Chapter XVI

New Life Begins

“As I got on Great Portland Street, I was hit violently behind, and turning, saw a boy carrying a box of bottles. His astonishment was so funny that I laughed aloud. I took the box out of his hands, and threw it up into the air.

“A few people crowded around us. I realized what I had done. In a moment the crowd would be all around me, and I should be discovered. I pushed by a boy, ran across the road, and soon reached Oxford Street.

“In a moment someone stepped on my foot. I felt very cold. It was a bright day in January, and I was naked, and the mud on the road was freezing. I had not thought that, transparent or not, I should be cold.

“Then an idea came into my head. I jumped into an empty cab. And so, cold and scared, I drove along Oxford Street. I was not feeling as happy and powerful as I had when leaving my house a few minutes before. This invisibility, indeed! My one thought was how to get out of trouble.

“A woman stopped my cab, and I jumped out just in time to escape her. I was now very cold, and felt so unhappy that I cried as I ran.

“A little white dog ran up to me, nose down. I had never realised it before, how dangerous a dog could be for me. He began barking, showing that he felt me. I ran on and on until I saw a big crowd.

“I ran up the steps of a house, and stood there until the crowd had passed. Happily the dog stopped, too, then ran away.

“Two boys stopped at the steps near me. ’Do you see bare footmarks?’ said one.

“I looked down and saw the boys staring at the muddy footmarks I had left on the steps.

‘A barefoot man has gone up the steps,’ said one. ‘And he hasn’t come down.’

“‘Look there, Ted,’ said one of the young detectives, and pointed at my feet. I looked down and saw a silhouette of my muddy feet.

“‘Why, it’s just like the ghost of a foot, isn’t it?’ He stretched out his hand. A man stopped to see what he was catching, and then a girl. In another moment he would have touched me. Then I made a step, and jumped over onto the steps of the next house. But the smaller boy saw the movement.

“‘What’s the matter?’ asked someone.

“‘Feet! Look!’

“In another moment I was running, with six or seven astonished people following my footmarks. I ran round corners and across roads, and then as my feet grew hot I cleaned them with my hands. I did not leave footmarks any more.

“This running warmed me, but I had cut my foot, and there was blood on it. It began snowing. And every dog was a terror to me.”

* * *

“So last January I began this new life. I had no home, no clothes, no one in the whole world whom I could ask for help. I had to get out of the snow, to get myself clothes, then I could make plans. I could see before me – the cold, the snowstorm and night.

“And then I had a good idea. I went to a big department store, where you can find everything: meat, furniture, clothes.

“I did not feel safe there, however, people were going to and fro, and I walked about until I came upon a big furniture section. I found a resting-place, and I decided to remain in hiding until closing time. Then I should be able, I thought, to find food and clothes and disguise, perhaps sleep on a bed. My plan was to get clothes, money, and then my books at the Post Office, to stay somewhere, and realise the advantages of my invisibility (as I still imagined).

“Closing time arrived quickly. My first visit was to the clothes section, where I found what I wanted – trousers, socks, a jacket, a coat, and a hat. I began to feel man again, and my next thought was food.

“Upstairs was a restaurant, and there I got cold meat and coffee. I also saw a lot of chocolate, and some wine. Then I went to sleep on a bed, very warm and comfortable.

“As I woke up, I sat up, and for a time I could not understand where I was. Then I saw two men approaching. I got up, looking about me for some way of escape, and the sound of my movement made them look at me. ‘Who’s that?’ cried one, and ’Stop there!’ shouted the other. I ran round a corner and into a boy of fifteen. He shouted and I knocked him down, rushed past him, turned another corner. In another moment feet ran past and I heard voices shouting, ‘All to the doors!’ and giving one another advice how to catch me. But it did not occur to me at the moment to take off my clothes, as I wanted to get away in them. ‘Here he is!’

“I gripped a chair, and threw it at the man who had shouted, and rushed up the stairs. He came upstairs after me. Upstairs were a lot of those bright pots. I took one of them, and smashed it on his silly head. I rushed madly to the restaurant, and there was a man in white like a cook. I found myself among lamps. I hid among them and waited for my cook, and as he appeared, I smashed his head with a lamp. Down he went, and I began taking off my clothes as fast as I could.

“This way, Policeman,’ I heard someone shouting. I ran and found myself in my furniture section again, and hid there. The policeman and three other men came there. They saw my clothes. ‘He must be somewhere here,’ said one of the men.

“But they did not find me. I stood watching them and cursing my bad luck in losing the clothes. About eleven o’clock, when the snow had stopped and it was a little warmer, I went out without any plans in my mind.”

Chapter XVII

In Drury Lane

“I had no home – no clothes, – to get dressed was to lose all my advantage,” said the Invisible Man, “I could not eat, because unassimilated food made me grotesquely visible again.”

“I never thought of that,” said Kemp.

