The Invisible Man

To cure / handle / treat a patient

To give smb first aid

To clean the wound with antiseptic / To put a little antiseptic on the wound

To dress a wound / To apply a dressing to a wound

To put a bandage on

To remove a dressing

To replace a dressing

To have one’s leg put in plaster

To go round on crutches (until the plaster comes off)

Young bones set quickly

To have one’s arm in a sling

To give an injection / To give a needle

To inject smth into one’s arm / To inject one’s arm with smth

To give blood transfusion

To have a course of treatment /To undergo treatment (for a disease)

To try out a new course of treatment on smb / To test smth on smb

Patients’ condition

To be in good condition Ant: To be in poor condition

To be in no condition to do smth

To be in (out of) condition / to be fit (unfit) for smth

To be bedridden / to be confined to bed

Deteriorating condition, To take a turn for the worst

To feel like death warmed up, To be in critical / serious condition, To be slipping away, To be fading fast

To fight for life

To bring on complications, Complications set in

The life is hanging by a thread, It’s just a matter of time

To pass away, To die of an illness, To die from a wound, To die through neglect,

To have a relapse

To be in a coma, Ant: To come out of the coma

To recover / regain consciousness / To come to / To come round, To show signs of coming round

To respond to treatment, To make a progress, To turn the corner, The worst is over, To be on the mend, To come along nicely, Stable / satisfactory condition

To make a miraculous recovery

To be out of /off the danger list, To be up and about

To be completely recovered, To be as good as new, To be as right as rain, To be on one’s feet again

Operation

To go ahead with an operation

To operate on smb for smth / To perform surgery (an operation) for smth

To undergo an operation / to have an operation

Operating-theatre

To avoid post-operative complications

To have appendix removed / To have appendix out

To come through an operation

To be under the anaesthetic

The effect of the anaesthetic wears off

Convalescence and recuperation period

To survive an illness

To build up one’s strength

To examine one’s eating habits, drinking habits, sleeping habits

To live to be a hundred

SOCIAL MALADIES

To be in the habit of doing smth

To fall into / to get into the habit of doing smth

To cure smb of the habit

To get out of the habit / to break the habit / to kick the habit

A hard habit to break

Old habits die hard.

To do harm / To cause harm to smb /smth

To be harmful (Ant: harmless) to one’s health

To abuse smth, An abuse of smth

An addict, to be addicted to smth,

To overcome one’s addiction to smth

Heart Disease

Causes

A risk factor for a disease , A major cause of a disease

To contribute to (the development of) the disease

To put oneself at risk

To store up trouble

To eat fatty food (diets)

To be overweight

Weight fluctuation

Drinking and smoking

Prevention or cure

Prevention is better than cure

To examine one’s eating habits and drinking habits

To cut down on smth

To cut out fatty foods

To eat more fibre

To go on a diet, to be on a diet

Vitamin-rich diet, Ant: A diet deficient in (of) vitamins / to lack vitamins, Vitamin deficiency

To choose smth over smth

To lower blood pressure

To take more exercise (Compare: To do more exercises)

Moderate exercise

To reduce strain on heart

To have a positive effect / To be beneficial / To benefit

The harm may outweigh the benefit

Smoking/ Drinking / Drugs

Why do they start?

To be introduced to smoking / drinking / drugs by smb

Under friends’ pressure, To pressure smb into doing smth

To share alcohol in a family setting

To look grown-up

To copy parents

To join the crowd

Not to lose face

It becomes a sign of strength

To feel more relaxed and sociable

To escape from a life that may seem too hard to bear

To escape the feeling of worthlessness

Smoking

A non-smoker

A habitual smoker, a chain smoker, to chain smoke

Passive smoking

To inhale smoke Ant: to exhale

To get through 20 cigarettes a day

A craving for a cigarette

The harmful effects of smoking

The smell of smoke puts people off

To burn a great deal of money

To develop a bad dry persistent cough

Mouth sores, Damage to teeth

To increase blood pressure and pulse rate

To be constantly short of breath

Skin wrinkles faster and deeper

To run a risk of damage to the unborn babies

To bring on / cause lung cancer, heart disease, chronic bronchitis, emphysema

Prevention

To put a cigarette out, to extinguish a cigarette

To put an end to smoking

To give up / quit / stop / cut out smoking

To stay smoke-free

That’s easier said than done.

