THE HALL OF THE ATLAS
From the moment when the tailor had bowed his farewell to the moment when
Graham found himself in the lift, was altogether barely five minutes. As
yet the haze of his vast interval of sleep hung about him, as yet the
initial strangeness of his being alive at all in this remote age touched
everything with wonder, with a sense of the irrational, with something of
the quality of a realistic dream. He was still detached, an astonished
spectator, still but half involved in life. What he had seen, and
especially the last crowded tumult, framed in the setting of the balcony,
had a spectacular turn, like a thing witnessed from the box of a theatre.
"I don't understand," he said. "What was the trouble? My mind is in a
whirl. Why were they shouting? What is the danger?"
"We have our troubles," said Howard. His eyes avoided Graham's enquiry.
"This is a time of unrest. And, in fact, your appearance, your waking
just now, has a sort of connexion--"
He spoke jerkily, like a man not quite sure of his breathing. He
stopped abruptly.
"I don't understand," said Graham.
"It will be clearer later," said Howard.
He glanced uneasily upward, as though he found the progress of the
lift slow.
"I shall understand better, no doubt, when I have seen my way about a
little," said Graham puzzled. "It will be--it is bound to be perplexing.
At present it is all so strange. Anything seems possible. Anything. In
the details even. Your counting, I understand, is different."
The lift stopped, and they stepped out into a narrow but very long
passage between high walls, along which ran an extraordinary number of
tubes and big cables.
"What a huge place this is!" said Graham. "Is it all one building? What
place is it?"
"This is one of the city ways for various public services. Light and
so forth."
"Was it a social trouble--that--in the great roadway place? How are you
governed? Have you still a police?"
"Several," said Howard.
"Several?"
"About fourteen."
"I don't understand."
"Very probably not. Our social order will probably seem very complex
to you. To tell you the truth, I don't understand it myself very
clearly. Nobody does. You will, perhaps--bye and bye. We have to go to
the Council."
Graham's attention was divided between the urgent necessity of his
inquiries and the people in the passages and halls they were traversing.
For a moment his mind would be concentrated upon Howard and the halting
answers he made, and then he would lose the thread in response to some
vivid unexpected impression. Along the passages, in the halls, half the
people seemed to be men in the red uniform. The pale blue canvas that had
been so abundant in the aisle of moving ways did not appear. Invariably
these men looked at him, and saluted him and Howard as they passed.
He had a clear vision of entering a long corridor, and there were a
number of girls sitting on low seats, as though in a class. He saw no
teacher, but only a novel apparatus from which he fancied a voice
proceeded. The girls regarded him and his conductor, he thought, with
curiosity and astonishment. But he was hurried on before he could form
a clear idea of the gathering. He judged they knew Howard and not
himself, and that they wondered who he was. This Howard, it seemed, was
a person of importance. But then he was also merely Graham's guardian.
That was odd.
There came a passage in twilight, and into this passage a footway hung so
that he could see the feet and ankles of people going to and fro thereon,
but no more of them. Then vague impressions of galleries and of casual
astonished passers-by turning round to stare after the two of them with
their red-clad guard.
The stimulus of the restoratives he had taken was only temporary. He was
speedily fatigued by this excessive haste. He asked Howard to slacken his
speed. Presently he was in a lift that had a window upon the great street
space, but this was glazed and did not open, and they were too high for
him to see the moving platforms below. But he saw people going to and fro
along cables and along strange, frail-looking bridges.
Thence they passed across the street and at a vast height above it. They
crossed by means of a narrow bridge closed in with glass, so clear that
it made him giddy even to remember it. The floor of it also was of glass.
From his memory of the cliffs between New Quay and Boscastle, so remote
in time, and so recent in his experience, it seemed to him that they
must be near four hundred feet above the moving ways. He stopped, looked
down between his legs upon the swarming blue and red multitudes, minute
and foreshortened, struggling and gesticulating still towards the little
balcony far below, a little toy balcony, it seemed, where he had so
recently been standing. A thin haze and the glare of the mighty globes of
light obscured everything. A man seated in a little openwork cradle shot
by from some point still higher than the little narrow bridge, rushing
down a cable as swiftly almost as if he were falling. Graham stopped
involuntarily to watch this strange passenger vanish below, and then his
eyes went back to the tumultuous struggle.
Along one of the faster ways rushed a thick crowd of red spots. This
broke up into individuals as it approached the balcony, and went pouring
down the slower ways towards the dense struggling crowd on the central
area. These men in red appeared to be armed with sticks or truncheons;
they seemed to be striking and thrusting. A great shouting, cries of
wrath, screaming, burst out and came up to Graham, faint and thin. "Go
on," cried Howard, laying hands on him.
