H. G. Wells
The Plattner Story
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Table of contents
THE PLATTNER STORY
THE ARGONAUTS OF THE AIR
THE STORY OF THE LATE MR. ELVESHAM
IN THE ABYSS
THE APPLE
UNDER THE KNIFE
THE SEA RAIDERS
POLLOCK AND THE PORROH MAN
THE RED ROOM
THE CONE
THE PURPLE PILEUS
THE JILTING OF JANE
IN THE MODERN VEINAN UNSYMPATHETIC LOVE STORY
A CATASTROPHE
THE LOST INHERITANCE
THE SAD STORY OF A DRAMATIC CRITIC
A SLIP UNDER THE MICROSCOPE
CLASS I
THE PLATTNER STORY
Whether
the story of Gottfried Plattner is to be credited or not, is a pretty
question in the value of evidence. On the one hand, we have seven
witnesses—to be perfectly exact, we have six and a half pairs of
eyes, and one undeniable fact; and on the other we have—what is
it?—prejudice, common sense, the inertia of opinion. Never were
there seven more honest-seeming witnesses; never was there a more
undeniable fact than the inversion of Gottfried Plattner’s
anatomical structure, and—never was there a more preposterous story
than the one they have to tell! The most preposterous part of the
story is the worthy Gottfried’s contribution (for I count him as
one of the seven). Heaven forbid that I should be led into giving
countenance to superstition by a passion for impartiality, and so
come to share the fate of Eusapia’s patrons! Frankly, I believe
there is something crooked about this business of Gottfried Plattner;
but what that crooked factor is, I will admit as frankly, I do not
know. I have been surprised at the credit accorded to the story in
the most unexpected and authoritative quarters. The fairest way to
the reader, however, will be for me to tell it without further
comment.Gottfried
Plattner is, in spite of his name, a free-born Englishman. His father
was an Alsatian who came to England in the Sixties, married a
respectable English girl of unexceptionable antecedents, and died,
after a wholesome and uneventful life (devoted, I understand, chiefly
to the laying of parquet flooring), in 1887. Gottfried’s age is
seven-and-twenty. He is, by virtue of his heritage of three
languages, Modern Languages Master in a small private school in the
South of England. To the casual observer he is singularly like any
other Modern Languages Master in any other small private school. His
costume is neither very costly nor very fashionable, but, on the
other hand, it is not markedly cheap or shabby; his complexion, like
his height and his bearing, is inconspicuous. You would notice,
perhaps, that, like the majority of people, his face was not
absolutely symmetrical, his right eye a little larger than the left,
and his jaw a trifle heavier on the right side. If you, as an
ordinary careless person, were to bare his chest and feel his heart
beating, you would probably find it quite like the heart of anyone
else. But here you and the trained observer would part company. If
you found his heart quite ordinary, the trained observer would find
it quite otherwise. And once the thing was pointed out to you, you
too would perceive the peculiarity easily enough. It is that
Gottfried’s heart beats on the right side of his body.Now,
that is not the only singularity of Gottfried’s structure, although
it is the only one that would appeal to the untrained mind. Careful
sounding of Gottfried’s internal arrangements, by a well-known
surgeon, seems to point to the fact that all the other unsymmetrical
parts of his body are similarly misplaced. The right lobe of his
liver is on the left side, the left on his right; while his lungs,
too, are similarly contraposed. What is still more singular, unless
Gottfried is a consummate actor, we must believe that his right hand
has recently become his left. Since the occurrences we are about to
consider (as impartially as possible), he has found the utmost
difficulty in writing, except from right to left across the paper
with his left hand. He cannot throw with his right hand, he is
perplexed at meal times between knife and fork, and his ideas of the
rule of the road—he is a cyclist—are still a dangerous confusion.
And there is not a scrap of evidence to show that before these
occurrences Gottfried was at all left-handed.
Lesen Sie weiter in der vollständigen Ausgabe!
Lesen Sie weiter in der vollständigen Ausgabe!
Lesen Sie weiter in der vollständigen Ausgabe!
Lesen Sie weiter in der vollständigen Ausgabe!
Lesen Sie weiter in der vollständigen Ausgabe!
Lesen Sie weiter in der vollständigen Ausgabe!
Lesen Sie weiter in der vollständigen Ausgabe!
Lesen Sie weiter in der vollständigen Ausgabe!
Lesen Sie weiter in der vollständigen Ausgabe!
Lesen Sie weiter in der vollständigen Ausgabe!
Lesen Sie weiter in der vollständigen Ausgabe!
Lesen Sie weiter in der vollständigen Ausgabe!
Lesen Sie weiter in der vollständigen Ausgabe!
Lesen Sie weiter in der vollständigen Ausgabe!
Lesen Sie weiter in der vollständigen Ausgabe!
Lesen Sie weiter in der vollständigen Ausgabe!
Lesen Sie weiter in der vollständigen Ausgabe!