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The Sleeper Awakes Chapter 20 - In the City Ways · The H. G. Wells Library

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Speaker 1: Chapter twenty 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, Chapter twenty. In the
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Speaker 1: City Ways, And that night, unknown and unsuspected Graham, dressed
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Speaker 1: in the costume of an inferior wind vane official keeping holiday,
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Speaker 1: and accompanied by Asano in labor department canvas, surveyed the
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Speaker 1: city through which he had wandered when it was veiled
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Speaker 1: in darkness. But now he saw it lit and waking,
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Speaker 1: a whirlpool of life. In spite of the surging and
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Speaker 1: swaying of the forces of revolution, in spite of the
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Speaker 1: unusual discontent, the mutterings of the greater struggle of which
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Speaker 1: the first Revolt was but the prelude, the myriad streams
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Speaker 1: of commerce still flowed wide and strong. He knew now
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Speaker 1: something of the dimensions and quality of the new Age,
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Speaker 1: but he was not prepared for the infinite surprise of
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Speaker 1: a detailed view, for the torrent of color and vivid
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Speaker 1: impressions that poured past him. This was his first real
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Speaker 1: contact with the people of these latter days, he realized
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Speaker 1: that all that had gone before, saving his glimpses of
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Speaker 1: the public theaters and markets, had had its element of seclusion,
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Speaker 1: had been a movement within the comparatively narrow political quarter.
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Speaker 1: That all his previous experiences had revolved immediately about the
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Speaker 1: question of his own position. But here was the city
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Speaker 1: at the busiest hours of night. The people, to a
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Speaker 1: large extent, returned to their own immediate interests, the resumption
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Speaker 1: of the real, informal life, the common habits of the
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Speaker 1: new time. They emerged at first into a street whose
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Speaker 1: opposite ways were crowded with the blue canvas liveries. This swarm,
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Speaker 1: Graham saw, was a portion of a procession. It was
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Speaker 1: odd to see a procession parading the city seated. They
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Speaker 1: carried banners of coarse black stuff with red letters. No disarmament,
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Speaker 1: said the banners for the most part, and crudely daubed
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Speaker 1: letters with variant spelling, And why should we disarm? No disarming,
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Speaker 1: no disarmy. Banner after banner went by, a stream of
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Speaker 1: banners flowing past, and at last, at the end the
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Speaker 1: song of the revolt, and a noisy band of strange instruments.
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Speaker 1: They all ought to be at work, said Asano. They
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Speaker 1: have no food these two days, or they have stolen it. Presently,
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Speaker 1: Asano made a detour to avoid the congested crowd that
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Speaker 1: gaped upon the occasional passage of dead bodies from hospital
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Speaker 1: to a mortuary, the gleanings after death's harvest of the
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Speaker 1: first revolt. That night, few people were sleeping, everyone was abroad.
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Speaker 1: A fast excitement, perpetual crowds, perpetually changing surrounded Graham. His
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Speaker 1: mind was confused and darkened by an incessant tumult, by
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Speaker 1: the cries and enigmatical fragments of the social struggle that
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Speaker 1: was as yet only beginning. Everywhere, festoons and banners of
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Speaker 1: black and strange decorations intensified the quality of his popularity.
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Speaker 1: Everywhere he caught snatches of that crude, thick dialect that
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Speaker 1: served the illiterate class, the class that is beyond the
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Speaker 1: reach of phonographic culture, in their commonplace intercourse. Everywhere, this
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Speaker 1: trouble of disarmament was in the air, with a quality
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Speaker 1: of immediate stress of which he had no inkling. During
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Speaker 1: his seclusion in the wind Vane Quarter. He perceived that
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Speaker 1: as soon as he returned, he must discuss this with
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Speaker 1: ostrog This and the greater issues of which it was
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Speaker 1: the expression in a far more conclusive way than he
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Speaker 1: had so far done perpetually that night. Even in the
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Speaker 1: earlier hours of their wanderings about the city, their spirit
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Speaker 1: of unrest and revolts swamped his attention to the exclusion
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Speaker 1: of countless strange things he might otherwise have observed. This
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Speaker 1: preoccupation made his impressions fragmentary, yet amidst so much that
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Speaker 1: was strange and vivid, no subject, however personal and insistent,
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Speaker 1: could exert undivided sway. There were spaces when the revolutionary
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Speaker 1: movement passed clean out of his mind, was drawn aside
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Speaker 1: like a curtain from before some startling new aspect of
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Speaker 1: the time. Helen had swayed his mind to the intense,
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Speaker 1: earnestness of enquiry, but there came times when she even
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Speaker 1: receded beyond his conscious thoughts. At one moment, for example,
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Speaker 1: he found there were traversing the Religious Quarter for their
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Speaker 1: early transit about the city, afforded by the moving ways,
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Speaker 1: rendered sporadic churches and chapels no longer necessary, and his
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Speaker 1: attention was vividly arrested by the facade of one of
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Speaker 1: the Christian sects they were traveling. Seated on one of
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Speaker 1: the swift upper ways, the place leapt upon them at
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Speaker 1: a bend and advanced rapidly towards them. It was covered
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Speaker 1: with inscriptions from top to base in vivid white and blue,
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Speaker 1: save where a vast and glaring kinematograph transparency presented a
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Speaker 1: realistic New Testament scene, and were a vast festoon of
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Speaker 1: black to show that the popular religion followed the popular
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Speaker 1: politics hung across the lettering. Graham had already become familiar
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Speaker 1: with the phonotype writing, and these inscriptions arrested him, being
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Speaker 1: to his sense, for the most part, almost incredible blasphemy.
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Speaker 1: Among the less offensive were Salvation on the first floor
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Speaker 1: and turned to the right, put your money on your maker,
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Speaker 1: the sharpest conversion in London. Expert operators looked slippy. What
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Speaker 1: Christ would say to the sleeper, join the up to
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Speaker 1: date saints, be a Christian without hindrance to your present occupation.
