"That's not it!" my uncle shouted, "this makes no sense!"

Then, crossing the study like a cannonball, descending the staircase like an avalanche, he rushed into the Konigstra.s.se and ran away at full speed.

IV.

"HE'S GONE?" EXCLAIMED MARTHA, running out of her kitchen at the noise of the violent slamming of doors.

"Yes," I replied, "completely gone!"

"Well; and how about his lunch?" said the old servant.

"He won't have any."

"And his dinner?"

"He won't have any."

"What?" exclaimed Martha, with clasped hands.

"No, dear Martha, he won't eat any more, and no one else in the house either! Uncle Lidenbrock is going to make us all fast until he succeeds in deciphering an old scrawl that is absolutely undecipherable!"

"Oh, my dear! must we then all die of hunger?"

I hardly dared to confess that, with so absolute a ruler as my uncle, that fate was inevitable.

The old servant, seriously alarmed, returned to the kitchen moaning.

When I was alone, I thought I would go and tell Grauben all about it. But how would I be able to escape from the house? The Professor might return at any moment. And suppose he called me? And suppose he tackled me again with this deciphering work, which not even old Oedipus could have solved! And if I did not answer his call, what would happen?

The wisest thing was to remain where I was. A mineralogist at Besancon had just sent us a collection of siliceous nodules, which I had to cla.s.sify. So I set to work. I sorted, labeled, and arranged all these hollow rocks, in each of which grew little crystals, in their display case.

But this work did not absorb all my attention. The business of the old doc.u.ment kept working in my brain. My head throbbed with excitement, and I felt a vague uneasiness. I had a premonition of an incipient disaster.

In an hour my nodules were all arranged in good order. Then I dropped down into the old velvet armchair, my arms hanging down and my head thrown back. I lit my long crooked pipe, whose head was sculpted to look like an idly resting naiad; then I entertained myself by watching the carbonization that gradually turned my naiad into a real negress. Now and then I listened whether a well-known step sounded on the stairs. But no. Where could my uncle be at that moment? I imagined him running under the beautiful trees which line the road to Altona, gesticulating, hitting the wall with his cane, violently thrashing the gra.s.s, cutting the heads off the thistles, and disturbing the solitary storks in their rest.

Would he return in triumph or discouraged? Which would get the upper hand, he or the secret? I was asking myself these questions, and mechanically took between my fingers the sheet of paper with the incomprehensible succession of letters I had written down; and I repeated to myself: "What does it mean?"

I tried to group the letters so as to form words. Quite impossible! When I put them together by twos, threes, fives or sixes, nothing came of it but nonsense. To be sure, the fourteenth, fifteenth and sixteenth letters made the English word 'ice'; the eighty-fourth, eighty-fifth and eighty-sixth made up the word 'sir.' In the midst of the doc.u.ment, in the third line, I noticed the Latin words "rota," "mutabile," "ira," "nec," "atra."

"Devil," I thought, "these words seem to justify my uncle's view about the language of the doc.u.ment. In the fourth line I see the word 'luco,' which translates as 'sacred wood.' It is true that in the third line there's the word "tabiled", which looks like perfect Hebrew, and in the last the words 'mer,' 'arc,' 'mere,' which are purely French."

All this was enough to drive a poor fellow crazy. Four different languages in this ridiculous sentence! What connection could there possibly be between such words as ice, sir, anger, cruel, sacred wood, changeable, mother, bow, and sea? The first and the last might have something to do with each other; it was not at all surprising that in a doc.u.ment written in Iceland there should be mention of a sea of ice; but it was quite another thing to get to the end of this cryptogram with so small a clue.

So I struggled with an insurmountable difficulty; my brain heated up, my eyes became blinked at that sheet of paper; its hundred and thirty-two letters fluttered around me like those silver teardrops which float in the air around our heads when the blood has rushed toward it.

I was in the grip of a kind of hallucination; I was suffocating; I needed air. Mechanically, I fanned myself with the piece of paper, the back and front of which came successively before my eyes.

