Герберт Уэллс - Кентервильское привидение. Человек-невидимка / The Canterville Ghost. The Invisible Man

Hall was also there staring. “He was bitten,” said Hall. “I’d better go and see.” And he went after the stranger. He met Mrs. Hall in the inn. “Fearenside’s dog,” he said, “bit him.”

He went straight to the stranger’s door, pushed it open, and entered without any ceremony.

The blind was down and the room dark. He saw a most unusual thing, a handless arm, and a face of three huge spots on white. Then he was struck violently, thrown back, the door closed in his face, and locked. He stood in the dark passage, wondering what he had seen.

After a couple of minutes he came out of the “Coach and Horses.” Fearenside was telling some people about it all over again; there was Mrs. Hall saying his dog didn’t have any business to bite her guests. There were also some women and children, all of them saying: “I wouldn’t let it bite me”; “It isn’t right to have such dogs”; “What did it bite him for?” and so on.

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 [152]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.

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.

Are the following statements true or false? Correct the false ones.

1. Everyone at the inn was amazed at the big number of trunks the stranger had in his luggage.

2. The postman’s dog bit the stranger and tore his glove and trousers.

3. When he was bitten, the stranger struck the dog with a stick.

4. When Mr. Hall entered the guest room, he saw the stranger bandaging his hand.

5. Mr. Hall helped the stranger and he thanked him for this.

6. When the luggage was unpacked, everyone saw a lot of bottles with fluids and powders.

7. As soon as the luggage was unpacked, the stranger began to work with his test tubes and bottles.

8. The stranger was so rude and aggressive that Mrs. Hall was afraid of him.

9. The stranger was very quiet while he was working.

1. Why was the stranger’s luggage called very remarkable?

2. Why do you think Mr. Hall followed the stranger to his room and entered without ceremony?

3. Why didn’t Mr. Hall tell anybody what he had seen in the guest room?

4. What kind of scientist do you think the stranger was?

5. Do you think the stranger’s work was successful? Why do you think so?

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. [153]

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.”