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Speaker 1: All the brightest bishops on the bench night and prices
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Speaker 1: as usual, brisk blessings for busy business men. But this
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Speaker 1: is appalling, said Graham, as that deafening scream of mercantile
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Speaker 1: piety towered above him. What is appalling, asked his little officer,
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Speaker 1: apparently seeking vainly for anything unusual in this shrieking enamel. This,
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Speaker 1: surely the essence of religion is reverence. Oh that, Asano
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Speaker 1: looked at Graham, does it shock you, he said, in
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Speaker 1: the tone of one who makes a discovery. I suppose
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Speaker 1: it would. Of course, I had forgotten. Nowadays the competition
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Speaker 1: for attention is so keen, and people simply haven't the
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Speaker 1: leisure to attend to their souls, you know, as they
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Speaker 1: used to do. He smiled. In the old days he
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Speaker 1: had quiet sabbaths in the countryside, though somewhere I've read
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Speaker 1: of Sunday afternoons. That but that, said Graham, glancing back
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Speaker 1: at the receiving blue and white. That is surely not
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Speaker 1: the only There are hundreds of different ways. But of course,
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Speaker 1: if a sect doesn't tell, it doesn't pay. Worship has
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Speaker 1: moved with the times. There are high class sects with
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Speaker 1: quieter ways, costly incense and personal attentions. All that, these
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Speaker 1: people are extremely popular and prosperous. They pay several dozen
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Speaker 1: lions for those apartments to the council. To you, I
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Speaker 1: should say, Graham, still felt a little difficulty with the coinage,
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Speaker 1: and this mention of a dozen lions brought him abruptly
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Speaker 1: to that matter. In the moment, the screaming temples and
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Speaker 1: their swarming touts were forgotten. In this new interests. A
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Speaker 1: turn of a phrase suggested, and an answer confirmed, the
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Speaker 1: idea that gold and silver were both demonetized. That stamped gold,
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Speaker 1: which had begun its reign amidst the merchants of Phoenicia,
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Speaker 1: was at last dethroned. The change had been graduated, but
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Speaker 1: the swift brought about by an extension of the system
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Speaker 1: of checks that had, even in his previous life, already
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Speaker 1: practically superseded gold in all the larger business transactions. The
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Speaker 1: common traffic of the city, the common currency, indeed of
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Speaker 1: all the world, was conducted by means of the little, brown, green,
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Speaker 1: and pink council checks for small amounts, printed with a
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Speaker 1: blank payee. Asano had several with him, and at the
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Speaker 1: first opportunity he supplied the gaps in his set. They
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Speaker 1: were printed not on terrible paper, but on a semi
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Speaker 1: transparent fabric of silken flexibility, interwoven with silk. Across the
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Speaker 1: wall sprawled a facsimile of graham signature, his first encounter
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Speaker 1: with the curves and turns of that familiar autograph. For
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Speaker 1: two hundred three years. Some intermediary experiences made no impression
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Speaker 1: sufficiently vivid to prevent the matter of the disarmament claiming
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Speaker 1: his thoughts again, A blurred picture of a theosophist temple
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Speaker 1: that promised miracles and enormous letters of unsteady fire was
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Speaker 1: at least submerged, perhaps, But then came the view of
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Speaker 1: the dining hall in Northumberland Avenue that interested him very greatly.
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Speaker 1: By the energy and thought of Asano, he was able
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Speaker 1: to view this place from a little screen gallery reserved
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Speaker 1: for the attendance of the tables. The building was pervaded
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Speaker 1: by a distant muffled hooting, piping and bawling of which
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Speaker 1: he did not at first understand the import but which
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Speaker 1: recalled a certain mysterious leathery voice he had heard after
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Speaker 1: the resumption of the lights on the night of his
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Speaker 1: solitary wandering. He had grown accustomed to vastness and great
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Speaker 1: numbers of people. Nevertheless, this spectacle held him for a
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Speaker 1: long time. It was as he watched the table service.
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Speaker 1: More immediately beneath and interspersed with many questions and answers
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Speaker 1: concerning details, that the realization of the full significance of
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Speaker 1: the feast of several thousand people came to him. It
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Speaker 1: was his constant surprise to find the points that one
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Speaker 1: might have expected to strike vividly at the very outset
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Speaker 1: never occurred to him until some trivial detail suddenly shaped
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Speaker 1: as a riddle and pointed to the obvious thing he
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Speaker 1: had overlooked. He discovered only now that this continuity of
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Speaker 1: the city, this exclusion of weather, these vast hills and ways,
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Speaker 1: involved the disappearance of the household. But the typical Victorian home,
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Speaker 1: the little bricks cell containing kitchen and scullery, living rooms
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Speaker 1: and bedrooms had, save for the ruins that diversified the countryside,
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Speaker 1: vanished as surely as the wattle hut. But now he
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Speaker 1: saw what had indeed been manifest from the first. The
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Speaker 1: London regarded as a living place was no longer an
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Speaker 1: aggregation of houses, but a prodigious hotel, a hotel with
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Speaker 1: a thousand classes of accommodation, thousands of dining halls, chapels, theaters,
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Speaker 1: markets and places of assembly, a synthesis of enterprises of
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Speaker 1: which he chiefly was the owner. People had their sleeping
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Speaker 1: rooms with it might be ante chambers, rooms that were
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Speaker 1: always sanitary, at least, whatever the degree of comfort and privacy.
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Speaker 1: And for the rest they lived much as many people
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Speaker 1: had lived in the new made giant hotels of the
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Speaker 1: Victorian days, eating, reading, thinking, playing, conversing, all in the
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Speaker 1: places of public resort, going to their work in the
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Speaker 1: industrial court of the city, or doing business in their
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Speaker 1: offices in the trading section. He perceived at once how
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Speaker 1: necessarily this state of affairs had developed from the Victorian city.
