Человек-невидимка / The Invisible Man + аудиоприложение

“I can’t go on,” he was raving. “I can’t go on. Three hundred thousand, four hundred thousand! Cheated! All my life it may take me!.. Patience! Patience indeed!.. Fool! fool!”

There was a noise in the bar, and Mrs. Hall had very reluctantly to leave. When she returned the room was silent again. It was all over; the stranger had resumed work.

When she took in his tea she saw broken glass in the corner of the room under the mirror, and a golden stain that had been carelessly wiped. She drew attention to it.

“Put it down in the bill,” snapped her visitor. “For God’s sake don’t worry me. If there’s damage done, put it down in the bill!”

* * *

“I’ll tell you something,” said Fearenside, mysteriously. It was late in the afternoon, and they were in the little beer-shop.

“Well?” said Teddy Henfrey.

“This chap you’re speaking of, what my dog bit. Well-he’s black. Leastways, his legs are. I saw through the tear of his trousers and the tear of his glove. Well-there wasn’t none. Just blackness. I tell you, he’s as black as my hat.”

“Oh God!” said Henfrey. “But his nose is pink!”

“That’s true,” said Fearenside. “I know that. And I tell you what I think. That man is piebald, Teddy. Black here and white there-in patches. And he’s ashamed of it. I’ve heard of such things before. And it’s the common way with horses, as any one can see.”

Chapter IV Mr. Cuss Interviews the Stranger

I have told the circumstances of the stranger’s arrival in Iping, in order that the curious impression he created may be understood by the reader. Hall did not like him, and he talked of getting rid of him; but he avoided his visitor as much as possible.

“Wait till the summer,” said Mrs. Hall sagely, “when the artists will come. Then we’ll see.”

The stranger did not go to church, and indeed made no difference between Sunday and the irreligious days, even in costume. He worked, as Mrs. Hall thought, very fitfully. Some days he would come down early and be continuously busy. On others he would rise late, smoke, and sleep in the armchair by the fire. His temper was very uncertain. He seemed under a chronic irritation of the greatest intensity. His habit of talking to himself in a low voice grew steadily, but though Mrs. Hall listened conscientiously she could not understand what she heard.

He rarely went out by daylight, but at twilight he would went out invisibly, whether the weather were cold or not, and he chose the loneliest paths. His spectacles and ghastly bandaged face under his hat frightened labourers. Children as saw him at nightfall dreamt of devils, and it seemed doubtful whether he disliked boys more than they disliked him.

It was inevitable that a person of so remarkable an appearance should form a frequent topic in such a village as Iping. Opinion was greatly divided about his occupation. When questioned, Mrs. Hall explained very carefully that he was an “experimental investigator.” When asked what her investigator did, she would say with superiority that most educated people knew such things as that, and would thus explain that he “discovered things.” Her visitor had had an accident, she said, which temporarily discoloured his face and hands.

But some people said that he was a criminal trying to escape from justice by wrapping himself up so as to conceal himself altogether from the eye of the police. This idea sprang from the brain of Mr. Teddy Henfrey. Mr. Gould, the teacher, said that the stranger was an Anarchist in disguise, preparing explosives.

Another view explained the entire matter by regarding the stranger as a harmless lunatic. That had the advantage of explaining everything.

But whatever the people in Iping thought of him, they, on the whole, agreed in disliking him. His irritability was an amazing thing to these quiet villagers. The frantic gesticulations, the headlong pace after nightfall, the taste for twilight that led to the closing of doors, the pulling down of curtains, the extinction of candles and lamps-who could agree with that? When he passed down the village, young humourists would up with coat-collars and go pacing nervously after him. There was a song popular at that time called “The Bogey Man”. So whenever some villagers were gathered together and the stranger appeared, this tune was whistled in the midst of them. Also little children would call “Bogey Man!” after him.

Cuss, the general practitioner, was devoured by curiosity. The bandages excited his professional interest, the report of the thousand and one bottles aroused his jealous regard. All through April and May he coveted an opportunity of talking to the stranger, and at last, went to the “Coach and Horses”. He was surprised to find that Mrs. Hall did not know his guest’s name.

“He gave his name,” said Mrs. Hall, “but I didn’t rightly hear it.”

She was ashamed.

Cuss rapped at the parlour door and entered. “Pardon my intrusion,” said Cuss, and then the door closed.