Summarize in plain English: Little Women by Louisa May Alcott
PART 1
CHAPTER ONE
PLAYING PILGRIMS
“Christmas won’t be Christmas without any presents,” grumbled Jo, lying
on the rug.
“It’s so dreadful to be poor!” sighed Meg, looking down at her old
dress.
“I don’t think it’s fair for some girls to have plenty of pretty
things, and other girls nothing at all,” added little Amy, with an
injured sniff.
“We’ve got Father and Mother, and each other,” said Beth contentedly
from her corner.
The four young faces on which the firelight shone brightened at the
cheerful words, but darkened again as Jo said sadly, “We haven’t got
Father, and shall not have him for a long time.” She didn’t say
“perhaps never,” but each silently added it, thinking of Father far
away, where the fighting was.
Nobody spoke for a minute; then Meg said in an altered tone, “You know
the reason Mother proposed not having any presents this Christmas was
because it is going to be a hard winter for everyone; and she thinks we
ought not to spend money for pleasure, when our men are suffering so in
the army. We can’t do much, but we can make our little sacrifices, and
ought to do it gladly. But I am afraid I don’t,” and Meg shook her
head, as she thought regretfully of all the pretty things she wanted.
“But I don’t think the little we should spend would do any good. We’ve
each got a dollar, and the army wouldn’t be much helped by our giving
that. I agree not to expect anything from Mother or you, but I do want
to buy _Undine and Sintran_ for myself. I’ve wanted it so long,” said
Jo, who was a bookworm.
“I planned to spend mine in new music,” said Beth, with a little sigh,
which no one heard but the hearth brush and kettle-holder.
“I shall get a nice box of Faber’s drawing pencils; I really need
them,” said Amy decidedly.
“Mother didn’t say anything about our money, and she won’t wish us to
give up everything. Let’s each buy what we want, and have a little fun;
I’m sure we work hard enough to earn it,” cried Jo, examining the heels
of her shoes in a gentlemanly manner.
“I know I do—teaching those tiresome children nearly all day, when I’m
longing to enjoy myself at home,” began Meg, in the complaining tone
again.
“You don’t have half such a hard time as I do,” said Jo. “How would you
like to be shut up for hours with a nervous, fussy old lady, who keeps
you trotting, is never satisfied, and worries you till you’re ready to
fly out the window or cry?”
“It’s naughty to fret, but I do think washing dishes and keeping things
tidy is the worst work in the world. It makes me cross, and my hands
get so stiff, I can’t practice well at all.” And Beth looked at her
rough hands with a sigh that any one could hear that time.
“I don’t believe any of you suffer as I do,” cried Amy, “for you don’t
have to go to school with impertinent girls, who plague you if you
don’t know your lessons, and laugh at your dresses, and label your
father if he isn’t rich, and insult you when your nose isn’t nice.”
“If you mean libel, I’d say so, and not talk about labels, as if Papa
was a pickle bottle,” advised Jo, laughing.
“I know what I mean, and you needn’t be statirical about it. It’s
proper to use good words, and improve your vocabilary,” returned Amy,
with dignity.
“Don’t peck at one another, children. Don’t you wish we had the money
Papa lost when we were little, Jo? Dear me! How happy and good we’d be,
if we had no worries!” said Meg, who could remember better times.
“You said the other day you thought we were a deal happier than the
King children, for they were fighting and fretting all the time, in
spite of their money.”
“So I did, Beth. Well, I think we are. For though we do have to work,
we make fun of ourselves, and are a pretty jolly set, as Jo would say.”
“Jo does use such slang words!” observed Amy, with a reproving look at
the long figure stretched on the rug.
Jo immediately sat up, put her hands in her pockets, and began to
whistle.
“Don’t, Jo. It’s so boyish!”
“That’s why I do it.”
“I detest rude, unladylike girls!”
“I hate affected, niminy-piminy chits!”
“Birds in their little nests agree,” sang Beth, the peacemaker, with
such a funny face that both sharp voices softened to a laugh, and the
“pecking” ended for that time.
“Really, girls, you are both to be blamed,” said Meg, beginning to
lecture in her elder-sisterly fashion. “You are old enough to leave off
boyish tricks, and to behave better, Josephine. It didn’t matter so
much when you were a little girl, but now you are so tall, and turn up
your hair, you should remember that you are a young lady.”
“I’m not! And if turning up my hair makes me one, I’ll wear it in two
tails till I’m twenty,” cried Jo, pulling off her net, and shaking down
a chestnut mane. “I hate to think I’ve got to grow up, and be Miss
March, and wear long gowns, and look as prim as a China Aster! It’s bad
enough to be a girl, anyway, when I like boy’s games and work and
manners! I can’t get over my disappointment in not being a boy. And
it’s worse than ever now, for I’m dying to go and fight with Papa. And
I can only stay home and knit, like a poky old woman!”
And Jo shook the blue army sock till the needles rattled like
castanets, and her ball bounded across the room.
“Poor Jo! It’s too bad, but it can’t be helped. So you must try to be
contented with making your name boyish, and playing brother to us
girls,” said Beth, stroking the rough head with a hand that all the
dish washing and dusting in the world could not make ungentle in its
touch.
“As for you, Amy,” continued Meg, “you are altogether too particular
and prim. Your airs are funny now, but you’ll grow up an affected
little goose, if you don’t take care. I like your nice manners and
refined ways of speaking, when you don’t try to be elegant. But your
absurd words are as bad as Jo’s slang.”
“If Jo is a tomboy and Amy a goose, what am I, please?” asked Beth,
ready to share the lecture.
“You’re a dear, and nothing else,” answered Meg warmly, and no one
contradicted her, for the ‘Mouse’ was the pet of the family.
As young readers like to know ‘how people look’, we will take this
moment to give them a little sketch of the four sisters, who sat
knitting away in the twilight, while the December snow fell quietly
without, and the fire crackled cheerfully within. It was a comfortable
room, though the carpet was faded and the furniture very plain, for a
good picture or two hung on the walls, books filled the recesses,
chrysanthemums and Christmas roses bloomed in the windows, and a
pleasant atmosphere of home peace pervaded it.
Margaret, the eldest of the four, was sixteen, and very pretty, being
plump and fair, with large eyes, plenty of soft brown hair, a sweet
mouth, and white hands, of which she was rather vain. Fifteen-year-old
Jo was very tall, thin, and brown, and reminded one of a colt, for she
never seemed to know what to do with her long limbs, which were very
much in her way. She had a decided mouth, a comical nose, and sharp,
gray eyes, which appeared to see everything, and were by turns fierce,
funny, or thoughtful. Her long, thick hair was her one beauty, but it
was usually bundled into a net, to be out of her way. Round shoulders
had Jo, big hands and feet, a flyaway look to her clothes, and the
uncomfortable appearance of a girl who was rapidly shooting up into a
woman and didn’t like it. Elizabeth, or Beth, as everyone called her,
was a rosy, smooth-haired, bright-eyed girl of thirteen, with a shy
manner, a timid voice, and a peaceful expression which was seldom
disturbed. Her father called her ‘Little Miss Tranquility’, and the
name suited her excellently, for she seemed to live in a happy world of
her own, only venturing out to meet the few whom she trusted and loved.
Amy, though the youngest, was a most important person, in her own
opinion at least. A regular snow maiden, with blue eyes, and yellow
hair curling on her shoulders, pale and slender, and always carrying
herself like a young lady mindful of her manners. What the characters
of the four sisters were we will leave to be found out.
The clock struck six and, having swept up the hearth, Beth put a pair
of slippers down to warm. Somehow the sight of the old shoes had a good
effect upon the girls, for Mother was coming, and everyone brightened
to welcome her. Meg stopped lecturing, and lighted the lamp, Amy got
out of the easy chair without being asked, and Jo forgot how tired she
was as she sat up to hold the slippers nearer to the blaze.
“They are quite worn out. Marmee must have a new pair.”
“I thought I’d get her some with my dollar,” said Beth.
“No, I shall!” cried Amy.
“I’m the oldest,” began Meg, but Jo cut in with a decided, “I’m the man
of the family now Papa is away, and I shall provide the slippers, for
he told me to take special care of Mother while he was gone.”
“I’ll tell you what we’ll do,” said Beth, “let’s each get her something
for Christmas, and not get anything for ourselves.”
“That’s like you, dear! What will we get?” exclaimed Jo.
Everyone thought soberly for a minute, then Meg announced, as if the
idea was suggested by the sight of her own pretty hands, “I shall give
her a nice pair of gloves.”
“Army shoes, best to be had,” cried Jo.
“Some handkerchiefs, all hemmed,” said Beth.
“I’ll get a little bottle of cologne. She likes it, and it won’t cost
much, so I’ll have some left to buy my pencils,” added Amy.
“How will we give the things?” asked Meg.
“Put them on the table, and bring her in and see her open the bundles.
Don’t you remember how we used to do on our birthdays?” answered Jo.
“I used to be so frightened when it was my turn to sit in the chair
with the crown on, and see you all come marching round to give the
presents, with a kiss. I liked the things and the kisses, but it was
dreadful to have you sit looking at me while I opened the bundles,”
said Beth, who was toasting her face and the bread for tea at the same
time.
“Let Marmee think we are getting things for ourselves, and then
surprise her. We must go shopping tomorrow afternoon, Meg. There is so
much to do about the play for Christmas night,” said Jo, marching up
and down, with her hands behind her back, and her nose in the air.
“I don’t mean to act any more after this time. I’m getting too old for
such things,” observed Meg, who was as much a child as ever about
‘dressing-up’ frolics.
“You won’t stop, I know, as long as you can trail round in a white gown
with your hair down, and wear gold-paper jewelry. You are the best
actress we’ve got, and there’ll be an end of everything if you quit the
boards,” said Jo. “We ought to rehearse tonight. Come here, Amy, and do
the fainting scene, for you are as stiff as a poker in that.”
“I can’t help it. I never saw anyone faint, and I don’t choose to make
myself all black and blue, tumbling flat as you do. If I can go down
easily, I’ll drop. If I can’t, I shall fall into a chair and be
graceful. I don’t care if Hugo does come at me with a pistol,” returned
Amy, who was not gifted with dramatic power, but was chosen because she
was small enough to be borne out shrieking by the villain of the piece.
