From the Earth to the Moon, Direct in Ninety-Seven Hours and Twenty Minutes: and a Trip Round It

by Jules Verne

  CHAPTER XIV.

  THE NIGHT OF THREE HUNDRED AND FIFTY-FOUR HOURS AND A HALF.

  At the moment when this phenomenon took place so rapidly, the projectilewas skirting the moon's north pole at less than twenty-five milesdistance. Some seconds had sufficed to plunge it into the absolutedarkness of space. The transition was so sudden, without shade, withoutgradation of light, without attenuation of the luminous waves, that theorb seemed to have been extinguished by a powerful blow.

  "Melted, disappeared!" Michel Ardan exclaimed, aghast.

  Indeed, there was neither reflection nor shadow. Nothing more was to beseen of that disc, formerly so dazzling. The darkness was complete, andrendered even more so by the rays from the stars. It was "that blackness"in which the lunar nights are insteeped, which last three hundred andfour hours and a half at each point of the disc, a long night resultingfrom the equality of the translatory and rotary movements of the moon. Theprojectile, immerged in the conical shadow of the satellite, experiencedthe action of the solar rays no more than any of its invisible points.

  In the interior, the obscurity was complete. They could not see eachother. Hence the necessity of dispelling the darkness. However desirousBarbicane might be to husband the gas, the reserve of which was small,he was obliged to ask from it a fictitious light, an expensive brilliancywhich the sun then refused.

  "Devil take the radiant orb!" exclaimed Michel Ardan, "which forces usto expend gas, instead of giving us his rays gratuitously."

  "Do not let us accuse the sun," said Nicholl, "it is not his fault, butthat of the moon, which has come and placed herself like a screen betweenus and it."

  "It is the sun!" continued Michel.

  "It is the moon!" retorted Nicholl.

  An idle dispute, which Barbicane put an end to by saying,--

  "My friends, it is neither the fault of the sun nor of the moon; it isthe fault of the _projectile_, which, instead of rigidly following itscourse, has awkwardly missed it. To be more just, it is the fault of thatunfortunate meteor which has so deplorably altered our first direction."

  "Well," replied Michel Ardan, "as the matter is settled, let us havebreakfast. After a whole night of watching it is fair to build ourselvesup a little."

  This proposal meeting with no contradiction, Michel prepared the repastin a few minutes. But they ate for eating's sake, they drank withouttoasts, without hurrahs. The bold travellers being borne away into gloomyspace, without their accustomed cortege of rays, felt a vague uneasinessat their hearts. The "strange" shadow so dear to Victor Hugo's pen boundthem on all sides. But they talked over the interminable night of threehundred and fifty-four hours and a half, nearly fifteen days, which thelaw of physics has imposed on the inhabitants of the moon.

  Barbicane gave his friends some explanation of the causes and theconsequences of this curious phenomenon.

  "Curious indeed," said they; "for, if each hemisphere of the moon isdeprived of solar light for fifteen days, that above which we now floatdoes not even enjoy during its long night any view of the earth sobeautifully lit up. In a word she has no moon (applying this designationto our globe) but on one side of her disc. Now if this were the casewith the earth,--if, for example, Europe never saw the moon, and shewas only visible at the Antipodes, imagine to yourself the astonishmentof a European on arriving in Australia."

  Illustration: "IT IS THE FAULT OF THE MOON."

  "They would make the voyage for nothing but to see the moon!" repliedMichel.

  "Very well!" continued Barbicane, "that astonishment is reserved for theSelenites who inhabit the face of the moon opposite to the earth, a facewhich is ever invisible to our countrymen of the terrestrial globe."

  "And which we should have seen," added Nicholl, "if we had arrived herewhen the moon was new, that is to say fifteen days later."

  "I will add, to make amends," continued Barbicane, "that the inhabitantsof the visible face are singularly favoured by nature, to the detrimentof their brethren on the invisible face. The latter, as you see, havedark nights of 354 hours, without one single ray to break the darkness.The other, on the contrary, when the sun which has given its light forfifteen days sinks below the horizon, see a splendid orb rise on theopposite horizon. It is the earth, which is thirteen times greater thanthat diminutive moon that we know;--the earth which develops itselfat a diameter of two degrees, and which sheds a light thirteen timesgreater than that qualified by atmospheric strata--the earth which onlydisappears at the moment when the sun reappears in its turn!"

  "Nicely worded!" said Michel, "slightly academical perhaps."

  "It follows, then," continued Barbicane, without knitting his brows,"that the visible face of the disc must be very agreeable to inhabit,since it always looks on either the sun when the moon is full, or on theearth when the moon is new."

  "But," said Nicholl, "that advantage must be well compensated by theinsupportable heat which the light brings with it."