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Speaker 1: The fundamental reason for the modern city had ever been
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Speaker 1: the economy of co operation. The chief thing to prevent
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Speaker 1: the merging of the separate households in his own generation
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Speaker 1: was simply the still imperfect civilization of the people, the
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Speaker 1: strong barbaric pride, passions and prejudices, the jealousies, rivalries, and
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Speaker 1: violence of the middle and lower classes, which had necessitated
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Speaker 1: the entire separation of contigious households. But the change the
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Speaker 1: taming of the people had been in a rapid progress
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Speaker 1: even then. In his brief thirty years of pres life,
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Speaker 1: he had seen an enormous extension of the habit of
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Speaker 1: consuming meals from home. The casually patronized horse box coffee
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Speaker 1: house had given place to the open and crowded aerated
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Speaker 1: bread shop. For instance, women's clubs had had their beginning,
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Speaker 1: and an immense development of reading rooms, lounges and libraries
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Speaker 1: had witnessed to the growth of social confidence. These promises
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Speaker 1: had by this time attained to their complete fulfillment. The
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Speaker 1: locked and barred household had passed away. These people below
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Speaker 1: him belonged, he learned, to the lower middle class, the
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Speaker 1: class just above the blue laborers, a class so accustomed
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Speaker 1: in the Victorian period defeed with every precaution of privacy,
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Speaker 1: that its members, when occasion confronted them with a public meal,
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Speaker 1: would usually hide their embarrassment under horse play or a
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Speaker 1: markedly militant demeanor. But these gaily if lightly dressed people below,
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Speaker 1: albeit vivacious, hurried, and uncommunicative, were dexterously mannered, and certainly
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Speaker 1: quite at their ease with regard to one another. He
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Speaker 1: noticed a slight significant thing. The table, as far as
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Speaker 1: he could see, was and remained delightfully neat. There was
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Speaker 1: nothing to parallel the confusion, the broadcast crumbs, the splashes
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Speaker 1: of viand and condiment. The overturned drink and displaced ornaments
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Speaker 1: which would have marked the stormy progress of the Victorian meal.
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Speaker 1: The table furniture was very different. There were no ornaments,
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Speaker 1: no flowers, and the table was without a cloth being made.
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Speaker 1: He learned of a solid substance having the texture and
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Speaker 1: appearance of a damask. He discerned that this damask substance
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Speaker 1: was patterned with gracefully designed trade advertisements in a sort
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Speaker 1: of recess before each to dinner. With a complex apparatus
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Speaker 1: of porcelain and metal, there was one plate of white porcelain,
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Speaker 1: and by means of taps for hot and cold volatile fluids,
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Speaker 1: the diner washed this himself between the courses. He also
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Speaker 1: washed his elegant white metal life and fork and spoon
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Speaker 1: as occasion required. Soup and the chemical wine that was
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Speaker 1: the common drink were delivered by similar taps, and the
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Speaker 1: remaining covers traveled automatically and tastefully arranged dishes down the
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Speaker 1: table along silver rails. The diner stopped these and helped
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Speaker 1: himself at his discretions. They appeared at a little door
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Speaker 1: at one end of the table and vanished at the other.
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Speaker 1: That turn of democratic sentiment in decay. That ugly pride
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Speaker 1: of menial souls, which renders equals lot to wait on
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Speaker 1: one another, was very strong, he found among these people.
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Speaker 1: He was so preoccupied with these details that it was
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Speaker 1: only as he was leaving the place that he remarked
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Speaker 1: the huge advertisement dioramas that marched majestically along the upper walls,
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Speaker 1: and proclaimed the most remarkable commodities. Beyond this place, they
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Speaker 1: came into a crowded hall, and he discovered the cause
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Speaker 1: of the noise that had perplexed him. They paused at
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Speaker 1: a turnstile at which a payment was made. Graham's attention
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Speaker 1: was immediately arrested by a violent, loud hoot, followed by
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Speaker 1: a vast, leathery noise. The Master is sleeping peacefully, it vociferated.
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Speaker 1: He is in excellent health. He is going to devote
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Speaker 1: the rest of his life to aeronautics. He says, women
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Speaker 1: are more beautiful than ever Galoup. Wow. Our wonderful civilization
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Speaker 1: astonishes him beyond measure, beyond all measure. Galoup. He puts
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Speaker 1: great trust in boss Ostrot, absolutely confidence in boss Ostrog.
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Speaker 1: Ostrog is to be as chief Minister, is authorized to
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Speaker 1: remove or reinstate public officers. All patronage will be in
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Speaker 1: his hands, All patronage in the hands of boss Ostrog.
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Speaker 1: The councilors had been sent back to their own prison
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Speaker 1: above the council house. Graham stopped at the first sentence,
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Speaker 1: and looking up, beheld a foolish trumpet face from which
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Speaker 1: this was brayed. This was the general intelligence machine. For
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Speaker 1: his face. It seemed to be gathering breath, and a
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Speaker 1: regular throbbing from its cylindrical body was audible. Then it
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Speaker 1: trumpeted Galoup galoop, and broke out again. Paris is now pacified.
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Speaker 1: All resistance is over. Galoup. The black police hold every
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Speaker 1: position of importance in the city. They fought with great bravery,
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Speaker 1: singing songs written in praise of their ancestors by the
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Speaker 1: poet Kipling. Once or twice they got out of hand
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Speaker 1: and tortured and mutilated, wounded and captured insurgeons, men and women. Moral,
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Speaker 1: don't go rebelling, ha ha, Galoup galoop. They are lively fellows,
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Speaker 1: lively brave fellow. Let this be the lesson to the
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Speaker 1: disorderly bander log of the city Ja banderlog, filth of
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Speaker 1: the earth galoop galouop. The voice ceased. There was a
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Speaker 1: confused murmur of disapproval among the crowd, damned niggers. A
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Speaker 1: man began to harangue near them. Is this the Master's doing? Brothers?
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Speaker 1: Is this the Master's doing? Black police? Said Graham, What
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Speaker 1: is that? You don't mean? Asano touched his arm and
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Speaker 1: gave him a warning look and forthwith another of these mechanisms,
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Speaker 1: screamed deafeningly and gave tongue in a shrill voice. Je
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Speaker 1: ha ha ye ha ya here a live paper yelt,
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Speaker 1: live paper yah. Shocking outrage in Paris ya ha ha.
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Speaker 1: The Parisians exasperated by the black police, to the pitch
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Speaker 1: of assassination, dreadful reprisals, savage times come again, blood blood yah.
