head.
At last the garment lay on the ground, and through
the frequent interstices of his reminiscences of a waistcoat, the drunken tinker displayed a fine hairy and
muscular body to the Angel's observant eyes. He
squared up in masterly fashion.
"Take the paint off yer," he remarked, advancing
and receding, fists up and elbows out.
"Carm on," floated down the road.
The Angel's attention was concentrated on two
huge hairy black fists, that swayed and advanced
and retreated. "Come on d'yer say? I'll show yer,"
said the gentleman in rags, and then with extraordinary ferocity: "My crikey! I'll show yer."
Suddenly he lurched forward, and with a newborn
instinct and raising a defensive arm as he did so, the
Angel stepped aside to avoid him. The fist missed
the Angelic shoulder by a hair's breadth, and the tinker collapsed in a heap with his face against the parapet of the bridge. The Angel hesitated over the
writhing dusty heap of blasphemy for a moment,
and then turned towards the man's companion up
the road. "Lemmeget up," said the man on the
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bridge.  "Lemmeget up, you swine. I'll show
yer.
A strange disgust, a quivering repulsion came upon
the Angel. He walked slowly away from the drunkard towards the man with the grindstone.
"What does it all mean?" said the Angel. "I don't
understand it."
"Dam fool!... say's it's 'is silver weddin'," answered the man with the grindstone, evidently much
annoyed; and then, in a tone of growing impatience,
he called down the road once more: "Carm on!"
"Silver wedding!" said the Angel. "What is a
silver wedding?"
"Jest 'is rot," said the man on the barrow. "But
'e's always 'avin' some 'scuse like that. Fair sickenin' it is. Lars week it wus 'is bloomin' birthday,
and then 'e 'adn't 'ardly got sober orf a comlimentary
drunk to my noo barrer. (Carm on, you fool.)"
"But I don't understand," said the Angel. "Why
does he sway about so? Why does he keep on trying
to pick up his hat like that-and missing it?"
"Why!" said the tinker. "Well this is a blasted
innocent country! Why! Because 'e's blind! Wot
else? (Carm on-Dam yer.) Because 'e's just as
full as 'e can 'old. That's why!"
The Angel noticing the tone of the second tinker's
voice, judged it wiser not to question him further.
But he stood by the grindstone and continued to
watch the mysterious evolutions on the bridge.
"Carm on! I shall 'ave to go and pick up that 'at
I suppose...  'E's always at it. I ne'er 'ad such
a blooming pard before. Always at it, 'e is."
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The man with the barrow meditated. "'Taint as
if 'e was a gentleman and 'adn't no livin' to get. An'
'e's such a reckless fool when 'e gets a bit on. Goes
offerin' out every one 'e meets. (There you go!) I'm
blessed if 'e didn't offer out a 'ole bloomin' Salvation
Army. No judgment in it. (Oh! Carm on! Carm
on!) 'Ave to go and pick this bloomin' 'at up now
I s'pose. 'E don't care wot trouble 'e gives."
The Angel watched the second tinker walk back,
and with affectionate blasphemy assist the first to
his hat and his coat. Then he turned, absolutely
mystified, towards the village again.
~ 27
AFTER that incident the Angel walked along past
the mill and round behind the church, to examine the
tombstones.
"This seems to be the place where they put the
broken pieces," said the Angel-reading the inscriptions. "Curious word-relict! Resurgam! Then
they are not done with quite. What a huge pile it
requires to keep her down... It is spirited of
her.
"Hawkins?" said the Angel softly,... "Hawkins? The name is strange to me.... He did not
die then.... It is plain enough,-Joined the Angelic Hosts, May 17, 1863. He must have felt as
much out of place as I do down here. But I wonder
why they put that little pot thing on the top of this
monument.- Curious!  There are several others
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about-little stone pots with a rag of stiff stone
drapery over them."
Just then the boys came pouring out of the National School, and first one and then several stopped
agape at the Angel's crooked black figure among the
white tombs. "Ent 'e gart a biak on en!" remarked
one critic.
"'E's got 'air like a girl!" said another.
The Angel turned towards them. He was struck
by the queer little heads sticking up over the lichenous wall. He smiled faintly at their staring faces,
and then turned to marvel at the iron railings that
enclosed the Fitz-Jarvis tomb. "A queer air of uncertainty," he said. "Slabs, piles of stone, these railings.... Are they afraid?... Do these Dead
ever try and get up again? There's an air of repression
-fortification-   "
" Get yer 'air cut, Get yer 'air cut," sang three little
boys together.
"Curious these Human Beings are!" said the
Angel. "That man yesterday wanted to cut off my
wings, now these little creatures want me to cut off
my hair! And the man on the bridge offered to take
the 'paint' off me. They will leave nothing of me
soon.
"Where did you get that 'at?" sang another little
boy. "Where did you get them clo'es?"
"They ask questions that they evidently do not
want answered," said the Angel. "I can tell from the
tone." He looked thoughtfully at the little boys.
"I don't understand the methods of Human intercourse. These are probably friendly advances, a kind
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of ritual. But I don't know the responses. I think
I will go back to the little fat man in black with the
gold chain across his stomach, and ask him to explain.
It is difficult."
He turned towards the lych gate. "Oh!" said one
of the little boys, in a shrill falsetto, and threw a
beech-nut husk. It came bounding across the churchyard path. The Angel stopped in surprise.
This made all the little boys laugh. A second imitating the first, said "Oh!" and hit the Angel. His
astonishment was really delicious. They all began
crying "Oh!" and throwing beech-nut husks. One
hit the Angel's hand, another stung him smartly by
the ear. The Angel made ungainly movements towards them. He spluttered some expostulation and
made for the roadway. The little boys were amazed
and shocked at his discomfiture and cowardice. Such
sawney behaviour could not be encouraged. The
pelting grew vigorous. You may perhaps be able to
imagine those vivid moments, daring small boys running in close and delivering shots, milder small boys
rushing round behind with flying discharges. Milton Screever's mongrel dog was roused to yelping
ecstasy at the sight, and danced (full of wild imaginings) nearer and nearer to the angelic legs.
"Hi, hi!" said a vigorous voice. "I never did!
Where's Mr. Jarvis-? Manners, manners! you young
rascals."
The youngsters scattered right and left, some
over the wall into the playground, some down the
street.
"Frightful pest these boys are getting!" said
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Crump, coming up.  "I'm sorry they have been
annoying you."
The Angel seemed quite upset. "I don't understand," he said. "These Human ways.. "
"Yes, of course. Unusual to you. How's your
excrescence?"
"My what?" said the Angel.
"Bifid limb, you know. How is it? Now you're
down this way, come in. Come in and let me have
a look at it again. You young roughs! And meanwhile these little louts of ours will be getting off home.
They're all alike in these villages. Can't understand
anything abnormal. See an odd-looking stranger.
Chuck a stone. No imagination beyond the parish.... (I'll give you physic if I catch you annoying
strangers again.)... I suppose it's what one
might expect...  Come along this way."
So the Angel, horribly perplexed still, was hurried
into the surgery to have his wound redressed.
~ 28
IN Siddermorton Park is Siddermorton House,
where old Lady Hammergallow lives, chiefly upon
Burgundy and the little scandals of the village, a dear
old lady with a ropy neck, a ruddled countenance
and spasmodic gusts of odd temper, whose three
remedies for all human trouble among her dependents
are a bottle of gin, a pair of charity blankets, or a
new crown piece. The House is a mile and a half out
of Siddermorton. Almost all the village is hers, saving a fringe to the south which belongs to Sir John
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Gotch, and she rules it with an autocratic rule, refreshing in these days of divided government. She
orders and forbids marriages, drives objectionable
people out of the village by the simple expedient of
raising their rent, dismisses labourers, obliges heretics
to go to church, and made Annie Dangett, who
wanted to call her little girl "Euphemia," have the
infant christened "Mary-Anne." She is a sturdy
Broad Protestant and disapproves of the Vicar's
going bald like a tonsure. She is on the Village Council, which obsequiously trudges up the hill and over
the moor to her, and (as she is a trifle deaf) speaks
all its speeches into her ear-trumpet instead of a
rostrum. She takes no interest now in politics, but
until last year she was an active enemy of "that
Gladstone." She has parlour-maids instead of footmen to do her waiting, because of Hockley, the American stockbroker, and his four Titans in plush.
She exercises what is almost a fascination upon the
village. If in the bar-parlour of the Cat and Cornucopia you swear by God no one would be shocked,
but if you swore by Lady Hammergallow they would
probably be shocked enough to turn you out of the
room. When she drives through Siddermorton she
always calls upon Bessy Flump, the postmistress, to
hear all that has happened, and then upon Miss
Finch, the dressmaker, to check back Bessy Flump.
Sometimes she calls upon the Vicar, sometimes upon
Mrs. Mendham whom she snubs, and even sometimes on Crump. Her sparkling pair of greys almost
ran over the Angel as he was walking down to the
village.
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"So that's the genius!" said Lady Hammergallow,
and turned and looked at him through the gilt glasses
on a stick that she always carried in her shrivelled
and shaky hand. "Lunatic, indeed! The poor creature has rather a pretty face. I'm sorry I've missed
him."
But she went on to the vicarage nevertheless, and
demanded news of it all. The conflicting accounts of
Miss Flump, Miss Finch, Mrs. Mendham, Crump,
and Mrs. Jehoram had puzzled her immensely. The
Vicar, hard pressed, did all he could to say into her
ear-trumpet what had really happened. He toned
down the wings and the saffron robe. But he felt
the case was hopeless. He spoke of his protege as
"Mr." Angel. He addressed pathetic asides to the
kingfisher. The old lady noticed his confusion. Her
queer old head went jerking backwards and forwards, now the ear-trumpet in his face when he had
nothing to say, then the shrunken eyes peering at
him, oblivious of the explanation that was coming
from his lips. A great many Ohs! and Ahs! She
caught some fragments certainly.
"You have asked him to stop with you-indefinitely?" said Lady Hammergallow with a Great Idea
taking shape rapidly in her mind.
"I did-perhaps inadvertently-make such   "
"And you don't know where he comes from?"
"Not at all."
"Nor who his father is, I suppose?" said Lady
Hammergallow mysteriously.
"No," said the Vicar.
"Now!" said Lady Hammergallow archly, and
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keeping her glasses to her eye, she suddenly dug at
his ribs with her trumpet.
"My dear Lady Hammergallow!"
"I thought so. Don't think I would blame you,
Mr. Hillyer." She gave a corrupt laugh that she delighted in. "The world is the world, and men are
men. And the poor boy's a cripple, eh? A kind of
judgment. In mourning, I noticed. It reminds me
of the 'Scarlet Letter.' The mother's dead, I suppose.
It's just as well. Really-I'm not a narrow womanI respect you for having him. Really I do."
"But, Lady Hammergallow!"
"Don't spoil everything by denying it. It is so
very, very plain, to a woman of the world. That Mrs.
Mendham! She amuses me with her suspicions.
Such odd ideas! In a Curate's wife. But I hope it
didn't happen when you were in orders."
"Lady Hammergallow, I protest. Upon my word."
"Mr. Hillyer, I protest. I know. Not anything
you can say will alter my opinion one jot. Don't
try. I never suspected you were nearly such an interesting man."
"But this suspicion is unendurable!"
"We will help him together, Mr. Hillyer. You
may rely upon me. It is most romantic." She
beamed benevolence.
"But, Lady Hammergallow, I must speak!"
She gripped her ear-trumpet resolutely, and held
it before her and shook her head.
"He has quite a genius for music, Vicar, so I
hear?"
"I can assure you most solemnly-"
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"I thought so. And being a cripple-"
"You are under a most cruel- "
"I thought that if his gift is really what that
Jehoram woman says-   "
"An unjustifiable suspicion if ever a man —"
"I don't think much of her judgment, of course."
"Consider my position. Have I gained no character?"
"It might be possible to do something for him as
a performer."
"Have I-(Bother! It's no good!)"
"And so, dear Vicar, I propose to give him an
opportunity of showing us what he can do. I have
been thinking it all over as I drove here. On Tuesday next, I will invite just a few people of taste, and
he shall bring his violin. Eigh? And if that goes
well, I will see if I can get some introductions and
really push him."
"But Lady, Lady Hammergallow."
"Not another word!" said Lady Hammergallow,
still resolutely holding her ear-trumpet before her and
clutching her eyeglasses. "I really must not leave
those horses. Cutler is so annoyed if I keep them
too long. He finds waiting tedious, poor man, unless there is a public-house near." She made for the
door.
"Damn!" said the Vicar, under his breath. He
had never used the word since he had taken orders.
It shows you how an Angel's visit may disorganise a
man.
He stood under the verandah watching the carriage
drive away. The world seemed coming to pieces about
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him. Had he lived a virtuous celibate life for thirty
odd years in vain? The things- of which these people
thought him capable! He stood and stared at the
green corn field opposite, and down at the straggling
village. It seemed real enough. And yet for the
first time in his life there was a queer doubt of its
reality. He rubbed his chin, then turned and went
slowly upstairs to his dressing-room, and sat for a
long time staring at a garment of some yellow texture. "Know his father!" he said. "And he is immortal, and was fluttering about his heaven when my
ancestors were marsupials.... I wish he was there
now."
He got up and began to feel the robe.
"I wonder how they get such things," said the
Vicar. Then he went and stared out of the window.
"I suppose everything is wonderful, even the rising
and setting of the sun. I suppose there is no adamantine ground for any belief. But one gets into a regular way of taking things. This disturbs it. I seem
to be waking up to the Invisible. It is the strangest
of uncertainties. I have not felt so stirred and unsettled since my adolescence."
~29
"THAT's all right," said Crump when the bandaging was replaced. "It's a trick of memory, no doubt,
but these excrescences of yours don't seem nearly so
large as they did yesterday. I suppose they struck
me rather forcibly. Stop and have lunch with me
now you're down here. Midday meal, you know.
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The youngsters will be swallowed up by school again
in the afternoon.
"I never saw anything heal so well in my life,"
he said, as they walked into the dining-room. "Your
blood and flesh must be as clean and free from bacteria as they make 'em. Whatever stuff there is in
your head," he added sotto voce.
At lunch he watched the Angel narrowly, and
talked to draw him out.
"Journey tire you yesterday?" he said suddenly.
"Journey!" said the Angel. "Oh! my wings felt
a little stiff."
"Not to be had," said Crump to himself. "Suppose I must enter into it."
"So you flew all the way, eigh? No conveyance?"
"There wasn't any way," explained the Angel,
taking mustard. "I was flying up a symphony with
some Griffins and Fiery Cherubim, and suddenly
everything went dark and I was in this world of
yours.
"Dear me!" said Crump. "And that's why you
haven't any luggage." He drew his serviette across
his mouth, and a smile flickered in his eyes.
"I suppose you know this world of ours pretty
well? Watching us over the adamantine walls and
all that kind of thing. Eigh?"
"Not very well. We dream of it sometimes. In
the moonlight, when the Nightmares have fanned us
to sleep with their wings."
"Ah, yes-of course," said Crump. "Very poetical
way of putting it. Won't you take some Burgundy?
It's just beside you."
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"There's a persuasion in this world, you know,
that Angels' Visits are by no means infrequent. Perhaps some of your-friends have travelled? They
are supposed to come down to deserving persons in
prisons, and do refined Nautches and that kind of
thing. Faust business, you know."
"I've never heard of anything of the kind," said
the Angel.
"Only the other day a lady whose baby was my
patient for the time being-indigestion-assured me
that certain facial contortions the little creature made
indicated that it was Dreaming of Angels. In the
novels of Mrs. Henry Wood that is spoken of as an
infallible symptom of an early departure. I suppose
you can't throw any light on that obscure pathological manifestation?"
"I don't understand it at all," said the Angel,
puzzled, and not clearly apprehending the Doctor's
drift.
(">Getting huffy," said Crump to himself. "Sees
I'm poking fun at him.") "There's one thing I'm
curious about. Do the new arrivals complain much
about their medical attendants? I've always fancied
there must be a good deal of hydropathic talk just at
first. I was looking at that picture in the Academy
only this June.. "
"New Arrivals!" said the Angel. "I really don't
follow you."
The Doctor stared. "Don't they come?"
"Come!" said the Angel. "Who?"
"The people who die here."
"After they've gone to pieces here?"
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"That's the general belief, you know."
"People like the woman who screamed out of the
door, and the blackfaced man and his volutations and
the horrible little things that threw husks!-certainly
not. I never saw such creatures before I fell into this
world."
"Oh! but come!" said the Doctor. "You'll tell
me next your official robes are not white and that
you can't play the harp."
"There's no such thing as white in the Angelic
Land," said the Angel. "It's that queer blank colour
you get by mixing up all the others."
"Why, my dear Sir!" said the Doctor, suddenly
altering his tone, "you positively know nothing
about the Land you come from. White's the very
essence of it."
The Angel stared at him. Was the man jesting?
He looked perfectly serious.
"Look here," said Crump, and getting up, he went
to the sideboard on which a copy of the Parish Magazine was lying. He brought it round to the Angel
and opened it at the coloured supplement. "Here's
some real angels," he said. "You see it's not simply
the wings make the Angel. White, you see, with a
curly wisp of robe, sailing up into the sky with their
wings furled. Those are angels on the best authority.
Hydroxyl kind of hair. One has a bit of a harp, you
see, and the other is helping this wingless lady-kind
of larval Angel, you know-upward."
"Oh! but really!" said the Angel, "those are not
angels at all."
"But they are," said Crump, putting the magazine
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back on the sideboard and resuming his seat with an
air of intense satisfaction. "I can assure you I have
the best authority...."
"I can assure you..."
Crump tucked in the corners of his mouth and
shook his head from side to side even as he had done
to the Vicar. "No good," he said, "can't alter our
ideas just because an irresponsible visitor.. "
"If these are angels," said the Angel, "then I have
never been in the Angelic Land."
"Precisely," said Crump, ineffably self-satisfied;
"that was just what I was getting at."
The Angel stared at him for a minute round-eyed,
and then was seized for the second time by the human
disorder of laughter.
"Ha, ha, ha!" said Crump, joining in. "I thought
you were not quite so mad as you seemed. Ha, ha,
ha!"
And for the rest of the lunch they were both very
merry, for entirely different reasons, and Crump insisted upon treating the Angel as a "dorg" of the
highest degree.
~ 30
AFTER the Angel had left Crump's house he went
up. the hill again towards the Vicarage. But-possibly moved by the desire to avoid Mrs. Gustickhe turned aside at the stile and made a detour by the
Lark's Field and Bradley's Farm.
He came upon the Respectable Tramp slumbering
peacefully among the wild flowers. He stopped to
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look, struck by the celestial tranquillity of that individual's face. And even as he did so the Respectable
Tramp awoke with a start and sat up. He was a
pallid creature, dressed in rusty black, with a brokenspirited crush hat cocked over one eye. "Good afternoon," he said affably. "How are you?"
"Very well, thank you," said the Angel, who had
mastered the phrase.
The Respectable Tramp eyed the Angel critically.
"Padding the Hoof, matey?" he said. "Like me."
The Angel was puzzled by him. "Why," asked
the Angel, "do you sleep like this instead of sleeping
up in the air on a Bed?"
"Well I'm blowed!" said the Respectable Tramp.
"Why don't I sleep in a bed? Well, it's like this.
Sandringham's got the painters in, there's the drains
up in Windsor Castle, and I 'aven't no other 'ouse to
go to. You 'aven't the price of a arf pint in your
pocket, 'ave yer?"
"I have nothing in my pocket," said the Angel.
"Is this here village called Siddermorton?" said
the Tramp, rising creakily to his feet and pointing to
the clustering roofs down the hill.
"Yes," said the Angel, "they call it Siddermorton."
"I know it, I know it," said the Tramp. "And a
very pretty little village it is too." He stretched and
yawned, and stood regarding the place. "'Ouses," he
said reflectively; "Projuce"-waving his hand at the
corn fields and orchards.  "Looks cosey, don't
it?"
"It has a quaint beauty of its own," said the Angel.
"It 'as a quaint beauty of its own-yes....
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Lord! I'd like to sack the blooming place.... I
was born there."
"Dear me," said the Angel.
"Yes, I was born there. Ever heard of a pithed
frog?"
"Pithed frog?" said the Angel. "No!"
"It's a thing these here vivisectionists do. They
takes a frog and they cuts out his brains and they
shoves a bit of pith in the place of 'em. That's a
pithed frog. Well-that there village is full of pithed
human beings."
The Angel took it quite seriously. "Is that so?"
he said.
"That's so-you take my word for it. Every
one of them 'as 'ad their brains cut out and chunks
of rotten touchwood put in the place of it. And you
see that little red place there?"
"That's called the National School," said the
Angel.
"Yes-that's where they piths 'em," said the
Tramp, quite in love with his conceit.
"Really! That's very interesting.".
"It stands to reason," said the Tramp. "If they
'ad brains they'd 'ave ideas, and if they 'ad ideas
they'd think for themselves. And you can go
through that village from end to end and never meet
anybody doing as much. Pithed human beings they
are. I know that village. I was born there, and I
might be there now, a-toilin' for my betters, if I
'adn't struck against the pithin'."
"Is it a painful operation?" asked the Angel.
"In parts. Though it ain't the heads gets hurt.
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And it lasts a long time. They take 'em young into
that school, and they says to them, 'come in 'ere and
we'll improve your minds,' they says, and in the little
kiddies go as good as gold. And they begins shovin'
it into them. Bit by bit and 'ard and dry, shovin'
out the nice juicy brains. Dates and lists and things.
Out they comes, no brains in their 'eads, and wound
up nice and tight, ready to touch their 'ats to any
one who looks at them. Why! One touched 'is 'at
to me yesterday. And they runs about spry and does
all the dirty work, and feels thankful they're allowed
to live. They take a positive pride in 'ard work for
its own sake. Arter they bin pithed. See that chap
ploughin'?"
"Yes," said the Angel; "is he pithed?"
"Rather. Else he'd be Paddin' the Hoof this
pleasant weather-like me and the blessed Apostles."
"I begin to understand," said the Angel, rather
dubiously.
"I knew you would," said the Respectable Tramp.
"I thought you was the right sort. But speaking
serious, ain't it ridiculous?-centuries and centuries
of civilisation, and look at that poor swine there,
sweatin' 'isself empty and trudging up that 'illside.
'E's English, 'e is. 'E belongs to the top race in creation, 'e does. 'E's one of the rulers of Indjer. It's
enough to make a nigger laugh. The flag that's braved
a thousand years the battle an' the breeze-that's
'is flag. There never was a country was as great and
glorious as this. Never. And that's wot it makes
of us. I'll tell you a little story about them parts as
you seems to be a bit of a stranger. There's a chap
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called Gotch, Sir John Gotch they calls 'im, and when
'e was a young gent from Oxford, I was a little chap
of eight and my sister was a girl of seventeen. Their
servant she was. But Lord! everybody's 'eard that
story-it's common enough, of 'im or the likes of
'im."
"I haven't," said the Angel.
"All that's pretty and lively of the gals they chucks
into the gutters, and all the men with a pennorth of
spunk or adventure, all who won't drink what the
Curate's wife sends 'em instead of beer, and touch
their hats promiscou's, and leave the rabbits and
birds alone for their betters, gets drove out of the
villages as rough characters. Patriotism!  Talk
about improvin' the race! Wot's left ain't fit to look
a nigger in the face, a Chinaman 'ud be ashamed of
'em..."
"But I don't understand," said the Angel. "I
don't follow you."
At that the Respectable Tramp became more
explicit, and told the Angel the simple story of Sir
John Gotch and the kitchen-maid. It's scarcely
necessary to repeat it. You may understand that
it left the Angel puzzled. It was full of words he did
not understand, for the only vehicle of emotion the
Tramp possessed was blasphemy. Yet, though their
tongues differed so, he could still convey to the Angel
some of his own (probably unfounded) persuasion of
the injustice and cruelty of life, and of the utter
detestableness of Sir John Gotch.
The last the Angel saw of him was his dusty black
back receding down the lane towards Iping Hanger.
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A pheasant appeared by the roadside, and the Respectable Tramp immediately caught up a stone and
sent the bird clucking with a viciously accurate shot.
Then he disappeared round the corner.
~31
"I HEARD some one playing the fiddle in the Vicarage as I came by," said Mrs. Jehoram, taking her
cup of tea from Mrs. Mendham.
"The Vicar plays," said Mrs. Mendham. "I have
spoken to George about it, but it's no good. I do
not think a Vicar should be allowed to do such
things. It's so foreign. But there, he.."
"I know, dear," said Mrs. Jehoram. "But I heard
the Vicar once at the schoolroom. I don't think this
was the Vicar. It was quite clever, some of it, quite
smart, you know. And new. I was telling dear
Lady Hammergallow this morning. I fancy-"
"The lunatic! Very likely.  These half-witted
people.... My dear, I don't think I shall ever forget that dreadful encounter. Yesterday."
"Nor I."
"My poor girls! They are too shocked to say a
word about it. I was telling dear Lady Ham —"
"Quite proper of them. It was dreadful, dear.
For them."
"And now, dear, I want you to tell me franklyDo you really believe that creature was a man?"
"You should have heard the violin."
"I still more than half suspect, Jessie-" Mrs.
Mendham leaned forward as if to whisper.
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Mrs. Jehoram helped herself to cake. "I'm sure no
woman could play the violin quite like I heard it
played this morning."
"Of course, if you say so that settles the matter,"
said Mrs. Mendham. Mrs. Jehoram was the autocratic authority in Siddermorton upon all questions
of art, music, and belles-lettres. Her late husband
had been a minor poet. Then Mrs. Mendham added
a judicial "Still — "
"Do you know," said Mrs. Jehoram, "I'm half inclined to believe the dear Vicar's story."
"How good of you, Jessie," said Mrs. Mendham.
"But really, I don't think he could have had any
one in the Vicarage before that afternoon. I feel
sure we should have heard of it. I don't see how a
strange cat could come within four miles of Siddermorton without the report coming round to us. The
people here gossip so...."
"I always distrust the Vicar," said Mrs. Mendham.
"I know him."
"Yes. But the story is plausible. If this Mr.
Angel were some one very clever and eccentric  "
"He would have to be very eccentric to dress as he
did. There are degrees and limits, dear."
"But kilts," said Mrs. Jehoram.
"Are all very well in the Highlands...."
Mrs. Jehoram's eyes had rested upon a black speck
creeping slowly across a patch of yellowish green up
the hill.
"There he goes," said Mrs. Jehoram, rising, "across
the corn field. I'm sure that's him. I can see the
hump. Unless it's a man with a sack. Bless me,
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Minnie! here's an opera-glass. How convenient for
peeping at the Vicarage!... Yes, it's the man.
He is a man. With such a sweet face."
Very unselfishly she allowed her hostess to share
the opera-glass. For a minute there was a rustling
silence.
"His dress," said Mrs. Mendham, "is quite respectable now."
"Quite," said Mrs. Jehoram.
Pause.
"He looks cross!"
"And his coat is dusty."
"He walks steadily enough," said Mrs. Mendham,
"or one might think.... This hot weather..."
Another pause.
"You see, dear," said Mrs. Jehoram, putting down
the opera-glass. "What I was going to say was, that
possibly he might be a genius in disguise."
"If you can call next door to nothing a disguise."
"No doubt it was eccentric. But I've seen children in little blouses, not at all unlike him. So many
clever people are peculiar in their dress and manners.
A genius may steal a horse where a bank-clerk may
not look over the hedge. Very possibly he's quite
well known and laughing at our Arcadian simplicity.
And really it wasn't so improper as some of these New
Women bicycling costumes. I saw one in one of the
Illustrated Papers only a few days ago-the New
Budget, I think-quite tights, you know, dear. NoI cling to the genius theory. Especially after the
playing. I'm sure the creature is original. Perhaps
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very amusing. In fact, I intend to ask the Vicar to
introduce me."
"My dear!" cried Mrs. Mendham.
"I'm resolute," said Mrs. Jehoram.
"I'm afraid you're rash," said Mrs. Mendham.
"Geniuses and people of that kind are all very well
in London. But here-at the Vicarage."
"We are going to educate the folks. I love originality. At any rate I mean to see him."
"Take care you don't see too much of him," said
Mrs. Mendham. "I've heard the fashion is quite
changing. I understand that some of the very best
people have decided that genius is not to be encouraged any more. These recent scandals...."
"Only in literature, I can assure you, dear. In
music.
"Nothing you can say, my dear," said Mrs. Mendham, going off at a tangent, "will convince me that
that person's costume was not extremely suggestive
and improper."
~ 32
THE Angel came thoughtfully by the hedge across
the field towards the Vicarage. The rays of the setting sun shone on his shoulders, and touched the
Vicarage with gold, and blazed like fire in all the
windows. By the gate, bathed in the sunlight, stood
little Delia, the waiting-maid. She stood watching
him under her hand. It suddenly came into the
Angel's mind that she at least was beautiful, and
not only beautiful but alive and warm.
She opened the gate for him and stood aside. She
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was sorry for him, for her elder sister was a cripple.
He bowed to her, as he would have done to any woman, and for just one moment looked into her face.
She looked back at him and something leaped within
her.
The Angel made an irresolute movement. "Your
eyes are very beautiful," he said quietly, with a remote wonder in his voice.
"Oh, sir!" she said, starting back. The Angel's
expression changed to perplexity. He went on up
the pathway between the Vicar's flower-beds, and
she stood with the gate held open in her hand, staring
after him. Just under the rose-twined verandah he
turned and looked at her.
She still stared at him for a moment, and then with
a queer gesture turned round with her back to him,
shutting the gate as she did so, and seemed to be
looking down the valley towards the church tower.
~ 33
AT the dinner table the Angel told the Vicar the
more striking of his day's adventures.
"The strange thing," said the Angel, "is the readiness of you Human Beings-the zest, with which you
inflict pain. Those boys pelting me this morning —"
"Seemed to enjoy it," said the Vicar. "I know."
"Yet they don't like pain," said the Angel.
"No," said the Vicar; "they don't like it."
"Then," said the Angel, "I saw some beautiful
plants rising with a spike of leaves, two this way and
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two that, and when I caressed one it caused the most
uncomfortable   "
"Stinging nettle!" said the Vicar.
"At any rate a new sort of pain. And another
plant with a head like a coronet, and richly decorated
leaves, spiked and jagged —"
"A thistle, possibly."
"And in your garden, the beautiful, sweet-smelling
plant-"
"The sweet brier," said the Vicar. "I remember."
"And that pink flower that sprang out of the
box-"
"Out of the box?" said the Vicar.
"Last night," said the Angel, "that went climbing
up the curtains-  Flame!"
"Oh!-the matches and the candles! Yes," said
the Vicar.
"Then the animals. A dog to-day behaved most
disagreeably- And these boys, and the way in
which people speak-  Every one seems anxiouswilling at any rate-to give this Pain. Every one
seems busy giving pain  "
"Or avoiding it," said the Vicar, pushing his dinner
away before him. "Yes-of course. It's fighting
everywhere. The whole living world is a battle-field
-the whole world. We are driven by Pain. Here.
How it lies on the surface! This Angel sees it in a
day!"
"But why does every one-everything-want to
give pain?" asked the Angel.
"It is not so in the Angelic Land?" said the Vicar.
"No," said the Angel. "Why is it so here?"
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The Vicar wiped his lips with his napkin slowly.
"It is so," he said. "Pain," said he still more slowly,
"is the warp and the woof of this life. Do you
know," he said, after a pause, "it is almost impossible
for me to imagine... a world without pain.
And yet, as you played this morning —
"But this world is different. It is the very reverse
of an Angelic world. Indeed, a number of peopleexcellent religious people-have been so impressed by
the universality of pain that they think, after death,
things will be even worse for a great many of us.
It seems to me an excessive view. But it's a deep
question. Almost beyond one's power of discussion   "
And incontinently the Vicar plumped into an impromptu dissertation upon "Necessity," how things
were so because they were so, how one had to do this
and that. "Even our food," said the Vicar. "What?"
said the Angel. "Is not obtained without inflicting
pain," said the Vicar.
The Angel's face went so white that the Vicar
checked himself suddenly. Or he was just on the
very verge of a concise explanation of the antecedents
of a leg of lamb. There was a pause.
"By the bye," said the Angel suddenly, "have
you been pithed? Like the common people."
~ 34
WHEN Lady Hammergallow made up her mind,
things happened as she resolved. And though the
Vicar made a spasmodic protest, she carried out her
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purpose and got audience, Angel, and violin together
at Siddermorton House before the week was out. "A
genius the Vicar has discovered," she said; so with
eminent foresight putting any possibility of blame
for a failure on the Vicar's shoulders. "The dear
Vicar tells me," she would say, and proceed to marvellous anecdotes of the Angel's cleverness with his
instrument. But she was quite in love with her idea
-she had always had a secret desire to play the patroness to obscure talent. Hitherto it had not turned
out to be talent when it came to the test.
"It would be such a good thing for him," she
said. "His hair is long already, and with that high
colour he would be beautiful, simply beautiful on a
platform. The Vicar's clothes fitting him so badly
makes him look quite like a fashionable pianist already. And the scandal of his birth-not told, of
course, but whispered-would be-quite an Inducement-when he gets to London, that is."
The Vicar had the most horrible sensations as the
day approached. He spent hours trying to explain
the situation to the Angel, other hours trying to
imagine what people would think, still worse hours
trying to anticipate the Angel's behaviour. Hitherto
the Angel had always played for his own satisfaction.
The Vicar would startle him every now and then by
rushing upon him with some new point of etiquette
that had just occurred to him. As for instance: "It's
very important where you put your hat, you know.
Don't put it on a chair, whatever you do. Hold it
until you get your tea, you know, and then-let me
see-then put it down somewhere, you know." The
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journey to Siddermorton House was accomplished
without misadventure, but at the moment of introduction the Vicar had a spasm of horrible misgivings.
He had forgotten to explain introductions. The Angel's naive amusement was evident, but nothing very
terrible happened.
"Rummy looking greaser," said Mr. Rathbone
Slater, who devoted considerable attention to costume. "Wants grooming. No manners. Grinned
when he saw me shaking hands. Did it chic enough,
I thought."
One trivial misadventure occurred. When Lady
Hammergallow welcomed the Angel she looked at
him through her glasses. The apparent size of her
eyes startled him. His surprise and his quick attempt to peer over the brims was only too evident.
But the Vicar had warned him of the ear-trumpet.
The Angel's incapacity to sit on anything but a
music-stool appeared to excite some interest among
the ladies, but led to no remarks. They regarded it
perhaps as the affectation of a budding professional.
He was remiss with the teacups and scattered the
crumbs of his cake abroad. (You must remember he
was quite an amateur at eating.) He crossed his
legs. He fumbled over the hat business after vainly
trying to catch the Vicar's eye. The eldest Miss
Papaver tried to talk to him about continental watering places and cigarettes, and formed a low opinion
of his intelligence.
The Angel was surprised by the production of an
easel and several books of music, and a little unnerved
at first by the sight of Lady Hammergallow sitting
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with her head on one side, watching him with those
magnified eyes through her gilt glasses.
Mrs. Jehoram came up to him before he began to
play and asked him the Name of the Charming Piece
he was playing the other afternoon. The Angel said
it had no name, and Mrs. Jehoram thought music
ought never to have any names and wanted to know
who it was by, and when the Angel told her he played
it out of his head, she said he must be Quite a Genius
and looked open (and indisputably fascinating) admiration at him. The Curate from Iping Hanger (who
was professionally a Kelt and who played the piano
and talked colour and music with an air of racial
superiority) watched him jealously.
The Vicar, who was presently captured and set
down next to Lady Hammergallow, kept an anxious
eye ever Angelward while she told him particulars of
the incomes made by violinists-particulars which,
for the most part, she invented as she went along.
She had been a little ruffled by the incident of the
glasses, but had decided that it came within the
limits of permissible originality.
So figure to yourself the Green Saloon at Siddermorton House; an Angel thinly disguised in clerical
vestments and with a violin in his hands, standing by
the grand piano, and a respectable gathering of quiet,
nice people, nicely dressed, grouped about the room.
Anticipatory gabble-one hears scattered fragments
of conversation.
"He is incog.," said the very eldest Miss Papaver
to Mrs. Pirbright. "Isn't it quaint and delicious.
Jessica Jehoram says she saw him at Vienna, but she
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can't remember the name. The Vicar knows all about
him, but he is so close  -"
"How hot and uncomfortable the dear Vicar is
looking," said Mrs. Pirbright. "I've noticed it before
when he sits next to Lady Hammergallow. She simply will not respect his cloth. She goes on -"
"His tie is all askew," said the very eldest Miss
Papaver, "and his hair! It really hardly looks as
though he had brushed it all day."
"Seems a foreign sort of chap. Affected. All
very well in a drawing-room," said George Harringay,
sitting apart with the younger Miss Pirbright. "But
for my part, give me a masculine man and a feminine
woman. What do you think?"
"Oh!-I think so too," said the younger Miss
Pirbright.
"Guineas and guineas," said Lady Hammergallow.
"I've heard that some of them keep quite stylish
establishments. You would scarcely credit it-"
"I love music, Mr. Angel, I adore it. It stirs
something in me. I can scarcely describe it," said
Mrs. Jehoram. "Who is it says that delicious antithesis: 'Life without music is brutality; music without
life is'-  Dear me! perhaps you remember? 'Music
without life'-it's Ruskin I think?"
"I'm sorry that I do not," said the Angel. "I have
read very few books."
"How charming of you!" said Mrs. Jehoram. "I
wish I didn't. I sympathise with you profoundly.
I would do the same, only we poor women-I suppose
it's originality we lack- And down here one is
driven to the most desperate proceedings-"
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"He's certainly very pretty. But the ultimate test
of a man is his strength," said George Harringay.
"What do you think?"
"Oh!-I think so too," said the younger Miss Pirbright.
"It's the effeminate man who makes the masculine
woman. When the glory of a man is his hair, what's
a woman to do? And when men go running about
with beautiful hectic dabs —"
"Oh, George! You are so dreadfully satirical today," said the younger Miss Pirbright. "I'm sure it
isn't paint."
"I'm really not his guardian, my dear Lady Hammergallow. Of course it's very kind indeed of you to
take such an interest —"
"Are you really going to improvise?" said Mrs.
Jehoram in a state of cooing delight.
"SSsh!" said the Curate from Iping Hanger.
Then the Angel began to play, looking straight before him as he did so, thinking of the wonderful things
of the Angelic Land, and yet insensibly letting the
sadness he was beginning to feel steal over the fantasia he was playing. When he forgot his company
the music was strange and sweet; when the sense of
his surroundings floated into his mind the music grew
capricious and grotesque. But so great was the hold
of the Angelic music upon the Vicar that his anxieties
fell from him at once, so soon as the Angel began to
play. Mrs. Jehoram sat and looked rapt and sympathetic as hard as she could (though the music was
puzzling at times) and tried to catch the Angel's eye.
He really had a wonderfully mobile face, and the
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tenderest shades of expression! And Mrs. Jehoram
was a judge. George Harringay looked bored, until
the younger Miss Pirbright, who adored him, put out
her mousy little shoe to touch his manly boot, and
then he turned his face to catch the feminine delicacy
of her coquettish eye, and was comforted. The very
eldest Miss Papaver and Mrs. Pirbright sat quite
still and looked churchy for nearly four minutes.
Then said the eldest Miss Papaver in a whisper,
"I always Enjoy violin music so much." And Mrs.
Pirbright answered, "We get so little Nice music
down here." And Miss Papaver said, "He plays Very
nicely." And Mrs. Pirbright, "Such a Delicate
Touch!" And Miss Papaver, "Does Willie keep up
his lessons?" and so to a whispered conversation.
The Curate from Iping Hanger sat (he felt) in full
view of the company. He had one hand curled
round his ear, and his eyes hard and staring fixedly
at the pedestal of the Hammergallow Sevres vase.
He supplied, by the movements of his mouth, a kind
of critical guide to any of the company who were
disposed to avail themselves of it. It was a generous
way he had. His aspect was severely judicial, tempered by starts of evident disapproval and guarded
appreciation. The Vicar leaned back in his chair and
stared at the Angel's face, and was presently rapt
away in a wonderful dream. Lady Hammergallow,
with quick jerky movements of the head and a low
but insistent rustling, surveyed and tried to judge of
the effect of the Angelic playing. Mr. Rathbone
Slater stared very solemnly into his hat and looked
very miserable, and Mrs. Rathbone Slater made men224