“Do it this way. Clasp your hands so, and stagger across the room,
crying frantically, ‘Roderigo! Save me! Save me!’” and away went Jo,
with a melodramatic scream which was truly thrilling.
Amy followed, but she poked her hands out stiffly before her, and
jerked herself along as if she went by machinery, and her “Ow!” was
more suggestive of pins being run into her than of fear and anguish. Jo
gave a despairing groan, and Meg laughed outright, while Beth let her
bread burn as she watched the fun with interest. “It’s no use! Do the
best you can when the time comes, and if the audience laughs, don’t
blame me. Come on, Meg.”
Then things went smoothly, for Don Pedro defied the world in a speech
of two pages without a single break. Hagar, the witch, chanted an awful
incantation over her kettleful of simmering toads, with weird effect.
Roderigo rent his chains asunder manfully, and Hugo died in agonies of
remorse and arsenic, with a wild, “Ha! Ha!”
“It’s the best we’ve had yet,” said Meg, as the dead villain sat up and
rubbed his elbows.
“I don’t see how you can write and act such splendid things, Jo. You’re
a regular Shakespeare!” exclaimed Beth, who firmly believed that her
sisters were gifted with wonderful genius in all things.
“Not quite,” replied Jo modestly. “I do think _The Witches Curse, an
Operatic Tragedy_ is rather a nice thing, but I’d like to try
_Macbeth_, if we only had a trapdoor for Banquo. I always wanted to do
the killing part. ‘Is that a dagger that I see before me?” muttered Jo,
rolling her eyes and clutching at the air, as she had seen a famous
tragedian do.
“No, it’s the toasting fork, with Mother’s shoe on it instead of the
bread. Beth’s stage-struck!” cried Meg, and the rehearsal ended in a
general burst of laughter.
“Glad to find you so merry, my girls,” said a cheery voice at the door,
and actors and audience turned to welcome a tall, motherly lady with a
‘can I help you’ look about her which was truly delightful. She was not
elegantly dressed, but a noble-looking woman, and the girls thought the
gray cloak and unfashionable bonnet covered the most splendid mother in
the world.
“Well, dearies, how have you got on today? There was so much to do,
getting the boxes ready to go tomorrow, that I didn’t come home to
dinner. Has anyone called, Beth? How is your cold, Meg? Jo, you look
tired to death. Come and kiss me, baby.”
While making these maternal inquiries Mrs. March got her wet things
off, her warm slippers on, and sitting down in the easy chair, drew Amy
to her lap, preparing to enjoy the happiest hour of her busy day. The
girls flew about, trying to make things comfortable, each in her own
way. Meg arranged the tea table, Jo brought wood and set chairs,
dropping, over-turning, and clattering everything she touched. Beth
trotted to and fro between parlor kitchen, quiet and busy, while Amy
gave directions to everyone, as she sat with her hands folded.
As they gathered about the table, Mrs. March said, with a particularly
happy face, “I’ve got a treat for you after supper.”
A quick, bright smile went round like a streak of sunshine. Beth
clapped her hands, regardless of the biscuit she held, and Jo tossed up
her napkin, crying, “A letter! A letter! Three cheers for Father!”
“Yes, a nice long letter. He is well, and thinks he shall get through
the cold season better than we feared. He sends all sorts of loving
wishes for Christmas, and an especial message to you girls,” said Mrs.
March, patting her pocket as if she had got a treasure there.
“Hurry and get done! Don’t stop to quirk your little finger and simper
over your plate, Amy,” cried Jo, choking on her tea and dropping her
bread, butter side down, on the carpet in her haste to get at the
treat.
Beth ate no more, but crept away to sit in her shadowy corner and brood
over the delight to come, till the others were ready.
“I think it was so splendid in Father to go as chaplain when he was too
old to be drafted, and not strong enough for a soldier,” said Meg
warmly.
“Don’t I wish I could go as a drummer, a vivan—what’s its name? Or a
nurse, so I could be near him and help him,” exclaimed Jo, with a
groan.
“It must be very disagreeable to sleep in a tent, and eat all sorts of
bad-tasting things, and drink out of a tin mug,” sighed Amy.
“When will he come home, Marmee?” asked Beth, with a little quiver in
her voice.
“Not for many months, dear, unless he is sick. He will stay and do his
work faithfully as long as he can, and we won’t ask for him back a
minute sooner than he can be spared. Now come and hear the letter.”
They all drew to the fire, Mother in the big chair with Beth at her
feet, Meg and Amy perched on either arm of the chair, and Jo leaning on
the back, where no one would see any sign of emotion if the letter
should happen to be touching. Very few letters were written in those
hard times that were not touching, especially those which fathers sent
home. In this one little was said of the hardships endured, the dangers
faced, or the homesickness conquered. It was a cheerful, hopeful
letter, full of lively descriptions of camp life, marches, and military
news, and only at the end did the writer’s heart over-flow with
fatherly love and longing for the little girls at home.
“Give them all of my dear love and a kiss. Tell them I think of them by
day, pray for them by night, and find my best comfort in their
affection at all times. A year seems very long to wait before I see
them, but remind them that while we wait we may all work, so that these
hard days need not be wasted. I know they will remember all I said to
them, that they will be loving children to you, will do their duty
faithfully, fight their bosom enemies bravely, and conquer themselves
so beautifully that when I come back to them I may be fonder and
prouder than ever of my little women.” Everybody sniffed when they came
to that part. Jo wasn’t ashamed of the great tear that dropped off the
end of her nose, and Amy never minded the rumpling of her curls as she
hid her face on her mother’s shoulder and sobbed out, “I am a selfish
girl! But I’ll truly try to be better, so he mayn’t be disappointed in
me by-and-by.”
“We all will,” cried Meg. “I think too much of my looks and hate to
work, but won’t any more, if I can help it.”
“I’ll try and be what he loves to call me, ‘a little woman’ and not be
rough and wild, but do my duty here instead of wanting to be somewhere
else,” said Jo, thinking that keeping her temper at home was a much
harder task than facing a rebel or two down South.
Beth said nothing, but wiped away her tears with the blue army sock and
began to knit with all her might, losing no time in doing the duty that
lay nearest her, while she resolved in her quiet little soul to be all
that Father hoped to find her when the year brought round the happy
coming home.
Mrs. March broke the silence that followed Jo’s words, by saying in her
cheery voice, “Do you remember how you used to play Pilgrims Progress
when you were little things? Nothing delighted you more than to have me
tie my piece bags on your backs for burdens, give you hats and sticks
and rolls of paper, and let you travel through the house from the
cellar, which was the City of Destruction, up, up, to the housetop,
where you had all the lovely things you could collect to make a
Celestial City.”
“What fun it was, especially going by the lions, fighting Apollyon, and
passing through the valley where the hob-goblins were,” said Jo.
“I liked the place where the bundles fell off and tumbled downstairs,”
said Meg.
“I don’t remember much about it, except that I was afraid of the cellar
and the dark entry, and always liked the cake and milk we had up at the
top. If I wasn’t too old for such things, I’d rather like to play it
over again,” said Amy, who began to talk of renouncing childish things
at the mature age of twelve.
“We never are too old for this, my dear, because it is a play we are
playing all the time in one way or another. Our burdens are here, our
road is before us, and the longing for goodness and happiness is the
guide that leads us through many troubles and mistakes to the peace
which is a true Celestial City. Now, my little pilgrims, suppose you
begin again, not in play, but in earnest, and see how far on you can
get before Father comes home.”
“Really, Mother? Where are our bundles?” asked Amy, who was a very
literal young lady.
“Each of you told what your burden was just now, except Beth. I rather
think she hasn’t got any,” said her mother.
“Yes, I have. Mine is dishes and dusters, and envying girls with nice
pianos, and being afraid of people.”
Beth’s bundle was such a funny one that everybody wanted to laugh, but
nobody did, for it would have hurt her feelings very much.
“Let us do it,” said Meg thoughtfully. “It is only another name for
trying to be good, and the story may help us, for though we do want to
be good, it’s hard work and we forget, and don’t do our best.”
“We were in the Slough of Despond tonight, and Mother came and pulled
us out as Help did in the book. We ought to have our roll of
directions, like Christian. What shall we do about that?” asked Jo,
delighted with the fancy which lent a little romance to the very dull
task of doing her duty.
“Look under your pillows Christmas morning, and you will find your
guidebook,” replied Mrs. March.
They talked over the new plan while old Hannah cleared the table, then
out came the four little work baskets, and the needles flew as the
girls made sheets for Aunt March. It was uninteresting sewing, but
tonight no one grumbled. They adopted Jo’s plan of dividing the long
seams into four parts, and calling the quarters Europe, Asia, Africa,
and America, and in that way got on capitally, especially when they
talked about the different countries as they stitched their way through
them.
At nine they stopped work, and sang, as usual, before they went to bed.
No one but Beth could get much music out of the old piano, but she had
a way of softly touching the yellow keys and making a pleasant
accompaniment to the simple songs they sang. Meg had a voice like a
flute, and she and her mother led the little choir. Amy chirped like a
cricket, and Jo wandered through the airs at her own sweet will, always
coming out at the wrong place with a croak or a quaver that spoiled the
most pensive tune. They had always done this from the time they could
lisp...
Crinkle, crinkle, ’ittle ’tar,
and it had become a household custom, for the mother was a born singer.
The first sound in the morning was her voice as she went about the
house singing like a lark, and the last sound at night was the same
cheery sound, for the girls never grew too old for that familiar
lullaby.
CHAPTER TWO
A MERRY CHRISTMAS
Jo was the first to wake in the gray dawn of Christmas morning. No
stockings hung at the fireplace, and for a moment she felt as much
disappointed as she did long ago, when her little sock fell down
because it was crammed so full of goodies. Then she remembered her
mother’s promise and, slipping her hand under her pillow, drew out a
little crimson-covered book. She knew it very well, for it was that
beautiful old story of the best life ever lived, and Jo felt that it
was a true guidebook for any pilgrim going on a long journey. She woke
Meg with a “Merry Christmas,” and bade her see what was under her
pillow. A green-covered book appeared, with the same picture inside,
and a few words written by their mother, which made their one present
very precious in their eyes. Presently Beth and Amy woke to rummage and
find their little books also, one dove-colored, the other blue, and all
sat looking at and talking about them, while the east grew rosy with
the coming day.
