“What’s going on?” the cook demanded as she came into the room. “When is the master going to have his dinner?”
“Never.”
“And supper?”
“I don’t know. He says he won’t eat anymore, and neither will I. My uncle has decided that we are both going to fast until he figures out this horrible inscription.”
“You’ll starve to death!”
I thought she was probably right, but I didn’t want to admit it. I sent her away and went back to my usual work of sorting and classifying things.
But it was impossible to concentrate. My thoughts kept jumping between that ridiculous manuscript and the lovely Gretchen.
Several times I thought about leaving the house, but my uncle would have been furious if he found me gone. After about an hour, I finished the work he had assigned me.
Now what?
I lit my pipe. Like most students, I loved tobacco. I settled into the big armchair and tried to think of something else.
Where was my uncle?
I could easily picture him marching along some lonely road, waving his arms, talking to himself, chopping at the air with his walking stick, and thinking about nothing but those ridiculous symbols.
Would he find a clue?
Would he come home in a better mood?
As I sat there, I absentmindedly picked up the terrible manuscript again. I began trying every possible way of grouping the letters.
Two at a time.
Three at a time.
Four.
Five.
Nothing worked.
Except that a few groups seemed to form actual words. The fourteenth, fifteenth, and sixteenth letters made ice in English. The eighty-fourth, eighty-fifth, and eighty-sixth seemed to make sir.
Then I thought I recognized several Latin words:
rota, mutabile, ira, nec, atra.
“Ha!” I thought. “Perhaps my uncle really is onto something.”
A little farther on, I thought I saw luco, meaning “sacred wood.”
Then, in the third line, there seemed to be labiled, which was a perfectly good Hebrew word.
And at the end I could make out the French syllables mere, are, mer.
It was enough to drive anyone insane.
There were four different languages mixed together in this ridiculous sentence. What could possibly connect ice, sir, anger, cruel, sacred wood, changing, mother, are, and sea?
The first and last words might suggest “sea of ice” if the sentence had something to do with Iceland.
But what about everything else?
I was facing a completely impossible problem.
My head felt as if it were burning. My eyes hurt from staring at the parchment. The letters seemed to dance before me in little black groups.
I was becoming dizzy and confused.
I felt as if I couldn’t breathe.
I needed air.
Without thinking, I began fanning myself with the parchment, turning it over and over in my hands.
Then something caught my eye.
The ink had soaked through the paper.
Looking at the back of the manuscript, I could clearly see several Latin words.
Among them were craterem and terrestre.
I froze.
I had discovered the secret!
The answer came to me like a flash of lightning.
The document had to be read backward!
All my uncle’s clever ideas had been correct. He had dictated the letters exactly as they should be. By pure accident, I had found the one thing he had been searching for.
I was so excited that I could hardly see straight. My eyes were dazzled, and my hands trembled.
I took a deep breath.
“Let me read it,” I whispered.
I spread the parchment across the table. I ran my finger over every letter, spelling the words out carefully.
Then, overcome with excitement, I read the message aloud.
The moment I understood its meaning, terror and shock swept through me.
It was like being struck by a heavy blow.
Was it really saying what I thought it was saying?
Had someone actually accomplished such a terrible thing?
A human being had dared to do what?
No.
No living person should ever know this secret.
“Never!” I cried, jumping to my feet. “My uncle must never find out!”
He would certainly attempt the journey.
Nothing could stop him.
And worse, he would force me to go with him.
We would be lost forever.
“No. I can’t allow such madness.”
I was nearly beside myself with anger.
“My poor uncle is already almost insane,” I shouted. “This discovery would finish him. And if he finds out by accident, we’re both doomed.”
I looked at the parchment.
“Let the terrible secret die here. Let the fire bury it forever.”
I grabbed the book and parchment and was about to throw them into the fireplace when the door suddenly opened.
My uncle walked in.
I barely had time to put the documents down.
