Путешествие к центру Земли / A Journey to the Centre of the Earth

5

I replaced the unfortunate document upon the table. Professor Liedenbrock was greatly abstracted. The mystical letters gave him no rest. He sat in his armchair, took the pen and began to write algebraic formulas. For three long hours my uncle worked on without a word, without lifting his head. But time was passing away; night came on; the street noises ceased; my uncle noticed nothing. Martha opened the door and said:

“Will monsieur take any supper tonight?”

But there was no answer. As for me, after long resistance, I began to sleep.

When I awoke next morning the Professor was still working. To tell the plain truth, I pitied him. “No, no,” I repeated, “I shall not speak. He will go at once; nothing on Earth can stop him. His imagination is a volcano, and he will risk his life. I will preserve silence. I will keep the secret which mere chance has revealed to me. To discover it is to kill Professor Liedenbrock! Let him find it out himself if he can.”

I folded my arms and waited. Two o’clock struck. This was becoming ridiculous; worse than that, unbearable. The Professor jumped up, clapped on his hat, and prepared to go out.

“Uncle!” I cried.

He did not hear me.

“Uncle Liedenbrock!” I cried, lifting up my voice.

“Ay,” he answered.

“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. I nodded my head up and down.

“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 wrote the sentences.

“But there is nothing in this,” he answered.

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

A new revelation burst in upon the Professor. He was transformed!

“Aha, clever Saknussemm!” he cried. And he read the whole document from the last letter to the first:

In Sneffels Joculis craterem quem delibat

Umbra Scartaris Julii

intra calendas descende,

Audax viator,

et terrestre centrum attinges.

Quod feci, Arne Saknussemm.

Which may be translated thus:

“Descend, bold traveller, into the crater of the Jokul of Sneffels[23 - Sneffels – Снеффелс], which the shadow of Scartaris [24 - Scartaris – Скартарис]touches before the kalends [25 - kalends – календы; в древнеримском календаре название первого дня каждого месяца.]of July, and you will attain the centre of the Earth; which I have done, Arne Saknussemm.”

My uncle sprang very high. He seized his head between both his hands; he pushed the chairs out of their places, he piled up his books. At last his nerves calmed down, and he sank back into his armchair.

“What’s the time?” he asked after a few moments of silence.

“Three o’clock,” I replied.

“Is it really? It’s the dinner-hour! I am half dead with hunger[26 - I am half dead with hunger. – Я умираю от голода.]. Come on, and after dinner—”

“Well?”

“After dinner, pack up my trunk.”

“What?” I cried.

“And yours!” replied the indefatigable Professor, entering the dining-room.

6

At these words a cold shiver ran through me. Yet I controlled myself. During all dinner time my uncle was almost merry. After the dessert, he invited me into his study.

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

“Axel,” said he very mildly; “you are a very ingenious young man, you have done me a splendid service, when I was going to abandon the contest. Never, my lad, shall I forget it. But I want to preserve the secrecy: you understand? There are people in the scientific world who envy my success.”

“Do you really think there are many people bold enough?” said I.

“Certainly! A whole army of geologists is ready to follow Arne Saknussemm.”

“But, uncle,” I replied; “we have no proof of the authenticity of this document.”

“What! Not of the book, inside which we have discovered it?”

“I admit that Saknussemm wrote these lines. But has he really accomplished such a journey?”

A smile flitted across the lip of my uncle, and he answered:

“That is what we shall see.”

“Ah!” said I. “But let me present all the possible objections against this document.”

“Speak, my boy, don’t be afraid. You are no longer my nephew only, but my colleague.”