20,000 Leagues Under The Sea

Then, in a gentler voice, he went on, –

‘Now, allow me to finish what I have to say to you. I know you, M. Aronnax. You, if not your companions, will not have so much to complain of in the chance that has bound you to my lot. You have carried your investigations as far as terrestrial science allowed you. But on board my vessel you will have an opportunity of seeing what no man has seen before. Thanks to me, our planet will give up her last secrets.’

I cannot deny that these words had a great effect upon me. My weak point was touched, and I forgot for a moment that the contemplation of these divine things was not worth the loss of liberty. Besides, I counted upon the future to decide that grave question, and so contented myself with saying, –

‘What name am I to call you by, sir?’

‘Captain Nemo,’ answered the commander. ‘That is all I am to you, and you and your companions are nothing to me but the passengers of the Nautilus.’

The captain called, and a steward appeared. The captain gave him his orders in that foreign tongue which I could not understand. Then turning to the Canadian and Conseil, –

‘Your meal is prepared in your cabin,’ he said to them. ‘Be so good as to follow that man.’

My two companions in misfortune left the cell where they had been confined for more than thirty hours.

‘And now, M. Aronnax, our breakfast is ready. Allow me to lead the way.’

I followed Captain Nemo into a sort of corridor lighted by electricity, similar to the waist of a ship. After going about a dozen yards, a second door opened before me into a kind of dining-room, decorated and furnished with severe taste. High oaken sideboards, inlaid with ebony ornaments, stood at either end of the room, and on their shelves glittered china, porcelain, and glass of inestimable value. The plate that was on them sparkled in the light which shone from the ceiling, tempered and softened by fine painting. In the centre of the room was a table richly spread. Captain Nemo pointed to my seat.

‘Sit down,’ said he, ‘and eat like a man who must be dying of hunger.’

The breakfast consisted of a number of dishes, the contents of which were all furnished by the sea; of some I neither knew the nature nor mode of preparation. They were good, but had a peculiar flavour which I soon became accustomed to. They appeared to be rich in phosphorus.

Captain Nemo looked at me. I asked him no questions, but he guessed my thoughts, and said, –

‘Most of these dishes are unknown to you, but you can eat of them without fear. They are wholesome and nourishing. I have long renounced the food of the earth, and I am none the worse for it. My crew, who are healthy, have the same food.’

‘Then all these dishes are the produce of the sea?’ said I.

‘Yes, professor, the sea supplies all my needs. Sometimes I cast my nets in tow, and they are drawn in ready to break. Sometimes I go and hunt in the midst of this element, which seems inaccessible to man, and run down the game of submarine forests. My flocks, like those of Neptune’s old shepherd, graze fearlessly the immense ocean meadows. I have a vast estate there, which I cultivate myself, and which is always stocked by the Creator of all things.’

I looked at Captain Nemo with some astonishment, and answered, –

‘I can quite understand that your nets should furnish excellent fish for your table, and that you should pursue aquatic game in your submarine forests; but I do not understand how a particle of meat can find its way into your bill of fare.’

‘What you believe to be meat, professor, is nothing but fillet of turtle. Here also are dolphins’ livers, which you might take for ragout of pork. My cook is a clever fellow, who excels in preparing these various products of the sea. Taste all these dishes. Here is a conserve of holothuria, which a Malay would declare to be unrivalled in the world; here is a cream furnished by the cetacea, and the sugar by the great fucus of the North Sea; and, lastly, allow me to offer you some anemone preserve, which equals that made from the most delicious fruits.’

Whilst I was tasting, more from curiosity than as a gourmet, Captain Nemo enchanted me with extraordinary stories.

‘Not only does the sea feed me,’ he continued, ‘but it clothes me too. These materials that clothe you are wrought from the byssus of certain shells; they are dyed with the purple of the ancients, and the violet shades which I extract from the aplysis of the Mediterranean. The perfumes you will find on the toilet of your cabin are produced from the distillation of marine plants. Your bed is made with the softest wrack-grass of the ocean. Your pen will be a whale’s fin, your ink the liquor secreted by the calamary. Everything now comes to me from the sea, and everything will one day return to it!’

‘You love the sea, captain?’

‘Yes, I love it. The sea is everything. Its breath is pure and healthy. It is an immense desert where man is never alone, for he feels life quivering around him on every side. The sea does not belong to despots. On its surface iniquitous rights can still be exercised, men can fight there, devour each other there, and transport all terrestrial horrors there. But at thirty feet below its level their power ceases, their influence dies out, their might disappears. Ah, sir, live in the bosom of the waters! There alone is independence! There I recognise no masters! There I am free!’

Captain Nemo stopped suddenly in the midst of this burst of enthusiasm. Had he let himself be carried out of his habitual reserve? Had he said too much? During some moments he walked about much agitated. Then his nerves became calmer, his face regained its usual calm expression, and turning towards me, –

‘Now, professor,’ said he, ‘if you wish to visit the Nautilus, I am at your service.’

CHAPTER 11 The ‘Nautilus’ (#ulink_4e03a820-9c38-5e9c-b97e-1350f4224499)

Captain Nemo rose, and I followed him. A folding door, contrived at the back of the room, opened, and I entered a room about the same size as the one I had just left.

