The Sleeper Awakes

by H. G. Wells

  CHAPTER XIX

  OSTROG'S POINT OF VIEW

  Graham found Ostrog waiting to give a formal account of his day'sstewardship. On previous occasions he had passed over this ceremony asspeedily as possible, in order to resume his aerial experiences, but nowhe began to ask quick short questions. He was very anxious to take up hisempire forthwith. Ostrog brought flattering reports of the development ofaffairs abroad. In Paris and Berlin, Graham perceived that he was saying,there had been trouble, not organised resistance indeed, butinsubordinate proceedings. "After all these years," said Ostrog, whenGraham pressed enquiries; "the Commune has lifted its head again. That isthe real nature of the struggle, to be explicit." But order had beenrestored in these cities. Graham, the more deliberately judicial for thestirring emotions he felt, asked if there had been any fighting. "Alittle," said Ostrog. "In one quarter only. But the Senegalese divisionof our African agricultural police--the Consolidated African Companieshave 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 theoverthrow of the Council. For the time."

  "Why should you expect trouble?" asked Graham abruptly.

  "There is a lot of discontent--social discontent."

  "The Labour Department?"

  "You are learning," said Ostrog with a touch of surprise. "Yes. It ischiefly the discontent with the Labour Department. It was that discontentsupplied 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 menequal--all men happy--no luxury that everyone may not share--ideas thathave slumbered for two hundred years. You know that? We had to revivethese ideals, impossible as they are--in order to overthrow the Council.And now--"

  "Well?"

  "Our revolution is accomplished, and the Council is overthrown, andpeople whom we have stirred up--remain surging. There was scarcely enoughfighting.... We made promises, of course. It is extraordinary howviolently and rapidly this vague out-of-date humanitarianism has revivedand spread.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 ageneral strike. Half the factories are empty and the people are swarmingin the ways. They are talking of a Commune. Men in silk and satin havebeen insulted in the streets. The blue canvas is expecting all sorts ofthings from you.... Of course there is no need for you to trouble. We aresetting the Babble Machines to work with counter suggestions in thecause of law and order. We must keep the grip tight; that is all."

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

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

  "They are useful," said Ostrog. "They are fine loyal brutes, with no washof ideas in their heads--such as our rabble has. The Council should havehad them as police of the ways, and things might have been different. Ofcourse, there is nothing to fear except rioting and wreckage. You canmanage your own wings now, and you can soar away to Capri if there is anysmoke or fuss. We have the pull of all the great things; the aeronautsare privileged and rich, the closest trades union in the world, and soare the engineers of the wind-vanes. We have the air, and the mastery ofthe air is the mastery of the earth. No one of any ability is organisingagainst us. They have no leaders--only the sectional leaders of thesecret society we organised before your very opportune awakening. Merebusybodies and sentimentalists they are and bitterly jealous of eachother. None of them is man enough for a central figure. The only troublewill be a disorganised upheaval. To be frank--that may happen. But itwon't interrupt your aeronautics. The days when the People could makerevolutions are past."

  "I suppose they are," said Graham. "I suppose they are." He mused. "Thisworld of yours has been full of surprises to me. In the old days wedreamt of a wonderful democratic life, of a time when all men would beequal and happy."

  Ostrog looked at him steadfastly. "The day of democracy is past," hesaid. "Past for ever. That day began with the bowmen of Crecy, it endedwhen marching infantry, when common men in masses ceased to win thebattles of the world, when costly cannon, great ironclads, and strategicrailways became the means of power. To-day is the day of wealth. Wealthnow is power as it never was power before--it commands earth and sea andsky. All power is for those who can handle wealth. On your behalf.... Youmust accept facts, and these are facts. The world for the Crowd! TheCrowd as Ruler! Even in your days that creed had been tried andcondemned. To-day it has only one believer--a multiplex, silly one--theman in the Crowd."

  Graham did not answer immediately. He stood lost in sombrepreoccupations.

  "No," said Ostrog. "The day of the common man is past. On the opencountryside one man is as good as another, or nearly as good. The earlieraristocracy had a precarious tenure of strength and audacity. They weretempered--tempered. There were insurrections, duels, riots. The firstreal aristocracy, the first permanent aristocracy, came in with castlesand armour, and vanished before the musket and bow. But this is thesecond aristocracy. The real one. Those days of gunpowder and democracywere only an eddy in the stream. The common man now is a helpless unit.In these days we have this great machine of the city, and an organisationcomplex beyond his understanding."

  "Yet," said Graham, "there is something resists, something you areholding down--something that stirs and presses."

  "You will see," said Ostrog, with a forced smile that would brush thesedifficult questions aside. "I have not roused the force to destroymyself--trust me."

  "I wonder," said Graham.

  Ostrog stared.

  "_Must_ the world go this way?" said Graham with his emotions at thespeaking point. "Must it indeed go in this way? Have all our hopesbeen vain?"

  "What do you mean?" said Ostrog. "Hopes?"

  "I come from a democratic age. And I find an aristocratic tyranny!"

  "Well,--but you are the chief tyrant."

  Graham shook his head.

  "Well," said Ostrog, "take the general question. It is the way thatchange has always travelled. Aristocracy, the prevalence of the best--thesuffering and extinction of the unfit, and so to better things."

