The Time Machine & The Sleeper Awakes. H. G. Wells
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little bed, lay down and was presently asleep….
He was destined to become very familiar indeed with these apartments before he left them, for he remained imprisoned for three days. During that time no one, except Howard, entered the rooms. The marvel of his fate mingled with and in some way minimised the marvel of his survival. He had awakened to mankind it seemed only to be snatched away into this unaccountable solitude. Howard came regularly with subtly sustaining and nutritive fluids, and light and pleasant foods, quite strange to Graham. He always closed the door carefully as he entered. On matters of detail he was increasingly obliging, but the bearing of Graham on the great issues that were evidently being contested so closely beyond the soundproof walls that enclosed him, he would not elucidate. He evaded, as politely as possible, every question on the position of affairs in the outer world.
And in those three days Graham’s incessant thoughts went far and wide. All that he had seen, all this elaborate contrivance to prevent him seeing, worked together in his mind. Almost every possible interpretation of his position he debated — even as it chanced, the right interpretation. Things that presently happened to him, came to him at last credible, by virtue of this seclusion. When at length the moment of his release arrived, it found him prepared….
Howard’s bearing went far to deepen Graham’s impression of his own strange importance; the door between its opening and closing seemed to admit with him a breath of momentous happening. His enquiries became more definite and searching. Howard retreated through protests and difficulties. The awakening was unforeseen, he repeated; it happened to have fallen in with the trend of a social convulsion. “To explain it I must tell you the history of a gross and a half of years,” protested Howard.
“The thing is this,” said Graham. “You are afraid of something I shall do. In some way I am arbitrator — I might be arbitrator.”
“It is not that. But you have — I may tell you this much — the automatic increase of your property puts great possibilities of interference in your hands. And in certain other ways you have influence, with your eighteenth century notions.”
“Nineteenth century,” corrected Graham.
“With your old world notions, anyhow, ignorant as you are of every feature of our State.”
“Am I a fool?”
“Certainly not.”
“Do I seem to be the sort of man who would act rashly?”
“You were never expected to act at all. No one counted on your awakening. No one dreamt you would ever awake. The Council had surrounded you with antiseptic conditions. As a matter of fact, we thought that you were dead — a mere arrest of decay. And — but it is too complex. We dare not suddenly — -while you are still half awake.”
“It won’t do,” said Graham. “Suppose it is as you say — why am I not being crammed night and day with facts and warnings and all the wisdom of the time to fit me for my responsibilities? Am I any wiser now than two days ago, if it is two days, when I awoke?”
Howard pulled his lip.
“I am beginning to feel — every hour I feel more clearly — a system of concealment of which you are the face. Is this Council, or committee, or whatever they are, cooking the accounts of my estate? Is that it?”
“That note of suspicion — ” said Howard.
“Ugh!” said Graham. “Now, mark my words, it will be ill for those who have put me here. It will be ill. I am alive. Make no doubt of it, I am alive. Every day my pulse is stronger and my mind clearer and more vigorous. No more quiescence. I am a man come back to life. And I want to live — “
“Live!”
Howard’s face lit with an idea. He came towards Graham and spoke in an easy confidential tone.
“The Council secludes you here for your good. You are restless. Naturally — an energetic man! You find it dull here. But we are anxious that everything you may desire — every desire — every sort of desire … There may be something. Is there any sort of company?”
He paused meaningly.
“Yes,” said Graham thoughtfully. “There is.”
“Ah! Now! We have treated you neglectfully.”
“The crowds in yonder streets of yours.”
“That,” said Howard, “I am afraid — But — “
Graham began pacing the room. Howard stood near the door watching him. The implication of Howard’s suggestion was only half evident to Graham. Company? Suppose he were to accept the proposal, demand some sort of company? Would there be any possibilities of gathering from the conversation of this additional person some vague inkling of the struggle that had broken out so vividly at his waking moment? He meditated again, and the suggestion took colour. He turned on Howard abruptly.
“What do you mean by company?”
Howard raised his eyes and shrugged his shoulders. “Human beings,” he said, with a curious smile on his heavy face. “Our social ideas,” he said, “have a certain increased liberality, perhaps, in comparison with your times. If a man wishes to relieve such a tedium as this — 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 — discreet — “
Graham stopped dead.
“It would pass the time,” said Howard. “It is a thing I should perhaps have thought of before, but, as a matter of fact, so much is happening — “
He indicated the exterior world.
Graham hesitated. For a moment the figure of a possible woman dominated his mind with an intense attraction. Then he flashed into anger.
“No!” he shouted.
He began striding rapidly up and down the room. “Everything you say, everything you do, convinces me — 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 — 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 — . And meanwhile I am here like a rabbit in a bag.”
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.
“I 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 — “
He realised that to threaten thus might be a danger to himself. He stopped. Howard stood regarding him with a curious expression.
“I take it this is a message to the Council,” 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 Howard’s 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. “What a fool I have been!” 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 — because he was afraid of fear.
Presently he found himself reasoning with himself. This imprisonment was unaccountable, but no doubt the legal forms — new legal forms — 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 — humane. Yet they had cleared their minds of formulae! Was humanity