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tal memoranda of Mrs. Jehoram's sleeves. And the
air about them all was heavy with exquisite musicfor all that had ears to hear.
"Scarcely affected enough," whispered Lady Hammergallow hoarsely, suddenly poking the Vicar in
the ribs. The Vicar came out of dreamland suddenly.
"Eigh?" shouted the Vicar, startled, coming up with
a jump. "Sssh!" said the Curate from Iping Hanger,
and every one looked shocked at the brutal insensibility of Hillyer. "So unusual of the Vicar," said the
very eldest Miss Papaver, "to do things like that!"
The Angel went on playing.
The Curate from Iping Hanger began making mesmeric movements with his index finger, and as the
thing proceeded Mr. Rathbone Slater got amazingly
limp. He solemnly turned his hat round and altered
his view. The Vicar lapsed from an uneasy discomfort into dreamland again. Lady Hammergallow
rustled a great deal, and presently found a way of
making her chair creak. And at last the thing came
to an end. Lady Hammergallow exclaimed, "Delicious!" though she had never heard a note, and
began clapping her hands. At that every one clapped
except Mr. Rathbone Slater, who rapped his hat brim
instead. The Curate from Iping Hanger clapped with
a judicial air.
"So I said (clap, clap, clap), if you cannot cook the
food my way (clap, clap, clap) you must go," said
Mrs. Pirbright, clapping vigorously. "This music is
a delightful treat."
"It is. I always revel in music," said the very eldest
Miss Papaver. "And did she improve after that?"
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"Not a bit of it," said Mrs. Pirbright.
The Vicar woke up again and stared round the
saloon. Did other people see these visions, or were
they confined to him alone? Surely they must all
see... and have a wonderful command of their
feelings. It was incredible that such music should
not affect them. "He's a trifle gauche," said Lady
Hammergallow, jumping upon the Vicar's attention.
"He neither bows nor smiles. He must cultivate
oddities like that. Every successful executant is
more or less gauche."
"Did you really make that up yourself?" said Mrs.
Jehoram, sparkling her eyes at him, "as you went
along. Really, it is wonderful! Nothing less than
wonderful."
"A little amateurish," said the Curate from Iping
Hanger to Mr. Rathbone Slater. "A great gift, undoubtedly, but a certain lack of sustained training.
There were one or two little things.. I would like
to talk to him."
"His trousers look like concertinas," said Mr.
Rathbone Slater. "He ought to be told that. It's
scarcely decent."
"Can you do Imitations, Mr. Angel?" said Lady
Hammergallow.
"Oh, do do some Imitations!" said Mrs. Jehoram.
"I adore Imitations."
"It was a fantastic thing," said the Curate of Iping
Hanger, waving his long indisputably musical hands
as he spoke; "a little involved, to my mind. I have
heard it before somewhere-I forget where. He has
genius undoubtedly, but occasionally he is-loose.
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There is a certain deadly precision wanting. There
are years of discipline yet."
"I don't admire these complicated pieces of music,"
said George Harringay. "I have simple tastes, I'm
afraid. There seems to me no tune in it. There's
nothing I like so much as simple music. Tune, simplicity is the need of the age, in my opinion. We
are so oversubtle. Everything is far-fetched. Homegrown thoughts and 'Home, Sweet Home' for me.
What do you think?"
"Oh! I think so-quite," said the younger Miss
Pirbright.
"Well, Amy, chattering to George as usual?" said
Mrs. Pirbright, across the room.
"As usual, Ma!" said the younger Miss Pirbright,
glancing round with a bright smile at Miss Papaver,
and turning again so as not to lose the next utterance
from George.
"I wonder if you and Mr. Angel could manage a
duet?" said Lady Hammergallow to the Curate from
Iping Hanger, who was looking preternaturally
gloomy.
"I'm sure I should be delighted," said the Curate
from Iping Hanger, brightening up.
"Duets!" said the Angel; "the two of us. Then he
can play. I understood-the Vicar told me  "
"Mr. Wilmerdings is an accomplished pianist,"
interrupted the Vicar.
"But the Imitations?" said Mrs. Jehoram, who
detested Wilmerdings.
"Imitations!" said the Angel.
"A pig squeaking, a cock crowing, you know,"
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said Mr. Rathbone Slater, and added lower, "Best
fun you can get out of a fiddle-my opinion."
"I really don't understand," said the Angel. "A
pig crowing!"
"You don't like Imitations," said Mrs. Jehoram.
"Nor do I-really. I accept the snub. I think they
degrade...."
"Perhaps afterwards Mr. Angel will Relent," said
Lady Hammergallow, when Mrs. Pirbright had explained the matter to her. She could scarcely credit
her ear-trumpet. When she asked for Imitations
she was accustomed to get Imitations.
Mr. Wilmerdings had seated himself at the piano,
and had turned to a familiar pile of music in the recess. "What do you think of that Barcarole thing of
Spohr's?" he said over his shoulder. "I suppose you
know it?" The Angel looked bewildered.
He opened the folio before the Angel.
"What an odd kind of book!" said the Angel.
"What do all those crazy dots mean?" (At that the
Vicar's blood ran cold.)
"What dots?" said the Curate.
"There!" said the Angel with incriminating finger.
"Oh, come!" said the Curate.
There was one of those swift, short silences that
mean so much in a social gathering.
Then the eldest Miss Papaver turned upon the
Vicar. "Does not Mr. Angel play from ordinary..
music-from the ordinary notation?"
"I have never heard," said the Vicar, getting red
now after the first shock of horror. "I have really
never seen....
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The Angel felt the situation was strained, though
what was straining it he could not understand. He
became aware of a doubtful, an unfriendly look upon
the faces that regarded him. "Impossible!" he heard
Mrs. Pirbright say; "after that beautiful music."
The eldest Miss Papaver went to Lady Hammergallow at once, and began to explain into her eartrumpet that Mr. Angel did not wish to play with Mr.
Wilmerdings, and alleged an ignorance of written music.
"He cannot play from Notes!" said Lady Hammergallow in a voice of measured horror. "Nonsense!"
"Notes!" said the Angel perplexed. "Are these
notes?"
"It's carrying the joke too far-simply because he
doesn't want to play with Wilmerdings," said Mr.
Rathbone Slater to George Harringay.
There was an expectant pause. The Angel perceived he had to be ashamed of himself. He was
ashamed of himself.
"Then," said Lady Hammergallow, throwing her
head back and speaking with deliberate indignation,
as she rustled forward, "if you cannot play with Mr.
Wilmerdings I am afraid I cannot ask you to play
again." She made it sound like an ultimatum. Her
glasses in her hand quivered violently with indignation. The Angel was now human enough to appreciate the fact that he was crushed.
"What is it?" said little Lucy Rustchuck in the
further bay.
"He's refused to play with old Wilmerdings," said
Tommy Rathbone Slater. "What a lark! The old




THE WONDERFUL VISIT


girl's purple. She thinks heaps of that ass Wilmerdings."
"Perhaps, Mr. Wilmerdings, you will favour us
with that delicious Polonaise of Chopin's," said Lady
Hammergallow. Everybody else was hushed. The
indignation of Lady Hammergallow inspired much
the same silence as a coming earthquake or an eclipse.
Mr. Wilmerdings perceived he would be doing a real
social service to begin at once, and (be it entered to
his credit now that his account draws near its settlement) he did.
"If a man pretend to practise an Art," said George
Harringay, "he ought at least to have the conscience
to study the elements of it. What do you..."
"Oh! I think so too," said the younger Miss Pirbright.
The Vicar felt that the heavens had fallen. He
sat crumpled up in his chair, a shattered man. Lady
Hammergallow sat down next to him without appearing to see him. She was breathing heavily, but her
face was terribly calm. Every one sat down. Was
the Angel grossly ignorant or only grossly impertinent? The Angel was vaguely aware of some frightful
offence, aware that in some mysterious way he had
ceased to be the centre of the gathering. He saw
reproachful despair in the Vicar's eye. He drifted
slowly towards the window in the recess and sat
down on the little octagonal Moorish stool by the
side of Mrs. Jehoram. And under the circumstances
he appreciated at more than its proper value Mrs.
Jehoram's kindly smile. He put down the violin in
the window-seat.
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~35
MRS. Jehoram and the Angel apart-Mr. Wilmerdings playing.
"I have so longed for a quiet word with you," said
Mrs. Jehoram in a low tone. "To tell you how delightful I found your playing."
"I am glad it pleased you," said the Angel.
"Pleased is scarcely the word," said Mrs. Jehoram.
"I was moved-profoundly. These others did not
understand... I was glad you did not play with
him."
The Angel looked at the mechanism called Wilmerdings, and felt glad too. (The Angelic conception of
duets is a kind of conversation upon violins.) But
he said nothing.
"I worship music," said Mrs. Jehoram. "I know
nothing about it technically, but there is something
in it-a longing, a wish...."
The Angel stared at her face. She met his
eyes.
"You understand," she said. "I see you understand." He was certainly a very nice boy, sentimentally precocious perhaps, and with deliciously
liquid eyes.
There was an interval of Chopin (Op. 40) played
with immense precision.
Mrs. Jehoram had a sweet face still, in shadow,
with the light falling round her golden hair, and a
curious theory flashed across the Angel's mind. The
perceptible powder only supported his view of some231




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thing infinitely bright and lovable caught, tarnished,
coarsened, coated over.
"Do you?" said the Angel in a low tone. "Are
you... separated from... your world?"
"As you are?" whispered Mrs. Jehoram.
"This is so-cold," said the Angel. "So harsh!"
He meant the whole world.
"I feel it too," said Mrs. Jehoram, referring to
Siddermorton House.
"There are those who cannot live without sympathy," she said after a sympathetic pause. "And
times when one feels alone in the world. Fighting a
battle against it all. Laughing, flirting, hiding the
pain of it...."
"And hoping," said the Angel with a wonderful
glance- "Yes."
Mrs. Jehoram (who was an epicure of flirtations)
felt the Angel was more than redeeming the promise
of his appearance. (Indisputably he worshipped
her.) "Do you look for sympathy?" she said. "Or
have you found it?"
"I think," said the Angel, very softly, leaning forward, "I think I have found it."
Interval of Chopin Op. 40. The very eldest Miss
Papaver and Mrs. Pirbright whispering. Lady Hammergallow (glasses up) looking down the saloon with
an unfriendly expression at the Angel. Mrs. Jehoram
and the Angel exchanging deep and significant
glances.
"Her name," said the Angel (Mrs. Jehoram made a
movement) "is Delia. She is.."
"Delia!" said Mrs. Jehoram sharply, slowly realis232




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ing a terrible misunderstanding. "A fanciful name.... Why!... No! Not that little housemaid
at the Vicarage?...
The Polonaise terminated with a flourish. The
Angel was quite surprised at the change in Mrs.
Jehoram's expression.
"I never did!" said Mrs. Jehoram recovering. "To
make me your confidante in an intrigue with a
servant. Really, Mr. Angel, it's possible to be too
original..."
Then suddenly their colloquy was interrupted.
~ 36
Tins section is (so far as my memory goes) the
shortest in the book.
But the enormity of the offence necessitates the
separation of this section from all other sections.
The Vicar, you must understand, had done his best
to inculcate the recognised differentiae of a gentleman. "Never allow a lady to carry anything," said
the Vicar. "Say, 'permit me' and relieve her."
"Always stand until every lady is seated." "Always
rise and open a door for a lady..." and so forth.
(All men who have elder sisters know that code.)
And the Angel (who had failed to relieve Lady
Hammergallow of her teacup) danced forward with
astonishing dexterity (leaving Mrs. Jehoram in the
window-seat) and with an elegant "permit me"
rescued the tea-tray from Lady Hammergallow's
pretty parlour-maid and vanished officiously in front
233




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of her. The Vicar rose to his feet with an inarticulate
cry.
~ 37
"HE'S drunk!" said Mr. Rathbone Slater, breaking
a terrific silence. "That's the matter with him."
Mrs. Jehoram laughed hysterically.
The Vicar stood up, motionless, staring. "Oh! I
forgot to explain servants to him!" said the Vicar to
himself in a swift outbreak of remorse. "I thought
he did understand servants."
"Really, Mr. Hillyer!" said Lady Hammergallow,
evidently exercising enormous self-control and speaking in panting spasms. "Really, Mr. Hillyer! Your
genius is too terrible. I must, I really must, ask you
to take him home."
So to the dialogue in the corridor of alarmed maidservant and well-meaning (but shockingly gauche)
Angel-appears the Vicar, his botryoidal little face
crimson, gaunt despair in his eyes, and his necktie
under his left ear.
"Come," he said-struggling with emotion. "Come
away.... I... I am disgraced for ever."
And the Angel stared for a second at him and
obeyed meekly, perceiving himself in the presence of
unknown but evidently terrible forces.
In the informal indignation meeting that followed,
Lady Hammergallow took the (informal) chair. "I
feel humiliated," she said. "The Vicar assured me he
was an exquisite player. I never imagined..."
"He was drunk," said Mr. Rathbone Slater. "You
could tell it from the way he fumbled with his tea."
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"Such a fiasco!" said Mrs. Mergle.
"The Vicar assured me," said Lady Hammergallow. "'The man I have staying with me is a musical genius;' he said. His very words."
"His ears must be burning anyhow," said Tommy
Rathbone Slater.
"I was trying to keep him Quiet," said Mrs. Jehoram. "By humouring him. And do you know the
things he said to me-there!"
"The thing he played," said Mr. Wilmerdings,
"-I must confess I did not like to charge him to
his face. But really! It was merely drifting."
"Just fooling with a fiddle, eigh?" said George
Harringay. "Well I thought it was beyond me. So
much of your fine music is  "
"Oh, George!" said the younger Miss Pirbright.
"The Vicar was a bit on, too-to judge by his tie,"
said Mr. Rathbone Slater. "It's a dashed rummy go.
Did you notice how he fussed after the genius?"
"One has to be so very careful," said the very
eldest Miss Papaver.
"He told me he is love with the Vicar's housemaid!" said Mrs. Jehoram. "I almost laughed in
his face."
"The Vicar ought never to have brought him here,"
said Mrs. Rathbone Slater with decision.
~ 38
So, ingloriously, ended the Angel's first and last
appearance in Society. Vicar and Angel returned to
the Vicarage; crestfallen black figures in the bright
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sunlight, going dejectedly. The Angel, deeply pained
that the Vicar was pained. The Vicar, dishevelled
and desperate, intercalating spasmodic remorse and
apprehension with broken explanations of the Theory
of Etiquette. "They do not understand," said the
Vicar over and over again. "They will all be so very
much aggrieved. I do not know what to say to
them. It is all so confused, so perplexing." And at
the gate of the Vicarage, at the very spot where Delia
had first seemed beautiful, stood Horrocks the village
constable, awaiting them. He held coiled up about
his hand certain short lengths of barbed wire.
"Good evening, Horrocks," said the Vicar as the
constable held the gate open.
"Evenin', Sir," said Horrocks, and added in a kind
of mysterious undertone: "Could I speak to you a
minute, Sir?"
"Certainly," said the Vicar. The Angel walked on
thoughtfully to the house, and meeting Delia in the
hall stopped her and cross-examined her at length
over differences between Servants and Ladies.
"You'll excuse my taking the liberty, Sir," said
Horrocks, "but there's trouble brewin' for that
crippled gent you got stayin' here."
"Bless me!" said the Vicar. "You don't say so!"
"Sir John Gotch, Sir. He's very angry indeed,
Sir. His language, Sir-  But I felt bound to tell
you, Sir. He's certain set on taking out a summons
on account of that there barbed wire. Certain set,
Sir, he is."
"Sir John Gotch!" said the Vicar. "Wire! I
don't understand."
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"He as:'ed me to find out who did it. Course I've
had to do my duty, Sir. Naturally a disagreeable
one."
"Barbed wire! Duty! I don't understand you,
Horrocks."
"I'm afraid, Sir, there's no denying the evidence.
I've made careful inquiries, Sir." And forthwith the
constable began telling the Vicar of a new and terrible
outrage committed by the Angelic visitor.
But we need not follow that explanation in detail
-or the subsequent confession. (For my own part
I think there is nothing more tedious than dialogue.)
It gave the Vicar a new view of the Angelic character,
a vignette of the Angelic indignation. A shady lane,
sun-mottled, sweet hedges full of honeysuckle and
vetch on either side, and a little girl gathering flowers,
forgetful of the barbed wire which, all along the
Sidderford Road, fenced in the dignity of Sir John
Gotch from "bounders" and the detested "million."
Then suddenly a gashed hand, a bitter outcry, and
the Angel sympathetic, comforting, inquisitive. Explanations sob-set, and then-altogether novel phenomenon in the Angelic career-passion. A furious
onslaught upon the barbed wire of Sir John Gotch,
barbed wire recklessly handled, slashed, bent and
broken. Yet the Angel acted without personal malice-saw in the thing only an ugly and vicious plant
that trailed insidiously among its fellows. Finally
the Angel's explanations gave the Vicar a picture of
the Angel alone amidst his destruction, trembling
and amazed at the sudden force, not himself, that
had sprung up within him and set him striking and
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cutting. Amazed, too, at the crimson blood that
trickled down his fingers.
"It is still more horrible," said the Angel when the
Vicar explained the artificial nature of the thing.
"If I had seen the man who put this silly, cruel stuff
there to hurt little children, I know I should have
tried to inflict pain upon him. I have never felt like
this before. I am indeed becoming tainted and coloured altogether by the wickedness of this world.
"To think, too, that you men should be so foolish
as to uphold the laws that let a man do such spiteful
things. Yes-I know; you will say it has to be so.
For some remoter reason. That is a thing that only
makes me angrier. Why cannot an act rest on its
own merits?... As it does in the Angelic Land."
That was the incident tl;e history of which the
Vicar now gradually learned, getting the bare outline
from Horrocks, the colour and emotion subsequently
from the Angel. The thing had happened the day
before the musical festival at Siddermorton House.
"Have you told Sir John who did it?" asked the
Vicar. "And are you sure?"
"Quite sure, Sir. There can be no doubting it was
your gentleman, Sir. I've not told Sir John yet,
Sir. But I shall have to tell Sir John this evening.
Meaning no offence to you, Sir, as I hopes you'll
see. It's my duty, Sir. Besides which  "
"Of course," said the Vicar hastily. "Certainly
it's your duty. And what will Sir John do?"
"He's dreadful set against the person who did itdestroying property like that-and sort of slapping
his arrangements in the face."
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Pause. Horrocks made a movement. The Vicar,
tie almost at the back of his neck now, a most unusual
thing for him, stared blankly at his toes.
"I thought I'd tell you, Sir," said Horrocks.
"Yes," said the Vicar.   "Thanks, Horrocks,
thanks!" He scratched the back of his head. "You
might perhaps... I think it's the best way..
Quite sure Mr. Angel did it?"
"Sherlock 'Omes, Sir, couldn't be cocksurer."
"Then I'd better give you a little note to the
Squire."
~ 39
THE Vicar's table-talk at dinner that night, after
the Angel had stated his case, was full of grim explanations, prisons, madness.
"It's too late to tell the truth about you now,"
said the Vicar. "Besides, that's impossible. I really
do not know what to say. We must face our circumstances, I suppose. I am so undecided-so torn.
It's the two worlds. If your Angelic world were only
a dream, or if this world were only a dream-or if I
could believe either or both dreams, it would be all
right with me. But here is a real Angel and a real
summons-how to reconcile them I do not know. I
must talk to Gotch.... But he won't understand.
Nobody will understand...."
"I am putting you to terrible inconvenience, I am
afraid. My appalling unworldliness  "
"It's not you," said the Vicar. "It's not you. I
perceive you have brought something strange and
beautiful into my life. It's not you. It's myself.
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If I had more faith either way. If I could believe
entirely in this world, and call you an Abnormal
Phenomenon, as Crump does. But no. Terrestrial
Angelic, Angelic Terrestrial.... Seesaw.
"Still, Gotch is certain to be disagreeable, most disagreeable. He always is. It puts me into his hands.
He is a bad moral influence, I know. Drinking.
Gambling. Worse. Still, one must render unto
Caesar the things that are Caesar's. And he is against
Disestablishment...."
Then the Vicar would revert to the social collapse
of the afternoon. "You are so very fundamental,
you know," he said-several times.
The Angel went to his own room puzzled but very
depressed. Every day the world had frowned darker
upon him and his Angelic ways. He could see how
the trouble affected the Vicar, yet he could not
imagine how he could avert it. It was all so strange
and unreasonable. Twice again, too, he had been
pelted out of the village.
He found the violin lying on his bed where he had
laid it before dinner. And taking it up he began to
play to comfort himself. But now he played no
delicious vision of the Angelic Land. The iron of
the world was entering into his soul. For a week now
he had known pain and rejection, suspicion and
hatred; a strange new spirit of revolt was growing up
in his heart. He played a melody, still sweet and
tender as those of the Angelic Land, but charged with
a new note, the note of human sorrow and effort, now
swelling into something like defiance, dying now into
a plaintive sadness. He played softly, playing to
240




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himself to comfort himself, but the Vicar heard, and
all his finite bothers were swallowed up in a hazy
melancholy, a melancholy that was quite remote
from sorrow. And besides the Vicar, the Angel had
another hearer of whom neither Angel nor Vicar was
thinking.
~ 40
SHE was only four or five yards away from the
Angel in the westward gable. The diamond-paned
window of her little white room was open. She knelt
on her box of japanned tin, and rested her chin on
her hands, her elbows on the window-sill. The young
moon hung over the pine-trees, and its light, cool and
colourless, lay softly upon the silent, sleeping world.
Its light fell upon her white face, and discovered new
depths in her dreaming eyes. Her soft lips fell
apart and showed the little white teeth.
Delia was thinking, vaguely, wonderfully, as girls
will think. It was feeling rather than thinking;
clouds of beautiful translucent emotion drove across
the clear sky of her mind, taking shape that changed
and vanished. She had all that wonderful emotional
tenderness, that subtle exquisite desire for self-sacrifice, which exists so inexplicably in a girl's heart,
exists it seems only to be presently trampled under
foot by the grim and gross humours of daily life, to
be ploughed in again roughly and remorselessly as
the farmer ploughs in the clover that has sprung up
in the soil. -She had been looking out at the tranquillity of the moonlight long before the Angel began
to play,-waiting; then suddenly the quiet, motion241




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less beauty of silver and shadow was suffused with
tender music.
She did not move, but her lips closed and her eyes
grew even softer. She had been thinking before of
the strange glory that had suddenly flashed out about
the stooping hunchback when he spoke to her in the
sunset; of that and of a dozen other glances, chance
turns, even once the touching of her hand. That
afternoon he had spoken to her, asking strange questions. Now the music seemed to bring his very face
before her, his look of half curious solicitude, peering
into her face, into her eyes, into her and through her,
deep down into her soul. He seemed now to be
speaking directly to her, telling her of his solitude and
trouble. Oh! that regret, that longing! For he
was in trouble. And how could a servant-girl help
him, this soft-spoken gentleman who carried himself
so kindly, who played so sweetly. The music was so
sweet and keen, it came so near to the thought of her
heart, that presently one hand tightened on the other,
and the tears came streaming down her face.
As Crump would tell you, people do not do that
kind of thing unless there is something wrong with
the nervous system. But then, from the scientific
point of view, being in love is a pathological condition.
I AM painfully aware of the objectionable nature
of my story here. I have even thought of wilfully
perverting the truth to propitiate the Lady Reader.
But I could not. The story has been too much for
me. I do the thing with my eyes open. Delia must
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remain what she really was-a servant-girl. I know
that to give a mere servant-girl, or at least an English
servant-girl, the refined feelings of a human being, to
present her as speaking with anything but an intolerable confusion of aspirates, places me outside the
pale of respectable writers. Association with servants, even in thought, is dangerous in these days.
I can only plead (pleading vainly, I know) that Delia
was a very exceptional servant-girl. Possibly, if one
inquired, it might be found that her parentage was
upper middle-class-that she was made of the finer
upper middle-class clay. And (this perhaps may
avail me better) I will promise that in some future
work I will redress the balance, and the patient
reader shall hav   e the recognised article, enormous
feet and hands, systematic aspiration of vowels and
elimination of aspirates, no figure (only middle-class
girls have figures-the thing is beyond a servantgirl's means), a fringe (by agreement), and a cheerful
readiness to dispose of her self-respect for haIf-acrown. That is the accepted English servant, the
typical Englishwoman (when stripped of money and
accomplishments) as she appears in the works of contemporary writers. But Delia somehow was different. Z can only regret the circumstance-it was
altogether beyond my controel
~4'
EARLY the next morning th    AngelI wen   dow
through the village, and, climbing the fence, waded
through the waist-high reeds that frringe the Sidder,
23S




THE WONDERFUL VISIT


He was going to Bandram Bay to take a nearer view
of the sea, which one could just see on a clear day
from the higher parts of Siddermorton Park. And
suddenly he came upon Crump sitting on a log
and smoking. (Crump always smoked exactly two
ounces per week-and he always smoked it in the
open air.)
"Hullo!" said Crump, in his healthiest tone.
"How's the wing?"
"Very well," said the Angel. "The pain's gone."
"I suppose you know you are trespassing?"
"Trespassing!" said the Angel.
"I suppose you don't know what that means,"
said Crump.
"I don't," said the Angel.
"I must congratulate you. I don't know how
long you will last, but you are keeping it up remarkably well. I thought at first you were a mattoid,
but you're so amazingly consistent. Your attitude
of entire ignorance of the elementary facts of Life is
really a very amusing pose. You make slips of
course, but very few. But surely we two understand
one another."
He smiled at the Angel. "You would beat Sherlock
Holmes. I wonder who you really are."
The Angel smiled back, with eyebrows raised and
hands extended. "It's impossible for you to know
who I am. Your eyes are blind, your ears deaf, your
soul dark, to all that is wonderful about me. It's
no good my telling that I fell into your world."
The Doctor waved his pipe. "Not that, please.
I don't want to pry if you have your reasons for
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keeping quiet. Only I would like you to think of
Hillyer's mental health. He really believes this
story."
The Angel shrugged his dwindling wings.
"You did not know him before this affair. He's
changed tremendously. He used to be neat and
comfortable. For the last fortnight he's been hazy,
with a far-away look in his eyes. He preached last
Sunday without his cuff links, and something wrong
with his tie, and he took for his text, 'Eye hath not
seen nor ear heard.' He really believes all this nonsense about the Angel-land. The man is verging on
monomania! "
"You will see things from your own standpoint,"
said the Angel.
"Every one must. At any rate, I think it jolly
regrettable to see this poor old fellow hypnotised,
as you certainly have hypnotised him. I don't
know where you come from nor who you are, but I
warn you I'm not going to see the old boy made a
fool of much longer."
"But he's not being made a fool of. He's simply
beginning to dream of a world outside his knowledge-"
"It won't do," said Crump. "I'm not one of the
dupe class. You are either of two things-a lunatic
at large (which I don't believe), or a knave. Nothing
else is possible. I think I know a little of this world,
whatever I do of yours. Very well. If you don't
leave Hillyer alone I shall communicate with the
police, and either clap you into a prison, if you go
back on your story, or into a madhouse if you don't.
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It's stretching a point, but I swear I'd certify you
insane to-morrow to get you out of the village. It's
not only the Vicar. As you know. I hope that's
plain. Now what have you to say?"
With an affectation of great calm, the Doctor took
out his penknife and began to dig the blade into his
pipe bowl. His pipe had gone out during this last
speech.
For a moment neither spoke. The Angel looked
about him with a face that grew pale. The Doctor
extracted a plug of tobacco from his pipe and flung
it away, shut his penknife and put it in his waistcoat
pocket. He had not meant to speak quite so emphatically, but speech always warmed him.
"Prison," said the Angel. "Madhouse! Let me
see." Then he remembered the Vicar's explanation.
"Not that!" he said. He approached Crump with
eyes dilated and hands outstretched.
"I knew you would know what those things meant
-at any rate. Sit down," said Crump, indicating
the tree trunk beside him by a movement of the head.
The Angel, shivering, sat down on the tree trunk
and stared at the Doctor.
Crump was getting out his pouch. "You are a
strange man," said the Angel. "Your beliefs are
like-a steel trap."
"They are," said Crump-flattered.
"But I tell you-I assure you the thing is so-I
know nothing, or at least remember nothing of anything I knew of this world before I found myself in
the darkness of night on the moorland above Sidderford."
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"Where did you learn the language then?"
"I don't know. Only I tell you- But I haven't
an atom of the sort of proof that would convince you."
"And you really," said Crump, suddenly coming
round upon him and looking into his eyes; "you
really believe you were eternally in a kind of glorious
heaven before then?"
"I do," said the Angel.
"Pshaw!" said Crump, and lit his pipe. He sat
smoking, elbow on knee, for some time, and the
Angel sat and watched him. Then his face grew less
troubled.
"It is just possible," he said to himself rather than
to the Angel, and began another piece of silence.
"You see," he said, when that was finished,
"there is such a thing as double personality..
A man sometimes forgets who he is and thinks he
is some one else. Leaves home, friends, and everything, and leads a double life. There was a case in
Nature only a month or so ago. The man was sometimes English and right-handed, and sometimes
Welsh and left-handed. When he was English he
knew no Welsh, when he was Welsh he knew no
English..     H'm."
He turned suddenly on the Angel and said
"Home!" He fancied he might revive in the Angel
some latent memory of his lost youth. He went on:
"Dadda, Pappa, Daddy, Mammy, Pappy, Father,
Dad, Governor, Old Boy, Mother, dear Mother, Ma,
Mumsy.... No good. What are you laughing
at?"
"Nothing," said the Angel. "You surprised me a
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little,-that is all. A week ago I should have been
puzzled by that vocabulary."
For a minute Crump rebuked the Angel silently
out of the corner of his eye.
"You have such an ingenuous face. You almost
force me to believe you. You are certainly not an
ordinary lunatic. Your mind-except for your isolation from the past-seems balanced enough. I
wish Nordau or Lombroso or some of these Saltpetriere men could have a look at you. Down here
one gets no practice worth speaking about in mental
cases. There's one idiot-and he's just a damned
idiot of an idiot-all the rest thoroughly sane people."
"Possibly that accounts for their behaviour," said
the Angel thoughtfully.
"But to consider your general position here," said
Crump, ignoring his comment, "I really regard you
as a bad influence here. These fancies are contagious.
It is not simply the Vicar. There is a man named
Shine has caught the fad, and he has been in the drink
for a week, off and on, and offering to fight any one
who says you are not an Angel. Then a man over at
Sidderford is, I hear, affected with a kind of religious
mania on the same tack. These things spread. There
ought to be a quarantine in mischievous ideas. And
I have heard another story... "
"But what can I do?" said the Angel. "Suppose
I am quite unintentionally doing mischief...."
"You can leave the village," said Crump.
"Then I shall only go into another village."
"That's not my affair," said Crump. "Go where
you like. Only go. Leave these three people, the
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Vicar, Shine, the little servant-girl, whose heads are
all spinning with galaxies of Angels...."
"But," said the Angel. "Face your world! I tell
you I can't. And leave Delia! I don't understand.. I do not know how to set about getting Work
and Food and Shelter. And I am growing afraid of
human beings..."
"Fancies, fancies," said Crump, watching him,
"mania."
"It's no good my persisting in worrying you," he
said suddenly, "but certainly the situation is impossible as it stands." He stood up with a jerk.
"Good morning, Mr.-Angel," he said, "the long
and the short of it is-I say it as the medical adviser
of this parish-you are an unhealthy influence. We
can't have you. You must go."
He turned, and went striding through the grass
towards the roadway, leaving the Angel sitting disconsolately on the tree trunk. "An unhealthy influence," said the Angel slowly, staring blankly in front
of him, and trying to realise what it meant.
~42
SIR JOHN GOTCH was a little man with scrubby hair,
a small, thin nose sticking out of a face crackled with
wrinkles, tight brown gaiters, and a riding-whip.
"I've come, you see," he said, as Mrs. Hinijer closed
the door.
"Thank you," said the Vicar, "I'm obliged to you.
I'm really obliged to you."
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"Glad to be of any service to you," said Sir John
Gotch. (Angular attitude.)
"This business," said the Vicar, "this unfortunate
business of the barbed wire-is really, you know, a
most unfortunate business."
Sir John Gotch became decidedly more angular in
his attitude. "It is," he said.
"This Mr. Angel being my guest-  "
"No reason why he should cut my wire," said Sir
John Gotch briefly.
"None whatever."5
"May I ask who this Mr. Angel is?" asked Sir
John Gotch with the abruptness of long premeditation.
The Vicar's fingers jumped to his chin. What was
the good of talking to a man like Sir John Gotch
about Angels?
"To tell you the exact truth," said the Vicar,
"there is a little secret -"
"Lady Hammergallow told me as much."
The Vicar's face suddenly became bright red.
"Do you know," said Sir John, with scarcely a
pause, "he's been going about this village preaching
Socialism?"
"Good heavens!" said the Vicar, "No!"
"He has. He has been buttonholing every yokel
he came across, and asking them why they had to
work, while we-I and you, you know-did nothing.
He has been saying we ought to educate every man
up to your level and mine-out of the rates, I suppose,
as usual. He has been suggesting that we-I and
you, you know-keep these people down-pith 'em."
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"Dear me!" said the Vicar, "I had no idea."
"He has done this wire-cutting as a demonstration, I tell you, as a Socialistic demonstration. If
we don't come down on him pretty sharply, I tell
you, we shall have the palings down in Flinders Lane
next, and the next thing will be ricks afire, and
every damned (I beg your pardon, Vicar. I know
I'm too fond of that word), every blessed pheasant's
egg in the parish smashed. I know these-"
"A Socialist," said the Vicar, quite put out, "I
had no idea."
"You see why I am inclined to push matters
against our gentleman though he is your guest. It
seems to me he has been taking advantage of your
paternal —"
"Oh, not paternal!" said the Vicar. "Really-"
"I beg your pardon, Vicar-it was a slip. Of your
kindness, to go mischief-making everywhere, setting
class against class, and the poor man against his
bread and butter."
The Vicar's fingers were at his chin again.
"So there's one of two things," said Sir John Gotch.
"Either that Guest of yours leaves the parish, or-I
take proceedings. That's final."
The Vicar's mouth was all askew.
"That's the position," said Sir John, jumping to
his feet. "If it were not for you, I should take proceedings at once. As it is-am I to take proceedings or no?"
"You see," said the Vicar in horrible perplexity.
"Well?"
"Arrangements have to be made."
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"He's a mischief-making idler.... I know the
breed. But I'll give you a week —"
"Thank you," said the Vicar. "I understand your
position. I perceive the situation is getting intolerable....
"Sorry to give you this bother, of course," said
Sir John.
"A week," said the Vicar.
"A week," said Sir John, leaving.
The Vicar returned, after accompanying Gotch
out, and for a long time he remained sitting before
the desk in his study, plunged in thought. "A week!"
he said, after an immense silence. "Here is an Angel,
a glorious Angel, who has quickened my soul to
beauty and delight, who has opened my eyes to Wonderland, and something more than Wonderland,..
and I have promised to get rid of him in a week!
What are we men made of?... How can I tell
him?"
He began to walk up and down the room, then he
went into the dining-room and stood staring blankly
out at the corn field. The table was already laid for
lunch. Presently he turned, still dreaming, and almost mechanically helped himself to a glass of sherry.
~ 43
THE Angel lay upon the summit of the cliff above
Bandram Bay, and stared out at the glittering sea.
Sheer from under his elbows fell the cliff, five hundred
and seven feet of it down to the datum line, and the
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sea-birds eddied and soared below him. The upper
part of the cliff was a greenish chalky rock, the lower
two-thirds a warm red, marbled with gypsum bands,
and from half-a-dozen places spurted jets of water,
to fall in long cascades down its face. The swell
frothed white on the flinty beach, and the water beyond where the shadows of an outstanding rock lay,
was green and purple in a thousand tints and marked
with streaks and flakes of foam. The air was full of
sunlight and the tinkling of the little waterfalls and
the slow soughing of the seas below. Now and then
a butterfly flickered over the face of the cliff, and a
multitude of sea-birds perched and flew hither and
thither.
The Angel lay with his crippled, shrivelled wings
humped upon his back, watching the gulls and jackdaws and rooks circling in the sunlight, soaring,
eddying, sweeping down to the water or upward into
the dazzling blue of the sky. Long the Angel lay
there and watched them going to and fro on outspread
wings. He watched, and as he watched them he remembered with infinite longing the rivers of starlight
and the sweetness of the land from which he came.
A gull came gliding overhead, swiftly and easily,
with its broad wings spreading white and fair against
the blue. And suddenly a shadow came into the
Angel's eyes, the sunlight left them, he thought of his
own crippled pinions and put his face upon his arm
and wept.
A woman who was walking along the footpath
across the Cliff Field saw only a twisted hunchback
dressed in the Vicar of Siddermorton's cast-off clothes,
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sprawling foolishly at the edge of the cliff and with
his forehead on his arm. She looked at him and
looked again. "The silly creature has gone to sleep,"
she said, and though she had a heavy basket to carry,
came towards him with an idea of waking him up.
But as she drew near she saw his shoulders heave and
heard the sound of his sobbing.
She stood still a minute, and her features twitched
into a kind of grin. Then treading softly she turned
and went back towards the pathway. "'Tis so hard
to think of anything to say," she said. "Poor afflicted
soul! "
Presently the Angel ceased sobbing, and stared
with a tear-stained face at the beach below him.
"This world," he said, "wraps me round and swallows me up. My wings grow shrivelled and useless.
Soon I shall be nothing more than a crippled man,
and I shall age, and bow myself to pain, and die...
I am miserable. And I am alone."
Then he rested his chin on his hands upon the
edge of the cliff, and began to think of Delia's face
with the light in her eyes. The Angel felt a curious
desire to go to her and tell her of his withered wings.
To place his arms about her and weep for the land
he had lost. "Delia!" he said to himself very softly.
And presently a cloud drove in front of the sun.
~ 44
MRS. HINIJER surprised the Vicar by tapping at
his study door after tea. "Begging your pardon,
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Sir," said Mrs. Hinijer. "But might I make so bold
as to speak to you for a moment?"
"Certainly, Mrs. Hinijer," said the Vicar, little
dreaming of the blow that was coming. He held a
letter in his hand, a very strange and disagreeable
letter from his Bishop, a letter that irritated and distressed him, criticising in the strongest language the
guests he chose to entertain in his own house. Only
a popular bishop living in a democratic age, a bishop
who was still half a pedagogue, could have written
such a letter.
Mrs. Hinijer coughed behind her hand and struggled with some respiratory disorganisation. The Vicar
felt apprehensive. Usually in their interviews he
was the most disconcerted. Invariably so when the
interview ended.
"Well?" he said.
"May I make so bold, Sir, as to arst when Mr.
Angel is a-going?" (Cough.)
The Vicar started. "To ask when Mr. Angel is
going?" he repeated slowly to gain time. "Another!"
"I'm sorry, Sir. But I've been used to waitin'
on gentlefolks, Sir; and you'd hardly imagine how it
feels quite to wait on such as 'im."
"Such as.. 'im! Do I understand you, Mrs.
Hinijer, that you don't like Mr. Angel?"
"You see, Sir, before I came to you, Sir, I was at
Lord Dundoller's seventeen years, and you, Sir-if
you will excuse me-are a perfect gentleman yourself,
Sir-though in the Church. And then...."
"Dear, dear!" said the Vicar. "And don't you regard Mr. Angel as a gentleman?"
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"I'm sorry to 'ave to say it, Sir."
"But what...? Dear me! Surely!"
"I'm sorry to 'ave to say it, Sir. But when a party
goes turning vegetarian suddenly and putting out all
the cooking, and hasn't no proper luggage of his own,
and borry's shirts and socks from his 'ost, and don't
know no better than to try his knife at peas (as I seed
my very self), and goes talking in odd corners to the
housemaids, and folds up his napkin after meals, and
eats with his fingers at minced veal, and plays the
fiddle in the middle of the night keeping everybody
awake, and stares and grins at his elders a-getting upstairs, and generally misconducts himself with things
that I can scarcely tell you all, one can't help thinking, Sir. Thought is free, Sir, and one can't help coming to one's own conclusions. Besides which, there
is talk all over the village about him-what with one
thing and another. I know a gentleman when I sees
a gentleman, and I know a gentleman when I don't
see a gentleman, and me and Susan and George,
we've talked it over, being the upper servants, so to
speak and experienced, and leaving out that girl
Delia who I only hope won't come to any harm
through him, and depend upon it, Sir, that Mr. Angel
ain't what you think he is, Sir, and the sooner he
leaves this house the better."
Mrs. Hinijer ceased abruptly and stood panting
but stern, and with her eyes grimly fixed on the
Vicar's face.
"Really, Mrs. Hinijer!" said the Vicar, and then,
"Oh, Lord!
"What have I done?" said the Vicar, suddenly
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starting up and appealing to the inexorable fates.
"What HAVE I done?"
"There's no knowing," said Mrs. Hinijer. "Though
a deal of talk in the village."
"Bother!" said the Vicar, going and staring out of
the window. Then he turned. "Look here, Mrs.
Hinijer! Mr. Angel will be leaving this house in
the course of a week. Is that enough?"
"Quite," said Mrs. Hinijer. "And I feel sure,
Sirs... "
The Vicar's eyes fell with unwonted eloquence
upon the door.
~ 45
"THE fact is," said the Vicar, "this is no world for
Angels."
The blinds had not been drawn, and the twilight
outer world under an overcast sky seemed unspeakably grey and cold. The Angel sat at table in dejected
silence. His inevitable departure had been proclaimed. Since his presence hurt people and made
the Vicar wretched he acquiesced in the justice of
the decision, but what would happen to him after
his plunge he could not imagine. Something very
disagreeable certainly.
"There is the violin," said the Vicar. "Only after
our experience —
"I must get you clothes-a general outfit. Dear
me! you don't understand railway travelling! And
coinage! Taking lodgings! Eating-houses! I must
come up at least and see you settled. Get work
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for you. But an Angel in London! Working for
his living! That grey cold wilderness of people!
What will become of you? If I had one friend in
the world I could trust to believe me!
"I ought not to be sending you away —"
"Do not trouble overmuch for me, my friend,"
said the Angel. "At least this life of yours ends.
And there are things in it. There is something in this
life of yours-  Your care for me! I thought there
was nothing beautiful at all in life ---"
"And I have betrayed you!" said the Vicar, with
a sudden wave of remorse. "Why did I not face them
all-say, 'This is the best of life'? What do these
everyday things matter?"
He stopped suddenly. "What do they matter?" he
said.
"I have only come into your life to trouble it,"
said the Angel.
"Don't say that," said the Vicar. "You have
come into my life to awaken me. I have been dreaming-dreaming. Dreaming this was necessary and
that. Dreaming that this narrow prison was the
world. And the dream still hangs about me and
troubles me. That is all. Even your departureAm I not dreaming that you must go?"
When he was in bed that night the mystical aspect
of the case came still more forcibly before the Vicar.
He lay awake and had the most horrible visions of his
sweet and delicate visitor drifting through this unsympathetic world and happening upon the cruellest
misadventures. His guest was an Angel assuredly.
He tried to go over the whole story of the past eight
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days again. He thought of the hot afternoon, the
shot fired out of sheer surprise, the fluttering iridescent wings, the beautiful saffron-robed figure upon
the ground. How wonderful that had seemed to
him! Then his mind turned to the things he had heard
of the other world, to the dreams the violin had
conjured up, to the vague, fluctuating, wonderful
cities of the Angelic Land. He tried to recall the
forms of the buildings, the shapes of the fruits upon
the trees, the aspect of the winged shapes that traversed its ways. They grew from a memory into a
present reality, grew every moment just a little more
vivid and his troubles a little less immediate; and so,
softly and quietly, the Vicar slipped out of his troubles
and perplexities into the Land of Dreams.
~ 46
DELIA sat with her window open, hoping to hear
the Angel play. But that night there was to be no
playing. The sky was overcast, yet not so thickly
but that the moon was visible. High up a broken
cloud-lace drove across the sky, and now the moon
was a hazy patch of light, and now it was darkened,
and now rode clear and bright and sharply outlined
against the blue gulf of night. And presently she
heard the door into the garden opening, and a figure
came out under the drifting pallor of the moonlight.
It was the Angel. But he wore once more the
saffron robe in the place of his formless overcoat. In
the uncertain light this garment had only a colourless
shimmer, and his wings behind him seemed a leaden
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grey. He began taking short runs, fapping his wings
and leaping, going to and fro amidst the drifting
patches of light and the shadows of the trees. Delia
watched him in amazement. He gave a despondent
cry, leaping higher. His shrivelled wings flashed and
fell. A thicker patch in the cloud-film made everything obscure. He seemed to spring five or six feet
from the ground and fall clumsily. She saw him in
the dimness crouching on the ground and then she
heard him sobbing.
"He's hurt!" said Delia, pressing her lips together
hard and staring. "I ought to help him."
She hesitated, then stood up and flitted swiftly
towards the door, went slipping quietly downstairs
and out into the moonlight. The Angel still lay upon
the lawn, and sobbed for utter wretchedness.
"Oh! what is the matter?" said Delia, stooping
over him and touching his head timidly.
The Angel ceased sobbing, sat up abruptly, and
stared at her. He saw her face, moonlit, and soft
with pity. "What is the matter?" she whispered.
"Are you hurt?"
The Angel stared about him, and his eyes came to
rest on her face. "Delia!" he whispered.
"Are you hurt?" said Delia.
"My wings," said the Angel. "I cannot use my
wings."
Delia did not understand, but she realised that it
was something very dreadful. "It is dark, it is cold,"
whispered the Angel; "I cannot use my wings."
It hurt her unaccountably to see the tears on his
face. She did not know what to do.
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"Pity me, Delia," said the Angel, suddenly extending his arms towards her; "pity me."
Impulsively she knelt down and took his face between her hands. "I do not know," she said; "but
I am sorry. I am sorry for you, with all my heart."
The Angel said not a word. He was looking at
her little face in the bright moonlight, with an expression of uncomprehending wonder in his eyes.
"This strange world!" he said.
She suddenly withdrew her hands. A cloud drove
over the moon. "What can I do to help you?" she
whispered. "I would do anything to help you."
He still held her at arm's length, perplexity replacing misery in his face. "This strange world!" he
repeated.
Both whispered, she kneeling, he sitting, in the
fluctuating moonlight and darkness of the lawn.
"Delia!" said Mrs. Hinijer, suddenly projecting
from her window; "Delia, is that you?"
They both looked up at her in consternation.
"Come in at once, Delia," said Mrs. Hinijer. "If
that Mr. Angel was a gentleman, which he isn't, he'd
feel ashamed of hisself. And you an orphan too!"
~ 47
ON the morning of the next day the Angel, after he
had breakfasted, went out towards the moor, and
Mrs. Hinijer had an interview with the Vicar. What
happened need not concern us now. The Vicar was
visibly disconcerted. "He must go," he said; "cer261




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tainly he must go," and straightway he forgot the
particular accusation in the general trouble. He
spent the morning in hazy meditation, interspersed
by a spasmodic study of Skiff and Waterlow's price
list, and the catalogue of the Medical, Scholastic, and
Clerical Stores. A schedule grew slowly on a sheet
of paper that lay on the desk before him. He cut
out a self-measurement form from the tailoring department of the Stores and pinned it to the study curtains. This was the kind of document he was making:
'"1 Black Melton Frock Coat. patts? ~3, 10s.
"  Trousers. 2 pairs or one.
"1 Cheviot Tweed Suit (write for patterns. Selfmeas.?)"
The Vicar spent some time studying a pleasing
array of model gentlemen. They were all very nicelooking, but he found it hard to imagine the Angel
so transfigured. For, although six days had passed,
the Angel remained without any suit of his own. The
Vicar had vacillated between a project of driving the
Angel into Portburdock and getting him measured
for a suit, and his absolute horror of the insinuating
manners of the tailor he employed. He knew that
tailor would demand an exhaustive explanation.
Besides which, one never knew when the Angel might
leave. So the six days had passed, and the Angel
had grown steadily in the wisdom of this world and
shrouded his brightness still in the ample retirement
of the Vicar's newest clothes.
"1 Soft Felt Hat, No. G. 7 (say), 8s 6d.
"1 Silk Hat, 14s 6d. Iatbox?"
("I suppose he ought to have a silk hat," said the
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Vicar; "it's the correct thing up there. Shape No.
3 seems best suited to his style. But it's dreadful to
think of him all alone in that great city. Every one
will misunderstand him, and he will misunderstand
everybody. However, I suppose it must be. Where
was I?)"
"1 Toothbrush. 1 Brush and Comb. Razor?
"32 doz. Shirts (? measure his neck), 6s ea.
"Socks? Pants?
"2 suits Pyjamas. Price? Say 15s.
"1 doz. Collars ('The Life Guardsman'), 8s.
"Braces. Oxon Patent Versatile, Is 1112d. But
how will he get them on?" said the Vicar.
"1 Rubber Stamp, T. Angel, and Marking Ink in
box complete, 9d."
("Those washerwomen are certain to steal all his
things.")
"1 Single-bladed Penknife with Corkscrew, say
Is 6d.
"N.B.-Don't forget Cuff Links, Collar Stud, &c."
(The Vicar loved "&c.," it gave things such a precise
and businesslike air.)
"1 Leather Portmanteau (had better see these)."
And so forth-meanderingly. It kept the Vicar
busy until lunch time, though his heart ached.
The Angel did not return to lunch. This was not
so very remarkable-once before he had missed the
midday meal. Yet, considering how short was the
time they would have together now, he might perhaps have come back. Doubtless he had excellent
reasons, though, for his absence. The Vicar made an
indifferent lunch. In the afternoon he rested in his
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usual manner, and did a little more to the list of requirements. He did not begin to feel nervous about
the Angel till tea time. He waited, perhaps, half
an hour before he took tea. "Odd," said the Vicar,
feeling still more lonely as he drank his tea.
As the time for dinner crept on and no Angel appeared the Vicar's imagination began to trouble him.
"He will come in to dinner, surely," said the Vicar,
caressing his chin, and beginning to fret about the
house upon inconsiderable errands, as his habit was
when anything occurred to break his routine. The
sun set, a gorgeous spectacle, amidst tumbled masses
of purple cloud. The gold and red faded into twilight;
the evening star gathered her robe of light together
from out the brightness of the sky in the West. Breaking the silence of evening that crept over the outer
world, a corncrake began his whirring chant. The
Vicar's face grew troubled; twice he went and stared
at the darkening hillside, and then fretted back to
the house again. Mrs. Hinijer served dinner. "Your
dinner's ready," she announced for the second time,
with a reproachful intonation. "Yes, yes," said the
Vicar, fussing off upstairs.
He came down and went into his study and lit his
reading-lamp, a patent affair with an incandescent
wick, dropping the match into his waste-paper basket
without stopping to see if it was extinguished. Then
he fretted into the dining-room and began a desultory
attack on the cooling dinner..
(Dear Reader, the time is almost ripe to say farewell to this little Vicar of ours.)