In spite of her small vanities, Margaret had a sweet and pious nature,
which unconsciously influenced her sisters, especially Jo, who loved
her very tenderly, and obeyed her because her advice was so gently
given.
“Girls,” said Meg seriously, looking from the tumbled head beside her
to the two little night-capped ones in the room beyond, “Mother wants
us to read and love and mind these books, and we must begin at once. We
used to be faithful about it, but since Father went away and all this
war trouble unsettled us, we have neglected many things. You can do as
you please, but I shall keep my book on the table here and read a
little every morning as soon as I wake, for I know it will do me good
and help me through the day.”
Then she opened her new book and began to read. Jo put her arm round
her and, leaning cheek to cheek, read also, with the quiet expression
so seldom seen on her restless face.
“How good Meg is! Come, Amy, let’s do as they do. I’ll help you with
the hard words, and they’ll explain things if we don’t understand,”
whispered Beth, very much impressed by the pretty books and her
sisters’ example.
“I’m glad mine is blue,” said Amy. and then the rooms were very still
while the pages were softly turned, and the winter sunshine crept in to
touch the bright heads and serious faces with a Christmas greeting.
“Where is Mother?” asked Meg, as she and Jo ran down to thank her for
their gifts, half an hour later.
“Goodness only knows. Some poor creeter came a-beggin’, and your ma
went straight off to see what was needed. There never was such a woman
for givin’ away vittles and drink, clothes and firin’,” replied Hannah,
who had lived with the family since Meg was born, and was considered by
them all more as a friend than a servant.
“She will be back soon, I think, so fry your cakes, and have everything
ready,” said Meg, looking over the presents which were collected in a
basket and kept under the sofa, ready to be produced at the proper
time. “Why, where is Amy’s bottle of cologne?” she added, as the little
flask did not appear.
“She took it out a minute ago, and went off with it to put a ribbon on
it, or some such notion,” replied Jo, dancing about the room to take
the first stiffness off the new army slippers.
“How nice my handkerchiefs look, don’t they? Hannah washed and ironed
them for me, and I marked them all myself,” said Beth, looking proudly
at the somewhat uneven letters which had cost her such labor.
“Bless the child! She’s gone and put ‘Mother’ on them instead of ‘M.
March’. How funny!” cried Jo, taking one up.
“Isn’t that right? I thought it was better to do it so, because Meg’s
initials are M.M., and I don’t want anyone to use these but Marmee,”
said Beth, looking troubled.
“It’s all right, dear, and a very pretty idea, quite sensible too, for
no one can ever mistake now. It will please her very much, I know,”
said Meg, with a frown for Jo and a smile for Beth.
“There’s Mother. Hide the basket, quick!” cried Jo, as a door slammed
and steps sounded in the hall.
Amy came in hastily, and looked rather abashed when she saw her sisters
all waiting for her.
“Where have you been, and what are you hiding behind you?” asked Meg,
surprised to see, by her hood and cloak, that lazy Amy had been out so
early.
“Don’t laugh at me, Jo! I didn’t mean anyone should know till the time
came. I only meant to change the little bottle for a big one, and I
gave all my money to get it, and I’m truly trying not to be selfish any
more.”
As she spoke, Amy showed the handsome flask which replaced the cheap
one, and looked so earnest and humble in her little effort to forget
herself that Meg hugged her on the spot, and Jo pronounced her ‘a
trump’, while Beth ran to the window, and picked her finest rose to
ornament the stately bottle.
“You see I felt ashamed of my present, after reading and talking about
being good this morning, so I ran round the corner and changed it the
minute I was up, and I’m so glad, for mine is the handsomest now.”
Another bang of the street door sent the basket under the sofa, and the
girls to the table, eager for breakfast.
“Merry Christmas, Marmee! Many of them! Thank you for our books. We
read some, and mean to every day,” they all cried in chorus.
“Merry Christmas, little daughters! I’m glad you began at once, and
hope you will keep on. But I want to say one word before we sit down.
Not far away from here lies a poor woman with a little newborn baby.
Six children are huddled into one bed to keep from freezing, for they
have no fire. There is nothing to eat over there, and the oldest boy
came to tell me they were suffering hunger and cold. My girls, will you
give them your breakfast as a Christmas present?”
They were all unusually hungry, having waited nearly an hour, and for a
minute no one spoke, only a minute, for Jo exclaimed impetuously, “I’m
so glad you came before we began!”
“May I go and help carry the things to the poor little children?” asked
Beth eagerly.
“I shall take the cream and the muffings,” added Amy, heroically giving
up the article she most liked.
Meg was already covering the buckwheats, and piling the bread into one
big plate.
“I thought you’d do it,” said Mrs. March


Summarize in plain English: The Time Machine An Invention by H. G. Wells
I.
Introduction
The Time Traveller (for so it will be convenient to speak of him) was
expounding a recondite matter to us. His pale grey eyes shone and
twinkled, and his usually pale face was flushed and animated. The fire
burnt brightly, and the soft radiance of the incandescent lights in the
lilies of silver caught the bubbles that flashed and passed in our
glasses. Our chairs, being his patents, embraced and caressed us rather
than submitted to be sat upon, and there was that luxurious
after-dinner atmosphere, when thought runs gracefully free of the
trammels of precision. And he put it to us in this way—marking the
points with a lean forefinger—as we sat and lazily admired his
earnestness over this new paradox (as we thought it) and his fecundity.
“You must follow me carefully. I shall have to controvert one or two
ideas that are almost universally accepted. The geometry, for instance,
they taught you at school is founded on a misconception.”
“Is not that rather a large thing to expect us to begin upon?” said
Filby, an argumentative person with red hair.
“I do not mean to ask you to accept anything without reasonable ground
for it. You will soon admit as much as I need from you. You know of
course that a mathematical line, a line of thickness _nil_, has no real
existence. They taught you that? Neither has a mathematical plane.
These things are mere abstractions.”
“That is all right,” said the Psychologist.
“Nor, having only length, breadth, and thickness, can a cube have a
real existence.”
“There I object,” said Filby. “Of course a solid body may exist. All
real things—”
“So most people think. But wait a moment. Can an _instantaneous_ cube
exist?”
“Don’t follow you,” said Filby.
“Can a cube that does not last for any time at all, have a real
existence?”
Filby became pensive. “Clearly,” the Time Traveller proceeded, “any
real body must have extension in _four_ directions: it must have
Length, Breadth, Thickness, and—Duration. But through a natural
infirmity of the flesh, which I will explain to you in a moment, we
incline to overlook this fact. There are really four dimensions, three
which we call the three planes of Space, and a fourth, Time. There is,
however, a tendency to draw an unreal distinction between the former
three dimensions and the latter, because it happens that our
consciousness moves intermittently in one direction along the latter
from the beginning to the end of our lives.”
“That,” said a very young man, making spasmodic efforts to relight his
cigar over the lamp; “that . . . very clear indeed.”
“Now, it is very remarkable that this is so extensively overlooked,”
continued the Time Traveller, with a slight accession of cheerfulness.
“Really this is what is meant by the Fourth Dimension, though some
people who talk about the Fourth Dimension do not know they mean it. It
is only another way of looking at Time. _There is no difference between
Time and any of the three dimensions of Space except that our
consciousness moves along it_. But some foolish people have got hold of
the wrong side of that idea. You have all heard what they have to say
about this Fourth Dimension?”
“_I_ have not,” said the Provincial Mayor.
“It is simply this. That Space, as our mathematicians have it, is
spoken of as having three dimensions, which one may call Length,
Breadth, and Thickness, and is always definable by reference to three
planes, each at right angles to the others. But some philosophical
people have been asking why _three_ dimensions particularly—why not
another direction at right angles to the other three?—and have even
tried to construct a Four-Dimensional geometry. Professor Simon Newcomb
was expounding this to the New York Mathematical Society only a month
or so ago. You know how on a flat surface, which has only two
dimensions, we can represent a figure of a three-dimensional solid, and
similarly they think that by models of three dimensions they could
represent one of four—if they could master the perspective of the
thing. See?”
“I think so,” murmured the Provincial Mayor; and, knitting his brows,
he lapsed into an introspective state, his lips moving as one who
repeats mystic words. “Yes, I think I see it now,” he said after some
time, brightening in a quite transitory manner.
“Well, I do not mind telling you I have been at work upon this geometry
of Four Dimensions for some time. Some of my results are curious. For
instance, here is a portrait of a man at eight years old, another at
fifteen, another at seventeen, another at twenty-three, and so on. All
these are evidently sections, as it were, Three-Dimensional
representations of his Four-Dimensioned being, which is a fixed and
unalterable thing.
“Scientific people,” proceeded the Time Traveller, after the pause
required for the proper assimilation of this, “know very well that Time
is only a kind of Space. Here is a popular scientific diagram, a
weather record. This line I trace with my finger shows the movement of
the barometer. Yesterday it was so high, yesterday night it fell, then
this morning it rose again, and so gently upward to here. Surely the
mercury did not trace this line in any of the dimensions of Space
generally recognised? But certainly it traced such a line, and that
line, therefore, we must conclude, was along the Time-Dimension.”
“But,” said the Medical Man, staring hard at a coal in the fire, “if
Time is really only a fourth dimension of Space, why is it, and why has
it always been, regarded as something different? And why cannot we move
in Time as we move about in the other dimensions of Space?”
The Time Traveller smiled. “Are you so sure we can move freely in
Space? Right and left we can go, backward and forward freely enough,
and men always have done so. I admit we move freely in two dimensions.
But how about up and down? Gravitation limits us there.”
“Not exactly,” said the Medical Man. “There are balloons.”
“But before the balloons, save for spasmodic jumping and the
inequalities of the surface, man had no freedom of vertical movement.”
“Still they could move a little up and down,” said the Medical Man.
“Easier, far easier down than up.”
“And you cannot move at all in Time, you cannot get away from the
present moment.”
