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The Sleeper Awakes Chapter 19 - Ostrog's Point of View · The H. G. Wells Library

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  Speaker 1: Chapter nineteen of The Sleeper Awakes, reading by Mark Nelson.
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  Speaker 1: This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in
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  Speaker 1: the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, visit
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  Speaker 1: LibriVox dot org. The Sleeper Awakes by H. G. Wells,
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  Speaker 1: Chapter nineteen. Ostrog's point of view, Graham found Ostrog waiting
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  Speaker 1: to give a formal account of his day's stewardship. On
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  Speaker 1: previous occasions, he had passed over this ceremony as speedily
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  Speaker 1: as possible in order to resume his aerial experiences. But
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  Speaker 1: now he began to ask quick, short questions. He was
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  Speaker 1: very anxious to take up his empire. Forthwith, Ostrog brought
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  Speaker 1: flattering reports of the development of affairs abroad in Paris
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  Speaker 1: and Berlin. Graham perceived that he was saying there had
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  Speaker 1: been trouble, not organized resistance, indeed, but insubordinate proceedings. After
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  Speaker 1: all these years, said Ostrog, when Graham pressed inquiries, the
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  Speaker 1: commune has lifted its head again. That is the real
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  Speaker 1: nature of the struggle, to be explicit. But order had
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  Speaker 1: been restored in these cities. Graham, the more deliberately judicial
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  Speaker 1: for the stirring emotions he felt asked if there had
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  Speaker 1: been any fighting a little, said Ostrog, in one quarter only.
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  Speaker 1: But the Senegalese division of our African agricultural Police, the
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  Speaker 1: consolidated African companies have a very well drilled police, was ready,
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  Speaker 1: and so were the aeroplanes. We expected a little trouble
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  Speaker 1: in the continental cities and in America, but things are
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  Speaker 1: very quiet in America. They are satisfied with the overthrow
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  Speaker 1: of the counsel for the time. Why should you expect trouble,
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  Speaker 1: asked Graham abruptly. There is a lot of discontent, social
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  Speaker 1: discontent the labor department, you are learning, said Ostrog, with
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  Speaker 1: a touch of surprise. Yes, it is chiefly that discontent
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  Speaker 1: with the labor department. It was that discontent supplied the
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  Speaker 1: motive force of this overthrow, that and your awakening. Yes,
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  Speaker 1: Ostrog smiled, he became explicit. We had to stir up
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  Speaker 1: their discontent. We had to revive the old ideals of
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  Speaker 1: universal happiness, all men equal, all men happy, no luxury,
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  Speaker 1: that everyone might not share, ideas that have slumbered for
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  Speaker 1: two hundred years. You know that we had to revive
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  Speaker 1: these ideals, impossible as they are, in order to overthrow
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  Speaker 1: the council. And now well, our revolution is accomplished, and
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  Speaker 1: the council is overthrown, and people whom we have stirred
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  Speaker 1: up remain surging. There was scarcely enough fighting. We made promises.
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  Speaker 1: Of course, it is extraordinary how violently and rapidly this vague,
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  Speaker 1: out of date humanitarianism has revived and spread. We who
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  Speaker 1: sowed the seed even have been astonished. In Paris. As
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  Speaker 1: I say, we have had to call in a little
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  Speaker 1: external help. And here there is trouble. Multitudes will not
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  Speaker 1: go back to work. There is a general strike. Half
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  Speaker 1: the factories are empty, and the people are swarming in
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  Speaker 1: the ways. They are talking of a commune. Men in
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  Speaker 1: silk and satin have been insulted in the streets. The
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  Speaker 1: blue canvas is expecting all sorts of things for you.
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  Speaker 1: Of course, there is no need for you to trouble.
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  Speaker 1: We are setting the babel machines to work with counter
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  Speaker 1: suggestions in the cause of law and order. We must
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  Speaker 1: keep the grip tight. That is all Graham thought. He
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  Speaker 1: perceived a way of asserting himself, but he spoke with restraint,
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  Speaker 1: even to the pitch of bringing a Negro police. He said,
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  Speaker 1: they are useful, said ostrog They are fine, loyal brutes,
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  Speaker 1: with no wash of ideas in their heads, such as
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  Speaker 1: our rabble has. The council should have had them as
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  Speaker 1: police of the ways, and things might have been different.
