Человек-невидимка / The Invisible Man + аудиоприложение - стр. 13
“George! Have you got the bottle?”
At that he turned and hurried down to her.
“Janny,” he said, “Henfrey told the truth. He is not in the room. And the front door is open.”
At first Mrs. Hall did not understand. Hall, still holding the bottle said, “He is not here, but his clothes are. And what is he doing without them? This is very strange.”
As they came up the cellar steps they both heard the front door open and shut, but seeing it closed, they did not say a word to each other. Mrs. Hall ran upstairs. Someone sneezed on the staircase. Hall, following six steps behind, thought that he heard her sneeze. She, going on first, was under the impression that Hall was sneezing. She flung open the door and stood regarding the room.
She heard a sniff close behind her head, and turning, was surprised to see Hall a dozen feet off on the topmost stair. But in another moment he was beside her. She bent forward and put her hand on the pillow and then on the clothes.
“Cold,” she said. “He’s out for an hour or more.”
As she did so, a most extraordinary thing happened. The bed-clothes gathered themselves together, leapt up suddenly and then jumped over the bed. Immediately after, the stranger’s hat hopped off its place, and then dashed straight at Mrs. Hall’s face. Then swiftly came the sponge from the washstand; and then the chair, flinging the stranger’s coat and trousers carelessly aside, and laughing drily in a voice singularly like the stranger’s, turned itself up at Mrs. Hall. She screamed, and then the chair legs came gently but firmly against her back and impelled her and Hall out of the room. The door slammed violently and was locked. The chair and bed seemed to be executing a dance of triumph, and then abruptly everything was still.
Mrs. Hall was in a dead faint. Mr. Hall got her downstairs.
“These are spirits,” said Mrs. Hall. “I know these are spirits. I’ve read in papers about them. Tables and chairs are leaping and dancing…”
“Take some medicine, Janny,” said Hall.
“Lock the door,” said Mrs. Hall. “Don’t let him come in again. I guessed-I might have known. With such big eyes and bandaged head… He has never gone to church on Sunday. And all those bottles. He’s put the spirits into the furniture… My good old furniture! In that chair my poor dear mother used to sit when I was a little girl. And it rose up against me now!”
“Just a drop more, Janny,” said Hall. “Your nerves are all upset.”
They sent Millie, the servant, across the street to rouse up Mr. Sandy Wadgers, the blacksmith. Would Mr. Wadgers come round? He was a very clever man, Mr. Wadgers, and very resourceful.