The machine was ready this morning. At ten o’clock I sat down in the saddle. I took the starting lever in one hand and the stopping lever in the other. I pressed the first, and almost at once the second. I felt as if I was falling in a bad dream. I looked round, and the laboratory was exactly as before. Had anything happened? Then I looked at the clock. A moment before, it had said a minute past ten. Now it was nearly half past three!
I took a breath, held the starting lever with both hands, and went off. The laboratory became misty and dark. Mrs Watchett, my housekeeper, came in and walked towards the garden door, but to me she seemed to shoot across the room like a rocket. I pushed the lever as far as it would go. Night came like a lamp going out, and in another moment came tomorrow. Then night again, day again, faster and faster.
I cannot describe how time travelling feels. It is very unpleasant, like a roller coaster that never stops. Soon I saw the sun jump across the sky once every minute, and every minute was a day. The laboratory had gone, and I was in the open air on the hillside where this house stands now. Then day and night became one grey light. I saw trees grow and die like clouds of smoke. I saw huge buildings rise and pass away like dreams. The little hands on the dials went round faster and faster, and minute by minute the white snow flashed across the world and was gone, and after it came the bright green of spring.
At first I felt a wild kind of joy. But then I began to wonder what people would be like, and I saw great, beautiful buildings round me, bigger than any of our time. And so I began to think about stopping.
Stopping was dangerous. If a stone or a wall stood in the place where I stopped, the machine and I might crash into it and explode. I was tired and nervous now, and like an impatient fool, I pulled the lever hard. At once the machine turned over, and I was thrown through the air.
There was a sound like thunder in my ears. Hard hail was falling around me, and I was sitting on soft grass beside the machine, which lay on its side. I was on a little lawn, with rhododendron bushes all around. In a moment I was wet through. “A fine welcome,” I said, “for a man who has travelled so many years to see you!”
Through the hail I saw a huge white figure beyond the bushes. It was a sphinx of white marble with its wings spread wide, on a base of bronze, green with age. A silver birch tree only reached its shoulder. Its blind eyes seemed to watch me, and there was a faint smile on its lips.
Then the hail stopped, and suddenly I understood how dangerous my journey was. What had happened to people? What if they had become cruel and very strong? To them I might look like a wild animal from the old world, a dirty creature to kill at once.
As the sun broke through the storm, I saw other huge buildings with tall columns. I was terribly afraid. I pulled at the machine with all my strength, and at last I turned it the right way up. It hit me hard on the chin. I looked at the dials: I was in the year eight hundred and two thousand, seven hundred and one. With one hand on the saddle and the other on the lever, I stood ready to climb on again.
But now that I could escape at any moment, I felt braver. Then I heard voices. Through the bushes by the White Sphinx came some men, running. One of them came straight to my little lawn. He was a small creature, perhaps four feet tall, in a purple tunic with a leather belt, and sandals on his feet. He was very beautiful and graceful, but he looked extremely fragile. When I saw him, I suddenly felt safe again. I took my hands off the machine.