The Sleeper Awakes<br />A Revised Edition of When the Sleeper Wakes by H. G. Wells (debian ebook reader TXT) đ
- Author: H. G. Wells
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âI know,â said Warming, with a flash of pain in his expression.
They peered through the glass again. Graham was indeed in a strange state, in the flaccid phase of a trance, but a trance unprecedented in medical history. Trances had lasted for as much as a year beforeâbut at the end of that time it had ever been a waking or a death; sometimes first one and then the other. Isbister noted the marks the physicians had made in injecting nourishment, for that had been resorted to to postpone collapse; he pointed them out to Warming, who had been trying not to see them.
âAnd while he has been lying here,â said Isbister, with the zest of a life freely spent, âI have changed my plans in life; married, raised a family, my eldest ladâI hadnât begun to think of sons thenâis an American citizen, and looking forward to leaving Harvard. Thereâs a touch of grey in my hair. And this man, not a day older nor wiser (practically) than I was in my downy days. Itâs curious to think of.â
Warming turned. âAnd I have grown old too. I played cricket with him when I was still only a boy. And he looks a young man still. Yellow perhaps. But that is a young man nevertheless.â
âAnd thereâs been the War,â said Isbister.
âFrom beginning to end.â
âAnd these Martians.â
âIâve understood,â said Isbister after a pause, âthat he had some moderate property of his own?â
âThat is so,â said Warming. He coughed primly. âAs it happensâI have charge of it.â
âAh!â Isbister thought, hesitated and spoke: âNo doubtâhis keep here is not expensiveâno doubt it will have improvedâaccumulated?â
âIt has. He will wake up very much better offâif he wakesâthan when he slept.â
âAs a business man,â said Isbister, âthat thought has naturally been in my mind. I have, indeed, sometimes thought that, speaking commercially, of course, this sleep may be a very good thing for him. That he knows what he is about, so to speak, in being insensible so long. If he had lived straight onââ
âI doubt if he would have premeditated as much,â said Warming. âHe was not a far-sighted man. In factââ
âYes?â
âWe differed on that point. I stood to him somewhat in the relation of a guardian. You have probably seen enough of affairs to recognise that occasionally a certain frictionâ. But even if that was the case, there is a doubt whether he will ever wake. This sleep exhausts slowly, but it exhausts. Apparently he is sliding slowly, very slowly and tediously, down a long slope, if you can understand me?â
âIt will be a pity to lose his surprise. Thereâs been a lot of change these twenty years. Itâs Rip Van Winkle come real.â
âThere has been a lot of change certainly,â said Warming. âAnd, among other changes, I have changed. I am an old man.â
Isbister hesitated, and then feigned a belated surprise. âI shouldnât have thought it.â
âI was forty-three when his bankersâyou remember you wired to his bankersâsent on to me.â
âI got their address from the cheque book in his pocket,â said Isbister.
âWell, the addition is not difficult,â said Warming.
There was another pause, and then Isbister gave way to an unavoidable curiosity. âHe may go on for years yet,â he said, and had a moment of hesitation. âWe have to consider that. His affairs, you know, may fall some day into the hands ofâsomeone else, you know.â
âThat, if you will believe me, Mr. Isbister, is one of the problems most constantly before my mind. We happen to beâas a matter of fact, there are no very trustworthy connexions of ours. It is a grotesque and unprecedented position.â
âRather,â said Isbister.
âIt seems to me itâs a case of some public body, some practically undying guardian. If he really is going on livingâas the doctors, some of them, think. As a matter of fact, I have gone to one or two public men about it. But, so far, nothing has been done.â
âIt wouldnât be a bad idea to hand him over to some public bodyâthe British Museum Trustees, or the Royal College of Physicians. Sounds a bit odd, of course, but the whole situation is odd.â
âThe difficulty is to induce them to take him.â
âRed tape, I suppose?â
âPartly.â
Pause. âItâs a curious business, certainly,â said Isbister. âAnd compound interest has a way of mounting up.â
âIt has,â said Warming. âAnd now the gold supplies are running short there is a tendency towards ... appreciation.â
âIâve felt that,â said Isbister with a grimace. âBut it makes it better for him.â
âIf he wakes.â
âIf he wakes,â echoed Isbister. âDo you notice the pinched-in look of his nose, and the way in which his eyelids sink?â
Warming looked and thought for a space. âI doubt if he will wake,â he said at last.
âI never properly understood,â said Isbister, âwhat it was brought this on. He told me something about overstudy. Iâve often been curious.â
âHe was a man of considerable gifts, but spasmodic, emotional. He had grave domestic troubles, divorced his wife, in fact, and it was as a relief from that, I think, that he took up politics of the rabid sort. He was a fanatical Radicalâa Socialistâor typical Liberal, as they used to call themselves, of the advanced school. Energeticâflightyâundisciplined. Overwork upon a controversy did this for him. I remember the pamphlet he wroteâa curious production. Wild, whirling stuff. There were one or two prophecies. Some of them are already exploded, some of them are established facts. But for the most part to read such a thesis is to realise how full the world is of unanticipated things. He will have much to learn, much to unlearn, when he wakes. If ever a waking comes.â
âIâd give anything to be there,â said Isbister, âjust to hear what he would say to it all.â
âSo would I,â said Warming. âAye! so would I,â with an old manâs sudden turn to self pity. âBut I shall never see him wake.â
He stood looking thoughtfully at the waxen figure. âHe will never awake,â he said at last. He sighed. âHe will never awake again.â
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