The Time Machine

H. G. Wells

The Time Machine (1895)

O britânico H. G. Wells tem uma curta série de obras bem conhecidas, datadas do virar do século XIX, a primeira das quais é A Máquina do Tempo. Acho incrível nunca ter tido a oportunidade de ler qualquer delas, e espero corrigir isso agora, tanto mais quanto sempre encontrei um certo encanto nesta proto-FC, então designada por «romances científicos», que encontrei em alguns dos seus contemporâneos, como Allan Poe, Conan Doyle, Stevenson ou Verne.

A história é conhecida: um inventor atirado para o ano 802701, encontra a Terra transformada num jardim decadente, povoada pelos Eloi, uma humanidade infantilizada. Aquilo que, numa primeira impressão lhe parecera uma «Idade do Ouro», a breve trecho se transforma num cenário sinistro, quando entram em cena os habitantes do mundo subterrâneo, os Morlocks. Dias depois, numa fuga apressada, o crononauta chega a 30 milhões de anos no futuro, numa Terra desolada, inóspita e povoada por bestas de pesadelo, já sem movimento de rotação, com o sol de tom alaranjado, em fase de extinção, onde acaba por presenciar um eclipse solar.

Lembro-me de ter visto na televisão, há muito tempo, a cena correspondente ao trecho que escolhi; já não me recordo se vi o filme completo, mas esta cena ficou-me na memória. Sei agora que era uma adaptação de 1960, de George Pal, com Rod Taylor, Alan Young e Yvette Mimieux como protagonistas, e está no YouTube com o preço «a partir de 2,99€». Mas, como diz um dos comentários mais acertados – «3€ for an online movie from 1960? Go back to work, fucking jews!»

'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 to-morrow. The laboratory grew faint and hazy, then fainter and ever fainter. To-morrow 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 color 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.