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Speaker 1: The nearer Babel machine hooted stupendously, galoop, galoop, drowned the
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Speaker 1: end of the sentence, and proceeded in a rather flatter
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Speaker 1: note than before, with novel comets and the horrors of disorder.
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Speaker 1: Law and order must be maintained, said the nearer Babel machine,
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Speaker 1: but began Graham. Don't ask questions here, said Asano, or
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Speaker 1: you will be involved in an argument. Then let us
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Speaker 1: go on, said Graham, for I want to know more
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Speaker 1: of this. As he and his companion pushed their way
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Speaker 1: through the excited crowds that sworn beneath these voices, toward
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Speaker 1: the exit, Graham conceived more clearly the proportion and features
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Speaker 1: of this room, altogether great and small. There must have
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Speaker 1: been nearly a thousand of these erections, piping, hooting, bawling,
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Speaker 1: and gabbling in that great space, each with its crowd
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Speaker 1: of excited listeners. The majority of the men dressed in
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Speaker 1: blue canvas. There were all sizes of machines, from the
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Speaker 1: little gossiping mechanisms that chuckled out mechanical sarcasm in odd corners,
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Speaker 1: through a number of grades to such fifty foot giants
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Speaker 1: as that which had first hooted over Graham. This place
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Speaker 1: was unusually crowded because of the intense public interest in
15:45
Speaker 1: the course of affairs in Paris. Evidently the struggle had
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Speaker 1: been much more savage than ostrog had represented it. All
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Speaker 1: the mechanisms were discoursing on that topic, and the repetition
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Speaker 1: of the people made the huge hive buzz with such
15:57
Speaker 1: phrases as lynched policemen, women, burton in life, fuzzy wuzzy.
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Speaker 1: But does the Master allow such things? Asked a man
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Speaker 1: near him. Is this the beginning of the Master's rule?
16:07
Speaker 1: Is this the beginning of the Master's rule? For a
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Speaker 1: long time after he had left the place, the hooting,
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Speaker 1: whistling and braying of the machines pursued him. Galoup galoop
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Speaker 1: yah yeh yup yaha. Is this the beginning of the
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Speaker 1: Master's rule? Directly they were out upon the ways. He
16:22
Speaker 1: began to question Asano closely on the nature of the
16:24
Speaker 1: Parisian struggle, this disarmament. What was their trouble? What does
16:28
Speaker 1: it all mean? Asano seemed chiefly anxious to reassure him
16:31
Speaker 1: that it was all right. But these outrages you cannot
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Speaker 1: have an omelet, said Asano without breaking eggs. It is
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Speaker 1: only the rough people, only in one part of the city.
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Speaker 1: All the rest it is all right. The Parisian laborers
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Speaker 1: are the wildest in the world except ours. What the
16:47
Speaker 1: Londoners know the Japanese they have to be kept in order.
16:50
Speaker 1: But burning women alive a commune, said Asano. They would
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Speaker 1: rob you of your property. They would do away with
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Speaker 1: property and give the world over to mob rule. You
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Speaker 1: are master. The world is yours. But there will be
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Speaker 1: no commune here. There is no need for black police here,
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Speaker 1: and every consideration has been shown. It is their own Negroes,
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Speaker 1: French speaking Negroes Senegal regiments in Niger and Timbuctu Regiment,
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Speaker 1: said Graham. I thought there was only one, No, said Asano,
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Speaker 1: and glanced at him. There is more than one. Graham
17:20
Speaker 1: felt unpleasantly helpless. I did not think, he began and
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Speaker 1: stopped abruptly. He went off at a tangent to ask
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Speaker 1: for information about these babel machines. For the most part,
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Speaker 1: the crowd present had been shabbily or even raggedly dressed,
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Speaker 1: and Graham learned that so far the more prosperous classes
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Speaker 1: were concerned. In all the more comfortable private apartments of
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Speaker 1: the city were fixed babel machines that would speak directly
17:42
Speaker 1: a lever was pulled. The tenant of the apartment could
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Speaker 1: connect this with the cables of any of the great
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Speaker 1: news syndicates that he preferred. When he learnt this, presently,
17:50
Speaker 1: he demanded the reason of their absence from his own
17:52
Speaker 1: suite of apartments. Asano was embarrassed. I never thought, he said,
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Speaker 1: ostrog must have had them removed Graham's How was I
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Speaker 1: to know, he exclaimed, Perhaps he thought they would annoy you,
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Speaker 1: said Asano. They must be replaced directly, I returned, said Graham.
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Speaker 1: After an interval, he found a difficulty in understanding that
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Speaker 1: this news room and the dining hall were not great
18:13
Speaker 1: central places, that such establishments were repeated almost beyond counting
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Speaker 1: all over the city. But ever and again, during the
18:19
Speaker 1: night's expedition, his ears would pick out from the tumult
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Speaker 1: of the ways, the peculiar hooting of the organ of
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Speaker 1: boss ostrut Galoup galoup, or the shrill yeha yaha yap
18:28
Speaker 1: here a live paper yelp of its chief rival. Repeated
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Speaker 1: too everywhere were such creatures as the one he now entered.
18:36
Speaker 1: He was reached by a lift and by a glass
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Speaker 1: bridge that flung across the dining hall and traversed the
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Speaker 1: ways at a slight upward angle. To enter the first
18:43
Speaker 1: section of the place necessitated the use of his solvent
18:45
Speaker 1: signature under Asano's discretion. They were immediately attended to by
18:50
Speaker 1: a man in a violet robe and gold clasp, the
18:52
Speaker 1: insignia of practicing medical men. He perceived from this man's
18:56
Speaker 1: manner that his identity was known, and proceeded to ask
18:59
Speaker 1: questions on the strange arrangements of the place without reserve.
19:03
Speaker 1: On either side of the passage, which was silent and
19:05
Speaker 1: padded as if to deaden the footfall, were narrow little doors.
