Propeller Island

by Jules Verne

  For foreign intelligence the papers were indebted to the daily telephonic communication with Madeleine Bay, whence started the cables submerged in the depths of the Pacific. The people of Milliard City were thus informed of all that passed all over the world, if there were sufficient interest in it. Let it be added that the Starboard Chronicle and the New Herald were on excellent terms with each other. Up till then they had existed in harmony, but there was no saying that their exchange of courteous discussions would last for ever. Tolerant and conciliatory in all religious matters, Protestantism and Catholicism worked very well together in Floating Island. It is true that if in the future some odious political matter became mixed up with religion, if questions of private interest and selfishness intervened—

  Besides these daily high-priced journals, there were weekly and monthly reviews, reprinting the articles from foreign magazines, the articles of Sarcey, Lemaitre, Fouquier, and other critics of eminence; then there were magazines, illustrated or not, without counting half-a-dozen society papers devoted to current fashionable gossip. Their only object was to afford a little enjoyment to the mind—and to the stomach. Yes, some of these society pages were printed on edible pastry with chocolate ink. After they were read they were inwardly digested at the next breakfast. Some of them were astringent, some of them were gently purgative, and all proved very excellent eating. And we may here say that the quartette found this invention as agreeable as it was practical.

  “These are lectures of easy digestion,” observed Yvernès judiciously.

  “Quite a nourishing literature,” replied Pinchinat; “pastry and literature combined, that agrees perfectly with hygienic music!”

  Now it is natural to ask what resources the island possessed for maintaining its population in such conditions of welfare as no other city in the world approached. Its revenues must have amounted to a considerable sum, considering the expenditure under the different headings and the handsome salaries paid to its employed.

  The quartette inquired of the superintendent concerning this.

  “Here,” he replied, “we do not bother about business. We have no Board of Trade, no Exchange, no export trade. The only commerce is that needed by the wants of the island, and we shall never offer strangers the equivalent of the World’s Fair at Chicago in 1893, or the Paris Exposition of 1900. No! The mighty religion of business does not exist, and we never raise the cry of ‘Go ahead!’ unless it is for the Pearl of the Pacific to keep in front. It is not to trade we look for the needful revenue of Floating Island, but to the custom-house. Yes! our customs dues yield all we require for the exigencies of our budget.”

  “And this budget?” asked Frascolin.

  “Its total is twenty million dollars, my excellent friends!”

  “A hundred millions of francs!” exclaimed the second violin, “and for a town of ten thousand souls.”

  “That is it, my dear Frascolin; and the amount is entirely provided by the customs dues. We have no octroi, the products of the island being almost insignificant. We have nothing but the dues levied at Starboard Harbour and Larboard Harbour. That explains the dearness of our articles of consumption—dearness which is relative, mind you, for the prices, high as they may appear to you, are in accordance with the means of those who pay them.”

  And hereupon Calistus Munbar started off again, boasting of his town, boasting of his island—in his eyes a fragment of a superior planet fallen into the Pacific, a floating Eden, in which the wise men had taken refuge, and if true happiness could not be found there, it could be found nowhere. It was a showman’s speech! It seemed as though he said, “Walk up, gentlemen; walk up, ladies! take your tickets, there are only a few places left. Who will take a ticket?” etc., etc.

  It is true that the places were few and the tickets dear. Bah! The superintendent threw the millions about as if they were but units in this city of millionaires.

  It was in the course of this tirade, in which the phrases poured forth in cascades, in which the gestures became accelerated with semaphoric frenzy, that the quartette were informed regarding the different branches of the administration. And first, the schools, in which the instruction was gratuitous and obligatory, and of which the professors were paid as if they were ministers. Here were taught the dead and living languages, history, geography, the physical and mathematical sciences, and the accomplishments more thoroughly than in any university or academy in the Old World—according to Calistus Munbar. The truth was that there was no great rush of pupils to these public schools, and if the present generation retained some traces of study in the colleges of the United States, the succeeding generation would have less learning than they had dividends.

  Did not the inhabitants of this moving island travel in foreign parts? Did they never visit the great capitals of Europe? Did they not see the countries that had given them so many masterpieces of all kinds? Yes! There were a few whom a certain feeling of curiosity drove to these distant regions. But they found it fatiguing; they grew weary of it for the most part; they found there nothing of the uniformity of existence on Floating Island; they suffered from heat, they suffered from cold; in short they caught cold, and people never caught cold in Milliard City. Consequently they, the imprudent adventurers, who had had the unhappy idea to leave it, were only too glad and impatient to return to it. What good did they get from these travels? None.

