Invisible Man

by Ralph Ellison

  “Fairly so. I performed a few brain surgeries that won me some small attention.”

  “Then why did you return?”

  “Nostalgia,” the vet said.

  “Then what on earth are you doing here in this … ?” Mr. Norton said, “With your ability …”

  “Ulcers,” the fat man said.

  “That’s terribly unfortunate, but why should ulcers stop your career?”

  “Not really, but I learned along with the ulcers that my work could bring me no dignity,” the vet said.

  “Now you sound bitter,” Mr. Norton said, just as the door flew open.

  A brown-skinned woman with red hair looked in. “How’s white-folks making out?” she said, staggering inside. “White-folks, baby, you done come to. You want a drink?”

  “Not now, Hester,” the vet said. “He’s still a little weak.”

  “He sho looks it. That’s how come he needs a drink. Put some iron in his blood.”

  “Now, now, Hester.”

  “Okay, okay … But what y’all doing looking like you at a funeral? Don’t you know this is the Golden Day?” She staggered toward me, belching elegantly and reeling. “Just look at y’all. Here school-boy looks like he’s scared to death. And white-folks here is acting like y’all two strange poodles. Be happy y’all! I’m going down and get Halley to send you up some drinks.” She patted Mr. Norton’s cheek as she went past and I saw him turn a glowing red. “Be happy, white-folks.”

  “Ah, hah!” the vet laughed, “you’re blushing, which means that you’re better. Don’t be embarrassed. Hester is a great humanitarian, a therapist of generous nature and great skill, and the possessor of a healing touch. Her catharsis is absolutely tremendous—ha, ha!”

  “You do look better, sir,” I said, anxious to get out of the place. I could understand the vet’s words but not what they conveyed, and Mr. Norton looked as uncomfortable as I felt. The one thing which I did know was that the vet was acting toward the white man with a freedom which could only bring on trouble. I wanted to tell Mr. Norton that the man was crazy and yet I received a fearful satisfaction from hearing him talk as he had to a white man. With the girl it was different. A woman usually got away with things a man never could.

  I was wet with anxiety, but the vet talked on, ignoring the interruption.

  “Rest, rest,” he said, fixing Mr. Norton with his eyes. “The clocks are all set back and the forces of destruction are rampant down below. They might suddenly realize that you are what you are, and then your life wouldn’t be worth a piece of bankrupt stock. You would be canceled, perforated, voided, become the recognized magnet attracting loose screws. Then what would you do? Such men are beyond money, and with Supercargo down, out like a felled ox, they know nothing of value. To some, you are the great white father, to others the lyncher of souls, but for all, you are confusion come even into the Golden Day.”

  “What are you talking about?” I said, thinking: Lyncher? He was getting wilder than the men downstairs. I didn’t dare look at Mr. Norton, who made a sound of protest.

  The vet frowned. “It is an issue which I can confront only by evading it. An utterly stupid proposition, and these hands so lovingly trained to master a scalpel yearn to caress a trigger. I returned to save life and I was refused,” he said. “Ten men in masks drove me out from the city at midnight and beat me with whips for saving a human life. And I was forced to the utmost degradation because I possessed skilled hands and the belief that my knowledge could bring me dignity—not wealth, only dignity—and other men health!”

  Then suddenly he fixed me with his eyes. “And now, do you understand?”

  “What?” I said.

  “What you’ve heard!”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Why?”

  I said, “I really think it’s time we left.”

  “You see,” he said turning to Mr. Norton, “he has eyes and ears and a good distended African nose, but he fails to understand the simple facts of life. Understand. Understand? It’s worse than that. He registers with his senses but short-circuits his brain. Nothing has meaning. He takes it in but he doesn’t digest it. Already he is—well, bless my soul! Behold! a walking zombie! Already he’s learned to repress not only his emotions but his humanity. He’s invisible, a walking personification of the Negative, the most perfect achievement of your dreams, sir! The mechanical man!”

  Mr. Norton looked amazed.

  “Tell me,” the vet said, suddenly calm. “Why have you been interested in the school, Mr. Norton?”

