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The Sleeper Awakes Chapter 7 - In the Silent Rooms · The H. G. Wells Library

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  Speaker 1: Chapter seven of The Sleeper Awakes. This is a LibriVox recording.
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  Speaker 1: All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more
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  Speaker 1: information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox dot org. The
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  Speaker 1: Sleeper Awakes by H. G. Wells. In the silent rooms presently,
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  Speaker 1: Graham resumed his examination of his apartments. Curiosity kept him
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  Speaker 1: moving in spite of his fatigue. The inner room he
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  Speaker 1: perceived was high, and its ceiling dome shaped, with an
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  Speaker 1: oblong aperture in the center, opening into a funnel in
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  Speaker 1: which a wheel of broad vein seemed to be rotating,
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  Speaker 1: apparently driving the air up the shaft. The faint humming
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  Speaker 1: note of its easy motion was the only clear sound
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  Speaker 1: in that quiet place. As these veins sprang up one
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  Speaker 1: after the other, Graham could get transient glimpses of the sky.
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  Speaker 1: He was surprised to see a star. This drew his
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  Speaker 1: attention to the fact that the bright lighting of these
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  Speaker 1: rooms was due to a multitude of very faint, low
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  Speaker 1: lamps set about the cornices. There were no windows, and
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  Speaker 1: he began to recall that along all the vast chambers
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  Speaker 1: and passages he had traversed with Howard, he had observed
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  Speaker 1: no windows at all. Had there been windows, there were
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  Speaker 1: windows on the street, indeed, but were they for light?
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  Speaker 1: Or was the whole city lit day and night? For
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  Speaker 1: evermore so that there was no night there? And another
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  Speaker 1: thing dawned upon him. There was no fireplace in either room.
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  Speaker 1: Was the season summer? And were these merely summer apartments?
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  Speaker 1: Or was the whole city uniformly heated or cooled? He
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  Speaker 1: became interested in these questions, began examining the smooth texture
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  Speaker 1: of the walls, the simply constructed bed, the ingenious arrangements
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  Speaker 1: by which the labor of bedroom service was practically abolished,
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  Speaker 1: And over everything was a curious absence of deliberate ornament,
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  Speaker 1: a bare grace of form and color that he found
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  Speaker 1: very pleasing to the eye. There were several very comfortable chairs,
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  Speaker 1: a light table in silent runners carrying several bottles of
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  Speaker 1: fluids and glasses, and two plates bearing a clear substance
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  Speaker 1: like jelly. Then he noticed there were no books, no newspapers,
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  Speaker 1: no right wing materials. The world has changed, indeed, he said.
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  Speaker 1: He observed one entire side of the outer room was
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  Speaker 1: sat with rows of peculiar double cylinders inscribed with green
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  Speaker 1: lettering on white that harmonized with the decorative scheme of
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  Speaker 1: the room, and in the center of this side projected
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  Speaker 1: a little apparatus about a yard square and having a white,
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  Speaker 1: smooth face to the room. A chair faced this. He
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  Speaker 1: had a transitory idea that these cylinders might be books,
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  Speaker 1: or a modern substitute for books, but at first it
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  Speaker 1: did not seem so. The lettering on the cylinders puzzled him.
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  Speaker 1: At first sight, it seemed like Russian. Then he noticed
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  Speaker 1: the suggestion of mutilated English about certain of the words.
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  Speaker 1: The man who'd be Kin forced itself on him as
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  Speaker 1: the man who would be King fanatic spelling, he said,
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  Speaker 1: he remembered reading a story with that title. Then he
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  Speaker 1: recalled the story vividly, one of the best stories in
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  Speaker 1: the world. But this thing before him was not a
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  Speaker 1: book as he understood it. He puzzled out the titles
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  Speaker 1: of two adjacent cylinders, The Heart of Darkness he had
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  Speaker 1: never heard of before, nor The Madonna of the Future.
