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

After an interval the Psychologist had an inspiration. `It must have
gone into the past if it has gone anywhere,' he said.

`Why?' said the Time Traveller.

`Because I presume that it has not moved in space, and if it travelled
into the future it would still be here all this time, since it must have
travelled through this time.'

`But,' I said, `If it travelled into the past it would have been visible
when we came first into this room; and last Thursday when we were here; and
the Thursday before that; and so forth!'

`Serious objections,' remarked the Provincial Mayor, with an air of
impartiality, turning towards the Time Traveller.

`Not a bit,' said the Time Traveller, and, to the Psychologist: `You
think. You can explain that. It's presentation below the threshold, you
know, diluted presentation.'

`Of course,' said the Psychologist, and reassured us. `That's a simple
point of psychology. I should have thought of it. It's plain enough, and
helps the paradox delightfully. We cannot see it, nor can we appreciate
this machine, any more than we can the spoke of a wheel spinning, or a
bullet flying through the air. If it is travelling through time fifty times
or a hundred times faster than we are, if it gets through a minute while we
get through a second, the impression it creates will of course be only
one-fiftieth or one-hundredth of what it would make if it were not
travelling in time. That's plain enough.' He passed his hand through the
space in which the machine had been. `You see?' he said, laughing.

We sat and stared at the vacant table for a minute or so. Then the Time
Traveller asked us what we thought of it all.

`It sounds plausible enough to-night,' said the Medical Man; 'but wait
until to-morrow. Wait for the common sense of the morning.'

`Would you like to see the Time Machine itself?' asked the Time
Traveller. And therewith, taking the lamp in his hand, he led the way down
the long, draughty corridor to his laboratory. I remember vividly the
flickering light, his queer, broad head in silhouette, the dance of the
shadows, how we all followed him, puzzled but incredulous, and how there in
the laboratory we beheld a larger edition of the little mechanism which we
had seen vanish from before our eyes. Parts were of nickel, parts of ivory,
parts had certainly been filed or sawn out of rock crystal. The thing was
generally complete, but the twisted crystalline bars lay unfinished upon
the bench beside some sheets of drawings, and I took one up for a better
look at it. Quartz it seemed to be.

`Look here,' said the Medical Man, `are you perfectly serious? Or is