Mr. Heelas, Mr. Kemp's nearest neighbour among the villa1 holders2, was asleep in his summer house when the siege of Kemp's house began. Mr. Heelas was one of the sturdy minority who refused to believe "in all this nonsense" about an Invisible Man. His wife, however, as he was subsequently to be reminded, did. He insisted upon walking about his garden just as if nothing was the matter, and he went to sleep in the afternoon in accordance with the custom of years. He slept through the smashing of the windows, and then woke up suddenly with a curious persuasion3 of something wrong. He looked across at Kemp's house, rubbed his eyes and looked again. Then he put his feet to the ground, and sat listening. He said he was damned, but still the strange thing was visible. The house looked as though it had been deserted4 for weeks--after a violent riot. Every window was broken, and every window, save those of the belvedere study, was blinded by the internal shutters5.
"I could have sworn it was all right"--he looked at his watch--"twenty minutes ago."
He became aware of a measured concussion6 and the clash of glass, far away in the distance. And then, as he sat open-mouthed, came a still more wonderful thing. The shutters of the drawing-room window were flung open violently, and the housemaid in her outdoor hat and garments, appeared struggling in a frantic7 manner to throw up the sash. Suddenly a man appeared beside her, helping8 her--Dr. Kemp! In another moment the window was open, and the housemaid was struggling out; she pitched forward and vanished among the shrubs9. Mr. Heelas stood up, exclaiming vaguely10 and vehemently11 at all these wonderful things. He saw Kemp stand on the sill, spring from the window, and reappear almost instantaneously running along a path in the shrubbery and stooping as he ran, like a man who evades observation. He vanished behind a laburnum, and appeared again clambering over a fence that abutted12 on the open down. In a second he had tumbled over and was running at a tremendous pace down the slope towards Mr. Heelas.
"Lord!" cried Mr. Heelas, struck with an idea; "it's that Invisible Man brute13! It's right, after all!"
With Mr. Heelas to think things like that was to act, and his cook watching him from the top window was amazed to see him come pelting14 towards the house at a good nine miles an hour. There was a slamming of doors, a ringing of bells, and the voice of Mr. Heelas bellowing15 like a bull. "Shut the doors, shut the windows, shut everything!--the Invisible Man is coming!" Instantly the house was full of screams and directions, and scurrying16 feet. He ran himself to shut the French windows that opened on the veranda17; as he did so Kemp's head and shoulders and knee appeared over the edge of the garden fence. In another moment Kemp had ploughed through the asparagus, and was running across the tennis lawn to the house.
"You can't come in," said Mr. Heelas, shutting the bolts. "I'm very sorry if he's after you, but you can't come in!"
Kemp appeared with a face of terror close to the glass, rapping and then shaking frantically18 at the French window. Then, seeing his efforts were useless, he ran along the veranda, vaulted19 the end, and went to hammer at the side door. Then he ran round by the side gate to the front of the house, and so into the hill-road. And Mr. Heelas staring from his window--a face of horror--had scarcely witnessed Kemp vanish, ere the asparagus was being trampled20 this way and that by feet unseen. At that Mr. Heelas fled precipitately21 upstairs, and the rest of the chase is beyond his purview22. But as he passed the staircase window, he heard the side gate slam.
Emerging into the hill-road, Kemp naturally took the downward direction, and so it was he came to run in his own person the very race he had watched with such a critical eye from the belvedere study only four days ago. He ran it well, for a man out of training, and though his face was white and wet, his wits were cool to the last. He ran with wide strides, and wherever a patch of rough ground intervened, wherever there came a patch of raw flints, or a bit of broken glass shone dazzling, he crossed it and left the bare invisible feet that followed to take what line they would.
For the first time in his life Kemp discovered that the hill-road was indescribably vast and desolate23, and that the beginnings of the town far below at the hill foot were strangely remote. Never had there been a slower or more painful method of progression than running. All the gaunt villas24, sleeping in the afternoon sun, looked locked and barred; no doubt they were locked and barred--by his own orders. But at any rate they might have kept a lookout25 for an eventuality like this! The town was rising up now, the sea had dropped out of sight behind it, and people down below were stirring. A tram was just arriving at the hill foot. Beyond that was the police station. Was that footsteps he heard behind him? Spurt26.
