Путешествие к центру Земли / A Journey to the Centre of the Earth

The Professor jumped up, clapped on his hat, and prepared to go out.

“Uncle!” I cried.

He did not hear me.

“Uncle Liedenbrock!” I cried, lifting up my voice.

“Ay,” he answered.

“Uncle, that key!”

“What key? The door key?”

“No, no!” I cried. “The key of the document.”

The Professor stared at me over his spectacles. I nodded my head up and down.

“Yes, that key, chance—”

“What is that you are saying?” he shouted with indescribable emotion.

“There, read that!” I said, presenting a sheet of paper on which I wrote the sentences.

“But there is nothing in this,” he answered.

“No, nothing until you proceed to read from the end to the beginning.”

A new revelation burst in upon the Professor. He was transformed!

“Aha, clever Saknussemm!” he cried. And he read the whole document from the last letter to the first:

In Sneffels Joculis craterem quem delibat

Umbra Scartaris Julii

intra calendas descende,

Audax viator,

et terrestre centrum attinges.

Quod feci, Arne Saknussemm.

Which may be translated thus:

“Descend, bold traveller, into the crater of the Jokul of Sneffels[23 - Sneffels – Снеффелс], which the shadow of Scartaris [24 - Scartaris – Скартарис]touches before the kalends [25 - kalends – календы; в древнеримском календаре название первого дня каждого месяца.]of July, and you will attain the centre of the Earth; which I have done, Arne Saknussemm.

My uncle sprang very high. He seized his head between both his hands; he pushed the chairs out of their places, he piled up his books. At last his nerves calmed down, and he sank back into his armchair.

“What’s the time?” he asked after a few moments of silence.

“Three o’clock,” I replied.

“Is it really? It’s the dinner-hour! I am half dead with hunger[26 - I am half dead with hunger. – Я умираю от голода.

“Well?”

“After dinner, pack up my trunk.”

“What?” I cried.

“And yours!” replied the indefatigable Professor, entering the dining-room.

6

At these words a cold shiver ran through me. Yet I controlled myself. During all dinner time my uncle was almost merry. After the dessert, he invited me into his study.

I obeyed; he sat at one end of his table, I at the other.