Journey to the Center of the Earth by Jules Verne (english reading book .txt) ๐
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A classic science fiction novel by French writer Jules Verne, this work is one of the most well-known subterranean fictions to this day. It inspired many similar works and adaptations. First published in 1864 in French as Voyage au centre de la Terre, it was quickly translated to English by several different publishers in the 1870s. The current edition was based on the translation by Frederick Amadeus Malleson that was published by Ward Lock & Co Ltd. in 1877.
Our protagonist is Axel, whose overcautious and unadventurous spirit contrasts with that of his uncle Professor Otto Lidenbrock, an eccentric professor of geology. When Professor Lidenbrock obtains a mysterious runic-coded note in the manuscript of an Icelandic saga, he is determined to decipher it. Axel inadvertently solves the code and, much to his chagrin, discovers that it is a set of directions left by a sixteenth-century Icelandic alchemist to reach the center of the earth via the volcano Snรฆfelljรถkull. Reluctantly, Axel joins his uncle on a trip to Iceland, and with the aid of a local guide, Hans, begins an adventure towards the center of the earth, where they will encounter giant mushrooms and insects, an island with an enormous geyser, and battle pre-historic reptiles. One of Verneโs most well-known works, this novel is a testament to Verneโs love of geology, science, and cryptography.
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- Author: Jules Verne
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You may be sure I felt stirred up. My eyes were dim, I could scarcely see. I had laid the paper upon the table. At a glance I could tell the whole secret.
At last I became more calm. I made a wise resolve to walk twice round the room quietly and settle my nerves, and then I returned into the deep gulf of the huge armchair.
โNow Iโll read it,โ I cried, after having well distended my lungs with air.
I leaned over the table; I laid my finger successively upon every letter; and without a pause, without one momentโs hesitation, I read off the whole sentence aloud.
Stupefaction! Terror! I sat overwhelmed as if with a sudden deadly blow. What! That which I read had actually, really been done! A mortal man had had the audacity to penetrate!โ โโ โฆ
โAh!โ I cried, springing up. โBut no! No! My uncle shall never know it. He would insist upon doing it too. He would want to know all about it. Ropes could not hold him, such a determined geologist as he is! He would start, he would, in spite of everything and everybody, and he would take me with him, and we should never get back. No, never! never!โ
My over-excitement was beyond all description.
โNo! No! It shall not be,โ I declared energetically; โand as it is in my power to prevent the knowledge of it coming into the mind of my tyrant, I will do it. By dint of turning this document round and round, he too might discover the key. I will destroy it.โ
There was a little fire left on the hearth. I seized not only the paper but Saknussemmโs parchment; with a feverish hand I was about to fling it all upon the coals and utterly destroy and abolish this dangerous secret, when the study door opened, and my uncle appeared.
V Famine, Then Victory, Followed by DismayI had only just time to replace the unfortunate document upon the table.
Professor Liedenbrock seemed to be greatly abstracted.
The ruling thought gave him no rest. Evidently he had gone deeply into the matter, analytically and with profound scrutiny. He had brought all the resources of his mind to bear upon it during his walk, and he had come back to apply some new combination.
He sat in his armchair, and pen in hand he began what looked very much like algebraic formula: I followed with my eyes his trembling hands, I took count of every movement. Might not some unhoped-for result come of it? I trembled, too, very unnecessarily, since the true key was in my hands, and no other would open the secret.
For three long hours my uncle worked on without a word, without lifting his head; rubbing out, beginning again, then rubbing out again, and so on a hundred times.
I knew very well that if he succeeded in setting down these letters in every possible relative position, the sentence would come out. But I knew also that twenty letters alone could form two quintillions, four hundred and thirty-two quadrillions, nine hundred and two trillions, eight billions, a hundred and seventy-six millions, six hundred and forty thousand combinations. Now, here were a hundred and thirty-two letters in this sentence, and these hundred and thirty-two letters would give a number of different sentences, each made up of at least a hundred and thirty-three figures, a number which passed far beyond all calculation or conception.
So I felt reassured as far as regarded this heroic method of solving the difficulty.
But time was passing away; night came on; the street noises ceased; my uncle, bending over his task, noticed nothing, not even Martha half opening the door; he heard not a sound, not even that excellent woman saying:
โWill not Monsieur take any supper tonight?โ
And poor Martha had to go away unanswered. As for me, after long resistance, I was overcome by sleep, and fell off at the end of the sofa, while uncle Liedenbrock went on calculating and rubbing out his calculations.
When I awoke next morning that indefatigable worker was still at his post. His red eyes, his pale complexion, his hair tangled between his feverish fingers, the red spots on his cheeks, revealed his desperate struggle with impossibilities, and the weariness of spirit, the mental wrestlings he must have undergone all through that unhappy night.
To tell the plain truth, I pitied him. In spite of the reproaches which I considered I had a right to lay upon him, a certain feeling of compassion was beginning to gain upon me. The poor man was so entirely taken up with his one idea that he had even forgotten how to get angry. All the strength of his feelings was concentrated upon one point alone; and as their usual vent was closed, it was to be feared lest extreme tension should give rise to an explosion sooner or later.
I might with a word have loosened the screw of the steel vice that was crushing his brain; but that word I would not speak.
Yet I was not an ill-natured fellow. Why was I dumb at such a crisis? Why so insensible to my uncleโs interests?
โNo, no,โ I repeated, โI shall not speak. He would insist upon going; nothing on earth could stop him. His imagination is a volcano, and to do that which other geologists have never done he would risk his life. I will preserve silence. I will keep the secret which mere chance has revealed to me. To discover it, would be to kill Professor Liedenbrock! Let him find it out himself if he can. I will never have it laid to my door that I led him to his destruction.โ
Having formed this resolution, I folded my arms and waited. But I had not reckoned upon one little incident which turned up a few hours after.
When our good Martha wanted to go to market, she found the
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