by Jules Verne
‘Pray continue, sir,’ I said. ‘I presume that it is a condition honourable men can accept.’
‘Certainly, and it is as follows. It is possible that certain unforeseen situations may compel me to confine you to your cabins for a few hours, or days in some cases. As I never wish to have to use force, I expect passive obedience from you, even more than in other circumstances. In acting in this way, I remove all responsibility, I absolve you completely, for it will be my duty to ensure that you do not see what should not be seen. Will you accept this condition?’
So things happened on board that were strange, to say the least, and which were not fit to be witnessed by people who had not placed themselves outside social laws! Amongst the surprises that the future would hold for me, this was not to be the least.
‘We accept,’ I replied. ‘But I request your permission to ask one question — only one.’
‘Pray continue, sir.’
‘You have said that we will be free on board?’
‘Entirely.’
‘I would like to enquire what you mean by such freedom.’
‘I mean the freedom to come and go, and to study and observe all that takes place here, except in a few rare circumstances: in short, the same freedom my companions and I enjoy.’
It was clear that we were talking about different things.
‘I beg your pardon,’ I added, ‘but that liberty is only the one granted every prisoner, to walk around his prison. That is not enough for us.’
‘Well it must suffice, in any case.’
‘What! You would have us renounce ever seeing our friends, relatives, or homelands again?’
‘Yes, monsieur. But to give up the intolerable yoke of the dry land which men equate with freedom is perhaps not such a great sacrifice as you may imagine.’
‘What an idea!’ cried Ned Land. ‘I will never give my word not to try and escape!’
‘I am not asking for your word, Master Land,’ the captain replied coldly.
‘Monsieur,’ I replied, carried away in spite of myself, ‘you are taking advantage of us. This is cruelty.’
‘No, monsieur, it is mercy. You are my prisoners after the battle. I am holding you when, with just a word, I could have you cast back to the depths of the ocean. You attacked me. You came and uncovered a secret that no man on earth must penetrate — the secret of my entire life. And you imagine that I am going to send you back to dry land, where nothing must be known about me? Never! By holding you, it is not you I am protecting, but myself.’
The captain’s words indicated a resolve against which no argument could prevail.
‘So,’ I continued, ‘you are merely giving us the choice between life and death?’
‘Yes.’
‘My friends,’ I said, ‘to such a question no reply is possible. But no promise binds us to the master of this ship.’*
‘None, sir,’ replied the stranger.
And in a gentler voice:
‘Now, let me finish what I have to say. I know you, Dr Aronnax. You, if not your companions, will have little to complain about the destiny that has bound you to my fate. Amongst the books which make up my favourite reading you will find the work you published on the ocean deeps. I have often studied it. Your book went as far as earthbound science allowed. But you do not know everything, you still have things to see. So let me tell you that you will not regret the time spent on board my vessel. You are going to travel through a wonderland. Astonishment and stupefaction will probably be your normal state of mind. You will not easily become blasé about the sights continually offered to your eyes. I am going to make a new tour around the underwater world — who knows, perhaps the last? — and revisit everything I have studied in the depths I know so well; and you will be my study companion. Starting today, you will move in a new element, you will see what no one has ever seen (for my men and I no longer count); and our planet, thanks to me, will deliver up its last secrets.’
I cannot deny that these words of the captain’s had a tremendous effect on me. He had touched me on my weak spot, and for a moment I forgot that the contemplation of such sublime things could not compensate for the loss of liberty. But in any case, I counted on the future to settle this important question. So I merely replied:
‘Sir, if you have broken with humanity, I cannot believe that you have given up all human feeling. We are castaways, magnanimously taken on board, and we will not forget it. I recognize in full that if interest in science can override even the desire for freedom, what is promised thanks to our meeting will offer me personally a great deal of compensation.’
I thought the captain was going to offer me his hand to seal our treaty. He did nothing of the sort. I thought he should have.
