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

" Ugh!" said Graham. "Now, mark my words, it will be ill for those who have
put me here. It will be ill. I am alive. Make no doubt of it, I am alive.
Every day my pulse is stronger and my mind clearer and more vigorous. No
more quiescence. I am a man come back to life. And I want to __live--__"

"__Live!__"

Howard's face lit with an idea. He came towards Graham and spoke in an easy
confidential tone.

"The Council secludes you here for your good. You are restless.
Naturally-an energetic man! You find it dull here. But we are anxious that
everything you may desire-every desire-every sort of desire . . . There may
be something. Is there any sort of company? "

He paused meaningly. " Yes," said Graham thoughtfully. " There is."

"Ah! __Now!__ We have treated you neglectfully."

"The crowds in yonder streets of yours."

"That," said Howard, "I am afraid-. But-"

Graham began pacing the room. Howard stood near the door watching him. The
implication of Howard's suggestion was only half evident to Graham Company?
Suppose he were to accept the proposal, demand some sort of __company__?
Would there be any possibilities of gathering from the conversation oЈ this
additional person some vague inkling of the struggle that had broken out so
vividly at his waking moment? He meditated again, and the suggestion took
colour. He turned on Howard abruptly.

"What do you mean by company? "

Howard raised his eyes and shrugged his shoulders. "Human beings," he said,
with a curious smile on his heavy face.

"Our social ideas," he said, "have a certain increased liberality, perhaps,
in comparison with your times. If a man wishes to relieve such a tedium as
this-by feminine society, for instance. We think it no scandal. We have
cleared our minds of formulae. There is in our city a class, a necessary
class, no longer despised-discreet-"

Graham stopped dead.

"It would pass the time," said Howard. "It is a thing I should perhaps have
thought of before, but, as a matter of fact, so much is happening-"

He indicated the exterior world.

Graham hesitated. For a moment the figure of a possible woman that his