From the Earth to the Moon; and, Round the Moon

CHAPTER VII

A MO­MENT OF IN­TOX­ICA­TION

Thus a phe­nomenon, cu­ri­ous but ex­pli­ca­ble, was hap­pen­ing un­der these strange con­di­tions.

Ev­ery ob­ject thrown from the pro­jec­tile would fol­low the same course and nev­er stop un­til it did. There was a sub­ject for con­ver­sa­tion which the whole evening could not ex­haust.

Be­sides, the ex­cite­ment of the three trav­el­ers in­creased as they drew near the end of their jour­ney. They ex­pect­ed un­forseen in­ci­dents, and new phe­nom­ena; and noth­ing would have as­ton­ished them in the frame of mind they then were in. Their overex­cit­ed imag­ina­tion went faster than the pro­jec­tile, whose speed was ev­ident­ly di­min­ish­ing, though in­sen­si­bly to them­selves. But the moon grew larg­er to their eyes, and they fan­cied if they stretched out their hands they could seize it.

The next day, the 5th of Novem­ber, at five in the morn­ing, all three were on foot. That day was to be the last of their jour­ney, if all cal­cu­la­tions were true. That very night, at twelve o’clock, in eigh­teen hours, ex­act­ly at the full moon, they would reach its bril­liant disc. The next mid­night would see that jour­ney end­ed, the most ex­traor­di­nary of an­cient or mod­ern times. Thus from the first of the morn­ing, through the scut­tles sil­vered by its rays, they salut­ed the orb of night with a con­fi­dent and joy­ous hur­rah.

The moon was ad­vanc­ing ma­jes­ti­cal­ly along the star­ry fir­ma­ment. A few more de­grees, and she would reach the ex­act point where her meet­ing with the pro­jec­tile was to take place.

Ac­cord­ing to his own ob­ser­va­tions, Bar­bi­cane reck­oned that they would land on her north­ern hemi­sphere, where stretch im­mense plains, and where moun­tains are rare. A fa­vor­able cir­cum­stance if, as they thought, the lu­nar at­mo­sphere was stored on­ly in its depths.

“Be­sides,” ob­served Michel Ar­dan, “a plain is eas­ier to dis­em­bark up­on than a moun­tain. A Se­len­ite, de­posit­ed in Eu­rope on the sum­mit of Mont Blanc, or in Asia on the top of the Hi­malayas, would not be quite in the right place.”

“And,” added Cap­tain Nicholl, “on a flat ground, the pro­jec­tile will re­main mo­tion­less when it has once touched; where­as on a de­cliv­ity it would roll like an avalanche, and not be­ing squir­rels we should not come out safe and sound. So it is all for the best.”

In­deed, the suc­cess of the au­da­cious at­tempt no longer ap­peared doubt­ful. But Bar­bi­cane was pre­oc­cu­pied with one thought; but not wish­ing to make his com­pan­ions un­easy, he kept si­lence on this sub­ject.

The di­rec­tion the pro­jec­tile was tak­ing to­ward the moon’s north­ern hemi­sphere, showed that her course had been slight­ly al­tered. The dis­charge, math­emat­ical­ly cal­cu­lat­ed, would car­ry the pro­jec­tile to the very cen­ter of the lu­nar disc. If it did not land there, there must have been some de­vi­ation. What had caused it? Bar­bi­cane could nei­ther imag­ine nor de­ter­mine the im­por­tance of the de­vi­ation, for there were no points to go by.

He hoped, how­ev­er, that it would have no oth­er re­sult than that of bring­ing them near­er the up­per bor­der of the moon, a re­gion more suit­able for land­ing.

