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This episode is brought to you by FiresideNaps. Tonight, we'll read the opening to the Invisible Man, a science fiction novel by H.G. Wells, published in 1897. The title of this story refers to a scientist named Griffin, whose devotion to the study of optics leads him to a remarkable breakthrough. He has invented a way to render oneself invisible. However, as Griffin eagerly tests his invention on himself, he soon realizes the consequences of his success, the inability to reverse the invisibility. This novel's exploration of the profound implications of scientific discovery and its impact on the human condition Resonated deeply with readers The invisible man established Wells's reputation as a visionary genius who was the father of science fiction. Let's get cozy. Close your eyes. Relax your body into the softness of your bed. Now, take a few deep breaths. Chapter 1. The Strange Man's Arrival The stranger came early in February, one wintery 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 suitcase in his thickly-loved 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 in, more dead than alive, and flung his suitcase down. A fire, he cried, in the name of human charity, a room in a fire. He stamped and shook the snow from off himself in the bar and followed Mrs. Hall into her guest parlor to strike his bargain. And with that much introduction, that and a couple of coins flung upon the table. He took up his quarters in the end. 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 the town of Iping in the winter time 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 underway, and Millie, her lymphatic maid, had been brisked up by a few deathly chosen expressions of contempt. She carried the cloth, plates, and glasses into the parlor and began to lay them with the utmost Dile. 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 and thought. She noticed that the melting snow that still sprinkled his shoulders dripped upon her carpet. Can I take your hat and coats, 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, led 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 drooping 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. Ch-ch-ch-ch-ch-ch-ch. 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 parlor. She wrapped 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 wrapped 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 of 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 theave 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 table napkin 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, accepting 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 napkin, but remained holding it as she saw now with a brown gloved hand, and regarding her with his inscrutable blue glasses. She 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 herself embarrassed. Thank you. He said, dryly, 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 napkin and resumed his meal. He took a mouthful, glanced suspiciously at the window, took another mouthful, then rose and taking the napkin in his hand, walked across the room and pulled the blind down to the top of the white muslin that obscured the lower pains. This left the room in a twilight. This done, he returned with an easier air to the table and had his meal. poor souls had an accident or an operation or something," 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 those goggles, why? He looked more like a dive-in 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, talking through it. Perhaps this mouth was hurt too. Maybe. She turned round as one who suddenly remembers, Well, this might so alive, she said, going off at a tangent. Ain't you dumb then, Taters yet, Millie? When Mrs. Hall went to clear 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 around 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 smoldered 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 we could have it sent. He bowed his bandaged head quite politely in acknowledgement of her explanation. Tomorrow, he said, there's no speedier delivery and seems quite disappointed when she answered

no. Was she quite sure? No man with a carriage who would go over? Mrs. Hall, nothing loath, answered his questions, and a conversation. It's a steep road by the down sir. She said in answer to the question about the carriage. And then, snatching at an opening, said, it was there a carriage was upsetdled, a year a girl or more more a gentleman killed besides his coachman, accident, 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, just cut his arm with a sithe, tumbled on it in the hayfield, and blessed me he was three months tied up, sir. He was three months tight up, sir. You'd hardly believe it. Its regular giving me a dread of the sith, sir. I can quite understand that. Said the visitor. He was afraid one time that he'd have to have an operation. 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. No laughing matter to them has had the doing for him, as I had. my sister being took up with their 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 then remembered the two coins. 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 all together 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 parlor until four o'clock, without giving the ghost of an excuse for the 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 2. Mr. Teddy Henfries' First Impressions. At four o'clock, when it was fairly dark, and Mrs. Hall was screwing up her courage to go in and ask her visitor if he would take some tea. Teddy Henfrey, the clock repairman, came into the bar. My sakes, Mrs. Hall, said he, but this is terrible weather for thin boots. The snow outside was falling faster. Mrs. Hall agreed. And then noticed he had his bag with him. Now you're here, Mr. Teddy," said she. I'd be glad if you'd give the old clock in the parlor a bit of a look. Tis going, and it strikes well in hearty. But the hour-hand won't do nothing but point at six. And leading the way, she went across to the parlor door and wrapped and entered. Her visitor, she saw as she opened the door, was seated in the armchair before the fire, dozing it would seem with his bandaged head drooping on one side.

