Amazing Stories, Vol. 2, No. 2 — page 53: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

THE TIME “The building had a large entry and was alto- gether 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, perhaps measuring a foot 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 nar- rowly, though I fancied I saw suggestions of old _ Phoenician 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. a big doorway opened into a proportion- ately great hall hung with brown. The roof was in shadow, and the windows, partially glazed with colored glass, and partially unglazed, ad- mitted a tempered light. The floor was made up of huge blocks of some very hard white metal, not plates or slabs—blocks, and it was so much worn, as I judged by the going to and fro of past gen- erations, as to be deeply channeled along the more 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 - sides of the tables. stalks, and so forth, into the round openings in the 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. ' table near me was fractured. “And perhaps the thing that struck me most was its dilapidated look. The stained-glass win- dews, which displayed only a geometrical pattern, were broken in many places, and the curtains that hung across the lower end were thick with dust. And it caught my eye that the corner of the marble 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 MACHINE 157 people of the remote future were strict vege- tarians, 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. one, in particular, that seemed to be in season all the time I was there,—a floury thing in a three- sided husk,—was especially good, 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 reso- lute 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 inten- tion 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 exqui- site little sounds of the language caused: an im- mense 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 ne- cessity, 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. 66 A my little hosts, and that was their lack of interest. They would come to me with eager cries of astonishment, like children, but, like children, they would soon stop examining me, and wander away after some other toy. The dinner and my conversational beginnings ended, I noted for the first time that almost all those who had surrounded me at first were gone. It is odd, too, how speedily I came to disregard these little people. I went out through the portal into the sunlit world again as soon as my hunger was sat- isfied. I was continually meeting more of these men of the future, who would follow me a little distance, chatter and laugh about me, and, having smiled and gesticulated in a friendly way, leave me again to my own devises. “The calm of evening was upon the world as I emerged from the great hall, and the scene was lit by the warm glow of the setting sun. At first things were very confusing. Everything was so entirely different from the world I had known— even the flowers. The big building I had left was CHAPTER V Sunset QUEER thing I soon discovered about But the fruits were very delightful; ECOMIGEDOOKS EO m