19:09
Speaker 1: Their size and arrangements suggestive of the cells of a
19:11
Speaker 1: Victorian prison. But the upper portion of each door was
19:15
Speaker 1: of the same greenish transparent stuff that had enclosed him
19:18
Speaker 1: at his awakening, and within diemly seen lay in every
19:21
Speaker 1: case a very young baby in a little nest of
19:24
Speaker 1: wadding elaborate apparatus, watched the atmosphere and rang a bell
19:28
Speaker 1: far away in their central office at the slightest departure
19:30
Speaker 1: from the optimum of temperature and moisture. A system of
19:33
Speaker 1: such creatures had almost entirely replaced the hazardous adventures of
19:37
Speaker 1: the old world nursing. The attendant presently called Grant's attention
19:41
Speaker 1: to the wet nurses. A vista of mechanical figures with
19:44
Speaker 1: armed shoulders and breasts of astonishingly realistic modeling, articulation and texture,
19:49
Speaker 1: but mere brass tripods below, and having in the place
19:51
Speaker 1: of features a flat disc bearing advertisements likely to be
19:54
Speaker 1: of interest to mothers of all the strange things that
19:58
Speaker 1: Graham came upon that night, he unjarred him more upon
20:01
Speaker 1: his habits of thought than this place. The spectacle of
20:04
Speaker 1: the little pink creatures, their feeble limbs swaying uncertainly in
20:07
Speaker 1: vague first movements, left alone without embrace or endearment, was
20:10
Speaker 1: wholly repugnant to him. The attendant doctor was of a
20:14
Speaker 1: different opinion. His statistical evidence showed beyond dispute that in
20:18
Speaker 1: the Victorian time, for the most dangerous passage of life
20:20
Speaker 1: with the arms of the mother, that there human mortality
20:23
Speaker 1: had ever been most terrible. On the other hand, this
20:26
Speaker 1: Chrish company, the International Chrish Syndicate, lost not one half
20:31
Speaker 1: percent of the million babies or so that formed its
20:33
Speaker 1: peculiar care. But Graham's prejudice was too strong even for
20:37
Speaker 1: those figures. Along one of the many passages of the place,
20:41
Speaker 1: they presently came upon a young couple in the usual
20:43
Speaker 1: blue canvas, peering through the transparency and laughing hysterically at
20:47
Speaker 1: the bald head of their first born. Graham's faith must
20:50
Speaker 1: have showed his estimate of them, for their merriment ceased,
20:53
Speaker 1: and they looked abashed. But this little incident accentuated his
20:56
Speaker 1: sudden realization of the gulf between his habits of thought
20:59
Speaker 1: and the ways of the new age. He passed on
21:01
Speaker 1: to the crawling rooms in the kindergarten. Perplexed and distressed,
21:05
Speaker 1: he found the endless long play rooms were empty. The
21:08
Speaker 1: latter day's children at least still spent their nights in sleep.
21:12
Speaker 1: As they went through these, the little officer pointed out
21:14
Speaker 1: the nature of the toys, developments of those devised by
21:17
Speaker 1: that inspired sentimentalist Frobal. There were nurses here, but much
21:22
Speaker 1: was done by machines that sang and danced and dandled.
21:25
Speaker 1: Graham was still not clear upon many points. But so
21:28
Speaker 1: many orphans, he said, perplexed, reverting to a first misconception,
21:32
Speaker 1: and lurked again that they were not orphans. So soon
21:35
Speaker 1: as they had left the crache, he began to speak
21:38
Speaker 1: of the horror that babies in their incubating cases had
21:40
Speaker 1: caused him. Is motherhood gone? He said? Was it a cant?
21:45
Speaker 1: Truly it was an instinct. This seemed so unnatural, abominable.
21:48
Speaker 1: Almost along here we shall come to the dancing place,
21:52
Speaker 1: said Asano. By way of reply. It is sure to
21:55
Speaker 1: be crowded in spite of all the political unrest, it
21:57
Speaker 1: will be crowded. The women take no great interest in politics,
22:01
Speaker 1: except a few here and there. You will see the mothers,
22:04
Speaker 1: most young women in London, or mothers in that class.
22:07
Speaker 1: It is considered a credible thing to have one child,
22:10
Speaker 1: a proof of animation. Few middle class people have more
22:13
Speaker 1: than one. With a labor department, it is different as
22:17
Speaker 1: from motherhood. They still take an immense pride in the children.
22:20
Speaker 1: They come here to look at them quite often. Then,
22:23
Speaker 1: do you mean that the population of the world is falling. Yes,
22:26
Speaker 1: except among the people under the labor department. In spite
22:30
Speaker 1: of scientific discipline, they are reckless. The air was suddenly
22:33
Speaker 1: dancing with music, and down away the approach, obliquely set
22:36
Speaker 1: with gorgeous pillars, as it seemed of clear amethysts, flowed
22:39
Speaker 1: a concourse of gay people, and a tumult of merry
22:41
Speaker 1: cries and laughter. He saw curled heads, wreathed brows, and
22:45
Speaker 1: a happy, intricate plutter of gamboge pass triumphant across the picture.
22:50
Speaker 1: You will see, said Asama with a faint smile. The
22:53
Speaker 1: world has changed in a moment. You will see the
22:55
Speaker 1: mothers of the new age come this way. We shall
22:58
Speaker 1: see those yonder again. Very soon they ascended a certain
23:02
Speaker 1: height in a swift lift, and change was slower one.
23:04
Speaker 1: As they went on, the music grew upon them, until
23:07
Speaker 1: it was near and full and splendid, and moving with
23:09
Speaker 1: its glorious intricacies they could distinguish the beat of innumerable
23:12
Speaker 1: dancing feet. They made a payment at a turnstile, and
23:16
Speaker 1: emerged upon the wide gallery that overlooked the dancing place,
23:18
Speaker 1: and upon the full enchantment of sound and light. Here said,
23:22
Speaker 1: asano are the fathers and mothers of the little ones?
