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

beard.

There was a pause. Graham looked at their faces and saw that what he had
heard was indeed true.

"But it can't be," he said querulously. "I am dreaming. Trances. Trances
don't last. That is not right-this is a joke you have played upon me! Tell
me-some days ago, perhaps, I was walking along the coast of Cornwall-? "

His voice failed him.

The man with the flaxen beard hesitated. "I'm not very strong in history,
sir," he said weakly, and glanced at the others.

"That was it, sir," said the youngster. "Boscastle, in the old Duchy of
Cornwall-it's in the southwest country beyond the dairy meadows. There is a
house there still. I have been there."

"Boscastle!" Graham turned his eyes to the youngster. "That was
it-Boscastle. Little Boscastle. I fell asleep-somewhere there. I don't
exactly remember. I don't exactly remember."

He pressed his brows and whispered," More than two hundred years!" I

He began to speak quickly with a twitching face, but his heart was cold
within him. "But if it is two hundred years, every soul I know, every human
being that ever I saw or spoke to before I went to sleep, must be dead."

They did not answer him.

"The Queen and the Royal Family, her Ministers, of Church and State. High
and low, rich and poor, one with another-"

"Is there England still?"

"That's a comfort! Is there London?" E "This __is__ London, eh? And you are
my assistantcustodian; assistant-custodian. And these-? Eh?
Assistant-custodians to?"

He sat with a gaunt stare on his face. "But why am I here? No! Don't talk.
Be quiet. Let me-"

He sat silent, rubbed his eyes, and, uncovering them, found another little
glass of pinkish fluid held towards him. He took the dose. It was almost
immediately sustaining. Directly he had taken it he began to weep naturally
and refreshingly.

Presently he looked at their faces, suddenly laughed through his tears, a
little foolishly. "But-twohun-dred-years ! " he said. He grimaced
hysterically and covered up his face again.