time that he was the Sleeper.
He had to recall precisely what they had said.

He walked into the bedroom and peered up through the quick intervals of
the revolving fan. As the fan swept round, a dim turmoil like the noise
of machinery came in rhythmic eddies. All else was silence.

Though the perpetual day still irradiated his apartments, he perceived
the little intermittent strip of sky was now deep blue--black almost,
with a dust of little stars.

He resumed his examination of the rooms. He could find no way of opening
the padded door, no bell nor other means of calling for attendance.
His feeling of wonder was in abeyance; but he was curious, anxious for
information. He wanted to know exactly how he stood to these new things.
He tried to compose himself to wait until someone came to him. Presently
he became restless and eager for information, for distraction, for fresh
sensations.

He went back to the apparatus in the other room, and had soon puzzled
out the method of replacing the cylinders by others. As he did so, it
came into his mind that it must be these little appliances had fixed the
language so that it was still clear and understandable after two hundred
years. The haphazard cylinders he substituted displayed a musical
fantasia. At first it was beautiful, and then it was sensuous. He
presently recognized what appeared to him to be an altered version of
the story of Tannhauser. The music was unfamiliar. But the rendering was
realistic, and with a contemporary unfamiliarity. Tannhauser did not
go to a Venusberg, but to a Pleasure City. What was a Pleasure City? A
dream, surely, the fancy of a fantastic, voluptuous writer.

He became interested, curious. The story developed with a flavour of
strangely twisted sentimentality. Suddenly he did not like it. He liked
it less as it proceeded.

He had a revulsion of feeling. These were no pictures, no idealisations,
but photographed realities. He wanted no more of the twenty-second
century Venusberg. He forgot the part played by the model in nineteenth
century art, and gave way to an archaic indignation. He rose, angry and
half ashamed at himself for witnessing this thing even in solitude. He
pulled forward the apparatus, and with some violence sought for a means
of stopping its action. Something snapped. A violet spark stung and
convulsed his arm and the thing was still. When he attempted next day
to replace these Tannhauser cylinders by another pair, he found