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voice.
"I'm -- off -- my -- blooming -- chump," said Mr. Marvel. "It's no good. It's
fretting about them blarsted 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, 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 fling at his feet with almost invisible rapidity. He was too amazed to
dodge. Whizz it came, and ricochetted 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," 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."
The third flint fell.
"It's very simple," said the voice. "I'm an invisible man."
"Tell us something I don't know," said Mr. Marvel, gasping with pain. "Where
you've hid -- how you do it -- I don't know. I'm beat."
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"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 -- 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 -- 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 fingers 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 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're quite right, and it's not quite 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.
"Howjer manage it! How the dooce is it done?"
"It's too long a story. And besides -- "
"I tell you, the whole business fair 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 -- "
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"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 out-cast 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. 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."
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, 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 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. [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]