"But you begin to realise now," said the Invisible Man,
"the full disadvantage of my condition. I had no shelter, no
covering. To get clothing was to forego all my advantage, to make of
myself a strange and terrible thing. I was fasting; for to eat, to
fill myself with unassimilated matter, would be to become
grotesquely visible again."
"I never thought of that," said Kemp.
"Nor had I. And the snow had warned me of other dangers. I
could not go abroad in snow--it would settle on me and expose me.
Rain, too, would make me a watery outline, a glistening surface of a
man--a bubble. And fog--I should be like a fainter bubble in a fog,
a surface, a greasy glimmer of humanity. Moreover, as I went
abroad--in the London air--I gathered dirt about my ankles, floating
smuts and dust upon my skin. I did not know how long it would be
before I should become visible from that cause also. But I saw
clearly it could not be for long.
"Not in London at any rate.
"I went into the slums towards Great Portland Street, and
found myself at the end of the street in which I had lodged. I did
not go that way, because of the crowd halfway down it opposite to
the still smoking ruins of the house I had fired. My most immediate
problem was to get clothing. What to do with my face puzzled me.
Then I saw in one of those little miscellaneous shops--news, sweets,
toys, stationery, belated Christmas tomfoolery, and so forth--an
array of masks and noses. I realised that problem was solved. In a
flash I saw my course. I turned about, no longer aimless, and went--
circuitously in order to avoid the busy ways, towards the back
streets north of the Strand; for I remembered, though not very
distinctly where, that some theatrical costumiers had shops in that
district.
"The day was cold, with a nipping wind down the northward
running streets. I walked fast to avoid being overtaken. Every
crossing was a danger, every passenger a thing to watch alertly. One
man as I was about to pass him at the top of Bedford Street, turned
upon me abruptly and came into me, sending me into the road and
almost under the wheel of a passing hansom. The verdict of the
cab-rank was that he had had some sort of stroke. I was so unnerved
by this encounter that I went into Covent Garden Market and sat down
for some time in a quiet corner by a stall of violets, panting and
trembling. I found I had caught a fresh cold, and had to turn out
after a time lest my sneezes should attract attention.
"At last I reached the object of my quest, a dirty fly-blown
little shop in a byway near Drury Lane, with a window full of tinsel
robes, sham jewels, wigs, slippers, dominoes and theatrical
photographs. The shop was old-fashioned and low and dark, and the
house rose above it for four storeys, dark and dismal. I peered
through the window and, seeing no one within, entered. The opening
of the door set a clanking bell ringing. I left it open, and walked
round a bare costume stand, into a corner behind a cheval glass. For
a minute or so no one came. Then I heard heavy feet striding across
a room, and a man appeared down the shop.
"My plans were now perfectly definite. I proposed to make my
way into the house, secrete myself upstairs, watch my opportunity,
and when everything was quiet, rummage out a wig, mask, spectacles,
and costume, and go into the world, perhaps a grotesque but still a
credible figure. And incidentally of course I could rob the house of
any available money.
"The man who had entered the shop was a short, slight,
hunched, beetle-browed man, with long arms and very short bandy
legs. Apparently I had interrupted a meal. He stared about the shop
with an expression of expectation. This gave way to surprise, and
then anger, as he saw the shop empty. 'Damn the boys!' he said. He
went to stare up and down the street. He came in again in a minute,
kicked the door to with his foot spitefully, and went muttering back
to the house door.
"I came forward to follow him, and at the noise of my
movement he stopped dead. I did so too, startled by his quickness of
ear. He slammed the house door in my face.
"I stood hesitating. Suddenly I heard his quick footsteps
returning, and the door reopened. He stood looking about the shop
like one who was still not satisfied. Then, murmuring to himself, he
examined the back of the counter and peered behind some fixtures.
Then he stood doubtful. He had left the house door open and I
slipped into the inner room.