23:24
Speaker 1: You saw? The hall was not so richly decorated as
23:28
Speaker 1: that of the Atlas, but saving that it was for
23:30
Speaker 1: its size the most splendid Graham had seen. The beautiful
23:34
Speaker 1: white limbed figures that supported the galleries reminded him once
23:37
Speaker 1: more the restored magnificence of sculpture. They seemed to writhe
23:40
Speaker 1: in engaging attitudes. Their faces laughed. The source of the
23:44
Speaker 1: music that filled the place was hidden, and the whole vast,
23:46
Speaker 1: shining floor was thick with dancing couples. Look at them,
23:50
Speaker 1: said the little officer. See how much did they show
23:52
Speaker 1: of motherhood? The gallery they stood upon ran along the
23:55
Speaker 1: upper edge of a huge screen, but cut the dancing
23:58
Speaker 1: hall on one side from a sort of outer hall
24:00
Speaker 1: that showed through broad arches the incessant onward rush of
24:03
Speaker 1: the city ways. In this outer hall was a great
24:06
Speaker 1: crowd of less brilliantly dressed people, as numerous, almost as
24:09
Speaker 1: those who danced within the great majority, wearing the blue
24:12
Speaker 1: uniform of the labor department that was now so familiar
24:15
Speaker 1: to Graham. Too poor to pass the turnstiles to the festival,
24:18
Speaker 1: they were yet unable to keep away from the sound
24:20
Speaker 1: of its seductions. Some of them even had cleared spaces
24:24
Speaker 1: who were dancing, also fluttering their rags in the air.
24:27
Speaker 1: Some shouted as they danced, jests and odd allusions Graham
24:30
Speaker 1: did not understand. Once someone began whistling the refrain of
24:34
Speaker 1: the revolutionary song, but it seemed as though that beginning
24:37
Speaker 1: was promptly suppressed. The corner was dark and Graham could
24:40
Speaker 1: not see. He turned to the hall again. Above the
24:44
Speaker 1: carryattes were marble busts of men whom that age esteemed
24:47
Speaker 1: great moral emancipators and pioneers. For the most part, their
24:51
Speaker 1: names were strangely Graham, though he recognized great Allen La Gallienne, Nietzsche, Shelley,
24:56
Speaker 1: and Goodwin. Great black festoons and eloquis sentiments reinforced the
25:01
Speaker 1: huge inscription that partially defaced the upper end of the
25:04
Speaker 1: dancing place, and asserted that the festival of the Awakening
25:07
Speaker 1: was in progress. Myriads are taking holiday, are staying from
25:10
Speaker 1: work because of that. Quite apart from the laboreres who
25:13
Speaker 1: refused to go back to Asano, these people are always
25:16
Speaker 1: ready for holidays. Graham walked to the parapet and stood
25:19
Speaker 1: leaning over, looking down at the dancers. Save for two
25:22
Speaker 1: or three remote whispering couples who had stolen a part,
25:25
Speaker 1: he and his guide had the gallery to themselves. A
25:28
Speaker 1: warm breath of scent and vitality came up to him.
25:31
Speaker 1: Both men and women below were lightly clad, bare armed,
25:34
Speaker 1: open necked at the universal warmth of the city permitted.
25:38
Speaker 1: The hair of the men was often a mass of
25:40
Speaker 1: effeminate curls. Their chins were always shaven, and many of
25:43
Speaker 1: them had flushed or colored cheeks. Many of the women
25:46
Speaker 1: were very pretty, and all were dressed with elaborate coquetry.
25:50
Speaker 1: As they swept by beneath, he saw ecstatic faces with
25:53
Speaker 1: eyes half closed in pleasure. What sort of people are these,
25:57
Speaker 1: he asked abruptly, Workers, prosperous, were wers what you would
26:01
Speaker 1: have called the middle class? Independent tradesmen with little separate
26:04
Speaker 1: businesses have vanished long ago. But there are store servers, managers,
26:08
Speaker 1: engineers of a hundred sorts. Tonight is a holiday, of course,
26:11
Speaker 1: and every dancing place in the city will be crowded,
26:14
Speaker 1: at every place of worship. But the women the same.
26:18
Speaker 1: There's the thousand forms of work for women now, but
26:20
Speaker 1: you have the beginning of the independent working women in
26:23
Speaker 1: your days. Most women are independent now. Most of these
26:26
Speaker 1: are married more or less. There are a number of
26:28
Speaker 1: methods of contracts, and that gives them more money and
26:31
Speaker 1: enables them to enjoy themselves. I see, said Graham, looking
26:35
Speaker 1: at the flushed faces, the flash and swirl of movement,
26:38
Speaker 1: and still thinking of that nightmare of pink helpless limbs.
26:41
Speaker 1: And these are mothers, most of them. The more I
26:45
Speaker 1: see of these things, the more complex I find your problems. This,
26:48
Speaker 1: for instance, is a surprise. That news from Paris was
26:51
Speaker 1: a surprise. And a little while he spoke again, these
26:56
Speaker 1: are mothers. Presently, I suppose I shall get into the
26:59
Speaker 1: modern way of seeing things. I have old habits of
27:02
Speaker 1: mind clinging about me, habits based I suppose on needs
27:05
Speaker 1: that are over and done with. Of course, in our
27:07
Speaker 1: time a woman was supposed not only to bear children,
27:10
Speaker 1: but to cherish them, to devote herself to them, to
27:13
Speaker 1: educate them all the essentials of moral and mental education.
27:16
Speaker 1: A child owed its mother or went without. Quite a
27:19
Speaker 1: number I admit, went without. Nowadays, clearly there is no
27:22
Speaker 1: more need for such care than if there were butterflies.
27:25
Speaker 1: I see that only there was an ideal. That figure
27:28
Speaker 1: of a grave, patient woman, silently and serenely, mistress of
27:32
Speaker 1: a harm mother and maker of men to love her,
27:35
Speaker 1: was a sort of worship. He stopped and repeated, a
27:38
Speaker 1: sort of worship. Ideals change, said the little man. As
27:42
Speaker 1: needs change. Graham awoke from an instant referee, and Asano
27:46
Speaker 1: repeated his words, Graham's mind returned to the thing at hand.
27:51
Speaker 1: Of course, I see the perfect reasonableness of this restraint, soberness,
27:55
Speaker 1: the matured thought, the unselfish act, the near necessities of
27:59
Speaker 1: the bar Barborough state, the life of dangers. Dowerness is
28:03
Speaker 1: man's tribute to unconquered nature. But man has conquered nature
28:07
Speaker 1: now for all practical purposes. His political affairs are managed
28:10
Speaker 1: by Bossov of a black police, and life is joyous.
