Looking Backward | Page 8

tingle. It was agreed that affairs
were going from bad to worse very fast, and that there was no telling what we should
come to soon. "The worst of it," I remember Mrs. Bartlett's saying, "is that the working
classes all over the world seem to be going crazy at once. In Europe it is far worse even
than here. I'm sure I should not dare to live there at all. I asked Mr. Bartlett the other day

where we should emigrate to if all the terrible things took place which those socialists
threaten. He said he did not know any place now where society could be called stable
except Greenland, Patago- nia, and the Chinese Empire." "Those Chinamen knew what
they were about," somebody added, "when they refused to let in our western civilization.
They knew what it would lead to better than we did. They saw it was nothing but
dynamite in disguise."
After this, I remember drawing Edith apart and trying to persuade her that it would be
better to be married at once without waiting for the completion of the house, spending the
time in travel till our home was ready for us. She was remarkably handsome that evening,
the mourning costume that she wore in recognition of the day setting off to great
advantage the purity of her complexion. I can see her even now with my mind's eye just
as she looked that night. When I took my leave she followed me into the hall and I kissed
her good-by as usual. There was no circumstance out of the common to distinguish this
parting from previous occasions when we had bade each other good-by for a night or a
day. There was absolutely no premonition in my mind, or I am sure in hers, that this was
more than an ordinary separation.
Ah, well!
The hour at which I had left my betrothed was a rather early one for a lover, but the fact
was no reflection on my devotion. I was a confirmed sufferer from insomnia, and
although otherwise perfectly well had been completely fagged out that day, from having
slept scarcely at all the two previous nights. Edith knew this and had insisted on sending
me home by nine o'clock, with strict orders to go to bed at once.
The house in which I lived had been occupied by three generations of the family of which
I was the only living representative in the direct line. It was a large, ancient wooden
mansion, very elegant in an old-fashioned way within, but situated in a quarter that had
long since become undesirable for residence, from its invasion by tenement houses and
manufactories. It was not a house to which I could think of bringing a bride, much less so
dainty a one as Edith Bartlett. I had advertised it for sale, and meanwhile merely used it
for sleeping purposes, dining at my club. One servant, a faithful colored man by the name
of Sawyer, lived with me and attended to my few wants. One feature of the house I
expected to miss greatly when I should leave it, and this was the sleeping chamber which
I had built under the foundations. I could not have slept in the city at all, with its never
ceasing nightly noises, if I had been obliged to use an upstairs chamber. But to this
subterranean room no murmur from the upper world ever penetrated. When I had entered
it and closed the door, I was surrounded by the silence of the tomb. In order to prevent
the dampness of the subsoil from penetrating the chamber, the walls had been laid in
hydraulic cement and were very thick, and the floor was likewise protected. In order that
the room might serve also as a vault equally proof against violence and flames, for the
storage of valuables, I had roofed it with stone slabs hermetically sealed, and the outer
door was of iron with a thick coating of asbestos. A small pipe, communicating with a
wind-mill on the top of the house, insured the renewal of air.
It might seem that the tenant of such a chamber ought to be able to command slumber,

but it was rare that I slept well, even there, two nights in succession. So accustomed was I
to wakefulness that I minded little the loss of one night's rest. A second night, however,
spent in my reading chair instead of my bed, tired me out, and I never allowed myself to
go longer than that without slumber, from fear of nervous disorder. From this statement it
will be inferred that I had at my command some artificial means for inducing sleep in the
last resort, and so in fact I had. If after two sleepless nights