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  Speaker 1: No doubt if they were indeed stories, they were by
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  Speaker 1: post of Victorian authors. He puzzled over this peculiar cylinder
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  Speaker 1: for some time and replaced it. Then he turned to
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  Speaker 1: the square apparatus and examined that. He opened a sort
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  Speaker 1: of lid and found one of the double cylinders within,
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  Speaker 1: and on the upper edge a little stud, like the
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  Speaker 1: stud of an electric bell. He pressed this, and a
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  Speaker 1: rapid clicking began and ceased. He became aware of voices
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  Speaker 1: and music, and noticed a play of color on the
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  Speaker 1: smooth front face. He suddenly realized what this might be,
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  Speaker 1: and stepped back to regard it. On the flat surface
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  Speaker 1: was now a little picture, very vividly colored. And in
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  Speaker 1: this picture were figures that moved. Not only did they move,
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  Speaker 1: but they were conversing in clear, small voices. It was
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  Speaker 1: exactly like reality viewed through an inverted opera glass and
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  Speaker 1: heard through a long tube. His interest was seized at
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  Speaker 1: once by the situation, which presented a man pacing up
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  Speaker 1: and down and vociferating angry things to a pretty but
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  Speaker 1: petty Both were in the picturesque costume that seemed so
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  Speaker 1: strange to Graham. I have worked, said the man, But
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  Speaker 1: what have you been doing? Ah? Said Graham. He forgot
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  Speaker 1: everything else and sat down in the chair. Within five
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  Speaker 1: minutes he heard himself named Heard when the Sleeper wakes,
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  Speaker 1: used jestingly as a proverb for remote postponement, and passed
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  Speaker 1: himself by a thing remote and incredible. But in a
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  Speaker 1: little while he knew those two people like intimate friends.
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  Speaker 1: At last, the miniature drama came to an end, and
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  Speaker 1: the square face of the apparatus was blank again. It
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  Speaker 1: was a strange world into which he had been permitted
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  Speaker 1: to see unscrupulous pleasure seeking energetic subtle, a world too,
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  Speaker 1: of dire economic struggle. There were illusions he did not understand,
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  Speaker 1: incidents that conveyed strange suggestions of altered moral ideals, flashes
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  Speaker 1: of dubious enlightenment. The blue canvas that bulked so largely
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  Speaker 1: in his first impression of the city ways appeared again
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  Speaker 1: and again as the costume of the common people. He
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  Speaker 1: had no doubt. The story was contemporary, and its intense
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  Speaker 1: real life was undeniable, and the end had been a
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  Speaker 1: tragedy that oppressed him. He sat staring at the blankness.
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  Speaker 1: He started and rubbed his eyes. He had been so
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  Speaker 1: absorbed in the latter day substitute for a novel that
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  Speaker 1: he awoke to the little green and white room with
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  Speaker 1: more than a touch of the surprise of his first awakening.
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  Speaker 1: He stood up and Abruptly he was back in his
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  Speaker 1: own wonderland. The clearness of the kinetoscope drama passed, and
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  Speaker 1: the struggle in the vast place of streets, the ambiguous council,
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  Speaker 1: the swift phases of his waking hour came back. These
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  Speaker 1: people had spoken of the council with suggestions of a
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  Speaker 1: vague universality of power, and they had spoken of the sleeper.
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  Speaker 1: It had not really struck him vividly at the time
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  Speaker 1: that he was the sleeper. He had to recall precisely
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  Speaker 1: what they had said. He walked into the bedroom and
• 5:43
  Speaker 1: peered up through the quick intervals of the revolving fan.
• 5:47
  Speaker 1: As the fan swept round, a dim turmoil, like the
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  Speaker 1: noise of machinery came in rhythmic eddies. All else was silence.
