“Be seated,” he told me, “and eat, please.”
Our breakfast consisted of several dishes whose contents were all supplied by the sea, and some foods whose nature was unknown to me. These various food items seemed to be rich in phosphorous.
Captain Nemo stared at me. I had asked him nothing, but he read my thoughts, and on his own he answered the questions I was itching to address him.
“Most of these dishes are new to you,” he told me. “But you can consume them without fear. They’re healthy and nourishing. I renounced terrestrial foods long ago. My crew are strong and full of energy, and they eat what I eat.”
“So,” I said, “all these foods are products of the sea?”
“Yes, professor, the sea supplies all my needs. Sometimes I cast my nets, sometimes I go hunting far out of man’s reach, and I corner the game that dwells in my underwater forests. My herds graze without fear on the ocean’s immense prairies.”
I stared at Captain Nemo in definite astonishment, and I answered him:
“Sir, I understand perfectly how your nets can furnish excellent fish for your table; I understand less how you can chase aquatic game in your underwater forests; but how a piece of red meat, no matter how small, can figure in your menu, that I don’t understand at all.”
“Nor I, sir,” Captain Nemo answered me. “I never touch the flesh of land animals.”
“Nevertheless, this … ,” I went on, pointing to a dish where some slices of loin were still left.
“What you believe to be red meat, professor, is nothing other than loin of sea turtle. Similarly, here are some dolphin livers you might mistake for stewed pork. My chef is a skillful food processor. Feel free to try all of these foods. Here are some preserves of sea cucumber, here’s cream from milk furnished by the udders of cetaceans, and sugar from the huge fucus plants in the North Sea; and finally, allow me to offer you some marmalade of sea anemone, equal to that from the tastiest fruits. The sea, Professor Aronnax, not only feeds me, it dresses me as well. That fabric covering you was woven from the masses of filaments that anchor certain seashells. The perfumes you’ll find on the washstand in your cabin were produced from the oozings of marine plants. Your mattress was made from the ocean’s softest eelgrass. Your pen will be whalebone, your ink a juice secreted by cuttlefish or squid. Everything comes to me from the sea, just as someday everything will return to it!”
“You love the sea, captain.”
“Yes, I love it! The sea is everything! It covers seven-tenths of the planet earth. Its breath is clean and healthy. It’s an immense wilderness where a man is never lonely. It’s simply movement and love; it’s living infinity. The sea is a vast pool of nature. Our globe began with the sea, so to speak, and who can say we won’t end with it! Here lies supreme tranquility. The sea doesn’t belong to tyrants. On its surface they can battle each other, devour each other. But thirty feet below sea level, their dominion ceases, their influence fades, their power vanishes! Live in the heart of the seas! Here alone lies independence! Here I’m free!”
Captain Nemo suddenly fell silent in the midst of this enthusiastic speech. Had he said too much? Then he turned to me:
“Now, professor,” he said, “if you’d like to inspect the Nautilus, I’m yours to command.”
Chapter 11
Captain Nemo stood up. I followed him. Contrived at the rear of the dining room, a double door opened, and I entered a room.
It was a library. Tall, black-rosewood bookcases held a large number of books. Light, movable reading stands, which could be pushed away or pulled near as desired, allowed books to be positioned on them for easy study. In the center stood a huge table covered with pamphlets, among which some newspapers. Electric light was falling from four globes set in the ceiling. I couldn’t believe my eyes.
“Captain Nemo,” I told my host, “this is a library that would do credit to more than one continental palace, and I truly marvel to think it can go with you into the deepest seas.”
“Where could one find greater silence or solitude, professor?” Captain Nemo replied. “Did your study at the museum afford you such a perfect retreat?”
“No, sir, and I might add that you own 6,000 or 7,000 volumes here.”
“12,000, Professor Aronnax. They’re my sole remaining ties with dry land. I left the shore the day my Nautilus submerged for the first time under the waters. That day I purchased my last volumes, my last pamphlets, my last newspapers. Professor, these books are at your disposal, and you may use them freely.”
I thanked Captain Nemo and approached the shelves of this library. Written in every language, books on science, ethics, and literature were there in abundance, but I didn’t see a single work on economics. One odd detail: all these books were shelved indiscriminately without regard to the language in which they were written, and this jumble proved that the Nautilus’s captain could read fluently many languages.
