A Journey
to the Centre of the Earth
Translated
by Stephen W. White, 1873
I.
One
Sunday, the 24th of May, 1863, my uncle, Professor Lidenbrock, returned
hurriedly to his little house, No. 19 Königstrasse, one of the oldest streets
of the old quarter of Hamburg.
The good,
Martha thought that she was very much behind time, for the dinner was scarcely
commencing to sing on the kitchen stove.
“Good,”
said I to myself, “if my uncle is hungry, and he is the most impatient of men,
he will soon let you hear from him.”
“M.
Lidenbrock is already here,” cried the good Martha, stupefied, half opening the
door of the dining‑room.
“Yes,
Martha; but the dinner ought not to be done yet, for it is not 2 o’clock. The
half hour has scarcely ceased striking at Saint Michael’s.”
“Then,
why does M. Lidenbrock return?’
“He will
probably tell us.”
“Here he
is! I save myself. Monsieur Axel, you make him listen to reason.”
And the
good Martha re‑entered her culinary laboratory.
I
remained alone. But my somewhat undecided character did not allow me to make
the most irascible of professors listen is reason. So I prepared prudently to
return to my little room upstairs, when the street door swung noisily upon its
hinges; heavy steps made the wooden staircase creak, and the master of the
house, crossing the dining-room, rushed immediately into his cabinet.
But,
during this rapid passage, he had thrown into a corner his heavy‑headed
cane, and on the table his large, rough fur hat, and said to his nephew these
terrible words: --
“Axel,
follow me!”
I had not
had time to budge when the Professor cried to me, already in a sharp, impatient
accent: ‑--
“Well! aren’t you here yet?”
I rushed
into the cabinet of my dreaded master.
Otto
Lidenbrock was not a wicked man, I willingly grant, but unless some improbable
changes shall take place, he will die in the skin of a terribly original
fellow.
He was a
professor in the Johannaeum, and was delivering a course of lectures on
mineralogy, during which he would regularly get one or two angry spells. Not
that he was anxious to have students constant in their attendance upon his
lectures, nor that he was anxious about the degree of attention which they gave
him, nor the success which they might obtain in consequence; these details did
not disturb him. He was a professor “subjectively,” according to an expression
of German philosophy, for himself, and not for others. He was an egotistical
savant, a well of science whose chain grated whenever it was desired to draw
anything out of it. In a word, he was a miser.
There are
some professors of this kind in Germany.
Unfortunately,
my uncle did not enjoy a very great ease of pronunciation, if not in private,
at least when he spoke in public, and it is a failing to be regretted in an
orator. In fact, in his demonstrations at the Johannaeum, frequently the
Professor would stop short; he would struggle against a reluctant word which
would not slip from between his lips, one of those words which resist, swell
up, and finish by making their exit under the unscientific form of an oath.
Thence, great anger.
There are
many half Greek, half Latin terms is mineralogy, difficult to pronounce—those
rude names which would scorch the lips of a poet. I do not wish to speak ill of
this science. Far be it from me. But when we are confronted by rhombohedral
crystallizations, retinasphalt rosins, gehlenites, fangasites, molybdates of
lead, tungstates of manganese, and titanates of zircon, the most skilful tongue
may be allowed to trip.
Now, in
the city this pardonable infirmity of my uncle was known, and advantage was
taken of it; people waited for the dangerous passages, and they laughed when he
got in a rage, which is not in good taste, even for Germans. If there was then
always a large assemblage of hearers at Lidenbrock’s courses, how many attended
them industriously especially to laugh at the angry spells of the Professor!
However
that may be, my uncle, I would not be venturing too much to say, was a genuine
savant. Although he sometimes broke his specimens by trying them too roughly,
he joined to the genius of the geologist the eye of the mineralogist. With his
hammer, his steel point, his magnetic needle, his blow-pipe, and his flask of
nitric acid, he was a very strongman. By the fracture, the appearance, the
hardness, the fusibility, the sound, the smell, the taste of any mineral
whatever, he classed it without hesitation among the six hundred species which
science counts to‑day.
Thus the
name of Lidenbrock resounded with honor in the gymnasia and the national
associations. Messrs. Humphrey Davy, Von Humboldt, Captains Franklin and Sabine[A],
did not fail to call upon him on their trips to Hamburg. Messrs. Becquerel,
Ebelmen, Brewster, Dumas, Milne‑Edwards, loved to consult him on the most
exciting questions of chemistry. This science owed to him some very fine
discoveries, and, in 1853, there ap‑
-------end
912-1
peared at Leipzig a <i>Treatise on Transcendental Crystallography</i> thought, he is
in , by Professor Otto Lidenbrock, in large folio, boards, which, however, did
not cover its expenses.
Add to that that my uncle was
Custodian of the Mineralogical Museum of M. Struve, Russian Ambassador, a
precious collection of European fame.
This is, then, the personage who
summoned me with so much impatience. Imagine a man tall, thin, of iron health,
and of a juvenile fairness which subtracted fully ten years from his fifty. His
big eyes rolled incessantly behind enormous spectacles; his nose, long and
thin, resembled a sharpened file; some wicked wags pretended even that it was
magnetized, and that it would attract iron filings. A pure calumny; it would
only attract snuff, but in great abundance, if the truth must be told.
When I shall have added that my
uncle made regular strides of a yard in length[B], and if I
say that in walking he kept his fists tightly clenched—a sign of a hasty
temper—enough will be known not to be very desirous for his company.