‘One last question . . .’ I said, just as the unfathomable being seemed about to withdraw.
‘I am listening.’
‘How should I address you?’
‘Monsieur,’ replied the captain, ‘I will merely be Captain Nemo for you;* and you and your companions will simply be for me the passengers of the Nautilus.’*
Captain Nemo called. A steward appeared. The captain gave him orders in that foreign tongue I could not place. Then, turning to Ned and Conseil:
‘A meal is waiting for you in your cabin. Please follow this man.’
‘I won’t say no!’ said the harpooner.
And Conseil and he finally left the cell they had been imprisoned in for more than thirty hours.
‘And now, Dr Aronnax, our lunch is ready. Allow me to lead the way.’
‘At your disposal, captain.’
I followed Captain Nemo, and immediately outside the door found myself in a sort of corridor lit by electricity, rather like the gangway on a ship. After about 10 metres, another door opened in front.
I entered a dining-room, furnished and decorated with austere taste. Tall oak dressers, full of ebony ornaments, rose at both ends of the room, and on their scallop-edged shelves sparkled fine china, porcelain, and glassware of an inestimable value. The plates in particular shone in the rays from the brilliant ceiling, whose glare was filtered and softened by fine paintings.
In the centre of the room stood a richly laid table. Captain Nemo indicated the place where I was to sit.
‘Please be seated,’ he said, ‘and eat like one who must be dying of hunger.’
Lunch consisted of a number of dishes made of ingredients from the sea, as well as a few portions whose nature and origin I could not guess. I had to admit that they were good, with a peculiar flavour which I quickly got used to. All the different foodstuffs seemed rich in phosphorus and I decided that they had to come from the sea.
Captain Nemo was watching me. I did not say anything, but he read my thoughts and without prompting answered the questions I was dying to ask.
‘Most of the dishes are unknown to you,’ he said. ‘But you can eat them without fear. They are good and nourishing. I gave up food from the land a long time ago and my health is none the worse for it. My crew, who are fit and well, eat the same dishes.’
‘So all this food is produced by the sea?’
‘Yes, the sea provides for all my needs. Sometimes I let out nets and draw them in full to breaking. Sometimes I go hunting in the midst of this element thought inaccessible to man, and pursue the game living in my underwater forests. My flocks, like those of Neptune’s old shepherd,* graze without fear on the immense ocean plains. There I have a vast property which I alone farm and which is always replanted by the Creator of all things.’
I looked at Captain Nemo somewhat astonished and replied:
‘I understand perfectly well, monsieur, that nets provide excellent fish for your table; I comprehend less well how you can pursue aquatic game in your underwater forests; but I entirely fail to grasp how any meat, however small the amount, can appear on your menu.’
‘But I never touch the flesh of land animals.’
‘Then what is this?’ I said, pointing to a dish where
a few scraps of fillet still remained.
‘What you believe to be meat is simply turtle fillet, doctor. Here are also a few dolphin livers that you would take for pork stew. My chef is skilful, and excels at conserving these products of the ocean. Feel free to taste all these dishes. Here is a sea-slug conserve that a Malay would declare unrivalled anywhere in the world; this is a cream made from milk provided by whales’ udders and sugar from the great wracks of the North Sea; and finally let me offer you some anemone jam which is the equal of the most delicious fruits.’
I tasted them, more out of curiosity than as a gourmet, while Captain Nemo enchanted me with his incredible ideas.
‘But the sea, Dr Aronnax, this prodigious, inexhaustible wet-nurse doesn’t just feed me, it also clothes me. The materials you are wearing are woven from the byssus of certain shellfish; they are dyed with the purple used by the ancients or else the fine violet shades that I extract from the Mediterranean sea hare. The perfumes you will find on the wash-stand in your cabin were produced by distilling marine plants. Your bed is made of the softest wracks in the ocean. Your pen will be made from whalebone, your ink from the liquid secreted by a cuttlefish or squid.* Everything I use comes from the sea, as everything will one day return to it!’