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  Speaker 1: Though the perpetual day still irradiated his apartments, he perceived
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  Speaker 1: the little intermittent strip of sky was now deep blue black,
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  Speaker 1: almost with the dust of little stars. He resumed his
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  Speaker 1: examination of the rooms. He could find no way of
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  Speaker 1: opening the padded door, no bell nor other means of
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  Speaker 1: calling for attendants. His feeling of wonder was in abeyance,
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  Speaker 1: but he was curious, anxious for information. He wanted to
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  Speaker 1: know exactly how he stood to these new things. He
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  Speaker 1: tried to compose himself to wait until someone came to him. Presently,
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  Speaker 1: he became restless and eager for information, for distraction, for
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  Speaker 1: fresh sensations. He went back to the apparatus in the
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  Speaker 1: other room and had soon puzzled out the method of
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  Speaker 1: replacing the cylinders by others. As he did so, it
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  Speaker 1: came into his mind that it must be these little
• 6:37
  Speaker 1: appliances had fixed the language so that it was still
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  Speaker 1: clear and understandable after two hundred years. The haphazard cylinders
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  Speaker 1: he substituted displayed a musical fantasia. At first it was beautiful,
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  Speaker 1: and then it was sensuous. He presently recognized what appeared
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  Speaker 1: to him to be an altered version of the story
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  Speaker 1: of Tannhauser. The music was unfamiliar, but the rendering was
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  Speaker 1: realistic and with a contemporary unfamiliarity. Tannhaeuser did not go
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  Speaker 1: to a Venusberg, but to a pleasure city. What was
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  Speaker 1: a pleasure city? A dream? Surely the fancy of a fantastic,
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  Speaker 1: voluptuous writer. He became interested, curious. The story developed with
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  Speaker 1: a flavor of strangely twisted sentimentality. Suddenly he did not
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  Speaker 1: like it. He liked it less. As it proceeded, he
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  Speaker 1: had a revulsion of feeling. These were no pictures, no idealizations,
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  Speaker 1: but photographed realities. He wanted no more of the twenty
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  Speaker 1: second century Venusberg. He forgot the part played by the
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  Speaker 1: model in nineteenth century art, and gave way to an
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  Speaker 1: archaic indignation. He rose angry and half ashamed at himself
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  Speaker 1: for witnessing this thing even in solitude. He pulled forward
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  Speaker 1: the apparatus, and with some violence, sought for a means
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  Speaker 1: of stopping its action. Something snapped, a violet spark, stuying
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  Speaker 1: convulsed his arm. The thing was still. When he attempted
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  Speaker 1: next day to replace these Tannhauser cylinders by another pair,
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  Speaker 1: he found the apparatus broken. He struck out a path
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  Speaker 1: oblique to the room, and paced to and fro, struggling
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  Speaker 1: with intolerable vast impression. The things he had derived from
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  Speaker 1: the cylinders and the things he had seen conflicted confused him.
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  Speaker 1: It seemed to him the most amazing thing of all,
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  Speaker 1: that in his thirty years of life he had never
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  Speaker 1: tried to shape a picture of these coming times. We
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  Speaker 1: were making the future, he said, and hardly any of
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  Speaker 1: us troubled to think what future we were making? And
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  Speaker 1: here it is, what have they got to? What has
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  Speaker 1: been done? How do I come into the midst of it? All?
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  Speaker 1: The vastness of street and house he was prepared for
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  Speaker 1: the multitudes of people, But conflicts in the city ways
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  Speaker 1: and the systematized sensuality of a class of rich men.
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  Speaker 1: He thought of Bellamy, the hero of whose socialistic utopia
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  Speaker 1: had so oddly anticipated this actual experience. But here was
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  Speaker 1: no utopia, no socialistic state. He had already seen enough
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  Speaker 1: to realize that the ancient antithesis of luxury, waste and
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  Speaker 1: sensuality on the one hand, and abject poverty on the other,
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  Speaker 1: still prevailed. He knew enough of the essential factors of
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  Speaker 1: life to understand that correlation. And not only were the
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  Speaker 1: buildings of the city gigantic the crowds in the street gigantic,
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  Speaker 1: but the voices he had heard in the ways, the
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  Speaker 1: uneasiness of Howard, the very atmosphere spoke of gigantic discontent.
