Journey to the Center of the Earth (Barnes & Noble Classics Series) (21 page)

“That’s nothing, and you can get rid of that discomfort by putting the outside air in rapid contact with the air in your lungs.”

“Exactly,” I said, determined not to say a word that might contradict my uncle. “There’s even genuine pleasure in being immersed in this denser atmosphere. Have you noticed how far the sound carries down here?”

“Undoubtedly. A deaf man would end up hearing perfectly.”

“But won’t this density increase?”

“Yes, according to a rather ill-defined law. It’s well known that gravity decreases as we descend. You know that it’s at the surface of the earth that weight is most acutely felt, and that at the center objects have no weight.”

“I’m aware of that; but tell me, won’t the air at last become as dense as water?”

“No doubt, under a pressure of seven hundred and ten atmospheres.”

“And lower down?”

“Lower down the density will increase even more.”

“So how will we go down then?”

“Well, we’ll fill our pockets with stones.”

“Really, Uncle, you’re never at a loss for an answer.”

I dared venture no farther into the region of hypotheses, for I might once again stumble over an impossibility that would make the professor jump with rage.

Still, it was obvious that the air, under a pressure that might reach thousands of atmospheres, would at last turn solid, and then, even if our bodies could resist, we would have to stop, in spite of all reasoning in the world.

But I did not insist on this argument. My uncle would have held against it his inevitable Saknussemm, a precedent without value, for even if the journey of the Icelandic scholar had really taken place, there was one very simple question to answer:

In the sixteenth century neither barometer or manometer had been invented; so how could Saknussemm have determined whether he had arrived at the center of the globe?

But I kept this objection to myself and let events take their course.

The rest of the day was spent in calculations and conversations. I always agreed with Professor Lidenbrock’s opinions, and I envied Hans his complete indifference; without looking so hard for effects and causes, he went blindly wherever his destiny guided him.

IT WAS TRUE THAT so far things had gone well, and it would have been ungraceful of me to complain. If the ‘average’ number of difficulties did not increase, we could not fail to reach our goal. And then, what glory! I had come around to reasoning in this way, quite like a Lidenbrock. Seriously. Was this due to the strange environment in which I was living? Perhaps.

For several days steeper slopes, some even frighteningly vertical, took us deep into the interior rock. Some days we got a league and a half or two leagues closer to the center. Dangerous descents, during which Hans’ skill and marvelous calm were very useful to us. That impassive Icelander devoted himself with incomprehensible unconcern to his tasks; and thanks to him, we overcame more than one dangerous spot that we would never have cleared alone.

But his silence increased day by day. I believe it even infected us. External forces have real effects on the brain. Whoever shuts himself up between four walls soon loses the power to bring words and ideas together. How many prisoners in solitary confinement become idiots, if not mad, for lack of exercise for their thinking faculty!

During the two weeks following our last conversation, no incident worthy of reporting occurred. I only find in my memory a single, very important event, for good reason. It would have been difficult for me to forget even its slightest detail.

By August 7, our successive descents had taken us to a depth of thirty leagues, which means that there were thirty leagues of rock, ocean, continents, and towns over our heads. We must have been two hundred leagues from Iceland then.

On that day the tunnel went down a gentle slope.

I was ahead of the others. My uncle was carrying one of the Ruhmkorff devices and myself the other. I was examining layers of granite.

Suddenly, when I turned around, I found that I was alone.

“Well,” I thought, “I’ve gone too fast, or Hans and my uncle have stopped on the way. Let’s go, I must join them again. Fortunately the path doesn’t go up appreciably.”

I retraced my steps. I walked for a quarter of an hour. I looked. Nobody. I called. No response. My voice was lost in the midst of the cavernous echoes it suddenly called forth.

I began to feel uneasy. A shudder ran all over my body.

“A bit of calm!” I said aloud to myself, “I’m sure I’ll find my companions again. There’s only one path. Now, I was ahead, so let’s go further back!”

For half an hour I climbed back up. I listened for a call, and in that dense atmosphere, it could come from far away. An extraordinary silence reigned in the immense tunnel.

I stopped. I could not believe my isolation. I had only strayed from the path, not lost my way completely. After having strayed, one finds one’s path again.

“Let’s see,” I repeated, “since there’s only one path, and since they’re on it, I must run into them. I just have to go further up. Unless, when they didn’t see me, they forgot that I was ahead, and retraced their steps also. Well! Even in that case, if I hurry up, I’ll find them again. It’s obvious!”

I repeated these last words like a man who is not convinced. In addition, even coming up with these simple ideas and bringing them together in coherent reasoning took me a very long time.

A doubt then assailed me. Was I really ahead? Yes, Hans followed me, preceding my uncle. He had even stopped for a few moments to strap his baggage more tightly to his shoulder. This detail came back to me. It was at that very moment that I must have continued on my way.

“Besides,” I thought, “I have a reliable means of not getting lost, a thread that cannot break to guide me in this labyrinth, my faithful stream. All I have to do is to follow its course in reverse, and I’ll inevitably find the traces of my companions.”

This reasoning revived me, and I decided to go on my way again without losing a moment.

How I blessed my uncle’s foresight then in keeping the hunter from stopping up the hole in the granite wall! This beneficent spring, which had quenched our thirst on the route, would now guide me through the meanderings of the earth’s crust.

Before starting out, I thought a wash would do me good.

I bent down to bathe my forehead in the Hansbach.

Who can imagine my dismay!

I touched dry, rough granite! The stream no longer ran at my feet!

I CANNOT DESCRIBE MY despair. No human words could express my feelings. I was buried alive, with the prospect of dying from the tortures of hunger and thirst.

Mechanically I swept the ground with my burning hands. How dry the rock seemed to me!

