Latest / The H. G. Wells Library / The Sleeper Awakes Chapter 21 - The Under-Side

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The Sleeper Awakes Chapter 21 - The Under-Side · The H. G. Wells Library

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  Speaker 1: Chapter twenty one of The Sleeper Awakes. This is a
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  Speaker 1: LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain.
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  Speaker 1: For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox dot org.
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  Speaker 1: Recording by Ryan Sutter. The Sleeper Awakes by H. G. Wells,
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  Speaker 1: Chapter twenty one. The under side from the business quarter,
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  Speaker 1: they presently passed by the running ways into a remote
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  Speaker 1: quarter of the city where the bulk of the manufactures
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  Speaker 1: was done. On their way, the platform crossed the Thames
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  Speaker 1: twice and passed in the broad viaduct across one of
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  Speaker 1: the great roads that entered the city from the north.
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  Speaker 1: In both cases his impression was swift, and in both
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  Speaker 1: very vivid. The river was a broad, wrinkled glitter of
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  Speaker 1: black sea water, overarched by buildings and vanishing either way
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  Speaker 1: into a blackness starred with receding lights. A string of
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  Speaker 1: black barred passed seaward, manned by blue clad men. The
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  Speaker 1: road was a long and very broad and high tunnel
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  Speaker 1: along which big wheeled machines drove noiselessly and swiftly. Here too,
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  Speaker 1: the distinctive blue of the labor department was in abundance.
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  Speaker 1: The smoothness of the double tracks. The largeness and the
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  Speaker 1: lightness of the big pneumatic wheels in proportion to the
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  Speaker 1: vehicle vehicular body struck Graham most vividly. One lank and
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  Speaker 1: very high carriage with longitudinal metallic rods, hung with the
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  Speaker 1: dripping carcasses of many hundred sheep, arrested his attention unduly. Abruptly,
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  Speaker 1: the edge of the archway cut and blotted out the picture.
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  Speaker 1: Presently they left the way and descended by a lift,
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  Speaker 1: and traversed a passage that sloped downward, and so came
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  Speaker 1: to a descending lift again. The appearance of things changed,
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  Speaker 1: Even the pretense of architectural ornament disappeared. The lights diminished
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  Speaker 1: in number and size, the architecture became more and more
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  Speaker 1: massive in proportion to the spaces. As the factory quarters
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  Speaker 1: were reached, and in the dusty biscuit making place of
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  Speaker 1: the potters, among the felspar mills, in the furnace rooms
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  Speaker 1: of the metal workers, among the incandescent lakes of crude adamite,
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  Speaker 1: the blue canvas clothing was on man, woman and child.
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  Speaker 1: Many of these great and dusty galleries were silent avenues
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  Speaker 1: of machinery, endless raked out ashen furnaces testified to the
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  Speaker 1: revolutionary dislocation. But wherever there was work, it was being
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  Speaker 1: done by slow moving workers in blue canvas. The only
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  Speaker 1: people not in blue canvas were the overlookers of the
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  Speaker 1: workplaces and the orange clad labor police, and fresh from
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  Speaker 1: the flushed faces of the dancing halls, the voluntary vigors
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  Speaker 1: of the business quarter, Graham could note the pinched faces,
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  Speaker 1: the feeble muscles, and weary eyes of many of the
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  Speaker 1: latter day workers, such as he saw at work, were
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  Speaker 1: noticeably inferior in physique to the few gaily dressed managers
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  Speaker 1: and fore women who were directing their labors. The burly
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  Speaker 1: laborers of the old Victorian times had followed that dray
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  Speaker 1: horse and all such living force producers to extinction. The
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  Speaker 1: place of his costly muscles was taken by some dexterous machine.
