The Hall Of The Atlas
:
When The Sleeper Wakes
From the moment when the tailor had bowed his farewell to the moment
when Graham found himself in the lift, was altogether barely five
minutes. And as yet the haze of his vast interval of sleep hung about
him, as yet the initial strangeness of his being alive at all in
this remote age touched everything with wonder, with a sense of the
irrational, with something of the quality of a realistic dream. He was
still d
tached, an astonished spectator, still but half involved in
life. What he had seen, and especially the last crowded tumult, framed
in the setting of the balcony, had a spectacular turn, like a thing
witnessed from the box of a theatre. "I don't understand," he said.
"What was the trouble? My mind is in a whirl. Why were they shouting?
What is the danger?"
"We have our troubles," said Howard. His eyes avoided Graham's enquiry.
"This is a time of unrest. And, in fact, your appearance, your waking
just now, has a sort of connexion--"
He spoke jerkily, like a man not quite sure of his breathing. He stopped
abruptly.
"I don't understand," said Graham.
"It will be clearer later," said Howard.
He glanced uneasily upward, as though he found the progress of the lift
slow.
"I shall understand better, no doubt, when I have seen my way about
a little," said Graham puzzled. "It. will be--it is bound to be
perplexing. At present it is all so strange. Anything seems possible.
Anything In the details even. Your counting, I understand, is
different."
The lift stopped, and they stepped out into a narrow but very long
passage between high walls, along which ran an extraordinary number of
tubes and big cables.
"What a huge place this is!" said Graham. "Is it all one building? What
place is it?"
"This is one of the city ways for various public services. Light and so
forth."
"Was it a social trouble--that--in the great roadway place? How are you
governed? Have you still a police?" "Several," said Howard.
"Several?"
"About fourteen."
"I don't understand."
"Very probably not. Our social order will probably seem very complex to
you. To tell you the truth, I don't understand it myself very clearly.
Nobody does. You will, perhaps--bye and bye. We have to go to the
Council."
Graham's attention was divided between the urgent necessity of his
inquiries and the people in the passages and halls they were traversing.
For a moment his mind would be concentrated upon Howard and the halting
answers he made, and then he would lose the thread in response to some
vivid unexpected impression. Along the passages, in the halls, half the
people seemed to be men in the red uniform. The pale blue canvas
that had been so abundant in the aisle of moving ways did not appear.
Invariably these men looked at him, and saluted him and Howard as they
passed.
He had a clear vision of entering a long corridor, and there were a
number of girls sitting on low seats and as though in a class. He saw
no teacher, but only a novel apparatus from which he fancied a voice
proceeded. The girls regarded him and his conductor, he thought, with
curiosity and astonishment. But he was hurried on before he could form a
clear idea of the gathering. He judged they knew Howard and not himself,
and that they wondered who he was. This Howard, it seemed, was a person
of importance. But then he was also merely Graham's guardian. That was
odd.
There came a passage in twilight, and into this passage a footway hung
so that he could see the feet and ankles of people going to and fro
thereon, but no more of them. Then vague impressions of galleries and
of casual astonished passers-by turning round to stare after the two of
them with their red-clad guard.
The stimulus of the restoratives he had taken was only temporary. He was
speedily fatigued by this excessive haste. He asked Howard to slacken
his speed. Presently he was in a lift that had a window upon the great
street space, but this was glazed and did not open, and they were too
high for him to see the moving platforms below. But he saw people going
to and fro along cables and along strange, frail-looking ridges.
And thence they passed across the street and at a vast height above it.
They crossed by means of a narrow bridge closed in with glass, so clear
that it made him giddy even to remember it. The floor of it also was of
glass. From his memory of the cliffs between New Quay and Boscastle, so
remote in time, and so recent in his experience, it seemed to him that
they must be near four hundred feet above the moving ways. He stopped,
looked down between his legs upon the swarming blue and red multitudes,
minute and fore-shortened, struggling and gesticulating still towards
the little balcony far below, a little toy balcony, it seemed, where he
had so recently been standing. A thin haze and the glare of the mighty
globes of light obscured everything. A man seated in a little open-work
cradle shot by from some point still higher than the little narrow
bridge, rushing down a cable as swiftly almost as if he were falling.
Graham stopped involuntarily to watch this strange passenger vanish in
a great circular opening below, and then his eyes went back to the
tumultuous struggle.
Along one of the swifter ways rushed a thick crowd of red spots. This
broke up into individuals as it approached the balcony, and went pouring
down the slower ways towards the dense struggling crowd on the central
area. These men in red appeared to be armed with sticks or truncheons;
they seemed to be striking and thrusting. A great shouting, cries of
wrath, screaming, burst out and came up to Graham, faint and thin. "Go
on," cried Howard, laying hands on him.
