When the Sleeper Wakes Read online

  Produced by John Bean

  WHEN THE SLEEPER WAKES

  By Herbert George Wells

  CHAPTER I. INSOMNIA

  One afternoon, at low water, Mr. Isbister, a young artist lodging atBoscastle, walked from that place to the picturesque cove of Pentargen,desiring to examine the caves there. Halfway down the precipitouspath to the Pentargen beach he came suddenly upon a man sitting in anattitude of profound distress beneath a projecting mass of rock. Thehands of this man hung limply over his knees, his eyes were red andstaring before him, and his face was wet with tears.

  He glanced round at Isbister's footfall. Both men were disconcerted,Isbister the more so, and, to override the awkwardness of hisinvoluntary pause, he remarked, with an air of mature conviction, thatthe weather was hot for the time of year.

  "Very," answered the stranger shortly, hesitated a second, and added ina colourless tone, "I can't sleep."

  Isbister stopped abruptly. "No?" was all he said, but his bearingconveyed his helpful impulse.

  "It may sound incredible," said the stranger, turning weary eyes toIsbister's face and emphasizing his words with a languid hand, "but Ihave had no sleep--no sleep at all for six nights."

  "Had advice?"

  "Yes. Bad advice for the most part. Drugs. My nervous system.... Theyare all very well for the run of people. It's hard to explain. I darenot take... sufficiently powerful drugs."

  "That makes it difficult," said Isbister.

  He stood helplessly in the narrow path, perplexed what to do. Clearlythe man wanted to talk. An idea natural enough under the circumstances,prompted him to keep the conversation going. "I've never suffered fromsleeplessness myself," he said in a tone of commonplace gossip, "but inthose cases I have known, people have usually found something--"

  "I dare make no experiments."

  He spoke wearily. He gave a gesture of rejection, and for a space bothmen were silent.

  "Exercise?" suggested Isbister diffidently, with a glance from hisinterlocutor's face of wretchedness to the touring costume he wore.

  "That is what I have tried. Unwisely perhaps. I have followed the coast,day after day--from New Quay. It has only added muscular fatigue tothe mental. The cause of this unrest was overwork--trouble. There wassomething--"

  He stopped as if from sheer fatigue. He rubbed his forehead with a leanhand. He resumed speech like one who talks to himself.

  "I am a lone wolf, a solitary man, wandering through a world in whichI have no part. I am wifeless--childless--who is it speaks of thechildless as the dead twigs on the tree of life? I am wifeless, Ichildless--I could find no duty to do. No desire even in my heart. Onething at last I set myself to do.

  "I said, I will do this, and to do it, to overcome the inertia of thisdull body, I resorted to drugs. Great God, I've had enough of drugs!I don't know if _you_ feel the heavy inconvenience of the body, itsexasperating demand of time from the mind--time--life! Live! We onlylive in patches. We have to eat, and then comes the dull digestivecomplacencies--or irritations. We have to take the air or else ourthoughts grow sluggish, stupid, run into gulfs and blind alleys. Athousand distractions arise from within and without, and then comesdrowsiness and sleep. Men seem to live for sleep. How little of a man'sday is his own--even at the best! And then come those false friends,those Thug helpers, the alkaloids that stifle natural fatigue and killrest--black coffee, cocaine--"

  "I see," said Isbister.

  "I did my work," said the sleepless man with a querulous intonation.

  "And this is the price?"

  "Yes."

  For a little while the two remained without speaking.

  "You cannot imagine the craving for rest that I feel--a hunger andthirst. For six long days, since my work was done, my mind has been awhirlpool, swift, unprogressive and incessant, a torrent of thoughtsleading nowhere, spinning round swift and steady--"

  He paused. "Towards the gulf."

  "You must sleep," said Isbister decisively, and with an air of a remedydiscovered. "Certainly you must sleep."

  "My mind is perfectly lucid. It was never clearer. But I know I amdrawing towards the vortex. Presently--"

  "Yes?"

  "You have seen things go down an eddy? Out of the light of the day, outof this sweet world of sanity--down--"

  "But," expostulated Isbister.

  The man threw out a hand towards him, and his eyes were wild, and hisvoice suddenly high. "I shall kill myself. If in no other way--at thefoot of yonder dark precipice there, where the waves are green, and thewhite surge lifts and falls, and that little thread of water tremblesdown. There at any rate is ... sleep."

  "That's unreasonable," said Isbister, startled at the man's hystericalgust of emotion. "Drugs are better than that."