  “Out of a sense of my destined role,” Mr. Norton said shakily. “I felt, and I still feel, that your people are in some important manner tied to my destiny.”

  “What do you mean, destiny?” the vet said.

  “Why, the success of my work, of course.”

  “I see. And would you recognize it if you saw it?”

  “Why, of course I would,” Mr. Norton said indignantly. “I’ve watched it grow each year I’ve returned to the campus.”

  “Campus? Why the campus?”

  “It is there that my destiny is being made.”

  The vet exploded with laughter. “The campus, what a destiny!” He stood and walked around the narrow room, laughing. Then he stopped as suddenly as he had begun.

  “You will hardly recognize it, but it is very fitting that you came to the Golden Day with the young fellow,” he said.

  “I came out of illness—or rather, he brought me,” Mr. Norton said.

  “Of course, but you came, and it was fitting.”

  “What do you mean?” Mr. Norton said with irritation.

  “A little child shall lead them,” the vet said with a smile. “But seriously, because you both fail to understand what is happening to you. You cannot see or hear or smell the truth of what you see—and you, looking for destiny! It’s classic! And the boy, this automaton, he was made of the very mud of the region and he sees far less than you. Poor stumblers, neither of you can see the other. To you he is a mark on the score-card of your achievement, a thing and not a man; a child, or even less—a black amorphous thing. And you, for all your power, are not a man to him, but a God, a force—”

  Mr. Norton stood abruptly. “Let us go, young man,” he said angrily.

  “No, listen. He believes in you as he believes in the beat of his heart. He believes in that great false wisdom taught slaves and pragmatists alike, that white is right. I can tell you his destiny. He’ll do your bidding, and for that his blindness is his chief asset. He’s your man, friend. Your man and your destiny. Now the two of you descend the stairs into chaos and get the hell out of here. I’m sick of both of you pitiful obscenities! Get out before I do you both the favor of bashing in your heads!”

  I saw his motion toward the big white pitcher on the washstand and stepped between him and Mr. Norton, guiding Mr. Norton swiftly through the doorway. Looking back, I saw him leaning against the wall making a sound that was a blending of laughter and tears.

  “Hurry, the man is as insane as the rest,” Mr. Norton said.

  “Yes, sir,” I said, noticing a new note in his voice.

  The balcony was now as noisy as the floor below. The girls and drunken vets were stumbling about with drinks in their hands. Just as we went past an open door Edna saw us and grabbed my arm.

  “Where you taking white-folks?” she demanded.

  “Back to school,” I said, shaking her off.

  “You don’t want to go up there, white-folks, baby,” she said. I tried to push past her. “I ain’t lying,” she said. “I’m the best little home-maker in the business.”

  “Okay, but please let us alone,” I pleaded. “You’ll get me into trouble.”

  We were going down the stairs into the milling men now and she started to scream, “Pay me then! If he’s too good for me, let him pay!”

  And before I could stop her she had pushed Mr. Norton, and both of us were stumbling swiftly down the stairs. I landed against a man who looked
up with the anonymous familiarity of a drunk and shoved me hard away. I saw Mr. Norton spin past as I sank farther into the crowd. Somewhere I could hear the girl screaming and Halley’s voice yelling, “Hey! Hey! Hey, now!” Then I was aware of fresh air and saw that I was near the door and pushed my way free and stood panting and preparing to plunge back for Mr. Norton—when I heard Halley calling, “Make way y’all!” and saw him piloting Mr. Norton to the door.

  “Whew!” he said, releasing the white man and shaking his huge head.

  “Thanks, Halley—” I said and got no further.

  I saw Mr. Norton, his face pale again, his white suit rumpled, topple and fall, his head scraping against the screen of the door.

  “Hey!”

  I opened the door and raised him up.

  “Goddamit, out agin,” Halley said. “How come you bring this white man here, school-boy?”

  “Is he dead?”

  “DEAD!” he said, stepping back indignantly. “He caint die!”

  “What’ll I do, Halley?”

  “Not in my place, he caint die,” he said, kneeling.