What was my surprise when, in one of those rapid turns, at the moment when the back was turned to me, I thought I caught sight of the Latin words "craterem" and "terrestre," among others!

A sudden light burst in on me; these hints alone gave me the first glimpse of the truth; I had discovered the key to the cipher. To read the doc.u.ment, it would not even be necessary to read it with the paper turned upside down. Such as it was, just as it had been dictated to me, so it might be spelled out with ease. All the professor's ingenious combinations were coming into their own. He was right as to the arrangement of the letters; he was right as to the language. He had been within a hair's breadth of reading this Latin doc.u.ment from end to end; but that hair's breadth, chance had given it to me!

You will understand if I was excited! My eyes glazed over. I could barely use them. I had spread the paper out on the table. It was enough to take one look at it to grasp the secret.

At last I calmed down. I forced myself to walk twice round the room quietly and settle my nerves, and then I sank again into the huge armchair.

"Let's read it," I exclaimed, after having filled my lungs with air.

I leaned over the table; I laid my finger successively on every letter; and without a pause, without one moment's hesitation, I read off the whole sentence aloud.

But what amazement, what terror came over me! I sat overwhelmed as if struck by a sudden deadly blow. What! that which I read had actually, really been done! A mortal man had had the audacity to penetrate! ...

"Ah!" I exclaimed, jumping up. "But no! no! My uncle will never know it. He'd insist on doing it too. He'd want to know all about it. Nothing could stop him! Such a determined geologist! He'd go, he would, in spite of everything and everybody, and he'd take me with him, and we'd never get back. Never! never!"

My overexcitement was beyond all description.

"No! no! it can't be," I declared energetically; "and as it's in my power to prevent the knowledge of it coming into the mind of my tyrant, I'll do it. By dint of turning this doc.u.ment round and round, he too might discover the key. I'll destroy it."

There was a little fire left in the fireplace. I seized not only the paper but Saknussemm's parchment; with a feverish hand I was about to fling it all on the coals and annihilate this dangerous secret when the study door opened. My uncle appeared.

V.

I HAD ONLY JUST time to replace the unfortunate doc.u.ment on the table.

Professor Lidenbrock seemed to be greatly abstracted.

His main concern gave him no rest. Evidently he had gone deeply into the matter, a.n.a.lytically and with profound scrutiny. He had brought all the resources of his mind to bear on it during his walk, and he had come back to try out some new combination.

He sat in his armchair, and pen in hand he began with what looked very much like an algebraic calculation: I followed his trembling hand with my eyes; not one of his movements was lost on me. Might not some unhoped-for result come of it? I trembled, too, very unnecessarily, since the true key was in my hands, and no other would open the secret.

For three long hours my uncle worked on without a word, without lifting his head; erasing, starting over, then erasing again, and so on a hundred times.

I knew very well that if he succeeded in setting down these letters in every possible relative position, the sentence would come out. But I also knew that twenty letters alone could form two quintillion, four hundred and thirty-two quadrillion, nine hundred and two trillion, eight billion, a hundred and seventy-six million, six hundred and forty thousand combinations. Now there were a hundred and thirty-two letters in this sentence, and these hundred and thirty-two letters would yield a number of different sentences, each made up of at least a hundred and thirty-three figures, a number almost impossible to calculate or conceive.

So I felt rea.s.sured about this heroic method of solving the problem.

But time pa.s.sed; night came on; the street noises ceased; my uncle, bending over his task, noticed nothing, not even Martha half opening the door; he heard not a sound, not even this n.o.ble servant saying: "Will Professor Lidenbrock not have any dinner tonight?"

Poor Martha had to go away unanswered. As for me, after long resistance, I was overcome by sleep, and fell asleep at one end of the sofa, while Uncle Lidenbrock went on calculating and erasing his calculations.