Among these books I noted masterpieces by the greats of ancient and modern times. Books on history, poetry, fiction, and science, mechanics, ballistics, hydrography, meteorology, geography, geology, natural history, astronomy!
“Sir,” I told the captain, “thank you for placing this library at my disposal. There are scientific treasures here, and I’ll take advantage of them.”
“This room isn’t only a library,” Captain Nemo said, “it’s also a smoking room.”
“A smoking room?” I exclaimed. “Then one may smoke on board?”
“Surely.”
“In that case, sir, I’m forced to believe that you’ve kept up relations with Havana.”
“None whatever,” the captain replied. “Try this cigar, Professor Aronnax, and even though it doesn’t come from Havana, it will satisfy you.”
I took the cigar that was offered me, whose shape recalled those from Cuba; but it seemed to be made of gold leaf. I lit it.
“It’s excellent,” I said, “but it’s not from the tobacco plant.”
“Right,” the captain replied, “this tobacco comes from neither Havana nor the Orient. It’s a kind of nicotine-rich seaweed that the ocean supplies me. Smoke these cigars whenever you like, without debating their origin.”
Then Captain Nemo opened a door, and I passed into an immense, splendidly lit lounge.
It was a huge quadrilateral with canted corners, ten meters long, six wide, five high. A luminous ceiling, decorated with delicate arabesques, distributed a soft, clear daylight over all the wonders gathered in this museum. For a museum it truly was!
Thirty pictures by the masters, tapestries of austere design. There I saw canvases of the highest value. Wonderful miniature statues in marble or bronze, modeled after antiquity’s finest originals, stood on their pedestals in the corners of this magnificent museum.
“Sir,” I replied, “might I venture to identify you as an artist?”
“A collector, sir, nothing more. Formerly I loved acquiring these beautiful works created by the hand of man, and I’ve been able to gather some objects of great value. They’re my last mementos of those shores that are now dead for me. In my eyes, your modern artists are already as old as the ancients. They’ve existed for 2,000 or 3,000 years, and I mix them up in my mind. The masters are ageless.”
Captain Nemo fell silent and seemed lost in reverie. I regarded him with intense excitement. Leaning his elbow on the corner of a valuable mosaic table, he no longer saw me, he had forgotten my very presence.
I didn’t disturb his meditations but continued to pass in review the curiosities that enriched this lounge.
After the works of art, natural rarities predominated. They consisted chiefly of plants, shells, and other exhibits from the ocean.
“You’re examining my shells, professor? For me they have an added charm, since I’ve collected every one of them with my own two hands, and not a sea on the globe has escaped my investigations.”
“I understand, captain. You’re a man who gathers his treasure in person. No museum in Europe owns such a collection of exhibits from the ocean. May I learn—”
“Professor Aronnax,” Captain Nemo answered me, “I’ve said you’d be free aboard my vessel. You may inspect the Nautilus in detail, and I’ll be delighted to act as your guide. But beforehand, come inspect the cabin set aside for you.”
I followed Captain Nemo led me back down the ship’s gangways. He took me to the bow, and there I found not just a cabin but an elegant stateroom with a bed, a washstand, and various other furnishings.
I could only thank my host.
“Your stateroom adjoins mine,” he told me, opening a door, “and mine leads into that lounge we’ve just left.”
I entered the captain’s stateroom. It had an austere, almost monastic appearance. An iron bedstead, a worktable, some washstand fixtures. Subdued lighting. No luxuries. Just the bare necessities.
Captain Nemo showed me to a bench.
“Kindly be seated,” he told me.
I sat, and he began speaking,
Chapter 12
“Sir,” Captain Nemo said, showing me the instruments hanging on the walls of his stateroom, “these are the devices needed to navigate the Nautilus. Here, as in the lounge, I always have them before my eyes, and they indicate my position and exact heading in the middle of the ocean. You’re familiar with some of them, such as the thermometer, which gives the temperature inside the Nautilus; the barometer, which measures the heaviness of the outside air and forecasts changes in the weather; the humidistat, which indicates the degree of dryness in the atmosphere; the storm glass, which foretells the arrival of tempests; the compass, which steers my course; the sextant, which takes the sun’s altitude and tells me my latitude; chronometers, which allow me to calculate my longitude; and finally, spyglasses for both day and night, enabling me to scrutinize every point of the horizon once the Nautilus has risen to the surface of the waves.”
