Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Seas Part 97

"Well, sir?" Ned Land went on, seeing that I hadn't replied.

"Well, Ned, you want me to ask Captain Nemo what he intends to do with us?"

"Yes, sir."

"Even though he has already made that clear?"

"Yes. I want it settled once and for all. Speak just for me, strictly on my behalf, if you want."

"But I rarely encounter him. He positively avoids me."

"All the more reason you should go look him up."

"I'll confer with him, Ned."

"When?" the Canadian asked insistently.

"When I encounter him."

"Professor Aronnax, would you like me to go find him myself?"

"No, let me do it. Tomorrow--"

"Today," Ned Land said.

"So be it. I'll see him today," I answered the Canadian, who, if he took action himself, would certainly have ruined everything.

I was left to myself. His request granted, I decided to dispose of it immediately. I like things over and done with.

I reentered my stateroom. From there I could hear movements inside Captain Nemo's quarters. I couldn't pa.s.s up this chance for an encounter. I knocked on his door. I received no reply.

I knocked again, then tried the k.n.o.b. The door opened.

I entered. The captain was there. He was bending over his worktable and hadn't heard me. Determined not to leave without questioning him, I drew closer. He looked up sharply, with a frowning brow, and said in a pretty stern tone:

"Oh, it's you! What do you want?"

"To speak with you, captain."

"But I'm busy, sir, I'm at work. I give you the freedom to enjoy your privacy, can't I have the same for myself?"

This reception was less than encouraging. But I was determined to give as good as I got.

"Sir," I said coolly, "I need to speak with you on a matter that simply can't wait."

"Whatever could that be, sir?" he replied sarcastically.

"Have you made some discovery that has escaped me? Has the sea yielded up some novel secret to you?"

We were miles apart. But before I could reply, he showed me a ma.n.u.script open on the table and told me in a more serious tone:

"Here, Professor Aronnax, is a ma.n.u.script written in several languages.

It contains a summary of my research under the sea, and G.o.d willing, it won't perish with me. Signed with my name, complete with my life story, this ma.n.u.script will be enclosed in a small, unsinkable contrivance.

The last surviving man on the Nautilus will throw this contrivance into the sea, and it will go wherever the waves carry it."

The man's name! His life story written by himself!

So the secret of his existence might someday be unveiled?

But just then I saw this announcement only as a lead-in to my topic.

"Captain," I replied, "I'm all praise for this idea you're putting into effect. The fruits of your research must not be lost.

But the methods you're using strike me as primitive. Who knows where the winds will take that contrivance, into whose hands it may fall?

Can't you find something better? Can't you or one of your men--"

"Never, sir," the captain said, swiftly interrupting me.

"But my companions and I would be willing to safeguard this ma.n.u.script, and if you give us back our freedom--"

"Your freedom!" Captain Nemo put in, standing up.

"Yes, sir, and that's the subject on which I wanted to confer with you.

For seven months we've been aboard your vessel, and I ask you today, in the name of my companions as well as myself, if you intend to keep us here forever."

"Professor Aronnax," Captain Nemo said, "I'll answer you today just as I did seven months ago: whoever boards the Nautilus must never leave it."

"What you're inflicting on us is outright slavery!"

"Call it anything you like."

"But every slave has the right to recover his freedom!

By any worthwhile, available means!"

"Who has denied you that right?" Captain Nemo replied.

"Did I ever try to bind you with your word of honor?"

The captain stared at me, crossing his arms.

"Sir," I told him, "to take up this subject a second time would be distasteful to both of us. So let's finish what we've started.

I repeat: it isn't just for myself that I raise this issue.

To me, research is a relief, a potent diversion, an enticement, a pa.s.sion that can make me forget everything else. Like you, I'm a man neglected and unknown, living in the faint hope that someday I can pa.s.s on to future generations the fruits of my labors--figuratively speaking, by means of some contrivance left to the luck of winds and waves.

In short, I can admire you and comfortably go with you while playing a role I only partly understand; but I still catch glimpses of other aspects of your life that are surrounded by involvements and secrets that, alone on board, my companions and I can't share.

And even when our hearts could beat with yours, moved by some of your griefs or stirred by your deeds of courage and genius, we've had to stifle even the slightest token of that sympathy that arises at the sight of something fine and good, whether it comes from friend or enemy.

All right then! It's this feeling of being alien to your deepest concerns that makes our situation unacceptable, impossible, even impossible for me but especially for Ned Land. Every man, by virtue of his very humanity, deserves fair treatment.

Have you considered how a love of freedom and hatred of slavery could lead to plans of vengeance in a temperament like the Canadian's, what he might think, attempt, endeavor . . . ?"

I fell silent. Captain Nemo stood up.

"Ned Land can think, attempt, or endeavor anything he wants, what difference is it to me? I didn't go looking for him!

I don't keep him on board for my pleasure! As for you, Professor Aronnax, you're a man able to understand anything, even silence.

I have nothing more to say to you. Let this first time you've come to discuss this subject also be the last, because a second time I won't even listen."

I withdrew. From that day forward our position was very strained.