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  Speaker 1: What country was he in? Still England, it seemed, and
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  Speaker 1: yet strangely un English. His mind glanced at the rest
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  Speaker 1: of the world and saw only an enigmatical veil. He
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  Speaker 1: prowled about his apartment, examining everything as a caged animal
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  Speaker 1: might do. He was very tired, with that feverish exhaustion
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  Speaker 1: that does not admit of rest. He listened for long
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  Speaker 1: spaces under the ventilator to catch some distant echo of
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  Speaker 1: the tumults he felt must be proceeding in the city.
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  Speaker 1: He began to talk to himself. Two hundred and three
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  Speaker 1: years he said to himself, over and over again, laughing stupidly,
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  Speaker 1: that I am two hundred and thirty three years old,
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  Speaker 1: the oldest inhabitant. Surely they haven't reversed the tendency of
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  Speaker 1: our time and gone back to the rule of the oldest.
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  Speaker 1: My claims are indisputable. Mumble, mumble. I remember the Bulgarian
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  Speaker 1: atrocities as though it was yesterday. Tis a great age. Ah.
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  Speaker 1: He was surprised at first to hear himself laughing, and
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  Speaker 1: then laughed again, deliberately and louder. Then he realized that
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  Speaker 1: he was behaving foolishly. Steady, he said, Steady. His pacing
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  Speaker 1: became more regular. This new world, he said, I don't
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  Speaker 1: understand it, why, but it is all why. I suppose
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  Speaker 1: they can fly and do all sorts of things. Let
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  Speaker 1: me try and remember just how it began. He was
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  Speaker 1: surprised at first to find how vague the memories of
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  Speaker 1: his first thirty years had become. He remembered fragments, for
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  Speaker 1: the most part, trivial moments, things of no great importance
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  Speaker 1: that he had observed his boyhood seemed the most accessible.
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  Speaker 1: At first he recalled school books in certain lessons and menturation.
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  Speaker 1: Then he revived the more salient features of his life,
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  Speaker 1: memories of the wife, long since dead, her magic influence
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  Speaker 1: now gone beyond corruption of his rivals and friends and betrayers,
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  Speaker 1: of the decision of this issue, in that, and then
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  Speaker 1: of his last years of misery, of fluctuating resolves, and
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  Speaker 1: at last of his strenuous studies. In a little while,
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  Speaker 1: he perceived he had it all again, dim perhaps like
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  Speaker 1: metal long laid aside, but in no way defective or injured,
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  Speaker 1: capable of re polishing. And the hue of it was
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  Speaker 1: a deepening misery. Was it worth re polishing? By a miracle,
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  Speaker 1: he had been lifted out of a life that had
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  Speaker 1: become intolerable. He reverted to his present condition. He wrestled
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  Speaker 1: with the facts in vain. It became an inextricable tangle.
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  Speaker 1: Who saw the sky through the ventilator pink with dawn.
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  Speaker 1: An old persuasion came out of the dark recesses of
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  Speaker 1: his memory. I must sleep, he said. It appeared as
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  Speaker 1: a delightful relief from this mental distress and from the
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  Speaker 1: growing pain and heaviness of his limbs. He went to
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  Speaker 1: the strange little bed, laid down, and was presently asleep.
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  Speaker 1: He was destined to become very familiar, indeed, with these
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  Speaker 1: apartments before he left them, for he remained imprisoned for
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  Speaker 1: three days. During that time no one except Howard entered
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  Speaker 1: the rooms. The marvel of his fate mingled with, and
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  Speaker 1: in some way minimized the marvel of his survival. He
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  Speaker 1: had awakened to mankind at seem only to be snatched
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  Speaker 1: away into this unaccountable solitude. Howard came regularly with subtly
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  Speaker 1: sustaining and nutritive fluids, and lightened pleasant foods. Quite strange
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  Speaker 1: to Graham. He always closed the door carefully as he entered.
