Chapter 8 "Mobilis in Mobili" Kapitel 8 "Mobilis in Mobili" Capítulo 8 "Mobilis in Mobili" Chapitre 8 "Mobilis in Mobili" 8 skyrius "Mobilis in Mobili" Capítulo 8 "Mobilis in Mobili" (Mobilis em Mobili) Глава 8 "Mobilis in Mobili" Bölüm 8 "Mobilis in Mobili" 第 8 章“Mobili 中的 Mobilis”

THIS BRUTALLY EXECUTED capture was carried out with lightning speed. My companions and I had no time to collect ourselves. I don't know how they felt about being shoved inside this aquatic prison, but as for me, I was shivering all over. Je ne sais pas ce qu'ils ressentaient à l'idée d'être poussés dans cette prison aquatique, mais moi, je tremblais de tous mes membres. With whom were we dealing? Surely with some new breed of pirates, exploiting the sea after their own fashion. Sûrement avec une nouvelle race de pirates, exploitant la mer à leur manière.

The narrow hatch had barely closed over me when I was surrounded by profound darkness. L'étroite trappe s'est à peine refermée sur moi que je suis entouré d'une profonde obscurité. Saturated with the outside light, my eyes couldn't make out a thing. Saturés par la lumière extérieure, mes yeux ne distinguaient rien. I felt my naked feet clinging to the steps of an iron ladder. J'ai senti mes pieds nus s'accrocher aux marches d'une échelle de fer. Forcibly seized, Ned Land and Conseil were behind me. Saisis de force, Ned Land et Conseil étaient derrière moi. At the foot of the ladder, a door opened and instantly closed behind us with a loud clang.

We were alone. Where? I couldn't say, could barely even imagine. All was darkness, but such utter darkness that after several minutes, my eyes were still unable to catch a single one of those hazy gleams that drift through even the blackest nights. Tout était dans l'obscurité, mais une obscurité si totale qu'après plusieurs minutes, mes yeux n'arrivaient toujours pas à capter une seule de ces lueurs floues qui traversent les nuits les plus noires.

Meanwhile, furious at these goings on, Ned Land gave free rein to his indignation. Pendant ce temps, Ned Land, furieux de ces agissements, laisse libre cours à son indignation.

"Damnation!" he exclaimed. "These people are about as hospitable as the savages of New Caledonia! All that's lacking is for them to be cannibals! Il ne leur manque plus que d'être cannibales ! I wouldn't be surprised if they were, but believe you me, they won't eat me without my kicking up a protest!" Cela ne m'étonnerait pas, mais croyez-moi, ils ne me mangeront pas sans que je proteste !" "Calm yourself, Ned my friend," Conseil replied serenely. "Don't flare up so quickly! We aren't in a kettle yet!" "In a kettle, no," the Canadian shot back, "but in an oven for sure. It's dark enough for one. Luckily my Bowie knife hasn't left me, and I can still see well enough to put it to use. * The first one of these bandits who lays a hand on me—" *Author's Note: A Bowie knife is a wide–bladed dagger that Americans are forever carrying around. "Don't be so irritable, Ned," I then told the harpooner, "and don't ruin things for us with pointless violence. Who knows whether they might be listening to us? Instead, let's try to find out where we are!" I started moving, groping my way. After five steps I encountered an iron wall made of riveted boilerplate. Then, turning around, I bumped into a wooden table next to which several stools had been set. Puis, en me retournant, je me suis heurté à une table en bois à côté de laquelle plusieurs tabourets avaient été installés. The floor of this prison lay hidden beneath thick, hempen matting that deadened the sound of footsteps. Le sol de cette prison est caché sous une épaisse natte de chanvre qui amortit le bruit des pas. Its naked walls didn't reveal any trace of a door or window. Going around the opposite way, Conseil met up with me, and we returned to the middle of this cabin, which had to be twenty feet long by ten wide. As for its height, not even Ned Land, with his great stature, was able to determine it. Quant à sa hauteur, même Ned Land, avec sa grande taille, n'a pas pu la déterminer.

