Chapter 6 of the novel ‘The Invisible Man’

Chapter 6 of the novel ‘The Invisible Man’

Summary

The Furniture That Went Mad

In the previous chapter, you have come to know about the theft in Mrs. And Mr. Bunting’s house. The stranger entered their house and stole money because day by day he was unable to meet out his daily expenditure.

In this chapter, we find that Mr. Hall and Mrs. Hall had woken up earlier than before. Then they went silently down in the cellar to take care of the beer that was under the process of preparation. The moment they entered the cellar, Mrs. Hall remembered that she had forgotten to bring a bottle of sarsaparilla (a kind sweet liquid prepared from this plant) from their room. Mr. Hall went upstairs to get it. While going upstairs, he found that the door of the stranger’s room was open, but he kept going on towards his room and found the bottle there. Picking up it, he started returning and suddenly he noticed that the front door was simply on the latch. He also remembered that the previous night it was properly closed by Mrs. Hall. His curiosity increased and he proceeded towards the stranger’s room to see something more there.  He rapped at the door of his room upstairs. There was no response. He rapped again. When he found no reply, he pushed the door in and entered. Mr. Hall found everything as he had expected. The bed and the room was also empty. His garments, the bandages were all lying scattered on the bedroom chair and along the rail of the bed.

In the meantime, Mrs. Hall became impatient as Mr. Hall was not going down with the bottle which she needed immediately. So she started calling him aloud from the cellar.

At this, Mr. Hall tried to tell Mrs. Hall by going downstairs that the stranger’s room was quite open at that time. At first, she could not understand the whole matter, but, at last, she decided to see the empty room for herself. Mr. Hall, still holding the bottle in his hand started moving upstairs first, followed by his wife. As both of them came up the cellar steps, they heard the front door open and shut, but seeing it closed, neither of them said any word to each other. Then, Mrs. Hall passed her husband in the passage and ran upstairs. She also heard someone sneeze. As she was going on first, she thought that it was Mr. Hall who was sneezing. She at once flung open the door and entered the room.

She heard a sniff close behind her head. She thought it might have been Mr. Hall just behind her. But the moment she turned behind ascertain it, she found that her husband was at a distance from her. But soon he came near her. She came near the bed and bent forward and touched the pillow and the bed clothes to feel the warmth on them. But she felt it all cold. It meant the stranger must have left his bed before one hour or more.

As she did all that, a most extraordinary thing happened. The bed-clothes gathered themselves together, leapt to one side as a heap. It all happened as if a person had rolled up the bed-clothes into a heap and then threw them to one side.

After that the stranger’s hat hopped off, and after a whirling flight in the air was it was hit straight at Mrs. Hall’s face. Then some other things like sponge from the wash-stand, chair, coat and trousers, etc. were all flung aside carelessly, and the chair suddenly started moving towards Mrs. Hall. Both the husband and the wife went out of the room in panic. The door was slammed violently from behind then and was locked from inside. After some time, everything became quiet and calm.

Mrs. Hall was so much petrified at this unusual scene she had ever seen in her life that she was almost fainted. With a great difficulty, Millie and Mr. Hall were able to bring her downstairs.

She became so much panicked that she started speaking as if she was in delirium. She was constantly saying that it was all done by the stranger and it was he who had stirred the spirits in the room by doing irreligious activities. He himself was irreligious and also he misused the furniture that was used by her mother, so the spirit of her mother got annoyed and started throwing the things into the air. She was also talking about his goggled eyes and bandaged head. She also wished that her husband must lock the stranger in the room and held him responsible for all the misdoings as he never visited the church on Sundays. She also mentioned that normally a person never kept such a big number of bottles in his possession as he had in the room.

Mr. Hall again tried to make her drink some more drops of a liquid so that her nerves would become steady.

After that, Millie was sent to call Mr. Sandy Wadgers, the blacksmith, who was told by Millie that Mrs. Hall’s furniture was behaving in a most extraordinary way. He soon reached the inn and Mrs. Hall and her husband wanted the blacksmith to lead him to the stranger’s room at once. But he seemed to be in no hurry as he wanted to study the facts before taking further step.   Therefore he talked with Mr. Hall about the case while passing through the passage. In the meantime, Mr. Huxtar also joined them. They could not reach a decision, so they decided to know the facts first.

As they were busy discussing all that, the door of the room upstairs opened itself and they were wonderstruck to see the stranger’s muffled figure stepping downstairs, perhaps staring more sternly than ever form under his those unreasonably large blue glasses of his goggles. He came down stiffly and slowly staring all the time while walking down the steps. The he stopped and said to them, “Look there!” At this, they all saw towards the point where he was indicating with his gloved finger. He was pointing towards the bottle of sarsaparilla that was left by Mr. Hall near the cellar door. Then he entered the parlour and suddenly, viciously slammed the door in.

They kept staring at one another without uttering any word until the sound created by the slammed door died down.  After that, Mr. Wadgers said that he would like to go I and ask for an explanation for all that he had done there. Mr. Hall took some time to give his approval to what Mr. Wadgers saying.

Then Mr. Wadgers went upstairs and knocked at the door, opened it and said, “Excuse me…”

“Go to the devil!” came a tremendous voice from the room and ordering him to shut the door.

Thus his brief interview was terminated!