Mr. Hungerton, her father, was the most tactless person on the earth, a good-natured man, but absolutely centered on himself. If anything could have driven me from Gladys, it would have been the thought of such a father-in-law. I am sure that he really believed that I came round to their house three days a week only for the pleasure of his company.

For an hour or more that evening I listened to his monotonous talk about money exchange and debts.

“Imagine,” he cried, “that all the debts in the world were to be paid at once… what would happen then?”

I answered that I should be a ruined man.[1] He jumped from his chair, complained that it was impossible for him to discuss any reasonable subject with me, and ran out of the room to dress for a Masonic meeting.[2]

At last I was alone with Gladys, and the moment of Fate had come! All that evening I had felt like the soldier who awaits the signal which will send him on a hope.

She sat against the red curtain. How beautiful she was! And yet how aloof! We had been friends, quite good friends; but never could I get beyond the same friendship which I might have had with one of my fellow-reporters upon the Gazette – a frank and kind friendship. My nature is all against a woman who is too frank with me. It is no compliment to a man. Where the real feeling begins, shyness and distrust are its companions. It is heritage from old days when love and violence went often hand in hand. The bent head, the sideward eye, the low voice… these, and not the straight gaze and frank reply, are the true signals of passion. Even in my short life I had learned it.

Gladys was full of womanly qualities. Some thought her to be cold and hard; but it was so untrue! That bronzed skin, that raven hair, the large eyes, the full lips… all the signs of passion were there. But I was sadly conscious[3] that up to now I had never found the secret how to conquer her. She could refuse me, but better be a refused lover than an accepted brother.

So I was about to break the silence,[4] when two critical, dark eyes looked at me. Gladys shook her head and smiled with reproof.[5]

“I have a feeling that you are going to propose, Ned. I wish you wouldn’t.”

“How did you know that I was going to propose?” I asked in wonder.

“Don’t women always know? But… Ned, our friendship has been so good and so pleasant! What a pity to spoil it! Don’t you think how splendid it is that a young man and a young woman should be able to talk face to face as we have talked?”

“I don’t know, Gladys. You see, I can talk face to face with anyone. So it does not satisfy me. I want my arms round you, and your head on my breast, and… oh, Gladys…”

“You’ve spoiled everything, Ned,” she said. “Why can’t you control yourself?[6]”

“I can’t. It’s nature. It’s love.”

“Well, I have never felt it.”

“But you must… you, with your beauty, with your soul! Oh, Gladys, you were made for love! You must love!”

“One must wait till it comes.”

“But why can’t you love me, Gladys? Is it my appearance, or what?”

“No it isn’t that,” she said with a smile. “It’s deeper.”

“My character?”

She nodded severely.

“What can I do, Gladys? Tell me, what’s wrong?”

“I’m in love with somebody else,” she said.

I jumped out of my chair.

“It’s nobody in particular,” she explained, laughing at the expression of my face: “only an ideal. I’ve never met the kind of man I mean.”

“Tell me about him. What does he look like?”

“Oh, he might look very much like you.”

“How dear of you to say that! Well, what is it that he does that I don’t do? Just say the word… non-drinking, vegetarian, pilot, theosophist, superman. I’ll have a try at it, Gladys, if you will tell me what would please you.”

She laughed at the flexibility of my character.

“Well, in the first place, I don’t think my ideal would speak like that,” said she. “He would be a harder man, not so ready to adapt himself to a girl. But, above all, he must be a man who could act, who could look Death in the face and have no fear of him, a man of great experiences. It is not a man that I should love, but the glories he had won because they would be reflected upon me!”

She looked so beautiful in her enthusiasm!

“But we don’t usually get the chance of great experiences… at least, I never had the chance. If I did, I should try to take it.”

“But chances are all around you. Remember that young Frenchman who went up last week in a balloon. The wind blew him fifteen hundred miles in twenty-four hours, and he fell in the middle of Russia. That was the kind of man I mean. Think of the woman he loved, and how other women must have envied her! That’s what I should like to be… envied for my man.”

“I’d have done it to please you.”