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~ 48
SIR JOHN GOTCH, still smarting over the business of
the barbed wire, was riding along one of the grassy
ways through the preserves by the Sidder, when he
saw, strolling slowly through the trees beyond the
undergrowth, the one particular human being he did
not want to see.
"I'm damned," said Sir John Gotch, with immense
emphasis; "if this isn't altogether too much."
He raised himself in the stirrups.  "Hi!" he
shouted. "You there!"
The-Angel turned smiling.
"Get out of this wood!" said Sir John Gotch.
"Why?" said the Angel.
"I'm-" said Sir John Gotch, meditating some
cataclysmal expletive. But he could think of nothing more than "damned." "Get out of this wood,"
he said.
The Angel's smile vanished. "Why should I get
out of this wood?" he said, and stood still.
Neither spoke for a full half minute perhaps, and
then Sir John Gotch dropped out of his saddle and
stood by the horse.
(Now you must remember-lest the Angelic Hosts
be discredited hereby-that this Angel had been
breathing the poisonous air of this Struggle for Existence of ours for more than a week. It was not only
his wings and the brightness of his face that suffered.
He had eaten and slept and learnt the lesson of pain
-had travelled so far on the road to humanity. All
265




THE WONDERFUL VISIT


the length of his Visit he had been meeting more and
more of the harshness and conflict of this world, and
losing touch with the glorious altitudes of his own.)
"You won't go, eigh!" said Gotch, and began to
lead his horse through the bushes towards the Angel.
The Angel stood, all his muscles tight and his nerves
quivering, watching his antagonist approach.
"Get out of this wood," said Gotch, stopping three
yards away, his face white with rage, his bridle in one
hand and his riding-whip in the other.
Strange floods of emotion were running through the
Angel. "Who are you," he said, in a low quivering
voice; "who am I-that you should order me out of
this place? What has the World done that men like
you...
"You're the fool who cut my barbed wire," said
Gotch, threatening, "if you want to know!"
"Your barbed wire," said the Angel. "Was that
your barbed wire? Are you the man who put down
that barbed wire? What right have you..."
"Don't you go talking Socialist rot," said Gotch
in short gasps. "This wood's mine, and I've a right
to protect it how I can. I know your kind of muck.
Talking rot and stirring up discontent. And if you
don't get out of it jolly sharp..."
"Well!" said the Angel, a brimming reservoir of
unaccountable energy.
"Get out of this damned wood!" said Gotch,
flashing into the bully out of sheer alarm at the light
in the Angel's face.
He made one step towards him, with the whip
raised, and then something happened that neither he
266




THE WONDERFUL VISIT


nor the Angel properly understood. The Angel
seemed to leap into the air, a pair of grey wings flashed
out at the Squire, he saw a face bearing down upon
him, full of the wild beauty of passionate anger.
His riding-whip was torn out of his hand. His horse
reared behind him, pulled him over, gained his bridle,
and fled.
The whip cut across his face as he fell back, stung
across his face again as he sat on the ground. He saw
the Angel, radiant with anger, in the act to strike
again. Gotch flung up his hands, pitched himself
forward to save his eyes, and rolled on the ground
under the pitiless fury of the blows that rained down
upon him.
"You brute," cried the Angel, striking wherever
he saw flesh to feel. "You bestial thing of pride and
lies! You who have overshadowed the souls of other
men. You shallow fool with your horses and dogs!
To lift your face against any living thing! Learn!
Learn! Learn!"
Gotch began screaming for help. Twice he tried
to clamber to his feet, got to his knees, and went
headlong again under the ferocious anger of the
Angel. Presently he made a strange noise in his
throat, and ceased even to writhe under his punishment.
Then suddenly the Angel awakened from his
wrath, and found himself standing, panting and
trembling, one foot on a motionless figure, under the
green stillness of the sunlit woods.
He stared about him, then down at his feet where,
among the tangled dead leaves, the hair was matted
267




THE WONDERFUL VISIT


with blood. The whip dropped from his hands, the
hot colour fled from his face. "Pain!" he said.
"Why does he lie so still?"
He took his foot off Gotch's shoulder, bent down
towards the prostrate figure, stood listening, kneltshook him. "Awake!" said the Angel. Then still
more softly, "Awake!"
He remained listening some minutes or more, stood
up sharply, and looked round him at the silent trees.
A feeling of profound horror descended upon him,
wrapped him round about. With an abrupt gesture
he turned. "What has happened to me?" he said,
in an awestricken whisper.
He started back from the motionless figure.
"Dead!" he said suddenly, and, turning, panicstricken, fled headlong through the wood.
~ 49
IT was some minutes after the footsteps of the
Angel had died away in the distance that Gotch
raised himself on his hand. "By Jove!" he said.
"Crump's right.
"Cut at the head, too!"
He put his hand to his face and felt the two weals
running across it, hot and fat. "I'll think twice before I lift my hand against a lunatic again," said Sir
John Gotch.
"He may be a person of weak intellect, but I'm
damned if he hasn't a pretty strong arm. Phew!
He's cut a bit clean off the top of my ear with that
infernal lash.
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THE WONDERFUL VISIT


"That infernal horse will go galloping to the house
in the approved dramatic style. Little Madam'll be
scared out of her wits. And I... I shall have to
explain how it all happened. While she vivisects me
with questions.
"I'm a jolly good mind to have spring-guns and
man-traps put in this preserve. Confound the
Law!"
~ 50
BUT the Angel, thinking that Gotch was dead,
went wandering off in a passion of remorse and fear
through the brakes and copses along the Sidder.
You can scarcely imagine how appalled he was at this
last and overwhelming proof of his encroaching humanity. All the darkness, passion, and pain of life
seemed closing in upon him, inexorably, becoming
part of him, chaining him to all that a week ago he
had found strange and pitiful in men.
"Truly, this is no world for an Angel!" said the
Angel. "It is a World of War, a World of Pain, a
World of Death. Anger comes upon one.... I
who knew not pain and anger, stand here with blood
stains on my hands. I have fallen. To come into
this world is to fall. One must hunger and thirst
and be tormented with a thousand desires. One
must fight for foothold, be angry and strike —"
He lifted up his hands to Heaven, the ultimate
bitterness of helpless remorse in his face, and then
flung them down with a gesture of despair. The prison
walls of this narrow, passionate life seemed creeping
in upon him, certainly and steadily, to crush him
269




THE WONDERFUL VISIT


presently altogether. He felt what all we poor mortals have to feel sooner or later-the pitiless force of
the Things that Must Be, not only without us but
(where the real trouble lies) within, all the inevitable
thwarting of one's high resolves, those inevitable
seasons when the better self is forgotten. But with
us it is a gentle descent, made by imperceptible degrees over a long space of years; with him it was the
horrible discovery of one short week. He felt he was
being crippled, caked over, blinded, stupefied in the
wrappings of this life, he felt as a man might feel who
has taken some horrible poison and feels destruction
spreading within him.
He took no account of hunger or fatigue or the
flight of time. On and on he went, avoiding houses
and roads, turning away from the sight and sound of
a human being in a wordless desperate argument
with Fate. His thoughts did not flow but stood
banked back in inarticulate remonstrance against his
degradation. Chance directed his footsteps homeward, and at last after nightfall he found himself,
faint and weary and wretched, stumbling along over
the moor at the back of Siddermorton. He heard
the rats run and squeal in the heather, and once a
noiseless big bird came out of the darkness, passed,
and vanished again. And he saw without noticing
it a dull red glow in the sky before him.
~ 51
BUT when he came over the brow of the moor, a
vivid light sprang up before him and refused to be
ignored. He came on down the hill and speedily
270




THE WONDERFUL VISIT


saw more distinctly what the glare was. It came
from darting and trembling tongues of fire, golden
and red, that shot from the windows and a hole in
the roof of the Vicarage. A cluster of black heads,
all the village in fact, except the fire brigade who
were down at Aylmer's Cottage trying to find the
key of the machine house, came out in silhouette
against the blaze. There was a roaring sound, and
a humming of voices, and presently a furious outcry.
There was a shouting of "No! No!"-"Come
back!" and an inarticulate r6ar.
He began to run towards the burning house. He
stumbled and almost fell, but he ran on. He found
black figures running about him. The flaring fire
blew gustily this way and that, and he smelled the
smell of burning.
"She went in," said one voice, "she went in."
"The mad girl!" said another.
"Stand back! Stand back!" cried others.
He found himself thrusting through an excited,
swaying crowd, all staring at the flames, and with
the red reflection in their eyes.
"Stand back!" said a labourer, clutching him.
"What is it?" said the Angel. "What does this
mean?"
"There's a girl in the house, and she can't get
out!"
"Went in after a fiddle," said another.
"'Tas hopeless," he heard some one else say.
"I was standing near her. I heerd her. Says
she: 'I can get his fiddle.' I heerd her- Just like
that! 'I can get his fiddle."'
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THE WONDERFUL VISIT


For a moment the Angel stood staring. Then in a
flash he saw it all, saw this grim little world of battle
and cruelty transfigured in a splendour that outshone the Angelic Land, suffused suddenly and insupportably glorious with the wonderful light of love
and self-sacrifice. He gave a strange cry, and before
any one could stop him, was running towards the
burning building. There were cries of "The Hunchback! The Fowener!"
The Vicar, whose scalded hand was being tied up,
turned his head, and he and Crump saw the Angel,
a black outline against the intense, red glare of the
doorway. It was the sensation of the tenth of a
second, yet both men could not have remembered
that transitory attitude more vividly had it been a
picture they had studied for hours together. Then
the Angel was hidden by something massive (no one
knew what) that fell, incandescent, across the doorway.
~ 52
THERE was a cry of "Delia" and no more. But
suddenly the flames spurted out in a blinding glare
that shot upward to an immense height, a blinding
brilliance broken by a thousand flickering gleams like
the waving of swords. And a gust of sparks, flashing in a thousand colours, whirled up and vanished.
Just then and for a moment, by some strange accident a rush of music, like the swell of an organ, wove
into the roaring of the flames.
The whole village standing in black knots heard
the sound, except Gaffer Siddons who is deaf-strange
272




THE WONDERFUL VISIT


and beautiful it was, and then gone again. Lumpy
Durgan, the idiot boy from Sidderford, said it began
and ended like the opening and shutting of a door.
But little Hetty Penzance had a pretty fancy of
two figures with wings, that flashed up and vanished
among the flames.
(And after that it was she began to pine for the
things she saw in her dreams, and was abstracted
and strange. It grieved her mother sorely at the
time. She grew fragile, as though she was fading out
of the world, and her eyes had a strange, far-away
look. She talked of angels and rainbow colours and
golden wings, and was forever singing an unmeaning
fragment of an air that nobody knew. Until Crump
took her in hand and cured her with fattening dietary,
syrup of hypophosphites, and cod-liver oil.)
THE EPILOGUE
And there the story of the Wonderful Visit ends.
The Epilogue is in the mouth of Mrs. Mendham.
There stand two little white crosses in the Siddermorton churchyard, near together, where the brambles come clambering over the stone wall. One is
inscribed Thomas Angel and the other Delia Hardy,
and the dates of the deaths are the same. Really
there is nothing beneath them but the ashes of the
Vicar's stuffed ostrich. (You will remember the
Vicar had his ornithological side.) I noticed them
when Mrs. Mendham was showing me the new De
la Beche monument. (Mendham has been Vicar
since Hillyer died.) "The granite came from some273




THE WONDERFUL VISIT


where in Scotland," said Mrs. Mendham, "and cost
ever so much-I forget how much-but a wonderful
lot! It's quite the talk of the village."
"Mother," said Cissie Mendham, "you are stepping on a grave."
"Dear me!" said Mrs. Mendham, "how heedless
of me! And the cripple's grave too. But really
you've no idea how much this monument cost them.
"These two people, by the bye," said Mrs. Mendham, "were killed when the old Vicarage was burned.
It's rather a strange story. He was a curious person, a hunchbacked fiddler, who came from nobody
knows where, and imposed upon the late Vicar to a
frightful extent. He played in a pretentious way
by ear, and we found out afterwards that he did not
know a note of music-not a note. He was exposed
before quite a lot of people. Among other things,
he seems to have been 'carrying on,' as people say,
with one of the servants, a sly little drab... But
Mendham had better tell you all about it. The man
was half-witted and deformed. It's strange the fancies girls have."
She looked sharply at Cissie, and Cissie blushed to
the eyes.
"She was left in the house and he rushed into the
flames in an attempt to save her. Quite romanticisn't it? He was rather clever with the fiddle in his
uneducated way.
"All the poor Vicar's stuffed skins were burned
at the same time. It was almost all he cared for.
He never really got over the blow. He came to
stop with us-for there wasn't another house availa274




THE WONDERFUL VISIT
ble in the village. But he never seemed happy. He
seemed all shaken. I never saw a man so changed.
I tried to stir him up, but it was no good-no good at
all. He had the queerest delusions about angels and
that kind of thing. It made him odd company at
times. He would say he heard music, and stare
quite stupidly at nothing for hours together. He got
quite careless about his dress....  He died within
a twelvemonth of the fire."








OTHER EARLY FANTASTIC STORIES








CONTENTS


THE JILTING OF JANE
THE CONE.
THE FLOWERING OF THE STRANGE ORCHID
2EPYORNIS ISLAND
THE REMARKABLE CASE OF DAVIDSON'S EYES
THE LORD OF THE DYNAMOS.
THE MOTH......
THE STORY OF THE LATE MR. ELVESHAM
UNDER THE KNIFE...
THE PLATTNER STORY.......
THE PURPLE PILEUS....


PAGE...281... 291
308
320..337...351.364..  379..403
423
v 451








THE JILTING OF JANE


As I sit writing in my study, I can hear our Jane
bumping her way downstairs with a brush and dustpan. She used in the old days to sing hymn tunes,
or the British national song for the time being, to
these instruments, but latterly she has been silent and
even careful over her work. Time was when I prayed
with fervour for such silence, and my wife with sighs
for such care, but now they have come we are not so
glad as we might have anticipated we should be.
Indeed, I would rejoice secretly, though it may be
unmanly weakness to admit it, even to hear Jane
sing "Daisy," or, by the fracture of any plate but
one of Euphemia's best green ones, to learn that the
period of brooding has come to an end.
Yet how we longed to hear the last of Jane's young
man before we heard the last of him! Jane was always very free with her conversation to my wife, and
discoursed admirably in the kitchen on a variety of
topics-so well, indeed, that I sometimes left my
study door open-our house is a small one-to partake of it. But after William came, it was always
William, nothing but William; William this and William that; and when we thought William was worked
out and exhausted altogether, then William all over
again. The engagement lasted altogether three years;
yet how she got introduced to William, and so became thus saturated with him, was always a secret.
For my part, I believe it was at the street corner
281




EARLY FANTASTIC STORIES


where the Rev. Barnabas Baux used to hold an openair service after evensong on Sundays. Young Cupids were wont to flit like moths round the paraffin
flare of that centre of High Church hymn-singing.
I fancy she stood singing hymns there, out of memory
and her imagination, instead of coming home to get
supper, and William came up beside her and said,
"Hello!" "Hello yourself!" she said; and etiquette
being satisfied, they proceeded to converse.
As Euphemia has a reprehensible way of letting her
servants talk to her, she soon heard of him. "He is
such a respectable young man, ma'am," said Jane,
"you don't know." Ignoring the slur cast on her
acquaintance, my wife inquired further about this
William.
"He is second porter at Maynard's, the draper's,"
said Jane, "and gets eighteen shillings-nearly a
pound-a week, m'm; and when the head porter
leaves he will be head porter. His relatives are quite
superior people, m'm. Not labouring people at all.
His father was a greengrosher, m'm, and had a
chumor, and he was bankrup' twice. And one of his
sisters is in a Home for the Dying. It will be a very
good match for me, m'm," said Jane, "me being an
orphan girl."
"Then you are engaged to him?" asked my wife.
"Not engaged, ma'am; but he is saving money to
buy a ring-hammyfist."
"Well, Jane, when you are properly engaged to him
you may ask him round here on Sunday afternoons,
and have tea with him in the kitchen"; for my
Euphemia has a motherly conception of her duty to282




THE JILTING OF JANE


wards her maid-servants. And presently the amethystine ring was being worn about the house, even
with ostentation, and Jane developed a new way of
bringing in the joint so that this gage was evident.
The elder Miss Maitland was aggrieved by it, and
told my wife that servants ought not to wear rings.
But my wife looked it up in Enquire Within and Mrs.
Motherly's Book of Household Management, and found
no prohibition. So Jane remained with this happiness added to her love.
The treasure of Jane's heart appeared to me to be
what respectable people call a very deserving young
man. "William, ma'am," said Jane one day suddenly, with ill-concealed complacency, as she counted
out the beer bottles, "William, ma'am, is a teetotaller. Yes, m'm; and he don't smoke. Smoking,
ma'am," said Jane, as one who reads the heart, "do
make such a dust about. Beside the waste of money.
And the smell. However, I suppose they got to do
it-some of them...."
William was at first a rather shabby young man of
the ready-made black coat school of costume. He
had watery grey eyes, and a complexion appropriate
to the brother of one in a Home for the Dying.
Euphemia did not fancy him very much, even at the
beginning. His eminent respectability was vouched
for by an alpaca umbrella, from which he never allowed himself to be parted.
"He goes to chapel," said Jane. "His papa,
ma'am —
"His what, Jane?"
"His papa, ma'am, was Church; but Mr. Maynard
283




EARLY FANTASTIC STORIES


is a Plymouth Brother, and William thinks it Policy,
ma'am, to go there too. Mr. Maynard comes and
talks to him quite friendly when they ain't busy,
about using up all the ends of string, and about his
soul. He takes a lot of notice, do Mr. Maynard, of
William, and the way he saves his soul, ma'am."
Presently we heard that the head porter at Maynard's had left, and that William was head porter at
twenty-three shillings a week. "He is really kind of
over the man who drives the van," said Jane, "and
him married, with three children." And she promised in the pride of her heart to make interest for us
with William to favour us so that we might get our
parcels of drapery from Maynard's with exceptional
promptitude.
After this promotion a rapidly increasing prosperity came upon Jane's young man. One day we
learned that Mr. Maynard had given William a book.
"'Smiles' 'Elp Yourself,' it's called," said Jane; "but
it ain't comic. It tells you how to get on in the world,
and some what William read to me was lovely,
ma'am."
Euphemia told me of this, laughing, and then she
became suddenly grave. "Do you know, dear,"
she said, "Jane said one thing I did not like. She
had been quiet for a minute, and then she suddenly
remarked, 'William is a lot above me, ma'am, ain't
he?'"
"I don't see anything in that," I said, though
later my eyes were to be opened.
One Sunday afternoon about that time I was sitting at my writing-desk-possibly I was reading a
284




THE JILTING OF JANE


good book-when a something went by the window.
I heard a startled exclamation behind me, and saw
Euphemia with her hands clasped together and her
eyes dilated. "George," she said in an awe-stricken
whisper, "did you see?"
Then we both spoke to one another at the same
moment, slowly and solemnly: "A silk hat! Yellow
gloves! A new umbrella!"
"It may be my fancy, dear," said Euphemia; "but
his tie was very like yours. I believe Jane keeps
him in ties. She told me a little while ago, in a way
that implied volumes about the rest of your costume,
'The master do wear pretty ties, ma'am.' And he
echoes all your novelties."
The young couple passed our window again on
their way to their customary walk. They were arm
in arm. Jane looked exquisitely proud, happy, and
uncomfortable, with new white cotton gloves, and
William, in the silk hat, singularly genteel!
That was the culmination of Jane's happiness.
When she returned, "Mr. Maynard has been talking
to William, ma'am," she said, "and he is to serve
customers, just like the young shop gentlemen, during the next sale. And if he gets on, he is to be made
an assistant, ma'am, at the first opportunity. He
has got to be as gentlemanly as he can, ma'am; and
if he ain't, ma'am, he-says it won't be for want of
trying. Mr. Maynard has took a great fancy to
him."
"He is getting on, Jane," said my wife.
"Yes, ma'am," said Jane thoughtfully; "heis getting on."
285




EARLY FANTASTIC STORIES


And she sighed.
That next Sunday as I drank my tea I interrogated
my wife. "How is this Sunday different from all
other Sundays, little woman? What has happened?
Have you altered the curtains, or rearranged the
furniture, or where is the indefinable difference of it?
Are you wearing your hair in a new way without
warning me? I perceive a change clearly, and I cannot for the life of me say what it is."
Then my wife answered in her most tragic voice,
"George," she said, "that William has not come near
the place to-day! And Jane is crying her heart out
upstairs."
There followed a period of silence. Jane, as I have
said, stopped singing about the house, and began to
care for our brittle possessions, which struck my wife
as being a very sad sign indeed. The next Sunday,
and the next, Jane asked to go out, "to walk with
William," and my wife, who never attempts to extort
confidences, gave her permission, and asked no questions. On each occasion Jane came back looking
flushed and very determined. At last one day she
became communicative.
"William is being led away," she remarked
abruptly, with a catching of the breath, apropos of
tablecloths. "Yes, m'm. She is a milliner, and she
can play on the piano."
"I thought," said my wife, "that you went out
with him on Sunday."
"Not out with him, m'm-after him. I walked
along by the side of them, and told her he was engaged to me."
286




THE JILTING OF JANE


"Dear me, Jane, did you? What did they do?"
"Took no more notice of me than if I was dirt. So
I told her she should suffer for it."
"It could not have been a very agreeable walk,
Jane."
"Not for no parties, ma'am."
"I wish," said Jane, "I could play the piano,
ma'am. But anyhow, I don't mean to let her get him
away from me. She's older than him, and her hair
ain't gold to the roots, ma'am."
It was on the August Bank Holiday that the crisis
came. We do not clearly know the details of the
fray, but only such fragments as poor Jane let fall.
She came home dusty, excited, and with her heart
hot within her.
The milliner's mother, the milliner, and William
had made a party to the Art Museum at South
Kensington, I think. Anyhow, Jane had calmly but
firmly accosted them somewhere in the streets, and
asserted her right to what, in spite of the consensus
of literature, she held to be her inalienable property.
She did, I think, go so far as to lay hands on him.
They dealt with her in a crushingly superior way.
They "called a cab." There was a "scene," William
being pulled away into the four-wheeler by his future
wife and mother-in-law from the reluctant hands of
our discarded Jane. There were threats of giving her
"in charge."
"My poor Jane!" said my wife, mincing veal as
though she was mincing William. "It's a shame of
them. I would think no more of him. He is not
worthy of you."
287




EARLY FANTASTIC STORIES


"No, m'm," said Jane. "He is weak.
"But it's that woman has done it," said Jan'e. She
was never known to bring herself to pronounce "that
woman's" name or to admit her girlishness. "I can't
think what minds some women must have-to try
and get a girl's young man away from her. But
there, it only hurts to talk about it," said Jane.
Thereafter our house rested from William. But
there was something in the manner of Jane's scrubbing the front doorstep or sweeping out the rooms, a
certain viciousness, that persuaded me that the story
had not yet ended.
"Please, m'm, may I go and see a wedding tomorrow?" said Jane one day.
My wife knew by instinct whose wedding. "Do
you think it is wise, Jane?" she said.
"I would like to see the last of him," said Jane.
"My dear," said my wife, fluttering into my room
about twenty minutes after Jane had started, "Jane
has been to the boot hole and taken all the left-off
boots and shoes, and gone off to the wedding with
them in a bag. Surely she cannot mean -"
"Jane," I said, "is developing character. Let us
hope for the best."
Jane came back with a pale, hard face. All the
boots seemed to be still in her bag, at which my wife
heaved a premature sigh of relief. We heard her go
upstairs and replace the boots with considerable
emphasis.
"Quite a crowd at the wedding, ma'am," she said
presently, in a purely conversational style, sitting in
our little kitchen and scrubbing the potatoes; "and
288




THE JILTING OF JANE


such a lovely day for them." She proceeded to numerous other details, clearly avoiding some cardinal
incident.
"It was all extremely respectable and nice, ma'am;
but her father didn't wear a black coat, and looked
quite out of place, ma'am. Mr. Piddingquirk-"
"Who?"
"Mr. Piddingquirk-William that was, ma'amhad white gloves, and a coat like a clergyman, and a
lovely chrysanthemum. He looked so nice, ma'am.
And there was red carpet down, just like for gentlefolks. And they say he gave the clerk four shillings,
ma'am. It was a real kerridge they had-not a fly.
When they came out of church there was rice-throwing, and her two little sisters dropping dead flowers.
And some one threw a slipper, and then I threw a
boot    "
"Threw a boot, Jane!"
"Yes, ma'am. Aimed at her. But it hit him.
Yes, ma'am, hard. Gev him a black eye, I should
think. I only threw that one. I hadn't the heart to
try again. All the little boys cheered when it hit
him."
After an interval-"I am sorry the boot hit him."
Another pause. The potatoes were being scrubbed
violently. "He always was a bit above me, you
know, ma'am. And he was led away."
-The potatoes were more than finished. Jane rose
sharply with a sigh, and rapped the basin down on
the table.
"I don't care," she said. "I don't care a rap. He
will find out his mistake yet. It serves me right. I
289




EARLY FANTASTIC STORIES


was stuck up about him. I ought not to have looked
so high. And I am glad things are as things are."
My wife was in the kitchen, seeing to the cookery.
After the confession of the boot-throwing, she must
have watched poor Jane fuming with a certain dismay in those brown eyes of hers. But I imagine
they softened again very quickly, and then Jane's
must have met them.
"Oh, ma'am," said Jane, with an astonishing
change of note, "think of all that might have been!
Oh, ma'am, I could have been so happy! I ought to
have known, but I didn't know.... You're very
kind to let me talk to you, ma'am... for it's hard
on me, ma'am... it's har-r-r-d —"
And I gather that Euphemia so far forgot herself
as to let Jane sob out some of the fulness of her heart
on a sympathetic shoulder. My Euphemia, thank
Heaven, has never properly grasped the importance
of "keeping up her position." And since that fit of
weeping, much of the accent of bitterness has gone
out of Jane's scrubbing and brush-work.
Indeed, something passed the other day with the
butcher boy-but that scarcely belongs to this story.
However, Jane is young still, and time and change
are at work with her. We all have our sorrows, but
I do not believe very much in the existence of sorrows
that never heal.


290




THE CONE


THE night was hot and overcast, the sky redrimmed with the lingering sunset of midsummer.
They sat at the open window, trying to fancy the air
was fresher there. The trees and shrubs of the garden
stood stiff and dark; beyond in the roadway a gaslamp burned, bright orange against the hazy blue of
the evening. Farther were the three lights of the
railway signal against the lowering sky. The man
and woman spoke to one another in low tones.
"He does not suspect?" said the man, a little
nervously.
"Not he," she said peevishly, as though that too
irritated her. "He thinks of nothing but the works
and the prices of fuel. He has no imagination, no
poetry."
"None of these men of iron have," he said sententiously. "They have no hearts."
"He has not," she said. She turned her discontented face towards the window. The distant sound
of a roaring and rushing drew nearer and grew in
volume; the house quivered; one heard the metallic
rattle of the tender. As the train passed, there was
a glare of light above the cutting and a driving tumult of smoke; one, two, three, four, five, six, seven,
eight black oblongs-eight trucks-passed across the
dim grey of the embankment, and were suddenly extinguished one by one in the throat of the tunnel,
291




EARLY FANTASTIC STORIES


which, with the last, seemed to swallow down train,
smoke, and sound in one abrupt gulp.
"This country was all fresh and beautiful once,"
he said; "and now-it is Gehenna. Down that way
-nothing but pot-banks and chimneys belching fire
and dust into the face of heaven.... But what
does it matter? An end comes, an end to all this
cruelty.... To-morrow." He spoke the last word
in a whisper.
"To-morrow," she said, speaking in a whisper too,
and still staring out of the window.
"Dear!" he said, putting his hand on hers.
She turned with a start, and their eyes searched
one another's. Hers softened to his gaze. "My dear
one!" she said, and then: "It seems so strange-that
you should have come into my life like this-to
open-" She paused.
"To open?" he said.
"All this wonderful world"-she hesitated, and
spoke still more softly-"this world of love to me."
Then suddenly the door clicked and closed. They
turned their heads, and he started violently back. In
the shadow of the room stood a great shadowy figure
-silent. They saw the face dimly in the half-light,
with unexpressive dark patches under the penthouse
brows. Every muscle in Raut's body suddenly became tense. When could the door have opened?
What had he heard? Had he heard all? What had
he seen? A tumult of questions.
The newcomer's voice came at last, after a pause
that seemed interminable. "Well?" he said.
"I was afraid I had missed you, Horrocks," said
292




THE CONE


the man at the window, gripping the window-ledge
with his hand. His voice was unsteady.
The clumsy figure of Horrocks came forward out
of the shadow. He made no answer to Raut's remark. For a moment he stood above them.
The woman's heart was cold within her. "I told
Mr. Raut it was just possible you might come back,"
she said in a voice that never quivered.
Horrocks, still silent, sat down abruptly in the
chair by her little work-table. His big hands were
clenched; one saw now the fire of his eyes under the
shadow of his brows. He was trying to get his
breath. His eyes went from the woman he had
trusted to the friend he had trusted, and then back
to the woman.
By this time and for the moment all three half
understood one another. Yet none dared say a word
to ease the pent-up things that choked them.
It was the husband's voice that broke the silence
at last.
"You wanted to see me?" he said to Raut.
Raut started as he spoke. "I came to see you,"
he said, resolved to lie to the last.
"Yes," said Horrocks.
"You promised," said Raut, "to show me some fine
effects of moonlight and smoke."
"I promised to show you some fine effects of moonlight and smoke," repeated Horrocks in a colourless
voice.
"And I thought I might catch you to-night before
you went down to the works," proceeded Raut, "and
come with you."
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EARLY FANTASTIC STORIES


There was another pause. Did the man mean to
take the thing coolly? Did he, after all, know?
How long had he been in the room? Yet even at
the moment when they heard the door, their attitudes... Horrocks glanced at the profile of the
woman, shadowy pallid in the half-light. Then he
glanced at Raut, and seemed to recover himself suddenly. "Of course," he said, "I promised to show
you the works under their proper dramatic conditions. It's odd how I could have forgotten."
"If I am troubling you-" began Raut.
Horrocks started again. A new light had suddenly
come into the sultry gloom of his eyes. "Not in the
least," he said.
"Have you been telling Mr. Raut of all these contrasts of flame and shadow you think so splendid?"
said the woman, turning now to her husband for the
first time, her confidence creeping back again, her
voice just one half-note too high-"that dreadful
theory of yours that machinery is beautiful, and
everything else in the world ugly. I thought he
would not spare you, Mr. Raut. It's his great
theory, his one discovery in art."
"I am slow to make discoveries," said Horrocks
grimly, damping her suddenly. "But what I discover..." He stopped.
"Well?" she said.
"Nothing"; and suddenly he rose to his feet.
"I promised to show you the works," he said to
Raut, and put his big, clumsy hand on his friend's
shoulder. "And you are ready to go?"
"Quite," said Raut, and stood up also.
294




THE CONE


There was another pause. Each of them peered
through the indistinctness of the dusk at the other
two. Horrocks's hand still rested on Raut's shoulder.
Raut half fancied still that the incident was trivial
after all. But Mrs. Horrocks knew her husband better, knew that grim quiet in his voice, and the confusion in her mind took a vague shape of physical
evil. "Very well," said Horrocks, and, dropping his
hand, turned towards the door.
"My hat?" Raut looked round in the half-light.
"That's my work-basket," said Mrs. Horrocks with
a gust of hysterical laughter. Their hands came together on the back of the chair. "Here it is!" he
said. She had an impulse to warn him in an undertone, but she could not frame a word. "Don't go!"
and "Beware of him!" struggled in her mind, and
the swift moment passed.
"Got it?" said Horrocks, standing with the door
half open.
Raut stepped towards him. "Better say good-bye
to Mrs. Horrocks," said the ironmaster, even more
grimly quiet in his tone than before.
Raut started and turned. "Good evening, Mrs.
Horrocks," he said, and their hands touched.
Horrocks held the door open with a ceremonial
politeness unusual in him towards men. Raut went
out, and then, after a wordless look at her, her husband followed. She stood motionless while Raut's
light footfall and her husband's heavy tread, like bass
and treble, passed down the passage together. The
front door slammed heavily. She went to the window, moving slowly, and stood watching, leaning
295




EARLY FANTASTIC STORIES


forward. The two men appeared for a moment at
the gateway in the road, passed under the street-lamp,
and were hidden by the black masses of the shrubbery. The lamplight fell for a moment on their faces,
showing only unmeaning pale patches, telling nothing
of what she still feared, and doubted, and craved
vainly to know. Then she sank down into a crouching
attitude in the big armchair, her eyes wide open and
staring out at the red lights from the furnaces that
flickered in the sky. An hour after she was still
there, her attitude scarcely changed.
The oppressive stillness of the evening weighed
heavily upon Raut. They went side by side down the
road in silence, and in silence turned into the cindermade byway that presently opened out the prospect
of the valley.
A blue haze, half dust, half mist, touched the long
valley with mystery. Beyond were Hanley and
Etruria, grey and dark masses, outlined thinly by the
rare golden dots of the street-lamps, and here and
there a gas-lit window, or the yellow glare of some
late-working factory or crowded public-house. Out
of the masses, clear and slender against the evening
sky, rose a multitude of tall chimneys, many of them
reeking, a few smokeless during a season of "play."
Here and there a pallid patch and ghostly stunted
beehive shapes showed the position of a pot-bank, or
a wheel, black and sharp against the hot lower sky,
marked some colliery where they raise the iridescent
coal of the place. Nearer at hand was the broad
stretch of railway, and half-invisible trains shunteda steady puffing and rumbling, with every now and
296




THE CONE


then a ringing concussion and a series of impacts, and
a passage of intermittent puffs of white steam across
the further view. And to the left, between the railway and the dark mass of the low hill beyond, dominating the whole view, colossal, inky-black, and
crowned with smoke and fitful flames, stood the great
cylinders of the Jeddah Company Blast Furnaces, the
central edifices of the big ironworks of which Horrocks was the manager. They stood heavy and
threatening, full of an incessant turmoil of flames
and seething molten iron, and about the feet of them
rattled the rolling-mills, and the steam-hammer beat
heavily and splashed the white iron sparks hither and
thither. Even as they looked, a truckful of fuel was
shot into one of the giants, and the red flames
gleamed out, and a confusion of smoke and black
dust came boiling upward towards the sky.
"Certainly you get some colour with your furnaces," said Raut, breaking a silence that had become apprehensive.
Horrocks grunted. He stood with his hands in his
pockets, frowning down at the dim steaming railway
and the busy ironworks beyond, frowning as if he
were thinking out some knotty problem.
Raut glanced at him and away again. "At present
your moonlight effect is hardly ripe," he continued,
looking upward; "the moon is still smothered by the
vestiges of daylight."
Horrocks stared at him with the expression of a
man who has suddenly awakened. "Vestiges of
daylight?... Of course, of course." He too
looked up at the moon, pale still in the midsummer
297




EARLY FANTASTIC STORIES


sky. "Come along," he said suddenly, and gripping
Raut's arm in his hand, made a move towards the
path that dropped from them to the railway.
Raut hung back. Their eyes met and saw a thousand things in a moment that their lips came near to
say. Horrocks's hand tightened and then relaxed.
He let go, and before Raut was aware of it, they were
arm in arm, and walking, one unwillingly enough,
down the path.
"You see the fine effect of the railway signals towards Burslem," said Horrocks, suddenly breaking
into loquacity, striding fast and tightening the grip
of his elbow the while-"little green lights and red
and white lights, all against the haze. You have an
eye for effect, Raut. It's fine. And look at those
furnaces of mine, how they rise upon us as we come
down the hill. That to the right is my pet-seventy
feet of him. I packed him myself, and he's boiled
away cheerfully with iron in his guts for five long
years. I've a particular fancy for him. That line
of red there-a lovely bit of warm orange you'd call
it, Raut-that's the puddlers' furnaces, and there, in
the hot light, three black figures-did you see the
white splash of the steam-hammer then?-that's the
rolling-mills. Come along! Clang, clatter, how it
goes rattling across the floor! Sheet tin, Rautamazing stuff. Glass mirrors are not in it when that
stuff comes from the mill. And, squelch! there goes
the hammer again. Come along!"
He had to stop talking to catch at his breath. His
arm twisted into Raut's with benumbing tightness.
He had come striding down the black path towards
298




THE CONE


the railway as though he was possessed. Raut had
not spoken a word, had simply hung back against
Horrocks's pull with all his strength.
"I say," he said now, laughing nervously, but with
an undertone of snarl in his voice, "why on earth are
you nipping my arm off, Horrocks, and dragging me
along like this?"
At length Horrocks released him. His manner
changed again. "Nipping your arm off?" he said.
"Sorry. But it's you taught me the trick of walking
in that friendly way."
"You haven't learned the refinements of it yet
then," said Raut, laughing artificially again. "By
Jove! I'm black and blue." Horrocks offered no
apology. They stood now near the bottom of the
hill, close to the fence that bordered the railway.
The ironworks had grown larger and spread out
with their approach. They looked up to the blastfurnaces now instead of down; the further view of
Etruria and Hanley had dropped out of sight with
their descent. Before them, by the stile, rose a notice-board, bearing, still dimly visible, the words,
"BEWARE OF THE TRAINS," half hidden by splashes
of coaly mud.
"Fine effects," said Horrocks, waving his arm.
"Here comes a train. The puffs of smoke, the orange
glare, the round eye of light in front of it, the melodious rattle. Fine effects! But these furnaces of
mine used to be finer, before we shoved cones in their
throats, and saved the gas."
"How?" said Raut. "Cones?"
"Cones, my man, cones. I'll show you one nearer.
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EARLY FANTASTIC STORIES


The flames used to flare out of the open throats, great
-what is it?-pillars of cloud by day, red and black
smoke, and pillars of fire by night. Now we run it
off in pipes, and burn it to heat the blast, and the top
is shut by a cone. You'll be interested in that cone."
"But every now and then," said Raut, "you get a
burst of fire and smoke up there."
"The cone's not fixed, it's hung by a chain from a
lever, and balanced by an equipoise. You shall see
it nearer. Else, of course, there'd be no way of getting fuel into the thing. Every now and then the
cone dips, and out comes the flare."
"I see," said Raut. He looked over his shoulder.
"The moon gets brighter," he said.
"Come along," said Horrocks abruptly, gripping
his shoulder again, and moving him suddenly towards
the railway crossing. And then came one of those
swift incidents, vivid, but so rapid that they leave
one doubtful and reeling. Half-way across, Horrocks's hand suddenly clinched upon him like a vice,
and swung him backward and through a half-turn,
so that he looked up the line. And there a chain of
lamp-lit carriage windows telescoped swiftly as it
came towards them, and the red and yellow lights of
an engine grew larger and larger, rushing down upon
them. As he grasped what this meant, he turned his
face to Horrocks, and pushed with all his strength
against the arm that held him back between the rails.
The struggle did not last a moment. Just as certain
as it was that Horrocks held him there, so certain
was it that he had been violently lugged out of
danger.
300




