Philip Van Doren Stern (ed) (24 page)

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
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
these
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
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.