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The Sleeper Awakes Chapter 3 - The Awakening · The H. G. Wells Library

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  Speaker 1: Chapter three 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. Recording
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  Speaker 1: by Tammy Sanders. The Sleeper Awakes by H. G. Wells,
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  Speaker 1: Chapter three, The Awakening. But warming was wrong in that
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  Speaker 1: an awakening came. What a wonderfully complex thing, this simple
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  Speaker 1: seeming unity, the self? Who can trace its reintegration as
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  Speaker 1: morning after morning we awaken, the flux and confluence of
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  Speaker 1: its countless factors, interweaving, rebuilding, the dim first stirrings of
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  Speaker 1: the soul, the growth and synthesis of the unconscious to
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  Speaker 1: the subconscious, the subconscious to dawn consciousness, until at last
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  Speaker 1: we recognize ourselves again. And, as it happens to most
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  Speaker 1: of us, after the night's sleep, so it was with Graham,
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  Speaker 1: at the end of his vast slumber, a dim cloud
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  Speaker 1: of sensation taking shape, a cloudy, dreariness, and he found
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  Speaker 1: himself vaguely somewhere, recumbent, faint but alive. The pilgrimage towards
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  Speaker 1: a personal being seemed to traverse vast gulfs, to occupy epochs,
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  Speaker 1: gigantic dreams that were terrible realities at the time, left vague,
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  Speaker 1: perplexing memories, strange creatures, strange scenery, as if from another planet.
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  Speaker 1: There was a distinct impression, too, of a momentous conversation
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  Speaker 1: of a name. He could not tell what name that was.
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  Speaker 1: Subsequently to recur of some queer, long forgotten, sensation of
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  Speaker 1: vein and muscle, of a feeling of vast, hopeless effort,
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  Speaker 1: the effort of a man near drowning in darkness. Then
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  Speaker 1: came a panorama of dazzling, unstable, confluent scenes. Graham became
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  Speaker 1: aware that his eyes were open and regarding some unfamiliar thing.
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  Speaker 1: It was something white, the edge of something, a frame
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  Speaker 1: of wood. He moved his head slightly, following the contour
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  Speaker 1: of this shape. It went up beyond the top of
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  Speaker 1: his eyes. He tried to think where he might be.
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  Speaker 1: Did it matter? Seeing he was so wretched. The color
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  Speaker 1: of his thoughts was a dark depression. He felt the
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  Speaker 1: featureless misery of one who wakes towards the hour of dawn.
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  Speaker 1: He had an uncertain sense of whispers and footsteps hastily received.
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  Speaker 1: The movement of his head involved a perception of extreme
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  Speaker 1: physical weakness. He supposed he was in bed in the
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  Speaker 1: hotel at the place in the valley, but he could
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  Speaker 1: not recall that white edge he must have slept. He
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  Speaker 1: remembered now that he had wanted to sleep. He recalled
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  Speaker 1: the cliff and waterfall again, and then recollected something about
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  Speaker 1: talking to a passer. By How long had he slept?
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  Speaker 1: What was that sound of pattering feet and that rise
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  Speaker 1: and fall like the murmur of breakers on pebbles. He
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  Speaker 1: put out a languid hand to reach his watch from
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  Speaker 1: the chair whereon it was his habit to place it,
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  Speaker 1: and touched some smooth, hard surface like glass. This was
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  Speaker 1: so unexpected that it startled him extremely. Quite suddenly, he
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  Speaker 1: rolled over, stared for a moment, and ruggled into a
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  Speaker 1: sitting position. The effort was unexpectedly difficult, and it left
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  Speaker 1: him giddy and weak and amazed. He rubbed his eyes.
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  Speaker 1: The riddle of his surroundings was confusing, but his mind
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  Speaker 1: was quite clear. Evidently his sleep had benefited him. He
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  Speaker 1: was not in a bed at all, as he understood
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  Speaker 1: the word, but lying naked on a very soft and
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  Speaker 1: yielding mattress in a trough of dark glass. The mattress
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  Speaker 1: was partly transparent, a fact he observed with a sense
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  Speaker 1: of insecurity. And below it was a mirror reflecting him
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  Speaker 1: grayly about his arm, and he saw with a shock
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  Speaker 1: that his skin was strangely dry and yellow, was bound
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  Speaker 1: a curious apparatus of rubber, bound so cunningly that it
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  Speaker 1: seemed to pass into his skin above and below. And
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  Speaker 1: this bed was placed in a case of greenish colored glass,
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  Speaker 1: as it seemed to him a bar in the white
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  Speaker 1: framework of which had first arrested his attention. In the
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  Speaker 1: corner of the case was a stand of glittering and
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  Speaker 1: delicately made apparatus, for the most part quite strange appliances,
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  Speaker 1: though a maximum and minimum thermometer was recognizable. The slightly
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  Speaker 1: greenish tint of the glass like substance which surrounded him
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  Speaker 1: on every hand obscured what lay behind, but he perceived
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  Speaker 1: it was a vast apartment of splendid appearance, and with
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  Speaker 1: a very large and simple white archway facing him. Close
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  Speaker 1: to the walls of the cage were articles of furniture,
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  Speaker 1: a table covered with a silvery cloth, silvery like the
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  Speaker 1: sides of a fish, a couple of graceful chairs, and
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  Speaker 1: on the table a number of dishes with substances piled
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  Speaker 1: on them, and two glasses. He realized that he was
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  Speaker 1: intensely hungry. He could see no one, and after a
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  Speaker 1: period of hesitation, scrambled off the translucent mattress and tried
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  Speaker 1: to stand on the clean white floor of his little apartment.
