The Invisible Man

by Герберт Уэллс

  "None of your ventriloquising me," said Mr. Thomas Marvel, rising sharply to his feet. "Where are yer? Alarmed, indeed!"

  "Don't be alarmed," repeated the Voice.

  "You'll be alarmed in a minute, you silly fool," said Mr. Thomas Marvel. "Where are yer? Lemme[11] get my mark on yer…"

  "Are yer buried?" said Mr. Thomas Marvel after an interval.

  There was no answer. Mr. Thomas Marvel stood bootless and amazed, his jacket nearly thrown off.

  "Peewit,"[12] said a peewit very remote.

  "Peewit, indeed!" said Mr. Thomas Marvel. "This ain't no time for foolery." The down was desolate east and west, north and south; the road, with its shallow ditches and white bordering stakes, ran smooth and empty north and south, and, save for that peewit, the blue sky was empty too. "So help me,"[13] said Mr. Thomas Marvel, shuffling his coat on to his shoulders again. "It's the drink. I might ha' known."

  "It's not the drink," said the Voice. "You keep your nerves steady."

  "Ow!" said Mr. Marvel, and his face grew white amidst its patches. "It's the drink," his lips repeated noiselessly. He remained staring about him, rotating slowly backwards. "I could have swore I heard a voice," he whispered.

  "Of course you did."

  "It's there again," said Mr. Marvel, closing his eyes and clasping his hand on his brow 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'm—off—my blooming—chump!"[14] said Mr. Marvel.

  "It's no good. It's fretting about them blarsted[15] boots. I'm off my blessed, blooming chump. Or it's spirits!"

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

  "Chump!" said Mr. Marvel.

  "One minute," said the Voice penetratingly, tremulous with self-control.

  "Well?" said Mr. Thomas Marvel, with a strange feeling of having been dug in the chest by a finger.

  "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 flints at you till you think differently."

  "But where are yer?"

  The Voice made no answer. Whizz came a flint,[16] apparently out of the air, and missed Mr. Marvel's shoulder by a hair's breadth. Mr. Marvel, turning, saw a flint jerk up into the air, trace a complicated path, hang for a moment, and then fall at his feet with almost invisible rapidity. He was too amazed to dodge. Whizz it came, and ricocheted from a bare toe into the ditch. Mr. Thomas Marvel jumped a foot, and howled aloud. Then he started to run, tripped over an unseen obstacle, and came head over heels into a sitting position.

  "Now," said the Voice, as a third stone curved upward and hung in the air above the tramp, "am I imagination?"

  Mr. Marvel, by way of reply, struggled to his feet, and was immediately rolled over again. He lay quiet for a moment.

  "If you struggle any more," said the Voice, "I shall throw the flint at your head."

  "It's a fair do,"[17] said Mr. Thomas Marvel, sitting up, taking his wounded toe in hand, and fixing his eye on the third missile. "I don't understand it. Stones flinging themselves. Stones talking. Put yourself down. Rot away. I'm done."[18]

  The third flint fell.

  "It's very simple," said the Voice. "I'm an invisible man."

  "Tell us something I don't know,"[19] said Mr. Marvel, gasping with pain. "Where you've hid—how you do it—I don't know. I'm beat."

  "That's all," said the Voice. "I'm invisible. That's what I want you to understand."

  "Any one could see that. There is no need for you to be so confounded impatient, mister. Now, then. Give us a notion. How are you hid?"

  "I'm invisible. That's the great point. And what I want you to understand is this—"

  "But whereabouts?" interrupted Mr. Marvel.

  "Here—six yards in front of you."

  "Oh, come! I ain't blind. You'll be telling me next you're just thin air. I'm not one of your ignorant tramps—"

  "Yes. I am—thin air. You're looking through me."

  "What! Ain't there any stuff to you? Vox et—[20]what is it?—jabber. Is it that?"

  "I am just a human being—solid, needing food and drink, needing covering, too… But I'm invisible. You see? Invisible. Simple idea. Invisible."

