A Journey to the Centre of the Earth
dictionary in himself. He did not pretend, like a certain learned
pundit, to speak the two thousand languages and four thousand idioms
made use of in different parts of the globe, but he did know all the
more important ones.
It is a matter of great doubt to me now, to what violent measures my
uncle's impetuosity might have led him, had not the clock struck two,
and our old French cook called out to let us know that dinner was on the
table.
"Bother the dinner!" cried my uncle.
But as I was hungry, I sallied forth to the dining room, where I took up
my usual quarters. Out of politeness I waited three minutes, but no sign
of my uncle, the Professor. I was surprised. He was not usually so blind
to the pleasure of a good dinner. It was the acme of German
luxury--parsley soup, a ham omelette with sorrel trimmings, an oyster of
veal stewed with prunes, delicious fruit, and sparkling Moselle. For the
sake of poring over this musty old piece of parchment, my uncle forbore
to share our meal. To satisfy my conscience, I ate for both.
The old cook and housekeeper was nearly out of her mind. After taking so
much trouble, to find her master not appear at dinner was to her a sad
disappointment--which, as she occasionally watched the havoc I was
making on the viands, became also alarm. If my uncle were to come to
table after all?
Suddenly, just as I had consumed the last apple and drunk the last glass
of wine, a terrible voice was heard at no great distance. It was my
uncle roaring for me to come to him. I made very nearly one leap of
it--so loud, so fierce was his tone.
CHAPTER 2
THE MYSTERIOUS PARCHMENT
"I Declare," cried my uncle, striking the table fiercely with his fist,
"I declare to you it is Runic--and contains some wonderful secret, which
I must get at, at any price."
I was about to reply when he stopped me.
"Sit down," he said, quite fiercely, "and write to my dictation."
I obeyed.
"I will substitute," he said, "a letter of our alphabet for that of the
Runic: we will then see what that will produce. Now, begin and make no
mistakes."
The dictation commenced with the following incomprehensible result:
mm.rnlls esruel seecJde
sgtssmf unteief niedrke
kt,samn atrateS Saodrrn
emtnaeI nuaect rrilSa
Atvaar .nscrc ieaabs
ccdrmi eeutul frantu
dt,iac oseibo KediiY
Scarcely giving me time to finish, my uncle snatched the document from
my hands and examined it with the most rapt and deep attention.
"I should like to know what it means," he said, after a long period.
I certainly could not tell him, nor did he expect me to--his
conversation being uniformly answered by himself.
"I declare it puts me in mind of a cryptograph," he cried, "unless,
indeed, the letters have been written without any real meaning; and yet
why take so much trouble? Who knows but I may be on the verge of some
great discovery?"
My candid opinion was that it was all rubbish! But this opinion I kept
carefully to myself, as my uncle's choler was not pleasant to bear. All
this time he was comparing the book with the parchment.
"The manuscript volume and the smaller document are written in different
hands," he said, "the cryptograph is of much later date than the book;
there is an undoubted proof of the correctness of my surmise. [An
irrefragable proof I took it to be.] The first letter is a double M,
which was only added to the Icelandic language in the twelfth
century--this makes the parchment two hundred years posterior to the
volume."
The circumstances appeared very probable and very logical, but it was
all surmise to me.
"To me it appears probable that this sentence was written by some owner
of the book. Now who was the owner, is the next important question.
Perhaps by great good luck it may be written somewhere in the volume."
With these words Professor Hardwigg took off his spectacles, and, taking
a powerful magnifying glass, examined the book carefully.
On the fly leaf was what appeared to be a blot of ink, but on
examination proved to be a line of writing almost effaced by time. This
was what he sought; and, after some considerable time, he made out these
letters:
"Arne Saknussemm!" he cried in a joyous and triumphant tone, "that is
not only an Icelandic name, but of a learned professor of the sixteenth
century, a celebrated alchemist."
I bowed as a sign of respect.
"These alchemists," he continued, "Avicenna, Bacon, Lully, Paracelsus,
were the true, the only learned men of the day. They made surprising
discoveries. May not this Saknussemm, nephew mine, have hidden on this
bit of parchment some astounding invention? I believe the cryptograph to
have a profound meaning--which I must make out."
My uncle walked about the room in a state of excitement almost
impossible to describe.
"It may be so, sir," I timidly observed, "but why conceal it from
posterity, if it be a useful, a worthy discovery?"
"Why--how should I know? Did not Galileo make a secret of his
discoveries in connection with Saturn? But we shall see. Until I
discover the meaning of this sentence I will neither eat nor sleep."
"My dear uncle--" I began.
"Nor you neither," he added.
It was lucky I had taken double allowance that day.
"In the first place," he continued, "there must be a clue to the
meaning. If we could find that, the rest would be easy enough."
I began seriously to reflect. The prospect of going without food and
sleep was not a promising one, so I determined to do my best to solve
the mystery. My uncle, meanwhile, went on with his soliloquy.