The people below were staring at him, one or two were running, and his breath was beginning to saw in his throat. The tram was quite near now, and the "Jolly Cricketers" was noisily barring its doors. Beyond the tram were posts and heaps of gravel27--the drainage works. He had a transitory idea of jumping into the tram and slamming the doors, and then he resolved to go for the police station. In another moment he had passed the door of the "Jolly Cricketers," and was in the blistering28 fag end of the street, with human beings about him. The tram driver and his helper--arrested by the sight of his furious haste--stood staring with the tram horses unhitched. Further on the astonished features of navvies appeared above the mounds29 of gravel.
His pace broke a little, and then he heard the swift pad of his pursuer, and leapt forward again. "The Invisible Man!" he cried to the navvies, with a vague indicative gesture, and by an inspiration leapt the excavation30 and placed a burly group between him and the chase. Then abandoning the idea of the police station he turned into a little side street, rushed by a greengrocer's cart, hesitated for the tenth of a second at the door of a sweetstuff shop, and then made for the mouth of an alley31 that ran back into the main Hill Street again. Two or three little children were playing here, and shrieked32 and scattered33 at his apparition34, and forthwith doors and windows opened and excited mothers revealed their hearts. Out he shot into Hill Street again, three hundred yards from the tram-line end, and immediately he became aware of a tumultuous vociferation and running people.
He glanced up the street towards the hill. Hardly a dozen yards off ran a huge navvy, cursing in fragments and slashing35 viciously with a spade, and hard behind him came the tram conductor with his fists clenched36. Up the street others followed these two, striking and shouting. Down towards the town, men and women were running, and he noticed clearly one man coming out of a shop-door with a stick in his hand. "Spread out! Spread out!" cried some one. Kemp suddenly grasped the altered condition of the chase. He stopped, and looked round, panting. "He's close here!" he cried. "Form a line across--"
He was hit hard under the ear, and went reeling, trying to face round towards his unseen antagonist37. He just managed to keep his feet, and he struck a vain counter in the air. Then he was hit again under the jaw38, and sprawled39 headlong on the ground. In another moment a knee compressed his diaphragm, and a couple of eager hands gripped his throat, but the grip of one was weaker than the other; he grasped the wrists, heard a cry of pain from his assailant, and then the spade of the navvy came whirling through the air above him, and struck something with a dull thud. He felt a drop of moisture on his face. The grip at his throat suddenly relaxed, and with a convulsive effort, Kemp loosed himself, grasped a limp shoulder, and rolled uppermost. He gripped the unseen elbows near the ground. "I've got him!" screamed Kemp. "Help! Help--hold! He's down! Hold his feet!"
In another second there was a simultaneous rush upon the struggle, and a stranger coming into the road suddenly might have thought an exceptionally savage40 game of Rugby football was in progress. And there was no shouting after Kemp's cry--only a sound of blows and feet and heavy breathing.
Then came a mighty41 effort, and the Invisible Man threw off a couple of his antagonists42 and rose to his knees. Kemp clung to him in front like a hound to a stag, and a dozen hands gripped, clutched, and tore at the Unseen. The tram conductor suddenly got the neck and shoulders and lugged43 him back.
Down went the heap of struggling men again and rolled over. There was, I am afraid, some savage kicking. Then suddenly a wild scream of "Mercy! Mercy!" that died down swiftly to a sound like choking.
"Get back, you fools!" cried the muffled44 voice of Kemp, and there was a vigorous shoving back of stalwart forms. "He's hurt, I tell you. Stand back!"
There was a brief struggle to clear a space, and then the circle of eager faces saw the doctor kneeling, as it seemed, fifteen inches in the air, and holding invisible arms to the ground. Behind him a constable45 gripped invisible ankles.
"Don't you leave go of en," cried the big navvy, holding a blood-stained spade; "he's shamming46."
