A Journey to the Interior of the Earth

CHAPTER I.

THE PRO­FES­SOR AND HIS FAM­ILY

On the 24th of May, 1863, my un­cle, Pro­fes­sor Lieden­brock, rushed in­to his lit­tle house, No. 19 Königstrasse, one of the old­est streets in the old­est por­tion of the city of Ham­burg.

Martha must have con­clud­ed that she was very much be­hind­hand, for the din­ner had on­ly just been put in­to the oven.

“Well, now,” said I to my­self, “if that most im­pa­tient of men is hun­gry, what a dis­tur­bance he will make!”

“M. Lieden­brock so soon!” cried poor Martha in great alarm, half open­ing the din­ing-​room door.

“Yes, Martha; but very like­ly the din­ner is not half cooked, for it is not two yet. Saint Michael’s clock has on­ly just struck half-​past one.”

“Then why has the mas­ter come home so soon?”

“Per­haps he will tell us that him­self.”

“Here he is, Mon­sieur Ax­el; I will run and hide my­self while you ar­gue with him.”

And Martha re­treat­ed in safe­ty in­to her own do­min­ions.

I was left alone. But how was it pos­si­ble for a man of my un­de­cid­ed turn of mind to ar­gue suc­cess­ful­ly with so iras­ci­ble a per­son as the Pro­fes­sor? With this per­sua­sion I was hur­ry­ing away to my own lit­tle re­treat up­stairs, when the street door creaked up­on its hinges; heavy feet made the whole flight of stairs to shake; and the mas­ter of the house, pass­ing rapid­ly through the din­ing-​room, threw him­self in haste in­to his own sanc­tum.

But on his rapid way he had found time to fling his hazel stick in­to a cor­ner, his rough broad­brim up­on the ta­ble, and these few em­phat­ic words at his nephew:

“Ax­el, fol­low me!”

I had scarce­ly had time to move when the Pro­fes­sor was again shout­ing af­ter me:

“What! not come yet?”

And I rushed in­to my re­doubtable mas­ter’s study.

Ot­to Lieden­brock had no mis­chief in him, I will­ing­ly al­low that; but un­less he very con­sid­er­ably changes as he grows old­er, at the end he will be a most orig­inal char­ac­ter.

He was pro­fes­sor at the Jo­han­næum, and was de­liv­er­ing a se­ries of lec­tures on min­er­al­ogy, in the course of ev­ery one of which he broke in­to a pas­sion once or twice at least. Not at all that he was over-​anx­ious about the im­prove­ment of his class, or about the de­gree of at­ten­tion with which they lis­tened to him, or the suc­cess which might even­tu­al­ly crown his labours. Such lit­tle mat­ters of de­tail nev­er trou­bled him much. His teach­ing was as the Ger­man phi­los­ophy calls it, ’sub­jec­tive’; it was to ben­efit him­self, not oth­ers. He was a learned ego­tist. He was a well of sci­ence, and the pul­leys worked un­easi­ly when you want­ed to draw any­thing out of it. In a word, he was a learned miser.

Ger­many has not a few pro­fes­sors of this sort.

To his mis­for­tune, my un­cle was not gift­ed with a suf­fi­cient­ly rapid ut­ter­ance; not, to be sure, when he was talk­ing at home, but cer­tain­ly in his pub­lic de­liv­ery; this is a want much to be de­plored in a speak­er. The fact is, that dur­ing the course of his lec­tures at the Jo­han­næum, the Pro­fes­sor of­ten came to a com­plete stand­still; he fought with wil­ful words that re­fused to pass his strug­gling lips, such words as re­sist and dis­tend the cheeks, and at last break out in­to the unasked-​for shape of a round and most un­sci­en­tif­ic oath: then his fury would grad­ual­ly abate.

Now in min­er­al­ogy there are many half-​Greek and half-​Latin terms, very hard to ar­tic­ulate, and which would be most try­ing to a po­et’s mea­sures. I don’t wish to say a word against so re­spectable a sci­ence, far be that from me. True, in the au­gust pres­ence of rhom­bo­he­dral crys­tals, reti­nas­phaltic resins, gehlen­ites, Fas­saites, molyb­den­ites, tungstates of man­ganese, and ti­tan­ite of zir­co­ni­um, why, the most facile of tongues may make a slip now and then.

It there­fore hap­pened that this ve­nial fault of my un­cle’s came to be pret­ty well un­der­stood in time, and an un­fair ad­van­tage was tak­en of it; the stu­dents laid wait for him in dan­ger­ous places, and when he be­gan to stum­ble, loud was the laugh­ter, which is not in good taste, not even in Ger­mans. And if there was al­ways a full au­di­ence to hon­our the Lieden­brock cours­es, I should be sor­ry to con­jec­ture how many came to make mer­ry at my un­cle’s ex­pense.

