A Máquina do Tempo/A Era de Ouro
Em outro momento estávamos cara a cara, eu e essa coisa frágil do futuro. Ele veio direto até mim e riu nos meus olhos. A ausência de qualquer sinal de medo em sua postura me impressionou imediatamente. Depois voltou-se para os outros dois que o seguiam e falou-lhes numa língua estranha, muito doce e líquida.
"Havia outros chegando, e logo um pequeno grupo de talvez oito ou dez dessas criaturas extraordinárias estava ao meu redor. Uma delas se dirigiu a mim. Ocorreu-me, por incrível que pareça, que minha voz era muito áspera e profunda para elas. Então balancei a cabeça e, apontando para meus ouvidos, balancei-os novamente. Ela deu um passo à frente, hesitou e depois tocou minha mão. Então senti outros pequenos tentáculos macios em minhas costas e ombros. Elas queriam ter certeza de que eu era real. Não havia nada nisso. Na verdade, havia algo nessas pequeninas lindas que inspirava confiança — uma gentileza graciosa, uma certa facilidade infantil. E, além disso, elas pareciam tão frágeis que eu poderia imaginar-me jogando a dúzia inteira delas como pinos de nove. Mas fiz um movimento repentino para avisá-las, quando vi suas mãozinhas rosadas tateando a Máquina do Tempo. alavancas que o colocariam em movimento e coloquei-as no meu bolso. Então me virei novamente para ver o que poderia fazer em termos de comunicação.
"E então, olhando mais de perto suas feições, vi algumas peculiaridades adicionais em sua beleza tipo porcelana de Dresden. Seus cabelos, que eram uniformemente encaracolados, chegavam a uma ponta pontiaguda no pescoço e nas bochechas; não havia a menor sugestão disso no rosto, e suas orelhas eram singularmente diminutas. As bocas eram pequenas, com lábios vermelhos brilhantes e bastante finos, e os queixos pequenos eram pontudos. Os olhos eram grandes e suaves; e - isso pode parecer egoísmo da minha parte - eu até imaginei depois, houve uma certa falta de interesse que eu poderia esperar deles.
"Como elas não fizeram nenhum esforço para se comunicar comigo, mas simplesmente ficaram ao meu redor sorrindo e falando em suaves notas de arrulho um com o outro, comecei a conversa. Apontei para a Máquina do Tempo e para mim mesmo. Então, hesitando por um momento em como expressar o Tempo, apontei para o sol. Imediatamente, uma pequena figura estranhamente bonita em xadrez roxo e branco seguiu meu gesto e então me surpreendeu ao imitar o som do trovão.
"No momento, fiquei pasmo, embora o significado de seu gesto fosse bastante claro. A pergunta veio à minha mente abruptamente: essas criaturas eram tolas? Você dificilmente pode entender o que isso me levou. Veja, eu sempre previ que as pessoas do ano Oitocentos Mil estariam incrivelmente à nossa frente em conhecimento, arte, tudo. Então, um deles de repente me fez uma pergunta que mostrava que ele estava no nível intelectual de um de nossos filhos de cinco anos - perguntou-me, na verdade, se eu tivesse vindo do sol em uma tempestade! Ele soltou o julgamento que eu havia suspenso sobre suas roupas e seus membros frágeis. Um fluxo de decepção percorreu minha mente.
"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 toward 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, toward a vast gray edifice of fretted stone. As I went with them the memory of my confident anticipations of a profoundlygrave and intellectual posterity came, with irresistible merriment, to my mind.
"The building had a large 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 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-colored 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 colored 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 channeled along themore 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 recognized as a kind of hypertrophied raspberry and orange, but for the most part they were strange.
"Between the tables were 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 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 place and the curtains that hung across thelower 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 afterward 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 especiallygood, 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 their business at great length to each other, and my first attempts to make their exquisite little soundsof the language caused an immense amount of genuine, if uncivil amusement. However, I felt like a schoolmaster amid 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.