by Jules Verne
“Uncle, if you enter into the domain of speculations, I have nothing further to discuss.”
“But I have to tell you that my opinion is supported by those of very competent people. Do you remember a visit that the celebrated chemist Humphry Davy paid to me in 1825?”
“Not at all, for I wasn’t born until nineteen years later.”5
“Well, Humphry Davy did call on me on his way through Hamburg. We discussed for a long time, among other problems, the theory of the liquidity of the earth’s inner core. We agreed that it couldn’t be liquid, for a reason which science has never been able to refute.”
“What reason?” I said, a bit astonished.
“Because this liquid mass would be subject, like the ocean, to the attraction of the moon, and therefore there would be interior tides twice a day that would push up the terrestrial crust and cause periodical earthquakes!”
“Yet it’s evident that the surface of the globe has been subject to combustion,” I replied, “and it’s quite reasonable to suppose that the external crust cooled down first, while the heat gathered at the center.”
“A mistake,” my uncle answered. “The earth has been heated by combustion on its surface, not the other way around. Its surface was composed of a great number of metals, such as potassium and sodium, which have the property of igniting at mere contact with air and water; these metals kindled when atmospheric steam fell on the soil as rain; and by and by, when the waters penetrated into the fissures of the earth’s crust, they caused more fires with explosions and eruptions. Hence the numerous volcanoes during the first ages of the earth.”
“What an ingenious theory!” I exclaimed, a little in spite of myself.
“Which Humphry Davy demonstrated to me by a simple experiment. He made a ball of the metals that I’ve mentioned, which was a very fair representation of our globe; whenever he made a fine dew fall on its surface, it swelled up, oxidized and formed a little hill; a crater opened at its summit; the eruption took place, and spread such heat to the entire ball that it became impossible to hold it in one’s hand.”
In truth, I was beginning to be shaken by the professor’s arguments; besides, he proposed them with his usual passion and enthusiasm.
“You see, Axel,” he added, “the condition of the nucleus has given rise to various theories among geologists; there’s no proof at all for this interior heat; my opinion is that there’s no such thing, there cannot be; at any rate, we’ll see for ourselves, and like Arne Saknussemm, we’ll know exactly what the fact of the matter is concerning this big question.”
“Very well, we’ll see,” I replied, warming to his enthusiasm. “Yes, we’ll see, that is, if it’s possible to see anything there.”
“And why not? Can we not depend on electric phenomena to give us light, and even on the atmosphere, which might become luminous due to its pressure as we approach the center?”
“Yes,” I said, “yes! That’s possible, after all.”
“It’s certain,” answered my uncle in a tone of triumph. “But silence, do you hear me? silence on the whole subject, so that no one gets the idea of discovering the center of the earth before us.”
VII
THUS ENDED THIS MEMORABLE session. This conversation threw me into a fever. I left my uncle’s study as if I had been stunned, and as if there was not air enough in all the streets of Hamburg to put me right again. I therefore walked toward the banks of the Elbe, where the steamer connects the city with the Hamburg railway.
Was I convinced of the truth of what I had heard? Had I not bent under Professor Lidenbrock’s iron rule? Was I to believe him in earnest in his intention to penetrate to the center of this massive globe? Had I been listening to the mad speculations of a lunatic, or to the scientific conclusions of a great genius? In all this, where did truth stop? Where did error begin?
I was adrift amongst a thousand contradictory assumptions, without being able to grasp any of them firmly.
Yet I remembered that I had been convinced, although now my enthusiasm was beginning to cool down; but I felt a desire to leave at once, and not waste time in calm reflection. Yes, I would have had enough courage enough to pack my suitcase at that moment.
But I must confess that in another hour this unnatural excitement abated, my nerves became unstrung, and from the deep abysses of this earth I ascended to its surface again.
“This is absurd!” I exclaimed, “there’s no common sense in it. No sensible young man should entertain such a proposal for a moment. The whole thing is non-existent. I’ve had a bad night, I’ve had a nightmare.”
