Человек-невидимка / The Invisible Man + аудиоприложение Уэллс Герберт

Chapter VI

The Furniture That Went Mad

On Whit Monday Mr. Hall and Mrs. Hall both rose and went noiselessly down into the cellar. Suddenly Mrs. Hall remembered that she had forgotten a bottle of medicine from their sleeping-room. Mr. Hall went upstairs for it.

On the landing he was surprised to see that the stranger’s door was ajar. He went on into his own room and found the bottle as he had been directed.

But returning with the bottle, he noticed that the bolts of the front door had not been shot, that the door was in fact simply on the latch. He distinctly remembered holding the candle while Mrs. Hall shot these bolts overnight. He stopped, gaping, then, with the bottle still in his hands, went upstairs again. He rapped at the stranger’s door. There was no answer. He rapped again; then pushed the door wide open and entered.

It was as he expected. The bed, the room also, was empty. On the bedroom chair and along the bed were scattered the garments and the bandages of their guest. As Hall stood there he heard his wife’s voice coming out of the depth of the cellar.

“George! Have you got the bottle?”

At that he turned and hurried down to her.

“Janny,” he said, “Henfrey told the truth. He is not in the room. And the front door is open.”

At first Mrs. Hall did not understand. Hall, still holding the bottle said, “He is not here, but his clothes are. And what is he doing without them? This is very strange.”

As they came up the cellar steps they both heard the front door open and shut, but seeing it closed, they did not say a word to each other. Mrs. Hall ran upstairs. Someone sneezed on the staircase. Hall, following six steps behind, thought that he heard her sneeze. She, going on first, was under the impression that Hall was sneezing. She flung open the door and stood regarding the room.

She heard a sniff close behind her head, and turning, was surprised to see Hall a dozen feet off on the topmost stair. But in another moment he was beside her. She bent forward and put her hand on the pillow and then on the clothes.

“Cold,” she said. “He’s out for an hour or more.”

As she did so, a most extraordinary thing happened. The bed-clothes gathered themselves together, leapt up suddenly and then jumped over the bed. Immediately after, the stranger’s hat hopped off its place, and then dashed straight at Mrs. Hall’s face. Then swiftly came the sponge from the washstand; and then the chair, flinging the stranger’s coat and trousers carelessly aside, and laughing drily in a voice singularly like the stranger’s, turned itself up at Mrs. Hall. She screamed, and then the chair legs came gently but firmly against her back and impelled her and Hall out of the room. The door slammed violently and was locked. The chair and bed seemed to be executing a dance of triumph, and then abruptly everything was still.

Mrs. Hall was in a dead faint. Mr. Hall got her downstairs.

“These are spirits,” said Mrs. Hall. “I know these are spirits. I’ve read in papers about them. Tables and chairs are leaping and dancing…”

“Take some medicine, Janny,” said Hall.

“Lock the door,” said Mrs. Hall. “Don’t let him come in again. I guessed-I might have known. With such big eyes and bandaged head… He has never gone to church on Sunday. And all those bottles. He’s put the spirits into the furniture… My good old furniture! In that chair my poor dear mother used to sit when I was a little girl. And it rose up against me now!”

“Just a drop more, Janny,” said Hall. “Your nerves are all upset.”

They sent Millie, the servant, across the street to rouse up Mr. Sandy Wadgers, the blacksmith. Would Mr. Wadgers come round? He was a very clever man, Mr. Wadgers, and very resourceful.

“This is witchcraft,” was the view of Mr. Sandy Wadgers.

They wanted him to lead the way upstairs to the room, but he preferred to talk in the passage. There was a great deal of talk and no decisive action.

“Let’s have the facts first,” insisted Mr. Sandy Wadgers. “Let’s be sure we’d be acting perfectly right.”

And suddenly and most wonderfully the door of the room upstairs opened of its own accord, and as they looked up in amazement, they saw descending the stairs the muffled figure of the stranger staring with those unreasonably large blue glass eyes of his. He came down slowly, staring all the time; he walked across the passage, then stopped.

“Look there!” he said, and their eyes followed the direction of his gloved finger and saw a bottle by the cellar door. Then he entered the parlour, and suddenly, swiftly, viciously, slammed the door.

Not a word was spoken until the last echoes of the slam had died away. They stared at one another.

“Well, I’d go in and ask him about it,” said Wadgers to Mr. Hall. “I’d demand an explanation.”