‘You love the sea, captain.’
‘Yes, I do love it! The sea is everything. It covers seven-tenths of the terrestrial globe. Its breath is healthy and pure. It is a spacious wilderness where man is never alone, for he can feel life throbbing all around him. The sea is the environment for a prodigious, supernatural existence; it is pure movement and love; it is a living infinity, as one of your poets has put it.* And indeed, sir, nature is present there in her three kingdoms, animal, vegetable, and mineral. The animal kingdom is well represented by the four groups of zoophytes, three classes of articulates, five classes of molluscs, and three classes of vertebrates — mammals, reptiles, and countless legions of fish, which constitute an innumerable order of more than 13,000 species, of which only a tenth live in fresh water. The sea is nature’s vast reserve. It was more or less through the sea that the globe began, and who knows if it will not end in the sea! Perfect peace abides there. The sea does not belong to despots. On its surface immoral rights can still be claimed, men can fight, devour each other, and commit all the earth’s atrocities. But 30 feet below the surface their power ceases, their influence fades, their authority disappears. Ah, sir, live, live in the heart of the sea! Independence is possible only here! Here I recognize no master! Here I am free!’
Captain Nemo suddenly fell silent in the midst of the enthusiasm welling out of him. Had he allowed himself to get carried away beyond his usual reserve? Had he said too much? For a moment he paced agitatedly back and forth. Then he calmed down, his physiognomy took on its customary coldness, and he turned to me.
‘Now, monsieur,’ he said, ‘if you wish to visit the Nautilus, I am at your disposal.’
11
The Nautilus
Captain Nemo got up. I followed. Double doors opened at the back of the dining-room, and I discovered a room of the same size as the one I had just left.
It was a library.* Tall furniture, made of black rosewood and inset with brass, bore on its long shelves a large number of books with uniform bindings. The shelves followed the shape of the room, with vast settees below them, upholstered in brown leather and offering the most comfortable of curves. Light reading-desks, which could be moved around at will, provided support for books being read. In the centre stood a huge table covered with periodicals, including several newspapers that seemed already quite old. The harmonious setting was flooded with electric light from four frosted-glass globes recessed in the vaults of the ceiling. I looked with real admiration at this room, so judiciously arranged, and I could scarcely believe my eyes.
‘Captain Nemo,’ I said to my host, who had just stretched out on a sofa, ‘this is a library that would do honour to more than one palace in the New and Old Worlds, and I am truly astonished when I think that it travels with you to the deepest parts of the ocean.’
‘Where could one find more privacy or silence? Does your study in the Museum offer so complete a peace?’
‘No, sir, and I must add that it is very thin in comparison with yours. You must have six or seven thousand volumes here . . .’
‘Twelve thousand, Dr Aronnax. These are the only ties still connecting me to the land. The world ended for me the day my Nautilus dived beneath the water for the first time. That day I bought my last books, my last magazines, my last newspapers, and I would like to believe that humanity has thought or written nothing since then. These books, Dr Aronnax, are at your disposal and you can make free use of them.’*
I thanked Captain Nemo, and approached the shelves. Books abounded on science, on ethics, and on literature, written in every language, but I could not see a single work of political economy, which seemed totally prohibited on board. Strangely enough, none of the books were classified according to language; and this lack of system implied that the captain of the Nautilus had little trouble reading any of the volumes he might select.