But how had I left the course of the stream? For it was definitely no longer there! Then I understood the reason for that strange silence when I listened for the last time for any call from my companions that might reach my ears. But at the moment when I took my first step on the wrong path, I had not noticed this absence of the stream. It is obvious that at that moment a fork in the tunnel had opened up before me, while the Hansbach, following the whim of another slope, had gone away with my companions toward unknown depths.

How to get back? There were no traces. My foot left no mark on this granite. I racked my brain for a solution of this unsolvable problem. My situation could be summed up in a single word: Lost!

Yes! Lost at a depth that seemed immeasurable to me! Those thirty leagues of terrestrial crust weighed on my shoulders with a dreadful weight. I felt crushed.

I tried to take my mind back to the things of the earth. I could hardly manage it. Hamburg, the house in the Königstrasse, my poor Graüben, all that world underneath which I had lost my way passed rapidly before my terrified memory. In a vivid hallucination, I relived all the incidents of the journey, the passage, Iceland, Mr. Fridriksson, the Snaefells. I told myself that if I still hung on to some glimmer of hope in my position, it would be a sign of madness, and that it would be better to give in to despair.

Indeed, what human power could take me back to the surface of the globe and break apart the enormous vaults of rock that buttressed each other above my head? Who could put me back on the right path and take me back to my companions?

“Oh, Uncle!” I cried in a tone of despair.

It was the only word of reproach that passed my lips, for I knew how much that unfortunate man must suffer in his turn in searching for me.

When I saw myself like this, beyond all human help, unable to do anything for my own well-being, I thought of heavenly help. Memories of my childhood, especially of my mother whom I had only known in my tender early years, came back to me. I resorted to prayer, in spite of the few rights I had of being heard by a God to whom I directed myself so late, and I fervently implored him.

This return to Providence calmed me a little, and I was able to concentrate all the power of my intelligence on my situation.

I had three days’ worth of food supplies with me and my flask was full. However, I could not remain alone much longer. Should I go up or down?

Up, of course; always up!

I had to get back to the point where I had left the stream, that deadly fork in the road. There, with the stream at my feet, I might be able to return to the summit of Snaefells.

Why had I not thought of that sooner! This was obviously a possibility for rescue. The most pressing task, therefore, was to find the course of the Hansbach again.

I rose, and leaning on my iron-tipped stick I walked back up the tunnel. The slope was rather steep. I walked on without hope and without indecision, like a man who has no choice as to what course he might take.

For half an hour I met with no obstacle. I tried to recognize my path by the shape of the tunnel, by the projections of certain rocks, by the arrangement of the crevices. But no particular detail struck me, and I soon realized that this tunnel could not take me back to the fork. It came to a dead end. I struck against an impenetrable wall, and fell down on the rock.

The fear, the despair that then seized me cannot be described. I lay overwhelmed. My last hope was shattered by this granite wall.

Lost in this labyrinth, whose meandering paths intersected in all directions, I could no longer attempt an impossible escape. I had to die the most dreadful of deaths! And, strange to say, the thought crossed my mind that if my fossilized body were to be found one day, its discovery thirty leagues deep in the bowels of the earth would raise serious scientific questions!

I wanted to speak aloud, but only hoarse sounds came from my parched lips. I panted.

In the midst of these fears, a new terror laid hold of me. My lamp had been damaged when it fell. I had no means of repairing it. Its light was fading and would soon disappear!

I watched the luminous current diminish in the wire coil of the appliance. A procession of moving shadows unfolded on the darkening walls. I no longer dared to shut my eyes, for fear of missing the smallest atom of this elusive light! Every moment it seemed to me that it was about to vanish and that blackness would engulf me.

Finally a last glimmer trembled in the lamp. I followed it, I drank it in with my gaze, I concentrated all the power of my eyes on it as the very last sensation of light they would ever perceive, and then I was plunged into immense darkness.

What horrible cry burst from me! On earth, even in the midst of the darkest nights, light never vanishes altogether. It is diffuse, it is subtle, but however little there may be, the eye’s retina manages to perceive it. Here, nothing. The total darkness blinded me in the word’s most literal significance.

Then I began to lose my head. I rose up with my arms stretched out before me, attempting to feel my way in the most painful manner. I began to run, rushing haphazardly through this inextricable maze, always going down, running through the earth’s crust like an inhabitant of subterranean faults, calling, crying, shouting, soon bruised by the projections of the rocks, falling and getting up again bloody, trying to drink the blood that covered my face, and always expecting that some wall would present the obstacle on which I would fracture my skull.

Where did this mad career take me? I will never know. After several hours, no doubt at the end of my strength, I fell down like a lifeless mass at the foot of the wall, and lost all awareness of my existence!

WHEN I RETURNED TO life my face was wet, but wet with tears. How long that state of unconsciousness had lasted I cannot say. I no longer had any means of telling time. Never had there been a solitude like mine, never had an abandonment been so complete!

After my fall I had lost a great deal of blood. I felt it flowing over me! Ah! how I regretted that I was not yet dead, “and that it remained to be done”! I did not want to think any longer. I drove away every idea, and overcome by pain, I rolled close to the opposite wall.

I was already beginning to lose consciousness again and plunging into supreme annihilation, when a loud noise struck my ear. It resembled the continuous rumble of thunder, and I heard the sound waves gradually fading in the distant recesses of the abyss.

Where did this noise come from? No doubt from some phenomenon that was occurring right inside the mass of the earth. A gas explosion, or the fall of some mighty foundation of the globe!

I continued to listen. I wanted to know if the noise would repeat itself. A quarter of an hour passed. Silence reigned in the tunnel. I could not even hear the beating of my heart anymore.

Suddenly my ear, resting haphazardly against the wall, seemed to catch vague, ungraspable, distant words. I trembled.

“This is a hallucination!” I thought.