The landlady’s husband rapped, opened the door, and began, “Excuse me-”

“Go to the devil!” said the stranger in a tremendous voice, “Shut that door after you.”

So that brief interview terminated.

Chapter VII

The Unveiling of the Stranger

The stranger went into the little parlour of the “Coach and Horses” about half-past five in the morning, and there he remained until near midday, the curtains down, the door shut.

Thrice he rang his bell, the third time furiously and continuously, but no one answered him.

“I’ll teach him a lesson, ‘go to the devil’ indeed!” said Mrs. Hall. Presently came a rumour of the burglary at the vicarage. No one dared to go upstairs. How the stranger occupied himself is unknown.

He would stride violently up and down, and twice came an outburst of curses, a tearing of paper, and a violent smashing of bottles. The group of scared but curious people increased.

It was the finest of all possible Mondays. And inside, in the darkness of the parlour, the stranger, hungry we must suppose, and fearful, hidden in his uncomfortable hot wrappings, pored through his dark glasses upon his paper or chinked his dirty little bottles, and occasionally swore savagely at the boys outside the windows. In the corner by the fireplace lay the fragments of smashed bottles, and a pungent twang of chlorine tainted the air.

About noon he suddenly opened his door and stood glaring fixedly at the three or four people in the bar. “Mrs. Hall,” he said. Somebody went and called for Mrs. Hall.

Mrs. Hall appeared after an interval. Mr. Hall was out. She came holding a little tray with a bill upon it.

“Is it your bill you’re wanting, sir?” she said.

“Why wasn’t my breakfast laid? Why haven’t you prepared my meals and answered my bell? Do you think I live without eating?”

“Why isn’t my bill paid?” said Mrs. Hall. “That’s what I want to know.”

“I told you three days ago I was awaiting a remittance”.

“I told you two days ago I wasn’t going to await any remittances.”

The stranger swore briefly but vividly.

“And I’d thank you kindly, sir, if you’d keep your swearing to yourself, sir,” said Mrs. Hall.

The stranger stood looking like an angry diving-helmet.

“Look here, my good woman-” he began.

“Don’t call me ‘good woman’,” said Mrs. Hall.

“I’ve told you my remittance hasn’t come.”

“Remittance indeed!” said Mrs. Hall.

“In my pocket-”

“You told me three days ago that you hadn’t anything but a sovereign.”

“Well, I’ve found some more-”

“Ul-lo!” from the bar.

“I wonder where you found it,” said Mrs. Hall.

That seemed to annoy the stranger very much. He stamped his foot.

“What do you mean?” he said.

“That I wonder where you found it,” said Mrs. Hall. “And before I take any bills or get any breakfasts, or do any such things whatsoever, you got to tell me one or two things I don’t understand, and what nobody doesn’t understand, and what everybody is very anxious to understand. What have you been doing with my chair? How was your room empty, and how did you get in again? The people in this house usually come in by the doors-that’s the rule of the house, and you didn’t. How do you come in? And I want to know-”

Suddenly the stranger raised his gloved hands, stamped his foot, and said, “Stop!” with such extraordinary violence that he silenced her instantly.

“You don’t understand,” he said, “who I am or what I am. I’ll show you. By Heaven! I’ll show you.”

Then he put his open palm over his face and withdrew it. The centre of his face became a black cavity.

“Here,” he said. He stepped forward and handed Mrs. Hall something which she, staring at his face, accepted automatically. Then, when she saw what it was, she screamed loudly, dropped it, and staggered back. The nose-it was the stranger’s nose! pink and shining-rolled on the floor.

Then he removed his spectacles, and everyone in the bar gasped. He took off his hat, and with a violent gesture tore at his whiskers and bandages.

“Oh, my God!” said someone.

It was worse than anything. Mrs. Hall, standing open-mouthed and horror-struck, shrieked at what she saw. Everyone began to move. They were prepared for scars, disfigurements, but nothing! The bandages and false hair flew across the passage into the bar. Everyone tumbled on everyone else down the steps. For the man who stood there was a solid gesticulating figure up to the coat-collar of him, and then-nothingness, no visible thing at all!

People down the village heard shouts and shrieks. They saw Mrs. Hall fall down, and then they heard the frightful screams of Millie, who, going from the kitchen at the noise of the tumult, had come upon the headless stranger from behind.