He lived in his little house on
Königstrasse, a building half wood, half brick, with pointed gables; it stood
upon one of those winding canals which intersect each other in the centre of
the oldest quarter of Hamburg, which the fire of 1842 fortunately respected.
The old house leaned a little, it is true, and
interfered somewhat with the passers‑by; its roof was inclined very much
like the cap of a student of the Tugendbund; the straightness of its lines
might have been improved; but, in short, it held itself well, thanks to an old
elm which had grown firmly into the front, and whose buds in the spring shot through
the window panes.
My uncle was pretty rich for a
German professor. The house was entirely his own, building and contents. The
contents were his god‑daughter, Gräuben, seventeen years old, the good
Martha, and myself. In my double capacity as nephew and orphan, I became his
assistant in his experiments.
I will confess that I eagerly
devoured the geological sciences; I had the blood of a mineralogist in my
veins, and I was never weary in the company of my precious pebbles.
In short, I could live happily in this tiny house on
Königstrasse, notwithstanding the impatience of its head, for although he acted
somewhat roughly, he did not love me the less. But this man did not know how to
wait; he was in more of a hurry than nature herself.
When he planted, in April, in the
china pots of his drawing-room, mignonette or convolvulus, he would go every
morning and pull their leaves to hasten their growth!
With such an original genius, there
could be nothing but obedience. I rushed then into his cabinet.
II
This cabinet was a regular museum.
All the specimens of the mineral kingdom was arranged there in the most perfect
order, according to the three great divisions of combustible, metallic, and
lithoidal minerals.
How well I knew them, those
bibliolites of mineralogical science! How many times, instead of playing with
the boys of my own age, I took delight in dusting off those graphites, those
anthracites, those bituminous and lignite coals, and those specimens of peat!
And the bituminous and resinous substances and the organic salts which it was
necessary to preserve from the slightest speck of dust! And those metals, from
iron to gold, whose relative value disappeared before the absolute equality of
scientific specimens! And all those stones which would have been sufficient to
rebuild the house in Königstrasse, with even one fine room more, which I would
have fixed so nicely for myself!
But, upon entering the cabinet, I no
longer thought of these wonders. My uncle alone occupied my thoughts. He was buried
in a large arm‑chair, covered with Utrecht velvet, and held in his hands
a book which he was looking at with the most profound admiration.
“What a book! what a book!”
he cried.
This exclamation reminded me that
Professor Lidenbrock was also a bibliomaniac in his spare moments; but an
antiquated book had no value in his eyes unless it were unique, or at least
illegible.
“Well, well!” said he to me, “you
don’t see, eh? This is an inestimable treasure that I met this morning while
rummaging around in the shop of the Jew, Helvelius.”
“Magnificent!” I replied, with
feigned enthusiasm.
In fact, what was the good of this
excitement over an old quarto, the back and sides of which seemed made of
coarse calf—a yellowish, worm‑eaten book, from which hung a discolored
marker?
But the admiring exclamations of the
Professor did not discontinue.
“See,” he said, questioning himself,
and “answering his own questions, “is it not very fine?” “Yes, it is splendid!
and what a binding!” “Does this book open easily?” “Yes; for it remains open no
matter to what page I turn.” “But does it close well?” “Yes; for the covers and
the leaves form a well‑united whole, without separating or gaping apart
at any place. And this back, which does not present a single break, after an
existence of several hundred years! Ah! this is a binding of which Bozerian,
Closs, or Purgold would have been proud.”
While thus speaking, my uncle was
constantly opening and closing the old book. I could not do less than question
him as to its contents, although it did not interest me in the slightest.
“And what is then the title of this
wonderful volume?” I asked, with an eagerness too enthusiastic not to be
feigned.
“This work!” replied my uncle,
rousing himself, “it is the Heims‑Kringla
of Snorre Turleson, the famous Iceland author of the twelfth century; it is the
chronicle of the Norwegian princes who reigned in Iceland!”
“Indeed!” I cried, looking as
interested as I could, “and without doubt it is a translation into the German
language?”
“Humph!” replied the Professor
sharply, “a translation! And what would I do with your translation? Who cares
for your translation? This is the original work in the
-- end of
column-2 912
Iceland language, that magnificent idiom, at once rich
and simple, which permits the most varied grammatical combinations and numerous
modifications of the words.”
“Like the German,” I insinuated, as a happy effort.
“Yes,” replied my uncle, shrugging his shoulders; “but
with this difference, that the language of Iceland admits the three genders
like the Greek and declines the proper nouns like the Latin!”
“Ah!” said I, my indifference
somewhat shaken, “and are the characters of this book beautiful?”
“Characters! who spoke to you about
characters, unfortunate Axel? There are a great many characters here! Ah! you
take it for a printed book! But, you ignorant fellow, it is a manuscript, a
Runic manuscript!”
“Runic?”
“Yes! Are you going to ask me now to
explain this word to yon?”
“I will take good care not to do
it,” I replied, in the accent of a man whose self‑love has been wounded.
But my uncle continued more at
length, and taught me, in spite of myself, things that I did not care to know.
“The Runic characters,” he
continued, “were written characters formerly used in Iceland, and according to
tradition, they were invented by Odin himself! But look, and admire, you
impious fellow, these types which have issued from the imagination of a god.
Upon my word, for want of a reply, I
was going to prostrate myself, a sort of response which ought to please the
gods as well as kings, for it has the advantage of never embarrassing them,
when an incident occurred to turn the course of the conversation.
