Двадцать тысяч лье под водой / Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea

Among my books you’ll find the work you’ve published on the great ocean depths. But you don’t know everything because you haven’t seen everything. Let me tell you, professor, you won’t regret the time you spend aboard my vessel. You’re going to voyage through a land of wonders. I’m going to make another underwater tour of the world—perhaps my last, who knows?—and I’ll review everything I’ve studied in the depths of these seas that I’ve crossed so often, and you can be my fellow student.

I can’t deny it; the commander’s words had a tremendous effect on me. He had caught me on my weak side, and I momentarily forgot that this experience was worth the loss of my freedom. So I replied:

“Sir, even though you’ve cut yourself off from humanity, I can see that you haven’t disowned all human feeling. We’re castaways, you’ve saved us, we’ll never forget that. I have but one last question.”

“Ask it, professor.”

“By what name am I to call you?”

“Sir,” the commander replied, “to you, I’m simply Captain Nemo; to me, you and your companions are simply passengers on the Nautilus.

Captain Nemo went out. A steward appeared. The captain gave him his orders in that strange language I couldn’t even identify. Then, turning to the Canadian and Conseil:

“A meal is waiting for you in your cabin,” he told them. “Kindly follow this man.”

“That’s an offer I can’t refuse!” the harpooner replied.

“And now, Professor Aronnax, our own breakfast is ready. Allow me to lead the way.”

“Yours to command, captain.”

I went down a kind of electrically lit passageway that resembled a gangway on a ship. After a stretch of some ten meters, a second door opened before me.

I then entered a dining room, decorated and furnished in austere good taste. Tall oaken sideboards stood at both ends of this room, and sparkling on their shelves were rows of earthenware, porcelain, and glass of incalculable value.

“Be seated,” he told me, “and eat, please.”

Our breakfast consisted of several dishes whose contents were all supplied by the sea, and some foods whose nature was unknown to me. These various food items seemed to be rich in phosphorous.

Captain Nemo stared at me.