The Invisible Man - by H.G. Wells - Chapters 18-19

"The Invisible Man" is a classic science fiction novel written by H.G. Wells and first published in 1897. The story revolves around the character of Griffin, a brilliant but eccentric scientist who discovers a way to become invisible. After successfully making himself invisible, Griffin quickly realizes that his newfound power comes with significant challenges and consequences.The novel explores the themes of power, morality, and the consequences of unchecked scientific curiosity. Griffin's invisible state allows him to indulge in his darker impulses, leading him down a path of cruelty and criminality. As he struggles to find a way to reverse his condition, he becomes increasingly isolated and desperate.Griffin's invisibility becomes both a physical and metaphorical representation of his detachment from society and his descent into madness. He becomes a symbol of the dangers of unchecked scientific experimentation and the potential for individuals to abuse their power.Throughout the novel, Griffin's actions create a sense of fear and unease in the townspeople who encounter him. As he becomes more unhinged, he becomes a menace, and the novel explores the efforts of those around him to stop his reign of terror."The Invisible Man" is not only a thrilling and suspenseful tale but also a thought-provoking commentary on the human condition and the consequences of playing with forces beyond one's control. It remains a seminal work in the science fiction genre and continues to be studied and adapted into various forms of media.

Episode Transcript

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This is a LibriVox recording. AllLibriVox recordings are in the public domain.
For more information not a volunteer,please visit LibriVox dot org. The Invisible
Man by H. G. Wellsread for LibriVox by Alex Foster w w
W dot Alex Foster dot me dotUK, Chapter eighteen, The Invisible Man

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sleeps. Exhausted and wounded as theInvisible Man was, he refused to accept
Kemp's word that his freedom should berespected. He examined the two windows of
the bedroom, drew up the blinds, and opened the sashes to confirm Kemp's
statement that a retreat by them wouldbe possible. Outside, the night was
very quiet and still, and thenew moon was settling over the down Then

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he examined the keys of the bedroomand the two dressing room doors to satisfy
himself that these also could be madean assurance of freedom. Finally, he
expressed himself satisfied. He stood onthe hearth rug and Kemp heard the sound
of a yawn. I'm sorry,said the Invisible Man if I cannot tell
you all that I have done tonight, but I am worn out.

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It's grotesque, no doubt, it'shorrible. But believe me, Kemp,
in spite of your arguments of thismorning, it is quite a possible thing.
I have made a discovery. Imeant to keep it to myself.
I can't. I must have apartner and you. We can do such
things. But to morrow now,Kemp, I feel as though I must

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sleep or perish. Kemp stood inthe middle of the room, staring at
the headless garment. I suppose Imust leave you, he said. It's
incredible. Three things happening like this, overturning all my preconceptions would make me
insane, but it's real. Isthere anything more that I can get?
You? Only bid me good night, said Griffin. Good night, said

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Kemp, and shook an invisible hand. He walked sideways to the door.
Suddenly, the dressing gown walked quicklytowards him. Understand me, said the
dressing gown. No attempts to hamperme or capture me or Kemp's face changed
a little. I thought I gaveyou my word, he said. Kemp

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closed the door softly behind him,and the key was turned upon him forthwith.
Then, as he stood with anexpression of passive amazement on his face,
the rapid feet came to the doorof the dressing room, and that
too was locked. Kemp slapped hisbrow with his hand. Am I dreaming?
Has the world gone mad? Orhave I? He laughed, and
put his hand to the locked door. Barred out of my own bedroom by

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a flagrant absurdity, he said.He walked to the head of the staircase,
turned and stared at the locked doors. It's fact, he said.
He put his fingers to his slightlybruised neck. Undeniable fact. But he
shook his head hopelessly, turned andwent downstairs. He lit the dining room

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lamp, got out a cigar,and began pacing the room, ejaculating.
Now and then he would argue withhimself. Invisible, he said, Is
there such a thing as an invisibleanimal? In the sea? Yes,
thousands millions, or the larvae,or the little knopoly i and toneras,
or the microscopic things like jellyfish.In the sea, there are more things

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invisible than visible. I never thoughtof that before. And in the ponds
too, or those little pond lifethings specks of colorless translucent jelly. But
in air, no, it can'tbe. But after all, why not
if a man was made of glass, he would still be visible. His
meditation became profound. The bulk ofthree cigars had passed into the invisible or

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diffused as a white ash over thecarpet before he spoke again. Then it
was merely an exclamation. He turnedaside, walked out of the room and
went into his little consulting room andlit the gas. There. It was
a little room because because doctor Kempdid not live by practice, and in
it were the day's newspapers. Themorning's paper lay carelessly opened and thrown aside.