It was the
appearance of a well‑worn parchment which slipped from the book and fell
on the floor.
My uncle rushed upon this trifle
with an eagerness easily understood. An old document, shut up perhaps for time
immemorial in an old book, could not fail to have a high value in his eyes.
“What is that?” he cried.
And at the same time, he carefully
unfolded at his table a piece of parchment five inches long by three wide, and
on which were displayed, in transverse lines, cabalistic characters.
Here is the exact fac-simile of it. I insist upon making these singular
characters, for they lead Professor Lidenbrock and his nephew to undertake the
strangest expedition of the nineteenth century:‑-
-----
[Runic characters go here]
The Professor looked for a few
moments at this series of characters; then he said, raising his spectacles:‑-
“They are Runic characters; these
types are absolutely identical with those of Snore Turleson’s manuscript! But
what can that signify?”
As the Runic seemed to me to be an
invention of savants to mystify the poor world, I was not sorry to see that my
uncle did not understand anything of it. At least so it seemed to me, from the
movement of his fingers, which commenced to tremble terribly.
“It is, however, the old Icelandic!”
he murmured between his teeth.
And Professor Lidenbrock ought to
know, for he passed for a genuine polyglot. Not that he spoke fluently the two
thousand languages and the four thousand idioms used on the surface of the
globe, but he knew his fair share of them.
Confronted by this difficulty, then,
he was about to give himself up to all the impetuosity of his character when
the little clock on the mantel‑piece struck two o’clock.
The good Martha immediately opened
the door of the cabinet, saying:‑-
“The soup is on the table.”
“To the devil with the soup,” cried
my uncle, “and her that made it, and those that shall eat it!”
Martha fled; I followed upon her
steps, and, without knowing why, I found myself seated at my usual place in the
dining-room.
I waited for a few moments. The Professor
did not come. It was the first time, to my knowledge, that he was wanting at
the solemnity of dinner. And what a dinner it was! A parsley soup, a ham omelet
dressed with sorrel and nutmeg, a loin of veal with stewed plums, and for
dessert some sugared shrimps, all washed down with good Moselle wine.
This was what an old paper was going
to cost my uncle. Upon my word, in the capacity of a devoted nephew, I felt
obliged to eat for him and at the same time for myself; which I did
conscientiously.
“I have never seen anything like
it!” said the good Martha, while waiting upon the table. “M. Lidenbrock is not
at dinner!”
“It is hardly to be believed.”
“It certainly foreshadows some grave
event!” replied the old servant, nodding her head.
In my opinion, it did not foreshadow
anything but a frightful scene, if my uncle should find his dinner devoured.
I was at my last shrimp, when a
terrible voice tore me from the delights of the dessert. With one bound I was
in the cabinet.
III.
“It is evidently a Runic
inscription,” said the Professor, knitting his eyebrows. “But
-- end of column 3 912
there is a secret, and I will discover it; if not—“
A violent gesture finished his
thought.
“Put yourself there,” he added,
indicating the table with his fist, “and write.”
I was ready in an instant.
“Now, I am going to dictate to you
each letter of our alphabet corresponding to one of these Icelandic characters.
We will see what that will give. But, by Saint Michael take good care that you
don’t make a mistake!”
The dictation commenced. I did my
best; each letter was called one after the other, and formed the
incomprehensible succession of the following words:‑-
/*
m.rnlls esreuel SeecJde
sgtssmf unteief niedrke
kt,samn atrateS Saodrrn
emtnael nuaect rrilSa
Atlvaar .nscrc ieaabs
ccdrmi eeutul frantu
dt,iac oseibo KediiY
*/
When this work was finished, my
uncle took up eagerly the sheet upon which I had just written, and examined it
a long time attentively.
“What does that mean?” he repeated
mechanically.
Upon my word, I would not have been
able to tell him. Besides, he did not question me for that purpose, and he
continued to talk to himself, saying:‑
“That’s what we call a cryptogram,
in which the sense is concealed under letters purposely jumbled, and which
properly arranged would form an intelligible phrase! When I think that there
is in it perhaps the explanation or the indication of a great discovery!”
As far as I was concerned, I thought
that there was absolutely nothing in it, but prudently kept my opinion to
myself.
The Professor then took the book and
the parchment, and compared them.
“These two writings are not by the
same hand,” he said; “the cryptogram is subsequent to the book, and I see an
indisputable proof of it right away. In fact, the first letter is a double M,
which would be vainly looked for in Turleson’s book, for it was not added to
the Icelandic alphabet until the fourteenth century, so that there are at least
two hundred years between the manuscript and the document.”
That seemed logical enough to
me, I grant.
“I am then led to think,” continued
my uncle, “that one of the owners of this book traced these mysterious
characters. But who in the devil was this owner? Would he not have put his name
in some place on this manuscript?”
My uncle raised his spectacles, took
a strong lens, and carefully reviewed the first few pages of the book. On the
back of the second, that of the second title, he discovered a sort of stain,
which, to the eye, produced the effect of an ink spot. But in looking more
closely at it, a few half‑effaced characters were distinguished. My
uncle under stood that there was the interesting point; he concentrated his
attention upon the stain, and, with the aid of his large lens, he succeeded in
recognizing the following signs, Runic characters which he read without
hesitation:‑
[Runic
Inscription = Arne Saknussemm]
“Arne Saknussemm!” he cried, in a
triumphant tone, “but that is a name, and an Icelandic name besides! That of a
savant of the sixteenth[C] century, a
celebrated alchemist!”