“Neither had I. And the snow was another danger. I could not go out in snow – it would fall on me and show me. Rain, too, would make me visible. Moreover, I gathered dirt on my body. It could not be very long before I became visible because of it. My most urgent problem was to get clothes. I remembered that some theatrical costumiers had shops in that district.

“At last I reached a little shop in Drury Lane. I looked through the window, and, as there was no one inside, entered. I walked into a corner behind a looking-glass. For a minute or so no one came, then a man appeared.

“My plan was to get there a wig, mask, glasses, and costume. And, of course, I could rob the house of money.

“The man looked about, but he saw the shop empty. ‘Damn the boys!’ he said. He went to look up and down the street. He came in again in a minute, and went back to the house door.

“I followed him, and at the noise of my movement he stopped. I did so too, surprised by his quickness of ear. He slammed the house door in my face.

“Suddenly I heard his quick steps returning, and the door opened. He stood looking about the shop like a man who was not satisfied. Then he examined all the shop. He had left the house door open, and I slipped into a small room.

“Three doors opened into the room, one going upstairs and one down, but they were all shut. I could not get out of the room while he was there, and I could not move because of his quickness of ear. Luckily, he soon came in and went downstairs to a very dirty kitchen. I followed him. He began to wash up, and I returned upstairs and sat in his chair by the fire.

“I waited there for very long, and at last he came up and opened the upstairs door. I went after him.

“On the staircase he stopped suddenly, so that I nearly ran into him. He stood looking back right into my face, and his eye went up and down the staircase. Then he went on up again.

“His hand was on the handle of a door and then he heard the sound of my movements about him. The man had very good hearing. ‘If there’s any one in this house —’ he cried, and rushed past me downstairs. But I did not follow him; I sat on the staircase until his return.

“Soon he came up again, opened the door of the room, and, before I could enter, slammed it in my face.

“I decided to examine the house as noiselessly as possible. The house was very old with a lot of rats. In one room I found a lot of old clothes. While I was sorting them out, I heard his steps, and saw him near me holding a revolver in his hand. I stood still while he stared about suspiciously.

“He shut the door, and I heard the key turn in the lock. I was locked in. I decided to examine the clothes before I did anything else, and this brought him back. This time he touched me, jumped back with amazement, and stood astonished in the middle of the room, revolver in hand.

“‘Rats,’ he said. By this time I knew he was alone in the house, and so I knocked him on the head.”

“Knocked him on the head?” exclaimed Kemp.

“Yes, as he was going downstairs. Hit him from behind with a chair. He went downstairs like a bag.”

“But —”

“Kemp, I had to get out of that house in a disguise, without his seeing me. I couldn’t think of any other way of doing it.”

“But still,” said Kemp, “the man was in his own house, and you were robbing.”

“Robbing! Damn it! Can’t you see my position? I was in trouble! And he made me mad too – hunting me about the house, with his revolver, locking and unlocking doors. What was I to do?”

“What did you do next?” said Kemp.

“I was hungry. Downstairs I found some bread and cheese, and ate them. Then I went to the room with the old clothes.

“I chose a false nose, dark glasses, whiskers, a wig, a coat and trousers. In a desk in the shop were three sovereigns and about thirty shillings. After I put everything on, I looked at myself in the looking-glass in the shop. I looked odd, but I could go out. I marched out into the street, leaving the man lying on the stairs.”

“And you troubled no more about him?” said Kemp.

“No,” said the Invisible Man. “And I haven’t heard what became of him.”

“What happened when you went out?”

“Oh! Disappointment again. I thought my troubles were over. I thought I could do what I chose, everything. So I thought. Nothing could happen to me, I could take off my clothes and vanish. Nobody could hold me. I could take my money where I found it. I went to a restaurant and was already ordering a lunch, when it occurred to me that I could not eat in public. I finished ordering the lunch, told the man I should be back in ten minutes, and went out exasperated.”

“Then I went to a hotel and asked for a room, where at last I ate my lunch.

“The more I thought it over, Kemp, the more I realised how helpless an Invisible Man was, – in a cold and dirty climate and a crowded, civilised city. Before I made this mad experiment I had thought of a thousand advantages. That afternoon it seemed all disappointment. What was I to do? I had become a bandaged caricature of a man.”

He looked at the window.

“But how did you get to Iping?” said Kemp, who wanted to keep his guest away from the window.

“I went there to work. I hoped to find a way of getting back after I did all I planned while I was invisible. And that is what I want to talk to you about now.”

“You went straight to Iping?”

“Yes, I took my three diaries and my chequebook, my luggage and chemicals. I will show you the calculations as soon as I get my books. Did I kill that constable?”

“No,” said Kemp. “He’s recovering.”

“I lost my temper! Why couldn’t the fools leave me alone? And that man from the shop?”

“He’s recovering, too,” said Kemp.

“Lord, Kemp!… I worked for years, and then some idiots stand in my way! If I have much more of it, I shall go mad, – I shall start killing them.”