It was a library. High bookcases of black rosewood supported on their shelves a great number of books in uniform binding. They went round the room, terminating at their lower part in large divans, covered with brown leather, curved so as to afford the greatest comfort. Light, movable desks, made to slide in and out at will, were there to rest one’s book while reading. In the centre was a vast table, covered with pamphlets, amongst which appeared some newspapers, already old. The electric light flooded this harmonious whole, and was shed from four polished globes half sunk in the volutes of the ceiling. This room, so ingeniously fitted up, excited my admiration, and I could scarcely believe my eyes.

‘Captain Nemo,’ said I to my host, who had just thrown himself on one of the divans, ‘you have a library here that would do honour to more than one continental palace, and I am lost in wonder when I think that it can follow you to the greatest depths of the ocean.’

‘Where could there be more solitude or more silence, professor?’ answered Captain Nemo. ‘Did your study in the museum offer you as complete quiet?’

‘No, and I must acknowledge it is a very poor one compared with yours. You must have from six to seven thousand volumes here.’

‘Twelve thousand, M. Aronnax. These are the only ties between me and the earth. But the day that my Nautilus plunged for the first time beneath the waters the world was at an end for me. That day I bought my last books, my last pamphlets, and my last newspapers; and since then I wish to believe that men no longer think nor write. These books, professor, are at your disposition, and you can use them freely.’

I thanked Captain Nemo, and went up to the library shelves. Books of science, ethics, and literature – written in every language – were there in quantities; but I did not see a single work on political economy amongst them; they seemed to be severely prohibited on board. A curious detail was that all these books were classified indistinctly, in whatever language they were written, and this confusion showed that the captain of the Nautilus could read with the utmost facility any volume he might take up by chance.

‘This room is not only a library,’ said Captain Nemo; ‘it is a smoking-room too.’

‘A smoking-room?’ cried I. ‘Do you smoke here, then?’

‘Certainly.’

‘Then, sir, I am forced to believe that you have kept up relations with Havana?’

‘No, I have not,’ answered the captain. Accept this cigar, M. Aronnax; although it does not come from Havana, you will be pleased with it if you are a connoisseur.’

I took the cigar that was offered me; its shape was something like that of a Londres, but it seemed to be made of leaves of gold. I lighted it at a little brazier which was supported on an elegant bronze pedestal, and drew the first whiffs with the delight of an amateur who has not smoked for two days.

‘It is excellent,’ said I, ‘but it is not tobacco.’

‘No,’ answered the captain. ‘This tobacco comes neither from Havana nor the East. It is a sort of seaweed, rich in nicotine, with which the sea supplies me, but somewhat sparingly. If you do not regret the Londres, M. Aronnax, smoke these as much as you like.’

As Captain Nemo spoke he opened the opposite door to the one by which we had entered the library, and I passed into an immense and brilliantly-lighted saloon. It was a vast four-sided room, with panelled walls, measuring thirty feet by eighteen, and about fifteen feet high. A luminous ceiling, decorated with light arabesques, distributed a soft, clear light over all the marvels collected in the museum. For it was, in fact, a museum in which an intelligent and prodigal hand had gathered together all the treasures of nature and art with the artistic confusion of a painter’s studio.

About thirty pictures by the first artists, uniformly framed and separated by brilliant drapery, were hung on tapestry of severe design. I saw there works of great value, most of which I had admired in the special collections of Europe, and in exhibitions of paintings. The amazement which the captain of the Nautilus had predicted had already begun to take possession of me.

‘Professor,’ then said this strange man, ‘you must excuse the unceremonious way in which I receive you, and the disorder of this room.’

‘Sir,’ I answered, ‘without seeking to know who you are, may I be allowed to recognise in you an artist?’

‘Only an amateur, sir. Formerly I liked to collect these works of art. I was a greedy collector and an indefatigable antiquary, and have been able to get together some objects of great value. These are my last gatherings from that world which is now dead to me. In my eyes your modern artists are already old; they have two or three thousand years of existence, and all masters are of the same age in my mind.’

‘And these musicians?’ said I, pointing to the works of Weber, Rossini, Mozart, and many others, scattered over a large piano-organ fixed in one of the panels of the room.

‘These musicians,’ answered Captain Nemo, ‘are contemporaries of Orpheus, for all chronological differences are effaced in the memory of the dead; and I am dead, as much dead as those of your friends who are resting six feet under the earth!

Captain Nemo ceased talking, and seemed lost in a profound reverie. I looked at him with great interest, analysing in silence the strange expressions of his face.

I respected his meditation, and went on passing in review the curiosities that enriched the saloon. They consisted principally of marine plants, shells, and other productions of the ocean, which must have been found by Captain Nemo himself. In the centre of the saloon rose a jet of water lighted up by electricity, and falling into a basin formed of a single tridacne shell, measuring about seven yards in circumference; it, therefore, surpassed in size the beautiful tridacnes given to Francis I. of France by the Venetian Republic, and that now form two basins for holy water in the church of Saint Sulpice in Paris.