Journey Through the Impossible Read online

  Mme de Traventhal: That dream will come true, Mr. Tartelet. So you see, you can't leave us. And besides, what would you do? Go back to Paris and try to find work?

  Tartelet: To Paris? Oh no, ma'am, no! No one dances there any more. All they do is jump around.

  Eva: They jump around?

  Tartelet: Yes, miss, they do. And not only in the salons. They jump around in the banks, at the stock exchange, everywhere. We even have talented choreographers, famous dancers themselves, who get the prefects and ministers jumping around.

  Mme de Traventhal: What's this you're telling us?

  Eva: That means there's no more dancing in Paris.

  Tartelet: In Paris, miss, in Paris, the only kind of dancing they know is the money dance.

  Eva: Sh! Here comes George.

  (Enter George stage left, looking sad and thoughtful. Without seeing anyone, he sits down at the table and leafs idly through the open books lying there)

  Eva (aside): Oh! My poor darling!

  Mme de Traventhal: You're right. He's more depressed than ever.

  George (placing his hands on the maps): Here's where they went, those incredible heroes, into the bowels of the earth, to the depths of the sea, through outer space! Lidenbrok,6 Nemo,7 Ardan," where no one had ever set foot before. And that other one, Captain Hatteras, conqueror of the North Pole. Some mysterious attraction draws me even more closely to him. I feel strong enough to equal them, maybe even surpass them, but I've done nothing yetnothing!

  (He sits with his head in his hands, overcome)

  Eva (going up to him): Your hand is burning, George.

  George (looking up): Eva! It's you! (To Mme de Traventhal) And you, grandmother.

  Mme de Traventhal: Are you in pain, George?

  George: Yes. I feel as if I'm being consumed by a constant fever, which no human medicine can cure.

  Eva: Not even friendship?

  Mme de Traventhal (in a low voice, pointing to Eva): Not even love?

  George: Eva! (Going up to hei) Eva dear, you know I love you and that my heart is yours-and yours, too, grandmother. But my imagination is stronger than my heart. Every hour of the day and night it carries me away from this castle, far away from this country, beyond the ends of the earth and almost into unknown worlds. And I hear a voice calling me: "Forward, farther, still farther!"

  Eva: Calm yourself, George, I beg you. Ah! If you really loved me....

  George: I do love you, Eva. Our two lives will be one some dayafter my dreams have been realized. But until then I'm not completely yours. I feel it. First I must go where my destiny calls me.

  Tartelet: And one would need exceptional legs to follow him.

  Eva (taking his hand): You're planning to leave us, then.

  George: I'll come back to you, Eva.

  Eva: And what if you don't find me here when you come back?

  George: Not find you here! What do you mean?

  Eva: I don't know. I just feel as if some danger is threatening me.

  George: Danger? What danger?

  Mme de Traventhal: What is it, girl? Speak up.

  Eva: For some time now, whenever I leave the castle with old Niels, I've been followed by a man whose presence really terrifies me.

  George: Who is this man?

  Eva: I don't know, but he has strange, bizarre ways, and he frightens me. He seems to know in advance what I'm going to do and where I'm going to go.

  George: And you say he follows you everywhere?

  Eva: Everywhere, and the strange thing is that he only stops when I go into the church. There, at the threshold of the Holy Place, he gets an even stranger look on his face. His lips are twisted with bitter irony and an angry fire burns in his eyes.

  George: And when you are in the church?

  Eva: My soul becomes calm again, especially when Master Volsius plays the organ.

  George: Master Volsius?

  Eva: Yes, the new organist. I believe he's attached to the cathedral at Aalborg.9 He's a musical genius. I'd almost say he's a superhuman artist. When he plays the accompaniment for the psalms of penitence, you can see the darkness of hell open up before your eyes. When he sings of the glory of the Almighty, you are carried off to Paradise itself. The walls recede, as if by some marvellous spell, the church vanishes, and his genius calls forth a heavenly vision, surrounded by the most sublime harmonies.

  Mme de Traventhal: Yes, Eva, yes. I've felt the same ecstasy as you have while listening to him.

  Eva: It's more than ecstasy. You can see what that great artist is trying to express. You can see it, grandma, you can really see it.

