All day, despite the fiery torrent pouring from the sky, the Terrans remained at their observation-post, watching in terror as the star that might be bringing their death increased in magnitude. The three parts of the comet could now be clearly distinguished: the enormous, monstrous head, surrounded by its luminous tresses, next to which the solar light paled, and the tail, sweeping space with its flaming plume.
As night approached, the atmosphere seemed to catch fire all of a sudden; the heat became stifling, the air grew thinner and, under the burden of an inexplicable asphyxia, the voyagers lost consciousness.
Chapter XXVIII
Riding a Comet
“Now then! That’s a bit much!” Sitting up on his elbow, Flammermont studied his companions, who were lying around him in various positions and sleeping profoundly. The young man had just woken up, and his eyes, as they opened, had naturally turned in Selena’s direction. But was Gontran not yet fully awake, or was he the victim of an optical illusion? The graceful face of the young woman still seemed to him to be as black as ink. He looked at the other voyagers. All of them seemed to have been plunged into soot-bath from top to toe.
“Let’s see,” he stammered, “Let’s see—I must be dreaming…or perhaps, while I was asleep, some inexplicable accident has overtaken my retinas.” He tried to rub his eyes, but an abrupt movement stopped his hands half-way. His hands, too, were black, and his white twill suit appeared to have been starched with black dye.
“What! That really is a bit much!” Not without difficulty, still numbed by the strange sleep that had knocked him out along with his companions, he got to his feet, went to Fricoulet and shook him violently by his shoulders.
“Eh? What? What’s happening?” groaned the startled engineer. Then, perceiving Gontran, who was leaning over him anxiously, he burst out laughing. “Oh, that’s very good!” he said. “You need some soap, my poor friend—unless your skin is so sensitive that 24 hours of Sun have transformed you into an Ethiopian.” He writhed with laughter—and his hilarity increased when he saw that everyone around him had been subjected to the same fate as Flammermont. “Oh, what a fine set of heads!” he exclaimed. “Look, Gontran—Ossipoff’s, with his hairy and bushy beard, looks exactly like a wolf’s head. Ha ha! And Farenheit’s…no, Farenheit’s worth his weight in gold!” Eventually, he succeeded in recovering his self-control and asked: “What is this joke?”
“It was to get an explanation,” Gontran muttered, “that I came to wake you up. You’re mocking the others, but if you take the trouble to look at yourself…” He had taken a small grooming-kit from his pocket and held out a tiny mirror to the engineer, just large enough for him to see one eye and the end of his nose therein.
Fricoulet saw the face of the most successful Auvergnian that had ever embellished a coal-merchant’s shop. “Oh, that’s very good! It’s marvelous!” he exclaimed, through tears of laughter.
“You’d be much better employed explaining the cause of this phenomenon to me,” Gontran grumbled.
The engineer looked around, hoping to find some clue in the neighborhood that would put him on the track of what he sought. Nothing had changed; as on the previous evening, he and his companions were on the summit of the hill on to which they had rolled the sphere. Down below, in the valley depths, blurred by a sort of mist, was the rounded dome of the forest. The noise of the stream tinkling over its pebbles was audible. He got to his feet then, and looked up; the sky was darkened by a kind of fog that was falling in a fine drizzle, or rather an impalpable dust; it was spreading over the ground, giving the plants and the trees a uniform and desolate grey tint.
“Have you ever visited a coal-mining region?” the engineer asked, suddenly.
“No—why?”
“Because our surroundings have exactly the same appearance; one could swear that what’s floating in the air is coal-dust.”
“That doesn’t tell us…”
“Why we’re so utterly ridiculous—you’re right…but perhaps Monsieur Ossipoff can enlighten us on that subject.” And he went over to the old man, with the intention of waking him up.
Gontran stopped him. Plannting himself in front of his friend, he said, desolately: “Do I look as grotesque as all that?”
“Grotesque, no—but you do look like a native from African.” Immediately, he added: “A respectable one, of course.”
The young Comte made a desperate gesture. “But I don’t want Selena to see me like this.”