“My dear sir, that is just where you are wrong. That is just where the
whole world has gone wrong. We are always getting away from the present
moment. Our mental existences, which are immaterial and have no
dimensions, are passing along the Time-Dimension with a uniform
velocity from the cradle to the grave. Just as we should travel _down_
if we began our existence fifty miles above the earth’s surface.”
“But the great difficulty is this,” interrupted the Psychologist. ’You
_can_ move about in all directions of Space, but you cannot move about
in Time.”
“That is the germ of my great discovery. But you are wrong to say that
we cannot move about in Time. For instance, if I am recalling an
incident very vividly I go back to the instant of its occurrence: I
become absent-minded, as you say. I jump back for a moment. Of course
we have no means of staying back for any length of Time, any more than
a savage or an animal has of staying six feet above the ground. But a
civilised man is better off than the savage in this respect. He can go
up against gravitation in a balloon, and why should he not hope that
ultimately he may be able to stop or accelerate his drift along the
Time-Dimension, or even turn about and travel the other way?”
“Oh, _this_,” began Filby, “is all—”
“Why not?” said the Time Traveller.
“It’s against reason,” said Filby.
“What reason?” said the Time Traveller.
“You can show black is white by argument,” said Filby, “but you will
never convince me.”
“Possibly not,” said the Time Traveller. “But now you begin to see the
object of my investigations into the geometry of Four Dimensions. Long
ago I had a vague inkling of a machine—”
“To travel through Time!” exclaimed the Very Young Man.
“That shall travel indifferently in any direction of Space and Time, as
the driver determines.”
Filby contented himself with laughter.
“But I have experimental verification,” said the Time Traveller.
“It would be remarkably convenient for the historian,” the Psychologist
suggested. “One might travel back and verify the accepted account of
the Battle of Hastings, for instance!”
“Don’t you think you would attract attention?” said the Medical Man.
“Our ancestors had no great tolerance for anachronisms.”
“One might get one’s Greek from the very lips of Homer and Plato,” the
Very Young Man thought.
“In which case they would certainly plough you for the Little-go. The
German scholars have improved Greek so much.”
“Then there is the future,” said the Very Young Man. “Just think! One
might invest all one’s money, leave it to accumulate at interest, and
hurry on ahead!”
“To discover a society,” said I, “erected on a strictly communistic
basis.”
“Of all the wild extravagant theories!” began the Psychologist.
“Yes, so it seemed to me, and so I never talked of it until—”
“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 conjuror he had seen at Burslem, but before he
had finished his preface the Time Traveller came back, and Filby’s
anecdote collapsed.
 II.
 The Machine
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.”
The Medical Man got up out of his chair and peered into the thing.
“It’s beautifully made,” he said.
“It took two years to make,” retorted the Time Traveller. Then, when we
had all imitated the action of the Medical Man, he said: “Now I want
you clearly to understand that this lever, being pressed over, sends
the machine gliding into the future, and this other reverses the
motion. This saddle represents the seat of a time traveller. Presently
I am going to press the lever, and off the machine will go. It will
vanish, pass into future Time, and disappear. Have a good look at the
thing. Look at the table too, and satisfy yourselves there is no
trickery. I don’t want to waste this model, and then be told I’m a
quack.”
There was a minute’s pause perhaps. The Psychologist seemed about to
speak to me, but changed his mind. Then the Time Traveller put forth
his finger towards the lever. “No,” he said suddenly. “Lend me your
hand.” And turning to the Psychologist, he took that individual’s hand
in his own and told him to put out his forefinger. So that it was the
Psychologist himself who sent forth the model Time Machine on its
interminable voyage. We all saw the lever turn. I am absolutely certain
there was no trickery. There was a breath of wind, and the lamp flame
jumped. One of the candles on the mantel was blown out, and the little
machine suddenly swung round, became indistinct, was seen as a ghost
for a second perhaps, as an eddy of faintly glittering brass and ivory;
and it was gone—vanished! Save for the lamp the table was bare.
Everyone was silent for a minute. Then Filby said he was damned.
The Psychologist recovered from his stupor, and suddenly looked under
the table. At that the Time Traveller laughed cheerfully. “Well?” he
said, with a reminiscence of the Psychologist. Then, getting up, he
went to the tobacco jar on the mantel, and with his back to us began to
fill his pipe.
We stared at each other. “Look here,” said the Medical Man, “are you in
earnest about this? Do you seriously believe that that machine has
travelled into time?”
“Certainly,” said the Time Traveller, stooping to light a spill at the
fire. Then he turned, lighting his pipe, to look at the Psychologist’s
face. (The Psychologist, to show that he was not unhinged, helped
himself to a cigar and tried to light it uncut.) “What is more, I have
a big machine nearly finished in there”—he indicated the
laboratory—“and when that is put together I mean to have a journey on
my own account.”
“You mean to say that that machine has travelled into the future?” said
Filby.
“Into the future or the past—I don’t, for certain, know which.”
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,” said I, “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 tonight,” said the Medical Man; “but wait
until tomorrow. 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
this a trick—like that ghost you showed us last Christmas?”
“Upon that machine,” said the Time Traveller, holding the lamp aloft,
“I intend to explore time. Is that plain? I was never more serious in
my life.”
None of us quite knew how to take it.
I caught Filby’s eye over the shoulder of the Medical Man, and he
winked at me solemnly.
 III.
 The Time Traveller Returns
I think that at that time none of us quite believed in the Time
Machine. The fact is, the Time Traveller was one of those men who are
too clever to be believed: you never felt that you saw all round him;
you always suspected some subtle reserve, some ingenuity in ambush,
behind his lucid frankness. Had Filby shown the model and explained the
matter in the Time Traveller’s words, we should have shown _him_ far
less scepticism. For we should have perceived his motives: a
pork-butcher could understand Filby. But the Time Traveller had more
than a touch of whim among his elements, and we distrusted him. Things
that would have made the fame of a less clever man seemed tricks in his
hands. It is a mistake to do things too easily. The serious people who
took him seriously never felt quite sure of his deportment; they were
somehow aware that trusting their reputations for judgment with him was
like furnishing a nursery with eggshell china. So I don’t think any of
us said very much about time travelling in the interval between that
Thursday and the next, though its odd potentialities ran, no doubt, in
most of our minds: its plausibility, that is, its practical
incredibleness, the curious possibilities of anachronism and of utter
confusion it suggested. For my own part, I was particularly preoccupied
with the trick of the model. That I remember discussing with the
Medical Man, whom I met on Friday at the Linnæan. He said he had seen a
similar thing at Tübingen, and laid considerable stress on the
blowing-out of the candle. But how the trick was done he could not
explain.
The next Thursday I went again to Richmond—I suppose I was one of the
Time Traveller’s most constant guests—and, arriving late, found four or
five men already assembled in his drawing-room. The Medical Man was
standing before the fire with a sheet of paper in one hand and his
watch in the other. I looked round for the Time Traveller, and—“It’s
half-past seven now,” said the Medical Man. “I suppose we’d better have
dinner?”
“Where’s——?” said I, naming our host.
“You’ve just come? It’s rather odd. He’s unavoidably detained. He asks
me in this note to lead off with dinner at seven if he’s not back. Says
he’ll explain when he comes.”
“It seems a pity to let the dinner spoil,” said the Editor of a
well-known daily paper; and thereupon the Doctor rang the bell.
The Psychologist was the only person besides the Doctor and myself who
had attended the previous dinner. The other men were Blank, the Editor
aforementioned, a certain journalist, and another—a quiet, shy man with
a beard—whom I didn’t know, and who, as far as my observation went,
never opened his mouth all the evening. There was some speculation at
the dinner-table about the Time Traveller’s absence, and I suggested
time travelling, in a half-jocular spirit. The Editor wanted that
explained to him, and the Psychologist volunteered a wooden account of
the “ingenious paradox and trick” we had witnessed that day week. He
was in the midst of his exposition when the door from the corridor
opened slowly and without noise. I was facing the door, and saw it
first. “Hallo!” I said. “At last!” And the door opened wider, and the
Time Traveller stood before us. I gave a cry of surprise. “Good
heavens! man, what’s the matter?” cried the Medical Man, who saw him
next. And the whole tableful turned towards the door.
He was in an amazing plight. His coat was dusty and dirty, and smeared
with green down the sleeves; his hair disordered, and as it seemed to
me greyer—either with dust and dirt or because its colour had actually
faded. His face was ghastly pale; his chin had a brown cut on it—a cut
half-healed; his expression was haggard and drawn, as by intense
suffering. For a moment he hesitated in the doorway, as if he had been
dazzled by the light. Then he came into the room. He walked with just
such a limp as I have seen in footsore tramps. We stared at him in
silence, expecting him to speak.
He said not a word, but came painfully to the table, and made a motion
towards the wine. The Editor filled a glass of champagne, and pushed it
towards him. He drained it, and it seemed to do him good: for he looked
round the table, and the ghost of his old smile flickered across his
face. “What on earth have you been up to, man?” said the Doctor. The
Time Traveller did not seem to hear. “Don’t let me disturb you,” he
said, with a certain faltering articulation. “I’m all right.” He
stopped, held out his glass for more, and took it off at a draught.
“That’s good,” he said. His eyes grew brighter, and a faint colour came
into his cheeks. His glance flickered over our faces with a certain
dull approval, and then went round the warm and comfortable room. Then
he spoke again, still as it were feeling his way among his words. “I’m
going to wash and dress, and then I’ll come down and explain things....
Save me some of that mutton. I’m starving for a bit of meat.”
He looked across at the Editor, who was a rare visitor, and hoped he
was all right. The Editor began a question. “Tell you presently,” said
the Time Traveller. “I’m—funny! Be all right in a minute.”
He put down his glass, and walked towards the staircase door. Again I
remarked his lameness and the soft padding sound of his footfall, and
standing up in my place, I saw his feet as he went out. He had nothing
on them but a pair of tattered, blood-stained socks. Then the door
closed upon him. I had half a mind to follow, till I remembered how he
detested any fuss about himself. For a minute, perhaps, my mind was
wool-gathering. Then, “Remarkable Behaviour of an Eminent Scientist,” I
heard the Editor say, thinking (after his wont) in headlines. And this
brought my attention back to the bright dinner-table.
