Человек-невидимка / The Invisible Man
Шрифт:
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.
11
I wish you wouldn’t come in –
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.
Chapter IV
Mr. Cuss Meets the Stranger
The stranger stayed quietly in Iping until April.
Hall did not like him, and whenever he talked of getting rid of him, Mrs. Hall said “Wait till the summer, when the artists begin to come. Then we’ll see. He may be unpleasant, but pays regularly.”
The stranger did not go to church, he worked, as Mrs. Hall thought, from time to time. Some days he got up early and worked all day. On others he got up late, smoked, or slept in the arm-chair by the fire. He had no communication with the world. His habit of talking to himself in a low voice grew, but though Mrs. Hall listened near the door she could make neither head nor tail of what she heard [12] .
12
she could make neither head nor tail of what she heard – она не могла ничего понять
He rarely went out by day, but in the evening he went out muffled up in any weather, and he chose the loneliest places. His spectacles and bandaged face frightened villagers.
It was natural that a person of such an unusual appearance and behaviour was much talked about in Iping. People were curious about his occupation. When asked, Mrs. Hall explained very carefully that he was a scientist, and then said that he “discovered things.” Her visitor had had an accident, she said, which changed the colour of his face and hands, and he was ashamed of it and avoided public attention.
There was also a view that he was a criminal trying to escape from the police. This idea first came to Mr. Teddy Henfrey, but no one knew of a crime from the middle or end of February. Another theory was that the stranger was a terrorist in disguise, preparing explosions. Yet another view was that the stranger a lunatic. But whatever they thought of him, people in Iping disliked him. His irritability made him no friends there.
Cuss, the village doctor, was very curious. The bandages excited his professional interest; the thousand-and-one bottles were also of interest to him. He looked for an excuse to visit the stranger, and at last he called on him to collect money for a village nurse. He was surprised that Mr. Hall did not know his guest’s name.
Cuss knocked on the door and entered, and then the door closed and Mrs. Hall couldn’t hear their conversation.
She could hear their voices for the next ten minutes, then a cry of surprise, a chair falling, laughter, quick steps to the door, and Cuss appeared, his face white. He left the inn without looking at her. Then she heard the stranger laughing quietly, the door closed, and all was silent again.
Cuss went straight to Bunting, the vicar.
“Am I mad?” Cuss began at once, as he entered the vicar’s little study. “Do I look mad?”
“What’s happened?” said the vicar.
“That man at the inn —”
“Well?”
“I went in,” he said, “and began to ask for money for the nurse. I spoke of the nurse, and all time looked round. Bottles – chemicals – everywhere. Would he give the money? He said he’d consider it. I asked him if he was doing research. He said he was. A long research? He got very angry, a ‘damnable long research,’ said he. ‘Damn you! What do you want here?’ I apologised. Draught of air from window lifted a paper from the table. He was working in a room with an open fireplace. In a moment I saw the paper burning. The man rushed to the fire and stretched his arm. There was no hand. Just an empty sleeve. Lord! I thought, there’s something odd in that. What keeps that sleeve up and open if there’s nothing in it? There was nothing in it, I tell you. ‘Good God!’ I said. He stared at me, and then at his sleeve.”
“Well?”
“That’s all. He never said a word, just put his sleeve in his pocket. ‘How,’ said I, ‘can you move an empty sleeve like that?’ ‘You saw it was an empty sleeve?’ He came to me, and stood quite close. Then he pulled his sleeve out of his pocket again, and raised his arm towards me. ‘Well?’ said I; ‘there’s nothing in it.’ I could see right down it. And then something struck my nose.”
Bunting began to laugh.
“There wasn’t anything there!” said Cuss. “I was so surprised, I hit his sleeve, and it felt exactly like hitting an arm. And there wasn’t an arm!”