THE CONE


"Out of the way," said Horrocks with a gasp, as
the train came rattling by, and they stood panting
by the gate into the ironworks.
"I did not see it coming," said Raut, still, even in
spite of his own apprehensions, trying to keep up an
appearance of ordinary intercourse.
Horrocks answered with a grunt. "The cone," he
said, and then, as one who recovers himself, "I
thought you did not hear."
"I didn't," said Raut.
"I wouldn't have had you run over then for the
world," said Horrocks.
"For a moment I lost my nerve," said Raut.
Horrocks stood for half a minute, then turned
abruptly towards the ironworks again. "See how
fine these great mounds of mine, these clinker-heaps,
look in the night! That truck yonder, up above
there! Up it goes, and out-tilts the slag. See the
palpitating red stuff go sliding down the slope. As
we get nearer, the heap rises up and cuts the blastfurnaces. See the quiver up above the big one. Not
that way! This way, between the heaps. That goes
to the puddling-furnaces, but I want to show you the
canal first." He came and took Raut by the elbow,
and so they went along side by side. Raut answered
Horrocks vaguely. What, he asked himself, had
really happened on the line? Was he deluding himself with his own fancies, or had Horrocks actually
held him back in the way of the train? Had he just
been within an ace of being murdered?
Suppose this slouching, scowling monster did know
anything? For a minute or two then Raut was really
301




EARLY FANTASTIC STORIES


afraid for his life, but the mood passed as he reasoned
with himself. After all, Horrocks might have heard
nothing. At any rate, he had pulled him out of the
way in time. His odd manner might be due to the
mere vague jealousy he had shown once before. He
was talking now of the ash-heaps and the canal.
"Eigh?" said Horrocks.
"What?" said Raut. "Rather! The haze in the
moonlight. Fine!"
"Our canal," said Horrocks, stopping suddenly.
"Our canal by moonlight and firelight is immense.
You've never seen it? Fancy that! You've spent
too many of your evenings philandering up in Newcastle there. I tell you, for real florid quality- But
you shall see. Boiling water.."
As they came out of the labyrinth of clinker-heaps
and mounds of coal and ore, the noises of the rollingmill sprang upon them suddenly, loud, near, and distinct. Three shadowy workmen went by and touched
their caps to Horrocks. Their faces were vague in the
darkness. Raut felt a futile impulse to address them,
and before he could frame his words they passed into
the shadows. Horrocks pointed to the canal close
before them now: a weird-looking place it seemed, in
the blood-red reflections of the furnaces. The hot
water that cooled the tuyeres came into it, some fifty
yards up-a tumultuous, almost boiling affluent, and
the steam rose up from the water in silent white
wisps and streaks, wrapping damply about them, an
incessant succession of ghosts coming up from the
black and red eddies, a white uprising that made the
head swim. The shining black tower of the larger
302




THE CONE


blast-furnace rose overhead out of the mist, and
its tumultuous riot filled their ears. Raut kept
away from the edge of the water, and watched
Horrocks.
"Here it is red," said Horrocks, "blood-red vapour
as red and hot as sin; but yonder there, where the
moonlight falls on it, and it drives across the clinkerheaps, it is as white as death."
Raut turned his head for a moment, and then came
back hastily to his watch on Horrocks. "Come along
to the rolling-mills," said Horrocks. The threatening
hold was not so evident that time, and Raut felt a
little reassured. But all the same, what on earth did
Horrocks mean about "white as death" and "red as
sin"? Coincidence, perhaps?
They went and stood behind the puddlers for a
little while, and then through the rolling-mills, where
amidst an incessant din the deliberate steam-hammei
beat the juice out of the succulent iron, and black
half-naked Titans rushed the plastic bars, like hot
sealing-wax, between the wheels. "Come on," sai~
Horrocks in Raut's ear; and they went and peepe(
through the little glass hole behind the tuyeres, an(
saw the tumbled fire writhing in the pit of the blast
furnace. It left one eye blinded for a while. Ther
with green and blue patches dancing across the darl
they went to the lift by which the trucks of or
and fuel and lime were raised to the top of the bi
cylinder.
And out upon the narrow rail that overhung th
furnace Raut's doubts came upon him again. Ws
it wise to be here? If Horrocks did know-everJ
303




EARLY FANTASTIC STORIES


thing! Do what he would, he could not resist a
violent trembling. Right under foot was a sheer
depth of seventy feet. It was a dangerous place.
They pushed by a truck of fuel to get to the railing
that crowned the thing. The reek of the furnace, a
sulphurous vapour streaked with pungent bitterness,
seemed to make the distant hillside of Hanley quiver.
The moon was riding out now from among a drift of
clouds, half-way up the sky above the undulating
wooded outlines of Newcastle. The steaming canal
ran away from below them under an indistinct
bridge, and vanished into the dim haze of the flat
fields towards Burslem.
"That's the cone I've been telling you of," shouted
Horrocks; "and, below that, sixty feet of fire and
molten metal, with the air of the blast frothing
through it like gas in soda-water."
Raut gripped the hand-rail tightly, and stared
down at the cone. The heat was intense. The boiling
of the iron and the tumult of the blast made a thunderous accompaniment to Horrocks's voice. But the
thing had to be gone through now. Perhaps, after
all...
"In the middle," bawled Horrocks, "temperature
near a thousand degrees. If you were dropped into
it.. flash into flame like a pinch of gunpowder in
a candle. Put your hand out and feel the heat of his
breath. Why, even up here I've seen the rain-water
boiling off the trucks. And that cone there. It's a
damned sight too hot for roasting cakes. The top
side of it's three hundred degrees."
"Three hundred degrees!" said Raut.
304




THE CONE


"Three hundred centigrade, mind!" said Horrocks.
"It will boil the blood out of you in no time."
"Eigh?" said Raut, and turned.
"Boil the blood out of you in... No, you
don't!"
"Let me go!" screamed Raut. "Let go my
arm!"
With one hand he clutched at the hand-rail, then
with both. -For a moment the two men stood swaying. Then suddenly, with a violent jerk, Horrocks
had twisted him from his hold. He clutched at Horrocks and missed, his foot went back into empty air;
in mid-air he twisted himself, and then cheek and
shoulder and knee struck the hot cone together.
He clutched the chain by which the cone hung, and
the thing sank an infinitesimal amount as he struck
it. A circle of glowing red appeared about him, and
a tongue of flame, released from the chaos within,
flickered up towards him. An intense pain assailed
him at the knees, and he could smell the singeing of
his hands. He raised himself to his feet, and tried
to climb up the chain, and then something struck
his head. Black and shining with the moonlight,
the throat of the furnace rose about him.
Horrocks, he saw, stood above him by one of the
trucks of fuel on the rail. The gesticulating figure was
bright and white in the moonlight, and shouting:
"Fizzle, you fool! Fizzle, you hunter of women!
You hot-blooded hound! Boil! boil! boil!"
Suddenly he caught up a handful of coal out of the
truck, and flung it deliberately, lump after lump, at
Raut.
305




EARLY FANTASTIC STORIES


"Horrocks!" cried Raut. "Horrocks!"
He clung, crying, to the chain, pulling himself up
from the burning of the cone. Each missile Horrocks
flung hit him. His clothes charred and glowed, and
as he struggled the cone dropped, and a rush of hot,
suffocating gas whooped out and burned round him
in a swift breath of flame.
His human likeness departed from him. When the
momentary red had passed, Horrocks saw a charred,
blackened figure, its head streaked with blood, still
clutching and fumbling with the chain, and writhing
in agony-a cindery animal, an inhuman, monstrous
creature that began a sobbing, intermittent shriek.
Abruptly at the sight the ironmaster's anger passed.
A deadly sickness came upon him. The heavy odour
of burning flesh came drifting up to his nostrils. His
sanity returned to him.
"God have mercy upon me!" he cried. "O God!
what have I done?"
He knew the thing below him, save that it still
moved and felt, was already a dead man-that the
blood of the poor wretch must be boiling in his veins.
An intense realisation of that agony came to his mind,
and overcame every other feeling. For a moment he
stood irresolute, and then, turning to the truck, he
hastily tilted its contents upon the struggling thing
that had once been a man. The mass fell with a thud,
and went radiating over the cone. With the thud
the shriek ended, and a boiling confusion of smoke,
dust, and flame came rushing up towards him. As it
passed, he saw the cone clear again.
Then he staggered back, and stood trembling, cling306




THE CONE


ing to the rail with both hands. His lips moved, but
no words came to them.
Down below was the sound of voices and running
steps. The clangour of rolling in the shed ceased
abruptly.


307




THE FLOWERING OF THE STRANGE
ORCHID
THE buying of orchids always has in it a certain
speculative flavour. You have before you the brown
shrivelled lump of tissue, and for the rest you must
trust your judgment, or the auctioneer, or your good
luck, as your taste may incline. The plant may be
moribund or dead, or it may be just a respectable
purchase, fair value for your money, or perhaps-for
the thing has happened again and again-there slowly
unfolds before the delighted eyes of the happy purchaser, day after day, some new variety, some novel
richness, a strange twist of the labellum, or some
subtler colouration or unexpected mimicry. Pride,
beauty, and profit blossom together on one delicate
green spike, and, it may be, even immortality. For
the new miracle of Nature may stand in need of a
new specific name, and what so convenient as that
of its discoverer? "Johnsmithia"! There have been
worse names.
It was perhaps the hope of some such happy discovery that made Winter-Wedderburn such a frequent attendant at these sales-that hope, and also,
maybe, the fact that he had nothing else of the
slightest interest to do in the world. He was a shy,
lonely, rather ineffectual man, provided with just
enough income to keep off the spur of necessity,
and not enough nervous energy to make him seek
308




THE STRANGE ORCHID


any exacting employment. He might have collected
stamps or coins, or translated Horace, or bound
books, or invented new species of diatoms. But, as
it happened, he grew orchids, and had one ambitious little hothouse.
"I have a fancy," he said over his coffee, "that
something is going to happen to me to-day." He
spoke-as he moved and thought-slowly.
"Oh, don't say that!" said his housekeeper-who
was also his remote cousin. For "something happening" was a euphemism that meant only one thing to
her.
"You misunderstand me. I mean nothing unpleasant... though what I do mean I scarcely
know.
"To-day," he continued, after a pause, "Peters'
are going to sell a batch of plants from the Andamans
and the Indies. I shall go up and see what they have.
It may be I shall buy something good unawares.
That may be it."
He passed his cup for his second cupful of coffee.
"Are those the things collected by that poor young
fellow you told me of the other day?" asked his
cousin, as she filled his cup.
"Yes," he said, and became meditative over a piece
of toast.
"Nothing ever does happen to me," he remarked
presently, beginning to think aloud. "I wonder
why? Things enough happen to other people. There
is Harvey. Only the other week-on Monday he
picked up sixpence, on Wednesday his chicks all had
the staggers, on Friday his cousin came home from
309




EARLY FANTASTIC STORIES


Australia, and on Saturday he broke his ankle.
What a whirl of excitement!-compared to me."
"I think I would rather be without so much excitement," said his housekeeper. "It can't be good
for you."
"I suppose it's troublesome. Still... you see,
nothing ever happens to me. When I was a little boy
I never had accidents. I never fell in love as I grew
up. Never married.... I wonder how it feels to
have something happen to you, something really remarkable.
"That orchid collector was only thirty-six-twenty
years younger than myself-when he died. And he
had been married twice and divorced once; he had
had malarial fever four times, and once he broke his
thigh. He killed a Malay once, and once he was
wounded by a poisoned dart. And in the end he was
killed by jungle-leeches. It must have all been very
troublesome, but then it must have been very interesting, you know-except, perhaps, the leeches."
"I am sure it was not good for him," said the lady
with conviction.
"Perhaps not." And then Wedderburn looked at
his watch. "Twenty-three minutes past eight. I
am going up by the quarter-to-twelve train, so that
there is plenty of time. I think I shall wear my alpaca jacket-it is quite warm enough-and my grey
felt hat and brown shoes. I suppose  "
He glanced out of the window at the serene sky and
sunlit garden, and then nervously at his cousin's
face.
"I think you had better take an umbrella if you
310




THE STRANGE ORCHID


are going to London," she said in a voice that admitted of no denial. "There's all between here and
the station coming back."
When he returned he was in a state of mild excitement. He had made a purchase. It was rare that
he could make up his mind quickly enough to buy,
but this time he had done so.
"There are Vandas," he said, "and a Dendrobe and
some Palseonophis." He surveyed his purchases lovingly as he consumed his soup. They were laid out
on the spotless tablecloth before him, and he was
telling his cousin all about them as he slowly meandered through his dinner. It was his custom to
live all his visits to London over again in the evening
for her and his own entertainment.
"I knew something would happen to-day. And I
have bought all these. Some of them-some of them
-I feel sure, do you know, that some of them will be
remarkable. I don't know how it is, but I feel just
as sure as if some one had told me that some of these
will turn out remarkable.
"That one"-he pointed to a shrivelled rhizome"was not identified. It may be a Palheonophis-or
it may not. It may be a new species, or even a new
genus. And it was the last that poor Batten ever
collected."
"I don't like the look of it," said his housekeeper.
"It's such an ugly shape."
"To me it scarcely seems to have a shape."
"I don't like those things that stick out," said his
housekeeper.
"It shall be put away in a pot to-morrow."
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EARLY FANTASTIC STORIES


"It looks," said the housekeeper, "like a spider
shamming dead."
Wedderburn smiled and surveyed the root with his
head on one side. "It is certainly not a pretty lump
of stuff. But you can never judge of these things
from their dry appearance. It may turn out to be a
very beautiful orchid indeed. How busy I shall be
to-morrow! I must see to-night just exactly what to
do with these things, and to-morrow I shall set to
work.
"They found poor Batten lying dead, or dying, in
a mangrove swamp-I forget which," he began again
presently, "with one of these very orchids crushed up
under his body. He had been unwell for some days
with some kind of native fever, and I suppose he
fainted. These mangrove swamps are very unwholesome. Every drop of blood, they say, was taken out
of him by the jungle-leeches. It may be that very
plant that cost him his life to obtain."
"I think none the better of it for that."
"Men must work though women may weep," said
Wedderburn with profound gravity.
"Fancy dying away from every comfort in a nasty
swamp! Fancy being ill of fever with nothing to
take but chlorodyne and quinine-if men were left
to themselves they would live on chlorodyne and
quinine-and no one round you but horrible natives!
They say the Andaman islanders are most disgusting
wretches-and, anyhow, they can scarcely make good
nurses, not having the necessary training. And just
for people in England to have orchids!"
"I don't suppose it was comfortable, but some men
312




THE STRANGE ORCHID


seem to enjoy that kind of thing," said Wedderburn.
"Anyhow, the natives of his party were sufficiently
civilised to take care of all his collection until his colleague, who was an ornithologist, came back again
from the interior; though they could not tell the species of the orchid, and had let it wither. And it
makes these things more interesting."
"It makes them disgusting. I should be afraid of
some of the malaria clinging to them. And just
think, there has been a dead body lying across that
ugly thing! I never thought of that before. There!
I declare I cannot eat another mouthful of dinner."
"I will take them off the table if you like, and put
them in the window-seat. I can see them just as well
there."
The next few days he was indeed singularly busy
in his steamy little hothouse, fussing about with charcoal, lumps of teak, moss, and all the other mysteries
of the orchid cultivator. He considered he was having a wonderfully eventful time. In the evening he
would talk about these new orchids to his friends,
and over and over again he reverted to his expectation of something strange.
Several of the Vandas and the Dendrobium died
under his care, but presently the strange orchid began
to show signs of life. He was delighted, and took his
housekeeper right away from jam-making to see it at
once, directly he made the discovery.
"That is a bud," he said, "and presently there will
be a lot of leaves there, and those little things coming
out here are aerial rootlets."
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EARLY FANTASTIC STORIES


"They look to me like little white fingers poking
out of the brown," said his housekeeper. "I don't
like them."
"Why not?"
"I don't know. They look like fingers trying to get
at you. I can't help my likes and dislikes."
"I don't know for certain, but I don't think there
are any orchids I know that have aerial rootlets quite
like that. It may be my fancy, of course. You see
they are a little flattened at the ends."
"I don't like 'em," said his housekeeper, suddenly
shivering and turning away. "I know it's very silly
of me-and I'm very sorry, particularly as you like
the thing so much. But I can't help thinking of that
corpse."
"But it may not be that particular plant. That
was merely a guess of mine."
His housekeeper shrugged her shoulders. "Anyhow, I don't like it," she said.
Wedderburn felt a little hurt at her dislike to the
plant. But that did not prevent his talking to her
about orchids generally, and this orchid in particular,
whenever he felt inclined.
"There are such queer things about orchids," he
said one day; "such possibilities of surprises. You
know, Darwin studied their fertilisation, and showed
that the whole structure of an ordinary orchid flower
was contrived in order that moths might carry the
pollen from plant to plant. Well, it seems that there
are lots of orchids known the flower of which cannot
possibly be used for fertilisation in that way. Some
of the Cypripediums, for instance; there are no in314




THE STRANGE ORCHID


sects known that can possibly fertilise them, and some
of them have never been found with seed."
"But how do they form new plants?"
"By runners and tubers, and that kind of outgrowth. That is easily explained. The puzzle is, what
are the flowers for?
"Very likely," he added, "my orchid may be something extraordinary in that way. If so I shall study
it. I have often thought of making researches as
Darwin did. But hitherto I have not found the
time, or something else has happened to prevent it.
The leaves are beginning to unfold now. I do wish
you would come and see them!"
But she said that the orchid house was so hot it
gave her the headache. She had seen the plant once
again, and the aerial rootlets, which were now some
of them more than a foot long, had unfortunately
reminded her of tentacles reaching out after something; and they got into her dreams, growing after her
with incredible rapidity. So that she had settled to
her entire satisfaction that she would not see that
plant again, and Wedderburn had to admire its leaves
alone. They were of the ordinary broad form, and a
deep glossy green, with splashes and dots of deep red
towards the base. He knew of no other leaves quite
like them. The plant was placed on a low bench near
the thermometer, and close by was a simple arrangement by which a tap dripped on the hot-water
pipes and kept the air steamy. And he spent
his afternoons now with some regularity meditating on the approaching flowering of this strange
plant.
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EARLY FANTASTIC STORIES


And at last the great thing happened. Directly he
entered the little glass house he knew that the spike
had burst out, although his great Palceonophis Lowii
hid the corner where his new darling stood. There
was a new odour in the air, a rich, intensely sweet
scent, that overpowered every other in that crowded,
steaming little greenhouse.
Directly he noticed this he hurried down to the
strange orchid. And, behold! the trailing green
spikes bore now three great splashes of blossom, from
which this overpowering sweetness proceeded. He
stopped before them in an ecstasy of admiration.
The flowers were white, with streaks of golden
orange upon the petals; the heavy labellum was coiled
into an intricate projection, and a wonderful bluish
purple mingled there with the gold. He could see at
once that the genus was altogether a new one. And
the insufferable scent! How hot the place was!
The blossoms swam before his eyes.
He would see if the temperature was right. He
made a step towards the thermometer. Suddenly
everything appeared unsteady. The bricks on the
floor were dancing up and down. Then the white
blossoms, the green leaves behind them, the whole
greenhouse, seemed to sweep sideways, and then in
a curve upward.
At half past four his cousin made the tea, according to their invariable custom. But Wedderburn
did not come in for his tea.
"He is worshipping that horrid orchid," she told
316




THE STRANGE ORCHID


herself, and waited ten minutes. "His watch must
have stopped. I will go and call him."
She went straight to the hothouse, and, opening
the door, called his name. There was no reply. She
noticed that the air was very close, and loaded with
an intense perfume. Then she saw something lying
on the bricks between the hot-water pipes.
For a minute, perhaps, she stood motionless.
He was lying, face upward, at the foot of the
strange orchid. The tentacle-like aerial rootlets no
longer swayed freely in the air, but were crowded together, a tangle of grey ropes, and stretched tight,
with their ends closely applied to his chin and neck
and hands.
She did not understand. Then she saw from under
one of the exultant tentacles upon his cheek there
trickled a little thread of blood.
With an inarticulate cry she ran towards him, and
tried to pull him away from the leech-like suckers.
She snapped two of these tentacles, and their sap
dripped red.
Then the overpowering scent of the blossom began
to make her head reel. How they clung to him!
She tore at the tough ropes, and he and the white
inflorescence swam about her. She felt she was fainting, knew she must not. She left him and hastily
opened the nearest door, and, after she had panted
for a moment in the fresh air, she had a brilliant inspiration. She caught up a flower-pot and smashed
in the windows at the end of the greenhouse. Then she
re-entered. She tugged now with renewed strength
at Wedderburn's motionless body, and brought the
317




EARLY FANTASTIC STORIES


strange orchid crashing to the floor. It still clung
with the grimmest tenacity to its victim. In a
frenzy, she lugged it and him into the open air.
Then she thought of tearing through the sucker
rootlets one by one, and in another minute she had
released him and was dragging him away from the
horror.
He was white and bleeding from a dozen circular
patches.
The odd-job man was coming up the garden,
amazed at the smashing of glass, and saw her emerge,
hauling the inanimate body with red-stained hands.
For a moment he thought impossible things.
"Bring some water!" she cried, and her voice dispelled his fancies. When, with unnatural alacrity, he
returned with the water, he found her weeping with
excitement, and with Wedderburn's head upon her
knee, wiping the blood from his face.
"What's the matter?" said Wedderburn, opening
his eyes feebly, and closing them again at once.
"Go and tell Annie to come out here to me, and
then go for Dr. Haddon at once," she said to the
odd-job man so soon as he brought the water; and
added, seeing he hesitated, "I will tell you all about
it when you come back."
Presently Wedderburn opened his eyes again, and,
seeing that he was troubled by the puzzle of his position, she explained to him: "You fainted in the hothouse."
"And the orchid?"
"I will see to that," she said.
Wedderburn had lost a good deal of blood, but be318




THE STRANGE ORCHID


yond that he had suffered no very great injury. They
gave him brandy mixed with some pink extract of
meat, and carried him upstairs to bed. His housekeeper told her incredible story in fragments to Dr.
Haddon. "Come to the orchid house and see," she
said.
The cold outer air was blowing in through the open
door, and the sickly perfume was almost dispelled.
Most of the torn aerial rootlets lay already withered
amidst a number of dark stains upon the bricks. The
stem of the inflorescence was broken by the fall of
the plant, and the flowers were growing limp and
brown at the edges of the petals. The doctor stooped
towards it, then saw that one of the aerial rootlets
still stirred feebly, and hesitated.
The next morning the strange orchid still lay there,
black now and putrescent. The door banged intermittently in the morning breeze, and all the array of
Wedderburn's orchids was shrivelled and prostrate.
But Wedderburn himself was bright and garrulous
upstairs in the glory of his strange adventure.


319




~EPYORNIS ISLAND


THE man with the scarred face leant over the
table and looked at my bundle.
"Orchids?" he asked.
"A few," I said.
"Cypripediums," he said.
"Chiefly," said I.
"Anything new? I thought not. I did these
islands twenty-five —twenty-seven years ago. If you
find anything new here-well, it's brand-new. I
didn't leave much."
"I'm not a collector," said I.
"I was young then," he went on. "Lord! how I
used to fly round." He seemed to take my measure.
"I was in the East Indies two years and in Brazil
seven. Then I went to Madagascar."
"I know a few explorers by name," I said, anticipating a yarn. "Whom did you collect for?"
"Dawson's. I wonder if you've heard the name
of Butcher ever?"
"Butcher-Butcher?" The name seemed vaguely
present in my memory; then I recalled Butcher v.
Dawson. "Why!" said I, "you are the man who
sued them for four years' salary-got cast away on a
desert island..."
"Your servant," said the man with the scar, bowing. "Funny case, wasn't it? Here was me, making a little fortune on that island, doing nothing for
it neither, and them quite unable to give me notice.
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IEPYORNIS ISLAND


It often used to amuse me thinking over it while I
was there. I did calculations of it —big-all over
the blessed atoll in ornamental figuring."
"How did it happen?" said I. "I don't rightly
remember the case."
"Well.... You've heard of the IEpyornis?"
"Rather. Andrews was telling me of a new species
he was working on only a month or so ago. Just before I sailed. They've got a thigh-bone, it seems,
nearly a yard long. Monster the thing must have
been!"
"I believe you," said the man with the scar. "It
was a monster. Sindbad's rock was just a legend of
'em. But when did they find these bones?"
"Three or four years ago-'91, I fancy. Why?"
"Why? Because I found them-Lord!-it's nearly twenty years ago. If Dawson's hadn't been silly
about that salary they might have made a perfect
ring in 'em.... I couldn't help the infernal boat
going adrift."
He paused. "I suppose it's the same place. A
kind of swamp about ninety miles north of Antananarivo. Do you happen to know? You have to go
to it along the coast by boats. You don't happen to
remember, perhaps?"
"I don't. I fancy Andrews said something about
a swamp."
"It must be the same. It's on the east coast.
And somehow there's something in the water that
keeps things from decaying. Like creosote it smells.
It reminded me of Trinidad. Did they get any more
eggs? Some of the eggs I found were a foot and a
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EARLY FANTASTIC STORIES


half long. The swamp goes circling round, you know,
and cuts off this bit. It's mostly salt, too. Well....
What a time I had of it! I found the things quite by
accident. We went for eggs, me and two native
chaps, in one of those rum canoes all tied together,
and found the bones at the same time. We had a
tent and provisions for four days, and we pitched on
one of the firmer places. To think of it brings that
odd tarry smell back even now. It's funny work.
You go probing into the mud with iron rods, you
know. Usually the egg gets smashed. I wonder
how long it is since these AEpyornises really lived.
The missionaries say the natives have legends about
when they were alive, but I never heard any such
stories myself.* But certainly those eggs we got
were as fresh as if they had been new laid. Fresh!
Carrying them down to the boat one of my nigger
chaps dropped one on a rock and it smashed. How
I lammed into the beggar! But sweet it was, as if
it was new laid, not even smelly, and its mother dead
these four hundred years, perhaps. Said a centipede
had bit him. However, I'm getting off the straight
with the story. It had taken us all day to dig into
the slush and get these eggs out unbroken, and we
were all covered with beastly black mud, and naturally I was cross. So far as I knew they were the only
eggs that have ever been got out not even cracked.
I went afterwards to see the ones they have at the
Natural History Museum in London; all of them were
cracked and just stuck together like a mosaic, and
* No European is known to have seen a live Epyornis, with the doubtful
exception of Macer, who visited Madagascar in 1745.-H. G. W.
322




IEPYORNIS ISLAND.


bits missing. Mine were perfect, and I meant to
blow them when I got back. Naturally I was annoyed at the silly duffer dropping three hours' work
just on account of a centipede. I hit him about
rather."
The man with the scar took out a clay pipe. I
placed my pouch before him. He filled up absentmindedly.
"How about the others? Did you get those home?
I don't remember ---"
"That's the queer part of the story. I had three
others. Perfectly fresh eggs. Well, we put 'em in
the boat, and then I went up to the tent to make some
coffee, leaving my two heathens down by the beachthe one fooling about with his sting and the other
helping him. It never occurred to me that the beggars would take advantage of the peculiar position I
was in to pick a quarrel. But I suppose the centipede poison and the kicking I had given him had upset the one-he was always a cantankerous sort-and
he persuaded the other.
"I remember I was sitting and smoking and boiling
up the water over a spirit-lamp business I used to
take on these expeditions. Incidentally I was admiring the swamp under the sunset. All black and
blood-red it was, in streaks-a beautiful sight. And
up beyond the land rose grey and hazy to the hills,
and the sky behind them red, like a furnace mouth.
And fifty yards behind the back of me was these
blessed heathen-quite regardless of the tranquil air
of things-plotting to cut off with the boat and leave
me all alone with three days' provisions and a canvas
323




EARLY FANTASTIC STORIES


tent, and nothing to drink whatsoever beyond a little
keg of water. I heard a kind of yelp behind me, and
there they were in this canoe affair-it wasn't properly a boat-and, perhaps, twenty yards from land.
I realised what was up in a moment. My gun was
in the tent, and, besides, I had no bullets-only duck
shot. They knew that. But I had a little revolver
in my pocket, and I pulled that out as I ran down
to the beach.
"'Come back!' says I, flourishing it.
"They jabbered something at me, and the man
that broke the egg jeered. I aimed at the otherbecause he was unwounded and had the paddle, and
I missed. They laughed. However, I wasn't beat.
I knew I had to keep cool, and I tried him again and
made him jump with the whang of it. He didn't
laugh that time. The third time I got his head, and
over he went, and the paddle with him. It was a precious lucky shot for a revolver. I reckon it was fifty
yards. He went right under. I don't know if he was
shot, or simply stunned and drowned. Then I began
to shout to the other chap to come back, but he huddled up in the canoe and refused to answer. So I
fired out my revolver at him and never got near him.
"I felt a precious fool, I can tell you. There I was
on this rotten black beach, flat swamp all behind me,
and the flat sea, cold after the sun set, and just this
black canoe drifting steadily out to sea. I tell you
I damned Dawson's and Jamrach's and Museums and
all the rest of it just to rights. I bawled to this nigger
to come back, until my voice went up into a scream.
"There was nothing for it but to swim after him
324




2EPYORNIS ISLAND


and take my luck with the sharks. So I opened my
clasp-knife and put it in my mouth, and took off my
clothes and waded in. As soon as I was in the water
I lost sight of the canoe, but I aimed, as I judged, to
head it off. I hoped the man in it was too bad to
navigate it, and that it would keep on drifting in the
same direction. Presently it came up over the horizon again to the south-westward about. The afterglow of sunset was well over now and the dim of night
creeping up. The stars were coming through the blue.
I swum like a champion, though my legs -and arms
were soon aching.
"However, I came up to him by the time the stars
were fairly out. As it got darker I began to see all
manner of glowing things in the water-phosphorescence, you know. At times it made me giddy. I
hardly knew which was stars and which was phosphorescence, and whether I was swimming on my
head or my heels. The canoe was as black as sin, and
the ripple under the bows like liquid fire. I was
naturally chary of clambering up into it. I was
anxious to see what he was up to first. He seemed to
be lying cuddled up in a lump in the bows, and the
stern was all out of water. The thing kept turning
round slowly as it drifted-kind of waltzing, don't
you know. I went to the stern and pulled it down,
expecting him to wake up. Then I began to clamber
in with my knife in my hand, and ready for a rush.
But he never stirred. So there I sat in the stern of
the little canoe, drifting away over the calm phosphorescent sea and with all the host of the stars above
me, waiting for something to happen.
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EARLY FANTASTIC STORIES


"After a long time I called him by name, but he
never answered. I was too tired to take any risks
by going along to him. So we sat there. I fancy I
dozed once or twice. When the dawn came I saw
he was as dead as a door-nail and all puffed up and
purple. My three eggs and the bones were lying in
the middle of the canoe, and the keg of water and
some coffee and biscuits wrapped in a Cape Argus by
his feet, and a tin of methylated spirit underneath
him. There was no paddle, nor, in fact, anything
except the spirit tin that I could use as one, so I
settled to drift until I was picked up. I held an inquest on him, brought in a verdict against some
snake, scorpion, or centipede unknown, and sent him
overboard.
"After that I had a drink of water and a few biscuits, and took a look round. I suppose a man low
down as I was don't see very far; leastways, Madagascar was clean out of sight, and any trace of land
at all. I saw a sail going south-westward-looked
like a schooner but her hull never came up. Presently the sun got high in the sky and began to beat
down upon me. Lord! it pretty near made my brains
boil. I tried dipping my head in the sea, but after
a while my eye fell on the Cape Argus, and I lay
down flat in the canoe and spread this over me.
Wonderful things these newspapers! I never read
one through thoroughly before, but it's odd what
you get up to when you're alone, as I was. I suppose I read that blessed old Cape Argus twenty
times. The pitch in the canoe simply reeked with
the heat and rose up into big blisters.
326




2EPYORNIS ISLAND


"I drifted ten days," said the man with the scar.
"It's a little thing in the telling, isn't it? Every day
was like the last. Except in the morning and the
evening I never kept a lookout even-the blaze was
so infernal. I didn't see a sail after the first three
days, and those I saw took no notice of me. About
the sixth night a ship went by scarcely half a mile
away from me, with all its lights ablaze and its ports
open, looking like a big firefly. There was music
aboard. I stood up and shouted and screamed at it.
The second day I broached one of the AIpyornis eggs,
scraped the shell away at the end bit by bit, and tried
it, and I was glad to find it was good enough to eat.
A bit flavoury-not bad, I mean-but with something
of the taste of a duck's egg. There was a kind of circular patch, about six inches across, on one side of
the yolk, and with streaks of blood and a white mark
like a ladder in it that I thought queer, but I did not
understand what this meant at the time, and I wasn't
inclined to be particular. The egg lasted me three
days, with biscuits and a drink of water. I chewed
coffee-berries too-invigorating stuff. The second
egg I opened about the eighth day, and it scared me."
The man with the scar paused. "Yes," he said,
"developing."
"I dare say you find it hard to believe. I did, with
the thing before me. There the egg had been, sunk in
that cold black mud, perhaps three hundred years.
But there was no mistaking it. There was the-what
is it?-embryo, with its big head and curved back,
and its heart beating under its throat, and the yolk
shrivelled up and great membranes spreading inside
327




EARLY FANTASTIC STORIES


of the shell and all over the yolk. Here was I hatching out the eggs of the biggest of all extinct birds, in
a little canoe in the midst of the Indian Ocean. If
old Dawson had known that! It was worth four
years' salary. What do you think?
"However, I had to eat that precious thing up,
every bit of it, before I sighted the reef, and some
of the mouthfuls were beastly unpleasant. I left the
third one alone. I held it up to the light, but the
shell was too thick for me to get any notion of what
might be happening inside; and though I fancied I
heard blood pulsing, it might have been the rustle
in my own ears, like what you listen to in a seashell.
"Then came the atoll. Came out of the sunrise,
as it were, suddenly, close up to me. I drifted
straight towards it until I was about half a mile from
shore, not more, and then the current took a turn,
and I had to paddle as hard as I could with my hands
and bits of the JEpyornis shell to make the place.
However, I got there. It was just a common atoll
about four miles round, with a few trees growing and
a spring in one place, and the lagoon full of parrotfish. I took the egg ashore and put it in a good place,
well above the tide lines and in the sun, to give it all
the chance I could, and pulled the canoe up safe, and
loafed about prospecting. It's rum how dull an atoll
is. As soon as I had found a spring all the interest
seemed to vanish. When I was a kid I thought nothing could be finer or more adventurous than the Robinson Crusoe business, but that place was as monotonous as a book of sermons. I went round finding
328




IEPYORNIS ISLAND


eatable things and generally thinking; but I tell you
I was bored to death before the first day was out.
It shows my luck-the very day I landed the weather
changed. A thunderstorm went by to the north and
flicked its wing over the island, and in the night there
came a drencher and a howling wind slap over us.
It wouldn't have taken much, you know, to upset
that canoe.
"I was sleeping under the canoe, and the egg was
luckily among the sand higher up the beach, and the
first thing I remember was a sound like a hundred
pebbles hitting the boat at once, and a rush of water
over my body. I'd been dreaming of Antananarivo,
and I sat up and halloed to Intoshi to ask her what
the devil was up, and clawed out at the chair where
the matches used to be. Then I remembered where I
was. There were phosphorescent waves rolling up
as if they meant to eat me, and all the rest of the
night as black as pitch. The air was simply yelling.
The clouds seemed down on your head almost, and
the rain fell as if heaven was sinking and they were
baling out the waters above the firmament. One
great roller came writhing at me, like a fiery serpent,
and I bolted. Then I thought of the canoe, and ran
down to it as the water went hissing back again; but
the thing had gone. I wondered about the egg, then,
and felt my way to it. It was all right and well out
of reach of the maddest waves, so I sat down beside
it and cuddled it for company. Lord! what a night
that was!
"The storm was over before the morning. There
wasn't a rag of cloud left in the sky when the dawn
329




EARLY FANTASTIC STORIES


came, and all along the beach there were bits of plank
scattered-which was the disarticulated skeleton, so
to speak, of my canoe. However, that gave me
something to do, for, taking advantage of two of the
trees being together, I rigged up a kind of stormshelter with these vestiges. And that day the egg
hatched.
"Hatched, Sir, when my head was pillowed on it
and I was asleep. I heard a whack and felt a jar
and sat up, and there was the end of the egg pecked
out and a rum little brown head looking out at me.
'Lord!' I said, 'you're welcome'; and with a little
difficulty he came out.
"He was a nice friendly little chap at first, about
the size of a small hen-very much like most other
young birds, only bigger. His plumage was a dirty
brown to begin with, with a sort of grey scab that fell
off it very soon, and scarcely feathers-a kind of
downy hair. I can hardly express how pleased I was
to see him. I tell you, Robinson Crusoe don't make
near enough of his loneliness. But here was interesting company. He looked at me and winked his eye
from the front backward, like a hen, and gave a
chirp and began to peck about at once, as though being hatched three hundred years too late was just
nothing. 'Glad to see you, Man Friday!' says I, for
I had naturally settled he was to be called Man Friday if ever he was hatched, as soon as ever I found
the egg in the canoe had developed. I was a bit
anxious about his feed, so I gave him a lump of raw
parrot-fish at once. He took it, and opened his beak
for more. I was glad of that, for, under the circum330




IEPYORNIS ISLAND


stances, if he'd been at all fanciful, I should have had
to eat him after all.
"You'd be surprised what an interesting bird that
ZEpyornis chick was. He followed me about from
the very beginning. He used to stand by me and
watch while I fished in the lagoon, and go shares in
anything I caught. And he was sensible, too. There
were nasty green warty things, like pickled gherkins,
used to lie about on the beach, and he tried one of
these and it upset him. He never even looked at
any of them again.
"And he grew. You could almost see him grow.
And as I was never much of a society man, his quiet,
friendly ways suited me to a T. For nearly two years
we were as happy as we could be on that island. I
had no business worries, for I knew my salary was
mounting up at Dawsons'. We would see a sail now
and then, but nothing ever came near us. I amused
myself, too, by decorating the island with designs
worked in sea-urchins and fancy shells of various
kinds. I put IEPYORNIS ISLAND all round the place
very nearly, in big letters, like what you see done
with coloured stones at railway stations in the old
country, and mathematical calculations and drawings of various sorts. And I used to lie watching
the blessed bird stalking round and growing, growing; and think how I could make a living out of him
by showing him about if I ever got taken off. After
his first moult he began to get handsome, with a crest
and a blue wattle, and a lot of green feathers at the
behind of him. And then I used to puzzle whether
Dawsons' had any right to claim him or not. Stormy
331




EARLY FANTASTIC STORIES


weather and in the rainy season we lay snug under
the shelter I had made out of the old canoe, and I
used to tell him lies about my friends at home. And
after a storm we would go round the island together
to see if there was any drift. It was a kind of idyll,
you might say. If only I had had some tobacco it
would have been simply just like heaven.
"It was about the end of the second year our little
paradise went wrong. Friday was then about fourteen feet high to the bill of him, with a big, broad
head like the end of a pickaxe, and two huge brown
eyes with yellow rims, set together like a man's-not
out of sight of each other like a hen's. His plumage
was fine-none of the half-mourning style of your
ostrich-more like a cassowary as far as colour and
texture go. And then it was he began to cock his
comb at me and give himself airs, and show signs of
a nasty temper....
"At last came a time when my fishing had been
rather unlucky, and he began to hang about me in a
queer, meditative way. I thought he might have
been eating sea-cucumbers or something, but it was
really just discontent on his part. I was hungry, too,
and when at last I landed a fish I wanted it for myself. Tempers were short that morning on both sides.
He pecked at it and grabbed it, and I gave him a
whack on the head to make him leave go. And at
that he went for me. Lord!...
"He gave me this in the face." The man indicated
his scar. "Then he kicked me. It was like a carthorse. I got up, and, seeing he hadn't finished, I
started off full tilt with my arms doubled up over my
332




JEPYORNIS ISLAND
-face. But he ran on those gawky legs of his faster
than a race-horse, and kept landing out at me with
sledge-hammer kicks and bringing his pickaxe down
on the back of my head. I made for the lagoon, and
went in up to my neck. He stopped at the water,
for he hated getting his feet wet, and began to make
a shindy, something like a peacock's, only hoarser.
He started strutting up and down the beach. I'll
admit I felt small to see this blessed fossil lording it
there. And my head and face were all bleeding, and
-well, my body just one jelly of bruises.
"I decided to swim across the lagoon and leave
him alone for a bit, until the affair blew over. I
shinned up the tallest palm-tree, and sat there thinking of it all. I don't suppose I ever felt so hurt by
anything before or since. It was the brutal ingratitude of the creature. I'd been more than a brother
to him. I'd hatched him, educated him. A great
gawky, out-of-date bird! And me a human beingheir of the ages and all that.
"I thought after a time he'd begin to see things in
that light himself, and feel a little sorry for his behaviour. I thought if I was to catch some nice little
bits of fish, perhaps, and go to him presently in a
casual kind of way, and offer them to him, he might
do the sensible thing. It took me some time to learn
how unforgiving and cantankerous an extinct bird
can be. Malice!
"I won't tell you all the little devices I tried to get
that bird round again. I simply can't. It makes
my cheek burn with shame even now to think of the
snubs and buffets I had from this infernal curiosity.
333




EARLY FANTASTIC STORIES


I tried violence. I chucked lumps of coral at him
from a safe distance, but he only swallowed them.
I shied my open knife at him and almost lost it,
though it was too big for him to swallow. I tried
starving him out and struck fishing, but he took to
picking along the beach at low water after worms,
and rubbed along on that. Half my time I spent up
to my neck in the lagoon, and the rest up the palmtrees. One of them was scarcely high enough, and
when he caught me up it he had a regular Bank Holiday with the calves of my legs. It got unbearable.
I don't know if you have ever tried sleeping up a
palm-tree. It gave me the most horrible nightmares. Think of the shame of it, too! Here was this
extinct animal mooning about my island like a sulky
duke, and me not allowed to rest the sole of my foot
on the place. I used to cry with weariness and vexation. I told him straight that I didn't mean to be
chased about a desert island by any damned anachronisms. I told him to go and peck a navigator of his
own age. But he only snapped his beak at me.
Great ugly bird, all legs and neck!
"I shouldn't like to say how long that went on
altogether. I'd have killed him sooner if I'd known
how. However, I hit on a way of settling him at
last. It is a South American dodge. I joined all my
fishing-lines together with stems of seaweed and
things, and made a stoutish string, perhaps twelve
yards in length or more, and I fastened two lumps of
coral rock to the ends of this. It took me some time
to do, because every now and then I had to go into
the lagoon or up a tree as the fancy took me. This
334




2EPYORNIS ISLAND


I whirled rapidly round my head, and then let it go
at him. The first time I missed, but the next time
the string caught his legs beautifully, and wrapped
round them again and again. Over he went. I
threw it standing waist-deep in the lagoon, and as
soon as he went down I was out of the water and
sawing at his neck with my knife
"I don't like to think of that even now. I felt like
a murderer while I did it, though my anger was hot
against him. When I stood over him and saw him
bleeding on the white sand, and his beautiful great
legs and neck writhing in his last agony.
Pah!
"With that tragedy loneliness came upon me like a
curse. Good Lord! you can't imagine how I missed
that bird. I sat by his corpse and sorrowed over
him, and shivered as I looked round the desolate,
silent reef. I thought of what a jolly little bird he
had been when he was hatched, and of a thousand
pleasant tricks he had played before he went wrong.
I thought if I'd only wounded him I might have
nursed him round into a better understanding. If
I'd had any means of digging into the coral rock I'd
have buried him. I felt exactly as if he was human.
As it was, I couldn't think of eating him, so I put him
in the lagoon, and the little fishes picked him clean.
I didn't even save the feathers. Then one day a chap
cruising about in a yacht had a fancy to see if my
atoll still existed.
"He didn't come a moment too soon, for I,was
about sick enough of the desolation of it, and only
hesitating whether I should walk out into the sea and
335




EARLY FANTASTIC STORIES


finish up the business that way, or fall back on the
green things..
"I sold the bones to a man named Winslow-a
dealer near the British Museum, and he says he sold
them to old HIavers. It seems Havers didn't understand they were extra large, and it was only after
his death they attracted attention. They called 'em
AEpyornis-what was it?"
"Epyornis vastus," said I. "It's funny, the very
thing was mentioned to me by a friend of mine.
When they found an AEpyornis with a thigh a yard
long, they thought they had reached the top of the
scale, and called him iEpyornis maximus. Then some
one turned up another thigh-bone four feet six or
more, and that they called Epyornis titan. Then
your vastus was found after old Havers died, in his
collection, and then a vastissimus turned up."
"Winslow was telling me as much," said the man
with the scar. "If they get any more AEpyornises,
he reckons some scientific swell will go and burst a
blood-vessel. But it was a queer thing to happen to
a man, wasn't it-altogether?"