“But you shouldn’t do it just to please me. You should do it because you can’t help yourself,[7] because it’s natural to you. Now, when you described the Wigan coal explosion last month, could you not have gone down and helped those people?”

“I did.”

“You never said so.”

“There was nothing worth boasting of.”

“I didn’t know.” She looked at me with more interest. “That was brave of you.”

“I had to. If you want to write a good article, you must be where the things are.”

“What a prosaic motive! It seems to take all the romance out of it. But, still, I am glad that you went down that mine. I dare say I am a foolish woman with a young girl’s dreams. And yet it is so real with me, that I cannot help it. If I marry, I do want to marry a famous man!”

“Why should you not?” I cried. “Give me a chance, and see if I will take it! I’ll do something in the world!”

She laughed at my sudden Irish excitement.

“Why not?” she said. “You have everything a man could have… youth, health, strength, education, energy. Now I am glad if it wakens these thoughts in you!”

“And if I…”

Her dear hand rested upon my lips.

“Not another word, Sir! You should have been at the office for evening duty half an hour ago. Some day, perhaps, when you have won your place in the world, we shall talk it over again.”

And so I left her with my heart glowing within me and with the eager determination to find some deed which was worthy of my lady. But who… who in all this world could ever have imagined this incredible deed I was about to take? Was it hardness, was it selfishness, that Gladys should ask me to risk my life for her own glorification? Such thoughts may come in middle age but never when you are twenty three and in the fever of your first love.

Chapter 2

Try Your Luck With Professor Challenger

I always liked McArdle, the crabbed,[8] old, red-headed news editor, and I hoped that he liked me. Of course, Beaumont was the real boss but he was above and beyond us – we saw him very seldom. And McArdle was his first lieutenant. The old man nodded as I entered the room.

“Well, Mr. Malone, you seem to be doing very well,” he said in his kindly Scottish accent.

I thanked him.

“The article about explosion was excellent. So why did you want to see me?”

“To ask a favour[9]… Do you think, Sir, that you could possibly send me on some mission? I would do my best[10] to get you some good copy.[11]”

“What sort of mission, Mr. Malone?”

“Well, Sir, anything that had adventure and danger in it. The more difficult it was, the better it would suit me.”

“You seem very anxious to lose your life.”

“To justify my life, Sir.”

“Dear me, Mr. Malone, I’m afraid the day for this sort of thing is rather past. There’s no room for romance… Wait a bit, though!” he added, with a sudden smile. “What about exposing a fraud… a modern Munchausen[12]… and making him ridiculous? You could show him as the liar that he is! How does it sound to you?”

“Anything… anywhere… I don’t care.”

McArdle was plunged in thought for some minutes.

“You seem to have, I suppose, animal magnetism, or youthful energy, or something… So why should you not try your luck with Professor Challenger?”

I looked a little startled.

“Challenger!” I cried. “Professor Challenger, the famous zoologist! The man who broke the skull of Blundell, of the Telegraph!”

The news editor smiled grimly.

“Do you mind? Didn’t you say it was adventures you wanted?”

“Yes, sir,” I answered.

“I don’t suppose he can always be so violent as that. You may have better luck, or more tact in handling him.”

“I really know nothing about him,” I said. “I only remember his name in connection with the police-court proceedings, for striking Blundell. I am not very clear yet why I am to interview this gentleman. What else has he done?”

“He went to South America on a expedition two years ago. Came back last year. Had undoubtedly been to South America, but refused to say exactly where. Began to tell his adventures in a vague way but then just shut up like an oyster. Something wonderful happened… or the man’s a great liar. Had some damaged photographs, said to be fakes. Now he attacks anyone who asks questions and kicks reporters downstairs.[13] In my opinion he’s just a maniac with a turn for science. That’s your man, Mr. Malone. Now, go. We’ll see what you can do. You’re big enough to look after yourself.”

I left the office and entered the Savage Club and found the very man I needed. Tarp Henry, of the staff of Nature, a thin, dry, leathery creature, who was full of kindly humanity.

“What do you know of Professor Challenger?” I asked him at once.

“Challenger? He was the man who came with some story from South America.”

“What story?”