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  Speaker 1: On matters of detail he was increasingly obliging. But the
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  Speaker 1: bearing of Graham on the great issues that were evidently
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  Speaker 1: being contested so closely beyond the sound proof walls that
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  Speaker 1: enclosed him, he would not elucidate. He evaded as politely
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  Speaker 1: as possible every question on the position of affairs in
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  Speaker 1: the outer world, and those three days Graham's incessant thoughts
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  Speaker 1: went far and wide. All that he had seen, All
• 12:35
  Speaker 1: this elaborate contrivance to prevent him seeing, worked together in
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  Speaker 1: his mind. Almost every possible interpretation of his position. He debated,
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  Speaker 1: even as it chanced the right interpretation. Things that presently
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  Speaker 1: happened to him came to him at last credible by
• 12:50
  Speaker 1: virtue of this seclusion. When at length the moment of
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  Speaker 1: his release arrived, it found him prepared. Howard's bearing went
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  Speaker 1: far to deepen Graham's impression of his own strange importance.
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  Speaker 1: The door between its opening and closing seemed to admit
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  Speaker 1: with him a breath of momentous happening. His inquiries became
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  Speaker 1: more definite and searching. Howard retreated through protests and difficulties.
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  Speaker 1: The awakening was unforeseen, he repeated. It happened to have
• 13:14
  Speaker 1: fallen in with the trend of a social convulsion. To
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  Speaker 1: explain it, I must tell you the history of a
• 13:19
  Speaker 1: gross and a half year's protested, Howard. The thing is this,
• 13:23
  Speaker 1: said Graham. You are afraid of something I shall do.
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  Speaker 1: In some way I am arbitrator. I might be arbitrator.
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  Speaker 1: It is not that, but you have I may tell
• 13:34
  Speaker 1: you this much. The automatic increase of your property puts
• 13:37
  Speaker 1: great possibilities of interference in your hands. And in certain
• 13:40
  Speaker 1: other ways you have influence with your eighteenth century notions.
• 13:44
  Speaker 1: Nineteenth century corrected Graham, with your old world notions. Anyhow
• 13:48
  Speaker 1: ignorant as you are of every feature of our state,
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  Speaker 1: am I a fool? Certainly not? Do I seem to
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  Speaker 1: be the sort of man who would act rashly. You
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  Speaker 1: were never expected to act at all. No one counted
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  Speaker 1: on your awakening, No one dreamt you at ever awake.
• 14:03
  Speaker 1: The Council had surrounded you with antiseptic conditions. As a
• 14:06
  Speaker 1: matter of fact, we thought that you were dead, a
• 14:08
  Speaker 1: mere arrest of decay. But it is too complex. We
• 14:13
  Speaker 1: dare not suddenly while you are still half awake. It
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  Speaker 1: won't do, said Graham. Suppose it is as you say,
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  Speaker 1: Why am I not being crammed night and day with
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  Speaker 1: facts and warnings and all the wisdom of the time
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  Speaker 1: to fit me for my responsibilities. Am I any wiser
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  Speaker 1: now than two days ago? If it is two days
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  Speaker 1: when I awoke? Howard pulled his lip. I am beginning
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  Speaker 1: to feel. Every hour I feel more clearly a system
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  Speaker 1: of concealment of which you are the face. Is this
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  Speaker 1: counsel or committee or whatever they are cooking the accounts
• 14:42
  Speaker 1: of my estate? Is that? It? That note of suspicion,
• 14:46
  Speaker 1: said Howard. Ohugh, said Graham. Now mark my words, it
• 14:49
  Speaker 1: will be ill for those who have put me here.
