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

louder. Then he realised that he was behaving foolishly. "Steady," he said.
"Steady!"

His pacing became more regular. "This new world," he said. "I don't
understand it. __Why?__ . . . But it is all __why!__"

"I suppose they can fly and do all sorts of things Let me try and remember
just how it began."

He was surprised at first to find how vague the memories of his first
thirty years had become. He remembered fragments, for the most part trivial
moments, things of no great importance that he had observed. His boyhood
seemed the most accessible at first, he recalled school books and certain
lessons in mensuration. Then he revived the more salient features of his
life, memories of the wife long since dead, her magic influence now gone
beyond corruption, of his rivals and friends and betrayers, of the swift
decision of this issue and that, and then of his , last years of misery, of
fluctuating resolves, and at last of his strenuous studies. In a little
while he perceived he had it all again; dim perhaps, like metal long laid
aside, but in no way defective or injured, capable of re-polishing. And the
hue of it was a deepening misery. Was it worth re-polishing? By a miracle
he had been lifted out of a life that had become intolerable.

He reverted to his present condition. He wrestled with the facts in vain.
It became an inextricable tangle. He saw the sky through the ventilator
pink with dawn. An old persuasion came out of the dark recesses of his
memory. "I must sleep," he said. It appeared as a delightful relief from
this mental distress and from the growing pain and heaviness of his limbs.
He went to the strange little bed, lay down and was presently asleep.

He was destined to become very familiar indeed with these apartments before
he left them, for he remained imprisoned for three days. During that time
no one, except Howard, entered his prison. The marvel of his fate mingled
with and in some way minimised the marvel of his survival. He had awakened
to mankind it seemed only to be snatched away into this unaccountable
solitude. Howard came regularly with subtly sustaining and nutritive
fluids, and light and pleasant foods, quite strange to Graham. He always
closed the door carefully as he entered. On matters of detail he was
increasingly obliging, but the bearing of Graham on the great issues that
were evidently being contested so closely beyond the soundproof walls that
enclosed him, he would not elucidate. He evaded, as politely as possible,
every question on the position of affairs in the outer world.

And in those three days Graham's incessant thoughts went far and wide. All
that he had seen, all this elaborate contrivance to prevent him seeing,
worked together in his mind. Almost every possible interpretation of his
position he debated-even as it chanced, the right interpretation. Things
that presently happened to him, came to him at last credible, by virtue of
this seclusion. When at length the moment of his release arrived, it found
him prepared.