Voyage au centre de la terre. English Read online

  CHAPTER VIII.

  SERIOUS PREPARATIONS FOR VERTICAL DESCENT

  Altona, which is but a suburb of Hamburg, is the terminus of the Kielrailway, which was to carry us to the Belts. In twenty minutes wewere in Holstein.

  At half-past six the carriage stopped at the station; my uncle'snumerous packages, his voluminous _impedimenta,_ were unloaded,removed, labelled, weighed, put into the luggage vans, and at sevenwe were seated face to face in our compartment. The whistle sounded,the engine started, we were off.

  Was I resigned? No, not yet. Yet the cool morning air and the sceneson the road, rapidly changed by the swiftness of the train, drew meaway somewhat from my sad reflections.

  As for the Professor's reflections, they went far in advance of theswiftest express. We were alone in the carriage, but we sat insilence. My uncle examined all his pockets and his travelling bagwith the minutest care. I saw that he had not forgotten the smallestmatter of detail.

  Amongst other documents, a sheet of paper, carefully folded, bore theheading of the Danish consulate with the signature of W.Christiensen, consul at Hamburg and the Professor's friend. With thiswe possessed the proper introductions to the Governor of Iceland.

  I also observed the famous document most carefully laid up in asecret pocket in his portfolio. I bestowed a malediction upon it, andthen proceeded to examine the country.

  It was a very long succession of uninteresting loamy and fertileflats, a very easy country for the construction of railways, andpropitious for the laying-down of these direct level lines so dear torailway companies.

  I had no time to get tired of the monotony; for in three hours westopped at Kiel, close to the sea.

  The luggage being labelled for Copenhagen, we had no occasion to lookafter it. Yet the Professor watched every article with jealousvigilance, until all were safe on board. There they disappeared inthe hold.

  My uncle, notwithstanding his hurry, had so well calculated therelations between the train and the steamer that we had a whole dayto spare. The steamer _Ellenora,_ did not start until night. Thencesprang a feverish state of excitement in which the impatientirascible traveller devoted to perdition the railway directors andthe steamboat companies and the governments which allowed suchintolerable slowness. I was obliged to act chorus to him when heattacked the captain of the _Ellenora_ upon this subject. The captaindisposed of us summarily.

  At Kiel, as elsewhere, we must do something to while away the time.What with walking on the verdant shores of the bay within whichnestles the little town, exploring the thick woods which make it looklike a nest embowered amongst thick foliage, admiring the villas,each provided with a little bathing house, and moving about andgrumbling, at last ten o'clock came.

  The heavy coils of smoke from the _Ellenora's_ funnel unrolled in thesky, the bridge shook with the quivering of the struggling steam; wewere on board, and owners for the time of two berths, one over theother, in the only saloon cabin on board.

  At a quarter past the moorings were loosed and the throbbing steamerpursued her way over the dark waters of the Great Belt.

  The night was dark; there was a sharp breeze and a rough sea, a fewlights appeared on shore through the thick darkness; later on, Icannot tell when, a dazzling light from some lighthouse threw abright stream of fire along the waves; and this is all I can rememberof this first portion of our sail.

  At seven in the morning we landed at Korsor, a small town on the westcoast of Zealand. There we were transferred from the boat to anotherline of railway, which took us by just as flat a country as the plainof Holstein.

  Three hours' travelling brought us to the capital of Denmark. Myuncle had not shut his eyes all night. In his impatience I believe hewas trying to accelerate the train with his feet.

  At last he discerned a stretch of sea.

  "The Sound!" he cried.

  At our left was a huge building that looked like a hospital.

  "That's a lunatic asylum," said one of or travelling companions.

  Very good! thought I, just the place we want to end our days in; andgreat as it is, that asylum is not big enough to contain allProfessor Liedenbrock's madness!

  At ten in the morning, at last, we set our feet in Copenhagen; theluggage was put upon a carriage and taken with ourselves to thePhoenix Hotel in Breda Gate. This took half an hour, for the stationis out of the town. Then my uncle, after a hasty toilet, dragged meafter him. The porter at the hotel could speak German and English;but the Professor, as a polyglot, questioned him in good Danish, andit was in the same language that that personage directed him to theMuseum of Northern Antiquities.

  The curator of this curious establishment, in which wonders aregathered together out of which the ancient history of the countrymight be reconstructed by means of its stone weapons, its cups andits jewels, was a learned savant, the friend of the Danish consul atHamburg, Professor Thomsen.

  My uncle had a cordial letter of introduction to him. As a generalrule one savant greets another with coolness. But here the case wasdifferent. M. Thomsen, like a good friend, gave the ProfessorLiedenbrock a cordial greeting, and he even vouchsafed the samekindness to his nephew. It is hardly necessary to say the secret wassacredly kept from the excellent curator; we were simplydisinterested travellers visiting Iceland out of harmless curiosity.

  M. Thomsen placed his services at our disposal, and we visited thequays with the object of finding out the next vessel to sail.