I looked at my uncle with a certain
admiration.
“These alchemists,” he continued,
“Avicenna, Bacon, Lully, and Paracelsus, were the genuine, the only savants of
their period. They made discoveries at which we have a right to be astonished.
Why should not this Saknussemm have hidden under this incomprehensible
cryptogram some surprising discovery? It ought to be so. It is.”
The imagination of the Professor was
fired at this supposition.
“Without doubt,” I dared to reply;
“but what interest could this savant have n thus concealing some wonderful
discovery?”
“Why, why? eh! Do I know? Did not
Galileo act thus with regard to Saturn? Besides, we shall see plainly; I shall
have the secret of this document, and I will take neither food nor sleep before
having guessed it.”
“Oh!” thought I.
“Nor you, either, Axel,” he
continued.
“The devil!” I said to myself; “it
is fortunate that I have
eaten enough dinner for two!”
“And first of all,” said my uncle,
“we must find the language of this cipher. That ought not to be difficult.”
At these words I quickly raised my
head. My uncle continued his soliloquy as follows:‑-
“Nothing is easier. There are in
this document one hundred and thirty‑two letters, which give seventy‑nine
consonants to fifty‑three vowels. Now, it is nearly according to this
proportion that the words of Southern languages are formed, whilst the idioms
of the North are infinitely richer in consonants. A Southern language must then
be is question.”
These conclusions were very
just.
“But what is this language?”
There is where I expected my savant,
in whom I, however, discovered a profound analyst.
“This Saknussemm,” he replied, “was
a learned man; now as soon as he wrote in another than his mother‑tongue,
he ought to choose by preference the language in vogue among the cultivated
minds of the sixteenth century—I mean the Latin. If I am mistaken, I can try
the Spanish, the French, the Italian, the Greek, or the Hebrew. But the savants
of the sixteenth century generally wrote in Latin. I have then the right to
say, a priori, this is in Latin.”
I jumped in my chair. My
recollection of the Latin revolted against the pretension that this succession
of rough words could belong to the smooth language of Virgil.
“Yes! in Latin,” continued my uncle,
“but in jumbled Latin.”
So much the better!” I thought. “Uncle, if you unravel it you are
sharp.”
“Let us examine it carefully,” he
said, taking up again the sheet on which I had written. “Here is a series of
one hundred and thirty‑two letters presented under apparent disor-
-- end of col 4 912
der. There are words in which the consonants are met
alone, like the first ‘nrlls,’ others in which, on the contrary, the vowels abound, the fifth, for example,
‘unteief,’ or the next to the last, ‘oseibo.’ Now, this disposition has
evidently not been combined; it is given mathematically by the unknown reason
which has governed in the succession
of these letters. It seems certain to me that the primitive phrase has been
written regularly, then turned about in pursuance of a law which we must
discover. Whoever possesses the key of this ‘cipher’ could read it, fluently,
But what is this key? Axel, have you it?”
To this question I made no answer, and with good reason.
My look had become arrested by a charming portrait hung on the wall, the
portrait of Gräuben.
[D]
My uncle’s ward was then at Altona with one of her relatives, and her absence
made me very sad, for I can confess it now—the merry Virlandaise [E]
[F]
and the Professor’s nephew loved each other with all the patience and
tranquillity peculiar to the Germans; we had been betrothed unknown to my
uncle, who was too much of a geologist to understand such sentiments. Gräuben was a charming
young girl, blonde, with blue eyes, of a rather grave character and serious mind‑-;
but she did not love me any the less for that; as for me, I adored her, if this
verb exists at all in the Teutonic tongue! The likeness of my little Virlandaise [G]
withdrew me then, in an instant, from the world of realities into that of
fancies, into that of reminiscences.
I saw again the faithful companion of my tasks and my
pleasures. She helped me every day to arrange my uncle’s precious stones, and
she labelled them with me. Mademoiselle Gräuben was quite a mineralogist! She had
discussed the science with more than one savant, and loved to explore to its
depths its difficult questions. How many pleasant hours we bad spent studying;
together, and how I often envied the fate of those senseless stones touched by
her lovely hands!
Then, the moment of recreation having come, we went out
together; we went along the over-arched avenues of the Alster and together
repaired to the old tarred mill which presented so fine an effect at the end of
the lake; along the road we talked, taking each others’ hands; I told her
things which made her laugh heartily; thus we reached the banks of the Elbe and
after having said good evening to the swans swimming among the large white
water-lilies, we returned to the quay in the steamboat.
I
Continued in our next issue.]
End of
col 4 and p 912
Start of page 914
III.
^Continued.
"Well, I was there
in my dream, when my uncle striking the table with his fist, violently, recalled me
to reality.
"Let us
see," said he; "the first suggestion for mixing the
letters of a phrase, it seems to me, is to write the words vertically in-stead
of horizontally."
"What's in the
wind?" I thought.
"We mast see what
that would produce. Axel, put any phrase whatever at the end of this paper; but, instead of placing the letters one after the other, put them successively in vertical columns, so as to group them in numbers of five or six."
I understood what he
meant, and immediately wrote from the top to the bottom:
/*
J m
n e G e
e e
, t r n
t’ b m
i a !
a
i a t
ü
i e
p e b
*/
"Good," said
the Professor, without having read it. "Now, place these
words on a horizontal line."