Half an hour had already gone by without our situation changing, when our eyes were suddenly spirited from utter darkness into blinding light. Une demi-heure s'est déjà écoulée sans que notre situation ne change, lorsque nos yeux passent soudain de l'obscurité la plus totale à une lumière aveuglante. Our prison lit up all at once; in other words, it filled with luminescent matter so intense that at first I couldn't stand the brightness of it. From its glare and whiteness, I recognized the electric glow that had played around this underwater boat like some magnificent phosphorescent phenomenon. À son éclat et à sa blancheur, j'ai reconnu la lueur électrique qui avait joué autour de ce bateau sous-marin comme un magnifique phénomène phosphorescent. After involuntarily closing my eyes, I reopened them and saw that this luminous force came from a frosted half globe curving out of the cabin's ceiling. "Finally! It's light enough to see!" Ned Land exclaimed, knife in hand, staying on the defensive.

"Yes," I replied, then ventured the opposite view. "Oui", ai-je répondu, puis je me suis aventuré dans l'autre sens. "But as for our situation, we're still in the dark." "Mais pour ce qui est de notre situation, nous sommes encore dans le flou." "Master must learn patience," said the emotionless Conseil. This sudden illumination of our cabin enabled me to examine its tiniest details. It contained only a table and five stools. Its invisible door must have been hermetically sealed. Not a sound reached our ears. Everything seemed dead inside this boat. Was it in motion, or stationary on the surface of the ocean, or sinking into the depths? Était-il en mouvement, ou stationnaire à la surface de l'océan, ou en train de s'enfoncer dans les profondeurs ? I couldn't tell. But this luminous globe hadn't been turned on without good reason. Consequently, I hoped that some crewmen would soon make an appearance. If you want to consign people to oblivion, you don't light up their dungeons. Si quieres relegar a la gente al olvido, no ilumines sus mazmorras. Si l'on veut condamner les gens à l'oubli, on n'éclaire pas leurs donjons. I was not mistaken. Unlocking noises became audible, a door opened, and two men appeared.

One was short and stocky, powerfully muscled, broad shouldered, robust of limbs, the head squat, the hair black and luxuriant, the mustache heavy, the eyes bright and penetrating, and his whole personality stamped with that southern–blooded zest that, in France, typifies the people of Provence. Uno de ellos era bajo y fornido, poderosamente musculoso, ancho de hombros, robusto de miembros, la cabeza achaparrada, el pelo negro y frondoso, el bigote espeso, los ojos brillantes y penetrantes, y toda su personalidad marcada con ese entusiasmo de sangre sureña que, en Francia, tipifica a la gente de Provenza. The philosopher Diderot has very aptly claimed that a man's bearing is the clue to his character, and this stocky little man was certainly a living proof of this claim. Le philosophe Diderot a très justement affirmé que l'allure d'un homme est l'indice de son caractère, et ce petit homme trapu était certainement une preuve vivante de cette affirmation. You could sense that his everyday conversation must have been packed with such vivid figures of speech as personification, symbolism, and misplaced modifiers. On sent que sa conversation quotidienne devait être truffée de figures de style aussi vivantes que la personnification, le symbolisme et les modificateurs mal placés. But I was never in a position to verify this because, around me, he used only an odd and utterly incomprehensible dialect.