Fricoulet shrugged. “What inconvenience is there in that, since she’s in exactly the same state? On the contrary, you and she form the best-matched couple one can imagine—from the viewpoint of color, that is.”
“Oh, that’s quite different,” murmured Gontran. “A woman is always beautiful.”
Fricoulet pulled a face. “If you’re so worried about your image,” he said, “it might perhaps be as well for us to have a wash. The stream’s close at hand—let’s hurry to make our ablutions before the others wake up.”
In a few strides, the two friends went down the side of the hill, raising clouds of the fine and impalpable dust in which the ground was covered at every step. Gontran who had drawn a few meters ahead of Fricoulet, uttered a cry of desperation, pointing to the stream. “Ink!” he said. “It’s ink that’s running there, I swear. It’s enough to drive one mad!”
The engineer knelt down on the bank, took a few drops of water in the palm of his hand and observed, to his amazement, that the stream too had been subjected to a transformation analogous to their own.
“Well?” said Flammermont.
“I don’t understand it at all.”
At that moment, exclamations burst forth from the direction of the camp, and the two young men, thinking that there had been an accident, hastened to rejoin their companions.
The latter, having awoken, were standing up, gesticulating like lunatics and speaking with extreme rapidity. “It’s a practical joke, I tell you,” Farenheit howled. “Now, as it’s not carnival time, I don’t accept that anyone can abuse my sleep to ridicule me in this manner.”
“But you’re in error, my dear Mr. Farenheit. How can you think that Monsieur de Flammermont, being such a serious and well-brought-up fellow, could ever…? As for young Fricoulet, though—that one, I could readily believe…”
“No, Papa,” Selena said, in her turn. “Gontran would certainly not have allowed Monsieur Fricoulet to daub me in this fashion.”
“What, then? What?” roared the American, drawing his revolver. “I cannot tolerate such an insult to the starry flag of the United States!”
Mocking laughter burst out behind him, making Farenheit turn round. He found himself face to face with the engineer. “By God!” he exclaimed. “You too!”
“Yes, me too—like you, like Gontran, like the trees, like the stream itself…” He clapped the American on the shoulder amicably. “Calm down, Mr. Farenheit,” he said. “The author of this amiable tomfoolery—for it’s a literal fireplace-builder’s farce128—is not among us. She’s above us, and beyond the reach of your fists…for I suppose that this is simply the work of Dame Nature.”
Ossipoff straightened up abruptly. “What do you suppose, then?” he murmured.
“Me? Nothing at all—except that we’re in the presence of a phenomenon that’s presumably unique to the planet on which we presently find ourselves.”
The American folded his arms and, addressing the old man, said to him with surprising animation: “And you think I’ll be content with that? Me, whom you’ve dragged into this unexpected and unprecedented adventure! When a phenomenon presents itself, it’s your job, as scientists, to explain to the ignorant…”
“Or to imbeciles,” said Fricoulet.
“Or to imbeciles,” repeated the American, “the cause of the phenomenon…and you can shut up! You have nothing to say! No, my dear sir, that can’t be allowed. Since you’re an expert on the sky, you’re supposed to understand the things that happen there. Error, Monsie
ur Ossipoff, error! You’ll answer…” And he aimed the barrel of his revolver at the old man’s breast.
Selena screamed, and Gontran, hurling himself upon the American, disarmed him.
Coldly, Farenheit picked up his carbine and loaded it.
“Now then!” cried Fricoulet. “You’re mad! Is it because you’re disguised as a blackface that you’ve become so ferocious?”
Ossipoff, impassive thus far, advanced toward the American with his fists clenched, in a threatening manner. “Leave him alone,” he growled. “Leave him—I’ll settle this myself.”
Fricoulet put his arms round him. “You think so, Monsieur Ossipoff?” he exclaimed. “But you’re losing your head too! What the Devil’s going on? Come on—a little self-control. Two men like you and Mr. Farenheit can’t use your fists to settle a trivial disagreement like this.” While speaing, he made every effort to restrain the old man, who was struggling and shouting, howling like a fanatic.