Amongst the works, I noticed the masterpieces of the great modern and ancient artists, comprising everything that humanity has produced of greatest beauty in history, poetry, the novel, and science: from Homer to Victor Hugo, from Xenophon to Michelet, from Rabelais to Mme Sand.* But the focus of the library was more on science; books on mechanics, ballistics, hydrography, meteorology, geography, geology, etc. took up at least as much space as works on natural history, making me realize that they must form the captain’s principal study. I saw there all of Humboldt and Arago, the works of Foucault, Henri Sainte-Claire Deville, Chasles, Milne-Edwards, Quatrefages, Tyndall, Faraday, Berthelot, Father Secchi, Petermann, Commander Maury, Agassiz,* etc., the reports of the Academy of Sciences, the bulletins of the various geographical societies, etc., and, in a prominent position, the two volumes which were perhaps the reason why Captain Nemo had given me a relatively warm welcome. Amongst the books of Joseph Bertrand, Les Fondateurs de l’astronomie* even gave me a definite date: as I knew that it was published in 1865, I was able to conclude that the fitting out of the Nautilus did not date from after that.* Captain Nemo had accordingly begun his underwater existence not more than three years previously. I hoped, moreover, that still newer works would let me determine the date even more closely; but I had plenty of time to carry out such research, and did not wish to hold up the tour of the Nautilus’s wonders.
‘Sir,’ I said, ‘thank you for making this library available to me. It contains treasures of science that I will put to good use.’
‘This room is not just a library,’ responded Captain Nemo, ‘it is also a smoking-room.’
‘A smoking-room? Do people smoke on board?’
‘They do.’
‘Then I must conclude that you have maintained relations with Havana.’
‘Not at all. Please accept this cigar, Dr Aronnax, and although it does not come from Havana, you will appreciate it if you are a connoisseur.’
I took the cigar offered. The shape reminded me of a Havana cigar, but it looked as if made from gold leaf. I lit it using a small lighter on an elegant bronze stand, and inhaled the first mouthfuls with all the delight of a smoker who has not indulged for two days.
‘It is excellent, but it is not tobacco.’
‘Quite right; this tobacco does not come from Havana or the East. It is a sort of seaweed rich in nicotine that the sea provides me, rather sparingly in fact. Do you regret your Havanas, sir?’
‘Captain, I shall disdain them from this day on.’
‘Smoke then as much as you wish, and without wondering where the cigars came from. No state monopoly has licensed them; but I may presume they’re none the worse for that?’
‘On the contrary.’
While speaking, Captain Nemo opened the door opposite the one we had used to enter the library, and I passed into an enormous, magnificently lit salon.
About thirty identically framed paintings by masters, alternating with dazzling coats-of-arms, hung on the walls, which were covered with tapestries of a severe design. I saw paintings of the very highest worth, most of which I had previously viewed in private European collections or exhibitions. The various schools of the old masters were represented by a Madonna by Raphael, a Virgin by Leonardo da Vinci, a nymph by Correggio, a woman by Titian, an Adoration by Veronese, an Assumption by Murillo, a portrait by Holbein, a monk by Velazquez, a martyr by Ribera, a country fair by Rubens, two Flemish landscapes by Teniers, three small genre paintings by Gerrit Dou, Metsu, and Paul Potter, canvases by Géricault and Prud’hon, and a few seascapes by Backhuysen and Vernet.* The works of modern art included paintings signed Delacroix, Ingres, Decamps, Troyon, Meissonier, Daubigny,* etc.; and standing on pedestals in the angles of this magnificent museum were a few outstanding marble figures and bronze statues, reproductions of the finest models of antiquity. The condition of stupefaction that the captain of the Nautilus had predicted was seeping into my mind.
‘Dr Aronnax,’ said this strange being, ‘please excuse the informality with which I receive you as well as the untidiness of the room.’
‘Sir,’ I replied, ‘without trying to discover who you are, may I possibly recognize in you an artist?’
‘At best an amateur. I used to enjoy assembling the finer works created by man’s hand. I was an avid collector, an untiring visitor of antique shops, and was able to pick up a few objects of value. These are my last memories of the world which is now dead for me. In my eyes, your modern artists are not to be distinguished from the ancients: they could be two or three thousand years old and I conflate them all in my mind. The great masters are ageless.’