336




THE REMARKABLE CASE OF
DAVIDSON'S EYES
THE transitory mental aberration of Sidney Davidson, remarkable enough in itself, is still more remarkable if Wade's explanation is to be credited. It
sets one dreaming of the oddest possibilities of intercommunication in the future, of spending an intercalary five minutes on the other side of the world, or
being watched in our most secret operations by unsuspected eyes. It happened that I was the immediate witness of Davidson's seizure, and so it falls
naturally to me to put the story upon paper.
When I say that I was the immediate witness of
his seizure, I mean that I was the first on the scene.
The thing happened at the Harlow Technical College,
just beyond the Highgate Archway. He was alone
in the larger laboratory when the thing happened. I
was in a smaller room, where the balances are, writing
up some notes. The thunderstorm had completely
upset my work, of course. It was just after one of
the louder peals that I thought I heard some glass
smash in the other room. I stopped writing, and
turned round to listen. For a moment I heard nothing; the hail was playing the devil's tattoo on the
corrugated zinc of the roof. Then came another
sound, a smash-no doubt of it this time. Something heavy had been knocked off the bench. I
jumped up at once and went and opened the door
leading into the big laboratory.
337




EARLY FANTASTIC STORIES


I was surprised to hear a queer sort of laugh, and
saw Davidson standing unsteadily in the middle of
the room, with a dazzled look on his face. My first
impression was that he was drunk. He did not notice
me. He was clawing out at something invisible a
yard in front of his face. He put out his hand
slowly, rather hesitatingly, and then clutched nothing. "What's come to it?" he said. He held up
his hands to his face, fingers spread out. "Great
Scott!" he said. The thing happened three or four
years ago, when every one swore by that personage.
Then he began raising his feet clumsily, as though he
had expected to find them glued to the floor.
"Davidson!" cried I. "What's the matter with
you?" He turned round in my direction and looked
about for me. He looked over me and at me and on
either side of me, without the slightest sign of seeing me. "Waves," he said; "and a remarkably
neat schooner. I'd swear that was Bellow's voice.
Hullo!" He shouted suddenly at the top of his
voice.
I thought he was up to some foolery. Then I saw
littered about his feet the shattered remains of the
best of our electrometers. "What's up, man?" said
I. "You've smashed the electrometer!"
"Bellows again!" said he. "Friends left, if my
hands are gone. Something about electrometers.
Which way are you, Bellows?" He suddenly came
staggering towards me. "The damned stuff cuts
like butter," he said. He walked straight into the
bench and recoiled. "None so buttery that!" he
said, and stood swaying.
338




THE CASE OF DAVIDSON'S EYES


I felt scared. "Davidson," said I, "what on
earth's come over you?"
He looked round him in every direction. "I could
swear that was Bellows. Why don't you show yourself like a man, Bellows?"
It occurred to me that he must be suddenly struck
blind. I walked round the table and laid my hand
upon his arm. I never saw a man more startled in
my life. He jumped away from me, and came round
into an attitude of self-defence, his face fairly distorted with terror. "Good God!" he cried. "What
was that?"
"It's I-Bellows. Confound it, Davidson!"
He jumped when I answered him and stared-how
can I express it?-right through me. He began
talking, not to me, but to himself. "Here in broad
daylight on a clear beach. Not a place to hide in."
He looked about him wildly. "Here! I'm off."
He suddenly turned and ran headlong into the big
electromagnet-so violently that, as we found afterwards, he bruised his shoulder and jawbone cruelly.
At that he stepped back a pace, and cried out with
almost a whimper: "What, in Heaven's name, has
come over me?" He stood, blanched with terror and
trembling violently, with his right arm clutching his
left, where that had collided with the magnet.
By that time I was excited and fairly scared.
"Davidson," said I, "don't be afraid."
He was startled at my voice, but not so excessively
as before. I repeated my words in as clear and as
firm a tone as I could assume. "Bellows," he said,
"is that you?"
339




EARLY FANTASTIC STORIES


"Can't you see it's me?"
He laughed. "I can't even see it's myself. Where
the devil are we?"
"Here," said I, "in the laboratory."
"The laboratory!" he answered in a puzzled tone,
and put his hand to his forehead. "I was in the
laboratory-till that flash came, but I'm hanged if
I'm there now. What ship is that?"
"There's no ship," said I. "Do be sensible, old
chap."
"No ship!" he repeated, and seemed to forget
my denial forthwith. "I suppose," said he slowly,
"we're both dead. But the rummy part is I feel just
as though I still had a body. Don't get used to it
all at once, I suppose. The old shop was struck by
lightning, I suppose. Jolly quick thing, Bellowseigh?"
"Don't talk nonsense. You're very much alive.
You are in the laboratory, blundering about. You've
just smashed a new electrometer. I don't envy you
when Boyce arrives."
He stared away from me towards the diagrams of
cryohydrates. "I must be deaf," said he. "They've
fired a gun, for there goes the puff of smoke, and I
never heard a sound."
I put my hand on his arm again, and this time he
was less alarmed. "We seem to have a sort of invisible bodies," said he. "By Jove! there's a boat
coming round the headland. It's very much like the
old life after all-in a different climate."
I shook his arm. "Davidson," I cried, "wake up!"
It was just then that Boyce came in. So soon as he
340




THE CASE OF DAVIDSON'S EYES


spoke Davidson exclaimed: "Old Boyce! Dead too!
What a lark 1" I hastened to explain that Davidson
was in a kind of somnambulistic trance. Boyce was
interested at once. We both did all we could to rouse
the fellow out of his extraordinary state. He answered our questions, and asked us some of his own,
but his attention seemed distracted by his hallucination about a beach and a ship. He kept interpolating
observations concerning some boat and the davits,
and sails filling with the wind. It made one feel
queer, in the dusky laboratory, to hear him saying
such things.
He was blind and helpless. We had to walk him
down the passage, one at each elbow, to Boyce's
private room, and while Boyce talked to him there,
and humoured him about this ship idea, I went along
the corridor and asked old Wade to come and look
at him. The voice of our Dean sobered him a little,
but not very much. He asked where his hands were,
and why he had to walk about up to his waist in the
ground. Wade thought over him a long time-you
know how he knits his brows-and then made him
feel the couch, guiding his hands to it. "That's a
couch," said Wade. "The couch in the private room
of Prof. Boyce. Horsehair stuffing."
Davidson felt about, and puzzled over it, and
answered presently that he could feel it all right, but
he couldn't see it.
"What do you see?" asked Wade. Davidson said
he could see nothing but a lot of sand and broken-up
shells. Wade gave him some other things to feel,
telling him what they were, and watching him keenly.
341




EARLY FANTASTIC STORIES


"The ship is almost hull down," said Davidson
presently, apropos of nothing.
"Never mind the ship," said Wade. "Listen to
me, Davidson. Do you know what hallucination
means?"
"Rather," said Davidson.
"WVell, everything you see is hallucinatory."
"Bishop Berkeley," said Davidson.
"Don't mistake me," said Wade. "You are alive
and in this room of Boyce's. But something has happened to your eyes. You cannot see; you can feel
and hear, but not see. Do you follow me?"
"It seems to me that I see too much." Davidson
rubbed his knuckles into his eyes. "Well?" he said.
"That's all. Don't let it perplex you. Bellows
here and I will take you home in a cab."
"Wait a bit." Davidson thought. "Help me to
sit down," said he presently; "and now-I'm sorry
to trouble you-but will you tell me all that over
again?"
Wade repeated it very patiently. Davidson shut
his eyes, and pressed his hands upon his forehead.
"Yes," said he. "It's quite right. Now my eyes
are shut I know you're right. That's you, Bellows,
sitting by me on the couch. I'm in England again.
And we're in the dark."
Then he opened his eyes. "And there," said he,
"is the sun just rising, and the yards of the ship, and'
a tumbled sea, and a couple of birds flying. I never
saw anything so real. And I'm sitting up to my
neck in a bank of sand."
He bent forward and covered his face with his
342




THE CASE OF DAVIDSON'S EYES


hands. Then he opened his eyes again. "Dark sea
and sunrise! And yet I'm sitting on a sofa in old
Boyce's room!... God help me!"
That was the beginning. For three weeks this
strange affection of Davidson's eyes continued unabated. It was far worse than being blind. He was
absolutely helpless, and had to be fed like a newly
hatched bird, and led about and undressed. If he
attempted to move, he fell over things or struck himself against walls or doors. After a day or so he got
used to hearing our voices without seeing us, and
willingly admitted he was at home, and that Wade
was right in what he told him. My sister, to whom
he was engaged,, insisted on coming to see him, and
would sit for hours every day while he talked about
this beach of his. Holding her hand seemed to-comfort him immensely. He explained that when we
left the College and drove home-he lived in Hampstead village-it appeared to him as if we drove right
through a sandhill-it was perfectly black until he
emerged again-and through rocks and trees and solid
obstacles, and when he was taken to his own room it
made him giddy and almost frantic with the fear of
falling, because going upstairs seemed to lift him
thirty or forty feet above the rocks of his imaginary
island. He kept saying he should smash all the eggs.
The end was that he had to be taken down into his
father's consulting-room and laid upon a couch that
stood there.
He described the island as being a bleak kind of
place on the whole, with very little vegetation, except
some peaty stuff, and a lot of bare rock. There were
343




EARLY FANTASTIC STORIES


multitudes of penguins, and they made the rock;
white and disagreeable to see. The sea was oftei
rough, and once there was a thunderstorm, and hi
lay and shouted at the silent flashes. Once or twice
seals pulled up on the beach, but only on the first tw(
or three days. He said it was very funny the wan
in which the penguins used to waddle right througl
him, and how he seemed to lie among them withou
disturbing them.
I remember one odd thing, and that was when hi
wanted very badly to smoke. We put a pipe in hi
hands-he almost poked his eye out with it-and li
it. But he couldn't taste anything. I've since foun<
it's the same with me-I don't know if it's the usua
case-that I cannot enjoy tobacco at all unless I cai
see the smoke.
But the queerest part of his vision came when Wad
sent him out in a Bath-chair to get fresh air. Thb
Davidsons hired a chair, and got that deaf and ob
stinate dependant of theirs, Widgery, to attend to ii
Widgery's ideas of healthy expeditions were peculial
My sister, who had been to the Dogs' Home, me
them in Camden Town, towards King's Cross, Widp
ery trotting along complacently, and Davidson, evi
dently most distressed, trying in his feeble, blin,
way to attract Widgery's attention.
He positively wept when my sister spoke to hilr
"Oh, get me out of this horrible darkness!" he saic
feeling for her hand. "I must get out of it, or I sha
die." He was quite incapable of explaining what wa
the matter, but my sister decided he must go home
and presently, as they went uphill towards Hami
344




THE CASE OF DAVIDSON'S EYES


stead, the horror seemed to drop from him. He said
it was good to see the stars again, though it was then
about noon and a blazing day.
"It seemed," he told me afterwards, "as if I was
being carried irresistibly towards the water. I was
not very much alarmed at first. Of course it was
night there-a lovely night."
"Of course?" I asked, for that struck me as odd.
"Of course," said he. "It's always night there
when it is day here.... Well, we went right into
the water, which was calm and shining under the
moonlight-just a broad swell that seemed to grow
broader and flatter as I came down into it. The surface glistened just like a skin-it might have been
empty space underneath for all I could tell to the contrary. Very slowly, for I rode slanting into it, the
water crept up to my eyes. Then I went under and
the skin seemed to break and heal again about my
eyes. The moon gave a jump up in the sky and grew
green and dim, and fish, faintly glowing, came darting
round me-and things that seemed made of luminous
glass; and I passed through a tangle of seaweeds
that shone with an oily lustre. And so I drove down
into the sea, and the stars went out one by one, and
the moon grew greener and darker, and the seaweed
became a luminous purple-red. It was all very faint
and mysterious, and everything seemed to quiver.
And all the while I could hear the wheels of the Bathchair creaking, and the footsteps of people going by,
and a man in the distance selling the special Pall
Mall.
"I kept sinking down deeper and deeper into the
345




EARLY FANTASTIC STORIES


water. It became inky black about me, not a ray
from above came down into that darkness, and the
phosphorescent things grew brighter and brighter.
The snaky branches of the deeper weeds flickered like
the flames of spirit-lamps; but, after a time, there
were no more weeds. The fishes came staring and
gaping towards me, and into me and through me. I
never imagined such fishes before. They had lines
of fire along the sides of them as though they had
been outlined with a luminous pencil. And there was
a ghastly thing swimming backward with a lot of
twining arms. And then I saw, coming very slowly
towards me through the gloom, a hazy mass of light
that resolved itself as it drew nearer into multitudes of
fishes, struggling and darting round something that
drifted. I drove on straight towards it, and presently I saw in the midst of the tumult, and by the
light of the fish, a bit of splintered spar looming over
me, and a dark hull tilting over, and some glowing
phosphorescent forms that were shaken and writhed
as the fish bit at them. Then it was I began to try
to attract Widgery's attention. A horror came upon
me. Ugh! I should have driven right into those
half-eaten -  things. If your sister had not come!
They had great holes in them, Bellows, and..
Never mind. But it was ghastly!"
For three weeks Davidson remained in this singular
state, seeing what at the time we imagined was an
altogether phantasmal world, and stone-blind to the
world around him. Then, one Tuesday, when I called
I met old Davidson in the passage. "He can see his
thumb!" the old gentleman said, in a perfect trans346




THE CASE OF DAVIDSON'S EYES


port. He was struggling into his overcoat. "He
can see his thumb, Bellows!" he said, with the tears
in his eyes. "The lad will be all right yet."
I rushed in to Davidson. He was holding up a
little book before his face, and looking at it and
laughing in a weak kind of way.
"It's amazing," said he. "There's a kind of patch
come there." He pointed with his finger. "I'm on
the rocks as usual, and the penguins are staggering
and flapping about as usual, and there's been a whale
showing every now and then, but it's got too dark
now to make him out. But put something there, and
I see it-I do see it. It's very dim and broken in
places, but I see it all the same, like a faint spectre of
itself. I found it out this morning while they were
dressing me. It's like a hole in this infernal phantom
world. Just put your hand by mine. No-not
there. Ah! Yes! I see it. The base of your thumb
and a bit of cuff! It looks like the ghost of a bit of
your hand sticking out of the darkling sky. Just by
it there's a group of stars like a cross coming out."
From that time Davidson began to mend. His
account of the change, like his account of the vision,
was oddly convincing. Over patches of his field of
vision, the phantom world grew fainter, grew transparent, as it were, and through these translucent
gaps he began to see dimly the real world about him.
The patches grew in size and number, ran together
and spread until only here and there were blind spots
left upon his eyes. He was able to get up and steer
himself about, feed himself once more, read, smoke,
and behave like an ordinary citizen again. At first
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EARLY FANTASTIC STORIES


it was very confusing to him to have these two pictures overlapping each other like the changing views
of a lantern, but in a little while he began to distinguish the real from the illusory.
At first he was unfeignedly glad, and seemed only
too anxious to complete his cure by taking exercise
and tonics. But as that odd island of his began to
fade away from him, he became queerly interested in
it. He wanted particularly to go down into the deep
sea again, and would spend half his time wandering
about the low-lying parts of London, trying to find
the water-logged wreck he had seen drifting. The
glare of real daylight very soon impressed him so
vividly as to blot out everything of his shadowy
world, but of a night time, in a darkened room, he
could still see the white-splashed rocks of the island,
and the clumsy penguins staggering to and fro. But
even these grew fainter and fainter, and, at last, soon
after he married my sister, he saw them for the last
time.
And now to tell of the queerest thing of all. About
two years after his cure I dined with the Davidsons,
and after dinner a man named Atkins called in. He
is a lieutenant in the Royal Navy, and a pleasant,
talkative man. He was on friendly terms with my
brother-in-law, and was soon on friendly terms with
me. It came out that he was engaged to Davidson's
cousin, and incidentally he took out a kind of pocket
photograph case to show us a new rendering of his
fiancee. "And, by the bye," said he, "here's the
old Fulmar."
Davidson looked at it casually. Then suddenly his
348




THE CASE OF DAVIDSON'S EYES


face lit up. "Good heavens!" said he. "I could
almost swear — "
"What?" said Atkins.
"That I had seen that ship before."
"Don't see how you can have. She hasn't been
out of the South Seas for six years, and before
then    "
"But," began Davidson, and then: "Yes-that's
the ship I dreamt of; I'm sure that's the ship I
dreamt of. She was standing off an island that
swarmed with penguins, and she fired a gun."
"Good Lord!" said Atkins, who had now heard the
particulars of the seizure. "How the deuce could
you dream that?"
And then, bit by bit, it came out that on the very
day Davidson was seized, H. M. S. Fulmar had actually been off a little rock to the south of Antipodes
Island. A boat had landed overnight to get penguins' eggs, had been delayed, and a thunderstorm
drifting up, the boat's crew had waited until the
morning before rejoining the ship. Atkins had been
one of them, and he corroborated, word for word, the
descriptions Davidson had given of the island and
the boat. There is not the slightest doubt in any of
our minds that Davidson has really seen the place.
In some unaccountable way, while he moved hither
and thither in London, his sight moved hither and
thither in a manner that corresponded, about this
distant island. How is absolutely a mystery.
That completes the remarkable story of Davidson's eyes. It's perhaps the best authenticated case
in existence of real vision at a distance. Explana349




EARLY FANTASTIC STORIES


tion there is none forthcoming, except what Prof.
Wade has thrown out. But his explanation involves
the Fourth Dimension, and a dissertation on theoretical kinds of space. To talk of there being "a kink in
space" seems mere nonsense to me; it may be because I am no mathematician. When I said that
nothing would alter the fact that the place is eight
thousand miles away, he answered that two points
might be a yard away on a sheet of paper, and yet
be brought together by bending the paper round.
The reader may grasp his argument, but I certainly
do not. His idea seems to be that Davidson, stooping between the poles of the big electromagnet, had
some extraordinary twist given to his retinal elements through the sudden change in the field of
force due to the lightning.
He thinks, as a consequence of this, that it may be
possible to live visually in one part of the world,
while one lives bodily in another. He has even made
some experiments in support of his views; but, so far,
he has simply succeeded in blinding a few dogs. I
believe that is the net result of his work, though I
have not seen him for some weeks. Latterly I have
been so busy with my work in connection with the
Saint Pancras installation that I have had little opportunity of calling to see him. But the whole of
his theory seems fantastic to me. The facts concerning Davidson stand on an altogether different footing,
and I can testify personally to the accuracy of every
detail I have given.


350




THE LORD OF THE DYNAMOS


THE chief attendant of the three dynamos that
buzzed and rattled at Camberwell and kept the electric railway going, came out of Yorkshire, and his
name was James Holroyd. He was a practical electrician but fond of whisky, a heavy, red-haired brute
with irregular teeth. He doubted the existence of
the Deity but accepted Carnot's cycle, and he had
read Shakespeare and found him weak in chemistry.
His helper came out of the mysterious East, and his
name was Azuma-zi. But Holroyd called him Poohbah. Holroyd liked a nigger help because he would
stand kicking-a habit with Holroyd-and did not
pry into the machinery and try to learn the ways of
it. Certain odd possibilities of the negro mind
brought into abrupt contact with the crown of our
civilisation Holroyd never fully realised, though just
at the end he got some inkling of them.
To define Azuma-zi was beyond ethnology. He
was, perhaps, more negroid than anything else,
though his hair was curly rather than frizzy, and his
nose had a bridge. Moreover, his skin was brown
rather than black, and the whites of his eyes were
yellow. His broad cheek-bones and narrow chin gave
his face something of the viperine V. His head, too,
was broad behind, and low and narrow at the forehead, as if his brain had been twisted round in the
reverse way to a European's. He was short of stat351




EARLY FANTASTIC STORIES


ure and still shorter of English. In conversation he
made numerous odd noises of no known marketable
value, and his infrequent words were carved and
wrought into heraldic grotesqueness. Holroyd tried
to elucidate his religious beliefs, and-especially after
whisky-lectured to him against superstition and
missionaries. Azuma-zi, however, shirked the discussion of his gods, even though he was kicked for it.
Azuma-zi had come, clad in white but insufficient
raiment, out of the stoke-hole of the Lord Clive, from
the Straits Settlements and beyond, into London.
He had heard even in his youth of the greatness and
riches of London, where all the women are white and
fair and even the beggars in the streets are white;
and he had arrived, with newly earned gold coins in
his pocket, to worship at the shrine of civilisation.
The day of his landing was a dismal one; the sky was
dun, and a wind-worried drizzle filtered down to the
greasy streets, but he plunged boldly into the delights
of Shadwell, and was presently cast up, shattered in
health, civilised in costume, penniless, and, except in
matters of the direst necessity, practically a dumb
animal, to toil for James Holroyd, and to be bullied
by him in the dynamo shed at Camberwell. And to
James Holroyd bullying was a labour of love.
There were three dynamos with their engines at
Camberwell. The two that have been there since the
beginning are small machines; the larger one was new.
The smaller machines made a reasonable noise; their
straps hummed over the drums, every now and then
the brushes buzzed and fizzled, and the air churned
steadily, whoo! whoo! whoo! between their poles.
352




THE LORD OF THE DYNAMOS


One was loose in its foundations and kept the shed
vibrating. But the big dynamo drowned these little
noises altogether with the sustained drone of its iron
core, which somehow set part of the ironwork humming. The place made the visitor's head reel with
the throb, throb, throb of the engines, the rotation
of the big wheels, the spinning ball valves, the occasional spittings of the steam, and over all the deep,
unceasing, surging note of the big dynamo. This
last noise was from an engineering point of view a defect, but Azuma-zi accounted it unto the monster
for mightiness and pride.
If it were possible we would have the noises of that
shed always about the reader as he reads, we would
tell all our story to such an accompaniment. It was
a steady stream of din, from which the ear picked out
first one thread and then another; there was the intermittent snorting, panting, and seething of the steamengines, the suck and thud of their pistons, the dull
beat on the air as the spokes of the great drivingwheels came round, a note the leather straps made as
they ran tighter and looser, and a fretful tumult from
the dynamos; and, over all, sometimes inaudible, as
the ear tired of it, and then creeping back upon the
senses again, was this trombone note of the big machine. The floor never felt steady and quiet beneath
one's feet, but quivered and jarred. It was a confusing, unsteady place, and enough to send any one's
thoughts jerking into odd zigzags. And for three
months, while the big strike of the engineers was in
progress, Holroyd who was a blackleg, and Azuma-zi
who was a mere black, were never out of the stir and
353




EARLY FANTASTIC STORIES


eddy of it, but slept and fed in the little wooden
shanty between the shed and the gates.
Holroyd delivered a theological lecture on the text
of his big machine soon after Azuma-zi came. He
had to shout to be heard in the din. "Look at that,"
said Holroyd; "where's your 'eathen idol to match
'im?" And Azuma-zi looked. For a moment Holroyd was inaudible, and then Azuma-zi heard: "Kill
a hundred men. Twelve per cent on the ordinary
shares," said Holroyd, "and that's something like a
Gord."
Holroyd was proud of his big dynamo, and expatiated upon its size and power to Azuma-zi until
heaven knows what odd currents of thought that and
the incessant whirling and shindy set up within the
curly black cranium. He would explain in the most
graphic manner the dozen or so ways in which a man
might be killed by it, and once he gave Azuma-zi a
shock as a sample of its quality. After that, in the
breathing times of his labour-it was heavy labour,
being not only his own, but most of Holroyd'sAzuma-zi would sit and watch the big machine.
Now and then the brushes would sparkle and spit
blue flashes, at which Holroyd would swear, but all
the rest was as smooth and rhythmic as breathing.
The band ran shouting over the shaft, and ever behind one as one watched was the complacent thud
of the piston. So it lived all day in this big airy
shed, with him and Holroyd to wait upon it; not
prisoned up and slaving to drive a ship as the other
engines he knew-mere captive devils of the British
Solomon-had been, but a machine enthroned. Those
354




THE LORD OF THE DYNAMOS


two smaller dynamos Azuma-zi by force of contrast
despised; the large one he privately christened the
Lord of the Dynamos. They were fretful and irregular, but the big dynamo was steady. How great it
was! How serene and easy in its working! Greater
and calmer even than the Buddhas he had seen at
Rangoon, and yet not motionless, but living! The
great black coils spun, spun, spun, the rings ran round
under the brushes, and the deep note of its coil steadied the whole. It affected Azuma-zi queerly.
Azuma-zi was not fond of labour. He would sit
about and watch the Lord of the Dynamos while Holroyd went away to persuade the yard porter to get
whisky, although his proper place was not in the
dynamo shed but behind the engines, and, moreover,
if Holroyd caught him skulking he got hit for it with
a rod of stout copper wire. He would go and stand
close to the colossus, and look up at the great leather
band running overhead. There was a black patch on
the band that came round, and it pleased him somehow among all the clatter to watch this return again
and again. Odd thoughts spun with the whirl of it.
Scientific people tell us that savages give souls to
rocks and trees,-and a machine is a thousand times
more alive than a rock or a tree. Aid Azuma-zi was
practically a savage still; the veneer of civilisation
lay no deeper than his slop suit, his bruises, and the
coal grime on his face and hands. His father before
him had worshipped a meteoric stone; kindred blood,
it may be, had splashed the broad wheels of Juggernaut.
He took every opportunity Holroyd gave him of
355




EARLY FANTASTIC STORIES


touching and handling the great dynamo that was
fascinating him. He polished and cleaned it until
the metal parts were blinding in the sun. He felt a
mysterious sense of service in doing this. He would
go up to it and touch its spinning coils gently. The
gods he had worshipped were all far away. The
people in London hid their gods.
At last his dim feelings grew more distinct and took
shape in thoughts, and at last in acts. When he came
into the roaring shed one morning he salaamed to the
Lord of the Dynamos, and then, when Holroyd was
away, he went and whispered to the thundering machine that he was its servant, and prayed it to have
pity on him and save him from Holroyd. As he did
so a rare gleam of light came in through the open
archway of the throbbing machine-shed, and the Lord
of the Dynamos, as he whirled and roared, was radiant with pale gold. Then Azuma-zi knew that his
service was acceptable to his Lord. After that he did
not feel so lonely as he had done, and he had indeed
been very much alone in London. Even when his
work-time was over, which was rare, he loitered about
the shed.
The next time Holroyd maltreated him, Azuma-zi
went presently to the Lord of the Dynamos and
whispered, "Thou seest, O my Lord!" and the
angry whirr of the machinery seemed to answer him.
Thereafter it appeared to him that whenever Holroyd
came into the shed a different note mingled with
the sounds of the dynamo. "My Lord bides his
time," said Azuma-zi to himself. "The iniquity of
the fool is not yet ripe." And he waited and watched
356




THE. LORD OF THE DYNAMOS


for the reckoning. One day there was evidence of
short circuiting, and Holroyd, making an unwary
examination-it was in the afternoon-got a rather
severe shock. Azuma-zi from behind the engine saw
him jump off and curse at the peccant coil.
"He is warned," said Azuma-zi to himself. "Surely
my Lord is very patient."
Holroyd had at first initiated his "nigger" into
such elementary conceptions of the dynamo's working as would enable him to take temporary charge of
the shed in his absence. But when he noticed the
manner in which Azuma-zi hung about the monster
he became suspicious. He dimly perceived his assistant was "up to something," and connecting him
with the anointing of the coils with oil that had rotted
the varnish in one place, he issued an edict, shouted
above the confusion of the machinery, "Don't 'ee go
nigh that big dynamo any more, Pooh-bah, or a'll
take thy skin off!" Besides, if it pleased Azuma-zi
to be near the big machine, it was plain sense and
decency to keep him away from it.
Azuma-zi obeyed at the time, but later he was
caught bowing before the Lord of the Dynamos.
At which Holroyd twisted his arm and kicked him as
he turned to go away. As Azuma-zi presently stood
behind the engine and glared at the back of the hated
Holroyd, the noises of the machinery took a new
rhythm and sounded like four words in his native
tongue.
It is hard to say exactly what madness is. I fancy
Azuma-zi was mad. The incessant din and whirl of
the dynamo shed may have churned up his little
357




EARLY FANTASTIC STORIES


store of knowledge and big store of superstitious
fancy, at last, into something akin to frenzy. At any
rate, when the idea of making Holroyd a sacrifice to
the Dynamo Fetich was thus suggested to him, it
filled him with a strange tumult of exultant emotion.
That night the two men and their black shadows
were alone in the shed together. The shed was lit
with one big arc-light that winked and flickered purple. The shadows lay black behind the dynamos, the
ball governors of the engines whirled from light to
darkness, and their pistons beat loud and steadily.
The world outside seen through the open end of the
shed seemed incredibly dim and remote. It seemed
absolutely silent, too, since the riot of the machinery
drowned every external sound. Far away was the
black fence of the yard with grey shadowy houses behind, and above was the deep blue sky and the pale
little stars. Azuma-zi suddenly walked across the
centre of the shed above which the leather bands were
running, and went into the shadow by the big dynamo. Holroyd heard a click, and the spin of the
armature changed.
"What are you dewin' with that switch?" he
bawled in surprise. "Han't I told you —
Then he saw the set expression of Azuma-zi's eyes
as the Asiatic came out of the shadow towards him.
In another moment the two men were grappling
fiercely in front of the great dynamo.
"You coffee-headed fool!" gasped Holroyd, with
a brown hand at his throat. "Keep off those contact rings." In another moment he was tripped and
358




THE LORD OF THE DYNAMOS


reeling back upon the Lord of the Dynamos. He
instinctively loosened his grip upon his antagonist
to save himself from the machine.
The messenger, sent in furious haste from the station to find out what had happened in the dynamo
shed, met Azuma-zi at the porter's lodge by the gate.
Azuma-zi tried to explain something, but the messenger could make nothing of the black's incoherent
English, and hurried on to the shed. The machines
were all noisily at work, and nothing seemed to be
disarranged. There was, however, a queer smell of
singed hair. Then he saw an odd-looking crumpled
mass clinging to the front of the big dynamo and,
approaching, recognised the distorted remains of
Holroyd.
The man stared and hesitated a moment. Then
he saw the face, and shut his eyes convulsively. He
turned on his heel before he opened them, so that he
should not see Holroyd again, and went out of the
shed to get advice and help.
When Azuma-zi saw-Holroyd die in the grip of the
Great Dynamo he had been a little scared about the
consequences of his act. Yet he felt strangely elated,
and knew that the favour of the Lord Dynamo was
upon him. His plan was already settled when he met
the man coming from the station, and the scientific
manager who speedily arrived on the scene jumped
at the obvious conclusion of suicide. This expert
scarcely noticed Azuma-zi, except to ask a few questions. Did he see Holroyd kill himself? Azuma-zi
explained he had been out of sight at the engine
359




EARLY FANTASTIC STORIES
furnace until he heard a difference in the noise from
the dynamo. It was not a difficult examination,
being untinctured by suspicion.
The distorted remains of Holroyd, which the electrician removed from the machine, were hastily covered by the porter with a coffee-stained tablecloth.
Somebody, by a happy inspiration, fetched a medical
man. The expert was chiefly anxious to get the machine at work again, for seven or eight trains had
stopped midway in the stuffy tunnels of the electric
railway. Azuma-zi, answering or misunderstanding
the questions of the people who had by authority or
impudence come into the shed, was presently sent
back to the stoke-hole by the scientific manager. Of
course a crowd collected outside the gates of the yard
-a crowd, for no known reason, always hovers for a
day or two near the scene of a sudden death in London-two or three reporters percolated somehow into
the engine shed, and one even got to Azuma-zi; but
the scientific expert cleared them out again, being
himself an amateur journalist.
Presently the body was carried away, and public
interest departed with it. Azuma-zi remained very
quietly at his furnace, seeing over and over again in
the coals a figure that wriggled violently and became
still. An hour after the murder, to any one coming
into the shed things would have looked exactly as if
nothing remarkable had ever happened there. Peeping presently from his engine-room the black saw the
Lord Dynamo spin and whirl beside his little brothers,
and the driving-wheels were beating round and the
steam in the pistons went thud, thud, exactly as it
360




THE LORD OF THE DYNAMOS
had been earlier in the evening. After all, from the
mechanical point of view it had been a most insignificant incident-the mere temporary deflection of a
current. But now the slender form and slender
shadow of the scientific manager replaced the sturdy
outline of Holroyd travelling up and down the lane
of light upon the vibrating floor under the straps between the engines and the dynamos.
"Have I not served my Lord?" said Azuma-zi inaudibly from his shadow, and the note of the great
dynamo rang out full and clear. As he looked at the
big whirling mechanism the strange fascination of it
that had been a little in abeyance since Holroyd's
death resumed its sway.
Never had Azuma-zi seen a man killed so swiftly
and pitilessly. The big humming machine had slain
its victim without wavering for a second from its
steady beating. It was indeed a mighty god
The unconscious scientific manager stood with his
back to him, scribbling on a piece of paper. His
shadow lay at the foot of the monster.
Was the Lord Dynamo still hungry? His servant
was ready.
Azuma-zi made a stealthy step forward; then
stopped. The scientific manager suddenly ceased his
writing, walked down the shed to the endmost of the
dynamos, and began to examine the brushes.
Azuma-zi hesitated, and then slipped across noiselessly into the shadow by the switch. There he waited.
Presently the manager's footsteps could be heard
returning. He stopped in his old position, unconscious of the stoker crouching ten feet away from
361




EARLY FANTASTIC STORIES


him. Then the big dynamo suddenly fizzled, and in
another moment Azuma-zi had sprung out of the
darkness upon him.
The scientific manager was gripped round the body
and swung towards the big dynamo. Kicking with
his knee and forcing his antagonist's head down with
his hands, he loosened the grip on his waist and
swung round away from the machine. Then the
black grasped him again, putting a curly head against
his chest, and they swayed and panted as it seemed
for an age or so. Then the scientific manager was impelled to catch a black ear in his teeth and bite furiously. The black yelled hideously
They rolled over on the floor, and the black, who
had apparently slipped from the vice of the teeth or
parted with some ear-the scientific manager wondered which at the time-tried to throttle him. The
scientific manager was making some ineffectual efforts
to claw something with his hands and to kick, when
the welcome sound of quick footsteps sounded on the
floor. The next moment Azuma-zi had left him and
darted towards the big dynamo. There was a splutter
amid the roar.
The officer of the company who had entered stood
staring as Azuma-zi caught the naked terminals in his
hands, gave one horrible convulsion, and then hung
motionless from the machine, his face violently distorted.
"I'm jolly glad you came in when you did," said
the scientific manager, still sitting on the floor.
He looked at the still quivering figure. "It is not
a nice death to die, apparently-but it is quick"
362




THE LORD OF THE DYNAMOS


The official was still staring at the body. He was
a man of slow apprehension.
There was a pause.
The scientific manager got up on his feet rather
awkwardly. He ran his fingers along his collar
thoughtfully, and moved his head to and fro several
times.
"Poor Holroyd! I see now." Then almost mechanically he went towards the switch in the shadow
and turned the current into the railway circuit again.
As he did so the singed body loosened its grip upon
the machine and fell forward on its face. The core of
the dynamo roared out loud and clear, and the armature beat the air.
So ended prematurely the worship of the Dynamo
Deity, perhaps the most short-lived of all religions.
Yet withal it could at least boast a Martyrdom and a
Human Sacrifice.


