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Journey to the Center of the Earth
Chapter 3. AN ASTOUNDING DISCOVERY
"What's the matter?" cried the cook, entering the room.
"When will master have his dinner?"
"Never."
"And his supper?"
"I don't know."
"He says he'll eat no more, neither shall I."
"My uncle has decided to fast and make me fast until he makes out this abominable inscription," I replied.
"You'll be starved to death," she said.
I agreed, but not liking to say so, I sent her away and began my usual work of classification.
But try as I might, nothing could keep me from thinking again and again of the stupid manuscript and of the pretty Gretchen.
Several times I thought of going out, but my uncle would have been angry at my absence.
At the end of an hour, my allotted task was done.
How to pass the time? I began by lighting my pipe.
Like all other students, I loved tobacco, and, sitting in the great armchair, I began to think.
Where was my uncle now, pacing some lonely road far from home?
I pictured him hurrying along a lonely road, gesturing, talking to himself, cutting the air with his cane, still thinking of absurd hieroglyphics.
Would he find some clue? Would he come home in better spirits?
While these thoughts ran through my head, I took up the hateful puzzle and tried every possible way of grouping the letters.
I put them together by twos, by threes, fours, and fives, but in vain.
Nothing sensible came out, except that the fourteenth, fifteenth, and sixteenth made ice in English.
The eighty-fourth, eighty-fifth, and eighty-sixth made the word sir.
Then at last I seemed to find the Latin words rota, mutabile, ira, nec, atra.
"Ha! there seems to be some truth in my uncle's idea," I thought.
Then again I seemed to find the word luco, which means sacred wood.
Then in the third line I thought I saw labiled, a perfect Hebrew word, and at the last the syllables mere, are, mer, which were French.
It was enough to drive one mad.
Four different languages in this absurd phrase.
What connection could there be between ice, sir, anger, cruel, sacred wood, changing, mother, are, and sea?
The first and the last might, in a sentence linked with Iceland, mean sea of ice.
But what of the rest of this monstrous cryptograph?
I was, in fact, fighting against an impossible difficulty.
My brain was almost on fire, My eyes were strained from staring at the parchment.
The whole ridiculous collection of letters seemed to dance before my eyes in many black little groups.
My mind was seized by a short hallucination.
I was suffocating, I wanted air, Mechanically I fanned myself with the document, now looking at the back and then at the front.
Imagine my surprise when, glancing at the back where the ink had bled through, I clearly read Latin words, including craterem and terrestre.
I had discovered the secret at last, and a great shock ran through me.
It struck me like a flash of lightning.
I had found the clue, All you had to do to understand the document was to read it backwards.
All my uncle's clever ideas were true.
He had written it right to me, and by a mere accident I had found what he so much wanted.
My delight and my emotion may be imagined.
My eyes were dazzled and I trembled so that at first I couldn't make anything of it.
One look, however, would tell me all I wanted to know.
"Let me read," I said to myself, after drawing a long breath.
I spread it before me on the table.
I passed my finger over each letter and I spelled it through.
In my excitement I read it out.
What horror and amazement filled my soul.
I felt like a man who had received a sudden blow.
Was it possible that I really read the terrible secret, and it had really been done?
A man had dared to do what?
No living being in the world should ever know of it.
"Never!" I cried, jumping up.
"Never shall my uncle be made aware of the dread secret."
"He'd be quite capable of undertaking the terrible journey."
"Nothing would stop him."
"Worse, he'd force me to go with him, and we should be lost forever."
"But no, such folly and madness can't be allowed."
I was almost beside myself with rage and fear.
"My worthy uncle is already nearly mad," I cried aloud.
"This would finish him."
"By some chance he may find out, in which case we're both lost."
"Let the fearful secret perish."
"Let the flames bury it forever."
I snatched up book and parchment and was about to throw them into the fire, when the door opened and my uncle came in.
I had hardly time to put down the poor documents before my uncle was by my side.
He was deeply absorbed, his thoughts were clearly on the terrible parchment.
Some new idea had probably come to him while taking his walk.
He sat down in his armchair and with a pen began to make an algebraical calculation.
I watched him with anxious eyes, My flesh crawled as it seemed likely he'd discover the secret.
His combinations I now knew were useless, my having found the only clue.
For three mortal hours he worked without saying a word, without raising his head, scratching, rewriting, calculating again and again.
I knew that in time he must hit upon the right phrase.
The letters of any alphabet have only a certain number of combinations.
But then years might pass before he'd find the correct solution.
Still, time went on, the clock ticking as we waited in silence.
Night fell, the sounds in the streets stopped, and still my uncle worked, not even answering our worthy cook when she called us to supper.
I didn't dare leave him, so I waved her away, and at last fell asleep on the sofa.
When I woke my uncle was still at his work.
His red eyes, his pale face, his tangled hair, his feverish hands, his flushed cheeks showed how terrible had been his struggle with the impossible.
They showed what fearful tiredness he had suffered during that long sleepless night.
It made me quite ill to look at him.
Though he was rather harsh with me, I loved him, and my heart ached at his suffering.
He was so seized by one idea that he couldn't even get angry.
All his forces were fixed on one point.
And I knew that by saying one little word all this suffering would stop, I couldn't say it.
My heart was, nevertheless, leaning toward him.
Why then did I stay silent? For the sake of my uncle himself.
"Nothing shall make me speak," I muttered.
"He'll want to follow the footsteps of the other."
"I know him well."
"His imagination is a real volcano, and to make discoveries for geology he'd risk his life."
"I'll therefore be silent and keep the secret I have found."
"To reveal it would be suicidal."
"He wouldn't only rush to destruction, but drag me with him."
I folded my arms, turned my head and smoked, resolved never to speak.
When our cook wanted to go out to market or on any errand, she found the front door locked and the key taken away.