The second stranger deserves a more detailed description. A disciple of such character–judging anatomists as Gratiolet or Engel could have read this man's features like an open book. Un disciple de Gratiolet ou d'Engel, ces anatomistes qui jugent les caractères, aurait pu lire les traits de cet homme comme un livre ouvert. Without hesitation, I identified his dominant qualities—self–confidence, since his head reared like a nobleman's above the arc formed by the lines of his shoulders, and his black eyes gazed with icy assurance; calmness, since his skin, pale rather than ruddy, indicated tranquility of blood; energy, shown by the swiftly knitting muscles of his brow; and finally courage, since his deep breathing denoted tremendous reserves of vitality. Sans hésiter, j'ai identifié ses qualités dominantes : l'assurance, car sa tête se dressait comme celle d'un noble au-dessus de l'arc formé par les lignes de ses épaules, et ses yeux noirs le fixaient avec une assurance glaciale ; le calme, car sa peau, plus pâle que rouge, indiquait la tranquillité du sang ; l'énergie, montrée par les muscles de son front qui se nouaient rapidement ; et enfin le courage, car sa respiration profonde dénotait d'immenses réserves de vitalité. I might add that this was a man of great pride, that his calm, firm gaze seemed to reflect thinking on an elevated plane, and that the harmony of his facial expressions and bodily movements resulted in an overall effect of unquestionable candor—according to the findings of physiognomists, those analysts of facial character. J'ajouterai qu'il s'agissait d'un homme d'une grande fierté, que son regard calme et ferme semblait refléter une pensée élevée, et que l'harmonie de ses expressions faciales et de ses mouvements corporels donnait un effet général de candeur incontestable, selon les conclusions des physiognomistes, ces analystes du caractère du visage.

I felt "involuntarily reassured" in his presence, and this boded well for our interview. Whether this individual was thirty–five or fifty years of age, I could not precisely state. He was tall, his forehead broad, his nose straight, his mouth clearly etched, his teeth magnificent, his hands refined, tapered, and to use a word from palmistry, highly "psychic," in other words, worthy of serving a lofty and passionate spirit. Il était grand, le front large, le nez droit, la bouche nettement dessinée, les dents magnifiques, les mains fines, effilées, et pour reprendre un mot de la chiromancie, hautement "psychiques", c'est-à-dire dignes de servir un esprit élevé et passionné. This man was certainly the most wonderful physical specimen I had ever encountered. One unusual detail: his eyes were spaced a little far from each other and could instantly take in nearly a quarter of the horizon. Détail insolite : ses yeux sont un peu éloignés les uns des autres et peuvent embrasser instantanément près d'un quart de l'horizon. This ability—as I later verified—was strengthened by a range of vision even greater than Ned Land's. When this stranger focused his gaze on an object, his eyebrow lines gathered into a frown, his heavy eyelids closed around his pupils to contract his huge field of vision, and he looked! Lorsque cet étranger fixait son regard sur un objet, ses sourcils se fronçaient, ses lourdes paupières se refermaient sur ses pupilles pour contracter son immense champ de vision, et il regardait ! What a look—as if he could magnify objects shrinking into the distance; as if he could probe your very soul; as if he could pierce those sheets of water so opaque to our eyes and scan the deepest seas . Quel regard ! Comme s'il pouvait grossir des objets qui s'éloignent, comme s'il pouvait sonder votre âme, comme s'il pouvait percer ces nappes d'eau si opaques à nos yeux et scruter les mers les plus profondes... Wearing caps made of sea–otter fur, and shod in sealskin fishing boots, these two strangers were dressed in clothing made from some unique fabric that flattered the figure and allowed great freedom of movement. Coiffés de bonnets en fourrure de loutre de mer et chaussés de bottes de pêche en peau de phoque, ces deux étrangers étaient vêtus d'un tissu unique qui flattait la silhouette et permettait une grande liberté de mouvement.

The taller of the two—apparently the leader on board—examined us with the greatest care but without pronouncing a word. Then, turning to his companion, he conversed with him in a language I didn't recognize. It was a sonorous, harmonious, flexible dialect whose vowels seemed to undergo a highly varied accentuation. C'est un dialecte sonore, harmonieux, souple, dont les voyelles semblent subir une accentuation très variée.

The other replied with a shake of the head and added two or three utterly incomprehensible words. Then he seemed to question me directly with a long stare.