  "What, real like?"

  "Yes, real."

  "Let's have a hand of you," said Marvel, "if you are real. It won't be so darn out-of-the-way like, then—[21]

  "Lord!" he said, "how you made me jump!—gripping me like that!"

  He felt the hand that had closed round his wrist with his disengaged fingers, and his touch went timorously up the arm, patted a muscular chest, and explored a bearded face. Marvel's face was astonishment.

  "I'm dashed!" he said. "If this don't beat cock-fighting! Most remarkable!—And there I can see a rabbit clean through you arf[22] a mile away! Not a bit of you visible—except—"

  He scrutinised the apparently empty space keenly. "You 'aven't been eatin' bread and cheese?" he asked, holding the invisible arm.

  "You are quite right. It's not assimilated into the system."

  "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 wants," said Mr. Thomas Marvel. "Howjer23 manage it? How the dooce is it done?"[24]

  "It's too long a story. And besides—"

  "I tell you, the whole business fair[25] beats me," said Mr. Marvel.

  "What I want to say at present is this: I need help. I have come to that. I came upon you suddenly. I was wandering, mad with rage, naked, impotent, I could have murdered… And I saw you—"

  "Lord!" said Mr. Marvel.

  "I came up behind you—hesitated—went on."

  Mr. Marvel's expression was eloquent.

  "Then stopped. 'Here,' I said 'is an outcast like myself. This is the man for me.' So I turned back and came to you. You. And—"

  "Lord!" said Mr. Marvel. "But I'm all in a dizzy.[26] May I ask: How is it?—and what you may be requiring in the way of help? 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—must."

  "Look here," said Mr. Marvel. "I'm too flabbergasted. Don't knock me about any more. And leave me go. I must get steady a bit. And you've pretty near broken my toe. It's all so unreasonable. Empty downs, empty sky. Nothing visible for miles except the bosom of Nature. And then comes a voice. A voice out of heaven! And stones. And a fist. Lord!"

  "Pull yourself together," said the Voice, "for 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 such a thing as 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 fail to do as I direct you—"

  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, edging away from the direction of the fingers. "Don't you go a-thinking that, whatever you do. All I want to do is to help you—just tell me what I got to do. (Lord!) Whatever you want done, that I'm most willing to do."

  Chapter X

  Mr. Marvel's Visit To Iping

  After the first gusty panic had spent itself, Iping became argumentative. Scepticism suddenly reared its head—rather nervous scepticism, not at all assured of its back,[1] but scepticism nevertheless. It is so much easier not to believe in an Invisible Man, and those who had actually seen him dissolve into air or felt the strength of his arm could be
counted on the fingers of two hands. And of these witnesses, Mr. Wadgers was presently missing, having retired impregnably behind the bolts and bars of his own house, and Jaffers was lying stunned in the parlour of the "Coach and Horses." Great and strange ideas transcending experience[2] often have less effect upon men and women than smaller, more tangible considerations. Iping was gay with bunting, and everybody was in gala dress. Whit Monday had been looked forward to for a month or more. By the afternoon even those who believed in the Unseen were beginning to resume their little amusements in a tentative fashion, on the supposition that he had quite gone away, and with the sceptics he was already a jest. But people—sceptics and believers alike—were remarkably sociable all that day.

  Haysman's meadow was gay with a tent, in which Mrs. Bunting and other ladies were preparing tea, while without the Sunday-school[3] children ran races and played games under the noisy guidance of the curate and the Misses Cuss and Sackbut. No doubt there was a slight uneasiness in the air, but people for the most part had the sense to conceal whatever imaginative qualms they experienced. On the village green[4] an inclined string, down which, clinging the while to a pulley-swung handle,[5] one could be hurled violently against a sack at the other end, came in for considerable favour[6] among the adolescent, as also did the swings and the cocoanut-shies. There was also promenading, and the steam organ attached to a small roundabout filled the air with a pungent flavour of oil and with equally pungent music. Members of the club, who had attended church in the morning, were splendid in badges of pink and green, and some of the gayer minded had also adorned their bowler hats with brilliant coloured favours of ribbon.[7] Old Fletcher, whose conceptions of holiday-making were severe, was visible through the jasmine about his window or through the open door (whichever way you chose to look) poised delicately on a plank supported on two chairs, and whitewashing the ceiling of his front room.