"It was a queer little room, poorly furnished and with a
number of big masks in the corner. On the table was his belated
breakfast, and it was a confoundedly exasperating thing for me,
Kemp, to have to sniff his coffee and stand watching while he came
in and resumed his meal. And his table manners were irritating.
Three doors opened into the little room, one going upstairs and one
down, but they were all shut. I could not get out of the room while
he was there, I could scarcely move because of his alertness, and
there was draught down my back. Twice I strangled a sneeze just in
time.
"The spectacular quality of my sensations was curious and
novel, but for all that I was heartily tired and angry long before
he had done his eating. But at last he made an end and putting his
beggarly crockery on the black tin tray upon which he had had his
teapot, and gathering all the crumbs up on the mustard-stained
cloth, he took the whole lot of things after him. His burden
prevented his shutting the door behind him--as he would have done; I
never saw such a man for shutting doors--and I followed him into a
very dirty underground kitchen and scullery. I had the pleasure of
seeing him begin to wash up, and then, finding no good in keeping
down there, and the brick floor being cold to my feet, I returned
upstairs and sat in his chair by the fire. It was burning low, and
scarcely thinking, I put on a little coal. The noise of this brought
him up at once, and he stood aglare. He peered about the room and
was within an ace of touching me. Even after that examination, he
scarcely seemed satisfied. He stopped in the doorway and took a
final inspection before he went down.
"I waited in the little parlour for an age, and at last he
came up and opened the upstairs door. I just managed to get by him.
"On the staircase he stopped suddenly, so that I very nearly
blundered into him. He stood looking back right into my face and
listening. 'I could have sworn,' he said. His long hairy hand pulled
at his lower lip. His eye went up and down the staircase. Then he
grunted and went on up again.
"His hand was on the handle of a door, and then he stopped
again with the same puzzled anger on his face. He was becoming aware
of the faint sounds of my movements about him. The man must have had
diabolically acute hearing. He suddenly flashed into rage. 'If
there's any one in this house,' he cried with an oath, and left the
threat unfinished. He put his hand in his pocket, failed to find
what he wanted, and rushing past me went blundering noisily and
pugnaciously downstairs. But I did not follow him. I sat on the head
of the staircase until his return.
"Presently he came up again, still muttering. He opened the
door of the room, and before I could enter, slammed it in my face.
"I resolved to explore the house, and spent some time in
doing so as noiselessly as possible. The house was very old and
tumbledown, damp so that the paper in the attics was peeling from
the walls, and rat-infested. Some of the door handles were stiff and
I was afraid to turn them. Several rooms I did inspect were
unfurnished, and others were littered with theatrical lumber, bought
second-hand, I judged, from its appearance. In one room next to his
I found a lot of old clothes. I began routing among these, and in my
eagerness forgot again the evident sharpness of his ears. I heard a
stealthy footstep and, looking up just in time, saw him peering in
at the tumbled heap and holding an old-fashioned revolver in his
hand. I stood perfectly still while he stared about open-mouthed and
suspicious. 'It must have been her,' he said slowly. 'Damn her!'
"He shut the door quietly, and immediately I heard the key
turn in the lock. Then his footsteps retreated. I realised abruptly
that I was locked in. For a minute a did not know what to do. I
walked from door to window and back, and stood perplexed. A gust of
anger came upon me. But I decided to inspect the clothes before I
did anything further, and my first attempt brought down a pile from
an upper shelf. This brought him back, more sinister than ever. That
time he actually touched me, jumped back with amazement and stood
astonished in the middle of the room.
"Presently he calmed a little. 'Rats,' he said in an
undertone, fingers on lip. He was evidently a little scared. I edged
quietly out of the room, but a plank creaked. Then the infernal
little brute started going all over the house, revolver in hand and
locking door after door and pocketing the keys. When I realised what
he was up to I had a fit of rage--I could hardly control myself
sufficiently to watch my opportunity. By this time I knew he was
alone in the house, and so I made no more ado, but knocked him on
the head."
"Knocked him on the head!" exclaimed Kemp.