363




THE MOTH


PROBABLY yOU have heard of Hapley-not W. T.
Hapley, the son, but the celebrated Hapley, the Hapley of Periplaneta hapliia, Hapley the entomologist.
If so you know at least of the great feud between
Hapley and Prof. Pawkins, though certain of its
consequences may be new to you. For those who
have not, a word or two of explanation is necessary,
which the idle reader may go over with a glancing eye
if his indolence so incline him.
It is amazing how very widely diffused is the ignorance of such really important matters as this HapleyPawkins feud. Those epoch-making controversies,
again, that have convulsed the Geological Society
are, I verily believe, almost entirely unknown outside
the fellowship of that body. I have heard men of
fair general education even refer to the great scenes
at these meetings as vestry-meeting squabbles. Yet
the great hate of the English and Scotch geologists has
lasted now half a century, and has "left deep and
abundant marks upon the body of the science." And
this Hapley-Pawkins business, though perhaps a
more personal affair, stirred passions as profound, if
not profounder. Your common man has no conception of the zeal that animates a scientific investigator,
the fury of contradiction you can arouse in him. It
is the odium theologicum in a new form. There are
men, for instance, who would gladly burn Sir Ray
Lankester at Smithfield for his treatment of the
364




THE MOTH


Mollusca in the Encyclopaedia. That fantastic extension of the Cephalopods to cover the Pteropods.. But I wander from Hapley and Pawkins.
It began years and years ago with a revision of the
Microlepidoptera (whatever these may be) by Pawkins, in which he extinguished a new species created
by Hapley. Hapley, who was always quarrelsome,
replied by a stinging impeachment of the entire classification of Pawkins.*  Pawkins in his "Rejoinder" t
suggested that Hapley's microscope was as defective
as his power of observation, and called him an "irresponsible meddler"-Hapley was not a professor at
that time. Hapley in his retort,: spoke of "blundering collectors," and described, as if inadvertently,
Pawkins's revision as a "miracle of ineptitude." It
was war to the knife. However, it would scarcely
interest the reader to detail how these two great men
quarrelled, and how the split between them widened
until from the Microlepidoptera they were at war
upon every open question in entomology. There were
memorable occasions. At times the Royal Entomological Society meetings resembled nothing so much
as the Chamber of Deputies. On the whole, I fancy
Pawkins was nearer the truth than Hapley. But
Hapley was skilful with his rhetoric, had a turn for
ridicule rare in a scientific man, was endowed with
vast energy, and had a fine sense of injury in the
matter of the extinguished species; while Pawkins
was a man of dull presence, prosy of speech, in shape
* "Remarks on a Recent Revision of Microlepidoptera." Quart, Journ.
Entomological Soc., 1863.
t "Rejoinder to Certain Remarks," etc. Ibid. 1864.
t "Further Remarks," etc. Ibid.
365'




EARLY FANTASTIC STORIES


not unlike a water-barrel, over-conscientious with
testimonials, and suspected of jobbing museum appointments. So the young men gathered round Hapley and applauded him. It was a long struggle, vicious from the beginning and growing at last to pitiless antagonism. The successive turns of fortune, now
an advantage to one side and now to another-now
Hapley tormented by some success of Pawkins, and
now Pawkins outshone by Hapley, belong rather to
the history of entomology than to this story.
But in 1891 Pawkins, whose health had been bad
for some time, published some work upon the "mesoblast" of the Death's-Head Moth. What the mesoblast of the Death's-Head Moth may be does not
matter a rap in this story. But the work was far
below his usual standard, and gave Hapley an opening he had coveted for years. He must have worked
night and day to make the most of his advantage.
In an elaborate critique he rent Pawkins to tatters
-one can fancy the man's disordered black hair, and
his queer dark eyes flashing as he went for his antagonist-and Pawkins made a reply, halting, ineffectual, with painful gaps of silence, and yet malignant.
There was no mistaking his will to wound Hapley,
nor his incapacity to do it. But few of those who
heard him-I was absent from that meeting-realised
how ill the man was.
Hapley got his opponent down, and meant to finish him. He followed with a brutal attack upon
Pawkins, in the form of a paper upon the development of moths in general, a paper showing evidence
of an extraordinary amount of labour, couched in a
366




THE MOTH


violently controversial tone. Violent as it was, an
editorial note witnesses that it was modified. It must
have covered Pawkins with shame and confusion of
face. It left no loophole; it was murderous in argument, and utterly contemptuous in tone; an awful
thing for the declining years of a man's career.
The world of entomologists waited breathlessly for
the rejoinder from Pawkins. He would try one, for
Pawkins had always been game. But when it came
it surprised them. For the rejoinder of Pawkins was
to catch influenza, proceed to pneumonia, and die.
It was perhaps as effectual a reply as he could make
under the circumstances, and largely turned the current of feeling against Hapley. The very people who
had most gleefully cheered on those gladiators became serious at the consequence. There could be no
reasonable doubt the fret of the defeat had contributed to the death of Pawkins. There was a limit
even to scientific controversy, said serious people,
Another crushing attack was already in the press and
appeared on the day before the funeral. I don't
think Hapley exerted himself to stop it. People remembered how Hapley had hounded down his rival
and forgot that rival's defects. Scathing satire reads
ill over fresh mould. The thing provoked comment
in the daily papers. It was that made me think you
had probably heard of Hapley and this controversy.
But, as I have already remarked, scientific workers
live very mitch in a world of their own; half the
people, I dare say, who go along Piccadilly to the
Academy every year could not tell you where the
learned societies abide. Many even think that re367




THE MOTH


violently controversial tone. Violent as it was, an
editorial note witnesses that it was modified. It must
have covered Pawkins with shame and confusion of
face. It left no loophole; it was murderous in argument, and utterly contemptuous in tone; an awful
thing for the declining years of a man's career.
The world of entomologists waited breathlessly for
the rejoinder from Pawkins. He would try one, for
Pawkins had always been game. But when it came
it surprised them. For the rejoinder of Pawkins was
to catch influenza, proceed to pneumonia, and die.
It was perhaps as effectual a reply as he could make
under the circumstances, and largely turned the current of feeling against Hapley. The very people who
had most gleefully cheered on those gladiators became serious at the consequence. There could be no
reasonable doubt the fret of the defeat had contributed to the death of Pawkins. There was a limit
even to scientific controversy, said serious people.
Another crushing attack was already in the press and
appeared on the day before the funeral. I don't
think Hapley exerted himself to stop it. People remembered how Hapley had hounded down his rival
and forgot that rival's defects. Scathing satire reads
ill over fresh mould. The thing provoked comment
in the daily papers. It was that made me think you
had probably heard of Hapley and this controversy.
But, as I have already remarked, scientific workers
live very much in a world of their own; half the
people, I dare say, who go along Piccadilly to the
Academy every year could not tell you where the
learned societies abide. Many even think that re367




THE MOTH


and the opening chapter set his mind upon learned
societies and Pawkins at once.
So Hapley turned to chess, and found it a little
more soothing. He soon mastered the moves and
the chief gambits and commoner closing positions,
and began to beat the Vicar. But then the cylindrical contours of the opposite king began to resemble
Pawkins standing up and gasping ineffectually against
checkmate, and Hapley decided to give up chess.
Perhaps the study of some new branch of science
would after all be better diversion. The best rest is
change of occupation. Hapley determined to plunge
at diatoms, and had one of his smaller microscopes
and Halibut's monograph sent down from London.
He thought that perhaps if he could get up a vigorous
quarrel with Halibut, he might be able to begin life
afresh and forget Pawkins. And very soon he was
hard at work in his habitual strenuous fashion, at
these microscopic denizens of the wayside pool.
It was on the third day of the diatoms that Hapley
became aware of a novel addition to the local fauna.
He was working late at the microscope, and the only
light in the room was the brilliant little lamp with the
special form of green shade. Like all experienced
microscopists, he kept both eyes open. It is the only
way to avoid excessive fatigue. One eye was over the
instrument, and bright and distinct before that was
the circular field of the microscope, across which a
brown diatom was slowly moving. With the other
eye Hapley saw, as it were, without seeing. He was
only dimly conscious of the brass side of the instrument, the illuminated part of the tablecloth, a sheet
369




EARLY FANTASTIC STORIES


of note-paper, the foot of the lamp, and the darkened
room beyond.
Suddenly his attention drifted from one eye to the
other. The tablecloth was of the material called
tapestry by shopmen, and rather brightly coloured.
The pattern was in gold, with a small amount of crimson and pale blue upon a greyish ground. At one
point the pattern seemed displaced, and there was a
vibrating movement of the colours at this point.
Hapley suddenly moved his head back and looked
with both eyes. His mouth fell open with astonishment.
It was a large moth or butterfly; its wings spread
in butterfly fashion!
It was strange it should be in the room at all,; for
the windows were closed. Strange that it should not
have attracted his attention when fluttering to its
present position. Strange that it should match the
tablecloth. Stranger far that to him, Hapley, the
great entomologist, it was altogether unknown. There
was no delusion. It was crawling slowly towards the
foot of the lamp.
"New Genus, by heavens! And in England!"
said Hapley, staring.
Then he suddenly thought of Pawkins. Nothing
would have maddened Pawkins more.... And
Pawkins was dead!
Something about the head and body of the insect
became singularly suggestive of Pawkins, just as the
chess king had been.
"Confound Pawkins!" said Hapley. "But I must
catch this." And looking round him for some means
of capturing the moth, he rose slowly out of his chair.
370




THE MOTH
Suddenly the insect rose, struck the edge of the lampshade-Hapley heard the-"ping"-and vanished into
the shadow.
In a moment Hapley had whipped off the shade,
so that the whole room was illuminated. The thing
had disappeared, but soon his practised eye detected
it upon the wall-paper near the door. He went towards it poising the lamp-shade for capture. Before
he was within striking distance, however, it had risen
and was fluttering round the room. After the fashion
of its kind, it flew with sudden starts and turns, seeming to vanish here and reappear there. Once Hapley
struck, and missed; then again.
The third time he hit his microscope. The instrument swayed, struck and overturned the lamp, and
fell noisily upon the floor. The lamp turned over on
the table and, very luckily, went out. Hapley was
left in the dark. With a start he felt the strange
moth blunder into his face.
It was maddening. He had no lights. If he
opened the door of the room the thing would get
away. In the darkness he saw Pawkins quite distinctly laughing at him. Pawkins had ever an oily
laugh. He swore furiously and stamped his foot on
the floor.
There was a timid rapping at the door.
Then it opened, perhaps a foot, and very slowly.
The alarmed face of the landlady appeared behind a
pink candle flame; she wore a nightcap over her grey
hair and had some purple garment over her shoulders.
"What was that fearful smash?" she said. "Has
anything —" The strange moth appeared fluttering
371




EARLY FANTASTIC STORIES


about the chink of the door. "Shut that door!" said
Hapley, and suddenly rushed at her.
The door slammed hastily. Hapley was left alone
in the dark. Then in the pause he heard his landlady
scuttle upstairs, lock her door, and drag something
heavy across the room and put against it.
It became evident to Hapley that his conduct and
appearance had been strange and alarming. Confound the moth! and Pawkins! However, it was a
pity to lose the moth now. He felt his way into the
hall and found the matches, after sending his hat
down upon the floor with a noise like a drum. With
the lighted candle he returned to the sitting-room.
No moth was to be seen. Yet once for a moment it
seemed that the thing was fluttering round his head.
Hapley very suddenly decided to give up the moth
and go to bed. But he was excited. All night long
his sleep was broken by dreams of the moth, Pawkins, and his landlady. Twice in the night he turned
out and soused his head in cold water.
One thing was very clear to him. His landlady
could not possibly understand about the strange
moth, especially as he had failed to catch it. No one
but an entomologist would understand quite how he
felt. She was probably frightened at his behaviour,
and yet he failed to see how he could explain it. He
decided to say nothing further about the events of
last night. After breakfast he saw her in her garden,
and decided to go out and talk to reassure her. He
talked to her about beans and potatoes, bees, caterpillars, and the price of fruit. She replied in her
usual manner, but she looked at him a little suspi372




THE MOTH


ciously, and kept walking as he walked, so that there
was always a bed of flowers, or a row of beans, or
something of the sort, between them. After a while
he began to feel singularly irritated at this, and, to
conceal his vexation, went indoors and presently went
out for a walk.
The moth, or butterfly, trailing an odd flavour of
Pawkins with it, kept coming into that walk though
he did his best to keep his mind off it. Once he saw
it quite distinctly, with its wings flattened out, upon
the old stone wall that runs along the west edge of the
park, but going up to it he found it was only two
lumps of grey and yellow lichen. "This," said Hapley, "is the reverse of mimicry. Instead of a butterfly looking like a stone, here is a stone looking like a
butterfly!" Once something hovered and fluttered
round his head, but by an effort of will he drove that
impression out of his mind again.
In the.afternoon Hapley called upon the Vicar, and
argued with him upon theological questions. They
sat in the little arbour covered with brier, and
smoked as they wrangled. "Look at that moth!"
said Hapley suddenly, pointing to the edge of the
wooden table.
"Where?" said the Vicar.
"You don't see a moth on the edge of the table
there?" said Hapley.
"Certainly not," said the Vicar.
Hapley was thunderstruck. He gasped. The Vicar
was staring at him. Clearly the man saw nothing.
"The eye of faith is no better than the eye of science,"
said Hapley awkwardly.
373




EARLY FANTASTIC STORIES


"I don't see your point," said the Vicar, thinking it
was part of the argument.
That night Hapley found the moth crawling over
his counterpane. He sat on the edge of the bed in his
shirt-sleeves and reasoned with himself. Was it pure
hallucination? He knew he was slipping, and he
battled for his sanity with the same silent energy he
had formerly displayed against Pawkins. So persistent is mental habit that he felt as if it were still a
struggle with Pawkins. He was well versed in psychology. He knew that such visual illusions do come
as a result of mental strain. But the point was, he
did not only see the moth, he had heard it when it
touched the edge of the lamp-shade and afterwards
when it hit against the wall, and he had felt it strike
his face in the dark.
He looked at it. It was not at all dream-like but
perfectly clear and solid-looking in the candle-light.
He saw the hairy body and the short feathery antennae, the jointed legs, even a place where the down
was rubbed from the wing. He suddenly felt angry
with himself for being afraid of a little insect.
His landlady had got the servant to sleep with her
that night, because she was afraid to be alone. In
addition she had locked the door and put the chest
of drawers against it. They listened and talked in
whispers after they had gone to bed, but nothing occurred to alarm them. About eleven they had ventured to put the candle out and had both dozed off
to sleep. They woke with a start, and sat up in bed,
listening in the darkness.
Then they heard slippered feet going to and fro in
374




THE MOTH


Hapley's room. A chair was overturned and there
was a violent dab at the wall. Then a china mantel
ornament smashed upon the fender. Suddenly the
door of the room opened, and they heard him upon
the landing. They clung to one another, listening.
He seemed to be dancing upon the staircase. Now he
would go down three or four steps quickly, then up
again, then hurry down into the hall. They heard the
umbrella-stand go over, and the fanlight break.
Then the bolt shot and the chain rattled. He was
opening the door.
They hurried to the window. It was a dim grey
night; an almost unbroken sheet of watery cloud was
sweeping across the moon, and the hedge and trees in
front of the house were black against the pale roadway. They saw Hapley, looking like a ghost in his
shirt and white trousers, running to and fro in the
road and beating the air. Now he would stop, now
he would dart very rapidly at somethinginvisible,
now he would move upon it with stealthy strides.
At last he went out of sight up the road towards the
down. Then while they argued who should go down
and lock the door, he returned. He was walking very
fast, and he came straight into the house, closed the
door carefully, and went quietly up to his bedroom.
Then everything was silent.
"Mrs. Colville," said Hapley, calling down the
staircase next morning, "I hope I did not alarm you
last night."
"You may well ask that!" said Mrs. Colville.
"The fact is, I am a sleep-walker, and the last two
nights I- have been without my sleeping mixture.
375




EARLY FANTASTIC STORIES


There is nothing to be alarmed about, really. I am
sorry I made such an ass of myself. I will go over
the down to Shoreham, and get some stuff to make me
sleep soundly. I ought to have done that yesterday."
But half-way over the down, by the chalk pits, the
moth came upon Hapley again. He went on, trying
to keep his mind upon chess problems, but it was no
good. The thing fluttered into his face, and he struck
at it with his hat in self-defence. Then rage, the old
rage-the rage he had so often felt against Pawkinscame upon him again. He went on, leaping and
striking at the eddying insect. Suddenly he trod on
nothing, and fell headlong.
There was a gap in his sensations, and Hapley
found himself sitting on the heap of flints in front of
the opening of the chalk-pits, with a leg twisted back
under him. The strange moth was still fluttering
round his head. He struck at it with his hand, and
turning his head saw two men approaching him. One
was the village doctor. It occurred to Hapley that
this was lucky. Then it came into his mind with
extraordinary vividness, that no one would ever be
able to see the strange moth except himself, and that
it behooved him to keep silent about it.
Late that night, however, after his broken leg was
set, he was feverish and forgot his self-restraint. He
was lying flat on his bed, and he began to run his eyes
round the room to see if the moth was still about.
He tried not to do this, but it was no good. He soon
caught sight of the thing resting close to his hand, by
the night-light, on the green tablecloth. The wings
quivered. With a sudden wave of anger he smote at
376




THE MOTH


it with his fist, and the nurse woke up with a shriek.
He had missed it.
'That moth!" he said; and then: "It was fancy.
Nothing.!"
All the time he could see quite clearly the insect
going round the cornice and darting across the room,
and he could also see that the nurse saw nothing of it
and looked at him strangely. He must keep himself
in hand. He knew he was a lost man if he did not
keep himself in hand. But as the night waned the
fever grew upon him, and the very dread he had of
seeing the moth made him see it. About five, just
as the dawn was grey, he tried to get out of bed and
catch it, though his leg was afire with pain. The nurse
had to struggle with him.
On account of this, they tied him down to the bed.
At this the moth grew bolder, and once he felt it settle
in his hair. Then, because he struck out violently
with his arms, they tied these also. At this the moth
came- and crawled over his face, and Hapley wept,
swore, screamed, prayed for them to take it off him,
unavailingly.
The doctor was a blockhead, a just-qualified general practitioner, and quite ignorant of mental science.
He simply said there was no moth. Had he possessed
the wit, he might still perhaps have saved Hapley
from his fate by entering into his delusion, and covering his face with gauze as he prayed might be done.
But, as I say, the doctor was a blockhead; and until
the leg was healed Hapley was kept tied to his bed,
with the imaginary moth crawling over him. It never
left him while he was awake and it grew to a mon377




EARLY FANTASTIC STORIES


ster in his dreams. While he was awake he longed
for sleep, and from sleep he awoke screaming.
So now Hapley is spending the remainder of his
days in a padded room, worried by a moth that no
one else can see. The asylum doctor calls it hallucination; but Hapley, when he is in his easier mood and
can talk, says it is the ghost of Pawkins, and consequently a unique specimen and well worth the trouble
of catching.


378




THE STORY OF THE LATE MR. ELVESHAM


I SET this story down, not expecting it will be believed but, if possible, to prepare a way of escape for
the next victim. He perhaps may profit by my misfortune. My own case, I know, is hopeless, and I am
now in some measure prepared to meet my fate.
My name is Edward George Eden. I was born at
Trentham, in Staffordshire, my father being employed
in the gardens there. I lost my mother when I was
three years old and my father when I was five, my
uncle, George Eden, then adopting me as his own son.
He was. a single man, self-educated, and well known
in Birmingham as an enterprising journalist; he educated me generously, fired my ambition to succeed in
the world, and at his death, which happened four
years ago, left me his entire fortune, a matter of about
five hundred pounds after all outgoing charges were
paid. I was then eighteen. He advised me in his
will to expend the money in completing my education.
I had already chosen the profession of medicine, and
through his posthumous generosity and my good fortune in a scholarship competition, I became a medical
student at University College, London. At the time
of the beginning of my story I lodged at 1A University Street in a little upper room, very shabbily
furnished and draughty, overlooking the back of
Shoolbred's premises. I used this little room both
to live in and sleep in, because I was anxious to eke
out my means to the very last shillingsworth.
379




EARLY FANTASTIC STORIES


I was taking a pair of shoes to be mended at a shop
in the Tottenham Court Road when I first encountered the little old man with the yellow face,
with whom my life has now become so inextricably
entangled. He was standing on the kerb and staring
at the number on the door in a doubtful way, as I
opened it. His eyes-they were dull grey eyes, and
reddish under the rims-fell to my face, and his
countenance immediately assumed an expression of
corrugated amiability.
"You come," he said, "apt to the moment. I had
forgotten the number of your house. How do you
do, Mr. Eden?"
I was a little astonished at his familiar address, for
I had never set eyes on the man before. I was annoyed, too, at his catching me with my boots under
my arm. He noticed my lack of cordiality.
"Wonder who the deuce I am, eh? A friend, let
me assure you. I have seen you before, though you
haven't seen me. Is there anywhere where I can talk
to you?"
I hesitated. The shabbiness of my room upstairs
was not a matter for every stranger. "Perhaps,"
said I, "we might walk down the street. I'm unfortunately prevented-" My gesture explained the
sentence before I had spoken it.
"The very thing," he said, and faced this way and
then that. "The street? Which way shall we go?"
I slipped my boots down in the passage. "Look
here!" he said abruptly; "this business of mine is a
rigmarole. Come and lunch with me, Mr. Eden.
I'm an old man, a very old man, and not good at
380




THE LATE MR. ELVESHAM


explanations, and what with my piping voice and the
clatter of the traffic ---"
He laid a persuasive skinny hand that trembled a
little upon my arm.
I was not so old that an old man might not treat
me to a lunch. Yet at the same time I was not altogether pleased by this abrupt invitation. "I had
rather-" I began. "But I had rather," he said,
catching me up, "and a certain civility is surely due
to my grey hairs."
And so I consented, and went with him.
He took me to Blavitiski's; I had to walk slowly to
accommodate myself to his paces; and over such a
lunch as I had never tasted before, he fended off
my leading questions, and I took a better note of his
appearance. His clean-shaven face was lean and
wrinkled, his shrivelled lips fell over a set of false
teeth, and his white hair was thin and rather long;
he seemed small to me-though indeed, most people
seemed small to me-and his shoulders were rounded
and bent. And, watching him, I could not help but
observe that he too was taking note of me, running
his eyes, with a curious touch of greed in them, over
me from my broad shoulders to my sun-tanned
hands and up to my freckled face again. "And
now," said he, as we lit our cigarettes, "I must tell
you of the business in hand.
"I must tell you, then, that I am an old man, a very
old man." He paused momentarily. "And it happens that I have money that I must presently be leaving, and never a child have I to leave it to." I thought
of the confidence trick, and resolved I would be on
381




EARLY FANTASTIC STORIES


the alert for the vestiges of my five hundred pounds.
He proceeded to enlarge on his loneliness, and the
trouble he had to find a proper disposition of his
money. "I have weighed this plan and that plan,
charities, institutions, and scholarships, and libraries,
and I have come to this conclusion at last,"-he fixed
his eyes on my face,-"that I will find some young
fellow, ambitious, pure-minded, and poor, healthy in
body and healthy in mind, and, in short, make him
my heir, give him all that I have." He repeated,
' Give him all that I have. So that he will suddenly
be lifted out of all the trouble and struggle in which
his sympathies have been educated, to freedom and
influence."
I tried to seem disinterested. With a transparent
hypocrisy I said, "And you want my help, my professional services maybe, to find that person."
He smiled and looked at me over his cigarette and
I laughed at his quiet exposure of my modest pretence.
"What a career such a man might have!" he said.
"It fills me with envy to think how I have accumulated that another man may spend"But there are conditions, of course, burdens to be
imposed. He must, for instance, take my name. You
cannot expect everything without some return. And
I must go into all the circumstances of his life before I
can accept him. He must be sound. I must know
his heredity, how his parents and grandparents died,
have the strictest inquiries made into his private
morals."
This modified my secret congratulations a little.
382




THE LATE MR. ELVESHAM


"And do I understand," said I, "that I "
"Yes," he said, almost fiercely. "You. You."
I answered never a word. My imagination was
dancing wildly, my innate scepticism was useless to
modify its transports. There was not a particle of
gratitude in my mind-I did not know what to say
nor how to say it.
"But why me in particular?" I said at last.
He had chanced to hear of me from Professor Haslar, he said, as a typically sound and sane young
man, and he wished, as far as possible, to leave his
money where health and integrity were assured.
That was my first meeting with the little old man.
He was mysterious about himself; he would not give
his name yet, he said, and after I had answered some
questions of his, he left me at the Blavitiski portal.
I noticed that he drew a handful of gold coins from
his pocket when it came to paying for the lunch. His
insistence upon bodily health was curious. In accordance with an arrangement we had made I applied that day for a life policy in the Loyal Insurance
Company for a large sum, and I was exhaustively
overhauled by the medical advisers of that company
in the subsequent week. Even that did not satisfy
him, and he insisted I must be re-examined by the
great Dr. Henderson.
It was Friday in Whitsun week before he came to a
decision. He called me down quite late in the evening,-nearly nine it was,-from cramming chemical
equations for my Preliminary Scientific examination.
He was standing in the passage under the feeble gaslamp, and his face was a grotesque interplay of shad383




EARLY FANTASTIC STORIES


ows. He seemed more bowed than when I had first
seen him, and his cheeks had sunk in a little.
His voice shook with emotion. "Everything is
satisfactory, Mr. Eden," he said. "Everything is
quite, quite satisfactory. And this night of all nights,
you must dine with me and celebrate your-accession." He was interrupted by a cough. "You won't
have long to wait either," he said, wiping his handkerchief across his lips and gripping my hand with his
long bony claw that was disengaged. "Certainly not
very long to wait."
We went into the street and called a cab. I remember every incident of that drive vividly, the
swift, easy motion, the contrast of gas and oil and
electric light, the crowds of people in the streets,
the place in Regent Street to which we went, and the
sumptuous dinner we were served with there. I was
disconcerted at first by the well-dressed waiter's
glances at my rough clothes, bothered by the stones
of the olives, but as the champagne warmed my blood,
my confidence revived. At first the old man talked
of himself. He had already told me his name in the
cab; he was Egbert Elvesham, the great philosopher,
whose name I had known since I was a lad at school.
It seemed incredible to me that this man, whose intelligence had so early dominated mine, this great
abstraction, should suddenly realise itself as this decrepit, familiar figure. I dare say every young fellow
who has suddenly fallen among celebrities has felt
something of my disappointment. He told me now
of the future that the feeble streams of his life would
presently leave dry for me, houses, copyrights, invest384




THE LATE MR. ELVESHAM


ments; I had never suspected that philosophers were
so rich. He watched me drink and eat with a touch
of envy. "What a capacity for living you have!" he
said; and then with a sigh, a sigh of relief I could have
thought it, "it will not be long."
"Ay," said I, my head swimming now with champagne; "I have a future perhaps-of a fairly agreeable sort, thanks to you. I shall now have the honour
of your name. But you have a past. Such a past as
is worth all my future."
He shook his head and smiled, as I thought, with
half-sad appreciation of my flattering admiration.
"That future," he said; "would you in truth change
it?" The waiter came with liqueurs. "You will
not perhaps mind taking my name, taking my
position, but would you indeed-willingly-take my
years?"
"With your achievements," said I gallantly.
He smiled again. "Kiimmel-both," he said to the
waiter, and turned his attention to a little paper
packet he had taken from his pocket. "This hour,"
said he, "this after-dinner hour is the hour of small
things. Here is a scrap of my unpublished wisdom."
He opened the packet with his shaking yellow fingers,
and showed a little pinkish powder on the paper.
"This," said he-"well, you must guess what it is.
But Kiimmel-put but a dash of this powder in itis Himmel."
His large greyish eyes watched mine with an inscrutable expression.
It was a bit of a shock to me to find this great
teacher gave his mind to the flavour of liqueurs.
385




EARLY FANTASTIC STORIES


However, I feigned an interest in his weakness, for I
was drunk enough for such small sycophancy.
He parted the powder between the little glasses,
and rising suddenly with a strange unexpected dignity, held out his hand towards me. I imitated his
action, and the glasses rang. "To a quick succession,"
said he, and raised his glass towards his lips.
"Not that," I said hastily. "Not that."
He paused with the liqueur at the level of his chin,
and his eyes blazing into mine.
"To a long life," said I.
He hesitated. "To a long life," said he, with a sudden bark of laughter, and with eyes fixed on one another we tilted the little glasses. His eyes looked
straight into mine, and as I drained the stuff off, I
felt a curiously intense sensation. The first touch of
it set my brain in a furious tumult; I seemed to feel
an actual physical stirring in my skull and a seething
humming filled my ears. I did not notice the flavour
in my mouth, the aroma that filled my throat; I saw
only the grey intensity of his gaze that burned into
mine. The draught, the mental confusion, the noise
and stirring in my head, seemed to last an interminable time. Curious vague impressions of half-forgotten things danced and vanished on the edge of my
consciousness. At last he broke the spell. With a
sudden explosive sigh he put down his glass.
"Well?" he said.
"It's glorious," said I, though I had not tasted the
stuff.
My head was spinning. I sat down. My brain
was chaos. Then my perception grew clear and mi386




THE LATE MR. ELVESHAM


nute as though I saw things in a concave mirror. His
manner seemed to have changed into something nervous and hasty. He pulled out his watch and
grimaced at it. "Eleven-seven! And to-night I
must-   Seven-twenty-five. Waterloo! I must go
at once." He called for the bill, and struggled with
his coat. Officious waiters came to our assistance.
In another moment I was wishing him good-bye, over
the apron of a cab, and still with an absurd feeling of
minute distinctness, as though-how can I express
it?-I not only saw but felt through an inverted
opera-glass.
"That stuff," he said. He put his hand to his forehead. "I ought not to have given it to you. It will
make your head split to-morrow. Wait a minute.
Here." He handed me out a little flat thing like a
seidlitz-powder. "Take that in water as you are going
to bed. The other thing was a drug. Not till you're
ready to go to bed, mind. It will clear your head.
That's all. One more shake-Futurus!"
I gripped his shrivelled claw. "Good-bye," he said,
and by the droop of his eyelids I judged he too was
a littlE under the influence of that brain-twisting
cordial.
He recollected something else with a start, felt in
his breast-pocket, and produced another packet, this
time a cylinder-the size and shape of a shaving-stick.
"Here," said he. "I'd almost forgotten. Don't open
this until I come to-morrow-but take it now."
It was so heavy that I well-nigh dropped it. "All
ri'!" said I, and he grinned at me through the cab
window as the cabman flicked his horse into wakeful387




EARLY FANTASTIC STORIES


ness. It was a white packet he had given me, with
red seals at either end and along its edge. "If this
isn't money," said I, "it's platinum or lead."
I stuck it with elaborate care into my pocket, and
with a whirling brain walked home through the Regent Street loiterers and the dark back streets beyond
Portland Road. I remember the sensations of that
walk very vividly, strange as they were. I was still
so far myself that I could notice my strange mental
state and wonder whether this stuff I had had was
opium-a drug beyond my experience. It is hard
now to describe the peculiarity of my mental strangeness-mental doubling vaguely expresses it. As I
was walking up Regent Street I found in my mind a
queer persuasion that it was Waterloo Station, and
had an odd impulse to get into the Polytechnic as a
man might get into a train. I put a knuckle in my
eye, and it was Regent Street. How can I express
it? You see a skilful actor looking quietly at you,
he pulls a grimace, and lo!-another person. Is it too
extravagant if I tell you that it seemed to me as if
Regent Street had, for the moment, done that? Then,
being persuaded it was Regent Street again, I was
oddly muddled about some fantastic reminiscences
that cropped up. "Thirty years ago," thought I, "it
was here that I quarrelled with my brother." Then
I burst out laughing, to the astonishment and encouragement of a group of night prowlers. Thirty
years ago I did not exist, and never in my life had I
boasted a brother. The stuff was surely liquid folly,
for the poignant regret for that lost brother still clung
to me. Along Portland Road the madness took an388




THE LATE MR. ELVESHAM


other turn. I began to recall vanished shops, and to
compare the street with what it used to be. Confused, troubled thinking was comprehensible enough
after the drink I had taken, but what puzzled me were
these curiously vivid phantasmal memories that had
crept into my mind; and not only the memories that
had crept in, but also the memories that had slipped
out. I stopped opposite Stevens's, the natural history dealer's, and cudgelled my brains to think what
he had to do with me. A 'bus went by, and sounded
exactly like the rumbling of a train. I seemed to be
dipping into some dark, remote pit for the recollection. "Of course," said I, at last, "he has promised
me three frogs to-morrow. Odd I should have forgotten."
Do they still show children dissolving views? In
those I remember one view would begin like a faint
ghost, and grow and oust another. In just that way
it seemed to me that a ghostly set of new sensations
was struggling with those of my ordinary self.
I went on through Euston Road to Tottenham
Court Road, puzzled and a little frightened, and
scarcely noticed the unusual way I was taking, for
commonly I used to cut through the intervening
network of back streets. I turned into University
Street, to discover that I had forgotten my number.
Only by a strong effort did I recall 1A, and even then
it seemed to me that it was a thing some forgotten
person had told me. I tried to steady my mind by
recalling the incidents of the dinner, and for the life
of me I could conjure up no picture of my host's face;
I saw him only as a shadowy outline, as one might see
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EARLY FANTASTIC STORIES


oneself reflected in a window through which one was
looking. In his place, however, I had a curious exterior vision of myself sitting at a table, flushed,
bright-eyed, and talkative.
"I must take this other powder," said I. "This is
getting impossible."
I tried the wrong side of the hall for my candle and
the matches, and had a doubt of which landing my
room might be on. "I'm drunk," I said, "that's certain," and blundered needlessly on the staircase to
sustain the proposition.
At the first glance my room seemed unfamiliar.
"What rot!" I said, and stared about me. I seemed
to bring myself back by the effort, and the odd phantasmal quality passed into the concrete familiar.
There was the old looking-glass with my notes on the
albumens stuck in the corner of the frame, my old
everyday suit of clothes pitched about the floor.
And yet it was not so real after all. I felt an idiotic
persuasion trying to creep into my mind, as it were,
that I was in a railway carriage in a train just stopping, that I was peering out of the window at some
unknown station. I gripped the bed-rail firmly to
reassure myself. "It's clairvoyance, perhaps," I said.
"I must write to the Psychical Research Society."
I put the rouleau on my dressing-table, sat on my
bed, and began to take off my boots. It was as if the
picture of my present sensations was painted over
some other picture that was trying to show through.
"Curse it!" said I; "my wits are going, or am I in
two places at once?" Half undressed, I tossed the
powder into a glass and drank it off. It effervesced,
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THE LATE MR. ELVESHAM


and became a fluorescent amber colour. Before I was
in bed my mind was already tranquillised. I felt the
pillow at my cheek, and thereupon I must have fallen
asleep.
I awoke abruptly out of a dream of strange beasts,
and found myself lying on my back. Probably every
one knows that dismal emotional dream from which
one escapes, awake indeed but strangely cowed.
There was a curious taste in my mouth, a tired feeling
in my limbs, a sense of cutaneous discomfort. I lay
with my head motionless on my pillow, expecting that
my feeling of strangeness and terror would pass away,
and that I should then doze off again to sleep. But
instead of that, my uncanny sensations increased.
At first I could perceive nothing wrong about me.
There was a faint light in the room, so faint that it
was the very next thing to darkness, and the furniture
stood out in it as vague blots of absolute darkness.
I stared with my eyes just over the bedclothes.
It came into my mind that some one had entered
the room to rob me of my rouleau of money, but after
lying for some moments, breathing regularly to simulate sleep, I realised this was mere fancy. Nevertheless, the uneasy assurance of something wrong kept
fast hold of me. With an effort I raised my head
from the pillow, and peered about me at the dark.
What it was I could not conceive. I looked at the
dim shapes around me, the greater and lesser darknesses that indicated curtains, table, fireplace, bookshelves, and so forth. Then I began to perceive something unfamiliar in the forms of the darkness. Had
the bed turned round? Yonder should be the book391




EARLY FANTASTIC STORIES


shelves, and something shrouded and pallid rose there,
something that would not answer to the book-shelves,
however I looked at it. It was far too big to be my
shirt thrown on a chair.
Overcoming a childish terror, I threw back the bedclothes and thrust my leg out of bed. Instead of
coming out of my truckle-bed upon the floor, I found
my foot scarcely reached the edge of the mattress. I
made another step, as it were, and sat up on the edge
of the bed. By the side of my bed should be the candle, and the matches upon the broken chair. I put
out my hand and touched-nothing. I waved my
hand in the darkness, and it came against some heavy
hanging, soft and thick in texture, which gave a rustling noise at my touch. I grasped this and pulled it;
it appeared to be a curtain suspended over the head
of my bed.
I was now thoroughly awake and beginning to
realise that I was in a strange room. I was puzzled.
I tried to recall the overnight circumstances, and I
found them now, curiously enough, vivid in my memory: the supper, my reception of the little packages,
my wonder whether I was intoxicated, my slow undressing, the coolness to my flushed face of my pillow.
I felt a sudden distrust. Was that last night, or the
night before? At any rate, this room was strange to
me, and I could not imagine how I had got into it.
The dim, pallid outline was growing paler, and I perceived it was a window, with the dark shape of an
oval toilet-glass against the weak intimation of the
dawn that filtered through the blind. I stood up,
and was surprised by a curious feeling of weak392




THE LATE MR. ELVESHAM


ness and unsteadiness. With trembling hands outstretched, I walked slowly towards the window,
getting, nevertheless, a bruise on the knee from a
chair by the way. I fumbled round the glass, which
was large, with handsome brass sconces, to find the
blind-cord. I could not find any. By chance I
took hold of the tassel, and with the click of a spring
the blind ran up.
I found myself looking out upon a scene that was
altogether strange to me. The night was overcast, and
through the flocculent grey of the heaped clouds there
filtered a faint half-light of dawn. Just at the edge
of the sky the cloud-canopy had a blood-red rim.
Below, everything was dark and indistinct, dim hills
in the distance, a vague mass of buildings running up
into pinnacles, trees like spilt ink, and below the
window a tracery of black bushes and pale grey paths.
It was so unfamiliar that for the moment I thought
myself still dreaming. I felt the toilet-table; it appeared to be made of some polished wood, and was
rather elaborately furnished-there were little cutglass bottles and a brush upon it. There was also a
queer little object, horseshoe shape it felt, with
smooth, hard projections, lying in a saucer. I could
fiid no matches nor candlestick.
I turned my eyes to the room again. Now the
blind was up, faint spectres of its furnishing came out
of the darkness. There was a huge curtained bed,
and the fireplace at its foot had a large white mantel
with something of the shimmer of marble.
I leaned against the toilet-table, shut my eyes and
opened them again, and tried to think. The whole
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EARLY FANTASTIC STORIES


thing was far too real for dreaming. I was inclined to
imagine there was still some hiatus in my memory as
a consequence of my draught of that strange liqueur;
that I had come into my inheritance perhaps, and suddenly lost my recollection of everything since my good
fortune had been announced. Perhaps if I waited a
little, things would be clearer to me again. Yet my
dinner with old Elvesham was now singularly vivid
and recent. The champagne, the observant waiters,
the powder, and the liqueurs-I could have staked my
soul it all happened a few hours ago.
And then occurred a thing so trivial and yet so terrible to me that I shiver now to think of that moment.
I spoke aloud. I said: "How the devil did I get
here?"... And the voice was not my own.
It was not my own, it was thin, the articulation was
slurred, the resonance of my facial bones was different. Then to reassure myself I ran one hand over the
other, and felt loose folds of skin, the bony laxity of
age. "Surely," I said in that horrible voice that had
somehow established itself in my throat, "surely this
thing is a dream!" Almost as quickly as if I did it
involuntarily, I thrust my fingers into my mouth.
My teeth had gone. My finger-tips ran on the flaccid surface of an even row of shrivelled gums. I was
sick with dismay and disgust.
I felt then a passionate desire to see myself, to
realise at once in its full horror the ghastly change
that had come upon me. I tottered to the mantel
and felt along it for matches. As I did so, a barking
cough sprang up in my throat, and I clutched the
thick flannel nightdress I found about me. There
394




THE LATE MR. ELVESHAM
were no matches there, and I suddenly realised that
my extremities were cold. Sniffing and coughing,
whimpering a little perhaps, I fumbled back to bed.
"It is surely a dream," I whispered to myself as I
clambered back, "surely a dream." It was a senile
repetition. I pulled the bedclothes over my shoulders, over my ears, I thrust my withered hand under
the pillow, and determined to compose myself to
sleep. Of course it was a dream. In the morning
the dream would be over and I should wake up strong
and vigorous again to my youth and studies. I shut
my eyes, breathed regularly, and, finding myself
wakeful, began to count slowly through the powers
of three.
But the thing I desired would not come. I could
not get to sleep. And the persuasion of the inexorable reality of the change that had happened to me
grew steadily. Presently I found myself with my
eyes wide open, the powers of three forgotten, and my
skinny fingers upon my shrivelled gums. I was indeed, suddenly and abruptly, an old man. I had in
some unaccountable manner fallen through my life
and come to old age, in some way I had been cheated
of allfthe best of my life, of love, of struggle, of
strength and hope. Igrovelled into thepillowand tried
to persuade myself that such hallucination was possible.
Imperceptibly, steadily, the dawn grew clearer.
At last, despairing of further sleep, I sat up in bed
and looked about me. A chill twilight rendered the
whole chamber visible. It was spacious and well
furnished, better furnished than any room I had ever
slept in before. A: candle and matches became dimly
395




EARLY FANTASTIC STORIES


visible upon a little pedestal in a recess. I threw back
the bedclothes and, shivering with the rawness of the
early morning albeit it was summer time, I got out
and lit the candle. Then, trembling horribly so that
the extinguisher rattled on its spike, I tottered to the
glass and saw-Elvesham's faced It was none the less
horrible because I had already dimly feared as much.
He had already seemed physically weak and pitiful
to me, but seen now, dressed only in a coarse flannel
nightdress that fell apart and showed the stringy
neck, seen now as my own body, I cannot describe its
desolate decrepitude. The hollow cheeks, the straggling tail of dirty grey hair, the rheumy bleared eyes,
the quivering, shrivelled lips, the lower displaying a
gleam of the pink interior lining, and those horrible
dark gums showing. You who are mind and body
together at your natural years, cannot imagine what
this fiendish imprisonment meant to me. To be young
and full of the desire and energy of youth, and to be
caught, and presently to be crushed, in this tottering
ruin of a body....
But I wander from the course of my story. For
some time I must have been stunned at this change
that had come upon me. It was daylight when I did
so far gather myself together as to think. In some
inexplicable way I had been changed, though how,
short of magic, the thing had been done, I could not
say. And as I thought, the diabolical ingenuity of
Elvesham came home to me. It seemed plain to me
that as I found myself in his, so he must be in possession of my body, of my strength that is, and my future. But how to prove it? Then as I thought, the
396




THE LATE MR. ELVESHAM
thing became so incredible even to me, that my mind
reeled, and I had to pinch myself, to feel my toothless
gums, to see myself in the glass, and touch the things
about me before I could steady myself to face the
facts again. Was all life hallucination? Was I indeed Elvesham, and he me? Had I been dreaming of
Eden overnight? Was there any Eden? But if I
was Elvesham, I should remember where I was on the
previous morning, the name of the town in which I
lived, what happened before the dream began. I
struggled with my thoughts. I recalled the queer
doubleness of my memories overnight. But now my
mind was clear. Not the ghost of any memories but
those proper to Eden could I raise.
"This way lies insanity!" I cried in my piping
voice. I staggered to my feet, dragged my feeble,
heavy limbs to the washhand-stand, and plunged my
grey head into a basin of cold water. Then, towelling
myself, I tried again. It was no good. I felt beyond
all question that I was indeed Eden, not Elvesham.
But Eden in Elvesham's body!
Had I been a man of any other age, I might have
givenmyself up to my fate as one enchanted. But in
these sceptical days miracles do not pass current.
Here was some trick of psychology. What a drug
and a steady stare could do, a drug and a steady stare,
or some similar treatment, could surely undo. Men
have lost their memories before. But to exchange
memories as one does umbrellas! I laughed. Alas!
not a healthy laugh, but a wheezing, senile titter. I
could have fancied old Elvesham laughing at my
plight, and a gust of petulant anger, unusual to me,
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EARLY FANTASTIC STORIES


swept across my feelings. I began dressing eagerly
in the clothes I found lying about on the floor, and
only realised when I was dressed that it was an evening suit I had assumed. I opened the wardrobe and
found some more ordinary clothes, a pair of plaid
trousers, and an old-fashioned dressing-gown. I put
a venerable smoking-cap on my venerable head, and,
coughing a little from my exertions, tottered out upon
the landing.
It was then perhaps a quarter to six, and the
blinds were closely drawn and the house quite silent.
The landing was a spacious one, a broad, richly
carpeted staircase went down into the darkness of the
hall below, and before me a door ajar showed me a
writing-desk, a revolving bookcase, the back of a
study chair, and a fine array of bound books, shelf
upon shelf.
"My study," I mumbled, and walked across the
landing. Then at the sound of my voice a thought
struck me, and I went back to the bedroom and put
in the set of false teeth. They slipped in ivith the ease
of old habit. "That's better," said I, gnashing them,
and so returned to the study.
The drawers of the writing-desk were locked. Its
revolving top was also locked. I could see no indications of the keys, and there were none in the pockets
of my trousers. I shuffled back at once to the bedroom, and went through the dress suit, and afterwards
the pockets of all the garments I could find. I was
very eager; and one might have imagined that burglars had been at work, to see my room when I had
done. Not only were there no keys to be found, but
398




THE LATE MR. ELVESHAM


not a coin, nor a scrap of paper-save only the receipted bill of the overnight dinner.
A curious weariness asserted itself. I sat down and
stared at the garments flung here and there, their
pockets turned inside out. My first frenzy had already flickered out. Every moment I was beginning
to realise the immense intelligence of the plans of my
enemy, to see more and more clearly the hopelessness
of my position. With an effort I rose and hurried
into the study again. On the staircase was a housemaid pulling up the blinds. She stared, I think,
at the expression of my face. I shut the door of the
study behind me, and, seizing a poker, began an
attack upon the desk. That is how they found me.
The cover of the desk was split, the lock smashed, the
letters torn out of the pigeonholes, and tossed about
the room. In my senile rage I had flung about the
pens and other such light stationery and overturned
the ink. Moreover, a large vase upon the mantel had
got broken-I do not know how. I could find no
cheque-book, no money, no indications of the slightest use for the recovery of my body. I was battering madly at the drawers, when the butler, backed
by two women servants, intruded upon me.
That simply is the story of my change. No one
will believe my frantic assertions. I am treated as
one demented, and even at this moment I am under
restraint. But I am sane, absolutely sane, and to
prove it I have sat down to write this story minutely
as the thing happened to me. I appeal to the reader,
whether there is any trace of insanity in the style or
method of the story he has been reading. I am a
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EARLY FANTASTIC STORIES
young man locked away in an old man's body. But
the clear fact is incredible to every one. Naturally I
appear demented to those who will not believe this,
naturally I do not know the names of my secretaries,
of the doctors who come to see me, of my servants
and neighbours, of this town (wherever it is) where I
find myself. Naturally I lose myself in my own
house, and suffer inconveniences of every sort. Naturally I ask the oddest questions. Naturally I weep
and cry out, and have paroxysms of despair. I have
no money and no cheque-book. The bank will not
recognise my signature, for I suppose that, allowing
for the feeble muscles I now have, my handwriting is
still Eden's. These people about me will not let me
go to the bank personally. It seems, indeed, that
there is no bank in this town, and that I have an account in some part of London. It seems that
Elvesham kept the name of his solicitor secret from
all his household. I can ascertain nothing. Elvesham was, of course, a profound student of mental
science, and all my declarations of the facts of the
case merely confirm the theory that my insanity is the
outcome of overmuch brooding upon psychology.
Dreams of the personal identity indeed! Two days
ago I was a healthy youngster, with all life before me;
now I am a furious old man, unkempt and desperate
and miserable, prowling about a great, luxurious,
strange house, watched, feared, and avoided as a lunatic by every one about me. And in London is Elvesham beginning life again in a vigorous body, and
with all the accumulated knowledge and wisdom of
threescore and ten. He has stolen my life.
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THE LATE MR. ELVESHAM


What has happened I do not clearly know. In the
study are volumes of manuscript notes referring
chiefly to the psychology of memory, and parts of
what may be either calculations or ciphers in symbols
absolutely strange to me. In some passages there
are indications that he was also occupied with the
philosophy of mathematics. I take it he has transferred the whole of his memories, the accumulation
that makes up his personality, from this old withered
brain of his to mine, and, similarly, that he has
transferred mine to his discarded tenement. Practically, that is, he has changed bodies. But how such
a change may be possible is without the range of my
philosophy. I have been a materialist for all my
thinking life, but here, suddenly, is a clear case of
man's detachability from matter.
One desperate experiment I am about to try. I sit
writing here before putting the matter to issue. This
morning, with the help of a table-knife that I had
secreted at breakfast, I succeeded in breaking open a
fairly obvious secret drawer in this wrecked writingdesk. I discovered nothing save a little green glass
phial containing a white-powder. Round the neck of
the phial was a label, and thereon was written this
one word, "Release." This may be-is most probably
-poison. I can understand Elvesham placing poison
in my way, and I should be sure that it was his intention so to get rid of the only living witness against
him, were it not for this careful concealment. The
man has practically solved the problem of immortality. Save for the spite of chance, he will live in
my body until it has aged, and then, again, throwing
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EARLY FANTASTIC STORIES


that aside, he will assume some other victim's youth
and strength. When one remembers his heartlessness, it is terrible to think of the ever-growing experience that... How long has he been leaping from
body to body?... But I tire of writing. The powder appears to be soluble in water. The taste is not
unpleasant.
There the narrative found upon Mr. Elvesham's
desk ends. His dead body lay between the desk and
the chair. The latter had been pushed back, probably
by his last convulsions. The story was written in pencil, and in a crazy hand quite unlike his usual minute
characters. There remairnonly two curious facts to
record. Indisputably there was some connection between Eden and Elvesham, since the whole of
Elvesham's property was bequeathed to the young
man. But he never inherited. When Elvesham
committed suicide, Eden was, strangely enough, already dead. Twenty-four hours before, he had been
knocked down by a cab and killed instantly, at the
crowded crossing at the intersection of Gower Street
and Euston Road. So that the only human being
who could have thrown light upon this fantastic narrative is beyond the reach of questions.


