Kitabı oku: «The Invisible Man. B2 / Человек-невидимка», sayfa 11

Chapter 6
The Furniture That Went Mad

It happened in the small hours of Whit Monday. Mr. Hall and Mrs. Hall both rose and went noiselessly down into the cellar. Their business had something to do with their beer. Hardly had they entered the cellar when Mrs. Hall found she had forgotten to bring down a bottle of lemonade from their room. As she was the expert in this matter, Hall immediately went upstairs for it.

On the landing he was surprised to see that the stranger's door was ajar.

He knocked. There was no answer. He knocked again; then pushed the door wide open and entered.

It was as he expected. The room was empty. And what was strange, the guest's clothes and his bandages were scattered around.

As Hall stood there he heard his wife's voice coming out of the cellar and hurried down to her. He told Mrs. Hall that their guest wasn't in his room.

At first Mrs. Hall did not understand, and as soon as she did she resolved to see the empty room for herself. Hall, still holding the bottle, went first. As they came up the cellar steps they both heard the front door open and shut, but they didn't say a word to each other about it. Someone sneezed on the staircase. Hall thought that he had heard her sneeze and she was under the impression that it was Hall. “How curious!” she thought.

Suddenly the most extraordinary thing happened. The bedclothes gathered themselves together andleapt up suddenly into the air. It was exactly as if a hand had clutched them and flung aside. Immediately after, the stranger's hat dashed straight at Mrs. Hall's face. Then came the chair, flinging the stranger's coat and trousers aside, turned itself up with its four legs at Mrs. Hall. She screamed and turned, and then the chair legs came gently but firmly against her back and pushed her and Hall out of the room. The door slammed violently and was locked. The chair and bed seemed to be dancing for a moment, and then abruptly everything was still.

Mrs. Hall almost fainted in Mr. Hall's arms on the landing.

“Lock him out,” said Mrs. Hall. “With his goggles and bandaged head, and never going to church on Sunday. And all the bottles… He's put the spirits into the furniture… My good old furniture! It was in that very chair my poor dear mother used to sit when I was a little girl. To think it should rise up against me now!”

And suddenly the door of the room upstairs opened, and as they looked up in amazement, they saw the muffled figure of the stranger descending the stairs. He came downstiffly and slowly, staring all the time, then stopped.