28:14
Speaker 1: He looked at the dances again, joyous, he said. There
28:18
Speaker 1: are weary moments, said the little officer reflectively. They all
28:21
Speaker 1: look young down there. I should be visibly the oldest man,
28:25
Speaker 1: and in my own time I should have passed as
28:27
Speaker 1: middle aged. They are young. There are few old people
28:31
Speaker 1: in this class in the work cities. How is that
28:34
Speaker 1: old people's lives are not so pleasant as they used
28:36
Speaker 1: to be unless they are rich to hire lovers and helpers.
28:40
Speaker 1: We have an institution called euthanasy. Ah that euthanasy, said Graham.
28:44
Speaker 1: The easy death, the easy death. It is the last pleasure.
28:48
Speaker 1: The euthanasy company does it well. People will pay the sum.
28:52
Speaker 1: It is a costly thing. Long beforehand, go off to
28:55
Speaker 1: some pleasure city, and return impoverished and weary, very weary.
29:00
Speaker 1: There is a lot left for me to understand, said Graham,
29:03
Speaker 1: after a pause. Yet I see the logic of it all,
29:06
Speaker 1: our array of angry virtues and sour restraints, with a
29:08
Speaker 1: consequence of danger and insecurity. The stoic, the Puritan, even
29:12
Speaker 1: in my time, were vanishing types in the old days,
29:15
Speaker 1: the man was armed against pain. Now he is eager
29:18
Speaker 1: for pleasure. There lies the difference. Civilization has driven pain
29:22
Speaker 1: and danger so far off for well to do people,
29:25
Speaker 1: and only well to do people matter. Now I have
29:28
Speaker 1: been asleep two hundred years. For a minute, they leant
29:31
Speaker 1: on the balustrading, following the intricate evolution of the dance. Indeed,
29:35
Speaker 1: the scene was very beautiful before God, said Graham. Suddenly.
29:39
Speaker 1: I would rather be a wounded sentinel freezing in the
29:42
Speaker 1: snow than one of these painted fools in the snow,
29:45
Speaker 1: said Asano. One might think differently. I am uncivilized, said Graham,
29:49
Speaker 1: not heeding him. That is the trouble. I am primitive, paleolithic.
29:54
Speaker 1: There fountain of rage and fear and anger is sealed
29:56
Speaker 1: and closed. The habits of a lifetime make them cheerful
29:59
Speaker 1: and easy and delight. You must bear with my nineteenth
30:02
Speaker 1: century shocks and disgusts. These people, you say, are skilled workers,
30:06
Speaker 1: and so forth. At well, these dance men are fighting.
30:09
Speaker 1: Men are dying in Paris to keep the world that
30:11
Speaker 1: they may dance. Asano smiled faintly. For that matter, men
30:16
Speaker 1: are dying in London, he said, There was a moment's silence.
30:20
Speaker 1: Where do these sleep, asked Graham, above and below an
30:23
Speaker 1: intricate warren? And where do they work? This is the
30:27
Speaker 1: domestic life. You will see little work to night. Half
30:30
Speaker 1: the workers are out or under arms. Half these people
30:33
Speaker 1: are keeping holiday. But we will go to the work
30:36
Speaker 1: places if you wish it. For a time. Graham watched
30:39
Speaker 1: the dancers, then suddenly turned away. I want to see
30:42
Speaker 1: the workers. I have seen enough of these, he said,
30:46
Speaker 1: Asano led the way along the gallery across the dancing hall.
30:49
Speaker 1: Presently they came to a transverse passage that brought a
30:52
Speaker 1: breath of fresher, colder air. Asano glanced at this passage
30:56
Speaker 1: as they went past, stopped, went back to it, and
30:58
Speaker 1: turned to Graham with a smile. Here, sire, he said,
31:01
Speaker 1: is something will be familiar to you at least and yet,
31:05
Speaker 1: but I will not tell you. Come. He led the
31:08
Speaker 1: whale along a closed passage that presently became cold. The
31:11
Speaker 1: reverberation of their feet told that this passage was a bridge.
31:15
Speaker 1: They came into a circular gallery that was glazed in
31:17
Speaker 1: from the outer weather, and so reached a circular chamber
31:20
Speaker 1: which seemed familiar that Graham could not recall distinctly when
31:22
Speaker 1: he had entered it before. In this was a ladder,
31:26
Speaker 1: the first ladder he had seen since his awakening. Up
31:28
Speaker 1: which they went and came into a high, dark, cold place,
31:31
Speaker 1: in which was another almost vertical ladder. This they ascended,
31:35
Speaker 1: Graham still perplexed, but at the top he understood and
31:39
Speaker 1: recognized the metallic bars to which he clung. He was
31:42
Speaker 1: in the cage under the ball of Saint Paul's. The
31:45
Speaker 1: dome rose but a little way above the general contour
31:47
Speaker 1: of the city into the still twilight, and sloped away,
31:50
Speaker 1: shining greasily under a few distant lights, into a circumambient
31:54
Speaker 1: ditch of darkness. Out between the bars, he looked upon
31:57
Speaker 1: the wind clear northern sky and saw the star constellations
32:00
Speaker 1: all unchanged. Cappella hung in the west, Vega was rising,
32:04
Speaker 1: and the seven glittering points of the Great Bear slept
32:07
Speaker 1: overhead in their stately circle about the pole. He saw
32:11
Speaker 1: these shapes. In a clear gap of sky. To the
32:13
Speaker 1: east and south, the great circular shapes of complaining wind
32:16
Speaker 1: wheels blotted out the heavens, so that the glare about
32:18
Speaker 1: the council was hidden. To the southwest hung Orion showing
32:23
Speaker 1: like a pallid ghost through a tracery of ironwork and
32:25
Speaker 1: interlacing shapes, above a dazzling corsication of lights. A bellowing
32:29
Speaker 1: and siren screaming that came from the flying stages warned
32:32
Speaker 1: the world that one of the aeroplanes was ready to start.