He was completely absorbed in his thoughts. His mind was obviously still fixed on the terrible parchment. Some new idea must have occurred to him during his walk.
He sat down in his armchair, took out a pen, and began making calculations.
I watched him nervously.
My skin crawled as I realized he might actually discover the secret.
But I knew his calculations were useless now. I had found the only real clue.
For three long hours he worked without saying a word.
He never looked up.
He scratched calculations onto paper, erased them, rewrote them, and started again.
I knew that sooner or later he might stumble upon the correct arrangement. There were only so many possible combinations of letters.
But it could take years.
Still, time passed.
Night fell.
The streets outside gradually became silent.
My uncle kept working.
He didn’t even answer when the cook called us to dinner.
I didn’t dare leave him, so I waved the cook away.
Eventually, I fell asleep on the sofa.
When I woke up, my uncle was still working.
His eyes were red. His face was pale. His hair was tangled. His hands shook with feverish energy, and his cheeks were strangely flushed.
He looked terrible.
It was painful for me to watch.
My uncle could be strict with me, but I loved him. Seeing him suffer like this broke my heart.
He was completely consumed by one idea.
He had no energy left even to become angry.
Every bit of his strength was focused on solving the mystery.
And I knew that one little word from me could end his suffering.
But I couldn’t say it.
My heart was beginning to weaken.
Why did I remain silent?
Because I believed I was protecting him.
“Nothing will make me tell him,” I muttered. “He’ll want to follow in Saknussemm’s footsteps. I know him too well. His imagination is like a volcano. If he thinks he can make a great geological discovery, he’ll risk his life without hesitation.”
I folded my arms and looked away.
“I must keep this secret. Telling him would be suicide. He would rush straight into danger, and he would drag me along with him.”
So I smoked and said nothing.
Then the cook tried to leave the house to go to the market.
She couldn’t.
The front door was locked, and the key was gone.
Had my uncle done it deliberately?
Surely he didn’t intend for the cook and me to become prisoners simply because of his obsession.
Were we actually going to starve?
A horrible memory suddenly came back to me.
Once, my uncle had spent an entire week sorting a collection of curiosities. During that time, we had survived on scraps of food.
Just thinking about it made my stomach cramp.
I wanted breakfast badly.
But there was no way to get any.
Still, I refused to give in.
I would rather starve than reveal the secret.
Unfortunately, the cook began scolding me seriously.
“What are we supposed to do?” she demanded. “I can’t get outside, and you won’t tell your uncle anything.”
My uncle continued writing and calculating.
His imagination seemed to have carried him away to another world.
He thought neither of food nor drink.
Soon it was noon.
I was starving.
There was nothing left in the house.
The cook had eaten the last piece of bread.
This couldn’t continue.
But it did.
Two o’clock came, and by then I was suffering terribly.
Perhaps, I began to think, this whole document was ridiculous after all.
Maybe it was nothing more than an elaborate joke.
And surely someone could stop my uncle from attempting such a foolish expedition.
Besides, even if he decided to go, perhaps he wouldn’t force me to accompany him.
Then another thought occurred to me.
He might discover the secret himself anyway.
I might starve to death for absolutely nothing.
With hunger twisting my stomach, this seemed like an excellent argument.
I decided to tell him everything.
But how?
I was still thinking about it when my uncle suddenly stood up and put on his hat.
What?
Was he going out again?
Was he going to lock us inside?
Never!
“Uncle,” I began.
He didn’t seem to hear me.
“Professor Hardwigg!” I shouted.
“What?” he snapped. “Did you say something?”
“What about the key?”
“What key? The key to the door?”
“No. The key to these horrible hieroglyphics.”
He stared at me over his spectacles.
Then he noticed the strange expression on my face.
He rushed toward me, grabbed my arm, and stared intensely into my eyes.
His expression seemed to ask a single question.
I simply nodded.
He shook his head in disbelief and turned away.