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  Speaker 1: The latter day laborer, male as well as female, was
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  Speaker 1: essentially a machine minder and feeder, a servant and attendant,
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  Speaker 1: or an artist under direction. The women, in comparison with
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  Speaker 1: those Graham remembered, were as a class distinctly plain and
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  Speaker 1: flat chested. Two hundred years of emancipation from the moral
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  Speaker 1: restraints of puritanical religion. Two hundred years of city life
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  Speaker 1: had done their work in eliminating the strain of feminine
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  Speaker 1: beauty and vigor from the blue canvas myriads. To be brilliant,
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  Speaker 1: physically or mentally. To be in any way attractive or exceptional,
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  Speaker 1: had been, and was still a certain way of emancipation
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  Speaker 1: to the drudge, a line of escape to the pleasure
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  Speaker 1: city and its splendors and delights, and at last to
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  Speaker 1: the euthanasy and peace. To be steadfast against such inducements
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  Speaker 1: was scarcely to be expected of meanly nourished souls. In
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  Speaker 1: the young cities of Graham's former life. The newly aggregated
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  Speaker 1: laboring mass had been a diverse multitude, still stirred by
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  Speaker 1: the tradition of personal honor and a high morality. Now
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  Speaker 1: it was differentiating into an indistinct class, with a moral
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  Speaker 1: and physical difference of its own, even with a dialect
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  Speaker 1: of its own. They penetrated downward, ever downward, towards the
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  Speaker 1: working places. Presently they passed underneath one of the streets
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  Speaker 1: of the moving ways, and saw its platforms running on
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  Speaker 1: their rails far overhead, and chinks of white lights between
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  Speaker 1: the transverse slits. The factories that were not working were
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  Speaker 1: sparsely lighted. To Graham, they and their shrouded aisles of
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  Speaker 1: giant machines seemed plunged in gloom, and even where work
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  Speaker 1: was going on, the illumination was far less brilliant than
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  Speaker 1: upon the public ways. Beyond the blazing lakes of Edomite.
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  Speaker 1: He came to the warren of the jewelers, and with
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  Speaker 1: some difficulty, and by using his signature, obtained admission to
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  Speaker 1: these galleries. They were high and dark and rather cold.
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  Speaker 1: In the first a few men were making ornaments of
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  Speaker 1: gold filigree, each man at a little bench by himself
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  Speaker 1: and with a little shaded light. The long vista of
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  Speaker 1: light patches, with the nimble fingers brightly lit and moving
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  Speaker 1: among the gleaming yellow coils, and the intent face like
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  Speaker 1: the face of a ghost in each shadow, had the
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  Speaker 1: oddest effect. The work was beautifully executed, but without any
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  Speaker 1: strength of modeling or drawing, for the most part intricate
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  Speaker 1: grotesques or the ringing of the changes on a geometrical motif.
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  Speaker 1: These workers wore a peculiar white uniform without pockets or sleeves.
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  Speaker 1: They assumed this on coming to work, but at night
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  Speaker 1: they were stripped and examined before they left the premises
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  Speaker 1: of the department, in spite of every precaution. The labor
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  Speaker 1: policeman told them in a depressed tone, the department was
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  Speaker 1: not infrequently robbed. Beyond was a gallery of women busied
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  Speaker 1: in cutting and setting slabs of artificial ruby. And next
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  Speaker 1: these were men and women working together upon the slabs
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  Speaker 1: of copper net that formed the basis of cloison a tiles.
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  Speaker 1: Many of these workers had lips and nostrils a livid white,
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  Speaker 1: due to a disease caused by a peculiar purple enamel
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  Speaker 1: that chanced to be much in fashion. Asano apologized to
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  Speaker 1: Graham for this offensive sight, but excused himself on the
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  Speaker 1: score of the convenience of this route. This is what
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  Speaker 1: I wanted to see, said Graham. This is what I
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  Speaker 1: wanted to see, trying to avoid a start at a
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  Speaker 1: particularly striking disfigurement. She might have done better with herself
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  Speaker 1: than that, said Asano. Graham made some indignant comments. But Sire,
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  Speaker 1: we simply could not stand that stuff without the purple,
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  Speaker 1: said Asano. In your days, people could stand such crudities.