  Tartelet: And I've seen it too. Yes, yes, I've seen this miracle, and I've been assured that this man is more than a peerless organist. He produces the most miraculous sounds with my poor old violin. He could make houses dance.

  (Enter Niels)

  Niels: Madam, the doctor is here.

  George (hastily): A doctor?

  Mme de Traventhal: Yes, my dears, I've sent for a doctor to come and see me. I heard that there is a very famous doctor in Aalborg right now, and I've asked him to come. He will give me some good advice-and you, too, Eva, and George and Tartelet.

  Tartelet: But I'm not sick.

  Mme de Traventhal: People are always sick-more or less. I've observed that doctors have the greatest success....

  Tartelet: With healthy people.

  Mme de Traventhal: Show in Dr. Ox.10

  George: Is this the Dr. Ox who carried out those extraordinary experiments that doubled people's vital capacity under the influence of oxygen?

  Mme de Traventhal: Exactly.

  George: I'm curious to see him.

  Tartelet (aside): Mr. George doesn't need any extra oxygen, though. He needs to have a little less of it.

  Niels (announcing): Dr. Ox.

  Tartelet: Some charlatan, no doubt.

  (Enter Dr. Ox, through the door at the back)

  Eva (aside, terrified): What's this I see? It's him, the man who keeps following me!

  Ox (to Mme de Traventhal): You sent for me, madam. Here I am.

  Mme de Traventhal: Doctor, I heard that you were in Aalborg, where your great reputation has preceded you, and I wish to have your opinion....

  Ox: About this young lady, perhaps.

  Eva (hastily): No, no, not about me.

  Mme de Traventhal: Eva is in excellent health.

  Ox: Are you quite sure? See how pale and nervous she is. (He takes her hand.)

  Eva: Oh!

  Ox: This delicate hand trembles in mine. (Eva quickly pulls her hand away, but he seizes it again) It's like fear, or terror, even. But we'll calm that.

  Eva (moving away from him): You're mistaken. I'm not frightened or terrified. (Aside) My intuition tells me this man has brought misfortune to our house.

  George (to the doctor): Doctor, I'm happy to meet you. I've followed your wonderful experiments-from a distance, but with great interest.

  Ox: Indeed?

  George: Increasing the oxygen content of the air, transforming the body and the soul! Doubling, even tripling, the vital capacity! That is magnificent.

  Ox: It's also very simple, sir. The human body is like a burning stove. I simply found a way of putting on a little more coal. But let's get straight to the point, sir. You're the one I'm here to treat.

  George: Me?

  Mme de Traventhal: Doctor, what are you talking about?

  Ox: There's no point in beating about the bush, madam. This young man's health is a matter of great concern to you.

  Mme de Traventhal: Yes, of course.

  Ox: And to you also, miss.

  Eva (coldly): George is my fiance, sir.

  Ox (aside): Your fiance. (Aloud) Now, his mind harbors dreams that seem insane to you, and you want to cure him of the grandiose ideas that are simmering in his brain.

  George: So that's it. They brought you here to see me.

  Ox: You, and no one else.

  Mme de Traventhal: Who told
you that, sir?

  Ox: In this country, madam, everyone knows your name, and this young man's story is known to everyone but himself.

  George: What is he talking about?

  Ox: You expect me to make him well. All right, I'll undertake to cure him. But don't expect me to turn his thoughts away from the glorious goal he's been pursuing for so long.

  Eva: What do you mean?

  Ox: Do you think that by compressing a gas you can prevent it from exploding? Of course not. On the contrary, let him give free rein to his ambition. Don't stifle his noble rapture. Let him say how far he wants to go, and then let us try to prepare the way for him.

  George: What I want, doctor, is to surpass what has been done by the heroes whose names are written in these books, to go beyond the frontiers that they could not cross. Professor Lidenbrok penetrated into the bowels of the earth. I want to go all the way to its central fire. Captain Nemo, in his Nautilus," sought independence in the depths of the sea. I want to live in that element, and travel through it from pole to pole. The daring Michel Ardan enclosed himself in a capsule and went into orbit several thousand leagues above the earth. I want to fly from one planet to another. That's what I want, doctor. Is it impossible?