  "The inconvenience, in that respect, is the same for the two faces, forthe earth's light is evidently deprived of heat. But the invisible faceis still more searched by the heat than the visible face. I say that for_you_, Nicholl, because Michel will probably not understand."

  "Thank you," said Michel.

  "Indeed," continued Barbicane, "when the invisible face receives atthe same time light and heat from the sun, it is because the moon isnew; that is to say, she is situated between the sun and the earth. Itfollows, then, considering the position which she occupies in oppositionwhen full, that she is nearer to the sun by twice her distance from theearth; and that distance may be estimated at the two-hundredth part ofthat which separates the sun from the earth, or in round numbers 400,000miles. So that invisible face is so much nearer to the sun when shereceives its rays."

  "Quite right," replied Nicholl.

  "On the contrary," continued Barbicane.

  "One moment," said Michel, interrupting his grave companion.

  "What do you want?"

  "I ask to be allowed to continue the explanation."

  "And why?"

  "To prove that I understand."

  "Get along with you," said Barbicane, smiling.

  "On the contrary," said Michel, imitating the tone and gestures of thepresident, "on the contrary, when the visible face of the moon is lit bythe sun, it is because the moon is full, that is to say, opposite thesun with regard to the earth. The distance separating it from the radiantorb is then increased in round numbers to 400,000 miles, and the heatwhich she receives must be a little less."

  "Very well said!" exclaimed Barbicane. "Do you know, Michel, that, foran amateur, you are intelligent."

  "Yes," replied Michel coolly, "we are all so on the Boulevard desItaliens."

  Barbicane gravely clasped the hand of his amiable companion, and continuedto enumerate the advantages reserved for the inhabitants of the visibleface.

  Amongst others, he mentioned eclipses of the sun, which only take placeon this side of the lunar disc; since, in order that they may take place,it is necessary for the moon to be _in opposition_. These eclipses,caused by the interposition of the earth between the moon and the sun,can last _two hours_; during which time, by reason of the rays refractedby its atmosphere, the terrestrial globe can appear as nothing but ablack point upon the sun.

  "So," said Nicholl, "there is a hemisphere, that invisible hemispherewhich is very ill supplied, very ill treated, by nature."

  "Never mind," replied Michel; "if we ever become Selenites, we willinhabit the visible face. I like the light."

  "Unless, by any chance," answered Nicholl, "the atmosphere should becondensed on the other side, as certain astronomers pretend."

  "That would be a consideration," said Michel.

  Breakfast over, the observers returned to their post. They tried tosee through the darkened scuttles by extinguishing all light in theprojectile; but not a luminous spark made its way through the darkness.

  One inexplicable fact preoccupied Barbicane. Wh
y, having passed withinsuch a short distance of the moon--about twenty-five miles only--whythe projectile had not fallen? If its speed had been enormous, he couldhave understood that the fall would not have taken place; but, witha relatively moderate speed, that resistance to the moon's attractioncould not be explained. Was the projectile under some foreign influence?Did some kind of body retain it in the ether? It was quite evident thatit could never reach any point of the moon. Whither was it going? Wasit going farther from, or nearing, the disc? Was it being borne in thatprofound darkness through the infinity of space? How could they learn,how calculate, in the midst of this night? All these questions madeBarbicane uneasy, but he could not solve them.

  Certainly, the invisible orb was _there_, perhaps only some few milesoff; but neither he nor his companions could see it. If there was anynoise on its surface, they could not hear it. Air, that medium of sound,was wanting to transmit the groanings of that moon which the Arabiclegends call "a man already half granite, and still breathing."

  One must allow that that was enough to aggravate the most patientobservers. It was just that unknown hemisphere which was stealing fromtheir sight. That face which fifteen days sooner, or fifteen days later,had been, or would be, splendidly illuminated by the solar rays, was thenbeing lost in utter darkness. In fifteen days where would the projectilebe? Who could say? Where would the chances of conflicting attractionshave drawn it to? The disappointment of the travellers in the midst ofthis utter darkness may be imagined. All observation of the lunar discwas impossible. The constellations alone claimed all their attention;and we must allow that the astronomers Faye, Charconac, and Secchi, neverfound themselves in circumstances so favourable for theirobservation.

  Indeed, nothing could equal the splendour of this starry world, bathedin limpid ether. Its diamonds set in the heavenly vault sparkledmagnificently. The eye took in the firmament from the Southern Cross tothe North Star, those two constellations which in 12,000 years, by reasonof the succession of equinoxes, will resign their part of polar stars,the one to Canopus in the southern hemisphere, the other to Wega inthe northern. Imagination loses itself in this sublime Infinity, amidstwhich the projectile was gravitating, like a new star created by thehand of man. From a natural cause, these constellations shone with a softlustre; they did not _twinkle_, for there was no atmosphere which, bythe intervention of its layers unequally dense and of different degreesof humidity, produces this scintillation. These stars were soft eyes,looking out into the dark night, amidst the silence of absolutespace.