402




UNDER THE KNIFE


"WHAT if I die under it?" The thought recurred
again and again as I walked home from Haddon's.
It was a purely personal question. I was spared the
deep anxieties of a married man, and I knew there
were few of my intimate friends but would find my
death troublesome chiefly on account of their duty of
regret. I was surprised indeed and perhaps a little
humiliated, as I turned the matter over, to think how
few could possibly exceed the conventional requirement. Things came before me stripped of glamour,
in a clear dry light, during that walk from Haddon's
house over Primrose Hill. There were the friends of
my youth: I perceived now that our affection was a
tradition which we foregathered rather laboriously to
maintain. There were the rivals and helpers of my
later career: I suppose I had been cold-blooded or
undemonstrative-one perhaps implies the other. It
may be that even the capacity for friendship is a
question of physique. There had been a time in my
own life when I had grieved bitterly enough at the loss
of a friend; but as I walked home that-afternoon the
emotional side of my imagination was dormant. I
could not pity myself, nor feel sorry for my friends,
nor conceive of them as grieving for me.
I was interested in this deadness of my emotional
nature-no doubt a concomitant of my stagnating
physiology; and my thoughts wandered off along the
line it suggested. Once before, in my hot youth, I
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EARLY FANTASTIC STORIES


had suffered a sudden loss of blood and had been
within an ace of death. I remembered now that my
affections as well as my passions had drained out of
me, leaving scarcely anything but a tranquil resignation, a dreg of self-pity. It had been weeks before
the old ambitions and tendernesses and all the complex moral interplay of a man had reasserted themselves. Now again I was bloodless; I had been feeding down for a week or more. I was not even hungry. It occurred to me that the real meaning of
this numbness might be a gradual slipping away from
the pleasure-pain guidance of the animal man. It
has been proven, I take it, as thoroughly as anything
can be proven in this world, that the higher emotions,
the moral feelings, even the subtle unselfishness of
love, are evolved from the elemental desires and fears
of the simple animal: they are the harness in which
man's mental freedom goes. And it may be that as
death overshadows us, as our possibility of acting
diminishes, this complex growth of balanced impulse,
propensity and aversion whose interplay inspires our
acts, goes with it. Leaving what?
I was suddenly brought back to reality by an imminent collision with a butcher boy's tray. I found
that I was crossing the bridge over the Regent%' Park
Canal which runs parallel with that in the Zoological
Gardens. The boy in blue had been looking over his
shoulder at a black barge advancing slowly, towed by
a gaunt white horse. In the Gardens a nurse was
leading three happy little children over the bridge.
The trees were bright green; the spring hopefulness
was still unstained by the dusts of summer; the sky
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UNDER THE KNIFE
in the water was bright and clear, but broken by long
waves, by quivering bands of black, as the barge
drove through. The breeze was stirring; but it did
not stir me as the spring breeze used to do.
Was this dulness of feeling in itself an anticipation?
It was curious that I could reason and follow out a
network of suggestion as clearly as ever: so, at least,
it seemed to me. It was calmness rather than dulness
that was coming upon me. Was there any ground
for the belief in the presentiment of death? Did a
man near to death begin instinctively to withdraw
himself from the meshes of matter and sense, even
before the cold hand was laid upon his? I felt
strangely isolated-isolated without regret-from the
life of existence about me. The children playing in
the sun and gathering strength and experience for the
business of life, the park-keeper gossiping with a
nursemaid, the nursing mother, the young couple intent upon each other as they passed me, the trees by
the wayside spreading new pleading leaves to the
sunlight, the stir in their branches-I had been part
of it all, but I had nearly done with it now.
Some way down the Broad Walk I perceived that
I was tired, and that my feet were heavy. It was
hot that afternoon, and I turned aside and sat down
on one of the green chairs that line the way. In a
minute I had dozed into a dream, and the tide of my
thoughts washed up a vision of the resurrection. I
was still sitting in the chair, but I thought myself
actually dead, withered, tattered, dried, one eye (I
saw) pecked out by birds. "Awake!" cried a voice;
and incontinently the dust of the path and the mould
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EARLY FANTASTIC STORIES


under the grass became insurgent. I had never before thought of Regent's Park as a cemetery, but
now through the trees, stretching as far as eye could
see, I beheld a flat plain of writhing graves and heeling tombstones. There seemed to be some trouble:
the rising dead appeared to stifle as they struggled
upward, they bled in their struggles, the red flesh was
torn away from the white bones. "Awake!" cried a
voice; but I determined I would not rise to such
horrors. "Awake!" They would not let me alone!
"Wike up!" said an angry voice. A cockney angel!
The man who sells the tickets was shaking me, demanding my penny.
I paid my penny, pocketed my ticket, yawned,
stretched my legs, and, feeling now rather less torpid,
got up and walked on towards Langham Place. I
speedily lost myself again in a shifting maze of
thoughts about death. Going across Marylebone
Road into that crescent at the end of Langham Place,
I had the narrowest escape from the shaft of a cab,
and went on my way with a palpitating heart and a
bruised shoulder. It struck me that it would have
been curious if my meditations on my death on the
morrow had led to my death that day.
But I will not weary you with more of my experiences that day and the next. I knew more and more
certainly that I should die under the operation; at
times I think I was inclined to pose to myself. At
home I found everything prepared; my room cleared
of needless objects and hung with white sheets; a
nurse installed and already at loggerheads with my
housekeeper. They wanted me to go to bed early
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UNDER THE KNIFE

and after a little resistance I obeyed. I had not
been eating very much for some days and of course
the nurse had to see to it that I supped on slops.
In the morning I was very indolent and though I
read my newspapers and the letters that came by the
first post, I did not find them very interesting. There
was a friendly note from Addison, my old school
friend, calling my attention to two discrepancies and
a printer's error in my new book, with one from Langridge venting some vexation over Minton. The rest
were business communications. I had a cup of tea
but nothing to eat. The glow of pain at my side
seemed more massive. I knew it was pain, and yet,
if you can understand, I did not find it very painful.
I had been awake and hot and thirsty in the night,
but in the morning bed felt comfortable. In the
night-time I had lain thinking of things that were
past; in the morning I dozed over the question of immortality. Haddon came, punctual to the minute,
with a neat black bag; and Mowbray soon followed.
Their arrival stirred me up a little. I began to take
a more personal interest in the proceedings. Haddon
moved the little octagoaal table close to the bedside,
and, with his broad back to me, began taking things
out of his bag. I heard the light click of steel upon
steel. My imagination, I found, was not altogether
stagnant. - "Will you hurt me much?" I said in an
offhand tone.
"Not a bit," Haddon answered over his shoulder.
"We shall chloroform you. Your heart's as sound-as
a bell." And as he spoke, I had a whiff of the pungent
sweetness of the anaesthetic.
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EARLY FANTASTIC STORIES


They stretched me out, with a convenient exposure
of my side, and, almost before I realised what was
happening, the chloroform was being administered.
It stings the nostrils, and there is a suffocating sensation at first. I knew I should die-that this was the
end of consciousness for me. And suddenly I felt
that I was not prepared for death: I had a vague
sense of a duty overlooked-I knew not what. What
was it I had not done? I could think of nothing
more to do, nothing desirable left in life; and yet I
had the strangest disinclination for death. And the
physical sensation was painfully oppressive. Of
course the doctors did not know they were going to
kill me. Possibly I struggled. Then I fell motionless, and a great silence, a monstrous silence, and an
impenetrable blackness came upon me.
There must have been an interval of absolute unconsciousness, seconds or minutes. Then with a chilly,
unemotional clearness, I perceived that I was not yet
dead. I was still in my body; but all the multitudinous sensations that come sweeping from it to make
up the background of consciousness had gone, leaving me free of it all. No, not free of it all; for as yet
something still held me to the poor stark flesh upon
the bed-held me, yet not so closely that I did not
feel myself external to it, independent of it, straining
away from it. I do not think I saw, I do not think I
heard; but I perceived all that was going on, and it
was as if I both heard and saw. Haddon was bending over me, Mowbray behind me; the scalpel-it was
a large scalpel-was cutting my flesh at the side under
the flying ribs. It was interesting to see myself cut
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UNDER THE KNIFE
like cheese, without a pang, without even a qualm.
The interest was much of a quality with that one
might feel in a game of chess between strangers.
Haddon's face was firm and his hand steady; but I
was surprised to perceive (how I know not) that he
was feeling the gravest doubt as to his own wisdom
in the conduct of the operation.
Mowbray's thoughts, too, I could see. He was
thinking that Haddon's manner showed too much of
the specialist. New suggestions came up like bubbles
through a stream of frothing meditation, and burst
one after another in the little bright spot of his consciousness. He could not help noticing and admiring
Haddon's swift dexterity in spite of his envious quality and his disposition to detract. I saw my liver
exposed. I was puzzled at my own condition. I did
not feel that I was dead, but I was different in some
way from my living self. The grey depression that
had weighed on me for a year or more and coloured
all my thoughts, was gone. I perceived and thought
without any emotional tint at all. I wondered if
every one perceived things in this way under chloroform, and forgot it again-when he came out of it.
It would be inconvenient to look into some heads,
and not forget.
Although I did not think that I was dead, I still
perceived quite clearly that I was soon to die. This
brought me back to the consideration of Haddon's
proceedings. I looked into his mind, and saw that he
was afraid of cutting a branch of the portal vein. My
attention was distracted from details by the curious
changes going on in his mind. His consciousness was
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EARLY FANTASTIC STORIES


like the quivering little spot of light which is thrown
by the mirror of a galvanometer. His thoughts ran
under it like a stream, some through the focus bright
and distinct, some shadowy in the half-light of the
edge. Just now the little glow was steady; but the
least movement on Mowbray's part, the slightest
sound from outside, even a faint difference in the
slow movement of the living flesh he was cutting, set
the light spot shivering and spinning. A new senseimpression came rushing up through the flow of
thoughts, and lo! the light spot jerked away towards
it, swifter than a frightened fish. It was wonderful
to think that upon that unstable, fitful thing depended all the complex motions of the man; that for
the next five minutes, therefore, my life hung upon its
movements. And he was growing more and more
nervous in his work. It was as if a little picture of
a cut vein grew brighter, and struggled to oust
from his brain another picture of a cut falling short
of the mark. He was afraid: his dread of cutting
too little was battling with his dread of cutting too
far.
Then, suddenly, like an escape of water from under
a lock-gate, a great uprush of horrible realisation set
all his thoughts swirling, and simultaneously I perceived that the vein was cut. He started back with
a hoarse exclamation, and I saw the brown-purple
blood gather in a swift bead, and run trickling. He
was horrified. He pitched the red-stained scalpel on
to the octagonal table; and instantly both doctors
flung themselves upon me, making hasty and illconceived efforts to remedy the disaster. "Ice!" said
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UNDER THE KNIFE
Mowbray, gasping. But I knew that I was killed,
though my body still clung to me.
I will not describe their belated endeavours to save
me, though I perceived every detail. My perceptions were sharper and swifter than they had ever
been in life; my thoughts rushed through my mind
with incredible swiftness, but with perfect definition.
I can only compare their crowded clarity to the effects
of a reasonable dose of opium. In a moment it
would all be over, and I should be free. I knew I was
immortal, but what would happen I did not know.
Should I drift off presently, like a puff of smoke from
a gun, in some kind of half-material body, an attenuated version of my material self? Should I find myself suddenly among the innumerable hosts of the
dead, and know the world about me for the phantasmagoria it had always seemed? Should I drift to
some spiritualistic seance, and there make foolish,
incomprehensible attempts to affect a purblind medium? It was a state of unemotional curiosity, of
colourless expectation. And then I realised a growing
stress upon me, a feeling as though some huge human
magnet was drawing me upward out of my body.
The stress grew and grew. I seemed an atom for
which monstrous forces were fighting. For one brief,
terrible moment sensation came back to me. That
feeling of falling headlong which comes in nightmares,
that feeling a thousand times intensified, that and a
black horror swept across my thoughts in a torrent.
Then the two doctors, the naked body with its cut
side, the little room, swept away from under me and
vanished as a speck of foam vanishes down an eddy.
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EARLY FANTASTIC STORIES


I was in mid air. Far below was the West End of
London, receding rapidly-for I seemed to be flying
swiftly upward-and as it receded, passing westward
like a panorama. I could see, through the faint haze
of smoke, the innumerable roofs chimney-set, the
narrow roadways stippled with people and conveyances, the little specks of squares, and the church
steeples like thorns sticking out of the fabric. But
it spun away as the earth rotated on its axis, and in
a few seconds (as it seemed) I was over the scattered
clumps of town about Ealing, the little Thames a
thread of blue to the south, and the Chiltern Hills
and the North Downs coming up like the rim of a
basin, far away and faint with haze. Up I rushed.
And at first I had not the faintest conception what
this headlong rush upward could mean.
Every moment the circle of scenery beneath me
grew wider and wider, and the details of town and
field, of hill and valley, got more and more hazy and
pale and indistinct, a luminous grey was mingled
more and more with the blue of the hills and the green
of the open meadows; and a little patch of cloud, low
and far to the west, shone ever more dazzlingly white.
Above, as the veil of atmosphere between myself and
outer space grew thinner, the sky, which had been a
fair springtime blue at first, grew deeper and richer in
colour, passing steadily through the intervening
shades until presently it was as dark as the blue sky
of midnight, and presently as black as the blackness
of a frosty starlight, and at last as black as no blackness I had ever beheld. And first one star and then
many, and at last an innumerable host broke out upon
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UNDER THE KNIFE
the sky: more stars than any one has ever seen from
the face of the earth. For the blueness of the sky is
the light of the sun and stars sifted and spread abroad
blindingly: there is diffused light even in the darkest
skies of winter, and we do not see the stars by day
only because of the dazzling irradiation of the sun.
But now I saw things-I know not how; assuredly
with no mortal eyes-and that defect of bedazzlement
blinded me no longer. The sun was incredibly strange
and wonderful. The body of it was a disc of blinding
white light: not yellowish as it seems to those who
live upon the earth, but livid white, all streaked with
scarlet streaks and rimmed about with a fringe of
writhing tongues of red fire. And shooting half-way
across the heavens from either side of it and brighter
than the Milky Way, were two pinions of silver-white,
making it look more like those winged globes I have
seen in Egyptian sculpture than anything else I can
remember upon earth. These I knew for the solar
corona, though I had never seen anything of it but
a picture during the days of my earthly life.
When my attention came back to the earth again,
I saw that it had fallen very far away from me. Field
and town were long since indistinguishable, and all
the varied hues of the country were merging into a
uniform bright grey, broken only by the brilliant
white of the clouds that lay-scattered in flocculent
masses over Ireland and the west of England. For
now I could see the outlines of the north of France
and Ireland, and all this Island of Britain save where
Scotland passed over the horizon to the north, or
where the coast was blurred or obliterated by cloud.
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EARLY FANTASTIC STORIES


The sea was a dull grey, and darker than the land;
and the whole panorama was rotating slowly towards
the east.
All this had happened so swiftly that until I was
some thousand miles or so from the earth I had no
thought for myself. But now I perceived I had
neither hands nor feet, neither parts nor organs, and
that I felt neither alarm nor pain. All about me I
perceived that the vacancy (for I had already left the
air behind) was cold beyond the imagination of man;
but it troubled me not. The sun's rays shot through
the void, powerless to light or heat until they should
strike on matter in their course. I saw things with a
serene self-forgetfulness, even as if I were God. And
down below there, rushing away from me,-countless
miles in a second,-where a little dark spot on the
grey marked the position of London, two doctors
were struggling to restore life to the poor hacked and
outworn shell I had abandoned. I felt then such release, such serenity as I can compare to no mortal
delight I have ever known.
It was only after I had perceived all these things
that the meaning of that headlong rush of the earth
grew into comprehension. Yet it was so simple, so
obvious, that I was amazed at my never anticipating
the thing that was happening to me. I had suddenly
been cut adrift from matter: all that was material of
me was there upon earth, whirling away through
space, held to the earth by gravitation, partaking of
the earth's inertia, moving in its wreath of epicycles
round the sun, and with the sun and the planets on
their vast march through space. But the immaterial
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UNDER THE KNIFE


has no inertia, feels nothing of the pull of matter for
matter: where it parts from its garment of flesh, there
it remains (so far as space concerns it any longer)
immovable in space. I was not leaving the earth; the
earth was leaving me, and not only the earth but the
whole solar system was streaming past. And about
me in space, invisible to me, scattered in the wake of
the earth upon its journey, there must be an innumerable multitude of souls, stripped like myself of the
material, stripped like myself of the passions of the
individual and the generous emotions of the gregarious brute, naked intelligences, things of new-born
wonder and thought, marvelling at the strange release that had suddenly come on them!
As I receded faster and faster from the strange
white sun in the black heavens, and from the broad
and shining earth upon which my being had begun, I
seemed to grow in some incredible manner vast; vast
as regards this world I had left, vast as regards the
moments and periods of a human life. Very soon I
saw the full circle of the earth, slightly gibbous, like
the moon when she nears her full, but very large; and
the silvery shape of America was now in the noonday
blaze wherein (as it seemed) little England had been
basking but a few minutes ago. At first the earth
was large and shone in the heavens, filling a great
part of them; but every moment she grew smaller
and more distant. As she shrank, the broad moon in
its third quarter crept into view over the rim of her
disc. I looked for the constellations. Only that part
of Aries directly behind the sun, and the Lion, which
the earth covered, were hidden. I recognised the
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EARLY FANTASTIC STORIES


tortuous, tattered band of the Milky Way with Vega
very bright between sun and earth; and Sirius and
Orion shone splendid against the unfathomable blackness in the opposite quarter of the heavens. The
Pole Star was overhead, and the Great Bear hung
over the circle of the earth. And away beneath and
beyond the shining corona of the sun were strange
groupings of stars I had never seen in my lifenotably a dagger-shaped group that I knew for the
Southern Cross. All these were no larger than when
they had shone on earth, but the little stars that one
scarcely sees shone now against the setting of black
vacancy as brightly as the first magnitudes had done,
while the larger worlds were points of indescribable
glory and colour. Aldebaran was a spot of blood-red
fire, and Sirius condensed to one point the light of
innumerable sapphires. And they shone steadily;
they did not scintillate, they were calmly glorious.
My impressions had an adamantine hardness and
brightness; there was no blurring softness, no atmosphere, nothing but infinite darkness set with the
myriads of these acute and brilliant points and specks
of light. Presently, when I looked again, the little
earth seemed no bigger than the sun, and it dwindled
and turned as I looked until in a second's space (as it
seemed to me) it was halved; and so it went on swiftly
dwindling. Far away in the opposite direction, a
little pinkish pin's head of light, shining steadily, was
the planet Mars. I swam motionless in vacancy,
and, without a trace of terror or astonishment,
watched the speck of cosmic dust we call the world
fall away from me.
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UNDER THE KNIFE


Presently it dawned upon me that my sense of duration had changed; that my mind was moving not
faster but infinitely slower, that between each separate impression there was a period of many days. The
moon spun once round the earth as I noted this; and
I perceived clearly the motion of Mars in his orbit.
Moreover, it appeared as if the time between thought
and thought grew steadily greater, until at last a
thousand years was but a moment in my perception.
At first the constellations had shone motionless
against the black background of infinite space; but
presently it seemed as though the group of stars about
Hercules and the Scorpion was contracting, while
Orion and Aldebaran and their neighbours were scattering apart. Flashing suddenly out of the darkness
there came a flying multitude of particles of rock,
glittering like dust specks in a sunbeam, and encompassed in a faintly luminous cloud. They swirled all
about me, and vanished again in a twinkling far behind. And then I saw that a bright spot of light,
that shone a little to one side of my path, was growing very rapidly larger, and perceived that it was the
planet Saturn rushing towards me. Larger and
larger it grew, swallowing up the heavens behind it,
and hiding every moment a fresh multitude of stars.
I perceived its flattened, whirling body, its disc-like
belt, and seven of its little satellites. It grew and
grew, till it towered enormous; and-then I plunged
amid a stamiming multitude of clashing stones and
dancing dust particles and gas eddies, and saw for a
moment the mighty triple belt like three concentric
arches of moonlight above me, its shadow black on the
417




EARLY FANTASTIC STORIES


boiling tumult below. These things happened in onetenth of the time it takes to tell them. The planet
went by like a flash of lightning; for a few seconds it
blotted out the sun, and there and then became a mere
black, dwindling, winged patch against the light. The
earth, the mother mote of my being, I could no longer
see.
So with a stately swiftness, in the profoundest
silence, the solar system fell from me as it had been a
garment, until the sun was a mere star amid the multitude of stars, with its eddy of planet specks lost in
the confused glittering of the remoter light. I was
no longer a denizen of the solar system; I had come
to the outer Universe, I seemed to grasp and comprehend the whole world of matter. Ever more swiftly
the stars closed in about the spot where Antares and
Vega had vanished in a phosphorescent haze, until
that part of the sky had the semblance of a whirling
mass of nebulae, and ever before me yawned vaster
gaps of vacant blackness and the stars shone fewer
and fewer. It seemed as if I moved towards a point
between Orion's belt and sword; and the void about
that region opened vaster and vaster every second,
an incredible gulf of nothingness into which I was
falling. Faster and ever faster the universe rushed
by, a hurry of whirling motes at last, speeding silently
into the void. Stars glowing brighter and brighter,
with their circling planets catching the light in a
ghostly fashion as I neared them, shone out and vanished again into inexistence; faint comets, clusters of
meteorites, winking specks of matter, eddying lightpoints, whizzed past, some perhaps a hundred mil418




UNDER THE KNIFE


lions of miles or so from me at most, few nearer,
travelling with unimaginable rapidity, shooting constellations, momentary darts of fire, through that
black enormous night. More than anything else it
was like a dusty draught, sunbeam-lit. Broader and
wider and deeper grew the starless space, the vacant
Beyond, into which I was being drawn. At last a
quarter of the heavens was black and blank, and, the
whole headlong rush of stellar universe closed in behind me like a veil of light that is gathered together.
It drove away from me like a monstrous jack-o'lantern driven by the wind. I had come out into
the wilderness of space. Ever the vacant blackness
grew broader, until the hosts of the stars seemed only
like a swarm of fiery specks hurrying away from me,
inconceivably remote; and the darkness, the nothingness and emptiness, was about me on every side.
Soon the little universe of matter, the cage of points
in which I had begun to be, was dwindling, now to a
whirling disc of luminous glittering, and now to one
minute disc of hazy light. In a little while it would
shrink to a point, and at last would vanish altogether.
Suddenly feeling came back to me-feeling in the
shape of overwhelming terror; such a dread of those
dark vastitudes as no words can describe, a passionate
resurgence of sympathy and social desire. Were
there other souls, invisible to me as I to them, about
me in the blackness? or was I indeed, even as I felt,
alone? Had I passed out of being into something
that was neither being nor not-being? The covering
of the body, the covering of matter, had been torn
from me, and the hallucinations of companionship and
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EARLY FANTASTIC STORIES


security. Everything was black and silent. I had
ceased to be. I was nothing. There was nothing,
save only that infinitesimal dot of light that dwindled
in the gulf. I strained myself to hear and see, and
for a while there was naught but infinite silence, intolerable darkness, horror, and despair.
Then I saw that about the spot of light into which
the whole world of matter had shrunk there was a
faint glow. And in a band on either side of that the
darkness was not absolute. I watched it for ages, as
it seemed to me, and through the long waiting the
haze grew imperceptibly more distinct. And then
about the band appeared an irregular cloud of the
faintest, palest brown. I felt a passionate impatience; but the things grew brighter so slowly that
they scarcely seemed to change. What was unfolding
itself? What was this strange reddish dawn in the
interminable night of space?
The cloud's shape was grotesque. It seemed to be
looped along its lower side into four projecting masses,
and, above, it ended in a straight line. What phantom was it? I felt assured I had seen that figure before; but I could not think what, nor where, nor when
it was. Then the realisation rushed upon me. It was a
clenched Hand. I was alone in space, alone with this
huge, shadowy Hand, upon which the whole Universe
of Matter lay like an unconsidered speck of dust. It
seemed as though Iwatched it through vast periods of
time. On the forefinger glittered a ring; and the
universe from which I had come was but a spot of
light upon the ring's curvature. And the thing that
the Hand gripped had the likeness of a black rod.
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UNDER THE KNIFE


Through a long eternity I watched this Hand, with
the ring and the rod, marvelling and fearing and waiting helplessly on what might follow. It seemed as
though nothing could follow: that I should watch forever, seeing only the Hand and the thing it held, and
understanding nothing of its import. Was the whole
universe but a refracting speck upon some greater
Being? Were our worlds but the atoms of another
universe, and those again of another, and so on
through an endless progression? And what was I?
Was I indeed immaterial? A vague persuasion of a
body gathering about me came into my suspense.
The abysmal darkness about the Hand filled with
impalpable suggestions, with uncertain, fluctuating
shapes.
Came a sound like the sound of a tolling bell: faint
as if infinitely far, muffled as though heard through
thick swathings of darkness; a deep, vibrating resonance, with vast gulfs of silence between each stroke.
And the Hand appeared to tighten on the rod. And
I saw far above the Hand, towards the apex of the
darkness, a circle of dim phosphorescence, a ghostly
sphere whence these sounds came throbbing; and at
the last stroke the Hand vanished, for the hour had
come, and I heard a noise of many waters. But the
black rod remained as a great band across the sky.
And then a voice, which seemed to run to the uttermost parts of space, spoke, saying: "There will be no
more pain."
At that an almost intolerable gladness and radiance rushed in upon me, and I saw the circle shining
white and bright, and the rod black and shining, and
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EARLY FANTASTIC STORIES


many things else distinct and clear. And the circle
was the face of the clock, and the rod the rail of my
bed. Haddon was standing at the foot, against the
rail, with a small pair of scissors on his fingers; and
the hands of my clock on the mantel over his shoulder were clasped together over the hour of twelve.
Mowbray was washing something in a basin at the
octagonal table, and at my side I felt a subdued feeling that could scarce be spoken as of pain.
The operation had not killed me. And I perceived,
suddenly, that the dull melancholy of half a year was
lifted from my mind.


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THE PLATTNER STORY


WHETHER the story of Gottfried Plattner is to be
credited or not is a pretty question in the value of
evidence. On the one hand,;we have seven witnesses
-to be perfectly exact, we have six and a half pairs of
eyes, and one undeniable fact; and on the other we
have-what is it?-prejudice, common sense, the
inertia of opinion. Never were there seven more
honest-seeming witnesses; never was there a more undeniable fact than the inversion of Gottfried Plattner's anatomical structure, and-never was there a
more preposterous story than the one they have to
tell! The most preposterous part of the story is the
worthy Gottfried's contribution (for I count him as
one of the seven). Heaven forbid that I should be
led into giving countenance to superstition by a passion for impartiality, and so come to share the fate
of Eusapia's patrons! Frankly, I believe there is
something crooked about this business of Gottfried
Plattner; but what that crooked factor is, I will admit
as frankly, I do not know. I have been surprised at
the credit accorded to the story in the most unexpected and authoritative quarters. The fairest way
to the reader, however, will be for me to tell it without further comment.
Gottfried Plattner is, in spite of his name, a freeborn Englishman. His father was an Alsatian who
came to England in the 'sixties, married a respectable
English girl of unexceptionable antecedents, and died,
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EARLY FANTASTIC STORIES


after a wholesome and uneventful life (devoted, I
understand, chiefly to the laying of parquet flooring),
in 1887. Gottfried's age is seven-and-twenty. He
is, by virtue of his heritage of three languages, Modern Languages Master in a small private school in
the south of England. To the casual observer he is
singularly like any other Modern Languages Master
in any other small private school. His costume is
neither very costly nor very fashionable, but, on the
other hand, it is not markedly cheap or shabby; his
complexion, like his height and his bearing, is inconspicuous. You would notice perhaps that, like the
majority of people, his face was not absolutely symmetrical, his right eye a little larger than the left, and
his jaw a trifle heavier on the right side. If you, as
an ordinary careless person, were to bare his chest
and feel his heart beating, you would probably find it
quite like the heart of any one else. But here you
and the trained observer would part company. If
you found his heart quite ordinary, the trained observer would find it quite otherwise. And once the
thing was pointed out to you, you too would perceive the peculiarity easily enough. It is that Gottfried's heart beats on the right side of his body.
Now that is not the only singularity of Gottfried's
structure, although it is the only one that would
appeal to the untrained mind. Careful sounding of
Gottfried's internal arrangements by a well-known
surgeon seems to point to the fact that all the other
unsymmetrical parts of his body are similarly misplaced. The right lobe of his liver is on the left side,
the left on his right; while his lungs, too, are similarly
424




THE PLATTNER STORY
contraposed. What is still more singular, unless
Gottfried is a consummate actor, we must believe
that his right hand has recently become his left.
Since the occurrences we are about to consider (as
impartially as possible), he has found the utmost difficulty in writing except from right to left across the
paper with his left hand. He cannot throw with his
right hand, he is perplexed at meal-times between
knife and fork, and his ideas of the rule of the roadhe is a cyclist-are still a dangerous confusion. And
there is not a scrap of evidence to show that before
these occurrences Gottfried was at all left-handed.
There is yet another wonderful fact in this preposterous business. Gottfried produces three photographs of himself. You have him at the age of five
or six, thrusting fat legs at you from under a plaid
frock, and scowling. In that photograph his left eye
is a little larger than his right, and his jaw is a trifle
heavier on the left side. This is the reverse of his
present living condition. The photograph of Gottfried
at fourteen seems to contradict these facts, but that
is because it is one of those cheap "Gem" photographs that were then in vogue, taken direct upon
metal, and therefore reversing things just as a lookingglass would. The third photograph represents him at
one-and-twenty, and confirms the record of the others.
There seems here evidence of the strongest confirmatory character that Gottfried has exchanged his left
side for his right. Yet how a human being can be so
changed, short of a fantastic and pointless miracle,
it is exceedingly hard to suggest.
In one way, of course, these facts might be explica425




EARLY FANTASTIC STORIES


ble on the supposition that Plattner has undertaken
an elaborate mystification on the strength of his
heart's displacement. Photographs may be faked,
and left-handedness imitated. But the character of
the man does not lend itself to any such theory. He
is quiet, practical, unobtrusive, and thoroughly sane
from the Nordau standpoint. He likes beer and
smokes moderately, takes walking exercise daily, and
has a healthily high estimate of the value of his teaching. He has a good but untrained tenor voice, and
takes a pleasure in singing airs of a popular and cheerful character. He is fond, but not morbidly fond, of
reading-chiefly fiction pervaded with a vaguely
pious optimism-sleeps well, and rarely dreams. He
is, in fact, the very last person to evolve a fantastic
fable. Indeed, so far from forcing this story upon the
world, he has been singularly reticent on the matter.
He meets inquirers with a certain engaging-bashfulness is almost the word, that disarms the most suspicious. He seems genuinely ashamed that anything
so unusual has occurred to him.
It is to be regretted that Plattner's aversion to the
idea of post-mortem dissection may postpone, perhaps forever, the positive proof that his entire body
has had its left and right sides transposed. Upon
that fact mainly the credibility of his story hangs.
There is no way of taking a man and moving him
about in space as ordinary people understand space,
that will result in our changing his sides. Whatever
you do, his right is still his right, his left his left. You
can do that with a perfectly thin and flat thing, of
course. If you were to cut a figure out of paper, any
426




THE PLATTNER STORY


figure with a right and left side, you could change its
sides simply by lifting it up and turning it over.
But with a solid it is different. Mathematical theorists tell us that the only way in which the right and
left sides of a solid body can be changed is by taking
that body clean out of space as we know it,-taking it
out of ordinary existence, that is, and turning it somewhere outside space. This is a little abstruse, no
doubt, but any one with a slight knowledge of mathematical theory will assure the reader of its truth. To
put the thing in technical language, the curious inversion of Plattner's right and left sides is proof that he
has moved out of our space into what is called the
Fourth Dimension, and that he has returned again
to our world. Unless we choose to consider ourselves
the victims of an elaborate and motiveless fabrication,
we are almost bound to believe that this has occurred.
So much for the tangible facts. We come now to
the account of the phenomena that attended his temporary disappearance from the world. It appears
that in the Sussexville Proprietary School, Plattner
not only discharged the duties of Modern Languages
Master, but also taught chemistry, commercial geography, bookkeeping, shorthand, drawing, and any
other additional subject to which the changing fancies of the boys' parents might direct attention. He
knew little or nothing of these various subjects, but
in secondary as distinguished from Board or elementary schools, knowledge in the teacher is, very
properly, by no means so necessary as high moral
character and gentlemanly tone. In chemistry he
was particularly deficient, knowing, he says, nothing
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EARLY FANTASTIC STORIES


beyond the Three Gases (whatever the three gases
may be). As, however, his pupils began by knowing
nothing, and derived all their information from him,
this caused him (or any one) but little inconvenience
for several terms. Then a little boy named Whibble
joined the school, who had been educated it seems
by some mischievous relative into an inquiring habit
of mind. This little boy followed Plattner's lessons
with marked and sustained interest, and in order to
exhibit his zeal on the subject, brought at various
times substances for Plattner to analyse. Plattner,
flattered by this evidence of his power to awaken interest and trusting to the boy's ignorance, analysed
these and even made general statements as to their
composition. Indeed he was so far stimulated by
his pupil as to obtain a work upon analytical chemistry, and study it during his supervision of the evening's preparation. He was surprised to find chemistry quite an interesting subject.
So far the story is absolutely commonplace. But
now the greenish powder comes upon the scene. The
source of that greenish powder seems, unfortunately,
lost. Master Whibble tells a tortuous story of finding
it done up in a packet in a disused limekiln near the
Downs. It would have been an excellent thing for
Plattner, and possibly for Master Whibble's family,
if a match could have been applied to that powder
there and then. The young gentleman certainly did
not bring it to school in a packet, but in a common
eight-ounce graduated medicine bottle, plugged with
masticated newspaper. He gave it to Plattner at the
end of the afternoon school. Four boys had been de428




THE PLATTNER STORY


tained after school prayers in order to complete some
neglected tasks, and Plattner was supervising these
in the small classroom in which the chemical teaching
was conducted. The appliances for the practical
teaching of chemistry in the Sussexville Proprietary
School, as in most private schools in this country,
are characterised by a severe simplicity. They are
kept in a cupboard standing in a recess and having
about the same capacity as a common travelling
trunk. Plattner, being bored with his passive superintendence, seems to have welcomed the intervention
of Whibble with his green powder as an agreeable diversion, and, unlocking this cupboard, proceeded at
once with his analytical experiments. Whibble sat,
luckily for himself, at a safe distance, regarding him.
The four malefactors, feigning a profound absorption
in their work, watched him furtively with the keenest
interest. For even within the limits of the Three
Gases, Plattner's practical chemistry was, I understand, temerarious.
They are practically unanimous in their account of
Plattner's proceedings. He poured a little of the
green powder into a test-tube, and tried the substance
with water, hydrochloric acid, nitric acid, and sulphuric acid in succession. Getting no result, he
emptied out a little heap-nearly half the bottleful,
in fact-upon a slate and tried a match. He held the
medicine bottle in his left hand. The stuff began to
smoke and melt, and then exploded with deafening
violence and a blinding flash.
The five boys, seeing the flash and being prepared
for catastrophes, ducked below their desks, and
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EARLY FANTASTIC STORIES


were none of them seriously hurt. The window was
blown out into the playground, and the blackboard
on its easel was upset. The slate was smashed to
atoms. Some plaster fell from the ceiling. No other
damage was done to the school edifice or appliances,
and the boys at first, seeing nothing of Plattner, fancied he was knocked down and lying out of their sight
below the desks. They jumped out of their places
to go to his assistance, and were amazed to find the
space empty. Being still confused by the sudden
violence of the report, they hurried to the open door,
under the impression that he must have been hurt,
and have rushed out of the room. But Carson, the
foremost, nearly collided in the doorway with the
principal, Mr. Lidgett.
Mr. Lidgett is a corpulent, excitable man with one
eye. The boys describe him as stumbling into the
room mouthing some of those tempered expletives
irritable schoolmasters accustom themselves to uselest worse befall. "Wretched mumchancer!" he said.
"Where's Mr. Plattner?" The boys are agreed on
the very words. ("Wabbler," "snivelling puppy,"
and "mumchancer" are, it seems, among the ordinary
small change of Mr. Lidgett's scholastic commerce.)
Where's Mr. Plattner? That was a question that
was to be repeated many times in the next few days.
It really seemed as though that frantic hyperbole,
"blown to atoms," had for once realised itself. There
was not a visible particle of Plattner to be seen; not
a drop of blood nor a stitch of clothing to be found.
Apparently he had been blown clean out of existence
and left not a wrack behind. Not so much as would
430




THE PLATTNER STORY


cover a sixpenny piece, to quote a proverbial expression! The evidence of his absolute disappearance as
a consequence of that explosion is indubitable.
It is not necessary to enlarge here upon the commotion excited in the Sussexville Proprietary School,
and in Sussexville and elsewhere, by this event. It
is quite possible, indeed, that some of the readers of
these pages may recall the hearing of some remote
and dying version of that excitement during the last
summer holidays. Lidgett, it would seem, did everything in his power to suppress and minimise the story.
He instituted a penalty of twenty-five lines for any
mention of Plattner's name among the boys, and
stated in the schoolroom that he was clearly aware of
his assistant's whereabouts. He was afraid, he explains, that the possibility of an explosion happening,
in spite of the elaborate precautions taken to minimise the practical teaching of chemistry, might injure
the reputation of the school; and so might any mysterious quality in Plattner's departure. Indeed, he
did everything in his power to make the occurrence
seem as ordinary as possible. In particular, he crossexamined the five eye-witnesses of the occurrence so
searchingly that they began to-doubt the plain evidence of their senses. But, in spite of these efforts,
the tale, in a magnified and distorted state, made a
nine days' wonder in the district, and several parents
withdrew their sons on colourable pretexts. Not the
least remarkable point in the matter is the fact that
a large number of people in the neighbourhood
dreamed singularly vivid dreams of Plattner during
the period of excitement before his return, and that
431




EARLY FANTASTIC STORIES


these dreams had a curious uniformity. In almost
all of them Plattner was seen, sometimes singly,
sometimes in company, wandering about through a
coruscating iridescence. In all cases his face was
pale and distressed, and in some he gesticulated towards the dreamer. One or two of the boys, evidently under the influence of nightmare, fancied that
Plattner approached them with remarkable swiftness,
and seemed to look closely into their very eyes.
Others fled with Plattner from the pursuit of vague
and extraordinary creatures of a globular shape. But
all these fancies were forgotten in inquiries and speculations when, on the Wednesday next but one after
the Monday of the explosion, Plattner returned.
The circumstances of his return were as singular
as those of his departure. So far as Mr. Lidgett's
somewhat choleric outline can be filled in from Plattner's hesitating statements, it would appear that on
Wednesday evening, towards the hour of sunset, the
former gentleman, having dismissed evening preparation, was engaged in his garden, picking and eating
strawberries, a fruit of which he is inordinately fond.
It is a large old-fashioned garden, secured from observation, fortunately, by a high and ivy-covered redbrick wall. Just as he was stooping over a particularly prolific plant, there was a flash in the air and a
heavy thud, and before he could look round, some
heavy body struck him violently from behind. He
was pitched forward, crushing the strawberries he
held in his hand, and with such force that his silk
hat-Mr. Lidgett adheres to the older ideas of scholastic costume-was driven violently down upon his
439




THE PLATTNER STORY


forehead, and almost over one eye. This heavy missile, which slid over him sideways and collapsed into
a sitting posture among the strawberry plants, proved
to be our long-lost Mr. Gottfried Plattner, in an
extremely dishevelled condition. He was collarless
and hatless, his linen was dirty, and there was blood
upon his hands. Mr. Lidgett was so indignant and
surprised that he remained on all fours, and with his
hat jammed down on his eye, while he expostulated
vehemently with Plattner for his disrespectful and
unaccountable conduct.
This scarcely idyllic scene completes what I may
call the exterior version of the Plattner story-its
exoteric aspect. It is quite unnecessary to enter here
into all the details of his dismissal by Mr. Lidgett.
Such details, with the full names and dates and references, will be found in the larger report of these occurrences that was laid before the Society for the Investigation of Abnormal Phenomena. The singular transposition of Plattner's right and left sides was scarcely
observed for the first day or so, and then first in connection with his disposition to write from right to left
across the blackboard. He concealed rather than
ostended this curious confirmatory circumstance, as
he considered it would unfavourably affect his prospects in a new situation. The displacement of his
heart was discovered some months after, when he was
having a tooth extracted under anaesthetics. He
then, very unwillingly, allowed a cursory surgical
examination to be made of himself, with a view to a
brief account in the Journal of Anatomy. That exhausts the statement of the material facts; and we
433




EARLY FANTASTIC STORIES


may now go on to consider Plattner's account of the
matter.
But first let us clearly differentiate between the
preceding portion of this story and what is to follow.
All I have told thus far is established by such evidence
as even a criminal lawyer would approve. Every one
of the witnesses is still alive; the reader, if he have
the leisure, may hunt the lads out to-morrow, or even
brave the terrors of the redoubtable Lidgett, and
cross-examine and trap and test to his heart's content;
Gottfried Plattner himself, and his twisted heart and
his three photographs, are producible. It may be
taken as proved that he did disappear for nine days
as the consequence of an explosion; that he returned
almost as violently, under circumstances in their nature annoying to Mr. Lidgett, whatever the details
of those circumstances may be; and that he returned
inverted, just as a reflection returns from a mirror.
From the last fact, as I have already stated, it follows
almost inevitably that Plattner, during those nine
days, must have been in some state of existence altogether out of space. The evidence to these statements
is, indeed, far stronger than that upon which most
murderers are hanged. But for his own particular
account of where he had been, with its confused explanations and well-nigh self-contradictory details, we
have only Mr. Gottfried Plattner's word. I do not
wish to discredit that, but I must point out-what so
many writers upon obscure psychic phenomena fail to
do-that we are passing here from the practically undeniable to that kind of matter which any reasonable
man is entitled to believe or reject as he thinks proper.
434