  Ox (in a powerful voice): No!

  Eva: How dare you say that, sir!

  Ox: No! A thousand times no! You will know what you aspire to know, and your eyes will see what you aspire to see, if your courage does not fail.

  George: It will never fail. Go on-but isn't this all an empty dream?

  Ox: I will lead you into reality itself.

  George: Into reality!

  Ox (taking a vial from his pocket): See this vial. Anyone who drinks a few drops of this potion will be carried away with the speed of a thunderbolt, and under conditions of a new life, to regions where man is forbidden to go. There will be no more intervals of time and distance. Men will fly as fast as lightning. Days will go by in a few seconds, years in a few minutes.

  George: And will I reach the earth's central fire?

  Ox: Yes!

  George: And the bottom of the ocean?

  Ox: Yes!

  George: And go as far into outer space as I want?

  Ox: Yes!

  George: Ali! That would truly be an impossibility.

  Ox: An impossibility that you will accomplish, because I will make your body capable of going unharmed to places where men burn, to places where they drown. You'll be able to breathe even where there is no more air to breathe. You'll be carried away as if by a whirlwind, and return as the hero of the impossible, the hero who explored the most unfathomable mysteries of nature.

  Eva: To try to do something like that is not only insane, George, it's criminal, it's sacrilegious.

  Mme de Traventhal (terrified): Yes, my daughter is right. In heaven's name, sir, say no more.

  George: Let him speak, grandmother, let him speak. Doctor, I believe in you. I'm ready to follow you.

  Eva: George, you'd be deserting us, deserting the woman who took you in and loved you as her own child. And deserting me, too, George!

  Ox (shouts): Go ahead, beg, weep, soften his heart, weaken his soul, cast him back into his childhood, this son of Hatteras, just when I was about to make a man of him.

  Mme de Traventhal (to Eva): Good God!

  George (shouts): Son of Hatteras, did you say? I'm the son of Hatteras, the son of the daring navigator who made his way to the North Pole?

  Ox: Yes, yes, that illustrious man was your father.

  George: My father! The man whose wonderful tales I read so avidly. The man I always wanted to imitate.

  Ox: And you will surpass him if you want to.

  George: Ah! Nothing will ever stop me now.

  Mme de Traventhal: Alas! All is lost.

  Eva: This man is the evil genius of our family.

  Ox (aside): Now he is mine!

  (Enter Master Volsius)

  Master Volsius: Excuse me, ladies and gentlemen, am I at the home of Mme de Traventhal?

  Mme de Traventhal: You are, sir. May I know ... ?

  Volsius: Madam, as I was leaving the cathedral I happened to find this prayer book. Thinking it belonged to someone in the castle, I took the liberty.... Perhaps it is yours, madam?

  Mme de Traventhal: No.

  Volsius (to Ox): Is it yours, then, sir? Yes, it must be yours.

  Ox (drawing back): Mine?

  Volsius: Take it, sir, do take it.

  Ox (still drawing back): Mine? This book? No, I tell you, no!

  Volsius: Oh! Don't be afraid. It won't burn your fingers.

  Eva (approaching): It's my prayer book. I left it behind in church this morning. Thank you for bringing it back to me.

  Ox: But who are you, sir?

  Volsius: I, sir? I am the organist at the cathedral.

  Eva: Master Volsius!

  All: Master Volsius!

  George: Volsius, the great musician!

  Volsius: Volsius, the humble organist, sir.

  Ox (aside): What's he doing here?

  Eva: Ah, sir, we have heard you many times in the cathedral, and been thrilled by your sublime harmonies!

  Volsius: I am only a poor musician, miss.

  Mme de Traventhal: The doors of Andernak Castle will always be open to you.

  Ox (aside): We'll see about that.

  Mme de Traventhal (introducing): My granddaughter Eva.

  Volsius: How do you do?

  Mme de Traventhal (introducing George): Her fiance, George....

  George (hastily): George Hatteras.

  Volsius: The son of the famous Captain Hatteras?

  George (excitedly): Yes, yes, he's my father, and I'm going to equal his achievements, and even surpass his discoveries, thanks to the learned Dr. Ox.