  Illustration: NOTHING COULD EQUAL THE SPLENDOR OF THIS STARRY WORLD.

  Long did the travellers stand mute, watching the constellated firmament,upon which the moon, like a vast screen, made an enormous black hole.But at length a painful sensation drew them from their watchings. Thiswas an intense cold, which soon covered the inside of the glass of thescuttles with a thick coating of ice. The sun was no longer warming theprojectile with its direct rays, and thus it was losing the heat storedup in its walls by degrees. This heat was rapidly evaporating into spaceby radiation, and a considerably lower temperature was the result. Thehumidity of the interior was changed into ice upon contact with theglass, preventing all observation.

  Nicholl consulted the thermometer, and saw that it had fallen to seventeendegrees (centigrade) below zero.* So that, in spite of the many reasonsfor economizing, Barbicane, after having begged light from the gas, wasalso obliged to beg for heat. The projectile's low temperature was nolonger endurable. Its tenants would have been frozen to death.

  *1 deg. Fahr. (Ed.)

  "Well!" observed Michel, "we cannot reasonably complain of the monotonyof our journey! What variety we have had, at least in temperature. Nowwe are blinded with light and saturated with heat, like the Indians ofthe Pampas! now plunged into profound darkness, amidst the cold like theEsquimauxs of the north pole. No, indeed! we have no right to complain;nature does wonders in our honour."

  "But," asked Nicholl, "what is the temperature outside?"

  "Exactly that of the planetary space," replied Barbicane.

  "Then," continued Michel Ardan, "would not this be the time to make theexperiment which we dared not attempt when we were drowned in the sun'srays?"

  "It is now or never," replied Barbicane, "for we are in a good positionto verify the temperature of space, and see if Fourier or Pouillet'scalculations are exact."

  "In any case it is cold," said Michel. "See! the steam of the interioris condensing on the glasses of the scuttles. If the fall continues, thevapour of our breath will fall in snow around us."

  "Let us prepare a thermometer," said Barbicane.

  We may imagine that an ordinary thermometer would afford no result underthe circumstances in which this instrument was to be exposed. The mercurywould have been frozen in its ball, as below forty-two degrees belowzero* it is no longer liquid. But Barbicane had furnished himself witha spirit thermometer on Wafferdin's system, which gives the minima ofexcessively low temperatures.

  *-44 deg. Fahr.

  Before beginning the experiment, this instrument was compared with anordinary one, and then Barbicane prepared to use it.

  "How shall we set about it?" asked Nicholl.

  "Nothing is easier," replied Michel Ardan, who was never at a loss."We open the scuttle rapidly; throw out the instrument; it follows theprojectile with exemplary docility; and a quarter of an hour after, drawit in."

  "With the hand?" asked Barbicane.

  "With the hand," replied Michel.

  "Well then, my friend, do not expose yourself," answered Barbicane, "forthe hand that you draw in again will be nothing but a stump frozen anddeformed by the frightful cold."

  "Really!"

  "You will feel as if you had had a terrible burn, like that of iron ata white heat; for whether the heat leaves our bodies briskly or entersbriskly, it is exactly the same thing. Besides, I am not at all certainthat the objects we have thrown out are still following us."

  "Why not?" asked Nicholl.

  "Because, if we are passing through an atmosphere of the slightestdensity, these objects will be retarded. Again, the darkness preventsour seeing if they still float around us. But in order not to exposeourselves to the loss of our thermometer, we will fasten it, and we canthen more easily pull it back again."

  Illustration: "THE VAPOR OF OUR BREATH WILL FALL IN SNOW AROUND US."

  Barbicane's advice was followed. Through the scuttle rapidly opened,Nicholl threw out the instrument which was held by a short cord, so thatit might be more easily drawn up. The scuttle had not been opened morethan a second, but that second had sufficed to let in a most intensecold.

  "The devil!" exclaimed Michel Ardan, "it is cold enough to freeze a whitebear."

  Barbicane waited until half an hour had elapsed, which was more than timeenough to allow the instrument to fall to the level of the surroundingtemperature. Then it was rapidly pulled in.

  Barbicane calculated the quantity of spirits of wine overflowed into thelittle phial soldered to the lower part of the instrument, and said,--

  "A hundred and forty degrees centigrade* below zero!"

  *-218 deg. Fahr. (Ed.)

  M. Pouillet was right and Fourier wrong. That was the undoubted temperatureof the starry space. Such is, perhaps, that of the lunar continents, whenthe orb of night has lost by radiation all the heat which fifteen daysof sun have poured into her.