VERNANIA: The Celebrated Works of Jules Verne in One Edition. Жюль Верн
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enough to satisfy public impatience. Barbicane, fearing that indiscreet questions would be put to Michel Ardan, would like to have reduced his auditors to a small number of adepts, to his colleagues for instance. But it was as easy as to dam up the Falls at Niagara. He was, therefore, obliged to renounce his project, and let his friend run all the risks of a public lecture. The new Town Hall of Tampa Town, notwithstanding its colossal dimensions, was considered insufficient for the occasion, which had assumed the proportions of a public meeting.
The place chosen was a vast plain, situated outside the town. In a few hours they succeeded in sheltering it from the rays of the sun. The ships of the port, rich in canvas, furnished the necessary accessories for a colossal tent. Soon an immense sky of cloth was spread over the calcined plain, and defended it against the heat of the day. There 300,000 persons stood and braved a stifling temperature for several hours whilst awaiting the Frenchman’s arrival. Of that crowd of spectators one-third alone could see and hear; a second third saw badly, and did not hear. As to the remaining third, it neither heard nor saw, though it was not the least eager to applaud.
At three o’clock Michel Ardan made his appearance, accompanied by the principal members of the Gun Club. He gave his right arm to President Barbicane, and his left to J.T. Maston, more radiant than the midday sun, and nearly as ruddy.
Ardan mounted the platform, from which his eyes extended over a forest of black hats. He did not seem in the least embarrassed; he did not pose; he was at home there, gay, familiar, and amiable. To the cheers that greeted him he answered by a gracious bow; then with his hand asked for silence, began to speak in English, and expressed himself very correctly in these terms:—
“Gentlemen,” said he, “although it is very warm, I intend to keep you a few minutes to give you some explanation of the projects which have appeared to interest you. I am neither an orator nor a savant, and I did not count upon having to speak in public; but my friend Barbicane tells me it would give you pleasure, so I do it. Then listen to me with your 600,000 ears, and please to excuse the faults of the orator.”
This unceremonious beginning was much admired by the audience, who expressed their satisfaction by an immense murmur of applause.
“Gentlemen,” said he, “no mark of approbation or dissent is prohibited. That settled, I continue. And, first of all, do not forget that you have to do with an ignorant man, but his ignorance goes far enough to ignore difficulties. It has, therefore, appeared a simple, natural, and easy thing to him to take his passage in a projectile and to start for the moon. That journey would be made sooner or later, and as to the mode of locomotion adopted, it simply follows the law of progress. Man began by travelling on all fours, then one fine day he went on two feet, then in a cart, then in a coach, then on a railway. Well, the projectile is the carriage of the future, and, to speak the truth, planets are only projectiles, simple cannonballs hurled by the hand of the Creator. But to return to our vehicle. Some of you, gentlemen, may think that the speed it will travel at is excessive—nothing of the kind. All the planets go faster, and the earth itself in its movement round the sun carries us along three times as fast. Here are some examples. Only I ask your permission to express myself in leagues, for American measures are not very familiar to me, and I fear getting muddled in my calculations.”
The demand appeared quite simple, and offered no difficulty. The orator resumed his speech.
“The following, gentlemen, is the speed of the different planets. I am obliged to acknowledge that, notwithstanding my ignorance, I know this small astronomical detail exactly, but in two minutes you will be as learned as I. Learn, then, that Neptune goes at the rate of 5,000 leagues an hour; Uranus, 7,000; Saturn, 8,858; Jupiter, 11,675; Mars, 22,011; the earth, 27,500; Venus, 32,190; Mercury, 52,520; some comets, 14,000 leagues in their perihelion! As to us, veritable idlers, people in no hurry, our speed does not exceed 9,900 leagues, and it will go on decreasing! I ask you if there is anything to wonder at, and if it is not evident that it will be surpassed some day by still greater speeds, of which light or electricity will probably be the mechanical agents?”
No one seemed to doubt this affirmation.
“Dear hearers,” he resumed, “according to certain narrow minds—that is the best qualification for them—humanity is inclosed in a Popilius circle which it cannot break open, and is condemned to vegetate upon this globe without ever flying towards the planetary shores! Nothing of the kind! We are going to the moon, we shall go to the planets, we shall go to the stars as we now go from Liverpool to New York, easily, rapidly, surely, and the atmospheric ocean will be as soon crossed as the oceans of the earth! Distance is only a relative term, and will end by being reduced to zero.”
The assembly, though greatly in favour of the French hero, was rather staggered by this audacious theory. Michel Ardan appeared to see it.
“You do not seem convinced, my worthy hosts,” he continued with an amiable smile. “Well, let us reason a little. Do you know how long it would take an express train to reach the moon? Three hundred days. Not more. A journey of 86,410 leagues, but what is that? Not even nine times round the earth, and there are very few sailors who have not done that during their existence. Think, I shall be only ninety-eight hours on the road! Ah, you imagine that the moon is a long way from the earth, and that one must think twice before attempting the adventure! But what would you say if I were going to Neptune, which gravitates at 1,147,000,000 leagues from the sun? That is a journey that very few people could go, even if it only cost a farthing a mile! Even Baron Rothschild would not have enough to take his ticket!”
This argument seemed greatly to please the assembly; besides, Michel Ardan, full of his subject, grew superbly eloquent; he felt he was listened to, and resumed with admirable assurance—
“Well, my friends, this distance from Neptune to the sun is nothing compared to that of the stars, some of which are billions of leagues from the sun! And yet people speak of the distance that separates the planets from the sun! Do you know what I think of this universe that begins with the sun and ends at Neptune? Should you like to know my theory? It is a very simple one. According to my opinion, the solar universe is one solid homogeneous mass; the planets that compose it are close together, crowd one another, and the space between them is only the space that separates the molecules of the most compact metal—silver, iron, or platinum! I have, therefore, the right to affirm, and I will repeat it with a conviction you will all share—distance is a vain word; distance does not exist!”
“Well said! Bravo! Hurrah!” cried the assembly with one voice, electrified by the gesture and accent of the orator, and the boldness of his conceptions.
“No!” cried J.T. Maston, more energetically than the others; “distance does not exist!”
And, carried away by the violence of his movements and emotions he could hardly contain, he nearly fell from the top of the platform to the ground. But he succeeded in recovering his equilibrium, and thus avoided a fall that would have brutally proved distance not to be a vain word. Then the speech of the distinguished orator resumed its course.
“My friends,” said he, “I think that this question is now solved. If I have not convinced you all it is because I have been timid in my demonstrations, feeble in my arguments, and you must set it down to my theoretic ignorance. However that may be, I repeat, the distance from the earth to her satellite is really very unimportant and unworthy to occupy a serious mind. I do not think I am advancing too much in saying that soon a service of trains will be established by projectiles, in which the journey from the earth to the moon will be comfortably accomplished. There will be no shocks nor running off the lines to fear, and the goal will be reached rapidly, without fatigue, in a straight line, ‘as the crow flies.’ Before twenty years are over, half the earth will have visited the moon!”
“Three cheers for Michel Ardan!” cried the assistants, even those least convinced.
“Three cheers for Barbicane!” modestly answered the orator.
This act of gratitude towards the promoter of the enterprise was greeted with unanimous applause.
“Now, my friends,” resumed Michel Ardan, “if you have any questions to ask me