With­out im­part­ing his un­easi­ness to his com­pan­ions, Bar­bi­cane con­tent­ed him­self with con­stant­ly ob­serv­ing the moon, in or­der to see whether the course of the pro­jec­tile would not be al­tered; for the sit­ua­tion would have been ter­ri­ble if it failed in its aim, and be­ing car­ried be­yond the disc should be launched in­to in­ter­plan­etary space. At that mo­ment, the moon, in­stead of ap­pear­ing flat like a disc, showed its con­vex­ity. If the sun’s rays had struck it oblique­ly, the shad­ow thrown would have brought out the high moun­tains, which would have been clear­ly de­tached. The eye might have gazed in­to the crater’s gap­ing abysses, and fol­lowed the capri­cious fis­sures which wound through the im­mense plains. But all re­lief was as yet lev­eled in in­tense bril­lian­cy. They could scarce­ly dis­tin­guish those large spots which give the moon the ap­pear­ance of a hu­man face.

“Face, in­deed!” said Michel Ar­dan; “but I am sor­ry for the ami­able sis­ter of Apol­lo. A very pit­ted face!”

But the trav­el­ers, now so near the end, were in­ces­sant­ly ob­serv­ing this new world. They imag­ined them­selves walk­ing through its un­known coun­tries, climb­ing its high­est peaks, de­scend­ing in­to its low­est depths. Here and there they fan­cied they saw vast seas, scarce­ly kept to­geth­er un­der so rar­efied an at­mo­sphere, and wa­ter-​cours­es emp­ty­ing the moun­tain trib­utaries. Lean­ing over the abyss, they hoped to catch some sounds from that orb for­ev­er mute in the soli­tude of space. That last day left them.

They took down the most tri­fling de­tails. A vague un­easi­ness took pos­ses­sion of them as they neared the end. This un­easi­ness would have been dou­bled had they felt how their speed had de­creased. It would have seemed to them quite in­suf­fi­cient to car­ry them to the end. It was be­cause the pro­jec­tile then “weighed” al­most noth­ing. Its weight was ev­er de­creas­ing, and would be en­tire­ly an­ni­hi­lat­ed on that line where the lu­nar and ter­res­tri­al at­trac­tions would neu­tral­ize each oth­er.

But in spite of his pre­oc­cu­pa­tion, Michel Ar­dan did not for­get to pre­pare the morn­ing repast with his ac­cus­tomed punc­tu­al­ity. They ate with a good ap­petite. Noth­ing was so ex­cel­lent as the soup liq­ue­fied by the heat of the gas; noth­ing bet­ter than the pre­served meat. Some glass­es of good French wine crowned the repast, caus­ing Michel Ar­dan to re­mark that the lu­nar vines, warmed by that ar­dent sun, ought to dis­till even more gen­er­ous wines; that is, if they ex­ist­ed. In any case, the far-​see­ing French­man had tak­en care not to for­get in his col­lec­tion some pre­cious cut­tings of the Medoc and Cote d’Or, up­on which he found­ed his hopes.

Reiset and Reg­naut’s ap­pa­ra­tus worked with great reg­ular­ity. Not an atom of car­bon­ic acid re­sist­ed the potash; and as to the oxy­gen, Cap­tain Nicholl said “it was of the first qual­ity.” The lit­tle wa­tery va­por en­closed in the pro­jec­tile mix­ing with the air tem­pered the dry­ness; and many apart­ments in Lon­don, Paris, or New York, and many the­aters, were cer­tain­ly not in such a healthy con­di­tion.

But that it might act with reg­ular­ity, the ap­pa­ra­tus must be kept in per­fect or­der; so each morn­ing Michel vis­it­ed the es­cape reg­ula­tors, tried the taps, and reg­ulat­ed the heat of the gas by the py­rom­eter. Ev­ery­thing had gone well up to that time, and the trav­el­ers, im­itat­ing the wor­thy Joseph T. Mas­ton, be­gan to ac­quire a de­gree of em­bon­point which would have ren­dered them un­rec­og­niz­able if their im­pris­on­ment had been pro­longed to some months. In a word, they be­haved like chick­ens in a coop; they were get­ting fat.

In look­ing through the scut­tle Bar­bi­cane saw the specter of the dog, and oth­er divers ob­jects which had been thrown from the pro­jec­tile, ob­sti­nate­ly fol­low­ing them. Di­ana howled lugubri­ous­ly on see­ing the re­mains of Satel­lite, which seemed as mo­tion­less as if they re­posed on sol­id earth.

