by Mike Ashley
On he climbed, using the cigarette-smoking bas-relief figures on the billboard as his rockface, ascending by means of handholds and toeholds found in their pitted steel surfaces, the ridges of their fingers, the contours of their faces and hair, till at last he gained the summit and the whole of London seemed spread out at his feet, man’s fantastic creation, an epic of brick and metal and glass.
He wanted to shout his ecstasy across the rooftops but he was out of breath and dizzy with vertigo. He hung on to the billboard’s top edge while the shadows of whirring airships passed over him and the wind whipped at his clothes. He could let go, he could fall, he could die, and perhaps he would, but not now, not yet, not till this moment of triumphal revelation had passed, and maybe it would not, maybe it would never pass, maybe it would last for ever.
For London was different now, new life crackled in its electric nervous system, new blood pulsed along its roadway arteries. One could tell. One could smell it. The citizens who had deserted the city were back in their droves, and more besides, foreigners who had ridden in with the returning wave, scenting a wiped-clean slate and fresh opportunities. Of the forty million and more who lived in the capital these days, a quarter at least were immigrants from other lands who brought with them their own mores and traditions. Now there were Turkish markets on the streets of Islington, Mongolian restaurants in the borough of Richmond, Latvian vendors hawking their wares on the paths of Hyde Park, Nigerians and Congolese playing music down at the Wapping docks and the Isle of Dogs, Polynesians setting up cafés on every bridge from Tower Bridge to Teddington, Argentines touting their services as rugby coaches to the children of the well-heeled, artists from Montmartre erecting their easels on the South Bank (coming to be known as the Rive Sud), and London was welcoming and subsuming them all, happy again to be a place where people wanted to be, glad to have a plenum of inhabitants once more.
Possibly no one saw this – truly saw this – but Dufrénoy. He alone of all Londoners, a one-time immigrant himself but now more of a native than most, understood his home city’s renaissance. This New Jerusalem! And the old man atop the billboard need never write another line of verse again, because all around him/
[Editor’s Note: There is no more. This last passage occupies the anteprepenultimate, prepenultimate and penultimate pages of the ruined manuscript. The final page is unreadably singed, with just a single word legible at the foot: “Fin”. It can only be speculated whether Dufrénoy throws himself from the billboard after all or else remains there in perpetual suspense at the novel’s close. The reader may choose Dufrénoy’s fate according to his/her own inclination.
Londres au XXIe siècle is barely even a footnote in the Verne canon. There are Vernian scholars who reckon it is not actually the master’s work at all but rather his son’s, for in Verne’s declining years Michel assisted with the writing of the novels and may well have authored some of them wholly by himself. In the light of this, the section which details the father’s being a disappointment to the son can be seen, perhaps, as a riposte by Michel to Verne’s anguish over the waywardness and lack of achievement of Michel’s early years – Verne junior getting his own back in literary form. In which case, one might go so far as to venture that it was out of guilt that Michel set fire to the manuscript, if indeed he was the culprit – guilt brought on by the death of his father in 1905, not long after Londres . . . was completed. Could Michel have come to regret creating that closing image of an elderly writer who has all but abandoned his craft, hanging on to a vast billboard by his fingertips while a post-apocalyptic vision of a “New Jerusalem” feverishly fills his head?