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He caught it up, turned itover and read the account of a
strange story from Iping that the marinerat Port Stow had spelt over so painfully
to mister Marvel. Kemp read itswiftly wrapped up, said Kemp, disguised
hiding it. No one seems tohave been aware of his misfortune. What
the devil is his game? Hedropped the paper and his eye went seeking

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ah, he said. He caughtup the Saint James's Gazette, lying folded
up as it arrived. Now weshall get at the truth, said doctor
Kemp. He rent the paper open. A couple of columns confronted him an
entire village in Sussex goes mad?Was the heading? Good heavens, said
Kemp, reading eagerly, an incredulousaccount of the events in iping of the

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previous afternoon that have already been describedover the leaf. The report in the
morning paper had been reprinted. Here read it. Ran through the streets,
striking left and right, jaffers insensible, mister Huckster in great pain,
still unable to describe what he saw. Painful humiliation, vicar woman ill with
terror windows smashed this extraordinary story.Probably a fabrication, too good not to

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print, cum grano. He droppedthe paper and stared blankly in front of
him. Probably a fabrication. Hecaught up the paper again and re read
the whole business. But when doesthe tramp coming? Why the deuce was
he chasing a tramp? He satdown abruptly on the surgical bench. He's

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not only invisible, he said,but he's mad, homicidal. When dawn
came to mingle its pallor with thelamp light and cigar smoke of the dining
room, Kemp was still pacing upand down, trying to grasp the incredible.
He was altogether too excited. Tosleep. His servants, descending sleepily,
discovered him and were inclined to thinkthat overstudy had worked this ill on

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him. He gave them extraordinary butquite explicit instructions to lave breakfast for two
in the belvedere study, and thento confine themselves to the basement and ground
floor. Then he continued to pacethe dining room until the morning's paper came
that had much to say and littleto tell, beyond the confirmation of the
evening before and a very badly writtenaccount of another remarkable tale from Port Burdock.

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This gave Kemp the essence of thehappenings at the Jolly Cricketers and the
name of Marvel. He has mademe keep with him twenty four hours.
Marvel testified. Certain minor facts wereadded to the iping story, notably the
cutting of the village telegraph wire,but there was nothing to throw light on
the connection between the invisible man andthe tramp, for mister Marvel had supplied
no information about the three books orthe money with which he was lined.

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The incredulous tone had vanished, anda shoal of reporters and inquirers were already
at work elaborating the matter. Kempread every scrap of the report and sent
his housemaid out to get every oneof the morning papers. She could.
These also he devoured. He isinvisible, he said, and it reads
like rage growing to mania. Thethings he may do, the things he

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may do, And upstairs he's freeas air. What on earth ought I
to do? For instance? Wouldit be a breach of faith? If
no? He went to a littleuntidy desk in the corner and began a
note. He tore this up,half written, and wrote another. He
read it over and considered it.Then he took an envelope and addressed it

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to Colonel Adai Port Burdock. Theinvisible man awoke even as Kemp was doing
this. He awoke in an eviltemper, and Kemp, alert for every
sound, heard his pattering feet rushsuddenly across the bedroom overhead. Then a
chair was flung over, and thewash hands down tumbler smashed. Kemp hurried

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upstairs and rapped eagerly. Chapter nineteen. Certain first principles. What's the matter,
asked Kemp, When the invisible manadmitted him nothing was the answer,
But confound it the smash fit oftemper, said the invisible man forgot this

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arm, and it's sore. You'rerather liable to that sort of thing,
I am. Kemp walked across theroom and picked up the fragments of broken
glass. All the facts are outabout you, said Kemp, standing up
with the glass in his hand.All that happened in iping and down the
hill. The world has become awareof its invisible citizen, but no one