“What’s the game?” said the Journalist. “Has he been doing the Amateur
Cadger? I don’t follow.” I met the eye of the Psychologist, and read my
own interpretation in his face. I thought of the Time Traveller limping
painfully upstairs. I don’t think anyone else had noticed his lameness.
The first to recover completely from this surprise was the Medical Man,
who rang the bell—the Time Traveller hated to have servants waiting at
dinner—for a hot plate. At that the Editor turned to his knife and fork
with a grunt, and the Silent Man followed suit. The dinner was resumed.
Conversation was exclamatory for a little while with gaps of
wonderment; and then the Editor got fervent in his curiosity. “Does our
friend eke out his modest income with a crossing? or has he his
Nebuchadnezzar phases?” he inquired. “I feel assured it’s this business
of the Time Machine,” I said, and took up the Psychologist’s account of
our previous meeting. The new guests were frankly incredulous. The
Editor raised objections. “What _was_ this time travelling? A man
couldn’t cover himself with dust by rolling in a paradox, could he?”
And then, as the idea came home to him, he resorted to caricature.
Hadn’t they any clothes-brushes in the Future? The Journalist too,
would not believe at any price, and joined the Editor in the easy work
of heaping ridicule on the whole thing. They were both the new kind of
journalist—very joyous, irreverent young men. “Our Special
Correspondent in the Day after Tomorrow reports,” the Journalist was
saying—or rather shouting—when the Time Traveller came back. He was
dressed in ordinary evening clothes, and nothing save his haggard look
remained of the change that had startled me.
“I say,” said the Editor hilariously, “these chaps here say you have
been travelling into the middle of next week! Tell us all about little
Rosebery, will you? What will you take for the lot?”
The Time Traveller came to the place reserved for him without a word.
He smiled quietly, in his old way. “Where’s my mutton?” he said. “What
a treat it is to stick a fork into meat again!”
“Story!” cried the Editor.
“Story be damned!” said the Time Traveller. “I want something to eat. I
won’t say a word until I get some peptone into my arteries. Thanks. And
the salt.”
“One word,” said I. “Have you been time travelling?”
“Yes,” said the Time Traveller, with his mouth full, nodding his head.
“I’d give a shilling a line for a verbatim note,” said the Editor. The
Time Traveller pushed his glass towards the Silent Man and rang it with
his fingernail; at which the Silent Man, who had been staring at his
face, started convulsively, and poured him wine. The rest of the dinner
was uncomfortable. For my own part, sudden questions kept on rising to
my lips, and I dare say it was the same with the others. The Journalist
tried to relieve the tension by telling anecdotes of Hettie Potter. The
Time Traveller devoted his attention to his dinner, and displayed the
appetite of a tramp. The Medical Man smoked a cigarette, and watched
the Time Traveller through his eyelashes. The Silent Man seemed even
more clumsy than usual, and drank champagne with regularity and
determination out of sheer nervousness. At last the Time Traveller
pushed his plate away, and looked round us. “I suppose I must
apologise,” he said. “I was simply starving. I’ve had a most amazing
time.” He reached out his hand for a cigar, and cut the end. “But come
into the smoking-room. It’s too long a story to tell over greasy
plates.” And ringing the bell in passing, he led the way into the
adjoining room.
“You have told Blank, and Dash, and Chose about the machine?” he said
to me, leaning back in his easy-chair and naming the three new guests.
“But the thing’s a mere paradox,” said the Editor.
“I can’t argue tonight. I don’t mind telling you the story, but I can’t
argue. I will,” he went on, “tell you the story of what has happened to
me, if you like, but you must refrain from interruptions. I want to
tell it. Badly. Most of it will sound like lying. So be it! It’s
true—every word of it, all the same. I was in my laboratory at four
o’clock, and since then … I’ve lived eight days … such days as no human
being ever lived before! I’m nearly worn out, but I shan’t sleep till
I’ve told this thing over to you. Then I shall go to bed. But no
interruptions! Is it agreed?”
“Agreed,” said the Editor, and the rest of us echoed “Agreed.” And with
that the Time Traveller began his story as I have set it forth. He sat
back in his chair at first, and spoke like a weary man. Afterwards he
got more animated. In writing it down I feel with only too much
keenness the inadequacy of pen and ink—and, above all, my own
inadequacy—to express its quality. You read, I will suppose,
attentively enough; but you cannot see the speaker’s white, sincere
face in the bright circle of the little lamp, nor hear the intonation
of his voice. You cannot know how his expression followed the turns of
his story! Most of us hearers were in shadow, for the candles in the
smoking-room had not been lighted, and only the face of the Journalist
and the legs of the Silent Man from the knees downward were
illuminated. At first we glanced now and again at each other. After a
time we ceased to do that, and looked only at the Time Traveller’s
face.
 IV.
 Time Travelling
“I told some of you last Thursday of the principles of the Time
Machine, and showed you the actual thing itself, incomplete in the
workshop. There it is now, a little travel-worn, truly; and one of the
ivory bars is cracked, and a brass rail bent; but the rest of it’s
sound enough. I expected to finish it on Friday; but on Friday, when
the putting together was nearly done, I found that one of the nickel
bars was exactly one inch too short, and this I had to get remade; so
that the thing was not complete until this morning. It was at ten
o’clock today that the first of all Time Machines began its career. I
gave it a last tap, tried all the screws again, put one more drop of
oil on the quartz rod, and sat myself in the saddle. I suppose a
suicide who holds a pistol to his skull feels much the same wonder at
what will come next as I felt then. I took the starting lever in one
hand and the stopping one in the other, pressed the first, and almost
immediately the second. I seemed to reel; I felt a nightmare sensation
of falling; and, looking round, I saw the laboratory exactly as before.
Had anything happened? For a moment I suspected that my intellect had
tricked me. Then I noted the clock. A moment before, as it seemed, it
had stood at a minute or so past ten; now it was nearly half-past
three!
“I drew a breath, set my teeth, gripped the starting lever with both
hands, and went off with a thud. The laboratory got hazy and went dark.
Mrs. Watchett came in and walked, apparently without seeing me, towards
the garden door. I suppose it took her a minute or so to traverse the
place, but to me she seemed to shoot across the room like a rocket. I
pressed the lever over to its extreme position. The night came like the
turning out of a lamp, and in another moment came tomorrow. The
laboratory grew faint and hazy, then fainter and ever fainter. Tomorrow
night came black, then day again, night again, day again, faster and
faster still. An eddying murmur filled my ears, and a strange, dumb
confusedness descended on my mind.
“I am afraid I cannot convey the peculiar sensations of time
travelling. They are excessively unpleasant. There is a feeling exactly
like that one has upon a switchback—of a helpless headlong motion! I
felt the same horrible anticipation, too, of an imminent smash. As I
put on pace, night followed day like the flapping of a black wing. The
dim suggestion of the laboratory seemed presently to fall away from me,
and I saw the sun hopping swiftly across the sky, leaping it every
minute, and every minute marking a day. I supposed the laboratory had
been destroyed and I had come into the open air. I had a dim impression
of scaffolding, but I was already going too fast to be conscious of any
moving things. The slowest snail that ever crawled dashed by too fast
for me. The twinkling succession of darkness and light was excessively
painful to the eye. Then, in the intermittent darknesses, I saw the
moon spinning swiftly through her quarters from new to full, and had a
faint glimpse of the circling stars. Presently, as I went on, still
gaining velocity, the palpitation of night and day merged into one
continuous greyness; the sky took on a wonderful deepness of blue, a
splendid luminous colour like that of early twilight; the jerking sun
became a streak of fire, a brilliant arch, in space; the moon a fainter
fluctuating band; and I could see nothing of the stars, save now and
then a brighter circle flickering in the blue.
“The landscape was misty and vague. I was still on the hillside upon
which this house now stands, and the shoulder rose above me grey and
dim. I saw trees growing and changing like puffs of vapour, now brown,
now green; they grew, spread, shivered, and passed away. I saw huge
buildings rise up faint and fair, and pass like dreams. The whole
surface of the earth seemed changed—melting and flowing under my eyes.
The little hands upon the dials that registered my speed raced round
faster and faster. Presently I noted that the sun belt swayed up and
down, from solstice to solstice, in a minute or less, and that
consequently my pace was over a year a minute; and minute by minute the
white snow flashed across the world, and vanished, and was followed by
the bright, brief green of spring.
“The unpleasant sensations of the start were less poignant now. They
merged at last into a kind of hysterical exhilaration. I remarked,
indeed, a clumsy swaying of the machine, for which I was unable to
account. But my mind was too confused to attend to it, so with a kind
of madness growing upon me, I flung myself into futurity. At first I
scarce thought of stopping, scarce thought of anything but these new
sensations. But presently a fresh series of impressions grew up in my
mind—a certain curiosity and therewith a certain dread—until at last
they took complete possession of me. What strange developments of
humanity, what wonderful advances upon our rudimentary civilisation, I
thought, might not appear when I came to look nearly into the dim
elusive world that raced


Summarize in plain English: The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes by Arthur Conan Doyle
I. A SCANDAL IN BOHEMIA
I.
To Sherlock Holmes she is always _the_ woman. I have seldom heard him
mention her under any other name. In his eyes she eclipses and
predominates the whole of her sex. It was not that he felt any emotion
akin to love for Irene Adler. All emotions, and that one particularly,
were abhorrent to his cold, precise but admirably balanced mind. He
was, I take it, the most perfect reasoning and observing machine that
the world has seen, but as a lover he would have placed himself in a
false position. He never spoke of the softer passions, save with a gibe
and a sneer. They were admirable things for the observer—excellent for
drawing the veil from men’s motives and actions. But for the trained
reasoner to admit such intrusions into his own delicate and finely
adjusted temperament was to introduce a distracting factor which might
throw a doubt upon all his mental results. Grit in a sensitive
instrument, or a crack in one of his own high-power lenses, would not
be more disturbing than a strong emotion in a nature such as his. And
yet there was but one woman to him, and that woman was the late Irene
Adler, of dubious and questionable memory.