“Oh, it was nonsense about some animals he had discovered. I believe he has retracted[14] since. He gave an interview to Reuter’s, and there was such a howl that he saw it wouldn’t do. There were one or two men who were inclined to take him seriously, but he soon removed them.”

“How?”

“Well, by his rudeness and impossible behaviour. There was poor old Wadley, of the Zoological Institute. Wadley sent a message: ‘The President of the Zoological Institute presents his compliments to Professor Challenger, and would take it as a personal favour if he would do them the honour to come to their next meeting.’ The answer was unprintable.”

“Good Lord! Anything more about Challenger?”

“Well, he’s a fanatic.”

“In what particular sphere?”

“There are lots of examples, but the latest is something about Weissmann and Evolution. He had a fearful row about it in Vienna, I believe. There is a translation of the proceedings at our office. Would you like to have a look?”

“It’s just what I need! I have to interview the fellow. I’ll go with you now, if it is not too late.”

Half an hour later I was seated in the newspaper office with a huge tome in front of me, reading the article “Weissmann versus Darwin.” I couldn’t make out a word as if it were written in Chinese, but it was evident that the English Professor had spoken in a very aggressive way, and had thoroughly annoyed his Continental colleagues.

“I wish you could translate it into English for me,” I said, pathetically, to my friend.

“Well, it is a translation.”

“All I need is a single good sentence which conveys some sort of definite human idea. Ah, yes, this one will do. I even seem to understand it. I’ll copy it out. This shall be my link with the terrible Professor.”

“Nothing else I can do?”

“Well, yes; I am going to write to him. If I could use your address it would give atmosphere.”

“Well, that’s my chair and desk. You’ll find paper there.”

It took some time and when it was finished it wasn’t such a bad job. I read it aloud to Tarp Henry.

“DEAR PROFESSOR CHALLENGER,” it said, “As a modest student of Nature, I have always been interested in your speculations, especially about the differences between Darwin and Weissmann…”

“You liar!” murmured Tarp Henry.

“… But there is one sentence in your speech at Vienna, namely: ‘I protest strongly against the insufferable and entirely dogmatic assertion that each separate id is a microcosm possessed of an historical architecture elaborated slowly through the series of generations.’[15] With your permission, I would ask the favour of an interview, as I don’t quite understand it and have certain suggestions which I could only tell you in a personal conversation. With your consent, I trust to have the honour of calling at eleven o’clock the day after tomorrow (Wednesday) morning.

Yours very truly, EDWARD D. MALONE.”

“But what do you mean to do?” Tarp Henry asked.

“To get there. Once I am in his room I may see some variants. If he is a sportsman he will like it.”

“Indeed a sportsman! Chain mail,[16] or an American football suit… that’s what you’ll need. Well, good-bye. I’ll have the answer for you here on Wednesday morning… if he ever answers you. He is a dangerous character. Perhaps it would be best for you if you never heard from the fellow at all.”

Chapter 3

He Is a Perfectly Impossible Person

However when I called on Wednesday there was a letter with the West Kensington postmark upon it, and my name scrawled across the envelope. The contents were as follows:

“SIR, – I have duly received your note, in which you claim to support my views. You quote an isolated sentence from my lecture, and appear to have some difficulty in understanding it. I should have thought that only a stupid person could have failed to grasp the point, but if it really needs explanation I shall see you at the hour named. As for your suggestions I would have you know that it is not my habit to change my views. You will kindly show the envelope of this letter to my man, Austin, when you call, as he has to take every precaution to protect me from the intrusive people who call themselves ‘journalists’.

Yours faithfully, GEORGE EDWARD CHALLENGER.”

This was the letter that I read aloud to Tarp Henry. His only remark was that I should take along some haemostatic.[17] Some people have such extraordinary sense of humor.

A taxicab took me round in good time for my appointment. It was an imposing house at which we stopped. The door was opened by an odd person of uncertain age. He looked me up and down with a searching light blue eye.

“Expected?” he asked.

“An appointment.” I showed the envelope.

“Right!” He seemed to be a person of few words. I entered and saw a small woman. She was a bright, dark-eyed lady, more French than English in her type.

“One moment,” she said. “You can wait, Austin. May I ask if you have met my husband before?”