  Mr. Norton looked up. “No one is dead or dying,” he said acidly. “Remove your hands!”

  Halley fell away, surprised. “I sho am glad. You sho you all right? I thought sho you was dead this time.”

  “For God’s sake, be quiet!” I exploded nervously. “You should be glad that he’s all right.”

  Mr. Norton was visibly angry now, a raw place showing on his forehead, and I hurried ahead of him to the car. He climbed in unaided, and I got under the wheel, smelling the heated odor of mints and cigar smoke. He was silent as I drove away.

  Chapter four

  The wheel felt like

  an alien thing in my hands as I followed the white line of the highway. Heat rays from the late afternoon sun arose from the gray concrete, shimmering like the weary tones of a distant bugle blown upon still midnight air. In the mirror I could see Mr. Norton staring out vacantly upon the empty fields, his mouth stern, his white forehead livid where it had scraped the screen. And seeing him I felt the fear balled coldly within me unfold. What would happen now? What would the school officials say? In my mind I visualized Dr. Bledsoe’s face when he saw Mr. Norton. I thought of the glee certain folks at home would feel if I were expelled. Tatlock’s grinning face danced through my mind. What would the white folks think who’d sent me to college? Was Mr. Norton angry at me? In the Golden Day he had seemed more curious than anything else—until the vet had started talking wild. Damn Trueblood. It was his fault. If we hadn’t sat in the sun so long Mr. Norton would not have needed whiskey and I wouldn’t have gone to the Golden Day. And why would the vets act that way with a white man in the house?

  I headed the car through the red-brick campus gateposts with a sense of cold apprehension. Now even the rows of neat dormitories seemed to threaten me, the rolling lawns appearing as hostile as the gray highway with its white dividing line. As of its own compulsion, the car slowed as we passed the chapel with its low, sweeping eaves. The sun shone coolly through the avenue of trees, dappling the curving drive. Students strolled through the shade, down a hill of tender grass toward the brick-red stretch of tennis courts. Far beyond, players in whites showed sharp against the red of the courts surrounded by grass, a gay vista washed by the sun. In the brief interval I heard a cheer arise. My predicament struck me like a stab. I had a sense of losing control of the car and slammed on the brakes in the middle of the road, then apologized and drove on. Here within this quiet greenness I possessed the only identity I had ever known, and I was losing it. In this brief moment of passage I became aware of the connection between these lawns and buildings and my hopes and dreams. I wanted to stop the car and talk with Mr. Norton, to beg his pardon for what he had seen; to plead and show him tears, unashamed tears like those of a child before his parent; to denounce all we’d seen and heard; to assure him that far from being like any of the people we had seen, I hated them, that I believed in the principles of the Founder with all my heart and soul, and that I believed in his own goodness and kindness in extending the hand of his benevolence to helping us poor, ignorant people out of the mire and darkness. I would do his bidding and teach others to rise up as he wished them to, teach them to be thrifty, decent, upright citizens, contributing to the welfare of all, shunning all but the straight and narrow path that he and the Founder had stretched before us. If only he were not angry with me! If only he would give me another chance!

  Tears filled my eyes, and the walks and buildings flowed and froze for a moment in mist, glittering as in winter when rain froze on the grass and foliage and turned the campus into a world of whiteness, weighting and bending both trees and bushes with fruit of crystal. Then in the twinkling of my eyes, it was gone, and the here and now of heat and greenness returned. If only I could make Mr. Norton understand what the school meant to me.

  “Shall I stop at your rooms, sir?” I said. “Or shall I take you to the administration building? Dr. Bledsoe might be worried.”

  “To my rooms, then bring Dr. Bledsoe to me,” he answered tersely.

  “Yes, sir.”

  In the mirror I saw him dabbing gingerly at his forehead with a crinkled handkerchief. “You’d better send the school physician to me also,” he said.

  I stopped the car in front of a small building with white pillars like those of an old plantation manor house, got out and opened the door.

  “Mr. Norton, please, sir … I’m sorry … I—”

  He looked at me sternly, his eyes narrowed, saying nothing.

