Chapter XIV

Certain First Principles

“Before we can do anything else,” said Kemp at breakfast, “I must understand a little more about this invisibility of yours.” He had sat down, after one nervous look out of the window.

“It’s simple,” said Griffin.

“No doubt to you, but —” Kemp laughed.

“Well, to me it seemed wonderful at first. You know I dropped medicine and took up physics? Well, I did. Light interested me. I had hardly worked for six months before I found a general principle of pigments and refraction – a formula. It was an idea how to lower the refractive index of a substance, solid or liquid, to that of air, and so to make it invisible.”

“That’s odd!” said Kemp. “But still I don’t quite see …”

“You know quite well that either a body absorbs light or it reflects or refracts it,” said Griffin. “If it neither reflects or refracts nor absorbs light, it cannot be visible. You see a red box, for example, because the colour absorbs some of the light and reflects the rest, all the red part of the light to you. If it did not absorb any part of the light, but reflected it all, then it would be a shining white box. A diamond box would neither absorb much of the light nor reflect much from the surface, but just here and there the light would be reflected and refracted, so that you would see some brilliant reflections. A glass box would not be so brilliant, not so clearly visible as a diamond box, because there would be less refraction and reflection. See that? From certain points you would see quite clearly through it. Some kinds of glass would be more visible than others. A box of very thin glass would be hard to see in a bad light, because it would absorb hardly any light and refract and reflect very little. And if you put a sheet of glass in water, it would almost vanish, because light passing from water to glass is only a little refracted or reflected. It is almost as invisible as any gas in air.”

“Yes,” said Kemp, “Any schoolboy nowadays knows all that.”

“And here is another fact any schoolboy will know. If a sheet of glass is smashed and beaten into a powder, it becomes much more visible while it is in the air. This is because light is refracted and reflected from many surfaces of the powdered glass. In the sheet of glass there are only two surfaces, in the powder the light is reflected or refracted by each piece it passes through. But if the powdered glass is put into water it vanishes. The powdered glass and water have much the same refraction index, that is, the light is very little refracted or reflected in passing from one to the other.

“The powdered glass might vanish in air, if its refraction index could be the same as that of air. Then there would be no refraction or reflection as the light passed from glass to air.”

“Yes, yes,” said Kemp. “But a man’s not powdered glass!”

“No,” said Griffin. “He’s more transparent!”

“Nonsense!”

“Have you already forgotten your physics in ten years? Just think of all the things that are transparent and seem not to be so! Paper, for example, is made of transparent fibres, and it is white and visible for the same reason that a powder of glass is white and visible. If you oil white paper, so that there is no longer refraction or reflection except at the surfaces, it becomes as transparent as glass. And not only paper, but bone, Kemp, flesh, hair, and nerves; in fact, the whole man, except the red of his blood and the dark pigment of hair, are all made of transparent, colourless tissue. Most fibres of a living tissue are no more visible than water.”

“Of course!” cried Kemp. “I was thinking only last night of the sea jelly-fish!”

“Yes! And I knew all that a year after I left London – six years ago. But I kept it to myself. Oliver, my professor, was a thief of ideas! And you know the system of the scientific world. I went on working, I did not publish anything, I got nearer and nearer making my formula into an experiment – a reality. I told no one, because I wanted to become famous. I took up the question of pigments, and suddenly – by accident – I made a discovery in physiology.”

“Yes?”

“You know the red substance of blood – it can be made white – colourless!”

Kemp gave a cry of amazement.

“I remember that night. It was late at night. It came suddenly into my mind. I was alone, the laboratory was still … ‘An animal – a tissue – could be made transparent! It could be made invisible! All except the pigments. I could be invisible,’ I suddenly realized what it meant to be an albino with such knowledge. ‘I could be invisible,’ I said.

“I thought of what invisibility might mean to a man. The power, the freedom. I didn’t see any drawbacks.

“And I worked three years, with the professor always watching me. And after three years of secrecy and trouble, I found that to finish it was impossible.”

“Why?” asked Kemp.

“Money,” said the Invisible Man. “I robbed the old man – robbed my father. The money was not his, and he shot himself.”

For a moment Kemp sat in silence, then struck by a thought, he rose, took the Invisible Man’s arm, and turned him away from the window.

“You are tired,” he said, “and while I sit you walk about. Have my chair.”

He stood between Griffin and the window.

“It was last December,” Griffin said. “I took a room in London, in a big house near Great Portland Street. I had bought apparatus with my father’s money, and the work was going on successfully.

