"Herbert George Wells. When the Sleeper Wakes" - читать интересную книгу автора

"And while he has been Iying here," said Isbister, with the zest of a life
freely spent, " I have changed my plans in life; married, raised a family,
my eldest ladI hadn't begun to think of sons then-is an American citizen,
and looking forward to leaving Harvard. There's a touch of grey in my hair.
And this man, not a day older nor wiser (practically) than I was in my
downy days. It's curious to think of."

Warming turned. "And I have grown old too. I played cricket with him when I
was still only a lad. And he looks a young man still. Yellow perhaps. But
that is a young man nevertheless."

"And there's been the War," said Isbister.

"From beginning to end."

"And these Martians."

"I've understood," said Isbister after a pause, "that he had some moderate
property of his own?"

"That is so," said Warming. He coughed primly. "As it happens- have charge
of it."

" Ah!" Isbister thought, hesitated and spoke: "No doubt-his keep here is
not expensive-no doubt it will have improved-accumulated?"

"It has. He will wake up very much better offif he wakes-than when he
slept."

"As a business man," said Isbister, "that thought has naturally been in my
mind. I have, indeed, sometimes thought that, speaking commercially, of
course, this sleep may be a very good thing for him. That he knows what he
is about, so to speak, in being insensible so long. If he had lived
straight on-"

"I doubt if he would have premeditated as much," said Warming. "He was not
a far-sighted man. In fact-"

"Yes?"

"We differed on that point. I stood to him somewhat in the relation of a
guardian. You have probably seen enough of affairs to recognise that
occasionally a certain friction-. But even if that was the case, there is a
doubt whether he will ever wake. This sleep exhausts slowly, but it
exhausts. Apparently he is sliding slowly, very slowly and tediously, down
a long slope, if you can understand me? "

"It will be a pity to lose his surprise. There's been a lot of change these
twenty years. It's Rip Van Winkle come real."