When I awoke the next morning that indefatigable worker was still at his task. His red eyes, his pale complexion, his hair tangled in his feverish hand, the red spots on his cheeks, said enough about his desperate struggle with the impossible, and with what weariness of spirit and exhaustion of the brain the hours must have pa.s.sed for him.

In truth, I felt sorry for him. In spite of the reproaches which I thought I had a right to make him, a certain feeling of compa.s.sion began to take hold of me. The poor man was so entirely taken up with his one idea that he had even forgotten how to get angry. All his vital forces were concentrated on a single point, and because their usual vent was closed, it was to be feared that their pent-up tension might lead to an explosion any moment.

I could have loosened the steel vice that was crushing his brain with one gesture, with just one word! But I did nothing.

Yet I was not an ill-natured fellow. Why did I remain silent in such a crisis? In my uncle's own interest.

"No, no," I repeated, "no, I won't speak! He'd insist on going, I know him; nothing on earth could stop him. He has a volcanic imagination, and would risk his life to do what other geologists have never done. I'll keep silent. I'll keep the secret that chance has revealed to me. To reveal it would be to kill Professor Lidenbrock! Let him find it out himself if he can. I don't want to have to reproach myself some day that I led him to his destruction."

Having made this resolution, I folded my arms and waited. But I had not antic.i.p.ated a little incident which occurred a few hours later.

When the maid Martha wanted to go to the market, she found the door locked. The big key was gone. Who could have taken it out? a.s.suredly, it was my uncle, when he returned the night before from his hurried walk.

Was this done on purpose? Or was it a mistake? Did he want to expose us to hunger? This seemed like going rather too far! What! should Martha and I be victims of a situation that did not concern us in the least? It was a fact that a few years before this, while my uncle was working on his great cla.s.sification of minerals, he went for forty-eight hours without eating, and all his household was obliged to share in this scientific fast. As for me, what I remember is that I got severe stomach cramps, which hardly suited the const.i.tution of a hungry, growing lad.

Now it seemed to me as if breakfast was going to be lacking, just as dinner had been the night before. Yet I resolved to be a hero, and not to be conquered by the pangs of hunger. Martha took it very seriously, and, poor woman, was very much distressed. As for me, the impossibility of leaving the house worried me even more, and for good reason. You understand me.

My uncle went on working, his imagination went off rambling into the ideal world of combinations; he lived far away from earth, and genuinely beyond earthly needs.

At about noon, hunger began to sting me severely Martha had, without thinking any harm, cleared out the larder the night before, so that now there was nothing left in the house. Still I held out; I made it a point of honor.

Two o'clock struck. This was becoming ridiculous; worse than that, unbearable. I opened my eyes wide. I began to say to myself that I was exaggerating the importance of the doc.u.ment; that my uncle would surely not believe in it, that he would set it down as a mere puzzle; that if it came to the worst, we would restrain him in spite of himself if he wanted to undertake the adventure; that, after all, he might discover the key of the cipher by himself, and that I would then have suffered abstinence for nothing.

These reasons seemed excellent to me, though on the night before I would have rejected them with indignation; I even found it completely absurd to have waited so long, and made a decision to say it all.

I was looking for a way of bringing up the matter that was not too abrupt when the professor jumped up, put on his hat, and prepared to go out.

What! Going out again, and locking us in once more? Never.

"Uncle!" I said.

He seemed not to hear me.

"Uncle Lidenbrock?" I repeated, speaking more loudly "What?" he said like a man suddenly waking up.

"Well! The key?"

"What key? The door key?"

"But no!" I exclaimed. "The key to the doc.u.ment!"

The Professor stared at me over his spectacles; no doubt he saw something unusual in physiognomy, for he seized my arm, and questioned me with his eyes without being able to speak. Nonetheless, never was a question more forcibly put.

I nodded my head up and down.

He shook his pityingly, as if he was dealing with a lunatic.

I made a more affirmative gesture.

His eyes sparkled with live fire, his hand threatened me.

