In brief, there was a general desolation in the two Americas, and the Republic of Ecuador had one more catastrophe to attribute to the activity of the most immense volcano on its soil.
Chapter XI
Mikhail Ossipoff encounters his former colleague
from the Academy of Sciences in space
While the New World was the theater of the terrible catastrophes described in summary at the end of the preceding chapter, the authors of those catastrophes seemed already to have received the just punishment of Heaven due to their frightful sin. In the interior of the shell a deep darkness reigned, which did not permit anything whatsoever to be distinguished; in addition, there was not the slightest noise, nor the least breath, nor even the most imperceptible groan. It was the darkness and silence of the tomb.
Suddenly, a sneeze burst forth, as sharp as a pistol-shot—then a second, and a third, then a whole succession, lasting a least three minutes. It was a certain indication that at least one of the five passengers was alive.
“Saperlipopette!” said a slightly gruff voice. “I must have caught a cold.”
Scarcely had these words been mumbled when another sneeze burst forth a short distance away. “Bless you!” said the first voice, joyfully.
“So you’re alive, then, Monsieur Fricoulet!” exclaimed the second sneezer.
“What’s surprising about that, honorable Monsieur Farenheit?”
“But it doesn’t surprise me,” retorted the American. “It pleases me.”
“You’re too kind, Monsieur Farenheit.”
“Well, not being fond of solitude, I was already trembling at the thought of finding myself shut up in here in intimate company with four cadavers.”
“The conversation might, indeed, have lacked animation,” said the young engineer, slightly irritated by the Yankee’s egotism. Then, suddenly, in a tremulous voice, he exclaimed: “Why are you talking about cadavers? Do you think that our companions are…?” He did not finish, because anguish gripped his throat.
“Well,” said Jonathan Farenheit, impassively, “apart from the two of us, no one’s moving or saying a word...it is, therefore, supposable…”
A chill ran through Fricoulet’s limbs; overcoming the numbness that immobilized him in his box, he slid down to the floor. Once on the carpet, he dragged himself on his knees along the padded wall, patting it feverishly with his hand. Suddenly, he uttered a cry of joy; his fingers had just encountered the commutator switch. He turned it on its axis, and the incandescent lamps in the chandelier immediately lit up, inundating the interior of the vehicle with light.
“By Heaven!” cried Jonathan. “A little light does a lot of good.” So saying, he stood up, stretching his limbs sensuously, making all his joints crack one after another.
Fricoulet, meanwhile, had run to the first “drawer” that was within reach; on the soft quilt, Flammermont lay motionless and stuff, as if death had struck him down in his sleep.
“Gontran!” cried the young engineer, shaking his friend as vigorously as his own weakness permitted—but he might as well have been trying to bring a mannequin to life. In response to Fricoulet’s efforts, the young Comte’s head rolled to the right and the left, the eyelids closed and the lips taut.
“Dead!” murmured Fricoulet, in alarm.
The American had come closer and, without saying anything, stuck his ear to the Comte’s breast. “No more dead than you,” he sniggered. “His heart’s beating normally.”
“In that case,” said the engineer, “sit him up for a few seconds—that always helps the lungs to work. I’ll be with you directly.” He ran to the cupboard, opened it, searched among several small bottles arranged on the shelf for a flask filled with a whitish liquid. He shook it, and then, having uncorked it, passed back and forth under Gontan’s nostrils several times.
Almost immediately, the Comte’s face contracted, his eyelids fluttered and his lips parted, revealing nervously-clenched teeth. Suddenly, the mouth opened very wide, giving passage to a formidable sneeze.
“Saved!” cried Fricoulet, throwing his arms around his friend’s neck.
To his exclamation, though, another exclamation replied, coming from another drawer. “We’re off! We’re on our way!” It was Mikhail Ossipoff who had pronounced these words, in a vibrant voice. He had sat up, and was shaking his arms feverishly.
“What’s the matter?” asked Fricoulet, bewildered.
“Didn’t you hear that frightful explosion?” said the old scientist.
