The Great Sleep

: The Blue Germ

On that day the animals in London fell asleep with few exceptions. The

exceptions were, I believe, all dogs. I do not pretend to explain, how

it came about that dogs remained awake longer than other animals. The

reason may be that dogs have some quality in them which is superior even

to the qualities found in man, for there is a sweetness in the nature of

dogs that is rare in men and women.



Many horses we e overcome in the streets and lay down where they were.

No attempt was made to remove them. They were left, stretched out on

their sides, apparently unconscious.



And many thousands of men and women fell asleep. In some cases men were

overcome by the sleep before their dogs, which has always seemed strange

to me. It was Thornduck who told me this, for he remained awake during

this period that the germ reigned supreme. He tells me that I fell

asleep the next evening in my chair in the study and that he carried me

upstairs to my room. I had just returned from visiting Leonora, whom I

had found unconscious. He made a tour of London next morning. In the

City there was a profound stillness.



In the West End matters were much the same. In Cavendish Square he

entered many houses and found silence and sleep within. Everywhere doors

and windows were wide open, giving access to any who might desire it. He

visited the Houses of Parliament only to find a few comatose

blue-stained men lying about on the benches. For the sleep had overtaken

people by stealth. One day, passing by the Zoo, he had climbed the fence

and made an inspection of the inmates. With the exception of an elephant

that was nodding drowsily, the animals lay motionless in their cages,

deep in the trance that the germ induced.



From time to time he met a man or woman awake like himself and stopped

to talk. Those who still retained sufficient individuality to continue

existence were the strangest mixture of folk, for they were of every

class, many of them being little better than beggars. They were people

in whom the desire of life played a minor part. They were those people

who are commonly regarded as being failures, people who live and die

unknown to the world. They were those people who devote themselves to an

obscure existence, shun the rewards of successful careers, and are

ridiculed by all prosperous individuals. It seems that Thornduck was

instrumental in calling a meeting of these people at St. Paul's. There

were about two thousand of them in all, but many in the outlying suburbs

remained ignorant of the meeting, and Thornduck considers that in the

London district alone there must have been some thousands who did not

attend. At the meeting, which must have been the strangest in all

history, the question of the future was discussed. Many believed that

the effect of the germ on those in the great sleep would ultimately lead

to a cessation of life owing to starvation. Thornduck held that the germ

would pass, arguing on principles that were so unscientific that I

refrain from giving them. Eventually it appears that a decision was

reached to leave London on a certain date and migrate southwards in

search of a region where a colony might be founded under laws and

customs suitable for Immortals. Thornduck says that there was one thing

that struck him very forcibly at the meeting at St. Paul's. All the

people gathered there had about them a certain sweetness and strength,

which, although it was very noticeable, escaped his powers of analysis.



He attempted on several occasions to get into telegraphic communication

with the Continent, but failed. In his wanderings he entered many homes,

always being careful to lay out at full length any of the unconscious

inmates who were asleep on chairs, for he feared that they might come to

harm, and that their limbs might become stiffened into unnatural

postures.



All the time he had a firm conviction that the phase of sleep was

temporary. He himself had moments in which a slight drowsiness overtook

him, but he never lost the enhanced power of thought that I had

experienced in the early stages of the Blue Disease. So absolute was

his conviction that a general awakening would come about that he began

to busy his mind with the question as to what he could do, in

conjunction with the other Immortals who were still awake, to benefit

humanity when it should emerge from the trance. This question was

discussed continually. Many thought that they should burn all records,

financial, political, governmental and private, so that some opportunity

of starting afresh might be given to mankind, enslaved to the past and

fettered by law and custom. But the danger of chaos resulting from such

a step deterred him. He confessed that the more he thought on the

subject the more clearly he saw that under the circumstances belonging

to its stage of evolution, the organization of the world was suited to

the race that inhabited it. All change, he saw, had to come from within,

and that to alter external conditions suddenly and artificially might do

incredible harm. We were constructed to develop against resistance, and

to remove such resistances before they had been overcome naturally was

to tamper with the inner laws of life. And so, after long discussion,

they did nothing....



It is curious to reflect that they, earnest men devoted to progress,

having at their mercy the machinery of existence, walked through the

midst of sleeping London and did nothing. But then none of them were

fanatics, for Thornduck stated that the fanatics fell early to sleep,

thus proving that the motives behind their fanaticism were egotistical,

and a source of satisfaction to themselves. He made a point of visiting

the homes of some of them. Philanthropists, too, succumbed early.



On the seventh day after the great sleep had overtaken London the

effects of the germ began to wane. Those who had fallen asleep latest

were the earliest to open their eyes. The blue stain rapidly vanished

from eyes, skin and nails.... I regained my waking sense on the evening

of the seventh day and found myself in a small country cottage whither

Thornduck had borne me in a motor-car, fearing lest awakened London

might seek some revenge on the discoverers of the germ. Sarakoff lay on

a couch beside me, still fast asleep.



The first clear idea that came to me concerned Alice Annot. I determined

to go to her at once. Then I remembered with vexation that I had

wantonly smashed two vases worth ten pounds apiece.



I struggled to my feet. My hands were thin and wasted. I was ravenous

with hunger. I felt giddy.



"What's the time?" I called confusedly. "It must be very late. Wake up!"



And I stooped down and began to shake Sarakoff violently.