  I was yet in hopes that there would be no means of getting toIceland. But there was no such luck. A small Danish schooner, the_Valkyria_, was to set sail for Rejkiavik on the 2nd of June. Thecaptain, M. Bjarne, was on board. His intending passenger was sojoyful that he almost squeezed his hands till they ached. That goodman was rather surprised at his energy. To him it seemed a verysimple thing to go to Iceland, as that was his business; but to myuncle it was sublime. The worthy captain took advantage of hisenthusiasm to charge double fares; but we did not trouble ourselvesabout mere trifles. .

  "You must be on board on Tuesday, at seven in the morning," saidCaptain Bjarne, after having pocketed more dollars than were his due.

  Then we thanked M. Thomsen for his kindness, "and we returned to thePhoenix Hotel.

  "It's all right, it's all right," my uncle repeated. "How fortunatewe are to have found this boat ready for sailing. Now let us havesome breakfast and go about the town."

  We went first to Kongens-nye-Torw, an irregular square in which aretwo innocent-looking guns, which need not alarm any one. Close by, atNo. 5, there was a French "restaurant," kept by a cook of the name ofVincent, where we had an ample breakfast for four marks each (2_s_.4_d_.).

  Then I took a childish pleasure in exploring the city; my uncle letme take him with me, but he took notice of nothing, neither theinsignificant king's palace, nor the pretty seventeenth centurybridge, which spans the canal before the museum, nor that immensecenotaph of Thorwaldsen's, adorned with horrible mural painting, andcontaining within it a collection of the sculptor's works, nor in afine park the toylike chateau of Rosenberg, nor the beautifulrenaissance edifice of the Exchange, nor its spire composed of thetwisted tails of four bronze dragons, nor the great windmill on theramparts, whose huge arms dilated in the sea breeze like the sails ofa ship.

  What delicious walks we should have had together, my prettyVirlandaise and I, along the harbour where the two-deckers and thefrigate slept peaceably by the red roofing of the warehouse, by thegreen banks of the strait, through the deep shades of the treesamongst which the fort is half concealed, where the guns arethrusting out their black throats between branches of alder andwillow.

  But, alas! Graeuben was far away; and I never hoped to see her again.

  But if my uncle felt no attraction towards these romantic scenes hewas very much struck with the aspect of a certain church spiresituated in the island of Amak, which forms the south-west quarter ofCopenhagen.

  I was ordered to direct my feet that way; I embarked on a smallsteamer which plies on the cana
ls, and in a few minutes she touchedthe quay of the dockyard.

  After crossing a few narrow streets where some convicts, in trousershalf yellow and half grey, were at work under the orders of thegangers, we arrived at the Vor Frelsers Kirk. There was nothingremarkable about the church; but there was a reason why its tallspire had attracted the Professor's attention. Starting from the topof the tower, an external staircase wound around the spire, thespirals circling up into the sky.

  "Let us get to the top," said my uncle.

  "I shall be dizzy," I said.

  "The more reason why we should go up; we must get used to it."

  "But--"

  "Come, I tell you; don't waste our time."

  I had to obey. A keeper who lived at the other end of the streethanded us the key, and the ascent began.

  My uncle went ahead with a light step. I followed him not withoutalarm, for my head was very apt to feel dizzy; I possessed neitherthe equilibrium of an eagle nor his fearless nature.

  As long as we were protected on the inside of the winding staircaseup the tower, all was well enough; but after toiling up a hundred andfifty steps the fresh air came to salute my face, and we were on theleads of the tower. There the aerial staircase began its gyrations,only guarded by a thin iron rail, and the narrowing steps seemed toascend into infinite space!

  "Never shall I be able to do it," I said.

  "Don't be a coward; come up, sir"; said my uncle with the coldestcruelty.

  I had to follow, clutching at every step. The keen air made me giddy;I felt the spire rocking with every gust of wind; my knees began tofail; soon I was crawling on my knees, then creeping on my stomach; Iclosed my eyes; I seemed to be lost in space.

  At last I reached the apex, with the assistance of my uncle draggingme up by the collar.

  "Look down!" he cried. "Look down well! You must take a lessonin abysses."

  I opened my eyes. I saw houses squashed flat as if they had allfallen down from the skies; a smoke fog seemed to drown them. Over myhead ragged clouds were drifting past, and by an optical inversionthey seemed stationary, while the steeple, the ball and I were allspinning along with fantastic speed. Far away on one side was thegreen country, on the other the sea sparkled, bathed in sunlight. TheSound stretched away to Elsinore, dotted with a few white sails, likesea-gulls' wings; and in the misty east and away to the north-eastlay outstretched the faintly-shadowed shores of Sweden. All thisimmensity of space whirled and wavered, fluctuating beneath my eyes.

  But I was compelled to rise, to stand up, to look. My first lesson indizziness lasted an hour. When I got permission to come down and feelthe solid street pavements I was afflicted with severe lumbago.

  "To-morrow we will do it again," said the Professor.

  And it was so; for five days in succession, I was obliged to undergothis anti-vertiginous exercise; and whether I would or not, I madesome improvement in the art of "lofty contemplations."