Another man rushed down a cable. Graham suddenly glanced up to see whence
he came, and beheld through the glassy roof and the network of cables and
girders, dim rhythmically passing forms like the vanes of windmills, and
between them glimpses of a remote and pallid sky. Then Howard had thrust
him forward across the bridge, and he was in a little narrow passage
decorated with geometrical patterns.
"I want to see more of that," cried Graham, resisting.
"No, no," cried Howard, still gripping his arm. "This way. You must go
this way." And the men in red following them seemed ready to enforce
his orders.
Some negroes in a curious wasp-like uniform of black and yellow appeared
down the passage, and one hastened to throw up a sliding shutter that
had seemed a door to Graham, and led the way through it. Graham found
himself in a gallery overhanging the end of a great chamber. The
attendant in black and yellow crossed this, thrust up a second shutter
and stood waiting.
This place had the appearance of an ante-room. He saw a number of
people in the central space, and at the opposite end a large and
imposing doorway at the top of a flight of steps, heavily curtained but
giving a glimpse of some still larger hall beyond. He perceived white
men in red and other negroes in black and yellow standing stiffly about
those portals.
As they crossed the gallery he heard a whisper from below, "The Sleeper,"
and was aware of a turning of heads, a hum of observation. They entered
another little passage in the wall of this ante-chamber, and then he
found himself on an iron-railed gallery of metal that passed round the
side of the great hall he had already seen through the curtains. He
entered the place at the corner, so that he received the fullest
impression of its huge proportions. The black in the wasp uniform stood
aside like a well-trained servant, and closed the valve behind him.
Compared with any of the places Graham had seen thus far, this second
hall appeared to be decorated with extreme richness. On a pedestal at the
remoter end, and more brilliantly lit than any other object, was a
gigantic white figure of Atlas, strong and strenuous, the globe upon his
bowed shoulders. It was the first thing to strike his attention, it was
so vast, so patiently and painfully real, so white and simple. Save for
this figure and for a dais in the centre, the wide floor of the place was
a shining vacancy. The dais was remote in the greatness of the area; it
would have looked a mere slab of metal had it not been for the group of
seven men who stood about a table on it, and gave an inkling of its
proportions. They were all dressed in white robes, they seemed to have
arisen that moment from their seats, and they were regarding Graham
steadfastly. At the end of the table he perceived the glitter of some
mechanical appliances.
Howard led him along the end gallery until they were opposite this mighty
labouring figure. Then he stopped. The two men in red who had followed
them into the gallery came and stood on either hand of Graham.
"You must remain here," murmured Howard, "for a few moments," and,
without waiting for a reply, hurried away along the gallery.
"But, _why_--?" began Graham.
He moved as if to follow Howard, and found his path obstructed by one of
the men in red. "You have to wait here, Sire," said the man in red.
"_Why_?"
"Orders, Sire."
"Whose orders?"
"Our orders, Sire."
Graham looked his exasperation.
"What place is this?" he said presently. "Who are those men?"
"They are the lords of the Council, Sire."
"What Council?"
"_The_ Council."
"Oh!" said Graham, and after an equally ineffectual attempt at the other
man, went to the railing and stared at the distant men in white, who
stood watching him and whispering together.
The Council? He perceived there were now eight, though how the newcomer
had arrived he had not observed. They made no gestures of greeting; they
stood regarding him as in the nineteenth century a group of men might
have stood in the street regarding a distant balloon that had suddenly
floated into view. What council could it be that gathered there, that
little body of men beneath the significant white Atlas, secluded from
every eavesdropper in this impressive spaciousness? And why should he be
brought to them, and be looked at strangely and spoken of inaudibly?
Howard appeared beneath, walking quickly across the polished floor
towards them. As he drew near he bowed and performed certain peculiar
movements, apparently of a ceremonious nature. Then he ascended the steps
of the dais, and stood by the apparatus at the end of the table.
Graham watched that visible inaudible conversation. Occasionally, one of
the white-robed men would glance towards him. He strained his ears in
vain. The gesticulation of two of the speakers became animated. He
glanced from them to the passive faces of his attendants.... When he
looked again Howard was extending his hands and moving his head like a
man who protests. He was interrupted, it seemed, by one of the
white-robed men rapping the table.
The conversation lasted an interminable time to Graham's sense. His eyes
rose to the still giant at whose feet the Council sat. Thence they
wandered to the walls of the hall. It was decorated in long painted
panels of a quasi-Japanese type, many of them very beautiful. These
panels were grouped in a great and elaborate framing of dark metal,
which passed into the metallic caryatidae of the galleries, and the
great structural lines of the interior. The facile grace of these panels
enhanced the mighty white effort that laboured in the centre of the
scheme. Graham's eyes came back to the Council, and Howard was
descending the steps. As he drew nearer his features could be
distinguished, and Graham saw that he was flushed and blowing out his
cheeks. His countenance was still disturbed when presently he reappeared
along the gallery.
