五。
黄金时代
“再过片刻，我和这个来自未来世界的脆弱小东西已面面相觑。他径直走到我跟前，望着我的眼睛笑了起来。他举止间全无半点惧色，这立刻引起了我的注意。接着他转向跟在身后的另外两个，用一种奇异、甜美而如水般流转的语言说了几句。
“又有其他人走来，不一会儿，大约八到十个这般精致的小生物便围在了我身边。其中一个开口对我说话。说来奇怪，我脑中忽然冒出一个念头：我的嗓音对他们而言太粗厉、太低沉了。于是我摇了摇头，指了指耳朵，又摇了摇头。他向前迈了一步，犹疑着，然后触了触我的手。接着，我感到其他柔软的小触须攀上了我的背和肩。他们想确认我是真实的。这丝毫不可怕。的确，这些漂亮的小人儿身上有种令人信任的气质——一种优雅的温婉，一种天真的从容。况且，他们看上去那么娇弱，我简直能把自己想象成可将他们整打像九柱戏的木瓶般随手抛玩。可是，当我瞧见他们粉嫩的小手在摸弄时间机器时，猛地做了个警告的手势。幸而那时还不算晚，我想起了此前忽略的一个危险，便探过机器的栏杆，拧下那几个能启动它的小操纵杆，放进了口袋。然后我再次转身，看自己能在交流上做点什么。
“继而，更近地端详他们的面容，我在这类德累斯顿瓷般精致的俊秀中看出了另一些特异之处。他们的头发一律卷曲，却在脖颈和脸颊处戛然而止；脸上全无毫毛的踪影，耳朵也小得离奇。嘴很小，唇色鲜红而略薄，小小的下巴尖尖的。眼睛大而柔和；而且——这或许显得有些自以为是——我甚至觉得，他们对我本该有的那份兴致似乎有所欠缺。
“既然他们并不打算与我交谈，只是围着我站定微笑，用轻柔如鸽鸣的调子彼此说话，我便开了口。我指了指时间机器，又指了指自己。随后，犹豫片刻不知如何表达‘时间’，我便指向太阳。立刻，一个穿紫白格子衣裙、俏皮可爱的小家伙跟着我的手势，接着竟模仿起雷声，让我吃了一惊。
“我一时怔住，尽管他手势的含意再明白不过。一个问题猛地闯进脑海：这些生物是傻子吗？你或许很难体会这如何震撼了我。你看，我向来以为，公元八十万零二千多年的子孙，在知识、艺术乃至一切方面都该遥遥领先于我们。可其中一人忽然问我一个问题，显出不过五岁孩童的心智——他竟问我是不是在雷暴里从太阳上来的！这让我对先前暂未下判语的他们的衣饰、纤巧轻弱的四肢和娇脆的面容，一下子释放了论断。一阵失望涌过心头。有那么一刻，我觉得自己造时间机器是白费力气。
“我点点头，指了指太阳，又给他们来了一记活灵活现的雷响，惊得他们直退一两步，鞠躬行礼。接着一个小家伙笑着朝我走来，拿着一串我从未见过的美丽花链，绕上了我的脖子。这主意博得悦耳的掌声；很快他们都跑去寻花，笑嘻嘻地往我身上抛，直到我几乎被花朵埋住。你们没见过这等景象的，简直难以想象经无数年栽培而生的花朵是何等纤巧奇绝。随后有人提议把这玩物带去最近的建筑里展览，于是我被领着走过那座白色大理石狮身人面像——它仿佛始终带着对我惊愕的微笑在旁观——走向一座满是镂雕巨石、灰扑扑的庞然建筑。跟他们走时，我曾笃定后代必是深沉睿智的预想，带着无可抗拒的滑稽感浮上心头。
“那建筑门廊巨大，整体尺寸惊人。我自然最留意的是越来越多的小人儿，以及面前张着幽暗神秘大口般的敞亮门户。从他们头顶望见的世界，总体印象是一片纠缠丛生的美丽灌木与花卉，一座久被荒废却无杂草的园子。我看见几株高高的奇白花穗，蜡质花瓣铺开约有一尺宽。它们散生在各色灌木间，宛若野长，但正如所说，那时我并未细看。时间机器孤零零留在杜鹃花丛的草地上。
“门道拱券雕饰繁丽，可我自然没太细察那些雕刻，虽走过时恍惚见有古腓尼基纹样的意味，且觉得它们破损风蚀得厉害。门口又迎面遇上几个衣色更鲜亮的人，于是我们走进去——我穿着十九世纪灰暗衣裳，满身花环，模样够怪诞的，被一团漩涡般流转的明丽柔色长袍与闪亮白肢围着，陷在笑声与笑语的音漩里。
“大门通向一座比例相称的大厅，壁上挂褐。屋顶隐在暗处，窗户部分嵌着彩玻璃，部分无玻璃，透进柔和的光。地面由巨块极硬的白金属铺成，不是板也不是片——是块，依往来世代的踩踏看，磨损极深，常走处已犁出深沟。与厅长垂直的方向上，无数石磨平板做的桌子，约离地一尺，上面堆着水果。有些我认出是某种肥大的覆盆子和橘子，但多半陌生。
“桌间散放许多坐垫。引路者自己坐下，示意我也如此。他们毫不讲究礼数，用手抓起水果就吃，把皮、梗之类抛进桌侧圆孔。我正又渴又饿，乐于仿效。边吃边从容打量大厅。
“或许最令我触目的，是那破败相。只显几何纹的彩窗多处破碎，低处悬挂的帘幕积着厚尘。我还注意到近旁大理石桌角有裂痕。然而整体观感仍极富丽如画。厅里用餐的约有两百人，大多尽量挨近坐，边吃边用闪亮小眼好奇望我。全都穿着同种柔软却结实的丝料。
“顺带说，水果是他们唯一的食物。这些远未来的人严格素食，我在他们中间时，虽有些肉食念头，也只得吃果。后来确知，马、牛、羊、狗都已随鱼龙灭绝。但果子甚美；尤其一种，我停留时似乎常当令——三方壳里裹粉质的东西——特别好，成了我的主食。起初我对这些奇果奇花困惑不解，后来才渐悟其意。
“不过，我现下讲的是在远未来的水果宴。食欲稍遏，我便决意狠下功夫学这些新同胞的言语。显然下一步该做这个。水果似便入手，我举起一个，发出连串询问声与手势。表意颇费周折。起初只换来惊 stare 或止不住的笑，但不久一个浅发小家伙似懂我意，念了个名。他们彼此叽喳解释半晌，而我初学他们语言里精妙小音时，惹出好一阵真心却失礼的哄笑。然而我如学童间的先生，坚持不退，不久至少攒下二十来个名词；进而指示代词，甚至‘吃’的动词。但进度慢，小人儿很快厌了，想躲我追问，我只好出于无奈，由他们乐意时零碎教些。而不久便发现，那剂量极小——我从未见比他们更懒、更易疲的人。
V.
In the Golden Age
“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 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 ninepins. 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 Dresden china 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, 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 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 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 someone 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 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 naturally I did not
observe the carving very narrowly, though I fancied I saw suggestions
of old Phœnician 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 loath to follow their
example, for I felt thirsty 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.
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 difficulty
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 genuine, if uncivil, 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.