After that everybody began to run towards the inn, and in a minute a crowd of perhaps forty people, swayed and hooted and inquired and exclaimed and suggested. Everyone seemed eager to talk at once. A small group supported Mrs. Hall, who was in a state of collapse. There was a conference:

“O Bogey!”

“What has he been doing, then?”

“Hasn’t he hurt the girl?”

“He has run at her with a knife, I believe.”

“A man without a head!”

“Nonsense! It’s just a trick.”

Trying to see in through the open door, the crowd formed itself into a straggling wedge.

“He stood for a moment, I heard the girl scream, and he turned. I saw her skirts, and he went after her. It didn’t take ten seconds. He came back with a knife in his hand. Not a moment ago. He went through that door. I tell you, he has no head! At all.”

The speaker stopped to step aside for a little procession that was marching very resolutely towards the house; first Mr. Hall, very red and determined, then Mr. Bobby Jaffers, the village constable, and then Mr. Wadgers. They had come to arrest the stranger.

People shouted.

“With the head or without any head, it doesn’t matter,” said Jaffers, “I will arrest him, in any case.”

Mr. Hall marched straight to the door of the parlour and flung it open.

“Constable,” he said, “do your duty.”

Jaffers marched in. Hall next, Wadgers last. They saw in the dim light the headless figure facing them, with a crust of bread in one gloved hand and a chunk of cheese in the other.

“That’s him!” said Hall.

“What the devil is this?” came an angry question from above the collar of the figure.

“You’re a rare man, indeed, mister,” said Mr. Jaffers. “But with the head or without any head, duty is duty!”

“Keep off!” said the figure, starting back.

Abruptly he whipped down the bread and cheese. Off came the stranger’s left glove and was slapped in Jaffers’ face. In another moment Jaffers had gripped him by the handless wrist and caught his invisible throat. They came down together.

“Get the feet,” said Jaffers.

Mr. Hall, endeavouring to act on instructions, received a kick in the ribs. Mr. Wadgers retreated towards the door, knife in hand, and so collided with Mr. Huxter and the carter coming to the rescue of law and order. At the same moment down came three or four bottles from the chiffonnier.

“I’ll surrender!” cried the stranger, and in another moment he stood up, a strange figure, headless and handless-for he had pulled off his gloves. “It’s no good,” he said.

It was a very strange thing to hear that voice coming as if out of empty space. Jaffers got up also and produced a pair of handcuffs. Then he stared.

“Darn it!” said Jaffers, “I can’t use them as I can see.”

“Why!” said Huxter, suddenly, “that’s not a man at all. It’s just empty clothes. Look! You can see down his collar. I could put my arm-”

He extended his hand, and he drew it back with a sharp exclamation.

“I wish you’d keep your fingers out of my eye,” said the aerial voice. “The fact is, I’m all here-head, hands, legs, and all the rest of it, but I’m invisible.”

The suit of clothes, now all unbuttoned and hanging loosely upon its unseen supports, stood up.

Several men had entered the room, so that it was crowded.

“Invisible, eh?” said Huxter. “Who ever heard of that?”

“It’s strange, perhaps, but it’s not a crime. Why is the policeman here?”

“Ah! that’s a different matter,” said Jaffers. “I got an order and it’s all correct. Invisibility is not a crime, but the burglary is. A house was broken into and money was taken.”

“Well?”

“And circumstances certainly point-”

“Nonsense!” said the Invisible Man.

“I hope so, sir; but I’ve got my instructions.”

“Well,” said the stranger, “I’ll come. I’ll come. But no handcuffs.”

“It’s the regular thing,” said Jaffers.

“No handcuffs,” stipulated the stranger.

“Pardon me,” said Jaffers.

Abruptly the figure sat down, and before any one could realise what was happening, the slippers, socks, and trousers had been kicked off under the table. Then he sprang up again and flung off his coat.

“Stop that!” said Jaffers, suddenly realising what was happening. He gripped at the waistcoat; it struggled, and the shirt slipped out of it.

“Hold him!” said Jaffers, loudly. “Once he gets the things off-”

“Hold him!” cried everyone. A white shirt was now all that was visible of the stranger.

The shirt-sleeve sent Hall backward, and in another moment the garment was lifted up and the shirt hit the man’s head.

“Hold him!” said everybody. “Shut the door! Don’t let him get out! I got something! Here he is!”

Sandy Wadgers got a frightful blow in the nose. He opened the door. The hitting continued. Jaffers was struck under the jaw, and, turning, caught at something that intervened between him and Huxter.

