Famine Then Victory Followed By Dismay

: A Journey To The Interior Of The Earth

I had only just time to replace the unfortunate document upon the

table.



Professor Liedenbrock seemed to be greatly abstracted.



The ruling thought gave him no rest. Evidently he had gone deeply

into the matter, analytically and with profound scrutiny. He had

brought all the resources of his mind to bear upon it during his

walk, and he had come back to apply some new combination.



He sat in his armchair, and pen in hand he began what looked very

much like algebraic formula: I followed with my eyes his trembling

hands, I took count of every movement. 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; rubbing out, beginning again, then rubbing out

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 knew also that twenty letters alone could form two quintillions,

four hundred and thirty-two quadrillions, nine hundred and two

trillions, eight billions, a hundred and seventy-six millions, six

hundred and forty thousand combinations. Now, here were a hundred and

thirty-two letters in this sentence, and these hundred and thirty-two

letters would give a number of different sentences, each made up of

at least a hundred and thirty-three figures, a number which passed

far beyond all calculation or conception.



So I felt reassured as far as regarded this heroic method of solving

the difficulty.



But time was passing away; 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 that excellent

woman saying:



"Will not monsieur take any supper to-night?"



And poor Martha had to go away unanswered. As for me, after long

resistance, I was overcome by sleep, and fell off at the end of the

sofa, while uncle Liedenbrock went on calculating and rubbing out his

calculations.



When I awoke next morning that indefatigable worker was still at his

post. His red eyes, his pale complexion, his hair tangled between his

feverish fingers, the red spots on his cheeks, revealed his desperate

struggle with impossibilities, and the weariness of spirit, the

mental wrestlings he must have undergone all through that unhappy

night.



To tell the plain truth, I pitied him. In spite of the reproaches

which I considered I had a right to lay upon him, a certain feeling

of compassion was beginning to gain upon me. The poor man was so

entirely taken up with his one idea that he had even forgotten how to

get angry. All the strength of his feelings was concentrated upon one

point alone; and as their usual vent was closed, it was to be feared

lest extreme tension should give rise to an explosion sooner or later.



I might with a word have loosened the screw of the steel vice that

was crushing his brain; but that word I would not speak.



Yet I was not an ill-natured fellow. Why was I dumb at such a crisis?

Why so insensible to my uncle's interests?



"No, no," I repeated, "I shall not speak. He would insist upon going;

nothing on earth could stop him. His imagination is a volcano, and to

do that which other geologists have never done he would risk his

life. I will preserve silence. I will keep the secret which mere

chance has revealed to me. To discover it, would be to kill Professor

Liedenbrock! Let him find it out himself if he can. I will never have

it laid to my door that I led him to his destruction."



Having formed this resolution, I folded my arms and waited. But I had

not reckoned upon one little incident which turned up a few hours

after.



When our good Martha wanted to go to Market, she found the door

locked. The big key was gone. Who could have taken it out? Assuredly,

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 reduce

us by famine? This seemed like going rather too far! What! should

Martha and I be victims of a position of things in which we had not

the smallest interest? It was a fact that a few years before this,

whilst my uncle was working at his great classification of minerals,

he was forty-eight hours without eating, and all his household were

obliged to share in this scientific fast. As for me, what I remember

is, that I got severe cramps in my stomach, which hardly suited the

constitution of a hungry, growing lad.



Now it appeared to me as if breakfast was going to be wanting, just

as supper 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 distressed me a good deal more,

and for a very good reason. A caged lover's feelings may easily be

imagined.



My uncle went on working, his imagination went off rambling into the

ideal world of combinations; he was far away from earth, and really

far away from earthly wants.



About noon hunger began to stimulate 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 honour.



Two o'clock struck. This was becoming ridiculous; worse than that,

unbearable. I began to say to myself that I was exaggerating the

importance of the document; 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 should lay violent hands on him and keep him at home if

he thought on venturing on the expedition that, after all, he might

himself discover the key of the cipher, and that then I should be

clear at the mere expense of my involuntary abstinence.



These reasons seemed excellent to me, though on the night before I

should have rejected them with indignation; I even went so far as to

condemn myself for my absurdity in having waited so long, and I

finally resolved to let it all out.



I was therefore meditating a proper introduction to the matter, so as

not to seem too abrupt, when the Professor jumped up, clapped on his

hat, and prepared to go out.



Surely he was not going out, to shut us in again! no, never!



"Uncle!" I cried.



He seemed not to hear me.



"Uncle Liedenbrock!" I cried, lifting up my voice.



"Ay," he answered like a man suddenly waking.



"Uncle, that key!"



"What key? The door key?"



"No, no!" I cried. "The key of the document."



The Professor stared at me over his spectacles; no doubt he saw

something unusual in the expression of my countenance; for he laid

hold of my arm, and speechlessly questioned me with his eyes. Yes,

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 gave a

more affirmative gesture.



His eyes glistened and sparkled with live fire, his hand was shaken

threateningly.



This mute conversation at such a momentous crisis would have riveted

the attention of the most indifferent. And the fact really was that I

dared not speak now, so intense was the excitement for fear lest my

uncle should smother me in his first joyful embraces. But he became

so urgent that I was at last compelled to answer.



"Yes, that key, chance--"



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



"There, read that!" I said, presenting a sheet of paper on which I

had written.



"But there is nothing in this," he answered, crumpling up the paper.



"No, nothing until you proceed to read from the end to the beginning."



I had not finished my sentence when the Professor broke out into a

cry, nay, a roar. A new revelation burst in upon him. He was

transformed!



"Aha, clever Saknussemm!" he cried. "You had first written out your

sentence the wrong way."



And darting upon the paper, with eyes bedimmed, and voice choked with

emotion, he read the whole document from the last letter to the first.



It was conceived in the following terms:



In Sneffels Joculis craterem quem delibat

Umbra Scartaris Julii intra calendas descende,

Audax viator, et terrestre centrum attinges.

Quod feci, Arne Saknussemm. [1]



Which bad Latin may be translated thus:



"Descend, bold traveller, into the crater of the jokul of Sneffels,

which the shadow of Scartaris touches before the kalends of July, and

you will attain the centre of the earth; which I have done, Arne

Saknussemm."



In reading this, my uncle gave a spring as if he had touched a Leyden

jar. His audacity, his joy, and his convictions were magnificent to

behold. He came and he went; he seized his head between both his

hands; he pushed the chairs out of their places, he piled up his

books; incredible as it may seem, he rattled his precious nodules of

flints together; he sent a kick here, a thump there. At last his

nerves calmed down, and like a man exhausted by too lavish an

expenditure of vital power, he sank back exhausted into his armchair.



"What o'clock is it?" he asked after a few moments of silence.



"Three o'clock," I replied.



"Is it really? The dinner-hour is past, and I did not know it. I am

half dead with hunger. Come on, and after dinner--"



[1] In the cipher, AUDAX is written AVDAS, and QUOD and QUEM,

HOD and KEN. (Tr.)



"Well?"



"After dinner, pack up my trunk."



"What?" I cried.



"And yours!" replied the indefatigable Professor, entering the

dining-room.