"Yes--stunned him--as he was going downstairs. Hit him from
behind with a stool that stood on the landing. He went downstairs
like a bag of old boots."
"But--! I say! The common conventions of humanity--"
"Are all very well for common people. But the point was,
Kemp, that I had to get out of that house in a disguise without his
seeing me. I couldn't think of any other way of doing it. And then I
gagged him with a Louis Quatorze vest and tied him up in a
sheet."
"Tied him up in a sheet!"
"Made a sort of bag of it. It was rather a good idea to keep
the idiot scared and quiet, and a devilish hard thing to get out
of-- head away from the string. My dear Kemp, it's no good your
sitting and glaring as though I was a murderer. It had to be done.
He had his revolver. If once he saw me he would be able to describe
me--"
"But still," said Kemp, "in England--to-day. And
the man was in his own house, and you were--well, robbing."
"Robbing! Confound it! You'll call me a thief next! Surely,
Kemp, you're not fool enough to dance on the old strings. Can't you
see my position?"
"And his too," said Kemp.
The Invisible Man stood up sharply. "What do you mean to
say?"
Kemp's face grew a trifle hard. He was about to speak and checked
himself. "I suppose, after all," he said with a sudden
change of manner, "the thing had to be done. You were in a fix.
But still--"
"Of course I was in a fix--an infernal fix. And he made me
wild too--hunting me about the house, fooling about with his
revolver, locking and unlocking doors. He was simply exasperating.
You don't blame me, do you? You don't blame me?"
"I never blame any one," said Kemp. "It's quite
out of fashion. What did you do next?"
"I was hungry. Downstairs I found a loaf and some rank
cheese --more than sufficient to satisfy my hunger. I took some
brandy and water, and then went up past my impromptu bag--he was
lying quite still--to the room containing the old clothes. This
looked out upon the street, two lace curtains brown with dirt
guarding the window. I went and peered out through their
interstices. Outside the day was bright--by contrast with the brown
shadows of the dismal house in which I found myself, dazzlingly
bright. A brisk traffic was going by, fruit carts, a hansom, a
four-wheeler with a pile of boxes, a fishmonger's cart. I turned
with spots of colour swimming before my eyes to the shadowy fixtures
behind me. My excitement was giving place to a clear apprehension of
my position again. The room was full of a faint scent of benzoline,
used, I suppose, in cleaning the garments.
"I began a systematic search of the place. I should judge
the hunchback had been alone in the house for some time. He was a
curious person. Everything that could possibly be of service to me I
collected in the clothes storeroom, and then I made a deliberate
selection. I found a handbag I thought a suitable possession, and
some powder, rouge, and sticking-plaster.
"I had thought of painting and powdering my face and all
that there was to show of me, in order to render myself visible, but
the disadvantage of this lay in the fact that I should require
turpentine and other appliances and a considerable amount of time
before I could vanish again. Finally I chose a mask of the better
type, slightly grotesque but not more so than many human beings,
dark glasses, greyish whiskers, and a wig. I could find no
underclothing, but that I could buy subsequently, and for the time I
swathed myself in calico dominoes and some white cashmere scarfs. I
could find no socks, but the hunchback's boots were rather a loose
fit and sufficed. In a desk in the shop were three sovereigns and
about thirty shillings' worth of silver, and in a locked cupboard I
burst in the inner room were eight pounds in gold. I could go forth
into the world again, equipped.
"Then came a curious hesitation. Was my appearance really--
credible? I tried myself with a little bedroom looking-glass,
inspecting myself from every point of view to discover any forgotten
chink, but it all seemed sound. I was grotesque to the theatrical
pitch, a stage miser, but I was certainly not a physical
impossibility. Gathering confidence, I took my looking-glass down
into the shop, pulled down the shop blinds, and surveyed myself from
every point of view with the help of the cheval glass in the corner.
"I spent some minutes screwing up my courage and then
unlocked the shop door and marched out into the street, leaving the
little man to get out of his sheet again when he liked. In five
minutes a dozen turnings intervened between me and the costumier's
shop. No one appeared to notice me very pointedly. My last
difficulty seemed overcome."
