"Herbert George Wells. When the Sleeper Wakes" - читать интересную книгу автора

apartment of splendid appearance, and with a very large and simple white
archway facing him. Close to the walls of the cage were articles of
furniture, a table covered with a silvery cloth, silvery like the side of a
fish, a couple of graceful chairs, and on the table a number of dishes with
substances piled on them, a bottle and two glasses. He realised that he was
intensely hungry.

He could see no human being, and after a period of hesitation scrambled off
the translucent mattress and tried to stand on the clean white floor of his
little apartment. He had miscalculated his strength, however, and staggered
and put his hand against the glasslike pane before him to steady himself.
For a moment it resisted his hand, bending outward like a distended
bladder, then it broke with a slight report and vanished-a pricked bubble.
He reeled out into the general space of the hall, greatly astonished. He
caught at the table to save himself, knocking one of the glasses to the
floor-it rang but did not breakand sat down in one of the armchairs.

When he had a little recovered he filled the remaining glass from the
bottle and drank-a colourless liquid it was, but not water, with a pleasing
faint aroma and taste and a quality of immediate support and stimulus. He
put down the vessel and looked about him.

The apartment lost none of its size and magnificence now that the greenish
transparency that had intervened was removed. The archway he saw led to a
flight of steps, going downward without the intermediation of a door, to a
spacious transverse passage. This passage ran between polished pillars of
some white-veined substance of deep ultramarine, and along it came the
sound of human movements and voices and a deep undeviating droning note. He
sat, now fully awake, listening alertly, forgetting the viands in his
attention.

Then with a shock he remembered that he was naked, and casting about him
for covering, saw a long black robe thrown on one of the chairs beside him.
This he wrapped about him and sat down again, trembling.

His mind was still a surging perplexity. Clearly he had slept. and had been
removed in his sleep. But here? And who were those people, the distant
crowd beyond the deep blue pillars? Boscastle? He poured out and partially
drank another glass of the colourless fluid.

What was this place?-this place that to his senses seemed subtly quivering
like a thing alive? He looked about him at the clean and beautiful form of
the apartment, unstained by ornament, and saw that the roof was broken in
one place by a circular shaft full of light, and, as he looked, a steady,
sweeping shadow blotted it out and passed, and came again and passed.
"Beat, beat," that sweeping shadow had a note of its own in the subdued
tumult that filled the air.

He would have called out, but only a little sound came into his throat.
Then he stood up, and, with the uncertain steps of a drunkard, made his way