I had seen little of Holmes lately. My marriage had drifted us away
from each other. My own complete happiness, and the home-centred
interests which rise up around the man who first finds himself master
of his own establishment, were sufficient to absorb all my attention,
while Holmes, who loathed every form of society with his whole Bohemian
soul, remained in our lodgings in Baker Street, buried among his old
books, and alternating from week to week between cocaine and ambition,
the drowsiness of the drug, and the fierce energy of his own keen
nature. He was still, as ever, deeply attracted by the study of crime,
and occupied his immense faculties and extraordinary powers of
observation in following out those clues, and clearing up those
mysteries which had been abandoned as hopeless by the official police.
From time to time I heard some vague account of his doings: of his
summons to Odessa in the case of the Trepoff murder, of his clearing up
of the singular tragedy of the Atkinson brothers at Trincomalee, and
finally of the mission which he had accomplished so delicately and
successfully for the reigning family of Holland. Beyond these signs of
his activity, however, which I merely shared with all the readers of
the daily press, I knew little of my former friend and companion.
One night—it was on the twentieth of March, 1888—I was returning from a
journey to a patient (for I had now returned to civil practice), when
my way led me through Baker Street. As I passed the well-remembered
door, which must always be associated in my mind with my wooing, and
with the dark incidents of the Study in Scarlet, I was seized with a
keen desire to see Holmes again, and to know how he was employing his
extraordinary powers. His rooms were brilliantly lit, and, even as I
looked up, I saw his tall, spare figure pass twice in a dark silhouette
against the blind. He was pacing the room swiftly, eagerly, with his
head sunk upon his chest and his hands clasped behind him. To me, who
knew his every mood and habit, his attitude and manner told their own
story. He was at work again. He had risen out of his drug-created
dreams and was hot upon the scent of some new problem. I rang the bell
and was shown up to the chamber which had formerly been in part my own.
His manner was not effusive. It seldom was; but he was glad, I think,
to see me. With hardly a word spoken, but with a kindly eye, he waved
me to an armchair, threw across his case of cigars, and indicated a
spirit case and a gasogene in the corner. Then he stood before the fire
and looked me over in his singular introspective fashion.
“Wedlock suits you,” he remarked. “I think, Watson, that you have put
on seven and a half pounds since I saw you.”
“Seven!” I answered.
“Indeed, I should have thought a little more. Just a trifle more, I
fancy, Watson. And in practice again, I observe. You did not tell me
that you intended to go into harness.”
“Then, how do you know?”
“I see it, I deduce it. How do I know that you have been getting
yourself very wet lately, and that you have a most clumsy and careless
servant girl?”
“My dear Holmes,” said I, “this is too much. You would certainly have
been burned, had you lived a few centuries ago. It is true that I had a
country walk on Thursday and came home in a dreadful mess, but as I
have changed my clothes I can’t imagine how you deduce it. As to Mary
Jane, she is incorrigible, and my wife has given her notice, but there,
again, I fail to see how you work it out.”
He chuckled to himself and rubbed his long, nervous hands together.
“It is simplicity itself,” said he; “my eyes tell me that on the inside
of your left shoe, just where the firelight strikes it, the leather is
scored by six almost parallel cuts. Obviously they have been caused by
someone who has very carelessly scraped round the edges of the sole in
order to remove crusted mud from it. Hence, you see, my double
deduction that you had been out in vile weather, and that you had a
particularly malignant boot-slitting specimen of the London slavey. As
to your practice, if a gentleman walks into my rooms smelling of
iodoform, with a black mark of nitrate of silver upon his right
forefinger, and a bulge on the right side of his top-hat to show where
he has secreted his stethoscope, I must be dull, indeed, if I do not
pronounce him to be an active member of the medical profession.”
I could not help laughing at the ease with which he explained his
process of deduction. “When I hear you give your reasons,” I remarked,
“the thing always appears to me to be so ridiculously simple that I
could easily do it myself, though at each successive instance of your
reasoning I am baffled until you explain your process. And yet I
believe that my eyes are as good as yours.”
“Quite so,” he answered, lighting a cigarette, and throwing himself
down into an armchair. “You see, but you do not observe. The
distinction is clear. For example, you have frequently seen the steps
which lead up from the hall to this room.”
“Frequently.”
“How often?”
“Well, some hundreds of times.”
“Then how many are there?”
“How many? I don’t know.”
“Quite so! You have not observed. And yet you have seen. That is just
my point. Now, I know that there are seventeen steps, because I have
both seen and observed. By the way, since you are interested in these
little problems, and since you are good enough to chronicle one or two
of my trifling experiences, you may be interested in this.” He threw
over a sheet of thick, pink-tinted notepaper which had been lying open
upon the table. “It came by the last post,” said he. “Read it aloud.”
The note was undated, and without either signature or address.
“There will call upon you to-night, at a quarter to eight o’clock,” it
said, “a gentleman who desires to consult you upon a matter of the very
deepest moment. Your recent services to one of the royal houses of
Europe have shown that you are one who may safely be trusted with
matters which are of an importance which can hardly be exaggerated.
This account of you we have from all quarters received. Be in your
chamber then at that hour, and do not take it amiss if your visitor
wear a mask.”
“This is indeed a mystery,” I remarked. “What do you imagine that it
means?”
“I have no data yet. It is a capital mistake to theorise before one has
data. Insensibly one begins to twist facts to suit theories, instead of
theories to suit facts. But the note itself. What do you deduce from
it?”
I carefully examined the writing, and the paper upon which it was
written.
“The man who wrote it was presumably well to do,” I remarked,
endeavouring to imitate my companion’s processes. “Such paper could not
be bought under half a crown a packet. It is peculiarly strong and
stiff.”
“Peculiar—that is the very word,” said Holmes. “It is not an English
paper at all. Hold it up to the light.”
I did so, and saw a large “E” with a small “g,” a “P,” and a large “G”
with a small “t” woven into the texture of the paper.
“What do you make of that?” asked Holmes.
“The name of the maker, no doubt; or his monogram, rather.”
“Not at all. The ‘G’ with the small ‘t’ stands for ‘Gesellschaft,’
which is the German for ‘Company.’ It is a customary contraction like
our ‘Co.’ ‘P,’ of course, stands for ‘Papier.’ Now for the ‘Eg.’ Let us
glance at our Continental Gazetteer.” He took down a heavy brown volume
from his shelves. “Eglow, Eglonitz—here we are, Egria. It is in a
German-speaking country—in Bohemia, not far from Carlsbad. ‘Remarkable
as being the scene of the death of Wallenstein, and for its numerous
glass-factories and paper-mills.’ Ha, ha, my boy, what do you make of
that?” His eyes sparkled, and he sent up a great blue triumphant cloud
from his cigarette.
“The paper was made in Bohemia,” I said.
“Precisely. And the man who wrote the note is a German. Do you note the
peculiar construction of the sentence—‘This account of you we have from
all quarters received.’ A Frenchman or Russian could not have written
that. It is the German who is so uncourteous to his verbs. It only
remains, therefore, to discover what is wanted by this German who
writes upon Bohemian paper and prefers wearing a mask to showing his
face. And here he comes, if I am not mistaken, to resolve all our
doubts.”
As he spoke there was the sharp sound of horses’ hoofs and grating
wheels against the curb, followed by a sharp pull at the bell. Holmes
whistled.
“A pair, by the sound,” said he. “Yes,” he continued, glancing out of
the window. “A nice little brougham and a pair of beauties. A hundred
and fifty guineas apiece. There’s money in this case, Watson, if there
is nothing else.”
“I think that I had better go, Holmes.”
“Not a bit, Doctor. Stay where you are. I am lost without my Boswell.
And this promises to be interesting. It would be a pity to miss it.”
“But your client—”
“Never mind him. I may want your help, and so may he. Here he comes.
Sit down in that armchair, Doctor, and give us your best attention.”
A slow and heavy step, which had been heard upon the stairs and in the
passage, paused immediately outside the door. Then there was a loud and
authoritative tap.
“Come in!” said Holmes.
A man entered who could hardly have been less than six feet six inches
in height, with the chest and limbs of a Hercules. His dress was rich
with a richness which would, in England, be looked upon as akin to bad
taste. Heavy bands of astrakhan were slashed across the sleeves and
fronts of his double-breasted coat, while the deep blue cloak which was
thrown over his shoulders was lined with flame-coloured silk and
secured at the neck with a brooch which consisted of a single flaming
beryl. Boots which extended halfway up his calves, and which were
trimmed at the tops with rich brown fur, completed the impression of
barbaric opulence which was suggested by his whole appearance. He
carried a broad-brimmed hat in his hand, while he wore across the upper
part of his face, extending down past the cheekbones, a black vizard
mask, which he had apparently adjusted that very moment, for his hand
was still raised to it as he entered. From the lower part of the face
he appeared to be a man of strong character, with a thick, hanging lip,
and a long, straight chin suggestive of resolution pushed to the length
of obstinacy.
“You had my note?” he asked with a deep harsh voice and a strongly
marked German accent. “I told you that I would call.” He looked from
one to the other of us, as if uncertain which to address.
“Pray take a seat,” said Holmes. “This is my friend and colleague, Dr.
Watson, who is occasionally good enough to help me in my cases. Whom
have I the honour to address?”
“You may address me as the Count Von Kramm, a Bohemian nobleman. I
understand that this gentleman, your friend, is a man of honour and
discretion, whom I may trust with a matter of the most extreme
importance. If not, I should much prefer to communicate with you
alone.”
I rose to go, but Holmes caught me by the wrist and pushed me back into
my chair. “It is both, or none,” said he. “You may say before this
gentleman anything which you may say to me.”
The Count shrugged his broad shoulders. “Then I must begin,” said he,
“by binding you both to absolute secrecy for two years; at the end of
that time the matter will be of no importance. At present it is not too
much to say that it is of such weight it may have an influence upon
European history.”
“I promise,” said Holmes.
“And I.”
“You will excuse this mask,” continued our strange visitor. “The august
person who employs me wishes his agent to be unknown to you, and I may
confess at once that the title by which I have just called myself is
not exactly my own.”
“I was aware of it,” said Holmes dryly.
“The circumstances are of great delicacy, and every precaution has to
be taken to quench what might grow to be an immense scandal and
seriously compromise one of the reigning families of Europe. To speak
plainly, the matter implicates the great House of Ormstein, hereditary
kings of Bohemia.”
“I was also aware of that,” murmured Holmes, settling himself down in
his armchair and closing his eyes.