I obeyed, and I obtained
the following phrase:—
/*
JmneGe ee,trn
t’bmia! aiatü iepeb
*/
"Perfect!" said
my uncle, tearing the paper from my hands; this has already the
appearance of the old document; the vowels, as well as the
consonants, are grouped in the name disorder; there are even
capital letters in the middle of the words, as well
as commas, just like the parchment of Saknussemm!"
I could not prevent
myself from thinking these remarks very ingenious.
"Now,"
continued my uncle, addressing himself directly to mo, "in
order to read the phrase which you have just written, and which
I do not know, it will be sufficient for me to take successively the first
letter of each word, then the second then the third and so on to the end.
And my uncle to his
great astonishment and especially to mine, read
/*
Je t’aime
bien, ma petite Gräuben!
I love you very much, my little Gräuben!
*/
“Humph!” said the
Professor.
Yes, without suspecting
it , like an unfortunate lover, I had written this compromising phrase.
“Ah, so you love Gräuben,” continued my uncle, with the severe air of a tutor.
“Yes----No----” I stammered.
“Ah, so you love Gräuben,” he replied mechanically. Well
let us apply my mode of procedure to the document in question.
My uncle, having sunk again into his absorbing thoughts
already forgot my imprudent words. I say imprudent for the head of the savant could not comprehend the matters
of the heart. But fortunately the great affair of the document carried him
away.
At the moment of making his great experiment, the eyes of
Professor Lidenbrock flashed like lightning through his spectacles. His fingers
trembled when he took up the old parchment again, he was very much affected.
Finally he coughed violently, and in a grave tone, reading out successively the
first and then the second letter of each word, he dictated to me the following
lines—
/*
messunkaSenrA.icefdoK.segnittamurtn
ecertserrette,rotaivsadua,ednecsedsadne
meretarcsilucoYsleffenSnI
*/
In finishing these letters, named one by one, which
presented no sense to my mind, I was moved, I confess. I expected then that the
Professor would pompously roll out from his lips a phrase of most magnificent
Latin.
But who could have forseen it. A violent blow with his
fist shook the table. The ink jumped out of the stand, and my pen fell out of
my hands.
“That is not it!” cried my uncle. That is not common
sense.
Then, shooting across the cabinet like a cannon ball, and
rushing down the staircase like an avalanche, he rushed into Königstrasse and
fled with all his might.
--end of Chap III
IV.
“Has he gone out?” cried Martha, running at the noise of
the street door, which shut violently, had just shaken the whole house.
“Yes!” I replied, “gone out.”
“Well, well! and how about his dinner?” asked the old
servant.
“He will not dine!”
“And how about his supper?”
“He will not take it!”
“How?” said Martha clasping her hands.
“No, my good Martha, he will not eat any more, nor anybody
else in the house. My uncle will make us all fast until he has deciphered an
old cabalistic writing, which is absolutely indecipherable!”
“Goodness, me! All we can do is die with hunger.!”
I dared only to acknowledge that, with so much a man as my
uncle, it was an inevitable fate.
The old servant, seriously alarmed, returned to her
kitchen groaning.
When I was alone, the idea occurred to me
--end of 914-col-1
--start of 914 col 2
to go and tell everything to Grauben; but how was I to
leave the house. Might not the Professor return at any moment? And suppose he
should call me? And if he should wish to commence this engimatic work, which
had been vainly proposed to old Œdipus? And if I should not answer his call,
what would happen?
The wisest course was to remain. And indeed, a
minerologist in Besançon had just sent us a collection of silicious geodes
which it was necessary to classify. I set to work, I sorted, I labelled, I put
in the proper place all the hollow stones inside of which there were small
crystals.
But this occupation did not absorb me. The affair of the
old document did not cease to occupy me strangely. My head was in a stew, and I
felt a strange uneasiness. I had the presentiment of approaching catastrophe.
==914-col 2
At the end of an hour my geodes were
arranged on shelves in order. I let myself drop in the large Utrecht arm chair,
my arm stretched out and my head thrown back. I lit my pipe, with its large
curved stem, the carved bowl of which
represented a naiad carelessly reclining; then I amused myself in watching the
progress of the combustion, which by degrees was making a complete negress of
my naiad. From time to time I listened .to hear whether any step sounded from
the staircase. But there was none. Where could my uncle be at this moment? I
figured him to myself running under the fine trees on the Altona road,
gesticulating, striking at the wall with his cane, violently beating down the
grass, cutting off the heads of the thistles, and disturbing the solitary
storks in their repose.
Would he return triumphant or discouraged?
Which would have the upper hand, the secret or himself? Whilst questioning
myself thus, I mechanically took between my fingers the sheet of paper over
which was stretched the incomprehensible series of letters traced by myself. I
repeated to myself: —
"What does that signify?"
I endeavored to group these letters so as to
form words. Impossible. By joining them by twos, threes, or fives or sixes,
there was absolutely nothing intelligible to be obtained; there were the
fourteenth, fifteenth, and sixteenth [1] letters which formed the English word
"ice," the eighty -fourth, the eighty-fifth, and the eighty-sixth
formed the word "sir." Finally, in the body of tho document, and on
the third line, I observed the Latin worda "rota,"
"mutabile," "ira," “nec,” “atra”.
"The devil!" [Diable] I thought,
"these last words would seem to justify my uncle as to the language of
the document! And also, on the fourth line I perceive, besides, the word
'luco,’ which is translated by 'sacred wood.' It is true that on the third we
read the word 'tabiled' of perfect Hebrew form, and on the last, the terms
'mer,' 'arc,' 'mère,' which are purely French.
