by H. G. Wells
CHAPTER XVII
THREE DAYS
Lincoln awaited Graham in an apartment beneath the flying stages. Heseemed curious to learn all that had happened, pleased to hear of theextraordinary delight and interest which Graham took in flying. Grahamwas in a mood of enthusiasm. "I must learn to fly," he cried. "I mustmaster that. I pity all poor souls who have died without thisopportunity. The sweet swift air! It is the most wonderful experience inthe world."
"You will find our new times full of wonderful experiences," saidLincoln. "I do not know what you will care to do now. We have music thatmay seem novel."
"For the present," said Graham, "flying holds me. Let me learn more ofthat. Your aeronaut was saying there is some trades union objection toone's learning."
"There is, I believe," said Lincoln. "But for you--! If you would like tooccupy yourself with that, we can make you a sworn aeronaut to-morrow."
Graham expressed his wishes vividly and talked of his sensations fora while. "And as for affairs," he asked abruptly. "How are thingsgoing on?"
Lincoln waved affairs aside. "Ostrog will tell you that to-morrow,"he said. "Everything is settling down. The Revolution accomplishesitself all over the world. Friction is inevitable here and there, ofcourse; but your rule is assured. You may rest secure with things inOstrog's hands."
"Would it be possible for me to be made a sworn aeronaut, as you call it,forthwith--before I sleep?" said Graham, pacing. "Then I could be at itthe very first thing to-morrow again...."
"It would be possible," said Lincoln thoughtfully. "Quite possible.Indeed, it shall be done." He laughed. "I came prepared to suggestamusements, but you have found one for yourself. I will telephone to theaeronautical offices from here and we will return to your apartments inthe Wind-Vane Control. By the time you have dined the aeronauts will beable to come. You don't think that after you have dined you mightprefer--?" He paused.
"Yes," said Graham.
"We had prepared a show of dancers--they have been brought from theCapri theatre."
"I hate ballets," said Graham, shortly. "Always did. That other--. That'snot what I want to see. We had dancers in the old days. For the matter ofthat, they had them in ancient Egypt. But flying--"
"True," said Lincoln. "Though our dancers--"
"They can afford to wait," said Graham; "they can afford to wait. I know.I'm not a Latin. There's questions I want to ask some expert--about yourmachinery. I'm keen. I want no distractions."
"You have the world to choose from," said Lincoln; "whatever you wantis yours."
Asano appeared, and under the escort of a strong guard they returnedthrough the city streets to Graham's apartments. Far larger crowds hadassembled to witness his return than his departure had gathered, andthe shouts and cheering of these masses of people sometimes drownedLincoln's answers to the endless questions Graham's aerial journey hadsuggested. At first Graham had acknowledged the cheering and cries ofthe crowd by bows and gestures, but Lincoln warned him that such arecognition would be considered incorrect behaviour. Graham, already alittle wearied by rhythmic civilities, ignored his subjects for theremainder of his public progress.
Directly they arrived at his apartments Asano departed in search ofkinematographic renderings of machinery in motion, and Lincoln despatchedGraham's commands for models of machines and small machines to illustratethe various mechanical advances of the last two centuries. The littlegroup of appliances for telegraphic communication attracted the Master sostrongly that his delightfully prepared dinner, served by a number ofcharmingly dexterous girls, waited for a space. The habit of smoking hadalmost ceased from the face of the earth, but when he expressed a wishfor that indulgence, enquiries were made and some excellent cigars werediscovered in Florida, and sent to him by pneumatic despatch while thedinner was still in progress. Afterwards came the aeronauts, and a feastof ingenious wonders in the hands of a latter-day engineer. For the time,at any rate, the neat dexterity of counting and numbering machines,building machines, spinning engines, patent doorways, explosive motors,grain and water elevators, slaughter-house machines and harvestingappliances, was more fascinating to Graham than any bayadere. "We weresavages," was his refrain, "we were savages. We were in the stoneage--compared with this.... And what else have you?"