But I had followed the banks of the Elbe and passed the town. After going back up to the port, I had reached the Altona road. I was led by a presentiment, a justified presentiment, because soon I saw my little Graüben bravely returning with her light step to Hamburg.
“Graüben!” I called from afar off.
The girl stopped, a little disturbed perhaps to hear her name called after her in the street. With ten steps I had joined her.
“Axel!” she said in surprise. “Ah! you must have come to meet me! That must be it, Sir.”
But when she had looked at me, Graüben could not fail to see the uneasiness and distress of my mind.
“What’s the matter?” she said, holding out her hand.
“The matter, Graüben!” I exclaimed.
In two seconds and three sentences my pretty Virland girl was fully informed about the situation. She was silent for a few moments. Did her heart palpitate as mine did? I don’t know, but her hand did not tremble in mine. We went on a hundred yards without speaking.
“Axel!” she said at last.
“My dear Graüben!”
“It’ll be a beautiful journey!”
I leaped up at these words.
“Yes, Axel, a journey worthy of the nephew of a scholar; it’s a good thing for a man to be distinguished by some great enterprise.”
“What, Graüben, won’t you dissuade me from such an expedition?”
“No, dear Axel, and I’d willingly go with you, if a poor girl weren’t a burden to you.”
“Is that true?”
“Quite true.”
Ah! women, girls, how incomprehensible are your feminine hearts! When you are not the most timid, you are the bravest of creatures. Reason has nothing to do with your actions. What! this child encouraged me to take part in the expedition! She wouldn’t even have been afraid to join it herself! And she pushed me to do it, the one whom she loved after all!
I was disconcerted and, why not admit it, ashamed.
“Graüben, we’ll see whether you say the same thing tomorrow.”
“Tomorrow, dear Axel, I’ll say what I say today.”
Graüben and I, hand in hand, but in silence, continued on our way. The emotions of that day were breaking my heart.
“After all,” I thought, “the calends of July are still a long way off, and between now and then, many things can happen that will cure my uncle of his desire to travel underground.”
Night had fallen when we arrived at the house in Königstrasse. I expected to find all quiet there, my uncle in bed as was his custom, and Martha giving the dining-room her last touches with the feather brush.
But I had not taken the professor’s impatience into account.
I found him shouting and running around among a crowd of porters who were all unloading certain goods in the passage. The old servant was at her wits’ end.
“Come, Axel, hurry up, you miserable wretch,” my uncle exclaimed from as far off as he could see me. “Your suitcase isn’t packed, and my papers aren’t in order, and I can’t find the key to my overnight bag, and my gaiters haven’t arrived!”
I was thunderstruck. My voice failed. Scarcely could my lips formulate the words:
“So we’re really going?”
“Of course, you unfortunate boy, walking around instead of being here!”
“We’re leaving?” I asked in a weakened voice.
> “Yes, the day after tomorrow, early in the morning.”
I could listen to no more, and fled to my little room.
There was no more doubt. My uncle had spent his afternoon purchasing some of the items and tools that were necessary for his journey. The passage was packed with rope ladders, knotted cords, torches, flasks, grappling irons, ice picks, iron-tipped walking sticks, pickaxes, enough of a load for at least ten men.
I spent an awful night. Next morning I was called early. I had decided not to open the door. But how to resist the sweet voice that pronounced the words, “My dear Axel”?
I came out of my room. I thought my pale countenance and my red and sleepless eyes would work on Graüben’s sympathies and change her mind.
“Ah! my dear Axel,” she said to me. “I see you are better, and that the night’s rest has calmed you down.”
“Calmed me down!” I exclaimed.
I rushed to the mirror. Well, in fact I did look better than I had expected. It was hard to believe.