  About four o'clock a stranger entered the village from the direction of the downs. He was a short, stout person in an extraordinarily shabby top hat, and he appeared to be very much out of breath. His cheeks were alternately limp and tightly puffed. His mottled face was apprehensive, and he moved with a sort of reluctant alacrity. He turned the corner by the church and directed his way to the "Coach and Horses." Among others, old Fletcher remembers seeing him, and indeed the old gentleman was so struck by his peculiar agitation that he inadvertently allowed a quantity of whitewash to run down the brush into the sleeve of his coat while regarding him.

  This stranger, to the perceptions of the proprietor of the cocoanut-shy, appeared to be talking to himself, and Mr. Huxter remarked the same thing. He stopped at the foot of the "Coach and Horses" steps, and, according to Mr. Huxter, appeared to undergo a severe internal struggle before he could induce himself to enter the house. Finally he marched up the steps, and was seen by Mr. Huxter to turn to the left and open the door of the parlour. Mr. Huxter heard voices from within the room and from the bar apprising the man of his error.

  "That room's private!" said Hall, and the stranger shut the door clumsily and went into the bar.

  In the course of a few minutes he reappeared, wiping his lips with the back of his hand, with an air of quiet satisfaction that somehow impressed Mr. Huxter as assumed. He stood looking about him for some moments, and then Mr. Huxter saw him walk in an oddly furtive manner towards the gates of the yard, upon which the parlour window opened. The stranger, after some hesitation, leant against one of the gate-posts, produced a short clay pipe, and prepared to fill it. His fingers trembled while doing so. He lit it clumsily, and, folding his arms, began to smoke in a languid attitude, an attitude which his occasional quick glances up the yard altogether belied.

  All this Mr. Huxter saw over the canisters of the tobacco window, and the singularity of the man's behaviour prompted him to maintain his observation.

  Presently the stranger stood up abruptly and put his pipe in his pocket. Then he vanished into the yard. Forthwith Mr. Huxter, conceiving he was witness of some petty larceny, leapt round his counter and ran out into the road to intercept the thief. As he did so, Mr. Marvel reappeared, his hat askew, a big bundle in a blue tablecloth in one hand, and three books tied together—as it proved afterwards with the vicar's braces—in the other. Directly he saw Huxter he gave a sort of gasp, and turning sharply to the left, began to run. "Stop thief!"[8] cried Huxter, and set off after him.

  Mr. Huxter's sensations were vivid but brief. He saw the man just before him, and sprinting briskly for the church corner and the down road. He saw the village flags and festivities beyond, and only a face or two turned toward him. He bawled "Stop thief" again, and set off gallantly. He had hardly gone ten strides before his shin was caught in some mysterious fashion, and he was no longer running but flying with incredible velocity through the air. He saw the ground suddenly close to his head. The world seemed to splash into a million whirling specks of light, and "subsequent proceedings interested him no more."[9]

  Chapter XI

  In The "Coach And Horses"

  Now, in order to understand clearly what had happened in the inn, it is necessary to go back to the moment when Mr. Marvel first came into view of Mr. Huxter's window.

  At that precise moment Mr. Cuss and Mr. Bunting were in the parlour. They were seriously investigating the strange occurrences of the morning, and were, with Mr. Hall's permission, making a thorough examination of the Invisible Man's belongings. Jaffers had partially recovered from his fall and had gone home in the charge of his sympathetic friends. The stranger's scattered garments had been removed by Mrs. Hall, and the room tidied up. And on the table under the window, where the stranger had been wont to work, Cuss had hit almost at once on three big books in manuscript labelled "Diary."

