When the Sleeper Wakes by H. G. Wells (tharntype novel english txt) ๐
It was a yellow figure lying lax upon a water-bed and clad in a flowing shirt, a figure with a shrunken face and a stubby beard, lean limbs and lank nails, and about it was a case of thin glass. This glass seemed to mark off the sleeper from the reality of life about him, he was a thing apart, a strange, isolated abnormality. The two men stood close to the glass, peering in.
"The thing gave me a shock," said Isbister "I feel a queer sort of surprise even now when I think of his white eyes. They were white, you know, rolled up. Coming here again brings it all back to me.
"Have you never seen him since that time?" asked Warming.
"Often wanted to come," said Isbister; "but business nowadays is too serious a thing for much holiday keeping. I've been in America most of the time
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โWhat do you mean by company?โ
Howard raised his eyes and shrugged his shoulders. โHuman beings,โ he said, with a curious smile on his heavy face.
โOur social ideas,โ he said, โhave a certain increased liberality, perhaps, in comparison with your times. If a man wishes to relieve such a tedium as this โ by feminine society, for instance. We think it no scandal. We have cleared our minds of formulae. There is in our city a class, a necessary class, no longer despised โ discreet โโ
Graham stopped dead.
โIt would pass the time,โ said Howard. โIt is a thing I should perhaps have thought of before, but, as a matter of fact, so much is happening โโ
He indicated the exterior world.
Graham hesitated. For a moment the figure of a possible woman that his imagination suddenly created dominated his mind with an intense attraction. Then he flashed into anger.
โNo Iโ he shouted.
He began striding rapidly up and down the room.
โEverything you say, everything you do, convinces me โ of some great issue in which I am concerned. I do not want to pass the time, as you call it. Yes, I know. Desire and indulgence are life in a sense โ and Death! Extinction! In my life before I slept I had worked out that pitiful question. I will not begin again. There is a city, a multitude โ . And meanwhile I am here like a rabbit in a bag.โ
His rage surged high. He choked for a moment and began to wave his clenched fists. He gave way to an anger fit, he swore archaic curses. His gestures had the quality of physical threats.
โI do not know who your party may be. I am in the dark, and you keep me in the dark. But I know this, that I am secluded here for no good purpose. For no good purpose. I warn you, I warn you of the consequences. Once I come at my power โโ
He realised that to threaten thus might be a danger to himself. He stopped. Howard stood regarding him with a curious expression.
โI take it this is a message to the Council,โ said Howard.
Graham had a momentary impulse to leap upon the man, fell or stun him. It must have shown upon his face; at any rate Howardโs movement was quick. In a second the noiseless door had closed again, and the man from the nineteenth century was alone.
For a moment he stood rigid, with clenched hands half raised. Then he flung them down. โWhat a fool I have been!โ he said, and gave way to his anger again, stamping about the room and shouting curses. For a long time he kept himself in a sort of frenzy, raging at his position, at his own folly, at the knaves who had imprisoned him. He did this because he did not want to look calmly at his position. He clung to his anger โ because he was afraid of Fear.
Presently he found himself reasoning with himself This imprisonment was unaccountable, but no doubt the legal forms โ new legal forms โ of the time permitted it. It must, of course, be legal. These people were two hundred years further on in the march of civilisation than the Victorian generation. It was not likely they would be less โ humane. Yet they had cleared their minds of formulae! Was humanity a formula as well as chastity?
His imagination set to work to suggest things that might be done to him. The attempts of his reason to dispose of these suggestions, though for the most part logically valid, were quite unavailing. โWhy should anything be done to me?โ
โIf the worst comes to the worst,โ he found himself saying at last, โI can give up what they want. But what do they want? And why donโt they ask me for it instead of cooping me up?โ
He returned to his former preoccupation with the Councilโs possible intentions. He began to reconsider the details of Howardโs behaviour, sinister glances, inexplicable hesitations. Then, for a time, his mind circled about the idea of escaping from these rooms; but whither could he escape into this vast, crowded world? He would be worse off than a Saxon yeoman suddenly dropped into nineteenth century London. And besides, how could anyone escape from these rooms?
โHow can it benefit anyone if harm should happen to me?โ
He thought of the tumult, the great social trouble of which he was so unaccountably the axis. A text, irrelevant enough and yet curiously insistent, came floating up out of the darkness of his memory. This also a Council had said:
โIt is expedient for us that one man should die for the people.โ
As the fans in the circular aperture of the inner room rotated and permitted glimpses of the night, dim sounds drifted in thereby. And Graham, standing underneath, wrestling darkly with the unknown powers that imprisoned him, and which he had now deliberately challenged, was startled by the sound of a voice.
He peered up and saw in the intervals of the rotation, dark and dim, the face and shoulders of a man regarding him. When a dark hand was extended, the swift van struck it, swung round and beat on with a little brownish patch on the edge of its thin blade, and something began to fall therefrom upon the floor, dripping silently.
Graham looked down, and there were spots of blood at his feet. He looked up again in a strange excitement. The figure had gone.