"The way to discover it is easy enough. In this document there are one
hundred and thirty-two letters, giving seventy-nine consonants to
fifty-three vowels. This is about the proportion found in most southern
languages, the idioms of the north being much more rich in consonants.
We may confidently predict, therefore, that we have to deal with a
southern dialect."
Nothing could be more logical.
"Now," said Professor Hardwigg, "to trace the particular language."
"As Shakespeare says, 'that is the question,"' was my rather satirical
reply.
"This man Saknussemm," he continued, "was a very learned man: now as he
did not write in the language of his birthplace, he probably, like most
learned men of the sixteenth century, wrote in Latin. If, however, I
prove wrong in this guess, we must try Spanish, French, Italian, Greek,
and even Hebrew. My own opinion, though, is decidedly in favor of
Latin."
This proposition startled me. Latin was my favorite study, and it seemed
sacrilege to believe this gibberish to belong to the country of Virgil.
"Barbarous Latin, in all probability," continued my uncle, "but still
Latin."
"Very probably," I replied, not to contradict him.
"Let us see into the matter," continued my uncle; "here you see we have
a series of one hundred and thirty-two letters, apparently thrown
pell-mell upon paper, without method or organization. There are words
which are composed wholly of consonants, such as <i>mm.rnlls</i>, others
which are nearly all vowels, the fifth, for instance, which is unteief,
and one of the last oseibo. This appears an extraordinary combination.
Probably we shall find that the phrase is arranged according to some
mathematical plan. No doubt a certain sentence has been written out and
then jumbled up--some plan to which some figure is the clue. Now, Harry,
to show your English wit--what is that figure?"
I could give him no hint. My thoughts were indeed far away. While he was
speaking I had caught sight of the portrait of my cousin Gretchen, and
was wondering when she would return.
We were affianced, and loved one another very sincerely. But my uncle,
who never thought even of such sublunary matters, knew nothing of this.
Without noticing my abstraction, the Professor began reading the
puzzling cryptograph all sorts of ways, according to some theory of his
own. Presently, rousing my wandering attention, he dictated one precious
attempt to me.
I mildly handed it over to him. It read as follows:
<i>mmessunkaSenrA.icefdoK.segnittamurtn
ecertserrette,rotaivsadua,ednecsedsadne
lacartniiilrJsiratracSarbmutabiledmek
meretarcsilucoYsleffenSnI.</i>
I could scarcely keep from laughing, while my uncle, on the contrary,
got in a towering passion, struck the table with his fist, darted out of
the room, out of the house, and then taking to his heels was presently
lost to sight.
CHAPTER 3
AN ASTOUNDING DISCOVERY
"What is 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 will eat no more, neither shall I. My uncle
has determined to fast and make me fast until he makes out this
abominable inscription," I replied.
"You will be starved to death," she said.
I was very much of the same opinion, but not liking to say so, sent her
away, and began some of my usual work of classification. But try as I
might, nothing could keep me from thinking alternately 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
delighted in tobacco; and, seating myself in the great armchair, I began
to think.
Where was my uncle? I could easily imagine him tearing along some
solitary road, gesticulating, talking to himself, cutting the air with
his cane, and still thinking of the absurd bit of hieroglyphics. Would
he hit upon some clue? Would he come home in better humor? While these
thoughts were passing through my brain, I mechanically took up the
execrable puzzle and tried every imaginable way of grouping the letters.
I put them together by twos, by threes, fours, and fives--in vain.
Nothing intelligible came out, except that the fourteenth, fifteenth,
and sixteenth made <i>ice</i> in English; the eighty-fourth, eighty-fifth,
and eighty-sixth, the word <i>sir</i>; then at last I seemed to find the
Latin words <i>rota, mutabile, ira, nec, atra</i>.
"Ha! there seems to be some truth in my uncle's notion," thought I.
Then again I seemed to find the word <i>luco</i>, which means sacred wood.
Then in the third line I appeared to make out <i>labiled</i>, 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 idioms 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 connected with Iceland, mean sea of ice. But what
of the rest of this monstrous cryptograph?
I was, in fact, fighting against an insurmountable difficulty; my brain
was almost on fire; my eyes were strained with staring at the parchment;
the whole absurd collection of letters appeared to dance before my
vision in a number of black little groups. My mind was possessed with
temporary hallucination--I was stifling. I wanted air. Mechanically I
fanned myself with the document, of which now I saw the back and then
the front.
Imagine my surprise when glancing at the back of the wearisome puzzle,
the ink having gone through, I clearly made out Latin words, and among
others craterem and terrestre.
I had discovered the secret!
It came upon me like a flash of lightning. I had got the clue. All you
had to do to understand the document was to read it backwards. All the
ingenious ideas of the Professor were realized; he had dictated it
rightly to me; by a mere accident I had discovered what he so much