  "Diary!" said. Cuss, putting the three books on the table. "Now, at any rate, we shall learn something." The vicar stood with his hands on the table.

  "Diary," repeated Cuss, sitting down, putting two volumes to support the third, and opening it. "H'm—no name on the fly-leaf. Bother!… Cipher. And figures."

  The vicar came round to look over his shoulder.

  Cuss turned the pages over with a face suddenly disappointed. "I'm—dear me! It's all cipher, Bunting."

  "There are no diagrams?" asked Mr. Bunting. "No illustrations throwing light—"

  "See for yourself," said Mr. Cuss. "Some of it's mathematical, and some of it's Russian or some such language (to judge by the letters), and some of it's Greek. Now the Greek I thought you—"

  "Of course," said Mr. Bunting, taking out and wiping his spectacles, and feeling suddenly very uncomfortable—for he had no Greek left in his mind worth talking about. "Yes—the Greek, of course, may furnish a clue."[1]

  "I'll find you a place."

  "I'd rather glance through the volumes first," said Mr. Bunting, still wiping. "A general impression first, Cuss, and then, you know, we can go looking for clues."

  He coughed, put on his glasses, arranged them fastidiously, coughed again, and wished something would happen to avert the seemingly inevitable exposure. Then he took the volume Cuss handed him in a leisurely manner. And then something did happen.

  The door opened suddenly.

  Both men started violently, looked round, and were relieved to see a sporadically rosy face beneath a furry silk hat. "Tap?"[2] asked the face, and stood staring.

  "No," said both gentlemen at once.

  "Over the other side, my man," said Mr. Bunting. "And please shut that door," said Mr. Cuss irritably.

  "All right," said the intruder, as it seemed in a low voice, curiously different from the huskiness of its first inquiry. "Right you are," said the intruder in the former voice. "Stand clear,"[3] and he vanished and closed the door.

  "A sailor, I should judge," said Mr. Bunting. "Amusing fellows they are. Stand clear, indeed. A nautical term, referring to his getting back out of the room, I suppose."

  "I dare say so," said Cuss. "My nerves are all loose to-day. It quite made me jump—
the door opening like that."

  Mr. Bunting smiled as if he had not jumped. "And now," he said with a sigh, "these books."

  "One minute," said Cuss, and went and locked the door. "Now I think we are safe from interruption."

  Some one sniffed as he did so.

  "One thing is indisputable," said Bunting, drawing up a chair next to that of Cuss. "There certainly have been very strange things happen in Iping during the last few days—very strange. I cannot, of course, believe in this absurd invisibility story—"

  "It's incredible," said Cuss, "incredible. But the fact remains that I saw—I certainly saw right down his sleeve—"

  "But did you—are you sure… Suppose a mirror, for instance… Hallucinations are so easily produced. I don't know if you have ever seen a really good conjurer—"

  "I won't argue again," said Cuss. "We've thrashed that out, Bunting. And just now there's these books… Ah! here's some of what I take to be Greek! Greek letters, certainly."

  He pointed to the middle of the page. Mr. Bunting flushed slightly, and brought his face nearer, apparently finding some difficulty with his glasses. The little man's Greek was of the flimsiest, and he firmly believed that every one outside the Church[4] credited him with a knowledge of Greek and Hebrew originals.[5] And now— Should he confess? Should he vamp? Suddenly he became aware of a strange feeling at the nape of his neck. He tried to move his head, and encountered an immovable resistance.

  The feeling was a curious pressure—the grip of a heavy, firm hand, and it bore his chin irresistibly to the table. "Don't move, little men," whispered a voice, "or I'll brain you both!"

  He looked into the face of Cuss, close to his own, and saw a horrified reflection of his own sickly astonishment.

  "I'm sorry to handle you roughly," said the Voice, "but it's unavoidable."

  "Since when did you learn to pry into an investigator's private memoranda?" said the Voice, and two chins struck the table simultaneously, and two sets of teeth rattled.

  "Since when did you learn to invade the private rooms of a man in misfortune?" and the concussion was repeated.