He stopped again.
"And you troubled no more about the hunchback?" said
Kemp.
"No," said the Invisible Man. "Nor have I heard
what became of him. I suppose he untied himself or kicked himself
out. The knots were pretty tight."
He became silent, and went to the window and stared out.
"What happened when you went out into the Strand?"
"Oh!--disillusionment again. I thought my troubles were
over. Practically I thought I had impunity to do whatever I chose,
everything--save to give away my secret. So I thought. Whatever I
did, whatever the consequences might be, was nothing to me. I had
merely to fling aside my garments and vanish. No person could hold
me. I could take my money where I found it. I decided to treat
myself to a sumptuous feast, and then put up at a good hotel, and
accumulate a new outfit of property. I felt amazingly
confident--it's not particularly pleasant recalling that I was an
ass. I went into a place and was already ordering a lunch, when it
occurred to me that I could not eat unless I exposed my invisible
face. I finished ordering the lunch, told the man I should be back
in ten minutes, and went out exasperated. I don't know if you have
ever been disappointed in your appetite."
"Not quite so badly," said Kemp, "but I can
imagine it."
"I could have smashed the silly devils. At last, faint with
the desire for tasteful food, I went into another place and demanded
a private room. 'I am disfigured,' I said. 'Badly.' They looked at
me curiously, but of course it was not their affair--and so at last
I got my lunch. It was not particularly well served, but it
sufficed; and when I had had it, I sat over a cigar, trying to plan
my line of action. And outside a snowstorm was beginning.
"The more I thought it over, Kemp, the more I realised what
a helpless absurdity an Invisible Man was--in a cold and dirty
climate and a crowded civilised city. Before I made this mad
experiment I had dreamt of a thousand advantages. That afternoon it
seemed all disappointment. I went over the heads of the things a man
reckons desirable. No doubt invisibility made it possible to get
them, but it made it impossible to enjoy them when they are got.
Ambition--what is the good of pride of place when you cannot appear
there? What is the good of the love of woman when her name must
needs be Delilah? I have no taste for politics, for the
blackguardisms of fame, for philanthropy, for sport. What was I to
do? And for this I had become a wrapped-up mystery, a swathed and
bandaged caricature of a man!"
He paused, and his attitude suggested a roving glance at the
window.
"But how did you get to Iping?" said Kemp, anxious to
keep his guest busy talking.
"I went there to work. I had one hope. It was a half idea! I
have it still. It is a full blown idea now. A way of getting back!
Of restoring what I have done. When I choose. When I have done all I
mean to do invisibly. And that is what I chiefly want to talk to you
about now."
"You went straight to Iping?"
"Yes. I had simply to get my three volumes of memoranda and
my cheque-book, my luggage and underclothing, order a quantity of
chemicals to work out this idea of mine--I will show you the
calculations as soon as I get my books--and then I started. Jove! I
remember the snowstorm now, and the accursed bother it was to keep
the snow from damping my pasteboard nose."
"At the end," said Kemp, "the day before
yesterday, when they found you out, you rather--to judge by the
papers--"
"I did. Rather. Did I kill that fool of a constable?"
"No," said Kemp. "He's expected to recover."
"That's his luck, then. I clean lost my temper, the fools!
Why couldn't they leave me alone? And that grocer lout?"
"There are no deaths expected," said Kemp.
"I don't know about that tramp of mine," said the
Invisible Man, with an unpleasant laugh.
"By Heaven, Kemp, you don't know what rage is! To have
worked for years, to have planned and plotted, and then to get some
fumbling purblind idiot messing across your course! Every
conceivable sort of silly creature that has ever been created has
been sent to cross me.
"If I have much more of it, I shall go wild--I shall start
mowing 'em.
"As it is, they've made things a thousand times more
difficult."
"No doubt it's exasperating," said Kemp, dryly.