Drinking

A teetotaler, to stay sober, to be tipsy, to get drunk, to turn into an alcoholic

To be legally under age

Symptoms and Consequences

Drug-abuse

Symptoms and Consequences

Hard drugs, soft drugs, legal drugs

To take drugs / use drugs / be on drugs

To affect smth, To be badly affected

To develop side-effects

To cause unbalanced emotions

To bring on confusion and frightening hallucinations

To experience drowsiness, moodiness, loss of appetite, a high level of deceit

Drug-taking leads to crime

Withdrawal effects wear off slowly

To do lasting damage to the bodies

Mental disorders

To cause heartbeat irregularities

To cause sudden death

To die from continued drug abuse

Prevention

To fight against drugs

To resist drug experimentation

To dissuade friends from experimenting

Parental guidance

To suggest other ways of spending time together

To arrange anti-drugs campaigns

To have a drug-education programme for children

To hold drug education lessons

To arrange visits with ex-addicts

To avoid glamourising bad habits

Stress

The stresses and strains of modern life

Tensions of everyday life

A stressful job

To be under stress

Causes and symptoms

To burn the candle at both ends / To overwork / To overdo things

To be overtired, To have a feeling of exhaustion

Overworking and over-involvement in domestic problems

To suffer from constant irritability, tiredness, insomnia, lack of appetite

To have difficulty in making decisions, concentrating

To experience a feeling of having failed

To see oneself as the scapegoat

To be worn out, To feel run down

To build up a stress level

To bring on severe depression

To head for a nervous breakdown

Stress-based illnesses

How to cope with it

Positive stress

To thrive on stress

To fight off stress, to handle stress, to control stress,

To avoid stress

To take it easy

To confront, to avoid the situation

To have a change of scene

To eat regular meals

To wind down after a tiring day

To have a few early nights

Miscellaneous

The Invisible Man

A Grotesque Romance

By H. G. Wells

CONTENTS

I The strange Man's Arrival

II Mr. Teddy Henfrey's first Impressions

III The thousand and one Bottles

IV Mr. Cuss interviews the Stranger

V The Burglary at the Vicarage

VI The Furniture that went mad

VII The Unveiling of the Stranger

VIII In Transit

IX Mr. Thomas Marvel

X Mr. Marvel's Visit to Iping

XI In the "Coach and Horses"

XII The invisible Man loses his Temper

XIII Mr. Marvel discusses his Resignation

XIV At Port Stowe

XV The Man who was running

XVI In the "Jolly Cricketers"

XVII Dr. Kemp's Visitor

XVIII The invisible Man sleeps

XIX Certain first Principles

XX At the House in Great Portland Street

XXI In Oxford Street

XXII In the Emporium

XXIII In Drury Lane

XXIV The Plan that failed

XXV The Hunting of the invisible Man

XXVI The Wicksteed Murder

XXVII The Siege of Kemp's House

XXVIII The Hunter hunted

The Epilogue

CHAPTER I

THE STRANGE MAN'S ARRIVAL

The stranger came early in February, one wintry day, through a

biting wind and a driving snow, the last snowfall of the year, over

the down, walking from Bramblehurst railway station, and carrying a

little black portmanteau in his thickly gloved hand. He was wrapped

up from head to foot, and the brim of his soft felt hat hid every

inch of his face but the shiny tip of his nose; the snow had piled

itself against his shoulders and chest, and added a white crest to

the burden he carried. He staggered into the "Coach and Horses" more

dead than alive, and flung his portmanteau down. "A fire," he cried,

"in the name of human charity! A room and a fire!" He stamped and

shook the snow from off himself in the bar, and followed Mrs. Hall

into her guest parlour to strike his bargain. And with that much

introduction, that and a couple of sovereigns flung upon the table,

he took up his quarters in the inn.

Mrs. Hall lit the fire and left him there while she went to prepare

him a meal with her own hands. A guest to stop at Iping in the

wintertime was an unheard-of piece of luck, let alone a guest who

was no "haggler," and she was resolved to show herself worthy of her

good fortune. As soon as the bacon was well under way, and Millie,

her lymphatic aid, had been brisked up a bit by a few deftly chosen

expressions of contempt, she carried the cloth, plates, and glasses

into the parlour and began to lay them with the utmost _eclat_.

