men!

He thought of Bellamy, the hero of whose Socialistic Utopia had so oddly
anticipated this actual experience. But here was no Utopia, no
Socialistic state. He had already seen enough to realise that the ancient
antithesis of luxury, waste and sensuality on the one hand and abject
poverty on the other, still prevailed. He knew enough of the essential
factors of life to understand that correlation. And not only were the
buildings of the city gigantic and the crowds in the street gigantic, but
the voices he had heard in the ways, the uneasiness of Howard, the very
atmosphere spoke of gigantic discontent. What country was he in? Still
England it seemed, and yet strangely "un-English." His mind glanced at
the rest of the world, and saw only an enigmatical veil.

He prowled about his apartment, examining everything as a caged animal
might do. He was very tired, with that feverish exhaustion that does not
admit of rest. He listened for long spaces under the ventilator to catch
some distant echo of the tumults he felt must be proceeding in the city.

He began to talk to himself. "Two hundred and three years!" he said to
himself over and over again, laughing stupidly. "Then I am two hundred
and thirty-three years old! The oldest inhabitant. Surely they haven't
reversed the tendency of our time and gone back to the rule of the
oldest. My claims are indisputable. Mumble, mumble. I remember the
Bulgarian atrocities as though it was yesterday. 'Tis a great age! Ha
ha!" He was surprised at first to hear himself laughing, and then laughed
again deliberately and louder. Then he realised that he was behaving
foolishly. "Steady," he said. "Steady!"

His pacing became more regular. "This new world," he said. "I don't
understand it. _Why_? ... But it is all _why_!"

"I suppose they can fly and do all sorts of things. Let me try and
remember just how it began."

He was surprised at first to find how vague the memories of his first
thirty years had become. He remembered fragments, for the most part
trivial moments, things of no great importance that he had observed. His
boyhood seemed the most accessible at first, he recalled school books and
certain lessons in mensuration. Then he revived the more salient features
of his life, memories of the wife long since dead, her magic influence
now gone beyond corruption, of his rivals and friends and betrayers, of
the decision of this issue and that, and then of his last years of
misery,