Abruptly, Farenheit freed the arms on to which Gontran was hanging, and shook him off so violently and unexpectedly that the poor young man was thrown backwards, landing with his limbs in the air 50 meters away. Then, putting his carbine over his shoulder, the American turned on his heel and strode away. In a few seconds, he had disappeared.
Gontran came back furiously, proffering death-threats. “Where is he?” he growled. “Where is he?”
No one answered him. Ossipoff, seated on the ground, was already absorbed in a series of gigantic calculations accompanied by bizarre diagrams. Selena, her face hidden in hr hands, was weeping copiously and uttering plaintive whining sounds.
Gontran walked around and around the sphere like a horse in a riding-school, grinding his teeth and shaking his fists at the sky. Suddenly, the hazard of his course having brought him level with the young woman, he stopped short and said, in a bitter—almost insolent—voice: “In truth, Mademoiselle, I’d be very grateful if you’d tell me the cause of your despair. Why these tears? Presumably, it’s because Nature has decided to blacken my complexion…” He shook his head and added, with a mocking laugh: “Of course! I understand, poor imbecile that I was…it was my physical appearance that pleased you, nothing else…and the physique having deteriorated, from your viewpoint, your affection has flowed away with your tears…but if the beauty of my soul, Mademoiselle, had counted for anything in the love that you attempted to cultivate for me, you would not be as dejected as you are…for what is the material envelope, I ask you, by comparison…?”
He stopped and noticed Fricoulet, who was listening to him speak and staring at him in bewilderment. “Moreover,” he continued, “your attitude offers me superabundant proof that you only possess a very imperfect notion of esthetics. Fricoulet will tell you that there are handsome black men, just as there are handsome white men…esthetics has this in common with morality: that it depends on education…it changes with the latitudes…”
He spoke rapidly, cutting his sentences short and mincing his words, in such a way that Fricoulet was unable to interrupt him. “Morality…” repeated the young Comte, with a burst of strange laughter. “Here, Mademoiselle, are things that you probably do not know…certain tribes of Tierra del Fuego have the custom of eating their old people…”
At these words, Selena released a piercing scream and precipitated herself toward her father, shielding him with her body. “Look out, Father,” she said. “Monsieur de Flammermont wants to eat you.”
The old man’s pencil paused. “What does it mater?” he replied, coldly. “I’ll give him my body, on condition that he leaves me my head, to make calculations.” And he plunged back into his reckonings.
Gontran shrugged his shoulders and continued: “It’s the same for beauty; if I belonged to certain tribes of Oceania, I’d be able to take great exception to the fact that you wear neither feathers in your hair, nor shells in your ears, nor a ring in your nose.”
Selena straightened up, and said, in a voice full of dignity: “If it is necessary for me to renounce the customs of my native land in order to please you, Monsieur, it is because you no longer love me. Very well, Monsieur, I release you from your promise.” Dissolving in tears, she threw herself into her father’s arms, knocking him over.
Fricoulet watched the bizarre scene, mutely and impassively. He put his head in his hands and murmured: “My word, I’m going mad!” Then, going to Selena, he said, in a dispassionate tone: “Don’t cry like this, Mademoiselle. One fiancé lost, ten found. If he releases you from your promise, would you care to consider me and ask Monsieur your father to ask for my hand?”
Immediately, Gontran replied: “If that’s the way it is, I demand to return to Paris. I sacrificed my career because of that old ingrate; I left my family and my fatherland for that shrew…but now that it’s all off…”
He interrupted himself abruptly and seized Fricoulet by the throat as the latter cried out, in a furious voice: “Ingrate! Shrew! Take back those epithets, or…” A menacing gesture completed the sentence.
“Why are you getting mixed up in it?” complained the young Comte.
“I’m defending the honor of my new family,” replied the engineer.
During this exchange, Ossipoff impassively continued his calculations and Selena wept even more copiously.
“Anyway,” Fricoulet went on, in a ringing voice, accompanying his words with disordered gestures, “what are you doing here? Now that you’re no longer Mademoiselle Selena’s fiancé, you’re becoming a nuisance, an intruder…go back where you came from and leave us to enjoy our honeymoon in peace.”
