XLV

XLV

THIS IS THE END of a story that even people who are not usually amazed at anything may refuse to believe. But I am armed in advance against human incredulity.

The Stromboli fishermen received us with the care that is due to victims of shipwreck. They gave us clothing and food. After forty-eight hours of waiting, a small rowboat took us to Messinacf on August 31, where a few days of rest helped us recover from all our exhaustion.

On Friday, September 4, we embarked on the steamer Volturne, one of the steamships used by the imperial French postal services, and three days later we landed in Marseilles, with only one worry left on our minds, that of the accursed compass. This inexplicable fact kept bothering me very seriously. On the evening of September 9, we arrived in Hamburg.

Martha’s amazement and Graüben’s joy I will not even try to describe.

“Now that you’re a hero, Axel,” said my dear fiancee to me, “you won’t need to leave me ever again!”

I looked at her. She cried and smiled at the same time.

I will leave it to you to guess whether Professor Lidenbrock’s return to Hamburg caused a sensation. Thanks to Martha’s indiscretion, the news of his departure for the center of the earth had spread around the whole world. People refused to believe it, and when they saw him again, they refused to believe even more.

But Hans’ presence and various pieces of information that had come from Iceland gradually changed public opinion.

Then my uncle became a great man, and myself the nephew of a great man, which is at least something. Hamburg gave a party in our honor. A public lecture took place at the Johanneum, where the professor told the story of his expedition and omitted only the facts relating to the compass. On the same day, he deposited Saknussemm’s document in the municipal archives and expressed his deep regret that circumstances more powerful than his will had prevented him from following the traces of the Icelandic traveler to the center of the earth. He was humble in his glory, and his reputation increased even more.

So much honor inevitably had to create envy. It did, and since his theories, supported by solid facts, contradicted existing scientific theories on the question of core heat, he had remarkable discussions with scholars of all countries, in writing and in person.

For my part, I cannot agree with his theory of cooling: in spite of what I have seen, I believe and will always believe in core heat; but I admit that certain as yet ill-defined circumstances can modify this law under the impact of natural phenomena.

At the moment when these questions were most exciting, my uncle experienced a real distress. Hans, in spite of his entreaties, had left Hamburg; the man to whom we owed everything did not want to let us pay him our debt. He was overcome by nostalgia for Iceland.

“Farval,” he said one day, and with that simple word of farewell he left for Reykjavik, where he arrived safely.

We were extremely attached to our brave eider-down hunter; in spite of his absence, he will never be forgotten by those whose lives he has saved, and certainly I will not die before I have seen him again one last time.

To conclude, I should add that this Journey to the Center of the Earth caused an enormous sensation in the world. It was printed and translated into all languages; the leading newspapers snatched the main episodes from each other, which were commented on, debated, attacked and defended with equal conviction in the camp of the believers as in that of the skeptics. A rare thing! My uncle was able to enjoy in his lifetime all the fame he had attained, and even Mr. Barnum himself proposed to “exhibit” him in the States of the Union for a very high price.

But one concern, one might even say a torment, remained in the middle of this glory One fact remained inexplicable, the one involving the compass; now, for a scholar, such an unexplained phenomenon becomes torture for the intelligence. Well! Heaven had destined my uncle to become completely happy

One day, when I was arranging a collection of minerals in his study, I noticed that famous compass in a corner, and I began to examine it.

It had been there for six months, unaware of the trouble it was causing.

Suddenly, what amazement! I gave a shout. The professor came running.

“What’s the matter?” he asked.

“That compass!”

“Well?”

“But its needle is pointing south and not north!”

“What are you saying?”

“Look! Its poles are reversed.”

“Reversed!”

My uncle looked, compared, and made the house shake with a gigantic leap.

What light broke in on his spirit and mine at the same time!

“So then,” he exclaimed, as soon as he was able to speak again, “after we arrived at Cape Saknussemm, the needle of this damned compass pointed south instead of north?”

“Obviously.”

“That’s the explanation for our mistake. But what phenomenon could have caused this reversal of the poles?”

“Nothing easier.”

“Tell me, Axel.”

“During the storm on the Lidenbrock Sea, that ball of fire which magnetized the iron on the raft had very simply disoriented our compass!”

“Ah!” shouted the professor and broke out in laughter. “So it was an electric trick?”

From that day on, the professor was the happiest of scholars, and I was the happiest of men, for my pretty Virland girl, resigning her place as ward, took up position in the house on the Konigstrasse in the double capacity of niece and wife. No need to add that her uncle was the illustrious Otto Lidenbrock, corresponding member of all the scientific, geographical, and mineralogical societies on the five continents of the earth.