Человек-невидимка / The Invisible Man + аудиоприложение - стр. 7

And directly the crates were unpacked, the stranger went to the window and set to work, not troubling about the box of books outside, nor for the trunks and other luggage that had gone upstairs.

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. Then he half turned his head and immediately turned it away again. But she saw he had removed his glasses; they were beside him on the table, and it seemed to her that his eye sockets were extraordinarily hollow. He put on his spectacles again, and then turned and faced her. She was about to complain of the straw on the floor when he anticipated her.

“I wish you wouldn’t come in without knocking,” he said in the tone of abnormal exasperation.

“I knocked, but seemingly-”

“Perhaps you did. But in my investigations-my really very urgent and necessary investigations-the slightest disturbance, the jar of a door-I must ask you-”

“Certainly, sir. You can turn the lock if you’re like that, you know. Any time.”

“A very good idea,” said the stranger.

“This straw, sir, if I might remark-”

“Don’t. If the straw makes trouble put it down in the bill.”

And he mumbled at her-words suspiciously like curses.

He was so odd, standing there, so aggressive and explosive, bottle in one hand and test-tube in the other, that Mrs. Hall was quite alarmed. But she was a resolute woman.

“In which case, I should like to know, sir, what you consider-”

“A shilling-put down a shilling. Surely a shilling is enough?”

“So be it,” said Mrs. Hall, taking up the table-cloth and beginning to spread it over the table.

He turned and sat down, with his coat-collar toward her.

All the afternoon he worked with the door locked and, as Mrs. Hall testifies, for the most part in silence. But once there was a smash of a bottle and then a rapid pacing athwart the room. She went to the door and listened.

“I can’t go on,” he was raving. “I can’t go on. Three hundred thousand, four hundred thousand! Cheated! All my life it may take me!.. Patience! Patience indeed!.. Fool! fool!”

There was a noise in the bar, and Mrs. Hall had very reluctantly to leave. When she returned the room was silent again. It was all over; the stranger had resumed work.

When she took in his tea she saw broken glass in the corner of the room under the mirror, and a golden stain that had been carelessly wiped. She drew attention to it.

“Put it down in the bill,” snapped her visitor. “For God’s sake don’t worry me. If there’s damage done, put it down in the bill!”