I replied in clear French that I wasn't familiar with his language; but he didn't seem to understand me, and the situation grew rather baffling. Je lui ai répondu dans un français clair que je ne connaissais pas sa langue, mais il n'a pas semblé me comprendre et la situation est devenue plutôt déconcertante. "Still, master should tell our story," Conseil said to me. "Perhaps these gentlemen will grasp a few words of it!" I tried again, telling the tale of our adventures, clearly articulating my every syllable, and not leaving out a single detail. I stated our names and titles; then, in order, I introduced Professor Aronnax, his manservant Conseil, and Mr. Ned Land, harpooner. J'ai énoncé nos noms et nos titres, puis, dans l'ordre, j'ai présenté le professeur Aronnax, son valet Conseil et M. Ned Land, harponneur.

The man with calm, gentle eyes listened to me serenely, even courteously, and paid remarkable attention. But nothing in his facial expression indicated that he understood my story. When I finished, he didn't pronounce a single word. One resource still left was to speak English. Perhaps they would be familiar with this nearly universal language. But I only knew it, as I did the German language, well enough to read it fluently, not well enough to speak it correctly. Mais je ne la connaissais, comme je connaissais la langue allemande, qu'assez bien pour la lire couramment, pas assez pour la parler correctement. Here, however, our overriding need was to make ourselves understood.

"Come on, it's your turn," I told the harpooner. "Over to you, Mr. Land. Pull out of your bag of tricks the best English ever spoken by an Anglo–Saxon, and try for a more favorable result than mine." Sortez de votre sac à malices le meilleur anglais jamais parlé par un Anglo-Saxon, et essayez d'obtenir un résultat plus favorable que le mien". Ned needed no persuading and started our story all over again, most of which I could follow. Ned n'a pas eu besoin d'être persuadé et a recommencé notre histoire, dont j'ai pu suivre la plus grande partie. Its content was the same, but the form differed. Carried away by his volatile temperament, the Canadian put great animation into it. He complained vehemently about being imprisoned in defiance of his civil rights, asked by virtue of which law he was hereby detained, invoked writs of habeas corpus, threatened to press charges against anyone holding him in illegal custody, ranted, gesticulated, shouted, and finally conveyed by an expressive gesture that we were dying of hunger. Il s'est plaint avec véhémence d'être emprisonné au mépris de ses droits civiques, a demandé en vertu de quelle loi il était détenu, a invoqué des brefs d'habeas corpus, a menacé de porter plainte contre toute personne le détenant illégalement, a fulminé, gesticulé, crié, et a finalement fait savoir par un geste expressif que nous mourions de faim.

This was perfectly true, but we had nearly forgotten the fact.

Much to his amazement, the harpooner seemed no more intelligible than I had been. À son grand étonnement, le harponneur ne semblait pas plus intelligible que moi. Our visitors didn't bat an eye. Apparently they were engineers who understood the languages of neither the French physicist Arago nor the English physicist Faraday. Il s'agissait apparemment d'ingénieurs qui ne comprenaient ni la langue du physicien français Arago ni celle du physicien anglais Faraday.

Thoroughly baffled after vainly exhausting our philological resources, I no longer knew what tactic to pursue, when Conseil told me:

"If master will authorize me, I'll tell the whole business in German." "What! You know German?" I exclaimed.

"Like most Flemish people, with all due respect to master." "Comme la plupart des Flamands, avec tout le respect dû au maître." "On the contrary, my respect is due you. Go to it, my boy." And Conseil, in his serene voice, described for the third time the various vicissitudes of our story. But despite our narrator's fine accent and stylish turns of phrase, the German language met with no success. Finally, as a last resort, I hauled out everything I could remember from my early schooldays, and I tried to narrate our adventures in Latin. Cicero would have plugged his ears and sent me to the scullery, but somehow I managed to pull through. Cicéron se serait bouché les oreilles et m'aurait envoyé à l'arrière-cuisine, mais j'ai réussi à m'en sortir. With the same negative result.

This last attempt ultimately misfiring, the two strangers exchanged a few words in their incomprehensible language and withdrew, not even favoring us with one of those encouraging gestures that are used in every country in the world. The door closed again.