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  Speaker 1: They were nearer the Barbaric by two hundred years. They
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  Speaker 1: continued along one of the lower gales galleries of this
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  Speaker 1: Cloisonet factory, and came to a little bridge that spanned
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  Speaker 1: a vault. Looking over the parapet, Graham saw that beneath
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  Speaker 1: was a wharf, under yet more tremendous archings than any
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  Speaker 1: he had seen. Three barges, smothered in floury dust, were
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  Speaker 1: being unloaded of their cargoes of powdered felspar by a
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  Speaker 1: multitude of coughing men, each guiding a little truck. The
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  Speaker 1: dust filled the place with a choking mist and turned
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  Speaker 1: the electric glare yellow. The vague shadows of these workers
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  Speaker 1: gesticulated about their feet and rushed to and fro against
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  Speaker 1: a long stretch of white washed wall. Every now and
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  Speaker 1: then one would stop to cough. A shadowy, huge mass
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  Speaker 1: of masonry rising out of the inky water, brought to
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  Speaker 1: Graham's mind the thought of the multitude of ways and
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  Speaker 1: galleries and lifts that rose floor above floor overhead between
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  Speaker 1: him and the sky. The men worked in a silence,
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  Speaker 1: under the supervision of two of the labor police. Their
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  Speaker 1: feet made a hollow thunder on the planks along which
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  Speaker 1: they went to and fro. And as he looked at
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  Speaker 1: this scene, some hidden voice in the darkness began to sing.
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  Speaker 1: Stop that, shouted one of the policemen. But the order
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  Speaker 1: was disobeyed, and first one and then all the white
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  Speaker 1: stained men who were working there had taken up the
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  Speaker 1: beating refrain, singing it defiantly, the song of the revolt.
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  Speaker 1: The feet upon the planks thundered now to the rhythm
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  Speaker 1: of the song, Tramp, tramp, tramp. The policeman who had
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  Speaker 1: shouted glanced at his fellow, and Graham saw him shrug
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  Speaker 1: his shoulders. He made no further effort to stop the singing.
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  Speaker 1: And so they went through these factories and places of toil,
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  Speaker 1: seeing many painful and grim things. That walk left on
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  Speaker 1: Graham's mind a maze of memories, fluctuating pictures of swathed
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  Speaker 1: halls and crowded vaults seen through clouds of dust, of
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  Speaker 1: intricate machines, the racing threads of looms, the heavy beat
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  Speaker 1: of stamping machinery, the roar and rattle of belt and armature,
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  Speaker 1: of ill lit subterranean aisles, of sleeping places, illimitable vistas
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  Speaker 1: of pinpoint lights. Here was the smell of tanning, and
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  Speaker 1: here the reek of a brewery, and here unprecedented reeks.
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  Speaker 1: Everywhere were pillars and cross archings of such a massiveness
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  Speaker 1: as Graham had never before seen, thick titans of greasy,
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  Speaker 1: shining brickwork, crushed beneath the vast weight of that complex
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  Speaker 1: city world, even as these anemic millions were crushed by
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  Speaker 1: its complexity. And everywhere were pale features, lean limbs, disfigurement,
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  Speaker 1: and degradation. Once and again, and again a third time
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  Speaker 1: Graham heard the song of the revolt during his long
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  Speaker 1: unpleasant research in these places. And once he saw a
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  Speaker 1: confused struggle down a passage and learnt that a number
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  Speaker 1: of these serfs had seized their bread before their work
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  Speaker 1: was done. Graham was ascending towards the ways again when
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  Speaker 1: he saw a number of blue clad children running down
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  Speaker 1: a transverse passage, and presently perceived the reason of their panic.
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  Speaker 1: In a company of the labor police, armed with clubs,
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  Speaker 1: trotting towards some unknown disturbance. And then came a remote disorder.
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  Speaker 1: But for the most part, this remnant that worked worked hopelessly.
