Weird Science. A tale of science gone wrong. A man gone mad to achieve the impossible. The Invisible Man By H.G. Wells, Chapter 4, Part Two

The Invisible Man

By H.G. Wells

Chapter 4, Part Two

Cuss rapped at the parlour door and entered. There was a fairly

audible imprecation from within. "Pardon my intrusion," said Cuss,

and then the door closed and cut Mrs. Hall off from the rest of

the conversation.

She could hear the murmur of voices for the next ten minutes, then

a cry of surprise, a stirring of feet, a chair flung aside, a bark

of laughter, quick steps to the door, and Cuss appeared, his face

white, his eyes staring over his shoulder. He left the door open

behind him, and without looking at her strode across the hall and

went down the steps, and she heard his feet hurrying along the

road. He carried his hat in his hand. She stood behind the door,

looking at the open door of the parlour. Then she heard the

stranger laughing quietly, and then his footsteps came across the

room. She could not see his face where she stood. The parlour door

slammed, and the place was silent again.

Cuss went straight up the village to Bunting the vicar. "Am I mad?"

Cuss began abruptly, as he entered the shabby little study. "Do I

look like an insane person?"

"What's happened?" said the vicar, putting the ammonite on the

loose sheets of his forth-coming sermon.

"That chap at the inn--"

"Well?"

"Give me something to drink," said Cuss, and he sat down.

When his nerves had been steadied by a glass of cheap sherry--the

only drink the good vicar had available--he told him of the

interview he had just had. "Went in," he gasped, "and began to

demand a subscription for that Nurse Fund. He'd stuck his hands in

his pockets as I came in, and he sat down lumpily in his chair.

Sniffed. I told him I'd heard he took an interest in scientific

things. He said yes. Sniffed again. Kept on sniffing all the time;

evidently recently caught an infernal cold. No wonder, wrapped up

like that! I developed the nurse idea, and all the while kept my

eyes open. Bottles--chemicals--everywhere. Balance, test-tubes

in stands, and a smell of--evening primrose. Would he subscribe?

Said he'd consider it. Asked him, point-blank, was he researching.

Said he was. A long research? Got quite cross. 'A damnable long

research,' said he, blowing the cork out, so to speak. 'Oh,' said

I. And out came the grievance. The man was just on the boil, and my

question boiled him over. He had been given a prescription, most

valuable prescription--what for he wouldn't say. Was it medical?

'Damn you! What are you fishing after?' I apologised. Dignified

sniff and cough. He resumed. He'd read it. Five ingredients. Put it

down; turned his head. Draught of air from window lifted the paper.

Swish, rustle. He was working in a room with an open fireplace, he

said. Saw a flicker, and there was the prescription burning and

lifting chimneyward. Rushed towards it just as it whisked up the

chimney. So! Just at that point, to illustrate his story, out came

his arm."

"Well?"

"No hand--just an empty sleeve. Lord! I thought, _that's_ a

deformity! Got a cork arm, I suppose, and has taken it off. Then, I

thought, there's something odd in that. What the devil keeps that

sleeve up and open, if there's nothing in it? There was nothing in

it, I tell you. Nothing down it, right down to the joint. I could

see right down it to the elbow, and there was a glimmer of light

shining through a tear of the cloth. 'Good God!' I said. Then he

stopped. Stared at me with those black goggles of his, and then

at his sleeve."

"Well?"

"That's all. He never said a word; just glared, and put his sleeve

back in his pocket quickly. 'I was saying,' said he, 'that there

was the prescription burning, wasn't I?' Interrogative cough.

'How the devil,' said I, 'can you move an empty sleeve like that?'

'Empty sleeve?' 'Yes,' said I, 'an empty sleeve.'

"'It's an empty sleeve, is it? You saw it was an empty sleeve?' He

stood up right away. I stood up too. He came towards me in three

very slow steps, and stood quite close. Sniffed venomously. I

didn't flinch, though I'm hanged if that bandaged knob of his, and

those blinkers, aren't enough to unnerve any one, coming quietly

up to you.

"'You said it was an empty sleeve?' he said. 'Certainly,' I said.

At staring and saying nothing a barefaced man, unspectacled, starts

scratch. Then very quietly he pulled his sleeve out of his pocket

again, and raised his arm towards me as though he would show it to

me again. He did it very, very slowly. I looked at it. Seemed an

age. 'Well?' said I, clearing my throat, 'there's nothing in it.'

"Had to say something. I was beginning to feel frightened. I could

see right down it. He extended it straight towards me, slowly,

slowly--just like that--until the cuff was six inches from my

face. Queer thing to see an empty sleeve come at you like that!

And then--"

"Well?"

"Something--exactly like a finger and thumb it felt--nipped my

nose."

Bunting began to laugh.

"There wasn't anything there!" said Cuss, his voice running up into

a shriek at the "there." "It's all very well for you to laugh, but

I tell you I was so startled, I hit his cuff hard, and turned

around, and cut out of the room--I left him--"

Cuss stopped. There was no mistaking the sincerity of his panic.

He turned round in a helpless way and took a second glass of the

excellent vicar's very inferior sherry. "When I hit his cuff," said

Cuss, "I tell you, it felt exactly like hitting an arm. And there

wasn't an arm! There wasn't the ghost of an arm!"

Mr. Bunting thought it over. He looked suspiciously at Cuss. "It's

a most remarkable story," he said. He looked very wise and grave

indeed. "It's really," said Mr. Bunting with judicial emphasis, "a

most remarkable story."