  Volsius (turning to Ox): Dr. Ox! I have heard a great deal about Dr. Ox. I hope I find you well, Dr. Ox?

  Ox (turning his back on him): Very well ... Master ... Volsius.

  Volsius: They say, doctor, that you have the power to make the human body capable of going through the impossible.

  Ox: And what they say is true, Master Volsius.

  Volsius: Even capable of understanding those mysteries that God seems to have reserved for Himself alone.

  Ox: Yes, we shall penetrate those impenetrable mysteries.

  Volsius: And you are offering the son of Captain Hatteras an opportunity to carry on in his own name the attempts that failed, even in mythology-an opportunity to repeat the experiments of Icarus?

  Ox: Yes, but without destroying his wings.

  Volsius: The adventures of Prometheus?

  Ox: Yes, but with no danger from the vulture's talons.

  Volsius: And the efforts of the Titans?"

  Ox: Yes, but with no danger of being struck by Jupiter's thunderbolt.

  Volsius: In fact, then, you are very strong.

  Tartelet (aside): My goodness, it seems to me that the organist is the cleverest of them all.

  Ox: I think, Master Volsius, that you are making fun of the power this potion bestows. Well, drink a few drops of it, and you will have no more doubts.

  Volsius: Thank you, doctor, but I have no need of it.

  George (reaching for the vial): Give it to me, then. Give it to me.

  Volsius (stopping his arm): Young man, the vain attempts I have just mentioned may not have touched your soul. No one believes in this fictitious mythology. But open the holy scriptures and there you will find more ambitious arrogance, more audacious rebellions-and more dreadful punishments. And they are real, and so terrible that Dr. Ox himself would be afraid to face them.

  Ox (angrily): What punishments? Tell me. Answer me!

  Volsius (gently): Excuse me, doctor. A thousand pardons. I am not expressing myself.... I can only speak clearly, they say, with my fingers. I'll try to make myself understood. (He goes to the organ and sits down.) I'll try to show you to what abysmal depths sacrilegious pride can sink.

  Ox: What is he going to do?


  Eva: 0 Lord, inspire him. Save George. 0 Lord, Lord, save us all.

  he organ sounds)

  The back of the hall is open and the sides have disappeared, to reveal the decor representing an angel falling. Dr. Ox backs away at first, then returns upstage and watches.

  Ox: It's the angel falling.

  Volsius (going up to him): This is the punishment for pride.

  Ox: You're a wonderful musician, Master Volsius, but the fallen angel fell gloriously. The grandeur of his fall lent almost as much brilliance to his name as did his daring rebellion. He won glory. Glory above all!

  George: Yes, yes. Glory, glory!

  Ox: That's where I will lead you.

  Volsius: Yes, to glory, or to madness.

  Mme de Traventhal: Madness!

  Volsius: But wherever he goes, he will find me in his way.

  (Exit Volsius and Eva)

  Ox: Come, George Hatteras, take this vial and drink!

  (George drinks)

  Eva (snatching the vial from him): Well, I won't desert you, George. I'll share the dangers.

  (She drinks, too, and throws away the vial.)

  George: Eva, what have you done?

  Ox: Both of them! All right, so be it!

  Tartelet (picks up the vial): What? Just with this potion, you could.... (He drinks) Let's go, then.

  The terrace of an Italian inn, with vine-covered pillars. On the right, an inn with doors and windows. Pergola and benches on the terrace. In the left background can be seen Vesuvius,13 its crater wreathed in smoke. To the right extends the beginning of the Bay of Naples.14 It is daytime.

  (Enter George, Eva, Ox, and Tartelet)

  Tartelet: Where are we? I don't see the town of Aalborg, or the spires of the cathedral.

  George (to Ox): Where are we, doctor?

  Ox: In Naples, not far from Vesuvius. You can see its summit.

  George: Vesuvius! That's the crater where Professor Lidenbrok came out.

  Ox: And the crater through which we will penetrate to the center of our globe.

  Eva: Right to the fiery lake! George! It's time for you to stop.

  George: Don't be afraid, Eva.

  Tartelet: Dear me, I seem to be hungry. You can't travel six hundred leagues without a little something to eat.