This mute conversation would, under the circ.u.mstances, have interested even the most indifferent spectator. And the truth is that I did not dare to speak out any more, so much did I fear that my uncle would smother me in his joyful embraces. But he became so urgent that I was at last compelled to answer.

"Yes, that key, chance-"

"What are you saying?" he shouted with indescribable emotion.

"There, read that!" I said, giving him the sheet of paper on which I had written.

"But this doesn't mean anything," he answered, crumpling up the paper.

"No, not when you start to read from the beginning, but from the end..."

I had not finished my sentence when the professor broke out into a cry, more than a cry, a real roar! A new revelation took place in his mind. He was transfigured.

"Aha, ingenious Saknussemm!" he exclaimed, "so you first wrote out your sentence backwards?"

And throwing himself on the paper, eyes dimmed and voice choked, he read the entire doc.u.ment from the last letter to the first.

It was phrased as follows: In Sneffels Yoculis craterem kem delibat umbra Scartaris Julii intra calendas descende, audas viator, et terrestre centrum attinges. Kod feci. Arne Saknussemm.

Which bad Latin may be translated like this: Descend into the crater of Snaefells Jokull, which the shadow of Scartaris touches before the calendsj of July, bold traveler, and you will reach the center of the earth. I did it. Arne Saknussemm. of July, bold traveler, and you will reach the center of the earth. I did it. Arne Saknussemm.

In reading this, my uncle jumped up as if he had inadvertently touched a Leyden jar.k His audacity, his joy, and his conviction were magnificent to see. He came and he went; he gripped his head with both his hands; he pushed the chairs out of their places, he piled up his books; incredible as it may seem, he juggled his precious geodes; he sent a kick here, a thump there. At last his nerves calmed down, and like a man exhausted by too great an expenditure of vital power, he sank back into his armchair. His audacity, his joy, and his conviction were magnificent to see. He came and he went; he gripped his head with both his hands; he pushed the chairs out of their places, he piled up his books; incredible as it may seem, he juggled his precious geodes; he sent a kick here, a thump there. At last his nerves calmed down, and like a man exhausted by too great an expenditure of vital power, he sank back into his armchair.

"What time is it?" he asked after a few moments of silence.

"Three o'clock," I replied.

"Really? The dinner has pa.s.sed quickly. I'm starving. Let's eat. And then ..."

"Well?"

"After dinner, pack my suitcase."

"What!" I exclaimed.

"And yours!" replied the merciless professor and entered into the dining-room.

VI.

AT THESE WORDS A WORDS A cold shiver ran through me. Yet I controlled myself; I even decided to put a good face on it. Scientific arguments alone could have any weight with Professor Lidenbrock. Now there were good ones against the practicability of such a journey. Go to the center of the earth! What nonsense! But I kept my dialectics in reserve for a suitable opportunity, and focused on dinner. cold shiver ran through me. Yet I controlled myself; I even decided to put a good face on it. Scientific arguments alone could have any weight with Professor Lidenbrock. Now there were good ones against the practicability of such a journey. Go to the center of the earth! What nonsense! But I kept my dialectics in reserve for a suitable opportunity, and focused on dinner.

It is no use to tell of the rage and imprecations of my uncle before the empty table. Explanations were given, Martha was set at liberty, ran off to the market, and did her part so well that an hour afterwards my hunger was appeased, and I returned to the gravity of the situation.

During the dinner, my uncle was almost merry; he indulged in some of those learned jokes which never do anybody any harm. Dessert over, he signaled to me to follow him to his study.

I obeyed; he sat at one end of his table, I at the other.

"Axel," he said very mildly; "you're a very ingenious lad, you've done me a splendid service, at a moment when I, tired of the struggle, was going to abandon the combinations. Where would I have lost myself? Impossible to know! Never, my lad, will I forget it; and you'll have your share in the glory to which your discovery will lead."

"Oh, come!" I thought, "he is in a good mood. Now's the time for discussing this glory."