“But that’s all I ask!” howled Flammermont. “I only ask to return to my position in St. Petersburg. Diplomacy, that’s my job—as for marriage, it was no more than a temporary whim.”
“In that case, what’s keeping you?”
The young man shrugged his shoulders. “Do you imagine, by chance that I can return on foot?”
“Is it the means of locomotion that you lack?” growled he engineer, taking out his notebook—in which he scribbled a few illegible lines. “Here—look at this, and tell me what you think of it!”
Gontran opened his eyes wide.
“That?” he stammered. “That?”
“Eh? Yes! What? You, a scientist, don’t understand that I’ve just invented a machine that will enable you to reach the stars?”
“But I want to go to France.”
“Well, all roads lead to Rome. Distance is a meaningless word. The stars are as near to one another as the molecules in a steel bar. To abandon this world in fusion, we only have to step on to another one. Well, step!”
While listening to his friend speaking, Gontran had selected a blond, very dry Havana from his cigar case. After having squeezed it next to his ear, like a veritable connoisseur, he delicately cut off the end with his pocket-knife and put it to his lips, sniffing it delicately and rolling it appreciatively between his fingers. Then, taking a match, he lit it. By some strange and inexplicable phenomenon, the match flared up and produced a frightful explosion. At the same time, an intense light, unbearably bright, lit up the sky.
All of them, Gontran first of all, uttered a cry of amazement. Mikhail Ossipoff raised his head from his algebraic calculations and looked at the match very attentively. It projected a light similar to that of an electric bulb over a radius of 25 meters. Flammermont stood there, totally nonplussed, his cigar in one hand and the match in the other, utterly perplexed as to which one he ought to use to ignite the other.
The old scientist got up, and examined this inexplicable phenomenon at length. “Singular…singular…” he stammered, his brow furrowed and his eyelids lowered. “Could it be…?” Turning slowly on his heel and putting his hand above his eyes to give his visual range further extent, he examined the landscape in an anxious fashion.
At that moment, they saw Jonathan Farenheit climbing the side of the hill with giant strides. “By God!” he exclaimed, stopping breathlessly a few paces away. “You’re all still sta
nding…I was horribly afraid…” And he sponged his sweat-soaked forehead with his handkerchief.
“What’s the matter?” asked Gontran. “And why all this emotion?”
The American turned to the young man. “Do you know,” he said, “a funny thing just happened to me—very nearly the same that we experienced the day before yesterday with respect to the water and the trees, in the desert.”
“A mirage!” cried the Terrans.
“Yes, a mirage…I seemed to see an immense fire suddenly shining at the top of that hill…a sort of beacon, projecting its light at me. Then I thought that some danger was threatening you—that’s why I came running.”
Flammermont took a match from his pocket and held it out to the American. “The fire—the beacon,” he said. “Here it is.”
Farenheit stamped his foot angrily. “Come on,” he said. “The practical jokes are starting again. I might as well go away…all the more so as I’ve seen some very strange things down there…” He had not finished this sentence when he found himself surrounded.
“Strange things,” repeated Mikhail Ossipoff, in a bizarre tone. “What were they?”
“Firstly, the region has completely changed since yesterday. The forest on the edge of which our sphere came down, which we went through before going into that frightful desert where we nearly perished, no longer exists.”
“No longer exists!” exclaimed Gontran. “You’re joking, Mr. Farenheit!” And he pointed toward the trees that raised up their leafy crowns at the foot of the hill.
Fricoulet looked at Ossipoff, putting his finger to his forehead in a significant gesture and indicating the American with an imperceptible inclination of his head.
“My poor Farenheit,” the old man said, “you’ve been the victim of a mirage. You can see the trees perfectly well from here, as we can ourselves.”
“Yes, I see them, and I still see them down below—but the forest that measured several leagues in extent yesterday is only a few meters deep today.”
The Extraordinary Adventures of a Russian Scientist Across the Solar System (Vol. 1) Page 55