“What?”
“It’s Cotopaxi that has erupted!”
The engineer and the American looked at one another in surprise; then Farenheit cried: “What you mistook for Cotopaxi was simply Monsieur de Flammermont greeting his return to life with a sneeze.”
Gontran, meanwhile, sat on the edge of his drawer alternately rubbing his head and his hips. “Ouch!” he groaned. “I could have fallen from the top of Notre-Dame’s towers without my skull hurting any more. As for my hips, they’re experiencing exactly the same sensation as a serious thrashing.”
Suddenly, the ache in his head and the ache in his hips disappeared, as if by magic. He leapt to the floor and ran to Selena’s coffin. The young woman seemed to be asleep.
“Fricoulet!” cried Gontran. “Come quickly—this sleep frightens me!”
With one bound, Ossipoff was beside his daughter, whom he took in his arms as if he were holding a little child, covering her with caresses and kisses.
Fricoulet moved him gently aside and, as he had done for his friend, slowly passed the little bottle with the white liquid under her nostrils. It brought about the same miracle, this time without the accompaniment of any noisy manifestations.
“Dear Father,” murmured Selena, coming to and holding out her arms to the old man. Then, perceiving Gontran looking at her anxiously, she added: “Dear Monsieur Gontran…” And she let him have one of her hands, which the young man brushed with his lips.
“Yes! Bravo!” said the engineer, joyfully. “No one’s kicked the bucket. A voyage to the Moon is definitely less perilous than I thought.”
Scarcely had Ossipoff established that his daughter was out of danger than, abruptly tearing himself away from her caresses, he knelt down on the floor and headed for the center of the vehicle, moving on all fours. Having arrived there, he stopped and undid the cords that retained a section of the carpet, which lifted up to reveal a porthole set in the floor itself. This porthole, measuring no less than 40 centimeters in diameter, was made of glass thick enough for someone to walk on it without fear. In anticipation of the shocks that would accompany the vehicle on its departure, the porthole was protected externally by an iron plate fixed by means of bolts whose securing locknuts were inside.
“The wrench! The wrench!” Ossipoff demanded, feverishly.
Fricoulet ran to the cupboard and took out a wrench, by means of which he attacked the bolts ardently. When the last one was unfastened, the iron plate came away, uncovering the porthole and permitting a view to the rear of the vehicle. Then, with Fricoulet’s help, Ossipoff performed a similar operation on four openings pierced in the projectile’s side walls, which were protected in the same manner as the first.
“Put out the lights, please,” the old scientist ordered, curtly.
The young engineer obeyed immediately. He pushed the stem of the commutator and darkness reigned again within the shell.
Ossipoff hurled himself toward one of the portholes. “Victory!” he cried. “Victory! We’ve left the Earth—we’re heading for the Moon.”
Farenheit, his face plastered against the glass, opened his eyes wide without perceiving anything but intense darkness. “By Heaven!” he exclaimed. “I’d like to know, Monsieur Ossipoff, on what you base your affirmation that we’ve left the Earth.”
“Quite simply on the fact that a thick shadow is amassed between the Earth and us! If we’d fallen back on our planet, we’d see the ground all around us, lit by moonlight. If, on the
other hand, we’d fallen into the Pacific Ocean, we’d feel the motion of the waves. I therefore repeat: we’re on out way.”
“If your only evidence for saying that, though,” murmured Gontran, “is the darkness that surrounds us, I might observe that the darkness was just as intense in the depths of the crater.”
“So what?” asked Ossipoff, ironically.
“So we might very well still be in Cotopaxi’s chimney.”
Making no reply, the old man took him by the hand and drew him to one of the portholes. “Look,” he said. “When you were in the crater, did you see that?” And he pointed through the thick glass at the constellations sparkling with an incomparable gleam, like diamonds in a velvet-lined casket.
“It remains to be seen,” muttered Fricoulet, “whether the propulsive force will be sufficient to carry us as far as the lunar sphere of attraction.”
“We shall see,” replied the aged scientist, dryly.
