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The Sleeper Awakes Chapter 5 - The Moving Ways · The H. G. Wells Library

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  Speaker 1: Chapter five of The Sleeper Awakes. This is a LibriVox recording.
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  Speaker 1: All LibriVox recording 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 five, The Moving Ways.
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  Speaker 1: He went to the railings of the balcony and stared upward.
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  Speaker 1: An exclamation of surprise at his appearance, and the movements
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  Speaker 1: of a number of people came from the great area below.
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  Speaker 1: His first impression was of overwhelming architecture. The place into
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  Speaker 1: which he looked was an aisle of titanic buildings, curving
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  Speaker 1: spaciously in either direction. Overhead, mighty cantilevers sprang together across
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  Speaker 1: the huge width of the place, and a tracery of
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  Speaker 1: translucent materials shut out the sky. Gigantic globes of cool
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  Speaker 1: white light shamed the pale sunbeams that filtered down through
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  Speaker 1: the girders and wires. Here and there, a gossamer's suspension
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  Speaker 1: bridge dotted with foot passengers flung across the chasm, and
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  Speaker 1: the air was webbed with slender cables. A cliff of
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  Speaker 1: edifice hung above him, he perceived as he glanced upward,
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  Speaker 1: and the opposite facade was gray and dim and broken
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  Speaker 1: by great archings, circular perforations, balconies, buttresses, turret projections, myriads
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  Speaker 1: of vast windows, and an intricate scheme of architectural relief.
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  Speaker 1: Athwart these ran inscriptions horizontally and obliquely in an unfamiliar lettering.
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  Speaker 1: Here and there, close to the roof, cables of a
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  Speaker 1: particular stoutness were fastened and drooped in a steep curve
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  Speaker 1: to circular openings on the opposite side of the space.
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  Speaker 1: And even as Graham noted these, a remote and tiny
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  Speaker 1: figure of a man clad in pale blue arrested his attention.
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  Speaker 1: This little figure was far overhead, across the space, beside
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  Speaker 1: the higher fastenings of one of these festoons, hanging forward
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  Speaker 1: from a little ledge of missionry, and handling some well
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  Speaker 1: nigh invisible strings dependent from the line. Then, suddenly, with
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  Speaker 1: a swoop that sent Graham's heart into his mouth, this
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  Speaker 1: man had rushed down the curve and vanished through a
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  Speaker 1: round opening on the hither side of the way. Graham
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  Speaker 1: had been looking up as he came out upon the balcony,
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  Speaker 1: and the things he saw above and opposed to him
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  Speaker 1: had at first seized his attention to the exclusion of
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  Speaker 1: anything else. Then suddenly he discovered the roadway. It was
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  Speaker 1: not a roadway at all, as Graham understood such things,
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  Speaker 1: For in the nineteenth century the only roads and streets
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  Speaker 1: were beaten tracks of motionless earth, jostling rivulets of vehicles
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  Speaker 1: between narrow footways. But this roadway was three hundred feet across,
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  Speaker 1: and it moved. It moved all save the middle, the
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  Speaker 1: lowest part. For a moment, the motion dazzled his mind.
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  Speaker 1: Then he understood. Under the balcony, this extraordinary roadway ran
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  Speaker 1: swiftly to Graham's right, an endless flow, rushing along as
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  Speaker 1: fast as a nineteenth century express train, an endless platform
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  Speaker 1: of narrow, transverse, overlapping slats with little interspaces that permitted
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  Speaker 1: it to follow the curvatures of the street. Upon it
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  Speaker 1: were seats, and here and there little kiosks, but they
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  Speaker 1: swept by too swiftly for him to see what might
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  Speaker 1: be therein From this nearest and swiftest platform, a series
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  Speaker 1: of others descended to the center of the space, each
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  Speaker 1: moved to the right, each perceptibly slower than the one
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  Speaker 1: above it, but the difference in pace was small enough
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  Speaker 1: to permit anyone to step from any platform to the
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  Speaker 1: one adjacent, and so walk uninterruptedly from the swiftest to
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  Speaker 1: the motionless middle way. Beyond this middle way was another
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  Speaker 1: series of endless platforms, rushing with varying pace to Graham's left,
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  Speaker 1: and seated in crowds upon the two widest and swiftest platforms,
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  Speaker 1: or stepping from one to another down the steps, or
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  Speaker 1: swarming over the central space. Was an innumerable and wonderfully
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  Speaker 1: diversified multitude of people. You must not stop here, shouted Howard,
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  Speaker 1: suddenly at his side. You must come away at once.
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  Speaker 1: Graham made no answer. He heard, without hearing, the platforms
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  Speaker 1: ran with a roar, and the people were shouting. He
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  Speaker 1: perceived women and girls with flowing hair, beautifully robed, with
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  Speaker 1: bands crossing between the breasts. These first came out of
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  Speaker 1: the confusion. Then he perceived that the dominant note in
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  Speaker 1: that kaleidoscope of costume was the pale blue that the
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  Speaker 1: tailor's bo worn. He became aware of cries of the sleeper.