Another man rushed down a cable. Graham suddenly glanced up to see
whence he came, and beheld through the glassy roof and the network of
cables and girders, dim rhythmically passing forms like the vans of
windmills, and between them glimpses of a remote and pallid sky. Then
Howard had thrust him forward across the bridge, and he was in a little
narrow passage decorated with geometrical patterns.
"I want to see more of that," cried Graham, resisting.
"No, no," cried Howard, still gripping his arm.
"This way. You must go this way." And the men in red following them
seemed ready to enforce his orders.
Some negroes in a curious wasp-like uniform of black and yellow appeared
down the passage, and one hastened to throw up a sliding shutter that
had seemed a door to Graham, and led the way through it. Graham found
himself in a gallery overhanging the end of a great chamber. The
attendant in black and yellow crossed this, thrust up a second shutter
and stood waiting.
This place had the appearance of an ante-room. He saw a number of people
in the central space, and at the opposite end a large and imposing
doorway at the top of a flight of steps, heavily curtained but giving a
glimpse of some still larger hall beyond. He perceived white men in
red and other negroes in black and yellow standing stiffly about those
portals.
As they crossed the gallery he heard a whisper from below, "The
Sleeper," and was aware of a turning of heads, a hum of observation.
They entered another little passage in the wall of this ante-chamber,
and then he found himself on an iron-railed gallery of metal that
passed round the side of the great hall he had already seen through the
curtains. He entered the place at the corner, so that he received
the fullest impression of its huge proportions. The black in the wasp
uniform stood aside like a well-trained servant, and closed the valve
behind him.
Compared with any of the places Graham had see thus far, this second
hall appeared to be decorate with extreme richness. On a pedestal at
the remote end, and more brilliantly lit than any other object, was a
gigantic white figure of Atlas, strong and strenuous, the globe upon his
bowed shoulders. It was the first thing to strike his attention, it was
so vast, so patiently and painfully real, so white and simple. Save for
this figure and for a dais in the centre, the wide floor of the place
was a shining vacancy. The dais was remote in the greatness of the area;
it would have looked a mere slab of metal had it not been for the group
of seven men who stood about a table on it, and gave an inkling of its
proportions. They were all dressed in white robes, they seemed to have
arisen that moment from their seats, and they were regarding Graham
steadfastly. At the end of the table he perceived the glitter of some
mechanical appliances.
Howard led him along the end gallery until they were opposite this
mighty labouring figure. Then he stopped. The two men in red who had
followed them into the gallery came and stood on either hand of Graham.
"You must remain here," murmured Howard, "for a few moments," and,
without waiting for a reply, hurried away along the gallery.
"But, why?" began Graham.
He moved as if to follow Howard, and found his path obstructed by one of
the men in red. "You have to wait here, Sire," said the man in red.
"Why?"
"Orders, Sire."
"Whose orders?"
"Our orders, Sire."
Graham looked his exasperation.
"What place is this?" he said presently. "Who are those men?"
"They are the lords of the Council, Sire."
"What Council?"
"The Council."
"Oh!" said Graham, and after an equally ineffectual attempt at the other
man, went to the railing and stared at the distant men in white, who
stood watching him and whispering together.
The Council? He perceived there were now eight, though how the newcomer
had arrived he had not observed. They made no gestures of greeting; they
stood regarding him as in the nineteenth century a group of men might
have stood in the street regarding a distant balloon that had suddenly
floated into view. What council could it be that gathered there, that
little body of men beneath the significant white Atlas, secluded from
every eavesdropper in this impressive spaciousness? And why should he
be brought to them, and be looked at strangely and spoken of inaudibly?
Howard appeared beneath, walking quickly across the polished floor
towards them. As he drew near he bowed and performed certain peculiar
movements, apparently of a ceremonious nature. Then he ascended the
steps of the dais, and stood by the apparatus at the end of the table.
Graham watched that visible inaudible conversation. Occasionally, one
of the white-robed men would glance towards him. He strained his ears
in vain. The gesticulation of two of the speakers became animated. He
glanced from them to the passive faces of his attendants.... When he
looked again Howard was extending his hands and moving his head like
a man who protests. He was interrupted, it seemed, by one of the
white-robed men rapping the table.
The conversation lasted an interminable time to Graham's sense. His
eyes rose to the still giant at whose feet the Council sat. Thence they
wandered at last to the walls of the hall. It was decorated in long
painted panels of a quasi-Japanese type, many of them very beautiful.
These panels were grouped in a great and elaborate framing of dark
metal, which passed into the metallic caryatidae of the galleries, and
the great structural lines of the interior. The facile grace of these
panels enhanced the mighty white effort that laboured in the centre
of the scheme. Graham's eyes came back to the Council, and Howard
was descending the steps. As he drew nearer his features could be
distinguished, and Graham saw that he was flushed and blowing out his
cheeks. His countenance was still disturbed when presently he reappeared
along the gallery.