He remained motionless โ his every sense intent upon the flickering patch of darkness, for outside it was high night. He became aware of some faint, remote, dark specks floating lightly through the outer air. They came down towards him, fitfully, eddyingly, and passed aside out of the uprush from the fan. A gleam of light flickered, the specks flashed white, and then the darkness came again. Warmed and lit as he was, he perceived that it was snowing within a few feet of him.
Graham walked across the room and came back to the ventilator again. He saw the head of a man pass near. There was a sound of whispering. Then a smart blow on some metallic substance, effort, voices, and the vans stopped. A gust of snowflakes whirled into the room, and vanished before they touched the floor. โDonโt be afraid,โ said a voice.
Graham stood under the van. โWho are you?โ he whispered.
For a moment there was nothing but a swaying of the fan, and then the head of a man was thrust cautiously into the opening. His face appeared nearly inverted to Graham; his dark hair was wet with dissolving flakes of snow upon it. His arm went up into the darkness holding something unseen. He had a youthful face and bright eyes, and the veins of his forehead were swollen. He seemed to be exerting himself to maintain his position.
For several seconds neither he nor Graham spoke.
โYou were the Sleeper?โ said the stranger at last.
โYes,โ said Graham. โWhat do you want with me?โ
โI come from Ostrog, Sire.โ
โOstrog?โ
The man in the ventilator twisted his head round so that his profile was towards Graham. He appeared to be listening. Suddenly there was a hasty exclamation, and the intruder sprang back just in time to escape the sweep of the released fan. And when Graham peered up there was nothing visible but the slowly falling snow.
It was perhaps a quarter of an hour before anything returned to the ventilator. But at last came the same metallic interference again; the fans stopped and the face reappeared. Graham had remained all this time in the same place, alert and tremulously excited.
โWho are you? What do you want?โ he said.
โWe want to speak to you, Sire,โ said the intruder.
โWe want โ I canโt hold the thing. We have been trying to find a way to you these three days.โ
โIs it rescue?โ whispered Graham. โEscape?โ
โYes, Sire. If you will.โ
โYou are my party โ the party of the Sleeper?โ
โYes, Sire.โ
โWhat am I to do?โ said Graham.
There was a struggle. The strangerโs arm appeared, and his hand was bleeding. His knees came into view over the edge of the funnel. โStand away from me,โ he said, and he dropped rather heavily on his hands and one shoulder at Grahamโs feet. The released ventilator whirled noisily. The stranger rolled over, sprang up nimbly and stood panting, hand to a bruised shoulder, and with his bright eyes on Graham.
โYou are indeed the Sleeper,โ he said. โI saw you asleep. When it was the law that anyone might see you.โ
โI am the man who was in the trance,โ said Graham. โThey have imprisoned me here. I have been here since I awoke โ at least three days.โ
The intruder seemed about to speak, heard something, glanced swiftly at the door, and suddenly left Graham and ran towards it, shouting quick incoherent words. A bright wedge of steel flashed in his hand, and he began tap, tap, a quick succession of blows upon the hinges. โMind!โ cried a voice. โOh!โ The voice came from above.
Graham glanced up, saw the soles of two feet, ducked, was struck on the shoulder by one of them, and a heavy weight bore him to the earth. He fell on his knees and forward, and the weight went over his head. He knelt up and saw a second man from above seated before him.
โI did not see you, Sire,โ panted the man. He rose and assisted Graham to arise. โAre you hurt, Sire?โ he panted. A succession of heavy blows on the ventilator began, something fell close to Grahamโs face, and a shivering edge of white metal danced, fell over, and lay flat upon the floor.
โWhat is this?โ cried Graham, confused and looking at the ventilator. โWho are you? What are you going to do? Remember, I understand nothing.โ
โStand back,โ said the stranger, and drew him from under the ventilator as another fragment of metal fell heavily.
โWe want you to come, Sire,โ panted the newcomer, and Graham glancing at his face again, saw a new cut had changed from white to red on his forehead, and a couple of little trickles of blood starting therefrom. โYour people call for you.โ
โCome where? My people?โ
โTo the hall about the markets. Your life is in danger here. We have spies. We learned but just in time. The Council has decided โ this very day โ either to drug or kill you. And everything is ready. The people are drilled, the windvane police, the engineers, and half the way-gearers are with us. We have the halls crowded โ shouting. The whole city shouts against the Council. We have arms.โ He wiped the blood with his hand. โYour life here is not worth โโ โBut why arms?โ
โThe people have risen to protect you, Sire. What?โ
He turned quickly as the man who had first come down made a hissing with his teeth. Graham saw the latter start back, gesticulate to them to conceal themselves, and move as if to hide behind the opening door.
As he did so Howard appeared, a little tray in one hand and his heavy face downcast. He started, looked up, the door slammed behind him, the tray tilted sideways, and the steel wedge struck him behind the ear. He went down like a felled tree, and lay as he fell athwart the floor of the outer room. The man who had struck him bent hastily, studied his face for a moment, rose, and
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