Our visitor glanced with some apparent surprise at the languid,
lounging figure of the man who had been no doubt depicted to him as the
most incisive reasoner and most energetic agent in Europe. Holmes
slowly reopened his eyes and looked impatiently at his gigantic client.
“If your Majesty would condescend to state your case,” he remarked, “I
should be better able to advise you.”
The man sprang from his chair and paced up and down the room in
uncontrollable agitation. Then, with a gesture of desperation, he tore
the mask from his face and hurled it upon the ground. “You are right,”
he cried; “I am the King. Why should I attempt to conceal it?”
“Why, indeed?” murmured Holmes. “Your Majesty had not spoken before I
was aware that I was addressing Wilhelm Gottsreich Sigismond von
Ormstein, Grand Duke of Cassel-Felstein, and hereditary King of
Bohemia.”
“But you can understand,” said our strange visitor, sitting down once
more and passing his hand over his high white forehead, “you can
understand that I am not accustomed to doing such business in my own
person. Yet the matter was so delicate that I could not confide it to
an agent without putting myself in his power. I have come _incognito_
from Prague for the purpose of consulting you.”
“Then, pray consult,” said Holmes, shutting his eyes once more.
“The facts are briefly these: Some five years ago, during a lengthy
visit to Warsaw, I made the acquaintance of the well-known adventuress,
Irene Adler. The name is no doubt familiar to you.”
“Kindly look her up in my index, Doctor,” murmured Holmes without
opening his eyes. For many years he had adopted a system of docketing
all paragraphs concerning men and things, so that it was difficult to
name a subject or a person on which he could not at once furnish
information. In this case I found her biography sandwiched in between
that of a Hebrew rabbi and that of a staff-commander who had written a
monograph upon the deep-sea fishes.
“Let me see!” said Holmes. “Hum! Born in New Jersey in the year 1858.
Contralto—hum! La Scala, hum! Prima donna Imperial Opera of Warsaw—yes!
Retired from operatic stage—ha! Living in London—quite so! Your
Majesty, as I understand, became entangled with this young person,
wrote her some compromising letters, and is now desirous of getting
those letters back.”
“Precisely so. But how—”
“Was there a secret marriage?”
“None.”
“No legal papers or certificates?”
“None.”
“Then I fail to follow your Majesty. If this young person should
produce her letters for blackmailing or other purposes, how is she to
prove their authenticity?”
“There is the writing.”
“Pooh, pooh! Forgery.”
“My private note-paper.”
“Stolen.”
“My own seal.”
“Imitated.”
“My photograph.”
“Bought.”
“We were both in the photograph.”
“Oh, dear! That is very bad! Your Majesty has indeed committed an
indiscretion.”
“I was mad—insane.”
“You have compromised yourself seriously.”
“I was only Crown Prince then. I was young. I am but thirty now.”
“It must be recovered.”
“We have tried and failed.”
“Your Majesty must pay. It must be bought.”
“She will not sell.”
“Stolen, then.”
“Five attempts have been made. Twice burglars in my pay ransacked her
house. Once we diverted her luggage when she travelled. Twice she has
been waylaid. There has been no result.”
“No sign of it?”
“Absolutely none.”
Holmes laughed. “It is quite a pretty little problem,” said he.
“But a very serious one to me,” returned the King reproachfully.
“Very, indeed. And what does she propose to do with the photograph?”
“To ruin me.”
“But how?”
“I am about to be married.”
“So I have heard.”
“To Clotilde Lothman von Saxe-Meningen, second daughter of the King of
Scandinavia. You may know the strict principles of her family. She is
herself the very soul of delicacy. A shadow of a doubt as to my conduct
would bring the matter to an end.”
“And Irene Adler?”
“Threatens to send them the photograph. And she will do it. I know that
she will do it. You do not know her, but she has a soul of steel. She
has the face of the most beautiful of women, and the mind of the most
resolute of men. Rather than I should marry another woman, there are no
lengths to which she would not go—none.”
“You are sure that she has not sent it yet?”
“I am sure.”
“And why?”
“Because she has said that she would send it on the day when the
betrothal was publicly proclaimed. That will be next Monday.”
“Oh, then we have three days yet,” said Holmes with a yawn. “That is
very fortunate, as I have one or two matters of importance to look into
just at present. Your Majesty will, of course, stay in London for the
present?”
“Certainly. You will find me at the Langham under the name of the Count
Von Kramm.”
“Then I shall drop you a line to let you know how we progress.”
“Pray do so. I shall be all anxiety.”
“Then, as to money?”
“You have _carte blanche_.”
“Absolutely?”
“I tell you that I would give one of the provinces of my kingdom to
have that photograph.”
“And for present expenses?”
The King took a heavy chamois leather bag from under his cloak and laid
it on the table.
“There are three hundred pounds in gold and seven hundred in notes,” he
said.
Holmes scribbled a receipt upon a sheet of his note-book and handed it
to him.
“And Mademoiselle’s address?” he asked.
“Is Briony Lodge, Serpentine Avenue, St. John’s Wood.”
Holmes took a note of it. “One other question,” said he. “Was the
photograph a cabinet?”
“It was.”
“Then, good-night, your Majesty, and I trust that we shall soon have
some good news for you. And good-night, Watson,” he added, as the
wheels of the royal brougham rolled down the street. “If you will be
good enough to call to-morrow afternoon at three o’clock I should like
to chat this little matter over with you.”
II.
At three o’clock precisely I was at Baker Street, but Holmes had not
yet returned. The landlady informed me that he had left the house
shortly after eight o’clock in the morning. I sat down beside the fire,
however, with the intention of awaiting him, however long he might be.
I was already deeply interested in his inquiry, for, though it was
surrounded by none of the grim and strange features which were
associated with the two crimes which I have already recorded, still,
the nature of the case and the exalted station of his client gave it a
character of its own. Indeed, apart from the nature of the
investigation which my friend had on hand, there was something in his
masterly grasp of a situation, and his keen, incisive reasoning, which
made it a pleasure to me to study his system of work, and to follow the
quick, subtle methods by which he disentangled the most inextricable
mysteries. So accustomed was I to his invariable success that the very
possibility of his failing had ceased to enter into my head.
It was close upon four before the door opened, and a drunken-looking
groom, ill-kempt and side-whiskered, with an inflamed face and
disreputable clothes, walked into the room. Accustomed as I was to my
friend’s amazing powers in the use of disguises, I had to look three
times before I was certain that it was indeed he. With a nod he
vanished into the bedroom, whence he emerged in five minutes
tweed-suited and respectable, as of old. Putting his hands into his
pockets, he stretched out his legs in front of the fire and laughed
heartily for some minutes.
“Well, really!” he cried, and then he choked and laughed again until he
was obliged to lie back, limp and helpless, in the chair.
“What is it?”
“It’s quite too funny. I am sure you could never guess how I employed
my morning, or what I ended by doing.”
“I can’t imagine. I suppose that you have been watching the habits, and
perhaps the house, of Miss Irene Adler.”
“Quite so; but the sequel was rather unusual. I will tell you, however.
I left the house a little after eight o’clock this morning in the
character of a groom out of work. There is a wonderful sympathy and
freemasonry among horsey men. Be one of them, and you will know all
that there is to know. I soon found Briony Lodge. It is a _bijou_
villa, with a garden at the back, but built out in front right up to
the road, two stories. Chubb lock to the door. Large sitting-room on
the right side, well furnished, with long windows almost to the floor,
and those preposterous English window fasteners which a child could
open. Behind there was nothing remarkable, save that the passage window
could be reached from the top of the coach-house. I walked round it and
examined it closely from every point of view, but without noting
anything else of interest.
“I then lounged down the street and found, as I expected, that there
was a mews in a lane which runs down by one wall of the garden. I lent
the ostlers a hand in rubbing down their horses, and received in
exchange twopence, a glass of half-and-half, two fills of shag tobacco,
and as much information as I could desire about Miss Adler, to say
nothing of half a dozen other people in the neighbourhood in whom I was
not in the least interested, but whose biographies I was compelled to
listen to.”
“And what of Irene Adler?” I asked.
“Oh, she has turned all the men’s heads down in that part. She is the
daintiest thing under a bonnet on this planet. So say the
Serpentine-mews, to a man. She lives quietly, sings at concerts, drives
out at five every day, and returns at seven sharp for dinner. Seldom
goes out at other times, except when she sings. Has only one male
visitor, but a good deal of him. He is dark, handsome, and dashing,
never calls less than once a day, and often twice. He is a Mr. Godfrey
Norton, of the Inner Temple. See the advantages of a cabman as a
confidant. They had driven him home a dozen times from Serpentine-mews,
and knew all about him. When I had listened to all they had to tell, I
began to walk up and down near Briony Lodge once more, and to think
over my plan of campaign.
“This Godfrey Norton was evidently an important factor in the matter.
He was a lawyer. That sounded ominous. What was the relation between
them, and what the object of his repeated visits? Was she his client,
his friend, or his mistress? If the former, she had probably
transferred the photograph to his keeping. If the latter, it was less
likely. On the issue of this question depended whether I should
continue my work at Briony Lodge, or turn my attention to the
gentleman’s chambers in the Temple. It was a delicate point, and it
widened the field of my inquiry. I fear that I bore you with these
details, but I have to let you see my little difficulties, if you are
to understand the situation.”
“I am following you closely,” I answered.
“I was still balancing the matter in my mind when a hansom cab drove up
to Briony Lodge, and a gentleman sprang out. He was a remarkably
handsome man, dark, aquiline, and moustached—evidently the man of whom
I had heard. He appeared to be in a great hurry, shouted to the cabman
to wait, and brushed past the maid who opened the door with the air of
a man who was thoroughly at home.
“He was in the house about half an hour, and I could catch glimpses of
him in the windows of the sitting-room, pacing up and down, talking
excitedly, and waving his arms. Of her I could see nothing. Presently
he emerged, looking even more flurried than before. As he stepped up to
the cab, he pulled a gold watch from his pocket and looked at it
earnestly, ‘Drive like the devil,’ he shouted, ‘first to Gross &
Hankey’s in Regent Street, and then to the Church of St. Monica in the
Edgeware Road. Half a guinea if you do it in twenty minutes!’
