thought of paint. But the discovery set my mind running on wigs and

masks and the like. Finally I went to sleep in a heap of down

quilts, very warm and comfortable.

My last thoughts before sleeping were the most agreeable I had had

since the change. I was in a state of physical serenity, and that

was reflected in my mind. I thought that I should be able to slip

out unobserved in the morning with my clothes upon me, muffling my

face with a white wrapper I had taken, purchase, with the money I

had taken, spectacles and so forth, and so complete my disguise. I

lapsed into disorderly dreams of all the fantastic things that had

happened during the last few days. I saw the ugly little Jew of a

landlord 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 cloth

disappear, and so I came round to the windy hillside and the

sniffing 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 towards

the grave. I struggled, shouted, appealed to the mourners, but they

continued stonily following the service; the old clergyman, too,

never faltered droning and sniffing through the ritual. I realised

I was invisible and inaudible, that overwhelming forces had their

grip on me. I struggled in vain, I was forced over the brink, the

coffin rang hollow as I fell upon it, and the gravel came flying

177

The Invisible Man