“No, madam, I have not had the honour.”

“Then I apologize to you in advance.[18] I must tell you that he is an impossible person… absolutely impossible. Get quickly out of the room if he seems to be violent. Don’t argue with him. Several people have been injured. Afterwards there is a public scandal and it reflects upon me and all of us. I suppose it wasn’t about South America you wanted to see him?”

I could not lie to a lady.

“Dear me! That is the most dangerous subject. You won’t believe a word he says… But don’t tell him so, it makes him very violent. Pretend to believe him. If you find him really dangerous… ring the bell and hold him off until I come. Even at his worst I can usually control him.”

So I was conducted to the end of the passage. I entered the room and found myself face to face with the Professor.

He sat in a chair behind a broad table, which was covered with books, maps, and diagrams. His appearance made me gasp. I was prepared for something strange, but not for so overpowering a personality as this. It was his size which took one’s breath away[19]… His head was enormous, the largest I have ever seen. His hair and beard were bluish-black, the latter was spade-shaped and rippling down over his chest. The eyes were blue-gray under great black eyebrows, very clear, very critical, and very masterful. This and a roaring voice made up my first impression of the notorious Professor Challenger.

“Well?” said he, with a most arrogant stare. “What now?”

“You were good enough to give me an appointment, sir,” said I, producing his envelope.

“Oh, you are the young person who cannot understand plain English, are you? And you approve my conclusions, as I understand?”

“Entirely, sir, entirely!” I was very emphatic.

“Dear me! That strengthens my position very much, does it not? Well, at least you are better than that herd of swine in Vienna.”

“They seem to have behaved outrageously,” said I.

“I assure you that I have no need of your sympathy. Well, sir, let us do what we can to end this visit. You had some comments to make up.”

There was such a brutal directness in his speech which made everything very difficult. Oh, my Irish wits, could they not help me now, when I needed help so sorely? He looked at me with two sharp eyes.

“Come, come!” he rumbled.

“I am, of course, a simple student,” said I, with a smile, “an earnest inquirer. At the same time, it seemed to me that you were a little severe towards your colleagues.”

“Severe? Well… I suppose you are aware,” said he, checking off points upon his fingers, “that the cranial index is a constant factor?”

“Naturally,” said I.

“And that telegony is still doubtful?”

“Undoubtedly.”

“And that the germ plasm is different from the parthenogenetic egg?”

“Surely!” I cried.

“But what does that prove?” he asked, in a gentle, persuasive voice.

“Ah, what indeed?” I murmured. “What does it prove?”

“It proves,” he roared, with a sudden blast of fury, “that you are the damned journalist, who has no more science in his head than he has truth in his reports!”

He had jumped to his feet with a mad rage in his eyes. Even at that moment of tension I found time for amazement at the discovery that he was quite a short man, his head not higher than my shoulder.

“Nonsense!” he cried, leaning forward. “That’s what I have been talking to you, sir! Scientific nonsense! Did you think you could play a trick on me? You, with your walnut of a brain? You have played a rather dangerous game, and you have lost it.”

“Look here, sir,” said I, backing to the door and opening it; “you can be as abusive as you like. But there is a limit. You shall not attack me.”

“Shall I not?” He was slowly approaching in a menacing way, “I have thrown several of journalists out of the house. You will be the fourth or fifth. Why should you not follow them?”

I could have rushed for the hall door, but it would have been too disgraceful. Besides, a little glow of righteous anger was springing up within me.

“Keep your hands off, sir. I’ll not stand it.[20]”

“Dear me!” he cried smiling.

“Don’t be such a fool, Professor!” I cried. “What can you hope for? I’m not the man…”

It was at that moment that he attacked me. It was lucky that I had opened the door, or we should have gone through it. We did a Catharine-wheel[21] together down the passage. My mouth was full of his beard, our arms were locked, our bodies intertwined. The watchful Austin had thrown open the hall door. We went down the front steps and rolled apart into the gutter. He sprang to his feet, waving his fists.

“Had enough?” he panted.

“You infernal bully!” I cried, as I gathered myself together.

At that moment a policeman appeared beside us, his notebook in his hand.

