Человек-невидимка / The Invisible Man

As she went to the kitchen she saw her help Millie still making mustard. “That girl!” she said. “She’s so long!” And she herself finished mixing the mustard. She had cooked the ham and eggs, laid the table, and done everything, while Millie had not mixed the mustard! And a new guest wanted to stay! Then she filled the mustard-pot, and carried it into the guest room.

She knocked and entered at once. She put down the mustard-pot on the table, and then she noticed the coat and hat on a chair in front of the fire.

She wanted to take these things to the kitchen. “May take them to dry now?” she asked.

“Leave the hat,” said her visitor in a muffled voice, and turning, she saw he had raised his head and was looking at her.

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

He held a white napkin, which she had given him, over the lower part of his face, so that his mouth was completely hidden, and that was the reason of his muffled voice. But what surprised Mrs.

Hall most was the fact that all the forehead above his blue glasses was covered by a white bandage, and that another bandage covered his ears, so that only his pink nose could be seen. It was bright pink. He wore a jacket with a high collar turned up about his neck. The thick black hair could be seen between the bandages. This muffled and bandaged head was so strange that for a moment she stood speechless. He remained holding the napkin, as she saw now, with a gloved hand. “Leave the hat,” he said, speaking through the napkin.

She began to recover from the shock she had received. She placed the hat on the chair again by the fire. “I didn’t know, sir,” she began, “that —” And she stopped, not knowing what to say.

“Thank you,” he said dryly, looking 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 shivered a little as she closed the door behind her, and her face showed her surprise.

The visitor sat and listened to the sound of her feet. He looked at the window before he took away the napkin; then rose and pulled the blind down. He returned to the table and his lunch.

“The poor man had an accident, or an operation or something,” said Mrs. Hall. “And he held that napkin over his mouth all the time. Talked through it!… Perhaps his mouth was hurt too.”

When Mrs.