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  Speaker 1: He had miscalculated his strength, however, and staggered and put
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  Speaker 1: his hand against the glass like pane before him to
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  Speaker 1: steady himself. For a moment, it resisted his hand, bending
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  Speaker 1: outward like a distended bladder. Then it broke with a
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  Speaker 1: slight report, and vanished a pricked bubble. He reeled out
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  Speaker 1: into the general space of the hall. Greatly astonished, he
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  Speaker 1: caught at the table to save himself, knocking one of
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  Speaker 1: the glasses to the floor. It rang but did not break,
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  Speaker 1: and sat down in one of the armchairs. When he
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  Speaker 1: had a little recovered, he filled the remaining glass from
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  Speaker 1: the bottle and drank a colorless liquid. It was but
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  Speaker 1: not water, with a pleasing faint aroma and taste, and
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  Speaker 1: a quality of immediate support and stimulus. He put down
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  Speaker 1: the vessel and looked about him. The apartment lost none
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  Speaker 1: of its size and magnificence. Now that the greenish transparency
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  Speaker 1: that had intervened was removed. The archway he saw led
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  Speaker 1: to a flight of steps going downward without the intermediation
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  Speaker 1: of a door, to a spacious transverse passage. This passage
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  Speaker 1: ran between polished pillars of some white veined substance of
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  Speaker 1: deep ultramarine, and along it came the sound of human
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  Speaker 1: movements and voices and a deep, undeviating droning note. He
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  Speaker 1: sat now fully awake, listening alertly, forgetting the viands in
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  Speaker 1: his attention. Then, with the shock, he remembered that he
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  Speaker 1: was naked, and casting about him for covering, saw a
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  Speaker 1: long black robe thrown on one of the chairs beside him.
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  Speaker 1: This he wrapped about him and sat down again, trembling.
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  Speaker 1: His mind was still a surging perplexity. Clearly he had
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  Speaker 1: slept and had been removed in his sleep. But where
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  Speaker 1: and who were those people? The distant crowd beyond the
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  Speaker 1: deep blue pillars boscastle. He poured out and partially drank
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  Speaker 1: another glass of the colorless fluid. What was this place,
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  Speaker 1: this place that to his senses seemed subtly quivering like
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  Speaker 1: a thing alive. He looked about him at the clean
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  Speaker 1: and beautiful form of the apartment, unstained by ornament, and
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  Speaker 1: saw that the roof was broken in one place by
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  Speaker 1: a circular shaft full of light. And as he looked,
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  Speaker 1: a steady sweeping shadow blotted it out and passed, and
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  Speaker 1: came again and passed, beat beat. That sweeping shadow had
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  Speaker 1: a note of its own in the subdued tumult that
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  Speaker 1: filled the air. He would have called out, but only
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  Speaker 1: a little sound came into his throat. Then he stood up,
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  Speaker 1: and with the uncertain steps of a drunkard, made his
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  Speaker 1: way towards the archway. He staggered down the steps, tripped
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  Speaker 1: on the corner of the black cloak he had wrapped
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  Speaker 1: about himself, and saved himself by catching at one of
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  Speaker 1: the blue pillars. The passage ran down a cool vista
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  Speaker 1: of blue and purple, and ended remotely in a railed
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  Speaker 1: space like a balcony, brightly lit and projecting into a
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  Speaker 1: space of haze, a space like the interior of some
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  Speaker 1: gigantic building. Beyond and remote were vast and vague arca
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  Speaker 1: textual forms. The tumult of voices rose, now loud and
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  Speaker 1: clear and on the balcony, and with their backs to him,
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  Speaker 1: gesticulating and apparently in animated conversation, were three figures, richly
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  Speaker 1: dressed in loose and easy garments of bright, soft colorings.
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  Speaker 1: The noise of a great multitude of people poured up
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  Speaker 1: over the balcony, and once, it seemed the top of
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  Speaker 1: a banner passed, and once some brightly colored object, a
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  Speaker 1: pale blue cap or garment thrown up into the air,
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  Speaker 1: perhaps flashed athwart the space and fell. The shouts sounded
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  Speaker 1: like English. There was a reiteration of wake. He heard
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  Speaker 1: some indistinct shrill cry, and abruptly these three men began laughing.
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  Speaker 1: Ha ha, ha, laughed one, a red haired man in
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  Speaker 1: a short purple robe, when the sleeper wake. When he
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  Speaker 1: turned his eyes full of merriment along the passage, his
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  Speaker 1: face changed. The whole man changed, became rigid. The other
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  Speaker 1: two turned swiftly at his exclamation and stood motionless. Their
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  Speaker 1: faces assumed an expression of consternation, an expression that deepened
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  Speaker 1: into awe. Suddenly, Graham's knees bent beneath him, his arm
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  Speaker 1: against the pillar collapsed limply. He staggered forward and fell
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  Speaker 1: upon his face. End of Chapter three