  “I didn’t know … please …”

  “Send Dr. Bledsoe to me,” he said, turning away and swinging up the graveled path to the building.

  I got back into the car and drove slowly to the administration building. A girl waved gaily as I passed, a bunch of violets in her hand. Two teachers in dark suits talked decorously beside a broken fountain.

  The building was quiet. Going upstairs I visualized Dr. Bledsoe, with his broad globular face that seemed to take its form from the fat pressing from the inside, which, as air pressing against the membrane of a balloon, gave it shape and buoyancy. “Old Bucket-head,” some of the fellows called him. I never had. He had been kind to me from the first, perhaps because of the letters which the school superintendent had sent to him when I arrived. But more than that, he was the example of everything I hoped to be: Influential with wealthy men all over the country; consulted in matters concerning the race; a leader of his people; the possessor of not one, but two Cadillacs, a good salary and a soft, good-looking and creamy-complexioned wife. What was more, while black and bald and everything white folks poked fun at, he had achieved power and authority; had, while black and wrinkle-headed, made himself of more importance in the world than most Southern white men. They could laugh at him but they couldn’t ignore him …

  “He’s been looking all over for you,” the girl at the desk said.

  When I walked in he looked up from the telephone and said, “Never mind, he’s here now,” and hung up. “Where’s Mr. Norton?” he demanded excitedly. “Is he all right?”

  “Yes, sir. I left him at his rooms and came to drive you down. He wishes to see you.”

  “Is anything wrong?” he said, getting up hurriedly and coming around the desk.

  I hesitated.

  “Well, is there!”

  The panicky beating of my heart seemed to blur my vision.

  “Not now, sir.”

  “Now? What do you mean?”

  “Well, sir, he had some kind of fainting spell.”

  “Aw, my God! I knew something was wrong. Why didn’t you get in touch with me?” He grabbed his black homburg, starting for the door. “Come on!”

  I followed him, trying to explain. “He’s all over it now, sir, and we were too far away for me to phone …”

  “Why did you take him so far?” he said, moving with great bustling energy.

  “But I drove him where he wanted to g
o, sir.”

  “Where was that?”

  “Back of the slave-quarter section,” I said with dread.

  “The quarters! Boy, are you a fool? Didn’t you know better than to take a trustee out there?”

  “He asked me to, sir.”

  We were going down the walk now, through the spring air, and he stopped to look at me with exasperation, as though I’d suddenly told him black was white.

  “Damn what he wants,” he said, climbing in the front seat beside me. “Haven’t you the sense God gave a dog? We take these white folks where we want them to go, we show them what we want them to see. Don’t you know that? I thought you had some sense.”

  Reaching Rabb Hall, I stopped the car, weak with bewilderment.

  “Don’t sit there,” he said. “Come with me!”

  Just inside the building I got another shock. As we approached a mirror Dr. Bledsoe stopped and composed his angry face like a sculptor, making it a bland mask, leaving only the sparkle of his eyes to betray the emotion that I had seen only a moment before. He looked steadily at himself for a moment; then we moved quietly down the silent hall and up the stairs.

  A co-ed sat at a graceful table stacked with magazines. Before a great window stood a large aquarium containing colored stones and a small replica of a feudal castle surrounded by goldfish that seemed to remain motionless despite the fluttering of their lacy fins, a momentary motionful suspension of time.

  “Is Mr. Norton in his room?” he said to the girl.

  “Yessir, Dr. Bledsoe, sir,” she said. “He said to tell you to come in when you got here.”

  Pausing at the door I heard him clear his throat, then rap softly upon the panel with his fist.

  “Mr. Norton?” he said, his lips already a smile. And at the answer I followed him inside.

  It was a large light room. Mr. Norton sat in a huge wing chair with his jacket off. A change of clothing lay on the cool bedspread. Above a spacious fireplace an oil portrait of the Founder looked down at me remotely, benign, sad, and in that hot instant, profoundly disillusioned. Then a veil seemed to fall.

  “I’ve been worried about you, sir,” Dr. Bledsoe said. “We expected you at the afternoon session …”