"This is outrageous!" Ned Land shouted, exploding for the twentieth time. "I ask you! We speak French, English, German, and Latin to these rogues, and neither of them has the decency to even answer back!" "Calm down, Ned," I told the seething harpooner. "Anger won't get us anywhere." "But professor," our irascible companion went on, "can't you see that we could die of hunger in this iron cage?" "Mais professeur", poursuit notre irascible compagnon, "ne voyez-vous pas que nous pourrions mourir de faim dans cette cage de fer ?". "Bah!" Conseil put in philosophically. "We can hold out a good while yet!" "Nous pouvons tenir un bon moment encore !" "My friends," I said, "we mustn't despair. We've gotten out of tighter spots. Nous nous sommes sortis de situations plus délicates. So please do me the favor of waiting a bit before you form your views on the commander and crew of this boat." "My views are fully formed," Ned Land shot back. "Mes opinions sont entièrement formées", a rétorqué Ned Land. "They're rogues!" "Ce sont des voyous !" "Oh good! And from what country?" "Roguedom!" "Roguedom !" "My gallant Ned, as yet that country isn't clearly marked on maps of the world, but I admit that the nationality of these two strangers is hard to make out! Neither English, French, nor German, that's all we can say. But I'm tempted to think that the commander and his chief officer were born in the low latitudes. Mais je suis tenté de penser que le commandant et son second sont nés sous les basses latitudes. There must be southern blood in them. But as to whether they're Spaniards, Turks, Arabs, or East Indians, their physical characteristics don't give me enough to go on. And as for their speech, it's utterly incomprehensible." "That's the nuisance in not knowing every language," Conseil replied, "or the drawback in not having one universal language!" "C'est l'inconvénient de ne pas connaître toutes les langues", a répondu M. Conseil, "ou l'inconvénient de ne pas avoir une langue universelle". "Which would all go out the window!" "Ce qui ne serait plus le cas !" Ned Land replied.

"Don't you see, these people have a language all to themselves, a language they've invented just to cause despair in decent people who ask for a little dinner! "Vous ne voyez pas que ces gens-là ont un langage bien à eux, un langage qu'ils ont inventé pour désespérer les honnêtes gens qui demandent un petit dîner ! Why, in every country on earth, when you open your mouth, snap your jaws, smack your lips and teeth, isn't that the world's most understandable message? Pourquoi, dans tous les pays du monde, lorsqu'on ouvre la bouche, qu'on claque des mâchoires, qu'on claque des lèvres et des dents, n'est-ce pas le message le plus compréhensible au monde ? From Quebec to the Tuamotu Islands, from Paris to the Antipodes, doesn't it mean: I'm hungry, give me a bite to eat!" "Oh," Conseil put in, "there are some people so unintelligent by nature . ." As he was saying these words, the door opened. A steward entered. * He brought us some clothes, jackets and sailor's pants, made out of a fabric whose nature I didn't recognize. I hurried to change into them, and my companions followed suit. Je me suis empressé de les enfiler et mes compagnons ont fait de même.

*Author's Note: A steward is a waiter on board a steamer. Meanwhile our silent steward, perhaps a deaf–mute, set the table and laid three place settings. Mientras tanto, nuestro silencioso mayordomo, tal vez sordomudo, puso la mesa y dispuso tres cubiertos.

"There's something serious afoot," Conseil said, "and it bodes well." "Il y a quelque chose de sérieux qui se prépare", a déclaré M. Conseil, "et c'est de bon augure". "Bah!" replied the rancorous harpooner. "What the devil do you suppose they eat around here? "Que diable pensez-vous qu'ils mangent par ici ? Turtle livers, loin of shark, dogfish steaks?" ¿Hígados de tortuga, lomo de tiburón, filetes de cazón?". Foies de tortue, longe de requin, steaks de roussette ?" "We'll soon find out!" Conseil said.