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  Speaker 1: What has happened to the sleeper? And it seemed as
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  Speaker 1: though the rushing platforms before him were suddenly spattered with
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  Speaker 1: the pale buff of human faces. Then still more thickly
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  Speaker 1: he saw pointing fingers. He perceived that the motionless central
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  Speaker 1: area of this huge arcade, just opposite to the balcony,
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  Speaker 1: was densely crowded with blue clad people. Some sort of
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  Speaker 1: struggle had sprung into life. People seemed to be pushed
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  Speaker 1: up the running platforms on either side and carried away
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  Speaker 1: against their will. They would spring off so soon as
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  Speaker 1: they were beyond the thick of the confusion, and run
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  Speaker 1: back towards the conflict. It is the sleeper. Verily, it
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  Speaker 1: is the sleeper, shouted voices. That is never the sleeper,
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  Speaker 1: shouted the others. More and more faces were turned to him.
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  Speaker 1: At the intervals along this central area, Graham noted openings, hits,
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  Speaker 1: apparently the heads of staircases going down, with people ascending
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  Speaker 1: out of them and descending into them. The struggle, it seemed,
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  Speaker 1: centered about the one of these nearest to him. People
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  Speaker 1: were running down the moving platforms to this, leaping dexterously
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  Speaker 1: from platform to platform. The clustering people on the higher
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  Speaker 1: platforms seemed to divide their interest. Between this point and
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  Speaker 1: the balcony. A number of sturdy little figures clad in
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  Speaker 1: a uniform of bright red, and working methodically together, were employed,
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  Speaker 1: it seemed, in preventing access to this descending staircase. About them,
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  Speaker 1: a crowd was rapidly accumulating. Their brilliant color contrasted vividly
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  Speaker 1: with the whitish blue of their antagonists. For the struggle
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  Speaker 1: was indisputable. He saw these things with Howard, shouting in
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  Speaker 1: his ear and shaking his arm, And then suddenly Howard
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  Speaker 1: was gone, and he stood alone. He perceived that the
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  Speaker 1: cries of the sleeper grew in volume, and that the
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  Speaker 1: people on the nearer platform were standing up. The nearer platform,
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  Speaker 1: he perceived, was empty. To the right of him, and
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  Speaker 1: far across the space, the platform, running in the opposite direction,
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  Speaker 1: was coming, crowded and passing away bare with incredible swiftness.
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  Speaker 1: A vast crowd had gathered in the central space before
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  Speaker 1: his eyes, a dense, swaying mass of people, and the
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  Speaker 1: shouts grew from a fitful crying to a voluminist, incessant
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  Speaker 1: clamor the sleeper the sleeper and yells in cheers, a
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  Speaker 1: waving of garments, and cries of stop the ways. They
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  Speaker 1: were also crying another name, strange to Graham, it sounded
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  Speaker 1: like astrog The slower platforms were soon thick with active
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  Speaker 1: people running against the movement so as to keep themselves
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  Speaker 1: opposite to him. Stop. They cried. Agile figures ran up
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  Speaker 1: from the center to the swift road nearest to him,
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  Speaker 1: were borne rapidly past them, shouting strange, unintelligible things, and
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  Speaker 1: ran back obliquely to the central way. One thing he distinguished,
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  Speaker 1: It is indeed the sleeper. It is indeed the sleeper.
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  Speaker 1: They testified for a space. Graham stood motionless. Then he
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  Speaker 1: became vividly aware that all this concerned him. He was
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  Speaker 1: pleased at this wonderful popularity. He bowed, and, seeking a
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  Speaker 1: gesture of lower range, waved his arm. He was astonished
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  Speaker 1: at the violence of uproar that this provoked. The tumult
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  Speaker 1: about the descending stairway rose to furious violence. He became
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  Speaker 1: aware of crowded balconies, of men sliding along ropes, of
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  Speaker 1: men in trapeze like seats hurling athwart the space. He
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  Speaker 1: heard voices behind him, a number of people descending the
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  Speaker 1: steps through the archway. He suddenly perceived that his guardian, Howard,
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  Speaker 1: was back again, and gripping his arm painfully and shouting
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  Speaker 1: inaudibly in his ear. He turned, and Howard's face was white.
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  Speaker 1: Come back, he heard. They will stop the ways. The
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  Speaker 1: whole city will be in confusion. He perceived a number
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  Speaker 1: of men hurrying along the passage of blue pillars behind Howard,
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  Speaker 1: the red haired man, the man with the flaxen beard,
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  Speaker 1: a tall man in vivid vermilion, a crowd of others
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  Speaker 1: in red carrying staves. And all these people had anxious,
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  Speaker 1: eager faces. Get him away, cried Howard. But why, said Graham.
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  Speaker 1: I don't see you. Must come away, said the man
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  Speaker 1: in red, in a resolute voice. His face and eyes
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  Speaker 1: were resolute too. Graham's glances went from face to face,
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  Speaker 1: and he was suddenly aware of that most disagreeable flavor
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  Speaker 1: in life, compulsion. Someone gripped his arm. He was being
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  Speaker 1: dragged away. It seemed as though the tumult suddenly became two,
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  Speaker 1: as if half the shouts that had come in from
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  Speaker 1: this wonderful roadway had sprung into the passages of the
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  Speaker 1: great building behind him. Marveling and confused, feeling an impotent
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  Speaker 1: desire to resist, Graham was half led, half thrust along
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  Speaker 1: the passage of blue pillars, and suddenly he found himself alone,
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  Speaker 1: with Howard in a lift and moving swiftly upward. End
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  Speaker 1: of Chapter five. Recording by Sean mcgahey, duct Tapeguy dot
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  Speaker 1: net