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  Speaker 1: All the spirit that was left in fallen humanity was
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  Speaker 1: above in the streets that night, calling for the Master,
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  Speaker 1: and valiantly and noisily keeping its arms. They emerged from
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  Speaker 1: these wanderings and stood blinking in the bright light of
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  Speaker 1: the middle passage of the platforms. Again they became aware
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  Speaker 1: of the remote hooting and yelping of the machines of
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  Speaker 1: one of the General intelligence offices, and suddenly came men
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  Speaker 1: running and along the platforms and about the ways. Everywhere
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  Speaker 1: was a shouting and crying. Then a woman with a
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  Speaker 1: face of mute white terror, and another who gasped and
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  Speaker 1: shrieked as she ran. What has happened now, said Graham, puzzled,
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  Speaker 1: for he could not understand their thick speech. Then he
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  Speaker 1: heard it in English and perceived that the thing that
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  Speaker 1: everyone was shouting, that men yelled to one another, that women
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  Speaker 1: took up screaming, that was passing like the first breeze
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  Speaker 1: of a thunderstorm, chill and sudden through the city, was
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  Speaker 1: this ostrog has ordered the black police to London. The
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  Speaker 1: black police are coming from South Africa. The black police,
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  Speaker 1: the black police. Asano's face was white and astonished, he hesitated,
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  Speaker 1: looked at Graham's face and told him the thing he
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  Speaker 1: already knew but how can they know, asked Asano. Graham
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  Speaker 1: heard someone shouting, stop all work, Stop all work, and
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  Speaker 1: a swarthy hunchback ridiculously gay and green and gold, came
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  Speaker 1: leaping down the platforms towards him, bawling again and again
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  Speaker 1: in good English. This is Ostrog's doing, Ostrog the knave.
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  Speaker 1: The Master is betrayed. His voice was hoarse, and a
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  Speaker 1: thin foam dropped from his ugly shouting mouth. He yelled
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  Speaker 1: an unspeakable horror that the black police had done in Paris,
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  Speaker 1: and so passed, shrieking, I'll Strog the Knave. For a moment,
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  Speaker 1: Graham stood still, for it had come upon him again
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  Speaker 1: that these things were a dream. He looked up at
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  Speaker 1: the great cliff of buildings on either side, vanishing into
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  Speaker 1: blue haze at last, above the lights, and down to
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  Speaker 1: the roaring tears of platforms and the shouting running people
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  Speaker 1: who were gesticulating past. The Master is betrayed, they cried,
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  Speaker 1: the Master is betrayed. Suddenly the situation shaped itself in
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  Speaker 1: his mind, real and urgent. His heart began to beat
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  Speaker 1: fast and strong. It has come, he said, I might
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  Speaker 1: have known the hour has come. He thought swiftly, what
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  Speaker 1: am I to do. Go back to the council House,
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  Speaker 1: said Asano. Why should I not appeal the people are here.
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  Speaker 1: You will lose time. They will doubt if it is you,
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  Speaker 1: but they will mass about the council House, where you
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  Speaker 1: will find their leaders. Your strength is there with them.
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  Speaker 1: Suppose this is only a rumor, it sounds true, said Asano.
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  Speaker 1: Let us have the facts, said Graham. Asano shrugged his shoulders.
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  Speaker 1: We'd better get towards the console house, he cried. That's
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  Speaker 1: where they will swarm. Even now the ruins may be impassable.
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  Speaker 1: Graham regarded him doubtfully and followed him. They went up
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  Speaker 1: the stepped platforms to the swiftest one, and there Asano
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  Speaker 1: accosted a laborer. The answers to his questions were in
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  Speaker 1: the thick, vulgar speech. What did he say, asked Graham.
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  Speaker 1: He knows little, but he told me that the black
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  Speaker 1: police would have arrived here before the people knew, had not.
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  Speaker 1: Someone in the wind Vane offices learnt, he said? A girl?
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  Speaker 1: A girl? Not? He said, a girl? He did not
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  Speaker 1: know who she was, who came out from the council
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  Speaker 1: House crying aloud and told the men at work among
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  Speaker 1: the ruins. And then another thing was shouted, something that
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  Speaker 1: turned in aimless tumult into determined movements. It came like
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  Speaker 1: a wind along the street, to your wards, to your wards.
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  Speaker 1: Every man get arms, every man to his ward. End
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  Speaker 1: of Chapter twenty one. Recording by Ryan Sutter ryansutter dot
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  Speaker 1: net