“Axel,” she said, “I’ve had a long talk with my guardian. He is a bold scholar, a man of immense courage, and you must remember that his blood flows in your veins. He has told me about his plans, his hopes, and why and how he hopes to reach his goal. He will no doubt succeed. My dear Axel, it’s a wonderful thing to devote yourself to science like this! What honor will fall on Mr. Lidenbrock, and reflect on his companion! When you return, Axel, you’ll be a man, his equal, free to speak and to act independently, and finally free to ...”
The girl, blushing, did not finish the sentence. Her words revived me. Nevertheless, I still refused to believe we would leave. I drew Graüben toward the professor’s study.
“Uncle, is it true, then, that we’ll leave?”
“What! You doubt it?”
“No,” I said, so as not to irritate him. “Only I’d like to know what need is there to hurry.”
“Time, of course! Time, flying with irrecuperable speed!”
“But it is only May 26th, and until the end of June—”
“What, ignorant! do you think you can get to Iceland so easily? If you had not deserted me like a fool, I would have taken you to the Copenhagen office at Liffender & Co., and you would have seen that there’s only one trip every month from Copenhagen to Reykjavik, on the 22nd.”
“And so?”
“So, if we wait for June 22nd, we’ll be too late to see the shadow of Scartaris touch the crater of Snaefells. We must therefore travel to Copenhagen as fast as we can so as to find a means of transportation. Go and pack your suitcase!”
There was not a word I could reply to this. I returned to my room. Graüben followed me. She undertook to pack all things necessary for my voyage. She was no more moved than if I had been starting for a little trip to Lübeck or Helgoland.p Her little hands moved without haste. She talked quietly. She provided me with the most sensible reasons for our expedition. She delighted me, and yet I felt a deep rage against her. Now and then I felt I should break out into a temper, but she took no notice and methodically continued her quiet task.
Finally the last strap was buckled. I went downstairs.
All through the day, the purveyors of instruments, weapons, and electric devices had multiplied. Martha was losing her head.
“Is the master mad?” she asked.
I nodded.
“And he’s taking you with him?”
I nodded again.
“Where to?” she said.
I pointed to the center of the earth with my finger.
“Into the cellar?” exclaimed the old servant.
“No,” I said. “Deeper!”
The evening came. But I was no longer conscious of passing time.
“Tomorrow morning,” my uncle said, “we leave at six o’clock.”
At ten o’clock I fell on my bed like an inert mass.
During the night, terror gripped me again.
I spent it dreaming of abysses! I was a prey to delirium. I felt myself grasped by the professor’s strong hand, dragged along, hurled down, sinking! I dropped down unfathomable precipices with the accelerating speed of bodies falling through space. My life had become nothing but an endless fall.
I awoke at five o’clock, exhausted by fatigue and emotion. I went downstairs to the dining-room. My uncle was at the table. He devoured his breakfast. I looked at him with horror. But Graüben was there. I said nothing. I could eat nothing.
At half-past five there was a rattle of wheels outside. A large carriage was there to take us to the Altona railway station. It was soon loaded up with my uncle’s packages.
“Where’s your suitcase?” he said.
“It’s ready,” I replied, with faltering voice.
“Then hurry up to bring it down, or we’ll miss the train!”
It was now manifestly impossible to struggle against destiny. I went up again to my room, and rushed after him by letting my suitcase slide down the stairs.
At that moment my uncle was solemnly surrendering “the reins” of the house to Graüben. My pretty Virland girl maintained her usual calm. She kissed her guardian, but could not hold back a tear in brushing my cheek with her sweet lips.
“Graüben!” I exclaimed.
“Go, my dear Axel,” she said to me, “you’re leaving your fiancée, but you’ll find your wife when you return.”
I took her into my arms and then seated myself in the carriage. Martha and the girl, standing at the door, waved their last farewell. Then the horses, roused by the driver’s whistling, ran off at a gallop on the road to Altona.