Nev­er­the­less my good un­cle was a man of deep learn­ing - a fact I am most anx­ious to as­sert and re­assert. Some­times he might ir­re­triev­ably in­jure a spec­imen by his too great ar­dour in han­dling it; but still he unit­ed the ge­nius of a true ge­ol­ogist with the keen eye of the min­er­al­ogist. Armed with his ham­mer, his steel point­er, his mag­net­ic nee­dles, his blow­pipe, and his bot­tle of ni­tric acid, he was a pow­er­ful man of sci­ence. He would re­fer any min­er­al to its prop­er place among the six hun­dred [l] el­emen­tary sub­stances now enu­mer­at­ed, by its frac­ture, its ap­pear­ance, its hard­ness, its fusibil­ity, its sonorous­ness, its smell, and its taste.

The name of Lieden­brock was hon­ourably men­tioned in col­leges and learned so­ci­eties. Humphry Davy, [2] Hum­boldt, Cap­tain Sir John Franklin, Gen­er­al Sabine, nev­er failed to call up­on him on their way through Ham­burg. Bec­quer­el, Ebel­man, Brew­ster, Du­mas, Milne-​Ed­wards, Saint-​Claire-​Dev­ille fre­quent­ly con­sult­ed him up­on the most dif­fi­cult prob­lems in chem­istry, a sci­ence which was in­debt­ed to him for con­sid­er­able dis­cov­er­ies, for in 1853 there had ap­peared at Leipzig an im­pos­ing fo­lio by Ot­to Lieden­brock, en­ti­tled, “A Trea­tise up­on Tran­scen­den­tal Chem­istry,” with plates; a work, how­ev­er, which failed to cov­er its ex­pens­es.

To all these ti­tles to hon­our let me add that my un­cle was the cu­ra­tor of the mu­se­um of min­er­al­ogy formed by M. Struve, the Rus­sian am­bas­sador; a most valu­able col­lec­tion, the fame of which is Eu­ro­pean.

Such was the gen­tle­man who ad­dressed me in that im­petu­ous man­ner. Fan­cy a tall, spare man, of an iron con­sti­tu­tion, and with a fair com­plex­ion which took off a good ten years from the fifty he must own to. His rest­less eyes were in in­ces­sant mo­tion be­hind his full-​sized spec­ta­cles. His long, thin nose was like a knife blade. Boys have been heard to re­mark that that or­gan was mag­ne­tised and at­tract­ed iron fil­ings. But this was mere­ly a mis­chievous re­port; it had no at­trac­tion ex­cept for snuff, which it seemed to draw to it­self in great quan­ti­ties.

When I have added, to com­plete my por­trait, that my un­cle walked by math­emat­ical strides of a yard and a half, and that in walk­ing he kept his fists firm­ly closed, a sure sign of an ir­ri­ta­ble tem­per­ament, I think I shall have said enough to dis­en­chant any one who should by mis­take have cov­et­ed much of his com­pa­ny.

He lived in his own lit­tle house in Königstrasse, a struc­ture half brick and half wood, with a gable cut in­to steps; it looked up­on one of those wind­ing canals which in­ter­sect each oth­er in the mid­dle of the an­cient quar­ter of Ham­burg, and which the great fire of 1842 had for­tu­nate­ly spared.

[1] Six­ty-​three. (Tr.)

[2] As Sir Humphry Davy died in 1829, the trans­la­tor must be par­doned for point­ing out here an anachro­nism, un­less we are to as­sume that the learned Pro­fes­sor’s celebri­ty dawned in his ear­li­est years. (Tr.)

It is true that the old house stood slight­ly off the per­pen­dic­ular, and bulged out a lit­tle to­wards the street; its roof sloped a lit­tle to one side, like the cap over the left ear of a Tu­gend­bund stu­dent; its lines want­ed ac­cu­ra­cy; but af­ter all, it stood firm, thanks to an old elm which but­tressed it in front, and which of­ten in spring sent its young sprays through the win­dow panes.

My un­cle was tol­er­ably well off for a Ger­man pro­fes­sor. The house was his own, and ev­ery­thing in it. The liv­ing con­tents were his god-​daugh­ter Gräuben, a young Vir­landaise of sev­en­teen, Martha, and my­self. As his nephew and an or­phan, I be­came his lab­ora­to­ry as­sis­tant.

I freely con­fess that I was ex­ceed­ing­ly fond of ge­ol­ogy and all its kin­dred sci­ences; the blood of a min­er­al­ogist was in my veins, and in the midst of my spec­imens I was al­ways hap­py.

In a word, a man might live hap­pi­ly enough in the lit­tle old house in the Königstrasse, in spite of the rest­less im­pa­tience of its mas­ter, for al­though he was a lit­tle too ex­citable - he was very fond of me. But the man had no no­tion how to wait; na­ture her­self was too slow for him. In April, af­ter a had plant­ed in the ter­ra-​cot­ta pots out­side his win­dow seedling plants of mignonette and con­volvu­lus, he would go and give them a lit­tle pull by their leaves to make them grow faster. In deal­ing with such a strange in­di­vid­ual there was noth­ing for it but prompt obe­di­ence. I there­fore rushed af­ter him.