“I got him!” shouted Jaffers, wrestling with purple face and swelling veins against his unseen enemy.

Then Jaffers cried in a strangled voice, and his fingers relaxed.

There were excited cries of “Hold him!” “Invisible!” and so forth, and a young fellow caught something and fell over the constable’s prostrate body. Across the road a woman screamed as something pushed her; a dog, kicked apparently, yelped and ran howling. The Invisible Man ran away. People stood amazed and gesticulating, and then came panic. But Jaffers lay quite still, face upward and knees bent.

Chapter VIII

In Transit

The eighth chapter is exceedingly brief, and relates that Gibbons, the amateur naturalist of the district, while lying on the hill without a soul within a couple of miles of him, as he thought, and almost dozing, heard close to him the sound as of a man coughing, sneezing, and then swearing savagely to himself. Gibbons looked out but saw nothing. Yet the voice was indisputable. It was the swearing of an educated man. It grew, diminished again, and died away in the distance. It lifted to a sneeze and ended. Gibbons had heard nothing of the morning’s events, but the phenomenon was so striking and disturbing that his philosophical tranquillity vanished; he got up hastily, and hurried down the hill towards the village, as fast as he could go.

Chapter IX

Mr. Thomas Marvel

Mr. Thomas Marvel was a person of copious, flexible visage, with a cylindrical nose, a liquorish, ample, fluctuating mouth, and an eccentric beard. He wore a furry silk hat, and the frequent substitution of shoe-laces for buttons, marked a bachelor.

Mr. Thomas Marvel was sitting with his feet in a ditch by the roadside, about a mile and a half out of Iping. His socks were torn out, his big toes were broad like the ears of a watchful dog. In a leisurely manner-he did everything in a leisurely manner-he was going to try on a pair of boots. They were the best boots he had had for a long time, but too large for him. Mr. Thomas Marvel hated roomy shoes, but he hated damp as well. But he could not understand which he hated most, and it was a pleasant day, and there was nothing better to do. So he put the four shoes in a group on the turf and looked at them. And seeing them there among the grass, it suddenly occurred to him that both pairs were ugly to see. He was not at all startled by a voice behind him.

“They’re boots, anyhow,” said the Voice.

“They are-charity boots,” said Mr. Thomas Marvel; “and I can’t decide which is the ugliest pair here.”

“Hm,” said the Voice.

“I’ve worn worse boots. But not so ugly. My old boots-I am sick of them. They’re good enough, of course. And if you’ll believe me, I’ve got nothing in the whole country, but these boots. Look at them! Ugly, right? What a country! What people!”

“It’s a terrible country,” said the Voice. “And people are like pigs.”

“That’s it!” said Mr. Thomas Marvel. “Lord! And their boots!”

He turned his head to the right, to look at the boots of his interlocutor, and lo! Where the boots of his interlocutor should have been were neither legs nor boots. He was in a great amazement.

“Where are you?” said Mr. Thomas Marvel over his shoulder. “Am I drunk? Have I had visions? Was I talking to myself? What the-”

“Don’t be alarmed,” said a Voice.

“None of your jokes,” said Mr. Thomas Marvel, rising sharply to his feet. “Where are you?”

“Don’t be alarmed,” repeated the Voice.

“You’ll be alarmed in a minute, you silly fool,” said Mr. Thomas Marvel. “Where are you? Let me catch you.”

There was no answer. Mr. Thomas Marvel stood bootless and amazed.

“Peewit,” said a peewit, very remote.

“Peewit, indeed!” said Mr. Thomas Marvel. “This is no time for foolery.”

The field was desolate, east and west, north and south; the road ran smooth and empty north and south, and, save for that peewit, the blue sky was empty too.

“I know,” said Mr. Thomas Marvel, shuffling his coat on to his shoulders again. “It’s the alcohol! I might have known.”

“It’s not the alcohol,” said the Voice. “Don’t worry.”

“Oh!” said Mr. Marvel, and his face grew white. “It’s the alcohol!” his lips repeated noiselessly. He remained staring about him, rotating slowly backwards. “I could have sworn I heard a voice,” he whispered.

“Of course you did.”

“It’s there again,” said Mr. Marvel, closing his eyes and clasping his hands with a tragic gesture. He was suddenly taken by the collar and shaken violently, and left more dazed than ever.

“Don’t be a fool,” said the Voice.

