A Journey to the Centre of the Earth | Page 5

Professor Hardwigg, "to trace the particular language."
"As Shakespeare says, 'that is the question,"' was my rather satirical reply.
"This man Saknussemm," he continued, "was a very learned man: now as he did not write
in the language of his birthplace, he probably, like most learned men of the sixteenth
century, wrote in Latin. If, however, I prove wrong in this guess, we must try Spanish,
French, Italian, Greek, and even Hebrew. My own opinion, though, is decidedly in favor
of Latin."
This proposition startled me. Latin was my favorite study, and it seemed sacrilege to
believe this gibberish to belong to the country of Virgil.
"Barbarous Latin, in all probability," continued my uncle, "but still Latin."
"Very probably," I replied, not to contradict him.
"Let us see into the matter," continued my uncle; "here you see we have a series of one
hundred and thirty-two letters, apparently thrown pell-mell upon paper, without method
or organization. There are words which are composed wholly of consonants, such as
mm.rnlls, others which are nearly all vowels, the fifth, for instance, which is
unteief, and one of the last oseibo. This appears an extraordinary combination. Probably
we shall find that the phrase is arranged according to some mathematical plan. No doubt
a certain sentence has been written out and then jumbled up--some plan to which some
figure is the clue. Now, Harry, to show your English wit--what is that figure?"
I could give him no hint. My thoughts were indeed far away. While he was speaking I
had caught sight of the portrait of my cousin Gretchen, and was wondering when she
would return.
We were affianced, and loved one another very sincerely. But my uncle, who never
thought even of such sublunary matters, knew nothing of this. Without noticing my
abstraction, the Professor began reading the puzzling cryptograph all sorts of ways,
according to some theory of his own. Presently, rousing my wandering attention, he
dictated one precious attempt to me.
I mildly handed it over to him. It read as follows:
mmessunkaSenrA.icefdoK.segnittamurtn ecertserrette,rotaivsadua,ednecsedsadne
lacartniiilrJsiratracSarbmutabiledmek meretarcsilucoYsleffenSnI.
I could scarcely keep from laughing, while my uncle, on the contrary, got in a towering

passion, struck the table with his fist, darted out of the room, out of the house, and then
taking to his heels was presently lost to sight.
CHAPTER 3
AN ASTOUNDING DISCOVERY
"What is the matter?" cried the cook, entering the room; "when will master have his
dinner?"
"Never."
"And, his supper?"
"I don't know. He says he will eat no more, neither shall I. My uncle has determined to
fast and make me fast until he makes out this abominable inscription," I replied.
"You will be starved to death," she said.
I was very much of the same opinion, but not liking to say so, sent her away, and began
some of my usual work of classification. But try as I might, nothing could keep me from
thinking alternately of the stupid manuscript and of the pretty Gretchen.
Several times I thought of going out, but my uncle would have been angry at my absence.
At the end of an hour, my allotted task was done. How to pass the time? I began by
lighting my pipe. Like all other students, I delighted in tobacco; and, seating myself in the
great armchair, I began to think.
Where was my uncle? I could easily imagine him tearing along some solitary road,
gesticulating, talking to himself, cutting the air with his cane, and still thinking of the
absurd bit of hieroglyphics. Would he hit upon some clue? Would he come home in
better humor? While these thoughts were passing through my brain, I mechanically took
up the execrable puzzle and tried every imaginable way of grouping the letters. I put them
together by twos, by threes, fours, and fives--in vain. Nothing intelligible came out,
except that the fourteenth, fifteenth, and sixteenth made ice in English; the
eighty-fourth, eighty-fifth, and eighty-sixth, the word sir; then at last I seemed to
find the Latin words rota, mutabile, ira, nec, atra.
"Ha! there seems to be some truth in my uncle's notion," thought I.
Then again I seemed to find the word luco, which means sacred wood. Then in
the third line I appeared to make out labiled, a perfect Hebrew word, and at the
last the syllables mere, are, mer, which were French.
It was enough to drive one mad. Four different idioms in this absurd phrase. What
connection could there be between ice, sir, anger, cruel, sacred wood, changing, mother,
are, and sea? The first and the last might, in a sentence connected with Iceland, mean sea
of ice. But what of the rest of this monstrous cryptograph?

I was, in fact, fighting against an insurmountable difficulty; my brain was almost on fire;
my