“Tell me,” said Gontran, suddenly, addressing his friend, “Can’t we open one of these little windows?”
“What for?”
“To get a little air, of course! It’s stifling in here.”
Fortunately, the young man had spoken in a low voice, so that Ossipoff did not hear the question clearly. It was Fricoulet who leaned close to his ear and murmured: “But we’re floating in the void, imbecile.”
The ex-diplomat’s face reflected the most profound amazement. “In the void,” he repeated. “Have we already passed through the whole of Earth’s atmosphere?”
The engineer consulted his watch. “Yes,” he said. “21 minutes and 30 seconds ago.”
“Where are we now, then?” Gontran asked.
Fricoulet glanced at Ossipoff. “Softly, you fool, softly,” he whispered. “If your future father-in-law hears you, it’ll be the end of your marriage.” Then, muffling his voice, he went on: “The space that we’re traveling through at present is filled with a fluid called ether, which is so rarefied that its density represents the absolute vacuum that one obtains by means of pneumatic machines. It is, therefore, absolutely impossible to open the portholes for the entire duration of the voyage…rather than letting in breathable air, the little that we have would escape.”
Jonathan Farenheit, who had eavesdropped on this explanation, asked: “But if, Monsieur, as I remember from explanations formerly given to us by the accursed Sharp, the surface of the Moon is almost devoid of air, how are we going to breathe there? Have you got rubber diving-suits and tanks of air, like him?”
“Of course,” Fricoulet replied. “You may be quite sure that we haven’t embarked on such a long voyage without having anticipated even the most improbable circumstances. Even though the lunar surface, according to the eminent Monsieur Ossipoff’s theories, possesses an atmosphere sufficient for human lungs, my friend Flammermont, who is a careful man, has had six complete sets of apparatus constructed, thanks to which we shall be able to move about with impunity in an unbreathable or extremely rarefied atmosphere.”
Completely reassured, the American muttered: “Oh, I don’t want to be able to breathe for long on the Moon—all I ask is enough breath to get my hands on that villain Sharp and strangle him with these ten fingers. Once that task’s over, I’ll only want to go back home.” With these words, he turned on his heel and stuck his face to the nearest porthole, while Gontran went to install himself beside Selena at another window.
“But the Moon’s nowhere to be seen!” Gontran said, suddenly. “Will she be impolite enough to miss the rendezvous?”
“If you’d like to take the trouble to go up to the first floor,” Fricoulet replied, “You can see Mademoiselle Selena’s godmother, following her invariable route through the stellar immensity in order to reach, four days hence, the exact spot indicated by us.”
“She must already have increased in size since our departure.”
“If you want to take account of that, you only have to go up the ladder.”
The young Comte briskly climbed the steps and found himself in front of a little open door. He groped his way across the threshold—but in the darkness, his foot bumped into a crouching body, and that clumsiness was greeted by an irritated exclamation.
“What—is that you, my dear Monsieur Ossipoff?” said the young Comte. “What are you doing here, in that posture?”
“Oh, it’s you, Flammermont,” the old man retorted. “You’ve arrived just in time. I’ve been trying for ten minutes to undo the nuts retain the plate of the porthole—I do believe the Devil must have tightened them. Give me a hand.”
As he finished this speech, and without waiting for the requested hand, he gave one last wrench, so violent that the last nut gave way and the old man, losing his balance, fell backwards into Gontran—who, falling backwards in his turn, rolled on the floor. The ex-diplomat cried out—not in pain, although the fall had rudely shaken him up, but in surprise, for at the same time as his buttocks hit the ground, a bright light had suddenly inundated the laboratory, striking him full in the face.
“The Moon?” he cried, in an interrogative tone.
But Ossipoff did not reply; with one bound, the old man had got to his feet, and while his companion was getting up, he had had the time to seize a telescope, aim the objective lens at the shining satellite and glue his eye to the ocular lens.