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  Speaker 1: Of course, there is nothing to fear except rioting and wreckage.
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  Speaker 1: You can manage your own wings now, and you can
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  Speaker 1: soar away to Capri if there is any smoke or fuss.
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  Speaker 1: We have the pull of all the great things. The
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  Speaker 1: aeronauts are privileged and rich, the closest aides union in
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  Speaker 1: the world, and so are the engineers of the wind vanes.
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  Speaker 1: We have the air, and mastery of the air is
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  Speaker 1: mastery of the earth. No one of any ability is
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  Speaker 1: organizing against us. They have no leaders, only the sectional
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  Speaker 1: leaders of the secret society we organized before your very
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  Speaker 1: opportune awakening. Mere busybodies and sentimentalists. They are and bitterly
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  Speaker 1: jealous of each other. None of them is man enough
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  Speaker 1: for a central figure. The only trouble will be a
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  Speaker 1: disorganized upheaval. To be frank, that may happen, but it
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  Speaker 1: won't interrupt your aeronautics. The days when the people could
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  Speaker 1: make revolutions are past. I suppose they are, said Graham
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  Speaker 1: I suppose they are, He mused, This world of yours
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  Speaker 1: has been full of surprises to me. In the old days,
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  Speaker 1: we dreamt of a wonderful, demochcratic life, of a time
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  Speaker 1: when all men would be equal and happy. Ostrog looked
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  Speaker 1: at him steadfastly. The day of democracy is past, he said,
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  Speaker 1: past forever. That day began with the bowmen of Creesy.
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  Speaker 1: It ended when marching infantry, when common men in masses
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  Speaker 1: ceased to win the battles of the world, when costly cannon,
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  Speaker 1: great ironclads, and strategic railways became the means of power.
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  Speaker 1: To day is the day of wealth. Wealth now is
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  Speaker 1: power as it never was power before. It commands earth
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  Speaker 1: and sea and sky. All power is for those who
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  Speaker 1: can handle wealth on your behalf. You must accept facts,
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  Speaker 1: and these are facts. The world for the crowd, the
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  Speaker 1: crowd as ruler. Even in your days, that creed had
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  Speaker 1: been tried and condemned. To day it has only one believer,
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  Speaker 1: a multiplex silly one, the man in the crowd. Graham
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  Speaker 1: did not answer immediately, he stood lost in somber preoccupations. No,
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  Speaker 1: said Ostrog, The day of the common man is past.
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  Speaker 1: On the open countryside, one man is as good as another,
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  Speaker 1: or nearly as good. The earlier aristocracy had a precarious
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  Speaker 1: tenure of strength and audacity. They were tempered, tempered, there
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  Speaker 1: were insurrections, duels, riots. The first real aristocracy, the first
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  Speaker 1: permanent aristocracy, came in with castles and armor and vanished
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  Speaker 1: before the musket and bow. But this is the second aristocracy,
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  Speaker 1: the real one. Those days of gunpowder and democracy were
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  Speaker 1: only an eddy in the stream. The common man now
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  Speaker 1: is a helpless unit. In these days we have this
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  Speaker 1: great machine of the city, and an organization complex beyond
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  Speaker 1: his understanding. Yet, said Graham, there is something resists, something
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  Speaker 1: you are holding down, something that stirs and presses you
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  Speaker 1: will see, said Ostrog, with a forced smile that would
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  Speaker 1: brush these difficult questions aside. I have not roused the
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  Speaker 1: force to destroy myself. Trust me, I wonder, said Graham.
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  Speaker 1: Ostrog stared, Must the world go this way? Said Graham,
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  Speaker 1: with his emotions at the speaking point. Must it indeed
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  Speaker 1: go in this way? Have all our hopes been vain?