“I got crazy,” said Mr. Marvel. “It’s no good. It’s because of those damned boots. Or it’s spirits.”

“Neither one thing nor the other,” said the Voice. “Listen!”

“Crazy,” said Mr. Marvel.

“One minute,” said the Voice.

“Well?” said Mr. Thomas Marvel.

“You think I’m just imagination? Just imagination?”

“What else can you be?” said Mr. Thomas Marvel, rubbing the back of his neck.

“Very well,” said the Voice, in a tone of relief. “Then I’m going to throw little stones at you till you think differently.”

“But where are you?”

The Voice made no answer. Whizz came a little stone, apparently out of the air. Mr. Marvel was too amazed to dodge. Whizz came another little stone, and ricochetted from a bare toe into the ditch. Mr. Thomas Marvel jumped a foot and howled aloud.

“Now,” said the Voice, “am I imagination?”

Mr. Marvel lay quiet.

“If you struggle,” said the Voice, “I shall throw the stone at your head.”

“Oh-oh,” said Mr. Thomas Marvel, taking his wounded toe in hand. “I don’t understand it. Stones are flinging themselves. Stones are talking. I’ll surrender.”

“It’s very simple,” said the Voice. “I’m an invisible man.”

“Tell me something more interesting,” said Mr. Marvel. “Where you’ve hid-how you do it-I don’t know.”

“That’s all,” said the Voice. “I’m invisible. That’s what I want you to understand.”

“Anyone can see that. There is no need for you to be so confounded impatient, mister. But tell me: where do you hid?”

“I’m invisible. That’s the great point. And what I want you to understand is this-”

“But where are you?” interrupted Mr. Marvel.

“Here! Six yards in front of you.”

“Oh, come on! I am not blind. You will tell me now that you are just air. I’m not ignorant.”

“Yes, I am air. You’re looking through me.”

“What! And you have nothing? Only your voice?”

“I am just a human being-solid, needing food and drink, needing covering too-But I’m invisible. Do you see? Invisible. Simple idea. Invisible.”

“What? Are you a real man?”

“Yes, real.”

“Let me touch your hand,” said Marvel, “if you are real. Lord!”

He felt the hand that had closed round his wrist with his disengaged fingers, and his fingers patted a muscular chest, and explored a bearded face. Marvel was very surprised.

“Great!” he said. “It’s even better than cock-fighting! Most remarkable! And there I can see a rabbit clean through you, a mile away! Not a bit of you visible-except-”

He scrutinised the apparently empty space keenly.

“Have you eaten bread and cheese?” he asked, holding the invisible arm.

“You’re quite right, and it’s not quite assimilated.”

“Ah!” said Mr. Marvel. “Sort of ghostly, though.”

“Of course, all this isn’t half so wonderful as you think.”

“It’s quite wonderful enough for my modest mind,” said Mr. Thomas Marvel. “How did you manage it? How the devil is it done?”

“It’s a long story. And besides-”

“I tell you, I can’t believe it,” said Mr. Marvel.

“What I want to say at present is this: I need help. I have come to that. I was wandering, mad with rage, naked, impotent. And I saw you-”

“Lord!” said Mr. Marvel.

“-then stopped. ‘Here,’ I said, ‘is an outcast like myself. This is the man for me.’ So I came to you. And-”

“Lord!” said Mr. Marvel. “But may I ask-How is it? And what help do you need? Invisible!”

“I want you to help me get clothes and shelter and then, with other things. I’ve left them long enough. If you won’t-well! But you will-you must.”

“Look here,” said Mr. Marvel. “I’m too flabbergasted. Don’t touch me any more. And let me go. It’s all so unreasonable. Empty hills, empty sky. Nothing visible for miles except the nature. And then comes a voice. A voice out of heaven! And stones! Lord!”

“So,” said the Voice, “you have to do the job I’ve chosen for you.”

Mr. Marvel blew out his cheeks, and his eyes were round.

“I’ve chosen you,” said the Voice. “You are the only man except some of those fools down there, who knows there is an invisible man. You have to be my helper. Help me-and I will do great things for you. An invisible man is a man of power.”

He stopped for a moment to sneeze violently.

“But if you betray me,” he said, “if you don’t do the things I want-”

He paused and tapped Mr. Marvel’s shoulder smartly. Mr. Marvel gave a yelp of terror at the touch.

“I don’t want to betray you,” said Mr. Marvel. “All I want to do is to help you-just tell me what I must do. Lord!”