Although the fire was burning up briskly, she was surprised to see

that her visitor still wore his hat and coat, standing with his back

to her and staring out of the window at the falling snow in the yard.

His gloved hands were clasped behind him, and he seemed to be lost

in thought. She noticed that the melting snow that still sprinkled

his shoulders dripped upon her carpet. "Can I take your hat and coat,

sir?" she said, "and give them a good dry in the kitchen?"

"No," he said without turning.

She was not sure she had heard him, and was about to repeat her

question.

He turned his head and looked at her over his shoulder. "I prefer to

keep them on," he said with emphasis, and she noticed that he wore

big blue spectacles with sidelights, and had a bush side-whisker

over his coat-collar that completely hid his cheeks and face.

"Very well, sir," she said. "_As_ you like. In a bit the room will

be warmer."

He made no answer, and had turned his face away from her again, and

Mrs. Hall, feeling that her conversational advances were ill-timed,

laid the rest of the table things in a quick staccato and whisked

out of the room. When she returned he was still standing there, like

a man of stone, his back hunched, his collar turned up, his dripping

hat-brim turned down, hiding his face and ears completely. She put

down the eggs and bacon with considerable emphasis, and called

rather than said to him, "Your lunch is served, sir."

"Thank you," he said at the same time, and did not stir until she

was closing the door. Then he swung round and approached the table

with a certain eager quickness.

As she went behind the bar to the kitchen she heard a sound repeated

at regular intervals. Chirk, chirk, chirk, it went, the sound of a

spoon being rapidly whisked round a basin. "That girl!" she said.

"There! I clean forgot it. It's her being so long!" And while she

herself finished mixing the mustard, she gave Millie a few verbal

stabs for her excessive slowness. She had cooked the ham and eggs,

laid the table, and done everything, while Millie (help indeed!) had

only succeeded in delaying the mustard. And him a new guest and

wanting to stay! Then she filled the mustard pot, and, putting it

with a certain stateliness upon a gold and black tea-tray, carried

it into the parlour.

She rapped and entered promptly. As she did so her visitor moved

quickly, so that she got but a glimpse of a white object disappearing

behind the table. It would seem he was picking something from the

floor. She rapped down the mustard pot on the table, and then she

noticed the overcoat and hat had been taken off and put over a chair

in front of the fire, and a pair of wet boots threatened rust to her

steel fender. She went to these things resolutely. "I suppose I may

have them to dry now," she said in a voice that brooked no denial.

"Leave the hat," said her visitor, in a muffled voice, and turning

she saw he had raised his head and was sitting and looking at her.

For a moment she stood gaping at him, too surprised to speak.

He held a white cloth--it was a serviette he had brought with

him--over the lower part of his face, so that his mouth and jaws

were completely hidden, and that was the reason of his muffled

voice. But it was not that which startled Mrs. Hall. It was the fact

that all his forehead above his blue glasses was covered by a white

bandage, and that another covered his ears, leaving not a scrap of

his face exposed excepting only his pink, peaked nose. It was bright,

pink, and shiny just as it had been at first. He wore a dark-brown

velvet jacket with a high, black, linen-lined collar turned up about

his neck. The thick black hair, escaping as it could below and

between the cross bandages, projected in curious tails and horns,

giving him the strangest appearance conceivable. This muffled and

bandaged head was so unlike what she had anticipated, that for a

moment she was rigid.

He did not remove the serviette, but remained holding it, as she

saw now, with a brown gloved hand, and regarding her with his

inscrutable blue glasses. "Leave the hat," he said, speaking very

distinctly through the white cloth.

Her nerves began to recover from the shock they had received. She

placed the hat on the chair again by the fire. "I didn't know, sir,"

she began, "that--" and she stopped embarrassed.

"Thank you," he said drily, glancing from her to the door and then

at her again.

"I'll have them nicely dried, sir, at once," she said, and carried

his clothes out of the room. She glanced at his white-swathed head

and blue goggles again as she was going out of the door; but his

napkin was still in front of his face. She shivered a little as she

closed the door behind her, and her face was eloquent of her surprise

and perplexity. "I _never_," she whispered. "There!" She went quite

softly to the kitchen, and was too preoccupied to ask Millie what

she was messing about with _now_, when she got there.