THE PLATTNER STORY


The previous statements render it plausible; its discordance with common experience tilts it towards the
incredible. I would prefer not to sway the beam of
the reader's judgment either way, but simply to tell
the story as Plattner told it me.
He gave me his narrative, I may state, at my house
at Chislehurst; and so soon as he had left me that
evening, I went into my study and wrote down everything as I remembered it. Subsequently he was good
enough to read over a typewritten copy, so that its
substantial correctness is undeniable.
He states that at the moment of the explosion he
distinctly thought he was killed. He felt lifted off
his feet and driven forcibly backward. It is a curious fact for psychologists that he thought clearly during his backward flight, and wondered whether he
should hit the chemistry cupboard or the blackboard
easel. His heels struck ground, and he staggered and
fellheavily into a sitting position on something soft
and firm. For a moment the concussion stunned
him. He became aware at once of a vivid scent of
singed hair, and he seemed to hear the voice of Lidgett
asking for him. You will understand that for a time
his mind was greatly confused.
At first he was under the impression that he was
still standing in the classroom. He perceived quite
distinctly the surprise of the boys and-the entry of
Mr. Lidgett. He is quite positive upon that score.
He did not hear their remarks, but that he ascribed
to the deafening effect of the experiment. Things
about him seemed curiously dark and faint, but his
mind explained that on the obvious but mistaken idea
435




EARLY FANTASTIC STORIES


that the explosion had engendered a huge volume of
dark smoke. Through the dimness the figures of
Lidgett and the boys moved, as faint and silent as
ghosts. Plattner's face still tingled with the stinging
heat of the flash. He was, he says, "all muddled."
His first definite thoughts seem to have been of his
personal safety. He thought he was perhaps blinded
and deafened. He felt his limbs and face in a gingerly
manner. Then his perceptions grew clearer, and he
was astonished to miss the old familiar desks and
other schoolroom furniture about him. Only dim,
uncertain, grey shapes stood in the place of these.
Then came a thing that made him shout aloud and
awoke his stunned faculties to instant activity. Two
of the boys, gesticulating, walked one after the other
clean through him! Neither manifested the slightest
consciousness of his presence. It is difficult to imagine the sensation he felt. They came against him, he
says, with no more force than a wisp of mist.
Plattner's first thought after that was that he was
dead. Having been brought up with thoroughly
sound views in these matters, however, he was a little
surprised to find his body still about him. His second
conclusion was that he was not dead, but that the
others were; that the explosion had destroyed the
Sussexville Proprietary School and every soul in it
except himself. But that, too, was scarcely satisfactory. He was thrown back upon astonished observation.
Everything about him was profoundly dark; at
first it seemed to have an altogether ebony blackness.
Overhead was a black firmament. The only touch
436




THE PLATTNER STORY


of light in the scene was a faint greenish glow at the
edge of the sky in one direction, which threw into
prominence a horizon of undulating black hills. This,
I say, was his impression at first. As his eye grew
accustomed to the darkness, he began to distinguish
a faint quality of differentiating greenish colour in the
circumambient night. Against this background the
furniture and occupants of the classroom, it seems,
stood out like phosphorescent spectres, faint and
impalpable. He extended his hand, and thrust it
without an effort through the wall of the room by the
fireplace.
He describes himself as making a strenuous effort
to attract attention. He shouted to Lidgett, and
tried to seize the boys as they went to and fro. He
only desisted from these attempts when Mrs. Lidgett,
whom he as an Assistant Master naturally disliked,
entered the room. He says the sensation of being in
the world, and yet not a part of it, was an extraordinarily disagreeable one. He compared his feelings
not inaptly to those of a cat watching a mouse
through a window. Whenever he made a motion to
communicate with the dim, familiar world about him,
he found an invisible, incomprehensible barrier preventing intercourse.
He then turned his attention to his solid environment. He found the medicine bottle still unbroken
in his hand, with the remainder of the green powder
therein. He put this in his pocket, and began to feel
about him. Apparently he was sitting on a boulder
of rock covered with-a velvety moss. The dark country about him he was unable to see, the faint, misty
437




EARLY FANTASTIC STORIES


picture of the schoolroom blotting it out, but he had
a feeling (due perhaps to a cold wind) that he was
near the crest of a hill, and that a steep valley fell
away beneath his feet. The green glow along the
edge of the sky seemed to be growing in extent and
intensity. He stood up, rubbing his eyes.
It would seem that he made a few steps, going
steeply downhill, and then stumbled, nearly fell, and
sat down again upon a jagged mass of rock to watch
the dawn. He became aware that the world about
him was absolutely silent. It was as still as it was
dark, and though there was a cold wind blowing up
the hill-face, the rustle of grass, the soughing of the
boughs that should have accompanied it were absent.
He could hear, therefore, if he could not see, that the
hillside upon which he stood was rocky and desolate.
The green grew brighter every moment, and as it did
so a faint, transparent blood-red mingled with, but
did not mitigate, the blackness of the sky overhead
and the rocky desolations about him. Having regard
to what follows, I am inclined to think that that redness may have been an optical effect due to contrast.
Something black fluttered momentarily against the
livid yellow-green of the lower sky, and then the thin
and penetrating voice of a bell rose out of the black
gulf below him. An oppressive expectation grew
with the growing light.
It is probable that an hour or more elapsed while
he sat there, the strange green light growing brighter
every moment, and spreading slowly, in flamboyant
fingers, upward towards the zenith. As it grew, the
spectral vision of our world became relatively or abso438




THE PLATTNER STORY


lutely fainter. Probably both, for the time must
have been about that of our earthly sunset. So far
as his vision of our world went, Plattner by his few
steps downhill had passed through the floor of the
classroom and was now, it seemed, sitting in mid-air
in the larger schoolroom downstairs. He saw the
boarders distinctly, but much more faintly than he
had seen Lidgett. They were preparing their evening
tasks, and he noticed with interest that several were
cheating with their Euclid riders by means of a crib,
a compilation whose existence he had hitherto never
suspected. As the time passed they faded steadily,
as steadily as the light of the green dawn increased.
Looking down into the valley, he saw that the light
had crept far down its rocky sides, and that the profound blackness of the abyss was now broken by a
minute green glow, like the light of a glowworm.
And almost immediately the limb of a huge heavenly
body of blazing green rose over the basaltic undulations of the distant hills, and the monstrous hillmasses about him came out gaunt and desolate, in
green light and deep, ruddy black shadows. He became aware of a vast number of ball-shaped objects
drifting as thistle-down drifts over the high ground.
There were none of these nearer to him than the opposite side of the gorge. The bell below twanged
quicker and quicker with something like impatient
insistence, and several lights moved hither and
thither. The boys at work at their desks were now
almost imperceptibly faint.
This extinction of our world, when the green sun of
this other universe rose, is a curious point upon which
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EARLY FANTASTIC STORIES


Plattner insists. During the Other-World night
it is difficult to move about, on account of the vividness with which the things of this world are visible.
It becomes a riddle to explain why, if this is the case,
we in this world catch no glimpse of the Other-World.
It is due, perhaps, to the comparatively vivid illumination of this world of ours. Plattner describes the
mid day of the Other-World, at its brightest, as not
being nearly so bright as this world at full moon, while
its night is profoundly black. Consequently, the
amount of light, even in an ordinary dark room, is
sufficient to render the things of the Other-World invisible, on the same principle that faint phosphorescence is only visible in the profoundest darkness. I
have tried, since he told me his story, to see something of the Other-World by sitting for a long space
in a photographer's dark room at night. I have certainly seen indistinctly the form of greenish slopes and
rocks, but only, I must admit, very indistinctly indeed. The reader may possibly be more successful.
Plattner tells me that since his return he has seen and
recognised places in the Other-World in his dreams,
but this is probably due to his memory of these scenes.
It seems quite possible that people with unusually
keen eyesight may occasionally catch a glimpse of
this strange Other-World about us.
However, this is a digression. As the green sun
rose, a long street of black buildings became perceptible, though only darkly and indistinctly, in the gorge,
and after some hesitation, Plattner began to clamber
down the precipitous descent towards them. The
descent was long and exceedingly tedious, being so
440




THE PLATTNER STORY


not only by the extraordinary steepness, but also by
reason of the looseness of the boulders with which
the whole face of the hill was strewn. The noise of his
descent-now and then his heels struck fire from the
rocks-seemed now the only sound in the universe,
for the beating of the bell had ceased. As he drew
nearer he perceived that the various edifices had a
singular resemblance to tombs and mausoleums and
monuments, saving only that they were all uniformly
black instead of being white as most sepulchres are.
And then he saw, crowding out of the largest building
very much as people disperse from church, a number
of pallid, rounded, pale-green figures. These scattered in several directions about the broad street of
the place, some going through side alleys and reappearing upon the steepness of the hill, others entering
some of the small black buildings which lined the way.
At the sight of these things drifting up towards him,
Plattner stopped, staring. They were not walking,
they were indeed limbless; and they had the appearance of human heads beneath which a tadpole-like
body swung. He was too astonished at their strangeness, too full indeed of strangeness, to be seriously
alarmed by them. They drove towards him, in front
of the chill wind that was blowing uphill, much as
soap-bubbles drive before a draught. And as he
looked at the nearest of those approaching, he saw it
was indeed a human head, albeit with singularly large
eyes, and wearing such an expression of distress and
anguish as he had never seen before upon mortal
countenance. He was surprised to find that it did
not turn to regard him, but seemed to be watching
441




EARLY FANTASTIC STORIES


and following some unseen moving thing. For a moment he was puzzled, and then it occurred to him
that this creature was watching with its enormous
eyes something that was happening in the world he
had just left. Nearer it came, and nearer, and he
was too astonished to cry out. It made a very faint
fretting sound as it came close to him. Then it struck
his face with a gentle pat-its touch was very coldand drove past him, and upward towards the crest of
the hill.
An extraordinary conviction flashed across Plattner's mind that this head had a strong likeness to
Lidgett. Then he turned his attention to the other
heads that were now swarming thickly up the hillside. None made the slightest sign of recognition.
One or two, indeed, came close to his head and almost
followed the example of the first, but he dodged convulsively out of the way. Upon most of them he saw
the same expression of unavailing regret he had seen
upon the first, and heard the same faint sounds of
wretchedness from them. One or two wept, and one
rolling swiftly uphill wore an expression of diabolical
rage. But others were cold, and several had a look
of gratified interest in their eyes. One, at least, was
almost in an ecstasy of happiness. Plattner does not
remember that he recognised any more likenesses in
those he saw at this time.
For several hours, perhaps, Plattner watched these
strange things dispersing themselves over the hills,
and not till long after they had ceased to issue from
the clustering black buildings in the gorge did he resume his downward climb. The darkness about him
442




THE PLATTNER STORY


increased so much that he had a difficulty in stepping
true. Overhead the sky was now a bright pale green.
He felt neither-hunger nor thirst. Later, when he did,
he found a chilly stream running down the centre of
the gorge, and the rare moss upon the boulders, when
he tried it at last in desperation, was good to eat.
He groped about among the tombs that ran down
the gorge, seeking vaguely for some clue to these inexplicable things. After a long time he came to the
entrance of the big mausoleum-like building from
which the heads had issued. In this he found a group
of green lights burning upon a kind of basaltic altar,
and a bell-rope from a belfry overhead hanging down
into the centre of the place. Round the wall ran a
lettering of fire in a character unknown to him. While
he was still wondering at the purport of these things,
he heard the receding tramp of heavy feet echoing far
down the street. He ran out into the darkness again,
but he could see nothing. He had a mind to pull the
bell-rope, and finally decided to follow the footsteps.
But although he ran far, he never overtook them;
and his shouting was of no avail The gorge seemed
to extend an interminable distance. It was as dark
as earthly starlight throughout its length, while the
ghastly green day lay along the upper edge of its precipices. There were none of the heads, now, below.
They were all, it seemed, busily occupied along the
upper slopes. Looking up, he saw them drifting
hither and thither, some hovering stationary, some
flying swiftly through the air. It reminded him, he
said, of "big snowflakes"; only these were black and
pale green.
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EARLY FANTASTIC STORIES


In pursuing the firm, undeviating footsteps that he
never overtook, in groping into new regions of this
endless devil's dyke, in clambering up and down the
pitiless heights, in wandering about the summits, and
in watching the drifting faces, Plattner states that he
spent the better part of seven or eight days. He did
not keep count, he says. Though once or twice he
found eyes watching him, he had word with no living
soul. He slept among the rocks on the hillside. In
the gorge things earthly were invisible, because, from
the earthly standpoint, it was far underground. On
the altitudes, so soon as the earthly day began, the
world became visible to him. He found himself
sometimes stumbling over the dark-green rocks, or
arresting himself on a precipitous brink, while all
about him the green branches of the Sussexville lanes
were swaying; or, again, he seemed to be walking
through the Sussexville streets, or watching unseen
the private business of some household. And then it
was he discovered, that to almost every human being
in our world there pertained some of these drifting
heads; that every one in the world is watched intermittently by these helpless disembodiments.
What are they-these Watchers of the Living?
Plattner never learned. But two that presently
found and followed him, were like his childhood's
memory of his father and mother. Now and then
other faces turned their eyes upon him: eyes like those
of dead people who had swayed him, or injured him,
or helped him in his youth and manhood. Whenever
they looked at him, Plattner was overcome with a
strange sense of responsibility. To his mother he ven44




THE PLATTNER STORY


tured to speak; but she made no answer. She looked
sadly, steadfastly, and tenderly-a little reproachfully too, it seemed-into his eyes.
He simply tells this story; he does not endeavour to
explain. We are left to surmise who these Watchers
of the Living may be, or, if they are indeed the Dead,
why they should so closely and passionately watch a
world they have left forever. It may be-indeed to
my mind it seems just-that, when our life has closed,
when evil or good is no longer a choice for us, we may
still have to witness the working out of the train of
consequences we have laid. If human souls continue
after death, then surely human interests continue
after death. But that is merely my own guess at the
meaning of the things seen. Plattner offers no interpretation, for none was given him. It is well the
reader should understand this clearly. Day after
day, with his head reeling, he wandered about this
green-lit world outside the world, weary and, towards the end, weak and hungry. By day-by our
earthly day, that is-the ghostly vision of the old
familiar scenery of Sussexville, all about him, irked
and worried him. He could not see where to put his
feet, and ever and again with a chilly touch one of
these Watching Souls would come against his face.
And after dark the multitude of these Watchers about
him, and their intent distress, confused his mind beyond describing. A great longing to return to the
earthly life that was so near and yet so remote consumed him. The unearthliness of things about him
produced a positively painful mental distress. He
was worried beyond describing by his own particular
445




EARLY FANTASTIC STORIES


followers. He would shout at them to desist from
staring at him, scold at them, hurry away from them.
They were always mute and intent. Run as he might
over the uneven ground, they followed his destinies.
On the ninth day, towards evening, Plattner heard
the invisible footsteps approaching, far away down
the gorge. He was then wandering over the broad
crest of the same hill upon which he hadi fallen in his
entry into this strange Other-World of his. He
turned to hurry down into the gorge, feeling his way
hastily, and was arrested by the sight of the thing
that was happening in a room in a back street near
the school. Both of the people in the room he knew
by sight. The windows were open, the blinds up, and
the setting sun shone clearly into it, so that it came
out quite brightly at first, a vivid oblong of room, lying like a magic-lantern picture upon the black landscape and the livid green dawn. In addition to the
sunlight a candle had just been lit in the room.
On the bed lay a lank man, his ghastly white face
terrible upon the tumbled pillow. His clenched
hands were raised above his head. A little table beside the bed carried a few medicine bottles, some toast
and water, and an empty glass. Every now and then
the lank man's lips fell apart, to indicate a word he
could not articulate. But the woman did not notice
that he wanted anything, because she was busy turning out papers from an old-fashioned bureau in the
opposite corner of the room. At first the picture was
very vivid indeed, but as the green dawn behind it
grew brighter and brighter, so it became fainter and
more and more transparent.
446




THE PLATTNER STORY


As the echoing footsteps paced nearer and nearer,
those footsteps that sound so loud in that OtherWorld and come so silently in this, Plattner perceived
about him a great multitude of dim faces gathering
together out of the darkness and watching the two
people in the room. Never before had he seen so
many of the Watchers of the Living. A multitude
had eyes only for the sufferer in the room, another
multitude, in infinite anguish, watched the woman as
she hunted with greedy eyes for something she could
not find. They crowded about Plattner, they came
across his sight and buffeted his face, the noise of their
unavailing regrets was all about him. He saw clearly
only now and then. At other times the picture quivered dimly, through the veil of green reflections upon
their movements. In the room it must have been
very still, and Plattner says the candle flame streamed
up into a perfectly vertical line of smoke, but in his
ears each footfall and its echoes beat like a clap of
thunder. And the faces! Two more particularly,
near the woman's: one a woman's also, white and
clear-featured, a face which might have once been
cold and hard but which was now softened by the
touch of a wisdom strange to earth. The other might
have been the woman's father. Both were evidently
absorbed in the contemplation of some act of hateful
meanness, so it seemed, which they could no longer
guard against and prevent. Behind were others,
teachers it may be who had taught ill, friends whose
influence had failed. And over the man, too-a multitude, but none that seemed to be parents or teachers! Faces that might once have been coarse, now
447




EARLY FANTASTIC STORIES


purged to strength by sorrow! And in the forefront
one face, a girlish one, neither angry nor remorseful
but merely patient and weary, and, as it seemed to
Plattner, waiting for relief. His powers of description fail him at the memory of this multitude of
ghastly countenances. They gathered on the stroke
of the bell. He saw them all in the space of a second.
It would seem that he was so worked upon by his excitement that quite involuntarily his restless fingers
took the bottle of green powder out of his pocket and
held it before him. But he does not remember that.
Abruptly the footsteps ceased. He waited for the
next and there was silence, and then suddenly, cutting through the unexpected stillness like a keen, thin
blade, came the first stroke of the bell. At that the
multitudinous faces swayed to and fro, and a louder
crying began all about him. The woman did not hear;
she was burning something now in the candle flame.
At the second stroke everything grew dim, and a
breath of wind, icy cold, blew through the host of
watchers.' They swirled about him like an eddy of
dead leaves in the spring, and at the third stroke
something was extended through them to the bed.
You have heard of a beam of light. This was like a
beam of darkness, and looking again at it, Plattner
saw that it was a shadowy arm and hand.
The green sun was now topping the black desolations of the horizon, and the vision of the room was
very faint. Plattner could see that the white of the
bed struggled, and was convulsed; and that the woman looked round over her shoulder at it, startled.
The cloud of watchers lifted high like a puff of green
448




THE PLATTNER STORY


dust before the wind, and swept swiftly downward
towards the temple in the gorge. Then suddenly
Plattner understood the meaning of the shadowy
black arm that stretched across his shoulder and
clutched its prey. He did not dare turn his head to
see the Shadow behind the arm. With a violent
effort, and covering his eyes, he set himself to run,
made perhaps twenty strides, then slipped on a
boulder and fell. He fell forward on his hands; and
the bottle smashed and exploded as he touched the
ground.
In another moment he found himself, stunned and
bleeding, sitting face to face with Lidgett in the old
walled garden behind the school.
There the story of Plattner's experiences ends. I
have resisted, I believe successfully, the natural disposition of a writer of fiction to dress up incidents of
this sort. I have told the thing as far as possible in
the order in which Plattner told it to me. I have
carefully avoided any attempt at style, effect, or construction. It would have been easy, for instance, to
have worked the scene of the death-bed into a kind of
plot in which Plattner might have been involved.
But quite apart from the objectionableness of falsifying a most extraordinary true story, any such trite
devices would spoil, to my mind, the peculiar effect
of this dark world, with its livid green illumination
and its drifting Watchers of the Living which, unseen
and unapproachable to us, is yet lying all about us.
It remains to add that a death did actually occur
in Vincent Terrace, just beyond the school garden,
449




EARLY FANTASTIC STORIES


and, so far as can be proved, at the moment of Plattner's return. Deceased was a rate-collector and insurance agent. His widow, who was much younger
than himself, married last month a Mr. Whymper, a
veterinary surgeon of Allbeeding. As the portion of
this story given here has in various forms circulated
orally in Sussexville, she has consented to my use
of her name, on condition that I make it distinctly
known that she emphatically contradicts every detail of Plattner's account of her husband's last moments. She burned no will, she says, although Plattner never accused her of doing so; her husband made
but one will, and that just after their marriage. Certainly, from a man who had never seen it, Plattner's
account of the furniture of the roomi was curiously
accurate.
One other thing, even at the risk of an irksome
repetition, I must insist upon lest I seem to favour
the credulous, superstitious view. Plattner's absence
from the world for nine days is, I think, proved. But
that does not prove his story. It is quite conceivable
that even outside space hallucinations may be possible. That, at least, the reader must bear distinctly
in mind.


450




THE PURPLE PILEUS


MR. COOMBES was sick of life. He walked away
from his unhappy home, sick not only of his own existence but of everybody else's, turned aside down
Gaswork Lane to avoid the town, crossed the wooden
bridge that goes over the canal to Starling's Cottages,
and was presently alone in the damp pine woods and
out of sight and sound of human habitation. He
would stand it no longer. He repeated aloud with
blasphemies unusual to him that he would stand it no
longer.
He was a pale-faced little man, with dark eyes and
a fine and very black moustache. He had a very stiff,
upright collar slightly frayed, that gave him an illusory double chin, and his overcoat (albeit shabby)
was trimmed with astrachan. His gloves were a
bright brown with black stripes over the knuckles,
and split at the finger ends. His appearance, his
wife had said once in the dear, dead days beyond recall-before he married her, that is-was military.
But now she called him-it seems a dreadful thing to
tell of between husband and wife, but she called him
"a little grub." It wasn't the only thing she had
called him, either.
The row had arisen about that beastly Jennie again.
Jennie was his wife's friend, and by no invitation of
Mr. Coombes, she came in every blessed Sunday to
dinner and made a shindy all the afternoon. She
451




EARLY FANTASTIC STORIES


was a big, noisy girl, with a taste for loud colours and
a strident laugh; and this Sunday she had outdone all
her previous intrusions by bringing in a fellow with
her, a chap as showy as herself. And Mr. Coombes,
in a starchy, clean collar and his Sunday frock-coat,
had sat dumb and wrathful at his own table, while his
wife and her guests talked foolishly and undesirably,
and laughed aloud. Well, he stood that, and after
dinner (which, "as usual," was late), what must Miss
Jennie do but go to the piano and play banjo tunes,
for all the world as if it were a week-day! Flesh and
blood could not endure such goings on. They would
hear next door, they would hear in the road, it was a
public announcement of their disrepute. He had to
speak.
He had felt himself go pale, and a kind of rigour had
affected his respiration as he delivered himself. He
had been sitting on one of the chairs by the windowthe new guest had taken possession of the armchair.
He turned his head. "Sun Day!" he said over the
collar, in the voice of one who warns. "Sun Day!"
What people call a "nasty" tone, it was.
Jennie had kept on playing, but his wife, who was
looking through some music that was piled on the top
of the piano, had stared at him. "What's wrong
now?" she said; "can't people enjoy themselves?"
"I don't mind rational 'njoyment at all," said little
Coombes, "but I ain't a-going to have week-day
tunes playing on a Sunday in this house."
"What's wrong with my playing now?" said Jennie, stopping and twirling round on the music-stool
with a monstrous rustle of flounces.
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THE PURPLE PILEUS


Coombes saw it was going to be a row, and opened
too vigorously, as is common with your timid, nervous
men all the world over. "Steady on with that musicstool!" said he; "it ain't made for 'eavyweights."
"Never you mind about weights," said Jennie, incensed. "What was you saying behind my back
about my playing?"
"Surely you don't 'old with not having a bit of
music on a Sunday, Mr. Coombes?" said the new
guest, leaning back in the armchair, blowing a cloud
of cigarette smoke and smiling in a kind of pitying
way. And simultaneously his wife said something to
Jennie about "Never mind 'im. You go on, Jinny."
"I do," said Mr. Coombes, addressing the new
guest.
"May I arst why?" said the new guest, evidently
enjoying both his cigarette and the prospect of an
argument. He was, by the bye, a lank young man,
very stylishly dressed in bright drab, with a white
cravat and a pearl and silver pin. It had been better
taste to come in a black coat, Mr. Coombes thought.
"Because," began Mr. Coombes, "it don't suit me.
I'm a business man. I 'ave to study my connection.
Rational 'njoyment —  "
"His connection!" said Mrs. Coombes scornfully.
"That's what he's always a-saying. We got to do
this, and we got to do that —"
"If you don't mean to study my connection," said
Mr. Coombes, "what did you marry me for?"
"I wonder," said Jennie, and turned back to the
piano.
"I never saw such a man as you," said Mrs.
453




EARLY FANTASTIC STORIES


Coombes. "You've altered all round since we were
married. Before   -"
Then Jennie began at the turn, turn, tum again.
"Look here!" said Mr. Coombes, driven at last to
revolt, standing up and raising his voice. "I tell you
I won't have that." The frock-coat heaved with his
indignation.
"No vi'lence, now," said the long young man in
drab, sitting up.
"Who the juice are you?" said Mr. Coombes
fiercely.
Whereupon they all began talking at once. The
new guest said he was Jennie's "intended," and meant
to protect her, and Mr. Coombes said he was welcome
to do so anywhere but in his (Mr. Coombes's) house;
and Mrs. Coombes said he ought to be ashamed of
insulting his guests, and (as I have already mentioned) that he was getting a regular little grub; and
the end was, that Mr. Coombes ordered his visitors
out of the house, and they wouldn't go, and so he said
he would go himself. With his face burning and
tears of excitement in his eyes, he went into the
passage, and as he struggled with his overcoat-his
frock-coat sleeves got concertinaed up his arm-and
gave a brush at his silk hat, Jennie began again at the
piano, and strummed him insultingly out of the house.
Turn, tum, turn. He slammed the shop door so that
the house quivered. That, briefly, was the immediate
making of his mood. You will perhaps begin to
understand his disgust with existence.
As he walked along the muddy path under the firs,
-it was late October, and the ditches and heaps of fir
454




THE PURPLE PILEUS


needles were gorgeous with clumps of fungi,-he recapitulated the melancholy history of his marriage.
It was brief and commonplace enough. He now perceived with sufficient clearness that his wife had married him out of a natural curiosity and in order to
escape from her worrying, laborious, and uncertain
life in the workroom; and, like the majority of her
class, she was far too stupid to realise that it was her
duty to co-operate with him in his business. She was
greedy of enjoyment, loquacious, and socially minded,
and evidently disappointed to find the restraints of
poverty still hanging about her. His worries exasperated her, and the slightest attempt to control her
proceedings resulted in a charge of "grumbling."
Why couldn't he be nice-as he used to be? And
Coombes was such a harmless little man, too, nourished mentally on Self-Help, and with a meagre
ambition of self-denial and competition that was to
end in a "sufficiency." Then Jennie came in as a female Mephistopheles, a gabbling chronicle of "fellers," and was always wanting his wife to go to theatres and "all that." And in addition were aunts of
his wife, and cousins (male and. female) to eat up
capital, insult him personally, upset business arrangements, annoy good customers, and generally blight
his life. It was not the first occasion by. many that
Mr. Coombes had fled his home in wrath and indignation and something like fear, vowing furiously and
even aloud that he.wouldn't stand it, and so frothing
away his energy along the line of least resistance.
But never before had he been quite so sick of life as
on this particular Sunday afternoon. The Sunday
455




EARLY FANTASTIC STORIES


dinner may have had its share in his despair-and the
greyness of the sky. Perhaps, too, he was beginning
to realise his unendurable frustration as a business
man as the consequence of his marriage. Presently
bankruptcy, and after that- Perhaps she might
have reason to repent when it was too late. And
destiny, as I have already intimated, had planted the
path through the wood with evil-smelling fungi,
thickly and variously planted it, not only on the right
side but on the left.
A small shopman is in such a melancholy position
if his wife turns out a disloyal partner. His capital is
all tied up in his business, and to leave her means to
join the unemployed in some strange part of the earth.
The luxuries of divorce are beyond him altogether.
So that the good old tradition of marriage for better
or worse holds inexorably for him, and things work up
to tragic culminations. Bricklayers kick their wives
to death, and dukes betray theirs; but it is among the
small clerks and shopkeepers nowadays that it comes
most often to a cutting of throats. Under the circumstances it is not so very remarkable-and you
must take it as charitably as you can-that the mind
of Mr. Coombes ran for a while on some such glorious
close to his disappointed hopes, and that he thought
of razors, pistols, bread-knives, and touching letters
to the coroner denouncing his enemies by name, and
praying piously for forgiveness. After a time his
fierceness gave way to melancholia. He had been
married in this very overcoat, in his first and only
frock-coat that was buttoned up beneath it. He began to recall their courting along this very walk, his
456




THE PURPLE PILEUS


years of penurious saving to get capital, and the
bright hopefulness of his marrying days. For it all
to work out like this! Was there no sympathetic
ruler anywhere in the world? He reverted to death
as a topic.
He thought of the canal he had just crossed, and
doubted whether he shouldn't stand with his head
out, even in the middle, and it was while drowning
was in his mind that the purple pileus caught his eye.
He looked at it mechanically for a moment, and
stopped and stooped towards it to pick it up under
the impression that it was some such small leather
object as a purse. Then he saw that it was the purple
top of a fungus, a peculiarly poisonous-looking purple: slimy, shiny, and emitting a sour odour. He
hesitated with his hand an inch or so from it, and the
thought of poison crossed his mind. With that he
picked the thing, and stood up again with it in his
hand.
The odour was certainly strong-acrid, but by no
means disgusting. He broke off a piece, and the
fresh surface was a creamy white that changed like
magic in the space of ten seconds to a yellowish-green
colour. It was even an inviting-looking change. He
broke off two other pieces to see it repeated. They
were wonderful things these fungi, thought Mr.
Coombes, and all of them the deadliest poisons, as
his father had often told him. Deadly poisons!
There is no time like the present for a rash resolve.
Why not here and now? thought Mr. Coombes. He
tasted a little piece, a very little piece indeed-a mere
crumb. It was so pungent that he almost spat it out
457




EARLY FANTASTIC STORIES


again, then merely hot and full-flavoured: a kind of
German mustard with a touch of horseradish andwell, mushroom. He swallowed it in the excitement
of the moment. Did he like it or did he not? His
mind was curiously careless. He would try another
bit. It really wasn't bad-it was good. He forgot
his troubles in the interest of the immediate moment.
Playing with death it was. He took another bite,
and then deliberately finished a mouthful. A curious, tingling sensation began in his finger-tips and
toes. His pulse began to move faster. The blood in
his ears sounded like a mill-race. "Try bi' more,"
said Mr. Coombes. He turned and looked about
him, and found his feet unsteady. He saw, and
struggled towards, a little patch of purple a dozen
yards away. "Jol' goo' stuff," said Mr. Coombes.
"E-lomore ye'." He pitched forward and fell on his
face, his hands outstretched towards the cluster of
pilei. But he did not eat any more of them. He forgot forthwith.
He rolled over and sat up with a look of astonishment on his face. His carefully brushed silk hat had
rolled away towards the ditch. He pressed his hand
to his brow. Something had happened, but he could
not rightly determine what it was. Anyhow, he was
no longer dull-he felt bright, cheerful. And his
throat was afire. He laughed in the sudden gaiety of
his heart. Had he been dull? He did not know; but
at any rate he would be dull no longer. He got up
and stood unsteadily, regarding the universe with an
agreeable smile. He began to remember. He could
not remember very well, because of a steam round458




THE PURPLE PILEUS


about that was beginning in his head. And he knew
he had been disagreeable at home, just because they
wanted to be happy. They were quite right; life
should be as gay as possible. He would go home and
make it up, and reassure them. And why not take
some of this delightful toadstool with him, for them
to eat? A hatful, no less. Some of those red ones
with white spots as well, and a few yellow. He had
been a dull dog, an enemy to merriment; he would
make up for it. It would be gay to turn his coatsleeves inside out, and stick some yellow gorse into
his waistcoat pockets. Then home-singing-for a
jolly evening.
After the departure of Mr. Coombes, Jennie discontinued playing, and turned round on the musicstool again. "What a fuss about nothing!" said
Jennie.
"You see, Mr. Clarence, what I've got to put up
with," said Mrs. Coombes.
"He is a bit hasty," said Mr. Clarence judicially.
"He ain't got the slightest sense of our position,"
said Mrs. Coombes; "that's what I complain of. He
cares for nothing but his old shop; and if I have a bit
of company, or buy anything to keep myself decent,
or get any little thing I want out of the housekeeping
money, there's disagreeables. 'Economy,' he says;
'struggle for life,' and all that. He lies awake of
nights about it, worrying how he can screw me out of
a shilling. He wanted us to eat Dorset butter once.
If once I was to give in to him-there!"
"Of course," said Jennie.
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"If a man values a woman," said Mr. Clarence,
lounging back in the armchair, "he must be prepared
to make sacrifices for her. For my own part," said
Mr. Clarence, with his eye on Jennie, "I shouldn't
think of marrying till I was in a position to do the
thing in style. It's downright selfishness. A man
ought to go through the rough-and-tumble by himself, and 'not drag her  "
"I don't agree altogether with that," said Jennie.
"I don't see why a man shouldn't have a woman's
help, provided he doesn't treat her meanly, you know.
It's meanness     -"
"You wouldn't believe," said Mrs. Coombes. "But
I was a fool to 'ave 'im. I might 'ave known. If it
'adn't been for my father, we shouldn't 'ave 'ad not a
carriage to our wedding."
"Lord! he didn't stick out at that?" said Mr.
Clarence, quite shocked.
"Said he wanted the money for his stock, or some
such rubbish. Why, he wouldn't have a woman in to
help me once a week if it wasn't for my standing out
plucky. And the fusses he makes about moneycomes to me, well, pretty near crying, with sheets of
paper and figgers. 'If only we can tide over this year,'
he says, 'the business is bound to go.' 'If only we can
tide over this year,' I says; 'then it'll be, if only we
can tide over next year. I know you,' I says. 'And
you don't catch me screwing myself lean and ugly.
Why didn't you marry a slavey?' I says, 'if you
wanted one-instead of a respectable girl,' I says."
So Mrs. Coombes. But we will not follow this unedifying conversation further. Suffice it that Mr.
460




THE PURPLE PILEUS


Coombes was very satisfactorily disposed of, and they
had a snug little time round the fire. Then Mrs.
Coombes went to get the tea, and Jennie sat coquettishly on the arm of Mr. Clarence's chair until the
tea-things clattered outside.  "What was that I
heard?" asked Mrs. Coombes playfully, as she
entered, and there was badinage about kissing. They
were just sitting down to the little circular table when
the first intimation of Mr. Coombes's return was
heard.
This was a fumbling at the latch of the front door.
"'Ere's my lord," said Mrs. Coombes. "Went out
like a lion and comes back like a lamb, I'll lay."
Something fell over in the shop: a chair, it sounded
like. Then there was a sound as of some complicated
step exercise in the passage. Then the door opened
and Coombes appeared. But it was Coombes transfigured. The immaculate collar had been torn carelessly from his throat. His carefully brushed silk
hat, half-full of a crush of fungi, was under one arm;
his coat was inside out, and his waistcoat adorned
with bunches of yellow-blossomed furze. These little
eccentricities of Sunday costume, however, were quite
overshadowed by the change in his face; it was livid
white, his eyes were unnaturally large and bright, and
his pale-blue lips were drawn back in a cheerless grin.
"Merry!" he said. He had stopped dancing to open
the door. "Rational 'njoyment. Dance." He made
three fantastic steps into the room, and stood bowing.
"Jim!" shrieked Mrs. Coombes, and Mr. Clarence
sat petrified, with a dropping lower jaw.
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EARLY FANTASTIC STORIES
"Tea," said Mr. Coombes. "Jol' thing, tea. Tosestools, too. Brosher."
"He's drunk," said Jennie in a weak voice. Never
before had she seen this intense pallor in a drunken
man, or such shining, dilated eyes.
Mr. Coombes held out a handful of scarlet agaric
to Mr. Clarence. "Jo' stuff," said he; "ta' some."
At that moment he was genial. Then at the sight
of their startled faces he changed, with the swift
transition of insanity, into overbearing fury. And it
seemed as if he had suddenly recalled the quadrrel of
his departure. In such a huge voice as Mrs. Coombes
had never heard before, he shouted: "My house. I'm
master'ere. Eat what I give yer!" He bawled this,
as it seemed, without an effort. without a violent gesture, standing there as motionless as one who whispers, holding out a handful of fungus.
Clarence approved himself a coward. He could
not meet the mad fury in Coombes's eyes; he rose to
his feet, pushing back his chair, and turned, stooping.
At that Coombes rushed at him. Jennie saw her
opportunity, and with the ghost of a shriek made
for the door. Mrs. Coombes followed her. Clarence
tried to dodge. Over went the tea-table with a smash
as Coombes clutched him by the collar and tried to
thrust the fungus into his mouth. Clarence was content to leave his collar behind him, and shot out into
the passage with red patches of fly agaric still adherent to his face. "Shut 'im in!" cried Mrs. Coombes,
and would have closed the door, but her supports
deserted her; Jennie saw the shop door open and
vanished thereby, locking it behind her, while Clar469




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ence went on hastily into the kitchen. Mr. Coombes
came heavily against the door, and Mrs. Coombes,
finding the key was inside, fled upstairs and locked
herself in the spare bedroom.
So the new convert to joie de vivre emerged upon
the passage, his decorations a little scattered, but that
respectable hatful of fungi still under his arm. He
hesitated at the three ways, and decided on the
kitchen. Whereupon Clarence, who was fumbling
with the key, gave up the attempt to imprison his
host and fled into the scullery, only to be captured
before he could open the door into the yard. Mr.
Clarence is singularly reticent of the details of what
occurred. It seems that Mr. Coombes's transitory
irritation had vanished again, and he was once more
a genial playfellow. And as there were knives and
meat-choppers about, Clarence very generously resolved to humour him and so avoid anything tragic.
It is beyond dispute that Mr. Coombes played with
Mr. Clarence to his heart's content; they could not
have been more playful and familiar if they had
known each other for years. He insisted gaily on
Clarence trying the fungi, and, after a friendly tussle,
was smitten with remorse at the mess he was making
of his guest's face. It also appears that Clarence was
dragged under the sink-and his face scrubbed with the
blacking brush-he being still resolved to humour the
lunatic at any cost-and that finally, in a somewhat
dishevelled, chipped, and discoloured condition, he
was assisted to his coat and shown out by the back
door, the shopway being barred by Jennie. Mr.
Coombes's wandering thoughts then turned to Jennie.
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Jennie had been unable to unfasten the shop door,
but she shot the bolts against Mr. Coombes's latchkey, and remained in possession of the shop for the
rest of the evening.
It would appear that Mr. Coombes then returned
to the kitchen, still in pursuit of gaiety, and, albeit a
strict Good Templar, drank (or spilt down the front
of the first and only frock-coat) no less than five
bottles of the stout Mrs. Coombes insisted upon having for her health's sake. He made cheerful noises by
breaking off the necks of the bottles with several of
his wife's wedding-present dinner plates, and during
the earlier part of this great drunk he sang divers
merry ballads. He cut his finger rather badly with
one of the bottles-the only bloodshed in this storyand what with that and the systematic convulsion
of his inexperienced physiology by the liquorish brand
of Mrs. Coombes's stout, it may be the evil of the
fungus poison was somehow allayed. But we prefer
to draw a veil over the concluding incidents of this
Sunday afternoon. They ended in the coal cellar, in
a deep and healing sleep.
An interval of five years elapsed. Again it was a
Sunday afternoon in October, and again Mr. Coombes
walked through the pine wood beyond the canal. He
was still the same dark-eyed, black-moustached little
man that he was at the outset of the story, but his
double chin was now scarcely so illusory as it had
been. His overcoat was new, with a velvet lapel, and
a stylish collar with turn-down corners, free of any
coarse starchiness, had replaced the original all464




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round article. His hat was glossy, his gloves newish
-though one finger had split and been carefully
mended. And a casual observer would have noticed
about him a certain rectitude of bearing, a certain
erectness of head that marks the man who thinks well
of himself. He was a master now, with three assistants. Beside him walked a larger sunburned parody
of himself, his brother Tom, just back from Australia.
They were recapitulating their early struggles, and
Mr. Coombes had just been making a financial statement.
"It's a very nice little business, Jim," said brother
Tom. "In these days of competition you're jolly
lucky to have worked it up so. And you're jolly
lucky, too, to have a wife who's willing to help like
yours does."
"Between ourselves," said Mr. Coombes, "it
wasn't always so. It wasn't always like this. To
begin with, the missus was a bit giddy. Girls are
funny creatures."
"Dear me!"
"Yes. You'd hardly think it, but she was downright extravagant, and always having slaps at me. I
was a bit too easy and loving and all that, and she
thought the whole blessed show was run for her.
Turned the 'ouse into a regular caravansery, always
having her relations and girls from business in, and
their chaps. Comic songs a' Sunday, it was getting
to, and driving trade away. And she was making
eyes at the chaps, too! I tell you, Tom, the place
wasn't my own."
"Shouldn't 'a' thought it."
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"It was so. Well-I reasoned with her. I said:
'I ain't a duke, to keep a wife like a pet animal. I
married you for 'elp and company.' I said: 'You
got to 'elp and pull the business through.' She
wouldn't 'ear of it. 'Very well,' I says; 'I'm a mild
man till I'm roused,' I says, 'and it's getting to that.'
But she wouldn't 'ear of no warnings."
"Well?"
"It's the way with women. She didn't think I 'ad
it in me to be roused. Women of her sort (between
ourselves, Tom) don't respect a man until they're a
bit afraid of him. So I just broke out to show her.
In comes a girl named Jennie, that used to work with
her, and her chap. We 'ad a bit of a row, and I came
out 'ere-it was just such another day as this-and I
thought it all out. Then I went back and pitched into
them."
"You did?"
"I did. I was mad, I can tell you. I wasn't going
to 'it 'er, if I could 'elp it, so I went back and licked
into this chap, just to show 'er what I could do. 'E
was a big chap, too. Well, I chucked him, and
smashed things about, and gave 'er a scaring, and she
ran up and locked 'erself into the spare room."
"Well?"
"That's all. I says to 'er the next morning, 'Now
you know,' I says, 'what I'm like when I'm roused.'
And I didn't have to say anything more."
"And you've been happy ever after, eh?"
"So to speak. There's nothing like putting your
foot down with them. If it 'adn't been for that afternoon I should 'a' been tramping the roads now, and
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she'd 'a' been grumbling at me, and all her family
grumbling for bringing her to poverty-I know their
little ways. But we're all right now. And it's a very
decent little business, as you say."
They proceeded on their way meditatively. "Women are funny creatures," said brother Tom.
"They want a firm hand," said Coombes.
"What a lot of these funguses there are about
here!" remarked brother Tom presently. "I can't
see what use they are in the world."
Mr. Coombes looked. "I dessay they're sent for
some wise purpose," says Mr. Coombes.
And that was as much thanks as the purple pileus
ever got for maddening this absurd little man to the
pitch of decisive action, and so altering the whole
course of his life.


467