CHAPTER XXII
IN THE EMPORIUM
"So last January, with the beginning of a snowstorm in the airabout me--and if it settled on me it would betray me!--weary,cold, painful, inexpressibly wretched, and still but half convincedof my invisible quality, I began this new life to which I amcommitted. I had no refuge, no appliances, no human being in theworld in whom I could confide. To have told my secret would havegiven me away--made a mere show and rarity of me. Nevertheless, Iwas half-minded to accost some passer-by and throw myself upon hismercy. But I knew too clearly the terror and brutal cruelty myadvances would evoke. I made no plans in the street. My sole objectwas to get shelter from the snow, to get myself covered and warm;then I might hope to plan. But even to me, an Invisible Man, therows of London houses stood latched, barred, and boltedimpregnably.
"Only one thing could I see clearly before me--the cold exposureand misery of the snowstorm and the night.
"And then I had a brilliant idea. I turned down one of the roadsleading from Gower Street to Tottenham Court Road, and found myselfoutside Omniums, the big establishment where everything is to bebought--you know the place: meat, grocery, linen, furniture,clothing, oil paintings even--a huge meandering collection of shopsrather than a shop. I had thought I should find the doors open, butthey were closed, and as I stood in the wide entrance a carriagestopped outside, and a man in uniform--you know the kind ofpersonage with 'Omnium' on his cap--flung open the door. I contrivedto enter, and walking down the shop--it was a department where theywere selling ribbons and gloves and stockings and that kind ofthing--came to a more spacious region devoted to picnic baskets andwicker furniture.
"I did not feel safe there, however; people were going to and fro,and I prowled restlessly about until I came upon a huge section inan upper floor containing multitudes of bedsteads, and over these Iclambered, and found a resting-place at last among a huge pile offolded flock mattresses. The place was already lit up and agreeablywarm, and I decided to remain where I was, keeping a cautiouseye on the two or three sets of shopmen and customers who weremeandering through the place, until closing time came. Then Ishould be able, I thought, to rob the place for food and clothing,and disguised, prowl through it and examine its resources, perhapssleep on some of the bedding. That seemed an acceptable plan.My idea was to procure clothing to make myself a muffled butacceptable figure, to get money, and then to recover my booksand parcels where they awaited me, take a lodging somewhere andelaborate plans for the complete realisation of the advantages myinvisibility gave me (as I still imagined) over my fellow-men.
"Closing time arrived quickly enough. It could not have been morethan an hour after I took up my position on the mattresses before Inoticed the blinds of the windows being drawn, and customers beingmarched doorward. And then a number of brisk young men began withremarkable alacrity to tidy up the goods that remained disturbed. Ileft my lair as the crowds diminished, and prowled cautiously outinto the less desolate parts of the shop. I was really surprised toobserve how rapidly the young men and women whipped away the goodsdisplayed for sale during the day. All the boxes of goods, thehanging fabrics, the festoons of lace, the boxes of sweets in thegrocery section, the displays of this and that, were being whippeddown, folded up, slapped into tidy receptacles, and everything thatcould not be taken down and put away had sheets of some coarsestuff like sacking flung over them. Finally all the chairs wereturned up on to the counters, leaving the floor clear. Directlyeach of these young people had done, he or she made promptly forthe door with such an expression of animation as I have rarelyobserved in a shop assistant before. Then came a lot of youngstersscattering sawdust and carrying pails and brooms. I had to dodgeto get out of the way, and as it was, my ankle got stung with thesawdust. For some time, wandering through the swathed and darkeneddepartments, I could hear the brooms at work. And at last a goodhour or more after the shop had been closed, came a noise oflocking doors. Silence came upon the place, and I found myselfwandering through the vast and intricate shops, galleries, show-roomsof the place, alone. It was very still; in one place I rememberpassing near one of the Tottenham Court Road entrances and listeningto the tapping of boot-heels of the passers-by.
"My first visit was to the place where I had seen stockings andgloves for sale. It was dark, and I had the devil of a hunt aftermatches, which I found at last in the drawer of the little cashdesk. Then I had to get a candle. I had to tear down wrappings andransack a number of boxes and drawers, but at last I managed to turnout what I sought; the box label called them lambswool pants, andlambswool vests. Then socks, a thick comforter, and then I went tothe clothing place and got trousers, a lounge jacket, an overcoatand a slouch hat--a clerical sort of hat with the brim turned down.I began to feel a human being again, and my next thought was food.
"Upstairs was a refreshment department, and there I got cold meat.There was coffee still in the urn, and I lit the gas and warmed itup again, and altogether I did not do badly. Afterwards, prowlingthrough the place in search of blankets--I had to put up at lastwith a heap of down quilts--I came upon a grocery section witha lot of chocolate and candied fruits, more than was good for meindeed--and some white burgundy. And near that was a toy department,and I had a brilliant idea. I found some artificial noses--dummynoses, you know, and I thought of dark spectacles. But Omniums hadno optical department. My nose had been a difficulty indeed--I hadthought of paint. But the discovery set my mind running on wigs andmasks and the like. Finally I went to sleep in a heap of downquilts, very warm and comfortable.
