Герберт Уэллс - The Invisible Man

"Very well, sir," she said. "As you like. In a bit the room will be warmer."

He made no answer, and turned his face away from her again, and Mrs. Hall, feeling that her conversational advances were ill-timed, [7] 1.7 her conversational advances were ill-timed — её попытки завязать разговор были несвоевременны laid the rest of the table things in a quick staccato [8] 1.8 staccato ( муз. ) — коротко, отрывисто manner, and whisked out of the room. When she returned he was still standing there like a man of stone, his back hunched, his collar turned up, his dripping hat-brim turned down, hiding his face and ears completely. She put down the eggs and bacon with considerable emphasis, and called rather than said to him:

"Your lunch is served, sir."

"Thank you," he said at the same time, and did not stir until she was closing the door. Then he swung round and approached the table with a certain eagerness.

As she went behind the bar to the kitchen she heard a sound repeated at regular intervals. Chirk, chirk, chirk, it went, the sound of a spoon being whisked rapidly round a basin. "That girl!" she said. "There! I clean forgot it. It's her being so long!" And while she herself finished mixing the mustard, she gave Millie a few verbal stabs [9] 1.9 verbal stabs — колкие замечания ( букв. словесные уколы) for her excessive slowness. She had cooked the ham and eggs, laid the table, and done everything, while Millie (help, indeed!) had only succeeded in delaying the mustard. And him a new guest, and wanting to stay! Then she filled the mustard-pot, and, putting it with some stateliness upon a gold and black tea-tray, carried it into the parlour.

She rapped and entered promptly. As she did so her visitor moved quickly, so that she got but a glimpse of a white object disappearing behind the table. It would seem he was picking something from the floor. She rapped down the mustard-pot on the table, and then she noticed the overcoat and hat had been taken off and put over a chair in front of the fire. A pair of wet boots threatened rust to her steel fender. She went to these things resolutely. "I suppose I may have them to dry now?" she said, in a voice that brooked no denial.

"Leave the hat," said her visitor in a muffled voice, and turning, she saw he had raised his head and was looking at her.

For a moment she stood gazing at him, too surprised to speak.

He held a white cloth—it was a serviette he had brought with him—over the lower part of his face, so that his mouth and jaws were completely hidden, and that was the reason of his muffled voice. But it was not that which startled Mrs. Hall. It was the fact that all the forehead above his blue glasses was covered by a white bandage, and that another covered his ears, leaving not a scrap of his face exposed excepting only his pink, peaked nose. It was bright pink, and shining, just as it had been at first. He wore a dark brown velvet jacket, with a high, black, linen-lined collar turned up about his neck. The thick black hair, escaping as it could below and between the cross bandages, projected in curious tails and horns, giving him the strangest appearance conceivable. This muffled and bandaged head was so unlike what she had anticipated that for a moment she was rigid.

He did not remove the serviette, but remained holding it, as she saw now, with a brown gloved hand, and regarding her with his inscrutable blank glasses. "Leave the hat," he said, speaking indistinctly through the white cloth.

Her nerves began to recover from the shock they had received. She placed the hat on the chair again by the fire. "I didn't know, sir," she began, "that—" And she stopped, embarrassed.

"Thank you," he said dryly, glancing from her to the door, and then at her again.

"I'll have them nicely dried, [10] 1.10 I'll have them nicely dried — я велю их хорошо просушить. Употребление to have + сложное дополнение them dried указывает на то, что действие выполняется не субъектом, выраженным подлежащим, а кем-то другим. То же с глаголом get: I'll… get the bloodhounds put on — «я велю натравить (на него) собак». sir, at once," she said, and carried his clothes out of the room. She glanced at his white-swathed head and blank goggles again as she was going out of the door; but his napkin was still in front of his face. She shivered a little as she closed the door behind her, and her face was eloquent of her surprise and perplexity. [11] 1.11 her face was eloquent of her surprise and perplexity — её лицо красноречиво свидетельствовало об удивлении и замешательстве "I never !" she whispered. "There!" [12] 1.12 I never ! There! — восклицания удивления или негодования She went quite softly to the kitchen, and was too preoccupied to ask Millie what she was messing about with now , [13] 1.13 what she was messing about with now — с чем она опять там возится. To mess about with (something) — «возиться с чем-либо без толку». when she got there.

The visitor sat and listened to her retreating feet. He glanced inquiringly at the window before he removed his serviette, and resumed his meal. He took a mouthful, glanced suspiciously at the window, took another mouthful; then rose and, taking the serviette in his hand, walked across the room and pulled the blind down to the top of the white muslin that obscured the lower panes. This plunged the room in twilight. He returned with an easier air to the table and his meal.

"The poor soul's had an accident, or an op'ration or somethin'," said Mrs. Hall. "What a turn them bandages did give me [14] 1.14 what a turn them (правильно: these) bandages did give me — ну и напугали меня эти повязки! Употребление вспомогательного глагола to do в утвердительном предложении служит для эмфазы. to be sure!"

She put on some more coal, unfolded the clothe-horse, and extended the traveller's coat upon this. "And they goggles! Why, he looked more like a divin' 'elmet [15] 1.15 divin' 'elmet (правильно: diving helmet) — шлем водолаза than a human man!" She hung his muffler on a corner of the horse. "And holding that handkerchief over his mouth all the time. Talkin' through it!… Perhaps his mouth was hurt too—maybe."

She turned round, as one who suddenly remembers. "Bless my soul alive!" [16] 1.16 Bless my soul alive! — восклицание удивления или негодования she said, going off at a tangent, "ain't you done them taters [17] 1.17 taters ( диал. ) = potatoes yet , Millie?"

When Mrs. Hall went to clear away the stranger's lunch her idea that his mouth must also have been cut or disfigured in the accident she supposed him to have suffered was confirmed, for he was smoking a pipe, and all the time that she was in the room he never loosened the silk muffler he had wrapped round the lower part of his face to put the mouthpiece to his lips. Yet it was not forgetfulness, for she saw he glanced at the tobacco as it smouldered out. He sat in the corner with his back to the window-blind, and spoke now, having eaten and drunk and being comfortably warmed through, with less aggressive brevity than before. The reflection of the fire lent a kind of red animation to his big spectacles they had lacked hitherto.