  "But aristocracy! those people I met--"

  "Oh! not _those_!" said Ostrog. "But for the most part they go to theirdeath. Vice and pleasure! They have no children. That sort of stuff willdie out. If the world keeps to one road, that is, if there is no turningback. An easy road to excess, convenient Euthanasia for the pleasureseekers singed in the flame, that is the way to improve the race!"

  "Pleasant extinction," said Graham. "Yet--." He thought for an instant."There is that other thing--the Crowd, the great mass of poor men. Willthat die out? That will not die out. And it suffers, its suffering is aforce that even you--"

  Ostrog moved impatiently, and when he spoke, he spoke rather less evenlythan before.

  "Don't trouble about these things," he said. "Everything will besettled in a few days now. The Crowd is a huge foolish beast. What ifit does not die out? Even if it does not die, it can still be tamed anddriven. I have no sympathy with servile men. You heard those peopleshouting and singing two nights ago. They were _taught_ that song. Ifyou had taken any man there in cold blood and asked why he shouted, hecould not have told you. They think they are shouting for you, thatthey are loyal and devoted to you. Just then they were ready toslaughter the Council. To-day--they are already murmuring against thosewho have overthrown the Council."

  "No, no," said Graham. "They shouted because their lives were dreary,without joy or pride, and because in me--in me--they hoped."

  "And what was their hope? What is their hope? What right have they tohope? They work ill and they want the reward of those who work well. Thehope of mankind--what is it? That some day the Ov
er-man may come, thatsome day the inferior, the weak and the bestial may be subdued oreliminated. Subdued if not eliminated. The world is no place for the bad,the stupid, the enervated. Their duty--it's a fine duty too!--is to die.The death of the failure! That is the path by which the beast rose tomanhood, by which man goes on to higher things."

  Ostrog took a pace, seemed to think, and turned on Graham. "I can imaginehow this great world state of ours seems to a Victorian Englishman. Youregret all the old forms of representative government--their spectresstill haunt the world, the voting councils, and parliaments and all thateighteenth century tomfoolery. You feel moved against our PleasureCities. I might have thought of that,--had I not been busy. But you willlearn better. The people are mad with envy--they would be in sympathywith you. Even in the streets now, they clamour to destroy the PleasureCities. But the Pleasure Cities are the excretory organs of the State,attractive places that year after year draw together all that is weak andvicious, all that is lascivious and lazy, all the easy roguery of theworld, to a graceful destruction. They go there, they have their time,they die childless, all the pretty silly lascivious women die childless,and mankind is the better. If the people were sane they would not envythe rich their way of death. And you would emancipate the silly brainlessworkers that we have enslaved, and try to make their lives easy andpleasant again. Just as they have sunk to what they are fit for." Hesmiled a smile that irritated Graham oddly. "You will learn better. Iknow those ideas; in my boyhood I read your Shelley and dreamt ofLiberty. There is no liberty, save wisdom and self-control. Liberty iswithin--not without. It is each man's own affair. Suppose--which isimpossible--that these swarming yelping fools in blue get the upper handof us, what then? They will only fall to other masters. So long as thereare sheep Nature will insist on beasts of prey. It would mean but a fewhundred years' delay. The coming of the aristocrat is fatal and assured.The end will be the Over-man--for all the mad protests of humanity. Letthem revolt, let them win and kill me and my like. Others willarise--other masters. The end will be the same."

  "I wonder," said Graham doggedly.

  For a moment he stood downcast.

  "But I must see these things for myself," he said, suddenly assuming atone of confident mastery. "Only by seeing can I understand. I mustlearn. That is what I want to tell you, Ostrog. I do not want to be Kingin a Pleasure City; that is not my pleasure. I have spent enough timewith aeronautics--and those other things. I must learn how people livenow, how the common life has developed. Then I shall understand thesethings better. I must learn how common people live--the labour peoplemore especially--how they work, marry, bear children, die--"

  "You get that from our realistic novelists," suggested Ostrog, suddenlypreoccupied.

  "I want reality," said Graham.

  "There are difficulties," said Ostrog, and thought. "On the whole--"

  "I did not expect--"

  "I had thought--. And yet perhaps--. You say you want to go through theways of the city and see the common people."

  Suddenly he came to some conclusion. "You would need to go disguised," hesaid. "The city is intensely excited, and the discovery of your presenceamong them might create a fearful tumult. Still this wish of yours to gointo this city--this idea of yours--. Yes, now I think the thing over, itseems to me not altogether--. It can be contrived. If you would reallyfind an interest in that! You are, of course, Master. You can go soon ifyou like. A disguise Asano will be able to manage. He would go with you.After all it is not a bad idea of yours."

  "You will not want to consult me in any matter?" asked Graham suddenly,struck by an odd suspicion.

  "Oh, dear no! No! I think you may trust affairs to me for a time, at anyrate," said Ostrog, smiling. "Even if we differ--"

  Graham glanced at him sharply.

  "There is no fighting likely to happen soon?" he asked abruptly.

  "Certainly not."

  "I have been thinking about these negroes. I don't believe the peopleintend any hostility to me, and, after all, I am the Master. I do notwant any negroes brought to London. It is an archaic prejudice perhaps,but I have peculiar feelings about Europeans and the subject races. Evenabout Paris--"

  Ostrog stood watching him from under his drooping brows. "I am notbringing negroes to London," he said slowly. "But if--"

  "You are not to bring armed negroes to London, whatever happens," saidGraham. "In that matter I am quite decided."

  Ostrog resolved not to speak, and bowed deferentially.