  "There at any rate is sleep," repeated the stranger, not heeding him.

  Isbister looked at him and wondered transitorily if some complexProvidence had indeed brought them together that afternoon. "It's nota cert, you know," he remarked. "There's a cliff like that at LulworthCove--as high, anyhow--and a little girl fell from top to bottom. Andlives to-day--sound and well."

  "But those rocks there?"

  "One might lie on them rather dismally through a cold night, brokenbones grating as one shivered, chill water splashing over you. Eh?"

  Their eyes met. "Sorry to upset your ideals," said Isbister with a senseof devil-may-careish brilliance.

  "But a suicide over that cliff (or any cliff for the matter of that),really, as an artist--" He laughed. "It's so damned amateurish."

  "But the other thing," said the sleepless man irritably, "the otherthing. No man can keep sane if night after night--"

  "Have you been walking along this coast alone?"

  "Yes."

  "Silly sort of thing to do. If you'll excuse my saying so. Alone! Asyou say; body fag is no cure for brain fag. Who told you to? No wonder;walking! And the sun on your head, heat, fag, solitude, all the daylong, and then, I suppose, you go to bed and try very hard--eh?"

  Isbister stopped short and looked at the sufferer doubtfully.

  "Look at these rocks!" cried the seated man with a sudden force ofgesture. "Look at that sea that has shone and quivered there for ever!See the white spume rush into darkness under that great cliff. And thisblue vault, with the blinding sun pouring from the dome of it. It isyour world. You accept it, you rejoice in it. It warms and supports anddelights you. And for me--"

  He turned his head and showed a ghastly face, bloodshot pallid eyes andbloodless lips. He spoke almost in a whisper. "It is the garment of mymisery. The whole world... is the garment of my misery."

  Isbister looked at all the wild beauty of the sunlit cliffs about themand back to that face of despair. For a moment he was silent.

  He started, and made a gesture of impatient rejection. "You get anight's sleep," he said, "and you won't see much misery out here. Takemy word for it."

  He was quite sure now that this was a providential encounter. Only halfan hour ago he had been feeling horribly bored. Here was employment thebare thought of which was righteous self-applause. He took possessionforthwith. It seemed to him that the first need of this exhausted beingwas companionship He flung himself down on the steeply sloping turfbeside the motionless seated figure, and deployed forthwith into askirmishing line of gossip.

  His hearer seemed to have lapsed into apathy; he stared dismallyseaward, and spoke only in answer to Isbister's direct questions--andnot to all of those. But he made no sign of objection to this benevolentintrusion upon his despair.

  In a helpless way he seemed even grateful, and when presently Isbister,feeling that his unsupported talk was losing vigour, suggested that theyshould reascend the steep and return towards Boscastle, alleging
theview into Blackapit, he submitted quietly. Halfway up he began talkingto himself, and abruptly turned a ghastly face on his helper. "What canbe happening?" he asked with a gaunt illustrative hand. "What can behappening? Spin, spin, spin, spin. It goes round and round, round andround for evermore."

  He stood with his hand circling

  "It's all right, old chap," said Isbister with the air of an old friend."Don't worry yourself. Trust to me."

  The man dropped his hand and turned again. They went over the brow insingle file and to the headland beyond Penally, with the sleepless mangesticulating ever and again, and speaking fragmentary things concerninghis whirling brain. At the headland they stood for a space by the seatthat looks into the dark mysteries of Blackapit, and then he sat down.Isbister had resumed his talk whenever the path had widened sufficientlyfor them to walk abreast. He was enlarging upon the complex difficultyof making Boscastle Harbour in bad weather, when suddenly and quiteirrelevantly his companion interrupted him again.

  "My head is not like what it was," he said, gesticulating for wantof expressive phrases. "It's not like what it was. There is a sort ofoppression, a weight. No--not drowsiness, would God it were! It is likea shadow, a deep shadow falling suddenly and swiftly across somethingbusy. Spin, spin into the darkness. The tumult of thought, the confusion,the eddy and eddy. I can't express it. I can hardly keep my mind onit--steadily enough to tell you."

  He stopped feebly.

  "Don't trouble, old chap," said Isbister. "I think I can understand. Atany rate, it don't matter very much just at present about telling me,you know."

  The sleepless man thrust his knuckles into his eyes and rubbed them.Isbister talked for awhile while this rubbing continued, and then he hada fresh idea. "Come down to my room," he said, "and try a pipe. I canshow you some sketches of this Blackapit. If you'd care?"

