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

towards the archway. He staggered down the steps, tripped on the corner of
the black cloak he had wrapped about himself, and saved himself by catching
at one of the blue pillars.

The passage ran down a cool vista of blue and purple, and ended remotely in
a railed space like a balcony, brightly lit and projecting into a space of
haze, a space like the interior of some gigantic building. Beyond and
remote were vast and vague architectural forms. The tumult of voices rose
now loud and clear, and on the balcony and with their backs to him,
gesticulating and apparently in animated conversation, were three figures,
richly dressed in loose and easy garments of bright soft colourings. The
noise of a great multitude of people poured up over the balcony, and once
it seemed the top of a banner passed, and once some brightly coloured
object, a pale blue cap or garment thrown up into the air perhaps, flashed
athwart the space and fell. The shouts sounded like English, there was a
reiteration of "Wake!" He heard some indistinct shrill cry, and abruptly
the three men began laughing.

"Ha, ha, ha!" laughed one-a red-haired man in a short purple robe. "When
the Sleeper wakes__When!__

He turned his eyes full of merriment along the passage. His face changed,
the whole man changed, became rigid. The other two turned swiftly at his
exclamation and stood motionless. Their faces assumed an expression of
consternation, an expression that deepened into awe.

Suddenly Graham's knees bent beneath him, his arm against the pillar
collapsed limply, he staggered forward and fell upon his face.

CHAPTER IV

THE SOUND OF A TUMULT

Graham's last impression before he fainted was of a clamorous ringing of
bells. He learnt afterwards that he was insensible, hanging between life
and death, for the better part of an hour. When he recovered his senses, he
was back on his translucent couch, and there was a stirring warmth at heart
and throat. The dark apparatus, he perceived, had been removed from his
arm, which was bandaged. The white framework was still about him, but the
greenish transparent substance that had filled it was altogether gone. A
man in a deep violet robe, one of those who had been on the balcony, was
looking keenly into his face.

Remote but insistent was a clamour of bells and confused sounds, that
suggested to his mind the picture of a great number of people shouting
together. Something seemed to fall across this tumult, a door suddenly
closed.

Graham moved his head. "What does this all mean?" he said slowly. "Where am
I?"