Overlaid with silver dish covers, various platters had been neatly positioned on the table cloth, and we sat down to eat. Recouverts de housses en argent, divers plateaux avaient été soigneusement disposés sur la nappe, et nous nous sommes assis pour manger. Assuredly, we were dealing with civilized people, and if it hadn't been for this electric light flooding over us, I would have thought we were in the dining room of the Hotel Adelphi in Liverpool, or the Grand Hotel in Paris. Assurément, nous avions affaire à des gens civilisés, et s'il n'y avait pas eu cette lumière électrique qui nous inondait, je me serais cru dans la salle à manger de l'hôtel Adelphi à Liverpool, ou du Grand Hôtel à Paris. However, I feel compelled to mention that bread and wine were totally absent. The water was fresh and clear, but it was still water—which wasn't what Ned Land had in mind. L'eau était fraîche et claire, mais c'était encore de l'eau - ce qui n'était pas ce que Ned Land avait à l'esprit. Among the foods we were served, I was able to identify various daintily dressed fish; but I couldn't make up my mind about certain otherwise excellent dishes, and I couldn't even tell whether their contents belonged to the vegetable or the animal kingdom. Parmi les aliments qui nous ont été servis, j'ai pu identifier plusieurs poissons joliment apprêtés, mais je n'ai pas pu me décider pour certains plats par ailleurs excellents, et je n'ai même pas pu dire si leur contenu appartenait au règne végétal ou au règne animal. As for the tableware, it was elegant and in perfect taste. Each utensil, spoon, fork, knife, and plate, bore on its reverse a letter encircled by a Latin motto, and here is its exact duplicate: Chaque ustensile, cuillère, fourchette, couteau, assiette, portait au revers une lettre entourée d'une devise latine, dont voici le double exact :

MOBILIS IN MOBILI MOBILIS IN MOBILI

Moving within the moving element! It was a highly appropriate motto for this underwater machine, so long as the preposition in is translated as within and not upon. C'était une devise tout à fait appropriée pour cette machine sous-marine, à condition que la préposition in soit traduite par within et non par upon. The letter "N" was no doubt the initial of the name of that mystifying individual in command beneath the seas! Ned and Conseil had no time for such musings. They were wolfing down their food, and without further ado I did the same. Ils étaient en train d'engloutir leur nourriture et, sans plus attendre, j'ai fait de même. By now I felt reassured about our fate, and it seemed obvious that our hosts didn't intend to let us die of starvation. But all earthly things come to an end, all things must pass, even the hunger of people who haven't eaten for fifteen hours. Mais toutes les choses terrestres ont une fin, toutes les choses passent, même la faim de ceux qui n'ont pas mangé depuis quinze heures. Our appetites appeased, we felt an urgent need for sleep. A natural reaction after that interminable night of fighting for our lives.

"Ye gods, I'll sleep soundly," Conseil said. "Je vais dormir sur mes deux oreilles", a déclaré M. Conseil. "Me, I'm out like a light!" "Moi, je me suis éteint comme une traînée de poudre !" Ned Land replied.

My two companions lay down on the cabin's carpeting and were soon deep in slumber. Mis dos compañeros se tumbaron en la moqueta del camarote y no tardaron en sumirse en el sueño. As for me, I gave in less readily to this intense need for sleep. Quant à moi, j'ai cédé moins facilement à ce besoin intense de sommeil. Too many thoughts had piled up in my mind, too many insoluble questions had arisen, too many images were keeping my eyelids open! Where were we? What strange power was carrying us along? I felt—or at least I thought I did—the submersible sinking toward the sea's lower strata. Intense nightmares besieged me. In these mysterious marine sanctuaries, I envisioned hosts of unknown animals, and this underwater boat seemed to be a blood relation of theirs: living, breathing, just as fearsome . Dans ces mystérieux sanctuaires marins, j'imaginais des hôtes d'animaux inconnus, et ce bateau sous-marin semblait être l'un de leurs parents : vivant, respirant et tout aussi redoutable. Then my mind grew calmer, my imagination melted into hazy drowsiness, and I soon fell into an uneasy slumber. Puis mon esprit s'apaisa, mon imagination se fondit dans une somnolence brumeuse et je tombai bientôt dans un sommeil pénible.