Герберт Джордж Уэллс
Человек-невидимка / The Invisible Man
Chapter II
Mr. Teddy Henfrey’s First Impressions
At four o’clock, when it was already dark, and Mrs. Hall wanted to go in and ask her visitor if he would take some tea, Teddy Henfrey, the clock-jobber[7], came into the bar.
“Lord[8], Mrs. Hall,” said he, “but this is terrible weather!”
Mrs. Hall agreed, and then noticed he had his bag with him. “Now you’re here,” said she, “I’d be glad if you looked at the clock. The hour hand only points at six.”
And she led the way to the guest room, knocked and entered.
As she opened the door, she saw her visitor sitting in the armchair before the fire. The only light in the room was from the fire. It was quite dark. But for a second it seemed to her that the man had an enormous mouth wide open, it took the whole of the lower portion of his face. It was the impression of a moment. Then he put up his hand. She opened the door wide so that the room was lighter, and she saw him more clearly, with the muffler held to his face, just as she had seen him hold the napkin before. The shadows, she thought, had tricked her.
“Would you mind, sir, this man looking at the clock, sir?” she said.
“Look at the clock?” he said, speaking through his muffler; and then, “Certainly.”
Mr. Teddy Henfrey said he was “taken aback” when he saw this bandaged person.
“Good afternoon,” said the stranger. “I understand,” he said, turning to Mrs. Hall, “that this room is for my private use.”
“I thought, sir,” said Mrs. Hall, “you’d prefer the clock —”
“Certainly,” said the stranger, “certainly – but as a rule I like to be alone and undisturbed.”
Then he asked Mrs. Hall if she had asked anybody to bring his boxes from Bramblehurst. She told him she had spoken to the postman, and that they would be here tomorrow.
“Can’t it be done earlier?” he said. She answered coldly it couldn’t.
“I’ll explain,” he added, “what I haven’t explained before because I was too cold and tired. I am a scientist.”
“Indeed, sir,” said Mrs. Hall. She was much impressed.
“And my luggage contains some apparatus. And I’m anxious to get on with my experiments.”
“Of course, sir.”
“I came to Iping,” he went on, “to be alone. I do not want to be disturbed in my work. I had an accident —”
“I thought as much[9],” said Mrs. Hall to herself.
“My eyes are sometimes so weak and painful that I have to be in the dark for hours. I want you to understand this.”
“Certainly, sir,” said Mrs. Hall. “And may I ask you —”
“That is all, I think” said the stranger, putting an end to the conversation.
Mr. Henfrey worked with the lamp close to him, which left the rest of the room in shadow. As he was curious by nature, Mr. Henfrey was not in a hurry to finish his work with the idea of having a conversation with the stranger. But the stranger stood there, perfectly silent and still. Henfrey looked up, and there was the bandaged head and huge, dark glasses. For a minute they remained staring at one another. Then Henfrey looked down again. Very uncomfortable position! Should he say that the weather was very cold for the time of the year?
“The weather —” he began.
“Why don’t you finish and go?” said the stranger, evidently in a state of rage. “All you’ve got to do is to fix the hour hand. You’re simply humbugging.”
“One minute more, sir.” And Mr. Henfrey finished and went.
But he went off feeling very annoyed. “Damn it!” said Mr. Henfrey to himself, walking through the falling snow, “If the police wanted you, you couldn’t be more bandaged.”
At the moment he saw Hall, who had married the owner of the “Coach and Horses” a few months before.
“How are you, Teddy?” Hall asked.
“You got a suspicious man at home!” said Teddy Henfrey.
“What’s that?” Hall asked.
“A strange customer is at the ‘Coach and Horses’,” said Teddy.
And he gave Hall a description of his wife’s guest. “Looks a bit like a disguise, doesn’t it? I’d like to see a man’s face if I had him in my place,” said Henfrey. “But women trust strangers. He’s taken your rooms, and he hasn’t even given a name, Hall.”
