Двадцать тысяч лье под водой / Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea

Among these books I noted masterpieces by the greats of ancient and modern times. Books on history, poetry, fiction, and science, mechanics, ballistics, hydrography, meteorology, geography, geology, natural history, astronomy!

“Sir,” I told the captain, “thank you for placing this library at my disposal. There are scientific treasures here, and I’ll take advantage of them.”

“This room isn’t only a library,” Captain Nemo said, “it’s also a smoking room.”

“A smoking room?” I exclaimed.

“Then one may smoke on board?”

“Surely.”

“In that case, sir, I’m forced to believe that you’ve kept up relations with Havana.”

“None whatever,” the captain replied. “Try this cigar, Professor Aronnax, and even though it doesn’t come from Havana, it will satisfy you.”

I took the cigar that was offered me, whose shape recalled those from Cuba; but it seemed to be made of gold leaf. I lit it.

“It’s excellent,” I said, “but it’s not from the tobacco plant.

”

“Right,” the captain replied, “this tobacco comes from neither Havana nor the Orient. It’s a kind of nicotine-rich seaweed that the ocean supplies me. Smoke these cigars whenever you like, without debating their origin.”

Then Captain Nemo opened a door, and I passed into an immense, splendidly lit lounge.

It was a huge quadrilateral with canted corners, ten meters long, six wide, five high. A luminous ceiling, decorated with delicate arabesques, distributed a soft, clear daylight over all the wonders gathered in this museum.

For a museum it truly was!

Thirty pictures by the masters, tapestries of austere design. There I saw canvases of the highest value. Wonderful miniature statues in marble or bronze, modeled after antiquity’s finest originals, stood on their pedestals in the corners of this magnificent museum.

“Sir,” I replied, “might I venture to identify you as an artist?”

“A collector, sir, nothing more. Formerly I loved acquiring these beautiful works created by the hand of man, and I’ve been able to gather some objects of great value.

They’re my last mementos of those shores that are now dead for me. In my eyes, your modern artists are already as old as the ancients. They’ve existed for 2,000 or 3,000 years, and I mix them up in my mind. The masters are ageless.”

Captain Nemo fell silent and seemed lost in reverie. I regarded him with intense excitement.