VIII
ALTONA, A REAL SUBURB of Hamburg, is the terminus of the Kiel railway, which was supposed to carry us to the Belts. In twenty minutes we were in Holstein.q
At half-past six the carriage stopped at the station; my uncle’s numerous packages, his voluminous travel items were unloaded, transported, weighed, labeled, loaded into the luggage car, and at seven we sat facing each other in our compartment. The whistle sounded, the engine started to move. We were off.
Was I resigned? Not yet. Yet the cool morning air and the scenes on the road, rapidly changing due to the speed of the train, distracted me from my great worry.
As for the professor’s reflections, they obviously overtook this slow conveyance with his impatience. We were alone in the carriage, but we sat in silence. My uncle examined all his pockets and his traveling bag with the most minute care. I saw that indeed none of the items necessary for the realization of his project were missing.
Among other documents, a carefully folded sheet of paper bore the letterhead of the Danish consulate with the signature of Mr. Christiensen, consul in Hamburg and a friend of the professor’s. This should make it easy for us to obtain letters of reference for the Governor of Iceland in Copenhagen.
I also observed the famous document, carefully hidden in the most secret pocket of his portfolio. I cursed it from the bottom of my heart, and then studied the landscape again. It was a vast series of uninteresting, monotonous, loamy and fertile flats; a very favorable landscape for the construction of railways, suitable for the straight lines so beloved by railway companies.
But I had no time to get tired of this monotony; for in three hours we stopped at Kiel, close to the sea.
As our luggage was checked through to Copenhagen, we did not have to look after it. Nevertheless, the professor kept a cautious eye on it while it was being transported to the steamer. There, it disappeared in the hold.
In his haste, my uncle had so well calculated the connection between the train and the steamer that we had a whole day to kill. The steamer Ellenora would not leave until night.
Hence a nine-hour fever during which the irascible traveler sent the steamboat and of railway administrators to the devil, as well as the governments which tolerated such abuses. I was forced to echo him when he approached the captain of the Ellenora with this subject. He wanted to force him to heat up the engines without wasting a moment. The captain disposed of him su
mmarily.
In Kiel, as elsewhere, a day eventually passes. What with walking on the verdant shores of the bay at the extreme of which lies the little town, exploring the dense woods which make it look like a nest amongst thick foliage, admiring the villas, each with a little bath house, and moving about and grumbling, at last ten o’clock came.
The heavy coils of smoke from the Ellenora rose to the sky; the bridge shook with the shudders of the boiler; we were on board, and owners of two berths, one above the other, in the ship’s only cabin.
At a quarter past ten the moorings were loosed and the steamer glided rapidly over the dark waters of the Great Belt.
The night was dark; there was a sharp breeze and rough sea; a few lights appeared on shore through the thick darkness; later on, I cannot tell when, a dazzling light from some lighthouse glittered above the waves; and that is all I can remember of this first passage.
At seven in the morning we landed at Korsör, a small town on the west coast of Zealand. There we transferred from the boat to another train, which took us across just as flat a country as the plain of Holstein.
Three hours’ traveling brought us to the capital of Denmark. My uncle had not shut his eyes all night. In his impatience I believe he was trying to accelerate the train with his feet.
At last he discerned a stretch of sea.
“The Sound!” he exclaimed.
At our left was a huge building that looked like a hospital.
“That’s a lunatic asylum,” said one of our traveling companions.
Very good! I thought, just the place where we should spend the rest of our days! And large though it is, that asylum is not big enough to contain all Professor Lidenbrock’s madness!
At ten in the morning, at last, we set foot in Copenhagen; the luggage was loaded on to a carriage and taken to the Hotel Phoenix in Bredgade along with ourselves. This took half an hour, for the station is outside of the town. Then my uncle, after refreshing himself quickly, dragged me along with him. The porter at the hotel could speak German and English; but the professor, as a polyglot, questioned him in good Danish, and it was in the same language that this individual directed him to the Museum of Northern Antiquities.