32:35
Speaker 1: He remained for a space, gazing towards the glaring stage.
32:38
Speaker 1: Then his eyes went back to the northward constellations. For
32:42
Speaker 1: a long time he was silent. This, he said, at last,
32:45
Speaker 1: smiling in the shadow, seems the strangest thing of all
32:48
Speaker 1: to stand in the dome of Saint Paul's and look
32:51
Speaker 1: once more upon these familiar silent stars. Thence Graham was
32:55
Speaker 1: taken by a sun along devious ways to the great
32:57
Speaker 1: gambling of business quarters, where the bulk of the fortune
33:00
Speaker 1: in the city were lost and made. It impressed him
33:03
Speaker 1: as a well nigh interminable series of very high walls,
33:06
Speaker 1: surrounded by tiers upon tiers of galleries into which opened
33:10
Speaker 1: thousands of offices, and traversed by a complicated multitude of bridges, footways,
33:14
Speaker 1: aerial motor rails, and trapees and cable leaps. And here,
33:18
Speaker 1: more than anywhere, the note of vehement vitality of uncontrollable
33:22
Speaker 1: hasty activity rose high. Everywhere was violent advertisement, until his
33:27
Speaker 1: brain swam at the tumult of light and color and babel.
33:30
Speaker 1: Machines of a peculiarly rancid tone were abundant and filled
33:33
Speaker 1: the air with strenuous squealing and an idiotic slang skin
33:37
Speaker 1: your eyes and slide bonanza, gullipers common hark. The place
33:43
Speaker 1: seemed to him to be dense with people either profoundly
33:45
Speaker 1: agitated or swelling with obscure cunning. Yet he learned that
33:49
Speaker 1: the place was comparatively empty, that the great political convulsion
33:52
Speaker 1: of the last few days had reduced transactions to an
33:54
Speaker 1: unprecedented minimum. A one huge place where long avenues roulette tables,
34:00
Speaker 1: which with an excited, undignified crowd about it. In another,
34:03
Speaker 1: a yelping babble of white faced women and red necked,
34:06
Speaker 1: leathery lunged men bought and sold the shares of an
34:08
Speaker 1: absolutely fictitious business undertaking, which every five minutes paid a
34:12
Speaker 1: dividend of ten percent, and canceled a certain proportion of
34:15
Speaker 1: its shares by means of a lottery wheel. These business
34:19
Speaker 1: activities were prosecuted with an energy that readily passed into violence,
34:22
Speaker 1: and Graham, approaching a dense crowd, founded its center a
34:25
Speaker 1: couple of prominent merchants and violent controversy with teeth and
34:28
Speaker 1: nails on some delicate point of business etiquette. Something still
34:32
Speaker 1: remained in life to be fought for Further. He had
34:35
Speaker 1: a shock at a vehement announcement in phonetic letters of
34:38
Speaker 1: scarlet flame, each twice the height of a man, that
34:41
Speaker 1: we assure the proprietor. We assure the proprietor. Who's the proprietor?
34:46
Speaker 1: He asked, you, but what do they assure me? He asked,
34:49
Speaker 1: what do they assure me? Didn't you have assurance? Graham thought, insurance? Yes, insurance,
34:56
Speaker 1: I remember that with the older word. They are insuring
34:58
Speaker 1: your life. Dozens of people are taking out policies. Berriads
35:02
Speaker 1: of lions are being put on you, and further on,
35:04
Speaker 1: other people are buying annuities. They do that on everybody
35:07
Speaker 1: who is at all prominent. Look there, a crowd of
35:10
Speaker 1: people surged, and Royd and Graham saw a vast black
35:13
Speaker 1: screen suddenly illuminated in still larger letters of burning purple
35:17
Speaker 1: annuities on the proprietor X five per g The people
35:21
Speaker 1: began to boo and shout at this. A number of
35:23
Speaker 1: hard breathing, wild eyed men came running past, clawing with
35:26
Speaker 1: hooked fingers at the air. There was a furious crush
35:29
Speaker 1: about a little doorway Asano did a brief inaccurate calculation.
35:33
Speaker 1: Seventeen percent per annum is their annuity on you. They
35:37
Speaker 1: would not pay so much percent if they could see
35:39
Speaker 1: you now, sire, But they do not know your own annuities.
35:42
Speaker 1: Used to be a very safe investment, but now you
35:44
Speaker 1: are sheer gambling. Of course, this is probably a desperate bid.
35:48
Speaker 1: I doubt if people will get their money. The crowd
35:51
Speaker 1: of would be annuitants grew so thick about them that
35:53
Speaker 1: for some time they could move neither forward nor backward.
35:57
Speaker 1: Graham noticed what appeared to him to be a high
35:59
Speaker 1: proportion of women among the spectators, and was reminded again
36:02
Speaker 1: of the economic independence of their sex. They seemed remarkably
36:05
Speaker 1: well able to take care of themselves in the crowd,
36:08
Speaker 1: using their elbows with particular skill, as he learned to
36:10
Speaker 1: his cost. One curly headed person caught in the pressure
36:13
Speaker 1: for a space, looked steadfastly at him several times, almost
36:17
Speaker 1: as if she recognized him, and then edging deliberately towards him,
36:20
Speaker 1: touched his hand with her arm in a scarcely accidental manner,
36:23
Speaker 1: and made it plain by a look as ancient as Chaldea,
36:26
Speaker 1: that he had found favor in her eyes. And then
36:29
Speaker 1: a lank, green bearded man, perspiring copiously in a noble
36:32
Speaker 1: passion of self help, blind to all earthly things save
36:35
Speaker 1: that glaring bait, thrust between them in a cataclysmal rust
36:38
Speaker 1: toward that alluring X five per g. I want to
36:42
Speaker 1: get out of this, said Grand Tisano. This is not
36:44
Speaker 1: what I came to see. Show me the workers. I
36:47
Speaker 1: want to see the people in blue, these parasitic lunatics.
36:50
Speaker 1: He found himself wedged into a straggling mass of people.
36:55
Speaker 1: End of Chapter twenty