--end of 914-col 2a middle
[middle
of col 2 914]
Here was
something over which to lose one’s head. Four different idioms in this absurd
phrase: What relation could there exist between the words “ice, sir, anger,
cruel, sacred wood, changing, mother, bow, or sea”. The first and the last
alone readily approached each other, there was nothing astonishing that, in a
document written in Iceland, a “sea of ice” should be spoken of. But to
understand the rest of the cryptogram from that was another thing.
I debated
then against an insoluble difficulty my brain became heated, my eyes were fixed
upon the sheet of paper, the hundred and thirty-two letters seemed to jump
around me like those silver drops which glide in the air around our heads when
we have an attack of vertigo.
I was a
prey to a sort of hallucination. I was stifled. I wanted air. Mechanically I
fanned myself with the sheet of paper, the two sides of which presented
themselves successively to my gaze.
What was
my surprise, when in one of these rapid movements, at the moment that the back
of the sheet turned towards me, I thought I saw appear perfectly legible words,
Latin words: among others “craterem”
and “terrestre”.
Suddenly,
a light broke in upon my mind, from these few indexes I saw the truth; I had
discovered the law of the cipher. To read this document it was not even
necessary to read it through the leaf reversed: No. Just as it was, just as it
had been dictated to me, so it could be spelled out readily. All the ingenious
combinations of the Professor were realized; he was right as to the disposition
of the letters, right as to the language of the document! There was a
“something” needed to be able to read this Latin phrase from one end to the
other, and this “something” chance had just given me!
The
extent of my emotion may be understood! My eyes were affected. I could not make
use of them. I had thrown the sheet of paper on the table. It was sufficient
for me to cast one look at it to become possessor of the secret.
Finally I
succeeded in calming my imagination. I compelled myself to walk around the room
twice to quiet my nerves, and I returned to bury myself in the enormous
armchair.
“Let us
read,” I cried to myself, after having filled my lungs with a fresh supply of
air.
I leaned
over the table; I placed my finger successively on each letter, and, without
stopping, without hesitating a moment, I pronounced in a loud voice the entire
phrase.
But what
a stupefaction, what a terror came over me! I remained at first as if struck by
a sudden blow. What! what I had just learned had been accomplished! a man had
boldness enough to penetrate ----
“Ah!” I
cried, jumping up. “But no! But no! My uncle shall not know it! He would only
want to try such a journey! He would want to have a taste of it also! Nothing
could stop him, so determined a geologist! He would even start out in spite of
everything! And he would take me with him, and we would never return! Never,
never!”
I was in
a condition of over-excitement difficult to describe.
“No! no!”
that shall not be,” I said with energy; “and, since I can prevent such an idea
getting into the head of my tyrant I will do it.
In
reading this document backwards and forwards he might by chance discover the
key! “Let us destroy it.”
There was
a little fire left in the fire-place. I seized not only the sheet of paper, but
Saknussemm’s parchment; with a feverish hand I was about to throw the whole
thing on the coals and destroy this dangerous secret, when the door of the cabinet
opened. My uncle appeared.
V.
I had
only time to replace the unfortunate document on the table.
Professor
Lidenbrock seemed deeply absorbed. His governing thought did not give him a
moment’s respite; he had evidently examined and analysed the matter and set to
work all the resources of his imagination during his walk, and he returned to
apply some new combination.
He seated
himself at once in his armchair, and with pen in hand he commenced to form
formulas which resembled an algebraic calculation.
I followed his trembling hand with my gaze; I did not lose a single one of his movements. Was he then
going to produce unexpectedly some unhoped for result? I trembled, and without
reason, since the true combination, the "only one," being already found,
any other search would have been necessarily in vain.
For three long hours my uncle worked without
speaking, without raising his head, effacing, rewriting, erasing, recommencing
a thousand times.
I knew very well
that, if he succeeded in arranging these letters according to all the relative positions
which they could occupy, the phrase would be found framed. But I knew also that
twenty letters only can form two quintillions, four hundred and thirty-two
quadrillions, nine hundred and two trillions, eight milliards, one hundred and
seventy-six millions and six hundred and forty thousand combinations. Now,
there were one hundred and thirty-two letters in the phrase, and these one
hundred and thirty two letters would give a number of different phrases composed
of one hundred and thirty-three figures at least—a number almost impossible to
enumerate, and which is beyond all estimate.
I was reassured as to this heroic method of
solving the problem.
In the meantime time was passing; night set
in; the noises on the street ceased, my
uncle, still bent over his task, saw
nothing, not even the good Martha, who
half opened the door; he
heard nothing, not even the voice of that worthy servant, saying:--
"Will Monsieur take his supper this
evening?"
So Martha had to go away without any answer;
and for myself, after having resisted for some time, I was overcome by an unconquerable
drowsiness, and I went to sleep on one end of the lounge, whilst my uncle
Lidenbrock was calculating and erasing constantly.
When I awoke, the next
morning, the indefatigable plodder was still at work. His bloodshot
eyes, his pale face, with here and there a hectic flush, his hair all dishevelled
under his feverish hand, indicated plainly enough
his terrible struggle with the impossible, and under what mental fatigue, and tumult of his brain, the hours had passed on for him.