• 14:51
  Speaker 1: It will be ill. I am alive, Make no doubt
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  Speaker 1: of it. I am alive. Every day my pulse is stronger,
• 14:57
  Speaker 1: and my mind clearer, and more vigorous, more quiescence. I
• 15:01
  Speaker 1: am a man come back to life, and I want
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  Speaker 1: to live live. Howard's face lit with an idea. He
• 15:07
  Speaker 1: came towards Graham and spoke in an easy, confidential tone.
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  Speaker 1: The council secludes you here for your good. You are restless,
• 15:14
  Speaker 1: naturally an energetic man. You find it dull here. But
• 15:18
  Speaker 1: we are anxious that everything you may desire, every desire,
• 15:21
  Speaker 1: every sort of desire, there may be something. Is there
• 15:25
  Speaker 1: any sort of company? He paused meaningly, Yes, said Graham thoughtfully,
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  Speaker 1: there is ah, now we have treated you neglectfully the
• 15:37
  Speaker 1: crowds in yonder streets of yours, that said Howard, I
• 15:43
  Speaker 1: am afraid. But Graham began pacing the room. Howard stood
• 15:47
  Speaker 1: near the door, watching him. The implication of Howard's suggestion
• 15:51
  Speaker 1: was only half evident to Graham. Company. Suppose he were
• 15:55
  Speaker 1: to accept the proposal demand some sort of company, would
• 15:58
  Speaker 1: there be any possibilities of gathering from the conversation of
• 16:01
  Speaker 1: this additional person, some vague inkling of the struggle that
• 16:04
  Speaker 1: had broken out so vividly at his waking moment. He
• 16:07
  Speaker 1: meditated again, and the suggestion took color. He turned on
• 16:11
  Speaker 1: Howard abruptly, What do you mean by company? Howard raised
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  Speaker 1: his eyes and shrugged his shoulders. Human beings, he said,
• 16:19
  Speaker 1: with a curious smile on his heavy face. Our social ideas,
• 16:24
  Speaker 1: he said, have a certain increased liberality, perhaps in comparison
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  Speaker 1: with your times. If a man wishes to relieve such
• 16:31
  Speaker 1: a tedium as this by feminine society, for instance, we
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  Speaker 1: think it no scandal. We have cleared our minds of formulae.
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  Speaker 1: There is in our city a class, a necessary class,
• 16:44
  Speaker 1: no longer despised discreet. Graham stopped dead it would pass
• 16:51
  Speaker 1: the time, said Howard. It is a thing I should
• 16:53
  Speaker 1: perhaps have thought of before. But as a matter of fact,
• 16:57
  Speaker 1: so much is happening, he indicated the exterior world. Graham
• 17:01
  Speaker 1: hesitated for a moment. The figure of a possible woman
• 17:04
  Speaker 1: dominated his mind with an intense attraction. Then he flashed
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  Speaker 1: into anger. No, he shouted. He began striding rapidly up
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  Speaker 1: and down the room. Everything you say, everything you do,
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  Speaker 1: convinces me of some great issue in which I am concerned.
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  Speaker 1: I do not want to pass the time as you
• 17:21
  Speaker 1: call it. Yes, I know desire and indulgence are life
• 17:24
  Speaker 1: in a sense and death extinction in my life. Before
• 17:27
  Speaker 1: I slept, I had worked out that pitiful question. I
• 17:30
  Speaker 1: will not begin again. There is a city, a multitude,
• 17:34
  Speaker 1: and meanwhile I am here like a rabbit in a bag.
• 17:37
  Speaker 1: His rage surged high. He choked for a moment and
• 17:40
  Speaker 1: began to wave his clenched fists. He gave way to
• 17:42
  Speaker 1: an anger fit. He swore archaic curses. His gestures have
• 17:46
  Speaker 1: the quality of physical threats. I do not know who
• 17:50
  Speaker 1: your party may be. I am in the dark, and
• 17:52
  Speaker 1: you keep me in the dark. But I know this
• 17:54
  Speaker 1: that I am secluded here for no good purpose, for
• 17:57
  Speaker 1: no good purpose, I warn you. I warn you of
• 17:59
  Speaker 1: the consequences once I come at my power. He realized
• 18:03
  Speaker 1: that to threaten thus might be a danger to himself.