"He's not shamming," said the doctor, cautiously raising his knee; "and I'll hold him." His face was bruised47 and already going red; he spoke48 thickly because of a bleeding lip. He released one hand and seemed to be feeling at the face. "The mouth's all wet," he said. And then, "Good God!"
He stood up abruptly49 and then knelt down on the ground by the side of the thing unseen. There was a pushing and shuffling50, a sound of heavy feet as fresh people turned up to increase the pressure of the crowd. People now were coming out of the houses. The doors of the "Jolly Cricketers" stood suddenly wide open. Very little was said.
Kemp felt about, his hand seeming to pass through empty air. "He's not breathing," he said, and then, "I can't feel his heart. His side--ugh!"
Suddenly an old woman, peering under the arm of the big navvy, screamed sharply. "Looky there!" she said, and thrust out a wrinkled finger.
And looking where she pointed51, everyone saw, faint and transparent52 as though it was made of glass, so that veins53 and arteries54 and bones and nerves could be distinguished55, the outline of a hand, a hand limp and prone56. It grew clouded and opaque57 even as they stared.
"Hullo!" cried the constable. "Here's his feet a-showing!"
And so, slowly, beginning at his hands and feet and creeping along his limbs to the vital centres of his body, that strange change continued. It was like the slow spreading of a poison. First came the little white nerves, a hazy58 grey sketch59 of a limb, then the glassy bones and intricate arteries, then the flesh and skin, first a faint fogginess, and then growing rapidly dense60 and opaque. Presently they could see his crushed chest and his shoulders, and the dim outline of his drawn61 and battered62 features.
When at last the crowd made way for Kemp to stand erect63, there lay, naked and pitiful on the ground, the bruised and broken body of a young man about thirty. His hair and brow were white--not grey with age, but white with the whiteness of albinism--and his eyes were like garnets. His hands were clenched, his eyes wide open, and his expression was one of anger and dismay.
"Cover his face!" said a man. "For Gawd's sake, cover that face!" and three little children, pushing forward through the crowd, were suddenly twisted round and sent packing off again.
Someone brought a sheet from the "Jolly Cricketers," and having covered him, they carried him into that house. And there it was, on a shabby bed in a tawdry, ill-lighted bedroom, surrounded by a crowd of ignorant and excited people, broken and wounded, betrayed and unpitied, that Griffin, the first of all men to make himself invisible, Griffin, the most gifted physicist64 the world has ever seen, ended in infinite disaster his strange and terrible career.
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1
villa
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| n.别墅，城郊小屋 | |
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holders
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| 支持物( holder的名词复数 )； 持有者； （支票等）持有人； 支托（或握持）…之物 | |
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persuasion
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| n.劝说；说服；持有某种信仰的宗派 | |
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deserted
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| adj.荒芜的，荒废的，无人的，被遗弃的 | |
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shutters
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| 百叶窗( shutter的名词复数 )； （照相机的）快门 | |
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concussion
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| n.脑震荡；震动 | |
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frantic
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| adj.狂乱的，错乱的，激昂的 | |
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helping
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| n.食物的一份&adj.帮助人的，辅助的 | |
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shrubs
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| 灌木( shrub的名词复数 ) | |
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vaguely
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| adv.含糊地，暖昧地 | |
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vehemently
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| adv. 热烈地 | |
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abutted
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| v.（与…）邻接( abut的过去式和过去分词 )；（与…）毗连；接触；倚靠 | |
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brute
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| n.野兽，兽性 | |
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pelting
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| 微不足道的，无价值的，盛怒的 | |
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bellowing
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| v.发出吼叫声，咆哮（尤指因痛苦）( bellow的现在分词 )；（愤怒地）说出（某事），大叫 | |
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scurrying
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| v.急匆匆地走( scurry的现在分词 ) | |
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veranda
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| n.走廊；阳台 | |
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frantically
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| ad.发狂地, 发疯地 | |
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vaulted
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| adj.拱状的 | |
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trampled
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| 踩( trample的过去式和过去分词 )； 践踏； 无视； 侵犯 | |
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precipitately
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| adv.猛进地 | |
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purview
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| n.范围；眼界 | |
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desolate
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| adj.荒凉的，荒芜的；孤独的，凄凉的；v.使荒芜，使孤寂 | |
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villas