He was really an object
of pity for me. Notwithstanding that I thought I had a right to
reproach him, a certain emotion, took possession of me. The poor
man was so filled with one idea that he forgot to get angry; All his active forces were
concentrated on a single point, and as they had not their ordinary
avenue of escape, it was to be feared that their tension might
make him break at any moment.
I could with one gesture
and with one word loosen the iron vice which held his cranium in
its grasp! And I did nothing of the kind.
But I had a good heart. Why did I remain
mute under such circumstances? In the very interest of my
uncle.
"No, no," I
repeated; “no, I will not speak! He would go there, I
know; nothing could stop him. His is as an imagination that has a
fancy for volcanoes, and, to do what other geologists have not
done, he would risk his life. I will remain
silent; I will keep this secret of which chance has made me master; to disclose
it would be to kill Professor Lidenbrock. Let him guess it if he can; I do not
wish, some day, to reproach myself for having led him to his ruin!”
Was it by
design? Was it inadvertently? Did he wish to subject us to the hardships of
hunger? That would have seemed to me rather hard. What! should Martha and I be
the victims of a situation which did not concern us in the least? Without
doubt, and I recollected a precedent of a kind to frighten us. In fact, some
years before, at a time that my uncle was working on his grand mineralogical
classification, he was forth-eight hours without eating, and his whole
house had to conform to this scientific
fast. As for myself, I got cramps in the stomach, which were not very amusing for
a boy naturally rather voracious.
Now, it
seemed to me that the breakfast would be missing, like the supper of the
evening before. But I resolved to be heroic, and not to give up to the demands
of hunger. Martha, good woman, took it quite seriously, and was distressed. As
for myself the impossibility of leaving the house occupied me more, and for a
good reason. It will be readily understood why.
My uncle
was still working; his imagination was lost in the ideal world of combinations;
he lived far from the earth, and truly outside of terrestrial needs.
Towards
noon, hunger gnawed me severely. Martha had, very innocently, eaten up the
provisions in the pantry the evening before, and there was nothing left in the
--[end of
914--column 3]
col-4
house. But I held my own well. I
made it a sort of point of honor.
Two o’clock struck. It was getting
ridiculous, even intolerable; I opened my eyes very wide. I commenced to say to
myself that I exaggerated the importance of the document; that he would see in it
a simple mystification; that at the worst they would keep him in spite of
himself, if he wished to attempt the adventure; that finally, he might discover
himself the key of the “cipher,” and that I would then have my abstinence for
nothing.
These reasons, which I had
indignantly rejected the evening before, now seemed excellent to me; I even
found it perfectly absurd to have waited so long, and my decision was taken to
tell everything.
I was seeking for an entrance upon
the subject which would not be too abrupt. when the Professor rose, put on his
hat, and prepared to go out.
What! leave the house,
and keep us shut up! Never..
"Uncle”,
I said.
He did
not appear to hear me.
''Uncle
Lidenbrock!" I repeated, raising my voice.
"Well?" said
he, like a man suddenly awakened.
"Well! the
key?"
“What key?
The key of the door?"
"No, no," I
cried, "but the key to the document!"
The Professor looked at
me over his spectacles; he doubtless remarked something unusual in my
countenance, for he caught me tight by the arm, and, unable to
speak, he questioned me with his gaze. But a question was never more neatly
propounded.
I moved my head up and
down.
He shook his with a
sort of pity, as if he was treating with a madman.
I made a more
affirmative gesture.
His eyes shone with a strange light; his
hand became threatening.
This mute conversation,
under these circumstances, would have interested, the
most indifferent spectator. And, really, I hardly dared
to speak, so great was my fear that my uncle would choke me
in the first transports of his joy. But he became so pressing that
I must reply.
"Yes, the
key—chance!"
"What do you
say." he cried, with indescribable
emotion.
"Here," I
said, presenting him the sheet of paper on which I had written,
"read."
"But that doesn't
signify anything," he replied, rumpling the paper in his hand.
"Nothing, it is
true, if you commence to read
from the beginning, but from the end----“
I had not finished my
sentence when the Professor muttered a cry—more than a cry, a
regular roar! A revelation had just been made
to him. He was transfigured.
"Ah! You ingenious
Saknussemm!” he cried, "you wrote your phrase at first
reversed
?"
And rushing at the
sheet of paper, his eye disturbed, his voice trembling with emotion, he read the whole document, ascending from the last
letter to the first.
It was composed as follows:--
/*
In Sneffels Yoculis craterem kem
delibat
umbra Scartaris Julii intra calendas
descende
audas viator, eet terrestre centrum
attinges.
Kod feci. Arne Saknussem.
*/
Which bad Latin may be translated:--
/*
Descend, bold traveller, into the
crater of the yokul of Sneffels
which
the shadow of Scartaris caresses
before
the calends of July, and
thou shalt
reach the centre of the earth. Which
I have done. Arne Saknussem.
*/
My uncle started, at
reading this, as if he had unexpectedly touched a Leyden jar. He was
magnificent in his boldness, his joy, and his conviction. He
walked up and down, he took hold of his head with both hands; he displaced
the chairs in the room; he piled
up his books; he juggled — it will scarcely be believed—
with his precious geodes; he struck here with his fist, and
slapped there with his open hand. Finally, his nerves were
quieted, and like a man exhausted by too great a consumption
of the vital fluid, he fell back into his arm chair.
"What o'clock
it?” he asked, after a few moments of silence.
"Three
o'clock," I replied.
“Well, well! my
dinner-time has passed quickly, I am dying with hunger. Let us go
to the table. Then afterwards—”
“Afterwards?”