• 18:06
  Speaker 1: He stopped. Howard stood, regarding him with a curious expression.
• 18:11
  Speaker 1: I take it this is a message to the council,
• 18:14
  Speaker 1: said Howard. Graham had a momentary impulse to leap upon
• 18:17
  Speaker 1: the man fell or stun him. It must have shown
• 18:20
  Speaker 1: upon his face. At any rate, Howard's movement was quick.
• 18:23
  Speaker 1: In a second, the noiseless door had closed again, and
• 18:26
  Speaker 1: the man from the nineteenth century was alone. For a moment.
• 18:31
  Speaker 1: He stood rigid with clinched hands half raised. Then he
• 18:34
  Speaker 1: flung them down. What a fool I have been, he said,
• 18:37
  Speaker 1: and gave way to his anger again, stamping about the
• 18:39
  Speaker 1: room and shouting curses. For a long time, he kept
• 18:43
  Speaker 1: himself in a sort of frenzy, raging at his position,
• 18:45
  Speaker 1: at his own folly, at the knaves who had imprisoned him.
• 18:49
  Speaker 1: He did this because he did not want to look
• 18:50
  Speaker 1: calmly at his position. He clung to his anger because
• 18:54
  Speaker 1: he was afraid of fear. Presently, he found himself reasoning
• 18:58
  Speaker 1: with himself. This imprisonment was unaccountable, but no doubt the
• 19:02
  Speaker 1: legal forms knew. Legal forms of the time permitted it.
• 19:05
  Speaker 1: It must of course be legal. These here were two
• 19:08
  Speaker 1: hundred years further on in the march of civilization and
• 19:10
  Speaker 1: the Victorian generation. It was not likely they would be
• 19:13
  Speaker 1: less humane, yet they had cleared their minds of formulae.
• 19:19
  Speaker 1: Was humanity of formula as well as chastity. His imagination
• 19:23
  Speaker 1: set to work to suggest things that might be done
• 19:26
  Speaker 1: to him. The attempts of his reason to dispose of
• 19:28
  Speaker 1: these suggestions, though for the most part logically valid, were
• 19:31
  Speaker 1: quite unavailing. Why should anything be done to me if
• 19:35
  Speaker 1: the worst comes to the worst, He found himself saying,
• 19:38
  Speaker 1: at last, I can give up what they want, But
• 19:40
  Speaker 1: what do they want? And why don't they ask me
• 19:43
  Speaker 1: for it? Instead of cooping me up? He returned to
• 19:46
  Speaker 1: his former preoccupation with the council's possible intentions. He began
• 19:50
  Speaker 1: to reconsider the details of Howard's behavior, sinister glances, inexplicable hesitations. Then,
• 19:56
  Speaker 1: for a time his mind circled about the idea of
• 19:59
  Speaker 1: escaping from these rooms. But whither could he escape into
• 20:02
  Speaker 1: this vast, crowded world. He would be worse off than
• 20:04
  Speaker 1: a Saxon yeoman suddenly dropped into nineteenth century London. And besides,
• 20:09
  Speaker 1: how could anyone escape from these rooms? How can it
• 20:12
  Speaker 1: benefit anyone if harm should happen to me? He thought
• 20:16
  Speaker 1: of the tumult, the great social trouble of which he
• 20:18
  Speaker 1: was so unaccountably. The Axis, a text irrelevant enough and
• 20:22
  Speaker 1: yet curiously insistent, came floating up out of the darkness
• 20:26
  Speaker 1: of his memory. This also, a council had said, it
• 20:30
  Speaker 1: is expedient for us that one man should die for
• 20:33
  Speaker 1: the people. End of Chapter seven.