"This way," he said concisely, and they went on in silence to a little
door that opened at their approach. The two men in red stopped on either
side of this door. Howard and Graham passed in, and Graham, glancing
back, saw the white-robed Council still standing in a close group and
looking at him. Then the door closed behind him with a heavy thud, and
for the first time since his awakening he was in silence. The floor,
even, was noiseless to his feet.
Howard opened another door, and they were in the first of two contiguous
chambers furnished in white and green. "What Council was that?" began
Graham. "What were they discussing? What have they to do with me?" Howard
closed the door carefully, heaved a huge sigh, and said something in an
undertone. He walked slantingways across the room and turned, blowing out
his cheeks again. "Ugh!" he grunted, a man relieved.
Graham stood regarding him.
"You must understand," began Howard abruptly, avoiding Graham's eyes,
"that our social order is very complex. A half explanation, a bare
unqualified statement would give you false impressions. As a matter of
fact--it is a case of compound interest partly--your small fortune, and
the fortune of your cousin Warming which was left to you--and certain
other beginnings--have become very considerable. And in other ways that
will be hard for you to understand, you have become a person of
significance--of very considerable significance--involved in the
world's affairs."
He stopped.
"Yes?" said Graham.
"We have grave social troubles."
"Yes?"
"Things have come to such a pass that, in fact, it is advisable to
seclude you here."
"Keep me prisoner!" exclaimed Graham.
"Well--to ask you to keep in seclusion."
Graham turned on him. "This is strange!" he said.
"No harm will be done you."
"No harm!"
"But you must be kept here--"
"While I learn my position, I presume."
"Precisely."
"Very well then. Begin. Why _harm_?"
"Not now."
"Why not?"
"It is too long a story, Sire."
"All the more reason I should begin at once. You say I am a person of
importance. What was that shouting I heard? Why is a great multitude
shouting and excited because my trance is over, and who are the men in
white in that huge council chamber?"
"All in good time, Sire," said Howard. "But not crudely, not crudely.
This is one of those flimsy times when no man has a settled mind. Your
awakening--no one expected your awakening. The Council is consulting."
"What council?"
"The Council you saw."
Graham made a petulant movement. "This is not right," he said. "I should
be told what is happening."
"You must wait. Really you must wait."
Graham sat down abruptly. "I suppose since I have waited so long to
resume life," he said, "that I must wait a little longer."
"That is better," said Howard. "Yes, that is much better. And I must
leave you alone. For a space. While I attend the discussion in the
Council.... I am sorry."
He went towards the noiseless door, hesitated and vanished.
Graham walked to the door, tried it, found it securely fastened in some
way he never came to understand, turned about, paced the room restlessly,
made the circuit of the room, and sat down. He remained sitting for some
time with folded arms and knitted brow, biting his finger nails and
trying to piece together the kaleidoscopic impressions of this first hour
of awakened life; the vast mechanical spaces, the endless series of
chambers and passages, the great struggle that roared and splashed
through these strange ways, the little group of remote unsympathetic men
beneath the colossal Atlas, Howard's mysterious behaviour. There was an
inkling of some vast inheritance already in his mind--a vast inheritance
perhaps misapplied--of some unprecedented importance and opportunity.
What had he to do? And this room's secluded silence was eloquent of
imprisonment!
It came into Graham's mind with irresistible conviction that this series
of magnificent impressions was a dream. He tried to shut his eyes and
succeeded, but that time-honoured device led to no awakening.
Presently he began to touch and examine all the unfamiliar appointments
of the two small rooms in which he found himself.
In a long oval panel of mirror he saw himself and stopped astonished. He
was clad in a graceful costume of purple and bluish white, with a little
greyshot beard trimmed to a point, and his hair, its blackness streaked
now with bands of grey, arranged over his forehead in an unfamiliar but
pleasing manner. He seemed a man of five-and-forty perhaps. For a moment
he did not perceive this was himself.
A flash of laughter came with the recognition. "To call on old Warming
like this!" he exclaimed, "and make him take me out to lunch!"
Then he thought of meeting first one and then another of the few familiar
acquaintances of his early manhood, and in the midst of his amusement
realised that every soul with whom he might jest had died many score of
years ago. The thought smote him abruptly and keenly; he stopped short,
the expression of his face changed to a white consternation.
The tumultuous memory of the moving platforms and the huge façade of that
wonderful street reasserted itself. The shouting multitudes came back
clear and vivid, and those remote, inaudible, unfriendly councillors in
white. He felt himself a little figure, very small and ineffectual,
pitifully conspicuous. And all about him, the world was--_strange_.