"This way," he said concisely, and they went on in silence to a little
door that opened at their approach. The two men in red stopped on either
side of this door. Howard and Graham passed in, and Graham, glancing
back, saw the white-robed Council still standing in a close group and
looking at him. Then the door closed behind him with a heavy thud, and
for the first time since his awakening he was in silence. The floor,
even, was noiseless to his feet.
Howard opened another door, and they were in the first of two contiguous
chambers furnished in white and green. "What Council was that?" began
Graham. "What were they discussing? What have they to do with me?"
Howard closed the door carefully, heaved a huge sigh, and said something
in an undertone. He walked slanting ways across the room and turned,
blowing out his cheeks again. "Ugh!" he grunted, a man relieved.
Graham stood regarding him.
"You must understand," began Howard abruptly, avoiding Graham's eyes,
"that our social order is very complex. A half explanation, a bare
unqualified statement would give you false impressions. As a matter of
fact--it is a case of compound interest partly--your small fortune, and
the fortune of your cousin Warming which was left to you--and certain
other beginnings--have become very considerable. And in other ways
that will be hard for you to understand, you have become a person of
significance--of very considerable significance--involved in the world's
affairs."
He stopped.
"Yes?" said Graham.
"We have grave social troubles."
"Yes?"
"Things have come to such a pass that, in fact, is advisable to seclude
you here."
"Keep me prisoner!" exclaimed Graham.
"Well--to ask you to keep in seclusion."
Graham turned on him. "This is strange!" he said.
"No harm will be done you."
"No harm!"
"But you must be kept here--"
"While I learn my position, I presume."
"Precisely."
"Very well then. Begin. Why harm?"
"Not now."
"Why not?"
"It is too long a story, Sire."
"All the more reason I should begin at once. You say I am a person of
importance. What was that shouting I heard? Why is a great multitude
shouting and excited because my trance is over, and who are the men in
white in that huge council chamber?"
"All in good time, Sire," said Howard. "But not crudely, not crudely.
This is one of those flimsy times when no man has a settled mind. Your
awakening. No one expected your awakening. The Council is consulting."
"What council?"
"The Council you saw."
Graham made a petulant movement. "This is not right," he said. "I should
be told what is happening.
"You must wait. Really you must wait."
Graham sat down abruptly. "I suppose since I have waited so long to
resume life," he said, "that I must wait a little longer."
"That is better," said Howard. "Yes, that is much better. And I must
leave you alone. For a space. While I attend the discussion in the
Council. I am sorry."
He went towards the noiseless door, hesitated and vanished.
Graham walked to the door, tried it, found it securely fastened in
some way he never came to understand, turned about, paced the room
restlessly, made the circuit of the room, and sat down. He remained
sitting for some time with folded arms and knitted brow, biting his
finger nails and trying to piece together the kaleidoscopic impressions
of this first hour of awakened life; the vast mechanical spaces, the
endless series of chambers and passages, the great struggle that roared
and splashed through these strange ways, the little group of remote
unsympathetic men beneath the colossal Atlas, Howard's mysterious
behaviour. There was an inkling of some vast inheritance already in
his mind--a vast inheritance perhaps misapplied--of some unprecedented
importance and opportunity. What had he to do? And this room's secluded
silence was eloquent of imprisonment!
It came into Graham's mind with irresistible conviction that this series
of magnificent impressions was a dream. He tried to shut his eyes and
succeeded, but that time-honoured device led to no awakening.
Presently he began to touch and examine all the unfamiliar appointments
of the two small rooms in which he found himself.
In a long oval panel of mirror he saw himself and stopped astonished. He
was clad in a graceful costume of purple and bluish white, with a little
greyshot beard trimmed to a point, and his hair, its blackness streaked
now with bands of grey, arranged over his forehead in an unfamiliar but
graceful manner. He seemed a man of five-and-forty perhaps. For a moment
he did not perceive this was himself.
A flash of laughter came with the recognition. "To call on old Warming
like this!" he exclaimed, "and make him take me out to lunch!"
Then he thought of meeting first one and then another of the few
familiar acquaintances of his early manhood, and in the midst of his
amusement realised that every soul with whom he might jest had died
many score of years ago. The thought smote him abruptly and keenly;
he stopped short, the expression of his face changed to a white
consternation.
The tumultuous memory of the moving platforms and the huge facade of
that wonderful street reasserted itself. The shouting multitudes came
back clear and vivid, and those remote, inaudible, unfriendly councilors
in white. He felt himself a little figure, very small and ineffectual,
pitifully conspicuous. And all about him, the world was--strange.