When the Sleeper Wakes | Page 7

rebuilding, the dim first stirrings of the soul, the growth and synthesis
of the unconscious to the subconscious, the sub-conscious to dawning
consciousness, until at last we recognise ourselves again. And as it
happens to most of us after the night's sleep, so it was with Graham at
the end of his vast slumber. A dim cloud of sensation taking shape, a

cloudy dreariness, and he found himself vaguely somewhere,
recumbent, faint, but alive.
The pilgrimage towards a personal being seemed to traverse vast gulfs,
to occupy epochs. Gigantic dreams that were terrible realities at the
time, left vague perplexing memories, strange creatures, strange
scenery, as if from another planet. There was a distinct impression, too,
of a momentous conversation, of a name -- he could not tell what name
-- that was subsequently to recur, of some queer long-forgotten
sensation of vein and muscle, of a feeling of vast hopeless effort, the
effort of a man near drowning in darkness. Then came a panorama of
dazzling unstable confluent scenes.
Graham became aware his eyes were open and regarding some
unfamiliar thing.
It was something white, the edge of something, a frame of wood. He
moved his head slightly, following the contour of this shape. It went up
beyond the top of his eyes. He tried to think where he might be. Did it
matter, seeing he was so wretched? The colour of his thoughts was a
dark depression. He felt the featureless misery of one who wakes
towards the hour of dawn. He had an uncertain sense of whispers and
footsteps hastily receding.
The movement of his head involved a perception of extreme physical
weakness. He supposed he was in bed in the hotel at the place in the
valley -- but he could not recall that white edge. He must have slept. He
remembered now that he had wanted to sleep. He recalled the cliff and
waterfall again, and then recollected something about talking to a
passer-by.
How long had he slept? What was that sound of pattering feet? And
that rise and fall, like the murmur of breakers on pebbles? He put out a
languid hand to reach his watch from the chair whereon it was his habit
to place it, and touched some smooth hard surface like glass. This was
so unexpected that it startled him extremely. Quite suddenly he rolled
over, stared for a moment, and struggled into a sitting position. The
effort was unexpectedly difficult, and it left him giddy and weak -- and

amazed.
He rubbed his eyes. The riddle of his surroundings was confusing but
his mind was quite clear -- evidently his sleep had benefited him. He
was not in a bed at all as he understood the word, but lying naked on a
very soft and yielding mattress, in a trough of dark glass. The mattress
was partly transparent, a fact he observed with a strange sense of
insecurity, and below it was a mirror reflecting him greyly. About his
arm -- and he saw with a shock that his skin was strangely dry and
yellow -- was bound a curious apparatus of rubber, bound so cunningly
that it seemed to pass into his skin above and below. And this strange
bed was placed in a case of greenish coloured glass (as it seemed to
him), a bar in the white framework of which had first arrested his
attention. In the corner of the case was a stand of glittering and
delicately made apparatus, for the most part quite strange appliances,
though a maximum and minimum thermometer was recognisable.
The slightly greenish tint of the glass-like substance which surrounded
him on every hand obscured what lay behind, but he perceived it was a
vast apartment of splendid appearance, and with a very large and
simple white archway facing him. Close to the walls of the cage were
articles of furniture, a table covered with a silvery cloth, silvery like the
side of a fish, a couple of graceful chairs, and on the table a number of
dishes with substances piled on them, a bottle and two glasses. He
realised that he was intensely hungry.
He could see no human being, and after a period of hesitation
scrambled off the translucent mattress and tried to stand on the clean
white floor of his little apartment. He had miscalculated his strength,
however, and staggered and put his hand against the glasslike pane
before him to steady himself. For a moment it resisted his hand,
bending outward like a distended bladder, then it broke with a slight
report and vanished -- a pricked bubble. He reeled out into the general
space of the hall, greatly astonished. He caught at the table to save
himself, knocking one of the glasses to the floor -- it rang