The only light in the room was the red glow from the fire,

which lit his eyes like adverse railway signals,

but left his downcast face in darkness

and the scanty vestiges of the day that came in through the open door. Everything was ruddy, shadowy and indistinct to her. The more so since she had just been lighting the bar lamp and her eyes were dazzled. But for a second, it seemed to her that the man she looked at had an enormous mouth wide open, a vast and incredible mouth that swallowed the whole of the lower portion of his face. It was the sensation of a moment, the white-bound head, the monstrous goggle eyes, and this huge yawn below it. Then he stirred, started up in his chair, put up his hand. She opened the door wide so that the room was lighter and she saw him more clearly. With the muffler held up to his face, just as she had seen him hold the napkin before. The shadows she fancied had tricked her. Would you mind, sir, this man come in to look at the clock, sir?" She said, recovering from the momentary shock. Look at the clock, he said, staring round in a drowsy manner, and speaking over his hand,

and then getting more fully awake, certainly. Mrs. Hall went away to get a lamp,

and he rose and stretched himself, then came the light, and Mr. Teddy Henfrey, entering, was confronted by this bandaged person. He was, he says, taken aback. Good afternoon, the stranger regarding, as Mr. Henry says, with a vivid sense of the dark spectacles,

like a lobster. "'I hope,' said Mr. Henry, that it's no intrusion. None, whatever,' said the stranger,

though I understand.

He said, turning to Mrs. Hall, that this room is really to be mine for my own private use. I thought so, sir," said Mrs. Hall.

But I thought you'd prefer the clock, certainly.

Said the stranger, certainly, but as a rule, I like to be alone and undisturbed. But I'm really glad to have the clock seen today," he said, seeing a certain hesitation in Mr. Henfrey's manner. Very glad. Mr. Henfrey had intended to apologize and withdraw, but this anticipation reassured him. The stranger turned round with his back to the fireplace and put his hands behind his back. And presently, he said, when the clock mending is over, I think I should like to have some tea, but not till the clock mending is over. Mrs. Hall was about to leave the room. You made no conversational advances this time, because she did not want to be snubbed in front of Mr. Henry. When her visitor asked her if she had made any arrangements about his boxes at Bramblehurst, she told him she had mentioned the matter to the postmen and that the carrier could bring them over on the morrow. You are certain that is the earliest? He said she was certain with a marked coldness. I should explain, he added, what I was really too cold and fatigued to do before, that I am an experimental investigator. Indeed, sir, said Mrs. Hall much impressed. And my baggage contains apparatus and appliances. Very useful things indeed, indeed they are, sir,' said Mrs. Hall. And I'm very naturally anxious to get on with my inquiries. Of course, sir. My reason for coming to piping, he proceeded with a certain deliberation of manner, was a desire for solitude. I do not wish to be disturbed in my work. In addition to my work and accident, I thought as much, Mrs. Hall to herself. And necessitates a certain retirement. My eyes are sometimes so weak and painful that I have to shut myself up in the dark for hours together. Lock myself up sometimes. Now and then, not at present, certainly, had such times the slightest disturbance, the entry of stranger into the room is a source of excruciating annoyance to me. It is well these things should be understood. Certainly, sir," said Mrs. Hall. And if I might make so bold as to ask, that I think is all," said the stranger. With that quietly irresistible air of finality, he could assume at will. Mrs. Hall reserved her question and sympathy for a better occasion. After Mrs. Hall had left the room, he remained standing in front of the fire, glaring. So Mr. Henry puts it at the clock mending. Mr. Henry not only took off the hands of the clock and the face, but extracted the works. And he tried to work in a slow and quiet and unassuming a manner as possible.

He worked with the lamp close to him,

and the green shade threw a brilliant light upon his hands,

...