“Do you know, my friends,” said Michel Ar­dan, “that if one of us had suc­cumbed to the shock con­se­quent on de­par­ture, we should have had a great deal of trou­ble to bury him? What am I say­ing? to _ether­ize_ him, as here ether takes the place of earth. You see the ac­cus­ing body would have fol­lowed us in­to space like a re­morse.”

“That would have been sad,” said Nicholl.

“Ah!” con­tin­ued Michel, “what I re­gret is not be­ing able to take a walk out­side. What volup­tuous­ness to float amid this ra­di­ant ether, to bathe one­self in it, to wrap one­self in the sun’s pure rays. If Bar­bi­cane had on­ly thought of fur­nish­ing us with a div­ing ap­pa­ra­tus and an air-​pump, I could have ven­tured out and as­sumed fan­ci­ful at­ti­tudes of feigned mon­sters on the top of the pro­jec­tile.”

“Well, old Michel,” replied Bar­bi­cane, “you would not have made a feigned mon­ster long, for in spite of your div­er’s dress, swollen by the ex­pan­sion of air with­in you, you would have burst like a shell, or rather like a bal­loon which has risen too high. So do not re­gret it, and do not for­get this– as long as we float in space, all sen­ti­men­tal walks be­yond the pro­jec­tile are for­bid­den.”

Michel Ar­dan al­lowed him­self to be con­vinced to a cer­tain ex­tent. He ad­mit­ted that the thing was dif­fi­cult but not im­pos­si­ble, a word which he nev­er ut­tered.

The con­ver­sa­tion passed from this sub­ject to an­oth­er, not fail­ing him for an in­stant. It seemed to the three friends as though, un­der present con­di­tions, ideas shot up in their brains as leaves shoot at the first warmth of spring. They felt be­wil­dered. In the mid­dle of the ques­tions and an­swers which crossed each oth­er, Nicholl put one ques­tion which did not find an im­me­di­ate so­lu­tion.

“Ah, in­deed!” said he; “it is all very well to go to the moon, but how to get back again?”

His two in­ter­locu­tors looked sur­prised. One would have thought that this pos­si­bil­ity now oc­curred to them for the first time.

“What do you mean by that, Nicholl?” asked Bar­bi­cane grave­ly.

“To ask for means to leave a coun­try,” added Michel, “When we have not yet ar­rived there, seems to me rather in­op­por­tune.”

“I do not say that, wish­ing to draw back,” replied Nicholl; “but I re­peat my ques­tion, and I ask, `How shall we re­turn?’”

“I know noth­ing about it,” an­swered Bar­bi­cane.

“And I,” said Michel, “if I had known how to re­turn, I would nev­er have start­ed.”

“There’s an an­swer!” cried Nicholl.

“I quite ap­prove of Michel’s words,” said Bar­bi­cane; “and add, that the ques­tion has no re­al in­ter­est. Lat­er, when we think it is ad­vis­able to re­turn, we will take coun­sel to­geth­er. If the Columbi­ad is not there, the pro­jec­tile will be.”

“That is a step cer­tain­ly. A ball with­out a gun!”

“The gun,” replied Bar­bi­cane, “can be man­ufac­tured. The pow­der can be made. Nei­ther met­als, salt­peter, nor coal can fail in the depths of the moon, and we need on­ly go 8,000 leagues in or­der to fall up­on the ter­res­tri­al globe by virtue of the mere laws of weight.”

“Enough,” said Michel with an­ima­tion. “Let it be no longer a ques­tion of re­turn­ing: we have al­ready en­ter­tained it too long. As to com­mu­ni­cat­ing with our for­mer earth­ly col­leagues, that will not be dif­fi­cult.”

“And how?”

“By means of me­te­ors launched by lu­nar vol­ca­noes.”

