Herbert Wells - When the Sleeper wakes

“And a third of the people wear this blue canvas?”

“More than a third. Toilers, living without pride or delight or hope, with the stories of Pleasure Cities ringing in their ears, mocking their shameful lives, their privations and hardships. Too poor even for the Euthanasy, the rich man’s refuge from life. Dumb, crippled millions, countless millions, all the world about, ignorant of anything but limitations and unsatisfied desires. They are born, they are thwarted and they die. That is the state to which we have come.”

For a space Graham sat downcast.

“But there has been a revolution,” he said. “All these things will be changed.” Ostrog — ”

“That is our hope. That is the hope of the world. But Ostrog will not do it. He is a politician. To him it seems things must be like this. He does not mind. He takes it for granted. All the rich, all the influential, all who are happy, come at last to take these miseries for granted. They use the people in their politics, they live in ease by their degradation. But you — you who come from a happier age — it is to you the people look. To you.”

He looked at her face. Her eyes were bright with unshed tears. He felt a rush of emotion. For a moment he forgot this city, he forgot the race, and all those vague remote voices, in the immediate humanity of her beauty.

“But what am I to do?” he said with his eyes upon her.

“Rule,” she answered, bending towards him and speaking in a low tone. “Rule the world as it has never been ruled, for the good and happiness of men. For you might rule it — you could rule it.

“The people are stirring. All over the world the people are stirring. It wants but a word — but a word from you — to bring them all together. Even the middle sort of people are restless unhappy.

“They are not telling you the things that are happening. The people will not go back to their drudgery — they refuse to be disarmed. Ostrog has awakened something greater than he dreamt of — he has awakened hopes.”

His heart was beating fast. He tried to seem judicial, to weigh considerations.

“They only want their leader,” she said.

“And then?”

“You could do what you would; — the world is yours.”

He sat, no longer regarding her. Presently he spoke. “The old dreams, and the thing I have dreamt, liberty, happiness. Are they dreams? Could one man — one man —?” His voice sank and ceased.

“Not one man, but all men — give them only a leader to speak the desire of their hearts.”

He shook his head, and for a time there was silence.

He looked up suddenly, and their eyes met. “I have not your faith,” he said. “I have not your youth. I am here with power that mocks me. No — let me speak. I want to do — not right — I have not the strength for that — but something rather right than wrong. It will bring no millennium, but I am resolved now that I will rule. What you have said has awakened me…. You are right. Ostrog must know his place. And I will learn —…. One thing I promise you. This Labour slavery shall end.”

“And you will rule?”

“Yes. Provided —. There is one thing.”

“Yes?”

“That you will help me.”

“I! — a girl!”

“Yes. Does it not occur to you I am absolutely alone?”

She started and for an instant her eyes had pity. “Need you ask whether I will help you?” she said.

She stood before him, beautiful, worshipful, and her enthusiasm and the greatness of their theme was like a great gulf fixed between them. To touch her, to clasp her hand, was a thing beyond hope. “Then I will rule indeed,” he said slowly. “I will rule-“ He paused. “With you.”

There came a tense silence, and then the beating a clock striking the hour. She made him no answer. Graham rose.

“Even now,” he said, “Ostrog will be waiting.” He hesitated, facing her. “When I have asked him certain questions —. There is much I do not know. It may be, that I will go to see with my own eyes the things of which you have spoken. And when I return —?”

“I shall know of your going and coming. I will wait for you here again.”

He stood for a moment regarding her.

“I knew,” she said, and stopped.

He waited, but she said no more. They regarded one another steadfastly, questioningly, and then he turned from her towards the Wind Vane office.

Graham found Ostrog waiting to give a formal account of his day’s stewardship. On previous occasions he had passed over this ceremony as speedily as possible, in order to resume his aerial experiences, but now he began to ask quick short questions. He was very anxious to take up his empire forthwith. Ostrog brought flattering reports of the development of affairs abroad. In Paris and Berlin, Graham perceived that he was saying, there had been trouble, not organised resistance indeed, but insubordinate proceedings. “After all these years,” said Ostrog, when Graham pressed enquiries, “the Commune has lifted its head again. That is the real nature of the struggle, to be explicit.” But order had been restored in these cities. Graham, the more deliberately judicial for the stirring emotions he felt, asked if there had been any fighting. “A little,” said Ostrog. “In one quarter only. But the Senegalese division of our African agricultural police — the Consolidated African Companies have a very well drilled police — was ready, and so were the aeroplanes. We expected a little trouble in the continental cities, and in America. But things are very quiet in America. They are satisfied with the overthrow of the Council For the time.”

“Why should you expect trouble?” asked Graham abruptly.

“There is a lot of discontent — social discontent.”

“The Labour Company?”

“You are learning,” said Ostrog with a touch of surprise. “Yes. It is chiefly the discontent with the Labour Company. It was that discontent supplied the motive force of this overthrow — that and your awakening.”

“Yes?”

Ostrog smiled. He became explicit. “We had to stir up their discontent, we had to revive the old ideals of universal happiness — all men equal — all men happy — no luxury that everyone may not share — ideas that have slumbered for two hundred years. You know that? We had to revive these ideals, impossible as they are — in order to overthrow the Council. And now — ”

“Well?”

“Our revolution is accomplished, and the Council is overthrown, and people whom we have stirred up remain surging. There was scarcely enough fighting… We made promises, of course. It is extraordinary how violently and rapidly this vague out-of-date humanitarianism has revived and spread. We who sowed the seed even, have been astonished. In Paris, as I say — we have had to call in a little external help.”

“And here?”

“There is trouble. Multitudes will not go back to work. There is a general strike. Half the factories are empty and the people are swarming in the Ways. They are talking of a Commune. Men in silk and satin have been insulted in the streets. The blue canvas is expecting all sorts of things from you…. Of course there is no need for you to trouble. We are setting the Babble Machines to work with counter suggestions in the cause of law and order. We must keep the grip tight; that is all.”

Graham thought. He perceived a way of asserting himself. But he spoke with restraint.

“Even to the pitch of bringing a negro police,” he said.

“They are useful,” said Ostrog. “They are fine loyal brutes, with no wash of ideas in their heads — such as our rabble has. The Council should have had them as police of the Ways, and things might have been different. Of course, there is nothing to fear except rioting and wreckage. You can manage your own wings now, and you can soar away to Capri if there is any smoke or fuss. We have the pull of all the great things; the aeronauts are privileged and rich, the closest trades union in the world, and so are the engineers of the wind vanes. We have the air, and the mastery of the air is the mastery of the earth. No one of any ability is organising against us. They have no leaders — only the sectional leaders of the secret society we organised before your very opportune awakening. Mere busy bodies and sentimentalists they are and bitterly jealous of each other. None of them is man enough for a central figure. The only trouble will be a disorganised upheaval. To be frank — that may happen. But it won’t interrupt your aeronautics. The days when the People could make revolutions are past.”