“Away they went, and I was just wondering whether I should not do well
to follow them when up the lane came a neat little landau, the coachman
with his coat only half-buttoned, and his tie under his ear, while all
the tags of his harness were sticking out of the buckles. It hadn’t
pulled up before she shot out of the hall door and into it. I only
caught a glimpse of her at the moment, but she was a lovely woman, with
a face that a man might die for.
“‘The Church of St. Monica, John,’ she cried, ‘and half a sovereign if
you reach it in twenty minutes.’
“This was quite too good to lose, Watson. I was just balancing whether
I should run for it, or whether I should perch behind her landau when a
cab came through the street. The driver looked twice at such a shabby
fare, but I jumped in before he could object. ‘The Church of St.
Monica,’ said I, ‘and half a sovereign if you reach it in twenty
minutes.’ It was twenty-five minutes to twelve, and of course it was
clear enough what was in the wind.
“My cabby drove fast. I don’t think I ever drove faster, but the others
were there before us. The cab and the landau with their steaming horses
were in front of the door when I arrived. I paid the man and hurried
into the church. There was not a soul there save the two whom I had
followed and a surpliced clergyman, who seemed to be expostulating with
them. They were all three standing in a knot in front of the altar. I
lounged up the side aisle like any other idler who has dropped into a
church. Suddenly, to my surprise, the three at the altar faced round to
me, and Godfrey Norton came running as hard as he could towards me.
“‘Thank God,’ he cried. ‘You’ll do. Come! Come!’
“‘What then?’ I asked.
“‘Come, man, come, only three minutes, or it won’t be legal.’
“I was half-dragged up to the altar, and before I knew where I was I
found myself mumbling responses which were whispered in my ear, and
vouching for things of which I knew nothing, and generally assisting in
the secure tying up of Irene Adler, spinster, to Godfrey Norton,
bachelor. It was all done in an instant, and there was the gentleman
thanking me on the one side and the lady on the other, while the
clergyman beamed on me in front. It was the most preposterous position
in which I ever found myself in my life, and it was the thought of it
that started me laughing just now. It seems that there had been some
informality about their license, that the clergyman absolutely refused
to marry them without a witness of some sort, and that my lucky
appearance saved the bridegroom from having to sally out into the
streets in search of a best man. The bride gave me a sovereign, and I
mean to wear it on my watch chain in memory of the occasion.”
“This is a very unexpected turn of affairs,” said I; “and what then?”
“Well, I found my plans very seriously menaced. It looked as if the
pair might take an immediate departure, and so necessitate very prompt
and energetic measures on my part. At the church door, however, they
separated, he driving back to the Temple, and she to her own house. ‘I
shall drive out in the park at five as usual,’ she said as she left
him. I heard no more. They drove away in different directions, and I
went off to make my own arrangements.”
“Which are?”
“Some cold beef and a glass of beer,” he answered, ringing the bell. “I
have been too busy to think of food, and I am likely to be busier still
this evening. By the way, Doctor, I shall want your co-operation.”
“I shall be delighted.”
“You don’t mind breaking the law?”
“Not in the least.”
“Nor running a chance of arrest?”
“Not in a good cause.”
“Oh, the cause is excellent!”
“Then I am your man.”
“I was sure that I might rely on you.”
“But what is it you wish?”
“When Mrs. Turner has brought in the tray I will make it clear to you.
Now,” he said as he turned hungrily on the simple fare that our
landlady had provided, “I must discuss it while I eat, for I have not
much time. It is nearly five now. In two hours we must be on the scene
of action. Miss Irene, or Madame, rather, returns from her drive at
seven. We must be at Briony Lodge to meet her.”
“And what then?”
“You must leave that to me. I have already arranged what is to occur.
There is only one point on which I must insist. You must not interfere,
come what may. You understand?”
“I am to be neutral?”
“To do nothing whatever. There will probably be some small
unpleasantness. Do not join in it. It will end in my being conveyed
into the house. Four or five minutes afterwards the sitting-room window
will open. You are to station yourself close to that open window.”
“Yes.”
“You are to watch me, for I will be visible to you.”
“Yes.”
“And when I raise my hand—so—you will throw into the room what I give
you to throw, and will, at the same time, raise the cry of fire. You
quite follow me?”
“Entirely.”
“It is nothing very formidable,” he said, taking a long cigar-shaped
roll from his pocket. “It is an ordinary plumber’s smoke-rocket, fitted
with a cap at either end to make it self-lighting. Your task is
confined to that. When you raise your cry of fire, it will be taken up
by quite a number of people. You may then walk to the end of the
street, and I will rejoin you in ten minutes. I hope that I have made
myself clear?”
“I am to remain neutral, to get near the window, to watch you, and at
the signal to throw in this object, then to raise the cry of fire, and
to wait you at the corner of the street.”
“Precisely.”
“Then you may entirely rely on me.”
“That is excellent. I think, perhaps, it is almost time that I prepare
for the new role I have to play.”
He disappeared into his bedroom and returned in a few minutes in the
character of an amiable and simple-minded Nonconformist clergyman. His
broad black hat, his baggy trousers, his white tie, his sympathetic
smile, and general look of peering and benevolent curiosity were such
as Mr. John Hare alone could have equalled. It was not merely that
Holmes changed his costume. His expression, his manner, his very soul
seemed to vary with every fresh part that he assumed. The stage lost a
fine actor, even as science lost an acute reasoner, when he became a
specialist in crime.
It was a quarter past six when we left Baker Street, and it still
wanted ten minutes to the hour when we found ourselves in Serpentine
Avenue. It was already dusk, and the lamps were just being lighted as
we paced up and down in front of Briony Lodge, waiting for the coming
of its occupant. The house was just such as I had pictured it from
Sherlock Holmes’ succinct description, but the locality appeared to be
less private than I expected. On the contrary, for a small street in a
quiet neighbourhood, it was remarkably animated. There was a group of
shabbily dressed men smoking and laughing in a corner, a
scissors-grinder with his wheel, two guardsmen who were flirting with a
nurse-girl, and several well-dressed young men who were lounging up and
down with cigars in their mouths.
“You see,” remarked Holmes, as we paced to and fro in front of the
house, “this marriage rather simplifies matters. The photograph becomes
a double-edged weapon now. The chances are that she would be as averse
to its being seen by Mr. Godfrey Norton, as our client is to its coming
to the eyes of his princess. Now the question is, Where are we to find
the photograph?”
“Where, indeed?”
“It is most unlikely that she carries it about with her. It is cabinet
size. Too large for easy concealment about a woman’s dress. She knows
that the King is capable of having her waylaid and searched. Two
attempts of the sort have already been made. We may take it, then, that
she does not carry it about with her.”
“Where, then?”
“Her banker or her lawyer. There is that double possibility. But I am
inclined to think neither. Women are naturally secretive, and they like
to do their own secreting. Why should she hand it over to anyone else?
She could trust her own guardianship, but she could not tell what
indirect or political influence might be brought to bear upon a
business man. Besides, remember that she had resolved to use it within
a few days. It must be where she can lay her hands upon it. It must be
in her own house.”
“But it has twice been burgled.”
“Pshaw! They did not know how to look.”
“But how will you look?”
“I will not look.”
“What then?”
“I will get her to show me.”
“But she will refuse.”
“She will not be able to. But I hear the rumble of wheels. It is her
carriage. Now carry out my orders to the letter.”
As he spoke the gleam of the sidelights of a carriage came round the
curve of the avenue. It was a smart little landau which rattled up to
the door of Briony Lodge. As it pulled up, one of the loafing men at
the corner dashed forward to open the door in the hope of earning a
copper, but was elbowed away by another loafer, who had rushed up with
the same intention. A fierce quarrel broke out, which was increased by
the two guardsmen, who took sides with one of the loungers, and by the
scissors-grinder, who was equally hot upon the other side. A blow was
struck, and in an instant the lady, who had stepped from her carriage,
was the centre of a little knot of flushed and struggling men, who
struck savagely at each other with their fists and sticks. Holmes
dashed into the crowd to protect the lady; but, just as he reached her,
he gave a cry and dropped to the ground, with the blood running freely
down his face. At his fall the guardsmen took to their heels in one
direction and the loungers in the other, while a number of better
dressed people, who had watched the scuffle without taking part in it,
crowded in to help the lady and to attend to the injured man. Irene
Adler, as I will still call her, had hurried up the steps; but she
stood at the top with her superb figure outlined against the lights of
the hall, looking back into the street.
“Is the poor gentleman much hurt?” she asked.
“He is dead,” cried several voices.
“No, no, there’s life in him!” shouted another. “But he’ll be gone
before you can get him to hospital.”
“He’s a brave fellow,” said a woman. “They would have had the lady’s
purse and watch if it hadn’t been for him. They were a gang, and a
rough one, too. Ah, he’s breathing now.”
“He can’t lie in the street. May we bring him in, marm?”
“Surely. Bring him into the sitting-room. There is a comfortable sofa.
This way, please!”
Slowly and solemnly he was borne into Briony Lodge and laid out in the
principal room, while I still observed the proceedings from my post by
the window. The lamps had been lit, but the blinds had not been drawn,
so that I could see Holmes as he lay upon the couch. I do not know
whether he was seized with compunction at that moment for the part he
was playing, but I know that I never felt more heartily ashamed of
myself in my life than when I saw the beautiful creature against whom I
was conspiring, or the grace and kindliness with which she waited upon
the injured man. And yet it would be the blackest treachery to Holmes
to draw back now from the part which he had intrusted to me. I hardened
my heart, and took the smoke-rocket from under my ulster. After all, I
thought, we are not injuring her. We are but preventing her from
injuring another.
Holmes had sat up upon the couch, and I saw him motion like a man who
is in need of air. A maid rushed across and threw open the window. At
the same instant I saw him raise his hand and at the signal I tossed my
rocket into the room with a cry of “Fire!” The word was no sooner out
of my mouth than the whole crowd of spectators, well dressed and
ill—gentlemen, ostlers, and servant maids—joined in a general shriek of
“Fire!” Thick clouds of smoke curled through the room and out at the
open window. I caught a glimpse of rushing figures, and a moment later
the voice of Holmes from within assuring them that it was a false
alarm. Slipping through the shouting crowd I made my way to the corner