“Suddenly I learned of my father’s death. I went to bury him. My mind was still on this research, and I did not lift a finger to save his reputation. I remember the funeral, the cheap ceremony, and the old college friend of his. I did not feel a bit sorry for my father. He seemed to me foolishly sentimental. His funeral was really not my business. It was all like a dream. As I came home, in my room there were the things I knew and loved, my apparatus, my experiments.”

Chapter XV

The Experiment

“I will tell you, Kemp, later about all the processes. We need not go into that now. They are written in cipher in those books that tramp has hidden. We must find him. We must get those books again. I was to put a thing whose refractive index was to be lowered, between two centres of vibration. My first experiment was with a bit of white wool. It was the strangest thing in the world to see it become transparent and vanish.

“And then I heard a miaow, and saw a white cat outside the window. A thought came into my head. ’Everything is ready for you,’ I said, and went to the window, and called her. She came in. The poor animal was hungry – and I gave her some milk.”

“And you processed her?”

“Yes. I gave her some drugs. And the process failed.”

“Failed?”

“The pigment at the back of the eye didn’t go. I put her on the apparatus. And after all the rest had vanished, two little ghosts of her eyes remained. She miaowed loudly, and someone came knocking. It was an old woman from downstairs, who suspected me of vivisecting. I applied some chloroform, and answered the door. ‘Did I hear a cat?’ she asked. ‘Not here,’ said I, very politely. She looked past me into the room. She was satisfied at last, and went away.”

“How long did it take?” asked Kemp.

“Three or four hours – the cat. The bones and nerves and the fat were the last to go, and the back of the eye didn’t go at all.

“About two the cat woke up and began miaowing. I remember the shock I had – there were just her eyes shining green – and nothing round them. She just sat and miaowed at the door. I opened the window and let her out. I never saw nor heard any more of her.

“I thought of the fantastic advantages an invisible man would have in the world.

“But I was tired and soon went to sleep. When I woke up, someone was knocking at the door. It was my landlord. The old woman had said I vivisected her cat. The laws of this country, he said, were against vivisection. And the vibration of my apparatus could be felt all over the house, he said. That was true. He walked round me in the room, looking around him. I tried to keep between him and the apparatus, and that made him more curious. What was I doing? Was it legal? Was it dangerous? Suddenly I had a fit of temper. I told him to get out. He began to protest. I had him by the collar, threw him out, and locked the door.

“This brought matters to a crisis. I did not know what he would do, I could not move to any other rooms, I had only twenty pounds left. Vanish!

“I hurried out with my three books of notes, my cheque book – the tramp has them now – and sent them from the nearest Post Office to myself to another Post Office in Great Portland Street.

“It was all done that evening and night. While I was still sitting under the affect of the drugs that decolourise blood, there came a knocking at the door. I rose, and opened the door. It was the landlord. He saw something odd about my hands, and looked in my face.

“For a moment he stared. Then he gave a cry, and ran to the stairs. I went to the looking-glass. Then I understood his terror… My face was white – like white stone.

“But it was horrible. I was in pain. I understood now why the cat had miaowed until I chloroformed it. At last the pain was over. I shall never forget the strange horror of seeing my body becoming transparent, the bones and arteries vanishing.

“I was weak and very hungry. I went and stared in my looking-glass – at nothing, but some pigment of my eyes. I dragged myself back to the apparatus, and finished the process.

“I slept till midday, when I heard knocking. I felt strong again. I listened and heard a whispering. I got up, and as noiselessly as possible began to destroy the apparatus. There was knocking again and voices called, first my landlord’s and then two others. Someone tried to break the lock. But the bolts stopped him.

“I stepped out of the window on to the window-sill, and sat down, invisible, but trembling with anger, to watch what would happen. They broke the door and rushed in. It was the landlord and his two sons. Behind them was the old woman from downstairs.

“You may imagine their astonishment at finding the room empty. One of the young men rushed to the window at once, and looked out.

His face was a foot from my face. He stared right through me. The old man went and looked under the bed. I sat outside the window and watched them.

“It occurred to me that if a well-educated person saw my unusual radiators, they would tell him too much. I got into the room, and smashed both apparatus. How scared they were!…

Then I slipped out of the room and went downstairs.

“I waited until they came down. As soon as they had gone to their rooms, I slipped up with a box of matches, and fired my furniture —”

“You fired the house?” said Kemp.

“Yes, I fired the house! I was only just beginning to realise the extraordinary advantage my invisibility gave me.”