“Well thought of, Michel,” said Bar­bi­cane in a con­vinced tone of voice. “Laplace has cal­cu­lat­ed that a force five times greater than that of our gun would suf­fice to send a me­te­or from the moon to the earth, and there is not one vol­cano which has not a greater pow­er of propul­sion than that.”

“Hur­rah!” ex­claimed Michel; “these me­te­ors are handy post­men, and cost noth­ing. And how we shall be able to laugh at the post-​of­fice ad­min­is­tra­tion! But now I think of it—-“

“What do you think of?”

“A cap­ital idea. Why did we not fas­ten a thread to our pro­jec­tile, and we could have ex­changed tele­grams with the earth?”

“The deuce!” an­swered Nicholl. “Do you con­sid­er the weight of a thread 250,000 miles long noth­ing?”

“As noth­ing. They could have tre­bled the Columbi­ad’s charge; they could have quadru­pled or quin­tu­pled it!” ex­claimed Michel, with whom the verb took a high­er in­to­na­tion each time.

“There is but one lit­tle ob­jec­tion to make to your propo­si­tion,” replied Bar­bi­cane, “which is that, dur­ing the ro­tary mo­tion of the globe, our thread would have wound it­self round it like a chain on a cap­stan, and that it would in­evitably have brought us to the ground.”

“By the thir­ty-​nine stars of the Union!” said Michel, “I have noth­ing but im­prac­ti­ca­ble ideas to-​day; ideas wor­thy of J. T. Mas­ton. But I have a no­tion that, if we do not re­turn to earth, J. T. Mas­ton will be able to come to us.”

“Yes, he’ll come,” replied Bar­bi­cane; “he is a wor­thy and a coura­geous com­rade. Be­sides, what is eas­ier? Is not the Columbi­ad still buried in the soil of Flori­da? Is cot­ton and ni­tric acid want­ed where­with to man­ufac­ture the py­rox­yle? Will not the moon pass the zenith of Flori­da? In eigh­teen years’ time will she not oc­cu­py ex­act­ly the same place as to-​day?”

“Yes,” con­tin­ued Michel, “yes, Mas­ton will come, and with him our friends El­phin­stone, Bloms­ber­ry, all the mem­bers of the Gun Club, and they will be well re­ceived. And by and by they will run trains of pro­jec­tiles be­tween the earth and the moon! Hur­rah for J. T. Mas­ton!”

It is prob­able that, if the Hon. J. T. Mas­ton did not hear the hur­rahs ut­tered in his hon­or, his ears at least tin­gled. What was he do­ing then? Doubt­less, post­ed in the Rocky Moun­tains, at the sta­tion of Long’s Peak, he was try­ing to find the in­vis­ible pro­jec­tile grav­itat­ing in space. If he was think­ing of his dear com­pan­ions, we must al­low that they were not far be­hind him; and that, un­der the in­flu­ence of a strange ex­cite­ment, they were de­vot­ing to him their best thoughts.

But whence this ex­cite­ment, which was ev­ident­ly grow­ing up­on the ten­ants of the pro­jec­tile? Their so­bri­ety could not be doubt­ed. This strange ir­ri­ta­tion of the brain, must it be at­tribut­ed to the pe­cu­liar cir­cum­stances un­der which they found them­selves, to their prox­im­ity to the orb of night, from which on­ly a few hours sep­arat­ed them, to some se­cret in­flu­ence of the moon act­ing up­on their ner­vous sys­tem? Their faces were as rosy as if they had been ex­posed to the roar­ing flames of an oven; their voic­es re­sound­ed in loud ac­cents; their words es­caped like a cham­pagne cork driv­en out by car­bon­ic acid; their ges­tures be­came an­noy­ing, they want­ed so much room to per­form them; and, strange to say, they none of them no­ticed this great ten­sion of the mind.

“Now,” said Nicholl, in a short tone, “now that I do not know whether we shall ev­er re­turn from the moon, I want to know what we are go­ing to do there?”

“What we are go­ing to do there?” replied Bar­bi­cane, stamp­ing with his foot as if he was in a fenc­ing sa­loon; “I do not know.”