"My last thoughts before sleeping were the most agreeable I had hadsince the change. I was in a state of physical serenity, and thatwas reflected in my mind. I thought that I should be able to slipout unobserved in the morning with my clothes upon me, muffling myface with a white wrapper I had taken, purchase, with the money Ihad taken, spectacles and so forth, and so complete my disguise. Ilapsed into disorderly dreams of all the fantastic things that hadhappened during the last few days. I saw the ugly little Jew of alandlord vociferating in his rooms; I saw his two sons marvelling,and the wrinkled old woman's gnarled face as she asked for her cat.I experienced again the strange sensation of seeing the clothdisappear, and so I came round to the windy hillside and thesniffing old clergyman mumbling 'Earth to earth, ashes to ashes,dust to dust,' at my father's open grave.
"'You also,' said a voice, and suddenly I was being forced towardsthe grave. I struggled, shouted, appealed to the mourners, but theycontinued stonily following the service; the old clergyman, too,never faltered droning and sniffing through the ritual. I realisedI was invisible and inaudible, that overwhelming forces had theirgrip on me. I struggled in vain, I was forced over the brink, thecoffin rang hollow as I fell upon it, and the gravel came flyingafter me in spadefuls. Nobody heeded me, nobody was aware of me. Imade convulsive struggles and awoke.
"The pale London dawn had come, the place was full of a chilly greylight that filtered round the edges of the window blinds. I sat up,and for a time I could not think where this ample apartment, withits counters, its piles of rolled stuff, its heap of quilts andcushions, its iron pillars, might be. Then, as recollection cameback to me, I heard voices in conversation.
"Then far down the place, in the brighter light of some departmentwhich had already raised its blinds, I saw two men approaching. Iscrambled to my feet, looking about me for some way of escape, andeven as I did so the sound of my movement made them aware of me. Isuppose they saw merely a figure moving quietly and quickly away.'Who's that?' cried one, and 'Stop there!' shouted the other. Idashed around a corner and came full tilt--a faceless figure,mind you!--on a lanky lad of fifteen. He yelled and I bowled himover, rushed past him, turned another corner, and by a happyinspiration threw myself behind a counter. In another moment feetwent running past and I heard voices shouting, 'All hands to thedoors!' asking what was 'up,' and giving one another advice how tocatch me.
"Lying on the ground, I felt scared out of my wits. But--odd asit may seem--it did not
occur to me at the moment to take off myclothes as I should have done. I had made up my mind, I suppose, toget away in them, and that ruled me. And then down the vista of thecounters came a bawling of 'Here he is!'
"I sprang to my feet, whipped a chair off the counter, and sent itwhirling at the fool who had shouted, turned, came into anotherround a corner, sent him spinning, and rushed up the stairs. Hekept his footing, gave a view hallo, and came up the staircase hotafter me. Up the staircase were piled a multitude of thosebright-coloured pot things--what are they?"
"Art pots," suggested Kemp.
"That's it! Art pots. Well, I turned at the top step and swunground, plucked one out of a pile and smashed it on his silly headas he came at me. The whole pile of pots went headlong, and I heardshouting and footsteps running from all parts. I made a mad rushfor the refreshment place, and there was a man in white like a mancook, who took up the chase. I made one last desperate turn andfound myself among lamps and ironmongery. I went behind the counterof this, and waited for my cook, and as he bolted in at the head ofthe chase, I doubled him up with a lamp. Down he went, and Icrouched down behind the counter and began whipping off my clothesas fast as I could. Coat, jacket, trousers, shoes were all right,but a lambswool vest fits a man like a skin. I heard more mencoming, my cook was lying quiet on the other side of the counter,stunned or scared speechless, and I had to make another dash forit, like a rabbit hunted out of a wood-pile.
"'This way, policeman!' I heard someone shouting. I found myself inmy bedstead storeroom again, and at the end of a wilderness ofwardrobes. I rushed among them, went flat, got rid of my vest afterinfinite wriggling, and stood a free man again, panting and scared,as the policeman and three of the shopmen came round the corner.They made a rush for the vest and pants, and collared the trousers.'He's dropping his plunder,' said one of the young men. 'He _must_be somewhere here.'
"But they did not find me all the same.
"I stood watching them hunt for me for a time, and cursing myill-luck in losing the clothes. Then I went into the refreshment-room,drank a little milk I found there, and sat down by the fire toconsider my position.
"In a little while two assistants came in and began to talk overthe business very excitedly and like the fools they were. I heard amagnified account of my depredations, and other speculations as tomy whereabouts. Then I fell to scheming again. The insurmountabledifficulty of the place, especially now it was alarmed, was to getany plunder out of it. I went down into the warehouse to see ifthere was any chance of packing and addressing a parcel, but Icould not understand the system of checking. About eleven o'clock,the snow having thawed as it fell, and the day being finer and alittle warmer than the previous one, I decided that the Emporiumwas hopeless, and went out again, exasperated at my want ofsuccess, with only the vaguest plans of action in my mind."