  The other rose obediently and followed him down the steep.

  Several times Isbister heard him stumble as they came down, and hismovements were slow and hesitating. "Come in with me," said Isbister,"and try some cigarettes and the blessed gift of alcohol. If you takealcohol?"

  The stranger hesitated at the garden gate. He seemed no longer clearlyaware of his actions. "I don't drink," he said slowly, coming up thegarden path, and after a moment's interval repeated absently, "No--Idon't drink. It goes round. Spin, it goes--spin--"

  He stumbled at the doorstep and entered the room with the bearing of onewho sees nothing.

  Then he sat down abruptly and heavily in the easy chair, seemed almostto fall into it. He leant forward with his brows on his hands and becamemotionless.

  Presently he made a faint sound in his throat. Isbister moved aboutthe room with the nervousness of an inexperienced host, making littleremarks that scarcely required answering. He crossed the room to hisportfolio, placed it on the table and noticed the mantel clock.

  "I don't know if you'd care to have supper with me," he said with anunlighted cigarette in his hand--his mind troubled with a design ofthe furtive administration of chloral. "Only cold mutton, you know, butpassing sweet. Welsh. And a tart, I believe." He repeated this aftermomentary silence.

  The seated man made no answer. Isbister stopped, match in hand,regarding him.

  The stillness lengthened. The match went out, the cigarette was put downunlit. The man was certainly very still. Isbister took up the portfolio,opened it, put it down, hesitated, seemed about to speak. "Perhaps," hewhispered doubtfully. Presently he glanced at the door and back tothe figure. Then he stole on tiptoe out of the room, glancing at hiscompanion after each elaborate pace.

  He closed the door noiselessly. The house door was standing open, andhe went out beyond the porch, and stood where the monkshood rose atthe corner of the garden bed. From this point he could see the strangerthrough the open window, still and dim, sitting head on hand. He had notmoved.

  A number of children going along the road stopped and regarded theartist curiously. A boatman exchanged civilities with him. He feltthat possibly his circumspect attitude and position seemed peculiar andunaccountable. Smoking, perhaps, might seem more natural. He drew pipeand pouch from his pocket, filled the pipe slowly.

  "I wonder,"... he said, with a scarcely perceptible loss of complacency."At any rate we must give him a chance." He struck a match in the virileway, and proceeded to light his pipe.

  Presently he heard his landlady behind him, coming with his lamp litfrom the kitchen. He turned, gesticulating with his pipe, and stoppedher at the door of his sitting-room. He had some difficulty inexplaining the situation in whispers, for she did not know he had avisitor. She retreated again with the lamp, still a little mystified tojudge from her manner, and he resumed his hovering at the corner of theporch, flushed and less at his ease.

  Long after he had smoked out his pipe, and when the bats were abroad,his curiosity dominated his complex hesitations, and he stole back intohis darkling sitting-room. He paused in the doorway. The strangerwas still in the same attitude, dark against the window. Save for thesinging of some sailors aboard one of the little slate-carrying shipsin the harbour, the evening was very still. Outside, the spikes ofmonkshood and delphinium stood erect and motionless against the shadowof the hillside. Something flashed into Isbister's mind; he started, andleaning over the table, listened. An unpleasant suspicion grew stronger;became conviction. Astonishment seized him and became--dread!

  No sound of breathing came from the seated figure!

  He crept slowly and noiselessly round the table, pausing twice tolisten. At last he could lay his hand on the back of the armchair. Hebent down until the two heads were ear to ear.

  Then he bent still lower to look up at his visitor's face. He startedviolently and uttered an exclamation. The eyes were void spaces ofwhite.

  He looked again and saw that they were open and with the pupils rolledunder the lids. He was suddenly afraid. Overcome by the strangeness ofthe man's condition, he took him by the shoulder and shook him. "Are youasleep?" he said, with his voice jumping into alto, and again, "Are youasleep?"

  A conviction took possession of his mind that this man was dead. Hesuddenly became active and noisy, strode across the room, blunderingagainst the table as he did so, and rang the bell.

  "Please bring a light at once," he said in the passage. "There issomething wrong with my friend."

  Then he returned to the motionless seated figure, grasped the shoulder,shook it, and shouted. The room was flooded with yellow glare as hisastonished landlady entered with the light. His face was white as heturned blinking towards her. "I must fetch a doctor at once," he said."It is either death or a fit. Is there a doctor in the village? Where isa doctor to be found?"