Was this done on purpose or not?
Surely Professor Hardwigg didn't mean the old woman and me to become victims of his stubborn will.
Were we to be starved to death?
A terrible memory came to my mind.
Once we had lived on bits and scraps for a week while he sorted some curiosities.
It gave me the cramp even to think of it!
I wanted my breakfast, and I saw no way of getting it.
Still my decision held, I'd starve rather than give in.
But the cook began to scold me seriously.
What could be done? She couldn't go out and I dared not.
My uncle kept counting and writing, his imagination seemed to have taken him to the heavens.
He neither thought of eating nor drinking.
This way twelve o'clock came around, I was hungry and there was nothing in the house.
The cook had eaten the last bit of bread.
This couldn't go on, it did, however, until two, when my feelings were terrible.
After all, I began to think the document very absurd.
Perhaps it might only be a gigantic hoax.
Besides, some way would surely be found to keep my uncle from trying any such absurd expedition.
On the other hand, if he did try anything so wild, I shouldn't be forced to go with him.
Another line of thought partly decided me.
Very likely he'd find the meaning himself after I had suffered starvation for nothing.
Under the influence of hunger this idea seemed excellent, I decided to tell all.
The question now was how to do it.
I was still thinking of that when he rose and put on his hat.
What! go out and lock us in? Never!
"Uncle," I began.
He didn't seem even to hear me.
"Professor Hardwigg," I cried.
"What," he replied, "did you speak?"
"How about the key?"
"What key the key of the door?"
"No the key of these horrible hieroglyphics?"
He looked at me over his spectacles and started at the odd look on my face.
Rushing forward, he grabbed my arm and closely examined my features, his very look was a question.
I simply nodded, keeping silent and unable to explain what I meant.
With an unbelieving shrug of the shoulders, he turned on his heel.
Undoubtedly he thought I had lost my mind.
"I have made a very important discovery."
His eyes flashed with excitement, his hand rose in a threatening way.
For a moment neither of us spoke.
It's hard to say which of us was more excited.
"You don't mean to say that you have any idea of the meaning of the scrawl?"
"I do," was my desperate answer.
"Look at the sentence as dictated by you."
"Well, but it means nothing," was the angry answer.
"Nothing if you read from left to right, but mark, if from right to left."
"Backwards!" cried my uncle in wild surprise.
"Oh most cunning Saknussemm, and I to be such a blockhead!"
He snatched up the document, stared at it with wild eyes, and read it out as I had done.
It read as follows, printed clear on the parchment in dog Latin.
In Sneffels Yoculis craterem kem delibat umbra Scartaris Julii intra calendas descende, audas viator, et terrestre centrum attinges, Kod feci, Arne Saknussemm
Which dog Latin being translated, reads as follows,
Descend into the crater of Yocul of Sneffels, caressed by Scartaris' shade, before the kalends of July, traveler, and you'll reach Earth's centre.
I did it, I descended into the Earth's depths and reached the centre.
ARNE SAKNUSSEMM, who claims to have reached the Earth's centre, signs his name.
My uncle leaped three feet from the ground with joy.
He looked radiant and handsome, he rushed about the room wild with delight and satisfaction.
He knocked over tables and chairs, he threw his books about until at last, utterly exhausted, he fell into his armchair.
"What's o'clock?" he asked.
"About three."
"My dinner doesn't seem to have done me much good," he said.
"Let me have something to eat. We can then start at once. Get my portmanteau ready."
"What for?"
"And your own," he continued.
"We start at once."
My horror may be imagined, I decided, however, to show no fear.
Scientific reasons were the only ones likely to move my uncle.
Now, there were many reasons against this terrible journey.
The very idea of going down to the centre of the earth was simply absurd.
I planned therefore to argue the point after dinner.
My uncle's anger was now turned on the cook for having no dinner ready.
My explanation, however, satisfied him, and having got the key, she soon managed to find enough to satisfy our large appetites.
During the meal my uncle was rather merry than otherwise.
He made some of those strange jokes which belong only to the learned.
As soon, however, as dessert was over, he called me to his study.
We each took a chair on opposite sides of the table.
"Henry," he said in a soft and winning voice, "I have always believed you clever and you have done me a service never to be forgotten."
"Without you this great wonderful discovery would never have been made, so it's my duty to insist on your sharing the glory".
"He's in a good mood," I thought.
"I'll soon let him know my opinion of glory."
"In the first place,"
He continued, "You must keep the whole affair a deep secret, for there is no more envious race of men than scientific discoverers."
"Many would start on the same journey, and at any rate we'll be the first in the field".
"I doubt your having many competitors," was my reply.
"A man of real scientific learning would be delighted at the chance."
"We'd find a steady stream of pilgrims on the traces of Arne Saknussemm, if this document were once made public."
"But, my dear sir, isn't this paper very likely to be a hoax?" I urged.
"The book in which we find it's enough proof of its truth," he replied.
"I fully allow that the celebrated Professor wrote the lines, but only, I believe, as a kind of trick," was my answer.
Hardly had I said the words when I was sorry I had spoken them.
My uncle looked at me with a dark and gloomy frown, and I began to fear what would come of our talk.
His mood soon changed, however, and a smile took the place of the frown.
"We shall see," he said with firm emphasis.
"But see what's all this about Yocul and Sneffels and this Scartaris? I have never heard anything about them."
"The very point to which I'm coming."
"I lately received from my friend Augustus Peterman of Leipzig a map."
"Take down the third atlas from the second shelf, series Z, plate 4."
I rose, went to the shelf, and soon returned with the book he named.
"This," said my uncle, "is one of the best maps of Iceland. I believe it'll settle all your doubts, difficulties and objections."
With a grim hope to the contrary, I leaned over the map.