“These are the normal navigational instruments,” I replied, “and I’m familiar with their uses. But no doubt these others are unique. That one—isn’t it a pressure gauge[25]?”
“It is indeed a pressure gauge. It’s placed in contact with the water, and it gives me the depth at which my submersible is sitting.”
“And these?”
“They’re thermometric sounding lines[26] that report water temperatures in the different strata.”
“And these other instruments, whose functions I can’t even guess?”
“Here, professor, I need to give you some background information,” Captain Nemo said. He fell silent for some moments, then he said:
“There’s a powerful, obedient, swift, and effortless force which reigns supreme aboard my vessel. It does everything. It lights me, it warms me, it’s the soul of my mechanical equipment. This force is electricity.”
“Electricity!” I exclaimed in some surprise.
“Yes, sir.”
“But, captain, you have a tremendous speed of movement! How do you replace this marvelous force, since you no longer stay in contact with the shore?”
“At the bottom of the sea there exist much zinc, iron, silver, and gold, and I use the sea itself for the source of my electricity.”
“The sea itself?”
“Yes, professor. You’re familiar with the composition of salt water. In 1,000 grams one finds 96.5% water and about 2.66% sodium chloride[27], and so on. It’s this sodium that I extract from salt water and with which I compose my electric cells.”
“Sodium?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Captain, I fully understand the excellence of sodium. The sea contains it. Fine. But it still has to be extracted. And how do you accomplish this?”
“I don’t extract it with batteries; I utilize the heat of coal from the earth. I owe everything to the ocean; it generates electricity, and electricity gives the Nautilus heat, light, motion, and, in a word, life itself.”
“But not the air you breathe?”
“Oh, I could produce the air needed on board, but it would be pointless, since I can rise to the surface of the sea whenever I like.”
“Captain,” I replied, “all mankind will surely find the true dynamic power of electricity one day!”
“I’m not so certain they’ll find it,” Captain Nemo replied icily, standing up. “And if you follow me, we’ll inspect the Nautilus’s stern.”
I followed Captain Nemo down gangways, and I arrived amidships. There I found an iron ladder, clamped to the wall, led to the shaft’s upper end. I asked the captain what this ladder was for.
“It goes to the skiff,” he replied.
“What! You have a skiff?” I replied in some astonishment.
“Surely. An excellent longboat, light and unsinkable, which is used for excursions and fishing trips. The skiff is attached to the topside of the Nautilus’s hull. This ladder leads to a manhole cut into the hull and corresponding to a comparable hole cut into the side of the skiff. I insert myself through this double opening into the longboat.”
“But how do you return to the ship?”
“I don’t, Professor Aronnax; the Nautilus returns to me.”
“At your command?”
“At my command. An electric wire connects me to the ship. Come into the lounge. It’s actually our work room, and there you’ll learn the full story about the Nautilus
Примечания
1
the Governor Higginson – «Говернор Хигинсон» (название судна)
2
Baker – Бейкер
3
in Pacific seas – в водах Тихого океана
4
the Christopher Columbus – «Христофор Колумб» (название судна)
5
nautical league – морское лье (1 лье = 5556 м)
6
the Helvetia – «Гельвеция» (название судна)
7
Aristotle and Pliny – Аристотель и Плиний
8
the Moravia – «Моравиа» (название судна)
9
the Scotia – «Шотландия» (название судна)
10
Pierre Aronnax – Пьер Аронакс
11
the Abraham Lincoln – «Авраам Линкольн» (название судна)
12
Commander Farragut – капитан Фарагут
13
Conseil – Консель
14
the same – он самый
15
the Book of Job – «Книга Иова»
16
Ned Land – Нед Ленд
17
a grace period – отсрочка
18
Right your helm! – Право руля!
19
Clap on full steam! – Дать полный ход!
20
conical shells – конические бомбы
21
I didn’t lose my head – я не растерялся
22
riveted plates – листовое железо
23
Mobilis in mobili – Подвижный в подвижном
24
Break out of here! – Бежать отсюда!
25
a pressure gauge – манометр
26
thermometric sounding lines – термометрические зонды
27
sodium chloride – хлористый натрий