Were there more of Londres . . . in existence, one might be able to form a cogent opinion. As it is, an unmistakable whiff of mortality and remorse permeates the few crisp-edged clusters of pages we have. As with every burned work of art, it is as if the creator has been immolated along with the creation. This much, in the end, is all we can assume – that Michel Verne, grief-stricken, consigned the manuscript to the pyre and then had a last-minute change of heart and rescued what he could before the artefact was fully destroyed. He thereafter kept hold of the remnants as though they were relics of his own father. Even the loved ones whom we haven’t loved as much as we should, should be remembered as if we loved them completely. ]
GIANT DWARFS
Ian Watson
After his failure to sell Paris au XXe Siècle, Verne returned first to the war novel, with Les Forceurs de blocus (not published until 1865), better known as The Blockade Runners, and to the adventure novel with Les Anglais au Pole Nord (1864), the first of the Captain Hatteras stories featuring a highly atmospheric journey into the far North. While writing this novel Verne became intrigued by the theory propounded many years earlier by Captain John Symmes of Ohio that the Earth was hollow and that there were entrances into the Earth at both the North and South Poles. The idea had led to a satirical science-fiction novel, Symzonia (1820) by the pseudonymous Adam Seaborn and, more importantly, had inspired Edgar Allan Poe, who used the idea in The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym (1838), which Verne had recently read and would later continue with the sequel Le Sphinx des glaces (1897). Verne approached the concept of a hollow Earth with his usual scientific thoroughness and produced one of his best novels, Voyage au centre de la terre (1864). Here Professor Lidenbrock and his nephew Axel follow clues left by the explorer Arne Saknussemm and descend into the bowels of the Earth via a volcano in Iceland. Far below the surface they discover a vast subterranean sea and witness sea monsters and a giant humanoid. For the first time Verne had allowed himself to go beyond the facts into the fanciful and produced his first great novel of science fiction. It launched what became known as Verne’s “Voyages Extraordinaires”.
The next two stories reconsider the novel from two entirely different perspectives.
Twenty-five leagues beneath the surface of the Earth, I certainly never expected to be rescued from troglodytes by Germans. My amazement would grow the greater as I became acquainted with those same Germans! Ah but whatever my reservations about Monsieur Verne’s character I should take a leaf out of his book and begin at the beginning of the tale . . .
In the Dordogne, some thirty-five leagues inland from Bordeaux, Pierre and I were cantering across grassy upland near the village of Montignac-sur-Vézères when all of a sudden his chestnut stallion Pompey collapsed and Pierre was thrown right over the horse’s head. Immediately I reined Diana in, jumped down and ran to Pierre, crying, “My love!” Pompey was squealing horribly. I could see that his front legs had disappeared into the ground, into a crevice that had opened up. Pierre was already scrambling to his feet.
“Be damned!”
He seemed winded, for he paused to collect himself – by stroking his moustaches. What an elegant figure of a man. I loved his wavy brown hair and piercing blue eyes. Captain Pierre Marc-Antoine Dumont d’Urville, soldier, explorer, adventurer.
“Are you all right, my love? Your ribs, your everything?”
“My pride is injured, that’s all, Hortense. Mark you, this was not Pompey’s fault.”
We’d had some spirited discussion about the respective merits, or demerits, of Pompey and Diana. Poor Pompey, he was suffering such pain.
So far as Pierre could tell by peering then reaching into the hole, both of the horse’s trapped legs seemed badly broken. Pierre stood up decisively.
“He’s ruined – and in misery.” He unholstered his bulky revolver.
Monsieur Verne was later to study that revolver with some interest, and it plays a subsequent role in this narrative too (all be it only as a cosh), so maybe I should say something concerning it. Our genius of an author loves to describe in detail technical and scientific matters. I should match my humble story-telling skills to his redoubtable ones. Seriously, I mean it. I’m always willing to learn.
A thousand of the unusual revolvers had recently been manufactured in Paris, where Pierre had managed to procure one. Although I wasn’t previ
ously much interested in guns, Pierre had been keen to show off his acquisition to me, like a child with a new toy – and I have a very retentive memory for facts. The invention of a French-born doctor named le Mat – in support of the Confederate army in the civil war currently raging in America – the revolver in question sported two barrels. The larger central barrel would fire grapeshot. A slimmer barrel would fire bullets coming from a nine-chamber cylinder revolving around the central barrel. The nose of the hammer was movable to accommodate this double action. Should you happen to be faced by a mob, Pierre had explained, the spread of shot would cause multiple damage and cool ardour. Such a revolver would be valuable in penal colonies, not to mention should you suddenly come upon several partridges feeding together and wish to bag them all.