“You do not know!” ex­claimed Michel, with a bel­low which pro­voked a sonorous echo in the pro­jec­tile.

“No, I have not even thought about it,” re­tort­ed Bar­bi­cane, in the same loud tone.

“Well, I know,” replied Michel.

“Speak, then,” cried Nicholl, who could no longer con­tain the growl­ing of his voice.

“I shall speak if it suits me,” ex­claimed Michel, seiz­ing his com­pan­ions’ arms with vi­olence.

“_It must_ suit you,” said Bar­bi­cane, with an eye on fire and a threat­en­ing hand. “It was you who drew us in­to this fright­ful jour­ney, and we want to know what for.”

“Yes,” said the cap­tain, “now that I do not know _where_ I am go­ing, I want to know _why_ I am go­ing.”

“Why?” ex­claimed Michel, jump­ing a yard high, “why? To take pos­ses­sion of the moon in the name of the Unit­ed States; to add a for­ti­eth State to the Union; to col­onize the lu­nar re­gions; to cul­ti­vate them, to peo­ple them, to trans­port thith­er all the prodi­gies of art, of sci­ence, and in­dus­try; to civ­ilize the Se­len­ites, un­less they are more civ­ilized than we are; and to con­sti­tute them a re­pub­lic, if they are not al­ready one!”

“And if there are no Se­len­ites?” re­tort­ed Nicholl, who, un­der the in­flu­ence of this un­ac­count­able in­tox­ica­tion, was very con­tra­dic­to­ry.

“Who said that there were no Se­len­ites?” ex­claimed Michel in a threat­en­ing tone.

“I do,” howled Nicholl.

“Cap­tain,” said Michel, “do not repreat that in­so­lence, or I will knock your teeth down your throat!”

The two ad­ver­saries were go­ing to fall up­on each oth­er, and the in­co­her­ent dis­cus­sion threat­ened to merge in­to a fight, when Bar­bi­cane in­ter­vened with one bound.

“Stop, mis­er­able men,” said he, sep­arat­ing his two com­pan­ions; “if there are no Se­len­ites, we will do with­out them.”

“Yes,” ex­claimed Michel, who was not par­tic­ular; “yes, we will do with­out them. We have on­ly to make Se­len­ites. Down with the Se­len­ites!”

“The em­pire of the moon be­longs to us,” said Nicholl.

“Let us three con­sti­tute the re­pub­lic.”

“I will be the congress,” cried Michel.

“And I the sen­ate,” re­tort­ed Nicholl.

“And Bar­bi­cane, the pres­ident,” howled Michel.

“Not a pres­ident elect­ed by the na­tion,” replied Bar­bi­cane.

“Very well, a pres­ident elect­ed by the congress,” cried Michel; “and as I am the congress, you are unan­imous­ly elect­ed!”

“Hur­rah! hur­rah! hur­rah! for Pres­ident Bar­bi­cane,” ex­claimed Nicholl.

“Hip! hip! hip!” vo­cif­er­at­ed Michel Ar­dan.

Then the pres­ident and the sen­ate struck up in a tremen­dous voice the pop­ular song “Yan­kee Doo­dle,” while from the congress re­sound­ed the mas­cu­line tones of the “Mar­seil­laise.”

Then they struck up a fran­tic dance, with ma­ni­acal ges­tures, id­iot­ic stamp­ings, and som­er­saults like those of the bone­less clowns in the cir­cus. Di­ana, join­ing in the dance, and howl­ing in her turn, jumped to the top of the pro­jec­tile. An un­ac­count­able flap­ping of wings was then heard amid most fan­tas­tic cock-​crows, while five or six hens flut­tered like bats against the walls.

Then the three trav­el­ing com­pan­ions, act­ed up­on by some un­ac­count­able in­flu­ence above that of in­tox­ica­tion, in­flamed by the air which had set their res­pi­ra­to­ry ap­pa­ra­tus on fire, fell mo­tion­less to the bot­tom of the pro­jec­tile.