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knows you are here. The invisibleman swore, the secret's out. I
gather it was a secret. Idon't know what your plans are, but
of course I'm anxious to help you. The invisible man sat down on the
bed. There's breakfast upstairs, saidKemp, speaking as easily as possible,
and he was delighted to find hisstrange guest rose willingly. Kemp led the

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way to the narrow staircase to thebelvidere. Before we can do anything else,
said Kemp, I must understand alittle more about this invisibility of yours.
He had sat down. After onenervous glance out of the window with
the air of a man who hastalking to do. His doubts of the
sanity of the entire business flashed andvanished again as He looked across to where

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Griffin sat at the breakfast table,a headless, handless dressing gown, wiping
unseen lips on a miraculously held serviette. It's simple enough and credible enough,
said Griffin, putting the serviette asideand leaning the invisible head on an invisible
hand. No doubt to you,but Kemp laughed, Well, yes to

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me, it seemed wonderful at first, no doubt. But now great God,
but we will do great things.Yet I came on the stuff first,
at Cheslestone, Cheslestone. I wentthere after I left London. You
know I'd dropped medicine and took upphysics. No, well I did.
Light fascinated me er optical density.The whole subject is a network of riddles,

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a network with solutions, glimmering elusivelythrough and being but two and twenty
and full of enthusiasm, I said, I will devote my life to this.
This is worth while. You knowwhat fools we are? Two and
twenty fools? Then are fools now, said Kemp, as though knowing could
be any satisfaction to a man.But I went to work like a slave,

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and I had hardly worked and thoughtabout the matter six months before light
came through one of the meshes.Suddenly, blindingly, I found a general
principle of pigments and refraction, aformula, a geometrical expression involving four dimensions.
Fools, common men, even commonmathematicians, do not know anything of
what some general expression may mean tothe student of molecular physics. In the

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books, the books that Tramp hashidden, there are marvels miracles. But
this was not a method. Itwas an idea that might lead to a
method by which it will be possible, without changing any other property of matter,
except in some instance's colors, tolower the refractive index of a substance
solid or liquid to that of air, so far as all practical purposes are
concerned. Phew, said Camp.That's odd, but still I don't quite

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see. I can understand that therebyyou could spoil a valuable stone, But
personal invisibility is a far cry.Precisely, said Griffin, But consider visibility
depends on the action of the visiblebodies on light. Either a body absorbs
light, or it reflects or refractsit, or it does all these things.
If it neither reflects, nor refracts, nor absorbs light, it cannot

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of itself be visible. You seean opaque red box, for instance,
because the color absorbs some of thelight and reflects the rest or the red
part of the light to you.If it did not absorb any particular part
of the light, but reflected itall, then it would be a shining
white box silver. A diamond boxwould neither absorb much of the light nor
reflect much from the surface, butjust here and there where the surfaces were

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favorable, the light would be reflectedand refracted, so that you would get
a brilliant appearance of flashing reflections ontranslucencies, a sort of skeleton of light.
A glass box would not be sobrilliant, not so clearly visible as
a diamond box, because there wouldbe less refraction and reflection. You see
that from certain points of view youcould see quite clearly through it. Some

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kinds of glass would be more visiblethan others. A box of flint glass
would be brighter than a box ofordinary window glass. A box of very
thin common glass would be hard tosee in a bad light because it would
absorb hardly any light and refract andreflect very little. And if you put
a sheet of common white glass inwater. Still more, if you put
it in some denser liquid than water, it would vanish almost altogether. Because

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light passing from water to glass isonly slightly reflected or reflected, or indeed
affected in any way. It isalmost as invisible as a jet of coal,
gas or hydrogen is in air.And for precisely the same reason,
Yes, said Kemp, that ispretty plain. And here is another fact
you will know to be true.If a sheet of glass is smashed camp

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and then beaten into a powder,it becomes much more visible. While it
is in the air. It becomesat least an opaque white powder. This
is because the powdering multiplies the surfacesof the glass which refraction or reflection occur.
In the sheet of glass, thereare only two surfaces and the powder.
The light is reflected or refracted byeach grain it passes through, and
very little gets right through the powder. But if the white powdered glass is