  As to the foreigners who might be attracted by the fame of Floating Island, this ninth wonder of the world, the Eiffel Tower being at least the eighth, Calistus Munbar thought that they never would be very numerous. Of those who had come during the last year the majority had been Americans; of other nations there were few or none. There had been a few English, recognizable by their turning their trousers up on the pretext that it was raining in London. Besides, Great Britain had looked with no friendly eye on the building of this artificial island, which provided another obstacle to navigation, and would have rejoiced at its disappearance. The Germans obtained but a very cool welcome, as if they would quickly have made Milliard City a new Chicago, once they had set foot in it. The French were of all foreigners those whom the Company would greet with most sympathy and attention, owing to their not belonging to the invading races of Europe. But had a Frenchman ever appeared on Floating Island?

  “That is not likely,” said Pinchinat.

  “We are not rich enough,” added Frascolin.

  “To live here, yes,” replied the superintendent, “but not to be an official.”

  “Is there, then, one of our compatriots in Milliard City?” asked Yvernès.

  “There is one.”

  “And who is this privileged person?”

  “Monsieur Athanase Dorémus.”

  “And what is he doing here, this Athanase Dorémus?” exclaimed Pinchinat.

  “He is professor of dancing and deportment, with a handsome salary from the government, to say nothing of his income from private finishing lessons.”

  “Which a Frenchman is alone capable of giving!” replied his Highness.

  The quartette had thus become fairly well acquainted with the organization of the administrative life of Floating Island. They had now only to abandon themselves to the charm of this voyage which was taking them to the west of the Pacific. If it had not been for the sun rising sometimes over one part of the island and sometimes over another, according to the direction in which the island was moving, Sebastien Zorn and his comrades could have believed they were on firm ground. On two occasions during the fortnight that followed there had been a violent storm and gale, for there are always a few on the Pacific notwithstanding its name. The waves dashed up against the metal hull, and covered it with spray as if it was an ordinary shore. But Floating Island did not even groan under the assaults of the raging sea. The fury of the ocean was impotent against it. The genius of man had conquered nature.

  On the 11th of June, a fortnight after their arrival, the quartette gave their first concert, the announcement, in electric letters, be
ing exhibited along the larger avenues. It need hardly be said that the instrumentalists had been previously presented to the governor and the municipal council. Cyrus Bikerstaff had given them a most cordial welcome. The newspapers had referred to the success of the tours of the Quartette Party in the United States of America, and warmly congratulated the superintendent on having secured their services—in rather an arbitrary manner, as we know. What pleasure there would be in seeing as well as hearing these artistes executing the works of the masters! What a treat for connoisseurs!

  Although the four Parisians had been engaged for the casino at Milliard City at fabulous expense, do not let it be supposed that the concerts were to be free to the public. Far from that. The administration intended to make a large profit out of the affair, like the American impresarios whose singers cost them a dollar a bar, and even a dollar a note. It was customary to pay for the theatrophonic and phonographic concerts at the casino, and now the people must pay considerably more. The seats were all at the same price, two hundred dollars each—that is a thousand francs in French money—and the superintendent flattered himself that the room would be full.

  He was not deceived. Every seat was taken. The comfortable and elegant room of the casino could only contain a hundred, it is true; and if the seats had been put up to auction, there is no knowing what amount the receipts would have reached. But that would have been contrary to the usages of Floating Island. Everything with a market value appeared in the price lists the superfluous as well as the necessary. Without this precaution, owing to the enormous fortunes of some of the inhabitants, the whole supply might be bought up by one man, and this it was desirable to avoid. The rich Starboardites might, it is true, go to the concert for the love of the art, while the rich Larboardites might possibly go there because it was the fashion.

  When Sebastien Zorn, Pinchinat, Yvernès, and Frascolin appeared before the spectators of New York, Chicago, Philadelphia, and Baltimore, it was no exaggeration on their part to say, “there is an audience worth millions.” This evening they would have been within the truth in saying that their audience was worth hundreds of millions. Only think of it! Jem Tankerdon, Nat Coverley, and their families were conspicuous in the front row of seats. In other parts of the room, passim, were a number of amateurs, who, though only minor millionaires, had none the less “a heavy bag,”as Pinchinat very justly remarked.

  “Now then!” said the chief of the quartette when the time came for them to appear on the platform.

  And they took their places, not more excited than usual, nor even so much as if they were appearing before a Parisian public, which might have less money in their pockets but more of the artistic sense in their minds.

  It is necessary to say that they had not yet taken lessons of their countryman, the professor of deportment. Sebastien Zorn, Yvernès, Frascolin, and Pinchinat were perfect as to their attire—white cravat at twenty-five francs, pearl-grey gloves at fifty francs, shirt at seventy francs, boots at a hundred and eighty francs, waistcoat at two hundred francs, black trousers at five hundred francs, black coats at fifteen hundred francs—all at the expense of the administration, be it understood. They were welcomed with applause or very warmly by the Starboardite hands, more discreetly by the Larboardite hands—a matter of temperament.