“You don’t say so[10]!” said Hall.
“Yes,” said Teddy. “For a week. And he’s got a lot of luggage coming tomorrow, so he says.”
Teddy walked on feeling much better.
On his return, Hall instructed his wife to find out more about their guest and to look very closely at his luggage when it came next day.
“You mind your own business, Hall,” said Mrs. Hall, “and I’ll mind mine.”
She was very annoyed by Hall because she herself had some doubts about the stranger.
Chapter III
The Thousand and One Bottles
Next day his luggage arrived – and very remarkable luggage it was.
There were a couple of trunks, such as any man might have, but there was also a box of books – big, fat books – and a lot of boxes with glass bottles. The stranger, muffled in hat, coat, and gloves came out to meet Fearenside’s cart, not noticing Fearenside’s dog.
When the dog saw him, it sprang straight at his hand.
Fearenside cried, “Lie down!”
They saw the dog’s teeth slip the hand, and bite the stranger’s leg. It all happened in half a minute. No one spoke, every one shouted. The stranger looked swiftly at his torn glove and trousers, then turned and rushed into the inn.
They heard him go to his room.
Hall was also there staring. “He was bitten,” said Hall. “I’d better go and see.” And he went after the stranger.
He met Mrs. Hall in the inn.
“Fearenside’s dog,” he said, “bit him.”
He went straight to the stranger’s door, pushed it open, and entered without any ceremony.
The blind was down and the room dark. He saw a most unusual thing, a handless arm, and a face of three huge spots on white. Then he was struck violently, thrown back, the door closed in his face, and locked. He stood in the dark passage, wondering what he had seen. After a couple of minutes he came out of the “Coach and Horses.” Fearenside was telling some people about it all over again; there was Mrs. Hall saying his dog didn’t have any business to bite her guests. There were also some women and children, all of them saying: “I wouldn’t let it bite me”; “It isn’t right to have such dogs”; “What did it bite him for?” and so on.
Mr. Hall, staring at them from the steps, couldn’t believe what he had seen. Besides, his vocabulary was too small for his impressions.
“He doesn’t want any help, he says,” he said in answer to his wife’s questions. “We’d better take his luggage in.”
“The sooner you get those things in, the better,” cried an angry voice from the inn, and there stood the muffled stranger on the steps.
“Were you hurt, sir?” said Fearenside. “I’m sorry, the dog —”
“Not a bit,” said the stranger. “Didn’t break the skin. Hurry up with my luggage.”
When the first box was carried into his room, the stranger began to unpack it, and from it he began to take out bottles – little fat bottles containing powders, small bottles containing coloured and white fluids, blue bottles, wine bottles – putting them on the table under the window, round the floor, on the bookshelf – everywhere. The chemist’s shop in Bramblehurst did not have half so many.
As soon as the boxes were unpacked, the stranger started work, not troubling about the box of books outside, or other luggage. When Mrs. Hall took his dinner in to him, he was already so absorbed in his work, pouring little drops out of the bottles into test tubes, that he did not hear her until she had put his dinner on the table.
“I wish you wouldn’t come in[11] without knocking,” he said, with abnormal exasperation that seemed so characteristic of him.
“I knocked, but —”
“Perhaps you did. But in my investigations – my really very urgent and necessary investigations – I mustn’t be disturbed … I must ask you —”
“Certainly, sir. You can lock the door any time.”
“A very good idea,” said the stranger.
He was so odd, standing there, so aggressive, bottle in one hand and test tube in the other, that Mrs. Hall was quite alarmed. She laid the table. He turned and sat down with his back to her.
All the afternoon he worked with the door locked, for the most part in silence. But once there was a sound of bottles ringing together, as though the table had been hit. Fearing something was the matter, Mrs. Hall went to the door and listened.
“I can’t go on,” he was shouting; “I can’t go on! Three hundred thousand, four hundred thousand! It may take me all my life!… Patience! Fool! fool!”
Then the room was silent. The stranger was at work again.
