Затерянный мир / The Lost World - стр. 15

“Question!” cried a voice from the platform.

This interjection appeared to him so absurd that at first he didn’t know what to do. He paused for a moment, and then, raising his voice, repeated slowly the words: “Which were extinct before the coming of man.”

“Question!” said the voice once more.

Waldron looked with amazement along the line of professors upon the platform until his eyes fell upon the figure of Challenger, who leaned back in his chair with closed eyes and an amused expression, as if he was smiling in his sleep.

“I see!” said Waldron. “It is my friend Professor Challenger,” and he renewed his lecture as if this was a final explanation and no more need be said.

But the incident was far from being closed. Whatever the lecturer spoke of the past it brought the same exclamation from the Professor. The audience began to roar with delight when it came. Every time Challenger opened his mouth, there was a yell of “Question!” from a hundred voices. Waldron, though a strong man, started hesitating. He stammered, repeated himself, and finally turned furiously upon the cause of his troubles.

“This is really intolerable!” he cried, glaring across the platform. “I must ask you, Professor Challenger, to stop these ignorant interruptions.”

There was a hush over the hall, the students were delighted at seeing the high gods on Olympus quarrelling among themselves. Challenger slowly stood up.

“I must in turn ask you, Mr. Waldron,” he said, “to stop saying what is not in strict accordance with scientific fact.”

“Shame! Shame!” “Give him a hearing!” “Put him out!” “Shove him off the platform!” emerged from a general roar in the hall. The chairman was on his feet and said nervously:

“Professor Challenger… personal views… later.”

The interrupter bowed, smiled, stroked his beard, and relapsed into his chair. And Waldron continued his observations. At last the lecture came to an end… I should say the ending was hurried and disconnected. The thread of the argument had been rudely broken, and the audience was restless. Waldron sat down, and, after a chirrup from the chairman, Professor Challenger rose and came up to the edge of the platform.

“Ladies and Gentlemen,” he began. “I beg pardon… Ladies, Gentlemen, and Children, I should say thanks to Mr. Waldron for the very picturesque and imaginative address to which we have just listened. There are points in it with which I disagree, and it has been my duty to express my opinion at once, but, none the less, Mr. Waldron has accomplished his object well, that object being to give a simple and interesting account of what he conceives to have been the history of our planet. Popular lectures are the easiest to listen to, but Mr. Waldron will excuse me when I say that they are necessarily both superficial and misleading, since they have to be aimed at an ignorant audience.” (Ironical cheering.) “But enough of this! Let me pass to some subject of wider interest. What is the particular point upon which I have challenged our lecturer’s accuracy? It is upon the existence of certain types of animal life upon the earth. I do not speak upon this subject as an amateur. They are indeed, as he has said, our ancestors, but they are our contemporary ancestors, who can still be found. Creatures which were supposed to be Jurassic still exist.” (Cries of “Bosh!” “Prove it!” “How do YOU know?” “Question!”) “How do I know, you ask me? I know because I have visited their secret home. I know because I have seen some of them.” (Applause, uproar, and a voice, “Liar!”) “Am I a liar? Did I hear someone say that I was a liar? If any person in this hall dares to doubt my words, I shall be glad to have a few words with him after the lecture.” (“Liar!”) “Who said that? Every great discoverer has been met with the same incredulity… the generation of fools. When great facts are laid before you, you have not the intuition, the imagination which would help you to understand them. You can only throw mud at the men who have risked their lives to open new fields to science. You persecute the prophets! Galileo! Darwin, and I…” (Prolonged cheering and complete interruption.)