“Look away, Hortense!”
“Certainly not,” I replied. “Do you think I will faint or have hysterics, like your wife?”
Pierre shrugged and fired a single bullet. Some blood and tissue sprayed from Pompey’s head, which promptly slumped.
Just as well I did not look away, for it was as if the detonation was a trigger. Or the reason may have been that Pompey’s now dead weight shifted. The ground gave way more so. Pierre and I both needed to jump back. Pompey’s entire body slid into the widening hole, disappearing from sight. Moments later, a muted thump sounded from underground.
What I now know to be called a doline had opened up, a “swallow-hole” through which rainfall would in future drain into a subterranean cave. That is the geological explanation for what had happened: we had been riding the horses on top of a system of caves and part of a cave roof had given way.
Since no further collapse seemed imminent, Pierre lay down and inched forward cautiously to inspect. Of course I joined him in this.
“Go back, Hortense. Our combined weights may –”
“I wish to see.”
In fact there was little to be seen. The sun shone brightly from a sky containing only a few white woolly clouds, but below was darkness. Soon we both withdrew, stood up, and brushed our clothes. By now the dark brown mare had ambled over and was staring at the hole from a safe distance. Diana pawed with one hoof. Her nostrils flared. What might she be thinking or feeling? At its best the Tarbenian breed is very intelligent as well as brave, with graceful action, elegance and endurance – quite like myself, perhaps? The trouble is that the breed requires constant infusions of English thoroughbred blood alternating with Arab blood, or else it tends to degenerate, retaining of its ancestral magnificence little but a thick heavy Andalusian neck. My grandfather bred horses, so I know more than a little about the matter, not to mention being acquainted with the saddle – and with bare-back riding – from an early age when most girls would play with dolls.
“Alas,” said Pierre, “it seems that Pompey now has a grave, a natural one. However, I’m not some primitive chieftain who buries an expensive saddle along with his steed! We need a long rope and a strapping farmboy to assist me.” He eyed my mount.
Promptly I said, “Diana’ll carry us both, if I take it easy – she isn’t slack-backed. We’ll leave her saddle here, and you can hold on to me.”
“My dear, surely I shall take the reins!”
“Have you ever ridden bare-back before? Besides, I did not lose my mount!”
“Oh Hortense, you mettlesome filly!” Pierre burst out laughing – quite lasciviously. Doubtless he was remembering the previous night when he had ridden me, and vice versa. Of course Pompey’s death was shocking and sad but we must retain our spirits and good humour. Pierre and I were well suited in this regard. Oh was I to remain forever merely a mistress? Of course there was the matter of his wife’s large inheritance to which he would lose access – that inheritance had paid for his various adventures in exotic places.
I’m spending a little too long upon the start of this unparalleled adventure which we were about to share. Suffice it to say that we returned in company with a hulking, beefy-faced, and amiable lad called Antoine, me still riding Diana, Pierre maintaining his dignity upon a carthorse laden with rope, Antoine trotting beside us at no great speed, carrying an oil lantern.
Antoine obviously assumed that he should descend into the abyss on behalf of the posh gentleman. Without further ado he began roping himself to the sturdy carthorse. But I intervened. I was lighter and slimmer – surely it was more sensible for me to go down? Pierre wouldn’t countenance this. He himself would make the descent while the lad controlled the carthorse, if, that is, I didn’t feel reluctant to be left alone with the lad.
So it was that presently Antoine and I heard Pierre shouting from below that, in the light from the lantern, he could see big pictures upon one wall of the cave, of bison and other beasts – vivid pictures in red and black and violet. Other pictures were visible along a passage which led from the cave in a downward direction.
“I must see where that passage leads!” he called up to us.
It was a full hour before my Pierre returned, amazed, to the cave, and thence to us who had awaited him – Antoine phlegmatically so, I with increasing concern. Had there been a second lantern, I swear I would have gone in search of my lover.