The visitor sat and listened to her retreating feet. He glanced

inquiringly at the window before he removed his serviette, and

resumed his meal. He took a mouthful, glanced suspiciously at the

window, took another mouthful, then rose and, taking the serviette

in his hand, walked across the room and pulled the blind down to

the top of the white muslin that obscured the lower panes. This

left the room in a twilight. This done, he returned with an easier

air to the table and his meal.

"The poor soul's had an accident or an op'ration or somethin'," said

Mrs. Hall. "What a turn them bandages did give me, to be sure!"

She put on some more coal, unfolded the clothes-horse, and extended

the traveller's coat upon this. "And they goggles! Why, he looked

more like a divin' helmet than a human man!" She hung his muffler

on a corner of the horse. "And holding that handkerchief over his

mouth all the time. Talkin' through it! ... Perhaps his mouth was

hurt too--maybe."

She turned round, as one who suddenly remembers. "Bless my soul

alive!" she said, going off at a tangent; "ain't you done them

taters _yet_, Millie?"

When Mrs. Hall went to clear away the stranger's lunch, her idea

that his mouth must also have been cut or disfigured in the accident

she supposed him to have suffered, was confirmed, for he was smoking

a pipe, and all the time that she was in the room he never loosened

the silk muffler he had wrapped round the lower part of his face to

put the mouthpiece to his lips. Yet it was not forgetfulness, for

she saw he glanced at it as it smouldered out. He sat in the corner

with his back to the window-blind and spoke now, having eaten and

drunk and being comfortably warmed through, with less aggressive

brevity than before. The reflection of the fire lent a kind of red

animation to his big spectacles they had lacked hitherto.

"I have some luggage," he said, "at Bramblehurst station," and he

asked her how he could have it sent. He bowed his bandaged head

quite politely in acknowledgment of her explanation. "To-morrow?" he

said. "There is no speedier delivery?" and seemed quite disappointed

when she answered, "No." Was she quite sure? No man with a trap who

would go over?

Mrs. Hall, nothing loath, answered his questions and developed a

conversation. "It's a steep road by the down, sir," she said in

answer to the question about a trap; and then, snatching at an

opening, said, "It was there a carriage was upsettled, a year ago

and more. A gentleman killed, besides his coachman. Accidents, sir,

happen in a moment, don't they?"

But the visitor was not to be drawn so easily. "They do," he said

through his muffler, eyeing her quietly through his impenetrable

glasses.

"But they take long enough to get well, don't they? ... There was

my sister's son, Tom, jest cut his arm with a scythe, tumbled on it

in the 'ayfield, and, bless me! he was three months tied up sir.

You'd hardly believe it. It's regular given me a dread of a scythe,

sir."

"I can quite understand that," said the visitor.

"He was afraid, one time, that he'd have to have an op'ration--he

was that bad, sir."

The visitor laughed abruptly, a bark of a laugh that he seemed to

bite and kill in his mouth. "_Was_ he?" he said.

"He was, sir. And no laughing matter to them as had the doing for

him, as I had--my sister being took up with her little ones so

much. There was bandages to do, sir, and bandages to undo. So that

if I may make so bold as to say it, sir--"

"Will you get me some matches?" said the visitor, quite abruptly.

"My pipe is out."

Mrs. Hall was pulled up suddenly. It was certainly rude of him,

after telling him all she had done. She gasped at him for a moment,

and remembered the two sovereigns. She went for the matches.

"Thanks," he said concisely, as she put them down, and turned his

shoulder upon her and stared out of the window again. It was

altogether too discouraging. Evidently he was sensitive on the

topic of operations and bandages. She did not "make so bold as to

say," however, after all. But his snubbing way had irritated her,

and Millie had a hot time of it that afternoon.

The visitor remained in the parlour until four o'clock, without

giving the ghost of an excuse for an intrusion. For the most part

he was quite still during that time; it would seem he sat in the

growing darkness smoking in the firelight--perhaps dozing.

Once or twice a curious listener might have heard him at the coals,

and for the space of five minutes he was audible pacing the room.

He seemed to be talking to himself. Then the armchair creaked as

he sat down again.

CHAPTER II

Date: 2015-01-02; view: 1244