“What’s all this? You ought to be ashamed” said the policeman. “Well,” he insisted, turning to me, “what is it, then?”

“This man attacked me,” I said.

“Did you attack him?” asked the policeman.

The Professor breathed hard and said nothing.

“It’s not the first time, either,” said the policeman, severely. “You were in trouble last month for the same thing. Do you give him in charge,[22] sir?”

I softened.

“No,” said I, “I do not. It was my fault. He gave me fair warning.”

The policeman closed his notebook.

“Don’t let us have any more such goings-on,” he said and left.

The Professor looked at me, and there was something humorous in his eyes.

“Come in!” said he. “I’ve not done with you yet.”

I followed him into the house. The man-servant, Austin, closed the door behind us.

Chapter 4

It’s Just The Very Biggest Thing In The World

Hardly was it shut when Mrs. Challenger ran out of the dining-room. The small woman was furious.

“You brute, George!” she screamed. “You’ve hurt that nice young man.”

“Here he is, safe and sound.[23]”

“Nothing but scandals every week! Everyone hating and making fun of you. You’ve finished my patience. You, a man who should have been Regius Professor at a great University with a thousand students all respecting you. Where is your dignity, George? A ruffian… that’s what you have become!”

“Be good, Jessie.”

“A roaring bully!”

Challenger bellowed with laughter. Suddenly his tone altered.

“Excuse us, Mr. Malone. I called you back for some more serious purpose than to mix you up with our little domestic problems.” He suddenly gave his wife a kiss, which embarrassed me. “Now, Mr. Malone,” he continued, “this way, if you please.”

We re-entered the room which we had left so rapidly ten minutes before. The Professor closed the door carefully behind us, pointed at the arm-chair, and pushed a cigar-box under my nose.

“Now listen attentively. The reason why I brought you home again is in your answer to that policeman. It was not the answer I am accustomed to associate with your profession.”

He said it like a professor addressing his class.

“I am going to talk to you about South America,” he said and took a sketch-book out of his table. “No comments if you please. First of all, I wish you to understand that nothing I tell you now is to be repeated in any public way unless you have my permission. And that permission will probably never be given. Is that clear?”

“It is very hard… Your behaviour…”

“Then I wish you a very good morning.”

“No, no!” I cried. “So far as I can see, I have no choice.”

“Word of honour?”

“Word of honour.”

He looked at me with doubt in his eyes.

“What do I know about your honour?” said he.

“Upon my word, sir,” I cried, angrily, “I have never been so insulted in my life.”

He seemed more interested than annoyed.

“Round-headed,” he muttered. “Brachycephalic, gray-eyed, black-haired, with suggestion of the negroid. Celtic, I suppose?”

“I am an Irishman, sir.”

“That, of course, explains it. Well, you promised. You are probably aware that two years ago I made a journey to South America. You are aware… or probably, in this half-educated age, you are not aware… that the country round some parts of the Amazon is still only partially explored. It was my business to visit these little-known places and to examine their fauna. And I did a great job which will be my life’s justification. I was returning, my work accomplished, when I had occasion to spend a night at a small Indian village. The natives were Cucama Indians, an amiable but degraded race, with mental powers hardly superior to the average Londoner. I had cured some of their people, and had impressed them a lot, so that I was not surprised to find myself eagerly awaited upon my return. I understood from their gestures that someone needed my medical services. When I entered the hut I found that the sufferer had already died. He was, to my surprise, no Indian, but a white man. So far as I could understand the account of the natives, he was a complete stranger to them, and had come upon their village through the woods alone being very exhausted.”

“The man’s bag lay beside the couch, and I examined the contents. His name was written upon a tab within it… Maple White, Lake Avenue, Detroit, Michigan. Now I can say that I owe this man a lot.”

“This man had been an artist. There were some simple pictures of river scenery, a paint-box, a box of coloured chalks, some brushes, that curved bone which lies upon my inkstand, a cheap revolver, and a few cartridges. Some personal equipment he had lost in his journey. Then I noticed a sketch-book. This sketch-book. I hand it to you now, and I ask you to take it page by page and to examine the contents.”

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The Lost World / Затерянный мир

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