📝 您未登录，登录后完成练习可保存成绩、查看最佳记录。
总字符
0
正确字符
0
错误字符
0
错误率
0.00%
耗时(秒)
0
速度 WPM
0
0 / 63
1After the Story "I know," he said, after a pause, "that all this will be absolutely incredible to you, but to me the one
2incredible thing is that I am here tonight in this old familiar room looking into your friendly faces and telling you
3these strange adventures." He looked at the Medical Man. "No. I cannot expect you to believe it. Take it as a lie--or a
4prophecy. Say I dreamed it in the workshop. Consider I have been speculating upon the destinies of our race, until I
5have hatched this fiction. Treat my assertion of its truth as a mere stroke of art to enhance its interest. And taking
6it 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
7nervously upon the bars of the grate. There was a momentary stillness. Then chairs began to creak and shoes to scrape
8upon the carpet. I took my eyes off the Time Traveller's face, and looked round at his audience. They were in the dark,
9and little spots of colour swam before them. The Medical Man seemed absorbed in the contemplation of our host. The
10Editor was looking hard at the end of his cigar--the sixth. The Journalist fumbled for his watch. The others, as far as
11I remember, were motionless. The Editor stood up with a sigh. "What a pity it is you're not a writer of stories!" he
12said, putting his hand on the Time Traveller's shoulder. "You don't believe it?" "Well----" "I thought not." The Time
13Traveller turned to us. "Where are the matches?" he said. He lit one and spoke over his pipe, puffing. "To tell you the
14truth... I hardly believe it myself..... And yet..." His eye fell with a mute inquiry upon the withered white flowers
15upon the little table. Then he turned over the hand holding his pipe, and I saw he was looking at some half-healed scars
16on his knuckles. The Medical Man rose, came to the lamp, and examined the flowers. "The gynæceum's odd," he said. The
17Psychologist leant forward to see, holding out his hand for a specimen. "I'm hanged if it isn't a quarter to one," said
18the Journalist. "How shall we get home?" "Plenty of cabs at the station," said the Psychologist. "It's a curious thing,"
19said the Medical Man; "but I certainly don't know the natural order of these flowers. May I have them?" The Time
20Traveller hesitated. Then suddenly: "Certainly not." "Where did you really get them?" said the Medical Man. The Time
21Traveller put his hand to his head. He spoke like one who was trying to keep hold of an idea that eluded him. "They were
22put into my pocket by Weena, when I travelled into Time." He stared round the room. "I'm damned if it isn't all going.
23This 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
24of a Time Machine? Or is it all only a dream? They say life is a dream, a precious poor dream at times--but I can't
25stand another that won't fit. It's madness. And where did the dream come from? … I must look at that machine. If there
26is one!" He caught up the lamp swiftly, and carried it, flaring red, through the door into the corridor. We followed
27him. There in the flickering light of the lamp was the machine sure enough, squat, ugly, and askew, a thing of brass,
28ebony, ivory, and translucent glimmering quartz. Solid to the touch--for I put out my hand and felt the rail of it--and
29with brown spots and smears upon the ivory, and bits of grass and moss upon the lower parts, and one rail bent awry. The
30Time Traveller put the lamp down on the bench, and ran his hand along the damaged rail. "It's all right now," he said.
31"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
32absolute silence, we returned to the smoking-room. He came into the hall with us and helped the Editor on with his coat.
33The Medical Man looked into his face and, with a certain hesitation, told him he was suffering from overwork, at which
34he laughed hugely. I remember him standing in the open doorway, bawling good-night. I shared a cab with the Editor. He
35thought the tale a "gaudy lie." For my own part I was unable to come to a conclusion. The story was so fantastic and
36incredible, the telling so credible and sober. I lay awake most of the night thinking about it. I determined to go next
37day and see the Time Traveller again. I was told he was in the laboratory, and being on easy terms in the house, I went
38up to him. The laboratory, however, was empty. I stared for a minute at the Time Machine and put out my hand and touched
39the lever. At that the squat substantial-looking mass swayed like a bough shaken by the wind. Its instability startled
40me extremely, and I had a queer reminiscence of the childish days when I used to be forbidden to meddle. I came back
41through the corridor. The Time Traveller met me in the smoking-room. He was coming from the house. He had a small camera
42under one arm and a knapsack under the other. He laughed when he saw me, and gave me an elbow to shake. "I'm frightfully
43busy," said he, "with that thing in there." "But is it not some hoax?" I said. "Do you really travel through time?"
44"Really and truly I do." And he looked frankly into my eyes. He hesitated. His eye wandered about the room. "I only want
45half 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
46to lunch I'll prove you this time travelling up to the hilt, specimens and all. If you'll forgive my leaving you now?" I
47consented, hardly comprehending then the full import of his words, and he nodded and went on down the corridor. I heard
48the door of the laboratory slam, seated myself in a chair, and took up a daily paper. What was he going to do before
49lunch-time? Then suddenly I was reminded by an advertisement that I had promised to meet Richardson, the publisher, at
50two. I looked at my watch, and saw that I could barely save that engagement. I got up and went down the passage to tell
51the Time Traveller. As I took hold of the handle of the door I heard an exclamation, oddly truncated at the end, and a
52click and a thud. A gust of air whirled round me as I opened the door, and from within came the sound of broken glass
53falling on the floor. The Time Traveller was not there. I seemed to see a ghostly, indistinct figure sitting in a
54whirling mass of black and brass for a moment--a figure so transparent that the bench behind with its sheets of drawings
55was absolutely distinct; but this phantasm vanished as I rubbed my eyes. The Time Machine had gone. Save for a subsiding
56stir of dust, the further end of the laboratory was empty. A pane of the skylight had, apparently, just been blown in. I
57felt an unreasonable amazement. I knew that something strange had happened, and for the moment could not distinguish
58what the strange thing might be. As I stood staring, the door into the garden opened, and the man-servant appeared. We
59looked at each other. Then ideas began to come. "Has Mr. ---- gone out that way?" said I. "No, sir. No one has come out
60this way. I was expecting to find him here." At that I understood. At the risk of disappointing Richardson I stayed on,
61waiting for the Time Traveller; waiting for the second, perhaps still stranger story, and the specimens and photographs
62he would bring with him. But I am beginning now to fear that I must wait a lifetime. The Time Traveller vanished three
63years ago. And, as everybody knows now, he has never returned. Epilogue
🎉 全部完成！共 63 行