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  Speaker 1: What do you mean, said Ostrog, hopes I come from
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  Speaker 1: a democratic age and I find an aristocratic tyranny. Well,
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  Speaker 1: but you are the chief tyrant. Graham shook his head. Well,
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  Speaker 1: said Ostrog, take the general question. It is the way
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  Speaker 1: that change has always traveled. Aristocracy, the prevalence of the best,
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  Speaker 1: the suffering and extinction of the unfit, and so to
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  Speaker 1: better things. But aristocracy those people I met, oh, not those,
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  Speaker 1: said Ostrog. But for the most part they go to
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  Speaker 1: their death vice and pleasure. They have no children. That
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  Speaker 1: sort of stuff will die out if the world keeps
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  Speaker 1: to one road, that is, if there is no turning back,
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  Speaker 1: an easy road to excess, convenient euthanasia for the pleasure
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  Speaker 1: seekers singed in the flame. That is the way to
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  Speaker 1: improve the race pleasant extinction, said Graham. Yet he thought,
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  Speaker 1: for an instant there is that other thing. The crowd,
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  Speaker 1: the great mass of poor men will that die out,
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  Speaker 1: that will not die out, and it suffers. Its suffering
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  Speaker 1: is a force that even you. Ostrog moved impatiently, and
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  Speaker 1: when he spoke, he spoke rather less evenly than before.
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  Speaker 1: Don't trouble about these things, he said, Everything will be
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  Speaker 1: settled in a few days now. The crowd is a huge,
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  Speaker 1: foolish beast. What if it does not die out. Even
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  Speaker 1: if it does not die it can still be tamed.
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  Speaker 1: And driven. I have no sympathy with servile men. You
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  Speaker 1: heard those people shouting and singing two nights ago. They
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  Speaker 1: were taught that song. If you had taken any man
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  Speaker 1: there in cold blood and asked why he shouted, he
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  Speaker 1: could not have told you. They think they are shouting
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  Speaker 1: for you, that they are loyal and devoted to you.
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  Speaker 1: Just then they were ready to slaughter the council. To
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  Speaker 1: day they are all ready murmuring against those who have
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  Speaker 1: overthrown the council. No, no, said Graham. They shouted because
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  Speaker 1: their lives were dreary, without joy or pride, and because
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  Speaker 1: in me, in me, they hoped. And what is their hope?
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  Speaker 1: What is their hope? What right have they to hope?
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  Speaker 1: They work ill, and they want the reward of those
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  Speaker 1: who work well, the hope of mankind. What is it
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  Speaker 1: that some day the over man may come, and some
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  Speaker 1: day the inferior, the weak, and the beastial may be
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  Speaker 1: subdued or eliminated. Subdued, if not eliminated. The world is
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  Speaker 1: no place for the bad, the stupid, the enervated. Their duty,
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  Speaker 1: it's a fine duty, too, is to die the death
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  Speaker 1: of the failure. That is the path by which the
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  Speaker 1: beast rose to manhood, by which man goes on to
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  Speaker 1: higher things. Ostrog took apace, seemed to think, and turned
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  Speaker 1: on Graham. I can imagine how this great world state
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  Speaker 1: of ours seems to a Victorian Englishman. You regret all
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  Speaker 1: the old forms of representative government. Their specters still haunt
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  Speaker 1: the world, the voting councils and parliaments, and all that
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  Speaker 1: eighteenth century Tomfooderi. You feel moved against our pleasure cities.
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  Speaker 1: I might have thought of that had I not been busy.
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  Speaker 1: But you will learn better. The people are mad with envy.
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  Speaker 1: They would be in sympathy with you, even in the streets.
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  Speaker 1: Now they clamor to destroy the pleasure cities. But the
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  Speaker 1: pleasure cities are the excretory organs of the state, attractive
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  Speaker 1: places that, year after year, draw together all that is
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  Speaker 1: weak and vicious, all that is lascivious and lazy, all
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  Speaker 1: the easy roagery of the world to a graceful destruction.
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  Speaker 1: They go there, they have their time. They die childless.
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  Speaker 1: All the pretty, silly, lascivious women die childless, and mankind
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  Speaker 1: is the better. If the people were sane, they would
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  Speaker 1: not envy the rich their way of death and you
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  Speaker 1: would emancipate the silly, brainless workers that we have enslaved,
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  Speaker 1: and try to make their lives easy and pleasant again,
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  Speaker 1: just as they have sunk to what they are fit for.