There came also practical psychologists with some very interestingdevelopments in the art of hypnotism. The names of Milne Bramwell,Fechner, Liebault, William James, Myers and Gurney, he found, bore avalue now that would have astonished their contemporaries. Severalpractical applications of psychology were now in general use; it hadlargely superseded drugs, antiseptics and anesthetics in medicine; wasemployed by almost all who had any need of mental concentration. A realenlargement of human faculty seemed to have been effected in thisdirection. The feats of "calculating boys," the wonders, as Graham hadbeen wont to regard them, of mesmerisers, were now within the range ofanyone who could afford the services of a skilled hypnotist. Long agothe old examination methods in education had been destroyed by theseexpedients. Instead of years of study, candidates had substituted a fewweeks of trances, and during the trances expert coaches had simply torepeat all the points necessary for adequate answering, adding asuggestion of the post-hypnotic recollection of these points. In processmathematics particularly, this aid had been of singular service, and itwas now invariably invoked by such players of chess and games of manualdexterity as were still to be found. In fact, all operations conductedunder finite rules, of a quasi-mechanical sort that is, were nowsystematically relieved from the wanderings of imagination and emotion,and brought to an unexampled pitch of accuracy. Little children of thelabouring classes, so soon as they were of sufficient age to behypnotised, were thus converted into beautifully punctual andtrustworthy machine minders, and released forthwith from the long, longthoughts of youth. Aeronautical pupils, who gave way to giddiness,could be relieved from their imaginary terrors. In every street werehypnotists ready to print permanent memories upon the mind. If anyonedesired to remember a name, a series of numbers, a song or a speech, itcould be done by this method, and conversely memories could be effaced,habits removed, and desires eradicated--a sort of psychic surgery was,in fact, in general use. Indignities, humbling experiences, were thusforgotten, widows would obliterate their previous husbands, angry loversrelease themselves from their slavery. To graft desires, however, wasstill impossible, and the facts of thought transference were yetunsystematised. The psychologists illustrated their expositions withsome astounding experiments in mnemonics made through the agency of atroupe of pale-faced children in blue.
Graham, like most of the people of his former time, distrusted thehypnotist, or he might then and there have eased his mind of many painfulpreoccupations. But in spite of Lincoln's assurances he held to the oldtheory that to be hypnotised was in some way the surrender of hispersonality, the abdication of his will. At the banquet of wonderfulexperiences that was beginning, he wanted very keenly to remainabsolutely himself.
The next day, and another day, and yet another day passed in suchinterests as these. Each day Graham spent many hours in the gloriousentertainment of flying. On the third, he soared across middle France,and within sight of the snow-clad Alps. These vigorous exercises gave himrestful sleep; he recovered almost wholly from the spiritless anemia ofhis first awakening. And whenever he was not in the air, and awake,Lincoln was assiduous in the cause of his amusement; all that was noveland curious in contemporary invention was brought to him, until at lasthis appetite for novelty was well-nigh glutted. One might fill a dozeninconsecutive volumes with the strange things they exhibited. Eachafternoon he held his court for an hour or so. He found his interest inhis contemporaries becoming personal and intimate. At first he had beenalert chiefly for unfamiliarity and peculiarity; any foppishness in theirdress, any discordance with his preconceptions of nobility in theirstatus and manners had jarred upon him, and it was remarkable to him howsoon that strangeness and the faint hostility that arose from it,disappeared; how soon he came to
appreciate the true perspective of hisposition, and see the old Victorian days remote and quaint. He foundhimself particularly amused by the red-haired daughter of the Manager ofthe European Piggeries. On the second day after dinner he made theacquaintance of a latter-day dancing girl, and found her an astonishingartist. And after that, more hypnotic wonders. On the third day Lincolnwas moved to suggest that the Master should repair to a Pleasure City,but this Graham declined, nor would he accept the services of thehypnotists in his aeronautical experiments. The link of locality held himto London; he found a delight in topographical identifications that hewould have missed abroad. "Here--or a hundred feet below here," he couldsay, "I used to eat my midday cutlets during my London University days.Underneath here was Waterloo and the tiresome hunt for confusing trains.Often have I stood waiting down there, bag in hand, and stared up intothe sky above the forest of signals, little thinking I should walk someday a hundred yards in the air. And now in that very sky that was once agrey smoke canopy, I circle in a monoplane."
During those three days Graham was so occupied with these distractionsthat the vast political movements in progress outside his quarters hadbut a small share of his attention. Those about him told him little.Daily came Ostrog, the Boss, his Grand Vizier, his mayor of the palace,to report in vague terms the steady establishment of his rule; "a littletrouble" soon to be settled in this city, "a slight disturbance" in that.The song of the social revolt came to him no more; he never learned thatit had been forbidden in the municipal limits; and all the great emotionsof the crow's nest slumbered in his mind.
But on the second and third of the three days he found himself, in spiteof his interest in the daughter of the Pig Manager, or it may be byreason of the thoughts her conversation suggested, remembering the girlHelen Wotton, who had spoken to him so oddly at the Wind-Vane Keeper'sgathering. The impression, she had made was a deep one, albeit theincessant surprise of novel circumstances had kept him from brooding uponit for a space. But now her memory was coming to its own. He wonderedwhat she had meant by those broken half-forgotten sentences; the pictureof her eyes and the earnest passion of her face became more vivid as hismechanical interests faded. Her slender beauty came compellingly betweenhim and certain immediate temptations of ignoble passion. But he did notsee her again until three full days were past.