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| 别墅，公馆( villa的名词复数 )； （城郊）住宅 | |
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lookout
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| n.注意，前途，瞭望台 | |
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spurt
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| v.喷出；突然进发；突然兴隆 | |
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gravel
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| n.砂跞；砂砾层；结石 | |
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blistering
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| adj.酷热的；猛烈的；使起疱的；可恶的v.起水疱；起气泡；使受暴晒n.[涂料] 起泡 | |
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29
mounds
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| 土堆，土丘( mound的名词复数 )； 一大堆 | |
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excavation
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| n.挖掘，发掘；被挖掘之地 | |
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alley
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| n.小巷，胡同；小径，小路 | |
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shrieked
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| v.尖叫( shriek的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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scattered
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| adj.分散的，稀疏的；散步的；疏疏落落的 | |
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apparition
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| n.幽灵，神奇的现象 | |
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slashing
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| adj.尖锐的；苛刻的；鲜明的；乱砍的v.挥砍( slash的现在分词 )；鞭打；割破；削减 | |
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clenched
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| v.紧握，抓紧，咬紧( clench的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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antagonist
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| n.敌人，对抗者，对手 | |
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jaw
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| n.颚，颌，说教，流言蜚语；v.喋喋不休，教训 | |
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sprawled
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| v.伸开四肢坐[躺]( sprawl的过去式和过去分词)；蔓延；杂乱无序地拓展；四肢伸展坐着（或躺着） | |
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savage
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| adj.野蛮的；凶恶的，残暴的；n.未开化的人 | |
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mighty
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| adj.强有力的；巨大的 | |
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antagonists
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| 对立[对抗] 者，对手，敌手( antagonist的名词复数 )； 对抗肌； 对抗药 | |
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43
lugged
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| vt.用力拖拉（lug的过去式与过去分词形式） | |
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44
muffled
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| adj.（声音）被隔的；听不太清的；（衣服）裹严的；蒙住的v.压抑，捂住( muffle的过去式和过去分词 )；用厚厚的衣帽包着（自己） | |
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45
constable
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| n.(英国)警察，警官 | |
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46
shamming
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| 假装，冒充( sham的现在分词 ) | |
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47
bruised
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| [医]青肿的，瘀紫的 | |
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48
spoke
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| n.（车轮的）辐条；轮辐；破坏某人的计划；阻挠某人的行动 v.讲，谈（speak的过去式）；说；演说；从某种观点来说 | |
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49
abruptly
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| adv.突然地，出其不意地 | |
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50
shuffling
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| adj. 慢慢移动的, 滑移的 动词shuffle的现在分词形式 | |
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51
pointed
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| adj.尖的，直截了当的 | |
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52
transparent
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| adj.明显的，无疑的；透明的 | |
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53
veins
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| n.纹理；矿脉( vein的名词复数 )；静脉；叶脉；纹理 | |
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arteries
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| n.动脉( artery的名词复数 )；干线，要道 | |
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55
distinguished
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| adj.卓越的，杰出的，著名的 | |
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prone
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| adj.(to)易于…的，很可能…的；俯卧的 | |
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opaque
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| adj.不透光的；不反光的，不传导的；晦涩的 | |
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hazy
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| adj.有薄雾的，朦胧的；不肯定的，模糊的 | |
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sketch
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| n.草图；梗概；素描；v.素描；概述 | |
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dense
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| a.密集的，稠密的，浓密的；密度大的 | |
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drawn
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| v.拖，拉，拔出；adj.憔悴的，紧张的 | |
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battered
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| adj.磨损的；v.连续猛击；磨损 | |
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erect
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| n./v.树立，建立，使竖立；adj.直立的，垂直的 | |
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physicist
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| n.物理学家，研究物理学的人 | |
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