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  Speaker 1: He smiled, a smile that irritated Graham. Oddly, you will
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  Speaker 1: learn better. I know those ideas. In my boyhood. I
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  Speaker 1: read your shelley and dreamt of liberty. There is no
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  Speaker 1: liberty save wisdom and self control. Liberty is within, not without.
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  Speaker 1: It is each man's own affair. Suppose which is impossible,
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  Speaker 1: that the swarming, yelping fools in blue get the upper
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  Speaker 1: hand of us. What then they will only fall to
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  Speaker 1: other masters. So long as there are sheep, nature will
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  Speaker 1: insist on beasts of prey. It would mean but a
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  Speaker 1: few hundred years delay The coming of the aristocrat is
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  Speaker 1: fatal and assured. The end will be the over man.
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  Speaker 1: For all the mad protests of humanity, Let them revolt,
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  Speaker 1: let them win and kill me and my like. Others
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  Speaker 1: will arise other masters. The end will be the same,
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  Speaker 1: I wonder, said Graham doggedly. For a moment he stood downcast.
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  Speaker 1: But I must see these things for myself, he said, suddenly,
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  Speaker 1: assuming a tone of confident mastery. Only by seeing can
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  Speaker 1: I understand. I must learn. That is what I want
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  Speaker 1: to tell you, Ostrog. I do not want to be
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  Speaker 1: king in a pleasure city. That is not my pleasure.
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  Speaker 1: I have spent enough time with aeronautics and those other things.
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  Speaker 1: I must learn how people live now, how the common
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  Speaker 1: life has developed. Then I shall understand these things better.
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  Speaker 1: I must learn how the common people live, the labor
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  Speaker 1: people more especially how they work, marry, bear, children die.
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  Speaker 1: You get that from our realistic novelists, suggested Ostrog, Suddenly preoccupied,
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  Speaker 1: I want reality, said Graham. There are difficulties, said Ostrog,
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  Speaker 1: and thought on the whole. I did not expect I
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  Speaker 1: had thought. And yet perhaps you say you want to
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  Speaker 1: go through the ways of the city and see the
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  Speaker 1: common people. Suddenly he came to some conclusion. You would
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  Speaker 1: need to go disguised, he said. The city is intensely excited,
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  Speaker 1: and the discovery of your presence among them might create
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  Speaker 1: a fearful tumult. Still, this wish of yours to go
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  Speaker 1: into this city, this idea of yours, Yes, now I
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  Speaker 1: think the thing over. It seems to me not altogether.
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  Speaker 1: It can be contrived. If you would really find an
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  Speaker 1: interest in that. You are, of course master. You can
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  Speaker 1: go soon if you like a disguise, Asano will be
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  Speaker 1: able to manage. He would go with you. After all,
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  Speaker 1: it is not a bad idea of yours. You will
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  Speaker 1: not want to consult me in any matter, asked Graham,
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  Speaker 1: suddenly struck by an odd suspicion. Oh dear, no, no,
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  Speaker 1: I think you may trust affairs to me for a
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  Speaker 1: time at any rate, said Ostrog, smiling. Even if we differ.
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  Speaker 1: Graham glanced at him sharply. There is no fighting likely
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  Speaker 1: to happen soon, he asked abruptly. Certainly not. I have
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  Speaker 1: been thinking about these Negroes. I don't believe the people
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  Speaker 1: intend any hostility to me, and after all I am
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  Speaker 1: the master. I do not want any Negroes brought to London.
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  Speaker 1: It is an archaic prejudice, perhaps, but I have peculiar
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  Speaker 1: feelings about Europeans and the subject races, even about Paris.
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  Speaker 1: Ostrog stood, watching him from under his drooping brows. I
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  Speaker 1: am not bringing negroes to London, he said slowly. But
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  Speaker 1: if you are not to bring armed Negroes to London,
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  Speaker 1: whatever happens, said Graham. In that matter, I am quite decided.
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  Speaker 1: Ostrog resolved not to speak, and bowed deferentially. End of
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  Speaker 1: Chapter nineteen