"You
will pack my trunk." "Oh!" I cried.
"And your
own!" replied the pitiless Professor, entering the
dining room.
V
At these words a
shudder passed over my body. But I restrained myself. I even resolved
to put a good face on the matter. Scientific arguments
alone could stop Professor Lidenbrock; now these there were and good
ones, against the possibility of such a journey. To go to the
centre of the earth! "What folly! I reserved my reasoning
for the opportune moment, and I busied myself with
the dinner.
It is useless to report the imprecations ot mj uncle when he learned
that the table had been cleared. Everything
was explained, and liberty was restored to good Martha. She ran to the market, and did so well that one hour afterwards my hunger was appeased, and I returned to an appreciation of the
situation."
During
the meal, my uncle was almost lively; there escaped from
him some of those jokes which savants like to perpetrate, but which are never very dangerous. After the desert he beckoned me to follow him. into his cabinet.
I obeyed. He seated
himself at one end of his work-table and I at the other.
“Axel,” he said to me,
in a very mild tone, “you are a very ingenious fellow; you rendered me a very
valuable service, when tired of the conflict, I was about to abandon this
combination. Where did I make the mistake? Who may know? I will never forget
it, my boy, and yes you shall have your share of the glory that we are going to
reap.”
“Well,” I thought, “he is in a good humor; the moment has
come to discuss this glory.”
end of col 4----
“Above
everything,” continued my uncle, I
recommend to you the most absolute secrecy; you understand? There will be no
lack of envious personsin the world of savants, and many would like to
undertake this journey, who will only suspect it on our return.”
“ Do you
believe,” said I, “that the number of adventurous people would be so great?”
“Certainly!
Who would hesitate to conquer such fame? If this document was known, an entire
army of geologists would precipitate themselves upon the tracks of Arne
Saknussem!”
“This is
what I am not persuaded of, uncle, since nothing proves the authenticity of
this document.”
“How! And
the book in which we have found it!”
“Well, I
grant that this Saknussem may have written these lines, but does it follow that he really accomplished this
journey, and may not this old parchment contain some mystification?”
I
regretted almost having uttered this last word, somewhat at a venture; the
Professor knit his heavy eyebrows, and I feared that I should not be able to
continue the conversation further. Fortunately, it was not so. My stern
interlocutor forced a sort of smile on his lips, and replied:--
“That is
what we will see.”
"Ah!”
I explained, a little vexed, but allow me to exhaust the series of objections
relative to this document."
“Speak, my boy, don’t restrain yourself. I will give you
every liberty of expressing your opinion.
You art no longer my nephew but my
colleague, so go on."
“Well,
in he first place I will ask you what are this Yokul, this
Sneffels, and this Scartaris of which I have never
heard."
"Nothing
is easier. I received, some time ago, a map from my friend
Augustus Peterman, of Leipsic; it could not have arrived
more apropos. Take the third atlas in the second row of
the large library, series Z, shelf 4”
I rose, and, thanks to the exact directions, soon found the atlas mentioned. My uncle opened it and said :—
"This
is one of the best maps of Iceland, that of
Henderson, and I believe that it will give us the solution
of all these difficulties."
I
bent over the map.
"See
this island composed of volcanoes," said the Professor,
"and notice that they all bear the name of Yokul. This
word means in Icelandic ‘glacier,’ and in the high latitude
of Iceland, the most of the eruptions reach the surface
through strata of ice. Hence this name Yokul applied to all the volcanic mountains
of the island."
"Well," I
replied, "but what is Sneffels?"
I
hoped that there would be no reply to this question. I was
mistaken. My uncle replied:—
"Follow
me to the western coast of Iceland. Do you see Reykjawik,
its capital? Yes. Very well. Ascend the innumerable fjords of
these shores worn by the sea, and stop a little above the
sixty-fifth degree of latitude. What do you see there?"
"A sort of
peninsula, like a bone stripped of its
flesh, terminated by an immense knee-pan.
"The
comparison is correct, my boy; now do you perceive anything on this
kneepan?"
"Yes, a
mountain which seems to have pushed out into
the sea."
"Good! that is
Sneffels!"
"Sneffels?"
"The
very same, a mountain five thousand feet high, one of the most remarkable of the
island,
and certainly the most celebrated of the
entire globe, if its crater goes down to the centre of the earth."
''But
that is impossible!" I cried, shrugging my shoulders, and
up in arms against such a supposition.
“Impossible!"
replied Professor Lidenbrock in a stern tone. "Why so?"
"Because
this crater is evidently filled up with
lava, burning rocks, and then----"
"And if it is an
extinct crater?"
"Extinct?"
“Yes.
The number of active volcanoes on the surface of the
globe is actually only about three hundred; but there exist a
much greater number of extinct volcanoes. Now, Sneffels
is counted among these last, and, since historic times, it has
only had one eruption, that of 1219; after this period its
rumblings calmed down by degrees and it is no longer in the number of active
volcanoes.”
“What signifies this word
‘Scartaris’,” I asked, “and how do the ‘calends of July’ come to be there?”
--end of col 5 and end of 914
[A] Edward Sabine was appointed Major General in 1858
[B] demi-toise, half a French fathom or about 3 feet
[C] For some reason White renders the French “XVIe” twice as “seventeenth century”
[D] Throughout the book White uses “Gretchen” for the girl’s name.
[E] “pretty-girl” in original
[F] Virland is a region in Estonia
[G] “fair-one” in original