The Sleeper Awakes Part 26

"Nowadays there are no workhouses, no refuges and charities, nothing but that Department. Its offices are everywhere. That blue is its colour. And any man, woman or child who comes to be hungry and weary and with neither home nor friend nor resort, must go to the Department in the end--or seek some way of death. The Euthanasy is beyond their means--for the poor there is no easy death. And at any hour in the day or night there is food, shelter and a blue uniform for all comers--that is the first condition of the Department's incorporation--and in return for a day's shelter the Department extracts a day's work, and then returns the visitor's proper clothing and sends him or her out again."

"Yes?"

"Perhaps that does not seem so terrible to you. In your time men starved in your streets. That was bad. But they died--_men_. These people in blue--. The proverb runs: 'Blue canvas once and ever.' The Department trades in their labour, and it has taken care to a.s.sure itself of the supply. People come to it starving and helpless--they eat and sleep for a night and day, they work for a day, and at the end of the day they go out again. If they have worked well they have a penny or so--enough for a theatre or a cheap dancing place, or a kinematograph story, or a dinner or a bet. They wander about after that is spent. Begging is prevented by the police of the ways. Besides, no one gives. They come back again the next day or the day after--brought back by the same incapacity that brought them first. At last their proper clothing wears out, or their rags get so shabby that they are ashamed. Then they must work for months to get fresh. If they want fresh. A great number of children are born under the Department's care. The mother owes them a month thereafter--the children they cherish and educate until they are fourteen, and they pay two years' service. You may be sure these children are educated for the blue canvas. And so it is the Department works."

"And none are dest.i.tute in the city?"

"None. They are either in blue canvas or in prison. We have abolished dest.i.tution. It is engraved upon the Department's checks."

"If they will not work?"

"Most people will work at that pitch, and the Department has powers.

There are stages of unpleasantness in the work--stoppage of food--and a man or woman who has refused to work once is known by a thumb-marking system in the Department's offices all over the world. Besides, who can leave the city poor? To go to Paris costs two Lions. And for insubordination there are the prisons--dark and miserable--out of sight below. There are prisons now for many things."

"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 hards.h.i.+ps. 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 s.p.a.ce 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.

There came a tense silence, and then the beating of a clock striking the hour. 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."

They regarded one another steadfastly, questioningly, and then he turned from her towards the Wind-Vane office.

CHAPTER XIX

OSTROG'S POINT OF VIEW

Graham found Ostrog waiting to give a formal account of his day's stewards.h.i.+p. On previous occasions he had pa.s.sed 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 Department?"

"You are learning," said Ostrog with a touch of surprise. "Yes. It is chiefly the discontent with the Labour Department. 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--"