  The programme of the concert comprised four items which they had obtained from the casino library, which was well supplied with works by the superintendent’s care:

  First quartette in E flat; Op. 12, Mendelssohn.

  Second quartette in F major; Op. 16, Haydn.

  Tenth quartette in E flat; Op. 74, Beethoven.

  Fifth quartette in A major; Op. 10, Mozart.

  The executants played marvellously in this millionized room of the floating island, on the surface of an abyss more than five thousand metres deep in this portion of the Pacific. They obtained a success that was considerable and deserved, more especially among the dilettanti of the Starboardite section. You should have seen the superintendent during this memorable evening. He exulted. It looked as though it was he who had just been playing on both violins, the alto, and the ‘cello. What a fortunate first appearance for the champions of chamber music—and for their impresario!

  It should be stated that if the room was full, the vicinity of the casino was crowded. What a number there were who had not been able to obtain a bracket-seat or a stall, to say nothing of those whom the high prices kept away. This outside audience heard the music from afar, as if it came from the box of a phonograph or the mouth of a telephone. But their applause was none the less hearty.

  And they applauded uproariously when the concert ended, and Sebastien Zorn, Yvernès, Frascolin, and Pinchinat appeared on the terrace of the left-hand pavilion.

  First Avenue was inundated with luminous rays. From the heights of space, the electric moons shed rays of which the pale Selene might well be jealous.

  In front of the casino, on the footpath, a little apart from the others, a couple attracted the attention of Yvernès. A man was there, with a woman on his arm.

  The man was above the middle height, of distinguished physiognomy, severe, sad even, and perhaps fifty years old. The woman was a few years younger, tall, proud-looking, with grey hair peeping from under her hat.

  Yvernès, struck with their reserved attitude, pointed them out to Calistus Munbar.

  “Who are those people?” he asked.

  “Those people?” replied the superintendent, with a disdainful pout. “Oh! they are raving melomaniacs.”

  “And why did they not have a seat in the casino room?”

  “Probably because it cost too much.”

  “Their fortune?”

  “Hardly two hundred thousand francs a year.”

  “Pooh!” said Pinchinat. “And who are these poor beggars?”

  “The King and Queen of Malecarlie.”

  CHAPTER VIII.

  after the construction of this extraordinary concern, the Floating Island Company had to provide for the requirements of a double organisation, maritime on the one hand and administrative on the other.

  The former, as we know, had as director, or rather captain, Commodore Ethel Simcoe, of the United States navy. He was a man of about fifty, an experienced navigator, thoroughly acquainted with every part of the Pacific, its currents, its storms, its reefs, its coralline shoals. Consequently he was fully qualified for the safe guidance of the floating island confided to his care, and the valuable lives for whom he was responsible to God and the shareholders of the company.

  The second organization, that which comprised the various administrative services, was in the hands of the governor of the island. Mr. Cyrus Bikerstaff was a Yankee of Maine, one of the Federal States which took the least part in the fratricidal strife of the American confederation during the War of Secession. Cyrus Bikerstaff had been happily chosen to maintain a golden mean between the two sections of the island.

  The governor, who was on the verge of sixty, was a bachelor, He was a man of much coolness and self-control, very strict, very energetic, notwithstanding his phlegmatic appearance, very English in his reserved attitude, his gentlemanly manners, the diplomatic discretion with which he spoke and acted. In any other country than Floating Island, he would have been a considerable man and consequently made much of. But here he was only the chief servant of the company, and though his salary exceeded the civil list of many a petty sovereign of Europe, he was not rich, and could not make much of a figure in the presence of the nabobs of Milliard City.

  Cyrus Bikerstaff was not only governor of the island but mayor of the capital. As such he occupied the mansion at the end of First Avenue, facing the observatory where Commodore Simcoe had his residence. There were the public offices, there were received all the civil registrations, the births, with a mean rate assuring the future, the deaths—the dead were taken to the cemetery at Madeleine Bay—the marriages, which had to be celebrated by the civil authorities before the religious ceremonial, according to th
e code of Floating Island. There the different branches of the administration had their headquarters, and were worked without any complaint from the administered, a fact that did honour to the mayor and his staff. When Sebastien Zorn, Pinchinat, Yvernès and Frascolin were introduced to him by the superintendent, he made a very favourable impression on them, such as is produced by the individuality of a good and just man, of a practical turn of mind, who did not abandon himself to prejudices or chimeras.

  “Gentlemen,” he said to them, “it is very fortunate for us that we have got you. Perhaps the proceedings of our superintendent were not quite as they should have been. But you have forgiven him, I suppose. Besides, you will not have to complain of the way our municipality treats you. All it asks is two concerts a month, and you are free to accept any private engagements that may be offered you. We welcome you as musicians of great merit, and will never forget that you are the first artistes we have had the honour to welcome.’’