"Герберт Уэллс. The Time Machine (Машина времени, англ.)" - читать интересную книгу автора

`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
finished 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 hearthrug. 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 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 arm-chair 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 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.'