As Gontran, visibly interested, drew nearer to the old scientist, he heard him murmur: “Finally, we’ll be able to do a little selenography.” The young man heard no more; terrified at the thought of being alone, exposed to the old man’s redoubtable questions, he drew away on tiptoe and silently descended the steps of the little stairway.
“Well,” said Fricoulet, on seeing him reappear, “did you find the Moon?”
The ex-diplomat put a finger to his lips. “Shh!” he said. “I’m running away from Monsieur Ossipoff, on whose lips I foresee embarrassing questions.”
Fricoulet burst out laughing. “Coward,” he said.
“You’re very generous,” Gontran replied. “I’d like to see you do it…if you were risking compromising your happiness by an idiotic response, I don’t know whether you’d hold up under interrogation.”
The young engineer shrugged his shoulders. “His happiness!” he groaned. “Oh, if I were quite sure that some gross heresy in selenography would snatch me away from that precipice called marriage…” As he murmured these words, a mischievous smile strayed over his lips.
At that moment, Selena, who had climbed up the ladder quietly, came back down and approached the engineer. “Monsieur Fricoulet,” she’s said, “a good idea has just occurred to me.”
“What’s that, Mademoiselle?”
“If you were to give Gontran a few astronomical tips while my father is lost in contemplation of his cherished star, that might allow him not to be caught out by the questions that my father might address to him in your absence.”
“Bravo!” said the young Comte. “Fricoulet, I appoint you as my personal tutor. As for the price of the lessons, we’ll settle that later.”
The young engineer pulled a face. Nevertheless, Gontran drew him to one of the portholes and extended his arm toward the stars scintillating in space. “Come on,” he said. “Tell me about these constellations.”
“First of all,” Fricoulet began, “there aren’t any constellations. It’s the position of the Earth in space that makes stars belonging to different systems and immeasurably distant from one another appear to us to be linked. If we were transported to another star, the entire appearance of the sky would be changed by virtue of the displacement of our observation-point. All the suns that we see shining on dark nights are strewn hapahazardly in the immensity and, I repeat, it’s simply perspective that creates constellations. Furthermore, each of these stars is animated by its own motion, sometimes very rapid, quite distinct from its neighbors, which are often moving in the opposite direction.”
“So that if we came back in 50,000 years…”
“The appearance o
f the sky would be completely changed for the Earth’s inhabitants and as different from the one we’re admiring now than it is from the sky existing several 1000 years ago. Would you like some examples? The Great Bear would be dismembered, David’s Chariot would be dismantled, and the Three Kings, who appear to have been traveling together until now, would have turned their backs on one another to move in different directions.” The young engineer paused, then continued: Everything changes; everything in the universe is transformed, and it’s thanks to that perpetual movement that life develops universally on those spheres, and death will never reign over all the stars of infinity!”
He had pronounced the last words in a ringing tone that demonstrated how dear the subject he was dealing with was to him. He was ready to continue when Gontran put a hand on his arm and said to him, in a tone that was half-serious and half-jesting: “My dear friend, you’re a bad professor, for, instead of teaching me to read by making me say C-A-T, cat, you’re making a speech. So talk to me very simply—about the Moon, to begin with.”
At that moment there was the sound of a formidable yawn. It was Jonathan Farenheit, manifesting in his fashion an invincible desire to sleep—and almost immediately, nothing being as contagious as drowsiness, Gontran and Fricoulet felt themselves gripped by a strong desire to lie down in their hammocks.
“Messieurs,” said Selena, darting a glance at the clock hanging on the wall, “It’s 11 p.m. The moment has come I think, to go to bed. I’m going to my room, and I wish you a good night.” So saying, she politely extended her hand to her companions and disappeared into the upper section of the vehicle.
Five minutes later, the lights were out and our three friends, rolled up in their blankets, were snoring in competition.
An intense radiance entering through the portholes struck Gontran full in the face, waking him up with a start. “Sapristi!” he murmured. “It’s broad daylight.” And, sitting on the edge of his hammock, he rubbed his sleep-swollen eyelids.
The Extraordinary Adventures of a Russian Scientist Across the Solar System (Vol. 1) Page 24