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

world has changed indeed," he said.

He observed one entire side of the outer room was set with rows of peculiar
double cylinders inscribed with green lettering on white that harmonized
With the decorative scheme of the room, and in the centre of this side
projected a little apparatus about a yard square and having a white smooth
face to the room. A chair faced this. He had a transitory idea that these
cylinders might be books, or a modern substitute for books, but at first it
did not seem so.

The lettering on the cylinders puzzled him. At first sight it seemed like
Russian. Then he noticed a suggestion of mutilated English about certain of
the words.
"oi Man huwdbi Kin"

forced itself on him as "The Man who would be King." "Phonetic spelling,"
he said. He remembered reading a story with that title, then he recalled
the story vividly, one of the best stories in the world. But this thing
before him was not a book as he understood it. He puzzled out the titles of
two adjacent cylinders. 'The Heart of Darkness,' he had never heard of
before nor 'The Madonna of the Future'-no doubt if they were indeed
stories, they were by post Victorian authors.

He puzzled over this peculiar cylinder for some time and replaced it. Then
he turned to the square apparatus and examined that. He opened a sort of
lid and found one of the double cylinders within, and on the upper edge a
little stud like the stud of an electric bell. He pressed this and a rapid
clicking began and ceased. He became aware of voices and music, and noticed
a play of colour on the smooth front face. He suddenly realised what this
might be, and stepped back to regard it.

On the flat surface was now a little picture, very vividly coloured, and in
this picture were figures that moved. Not only did they move, but they were
conversing in clear small voices. It was exactly like reality viewed
through an inverted opera glass and heard through a long tube. His interest
was seized at once by the situation, which presented a man pacing up and
down and vociferating angry things to a pretty but petulant woman. Both
were in the picturesque costume that seemed so strange to Graham. "I have
worked," said the man, "but what have you been doing?"

"Ah!" said Graham. He forgot everything else, and sat down in the chair.
Within five minutes he heard himself named, heard "when the Sleeper wakes,"
used jestingly as a proverb for remote postponement, and passed himself by,
a thing remote and incredible. But in a little while he knew those two
people like l . intimate friends.

At last the miniature drama came to an end, and the square face of the
apparatus was blank again.

It was a strange world into which he had been permitted to see,