Numerous weeks were to pass. Professors of Prehistory were to visit our discovery, the hole now rendered safe by timbers, and a simple stairway constructed. One professor declared the cave paintings to be tens of thousands of years old because the animals depicted were extinct. Another denounced the pictures as a hoax – though of course not perpetrated by Captain Dumont d’Urville, who was well-known as an adventurer but also as a man of honour.
Pierre was much less excited about those pictures, vigorous but primitive, than about where that tunnel led to. On his first sortie he had reached an underground river, alongside which a wide ledge provided ample safe footage. Wisely he had returned before the oil in the lamp was half-consumed.
On a second sortie, with obliging Antoine as porter, Pierre reached an underground lake. What he was soon calling “the route” took a sideways twist into a passage running through geological formations differing from the limestone hitherto. A route indeed! – for if a passage forked, presenting an ambiguous choice, a small stick-like figure scrawled in ochre often pointed faintly. Presently that route began to descend through rocks more impervious to water. Ever to descend!
How could it be that our primitive ancestors – or one ancestor such, of genius and courage – had penetrated so far? Obviously the cave artists used something to light their work. Perhaps a small bonfire? They would be fairly close to the light of day, to some entrance which later collapsed, and it was difficult to imagine them carrying burning brands deeper and deeper into the bowels of the Earth. Phosphorescent lichen existed here and there in the depths but its light was very feeble.
Greatly enthused, Pierre contacted an acquaintance of his, the geologist Charles Sainte-Claire Deville, who was likewise an adventurer – he had explored active volcanoes such as Vesuvius and Stromboli. Monsieur Deville was already a member of the Academy of Sciences in Paris, and influential.
And lo, it transpired that Monsieur Deville himself was in correspondence with that young writer Jules Verne who had just recently caused quite a stir with his novel Five Weeks in a Balloon. Monsieur Verne was quizzing Monsieur Deville concerning questions of geology and volcanoes, because he was planning a new novel – about none other than a journey to the centre of the Earth!
Presently Messieurs Deville and Verne hastened to the Dordogne, to accompany us underground with suffiicent food, water, lamps and so forth (carried by Antoine) to allow for a return journey of four days in total. Yes, to accompany Pierre and Antoine and me too. I had insisted, and I had prevailed. I think Pierre was proud of me, even though he raised trivial objections such as regarding the privacy that a woman requires for matters of personal hygiene. What, in darkness? Actually, Verne was the one who most demurred about the participation of a woman in a scientific enterprise. I understood that Verne was married, yet at the same ti
me I sensed, as women can sense in a way inexplicable to men, that in the past the author had experienced disillusionments which made him bitter towards my sex in general. Disillusionments, yes, though also excitements – a woman has instincts. However, Verne was a junior participant in this enterprise, under the wing of Deville. Deville and my Pierre were the men of experience; and for a fairly generous sum Pierre had bought the land which gave access to the cave. Verne was lucky to be invited to participate in our initial foray – and he was eager to do so.
“How,” he exclaimed, “can I possibly contemplate writing about a journey into the Earth – when what I write may be contradicted by reality? But oh what a novel I shall now be able to write!”
Interestingly, according to Deville, half a century ago a bizarre American by the name of Symmes had sent a proclamation to the Academy of Sciences in Paris to the effect that the Earth is hollow and habitable within, accessible – so the American declared – by way of a big hole at the North Pole. The Academy had responded scornfully and declined to sponsor him.
Imagine us in the simple though adequate inn of Montignac-sur-Vézères after we returned safely from those four days underground.
Ah, I have not mentioned our small but powerful Ruhmkorff chemical lamps, which were far superior to the simple oil lamp with which Pierre originally descended, and which wouldn’t cause an explosion should we encounter fire-damp – these, courtesy of a mine owner, at whose mansion Deville sometimes dined. Visualize us: bearded Deville, moustachioed Pierre, the clean-shaven Verne with his curly dark hair, stalwart laconic Antoine – and me, tall and slim, my dark hair gathered in a tight bun.