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put into water, it forth withvanishes. The powdered glass and water have
much the same refractive index. Thatis, the light undergoes very little refraction
or reflexion in passing from one tothe other. You make the glass invisible
by putting it into a liquid ofnearly the same refractive index. A transparent
thing becomes invisible if it is putin any medium of almost the same refractive
index. And if you will consideronly a second, you will see also

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that the powder of glass might bemade to vanish in air if its refractive
index could be made the same asthat of air, For then there will
be no refraction or reflection as thelight passed from glass to air. Yes,
yes, said Kemp, But aman's not powdered glass. No,
said Griffin, he's more transparent.Nonsense that from a doctor. How one

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forgets? Have you already forgotten yourphysics in ten years? Just think of
all the things that are transparent andseem not to be so. Paper,
for instance, is made up oftransparent fibers, and it is white and
opaque only for the same reason thata powder of glass is white and opaque.
Oil. White paper fill up theinstances between the particles with oil,
so that there is no longer refractionor reflection except at the surfaces, and

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it becomes as transparent as glass.Are not only paper, but cotton,
fiber, linen fiber, wool fiber, woody fiber, and bone, Kemp,
flesh, Kemp, hair, Kemp, nails and nerves kemps. In
fact, the whole fabric of aman, except the red of his blood
and the black pigment of hair,are all made up of transparent, colorless
tissue, so little surfaces to makeus visible one to the other. For

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the most part. The fibers ofa living manner no more a paque than
water. Great Heavens, said Kemp. Of course, of course, I
was thinking only last night of thesea larvae and all jelly fish. Now
you have me and all that Iknew and had in mind a year after
I left London six years ago.But I kept it to myself. I

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had to do my work under frightfuldisadvantages. Oliver, my professor was a
scientific bounder, a journalist by instinct, a thief of ideas. He was
always prying, and you know theknavish system of the scientific world. I
simply would not publish and let himshare my credit. I went on working.
I got nearer and nearer to makingmy formula in an experiment a reality.

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I told no living soul, becauseI meant to flash my work upon
the world with crushing effect and becomefamous at a blow, I took up
the question of pigments to fill upcertain gaps, and suddenly, but by
design, not by accident, Imade a discovery in physiology. Years you
know, the red coloring matter ofblood. It can be made white,

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colorless, and remain with all thefunctions it has. Now Kemp gave a
cry of credulous amazement. The invisibleman rose and began pacing a little study,
you may well exclaim. I rememberthat night. It was late at
night. In the daytime, onewas bothering with the gaping silly students.
And I worked then, sometimes tilldawn. It came suddenly, splendid and

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complete in my mind. I wasalone the laboratory, still, with the
tall lights burning brightly and silently.In all my great moments, I have
been alone. One could make ananimal a tissue transparent. One could make
it invisible, all except the pigments. I could be invisible, I said,

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suddenly, realizing what it meant tobe an albino. With such knowledge
it was overwhelming. I left thefiltering I was doing and went and stared
out of the great window at thestars. I could be invisible, I
repeated, to do such a thingwould be to transcend magic. And I
beheld, unclouded by doubt, amagnificent vision of all that invisibility might mean

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to a man, the mystery,the power, the freedom, drawbacks.
I saw none. You have onlyto think, And I, a shabby,
poverty struck hemmed in demonstrator teaching foolsin a provincial college, might suddenly
become this. I ask you,Kemp, if you any one, I
tell you would have flung himself uponthat research. And I worked three years,

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and every mountain of difficulty I toiledover showed another from its summit,
the infinite details, and the exasperationa professor, a provincial professor, always
prying when you were going to publishthis work of yours, with his everlasting
question, and the students, thecramped means. Three years I had of
it, And after three years ofsecrecy and exasperation, I found that to

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complete it was impossible. Impossible,how asked Kemp, Money, said the
invisible man, and went again tostare out of the window. He turned
round abruptly. I robbed the oldman, robbed my father. The money
was not his, and he shothimself. End of Chapter nineteen, recorded

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in Nottingham, England, on theninth of April twenty o six by Alex
Foster w w W dot Alex Fosterdot me dot u k