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

Howard's bearing went far to deepen Graham's impression of his own strange
importance; the door between its opening and closing seemed to admit with
him a breath of momentous happening. His enquiries became more definite and
searching. Howard retreated through protests and difficulties. The
awakening was unforeseen, he repeated; it happened to have fallen in with
the trend of a social convulsion.

"To explain it I must tell you the history of a gross and a half of years,"
protested Howard.

"The thing is this," said Graham. "You are afraid of something I shall do.
In some way I am arbitrator-I might be arbitrator."

" It is not that. But you have-I may tell you this much-the automatic
increase of your property puts great possibilities of interference in your
hands. And in certain other ways you have influence, with your eighteenth
century notions."

"Nineteenth century," corrected Graham.

"With your old world notions, anyhow, ignorant as you are of every feature
of our State."

"Am I a fool? "

"Certainly not."

"Do I seem to be the sort of man who would act rashly?"

"You were never expected to act at all. No one counted on your awakening.
No one dreamt you would ever awake. The Council had surrounded you with
antiseptic conditions. As a matter of fact, we thought that you were dead-a
mere arrest of decay. And-but it is too complex. We dare not suddenly
-while you are still half awake."

"It won't do," said Graham. "Suppose it is as you say-why am I not being
crammed night and day with facts and warnings and all the wisdom of the
time to fit me for my responsibilities? Am I any wiser now than two days
ago, if it is two days, when I awoke?"

Howard pulled his lip.

"I am beginning to feel-every hour I feel more clearly-a sense of complex
concealment of which you are the salient point. Is this Council, or
committee, or whatever they are, cooking the accounts of my estate? Is that
it? "

"That note of suspicion-" said Howard.