He clearly thought I had lost my mind.
“I’ve made a very important discovery.”
His eyes suddenly flashed.
He raised his hand excitedly.
For a moment neither of us spoke.
It was difficult to say which one of us was more excited.
“You mean you’ve discovered what this scribble means?”
“I have,” I replied desperately. “Look at the sentence exactly as you dictated it.”
“Well, it means nothing,” he said angrily.
“Nothing if you read it from left to right. But look at it from right to left—”
“Backward!” my uncle cried.
He stared at me in amazement.
“Oh, brilliant Saknussemm! And I was blind enough not to see it!”
He snatched up the parchment.
With wild eyes, he read it aloud just as I had.
It said:
In Sneffels Yoculis craterem kem delibat
umbra Scartaris Julii intra calendas descende,
audas viator, et terrestre centrum attinges.
Kod feci. Arne Saknussemm
The strange Latin could be translated roughly as:
Descend into the crater of Yocul of Sneffels, which the shadow of Scartaris touches before the first day of July, bold traveler, and you will reach the center of the Earth.
I did it.
Arne Saknussemm
My uncle jumped nearly three feet into the air.
He looked completely transformed.
He was radiant with happiness.
He rushed around the room like a madman, knocking over chairs and tables and throwing books everywhere.
At last, completely exhausted, he collapsed into his armchair.
“What time is it?” he asked.
“About three.”
“My dinner seems to have done me very little good,” he said. “I’m starving. Give me something to eat. Then we can leave immediately. Get my suitcase ready.”
“What for?”
“And yours too,” he added. “We leave at once.”
I was horrified.
But I decided not to show it.
Only scientific arguments could influence my uncle now.
And I had plenty of scientific reasons against this insane journey.
The very idea of traveling to the center of the Earth was absurd.
I decided to explain all of this after dinner.
My uncle was now furious with the cook because there was no meal ready.
I explained what had happened, and that seemed to satisfy him.
Once she had the key, the cook quickly managed to prepare enough food to satisfy our enormous hunger.
During dinner, my uncle was actually in a cheerful mood.
He made several strange jokes of the kind only scholars seem to understand.
But as soon as we finished dessert, he called me into his study.
We sat opposite each other across the table.
“Henry,” he said in a gentle and friendly voice, “I have always believed you were an intelligent young man. Today you have done me a service I will never forget.”
I waited.
“Without you, we would never have made this extraordinary discovery. Therefore, it is only right that you should share in its glory.”
He was in a good mood.
I thought, Now is my chance to tell him exactly what I think about this so-called glory.
“In the first place,” he continued, “you must keep this entire matter absolutely secret.”
“Why?”
“There is no more jealous group of people in the world than scientific discoverers. If word gets out, others will immediately try to make the same journey.”
He leaned forward.
“At any rate, we shall be the first.”
“I doubt you’ll have many competitors,” I replied.
“Any true scientist would jump at such an opportunity. If this document became public, we would soon have crowds of adventurers following the trail of Arne Saknussemm.”
“But surely this document could be a hoax?”
“The book itself proves that it is genuine.”
“I admit that the famous Professor wrote the words. But I think he may have written them simply as a joke.”
The moment I said it, I regretted it.
My uncle gave me a dark, threatening look.
I began to worry about how the conversation might end.
But his expression soon softened.
A smile replaced the frown.
“We shall see,” he said firmly.
“But what exactly are Yocul, Sneffels, and Scartaris? I’ve never even heard of them.”
“That is precisely what I was about to explain.”
He stood up.
“My friend Augustus Petermann of Leipzig recently sent me a map. Go to the second shelf and take down the third atlas. Series Z, plate four.”
I got up, found the atlas, and brought it back.
“This,” my uncle said, “is one of the finest maps of Iceland ever made. I believe it will answer all your doubts, questions, and objections.”
Hoping with all my heart that it would prove him wrong, I bent over the map.