When the Sleeper Wakes by H. G. Wells (top romance novels txt) đ
- Author: H. G. Wells
Book online «When the Sleeper Wakes by H. G. Wells (top romance novels txt) đ». Author H. G. Wells
âWhat?â
âThe peopleââ
âDo you meanâ?â
âYou forget the people.â
He looked interrogative.
âYes. I know you are surprised. For you do not understand what you are. You do not know the things that are happening.â
âWell?â
âYou do not understand.â
âNot clearly, perhaps. Butâtell me.â
She turned to him with sudden resolution. âIt is so hard to explain. I have meant to, I have wanted to. And nowâI cannot. I am not ready with words. But about youâthere is something. It is Wonder. Your sleepâyour awakening. These things are miracles. To me at leastâand to all the common people. You who lived and suffered and died, you who were a common citizen, wake again, live again, to find yourself Master almost of the earth.â
âMaster of the earth,â he said. âSo they tell me. But try and imagine how little I know of it.â
âCitiesâTrustsâthe Labour Companyââ
âPrincipalities, powers, dominionsâthe power and the glory. Yes, I have heard them shout. I know. I am Master. King, if you wish. With Ostrog, the Bossââ
He paused.
She turned upon him and surveyed his face with a curious scrutiny. âWell?â
He smiled. âTo take the responsibility.â
âThat is what we have begun to fear.â For a moment she said no more. âNo,â she said slowly. âYou will take the responsibility. You will take the responsibility. The people look to you.â
She spoke softly. âListen! For at least half the years of your sleepâin every generationâmultitudes of people, in every generation greater multitudes of people, have prayed that you might awakeâprayed.â
Graham moved to speak and did not.
She hesitated, and a faint colour crept back to her cheek. âDo you know that you have been to myriadsâKing Arthur, Barbarossaâthe King who would come in his own good time and put the world right for them?â
âI suppose the imagination of the peopleââ
âHave you not heard our proverb, âWhen the Sleeper wakes?â While you lay insensible and motionless thereâthousands came. Thousands. Every first of the month you lay in state with a white robe upon you and the people filed by you. When I was a little girl I saw you like that, with your face white and calm.â
She turned her face from him and looked steadfastly at the painted wall before her. Her voice fell. âWhen I was a little girl I used to look at your face....it seemed to me fixed and waiting, like the patience of God.â
âThat is what we thought of you,â she said. âThat is how you seemed to us.â
She turned shining eyes to him, her voice was clear and strong. âIn the city, in the earth, a myriad myriad men and women are waiting to see what you will do, full of strange incredible expectations.â
âYes?â
âOstrogâno oneâcan take that responsibility.â
Graham looked at her in surprise, at her face lit with emotion. She seemed at first to have spoken with an effort, and to have fired herself by speaking.
âDo you think,â she said, âthat you who have lived that little life so far away in the past, you who have fallen into and risen out of this miracle of sleepâdo you think that the wonder and reverence and hope of half the world has gathered about you only that you may live another little life?... That you may shift the responsibility to any other man?â
âI know how great this kingship of mine is,â he said haltingly. âI know how great it seems. But is it real? It is incredibleâdreamlike. Is it real, or is it only a great delusion?â
âIt is real,â she said; âif you dare.â
âAfter all, like all kingship, my kingship is Belief. It is an illusion in the minds of men.â
âIf you dare!â she said.
âButââ
âCountless men,â she said, âand while it is in their mindsâthey will obey.â
âBut I know nothing. That is what I had in mind. I know nothing. And these othersâthe Councillors, Ostrog. They are wiser, cooler, they know so much, every detail. And, indeed, what are these miseries of which you speak? What am I to know? Do you meanââ
He stopped blankly.
âI am still hardly more than a girl,â she said. âBut to me the world seems full of wretchedness. The world has altered since your day, altered very strangely. I have prayed that I might see you and tell you these things. The world has changed. As if a canker had seized itâand robbed life ofâeverything worth having.â
She turned a flushed face upon him, moving suddenly. âYour days were the days of freedom. YesâI have thought. I have been made to think, for my lifeâhas not been happy. Men are no longer freeâno greater, no better than the men of your time. That is not all. This cityâis a prison. Every city now is a prison. Mammon grips the key in his hand. Myriads, countless myriads, toil from the cradle to the grave. Is that right? Is that to beâfor ever? Yes, far worse than in your time. All about us, beneath us, sorrow and pain. All the shallow delight of such life as you find about you, is separated by just a little from a life of wretchedness beyond any telling Yes, the poor know itâthey know they suffer. These countless multitudes who faced death for you two nights sinceâ! You owe your life to them.â
âYes,â said Graham, slowly. âYes. I owe my life to them.â
âYou come,â she said, âfrom the days when this new tyranny of the cities was scarcely beginning. It is a tyrannyâa tyranny. In your days the feudal war lords had gone, and the new lordship of wealth had still to come. Half the men in the world still lived out upon the free countryside. The cities had still to devour them. I have heard the stories out of the old booksâthere was nobility! Common men led lives of love and faithfulness thenâthey did a thousand things. And youâyou come from that time.â
âIt was notâ. But never mind. How is it nowâ?â
âGain and the Pleasure Cities! Or slaveryâunthanked, unhonoured, slavery.â
âSlavery!â he said.
âSlavery.â
âYou donât mean to say that human beings are chattels.â
Comments (0)